Hong Kong: High Island exploration made easy High Island, which is part of the Hong Kong UNESCO Global Geopark (Hong Kong Geopark), features diverse and breathtaking scenery and thanks to new ferry services and a recommended land route, visitors can thoroughly enjoy exploring this remarkable place. Super volcano High Island used to be the largest island in the Sai Kung area, but in 1969, two dams were built to connect it to the Sai Kung peninsula, forming the High Island Reservoir. It was once a huge volcano and its molten volcanic material was transformed into spectacular hexagonal rock formations. Such rock columns were selected as one of the First 100 International Union of Geological Sciences Geological Heritage Sites. In addition, the Hakka and fishing villages scattered around the bay still retain their rustic charm, making it a green gem in the waters off Sai Kung. High Island has four villages: Tung A, Pak A, Pak Lap and Sha Kiu. Tung A, Pak A and Pak Lap are Hakka villages, while Sha Kiu is a fishing village. In its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, there were about 500 Hakka residents and nearly 200 fishing boats anchored in the bay, with an estimated total of over 1,000 fishermen. Easy access Starting from November 11, people visiting the villages can enjoy the convenience of using ferry services that shuttle between Sai Kung and High Island. Plus, Hong Kong Geopark recommends a new land route for people who wish to explore High Island. The route from Pak A pier to Sha Kiu will take about two hours to complete. While walking along the route, people can visit Leung Shuen Wan Tin Hau Temple, a Grade III historic building dedicated to the ancient Chinese Goddess of the Sea. Four treasures The temple houses four treasures, including an ornate wood carving set that dates back to the Qing Dynasty, a dragon head wood carving, a dragon sedan chair, on which a statue of Tin Hau is placed during the Tin Hau Festivals sea parade, and an ancient bell which was made in the sixth year of the Qianlong reign of the Qing dynasty. Leung Shuen Wan fisherman representative Cheng King-man revealed more about the bells history by explaining that the temple acolyte would regularly ring the bell to alert fishermen to the time, during a time when watches or radios did not exist. Village cultures The Chinese name of High Island is Leung Shuen Wan, which loosely translated means food supply bay. In the old days, fishing boats came to the island to replenish their food and water. The name of the bay reflects its historical role as a shelter and supply station for ships. Apart from describing High Island as a special place with stunning scenery, natural attractions and rich cultures, Agriculture, Fisheries & Conservation Department Senior Geopark Officer Chan Yu-nam pointed out that along the route from Pak A, via Tung A to Sha Kiu, visitors can discover natural attractions that comprise a mangrove habitat and a beach. Through the promotion of green tourism, we hope the culture and tradition of rural villages can be preserved and passed on, Miss Chan added. This story has been published on: 2023-11-11. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. The Vatican announced on Saturday (November 11) that Pope Francis has relieved 65-year-old Bishop Joseph Strickland of his bishopric of Tyler, Texas. Strickland's removal came after he refused a Vatican order for him to submit his resignation two days prior (November 9), according to the Archbishop of Houston, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo. While Holy See officials have not provided any official reason for his removal, Strickland insisted that his appointment as bishop in 2012 by the late Pope Benedict XVI could not be abdicated. Church law dictates that a bishop can be removed at the discretion of the pope, with the alternative being signing a resignation letter - usually required for bishops who turn 75. The Vatican has appointed Bishop Joe Vasquez of Austin as apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Tyler until a new bishop has been designated. The pope's decision to sack Strickland came two days ahead of the beginning of the autumn plenary meeting of the US Catholic bishops' Conference, which would begin in Baltimore on Monday (November 13). Financial and Management Standoff The Vatican bishops office completed a formal investigation which - according to a source who told EWTN on the condition of anonymity - looked into the bishop's social media use and questions related to diocesan management. The investigation, which the Vatican called an "apostolic visitation," was conducted by Bishop Dennis Sullivan of Camden and the former Bishop of Tuscon, Gerald Kicanas. The two made an "exhaustive inquiry into all aspects of [Strickland's] governance and leadership" and recommended that the bishop's tenure was no longer "feasible," Cardinal DiNardo said in a statement on Saturday. "Let us keep Bishop Strickland, the clergy and faithful of the Diocese of Tyler and Bishop Vasquez in our prayers," the statement added. During Strickland's decade as Bishop of Tyler, the diocese experienced some noteworthy changes, including the resignation of three diocesan officials in 2018, a move he said at the time was necessary to fulfill its mission moving forward. According to the Associated Press, Strickland was the second US Catholic bishop this year to be removed from his post after Bishop Richard Stika of Knoxville, Tennessee, was forced to resign following allegations he mishandled sex abuse allegations and complaints from his priest about his leadership and behavior. Read Also: Vatican: Trans People Can Be Baptized Catholic, Become Godparents Voice of Conservative, Traditional US Catholics Prior to his removal, Strickland, an American cleric of Australian descent, served as Bishop of Tyler since 2012. The bishop was widely popular among conservative Catholics but also faced criticism for his firebrand social media posts, including a May 12 tweet that suggested that Francis was "undermining" Catholic doctrine. In particular, the bishop has been critical of Francis's recent meeting on the future of the Catholic Church, during which hot-button topics such as women's ordination, accommodation for LGBT+ Catholics, and financial and managerial accountability reforms were discussed. Strickland's time as Bishop of Tyler coincided with positive signs of spiritual and administrative health in the 119,168-strong local congregation. As of writing, 21 men are undergoing seminary formation. The diocese was also reportedly in good financial state as it raised 99% of its $2.3 million goal for the 2021 bishop's appeal six months ahead of schedule. Conservative website LifeSiteNews said it had interviewed Strickland on Saturday, quoting him as saying that one of the reasons given for his removal was his refusal to implement the papal motu proprio "Traditionis Custodes," which restricted the celebration of the Mass as it was offered prior to 1962, which stipulated the use of Latin and more reverent gestures and music. Strickland was quoted by LifeSite saying that he refused to implement Traditionis Custodes as he did not want to "starve out" part of his congregation that attended the Latin Mass. "I feel very much at peace in the Lord and the truth that he died for," he added. The bishop had also been associated with bishops that have similar criticisms of Pope Francis, including former papal nuncio to the US Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano and Cardinal Raymond Burke. This is total war. Francis is a clear and present danger not only to Catholics the world over but also to the whole world itself. It appears now that he is actively trying to bury fidelity to the Church of Jesus Christ. Let him be anathema. https://t.co/Syz2HLXF4b Michael J. Matt (@Michael_J_Matt) November 11, 2023 Meanwhile, Michael Matt, editor of the traditionalist newspaper The Remnant, accused Francis of "actively trying to bury fidelity to the Church of Jesus Christ" in removing Strickland from his bishopric. Related Article: 5 Cardinals Publish 'Dubia' vs. Pope Francis Ahead of October Synod @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Lionsgate Movie Francis Lawrence who helmed 'The Hunger Games' prequel movie explains what makes him fall in love with the origin story of Panem's ruthless president Coriolanus Snow. Nov 12, 2023 AceShowbiz - Francis Lawrence was drawn to the "villain origin story" of "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes". The 52-year-old filmmaker is overseeing the prequel movie that explores the rise of Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) before he became the tyrannical President of Panem and loved crafting a new story for the project. "I really fell in love with doing a villain's origin story and I also love world creation movies. To go back 64 years and be able to really recreate this world in a much more rudimentary sense," Francis told Collider. The director explained that he enjoyed getting the chance to collaborate with author Suzanne Collins and producer Nina Jacobson once again after helming three of the previous movies. Quizzed on the appeal of returning to the dystopian franchise, Francis said, "Part of it is honestly working with the people, working with Suzanne again, with Nina again. I love being a part of the 'Hunger Games' world and because Suzanne created a book with new thematic material." The filmmaker explained that he had to adopt a different method of capturing the start of The Hunger Games as the new film takes place decades before the previous installments. He said, "Emotionally it has to feel different. Visually, of course, a very different kind of arena." "Instead of fancy elevators and glass pods, they're basically being walked in at gunpoint or dragged in and put on their spots. It's just a basic arena, but of course these explosions have happened and there's rubble everywhere." Francis explained how a scene in which protagonist Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler) attempts to find her friend mimicked a sequence featuring Jennifer Lawrence's hero Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) in the 2013 picture "Catching Fire". The "Red Sparrow" director said, "The draw of Rachel's character trying to find her friend. If you remember from 'Catching Fire', Katniss is trying to find Peeta and she doesn't know where he is. There are two parallel similarities there." You can share this post! Barbra Streisand is apparently famous enough to have Apple change its iPhone. In a BBC interview to promote her new autobiography, My Name Is Barbra, the 81-year-old said once phoned CEO Tim Cook to complain the device was pronouncing her name wrong. My name isnt spelled with a Z...Its Strei-sand, like sand on the beach. How simple can you get? .. And Tim Cook was so lovely. He had Siri change the pronunciation... I guess thats one perk of fame! The BBCs Mark Savage asked Siri a question about Streisand to test its delivery, and the politically active entertainer cheered in approval when the Apples digital assistant gave the beach-rhyming pronunciation, The Hill reported. Isnt it right? she exclaimed, before shouting, Woo! Cook is a native of Baldwin County, where he attended Robertsdale High School, and graduated from Auburn University in 1982. He frequently returns to Alabama and supports causes here. A 22-year-old Alabama man incarcerated at Staton Correctional Facility died last week after a days-long beating left him brain dead 14 days before he was supposed to be released, according to a post on GoFundMe. Daniel Terry Williams was serving a 12-month sentence for second degree theft when the attack occurred. The post on GoFundMe said he was beaten, tortured and sexually assaulted. On Sunday, October 22, 2023, a possible inmate-on-inmate assault was reported at Staton Correctional Facility, according to a statement from the Alabama Department of Corrections. Inmate Williams was discovered unresponsive in his dorm and was transported to the Health Care Unit. Medical personnel treated Williams and monitored his condition. The decision was made to transfer him to an area hospital for further evaluation and treatment. The family removed life support on Nov. 5 after doctors said Williams was brain dead. He was transferred to the medical unit at Kilby Correctional Facility a few days later and died on Nov. 9. The GoFundMe is seeking assistance for funeral expenses for Williams family. Federal authorities have been investigating violence in Alabama prisons since 2019, when the U.S. Department of Justice issued a report saying the conditions violated the civil rights of inmates. The department sued in 2020. The state does not do enough to prevent prison-on-prisoner violence and sexual assault, according to the report. Prisons in Alabama have struggled with low staffing and officials have said they need new facilities to address the violence. Gov. Kay Ivey and other leaders have proposed building a 4,000-bed prison that could cost more than $1 billion. Advocates for prisoners have said the state needs to release more inmates before building a mega-prison. According to the most recent report, the Alabama Department of Corrections has almost 20,000 people in facilities built for about 12,000. There were 1,897 total assaults in the first eight months of the year. Leaders of the Equal Justice Initiative, a Montgomery-based nonprofit that advocates on behalf of inmates, said the state could do more to prevent prisoner deaths. Deaths like that of Mr. Williams are tragic, preventable, and happen all too frequently in Alabamas prisons, said EJI Director Bryan Stevenson. EJI receives reports from medical care providers, family members, and other incarcerated witnesses every month, about prisoners whose medical emergencies are dismissed by untrained officers as intoxication or somehow their own fault. In many of these cases, had the person been treated in time, they would have survived. Updated at 10:23 a.m. with additional information from the Alabama Department of Corrections. Birmingham has earned praise - and national awards - for its dining scene in recent years, and now Southern Living has weighed in with a list of the top 30 restaurants in the Magic City. The list runs the gamut from fine dining to taco trucks and includes several of the citys award-winning eateries. The author said Birmingham has blossomed into a destination known across the country for its award-winning food and beverage scene. Two restaurants owned and operated by Chef Frank Stitt topped the list. Southern Living has high praise for Stitts Southern-Italian restaurant Bottega and his French bistro Chez FonFon. But the list also included several lesser-known and less pricey options. Eugenes Hot Chicken, which serves Nashville-style hot chicken, made the cut, as did the food truck Tacos Dos Hermanos. Southern Living highlighted several restaurants that serve Southern staples, such as meat-and-threes and barbecue. It also included a ramen shop, doughnut place, bakeries and a Thai food restaurant tucked into a gas station, showing the diversity of dining options that have emerged in Birmingham in recent years and honoring the mainstays of the citys culinary scene. You can read the full list of Birmingham restaurants here. The magazine has previously highlighted the states best meat-and-threes and the best restaurants in Gulf Shores and other destinations. Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham hit another milestone this year by winning almost $775 million in research grants and awards, an all-time high and increase of more than 8 percent from last year, according to a press release. The university has increased its research grants by $247.5 million in the last five years, the release said. In 2021, the National Science Foundation ranked UAB the 44th out of more than 900 institutions that received grant funding, which was the highest ranking for an Alabama university. UAB ranks in the top five percent of universities in the country for research funding. Agencies including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health and Department of Defense have awarded funding to UAB. The dramatic growth of our research funding over a decade is a testament to the dedication, talent and ingenuity of our faculty, staff and students all over campus, said UAB President Ray Watts. This continued increase in awards further positions us to achieve our ambitious goals for research and all pillars of our mission over the next five years. UAB researchers have announced major breakthroughs this year that include advances in animal-to-human transplantation and one of the nations first uterine transplants. English News To let Internet better benefit people of all countries Alwihda Info | Par pd - 12 Novembre 2023 In the information age, the Internet carries human dreams and is closely related to the well-being of the people. Looking ahead, the WIC will always strive to build a global Internet platform for extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, actively create a new pattern of international cooperation in cyberspace, and continue to write new chapters in the global development and governance of the Internet. By Jin Xin, Gu Chun, Liu Junguo, People's Daily The 2023 World Internet Conference (WIC) Wuzhen Summit kicked off in Wuzhen, east China's Zhejiang province on Nov. 8. The summit is the largest and highest-level Internet conference held in China, and also a highly anticipated global summit in the field of Internet. The WIC has been held annually since 2014, bringing together political dignitaries and Internet elites from around the world at its permanent venue in Wuzhen to discuss collaboration and win-win cooperation in Internet development of the world. Chinese President Xi Jinping addressed the 2023 WIC Wuzhen Summit via video. He said as the Internet becomes a new driving force of development, a new frontier of ensuring security, and a new platform for mutual learning between civilizations, the building of a community with a shared future in cyberspace is a natural choice in answering the call of the times and a common aspiration of the international community. He stressed that the international community needs to deepen exchanges and practical cooperation to jointly advance the building of a community with a shared future in cyberspace to a new stage. Currently, more than half of the countries and regions around the world are using China's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), and the system is making people's lives safer, more convenient , and more efficient. The BDS has been incorporated into the standard systems of international organizations in civil aviation, maritime affairs, and mobile communications, and is accelerating its integration into the international industrial system. During the 2022 WIC Wuzhen Summit, an event was hosted to showcase the exemplary cases of building a community with a shared future in cyberspace. Twelve cases were showcased, included one related to the BDS. From conceptual documents to initiatives, and to cases, consensuses have gradually transformed into concrete actions. Leveraging the WIC Wuzhen Summit, countries are jointly planning for the global development of Internet and building a community with a shared future in cyberspace. On July 12, 2022, Xi sent a congratulatory letter to the WIC for the inauguration of the WIC international organization. He said the establishment of the organization is an important move echoing the informatization trend of the times, and it will deepen international exchanges and cooperation in cyberspace. This marked a qualitative leap of the WIC, from an annual international conference to an international organization with a permanent institution. Since its establishment, the WIC international organization has been joined by more than 120 members from countries such as the UK, France, Germany, the United States, Australia, South Korea, Japan, and India. In recent years, an increasing number of international exchange activities have been held in China. Together with the WIC, they have built a collaborative platform for building a community with a shared future in cyberspace. The China International Digital Products Expo, the China International Software Expo, the World Robot Conference and the World Artificial Intelligence Conference all presented opportunities for the international community to share the fruits of innovation in cyberspace. As a highlight of the WIC Wuzhen Summit, the Light of Internet Expo has become a leading indicator of global Internet technology development. Since 2014, the WIC has been dedicated to promoting the integration of digital technology and real economy, and using new driving forces to propel new development. Not only the Light of Internet Expo, but also other important events such as a release ceremony for world leading internet scientific and technological achievements and the Global Internet Competition of "Straight to Wuzhen, have facilitated the integration of mobile Internet, cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, and various other industries. These efforts have provided new impetus for enhancing global economic development. Taking the WIC as an opportunity, China, as a major player in the digital economy, actively promotes broader and deeper international cooperation in digital economy, ensuring that the achievements of Internet development benefit people worldwide. In Southeast Asia, Chinese enterprises helped build the first 5G smart hospital in ASEAN countries, promoting the intelligent transformation of hospital services. In Latin America, China has partnered with Brazil and Ecuador to utilize digital technology for innovative cooperation, assisting in the protection of the Amazon rainforest ecosystem and marine ecological environment. In Africa, China has launched technology assistance and training programs with the International Telecommunication Union to support the construction of a digital Uganda. From the construction of information infrastructure and social digital transformation to the application of new technologies such as 5G and the Internet of Things, China is committed to narrowing the global digital divide and sharing development opportunities with the world. In the information age, the Internet carries human dreams and is closely related to the well-being of the people. Looking ahead, the WIC will always strive to build a global Internet platform for extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, actively create a new pattern of international cooperation in cyberspace, and continue to write new chapters in the global development and governance of the Internet. Dans la meme rubrique : < > China voices to lead global AI governance A glimpse into express packaging box's carbon reduction journey in China Strengthening partnership the right choice for future of China-U.S. relations Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena) On October 7, some 3,000 Hamas fighters crossed into Israel. There they killed roughly 350 Israeli soldiers and policemen. They then murdered more than a thousand mostly unarmed Jewish men, women, and children. Hamas then crowded its own women and children into buildings it used to hide its fighters and store its weapons. This supported its victim narrative by keeping its civilian deaths higher than those of Israel. Gods Terrorists, a book by British historian Charles Allen, suggests that todays war in Israel has little to do with the occupation of Palestine or Arab refugees. It is instead part of a worldwide modern jihad that has been going on for nearly 300 years. Allen wrote that book in 2006. He did it to explain why Islamic extremists based in distant Afghanistan murdered nearly 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001. According to Allen, it began in the 1700s, when Muhammad al-Wahhab and other Islamic scholars in Arabia were angry and disgusted with their Muslim leaders. The core Muslim belief is that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad was his last messenger. All humanity must obey the eternal and unchanging laws of Allah. Those laws, the sharia, are understood, applied, and enforced by an ulama, a close-knit group of Islamic scholars, teachers, and judges. Most are Arabs in and around Mecca and Medina. That is because they naturally speak the language of the Koran and other books that teach the words and deeds of Muhammad. Al-Wahhab believed that if all Muslims submitted to sharia and got all humanity to do the same, Allah would bless the world with peace and harmony. However, Al-Wahhab thought this was not happening because most Muslims and their leaders had gone astray. Some believed in un-Islamic local customs and superstitions. Many wanted the freedom, wealth, and comforts of the modern Christian world. Others wanted peace and friendship with Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists instead of jihad. As a result, the Nasrani (Nazarenes) dominated the world. Christians had reconquered the once Muslim lands of Spain, Portugal, and Eastern Europe. Islam was also losing land and followers in India, Africa, and the East Indies. Al-Wahhab and his colleagues formed a new doctrine and movement to purify Islam and save the world. They called themselves Unitarians or Salafis. Outsiders called them Wahhabis. Wahhabis wanted to restore Islam to what they thought it was when Muhammad was alive. That included subjugating women and suppressing music, dancing, literature, and free speech. Wahhabis did not tolerate dissent. They despised any Muslim who disagreed with them as much as any kaffir (non-believer). Wahhabis even declared jihad against the Ottoman sultans, who were the khalifas or spiritual leaders of the Islamic world! Wahhabis promised wealth, power, and submissive women to every man who joined their jihads. They also promised eternal life in paradise to those who died fighting with them. The Wahhabis cleverly used bribes and deception to divide, weaken, and defeat their enemies. In 1740, Al-Wahhab forged a remarkable partnership with a desert tribal chief named Muhammad Ibn Saud. Al-Wahhabs daughter married Ibn Sauds son. Their combined families quickly achieved spectacular success. They equipped their fighters with European rifles. Then they quickly conquered the holy cities of Mecca and Medina and the whole Arabian Peninsula. From there, they threatened Turkish control of Egypt and Iraq. The Wahhabis also indoctrinated many pilgrims who came to Mecca from British India and the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Those visitors began their own modern jihad when they returned home. This provoked a long international war on terror 200 years ago. In 1815, the Ottoman Turks invaded Arabia. They arrested, tortured, and killed every Wahhabi they could find. In many areas, they simply executed every male over the age of ten. They paraded Abdullah Saud, the great-grandson of Al-Wahhab, in chains through the streets of Cairo and Istanbul. Then they beheaded him and tore his body to pieces. During this time, the British, Hindus, Sikhs and moderate Muslims fought the Wahhabis in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. In 1831 and again in 1857, they killed thousands of Wahhabi fighters and most of their leaders in two particularly brutal wars. However, the Wahhabis survived. In British India and Pakistan, the Wahhabis used public relations and the British legal system to win sympathy and political support. They also established a sophisticated school in Deoband, India to peacefully promote their doctrine. More than a hundred years later, their talibs (students) from that school inspired and led the Taliban in Afghanistan. For years, what was left of Wahhabis and the Saudi family in Arabia lived quietly in remote areas. However, in 1901, they made a spectacular comeback. That was when 21-year-old Ibn Saud took control of his family. Ibn Saud used modern methods, later used by communists and fascists, to create a new Wahhabi Ikhwan or Brotherhood. He persuaded young Wahhabi men to give up their nomadic lifestyle and tribal loyalties. Ibn Saud won their loyalty and had them live in permanent military settlements he built for them. Ibn Saud educated them and their sons in the same Wahhabi schools. They all submitted to the strict discipline of Wahhabi sharia. There was little crime, corruption, or favoritism. Ibn Saud and his successors generously shared their wealth with members of their brotherhood. At first, that wealth came from taxing or plundering other tribes. Since the 1930s, most of that wealth came from oil. This inspired Wahhabis to set up similar brotherhoods throughout the Islamic world. A Muslim Brotherhood was set up in Egypt in 1928. These Wahhabi brotherhoods worked closely together. They also shared new confidence that the thousand-year era of Christian dominance was almost over. Years later, al-Qaeda was a perfect example of how well these brotherhoods worked together. Osama bin Laden was in the Saudi Brotherhood. Mohammed Atef and Ayman al-Zawahiri were in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin led the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza in the 1960s. At that time, Gaza was part of Egypt. Yassin formed a Palestinian branch of that Brotherhood only after Israel occupied Gaza in 1967. Yassin also promoted a new weapon of modern jihad: babies. Yassin had eleven children. There were about 400,000 Arabs in Gaza when Israel first occupied the territory in 1967. There are more than two million today. Half of them are less than 18 years old. In 1987, Yassin made Hamas a separate organization so that his bombings and murders would not cause charities of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to lose international funding. However, the charter of Hamas is far more Islamic than Palestinian. Its preamble praised Muslims as the best nation of mankind. It also declared that Islam would obliterate Israel, just as Islam obliterated previous Crusader kingdoms. In 2007, Charles Allen warned that the Wahhabis cult was winning its modern jihad in Europe and America as well as in Pakistan and the Middle East. Sadly, events in Israel and the rest of the world during the past month are proving that he was right. Image: David Stanley via Flickr (cropped), CC BY 2.0. In the face of widespread international demonstrations in favor of the Palestinian people, a billionaire real estate mogul in the United States is raising money for a high-profile advertising campaign to improve Israel's public image and demonize the Hamas armed organization. According to an email obtained by news outlet Semafor, a media campaign dubbed "Facts for Peace" is soliciting contributions of one million dollars from dozens of the world's most prominent figures in media, banking, and technology. The target list includes more than 50 people, such as Dell CEO Michael Dell, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and investor Michael Milken. They are worth almost $500 billion together, as per the report. Investor Bill Ackman is one of the people who has openly threatened to blacklist pro-Palestinian students who are critical of Israel. On October 10, Ackman made a post on X (previously Twitter) in which he and other corporate leaders called for the identities of students whose organizations had signed open letters criticizing Israeli practices in Gaza to be made public by Ivy League campuses. 'Facts for Peace' Media Campaign Initiator and American tycoon Barry Sternlicht said the effort would enable Israel to get ahead of the narrative in response to international backlash at Israel's heavy assault on the Gaza Strip. Since October 7, Israeli forces have repeatedly bombed the troubled Gaza Strip, killing at least 11,078 Palestinians (4,500 of whom were children), forcing 1.5 million to flee their homes, and destroying most of the territory's infrastructure. Official estimates put the death toll from Hamas' surprise strike on Israeli soil on October 7 at about 1,200. Al Jazeera reported that the goal of Sternlicht's media campaign is to portray Hamas as a "terrorist organization" that is "not just the enemy of Israel, but of the United States," as he put it. The objective is to garner $50 million in individual contributions, aligned with a matching amount from a Jewish charity. Reportedly, the campaign has collected several million dollars so far. It is unknown whose personalities have given. It is being advised by Josh Vlasto, a communications strategist who has worked for US Senator Chuck Schumer and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. See Also: Israel Suggests to Take Infants From Gaza Hospital Following Report of Newborn Deaths US-Israel Ties Amid Conflict When it comes to diplomatic support and financial assistance, the US is Israel's most reliable ally worldwide. The US Congress earlier approved emergency military assistance to Israel in the amount of $14.3 billion. A recent survey by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, however, found that almost half of US Democrats disapprove of President Joe Biden's handling of the crisis. It has been claimed that Instagram, X, YouTube, and TikTok, among other popular platforms, have engaged in shadowbanning to silence pro-Palestine views. See Also: London Pro-Palestinian Rally Draws 300,000 Participants; Dozens Detained @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. What is Islam? To answer that question, its more important to know what Islam isnt. Islam is not a religion. It is an authoritarian, political ideology that forcibly imposes itself on all aspects of any society unfortunate enough to be under its yoke. Islam demands complete subjugation by its adherents. Under Islam, there is no democracy, there is no free speech, no freedom of religion, no freedom of the press, no minority rights, and theres no right to love whoever you desire. Islam allows no dissent. It is a complete and total way of life that glorifies oppression, slavery, and death. Islam has religious, legal, political, economic, cultural, and military components. The religious component is the veil that hides the dangers of its all-encompassing ideology. Islam was founded in the 7th century by the Prophet Mohammed. From its beginnings, Islam never attempted or bothered to convert non-believers by friendly persuasion. Instead, Islam converted non-believers by conquest and forcible conversion, or you were slaughtered. By the mid-8th century, Islam had conquered all the lands from the Indus River, in the east, across North Africa to the Iberian Peninsula, in the west. During that period of conquest, if subjects didnt convert to Islam, they were put to the sword. To this day, most of those lands are still under the control of Islam. There are few exceptions: Spain and Portugal, which during the 15th century, managed to free themselves from the scourges of Islam, and Israel. Modern day Islam is just as oppressive and dangerous as was 8th century Islam. Thats because culturally, Islam still enforces the same tenets they did 1,200 years ago. What are some of those tenets, practices, and ways of life? Islam enforces edicts against homosexuality to the point of executing homosexuals. As for women, of the ten worst countries for womens rights, seven of them are Muslim. The Quran clearly states that women are subordinate to men, and men may beat their wives (Quran 4:34). With Islam, theres a fine line between oppressing women and enslaving them. Islam practices female genital mutilation, a barbaric practice (look it up and be disgusted). Other realities for women in Islamic countries include: women must be escorted in public, largely because its too dangerous for them to walk alone (rape and assaults are common); women must cover their bodies from head to foot; and very few education opportunities which result in limited employment opportunities. Today, in the year 2023, Islam practices slavery (here, and here), the actual commodification of other human beings, and the world stands silent. It also engages in jihad, rape, and pedophiliayes, its acceptable to rape children (bacha bazi). Also, see this clip, from CNN no less: Children sold and bought as sexual slaves. A 55-year-old Afghan Muslim marries a child. Old Afghans marry children who are not even 9 years old! pic.twitter.com/jOBKeVNS78 RadioGenoa (@RadioGenoa) November 9, 2023 Today, Islam beheads its enemies (Dec 27, 2019 in Nigeria), burns people alive in cages, amputates the hands of criminals, and engages in honor killings of female relatives (Texas 2008). Theres nothing honorable about a father (or a brother) who kills his daughter (or his sister) because he doesnt agree with her actions. Adulterers (and even some female rape victims) can be stoned to death, and polygamy is allowed. Earlier this year, an Iranian couple was sentenced to ten years in prison for dancing in public. To say that Islam has nothing in common with Western culture is an understatement. Islam vehemently opposes, and wants to destroy, Western society. Proof of every vile, barbaric, and evil practice engaged in by Muslims was rolled up into one eventHamass attack last month on Israel. For much of Americas history, we didnt concern ourselves with the evils of Islam. We didnt worry about it largely because were an ocean apart, and Islams 12th century society couldnt much affect or threaten us. Nevertheless, Americas first foreign war was fought in the early 19th century against the Islamic states along the Barbary Coast of North Africa. Also, throughout most of the 20th century, our focus was on the evils in EuropeNazism and communism. It wasnt until the 1970s that most Americans became aware of the dangers of Islam. That was when the Arabs used world oil markets to achieve their political goals. Then, in 1979, Iranians seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. Ever since then, the Middle East and Islam have played a central role in Americas foreign policy. A problem with American foreign policy is that no president, from Nixon all the way through to our current crumbling commander, has properly understood Islam, the best example being Bushs post-9/11 statement: Islam is a religion of peace. That was an idiotic statement, given that 3,000 Americans had just been slaughtered in the name of Islam. The United States lack of understanding wouldnt be a problem if we werent in the 21st centurybut we are. And a 12th century ideology of hatred and death is a huge problem given modern technologies which gives Islamists the ability to wander the globe killing, maiming, and enslaving in the name of their ideology. You might wonder what I have against Islam, but let me ask this question: Knowing the profoundly immoral nature of tyrants and authoritarian regimes, would you be alright if Nazism or communism ruled over two billion people on the planet? Im guessing most people would say NO to both, because the evils of these ideologies have no place in a civilized society of unalienable rights. Well, the evils of Islam are just as badperhaps worseas the evils of any totalitarian form of rule ever devised by man. Islam doesnt want peace; it preaches struggle, constant struggle, because it is an ideology that uses religion. Many people might disregard the dangers of Islam, as we do have Muslims here in America, and we dont see things like Muslim men buying children, or public beatings by administrators of Sharia justice. But, Muslims are a small percentage of our population at this moment. Anywhere Islam is the majority, there is oppression, conflict, and struggle. Think of the wars and conflicts being fought on this planet; then, think of the countries that have large Muslim populations, and youll find those two maps overlay one another. From Nigeria in Africa, to Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula, Gaza, Syria, Afghanistan, and to the jungles of the Philippines, Islamic societies are engaged in armed conflicts to suppress and oppress those populations. And also dont forget, a small number can be very dangerous: the 9/11 attack was carried out by only 19 Muslims. In Islamic countries, conflicts, struggles, and oppression have been ongoing for centuries; no end in sight, and its important to remember that above all, Islam is an ideology as dangerous and evil as any ideology ever conceived, using religion as a scapegoat. Image generated by AI. The Catholic Church, like many ancient institutions, has a checkered past. Its record has been marred by the horrors of the Inquisition, its ambivalence towards the Nazis and the Holocaust, and its complicity in and even cover-up of child abuse by priests. To its credit, however, the Church despite some lapses has a long and consistent history of opposing slavery. That is the thesis of The Worst of Indignities: The Catholic Church on Slavery, the latest book by Paul Kengor. A professor at Grove City College, Kengor is the bestselling author of over a dozen works, such as The Devil and Karl Marx: Communisms Long March of Death, Deception, and Infiltration; Dupes: How Americas Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century; and Takedown: From Communists to Progressives, How the Left has Sabotaged Family and Marriage. Citing scriptural depictions of Jesus healing slaves, Kengor asserts that an exemplary, forward-thinking role against slavery can be traced to the very beginnings of Christianity as early as the first century. Since then, the Churchs stance has been consistent. Papal bulls and encyclicals have condemned the abominable commerce in humans, which soared during the trans-Atlantic slave trade from the 1480s through much of the 19th century. The stance continues to this day. Early in the 20th century, in an encyclical called Lacrimabili Statu (Latin for in tears), Pope Pius X described slavery as the worst of indignities, from which the book draws its title. Pope John Paul II, whose papacy ran from 1978 to 2005, apologized for slavery and warned against new forms of it, often insidious. In the encyclical Veritatis Splendor, he condemned slavery as intrinsically evil, and in a 2002 letter to Archbishop Jean-Louis Touran described human trafficking, organized prostitution, and forced labor as a modern plague. The current pontiff, Pope Francis, has often condemned sex trafficking, low-paid labor, organ trade, the drugs and weapons trade, war, and organized crime. In Fratelli Tutti, he described them as scourges. Kengor agrees that many Catholic priests did not apply the golden rule to blacks, say, in 16th century Hispaniola or 19th century America. Also, that some bishops, orders, and institutions (such as the Georgetown University, in Washington D.C.) owned slaves in the past. And that one pope Pope Nicholas V (r. 1447-55) issued bulls authorizing King Alfonso V of Portugal to enslave Saracens, pagans, and Africans. But he decries the egregious scholarship that has pounced on these instances to declare that the Catholic church did not recognize the evils of slavery until the late 19th or early 20th century. He ascribes slavery practiced by Catholic clergy and leaders to the problem Christianity shares with all religions and peoples namely, it is made up of human beings; it is made up of sinners. He also builds the context in which Nicholas Vs bulls Dum Diversas (1452) and Romanus Pontifex (1455) were issued, wrongly, but in a pragmatic spirit: the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to Muslim invaders who were bent on extinguishing Christianity. He says Nicholas V stands as a glaring question mark and the bulls as utter exceptions, anomalous to what the Church has maintained for over two millennia. Kengor then strives to set the record straight. He writes that he discovered that in 506 A.D., at the Council of Agde, the church vowed to take care of manumitted slaves. From then on, there are penances set out for ill-treatment of slaves. He also found that in 1102, the Council of London forbade the sale of men like brute animals in England. These, and various papal pronouncements on slavery, were unique, farsighted, and humane for their times. Heres a partial list from the book: In 1434, Pope Eugene IVs Creator Omnium excommunicated Christians who enslaved other Christians. He then expanded it to include all slaves. In 1537, Pope Paul III called for excommunication of slave owners and proclaimed the intrinsic dignity of humans regardless of ethnicity, color, or creed In 1686, Pope Innocent XI affirmed that slavery was wrong and that slavers must stop their activity and make reparations In 1741, Pope Benedict XIVs Immensa Pastorum demanded proper treatment of all human beings, threatening excommunication of those who did not In 1839, Pope Gregory XVIs Supremo Apostolatus sought complete abolition of slavery And in 1888, when slavery continued only in parts of Brazil, and in Africa at the hands of Muslim slavers, Pope Leo XIIIs In Plurimis said that humans were made in the image of G_d, so slavery was unnatural. Catholic priests, too, have spoken out against slavery and saved the lives of slaves. Recognizing this, the book cover shows St. Peter Claver, patron saint of the enslaved, who ministered to the physical and spiritual needs of slaves in 17th century Cartagena. St. Eligius (588-660) would buy slaves from Marseilles only to free them. Orders such as the Order of the Most Holy Trinity (1198) were founded for the express purpose of ransoming Christians captured by Muslims and sold into slavery. The Dominicans and the School of Salamanca were also infused with fervor against slavery. A section of the book is dedicated to poignant accounts of three modern-day slaves who rose above adversity, and were canonized for their exceptional conduct and service to humanity. They are Ven. Pierre Toussaint (1766-1853), a Haitian house slave who fled with his French master to New York during the Haitian revolt, earned a fortune as a hairdresser, and used it to free slaves; Ven. Augustus Tolton (1854-97), whose family escaped slavery when he was a child and who went on to become Americas first black priest; and St. Josephine Bakhita (1869-1947), who was kidnapped into slavery in Sudan by Arabs, endured unimaginable torture, and eventually found peace and freedom in a convent in Italy. The book includes a brief history of slavery, which has plagued humankind since the establishment of the first city-state in Mesopotamia in 6800 BC. It has existed in every country, and across cultures from China, where chattel slavery, sex slavery, and child slavery have been in existence since 2000 B.C.; to the Mayan and Aztec cultures (1300-1520), where sexual slavery and the sacrifice of wayward slaves was common; to India, where Muslim rulers of the Sultanate began the practice; and to the sale of over one million whites by Muslim traders from the 1530s to the 1780s. The biggest wave occurred, of course, during colonization, enslaving 12-15 million Africans. Even Native American tribes the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and others held slaves and sided with the Confederacy to preserve the institution. Kengor also covers modern slavery in its many forms labor trafficking, sex bondage, debt bondage, and the forced enlistment of children by militias and terrorist groups. Curiously, he doesnt mention the multi-generational prison camps of North Korea or the slave labor and organ harvesting of Falun Gong religious members and ethnic Uighurs by China. The ISIS and Boko Haram terrorist groups actively engage in slavery, which isnt proscribed in Islam, as they try to reestablish a caliphate. Citing a 2012 report that 27 million people live in slavery, and another from 2017 putting the figure at 40.3 million, Walk Free Foundation chief Andrew Forrest says, We now have the largest number of slaves than weve had in human history. Kengor says the Catholic Church has once again stepped forward to condemn modern slavery, with the Holy See lobbying the U.N. for including eradication of slavery in the Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. But the focus, Kengor says, must not be on divisive Critical Race Theory and berating America and Western civilization; instead, it must be on following the lead of Christ and saving those who can be saved. Image: Picryl // public domain Vladimir Putin recently stated, We have always advocated for the implementation of the decisions of the United Nations Security Council, which involve the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state. Moscows endorsement of a Palestinian state has been met with skepticism among Russias historians and supporters in the ongoing conflict with Ukraine. Moscows ill-conceived policy of supporting the Palestinian cause not only undermines its position vis-a-vis Ukraine but also erodes its standing in the Middle East. So, before Vladimir Putin turned into the apostle of peace, it is essential to delve into a historical perspective to underscore the pivotal role played by Russias predecessor, the Soviet Union, in the establishment and survival of the Jewish state. The fact is that the Soviet Union intervened in the Arab-Israeli War of 1948 not to enforce the United Nations Resolution 181 of 1947 and establish two sovereign states; it intervened to ensure the survival of one statethe state of Israel. And, by doing so, it foiled the establishment of a Palestinian state. Following its victory, Israel occupied all the territory of former British-mandate Palestine, resulting in approximately 700,000 Arab refugees. These were the Arabs who rejected the two-state arrangement imposed by the United Nations and fought Israel, refused to live alongside Jews, and later (in the 1960s) became known as Palestinians. Image: YouTube screen grab (edited). Incredibly, refugee status became hereditary for Palestinians, and 75 years later, 5.9 million Palestinians are registered as refugees. But the defeated enemy never gave up on the dream of having one statethe Arab state. However, their ambitions were beyond their capacities. Unable to achieve this goal by military conquest, they resolved to terrorism. The inconvenient truth is that Palestinians did not turn to terrorism because they do not have their state; they do not have a state because they turned to terrorism. Terrorism worked well for the Palestinians. For decades, Arab states, Europe, and the US marched to the beat of a false narrative that peace in the Middle East is impossible without the resolution of the Palestinian issue. Donald Trumps Abraham Accords, changed the narrative and ushered in a fundamental transformation in the relations between Arab nations and Israel. Following the Abraham Accords, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco established diplomatic relations with Israel. Saudi Arabia has already conceded the State of Israel as a reality and works toward normalizing the relationship. In this environment, the Palestinian issue has not just lost its urgency and significance; it has become an impediment to the new Middle East reality. Although we are witnessing mass demonstrations worldwide in support of Palestinians, the Arab states limited their indignation to ideological declarations to fulfill their domestic necessities but have not taken any meaningful action in support of Hamas. Indeed, most Arab countries are surreptitiously rooting for Israel, and no Arab government has expressed willingness to accept Gazas refugees. Given the historical background and current geopolitical landscape, it is perplexing for Russia to support the Palestinian cause in the Middle East, while it is in the middle of a bloody war with Ukrainians, who can be justifiable labeled as the Palestinians of Europe. If we replace Israel with Russia and Hamas with Ukraine, both conflicts look nearly identical. At the core of both conflicts lie security and territorial disputes. Both Israel and Russia have been threatened since their inceptions: Israel by the Arabs since 1948 and Russia by NATOs eastward expansion following the Soviet Unions dissolution in 1991. Much like Israel, which would not tolerate a Palestinian murderess state on its border, Russia cannot accept Ukraine as a member of NATOan adversarial military allianceon its doorstep. Moreover, in pursuit of their goals, both Ukrainians and Palestinians have resorted to acts of violence and terrorism against civilians. Since the modern State of Israels creation, Palestinians constantly attacked the Israeli civilian population indiscriminately, killing civilians, taking hostages, engaging in suicide bombings, and destroying property. Similarly, for a span of eight years, Ukrainians carried out indiscriminate bombing in the Donetsk region inhabited by the Russian population, killing thousands of women, children, and the elderly. Ukrainians also perpetrate acts of terror against Russian officials and their family members. Both parties have adeptly utilized the perception of being victims of occupation to garner international support, both moral and financial. Indeed, the leaderships of both Hamas and Ukraine have enriched themselves through the allocation of billions of dollars and Euros in foreign aid. These notable similarities underscore the fact that neither party has managed to attain self-sufficiency or establish effective governance without external assistance. And both parties are proxies of their respective sponsors in the ongoing wars. Moscow failed to assess the shifting geopolitical landscape accurately. The Abraham Accords have altered the course of Middle East history. Today, Russias support of Hamas savages serves the interests of Iran, which is a piranha of the Middle East but runs against the interest of Saudi Arabia and the host of Sunni states with whom Moscow needs to maintain a relationship to play a relevant role in the Middle East. The war gave Russia a unique opportunity to assume a vital role as a peacemaker. Before the current conflict began, Russia, unlike the USA, had maintained positive relations with the key regional players such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. This positioning could have allowed Russia, by manipulating their antagonisms, to act as a genuine mediator for peace, thereby elevating Moscows standing in the world. Instead, by taking sides in the conflict, Russia aligned itself with a losing and immoral faction, perhaps irreparably weakening its regional influence. Eventually, the Palestinians will be gone in some form or fashion, and Hamas will be eliminated. But Israel, Iran, and Saudi Arabia will be around, and they are destined to reshape the Middle East and, it seems, this time without Russia, for better or worse. Alexander G. Markovsky is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research, a think tank that examines national security, energy, risk analysis, and other public policy issues. He is the author of Anatomy of a Bolshevik and Liberal Bolshevism: America Did Not Defeat Communism, She Adopted It. Mr. Markovsky is the owner and CEO of Litwin Management Services, LLC. He can be reached at alexander.g.markovsky@gmai.com. From the halls of Ivy to the Fourth Estate, once-respected institutions are revealing themselves to be at the forefront of efforts to upend the mores and conduct which make ours a civilized society worth defending against barbarism. Ive already detailed some of the outrageous anti-Semitic, anti-American actions which so many colleges and universities have tolerated. (Canary Mission has done an outstanding job detailing whats been going on in academia.) This week, some have responded, not all with the kind of appropriate vigor and clarity which these actions call for. Its hard to disagree with Iowahawk, One of the major lessons weve all learned in the last 33 days: send your kids to a party college. Its been my sad experience that no one is easier to buy than an academic, so Im not at all surprised to learn that Qatar, a major funder of intifadaists, is also a major funder of our top American universities. Qatar, the current residence of Hamas former leader, has been the largest Arab donor to American universities for decades. Not only do six leading American universities have campuses in Qatar, but they also receive hundreds of millions from ruling elites. At least six American universities have campuses in the country of Qatar -- which is currently home to former Hamas leader and recent global Day of Jihad progenitor Khaled Meshaal. These institutions are Carnegie Mellon University, Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar, Georgetown University, Northwestern University, Texas A&M University, and Virginia Commonwealth University. Reportedly, these universities struck a bargain with Qatari leaders to allow Qatari residents to receive American degrees without having to travel overseas. The Washington Post reported in 2015 that these institutions receive a total of more than $320 million each year in exchange.[snip] Campus Reform previously reported that Ivy League universities were among the top recipients of $8.5 billion in Arab funding over 35 years. Now, student groups at recipient colleges have come out in support of Hamas Oct. 7 attack on Israel. For example, Cornell University received over $1.5 billion in funding from Arab countries. Now, its Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter has repeatedly participated in pro-Hamas student social media campaigns. Among other factors, I believe funding by Middle Eastern countries of American colleges and universities has generated support for Hamas, while causing a rise in antisemitism on college campuses, said Campus Reform higher education attorney and former Brandeis University instructor Ken Tashjy. Tashjy also highlighted more connections between pro-Hamas student activity and donations from Arab countries. According to a report published in 2020 by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism & Policy, there is a direct correlation between the funding of universities by Qatar and the Gulf States and the active presence at those universities of groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which maintains over 200 chapters throughout U.S. higher education, he also stated. And then theres the biggest Hamas supporter in the U.S., CAIR, whose headquarters sits three blocks from the Capitol and has 35 offices around the country. Paul Sperry at Real Clear Investigations has been monitoring them and the governments acquiescence in their subversive activities for years. He has a detailed history of CAIRs activities and the FBIs hands off policy, with only some highlights noted here: Christopher Wray, FBI Director: He warned last month of Hamas terror on U.S. soil. What he didnt say is that the FBI has been investigating Hamas biggest ally in America for the past 30 years -- without filing any charges. Launched in 1994 as a secret front organization to support Hamas, according to declassified FBI wiretap transcripts and FBI testimony, the Council on American-Islamic Relations has, in the decades since, become an accepted member of Washingtons lobbying community. The New York Times and other influential newspapers routinely describe CAIR as a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization. Although it has not repudiated its support for Hamas -- which is committed to the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people -- CAIR was enlisted by the Biden administration in May to take part in a White House initiative to fight antisemitism. In the case against the Hamas charitable front named the Holy Land foundation, the largest terror funding case in the U.S., the Department of Justice included CAIR on a list of co-conspirators underwriting Hamas terrorism -- though CAIR and its founders were never indicted in the case. Why? Sperry reports former agents offered political interference as the explanation for the lack of an indictment. Sperry continues: Currently, CAIR is directing efforts at the ground level across the United States with organizations known for violent extremism, [a former FBI counterterrorism agent] added in a recent interview with RealClearInvestigations. Again, the FBI is doing nothing to adhere to their oaths of office and protect the American people. If youre wondering why so many of the Hamas supporters gleefully rip down posters of kidnapped Israelis, babies, toddlers, women, included, William Bernsteins explanation in The Delusions of Crowds is the best explanation for this performative act of hostility to decency. People do not deploy the powerful human intellect to dispassionately analyze the world, but rather to rationalize how the facts conform to their emotionally derived preconceptions. Over the past several decades, psychologists have accumulated experimental data that dissect the human preference of rationalization over rationality. When presented with facts and data that contradict our deeply held beliefs, we generally do not reconsider and alter those beliefs appropriately. [Instead] we avoid contrary facts and data, and when we cannot avoid them, our erroneous assessments will occasionally even harden and, yet more amazingly, make us more likely to proselytize them. In short, human rationality constitutes a fragile lid perilously balanced on the bubbling cauldron of artifice and self-delusion. No institutions have contributed more to the bubbling cauldron of artifice and self-delusion than the Western press, and this week the Fourth estates hands are bloody. The Press and the Islamists This perfectly anodyne cartoon appeared briefly in the Washington Post before it was yanked. It had been personally selected for publication by the editor of the op-ed page. At first the paper claimed they did so because readers claimed it was Islamophobic (a ridiculous term which suggests this is actually a thing, though experience and statistics prove otherwise -- its a way to diminish the real and statistically valid assertion of anti-Semitism.) In fact, it was pulled because the Posts editor Sally Buzbee, caved to staff pressure. Buzbee formerly headed the AP, and denied knowing it shared offices with Hamas in Gaza. The artist, probably the finest political cartoonist since Nast and Nasby combined, responded: Ramirez expressed his disappointment over his cartoon's removal, calling the move "a blow against the freedom of speech." "When the intellectually indolent try to defend the indefensible, they always seem to resort to playing the race card," Ramirez told the Free Beacon. "They're trying to claim that this caricature is a racial exercise, when in its specificity, it is Ghazi Hamad, who is a senior Hamas official, who went on Lebanese television praising the brutal Oct. 7 attack and systematic slaughter of women, children, and men and pledged to do it over and over again until the annihilation of Israel." "I am presenting this because I think this is a blow against democracy and the freedom of speech," Ramirez continued. "I'm a big believer that America has to have the free expression of ideas to advance thinking." In addition to Buzbee's note addressing her newsroom's "concerns" with the cartoon, the Post published letters to the editor that maligned Ramirez's cartoon as "deeply malicious," "deeply racist," and "full of bias and prejudice." Shipley referred to those letters in his editor's note, writing that the cartoon "was seen by many readers as racist." "The reaction to the image convinced me that I had missed something profound, and divisive, and I regret that," Shipley said. "This is the spirit of opinion journalism, to move imperfectly toward a constructive exchange of ideas at all possible speed, listening and learning along the way." Jeff Bezos bought himself a turkey in the WaPo and I doubt it can ever recover its once-considered more authoritative voice, certainly not with Buzbee at the top. But the Post is not alone in the press for having exposed itself as defenders of barbarism and animus to Western civilization. Sometimes its even exposing itself to well-deserved ridicule. CNN, NYT, AP and Reuters were found to have employed Hamas fighters as stringers and photographers (freelancers) who joined Hamas on October 7. One of them even posted on Facebook a picture of himself riding in with the murderers as he held a hand grenade. If you didnt catch on to this earlier -- i.e. the Green Helmet fiasco, where among other things they paraded dead babies taken from Iraqi morgues before photographers to send to our press, Iowahawk explains it to the naive. Let's face it. Orgs like CNN, NYT, AP, and Reuters are straight up forbidden by Hamas from sending their own reporters into Gaza, and are reduced to hiring "freelancers" from a handpicked Hamas "press pool." At this point it isn't an extraordinary claim that these local "reporters" are aligned with, and abetting, war criminals. The burden of proof should be on CNN, NYT, AP, and Reuter to show they *aren't*. At least one of the named stringers has been killed by the IDF and Israels internal security agency announced that when it eliminates all the October 7 massacre participants, it is including photojournalists who took part in recording the assault. The Western press gaslighting for Hamas is so ridiculous that a Hamas actor known to online posters at X as Mr. FAFO who posed daily in different guises -- i.e., tour director, bombing victim, pressman, medical tech -- was seriously interviewed by the BBC while MSNBC ran one of Mr. FAFO's photos as if it were a real thing. Videos of Assad bombing Arabs (he killed 200,000 of them) are reframed and published as Israeli attacks. A Lebanese artists' film in which actors pretend to be beset Gazans is run as a real documentary. Domestically, attendants to a screening of Hamas atrocities at the Los Angeles Museum of Tolerance were taunted and physically confronted by pro-Hamas leftists. This provocation and deliberate disruption was described by ABC 7 as clashes breaking out between two groups. Daniel Horowitz noted, The media failed to report that J Town Action and Solidarity, the group planning to disrupt the Museum of Tolerance screening, expressed support for terrorism against Jews. It failed to report that the pro-Hamas rallyers had been urged to mask up and told to shut shit down. Other calls for violence were similarly not reported on. The media failed to tell the truth. Elected officials failed to condemn Hamas supporters trying to shut down a screening of Hamas atrocities at a Holocaust Museum. They failed to condemn hate groups invading a Jewish community and attacking Jews. In an ironic note, the New York Times, which offered up the weakest response to the impropriety of these using Hamas stringers, a paper which continues, by the way, to employ admitted Hitler lover Soliman Hijjy, was stormed and invaded by pro-Hamas, masked creeps on Saturday for being too pro-Israel. Its true what the Bible says God works in mysterious ways. Image: Michael Ramirez I like MMA, having trained in it (in a mostly risk-free, exercise way) for many years. I also really like MMA fighters, who have proven to be people who are brave, not only in the ring but also outside of the ring, when it comes to standing against woke leftism. The most recent example is Joel King Bau Bauman, who walked into the fight arena wearing a shirt that asks just the right question about Jeffrey Epsteins little black book. As we all know, Jeffrey Epstein wasnt the only one playing around on Pedo Island. Instead, he had a long list of well-connected people who went there with him to enjoy the peculiar amenities he offered. The FBI has that list butno prosecutions. Now Epstein is conveniently dead, and his sidekick, Ghislaine Maxwell, is keeping her mouth shut. Still, people like King Bau have questions: MMA fighter Joel "King Bau" Bauman just walked into the arena wearing a shirt that reads "Trump was indicted before anyone on Epsteins client list. pic.twitter.com/Z4y7nfRTfW Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) November 11, 2023 Trump was indicted before anyone on Epsteins client list. Indeed, Trump continues to be indicted while no one on Epsteins client list has even been named. We know that rich and powerful people across the Western world are taking sexual advantage of vulnerable children, but our governmentand other governments in the Western worldare inert. The apparent rule of thumb, as was the case in England, is that you only out famous pedophiles and their confederates when theyre dead. That governments across the West refuse to move against these pedophiles is concerning at more than the obvious level. The obvious level is that these people committed heinous crimes, both in terms of manmade and moral law, and they should be punished for having done so. Justice demands that. However, theres something even more problematic going on here, and it speaks to whos doing what in our government. Given the refusal to act against these pedophiles, there are only two possible conclusions. The first is that our government is controlled by completely evil human beings who will, naturally, never turn on themselves. When you look at Bidens hair-sniffing and groping proclivities, its very easy to believe this to be true. The second disturbing hypothesis is that the Deep State, rather than using the Epstein information to achieve justice, is using it to control people. There is no better way to move legislative votes or court rulings than to say, Nice little sinecure ya got here. Shame if something happened to it because people learned that you were the Epstein client who had a special fondness for 11-year-old blond girls. This is not a particularly far-fetched hypothesis. We know that, during J. Edgar Hoovers tenure at the FBI, he specialized in collecting dirt on those whom he deemed his enemies (and probably on his friends, too, in case they became enemies). The point, always, was power and control. Someone who knows your nasty little secrets (and a lot of people have secrets that theyd prefer stay that way) has you on a leash. Or as Chuck Schumer famously warned Donald Trump, intelligence agencies have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you. In Trumps case, that meant creating false claims about Russia and Ukraine collusion. But in other peoples cases, it may mean letting them know that theres dirt on them and that the intelligence agencies are the only thing keeping that dirt from going public. Every American, regardless of political stripe, should be disturbed by the protection our and other Western governments extend to the Epstein client list. That wall of silence either means that the people in power are corrupt or are at the mercy of even more sinister forces working behind the scenes. Image: X screen grab. I wasnt shocked by the outpouring of virulent antisemitism coming from Americas colleges and universities, but thats because Ive been paying attention for forty years to whats been going on there. A lot of people were shocked, though, and struggled to understand how that cancer could grow. There are three reasons: leftism, professional antisemitic agitators and, as a study from the Network Contagion Research Institute revealed, at least 200 American academic institutions have taken in around $13 billion from antisemitic countrieswhich they then forgot to report, thereby violating American law. I attended UC Berkeley in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I loathed the place and my wish, always, was that the buildings would be razed and the ground salted. I wasnt political, so I didnt recognize that I hated it because I was on the receiving end of leftist tripe. I just knew it was a bad placeand an antisemitic one. Because Berkeley sparked in me an utter disdain for academia, I paid attention to news reports about other academic institutions, mostly in California. Thats why I knew that San Francisco State University, once a respectable urban institution, was a hotbed of antisemitism and other madness. The same was true for UC Irvine and UC Riverside, both of which I heard, in pre-internet days, were also antisemitic. Image by Andrea Widburg using AI. In other words, the rot has been in academia for a long, long time. The question, of course, is why. There are three reasons: One: Beginning in the 1930s, but with accelerating speed in the 1960s, leftism became the dominant mindset across all but a handful of American colleges and universities. It didnt have to be that way. Thanks to the Enlightenment, the virulent anti-Jewish hatred that had burned across post-pagan Western Europe was dying out. People didnt like Jews, which was their prerogative, but they werent trying to kill them. Eastern EuropeTsarist countrywas the last bastion of genocidal antisemitism, which lead to a Jewish immigration to America, bring with it people truly grateful to be here and anxious to contribute to their adopted land. What revitalized anti-Jewish hatred and turned it into the genocidal antisemitism that characterized Western Europe (and, now, America) is Marxism. Karl Marx hated the Jews. He baked it into socialism by tying Jews to capitalismnever mind that most Jews were impoverished wretches, and the vast majority of the worlds capital was in the hands of non-Jews. Socialism also hates God, because God is about two things socialists hate: Something greater than government and morals. Jews, whether specific individuals are religious or not, are the people who brought God to the world. When socialism combined with lingering cultural antisemitism and, in Germany, neo-paganism, you ended up with Hitlers and Stalins murderous antisemitism. Consequently, when leftism became the dominant ideology in American academia, it brought antisemitism with it. Two: Antisemitic campus activism was turned into a well-funded job, something Roz Rothstein, Jerry Rothstein, and Esther Renzer discovered, which led to them founding StandWithUs, one of my favorite pro-Israel organizations. When their children entered UCLA, they were met with a constant barrage of antisemitism. The parents learned that antisemitism wasnt coming from the ordinary students, whether Jewish or non-Jewish. For real students, the days of campus activism were over. These kids were there to learn and have fun. They wanted to get good grades, not join in protests. However, the anti-Israel crowd was different. These were professionals who came to college, not to learn or have fun, but to agitate. Their expenses were paid and, if their agitation led them to such bad grades that they were forced to drop out, no matterthere were other professionals waiting to take their place. The agitators sole goal, despite being students, was to teach antisemitic and anti-Israel ideology. The Rothsteins and Renzer founded StandWithUs to train Jewish in rebutting the lies the professional agitators were constantly spreading. Three: Finally, as always, follow the money. As Network Contagion Research Institute discovered and Bari Weiss reported, campuses have been raking in billions from antisemitic Middle Eastern countriesand carefully (and illegally) hidden the money from government scrutiny: Today, after months of research, the NCRI released a report (comprising four separate studies) following the money. The report finds that at least 200 American colleges and universities illegally withheld information on approximately $13 billion in undisclosed contributions from foreign regimes, many of which are authoritarian. Moreover, while correlation is not causation, they found that the number of reported antisemitic incidents on a given campus has a meaningful relationship to whether that university has received funding (disclosed and undisclosed) from regimes, or entities tied to regimes, in the Middle East. Overall, authors of the report write, a massive influx of foreign, concealed donations to American institutions of higher learning, much of it from authoritarian regimes with notable support from Middle Eastern sources, reflects or supports heightened levels of intolerance towards Jews, open inquiry and free expression. The specific data are staggering. I strongly urge you to visit the Free Press article for the details because arming yourself with facts is important when pushing back against toxic, genocidal misinformation. Americas academic institutions are anti-American, antisemitic, rotten-to-the-core places of garbage ideas. Its time to pull out every single penny of federal funding and, in conservative states, pull out the state money, too. As long as we feed those institutions, we are doomed. Ill admit it: I toyed with the idea of writing about how pro-Hamas students at MIT harassed Jewish students and barred them from entering classrooms but ultimately decided not to. Why not? Because, sadly, in todays academic environment, it was a dog bites man story. In the almost six weeks since the October 7 massacre in Israel, weve been inundated by reports about wildly antisemitic activity in academia, so one more story didnt seem to add much to the discussion about the fetid moral rot in Americas institutions of higher learning. However, now that Ive learned why MIT did not discipline those same dangerous students, Im sufficiently shocked to share the news with you. Just to set the stage, MIT is one of Americas most reputable institutions. Indeed, even as leftism swept one campus after another, especially in the Ivy Leagues, people thought, Well, MIT is a STEM school. Surely those brilliant geeks wont fall prey to woke madness. But a little bit here and a little bit therestories started leaking out. (E.g., climate madness, gender madness, and cancel culture.) Antisemitism was in the mix, and I say this because I knew a family that was deeply damaged by an antisemitic attack. But still, it wasnt as bad as Harvard, Yale, or other schools. Still, MIT is an American university, so its going to be leftist, and leftists support nasty ideas. Thats why I didnt report on this story, which seemed too sadly common: This is the reality that MIT President wants to hide. A letter from Israeli & Jewish MIT students: To all students at MIT, Today, Jewish and Israeli MIT students were physically prevented from attending class by a hostile group of pro-Hamas and anti-Israel MIT students that Retsef Levi (@RetsefL) November 10, 2023 Even after the above tweet went viral and the story started spreading beyond MITs walls, and a few social media messages, MITs administration did nothing: It didnt put out the usual meaningless statement praising free speech (something academia praises only when anti-leftist messages offend people) nor did it promise to crack down on the malfeasors. Today, we learned why: The students behind this violent activity arent American, so disciplining them might lead to them being deported. (Fat chance, I say, under the Biden administration.) Institute President Sally Kornbluth acknowledged the elite universitys position in a statement in response to a protest that posed a threat to Jewish and Israeli students. [snip] The statement issued by Kornbluth - who has served as president of the university since January - said after the confrontation between protestors erupted we had serious concerns that it could lead to violence. After exhausting all other avenues for de-escalating the situation, we informed all protesters that they must leave the lobby area within a set time, or they would be subject to suspension, she continued. Many chose to leave, and I appreciate their cooperation. Some did not. Members of my team have been in dialogue with students all day. Because we later heard serious concerns about collateral consequences for the students, such as visa issues, we have decided, as an interim action, that the students who remained after the deadline will be suspended from non-academic campus activities. The students will remain enrolled at MIT and will be able to attend academic classes and labs. (Emphasis added.) With this milquetoast response, Kornbluth revealed something important about academia: Its not only getting massive amounts of money from overseas, its also getting a lot of tuition money from overseas students. Heres MITs data: There are 3,465 international students enrolled in degree programs at MIT513 undergraduates (11%) and 2,952 graduate students (42%)in 20222023. Additionally, 643 exchange, visiting, and special students participated in MIT programs. (Emphasis mine.) The situation is even worse at state colleges and universities. Those institutions have to extend discounted tuition to in-state students. Out-of-state students often get grants or waivers. But overseas students pay full fare. Despite all the taxpayer money pouring into academia, it takes a lot of cash to pay for all those administrators, whose numbers have burgeoned by 60% just between 1993 and 2009. I recall reading somewhere that, between the mid-1970s and around 2015, the overall growth of administrative positions was over 300%, even as the number of professors remained unchangedalthough dont quote me on that because I cant find that citation. Academia is corrupt. It just is. Its especially corrupt in the liberal arts, but once the rot sets in at any institution, it spreads. These people are ideological prostitutes, of course, but theres more. Like all good leftists, who are, by definition, obsessed with money (it and the state are their gods), they are greedy and will do anything, licit or illicit, moral or immoral, to obtain it. Thats why MIT, once a respected science institution, is now a degenerate place that protects violent foreigners (who are here as a privilege, not a right), regardless of justice or safety. Image: MIT (a corrupt little kingdom in America) by DrKenneth. CC BY 3.0. It has been clear for a long time that the FBI has become a rogue agency that is willing to target political enemies while protecting many Democrats no matter how many crimes they commit. They also consistently cover up for the crimes of FBI bureaucrats themselves, along with bureaucrats from other federal agencies. They treat criminals in the government softly while targeting private citizens and political opponents. In 2016, many employees of the FBI were targeting Trump for defeat, while supporting Hillary Clinton. Some committed perjury by lying to the FISA court in order to illegally spy on people surrounding President Trump. No one went to jail for this perjury and illegal spying. Instead of cooperating with an investigation into the illegal spying, the FBI resorted to more illegal spying on Congress itself. There are currently two wars going on involving Israel and Hamas. The war we all see here in America is the propaganda war. As always, Israel is at a severe disadvantage in that war because the worlds media (including social media) side with the people who are murderously antisemitic, misogynist, homophobic, anti-Christian, anti-American, and anti-Western. However, the war that we dont see is the actual war, the one that involves boots on the ground. Regarding that war, Israel is achieving an impressive victory. Colonel Richard Kemp is a rare bird: A former British Army officer who is not blinded by hatred for Israel. Indeed, hes long respected the fact that Israel, unlike her Arab opponents, tries to fight a moral war. To this end, Israel focuses on military objectives and, despite her opponents draping themselves in civilians for protection, Israel does everything she can to limit civilian casualties, even if that means putting her own troops at risk or losing the element of surprise before an attack. In the case of the current war, Colonel Kemp has ignored the propaganda noise because he recognizes it for what it is and, instead, has focused on Israels military achievements. According to him, Israel is fighting an incredibly efficient war that is overwhelming Hamas defenses and achieving its objectives. Colonel Kemp notes that the US military told Israel that a large campaign would be a bloodbath for the Israel Defense Forces because of the nature of urban warfare. Indeed, as I look back at the Iraq War, its easy to see why the US military might think that. Image: A tunnel entrance in Gaza. X screen grab. After all, urban warfare against terrorists hidden amongst civilian communitieswith many of the civilians supporting the terroristswas a nightmare for American troops. The two Battles of Fallujah were some of the hardest fought battles in American history, with the six-week-long Second Battle of Fallujah being the bloodiest battle for American troops in that entire war. There was every reason to think IDF troops would face the same in Gazaonly worse, given that Hamas is a death cult, whereas Saddam Husseins troops were more ordinary Islamic fighters. Whats happened in Gaza has been different, reports Kemp: The IDF has exceeded even its own commanders expectations with the speed and the extent of Hamass destruction. It has encircled Gaza City and is assaulting terrorist strongholds, killing large numbers of fighters including key commanders, smashing command posts and gaining valuable intelligence, while its forces have sustained fewer casualties than anticipated. Kemp explains that this is exceptionally impressive given that Hamas had turned Gaza into one giant booby-trap, and thats not even counting the rabbit warren of tunnels underlying Gaza. When it comes to those tunnels, though, the IDF is destroying them without entering them, damaging Hamas capabilities while protecting its own fighters. Hamas, by contrast, is not doing well: Just as Hamas almost certainly exceeded its own expectations in its initial assault, it probably also underestimated the ferocity of Israels response. Although the IDF hasnt yet located and killed the top level terrorist commanders, there are signs that Hamas is now under enormous pressure. Rocket launches from Gaza are at the lowest level since the war began, and Hamas leaders are reportedly pleading with Hezbollah in Lebanon to mount sustained attacks to divert the IDFs attention. With its spectacularly successful October 7 raid on Israel, Hamas may have bitten off more than it could chew. It expected that Israel, as always, would respond with a few targeted strikes, destroy a neighborhood or two, and give it the gift of propaganda photos showing dead children. It never expected that Israel would have reached its breaking point and determined that its survival required destroying Hamas once and for all. The faster Israel wraps up the war that shes winning, the more quickly the propaganda warwhich she is losingwill end. Whats happening is also an excellent reminder that, as my father, a veteran of WWII (the Royal Air Force, where he was essentially an infantryman) and the Israeli War of Independence, always said, You have to fight a war to win it. Wars fought with limited objectives tend to be wars without end, because the wise enemy, realizing that you are halfhearted, will fight whole-heartedly. Thats been the case for fifty years when it comes to Israel and her enemies. Now, though, at long last, she seems to have figured out that your enemies will not love you more if you fight them less. Bonus video: Things have gone so sideways in this country that the paper of record has gone into a panic about President Trump's plans to follow U.S. immigration law. Check out today's hysteria: Former President Donald J. Trump is planning an extreme expansion of his first-term crackdown on immigration if he returns to power in 2025 including preparing to round up undocumented people already in the United States on a vast scale and detain them in sprawling camps while they wait to be expelled. The plans would sharply restrict both legal and illegal immigration in a multitude of ways. Mr. Trump wants to revive his first-term border policies, including banning entry by people from certain Muslim-majority nations and reimposing a Covid 19-era policy of refusing asylum claims though this time he would base that refusal on assertions that migrants carry other infectious diseases like tuberculosis. He plans to scour the country for unauthorized immigrants and deport people by the millions per year. As a matter of fact, that's called carrying out the law. The Times did get an interview with President Trump's top advisor on immigration, Stephen Miller, but only printed a few phrases here and there as to what he said, which kind of tells us they didn't want us to know about it. They'll keep that information to themselves. But in their own words they noted, way down in the piece, that there wouldn't be any shifts in existing law under this plan by President Trump, merely an interest in upholding existing law. All of the steps Trump advisers are preparing, Mr. Miller contended in a wide-ranging interview, rely on existing statutes; while the Trump team would likely seek a revamp of immigration laws, the plan was crafted to need no new substantive legislation. Like we are supposed to be upset about this. Not allowing illegal immigration? What an outrageous idea in the minds of these Times writers. Legal immigration is the law. Illegal immigration is not. Don't like the law, get Congress to change it. But the Times, for all its howlings about threats to 'democracy' doesn't want the law, which is kind of odd thing to be against in a democracy with rule of law. The whole thing has prompted panic -- get a load of this hysterical reading (emphasis added): The constellation of Mr. Trumps 2025 plans amounts to an assault on immigration on a scale unseen in modern American history. Millions of undocumented immigrants would be barred from the country or uprooted from it years or even decades after settling here. Such a scale of planned removals would raise logistical, financial and diplomatic challenges and would be vigorously challenged in court. But there is no mistaking the breadth and ambition of the shift Mr. Trump is eyeing ...and... Trump advisers vision of abrupt mass deportations would be a recipe for social and economic turmoil, disrupting the housing market and major industries including agriculture and the service sector. They quoted an open-borders lobbyist to turn the volume up to 11: Americans should understand these policy proposals are an authoritarian, often illegal, agenda that would rip apart nearly every aspect of American life tanking the economy, violating the basic civil rights of millions of immigrants and native-born Americans alike, Mr. Schulte said. The old 'threat to democracy' crap as if seven million people crossing into the U.S. with no vetting whatsoever and all of them presumed to have valid asylum cases enough to wait for years here and get a free work pass and obtain a free benefit package in the U.S. was some kind of 'legal' authorized by Congress, which has the sole Constitutional authority to set immigration numbers. There's nothing legal about this at all. If the U.S. doesn't have resources to process migrant asylum claims in a timely manner, then the U.S. can't be taking applications for this process at all. And it shouldn't. Asylum abuse has clogged courts with cases sporting a 90% rejection rate as most applicants are just economic migrants looking to jump the immigration queue and claim benefits. The Times dismisses the Trump team's idea that migrants should be excluded for bringing in third-world infectious diseases, claiming migrants wouldn't dream of doing such a thing. That's laughable given the reports from hospitals of migrants bringing in tuberculosis, leischmaniasis, measles, scabies, malaria, leprosy and other communicable diseases and through identification-free air travel and bus travel, spreading these diseases through the country. Trump wants to keep crazed Islamists out of the country, do some serious vetting of the Afghans, mostly single males, who pushed and shoved their way onto American evacuation flights from Afghanistan trampling women, children, old people and the sick waiting in line, and ship back any students conducting violent pro-Hamas protests in the states now. Who the heck let these America-haters with low social capital into this country anyway? The bottom line here is that most Americans, including even many Democrats support Trump's plan to fix Joe Biden's open border and restore the country to one that upholds rule of law with a legal process for immigration. The Times quoted just activists and threw in its own editorializing even though it was supposed to be a straight news piece. Naturally, some familiar names were seen in the bylines, such as Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, two well-known Trump haters. They refused to admit there was a problem, and went into full hysteria mode to whip up angry Democrats and set the Joe Biden "narrative." It was disgusting, and one can only hope that the American public will see right through it, knowing very well that there is a problem and it's growing with Joe Biden's open border. When merely enforcing the existing law is a problem for the Times, the country is in much worse shape than anyone realizes. Image: Muckraker.com Twitter video screen shot Thousands of Frenchmen, including statesmen and politicians from most political parties, took to the streets on Sunday (November 12) to support Israel and condemn antisemitism, which has been on the rise since Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7 and Israel declared war on Hamas. The march was organized by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and her party but was also joined by others on both left and right sides of the French political spectrum, including far-right leader Marine Le Pen. Particularly absent in the march was the far-left party France Unbowed (LFI), which made a separate march against antisemitism and racism but also opposed the "extreme right." LFI leader Jean-Luc Melenchon was quoted by France 24 saying that his group boycotted the Borne-led march, claiming it as a meeting of "friends" who called for "unconditional support for the massacre" of Palestinians in Gaza. However, the LFI demonstration was met with counter-protesters who criticized the party for its perceived ambiguities on the issue. Some of them carried signs that read "Don't tarnish the memory!" and "Don't touch Vel' d'Hiv!" pertaining to the roundup of Jewish families by French Nazi collaborators in 1942. Read Also: Israel Suggests to Take Infants From Gaza Hospital Following Report of Newborn Deaths France vs. Antisemitism According to the Associated Press, France has the largest Jewish community in Europe. However, the country also has a sizable Muslim community and the Nazi collaboration of the Vichy government in World War II opened old scars. French authorities have registered over 1,000 antisemitic acts across the country since the war began last month. French President Emmanuel Macron was unable to attend the march in Paris, but in a statement leading up to the event, he expressed his support and called on Frenchmen to rise up against "the unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism." He also vowed to prosecute and punish perpetrators of anti-Jewish acts. "A France where our Jewish fellow citizens are afraid is not France," he wrote in the newspaper Le Parisien. Over 3,000 police officers are being deployed along the route of the protest called by the leaders of the French Parliament amid an alarming increase of anti-Jewish acts in France since the start of the Israel-Hamas War. Meanwhile, US billionaires and investors are being called upon to donate and support a media campaign called "Facts for Peace." Spearheaded by US tycoon Barry Sternlicht, the initiative would enable Israel to get ahead of the narrative in response to international backlash at Israel's assault on Gaza City. Related Article: Billionaires Launch Media Campaign to Promote Israel Amid Pro-Palestinian Protests @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Three years after the January 6 protest that got out of control, the FBI has swooped in and moved to arrest one Gregory Yetman, allegedly for pepper-spraying a cop. Investigative reporter Julie Kelly has the scoop on what went down: I just spoke with Todd Yetman, brother of Gregory, the man hunted down by FBI for J6 related offenses. The conversation was sad, infuriating, and in some instances, funny. First, he said the FBI staked out their home for THREE MONTHS prior to the raid on Wednesday am. (Todd, pic.twitter.com/T8te0QJUtX Julie Kelly (@julie_kelly2) November 10, 2023 They cased the joint for three months, obviously working in shifts, probably some with overtime. They used helicopters. They used drones. They used drawn guns and flash bangs that damaged the property, despite getting no resistance from the occupants. They were heavily armed and heavily fortified. They spent time on paperwork. And there were a lot of them, based on the video within the tweet. All of these things cost money, lots of money, probably millions, with each agent on the force drawing a six-figure salary. Is this an agency that has too much money and not enough to do? Not with an open border, zero knowledge of who's gotten in, and FBI Director Christopher Wray warning that he expects a terrorist attack based on the current scenario. There are child-smuggling sex rings and child-smuggling labor rings to probe. There is organized crime infesting the cities with mass shoplifting incidents that are out of control. The Chicoms have yet to have most of their illegal police stations shut down, and Chinese and other foreign spies are being caught left and right, suggesting there's a lot of this stuff going on, what with nobody having to pass a background check anymore before getting into the military and the rest of the government. There is antifa and its violent activities. There is political corruption up the wazoo in Congress and in the federal workforce with inside trading alone. And let's not get into the fentanyl rings that are taking hundreds of thousands of lives, as well as making Twitter censor and Special Agent Elvis Chan's trip to his San Francisco federal building office a no-go zone. The bureau can't be investigating any of that? Why are they constantly caught spending money on useless and even legally questionable cases -- from the investigation of parents for protesting at school board meetings to the investigation of Latin Mass enthusiasts, both on terrorism charges, and now this obvious abuse of power against Yetman for political purposes in what should be a close-the-books, it's too old riot case. This targeted guy served honorably in the military and had no criminal record, yet here they go, spending millions to arrest and humilate him, with an undoubtedly draconian sentence headed his way in a rigged courtroom. It's so disgusting. And here we have Congress, led by Republicans, vote to authorize a $300 million building on grounds bigger than the Pentagon for this agency, fulfilling the Parkinson's Law maxim about the decline of organizations that build huge new headquarters. It's sad stuff. Congress needs to investigate this vast misuse of resources brought on by politically motivate priorities before authorizing one thin dime. Let them stay in their rat-infested building until they can remember what their mission is. Image: Twitter screen shot (ANSA) - ROME, NOV 12 - On Sunday two groups respectively comprising 107 and 43 migrants and refugees arrived on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa after being intercepted and accompanied to port or, in the second case, rescued and taken on board by the Italian authorities. The first group of people reportedly from Syria, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Egypt had set sail from Zawiyah in Libya. The second, from Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia, had departed from Chebba in Tunisia. The new arrivals took to 354 the number of migrants and refugees in the first reception centre, or hotspot. On Saturday 194 migrants and refugees arrived on Lampedusa in four separate landings, including a group of 39 people from Eritrea and Sudan who were rescued by a finance police patrol boat and a Swedish Frontex unit after their boat sank in waters off the island. The rescuers also recovered the body of an Eritrean national aged 28, which was also disembarked. (ANSA). (ANSA) - ROME, NOV 12 - November 12 is a day of remembrance and must not be sullied by making a classification of the dead, Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said on Sunday. "Even after 20 years, the State does not forget the people who have served it," said the minister, referring to the victims of the November 12, 2003 bombing at the Italian Nassiriya military base in Iraq in which 28 people including 19 Italians - 17 military personnel and two civilians - died. "Today is a time of remembrance, it is not right to make a classification of the dead. There is no such thing as A and B grade victims," he continued, responding indirectly to relatives of the Nassiriya victims who recently called for their dead loved ones to be awarded the gold medal of military valour. "The moment of remembrance must not be sullied. "Today we are commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Nassiriya deaths, but we are (also) remembering all the fallen, both civilian and military," said Crosetto after a Mass celebrated in the Roman Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli in suffrage of the military and civilians who died in international peace missions. Last Monday Marco Intravaia, son of Vice Brigadiere Domenico Intravaia, one of the soldiers killed in the Nassiriya attack, appealed to President Sergio Mattarella, Premier Giorgia Meloni and Crosetto to grant the fallen of Nassiriya the gold medal for military valour in their memory. "November 12 marks the 20th anniversary of the Nassiriya attack, the biggest massacre of Italian soldiers since the second world war," said Intravaia. "On this occasion, we would have expected a different level of sensitivity to what my father and the other victims did for the State, by deciding to remain in Iraq despite the high risk they were exposed to, a choice they paid for with their lives," he continued. (ANSA). (ANSA) - ROME, NOV 12 - International peace missions are part of efforts to combat the horrors of war and terrorism, President Sergio Mattarella said on Sunday in a message to Defence Minister Guido Crosetto on the day of remembrance for military and civilian fallen in international peace missions. This "day of remembrance dedicated to the fallen, both military and civilian, in international peacekeeping missions falls on the 20th anniversary of the Nassiriya massacre, in which 19 Italians - soldiers, carabinieri and civilians - died in a cowardly attack," said Mattarella referring to the bomb attack at the Italian Nassiriya military base in Iraq in 2003 that killed in total 28 people. "The feeling of mourning accompanies us on this day when the Republic turns its thoughts to the many wounded and fallen in the missions that Italy has developed in recent years in the service of the international community and the rights of peoples, together with the expression of solidarity and closeness to the families affected," he continued. "Participation in these important operations in so many troubled regions of the world is a sign of our country's commitment and contribution to the international community's concrete effort to combat the horrors and atrocities of wars and terrorism," added the head of state. "The contingents deployed and the collaborations carried out under the aegis of the United Nations, the European Union and NATO bear witness to the intention to defend the values of peace and cooperation, of respect for the dignity of individuals and peoples," said Mattarella. "To those who are engaged today in crisis zones, putting their safety at risk in the name of the noble principles enshrined in our Constitutional Charter, goes the appreciation and gratitude of all Italians," he concluded. On November 12, 2003 two vehicles loaded with explosives drove into the Italian Nassiriya base and exploded, killing 28. The base hosted the bulk of the Italian contingent in Iraq at the time and, of those killed, 19 were Italians - 12 Carabinieri military police, five army soldiers and two civilians, including documentary filmmaker Stefano Rolla. (ANSA). First Minister Humza Yousaf was among dignitaries who laid wreaths at the City Chambers in Edinburgh to commemorate Remembrance Sunday. Hundreds of people turned out on a cold morning in the capital to pay their respects, observing a two-minute silence and a parade by military personnel. The First Minister was joined by a Ukrainian family who arrived in Scotland more than a year ago, fleeing the war in their home country. Speaking to journalists before the commemorations, the First Minister said: This, to me, is one of the most sacred days of the year. Dignitaries laid wreathes at the memorial at the City Chambers (Jane Barlow/PA) Its an opportunity for all of us, all communities, to come together, to reflect, to remember, and to honour all of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice in order so that we can enjoy the freedoms that we cherish every single day. I am proud and honoured to be able to play a part on behalf of the Scottish Government. Holyrood Presiding Officer Alison Johnstone, defence minister and former Scottish Tory leader Baroness Goldie, and Edinburgh Lord Provost Robert Aldridge also participated in the commemorations. A military parade from Edinburgh Castle began the memorial, with current and former personnel from different branches walking in formation down the Royal Mile to the City Chambers. Ukrainian Lesya and her children Marichka, 16, and Sviatoslav, nine who was draped in a Ukrainian flag laid a wreath on behalf of children who have lost a parent since the Russian invasion last year. Nine-year-old Sviatoslav laid a wreath to commemorate those who lost a parent in the war in Ukraine (Legion Scotland/PA) The trio arrived in the Scottish capital after the war broke out, with their father Koli staying behind to fight. He was killed two days before the family were due to be reunited in their home country. Hannah Beaton-Hawryluk, chairwoman of the Association of Ukrainians in GB branch in Edinburgh, said: We have to remember. War is all over the world, all of the time. Our forefathers fought for our freedoms we cannot forget that. If we fail to remember the mistakes of the past, we will never, ever learn. Lesyas family are one of thousands that have experienced terminal heartbreak in the last 20 months. The loss of her beloved husband, and father to her children, Koli, brutally outlines why to fail to learn from historic mistakes creates nothing other than an unstable world full of horror, destruction and immense sadness. I know how proud Lesya is of Marichka and Sviastoslav, who today laid a wreath on behalf of all children of Ukraine who have lost a parent to this war. Legion Scotland chief executive Claire Armstrong stressed the importance of remembering those who served in the armed forces. Many people have made the ultimate sacrifice in order to sustain our current way of life, she said. Many more have made unthinkable sacrifices to maintain our freedoms. To them, and for them, we must say thank you, and we must remember them. The Irish deputy premier has said Ireland is a consistent and strong supporter of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in investigating the Israel-Hamas conflict. It comes after the opposition Sinn Fein party announced its intention to bring a motion to the Dublin parliament seeking a referral of Israel to the ICC by Ireland. Micheal Martin, who is also foreign affairs minister, said the ICC is the cornerstone of the system of international criminal justice. In a statement on Sunday, he said: Ireland is a consistent and strong supporter of the court, and of its independence and impartiality. Mr Martin said the ICC has jurisdiction over the situation in Palestine and the prosecutor opened an investigation into Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem in March 2021. The investigation covers all crimes within the jurisdiction of the court, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, alleged to have been committed since the date of referral in 2014. This gives the court jurisdiction over any crimes committed within Palestine, and/or by Palestinian nationals outside it, including in Israel. Importantly, the current prosecutor, Karim Khan, has made absolutely clear on a number of occasions over the last month that this investigation covers the current conflict, including all events on and from October 7 this year. He has confirmed that there is an active investigation ongoing in relation to the situation in Palestine. Mr Martin added: Ireland will continue to fully support the ICC in its vitally important work in investigating all the situations before it, whether that be in Ukraine, Darfur, Palestine, Libya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo or elsewhere. All victims, everywhere, are equally deserving of justice and accountability. The King celebrates his 75th birthday on Tuesday, just over a year after acceding to the throne. The monarch, who is 14 months into his job as head of state, reaches his three-quarter century milestone in the same year he was crowned, and a week after opening Parliament for the first time as sovereign. Charles, who will still receive his daily red boxes full of policy papers, Foreign Office messages, letters and other state papers on his big day, will also spend his anniversary carrying out public engagements. His Majesty The Kings Red Box The Red Box contains papers from government ministers in the UK and the Realms and from representatives from the Commonwealth and beyond. The documents are sent from the Private Secretarys Office to The King, wherever he may be in residence. pic.twitter.com/vCyTANWvZp The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) September 24, 2022 He will use his significant birthday to highlight causes close to his heart. The King, who is appearing on the front cover of this weeks Big Issue, will visit a surplus food distribution centre with the Queen to officially launch the Coronation Food Project, which aims to tackle food poverty by redistributing produce destined for landfills. And later he will host a reception at Buckingham Palace for 400 nurses and midwives, as part of this years NHS 75 celebrations, and be treated to a surprise birthday song by the NHS choir. Gun salutes will sound in Green Park and the Tower of London in the capital, and across the UK. Camilla once revealed the King is particularly hard to buy gifts for. The King and Queen arriving for the State Opening of Parliament (Victoria Jones/PA) I will tell you that he is the most difficult person in the world to buy a present for So he likes to make a list of things that he wants so you get it exactly right, she said. He likes a cake and a bit of a sing song, she acknowledged, but admitted it was difficult to get her workaholic husband to take break. In the evening, Charless nearest and dearest are expected to gather at Clarence House for a birthday dinner in his honour. But his youngest son the Duke of Sussex and the Duchess of Sussex will be missing. It was reported Harry turned down an invitation, but the Sussexes team has insisted they did not receive one. The dukes relationship with the King and brother Prince of Wales has remained fractured in the wake of his controversial Netflix documentary and autobiography Spare. A spokesperson for the Sussexes said: In response to UK media headlines, there has been no contact regarding an invitation to His Majestys upcoming birthday. The King will spend this Remembrance Sunday leading the nation in tribute to the war dead at the Cenotaph on Whitehall, joined by the Queen, the Prince and Princess of Wales and other royals. The King meeting members of the public during his state visit to Kenya this autumn (Victoria Jones/PA) On Monday the eve of his birthday he will celebrate with fellow baby-boomer 75-year-olds at an afternoon tea birthday party with live rock music and dancing at his Gloucestershire retreat Highgrove. The event is being staged for nominated community heroes and those seeking to socialise, who like the King were also born in 1948. It will mark as well the 75th anniversaries of the NHS and the Windrush generation. TV star Jay Blades, who bonded with the King over a shared interest in heritage and crafts in an episode of the BBCs The Repair Shop, will be there as an ambassador for Charless freshly renamed charity, The Kings Foundation, formerly The Princes Foundation, which is hosting the day. Prince Charles Philip Arthur George was born on November 14 1948 at Buckingham Palace the first child of the future Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh. Prince Charles just before his first birthday with his mother Princess Elizabeth in 1949 (PA) He was 73 when he acceded to the throne as Charles III immediately on the death of Elizabeth II, who died peacefully at the age of 96 in the sanctuary of Balmoral Castle on the afternoon of September 8 2022. Charles is the oldest British monarch on accession. When he turned 70 in 2018, he referred to his birthday as alarming and joked he had all the scars that go with his age. As well as his coronation in May, Charles has had a busy 2023, with three overseas state visits to Germany, France and Kenya and, earlier this week, his first State Opening of Parliament as monarch. As King, Charles now has two birthdays his actual birthday on November 14, and his official one, usually on the second Saturday in June, commemorated with the Trooping the Colour parade. The nation fell silent on Sunday to honour those who died in conflict as the King led a moving Remembrance Day service. A two-minute silence took place across the UK at 11am. Wreaths were laid by members of the royal family, senior politicians and dignitaries at the Cenotaph in London, where a major policing operation remains in place after more than 120 arrests were made mostly of far-right counter-protesters as a pro-Palestinian march was held on Armistice Day. Charles led the country at the Whitehall memorial in commemorating the end of the First World War and other conflicts involving British and Commonwealth forces. Wearing the uniform of the Marshal of the Royal Air Force with greatcoat, poppy and sword, the King laid a wreath similar to the one produced for King George VI. The wreath featured 41 open style poppy petals made from bonded fabric. It was mounted on an arrangement of black leaves traditional for sovereigns wreaths of 27-inch diameter ribbon and bow using the colours from the Kings racing silk scarlet, purple and gold. The King and the Prince of Wales lay wreaths during the Remembrance Sunday service (Aaron Chown/PA) The Prince of Wales also laid a wreath, as did the Duke of Edinburgh, the Princess Royal, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and other senior politicians. Major Ollie Plunket of The Rifles, equerry to Camilla, laid a wreath on behalf of the Queen, who was watching from a balcony with the Princess of Wales. Buckingham Palace said the Queens wreath closely resembled the one produced for the Queen Mother. Almost 10,000 veterans and 800 armed forces personnel from all three services were then due to take part in a march-past. The Queen and the Princess of Wales on a balcony at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Jonathan Brady/PA) Among those marching are nuclear test veterans, who for the first time will wear a medal acknowledging their contribution. After 70 years of waiting for recognition, those exposed to the effects of nuclear bombs during the UKs testing programme were given a medal, depicting an atom surrounded by olive branches, for the Remembrance Sunday service. More than 300 armed forces and civilian organisations are represented, as well as 300 veterans not affiliated with an association who have been invited to join for the first time. Mr Sunak said: The courage and commitment shown by our servicemen and women, both today and throughout the generations that came before them, is humbling and I know many across the country will be honouring their memory today in quiet reflection. Recent events have served as a stark reminder that we cannot take the hard-earned peace we live in for granted, which is why I am honoured to lay a wreath on behalf of the nation in the memory of all those that have lost their lives defending our country and the values we hold so close. I am determined to ensure we never forget the ultimate sacrifice they have made. The nation fell silent on Sunday to honour those who died in conflict as the King led a moving Remembrance Day service. A two-minute silence took place across the UK at 11am to commemorate the end of the First World War and other conflicts involving British and Commonwealth forces. Wreaths were laid by members of the royal family, senior politicians and dignitaries at the Cenotaph in London, where a major policing operation remains in place after more than 120 arrests were made mostly of far-right counter-protesters as a pro-Palestinian march was held on Armistice Day. Thousands of people braved drizzly weather and descended on Whitehall for the service, many arriving hours early to get a good spot. The Massed Pipes and Drums played songs such as Rule Britannia in the rain but the showers stopped before Charles led the country in quiet reflection at the Whitehall memorial. Wearing the uniform of the Marshal of the Royal Air Force with greatcoat, poppy and sword, Charles who as sovereign is commander-in-chief of the armed forces in the UK and realms laid a wreath similar to the one produced for King George VI. It featured 41 open style poppy petals mounted on an arrangement of black leaves traditional for sovereigns wreaths of 27-inch diameter ribbon and bow using the colours from Charless racing silk scarlet, purple and gold. The King lays a wreath during the Remembrance Sunday service (Jonathan Brady/PA) The Prince of Wales also laid a wreath, as did the Duke of Edinburgh and the Princess Royal. Senior politicians including Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Foreign Secretary James Cleverly also laid wreaths. Major Ollie Plunket of The Rifles, equerry to Camilla, laid a wreath on behalf of the Queen, who was watching from a balcony with the Princess of Wales. Buckingham Palace said the Queens wreath closely resembled the one produced for the Queen Mother. They were joined in paying tribute by the living former UK prime ministers: Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Sir Tony Blair and Sir John Major. Queen Camilla and the Princess of Wales on a balcony at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office on Whitehall (Jonathan Brady/PA) Almost 10,000 veterans and 800 armed forces personnel from all three services were then due to take part in a march-past, and members of the public applauded as they processioned past. Nine D-Day veterans were due to participate in the Remembrance Day service and the oldest, Joe Randall, 100, was due to march with the Spirit of Normandy Trust, a Government spokesperson said. Among those marching were nuclear test veterans, who for the first time will wear a medal acknowledging their contribution. After 70 years of waiting for recognition, those exposed to the effects of nuclear bombs during the UKs testing programme were given a medal, depicting an atom surrounded by olive branches, for the Remembrance Sunday service. More than 300 armed forces and civilian organisations are represented, as well as 300 veterans not affiliated with an association who have been invited to join for the first time. Edward donned the Royal Wessex Yeomanry uniform for the ceremony, while Anne wore a Royal Navy uniform in the rank of admiral with a greatcoat, cap, sword and poppy. Before the service, City of Westminster street cleaners swept and washed the Whitehall road approaching the Cenotaph, and volunteers handed out hymn sheets to the crowd. Mr Sunak said: The courage and commitment shown by our servicemen and women, both today and throughout the generations that came before them, is humbling and I know many across the country will be honouring their memory today in quiet reflection. Recent events have served as a stark reminder that we cannot take the hard-earned peace we live in for granted, which is why I am honoured to lay a wreath on behalf of the nation in the memory of all those that have lost their lives defending our country and the values we hold so close. I am determined to ensure we never forget the ultimate sacrifice they have made. 'Seoul has all of the prerequisites to be global financial hub' By Yi Whan-woo Regulators should consider the unintended consequences of new regulations on the marketplace, a senior executive of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) said shortly after a short selling ban was reinstated in Korea last week in the name of cracking down on illegal market practices by global investment banks. I dont want to comment if it's a good or bad policy, but I would just comment that they should certainly review the impact of that decision on the marketplace, Chris Taylor, the NYSEs global head of listings and services, told The Korea Times during an interview in Seoul, Nov. 7, a day after the ban took effect through June 2024. Announced by the Financial Services Commission, the ban's timing was controversial, with some market observers arguing it was politically motivated ahead of the general election in April 2024. Such a ban was imposed three previous times in Korea to cushion external shocks on the stock market the global financial crisis in 2008, the European sovereign debt crisis in 2011 and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 whereas the market was not particularly taking the brunt of shocks from outside this year. You know short selling bans usually take place during financial crises and that clearly isnt the case right now, Taylor said. And if there are unintended consequences they should be aware of that. The interview took place after he came to Korea and Japan on a four-day trip through Nov. 9, as a routine part of his job of meeting and interacting with companies that are listed on the NYSE. Serving in his job since 2017, Taylor apparently has had years witnessing the competitiveness of the finance and business districts in different cities compared to the international level. Concerning Korea, he has traveled here twice this year, making his previous trip in July, and plans to come back next year. Asked about the progress in the citys bid to become a global financial hub, he said, It has all of the prerequisites to be a global financial center. He added, It is obviously very modern, very open, very global, and those things bode well for Seoul to be a challenger as a (global) financial capital. He had his latest meeting with Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon in September when Oh was in New York City during the High-Level Week of the U.N. General Assembly. The mayor and his team, educated us on the power of Seoul and what an amazing, vibrant, technologically advanced city Seoul is, according to Taylor. He is very well informed on the benefits of this city, so its hard for me to provide advice to Mayor Oh on Seoul, Taylor said. The economic might of Korea is quite impressive relative to its size. He added that he is looking forward to the continued growth of Korean companies. The NYSE, the worlds largest stock exchange, has more than 2,400 firms listed from 47 countries. About 500 of the total listed companies are from outside the U.S. They include 10 from Korea POSCO, Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO), SK Telecom, KT, KB Financial Group, Shinhan Financial Group, Woori Financial Group, LG Display, Gravity and Coupang. While he did not give details on what he discussed with the listed Korean companies, he explained that the focus of the trip was to educate our companies on the NYSE and for me to get educated on what our companies are concerned about and what their businesses are concerned with. He assessed that Korea, in proportion to its gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, is well represented in terms of the number of its NYSE-listed companies. On the frequency of initial public offerings (IPOs), the country certainly has been less active over time considering none occurred after Coupang was listed in March 2021. All other nine were listed between 1994 and 2005. Taylor still assessed that Korea, with its vibrant economy, has companies that are always staying close to the market in case someone wants to access capital in the U.S. With regard to prospective industries for IPOs, he picked technology and consumer goods companies, such as Birkenstock from Germany, which became the latest company to join the NYSE. Before joining the NYSE, Taylor led the global investor relations business at Ipreo, a U.S. market intelligence and data firm, for nearly 10 years. Nigel Farage has been pictured arriving in Australia where he said he might become a contestant on Im A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!. Other famous faces rumoured to be joining the ITV jungle show who have been seen arriving in the country include This Morning presenter Josie Gibson and First Dates star Fred Sirieix. Mr Farage has previously said he has turned down multiple requests since 2016 to head into the Australian jungle. After getting off the plane on Sunday, the former Ukip and Brexit Party leader told the MailOnline he is someone who might be going into the popular reality show. Josie Gibson, who presents This Morning, is also rumoured to be heading for the jungle (Dominic Lipinski/PA) He added: I cant confirm Im doing it I just think theres a big audience out there that watches the programme (who are), actually, people worth talking to. On his GB News show last month, he said he was considering an appearance on the show to connect with a younger audience. Former health secretary Matt Hancock came third in the 2022 series, which became the second most complained-about TV event of last year, according to Ofcom. Not quite live from the jungle yet But they will be very soon! I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! Starts Sunday 19th November at 9pm on ITV1 and @ITVX #ImACeleb @imacelebrity @antanddec pic.twitter.com/v0dzru2HFq ITV (@ITV) November 6, 2023 Im A Celebrity has yet to announce its official line-up for this year and has previously said any names linked to the show are just speculation. Other rumoured contestants include Made In Chelsea star Sam Thompson, Love Islander Olivia Attwood, who competed last year but had to head home early, and former The Big Breakfast presenter Denise Van Outen. Newspaper speculation has also mentioned jockey Frankie Dettori, former EastEnders actress Danielle Harold, ex-professional boxer Tony Bellew, Britney Spearss sister Jamie Lynn Spear, and soap star Nick Pickard as potential campmates. The shows presenters Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly confirmed the series is set to begin next Sunday at 9pm. Appeals have been launched to identify five people after footage circulated online of incidents at London train stations on Armistice Day. British Transport Police released images of four men they want to speak to after what the force say was a racially aggravated altercation at Waterloo station on Saturday. The force also released an image of a woman they want to speak to after an alleged antisemitic hate crime at Victoria station. The 90-second video posted online of the incident at Waterloo station shows men swearing repeatedly, including shouting terrorist f****** and we were born in this country. British Transport Police wants to speak to this woman after an antisemitic hate crime at Victoria Station on Saturday (British Transport Police/PA) A separate video was shared on social media which shows an argument before one person appears to shout death to all the Jews at Victoria station. It comes after dozens of counter-protesters were arrested as hundreds of thousands of people took part in a pro-Palestinian demonstration in central London on Saturday. Anyone who recognises the woman is asked to contact British Transport Police by texting 61016 or by calling 0800 40 50 40, quoting reference 217 of November 12. And anyone who can identify the group of men is asked to contact British Transport Police by texting 61016 or by calling 0800 40 50 40, quoting reference number 217 of November 12. You can submit information anonymously by calling Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. The Prime Minister is facing growing calls to fire Suella Braverman for stoking tensions ahead of Armistice Day protests, with the Labour leader accusing the Home Secretary of spawning hatred and distrust. Sir Keir Starmer accused Mrs Braverman of demeaning her office following scenes of far-right violence towards officers on Saturday after she branded pro-Palestinian protesters hate marchers and accused the police of bias for letting the rally go ahead. Dozens of counter-protesters were arrested, including many trying to confront those participating in the march which Mr Sunak and Ms Braverman had urged police to ban. In a comment piece in the Sunday Telegraph, Sir Keir said few public figures have done more recently to whip up division and said her and the Prime Ministers treatment of the police and protesters showed a lack of respect for this countrys values and its principles. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said it was disturbing to see the violence towards police and if the Prime Minister does not sack Ms Braverman, hes too weak or agrees with her. Sadly, these scenes were predictable after a week of efforts from some to stoke tension, Mr Khan wrote in the Sunday Mirror. They were a direct result of the Home Secretarys words and behaviour. If Suella Braverman had any honour she would resign and if not, Rishi Sunak should sack her. Nine officers were injured as they prevented a crowd reaching the Cenotaph with Met Police Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist calling their extreme violence towards the police extraordinary and deeply concerning. A week of intense debate about protest and policing helped increase community tensions, he said. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan called on the Prime Minister to sack Mrs Braverman (Yui Mok, PA) Mr Sunak has so far maintained confidence in his Home Secretary, even after a week in which ministers distanced themselves from her claims that homelessness is a lifestyle choice. There has been speculation the Prime Minister will carry out a ministerial reshuffle, which could see her moved, but not before next weeks Supreme Court ruling on the Rwanda deportation policy which she has championed. Her incendiary language on pro-Palestinian mobs has angered many, including within the Tory party, with demands for her to go increasing. Rishi Sunak has so far resisted calls to sack Suella Braverman as Home Secretary (Daniel Leal/PA) In a comment piece in the Sunday Telegraph, Sir Keir wrote: The Home Secretary and the Prime Ministers treatment of the police and protestors alike this week coming just a few days after she shamefully described homelessness as a lifestyle choice betray a total lack of respect for this countrys values and its principles. Few people in public life have done more recently to whip up division, set the British people against one another and sow the seeds of hatred and distrust than Suella Braverman. In doing so, she demeans her office. Sir Keir said some among the pro-Palestinian demonstrators incited violence, glorified Hamas or called for Israels destruction and should be dealt with firmly by the law. But he said blanket calls to cancel the rallies and Government attempts to brand protesters they do not agree with as extremists are a sign of ministers cowardice. Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: Suella Braverman was warned repeatedly of the dangers of inflaming tensions and undermining the police. A Home Secretary that doesnt take seriously the security of our streets is only allowed to remain in a government that has lost all sense of governing. Britain is better than Rishi Sunak and his Cabinet. The far-right has been emboldened by the Home Secretary. She has spent her week fanning the flames of division. They are now attacking the Police on Armistice Day. The Home Secretary's position is untenable. She must resign. https://t.co/okPyA0MlpN Humza Yousaf (@HumzaYousaf) November 11, 2023 Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf earlier called for Mrs Braverman to resign. The SNP leader tweeted: The far right has been emboldened by the Home Secretary. She has spent her week fanning the flames of division. They are now attacking the police on Armistice Day. The Home Secretarys position is untenable. She must resign. Hope Not Hate echoed the demand, with the campaign groups chief executive Nick Lowles saying the Home Secretary has inflamed tensions and, as we have seen today, whipped up the far right into a violent frenzy. Shes got to go. But Ms Braverman has supporters on the right of the party and any move against her by Mr Sunak could deepen divisions within Tory ranks. Conservative former minister Brendan Clarke-Smith defended the Home Secretary, saying: Ive heard some daft takes, but to try and justify this appalling behaviour by blaming an op-ed in The Times, which simply stated the flaming obvious, is pathetic. Tory backbencher Danny Kruger said: You know what, with the benefit of hindsight, maybe it would have been best if the march today hadnt been allowed to go ahead. Ms Braverman rowed back her language on the eve of Armistice Day, giving police her full backing at a meeting with Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley. It came after her article in The Times, in which she claimed officers play favourites towards pro-Palestinian protesters, was disowned by Downing Street and provoked fury among Tory MPs. Irish premier Leo Varadkar and Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris have laid wreaths at a Remembrance Sunday ceremony in Co Fermanagh. On a rainy day in Enniskillen, hundreds stood in silence for two minutes to mark the occasion at the war memorial in the town. New PSNI chief constable Jon Boutcher and head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service Jayne Brady were among those who laid wreaths during the commemoration. Mr Heaton-Harris laid a poppy wreath on behalf of the UK Government. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar during the Remembrance Sunday service (Liam McBurney/PA) The gathered crowd also heard music from the Ballyreagh Silver Band. The Kings representative the Lord-Lieutenant for County Fermanagh Viscount Brookeborough, as well as a representative from Enniskillen Guides, also placed wreaths. Mr Varadkars presence continued a tradition begun by former taoiseach Enda Kenny in 2012 by attending and placing a laurel wreath at the base of the memorial. Mr Kenny became the first taoiseach to attend a Remembrance Day service in Northern Ireland when he took part in commemorations at Enniskillen in 2012, in a move seen as symbolic of greater recognition afforded in the Republic of Ireland to Irishmen who fought and died serving in the British Army in the First World War. His attendance also marked the 25th anniversary of an IRA bombing at the memorial in 1987. Eleven people who had gathered to pay their respects to the war dead were killed and dozens were injured in the no-warning blast on November 8 1987, minutes before the Remembrance Sunday ceremony was due to start. A 12th victim of the Poppy Day bombing died 13 years later having never woken from a coma. Mr Heaton-Harris said: It is an honour to be here in Enniskillen. Were here to remember the fallen from World Wars one and two, from the various battles and conflicts that weve had, and to remember the Poppy Day bomb as well and all the families that suffered. It was a lovely service and amazing to see so many people turn out in slightly inclement weather and just good to see the community come together. Asked about the presence of Irish Government officials, he added: It is really important. I think, from what I can gather, people like to see the British and Irish government work together and remember together. That can only be good for our individual futures. A politician from Mr Varadkars party was also in attendance. Frank Feighan said: Ive always attended the services of Remembrance in appreciation and respect of the Irish men and women from across the island of Ireland who gave the great sacrifice in World War One and many wars after that. I think it shows respect and it also shows that it wasnt unique to this part of the island, and indeed across our two islands. Asked if the Irish Government presence was controversial, he said: We have to have an agreed Ireland, we have to respect histories that are different but sometimes unite us as well. I felt that 15-20 years ago in the Republic, that we didnt pay that respect, that we didnt remember the sacrifices of many men and women that came from our communities. I think that has changed in the last 10 or 15 years. Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris lays a wreath (Liam McBurney/PA) Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald was among those scheduled to attend a Remembrance Sunday service at St Patricks Cathedral in Dublin hosted by the Royal British Legion. Ms McDonald said: This is an important day of reflection for many people on the island. Many Irishmen, from across all 32 counties, died in these conflicts, leaving a profound loss that continues to be felt in many families and communities to this day. It is important to recognise all that we share in common and to commemorate our shared history in a respective and inclusive way. Such reflections are also a timely reminder of the need for peaceful dialogue to end conflict around the world. Several other wreath-laying events and Remembrance ceremonies were held across Northern Ireland. VeselovaElena / Getty Images Where can you get a steak dinner for less than the price of a McDonalds Happy Meal? According to the latest Consumer Price Index Data, food prices continue to rise this fall. The price of food-at-home rose by 0.1% between August 2023 and September 2023, and was 2.4% higher year-over-year. Similar: 10 Costco Meals That Are Cheaper Than Buying Takeout Find Out: How To Get Cash Back on Your Everyday Purchases Some food prices are rising faster than others. While the price of beef stayed flat in September, the cost of potatoes dropped by 2%. Of course, these are nationwide statistics that dont necessarily tell you how much more (or less) specific grocery items will cost at your local stores. With some savvy shopping strategies, you can save money on family meals. To give you an idea of the best places to shop, we evaluated the price of a steak dinner at five different national stores. Aldi Choice Angus Top Sirloin: $7.99/lb. $14.38 per package Grass-fed Ribeye: $12.29/lb. $14.50 per package Filet Mignon: N/A Farmers Promise Russet Potatoes: $4.39 for 5 lbs. Fresh Broccoli Crowns: $2.46 each 1.89 per pound Countryside Creamery Butter Quarters: $1.99/lb. Total Cost for All Ingredients Sirloin Dinner: $23.22 Ribeye Dinner: $23.34 Filet Mignon Dinner: N/A Price Per Meal (cost divided by 4 people) Sirloin: $5.80 Ribeye: $5.83 Filet Mignon: N/A Walmart Choice Angus Sirloin: $12.94/lb. $10.74 avg. price per package Beef Choice Angus Ribeye Steak: $15.97/lb. $25 avg. price per package Choice Angus Petite Filet Mignon: $21.82/lb. $16.91 per package Simply Perfect Russet Potatoes: $2.83 for 5 lbs. Fresh Broccoli Crowns: $1.25 each Great Value Salted Butter: $3.98/lb. Total Cost for All Ingredients Sirloin Dinner: $18.80 Ribeye Dinner: $33.06 Filet Mignon Dinner: $24.97 Price Per Meal (cost divided by 4 people except where indicated) Sirloin: $4.70 Ribeye: $8.27 Filet Mignon: (divided by 2) $12.48 Target Good & Gather USDA Choice Angus Top Sirloin Steak: $10.99/lb.- $30.22 max price per package Good & Gather USDA Choice Angus Ribeye: $16.89/lb. $22.80 max price per package Good & Gather USDA Choice Angus Beef Tenderloin (Filet Mignon): $23.79/lb. $28.07 max price per package Broccoli Florets: $2.59 for 12 oz. bag Good & Gather Butter: $3.99/lb. Good & Gather Russet Potatoes: $2.99 for 5 lbs. Total Cost for All Ingredients Sirloin Dinner: $39.79 Ribeye Dinner: $32.37 Filet Mignon Dinner: $37.64 Price Per Meal (cost divided by 4 people except where indicated) Sirloin: (divided by 8) $4.97 Ribeye: $8.09 Filet Mignon: $9.41 Whole Foods Choice Top Sirloin Steak: $13.99/lb. Choice Beef Ribeye Steak: $27.99/lb. Filet Mignon: N/A Russet Potatoes: $2.99 for 5 lbs. 365 Whole Foods Market Broccoli Florets: $3.29 for 12 oz. bag 365 Whole Foods Market Salted Butter: $3.99/lb. Total Cost for All Ingredients Sirloin Dinner: $24.26 Ribeye Dinner: $38.26 Filet Mignon Dinner: N/A Price Per Meal (cost divided by 4 people) Sirloin: $6.06 Ribeye: $9.56 Filet Mignon: N/A Costco Kirkland Signature Choice Sirloin: $8.19/lb. $38.41 per package (5 steaks) Kirkland Signature Choice Ribeye: $14.20/lb. $79.24 per package (4 steaks) Kirkland Signature Choice Filet Mignon: $25.13/lb. $70.62 (6 steaks) Kirkland Signature Salted Butter : $3.82/lb., must buy 4 lbs. Baking Potatoes: $3.26 for 5 lbs., must buy 10 lbs. Broccoli Florets: $2/lb., must buy 6 lbs. Total Cost for All Ingredients (costs divided for mass quantities of butter, potatoes, and broccoli for an equal comparison) Sirloin Dinner: $47.49 Ribeye Dinner: $88.32 Filet Mignon Dinner: $79.70 Price Per Meal Sirloin: (divided by 5) $9.50 Ribeye: (divided by 4) $22.08 Filet Mignon: (divided by 6) $13.28 Observations The biggest cost to a steak dinner is your choice of protein, the steak. But we were surprised to find such a wide range of prices amongst the lower-cost items, with butter ranging from $1.99 per pound to nearly $4 per pound, even for store brands. Prices for potatoes remained roughly the same across stores, with Aldi as the outlier, charging more than a dollar more than other stores even the notably pricey Whole Foods Market. The price of broccoli also varied, with Walmart coming in cheapest for broccoli crowns and Costco offering the lowest price for a bag of broccoli florets, at $2 per pound, although you have to buy 6 pounds to reap the rewards. Targets 12 oz. bag for $2.59 is your best value if you only eat that much broccoli after it spoils. Depending on how close you live to certain stores and how much time you have available to shop these price comparisons make a strong case for visiting multiple grocery stores and making a list in advance to take advantage of low prices. Theres also a strong case for stocking up on staples (like potatoes and butter) when you see them selling for less than usual. Which Store Sells the Cheapest Steak Dinner? When it comes down to it, where can you get all the makings of a steak dinner for the least amount of money? As you can see on the chart below, Aldi has the lowest price per pound on Sirloin or Ribeye steak right now. For the coveted filet mignon, youll have to go to Walmart for the greatest savings, where you can get two filets for $21.82 per pound. For the lowest cost outlay at one time, choose the sirloin dinner with all the ingredients purchased from Walmart for just $18.80. Walmart is the only store where you can buy a steak dinner for four people for less than $20. At Walmart, the price per meal for a sirloin dinner for four people is only $4.70. Thats less than the price of a McDonalds Happy Meal in many places in 2023, according to ItsYummi.com. For the cheapest ribeye meal, Aldi is the cheapest, with enough Angus beef for four people, plus your potatoes and veggies, for just $23.34. At $5.83 per meal, Aldi also offers the lowest price for a ribeye dinner. For the cheapest filet mignon meal, overall, Walmart wins $24.97 for your beef and all the sides. But that only provides enough steak for two people, with less than 3/4s of a pound in the average package. Target has the better value for a bigger family, offering about 1-1/3 lbs. of filet mignon and costing roughly $9.41 per person to feed a family of four. Lowest Price Steak Per Pound Store Price Sirloin: Aldi $7.99 Ribeye: Aldi $12.29 Filet Mignon Walmart $21.82 More From GOBankingRates Methodology: We priced out USDA Choice sirloin, ribeye, and filet mignon to cover a wide range of budgets. We added a baked potato (with butter), and fresh broccoli to complete the meal. We used the company websites or Instacart (for Costco and Aldi) to find prices. Walmart and Aldi only offered Angus or grass-fed beef, which is usually pricier, but these stores had competitive pricing for these better cuts compared to the other stores we researched. Local prices may vary and are accurate online as of November 10, 2023. This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: From Aldi to Costco: Heres How Much a Steak Dinner Will Cost You From These 5 Stores SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Sunday that a security and migration pact signed with Tuvalu showed Australia was a "genuine, reliable" regional partner, as it seeks to counter China's influence in the Pacific. Australia announced on Friday the security guarantee to the tiny Pacific Islands nation to respond to military aggression, protect it from climate change and boost migration. Australia, a United States ally, has been working to shore up its Pacific standing amid a rising China, which recently upgraded a security pact with Solomon Islands. "It is about Australia saying to the region and to Tuvalu, we are a genuine, reliable partner and when we say we are part of the Pacific family, we mean it," Wong told the Australian Broadcasting Corp, regarding the Tuvalu pact. Asked if it was linked to China's activity in the region, Wong said: "We recognise we live in a more contested region and we have to work harder to be a partner of choice, we know that". Under the treaty, announced in the Cook Islands by Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Tuvalu counterpart Kausea Natano, Australia will also vet Tuvalu's security arrangements with other nations. Albanese has called the pact Australia's most significant agreement with a Pacific Island nation, giving "a guarantee that upon a request from Tuvalu for any military assistance based upon security issues, Australia will be there." Tuvalu, population around 11,000, is one of just 13 nations to maintain an official diplomatic relationship with Taiwan, as Beijing has made increasing Pacific inroads. A collection of nine low-lying islands mid-way between Australia and Hawaii, Tuvalu is one of the world's most at-risk countries from climate change and has long drawn international attention to the issue. (Reporting by Sam McKeith in Sydney; Editing by David Gregorio) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday discussed a possible deal to free the hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7., Gazas governance following the war, and death toll figures produced by Gaza officials in an interview on Meet the Press. Netanyahu told Meet the Press that there could be a potential hostage deal with Hamas but declined to give any further details, saying doing so could thwart the delicate negotiations to free those taken captive by the militant group. I think the less I say about it, the more Ill increase the chances that it materializes, he said in the interview. It has been just over a month since Hamas launched its terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7 in a brutal ambush that saw more than 1,200 killed and around 220 people taken hostage. In the weeks that have followed, Israels relentless bombardment of Gaza in response has seen more than 11,000 people killed, while more than 1.6 million people have been displaced, according to health officials in the besieged enclave and estimates from the United Nations. Potential hostage deal Asked by host Kristen Welker about how close Israel was to getting the hostages out, Netanyahu said that no deal had been close until his forces began the ground operation in Gaza. We heard that there was an impending deal of this kind or of that kind and then we learned that it was all hokum. But the minute we started the ground operation that began to change, he said. Pressed again by Welker on whether there is a potential deal to release more hostages, Netanyahu replied: There could be. Any deal, was the result of pressure, military pressure, he said, before praising the work of the Israel Defense Forces. Thats the one thing that might create a deal and if a deal is available. Well, we will talk about it when its there. Well announce it if its achievable, he said. Asked if he knew where all the hostages were being held right now, Netanyahu said: We know a great deal, but I wont go beyond that. A Biden administration official confirmed to NBC News on Sunday that a possible deal for the release of hostages was being discussed. This would see the release of about 80 women and children in exchange for the release of Palestinian women and teenagers held by Israel, the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said. They added that the U.S. is also exploring other options and there is no certainty that any of them will succeed. Israeli President Isaac Herzog told NBC News last week that the country has not received a substantial offer from Hamas on a deal to secure the freedom of more than 200 hostages being held in the Gaza Strip, denying reports that a deal is within reach. There is no real proposal that is viable from Hamas side on this issue. Whilst there are many, many people who are third parties who are sending optimistic messages to the news reels, Im saying outright: According to my knowledge, up to now, there is no real substantial information that is showing any real offer of any process on the table, Herzog, Israels head of state, said in an interview in his office in Jerusalem. Herzog does not make policy but is briefed on Israeli intelligence and on political decisions. Netanyahus government makes the decisions surrounding policy. Gaza governance Netanyahu said that a different authority must govern Gaza, but he declined to say if he would accept an international force to control the region once the war with Hamas is over. The U.S. has said it would oppose an Israeli postwar occupation of Gaza. Pressed to clarify what he meant by his call for a different administration to govern Gaza, Netanyahu said: I think it's too early to say. Hamas, a militant Palestinian nationalist movement, took control of Gaza a narrow strip of land wedged between Israel and Egypt on the Mediterranean Sea that is roughly the size of Washington, D.C. after it gained control by winning an election there in 2006. However Israel has kept a land, air and sea blockade on Gaza since 2007, despite demands from the United Nations and human rights groups to lift it due the devastating impact it has had on Palestinian civilians. Israel has said the blockade, which allows it to control Gazas borders and is also enforced by Egypt, is needed to protect Israeli citizens from Hamas. While Netanyahu has maintained that Israel would be in charge of security over the region, he has not laid out a plan of governance after the war. War crime allegations The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk last week accused both Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes. Asked on Meet the Press how many civilians have been killed since Hamas launched its attack on Israel on Oct. 7, Netanyahu disputed the death toll numbers by Gaza officials, whom he called Hamas officials, and blamed Hamas for civilian deaths. Its lower than theirs, he said, before claiming that Israel has seen a steady decline in the number of civilian deaths as its ground operation in Gaza proceeds because people understand that they have to clear the way, and they leave. And remember, our goal, and were taking extraordinary efforts to achieve it, is to minimize civilian casualties. This is our ethos, he said. Well do everything we can to minimize civilian casualties, but you have to do everything in your power to lay the blame for the civilian casualties on where it belongs, on Hamas. While demanding an immediate cease-fire and the release of hostages, Turk said Hamas has committed war crimes by holding people captive and Israel has committed war crimes related to its collective punishment of Palestinian civilians. Turk told reporters on the Egyptian side of Gazas Rafah border crossing last week that even in the context of a 56-year-old occupation, the current situation is the most dangerous in decades, faced by people in Gaza, in Israel, in the West Bank but also regionally. The international community needs to be part of finding a just and equitable future for the Palestinian and Israeli people, he added. As the death toll mounts, protesters have rallied around the world, including in the United States, to call for a cease-fire that would bring an end to Israels bombardment of Gaza. The Biden administration supports a humanitarian pause in the conflict but has not yet called for a cease-fire. Asked by reporters last week on the chances of a Gaza cease-fire, President Joe Biden said: None, no possibility. Israel has maintained that it will not agree to any cease-fire without the release of hostages. However, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that far too many Palestinians have died and suffered in the Gaza Strip. Speaking to reporters in Indias capital New Delhi as he wrapped up an intense nine-day diplomatic tour of the Middle East and Asia, he said: Much more needs to be done to protect civilians and to make sure that humanitarian assistance reaches them. Far too many Palestinians have been killed, far too many have suffered these past weeks, and we want to do everything possible to prevent harm to them and to maximize the assistance that gets to them, he said. Shifa hospital fuel offer Netanyahu told Meet the Press that his country offered fuel to Gazas Al-Shifa hospital last night, but it was refused. We offered actually, last night, to give them enough fuel to operate the hospital, operate the incubators and so on, because we have, obviously, no battle with patients or civilians at all, he told Welker. They refused it, he added after he was pressed on the matter. Al-Shifa suspended operations Saturday after running out of fuel. Netanyahus comments came after the World Health Organization said it lost communication with contacts at the embattled hospital in Gaza City. Multiple babies and five people in intensive care have died at the facility, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. But, according to Dr. Marwan Abusada, a surgeon at Al-Shifa hospital, Israels offer of fuel was only around 2% of what the hospital needed to run in a single day. The IDF said it had left 300 liters of fuel outside the hospital, but it said Hamas prevented hospital staff from accepting the fuel. Abusada, who is also the head of international cooperation at the Gaza Ministry of Health, confirmed that the hospital was offered 200 liters of fuel, but said it was not enough that at least 10,000 liters per day would be needed to run vital parts of the hospital. It was just 200 liters, Abusada said in a call Sunday. What to do with 200 liters? Its unclear why the IDF said it offered 300 liters and Abusada said the hospital was offered only 200. Were set to clock in the warmest year on record, thanks to climate change, and that's had a major impact on industries that can't up stakes and move to avoid itlike the winemaking business. Regions that have long been at the helm of fermenting globally renowned wines, such as Italy, have seen volumes drop due to extreme weather impacting grape yields and quality. As dynamics in the wine industry begin to change, one country has become a surprise winner. Britain has had a long viticulture history, some estimates going back to the 11th century. Still, it never rose up the ranks as a wine capital alongside its European peers, which offered higher quality and more varietyand Britain's less-than-ideal grape-growing weather was one reason why. As global temperatures have increased, however, the conditions in the U.K. have become better-suited to grow certain grape varieties, paving the way for a sprawling winemaking industry. Warmer temperatures have enabled better ripening of Britain's grapes and therefore, better qualities of wine. Historically, English wine hasn't had a very popular or positive reputation, Jonathan White, marketing director at Gusbourne Estates, which has vineyards in Kent and West Sussex, told Fortune in an interview. The property planted its first vines nearly two decades ago. The wine just typically wasn't very good and wasnt produced by wine professionals and fantastic viticulturists and viticulturalists who knew what they were doing, he said. But, White added, planting the right mix of grape varieties, with help from warmer temperatures, has given the winemaking business its new-found fame. Interest in the British wine sector is as strong as we can rememberover the past 12 months the number of calls we have received from people interested in either buying a vineyard or establishing a new one has tripled, Nick Watson, the head of viticulture at Strutt & Parker, a U.K.-based real estate advisory, wrote in a June report. The number of vineyards in the country have risen by 80% in the last six years to over 900, while the acres in production have seen a similar growth, the group found. Even though that dwarfs in comparison to some of the EU's wine capitals, Britain is carving out a space for itself in an industry long dominated by the historic hubs. View this interactive chart on Fortune.com Boom and bloom The impact of climate change on the wine industry has been gradual, yet significant. In France, for instance, erratic weather patterns have been reshaping the wine industry for a few years now, altering the quality of grapes yielded. And last month, data published by Copa-Cogeca, a European farming lobby, saw wine harvests drop 8.6% and 11.92% in Portugal and Italy, respectively. (Don't worry about wine shortages, though. There is a long-standing glut of European wine, known as the "wine lake". This year, the French government said it will set aside $200 million to destroy excess wine and offer the proceeds to producers amid collapsing prices and falling wine demand.) While climate change is nothing to celebrate, the slow decline in wine production in some regions has been Britains gain. Linda Johnson-Bell, a wine expert and the founder of consultancy The Wine and Climate Change Institute (TWACCI), told Fortune that Britains climate now resembles that of Bordeaux or Champagne in the 1970s and 1980s. Now, its just a potluck, every month brings a new disaster, she said in reference to those French regions today. Aside from climate conditions, the informal nature of regulation has helped the British wine industry expand. Europe follows specific regulations governing the production of wine, including the type of varieties that need to be used to make specific formulations and the use of certain caps on sparkling wine bottles. We don't have those constraints, Strutt & Parker's Watson told Fortune. Earlier this year, the U.K. said it would cut out the EU requirements on wine production, which it said were stifling innovation, and it could unlock 180 million in the local wine economy. Good planting land is relatively cheaper than it is to buy in the established wine growing regions of the old-world wine producers. So, it's quite attractive from the point of view of cost of entry and the potential to produce good quality wine, Watson said. The shift in temperature in the U.K. has been especially helpful for growing some varieties, and Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunierthe three grapes used to make traditional Champagneare currently Britain's most-planted, according to data from industry body WineGB. As the climate changes theres an opportunity right now for excellent sparkling wine, Martin Lukac, professor of ecosystem science at the University of Reading, told Fortune. He added that this has been lucrative for those in the winemaking business as margins are higher in the sparkling varieties over their still counterparts. Farmers are the same as any other business; they have to make a profit in order to sustain their livelihood, said Lukac, adding that the returns have piqued interest in recent years. WineGB expects wine production to double in the next 10 years from 12.2 million bottles in 2022 to 24.7 million in 2032. View this interactive chart on Fortune.com Even though the U.K. is a fairly new player in the mainstream wine industry, it doesnt compete in the market for cheap or low-quality varieties of the drink. TWACCI's Johnson-Bell told Fortune that winemakers in England, Scotland and Wales are not interested in supermarket wines. A lot of them are artisanal, they dont want to do mass-produced, commercial [wine], she said. Gusbourne is one examplethe estate keeps its yield targeted and low to ensure the quality of wine isnt compromised. We're very focused on the art of winemaking being really craft-led, Gusbourne Estates's White said, adding that Gusbourne valued quality over quantity. The estate exports about 30% of its wines to 35 international territories including Norway, Japan, and the U.S. Britain is now also home to several award-winning wines. Making every vine count Being in the wine business is no easy featit takes years of tending to vines before their grapes can be harvested and turned into the alcohol ready to consume. The work is also incredibly capital intensive, Watson points out, and involves expenses including the buying and managing thousands of acres of land to make sure it's suitable to grow vines. By the time you overlay all these criteria, actually the areas that are perfect for viticulture are quite a lot smaller than one would imagine, he said. So the cash flow is very demanding and therefore it's quite an expensive business to get into. The phenomenon catalyzing the British wine industry's growthclimate changeis fast evolving. Johnson-Bell, who works on projects internationally surrounding climate changes impact on wine production, sees a huge window of opportunity, but also one thats shifting given the rapid pace of climate change. The biggest problem here is that the window during which a grape variety is viable is getting shorter and shorter, she said, adding that shes been advising clients to grow grape varieties that can adapt to warmer weather. The real issue will be how to future-proof this industry. Despite these hurdles, British wine is in a better place than its ever been. Exports and foreign interest have been steadily growingas has recognition for the industry. The U.K. viticulture has become a much more professional, well capitalized, well invested business, Watson said. And as the weather conditions continue to provide fruitful wine yields, the industry looks poised to flourish. We are now very capable of producing excellent quantity of quality grapes. This story was originally featured on Fortune.com Charlotte Latvala I stared in amazement at the pile of towels in the laundry basket. Where did these come from? I asked myself. Then I remembered: We had two young adults in the house, which doubled the amount of people who usually live here. My daughter and her boyfriend were in town for a week, all the way from California. Yes, California, a state three time zones and a zillion miles away. She doesnt get home too often, so her visits are magical, splendid things. And also a bit of a jolt. The number of towels caught me off guard on some primal level, even though logically I understood it. As I understood that we went through more food that week. And that my early morning Me Time might not be mine alone. Dont get me wrong. I love it when my kids come home. But Ive also realized that now, more than two years after our youngest kid left for college, my husband and I have settled comfortably into Empty Nest Life. We have gotten used to rattling around by ourselves. We never have to wonder why there are no more ice cream bars in the freezer, or who left all the kitchen lights on, or where all the phone chargers went. Its just us, two more or less responsible adults who clean up after ourselves and set the thermostat where we want it. When youre an empty nester, items remain where you put them. The car stays full of gas. The bathroom sink on the third floor sparkles 24/7, because no one brushes their teeth in it anymore. You never have to think I wonder if my Greek yogurt will still be in the fridge when I get up tomorrow morning? because theres no reason it wouldnt be. At first, of course, it was different. I kept buying the mega container of hummus at Costco and tossing most of it. I was perpetually amazed to find the TV remote with the batteries still intact. The house seemed quiet, and empty, and honestly a little puzzling. But after a few years, we adjusted. We spread out. We found a new routine. So now, its a cold shock when these newly minted adults come home and resume their positions on the sofa. When they root around the fridge looking for creamer and are amazed when you dont have any. When they point out that the ketchup expired two months ago. When you look in the driveway and the car isnt there, and for a millisecond you think maybe someone stole it, then you remember they went for a Starbucks run (because you dont have creamer, or for that matter, coffee.) And you are disoriented and topsy-turvy for a week while your perfectly curated schedule is disrupted. But then they leave, and its quiet and predictable again. And youd give all the Greek yogurt in the world just to have them back for another day. Charlotte is a columnist for The Times. You can reach her at charlottelatvala@gmail.com. This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Charlotte Latvala: A joyful interruption to Empty Nest Life Patients in Al-Shifa hospital, pictured on Friday Staff inside Gaza's largest hospital have said patients and refugees are trapped in horrific conditions as heavy fighting rages in nearby streets. A surgeon at Al-Shifa in Gaza City told the BBC that the hospital had run out of water, food and electricity. Israel said it had clashed with Hamas nearby but not fired on the hospital. It said it would help to evacuate babies to "a safer hospital" on Sunday, after medics said two had died and 37 others were at risk. The BBC has been sent pictures of at least 20 newborn babies being kept in a surgical theatre at Al-Shifa, as doctors warn they may die because the neonatal intensive care unit has stopped working, due to the lack of electricity. Reports from inside the hospital paint a picture of horror and confusion, with regular fighting nearby, patients who have recently undergone operations unable to evacuate, and bodies piling up without any way to bury them. Thousands of people are thought to have sought refuge in Al-Shifa, which has been at the centre of fierce fighting for two days. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) repeatedly accuse Hamas of operating from tunnels underneath the hospital, which Hamas denies. Surgeon Marwan Abu Saada told the BBC that the sounds of shooting and bombardments echoed through Al-Shifa "every second". He said attempts to bury the dead had been thwarted by fighting around the complex. "We don't want to have any outbreaks due to these dead bodies," he said, adding that the morgue refrigerator was not working because the generator had run out of fuel. Physicians for Human Rights Israel, a doctors group, said two premature babies had died because there was no electricity. The group warned that there was "a real risk to the lives of 37 other premature infants". Baby evacuation Israel said there was no siege of Al-Shifa, and that the east side of the hospital was open for the safe passage of those who wanted to leave. Spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Israel would help those "in the paediatric department to get to a safer hospital" on Sunday. He said the decision was taken following a request from the hospital administration and Israel "will provide the assistance needed". Earlier, Colonel Moshe Tetro said there were clashes near Al-Shifa between Hamas and Israeli forces, but no shooting at the hospital itself. Pictures shared with the BBC show at least 20 infants in a surgical ward, wrapped in blankets and lined up in rows on adult hospital beds. Many of them appear to have tape on their faces, suggesting the need for oxygen administration. Doctors have warned for at least a fortnight that the number of available incubators was being reduced due to the power shortage amid the ongoing Israeli siege. Dr Abu Saada said the babies needed intensive care, life support equipment and artificial respiration. "I'm afraid if we leave these children in this unit in this condition we are allowing them to die they are premature babies", he said, in a voice note passed on to the BBC. Map showing the main hospitals in northern Gaza. Reports say Israeli forces are operating in the area and there have been explosions inside or near them. Israel has warned civilians still in northern Gaza to head south of the Wadi Gaza along the Salah al-Din Road. International charities have warned that patients in hospitals close to fighting in Gaza are at risk of dying because of a lack of medical treatment. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) deputy medical coordinator told the BBC that if there was no ceasefire, "all the patients who are remaining in these hospitals will just die, and these hospitals will turn into graveyards". At the Al-Quds hospital, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said its teams were trapped inside alongside 500 patients and around 14,000 displaced people. Meanwhile one of Gaza's smaller hospitals, Al-Rantisi, was largely evacuated - with only a handful of patients and staff inside. The Gaza Strip is home to 2.2m people, but since the start of the war more than 1.5m people have been displaced, according to the UN's agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA). Hamas killed an estimated 1,200 people inside Israel on 7 October - many of them civilians - and took more than 200 others hostage. Israel's response inside Gaza has killed more than 11,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. It says that figure includes more than 4,500 children. In an interview with the BBC on Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron said Israel must stop killing Gaza's women and babies. Mr Macron called for a ceasefire and hoped other leaders - including the US and the UK - would join him. More on Israel-Gaza war Attempts to ease capital gains tax for large shareholders stalled By Lee Kyung-min The government is moving to lower the inheritance tax, as indicated by the countrys top financial policymaker, according to market watchers. However, attempts to ease capital gains tax requirements for large shareholders are failing, as public support wanes for the ruling party and the government ahead of the general election in April next year. Proponents of the inheritance tax code revision demand the maximum rate of 60 percent be lowered, since bequeathable assets are subject to double taxation. Some wealthy people say the ceiling for what the government has defined as large shareholders subject to the capital gains tax should be raised from the current 1 billion won ($757,288) to at least 5 billion won. They say the outdated figure fails to factor in the rising value in their securities over the past few years. However, others say the revisions for the haves are barely a priority for the vast majority of voters, most of whom are reeling from soaring prices of goods, living expenses and borrowing costs. The years-long revision push seemed to pick up steam last week after Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Choo Kyung-ho told a National Assembly special committee that It is time that the maximum rate for inheritance tax came under review. Korea has the highest inheritance tax rate among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member nations, 14 of which have no inheritance tax at all, he said during the meeting of the Special Committee on Budget and Accounts, Nov. 10. The OECD inheritance tax averages 26 percent. Korea, he said, needs to lower the current figure but it is hard to broach the issue due to its political and social divisiveness. Inheritance tax has double taxation concerns, but the issue faces a backlash mostly due to the publics resistance to the transfer of wealth. The government will discuss the issue if the National Assembly puts forth revision bills," he said. The series of comments added to expectations that the government would raise the ceiling for the large shareholders, but the finance minister said early Sunday that discussions have not been proceeding. The easing of the requirements needs consultation with the main opposition party. Nothing has been determined yet, he said during a radio interview with KBS, a local broadcaster. Rival parties, he added, agreed last year to postpone taxation on stock gains for two years, and to maintain the 1 billion won ceiling through next year. We are collecting the opinions of the market participants," he said. "Any changes in the status quo will need bipartisan discussion. A pro-Palestine protester interrupted president Joe Biden at an event in Illinois, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza on Friday 9 November. 10,000 Palestinians have been killed in one month, half of them children, she shouted, causing Mr Biden to halt his speech. Demonstrators were also gathered outside the event in Belvidere chanting ceasefire now. This week Mr Biden asked Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to introduce daily four-hour pauses in its military campaign against Hamas, to allow residents to flee south, which he agreed to do. French president Emmanuel Macron was the first western leader to call for a ceasefire, and said he hoped other leaders would follow. Letters in this article appear in the Sunday, Nov. 12 edition of the Las Cruces Sun-News. Advocating for Las Cruces' children I returned to my hometown of Sunland Park, New Mexico, after being away for 13 years and realized that many of the struggles I saw in my community are still present. Through my role in the Family Engagement Program with Save the Children Action Network (SCAN), I understand the importance of advocating for the children in our community to have the resources they need to thrive. SCAN serves as the political voice for kids, and we advocate for child safeguarding, child education, and child nutrition. From speaking to community members around the county, I learned there are a variety of barriers, including insufficient benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or having a case that is pending processing. SNAP provides financial assistance to eligible New Mexicans with low income and limited resources to purchase food products. The Farm Bill is federal legislation that provides guidance in programs related to agriculture and food; this bill covers about 85% of the nutrition programs and authorizes federal food programs like SNAP. It is important for our state as NM has one of the highest rates of the population receiving this sort of benefit. This Farm Bill needs to be reauthorized to ensure that essential anti-hunger programs continue without disruption. That is why our community needs to come together to urge Congress to work on establishing a new Farm Bill after the last one expired in September of this year. Please join forces with SCAN to advocate to protect these benefits with Congress!Pamela Munoz, Family Engagement Program, Save the Children Action Network This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Letters to the Editor: Advocating for Las Cruces' children Tetra Images - Getty Images Argoland, once part of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana, was long thought to be lost. But scientists recently discovered it splintered apart in Southeast Asia. The lost continent may have broken off from Australia 155 million years ago, but it wasnt a clean break. A deep ocean basin off western Australia was a key clue to discovering the lost land mass current home. In terms of breakups, the splitting of Australia and the lost continent of Argoland 155 million years ago was a big one. In fact, it was so dramatic that it has taken until now for researchers to locate Argoland, which was once part of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana. Even though so many other land masses with ties to Gondwana had proven easier to locate, this one had seemingly disappeared. To find it again, researchers from Utrecht University used geological information from a deep ocean basin off western Australiathe Argo Abyssal Plainto uncover clues about what could have happened to this 3,100-mile-long piece of continent after it broke from Australia and drifted off. It simply had to have gone somewhere. According to a study published in the journal Gondwana Research, the team believes theyve located Argoland in Southeast Asia. The lost continent seems to be completely fragmented, but still in existence. Its good news, too, as the team was running out of theories. Otherwise, the authors wrote in a statement, we would have been faced with a major scientific problem. Gondwana has the potential to be quite the area of scientific discovery. The ancient mega-continent, according to leading theories, was once large enough to contain South America, Africa, India, Antarctica, and Australia. As it splintered, the continents drifted, and other piecessuch as the recently fully mapped Zealandia, dubbed the worlds eighth continentbroke away in the process. While many land masses still hover well above the oceans surface, some fell below the waveswhether partially, as in the case of Zealandia, or fully, as in the case of Greater Adria. And the ones that plunged into the Earths mantle, such as Greater Adria, were folded into the mantle to form mountains. Argoland couldnt be found above or below the ocean. If continents can dive into the mantle and disappear entirely, without leaving a geological trace at the Earths surface, then we wouldnt have much of an idea of what the Earth could have looked like in the geological past, said Douwe van Hinsbergen, study co-author. It would be almost impossible to create reliable reconstructions of former supercontinents and the Earths geography in foregone eras. But van Hinsbergen and colleague Eldert Advokaat didnt give up the Argoland searchafter all, they knew it existed, thanks to the basin hidden deep below western Australia. The structure of the seafloor shows that this continent must have drifted off to the northwest, the researchers wrote, and must have ended up where the islands of Southeast Asia are located today. Still, with so many islands, Advokaat said that the team was having trouble fitting the puzzle together. The situation in Southeast Asia is very different from places like Africa and South America, where a continent broke neatly into two pieces, he said. Argoland splintered into many different shards. That obstructed our view of the continents journey. So, they retraced the steps of Argolandmillions of years of fissures and breaks, with oceans continually helping break the land apart. The team eventually realized that rediscovering Argoland was not going to be a neat piecing together of one giant land massbecause Argoland was probably never one land mass to begin with. Instead, it was likely originally an argopelago of microcontinental fragments separated by older oceanic basins. It would have more closely mirrored Greater Adria or Zealandia than a neatly formed Indiawhich it once bordered as part of Gondwana. And as Argoland started breaking off from Australia and drifting north, the break-up got even messier. The already scattered land seem to have shattered into thin splinters that now rest near the geological systems of the Himalayas and the Philippines. Argoland is hidden, the authors said, beneath the green jungles of large parts of Indonesia and Myanmar. It seems thats where a continent drifts to amidst messy breakups. You Might Also Like I get asked a few times a month how to become a writer. The answer isn't complicated: Sit down and write. Or, if you prefer, stand up. That's what Winston Churchill, Virginia Woolf, Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens and Ernest Hemingway did. Whatever your posture, maybe start the novel whose plot has been bounding through your head since 1994. Maybe devote 200 therapeutic words to describing your annoying neighbor. Maybe tell the story of how you wound up laughing in front of a funeral chapel the day after your husband of 61 years died and a police car spontaneously combusted. That's how Edie Blumer did it ... finally. Blumer will turn 99 in a few weeks. She lives at the Meer Apartments in West Bloomfield, one of six nondenominational senior residences operated by Jewish Senior Life. Edith Blumer, 98, is a resident at Norma Jean and Edward Meer Independent Living Apartments in West Bloomfield where she began taking a writing class and has a story featured in a new book, Dont Write Me Off! with 38 other residents. Blumer, pictured on Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023, says she had only written letters before taking the class and attributes her strong memory to being able to write great stories. She's one of 39 contributors to a new book called "Don't Write Me Off! Thirty-Nine Stories of Older Adulthood," available at amazon.com and a Tuesday evening fundraiser where the authors will happily sign copies of their work and show you pictures of their grandchildren. Breaking the tech barrier Beth Robinson, the instigator of the project, patterned it after a collaboration she'd been part of with her pandemic writing group. Among the differences was that they'd had lots of practice linking words together and they knew how to use computers. Only 4 of the 39 people whose faces appear on the cover of "Don't Write Me Off!" were remotely tech-savvy, said Robinson, whose multifaceted day job starts with managing the Jewish Senior Life volunteer program. I would run to the building next door to send myself documents from their phones, she said, having struck out on the more time-saving methods: Can you email it to me? Put it in Google Drive? Carrier pigeon? But the sprints were worth it, because the newly created creative writers knew how to do other valuable things, like deal with loss and tragedy and loneliness. Searching for perspective The flyer Robinson sent to 200 Jewish Senior Life residents only five months ago asked them to write about something that happened in the last 10 years. She was willing to concede that their glory days were glorious; what she wanted was to take a look at a demographic that's frequently invisible. "Taken all together, I figured it would make a mosaic of older adulthood," she said, and she was correct, even though she personally has the wisdom of only 59 years. "It's got everything from skydiving to a leg amputation." Edith Blumer, 98, left, is with Beth Robinson, 59, of West Bloomfield, at Norma Jean and Edward Meer Independent Living Apartments in West Bloomfield where Blumer is a resident and is taking a writing class facilitated by Friends of Jewish Senior Life. Robinson is the director of Friends of Jewish Senior Life and collected the stories of 39 residents, including Blumer, in a book called Dont Write Me Off! Blumer says she had only written letters before taking the class and attributes her great memory to being able to write great stories on Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023. Edith Birnholtz, 94, who was rescued from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945, miraculously recognized her brother in a Russian army uniform shortly afterward in Budapest, Hungary. She touched on old losses, but also new friends. Toni Curtis Fontana, 60, a former Christian missionary, wrote about embracing God and ignoring her own mortality: "I'm not in a race to see who will live the longest." Ruthe Levy, 72, said creativity is a goal, gratitude is a choice and the impediments of aging only make her more determined to be appreciative. Ann Torf, 95, keeps the hundred or so greeting cards from her last birthday in a paper sack near her favorite chair, and plucks some out every day for "a dose of happiness and joy and kindness. That's the best medicine there is." Dont Write Me Off! Is a collection of stories by 39 residents at the Norma Jean and Edward Meer Independent Living Apartments in West Bloomfield that was facilitated by Friends of Jewish Senior Life. Edith Blumer, 98, is one of the writers and says she had only written letters before taking a writing class at Meer and attributes her great memory to being able to write great stories on Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023. It wasn't a quiet death As for Blumer, her husband Nathan, 91, decided to laze a bit longer in bed on a November Sunday 14 years ago. She read the newspaper, ate breakfast, went to rouse him and discovered that she had become a widow. A call to 911 brought forth five Oak Park police officers and two EMTs, piloting an ambulance they parked in the driveway. Not long after, a neighbor tapped on the door. Blumer assumed he was curious about the hubbub, but no, she wrote, I was mistaken. He was there to say that one of the patrol cars was on fire. The driver had parked atop a pile of leaves. The blaze sneered at the other officers fire extinguishers, shattered the vehicles glass, melted its tires and sent a thick black plume into the sky. By the time two fire trucks responded and doused the flames, a TV cameraman was on the grass in the middle of the street, shooting footage for that nights newscast. At some point in the tumult, a funeral director had arrived from a chapel in Southfield. Accompanied by her daughter-in law, Blumer visited him the next day. No disrespect to you, Mrs. Blumer, he told them, but when I came to your home yesterday and saw all those police cars and two fire engines, I thought, Oh, my G-d, she killed her husband. They were laughing when they left, and she laughed again committing the story to paper. Back to the beginning Blumer writes in cursive on long legal pads. For the book, or for the much-beloved writing class at Meer that volunteer Shari Cohen launched two years ago, she does an early draft in pencil and then switches to a fine-point Cross pen. Right now, Ive been writing about Clementine Churchill, Winston Churchills wife, she said. Its just a fun thing to do. Edith Blumer, 98, a resident at Norma Jean and Edward Meer Independent Living Apartments in West Bloomfield, does her writing in cursive, first in pencil, then with a fine-point pen. Blumer has determined, she said, that everybody has a story to tell, and everybodys story is different." Approaches are as different as postures and writing implements. Truman Capote wrote in bed or on a couch. "I am a completely horizonal author. I can't think unless I'm lying down," he said. But again: Just sit down, or stand up, or recline, and write. Make it a habit. Write a few paragraphs a day describing a scene or a conversation. Break the seal and let the words flow, or at least trickle. Poof. You're a writer. "And the more you write," Robinson said, "the better you get." Reading helps there, too. A police officer I met last spring in Melvindale, Jessica Winward, put it perfectly "To be a better writer, be a better reader." Pay attention to what moves you and what intrigues you and what bores you. Take notes if you're inclined, but even if you don't, you'll improve by osmosis. Getting paid for what you write, I should note, isn't always so easy. Then again, it isn't always the point. Sometimes, words are just straining at your fingertips, and you need to let them out. You could do that at 90, and you'd be a writer just the same. But why wait? The authors of "Don't Write Me Off!" will sign books as part of JSL's annual Lives Well Lived event at 7 p.m. Tuesday at The J, formerly known as the Jewish Community Center in West Bloomfield. Other highlights will include a tribute to the late filmmaker Sue Marx and a screening of the Oscar-winning short documentary she directed with Pam Conn, "Young at Heart." For information, email brobinson@jslmi.org. Reach Neal Rubin at NARubin@freepress.com. To subscribe to the Free Press and enjoy an endless supply of words for one low price, click here. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 'Don't Write Me Off!' book has stories from metro Detroit seniors Editor's Note: For the latest news on the Israel-Hamas conflict, please see our live updates file here. The area around Al Shifa Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip was slammed by heavy shelling Sunday as the fate of the thousands of patients, staff and civilians seeking shelter there grew more desperate by the hour. Dr. Marwan Abusada, head of surgery at al-Shifa Hospital, said the bombardment has continued unabated for days. He dismissed the Israeli military claims that it had provided an escape route. No one can get out. No one can come in," Abusada told Al Jazeera. "People who tried to evacuate the hospital, they were shot at in the streets." Palestinian officials say thousands of civilians have taken refuge among patients and staff, but Israeli officials accuse Hamas of concealing a command post in the hospital compound. Hamas denies it. The regional directors of three U.N. aid agencies issued a statement urging immediate international action to end the attacks on Gaza hospitals. "The world cannot stand silent while hospitals, which should be safe havens, are transformed into scenes of death, devastation and despair," the statement said. The Israeli military said troops would assist in moving dozens of babies out of the besieged hospital. But an Israeli government spokesman said international aid agencies have "actively put Palestinian civilians lives at risk" by failing to support Israel's orders to evacuate northern Gaza weeks ago. Eylon Levy said the agencies now are "endangering everyone by requiring a hasty evacuation in the middle of ground urban warfare." The Gaza Health Ministry has put the Palestinian death toll since the war began at more than 11,000. Israel says more than 1,200 Israelis have lost their lives, the vast majority on Oct. 7, the day militants swept into Israeli villages in a murderous rampage that stunned the world. US pushes for release: U.S. 'actively engaged' in negotiations with Israel, Qatar, Hamas to free hostages, top Biden aide says Adva Rozenblit mourns over the coffin of her son staff Sgt. Gilad Rozenblit , 21, in Kibbutz Ginegar, northern Israel, on Nov. 12, 2023. He was killed during a ground operation in the Gaza Strip. Developments: Thousands of marchers joined lawmakers in Paris to rally Sunday against a surge in anti-Semitism in France since the conflict in the Gaza began. The European Union called for immediate pauses in hostilities, establishment of humanitarian corridors and immediate release of hostages. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees is currently sheltering 618,000 people in 97 facilities, three of which were recently opened in Rafah, according to a Sunday update from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The agency said the number of displaced people in south Gaza continues to increase and over 1.5 million people in Gaza are estimated to be displaced. Clashes between Lebanons Hezbollah group and Israeli military intensified along the Lebanon-Israel border on Sunday. According to Israel's military and rescue services, seven Israeli troops and 10 other people were injured by rocket blasts and shrapnel in an attack by Hezbollah. Newborn among dead: Medical devices lose power at Gaza's largest hospital Gaza hospitals in dire conditions: Al-Shifa hospital 'not functioning as a hospital anymore' United Nations regional directors and World Health Organization said in a statement that more than half of Gazas hospitals are closed. After losing communication with Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza's largest hospital, the WHO said Sunday that it was able to restore communications with staff at the hospital. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the situation "dire and perilous." "It's been 3 days without electricity, without water, and with very poor internet which has severely impacted our ability to provide essential care," Ghebreyesus said on X, formerly Twitter. "Regrettably, the hospital is not functioning as a hospital anymore." Ghebreyesus added that patient fatalities have increased significantly. The area around Al-Shifa Hospital has been under "constant gunfire and bombings," according to Ghebreyesus. With inadequate supplies, fuel, and electricity, incubators at the hospital have been idle and the Gaza Health Ministry said about 36 babies are at risk of dying. The hospitals last generator ran out of fuel Saturday, causing the deaths of three premature babies and four other patients, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Israel's military said it coordinated with hospital officials and placed 300 liters of fuel near Shifa overnight for an emergency generator. Sadly, they havent taken the fuel yet, spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said. He added that if this fuel doesnt work, they will seek other solutions for the babies. But Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson, Ashraf al-Qidra, told Al Jazeera that someone contacted the director and said they have 200 liters of fuel. These 200 liters give less than an hour to run the generator. ... This is a mockery towards the patients and children. The Gaza Health Ministry said there are 1,500 patients at Al-Shifa, along with 1,500 medical personnel and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter. Is deal to free Hamas hostages close? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that a hostage deal with Hamas could be near but declined to discuss details to avoid derailing the delicate negotiations. I think the less I say about it, the more Ill increase the chances that it materializes he told NBC News Meet the Press. Netanyahu credited Israel's military pressure for getting Hamas to discuss the release. Thats the one thing that might create a deal," he said. "We will talk about it when its there. Well announce it if its achievable." The hostage talks were drawing extensive and sometimes contradictory buzz. A Biden administration official confirmed a possible deal involving the release of about 80 women and children in exchange for the release of Palestinian women and teenagers held by Israel, NBC News reported. The official, which NBC did not name, acknowledged there is no certainty that any deal will come to fruition. But Reuters reported that Hamas decided Sunday to suspend hostage negotiations because of Israel's assault on Al Shifa Hospital, a Palestinian official briefed on the hostage talks told the news service. Chris Christie: Ceasefire wouldn't 'make any sense' for Israel Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie, visiting Israeli communities shattered by the militant attacks last month, said he supported Israel's rejection of a ceasefire in Gaza. The Israelis can't be asked to stand down in the face of a violent threat against their people from Hamas, he said. The U.S. must stand "shoulder to shoulder" with its ally, he said. To still be able to walk into one of these homes and smell the death, still, a month later, is something that I think the American people need to know," Christie said while touring the ruins of Kibbutz Kfar Aza. Christie told the Times of Israel that Israelis must fight until they are safe to "come back and "live here safely and securely. Until that comes, I dont think calls for a ceasefire make any sense." Netanyahu rejects US plan for postwar Gaza Netanyahu has firmly rejected the Biden administration's vision for postwar Gaza, saying the Palestinian Authority that now administers the West Bank will not assume governance over the war-battered enclave. Israel will retain overall security control and retain the right to attack any "terrorists who may pop up again," Netanyahu said Saturday. Netanyahu, who credited the Israeli attack on Gaza for pushing Hamas closer to a deal to free hostages, vowed not to "cave" to global pressure to cede control of Gaza to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. There will ... not be a civil authority that educates its children to hate Israel, to kill Israelis, to eliminate the State of Israel," Netanyahu said. There cannot be an authority whose leader still has not condemned the terrible massacre 30 days later." Hezbollah leader calls for global protests against Israel, US Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah called to increase global demonstrations against Israel over the war in Gaza but again declined to fully engage his militant group in support of Hamas. Nasrallah said only the U.S. and Britain are fully supportive of Israel in the war, noting that Western leaders who initially condemned Hamas over the Oct. 7 attack were now urging a cease-fire and called for international pressure to be directed at the U.S. Nasrallah, in a translation by the Times of Israel, said Hamas supporters must be willing to extend the war to weaken Israel, saying the Israeli economy had suffered tens of billions of dollars of losses in spite of the $14 billion of military aid provided by the U.S. War makes choosing a US college more difficult The strife on U.S. college campuses prompted by the war in Gaza has many Jewish and Muslim families drawing up a new set of criteria for which schools they hope their kids will attend next year. Over the next few months, exactly how college leaders navigate the protests and hate speech could have a notable impact on which campuses parents and students ultimately choose. For Jewish students in particular, the mayhem has the potential to accelerate a trend over decades of declining Jewish enrollment at the countrys most selective schools, where much of the controversy related to the war has been centered. Theres a reckoning going on with Jewish families and inside many of these institutions, said Naomi Steinberg, a private college counselor in Florida who works mostly with Jewish students and parents. Read more here. Zachary Schermele Choosing a college is hard. The Israel-Hamas war is making it harder Contributing: The Associated Press This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Israel Hamas war live updates: Thousands trapped in Gaza hospital Drivers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and Cowboys fans are told to prepare for traffic as an exit on Interstate 30 near AT&T Stadium will be closed Sunday, according to Star-Telegram media partner, WFAA-TV. The City of Arlington announced Friday that the westbound AT&T Way and Baird Farm Road exit on I-30 near the stadium will be closed, according to WFAA. Drivers are advised to seek alternate routes if possible. Closures are due to a $233 million I-30 and State Highway 360 Interchange Project in Arlington, according to WFAA. The exit will be closed from Nov. 4 through Nov. 21, the city said. City officials said Cowboy fans headed to the Sunday game against the New York Giants should use Ballpark Way or Collins Street as alternate routes. Sundays game is set to start at 3:25 p.m. Virginia Beach firefighter Max Gonano was coming off a 24-hour shift on Fathers Day when he was told hed have to work another 12 hours to cover for a staffing shortfall. By the time he got off work at 8 p.m., hed missed the day with his 2-year-old and 4-year-old children and spent 36 hours straight at work. Long shifts with little rest and last-minute schedule changes have become a routine occurrence for Gonano and his colleagues, who have worked six times the amount of mandatory overtime hours this year that they did before the pandemic. From firehouses and police stations to hospitals and manufacturing plants, workers say they are being required to work increasing overtime hours to make up for post-pandemic worker shortages leaving them sleep-deprived, scrambling to cover child care duties, and missing birthdays, holidays and vacations. While the extra hours can provide a financial boost, some workers say the trade-off is no longer worth it as they see no end in sight to a problem that has now lasted for several years. Courtesy of Max Gonano Its getting to that fever pitch moment, said Gonano, who is president of the Virginia Beach Professional Fire and EMS union. Its just rampant. People are tired of working all the overtime. Its definitely causing morale issues. Staffing shortages have plagued the economy since the start of the pandemic, with many leaving the workforce to retire or take over child care needs, while others have switched professions, often to careers with better work-life balance or higher salaries. As a result, the number of open jobs has outstripped the number of workers willing or able to fill them. In August, employers reported 9.6 million job openings, an increase of 700,000 from July. That has led to higher demands being placed on the workers who remained, particularly in health care, public safety and transportation professions where there are often minimum staffing requirements. They cant get to kids birthday parties; they are missing flights for vacations. It puts a strain on their relationships with their significant others as well as impacting the mental well-being of their children," said Nick Mutter, a Boston EMT and secretary of the Boston Police Patrolmens Association union. Why is Mommy or why is Daddy not home to take me out trick-or-treating or something they promised me? Try to explain mandatory overtime to an 8-year-old. This Halloween, eight Boston EMTs were mandated to work the overnight shift at the last minute, some of whom were parents who had planned to take their kids trick-or-treating that evening, said Mutter. So far this year, EMTs in the city have worked triple the number of mandatory overtime hours that they worked in 2016, said Mutter. Employers say requiring overtime is a necessity especially in health and safety positions with minimum staffing requirements because they are unable to find enough workers to staff the shifts. I dont like having to rely on that, James Hooley, chief of Emergency Medical Services in Boston, said of mandatory overtime, which he said the department can only use to meet mandated minimum staffing levels. It is something that we certainly watch, we certainly have been concerned about. The Virginia Beach Fire Department said in a statement that fire departments nationwide have been seeing a lack of interest in the profession for various reasons, including health risks, the long hours required, and a relatively low salary compared to other jobs. But several labor unions say employers should be doing more to fill the persistent vacancies, like raising wages or improving working conditions to attract new workers, rather than placing the burden on their existing employees. In some cases, labor groups say employers are using overtime as a cost-saving measure. What we have seen is an aggressive normalization of understaffing, said Michelle Mahon, assistant director of nursing practice for the union National Nurses United. The hospital industry has been capitalizing on this narrative that theres a nursing shortage, when in fact there is not. There are a million nurses who are licensed to practice in this country who are not working in nursing largely because of understaffing and poor working conditions. Its not uncommon for Nicholas Whitehead, an operating room nurse at Ascension Via Christi Hospital in Wichita, Kansas, to have to work up to 16 hours straight, he said. After working his regular shift from 2:30 p.m. to 11 p.m., Whitehead said he is often called back to work a second shift that can last until 6:30 a.m. the following day to cover staffing shortages in the operating room. On some days, he gets just eight hours off work before heading in for his next scheduled shift. Having that minimal or sometimes no rest, youre not able to perform to the level that would be safe or prudent for the patients, said Whitehead. Companies would like to portray nurses as heroes, which is a nice sentiment, but were also human beings who require rest. And because we get tired, that leads to mistakes, and in this field, those mistakes can lead to harm. Whitehead said his hospital has been using on-call duty, which was intended for emergencies or unplanned events, to make up for chronic staffing shortages in the operating room because the hospital hasnt hired enough nurses. He said he is typically called back into work twice a month because not enough nurses were scheduled for the overnight shift to cover procedures that took longer than expected or got delayed during the day. Ascension said in a statement that its operating room staff work an on-call rotation, which is considered part of the job responsibilities, and that on-call duty is intended to respond to after-hours emergent and other unscheduled surgical cases. Nursing staff across its hospital system work 10% to 15% of the time they are scheduled to be on call, the statement said. While nurses were required to work extreme hours during the pandemic, Whitehead and others say their workload hasnt gone down despite the drop-off in Covid patients. Instead, they say they are having to maintain a pandemic-era pace to make up for the thousands of nurses who have left the profession over the past several years. New York recently strengthened a law that prohibits employers from making nurses work past their regularly scheduled hours outside of an emergency or an ongoing surgical procedure. Still, Jen Burke, a nurse at Vassar Brothers Medical Center in Poughkeepsie, New York, said it has become routine for her and her colleagues working in the cardiac catheterization lab to have their 12-hour shifts extended because of a lack of staff or beds in other parts of the hospital. On one recent shift, she said nurses had to work from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. waiting for beds to open up so they could transfer their patients after their procedures were finished, leaving them just eight hours off work before they had to return for their next shift. Theres just no recognition by management that this is a problem, Burke said. Youre already working 12 hours and its just not OK to tell somebody that they actually have to stay for another two or three hours. The hospital said in a statement that it tries to minimize how often nurses have to extend their shifts and is committed to adhering to all applicable labor laws and regulations, including those pertaining to overtime. Vassar Brothers Medical Centers utmost priority is always patient safety and the delivery of high-quality care, which sometimes entails nurses extending their shifts when waiting for available beds or necessary staffing to ensure safe patient transfers, said John Nelson, a hospital spokesperson. These instances are carefully managed to minimize their frequency and duration to prevent undue strain on our dedicated healthcare professionals. Workers say they feel like they are caught in a perpetual cycle where the required overtime is causing people to leave their jobs, exacerbating the staffing shortages and requiring even more overtime. In Boston, the police department has been around 500 officers short for the last six years, and recruiting has gotten even more difficult following the 2020 protest over the killing of George Floyd and the criticism around policing that followed, said Larry Calderone, a Boston police officer and president of the Boston Patrolmens Association union. While Boston recently added a new class of 130 officers to its ranks, it has lost 68 so far this year, Calderone said. He said the short staffing is leading to a workload and levels of stress on officers that are indescribable. Everybody worked nonstop through Covid, but it continued for 80 or 90 hours a week, every week, said Calderone. It continues for our police officers that are watching the homelessness situation, the mental health crisis thats going on, the physical and the sexual assaults that are happening, and theyre forced to be there every day. The stress on these officers that are seeing this type of behavior, that are witnessing the emotional toll that is happening to society, I dont know how to describe it. Workers across industries say they see no end in sight. The total number of freight railway workers has shrunk by 30% since 2016 as railway companies have moved toward a new staffing model that has left fewer workers to manage the same number of tracks and an increasing amount of cargo, said Clark Ballew, a spokesperson for the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division, which represents the workers who repair and inspect railway tracks. The Association of American Railroads, which represents freight railway operators, said its members have been hiring in recent years to address staffing needs and recognize employees desire for better scheduling. The group said the number of overtime hours worked by BMWE union members increased to 4.7 hours per week in 2022, compared to 4 hours in 2016. Cory Ludwig, who works as a machine operator repairing railway tracks in Iowa, said hes been working Saturdays and some Sundays along with 10- to 12-hour shifts since September. Recently, he worked 13 days without a day off. With the mandatory Saturday work, hes had to rely on friends and relatives to take care of his 5-year-old and 9-year-old kids. He said the overtime demands have increased as hes seen the number of workers assigned to his crew go down. You fall asleep and then you wake up in the morning and you go right back to work. It can really break a person down, it gets really wearing on a person after a while, Ludwig said. With less people trying to do the same amount of work, working long hours, working multiple weeks in a row without one day off, you get irritated and you get burnt out. Recently, one of the unions members had been working 22 hours straight when he fell asleep on the job, an error that could have put his colleagues lives at risk but also could have been avoided had the employee had a rest period, said Ballew. Another member was recently disciplined for refusing to work through his scheduled days off on short notice so he could care for a family member having health issues, Ballew said. The stress it puts on marriages and parenting and the things you leave behind for your spouse to deal with or the things you miss, that kind of stress builds up, said Ballew. In the rail industry, we have noticed recently a spate of suicides, and I cant help but think there is a correlation there. WASHINGTON U.S.-China relations, marred in the past year by a series of inflection points, have reached one of the tensest periods perhaps since 1972, when then-President Richard Nixons historic visit to China paved the way for diplomatic relations. A Chinese spy balloon. Close encounters in both the air and the Taiwan Strait. Diplomatic spats over the theft of technology, hacking and trade. A drought of military-to-military talks. Even the lapse of a panda agreement. All point to worsening relations that will hang over next weeks meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinas President Xi Jinping, their first in-person meeting in about a year, and the first time since 2017 that Xi has stepped foot on American soil. But experts and U.S. officials caution not to expect markedly improved relations post-meeting. We should probably keep a pretty low bar in terms of tangible outcomes and deliverables, said Colleen Cottle, deputy director of the Global China Hub at the Atlantic Council. This is a meeting thats probably much more about symbolism and showing a commitment among both leaders to maintain high-level communications and keep communications flowing over the course of the next year. Senior U.S. administration officials detailed a handful of agenda items during a briefing with reporters. The leaders are expected to discuss hot-button issues including military communications, human rights and the South China Sea, an official said. Were not talking about a long list of outcomes or deliverables, a senior administration official told reporters. The goals here really are about managing the competition, preventing the downside risk of conflict and ensuring channels of communication are open. Neither the U.S. nor China appears to be gearing up for a significantly positive swing in relations, experts said. I think the administration here is quite clear and sober about the likely outcomes of the meeting, said Jude Blanchette, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies during the think tanks press briefing. Theyve been working hard to lower expectations. I think youre seeing something similar on the Chinese side. Despite low expectations, the meeting could pave the way for future discussions about solutions to issues that impact both countries, said Thomas Fingar, a China expert at Stanford University and former chairman of the National Intelligence Council. He cautioned against the idea that a summits purpose is to solve some critical, otherwise insoluble problem. It doesnt work that way very often. He explained that in Chinas political system, lower-level officials often need explicit clearance from the top. For there really to be movement for lower levels of the system to engage in specifics, it needs a refreshed endorsement from Xi, Fingar said. The meeting itself, though anticipated, was not formally announced by the White House and Chinese Foreign Ministry until Friday. Even in recent days, Chinese officials were hesitant to confirm that Xi would attend the meeting with Biden. In a press briefing on Wednesday, Chinas foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said it wont be plain sailing to San Francisco, nor can we leave it to autopilot to get us there. Similarly, when White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked during a briefing on Wednesday whether the meeting was locked in, she said, I just dont have anything confirmed. When announcing the meeting, Jean-Pierre said in a statement that the leaders would discuss issues in the U.S.-PRC bilateral relationship, the continued importance of maintaining open lines of communication, and a range of regional and global issues, using the abbreviation for the Peoples Republic of China. I dont think theres any indication that things are going to improve between the two sides, said Oriana Skylar Mastro, a China expert at the American Enterprise Institute. She added that neither country is willing to make any significant concessions or policy changes that would be necessary to put the relationship on a different track. There are potential areas to move the needle on U.S.-China relations, experts say. NBC News also previously reported that the U.S. is hoping to announce a commitment from China to cut down on fentanyl coming into the U.S., as well as improve military communications. Military-to-military communications are intended to cut down on the risk of unintended conflict. It comes at a time when a historic number of U.S. warplanes have been intercepted by China. There were more than 180 incidents of Chinese aircraft intercepting U.S. planes since the fall of 2021, said Ely Ratner, the assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, in a Defense Department release. Ratner said that is higher than the number of incidents that took place the decade before that. An interception has been deadly in the past. In 2001, a U.S. military plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet over the South China Sea, killing the Chinese pilot. The Chinese government held the American crew for over a week. Weve raised the importance of (military-to-military) channels in nearly every conversation weve had with the Chinese, a senior administration official said in the press briefing. This is absolutely critical. And when were talking about managing risks, about avoiding conflict, this is exactly the sort of communication we need to be having both at senior levels of our two militaries, but also operator to operator. The Biden-Xi meeting comes just weeks after China announced that Li Shangfu would no longer serve as defense minister. Li has been sanctioned by the U.S., and experts say his removal could open the door to better relations on military communication. A defense minister who has not been sanctioned by the U.S. could make it easier to resume military-to-military talks, said David Sacks, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. The Chinese position during Lis tenure had been, Why would he talk if hes under U.S. sanctions? Remove the sanctions, and then we can have a dialogue, Sacks said. And so now, presumably his successor will not be under those sanctions, and therefore you dont have that impediment towards resuming mil-mil dialogue. Biden and Xis meeting also comes in the lead-up to Taiwans 2024 presidential election in January, followed by the U.S. election. Taiwan is a self-ruling democracy that China claims as its own. U.S. policy maintains that Washington does not support Taiwans independence, though there is a policy of strategic ambiguity over how the U.S. would respond if China were to invade the island. Experts say that during the meeting Biden may warn Xi against interfering in Taiwans election, also to give whoever the winner of the election is an opportunity to put forward a proposal for cross-strait dialogue, Sacks said. When a senior administration official was asked during the briefing about how the Taiwanese election may come up in the Biden-Xi meeting, the officials emphasized U.S. opposition to any potential Chinese interference. Weve been clear publicly and privately that interference in the Taiwan election is something were extremely concerned about, a senior administration official said. And of course, well plan on delivering that message again. A World War Two heroine who grew up in County Fermanagh has been commemorated with an Ulster History Circle blue plaque. Monica de Wichfeld was a leading member of the Danish resistance against Nazi occupation. She was arrested and sentenced to death and died in a German concentration camp in 1945 aged 50. The plaque was unveiled at Kinawley and Holy Trinity Parish Church in Derrylin, close to her childhood home. Her family was of Ulster-Scots heritage, and she was the great-aunt of Lord Dunleath of Ballywalter, County Down. "To see this plaque here now as a memory to her, as we don't have anywhere to go for the family to grieve or to remember, to have these plaques is just very, very special indeed," Lord Dunleath said. Born Monica Massy-Beresford in London in 1894, she lived at St Hubert's, Geaglum on the shores of Upper Lough Erne. She married a Danish diplomat, Jorgen de Wichfeld, and they travelled around Europe. The plaque was unveiled at a church in Derrylin, close to Monica de Wichfeld's childhood home She socialised with high society, including Noel Coward, and developed a line of beauty products with Coco Chanel. However the outbreak of World War Two transformed her glamorous lifestyle. She moved to her husband's estate in occupied Denmark where, without his knowledge, she became an active member of the resistance. Her heroic deeds included helping to save the lives of Royal Air Force (RAF) airmen shot down over Denmark, assisting in their safe return to Britain. She also hid refugees and members of the Jewish community who were being sought by the Gestapo. In I944 she was betrayed, arrested and sentenced to death. It is reported that on hearing the death sentence, she brought out her powder and lipstick and asked: "Will that be all gentlemen?" Following an appeal from the Danish Royal family, her sentence was commuted to life in prison but her health deteriorated in captivity. She contracted tuberculosis and she died of pneumonia on 27 February 1945 in Waldheim Prison Concentration Camp in Germany. Her body was never found. Monica de Wichfeld's name was already on the Roll of Honour in the Derrylin church Lady Dunleath, whose own father was a Danish resistance leader, unveiled the blue plaque at a Remembrance Day service in Derrylin. Alongside her niece, Lady Dunleath performed a traditional children's song which Danish resistance fighters sang. "It means fight for everything you hold dear, die if you must and with this principle neither life nor death will be so hard," she said. Maud Hamill from the Ulster History Circle said she only became aware of Monica de Wichfeld's "amazing" life through the Ulster-Scots Agency which funded the blue plaque. It is the 270th blue plaque to be unveiled by the society which aims to tell the stories of people from the nine counties of Ulster who would otherwise be forgotten. A retired lawyer allegedly shot and killed two men who were part of a protest blocking a highway in Panama. While he has not been officially named by police, the suspect has been widely reported to be Kenneth Darlington, 77, a retired American lawyer and university professor who lives in Panama. Police said on X (formerly Twitter) that a man has been arrested at the scene, where he was charged with aggravated homicide and illegal possession of a firearm. Mr Darlington, who was born in Panama but has US citizenship, was caught up in a traffic jam on Tuesday on a highway 55 miles west of Panama City, caused by protesters campaigning against the recent deal the Panama government made to restart a copper mine. The protest attracted a group of photographers and TV reporters to the site of the traffic block, where they had lined the middle of the highway with tyres, flags, tree branches and stones to stop the cars. Despite the cameras, horrific video footage showed Mr Darlington, who was allegedly caught in the traffic, walking up to the protesters and open firing, leaving two men dead. According to the Panama TV network TVN, who reported they were able to access the court hearing on the shooting incident for a few minutes, the suspect uttered something along the lines of this ends here before leaving his vehicle and storming up the highway towards the protesters. The widely circulated video footage shows Mr Darlington arguing with a group of men from the protest. He allegedly asked who the leaders of the campaigners were, to which the men replied that there were none. I dont want to talk to women. I want to talk to men, he responded, according to TVN. While he was still confronting the protesters, he took out a handgun from his pocket and kept it in his hand as he started to tear away the blockades on the road, the outlet said. One of the protesters could be heard saying: Why dont you shoot? while others shouted, Are you going to kill someone? According to the outlet, Mr Darlington replied: Do you want to be the first? After arguing with the group, the suspect then reportedly opened fire, hitting one man in a black t-shirt carrying a flag, who immediately fell to the ground. Again, Mr Darlington allegedly opened fire, according to video footage captured at the scene, which hit another man, also in a black t-shirt. The suspect was arrested by police (EPA-EFE) The victim could be seen holding his shoulder in immense pain and staggering to the side of the road, where he collapsed, according to reports. The men shot were identified as two teachers, Abdiel Diaz, who died at the scene, and Ivan Rodriguez, 62, who was taken to the Juan Vega Mendez clinic but was pronounced dead on arrival, according to local outlets Agence France-Presse and Newsroom Panama. TVN reported that Mr Darlington proceeded to move blocks out of the way with his gun still placed firmly in his hand, then returned to his car. When he approached his vehicle, another person in a car asked him, Are you aware of what has happened? to which he replied, Yes, I killed one and shot another. He then got back into his car, turned to a woman, reported to be his girlfriend, and said, Lets go. The woman allegedly replied, We are not leaving, before calling up the National Police Agents, according to TVN. The police later stopped the car, seized Mr Darlingtons handgun, then handcuffed the suspect and took him into their police vehicle. TVN said the suspect appeared in a two-hour court hearing the next day. The effects of the protests, which started over three weeks ago, have had a ripple effect on the whole of Panama. Construction worker unions and teacher unions have banded together to protest restarting a copper mine, that was agreed to by the Panama government and a Canadian firm on 20 October, which will be dug in the jungle west of Panama City. The protests have also rolled into a wider discontent with the Panamanian government, Reuters said. The roadblocks set up by protesters have caused up to $80m in daily losses to businesses, according to Panamas association of company executives and schools were forced to close for over a week, reported Reuters. Thousands of medical appointments have also been reported to have been missed since the protests began. Officials have urged the protesters to stand down, reiterating that the mine is expected to generate $375m annually in revenue. South Korea, the United States and Japan agreed Sunday to launch a real-time missile warning data sharing system next month to better detect and assess North Korea's ballistic missile launches, Seoul's defense ministry said. The defense chiefs of the three nations reached the agreement during their meeting on the occasion of U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin's visit to Seoul for annual bilateral security talks with his South Korean counterpart, Shin Won-sik, slated for Monday. Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara joined the trilateral session via a video link. "The ministers of the three countries evaluated that preparations for the real-time sharing mechanism, which is aimed at enhancing each country's capabilities of detecting and assessing North Korea's missiles, are currently in the final stage. They have agreed to officially activate the mechanism in December," the ministry said in a release. The three officials also agreed to outline plans for trilateral military drills by the end of this year to conduct joint training "more systematically and efficiently" beginning in January. "They also agreed to continuously expand trilateral training into various areas in the future," it said. The latest agreement comes as the U.S. and its two Asian allies have been striving to strengthen trilateral security cooperation as long-frayed relations between Seoul and Tokyo have significantly warmed up. Last month, the three nations jointly conducted their first aerial drills and a maritime interdiction exercise near the Korean Peninsula, the first of such in seven years. During the meeting, the ministers condemned Pyongyang's latest missile and nuclear activities, and pledged to closely cooperate for their shared goal of North Korea's "complete denuclearization" in line with U.N. Security Council resolutions, it said. North Korea conducted two test-firings of Hwasong-18 solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles earlier this year and is believed to be preparing to launch its first military spy satellite following failed attempts in May and August. (Yonhap) Illustration: Joanna Andreasson "I'm all for conservation," Frank Ribelin, a landowner outside Austin, Texas, told U.S. News & World Report two decades after passage of the Endangered Species Act, "but I'd like to club the little bastards." He meant the golden-cheeked warbler, a sparrow-sized songbird that leaves the state only to winter in Central America. As a family member said, land like theirs "used to be sold by the square foot, but that all crumbled the day the warbler was listed." Once an endangered species was found there, the land's value plummeted. Thirty years later, the warbler's status remains unchanged: It is still listed as endangered. The bird's fate exemplifies several things about the act, which has become one of the most controversial laws on the books since being passed 50 years ago in December 1973. For one thing, an endangered species listing holds the power to make a conservationist want to bludgeon a dainty and rare bird to death. For another, the warbler's lack of progress highlights the Endangered Species Act's dismal record of achieving its ultimate goal: conserving species to the point that protections under the law "are no longer necessary." It's true, as supporters of the act are quick to point out, that 99 percent of species listed under the statute have avoided going extinct over its half-century. Yet less than 3 percent of listed species have ever successfully recovered and come off the list. So while most endangered species have avoided plunging over a cliff, almost none have been able to back a safe distance away from the edge. That's largely because, as the Ribelin family's experience suggests, the Endangered Species Act is nearly all stick and no carrot. The law takes a regulation-first approach that all too often makes an endangered species a liability to avoid, rather than an asset to conserve. The presence of a listed species can bring prohibitions on how property owners can use their land or even forbid state biologists from relocating animals to a proper habitat. Even the mere existence of habitat for a listed species can lower land values by entangling properties with federal designations. Punitive policies turn would-be partners in recovery into enemies of rare species. It's why a popular colloquial stance toward endangered species has long been called "the three S's": shoot, shovel, and shut up. It's unfortunate, because farmers, ranchers, and other private citizens provide the majority of habitat for many listed species, and an estimated two-thirds of all listed species have at least some habitat on private land. Unless there's a change in the law's approach toward the people who can provide so much important habitat for at-risk species, the prospects for rare species don't seem likely to improve. Irreconcilable Conflict "As the one person in the Congress, the only one, that voted for the Endangered Species Act," the late Rep. Don Young (RAlaska) said at a hearing a few years ago, "please beat me with a whip." Young took office the year the Endangered Species Act became law and became the longest-serving Republican in congressional history before dying in 2022. When the act passed, he has said, congressional members were told it would save "leopards," not wildlife like "mussels and snails and turtles." Virtually everyone envisioned the law protecting bald eagles and manatees, not halting infrastructure builds or slowing economic development in the name of slimy invertebrates or obscure fish. "Essentially no skepticism was expressed about either the law's conservation goals or its regulatory strategies," University of California, Berkeley law professor Holly Doremus has written. "There was no organized interest group opposition. No one voted against the Senate bill." Lawmakers scarcely contemplated that the act would ever interfere with federal projects or restrict uses of private property. Since environmental citizen lawsuits were a new phenomenon in the early '70s, the citizen suit provision included in the act drew little attention. "It's easy to get everybody to sign on with protecting whales and grizzly bears," Doremus recently told the Associated Press. "But people didn't anticipate that things they wouldn't notice, or wouldn't think beautiful, would need protection in ways that would block some economic activity." It didn't take long for people to figure that out. In August 1973, a few months before the act was passed, a University of Tennessee biologist discovered a novel type of three-inch minnow in the waters of the Little Tennessee River. By then, Congress had already sunk tens of millions of dollars into the massive federal Tellico Dam project on that same waterway. The newly discovered snail darter was listed as endangered two years later, and the Endangered Species Act had its first major conflict. The biology professor and a law student filed suit on behalf of the fish, a legal lever that also proved fortuitous for locals who fiercely objected to a project that would flood their communities. A federal court ruling stopped construction of the facility. The Senate Appropriations Committee was not impressed. Its members wrote that they had not "viewed the Endangered Species Act as preventing the completion and use" of such projects, adding that "funds should be appropriated to allow these projects to be completed and their benefits realized in the public interest," the act notwithstanding. The case ended up before the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices sided with the snail darter, memorably ruling that through the Endangered Species Act, Congress had prioritized conserving rare species "whatever the cost." In the wake of the decision, even as The New York Times praised the act's aims, it declared the law "far too inflexible," pointing out that the "potential for irreconcilable conflict remains in the law's absolutism." It took another act of Congress to complete the dam's construction. Legislators also created a so-called God squad that could exempt future government projects from being similarly derailed. But the law had plenty of conflict left to create. Megafauna or Minnows? The idea that the act fundamentally protects "charismatic megafauna"popular, symbolic, large animalsholds sway even today. While nine in 10 Americans say they support the Endangered Species Act, people severely underestimate how many species are protected under it. More than 1,600 domestic species are listed, yet Americans typically estimate the number is more like 100. Congress directed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect two categories of species under the act. Species that are "endangered" are already at risk of extinction, while "threatened" species are deemed likely to become endangered in the "foreseeable future." The law made it illegal to "take" endangered speciesthat is, to "harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture or collect" themor to degrade their habitats. The agency has effectively extended those prohibitions to most threatened species as well, largely erasing the distinction between the two listing categories. For listed species, the Fish and Wildlife Service can designate "critical habitat," or areas it identifies as essential to conserving the species, and the act regulates federal activities affecting those areas. (The National Marine Fisheries Service administers the law for marine species.) The upshot is that when people encounter endangered animals, or merely take an action that may alter their habitats, they can end up in "irreconcilable conflict" with the Endangered Species Act. Mundane activities such as plowing farmland, harvesting timber, or developing a vacant lot can make private citizens subject to five-figure fines or even imprisonment. These poor incentives are among the reasons that recovery progress has been slow. According to Fish and Wildlife Service projections, nearly 300 domestic species should have recovered by mid-2023. In reality, only 13 of those species did. (The agency had made no time-specific projections for 44 other species that recovered by then.) The red-cockaded woodpecker offers a classic example of how punitive incentives hinder conservation of rare species. The bird, listed as endangered for the entire life of the Endangered Species Act, prefers to inhabit mature longleaf pines in the American South. A seminal study in The Journal of Law and Economics examined more than 1,000 forest plots in North Carolina; it estimated that the discovery of a red-cockaded woodpecker colony could prevent a landowner from harvesting $200,000 worth of timber. It also found that the closer forest landowners were to the bird, the sooner they harvested their trees. Another study, this one in Economic Inquiry, found that forest owners who knew or thought they were in close proximity to the woodpecker were more likely to clear-cut their land, essentially ruining potential habitat "so that the existing values of their property could be protected from the Endangered Species Actrelated land use limitations." It would be hard to craft a policy that puts habitat-providing landowners more at odds with an imperiled species in need of support. The truth is that some of the most charismatic species, such as eagles, alligators, and grizzlies, have done pretty well since the act's passage. It's the obscure or downright homely ones that often have not fared as well. When wolves were reintroduced to the Yellowstone ecosystem in the 1990s, people bought posters featuring the carnivores to raise money for the effort. The funds helped compensate ranchers in the area when they lost livestock to the predators, an innovative way to help wildlife pay for itself. Rare mussels like the Carolina heelsplitter or Atlantic pigtoe, by contrast, do not generally feature on fundraising calendars. But it's the mollusks and minnows most Americans have never heard of, let alone realize are on the endangered species list, that most need the incentives for conservation to be right. Taking Liberties Endangered species regulations create warped incentives because they typically work against private landowners, state agencies, and conservation groups. The word take is a prime example. A term that essentially means "harm" has been interpreted so broadly that it applies even to activities meant to help listed species. The Nigiri Project, for instance, is a Northern California initiative that encourages farmers to allow juvenile endangered salmon to use their flooded rice fields during the winter. The habitat mimics insect-rich flood plains and nurtures the growing salmon before they migrate to the ocean, boosting their survival rates. As a scientist from the conservation group California Trout has noted, the project's biggest challenge was convincing federal and state agencies to let it move the salmon to the temporary habitat, an activity considered to be a form of take. Then there's the saga of the threatened Utah prairie dog. Several years ago, the rodents' furious digging destroyed construction sites, compromised airport runways, and ruined children's playgrounds. So the state of Utah and private partners bought conservation lands with suitable habitat for the prairie dogs, and biologists relocated thousands of the rodents to them. Their population boomed, a clear conservation win. Then a court re-instated federal take prohibitions. When policies make it hard even to undertake projects that help endangered species, they're bound to frustrate land-owners who simply want to get on with the routine activities of, say, running a farm. It explains why timber owners decide to preemptively cut forestland rather than grow older, larger trees that would garner higher prices: The fear of a woodpecker's presence and its associated federal regulations outweighs the potential for greater profits. The Endangered Species Act has not just made the presence of listed species a liability. It has turned lines on a map designating habitat areas into the opposite of instant curb appeal. Critical Condition "Our land is not suitable for the frog," Edward Poitevent said a few years ago while looking over his family's timberland in southeastern Louisiana. "We know that. The government and Fish and Wildlife Service have said that you don't have the elements for it." Poitevent then described the steps it would take for his land to support the dusky gopher frog, an endangered species that once inhabited the area but had not been documented in the state for more than half a century. "To make it suitable, you'd have to rip up every tree on 1,544 acres, replant all of it with the right tree, make sure the ponds are still there, and make sure you burn it every year." (Some pine forests need routine fires to rejuvenate and thrive.) The government designated Poitevent's property a "critical habitat" because it contained several rare ponds of the type the species requires to breed. Yet in recent decades, the tract had been farmed as a dense commercial timber plantation, a far cry from the open-canopied longleaf pine landscape that the frog needs. "Their job is to find a habitat," Poitevent said. "The consequences are not their problem." By the federal government's own estimate, those consequences included losing out on a maximum of $34 million if the designation prevented the family from developing the land, which is near an interstate in a fast-growing part of the state. A lawsuit, Supreme Court ruling, and subsequent settlement ultimately removed the land from the designation. For listed species, the Fish and Wildlife Service may designate as critical habitat the geographic areas it deems essential to conserving them. If a designation encircles private land, it immediately lowers the market value due to stigma. Prospective buyers worry about and account for the regulatory risks. The agency and some environmentalists have argued the stigma is irrational, but that doesn't make it any less real. Several researchers have tried to quantify the effect. A 2020 study led by economist Maximilian Auffhammer analyzed 13,000 real estate transactions within or near critical habitat for two listed species in California. It found that a designation of critical habitat for the red-legged frog cut land values by about half, and designations for the bay checkerspot butterfly slashed values by an estimated 78 percent. A 2006 working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research examined the critical habitat designation for a pygmy owl in Arizona. The authors found that land proposed for designation was developed approximately one year faster than comparable tracts outside of the designation, presumably to avoid being officially declared as habitat. The rub of the designation approach is that it can penalize landowners even as it offers no clear conservation benefits to at-risk species. The ponds that supposedly remained on Poitevent's family land were never likely to help the dusky gopher frog, because the surrounding land wasn't suitable for the amphibian. In fact, designating private land may have net costs for conservation as well as for property owners. Gray Skipper's family has stewarded timber in Alabama for more than a century, enrolling tens of thousands of forested acres in a state wildlife management lease since the 1950s. The lease allowed the public to hunt deer and turkey and permitted state biologists to carry out wildlife research and surveys. That willingness to further conservation turned to regret when the Fish and Wildlife Service designated about 30,000 acres of the family's land as critical habitat for the black pine snake, a reptile Skipper has never seen outside of a Bass Pro Shops store in Mississippi. After decades of collaborating in state conservation efforts, the family withdrew their land from the lease. "No good deed goes unpunished," says Skipper, who is suing the Fish and Wildlife Service over the designation. "Infringing property rights is no way to encourage conservation," adds Charles Yates, an attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation who is representing Skipper. "For more than half a century, the Skippers have responsibly managed their land. Now the service is penalizing them for it." A law that pits people who could provide habitat for rare frogs or snakes against those very species is entirely counterproductive. That approach certainly helps explain why less than 3 percent of species have ever recovered and come off the list. Fights over the potential fallout from delistings account for much of the rest. Gnashing Teeth In the early 1800s, Lewis and Clark fascinated Americans with tales of a "verry large and a turrible looking animal, which we found verry hard to kill." The grizzly bear became easier to kill over subsequent decades, and state and federal bounties helped fuel efforts to get rid of it. The grizzly population in the Yellowstone region bottomed out at 136 bears in 1975, the same year that all lower 48 populations of the species were listed as threatened. Since then, it has largely rebounded. The Yellowstone grizzly now numbers an estimated 1,063, more than double its recovery target of 500. Yet efforts to delist the population in 2007 and then 2017 both failed due to litigation from environmental groups. "It's recovered under any metric we look at," Tom France of the National Wildlife Federation said after the last attempt to de-list the population. "We should consider it a great success." But WildEarth Guardians sued to challenge the delisting. Now, even as Yellowstone National Park touts that grizzlies "have made a remarkable recovery," the bears there remain listed and, technically, unrecovered. When species protected by the Endangered Species Act are accompanied by hefty regulatory hammers, decisions over whether to list (or delist) wildlife become all-or-nothing battles. Environmentalists often latch on to the powerful law to stop things they dislike, from hunting to harvesting to mining, so a delisting means one less lever to halt what they consider to be damaging activities. But the people who suffer higher costs of living with endangered species want to see recovery efforts rewarded with de-listings. "Who bears the cost of the recovery of these species?" Stefanie Smallhouse asked at a 2018 hearing on potential reforms to the act, noting that it's "a handful of ranchers" who lose out from living near endangered Mexican gray wolves, as she does. Smallhouse, president of the Arizona Farm Bureau and a fifth-generation rancher, estimated that her family's land hosted at least 20 listed species and was subject to seven critical habitat designations. "All of the people who want to see those wolves live in the city," she continued, "and don't have to live with the wolves themselves." A Colorado rancher echoed the sentiment in 2019, when activists called for reintroducing endangered gray wolves to his state, telling The Colorado Independent that a "bunch of city dudes" were trying to "cram it down our throats." Any listed species can bring red tape, restrictions on how land can be used, and limitations on how state agencies can resolve conflictsfor instance, by removing a troublesome predator from areas with lots of cattle. In the case of large carnivores like grizzlies and wolves, rebounding populations have led to more conflicts with humans and livestock. But when species remain listed even after surpassing scientific recovery objectives, states and landowners have fewer options and less flexibility to address the conflicts. There's no carrot of regulatory relief at the end of the path to recovery. Poach or Protect? Three decades after being listed, the golden-cheeked warbler remains endangered largely because the incentives to recover it, let alone delist it, aren't right. Sam Hamilton was the top U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official in Texas when the bird was listed, and later served as director of the agency. "The incentives are wrong here," he told U.S. News & World Report around the same time Ribelin was joking about clubbing the songbirds. "If I have a rare metal on my property, its value goes up. But if a rare bird occupies the land, its value disappears. We've got to turn it around to make the landowner want to have the bird on his property." South of the border, in northern Mexico, a group of ranchers has found a way to coexist with endangered jaguars. The nonprofit Northern Jaguar Project rewards ranchers who support recovery efforts: For every photo of a jaguar taken by remote trail cameras, ranchers receive a payment. As Hamilton dreamed, the approach transforms a protected species that would usually be a liability or even poaching target into an asset. "At first, the attraction was the money," rancher Diego Ezrre told a local radio station a few years ago. "But most of the ranchers who are in the program, our perspective has changed. We realize that the jaguars aren't such a threat." U.S. endangered species policy, on the other hand, remains as likely to hamstring as to encourage conservation. In Arizona, jaguars worry ranchers even though the species barely exists there. The big cat used to roam from Louisiana to California, but, like many large predators, it was exterminated over time. Jaguars are now largely confined to the territory stretching from Mexico south to the tropics, with only rare sightings north of the border. Yet the Fish and Wildlife Service designated critical habitat in Arizona and New Mexico for the species in 2014. After the designation, some University of Arizona researchers interviewed local ranchers about it. "The ranchers were less concerned about the presence of jaguars," they wrote, "but were more concerned about possible limiting effects of the Endangered Species Act, distrust of government entities, and litigious environmental groups." The prospects for reforming the Endangered Species Actand improving its record at actually recovering imperiled speciesseem slim. There have been no substantive changes to the legislation since the late 1980s. The U.S. Constitution has been amended more recently. But without changes to the act, the next 50 years under it will likely look like the first. Most endangered species will cling to existence, but they will fail to recover and will linger on the list. Landowners who want to harbor rare species will remain as elusive as recovered species. The post The Endangered Species Act at 50 appeared first on Reason.com. The DNC approved a new 2024 calendar where South Carolinas primary will on Feb. 3 will be followed three days later by Nevada COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) Vice President Kamala Harris flew to South Carolina on Friday to file paperwork putting President Joe Biden on the 2024 presidential ballot of the state, which will lead off the Democratic presidential primary thanks to a White House-led schedule overhaul meant to better empower Black voters. Harris was joined in the state capital by South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, one of the leading Black voices in Congress. Then-candidate Bidens 2020 presidential campaign was floundering after big losses in Iowa and New Hampshire, but rebounded with a decisive South Carolina win that was solidified by Clyburns late endorsement. That 2020 boost gave Biden enough momentum to romp through Super Tuesday, clinch his partys primary and later the White House. Since announcing his reelection bid in April, Biden has made far more frequent official visits to Pennsylvania a key battleground in the general election than states that will decide Democrats 2024 primary. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to supporters after filing President Joe Bidens paperwork to appear on South Carolinas 2024 Democratic presidential primary, on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023, in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Meg Kinnard) But Harris visit follows the vice president spending recent months traveling the country, including a college tour that has taken her to leading Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Shes looking to build excitement among young people and voters of color at a time when polls show that even a majority of Democrats, believe Biden is too old to handle the rigors of a second term. It was South Carolina that created the path to the White House for Joe Biden and me, Harris said. Im here to say thank you, she said. Lets do it again. Iowas 2020 caucus was marred by technical glitches, and Biden asked last year that the Democratic National Party replace it in the leadoff spot with South Carolina. He said Black and other minority voters need to play a larger, earlier role in determining the Democratic presidential nominee. The DNC approved a new 2024 calendar where South Carolinas primary will on Feb. 3 will be followed three days later by Nevada. The schedule also moves Michigan into the group of early states voting before Super Tuesday on March 5, when most of the rest of the country holds primaries. DNC chair Jaime Harrison joined Clyburn at the airport for Harris arrival in Columbia. The Biden-Harris coalition will be out in full force in South Carolina and will be how we defeat MAGA extremism once again in 2024, Biden reelection campaign spokesman Michael Tyler said in a statement, referring to former President Donald Trump, who has built a commanding early lead in next years Republican presidential primary, and his Make American Great Again slogan. Harris spoke in a crowded room at state party headquarters, flanked by cheering supporters holding Biden-Harris and South Carolina Democratic Party signs. Asked to predict how Biden would do in Februarys primary, Harris responded, Were going to win. Referring to this weeks elections, when Democrats won in key races across the country, Harris said, We are here with the wind at our back, because, did anyone notice what happened on Tuesday? Vice President Kamala Harris, left, smiles as South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Christale Spain accepts President Joe Bidens paperwork to appear on South Carolinas 2024 Democratic presidential primary, on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023, in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Meg Kinnard) She turned the Biden campaign papers over to Christale Spain, chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party who said, I am proud of the role that the Palmetto State played in ensuring that they would go on to win the White House, and I am completely honored to accept their filing today Clyburn held up a brochure of the Biden administrations accomplishments and highlighted efforts to reduce student loan debt around the country efforts that have been limited by court challenges. He told the crowd of the vice president, For her to come back here today and be a part of this says a whole lot. This is really, really an incredible demonstration of what South Carolina is all about, Clyburn said. Later, he and Harris stopped by the Vietnam War Memorial in downtown Columbia to help mark Veterans Day. Republicans are leading off their 2024 primary with the Iowa caucus on Jan. 15, and the states Democrats will caucus then, too, but not release the presidential results immediately to comply with party rules. New Hampshire, however, has rejected the new calendar and is planning to hold its primary in January, arguing that it has held the nations first primary for more than a century, a rule that Iowa was able to circumvent only because it had a caucus. Biden wont appear on the New Hampshire ballot and isnt planning to campaign there, though some of the states top Democrats are organizing a write-in campaign backing his reelection bid. Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, the only elected Democrat to challenge Biden in 2024, has already filed to appear on both the New Hampshire and South Carolina ballots. TheGrio is FREE on your TV via Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku and Android TV. Also, please download theGrio mobile apps today! The post Harris files paperwork putting Biden on South Carolinas ballot to kick off 2024 Democratic primary appeared first on TheGrio. A critically ill baby at the centre of a legal battle over her care has had her life-support treatment withdrawn, a campaign group supporting her parents has said. Dean Gregory and Claire Staniforth, who are both in their thirties and from Ilkeston, Derbyshire, want specialists to keep treating their eight-month-old daughter Indi Gregory who has been fighting mitochondrial disease, a genetic condition that saps energy. She has been receiving treatment at Nottinghams Queens Medical Centre since her birth on 24 February. But the couple, who are being supported by campaign organisation Christian Concern, have lost fights in the High Court and Court of Appeal in London to stop the withdrawal of her treatment after doctors said it would be in her best interests. A spokesperson for Christian Concern said on Sunday that specialists had withdrawn life support and Indi has been moved from hospital to a hospice. The spokesperson said Indi had stopped breathing last night but later recovered. Indi Gregorys family disagree with medics that her treatment should be withdrawn (Family handout/PA) In a statement issued through the group, Indis father said she was fighting hard. On Saturday, Pope Francis released a statement from the Vatican that said Indi was in his thoughts. Pope Francis embraces the family of little Indi Gregory, her father and mother, prays for them and for her, and turns his thoughts to all the children around the world in these same hours who are living in pain or risking their lives because of disease and war, he said. High Court judge Mr Justice Peel had ruled that limiting treatment would be lawful, and doing so would be in Indis best interests. Her parents failed to persuade Court of Appeal judges and judges at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, to overturn that treatment decision. The decision comes after Indi was granted Italian citizenship to move to Rome for treatment but Mr Justice Peel ruled a move to Italy would not be in Indis best interests and Court of Appeal judges backed that decision. Dean Gregory and Claire Staniforth with their daughter Indi Gregory (PA) Specialists said she was dying and the treatment she had been receiving caused pain and was futile but her parents disagreed. Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, said: It is very concerning that a child can be held against the parents wishes when they have alternative treatment available. Transferring Indi to Italy involves no cost to the taxpayer or the NHS. What is it at the heart of this case that is preventing Queens Medical Centre from allowing Indi to be transferred to Rome? Multiple Durham businesses, including at least five Starbucks locations, were vandalized Saturday amid accusations the companies are supporting Israel in its war in Gaza against Hamas. At approximately 4:55 a.m., 911 dispatchers advised that there were multiple vandalism calls throughout the city that appeared to be related, according to a Durham Police Department statement. Officers determined that seven businesses were vandalized. Durham police did not identify all seven businesses, but Starbucks confirmed that at least five of its locations were vandalized. Kid Killers, Kids Killers and Dont Support Kid Killers were spray-painted all over the exterior of those Starbucks locations. Pro-Palestinian groups have accused Starbucks of supporting Israel and called for a boycott of the coffee chain. We are aware of a series of incidents occurring overnight on Nov. 10 at our Durham Chapel Hill & Tower Blvd, N Roxboro St & Fairfield St. and Guess Rd and Horton Rd. locations, a Starbucks spokesperson said in a statement Saturday. The experience and well-being of our partners and customers is core to our operation, and we continue to work with local police to support their investigation. These locations are currently operating, working with modified services, as Starbucks local teams work towards remediation and repairs. The Starbucks spokesperson also said that the Renaissance Center and Highway 55/Allendown Drive locations experienced incidents. The Allendown Drive location was closed on Saturday to prioritize partner safety. The Durham Police Department said it will conduct property checks at the businesses in an attempt to deter further acts of crime. Anyone with information is asked to contact CrimeStoppers at (919) 683-1200. The Durham Police Department recently came under fire for its handling of a Nov. 2 march when protesters calling for a cease-fire in the Gaza war blocked two lanes of the Durham Freeway for two hours, stalling rush hour traffic. Calls for boycott of Starbucks Starbucks is among the companies that have found themselves in the middle of the Middle East conflict. On Oct. 9, two days after Hamas militants rampaged across communities in southern Israel, Starbucks Workers United posted Solidarity with Palestine! on X, formerly known as Twitter, the Associated Press reported. Starbucks Workers United said the post went up without the authorization of union leaders. Starbucks responded with a statement criticizing the unions post and saying it did not condone the violence occurring in Gaza. Since then, calls to boycott Starbucks have flooded social media feeds. Some are upset with Starbucks for not supporting its workers and for not denouncing Israel, while others who support Israel are disappointed the post was made in the first place, according to Newsweek. Now Starbucks and the union are suing each other over the social media post. On Thursday, pro-Palestinian demonstrators stormed the lobby of The New York Times building in midtown Manhattan. At a Starbucks coffee location on the first floor of the building, a person spray-painted blood on your hands, boycott, free Gaza and free Palestine, The New York Daily News reported. Dr. Mohammed Ghneim has not left his hospital in Gaza City in four weeks. He cant remember the last time he slept or ate, and his blue scrubs are stained in the blood of patients whove died in his arms. His voice cracks under the weight of the horrors hes seen: fetuses pulled from the wombs of dying mothers, children with crushed lungs struggling to breathe, and his own colleagues doctors, nurses and EMTs transported to the hospital morgue in body bags. We are doing our best this is why we havent left here for days but the situation is very horrible. Theres no way to describe it in any language or with any words, Ghneim told CNN in a voice message on November 7, as sounds of chaos and panic unfolded around him. Many times I want to go to the side and cry, but unfortunately there is no time. Ghneim is an emergency room doctor at Dar Al-Shifa, also known as Al-Shifa Hospital or Shifa, and is Arabic for house of healing. But at this hospital the largest medical complex in Gaza theres far too much death. A Palestinian child receives treatment at Nasser Medical Center after a strike in Khan Younis, Gaza, on November 7. - Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images Shifa is running dangerously low on clean water, medicine, supplies and fuel. Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians, injured or displaced by Israels war against Hamas, continue to pack its wards, seeking shelter from the seemingly endless barrage of airstrikes. Israeli forces on Saturday surrounded Shifa in all directions, threatening the health and safety of those inside, according to Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, director-general of the Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza. An Israeli airstrike destroyed the hospitals generator, Al-Bursh said, cutting electricity to the building, including life-saving equipment used by 39 infants in neonatal care. Three infants have already died, he added. The Israeli military denied that the hospital is under siege, telling CNN it was engaged in ongoing intense fighting against Hamas in the vicinity of Shifa, but declined to comment further on its forces proximity to the complex because military activity was still underway. Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals as cover a charge doctors at Shifa and the militant group deny. We are trained to deal with mass casualties, but not like this, Ghneim, 28, said. We have no anesthesia to treat patients with severe pain, patients with shrapnel in their head or abdomen, people whose arms or legs have been amputated. Palestinians inspect the damage to an ambulance struck by the Israeli military at the entrance of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. - Anas al-Shareef/Reuters Alarming scenes from inside Shifa, and other hospitals across Gaza, have sparked international calls for a ceasefire and more aid to be allowed to enter the territory, home to some 2 million Palestinians, currently closed off to the world by Israel and Egypt. Nonprofit medical groups across the United States are mobilizing to raise funds and ship medicine and supplies to failing hospitals before its too late. But with the situation in Gaza spiraling and few diplomatic or humanitarian solutions in sight, many worry the delay will result in more deaths. I want to say to the world, this is a humanitarian crisis, this is a genocide, Ghneim pleaded from his crowded emergency room. Please stop this. Desperate to send help More than 7,000 miles away, in Houston, Mosab Nasser is making travel plans to visit communities where he can spread awareness about the situation in Gaza and raise funds for struggling hospitals. The proud Texan, born and raised in Gaza, says its all hes been doing since October 7, when Israel declared war following a brazen attack by Hamas that killed around 1,200 people and took more than 230 others hostage, according to Israeli authorities. Israel responded by imposing a siege and launching devastating airstrikes across Gaza, which Hamas governs. Israel says its goal is to destroy the militant group and return the hostages, but it is the Palestinian people living there who are bearing the brunt of the attacks. The airstrikes have killed at least 11,025 Palestinians, including 4,506 children, and wounded more than 27,000 others so far, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, which draws its figures from sources in Hamas-run Gaza. Nasser says three of his relatives all young children, including one who was only 8 months old were killed when Israeli airstrikes caused their home to collapse, but he has no time to grieve. As CEO of the nonprofit medical group FAJR Scientific, he is obligated to find a way to deliver aid and other resources to hospitals in need. FAJR Scientifics goal is to raise enough money to fill five 40-foot containers with medical supplies, surgical tools and sterile instruments, and ship them to Gaza, Nasser says. Doctors in Gaza dont get to go home. Its traumatic for them, Nasser said. They are exhausted. Their bodies are physically at the hospital, but their minds are with their families trying to check on them. A Palestinian nurse at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza, mourns after receiving news that his brother was killed on November 9. - Abed Zagout/Anadolu/Getty Images In some cases, Nasser says, medical workers have discovered their own loved ones among the injured or dead, compounding the fears and anxieties they already experience. Its not the first time FAJR Scientific has supported Gazas medical community. The group has led several surgical missions to Gaza and trained nearly 100 Palestinian medical workers on the ground, Nasser says. In August, they provided more than $4 million in medical supplies to hospitals across the territory. The Palestinian American Medical Association (PAMA), another US-based nonprofit, is also leading efforts to assist health care workers in Gaza. The group, which has more than 6,000 members and supporters and leads medical missions to the region, has raised over $2 million so far, PAMA president Dr. Mustafa Musleh told CNN. They will use the money to purchase critical medicine and supplies, including anesthetics, antibiotics and other medications to fill containers that will be sent to Gaza. The group also has more than 1,000 health-care professionals on standby to enter the enclave as soon as Israel and Egypt allow entry to humanitarian workers, Musleh says. Were desperate to send help, the Palestinian American doctor from Dayton, Ohio, said. Its a catastrophic situation. Theres 10 times more patients than what the hospitals can take care of and theyre all coming with serious life-threatening injuries that need immediate attention, and a lot of people die because of that. Patients and internally displaced people are pictured at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on November 10. - Khader Al Zanoun/AFP/Getty Images FAJR Scientific and PAMA are among several US medical groups coordinating efforts. But so far, few have been able to reach hospitals under siege. Since the start of the war, only about 900 trucks carrying international aid but not fuel have been allowed to enter Gaza through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society. Thats only a trickle compared to the approximately 500 trucks that entered each day before the war. PRCS warns that Gaza will need substantially more aid to meet growing humanitarian needs. Waiting for a miracle Ahmad Muhanna, director of Al Awda Hospital in Jabalya, says the real nightmare is treating maimed children, whose faces he sees even when he closes his eyes. Im being torn apart inside witnessing our children being martyred and receiving the carnage of their body parts, when they have no fault in this conflict, Muhanna told CNN on October 29 from his hospital in northern Gaza. Doctors are performing surgeries, including amputations, on children without clean water, let alone anesthesia or antibiotics, he says. Many are being treated on the floor due to a lack of empty hospital beds. Israeli airstrikes at or near medical facilities have further complicated the matter, Muhanna, 49, adds. Medical workers are in constant danger. As of November 10, 198 health care workers have been killed and 130 others wounded in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah. It also reports 21 hospitals and 51 primary health care centers are out of service. Al-Shifa Hospital is lit up in Gaza City amid fuel shortages on October 24. - Mohammed Saber/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock Israel says its only targeting Hamas, whom it accuses of using hospitals to hide and launch attacks. The Palestinian Ministry of Health and Hamas deny such claims. Israel says civilian deaths and the destruction of vital facilities, including hospitals, are collateral damage it tries to mitigate, and that Palestinians should flee to safer areas. But doctors in Gaza say its impossible to evacuate patients without causing more death, and that nowhere is truly safe. The Israeli air force is terrorizing us day and night above our tiny spot in the world, said Muhanna, who believes high casualties prove Israel is not trying to mitigate civilian deaths. They dont have boundaries, no red lines they cannot cross. They have crossed every line by targeting women, elders, children, men, the disabled and every possible living thing. The chaos unfolding at Shifa, Al Awda and other hospitals across Gaza has left doctors exasperated. But with no ceasefire on the horizon and the borders tightly controlled, preventing vital supplies from reaching hospitals, more people will continue to die. We feel helpless towards our patients, said Ghneim, the emergency room doctor at Shifa. We want to provide patients with appropriate health care, but in many cases theres nothing we can do. Meanwhile, Nasser and Musleh scramble to fundraise, buy supplies and coordinate shipping to the Rafah border crossing, where truckers anxiously await permission to enter Gaza and unload their life-saving cargo. The whole world turned their back on the people of Gaza, Nasser said. And right now were only waiting for a miracle. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com We need to hear both sides I am writing to discuss an issue of dangerous anti-Semitism on the Central Coast. KCBX radio station in San Luis Obispo airs a show called Democracy Now! with Host Amy Goodman. Democracy Now! is a biased show that only presents one anti-Semitic viewpoint. On a daily basis the guests and host bombard the Central Coast with accusations of Israel perpetrating genocide against the Palestinian people. They consistently use the terms occupied Palestinian territory, settler colonialism, settler violence, etc. to describe Israels behavior toward Palestinians. The show provides no opposing Israeli viewpoint, and guests go unchallenged with harmful accusations and opinions. I have no problem with a viewpoint that opposes my own as long as there is a viewpoint to act as a counterweight so members of the public can make up their own minds as opposed to being bludgeoned with only one point of view. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is extremely complicated and nuanced, and all viewpoints must be heard and given equal bandwidth in order for the public to be well informed. Craig Owens, Morro Bay Praise for Stephen Lloyd-Moffett What an absolute privilege it was to be able to read Cal Poly professor Stephen Lloyd-Moffetts astute analysis of what we should be feeling about those truly innocent people suffering so much in the Israeli-Palestinian war, particularly in Gaza which is a whole lot of sadness and disgust. From the very first bombings caused by Hamas militants in Gaza I had been trying to understand the complexities of this war which, before now, wasnt even on my radar screen (nor, I imagine, very many others unless you are Jewish). I cant imagine there is, anywhere, such astute scholarship and it appeared right here in our local Tribune! The Tribune may only be a little local paper but its impact stretches far. And it was a privilege the editors allowed me to write the Active Over 50 column for about a year (until I ran out of subjects and didnt want to start repeating myself, haha). Keep up the good work(s). William Seavey, Cambria They were killing children Your article, SLO County residents feel shattered after Hamas attack, Israels invasion of Gazawas a good article. However, people in SLO have little to no knowledge of life over there. Ignorant people should stay the hell out of a fight they have nothing to do with. They were killing children, for Gods sake. Luann J. Reis, San Luis Obispo We dont need Diablo Canyon The editorial opinion by the Tribune Board published Oct. 29 includes a quote by PG&Es chief operating officer saying, were very confident in the integrity and safety of both units of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant. The owners and operators of the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan felt equally confident on March 10, 2011. They touted their plant as safe, reliable, and cheap. But as we all learned on March 11 of that year, the earthquake risks were greater than acknowledged and safety was not assured. There is no need for the people of the Central Coast to be subjected to the risks posed by additional years of operation of the Diablo reactors. California continues to add renewables and is projected by the California Energy Commission (CEC) to have at least 6,000 additional megawatts by 2026 three times the capacity of the Diablo plant. Furthermore, battery storage in the state has increased 757% since 2019, with more on the way. The governor and state Legislature should hold PG&E to its promise made in 2016 to close both reactors at the end of current licenses in 2024 and 2025. We dont need the energy from Diablo, and we certainly dont need more radioactive wastes. Jane Swanson, Spokesperson, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace Is it safe? Thank you to The Tribune Editorial Board for your Oct. 29, 2023, editorial chastising PG&E for failing to commit to timely testing of critical infrastructure at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant. You are right! If PG&E wants to stay open, they need to do more than preach safety, they need to prove safety by listening to the concerns raised by legislators and the public to not delay testing for embrittlement of Unit 1. We need to know the embrittlement has not become worse, a situation which could lead to potential cracking of the reactor vessel and the release of toxic radiation into our air. PG&E should not get the $1.4 billion subsidy from the State or the $1.1 billion from the federal government to keep the reactor running beyond its intended lifespan until they do the testing and prove its safe. Linda Parks, Los Osos County needs to provide answers The duck and defend posture of SLO County Administration in response to the June 2023 SLO County grand jury report, SAFE PARKING? OKLAHOMA is not OK! is woefully inadequate. Two local taxpayer-funded entities charged with overseeing the safe parking program failed to show evidence that they fulfilled their contractual obligations. Certain inferences can be made: the grant money was diverted, stolen, misspent or otherwise mishandled. And record-keeping by the contracted agencies is so poor, for whatever reason, that proper accounting is not forthcoming. The agencies have the opportunity and responsibility to set the record straight, as prompted by the grand jury, and so far have failed to do so. County administration has the opportunity to exercise more stringent oversight, but has not. These reveal systemic weaknesses and foretell more of the same without proper checks and balances. At the very least, we should demand refund of public monies when agencies fail to provide proper services and accountability. Reinvest the money more wisely. Ultimately, the goal of homeless services should be to go out of business, for the right reasons. Residents of SLO deserve better and the involved agencies, elected and appointed officials can start by heeding the grand jury recommendations. Joan Behrick, Morro Bay Give supervisors more power Citizens do not have the ability to administer their own lives within our community. Our supervisors do not have authority to veto unwanted state legislation. We are the little guys, confronting issues with big business through its middle guys standing in the way, just as Kevin Frazier says in his Tribune opinion article, If accountability goes, then so does legitimacy. (Nov. 2, 2023) Well, as we all know, government bureaucracy isolates the government bosses from accountability, too. To restore trust in government, cut out the middle guy and put the power in the community. This requires a measure be put on the ballot to give county supervisors authority to make local laws and stand up to state autocracy. We, the little, people need to stand up and vote for such a change. Restore trust by eliminating, not augmenting, regulations, rules and norms administered by the middle guys; decentralize government to allow control by the local community not by the one-size-fits-all power of the state. Rich Hendrickson, San Luis Obispo Donald Trump found himself in rare agreement with the mainstream media, pleading in a Friday night legal filing that his blockbuster federal trial for allegedly conspiring to overturn the 2020 election be shown live on TV. The prosecution wishes to continue this travesty in darkness, the former presidents lawyers wrote. President Trump calls for sunlight. Every person in America, and beyond, should have the opportunity to study this case firsthand and watch as, if there is a trial, President Trump exonerates himself of these baseless and politically motivated charges. Elsewhere in the filing, Mr Trumps team reiterated familiar conspiratorial allegations that the special counsel prosecution is part of a coordinated effort to undermine President Trumps candidacy that bears the hallmarks of an authoritarian regime. Following a lengthy special counsel investigation, federal officials charged the former president in August with knowing he lost the 2020 election, but conspiring on a multi-state effort to remain in power nonetheless, including by coordinating slates of false electors. He has pleaded not guilty. Last week, federal prosecutors said federal courtroom rules clearly foreclosed showing the election conspiracy trial on TV, writing that citizens have the right to attend a criminal trial not the right to broadcast it. Last month, a coalition of national news outlets urged US District Judge Tanya Chutkan to break with tradition and allow TV cameras into the trial, which is scheduled for 4 March. Media organisations have also called for former presidents trial to be broadcast on TV (AFP via Getty Images) It would be a great loss if future generations of Americans were forever deprived of being able to access and view the events of this trial even years after the verdict, which would immeasurably improve the ability of future journalists and historians to retell accurately and meaningfully analyze this unique chapter of American history, NBC News editorial president Rebecca Blumenstein argued in a legal brief. A policymaking body of the federal courts system said last month it would study the issue of broadcasting federal trials. Beginning during the pandemic, the Supreme Court allowed live audio versions of oral arguments for the first time. At the state level, where rules differ, the public has been able to watch Mr Trumps Georgia election interference trial. Photographers, meanwhile, have been allowed inside the courtroom for the former presidents civil fraud trial in New York. House Democratic Caucus says Scotts personal story is of resilience, second chances and historic firsts RICHMOND, Va. (AP) Virginias state House will soon have its first Black speaker in its more than 400-year history after the chambers incoming Democratic majority on Saturday chose Del. Don Scott to serve in the post. Scott was unanimously elected speaker-designee by the House Democratic Caucus, the group said in a news release. The full House of Delegates will vote to officially confirm him on the first day of the 2024 legislative session. Virginia voters sent a resounding message on Tuesday that they wanted a Commonwealth that moved forward and that is exactly what I intend to do as your next Speaker, Scott said in a statement. House Minority Leader, Del. Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, gestures during the start of a special session of the 2022 Virginia General Assembly to consider budget amendments, Friday June 17, 2022, in Richmond, Va. Virginias state House will soon have its first Black speaker in its more than 400-year history after the chambers incoming majority on Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023 chose Scott to serve in the post. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File) Democrats not only flipped control of the House of Delegates in Tuesdays legislative elections but also held their majority in the state Senate, dashing Gov. Glenn Youngkin and fellow Republicans hopes of securing a GOP trifecta. The outcome means at least two more years of divided government. While Democrats will need to work with Youngkin to secure his support for legislation, they will be able to move without him in some areas, like judicial elections and beginning the years-long process of initiating constitutional amendments. A U.S. Navy veteran and trial lawyer from Portsmouth with a quick wit, Scott has seen a meteoric rise in power among Virginia Democrats since he was first elected in 2019. In an interview ahead of the vote, Scott said his election as speaker would show the progress made in Virginia and Richmond the former capital of the Confederacy over their long history. I know I stand on the shoulders of my ancestors who built that Capitol, Scott said. I just wake up with so much gratitude to be in this position. I know there are so many people who are a lot smarter than me who are Black who never got this chance, he added. In the interview, Scott pledged that Democrats would spend the next two years of Youngkins term advancing progressive priorities to his desk, even though they might face the threat of a veto. He said his party would move to pass a budget that reflects the interests of Virginians over corporations, increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour and strengthen gun-control laws, including passing a ban on assault-style weapons. I think its the responsible thing to do. Weapons of war should not be on our streets en masse. Were not going to take anybodys guns, but were going to prevent a future sale of them, he said. As for Youngkins proposed 15-week abortion ban: Its dead, Scott said, adding that the clearest message from Tuesday night was that Virginia voters want abortion rights protected. The Democrats, were the party of freedom. I never thought that Republicans would become a nanny state, telling women to do with their bodies, he said. House of Delegates Del. Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, gestures as he delivers remarks during a special session of the Virginia General Assembly Wednesday Sept. 7, 2022, in Richmond, Va. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File) Scott, a Texas native who served as an officer in the Navy, openly discusses the fact that he served prison time for a felony drug conviction decades ago, something Republicans have occasionally used to criticize him. He went on to rise through the ranks at a workforce development company and then started his own law practice before joining a prominent personal injury firm, Breit Biniazan, where hes a partner. Speaker-designee Scotts personal story one of resilience, second chances, and historic firsts reflects that of many Virginians and people across the nation, the caucus said in its news release. Scott has been a top political adversary of the governor, once saying in pointed remarks on the floor that Youngkins crusade against the academic framework known as critical race theory made him question whether the governor, who is openly religious, was actually a man of faith. The remarks prompted the governor to take the unusual step of visiting Scotts office for a closed-door meeting that lasted about a half-hour. In the AP interview, Scott said he sees a path forward to working with Youngkin in a bipartisan way on kitchen-table issues. I think theres an opportunity for the governor to reset. Not on our terms, not on his terms, but on the Virginia voters terms, he said. Scott has served as the minority leader since 2022, when the caucus opted to vote out its previous leader, Eileen Filler-Corn, after an unsuccessful election cycle that saw the party lose full control of state government. In a statement Saturday, Filler-Corn congratulated Scott and called his election a historic milestone and victory for Virginia. Current Republican House Speaker Todd Gilbert also had warm words for Scott, congratulating him on making history and vowing to work with him to ensure a seamless transition of the institution. House Democrats elected two other leaders on Saturday: Del. Charniele Herring of Alexandria, who will return to the role of majority leader, a position she became the first Black woman to hold in 2020. And Del. Kathy Tran of Fairfax County will serve as caucus chair. Tran will be the first member of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community to serve in the role, the caucus said. The other General Assembly caucuses will hold leadership elections in the coming days. House Republicans were expected to vote Sunday. Del. Terry Kilgore has made clear he plans to challenge Gilbert, who has served as speaker since January 2022 and has asked the caucus to support him as minority leader. The Senate Democratic and Republican caucuses were expected to vote next week. TheGrio is FREE on your TV via Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku and Android TV. Also, please download theGrio mobile apps today! The post Virginia to have its first Black House speaker in states more than 400-year history appeared first on TheGrio. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images As Israeli ground troops battled in Gaza City amid a spiralling civilian death toll on Tuesday, the congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the sole Palestinian American member of the US Congress, rose to answer a censure motion rebuking her for comments she made about the war. Gripping a photograph of her sity, her grandmother who lives in the occupied West Bank, she defended her stance and declared that she will not be silenced and will not let you distort my words. I cant believe I have to say this, but Palestinian people are not disposable, Tlaib said, her voice breaking. The congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota reached to comfort Tlaib, a show of solidarity between the only Muslim women in the chamber. Tlaib continued: The cries of the Palestinian and Israeli children sound no different to me. Related: Criticism of Israel exposes generational and ideological rifts in Democratic party Late that night, 22 Democrats joined nearly all Republicans in censuring Tlaib, a punishment one step below expulsion. As the gavel came down, her closest allies in the Democratic partys progressive wing, all people of colour, encircled Tlaib as if to form a protective shield. The extraordinary scene crystallised the fierce devotion and respect that Tlaib one of 14 children of Palestinian immigrants to the US commands among her political allies, friends, staff members and, according to supporters, many of her constituents in her Michigan congressional district. But in its intensity, it also underlined the fierce passions aroused among critics of the Michigan Democrat, 47, who has become at least since Hamass attack on Israel last month one of the most polarising figures on Capitol Hill. The censure against Tlaib, proposed by the Republican congressman Rich McCormick of Georgia, accused her of promoting false narratives regarding the October 7 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and for calling for the destruction of the state of Israel. Its passage made Tlaib only the 26th member of the House of Representatives to be censured since its formation in 1789. Tuesdays vote, which came days after she avoided an earlier censure motion, was triggered by the presence of a highly charged slogan, From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, in a video Tlaib posted on social media last week that also accused Joe Biden of supporting genocide and called for an immediate ceasefire amid Israels military offensive in Gaza. However hurtful personally for Tlaib a legislator known for her diligence and conscientiousness on behalf of her constituents she signalled that she had no intention of backing down, reflecting the stubbornness Biden himself praised two years ago, when, following a memorable eight-minute heated conversation on Palestinian rights on the runway of Detroits airport, he complimented her as a fighter. She will not be deterred by a censure motion passed by the House of Representatives. Not a bone in my body believes that, said Abbas Alawieh, a senior Democratic strategist who previously worked as Tlaibs legislative director. Rashida is a person on a mission. She is fiercely protective of the people she loves. She will stop at nothing. For her, to support or not to support a cause isnt a theoretical political question. Its a question of whether or not her family members deserve to stay alive. Its the life or death of people shes directly connected to. This commitment has fortified her against a shocking degree of personal abuse that would have felled other politicians, said Alawieh, who recalled spikes in phone calls to her office and verbal attacks in public, often after Fox News or other rightwing news channels had criticised her views. When I went to work for her, I couldnt believe how often the phone rang, he said. You couldnt even imagine how many vile, unacceptable bad words could be strung together in sentences. It will be a sentence jam-packed with sexism, racism, Islamophobia just all of it. Tlaib, whose father was born in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Beit Hanina, has long been a lightning rod for criticism from Israels staunchest supporters, who have alleged that her views and rhetoric are antisemitic. In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attack, she faced backlash from Republicans and some Democrats over her initial statement, in which she expressed grief for the loss of Palestinian and Israeli lives but did not mention Hamas, though she did call for ending the occupation, and dismantling the apartheid system. A sign outside the congressional office of Rashida Tlaib. Photograph: Stefani Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images She drew additional fire from her critics after being one of nine Democrats to vote against a House resolution subsequently adopted by a vote of 412-10 declaring solidarity with Israel after the Hamas attacks. Explaining her opposition in a floor debate on 25 October, she said the resolution was not a serious examination of the root causes of the violence we are witnessing and doubles down on decades of failed policy. Unconditional US military support for Israel had failed to bring peace and justice to the region, she said. She added: Achieving a just and lasting peace where Israelis and Palestinians have equal rights and freedoms, and where no person lives in fear for their safety, requires ending the blockade, occupation and dehumanizing system of apartheid. Her opponents have also pointed to her use of the river to the sea slogan. While Tlaib and others justify the phrase as an aspirational call for freedom, human rights and peaceful co-existence, critics say it is a pro-Hamas chant calling for the eradication of the Jewish state. The Democratic congressman Brad Schneider of Illinois cited her embrace of the slogan and her refusal to remove a tweet blaming Israel for a devastating explosion at al-Ahli Baptist hospital in Gaza City that killed hundreds, despite Israeli denials and US intelligence claims that a misfired Palestinian rocket had caused the damage. Congresswoman Tlaib has repeatedly insisted on using inflammatory language that dangerously amplifies Hamas propaganda and disinformation, Schneider said in a statement. Representative Tlaib most certainly understands the import and impact of her words and yet still chooses to use them anyway. We are at an exceedingly perilous moment, when emotions and intentions are on a razors edge. Even Bernie Sanders, the leftwing senator from Vermont, who has spoken out forcefully against Israels military campaign in Gaza while stopping short of a ceasefire call, voiced muted criticism of Tlaibs use of the slogan. Calling her a friend who had been shaken by the bloodshed in Gaza, Sanders told CNN: We need a serious discussion on how the hell we get out of this difficult situation, maintain democracy, bring peace to the world. And it aint easy, but slogans are not going to do it on any side. The congressman Jamaal Bowman of New York, a fellow member of the progressive Squad who has also called for a ceasefire, dismissed the focus on the slogan as a distraction, calling Tlaib one of the strongest, most compassionate people I know. Congresswoman Tlaib has always been an advocate of peace, justice and human rights, he said. It is false and misleading to imply that she intended to call for destruction or violence. She is not in support of Hamas. We should all be doing everything in our power to end violence against innocent civilians. Conservatives have demanded Tlaib take down the Palestinian flag displayed outside her congressional office, saying it was disrespectful in the wake of the Hamas attack. One Republican member advocated a ban on foreign flags in the Capitol, while another, the congressman Brian Mast of Florida, wore a uniform from his time serving in the Israel Defense Forces. On X, he wrote: Tlaibs Got Her Flag, Ive Got My Uniform. Mast later said there were very few innocent Palestinian civilians I dont think we would so lightly throw around the term innocent Nazi civilians, remarks that some House Democrats believe warrant a censure. Tlaibs previous outspokenness has landed her in hot water with pro-Israel advocates. The liberal Israel advocacy group J Street withdrew its endorsement of her campaign in 2018 after she publicly voiced support for a one-state solution to the Middle East conflict, in open contradiction of the organisations policy favouring two states, Israel beside an independent Palestine. As part of her support for a one-state solution entailing a single democratic state encompassing Israel and the occupied territories Tlaib has said she is uncomfortable with the idea of uprooting Jewish settlers from their homes in the occupied West Bank. She will be known for being the freedom fighter and the justice warrior. She will be known for being the peacekeeper Cori Bush In a floor speech in 2021, Tlaib, arguing against a bill to send $1bn in additional funding to support Israels Iron Dome missile defense program, accused Israels far-right government of operating a violent apartheid system, a characterization that drew a furious response from longstanding Democratic supporters of Israel. Tlaib, who has long sought to condition aid to Israel on Palestinian rights, was one of just nine lawmakers to vote against the measure. Tlaib has Jewish supporters, particularly among leftwing groups that echo her ceasefire calls and have staged demonstrations in Washington accusing Israel of unleashing a genocidal war in Gaza. Congresswoman Tlaib is truly an incredible person and one of the few members of Congress who genuinely cares about people, said Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a leftist group that openly describes itself as anti-Zionist. She has so much warmth and love, and makes everyone feel welcome and safe around her. This is really important because we see this horrible smear campaign that turns her into the opposite of what she is which is someone who cares deeply for Israelis who have been killed, as well as Palestinians who have been killed. We are proud to be her ally in this. Eva Borgwardt, the national spokesperson for If Not Now, another Jewish group that has staged ceasefire rallies in concert with JVP, said Tlaib was a victim of anti-Palestinian racism being espoused by Republican politicians who see her as a threat to their vision of a white Christian supremacist future of America. As a Jewish American, Im absolutely terrified of the implications of the ongoing targeting of Rashida, because Jewish and Palestinian safety is tied together, she said. I cannot imagine what its like to face what she has dealt with. I can only hope to have a tiny amount of the integrity and strength that it must take to stand up and lead in Congress every day despite threats from other congressmen down the hall. As the first Palestinian-American woman to serve in Congress, Tlaib carries a greater burden when she challenges US policy toward Israel, said Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Democratic members of Congress with a sign demanding a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images But he said Tlaib is not acting alone. For many constituents in her district, which includes the city of Dearborn, home to one of the largest Arab American communities in the country, Palestinian rights are deeply personal, he said. For people in her district, this isnt some sort of foreign policy issue, Walid said. These are people who have family members who are directly impacted by occupation and bombs being dropped on civilians. Despite her support in the district, Tlaibs detractors hope that her denunciations of the US response to the Israel-Hamas war will draw a primary challenge from the partys center, like the ones facing other Israel sceptics within the party. In Detroit, she is now the target of an attack ad by a Democratic pro-Israel group. The ad sharply criticises Tlaib for her vote last month against a House resolution declaring solidarity with Israel following the Hamas assault, as well as her past vote against funding for Israels Iron Dome missile defense system. It also argues that her ceasefire bill would allow the terrorists to rearm themselves. We thought it was important for her constituents and neighbors to know that she is not only wrong on the substance, but radically out of step with the Democratic party, said Mark Mellman, whose group, the Democratic Majority for Israel, is behind the ad. He continued: Were trying to see if she might moderate her positions as a result of her constituents. And if not, perhaps someone will be interested in taking her on. Tlaibs supporters have denounced the ads rhetoric as dangerous and demanded its removal in light of a sharp rise in Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment. The irony of all this, say longtime associates, is that Tlaib has never set out to be a pro-Palestinian organiser preferring to focus on local issues such as poverty, pollution and water rights, particularly in African American communities. She campaigned vigorously to win a $600m lead pipe replacement and challenged socially conservative parts of her district with her advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights. When people in her district think about Rashida in general, they think water is a human right, said Alawieh. She was obsessed with the idea. That may once have been true. But nationally, her reputation is set to be defined by more global and more bitterly contested concerns. For Cori Bush, a progressive Democrat from Missouri who sponsored ceasefire legislation with Tlaib, it is destined to eclipse the present turmoil and land the Michigan congresswoman a place squarely on the right side of history. Even though the censure happened, people must understand that that is not her legacy, Bush said. Rashida Tlaibs legacy will be about saving lives. It will be about making sure the Palestinians know that they belong and that they should exist in this world. She will be known for being the freedom fighter and the justice warrior. She will be known for being the peacekeeper. Adi Efrat was held captive by Hamas until a gun battle with the Israel Defence Forces forced them to retreat - Andrew Crowley For Adi Efrat, 51, life will forever more be split in two before and after October 7, the day Hamas terrorists took her from her home on Kibbutz Beeri, the day her house was scorched to the ground, the day dozens of her friends and neighbours were murdered. Over 12 hours she was held captive by Hamas and ended up alone with 15 terrorists, until a gun battle with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) forced them to retreat. By a miracle and the fortitude of those soldiers, Efrat survived, as did her husband Avishai, her daughter Dvir, 21, and an adopted son David, 34, who were all trapped in their houses nearby. They are among the lucky ones. More than 100 on Kibbutz Beeri didnt make it and at least 10 are still missing. Before October 7, Efrat was a manager of a resilience centre in Sderot, helping people who experienced trauma to prevent Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) using animal therapy. Sderot has since been evacuated and Efrat and the survivors of Kibbutz Beeri have been relocated to the Dead Sea, but her connection with animals endures. Every other day shes been making the six-hour, perilous return journey to Beeri to feed the farm animals and stray cats on the kibbutz needing a special permit to enter the zone, accompanied by two armed guards. It feels good to deal with life, to deal with innocent creatures, she says. This week she is in London to share her testimony. First-hand testimony is powerful, says Rabbi Naftali Schiff, who runs Jewish Futures, the charity that has brought her to the UK. It took 50 years for the Holocaust denial to begin. For this massacre it has taken five minutes, he says of the whitewashing on social media and the recent denial by the Hamas chief. For Efrat, what should feel like respite from a warzone is proving stressful in a different sense. To see all these demonstrations its too hurtful, she says. Wearing silk trousers and a smart white top everything is donated, all I own are the pyjamas and robe I had on my back kibbutz life feels a world away. Its a socialist way of life a collective community, says Efrat of the kibbutz. Finances are pooled, they have a shared dining room, a fleet of kibbutz cars, and make shared decisions on the future of the kibbutz. Efrat sees herself as a humanist and has always believed in equality across race and religion. The thesis for her masters degree, in fact, was on the relationships between Arabs and Israelis, the importance of which she has always believed in. For me people are people, she says. I believe in mankind. I believe in goodness. And in good will. 'It took 50 years for the Holocaust denial to begin. For this massacre it has taken five minutes,' says Efrat - Andrew Crowley But that belief was tested to its limits on Saturday five weeks ago, when she was woken up by the sound of bombing. It was louder than usual, she remembers. There are often rocket attacks from Gaza. Usually you hear a siren and you go into the safe room. You close the door and you wait for 10 minutes and then you go back to life. This is the way we have lived for almost 20 years since shortly after we withdrew from Gaza. At that moment in 2005, when Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in return for peaceful coexistence, Efrat was full of hope for Israel and for the Palestinian people. I thought it would be like it is with Egypt or Jordan, she says. I thought wed go to the beaches in Gaza. I thought wed go to buy falafel in their markets she says trailing off. But then, the bombs started to fall. At first they were like fireworks, but then they grew stronger. Soon every house had to have a safe room. We developed the Iron Dome and had to secure our borders. But on that fateful morning, with an estimated 3,000 rockets reigning down and similar numbers of terrorists breaking through the fence, the Iron Dome could not protect them. Efrat checked her phone and had hundreds of Whtasapp messages there was panic. I saw people in the neighbourhood where my husband lives were messaging that they heard Arabic outside their window, that terrorists are trying to come into their houses. My heart just sank. Efrat had been living apart from her husband for several months, but they had spent the previous two days trying to be back together. We decided to do something special. So we went to Tel Aviv, trying to celebrate life and resolve our feelings towards each other. We went to restaurants and to the beach and toured the markets. It was wonderful. It was peaceful. Does it feel possible shell ever feel like that again? For the first time in our conversation her stoicism breaks and she pauses, that blissful memory from a previous life now so very painful. I know its possible. But I dont yet feel its possible. Theres a difference, she says, back in control, in trauma therapist mode. That Saturday morning, with her husband in another neighbourhood within Beeri, her daughter a few houses away and her adopted son on Kibbutz Cholit nearby, they made a pact on their family WhatsApp group: Stay quiet. Stay on the floor to avoid gunshots. And check in every few minutes to let everyone know youre alright. All the time I was hearing gunshots outside my house and my daughters house. And I can see messages on all my groups. They say: Theyre inside my house, Theyre trying to get into the safe room. People are saying goodbye and theyre saying I love you and then theyre not active in the group anymore. So Im asking myself, What does it mean? And I dont know. Or I dont want to know. Then Efrats husband messages. Terrorists are in his house, and theyve set it on fire. So Im trying to find out if the door to his safe room is fireproof. Im asking my brothers and sisters via another WhatsApp group. And then they tell me it is. So were begging my husband: please, please stay in the room. Theyll shoot you if you go out of the window. The army will be coming. Maybe breathing smoke is not so dangerous. It takes a while before you die from that. Efrat's destroyed house And then Efrat hears Arabic in her own house. Two men. They are laughing. My heart is beating like crazy. I feel like my chest is about to burst. She prays they cant open the door to her safe room, but in a matter of seconds they are in and I am looking right at them. Two armed men in flip-flops and civilian clothes. And she is begging them to leave her alone. They tell her if she gives them her car, they wont kill her. I explain that I dont have a car but that the kibbutz has many cars. And I say in Arabic 100 cars and they tell me to find them the keys. I am shaking. When I go to the kitchen I see they have rifled through my bag, which gives me hope that they really mean what they say. I show them the immobiliser and I tell them to go to the dining room where the keys are kept and the kibbutz cars are parked. They tell me to show them. Ive lived in the kibbutz for 30 years, but Im so stressed, I lose my sense of direction. Eventually I manage to point the way, but they say: No, you need to come with us. We start walking and they ask me where Im from. I tell them my parents are from Morocco. They ask if I am an Arab a Jew Arab. So I tell them, yes. Its a surreal moment, walking through the empty streets of the kibbutz the sun is shining, the grass is green. Its very confusing. Then I see someone who looks like an Israeli soldier. Hes waving me towards him and Im trying to show him that I have terrorists with me. One of the terrorists is holding my hand, the other has a rifle on his shoulder. And then there are gunshots and the terrorists drag me by the hand and start running. But I realise were running west. And I think: West is not good. West is towards Gaza. I dont want to let go of the hope that if they have the cars they will go away. So Im trying to tell them that this is not the right way to the cars. But they say to me in Arabic: Ijri, ijri!. Run, run. The smashed window of Efrat's house The terrorists speak to their commander and there is chaos but they take Efrat to a house where a 97-year-old woman and her caregiver are being held captive. Efrats hands are bound tightly behind her back. They tell us to be quiet, not to talk among ourselves. Then Efrat hears a cry. Its very loud, its piercing. Screaming: Daddy! Daddy! I want my daddy. Wheres my daddy? And soon, I see a terrorist holding a little child dangling by one arm, and he throws him on the porch beside us. The boy is terrified so the second he feels his legs on the floor, hes trying to run away. I dont have my hands to hold him. So Im trying to lean towards him and to tell him that its not safe to go. Im afraid that if he runs they will shoot him. Hes crying all the time, screaming Daddy, so I want to deflect and am trying to talk to him. I say: You want Daddy? Whos your daddy? Tell me his name. Where does your Daddy work? I try to ground him. And then Efrat sees another terrorist coming with a woman she knows from the kibbutz, with another boy of seven or eight, both of them wounded, their faces full of smoke. The boy has gash on his head, theres blood running down his face. Hes sweating and hes asking questions all the time hes agitated and afraid. And the mother is having trouble walking. She collapses near me on the floor. The second she sees me, she tells me: They shot my husband and Mila. I say: Im so sorry to hear that. Whos Mila? She says: Shes my baby. I say to her that maybe shes not dead. Maybe shes only wounded. She says: No. They shot her in the head. I dont have any words to comfort her. I dont have my arms to put around her. I just lean my head on her shoulder. I dont even have tears to cry. Efrat then understands this woman is the two-year-olds mother. His daddy is also dead. The terrorists then single out Efrat and take her with them. They say if she runs they will shoot her. By now the IDF have arrived to try to launch a rescue so they use her as a human shield as they make their way further west along the path of the kibbutz to where there is a car waiting. They tell her to take their friends out. She doesnt know if they are terrorists or Israelis, dead or alive, but they have untied her so she lifts her hands above her head. She takes a few steps but then hears gunshots and drops to the ground. The terrorists are startled and one of them grabs her and drags her with him. Three weeks later, I learned that the shot was from an IDF soldier. The bullet passed over my shoulder and killed one of the terrorists. I spoke to that soldier on the phone, through a mutual friend, and it was very emotional. By now, it was two oclock in the afternoon. We start running through a field and theyre all heading to the same place. I know the house. I know who lives here. The house is already burning. They want me to go in but its too hot. I see grenades on the floor. I see rifles. I smell gunpowder. I hear gunshots. Its so very loud. And Im so scared and I dont know why theyve taken me captive. I think there are about 15 of them. And I know one of them can decide to just kill me at any moment. So I hide in the storage room. Theres heavy fighting for about half an hour. Gradually I see fewer and fewer terrorist fighters. They retreat. And after a while. Its quiet. I see no terrorists and then I start to hear Hebrew. So I cry out in Hebrew and I hear one of the soldiers say. Theres a civilian here. But then immediately the shooting starts again so I feel guilty that maybe one of the soldiers will get injured. It goes quiet then after two or three minutes, Efrat hears Hebrew again: They are close, and they are very organised. I hear there are two teams, two commanders, telling their teams what to do. In one second, one of the commanders finds me. And he says to me: Youre with us now. Youre safe. Efrat heard Hebrew being spoken so also cried out in Hebrew - Andrew Crowley For Efrat the relief was still mixed with fear and guilt: I know Im not going to be captive in Gaza now. But the danger is not over. And I worry Im going to be a distraction. These soldiers are young, they are someones sons and they are risking their lives for me. Putting themselves in the line of fire. So I tell them: Leave me here. I dont want to make it harder for you. But they say: No way. This is what we trained for. This is what we came for. To free the civilians. Were not leaving you. Not for one second. In the course of an hour and a half the soldiers form a barrier around her and move through the kibbutz. Those soldiers were like angels, but they fought like lions. Four of them were wounded in front of my eyes, she says. Eventually Efrat and the injured soldiers were taken out of the kibbutz, where others had been evacuated. As we pore over a map of her kibbutz, Efrat traces the route the terrorists took, but her finger hovers over her neighbours house. Lianne [Sharabi] and her teenage daughters, Noiya and Yahel. They were actually British, she says. I went to their funeral. The husband Eli is kidnapped. Another family, Bira, of five people. Only one of them survived. She shifts her finger along the map. Another family below here, out of five people, one survived and also his brother murdered, she says, taking a pause, to maintain her composure. So, so many families are gone. It took until 10pm for Efrats daughter to be evacuated I held her so hard and kissed her face and her hair and her eyes and many more torturous hours until she was finally reunited with her husband at 2am on Sunday morning. We all hug each other a lot now and we feel like those that died are ordering us to be closer to one another. She cant count how many funerals shes been to since October 7. Several each day, sometimes burying whole families at a time, but her community is there, strengthening each other. With so much sadness all around her, can she still find hope within her? If I lose hope then theyve got the best of me, so Im not losing hope, says Efrat, looking me straight in the eye, her spirit still so very strong, so very much alive. There are many steps to that hope. Hope that one day she will be able to return and rebuild her beloved Kibbutz Beeri. Hope that Israel will one day be safe again, although right now she cant imagine what safe feels like anymore. And that ever-elusive hope of peace. Ultimately, she says, that can only happen when all the Palestinian people and their leaders accept Israels existence. Not all the people who live in the Gaza strip are Hamas terrorists. But those people who came to butcher us, they are sub-human. They are monsters. They must be destroyed. And not only for the sake of Israel. What the world needs to understand is that our lesson is not only our lesson. Hamas is actually a threat to the free world. Fundamentalism is dangerous for everybody. But, no, I have not lost all hope, she says. A peaceful State of Israel and real peace with our neighbours? I still believe it can happen. 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. Families of detainees, deportation victims join calls ahead of presidents overseas trip By Jung Min-ho The families of the victims of North Koreas brutal human rights abuses have joined activists to call on President Yoon Suk Yeol to raise rights issues in upcoming summits with his British and Dutch counterparts, saying consistent messaging is important in bringing about actual change. Ahead of his state visit to London later this month as well as Amsterdam and The Hague next month, Kim Jung-sam, whose brother Kim Jung-wook has been held in North Korea since 2013, and Kim Kyu-li, sister of Kim Cheol-ok who was deported by China to the North last month, sent Yoon a joint letter written with nine rights groups, a participating activist told The Korea Times on Sunday. We ask that you (Yoon) publicly urge the resolution of the issues of South Korean prisoners of war (POWs), abductees and detainees in North Korea and reform of Chinas policy and practice of forcible repatriation of North Korean refugees in the keynote address during the state visits to the United Kingdom on Nov. 20 to 23 and to the Netherlands on Dec. 12 to 13, they said in a statement. Since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, the regime has refused to send back an estimated 50,000 South Korean POWs and 100,000 civilian abductees in apparent violation of the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement as well as the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Even after the armed conflict, more than 500 South Koreans have been abducted by North Korea, including three Christian missionaries and three North Korean escapees with South Korean citizenship in the past 10 years, according to government data. Rights groups praised Yoon when the president and his U.S. and Japanese counterparts Joe Biden and Fumio Kishida declared, for the first time, their shared commitment to resolving the issues of abductees, detainees and POWs in North Korea during a three-way summit at Camp David in August. However, it is important to maintain consistent messaging on these issues, they said. We urge you to continue discussing these issues and to lead the international diplomatic efforts afterward to resolve immediately all issues related to all POWs, abductees and detainees, in particular the realization of their immediate return and accountability. Beijings deportation of hundreds of North Korean escapees should also be discussed when Yoon meets with political leaders in Britain and the Netherlands, the groups said. It was reported that China repatriated at least 500 North Korean detainees on the night of Oct. 9, the day after the closing of the Hangzhou Asian Games, they noted. We ask you to discuss and condemn Chinas forcible repatriation of North Korean escapees, urge China to respect the principle of non-refoulement and establish the refugee status determination system and call upon the international community, including the United Nations, to pay greater attention to the issue. Beijing has treated North Koreans crossing the border as illegal migrants, claiming it has the right to send them back. Rights experts say such repatriations of escapees for whatever excuse China makes are clear violations of multiple U.N. treaties, including the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which China promised to respect as a participating party. Krispy Kreme Krispy Kreme is celebrating kindness the best way it knows how: with free donuts! The popular donut chain is giving customers a free dozen donuts in honor of World Kindness Day this year with the hopes of inspiring customers to connect with each other and spread some kindness. On Monday, Nov. 13, the first 500 guests who visit each participating Krispy Kreme shop in the United States can snag a dozen Original Glazed Donuts for FREE, with no purchase necessary. "World Kindness Day is an opportunity to make a positive difference by being generousfrom paying it forward to meaningfully connecting with each other," Dave Skena, Global Chief Brand Officer for Krispy Kreme said in a statement. "Simple gestures of caring and thanks, including sharing a sweet treat, is a great way to do that." Krispy Kreme Krispy Kreme/Press Release He added, "We hope a dozen Original Glazed doughnutsone doughnut for you and many to share with otherswill inspire millions of small acts of kindness." To get your hands on your free dozen donuts this World Kindness Day, head to your local participating Krispy Kreme location on Monday, Nov. 13 to be one of the first 500 guests and collect your delectable freebie dozen. The sweet new offer is limited to one per guest, in-store and drive-thru only. If you're lucky enough to score your free dozen, be sure to spread the kindness and share the treats with others! The brand is also encouraging customers to show how they're sharing kindness with Krispy Kreme by using by using #KrispyKreme and tagging @krispykreme on social media. Next: Costco Just Brought Back a Fan-Favorite Breakfast Staple for an Incredibly Low Price, and Shoppers Are Buying 'Enough for the Whole Year' The estranged husband ofStrictly Come Dancing professional Karen Hauer has claimed that the BBC dancing show had a role to play in their split. Last month, it was reported that Venezuelan dancer Hauer the shows longest-serving professional and businessman Jordan Wyn-Jones parted ways last month after marrying in summer 2022. Hauer competed on the current series of Strictly with comedian Eddie Kadi, with the pair becoming the fourth couple to leave the competition. In a new interview with The Mail on Sunday, Wyn-Jones said that while he will always admire Hauers career, it took her away from him. He began: Its a bit of a love story, a sad story. Im incredibly sad not to be in Karens life, and not on this journey with her but were not right for each other in terms of her career. I will always admire her for her career but it took her away from me a lot, he said. Shed be away and Id be at home on my own. Wyn-Jones added that he admires Hauer for being so career-driven, but eventually, it turned out they wanted different things, especially when it came to deciding whether to have children together. There was a plan about having children but then there wasnt a plan, he claimed. Wyn-Jones said that he had previously expressed a desire to have children with Hauer, but was left shocked when he read a magazine interview where she reportedly said that kids were not in her future. The Independent has contacted Hauers representatives for comment. The pair wed in summer 2022 (Instagram via @karenhauer) You do say things like, I want to have kids. And shed mentioned to me that she wanted to have kids with me. But in the interview, Karen said kids arent in the future which made me sad. Id always wanted to be a father. Id become vacant in our relationship. I was loving and so caring for her but I was vacant because of the situation that we found ourselves in. Wyn-Jones claimed that he and Hauer met to discuss the magazine interview eight weeks ago, when they both eventually admitted that their marriage was over. There were tears on both sides. A lot of tears of sadness, he told the publication. We didnt want to let go of each other but were also not right for each other. The businessman added that if they had stayed together and not had children, he would have ended up resenting her. Karen Hauer photographed in October (PA) This is the perfect moment for us to love each other and leave each other, he said. The pair originally met after exchanging messages online for about six months before Wyn-Jones moved from Australia to the UK to live with Hauer. However, Wyn-Jones said he does not blame the so-called Strictly curse, a fan theory that participating in Strictly (whether as a celebrity or a professional dancer) threatens the status of the relationship youre in when you sign up. Wyn-Jones and Hauer pose together in Instagram post (Instagram via @karenhauer) We used to laugh about the Strictly curse because its so silly, Wyn-Jones told the publication. Karen doesnt have it in her to be unfaithful and dishonest shes just not that person. I just trusted her. It was never a thing in our relationship when I met her I knew who she was. Shes very proud to be the shows longest-serving professional. Shes worked very hard and shes so good, shes such a professional. He told the paper: I see it as a love story. We are going to remain friends. We havent filed for divorce yet but theres nothing to fight over or to be concerned about. We will text and its all lovely and nice. Hauer was previously married to former Strictly professional Kevin Clifton for three years before they split in March 2018. Clifton is now in a relationship with TV presenter Stacey Dooley and they share one child together. The pair met on the set of Strictly. Read about all of the Strictly curses so far, here. Strictly Come Dancing continues Sunday 12 November at 7.20pm on BBC One. Rishi Sunak will outline his vision for a hard-headed foreign policy approach that defends UK values from adversaries at a time for moral clarity as war rages in the Middle East and Ukraine. The Prime Minister will speak of the UKs desire to shape the world as he highlights his record on forging international partnerships on defence, trade and migration. Mr Sunak, who has claimed he represents change from his Tory predecessors, will pledge to leave behind past dogmas, assumptions and structures in dealing with other nations, Downing Street said. In a major foreign policy speech on Monday, he will tell international dignitaries and business leaders: In these dangerous times, were not just defending a better vision of the future against those who would destroy it, were marshalling our expertise, our people and our alliances to bring that future into being. So, well continue to stand up for what is right and show that our values will prevail. Calling 2023 one of the most significant years for UK foreign policy in recent times, he will point to the signing of the Windsor Framework with the European Union, the update of UK foreign and security policy and the announcement of plans for a new generation of nuclear-powered submarines under the Aukus partnership with the US and Australia. The UK also struck migration deals with France, Italy and Albania, confirmed its accession to a major Indo-Pacific trade bloc and hosted an international summit on artificial intelligence safety. The Windsor Framework trading arrangements agreed by London and Brussels were seen as a key step in improving post-Brexit relations, after the more combative approaches taken by Mr Sunaks predecessors Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Rishi Sunak at last years Lord Mayors Banquet at Londons Guildhall (Belinda Jiao/PA) In his speech at the annual Lord Mayors Banquet in Londons Guildhall, Mr Sunak will say: These treaties and alliances speak to something deeper: our willingness to act, to shape the world, not be shaped by it, wherever theres a challenge, wherever theres a threat, wherever we can promote peace and security. The Prime Minister will say that while the UK is pragmatic in its foreign policy approach, it is a time for moral clarity as he notes UK support for Kyiv in its struggle against Russias invasion and humanitarian support for civilians in Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas war. Were hard-headed about whats necessary for our interests and security. But Britains realism has always had values and this is a moment for moral clarity, he will say. Mr Sunak will also promise to intensify UK efforts to work towards a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. He will say: The UK wrote the original UN resolutions setting out a two-state solution. Weve argued for it for decades. But now we must help make it a reality. So, to the UKs friends across the region and to our communities in this country, I pledge to redouble British efforts to this end. He will say that Britain will never lose patience in backing Ukraine, calling Russian president Vladimir Putins invasion a self-inflicted strategic calamity that he cannot win. The speech comes as Mr Sunak faces calls at home to sack his Home Secretary Suella Braverman after she was accused of inflaming tensions over a pro-Palestinian march in London. Labour said its foreign policy would prioritise reconnecting Britain, making it a dependable ally and a leader in development and climate action. Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy said: As we face huge geopolitical change, conflict and the climate crisis, foreign policy and domestic policy have become intertwined. More than ever, we need a strong Britain on the world stage. But 13 years of Conservative government has left Britain increasingly disconnected from our closest allies, with a tarnished international reputation, and reduced influence in the world. Katana wagged her tail, scuttling tentatively across a Pittsburgh parking lot beside her owner on a warm Thursday in October. The 4-month-old caramel pit bull mix and her human companion Terrue Scoggins were greeted by a team of health care workers standing around outside a pair of mobile clinics. Scoggins, 41, and Katana were two of the only patients for the day in the lot for Highmark Stadium, the home of the professional soccer's Riverhounds. The glittering Pittsburgh skyline rose above in the background, across the Monongahela River. Scoggins wore camouflage pants and hauled a large backpack. He works part-time in a Pittsburgh bakery and was worried about the cost of getting Katana her routine shots, a particular concern because she had recently had worms. Another puppy he'd had died a couple of days earlier from worms, he said. The free veterinary clinic helped. It would have kind of broke me, he said as he waited for Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh staff to examine Katana. Transplant advancement: A high-voltage wire destroyed his face. Doctors just gave him a new one. Terrue Scoggins, 41, holds his dog, Katana, as he talks with Dr. Ariella Samson, executive director of Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh, at the new pilot program that uses mobile clinics to treat people and their pets on Oct. 26 in Pittsburgh. Katana shyly greeted a nurse and a couple of case workers affiliated with Allegheny Health Network, for human care, who gathered around Scoggins, crouching down to pet her before she hustled back to sit between Scoggins' legs. She looked up at them with chestnut eyes. This was the entry point for the human-focused clinicians their moment to stand back up, to ask whether Scoggins was up for a health screening, or HIV or hepatitis testing. By treating pets like Katana, the thinking goes, health workers can also make contact and treat their owners, who might be reticent about the cost of clinic visits and might be more enticed by free pet care than by offers of help with their well-being. The new pilot program in Pittsburgh called the Humane Health Coalition aims to treat people and their pets jointly and for free. It's aimed at patients who might otherwise face barriers in accessing care. Using a public health model that focuses on the relationships between people and their pets, the dual mobile clinics combine primary and veterinary care. The challenge is getting people in the door. Ice rinks and Kit Kats: After Tree of Life shooting, Pittsburgh forging interfaith bonds Treating both ends of the leash The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's "One Health" model, focused on relationships between people and animals, has been around for decades. Experts have explored the transmission of disease between people and animals for centuries. Today, this can look like a human doctor asking patients whether they have pets, with the understanding that pets can shed germs that may be harmful to people. Taking that extra step, seeing them both in one place and having these conversations organically, is significant in terms of reaching patients, public health experts say. If there are opportunities to bring people in from the community to help meet pets needs as well as peoples needs, that can be a very powerful way to protect health overall, Dr. Casey Barton Behravesh, a trained veterinarian who heads the CDC's One Health Office, told USA TODAY. She said the COVID-19 pandemic brought on a significant increase in pet adoptions. Thats where the Healthy Pets, Healthy People program comes in. One Health is treating both ends of the leash, said Ben Talik, a program manager with Pittsburghs Reaching Out on Our Streets, or R.O.O.T.S., homelessness outreach, who spent the day getting people and their pets to the clinic, including with ride-shares. While youre here treating your animal, he said, lets focus on you too. Carol Bobbins, 61, a community health worker holds her dog, Louis, at a mobile clinic for pets and their owners on Oct. 26 in Pittsburgh. The partnership between primary care providers from the Allegheny Health Network and veterinarians from Humane Animal Rescue began as a conversation about how to provide care to vulnerable Pittsburgh communities, including people who are homeless or don't have stable housing. Pittsburgh has a relatively small homeless population, less than 1,000 people were in shelters or unhoused in January at the latest count. Talik, who shuttles people to care routinely, said the population fluctuates, growing in warmer months. Many people without stable housing have pets. Many also express they're anxious about accessing hospital services for nonemergencies, and they're even sometimes nervous about interacting with medical providers providing care on the streets, he said. The people-and-pets partnership program, which is just one month old, began as an appointment-only clinic. The partnership is now trying to identify the best locations for people to attend the free, walk-up clinics. So far, they've found that by doing outreach jointly with veterinarians, pet owners were more willing to seek human care. Health doesnt exist in a vacuum, Dr. Louis Weiss, the co-director of the Albert Einstein College of Medicines Global Health Center, told USA TODAY. Weiss has studied approaches to the One Health model to better educate doctors on the health and relationships between people and pets and the environment. People are affected by what's going on with the health of their pets, after all, he added. A woman holds her dog at a new pilot program that uses veterinary and primary care mobile clinics to treat people and pets on Oct. 26 in Pittsburgh. Meeting needs where they are In scrubs and Hoka running shoes, Dr. Ariella Samson, the executive director of Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh, knelt to check on Katana, who lay at Scoggins feet. She lifted Katanas jowls, examining the pup's baby teeth. Katana would soon start losing her teeth, she told Scoggins. Samson is excited to be part of this unique program where pet owners will also get their needs met. The Humane Animal Rescue van had flea and heartworm medications, vaccines and spaying and neutering equipment, as well as free food and leashes. In an adjoining mobile clinic, the Allegheny Health Network, for human health, had a registered nurse on-site prepared to conduct screenings, blood pressure checks and testing for HIV and hepatitis C. We knew that the people who were experiencing access to veterinary care issues were likely having the same issues in terms of human health care, Samson said. By bringing everything together in one place, the goal was to leverage that human-animal bond. Brianna Kaufman, 27, assistant director of medical services at the Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh, holds a dog outside a mobile clinic for pets and their people on Oct. 26 in Pittsburgh. Health care for those who never show up in a clinic Coco, a 3-month-old black pit bull, was shivering when Jessica Rankin, 47, placed her on the pavement. A veterinary technician brought her a pink leash harnessed on a purple dog vest. In her new fall outfit, Coco warmed up, tail wagging as she tried to cozy up with staff. She got yanked backward each time she ventured beyond the reach of the leash. Oh no, I forgot, Rankin told Humane Animal Rescue workers. Shes never been on one. Coco received her first round of shots for fleas and ticks. Rankin, who was unemployed, had trouble getting care for her dog. She hadn't known about the primary care clinic before she arrived. She ended up not using the human care services. The Allegheny Health Network van sat empty for much of the day. Staff members from the Center for Inclusion Health, the networks program aimed at underserved or marginalized populations, handed out information on HIV testing and Narcan, a drug used to reverse opioid overdoses. Once patients are in the door, human health staff hope they can connect them with health services, such as a regular primary care doctor and information on addiction programs. Veterinary technician Casey Garrity, 33, right, and Dr. Amy Kalinauskas, with the Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh, administer vaccines to a dog at a mobile clinic for pets on Oct. 26 in Pittsburgh. This clinic should be part of a bigger picture of how we take care of the health of communities, said Dr. Elizabeth Cuevas, the division chief for the Center for Inclusion and an internal medicine and addiction medicine physician. It is a way to outreach individuals who sometimes get lost in the community and never actually show up in a health care system. After her screening and shots, Katana left the clinic on a pink leash attached to a black harness on her chest. Scoggins, her owner, wanted to weigh her because he thought she was mixed with cane corso, a breed larger than a pit bull. Shed weighed in at 28 pounds, a good size for a growing puppy, he thought. Scroggins stuffed dog food into his backpack. The pair could now head home. Hed have to return for the following month's clinic for Katanas next round of puppy vaccines. He told staff hed like to volunteer since he was good with dogs and he knew how to train them. Maybe at the next visit, too, he might visit the clinic for himself not just for Katana. Eduardo Cuevas covers health and breaking news for USA TODAY. He can be reached at EMCuevas1@usatoday.com. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: People, pets get healthcare with new Pittsburgh 'One Health' program Former President Donald Trump continued his attacks on special counsel Jack Smith on Saturday, including a reference to Smiths family, at a rally in Claremont, New Hampshire. The former president repeated his accusations that Smith is deranged and a Trump-hating prosecutor, continuing, his wife and family despise me much more than he does. Smith is overseeing two federal cases against Trump, related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents and his role in attempting to overturn the 2020 election. The former presidents comments come at a time when his public statements about the criminal cases against him are being closely watched by prosecutors and courts alike. As a criminal defendant, he is barred from attempting to intimidate witnesses or others in the legal system, and a federal appellate court is considering whether a gag order placed upon him is constitutionally sound. The court paused the gag order, related to Trumps federal election subversion case in Washington, DC, while it is being appealed. But it previously barred Trump from commenting specifically about Smith, other prosecutors on the case, their families and court personnel, with possible sanctions or even jail as potential consequences if he had violated it. Referring to the alleged ill will Smith and his family have for Trump, the former president said at Saturdays rally that Smith is about at 10 and his family is about a 15 on a scale of 10. Trump railed against Smiths prosecution history, calling him a disgrace to America. Theres always intimidation of everybody at the highest level, Trump told the crowd, referring to Smiths investigation. But I really dont care. I dont care. I just want to do whats right for the country. Some of Trumps attacks stem from the activities of Smiths wife, filmmaker Katy Chevigny. Chevigny donated $2,000 to the Biden campaign in 2020 and was a producer for a Netflix documentary about former first lady Michelle Obama. Smith himself is a registered independent and hasnt donated to Democratic campaigns. US District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing Trumps federal election subversion case in Washington, DC, issued a gag order against Trump last month after prosecutors raised concerns that the former president could intimidate witnesses or encourage harm against prosecutors through his public comments. Trump quickly appealed and sought to have the gag order paused while the appeal unfolded. In a brief order, a three-judge panel at the US DC Circuit Court of Appeals said it was pausing the gag order issued by Chutkan to give the judges more time to consider Trumps request to pause the order while his appeal of it plays out before the court. A federal appeals court later temporarily froze the limited gag order, allowing him to again speak freely with criticism of possible witnesses in the case. The appeals court is set to hear arguments on the gag order before Thanksgiving. This story has been updated. CNNs Devan Cole, Marshall Cohen and Daniel Dale contributed to this report. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Thursday that the United States and South Korea are concerned about alleged military cooperation between North Korea and Russia. Blinken met with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Foreign Minister Park Jin during his trip to South Korea this week, where the leaders discussed the threat of North Korea officially called the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) and its alleged cooperation with Russia to provide the country with military equipment to aid in its invasion of Ukraine. The secretary of State said the two countries share profound concerns about the growing and dangerous military cooperation. With regard to DPRK-Russia cooperation, this is a matter of deep concern for both of us as well as for other countries around the world, and were seeing a two-way street, Blinken told reporters in Seoul during his visit. South Korea has warned that Russia is likely being supplied with an array of missiles and ammunition from North Korea. The White House has also said North Korea has delivered 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia to use in its war against Ukraine. The Biden administration has previously condemned North Koreas move to supply Moscow with military equipment. Concerns that the DPRK and Russia were cooperating arose after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in September. Blinken also said the U.S. has seen Russia provide North Korea with support for its military programs. He noted he and Park spoke about how the U.S. and South Korea could intensify pressure on Moscow not to transfer military technology to the DPRK, in violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions. Were seeing the DPRK provide military equipment to Russia for pursuing its aggression against Ukraine, but were also seeing Russia provide technology and support to the DPRK for its own military programs., he said. And thats a real concern for the security of the Korean Peninsula, its a real concern for global nonproliferation regimes, its a real concern for the Russian aggression in Ukraine, and a real concern for its violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions, Blinken added. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. DENVER Snowfall forecasts for the West's mountains are critically important this winter after last year's unusually heavy snow helped improve the region's long-simmering water crisis, including conditions at Lake Powell and downstream Lake Mead outside Las Vegas. Another heavy snow year could help reduce the need for water restrictions and help farmers continue producing irrigated crops such as melons, lettuce and almonds. The Rocky Mountains are already blanketed in snow, and climatologists are hopeful this year's predicted El Nino conditions will power good runoff for the all-important Colorado River this summer. The mountains of Colorado contribute more than half of the water that flows into Lake Powell, the massive reservoir between Utah and Arizona that helps store and distribute water to 40 million Americans across the west, including California. Wyoming's Green River, which joins the Colorado River near Moab, Utah, is the other significant source. "I would use the term cautious optimism," said Peter Bennett Goble, a climatologist and water availability specialist at the Colorado Climate Center. Snow sits on the Colorado Rockies at the Continental Divide on Loveland Pass. Water from here will flow either east to the Gulf of Mexico or west down the Colorado River to California and then into Mexico. What are the snow predictions for this winter? In general, El Nino conditions cause good snowfall earlier in the winter in California's Sierra Nevada mountains, and then heavier snow later in the winter for the Rockies. El Nino is a centuries-old weather pattern where trade winds that normally blow warm ocean water west toward Asia weaken, allowing the warm ocean water to pool off the coast of North America, altering the flow of the jet stream. It usually leads to warmer, drier winter conditions in the northern and eastern United States but wetter ones in the south, according to NOAA. "Our seasonal outlooks for the winter season can be characterized as 'leaning toward' above normal-precipitation for much of the Central and Southern Rockies, Central Great Basin, and parts of the Southwest," said Scott Handel, a meteorologist at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. "If you are a snow lover, this could be good news." Handel cautioned that no two years are exactly alike. And just one or two large storms or the absence of those storms can dramatically alter the amount of water that falls as snow to melt and run downstream. How does the snow prediction affect Lake Powell and Lake Mead? Because so much of the snow that falls on the Rockies flows into Lake Powell via the Colorado and Green rivers, a good snow year would again increase their levels as it did this past summer. Last winter saw record-setting snowfall in some parts of the west, and that helped raise the level of Lake Powell, which flows into Lake Mead via the Grand Canyon. But experts say last winter's snow didn't resolve the ongoing shortage of water in those lakes. Experts say many years of significantly above-average winters are needed to bring Powell and Mead close to full because farmers and cities across the West use more water than the Colorado River typically provides, and the reservoirs have been slowly draining to make up the difference. "When the snowpack is good not just here but for neighboring states, that takes a little bit of the pressure off Colorado to supply water to the basin across the west," Goble said. In the spring, the Biden administration helped broker a deal where California, Arizona and Nevada agreed to reduce their water use from the Colorado River in exchange for more than $1 billion in aid payments to farmers, irrigators and other water users, along with Native American tribes that are legally entitled to water. That voluntary deal was possible in part because the heavy winter snow last year softened the ongoing shortage crisis. Today both reservoirs remain far below full, and predictions suggest they'll remain that way through the end of 2024 even under the snowiest of winters. The deal frees up about 3 million acre-feet of water that would have otherwise been used through 2026. In the West, an acre-foot of water 326,000 gallons is enough to serve two average homes for a year. North Carolina resident Ellie Rose Brownfield, 15, poses for a photo with a paper cutout of King Charles IV of Austria, as her mom Andrea Brownfield, takes a photo. The two climbed onto the Continental Divide at Loveland Pass during a visit to Colorado on Nov. 6, 2023. Brownfield said she was competing with classmates to take a picture with the cutout with the best background for a school assignment. Water from here will flow either east to the Gulf of Mexico or west down the Colorado River to California and then into Mexico. What are the current levels of Lake Powell and Lake Mead? As of early November, Lake Powell's surface stood at 3,572 feet above sea level, which is about 12 feet lower than it reached at its fullest in early July. Lake Mead was at 1,065 above sea level, only slightly lower than the fullest it reached last year, but still far below its lowest point in 2020. Regulators move water from Lake Powell into Lake Mead to ensure there's enough water in the downstream reservoir to provide drinking and irrigation water, along with water to turn the hydroelectric turbines that help keep the lights on in Las Vegas. Officials predict that Lake Powell will rise to around 3,600 feet next spring under the most likely snowfall scenario, while Lake Mead could come close to 1,075 feet. If the water levels drop too low, there won't be enough water for users or to make electric power. As of now, the chances of Lake Powell dropping below that critical level stands at 8%, and 4% for Lake Mead, through the end of 2026, according to federal officials. What are the long-term predictions for snowfall across the West? Not great. El Nino, and the opposite La Nina, are considered short-term variations in the climate, but overall things are getting warmer and drier across much of the West due to climate change. That means generally less rain and snow, part of a process called aridification. "If we look at trends in peak snowpack, you generally see it's down anywhere 10-15%," Goble said. "While we know there are huge variations from year to year, that's a trend we expect continue in the long run." Simultaneously, warmer air temperatures means the ground dries out quicker and can absorb more melting snow. Goble said studies have shown that for about every 2 degrees F the average temperature rises, there's a corresponding 3%-9% decrease in water runoff, even if the amount of precipitation remains the same. What is the Biden administration doing to prepare for future shortages? While the spring 2023 deal announced by Biden officials helps in the short term, water users across the West all understand that there's just not enough water from the Colorado River to go around. The problem is that no one wants to reduce their water use without being compensated and any reductions will inevitably force major changes in farming and new suburban development, particularly in California and Arizona, but also in Utah, which has been one of the fastest-growing states for a decade. That deal expires in 2026, and Biden officials are working on a longer-term plan they hope offer as a proposed solution by the end of 2024. Advocates say those solutions will likely require a combination of conservation, changes to farming and new water-efficiency programs for tens of millions of Americans. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: As water crisis bares down, the West watches 2023-24 snow forecast CANYON - West Texas A&M University held its Veterans Day celebration for veterans of its university and the Canyon community on Friday at its campus Veterans Memorial in Canyon. The event featured Canyon Mayor Gary Hinders, WT President Walter Wendler and Rodney Gonzalez, the Amarillo VA Healthcare System director. Ubaldo Campa, a U.S. Army Reservist and student at WT, gave the invocation. The Tascosa High School Navy JROTC Color Guard presented the color as the Sound of West Texas Buffalo Marching Band played an armed forces tribute. Campa has served in the reserves since 2019 and is a sophomore political science major at the university. In the military, he is a shower and laundry specialist. A plane from the 16th Special Operations Squadron of the 27th Special Operations Wing from Cannon Air Force Base in Clovis, New Mexico does a flyover WT at a community veterans ceremony Friday at West Texas A&M University in Canyon. This day means a lot to me, that there is a day set aside for us, Campa said. Today was great because I got to speak with other veterans about their experiences. He said that he had wanted to be a soldier since he was 4 years old and was truly moved by an elementary school teacher who was a veteran. Campa said he fondly remembered seeing him in his uniform and saluting him as a student. With the passing of his former teacher, he was inspired to take his military oath. Ubaldo Campa, a U.S. Army Reservist and student at WT gives the invocation at a community veterans ceremony Friday at West Texas A&M University in Canyon. Campa hopes that the honored veterans today inspire future generations of service. Seeing all these men today that served the country and being able to speak before them was such an honor, Campa added. Hinders spoke briefly at the event honoring veterans. The importance of honoring Canyon and WTs veterans cannot be understated, knowing that they served our country and are now serving our city as our neighbors and our students, Hinders said. This ceremony calls for the community and WT campus to come together and recognize the veterans who call Canyon home. John Anderson Jr., a Navy veteran who served from 1957 to 1962 as a radarman, said that the ceremony touched him, and he appreciates the respect given to veterans at such ceremonies. Navy veterans John Anderson Jr. and Ronald Hind at a community veterans ceremony Friday at West Texas A&M University in Canyon. Being called a veteran means a whole lot to me; I am proud to have served my country, Anderson said. When I see these guys that fought for our country, sometimes, I do not feel like I deserve to be called a veteran because so many did so much more than I did. But I am honored to be among these men. Dr, Rodney Gonzalez, the director of the Amarillo VA as the keynote speaker and a veteran addresses the crowd at veteran community event Friday at West Texas A&M University in Canyon. Dr. Rodney Gonzalez, the director of the Amarillo VA, and Walter Wendler, president of WT, lay a wreath down at the base of the WT Veteran Memorial at a community veterans ceremony Friday at West Texas A&M University in Canyon. Gonzalez was the keynote speaker and spoke about what Veterans Day means to him. He and Wendler placed the wreath at the base of the WT Veterans Memorial to honor those who served. Gonzalez said that after learning about West Point during a project in middle school, he was inspired to want to become an officer, attending the prestigious military academy. Dr, Rodney Gonzalez, the director of the Amarillo VA and Walter Wendler, president of WT pay tribute to veterans at a community ceremony Friday at West Texas A&M University in Canyon. He said that he had recently read about the number of Americans who do not understand Veterans Day and why we celebrate it and was a little taken aback. So, its a great honor to be able to recognize our veterans and show my appreciation, Gonzalez said. We need to recognize them and thank them for their service, whether they served in combat or peacetime. They were ready to answer the call and sometimes gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country." Members of the audience stand for the National Anthem at a community veterans ceremony Friday at West Texas A&M University in Canyon. Gonzalez, who served for more than 20 years and retired as a colonel, said that working at the VA, Veterans Day is every day to him, being able to continue serving those who served. Talking to those veterans and hearing what their service was makes me so humbled and honored to work with them on their healthcare needs, Gonzalez said. The benefits and opportunities that I have had in life were given to me because of veterans who served before and with me. I would not be where I am now without them. I thank them all any chance that I get. The Tascosa High School Navy JROTC Color Guard presents the U.S. flag with all U.S. military branch flags Friday at West Texas A&M University in Canyon. His experiences in the military with those who gave the ultimate sacrifice give him a daily reminder of why we celebrate those who serve. "I remember those people that I served with, and those that continued to serve after the loss of those soldiers and how tough it was, Gonzalez said. When you see a veteran, thank them for their service. Listen to them and honor them with your time. The Sound of West Texas Buffalo Marching Band plays a tribute at a community veterans ceremony Friday at West Texas A&M University in Canyon. The Tascosa High School Navy JROTC Color Guard presents the colors at a community veterans ceremony Friday at West Texas A&M University in Canyon. A plane from the 16th Special Operations Squadron of the 27th Special Operations Wing from Cannon Air Force Base in Clovis, New Mexico, does a flyover WT at a community veterans ceremony Friday at West Texas A&M University in Canyon. Veterans from Ussery Roan State Veterans Home look on at a community veterans ceremony Friday at West Texas A&M University in Canyon. This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: WT veterans ceremony honors those who served, sacrificed A Washington watchdog wants to police Big Tech like it it does big banks, meaning greater scrutiny for popular mobile payment systems operated by Apple (AAPL) and Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL). A new rule proposed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would require nonbank financial companies handling more than 5 million transactions per year to follow the same rules as giant lenders already supervised by the CFPB. That means tougher oversight for popular payment apps like Apple Pay and Alphabet's Google Pay that millions of Americans use to move money via their phones. While the CFPB already has the ability to bring enforcement actions against financial arms of tech companies that violate consumer finance laws, this rule would permit the CFPB to examine the companies on a regular basis. The goal, according to the CFPB, is to ensure these firms comply with protections against unfair, deceptive, and abusive practices as well as privacy protections. US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Rohit Chopra. (Leah Millis/REUTERS) (Leah Millis / reuters) The rule "would crack down on one avenue for regulatory arbitrage by ensuring large technology firms and other nonbank payments companies are subjected to appropriate oversight," CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said last Tuesday in a statement. The CFPB proposal sets up another fight with an industry that is already the target of a larger crackdown across Washington. Federal agencies have filed antitrust lawsuits alleging that tech giant Meta (META) and Google are wielding their market power to illegally stomp out competition. In September, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 17 state attorneys general also sued Amazon (AMZN), alleging that its dominant online retail store Amazon.com is illegally monopolizing two markets. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan, who is part of a larger Washington crackdown on Big Tech. (Kevin Wurm/REUTERS) (Kevin Wurm / reuters) 'It's a step in the wrong direction' But banks are cheering this latest move by the CFPB, in a rare instance of agreement with the agency. "By bringing supervisory attention to large non-bank payment firms in line with expectations for banks offering similar products, the CFPB is taking a step in the right direction," Consumer Bankers Association president and CEO Lindsey Johnson said in a statement. Republicans in Congress came out against the new proposed rule. It's "a step in the wrong direction," said House Financial Services Chair Patrick McHenry, who added the CFPB is stretching its supervisory authority and will end up hurting consumers. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) is not a fan of the new CFPB rule. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (Jonathan Ernst / reuters) "This proposed rule will only entrench the status quo by impeding the adoption and development of innovative products and services." The CFPB has been warning for a while about the rising power of Apple and Google in the payments industry. In September it released a report that found the companies were acting as "choke points" to the US payment system, cutting off innovation by keeping other apps out. Chopra told Yahoo Finance last month that he believes the US payment system is careening toward a Chinese-style system where Big Tech companies are blurring traditional lines as they move into finance threatening the separation between banking, money, and payments as well as the real economy. He says regulators need to make sure the consumer payment firms are not trafficking fraud and find ways to restrict how some of the payments firms can harvest and monetize Americans personal data. The CFPB's new rule is open for comment until Jan. 8. "We view this week as the start of what is likely to be a long process to figure out how to address the growing importance of nonbank financial firms to the financial system," said TD Cowen analyst Jaret Seiberg. He expects the agency will finalize the rule in late spring before the next presidential election. "We see limited election risk," Seiberg added. "That means it should be effective before we know who won the election. We also believe a Republican president is unlikely to unwind this rule as that would go against the populist tilt of the current GOP." Click here for political news related to business and money policies that will shape tomorrow's stock prices. Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance Dog meat traders up in arms over gov't plan to end dog meat consumption During the Marian prayer, Pope Francis spoke again about the war in the Middle East. "Every human being is sacred, he said. He also called for the release of the hostages, many of whom are elderly and children." He also lamented the civil war in Sudan with its millions of displaced people and refugees, calling for peaceful solutions" Vatican City (AsiaNews) Pope Francis spoke to the faithful gathered in St Peters Square for the Angelus about the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, which risks escalating, fuelled by threats from Lebanon and Iran. Every human being, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, of any people or religion, every human being is sacred, is precious in the eyes of God and has the right to live in peace. Let us not lose hope: let us pray and work tirelessly so that the sense of humanity may prevail over hardness of heart. May the weapons be stopped: they will never lead to peace, and may the conflict not widen! Enough! Enough, brothers! Francis said. The Holy Father said that every day he turns his thoughts to the "very serious situation" in the Middle East. He expressed closeness to all suffering people, both Palestinians and Israelis. "I embrace them in this dark moment," he added. The pontiff also appealed for far more" humanitarian aid to be sent to the "stricken population" in the Gaza Strip. Humanitarian pauses are not enough to allow people to flee southwards. [L]et the wounded be rescued immediately, let civilians be protected, the pope urged. May the hostages be freed, including the elderly and children, he said from the window of the Apostolic Palace. Greeting Ukrainian faithful in the square, many waving yellow and blue flags, he mentioned "tormented Ukraine". "Let us not forget her," he said. I pray with you for peace in your beleaguered country. He turned his thoughts to Sudan, "in the throes of a civil war that shows no sign of abating, and which is causing numerous victims. This forgotten conflict is causing a grave humanitarian situation with millions of internally displaced people and refugees in neighbouring countries, Francis said. Let us not forget these brothers and sisters of ours who are in distress! In an appeal to local leaders, he called for easy access to humanitarian aid and, with the contribution of the international community, to work in search of peaceful solutions. Before the Angelus, the pope commented on the Word of the day (Mt 25:1-13), which offers "a story regarding the meaning of life of each person, from the parable of the ten virgins. Of these ten, five are wise and five are foolish. The former take the oil with them to go out "to meet the bridegroom", the latter do not. Francis dwelt on the difference between wisdom and foolishness, which does not lie in "goodwill" but in "preparation." Here is the difference: the oil. And what is one of the characteristics of the oil? That it cannot be seen: it is inside the lamps, it is not conspicuous, but without it the lamps have no light. It is important, according to Jesus, to understand that wisdom is not apparent, but lies elsewhere: in taking care of what cannot be seen, but which is more important, taking care of the heart. Wisdom means appreciating silence, so as to be capable of listening to ourselves and others. It means knowing how to give up some of the time passed in front of the telephone screen to look at the light in the eyes of others, in ones own heart, in Gods gaze upon us. It means not falling into the trap of activism, but devoting time to the Lord. Todays Gospel offers some precious advice, do not to neglect the oil of inner life, the oil of the soul. Foolish virgins in times of need have to go and buy oil to put it in lamps. This happens precisely because pf a lack of preparation and care. For the pontiff, the inner life must be prepared by dedicating a little time every day, with constancy, as one does for every important thing. Finally, Francis urged the faithful to devote time not only to "concrete plans," which are "good things," but also "to the care of the heart, to prayer and to the service of others, to the Lord who is the destination of life." I'm fine, as I'm very fortunate to own my home I own, but I'm feeling the pinch on my mortgage with other inflation costs I rent and it's expensive, but it could be worse I'm seriously considering leaving the valley if something doesn't give Vote View Results Depending on a variety of factors, each and every single custom motorcycle garage out there develops its own style. It takes time, of course, but once that equilibrium point is reached, fans will always recognize who made this or that bike. When it comes to Japanese custom crew Bad Land, the words that would properly describe its products are most likely loaded and sharp. Loaded as in they gain so many aftermarket parts they not only become unique, but unforgettable. And sharp because many of these parts, always painted black or left to shine in chrome, have a certain edgy, metallic, industrial and dangerous look about them.You only have to look at the build known as the Dora to realize that's so. The two-wheeler was born all the way back in 2017 as a Harley-Davidson V-Rod of the Night Rod variety. It's unclear when it crossed paths with Bad Land, but it's more than obvious what's been done to it.As usual with this crew, the changes started where the bike meets the ground, with the fitting of custom Bad Land wheels from the Out Rage series. They are 21 inches in diameter at the front, and just as large at the rear a parity we don't often see on a modified Milwaukee machine.The rear wheel is also 260 mm wide, wider than stock, yet not extreme as to scare people away. Just like the one at the front, it is shielded by a custom fender made by the Japanese specialist.The front end is an exercise in coolness. A girder fork that looks like a component part of some spaceship is tied to the wheel, and adorned up top with a custom-made headlight that sticks out like some detached robotic eye.The handlebars reaching out to either side are Bad Land in design, while the squarish, pointy mirrors slapped on top of them come from Ken's Factory (and so do the grips and LED turn signals).The fuel tank, the recipient of a lot of attention, features a cover with exposed rivets and is accompanied up on the frame by a custom seat.The mechanical upgrades include the fitting of a custom exhaust system (supplied by Bad Land itself) and air filter, Ohlins shocks at the rear, and Brembo braking hardware for more stopping power.The Harley-Davidson Dora is an older Bad Land build, and that means we have no info on its current whereabouts. We also don't know how much was invested in taking the Night Rod and transforming it into this.As a reference, an unmodified 2017 Night Rod is selling on the used bike market for anywhere between $9,000 and $18,000, depending on condition and a variety of other factors. Since 1920, the name Eddie Bauer has been a sign on the North American outdoor gear market. Well, 103 years later, this timeless brand has shaken hands with another outdoor living powerhouse, Heartland RV. The result of this collaboration? Nothing more than a new lineup of mobile habitats and campers. Photo: Heartland RV Photo: Heartland RV Photo: Heartland RV Folks, the name Eddie Bauer is common ground for those of us who often explore the wilderness outside our cities. That's a reputation that's been growing for over 100 years, so it makes sense for them to shake hands with yet another reputable crew , none other than Heartland RV, the one and the same that a group of passionate RVers initially sparked.Now, the result of this collaboration is nothing more than several RVs and campers designed to be your go-to solution for on-road, off-grid, and park-ready living. Today, we'll be shedding light on a travel trailer lineup with three floorplans to choose from and the ability to accommodate up to eight tired sleepers.As for why it needs to be on your list of travel trailer options to consider if you're ever in the market for something like this, it's because I'm finding 2024 models going for around $45K (42K at current exchange rates). Let me say that again: $45K! Do I have your attention now? Let's dive in, shall we?Overall, this lineup is meant to bring a contemporary and fresh feel to the on-road lifestyle, and judging by the images we see in the gallery, I'd say that Heartland did a decent job of bringing about a fresh and modern look in a unit that boasts a price you'd typically find tacked onto used units; this one's all-new, baby!Furthermore, it seems as though modularity is once again at the heart of our future experience. Interior features and furnishings can take on different shapes depending on what you need them for. For instance, the 34BHS option includes a rear room that houses three bunk beds. But, a fourth is hidden in the couch, only to come to life if needed.Another aspect that I found rather neat about this new lineup, and the 34BHS in particular, is the presence of two bathrooms. While this feature may not sound like a big deal, imagine what it means to be traveling with a group of eight people, and someone ate a bad berry.Further exploration of this class also reveals that Heartland and Eddie Bauer decided to craft units aimed at true outdoor lovers. I'm talking about the presence of not just an indoor kitchen to craft meals for your little army, but if all the tops are busy indoors, head outside and whip out the slide-out galley and complete the rest of whatever's on the menu But where are you going to be cooking these meals? Well, each unit is built around park living, but Heartland knows that they can't tame your wild heart, nor should you; each travel trailer in the lineup is prepped for solar panels, boasts 44 gals (167 l) of fresh water, but you can bring along more, and if you really need to wash your clothes in the middle of nowhere, washer/dryer prep is in place. I just wasn't able to spot anything about a battery array.Now, if I were to try and go through all the features these puppies have in store, we'd be here for the next hours or so, and we can't have that, apparently. So, to help you understand what we can do with such a unit, kick back for a minute and picture yourself with your family and/or friends, getting ready to hit the road With everything loaded up and ready to go, you'll be towing along up to 11,462 lbs (5,200 kg) of home, but it's once you arrive in some park or middle of nowhere that you'll be able to really experience the true magic of the Eddie Bauer lineup.With multiple slide-outs, you and your gang will be roaming around the unit without having to bump into each other too much. Heck, if you brought along a tent annex, stick it to your unit's side, unfurl a 20-foot awning, and set up the outdoor dining set. You already know what you can do with it, so there's no use in going through all that again But, what I can remind you of is the sort of experiences you'll have with the crew. Some of the group will be hanging out around your travel trailer, while others are relaxing in a climate-controlled interior. Others, most likely the kids, will be running around the local landscape, only to sleep soundly in those bunk beds I mentioned.As the night sets upon your local surroundings, someone decides that a fire is the best way to connect with the group, as we have been doing so for millennia. Teach the kids which constellation is which, teach them about those berries I mentioned, and come back to the city life more connected to your loved ones than ever. Sure, some of us may argue, but what's family without a bit of turmoil to bring us back together again?All the while, the Eddie Bauer edition travel trailers will be there, like a waiter with a Swiss-Knife-like apron, placing everything you need at your disposal so that the only thing you can worry about is gathering some firewood. Curious to see one of these for yourself? Just Google this lineup and make sure to tick the "near me" button. A bulletproof, all-electric pickup truck that can temporarily act as a boat is certainly something that can pique the interest of many. The Cybertruck certainly did so. Unofficial estimates claim that nearly two million pre-orders keep Tesla's workers from comfortably sleeping at night. But don't even think about flipping one if you're among the early owners. A new decision puts scalpers on notice and ruins their chance of making a quick buck. Here's the gist of it. EV Photo: Tesla The now Texas-basedmaker will soon deliver the first production-ready Cybertrucks to owners who may or may not be employees. The event is supposed to take place at the end of November, and it could be a catalyst for the world's most valuable automaker to cement its position as an investor darling. But that heavily depends on the vehicle ticking all the right boxes.We still don't know what the all-electric pickup truck will cost, what trims will be available at launch, and which specs will make it to the finish line. What Tesla did lately was to parade some units around the US and generate some hype. But other than that, nobody knows the details that truly matter.The brand also took care of an unexpected technicality barring flippers from doing what they do best. It is a weird decision because these types of clauses usually apply to pricey supercars and hypercars that are available in limited numbers. Nonetheless, it's there, in the motor vehicle order agreement's Terms and Conditions.Tesla says that Cybertruck owners who really want to sell their EVs must first discuss the matter with the company. The automaker might repurchase it at a personalized cost that takes $0.25 off the original acquisition price for each mile driven. It will also deduct any other repair and wear and tear costs.If you don't ask Tesla first about buying the Cybertruck back, the automaker will sue you and demand damages in the amount of $50,000 or more. That might indicate that the $39,900 all-electric pickup truck isn't happening. If the minimum Tesla is willing to get out of flippers is $50,000, customers might have to deal with a starting price of over $45,000 sans tax and freight.It might also bar you from owning a Tesla-made EV because you attempted to flip the battery-electric pickup truck. So, scalpers, you might want to avoid this one. Unless, of course, you know someone willing to pay $50,000 over the buying price, while also covering your cut and potential legal expenses.But do remember that there's a safe way out. If the company declines to buy the Cybertruck from you, you're free to sell it to whoever wants it.Tesla also reserves its right to locate and disable the truck electronically if you miss payments. So, make sure that your budget is ready for this expense.Although a questionable provision to introduce in a contract for a pickup truck that's supposed to enter mass manufacturing, this controversial decision makes sense in a way. The brand will have limited availability initially, even though it plans to manufacture around 125,000 units in 2024 and 250,000 in 2025. This measure might discourage early owners from giving their Cybertruck away.Such a contractual obligation hasn't been challenged in courts yet, but other automakers have included such provisions in the buyer's agreement. Ford, for example, reached a deal with John Cena. The famous wrestler bought a Ford GT and sold it early. The parties agreed on a sum. It was donated to charity in the end.The automaker's CEO says around one million people have reserved at least one Cybertruck. A "low VIN" unit sold for $400,000 at the 29th Petersen Gala . Tesla might want to avoid scenarios discouraging prospective buyers from moving forward with the acquisition. It is a smart move.Finally, we expect Tesla to introduce a similar stipulation when the next-gen Roadster will come around. Tesla has been promising autonomous driving for over a decade, although this dream might be as distant as ever. The most advanced version of Tesla Full Self-Driving is still in beta, and the progress has been minimal. Here's how everything started and where it's heading. EV Tesla Autopilot: How everything started Photo: Wikimedia Commons Hardware: what are Hardware 1 and HW2-HW4 ADAS LDW Redundancy finally arrived Photo: Wikimedia Commons FSD Full Self-Driving Tesla Vision: Eyes are all we need Photo: Munro Live via YouTube Hardware 4: big expectations, mixed results Tesla Autopilot and Enhanced Autopilot Photo: @BLKMDL3 via Twitter Full Self-Driving is the ultimate goal Is it FSD autonomous driving software or just an advanced driver assistance system? NHTSA Photo: Tesla What's next with Tesla Full Self-Driving? Tesla is credited with jumpstarting therevolution with the launch of the Roadster in 2008. It was an impressive EV at launch and a sought-after collectible today, but it was nothing more than a testbed for Tesla's electric powertrain. The Roadster, launched in 2008, was based on a Lotus Elise chassis and sold in limited numbers between 2008 and 2012.Although the Roadster was the first series production EV fitted with a Li-ion battery, the Model S was Tesla's first model built from the ground up to demonstrate to the world that electric vehicles can be desirable. As Elon Musk let us all know in his 2006 Master Plan, launching the Model S was step two, with the next step being launching an even more affordable electric car. That arrived in 2017 as the Model 3, a true mass-market EV that established Tesla as a carmaker.Even before the Model 3 became a success story (it was also about to bankrupt Tesla in the process), Elon Musk published Master Plan Part Deux in 2016. This was a very ambitious manifesto that is still not complete today. Besides expanding the Tesla EV lineup to cover all forms of terrestrial transport and integrating energy generation with battery storage, the Master Plan Part Deux introduced a new concept: Autonomy.This concept started a major push to replace the human driver behind the steering wheel with a fully automated driving system. Based on the second master plan, this system could be ten times safer than humans, saving countless lives. But before reaching that point, Tesla's autonomous driving features had already made waves, started controversies, and were harshly criticized. And everything began with naming the first iteration "Autopilot."Elon Musk started talking about Autopilot three years before Master Plan Part Deux was published. He made no secret that he was inspired by aviation when designing and naming the system. This also led to confusion among Tesla customers, who thought that similar to planes, their cars could drive themselves while Autopilot was engaged. Some paid with their lives for this confusion, with the small consolation that their sacrifice contributed to improving the system and regulations to this day.The first Tesla customers could pre-purchase Autopilot in October 2014, when Tesla cars were already manufactured with the necessary hardware to support it. The first Autopilot software release arrived in October 2015 with Tesla software version 7.0. Within one year, when Master Plan Part Deux was published, Autopilot had already accumulated 300 million miles (500 million km), with the Tesla fleet adding 3 million miles per day. Tesla considered that worldwide regulatory approval would require something on the order of 6 billion miles (10 billion km).Autopilot software requires specialized hardware to gather and process data. Naturally, the first iteration of Tesla Autopilot hardware was named "Hardware 1, " and the subsequent iterations were incremented accordingly. Regardless of the iteration, the Autopilot hardware comprises the Autopilot Sensor Suite to "see" and "sense" the surroundings and the Autopilot Computer to process the information and assist the driver. The latest Tesla Autopilot hardware suite is Hardware 4, or HW4, capable of supervised self-driving features, which technically still represents Level-2 autonomy Hardware 1 was based on MobilEye's EyeQ3 platform and relied on a single monochrome camera, radar, and ultrasonic sensors to provide advanced driving assistance () features. These included automatic emergency braking (AEB), traffic-aware cruise control (TACC), lane-keeping, and lane-centering assist (LKA, LDA,). HW1 vehicles also provided Autopark and Summon.Tesla's partnership with MobilEye ended abruptly in 2016 after the first deadly crash of a Model S with active Autopilot. MobilEye's CEO Amnon Shashua accused Tesla of "pushing the envelope in terms of safety" and that Autopilot was a "driver assistance system" and not a "driverless system." After this episode, Tesla switched to Nvidia for its Autopilot hardware.Hardware 2, or Autopilot 2, arrived in October 2016 and featured the Nvidia Drive PX2 AI computing system and a comprehensive sensor set. This included three forward cameras (narrow, main, and wide), two forward-looking and two rearward-looking side cameras, one rear camera, a radar sensor, and 12 ultrasonic sensors. This set of sensors was used until Hardware 4 launched in February 2023, although Tesla removed the radar in May 2021 and the ultrasonic sensors in October 2022.Hardware 2 Teslas were initially crippled compared to HW1-equipped vehicles, missing some notable features like Summon until March 2017. This happened again with HW4, which only recently gained all the capabilities of HW3 vehicles. Tesla introduced Enhanced Autopilot on cars equipped with Hardware 2, with Navigate on Autopilot as its signature feature. This allowed changing lanes without driver input and navigating on-ramps and off-ramps.In August 2017, Tesla upgraded the onboard processor and added redundancy with Hardware 2.5. It also upgraded the radar sensor to extend coverage to 558 feet/170 meters, a slight bump from 525 ft/160 m. Hardware 2.5 offered new features like Dashcam and Sentry Mode and, starting with the Model 3, a new cabin camera. This was intended for robotaxi operations, but Tesla activated it in 2021 to monitor driver attentiveness while using autonomous driving features.Tesla ran into a computational bottleneck with existing hardware by 2018, significantly hindering the company's self-driving efforts. Hardware 3 launched in 2019 to allow running neural networks on the vehicle and process vast amounts of data. With Hardware 3, Tesla introduced its custom-designed chips, aptly called "FSD Chips." Tesla said the proprietary chips could process images at 2,300 frames per second while each of the two neural network arrays on a singleChip could perform 36 trillion operations per second. Hardware 3 featured two FSD chips for redundancy.Tesla claimed that HW3 was necessary to run itssoftware and later extended the claim to say that it was also enough to reach full autonomy. The HW3 computer was offered to customers with HW2 and HW2.5 who purchased the FSD package as a free retrofit. Four years later, Hardware 4 was introduced on the revamped Model S and Model X, changing the autonomy books. But until then, Elon Musk had a crazy idea.Elon Musk takes human beings as an example and considers that autonomous driving doesn't need more than cameras. With eight eyes on all four sides, Tesla vehicles could be more aware than humans, even without radar and ultrasonic sensors. Autonomous driving experts harshly criticized the move, although that didn't make Musk change his decision. Tesla eliminated the radar sensors from the Model 3 and Model Y in May 2021 and introduced limitations to how various assistance systems performed. Soon, the Model S and Model X followed On vehicles without radar sensors, some features (Smart Summon, Emergency Lane Departure Avoidance) were disabled, while others (traffic-aware cruise control) were speed-limited. Tesla promised to reinstate these features with an upcoming software update "in the weeks ahead." It was more like "the months ahead" because Tesla reintroduced the missing functions in July 2021. Later, it removed the radar functionality even on older vehicles that still had radar sensors.Removing the radar was only the first step. In October 2022, Tesla also scrapped the ultrasonic sensors . In the grand scheme of things, ultrasonic sensors were considered probably less important for achieving the goal of full self-driving. However, for Tesla owners, removing these tiny sensors had broader implications. Suddenly, Tesla EVs became less appealing than the cheapest vehicles on the market, many featuring park assist. Teslas, not anymore.It wasn't only Park Assist features that disappeared, but also Smart Summon and Auto Park. For owners of the Tesla Model X, the auto-presenting doors feature was severely crippled. One year later, only park distance measurement has been reinstated, with mixed results. So far, despite Elon Musk's optimism, Tesla Vision has been nothing but a major disappointment for owners.Nevertheless, the latest stab for owners of Tesla EVs without radar and ultrasonics came when Tesla released Hardware 4. Progress is essential, but this time, it came with the middle finger aroused. Hardware 4 includes a radar sensor, at least for Model S and Model X, and is also designed to support an additional camera in the front bumper.This means Tesla finally admitted that radar is essential, and the blind spot in front of the car cannot be avoided without ultrasonic sensors or a new camera. It also meant that not all Teslas were equipped for fully autonomous driving, as Musk promised. Otherwise, why would you need radar and additional cameras?Hardware 4 also introduced a significant upgrade in processing power and better cameras. However, it took Tesla more than half a year to make it work, irking those who bought a Model S, Model X, and, later, Model Y with HW4 computer.If the hardware supporting Tesla autonomous driving features seems complicated, the software is even more so. Even though Elon Musk thought Autopilot should drive the car itself at some point, the setbacks with Hardware 1 and MobilEye made him reconsider. Autopilot provided basic driver assist features but was incapable of driving the vehicle itself, as some tragedies revealed.Tesla Autopilot is today offered on every Tesla as part of the standard configuration. It provides basic features like Traffic-Aware Cruise Control (TACC) and Autosteer, which are common on many car models nowadays. Autopilot can match the speed of your car to that of the surrounding traffic and helps keep the car centered within a clearly marked lane by making steering adjustments.With the Hardware 2, Tesla introduced Enhanced Autopilot, a more capable version of the original software. It was (and still is) an optional upgrade that adds semi-autonomous driving features in certain conditions (highways). These include Navigate on Autopilot, which actively guides the vehicle from a highway's on-ramp to off-ramp, suggests lane changes, and automatically engages the turn signals. When Autosteer is engaged, it can perform automatic lane changes, making long journeys more bearable.Enhanced Autopilot includes features like Autopark, Summon, and Smart Summon, although not all are available on all car models. Notably, Autopark and Smart Summon are not offered to non-USS vehicles for the time being. This makes Enhanced Autopilot less worthy of its money, which currently amounts to $6,000. Despite current limitations, Tesla still promises all of them to prospective buyers, which is misleading.The Full Self-Driving package is the most complex (and expensive) tier of Tesla's software. Until recently, it only offered Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control in addition to the Enhanced Autopilot features to most people in North America. Select customers who were allowed to test more advanced features were given access to FSD Beta, which is capable of driving the car in most situations with minimal intervention.Recently, Tesla expanded FSD Beta to all Tesla owners in North America, so the Full Self-Driving Capability now lists Autosteer on city streets as one of its features. This only stands for those who buy the package in the US and Canada. European customers (and those from other continents) still don't have access to this advanced feature, and there's no timeline. Tesla was expected to start tests in Europe this year, but there's no information on this.FSD Beta is an intermediary step toward the ultimate goal, which is full autonomy. Elon Musk is convinced that autonomous driving can make or break Tesla and is willing to bet anything on it. Still, recent controversies surrounding autonomous driving projects, including Cruise, indicate that AD companies might not be so far ahead in achieving full autonomy. Cruise admitted that human operators were required to intervene every 2-5 miles, which basically rules out Cruise robotaxis as autonomous vehicles.Like Autopilot, Full Self-Driving has known its fair share of controversies, starting with its name. People tend to take this too literally and are sometimes overconfident in technology. Inevitably, Teslas has been involved in crashes, and Autopilot and FSD have been suspected of causing them. Tesla, on its part, makes it very clear that both systems require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous. But that didn't prevent people from suing and regulators from investigating.An important event for Tesla FSD development happened when thestarted investigating the system at the start of this year. The agency discovered that the software might "infringe upon local traffic laws or customs" while driving the car in specific conditions. These include traveling through an intersection during a stale yellow traffic light, failing to stop completely at a stop sign, or traveling straight through an intersection while in a turn-only lane.In light of these findings, Tesla completely paused FSD development until it could offer a solution, which, like other safety fixes, was named "recall." This irritated Tesla fans, but not as much as not having FSD updates for a while. The pause ended in March when Tesla offered a fix to the issues raised by the NHTSA with the 2022.45.10 OTA update. Tesla also edited its website to clarify that FSD Beta is an SAE Level 2 driver assist system , not an autonomous driving system.For now, Full Self-Driving software is in beta, and it still needs polishing. Version 11 is pretty good at navigating traffic with little to no human intervention. Your mileage may vary depending on the area and the amount of data Tesla gathered about local streets. Some users reported outstanding results, while others were utterly disappointed using the same FSD Beta software version.Tesla is currently working on FSD V12 , which, according to Elon Musk, will mark the completion of the beta program. Unfortunately, Musk has been captivated by Twitter/X lately and hasn't updated its followers and Tesla fans about the FSD V12 progress. The latest we've seen was in August when Musk demoed the FSD Beta V12 live with less-than-impressive results. At about the same time, Tesla cut the price of the FSD package by $3,000 to $12,000. This doesn't sound very confident, in my opinion.Still, Musk remains committed to bringing a robotaxi onto the streets as soon as possible. This was the only thing that convinced him to reconsider the idea of an affordable EV. According to Walter Isaacson's book on Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO was finally convinced that building the compact EV and the robotaxi using the same EV platform would bring down the costs through economy of scale. Only a high-volume model would offset the high development costs of the Gen-3 platform.Rough estimates indicate that Tesla will probably launch the Gen-3 vehicles in 2025, so it will need to speed up FSD development. Many are skeptical that Tesla could solve autonomy by then, but I am rather optimistic. Autopilot launched less than a decade ago, while FSD is only four years old, but it's easy to see the progress. Even though Musk is absent from the agora with updates about FSD, Tesla engineers certainly keep working on it. EV The premium subsidiary, for example, has a sedan show of force thanks to the CT4 and CT5 series, which not only include standard variants but also push the pedal to the metal for performance thanks to the CT4-V and CT5-V plus the bonkers Blackwing variants. Chevrolet, on the other hand, has the C8 Corvette, Camaro, and Malibu nameplates in descending MSRP order.However, it won't be long before we say goodbye to the sixth-generation Camaro as the 2024 model year is scheduled to end production next January or even sooner, later this month for the Cabriolet and in early December for the coupe if we are to trust the rumor mill. Unfortunately, the company doesn't plan to renew the series anytime soon and probably, they will also adopt thelifestyle when it's time for a glorious comeback.That leaves the Chevrolet brand with just two passenger car nameplates in the future the 2024 Malibu starting from $25,100 and the C8 Corvettes rocking MSRPs of $68,300 for Stingray models, $105k for the first-ever E-Ray, and no less than $112,700 for the mighty Z06. Notice anything? Yep, there's a massive pricing gap between these models. But maybe that's not the issue, and instead, perhaps Chevrolet just needs another sedan in its roster. Well, if you ask the imaginative realm of digital car content creators, the missing piece in the linkage is a cheaper compact car aka the Chevrolet Cruze.This nameplate was born in 2008 and had a global presence thanks to models like the Daewoo Lacetti Premiere or the Holden Cruze. It was also produced all over the world, from India to the US and from South Korea to China or Argentina, over two generations. Unfortunately for those seeking an affordable compact sedan with the bowtie emblem, production in the US was wrapped in spring 2019 with no successor planned. However, the parallel universes of vehicular CGI want to see a third generation.As such, meet the good folks over at the Q Cars channel on YouTube, who aim to daze and amaze the audience with a potential styling of their vision for the revived Cruze compact sedan. Their resident pixel master's vision, possibly aided by some AI software assistance, is pretty convincing and the fastback allure with a muscular profile suits the hypothetical revival well. Interestingly, that's not the only sedan they would like to see reinvented from Chevrolet's roster.Not long ago, they also sought to bring back the beloved Impala moniker for another full-size sedan. Well, if that ever happened, it would be pretty wild to see Chevrolet sport a triple sedan threat Cruze, Malibu, and Impala. Cool, right? Two-thirds of residents in Gyeonggi Province are opposed to the proposal to incorporate satellite cities near Seoul into the sprawling capital, a poll showed Sunday, amid the ruling party's push for a megacity project. The survey, conducted by Realmeter from Nov. 2-5 on 3,004 Gyeonggi residents aged 18 and older, showed that 66.3 percent oppose the idea, while 29.5 percent are in support of it. The remaining 4.2 percent said they have no idea. By region, the opposition was highest among residents in Uiwang, south of Seoul, with 73.5 percent, followed by Paju with 73.3 percent, Yangju with 73 percent, Hwaseong with 72.5 percent and Siheung with 71.1 percent, the survey showed. Residents in Gwangyeong expressed the highest support with 47.4 percent, followed by Guri with 41.5 percent, Hanam with 38.5 percent, Dongducheon with 36.4 percent and Gimpo with 36.3 percent. Early this month, the ruling People Power Party proposed merging the city of Gimpo, west of Seoul, into the capital, saying the idea would be beneficial to both cities. The PPP has also said other satellite cities could be merged into Seoul if residents want it. Critics view the idea as an attempt to boost the party's chances in next year's general elections. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.8 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level. (Yonhap) 12 November 2023 08:30 (UTC+04:00) Elnur Enveroglu Read more Although Iran is a close neighbor of Azerbaijan in terms of both historical and cultural values, there has always been a certain political clash and conflict of ideas between the two states at many stages of recent history. For example, Iran recognizes Azerbaijan's independence, territorial integrity, and sovereignty, however, it has always treated Azerbaijani territories with a dual attitude in certain contexts. This topic has become a special tool for Iran, especially since the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict emerged. Of course, if we take into account Iran's support to Azerbaijan in some nuances, it would not be correct to direct all the criticism to Iran. For example, in the last few months, Iran's initiative to restore diplomatic relations with Azerbaijan, support to Azerbaijan in opening an alternative transport route to establish a connection between Nakhchivan and Azerbaijan, as well as during the meeting of Iranian President Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at the 16th OIC meeting in Tashkent, between the two countries mention of historical relations can be positively evaluated. However, the degree to which all this is for Iran and the credibility of Iran in the face of these statements seems to be questionable. It should be noted once again that this does not come from any bias against the Iranian state. This is just a result of Iran's traditional behavior - or let's simply call it misbehavior. Such a question arises: the President of Iran, while meeting with the President of Azerbaijan in Tashkent, notes that a friendly atmosphere has arisen between the two countries. Moreover, Raisi expresses that he is happy about Azerbaijan's victory in Garabagh, that is, he clearly expresses his satisfaction that Azerbaijan has restored its territorial integrity. It would not be wrong to say that the expressions used by the head of state present the image of that state and its whole body. With his words, Ebrahim Raisi also expressed the views of the Iranian government and all official circles operating within it. This is according to diplomatic rules. However, according to Mahdi Sobhani, Iran's ambassador to Armenia, it is completely different. I mentioned earlier that Iran is trying to restore diplomatic relations with Azerbaijan and expresses its sincerity in this desire. But if so, why does an Iranian diplomat assigned to Armenia cast a shadow on the sincerity of his country? Two ideas arise here: either Mahdi Sobhani does not want to agree with the Iranian authorities, or there is insincerity in the sincerity of the authorities. Why did the Iranian diplomat change his political course and take an anti-Azerbaijani position while the ambassador was giving an interview on the Civil Net platform of Armenia? Is it fear or a special hatred that comes from inside? Azerbaijan has always been sincere in diplomacy and has always valued sincere partners. Azerbaijan has close diplomatic relations with Israel, Russia, and a number of leading and powerful political countries. For example, Israel did not make concessions to Armenia even once during the Second Garabagh War by taking a step against Azerbaijan. No matter how much Russia showed hospitality to Armenia, it treated Azerbaijan's sovereign territories with utmost respect in the processes related to Garabagh. Even the West, which tried to interfere with the processes in the South Caucasus from the opposite position, eventually admitted that Azerbaijan was the rightful party. If proxy countries such as France, Canada, and Germany come to Armenia and express biased views against Azerbaijan, what name can be given to the ambassador of a close neighboring country like Iran expressing views against Azerbaijan from Armenia? Then what is the difference between Iran and those countries? Iran should know that relations are always mutual. If there are double standards in diplomacy, it will not be accepted in any case, and this kind of attitude will definitely show its negative effect at some point. Today, Iran expresses its satisfaction with the opening of the Aghband road between Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan. Who knows, at some point Iran may change its mind in this direction and use this path as a political tool. Although this is just a subjective approach, Iran's current position gives reason to believe it. In a word, we can note that Azerbaijan is currently continuing its efforts to open the Zangazur corridor or road in parallel. A peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan is inevitable, and there is no other option. As a state, Armenia should participate in economic cooperation between the South Caucasus states. Western countries already accept and support this. All issues in Garabagh have been put to an end - old ideas have been left behind. Moving towards new perspectives has become the main priority for Armenia. In this regard, the readiness of the Zangazur road for full use prepares a new stage for Armenia-Azerbaijan economic relations. This has many political and economic implications: stability is created in the South Caucasus, transport dependence is eliminated, economic development is accelerated and it becomes sustainable. This is exactly what Azerbaijan wants. --- Elnur Enveroglu is AzerNews Deputy Editor-in-Chief, follow him on @ElnurMammadli1 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 November 2023 10:00 (UTC+04:00) Abbas Ganbay Read more Armenian-born residents of Garabakh cannot be considered Azerbaijani citizens, as they have not yet applied for Azerbaijani citizenship. Most of them already have Armenian passports. There are less than a thousand people who have applied for Azerbaijani citizenship. Ambassador Elchin Amirbayov, the representative of the President of Azerbaijan on special assignments, said this in an interview with Italy's "In Terris" while answering the questions of the correspondent about the Garabagh war, the migration of Armenians, their return, and plans for the establishment of sustainable peace in the South Caucasus, Azernews reports. "Does Azerbaijan intend to invade Armenia in the near future?" the ambassador's answer to the question was clear and unequivocal: Definitely, I will say that this is fake news that has been spreading in recent days, the origin of which we cannot understand until the end. The reason or excuse for such false news is the transport link that will be created between Azerbaijan and its exclave Nakhchivan, called "Zangazur Corridor": in fact, it is not only a link connecting Azerbaijan and Armenia or regional states, but also Asia in a wider sense. It can be an alternative route of the middle transport corridor that can connect with Europe, and in fact, it is a strategic project that can give a strong boost to world trade. According to him, if Erivan does not like the word "corridor", it should be a passage, road, connection, etc. such terms can be used". Elchin Amirbeyov reminded that the mentioned term is "purely an economic and transport concept": "If Armenia does not fulfill its commitment on this matter, we essentially have an alternative option, and thus the project of connecting the main part of Azerbaijan with the autonomous republic of Nakhchivan through the territory of Iran by rail and road will be implemented in a short time. As for Armenia, it will remain the deadlock in the region until now, and this will be the choice of the Armenians themselves. In response to your question, let me say once again that in any case, Azerbaijan does not have a territorial claim against Armenia, and this is most likely a groundless claim deliberately spread by Armenia." The representative of the President on special assignments also answered the journalist's question about the number of Armenian residents in Garabagh and their possible return. First of all, he reminded that "they are not citizens because they have not yet applied for Azerbaijani citizenship". "Most of them already have Armenian passports, and at least a third of them are not originally from Garabagh, but came from Armenia and illegally settled in Garabagh in recent decades under the influence of a kind of "colonial" spirit. There are less than a thousand people who have applied for Azerbaijani citizenship and pledged to give up separatist actions." Ambassador Amirbeyov noted that "aggressive separatism, which is a serious threat to the state, is prohibited in many constitutions, including the Italian constitution." According to him, "returning them is a complicated matter." "We understand that after 30 years of conflict, fleeing is a predictable choice, but it was their personal choice, even though the government of Azerbaijan urged them not to leave the country. We have created a portal that allows for a quick return to Azerbaijan, and we are committed to guaranteeing the safety, rights, and economic well-being of these people. We believe that the remaining few people can play an attractive role, given that they are in contact with the escapees," Elchin Amirbeyov emphasized. The publication also asked the president's representative on special assignments about Azerbaijan's position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Elchin Amirbeyov noted that Azerbaijan is "perhaps the Muslim-majority country with the best relationship with Israel in the world": "This is more than simple friendship. It is enough to understand the peaceful conditions of the Jewish community in our country. We believe that the conflict has a territorial origin, not a religious one. We are saddened by the loss of life on both sides, and that is why we, like the majority of the United Nations, voted in favor of a ceasefire in the fighting in Gaza. We believe that the conditions of peace should be restored soon, innocent people should not lose their lives, and we support the well-known solution, which includes the formula of two peoples, and two states. At the same time, the ambassador clarified the question regarding the situation of Catholicism and Christianity in general in Azerbaijan. "Of course, the number of Catholics in our country is small, but all their rights are protected by the state, like the rights of other citizens of the country. It should be taken into account that Azerbaijan is a secular country as well as a multicultural and multi-confessional country. And this diversity is the source of our pride. Muslims, Orthodox, Jews, Catholics, and others live peacefully together here. They can have their own places of worship and fulfill their religious needs according to the law." He noted that when St. John Paul II was in Baku in 2002, then President Heydar Aliyev made a decision to allocate free land to Catholics in Baku for the construction of a church. "The church was opened in 2008 by the then Secretary of State of the Holy See, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. Pope Francis visited Azerbaijan in 2016 and was very pleased with the religious tolerance and the degree of religious freedom prevailing in our country. During the traditional meeting with journalists on the plane that took him back to Rome, he spoke about the Azerbaijan model, which is a platform for religious coexistence and secularism, promotes freedom and mutual respect, and said that it can be an example for many countries. Elchin Amirbeyov emphasized that, as for churches, monasteries, religious works, and objects belonging to Christians, they are an integral part of the rich artistic and cultural heritage of Azerbaijan and therefore are protected by the state. "We are currently carrying out a census of all religious monuments, including Christian monuments, in Garabagh, in the recently liberated territories. If cultural and religious heritage was insulted on the territory of our country, in relation to those of Islamic origin, it was carried out by the occupying forces of Armenia: I would like to draw your attention to only one terrible figure: 65 out of 67 mosques in the Azerbaijani lands under Armenian occupation were completely destroyed by the invaders. , the remaining two mosques were severely damaged. "Unfortunately, no one in the world expresses concern about this," the Azerbaijani official pointed out. The representative of the President on special assignments touched upon Baku's relations with the Vatican. "I am in Rome to hold a series of high-level meetings, both in the Vatican and in the Republic of Italy. Needless to say, Italy is my country's most important partner in the European Union. As for the Holy See, we celebrated the 30th anniversary of our diplomatic relations last year, and our relations are growing. We hope that the Vatican side will soon open its own nunciature in Baku, just as we sent our own ambassador to the Holy See in Rome. One of the main goals in the negotiations with my interlocutors is to inform the other side about the current situation, prospects, and challenges of the peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the South Caucasus, and to conduct a useful exchange of views on this issue," the ambassador said. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 11 November 2023 23:55 (UTC+04:00) Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry has made a statement on Iranian Ambassador to Armenia Mehdi Subhani's biased views about Azerbaijan's territorial integrity. We strongly condemn the provocative and groundless opinions expressed by Mehdi Subhani, the Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Republic of Armenia, during his interview with the Armenian "Civil Net" platform. According to Azernews, this was stated by the head of the press service department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, press secretary Aykhan Hajizadeh on the biased opinions expressed by Mehdi Subhani, the ambassador of Iran to Armenia. According to him, these views, which undermine relations between Azerbaijan and Iran based on mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty, are also in conflict with the views expressed by the President of Iran during the meeting between the presidents of the two countries on November 9, 2023, in Tashkent. Thus, during the mentioned meeting, the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Seyyed Ibrahim Raisi, happily noted that Azerbaijan has ensured its territorial integrity after many years and that Garabagh has returned to Azerbaijan. The spokesperson emphasized that we consider the Iranian President's words as provocation, as well as the Iranian ambassador's views against our territorial integrity and sovereignty against the background of positive dynamics in the development of bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Iran in recent times. We expect Iran to prevent such steps that are not in line with the spirit of our relations, as well as to take appropriate steps regarding the views expressed by the ambassador. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 November 2023 16:20 (UTC+04:00) Two fishermen went missing in the Caspian Sea, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Emergency Situations told Azernews. The "112" hotline of the Ministry of Emergency Situations received information about the disappearance of 2 fishermen in the direction of Sabail region, Bibiheybat settlement in the Caspian Sea. Regarding the information, the helicopter of the Aviation Department of the Ministry was involved in joint search operations. At the moment, the search and rescue measures of citizens Jafarov Vidadi Ali, born in 1954, and Hasanov Elvin Najafgulu, born in 1977, are being carried out. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 November 2023 20:07 (UTC+04:00) The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Jeyhun Bayramov, has left for an official visit to the Kingdom of Morocco, Azernews reports, citing the ministry. Within the framework of the visit, the meeting of the Joint Commission on bilateral cooperation between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Government of the Kingdom of Morocco, co-chaired by Minister Jeyhun Bayramov, bilateral and extensive meetings with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Morocco, with the Director General of the Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ICESCO) and other high-level officials meetings are planned. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Sixteen Kazakh nationals aboard flight CZ3012 enjoyed visa-free treatment as they arrived Urumqi, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Azernews reports, citing Kazinform News Agency. The passengers went through the border checkpoint without any visa documentation, being the first batch of Kazakh nationals arriving at the airport under the China-Kazakhstan visa-free agreement that took effect Friday, said local border inspection station. The plane took off from Kazakhstan's Almaty International Airport and arrived at the Urumqi Diwopu International Airport at around 0 a.m. on Friday. Starting from Friday, Chinese and Kazakh citizens will be allowed to stay in each other's country for no more than 30 days for single crossing and stay 90 days as part of a 180-day visa-free period, according to the visa-free agreement. "Now, to fly from Kazakhstan to China, an airline ticket and a passport are all that you need," said Adelina Ashimova, a Kazakh passenger, "The customs entry in Urumqi is very fast and efficient." According to data from Urumqi Diwopu International Airport, after the official implementation of the visa-free agreement, the number of international flights between Kazakhstan and Urumqi will reach up to six a day. "The mutual visa exemption between China and Kazakhstan reflects the high degree of mutual trust between the two countries. It is also convenient for Kazakh tourists, businessmen and students coming to China, and residents of the two countries will have more frequent exchanges," said Kazakh passenger Adil Kaukenov. To facilitate passenger travel between China and Kazakhstan, a passenger bus service connecting Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, and Almaty, the largest city of Kazakhstan, was launched on Nov. 3. Xinjiang will launch four more international passenger bus routes from Urumqi, with destinations including Semipalatinsk, according to the regional department of transport. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 November 2023 09:00 (UTC+04:00) China's export container transport index increased in the week ending Nov. 10, according to the Shanghai Shipping Exchange, Azernews reports, citing Xinhua. The average China Containerized Freight Index (CCFI) rose 1.9 percent from the previous week to 843.77, the shipping exchange said. The sub-reading for the Persian Gulf/Red Sea service rose 6.1 percent from a week earlier. Going against the trend, the sub-index for the West America service registered a decrease of 1.5 percent week on week. The CCFI tracks spot and contractual freight rates at Chinese container ports for 12 shipping routes across the globe, based on data from 22 international carriers. The index was set at 1,000 on Jan. 1, 1998. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 November 2023 10:35 (UTC+04:00) Qabil Ashirov Read more Continuing tension in the Israel-Palestine conflict zone, in particular, the fact that civilians are suffering the most from the present escalation spur serious concern, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayrmov said in his address to the Joint Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit, Azernews reports. The Minister expressed condolence to the families of the victims, saying Azerbaijan joins the calls for urgent de-escalation of the situation and ceasing hostilities. He underlined the need to avoid any actions that may exacerbate the existing situation. Bayramov reiterated that Azerbaijan advocates for the two-state solution based on international law, and respective UN resolutions. Note that Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov left for a working visit to Saudi Arabia on November 10 to participate in the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 November 2023 17:59 (UTC+04:00) Turkish Pegasus Airlines will start operating flights at Kutaisi International Airport from December 22, Irakli Karkashadze, the Director of the United Airports of Georgia, said on Saturday, Azernews reports, citing Agenda. Karkashadze said the final stage of the long and difficult negotiations, which had started before the pandemic, was successfully completed with Pegasus Airlines at the World Routes aviation forum in Istanbul. He noted Istanbul was a new destination from Kutaisi airport, which would serve transit routes, We are sure it [...] will have a significant impact on the regional and economic development of Imereti [region], he added. Pegasus will offer flights between Georgias western city of Kutaisi and the Turkish city of Istanbul three times a week. The Turkish airline has been operating in the market since 1990, carrying out flights to 130 destinations in 50 countries. It has also been successfully operating flights from Tbilisi and Batumi international airports for years. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 November 2023 20:17 (UTC+04:00) The evacuation of Russian nationals from the Gaza Strip has begun and more than 60 Russian passport holders have crossed into Egypt, Russias emergencies ministry said on Sunday, Azernews reports, citing Al Arabiya. A limited evacuation, which began on Nov. 1, of foreign passport holders and Palestinians needing urgent medical treatment, to Egypt has faced difficulties. It was paused several times in the past week due to bombardments that aid staff said hit or targeted medical convoys. At the moment, citizens of the Russian Federation who wish to leave the conflict zone are crossing the checkpoint, Russias emergencies ministry said. Russian Emergency Situations Ministry specialists are providing medical and psychological assistance to the people on site, and providing them with food and water, it said. It said that Russian citizens will be transferred to Cairo and will be assisted with necessary paperwork. The ministry didnt say, how many Russian citizens are expected to leave Gaza. According to Russian media, some 1,000 Russians and nationals from the republics of the former Soviet Union have expressed a wish to leave Gaza. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Seoul Metro's labor union heralds its plan for strike after CSAT By Jung Da-hyun Although a two-day strike by unionized workers of Seoul Metro ended without a big commute disruption last week, the specter of another strike is still lingering as the workers have threatened to stage another walkout unless the company scraps its workforce reduction plan. The strike deadline, set by the union, would be after Thursday when the nation holds the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT). Seoul Metro operates subway lines 1 to 8 in addition to the Line 9 section between Sinnonhyeon Station and VHS Medical Center Station. "Our struggle is not over yet. Let's be fully prepared to start a general strike if our demands are not met," union leader Myung Soon-pil said, Friday, adding the exact date of the second strike will be determined later. The recent strike, initiated by the largest of the three labor unions of Seoul Metro, took place on Thursday and Friday after 11 rounds of negotiations on the plans for labor force reduction and outsourcing safety workers had fallen through. However, thanks to an agreement on essential service maintenance, the subway operated at its usual level during the morning rush hour, but the operational rate dropped during the evening rush hour, causing a little inconvenience to citizens during the two-day strike. While the Seoul Metropolitan Government and Seoul Metro aimed for an 87 percent operational rate, the actual rate was approximately 75 percent. The primary cause of the strike is a difference of opinions regarding the company's workforce reduction plan. As part of its management strategy, Seoul Metro plans to lay off 2,211 workers by 2026 to address its chronic deficit, which has reached a cumulative 18.4 trillion won ($14 billion) as of the end of this year. The company also intends to outsource some safety work as part of its plan to normalize operations. However, the union members claim that the reduction plan poses a direct threat to citizens' safety and will result in service degradation. They express dissatisfaction with prioritizing large-scale personnel reduction over alternative management plans. In the recent labor-management negotiations, Seoul Metro proposed a compromise, including a plan to recalculate human resources under mutual agreement and a new recruitment plan for on-site safety personnel. The union's insistence on large-scale recruitment prevented an agreement, leading to the breakdown of negotiations. As the strike commenced on Thursday, the company announced the suspension of all new hiring plans scheduled for the second half of the year. According to a union official, the warning strike conducted on Thursday was aimed to prompt a "stance change" from both the company and the Seoul Metropolitan Government, which runs Seoul Metro. In a bid to ensure safe operations during the special transportation period for the CSAT, unionized workers have announced their commitment to doing their utmost. They also expressed their continuous efforts to urge a change in the positions of both the city government and the company. However, if Seoul Metro adheres to its downsizing plan, the union plans to initiate a second full-scale strike after the college entrance exam. Meanwhile, some say that the union's solidarity has weakened compared to the previous year. The second-largest union representing the subway operators opted out of a collective action at the last minute, citing differences in negotiating terms with the larger union. According to an official of the second-largest union, they saw a draft regarding the readjustment of personnel, agreed upon by labor and management, for the remaining reduction of around 1,500 personnel until 2026 as a significant breakthrough. 12 November 2023 20:45 (UTC+04:00) The number of cases of human trafficking in Armenia has increased 10 times, Azernews reports, citing local media outlets. Official statistics also prove the increase in the number of criminal cases. According to the information of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Armenia, the cases of human trafficking or exploitation recorded in January-August 2023 are 10 times more than in the same period last year. Tigran Kirakosyan, deputy head of the Ministry's Office for the Investigation of Sexual Immunity of Minors and Drug Trafficking Crimes, said that during the 8 months of 2023, the country's Investigative Committee considered 28 criminal cases related to human trafficking or exploitation. In 2022, during the entire year, the investigators of the Investigative Committee reviewed 22 cases. For comparison, let's note that in 2021, 16 criminal cases related to human trafficking were opened, which is 60% more than in 2020. At the same time, it is noted that the cases of exploitation of minors have been increasing in Armenia in recent years. In the busy streets of the capital Yerevan, the wholesale sale of napkins, which is not allowed by law and is not controlled by authorities, is flourishing. Towel consumers are mainly passers-by, drivers who promote this form of sale as an alternative to begging and often leave extra "pocket money" for the offered product. But sometimes questionable forces and personalities lurk behind seemingly "harmless" retail. Today, two of the real beneficiaries of the travel trade are accused of human trafficking, which is also accused of long-term labor exploitation and abuse of vulnerable people. "NEWS.am" investigated the criminal case related to human trafficking in the Yerevan General Jurisdiction Court for about three and a half years and found interesting details. Given the sensitivity, anonymity, privacy, and ethical standards of trafficking victims, and the fact that criminal cases are still not legally binding sentences, the names of the victims in the article have been changed and the names of the accused have been presented in capital letters. It is noted that those who declare themselves "entrepreneurs" are also accused of human trafficking The couple SM and VO are accused of exploiting minors Ashot and Felix, as well as Artak, who suffers from mental retardation and epilepsy. According to the documents of the court case, Artak, who has serious health problems and does not have a permanent place of residence or work, has been taking money from drivers for parking cars on Saryan Street for a long time. In November 2018, SM and VO approached Artak and presented themselves as "supervisors" of the intersections of Abovyan and Sayat Nova, Pushkin Streets and Mashtos Avenue in Yerevan. After that, the boy was offered to trade napkins in these areas. Fraudulent entrepreneurs promised the boy a daily income of 15-18 thousand drams (37 - 42 US dollars) and agreed to pay 4-5 thousand drams (10-12 US dollars) every day. At the same time, knowing that Artak lives on daily earnings, they offered him to live together by paying his daily financial needs from the money he earned. In November 2018, Artak moved to the apartment rented by the couple in the center. After working in such conditions for a while and living on a daily wage, Artak, realizing that he had no money left for personal expenses, asked for money to be left for his expenses, but the couple told him he owed 270,000 drams (676 US dollar) allegedly for utilities and other payments. It is noted that the couple, using the existence of debts, as well as threats of punishment, forcibly involved Artak in the retail sale of napkins and took all his income from him. In addition, according to the indictment, SM and VO threatened and regularly beat Artak, forcing him to beg, in return for which they paid an additional 5,000 drams per day. According to the indictment sent to the court, Artak sold napkins even on days when he felt bad, his pockets were searched and beaten. In another episode, the couple is accused of exploiting the socially vulnerable Ashot and Felix. According to the indictment, the latter engaged in begging in the center of Yerevan, at the intersection of Abovyan and Sayat Nova streets, on Shimal Avenue and in other places, in order to provide basic living conditions. The court refused to release the couple, and they face a long prison sentence The aforementioned facts of human trafficking were determined by law enforcement officers in 2019. In May, the couple were charged simultaneously with two counts of the Criminal Code: premeditated conspiracy by a group of persons to inflict or threaten to inflict life-threatening violence. For the commission of these criminal acts, the Criminal Code provides for up to 12 years of imprisonment. Arrest measures were taken against the couple. In a letter addressed to the court, the woman, whose name was not mentioned, said that she was a victim of violence and was beaten. It is noted that victims of human trafficking are not sufficiently protected in Armenia. Studying the experience of the country's human trafficking courts, it is clear that in most cases, victims of human trafficking or witnesses refuse to testify in court before the investigation and provide information confirming the guilt of the accused, often fearing possible reprisals against them. The problem is that victims or witnesses of human trafficking cases do not receive effective and sufficient protection during the preliminary investigation and trial. The investigation conducted by the Prosecutor's Office of Armenia proves that the cases of exploitation of minors, people with mental health problems, i.e. vulnerable groups, have increased in the country in general. This situation is considered as a positive trend in the fight against human trafficking at the international level, as a rule, it is taken into account that people in that category cannot recognize themselves as victims of human trafficking. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 12 November 2023 21:15 (UTC+04:00) Former National Economy Minister of Kazakhstan Kuandyk Bishimbayev will spend the next two months under arrest as it was sanctioned by the Astana court, Azernews reports, Kazinform News Agency. According to the courts press service, the decision on Bishimbayevs arrest was made on November 11. Recall that Bishimbayev was detained by the Astana police on Thursday on suspicion of murdering his wife at one of the local restaurants. The detainee reportedly beat his spouse to death. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. A four-part series: California's unemployment crash Behind the scenes at the state Capitol, California is launching an unprecedented $1.2 billion overhaul of its battered job safety net. Its Employment Development Department better known as the EDD is attempting to rebuild its unemployment and disability systems as it recovers from a pandemic that left millions of workers waiting for payments and tens of billions of dollars missing to suspected fraud. A year-long CalMatters investigation finds that the state was primed for disaster by years of missed red flags and failed reforms. Once COVID hit, public records and interviews reveal that Californias system was initially friendlier to scammers than to many real workers and then the state got so aggressive that many workers struggled to prove their own identities. New financial reports requested by CalMatters show that amid the chaos, the EDD and its unemployment payment contractor Bank of America split a half a billion dollars in revenue, though the bank says it ultimately spent more to cover fraud losses. Another large EDD contractor, Deloitte, made more than a quarter of a billion dollars on tech contracts and emergency contracts to build systems that state reports say buckled during the pandemic. The question for the EDD now: Will history repeat itself, or can California finally lead a nationwide quest to reinvent unemployment? This post appears here courtesy of the Carolina Journal . The author of this post is Alex Baltzegar State budget negotiations are stalled as House and Senate lawmakers are too far apart to reach a deal. Reportedly, there will not be a budget agreement until likely September, following what had initially been a June 30 deadline.The Senate is prioritizing accelerated personal income tax cuts for North Carolinians, building and legalizing multiple new casinos around the state, and funding a $1.425 billion private endowment project called NCInnovation.The House wants to install revenue triggers onto the tax cuts as a means of ensuring sufficient state revenue and prefers funding NCInnovation at a lower level annually instead of via a one-time endowment. The two chambers also vary on how much to raise state employee and teacher pay, with the House proposing more than the Senate.The Senate budget proposed raising average teacher pay by 4.5% over the next two years but increased starting teacher pay by nearly 11% over the same period. The Senate budget also gives state employees a 5% raise over the next two years.On the other hand, the House proposed giving teachers more than 10% raises over the next two years while raising pay for state employees by 7.5%.Democrats have begun to seize on the delayed budget agreement, claiming that the legislative Republican supermajorities are incapable of governing.Rep. Wesley Harris, D-Mecklenburg, accused Republicans of not being able to govern and attributed it to fighting amongst themselves.Ford Porter, a spokesperson for Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, echoed similar sentiments in a statement.Ford said, alluding to times when Republicans needed Democrats to work with them.Porter goes on to say Republicans haveGov. Cooper has been arguing that Republicans need to decouple Medicaid expansion from the successful passage of this year's state budget, citing the delay on an agreement. Cooper signed the Medicaid expansion bill, which included the budget stipulation.Legislative Republicans do not agree with Democrats' claims of not being able to govern.Sen. Brent Jackson, R-Sampson, told Carolina Journal.A DIVIDE RUNNING DEEPER THAN PARTISANSHIPThere is a mantra amongst North Carolina Republican state House members that goes something like this:Senate Republicans have a similar perspective toward the House, and this dynamic is especially true when Republicans have supermajorities.With Republicans holding supermajorities in both chambers and Medicaid expansion being tied to the budget passing, there are no partisan roadblocks for the state budget to overcome. Instead, the hurdles are different priorities of the House and Senate chambers.Rep. Jason Saine, R-Lincoln, told Carolina Journal.Brian Lewis, a lobbyist for New Frame, Inc., has been actively involved in policy matters with the General Assembly since the early 2000s. He draws an interesting analogy, likening this year's budget negotiations to a repetitive show, playing the same storyline with different actors.Lewis told Carolina Journal.Speaking about the differences between the two chambers, Lewis said the Senate is run a little more top-down, while the House operates more like theLewis said.Basnight and Black were both Democrats.Rep. Saine also noted that tensions were just as high between the two chambers when Democrats had power.Saine said.While he noted the natural tensions between the chambers, Saine pushed back against the narrative that the House and Senate are enemies.Saine said.Lewis pointed out one major difference between negotiations prior to 2016 and now, noting that delayed budget decisions no longer shut down the state government.Lewis said, adding that he thought it was a good thing for the Senate's negotiating position.Mitch Kokai, who spent almost every day at the state Legislative Building from 2002 to 2005 and now serves as the Senior Political Analyst for the John Locke Foundation, agreed with Lewis's sentiment.Kokai said. Joe Biden is the cause of this frightening Worldwide situation, and it will end when a Republican is elected president. This delayed Worldwide dysfunction and constant conflict is all Donald Trump's fault, as it is with everything that occurs going forward, and long before the man ever became the 45th president.. Joe Biden is the "root cause" of this frightening Worldwide situation, and it will end when former President Donald John Trump is elected president. In the imitable words of Alfred E. Newman: "What, me worry?" 260 total vote(s) What's your Opinion? Press Release November 12, 2023 Poe to telcos: Help provide free wifi to public schools Sen. Grace Poe implored government regulators and telecommunications companies (telcos) to boost their linkages to provide free wifi services to needy public schools. Poe said the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and the Department of Education (DepEd) should work closely with the telcos to ensure students even in the most remote schools experience the fruits of connectivity. "At a time when the education of our children relies on connectivity, access to the free internet is a crucial need that telcos can help provide," Poe said in a recent national budget deliberation. "What to telcos could be a drop in the bucket can go a long mile for the efficient learning of our students," the chairperson of the Senate public services committee added. On Poe's inquiry, it was learned that only around 69 percent of the close to 45,000 public schools have wifi access and at varying degrees. "It's unimaginable for a big population of students not to have access to wifi especially now when we are saying that online education has become part of the new normal," she said. "Some may be able to spend a few pesos for wifi for their school works such as research, but how about the others who do not have the means?" Poe added. The senator asked the DepEd to submit a report on the status of connectivity of public schools to determine the areas in need of internet access. She said the information will be crucial when she presents the proposed budget of the DICT in plenary. Poe expressed optimism the telcos will continue to be a willing partner of government in the latter's digitalization program. "We believe telcos will always heed the challenge to do more for the worthwhile goal of inclusive, quality education," Poe said. President Yoon Suk Yeol on Sunday approved the proposed appointment of a former newspaper journalist as chief of South Korea's largest public broadcaster KBS, his office said. The broadcaster picked Park Min, a former editorial writer at the Munhwa Ilbo daily, as its new chief in a board of directors meeting last month. A graduate of Seoul National University, Park started his journalist career at the newspaper in 1991, and served as political desk editor, editor-in-chief and editorial writer. (Yonhap) Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions-represented employees have voted to approve a new four-year national labor contract following an October strike involving tens of thousands of workers in multiple states. Employees also approved their local collective bargaining deals. Seven things to know: 1. More than 85,000 Kaiser Permanente workers approved the new national contract by a margin of 98.5%, according to a coalition news release shared with Becker's. 2. The new national agreement includes annual wage increases, new minimum wages and a redesigned Performance Sharing Plan, Kaiser said in a statement posted online. It also addresses staffing, additional opportunities for employee education and career development. 3. Specific details of the national agreement include raising wages by 21% over the life of the contract; establishing a new healthcare worker minimum wage of $25 per hour in California and $23 per hour in other states where Kaiser operates; and protective terms related to subcontracting and outsourcing, according to coalition representatives. The deal also includes initiatives such as streamlining hiring practices, increased training and education funding, mass hiring events, and a commitment to upskill current workers and invest in the training of future staff. 4. The agreement, announced Nov. 9, is in effect from Oct. 1, 2023, to Sept. 30, 2027, at hundreds of Kaiser facilities across California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. 5. "We will begin implementing the national contract immediately," Kaiser's statement says. "We look forward to working together through the Labor Management Partnership to advance our mission of providing high-quality, affordable healthcare services and improving the health of our members and the communities we serve." 6. Angelica Mateo, a licensed vocational nurse at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center Clinics, said in the coalition release: "This is more than a contract it signals a new day for front-line healthcare workers and for patient safety across Kaiser facilities. When healthcare workers stand shoulder-to-shoulder to fight for our patients and our jobs, we can win." 7. Approval of the new national labor contract comes after Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser and workers reached a tentative agreement on Oct. 13. The tentative deal was reached about one week after workers began a three-day strike Oct. 4 at Kaiser hospitals and medical office buildings in California, Colorado, Washington and Oregon, and a one-day strike in Virginia and the District of Columbia. The coalition deemed the strike as the largest healthcare worker strike in the U.S. Two giants in their industries are joining forces. CommonSpirit Health's Virginia Mason Franciscan Health and Amazon's One Medical are partnering so the health system's specialists can provide care to the tech company's primary care patients. Virginia Mason will be One Medical's specialty referral partner for its eight primary care clinics in the Seattle area. One Medical, which Amazon bought in February for $3.9 billion, has similar arrangements with health systems in nearly 20 of its other markets. "Increasingly, healthcare consumers want patient-centered care delivered where they are, when they need it, with access via technology-driven solutions," said Ketul Patel, CEO of Tacoma, Wash.-based Virginia Mason Franciscan Health and president of Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health's northwest region, in a Nov. 9 news release. "This new collaboration provides One Medical members with access to the region's best specialty care providers, and together we'll be able to provide better continuity of care, a better patient experience and ultimately better health outcomes." Financial details of the deal were not disclosed, but, in one of the partnerships, a health system said it reimburses One Medical for providing care on its behalf and collects the fee-for-service revenue from the patient visits. One Medical previously collaborated with Seattle-based Swedish (part of Renton, Wash.-based Providence) in the region. For $199 a year, One Medical extends unlimited on-demand virtual visits and online appointment scheduling for its more than 200 primary care offices around the country. Amazon launched One Medical for Prime on Nov. 8, offering the service for $9 a month to its estimated 200 million Prime members. Police at the scene of an incident in the Forthriver Road area of north Belfast on November 12th 2023 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Police at the scene of an incident in the Forthriver Road area of north Belfast on November 12th 2023 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) A 28-year-old man has been released on bail following an assault in north Belfast on Sunday. A man had been taken to hospital after he was struck by a car during the incident in the Forthriver Road area. It was reported that a man had been assaulted by another man, who was armed with a knife, around 5am on Sunday morning. During the course of the incident, a man was struck by a vehicle, said a PSNI spokesperson. He was subsequently taken to hospital due to his injuries, which police said are believed to be serious but not life threatening. The man, who was arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily injury by dangerous driving, was released on bail on Monday. The PSNI said the investigation continues. A PSNI spokesperson said on Sunday: A man in his 20s has been arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily injury by dangerous driving. He remains in police custody at this time. Police were at the scene of the incident on Sunday morning as forensic officers were pictured working in the area. Several items were examined and taken from the scene by forensic teams, including a bottle of vodka that was discovered nearby. Police at the scene of an incident in the Forthriver Road area of north Belfast on November 12th 2023 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) The PSNI said: Enquiries remain ongoing, and police are appealing for anyone who witnessed the incident, or who may have any information which might assist, to get in touch via 101, quoting reference number 405 of 12/11/23. A report can also be made online using the non-emergency reporting form via www.psni.police.uk/makeareport "You can also contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or online at www.crimestoppers-uk.org A weather warning for ice remains in place with commuters being warned to allow extra time for their journey on Friday morning. It comes as Translink workers begin their strike over pay conditions. There are no bus or rail services on Friday as the unions GMB, Siptu and Unite all take the industrial action. School buses are also affected. A Met Office yellow weather warning for ice is also expected to add to a busy rush hour on Friday. The weather warning remains in place until 10am. Northern Ireland woke up to frosty conditions as icy patches were expected to develop, particularly on untreated roads, increasing the chance of injuries and accidents. Meanwhile, a broken down lorry has been reported on the A2 Belfast Road in Cultra - close to the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum. Knock-on delays stretch back to Ballyrobert. In the Greater Belfast area, traffic is busy on the following routes: 15-year old Candice Tosh who died following the crash Police have made an appeal for information following a road crash which killed a 15-year old girl in Co Londonderry. Candice Tosh died following a road crash in the Dunhill Road area of Macosquin on Thursday 2 November. A fundraiser was later set up by her friends and family following her death in the incident. The PSNI has said as part of the ongoing investigation in the collision, officers are keen to speak with the driver of a small white vehicle that was heading towards the Coleraine area and stopped at the road traffic collision, which occurred at around 12:45pm. It is believed this person may be a witness and could assist with enquiries. Police appealed to the driver of the vehicle, or anyone who was in the area at the time, and witnessed what happened, or who may have any mobile phone or dash cam footage to contact them on 101 quoting reference number 740 02/11/23. Following Candices death, her father Bryan made an emotional tribute on social media writing that he hoped to make his daughter proud. "Once heard from someone who had lost his only child and in her memory he gets up every day, does good in the world to help people, he said. "But his main thing whilst doing this [was to] to make her proud. "He's counting each day to get up to heaven to see his baby by building steps up to the sky. "Candice, my baby girl, whilst we are apart now I'm building my steps up too and I will make you proud every day from now until then. "I will always love you forever, my first true love. The 15-year old was also involved with Crindle Stables, and provided help with Bridle, an initiative set up to provide opportunities for disabled people to access horse riding. The stables said they were devastated by the news of her death earlier this month. "She was such a great help and was amazing with the children. Candice was a very quiet young lady but one week she left her signature brown coat behind. We said we were going to sell it, and boy she laughed hard, they posted on their Facebook page. Candices funeral is set to take place on Monday at Ballysally Presbyterian Church followed by a followed by cremation at Roselawn Crematorium, Belfast. A death notice describes her as the darling daughter of Bryan and Diane, loving sister of Adam, Bryan and Peyton and dearest granddaughter of Annie and Campbell Tosh and Maimie and the late Bobby McCloskey. Northern Ireland could experience further flooding and winds of 60-65 mph as a result of Storm Debi after a yellow weather warning was upgraded to amber. The Met Office warned that Storm Debi may bring flooding to parts of Northern Ireland after initially issuing a yellow weather warning for wind and rain. Later on Sunday, the weather organisation upgraded the warning to amber and said the storm is likely to bring very strong and disruptive winds to southeast Northern Ireland on Monday morning. They also said there could be a likelihood of flying debris is likely and could lead to injuries or danger to life and possibly some damage to buildings, such as tiles blown from roofs. A spell of very strong winds is expected to develop on Monday morning across County Armagh and County Down in association with Storm Debi. Inland gusts of 60-65 mph are likely in places whilst along the coast gusts of up to 75 mph are expected. Winds will gradually ease during the afternoon, the upgraded warning reads. The timing of the warning, which previously was set to begin at 3am on Monday morning has also changed, instead its now applicable between 6am until 12pm. It comes just days after Northern Ireland experienced devastating floods in areas such as Newry, Portadown and Downpatrick, which caused significant damage to several homes and businesses. Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, Met Office spokesman Grahame Madge said parts of Northern Ireland could experience up to 40mm of rainfall within six hours. Along with strong winds, Storm Debi is forecast to bring heavy rain across Northern Ireland, with some parts expected to receive 30 to 40mm of rainfall in six or so hours, he said. Given that Northern Ireland has already experienced recent heavy rains and subsequent flooding, many catchments will be extremely sensitive to further flood-related impacts. Some properties could be flooded and fast-flowing or deep water may present a danger to life as well as potential disruption to transport services. The new amber warning also means delays or cancellations to air travel and public transport could occur. The Met Office also added: There is a chance that some places inland could see gusts of 55 to 60mph, whilst coastal areas may see gusts of 65 to 75mph. Read more Yellow weather warning for NI as Storm Debi could bring further flooding In the Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Council area it was estimated almost 70 homes were flooded during the recent heavy rainfall, while over 100 homes experienced damage in the Newry, Mourne and Down District Council area after heavy rain at the end of last month. Following an outcry over a lack of support for businesses damaged, which included bridal shops and cafes, Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris announced that 15m in support would be made available from existing Stormont funds to help businesses deal with the aftermath. The additional support is in the form of a one-off 7,500 payment. This makes the total support available for businesses here 8,500. Soul-destroying for Downpatrick businesses as flood clean-up begins Businesses affected will also be able to avail of 100% rates relief between November 1, and March 31, 2024. For businesses to qualify for the rates relief, the relevant district council must confirm the property was flooded and the property should be valued for non-domestic rates on the rating system on the date of the flooding incident. Ratepayers do not have to make an application for the relief. The Ulster Farmers Union also said several farmers across Northern Ireland faced a loss of profits after the flooding damaged various crops. The adverse weather conditions also comes as Northern Ireland recorded its warmest October day in 50 years, after temperatures hit 22.5C in Co Fermanagh last month. Storm Debi is also set to bring very strong, potentially damaging winds, and heavy rain to the Republic of Ireland, warned the Met Office. Status red wind warnings were in place for Clare, east Galway and south Roscommon as well as Offaly and Westmeath this morning. Weather warnings were also issued for large parts of the UK due to Storm Debi. The storm will reach northern England and parts of Wales this morning after sweeping across Ireland, the Met Office said, with the potential for 80mph gusts in some areas. Soul-destroying for Downpatrick businesses as flood clean-up begins Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald has refused to say if her party would support manufacturing businesses and owners of larger homes in Northern Ireland having to pay higher rates. Northern Ireland is facing an overspend of around 450m for this financial year, increasing to one billion pounds if public sector pay awards are granted. The various Stormont departments, meanwhile, are having to make cuts after being given a budget which meant significant financial shortfalls. With a view to helping to address the dire financial situation, Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris recently instructed the permanent secretaries of the departments to carry out public consultations on potential revenue raising measures. Such measures include introducing prescription charges and making changes to the rating system. During an appearance of the BBCs Sunday Politics programme, Ms McDonald was asked whether she would support removing the current cap on the amount of rates that can be charged for NIs most valuable homes, and on large industrial manufacturing companies also paying more. I think we need to get government back up and running, thats what I think, she replied. I think any conversation around budget allocations, funding public services correctly and paying public services correctly none of that is helped, in fact all of that is hindered - by the fact we dont have an Executive. Regarding budget overspends, we have had 13 years of Tory austerity. The government in London simply does not fund the north of Ireland correctly. Ms McDonald was also asked about her partys apparent U-turn regarding its stance on calling for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador amid the current conflict in the Middle East. Sinn Fein representatives in some Northern Ireland councils recently refused to back motions calling for such an expulsion, only for Ms McDonald to subsequently call for the ambassador to be expelled. Asked why the party changed its stance, the Sinn Fein president said the conflict deepened. The Sinn Fein position could not be more clear or more consistent, she added. We are for the rule of international law, for Palestinian self-determination, for an end to Israeli aggression and human rights violations which, by the way, did not start on October the 7th but are generations old. We are absolutely consistent on that and consistent in wanting a ceasefire. Sadly, tragically, this story is still unfolding, so the calls for international intervention and sanctions will, in my opinion, will grow and grow. Ms McDonald was speaking after Sinn Fein held its Ard Fheis in Co Westmeath. During her keynote speech, Ms McDonald set out her vision of the new Ireland, with Sinn Fein leading the governments on both sides of the border. She said party vice president Michelle O'Neill is "ready to lead for all" as Stormont First Minister and reiterated her call for the DUP to end its boycott of the Stormont institutions. Its eighteen months since Michelle ONeill was elected First Minister. Shes ready to lead for all, she said. For eighteen months the people of the North have been without government. Peoples patience has run out. The DUP must end its boycott of government. The British government must stop endlessly indulging this boycott. This cant go on and on. Its decision time now. People want the Executive back working for them immediately. So, lets choose progress. Lets work together to create jobs, to improve health and public services, to attract investment. Lets get the A5 upgraded. "Lets rebuild Casement Park and enjoy the opportunity and excitement of Euro 2028 together. Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald has said she would talk to everybody after the next general election should opportunities to establish a coalition government. Speaking to BBC Northern Irelands Sunday Politics programme, the Sinn Fein president said current rhetoric from major parties in Ireland is a far cry from their rejections to building a coalition with her party after the 2020 general election. At the time, I thought that was kind of farcical. I have invited people to imagine the opportunity for change and to make that real. A government without Fianna Fail or Fine Gael for potentially the first time in a century, that would be mighty and momentous. I happen to think that that would equip us best to drive the kind of change we need. She added: After the election, I will talk to everybody. Not out of deference to political parties but out of respect to the electorate and because I think thats what grown-ups do. However, Ms McDonald said her party has substantial differences with Fianna Fail and Fine Gael. In a series of media interviews on Sunday, Ms McDonald also called for the referral of Israel to the International Criminal Court and the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador as part of pressure for a ceasefire. Addressing the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza, she told RTE radio: In my view, the only way that we can guarantee anybody is safe, including the hostages, is for ceasefires. Sinn Fein vice-president Michelle ONeill, Palestinian ambassador to Ireland Dr Jilan Wahba Abdalmajid and party leader Mary Lou McDonald Asked about the partys call to expel the ambassador, Ms McDonald added: The issue of the ambassador is not an end in itself, all of this has to be with a precise focus in achieving ceasefire. Across multiple interviews, Ms McDonald defended the right of Sinn Fein politicians to sue media outlets as the party faced new criticism for taking legal action against the press. She told RTEs This Week: The requirement that all of us operate within the law should not be sinister or intimidating to anybody. She said, generally, approaches to media outlets will be made before legal action is taken. Ms McDonald said neither she nor the party were informed about a Sinn Fein politicians decision to sue an individual journalist personally. The objective of this should never be to personalise it to an individual, she added. A minister in the current coalition Government said suing the media is not the first lever a politician should pull. Also appearing on the broadcast media circuit on Sunday, Simon Harris said he believes lawsuits against the media carried out by Sinn Fein have had a chilling effect on potential press coverage of the party. The Fine Gael TD told Newstalk radio: This, a party [Sinn Fein] that is leading in the opinion polls. If theyre a party that wishes to be in government, you got to get ready for a bit of scrutiny. Thats what happens in Irish politics and like Im saying, of course people have a right to go to the courts, theres no doubt about that thats an absolutely right in democracy, but doesnt mean its a lever you have to pull. Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris criticised Sinn Fein (Brian Lawless/PA) And it certainly shouldnt be pulled lightly or as frequently as it seems to be by some parties. Mr Harris said the Fine Gael party position is extraordinarily clear that it would not enter into a coalition with Sinn Fein after the next election. The further education minister also criticised Sinn Feins plans for the housing sector in an appearance on RTEs The Week In Politics. Ms McDonald had told that programme about 50,000 new homes need to be delivered every year. Mr Harris described Ms McDonalds comments as an absolute masterclass in terms of telling you the problem but not answering the question of what the party would do to address housing. Also setting out the Government position on the Hamas-Israel conflict, he told the same programme that the situation in Gaza has become a war on children. The absolute priority for this government and I think this country has led on this is to call for an immediate ceasefire. He said expelling the ambassador would result in the expulsion of Irelands ambassador in Israel at a time when we need to keep communication open due to Irish citizens still being in Gaza. Members of the royal family led by the King attend the Remembrance Sunday service (Stefan Rousseau/PA) The King has led the country in remembering those who have fallen in conflict in a moving ceremony in central London. Charles was joined by his son the Prince of Wales in laying a wreath as part of the Remembrance Sunday ceremony. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and other senior politicians also took part in the service. Chelsea Pensioners prepare in Horse Guards to take part in the Remembrance Sunday service (Victoria Jones/PA) Veterans in Horse Guards ahead of the ceremony (Victoria Jones/PA) A Royal Air Force service dog waits in Horse Guards to take part at the Cenotaph (Victoria Jones/PA) The Cenotaph ahead of the Remembrance Sunday service (Aaron Chown/PA) Veterans on Whitehall prepare to take part (Aaron Chown/PA) Members of the Royal Navy move into position (Aaron Chown/PA) Members of the military form up on Parliament Street (Aaron Chown/PA) Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (right) and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer (left) hold wreaths during the service at the Cenotaph (Yui Mok/PA) Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Foreign Secretary James Cleverly during the Remembrance Sunday service (Jonathan Brady/PA) The Queen and the Princess of Wales watch proceedings from a balcony (Yui Mok/PA) The King during the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph (Jonathan Brady/PA) Charles lays his wreath at the Cenotaph (Jonathan Brady/PA) The Prince of Wales lays a wreath during the ceremony (Jonathan Brady/PA) Members of the military and veterans take part in a parade on Whitehall (Aaron Chown/PA) Veterans wait to take part in the Remembrance Sunday service (Jeff Moore/PA) Standards are lowered during a service at the Cenotaph in Portsmouth (Andrew Matthews/PA) The Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph in Guildhall Square, Portsmouth (Andrew Matthews/PA) Home Secretary Suella Braverman is under fire from all sides after accusing police of bias (Jordan Pettitt, PA) The Prime Minister is facing growing calls to fire Suella Braverman for stoking tensions ahead of Armistice Day protests, with the Labour leader accusing the Home Secretary of spawning hatred and distrust. Sir Keir Starmer accused Mrs Braverman of demeaning her office following scenes of far-right violence towards officers on Saturday after she branded pro-Palestinian protesters hate marchers and accused the police of bias for letting the rally go ahead. Dozens of counter-protesters were arrested, including many trying to confront those participating in the march which Mr Sunak and Ms Braverman had urged police to ban. In a comment piece in the Sunday Telegraph, Sir Keir said few public figures have done more recently to whip up division and said her and the Prime Ministers treatment of the police and protesters showed a lack of respect for this countrys values and its principles. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said it was disturbing to see the violence towards police and if the Prime Minister does not sack Ms Braverman, hes too weak or agrees with her. Sadly, these scenes were predictable after a week of efforts from some to stoke tension, Mr Khan wrote in the Sunday Mirror. They were a direct result of the Home Secretarys words and behaviour. If Suella Braverman had any honour she would resign and if not, Rishi Sunak should sack her. Nine officers were injured as they prevented a crowd reaching the Cenotaph with Met Police Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist calling their extreme violence towards the police extraordinary and deeply concerning. A week of intense debate about protest and policing helped increase community tensions, he said. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan called on the Prime Minister to sack Mrs Braverman (Yui Mok, PA) Mr Sunak has so far maintained confidence in his Home Secretary, even after a week in which ministers distanced themselves from her claims that homelessness is a lifestyle choice. There has been speculation the Prime Minister will carry out a ministerial reshuffle, which could see her moved, but not before next weeks Supreme Court ruling on the Rwanda deportation policy which she has championed. Her incendiary language on pro-Palestinian mobs has angered many, including within the Tory party, with demands for her to go increasing. Rishi Sunak has so far resisted calls to sack Suella Braverman as Home Secretary (Daniel Leal/PA) In a comment piece in the Sunday Telegraph, Sir Keir wrote: The Home Secretary and the Prime Ministers treatment of the police and protestors alike this week coming just a few days after she shamefully described homelessness as a lifestyle choice betray a total lack of respect for this countrys values and its principles. Few people in public life have done more recently to whip up division, set the British people against one another and sow the seeds of hatred and distrust than Suella Braverman. In doing so, she demeans her office. Sir Keir said some among the pro-Palestinian demonstrators incited violence, glorified Hamas or called for Israels destruction and should be dealt with firmly by the law. But he said blanket calls to cancel the rallies and Government attempts to brand protesters they do not agree with as extremists are a sign of ministers cowardice. Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: Suella Braverman was warned repeatedly of the dangers of inflaming tensions and undermining the police. A Home Secretary that doesnt take seriously the security of our streets is only allowed to remain in a government that has lost all sense of governing. Britain is better than Rishi Sunak and his Cabinet. We need your consent to load this Social Media content. We use a number of different Social Media outlets to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review your details and accept them to load the content Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf earlier called for Mrs Braverman to resign. The SNP leader tweeted: The far right has been emboldened by the Home Secretary. She has spent her week fanning the flames of division. They are now attacking the police on Armistice Day. The Home Secretarys position is untenable. She must resign. Hope Not Hate echoed the demand, with the campaign groups chief executive Nick Lowles saying the Home Secretary has inflamed tensions and, as we have seen today, whipped up the far right into a violent frenzy. Shes got to go. But Ms Braverman has supporters on the right of the party and any move against her by Mr Sunak could deepen divisions within Tory ranks. Conservative former minister Brendan Clarke-Smith defended the Home Secretary, saying: Ive heard some daft takes, but to try and justify this appalling behaviour by blaming an op-ed in The Times, which simply stated the flaming obvious, is pathetic. Tory backbencher Danny Kruger said: You know what, with the benefit of hindsight, maybe it would have been best if the march today hadnt been allowed to go ahead. Ms Braverman rowed back her language on the eve of Armistice Day, giving police her full backing at a meeting with Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley. It came after her article in The Times, in which she claimed officers play favourites towards pro-Palestinian protesters, was disowned by Downing Street and provoked fury among Tory MPs. President Yoon Suk Yeol on Sunday approved the proposed appointment of a former newspaper journalist as chief of Korea's largest public broadcaster KBS, his office said. The broadcaster picked Park Min, a former editorial writer at the Munhwa Ilbo daily, as its new chief during a board of directors meeting last month. A graduate of Seoul National University, Park started his journalist career at the newspaper in 1991, and served as political desk editor, editor-in-chief and editorial writer. (Yonhap) Suella Braverman has condemned sick, inflammatory and, in some cases, clearly criminal chants and placards at a pro-Palestinian march on Armistice Day as police charged seven people over disorder that mainly stemmed from far-right counter-protests. The Home Secretary demanded further action as she warned that Londons streets are being polluted by hate, violence and antisemitism, in comments that appear unlikely to calm tensions. She praised police for their professionalism in the face of violence and aggression from protesters and counter-protesters. But her first public remarks since Saturdays ugly scenes focused on displays of antisemitism by some on the pro-Palestinian march she had urged police to ban. The Metropolitan Police said seven men had been charged with offences including assault on an emergency worker, criminal damage and possession of an offensive weapon. Officers made 145 arrests during the main demonstration and the counter-protest by far-right groups, the force said. A pro-Palestinian protest in Park Lane (Victoria Jones/PA) Mrs Braverman has been under fire for inflaming tensions after she last week branded pro-Palestinian protesters hate marchers and accused police of bias for allowing the rally coinciding with remembrance events to go ahead. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is facing intensifying calls to sack her as his Home Secretary. Her latest intervention appeared to pile pressure on police to stop weekly pro-Palestinian demonstrations by saying this cant go on. Rishi Sunak with Suella Braverman (Phil Noble/PA) Writing on social media site X on Sunday, she said: The sick, inflammatory and, in some cases, clearly criminal chants, placards and paraphernalia openly on display at the march mark a new low. Antisemitism and other forms of racism together with the valorising of terrorism on such a scale is deeply troubling. This cant go on. Week by week, the streets of London are being polluted by hate, violence, and antisemitism. Members of the public are being mobbed and intimidated. Jewish people in particular feel threatened. Further action is necessary. Praising police, she said: Our brave police officers deserve the thanks of every decent citizen for their professionalism in the face of violence and aggression from protesters and counter protesters in London yesterday. That multiple officers were injured doing their duty is an outrage. Counter-protesters confront police in Parliament Square (Jeff Moore/PA) Nine officers were injured as they prevented a violent crowd reaching the Cenotaph. Mr Sunak has said he expects far-right thugs and Hamas sympathisers to face the full and swift force of the law. The Prime Minister said he will meet Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley in the coming days and repeated his threat to hold the police chief accountable for allowing the pro-Palestinian march to take place on Armistice Day. With Mr Sunak under growing pressure to fire Mrs Braverman, senior Cabinet minister Grant Shapps failed to back her survival as Home Secretary for another week, saying a weeks a long time in politics. Mr Shapps played down suggestions that her comments had emboldened far-right groups who caused trouble in London, saying the counter-protest was already going to happen. But shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper blamed the unrest on Mrs Bravermans appalling and unprecedented attack on the polices impartiality and her deliberate stoking of tensions. Hundreds of thousands of people took part in the biggest UK rally since the Israel-Hamas conflict began on October 7. Police said that while the march did not see the sort of violence carried out by far-right groups, officers were investigating serious offences relating to antisemitism and hate crimes. The Met said on Sunday that seven men between the ages of 21 and 75 had been charged, hailing from areas including London, Kent, Norfolk and West Lothian. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor, who led the Metropolitan Police operation on Saturday, said: Public order policing doesnt end when demonstrators go home. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley (James Manning/PA) We have teams of officers who continue to build cases against those in custody and launch investigations into those who come to our attention when images and videos are shared on social media.Appeals in relation to eight incidents have been published, with more expected, he said. A total of 91 people were arrested to prevent a breach of the peace in Pimlico as they tried to confront the main pro-Palestinian march, the Met said. Meanwhile, Cabinet minister Michael Gove thanked police for getting him home safely after he was mobbed by pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Londons Victoria station. Peter Nygard leaves court in a police van after being found guilty of four charges of sexual assault (Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press/AP) Peter Nygard, who once led a womens fashion empire, was found guilty of four charges of sexual assault in a Canadian court on Sunday, but was acquitted of a fifth charge plus a charge of forcible confinement. The jury returned the verdict on the fifth day of deliberations after a six-week trial in Toronto. Nygard, 82, had pleaded not guilty to all charges, which stemmed from allegations dating from the 1980s to the mid-2000s. Five women, whose identities are protected by a publication ban, had given evidence that they were invited to Nygards Toronto headquarters under pretexts ranging from tours to job interviews, with all encounters ending in a top-floor bedroom suite where four of them were sexually assaulted. Peter Nygard, left, once led a womens fashion empire (Alexandra Newbould/The Canadian Press/AP) Multiple complainants told the jury similar stories of meeting Nygard on a plane, at an airport or at a nightclub and then receiving invitations to go to the headquarters. All five women said their meetings or interactions with Nygard ended with sexual activity that they did not consent to. One of the complainants gave evidence that Nygard would not let her leave his private suite for some time, which led to the forcible confinement charge. Others gave evidence about feeling trapped in the suite, describing doors that had to be opened with a keypad code or the push of a button near the bed. One woman said she was only 16 when she accompanied an older man she was dating at the time to Nygards headquarters, where she said Nygard sexually assaulted her, and then another woman handed her an emergency contraceptive pill on her way out. Nygard gave evidence in his own defence at the trial and denied all five womens allegations, saying he did not even recall meeting or interacting with four of them. He said he would never engage in the type of conduct he was accused of, and said no-one could have been locked inside his private suite under any circumstances. Crown prosecutor Neville Golwalla and assistant prosecutor Ana Serban outside court in Toronto (Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press/AP) At the end of the trial, prosecutors said that Nygard was evasive and unreliable in his evidence and that the similarities in all five womens stories showed a pattern in his behaviour. The defence said the complainants crafted a false narrative about Nygard and suggested their sexual assault claims were motivated by a class-action lawsuit against Nygard in the United States. Nygard is still facing criminal charges in three other jurisdictions. He is facing charges of sexual assault and forcible confinement in separate cases in Quebec and Manitoba, related to allegations dating back to the 1990s. He is also facing charges in the US. Nygard was first arrested in Winnipeg in 2020 under the Extradition Act after he was charged with nine counts in New York, including sex trafficking and racketeering charges. The federal justice minister at the time had said Nygard would be extradited to the US after the cases against him in Canada are resolved. Nygard founded a fashion company in Winnipeg in 1967 that ultimately became Nygard International. The company produced womens clothing under several brand names and had corporate facilities in Canada and the US. Nygard stepped down as chairman of the company after the FBI and police raided his offices in New York City in February 2020. The company has since filed for bankruptcy and entered into receivership. A Ukrainian servicewomen cries as she lays flowers to commemorate those killed in the war, in Kherson (Efrem Lukatsky/AP) Russian forces have increased attacks in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to gain ground near two key frontline cities, Ukrainian military officials have said. Moscows troops have begun a push to regain territory near Bakhmut, the eastern mining city that was the site of the wars bloodiest battle before falling into Russian hands in May, the head of Ukraines ground forces wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Ukrainian troops had recaptured the heights over Bakhmut and made some advances to the citys west, north and south since Kyiv launched its summer counter-offensive. Toward Bakhmut, the Russians have become more active and are trying to recapture previously lost positions. Enemy attacks are being repelled, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi said. Ukraines long-awaited counter-offensive has so far resulted in only incremental gains and heavy losses, with Ukrainian troops struggling to punch through Russian lines in the south. Meanwhile, Moscows forces have attempted to press forward in the north-east, likely with a view to distract Kyiv and minimise the number of troops it is able to send to key southern and eastern battles. The Ukrainian ground forces spokesman similarly reported that Russian troops had switched from defence to active defence near Bakhmut, putting pressure on Ukrainian troops south of the city. The people of Kherson have marked one year since Ukraine retook the city from occupying Russian forces, though it remains under near-daily attack (Efrem Lukatsky/AP) Vladimir Fityo made the remarks on Ukrainian TV, adding that Russian troops were searching for weak points in Ukrainian defences and ramping up artillery strikes on Ukrainian positions. Ukraines general staff said Russian troops are also continuing their weeks-long push to encircle Avdiivka, an Ukrainian stronghold south of Bakhmut and a key target since the beginning of the war. It is considered the gateway to parts of the eastern Donetsk region under Kyivs control. The general staff said the air force is playing a key part in the latest Russian assault. General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, who leads Ukrainian troops fighting in and near Avdiivka, said on Sunday that the attacking Russian forces are ramping up air strikes, particularly those using guided bombs. He wrote on Telegram that Russian troops over the previous day had launched 30 air strikes and 712 artillery barrages at the city and surrounding areas, and clashed almost 50 times with Ukrainian units. In the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, a 64-year-old man was killed and his wife was badly injured when Russian shells slammed into their property, Ukrainian officials said. Russian forces shelled Kherson and the surrounding region 62 times over the previous 24 hours, a spokesman added, wounding four civilians and damaging one of the citys libraries. The city has come under near-daily attacks since Ukraine recaptured it a year ago. Presenter bringing his tour to Belfast at the end of the month Danny is touring the UK with his Uncanny stage show The host of the paranormal podcast and TV show Uncanny has told how his Irish heritage and mums Catholic upbringing helped fuel his interest in the supernatural. Danny Robins, who is touring the UK with Uncanny: I Know What I Saw, said he had always been fascinated with religion and its parallels with the paranormal because both posed similar questions about the afterlife. Danny with experts Dr Ciaran OKeeffe and Evelyn Hollow The award-winning writer, who recently obtained Irish citizenship, said he was excited to bring his tour to Belfast later this month, describing the city as the place where Uncanny was born. The first podcast in the series explored strange goings-on in Room 6-11 in the now demolished Alanbrooke Hall at Queens University. It remains one of his most talked-about podcasts. Robins, who also wrote the podcasts The Battersea Poltergeist, The Witch Farm and Haunted, spoke to Sunday Life ahead of sold-out Belfast shows at the Mandela Hall on November 30 and December 1. His award-winning new play 2:22 A Ghost Story runs at the Grand Opera House in Belfast from Tuesday, with a star-studded cast of Joe Absolom, Louisa Lytton, Charlene Boyd and Nathaniel Curtis. My grandparents are from Cork, and I think my Irish heritage has definitely played a role in my interest in the paranormal, said Robins. My mum was brought up a Catholic and went to a convent school, but they moved to Manchester, where she grew up, and she became an atheist when she was a student. I remember going to my grandparents house and seeing the pictures of Jesus and the pope and all these trappings of religion. I felt that I was missing out on being a member of this club, and that was a huge factor in my fascination with the supernatural. But while some people found God, I found ghosts. That aspect of religion, that there must be something more to this world, intrigued me. Danny grew up in Catholic family Robins began his career as a comic, gigging around the north east of England, before moving into writing. One of the first series he worked on was the CBBC comedy Young Dracula, which he co-wrote with Dan Tetsell. He also penned a one-off sitcom called Monks in 2014 and in 2017 created his Haunted podcast. But it was his horror podcast The Battersea Poltergeist, for the BBC, which brought him global attention, with more than four million downloads. Its success led to three series of Uncanny for radio and a recent TV version. The show features stories from witnesses about supernatural sightings from poltergeists to ghosts and UFOs, with each punctuated by contributions from two experts, normally representing Team Sceptic and Team Believer. Robins, who has never seen a ghost himself but lives vicariously through the terrifying tales of others, said he was looking forward to hearing the creepy contributions from audience members in Belfast this week. We have two brand new stories with special effects and illusions to bring them to life, and Ill be asking the audience for their own ghost stories, he added. Its been an interesting mix so far, with a corker of a tale in Leicester which made me forget I was in a theatre. Some areas lend themselves to more ghost stories than others. I cant wait to get to Scotland and to Belfast, where Uncanny was born in a way with Room 6-11. It wont be one of the main stories that night, but we will revisit it. Danny is touring the UK with his Uncanny stage show Robins, whose book Into The Uncanny investigates four new cases, described Ireland as a place where folklore and religion blended. He said both the paranormal and religion attempted to make sense of the universe and find answers to the biggest mystery of them all. Read more Irelands 10 most haunted places to visit this Halloween including three spooky NI spots Robins continued: Most people are terrified either publicly or privately by the idea of dying and are trying to find ways of rationalising if this is really the end. Thats where religion and the paranormal overlap. He said the idea of ghosts was both frightening and comforting because the possibility of life after death was something that kept society sane and afloat. We need ghosts, we need that illusion, and thats very clear, he said. Weve stopped believing in pixies, in unicorns, in elves and goblins, but as a society, were still talking about ghosts, even the sceptics. It clearly fulfils a deep need in us. A scene from 2.22 A Ghost Story, written by Danny (Credit: Johan Persson) His play 2:22 A Ghost Story focuses on four friends discussing the supernatural over dinner in a new home that is possibly haunted. Its been hailed as a slick, chilling romp where belief and scepticism clash as the four stay up until 2:22am to find out if the dead really walk. Robins, who next wants to write a ghostly drama for the screen, said he was stunned by the response of the Uncanny community to his work. Its very personal to me as its based on my desire to understand death, he added. Id be invested in these mysteries even if I wasnt doing it for TV and radio, but its a pleasure and privilege to be in a position to share it with others. The cancer campaign #TimeMatters in giant letters The grass art in front of Titanic Belfast A pancreatic cancer charity has teamed up with an artist to create a giant piece of grass art for an awareness campaign. Nipanc joined forces with Sean Corcoran to transform a piece of land next to Titanic Belfast. Sean enlisted the help of a friend and a plant nursery in the project, trimming the grass to show a clock and the slogan Time Matters. Nipanc came up with the idea as a way of marking Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month. The charity hopes to drive home the message that time matters when it comes to diagnosing and successfully treating the disease. Sean, who is originally from Belfast but runs The Art Hand school in Waterford, created a similarly striking piece of art in the sands at Downhill beach for last years campaign. He said a great deal of planning had gone into his latest piece. The cancer campaign #TimeMatters in giant letters I prepared a scale drawing of the layout in advance. It needed to be simple and striking It was vital that the message would resonate with people in a meaningful way, Sean added. Positioning the Time Matters wording across the alarm clock meant that we could get the maximum impact from the available space. In the end, the lettering ended up being 363 foot long and the alarm clock is over 200 foot in diameter. My friend Joe and I laid out the design using string and measuring tapes. The perimeter of the clock and each of the letters were highlighted using white string. Crossnacreevy Nurseries did all the mowing and strimming. The groundwork and filming was completed in three days. Then Speed Motion Films got up in the sky and it magically appeared from the heavens with the drone shot. Pancreatic cancer is notoriously difficult to diagnose because its symptoms can often mistaken for other, less dangerous diseases. A Nipanc-funded study carried out earlier this year in partnership with the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry, Queens University Belfast and the Belfast Trust, found there had been an 86% increase in confirmed cases in under 20 years, rising from 152 in 2001 to 283 in 2020. The findings prompted Nipanc trustee and cancer surgeon Mark Taylor to call for a strengthening of pancreatic cancer services. He warned: Incidences are likely to continue to rise due to multifactorial reasons such as increasing age, obesity and diabetes. Nipanc president and retired pancreatic surgeon Mr Tom Diamond said: We leave no stone unturned when it comes to educating, informing and persuading people to take life-saving action by understanding symptoms better and being persistent in seeking early diagnosis and treatment. The Time Matters [campaign] will show people can and do survive pancreatic cancer. DUP MP Shannon vows to keep pushing for cash to help with 18k installation The Northern Ireland Office (NIO) has said it will not pay for the installation of the Northern Ireland Centenary Stone. It was commissioned by the main unionist parties which hoped it would be placed somewhere in the grounds of Stormont to mark 100 years since the founding of the state. The parties said the stone would be paid for by their MLAs but earlier this year the leaders of the DUP, UUP and TUV requested taxpayer assistance to help pay for its installation potentially up to 14,000. Steve Baker In a recent House of Commons written question, DUP Strangford MP Jim Shannon asked the Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris whether he would provide funding towards the installation of the stone. NIO minister Steve Baker said in response: The UK Government provided 3m of New Decade, New Approach funding to support the marking of the 2021 Centenary. This UK Government funding was used to successfully deliver a wide-ranging programme of events that reflected on Northern Irelands history, on the people, and showcased what makes Northern Ireland a great place to live. The installation and funding of a Centenary Stone is a devolved matter and one which should be decided by a restored functioning Northern Ireland Executive. Jim Shannon MP When asked about the response, Mr Shannon told Sunday Life the reply was disappointing but he wouldnt stop raising the issue in parliament. While this de facto no from the NIO is not unexpected in light of its refusal to engage thus far, it is disappointing, he said. Disappointing that the NIO will not lend its support to a stone which is not divisive but is simply a celebration of our very existence. Disappointing that once again his (Mr Heaton-Harris) ability to step in is reserved for matters that are divisive such as enhanced relationship and sex education in curriculums and not for straightforward issues. Disappointing that our secretary of state refuses to engage to enable history to be recorded in an appropriate way. He added: Im sure the secretary of state will also be disappointed when I continue to raise this issue until he responds in a full and reasonable manner. Chris Heaton-Harris While the Assembly Commission, the body which manages the Stormont estate, approved the proposal, it decided the 2.5m x 1.3m sculpture should be placed on the eastern side of Parliament Buildings near Lord Craigavons tomb. Under the plan drawn up by the unionist parties it would have been placed on a site on the western side of the grounds. Officials estimated the cost of the installation at the eastern site to be around 18,000 as compared to 4,000 for the western site. In a joint letter the three unionist leaders proposed to contribute 4,000 towards the bill with Stormont covering the outstanding amount. The letter said splitting the costs in this way was a fair and equitable way forward due to the more elaborate and costly setting as desired by the Assembly Commission. Ensure workers rights to enhance public livelihood A bill to amend Articles 2 and 3 of the Trade Union Act passed the National Assemblys plenary session on Nov. 9. The amendment bill will help unionized workers bargain with their real users and better protect them from managements murderous demands for damage compensation. One of the chronic problems in the Korean job market is a multilayered subcontracting structure, denying laborers access to their substantive employers. That, in turn, makes it difficult to solve workers problems while saving money for managers. The anachronistic practice must go. After strikes, workers often pay eye-watering sums to employers for work stoppages and broken facilities. Managers sue unionists without caring who damaged what and how much. Dozens of workers have committed suicide in despair. In 2014, citizens donated money to such unionists in yellow envelopes to help ease their plights, hence the nickname for the bill. President Yoon Suk Yeol should sign it into law. The reasons are aplenty. The bill will help to level the playing field that has been tilted in employers favor for the past seven decades. The Supreme Court ruled last year that holding individual workers accountable reduces their rights to organize and act collectively. President Yoon said recently he also would place peoples livelihood on top of everything. How could he improve the publics everyday lives without enhancing workers rights? However, Yoon will likely veto the bill, accepting recommendations from the government and its party. Employment and Labor Minister Lee Jung-sik, expressing bitterness over opposition parties railroading the bill at the Assembly, said it would devastate industrial sites and weaken competitiveness. People will find it difficult to know whether Lee is minister of labor or industry. They also can see why the government changed the ministrys name by putting the word employment ahead of labor. However, Lee was wrong on both counts. The Constitutional Court ruled last month that the oppositionists direct tabling of the bill to the plenary session was not illegal. How else could they handle the bill when the ruling party shuns it? International laws also encourage real users to bargain with workers, saying it will reduce the possibility of extreme labor struggles. Some foreign experts even ask how Korea, an advanced country, has allowed such outrageous compensations, which one-sidedly favor managers while driving workers to death. Critics say Yoon has put many national agendas decades back. The labor issue is no exception. His ambitious labor reform plan hit a wall earlier this year, as he tried to make Koreans work up to 69 hours a week, citing improved workweek flexibility, and has been drifting ever since. Koreans worked the fifth-longest among the 38 OECD member nations in 2021. Their productivity was 29th, however, falling far short of the OECDs average. Germanys metalworkers worked 35 hours a week in the 1990s and 28 hours now, although they can work 40 hours if they want. Korean workers low productivity was due mainly to their poor health. Yoon, alarmed by strong popular repulsion, backed away, presenting 60 hours as a compromise. His administration will likely soon resume its reform drive based on the new cap. All this reaffirms how disconnected Yoon and his aides are from the workers, who want their maximum workweek not to exceed 40 hours. Some may want to work even longer than 69 hours for more stable lives, even if that means shortening their lifespans. However, the government must prevent or minimize such desperate situations through policies ensuring better economic equality, rather than encouraging inequality. There are some labor aristocrats, indeed unionized full-time workers at large manufacturing firms receiving wages far higher than average and demanding more, such as employment inheritance for their children. The leaders role is to persuade them to seek equity with other workers, not clamp down on them and call them cartels, unless they violate laws. The two umbrella unions staged rallies over the weekend calling for the president not to veto the Yellow Envelope Act. If pushed in defiance of the unions, Yoon's labor reform will turn the upcoming season into another winter of discontent. Koreas labor culture will also roll back to the way things were in the 1970s and 1980s. Bennington, VT (05201) Today Partly cloudy skies this morning will give way to cloudy skies and rain during the afternoon. High near 50F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 90%.. Tonight Showers early, then cloudy overnight. Low 37F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 50%. Longtime Democrat from New York, Brian Higgins, to leave Congress early next year New York Congressman Brian Higgins says he will leave office before the end of his current term early next year, after 19 years Heavy fighting rages near main Gaza hospital and people trapped inside say they cannot flee Health officials and people trapped inside Gazas largest hospital are rejecting Israel's claims that it is helping babies and others evacuate, saying fighting continues just outside the facility where incubators lay idle without electricity and critical supplies are running out Allco Renewable Energy and its two partner companies want a second curb cut to reach property it purchased, most of it in a residential zone. But the towns zoning board is skeptical, since the companys leaders claim the site is for agricultural use. State Rep. Mike Connolly of Cambridge prepares for a rally supporting rent control legislation in front of the State House in 2019. BillOReilly.com is not available in this country. We apologize for any inconvenience. By Robert Neff On Nov. 21, 1896, a large crowd gathered to witness the laying of the cornerstone of the Independence Arch, a symbol of Korean independence. According to the English version of The Independent a newspaper published in Seoul: The day was perfect: cloudless, warm and still; a more ideal day for an outdoor function could not be imagined. The road which leads from the city to Independence Park was filled with people at an early hour; and the grounds of the park, long before the hour for the ceremonies arrived, was crowded with spectators, both foreign and Korean. The site was decorated with evergreen branches and the different flags of Korea; conspicuous among which was the new flag of the Independence Club, a pennant decorated with the usual design of the Korean flag, and the name of the club. Honored guests were provided with chairs and sheltered from the elements by a large awning. Speeches were given by influential members of the community including missionaries, the governor of Seoul, the editor of The Independent and the minister of foreign affairs who strangely compared the United States and Poland. According to the newspaper: He made very logical and convincing arguments, that if the people work for the bright future, it will have great influence upon its being bright. He cited the histories of the United States of America and Poland. The greatness of America today is due to a few handfuls of men who worked for the independence of their country, a little over a century ago. The downfall of Poland is due to lack of harmony on the part of the Polish people. Therefore, Koreans can choose to be either an independent and great people like Americans, or become a part of some other nation and lose their sovereignty as well as their equality. Elizabeth Greathouse attended the celebration and was very impressed with the speeches and the performance of the Korean schoolboys who sang and did some very good drilling. While her description was anemic, The Independent provided much more detail and indicated that the students came from various schools many of them educated by foreign instructors: The Royal English School students gave an exhibition of drilling, and as usual, they showed themselves worthy of being called the crack company of Korean schools. More than two thousand school children from the Government and elementary schools sang several patriotic songs and waved their flags and colors, which each school brought with them. The Royal Russian, French and Japanese Schools were, also, ably represented by a large number of bright looking scholars who sang several patriotic songs. After the ceremony, selected guests were invited into the Independence Club House for refreshments. Greathouse was especially impressed with the treatment she and her companions received: [We] all gathered nearby to a large building, where a long table was filled with splendid viands and we were all waited on by the rank and they seemed very proud to do it. Toasts were made by the various diplomats or their staff. Horace N. Allen assured Korea that the United States would always be one of its best friends. The Russian representative expressed Russias desire to always do her neighborly duty by assisting in the maintenance of order in Korea and to ensure the perpetuity of Koreas independence. The Japanese representative hoped that Korea [would] prosper and her independence be strengthened. The British and German representatives were called upon to offer their own toasts but, disappointingly, they had already left the building. The celebration ended at dusk. In her diary Greathouse proclaimed, I am very glad I went, [I] never enjoyed myself more. Not everyone enjoyed themselves. John Jordan, the British consul general, was less than impressed with the arch and informed his superior that it was needless to say, [that he] took no part in the proceedings He then, somewhat bitterly, explained: The American missionaries, who aspire to play a political role in this country, and who, apparently, guide the policy of their Legation, and a few Coreans in high position who received their education in the United States, are responsible for the folly of this undertaking, which was supported by contributions from the Russian Minister and his wife, who show great tact in humouring and controlling American opinion here. He caustically noted the absurdity of an independence symbolized by the presence of the King in a foreign legation. At the time, King Gojong and the crown prince were temporarily residing in the Russian Legation. Apparently Jordan was not the only one who found fault with the Korean kings situation or policies. Shortly after the celebration, the newspaper reported: There are various reports in regard to the plot which some of the army officers are said to have planned, but at present the exact truth cannot be learned. Some say they intended to take His Majesty to the Palace when he comes to [Deoksu] Palace to offer sacrifices to the late Queen; others report that they planned to kill the Cabinet officers when they were returning home from the ceremony of the laying of the corner stone of Independence Arch last Saturday; and still another report is that they tried to bury dynamite either in the Russian Legation or [Deoksu] Palace for the purpose of blowing up the buildings and the inmates. The accused were quickly rounded up and, in a subsequent trial, it was learned they had planned on kidnapping the Korean monarch from the Russian Legation and moving him to Gyeongbok Palace. According to The Independent, justice was administered to all parties concerned; the innocents went free and the guilty ones banished for fifteen years after receiving one hundred blows. Freedom and independence often comes with a cost, and all too often those who are held as patriots and friends are also seen as villains and profiteers it is all a matter of perspective. Robert Neff has authored and co-authored several books, including Letters from Joseon, Korea Through Western Eyes and Brief Encounters. Jem's Birding & Ringing Exploits in the Eastern Province and elsewhere in Saudi Arabia The African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved a $102.6m budget support programme for Ghana focused on fiscal consolidation and economic recovery, the bank and Ghana's finance ministry said on Thursday, 9 November. Source: Reuters. Ghana, which produces gold, cocoa and oil, is in talks with bilateral and commercial creditors to restructure its debts amid its worst economic crisis in a generation. The West African nation has been locked out of international capital markets as it struggles with spiralling domestic debt costs. "The program will facilitate the government's economic recovery reforms through enhanced public finance, increased productivity, and job creation," AfDB's representative, Eyerusalem Fasika, said in a statement released after the signing ceremony. The programme complements Ghana's ongoing extended credit facility with the International Monetary Fund, she added. The IMF's executive board in May approved a $3bn loan over three years for the African country, with an immediate disbursement of about $600m. Ghana expects to receive another tranche after a debt-restructuring deal with its official creditors. Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta will present the West African nation's 2024 budget in parliament on 15 November. Adoption is a matter of migration; both sending, receiving countries accountable Editors note This article is the eighth in a series about intercountry adoptions. While over 160,000 Korean children have been adopted abroad since the 1950-53 Korean War, it is believed that many cases have infringed on relevant laws or violated children's right to know the truth about their filiation. The series will review such violations in transnational adoptions of Korean children and elsewhere, and discuss receiving countries' moves for their own investigations. This series is co-organized with Human Rights Beyond Borders. ED. By Lee Kyung-eun My research focuses on the movement of children across borders, specifically migration matters related to intercountry adoption laws and policies. During my exploration of these issues, a question that has always lingered in the depths of my mind is whether Korea can ever reckon with its history of sending over 200,000 children overseas for adoption and confront its legacy of children's rights violations. Adoption's intrinsic link with child welfare has made discussions about human rights abuses a heated matter. The Korean government has justified its use of intercountry adoption as a benevolent act despite evidence of wide-scale rights abuses. It continues to argue that sending children overseas was a response to a lack of domestic child welfare support something it claims was beyond its control and under such circumstances, it shouldn't be held accountable. However, an examination of the migration policies and laws tells otherwise. In adoption, migration measures have been seen as more of a bureaucratic legal hurdle to overcome, but these are not haphazardly assembled policies. On the contrary, countries strictly control who can enter, leave and reside within their borders. Consequently, when migration measures are intentionally relaxed to facilitate the sending and receiving of children at the cost of those children's human rights, then that is a deliberate act of government. While sending countries often shoulder much blame for adoption abuses, a review of migration laws and policies reveals that receiving countries also bear responsibility for rights abuses. Receiving countries have claimed that they cannot be responsible for the negligent practices of sending countries. They support this assertion by saying they rely on sending countries' public authorities to ensure ethical adoption practices. But this logic does not address why receiving countries accept wide disparities between the child protection systems of sending countries and their own. In receiving countries, child protection systems function as an essential public service, and these states provide this as part of their duty to protect the rights of their citizens. In other words, instead of demanding a sending country reform their child protection systems, so the children can remain in their country of origin, receiving countries engage in what Samford Law School professor David Smolin describes as "slash-and-burn adoption." This vicious cycle involves a large number of adoption-related agencies being established in sending countries, which usually have populations living in poverty, high degrees of child trafficking and poor government oversight and capacity. The competition between receiving countries to "procure" children leads to a rapid rise in intercountry adoptions at the cost of highly abusive practices, such as obtaining children through fraud and corruption. Eventually, wide-scale abuses become an issue in the sending countries, resulting in an end of or a slowdown to intercountry adoptions from those countries. At this point, receiving countries move on to new countries to resume the cycle. Put simply, receiving countries play a willful role in intercountry adoption abuses, and this intent is apparent in their immigration policies when they adopt children despite those children's rights having been violated during the adoption process. Adoption linked to societys child protection system In adoption studies, the abuse of adoptees have been given a higher degree of attention than the systematic impact "slash-and-burn adoption" has on the sending countries. Under slash-and-burn practices, the sending countries' systems and processes erected to promote and facilitate the export of children hamper the development of other public services, such as birth registration, family and community support, and alternative care, just to name a few. In many cases, the effects have been such that sending countries lose the opportunity to develop comprehensive child protection systems, and as a result, their child services continue to suffer problems to this day. To illustrate what I mean by these lingering problems, I provide three examples of Korea's struggle to reckon with its legacy in the 21st century. First, Korea has yet to ratify the Hague Adoption Convention. This legal instrument, although far from a panacea to address abusive adoption practices, is meant to establish minimum global standards to reduce child trafficking. With 100 state parties since its drafting in 1993, South Korea only signed the convention in 2013 with a promise to ratify it within five years. Although 10 years have passed, Korea has yet to reform its domestic practices for ratification, which reveals the lack of protection provided to children in this country. Second, a list of statistics on major sending countries published by International Social Services, a Geneva-based children's rights NGO, in 2020 shows that South Korea was the third major sending country. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the world came to a standstill and all other sending countries' intercountry adoptions declined, South Korea was the only country to increase the number of children it sent overseas. Third, after authorities discovered thousands of unregistered children due to a broken birth registration system, the National Assembly responded, but rather than attempting to address the problems, it passed a special act to allow anonymous births. Human Rights Watch condemned this law. Not only does it violate children's rights, it does nothing to address discrimination against unmarried pregnant women. Instead, it serves as another demonstration of the government's unwillingness to protect the rights of its most vulnerable citizens and another attempt to evade its responsibilities. If Korea wants to confront its legacy, it must face the truth by launching an official comprehensive investigation. A genuine undertaking of such an endeavor can only be done when guided by the principles of justice and rectification. Just as slashing and burning may allow for cultivating new crops when the soil is properly prepared, so too may Korea heal its social landscape when it commits to excavating the truth from the lies it has told itself for over half a century. Lee Kyung-eun (kyung.lee@hrbb.org) is director of Human Rights Beyond Borders and author of the Korean-language book, "The Children-selling Country," and the English book, "The Global Orphan Adoption System; South Korea's Impact on Its Origin and Development." Consider the source (and the timing)... No lesser deep-state mouthpiece than The Washington Post just dropped a bombshell with the revelation that Ukrainian Colonel Roman Chervinsky "was integral to the brazen sabotage operation" on the Nord Stream pipeline, "according to officials in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, as well as other people knowledgeable about the details of the covert operation." The bombing, dubbed a "dangerous assault on Europe's energy infrastructure" by US and Western officials at the time, marked a critical juncture in the ongoing tensions between Russia and the West. By targeting the pipeline, the operatives (whoever they were) struck a blow to a critical artery of Russian energy exports, a sector that has been at the heart of European-Russian economic relations. Additionally, as the Goebbels-ian narrative that 'Russia did it' was pushed by mainstream media (and politicians), it enabled further 'aid' to be sent to Ukraine, to 'protect interests'. Chervinsky, a senior figure within Ukraine's Special Operations Forces, was allegedly the "coordinator" of the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline. The operation, executed with precision and secrecy, involved deep-sea diving and explosive charges, ultimately resulting in substantial damage to the pipeline which Ukraine had long complained would allow Russia to bypass Ukrainian pipes, depriving Kyiv of huge transit revenue. Of course, as one would expect, the Ukrainian Colonel, via his counsel, refutes any involvement in the pipeline sabotage, blaming Russia for this accusation. Without merit, Russian propaganda is spreading all rumors regarding my participation in the assault on Nord Stream, Chervinsky stated in a written statement to The Washington Post and Der Spiegel, which jointly investigated his activities. It would not have been out of character as WaPo reports that Chervinsky is a decorated officer with extensive experience in covert operations, reportedly including plans to ensnare Russian Wagner mercenaries and targeting pro-Russian separatists, highlighting a pattern of aggressive, high-stakes operations against Russian interests. Furthermore, WaPo reports that Chervinsky did not act alone and he did not plan the operation, again "according to the people familiar with his role," but instead took orders from more senior Ukrainian officials, who ultimately reported to Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraines highest-ranking military officer, "according to people familiar with how the operation was carried out." More problematically, Chervinskys involvement in the Nord Stream assault is in direct opposition to Zelenskys public denials regarding Ukraines involvement. I am president and I give orders accordingly, Zelensky said in press interview in June, responding to a report by the Post that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had learned of Ukraines plans before the attack. Nothing of the sort has been done by Ukraine. I would never act that way, Zelensky said. Interestingly, WaPo reports that Chervinsky is being held in a Kyiv jail on charges that he abused his power stemming from a plot to lure a Russian pilot to defect to Ukraine in July 2022. Authorities allege that Chervinsky, who was arrested in April, acted without permission and that the operation gave away the coordinates of a Ukrainian airfield, prompting a Russian rocket attack that killed a soldier and injured 17 others. This WaPo report comes at a crucial time in the geopolitical chess-game, as the desire for more spending in what appears to be a lost cause in Ukraine is fading fast among Western populations (most notably US), and perhaps offers President Biden an 'excuse' to reduce aid in light of this 'shocking development' - which, of course, Washington has vehemently denied any involvement in (and denounced as a "reckless act". But the twists and turns do not stop there as the backdrop to this unfolding drama includes Seymour Hersh's explosive allegations regarding the CIA and the US Navy's covert activities. Throughout all of this scheming, the source said, some working guys in the CIA and the State Department were saying, Dont do this. Its stupid and will be a political nightmare if it comes out. Nevertheless, in early 2022, the CIA working group reported back to Sullivans interagency group: We have a way to blow up the pipelines. Hersh, a renowned investigative journalist - who broke such well-known stories as the My Lai massacre and Abu Ghraib scandal and has long been known for impeccable insider sources - has previously reported on the deep entanglement of US intelligence in various global hotspots, hinting strongly at the complex interplay between Ukrainian ambitions and broader Western strategic objectives. The broader geopolitical context cannot be ignored. The US and NATO have been deeply involved in supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression, but the extent of their involvement in covert operations remains a subject of intense debate and speculation. The Nord Stream bombing, if indeed orchestrated by a faction within the Ukrainian military, could be seen as an extension of this proxy conflict, where Ukraine serves as a frontline in a larger strategic contest between Russia and the West, with CIA pulling the strings (just as Hersh concludes). In an interview with WaPo in June of this year, Zaluzhny said the CIA had never asked him directly about any attack on Nord Stream. He said that after the explosions, in September 2022, he received a phone call from then-U. S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark A. Milley. He asked me, 'Did you have anything to do with it?' I said, 'No'. A lot of operations are planned, a lot of operations are going on, but we have nothing to do with it, nothing at all." Some of those who described Chervinskys participation in the Nord Stream attack defended the veteran intelligence officer as acting in Ukraines best interests. So, why now? Suddenly various 'sources' come forward to offer a scapegoat for this "reckless act"? A distraction from potential confirmation of Washington's involvement? ... A potential release valve on the 'blame Russia' narrative enabling 'peace' conversations to take place? ... An opportune excuse to curb 'aid' (pending an investigation)given the involvement of Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine's top military officer (and Zelensky's denial) prompting questions of discord within the Ukrainian chain of command? On October 20 we reported that JPMorgan Chase, a serial recidivist when it comes to crime, had paid $1.085 billion in legal expenses in just the last six months. A nice chunk of that money went to the Big Law firm, WilmerHale, which has been representing JPMorgan Chase this year in multiple lawsuits involving the banks dark history of financial dealings with child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. (See Related Articles at the bottom of this article.) When the largest bank in the United States pays big bucks to a law firm with a roster of 1,000 attorneys, it doesnt expect its $290 million class action settlement with Jeffrey Epsteins victims to blow up in its face just days before the final Fairness Hearing a legally required court event to determine if the terms of the agreement are fair, adequate and reasonable. That Fairness Hearing will be conducted today in Judge Jed Rakoffs courtroom in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in lower Manhattan at 4 p.m. Its a big embarrassment for both WilmerHale and JPMorgan Chase that 16 state Attorneys General and the Attorney General for the District of Columbia are objecting to the terms of the settlement, along with two Epstein claimants. Judge Rakoff had given the lawyers that hatched the terms of the settlement until November 6 to file their responses to the Attorneys General challenges. The lawyers included WilmerHale representing JPMorgan Chase and high-profile attorney, David Boies (and others) representing the Epstein victims. Boies brings a lot of baggage with him as a result of his prior representation of now convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein and the strong-arm tactics Boies employed on Weinsteins behalf. (See Ronan Farrows blockbuster investigative report in The New Yorker, Harvey Weinsteins Army of Spies.) We had anticipated that WilmerHale might file a respectful response to the Attorneys General objections, perhaps agreeing to change the language in the settlement that the Attorneys General found improper. These are, after all, the highest law enforcement offices in 16 states and the District of Columbia. We could not have been more wrong. The response from WilmerHale effectively blasted the Attorneys General for sticking their nose where it didnt belong. What the Attorneys General are challenging boils down to this: Under the federal law known as the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), Attorneys General have the right to bring claims on behalf of sex trafficked victims. The language in the JPMorgan Chase settlement proposes to extinguish those rights. The State Attorneys General explained it as follows in their filing with the court: Section 1.25 [of the proposed settlement agreement] releases claims that could be brought to recover damages from the Released Defendant Parties on behalf of a Member of the Class by any other party, including any sovereign or government, relating to or arising from any Member of the Classs harm, injury, abuse, exploitation, or trafficking by Jeffrey Epstein or by any person who is in any way connected to or otherwise associated with Jeffrey Epstein, as well as any right to recovery on account thereof. (Emphasis added.) WilmerHale and David Boies settlement agreement hoped to pay Boies and his fellow lawyers working on behalf of the victims $87 million in legal fees; $2.5 million in legal expenses; and buy blanket immunity going forward for all those JPMorgan executives and the banks ultra wealthy clients who were regular visitors to Epsteins mansions/brothels; as well as the banks employees who were funneling $40,000 to $80,000 in hard cash each month to Epstein for over a decade while the bank failed to file the legally-mandated Suspicious Activity Reports. Its a sweet deal for lawyers and a sweet deal for a recidivist money laundering bank. (See JPMorgan/Jeffrey Epstein Cases Are a Cross Between the Banks Chinese Princeling Scandal and Madoff Fraud, Using Sex with Minors as a Bribe.) But its a very bad deal for the public interest. The lawyer who drafted and signed WilmerHales response to the objections of the state Attorneys General was law partner, Felicia Ellsworth, the Vice Chair of WilmerHales Litigation/Controversy Department. Ellsworth goes for the jugular with this in her response: Standing between the victims and this compensation are the Attorneys General of New Mexico, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, and Vermont. These Attorneys General have no stake in this matter: they do not articulate any reason why the settlement would harm their states or their citizens. Just the opposite, their objection undermines the settlement and the victims they claim to support. First, there is no procedural mechanism for the Attorneys Generalwho are neither parties to the case, nor members of the certified classto object to the proposed settlement. Second, the Attorneys General identify no legal or equitable flaw in the proposed settlement, whether to their respective States or to their citizens. With no stake in this case, the Court should decline the Attorneys Generals invitation to issue an advisory opinion. In reality, the challenge from the Attorneys General very specifically identified the legal flaw in the settlement and cited to numerous examples of case law that backed up their arguments. In one section, they explained to the court as follows: In adding Section 1595(d) to the civil remedy section of the TVPA, which previously only explicitly recognized victim suits, Congress intended to unleash the power of state law enforcement to prosecute these heinous sex-trafficking crimes, recognizing that, in many circumstances, victims are unable or unwilling to come forward and more prosecutors, more investigators, and more resources are needed to address this growing problem throughout our country.This amendment is needed in order to give enhanced powers to State attorneys general that they can provide the extra litigation leverage for individuals who are impacted in a devastating manner.If broad releases of non-party state Attorneys General law enforcement actions under the TVPA seeking victim-specific relief were deemed permissible without their express consent, state Attorneys General may be deterred from bringing these important civil law enforcement actions in the future upsetting Congress very purpose in amending the TVPA to add state law enforcement. Related Articles: New Court Documents Suggest the Justice Department Under Four Presidents Covered Up Jeffrey Epsteins Money Laundering at JPMorgan Chase Former FBI Agent Prepared to Testify that JPMorgan Had Jeffrey Epstein Account for 28 Years Not 15 Years and Impeded Criminal Investigation of Epstein JPMorgan Listed a Lolitas Closet on the New York Stock Exchange for Jeffrey Epsteins Money Man, Les Wexner Gary Genslers SEC Is Drawing a Dark Curtain Around Child Sex Trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, His Money Man Leslie Wexner and Their Ties to JPMorgan JPMorgan Had a Secret Project that Is Now Spreading Its Scandalous Internal Emails with Sex Trafficker Jeffrey Epstein to News Outlets Worldwide JPMorgan Is Alleged to Have Used Its Hedge Funds Private Jet to Engage in Sex-Trafficking for Jeffrey Epstein JPMorgan Chase and Jeffrey Epstein Were Both Involved in a Strange Offshore Company Called Liquid Funding The Company Under Scrutiny in the Jeffrey Epstein Case Has Semi-Nude Young Females on its Board of Directors Page Jamie Dimons Deposition in Epstein Case Reveals Email Stating that Dimon Was to Be Treated to Heavy Snacks at Epsteins Home The Justice Department Has Had the Epstein Case Since July 2006 Its Time to Arrest Accomplices Digital technology has enabled immense progress on freedom of speech. But social media platforms have also accelerated and amplified the spread of false information and hate speech, posing major risks to societal cohesion, peace and stability. To protect access to information, we must regulate these platforms without delay, while at the same time protecting freedom of expression and human rights. UNESCOs action plan is the result of a consultation process on a scale unprecedented within the United Nations system, with over 10,000 contributions from 134 countries collected over the last eighteen months. Over forty pages, it outlines the principles which must be respected as well as the concrete measures which must be implemented by all stakeholders: governments, regulatory authorities, civil society and the platforms themselves. Representatives from independent regulators have already welcomed UNESCOs initiative, and several of them notably in Africa and Latin America have indicated that they are ready to begin implementing these measures. To this end, UNESCO will organize the first World Conference of Regulators in mid-2024. The Organization will also support its Member States in transposing this action plan into their own laws and regulations. To this end, UNESCO is mobilising dedicated funding, including 1 million Euros already pledged by the European Commission. 7 fundamental principles to be respected UNESCOs measures are organised around 7 principles which must be respected so that: The impact on human rights becomes the compass for all decision-making, at every stage and by every stakeholder. Independent, public regulators are set up everywhere in the world, with clearly defined roles and sufficient resources to carry out their mission. These independent regulators work in close coordination as part of a wider network, to prevent digital companies from taking advantage of disparities between national regulations. Content moderation is feasible and effective at scale, in all regions and in all languages. Accountability and transparency are established in these platforms algorithms, which are too often geared towards maximizing engagement at the cost of reliable information. Platforms take more initiative to educate and train users to think critically. Regulators and platforms take stronger measures during particularly sensitive moments like elections and crises. Freedom of expression must be protected Our work has been guided by one central requirement: the protection at all times of freedom of expression and all other human rights. Restricting or limiting speech would be a terrible solution. Having media outlets and information tools that are independent, qualitative and free, is best long-term response to disinformation, the Director-General underscored. In particular, platforms must have teams of qualified moderators, in sufficient numbers and speaking all the main languages of their social media, so that they can carry out reliable and effective control of content that is posted online. They must ensure the transparency of the moderation process, including when it is automated through algorithms. They must also facilitate their use, in all the main languages of the country in which they operate, and report on complaints from users. Sections of this strategy are also dedicated to the measures needed to guarantee electoral integrity notably through electoral risk assessments, clear content-flagging and greater transparency of political advertising and its targeting and to respond to emergency situations, such as armed conflicts and disasters. Elements specific to the cultural sector have also been included, highlighting the risks faced by artists and the need for online access to diverse cultural content as a fundamental human right to be safeguarded with reference to the Declaration unanimously adopted by UNESCO Member States at the MONDIACULT Conference in September 2022. Global survey confirms the urgent need for action The publication of UNESCOs action plan is accompanied by an opinion poll conducted by IPSOS for UNESCO, with over 8,000 respondents across 16 countries where elections will be held in 2024. It shows that 85% of citizens are worried about the impact of online disinformation, at a time when social media platforms have become the primary source of information for a large majority of them. The same survey indicates that 87% of citizens believe that this misinformation has already had a major impact on their countrys political life and fear that it will influence the results of their countrys elections in the next year. As a result, 88% are calling on governments and regulators to resolve this problem quickly by regulating social media. Nigel Farage has been pictured arriving in Australia where he said he might become a contestant on Im A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!. Other famous faces rumoured to be joining the ITV jungle show who have been seen arriving in the country include This Morning presenter Josie Gibson and First Dates star Fred Sirieix. Advertisement Mr Farage has previously said he has turned down multiple requests since 2016 to head into the Australian jungle. After getting off the plane on Sunday, the former Ukip and Brexit Party leader told the MailOnline he is someone who might be going into the popular reality show. Josie Gibson, who presents This Morning, is also rumoured to be heading for the jungle (Dominic Lipinski/PA) Advertisement He added: I cant confirm Im doing it I just think theres a big audience out there that watches the programme (who are), actually, people worth talking to. Advertisement On his GB News show last month, he said he was considering an appearance on the show to connect with a younger audience. Former UK health secretary Matt Hancock came third in the 2022 series, which became the second most complained-about TV event of last year, according to Ofcom. Advertisement Not quite live from the jungle yet But they will be very soon! I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! Starts Sunday 19th November at 9pm on ITV1 and @ITVX #ImACeleb @imacelebrity @antanddec pic.twitter.com/v0dzru2HFq ITV (@ITV) November 6, 2023 Advertisement Im A Celebrity has yet to announce its official line-up for this year and has previously said any names linked to the show are just speculation. Other rumoured contestants include Made In Chelsea star Sam Thompson, Love Islander Olivia Attwood, who competed last year but had to head home early, and former The Big Breakfast presenter Denise Van Outen. Newspaper speculation has also mentioned jockey Frankie Dettori, former EastEnders actress Danielle Harold, ex-professional boxer Tony Bellew, Britney Spearss sister Jamie Lynn Spear, and soap star Nick Pickard as potential campmates. The shows presenters Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly confirmed the series is set to begin next Sunday at 9pm. No matter the results of the next general election, Fine Gael will not go into government with Sinn Fein, according to a Minister. Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris said the party's position is clear, and a coalition of this kind would be incoherent from a policy point of view. Advertisement Fine Gael previously said they would not enter a coalition with Fianna Fail, but that is now the current government. Minister Harris said the situation with Sinn Fein is entirely different. He told Newstalk: "The party position is extraordinarily clear and I've yet to meet anybody in Fine Gael, any minister, TD, senator, councillor or party member, who wished to go into government with Sinn Fein. "And you know what? That's OK. The position in relation to Fine Gael on Sinn Fein is really clear. I'm sure there is many people in Sinn Fein by the way who don't want to go into government with Fine Gael, this is a healthy thing in a democracy." Advertisement Advertisement Earlier this week, Mr Harris criticised Sinn Fein after its TD Chris Andrews took a defamation suit against The Irish Times and political correspondent Harry McGee. In a post on social media site X, formerly Twitter, he wrote: "Where is the line Mary Lou? Come clean on how many journalists & outlets have received legal letters from you & your party reps. We must & will change defamation laws but no law change needed for basic decency in politics #dontsueme." Where is the line Mary Lou? Come clean on how many journalists & outlets have received legal letters from you & your party reps. We must & will change defamation laws but no law change needed for basic decency in politics #dontsueme https://t.co/aKFynwyKZ8 Simon Harris TD (@SimonHarrisTD) November 11, 2023 Advertisement Mr Harris' comments on any potential Sinn Fein coalition echo those of other senior Fine Gael members, including Taoiseach Leo Varadkar who has repeatedly dismissed the suggestion. Fianna Fail's stance is less clear. While Tanaiste Micheal Martin has spoken of the incompatibility of his party and Sinn Fein, other TDs are understood to be receptive to the idea of a future coalition. Sinn Fein will "talk to everybody" if they get the mandate to form a government in the next election, a TD said at the party's ard feis in Athlone, Co Westmeath. Dublin Fingal TD Louise O'Reilly said they will make sure to negotiate a "very ambitious plan" for government. Ms O'Reilly says the party is preparing to be in power. "We will talk to everybody, because that's what grown-ups do. "We will take our mandate and talk to any parties. What we're interested in doing is putting forward a platform, and putting forward a set of policies that will make a real and lasting difference." Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald has said she would talk to everybody after the next general election should opportunities to establish a coalition government. Speaking to BBC Northern Irelands Sunday Politics programme, the Sinn Fein president said current rhetoric from major parties in Ireland is a far cry from their rejections to building a coalition with her party after the 2020 general election. Advertisement At the time, I thought that was kind of farcical. I have invited people to imagine the opportunity for change and to make that real. A government without Fianna Fail or Fine Gael for potentially the first time in a century, that would be mighty and momentous. I happen to think that that would equip us best to drive the kind of change we need. Advertisement Advertisement She added: After the election, I will talk to everybody. Not out of deference to political parties but out of respect to the electorate and because I think thats what grown-ups do. However, Ms McDonald said her party has substantial differences with Fianna Fail and Fine Gael. Advertisement In a series of media interviews on Sunday, Ms McDonald also called for the referral of Israel to the International Criminal Court and the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador as part of pressure for a ceasefire. Addressing the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza, she told RTE radio: In my view, the only way that we can guarantee anybody is safe, including the hostages, is for ceasefires. Sinn Fein vice-president Michelle ONeill, Palestinian ambassador to Ireland Dr Jilan Wahba Abdalmajid and party leader Mary Lou McDonald Advertisement Asked about the partys call to expel the ambassador, Ms McDonald added: The issue of the ambassador is not an end in itself, all of this has to be with a precise focus in achieving ceasefire. Across multiple interviews, Ms McDonald defended the right of Sinn Fein politicians to sue media outlets as the party faced new criticism for taking legal action against the press. She told RTEs This Week: The requirement that all of us operate within the law should not be sinister or intimidating to anybody. Advertisement She said, generally, approaches to media outlets will be made before legal action is taken. Advertisement Ms McDonald said neither she nor the party were informed about a Sinn Fein politicians decision to sue an individual journalist personally. The objective of this should never be to personalise it to an individual, she added. A minister in the current coalition Government said suing the media is not the first lever a politician should pull. Also appearing on the broadcast media circuit on Sunday, Simon Harris said he believes lawsuits against the media carried out by Sinn Fein have had a chilling effect on potential press coverage of the party. The Fine Gael TD told Newstalk radio: This, a party [Sinn Fein] that is leading in the opinion polls. If theyre a party that wishes to be in government, you got to get ready for a bit of scrutiny. Thats what happens in Irish politics and like Im saying, of course people have a right to go to the courts, theres no doubt about that thats an absolutely right in democracy, but doesnt mean its a lever you have to pull. Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris criticised Sinn Fein (Brian Lawless/PA) And it certainly shouldnt be pulled lightly or as frequently as it seems to be by some parties. Advertisement Mr Harris said the Fine Gael party position is extraordinarily clear that it would not enter into a coalition with Sinn Fein after the next election. The further education minister also criticised Sinn Feins plans for the housing sector in an appearance on RTEs The Week In Politics. Ms McDonald had told that programme about 50,000 new homes need to be delivered every year. Mr Harris described Ms McDonalds comments as an absolute masterclass in terms of telling you the problem but not answering the question of what the party would do to address housing. Also setting out the Government position on the Hamas-Israel conflict, he told the same programme that the situation in Gaza has become a war on children. The absolute priority for this government and I think this country has led on this is to call for an immediate ceasefire. He said expelling the ambassador would result in the expulsion of Irelands ambassador in Israel at a time when we need to keep communication open due to Irish citizens still being in Gaza. Sales of diesel automobiles built by local manufacturers fell more than 20 percent on-year through the third quarter of 2023, data showed Sunday, amid the rising preference for electric vehicles in the market. Korea's five carmakers sold 76,367 units of diesel passenger cars over the January-September period, down from 97,235 tallied a year earlier, according to the data compiled by the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association. By model, sales of diesel models of Hyundai Motor's Palisade SUV nearly halved over the period to 11,693. Kia, the company's smaller sister, also saw sales of the Mohave SUV plunge 55.8 percent to 4,162. Industry watchers said the decline in diesel vehicle sales came as manufacturers are seeking to scale back their shipments, in line with the increasing preference for eco-friendly cars in the market. Hyundai recently launched the fifth-generation Santa Fe SUV but only offered gasoline and hybrid models. The company also suspended sales of the diesel versions of the Genesis G70 and G80 sedans with 2.2-liter diesel engines. (Yonhap) The conflict between Israel and Hamas is set to dominate Dail proceedings once again this week. Vote calling for expulsion of Israeli ambassador There will be a Dail vote on the motion from the Social Democrats to expel Israeli ambassador Dana Erlich. Advertisement Ms Erlich has claimed Ireland is not politically neutral in the Israel-Hamas conflict, while she also accused President Michael D Higgins of spreading misinformation. A number of opposition parties have called for her to be expelled. However, the Government has insisted this move would be counterproductive. Social Democrats foreign affairs spokesperson Gary Gannon has tabled the motion. Sinn Fein have said they will support the motion, but they will table their own, on calling for Ireland to refer Israel to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Advertisement Motion on referring Israel to the International Criminal Court Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said: Theyve made their view on the Ambassador clear, I disagree with them but they have set out their stall on that. Therefore, we will bring the motion to the Dail next week that seeks a referral by the Irish Government, by the Irish State, to the International Criminal Court." Advertisement In response, Tanaiste Micheal Martin said Ireland is a consistent and strong supporter of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in investigating the Israel-Hamas conflict. Mr Martin, who is also Minister for Foreign Affairs, said the ICC is the cornerstone of the system of international criminal justice. In a statement on Sunday, he said: Ireland is a consistent and strong supporter of the court, and of its independence and impartiality. Advertisement Mr Martin said the ICC has jurisdiction over the situation in Palestine and the prosecutor opened an investigation into Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem in March 2021. The investigation covers all crimes within the jurisdiction of the court, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, alleged to have been committed since the date of referral in 2014. This gives the court jurisdiction over any crimes committed within Palestine, and/or by Palestinian nationals outside it, including in Israel. Importantly, the current prosecutor, Karim Khan, has made absolutely clear on a number of occasions over the last month that this investigation covers the current conflict, including all events on and from October 7th this year. Advertisement He has confirmed that there is an active investigation ongoing in relation to the situation in Palestine. Defamation cases Advertisement Sinn Fein TD Chris Andrews has taken a defamation case against The Irish Times and their political correspondent Harry McGee. Government figures have criticised the move, with Mr Martin saying cases against journalists have a "chilling effect". The NUJ has also spoken out against the move. Advertisement This will undoubtedly be a topic of Dail discussion. Ms McDonald defended the move when asked about it at her party's ard fheis in Athlone, Co Westmeath, this weekend. People will be aware when they have a complaint, or an issue, of all of the options available. People generally take advice and, generally speaking, there will be an interaction with the publication or the broadcaster in question. The best outcome is where matters can be resolved directly in that channel, in my own opinion, but I cant comment [on this case]. Every individual has the right and the freedom to pursue matters in the way that they would wish. Abroad In the UK, all eyes will be on Rishi Sunak following widespread calls for him to sack British home secretary Suella Braverman. Ms Braverman has been under fire for inflaming tensions after she branded pro-Palestinian protesters hate marchers and accused the police of bias for letting a London rally coinciding with remembrance events go ahead. Seven people have been charged over violent disorder in London following the scenes over the weekend. Meanwhile, in the US, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson has unveiled a plan aiming to prevent a government shutdown. President Joe Biden will continue to focus on the Israel-Hamas conflict, while former president Donald Trump's court cases will continue to dominate headlines. Health officials and people trapped inside Gazas largest hospital have rejected Israels claims that it was helping babies and others evacuate on Sunday. They said fighting continued just outside the facility where incubators lay idle with no electricity and critical supplies were running out. Advertisement Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected urgent international calls for a ceasefire unless it includes the release of all the nearly 240 hostages captured by Hamas in the October 7 rampage that triggered the war. A day after Mr Netanyahu said Israel was bringing its full force with the aim of ending Hamas 16-year rule in Gaza, residents reported heavy airstrikes and shelling, including around Shifa Hospital. Smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip (Leo Correa/AP) Advertisement Israel, without providing evidence, has accused Hamas of concealing a command post inside and under the compound, allegations denied by Hamas and hospital staff. Advertisement They are outside, not far from the gates, said Ahmed al-Boursh, a resident sheltering at the facility. The hospitals last generator ran out of fuel on Saturday, leading to the deaths of three premature babies and four other patients, according to the Health Ministry. It said another 36 babies are at risk of dying without electricity. Israels military said it placed 300 litres of fuel near Shifa overnight and co-ordinated the delivery with hospital officials. Advertisement But the delivery location was not clear from the militarys video, and there was no immediate response from the Health Ministry and others including the Red Cross. Health Ministry undersecretary Munir al-Boursh said Israeli snipers have deployed around Shifa, firing at any movement inside the compound. He said airstrikes had destroyed several homes next to the hospital, killing three people, including a doctor. The aftermath of an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis (Fatima Shbair/AP) Advertisement There are wounded in the house, and we cant reach them, he told Al Jazeera television. We cant stick our heads out of the window. Speaking to CNN, Mr Netanyahu said 100 or so people had been evacuated from Shifa and that Israel had created safe corridors. But the Health Ministry has denied claims of evacuees and safe corridors, and people sheltering in the hospital said they were afraid to go outside. Advertisement The military said troops would assist in moving babies on Sunday, and that it was in contact with Shifa staff. Advertisement But Medical Aid for Palestinians, a UK-based charity that has supported the hospitals neonatal intensive care unit for years, questioned the militarys claim. The transfer of critically ill neonates is a complex and technical process, chief executive Melanie Ward said in a statement. Babies in the neonatal intensive care unit at Shifa Hospital, which MAP has supported over many years, are beginning to die from lack of oxygen. More will die soon unless the power supply is restored. MAPs CEO @melanie_ward responds:(1/6) pic.twitter.com/bOw5cdlpej Medical Aid for Palestinians (@MedicalAidPal) November 12, 2023 With ambulances unable to reach the hospital and no hospital with capacity to receive them, there is no indication of how this can be done safely. The only safe option is for Israel to stop its assault and allow fuel to reach the hospital, she said. The Health Ministry said there are still 1,500 patients at Shifa, with 1,500 medical personnel and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter. The Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service said another Gaza City hospital, the Red Crescent-run Al-Quds, is no longer operational because it has run out of fuel. Advertisement Gazas sole power plant was forced to shut down a month ago, and Israel has barred any fuel imports, saying Hamas would use them for military purposes. Nebal Farsakh, a Red Crescent spokesman, said 6,000 people, including displaced families, patients, and staff, remained trapped in the hospital. A Palestinian child wounded in Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip is taken to a hospital in Khan Younis (Fatima Shbair/AP) Alarm was growing. Decisive international action is needed now to secure an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and prevent further loss of life amid attacks on health care, the UN regional directors of the World Health Organisation and others said in a statement. They added that more than half of Gazas hospitals are closed and the rest are under massive strain. Muhammed Zaqout, director of hospitals in Gaza, said the Health Ministry has been unable to update the death toll since Friday as medics are unable to reach areas hit by Israeli bombardment. The situation is extremely dire, he said. Ambulances are unable to reach people under the rubble. About 2.3 million Palestinians remain trapped in the besieged territory. Mr Netanyahu has said the responsibility for any harm to civilians lies with Hamas. Israel has long accused the group, which operates in dense residential neighbourhoods, of using civilians as human shields. Wael Abu Omar, spokesman for Gazas border crossings, said 846 people left Gaza to Egypt through the Rafah crossing on Sunday, of whom 826 were foreigners. The rest included wounded, patients from Gazas hospitals and their caretakers. He said 76 aid trucks entered Gaza. The UN and partners have said much more needs to enter daily. Jordanian foreign minister Ayman Safadi said on Sunday that he asked European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell to apply the same legal, moral grounds for EU support of Ukraine to define its stand on Israels war crimes. The US has pushed for temporary pauses that would allow for wider distribution of badly needed aid to civilians in the besieged territory, where conditions are increasingly dire. But Israel has only agreed to brief daily periods during which civilians can flee the area of ground combat in northern Gaza and head south on foot along two main roads. Israel continues to strike what it says are militant targets across southern Gaza, often killing women and children. Dozens of wounded people, including children, were taken to a hospital in Khan Younis after an Israeli airstrike demolished a building in the southern town. Hospital officials said at least 13 were killed. Advertisement I spoke with @JosepBorrellF on necessity of an EU stand demanding end of Israeli war & war crimes against women, children & babies in incubators in Gaza. The legal, moral grounds on which EU urged support for its position on Ukrain must define its stand on Israels war crimes. https://t.co/rJrru7pli2 Ayman Safadi (@AymanHsafadi) November 12, 2023 The war has displaced over two-thirds of Gazas population, with most fleeing south. Egypt has allowed hundreds of foreign passport holders and medical patients to exit through its Rafah crossing, as well as the entry of a small amount of humanitarian aid. More than 11,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2,700 people have been reported missing and are thought to be trapped or dead under the rubble. At least 1,200 people have been killed on the Israeli side, mostly civilians killed in the initial Hamas attack. Forty-six Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground offensive began. About 250,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate from communities near Gaza, where Palestinian militants are still firing barrages of rockets, and along the northern border with Lebanon. Attacks by Lebanons Hezbollah group on Sunday wounded seven Israeli troops and 10 other people, Israels military and rescue services said. The clashes came as skirmishes between the Iran-backed group and Israeli military continue to intensify along the Lebanon-Israel border, threatening to escalate into another front in the Middle Easts latest war. Advertisement The Israeli military said in a statement that seven IDF soldiers were lightly injured as a result of the mortar shell launches in the area of Manara in northern Israel earlier today. Israeli rescue services did not identify the location or provide information about the 10 others wounded by rocket blasts and shrapnel, but said two of them were in a critical condition. Shortly after midnight last night, peacekeepers in a UNIFIL position near Al Qawzah reported hearing gunfire nearby. One peacekeeper was hit by a bullet and underwent surgery. He is recovering and currently stable. Advertisement Advertisement UNIFIL (@UNIFIL_) November 12, 2023 The Israeli military said they identified 15 launches from Lebanon over the past hour and their defence systems intercepted four of them. The rest fell into open areas. Advertisement Hamass military wing, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for shelling the northern Haifa and the Israeli border towns of Naura and Shlomi from southern Lebanon without giving any further details. Hezbollah first fired anti-tank missiles at an Israeli community just over the border on Sunday, Israeli officials said, badly wounding utility workers. The Israeli military said it was striking the origin of the launch with artillery fire. The Israel Electric Corp said workers in the rural community of Dovev were wounded while repairing lines damaged in a previous attack. Israeli media reported that six people were wounded, including one critically. Advertisement Israel hit several southern Lebanese towns, including Yaroun, Mays el-Jabal, and Alma al-Shaab. Hezbollah said it launched guided missiles against a logistical force belonging to the occupation army that was about to install transmission poles and eavesdropping and spying devices near the Dovev barracks. It said it hit an Israeli military bulldozer in a separate strike. Shortly after the attack, air raid sirens were heard in northern Israel. Army Radio reported that another anti-tank missile had been fired from Lebanon. Advertisement Hezbollah later announced attacks on Israeli military gatherings and barracks in border areas Birket Riche and Zareit, as clashes continue to intensify along the tense Lebanon-Israel border. Advertisement The assault was the most serious incident involving civilians since an Israeli airstrike in south Lebanon on November 5 killed a woman and three children. Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants and their allies have been clashing along the border since the Israel-Hamas war started five weeks ago with a bloody incursion into southern Israel by Hezbollah ally Hamas. While largely contained, clashes have increased in intensity as Israel conducts a ground offensive in Gaza against Hamas. Also Sunday, the United Nations peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, Unifil, said one of its peacekeepers had been wounded by gunfire overnight near the Lebanese town of al-Qawza. It was not clear where the shooting had come from or whether the peacekeepers were targeted or caught in crossfire. Unifil said it was investigating. Russian forces have increased attacks in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to gain ground near two key frontline cities, Ukrainian military officials have said. Moscows troops have begun a push to regain territory near Bakhmut, the eastern mining city that was the site of the wars bloodiest battle before falling into Russian hands in May, the head of Ukraines ground forces wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Advertisement Ukrainian troops had recaptured the heights over Bakhmut and made some advances to the citys west, north and south since Kyiv launched its summer counter-offensive. Toward Bakhmut, the Russians have become more active and are trying to recapture previously lost positions. Enemy attacks are being repelled, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi said. Ukraines long-awaited counter-offensive has so far resulted in only incremental gains and heavy losses, with Ukrainian troops struggling to punch through Russian lines in the south. Advertisement Meanwhile, Moscows forces have attempted to press forward in the north-east, likely with a view to distract Kyiv and minimise the number of troops it is able to send to key southern and eastern battles. Advertisement The Ukrainian ground forces spokesman similarly reported that Russian troops had switched from defence to active defence near Bakhmut, putting pressure on Ukrainian troops south of the city. The people of Kherson have marked one year since Ukraine retook the city from occupying Russian forces, though it remains under near-daily attack (Efrem Lukatsky/AP) Vladimir Fityo made the remarks on Ukrainian TV, adding that Russian troops were searching for weak points in Ukrainian defences and ramping up artillery strikes on Ukrainian positions. Advertisement Ukraines general staff said Russian troops are also continuing their weeks-long push to encircle Avdiivka, an Ukrainian stronghold south of Bakhmut and a key target since the beginning of the war. It is considered the gateway to parts of the eastern Donetsk region under Kyivs control. The general staff said the air force is playing a key part in the latest Russian assault. General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, who leads Ukrainian troops fighting in and near Avdiivka, said on Sunday that the attacking Russian forces are ramping up air strikes, particularly those using guided bombs. He wrote on Telegram that Russian troops over the previous day had launched 30 air strikes and 712 artillery barrages at the city and surrounding areas, and clashed almost 50 times with Ukrainian units. Advertisement Advertisement In the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, a 64-year-old man was killed and his wife was badly injured when Russian shells slammed into their property, Ukrainian officials said. Russian forces shelled Kherson and the surrounding region 62 times over the previous 24 hours, a spokesman added, wounding four civilians and damaging one of the citys libraries. The city has come under near-daily attacks since Ukraine recaptured it a year ago. Israeli strikes pounded Gaza City overnight and into Sunday as ground forces battled Hamas militants near the territorys largest hospital, where health officials say thousands of medics, patients and displaced people are trapped with no electricity and dwindling supplies. In a televised address on Saturday, Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu rejected growing international calls for a ceasefire unless it includes the release of all 239 hostages captured by Hamas in the October 7th attack that triggered the war, saying Israel is bringing its full force to the battle. Advertisement Israel has vowed to end Hamass 16-year rule in Gaza and crush its military capabilities, while blaming the militants for the wars heavy toll on the 2.3 million Palestinians trapped in the besieged territory. Israel has come under mounting international pressure, even from its closest ally the United States, as the war enters a sixth week. A 57-nation gathering of Muslim and Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia on Saturday called for the war to end. Advertisement In Gaza City, residents reported heavy air strikes and shelling overnight, including in the area around Shifa Hospital. Israel, without providing evidence, has accused Hamas of concealing a command post inside and under the hospital compound allegations denied by Hamas and hospital staff. Advertisement Binyamin Netanyahu has rejected growing international calls for a ceasefire (Christophe Ena/AP) We spent the night in panic waiting for their arrival, said Ahmed al-Boursh, a resident taking shelter in the hospital. They are outside, not far from the gates. The hospitals last generator ran out of fuel on Saturday, causing the deaths of three premature babies and four other patients, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza. It said another 36 babies are at risk of death because there is no electricity. Health Ministry spokesperson Munir al-Boursh said Israeli snipers have deployed around Shifa, firing at any movement inside the compound. He said air strikes have destroyed several homes next to the hospital, killing a doctor, his son and son-in-law. Advertisement There are wounded in the house, and we cant reach them, he told Al Jazeera television in an interview from the hospital. We cant stick our heads out of the window. Israels military said there is a safe corridor for civilians to evacuate from Shifa to southern Gaza, but people sheltering in the hospital said they are afraid to go outside. The military said troops will assist in moving babies on Sunday, and it is in contact with hospital staff. Advertisement It is not possible to independently ascertain the situation in and around the hospital. The Health Ministry says there are still 1,500 patients at Shifa, along with 1,500 medical personnel and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter. Thousands have fled Shifa and other hospitals that have come under attack, but doctors said it is impossible for everyone to get out. Advertisement The unbearably desperate situation at Shifa must stop now, the International Committee of the Red Cross director general, Robert Mardini, said on social media. Palestinians flee on foot to the southern Gaza Strip (Fatima Shbair/AP) Elsewhere, the Palestinian Red Crescent said another Gaza City hospital, Al-Quds, is no longer operational because it has run out of fuel. Gazas sole power plant was forced to shut down a month ago, and Israel has barred any fuel imports, saying Hamas would use them for military purposes. Advertisement Nebal Farsakh, a spokesman for the Red Crescent, said 6,000 people, including displaced families, patients and medical staff, remain trapped in the hospital. With Shifa and other hospitals now inaccessible, people sheltering in Gaza City said they are cut off from emergency care. Heba Mashlah, who was sheltering at a UN compound along with thousands of families, said a strike late on Saturday killed four people and wounded 15. The wounded are bleeding, and no-one is able to come and help them, she said. Advertisement In his address, Mr Netanyahu said the responsibility for any harm to civilians lies with Hamas. Israel has long accused the group, which operates in dense residential neighbourhoods, of using civilians as human shields. He also began to outline Israels post-war plans for Gaza, which contrast sharply with the vision put forward by the United States. Mr Netanyahu said Gaza would be demilitarised and that Israel would retain security control, with the ability to enter Gaza freely to hunt down militants. He also rejected the idea that the Palestinian Authority, which currently administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would at some stage control Gaza. Hamas drove the authoritys forces out of Gaza in a week of street battles in 2007. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said Washington opposes an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza and envisions a unified Palestinian government in both Gaza and the West Bank as a step towards Palestinian statehood. Even before the war, Mr Netanyahus government was staunchly opposed to Palestinian statehood. The situation at Shifa hospital is said to be unbearably desperate Israels allies have defended the countrys right to protect itself after the Hamas attack, which killed at least 1,200 people, mostly civilians. But now into the second month of war, there are growing differences over how Israel should conduct its fight. Advertisement The US has pushed for temporary pauses that would allow for wider distribution of badly needed aid to civilians in the besieged territory where conditions are increasingly dire. However, Israel has only agreed to brief daily periods during which civilians can flee the area of ground combat in northern Gaza and head south on foot along two main north-south roads. Since these evacuation windows were first announced a week ago, tens of thousands of civilians have fled the north. But Israel is striking what it says are militant targets across central and southern Gaza as well, often killing women and children. Israel-Hamas War Israel offers to evacuate babies from crippled Gaz... Read More The war has displaced over two-thirds of Gazas population, with most fleeing south. Egypt has allowed hundreds of foreign passport holders and medical patients to exit through its Rafah crossing. It has also allowed hundreds of trucks loaded with food and medicine but no fuel to enter, but aid workers say it is nowhere near enough to meet the mounting needs. More than 11,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2,700 people have been reported missing and are thought to be trapped or dead under the rubble. Advertisement Forty-six Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground offensive began, and Palestinians have continued firing rockets into Israel. Hamas is still holding scores of captives men, women and children after releasing four women last month. A fifth captive was rescued by Israeli forces. Peter Nygard, who once led a womens fashion empire, was found guilty of four charges of sexual assault in a Canadian court on Sunday, but was acquitted of a fifth charge plus a charge of forcible confinement. The jury returned the verdict on the fifth day of deliberations after a six-week trial in Toronto. Advertisement Nygard, 82, had pleaded not guilty to all charges, which stemmed from allegations dating from the 1980s to the mid-2000s. Five women, whose identities are protected by a publication ban, had given evidence that they were invited to Nygards Toronto headquarters under pretexts ranging from tours to job interviews, with all encounters ending in a top-floor bedroom suite where four of them were sexually assaulted. Peter Nygard, left, once led a womens fashion empire (Alexandra Newbould/The Canadian Press/AP) Advertisement Advertisement Multiple complainants told the jury similar stories of meeting Nygard on a plane, at an airport or at a nightclub and then receiving invitations to go to the headquarters. All five women said their meetings or interactions with Nygard ended with sexual activity that they did not consent to. One of the complainants gave evidence that Nygard would not let her leave his private suite for some time, which led to the forcible confinement charge. Others gave evidence about feeling trapped in the suite, describing doors that had to be opened with a keypad code or the push of a button near the bed. Advertisement One woman said she was only 16 when she accompanied an older man she was dating at the time to Nygards headquarters, where she said Nygard sexually assaulted her, and then another woman handed her an emergency contraceptive pill on her way out. Nygard gave evidence in his own defence at the trial and denied all five womens allegations, saying he did not even recall meeting or interacting with four of them. He said he would never engage in the type of conduct he was accused of, and said no-one could have been locked inside his private suite under any circumstances. Advertisement Crown prosecutor Neville Golwalla and assistant prosecutor Ana Serban outside court in Toronto (Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press/AP) Advertisement At the end of the trial, prosecutors said that Nygard was evasive and unreliable in his evidence and that the similarities in all five womens stories showed a pattern in his behaviour. The defence said the complainants crafted a false narrative about Nygard and suggested their sexual assault claims were motivated by a class-action lawsuit against Nygard in the United States. Nygard is still facing criminal charges in three other jurisdictions. Advertisement He is facing charges of sexual assault and forcible confinement in separate cases in Quebec and Manitoba, related to allegations dating back to the 1990s. He is also facing charges in the US. Nygard was first arrested in Winnipeg in 2020 under the Extradition Act after he was charged with nine counts in New York, including sex trafficking and racketeering charges. The federal justice minister at the time had said Nygard would be extradited to the US after the cases against him in Canada are resolved. Nygard founded a fashion company in Winnipeg in 1967 that ultimately became Nygard International. The company produced womens clothing under several brand names and had corporate facilities in Canada and the US. Nygard stepped down as chairman of the company after the FBI and police raided his offices in New York City in February 2020. The company has since filed for bankruptcy and entered into receivership. French president Emmanuel Macron has called on the French people to rise up against anti-Jewish acts ahead of a march in the capital to protest against rising antisemitism. French prime minister Elisabeth Borne and numerous other politicians are to attend the march on Sunday. Advertisement Paris' authorities have deployed 3,000 police troops along the route of the protest, which was called by the leaders of the Senate and parliaments lower house, the National Assembly, amid an alarming increase in anti-Jewish acts in France since the start of Israels war against Hamas last month. French authorities have registered more than 1,000 acts against Jews around the country in a month since the conflict in the Middle East began. In a letter addressed to the French people, Mr Macron vowed that perpetrators will be prosecuted and punished. Advertisement Advertisement After marking Armistice Day on Saturday, Emmanuel Macron said a France where its Jewish citizens are afraid is not France (Mohammed Badra/pool/AP) A France where our Jewish fellow citizens are afraid is not France, he said in the letter, published in Le Parisien newspaper. He called on the country to remain united behind its values and work for peace and security for all in the Middle East. He noted that 40 French citizens were killed in the initial Hamas attack, and eight remain missing or held hostage. Advertisement To this pain of the nation has been added the unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism, he said. Mr Macron said he will attend the protest in my heart and in spirit, but not in person. French far-right leader Marine Le Pen is likely to attend the march amid fierce criticism that her once-pariah National Rally party has failed to shake off its antisemitic heritage despite growing political legitimacy. As of Saturday, officials counted 1,247 antisemitic acts in France since October 7th nearly three times as many as for the whole of 2022, according to the Interior Ministry. French politicians have joined tens of thousands of people for a march through Paris to protest against rising antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, representatives of several parties on the left as well as far-right leader Marine Le Pen attended Sundays march in the French capital amid tight security. Advertisement President Emmanuel Macron did not attend, but expressed his support for the protest and called on citizens to rise up against the unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism. The leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, Jean-Luc Melenchon, stayed away from the march, saying last week on X, formerly Twitter, that it would be a meeting of friends of unconditional support for the massacre in Gaza. Paris authorities deployed 3,000 police troops along the route of the protest, which was called by the leaders of the Senate and parliaments lower house, the National Assembly, amid an alarming increase in anti-Jewish acts in France since the start of the conflict last month. Advertisement A protester wearing a Jewish kippa and holding a French flag joined thousands on the march (Christophe Ena/AP) Advertisement Holding a French flag, Robert Fiel, 67, said marching against antisemitism is more than a duty. He added: Its a march against violence, against antisemitism, against all (political extremes) that are infiltrating the society, to show that the silent majority does exist. France has the largest Jewish population in Europe. Advertisement After marking Armistice Day on Saturday, Emmanuel Macron said a France where its Jewish citizens are afraid is not France (Mohammed Badra/pool/AP) More than 1,000 acts against Jews around the country have been registered in the past month. In a letter addressed to the French people on Sunday, Mr Macron vowed that perpetrators will be prosecuted and punished. Advertisement A France where our Jewish fellow citizens are afraid is not France, he said in the letter, published in Le Parisien newspaper. He called on the country to remain united behind its values and work for peace and security for all in the Middle East. French police manned the route of the march (Christophe Ena/AP) Advertisement He noted that 40 French citizens were killed in the initial Hamas attack, and eight remain missing or held hostage. Advertisement To this pain of the nation has been added the unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism, he said. Ms Le Pen attended the march amid fierce criticism that her once-pariah National Rally party has failed to shake off its antisemitic heritage despite growing political legitimacy. As of Saturday, officials counted 1,247 antisemitic acts in France since October 7 nearly three times as many as for the whole of 2022, according to the Interior Ministry. France has largely banned pro-Palestinian demonstrations, although supporters have marched in several cities in the past weeks. Thousands demanded a ceasefire in Gaza in an authorised protest in Paris last Sunday. Britain's King Charles led a Remembrance Day service in central London on Sunday as the UK paid their respects to those who died in conflict. A two-minute silence took place across the UK at 11am. Advertisement Wreaths were laid by members of the British royal family, senior UK politicians and dignitaries at the Cenotaph in London, where a major policing operation remains in place after more than 120 arrests were made mostly of far-right counter-protesters as a pro-Palestinian march was held on Armistice Day. Members of the British royal family at the Remembrance Day service (Aaron Chown/PA) Charles led the memorial in Whitehall commemorating the end of the First World War and other conflicts involving British and Commonwealth forces. Advertisement Wearing the uniform of the Marshal of the Royal Air Force with greatcoat, poppy and sword, the king laid a wreath similar to the one produced for Britain's King George VI. Advertisement Britain's King Charles and Prince William lay wreaths during the Remembrance Sunday service (Aaron Chown/PA) Prince William also laid a wreath, as did Princess Anne, Prince Edward, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak and other senior politicians. Advertisement Major Ollie Plunket of The Rifles, equerry to Camilla, laid a wreath on behalf of the queen, who was watching from a balcony with William's wife Catherine . Buckingham Palace said the queens wreath closely resembled the one produced for the queen mother. Almost 10,000 veterans and 800 armed forces personnel from all three services were then due to take part in a march-past. Advertisement Camilla and Katherine on a balcony at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Jonathan Brady/PA) Among those marching are nuclear test veterans, who for the first time will wear a medal acknowledging their contribution. After 70 years of waiting for recognition, those exposed to the effects of nuclear bombs during the UKs testing programme were given a medal, depicting an atom surrounded by olive branches, for the Remembrance Sunday service. More than 300 armed forces and civilian organisations are represented, as well as 300 veterans not affiliated with an association who have been invited to join for the first time. Advertisement Mr Sunak said: The courage and commitment shown by our servicemen and women, both today and throughout the generations that came before them, is humbling and I know many across the country will be honouring their memory today in quiet reflection. Advertisement Recent events have served as a stark reminder that we cannot take the hard-earned peace we live in for granted, which is why I am honoured to lay a wreath on behalf of the nation in the memory of all those that have lost their lives defending our country and the values we hold so close. I am determined to ensure we never forget the ultimate sacrifice they have made. Michael Gove was mobbed by pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Victoria station amid a day fraught with tensions over a rally and counter-protests held on Armistice Day in London. Footage shared on social media showed the senior UK Cabinet minister flanked by a large police contingent trying to keep dozens of demonstrators away from him as he passed through the London railway station. Advertisement The flag-waving protesters crowding him were heard chanting shame on you as officers shouted at them to get back. This is so disgraceful. Sending solidarity to @michaelgove and all those who seek to go about their private business on a Saturday afternoon but who are intimidated by thugs. https://t.co/8Iys7E2ie6 Arlene Foster DBE PC #ProudofNI. (@ArleneFosterUK) November 11, 2023 Advertisement In another clip, the levelling up secretary was seen walking down a London street as protesters followed him chanting the same slogan. Advertisement The scenes prompted other politicians to express solidarity with Mr Gove. Advertisement Dame Arlene Foster, former first minister of Northern Ireland, tweeted: This is so disgraceful. Sending solidarity to @michaelgove and all those who seek to go about their private business on a Saturday afternoon but who are intimidated by thugs. London Mayor Sadiq Khan described attempts to intimidate politicians as unacceptable. SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said: Its not bizarre for Michael Gove to use a major tube/train station. He should be able to travel in peace like everyone else. Advertisement Those acting in this fashion damage their cause and, along with those displaying abhorrent antisemitism amongst the rally today, must be condemned. Mr Goves office has been contacted for comment. Dozens of counter-protesters were arrested as hundreds of thousands of people took part in the central London march the biggest since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7th. Some politicians most notably Mr Goves Cabinet colleague Suella Braverman had put pressure on police not to let the pro-Palestinian march go ahead on the day of remembrance. ATR, a European turboprop maker, is on track to return to pre-COVID-19 production levels, and its plant is gearing up for new orders for its models from Korea, which plans to build three new airports on islands in the coming years. The number of aircraft assembled in ATR's Toulouse plant plunged to 10 in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began and hammered the global airline industry, from pre-pandemic levels of 70-80 per year. It has rebounded to 40 this year. ATR now assembles more than 20 turboprop planes at the plant for deliveries to customers, including U.S. logistics firm FedEx; India's largest airline, IndiGo; Togo-based Liz Aviation; and plane-leasing companies. Some of them were in the final stages of assembly and wrapped with the logos of FedEX or IndiGo, indicating they are major clients of ATR. "It takes about one year and four months to assemble parts delivered from our suppliers into the finished products, (which are) the ATR 42-600, ATR 72-600 and ATR 72-600F freighter," said Maxime Tisne, head of Delivery Center Quality at ATR. The ATR 42-600S, a short takeoff and landing (STOL) variant, capable of landing on an 800-meter-long runway, is under development. ATR receives parts from five tier-1 suppliers. Pratt & Whitney Canada supplies engines, Airbus Atlantic wings, Safran S.A. landing gear, Collins Aerospace propellers and Leonardo structural components. Of the ATR models, company officials selected the ATR 72-600 as the "most optimal" aircraft for Korean passenger transportation at the island airports. The ATR 72-600 is certified for up to 78 passenger seats and provides significant benefits compared with competitor aircraft. If an ATR 72-600 were to fly from Gimpo, located in western Seoul, to the airport being built on Ulleung Island, 341 kilometers east of the capital, it will be able to carry 72 passengers both ways, given the runway length of 1,200 meters, according to the company. The upcoming airport is scheduled to open in 2026. ATR 72-600 planes are capable of landing on shorter runways, those between 1,000-1,200 meters, it said. "Moreover, we have a large commonality across the models: pilot training programs, same engine on the smaller and larger versions of the ATR 42 and 72, common flight deck, common cockpit, significant commonality in spare parts ... sharing 90 percent of the spare parts between the different versions of ATR," said Alexis Vidal, senior vice president of commercial at ATR. The executive went on to say this is very important when a country like Korea develops regional connectivity, both passenger and freighter as an example, to have commonality in the product lineup. "That provides a lot of cost savings and flexibility for operations," he said. ATR sees bigger growth potential in the Asia-Pacific region if it can sell its aircraft models to the Korean market. In Japan, 20 ATR planes are in operation, as well as 24 in Taiwan, with the numbers expected to rise to 50 and 30, respectively, in the next five years. In November last year, the Chinese government gave approval to ATR to fly the ATR 42-600, with the number likely to reach 20-30 in the following five years. "There is no regional aviation in Korea, contrary to Japan, Taiwan and many other countries. We think that the time is coming now in Korea. And the catalyst will probably be the islands," ATR Sales Director Jean-Daniel Kosowski said. Regional aviation refers to flights below 300 nautical miles, or 555 kilometers, with below 80 seats and less than 1 hour of flight time. In Korea, there are 11 potential international routes and 18 potential island routes below 300 nautical miles. The east-west domestic routes do not overlap the country's KTX bullet train routes, the director said. He also expects potential direct cargo flights linking Korea to secondary cities in Japan and China, which would enable next-day e-commerce delivery. "If you once (find) the ATR aircraft is profitable on short routes, then you can also open routes to neighboring countries like Japan and east-west routes in the country," Kosowski said. (Yonhap) Michael Gove has thanked police for getting him home safely after he was mobbed by pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Victoria station. The senior UK Cabinet minister said he was very grateful for so many kind messages after footage was posted on social media showing him flanked by a large police contingent trying to keep dozens of demonstrators away, as he passed through the London railway station. Advertisement It came on a day fraught with tensions over a rally and counter-protests held on Armistice Day. The flag-waving protesters crowding him were heard chanting shame on you as officers shouted at them to get back. Im very grateful for so many kind messages in the last 24 hours. Id like to thank the police for their exemplary work getting me home safely yesterday. Advertisement Advertisement Michael Gove (@michaelgove) November 12, 2023 In another clip, the UK levelling up secretary was seen walking down a London street as protesters followed him chanting the same slogan. Advertisement Michael Gove posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Sunday, saying: Im very grateful for so many kind messages in the last 24 hours. Id like to thank the police for their exemplary work getting me home safely yesterday. Dozens of counter-protesters were arrested as hundreds of thousands of people took part in the central London march the biggest since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7th. Some politicians, most notably Mr Goves Cabinet colleague home secretary Suella Braverman, had put pressure on police not to let the pro-Palestinian march go ahead on the day of remembrance. Suella Braverman has condemned violence and aggression from protesters and counter-protesters on Armistice Day as police charged seven people over the disorder. In her first public comments since Saturdays ugly scenes in London, the UK home secretary also praised police and said it was an outrage a number of officers had been injured. Advertisement The Metropolitan Police said seven men have been charged with a variety of offences including assault on an emergency worker, criminal damage and possession of an offensive weapon. Officers made 145 arrests during the pro-Palestinian demonstration and counter-protest by far-right groups, the force said. Advertisement Ms Braverman has been under fire for inflaming tensions after she branded pro-Palestinian protesters hate marchers and accused the police of bias for letting the rally coinciding with remembrance events go ahead. British prime minister Rishi Sunak is facing intensifying calls to sack her as his home secretary. Advertisement Writing on social media site X on Sunday, she said: Our brave police officers deserve the thanks of every decent citizen for their professionalism in the face of violence and aggression from protesters and counter protesters in London yesterday. Advertisement That multiple officers were injured doing their duty is an outrage. Nine officers were injured as they prevented a violent crowd reaching the Cenotaph. Ms Braverman said further action is needed to tackle antisemitism as she zeroed in on placards and chants by some pro-Palestinian protesters. Advertisement People during a pro-Palestinian protest in London, marching from Hyde Park to the US embassy in Vauxhall (Victoria Jones/PA) The sick, inflammatory and, in some cases, clearly criminal chants, placards and paraphernalia openly on display at the march mark a new low. Antisemitism and other forms of racism together with the valorising of terrorism on such a scale is deeply troubling. This cant go on. Week by week, the streets of London are being polluted by hate, violence, and antisemitism. Members of the public are being mobbed and intimidated. Jewish people in particular feel threatened. Further action is necessary. Mr Sunak has said he expects far-right thugs and Hamas sympathisers to face the full and swift force of the law. Advertisement The UK prime minister said he will meet Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley in the coming days and repeated his threat to hold him accountable for allowing the pro-Palestinian march to take place on Armistice Day. Advertisement With Mr Sunak under growing pressure to fire Ms Braverman, senior Cabinet minister Grant Shapps failed to back her survival as home secretary for another week, saying a weeks a long time in politics. Hundreds of thousands of people took part in the biggest UK rally since the Israel-Hamas conflict began on October 7th. Police said that while the march did not see the sort of physical violence carried out by far-right groups, they were investigating serious offences relating to antisemitism, and hate crimes were being probed. Some counter-protesters waved Union flags and St Georges flags near the Cenotaph (Jeff Moore/PA) The Met Police on Sunday said seven men between the ages of 21 and 75 had been charged, hailing from areas including London, Kent, Norfolk and West Lothian. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor, who led the Metropolitan Polices operation on Saturday, said: Public order policing doesnt end when demonstrators go home. We have teams of officers who continue to build cases against those in custody and launch investigations into those who come to our attention when images and videos are shared on social media. Appeals in relation to eight incidents have been published, with more expected, he said. The 91 people who were arrested to prevent a breach of the peace in Pimlico as they tried to confront the main pro-Palestinian march have since been released, the Met said. Meanwhile, UK Cabinet minister Michael Gove thanked police for getting him home safely after he was mobbed by pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Londons Victoria station. Intense fighting is under way in a region that holds much of the worlds petroleum resources. Yet, after a few days of anxiety following the bloody October 7 raids by Hamas militants in Israel, energy markets have been slumping. Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, is now selling for about $US80 a barrel, cheaper than when the fighting started. Why arent prices higher? A main reason, analysts say, is that the fighting, no matter how vicious, has produced little disruption to petroleum supplies, leading traders to conclude that there is no immediate threat. While traders realise there is an increased risk, that hasnt led to a lot of precautionary buying, said Richard Bronze, head of geopolitics at Energy Aspects, a London-based market research firm. Women who have four or more children never pay income tax again. To encourage home ownership, families are entitled to housing grants and low-interest loans, which increase with each child. And if a woman has a child while studying, or just after finishing, her student loan repayments are suspended for three years, along with an interest subsidy so her total loan doesnt increase. If she has a second child, the repayable amount of the loan is reduced. And a third child wipes her debt entirely. In Hungary, if a mother has four children, they never pay income tax again. Credit: If a couple marries before the bride turns 41, they receive a loan north of $40,000. Again, if the marriage produces enough children (adoption is also counted) the loan will be wiped entirely. For the first three years of a childs life, there is an annual allowance of paid parental leave, which can be taken by either the mother or father. Grandparents are also entitled to use this leave from the childs first to third birthday, if the child is looked after at home. Youd be forgiven for being confused about where the line lies between John Cruckshank and his character in the series Redfern Electrical. The YouTube show is billed as a mockumentary that follows the trials and tribulations of retired stand-up comedian and electrical contractor John Cruckshank. Cruckshank really is a comedian hes been a fixture on the national comedy circuit for more than a decade and has appeared at the Melbourne Comedy Festival and the Sydney Comedy Festival. Redfern Electrical follows the trials and tribulations of retired stand-up comedian and electrical contractor John Cruckshank. And, he has worked as an electrician. Mate, I am an electrician; I can send you my licence, Cruckshank insists. Ive got my own business, Redfern Electrical; thats all I do. Optus has revealed a routine software upgrade was behind last Wednesdays outage that crippled its network and impacted some 10 million customers alongside businesses, hospitals and rail networks. Customers line up outside an Optus shopfront during a countrywide network outage last week. Credit: Dominic Lorrimer An Optus spokesman said in a statement that the telco had spent the past six days investigating the incident. He said: We now know what the cause was and have taken steps to ensure it will not happen again. At around 4.05am Wednesday morning, the Optus network received changes to routing information from an international peering network following a routine software upgrade. These routing information changes propagated through multiple layers in our network and exceeded preset safety levels on key routers which could not handle these. This resulted in those routers disconnecting from the Optus IP Core network to protect themselves. The restoration required a large-scale effort of the team and in some cases required Optus to reconnect or reboot routers physically, requiring the dispatch of people across a number of sites in Australia. This is why restoration was progressive over the afternoon. Given the widespread impact of the outage, investigations into the issue took longer than we would have liked as we examined several different paths to restoration. Loading The spokesperson said Optus had changed the network to avoid the problem happening again, and would continue to work with international vendors and partners to increase the resilience of its network. The telco pledged to fully co-operate with the reviews being undertaken by the government and the Senate. A light plane has crashed in a Sunshine Coast backyard after it cartwheeled end-to-end across the property near a private airstrip on Sunday morning. Emergency services received a call about 9.10am, with initial reports suggesting the plane had crashed at a property on Greenfields Lane in Cootharaba, about two hours drive north of Brisbane. A woman, in her 50s, was taken to the Sunshine Coast University Hospital in a stable condition with suspected neck, chest and abdominal injuries. Her husband, who was flying the plane, suffered minor cuts and declined transport to hospital. Police said the plane was forced to make an emergency landing at the airstrip. A case against Western Australian live export company Emanuel Exports over the deaths of 2400 sheep from heat stress on a voyage to the Middle East five years ago is to be dropped just days before it was due to go to trial. Animal welfare representatives condemned the move and called for an anti-corruption inquiry, but supporters of the Perth-based exporter which lost its licence to export for three years over the 2017 Awassi Express disaster applauded the backdown. Livestock ship the Awassi Express. In 2019, Emanuel Exports was charged with 16 animal cruelty offences, with a trial set for November 20 this year. But sources on both sides of the case, with knowledge of the proceedings and who asked to remain anonymous to discuss the matter publicly, told this masthead that it would be pulled. Funny thing about Australia: we dont have too many entirely original dishes. Were great at adapting and recreating the food of those who have migrated to these shores. However, we dont invent too many well-known foods, and those dishes we do come up with tend to spread around the whole country pretty quickly (pavlova, flat whites, smashed avo and the like). So, it can come as a surprise for eastern-state dwellers to travel to Perth and discover theres a famous local sandwich you have never even heard of. Meet the conti roll. Its short for continental roll, and its essentially a long, crusty roll filled with multiple deli meats (mortadella, salami, prosciutto and friends), sliced cheese such as provolone, and preserved, antipasti-style vegetables. Its bulky, hearty and delicious. First serve After World War II there was a wave of Italian migrants who arrived in Western Australia, and some of those migrants set up small grocery stores to serve people missing all the good things from home. At around the same time, in the 1950s, two of those shops The Re Store, and Di Chiera Brothers began selling similar sandwiches packed with continental ingredients to hungry workers. Though the sandwiches were known then simply as panini, or panini Italiano, someone eventually hit on the idea of anglicising the name to broaden its appeal, and the continental roll was born. And then, because this is Australia, people gave it a nickname. Order there Though the Di Chiera Brothers store in Perths Northbridge sadly closed last year, you can still grab one of the other original conti rolls from the Re Store (the-re-store.com.au), open since 1936. Singapore: A former Malaysian prime ministerial bodyguard who was sentenced to death over a gruesome, politically charged murder has walked free from detention in Australia after being held for almost nine years. Sirul Azhar Umar was released following a High Court decision last week that ruled that non-citizens who were unable to be deported could no longer be detained indefinitely by immigration authorities. Slain model and translator Altantuyaa Shaariibuu and her killer Sirul Azhar Umar. Credit: As many as 92 people mostly refugees, but including some others found guilty of violent crimes are as a result being released and permitted to remain in Australia under special conditions. Sirul, who was convicted in Malaysia over the infamous 2006 murder of 28-year-old Mongolian translator and model Altantuyaa Shaariibuu, is among them, with his Australian-based son Shukri Azam Bin Sirul Azhar confirming early on Sunday that he was out. Korea will make a final pitch for the country's bid for hosting the World Expo 2030 in the southeastern city of Busan, two weeks before the crucial vote, with President Yoon Suk Yeol and Prime Minister Han Duck-soo set to travel to Paris in the coming weeks to bolster the campaign. Han was set to leave for Paris later Sunday for a four-day trip in an effort to drum up support to host the quadrennial event in Busan, according to his office. Member states of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), the body in charge of overseeing the World Expo, will decide on the host city among Busan, Riyadh and Rome on Nov. 28 in Paris. His trip comes about a month after he visited Paris as part of his European tour for the expo bid. Bang Ki-sun, the policy coordination minister, will also visit Benin and Guinea Bissau from Monday through next Sunday as Yoon's special envoy as part of efforts to solicit support from the African countries. President Yoon is expected to cap the country's last-minute pitch for the expo bid as he will head to Paris after making a state visit to Britain from Nov. 20-23. Then during a three-day stay in Paris until Nov. 25, Yoon plans to meet with officials from member states of the BIE to seek their support. In June, Yoon visited the French capital to attend a general assembly of the BIE and delivered a presentation in English before delegates from 179 BIE member states. He framed Korea's hosting of the World Expo as an opportunity for the country to "give back" to the international community what it received amid the ruins of the 1950-53 Korean War. Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Park Jin met with high-level officials from 12 nations in Paris last week while attending the sixth Paris Peace Forum and asked for their support for Seoul's expo bid, according to the foreign ministry. Among the leaders of countries that Park met were Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo, Montenegrin President Jakov Milatovic and Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob, his office said. (Yonhap) There are wounded in the house, and we cant reach them, he told Al Jazeera television. We cant stick our heads out of the window. Loading Speaking to CNN, Netanyahu asserted that 100 or so people had been evacuated from the hospital and that Israel had created safe corridors. But the Health Ministry has denied claims of evacuees and safe corridors, and people sheltering in the hospital said they were afraid to go outside. The military said troops would assist in moving babies on Sunday, and that it was in contact with Al Shifa staff. But Medical Aid for Palestinians, a UK-based charity that has supported the hospitals neonatal intensive care unit for years, questioned the militarys assertion. The transfer of critically ill neonates is a complex and technical process, CEO Melanie Ward said in a statement. With ambulances unable to reach the hospital ... and no hospital with capacity to receive them, there is no indication of how this can be done safely. The only safe option is for Israel to stop its assault and allow fuel to reach the hospital, she said. The Health Ministry said there are still 1500 patients at the hospital, along with 1500 medical personnel and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter. The Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service said another Gaza City hospital, the Red Crescent-run Al-Quds, is no longer operational because it has run out of fuel. Gazas sole power plant was forced to shut down a month ago, and Israel has barred any fuel imports, saying Hamas would use them for military purposes. Nebal Farsakh, a Red Crescent spokesperson, said 6000 people, including displaced families, patients, and staff, remained trapped in the hospital. Alarm was growing. Decisive international action is needed now to secure an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and prevent further loss of life amid attacks on health care, the UN regional directors of the World Health Organisation and others said in a statement, adding that more than half of Gazas hospitals were closed and the rest were under massive strain. Loading We do not want to see a firefight in a hospital where innocent people, helpless people, people seeking medical care are caught in the crossfire, President Joe Bidens national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told ABCs This Week. Muhammed Zaqout, director of hospitals in Gaza, said the Health Ministry had been unable to update the death toll since Friday as medics couldnt reach areas hit by Israeli bombardment. The situation is extremely dire, he said. Ambulances are unable to reach people under the rubble. About 2.3 million Palestinians remain trapped in the besieged territory. Netanyahu has said the responsibility for any harm to civilians lies with Hamas. Israel has long accused the group, which operates in dense residential neighbourhoods, of using civilians as human shields. Smoke rises from an explosion following an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel. Credit: AP Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Sunday on X, formerly Twitter, that he asked European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell to apply the same legal, moral grounds for EU support of Ukraine to define its stand on Israels war crimes. The US has pushed for temporary pauses that would allow for wider distribution of badly needed aid to civilians in the besieged territory, where conditions are increasingly dire. But Israel has only agreed to brief daily periods during which civilians can flee the area of ground combat in northern Gaza and head south on foot along two main roads. Israel continues to strike what it says are militant targets across southern Gaza, often killing women and children. Dozens of wounded people, including children, were brought to a hospital in Khan Younis after an Israeli airstrike demolished a building in the southern town. Hospital officials said at least 13 were killed. Loading The war has displaced over two-thirds of Gazas population, with most fleeing south. Egypt has allowed hundreds of foreign passport holders and medical patients to exit through its Rafah crossing, as well as the entry of a small amount of humanitarian aid. More than 11,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2700 people have been reported missing and are thought to be trapped or dead under the rubble. At least 1200 people have been killed on the Israeli side, mostly civilians killed in the initial Hamas attack. (Israel lowered its death toll from 1400 on Friday.) Forty-six Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground offensive began. About 250,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate from communities near Gaza, where Palestinian militants are still firing barrages of rockets, and along the northern border with Lebanon. The war threatens to trigger a wider conflict, with Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon frequently trading fire along the border. Hezbollah fired anti-tank missiles into Israel on Sunday, and Israel responded with artillery and fighter jets. The United States carried out two air strikes in Syria against Iran-aligned groups on Sunday, a US defence official told Reuters, in what appeared to be the latest response to a series of attacks against American forces in Syria and in Iraq. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said one of the targets was a weapons storage facility. The other was a command and control facility, which would suggest a headquarters or other staffed structure. The official said the strikes took place within the past couple of hours and said a US review was underway to determine whether the strikes killed or wounded any Iran-aligned militia members. Tens of thousands of people marched in Paris on Sunday to protest against rising antisemitism. AP, Reuters One of the cruelest ironies of war is that they are never started by children; yet it is children who suffer the most. Across the world, wars kill, maim, abuse, terrorise and recruit children. Children with names, playmates, and parents who adore them. Over 4100 children in Gaza have been killed by Israeli airstrikes, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Credit: Getty No child should be part of war. Some of the faces I have come across as a humanitarian worker never fade. Lamia was 10 when I met her in a hospital in Baghdad 20 years ago. She had nightmares about missile strikes. Manzoor, a 14-year-old from Afghanistan, loved football but could no longer play when I met him, after losing his legs to land mines. His mother describes war as a funeral in slow motion. Sirul Azhar Umar's Release Sparks Extradition Debate Between Malaysia and Australia (Photo: Police department) In a complex international legal drama, former Malaysian police commando Sirul Azhar Umar, convicted for the 2006 murder of Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu, has been released from Australian immigration detention. This development has sparked discussions between Malaysian authorities and the Australian government about Sirul's potential repatriation. Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Tan Sri Razarudin Husain confirmed Sirul's release from the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre in Sydney and stated plans to discuss extradition with the Attorney General's Chambers (AGC). "This involves the governments of Malaysia and Australia," Husain said, highlighting the diplomatic intricacies of the case. Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail indicated that a government decision on seeking Sirul's repatriation could be announced shortly, within 48 hours. The situation is heightened by Sirul's past as a former bodyguard to Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the controversial nature of Altantuya's murder. Sirul, alongside chief inspector Azilah Hadri, was initially sentenced to death in 2009 by the Shah Alam High Court. Although briefly freed by the Court of Appeal in 2013, the Federal Court reinstated their death sentences in 2015. Sirul was in Australia at the time, leading to his subsequent detention after an Interpol red notice. The Australian High Court's recent ruling, stating that non-citizen detainees who cannot be deported can no longer be held indefinitely, paved the way for Sirul's release. However, Australia's non-refoulement obligations, which prohibit deportation to a country where an individual faces the death penalty, complicate matters. Malaysia's abolishment of the death penalty and ongoing reviews by the Federal Court might influence Australia's stance on extradition. In 2019, it was reported that Sirul's extradition could be possible if Malaysia assured that the death penalty would not be carried out. Sirul's case has attracted significant media attention, with his lawyer William Levingston confirming the release to The Guardian. Sirul, now residing with a relative in Canberra, claimed in an interview that he was ordered to kill Altantuya but did not disclose the source of the instructions. This high-profile case tests the intricacies of international law, diplomatic relations between Malaysia and Australia, and the evolving standards of human rights and justice. Myanmar security forces opened fire on anticoup protesters in the commercial capital Yangon Sunday. (Photo: Reuters) A Myanmar fighter jet crashed during intense clashes between the military and the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF), an insurgent group, in the eastern region of Kayah State, near Thailand's border. Both sides confirmed the incident, underscoring the growing challenges faced by the military junta since the 2021 coup. Junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun attributed the crash to a technical failure, stating the pilots had ejected safely and were in contact with the military. However, the KNDF claimed responsibility, asserting they shot down the jet using heavy machine guns. This information was shared on their Facebook page, although Reuters could not independently verify these details. The incident highlights the escalating tension in Myanmar as the military grapples with opposition forces on multiple fronts. The insurgencies, led by ethnic minority groups and anti-junta militias, demonstrate a level of coordination unprecedented in Myanmar's recent history. The military-installed president recently expressed concerns that the country could break apart if the insurgency is not effectively addressed. Conflict in Shan State, bordering China, has been particularly intense, displacing over 50,000 people and disrupting trade routes. In this volatile environment, hundreds of foreign workers, including victims of human trafficking from Vietnam and Thailand, find themselves trapped amidst the fighting. The Thai foreign ministry announced plans to evacuate 200 Thai nationals when conditions permit. In Kayah State, the crash site, the fighting has been fierce, with the insurgent alliance claiming to have seized over 100 army posts. The conflict extends to central Myanmar's Sagaing region, with towns being assaulted by insurgents. The military jet's crash near Loikaw, Kayah's capital, was confirmed by an anonymous military officer and a Karenni Nationalities Defense Force spokesperson. While the KNDF claims to have shot down the plane, the military officer could not confirm whether it was due to technical failure or enemy action. The search for the aircraft and its two pilots is ongoing. This development comes amidst the broader backdrop of resistance groups emerging across Myanmar following the military's seizure of power in February 2021. While no warplanes were known to have been previously shot down by resistance forces, another ethnic armed group reportedly downed a helicopter in May 2021. The resistance forces, lacking effective defense against air attacks, continue to face major offensives from the military, including airstrikes. These conflicts have driven hundreds of thousands from their homes, with most combat aircraft in Myanmar's military sourced from China or Russia. The incident and ongoing conflicts underscore the deepening crisis in Myanmar as the military confronts widespread resistance and the country teeters on the brink of further destabilization. Indian Army exchanged sweets with their Pakistani counterparts on the occasion of Diwali on Sunday along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said. However, there was no traditional exchange of sweets and pleasantries between the two sides along the International Border (IB), the officials said, attributing it to the tense situation following the recent ceasefire violations by Pakistan Rangers that left a Border Security Force (BSF) jawan dead. A BSF jawan was killed in Pakistan Rangers firing in the Ramgarh sector of Samba district during the intervening night of November 8 and 9, the first loss of life on this side after the renewed ceasefire was agreed upon by the two countries on February 25, 2021. Earlier, two BSF personnel and a woman were injured in cross-border firing in the Arnia sector of Jammu on October 26, while another BSF jawan was injured in a similar incident on October 17. BSF and Pakistan Rangers held two flag meetings on the IB to ensure adherence to the ceasefire agreement in October but the latest incident heightened the tension afresh. However, the officials said Indian and Pakistani soldiers exchanged sweets to mark Diwali at Chakan Da Bagh border crossing point in Poonch district. Sweets and greetings were also exchanged between the two armies at Tatapani crossing in the Balnoi sector of Poonch, the officials said. In Samba district, a team of civil officials celebrated Diwali with BSF troops guarding the IB, an official spokesman said. Additional Deputy Commissioner Samba Suresh Sharma, along with tehsildars of Kalsotra, Samba and Rajpura tehsils, distributed sweets and greeted the jawans with warm wishes during a visit to the forward border outposts, the spokesman said. He said the team of officials also interacted with the jawans and appreciated their dedication and bravery in guarding the nation's borders. Lauding the soldiers for their sacrifice, Sharma said the district administration and defence forces are part of one family, and assured them of the administration's support and cooperation in addressing their issues. The jawans expressed their gratitude to the administration for their gesture of solidarity and goodwill, the spokesman said, adding they also thanked the administration for providing support whenever required. The Samba administration has been actively involved in organising various welfare and development activities for the people of the district, especially in the border areas, the spokesman said. The Minister of State for Railways, Darshana Jardosh, met with those injured due to the stampede at Surat railway station in Gujarat. One person was killed and three others were injured after a stampede occurred at Surat railway station. According to the officials, the stampede occurred due to huge crowd of people at the railway station who had to board different trains to travel to their native places. Superintendent of Police Western Railway Vadodara Division, Sarojini Kumari, said that the injured have been shifted to the hospital and are undergoing treatment. During the festive season, the railways run special trains so that outstation people can travel to their native places. These special trains attract a large number of passengers at the station, which sometimes turns chaotic, leading to stampedes. Maharashtra Chief Minister Ekanth Shinde on Sunday dismissed Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray's outburst over the demolition of his party's shakha' in the Thane district, calling it an empty threat. Talking to reporters after attending a Diwali programme here, Shinde said Thackeray had to turn back when he attempted to visit the spot of the shakha' in Mumbra on Saturday. Thackeray, along with top leaders of the Sena (UBT), went to Mumbra to visit the razed shakha but had to face resistance from workers of the chief minister's Shiv Sena, who raised slogans and showed him black flags. As the situation turned tense, Thackeray and his party colleagues left the site, just metres away from the razed shakha. Thackeray's visit was nothing but an attempt to create a hurdle during the Diwali festivities, the chief minister said. The people of Mumbra showed their power during Thackeray's visit. Nothing works in front of people's power, he said. Many senior leaders from Shiv Sena UBT had accompanied Thackeray, but Shiv Sena leader Naresh Mhaske was tough enough to take them on, Shinde said. The bursting of crackers of the Shiv Sainiks in Mumbra drove them away. The show of strength was so powerful that they (Sena UBT leaders) had to beat a hasty retreat, he said. He further claimed that in the recent gram panchayat elections, the Shiv Sena UBT was thrown to the seventh position and in the next elections, they will slip to the 10th position, and people will give them a befitting reply. The chief minister refused to respond to Thackeray's allegations about the encroachment of shakha' land, saying he wouldn't ruin the festive atmosphere and would reply to the charges through his work. While member states blasted Israel's invasion of Gaza, an emergency meeting of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation was held in Riyadh on Saturday without adopting any practical measures against the Jewish state. Discussions focused on stopping Israeli air traffic over the skies of the Gulf, preventing the US Air Force to deliver arms to Israel through air force bases in the Gulf region, and cutting back oil sales to the US over Washington's support for Israel, an Arab source told the Tazpit Press Service. Other Arab countries demanded that moderate Arab states suspend their economic relations with Israel. The source added that a resolution to adopt these measures was blocked by Israel's Abraham accords partner states. Voting against the measures were Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco, which have diplomatic relations. They were joined by Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and Djibouti. Israeli-Saudi ties were thawing before Oct. 7, when Hamas attacked Gaza-area communities and killing 1,200 Israelis and taking more than 200 people to Gaza as hostages. The war has apparently slowed down, but not derailed, efforts to normalize relations between Jerusalem and Riyadh. Israel and the northwest African country of Mauritania had diplomatic relations from 1999-2009 but they were frozen during the Gaza war of 2009. Djibouti, located on the African Horn, never had diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. An Iranian demand that the Israel Defense Forces be designated as a terror organization was also rejected. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has thrown up more doubts about the future of the Gaza Strip, suggesting that the Palestinian Authority in its current form should not take charge of the coastal enclave. Israel has vowed to destroy Palestinian group Hamas, which governs Gaza, following its shock October 7 cross-border assault, and has launched a full-scale invasion of the territory. However, it has not spelt out who should rule the enclave once the conflict is over, saying only that Israel would maintain overall security. Washington has said Israel cannot occupy the enclave after the war, with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken saying last week that the Gaza administration had to be re-unified with the nearby West Bank, parts of which are run by the Palestinian Authority (PA). Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Friday that the PA could play a future role in governing the Gaza Strip, but Netanyahu indicated late Saturday he did not want the current PA rulers to be given free rein in Gaza.At a news conference, Netanyahu aired his long-standing grievances over the PAs school syllabus, which he says fuels hatred of Israel. Israel pressed on with its military offensive against Hamas in Gaza, engaging in ground battles in a northern refugee camp while rejecting rising international calls for a ceasefire. The United Nations said Israeli ground attacks and shelling intensified around hospitals in Gaza City and northern Gaza, with several being directly hit, while contact was lost with Al-Shifa, a major facility. Israel, which accuses Hamas of using the hospitals as command centers, said there was safe passage for anyone who wanted to leave. 3,00,000 protestors march in London to protest war in Gaza More than 300,000 protesters gathered in London for a pro-Palestinian march thats turned into a divisive political issue in the UK, while police arrested dozens of English nationalists seeking to disrupt it. Demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war have been held the past four weekends, but Saturdays event sparked more controversy because of the timing and the reaction to it within the government. It coincided with Remembrance Day when the UK marks the end of World War I and honors military personnel who have died in conflict. Irans president calls for arming Palestinians Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, attending the joint Arab Islamic extraordinary summit in Riyadh, called for Muslim countries to arm Palestinians if Israels attacks persist. It was the first time in more than a decade that a sitting Iranian president traveled to the kingdom. A further 30,000 people left areas in northern Gaza for the south on Friday while only 30 more aid trucks managed to cross the border from Egypt. French President Emmanuel Macron told the BBC there was no justification for the bombing of Gaza and urged a ceasefire. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back Saturday against growing international calls for a cease-fire, saying Israels battle to crush Gazas ruling Hamas militants will continue with full force. A cease-fire would be possible only if all 239 hostages held by militants in Gaza are released, Netanyahu said in a televised address. The Israeli leader also insisted that after the war, now entering its sixth week, Gaza would be demilitarized and Israel would retain security control there. Asked what he meant by security control, Netanyahu said Israeli forces must be able to enter Gaza freely to hunt down militants. He also rejected the idea that the Palestinian Authority, which currently administers autonomous areas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would at some stage control Gaza. Both positions run counter to post-war scenarios floated by Israels closest ally, the United States. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the U.S. opposes an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza and envisions a unified Palestinian government in both Gaza and the West Bank at some stage as a step toward Palestinian statehood. For now, Netanyahu said, the war against (Hamas) is advancing with full force, and it has one goal, to win. There is no alternative to victory. Pressure was growing on Israel after frantic doctors at Gazas largest hospital said the last generator had run out of fuel, causing the death of a premature baby, another child in an incubator and four other patients. Thousands of war-wounded, medical staff and displaced civilians were caught in the fighting. In recent days, fighting near Shifa and other hospitals in northern Gaza has intensified and supplies have run out. The Israeli military has alleged, without providing evidence, that Hamas has established command posts in and underneath hospitals, using civilians as human shields. Medical staff at Shifa have denied such claims and accused Israel of harming civilians with indiscriminate attacks. Shifa hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia said the facility lost power Saturday. Medical devices stopped. Patients, especially those in intensive care, started to die, he said by phone, with gunfire and explosions in the background. He said Israeli troops were shooting at anyone outside or inside the hospital and prevented movement between buildings. Israels military confirmed clashes outside the hospital, but Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari denied Shifa was under siege. He said troops will assist Sunday in moving babies treated there and said we are speaking directly and regularly with hospital staff. Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, told broadcaster Channel 12 that as Israel aims to crush Hamas, taking control of the hospitals would be key but require a lot of tactical creativity, without hurting patients, other civilians and Israeli hostages. Six patients died at Shifa after the generator shut down, including the two children, spokesmen with the Hamas-run Health Ministry said. The unbearably desperate situation at Shifa must stop now, the International Committee of the Red Cross director general, Robert Mardini, said on social media. U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths posted that there can be no justification for acts of war in health care facilities." Elsewhere, the Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli tanks were 20 meters (65 feet) from al-Quds hospital in Gaza City, causing a state of extreme panic and fear among the 14,000 displaced people sheltering there. Israels military released footage which it said showed tanks operating in Gaza. The images showed shattered buildings, some on fire, and destroyed streets empty of anyone but troops. A 57-nation gathering of Muslim and Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia called in their communique for an end to the war in Gaza and the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid. They also called on the International Court of Justice, a U.N. organ, to open an investigation into Israels attacks, saying the war cannot be called self-defense and cannot be justified under any means. Netanyahu has said the responsibility for any harm to civilians lies with Hamas, which denied it was preventing people in Gaza City from fleeing. The spokesman of the Hamas military wing said militants were ambushing Israeli troops and vowed that Israel will face a long battle. The Qassam Brigades spokesman, who goes by Abu Obaida, acknowledged in audio aired on Al-Jazeera that the fight is disproportionate but it is terrifying the strongest force in the region. Israels military has said soldiers have encountered hundreds of Hamas fighters in underground facilities, schools, mosques and clinics during the fighting. Israel has said a key goal of the war is to crush Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for 16 years. Following Hamas deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which at least 1,200 people were killed, Israels allies have defended the countrys right to protect itself. But now into the second month of war, there are growing differences over how Israel should conduct its fight. The U.S. has pushed for temporary pauses that would allow for wider distribution of badly needed aid to civilians in the besieged territory where conditions are increasingly dire. However, Israel has only agreed to brief daily periods during which civilians can flee the area of ground combat in northern Gaza and head south on foot along the territorys main north-south artery. Since these evacuation windows were first announced a week ago, more than 150,000 civilians have fled the north, according to U.N. monitors. On Saturday, the military announced a new evacuation window, saying civilians could use the central road and a coastal road. A stream of people fled southward on the main road, some on donkey-drawn carts. One man pushed two children in a wheelbarrow. Where to go, and what do they want from us? said Yehia al-Kafarnah, one fleeing resident. Palestinian civilians and rights advocates have pushed back against Israels portrayal of the southern evacuation zones as relatively safe. They note that Israeli bombardment has continued across Gaza, including airstrikes in the south that Israel says target Hamas leaders but that have also killed women and children. Demonstrations and outrage continued. Police said 300,000 Palestinian supporters marched peacefully in London , the largest such event there since the war started. Right-wing counterprotesters clashed with police. Shelling and explosions never stopped, said Islam Mattar, one of thousands sheltering at Shifa. Children here are terrified from the constant sound of explosions. The Health Ministry told Al Jazeera there were still 1,500 patients at Shifa, along with 1,500 medical personnel and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter. Thousands have fled Shifa and other hospitals that have come under attack, but physicians said it's impossible for everyone to get out. We cannot evacuate ourselves and (leave) these people inside," a Doctors Without Borders surgeon at Shifa, Mohammed Obeid, was quoted as saying by the organization. More than 11,070 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2,700 people have been reported missing and are thought to be possibly trapped or dead under the rubble. At least 1,200 people have been killed in Israel, mainly in the initial Hamas attack, Israeli officials say. The military on Saturday confirmed the deaths of five reserve soldiers; 46 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground offensive began. Nearly 240 people abducted by Hamas from Israel remain captive. About 250,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate from communities near Gaza and along the northern border with Lebanon, where Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have traded fire repeatedly. Hezbollah is dragging Lebanon into a possible war," Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said after meeting with soldiers stationed along the border. (AP) State Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana 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 D.C. West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Puerto Rico US Virgin Islands Armed Forces Americas Armed Forces Pacific Armed Forces Europe Northern Mariana Islands Marshall Islands American Samoa Federated States of Micronesia Guam Palau Alberta, Canada British Columbia, Canada Manitoba, Canada New Brunswick, Canada Newfoundland, Canada Nova Scotia, Canada Northwest Territories, Canada Nunavut, Canada Ontario, Canada Prince Edward Island, Canada Quebec, Canada Saskatchewan, Canada Yukon Territory, Canada Postal Code U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled a Republican stopgap spending measure on Saturday aimed at averting a government shutdown a week from now, but the measure quickly ran into opposition from lawmakers from both parties in Congress. Unlike ordinary continuing resolutions, or "CRs," that fund federal agencies for a specific period, the measure announced by Johnson would fund some parts of the government until Jan. 19 and others until Feb. 2. House Republicans hope to pass the measure on Tuesday. "This two-step continuing resolution is a necessary bill to place House Republicans in the best position to fight for conservative victories," Johnson said in a statement after announcing the plan to House Republicans in a conference call. The House Republican stopgap contained no supplemental funding such as aid for Israel or Ukraine. The House and Democratic-led Senate must agree on a spending vehicle that President Joe Biden can sign into law by Friday, or risk a fourth partial government shutdown in a decade that would close national parks, disrupt pay for as many as 4 million federal workers and disrupt a swath of activities from financial oversight to scientific research. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a release that the proposal was "just a recipe for more Republican chaos and more shutdowns." She said "House Republicans are wasting precious time with an unserious proposal that has been panned by members of both parties." Johnson, the top Republican in Congress, unveiled his stopgap a day after Moody's, the last major credit ratings agency to maintain a top "AAA" rating on the U.S. government, lowered its outlook on the nation's credit to "negative" from "stable," citing political polarization in Congress on spending as a danger to the nation's fiscal health. The Louisiana Republican appeared to be appealing to two warring House Republican factions: hardliners who wanted legislation with multiple end-dates; and centrists who had called for a "clean" stopgap measure free of spending cuts and conservative policy riders that Democrats reject. The legislation would extend funding for military construction, veterans benefits, transportation, housing, urban development, agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration and energy and water programs through Jan. 19. Funding for all other federal operations would expire on Feb. 2. But the plan quickly came under fire from members of both parties. "My opposition to the clean CR just announced by the Speaker to the @HouseGOP cannot be overstated," Representative Chip Roy, a member of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, said on the social media platform X. "It's a 100 percent clean. And I 100 percent oppose," wrote Roy, who had called for the new measure to include spending cuts. Democratic Senator Brian Schatz called Johnson's measure "super convoluted," adding that "all of this nonsense costs taxpayer money." "We are going to pass a clean short term CR. The only question is whether we do it stupidly and catastrophically or we do it like adults," Schatz wrote on X. A stopgap measure would give lawmakers more time to implement full-scale appropriations bills to fund the government through Sept. 30. Johnson put Democrats on notice that failure to reach agreement on 2024 spending would prompt House Republicans to implement "a full-year CR with appropriate adjustments to meet our national security priorities." House Republican hardliners have been pushing to cut fiscal 2024 spending below the $1.59 trillion level that Biden and Johnson's predecessor agreed in the May deal that averted default. But even that is a small slice of the overall federal budget, which also includes mandatory outlays for Social Security and Medicare, and topped $6.1 trillion in fiscal 2023. Johnson, who won the speaker's gavel less than three weeks ago, could put his own political future at risk if his current plan fails to win support for passage and he is forced to go with a standard CR that Democrats can accept. His predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, was ousted from the job by eight Republican hardliners early last month, after he moved a bipartisan measure to avert a shutdown on Oct. 1, when fiscal 2024 began. McCarthy opted for the bipartisan route after hardliners blocked a Republican stopgap measure with features intended to appease them. (Reuters) Fort Oglethorpe honored veterans Saturday at the fourth annual parade along Highway 27 in the center of the history rich city. Officials said hundreds lined the street to honor all those who served in the United States Military. Some of those participating in this year's parade were the Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School Band, Tennessee National Guard, Military Officers Association, and a host of veterans groups including American Legion chapters. Retired Four Star General B.B. Bell was the reviewing officer. General Bell said, "It's very important we honor and remember our veterans on this their very special day, they are our heroes. I want to thank the parade organizers for inviting me to participate." An employee of T-Mobile at 6730 Customer Delight Dr. told police his ex-girlfriend came to his work and started a scene after accusing him of cheating. The man said the woman also began an argument with a woman he works with. The ex-girlfriend left before police arrived. The man requested a report. * * * Walmart at 2020 Gunbarrel Road attempted to have a wrecked vehicle that has been abandoned for over a year towed from their property. Their wrecker service said they couldnt tow it due to damage unless a police officer requested the tow. Walmart then requested the officer call for a private property tow to have the vehicle removed. First Response arrived and towed the vehicle. * * * A woman on Cleveland Avenue called police and said her son was intoxicated and she wanted him to leave. Police arrived and spoke to both the woman and her son. The woman said her son was drinking too much and he started arguing with her. He said his mom was yelling at him for no reason. The son gathered some of his belongings and left on foot. * * * A man on 12th Avenue told police he got into a verbal argument with a woman and he wanted her to leave. The woman was packing her belongings. The man left the residence to allow her to get her belongings and leave. * * * A man on Royal Drive told police he was having issues with a man staying across the street. The man said the neighbor would let his dog off the leash and that this dog would then come to his property to do his business. Police spoke with the neighbor about his dog and told him of Chattanooga's leash laws. * * * A man at 7301 Shallowford Road called police and said someone broke into his construction site. He said equipment was moved around and several items were misplaced. The man couldnt confirm if anything had been stolen, however, he discovered damaged items. He said there were several contractors on site that own different equipment. He informed them all and, once they verify if anything had been taken, they would call back. An employee of another company said their company trailer was broken into. He said DeWalt vacuums were tampered with. An officer viewed damage to the trailer door, which appeared to be pried open. The officer searched the door for fingerprints but was unable to find any. The construction site was placed on the Watch List for the next two weeks. * * * A man told police he was driving down E. Brainerd Road and hit the curb, which caused a flat tire and a dent on the fender. He was going to contact a tow truck to have the vehicle picked up because he didnt have a spare tire. * * * A woman on Gunbarrel Road told police her car was broken into and her purse was stolen overnight. The officer saw a broken window on her front, passenger side door. The woman said her residency documents and three credit cards were stolen. The credit cards have not been used. * * * A man told police that, while he was at Edleys BBQ at 205 Manufacturers Road, someone stole his Trek Emonda SL bicycle. The bike was black with red and white lettering. It had a black computer mount and a phone mount with light blue band Bontrager saddle bag, as well as two Ceco front lights. * * * A man at Douglas Heights on Douglas Street called police and reported someone had entered his unlocked 2013 Hyundai Sonata and stolen two non-working credit cards from the center console. He said the front passenger door was found open and items were strewn around inside. The vehicle had been legally parked in the Douglas Heights parking garage. The man said a passerby found the non-working credit cards lying on the sidewalk and turned them into Douglas Heights management. * * * A security guard at Hotel Bo at 901 Carter St. told police an older black male wearing long pants and a dark jacket had come to the hotel and was causing a disorder. He was asked to leave, but refused until police were called. An officer checked the area but didnt find him. * * * An employee of Hoptown Bar at 9431 Bradmore Lane told police a man had been told not to return to the bar and continued to come back. The employee said the man was intoxicated and they didnt serve him. The employee said the man would harass employees and patrons and they wanted him trespassed from the property. Police spoke with the man ,who appeared intoxicated and admitted to drinking alcohol recently. He was informed he was trespassed and he then called for an Uber. * * * A man on Vance Avenue told police over the phone he discovered the rear window of his red 2009 Ford Escape had been broken out. He suspected a certain person he knows was responsible for this, but he had no proof as he didnt see them. He had received a threatening message from the person a few days ago who told him he was now his enemy. He wanted to take out a restraining order on the person as well. The officer told him they would take the report for the broken window only and he would have to call back to speak to an officer about a restraining order or any harassment charges against this person. * * * A man on Linden Hall Road told police the day before he had moved his vehicles around in the driveway and left the keys in his car by accident. He last saw his vehicle around 8:30 p.m. He also had another vehicle in the driveway that appeared the suspect opened the passenger door. An officer was able to recover fingerprints from that vehicle and turned them into AFIS. The stolen vehicle was entered into NCIC. * * * A woman on E. 46th Street told police someone had entered the rear of her property and stolen 10 bicycle rims, each valued at $10. She suspected the theft had taken place approximately a day prior. She approached her neighbor to check if their surveillance cameras had captured the incident, but her neighbor indicated that they hadn't recorded anything. The woman was willing to press charges if the individuals responsible for the theft were identified. An officer tried to contact the neighbor next door to inquire if they had witnessed anything, but they didnt respond. * * * A man on Northway Lane told police his vehicle was damaged while it was parked at a friends house. Both driver side doors were dented and there was a slight gap between the headlight and bumper. There was no proof of how the damage was done. * * * An officer responded to a noise complaint in the area of Browntown Road and Moonlit Trail. Anonymous callers had reported a large party with excessive noise in the area, but gave no exact address. Police arrived and spoke to a resident on Moonlit Trail. The officer could see there was a party going on, with an outdoor DJ. The officer explained to the woman about the noise complaints and suggested she take the party inside or turn down the music, since it was after 11 p.m. The woman agreed and turned the music down before police left. At 11:30 p.m., police received another call complaining about the music, and the officer called the resident. The officer explained that she needed to keep the music down, and if police received any other complaints, police would shut the party down. The woman agreed to keep the party quiet. The officer spoke with one of the complainants who said that after the officer called the woman, the music was turned back down. Victoria Lee Bennett was born July 24, 1951 in Columbia City, Indiana, and passed away on November 10, 2023. She was preceded in death by her parents, Tom and Joan Bennett, and her brother and sister-in-law, Rob and Lou Anne Bennett. She is survived by her nephew Kevin (Alex) Bennett and niece Kara (Austin Devin) Bennett, great niece Camille, and great nephews Robbie and Oisin, as well as by a host of friends and neighbors. Victoria graduated from Tennessee Tech and worked in the medical profession for a number of years before going to law school at University of Arkansas-Little Rock. She was in private practice, then worked as a risk management attorney at Arkansas Childrens Hospital for many years. Vicki moved back to Spring City in 2013 and worked at Money Concepts in Dayton. She was of the Lutheran faith. She sewed, quilted, painted, knitted and crocheted, wrote and published a book, and was active in authors guilds both in Little Rock and East Tennessee. Vicki also loved to travel, especially to Ireland and to the southwestern United States, and was very interested in studying genealogy. A gathering will be held to celebrate Victorias life in the coming weeks. Donations may be made to the Methodist Medical Center Foundation for the Hospitality House located in Oak Ridge, or to the Gideons International. Vaughn Funeral Home of Spring City is in charge of the arrangements of Victoria Lee Bennett and asks that friends and family share their words of comfort and memories on our website www.vaughn-funeral-home.com. Azerbaijan exported over 266,560 tons of crude oil and petroleum products to Austria from January through September 2023, which is 1.34 percent of the total volume of raw materials exported from Azerbaijan, Azernews reports. This indicator climbed by 98.27 percent (132,120 tons) year on year. From January through September 2023, the value of Azerbaijani oil and petroleum product exports to Austria was $152.15 million. This represents an increase of 69.03 percent ($62.1 million) year over year. In the reporting period, Azerbaijan totally exported 19.8 million tons of oil and petroleum products to foreign markets, an increase of 1.86 percent over the previous year (19.5 million tons). In terms of value, oil exports exceeded $12.1 billion, a decrease of 18.59 percent or $2.7 billion over the previous year. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Friday that she agreed with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng to "intensify communication" on economic issues but warned him to crack down on Chinese companies that give material support to Russia for its war in Ukraine. The two "had candid, direct, and productive discussions" on issues from U.S. export controls to possible areas of cooperation, including climate change and debt relief for low-income countries, Yellen told a press conference after two days of meetings in San Francisco. The two held talks before the Nov. 15-17 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) gathering of leaders in San Francisco, which will feature a planned meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Yellen said she accepted an invitation from He, referred to by China's state media as the director of a powerful Communist Party economic body, to return to China next year as part of a "regular cadence of contact" between the economic leaders. She emphasized that the U.S. has no desire to decouple its economy from China, but wanted a level playing field for U.S. companies and workers. "During our discussions, we agreed that in-depth and frank discussions matter, particularly when we disagree," Yellen said. "And I emphasized that the current uncertain global landscape makes it particularly crucial that we maintain resilient lines of communication going forward." Russia war aid Yellen said that the Treasury has seen evidence that Chinese companies and banks may be aiding in the flow of equipment for use in Russia's war in Ukraine despite Western sanctions, and warned He that these firms "will face significant consequences" if they do. "We would like to see China crack down on this, especially when we're able to provide information," Yellen said. She gave no further details on the names of the companies involved or on He's reaction. Discussing the Israel-Hamas war, Yellen spoke of the need "to prevent escalation and expansion of the conflict in the Middle East," the Treasury said in a statement. Regarding the U.S. Treasury debt market, Yellen said it would be unsurprising to see China reducing holdings of U.S. Treasury debt to support its currency, but China does not publish information about its foreign exchange practices. She said a ransomware attack on China's largest lender, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China was not interfering with the market for U.S. Treasury debt. Common language Until earlier this year there had been very little contact between Washington and Beijing on economic issues as relations had become fractured during the previous five years, starting with former President Donald Trump's tariff war with Beijing and more recently the increasing U.S. national security restrictions on U.S. technologies. A change in China's economic leadership had meant that the Treasury needed to build up new contacts in Beijing from scratch, starting with Yellen's trip to Beijing in July, where she first met with He, a senior Treasury official said on Friday. Yellen and He's meetings on Thursday and Friday did not produce any specific actions, but the two sides did agree on some common language to describe the engagement, an unusual step in recent U.S.-China interactions. Under the jointly negotiated language, they agreed to "work toward common solutions, address disagreements where possible and avoid misperceptions contributing to unintended escalations." The two sides agreed to seek "a healthy economic relationship that provides a level playing field for companies and workers in both countries and benefits the two peoples." "Sino-U.S. economic relations are rooted in the common interests of both countries in the economic field, which objectively benefits each other and their people," said Liao Min, Chinese vice Finance Minister. "Mutually beneficial cooperation between China and the United States has strong momentum, a solid foundation and broad space, but the pre-requisite is equality and mutual respect." Liao added that he hoped the two countries will work in the same direction and take practical actions to "create the necessary conditions for the maintenance and development of economic relations between the two countries," according to a statement published on the Ministry of Finance website. The senior Treasury official acknowledged that the U.S. and China may perceive what constitutes a level playing field differently, but the U.S. side can now point out policies that are inconsistent with that. They also committed to strengthen the global financial architecture, including through a recently approved International Monetary Fund quota funding increase and plans to "increase the voice of under-represented members/regions," a reference to a bigger shareholding for China. (Reuters) Paul McCartney and John Lennon took a hitchhiking trip in the early 1960s. Their fun nearly destroyed The Beatles before they reached fame. When the early Beatles John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Pete Best, and Stuart Sutcliffe were first beginning to see success as performers, they nearly destroyed it. Lennon and McCartney took an impromptu hitchhiking trip together. The rest of the band was so upset to have been left behind that they began looking for other groups to join. John Lennon and Paul McCartney took a hitchhiking trip without their bandmates After playing shows in Hamburg, Germany, The Beatles returned to Liverpool triumphant. While they were not yet mainstream successes, they were on their way to fame. This all almost fell apart, though. Lennon invited McCartney on a hitchhiking trip through France and Spain using his birthday money. To go, they ditched several Beatles gigs and seriously angered their bandmates. Paul McCartney and John Lennon | William Vanderson/Fox Photos/Getty Images Accordingly the two just took off together, wearing matching bowler hats the Nerk twins reincarnated, Philip Norman wrote in his book Paul McCartney: The Life. George and Pete Best were so disgusted at being left in the lurch that both started looking around for other bands to join while Stu Sutcliffe in Hamburg told Astrid [Kirchherr] and several other people that The Beatles had broken up. Meanwhile, Lennon and McCartney happily bounced around France together. George Harrison felt that his Beatles bandmates often overlooked him While The Beatles remained together, the hitchhiking trip provided Harrison with a preview of how his time with the band would shake out. Lennon and McCartney wrote together for years and prioritized their songs above his. Harrison believed they were so caught up in one another that it was impossible for them to pay attention to anyone else. [Lennon] didnt realize how I was, and this was one of the main faults with John and Paul, he said, per the book George Harrison: Behind the Locked Door by Graeme Thomson. They were so busy being John and Paul they failed to realize who else was around at the time. Though Harrison didnt think he was that good of a songwriter in his earliest years with The Beatles, he began to take himself more seriously over time. He wrote some of the bands most enduring songs, but this often wasnt enough for his bandmates. They wanted to be the primary songwriters. George Harrison and Paul McCartney hitchhiked together before they were in The Beatles Several years before Lennon and McCartney set off for France, the latter took a similar trip with Harrison. I often think of George because he was my little buddy, McCartney told The New York Times in 2020. I was thinking the other day of my hitchhiking bursts. This was before the Beatles. I suddenly was keen on hitchhiking, so I sold this idea to George and then John. They played a show together long before they were selling out stadiums in The Beatles. I remember making a guitar with George, going on hitchhiking holidays I was a big hitchhiking fan, so I would persuade George and John, mainly, to come on holidays, McCartney told GQ. So George and I hitchhiked one time to Wales. We went to Harlech and stayed in a little place there and played a little gig, just me and George. McCartney said that these are some of his favorite memories. Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site. 0108263 License for publishing multimedia online Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349 Home World Black pastors encourage African American churches to defend Israel, not 'side with the devil' Two African American faith leaders say despite the perception of some that the black Church has been silent in defense of Israel amid its war with Hamas, they and other black pastors are refuting claims that Israel is a racist, apartheid state. In an op-ed for The Christian Post, Pastor Michael A. Stevens argued that the black Church has been largely silent on Hamas' Oct. 7 massacre against Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,400 people, a majority of whom were civilians, including over 30 Americans. Since Israel launched retaliatory airstrikes and a ground invasion of northern Gaza in a bid to eliminate Hamas, a terror group that has controlled Gaza since 2007, the Hamas-run health authorities say over 10,000 people have been killed, sparking pro-Palestinian protests and international calls for a ceasefire. "Unfortunately, many African American pastors and leaders have a mixed level of apathy and resistance toward Israel as well as empathy for the Palestinian struggle, often making a comparison to the civil rights era," Stevens wrote. "To add, some consider the African American community to be the most anti-Semitic group in America today." Pastor Dumisani Washington, the founder and CEO of the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel (ISBI), told CP that he agrees with Stevens that most African American pastors and leaders liken the conflict between Israel and Palestine to the Civil Rights Movement, seeing the former as an oppressor. Another faith leader, Bishop Patrick L. Wooden Sr., senior pastor of Upper Room Church of God in Christ in Raleigh, North Carolina, told CP that he's also witnessed this comparison. Wooden said he doesn't equate the plight of the Palestinians to the Civil Rights Movement. Wooden, who preaches to a congregation of around 3,000 people, said he wants his members to know that his church "unequivocally" stands in support of the nation of Israel. One way the bishop said he preaches this message is through his sermons. "I feel like it's my duty to push back so that the people, God-loving people, won't all of the sudden side with the devil," the faith leader said, "or draw a moral equivalence." Reflecting on Israel's recent history, the bishop noted that in 2005, Israel removed 9,000 of its citizens who were living in Gaza when it withdrew from the Gaza Strip, saying this was an example of the country's commitment to maintaining peace in the region. Washington agreed with Stevens' assessment that not all African Americans view Israel as an oppressor, noting that black leaders such as the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called for defending Israel's right to exist. "We have a long history like no other ethnic group in this country that goes back over a century of our connection with Israel and the Jewish people," Washington told CP. "But many people aren't aware of it." Likewise, Wooden highlighted how Jewish Americans marched beside African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement and played a part in advocating for the rights of black citizens. "There were people of every stripe who stood with us and challenged America to live up to its creed," the bishop said, adding that "Israel is not trying to eradicate anyone." "It is trying to defend itself," Wooden added, contending that it's wrong for anyone to frame Israel as morally equivalent to Hamas. Some religious leaders have called for a ceasefire in Gaza, while others have voiced their support for Israel's bid to eliminate Hamas. One of the reasons some members of the African American community identify with the Palestinians is because they see it as a battle against racism and apartheid, according to Washington. The pastor lamented that the view has been allowed to take root due to the way information about Israel is presented to the black community and its leaders. "Pro-Israel organizations will engage the black community but not effectively empower the black community," Washington, who formerly served as the diversity outreach coordinator for the over 10-million member Christians United for Israel, said. Regarding the messaging, the pastor told CP that what's often lacking is a condemnation of the anti-Semitism from groups like Black Lives Matter and the Black Hebrew Israelites. He asserted that refusing to address certain viewpoints, such as the belief that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians, does the black community more harm than good. Washington contends that it's necessary to "empower" black faith leaders with the message that their community needs to hear, one that addresses the issues unique to the African American community. "The Black Hebrew Israelites don't impact white pastors the way they do black pastors," he explained. "We're not racially dividing the body, but if we're not honest about the fact that certain messages affect certain people in certain ways, then we're not being honest." Through IBSI, the organization Washington founded in 2013, the pastor works to strengthen relationships between the African American community and the Jewish people via education and advocacy. The organization receives financial support from Christian and Jewish communities and through influential donors such as Dr. Bob Shillman of the Shillman Foundation. Last year, IBSI started a program called the PEACE Initiative, which stands for Plan for Education, Advocacy and Community Engagement. One program recruits young black men and women and takes them on a nine-month trip to Israel and Africa, while another takes black faith leaders on a similar journey. Regarding the role of the Church in addressing tension between the Jewish and African American communities, Washington said that the Church also has a responsibility to address biblical illiteracy. The pastor stated that he has seen multiple Christian influences calling for a "ceasefire" on social media, claiming that it's what Jesus would want while also framing Israel as morally culpable for the ongoing violence. "So, the fact that Christians would condemn Israel for trying to defend its people and try to use the Bible to do so, what the Church can do is teach the Bible," he said. On Thursday, a group of Black Christian leaders took out a full-page ad in The New York Times calling for a ceasefire, Religion News Service reported. "A ceasefire is our minimum demand as moral faith leaders from the African American tradition who signed on to this letter," California pastor and anti-gun advocate Rev. Michael McBride told the outlet. "At some point, bombs and the fighting has to cease and move to a solution that is one of mutual coexistence, peace, and justice for all in the region." Home Entertainment 'The Mission' doc reignites debate over John Chau's tragic death, ethics of Evangelical missions When John Chau, a 26-year-old missionary, was killed by the Sentinelese tribe after he traveled to North Sentinel Islandan isolated region of Indiato share the Gospel with the uncontacted group, responses were polarizing. Some, both in the Evangelical and secular arenas, condemned Chaus journey as a reckless one that reflected deep levels of ignorance, pride and cultural superiority. Others applauded his commitment to the Great Commission, the biblical mandate to reach all nations with the Gospel, despite great personal risk. The new National Geographic documentary The Mission delves into Chaus background and history to understand the young missionary and the beliefs that drove his passion for reaching the lost, ultimately losing his life in pursuit of that goal. The documentary, from husband-and-wife filmmaking duo Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss, explores Chaus personal writings, social media and diaries and features interviews and accounts from those who knew him best, including his inner circle, family and pastor. Woven throughout the film is a poignant letter from Johns father, psychiatrist Patrick Chau, who blames extreme Christianity for his sons death. When we read about John's death, an act of radical faith, I think that we were left with more questions than answers, like what propelled him to this faraway place to bring the Gospel to this uncontacted tribe, and who is this tribe that we've heard almost nothing about, and how have they escaped the world's attention? Moss, who, along with McBaine, doesn't identify as religious, told The Christian Post. That was kind of remarkable and its own mystery. There were a lot of news stories about John and his tragic death, but they were very reductive. We felt if we could take the time, and we had the support, which we ended up getting from National Geographic, we could take on this really challenging and sometimes uncomfortable story. And that's what we've tried to do. The Mission seeks to present a nuanced narrative, giving a dimensional view of Chaus decade-long preparation for missionary work. Hes portrayed as a suburban church kid, educated in Christian schools and a participant in accountability groups with his peers to avoid unbiblical behavior, like watching pornography. An avid outdoorsman, Chau grew up reading adventure books like Robinson Crusoe, The Adventures of Tintin and End of the Spear which tells the story of missionaries Jim Elliot and Nate Saint, who were speared by a group of the Waodani tribe and the Narnia series' The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. He thoroughly prepared himself physically, spiritually for this moment, McBaine said. Hed read, I think, 100 books in the year before actually going; religious books, books of past missionaries, but also cultural anthropology books to try and be careful and do as much as he could to prepare for knowing what he is bringing of his western self to this place. And I think that that thoughtfulness was something that was, for sure, available in his diaries. This was someone who did not want to die. This is someone who loved life. Throughout his teen and young adult years, Chau took part in missionary trips to Mexico, South Africa and Iraqi Kurdistan, fueling his passion for reaching the remote Sentinelese Island, which he described as Satan's last stronghold. In 2017, he joined the missionary training group All Nations, which has a vision to see Jesus worshiped by all the peoples of the earth, and trained at the groups North American Hub in Kansas City. International Executive Leader of All Nations, Mary Ho, detailed the extensive measures Chau took over his nearly decades-long training. She underscored his consultations with experts like Don Richardson, author of Peace Child, linguistic and wilderness emergency medical training, and his proactive approach to learning about cultural anthropology. He was one of the most prepared young men I know, she said. He had made many short-term mission trips to hard places like Iraq. He came to All Nations to get equipped on how to tell Jesus' stories because he knew the Sentinelese were an oral culture. You dont want to preach at them; you want the art of telling stories, and how to make disciples and how to start simple churches. He was highly prepared, and that is very well-documented. Through animated flashbacks, the documentary dramatizes how, in 2018, Chau illegally traveled to the Sentinel Islands and attempted to communicate with the tribe. The tribe resisted Chau's attempts to communicate with them, at first shooting his Bible with an arrow. When Chau returned a second time, intent on delivering the Gospel to the unreached people, they shot him dead with an arrow. Heavily featured in the documentary are historian Adam Goodheart, author of the North Sentinel chronicle The Last Island, and linguist Daniel Everett, a former missionary who turned to atheism after a stint working among the Piraha people of the Amazon rainforest. Everett is particularly critical of Chaus mission, framing it as both an unethical form of invasion and, ultimately a fruitless endeavor. You could argue, depending on where you come from when you come to this story, that John died for any number of reasons: That he was naive, that he truly died for his faith, that he was enchanted by the story to the degree that he lost perspective on the true inherent risk of what he was undertaking that he had been shaped by stories of heroic young men who set out to prove themselves and managed to survive, Moss said. The filmmakers attempt to navigate contrasting views with care, from those who admired Chau to those questioning his decisions. They sought to, they told CP, create a safe space for all voices, including those critical of missionary work and its implications of consent. We hope it raises questions more than it gives people answers, McBaine said, adding that filmmakers wanted those who are sympathetic to Chau to consider the implications of missionary work, and skeptics who deride his mission see him in more human terms. I don't think people should go to that island, McBaine said. It's illegal. It's a problem for a number of reasons. But my hope is, whatever you come to this project with, afterward, you have a conversation. These are really difficult questions, she said. I don't know if there's a lot of answers. I do think that when I watch this film, every time, I'm left with the takeaway of understanding that as we get older, you're not really the center of the narrative. As you get older, you understand it's a very big picture. And you're part of it, but what happens when you decentralize yourself from the narrative? And I'm not sure that John ever got to that place with what he did, but I will never know. But for some, like Jaime Saint, the grandson of missionary Nate Saint, Chau's story draws parallels to his own grandfather's legacy. He underscored the importance of obedience to God's calling, a lesson he learned from his grandfathers endeavor to reach the Waodani tribe in Ecuador, which resulted in his and his colleagues' martyrdom. With the story of my grandfather, people look back and say, They shouldn't have gone in, they should have done things this way or that way, he said. When we look at it, they were being obedient to God's call. People throughout history, in obedience to God's call, have been killed. That doesn't make sense to the world. Eternity will tell whether we're right or wrong. Saint also reflected on the broader impact of such missionary endeavors, sharing how the work of his grandfather and others has been transformative for the Waodani tribe, decades after their death. Members of the Waodani tribe eventually convinced Nates son, Steve, to move his family to Ecuador and live with them, which they did for a year-and-a-half. Today, Jaime Saint serves as the executive director at Indigenous Peoples Technology and Education Center, which develops tools to train indigenous Christ followers in skills to open doors to the Gospel. God knew what He was doing then, and He knows what He's doing today. We don't see the entirety of the masterpiece that He is writing, he said. But we know the end of the story. And so, when we know the end of the story, we don't have to be afraid of the chapters that come before. John didn't have to know what all the chapters were going to be. We don't have the right to question the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We don't have the right to say we need to have all of the chapters. What we do know is that He is faithful, and He will make sense of all the difficult chapters before the story comes to an end. Its a story that is continuing to be written today. Saint also challenged the notion presented by some in The Mission that missions should be avoided because of potential risks, such as introducing diseases to untouched tribes, emphasizing that the ultimate call to spread the Gospel transcends earthly concerns. We arent called to obey governing authorities if they say don't do something other than what the Bible says we must do, he said. People throughout history have been put in prison and killed for their faith; the Church did not grow without people who have been martyred. There are always going to be critics anytime someone lives out their faith, but we are not accountable to the critics. We're accountable to the Lord of the harvest. And since Chau died in 2018, Ho said shes noticed an increase in global awareness and prayer for the North Sentinelese people. Like Saint and Elliot, she said, Chaus narrative has inspired new generations to engage in missionary work. In her view, Chau's commitment has already begun to bear fruit, inspiring young individuals to consider missions and spreading awareness of remote tribes like the North Sentinelese. As "The Mission" rekindles conversations around the costs and implications of missionary work, Saint said he believes the eternal impact of such work, often realized through sacrifice and obedience, will be revealed in God's perfect timing. A secular world that cannot comprehend the gravity of eternity and the requirement of every Christian to participate in the Great Commission, he said, will never understand this calling. We don't talk about suffering in the American church, the theology of failure, he said. When John died, a lot of people said, What a failed mission. But what is our definition of success and failure in the Christian life? John himself said the measure of success in the Kingdom of God is obedience, and that he wants to be obedient to Jesus Christ because he thinks Jesus is worth it. The measure of success for us as Christians is obedience. Home U.S. Muslim-turned-atheist rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali says she is now a Christian Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Muslim and renowned critic of Islam, has revealed her conversion to Christianity, describing her journey from Islam to atheism and ultimately to Christianity. In a Weekend Essay published on UnHerd, Hirsi Ali, who is known for her bestselling books and outspoken views, says her encounter with Bertrand Russells 1927 lecture Why I am Not a Christian led her to atheism, offering solace and escape from the fear instilled by religious doctrine. She found Russells views on religion, rooted in fear, resonant with her own experiences. It did not cross my mind, as I read it, that one day, nearly a century after he delivered it to the South London branch of the National Secular Society, I would be compelled to write an essay with precisely the opposite title, adds Hirsi Ali, who is originally from Somalia and is a survivor of genital mutilation. Hirsi Ali traces her initial disillusionment with Islam following the 9/11 terrorist attacks when she questioned the justifications for the attacks in the name of Islam. During her teenage years in Nairobi, Hirsi Ali says she was influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood, which instilled in her a strict interpretation of Islam. This period was characterized by a strict adherence to religious practices and a deep-seated disdain for non-Muslims, particularly Jews. However, her later exposure to atheism through figures like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins provided a stark contrast to her previous beliefs. Hirsi Ali attributes her turn to Christianity to a broader concern for the challenges facing Western civilization. She cites threats from authoritarian regimes, global Islamism, and woke ideology as catalysts for seeking a unifying force. Christianity, in her view, offers a foundation of values and traditions that uphold human life, freedom, and dignity, and counters the divisiveness she associates with atheism. Responding to her embrace of the Christian faith, conservative Christian philosopher Dr. Robert George wrote on Facebook: Two decades ago, under the influence of the writings of Bertrand Russell, she became an atheist. Her thought was that atheism was smart and sophisticated it was allegedly what really intelligent people believed (the brights, as Daniel Dennett embarrassingly labeled himself and his fellow unbelievers). It was the way to a world of rationality and civil liberty. Hirsi Ali is not the first to have gone down that misguided path. She now sees that it is indeed misguided and that there is, if I may quote scripture, a more excellent way. Hirsi Alis embrace of Christianity also stems from a personal quest for spiritual solace and meaning in life. Hirsi Ali critiques atheism for leaving a God hole, which she believes has led to the rise of irrational ideologies and the erosion of Western values. She argues that Christianity provides a unifying story and foundational texts, similar to those in Islam, that can engage and mobilize people. Speaking at the National Press Club in 2015, Hirsi Ali offered five amendments to the religion of Islam that Muslims should take seriously if they really want to bring about a peaceful reformation to their religion. She suggested Muslims should view the Quran and the hadith as creations of human effort, potentially divinely inspired but ultimately human in origin. This perspective challenges the traditional view of Muhammad as a moral guide post-Mecca, which Hirsi Ali finds problematic. As the second amendment, Hirsi Ali advocated for a change in how Muslims prioritize life after death over life before death. She called for a reorientation toward valuing earthly life more. She also argued that Shariah law is responsible for widespread violence and oppression in Muslim cultures, exemplified by regimes like Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Islamic State terrorist group. As her fourth amendment, she called for the elimination of the principle of Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong. This principle, according to Hirsi Ali, leads to vigilantism and mob justice, as seen in cases where citizens punish individuals for alleged violations of Shariah law or disrespect toward Muhammad. Hirsi Ali also called for an end to the concept of Jihad as Holy war, advocating instead for a focus on peace. Home Entertainment 'Jesus Revolution' star Jonathan Roumie on surrendering ego in ministry: Satan 'targets' those who proclaim God LOS ANGELES Jesus Revolution star Jonathan Roumie reflected on how God uses imperfect people to carry out His will and stressed the importance of surrendering ones ego, as Satan targets those who boldly proclaim Jesus name. The 48-year-old actor, best known for playing Jesus in The Chosen, stars as real-life evangelist Lonnie Frisbee in the forthcoming Lionsgate film Jesus Revolution. Based on a book by Harvest Pasto Greg Laurie, the film follows the Jesus Movement of the late '60s and '70s, when thousands of hippies came to know the Lord. A charismatic preacher, Frisbee played a key role in the Jesus Movement, partnering with Chuck Smith at Calvary Chapel (Kelsey Grammer) to attract young people into the congregation. The film highlights Frisbees positive impact, including how he mentored and championed a young Greg Laure (Joel Courtney). But it also depicts how, as the church grows bigger, Frisbees ego begins to blind him and causes conflict with Smith and eventually, ministry separation. First and foremost, he was driven by his love of the Lord, Roumie told The Christian Post at the red carpet premiere of the film. And then, as things got bigger, they just found themselves at the wrong end of a spiritual attack. And then his ego became a thing, but it didn't start out like that. He was as human as any one of us. I think the more powerful you are in the spirit world, in proclaiming God and looking to promote Jesus Christ, the bigger target you are for Satan, for the enemy, for the devil, because he doesnt want that. He wants nobody to praise Jesus and talk about God; he wants people just ignorant and ambiguous and lukewarm and unfaithful. Lonnie was the opposite of that. He was bold; he would just walk up to people on the beach and start preaching the Gospel, and he was mesmerizing. Because of the power that God gave him, he pulled people into church. He just had too many slings and arrows painted on him. After Frisbee and Smith parted ways, the former traveled to Florida and joined the Shepherding Movement. He would later help launch the Vineyard Movement, a neo-charismatic renewal in California. Later on in life, Frisbee lost his way, Roumie said, but eventually reconciled and returned to the church before he passed. He was an extraordinary man, Roumie said. He pointed out that just like Frisbee, Jesus used the disciples to proclaim His name yet Peter denied Him and Judas betrayed Him. They were all part of Jesus ministry handpicked by Jesus, but Scripture said that Satan entered into Judas and he betrayed Him and sent Him to His death, Roumie reflected. God uses anybody who is willing in any way that He wants. We cant put God in a box. Roumie is keenly aware of the platform he has and the calling God has placed on his life. The Chosen, a multi-season series on the life of Christ, has seen staggering success and propelled Roumie to the limelight. He's outspoken about his faith and the role it plays in his life. In January, he spoke at the March for Life and implied that abortion is satanic in nature. Though he sometimes gets flak for his boldness, Roumie told CP, Im not here to serve people, Im here to serve God. And I go where He leads me, and I do what He calls me to do and where He pushes me, even when its uncomfortable to do so. God called me to be at the March for Life, and I was like, Really God? You want me to put my hat in this ring? Id never done that before, he continued. And He said, Just trust me. A lot of people need to hear the things Im going to have you say. I said, OK, and I did, and I couldn't have had a better experience and I wouldnt take it back. Id do it all over again. Any time Ive committed myself to following Gods voice as best I can hear it, my expectations have been more than surpassed. And playing Frisbee in Jesus Revolution," Roumie said, made him even more aware of the power of the Holy Spirit. The film shows how Frisbee carried out acts of healing and could sense when others were struggling, both physically and mentally. "To me, like, having that kind of charism and studying this movement and ... the kinds of congregations that really put this priority on the fact that everyone has this potential to have this within them as a Christian and called to witness to it, it wasn't anything that I had known about previously," Roumie said. "I wasn't aware of the movement until I got the script and started studying and thought, wow, this is, this is hugely impactful. So it got me more curious about this kind of testimony, this kind of expression of faith. Through his work, Roumie said he hopes to encourage others to put God at the center of their lives, especially in a society that would have people believe otherwise for all sorts of reasons. I think finding examples of faith and inspiration in their lives, and then modeling themselves after a life akin to a disciple of Christ, this is something that it's only going to improve your life, he said. The actor revealed that when he personally surrendered his ego and the things he thought were important in his life and put God front and center, everything changed. My career changed, my life changed, the things that were important to me changed only for the better. Everything's only gotten better, he said. I haven't been spared from struggle and trial and suffering, like anyone else. That's just part of the human condition. But now I have a sense of trust that I didn't have before; just implicit trust that it's going to be OK. And inevitably, it always is. And that's what you get from making God the center of your life. Jesus Revolution is directed by Jon Erwin and Brent McCorkle, and scripted by Erwin and Jon Gunn. Producers are Kevin Downes, Jon Erwin, Andrew Erwin, Daryl Lefever, Joshua Walsh and Jerilyn Esquibel. Lionsgate opens it Friday only in theaters. Former U.S. President Donald Trump, if re-elected in 2024, would expand his first-term immigration crackdown to include sweeping roundups of people who would be held in large camps to await deportation, the New York Times reported on Saturday. The report was based on interviews with several advisers, including Stephen Miller, who oversaw Trump's first-term immigration policies, the Times said. It described Trump's plans as "an assault on immigration on a scale unseen in modern American history" and said it aimed to deport millions of people every year, including those who have been settled in the United States for decades. Trump is the leading contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, and he likely will face U.S. President Joe Biden in a rematch of their 2020 contest. Trump's election campaign did not respond to a request for comment. The White House declined to comment. Trump did not mention the idea of establishing large camps to detain people in a campaign speech on Saturday in Claremont, New Hampshire. The Biden-Harris campaign in a statement called Trump's immigration plans "extreme, racist, cruel policies" that are "meant to stoke fear and divide us, betting a scared nation is how he wins this election." Among other measures, Trump would resurrect his ban on the entry of people from certain Muslim-majority countries, the newspaper said. He would revive other hardline policies, including a COVID-19 era rejection of asylum claims, although this time the refusals would be based on assertions that migrants carry other infectious diseases, it continued. Trump is looking to speed deportations through a massive expansion of a form of removal that does not require due process hearings, the newspaper said. To aid U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in sweeping roundups of undocumented people, Trump would reassign federal agents and deputize local police and National Guard troops volunteered by Republican-run states, the report said. He would ease the strain on ICE detention facilities by building huge camps to hold detainees while their cases are processed as they await deportation. To underwrite the massive operation if Congress refused, Trump would redirect Pentagon funds as he did with his border wall in his first term, the Times said. "We'll stop the invasion on our southern border and begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history," Trump said on Saturday. In September, Trump told a rally in Iowa the deportation operation would be along the lines of the "Eisenhower model," the Times said. That was a 1954 campaign named after an ethnic slur Operation Wetback to detain and expel Mexican immigrants. Other parts of Trump's plan call for screening visa applicants for ideological views, revoking the temporary protected status of people from certain countries deemed unsafe, and trying to end the citizenship birthright for babies born in the United States to undocumented parents, the newspaper said. (Reuters) Home Church & Ministries Lee Strobel, Greg Laurie and Kay Arthur honored with Museum of the Bible's 2023 Pillar Awards WASHINGTON Three influential Christians have been honored for exposing the Bible, the greatest story of all time to millions of people. The second annual Pillar Awards was held at the Museum of the Bible on Saturday, where three Christian leaders were recognized for reaching the world through the Bibles message. The Pillar Awards were part of the museums 2023 Gala & Experience, titled The Story. In a video message shared at the ceremony, Christian songwriter Matthew West alluded to the significance behind the event's title, referring to the Bible as the greatest story of all time. Dave Stotts, who has traveled the world to show people the actual locations recorded in the Gospels in a series of educational videos called Drive Through History, hosted the ceremony. As Stotts explained, the Pillar Awards refer to the pillars that underpin the Museum of the Bible: history, narrative and impact. Those same pillars are the foundation for the creation of the Pillar Awards, he said. We launched it last year to honor individuals and groups who are leveraging those pillars to engage people with the transformative power of the Bible through their talents, ideas and platforms. He praised this years Pillar Award recipients as three individuals who have literally impacted the Christian faith stories of millions of people. Abby Robertson of The Christian Broadcasting Network presented the awards to the recipients, whom she described as three of the most influential Christian leaders in the country, and interviewed them on stage. In addition to the video message from West and the interviews with awardees, the ceremony featured a performance by Christian musician CeCe Wynans. Lee Strobel, former journalist and the author of The Case for Christ, received the Pillar Award for history. Stotts outlined how this honor is reserved by those who reinforce the Bibles history by discovering, preserving and communicating the authenticity of Gods Word to the world. The publication of The Case for Christ followed Strobels effort to disprove the existence of Jesus Christ, with his discoveries resulting in him embracing and converting to Christianity. Strobel reflected on his experience as he accepted the award on stage: I was an atheist for much of my life, and I lived a very immoral and drunken and narcissistic and profane life. And I never could have anticipated first of all coming to faith. I thought religion was a crutch that it was based on make-believe. I thought faith was believing something even though you knew in your heart it couldnt be true, he added. He attributed his initial quest to refute the existence of Jesus Christ to his wifes conversion to Christianity after meeting their new neighbor, who invited her to church. Strobel said: I thought maybe I could rescue her from this cult that shes gotten involved in if I could just disprove the resurrection of Jesus. And so, I took my journalism training and legal training and spent two years trying to do that and coming to conclude that based on the avalanche of evidence that points so powerfully toward the truth of Christianity, it would take more faith to maintain my atheism than to become a Christian. God changed my values, my character, my morality, my worldview, my philosophy, my attitudes, my marriage, my parenting, my relationships, he recalled. I never could have anticipated what God would do, and so I give Him all the glory. Following his conversion, Strobel gave up his journalism career to focus on advancing the Christian faith. He worked as a teaching pastor at three American Christian churches and hosted the television program Faith Under Fire. Strobel has written several books since The Case for Christ, including The Case for Heaven. Pastor Greg Laurie received the Pillar Award for narrative. As Stotts noted, the honor is reserved for those who have brought the stories of the Bible to life through cultural mediums. Laurie leads Harvest Christian Fellowship, a multi-site congregation of 15,000 in California and Hawaii, with a weekly virtual service that attracts over 100,000 viewers. His story of conversion became the subject of the film Jesus Revolution, released earlier this year. Laurie converted to Christianity as part of the Jesus Movement that spread throughout southern California half a century ago. He told Robertson, I didnt realize Id walked smack dab into the middle of a spiritual awakening, which he referred to as the Fourth Great Awakening in American History. Lauries efforts to convert people to Christianity continue to this day, and he sees Jesus Revolution as a powerful instrument for evangelization: We want to reach unexpected people in unexpected places with an unexpected message. So when you have a film on Netflix, youre playing on Delta Airlines as Jesus Revolution has been playing or on other platforms like Apple and Amazon, you reach people that would not necessarily go to church. Jesus did not say the whole world should go to church, but He did say the church should go to the whole world, so were always looking for creative ways to get to people, he added. A lot of times as Christians, we want to isolate from culture, but in reality, we need to permeate and infiltrate culture with the message of the Gospel. Kay Arthur received the Pillar Award for impact. Stotts identified the purpose of this award as to recognize individuals who have made a significant kingdom impact on many lives through their lifetime of dedication to sharing the Bibles message. Arthur, a Bible teacher, has authored over 100 books and Bible studies. Arthur has been inducted into the National Religious Broadcasters Hall of Fame. The awards ceremony took place on her 90th birthday. At the dinner preceding the awards ceremony, attendees sang Happy Birthday to her. I cannot believe that this is happening on my birthday, she said. I feel totally inadequate, but I will tell you one thing. I was raised with a religion without a relationship. While Arthur was baptized and confirmed, she told the audience that she had become immoral and had sunk into a pit that I dug with my own hands. She pointed to the day that her first husband died by suicide as the day when God brought me face to face with all of this. Theres one thing thats my life, and thats the Word of God, she proclaimed. She detailed how, after her conversion, she wanted everybody to know and to understand Gods Word. Her organization, Precept Ministries, has shared the Word of God with 190 of the worlds 206 countries. Home Politics Nuns celebrate victory after New York agrees not to investigate their pro-life pregnancy centers A group of Catholic nuns is celebrating now that the state of New York has agreed not to seek sensitive information about the clients they serve at the pro-life pregnancy centers they run. The religious liberty law firm Becket announced in a Nov. 6 statement that the Sisters of Life had reached an agreement with the state of New York, where the Catholic-operated network of pregnancy centers dropped its litigation against the state in exchange for a promise not to subject them to government investigations as authorized by a 2022 law derided by critics as an attempt to target pro-life pregnancy centers that do not provide or offer referrals for abortions. As part of the agreement, the state agreed not to take any enforcement action of any kind against Plaintiff based on Plaintiffs nonresponse to or noncompliance with any survey, document request, or information request of any kind authorized by or issued by Defendant. The Sisters lawsuit followed the June 2022 enactment of a statute authorizing and directing the commissioner of the New York State Department of Health to conduct a study and issue a report examining the unmet health and resource needs facing pregnant women in New York and the impact of limited service pregnancy centers on the ability of women to obtain accurate, non-coercive health care information and timely access to a comprehensive range of reproductive and sexual health care services. Additionally, the statute authorized the state to request data and information from limited service pregnancy centers that do not provide or offer referrals for abortion services. Filed in September 2022, the complaint contended that the statute constituted a violation of its First and Fourth Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution. We are grateful for this victory, which protects our right to continue to uphold and defend the beauty and strength of women, said Sr. Maris Stella, vicar general of the Sisters of Life. In over 30 years of serving women in the state of New York, we have learned that what a woman really needs is to be seen, heard, and believed in, which is why we are committed to providing the necessary emotional, practical, and spiritual support for her to flourish. After highlighting how "we are called to bring hope, comfort, and joy to women who feel they have nowhere else to turn, the nun expressed confidence that the judges order will protect us as we continue our ministry. Becket President and CEO Mark Rienzi shared Stellas enthusiasm for the development, describing the order as a win for the Sisters and the women they serve. Rienzi added, The government should never have enacted this law, and we are thrilled that it ends with a federal court order that the state should just leave the Sisters alone while they do their important work. As noted in the complaint, the statute authorizing the state of New York to investigate pro-life pregnancy centers was part of a package of legislation described as a nation-leading legislative package to protect abortion following the May 2022 publication of a leaked United States Supreme Court decision in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization. The Dobbs decision, handed down in June 2022, determined that the U.S. Constitution does not contain a right to abortion. After the leak, pro-life pregnancy centers found themselves subject to violence and vandalism in addition to becoming the targets of vitriolic rhetoric from pro-abortion politicians. The complaint cited the statutes legislative record as rife with evidence of content and viewpoint discrimination. Specifically, the lawsuit detailed how sponsor memos for both the Senate and Assembly versions of the bill contend that pro-life pregnancy centers engage in misleading or deceptive practices and provide inaccurate, misleading, or stigmatizing information about abortion and contraception. It also stated that New Yorks Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul uttered the phrase we all know what that means when referring to limited service pregnancy centers that don't perform abortions. Additionally, the complaint elaborated on what kind of information Sisters for Life would be asked to provide the state if it became the subject of an investigation. The state would have the authority to ask about organizational funding; membership in umbrella organizations; services provided and most frequently sought; the number of women who access services, the geographic regions in which each woman resides, and basic demographic information about each woman, including race, age, and marital status. Building relationships of trust and confidence with pregnant women is a core component of the sisters ministry, the lawsuit added. Many of these women disclose sensitive information about their lives, their needs, and their hopes for the future precisely because they trust the Sisters to hold that information in confidence. Home Church & Ministries Pastor Scott Sauls to resign from Nashville megachurch: report Scott Sauls, the senior pastor at Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee, is poised to resign, according to reports. His decision comes amid a lengthy disciplinary process, attracting widespread attention. An email sent to Christ Presbyterian members Friday morning details plans for a Sunday meeting where Sauls is expected to present his resignation, The Tennessean reported, which obtained and verified the email. Should the congregation vote in favor of accepting the resignation, this decision would bring to an end the current discussions regarding Sauls' suitability to resume his duties following his disciplinary suspension and guide the church through its recovery phase. Christ Presbyterians leadership faces challenges with rebuilding trust, with members harboring concerns about church authority and oversight. The churchs session, its highest eldership authority, expressed in the email a desire for the meeting to advance the churchs peace and purity, especially given the difficult circumstances leading to this juncture. In May, Sauls was placed on indefinite leave with the Nashville Presbytery, the regional authority for Middle Tennessee churches in the Presbyterian Church in America, and also suspended indefinitely. This followed an inquiry led by the Presbyterys shepherding committee into a reported toxic work environment at the church, resulting in Sauls discipline. Sauls admitted to misconduct in a May video to church members, presenting a different confession to the Nashville Presbytery in a private session. Details of the latter confession have not been publicly disclosed. Additionally, the Rev. Ian Sears, former chair of the presbyterys shepherding committee, is dealing with misconduct allegations and has stepped down from his ministry and presbytery leadership roles. As The Christian Post previously reported, Sauls admitted to creating a hostile work environment, acknowledging his harsh criticism and manipulation of facts to silence dissent and support his desired paths. I verbalized insensitive and hurtful criticism of others work. Ive used social media and the pulpit to quiet dissenting viewpoints, Sauls said at the time. Ive manipulated facts to support paths that I desire. Concerns over the churchs environment date back three years, with former and current staff advocating for a third-party evaluation. However, the churchs eldership opted for the Nashville Presbyterys intervention, leading to the shepherding committees inquiry and Sauls discipline. During Sundays meeting, the session will propose a motion to receive and affirm Sauls resignation. A Nashville Presbytery representative, not affiliated with Christ Presbyterian, will moderate the session, culminating in a membership vote on Sauls resignation. Acknowledging the significance of this event, the sessions email mentioned the approach of prayer, discussion, debate and a notable level of agreement between the session and Sauls. Since Sauls joined Christ Presbyterian in 2012, the church has seen substantial growth, launching three satellite campuses and the Nashville Institute for Faith and Work. Koinonia, one of these satellites, became independent in 2022. Christ Presbyterian also runs a K-12 school, Christ Presbyterian Academy. Sauls, author of six books and numerous blog posts, gained recognition in various Evangelical circles nationally and locally. Christ Presbyterian, formed in 1985 following a schism at Nashvilles First Presbyterian Church, joined the PCA early on. Under Sauls, the church maintained its orthodox roots while adopting a more progressive approach, such as appointing deaconesses and launching Koinonia in Bordeaux, a predominantly black neighborhood in Nashville. Despite his public persona, Sauls leadership style faced criticism internally. Conflicts with staff in 2021 led to significant turnover. The Nashville Presbyterys discipline barred him from preaching, teaching and social media engagement, pending compliance with disciplinary terms. Before his tenure at Christ Presbyterian, Sauls served at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City and led church plants in Kansas City and St. Louis. Alongside his pastoral duties, Sauls authored books on topics like joy, shame, anxiety and depression. In a 2018 interview with CP, he emphasized the importance of pastoral accountability, cautioning against the isolation and moral failures that can accompany church growth. The bigger your church becomes, you begin to have more fans and admirers than you do actual friends, he said. Its really important to be surrounded by people who are close enough to you, that they can express concern with you and your character and help steer you toward Christ. Pastors need to welcome this kind of friendship, community, and accountability. Home Opinion Tehran's reign of terror requires a rapid response In the aftermath of Tehran's recent warmongering in the Middle East last month, the ominous specter of the Iranian regime's designs materialized once more in a chilling act of terrorism on the streets of Madrid on Thursday. Prominent Spanish politician, Dr. Alejo Vidal-Quadras, president of the International Committee in Search of Justice and former vice president of the European Parliament, was shot in the face in broad daylight. The audacious act of terror serves as a stark wake-up call to the escalating audacity of Tehran's mullahs. This heinous assassination attempt demands a resolute response. It lays bare the unsettling reality that the Iranian regime, renowned as the world's premier state sponsor of terrorism, has not only persisted but dangerously grown emboldened. For over two decades, Dr. Vidal-Quadras has been a staunch advocate for the human rights of the Iranian people. The recent assault, carried out by assailants on a motorcycle, has resulted in his hospitalization and subsequent surgery a reprehensible act that requires swift and unequivocal condemnation from the global community. His steadfast commitment to the Iranian people's struggle for freedom positions him as a formidable adversary to the ruling religious fascism in Tehran. Tehran's motives to silence international supporters of the Iranian people are clear. Dr. Vidal-Quadras's pivotal role in supporting the main opposition Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) and ensuring the protection of MEK members in Camp Ashraf attests to a lifetime dedicated to the cause of liberty and democracy. In October 2022, at the height of nationwide protests against the regime, Tehran's foreign ministry branded him a supporter of "terrorism" and "riots," and placed sanctions on him. Now a year later, police investigations ominously hint at an Iranian connection to his assassination attempt. A police source close to the investigation disclosed to The Associated Press that Vidal-Quadras himself had raised suspicion regarding the regime's involvement. The regime, adept at concocting propaganda and slandering dissidents, has long vilified the MEK in the West, considering it an existential threat. In September, Dr. Vidal-Quadras unequivocally declared at an international conference in Brussels: "I have been working with the MEK and the NCRI for 21 years now, and I visited them in Ashraf 1 in Iraq, in Ashraf 3 in Albania, in the headquarters in Overs-sur-Oise, countless times." "That means that I know the MEK," he added, "much better than all foreign ministries of the European Union ... I can tell you that all propaganda, fabrications, and slander of the Iranian mullahs against the MEK are just lies, malignant falsehoods, and pure rubbish." Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a coalition including the MEK, swiftly and unequivocally denounced this act of terror. Her call for the prosecution of the perpetrators and masterminds echoes beyond national borders. The Madrid attack is not an isolated incident but a grim chapter in the Iranian regime's extensive history of state-sponsored terrorism. From the infamous Marine barracks bombing in Beirut in 1983 to the foiled plot at the Free Iran World Summit in 2018, Tehran's fingerprints are etched on a pattern of terrorism, which it harnesses as an enduring instrument of statecraft. The troubling manipulation of the Belgian judiciary in June, leading to the release of terrorist diplomat Assadollah Assadi, who masterminded the foiled terrorist plot against the Free Iran World Summit in Paris in 2018, is a stark illustration of Western appeasement. This display of weakness has emboldened Tehran, encouraging its nefarious practices and placing dissidents, resistance leaders, and even foreign nationals at greater risk. The world must absorb the profound lesson that capitulating to terrorism only begets more terrorism, emboldening the Iranian regime to engage in hostage-taking across Europe and beyond. The unchecked machinations of the Iranian regime pose an escalating threat, and the world's collective conscience cannot afford the luxury of indifference. A blind eye turned to the menace emanating from Tehran is an unwitting endorsement of more peril that looms on the horizon. As Western governments grapple with this undeniable threat, a pointed question must be posed: Will Tehran be permitted to stifle democracy and support for dissents beyond its borders through brazen shootings on the streets of Europe in broad daylight? The time has arrived to sever the shackles of appeasement that have long constrained the Western response to the actions of the world's leading state sponsor of terror. The Iranian people and their organized opposition, yearning for a democratic, secular, and non-nuclear republic, deserve the unwavering support of the international community to rid the world of Tehran's rulers once and for all. Christian teenager laid to rest Elianne Andam, the Christian teenager stabbed to death on her way to school in September, has been laid to rest. Her family described her as a "God-fearing woman" and said she would leave a "legacy of faith, determination and love for justice". Her funeral was held at the New Life Christian Centre in Croydon on Saturday, while thousands more watched the ceremony online via livestream. Her coffin was transported to the church by four white horses dressed with pink plumes. The carriage was accompanied by pallbearers in matching pink ties. The funeral was held as a celebration of her life and heard about how she had wanted to become a lawyer. Rapper Stormzy, who is from Croydon, performed his song, "Holy Spirit", at her funeral. Speaking before the funeral, her aunt Ruby Paintstil told the BBC that Elianne's mother had been "broken" by her daughter's death. "We have to keep comforting her. She hasn't been herself, every day broken into pieces," said Paintstil. "If we could change the clock I wish we would not have to go through this." Elianne was a member of New Life Christian Centre along with her family. At a memorial service last month, pastor Mark Rossell said her death had left everyone heartbroken. "Elianne was a huge part of New Life, it's personal. This really, really hurts," he said. "She had her whole life ahead of her, she was always laughing and really loved being part of this community. She had big dreams and was so optimistic about her goals." A 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has been charged with her murder. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form Pope Francis on Saturday ordered the removal of the bishop of Tyler, Texas, a conservative prelate active on social media who has been a fierce critic of the pontiff and has come to symbolize the polarization within the U.S. Catholic hierarchy. A one-line statement from the Vatican said Francis had relieved Bishop Joseph Strickland of the pastoral governance of Tyler and appointed the bishop of Austin as the temporary administrator. Strickland, 65, has emerged as a leading critic of Francis, accusing him in a tweet earlier this year of undermining the deposit of faith. He has been particularly critical of Francis recent meeting on the future of the Catholic Church during which hot-button issues were discussed, including ways to better welcome LGBTQ+ Catholics. Earlier this year, the Vatican sent in investigators to look into his governance of the diocese, amid reports that priests and laypeople in Tyler had complained and that he was making unorthodox claims. The Vatican never released the findings and Strickland had insisted he wouldnt resign voluntarily, saying in media interviews that he was given a mandate to serve as bishop in 2012 by the late Pope Benedict XVI and couldnt abdicate that responsibility. The conservative website LifeSiteNews, which said it interviewed Strickland on Saturday, quoted him as saying one of the reasons given for his ouster was his refusal to implement Francis' 2021 restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass. Francis' crackdown on the old liturgy has become a rallying cry for traditionalist Catholics opposed to the pontiff's progressive bent. Strickland told LifeSite he refused to implement the restrictions because I cant starve out part of my flock. He said he stood by his decision, would do it again and "I feel very much at peace in the Lord and the truth that he died for. His firing sparked an immediate outcry among some conservatives and traditionalists who had held up Strickland as a leading point of Catholic reference to counter Francis progressive reforms. Michael J. Matt, editor of the traditionalist newspaper The Remnant, wrote that with the firing, Francis was actively trying to bury fidelity to the Church of Jesus Christ. This is total war, Matt wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Francis is a clear and present danger not only to Catholics the world over but also to the whole world itself. The two Vatican investigators sent into investigate Strickland Bishop Dennis Sullivan of Camden, N.J., and the retired bishop of Tucson, Ariz., Bishop Emeritus Gerald Kicanas conducted an exhaustive inquiry into all aspects of the governance and leadership of the diocese, said the head of the church in Texas, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo. After their investigation, a recommendation was made to Francis that the continuation in office of Bishop Strickland was not feasible, DiNardo said in a statement Saturday. The Vatican asked Strickland to resign Thursday, but he declined, prompting Francis to remove him from office two days later, DiNardo's statement said. It is rare for the pope to remove a bishop from office. Bishops are required to offer to resign when they reach 75. When the Vatican uncovers issues with governance or other problems that require a bishop to leave office before then, the Vatican usually seeks to pressure him to offer to resign for the good of his diocese and the church. That was the case when another U.S. bishop was forced out earlier this year following a Vatican investigation. Bishop Richard Stika of Knoxville, Tenn., resigned voluntarily, albeit under pressure, following allegations he mishandled sex abuse allegations and his priests complained about his leadership and behavior. But with Strickland, the Vatican statement made clear that he had not offered to resign and that Francis had instead "relieved" him from his job. Francis has not been shy about his concerns about the right wing in the U.S. Catholic hierarchy, which has been split between progressives and conservatives who long found support in the doctrinaire papacies of St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI, particularly on issues of abortion and same-sex marriage. In comments to Portuguese Jesuits in August, Francis blasted the backwardness of these conservative bishops, saying they had replaced faith with ideology and that a correct understanding of Catholic doctrine allows for change over time. Strickland had been associated with the most extreme of these bishops, including the former Vatican ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a fierce Francis critic who in 2018 called for the pope to resign. Strickland backed Vigano's conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic, and on Saturday Vigano wrote that Strickland's ouster showed a cowardly form of authoritarianism by Francis. This affair will reveal who stands with the true Church of Christ and who chooses to stand with His declared enemies, Vigano wrote on X. Most recently, Strickland had criticized Francis monthlong closed-door debate on making the church more welcoming and responsive to the needs of Catholics today. The meeting debated a host of previously taboo issues, including women in governance roles and welcoming LGBTQ+ Catholics, but in the end, its final document didnt veer from established doctrine. Ahead of the meeting, Strickland said it was a travesty that such things were even on the table for discussion. Regrettably, it may be that some will label as schismatics those who disagree with the changes being proposed, Strickland wrote in a public letter in August. Instead, those who would propose changes to that which cannot be changed seek to commandeer Christs Church, and they are indeed the true schismatics. In a statement Saturday, the diocese of Tyler announced Strickland's removal but said the church's work would continue in Tyler. Our mission is to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to foster an authentic Christian community, and to serve the needs of all people with compassion and love, it said. In a social media post sent a few hours before the Vaticans noon announcement, Strickland wrote a prayer about Christ being the way, the truth and the life, yesterday, today and forever. He had changed the handle from his previous @bishopoftyler to @BishStrickland. The incoming temporary administrator for Tyler, Austin Bishop Joe Vasquez, said he would be travelling to the diocese over the coming weeks to be on hand for the priests, staff and lay faithful to assess their needs. He asked for prayers for his work and the people of Tyler during this time of transition. (AP) ORANGE, Ohio -- Warrensville Heights police requested assistance from Orange with a man who had locked himself in the mens room stall at the GetGo gas station on Miles Road and would not come out at 12:34 a.m. Nov. 5. After several attempts, an Orange officer got the stall door open and made contact with a Cleveland man, 21, who had an active warrant out of Garfield Heights for failure to appear in court. Police there took custody at another GetGo station in their town without further incident. Identity fraud: Park Avenue Called to the Verizon Wireless store for a fraud complaint on the evening of Nov. 1, police found a man matching the suspect description walking south on Wall Street and detained him. He said he did not have a good photo ID card, but police found one on his person, identifying him as a Millinocket, Maine man. Management at the Verizon store said that was the I.D. he showed when he attempted to add a line and buy an iPhone on an existing account. When the authentication link failed, store staff went in the back office and called the phone number on the account, reaching the real customer in Maine, who said he had authorized no one to buy anything on his account. Verizon pressed charges and the suspect, now identified as a homeless man, 55, from Atlantic City, NJ, said he had fake IDs in several states, with police also seizing a blank generic credit card in the Maine mans name. The New Jersey man was taken to the Solon jail on the fifth-degree felony. Violation of protection order: I-271 A patrol officer running radar clocked a 2011 Jeep Compass going 85 mph in the northbound express lanes -- 25 mph over the posted speed limit -- at 1:07 a.m. Oct. 31. Making the traffic stop, he found an active protection order in place between the two occupants, filed through the Kent State University Police Department. The driver, a Garfield Heights woman, 20, said she was aware the protection order remained in effect against her passenger, a Euclid woman, 20, who was arrested on the first-degree misdemeanor and taken to the Solon jail. Get police blotters by email every weekday for free with our new Police Blotter newsletter. Sign up at cleveland.com/newsletters Read more from the Chagrin Solon Sun. CLEVELAND -- Now that the Nov. 7 election is over, lets relax for a bit and get back to the business of worrying about more mundane pursuits. OK thats long enough. Nov. 5, 2024, will be here in only 359 days, and already the freight train of what might be the most consequential election of our lives is careening down the track. For those who cant resist the urge to obsess over that, its been a week of ping-ponging emotions. Last Sunday, The New York Times and Siena College released a poll indicating that in five of the six battleground states won by President Joe Biden in 2020, Donald Trump currently holds a head-to-head edge among registered voters. All other things being equal, if those opinions hold, it would mean a 302-236 electoral college victory for Trump in 2024. Oh no! said the nations Democrats at the specter of four more years of Donald Trump. Oh yeah! said Trumps newly energized supporters. OMG! said sensible Republicans and independents who think four more years of Biden would be disastrous, but perhaps not as disastrous as another Trump presidency. Then, just two days later, Democrats scored substantial victories by reasserting control of the Virgina state legislature, retaining the governorship in deep-red Kentucky, squelching temporarily ascendant Republicans in New Jersey, increasing their Supreme Court advantage to 5-2 in Pennsylvania, and scoring big statewide victories on abortion and recreational marijuana in Ohio. Oh no! said the nations Republicans, reeling from their fourth straight national electoral defeat and what it might portend. Oh yeah! said the nations Democrats, immediately forgetting about The New York Times/Siena College poll and predicting that their wins in Kentucky and Ohio could mean a turnaround success in those two red states and beyond, for their president and their party. OMG! said sensible Republicans and independents who prefer conservative policies to liberal ones, but wish the GOP would recognize that abortion has become an electoral albatross and that the partys fealty to Trump could set them up for a fifth straight disaster in 2024. With the election still a year away, the instinct to tell people to get a grip is strong. Predictions and polls this far out are foolish but of course that doesnt stop us from making and conducting them. The truth is that the previous weeks news is not without meaning. It just might not mean what so many people hope. And fear. I cant predict whats going to happen a year from now any better than you can. But heres what I hope happens: * The Republican Party, somehow, steps away from Trump. It would be best if the party finally comes to its senses and realizes that he has been the source of many of their problems over the past five years but I really dont care how it happens. A conviction on one of the many criminal charges he is facing would do fine as well. I cant explain the hold he has on so many otherwise intelligent people. Perhaps it is simply, paraphrasing an insightful quote from the writer Anne Lamott, that they make the same assumption about Trump that they do about God: He hates all the same people they do. But if you think youve seen hate before, waitll you see him unbound in a final four years as president. He has led Republicans to four straight national losses, with a fifth on the way. He is the only thing worse than four more years of Joe Biden. He needs to go. * Four of the five remaining challengers to Trump for the Republican presidential nomination step aside, leaving the partys reasonable voters with a realistic chance to unseat him. If you have watched any of the three GOP debates, you cant help but be impressed by Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador: her grasp of international issues; her measured and pragmatic demeanor; her quick wit and her fire when needed. None of the others can beat Trump. They need to do the right thing for their country and their party and step aside, giving Haley the chance to take on Trump one on one. Trump supporters might point to that Times/Siena poll, but heres the best part of it: The same poll that had Trump beating Biden in five of the six battleground states by an aggregate 4% showed Haley beating Biden in all six states, and by an aggregate eight points. And this is early days, before most of the country has really gotten to know her. She has the best chance against Trump, and against Biden. * The Republicans understand that hitching themselves to the anti-abortion wagon is a losing proposition. I am unapologetically pro-life, so I say that with regret. But the evidence is clear: Democratic victories in Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and, of course, Ohio were directly tied to overwhelming public support of abortion rights and their success in tying their Republican opponents to the most extreme anti-abortion positions, whether it was true or not. This is particularly true in the presidential race, where South Carolina Senator Tim Scott has pledged to fight for a national abortion ban after 20 weeks. Haley is also pro-life, but as usual has the most sensible approach: Nothings gonna happen if we dont get 60 votes in the Senate, she said in a CBS interview in April, pointing out that, We havent had 60 pro-life senators in 100 years. Why try and divide people further? Exactly. The people have spoken. Republicans should follow Haleys lead and move on with positions people will support, both in their quest for the presidency and lower offices. The Democrats seem stuck with Joe Biden. The Republicans need to take a hard, practical look at the future, and an even more practical look at Nikki Haley. If not, well have another Trump/Biden choice. OMG. Ted Diadiun is a member of the editorial board of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. To reach Ted Diadiun: tdiadiun@cleveland.com Have something to say about this topic? * Send a letter to the editor, which will be considered for print publication. * Email general questions, comments or corrections regarding this opinion article to Elizabeth Sullivan, director of opinion, at esullivan@cleveland.com. Heavy fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas trapped thousands of people in Gaza's hospitals on Sunday, with medics and aid workers warning patients will die in the crippled facilities unless there is a pause in the battle. Bright flares lit up the night sky over Gaza City and blasts echoed across the city, AFP television images showed, as Israel's air and ground campaign to destroy Hamas brought the fight to key medical installations. "If we do not stop this bloodshed immediately with a ceasefire or at the bare minimum a medical evacuation of patients, these hospitals will become a morgue," medical aid group Doctors Without Borders warned Sunday. Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, the biggest in the territory, is "totally surrounded and bombardments are going on nearby," said the hospital's director, Mohammad Abu Salmiya. "The medical team cannot work and the bodies, in their dozens, cannot be managed or buried," he said. Inside the hospital, Doctors Without Borders surgeon Mohammed Obeid said there was no water, power, food, or internet for about 600 post-operative patients, 37-40 babies and 17 people in intensive care. Countless other people are seeking refuge in the hospital grounds. Two babies died in the Al-Shifa neonatal unit after power to their incubators was cut off and a man also died when his ventilator shut down, the surgeon said in an audio message posted Saturday on social media. "We can see actually the smoke around the hospital. They hit everything around the hospital and they hit the hospital many times," he said. A sniper had shot four patients within the hospital, he said, with one man hit in the neck and another in the abdomen. People trying to leave the grounds to seek safety further south in Gaza had faced bombardments, the surgeon said. Grave concern The U.N.'s World Health Organization expressed alarm at the situation in Al-Shifa. "WHO is gravely concerned about the safety of health workers, hundreds of sick and injured patients, including babies on life support, and displaced people who remain inside the hospital," director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement. The Israeli military has denied strikes or a siege at Al-Shifa hospital, and has repeatedly accused Hamas of using medical facilities as command centers and hideouts. Hames has denied the accusations. The Israeli army also said it would "provide the assistance needed" to help "babies in the paediatric department to get to a safer hospital" on Sunday, at the request of Al-Shifa staff. Twenty of Gaza's 36 hospitals are "no longer functioning," according to the U.N.'s humanitarian agency. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society also called on the international community and humanitarian groups to intervene "immediately and urgently" to protect people in Al-Quds Hospital, also in Gaza City. Artillery shelling nearby was "causing the building to shake," the Red Crescent said Saturday, reporting "intense shooting at the hospital" where there were about 500 patients and more than 14,000 people seeking shelter. Infants were facing dehydration because of a lack of breast milk alternatives, it said. Other hospitals crippled by the fighting include the Indonesian hospital in north Gaza, where the director Atef Al-Kahlot said lack of fuel forced the facility to cut power to their desalination plant, medical scanners and lifts. "The hospital is working with 30-40 percent of its capacity," Al-Kahlot said. Plea for hostages Hamas fighters smashed through the militarized border with Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 240 people hostage, according to the most recent Israeli figures. Israel's campaign in response to wipe out Hamas has killed more than 11,000 people, also mostly civilians and thousands of them children, according to the latest figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. The ministry has not updated tolls for two days citing the collapse of hospital services. The families of Israeli hostages spoke of their agony at a rally in Tel Aviv Saturday. "I came here to shout for my kidnapped parents which are already 35 days not here with us, kidnapped in Gaza. We don't know their situation and we need them to be released immediately," said Yair Mozes, whose parents were both kidnapped from Nir Oz, a kibbutz in southern Israel. The intense fighting has accelerated an exodus of people toward Gaza's south. Tens of thousands of Palestinians are fleeing southwards each day through an evacuation corridor opened by the Israeli military, according to the U.N.'s humanitarian affairs organization. In all, the Israeli army said Saturday that in the last three days around 200,000 Palestinians had left southwards from the area of the northern Gaza Strip where fighting is heaviest. However, strikes were also hitting buildings at the southern end of Gaza in Rafah, the area of the densely populated territory to which civilians have been urged to evacuate. "They struck us with a missile, and these are innocent people," said Harb Fojou, standing near the rubble of a destroyed building. Almost 1.6 million people have been internally displaced since October 7, according to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA. This equals about two-thirds of Gaza's population. Around the world, the war has sparked Israeli commemorations for those killed and kidnapped on October 7, and rival pro-Palestinian rallies demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. Police estimated 300,000 marched in London on Sunday to support Palestinians. Many carried placards proclaiming "Stop Bombing Gaza," "Ceasefire Now," or "Free Palestine." Regional tensions The conflict is stoking regional tensions and fears of the war expanding into neighboring countries. Israel fighter jets carried out strikes against "terror infrastructure" targets inside Syria in response to cross-border fire directed at the Golan Heights, the military said on Sunday. Exchanges of cross-border fire have also taken place regularly along the frontier with Lebanon. Speaking at a summit of Arab and Muslim leaders in the Saudi capital Riyadh, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi called on Islamic governments to designate Israel's military a "terrorist organization." Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Saturday warned Iran-backed Hezbollah that launching a war would result in widespread destruction in Lebanon similar to that in Gaza. "If it (Hezbollah) makes this kind of mistake here, the ones who will pay the price will be first and foremost Lebanese citizens," Gallant told soldiers on Israel's northern border in remarks relayed by his office. "What we're doing in Gaza, we can also do in Beirut." (AFP) China's President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden at the G20 Summit in Nusa Dua on the Indonesian island of Bali on Nov. 14, 2022. U.S.-China relations, marred in the past year by a series of inflection points, have reached one of the most tense periods perhaps since 1972, when the two nations established diplomatic ties. A Chinese spy balloon. Close encounters in both the air and the Taiwan Strait. Diplomatic spats over the theft of technology, hacking and trade. A drought of military-to-military talks. Even the lapse of a panda agreement. All point to worsening relations that will hang over next week's meeting between President Joe Biden and China's President Xi Jinping, their first in-person meeting in about a year, and the first time since 2017 that Xi has stepped foot on American soil. But experts and U.S. officials caution not to expect markedly improved relations post-meeting. "We should probably keep a pretty low bar in terms of tangible outcomes and deliverables," said Colleen Cottle, deputy director of the Global China Hub at the Atlantic Council. "This is a meeting that's probably much more about symbolism and showing a commitment among both leaders to maintain high-level communications and keep communications flowing over the course of the next year." Senior U.S. administration officials detailed a handful of agenda items during a briefing with reporters. The leaders are expected to discuss hot-button issues including military communications, human rights and the South China Sea, an official said. "We're not talking about a long list of outcomes or deliverables," a senior administration official told reporters. "The goals here really are about managing the competition, preventing the downside risk of conflict and ensuring channels of communication are open." Neither the U.S. nor China appears to be gearing up for a significantly positive swing in relations, experts said. "I think the administration here is quite clear and sober about the likely outcomes of the meeting," said Jude Blanchette, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies during the think tank's press briefing. "They've been working hard to lower expectations. I think you're seeing something similar on the Chinese side." Despite low expectations, the meeting could pave the way for future discussions about solutions to issues that impact both countries, said Thomas Fingar, a China expert at Stanford University and former chairman of the National Intelligence Council. He cautioned against the idea that a summit's purpose is to solve some "critical, otherwise insoluble problem. It doesn't work that way very often." He explained that in China's political system, lower-level officials often need explicit clearance from the top. "For there really to be movement for lower levels of the system to engage in specifics, it needs a refreshed endorsement from Xi," Fingar said. The meeting itself, though anticipated, was not formally announced by the White House until Friday. Even in recent days, Chinese officials were hesitant to confirm that Xi would attend the meeting with Biden. In a press briefing on Wednesday, China's foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said it "won't be plain sailing to San Francisco, nor can we leave it to autopilot to get us there." Similarly, when White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked during a briefing on Wednesday whether the meeting was "locked in," she said, "I just don't have anything confirmed." When announcing the meeting, Jean-Pierre said in a statement that the leaders would discuss "issues in the U.S.-PRC bilateral relationship, the continued importance of maintaining open lines of communication, and a range of regional and global issues," using the abbreviation for the People's Republic of China. "I don't think there's any indication that things are going to improve between the two sides," said Oriana Skylar Mastro, a China expert at the American Enterprise Institute. She added that neither country is willing to make "any significant concessions" or policy changes "that would be necessary to put the relationship on a different track." There are potential areas to move the needle on U.S.-China relations, experts say. NBC News also previously reported that the U.S. is hoping to announce a commitment from China to cut down on fentanyl coming into the U.S., as well as improve military communications. Military-to-military communications are intended to cut down on the risk of unintended conflict. It comes at a time when a historic number of U.S. warplanes have been intercepted by China. There were more than 180 incidents of Chinese aircraft intercepting U.S. planes since the fall of 2021, said Ely Ratner, the assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, in a Defense Department release. Ratner said that is higher than the number of incidents that took place the decade before that. An interception has been deadly in the past. In 2001, a U.S. military plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet over the South China Sea, killing the Chinese pilot. The Chinese government held the American crew for over a week. "We've raised the importance of (military-to-military) channels in nearly every conversation we've had with the Chinese," a senior administration official said in the press briefing. "This is absolutely critical. And when we're talking about managing risks, about avoiding conflict, this is exactly the sort of communication we need to be having both at senior levels of our two militaries, but also operator to operator." The Biden-Xi meeting comes just weeks after China announced that Li Shangfu would no longer serve as defense minister. Li has been sanctioned by the U.S., and experts say his removal could open the door to better relations on military communication. A defense minister who has not been sanctioned by the U.S. could make it easier to resume military-to-military talks, said David Sacks, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. The Chinese position during Li's tenure had been, "Why would he talk if he's under U.S. sanctions? Remove the sanctions, and then we can have a dialogue," Sacks said. "And so now, presumably his successor will not be under those sanctions, and therefore you don't have that impediment towards resuming mil-mil dialogue." Biden and Xi's meeting also comes in the lead-up to Taiwan's 2024 presidential election in January, followed by the U.S. election. Taiwan is a self-ruling democracy that China claims as its own. U.S. policy maintains that Washington does not support Taiwan's independence, though there is a policy of strategic ambiguity over how the U.S. would respond if China were to invade the island. Experts say that during the meeting Biden may warn Xi against interfering in Taiwan's election, "also to give whoever the winner of the election is an opportunity to put forward a proposal for cross-strait dialogue," Sacks said. When a senior administration official was asked during the briefing about how the Taiwanese election may come up in the Biden-Xi meeting, the officials emphasized U.S. opposition to any potential Chinese interference. "We've been clear publicly and privately that interference in the Taiwan election is something we're extremely concerned about," a senior administration official said. "And of course, we'll plan on delivering that message again." A Boeing 777X airplane takes off during its first test flight from the company's plant in Everett, Washington, January 25, 2020. Boeing and Emirates are reportedly close to a major order of 777 jets, which would further bolster the airline's existing position flying world's largest fleet of the widebody aircraft type. The deal is expected to feature "several dozen" of the jets, according to Bloomberg and Reuters, citing sources familiar with the negotiation. That would add to Emirates' existing order backlog for 155 of the 777X aircraft, the reports noted. Emirates is also reportedly looking to add some of Boeing's 787 aircraft in the order, as well as negotiating with Airbus for an order of A350 planes. Boeing and Emirates did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment on the reports. Former US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, speaks before a third vote to elect a new speaker after he was ousted 17 days ago at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on October 19, 2023. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Sunday he has not yet figured out whether he will rerun for his congressional seat in 2024. "I got the holidays. I will talk to my family ... and then I will make a decision," McCarthy said in a CNN interview, weeks after he was ousted as speaker by a coalition of eight of his fellow Republicans. McCarthy noted it has been more difficult for him to execute his policy agenda as a "rank-and-file" member of Congress: "It's a little harder. You want to make other decisions." McCarthy's comments come days after Republicans on Tuesday lost key races in swing states like Pennsylvania and Virginia. Some viewed Tuesday's election night as a bellwether of what could come in 2024. "We had a bad night, but you learn from it," McCarthy said in the Sunday interview. McCarthy was ousted from his position as speaker in October after he failed to rally the necessary support among other GOP members on a spending bill and then turned to Democrats to garner the votes and avoid a government shutdown. He later said that if the Republican conference wanted him back as speaker, he would consider it. After his removal as speaker, the House scrambled for weeks to find his replacement, delaying policy action including funding approval to financially support Israel at the advent of its war against Hamas. In late October, the Republican-majority House finally settled on Louisiana representative Mike Johnson. An aerial view of buildings destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in the Jabalia camp for Palestinian refugees in Gaza City on Oct. 11, 2023. Yahya Hassouna | AFP | Getty Images With the current war in Gaza proving the most deadly of many flashpoints between Israel and Hamas, historical data shows it's Palestinians who are paying the highest price. More than a month into the war between Israel and Hamas, the scale of death and destruction from the conflict is already unprecedented on many fronts. Following Hamas militants' deadly attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, Israel has struck back, killing more than 11,000 people, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry. The figure has surpassed the total number of Palestinian deaths in the last 15 years resulting from conflicts with Israel, according to data compiled by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA. Israel also suffered tremendous losses, with Oct. 7 described as "the deadliest day for Jews since the holocaust." Approximately 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in a single day that's nearly four times the total number of Israelis killed from such conflicts since 2008, according to data from OCHA. Israel estimates that about 240 hostages seized that day remain unaccounted for. There have been five major military conflicts between Israel and Hamas since the Jewish state unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005. In every major hostility 2008, 2012, 2014, 2021 and now, in 2023 deaths in the Palestinian territories (Gaza and the West Bank) have outnumbered those in Israel by a large margin, the UN data shows. "Typically speaking, year on and year on, the number of Palestinian civilians killed by Israeli forces exceeds Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians, several times over," H.A. Hellyer, a specialist in international security studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told CNBC. The data collated by CNBC shows that more than 18,600 Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank have been killed in conflicts with Israel since 2008. That compares with at least 1,500 killed in Israel over the same period. Since 2008, at least 183,500 Palestinians have been wounded due to the conflicts, while approximately 11,700 in Israel have been injured, according to the UN data. As is often the case with war, it's impossible to get accurate casualty numbers. As it stands, more than 2,000 people are reportedly missing in Gaza, while Israel is still struggling to identify victims weeks after the massacre, as well as trying to rescue the hostages. To get a more accurate picture, CNBC used data from the United Nations, corroborating it with numbers from the Israel Defense Forces and the Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry. The tolls could include deaths that may not have necessarily been perpetrated by the other side. Explaining why the number of casualties is disproportionate, Hellyer said, "Israel has in its possession some of the most advanced military tools in the world, which it has aimed at predominantly civilian areas in Palestinian territories." Israel's Iron Dome air defense system is considered one of the most effective tools in its arsenal. Its defense ministry says it successfully intercepted 97% of all Palestinian rockets fired during one weekend surge of fighting in Gaza last year, while the system recorded a 95.6% success rate during a rocket attack by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in May. In comparison, "Palestinian militant groups, all put together, do not compare to that kind of arsenal," said Hellyer, who is also from the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies. "This is an asymmetric conflict, with Israel having far more destructive weapons. Also, Hamas' rockets mostly hit uninhabited areas while Israel's explode in densely populated areas," explained Paul Scham, a professor of Israel studies at the University of Maryland and a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. The Gaza Strip, a sliver of land hugging the Mediterranean Sea, occupies an area between Israel and Egypt that's about 140 square miles. With 2.3 million people living there, it is one of the most densely populated territories in the world. There are about 3 million Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank, with Israel having a population of roughly 9 million. watch now Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by major world powers, has been the de facto ruler of the Gaza Strip since 2007, after winning elections there a year earlier. There has not been an election since. The IDF told CNBC it's taking "feasible precautions to mitigate civilian casualties," even as it targets Hamas operatives. "Hamas has embedded itself in civilian infrastructure and operates across the entire Gaza Strip," a spokesperson said, adding, "we will strike Hamas wherever necessary." Daniel Byman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the high death toll among Palestinians is partly because Hamas "co-locates military and civilian assets, making retaliation against Hamas hard to separate." Scham said that "after 16 years, they [Hamas] are thoroughly entwined with everything ... They also control all public institutions; even the kindergarten teachers 'are' Hamas." Israel doesn't have the capacity to wipe [Hamas] out, although it will exact a tremendous civilian price on the people of Gaza in its attempt to do so. H.A. Hellyer Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Brian Trautman spent years working 60-hour weeks as a software engineer at companies like Microsoft. Eventually, he realized that the best part of his day was the bus ride to and from work. On one of those rides, Trautman decided he needed to make a change. In May 2008, after two years of saving as much as possible, he sold all of his possessions, including a three-bedroom townhouse in Redmond, Washington and embarked on a two-year sabbatical to sail the world. "[I thought to myself] after two years, I'm going to be ready to come back and know exactly what I want to do for the rest of my life, and I just never came back," Trautman tells CNBC Make It. Trautman purchased a 53-foot sailboat called the SV Delos for $398,000 with a $81,000 down payment. It has three cabins and two bathrooms. He made his final payment on the boat in 2019. Trautman purchased his sailboat in the summer of 2008 in Bellingham, Washington. WE Sail When Trautman set sail, he had two years of savings, or about $48,000. It ran out three different times, he says. He maxed out his credit cards, cashed out his 401K and took odd jobs while traveling the world to survive, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. Then, in 2011, while docked in New Zealand, he met his now wife, Karin. The two started filming their adventures on the boat together and launched their YouTube Channel, Sailing SV Delos. "It was not supposed to be a full-time job. It was just going to sustain us and help fund the trip a little bit. And now it's all we do," Trautman says. The couple uses the money they make from their YouTube channel and crowdfunding to sustain their lifestyle. Living on a sailboat does have its challenges The sailboat has a cabin in the back that serves as Trautman's and his wife's bedroom, a cabin in the front of the vessel for his daughter, and a third cabin for guests The boat also has a kitchen area with a convection oven, dishwasher and toaster. "We have many modern appliances and conveniences that you might find in your own house. Everything's just kind of on a smaller scale," Trautman says. The sailboat has three cabins and two bathrooms onboard. WE Sail Though the SV Delos boasts three refrigerators that allows the family to store a lot of meat or fish, a big problem is fresh fruit and vegetables. The couple can only keep enough to last a few weeks before they have to go back to land for more. Which is a lot harder than it seems. "We live and die by the weather out here, so the weather determines everything we do," Trautman says. "This life is often uncomfortable. It's way more work than living in a house." During a typical shopping trip in town, the couple spent about $500 on groceries that should last them between several weeks and months, depending on what's perishable and what's not. In addition to groceries, the couple spends about $1,900 a month on boat insurance, maintenance, fuel and utilities. They also pay $250 a month for satellite Wi-Fi. Trautman and his family are currently docked in French Polynesia. WE Sail Since he started traveling the world by boat, Trautman has visited over 45 countries and has racked up 70,000 ocean miles. The couple briefly moved back to living on land when Karin was seven months pregnant. They moved to Sweden, where Karin's family lives and where Sierra was born. When Sierra turned four months old, the now family of three returned to life on the sailboat. "It was a huge change to our lifestyle, but very rewarding. We can sit on the back of the boat and see the sharks, the rays, the puffer fish, the dolphins and whales," Trautman said. "She's able to see all these things for real instead of just in a book." To stay connected with their family members on land, Trautman says they have their loved ones visit them when they are docked. For example, his parents came to see them in the Caribbean and Karin's family visited them in the Philippines. The couple stays connected to their family online and by planning trips to places they're docked. Brian Trautman Araya Doheny | Getty Images When Dave Bernstein, 87, started working at the U.S. Postal Service in February 1970, he was making $2.35 an hour. To supplement his income, he also took on other work. Years later, Bernstein decided in 1992 to take a voluntary retirement. "We knew there was going to be a reduced pension because of the early out," said Phyllis Bernstein, Dave's wife, who is 84. But what came next was something the couple did not expect. While Dave was expecting a monthly Social Security check of around $800, it ended up being just about half that amount around $415 even though he had earned the required 40 credits to be fully insured by the program. The benefits were adjusted based on rules for workers who earn both pension and Social Security benefits. More from Personal Finance: Will Social Security be there for me when I retire? Medicare open enrollment may cut retirees' health-care costs How much your Social Security check may be in 2024 The couple, who reside in Tampa, Florida, have had a different retirement than they envisioned due to the lower income. Phyllis kept working until she was 82. They have also turned to family for financial support. Their lifestyle is frugal, with home-cooked meals and cars they kept for 20 years, or "until the wheels were falling off," the couple jokes. But their limited resources have made traveling to Australia and New Zealand Phyllis' dream out of reach. "When he retired, I was working," Phyllis said. "We just couldn't do the travel." Today, Dave is pushing for the Social Security rules that reduced his benefits to be changed. watch now His union, the American Postal Workers Union, has endorsed the Social Security Fairness Act, a bill proposed in Congress that would repeal Social Security rules known as the Windfall Elimination Provision, or WEP, and Government Pension Offset, or GPO, that reduce benefits for workers who had positions where they did not pay Social Security taxes, also called noncovered earnings. The legislation has support from other organizations that represent public workers, including teachers, firefighters and police. The bill has overwhelming bipartisan support in the House of Representatives 300 co-sponsors at a time when that chamber has been politically divided. That support recently prompted House lawmakers to send a letter to leaders of the Ways and Means Committee to request a hearing. The Social Security Fairness Act has also been introduced in the Senate, with support from 49 leaders from both sides of the aisle. Yet some experts say just getting rid of the rules may not be the most effective way of making the system fairer. How the WEP, GPO rules work The WEP applies to how retirement or disability benefits are calculated if a worker earned a retirement or disability pension from an employer who did not withhold Social Security taxes and qualifies for Social Security from work in other jobs where they did pay taxes into the program. Social Security benefits are calculated using a worker's average indexed monthly earnings, and then using a formula to calculate a worker's basic benefit amount. For workers affected by the WEP, part of the replacement rate for the average indexed monthly earnings is brought down to 40% from 90%. The GPO, meanwhile, reduces benefits for spouses and widows or widowers of recipients of retirement or disability pensions from local, state or federal governments. It affects hundreds of thousands, if not millions of public employees that paid into Social Security and essentially are being penalized because they also happen to be public servants. Edward Kelly general president of the International Association of Fire Fighters Under the GPO, Social Security benefits are reduced by two-thirds of the government pension. If two-thirds of the government pension is more than the Social Security benefit, the Social Security benefit may be zero. The impact of the rules is far reaching, according to Edward Kelly, general president of the International Association of Fire Fighters. Many firefighters work in second jobs in the private sector as cab drivers, bar tenders or truck drivers, where they earn credits toward Social Security. "They steal their money, because they're also public employees," said Kelly, who describes his union members as "passionately angry" about the issue. "It affects hundreds of thousands, if not millions of public employees that paid into Social Security and essentially are being penalized because they also happen to be public servants, whether they are teachers, cops and, obviously, firefighters," Kelly said. Why experts say another fix may be better The WEP and GPO rules were intended to make it so workers who pay Social Security taxes for their entire careers are treated the same as those who do not. But under those current rules, some beneficiaries receive lower benefits than they would have if they paid into Social Security for all of their careers, while others receive higher benefits, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. Yet repealing the WEP and GPO rules would result in Social Security benefits that are "overly generous" for noncovered workers, research has found. Part of what may create that advantage is that Social Security benefits are progressive, and therefore replace a larger share of income for lower earners. So someone who only has part of their salary history in Social Security may get a higher replacement rate without considering their pension income. Fully repealing the WEP and GPO rules may also come with higher costs at a time when the program is facing a funding shortfall. The change would add an estimated $150 billion to the program's costs in the next 10 years, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Another way of handling the disparity may be to create a proportional approach to income replacement. Instead of the WEP, workers' benefits would be calculated based on all of their earnings and then adjusted to reflect the share of their careers that were in jobs covered by Social Security. A similar approach may be taken with the GPO. Certain bills on Capitol Hill propose a proportional approach. However, a proportional formula may not solve all the inequities in the current system, according to Emerson Sprick, senior economic analyst at the Bipartisan Policy Center, which has prompted the think tank to work on refining its proposal. 'Extremely complex' to understand An important advantage to reforming the current formulas would be making it easier for workers to understand and plan for their retirements. "It is definitely extremely complex, and very hard for folks preparing for retirement or in retirement, to understand what it means for their benefits," Sprick said. Social Security statements that provide retirement benefit estimates do not take these rules into account. Consequently, many workers find out their benefits are adjusted when they are about to retire. Plenty of major tech companies have been under fire in the last year for their surprise layoff announcements, return-to-office battles and a skepticism about whether the Big Tech dream job is still alive. Even so, they remain some of the top companies where employees feel happiest with their pay. That's according to the latest rankings from Comparably, the employee reviews site, which measured worker sentiment from August 2022 to August 2023 through a series of questions. Workday, the HR tech company, takes the No. 1 spot where workers felt happiest with their pay, according to the analysis. Not only do employees feel they're paid competitively in the market, but they also said they felt paid fairly in comparison with their colleagues. "Fairness is a meaningfully contributing variable to how somebody feels about their employer," says Chad Herring, the chief human resources officer at ZoomInfo, Comparably's parent company. Overall, Herring points out, many tech companies, and especially cybersecurity firms, scored highly on the compensation analysis. These are the top 15 companies where workers are happiest with their pay: Workday Boston Consulting Group Uber Adobe Calix Proofpoint Instacart Chegg Palo Alto Networks SAP AT&T Experian Meta Google Squarespace The top three companies where people feel they're paid well Workday, Boston Consulting Group and Uber also have some of the happiest workers in general, according to Comparably data, which considers compensation as well as factors like work-life balance, alignment with company values, holistic benefits and others. Meta and Google fell from their 2022 spots (when they were ranked No. 3 and No. 5, respectively), but they remain in the top 15 companies where workers are satisfied with their pay. While workers may feel satisfied with their compensation there, the two tech giants did not fall into the top 100 companies with the happiest workers overall. Workers at the top 100 companies with good pay scored their satisfaction at 87.5 on a 100-point scale, compared with the overall average score of 63.5 across Comparably data. Employees expressed their sentiments by answering questions such as: Do you believe you're paid fairly? How often do you get a raise? Are you satisfied with your benefits? Does your company give annual bonuses? If applicable, are you satisfied with your stock or equity? Herring says companies that not only pay well but are transparent about their pay scales across the organization rank highly on the Comparably list this year. Many are headquartered in California, which enacted a salary range law in January 2023, which applies to employers with 15 or more workers and at least one in California. And organizations that have valued salary transparency and pay equity for years now are pulling ahead. Herring notes companies like Workday, Adobe and AT&T signed the White House Equal Pay Pledge in 2016 to commit to better hiring, promotion, and pay policies to close the racial and gender wage gaps. These companies were "focusing on salary transparency and doing gender and race pay equity analysis long before it was legally required," Herring says. "I do think that has a positive impact for employees on how they feel about their employer." He hopes more businesses commit to pay transparency and equitable pay practices: "I do think it's a meaningful causal contributor to how employees feel about their company," he says. "Employees overwhelmingly respond to employers being proactive about those elements of their business. So my suggestion would be, for any company that's wondering, 'Should I do it even though I don't have to?' My advice is, you absolutely should do it." Want to be smarter and more successful with your money, work & life? Sign up for our new newsletter! Get CNBC's free Warren Buffett Guide to Investing, which distills the billionaire's No. 1 best piece of advice for regular investors, do's and don'ts, and three key investing principles into a clear and simple guidebook. Check out: Bosses want people back in the office, but employees are finding a workaroundits called coffee badging NEW MEXICO Biologists keep close eye on wandering Mexican wolf ALBUQUERQUE Northern New Mexico or bust that seems to be the case for at least one Mexican gray wolf that is intent on wandering beyond the boundaries set for managing the rarest subspecies of gray wolf in North America. Federal and state wildlife managers confirmed on Nov. 2 that the endangered female wolf has traveled north of Interstate 40 and beyond a recovery zone that spans parts of southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. It was documented crossing the interstate west of Albuquerque last week and most recently was tracked to a mountainous area west of Jemez Springs. This marks the second time the wolf identified as F2754 has ventured north. It reached the foothills of the Rocky Mountains near Taos, New Mexico, last winter before it was caught and released back into the wild in Arizona. Both state and federal wildlife managers said they were monitoring the wolf's movements and have yet to decide whether it will be captured again and relocated. Environmentalists were excited about the wolf's journey, saying the animals have a natural inclination to roam and that this illustrates the species can thrive outside what they consider arbitrarily designated boundaries in New Mexico and Arizona. Ranchers in New Mexico and Arizona who have long complained that wolves are responsible for dozens of livestock deaths every year are concerned about any expansion of the wolves' range. The latest survey results released earlier this year by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service show there were at least 241 Mexican wolves roaming the southwestern U.S., marking the seventh straight year that the numbers have trended upward. Australian hydrogen company outlines expansion, touts research SANTA FE An Australia-based company plans to build a campus in New Mexico to expand its research into hydrogen fuel as a heat source for industry, touting a proprietary chemical process without greenhouse gas emissions. Hydrogen-technology research and developer Star Scientific Limited signed a letter of intent with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham while she was in Sydney attending a summit on Oct. 26 on hydrogen and the energy sector. Andrew Horvath, global group chairman at Star Scientific, said the new facilities in Albuquerque would scale up research and development of its hydrogen technology for generating heat. Horvath said the company is developing a chemical catalyst system for use in combining hydrogen and oxygen to produce heat directly, with water as a byproduct. The system is different from hydrogen fuel cells that provide electricity, he said. The New Mexico governor's office said in a statement that the company is looking to acquire enough land to place up to 10 buildings for laboratory research, testing and eventual manufacturing, and possibly qualify for public incentives that underwrite infrastructure investments and job training. Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, has enthusiastically embraced support for hydrogen-energy ventures to create local jobs. But there's been concern and criticism from environmentalists who say hydrogen presents its own pollution and climate risks depending on production methods and precautions against leaks. UTAH Former county clerk is accused of shredding, mishandling ballots CHEYENNE, Wyo. Utah prosecutors have charged a former county clerk with three felonies and other counts for allegedly shredding and otherwise mishandling ballots from the 2020 and 2022 elections. The alleged misdeeds involved ballots cast by about 5,000 voters in Juab County, a desert area of west-central Utah with about 12,000 residents. Former Juab County Clerk/Auditor Alaina Lofgran is accused of allowing ballots to be shredded soon after the 2022 election in violation of a law requiring their preservation for at least 22 months. The law is for aiding recounts. Lofgran also improperly stored ballots from the 2020 election, keeping them in a basement storage room accessible by multiple county employees and easily visible, prosecutors allege in charging documents filed in Utah state court on Nov. 2. State law requires ballots and election returns to be locked in a safe and secure place. A Republican, Lofgran was Juab County clerk from 2015 to this year. She did not seek reelection in 2022. The charges followed a 2022 lawsuit against Juab and several other Utah counties seeking 2020 election records. During the lawsuit, a state judge told Lofgran to preserve records from the 2020 election, according to the charging document. Mormon church sued over how it uses tithing contributions CHEYENNE, Wyo. A federal lawsuit filed on Oct. 31 alleges The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints investment arm misused hundreds of thousands of dollars donated by three men by investing the money instead of using it for charitable purposes as they claim was promised. The legal action brings more scrutiny about how the faith known widely as the Mormon church handles its vast financial holdings bolstered by so-called "tithing" from by members who contribute 10% of their income. The church doesn't publicly disclose details about its finances. This new lawsuit against the business and investment entities under the church in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City is similar to one filed in federal court in California by James Huntsman, brother of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, Jr., that recently scored a partial success on appeal and remains pending. That lawsuit seeks the return of $5 million he donated before he left the church. In February, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission fined the church and Ensign Peak $5 million for using shell companies to obscure the size of the investment portfolio under church control. The church agreed to pay $1 million and Ensign Peak will pay $4 million. Church officials didn't immediately respond for comment on the lawsuit. The church has previously defended how it handles member contributions, calling Huntsman's claims baseless while claiming contributions go to a variety of religious purposes including missionary work, education, humanitarian causes and construction of churches, temples and other buildings important to church work. At issue in both lawsuits is whether the church's investments in stocks, bonds, real estate and agriculture reflect the wishes of its donors. The lawsuit is filed by Daniel Chappell, of Virginia, and Masen Christensen and John Oaks, both of Utah. They claim the three of them combined have donated about $350,000 to the church over the past decade. Their lawsuit seeks class-action certification, potentially involving millions of church members, and an independent entity to oversee collection and use of church donations. ARIZONA Cattle grazing ruin endangered birds habitat, lawsuit says TUCSON Two environmental groups have filed a lawsuit against the federal Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for allegedly failing to protect the habitat for two endangered species of birds along Arizona's Gila River. The Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity and Maricopa Audubon Society said damage from cattle grazing is decimating the streams that the southwestern willow flycatcher and western yellow-billed cuckoo rely on. The lawsuit filed on Oct. 31 in U.S. District Court in Tucson targets seven grazing allotments spanning 15 miles of the river downstream from Coolidge Dam. The environmental groups said field surveys this year and in 2022 documented open gates, downed fences and extensive damage to the Gila River's riparian vegetation. Officials with the Center for Biological Diversity said they filed two notices of intent to sue the agencies following the surveys, but cattle grazing continued along the river that extends into New Mexico. They said up to 75% of Arizona's resident wildlife species depend on riparian areas for their survival. The Gila River is a nearly 650-mile-long tributary of the Colorado River and flows through parts of Arizona and New Mexico. Calls to the Bureau of Land Management and the Fish and Wildlife Service seeking comment on the lawsuit weren't immediately returned. India says yes to UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements in Palestine India on Saturday (November 11, 2023) voted in support of the United Nations' resolution that condemned Israels activities of settlement in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan. UN assembly in progress/Image Credit: twitter.com/UNDGACM_EN The draft resolution was ratified on Thursday, November 9. India was among the 145 countries which voted in favour of the UN resolution. Titled Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the occupied Syrian Golan, the UN draft resolution was passed by a huge majority. Canada, Hungary, Israel, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, and the United States of America, opposed the resolution. Eighteen nations did not participate in the voting. Lauding Indias stand on the UN voting, Trinamool Congress MP Saket Gokhale wrote: Very glad that Republic of India voted in favour of the resolution. He also shared a photo of the voting on the resolution at the UN. Israels occupation of Palestine through settlers is ILLEGAL. Israels apartheid must end NOW (sic), Gokhale said. Previous month, India chose not to vote on a resolution at the UN General Assembly proposed by Jordan, calling for an immediate humanitarian truce in the Israel-Hamas conflict. India abstained from voting, pointing out that the resolution didn't address the presence of the Hamas militant group in the region. The resolution, titled "Protection of civilians and upholding legal and humanitarian obligations," saw widespread approval, with 120 nations voting in favour, 14 against, and 45 abstaining. Maebashi, Nov 13 ( News On Japan ) - The main building of Shakasonji, resting place of rakugo artist Sanyutei Enraku, burnt to the ground on Sunday. Security staff reported the blaze at around 4:30 p.m. at the historic temple in Maebashi City, Gunma Prefecture, where 13 fire engines battled the blaze that resulted in the total destruction of the main hall, built 90 years ago. There were no reports of injuries, and the fire did not spread to neighboring houses. Shakasonji is a Soto Zen Buddhist temple where the grave of the late rakugo artist Sanyutei Enraku, who passed away in September last year, is located. They say every guy has a story about a crazy ex-girlfriend. And what about women? someone asks, on hearing this claim. Dont they have stories about crazy ex-boyfriends? No, the wise crowd answers. Because the women who did have stories like that all ended up dead. Those are some inaccurate stereotypes right there. For starters, plenty of men and women are gay. Also, consider the following four angry ex-boyfriends. Not one of them murdered their ex. Though, most of them tried. Some of them got close. And when one guy failed, a whole lot of other people ended up dead. 4 The Parking Ticket Revenge In December 2009, Jennifer Fitzgerald received word that she had a parking ticket for leaving her car at OHare airport. Fitzgerald had not in fact parked a car at OHare. But the previous year, her boyfriend Brandon had bought a car cheaply from her uncle and inked her down as the owner. Apparently, post-breakup, hed abandoned the $600 clunker at the airport parking lot. Jennifer now headed over to the airport to move the car, as the notice told her to. The airport didnt let her. Brandon hadnt simply parked the car in the usual passenger lot but in a special section for American Airlines, the company he worked for. Jennifer had no access to the lot, she couldnt move the car, and so, the Chevy Monte Carlo accumulated more and more tickets. Normally, the airport is supposed to have a car impounded if left in one spot for a long enough time, but someone with employee access periodically moved the car from one spot to another. Alan C./Flickr Who could have done this? That remains a true mystery. Months passed. Years passed. More notices of tickets arrived at Jennifers door, and the fines compounded. The total topped $105,000. She disputed the matter in court, and after considerable wrangling, a court reduced the amount to $4,470. In the legal world, thats known as a huge victory, (they reduced the fine by 95 percent!) but if the court agreed she wasnt at fault here, maybe she shouldnt have had to pay anything? As it was, the court shifted $1,600 of the burden to Brandon, then ordered Jennifer to pay $78 a month for the next three years. That could work out to be more spiritually draining than paying the whole thing off in one lump sum. Advertisement 3 A Guy Gave His Ex AIDS (No, Not That Way) Dr. Dick Schmidt was having an affair with his nurse, which is often frowned upon in the medical world. He then treated this nurse medically as his patient, while she bore him a child, which is also generally frowned upon in the medical world. Once they broke up, he injected her with HIV-positive blood in an attempt to murder her, which is almost universally frowned upon in the medical world. He obtained this blood from another patient of his. He managed to inject it into his employee/patient/ex-mistress Janice Trahan under the guise of giving her an injection of vitamin B12. When the first symptoms hit, Trahan sought medical care from Schmidt himself. He administered an HIV test, which came back positive, and he told her it was negative. Markus Spiske/Unsplash He might have been trying to kill her husband, too. Advertisement Advertisement Later, Trahan realized she did in fact have HIV (as well as hepatitis C, which Schmidt had obtained from another patient and also injected into her). She connected the dots, and while it should have been hard to prove Schmidt had been responsible for the infection, investigators were able to thanks to a brand-new field of science viral RNA. You see, this story happened back in 1994. This meant both that forensics were slightly more primitive and an HIV diagnosis represented a bigger danger. The HIV in Trahans blood shared RNA with Schmidts AIDS patient. Dr. Schmidt was found guilty of attempted murder and was sentenced to 50 years in prison. In 2015, he was up for early release, and Trahan was still alive to testify. Schmidt did not receive parole. As far as weve been able to determine, Trahan is still alive today. Schmidt, on the other hand, died this past March in prison. Advertisement 2 The Exploding Vibrator Terry Allen Lester came up with the perfect crime. Having broken up with his ex, and with the landlord demanding that he vacate their Minnesota residence, he departed like he was supposed to, but he left something behind. It was a bag, containing a box labeled Christmas Gifts. Inside the box was a sex toy. Into the sex toy, he had inserted gunpowder and buckshot. When his ex used the vibrator, he planned to detonate it. Exactly how he planned to detonate it was unclear. When police examined the improvised explosive, they failed to find any element that would set it off. They also had trouble pinning an attempted murder charge on the guy because they were unable to determine exactly which of his several exes he ultimately planned on using the vibrator. Waseca District They also found a second pink vibrator, marked Merry X-mas Bitch. Advertisement Advertisement Still, gunpowder is a dangerous substance to go slinging around, and they charged him with owning an incendiary device and issuing terroristic threats. He pleaded it down to four years of prison, after which he went on to a career of dealing meth. You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close 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. TOKYO, Nov 13 ( News On Japan ) - A 51-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of stealing an ambulance from a hospital in Koshigaya, Saitama Prefecture. The self-proclaimed company employee from Koshigaya is suspected of stealing the vehicle, worth about 21 million yen, from a hospital parking lot in the city early Sunday morning. Emergency responders who had transported a patient to the hospital returned to the parking lot to find the ambulance missing and immediately reported it to police at around 1.30 a.m. Police officers searching the area later found the vehicle 400 meters from the hospital parked on a road with the man in the driver's seat. The apprehended suspect, who was found with alcohol levels above the legal limit, has denied the allegations during interrogation, claiming, "There's no mistake I was in the driver's seat, but I don't remember driving or stealing it." Police are investigating his actions and motives prior to the alleged crime. An American woman has sparked a heated debate about British food and the UK's most popular chain restaurants after insisting that it is 'all terrible.' Charlie, who grew up in the South and now lives in New Jersey, went viral on TikTok after claiming her meals were less than to be desired during her trip abroad. The 24-year-old mom noted that she was shown around by locals who took her to a Wetherspoons pub and Toby Carvery, both chain restaurants. 'It's been really popular to s**t on British food in the last like year. But I'm here to tell you you're not wrong, OK?' she began her nearly three-minute video. Charlie, 24, from New Jersey, went viral on TikTok after insisting British food is 'all terrible' 'I went to the UK. I had a variety of food while I was there. I was shown around by natives,' she said, insisting everything she ate was less than desirable The mom noted that she went to a Wetherspoons pub and Toby Carvery, both popular chain restaurants 'I went to the UK. I had a variety of food while I was there. I was shown around by natives. So for all you Brits out there, I did go to Wetherspoons. I did go to Toby's. I did have a "proper Chinese," she added in a British accent. 'All terrible.' For American viewers, Charlie explained that Wetherspoons was the equivalent of a British Chili's or an Applebee's, saying it was 'nothing special.' 'I did go to a Toby's,' she continued. 'If you've ever been to a Golden Corral, that's the best I can explain it.' Charlie argued that British people claim the US doesn't have carveries, but it does and they're 'better than probably anything that they could ever imagine.' 'If you've ever been to a Brazilian steakhouse in the United States, it doesn't compare,' she said. 'A Toby's could never touch it.' The content creator went on to describe Nando's another chain that is also available in the US as being a 'mild version of Chipotle.' 'It's really nothing great,' she said. 'But I will tell you that was the only thing I could eat consistently in the UK. Everything else was a f*****g gamble. Y'all do not use seasonings.' Charlie shared that she also had Chinese food in Bath, a city in England, and the only word she could think of to describe it was 'suicide.' 'It's not good,' she said, making gagging noises. 'Not even the worst Chinese I've had in America could compare to the awfulness. It's really as bad as you think.' 'I never tried Indian food while I was there,' she noted. 'So I won't completely knock the UK because as far as I know the Indian food in the UK is hitting.' Charlie's hot take sparked a heated debate in the comments. Some viewers agreed with her, while others insisted British food is great, and she just ate at the wrong places Charlie's video has been viewed one million times and has received more than 7,600 comments since it was posted on November 1. Many critics were quick to agree with her and slam British food, including some Americans who live there. 'An American's guide to good British food (from someone living in the UK for 1.5 years): 1. Nando's that's it,' one person wrote. 'They literally conquered the spice trades JUST TO NOT USE ANY OF THEMMMMM,' someone else joked. 'My mom has traveled to like 50 countries for work and she said the food in England was the worst she's ever had anywhere in the world,' another added. Others thought the food was great and questioned her taste. 'Who doesn't love fish and chips and a sausage roll though? Or a full English?' one fan asked. 'I had the best food there! Went to the Pheasant Inn near Heathrow. Best meal of my life! Went to the Foxes Den in Bristol. Phenomenal!' someone else shared. 'I was in England recently and we had some amazing British food. Pie and mash, bangers and mash, fish and chips,' another agreed. There were also plenty of people who felt she couldn't be taken seriously because she went to mostly chain restaurants. 'I'm an American living in the UK and Wetherspoons is just for getting drunk on pitchers and mid onion rings,' one expat explained. 'If someone's been telling you to go to Toby's and Spoons for real British food, they were pranking you and you've gone hook, line, and sinker,' someone else responded. Read more: Travellers take over Richmond Green as they park nearly 40 caravans A traveller has converted a double-decker bus into a second home after feeling 'imprisoned' by his council house - and he lives 'like a king' on board. But the red London bus has now been towed away after four years of complaints by neighbours in Falmouth, Cornwall, who said they were 'intimidated' by its occupant. Neil Wainwright, 61, said he felt 'imprisoned' in his council house, and preferred to live in the bus - which was parked on a public street in Glasney Road. His neighbours were less than impressed with the addition, and has campaigned for the bus to be removed from the residential estate since it was parked up in 2019. Concerns began when it emerged Mr Wainright - a former electromechanical engineer - had powered the bus with an extension cable leading from his empty council home's letter box. A traveller has converted a double-decker bus into a second home after feeling 'imprisoned' by his council house - and he lives 'like a king' on board He kitted the double-decker bus out with a toilet, shower and fully working kitchen, and crafted two areas into a bedroom and a living room. Mr Wainwright's renovations cost a total of 32,000. The bus is now in a car park, and the traveller says he lives 'like a king', explaining that everything in the vehicle is 'made out of things I've found'. He told The Sun: 'Life is great on the bus, I love it. 'I want to show people you dont need loads of money to live well. 'I'm a gypsy. My name's Wainwright. It means wagon maker and I've lived in wagons all my life.' The bus has now been moved to New County Hall in Truro, Cornwall, where it is parked in a car park. Announcing the move, councillor Jayne Kirkham apologised it had taken so long. The red London bus has now been towed away after four years of complaints by neighbours in Falmouth, Cornwall, who said they were 'intimidated' by its occupant Neil Wainwright, 61, said he felt 'imprisoned' in his council house, and preferred to live in the bus - which was parked on a public street in Glasney Road His neighbours were less than impressed with the addition, and has campaigned for the bus to be removed from the residential estate since it was parked up in 2019 She said: 'The Glasney bus has gone!! Finally. After a lot of sorting by an awful lot of people and this pushy councillor. 'Sorry it took so long to resolve a situation that was very difficult for everyone involved.' Ms Kirkham added that Mr Wainwright had now been moved to a 'safe place' where he 'had access to services'. Concerns began when it emerged Mr Wainright - a former electromechanical engineer - had powered the bus with an extension cable leading from his empty council home's letter box He kitted the double-decker bus out with a toilet, shower and fully working kitchen, and crafted two areas into a bedroom and a living room Speaking previously, Mr Wainwright said: 'I want to live in my wagon, I don't want to live in a house. Five years I have been imprisoned in a house.' Local residents took to social media to celebrate the news it had finally gone. One posted: 'That's great! It'll be safer for everyone using that road, and the residents can enjoy their homes again.' Royal fans are convinced the Princess of Wales paid subtle tribute to the Queen at the Remembrance Service in London this morning. The Princess of Wales, 41, debuted a new pair of statement pearl earrings as she appeared on the Whitehall balcony with Queen Camilla. The mother-of-three looked elegant in a black military-inspired Catherine Walker coat - which she first wore in 2019 - and a matching hat with a large bow. However, it was the royal's statement pearl earrings - featuring the Prince of Wales feather design - which really caught the attention of royal fans. On X, formerly known as Twitter, royal fan Giorgia pointed out how similar Kate's earrings are to a brooch once belonging to the Queen. Princess of Wales, 41, wore a pair of statement pearl and diamond earrings to the Remembrance Service - which royal fans think have been adapted from one of the Queen's brooches Kate Middleton wore three poppies on her military-style jacket for Remembrance Day The Italian social media user- who runs the account CoutureAndRoyals - said: 'I think that The Princess of Wales is wearing earrings from a same demi-Parure to Queen Elizabeths Diamond & Pearl Leaf brooch. 'We have never seen them before, or knew they existed, but the shape is the same of the leaves of the brooch.' The Queen wore the statement brooch - containing three large pearls surrounded by diamond leaves - on her 73rd birthday during a visit to Seoul in South Korea. In response, one follower gushed: 'My mind went to the same brooch!!' Another suggested: 'Perhaps the brooch is detachable and the earrings are leaves from the brooch?' This wouldn't be the first time the Princess of Wales has personalised a piece of jewellery from the royal collection. In 2019, the then Duchess of Cambridge wore a pair of diamond and sapphire earrings once belonging to Princess Diana to attend the National Emergencies Trust launch. After inheriting the priceless earrings, the royal turned her late mother-in-law's earrings into chic drops - where Diana once wore them as studs. Pictured: the Queen wearing the Diamond & Pearl Leaf brooch on her 73rd birthday during a state visit to South Korea This wouldn't be the first time the Princess of Wales has personalised a piece of jewellery from the royal collection. A two minute silence took place at 11am - with 10,000 veterans and 800 armed forces personnel members from all three services will march past the Cenotaph to the Horse Guards Parade On X, formerly known as Twitter, royal fan Giorgia pointed out how similar Kate's earrings are to a brooch once belonging to the Queen The Queen's stunning brooch features three pearls placed in the centre of a pave-set leaf, made partly from yellow gold. Kate first wore the piece alongside Princess Diana's diamond and pearl drop earrings for a trip to Belgium where she and her husband Prince William visited the Commonwealth War Graves Commisions's Tyne Cot Cemetery in 2017. The Princess of Wales also wore the brooch five years later at a special service to commemorate the start of the Queen's lying-in-state at Westminster Hall. On the lapel of her Catherine Walker military-inspired coat, Kate opted for a three red poppies to pay tribute to all those who have lost their lives in conflict while fighting for their country. The mother-of-three also wore a silver brooch, which she was awarded when she became Commodore-in-Chief of the Fleet Air Arm earlier this year. Pictured: Queen Camilla and the Princess of Wales seen attending the annual Remembrance Sunday Service at The Cenotaph Kate, 41, maintained a sombre expression for the occasion and dressed in an all black outfit as she arrived at the Remembrance Sunday Service at Cenotaph in London On the lapel of her Catherine Walker military-inspired coat, Kate opted for a three red poppies to pay tribute to all those who have lost their lives in conflict while fighting for their country The royal styled her hair in a chic updo and completed her ensemble with a large black hat, with an elegant velvet bow. The royals maintained a period of two minutes' silence to mark the fallen soldiers. As the royal family attended the Cenotaph to take part in the service, they joined army officers and prominent UK politicians. Among them were prime minister Rishi Sunak and leader of the opposition, Sir Keir Starmer. Former UK prime ministers including Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and Sir John Major were also present. Meanwhile across the pond, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been paying tribute to veterans in the US and around the world this week. On Thursday the Duke and Duchess of Sussex joined the Navy SEAL Foundation for the official opening of a new training base, known as the 'West Coast Warrior Fitness Programme' facility, ahead of Veterans Day on November 11. The couple were meeting veterans, servicemen and women and and their loved-ones at Camp Pendleton. Wreaths of poppies have already been taken through the gates of Downing Street ahead of the service as a long line of veterans and armed forces personnel members - snaking from near the gates of Downing Street to down past Horse Guards Parade - has assembled. Royal fans noticed a sweet moment between Queen Camilla and the Princess of Wales during Remembrance Sunday service on Sunday. The royals stood together on a balcony at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office during the service at the Cenotaph, in Whitehall, London. Kate, 41, marked her respects in a black ensemble with a red metal poppy pinned to her chest. Camilla, who also paid her respects donning all black, appeared to smile at Kate as they turned to head back inside the building after the service. Many took to Twitter to acknowledge the sweet moment between the monarch and the future Queen. Royals fans noticed a sweet moment between Queen Camilla and the Princess of Wales during Remembrance Sunday service on Sunday One person wrote: 'The Royal Family depart from the Cenotaph following the Remembrance Service. I love the Queens smile for Catherine here.' In another post they said: 'A nice moment shared between the Queen and Princess Catherine on the balcony today.' Another wrote: 'I love their bond ' While someone else said: 'Love and Respect .' On the lapel of her Catherine Walker military-inspired coat, Kate opted for a three red poppies to pay tribute to all those who have lost their lives in conflict while fighting for their country. The mother-of-three also wore a silver brooch, which she was awarded when she became Commodore-in-Chief of the Fleet Air Arm earlier this year. The royal styled her hair in a chic updo and completed her ensemble with a large black hat, with an elegant velvet bow. The royals maintained a period of two minutes' silence to mark the fallen soldiers. As the royal family attended the Cenotaph to take part in the service, they joined army officers and prominent UK politicians. Many took to Twitter to acknowledge the sweet moment between the monarch and the future Queen Among them were prime minister Rishi Sunak and leader of the opposition, Sir Keir Starmer. Former UK prime ministers including Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and Sir John Major were also present. Meanwhile across the pond, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been paying tribute to veterans in the US and around the world this week. On Thursday the Duke and Duchess of Sussex joined the Navy SEAL Foundation for the official opening of a new training base, known as the 'West Coast Warrior Fitness Programme' facility, ahead of Veterans Day on November 11. The couple were meeting veterans, servicemen and women and and their loved-ones at Camp Pendleton. The royals stood together on a balcony at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office during the service at the Cenotaph, in Whitehall, London Kate, 41, marked her respects in a black ensemble with a red metal poppy pinned to her chest The pair appeared to enjoy a sweet moment together despite looking sombre throughout the service The Princess of Wales styled her hair in an elegant updo and completed her outfit with a black hat with velvet bow detail Queen Camilla wore a single red poppy, diamond brooch and pearl earrings for today's ceremony King Charles (pictured) leads the Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph just hours after more than 100 people were arrested during protests in London Wreaths of poppies have already been taken through the gates of Downing Street ahead of the service as a long line of veterans and armed forces personnel members - snaking from near the gates of Downing Street to down past Horse Guards Parade - has assembled. A two minute silence took place at 11am - with 10,000 veterans and 800 armed forces personnel members from all three services will march past the Cenotaph to the Horse Guards Parade. The Express Tribune, November 10, 2023 Amidst the deportation drive initiated by the Government of Pakistan against illegal immigrants, including Afghan nationals, Amnesty International on Friday urged Islamabad to "halt the continued detentions, deportations, and [alleged] widespread harassment of Afghan refugees". In a statement, Livia Saccardi, Amnesty Internationals Deputy Regional Director for Campaigns for South Asia, accused Pakistan of using Afghan refugees as "political pawns", emphasising the risk they face upon return to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan amidst a crackdown on human rights. The human rights group cited reports of alleged harassment in holding centers and instances where legal migrants possessing Proof of Registration (POR) identity documents were allegedly targeted. The organisation claimed that a 17-year-old boy detained in a Karachi raid on November 3, despite being born in Pakistan and holding a UNHCR-issued POR card. The Amnesty claimed that the family was denied access to the detention center, and the boy was deported the following day with his whereabouts remaining unknown. Livia Saccardi warned that if the Pakistani government does not halt deportations immediately, it will deny thousands of at-risk Afghans, especially women and girls, access to safety, education, and livelihood. The backdrop of these supposed apprehensions is the international community's reluctance to recognise the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan, which has faced allegations of human rights violations, particularly concerning girls' education and freedom of expression. Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar has openly addressed the non-cooperation of the Afghan Taliban regime in addressing the recent spike in terrorist incidents in Pakistan, particularly attributed to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Kakar linked the increase in terror incidents to the Taliban's return to power in 2021, stressing that the expulsion of undocumented Afghans was a response to the unwillingness of the Taliban-led administration to act against terrorists using Afghan soil for attacks in Pakistan. Despite Pakistan's continuous expression of concerns about militant safe havens in Afghanistan, the Taliban-led administration has not taken sufficient action, leading to the deportation measures. The Doha Accord, facilitating the US exit from Afghanistan in 2021, had included assurances from the Taliban that Afghan soil would not be used for terrorism against any country, including Pakistan. The Princess of Wales paid sweet tribute to Prince William at the Remembrance Sunday Service in London today. The royal mother-of-three, 41, looked effortlessly elegant in a black military-inspired Alexander McQueen coat as she appeared on the balcony in front of the Cenotaph with Queen Camilla. Kate teamed her coat, which she first wore in 2019, with a pair of pearl and diamond earrings - thought to have once belonged to the late Queen. Along with her trio of red poppies, the Princess of Wales finished off her ensemble with a black Philip Treacy hat - complete with a black velvet bow. The royal has owned the timelessly elegant accessory since 2006 - when she wore it watch her future husband's passing out parade at Sandhurst. Pictured: Princess of Wales, 41, watched her husband with pride during the Remembrance Sunday service this morning Pictured: Kate Middleton first wore the black Philip Treacy hat to watch Prince William in his Passing Out Parade at Sandhurst in 2006 At the time, the mother-of-three had only just graduated from St Andrews University and was working as an accessory buyer for the high street store Jigsaw. This event marked one of her first public appearances as Prince William's girlfriend - indicating the seriousness of their relationship. Prince William was among dozens of trainees officers at Sandhurst who took part in the military ceremony, which was also attended by the late Queen. For the occasion, Kate paired her velvet hat with a red coat, black lace-trimmed dress, leather gloves and knee-high boots. In a sweet nod to Prince William's military service, the Princess chose today to rewear her vintage hat - as she watched her husband laying a wreath at the war memorial with pride. The mother-of-three also wore a silver brooch, which she was awarded when she became Commodore-in-Chief of the Fleet Air Arm earlier this year. The royals maintained a period of two minutes' silence to mark the fallen soldiers. As the royal family attended the Cenotaph to take part in the service, they joined army officers and prominent UK politicians. In 2006, Kate paired her velvet hat with a red coat, black lace-trimmed dress, leather gloves and knee-high boots The key event in Prince William's military career was also attended by his late grandmother The Queen Among them were prime minister Rishi Sunak and leader of the opposition, Sir Keir Starmer. Former UK prime ministers including Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and Sir John Major were also present. Following Prince William's passing out parade in 2006, the future king was described as a 'normal guy' by his peers of trainee officers. Junior Under Officer Angela Laycock, who was in William's Blenheim Platoon, described how the young royal fitted in with the other cadets. She said: 'I've not really noticed anything different to be honest. The first loaded march we had a bit of a detour to avoid some photographers.He's just a normal guy that gets stuck in like everybody else. 'The only difference is that sometimes we'll see his name in the paper and you didn't notice hed been off that evening doing a charity do. I don't know how he manages to fit that in.' The royal family, like many people in the UK, wear poppies to commemorate Remembrance Day. The Princess of Wales was spotted with three pinned to her lapel as she stood on a balcony at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office during the service at the Cenotaph, in Whitehall, London, today. While there is no official rule or requirement regarding the number of poppies to be worn, it is not uncommon to see members of the royal household donning multiple poppies. Some individuals choose to wear multiple poppies to represent different aspects of remembrance. FEMAIL breaks down all the possible reasons that Kate might wear three poppies... The Princess of Wales was spotted with three pinned to her lapel as she stood on a balcony at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office during the service at the Cenotaph, in Whitehall, London , today To symbolise each service in the war Although the Palace has never confirmed the reason Kate wears three poppies, it is thought they may symbolise the army, navy, and air force. The late Queen traditionally wore five poppies which was thought to represent each service in the war (the army, navy, and air force and the Civil Defence and women). Honour family members who died Another theory as to why Kate wears multiple brooches is to honour family members who have fought and died in wars. The Princess of Wales' great-grandmother had three brothers who were killed in action during the First World War. The Princess viewed letters from her ancestors during a poignant visit to the Imperial War Museum in 2018. However, the reason for Kate wearing multiple poppies has never been confirmed by the palace. Another theory is that they wear multiple brooches to honour family members who have fought and died in wars (Kate during the National Service Of Remembrance at The Cenotaph in 2022) The most senior dignitary While some royal experts have suggested her choice to wear multiple poppies could be a way to symbolise that she is the most senior dignitary at the ceremonies. In 2014, Middleton wore a single poppy to attend the annual Remembrance Sunday Services. In 2015, she added two more of the crimson-colored flowers to her lapel, and she donned the colorful trio of followers until 2019. Changing it up that year, she opted to wear the Codebreakers Brooch to honor her grandmother, Valerie Glassborow, while in 2020, she reverted to wearing her three poppies. Generations affected by war While others have suggested donning three poppies could represent the past, present, and future generations affected by war. As for why the Royals wear their poppies on their left-hand side, it's commonly thought to be because this positions them closer to the heart. While others have suggested donning three poppies could represent the past, present, and future generations affected by war (Kate attending the National Service of Remembrance at The Cenotaph in 2021) As Kate stands on the balcony paying her respects to those who died in conflicts, she might just want to make sure the poppies are seen (pictured at National Service of Remembrance 2020) Changing it up in 2019, she opted to wear the Codebreakers Brooch to honor her grandmother, Valerie Glassborow Visibility Another theory is simply because a corsage of poppies is much more visible than one. As Kate stands on the balcony paying her respects to those who died in conflicts, she might just want to make sure the poppies are seen. This theory may have some weight to it as Kate isn't the only Senior Royal who wears more than one. Similarly, Queen Camilla is often seen wearing two or three poppies, and the late Queen Elizabeth previously wore five. What do the poppies represent? Remembrance Day takes place on November 11 each year to honor the members of the armed forces who lost their lives in World War I and subsequent conflicts. The tradition of wearing poppies originated from the famous war poem 'In Flanders Fields' by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae. The poem describes how poppies grew amidst the graves of soldiers in Flanders, a region in Belgium heavily impacted by the war. The red poppy became a symbol of remembrance and a way to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice. According to The Royal British Legion, 'There is no 'correct' way to wear a poppy.'' It's a matter of personal choice whether someone chooses to wear a poppy and how they choose to wear it. The tradition of donning these flowers on began in 1921, when the Royal British, was founded, according to the organisations website. They sold out straight away and raised more than 106,000 for those whose lives had been affected by the war. In response, Major George Howson set up the Poppy Factory in 1922, to employ disabled ex-servicemen. The factory is still around today and its warehouse in Aylesford produces millions of poppies each year. An Australian mum-of-two had her life turned on its head after discovering a lump in her breast that was later found to be aggressive cancer. Tania Jolley, from Adelaide, was the fittest she'd ever been when she noticed a small unusual lump on her breast one night that seemed to have come out of nowhere. The 52-year-old had a mammogram, a traumatic biopsy, a breast cancer diagnosis and started treatment all within days of finding the mass. She had to put her life on hold as she underwent intense radiation therapy that left her skin burnt and brittle. Tania has now 'come out of the tunnel' with a newfound appreciation for life and wants women to know they don't need to be 'led by the nose' when it comes to their health. Tania Jolley received a life-altering breast cancer diagnosis after finding a lump on her breast that lead her on a six-year health battle (pictured centre with daughters Eliza,15, left, and Charlotte, 18, right) One Sunday night in 2016, Tania was in bed with her husband, Andrew, when she rolled over to notice a lump on her breast. 'It was like someone had shoved a ball bearing or a marble underneath. I poked around it and thought it was really weird,' she recalled. A self-described 'pragmatic person', Tania was on the phone to her GP by 9am Monday morning and in the clinic that afternoon. By Tuesday, she was already getting a mammogram when the technician voiced some concerns Tania's lump looked a lot like cancer so called for a specialist. 'Then probably the most horrific thing happened out of my entire journey. I had to lay down on this bed and go through having this biopsy with absolutely no anaesthetic whatsoever,' she said. Tania was being held down on a bed by the nurse and Andrew while a doctor 'pumped needles into her breast' to get a biopsy. 'I felt like I had been transported back into the fifteenth century, and I was being hung, drawn and quartered. It was the most disgusting, painful thing. I will never forget it. I was screaming with pain,' she recalled. 'One thing I now understand in this whole process is that you have to advocate for yourself. You absolutely have to and you don't have to say, 'Yeah, no worries, I'll just accept anything',' she said. The mum-of-two, from Adelaide, has now 'come out of the tunnel' and has started her own beauty business, Lashes of Change, offering customisable mascaras Tania left the clinic with Andrew 'shell shocked' in the late afternoon and he suggested she skip the Women in Innovation Awards she was due to host only a few hours later. She was a mum to her two daughters, Charlotte, now 18, and Eliza, now 15, running a security business with Andrew and on various boards for women's and business organisations and was determined not to let any potential diagnosis interfere with her life. 'I said I'm absolutely going to this event. I am not going to let this thing dictate and tell me how my life is going to be,' she said. 'If I've only got a short time left on this earth. I'm going to do it my way. This is going to be by my rules, not somebody else's.' Tania describes the thought of having to tell her daughters, who were nine and 12 at the time, about the cancer equally as painful as her biopsy. 'They'd lost their grandfather to cancer, and before that my mother-in-law passed away with breast cancer. So youve got two little girls who only knew death from cancer,' she said. 'They knew something was wrong, they knew Mummy was upset, but they didn't know why. We really waited until we got all the information to sit them down and tell them.' On a Thursday afternoon, just four days after finding the lump, the mum was given the news she had a grade four hormone-positive type of breast cancer. 'That was the most aggressive form that you could have but I was fortunate in that I caught it so early so it was still what they considered to be stage one,' she explained. Tania, whose father has passed away from cancer less than two years before, had the lump swiftly removed and endure six weeks of intense radiation Tania, whose father had passed away from cancer less than two years before, had the lump swiftly removed and considered her next steps with her oncologist. 'I was scared to death of chemotherapy because I'd seen my dad go through it 15 months before,' Tania said. 'Having to go in there with him every time and see the pain and the anguish of sitting there for six hours, I was absolutely terrified and I was prepared to do anything to avoid it.' Instead, she went through weeks of radiation therapy which left the skin around her breast tender and burned. 'It was just horrendous, and towards the end of it they were quite worried that the skin tissue was going to break apart because it just gets so burnt,' she said. 'Imagine going out, lying in the sun and getting your breast burnt, and then tomorrow going back and doing it again and then again for six weeks.' Tania said the radiation was the most 'painless' part of her whole journey and she was able to get on with her normal life, juggling work and being a mum. 'I remember going and thinking, nobody knows I've got breast cancer, nobody knows I'm going through radiation treatment right now,' she said. Radiation left her skin brittle and burnt: 'Imagine lying in the sun and getting your breast burnt, then tomorrow going back and doing it again and then again for six weeks.' 'I certainly did have this absolute zest for making sure that I was living the life that I wanted to live and doing the things that I wanted to do.' When she was 'out of the tunnel' of her cancer journey, Tania reignited a business idea she had a year before her diagnosis which lead her to start a beauty brand Lashes of Change. Tania wanted to create a mascara where shoppers could choose their preferred colour formula and brush style all while being refillable and recyclable to have a low impact on the environment. She said the idea for the business was 'born out of pure frustration'. One busy day she hurried into a department store to pick up a tube of the Clarins mascara after she ran out. 'I'd been purchasing this mascara for 22 years because for me it was perfect. It was quite an unusual colour, like a deep aubergine,' she said. READ MORE: Mums start their own haircare line after discovering the damage big brand shampoos were doing to their hair and their fertility Advertisement 'The lady behind the counter, said, 'Oh, I'm sorry, but that mascara has been discontinued', and I thought 'What am I supposed to do now?'. I had literally five minutes.' When she had more time to browse, she struggled to find a colour and brush similar to her discontinued favourite but to no avail. Tania kept her old Clarins brush and would dip it into other mascaras formulas. She found juggling the brushes and tubes an annoying process but was left with no other option. 'I thought to myself, 'Why isn't it customisable? Why can't we have a choice of brushes? Why can't we then choose to combine it with colour and formula style that we want?',' she said. 'I started coming up with all these solutions then wondered if I could put it all together in one piece.' Tania wanted to create a mascara that allowed shoppers to chose their own colour and brushes while being able to be refilled and recycled. When she was 'out of the tunnel' of her cancer journey, Tania launched Lashes of Change mascara with five interchangeable brush styles and three formula and colour options The idea keeping 'niggling' in the back of her brain all while she was battling cancer. When Tania's health woes subsided, she started meeting with international suppliers and engineers who she had to convince her product was one women were after. 'One of the owners said, 'That's not how mascara is done' and I'm like 'I know that',' she said however days later she received an email from him saying he was on board. 'He went home and told his wife about this 'unusual conversation I had with this Australian woman. She was crazy but she was adamant this is what she wanted to do',' Tania laughed. 'The wife said, 'Don't you know I have been doing mascara like this for years because I can't find the right brush?'.' While it was an experience that helped get Lashes of Change off the ground, it was one that left Tania feeling frustrated at the beauty industry. 'The CEOs, the COOs, the CFOs, the heads of engineering at these big cosmetic companies are all men, like sorry, what? None of them use cosmetics,' she said. Lashes of Change was launched in 2021 and allows shoppers to have their 'dream mascara' for $79 and refills for $39. There are five interchangeable brush styles, three formula and colour options and three polished Aluminium outer case colours. Women are snapping up their customisable Lashes of Change mascaras with the business selling $10,000 worth in just three days 25 per cent of all profits made from Lashes of Change goes directly to Breast Cancer Research at the Centre for Cancer Biology in Adelaide, a cause close to Tania's heart. 'In the end, I've created a mascara I wanted. I created something I was looking for. I wanted to be able to choose the perfect brush for me not be told what was.' Women are snapping up their customisable Lashes of Change mascaras with the business selling $10,000 worth in just three days. While her business ventures have proved successful, Tania's health still isn't back to what it used to be pre-2016 and she avoids using the words 'remission' or 'cured'. 'I never, ever use that word when people ask me how me health is. People always say, 'How are you going or how are you feeling?' I tend to say, 'I'm feeling good today',' she said. 'I was so betrayed by my body. I was 46 and the fittest I had been. I don't think I'll ever get back to having that confidence to say I'm fine because I don't actually know that. I'll never know.' 'But it's a way of reminding myself to just be grateful for every day. I've come out of this a much more appreciative person of life and a little bit braver as well.' He blames his 4x4x4cm brain tumour for years of anxiety and depression The 35-year-old compared his headaches to a 'bomb going off' inside his head A dying man has been given less than two years to live after medics failed to spot his incurable brain cancer. Matthew Collins, from South Wales, began suffering from thunderclap headaches in summer 2023 and was prescribed painkillers by his GP. The 35-year-old then had seizures and, after a hospital stay, was told he faced a wait of up to one year for an MRI scan. After his symptoms continued to worsen and he suffered a stroke, he was eventually diagnosed with glioblastoma, a type of fast-growing brain tumour that can carry a life expectancy of just 12 to 18 months from diagnosis. While Mr Collins has had surgery to remove the tumour, he faces months of radiotherapy and treatment. Mr Collins, who used to work in communications at a university, is now fundraising in the hope of making 250,000 to pay for a potentially life-prolonging injection, which isn't available on the NHS. Matthew Collins, 35, from South Wales, was diagnosed with brain cancer after suffering from severe headaches and a stroke Pictured: Mr Collins (right) with friends Richie Anderson (left) and Luke Bolch (centre) Mr Collins began suffering from severe headaches 'unlike anything [he'd] experienced before' in July 2023. He said they would cause 20 to 30 second of pain every 10 to 15 minutes. 'It felt like someone was hitting my head with a sharp object, but deep within my head, like a bomb going off', he told MailOnline. Concerned, he went to see his GP who told him to get an eye test and prescribed naproxen, an anti-inflammatory drug and painkiller. Mr Collins said: 'I went the following day to the opticians, and everything was normal. I was referred back to the GP.' What is DCVax-L vaccine and how does it work? Glioblastomas are the most aggressive form of brain tumour in adults and have devastating effects for those diagnosed, with an average survival time of around 12-18 months following diagnosis. A study, published in, found that in newly-diagnosed glioblastomas, adding DCVax-L to standard chemotherapy offered patients nearly three months additional life on average, compared to temozolomide therapy alone. DCVax-L has been developed by Northwest Biotherapeutics, a pharmaceutical firm based in Maryland, US. It is created for each patient individually by isolating specific immune cells, known as dendritic cells, from the patient's blood. These cells are then primed with biomarkers or 'antigens' from a sample of the patient's tumour. When the vaccine containing the cells is injected back into the patient, they 'share' that information with the body's immune system. This allows the body to recognise the target, which it begins to attack. Source: The Brain Tumour Charity Advertisement However, it was the weekend and before he could book an appointment, he suffered a tonic-clonic seizure which causes the muscles to stiffen and twitch. Mr Collins was taken to Prince Charles Hospital but discharged at 2am. However, on the way home, he suffered another seizure and he returned to A&E. That night, he he had more seizures and was admitted to intensive care. Mr Collins had a CT scan and was discharged four days later, but was told the wait time for an MRI scan could be almost a year. A month later, he woke up and was unable to move the left side of his body. He went back to A&E at Prince Charles Hospital and had another CT scan, which showed he had had a medium-sized hemorrhagic stroke. As a result, he was left with slurred speech and complete paralysis of the left hand. After insisting on an MRI, he was told by doctors that although his stroke had been 'very large', there was no evidence of an underlying tumours or sign of an aneurysm. On August 30, Mr Collins was sent to Ysbyty Cwm Rhondda, a stroke rehabilitation unit, where he was sent home after two weeks for community rehab. But his headaches returned at the end of September. This time, medics at Prince Charles Hospital performed a CT scan for reassurance, but discovered a brain tumour an abnormality medics failed to spot in July. A week later, he had the tumour removed and was diagnosed with Glioblastoma the most aggressive tumor that can form in the brain. Around 2,500 people are diagnosed every year in the UK, while the figure is 12,000 in the US. Mr Collins credits his girlfriend Claire Hawkins' 'nagging' and concern for saving his life. In a blog post, he wrote: 'It was Claire's nagging for me to get back to hospital after my stroke that led to the tumour being found. 'Without her, I'd more than likely be already dead because of the amount of swelling and pressure they found in my head.' Mr Collins said he has suffered with depression and anxiety for most of his adult life, making him struggle with relationships and his own self esteem. But he now believes it was caused by the brain tumour. 'Turns out the old tumour has probably been sitting there dormant for years, pressing down on the part of my brain where all my personality, emotion and memory is stored', he wrote. Mr Collins pictured with his girlfriend, Claire Hawkins, who encouraged him to go back to the doctors after the headaches returned Mr Collins (pictured centre) with school friend Ted (left) and Aimee Collins (right) 'The tumour made me question my self-worth, withdraw for years from my friends and family and shut myself away from the world, making me feel like I didn't belong anywhere. It drained so much energy just to try and force myself to feel some joy in living life.' Now Mr Collins faces months of radiotherapy and treatment. However, he has launched a Go Fund Me page in the hopes of raising 250,000 for a DCVax-L vaccine. The jab is a type of immunotherapy. To make the jab, scientists combine cancer-killing cells, called dendritic cells, with proteins from brain tumour cells. It is hoped the vaccine will help the immune system to recognise and kill brain tumour cells. Mr Collins hopes Dc-VaxL will double prolonging his life. Mr Collins said: 'I don't know exactly how long I'll have left, or what state of health I'll be in as the cancer eats away at my body. 'Eventually, it will invade the part of my brain that controls my vital organs and then it will shut them off. I may lose my vision or any of my senses at any moment.' The 250,000 would cover a lump sum of 75,000 to start the process of developing the personalised medication, before then spending 25,000 on the first three doses. If successful he will then enter the 'booster phase', which will see him have an additional three doses in the first year of treatment. Providing the jab works for Mr Collins, he will then be given doses twice a year taking the total by the end of year 2 to 200,000. It will then set him back a further 50,000 a year to keep him fighting the cancer in his brain. It means 250,000 could help Mr Collins say alive for three years. So far, his fundraiser has reached more than 28,000 in a week. 'If you are able to help in any way, I cannot express how grateful me, my family and friends would be for giving me a fighting chance at life,' he said. Life expectancy in the US has crashed to its lowest level since 1996, official data has revealed. The average American born in 2021 can expect to live to 76.4 years, according to a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report published this week. In comparison, the average child born in 2014 was thought to live to 78.9 years and in 2019, 78.8. It is the second consecutive year that life expectancy in the US has fallen, after tumbling to 77.0 years in 2020. It is now at its lowest level since 1996, when it was 76.1 years. Before 2019, life expectancy was rising. Covid-19 was the main driving force for the plunge, the CDC reported. In 2021, the virus was the third leading cause of death in the country, behind heart disease and cancer - which continue to hold top spots as the most common causes of death. Increases in suicides and homicides, plus a five-fold increase in drug overdose deaths over the past decade - fueled by a rise in fentanyl contamination - have also contributed to the decline. The CDC used the National Center for Health Statistics life tables to calculate life expectancy. Life tables show how many more years a person is expected to live for, depending on the year in which they were born. WHAT IS THE GLOBAL OBESITY CRISIS? Almost a quarter of the world's population will be obese in less than 30 years, according to research published in May. If obesity trends continue, 22 per cent of people around the world will be severely overweight by 2045, up from 14 per cent last year, a study found. One in eight people, rather than today's one in 11, are also expected to develop type 2 diabetes, the research adds. Lead author Dr Alan Moses, from the Denmark-based pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, said: 'These numbers underline the staggering challenge the world will face in the future in terms of numbers of people who are obese, or have type 2 diabetes, or both. 'As well as the medical challenges these people will face, the costs to countries' health systems will be enormous.' People with type 2 diabetes have an average life expectancy of just 55 due to them being at a much higher risk of heart attacks, stroke and kidney disease. Tam Fry, a health campaigner from the National Obesity Forum said the findings were 'desperately sad'. Advertisement They are hypothetical calculations based on mid-year population estimates and how many people died every year. For example the table estimates the average 100 year-old will live another one to two years based on the fact they have already made it to 100. The drop in life expectancy today is not as severe as it was during the pandemic, but the figures are still declining. According to the CDC report, men saw the biggest decline in life expectancy - losing eight months of their lifespan between 2020 to 2021. A baby boy born today can expect to live to 73 years and six months. Women will likely live to 79 years and four months - seven months fewer than those born in 2020. Women are thought to live longer than men because of higher levels of estrogen, which helps combat life-threatening conditions such as heart disease by reducing unhealthy cholesterol. Non-Hispanic Asian people remain the longest-living Americans, according to the CDC report, but their life expectancy dropped by a month to 83 years and one month. Hispanics' life expectancy also declined by a month to 77.8 years - a record low since life expectancy estimates by Hispanic origin were introduced in 2006. The American Indian and Alaska Native population experienced the greatest decline in life expectancy between 2020 and 2021, from 67.1 to 65.6 years. Black Americans' life expectancy dropped to the lowest since 1997 - 71.2 years. Non-Hispanic American Indian-Alaska Native people had the lowest life expectancy of 65.6 years. Life expectancy dropped less among black people than white people in 2021, partly reflecting the higher toll of Covid on minorities at the start of the pandemic. The life expectancy for black people in the US was 70.8 years last year, compared to 76.4 for white people. This table shows the average number of years of life remaining for people who have reached a given age Life expectancy in the US has crashed to its lowest level since 1996, when it was 76.1 years The Covid crisis caused the biggest yearly drop in life expectancy in 2020 since World War II. Behind heart disease, cancer and Covid, unintentional injuries were the fourth-leading cause of death. These include unintentional drug overdoses, car crashes and accidental falls. Almost 107,000 people died of a drug overdose last year, making a 50 per cent increase in overdose death over the past two years. Drug overdose deaths among US teens doubled from 2019 to 2021 even as the use of illicit substances declined. Deaths caused by fentanyl - an extremely potent synthetic opioid used as a cutting agent in many street drugs - increased 182 percent. But the experts said the same dose is received with the shield as without The protective aprons used at the dentist could actually be doing more harm than good, top experts have said. Anyone having an X-ray at the dentist will be familiar with the heavy lead apron draped over them, which is supposed to reduce radiation exposure to other parts of their bodies. But experts from Tufts University say they are no longer necessary because of how accurate modern X-ray machines are. The aprons could actually be doing more harm than good by interfering with getting a clear shot of the jaw, making it necessary to try again and thus doubling the overall dose. Wearing a lead apron during a dental X-ray may be interfering with getting a clear shot of the jaw, particularly if it has a collar, making it necessary to try a second time - doubling the overall dose Dr Aruna Ramesh, a professor of dental radiology at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine (TUSDM) in Boston, Massachusetts, said: 'There is ample evidence in scientific literature that shows that the apron and thyroid collar do not provide any additional benefit.' The American Academy of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology (AAOMR) - which offers evidence-based recommendations to dentists, amongst others - published new guidance in August that said that lead aprons and thyroid shields do not need to be used routinely for dental X-rays. Patients only receive a 'negligible' amount of radiation to areas away from the head from a dental X-ray through 'internal scatter' - where a small amount of radiation enters through the head and neck and bounces to other parts of the body, Dr Ramesh said. 'The internal scatter that exposes the organs below the jaw cannot be prevented with an apron,' he said. However, you will probably still have to wear one for your next dental X-rays. The majority of states have regulations mandating protective gear during the procedure, and until those rules are amended, which would have to happen on a state-by-state basis, dental teams will most likely carry on using aprons and shields. Anthony Blatnica, assistant professor of radiology at Tufts University School of Medicine, said: 'If it's not in the primary beam, you're only dealing with internal scatter. And so external shielding doesnt make sense.' If any part of the covering creeps into the field of the X-ray and obscures anatomy, 'that's where it becomes problematic,' he said. But some patients like the level of comfort provided by the lead apron, both physical - like a weighted blanket - and mental. Dr Hugo Campos, associate professor and director of oral and maxillofacial radiology at TUSDM, said: 'The lead apron plays a very important role in the psychology of our patients. They feel that you are protecting them.' But current radiograph techniques and technology provide adequate safeguards, he added, such as specifically directed X-rays. Dr Campos said: 'The same dose is received with the shield as without the shield - and that is extremely low.' It was more than three decades ago that doctors first told Naga Munchetty, then a teenager, that the heavy bleeding and pain she endured for nine days of every month was normal. The BBC Breakfast presenter told a parliamentary inquiry last month that the agony of her debilitating monthly cycle was so severe she would be physically sick and lose consciousness, affecting her schooling and later her career. The now 48-year-old told MPs: I would not sleep because I would have to set an alarm every four hours to change my sanitary wear. It made relationships difficult. I had to have very understanding partners. I would worry about what I wore, particularly when I was in front of the camera, because of leaking. Despite seeking help, Naga said the attitude of GPs had been: These are your treatment options and if they dont work, suck it up. She added: When women do try to speak about it they get labelled troublemakers. Its really hard for women to win but if the medical profession understood more, then we wouldnt have to fight as hard and feel like such a nuisance. BBC Breakfast presenter Naga Munchetty, 48, told a parliamentary inquiry last month of the agony of her debilitating monthly cycle and said women are often labelled 'troublemakers' for speaking out about it It was only last November, when Nagas husband had to call an ambulance because of her excruciating pain, that she was finally diagnosed with adenomyosis, a poorly understood condition which causes cells from the womb lining to grow deep within the muscles of the uterus. It affects about one in ten women, mainly over 30, and doctors have no idea what causes it. After Naga spoke at the inquiry, women of all ages took to social media to say they too had been failed by the medical profession: dismissed, gaslit, ignored or told they were suffering mental illness when, ultimately, there was a physical problem causing their pain. The reason, for some of those women, is clear: an ingrained sexism exists at the heart of the medical profession. GP gave me the brush-off and said that Ijust had womens problems Emma Nelson, 47, who lives near Brighton, was left in agony with adenomyosis Emma Nelson suffers from severe adenomyosis and just like Naga Munchetty says she was brushed off by doctors. The 47-year-old former dancer from East Sussex, pictured right, who works in a secondary school, describes the pain as like a big bowling ball rolling around and grinding away at my pelvic bone. The problems began following an operation for a benign ovarian tumour last year. Emma says: The heavy bleeding was almost continuous and the chronic pain affected everything. I couldnt socialise or join family days out, and Id just crawl through the front door after work and cry. Endless amounts of phone calls to the GP resulted in useless brush-off comments, because I had womens problems. I was told it was hormones and it would settle down. It didnt. It tore me apart, physically and mentally, because I had no one to talk to, no support, no way of dealing with it. After Emma went to A&E due to excessive bleeding and severe pain, an emergency scan showed she had adenomyosis. It had caused her womb to swell so much it took up her whole pelvis. She was offered treatment with iron tablets, the progesteron-only contraceptive pill and a coil but nothing worked. Eventually they said they didnt know what to do, she says. In the end, I went private and had a total hysterectomy in August. The moment I opened my eyes after surgery, the pain had gone. I got my life back. But although I know I need to move forward, it is frightening knowing that the system I thought I could turn to when I needed help is not there. Advertisement Doctors, too, accept that medicine can be biased against women. We arent dealing with womens abdominal pain all that well, wrote one, a psychiatrist, with some understatement. This doesnt surprise me at all, said another. Even female doctors take womens pain less seriously. The Mail on Sundays resident GP, Dr Ellie Cannon, asked female readers to get in contact if they, like Naga, had experienced medical sexism. She then received a torrent of emails and letters detailing devastating experiences which stretch back over the past six decades. Many are historic, but the distress they caused has lasted a lifetime. Even today, women are still being fobbed off by doctors for a range of debilitating problems from intense pain and bleeding to incontinence and urinary tract infections. Keira Creedon, 17, from Cardiff, missed so much school because of her incredibly heavy periods that she had to retake a year. She was eventually prescribed the progestogen-only pill, which made her periods ten times worse, often bleeding for two weeks at a time, with pain so unbearable she couldnt get out of bed. When she told her GP, he told her to stick it out. Research by Phs Group, a hygiene product provider, shows she is not alone: heavy or painful periods are the biggest reason for classroom absence among teenage girls. What is clear is that medical sexism remains a significant and enduring problem in the NHS. Professor Dame Lesley Regan, the Governments Womens Health Ambassador, is endeavouring to change this. Its heart-breaking to hear these stories where women suffering from pain have been dismissed or even disbelieved, Dame Lesley told The Mail on Sunday last night. We make up 51 per cent of the population, and if our pain is not being recognised, let alone treated, it is clear the system has not been working. Some advances have already been made. The Womens Health Strategy, a blueprint for reducing disparities faced by women, was launched by the Government last year, and 25 million is now being distributed across England to build womens health hubs one-stop shops to diagnose and treat womens health problems. But there is a long way to go. MP Caroline Nokes, chairwoman of the Women and Equalities Committee, which is investigating the challenges women face being diagnosed and treated for reproductive health conditions, told The Mail on Sunday: The stark reality is that the health concern doesnt seem to matter. Whatever the condition is, the narrative around it is the same women feel theyre being told to just suck it up. The striking thing is that women are giving the same stories about the same experiences. Some are recent, some are historic. But it shows that nothing has changed, despite more women working in the medical profession. The MP for Romsey and Southampton North added: When women do go to the GP, they have either an actively negative experience or a dismissive one. That is wrong and has to change. Several studies have shown that women experience poorer outcomes than men across many areas of their health. A study by University College London found women with dementia receive worse treatment than men with the condition, making fewer visits to the GP and receiving less monitoring. Women have to wait longer to be prescribed painkillers and, when they are in acute pain, are less likely to be given them than men. Less is known about conditions that affect only women, including gynaecological conditions. For example, it takes seven years on average for women to be diagnosed with endometriosis, a condition in which tissue from the lining of the uterus grows outside it, causing scarring and intense pain. Lauren Page Smith, 29, was found lying dead on the floor with her daughter on her chest on January 6. She had earlier been reassured by paramedics sent to help her after she complained of chest pains and vomiting. Women with a blockage of the coronary artery a major risk factor for a heart attack are 59 per cent more likely to be misdiagnosed than men, and women are twice as likely to die in the 30 days following a heart attack, according to researchers from the University of Leeds. Womens symptoms are different to mens they are more likely to involve fatigue, back pain and nausea rather than intense chest pain. Earlier this month, a coroner concluded that Lauren Page Smith, 29, a young mother from Wolverhampton, died after paramedics failed to recognise she was suffering from a heart attack. When the medics arrived, Lauren said she was suffering from chest pain, had been vomiting and had a sore throat. The coroner found that these symptoms were a clear sign of a life-threatening heart problem. But the paramedics carried out a heart scan known as an electrocardiogram (ECG) at the scene and reported no concerns. They decided to take no further action and left. However, the coroner, Ms Jo Lees, noted that Laurens ECG had been incorrectly interpreted. A separate investigation, carried out by West Midland Ambulance Service, also found the paramedics did not believe Lauren was in as much pain as she claimed because of her calm demeanour. Several hours after the paramedics left, Lauren was found dead at home by her mother. Her two-year-old daughter was lying on her chest. Misdiagnoses like Laurens may also be linked to gaps in research, which has historically focused on male animals and male trial participants, after scientists concluded that womens fluctuating hormones might affect the results. But some also accuse doctors of unconscious bias against women, which causes them to dismiss their pain. Ms Nokes said she had been contacted by a constituent about her struggles to have her gynaecological pain taken seriously. She said the woman emphasised that she felt she was treated that way because she was a woman. Women writing to the MoS have had similar experiences but, crucially, not always from male doctors. Female doctors can also be just as bad, some say. Alison Kimber, 64, from Ryde in the Isle of Wight, suffered from excruciating period pain from the age of 12, and was only diagnosed with endometriosis and adenomyosis decades later, when she was referred to a female consultant. I gave up trying to have children in the end, she said. I could no longer put up with the pain and heavy bleeding, and elected to have a total hysterectomy when I was 40. The relief I felt after surgery is indescribable. I just wish Id done it sooner. Ten years later, Alison again went to her male GP with stress incontinence and was repeatedly fobbed off and told to put up with it. Instead, she saw a female gynaecologist privately and had surgery to correct the problem. It should not be necessary for women to make repeated surgery visits to make their voices heard, she says. I bet if men had periods it would be dealt with in a jiffy. For some women their experiences have been so distressing it has prevented them from seeking help for potentially serious symptoms. Fiona Jackson was left so distraught following a botched contraceptive coil removal in 2021 that she put off seeing a GP for six months, despite experiencing pelvic pain and post-menopause bleeding a possible red flag for ovarian cancer. The former banker, 58, who lives near Coventry, is still tearful talking about the incident today. She says: Im intelligent, forthright and independent. But what happened absolutely took me down. She describes the procedure to have a coil fitted in 2014, following a lifetime of endometriosis, as a bloodbath. She left the surgery in a wheelchair and the GP advised that, when it came to removing it, the procedure should be carried out under anaesthetic in hospital. But seven years later this advice was overruled by a male GP. He was dismissive and refused to accept it couldnt be done in the practice, she says. I was made to feel like I was making a fuss. The procedure caused severe pain and bleeding, and a female GP who stepped in to help managed to snap the coil in half. The nurse was in tears and the GP was on the phone to the A&E asking for advice, Fiona says. I was screaming in pain, shaking and distressed. I still shudder at what happened to me, she says. Some women also told The Mail on Sunday of sexually inappropriate behaviour by doctors. Paula Mulvaney, 59, from Aberdeenshire, described an incident 15 years ago when a GP reached under her blouse with a stethoscope, telling her it was one of the perks of the job. Another woman, now 70, who did not want to be named, told how, as a 26-year-old first-time mum, she was humiliated twice at antenatal appointments. The male doctor had a male student with him and, before examining me, he turned to him and said, Well see if shes a natural blonde, she says. At the second visit, again with a male student shadowing him, he said: Look at her, she used to have a nice figure. Today, she says: Young, vulnerable and unsure of myself, I never mentioned it. Ive never even told my husband about it, to this day. But nearly 50 years on, I have never forgotten how awful and belittled it made me feel. Dr Marieke Bigg wrote her book, This Wont Hurt: How Medicine Fails Women, after her gynaecological pain was dismissed at a hospital appointment. He said there was nothing much they could do unless I was planning to have a child, Dr Bigg says. I was confused. It seems my symptoms only mattered if I wanted to reproduce. But gynaecology is only a small part of the book. There are lots of under-explored areas for women, Dr Bigg says. Women have died because heart attack symptoms are mistaken for the menopause. Womens experiences may be all on a spectrum from medical gaslighting on one end to sexual assault on the other. But they all involve women feeling unempowered, unable to assert their needs or their boundaries, and not feeling safe or listened to. As part of the Womens Health Strategy, the Government ran a survey for women to help better understand their reproductive health needs. But to truly make changes, the work needs to go beyond the NHS, says Ms Nokes. The womens health hubs will be real progress, she says, but we need to start educating girls in schools to recognise what a normal period is and when to see a doctor. We have to make sure doctors are trained in medical school to recognise their unconscious bias. And we need to convince the Treasury that these issues which cause women to take time off work or stop working altogether are impacting GDP [gross domestic product]. Its amazing how that can force people to sit up and listen. A young mother died earlier this year from aggressive breast cancer after delays caused by a misdiagnosis from a physician associate (PA) at her GP surgery, this newspaper has learned. Colleen Howe was 34 years old and eight-months pregnant with her second baby in August 2021 when she visited her Suffolk GP practice after discovering a lump in her right breast. The photographer and business owner from Bury St Edmunds believed she was seeing a doctor but her appointment was in fact with a PA who carried out an examination and reassured her the lump was simply a blocked milk duct, giving her the impression that there was nothing to worry about. PAs are NHS staff brought in to help doctors and nurses in their daily duties. They have two years of training, but are not permitted to treat patients and it is illegal for them to prescribe medication. By the time Colleen was finally diagnosed on October 20 later that year having recently given birth her breast cancer was incurable and tumours had spread to her liver, pelvis and spine. Colleen Howe was 34 years old and eight-months pregnant with her second baby in August 2021 when she visited her Suffolk GP practice after discovering a lump in her right breast She received multiple cancer treatments, including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and even an experimental trial drug which had severe side effects. However, the cancer continued to spread around her body. Colleen passed away on April 9 this year, surrounded by her family. In July 2022 while she was still alive the NHS opened an investigation into her misdiagnosis. It concluded that the advice she was given by the PA was in line with official guidance. Colleen had been told to take paracetamol and return for another appointment if the lump worsened or persisted after giving birth. However, the review also reported that GPs at the surgery said usual practice would have been to arrange a follow-up appointment within two weeks for a pregnant woman with a breast lump which did not happen. Colleens devastated mother, Catherine, 60, contacted us last week to share her shocking story in support of The Mail on Sundays Health campaign to Rein In The Physician Associates. Yet the Government plans to enlist thousands more PAs over the next decade in order to plug dire NHS staff shortages. Doctors overwhelmingly say the move, as it stands, is a risk to patient safety. PAs are permitted to take patients medical histories, perform physical examinations and analyse test results, all under the supervision of a doctor. They can also fill in forms and carry out basic checks which can sometimes clog up GPs workloads. In recent weeks, though, we have received numerous reports that they are operating far beyond this remit seeing patients with little supervision, bending the rules to write prescriptions and performing risky procedures. Thats why we are urging Ministers and health chiefs to intervene and limit the medical tasks that PAs are allowed to undertake. Still reeling from the loss of her daughter, Catherine, a retired NHS clerk, says: Five weeks after giving birth, Colleen was told she had terminal cancer and could have just months to live. It was horrific and we still cant believe shes gone. The government plans to enlist thousands more physician associates (PAs) over the next decade in order to plug dire NHS staff shortages. Doctors overwhelmingly say the move, as it stands, is a risk to patient safety Would it have made any difference if she had been diagnosed sooner? It plays on my mind. She first saw the PA on August 2, 2021, and due to the misdiagnosis her cancer treatment didnt start for another three months. ... AND PROOF OF THEIR RECKLESSNESS BY THOSE ON THE INSIDE Tragic tales and unforgivable mistakes recalled by doctors about the UKs 2,500 physician associates (PAs) have been compiled and handed to The Mail on Sunday. Here are just a handful of those submitted to our team... PAs are frequently under-supervised, especially on night shifts. They are allowed to review chest X-rays and are often vague about their qualifications with patients. We were encouraged by a senior member in the department not to question the PAs decisions because they know their stuff and it makes them upset. PAs at [name of hospital withheld] lead ward rounds including for intensive-care patients. I have been asked to prescribe for a PA and have witnessed other junior doctors prescribe on behalf of them. I have also seen PAs sign-off paperwork as Mr X with no clarification of the clinicians role. In a surgical context, this is confusing and could denote a surgical doctor. Ive seen PAs asking for doctors logins to request radiation and attempting to work around the law. They are being sent to see patients alone and are unwilling to perform what they consider menial jobs such as blood tests and placing cannulas. The PA would not correct patients when they called him doctor and he would not write his role when he referred patients to A&E. He is unsafe to be working independently which he is most of the time and absolutely should not be supervising medical students. Our Trust has 40 PAs with one in almost every team. Its particularly bad in the emergency department where Ive seen PAs running resus [resuscitation] wards. A newly qualified PA was involved in a cardiac arrest. The consultant determined the rhythm was shockable while another staff member was bagging [using a hand-held pump to resuscitate] the patient. Upon hearing the rhythm was shockable, the PA delivered a shock with no warning. This resulted in the staff member being electrocuted and taking time off work for tachycardia, PTSD, and clear exit wounds from the current. This was initially reported but closed immediately as no further learning required. A PA at a GP practice booked a diabetic woman with chest pain for an ECG follow-up on another day and then sent her home. It turned out the patient had a missed heart attack. A PA removed the tube from an intubated patient in A&E whose blood oxygen immediately dropped. The hospital had once planned to allow PAs to oversee a critical care unit overnight without the support of a doctor. Only one consultant vetoed the proposal. But they are still trusted to see and review unwell patients on the unit. Advertisement An oncologist who knew my daughters case said during the safety review that the delay meant there were fewer options. She adds: We didnt even know what a PA was before this all happened. You just go along with what youre told and Colleen thought shed been given advice by a doctor. Weve been told the PA who first saw Colleen is devastated by what happened, but shes not as devastated as we are. We feel so angry we keep asking ourselves, Why did this happen to our daughter? Perhaps most worryingly is that it might not be an isolated case. Last week the MoS was handed more than 400 reports from doctors who have raised serious concerns about the role PAs play in the NHS. The dossier, collected by Doctors Association UK an organisation that represents NHS doctors revealed a disturbing number of cases where PAs had put patients in danger. One incident involved a PA who was asked to perform defibrillation using a device that gives a high-energy electric shock to the heart of a patient in cardiac arrest. The report states the PA failed to follow correct procedures and ended up shocking another staff member who was forced to take time off work with a heart condition caused by the incident. In another case, a diabetic women experiencing chest pain was sent home from a GP surgery by a PA and booked in for a heart scan at a later date. When she arrived at hospital for the scan, medics realised she had suffered a heart attack. Another reports that a PA working in an intensive care unit accidentally removed a breathing tube from a severely unwell patient who suffered a life-threatening loss of oxygen. And, shockingly, another claims that PAs at their hospital used doctors computer login details to illegally write prescriptions. About 80 per cent of medics told Doctors Association UK they had observed PAs failing to tell patients they were not a doctor or claiming that they were just as qualified. Roughly two-thirds said they frequently received requests from PAs to write prescriptions or sign-off tests on their behalf. Frontline doctors are really concerned at the growing role PAs are playing in the NHS, says Dr Matt Kneale, co-chairman of Doctors Association UK. There is a pressing need for clear guidelines and proper supervision of these junior staff if we want to protect patients from danger. Were calling for an immediate pause on the recruitment of PAs until regulations are in place. There are about 2,500 PAs working in the NHS today, but Ministers plan to increase their numbers fourfold by 2037, claiming this radical move is needed to help tackle the unprecedented shortage of NHS doctors. However, Dr Kneale counters: There is scope for using PAs in a limited role taking bloods and writing notes but the way they are being rolled out is out of control. They are allowed to practise in hospitals without supervision and are regularly seeing patients one-on-one. A trainee GP will have approximately ten years of training, including medical school. PAs do two years and are let loose in the NHS. It is not safe. Experts say the biggest concern is the lack of regulations over what PAs are allowed to do. This also means, should something go wrong, the PAs cannot be held responsible as there is no medical body to complain to. More than 2,800 doctors earlier this month expressed grave concerns about the lack of regulation governing PAs in an open letter to the General Medical Council. Co-ordinated by Doctors Association UK, it stressed that current proposals, which include granting PAs the right to prescribe medicine, were unsafe, premature and lacking the necessary safeguards. Following these growing concerns, Doctors Association UK surveyed its members on whether they agreed with increased recruitment of PAs, receiving nearly 680 responses. Three out of five reported negative experiences with PAs. Two-thirds also raised concerns that the expanded use of them in hospitals meant junior doctors were not receiving adequate training because tasks they would normally carry out were being done by associates instead. PAs regularly see patients in A&E while junior doctors are consigned to routine jobs such as rewriting drug charts, one junior medic said. However, senior doctors also warned the use of PAs was particularly widespread in GP practices. They are being used as replacement GPs, said one. Ive seen PAs misdiagnose a sexually transmitted infection as a urinary tract infection, and a heart problem as acid reflux. Often they are not correcting patients who call them a doctor. Recalling the day Colleen had her first appointment with the PA, Catherine says: She had a face-to-face appointment with someone she believed at the time was a doctor. She called me afterwards and told me not to worry, that the lump was just a blocked milk duct. Shed been told to take paracetamol and was relieved we both were. The NHS investigation concluded the PA was qualified to carry out this type of consultation and stated a GP was available that day if the PA needed advice or a second opinion. This meant the PA was supervised, according to NHS guidance. It also advised that patients should be routinely booked in for follow-up appointments if needed. But the PA who treated Colleen never enquired if the lump had resolved itself because they had moved to another surgery soon after seeing her. Catherine says: Colleen was our only child. She has left us two beautiful grandchildren so a part of her is here, but we miss her terribly. Her elder daughter asks us about her. She knows that her mummy is in the sky, in Heaven. When the little one is old enough, well tell her how wonderful her mum was. As far as we know, the PA who made the misdiagnosis is still treating patients. I hope it will stop her making another mistake. A pioneering UK trial will allow patients with advanced bladder cancer to receive personalised drug treatments depending on the DNA in their tumours. Currently the deadly disease is treated using chemotherapy, surgery and sometimes radiotherapy. However, research suggests some patients would do better on new drugs known as immunotherapy that are tailored to boost an individuals immune system. Other patients do not respond to either chemotherapy or immunotherapy and their only hope is immediate surgery to try to root out the tumours. But scientists now believe they can predict which treatment is best suited for patients depending on the genetic traits of the cancer itself. In a first-of-its-kind trial, about 160 patients will receive treatment tailored to the DNA of their cancer. Researchers hope the study will fundamentally change the way cancer is treated on the NHS and will ultimately save thousands of lives. Currently, bladder cancer is treated using chemotherapy, surgery and sometimes radiotherapy Most advanced bladder cancer patients receive the same treatment even though it works better for some and much worse for others, says Professor James Catto, a urological surgeon and chief investigator of the study at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Survival rates for bladder cancer have remained unchanged for nearly three decades. We hope this trial could change that. Each year about 5,000 people in the UK die from bladder cancer, which affects 10,000 annually. If spotted early it can usually be cured using surgery or drug therapies. In 2020, artist Tracey Emin revealed she had been diagnosed with it. She underwent operations to remove her bladder and other pelvic organs, and is currently cancer-free. However, if the disease spreads into surrounding organs then it almost always becomes incurable. In the new trial, taking place at 20 sites around the country and funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research, half of the 320 participants will receive the current standard treatment three months of chemo followed by surgery while the other half will get a tailored treatment plan based on the DNA of their cancer. Participants will need to have bladder cancer which is in danger of spreading but has not yet left the organ. Of the patients who receive the personalised treatments, those whose tumours show signs of resistance to chemotherapy will instead undergo surgery straight away. Those whose cancer has genetic traits which suggest it is responsive to immunotherapy will receive these drugs in place of chemo, before receiving surgery. Not all forms of bladder cancer are the same, says Prof Catto. Treatment of the disease should reflect that. Investing News, November 10, 2023 The World Bank has expressed serious concerns about the deteriorating state of Afghanistan's economy, with monetary poverty affecting half of the country's citizens. The findings were relayed by TOLO News Today, based on insights from a critical discussion held at the US Institute of Peace. Senior economist at the World Bank, Silvia Redaelli, unveiled that monetary poverty has ensnared half of Afghanistan's population, while Naheed Sarabi from the Institute for Development and Economic Affairs underscored the deepening economic plight of Afghan women. Sarabi traced this rising feminization of poverty back to numerous factors, including restrictive policies imposed by the Taliban. The economic downturn in Afghanistan has been linked by some analysts to international sanctions imposed on the country. They recommended that the Islamic Emirate enhance regional economic ties as a potential solution. In response to these challenges, the Ministry of Economy has announced ambitious projects aimed at stimulating job growth and strengthening the private sector. These revelations follow earlier warnings by UN agencies about an impending economic crisis in Afghanistan. They emphasized a pressing need for humanitarian aid for approximately 30 million residents. This situation is further exacerbated by increasing financial hardship for women in rural areas, driven by fear-induced self-policing. The World Bank economists' apprehensions about Afghanistan's sinking economy were voiced during a crucial discussion at the US Institute of Peace. The dialogue highlighted the unrelenting monetary poverty and increasing financial hardship faced by Afghan citizens, particularly women in rural areas. This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C. Nine have so far been successfully treated by Verve-101 with trials set to expand Statin use could be replaced 'within the decade' by gene-editing Verve-101 drug Daily statins taken by millions to ward off heart attacks and strokes could be replaced 'within the decade' by a gene-editing jab, scientists claim. The remarkable new drug manipulates the DNA inside cholesterol-regulating cells to shut down production of the substance after a single dose. It was unveiled yesterday at the American Heart Association's annual Scientific Sessions in Philadelphia. Trial results showed the one-off injection cut 'bad' LDL cholesterol by more than 50 per cent. Los Angeles-based cardiologist Professor Karol Watson predicted 'a brave new world' in heart treatment: 'This trial showed with [gene] editing you can durably lower LDL.' Daily use of statins could become a thing of the past due to a revolutionary new gene-editing drug (Stock Image) Experts behind the treatment, called Verve-101, believe its effect is long-lasting and possibly permanent. Admitting research is at an early stage, they said their findings throw open the possibility that high cholesterol could effectively be 'cured' or prevented from becoming a problem in the first place. 'This is a potential game-changer in treating heart disease,' said Dr Sekar Kathiresan, one of the cardiologists behind Verve-101. He added: 'We've shown a one-time therapy could be the future.' So far nine patients with genetic condition familial hypercholesterolaemia which causes sky-high LDL levels that trigger heart attacks have been successfully treated. Trials will soon be extended to wider groups, including those with existing heart disease. 'We hope the treatment will be available by the end of the decade,' added Dr Kathiresan. The drug is based on CRISPR technology which can delete and rewrite sections of DNA inside cells. Unlike other CRISPR-based treatments, which can cost upward of 1million a dose, it is possible to mass-manufacture Verve-101, added Dr Kathiresan. Nine patients have so far been treated successfully, with trials soon extending to larger groups (Stock Image) He said: 'We expect it will cost no more than other one-off heart procedures like stent or heart bypass operations.' Statins are one of the most prescribed drugs in the UK: about eight million adults take them, and more than 71million prescriptions for statins are dished out each year. The drugs can be remarkably effective, reducing heart attack risk by up to 50 per cent and stroke risk by a third while costing as little as 15 per patient per year. Professor Watson said the biggest concern about the new treatment was safety: 'If you're editing the human genome, it's a big deal, so we have to be sure it's uber-safe.' Dr Andrew Bellinger, the chief scientific and medical officer at Verve Therapeutics, said that large-scale trials featuring thousands of heart disease patients were planned to start in 2025. Australian economics professor Sean Turnell woke at the Chatrium Hotel in Yangon about 5am on February 6, 2021 and checked his emails. Turnell had been trying to get out of Myanmar's biggest city since the country's democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi was overthrown in a military coup five days earlier. The 57-year-old had been working in the unsettled South-East Asian nation as an economic adviser to Suu Kyi and knew he could be arrested over his close association with her. Among the emails in Turnell's inbox that morning was an anonymous note sent about 4am warning him that military intelligence officers had taken over the hotel and were monitoring a security camera focused on his door. Turnell says the email instructed him to get out now if he could: 'And so I thought, "Oh, s***, this is a problem".' Australian economist Sean Turnell was arrested in Myanmar's February 2021 coup and taken to the South East-Asian nation's notorious Insein Prison near Yangon. Family members of prisoners sit outside the jail waiting for news of their relatives nine months after the coup The honorary professor of Economics at Sydney's Macquarie University would spend the next 650 days in a series of prisons facing trumped-up spying charges. His new life would feature midnight interrogations while chained to a chair in a room Turnell dubbed 'The Box', sharing a filthy concrete cell with rats the size of guinea pigs and being transported to and from court in leg irons and handcuffs. He would be kicked, punched in the head, and have a cigarette lighter held to his hair, while having to deny ludicrous accusations he worked for British security agency M16. To keep himself sane, Turnell would recite lists of United States presidents as well as Australian and British prime ministers, and read Enid Blyton books. All the while, supporters led by his wife, fellow economist Ha Vu, fought a campaign for his release which enlisted King Charles, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong as well as various diplomats and academics. Turnell, who had never previously been issued a parking ticket, has now documented all these experiences in a memoir aptly titled An Unlikely Prisoner. Insein - pronounced 'insane' - was built near Yangon (formerly Rangoon) by British colonial authorities in 1887 when Myanmar was still known as Burma, and housed 14,000 inmates at the height of the coup. The prison is pictured The morning military intelligence came to his hotel, Turnell called Australia's ambassador to Myanmar, Andrea Faulkner, who told the onetime Reserve Bank analyst she would meet him in the lobby. 'By the time I got down into the lobby the police and military intelligence were there and arrested me pretty much straight away,' Turnell tells Daily Mail Australia. 'It was pretty nerve racking but probably not as nerve racking as it sounds in that I didn't think they'd actually take me away and certainly not take me away for that long.' Turnell is bespectacled and describes himself as 'just a little guy', standing about 153cm (5 feet) tall. He entered prison weighing 56kg and came out at 46kg. 'It was pretty scary for me because I'm almost the archetypal nerdy professor,' Turnell says. 'The idea of being arrested and then carted off to Insein prison, which is one of the most notorious prisons in South-East Asia, was just horrifying beyond belief.' Sean Turnell, pictured with wife Ha Vu, is bespectacled and calls himself 'just a little guy', standing about 153cm (5 feet) tall. He entered prison weighing 56kg and came out at 46kg Insein - pronounced 'insane' - was built near Yangon (formerly Rangoon) by British colonial authorities in 1887 when Myanmar was still known as Burma, and housed 14,000 inmates at the height of the coup. Before Turnell was taken there he spent two months alone in The Box, a concrete-floored room next to the detectives' headquarters just outside the walls of the jail. 'It was like being in one of those small shipping containers,' Turnell says. 'It only had one slit window so the police could look in on me.' The room was bare but for a metal chair in the centre which was bolted to the floor and had wrist and ankle manacles attached to it. Turnell was chained to the chair whenever interrogators came to question him. These sessions would often take place in the middle of the night and usually involved three interrogators who set up a table in front of the chair. One would sit opposite the prisoner and ask questions, assisted by an interpreter, while the third moved around the room, which Turnell says was 'really disconcerting'. On one occasion that man held a cigarette lighter to the back of his head and singed his hair. Most of the inmates in adjacent cells when Turnell arrived at Insein were foreigners - Taiwanese, Malaysians, Chinese - many of them drug traffickers. Above is a smuggled sketch of inmates inside the prison in July 2021 'The main accusation against me was that I was working for M16,' Turnell says. 'I'd say, "Look, I'm not M16. I'm an economics professor. You can Google me. You can see my glasses and all the rest of it". 'The first time they put the leg irons on me I said, "I'm not Jason Bourne. I'm not going to be a threat to you".' Except for his interrogators Turnell had no visitors or contact with the outside world for two months and devised memory exercises to occupy his brain. In one, he had to name all the US presidents from first to last, then last to first. He ticked off British prime ministers from Lord Salisbury to Boris Johnson, and their Australian counterparts. In another mental activity Turnell tried to list all 50 US states. 'I was most discombobulated one day because I came up with 51,' he says. 'It took me days to remember that Omaha is not a state.' Each cell at Insein, five or six steps long and three across, opened onto a yard where Turnell would congregate with 70 or 80 other inmates each morning and afternoon. This sketch of conditions inside the jail was smuggled out in 2021 Of most comfort though was simply pacing up and down The Box - eight steps end to end - and counting the laps. If he completed 1,250 crossings for the day that was 10,000 steps: 'I used to feel good if I went above that'. Turnell says he was not treated as badly as some other prisoners who heard being tortured. 'I was only sort of physically assaulted a couple of times,' he says. 'Very minor by comparison to my Burmese colleagues who had things like electrodes and so on attached to them and were really beaten up.' Next stop for Turnell was Insein where he was put into a stinking hot cell on his own. Turnell's shoes were taken but he could wear his own clothes, with thongs. His watch was confiscated but he was allowed a small clock. Planks served as a bed which was made softer with two or three blankets. Turnell was allowed a camping mattress for a while. 'Of course you didn't really need a covering blanket because it was so hot all the time,' he says. 'You would end up by the morning having things walk all over you.' Turnell contracted Covid-19 five times while in prison despite being vaccinated four times - twice with with Sinovac and twice with the Chinese Sinopharm. He was the first Insein inmate to be vaccinated (above), in May 2021 Rainwater came into the cell under the door, as did black scorpions bigger than a man's hand and centipedes up to 25cm long. 'Rats could just come and go,' Turnell says. 'I used to try and build a barrier at the iron door. 'People usually exaggerate these things but these things were bloody big and awful. I would say as big as a guinea pig.' Then there was the squat toilet at the back of the cell. Turnell refers to the 'worst toilet in Scotland' that features in a famous scene from the 1996 film Trainspotting but says it was even worse. 'Accumulated filth had been built up over a century,' he says. 'Sometimes they would get clogged and overfilled and back up and the stuff would come down into the cell.' Most of the inmates in adjacent cells when Turnell arrived were foreigners - Taiwanese, Malaysians, Chinese - many of them drug traffickers. 'With my sheltered life, the idea that I'd be living cheek by jowl with narcotics traffickers is so absurd,' Turnell says. 'But funnily enough I got on really well with them.' Sean Turnell poses with Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade head of mission in Myanmar, Angela Corcoran, after being freed Each cell, five or six steps long and three across, opened onto a yard where Turnell would congregate with 70 or 80 other inmates each morning and afternoon. Turnell did not have trouble with the other political prisoners inmates in the yard. 'I had no experience of a jail at all but I'd imagine that they'd be places of gangs and standover and all that,' he says. 'And I dare say there were probably bits of that but from everything that I saw the prisoners were incredibly protective of each other.' Inmates were woken with bells at 4.45am and Buddhist inmates would chant for an hour. Everyone was let into the yard about 6am and the first of two daily meals was served half an hour later. An Unlikely Prisoner by Sean Turnell is published by Penguin Food - usually a watery lentil soup but occasionally fish or 'some sort of meat' - was delivered in three communal plastic buckets which would be left there for an hour. The unhygienic conditions contributed to Turnell catching Covid-19 times and he broke a couple of teeth chewing rice contaminated with pieces of iron. Inmates were put back in their cells about 8.30am, let out again at 3pm, fed the same way about 3.30pm and locked up at 5pm for the night. After three months in custody Turnell was able to make phone contact with Ha through the embassy and spoke to her on average once a fortnight. A month or so later Turnell began getting food packages from the embassy, including Anzac biscuits and brandy-laced fruitcakes Ha had baked and sent via the diplomatic pouch. He also secured a supply line of books, including The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Lord of the Rings, which he read five times. In what Turnell calls 'a moment of inspired madness', his sister Lisa sent him copies of the Enid Blyton Famous Five books he'd read as a child. 'The incongruity of it,' of it he says. 'I'm sitting there in this prison in the middle of Asia and I'm reading about lashings of ginger beer and all the rest of it.' During Turnell's time in custody his wife Ha baked him ANZAC biscuits and sent him books via the diplomatic pouch from Canberra. Turnell says these care packages him sane and helped his physical health Turnell's supporters, led by his wife, fellow economist Ha Vu , fought a campaign for his release which enlisted Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong. All are pictured above in December 2022 two weeks after his release from jail Turnell was then transferred to Myanmar's capital Naypyidaw in handcuffs and leg irons for his trial. It was there he faced his worst physical experiences being transferred to and from court. About 50 prisoners would be crammed into a truck with their handcuffs attached to a chain, trying to stay standing up. 'The truck would sway and people got sick and started vomiting and that set everyone else off vomiting,' Turnell says. 'Some people fainted and had to be held upright lest they fell down into the muck.' Turnell was found guilty and sentenced to three years' prison for breaching Myanmar's Official Secrets Act. Some of his lowest moments came after being transferred to another prison at Yamethin, 90km north of Naypyidaw. Turnell had expected to be deported upon conviction rather than spend any more time in jail. 'I thought I may end up having to serve this and I don't know if I can do it,' he says. 'So I think that was probably the lowest moment.' After two days at Yamethin, Turnell was taken back to Insein where he was kept for two more months. This time he was placed in solitary confinement, near the prison's death row inmates, inside a fenced wooden hut. On November 17, 2022, a guard surprised Turnell when he appeared at his door about 7am and said, 'Sean, good news, you're going home'. 'I remember I just looked at him and said, "Please, tell me you're not kidding, you can't muck around with stuff like this",' he recalls. 'And he said, "No, no , no, we're not kidding but you've got to pack whatever you want and be out of here in ten minutes".' The day after his release Turnell was back in Australia and reunited with Ha, to whom he has dedicated his book. With the military junta still in charge of Myanmar it is unlikely Turnell can return to the country anytime in the near future. 'One of the things we spoke about to keep out spirits up among the other prisoners was that the criminals are outside of Myanmar's prisons,' he says. 'It's the good people who are on the inside.' An Unlikely Prisoner by Sean Turnell is published by Penguin and available from November 14. He was diagnosed with silicosis after working as a stonemason The wedding had been delayed for years due to his health EXCLUSIVE A young tradie dad-of-three who is dying from a terminal illness has tied the knot with his long-time fiancee - a day they feared would never come. Ben Harrison, 34, married his partner Cristale at Don River Railway in Devonport, Tasmania, on October 14 despite the couple being uncertain Mr Harrison would live to see the day. Stonecutter Mr Harrison was diagnosed with silicosis, an incurable condition, the day before his 30th birthday after 10 years cutting man-made kitchen benchtops. Doctors told the former stonecutter that he had the incurable disease the day before his 30th birthday after workmates talked him into getting tested. Silicosis is caused by inhaling unsafe amounts of toxic silica dust which likely happened while he was cutting into silicon-based kitchen benchtops as a stonemason on the Gold Coast. Ms Harrison told Daily Mail Australia that although the long-delayed wedding went off without a hitch her husband's condition was constantly at the back of her mind. Ben Harrison, 34, married his long-time fiancee, Cristale, on October 14 after years of delays as the couple fought Mr Harrison's termianl silicosis diagnosis The former stonemason had worked with man made stone during his time as a tradie on the Gold Coast, which was likely where he developed the disease About 80 guests arrived for the service in Devonport, Tasmania, and Ms Harrison could barely get through her vows without choking back tears. 'I think I spent the whole day on and off crying,' she said. 'Ben was very clear in his delivery of his vows but I guess I was caught up in the emotion.' Mr Harrison's best man was also a former stonemason who contracted silicosis after years of cutting man-made stone. In total there were four guests at the wedding suffering from the condition, which has become an epidemic among young stone cutters in Australia. Ms Harrison's mother and nan had passed away before they were able to see her get married and she said that another the idea of another loved one's death was an unsettling distraction. 'I was so happy that we were getting married but I guess I was also scared because we live in such unknown circumstances and I just don't know how our life is going forward,' she said. 'We have his diagnosis looming over our heads constantly.' Mr Harrison's condition means that he is constantly fatigued and needing to rest which Ms Harrison had made sure that he could do during the wedding. She had spoken to the event organiser to make sure that there was a room that her husband could go to if he needed to but luckily the room went unused on the day. Their wedding photographer had seen the couple being dragged between groups of people who all wanted a photo with them and noticed that Mr Harrison was starting to look tired. They suggested instead that the pair stand in one spot so that the guests could form a line and get their photos taken one by one which Ms Harrison said that she greatly appreciated. That the weeks leading up to the big day were a bit touch-and-go for Mr Harrison after he had developed a slight viral infection. 'For about four days leading up to the wedding I thought, "Oh, is he going to be like this on the day of the wedding?"' Ms Harrison said. 'But he managed to hold himself really well on the day and then the week after the wedding he was very fatigued again. I think it was quite a lot for him.' Mr Harrison makes fortnightly trips to see the doctor but when his silicosis gets bad he needs to go between one to three times a week. Ms Harrison said that she often wears a mask when she goes to pick up the children from school and that her husband wears one when he visits his doctor to avoid the spread of germs. They have been told to practice a 'pill in the pocket' strategy to combat infection, which means that as soon as they see symptoms emerge they get him on antibiotics as fast as possible. Bleach has become a staple of their household as a way to keep him safe. Despite the wedding going off without a hitch, Ms Harrison said that her husband's illness cast an unavoidable shadow over the day Mr Harrison was diagnosed with silicosis the day before his 30th birthday after inhaling silica dust while cutting into silicon-based kitchen benchtops Despite the fact that there has been irrefutable evidence linking the development of silicosis to man made benchtops they remain legal in Australia for companies to sell. Many of the benchtops Mr Harrison worked on are sold by third parties through hardware giants and most come from Caesarstone. The stone-maker recent launched a campaign to fight back against accusations from former tradies who have silicosis and are now pushing for a nation-wide ban. Caesarstone has claimed that banning their product would not solve the issue and that a 'complete silica safety plan' would be the better option. It has teamed up with the Australian Engineered Stone Advisory Group which is recommending that a cap be put on silica content rather than an indiscrete ban. The AESG, along with Caesarstone and three other stone makers, recently launched a petition to lobby the government against any full-scale ban in the industry. 'A complete Ban on Engineered Stone is not the answer and will not eliminate Silicosis, but by banning Engineered Stone over 40 per cent Silica combined with education and licensing we make change for the future,' it wrote. Ms Harrison likened the petition to the work of asbestos industries when they also tried blocking a ban of the similarly toxic substance in the early 2000's. Mr Harrison primarily worked on stone made by Caesarstone, who recently launched a petition calling on the government to prevent an industry ban on silica in their products Cells taken from the lungs of a patient with silicosis - notice the speck of silica dust shining brightly Despite activists' best efforts over the last five years, Ms Harrison said that she fears what influence the industry could have on the government's decision making. 'Lately I've been feeling a little bit nervous around getting what Caesarstone came out with their campaign, pretty much saying that banning man-made stone isn't going to stop silicosis or save workers from it, which I just think is outrageous,' she said. 'Of course, it's gonna save lives, they play a massive role in a lot of people's diagnosis because a lot of stonemasons only worked on state on Caesarstone.' Mr Harrison primarily worked with Caesarstone during his time as a tradie but had also used other companies products too. A Caesarstone spokesperson acknowledged that 'there are risks' to working with man made stone, but said that if tradies followed the protocol for cutting stone then the issue could be solved. 'Caesarstone accepts that there are risks to workers if proper WHS techniques are not followed. But that applies to all stone containing silica, not just engineered stone,' the spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia. 'Exactly the same WHS techniques must be used and enforced when cutting stone with 10 per cent silica content as when cutting stone with 95 per cent content. 'That is why a ban on engineered stone alone will not solve the issue of silicosis. It will continue to leave workers exposed to risks from all other stones containing silica, including most replacement countertop materials, such as granite. 'We have also consistently advocated for a nationwide licensing scheme, improved education and rigorous enforcement of safety standards for workers handling any product containing silica. That is the best approach to protecting workers from the risk of silicosis.' Many of the benchtops he worked are still sold through a variety of specialty retailers like Bunnings and Ms Harrison said that until the laws change, the hardware giant is happy to make money despite stonemasons getting sick and dying. 'They're waiting for (legislative change), essentially, is what they're doing. It's wrong,' she said. 'They're making money until they no longer can. 'No one deserves to go through what we've had to.' But Bunnings director of merchandise Jen Tucker said the hardware giant would follow advice from regulatory bodies. 'Most of the benchtops we sell in store are laminate or timber however, the engineered stone benchtops we provide are pre-cut to size before they arrive at a customer's site and are supplied and installed by a specialist provider that holds an engineered stone licence and applies strict safety standards to protect production and installation teams in line with the requirements of their licence,' she said. 'The safety of our team and customers is something we take really seriously. 'We know that safety is a concern for the industry more broadly, and something that the federal government is currently reviewing.' 'We are supportive of new legislation as well as the introduction of consistent standards and licensing across states and territories.' The Harrisons' are now going through the compensation process to secure a settlement from stone making companies who have profited off of those who have been affected by silicosis while also trying to raise awareness of its dangers. Mr Harrison's condition has left him constantly fatigued and he sometimes needs to go to the doctors up to three times a week Ms Harrison said that her husband is unable to enjoy his life to the fullest and is advocating for a full ban on man made stone in Australia: 'No one deserves to go through what we've had to' Ms Harrison said that she has been going 'full throttle' to combat Caesarstone's new campaign but that it is having an affect on her husband's mental health. 'I guess he's still processing what's going on and it's still really touchy for him, so it takes a toll,' she said of Mr Harrison. 'It's taken until this year for Ben to be able to open up in the awareness space and I'm so proud of him for putting out there how it's impacted him and our family.' The effects of his condition have left Mr Harrison fatigued and constantly needing rest. Even though he has successfully fought off infections and been able to avoid his silicosis deteriorating, the fact that he has been unable to provide for his children affects him most. 'Sometimes it's really sad because you have those moments as parents that the children will do something and you go to look over to the other parent and say, did you see that? And I look over and he's asleep. 'He feels like he is not providing for the children or he's not giving the children his time or energy because he's asleep. 'So I guess that's how you would explain it: he is caught up in those feelings of feeling useless.' Safe Work Australia recently endorsed the silica ban to the government in a decision regulation impact statement. The organisation wrote that stonecutters face a greater risk of developing silicosis in their line of work and that their industry has a history of non-compliance in regards to enforcing a cap on the level of silica in their products. 'While silicosis cases have been found in workers across a range of industries and silica-containing materials, a disproportionate number of silicosis diagnoses are in engineered stone workers,' it found. 'At present an unknown number of Australian workers will go on to develop silicosis because of their prior exposure to RCS from working with engineered stone. 'The only way to ensure that another generation of Australian workers do not contract silicosis from such work is to prohibit its use, regardless of its silica content.' The police watchdog has ordered Merseyside Police to probe itself over allegations it failed to properly investigate the death of a mother-of-two who died after NHS hospital staff accidentally overdosed her on paracetamol. This comes ahead of next week's long-awaited inquest into the death of Laura Higginson, 30, after the third request by her widower Dr Antony Higginson, 48, since she died in April 2017. And a doctor now faces questions as it emerged that a previously unseen death report 'effectively downplayed' the impact of the paracetamol overdose, according to Dr Higginson's lawyer. Merseyside Police referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) in September after Mrs Higginson's husband made allegations of 'corruption' over the investigation into her death and claims of a subsequent 'cover-up'. Mrs Higginson, who suffered from rare genetic disorder Gitelman syndrome which causes low weight, died in Whiston Hospital thirteen days after being admitted for suspected pneumonia. The police watchdog has ordered Merseyside Police to probe itself over allegations it bungled the investigation into the death of a mother-of-two Laura Higginson (left, with daughter Evelyn) who died after NHS hospital staff overdosed her on paracetamol A pre-inquest review will be held on November 15, on Mrs Higginson's (left) death. Widower Dr Antony Higginson (right), 48, made three attempts to ensure one since her death in April 2017 Mrs Higginson died in Whiston Hospital (pictured) thirteen days after being admitted for suspected pneumonia and after staff overdosed her with paracetamol Her cause of death was recorded as pneumococcal sepsis, multiple organ failure and Gitelman syndrome, but months after her death Dr Higginson discovered from her medical records she had been given a staggered paracetamol overdose, which may have destroyed her liver. As Mrs Higginson was very underweight her body was unable to properly process what would be a standard dose of paracetamol for most other adults. NHS guidance details how paracetamol doses should be lowered for underweight patients. Dr Higginson said he and his family were not told about the accidental overdose and he only found out after reading a post-mortem report that his GP gave him about two months later. He contacted lawyers and police amid concerns of a 'cover up'. Although the death of Mrs Higginson, a trainee lawyer, was reported to the local coroner at the time, no inquest was held. Whiston Hospital has previously refuted suggestions the overdose contributed to her death and claims complications from a genetic condition she suffered were responsible. But experts who analysed her medical notes said the painkiller irreparably damaged her liver and 'caused or materially contributed to her death', Dr Higginson's lawyer said. Medical notes also reveal that she was given the antidote for a paracetamol overdose, but experts have said this was administered too late to be effective. An inquest into Mrs Higginson's death was adjourned in 2020 as police and the CPS investigated allegations of corporate manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter. However, CPS experts concluded there were 'insufficient grounds for prosecution', her husband's lawyer John Doyle told MailOnline. Dr Higginson believes the investigation is 'corrupt', telling MailOnline that police did not obtain key evidence which could have furthered a manslaughter investigation. And now the IOPC has said it considers his claims worth investigating, as it has now instructed Merseyside Police's professional standards department (PSD) to probe the force. Dr Higginson told MailOnline today: 'The police never obtained witness statements from the doctors and nurses who treated Laura which would have been valid lines of enquiry in a manslaughter case. 'I referred them to professional standards who then referred themselves to the IOPC, as this says to me that there's a case for corruption.' Hitting out against the force, he added: 'We have repeatedly asked senior leadership at Merseyside Police, including the Chief Constable, for dialogue and they have refused to meet me and Laura's family.' Medical negligence lawyer Mr Doyle also revealed that the doctor could be quizzed at the upcoming inquest, which has a pre-inquest review on November 15, over the 'unusual' cause of death form she filled in for the coroner. Mr Doyle told MailOnline that the doctor wrote on 'Form 97A': 'She [Mrs Higginson] was given a normal dose of paracetamol but because of low BMI (36kg) this was too much.' 'The wording is not as explicit as one would expect it to be, as it's not spelled out that the she was overdosed and then given antidote,' Mr Doyle said. 'It is unusual.' 'The person responsible for reporting deaths, has not spelled out that she was given an overdose in hospital repeatedly. You would spell out the period of time she was overdosed on paracetamol and the number of times and then if an antidote was given to try to reverse the effects.' 'They couldn't bring her back and her body gave in and she died. 'That's why an inquest wasn't opened at the time and coroner didn't do post mortem.' Mrs Higginson (right, with her son Stephen and daughter Evelyn), suffered from rare genetic disorder Gitelman syndrome which causes low weight Mrs Higginson (pictured with her son Stephen) was very underweight, so her body was unable to properly process what would be a standard dose of paracetamol for most other adults Dr Higginson told MailOnline that police did not obtain key evidence which could have furthered a manslaughter investigation Mr Doyle also said the hospital conducted a post-mortem on Mrs Higginson themselves, rather than the coroner, which is 'most unusual'. He added: 'Either the doctor reported [the overdose] to coroner and they didn't record it, in which case Dr Higginson wants the coroner's conduct looked at by the police. 'Or it must be the other way and there are question marks as to why not consider as to if someone has been treated negligently over three or four days.' An IOPC spokesperson told MailOnline: 'In September, we received a referral from Merseyside Police following a complaint linked to a criminal investigation undertaken by the force in relation to the death of Laura Higginson. 'After careful consideration of the available information we determined an investigation is required into the allegations, and have instructed Merseyside Police to carry this out. 'If the complainant is unhappy with the outcome of the investigation, they will have a right of review. This would be carried out by the IOPC, ensuring an appropriate level of independent oversight. 'Our thoughts are with Mrs Higginson's family and friends and all those affected by her death.' A Merseyside Police spokesperson said: 'We can confirm we received a complaint in relation to an investigation into the death of Laura Higginson at Whiston Hospital on 19th April 2017. 'We are currently reviewing additional material alongside the initial investigation. 'Officers are in contact with the family of Mrs Higginson and with the coroner's office. 'As a review is ongoing it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.' A spokesperson for Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust told MailOnline: 'The Trust offers its sincere condolences to the family of the late Mrs Higginson. 'As soon as the Trust was made aware that Mrs Higginson had received a higher dose of paracetamol than that which was recommended for her low body weight, it was stopped and the antidote quickly commenced. 'The Trust responded openly and honestly, instigating a full and thorough investigation informed by independent medical experts. This concluded that any effect of the paracetamol dose was transient and did not contribute to Mrs Higginson's death.' A spokesperson for Sefton, St Helens & Knowsley Coroner's Service said: 'HM Coroner has advised that we cannot comment on the matters raised, as they are sub judice.' A wealthy British broker ordered to pay compensation to a stablehand who was maimed at his polo club in Argentina has bemoaned the country's 'biased' legal system. Accused Jeremy Baker quit his job at investment banking giant Goldman Sachs in the early 2000s to start a new life in South America, opening up a hotel and polo centre in the town of Canuelas near Buenos Aires. But Mr Baker and his Argentinian wife Liliana Forrester were compelled by a labor court to pay for a prosthetic arm after a worker at his Puesto Viejo polo club suffered a horrendous injury. Stablehand Nelson Bravo lost his arm feeding polo ponies when he was pulled into an unprotected oat loading pipeline in 2017. Doctors amputated what was left of the destroyed limb. His lawyers had claimed that as the club owner, Mr Baker was responsible for his medical bills and for buying a state-of-the-art prosthetic arm. Stablehand Neslon Bravo, pictured with his lawyer, lost his arm in 2017 when he was pulled into a grain shifting pipeline which shredded his flesh and forced doctors to amputate the limb British broker Jeremy Baker, who was ordered to pay compensation to a stablehand who was maimed at his polo club in Argentina Mr Baker meanwhile argued that Bravo was employed directly by polo players, not by his club, and refused to pay the bill even after labour court judges ruled his company was liable. After years of legal battles, Mr Baker claims he has now paid the compensation - an undisclosed sum - but railed against a system he felt forced him to unfairly shell out for medical bills while the victim's direct employers escaped culpability. 'If you are accused of having an illicit labor relationship (an employee 'working in black' so to speak) you are presumed to be guilty, not innocent. The law is written and applied steeply biased toward the plaintiff and not the supposed employer. 'Despite more than 10 witnesses declaring that he worked for the player and not the club, we were unable to avoid a sentence against us.' Mr Baker's lawyers insisted neither he nor his wife are guilty of any wrongdoing. They told Argentine press that Bravo was working 'in black' at the time of the accident, meaning he was not covered by a medical insurance or social security policy and was not a registered worker. They also claim that Bravo was a stablehand, or petisero, working for a pair of owners who stabled their ponies at the estate, and argued he was never employed directly by Baker. Nelson Bravo poses in undated photo Jeremy Charles Phillip Baker poses with Liliana Forrester in undated photo Responding to a request for comment from MailOnline, a representative for Mr Baker said: 'Mr Baker's sympathies are naturally with Nelson Bravo and his family for this tragic accident. Mr Baker's lawyers told local media: 'Everything possible was always done to assist (Bravo), both at the beginning and after the accident.' 'Each polo player in Argentina has their own petisero. (Bravo) was an employee of Manuel and Fredy Palomba. 'On the day of the accident, he was taking care of petisero tasks for them, who were never present to assist their employee.' However, although Bravo was not registered, judges found that there was still proof of an employment link between Mr Baker's companies and Bravo, and therefore ruled Ancien Poste SA and London & Baires SRL were liable to pay. 'However, Mr Bravo is not and has never been an employee at the club. Despite this 100% of the compensation ordered by the court has been paid in full.' Online sleuths were sent into a frenzy amid a six-week wait for an arrest One year ago, four University of Idaho students were murdered after a night out One year ago, four students at the University of Idaho were massacred in their off-campus home at the end of a fun-filled college night out. Cops failed to produce a suspect for six weeks as morbid online curiosity into the murders grew, until investigators finally made an arrest on December 30: a 28-year-old criminology PhD student from neighboring Washington State University named Bryan Kohberger. Social media flew into a frenzy as internet sleuths pored over the lanky teaching assistant's history, revealing everything from his middle-school bullying at the hands of popular classmates to his humiliating Tinder dates. Kohberger has contested his innocence ever since from behind bars, waiving his right to a speedy trial earlier this year to prepare for a high-profile court date that is yet to be rescheduled. The drawn-out investigation and court hearings ahead of the trial have left many with more questions than answers over the brutal stabbings of Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20. On November 13, 2022, University of Idaho students (L-R) Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, and Ethan Chapin, 20, were brutally murdered Bryan Kohberger (pictured during his extradition in January 2023), a 28-year-old criminology PhD student, has remained behind bars for eleven months as he pleads his innocence Chapin and Kernodle (pictured together) had been in a relationship for around a year before the murders, with his brother saying that she 'gave him purpose' Best friends Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogel were found stabbed to death together, where a knife sheath investigators believe is a crucial piece of evidence was also discovered Kohberger is alleged to have meticulously planned the killings, with a white Hyundai Elantra - matching one owned by Kohberger - captured in various surveillance footage circling around the victims' King Road home before the killings. The four victims and their friends had been enjoying a typical night out at local college bars, and Mogen and Goncalves were last seen buying carbonara pasta from a takeout truck shortly before they returned home at around 2am. Chapin and Kernodle had spent the evening at his Sigma Chi fraternity house, and arrived home at around the same time. Just over an hour later, the white Hyundai was again spotted lurking in the area, at the same time Kernodle appears to have still been awake as she had just received a DoorDash order. Investigators also determined that she had been playing TikTok at around the same moment the white Hyundai was seen performing a three-point turn in the street outside, at 4.04am. Kohberger's phone had been turned off in Pullman at 2.47am, where he lived around 10 miles from the murder house in Moscow, and turned back on again at 4.48am south of Moscow, on the route back to Pullman. The victim's surviving roommate, Dylan Mortensen, later told police she was also awake at the time, and even heard what was likely the sounds of the murders taking place in the room upstairs. Mortensen told investigators she believed the sounds were Goncalves playing with her dog, and even called out to her friends to quiet down thinking they were merely partying. 'Calm down, you're being loud!' she reportedly yelled around 4am, in addition to: 'I'm trying to sleep!' After she heard the questionable sounds slamming around the house in the dead of night, Mortensen said a male voice upstairs said something to the effect of: 'It's okay, I'm going to help you.' Surveillance cameras later picked up what was deemed to be someone sobbing, a loud thud, and a dog barking, at 4.17am. Dylan Mortensen (left) and Bethany Funke (middle) survived the brutal attack in the off-campus house which saw their fellow University of Idaho students Xana Kernodle (second from left) Kaylee Goncalves (second from right) and Madison Mogen (right) killed Dylan Mortensen (pictured) who survived the slayings, didn't call the police at the time of the murders. Instead, she claimed she believed the noises from upstairs were party-goers and her roommate playing with a dog The manner in which the killer navigated the three-story home to kill the four students who were sleeping in separate rooms and floors in the early hours of a November morning has raised questions about his motives and potential knowledge of the layout Chapin and Kernodle were dating and lived in the apartment with the other two students who were killed Goncalves, of Rathdrum, Idaho, left, and Mogen, of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, right, were in separate sororities but we're said to have grown close at their time at college In a move that has led to numerous questions in the year since the murders, Mortensen says she opened her bedroom door to investigate the sounds and was stunned to come face-to-face with an intruder, dressed in all black and wearing a mask. She claims the killer walked right past her and exited out a sliding glass door at the back of the house, leaving her frozen in fear. Nobody called 911 for over seven hours. At 4.20am, the white Hyundai Elantra was seen again in surveillance footage driving through the neighborhood, with the car later becoming a key piece of evidence that prosecutors say places Kohberger in the area at the time. In his own defense, Kohberger has presented an alibi that he was driving alone all evening, and his lawyer says he has a 'long habit of going for drives alone.' When investigators arrived on the scene the next day, they discovered the four victims laying in two bedrooms: boyfriend and girlfriend Kernodle and Chapin in one, and lifelong best friends Mogen and Goncalves in the other. The scenes were so gruesome that exclusive DailyMail.com images showed blood seeping down the outsides of the home. That morning, in a haunting move, prosecutors claim Kohberger's phone was also located in the area near the crime scene, around the time cops discovered the slayings. His phone had been tracked in the neighborhood 12 times in the few months before the murders, according to an arrest affidavit. Detectives found a Ka-Bar knife sheath on the bed with the bodies of Mogen and Goncalves. DNA on the sheath was later statistically matched to Kohberger through genealogy testing While inside the house, cops also quickly stumbled upon another item they say could be key to solving the slayings, a knife sheath emblazoned with a US Marine Corps logo laying on the bed next to Mogen. The murder weapon has never been found. However, the investigation hit a snag when the sheath did not immediately match any DNA in law enforcement databases, and it was left to be sent for further analysis. At the same time, news of the quadruple murder spread like wildfire online. Weeks went by, and one of the only early breakthroughs in the investigation was the identification of a white Elantra at nearby Washington State University registered to Kohberger, adding his name to the suspect list. Some have raised doubts over the knife sheath as a 'smoking gun' in the case, however, including Kohberger's defense team who argued in August against the validity of the DNA found on the sheath. It was alleged that DNA from three other men was also found at the crime scene. Investigators have alleged that Kohberger traveled the roughly 10 miles from his Pullman, Washington, apartment to the home in Moscow, Idaho, and subsequently fled the scene after the brutal slayings Blood drips down the outside of the wall of the house the four students shared, which investigators described as the worst crime scene they have ever seen Investigators were seen in January removing a bloodied mattress from the home where four University of Idaho were murdered in November Goncalves (left) and Mogen (right) were last seen getting food from a takeout truck shortly before 2am on the night of the killings Xana Kernodle and her boyfriend Ethan Chapin in a parody of characters from film Ratatouille The route allegedly driven by Bryan Kohberger on the night of the brutal Idaho murders may be a crucial piece of evidence in the state's case against the 28-year-old suspect However, reports indicate that the FBI did not begin focusing on the PhD student until mid-December, around the time that extensive knife sheath analysis allowed officials to create a profile with genetic genealogy. As pressure was mounting for police to arrest a suspect, and social media was awash with speculation over the murders, Kohberger was continuing his day job as a teaching assistant. His students recalled to the New York Times that, two weeks before the massacre, Kohberger had become noticeably engaged and excited over a class discussion into forensics, particularly how it is used by detectives to win convictions. Others reported that he became disjointed and aloof in the weeks after the killings, leading to a bust-up with another professor that saw him fired on December 19, just 10 days before his eventual arrest. By the end of December, Kohberger was firmly in the sights of law enforcement, who were watching him day and night but were attempting to match the DNA from the crime scene. Kohberger embarked on a cross-country drive with his father from Idaho back to his parents' home in Pennsylvania. The two were pulled over purposefully by cops twice during the journey, leading to a wide-eyed Kohberger to stare down an officer with a panicked look as his father talked to the officers. He was driving with a new Washington State license plate which he had bought five days after the murders, and officers admitted he was pulled over on purpose to get a closer look at his hands for any potential injuries sustained in the killings. Investigators tracked a white Hyundai Elantra on the night of the killings that they believe to have been driven by Kohberger Kohberger was under heavy surveillance by late December 2022, as he and his father were pulled over on a cross-country drive from Idaho to Pennsylvania. Investigators purposefully pulled him over to get a closer look at his hands for potential injuries sustained in the murders Testing of the DNA left on the knife sheath escalated as Kohberger returned to his parents' home, as DNA was collected from trash at the family home that was found to be a statistical match to the 28-year-old. The breakthrough allowed arrest warrants to be drawn up and, on the morning of December 30, tactical teams descended on the family home in the early hours and arrested Kohberger in a dramatic pre-dawn raid. Kohberger was later extradited back to Idaho, where he was placed on suicide watch as he became one of America's most notorious alleged criminals overnight. His legal team have insisted on several occasions that he is 'looking forward to clearing his name', and in August the suspect waived his right to a speedy trial to give him more time to prepare for the likely-blockbuster trial. While he prepares, social media interest in the case has periodically peaked, particularly whenever ominous details into his past are unearthed. For many, his criminology background led to speculation that Kohberger thought of himself as a criminal mastermind intent on pulling off the perfect crime. During his undergraduate degree at DeSales University in Pennsylvania, he studied under renowned serial-killer expert psychologist Katherine Ramsland - author of books including 'How to Catch a Killer' and 'The Mind of a Murderer.' Former friends and associates have described him as a shy loner, who battled heroin addiction and who was banned from a bar near his parents' home due to alleged creepy behavior towards women. Kohberger's criminology background and disturbing allegations about his past have fueled online speculation over the quadruple murder suspect Disturbing allegations that Kohberger had saved images of one of his victims and attempted to contact her emerged amid the investigation. Kaylee Goncalves (right) had complained about a mysterious stalker in the weeks before the killing, but it is not known if this is related The family of Kaylee Goncalves, 21, have called for her killer to face the death penalty Police sources have also said that following his move to pursue a PHD in criminology in the fall of 2022, he applied to work for the Washington State University police department but was turned down. It also emerged that in the fall of 2022, months before the murders, Kohberger had sent a petition around to Reddit users asking ex-convicts to take a survey about the moment they committed a crime. Specifically, he was looking for respondents to detail their 'thoughts, emotions, and actions from the beginning to end of the crime commission process.' Questions included: 'Did you prepare for the crime before leaving your home?', 'Why did you choose that victim or target over others?' and 'What was the first move you made to accomplish your goal?' Investigations have also often centered on why the four Idaho student victims were targeted in the murders, with officials seemingly stumped over that question a year on. In January, a law enforcement source revealed to PEOPLE that Kohberger had allegedly messaged one of his female victims in the weeks before the murders, sending repeat prompts that went ignored. 'He slid into one of the girls' DMs several times but she didn't respond,' the police source said. 'Basically, it was just him saying, "Hey, how are you?" But he did it again and again.' Goncalves had also reportedly complained about a mysterious stalker in the run-up to the killings, however it is unclear if Kohberger has any links to these claims. Madi Mogen (left) was described as a 'beautiful girl who was always a delight.' She is pictured wearing her favorite pink cowboy boots that were later pictured at the crime scene Propped against the window in the bedroom where she died, Mogen's favorite pink cowboy boots are pictured in November 2022 a poignant reminder of an owner who will never wear them again Those who knew Chapin said he was enamored with Kernodle and often 'looked forward to getting off work as a waiter to see her' The SWAT team raid of his parents' home also led to the discovery of multiple images of one of the victims on his phone, a source told PEOPLE in April. With no motive found by investigators, the source alleged that it 'was clear that he was paying attention' to the victim in his phone. Although Goncalves is said to have complained of the alleged stalker, her loved ones have described her as a fun-loving, gregarious student who was excited for the future. She was set to graduate early that December and had planned a move to Austin, Texas with her friend Jordyn Quesnell, who told the New York Times that the duo were excited to start their next chapter. 'We wanted that adventure,' she said. 'I would be like, 'Let's go do this,' and she'd be like 'Down!'' Goncalves' family have also alleged that she was 'trapped' by the body of her best friend Madison Mogel on the night of the killings, which may have stopped her being able to escape. Speaking to CBS News' Peter Van Sant, he said: 'There's evidence to show that she awakened and tried to get out of that situation, [but] she was assaulted and stabbed. 'The bed was up against the wall. The headboard was touching the wall and the left side of the bed was touching the wall. 'And we believe that Maddie was on the outside and Kaylee was on the inside. The way the bed was set up[Kaylee] was trapped.' Kaylee's mother, Kristi, also speculated over how the killings took place, saying that she thinks the killer's plan 'went awry', and that he 'intended to kill one and killed four'. Mogen and Goncalves were found in one bedroom together, after couple Chapin and Kernodle the first to be discovered in bed together by his best friend. After Mortensen delayed in calling 911, Chapin's unidentified best friend visited the off-campus home to find the four slain in their beds, reportedly taking their pulse before the call went out seven hours after the murders. Chapin and Kernodle had been seeing each other for around a year at the time, and his heartbroken brother recalled after that Xana 'gave Ethan purpose.' 'They had inside jokes that no one understood that made them crack up. He looked forward to getting off work as a waiter to see her,' he wrote on social media. 'If the 2 weeks we got to meet her represent her and her life she lived, the world is missing 2 very amazing people. Two kids in their 20s that are stripped of being great parents if they wanted that, and amazing role models for the next generation.' Kohberger has maintained his innocence in the case, and his legal team has repeatedly insisted that he 'looks forward to clearing his name' Investigators are now readying their case before it goes to trial, with FBI agents pictured last week returning to the Moscow home after an order for its demolition was delayed. Officers descended on the house in Moscow to take precise measurements of each room for 3D modeling that can be presented to the jury when the grisly case eventually goes to trial. The university, which now owns the building, planned to demolish it after the hearing got underway but that has been delayed by Kohberger's decision to waive his right to a speedy trial, allowing the FBI to build more of a case. The move could also see jurors spared a visit to the house where the students were slain. Ahead of his trial, Kohberger faced a recent loss in court as his ongoing battle to ban cameras from the courtroom was rejected by a judge. However, in a possible sign of things to come if the trial becomes the media circus it is anticipated to be, Latah County District Court Judge John Judge urged the media to 'have some dignity and restraint.' More Australians in the grip of a tightening housing crisis are turning to single rooms to keep a roof over their head, but there are now several suburbs across major cities without a single spare room available. Demand for flatshares is booming, with an 11.2 per cent increase in people joining flatmates.com.au - a website that connects renters with tenants - in the just the past month, and a 15.6 per cent increase from October 2022. But the country's crippling imbalance between housing supply and demand has extended into the single room market, with multiple suburbs showing zero listings for spare rooms despite renters willing to shell out big bucks for a place to stay. More Australians in the grip of a tightening housing crisis are turning to single rooms to keep a roof over their head, but there are now several suburbs across major cities without a single spare room available In Sydney's beachside Clovelly there were 516 people looking for a room with zero available, and in Elizabeth Bay there were 188 seekers and no listings. For the CBD, the website recorded 139 seekers and zero rooms. The desperation isn't limited to Sydney, with East Perth showing 350 seekers and zero rooms. And the gap in supply comes despite a substantial upswing in how much people are willing to pay for a room, with most major cities recording double digit year-on-year growth in prices for single rooms. Median room rent in Sydney has increased 16.7 per cent to hit $350 per week. In Melbourne, it has increased 17.4 per cent to hit $270 a week, while Brisbane has risen 16.4 per cent to reach $275. Adelaide has increased 16.7 per cent to $245 and Perth has increased 15.2 per cent to $265. Room prices in Hobart and Canberra have remained stable. Flatmates.com.au community manager Claudia Conley said the demand boom had come before 'peak season' and had transcended the usual 'winter slump'. 'It's clear more Australians are turning to share accommodation as pressures on the rental market and a cost of living crisis fail to die down,' she said. Flatmates.com.au community manager Claudia Conley Rents have risen sharply across much of the country as demand for housing continues to outstrip available supply. The national vacancy rate stood at 1.2 per cent as of August. More homeowners are also offering spare rooms in an apparent bid to secure another income stream. New property listings on Flatmates.com.au have jumped 38 per cent in the past year. 'An increase in property listings by 38 per cent since the same time last year reflects the growing trend of homeowners renting out their spare rooms,' Ms Conley said. 'Half of all property listings on Flatmates.com.au are from homeowners, with the majority of these being live-in landlords renting out a spare room in their home. 'Despite this growing trend, more property listings are still needed across the country to keep up with the growing demand for share accommodation.' The airline has been accused of failing disabled passengers following a series of incidents in recent months Canada's minister of transport, Pablo Rodriguez, has said the airline must 'do better' Air Canada has come under increasing fire in recent months - with the beleaguered airline now accused of disconnecting a disabled woman's ventilator on a flight. Bosses at the privately-owned airline were hauled in front of the Canadian federal government this week to answer questions on a raft of reports of poor treatment of disabled passengers. Alessia Di Virgilio, a disabled woman who uses a wheelchair to move and a ventilator to breathe, was filmed having her breathing device disconnected on an Air Canada trip in an undercover CBC report. A lift was also dropped on her head by staff at the firm, whose CEO was paid $9 million USD in 2022. Another wheelchair user, Rodney Hodgins, was forced to drag himself off an Air Canada flight over a mix-up. And Harish Pant, 83, died following a flight after suffering medical distress. His daughter claims Air Canada to refuse to divert, then fly on for nine hours to their intended destination. After three separate recent incidents - including the case of Hodgins - Air Canada admitted it had violated Canadian disability regulations - Canada's minister of transport, Pablo Rodriguez, said the airline must 'do better'. He wrote on X: 'All Canadians must be treated with dignity and respect. Full stop.' And it isn't just disabled flyers who are complaining with hundreds of passengers - including a movie star - slamming Air Canada over its terrible service. Air Canada told DailyMail.com it is taking drastic action to improve the experience of disabled flyers and highlighted multiple customer service awards it has recently won. Here, DailyMail.com catalogs some of the airline's most shameful recent incidents... Staff disconnected severely-disabled woman's ventilator Alessia Di Virgilio was filmed by an undercover reporter having her ventilator repeatedly disconnected and a lift dropped on her head by staff during an Air Canada flight A Toronto woman who uses a power wheelchair says she had her ventilator disconnected and a lift fall on her head while Air Canada staff struggled to move her on to the plane. Alessia Di Virgilio told CBC that she 'did not feel safe' during her trips with Air Canada from Toronto to Charlottetown. Hidden cameras caught poorly trained staff struggling to move Di Virgilio leading to her ventilator coming detached multiple times. Di Virgilio said she can only manage a few breaths without her ventilator before her breathing becomes shallow. She told CBC she felt 'terrified' during the final transfer in Toronto when staff told her they hadn't used the equipment to move her 'in probably seven years' and seemed to be working by trial and error. Then she said the lift they were using tipped over and 'hit me in the head' - she added: 'It was just such an overwhelming experience. I just kind of shut down from there.' Air Canada said in a statement to CBC: 'The vast, vast majority of customers with mobility needs travelled without issue and in those relatively rare instances where barriers were encountered, we moved quickly to address concerns.' Refused to divert a plane for a sick passenger who then died Harish Pant, 83, died after he developed severe medical issues on an Air Canada flight and staff allegedly refused to divert the plane to land early. Pant and his family had left Delhi on a flight in September - but seven hours in, Pant woke up and said he was having severe chest pain. Over the next few hours, he developed back pain, vomiting, loss of bowel control and the ability to stand. His daughter Shanu Pande said she immediately alerted cabin crew and pleaded with them to divert the plane so he could receive medical attention. Harish Pant, pictured, suffered a medical emergency on an Air Canada flight from Delhi to Canada in September. His daughter says the airline flew on for nine hours and refused to divert, with Pant dying shortly after the jet landed Pant is pictured with daughter Shanu Pande. Air Canada extended its sympathies to Pant's family - but rejected any suggestion that it shoulders any of the blame for his death She told Go Public: 'He was deteriorating in front of my eyes.' But she says staff decided his condition was 'not life-threatening' and refused to divert the flight. Instead they landed as scheduled nine hours later in Canada. Paramedics were waiting to meet the plane, but Pant died while they were treating him. His daughter believes that if Air Canada had diverted the flight, he would still be alive. She said: 'He was at the mercy of the pilot and Air Canada people. They were inhumane and callous. The family are pursuing a lawsuit against Air Canada. In an email to Go Public, Air Canada spokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick wrote that Air Canada extends its deepest sympathies to Pant's family, but also 'categorically rejects any assertions that it was responsible for the customer's death.' Disabled man forced to drag his body up the aisle to get off plane A man with cerebral palsy was forced to drag himself off an Air Canada flight after a stewardess told him there wasn't enough time to get him a wheelchair before the next flight needed to leave. Rodney Hodgins, 49, was traveling to Las Vegas with his wife Deanna for their anniversary trip in August when they faced the 'dehumanizing' experience while disembarking from the flight. Hodgins uses a motorized wheelchair because he has cerebral palsy and is unable to walk. But he was forced to hoist and drag his body down the aisle of the Air Canada flight - in front of dozens of passengers and airline staff - because the crew couldn't provide him a wheelchair. Rodney Hodgins, 49, was traveling to Las Vegas with his wife Deanna for their anniversary trip in August when they were faced with the horrific and 'dehumanizing' experience while disembarking from the flight Rodney dragged himself from row 12 to the front of the plane in excruciating pain, while his wife crawled behind, trying to help him, after a flight attendant told them no help was coming. The incident was investigated by Canadian Transportation Agency and this week the airline said it violated Canadian disability regulations in his case. In a written apology to the Hodgins, Air Canada acknowledged the experience was 'very inconvenient and humiliating' and offered Rodney and his wife a $1,000 flight voucher each. Disabled man seriously injured after staff dropped him on floor A stand-up comedian with cerebral palsy was left bed-ridden for three days after airline staff dropped him on the floor while taking him off the plane. Ryan Lachance, 44, usually uses an eagle lift to move him from his seat, but he says in early May, Air Canada ground crew insisted they could transfer him without assistance from the lift, and tried to hoist him themselves onto an aisle chair. He told CBC: 'It was a massive struggle to get me out of the seat. I travel with a sling underneath me to make it easier for people to pick me up. They kept pulling that and it was hurting my body, bruising my back and my hip really bad.' He was eventually yanked off the chair and landed hard on the floor, the incident was caught on video. Comedian Ryan Lachance, 44, was left badly-injured after Air Canada staff dropped him while taking him off a plane, after insisting they could do so manually, instead of using a lifting device His care assistant said: 'It was painful to watch, and it was painful for Ryan to experience. 'The one guy that was holding him up on his shoulders did not have his shoulders [properly], and the guy who had his legs pulled, and Ryan just flew off the seat and landed on his butt. It took over an hour and a half for Lachance to get off the flight and Lachance said he was left bedridden for three days. After filing a formal complaint, Lachance told CBC he was offered $500 in flight credits. Air Canada told CBC News: 'This customer did not receive the level of service we normally provide.' Staff branded the 'worst of humanity' by Marvel star Canadian actor Simu Liu described Air Canada staff as the 'the best and worst of humanity' in March. Posting on Instagram, he added: 'The worst are completely apathetic and use the crowds and punching bags.' Liu is known for portraying Shang-Chi in the 2021 Marvel film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Liu took to Instagram to express his disappointment with Air Canada An Air Canada plane takes off from Houston airport in October 2023. The airline has come under increasing fire for its treatment of disabled passengers and general customer service in recent months He didn't give any specific examples, saying 'no complaints, nothing to take up' but said some of the staff had been 'unpleasant' and 'unprofessional'. He added: 'The good employees are truly great and the bad ones well, theyre just some of the most unpleasant and miserable unprofessional human beings on the face of the earth.' Appalling online reviews from unhappy customers Michael Rousseau, CEO of Air Canada, was highly-criticized by the public and members of the country's government after he admitted he did not speak French As of this week, Air Canada scores just 4/10 from 2,309 reviews on airline quality comparison site, Skytrax, and 1.4 on Trustpilot from 593 reviews. One of the most recent verified reviews on Skytrax for Air Canada, from Meaghan Jeffrey, rated the airline just 1/10 - writing: 'I was so frustrated that I cried'. Other reviews detail lost bags, cancelled flights and rude staff. Another verified review from October read: 'My experience with Air Canada was nothing short of a complete disaster. I wouldn't wish this airline on my worst enemy. 'It was as if Air Canada had a personal vendetta against punctuality.' The company made headlines in April this year when it was revealed CEO Michael Rousseau was paid $12.38 million CAD (roughly $9 million USD) in 2022 a 233-per-cent increase compared to the previous year. Mr Rosseau told DailyMail.com: 'Air Canada recognizes the challenges customers with disabilities encounter when they fly and accepts its responsibility to provide convenient and consistent service so that flying with us becomes easier. 'Sometimes we do not meet this commitment, for which we offer a sincere apology. As our customers with disabilities tell us, the most important thing is that we continuously improve in the future. 'We are listening to them and today we are committing to do better and demonstrating that commitment with concrete actions.' The company announced several measures including 'improving boarding and seating, better customer communications, new processes to prevent delays or damage to mobility devices, more training and an investment in equipment such as lifts'. HBO is planning to release a sequel to The Jinx, the acclaimed 2015 docuseries that led to the arrest and murder conviction of New York real estate scion Robert Durst. The six-episode sequel is due out next year, and will trace Durst's arrest and trial in the murder of his best friend Susan Berman, leading up to his death behind bars in January 2022, just four months into a life sentence. HBO says part two will include 'hidden material' from an additional eight years of their investigation, as well as Dursts prison calls, and interviews with people who have never before come forward. Just hours before The Jinx finale episode aired in March 2015, Durst was sensationally arrested by the FBI at a New Orleans hotel, where he had registered under the false name 'Everette Ward'. He was charged with, and later convicted of, the December 2000 murder of Susan Berman, a longtime friend who had fiercely defended Durst after his wife Kathleen McCormack Durst disappeared in 1982, never to be seen again. HBO is planning to release a sequel to The Jinx, the heralded 2015 docuseries that led to the arrest and murder conviction of New York real estate scion Robert Durst. Durst is pictured here in December 2016 and died in prison in January 2022 Durst was convicted the December 2000 murder of Susan Berman (with him above) who had fiercely defended Durst after his wife Kathleen McCormack Durst disappeared in 1982 The original series memorably closed with Durst mumbling to himself in a bathroom while still wearing hot mic saying: 'Youre caught. What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.' The quotes were later revealed to have been manipulated for dramatic effect but the production done with Dursts cooperation against the advice of his lawyer dredged up new evidence, including an envelope that connected Durst to the scene of Bermans killing, as well as incriminating statements he made. Durst was sentenced to life for Berman's murder. Prosecutors alleged his motive was to prevent her from revealing what she knew about the 1982 disappearance of his wife, who was later declared legally dead. A week after his sentencing in Berman's murder, Durst was indicted for Kathleen's murder. His death left a puzzle of unanswered questions surrounding her unsolved case, and renewed public interest into the deluded misdeeds of one of America's most bizarre killers. Who was Robert Durst? Durst, born on April 12, 1943, was the eldest son of a prominent New York real estate dynasty. His grandfather, the family patriarch, Joseph Durst, was a tailor from Poland who immigrated to New York in 1902 with $3 sewn into his lapel. In a few short years, Joseph moved up from peddling children's clothing on pushcarts to being a partner in a garment factory. He soon after expanded into real estate in 1915 with the purchase of his first building on 34th Street. He also founded Capital National Bank, which made loans to the garment district and was eventually sold - giving him seed money for his budding real-estate empire. Today, the Durst Organization is worth $8 billion with towering skyscrapers that dominate Manhattan's iconic skyline. The family-run business owns more than 16 million square feet of real estate in New York City, including a 10 percent stake in One World Trade Center. Robert Durst's childhood was marred by tragedy when he witnessed his mother, Bernice, commit suicide by jumping off the roof of their family home. (Family members would later claim that it was an accident and dispute that Robert was anywhere present at the time). Robert Durst, convicted murderer and subject of the HBO true crime doc, 'The Jinx,' died while serving a life sentence in prison. He was 78-years-old. He is pictured on March 17, 2015 Robert Durst was set to stand trial for the murder of his wife, Kathie, who disappeared in 1982 and was presumed legally dead in 2017. They are pictured at their wedding in 1971 Robert's relationship with his brother, Douglas, only 18 months apart, was perennially fraught. TIMELINE: THE DESCENT OF ROBERT DURST 1982: Robert Durst's wife, Kathleen McCormack goes missing on January 31. Durst claimed that he dropped her off at the train station on the night she disappeared, and spoke to her later that evening on the telephone. Kathleen was never seen again. 1994: Robert Durst is pushed out of the family business due to increasingly erratic behavior. His brother is named successor of the real estate empire. 2000: The Westchester County district attorney announces in November that she is reopening the investigation into Kathleen McCormack Durst's disappearance and Susan Berman is considered a prime witness. 2000: Susan Berman is found executed in her Beverly Hills home. Three days later, an anonymous letter arrives at the Beverly Hills Police Department containing Berman's address and the word 'cadaver.' On the envelope 'Beverly' was critically misspelled as 'Beverley.' But the case goes cold. 2001: Durst was arrested in Galveston, Texas, shortly after body parts belonging to his elderly neighbor, Morris Black, were found floating in Galveston Bay. Police tracked him down with a receipt that was left in one of the garbage bags containing Black's body parts. Durst was released on bail and went on the run for 45 days before he was caught shoplifting a sandwich in Pennsylvania. 2003: Robert Durst stands trial for the murder of Robert Black and is acquitted of first degree murder. He pleads guilty for the lesser charges of bail jumping and evidence tampering and is sentenced to two years in prison. 2015: HBO releases a six-part documentary, The Jinx, that discovers new evidence incriminating Durst in the murder of his best friend, Susan Berman in 2000. FBI agents arrest him in New Orleans on eve before the final episode aired on March 15 2020: Robert Durst's trial for the murder of Susan Berman begins on March 20. The trial was paused for 14-months during the Covid-19 pandemic and resumed in May 2021. 2021: Robert Durst is found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole on October 14. 2021: On October 22, a Westchester County grand jury charged the ex-real estate scion for murder in the 1982 disappearance of his wife, Kathie McCormack Advertisement Robert underwent counseling for the violent sibling rivalry that often ended in physical fights. A psychiatrist's report in 1953 diagnosed 10-year-old Robert with 'personality decomposition and possibly even schizophrenia.' Classmates described Durst as a 'loner' in high school. He went on to attend Lehigh University in Pennsylvania with a degree in economics before he matriculated to UCLA to enroll in a doctoral program. It was there, that he met Susan Berman, an aspiring writer who was the daughter of a Las Vegas mobster. In 1969, Durst left UCLA to open a health food store in Vermont which was closed after only two years. He moved back to New York and began dating Kathleen McCormack, a young dental hygienist who rented an apartment owned by the Durst Organization. After two dates, he asked Kathie to move in with him, and they married on Robert's thirtieth birthday in 1973. Robert joined his father, Seymour and brother Douglas in the family business, developing a string of successful skyscrapers in midtown Manhattan. Meanwhile, Kathie enrolled in medical school to become a doctor. The couple partied at Studio 54, sailed the Mediterranean and traveled to Thailand while splitting time between their penthouse on Riverside Drive and a lakeside cottage in upstate New York. But their relationship grew troubled, friends would later say, when Durst became controlling and pressed his wife to have an abortion. 'I was always, always, always very controlling,' he said, matter-of-factly in the 2015 HBO docuseries, The Jinx. Three weeks before she went missing in 1982, 29-year-old Kathleen was treated at a hospital for facial bruises that were sustained in a physical fight with Durst. She had discovered that Durst was having an affair with Prudence Farrow (the younger sister of Mia Farrow and the subject of the Beatles song 'Dear Prudence.') Despite his tremendous wealth, Durst was notoriously cheap. When Kathie asked for a $250,000 divorce settlement (a pittance sum for the billionaire), he refused, removed her name from their bank accounts and cancelled all her credit cards. The last time Kathie McCormack was seen alive was on January 31, 1982, when she showed up unexpectedly at a dinner party thrown by a friend. Durst claimed that he drove his wife to catch a 9:15pm train to Manhattan after having an argument in their upstate cottage. He maintained that he went back to have a drink with a neighbor and spoke to McCormack later that evening when she called from their Riverside Drive apartment. Durst later admitted that he lied and just went to bed. 'That's what I told police,' he said in the The Jinx. 'I was hoping that would just make everything go away.' McCormack was never seen again and her body has never been found. It took Durst five days to report her disappearance to the police. By then, he had already raised suspicions among her family and friends and was considered a prime suspect by police. Kathleen McCormack Durst, 29, went missing on January 31, 1982 , her body has never been found. Durst was considered a prime suspect in the case but investigators were never able to pin him for the crime Durst initially offered $100,000 for his wife's return, then reduced the reward to $15,000. When one of McCormack's friends and her sister found out that she had been reported missing, they broke into her cottage and discovered her belongings were already in the trash In the immediate aftermath, his best friend and trustworthy confidant, Susan Berman stepped in to act as his publicist. She shielded him from a press hounding, lied in depositions, and helped him craft a phony alibi by posing as Kathleen in a fake sick call to her medical school that made it appear like she was still alive. Raised by a mobster father whom she adored, Susan had long internalized the mob's Omerta, 'code of silence.' She was fiercely loyal to Robert Durst, who she called 'Bobby,' and who walked her down the aisle of her 1984 nuptials. He was even mentioned in the 'acknowledgements' of her 1981 memoir, Easy Street. But it would be Susan Berman's intimate knowledge of the situation that would eventually get her killed 18 years later for 'knowing too much.' Investigators traced leads, developed suspicions and questioned Robert Durst over McCormack's disappearance, but the case went cold for almost two decades. Years passed before she was finally presumed dead in 2017. Durst killing spree claims the lives of Berman and neighbor Morris Black By 1994, Durst's professional life had gone off the rails too. As the eldest of four children, Robert was heir apparent of the family empire but a rift had developed at the Durst Organization over his increasing erratic behavior - which included mumbling to himself in meetings, stealing company money and urinating in his brother's trash bin. His long-standing enmity with his brother had grown to keeping weapons Robert menacingly kept a pointed plumber's wrench on his desk. In response, Douglas armed his office with a piece of pipe for protection. Seymour Durst had no choice but to remove Robert as his designated successor and replace him with Douglas. Devastated by the move, Robert cut himself off from the family and began flitting among homes in New York, Texas and California. He did not attend his fathers funeral in 1995. Eight years after Kathie went missing, Durst officially divorced her by claiming 'spousal abandonment.' He was able to evade the grasp of law enforcement until May 2021, when the Westchester DA's office reclassified the case as a homicide. A grand jury charged Robert Durst with her murder in October 2021. In the interim, Durst went on a killing spree that resulted in the deaths of Berman in 2000, and his elderly neighbor Morris Black in 2001. He was acquitted of the latter crime after pleading self defense, and eventually convicted of murdering Berman. After he was charged with killing and dismembering Texas neighbor Morris Black, Durst jumped bail and was arrested in Pennsylvania six weeks later while shoplifting Band-Aids, a newspaper and a chicken sandwich at a supermarket Durst is seen in a 2001 mugshot, when he faced a capital murder charge in Texas Berman was found dead in her Beverly Hills cottage, on Christmas Eve, 2000. Prosecutors said Durst's motive was to silence her from revealing his connection to Kathie's 1982 disappearance. Only one month earlier, in November 2000, the district attorney in Westchester County announced they were reopening the investigation into Kathie McCormack Durst's cold case. Berman was listed as a key witness to the investigation - which inadvertently signed her death warrant over to Robert Durst. 'If anything ever happens to me, Bobby did it,' she told her friends. Executed with a single bullet to the back of her head, Susan's killing had all the hallmarks of a mob hit. Investigators were confounded by crime scene and speculated it could have been an act of revenge for some long forgotten crime committed by her father, Davie 'the Jew' Berman, a former business partner of Bugsy Siegel. A few days later, a mysterious letter arrived at the Beverly Hills Police Department, postmarked December 23, 2000. It contained Berman's address and the word 'cadaver.' On the envelope 'Beverly' was critically misspelled as 'Beverley' which matched a previous letter Durst sent to Berman (though it would take investigators 15 years to make that connection). Her case went cold. Robert Durst admitted to sending the infamous 'CADAVER' letter (above) that tipped police off to the location of Susan Berman's body at her address Deputy District Attorney Habib A. Balian holds a rubber latex mask, worn by Robert Durst when police arrested him on New Orleans in 2015 In the meantime, Robert Durst went on the run. He lived under different aliases, using false identities to buy cars, rent apartments, and open credit card accounts. In another crime riddled with bizarre twists, Durst was arrested in October 2001 for murdering his elderly neighbor, Morris Black, and dumping his body parts in the Galveston Bay. At the time, Durst was dressed in drag and posing as a mute woman named 'Dorothy Ciner' in a shabby Texas rooming house. He jumped bail and was arrested six weeks later while shoplifting Band-Aids, a newspaper and a chicken sandwich at a supermarket, with $500 cash in his pocket and $37,000 in the trunk of his car. Durst was arrested in October 2001 for murdering his elderly neighbor, Morris Black (above), and dumping his body parts in the Galveston Bay In the 2003 trial, Durst claimed self defense. He alleged that Morris Black, 71, threatened him with a pistol and was accidentally shot in the ensuing struggle. A psychiatrist testified that Durst had Asperger syndrome, and he was subsequently acquitted of murder, despite his testimony about sitting in a pool of blood while carving up Blacks body. Durst pleaded guilty to bail jumping and evidence tampering and was given a small three year sentence. In a chilling 2015 interview, Durst told HBO: 'They never found the head. I have no idea why. I do know that there must have been 15 garbage bags full of body parts and other stuff with blood on it or whatever, and they found 12. Why they didnt find the other ones, since they were all dumped in the same place, I have no idea.' In 2006, the Durst Organization officially cut ties with their wayward brother for a $65 million payout. While on the lam, Durst had plotted to kill his estranged brother, Douglas and stalked his various homes and office armed with guns. He signed over power of attorney to his second wife, Debrah Lee Charatan, a relationship Durst described as a 'a marriage of convenience.' The New York Times reported they had 'never lived together as husband and wife,' and by the time the HBO documentary aired in 2015, the couple was estranged. Like Kathleen McCormack's case, Susan Berman's slaying went cold until 2015 when Durst sat down for a six-part interview with HBO. The filmmakers confronted him with a crucial piece of evidence that connected him to the anonymous 'cadaver' note sent to the Beverly Hills police, 15 years earlier. In this December 15, 2021 picture, he was seen looking frail and with a breathing tube in a mug shot released by the California Department of Corrections New York real estate heir Robert Durst appears in court during opening statements in his murder trial on March 5, 2020 in Los Angeles During their research, the filmmakers had discovered a letter Durst wrote to Susan Berman in 1999 with identical handwriting and Beverly Hills was misspelled as 'Beverley' on both. Confident and cocky, even Durst admitted on camera that 'only the killer could have written' the note. Flustered, he walked off to the bathroom with the microphone still attached, and was caught muttering to himself: 'There it is. You're caught! You're right, of course...What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.' Twenty-four hours before the final episode aired on March 15, 2015, the FBI detained Mr. Durst on a murder warrant in New Orleans where he was staying under a different alias. After many delays due to various health concerns and the Covid-19 crises, Durst's trial resumed in May 2021. Looking frail and wearing a brown jailhouse jumpsuit, Durst sat slumped in a wheelchair as the Judge sentenced him to life without parole on October 14, for the murder of Susan Berman. Judge Mark Windham called Bermans death a witness killing and 'a horrific crime' that was also 'a denial of justice to the McCormack family.' Two days after sentencing, Durst was transferred to a hospital and put on a ventilator after testing positive for Covid-19. 'Bob is incapable of telling the truth,' said brother Douglas Durst in 2015. 'He is a true psychopath, beyond any emotions. Thats why he does things, so he can experience the emotions that other people have vicariously. Because he has absolutely none of his own.' This is the appalling moment an Alabama repossession firm seizes a black father's truck as he lays dying on the street just feet away after being shot by cops. Stephen Perkins, 39, was gunned down by cops from Decatur Police Department outside his home on September 29 in Decatur, Alabama. Police have said that a tow truck driver had attempted to repossess Perkins pickup when it is alleged Perkins pulled a gun on him, causing the driver to call 911. Surveillance cameras captured the moment Perkins was gunned down by responding officers, who fired eighteen shots at him. Appallingly, a driver from Allstar Recovery drives off with the dying man's truck as he takes his final breaths just feet away, with his final words said to have been 'help.' That newly-released footage - first shared by Decatur Daily - has triggered outrage in the Alabama city, with both the repossession firm and police department blamed for what activists say was Perkins' needless death. Officers can be seen standing over the body of Perkins in his front lawn after gunning him down, with the tow driver nonchalantly making off with Perkins' white GMC Sierra. Further fanning the flames of outrage is Decatur Police's admission that they got a crucial early piece of information wrong. Officers can be seen standing over the body of Perkins in his front lawn after gunning him down The tow driver nonchalantly makes off with Perkins' white GMC Sierra while he lays motionless on the ground Steve Perkins, 39, (pictured with his daughter and wife Catrela) was shot dead by cops helping a tow truck driver repossess a vehicle from his home at Decatur, Alabama on September 29 They claimed Perkins had been told to drop a gun he'd been holding but that he'd refused to do so. Chief Todd Pinion later said Perkins had been ordered to 'get on the ground' by officers who'd identified themselves as police. The change of story has led locals to question whether the police department has also gotten other crucial details wrong. After the shooting, the officers appear to pat Perkins down, with one officer moving from Perkins' right side over to Perkins' legs. Out of sight, an unidentified repossession officer has hooked the GMC to their truck and begins to tow it away. As the officers continue, the headlights from the tow truck begin moving at the 30-second mark. The vehicle turns left out of Perkin's driveway with Perkins' pickup truck following it. It is unclear who was driving the truck, but Decatur Daily reported that Allstar Recovery is owned by Shannon Gay. A similarly-named local business - All Star Towing & Recovery - has received abuse over Perkins' death, but had nothing to do with the incident. One of the homes directly across from where Perkins lived with his young family also captured the moment he was fatally shot. Perkins can be heard shouting: 'Hey, put my truck down', before police officers rush out from cover with their weapons drawn. One of them yells at him: 'Hey, hey! Police! Get on the ground!' as the officers unleash a volley of bullets on him. Before the officer even finishes, police began unloading eighteen shots towards Perkins. Attorney Carl Cole told WAAY 31 last month that the truck driver should never have returned to Perkins' home with the police. Cole added that police are not allowed to be involved in a car repossession unless there is a court order involved - and he alleges that there was none. Perkins' family also says there's no indication he'd even fallen behind on payments for the GMC truck, which is why he'd tried to stop it from being taken away. Cole told the outlet: 'One, the tow truck driver is supposed to stand down if there's any sort of breach of the peace. ' Perkins' seized truck is pictured hidden in the lot of Allstar Recovery, which has been condemned over what activists say was the Alabama father's needless death Police Chief Todd Pinion apologized last month after the department gave a false description of the original events People march along Lee Street in downtown Decatur in early October during a protest against the killing of Steve Perkins by police a week earlier Cole continued: 'He should have never gone back out there. And second, police are not supposed to be involved in a repossession absent of a court order.' If there is any breach of peace during a car repossession, under Alabama law that repossession is over. Cole added: 'What I can say is this: they never should have gotten that far, much less towed his car away that night as he's lying in his yard. 'You know I can't imagine a greater insult to injury than that happening at that time especially considering what Alabama law says regarding: we're not supposed to go further than this if there's a breach of the peace. 'Not only did they go further with it, he's lying in his yard while it's happening, that's really problematic. ' Perkins' family say no crime scene was set up after his death and that the only marker of what had happened was a pool of the late father's blood. Neighbor Susan Capps, 62, told Decatur Daily that she did not see cops rendering first aid and that they instead appeared to be patting Perkins down as he lay dying. She also claims that a cop who came to her door lied and said everyone involved in the shooting was fine. The killing of Perkins has sparked fury in the town, with the local police department coming under intense scrutiny over his death and the action of officers. They have not been named. Perkins was given less than seconds to respond to officers before they opened fire, unleashing more than a dozen rounds Perkins' family (pictured with wife Catrela Perkins) said his truck was not in repossession, which is why he went outside to dispute the tow Police Chief Todd Pinion apologized last month after the department gave a false description of the officers' commands in the PD's 'initial rush to release information'. The department inaccurately said officers ordered Perkins to drop his weapon and that he refused to do so. Pinion said what actually happened is the officers identified themselves as 'police' and ordered Perkins to 'get on the ground.' 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.' Pinion promised 'transparency in providing any information we are able to share as soon as it is able to be released.' He added: 'There is understandably much public conversation about the shooting of Stephen Perkins. Any time a police officer uses deadly force, questions should be asked, and answers provided.' On Thursday, the Decatur Police Department confirmed that an internal investigation into the death of Perkins had been completed. Chief Pinion said: 'Today, our departments internal investigation into this case was completed. That investigation addresses potential policy violations only. 'If I find department policy was violated and discipline is warranted, this would be presented to the Office of the Mayor for a determination hearing. 'At that hearing, the Mayor would hear the facts of the case and decide if discipline is warranted and to what extent.' Protests have taken place daily in the north Alabama city since the shooting The department inaccurately said officers ordered Perkins to drop his weapon and that he refused to do so As a result of the police response, protests had been happening daily in the north city, with hundreds of people gathering outside of Decatur City Hall. 'The thing that has been consistent is looking for answers. We understand that. That is something everyone wants and they want answers now. Unfortunately, we don't have control of that,' Decatur Mayor Tab Bowling previously told news outlets. A fundraiser was launched to help the family of Perkins, who had described him as a 'devoted husband, gym enthusiast, and a hardworking man'. Since being launched, the fundraiser has managed to bring in over $72,000 for his family. Perkins' family had previously said that his truck was not in repossession, which is why he was disputing the tow. Rodney Gordon, president of the Morgan County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), said video from the night of his death shows police weren't following the right procedures. He told the Decatur Daily: 'If you knock on the door as a police officer, we don't ever have this conversation. If you pull up to the house with the lights on, I don't come outside with a gun. 'If you come knock on my door and identify yourself as a police officer, I don't come to the door with a gun. 'This whole thing could have been totally avoided. According to the film and it ain't lying it was an ambush.' 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But Alaska Airlines pilot Joseph Emerson certainly wasn't going by the book. The 44-year-old father of two was off-duty but hitching a lift as pilots often do in the cockpit of an Alaska flight from Washington state to San Francisco last month. He stands accused of attempting to grab and pull two emergency handles that would have activated the plane's 'fire suppression' system, cutting off fuel to the engines and sparking potentially catastrophic consequences. Thankfully, he was overpowered and restrained by the crew though not before he also tried to open an emergency exit door. He is now charged with 83 counts of attempted murder one for every passenger on Flight 2059. He has pleaded not guilty. Emerson's wife Sarah spoke to reporters of her disbelief outside court last month, saying: 'This is not my Joe. He never would've knowingly done any of that'. Shutting down the engines of a passenger plane mid-air is not an operating procedure recommended in any flight manual. But Alaska Airlines pilot Joseph Emerson certainly wasn't going by the book. The 44-year-old father of two was off-duty but hitching a lift in the cockpit of an Alaska flight when he allegedly tried to pull two emergency handles that would have activated the plane's 'fire suppression' system, cutting off fuel to the engines. He is now charged with 83 counts of attempted murder - one for every passenger on Flight 2059. He has pleaded not guilty. Meanwhile the couple's neighbors in Pleasant Hill, California, described Emmerson to DailyMail.com as 'lovely and fantastic'. So what can explain his sudden deranged and potentially murderous act? In an interview with the New York Times on Friday, Emerson admitted that he had taken magic mushrooms the powerful hallucinogenic fungi scientifically known as psilocybin about two days before the flight. The drugs induced 'fearful' and 'traumatic' thoughts, and as he told investigators at the time of his arrest rendered him unable to sleep for 40 hours. Once on board, Emerson says he felt like he was having a 'panic attack' and wondered if he was dreaming. He reached forward to stop the engines, convinced it would help him 'wake up'. He also spoke of his struggles with depression and grief over the recent death of a close friend, which may explain the impulse to take the mushrooms in the first place. After all, there is a burgeoning body of thought proclaiming 'shrooms' as a wonder drug able to treat myriad mental health issues from post-traumatic stress disorder, to anxiety and depression. In 2018, the Food and Drug Administration even decided to grant psilocybin a 'breakthrough therapy' designation. This growing hype around magic mushrooms owes much to celebrity endorsement. Prince Harry recently joined the crowded ranks of stars including Mike Tyson, Seth Rogen, Miley Cyrus, Kristen Bell and Harry Styles who have made public claims about the supposed 'benefits' of psychedelics. The wayward prince, who says mind-altering drugs have been a 'fundamental part' of his life, confided earlier this year in his memoir Spare that he'd once taken psilocybin at the Los Angeles home of Friends actress Courtney Cox after finding 'black diamond mushroom chocolate' in her fridge during a party. 'My mate and I grabbed several, gobbled them, [and] washed them down with tequila,' Harry revealed, adding that he then started hallucinating in Cox's bathroom. In an interview with the New York Times on Friday , Emerson admitted that he had taken magic mushrooms - the powerful hallucinogenic fungi scientifically known as psilocybin - about two days before the flight. 'Beside the toilet was a round silver bin,' he wrote. 'I stared at the bin. It stared back. Then it became a head. I stepped on the pedal and the head opened its mouth. A huge open grin. I laughed, turned away, took a p***.' Very droll but it's just the sort of whimsical story that infuriates experts who say Harry and Co are reinforcing the dangerous misconception that psychedelics are harmless fun. For, while magic mushrooms might offer promising therapies (although it must be stressed that the science isn't yet conclusive), some users and those around them could end up facing lethal consequences. As with other psychedelics such as LSD, magic mushrooms induce a 'trip' that affects all the senses, altering a person's thinking, sense of time and emotions. They can cause hallucinations during which users see or hear things that don't exist or are drastically distorted. The effects are immediate and can last hours. In the best-case scenario, once can feel a sense of euphoria, returning to normalcy afterwards. However, it is almost impossible to know if you will have a 'good' trip, with some people instead experiencing frightening paranoia, aggression, and disorientation as well as a host of other potential reactions including uncontrollable shaking, loss of muscle control and, at worst, a full-blown 'psychotic' episode. Even more frightening, research shows that the mental impact of a 'trip' can change someone for the rest of their life, prompting recurring hallucinations or 'flashbacks' even years after use. Yet despite all this, fevered excitement around psilocybin has reached into the highest echelons of US government with some predicting the drug to follow closely behind cannabis as the next widely decriminalized or even fully legalized substance in America. In Congress, Republican ex-servicemen are now joining forces with liberal Democrats to push for the US military to research claims that psilocybin could help treat soldiers with PTSD. Meanwhile, an increasing number of states are also actively considering legislation to expand access to psilocybin, while both Oregon and Colorado have already legalized it for 'therapeutic' use. Scientists have told DailyMail.com of their fears at this precipitous rush driven in large part by commercial greed from would-be sellers and scientifically ill-informed excitement to make mushrooms widely available. In 2020 alone, 1.4 million Americans tried psychedelics for the first time, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Much of this usage is clearly via the black market. Prince Harry recently joined the crowded ranks of stars including Mike Tyson, Seth Rogen, Miley Cyrus, Kristen Bell and Harry Styles who have made public claims about the supposed 'benefits' of psychedelics. The wayward prince, who says mind-altering drugs have been a 'fundamental part' of his life, confided earlier this year in his memoir Spare that he'd once taken psilocybin at the Los Angeles home of Friends actress Courtney Cox (pictured) after finding 'black diamond mushroom chocolate' in her fridge during a party. Of course, compared to cannabis, psilocybin consumption is currently small but interest is booming, and the 'legal' psychedelic market is projected to be worth more than $7 billion within five years. Psilocybin-infused food and drinks are particularly popular, with magic mushroom 'edibles' chocolates, gummies, tea increasingly offered up at parties alongside dessert wine and the after-dinner scotch. And it's not hard to come by: such is the farcically feeble state of drug enforcement in many US states, mushrooms are often sold with virtual impunity under-the-counter in marijuana stores in areas where weed is legal. In drug-ravaged New York, dealers are now so brazen that DailyMail.com has obtained copies of their business cards, dropped through strangers' doors in fashionable Brooklyn neighborhoods like Williamsburg. Oregon became the first state to open licensed 'psilocybin service centers' this summer, meaning adults over 21 can experience a 'trip' on mushrooms. So far only five businesses have been approved to manufacture psilocybin in Oregon, with 13 sites approved to host 'dosing sessions'. Although the centers supposedly serve a therapeutic function for those with mental health issues, customers don't need a medical referral or prescription. To the alarm of experts, the licensed 'facilitator' who stays with each paying customer as they experience their trip (sometimes for as long as six hours), does not need to be a doctor. Clients cannot take the drugs away and have to stay at the center until the effects have worn off. It's not cheap, either at one of the two centers in the city of Bend, a single session costs around $3,000. This includes a preparatory meeting and a follow-up appointment a few days later. Meanwhile, Colorado has gone even further. Although the state is in the process of setting up a network of licensed centers similar to Oregon's, it is also now legal for adults over 21 to make magic mushroom 'edibles' at home. Apostles of psilocybin had been hoping California already hooked on legalized cannabis would be the next state to take the plunge and legalize mushrooms. But given that the main argument in favor of them has been these supposed therapeutic benefits, recent headlines about a resident Californian pilot transformed into a would-be mass killer is definitely a blow to the cause. Just weeks before the Emerson incident, California governor Gavin Newsom had vetoed a bill that would have legalized possession of mushrooms and other psychedelics, saying that he needed to see better safeguards before going ahead. For, while magic mushrooms might offer promising therapies (although it must be stressed that the science isn't yet conclusive), some users - and those around them - could end up facing lethal consequences. (Pictured: Harry Styles has admitted to taking magic mushrooms). Some people experience frightening paranoia, aggression, and disorientation after taking magic mushrooms - as well as a host of other potential reactions including uncontrollable shaking, loss of muscle control and, at worst, a full-blown 'psychotic' episode. (Pictured: Kristen Bell has spoken about taking the drug). These would need to include means to 'prevent against exploitation' and protection for those most likely to have a psychotic reaction. Many experts share such concerns. Certainly, it doesn't help that magic mushrooms once as central a part of 1960s culture as anti-war protests and the Beatles have a woolly, hippie and perhaps even comical image that other equally dangerous psychedelic drugs such as LSD and MDMA (aka ecstasy) don't possess. On a mass scale, this popular misconception could be disastrous. And certainly, the drama on board the Alaska Airlines flight was a chilling wake-up call. Naturally, psilocybin advocates were quick to absolve the drug of blame saying that there is no trace of it in a user's system after 24 hours. But that's by no means the full story, according to seasoned researchers. UCLA professor Charles Grob is one of the world's leading psilocybin experts and has been investigating it for more than three decades. He told DailyMail.com that Emerson experienced 'what sounds like a psychotic reaction'. During such a 'manic episode', Grob explained, '[the user's] mind starts to race and their imagination gets out of control, they become delusional.' Dr Matthew Johnson, a psychiatrist and psychedelics expert at Johns Hopkins University, agreed, saying: 'Some people have a naive view that, if a drug is out of your system, it can no longer affect you.' He added that he believes Emerson experienced 'derealization', a feeling of detachment from one's surroundings. Clearly, the aviation industry is also concerned. Following Emerson's arrest, the Association of Flight Attendants put out a warning to members about the risks of psilocybin, noting that while many believe 'micro-dosing' consuming very small amounts allows you to avoid full-blown hallucinogenic experiences, the strength of each mushroom varies enormously, making accurate dosage control very difficult. The union also said that psilocybin can interact with medications such as anti-depressants in 'unpredictable and potentially dangerous' ways. Experts told Dailymail.com that if people are taking psilocybin, it must be done under clinical supervision. That includes screening subjects for underlying conditions or risks (anything from very high-blood pressure to having a parent with schizophrenia can cause adverse reactions) and ingesting the drug in a supervised setting. Unfortunately, that doesn't much sound like what's on offer at your average social gathering, even chez Courtney Cox. The most immediate challenge then, whether it is legalized more widely or not, is addressing this alarming misconception of psilocybin as a harmless party accessory. 'To take them as an alternative to getting drunk on a Saturday night, that's a worrisome model. Mixing them with alcohol and other drugs can become very problematic,' warns Dr Grob. He and other experts stress that psilocybin and other psychedelics still require much more research for us to fully understand the risks and, yes, potential benefits. The passengers and crew of Alaska Flight 2059 were very lucky. If the rush to legalize magic mushrooms continues unchecked, there will be plenty more 'bad trips' that could prove infinitely worse. As President Joe Biden prepares to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the families of three US citizens wrongfully held captive in China are calling on him to raise their cases at the summit. Americans David Lin, Kai Li and Mark Swidan are all designated as 'wrongful detainees' by the US State Department's office of the special presidential envoy on hostage affairs (SPEHA). Lin, 68, is a pastor imprisoned in China since 2006; Mark Swidan, a Texas businessman, was arrested in 2012 and remains on China's death row; and Li, 60, was handed a 10-year sentence in 2018 on spying charges. All three men have been held in deplorable conditions in China at least since the Obama administration, but their families say they are discouraged by the lack of progress in returning them home, and are imploring Biden to take action. 'These cases are just being forgotten, and no subsequent progress has been made,' Li's son Harrison, a PhD student at Stanford University, told DailyMail.com this week. Biden is seen meeting with Xi in 2022. They are expected to meet again on the sidelines of a summit in San Francisco in the coming week Biden has never publicly commented on the three Americans held in China, although last year, his national security adviser Jake Sullivan reportedly told China's top diplomat that releasing them is a 'personal priority' for the president. The White House did not respond to repeated requests for comment over the past week regarding the three American detainees, and whether Biden plans to raise their cases directly with Xi. Biden will meet with Xi on Wednesday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in San Francisco, which will be the first meeting between the two in more than a year. A State Department spokesperson told DailyMail.com that the agency continually raises the cases of US nationals wrongfully detained in China during its engagements with with senior Chinese officials. The person said that due to the sensitive nature of the conversations, they could not be discussed publicly, but insisted that talks remain ongoing. In the past several months, the US Ambassador in Beijing, Nicholas Burns, has visited every wrongfully detained US national in China, the person said. The spokesperson also noted that for operational security and privacy reasons, the US does not make every wrongful detention determination public. In a bipartisan letter to Biden on Wednesday, the chairs of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China called on Biden raise the issue with Xi and seek the release of the three Americans and other political prisoners in China The letter from Republican Rep. Chris Smith and Democratic Senator Jeffrey A. Merkley called on Biden to 'demand an immediate end' to China's transnational repression efforts targeting American citizens and legal residents. In addition to Lin, Li and Swidan, the letter listed 37 other political prisoners of priority concern being held in China, urging Biden to hand the list to Xi directly and press for their release. 'Too often we hear that jailers taunt political prisoners by telling them that the world has forgotten them,' the letter said. 'We can never allow their words to be true.' Here is what we know about the Americans wrongfully detained in China: Pastor David Lin sentenced to life after visiting Beijing to help build a church Lin, a naturalized US citizen, worked as an economist advising state officials in Iowa and California, according to advocacy group Church in Chains. Formerly an atheist, he was introduced to Christianity by his wife and became a faithful believer, later traveling repeatedly to China to support local churches there. Such unregistered, home-based churches are not officially banned in China, but must operate with at least tacit approval from local Communist Party officials. In 2006, while in Beijing waiting for a ministry license from the Chinese government, Lin was swept up in a covert crackdown ahead of the 2008 summer Olympics, and initially charged with having 'illegal religious propaganda'. Lin, a naturalized US citizen, worked as an economist advising state officials in Iowa and California, and was first introduced to Christianity by his wife In 2006, while in Beijing waiting for a ministry license from the Chinese government, Lin was swept up in a covert crackdown ahead of the 2008 summer Olympics Months later, the charges were changed to 'contract fraud' in relation to helping a home church construct a new building. Lin was handed a life prison sentence in 2009, although it was reduced last year, and he could now be released in 2030. His family say the years of harsh prison conditions have taken a severe toll on his mental and physical health. Daughter Alice Lin told Politico in October that his release date 'is too far off I honestly don't know if he will be able to make it until then.' 'We do not want my dad to be forgotten,' she said. Texas business man Mark Swidan faces execution on 'trumped up' drug charge Swidan was arrested in Guangdong in 2012 after traveling to China buy building materials for his Houston business. Authorities charged Swidan with drug-related crimes but the case lingered in the system for years, until a Chinese court sentenced him in April 2019 to death with a two-year reprieve, which was later extended. While many of the details remain classified, a source familiar with the matter previously told DailyMail.com Swidan was in the wrong place at the wrong time while a legitimate drug bust occurred, and that he may have been caught filming it. Upon his arrest, Chinese officials were determined to confiscate his phone and its contents, the source said. After discovering that Swidan was not involved in the drug dealing, the person said it is possible Chinese authorities had to 'reverse engineer' charges to justify their actions. Swidan was arrested in Guangdong in 2012 after traveling to China buy building materials for his Houston business China watchers have noted that the lengthy delay in prosecuting Swidan may indicate fundamental flaws in the case. Unwilling to embarrass police by acquitting him, but knowing the evidence was weak or tainted, the courts may have let the case drag out as long as possible. A UN report on the arrest found that Swidan was being arbitrarily detained. Swidan has always denied the allegations. Last year, his execution was delayed by another two years, and a date for the death sentence has yet to be set. In an April interview with NewsNation, his mother Katherine said she has never once heard from the White House or Biden about his case. She contrasted the lack of public attention on his detention to the high-profile cases of WNBA star Brittney Griner, released from Russia earlier this year, or Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who remains captive there. 'It's like Mark doesn't exist. I think the government is cherry picking,' she said. Businessman Kai Li accused of stealing 'state secrets' freely available on the internet Kai Li has been held in deplorable conditions since his arrest in China in September 2016 on espionage charges, which his family, attorneys, and US officials insist are false and politically motivated. Li was born in Shanghai in 1962, and came to the US for study at age 27, later naturalizing to become a United States citizen. He opened several gas stations on Long Island, and later founded a company that imported and distributed solar technology to US aerospace firms. He was visiting Shanghai to mark the one-year anniversary of his mother's death when he was arrested upon arrival on state security charges. After months in secret detention, Li was convicted in 2018 following a one-hour secret trial, and sentenced to 10 years in prison. While his family still doesn't know the exact nature of the charges against him, his attorney says that the 'state secrets' he is accused of stealing are freely available on the Chinese internet. Kai Li, above, is one of three Americans imprisoned in China whom the US State Department has designated 'wrongful detainees' Kai Li was visiting Shanghai to mark the one-year anniversary of his mother's death when he was arrested upon arrival on state security charges Li is being held in horrendous conditions in China's Qingpu Prison, where Harrison says that for more than three years, his only contact with family was through heavily censored letters. Now, Li is able to make two seven-minute phone calls each month, but the calls are recorded and monitored, restricting his ability to speak freely, his son Harrison said. On Tuesday, Li's son Harrison Li told DailyMail.com that his family felt abandoned by the Biden administration, after Secretary of State Antony Blinken had promised to make 'substantive progress' on the Chinese hostages before any Biden-Xi summit. 'These cases are just being forgotten, and no subsequent progress has been made,' said Harrison during an emotional virtual press conference. 'It's been 2,616 days (in captivity) for my dad, and we're constantly being given the runaround by the government.' 'All these cases were a thing since President Biden was vice president under the Obama administration. So now we're on at least a third administration, and still nothing has gotten done,' he said. He said that, after Blinken met with Xi in June, he held a direct Zoom call with Li's family and promised 'substantive progress' by November, but said that there had been little visible progress since then. 'What invariably seems to happen is people at the top just don't see it, or don't get to it, or it gets put on the back burner or, say a spy balloon comes and then interactions between the two countries get paused for months,' he said. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on June 19 Harrison said the years of waiting for news of his father's release had taken a toll on the family. 'We've been burned, not one too many times, but far too many times. So at this point, I think it's dangerous to have any optimism at any point until we get the call that my dad is on the plane with US forces, out of Chinese airspace,' he said. 'Before that moment comes, I am so burned just feel so burned that I just can't give any optimism.' In June, following a visit to Beijing, Blinken said the US and China were continuing to discuss the release of the three men. 'I don't want to get into the details, but we are very actively talking about that,' Blinken said in an interview with CBS News. Blinken said the US was committed to continue to work on resolving all three cases. 'I not only raised, but talked some length about the individual cases of the detained Americans,' he said in the interview. 'It (their release) would, regardless of anything else be a very important and positive development and we're working intensely,' Blinken said. Attorney General Jason Miyares says 'moral leadership' is needed to counter the rise of antisemitism on college campuses and is taking several actions to help Israel in the wake of terror group Hamas' bloody attack on October 7. Miyares opened an investigation into pro-Palestine charity American Muslims for Palestine based in Northern Virginia that allegedly has ties to Hamas. He told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview that the group is accused of flowing its charitable donations to terrorist groups, including Hamas in Gaza. 'There's actually specific language in the Virginia code that specifically prohibits soliciting funds for charity and then have those funds go to any designated terrorist organization,' said Miyares. 'And so we're looking at whether these allegations have any merit.' Students for Justice in Palestine organized a rally on UVA's campus last month Miayres has also collected over 1,000 bulletproof vests, protective gear, and helmets from police around the commonwealth that have been sent to first responders and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). 'We're really honored by the the outpouring and we thought it was great symbolism at a time after October 7 When we saw so much death, that we'd be able to band together and provide equipment that can save lives,' he told DailyMail.com. Virginia's top law enforcement official is facing the challenge of the growing rise of antisemitism on college campuses nationwide - including universities within the commonwealth. He said the First Amendment is sacred in the United States, which allows people to express their 'reprehensible views,' but at a certain point it's up to leadership to step in. 'The First Amendment is very broad, but I also think it's important to provide some some moral leadership as well.' Last month, about 200 students at the University of Virginia led a demonstration on campus in support of Palestine and expressed sympathies toward Hamas. 'Free free Palestine, long live Palestine,' chants rang out across the university. One student stated that 'Hamas is simply a political party that is acting in Gaza,' and 'all Palestinian resistance groups exist only because of Israeli occupation.' 'Israel you can't hide you're committing genocide,' said another student, who condemned the U.S. for stepping in to aid Israel. Miyares told DailyMail.com that the pro-Hamas statements crossed the line. Students for Justice in Palestine's peaceful protest brought 100 people to the UVA Rotunda 'When you have people marching through a campus saying 'from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,' what they're talking about is the extermination of 8 million Jews that currently live there, because that's what Hamas is about.' 'Their charter says we value death more than we value life. And they do not believe in coexistence. They believe in extermination,' continued Miyares. 'So I think it's important that more leaders point out where they are just flat out wrong in what they're advocating for. And the moral equivalency I think is one of the most troubling aspects that you're seeing on college campuses,' he continued. Prosecutors have charged three individuals with orchestrating a high-end brothel network in parts of Massachusetts and Virginia Lawmakers are worried that national security was compromised after a high-end brothel network targeting military officials and congressmen in the Washington, D.C., area was recently busted. This week, prosecutors charged three people with running a high-end brothel network in Boston and northern Virginia, whose customers included elected officials, tech executives, lawyers and military personnel. Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., told DailyMail.com in a statement Friday that he's 'incredibly concerned' about the potential breach of national security through brothel network. 'As member of Intel and Armed Services committees these reports make me incredibly concerned about the security clearance process when our adversaries have a long history of using sex to gather secrets.' Prosecutors say they paid up to $600 per hour for sexual encounters with predominately Asian women who were being exploited through sex trafficking. Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., told DailyMail.com in a statement Friday that he's 'incredibly concerned' about the potential breach of national security through brothel network Acting U.S. Attorney Josh Levy announced charges against the brothels' alleged operators, Han Lee, 41, and Junmyung Lee, 30, of Massachusetts and James Lee, 68, of California. As well as locations in Massachusetts, Virginia and California being raided, the government have also seized two websites tied to the ring. Speaking at a press conference this week, Levy said: 'This commercial sex ring was built on secrecy and exclusivity, catering to wealthy and well-connected clientele. 'They are doctors, they are lawyers, they're accountants, they are executives at high-tech companies, pharmaceutical companies, they're military officers, government contractors, professors, scientists. 'Pick a profession, they're probably represented in this case. Business is booming, until today.' Levy continued: 'We're committed to working closely with our federal, state and local partners to hold accountable the people who both ran this ring and the people who fueled the demand for this ring.' The three defendants, who are not related, were all arrested on Wednesday and charged with conspiring to coerce and entice women to travel to engage in illegal sexual activity. According to charging documents, the defendants, led by Han Lee, used high-end apartment complexes as brothels in Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts, and Fairfax and Tysons, Virginia. In an affidavit, it says that the women were advertised for commercial sex via two websites, under the guise of professional nude photo shoots. The affidavit also shows a text message sent from a phone related to the operation in Massachusetts which includes a 'menu.' Police stand guard outside the federal courthouse in Boston. The three defendants, who are not related, were all arrested on Wednesday The affidavit also shows a text message sent from a phone related to the operation in Massachusetts which includes a 'menu' One of the sites seen here, which was aimed at the Massachusetts area, asked customers to not 'knock on the door' According to the document, the 'menu' listed sexual services available, the hourly rate and the women available. The affidavit states that the term 'BB' is a term used in the prostitution industry to refer to unsafe sex, and that 'GFE' relates to a 'Girlfriend Experience'. The document states that this involves a service that 'blurs the boundaries between a financial transaction and a romantic relationship'. 'Please Don't Knock on the Door!! Be on time [sic] can't guarantee your wasted time.' The site also adds the height, weight and bust size of multiple Asian women who are available for appointments. The affidavit states that the women available on the site was updated and changed frequently. Congress has be infiltrated by Chinese spies attempting to get access to classified information in recent years. Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell's ties to a suspected Chinese spy Christine Fang, known as 'Fang Fang,' sparked an Ethics Committee investigation into his conduct. According to an affidavit, the ring operated three different locations outside of this apartment building in Cambridge, Massachusetts In a similar fashion, the group are also said to have operated a unit inside this apartment building in Watertown, Massachusetts The committee ended up not taking any disciplinary action against Swalwell, but issued a letter warning lawmakers about the threat of foreign infiltration. 'Members should be conscious of the possibility that foreign governments may attempt to secure improper influence through gifts and other interactions,' the letter stated. Fang Fang left China to go to college in the U.S. in 2011, and then worked on developing relationships with key lawmakers, including Swalwell, in order to get access to sensitive information. She reportedly raised money for his 2014 campaign and attended a number of events that the congressman attended. The FBI, who was investigating Fang Fang, first brought their concerns to the congressman in 2015. At that point, Swalwell said he broke off any contact with the suspected spy. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy kicked Swalwell off of the House Intelligence Committee earlier this year due to his Fang Fang connection. But Swalwell isn't the only lawmaker who has fallen for the ploy. A ex-aide to former Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., who worked as her driver in California for 20 years was found to have ties to the CCP. Feinstein was chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time. She insisted that the spy 'never had access to classified or sensitive information or legislative matters' and was let go after the FBI informed her that her office was infiltrated. The Pentagon is planning to buy up to 1,000 new long-range nuclear missiles amid growing alarm over China's ballooning arsenal of doomsday weapons. It comes as Joe Biden is set to meet Chinese president Xi Jinping face-to-face for the first time in a year next week in San Francisco at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. The new missiles will be carried by B-52 bombers and, ultimately, the new futuristic B-21 Raider stealth bomber, which made its first test flight in California on Friday. China has recently surged its production of nuclear warheads. The Pentagon is planning to buy up to 1,000 new long-range nuclear missiles amid growing alarm over China's ballooning arsenal of doomsday weapons This week, senior diplomats from the U.S. and China met in Washington for their first nuclear arms control talks since the Obama administration. It was a 'candid' meeting and U.S. officials said they emphasized the 'importance of increased PRC (Chinese) nuclear transparency' to 'avert an unconstrained arms race'. The new U.S. AGM-181 Long Range Stand-Off (LRSO) nuclear-tipped cruise missiles will replace existing AGM-86B Air-Launched Cruise Missile (ALCMs). In its 2024 budget the Air Force has set aside $978 million for them and the first of them are set to be operational by the end of the decade. The ultimate cost of the program is estimated at $16.2 billion. They will carry warheads with a yield up to 10 times that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Each missile will have 'dial-a-yield' capability, meaning they can be set to explode with a power equivalent to between 5 and 150 kilotons of TNT. The Hiroshima bomb was about 15 kilotons, and the one dropped on Nagasaki three days later was about 20 kilotons. The new U.S. AGM-181 Long Range Stand-Off (LRSO) nuclear-tipped cruise missiles will replace existing AGM-86B Air-Launched Cruise Missile (ALCMs), one of which is pictured above The Castle Bravo nuclear test, the detonation of the most powerful thermonuclear device ever tested by the United States on March 1, 1954 Xi Jinping (L) and Joe Biden (R) will meet for the first time in a year next week as tensions grow over China's nuclear arsenal The B-21 Raider stealth bomber on its first test flight on Friday The B-21 will be equipped with new LRSO stealth nuclear missiles with a range of 1,500 miles After being released form a B-52 or B-21 the missiles have a range of 1,500 miles and are equipped with stealth technology. That means hey can be fired from planes long distances away and thn evade air defenses. General Anthony Cotton, head of U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees America's nuclear arsenal, recently told the Senate Armed Services Committee he was 'quite pleased' with progress on the new missiles, and that they were 'fundamental' to future deterrence. They would be 'our countrys sole air-delivered standoff nuclear capability,' he said. The nuclear chief added: 'It will provide the President with flexible and scalable options and is capable of penetrating and surviving against advanced air defenses - a key attribute and important component in (our) operational plans.' He said China's 'significant nuclear force expansion reflects an increasing assertiveness and the capability to employ nuclear coercion.' Hans Kristensen, Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said it was 'important to note that although the plan is to buy 1,000 LRSO missiles, half of those will be test-launch and backup. 'The number of LRSOs carrying a nuclear warhead will be the same as for the current ALCM: about 500.' The B-21 Raider took its first test flight on Friday, moving the futuristic warplane closer to becoming the nations next nuclear weapons stealth bomber. It flew in Palmdale, California, where it has been under testing and development by Northrop Grumman. The Air Force is planning to build 100 of the warplanes, which is planned to be produced in variants with and without pilots. It is the first new American bomber aircraft in more than 30 years and is highly classified as the Pentagon seeks to prevent China from gaining access to the technology used. On Tuesday, Assistant Secretary of State Mallory Stewart met with China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs Director-General of Arms Control Sun Xiaobo in Washington. A State Department official said: 'The two sides held a candid and in-depth discussion on issues related to arms control and nonproliferation as part of ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication and responsibly manage the U.S.-China relationship. 'The United States highlighted the need to promote stability, help avert an unconstrained arms race, and manage competition so that it does not veer into conflict.' The latest development came days after the U.S. announced plans for a new nuclear bomb 24 times as powerful as the one dropped on Hiroshima. It will also be carried by the $692 million B-21 Raider. Last month it emerged China plans to double its arsenal of nuclear warheads to over 1,000 by 2030. U.S. officials said Beijing had already produced more warheads than had been expected. Villagers are using Scotlands controversial land reform laws in a ground-breaking attempt to take control of their local pub. The historic Albert Hotel in North Queensferry in the shadow of the Forth Bridge has been neglected and boarded up since it closed in 2017. Now residents in the Fife town are planning to breathe life into the 200-year-old listed building by using the law to compel the owner to sell it to them. If their bid wins the backing of the Scottish Government it would be the first time a community has managed to force a compulsory purchase order for a property. They hope their application, if it succeeds, will lead to similar community reclamations of rundown properties. Supporters of the North Queensferry community bid to use the Scottish government's new land reform laws to force the owners of the Albert Hotel to sell the hotel and pub to them Ex-PMs wife Sarah Brown backs the village buyout Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has made his home in North Queensferry and his wife, Sarah, is among the local residents backing the community buyout. Objecting to previous plans in 2021 to turn the hotel into flats, she wrote: The Albert is a much-loved community asset and many people from the village have missed it as a meeting point and social gathering place as it has been closed and boarded up for some time. The building itself is a landmark with its painted signage and gable. It is a familiar sight in front of the Forth Bridge. I understand that there is a better option for the building and the local community whereby a group of village residents are prepared to turn the building back into a pub and hotel if they can agree a fair purchase price. Iain Mitchell, KC, who lives in the village and is part of the bid, said: The plan is to get it restored as a hotel and pub. There would be a dining room, meeting rooms, the bar would be back where it was. There would be accommodation. It would bring in quite a decent income. There is no reason whatever why it cant be successfully run as a bar-hotel with a community emphasis. But its continuing to deteriorate its in a sorry way. Mr Mitchell added: I think its important that when there are valuable community assets which are neglected or even abused, or going to waste and denied to the community, and the community has the will to take them over and make something of them, then they deserve to be given that chance. The hotel opened in 1824 and was originally known as Mitchells Inn. It became the Albert in 1842, in honour of Queen Victorias husband when the royal couple paid a visit to the village en route to Balmoral. Fife-born writer Iain Banks who moved back to North Queensferry in his latter years spoke fondly of the pub. The exterior featured in the 2022 Steve Coogan film The Lost King, about the amateur historian who discovered the body of Richard III under a car park. The Albert which had nine bedrooms plus a bar and restaurant is owned by the Festival Inns Limited SSAS pension fund, which is operated by Edinburgh businessman Kenneth Waugh. North Queensferry has a population of 1,100, but the only other pub shut down during the Covid pandemic. A planning bid to turn the Albert into flats was knocked back by Fife Council after locals objected. The owner rejected a community bid of 240,000 for the property in 2021. It is believed its value has since fallen to around 200,000 but it would cost a further 800,000 to restore the building and business. Laws created in 2020 mean a sale can be forced if the community shows it has a sustainable development plan for a piece of land and it would be the best way of achieving significant benefit to residents. It is believed its value has since fallen to around 200,000 but it would cost a further 800,000 to restore the building and business. Laws created in 2020 mean a sale can be forced if the community shows it has a sustainable development plan for a piece of land and it would be the best way of achieving significant benefit to residents. There also has to be proven local support. If successful, the price of the property would be set by an independent valuer with the costs expected to be covered by taxpayer grants, lottery cash and a fundraising drive in the village. Last night Mr Waugh insisted he was fighting the bid and has proposals of his own to reopen the hotel. He said: There was a plan for flats which was refused and so it will be a hotel again. Local authority inspectors have seen and approved work to repair urgent problems including rot. Mr Waugh said it had failed commercially till now due to lack of local and visitor trade. He added: Unfortunately, there was local opposition to the building of a Forth Bridges viewing platform which might have brought more trade to the town. At a time when there is so much strain on public funds, it seems wasteful to spend public money to provide a local pub when there is a perfectly valid, indeed better thought-out, commercial proposition. The BBC has become embroiled in a trans row after a training course created to increase the number of female production staff was opened up to anyone identifying as a woman. The six-day course, called BBC: Female Self-Shooters, was designed to teach women how to become camera operators a role that has long been male-dominated in companies across the industry. An advert shared around the Corporation says of the course: 'Aimed at female (and those identifying as female) TV producers or those at producer level, who will be in a position to use the acquired skills after the training, e.g. as 2nd camera operators, shooting taster tapes or directing your own self-shot film. If self-shooting camera skills are a barrier to your progress, this is the course for you!' The cost of the training programme which is due to be held in Belfast and will teach skills such as 'storytelling, shooting for the edit and interview essentials', is fully funded by the BBC. However, female staff are said to be 'cross and upset' that the initiative allows for non-biological women to apply and believe a separate course could be offered for those identifying as women. An advert shared around the Corporation says of the course: 'Aimed at female (and those identifying as female) TV producers or those at producer level, who will be in a position to use the acquired skills after the training, e.g. as 2nd camera operators, shooting taster tapes or directing your own self-shot film. If self-shooting camera skills are a barrier to your progress, this is the course for you!' (File Photo) The six-day course, called BBC: Female Self-Shooters, was designed to teach women how to become camera operators a role that has long been male-dominated in companies across the industry (File Photo) A source at the Corporation said: 'It's a good thing that the BBC want to increase the number of females doing technical, behind-the-camera jobs, but would it be really too much to ask that the course could just be for women? If a gender balance is needed then the resources should be just for women, not those saying they are women. 'These things are divisive and of course there is upset.' The BBC were also lambasted by viewers shortly after the advert was posted on social media. One user on X, formerly Twitter, said: 'It's not just that a male can take a woman's place, but their presence totally changes the vibe and focus of these courses (I know you know that, just making the point). If they want more trans people involved in production they should address that separately.' Another user added: 'So not female only at all then! Glad I've cancelled my TV licence! 'Not wasting my money on this tosh.' A third posted: 'Well, they found one way to get around actually hiring women, I guess.' A BBC Spokesperson said : 'This is a National Film and Television School course supported by the BBC to increase the diversity of under-represented groups in the industry that has been running for several years.' Some 70 percent of the technical issues were agreed upon in the negotiations with Russia to continue the construction of the Rasht-Astara railway. Agreement on other issues will be reached by the end of the year, Azernews reports citing Kheyrulla Khademi, executive director of Iran's Transport Infrastructure Construction and Development State Company. He said that an agreement was reached with Russia on the financing schedule of the road construction, increase of cargo transportation capacity, construction of stations, rules of operation and a document was signed. The Rasht-Astara road, which forms the basis of the North-South International Transport Corridor, is a continuation of the Ghazvin-Rasht-Astara (Iran)-Astara (Azerbaijan) railway. As a result of the formation of this corridor, which will connect Asia and Europe in terms of transport, the transit cargo transportation opportunities of Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia will increase. Cargo transported from South East Asian countries will enter the port of Mumbai in India, and from there it will enter Chabahar and Bandar-Abbas ports in Iran. Cargo from these ports will be transported by train to Russia and Europe via the Qazvin-Rasht-Astara (Iran)-Astara (Azerbaijan) railway. Mohammad Jamshidi, the deputy head of Iran's Presidential Administration, said in an interview with the local media outlets news agency that the income of the North-South International Transport Corridor will be equal to the income from oil sales. According to him, the annual income of the Corridor will be 20 billion dollars. Iranian local media outlets called the Corridor the "golden road of trade" and noted that the 162-kilometer Rasht-Astara road will facilitate cargo transportation between Russia and India. It is no coincidence that Russia invested 1.6 billion euros in the construction of this road. To note that Azerbaijan is a country that plays a key role as a transit country in the formation of the North-South Transport Corridor. Taking into account the passage of this Corridor through Azerbaijan, the state has implemented large infrastructure projects. In addition to increasing the loading capacity of the Baku International Trade port, the Alat-Astara highway was reconstructed. A new railway bridge between Iran Astara and Azerbaijan Astara was built and put into use, the construction of a new road bridge over Astarachay has already been completed and will be put into operation in the near future with the participation of the officials of both states. In addition to all this, Azerbaijan State Railways JSC continues the construction of a cargo terminal in Astara, Iran. The fact that Azerbaijan has railroads and roads with Russia since the time of the USSR made its transit opportunities efficient. The fact that the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev involved Azerbaijan in the process of forming the North-South International Transport Corridor in 2006 indicated his visionary strategic political line. According to experts' calculations, after the North-South International Transport Corridor starts operating, Azerbaijan will receive 2.5-3 billion dollars in transit revenue per year. Donald Trump has taken a swipe at President Joe Biden for being 'confused' and walking into walls after he suffered another embarrassing bumble at a Veterans Day service. The 77-year-old held a campaign rally in Claremont, New Hampshire on Saturday afternoon just days after he skipped the third 2024 GOP presidential primary debate. 'We have a guy in the White House who can't put two sentences together and who could not find his way off this stage,' former President Trump told the packed crowd. His comments came hours after Biden, 80, suffered an embarrassing moment of confusion as he stumbled at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It has been revealed that Trump would expand his first-term immigration crackdown to include sweeping roundups of people who would be held in large camps to await deportation if he is re-elected in 2024. Donald Trump has taken a swipe at President Joe Biden for being 'confused' and walking into walls after he suffered another embarrassing bumble at a Veterans Day service After the laying of a ceremonial wreath, Biden, 80, appeared to need stage directions from a military officer as he took steps in the wrong direction Trump used the campaign event to poke fun at his political rival Biden who he constantly referred to as 'crooked'. 'He would be confused because I think my audience behind me is bigger than my audience in front of me,' he told the audience. 'He'd be saying what do I do, where am I. What is this strange speaking venue I'm in the middle of a room. 'You ever see the end of his speech? He has no clue how to get off. You got stairs there, jump off the front, do anything just don't walk into a wall. 'He walks into walls. But this is the guy we have negotiating with Putin and president Xi of China. This is who we have in charge of nuclear.' It came after Biden needed stage directions from an Arlington Honor Guard after laying a ceremonial wreath, taking several steps in the wrong direction before he was pointed to his spot next to Vice-President Kamala Harris. Biden has sparked concerns about his age during his presidency. In September, he appeared to get lost while walking off stage following his remarks at the Global Fund Conference. The president began walking off the stage before abruptly stopping in his tracks and looking around with an appearance of confusion on his face. Earlier that month he stumbled into a pole and did not shake Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's hand following a UN event. He has also frequently suffered a series of stumbles including while de-boarding Air Force One, and fell to the ground after tripping on a sand bag at a Coast Guard Academy graduation this spring. But Trump had his own moment of confusion when he mistakenly said Barack Obama was president instead of Biden. Trump, 77, held a campaign rally in Claremont, New Hampshire on Saturday afternoon just days after he skipped the third 2024 GOP presidential primary debate Biden, 80, suffered an embarrassing moment of confusion as he stumbled at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier 'The head of Hungary Viktor Orban, very powerful within his country and outside of his country, they were interviewing him two weeks ago and said what would advise President Obama? 'The whole world seems to be exploding and imploding. He said "It's very simple, he should immediately resign and replace him with President Trump who kept the world safe.' Trump promised the crowd at the rally that he would win the New Hampshire primary for a third straight time. 'We're going to crush crooked Joe Biden. He's a crooked man. next November and we're going to make America great again,' he said. 'We have no choice, we have to.' He also boasted about his endorsements and took a swipe at this Republican rival Ron DeSantis. 'We've had a lot of endorsements in New Hampshire, almost everyone is endorsing us,' Trump said. 'Now they're coming and the money is flowing and all those funders said maybe we'll endorse somebody else with our money. 'All of a sudden they're calling and saying "President, President hi". 'I said "I thought you were going to be DeSanctimonious", they say "no way sir, I'll give you whatever you want".' Trump's immigration plans for if he is re-elected were first reported in The New York Times on Saturday and based on interviews with several advisers, including Stephen Miller, who oversaw Trump's first-term immigration policies. The report described Trump's plans as 'an assault on immigration on a scale unseen in modern American history' and said it aimed to deport millions of people every year, including those who have been settled in the United States for decades. Trump did not mention the idea of establishing large camps to detain people in a campaign speech on Saturday in Claremont. The Biden-Harris campaign in a statement called Trump's immigration plans 'extreme, racist, cruel policies' that are 'meant to stoke fear and divide us, betting a scared nation is how he wins this election.' Among other measures, Trump would resurrect his ban on the entry of people from certain Muslim-majority countries, according to the newspaper. He would revive other hardline policies, including a COVID-19 era rejection of asylum claims, although this time the refusals would be based on assertions that migrants carry other infectious diseases, it continued. Trump is looking to speed deportations through a massive expansion of a form of removal that does not require due process hearings. Trump used the campaign event to poke fun at his political rival Biden who he constantly referred to as 'crooked' It has been revealed that Trump would expand his first-term immigration crackdown to include sweeping roundups of people who would be held in large camps to await deportation if he is re-elected in 2024 To aid US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in sweeping roundups of undocumented people, Trump would reassign federal agents and deputize local police and National Guard troops volunteered by Republican-run states, the report said. He would ease the strain on ICE detention facilities by building huge camps to hold detainees while their cases are processed as they await deportation. To underwrite the massive operation if Congress refused, Trump would redirect Pentagon funds as he did with his border wall in his first term, the Times said. 'We'll stop the invasion on our southern border and begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,' Trump said on Saturday. His election campaign did not respond to a request for comment and the White House declined to comment. Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner has split up with her MP partner Sam Tarry barely six months after hailing him as her 'soulmate'. The two politicians are going their separate ways after Ms Rayner told friends that she wanted to start a new chapter. The split came as a surprise to some MPs who said they had seen the couple 'talking happily' to each at Westminster. The news also emerged as Ms Rayner, 43, intervened in the bitter internal Labour debate over Palestine, saying she 'understands' why some party colleagues have quit over the issue. But she also backed Sir Keir Starmer's call for 'a humanitarian pause' to the violence rather than the ceasefire demanded by Labour rebels. Angela Rayner and Sam Tarry. The two politicians are going their separate ways after Ms Rayner told friends that she wanted to start a new chapter (File Photo) The split came as a surprise to some MPs who said they had seen the couple 'talking happily' to each at Westminster (File Photo) Last night, party insiders said that Sir Keir would be relieved the relationship was over. The Labour leader sacked Mr Tarry as a shadow transport minister in July last year for giving an unauthorised TV interview from a picket line during rail strikes. The 41-year-old was also deselected last year as the Labour candidate in his East London seat after a bitter local battle. One Labour MP said last night: 'Angie and Sam are on different political tracks. She's the potential deputy PM in a Labour government and he's been deselected, and is having to look for a seat. 'There is an argument that Angie didn't do enough to help there. But Starmer will be quite relieved as it could have raised difficult questions in the future.' The relationship was first made public in January last year when Mr Tarry then married to paediatric consultant Julia Fozard was pictured leaving Ms Rayner's flat one morning. He was shown with what looked like a toothbrush in his coat pocket and shoelaces undone. In April this year, Ms Rayner told a fundraising event that Mr Tarry 'is one of the most kind-hearted, amazing individuals I know and he's also my soulmate'. Sam Tarry was deselected last year as the Labour candidate in his East London seat after a bitter local battle (File Photo) She added that it would be 'an absolute tragedy' if he was no longer a Labour MP after the General Election. But yesterday, a close friend of Ms Rayner told the Daily Mirror: 'Sometimes people turn out not to be who you thought they were.' Ms Rayner was noticeably absent from the first King's Speech debate in the Commons last week but returned the next day to slam Rishi Sunak as 'too weak to deliver the change the country needs'. Friends told the Daily Mirror newspaper that she 'put her secret heartache aside' to take the fight to the Tories. Mother-of-three Ms Rayner, who had her first baby at 16 and styles herself as 'Grangela' after becoming a grandmother at 37, separated from her husband Mark Rayner in 2020. A friend of Mr Tarry said last night: 'Sam has been through a huge amount in his personal life and in Westminster over the past few years and will now have the time and space to focus on his own political projects.' It is obvious to me and to many of my fellow officers that there is a clear bias Suella Braverman was right to accuse police chiefs of 'double standards' in how they tackle different protests. And I should know because for the past decade I have served as an officer on the Met's frontline. What I have witnessed in recent weeks, as tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters have repeatedly marched through London, has left me in despair about the future of a force to which I have dedicated my professional life. We have seen appalling anti-Semitism, with mobs calling for jihad against Israel. My colleagues have been ordered to police these intimidating displays of disorder with the lightest of touches. It was the same with Black Lives Matter protests and, for a long time, the hugely disruptive stunts by groups such as Just Stop Oil. In contrast, anti-lockdown demonstrations during the pandemic were robustly dealt with by officers in full riot gear. Suella Braverman was right to accuse police chiefs of 'double standards' in how they tackle different protests And I should know because for the past decade I have served as an officer on the Met's frontline (stock image, the officer in this picture is not the author of this article) It is obvious to me and to many of my fellow officers that there is a clear bias. This 'playing favourites' is a symptom of years of wokery and political correctness that have completely transformed the culture of the Met and which mean the force cannot cope any longer with disputes that involve inter-ethnic conflict. Put simply, senior officers are terrified of being accused of racism if they fully enforce the law against pro-Palestinian protesters. When there is a group of extremists within a large crowd chanting something that is clearly a hate crime such as calling for Jews to be killed you might expect police to force their way through and make arrests. But in the minds of senior officers, this could spiral into a major physical confrontation, which is not an image they are comfortable with. Indeed, the idea that it is the police's job to physically confront criminals is completely lost on many of those who lead the Met. So instead, officers are encouraged to film the protesters and try to make arrests later. The problem with this kid gloves approach along with the obvious point that sometimes the offenders are not found is that it causes huge damage to public confidence. Many ordinary people will conclude the police are just not on their side. And then there is the double standard. Anti-lockdown protests were policed much more forcefully because police chiefs knew those protesters had no serious political support. As a result, there would be few complaints and MPs would not pile in and attempt to hound them out of their jobs. It was the same with Black Lives Matter protests and, for a long time, the hugely disruptive stunts by groups such as Just Stop Oil The culture of fear, and desperation to avoid accusations of racism, are also why officers are so reluctant to carry out stop-and-search. Within minutes of an officer stopping a suspect, videos of the encounter can be posted and a deluge of complaints made by the online mob. Crucially too, there will often be no support from senior officers, who will announce the matter is being investigated. Is it any surprise that despite knowing stop-and-search is so effective at detecting knives, officers are too frightened to use it? Meanwhile, a similar double standard and lack of political neutrality exists in the way senior officers treat their own staff. People I know who were policing Pride celebrations this year were ordered not to wear the Thin Blue Line emblem: a black-and-white Union flag with a horizontal blue line that commemorates colleagues killed in the line of duty. There were not the same concerns about wearing rainbow badges. In other words, some political gestures are tolerated and others are not. Yet if you tried to make this point to many senior officers, they simply wouldn't understand. Many of them think politics is merely about whether you vote Tory or Labour rather than about taking the knee or the declaration of preferred pronouns on an email signature. After a big recruitment drive around a third of Met officers now have less than four years' experience. This means its culture will only become more biased in coming years. Many of my colleagues have only known a force that is seemingly obsessed with woke causes, such as the way officers handle transgender-rights issues. Experienced training officers are transferring out because they are concerned about the risk of offending younger recruits. One recently referred to a group of male and females as 'guys' and received a complaint for being sexist. Many of us in the force share the public's frustration with the current state of affairs. We therefore welcome the Home Secretary's determination to call out such absurdities and her insistence on even-handedness from the force. It's exactly what the people we serve deserve and expect. People were abused in the street for wearing poppies last night as vile scenes of disorder and intimidation marred Remembrance weekend. After a string of shameful incidents during Armistice Day including pro-Palestine protesters in Hamas-style headbands and far-Right thugs hurling missiles at police violence continued in central London. Police surrounded a mob of 150 pro- Palestine protesters near Buckingham Palace after yobs, many with face coverings, hurled fireworks at officers, some of who were hit in the face. With sporadic violence erupting across the capital, Palestinian protesters clashed with Right-wing counter-demonstrators in Trafalgar Square, while yobs in cars hurled abuse at passers-by. Nine police were injured in a day of violent confrontation. One required hospital treatment with a fractured elbow and another suffered a suspected dislocated hip. Police arrested 126 protesters. Pictured: People lighting fireworks on the streets of London Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu was depicted as Hitler and the top deck of a passing bus displayed a pro-Palestine banner An anti-Semitic poster held up by a marcher on their way across the Thames to the US Embassy Furious Rishi Sunak said: 'I condemn the violent, wholly unacceptable scenes we have seen from the English Defence League and associated groups and Hamas sympathisers. The despicable actions of a minority undermine those who have chosen to express their views peacefully. He added: 'What we have seen today does not defend the honour of our Armed Forces, but utterly disrespects them. The fear and intimidation the Jewish community have experienced this weekend is deplorable.' The main pro-Palestine march, covering 2.5 miles between the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane to the US Embassy in Nine Elms, involved an estimated 300,000 protesters. Organisers had pledged to 'respect Armistice commemorations' but, as with recent marches, the demonstration was marred by anti-Semitic incidents, including repeated chants of 'From the river to the sea', which critics say calls for Israel not to exist. One group of pro-Palestine protesters were pictured wearing green headbands similar to those worn by Hamas terrorists responsible for last month's massacre of more than 1,400 Israelis. The Met said its officers were 'actively looking for' the individuals and would take 'proactive action when they are identified'. One woman was arrested for brandishing a sign which displayed the Star of David alongside a Nazi swastika, while another demonstrator held a racist placard featuring pictures of Suella Braverman and Rishi Sunak as 'coconuts', meaning they are white on the inside. A Palestinian flag was wrapped around a First World War memorial near London's Wellington Arch. Protesters later climbed the statue, with one holding a megaphone and shouting: 'Free Palestine'. With sporadic violence erupting across the capital, Palestinian protesters clashed with Right-wing counter-demonstrators in Trafalgar Square, while yobs in cars hurled abuse at passers-by Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu was depicted as Hitler and the top deck of a passing bus displayed a pro-Palestine banner. Earlier, a rampaging mob of far- Right counter-protesters, whipped up by Tommy Robinson, former leader of the EDL, clashed with police as they attempted to fight their way towards the main pro-Palestine march. Groups of Right-wing yobs, some clutching St George's Cross flags, chanted 'England 'till I die' and hurled missiles, including a metal barrier, at police. A total of 82 counter-protesters were arrested at a flare-up in Pimlico, while officers later surrounded the White Swan pub on Vauxhall Bridge Road to prevent far-Right yobs ambushing pro-Palestine demonstrators. Police last night encircled around 150 pro-Palestinian protesters close to Buckingham Palace. The Campaign Against anti-Semitism said the Jewish community is 'terrified' by the disorder and criticised Met Chief Sir Mark Rowley for allowing the pro-Palestine march to go ahead. It said: 'Some people in London are honouring those who fought murderous anti-Semites in the past to protect our freedoms, and others are parading to glorify murderous anti-Semites in the present who want to kill all Jews and destroy the Jewish state. This march should never have been allowed.' A drinking session between neighbouring multi-millionaires ended up with one allegedly threatening the other with a chainsaw and kicking him in the groin in a 'kung fu' challenge. Ruifan Zhao, 31, said he doesn't remember the night when police allege he threatened his neighbour in the leafy north-western Sydney suburb of Dural. He told police he blacked out shortly after arriving with a bottle of Japanese whisky at V8 Super-Ute driver Gerard Maggs' house for dinner on October 23, 2022. But Parramatta Local Court heard on Wednesday that the night degenerated into a series of dangerous dares, the Daily Telegraph reported. Zhao was later arrested and charged with common assault and threatening Mr Maggs with an Ozito chainsaw with intent to commit grievous bodily harm. Ruifan Zhao, 31, said he doesn't remember the night when police allege he threatened his neighbour Gerard Maggs (pictured) in the leafy north-western Sydney suburb of Dural Police dropped the chainsaw charge after he pleaded guilty to common assault, with magistrate Laurie Robertson sentencing Zhao to an 18-months community corrections order with no conviction recorded. Zhao's lawyer Michael Bowe told the court the night involved 'two very intoxicated men behaving like kids'. READ MORE: Paedophile refugee who raped a 10-year-old boy can stay in Australia after landmark court ruling Advertisement Police documents tendered to the court claimed Mr Maggs invited Zhao over at 6pm, with Zhao driving his new Corvette a few metres across the road to show it off. The men drank half a bottle of Mr Maggs' scotch and then drank the Japanese whisky Zhao brought with him, the court heard. Zhao took his shirt in the kitchen, the court was told, which his solicitor says was because he 'gets hot when he drinks whisky'. He 'appeared to be showing off his body to the victim by doing poses when Mr Maggs issued a kung fu challenge to see how high his neighbour could kick,' the police documents said. Mr Maggs told Zhao 'to kick his hand and proceeded to hold his hand up high and out to the side in order for the accused to kick'. But rather than kick the hand, Zhao kicked Mr Maggs 'with force' to the groin, causing him to drop to the ground in pain, the police said. The victim then stood up and kicked Zhao, who was then removed from the property by Mr Maggs' family. Zhao was later arrested and charged with common assault and threatening Mr Maggs with an Ozito chainsaw The police said Zhao placed his hands together and started to ask for forgiveness. He was accused of later coming to the Maggs' security gate with a 14 inch Ozito chainsaw and asking 'Where is Gerard?' The police documents said he was confronted by Mr Maggs' son who said 'What the f*** is that, dude?' The men are reportedly now on friendly terms, but do not drink together. Fears that a weak Labour government would be propped up by the Scottish Nationalists deepened last night over claims the SNP is already 'screening' would-be MPs to do exactly that. The Mail on Sunday was told that potential parliamentary candidates were being secretly asked if they would back a Labour Budget even if Sir Keir Starmer refused a key Scots Nats' demand on family benefits. Candidates who declined were ruled out of selection, an SNP insider said. Last night, Tory chairman Greg Hands declared, 'If these reports are true, it's a blatant case of voter deception. 'It's one thing for the SNP to seek to pull the wool over their own supporters' eyes. 'It's quite another to be complicit in a bid to con the entire British electorate over who would call the shots in an enfeebled Labour administration with no majority.' The Mail on Sunday was told that potential parliamentary candidates were being secretly asked if they would back a Labour Budget even if Sir Keir Starmer (pictured) refused a key Scots Nats' demand on family benefits Scottish First Minister and SNP leader Humza Yousaf (pictured) has said he would be ready to work with a Labour government in a hung Parliament. Last night, Tory chairman Greg Hands (pictured) declared, 'If these reports are true, it's a blatant case of voter deception' Mr Hands added: 'We all know what the SNP's price for co-operation is: a totally unnecessary and divisive second independence referendum.' Scottish First Minister and SNP leader Humza Yousaf has said he would be ready to work with a Labour government in a hung Parliament. But he has also said it was 'deeply shameful' that Sir Keir had not pledged to scrap a Tory measure which restricts child tax credit and universal credit payments to a family's first two children. However, a source close to the SNP selection process in the new Dunfermline and Dollar seat claimed prospective candidates were being asked if they would vote for a minority Labour government's Budget that did not remove the hated benefit limit. This would be in the context of a 'confidence and supply' deal to back Labour on individual votes. Another insider said that such 'screening' was widespread across Scottish seats. Labour insiders dismissed the idea of any deal last night, pointing to a new poll showing them with a 24-point lead over the Tories. An SNP spokesman denied the party was screening candidates in this way and repeated that Labour's commitment to the two-child cap was 'abhorrent' and 'shameful'. A Labour Party spokesperson said that both Sir Keir and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar have repeatedly said there will no deals with the SNP going into an election and no deals coming out of one. Were campaigning for a majority Labour government and the recent Rutherglen by-election shows we are the change Scotland needs. A new law should be passed to make it harder to hold protests on Remembrance Sunday, a Conservative MP has said. Bob Seely, who served in the Armed Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the government should legislate to raise the bar that needs to be met to allow protests for future Remembrance days. Writing in The Mail on Sunday, Mr Seely says organisations with a history of violent disruption, or links with proscribed terror groups would have their marched moved to another weekend. Mr Seely, who sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee, writes: The bar for protests on Remembrance Sunday should be higher than other weekends. It should be easier for police chiefs to say "no". It should be easier for the Home Secretary to ask. Many of us would have assumed there was an unwritten rule that this weekend, above all, was sacrosanct. Its time for that unwritten rule to become written. Bob Seely (pictured), who served in the Armed Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan , said the government should legislate to raise the bar that needs to be met to allow protests for future Remembrance days The MP criticises the pro-Palestine marches in London, which he says are designed to offend. Pictured: Pro-Palestine marchers on November 11 Mr Seely says organisations with a history of violent disruption, or links with proscribed terror groups would have their marched moved to another weekend. Pictured: Far right counter protestors on November 11 He adds: I understand that tolerance is about putting up with opinions you dont like. And no one wants government by media circus. But for this one weekend, we need to legislate for protests to meet a higher bar before they can go ahead. So how can that be achieved? In practise, if you are an organisation, or you are linked to an organisation that has a history of organised protests that lead to violent disruption, or you or your organisation has a history of engagement with proscribed terror groups, your march would be moved to a weekend other than Remembrance weekend. Mr Seely says the change could be made by putting down an amendment to the upcoming Criminal Justice Bill. The MP criticises the pro-Palestine marches in London, which he says are designed to offend. He writes: I believe in the right to protest, but that right has never been unlimited and without restrictions, especially given the anti-Semitic chanting and symbolism present in recent protests. Remembrance weekend is our shared national act of communal remembrance, one that brings the past, however briefly, into our present. What Remembrance Sunday is not, is a media peg for the hard left or hard-line Islamists to hijack our memorial weekend for their protests. The Isle of White MP says: This weekend should be a time for silent reflection for the silent majority. I remember my English grandad Billy, who as commander of his South Notts Hussars Artillery Regiment, was ordered to fight to the last man and the last round in June 1942 in the burning Libyan desert. I remember my own military comrades shot by the Taliban. Israel's military said it was ready to evacuate babies from Gaza's largest hospital on Sunday, where Palestinian officials said two newborns died and dozens more were at risk after fuel ran out amid intense fighting across the enclave. The IDF's chief military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said the Israeli military would help evacuate babies from Al Shifa hospital, at the request of the staff. The hospital has been forced to suspend operations after running out of fuel, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, which has led to two newborn children, out of the 45 being treated there, dying. On top of this, the roughly 500 people who have been forced to remain have been continuously bombarded for the past 24 hours, according to a senior doctor at the hospital. Muhammad Abu Salmiya, the hospital's director, told Al Jazeera, that protecting patients was the priority. 'We contacted the Red Cross and informed them we ran out of water, oxygen, fuel, and everything,' Abu Salmiya said. Muhammad Abu Salmiya, the director of Al Shifa hospital, said that newborn babies were dying after the hospital suspended operations The hospital has been forced to suspend operations after running out of fuel, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, which has led to two newborn children dying Israel's military confirmed clashes outside the hospital, but IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari denied Al-Shifa Hospital (pictured) was under siege READ MORE: Gaza hospitals are under constant fire and running out of power as one baby dies and dozens more are at risk while fighting rages between Israel and Hamas terrorists Advertisement 'The premature babies, patients of the intensive care, and even wounded people couldn't survive with the lack of electricity. 'If the occupation forces want to evacuate the wounded people to any place in the world that is safer than the Gaza Strip, we are not against that.' He said that the hospital being forced to suspend operations after running out of fuel had deadly consequences 'Medical devices stopped. Patients, especially those in intensive care, started to die,' he said by phone, with gunfire and explosions in the background. He accused Israeli troops of 'shooting at anyone outside or inside the hospital' and had prevented movement between buildings. Israel's military confirmed clashes outside the hospital, but Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari denied Al-Shifa was under siege. Ahmed al-Mokhallalati, a senior plastic surgeon at Al Shifa, told Reuters: 'It's totally a war zone. It's a totally scary atmosphere here in the hospital.' The Hamas-run health ministry says that 45 babies are currently being treated at Al Shifa Al Shifa is said to be treating around 500 people, despite running out of fuel this weekend Palestinian officials said on Friday that 11,078 Gaza residents had been killed in air and artillery strikes Roughly 40% of the Palestinians killed by Israeli airstrikes and missiles have been children, according to Palestinian officials The Hamas-run health ministry accused Israel of deliberately targeting the hospital with airstrikes The Hamas-run health ministry accused Israel of deliberately targeting the hospital with airstrikes, and claimed that Israeli snipers would regularly take shots at the medical complex, limiting doctors' and patients' abilities to move freely. Israel has said doctors, patients and thousands of evacuees who have taken refuge at hospitals in northern Gaza must leave so it can tackle Hamas gunmen who it says have placed command centres under and around them. Hamas denies using hospitals this way. Medical staff say patients could die if they are moved and Palestinian officials say Israeli fire makes it dangerous for others to leave. Israeli Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter called the evacuations 'Gaza's Nakba', a reference to mass dispossessions of Palestinians after Israel was founded in 1948. 'Operationally there's no way to conduct a war the way the IDF wants to conduct it inside Gaza territories,' Dichter said. 'I don't know how it will end.' Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted yesterday that there will be no ceasefire with Hamas until all hostages are returned. Discussing the war at a news conference from Tel Aviv on Saturday, Netanyahu said Israel 'will not stop until we complete our mission' and that its only goal is to win (File Photo) This picture taken from the Israeli side of the border with the Gaza Strip on November 11, 2023, shows smoke rising over buildings during an Israeli strike on the Palestinian enclave This image grab from a handout video released by the Israeli army on November 11, 2023, shows Israeli armoured vehicles rolling inside the Gaza Strip Israeli soldiers operate inside the Gaza Strip, according to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), in this handout picture obtained by Reuters on November 11, 2023 Discussing the war at a news conference from Tel Aviv on Saturday, Netanyahu said Israel 'will not stop until we complete our mission' and that its only goal is to win. He said Hamas has 'lost its grip' on Gaza and there is now 'no place to hide'. Israel's three major TV news channels, without citing named sources, said there was some progress toward a deal to free hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. Netanyahu said he would not discuss details of any possible deal, which according to N12 News would involve 50 to 100 women, children and elderly being released in stages during a three to five day pause in fighting. According to the reports, Israel would release women and minor Palestinian prisoners and consider letting fuel in to Gaza, while reserving the right to resume fighting. Palestinians arrive in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on November 11, 2023, after fleeing their homes in Gaza City Palestinians including injured people leave their homes to escape Israel's bombardments to reach southern part of the city in Gaza City, Gaza on November 11, 2023 People mourn as they collect the bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli raids on November 11, 2023 in Khan Yunis, Gaza The war between Israel and Hamas, the bloodiest between the two in decades, began on October 7 after Hamas launched a massive incursion into Israel, taking the world by surprise. Israel said rockets were still being fired from Gaza into southern Israel, where it has said about 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 taken hostage by Hamas last month. Palestinian officials said on Friday that 11,078 Gaza residents had been killed in air and artillery strikes since October 7, around 40% of them being children. Netanyahu said he still has daily contact with US President Joe Biden, and also has the 'political and ethical support' of the American administration. But the Arab and Muslim world, meeting in Saudi Arabia over the weekend, called for an immediate end to military operations in Gaza, rejecting Israel's justification of self-defence. A communique issued at the summit urged the International Criminal Court to investigate 'war crimes and crimes against humanity that Israel is committing.' A grieving husband has paid a heartfelt tribute to his wife who died in his arms after she was hit by a falling tree during a severe storm in Queensland. Joy Greenwood, 70, died on Friday evening after a tree fell on her at her Qually Road home in Lockyer Waters, about 93km west of Brisbane. Emergency services were called the property after Ms Greenwood was struck by the tree just before 6pm. Queensland Police said the 70-year-old grandmother had life-threatening injuries when they arrived on scene. Ms Greenwood had been feeding her horses and was making her way back to the house when she was killed. Colin Greenwood (pictured) tragically lost his wife Joy when she was killed after a tree fell on her during a severe storm in Queensland's Lockyer Valley on Friday Mr Greenwood shared a heartfelt post to social media following his wife's death Paramedics worked for more than an hour to save Ms Greenwood but her injuries were too severe and she could not be revived. Ms Greenwood's husband, Colin, shared an heartbreaking post to Facebook on Saturday, saying his 'best friend and life partner of 35 years' died in his arms. 'Joy was tragically killed yesterday afternoon during an unexpected hail and wind storm whilst feeding her horses,' he wrote. 'On the way back to the house a large gum tree was uprooted and hit my beloved Joy. She died in my arms.' Mr and Ms Greenwood had lived at their Lockyer Waters property for more than 30 years after purchasing it in 1989. Mr and Ms Greenwood's daughter, Nicole Jeeves, said her mother was feeding her horses when the tragic incident unfolded. 'She loved horses all her life she died feeding her horses when wild winds picked up,' she told The Courier-Mail. 'She was heading inside but did not make it when she did not come back inside my father went to look for her and found her.' The severe storm covered the Lockyer Valley region in huge hailstones and left more than 2000 people without power Lockyer MP Jim McDonald also shared his condolences on social media. 'Colin our deepest sympathies on this tragic loss! All our love Jim and Deb,' he wrote. Friends and family reacted with devastation to Mr Greenwood's emotional Facebook post. 'Mate it's hard to read those words, I'm shocked to hear this terrible news,' one said. 'Aunty Joy had a heart of gold,' another wrote. 'My heart breaks for you and our family. Just know that you comforted her and she loved you immensely. May she rest in peace.' While another said Ms Greenwood would be remembered 'for her passion and for the love of animals'. 'She was a hero for many animal lovers always in our hearts,' they said. The Bureau of Meteorology said winds up to 87km per hour were recorded during the storm The severe storm which knocked over the tree had covered the Lockyer Valley region in huge hailstones and left more than 2000 people without power. The Bureau of Meteorology said winds up to 87km per hour were recorded during the storm. The rural town of Laidley experienced a whopping 22mm of rain in just 10 minutes, and SES were called out to 20 requests for assistance in the Lockyer Valley area. Queensland Police will prepare a report on Ms Greenwood's death for the coroner. Police are investigating after Jewish families leaving synagogue yesterday were 'targeted' by pro-Palestinian protesters. Footage shared on Twitter on Saturday night showed men holding green flares, waving Palestine flags and shouting from cars outside the place of worship on Abbey Road in St John's Wood, north London. The Campaign Against Antisemitism confirmed it was 'aware' of Jewish families 'being targeted on their way out of synagogue' and had 'received multiple reports of police having to escort congregants away in groups for their own safety'. The Met said it had identified the cars involved and was working to locate the suspects. In a media briefing on Friday it had warned of the likelihood of convoys of cars going through Jewish areas and showing antisemitic abuse. Footage shared on Twitter on Saturday night showed men holding green flares, waving Palestine flags and shouting from cars outside a synagogue on Abbey Road in St John's Wood The Campaign Against Antisemitism confirmed it was 'aware' of Jewish families ' being targeted on their way out of synagogue' and had 'received multiple reports of police having to escort congregants away in groups for their own safety' Today's pro-Palestine march was marred by numerous incidents of vile antisemitism, with one marcher holding a sign showing a Jewish Star of David wrapped around a Nazi swastika. Police are hunting two men seen wearing headbands supporting Hamas; a man with a sign saying 'welcome to Gaza, twinned with Auschwitz'; and a woman with a racist banner depicting Mr Sunak and Suella Braverman as 'coconuts'. READ MORE - Rishi Sunak slams 'EDL thugs' over Armistice Day chaos Advertisement Meanwhile, officers stopped and searched a group of around 150 pro-Palestine protesters who had broken off from the main demonstration and were letting off fireworks - some of which struck officers in the face. Police said there were 300,000 people on the main march but organisers put the figure at 'more than 800,000'. Many demonstrators chanted 'From the River to the Sea', a controversial phrase that critics see as calling for the destruction of the state of Israel. The Met said in response to the synagogue video: 'An investigation is under way. The cars involved have been identified and we are carrying out enquiries to locate the suspects. 'Recognising the concern this incident has understandably caused, we have also arranged additional patrols in the area.' A spokesman for the Campaign Against Antisemitism said: 'Naturally, the Jewish community is terrified. 'We are aware of Jewish families being targeted on their way out of synagogue and have received multiple reports of police having to escort congregants away in groups for their own safety.' The Met Police are hunting two pro-Palestinian protesters who were seen wearing Hamas headbands They are also searching for a man with a sign saying 'welcome to Gaza, twinned with Auschwitz'; and a woman holding a racist banner depicting Mr Sunak and Suella Braverman as 'coconuts' Referring to the main march, they added: 'The placards today bore slogans and imagery that would not have looked out of place in Nazi Germany. 'Islamist extremists, the far-Left and the far-Right were out on the streets, all on one day. What a day to be a Jew in London.' Rishi Sunak condemned 'wholly unacceptable' actions by both far-right groups and 'Hamas sympathisers' on the pro-Palestinian march, and put pressure on police by saying 'all criminality must be met with the full and swift force of the law'. Police detained and arrested scores of counter-protesters as hundreds of thousands of people took part in the biggest UK rally since the Israel-Hamas conflict began on October 7. Mr Sunak said in a statement: 'I condemn the violent, wholly unacceptable scenes we have seen today from the EDL (English Defence League) and associated groups and Hamas sympathisers attending the National March for Palestine. 'The despicable actions of a minority of people undermine those who have chosen to express their views peacefully.' Today's youngsters may be notorious for their unyielding devotion to woke causes and contempt for anyone who dares say the wrong thing. Yet it seems at least some of Generation Z are bucking that trend and embracing the most unlikely of political figures: Nigel Farage. The former Brexit Party leader has become something of a TikTok sensation, with his videos on topics such as smoking legislation, transgender rights and immigration racking up 6.5 million likes. Some of his 380,000 followers have nicknamed the proudly politically incorrect politician the 'GOAT' an acronym for the 'greatest of all time' the 'true Brexit geezer' and 'the man we need in charge' of Britain. Meanwhile, the video of him holding a pint of beer as he told voters that 'Brexit means Brexit' has become a meme, with users making their own remixes. Around a quarter of TikTok users are aged between 13 and 25, defined as Generation Z, and Mr Farage's command of social media may prove crucial to his success on I'm A Celebrity, which starts its new series on ITV next Sunday. Some of his 380,000 followers have nicknamed the proudly politically incorrect politician the 'GOAT' The former Brexit Party leader has become something of a TikTok sensation, with his videos on topics such as smoking legislation, transgender rights and immigration racking up 6.5 million likes The 59-year-old GB News presenter was yesterday spotted boarding a Singapore Airlines flight to Australia though fellow travellers at Heathrow could hardly miss him in his salmon-pink blazer. He also found time for a quick drink in the Queen's Arms in Terminal Two before his 24-hour flight to Brisbane. Mr Farage is said to be 'enjoying' engaging with the younger generations on TikTok and hopes he can encourage their interest in politics. He also gave that as the reason he was entering the jungle for a rumoured 1 million fee saying: 'You've got about ten million young people who watch that programme. These are people who don't really watch the news... so in my mind, if I was to do it, I might be able to connect with that audience.' In a recent TikTok video, viewed 7 million times, he spoke about the prospect of rapists avoiding jail due to prison overcrowding saying: 'I think this is a total outrage. I wonder what you think? Shouldn't we just build some more prisons and send the bad dudes to jail?' One user replied: 'This fella is actually starting to make some sense.' A Texas police officer with the Austin SWAT team was killed early on Saturday morning in a shooting that left the gunman dead and a second officer wounded. Two other people were later found dead inside a home in Austin, according to interim Police Chief Robin Henderson. An emotional Henderson, who paused often during a news conference and appeared to be choking back tears, said officers were called to the home shortly before 3am on Saturday morning by a woman screaming that she was being stabbed. One person escaped the home before officers arrived, Henderson said, and told police the man in the home was armed with a knife. Police then tried to enter the home and were met with gunfire, but they did not return fire. Instead, officers retreated and called for a SWAT team, said Henderson, who did not take questions and was surrounded by about 10 other officers during her comments. On Saturday evening, the officer was identified as Jorge Pastore, a three-year officer with the department. Officer Pastore was a member of the SWAT team. He was married and had two stepsons. Austin police SWAT officer Jorge Pastore was killed during a fire fight on Saturday morning. He is the first Austin officer to be fatally shot in the line of duty in a decade Four people are dead, including Austin police SWAT officer Jorge Pastore, pictured, after a firefight that occurred when police breached a home to try to save two hostages Interim Austin Police Chief Robin Henderson tearfully spoke to the media about the shooting death of an Austin Police Department officer on Saturday The Austin Police Department investigates the crime scene after an Austin police officer died following a shooting in South Austin, Texas on Saturday A second officer was wounded in the shooting early on Saturday that also left the suspected gunman dead Members of the Austin Police Department are seen on scene investigating the shooting The Austin Police Department investigates the crime scene that also left the suspected gunman dead 'At 3:06am, because the suspect was armed and barricaded inside a residence and had two hostages, SWAT was called out,' Henderson explained. 'At approximately 4:11am, SWAT officers arrived on scene and forced entry into the residence a second time to rescue the victims.' 'SWAT officers arrived on scene and forced entry into the residence ... to rescue the victims,' Henderson said. 'As SWAT officers entered the suspect immediately fired his gun at the officers and the SWAT officers returned fire.' Two officers and the suspect were struck by the gunfire. The suspect was killed at the scene and the two officers were taken to a hospital, where one died and the second was in stable condition, Henderson said. 'Two apparent victims of the suspect were located inside of the residence with fatal injuries,' Henderson said. An officer bows his head as Interim Austin Police Chief Robin Henderson speaks to the media Austin Police Chief Robin Henderson speaks at a news conference about the shooting death of an officer Austin Police Department officers prepare to ride in a procession leaving Dell Seton Medical Center in Downtown Austin following the shooting death of a police officer early on Saturday A procession including Austin Fire, Police and EMS leaves Dell Seton Medical Center Members of the Austin Fire Department bow their heads as they prepared to drive in a procession with the fallen office An Austin Police Department officer removes his hat leaving Dell Seton Medical Center in Downtown Austin following the shooting death of a fellow officer Interim Austin Police Chief Robin Henderson speaks to the press about the shooting death of an Austin Police Department officer Multiple officers opened fire, and the shooting will be investigated by both the Austin Police Department's internal affairs division and the department's special investigation unit in conjunction with the Travis County District Attorney's Office, Henderson said. No names have been released. 'My heart and the hearts of Austinites are broken this morning. This is a horrible moment for our city and those who protect us,' Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said in a statement. 'I'm praying for the family of our fallen officer, for our officer who was shot and in surgery and his family. 'We rely on brave people who are in harm's way when they are serving us,' Watson said. 'This event jarringly brings home that truth.' The Austin Police Retired Officers Association asked for prayers for both the slain and the wounded officer. This is the first time in a decade that an APD officer has been shot and killed in the line of duty. A convoy of emergency vehicle cars made their way through downtown Austin in tribute to the fallen officer Messages of condolence were tweeted by Austin's Mayor, Texas Governor and police chief Austin Police Department officers are pictured shorting before riding in a procession to commemorate the fallen officer Multiple officers opened fire, and the shooting will be investigated by both the Austin Police Department's internal affairs division and the department's special investigation unit 'Our hearts are heavy this morning with the news of one of our brothers with APD having been shot and killed in the line of duty,' the statement said on X. Texas Governor Greg Abbott also issued a statement calling for prayers for the family of the slain officer, for the wounded officer and for the city's police department. 'This tragedy is a reminder of the great risks and selfless leadership our law enforcement officers exercise every day to serve and protect their communities,' Abbott said. Companies with shoddy customer service face a crackdown in plans being considered by ministers. Banks and energy firms that leave customers hanging on the phone would be hit with fines. Regulators would be given 'sharper teeth and claws so they can fix bad customer service', say sources familiar with the discussions. 'It's all about making clear the consumer is king,' a source added. The plans were initially worked up by Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt, who gave a dossier of proposals to Downing Street at the start of the summer. She drew on a review by Tory MP John Penrose, which included plans to tackle 'drip pricing' which allows airlines to add sneaky charges at checkout and were included in the King's Speech. A source close to Ms Mordaunt said her proposals were based on conversations she has had on the doorstep visiting different constituencies each week, as well as listening to MPs. The plans were initially worked up by Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt, who gave a dossier of proposals to Downing Street at the start of the summer Regulators would be given 'sharper teeth and claws so they can fix bad customer service', say sources familiar with the discussions (stock image) Her plans, submitted to Number 10's policy team, include making it easier to change and cancel contracts and providers. Ms Mordaunt is expected to launch a leadership bid to succeed Rishi Sunak if he loses the election. Mr Penrose said: 'Making the consumer king or queen means we all get better deals because if we don't like something, we can vote with our feet and take our business elsewhere. 'It's the simplest, most profound way of handing power back to citizens.' One of two Idaho students who survived the November 2022 massacre at their shared house has now switched universities, her stepmother said, and is wracked with 'survivor's guilt'. Dylan Mortensen, 21, told detectives that she saw a man leaving the house in Moscow, Idaho, in the early hours. She did not realize until hours later that four of her roommates had been murdered. Bryan Kohberger, a 28-year-old criminology student, has been charged with four counts of murder, and pleaded not guilty. He remains in jail, with no trial date set. Mortensen left Moscow earlier this year, said Patricia Munroe, Mortensen's stepmother. Dylan Mortensen is one of two to survive the November 13, 2022 murders at the Idaho student house Mortensen, far left, is seen with her roommates: Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen (on Kaylee's shoulders) Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Bethany Funke Bryan Kohberger, who is accused of killing four University of Idaho students in November 2022, is pictured on September 13 at Latah County District Court Munroe was married to Mortensen's father Brent, and helped raise Dylan from the age of seven until almost her graduation for high school. She told The New York Post she remained close to the family, and Mortensen was 'okay'. Munroe, 53, said: 'There's a lot of guilt because, you know, if someone says, 'Oh, well, Dylan was so lucky,' you know, you don't want to take on that luck because all of the children deserved luck. 'They all deserved to be spared from that.' Mortensen told police she stood in a 'frozen shock phase' as 'a figure clad in black clothing and a mask walked towards her,' then 'towards the back sliding glass door' and left the house. She then locked herself in her room, and did not emerge until the next morning. Mortensen and Bethany Funke, the other roommate who survived the attacks, did not call police until noon the next day, which has given rise to online trolls attacking Mortensen and Funke and claiming they were involved in the murders. Mortensen is keeping herself to herself, her father said, and has switched universities 'You never really think about online backlash and trolls until you deal with it, and it's just a really hurtful thing,' Munroe said. 'I challenge anyone to be in a position where they wake up to four of their roommates gone and, you know, not even realizing it. 'People have to understand that these children are very young . . . You know, they're just young kids, and it's just a really traumatizing thing. I just think that people need to have compassion. 'There needs to be space and time for all the details to come out in trial.' Mortensen's father Brent told author and private investigator J. Reuben Appelman that she was isolating herself, and playing video games to deal with the stress. Appelman told NewsNation: 'In the beginning weeks after those homicides, she was basically dogpiled on, on social media. 'This was part of the trauma that she experienced. 'Dylan herself has retreated from the public eye, very few people see her.' Mortensen's father told Appelman that his daughter is in the process of healing, despite being hounded by bullies. 'She is in trauma therapy of sorts, she's getting help from the spiritual community,' he said. 'Isolating herself but she is stepping out a little at a time, she is gaming online with peers in group gaming session. 'She's doing what she can without going into public.' She received a new copy of the book the same day and the employee responsible was fired The book had multiple pro-Palestine stickers plastered across it A Jewish mother from Wisconsin who ordered an Israeli history book off of Amazon was left feeling 'violated' after the copy had 'very disturbing' pro-Palestine stickers plastered across it. Shira Goldman noticed the sticker when she opened up the novel 'Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth' by Noa Tishby. Multiple stickers with fake barcodes read 'Free Palastine'- the incorrect spelling of Palestine- were stuck to pages all throughout the book. Tishby took to X (formally known as Twitter) and said that she was in contact with Amazon Books who told her that 'they're making sure this doesn't happen again'. A spokesman for Amazon soon told Times Now that the employee that defaced the book was identified and fired for their actions. Goldman's copy (pictured) of ' Israel : A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth' that she purchased on Amazon was defaced with pro-Palestine stickers all over The author of the novel, Noa Tishby (pictured) posted about the incident on social media and called it 'unacceptable' and reached out to Amazon herself Amazon sent Goldman a fresh copy of the book and said that they identified the employee who defaced the original copy and fired them Goldman then went on to share the shocking experience with her friends and family before she took to Facebook, where many Jewish mom groups flocked to the comments. Members of the Tribe Parenting and Mothers Against College Antisemitism were among those that reacted to Goldman's terrifying discovery. Since the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7, members of these groups have come together as a community to find educational books that help make sense of the gruesome war. Of the recommended books, Tishby's 2021 novel quickly climbed to the top of their list and the New York Times best-seller list in the past month. 'Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth' was released in 2021 and has become a New York Times Bestseller over the past month Tishby, who is also an actress, producer and former Special envoy for Combating Antisemitism and Delegitimization of Israel created this book to help others understand the history of Israel. Television host, Bill Maher commented on the book itself and said, 'this is not your Bubbie's history book'. Goldman told New York Post that she felt that she was 'targeted for her faith' when the tampered copy of the book came in the mail that day. In response to the conflict, Amazon ended up sending her a fresh copy of the book the same day. They also said that it was apparently the last copy available in the warehouse at the time. Amazon and other companies like Starbucks, McDonalds and Google have been under fire recently for their public stances over the on-going war in the middle east. Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon took to X (formally known as Twitter) on October 9 and said that the attacks on Israel were 'shocking and painful to watch'. 'Were also in close contact with our humanitarian relief partners on the ground and will be supporting their efforts. Hoping that peace arrives as soon as possible,' Jassy said. NYPD officers are seen confronting some of the protesters outside Grand Central station on Friday night Discussing the war at a news conference from Tel Aviv, Netanyahu said Israel 'will not stop until we complete our mission' and that its only goal is to win (File Photo) Protests and hate crimes across the country have carried on as Palestine and Israel continue to fight. Six people were recently arrested after a mob of masked pro-Palestinian protestors attempted to storm Grand Central station by kicking in the doors on Friday night. In other news, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that there will be no ceasefire in the war against Hamas until all of the hostages are returned. Hospitals in Gaza have also been under constant attack by Israel as they lost power to one of their generators, leading to the death of baby on an incubator. A Hamas leader who was presumed dead is alive and organised the October 7 terror attacks from a network of tunnels in Gaza, Israeli spies are said to believe. Mohammed Sinwar was pronounced dead in 2014 by Hamas, which released an image of him lying on a bloodstained bed. But in reality this was a stunt aimed at protecting him from Israeli assassination attempts and he was one of three to four figures behind the attacks on Israel which killed 1,400 people, it is claimed. 'He was 100 per cent one of the core team who planned Oct 7,' a former Mossad counter-terror chief told the Telegraph. 'In the military leadership he's very important,' the source said. 'He's around number seven on the wanted list, alongside the likes of Mohammed Deif, Marwan Issa and Tawfiq Abu Naim. He's an important figure and he's still alive for sure.' Mohammed Sinwar was pronounced dead in 2014 by Hamas, which released an image of him lying on a bloodstained bed Sources claim this was a stunt aimed at protecting Mohammed (pictured) from Israeli assassination attempts Mohammed Sinwar is the younger brother of Yahya Sinwa, Hamas's leader in Gaza and Israel's most-wanted terrorist. He helped free his elder brother from an Israeli jail during a 2011 prisoner exchange and is considered an 'expert' in using kidnappings to secure the release of prisoners, according to Ronen Solomon - an intelligence analyst and author of the Intelli Times blog. READ MORE - Gaza hospitals are under constant fire and running out of power as one baby dies Advertisement Mr Solomon said there is now such secrecy surrounding Mohammed that he even residents of Gaza do not recognise him. 'During the last two decades, he survived six assassination attempts,' he said. This week Mohammed's picture appeared alongside that of his brother during a briefing by Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant. He did not mention him by name or describe his involvement in the October attacks. Yesterday Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that there will be no ceasefire in the war against Hamas until all of the hostages are returned. Discussing the war at a news conference from Tel Aviv, Netanyahu said Israel 'will not stop until we complete our mission' and that its only goal is to win. He said Hamas has 'lost its grip' on Gaza and there is now 'no place to hide'. Mohammed Sinwar is the younger brother of Yahya Sinwa, Hamas's leader in Gaza and Israel 's most-wanted terrorist Netanyahu said he still has daily contact with US President Joe Biden, and also has the 'political and ethical support' of the American administration. Many world leaders have come to visit Israel to show support but there are 'minorities that pressure the governments', he said. He called on government to 'not succumb to this pressure' and said 'our war is their war'. 'No international pressure, no false accusations... will deviate us from our cause,' he said. Rejecting calls for a ceasefire, he said: 'If you want peace, we have to eliminate Hamas.' A British YouTuber who has more than 4.2million subscribers is facing extradition over sex attacks on underage girls in Poland, it has been claimed. Stuart Burton, known online as Stuu, fled to the UK after Polish prosecutors issued a warrant for his arrest following allegations of sexual abuse. The alleged attacks are said to have taken place in Poland while Burton - who was born in London and holds both British and Polish passports - was living there. The 31-year-old is due at a full extradition hearing in February 2024, The Mirror reports. Burton was arrested in the UK last month after a string of teenage girls came forward to allege they had either been coerced into sex or received 'filthy' messages from the influencer. Stuart Burton, 31, known online as Stuu, fled to the UK from Poland after Polish authorities issued a warrant for his arrest following allegations of sexual abuse The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) confirmed that Burton faces one charge of sexual touching in 2015 and three more in 2018. In the more recent alleged attack, Burton - who has generated more than a billion views from his YouTube videos - is accused of giving alcohol to a minor. The YouTuber, who now lives in Luton, was arrested after a video was released by Polish filmmaker Sylwester Wardega who accused Burton and other content creators of having sexual relationships with underage girls. The video shows that during his time in Poland, Burton is alleged to have contacted a 13-year-old girl in 2014, proposed meetings with her and sent erotic messages. Screenshots of alleged conversations, interviews and video recordings posted online also claim that 'Stuu' regularly invited girls under the age of 15 to his apartment, allegedly kissed a 13-year-old, and took 'secret' photos of them naked in bed. He had then allegedly told the girls not to say anything as it could affect his relationship with his sponsors. The allegations rocked Poland's YouTube community and saw government ministers get involved. He found himself at the centre of a scandal in Poland after a string of girls came forward to allege they had either been coerced into sex or received 'filthy' messages from the influencer The day after issuing the arrest warrant, Polish police posted on X: 'YouTuber Stuart B. 'Stuu', who has been wanted since yesterday on an arrest warrant, was arrested today by British policemen.' A Polish prosecutor spokesman said last month: 'The evidence collected during the investigation allowed a decision to be brought against Stuart B. 'The charges concern sexual abuse of minors under 15 years of age and giving alcohol to minors. 'We are currently waiting for the decision of the British court that will consider our application for extradition of the suspect to Poland.' Burton's YouTube profile picture currently says 'offline' and he has not posted a video in three years. He was remanded on conditional bail last month by Westminster magistrates. Burton is on an electronic tag and must stay at his Luton home every night. His Polish and British passports have been retained by Bedfordshire Police. Burton has denied all charges and allegations. Conservative Party chairman Greg Hands privately backs scrapping the disputed tourist tax, The Mail on Sunday understands. He is the latest Cabinet Minister to pile pressure on Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to ditch the levy in a bid to boost British tourism. Sources close to Mr Hands say the MP for Chelsea and Fulham understands the benefit that returning tax-free shopping would provide particularly for businesses in Central London. It comes after Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch revealed that firms often raise the issue of bringing back VAT-free shopping with her, and that she was 'keen for them to know we understand their arguments'. This newspaper has led a campaign to 'scrap the tourist tax', which was reintroduced after last year's mini-Budget. But Treasury insiders last night insisted they had no plans to row back on the controversial charge in the Autumn Statement due November 22. A senior Government source has also told the MoS that Mr Hunt's agenda will be 'more of a Budget' and bigger in scope than expected. Greg Hands is the latest Cabinet Minister to pile pressure on Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to ditch the levy in a bid to boost British tourism Rocco Forte, founder of the Rocco Forte Collection, center, during a protest by business leaders against the Tourist Tax Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is being urged to ditch the tax by ministers Government whips have scheduled three days of debate and votes on the Autumn Statement, which suggests it has more fiscal measures 'akin to a mini-Budget', another explained despite the Chancellor's expected lack of fiscal headroom. A Treasury insider added: 'Budgets can be small and Autumn Statements can be big.' It comes as new figures estimate the Treasury missed out on more than 200 million last year because of the lack of VAT-free shopping. The tourist tax is also thought to have cost British retailers 1.5 billion in lost sales in 2022, according to figures compiled by the Association of International Retail (AIR). It claimed the extra funds could have supported 26,000 jobs meaning the employment market is suffering, too. The research has been submitted to the Treasury to provide evidence of the impact of ending tax-free shopping. It has been seen by at least one senior Cabinet member, The Mail on Sunday understands. AIR wants the Chancellor to commit to launching a review into the issue in the Autumn Statement as it fears the Treasury did not take into account the impact the tax has had on other parts of the tourism industry such as restaurants and hotels. AIR is just one of hundreds of retailers and organisations calling for the levy to be scrapped. Mulberry, Marks & Spencer, Fortnum & Mason and Bicester Village are among more than 400 groups that have signed a petition asking for the Chancellor to reconsider. A Treasury spokesman said: 'The key motivators for tourists visiting the UK are our rich history and vibrant towns and cities not shopping.' Barnaby Joyce, 56, tied the knot with his former political adviser Vikki Campion, 38, in an outdoor bush bash-style wedding at his sprawling property - almost six years after their scandalous affair was exposed. The happy couple hosted a pink- and ivory-themed celebration the politician's family farm in Woolbrook, west of Walcha, in the NSW Northern Tablelands, on Sunday afternoon. What was supposed to be a low-key barbecue for around a dozen guests swelled to a party for more than 80 of their closest friends, with a dance floor ordered in for a shed on the property. The couple's young sons Sebastian and Thomas, age five and four, could be seen outside the venue earlier that morning, ready for their roles as page boys. Joyce himself jumped out of a Toyota Landcruiser at the property ahead of the ceremony, before guests - including former Nationals MP George Christensen - began to arrive in a convoy of four-wheel drives. Hours later, the newlyweds beamed as they walked together, hand-in-hand, to greet their guests - donning in his and hers Akubra hats. A new, gold wedding band could be seen on Joyce's hand. Barnaby Joyce, 56, married his former political adviser Vikki Campion, 38 (pictured) Vikki Campion wore a strapless cream dress with black cowboy-style boots (pictured) Vikki Campion puffed on a cigarette with guests at her own wedding reception on Sunday (pictured) Vikki Campion is pictured with guests at her wedding reception on Sunday, holding a drink and a cigarette Pictured: Barnaby Joyce and Vikki Campion, speaking with one of their two sons at their wedding on Sunday Ms Campion wore a strapless cream dress with gold earrings and heeled black cowboy-style boots, as she walked alongside her new husband with a glass of champagne post-ceremony - smiling widely at her guests. She barely let go of Joyce's hand as she greeted guests at the reception. The groom opted for tan trousers with a brown belt and shoes, paired with a white shirt, navy blazer and tie. On his lapel was a pink and green boutonniere. Vehicles were parked around a white aisle separating rows of white chairs. A single portable toilet could be seen on the trailer of one 4WD. While the nuptials were a family affair, not all members of the Joyce clan were expected to attend. It is not clear which one of his four daughters, Julia, Caroline, Odette and Bridgette, agreed to join the festivities. However, it was unlikely to be Odette, who once posted a picture of her mum and siblings on Instagram with the caption: 'The real Joyce family #whosbarnaby'. On Saturday night, the evening before her father's wedding, she used Instagram to share a photo of a friend's birthday celebration in the Sydney suburb of Manly - which is about five hours south of Walcha. Some guests sat out of the sun, under a camping-style gazebo (pictured) The bride greeted guests at the reception following the ceremony on Sunday (pictured). Former Nationals MP George Christensen is pictured, left, with his daughter Guests could be seen milling about in the shade before the ceremony. A single portable toilet was fixed to the back of one vehicle (pictured) Pictured: Guests at Barnaby Joyce and Vikki Campion's wedding on Sunday afternoon One guest walked from his car with more seating options on Sunday afternoon Former Nationals MP George Christensen arrived at the wedding, with his wife and daughter (pictured) The girls' mother, Natalie Joyce, was said to have been blindsided by her ex-husband's affair. In December, 2017, Joyce used the parliamentary debate on same sex marriage to confirm he was no longer with his wife of 24 years. His affair was then confirmed in February 2018 - when Ms Campion was two months away from giving birth to Sebastian. Once their relationship was exposed, 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. Ms Campion has spoken candidly about their affair, previously admitting their relationship 'wasn't perfect' but insisting she doesn't regret the drama surround their infidelity. 'Even until the day he said in Parliament that I was his partner, I didnt believe it to be accurate. He said he would be there in the labour ward and I didnt believe that either,' she previously said. 'You swap your job for harsh stares, paparazzi and paranoia, schoolyard rumours cooking up in Ultimo newsrooms, many without a yolk of truth and you stop answering the door,' she went on. 'He has asked me a thousand times: "Would you go through it all again?" And my answer has always been yes.' Barnaby Joyce is pictured hours before the ceremony, after jumping out of a Toyota Landcruise Barnaby Joyce and Vikki Campion are pictured greeting guests after their wedding ceremony Ms Campion is pictured speaking with her young son after her wedding on Sunday 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, but the wedding was delayed due to the pandemic. Her father Peter Campion previously told Daily Mail Australia the wedding was expected to be 'very much Barnaby getting back to his country roots'. Guests were encouraged to arrive in utes or 4WDs, roll out their swags and party long into the night. Peter Campion was surprise that one of Barnaby's adult daughters (above with their mother Natalie, Julia, Caroline, Odette and Bridgette) was coming to his daughter Vikki's wedding to the ex-deputy PM He said along with the country-style dancing predicted in one report, he expected there would also be more conservative 'staid waltzing', but 'I'm not much of a dancer, and I've had a knee reconstruction, so I won't be boot scooting'. Mr Campion said now thought of Joyce as 'a good bloke' and 'one of the better ones' among Canberra politicians. The renowned conservative said it was media misreporting about his daughter relationship that had initially set him against Joyce, but his daughter had assured him her relationship with the MP had begun months after his marriage had ended. Mr Campion will give a speech as father of the bride and may be dressed in, he says, 'steel-capped boots and a "Make Australia Great Again" cap'. Asked what he will say about his daughter, he said: 'I'm there to ruffle feathers. some hard truths about modern society dominated by the lunatic left. 'Well, I've only got 20 minutes. It's a rare opportunity to drop some truth bombs.' Russian forces have targeted the Ukrainian capital Kyiv as part of an overnight bombardment that was felt across the country, local officials said. A ballistic missile was shot down as it approached the Ukrainian capital, said Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration. He said that no-one was injured. The Ukrainian air force later confirmed an Iskander-M missile ballistic missile was used in the attack, the first attempted missile strike on Kyiv in almost two months. The missile was destroyed by the country's Patriot air defence system. Ukraine's air defence systems actively repelled attacks in Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Poltava, Sumy, and Kirovohrad regions. The country's air force said Russian troops launched 31 Shahed-136/131 drones, of which 19 were shot down. Russian forces have targeted the Ukrainian capital Kyiv as part of an overnight bombardment that was felt across the country, local officials said (stock image, this is not Saturday's attack) A ballistic missile was shot down as it approached the Ukrainian capital, said Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration. He said that no-one was injured (stock image, this is not Saturday's attack) The strike in the Odesa region damaged the city's port infrastructure and a small community of cottages, injuring three people including a 96-year-old woman, said regional governor Oleh Kiper. Russia's military spokesperson, Yuri Ihnat, also said they launched an X-31 aircraft missile, an Onyx anti-ship missile, and an S-300 anti-aircraft guided missile targeting Ukraine overnight, but did not give further details. Russia's defence ministry also said it shot down two Ukrainian drones over the Smolensk and Moscow regions. Smolensk governor Vasiliy Anokhin said that no-one was hurt in the attack. Meanwhile, trains carrying cargo in Russia's Ryazan region were derailed on Saturday morning due to 'unauthorised interference', Moscow rail operator MZHD said. Russian law enforcement said that 15 train carriages had been derailed southeast of the capital, while MZHD reported the number as 19. Several Russian media outlets also reported that an explosion was heard in the vicinity on Saturday morning, although this could not be independently verified. Russian officials have previously blamed pro-Ukrainian saboteurs for several attacks on the country's railway system since Moscow invaded the country in February 2022, although no group has claimed responsibility for the damage. Kyiv has not commented on Saturday's attacks. Prince William is reportedly hoping to ease strained relations between China and the West by taking his annual Earthshot prize awards to China. The Prince of Wales will travel to China in a bid to transform the environmental policies of the world's biggest polluter. The heir's decision comes despite his father King Charles's troublesome relationship with Beijing. The King, who will celebrate his 75th birthday on Tuesday, has never visited mainland China because of his views on the country's human rights record and its treatment of Tibet. Sources have told The Sunday Times that William, however, is of the belief that you 'can't exclude a big chunk of the planet when thinking about fighting for its future'. Prince William is planning to take his annual Earthshot prize awards to China in a bid to transform the environmental policies of the world's biggest polluter. Pictured: William went on an official state visit to China in 2015, where he met President Xi Jinping The King, who will celebrate his 75th birthday on Tuesday, has never visited mainland China because of the country's human rights record and its treatment of Tibet Pictured: William rehearses his speech onstage ahead of the 2023 Earthshot Prize Awards Ceremony in Singapore on November 6 William was this week in Singapore for his third annual Earthshot Prize awards ceremony, which recognises solutions to 'repair' the planet. On Tuesday, at an awards ceremony co-hosted by actress Hannah Waddingham and actor and producer Sterling K Brown, five winners handed 1million each to support efforts to scale their innovative climate and environmental solutions. In a speech at the glitzy awards ceremony in Singapore, Prince William said: 'The last year has been one of great change and even greater challenge. 'A year in which the effects of the climate crisis have become too visible to be ignored. 'And a year that has left so many feeling defeated, their hope dwindling. 'However, as we have seen tonight, hope does remain.' It was during his three-day visit to Singapore that William spoke with the country's prime minister and president about his plans for China. William travelled without Catherine, the Princess of Wales, who stayed in the UK to help Prince George, 10, through his 'first set of major exams'. The next two Earthshot Prize awards will be in Africa and South America. China and India are then expected to be next. Kensington Palace has said that Prince William 'wants to make Earthshot truly global'. William was this week in Singapore for the third annual Earthshot Prize awards ceremony (pictured), which recognises solutions to 'repair' the planet The UK and China's relationship has suffered greatly in recent years for a number of reasons. The People's Republic have alienated the West over their human rights abuses of the Uighur Muslim minority, while there have been threats of espionage and cyberattacks. The hostile approach to the sovereignty of Taiwan, which China claims as its own, has also stirred up tension. King Charles's problems with China have been well-documented, no more so then when he described the country's communist leaders as 'appalling old waxworks'. The comments about his 1997 visit to Hong Kong, which were revealed in his diary entries from 2005, caused a diplomatic storm. The King has also been seen to be close with Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who describes them as 'the best of friends'. Relations were strained further between Charles and China when he was pictured laughing and holding hands with the Dalai Lama in 2012. A royal source told The Sunday Times: 'Prince William believes that when it comes to the climate and the environment, Asia is critical. 'He's of the view you can't exclude a big chunk of the planet when thinking about fighting for its future. Relations were strained further between Charles and China when he was pictured laughing and holding hands with the Dalai Lama in 2012 William last visited China in 2015 when he met President Xi and condemned the illegal wildlife trade as a 'vicious form of criminality' 'To fast-forward the change and impact he wants, he knows he has to engage with China and India two of the world's biggest economies and biggest emitters of carbon dioxide.' It comes after Rishi Sunak warned at the G7 summit in May that China posed 'the biggest challenge of our age to global security and prosperity'. Mr Sunak's deputy PM Oliver Dowden followed suit and said in July that China was the 'largest state-based-threat' to Britain's economic security. William last visited China in 2015 when he met President Xi and condemned the illegal wildlife trade as a 'vicious form of criminality'. Two years later China banned the trade. President Xi also visited the UK in 2015 and he and his wife were hosted by King Charles at Clarence House. Although Charles made the effort to host President Xi, he did not attend the state banquet at Buckingham Palace, which William and Kate did. China is by far the world's biggest polluter and accounted for 29 per cent of global emissions last year. This compares to 11 per cent for the US and 0.8 per cent for the UK. President Xi has promised to peak emissions by 2030 and reach net zero by 2060, although China approved 52 gigawatts of new coal power in the first six months of this year. Chinese politicians must be seen to take climate action because air pollution causes about two millions deaths each year in China. China has invested billions in renewable energy such as hydroelectric, wind and solar, while it also produces 57 per cent of the world's electric vehicles. A top Hollywood agent's son accused of murder was caught on camera the day before his arrest enlisting workmen to cart away two large trash bags - which the workmen then returned, having found body parts inside. Sam Haskell IV, 35, was arrested on Wednesday morning after a woman's torso was found in a bag in a dumpster near his Tarzana home. New surveillance camera footage shows Haskell on Tuesday afternoon seemingly trying to get rid of the dismembered body parts. He paid workers $500 to take away bags he first said were full of rocks, and then said were Halloween decorations. 'When we picked up the bags, we could tell they weren't rocks,' one worker told NBC 4. They returned the bags and the cash, and called the police. His wife Mei Haskell, 37, is missing - LAPD now believe the torso to be hers. Her father Gaoshan Li, 72, and mother, YanXiang Wang, 64 - who lived with the couple in their $2.5 million home - are also missing. Haskell can be seen in the footage, taken from a home camera across the road, waving down workmen driving in their truck at 3:53pm on Tuesday. The workmen are seen arriving at the Haskell home in Tarzana, California, on Tuesday afternoon, and carrying away two black trash bags which Haskell said were full of rocks The men are seen struggling with the heavy black bag, which they will put in their truck The workmen get out of their truck, and money is exchanged. They then, at 3:57pm, carry two large trash bags away from the drive and load the bags into their white truck. The laborers, who didn't want to be identified, claim the bags were soft and heavy, appearing to be filled with meat and weighing around 50 pounds. The men drive off, but they are suspicious and look inside the bags, and find body parts. 'I was astonished,' the worker said. 'Of course, I felt bad. We had been tricked.' At 4:15pm they return, and give Haskell back the bags and the payment. Haskell tried to claim the body parts were Halloween props, but the workmen said they wanted nothing to do with it and left. 'God was watching over us,' they said, adding they feared for their lives due to the horrifying nature of their find. They drive away, and at 4:22pm Haskell leaves the property in his white Tesla. The workmen are seen at 4:15pm returning to hand back the bags and the cash The laborers rushed to inform the police, but claim they were turned away from two police stations when they tried to make a report. The California Highway Patrol station in De Soto, California told them to report their find to the Los Angeles Police Department. An LAPD precinct in Topanga told them to leave the station, and call 911 from the parking lot, they said. Police arrived on the scene, but saw no sign of the trash bags the men referenced. The torso would be found at 6am on Wednesday morning, and Haskell arrested at 11:30am at a mall in Topanga. Surveillance camera footage, obtained by Fox News, shows a white vehicle driving into the parking lot in Encino. One man is seen getting out of the vehicle, opening the trunk, and lifting - with difficulty - a large bag from the trunk. Sam Haskell IV, 35, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with murder The man's white SUV is seen parked near the dumpster in Encino, with its trunk open The man is seen struggling to lift the heavy black object from the back of his car Staggering under the weight of the bag, the man manages to throw it into a dumpster, before driving off. Sam Haskell IV was arrested on Wednesday at 11:30am at a mall Sam Haskell IV, 35, and his wife Mei Haskell, 37, are pictured in photos from his Instagram. He has been arrested and charged with murder after a dismembered female torso was found, and linked to him. His wife is missing, as are her parents Mei Haskell (left), her mother YanXiang Wang, 64, and her father Gaoshan Li, 72, are all missing He staggers under the weight of the heavy package, but manages to throw it into the dumpster. He then drives off. The source of the video told Fox that the police had obtained a copy, and a witness in the parking lot took a picture of the SUV's license plate, which was also given to police. The Haskell family had two white SUVs - a white VW Tiguan and a white 2014 Nissan Pathfinder are both missing. The Haskells had three children, aged 6, 8 and 12 - Samuel Bond Haskell V, James Donnelly Haskell, and William Kirkpatrick Haskell II - who were found safe at school on Wednesday, and are now with family. Haskell IV's TikTok page shows him engaging in bizarre monologues, with a 2022 fascination with Brad Pitt. He also posts videos of himself at a country club in Calabasas, and at a Ralph Lauren store, as well as driving around in his car. It's unclear if the pouting, muscle-flexing videos were a parody or serious. He discussed burnt steak and rambles about In one video, he talks about feeling resentful. 'My resume says unhappy, resentful, and really good at ordering off the menu,' he says at one point. 'Now I'm never going to stop drinking.' The arrest of Haskell IV has rocked their neighborhood in Tarzana, where the family lived in a $2.5 million, six bedroom, house. Haskell IV's father, Samuel Haskell III, was a high-profile agent with William Morris, whose clients included Dolly Parton, George Clooney, Whoopi Goldberg and King Charles's brother, Prince Edward. Police are seen searching the $2.5 million six bedroom house where the young Haskell family lived, with Mei's parents A birds-eye view shows Haskell IV's backyard which includes a pool and a children's play set Haskell IV's home is now the focus of an investigation as detectives work to find clues about what happened after a woman's torso was found in a dumpster Media was seen camped outside the Tarzana residence after news broke of the former Hollywood agent son's arrest The house is pictured with media on the street outside it on Thursday He retired from William Morris in 2005, and in 2009 published a memoir entitled 'Promises I Made My Mother', which his publishers described as a 'deeply personal and spiritually-enriching story about living a principled life in unprincipled times.' In 2012, the multiple Emmy-winner founded Magnolia Hill Productions with Dolly Parton, and produces many of her television specials. Haskell III was CEO of the Miss America organization from 2015-17, but resigned after he was found to have criticized some of the contestants in private emails, ridiculing one for gaining weight and describing another as promiscuous. A homeless man found the headless torso of a female victim in a Tarzana dumpster. The LAPD arrested Samuel Haskell in connection with the gruesome crime. Bloody evidence was found inside the suspects home. Haskell is being held on $2 million bail. Full story link: pic.twitter.com/UAZLQOqZIW Los Angeles Police Protective League (@LAPPL) November 10, 2023 Sam Haskell III is pictured in September 2017 at a Miss America press conference Haskell III is seen with Dolly Parton, who he represented for many years Haskell III is pictured with Vanessa Williams, who was Miss America 1984, and became head judge in 2016 Haskell III is seen with Miss America contestants in 2017 Haskell III is married to Mary Donnelly Haskell, his college sweetheart Mary Donnelly Haskell was a former Miss Mississippi The pair have have a daughter, Mary Lane, as well as their son Sam IV Prince Edward, the brother of King Charles, is pictured with Haskell III - his agent at the time - and actor Martin Short Haskell III (center) is seen at the September 2021 Emmy Awards, winning outstanding television movie for 'Dolly Parton's Christmas on the Square' Mary Haskell, Sam Sr.'s wife and Sam Jr.'s mother, is pictured at an Oscars events. Haskell III is married to a former Miss Mississippi, Mary Donnelly Haskell, his college sweetheart, and the pair have a daughter, Mary Lane, as well as their son Sam IV. In his company biography, Haskell III says he is 'widely known as 'the nice guy in Hollywood'.' He continues: 'Haskell is revered for rising to the top of a turbulent and often conscienceless business with his character, integrity and value-system intact. 'His reputation for honesty, integrity, loyalty and fairness made him a consistent force in a sea of inconsistency and someone with whom actors, writers, directors and other industry professionals were eager to work.' Haskell IV's social media show him to have a taste for film and digital media, with frequent postings of camera set-ups and artistic portraits. His wife frequently posed for his Instagram pictures, often in highly stylized, edgy photos. Sam Haskell IV in Asia, in a photo posted to Instagram in August 2013 Haskell IV posted this photo of his wife Mei in January 2014 One neighbor told ABC 7 News that she knew Mei Haskell, but her husband seemed strange. 'The husband - something seemed so off,' the woman said. 'Something seemed so weird. I thought maybe he was sick, or something was wrong. All I said was, I kept saying to my family, something is wrong with him.' On Tuesday evening, construction workers called the police after reporting seeing a dead body in a bag on the driveway. By the time police arrived, the body had gone. Detective Efren Gutierrez with LAPD told NBC4 on Wednesday night: 'When the officers responded, nothing was located. 'There was no evidence that allowed the officers to make entry into the home. 'The bags that were described were no longer outside.' At 6am on Wednesday, a homeless man digging through dumpsters in Encino, five miles from Haskell IV's house, found the dismembered torso in a bag in a dumpster. The torso was found in Encino, California, early on Wednesday morning following a call to police about human remains in a black plastic bag The bag was found stuffed into a duffel bag and tossed into a dumpster (pictured) behind Ventura Boulevard and Rubio Avenue, near a family-style restaurant, a hair salon and two banks Haskell IV's wife, Mei Haskell (pictured), and her parents Yanxiang Wang and Gaoshen Li are missing, police said. All three were living in the Tarzana home with the suspect The bag in the dumpster was consistent with the description given by the construction workers, Gutierrez said. Officers reviewed surveillance footage of a vehicle in the business plaza, which led them to Haskell IV. Police then went to the Haskell house and found blood stains and other evidence. 'Here in the house, once officers made entry, what was discovered was evidence of a crime, including some blood evidence and other items that I'm not going to provide at this point,' said Gutierrez. Haskell IV was arrested on Wednesday morning, and charged later that day. He remains at the Van Nuys jail on a $2 million bond, and is next in court on November 13. The Los Angeles County coroner's office says it is working with detectives to identify the female torso. It was hailed as Britains flagship megalab, a 1.1 billion cutting-edge diagnostic centre to counter Covid-19 and defend the country against future epidemics. Announcing the project in November 2020, then-health secretary Matt Hancock said the laboratory confirms the UK as a world leader in diagnostics, capable of carrying out 300,000 tests a day. But three years later, the Rosalind Franklin Laboratory named in honour of the renowned British scientist stands empty, a monument to waste and incompetence, and up for sale on the property website Rightmove. Industry insiders claim the government is now trying to offload the world-leading facility for a fraction of its cost to taxpayers, who were forced to fund almost twice its initial 588m budget. Instead of being at the forefront of the fight against Covid, the project opened six months late, faced issues with equipment, staff and construction and typically processed only 11,500 tests a day before closing 18 months later. Desperate estate agents are now offering packages that will see the custom-built facilities at Leamington Spa in Warwickshire broken up to attract start-ups, scale-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises. The Rosalind Franklin Laboratory named in honour of the renowned British scientist stands empty, a monument to waste and incompetence, and up for sale on the property website Rightmove Announcing the project in November 2020, then-health secretary Matt Hancock said the laboratory confirms the UK as a world leader in diagnostics, capable of carrying out 300,000 tests a day MP Matt Webster stormed: "I was told last summer that irrespective of Covid they would be utilising the facility. "They said for other diagnostic purposes, for cancer, cardiovascular and metabolic disease. "UKHSA said the UK needed that facility. "Now they are abandoning it why? What are they proposing as an alternative? "So many jobs have been lost "I was originally told the cost was 1.1bn, they've now said half of that which I find hard to believe. "I asked honest questions in the chamber but no one would tell me what the cost was." Real estate agent Avison Young is touting the sale as an unmissable opportunity, but casual browsers on the property website may be confused by features including facial recognition access and dirty and clean corridors. Experts have told the Mail on Sunday there is no demand for the 236,231 sq ft site, which was once lauded as the largest testing facility of its kind in Europe. I cant see any private companies taking this on as a whole, only a government would, said Jon Curtis, a leading expert in the field of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing of DNA samples. Post-Covid we should have had a low cost, world-leading testing facility. But now its all for sale. A legacy of failure and a vast waste of many hundreds of millions of pounds. The UK went into the pandemic with 30 years of world-leading mass industrial PCR experience. It was all wasted. The planned sale shatters a promise that the site would help Britain battle future epidemics. In December 2021, visiting MPs were told the lab could be used for testing different viruses or disease, including high cholesterol to prevent heart attacks and strokes. But during the pandemic outbreak, thousands of test samples that were sent to the flagship laboratory were contaminated during processing and deemed invalid. Marc Merel, Director of Testing: The laboratory has played a vital role in helping the nation recover from the pandemic. Options are being explored for the best use of the site going forwards while ensuring the best value for taxpayers money and an update will be provided in due course. Where necessary, specialist equipment at the Rosalind Franklin lab will be retained to support UKHSAs ongoing pandemic preparedness work. A struggling prison is spending nearly 10,000 on teaching inmates how to stamp their feet and click their fingers. Prisoners are being taught how to use their bodies to manage their anger through a 'body percussion' programme, according to The Sun. It has been reported that inmates take part in the class to songs such as Happy by Pharrell Williams and Can't Stop the Feeling by Justin Timberlake. HMP Dartmoor in Devon has signed a year-long contract with Wiltshire firm Kaboom!. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said the deal for 'cognitive-based therapy workshops' has cost the prison 9,600. The Prison Service told The Sun that schemes such as this one 'help cut crime.' HMP Dartmoor in Devon (pictured) has signed a year-long contract with Wiltshire firm Kaboom! It has been reported that inmates take part in the class to songs such as Happy by Pharrell Williams and Can't Stop the Feeling by Justin Timberlake The prisoners are taught to use different body parts to create music, such as clapping their hands or slapping their thighs. A Labour source told the outlet: 'Our prison system is in total chaos. This move beggars belief and would be laughable if the Tories weren't utterly incapable of keeping the public safe.' HMP Dartmoor was found to not provide inmates with adequate living conditions and prisoners were found to be locked in their cells for too long. It was also discovered that the Category C jail was not providing inmates with sufficient education and work opportunities. According to MoJ, the rate of assaults in prisons was 285 assaults per 1,000 prisoners, which is up by 9 per cent from the 12 months to June 2022. Locals were told to stay in their homes whilst authorities tried to catch the lion A shocking video has captured the moment an escaped lion casually walks down a residential street near Rome. A terrified local shared the footage on X, formerly known as Twitter, which showed the animal walking down the streets of Ladispoli, home to around 40,000 people. The woman who was filming could be heard saying 'Mamma mia,' as the lion, which dashed away from a circus, confidently strutted down the quiet road. Some people were even left trapped in their cars. One resident uploaded a clip that showed the animal walking past their vehicle, with flashing blue emergency lights in the background. Locals were told by the authorities to stay in their homes whilst they attempted to capture the big cat, known as Kimba. The mayor of Ladispoli, Alessandro Grando, told locals: 'A lion escaped from the circus. Please pay full attention and avoid travel until further notice.' Locals were told by the authorities to stay in their homes whilst they attempted to capture the big cat, known as Kimba Il #leone a spasso tra le case di #Ladispoli. Incredibile quello che sta accadendo. pic.twitter.com/lW97h4sphQ Michele Galvani (@MicheleGalvani) November 11, 2023 A terrified local shared the shocking footage on X, formerly known as Twitter , which showed the animal walking down the streets of Ladispoli, which is home to around 40,000 people A shocking video has captured the moment an escaped lion casually walks down a residential street near Rome It took the authorities around seven hours to capture the lion and it had to be shot with sedatives twice as it awoke the first time, according to local news outlet, Corriere della Sera. The site reported that the lion was able to get away multiple times, and was believed to have first been caught and sedated at 3pm CET between Vialle Mediterraneo and Via Nicosia. It then managed to get away again and was sedated a second time at 8.30pm before finally being captured by police at 10pm. Mr Grando was hit by complaints from residents and said that he did not grant permission for a circus in their town but also stated that he could not block it. He confirmed the capture of the big cat on Facebook and wrote: 'The lion was sedated and captured. Now it will be taken over by the circus staff. 'Thank you State Police, Carabinieri, Firefighters, Local and Provincial Police, ASL and all the volunteers who served during these hours of great learning. 'I hope this episode can raise some conscience, and that we can finally put an end to animal exploitation in circuses.' An independent MP has been slammed for the 'political' message she wrote on a wreath she left at a war memorial on Remembrance Day on Saturday. Kylea Tink, who was part of the 'Teal' wave when she got elected to her North Sydney seat in 2022, wrote her name and 'supporting sustainability' on the wreath, outraging Australian war veterans. Ms Tink is known for her passion for tackling climate change with the Teal MP previously pushing for a ban on gas connections in new homes. Remembrance Day is held every year on November 11 to honour the soldiers who died defending Australia, with a minute's silence held at 11am. Bruce Relph, of the Australian Peacekeeper and Peacemaker Veterans Association, vehemently disagreed with the message Ms Tink put on the wreath she left at the Lane Cove war memorial. 'There should be no other agenda. There is zero tolerance from us. It's inappropriate, it's one day of the year. It should not be politicised,' he told the Sunday Telegraph. Independent MP Kylea Tink (pictured) has been slammed for the 'political' message she wrote on a wreath she left at a war memorial on Remembrance Day on Saturday 'People fell for their country and to make it about anything other than the fallen or those who had injuries from their service ... that's what it's all about.' On her Facebook page, Ms Tink did not mention environmental issues, but wrote that 'In the silence of remembrance, we draw strength from the heroes who faced the darkness of war. 'And for me personally I think of those among my family and friends who have served and those serving still. 'They remind me that there is always a purpose greater than our singularity. Their legacy carries added weight in these challenging times, serving as a reminder of resilience and unity.' The MP added that people should 'honour their sacrifices not just in history but also in the present, acknowledging the ongoing conflicts we're faced with today. 'May our collective empathy guide us toward a future of peace.' Ms Tink wrote her name and 'supporting sustainability' on the wreath (pictured), outraging Australian war veterans Graham Walker of the Vietnam Veterans Association, though, said people should not use Remembrance Day for political purposes, that it should only be about honouring the veterans. 'We do not get involved in political issues that are not directly related to veterans welfare,' he said. Daily Mail Australia contacted Ms Tink for comment. Ms Tink came under fire in August after calling for a ban on gas connections in new homes and then selling a house loaded with new gas features for more than $6million. In a speech on June 21, North Sydney MP Kylea Tink said Australia needs to 'break not only our society's reliance on gas but also our government's addiction to gas'. She called on the federal government to force NSW to follow Victoria in banning gas connections in new households - which NSW Premier Chris Minns ruled out. Family members of a woman who was killed nearly thirty years ago in an unsolved case are urging police to investigate her death in connection with accused Gilgo Beach murder suspect Rex Heuermann. There appears to be a resemblance between Heuermann, 60, and a police sketch of the presumed killer of Alicia Showalter Reynolds, who was murdered in March 1996. Alicia was a promising graduate student at Johns Hopkins University and working on a vaccine for a parasitic infection at the time of her vanishing. She was 25 years old when she was killed by the still-unidentified Route 29 Stalker while driving from Baltimore to Charlottesville. Alicia's family recently noticed similarities between Heuermann and the sketch of the Route 29 Stalker and have now asked investigators to explore this potential connection. The 1996 murder of Alicia Showalter Reynolds, 25, remains unsolved nearly thirty years later but her family are urging police to reexamine her case Alicia's family recently noticed similarities between Gilgo Beach murder suspect Rex Heuermann, right, and the 1996 sketch of the Route 29 Stalker, pictured above The circumstances surrounding Reynolds disappearance are deeply unsettling. She was on a 150-mile journey to go shopping with her mother, Sadie Showalter, and had planned to meet her at around 10:30am. When Alicia did not arrive, Sadie waited at the mall, thinking bad weather or unforeseen circumstances had delayed her daughter. Later the same day, at 6 pm, Alicia's car was found abandoned along the shoulder of Route 29 near Culpeper, Virginia, with a white paper napkin placed under the windshield wiper - a signal commonly used to indicate an issue with the vehicle. It was later discovered that there was nothing wrong with the car. Three witnesses also came forward to tell police that Alicia had been spotted speaking with a clean-cut white male who had been driving a dark-colored pick-up truck. Alicia's body was not found for another two months. Her body had been dumped in woods 15 miles east of Culpeper. The investigation by Virginia State Police into Alicia's death remains active and ongoing with the family still waiting for answers in her disappearance and murder some 27 years later. Upon noticing the resemblance between Heuermann and a 1996 police sketch of the Route 29 Stalker, Alicia's family have urged investigators to delve deeper into the potential connection Virginia State Police investigators are seen searching the area near where Alicia Showalter Reynolds' body was found outside Culpeper, Virginia in May 1996 Barbara Josenhans, Alicia's younger sister, noted how she had given up hope of finding her sister's killer years ago. But upon noticing the resemblance between Heuermann and a police sketch of the Route 29 Stalker, Barbara has urged investigators to delve deeper into the potential connection. Barbara emphasized the similarities in Heuermann's facial features, particularly the cheeks, pointing out that he would have been approximately 32 or 33 years old at the time of Alicia's murder. 'It's the cheeks, there's something about the cheeks,' Barbara Josenhans, Alicia's younger sister told The Sun. 'It's quite striking [...] he would've been around 32 or 33 at the time. Iwonder if he's ever been questioned about it. If he hasn't he should be.' There are other possible coincidences too: property records reveal that Heuermann's mother has resided in Palmyra, Virginia, since at least 1994 - about 50 miles from where Alicia was last seen alive. Furthermore, in a deposition for an unrelated lawsuit, Heuermann admitted to traveling to Virginia on multiple occasions throughout 2018. 'She was a good sister,' Barbara recalled. 'She was 25 when she died and I was 20. We were very different people [...] but we were just on the cusp of our adult relationship. 'It was incredibly unfair that this happened to Alicia. It was totally random and unpredictable. 'It's weird to think that had she been killed in a car accident, it would've been easier to handle in some ways than her being murdered. It doesn't make sense, but psychologically, it does.' Alicia was a promising graduate student at Johns Hopkins University and working on a vaccine for a parasitic infections at the time of her vanishing. She was last seen alive March 2, 1996, driving on a rural stretch of Route 29 outside Culpeper. She had been driving to meet her mother in Charlottesville but never made it Other disturbing facts have also subsequently come to light including how between February and March 1996, 23 women drivers had lights flashed at them or horns blasted on or near Route 29 in an attempt to get them to pull over. Some were also shouted at that they had something wrong with their car. Three women who did stop were taken to a payphone without issues, but the week before Alicia's disappearance, another woman was stopped on the highway by a man who used the same ploy that something was wrong with her car. He managed to get her inside his own pickup truck after offering to give her a ride, before attacking her with a screwdriver. The woman was able to escape after jumping out of passenger door. Investigators believe that man was likely the same person who was spotted with Alicia the day she disappeared. Virginia State Police believe the man may have been conducting 'test runs' before finally summoning up the courage to kill. Law enforcement have not commented on whether Heuermann is being considered a suspect in Alicia's case. 'State police does not comment on potential suspects, confirmed or unconfirmed,' police said in a statement. 'Despite the passage of more than two decades and the scrutiny of more than 10,000 leads, Virginia State Police continues to actively pursue the disappearance and murder of Alicia Showalter Reynolds. 'State police remain hopeful that this case will come to a successful resolution and continue to encourage the public to come forward with any information related to the investigation.' The gravesite of Alicia Showalter Reynolds The family of Alicia Showalter Reynolds, from left, father Harley Showalter, husband Mark Reynolds, and mother Sadie Showalter, are seen at a news conference in May 1996 Reynolds' family hopes for some sort of closure while also being wary of the emotional toll a trial might take. 'I want to believe the guy is dead, quite frankly,' Barbara said to The Sun. 'That would make everything easier [...] one of the hardest parts of all this has been watching my parents deal with their grief, while also dealing with my own. 'At this point, 27 years later, although I would love for the case to be solved, I would hate for there to be a court trial. 'Dealing with the trial, seeing this person in the flesh, and reliving it all would be more disturbing than helpful, for me, at least. 'I don't know if the rest of my family feel the same way, but that's definitely where I stand.' Heuermann, 60, was charged with the murder of three sex workers The bodies of three sex workers were among 11 found on the desolate stretch of coastline close to their Long Island Home between 2010 and 2011 Rex Heuermann's Long Island home is pictured in September of this year Melissa Barthelemy, top left, Amber Costello, top right, Megan Waterman, bottom left, and Maureen Brainard-Barnes. Authorities on Long Island are vowing to continue investigating the Gilgo Beach murders after charging an architect in the deaths of three of the 11 victims Police found 11 bodies dumped by the Gilgo Beach shore as they searched in 2010 and 2011 As investigations into Heuermann's alleged crimes expand, authorities are now faced with the challenging task of revisiting cold cases and considering potential connections to other unsolved murders across the country. Other police departments across the nation are looking back through cold cases to investigate Heuermann for any potential connection to other unsolved murders. Asa Ellerup, the wife of alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann is pictured on Friday. She will attend court to see for herself if there is evidence he committed the atrocities he is accused of Heuermann is currently in custody in New York, facing charges to which he has pleaded not guilty relating to the murders of several sex workers along Gilgo Beach on Long Island, New York. In July, Heuermann was charged with the murders of Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, and Amber Costello. The three sex workers were found bound and wrapped in burlap along a desolate beachfront parkway in 2010. Authorities said he is also the 'prime suspect' in the killing of Maureen Brainard-Barnes. On Wednesday, his now ex-wife, Asa Ellerup visited the Manhattan architect in jail for the first time since his July arrest and spent up to an hour with him. She filed for divorce six days after Heuermann, 60, was charged with the murder of three sex workers whose bodies were among 11 found on the desolate stretch of coastline close to their Long Island Home between 2010 and 2011. Standing outside the family home in Massapequa Park on Friday, her attorney Robert Macedonio confirmed the visit with DailyMail.com and said she would be attending her husband's trial to see if he is guilty of the crimes. 'She wants to hear and see how it is played out in court. Not what the media has put out. Not what the podcast people are saying,' he said. 'Certainly, not what John Ray is saying, she wants to hear and see for herself what is presented in court,' Macedonia added in reference to John Ray who is a lawyer for the families of two women found dead on the east New York peninsula. Asa Ellerup (seen on Friday) visited the Manhattan architect in jail for the first time since he was arrested on July 13 and spent up to an hour with him on Wednesday Her son Christopher was seen leaving the home to walk the dog and her daughter Victoria surfaced outside as well Ellerup was at the home with her two children on Friday and what appeared to be a television or production crew. Her son Christopher was seen leaving the home to walk the dog and her daughter surfaced outside as well. Ellerup who was dressed in a beige cardigan and black pants, did not want to speak to the media but her attorney spoke on her behalf. She is doing fine. She is holding up well, Macedonio said. She had a visit with Rex on Wednesday afternoon and spent about an hour with him. 'I did not get into discussion what the content of the conversation was.' He added: 'She hadnt seen him in person since the day before his arrest. Other than that, she is doing okay. Asked if she was supporting Heuermann, Macedonio said: 'She wants to see and hear for herself what evidence they have that he did this.' Heuermann's next court date is scheduled for Wednesday but there is not believed to be any hearings. Tens of thousands of people have taken part in rival rallies supporting Palestine and Israel in Sydney and Melbourne on Sunday, as Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said Jewish Australians have been made to feel unsafe. In Melbourne, more than 50,000 pro-Palestinian protesters brought the city centre to a standstill in one of the biggest demonstration since the Gaza conflict erupted after Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel. As they marched to the State Library, many chanted 'Out, out, Israel out' and 'Free, free Palestine.' In Sydney, thousands of pro-Palestine supporters engulfed the CBD to protest at Hyde Park. Earlier on Sunday, a crowd of around 5,000 gathered in Moore Park in Sydney's inner east to march the Jewish hostages kidnapped on October 7 be freed. In Melbourne, more than 50,000 pro-Palestinian protesters brought the city centre to a standstill in one of the biggest demonstration since the Gaza conflict erupted after Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel A crowd of around 5,000 gathered in Moore Park in Sydney's inner east to march the Jewish hostages kidnapped on October 7 be freed The 'Set them free rally' including relatives of hostages who have not been heard from. The 'solidarity vigil' was held to honour the victims from Israel and more than 40 other countries whose nationals were 'murdered, injured or taken hostage by Hamas'. 'We are together, one people, with one mission and one destiny,' said Alex Ryvchin of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. 'And we stand here today, with our fellow Australians, with clarity in our minds and hope in our hearts. 'Hope for the swift and complete victory of the heroic forces of the IDF, may they be blessed. 'Hope for the safe rescue of every hostage. Hope for the complete destruction of Hamas and hope for an era of peace for the land of Israel.' One of those attending Melbourne's pro-Palestine rally was Palestinian-Australian businessman Hash Tayeh, who renewed his call for a ceasefire in Gaza. 'In the past few weeks as I called for peace and ceasefire my business became a target,' he said. 'In a cruel act of arson our store was reduced to ashes. To those who sought to silence us I say you will not succeed.' The Caulfield branch of Mr Tayeh's Burgertory restaurant in Melbourne's south-east burned down at about 4am on Friday. Speaking to Sky News on Sunday, Mr Marles condemned protests in Caulfield, where pro-Israel and pro-Palestine groups faced off on Friday. The clash led to the evacuation of a nearby synagogue, which protest organisers later apologised for. At the pro-Palestine rally in Sydney on Sunday, many people held placards calling for a ceasefire A placard with a dove calling for an end to violence is seen at the rally in Sydney Members of the Australian Jewish community and supporters hold placards and flags during a rally in Sydney on November 12, 2023 Mr Marles said people in Australia deserved to have a right to feel safe and denounced anti-Semitism. 'This demonstration on behalf of Palestine in the heart of the Jewish community was unacceptable. 'Right now, Jewish Australians have never felt less safe, and this is a real problem and we need to be moving to fix that.' He added that 'anti-Semitism doesn't have a place in our country and it's very important that we are able, no matter what is happening elsewhere in the world, to maintain social cohesion here in Australia'. 'People have a right to protest what's happening in the Middle East. 'What's happening in the Middle East is an unfolding tragedy and people have a right to put pressure on their country's government, on us, but there shouldn't be demonstrations which are aimed at other members of the community.' At the pro-Israel rally in Sydney, the flags of Australia, Ireland, Germany, Thailand and many other countries were flown by attendees, along with Israeli flags. 'We have also been stripped of blind hope, of delusion. Those days are over. We now know that evil exists, and we know what it looks like,' Mr Ryvchin said. Hash Tayeh (pictured with his wife), 32 - who founded Burgertory in 2018 which has since become Australia's biggest independently-owned burger chain - was filmed at a pro-Palestine protest in Melbourne 'As our people have learned through bitter experience, evil cannot be bargained with or placated. It can only destroy or be destroyed. 'We know that we are the eternal people, the custodians of the eternal truth of the Torah, and we know that with our fellow Australians and the civilised, peace-loving people of the world, we will complete our mission, to defeat evil and to bring light to the world.' At the Melbourne CBD protest, some stopped in front of a Starbucks shop on Swantson St where they chanted that the business should be boycotted due to it being an American chain and that country's ties to Israel. Some of the protesters chanted 'Starbucks can't you see, Israel's on a killing spree', while others put Palestinian flag stickers on the windows and the store's sign. Participants are pictured at a pro-Israel demonstration at Moore Park in Sydney on November 12, 2023 As they marched to the State Library, many protesers chanted 'Out, out, Israel out' and 'Free, free Palestine' NSW Premier Chris Minns has revealed that policing rallies in recent weeks is costing the state's taxpayers a fortune. 'It's in excess of a million dollars for a major protest, and the reason for that is that there is a large police presence associated with these protests,' he said. 'They're not just (there) to maintain safety of the community and assets and people but also to monitor for those fundamental principles that we have in NSW around racial vilification and hate speech.' Speaking on Sunday, Mr Minns said 'There cannot be room for hatred which sows the seeds of mistrust and intolerance. We cannot tolerate religious vilification. 'This would threaten the thriving, tolerant, multi-religious and multi-ethnic heart of New South Wales.' Harvard College Jewish Alumni Association wrote a letter to the school about their concerns Bill Ackman and Leslie Winter have already called out the university for their pro-Palestine protests More than 1,600 Jewish Harvard Alumni have threatened to pull funding Harvard University's antisemitism backlash has escalated as more than 1,600 Jewish alumni have threatened to withdraw donations. This news comes after billionaire Bill Ackman and Les Wexner, the former CEO of L Brands - the parent company of Victoria's Secret - called out the pro-Palestine protests that have broken out on the prestigious campus. Both Ackman and Wexner have said that the university will soon face a 'donor exodus' if Harvard doesn't take action. The largest community of alumni, who also have billionaire status have warned that they too will withdraw their donations if nothing is done in response to the conflict. More than 1,600 Jewish alumni have threatened to withdraw donations to Harvard University in response to the pro-Palestine protests across the campus Bill Ackman (pictured), the CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management has also spoken out and pulled his donations to his Alma mater Leslie Wexner (pictured), the former CEO of L Brands recently pulled the Wexner Foundation's funding for the college that supported Israel professionals to purse a one-year degree from the Harvard Kennedy School In a letter written by the Harvard College Jewish Alumni Association to the President and Dean of the university, members said: 'We never thought that, at Harvard College, we would have to argue the point that terrorism against civilians demands immediate and unequivocal condemnation.' 'We never thought we would have to argue for recognition of our own humanity,' the letter continued. The association was formed just last month in response to the October 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas and is the first Jewish alumni association in the history of the university. According to CNN, the group has called for Harvard to recognize their association, share their plans to ensure the protection of Jewish students across campus and to officially adopt the International Holocaust Remembered Alliance's definition of antisemitism. Rebecca Claire Brookes, a co-founder of the association said: 'Yes, some of them are very influential donors and some of them are sort of more normal-sized donors. But were speaking in one unified voice in response to this moment.' The Wexner Foundation issued a letter to the Harvard Board of Overseers on October 16 and informed that their 'financial and programmatic relationship' has ended with the university. The foundations funds supported up to ten public and government professionals from Israel each year to purse a one-year degree from the Harvard Kennedy School. Leslie Wexner, who has previously ranked on Harvard's Business Review Top 100 Best Performing CEOs is of Russian-Jewish decent. Pro-Palestine protestors at Harvard hang up a sign that reads 'Stop the genocide in Gaza' Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee set up posters with the message 'Free Palestine.' The student group claimed to have received racist death threats in the wake of their statement Leslie Wexner is the former CEO of L Brands which included Bath & Body Works and Victoria's Secret, Abercrombie & Fitch and Express. He previously ranked on Harvard's Business Review Top 100 Best Performing CEOs and is of Russian and Jewish decent. Wexner's donations to the college has spanned over decades and a building at the Kennedey School is named after him. Bill Ackman, the CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management has also spoken out and called out his Alma mater. In recent news, Ackman headed a movement to not hire Harvard students who blamed Israel for Hamas terror attack. Now, over a dozen other CEOs have joined the call to blacklist students, including Chief Executive Officers from EasyHealth, Belong, FabFitFun, Inspired, DoveHill. Ackman said: 'One should not be able to hide behind a corporate shield when issuing statements supporting the actions of terrorists, who, we now learn, have beheaded babies, among other inconceivably despicable acts.' In response to his statement Sweetgreen's CEO, Jonathan Neman said: 'I would like to know so I know never to hire these people.' David Duel, CEO of healthcare services organization EasyHealth replied to Neman's response with, 'Same.' Ale Resnik, the CEO of rental housing startup Belong replied to Ackman's post, 'Share the list, please. We'll stay away.' Pro-Palestine protesters flood the Harvard University campus on October, 14 Nearly 100 incidents of anti-Semitic violence or intimidation have been recorded at US colleges and universities since the Hamas attacks and in the ensuing conflict Tech investor Martin Varsavsky also chimed in: 'Share the list please.' 'This is a must,' comment Inspired CEO Stephen Ready. Michael Broukhim, CEO of FabFitFun, said, 'We are in as well.' Michael McQuaid, the head of DeFi operations at blockchain company Bloq said: 'I completely agree, and have been wondering the same the last couple of days if/when the names of these students would come out.' And CEO of DoveHill Jake Wurzak simply wrote, 'I second this.' Ackman graduated from Harvard University magma cum laude with degree in social studies in 1988 and is also of Jewish decent. The President of the university, Claudine Gray wrote a letter to the entire Harvard community and addressed the tensions on Thursday. 'Harvard rejects all forms of hate, and we are committed to addressing them.' 'Let me reiterate what I and other Harvard leaders have said previously: Antisemitism has no place at Harvard,' she said. Philanthropy at the private Ivy League research university is the longest contributor to the school's revenue as it accounts for 45 percent of the school's $5.8billion in income last year. The two female students from NYU are seen taking down kidnapped posters of Israeli children on October 16 The flyers were found in the trash on campus after the students fled Small donations from alumni have become a vital source of revenue for universities everywhere, according to the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. They said that approximately 95 percent of donations received by universities in 2022 were smaller than $5,000. Universities all across the US have made headlines since the wake of the Israel-Hamas war that has continued on since early October. Pro-Palestine NYU students have also protested and been caught tearing down posters of Israeli children that were kidnapped by Hamas. Jewish students also had to take refuge in a library at Copper Union, a private college in New York when pro-Palestine protestors pounded on the door. Investigators looking into potential campaign finance violations by New York's mayor have been focusing on a series of text messages discussing a new Turkish consulate in the city, according to a report. Eric Adams had his cellphones and iPad seized on November 6. On November 2, the Brooklyn home of one of his top fundraisers had been raided by the FBI - a raid timed to take place while Adams was in Washington DC. Agents took from the home cellphones, laptops, and folders of documents. The inquiry is into whether Adams benefitted from Turkish connections, and whether kickbacks were given to his campaign. Neither Adams nor his fundraiser, Brianna Suggs, have been accused of any wrongdoing and Adams insists he and his campaign are scrupulous in their actions. On Saturday, The New York Post reported that agents are particularly interested in a conversation Adams had in September 2021 - before he was mayor - about work on the Turkish consulate in Manhattan. Eric Adams, seen on October 26, had his cellphones and iPad taken by the FBI on Monday, as part of their campaign finance inquiry Reyhan Ozgur, the Turkish consul in New York City, asked Adams for his help in obtaining the necessary permits for his new consulate, opposite the United Nations Adams was Brooklyn borough president at the time, and has spoken about his ties to the Turkish community in his borough - ties his predecessor made, and which Adams built on. Reyhan Ozgur, the Turkish consul, told Adams in a text that the new consulate had received the permits needed from the Buildings Department to open, but did not have the Fire Department certificate. It still had to secure a 'temporary certificate of occupancy' from the Fire Department, Ozgur said, and asked Adams if he knew Daniel Nigro, the fire chief, and could help. Adams contacted Nigro and asked him to look into the matter - but did not order him to do anything. Nigro then texted Adams and said the approval was being prepared, and would be ready within days. Daniel Nigro, the fire commissioner of New York City, was contacted by Eric Adams and asked for help The 36-story building opened in September 2021, opposite the United Nations Adams' supporters told The New York Post that his efforts to help the Turkish consul were routine. Ruben Diaz Jr., a former state assemblyman and Bronx borough president, told the paper he thought there was no problem with trying to help Ozgur. 'I don't think that should be a smoking gun,' he said. 'I don't see any issue at all. 'Every elected official makes calls on behalf of city agencies on behalf of entities, businesses and constituents. That is what we do.' City Councilman Kevin Riley, another Bronx Democrat, agreed. 'It's not foreign for an [elected] member to reach out to a commissioner to see what they can do for constituents,' he said. 'It's usually protocol.' After news of his devices being seized broke, Adams told CNN 'he has nothing to hide.' 'As a former member of law enforcement, I expect all members of my staff to follow the law and fully cooperate with any sort of investigation and I will continue to do exactly that,' he added. The New York Times reports that FBI officials approached the Democrat on Monday night on the street and asked for this security team to step away. The agents then climbed into Adams' SUV and took his devices - at least two cellphones and an iPad. The devices were returned to Adams within a couple of days. The FBI can make copies of the data of seized devices if they have a search warrant. Adams, 63, revealed this week that he has retained a personal lawyer. During his first press conference since the raid, on Wednesday, Adams did not mention his devices were seized - he said he 'sleeps well at night' as he stood by Suggs and denied any wrongdoing. FBI agents seized New York City Mayor Eric Adams' cellphones and an iPad earlier this week - days after they raided the home of his fundraising chief The Brooklyn home of Adam's top fundraiser and longtime confidante Brianna Suggs, 25, was raided by the FBI as part of an investigation into an alleged kickback scheme The mayor said his campaign followed the rules and will continue to do so during the investigation into his fundraising. It's not clear whether the agents referred to the investigation as they took his electronic devices. Boyd Johnson, the lawyer for Adams and his campaign, said the mayor 'immediately complied with the F.B.I.'s request and provided them with electronic devices' on Monday after an event. The lawyer added: 'After learning of the federal investigation, it was discovered that an individual had recently acted improperly. 'In the spirit of transparency and cooperation, this behavior was immediately and proactively reported to investigators.' Johnson did not identify the person or specify the mentioned inappropriate conduct. On Wednesday, Adams said he would be 'shocked and hurt' if officials found his campaign had done anything illegal. Adams then laughed off a question about whether he could personally face federal charges. A cruise ship has been hit by outbreaks of gastro and Covid with about 300 passengers thought to be affected. The Grand Princess, operated by Princess Cruises, can carry 2600 passengers as well as 1,150 staff and is on an 18-day round trip from Adelaide to Queensland. It is due to dock back in South Australia on Monday but a spokesperson for Princess Cruises said a number of passengers have reported to the ship's medical centre with respiratory and gastrointestinal symptoms. The spokesperson said the majority of passengers were unaffected, however, a 57-year-old passenger who wished to remain anonymous told the Adelaide Advertiser sickness appeared to be running rampant. The Grand Princess has been best by outbreaks of Covid and gastro during an 18-day cruise around Australia READ MORE: I live on a cruise ship - this is what life is really like at sea Advertisement 'We've just got people coughing and sneezing all over the place,' the said. Affected passengers had been confined their cabins and provided room service. The ship's laundry was also shut after fears it had become an infection hot spot. Passenger Maureen Monk told the ABC it had been apparent that people were falling sick on the second day at sea Ms Monk said the captain announced there were Covid cases on board about a week after gastroenteritis had also swept through the ship. 'Speaking to other guests, it was quite common that the person they were travelling with was confined, or just come out of confinement, or sick,' Ms Monk said. The laundry on the Grand Princess was shut as it was feared to be an infectious hot spot 'If there was two in the room and one was sick, one could leave and one couldn't. '[The rules] didn't make sense to me.' At a recent stop in Melbourne all passengers were ordered off the ship so it could be 'deep cleaned' and given $25 vouchers to spend in the city. On this cruise, the Grand Princess has also stopped at Sydney, Newcastle, Airlie Beach, Cairns and Brisbane. Princess Cruises has been contacted for comment. Michael Gove today hailed 'exemplary' police who rescued him from being mobbed by pro-Palestinian protesters as he walked through London Victoria station. The Levelling Up Secretary was travelling home from his Surrey constituency on Armistice Day when the ugly scenes erupted - with police having to form a protective shield as demonstrators swarmed around him. Gaza-backing activists who had gathered at the rail hub surged forward chanting 'shame on you' as officers ordered them to 'get back'. In another clip, the Cabinet minister was seen walking down a London street as protesters followed him shouting the same slogan. Politicians of all colours slammed the incident. Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper branded it 'completely unacceptable', while the SNP's Westminster leader Stephen Flynn insisted Mr Gove had the right to 'travel in peace'. Posting on the X social media platform this afternoon, Mr Gove said: 'I'm very grateful for so many kind messages in the last 24 hours. I'd like to thank the police for their exemplary work getting me home safely yesterday.' One ally of Mr Gove told MailOnline that the chilling confrontation 'definitely raises questions about his security'. Michael Gove was last night mobbed by pro-Palestinian supporters chanting 'shame on you' as he walked through Victoria station amid a tense Armistice Day in London Michael Gove today hailed 'exemplary' police who rescued him from being mobbed by pro-Palestinian protesters as he walked through London Victoria station Protesters take part in a sit-in at Victoria station in Central London on Saturday afternoon Gove is escorted through Victoria Station as police deal with a sit-in in Victoria Station, London Officers were forced to intervene as protesters swarmed the Levelling Up Secretary while he walked through The scenes at Victoria prompted other politicians to express solidarity with Mr Gove (pictured leaving the station) The minister's former wife, Mail columnist Sarah Vine, said the incident could have easily been worse had police not acted so quickly. She said: 'Michael is fine, he remained very calm, which is typical of him. Most people would have been terrified. He said the police were amazing they really saved his bacon.' One senior Tory argued that 'while people have freedom to protest they don't have the freedom to threaten other members of society'. Towards the end of the march, pro-Palestinian protesters also staged a sit-in at Waterloo Station - where police said they refused to leave until they were threatened with arrests. It comes as Rishi Sunak blasted 'EDL thugs' and 'Hamas sympathisers' over a day of chaos in the capital - with far-Right groups seen violently clashing with police while there were incidents of antisemitism at the pro-Palestine march. Mr Gove was travelling home from his Surrey constituency by car but was dropped off in Victoria because of road closures. He had been pictured at an event to unveil a blue plaque commemorating the Free French military camp at Old Dean in Camberley, Surrey. He started walking through the streets but was followed by the angry mob. Mr Gove then walked to the station where he thought he would be safer, according to sources close to him. It was then that police intervened. The ugly scenes at Victoria prompted other politicians to express solidarity with Mr Gove. Former Security Minister Sir John Hayes said: 'What have we come to when a senior Cabinet Minister cannot walk safely through the streets of London to their own home?' 'It really illustrates why these protests should not have taken place at all this weekend. The Home Secretary has proved to be absolutely right.' In another clip, Mr Gove was seen walking down a London street as protesters followed him chanting the same slogan Protesters take part in a sit in at Victoria station. One holds a sign with the controversial slogan: 'From the river to the sea' A police officer faces off against a group of counter-protesters near the 'National March For Palestine' A counter-protester wearing a balaclava throws a can of beer at a police officer Police officers detain a man in the street close to the 'National March For Palestine' in central London A police officer in riot gear pushes back a man who snatched a pro-Palestinian placard from a woman House of Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle said he was 'very concerned' at what happened to Mr Gove. A spokeswoman for Sir Lindsay said: 'The Speaker was very concerned to hear about the incident at Victoria Station where Michael Gove was jostled. 'He takes the safety of all MPs seriously and is in regular contact with the police and the parliamentary security department to ensure support is available to allow them to carry out their duties. 'The Speaker is keen to speak to Michael at the earliest opportunity.' Ms Cooper said: 'Attempts to harass or intimidate Michael Gove or any other politician going about their business are completely unacceptable.' She also condemned 'disgraceful scenes of far-Right violence' as well as 'appalling anti-Semitic hate and support for terrorist groups like Hamas'. Some MPs warned last night that high-profile politicians might need police protection if the weekly marches continue. Tory MP Bob Blackman blamed the 'basically fascist ultra-Left', saying: 'They will use any means possible to intimidate and threaten the democratic order of society.' Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: 'Having seen the vile attacks on Michael Gove by the pro-Palestinians and the appalling attacks by the ultra Right-wingers, this day can hardly be said to have passed peacefully. This is what the Prime Minister and Home Secretary were worried about.' Dame Arlene Foster, former first minister of Northern Ireland, tweeted: 'This is so disgraceful. 'Sending solidarity to @michaelgove and all those who seek to go about their private business on a Saturday afternoon but who are intimidated by thugs.' Tory MP Sir Michael Fabricant condemned what he described as a 'hateful mob'. London Mayor Sadiq Khan described attempts to intimidate politicians as 'unacceptable'. And the SNP's Mr Flynn said: 'It's not 'bizarre' for Michael Gove to use a major tube/train station. He should be able to travel in peace like everyone else. 'Those acting in this fashion damage their cause and, along with those displaying abhorrent antisemitism amongst the rally today, must be condemned.' The incident raised concerns about Ministers' security, with some citing the murder of Sir David Amess MP in his constituency office in 2021. Sir David's killer, Ali Harbi Ali, had initially planned to target Mr Gove. Mr Gove's office has been contacted for comment. A counter-protester is detained by police in Parliament Square in central London Police clash with far-right counter-protesters in Parliament Square on Saturday Far-right figure Tommy Robinson arrived in Whitehall early on Saturday morning along with hundreds of right-wing protesters More than 100 counter-protesters have been arrested and nine officers injured as hundreds of thousands of people took part in a pro-Palestinian demonstration in central London. A total of 82 people were arrested in Tachbrook Street, Pimlico, to 'prevent a breach of the peace' as the march passed through the capital. Police said those arrested were part of a 'large group' of counter-protesters who had 'tried to reach the main protest march'. Reports suggested that some people were detained and prevented from leaving the nearby White Swan pub with a heavy police presence outside, including officers on horseback. A further 10 arrests were made throughout the day for offences including possession of offensive weapons, affray and possession of drugs, police said. The Met said on Saturday night that a total of 126 arrests were made, while a breakaway group of 150 Palestine protesters were detained. Counter-protesters had earlier clashed with police near the Cenotaph, ahead of a service to mark Armistice Day. Scuffles broke out as police attempted to stop a crowd of people carrying St George's flags marching along Embankment towards Whitehall, where the Cenotaph is located, shortly after 10am. The group, which had been chanting 'England 'til I die' pushed through the police barrier, with some shouting 'let's have them' as officers hit out with batons. Further clashes with police took place in Chinatown with counter-protesters chanting: 'You're not English any more' towards officers. Police managed to disperse the crowd, splitting them into two smaller groups which were seen running in the direction of Piccadilly Circus. People set off fireworks during the main pro-Palestinian march in London this evening The march, which coincides with Armistice Day, went towards the US embassy in Vauxhall, south of the Thames Tens of thousands of people have turned up on the streets of London on Saturday Protesters hold flares during a pro-Palestinian protest in London on Saturday The coalition of groups behind the march include the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Stop the War Coalition, Muslim Association of Britain, Palestinian Forum in Britain and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Protesters wave flags and hold flares during a pro-Palestinian protest in London, Saturday, November 11, 2023. A group of about 100 people were later held near Westminster Bridge under police powers to prevent a disturbance. As the pro-Palestinian march came to an end, the Met Police are still bracing for further clashes as 'drunken' far-right thugs remain holed up in pubs. Officers have surrounded the White Swan pub on Vauxhall Bridge Road and prevented some people from leaving to stop them clashing with demonstrators leaving the main march in Nine Elms. Tense scenes erupted outside a second pub, The Duke of York in Victoria Street, as swarms of officers were filmed closing in on a large group of counter-protesters gathered outside. An Armistice Day service took place at the Cenotaph on Whitehall at 11am, which passed off peacefully with a two-minute silence being observed. Some politicians - most notably Mr Gove's Cabinet colleague Suella Braverman - had put pressure on police not to let the pro-Palestinian march go ahead on the day of remembrance. Rishi Sunak condemned the 'despicable' violence of 'EDL thugs' who attacked police officers and pro-Palestinian protesters pictured openly supporting Hamas after a day of chaos in central London. The Prime Minister said the ugly scenes on Armistice Day 'utterly disrespects' the spirit of remembrance. He said he would meet Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley in the coming days to hold him 'accountable' for dealing with the disturbances. Mr Sunak said in a statement: 'I condemn the violent, wholly unacceptable scenes we have seen today from the EDL (English Defence League) and associated groups and Hamas sympathisers attending the National March for Palestine. 'The despicable actions of a minority of people undermine those who have chosen to express their views peacefully.' He said their actions do 'not defend the honour of our Armed Forces, but utterly disrespects them'. 'That is true for EDL thugs attacking police officers and trespassing on the Cenotaph, and it is true for those singing antisemitic chants and brandishing pro-Hamas signs and clothing on today's protest.' He said he would be meeting the Met chief, adding: 'All criminality must be met with the full and swift force of the law. That is what I told the Met Police Commissioner on Wednesday, that is what they are accountable for and that is what I expect.' Today's events will start with all detachments involved in the march forming up at the Cenotaph at 10:30am. Participants will then process out onto the Cenotaph at 10:50am. A two minute silence will then be held at 11am across the UK, beginning at the first stroke of Big Ben and marked by the firing guns from the Kings Troop on Horse Guards Parade. The end of the silence will then be marked by The Last Post, a short musical call which is historically used by the British Army to tell its soldiers to stand down. Wreaths will then be laid by members of the Royal Family and senior politicians at the base of the Cenotaph. Prayers will then be read out by the Lord Bishop of London, accompanied by a hymn sung by the Bands of the Guards Division. The service will conclude at 11:25am and the Royal British Legion detachments will begin their march past the Cenotaph. They will march from the Cenotaph down towards Parliament Square before turning right along Great George Street. The procession will then continue towards St James's Park, turning right down Horse Guards Road. This is the shocking moment an Iceland mayor's interview is interrupted by an earthquake. The mayor of Grindavik Fannar Jonasson was giving a live interview to Icelandic TV when suddenly he was interrupted by a tremor in the earth. Grindavik was recently evacuated after hundreds of tremors were felt from a volcanic emergency. Iceland declared a state of emergency on Friday after a series of earthquakes rocked the country's southwestern Reykjanes peninsula. Fannar Jonasson, bjarstjori Grindavikurbjar, var i vitali i aukafrettatima i kvold egar skjalfti var i beinni utsendingu. pic.twitter.com/6RTwCfMFu8 Frettastofa RUV (@RUVfrettir) November 10, 2023 The mayor of Grindavik Fannar Jonasson was giving a live interview to Icelandic TV A huge fissure in the ground in the area of Grindavik following hundreds of earthquakes from volcanic activity Mount Fagradalsfjall volcano spews lava after an eruption in Reykjavik, Iceland, on July 16, 2023 This interferogram shows the deformation that occurred between November 2 and 10 around the Icelandic city of Grindavik due to the intrusion since yesterday afternoon of a magmatic dam The town, which is around 25 miles southwest of Reykjavik, is located near the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa resor The quakes could be a precursor to a volcanic eruption near Sundhnjukagigar, some 1.86 miles north of the town of Grindavik. Mr Jonasson was speaking to news outlet Frettastofa RUV on Friday, November 10 when suddenly the camera began to shake. He stopped mid-sentence and the building in the background could also be seen shaking. Although, the mayor remained calm and seemed unphased by the quake. Grinvavik, which is around 25 miles southwest of Reykjavik, is located near the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa resort, a popular tourist destination which closed temporarily earlier this week as a precaution. Mr Jonasson was speaking to news outlet Frettastofa RUV on Friday, November 10 when suddenly the camera began to shake The mayor remained calm and seemed unphased by the quake and resumed with the interview Nearly 800 quakes were recorded between midnight and 2pm on Friday with the shallowest depth at between 1.86 to 2.18miles, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said. Iceland's civil defence forces said today that residents would be allowed back into the town for a short time to collect necessities, according to RUV. Mr Jonasson said: 'We have held a meeting yesterday. We talked about school issues with the mayor and all mayors in the capital area and representatives from the municipalities in Suurnesj. 'Work has begun to find resources for school and kindergarten children and for sports. All these parties are very good at lending a helping hand and I would say that we are just in a decent place. 'We will meet again today and we have also met with all the education directors of these municipalities, so we are doing our best so that it is possible to place children in kindergartens and schools soon.' Natural hazard specialist at the Icelandic Met Office (IMO) Elisabet Palmadottir said seismic activity was most prevalent northeast of Grindavik on Saturday. A cabinet meeting has also been called for noon today. A magma tunnel that is forming could reach Grindavik but the Icelandic authority said it has been impossible to tell if and where the magma might break through to the surface. Magma is a mixture of molten and semi-molten rock found beneath the surface of the Earth that can cause an eruption when it comes to the surface, becoming lava. The Civil Protection Agency said: 'Earthquakes may become bigger than those that have already occurred, and this sequence of events could lead to an eruption. 'However, there are still no signs that the magma is nearing the surface. Its progress is being closely monitored. 'We want to reiterate that residents MUST evacuate their homes and leave the town. But we also want to reiterate that this is not an emergency evacuation, there is plenty of time to prepare, secure things and drive out of town calmly. 'It is clear that we are dealing with events that we Icelanders have not experienced before, at least not since the eruption in Vestmannaeyjar. We faced that together, we will face this together and we will not lose heart.' Grindavik is also near the Svartsengi geothermal plant, the main supplier of electricity and water to 30,000 residents on the Reykjanes peninsula. Lava flows at the scene of the newly erupted volcano at Grindavik, Iceland on August 3, 2022 The nation declared a state of emergency, and 4,000 people were evacuated overnight from Icelandic town Grindavik after hundreds of tremors were felt from a volcanic eruption The country has felt hundreds of quakes over the past two weeks with hundreds felt every day in the youngest part of Iceland - Reykjanes peninsula in the southwest Iceland is in nationwide panic over the fear of a possible volcanic eruption after it was hit with 1,485 earthquakes in 48 hours Iceland has 33 active volcanic systems, the highest number in Europe. The Icelandic Met Office had initially said that an eruption would most likely take place 'in several days rather than hours', as magma had been observed accumulating under the Earth's surface at a depth of about three miles for several days. But late Friday it noted that seismic activity was moving closer to the surface and magma was beginning to rise vertically toward the Earth's crust between Sundhnjukagigar and Grindavik, suggesting an eruption could come sooner. Authorities decided to evacuate Grindavik after the Met Office said there was a 'likelihood that a magma intrusion has extended beneath Grindavik.' Three eruptions have taken place near Fagradalsfjall on the Reykjanes peninsula, in March 2021, August 2022 and July 2023, all far from any infrastructure or populated areas. The Met Office said that 500 earthquakes had been registered in the area between 6pm GMT Friday and 6am GMT Saturday, including 14 over a magnitude of 4.0. Iceland straddles the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a crack in the ocean floor separating the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates. The founder of an Islamic homeschooling centre has been charged with rape and choking offences. Mohamed El Bizry, 41, the founder and principal of the Sunna Life Academy (SLA) in Bankstown in Sydney's south west, was arrested on October 21 at an Edmondson Park property. He was charged with one count of sexual intercourse without consent, two counts of intentionally choking without consent and one count of common assault and has since been on strict bail conditions after forfeiting a $10,000 surety, reported The Sydney Morning Herald. Mohamed El Bizry (pictured), 41, the founder and principal of the Sunna Life Academy (SLA) in Bankstown in Sydney's south west, was arrested on October 21 at an Edmondson Park property He is yet to enter a plea and is next due to front Campbelltown Local Court on December 13. El Bizry, who also goes by the name of Muhammad Al-Bizry, founded SLA in 2019. It describes itself as an 'Islamic & holistic, grouped home schooling centre, that runs up to three days a week' for years kindergarten to 10. Its website states it has helped accredit 634 students with home-schooling approvals from NSW Education Standards Authority. The alleged assaults date back to 2021 and do not involve any students. Under his bail conditions El Bizry must not leave his home except to go to work, report to police, attend legal meetings, front court or have medical treatment. He must also be of good behaviour and report to Bankstown police station daily. Chicago has become so unpleasant that migrants are fleeing back to Venezuela after being dumped in shelters and refused better paying jobs. Since August last year, 20,700 migrants have arrived in Chicago from Texas. The Lone Star State's Governor Greg Abbott sent migrants to Chicago and other Democrat-run cities because of their proud status as 'sanctuary cities.' They offer enhanced protection against detention or deportation for undocumented migrants. Now, Illinois' harsh winters, lack of migrant infrastructure, and ambivalent support from locals has made many people, who undertook the harsh US-Mexico border journey, actually turn around and go back home. Venezuela-born Michael Castejon, 39, and his family have been sleeping on the floors of police stations and shelters after he could not afford to pay rent in Chicago - because his work permit was taking so long to arrive. The family was renting an apartment through a city voucher program, that gives up to $15,000 for up to six months of rental assistance - but once it ran out, they had to give up their living space. The dad found a job in construction, and he was getting paid in cash, but it wasn't enough to sustain his family since they arrived in June. Venezuela-born Michael Castejon, 39, (pictured in red jacket) and his family have been sleeping on the floors of police stations and shelters after he could not afford to pay rent - because his work permit was taking so long to come in Since August last year, 20,700 migrants have arrived in Chicago from Texas . The Lone Star State's Governor Greg Abbott sent migrants to Chicago and other Democrat-run cities because of their proud status as 'sanctuary cities' After five months of rough living with no end in sight, the family decided to pack up their belongings and return to South America, realizing that 'there's nothing here for us.' Castejon said the failed journey to settle in the US had not been worth it, despite the extreme poverty and an authoritarian regime they were living under in Venezuela. After months of begging for money and crossing borders, the dreams that he had heard of from other migrants had failed to materialize for him, he revealed. Michael Castejon, 39, told the Chicago Tribune: 'The American Dream doesn't exist anymore. There's nothing here for us. 'We didn't know things would be this hard. I thought the process was faster,' he said about the job permit situation in Chicago. 'How many more months of living in the streets will it take? No, no more. It's better that I leave. At least I have my mother back home. 'We just want to be home. If we're going to be sleeping in the streets here, we'd rather be sleeping in the streets over there.' Castejon's stepdaughter Andrea Carolina Sevilla could not find a school to be enrolled in when they arrived in the US, despite one of the reasons they left their native home was to give her a better education. As winter approaches, the mayor has opened camps for migrants, some of which are being placed in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods Tens of thousands of migrants were sent to the sanctuary city by Texas Governor Abbott and non-government organizations in states like Colorado and New York He is not the only migrant in Chicago who is realizing that the reality of asylum seeking is not what they had imagined. Chicago's cold weather is creeping up - and many migrants still sleeping on the streets are forced to lay on wet, cold mattresses. The city is also notorious for violent crime, with migrants forced to sleep in public more vulnerable to attack than most. At least 40 people in the last month have left Chicago's 1st District station to either move back home or elsewhere in the States, with the help of Catholic Charities of Chicago. According to the Tribune, migrants eat standing up and have to rub their hands together to keep warm because of the lack of facilities. Brayan Lozano, head of the volunteer group of the Police Station Response Team, said: 'The word of the situation in Chicago is beginning to spread.' Lozano said the city's resources have been exhausted, and the resettlement program now cannot take the strain of the number of migrants flooding in. Another migrant, Jose Nauh, 22, was forced to sleep in a police station in Chicago for two weeks before deciding to travel back to Texas. He'd moved to the windy city to see the hype for himself - but soon realized life was not better. Diana Vera, who moved to Chicago with her three children and daughter-in law, have also decided to quit the city for better opportunities elsewhere. They had been living on the floor in the police station for a month. Michael Castejon, 39, and his family from years ago, before coming to America Castejon, along with many others, have decided to ditch Chicago after realizing it's not all it's cracked up to be Last month, Johnson quietly signed a $29million contract with a security firm to build migrant base camps Most of the migrants who have arrived in Chicago during the last year have come from Texas, largely under the direction of Republican Governor Greg Abbott The Windy City is struggling with over 11,000 migrants in shelters and 4,000 staying in police stations and the O'Hare International Airport (pictured) Boarding a bus to Detroit, Vera said: 'We heard that there are a lot of jobs over there even if you don't have a permit.' This comes at a fraught time for Chicago and its residents. Furious protesters stormed a Chicago City Council meeting last week during a debate about whether the city should remain a sanctuary for migrants. The meeting was called after 9th Ward Alderman Anthony Beale - who oversees a district in the predominantly-black South Side - proposed an advisory referendum that would ask voters during the March primary if Chicago should keep its sanctuary city status. Progressives in Chicago are outraged that a move to end Chicago's status as a sanctuary city is even being considered for a ballot. But many of the city's residents - including a large number of those who are themselves ethnic minorities - are keen to end the Windy City's sanctuary city status. Many residents expressed frustration about the millions of dollars the city was spending on migrant shelters instead of Chicago's most impoverished communities. As of September, there were about 20 active migrant shelters in the city. Seven were located on the historically underserved South and West sides. More than 20,000 migrants have touched down in Chicago since last year. While most hail from Venezuela, they come from all over the world, including Africa, Europe and the Middle East. The city has allocated $4 million to help migrants find temporary housing, and the state has contributed another $38 million. Since August 2022, Chicago has opened its doors to tens of thousands of migrants sent by Abbott and non-government organizations in states such as Colorado and New York. The majority are seeking asylum 'due to US foreign policy that has created unstable economic and political conditions compromising their safety and forcing them to travel thousands of miles to safety,' the City of Chicago website reads. It adds: 'U.S. cities have not traditionally had the infrastructure to resettle high numbers of immigrants and refugees. This is federal responsibility.' Advertisement King Charles and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak led Britain in honouring the country's war dead today as a parade of thousands of veterans lined Whitehall for poignant moment of remembrance. At a solemn ceremony at the war memorial in central London, the King, Prime Minister, the royal family and senior politicians held a two-minute silence at 11am to honour those killed in war. Charles, along with Mr Sunak and opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer, laid wreaths on the Cenotaph shortly after the nation fell silent. Almost 10,000 veterans marched past the Cenotaph memorial in central London, while thousands more members of the public gathered in tribute to British and Commonwealth servicemen and women who have died in battle. More than 300 armed forces and civilian organisations are represented, as well as 300 veterans not affiliated with an association who have been invited to join for the first time. Marchers included 100-year-old Second World War veterans and children of servicemen and women who have died in conflict. Remembrance Sunday is an annual commemoration held on the closest Sunday to Armistice Day, November 11, the anniversary of the end of the First World War to remember servicemen and women who have fallen in the line of duty since WWI. This year's service comes after the march on Armistice Day saw hundreds of thousands of pro-Palestinian supporters march through London calling for a ceasefire in Israel's war in Gaza. The march went ahead after a week of tensions, which saw the Government call for it to be scrapped and police make scores of arrests. King Charles III lays his Remembrance wreath National Service of Remembrance on the Canotaph in Whitehall, London today King Charles, pictured today, led Britain in honouring the country's war dead today as a parade of thousands of veterans lined Whitehall for poignant moment of remembrance Prime Minister Rishi Sunak holds a wreath next to Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, former prime ministers Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, David Cameron, and Theresa May as they attend the National Service of Remembrance at The Cenotaph today Prince William lays down a wreath at the Cenotaph during the National Service of Remembrance in London today Veterans carry a wreath as they attend the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph on Whitehall in London Military veterans parade on Whitehall during the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph in London King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery fires volley to start ceremony A volley from a gun fired by the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery from nearby Horse Guards Parade rang out at 11am today to signal the start of the moment of silent reflection. Another loud blast was fired two minutes later to marked its end. Royal Gun Salutes are used to mark special royal occasions, such as Remembrance Day. The number of rounds fired in a Royal Gun Salute is dependent on the location of and occasion for the salute, according to the Royal Parks service. A basic salute is 21 rounds, however salutes held in Hyde Park and The Green Park have an extra 20 rounds because they are a Royal Park. Salutes are traditionally not held on Sundays. So, in most instances, if the date of an event featuring a Royal Gun Salute falls on a Sunday, the salute will take place the following day. A volley from a gun fired by the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery from nearby Horse Guards Parade rang out at 11am today to signal the start of the moment of silent reflection. Another loud blast was fired two minutes later to marked its end Members of the military form up on Parliament Street ahead of the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph Veterans parade during the National Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph on Whitehall in central London today Veterans arriving at the Saluting Base in Horse Guards during the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph, in Whitehall, London today D-Day veterans attend the annual Remembrance Sunday ceremony at the Cenotaph, in Whitehall, London today Veterans riding scooters attend the National Service of Remembrance at The Cenotaph in London today Veterans arriving at the Saluting Base in Horse Guards during the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph, in Whitehall, London today Chelsea pensioners attend the National Service of Remembrance at The Cenotaph today The Prince and Princess of Wales are pictured en route to the Cenotaph on Sunday Police officers watch over the National Service of Remembrance at The Cenotaph in London Chelsea Pensioners sell poppies on Westminster Bridge before the annual Remembrance Sunday ceremony in Whitehall Royal Marine buglers play The Last Post The Royal Marines Band Service performed The Last Post to mark the end of the two-minute silence during the Remembrance Day service today. The Last Post is played at remembrance services across the UK including at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. The musical call is usually played on a trumpet, cornet or bugle. There are only three notes used in the entirety of the piece. The Last Post, now associated with remembrance ceremonies, was originally used on the frontlines as a signal that the final sentry post in a military camp had been inspected and the area was secure. The call was also sounded at the end of a battle so soldiers on the battlefield would know it was safe to move or retreat back to their troops to get help. The battle signal was elongated during the 19th century, making it 'more mournful and appropriate' for remembrance ceremonies. Buglers perform the famous tune on Remembrance Day across the Commonwealth, at Commonwealth Military Funerals and on Anzac Day in Australia and New Zealand. King Charles has paid tribute to Britain's war dead as he leads the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph this morning Prime Minister Rishi Sunak lays a wreath during the National Service of Remembrance at The Cenotaph on Sunday Home Secretary Suella Braverman (centre) and Foreign Secretary James Cleverly (right) hold wreaths during the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph, in Whitehall The current and former prime ministers attend the Remembrance Sunday service The Prince of Wales was among the senior royals standing behind the King and also laid a wreath Veterans carrying wreaths during the National Service of Remembrance at The Cenotaph Prime Minister Rishi Sunak attends the annual Remembrance Sunday ceremony at the Cenotaph on Sunday King Charles lays first wreath at the Cenotaph The King led the country at the Whitehall memorial in commemorating the end of the First World War and other conflicts involving British and Commonwealth forces by laying the first wreath. Wreaths were also laid by members of the royal family, senior politicians and dignitaries at the Cenotaph in London. Wearing the uniform of The Marshal of the Royal Air Force with greatcoat, poppy and sword, Charles laid a wreath similar to the one produced for King George VI. The wreath features 41 open style poppy petals made from bonded fabric, hard-wearing paper. It is mounted on an arrangement of black leaves - traditional for sovereign's wreaths - of 27-inch diameter ribbon and bow using the colours from The King's racing silk - scarlet, purple and gold, Buckingham Palace said. The Prince of Wales also laid a wreath, as did the Duke of Edinburgh, the Princess Royal, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and other senior politicians. Major Ollie Plunket of The Rifles, equerry to Camilla, laid a wreath on behalf of the Queen, who was watching from a balcony with the Princess of Wales. Buckingham Palace said said the Queen's wreath closely resembled the one produced for the Queen Mother. The Duke of Edinburgh and the Princess Royal also laid wreaths at the Cenotaph. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was among senior politicians who laid a wreath at the Cenotaph. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and Home Secretary Suella Braverman also took part in the ceremony. King Charles III and the Prince of Wales lay wreaths during the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph Labour Party leader Keir Starmer lays down a poppy wreath as he attends the National Service of Remembrance at The Cenotaph Stephen Flynn, leader of SNP in the House of Commons, lays his wreath upside down today A Veteran carries a wreath during the National Service of Remembrance at The Cenotaph today Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer (left) and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (right) hold wreaths during the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph The handwritten note by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak during the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph Following the laying of the main wreaths, the Bishop of London, Dame Sarah Mullally, led a short service featuring a hymn and the Lord's Prayer The Bishop of London, Dame Sarah Mullally, told those gathered: 'O Almighty God, grant, we beseech thee, that we who here do honour to the memory of those who have died in the service of their country and of the Crown may be so inspired by the spirit of their love and fortitude that, forgetting all selfish and unworthy motives, we may live only to thy glory and to the service of mankind through Jesus Christ our Lord' Bishop of London leads Britain in song and prayer Following the laying of the main wreaths, the Bishop of London, Dame Sarah Mullally, led a short service featuring a hymn and the Lord's Prayer. She told those gathered: 'O Almighty God, grant, we beseech thee, that we who here do honour to the memory of those who have died in the service of their country and of the Crown may be so inspired by the spirit of their love and fortitude that, forgetting all selfish and unworthy motives, we may live only to thy glory and to the service of mankind through Jesus Christ our Lord.' The King and members of the royal family then sang the hymn O God, Our Help in Ages Past as thousands filled Whitehall. The hymn was accompanied by the Bands of the Guards Division. Following the hymnal, the Bishop offered another prayer, saying: 'Teach us, good Lord, to serve thee as thou deservest; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labour and not to ask for any reward, save that of knowing that we do thy will; through Jesus Christ our Lord.' All attendees were then requested to say The Lord's Prayer which was followed by a blessing by Dame Sarah. Ceremony concludes with the singing of the national anthem The national anthem, God Save The King, echoed across Whitehall today as the Remembrance Sunday service comes to an end. The royals, Britain's politicians, military members and bystanders alike all joined in singing the song. But Stephen Flynn, leader of SNP in the House of Commons, failed to sing a note of the anthem despite everyone around him having done so. He also placed his wreath upside down on the Cenotaph during the laying of the wreaths. King Charles is pictured as Britain's national anthem, God Save The King, was sung across Whitehall today God Save The King echoed across Whitehall today as the Remembrance Sunday service comes to an end The royals, Britain's politicians, military members and bystanders alike all joined in singing the national anthem SNP leader in the House of Commons fails to sing a note of the National Anthem as everyone around him does so King Charles stands tall as God Save the King is sung at the Remembrance Sunday service on Whitehall, London The British national anthem in its present form dates back to the 18th century. Military members are pictured singing it during the Remembrance Sunday service today The British national anthem in its present form dates back to the 18th century. The anthem became popular amid the patriotism that followed the 1745 victory of Prince Charles Edward Stuart over King George II's army in Scotland. After hearing the news of Prince Charles' success in the battle, the leader of the band at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, arranged God Save The King for a performance after the play. It was repeated nightly after that. Usually, only the first verse is sung, which is: 'God save our gracious King! Long live our noble King! God save the King! Send him victorious, Happy and glorious, Long to reign over us, God save the King.' There is no authorised version of the National Anthem as the words are a matter of tradition. Additional verses have been added down the years, but these are rarely used. Specialists have withdrawn life-support treatment from a critically-ill baby girl who has been at the centre of a legal battle, a campaign organisation supporting her parents has said. Eight-month-old Indi Gregory has been transferred from the Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham to a hospice, Christian Concern said on Sunday. Indi's parents, Dean Gregory and Claire Staniforth, have lost life-support treatment fights in the High Court and Court of Appeal in London. High Court judge Mr Justice Peel had ruled limiting treatment would be lawful, and doing so would be in Indi's best interests. In a statement issued through the group, Indi's father said she is 'fighting hard'. Her parents failed to persuade Court of Appeal judges and judges at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, to overturn that treatment decision. Eight-month-old Indi Gregory has been transferred from the Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham to a hospice, Christian Concern said on Sunday Indi pictured at her christening alongside her parents Claire Staniforth and Dean Gregory The couple also failed in a bid to transfer Indi to a hospital in Rome. Mr Justice Peel ruled a move to Italy would not be in Indi's best interests and Court of Appeal judges backed that decision. Indi, who was born on February 24, has mitochondrial disease - a genetic condition that saps energy. Specialists say she is dying and bosses at the hospital asked for a ruling that doctors could lawfully limit treatment. Medics say the treatment Indi receives causes pain and is futile. Her parents disagree, and had been desperately trying to get her transferred to Italy for treatment. Mr Justice Peel considered evidence at private hearings in the Family Division of the High Court in London. He allowed journalists to attend and said Indi can be identified in reports. The judge said specialists involved in Indi's care could not be named - nor could the hospice where she has been moved to. It comes only days after the Derbyshire family's appeal to take her home was rejected. Dean Gregory and Claire Staniforth mounted a desperate appeal after failing to persuade a judge to let her receive end-of-life care at home. They said they wanted specialists to withdraw treatment from eight-month-old Indi at their home in Ilkeston, Derbyshire. A High Court judge on Wednesday ruled against Indi's parents and concluded that withdrawing treatment at home would be 'too dangerous'. Prior to that, Italy made an urgent request to the High Court to have baby Indi handed over to them so she can be treated in Rome. There were hopes that she would be transferred to the Bambino Gesu Hospital, which agreed to treat her illness, after the Italian government intervened and granted her citizenship. Italian consul in Manchester, Matteo Corradini, requested in his capacity as guardian for Indi that she be allowed to travel for treatment. The request was made to the High Court in London to Mr Justice Robert Peel who heard previous reviews and each time ordered it is in her 'best interests' to be allowed to die. Indi Gregory's parents have lost legal fights in London to continue treatment for their baby High Court judge Mr Justice Peel had ruled limiting treatment would be lawful, and doing so would be in Indi's best interests Little Indi Gregory has mitochondrial disease, a condition that saps energy It was made under Article 9 of the 1996 Hague Convention which allows a country to request another to help if they consider 'they are best placed to assess the child's best interests'. Campaign organisation Christian Concern, which is supporting Indi's parents, said on Thursday that the couple had made an application to the Court of Appeal relating to Indi's end-of-life care. Court officials said an appeal judge was considering their challenge. Mr Justice Peel had considered arguments relating to Indi's end-of-life care at a private online hearing in the Family Division of the High Court. The judge, who is based in London, said he accepted the evidence of specialists. But Mr Justice Peel had already ruled that specialists can lawfully limit treatment. He concluded that such a move would be in Indi's best interests. Indi's parents have failed to persuade Court of Appeal judges and judges at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, to overturn that treatment decision. Mr Justice Peel ruled that a move to Italy would not be in Indi's best interests and Court of Appeal judges backed that decision. Mr Justice Peel said, in his ruling on Wednesday, that Indi's father has 'acknowledged, correctly and properly', that his 'decisions and orders' were 'unaffected' by Italy's decision to grant the little girl citizenship. Mr Dean Gregory, Indi's father, said last week: 'Mine and Claire's heart's goes out to the Italian president and the Italian government, and the Italian people. 'We thank you from the bottom of our hearts and we see you as Indi's guardian angels. The compassion and love you have shown to try and help our daughter get the care she needs and the devotion you have for Indi makes us so happy. 'But there is still an urgency to appeal to the British government to allow Indi to come to Italy before it is too late. 'As a father I have never asked or begged for anything in my life, but I am now begging the British government to please help prevent our daughter's life from being taken away.' Britain's past and present political leaders united to pay tribute at the Cenotaph for today's Remembrance Day service. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was joined by current political leaders including Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey, SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn, as they each laid a wreath at the memorial service. Behind them were seven former prime ministers including Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Theresa May, Sir Tony Blair and Sir John Major. They all watched on as King Charles led the country in a two-minute silence and laid the first wreath in front of the Cenotaph to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women. Mr Sunak earlier paid tribute to the 'courage and commitment' of the UK's servicemen and women as he joined people across the country in 'honouring their memory today in quiet reflection'. He added that recent events have served as a 'stark reminder that we cannot take the hard-earned peace we live in for granted' and he would 'ensure' the nation never forgets the 'ultimate sacrifice they have made'. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was joined by poltical leaders including Labour leader as they laid a wreath at the Remembrance Sunday service Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey and SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn also each laid a wreath at the memorial service Behind them were seven former prime ministers including Liz Truss , Boris Johnson , David Cameron , Gordon Brown, Theresa May , Sir Tony Blair and Sir John Major Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour Party leader Keir Starmer carry wreaths as they attend the National Service of Remembrance at The Cenotaph Mr Sunak lays a wreath at the base of the Cenotaph on Whitehall during the service Mr Sunak looked sombre was the first of the UK's senior polticians to lay a wreath on behalf of the nation, following on from members of the royal family. The Prime Minister looked sombre as he placed the wreath at the base of the Cenotaph war memorial in Whitehall on Sunday. Labour leader Keir Starmer was next to pay his respects before the Scottish National Party's Westminster leader Stephen Flynn, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey and the Democratic Unionist Party leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson. Former prime ministers Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Theresa May, Sir Tony Blair and Sir John Major were also in attendance, as is conventional, to pay tribute to Britain's war dead. Before today's service Mr Sunak said: 'The courage and commitment shown by our servicemen and women, both today and throughout the generations that came before them, is humbling and I know many across the country will be honouring their memory today in quiet reflection. 'Recent events have served as a stark reminder that we cannot take the hard-earned peace we live in for granted, which is why I am honoured to lay a wreath on behalf of the nation in the memory of all those that have lost their lives defending our country and the values we hold so close. 'I am determined to ensure we never forget the ultimate sacrifice they have made.' Mr Starmer also paid tribute to Britain's fallen soldiers before the service today. He said: 'Remembrance Sunday is a day to pause and honour all out service men and women who sacrfice so much for our great country. 'A day to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice. And a day to remind ourselves in these fraught modern times, that peace is possible. 'Each year that passes leaves us one step further way from the wars of the last century but we are no less grateful to the men and women whose courage and sacrifice gave us the freedom we enjoy today. 'Today we come together to honour those who have died in conflict, to thank those still serving and to pay tribute to the allies who fought shoulder to shoulder with us for pur way of life, our values and country.' The current and former prime ministers attend the Remembrance Sunday service Home Secretary Suella Braverman (centre) and Foreign Secretary James Cleverly (right) hold wreaths during the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph, in Whitehall Foreign Secretary James Cleverly (left) and Home Secretary Suella Braverman (right) carry wreaths as they attend the annual Remembrance Sunday ceremony Former British Prime Ministers Liz Truss, Boris Johnson and Theresa May attend the National Service of Remembrance at The Cenotaph Home Secretary Suella Braverman becomes emotional as she attends the National Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph on Whitehall Former Prime Ministers Theresa May and David Cameron become emotional as they attend the annual Remembrance Sunday ceremony at the Cenotaph View of the National Service of Remembrance at The Cenotaph Charles ealrier led the country at the Whitehall memorial in commemorating the end of the First World War and other conflicts involving British and Commonwealth forces. Wearing the uniform of the Marshal of the Royal Air Force with greatcoat, poppy and sword, the King laid a wreath similar to the one produced for King George VI. The wreath featured 41 open style poppy petals made from bonded fabric. It was mounted on an arrangement of black leaves traditional for sovereign's wreaths of 27-inch diameter ribbon and bow using the colours from the King's racing silk scarlet, purple and gold. A wreath was laid at the Cenotaph for the Queen by Major Ollie Plunket, The Rifles, equerry to Camilla. The Queen viewed the Remembrance Day service from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office centre balcony, alongside the Princess of Wales. Camilla's wreath closely resembled the wreath produced for the Queen Mother, Buckingham Palace said. The Duke of Edinburgh and the Princess Royal also laid wreaths at the Cenotaph. King Charles paid tribute to Britain's war dead as he led the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph this morning King Charles led a two-minute silence and laid the first wreath in front of the Cenotaph The Prince of Wales was among the senior royals standing behind the King and also laid a wreath King Charles leads the Remembrance Sunday service this morning Prince William is pictured at the Remembrance Sunday service on Whitehall today Queen Camilla (pictured) and Princess of Wales watched on from an overlooking balcony An emotional Princess Kate watched on from an overlooking balcony King Charles has paid tribute to Britain's war dead as he leads the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph this morning King Charles III and the Prince of Wales lay wreaths during the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph Almost 10,000 veterans and 800 armed forces personnel from all three services were then due to take part in a march-past. Among those marching are nuclear test veterans, who for the first time will wear a medal acknowledging their contribution. After 70 years of waiting for recognition, those exposed to the effects of nuclear bombs during the UK's testing programme were given a medal, depicting an atom surrounded by olive branches, for the Remembrance Sunday service. More than 300 armed forces and civilian organisations are represented, as well as 300 veterans not affiliated with an association who have been invited to join for the first time. A massive fire that began inside a pallet yard below I-10 in downtown Los Angeles closed part of the freeway and caused a State of Emergency. Governor Gavin Newsom made the announcement Saturday night after more than 160 firefighters scrambled to contain the blaze. 'The California Department of Transportation is currently assessing the extent of the damage and has crews ready to begin clean-up and repair work as soon as the first responders determine it is safe to do so,' Newsom wrote in a statement. The freeway - which boasts an average traffic volume of 287,500 - was eerily empty after the blaze. It remains shut down between Alameda Street and Santa Fe Avenue on Sunday. Officials said Saturday night that the closure would last more than 24 hours. A fire consumed parts of Freeway I-10 in Los Angeles Saturday night Over 160 firefighters worked together to contain the blaze and prevent more damage Newsom's declaration will facilitate 'clean-up and repair work and direct Caltrans to formally request assistance through the Federal Highway Administrations Emergency Relief Program,' according to the governors office. The fire was first reported shortly after midnight in the 1700 block of East 14th Street. Firefighters from 26 companies worked to extinguish the flames after they ignited in one downtown pallet yard and spread to another. Flames engulfed multiple trailers at the first yard, according to Los Angeles Fire Department PIO Margaret Stewart. The blaze spread to a second pallet yard between Lawrence and Elwood street, melting some of the freeway's steel guardrails and damaging firetrucks. By 2.30am, pallets in both yards were mostly consumed by the fire, and crews turned to bulldozers to move debris and snuff out hot spots. A homeless encampment underneath one overpass was forced to flee as chunks of supporting concrete columns collapsed. Its unclear if there were any injuries as a result of the blaze. Three nearby buildings were spared from the blaze, but the freeway sustained extensive damage. The blaze, which began in a nearby pallet yard before moving to another, collapsed cement columns and melted guardrails on the freeway A homeless encampment under an overpass was forced to evacuate as the flames spread The freeway has an average traffic volume of around 280,000 vehicles Firefighters from 26 companies were called in to battle the blaze, after crews were called to the first pallet yard shortly after midnight By 2.30am, pallets in both yards were engulfed. Fire crews used bulldozers to clear away debris While three nearby buildings were saved, the freeway sustained extensive damage The California Department of Transportation is currently assessing the damage, and the state may request federal aid to repair the freeway Newsom thanked the first responders and firefighters who worked 'tirelessly' to contain the flames. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass released her own statement. 'I have spoken with United States Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and he assured Los Angeles that the White House stands at the ready to assist with whatever is needed,' she said. 'I have also been in touch with Governor Newsom and thank him for his assurance that the State will pull out all the stops to get this freeway repaired.' Fires are nothing new in the state of California, which has historically been plagued by wildfires due to dry conditions. The largest ever recorded, the 2020 August Complex fire, began after lightning struck 38 separate areas and burned in the Coast Range of Northern California In September, Newsom called a state of emergency in Del Norte and Siskiyou counties Tuesday as wildfires destroyed homes and cut power. That blaze, called the Happy Camp Complex, was contained at the end of October. The largest-ever joint exercise between the Chinese and Pakistani navies began in Pakistan on Saturday as the two countries continue to enhance their capabilities in jointly safeguarding strategic sea lanes as well as regional peace and stability, experts said on Sunday. The Sea Guardian-3 joint maritime exercise kicked off with an opening ceremony at the Karachi Naval Dockyard on Saturday morning, China Central Television (CCTV) reported on the day. The PNS Taimur, the second of four Type 054A/P frigates China built for Pakistan, is commissioned at the Hudong-Zhonghua Shipyard in Shanghai on June 23, 2022. Photo: Courtesy of the Pakistan Navy Participating forces from the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) Navy include the Type 052D guided missile destroyer Zibo, the Type 054A guided missile destroyers Jingzhou and Linyi, according to the CCTV report , with Pakistani media reporting that a conventional attack submarine and a submarine support ship along with a marines corps detachment from the PLA Navy are also involved. Under the common aim of jointly responding to maritime security threats, the nine-day exercise in the waters and airspace of the northern Arabian Sea will organize training courses including formation maneuvering, VBSS (visit, board, search and seizure), helicopter cross-deck landing, joint search and rescue, joint anti-submarine and main gun shooting, plus professional exchanges and mutual visits. It is the third and the largest edition of the Sea Guardian exercises, CCTV said. The first edition was held in 2020 in the northern Arabian Sea waters, and the second edition was held in 2022 in waters off Shanghai. The exercise is dedicated to enhance the all-weather strategic cooperative partnership, boost defense cooperation and deepen professional cooperation, said Rear Admiral Liang Yang, commander at a PLA Navy base and the general director of the exercise from the Chinese side, said at the opening ceremony. Liang said he hopes the two navies can further enhance their joint operational capabilities in dealing with maritime security threats and safeguard maritime peace. Admiral M Amjad Khan Niazi, chief of the naval staff of the Pakistan Navy, told the Global Times in an exclusive interview earlier this year that the Sea Guardian exercises serve the objectives of fostering interoperability and sharing professional experiences to deal with contemporary traditional and non-traditional security threats. Wei Dongxu, a Chinese military expert, told the Global Times that China and Pakistan have common interests in jointly safeguarding strategic sea lanes in regions like the Indian Ocean, where piracy, terrorism and other dangerous activities pose threats to the maritime transport of energy and goods. Joint drills like these also safeguard the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, an important part of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, and comprehensively contribute to the peace and stability in the Indian Ocean region, an expert familiar with China-Pakistan military cooperation, told the Global Times under the condition of anonymity. Outside of joint drills, China-Pakistan naval cooperation also includes high-level visits, expert talks, training exchanges and equipment cooperation. In May, China wrapped up delivery of all four Type 054A/P guided missile frigates to the Pakistani Navy, with the Hangor-class submarines being built simultaneously in China and Pakistan. Observers expect further in-depth cooperation between the PLA Navy and the Pakistan Navy in the future. Source: Global Times, China Former president Donald Trump is 'very, very angry' about his ongoing court battles and potentially heading to prison, but his team feels confident about his chances of winning the 2024 presidential election, New York Times correspondent Maggie Haberman says During an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, Haberman - who has a historically close relationship with the former president - said there is an 'enormous amount of energy invested in Trump portraying himself as fine and nothing bothering him.' In reality, however, Haberman says that Trump is 'very, very angry' and does 'not want to be sentenced to prison.' His campaign team, said the journalist, is focused on getting through the Republican primary. Trump is currently leading the pack of candidates by roughly 30 points in most polls. His staff, however, 'acknowledge that they have to get through Iowa, which has never been a great state for Trump,' said Haberman. If the former president can eek out a win in Iowa, the seeming inevitability of his candidacy will become less disputable. His prospects come as Trump not only faces a civil trial in New York but four pending criminal trials across the country for his roles in handling classified documents and alleged election interference. Former president Donald Trump in court last week for his New York fraud trial. He not only faces the civil case, but four pending criminal cases Furthermore, said Haberman, team Trump's focus on winning is 'in part as a means of dealing with these cases.' Trump's high-profile civil fraud case in New York that was brought by Attorney General Letitia James has featured several dramatic turns from Trump and various members of his family - something Haberman says will likely not be the case at his forthcoming federal trial. Trump will be 'quieted' in federal court in a way that he hasn't been during his civil trial, because he 'can't pull the same kinds of stunts' in front of his next judge,' Haberman stated. Last week, Trump took the stand in New York, where he sparred with Judge Arthur Engoron and delivered long, campaign-style speeches. Engoron repeatedly told him to stop and answer the questions. The case is civil, not criminal, meaning the judge will determine the case's outcome instead of a jury. Engoron has already ruled that some of Trump's financial statements were filled fraudulently. This trial is to determine the punishment. Part of determining that punishment is looking at the intent behind the filings. The judge will determine whether the Trumps deliberately falsified financial statements for their family business to inflate the company's value in order to obtain favorable terms for loans and insurance coverage. In order to make that determination, the judge required several of Trump's adult children to testify last week - including Don Jr., Eric and Ivanka. Trump was warned to control himself on the stand during his civil trial as he slammed prosecutors and Democrats as 'haters' and claimed the judge always rules 'against' him Judge Arthur Engoron admonished the former president multiple times for not answering questions from prosecutor Kevin Wallace as tensions flared almost immediately after he was sworn in as a witness last week While Don Jr. and Eric remain part of the Trump business empire, Ivanka stepped away from her family business several years ago. She and her husband Jared Kushner currently reside in Miami with their three children, where Ivanka is focused on her friends, family, and philanthropic work. In their testimony last week, Ivanka's brothers also attempted to distance themselves from the company. The two served as trustees of the Trump Organization after Donald Trump became president. Don Jr. blamed the family company's accountants who prepared paperwork for him to sign as a trustee. He said his signature attesting to the accuracy of the financials was 'not a symbol of yes or no.' Eric said he was not involved with the preparation of the financial statements and knew 'nothing' about them. A Texas woman who has been charged with the murder of her seven-month-old baby started a GoFundMe to raise money for his funeral. Angel Lynn Marie Varner, 20, is accused of killing her infant son, Jackson Knight Blackmon, in their Amarillo home. On November 6, police responded to reports of an unresponsive seven-month-old who paramedics said died on the scene. Court documents revealed the childs mother, Varner, made several incriminating statements about injuring the child, reported KFDA. On the day of his death, Varner made a Facebook post that said, 'My poor baby.... He's no longer with us... I don't know the details... But he's gone....' Angel Lynn Marie Varner, 20, has been charged in the murder her seven-month-old son Jackson Knight Blackmon died on November 6 when police responded to reports of an unresponsive seven-month-old The next day, November 7, she posted a link to a GoFundMe and said, 'My baby is gone... He passed yesterday between 3 a.m. and 11 a.m... I have started a go fund me for his funeral costs... We plan on cremation...' According to KVII the page said, 'We are raising money for the funeral, memorial, and cremation of mine and Sean's baby boy. He was the light of our life and soon we will.' She said they want to buy an urn and 'get a few jewelry items that has his ashes in them so he will always be with us.' One day later, Varner was arrested. GoFundMe has since taken down the page from the site. It's unclear how much was raised before the page was removed, although a screenshot shows it collected more than $200 of a $1,000 target. A GoFundMe spokesperson told KVII, 'The fundraiser has been removed from the platform and all donors have been refunded. The organizer did not receive any of the funds raised.' Police officers determined the child's death was a result of a homicide and the autopsy found the baby died of blunt force trauma. Varner admitted she threw the baby on a bed and pressed on his stomach until he stopped crying, court records indicate. After throwing the baby on the floor, she said, the baby went back to 'sleep.' One day before she was charged with is murder, Varner posted a GoFundMe to raise money for the baby's funeral The day of his death, Varner posted about his passing. She said, 'I don't know the details... But he's gone' When she realized the child was not breathing, Varner said instead of calling 911, she went to sleep. During their investigation, police learned Varner lived at the home with the seven-month-old, the baby's father and two other roommates. One of the roommates said the baby had been crying in the living room when Varner took him back to a bedroom, then the roommate said they heard a 'thud' from the bedroom. Varner was arrested and booked at the Potter County jail on murder charges. This is the moment a soldier is picked up off the ground after 'fainting' during the Cenotaph Remembrance Sunday service. The video captured shows him on the ground as fellow soldiers quickly rush to try and help. Whilst other members of the King's Guard surround the solider, the main video shows one of the many wreaths being laid down at the Cenotaph. Details are yet to be released about why the soldier suddenly dropped to the ground during the service. This is the moment a soldier is picked up off the ground after 'fainting' during the Cenotaph Remembrance Sunday service The video captured shows him on the ground as fellow soldiers quickly rush to try and help Whilst other members of the King's Guard are surrounding the solider, the main video shows the wreath being laid down at the Cenotaph The thousands-strong march of current and former armed forces personnel were seen marching past and saluting the Cenotaph in memory of the war dead today. King Charles paid tribute to Britain's war dead as he led a moving Remembrance Day service. The King led a two-minute silence that took place across the UK and laid the first wreath in front of the memorial in London, where a major policing operation remains in place today after more than 120 arrests were made as a pro-Palestinian march was held on Armistice Day. The Prince of Wales also laid a wreath, as did the Duke of Edinburgh, the Princess Royal, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and other senior politicians. Among those who participated in the ceremony was Home Secretary Suella Braverman who was seen in public for the first time since Armistice Day was blighted by brutal clashes in central London yesterday. The Cenotaph, meaning the empty tomb, was first unveiled in 1920 to symbolise the unprecedented losses suffered during the First World War. It has come to commemorate all members of the Armed Forces who have lost their lives in conflict since 1914. Its creators said that the absence inside would allow families, friends, comrades and colleagues to fill it with their own memories of those who lost their lives while serving. Conservative pundit Ann Coulter has warned that Republicans' hardline anti-abortion stance is the equivalent to the left's 'Defund the Police' jargon, after the issue was blamed for the GOP's shock election defeats in last week's elections. Coulter, 61, titled her think piece 'Pro-life is the "Defund the Police" of the GOP' and made the point that refusing to acknowledge election results is 'not a good way to go through life.' Her damning assessment followed last week's nationwide elections - which saw typically Republican-leaning states such as Ohio vote to protect abortion and Kentucky vote to keep their Democratic governor who campaigned on allowing access to abortion. 'Defund the police,' which the pundit makes reference to, is the slogan peddled by liberals - especially in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 - calling for the removal of funds from police departments across the country. But the rallying cry has harmed Dem-led city over the last few years - as the spiraling crime, homelessness and drug issues have ensued, in part, stem from the lack of police funding. Ann Coulter wrote on her Substack: 'Tuesday night, Ohio became the SEVENTH state to emphatically reject the tiniest restriction on abortion. It joins California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont. Coulter, 61, titled her think piece 'Pro-life is the 'Defund the Police' of the GOP ' and made the point that refusing to acknowledge election results is 'not a good way to go through life' Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks to supporters before signing a 15-week abortion ban into law on April 14, 2022 'For half a century, right-wingers have screamed, Theres nothing in the constitution about abortion! Its up to the states! 'We won, the states voted and voted and voted and voted and we lost. Every time. It turns out (no matter what they tell pollsters or their neighbors) the people LOVE abortion. They want no restrictions. None. Not the tiniest little imposition. 'Montana voters rejected a law that would have merely require life-saving treatment be given to babies accidentally born alive during an abortion. That lost, 53 percent to 47 percent. 'Four states have put the right to abortion in their constitutions - Michigan, Vermont and California and, now, Ohio. 'Fellow pro-lifers: This is the change hearts and minds part of the battle, not the force Republicans to keep losing elections part. 'Although theres always my excellent Peace of Westphalia-style compromise proposal on abortion: Make it illegal ONLY for Registered Republicans.' GOP bigwigs such as Florida Governor and presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis have been staunch in their belief about abortions - but the results last week show it is one issue that the Republican party is not winning. By comparing the abortion issue to 'defund the police,' Coulter seems to suggest that this may be the GOP's downfall among the electorate. Her comments comes just days after podcaster Megyn Kelly also described the Republican fixation on banning abortion as a 'f****** loser', saying the party was out of step with the electorate and needed to rapidly correct course. 'They cannot win by saying no abortions and no exceptions,' said a furious Kelly. 'It's a f****** loser.' The majority of U.S. adults, including those living in states with the strictest limits on abortion, want it to be legal at least through the initial stages of pregnancy. About two-thirds of Americans say abortion should generally be legal. Only about 1 in 10 say it should always be illegal. 'Defund the police,' which the pundit makes reference to, is the slogan peddled by liberals - especially in the wake of protests in 2020 - calling for the removal of funds from police departments across the country. Pictured: A protester reacts standing in front of a burning building set on fire during a demonstration in Minneapolis on May 29, 2020 By comparing the abortion issue to 'defund the police,' Coulter seems to suggest that this may be the GOP's downfall among the electorate. Pictured: Flames illuminate protestors standing near the Third Police Precinct on May 28 in Minneapolis during protests over the killing of George Floyd About two-thirds of Americans say abortion should generally be legal. Only about 1 in 10 say it should always be illegal. Kelly announced on Thursday that she will moderate the next Republican debate, to be held on December 6 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The debate will air on NewsNation. Kelly pointed out that Andy Beshear, re-elected on Tuesday as Kentucky's governor, ran an effective advert featuring a young woman who was raped when she was 12 by her stepfather. The woman said that Beshear's opponent, Daniel Cameron, would have denied her an abortion and told her what to do with her body. 'That is devastating, and she was thanked by the Democratic incumbent, Governor Beshear, in his victory speech,' said Kelly. 'The Republican Party, I understand it's a pro-life party: They are too extreme for the voters, and that's irrespective of how any of us may feel on the life choice issue. 'They are too extreme for the voters even in states like Kentucky, and they're going to keep losing unless they come to that realization.' Far-Right thugs making Nazi salutes have attacked a pro-Palestine conference attended by a Gaza surgeon in eastern France. Around 100 people including women and children had to barricade themselves inside a building in Lyon on Saturday night, and three of them were injured. Videos showed gang members wearing balaclavas and face masks as they rampaged outside the Palestine 69 Collective meeting. They can be seen making Nazi salutes after they tried to enter the conference room while wielding iron bars, smashing windows, and letting off fireworks. Christophe Oberlin, a surgeon who regularly visits Gaza to operate on children wounded during the Israel-Hamas conflict, was presenting a lecture about his new book. He said: 'They were banging on the windows with their clubs and trying to break down the door.' Lyon: une conference sur la Palestine prise pour cible par des membres de l'ultra-droite, 3 personnes blessees pic.twitter.com/ERZzbcmew1 BFM Lyon (@BFMLyon) November 11, 2023 Videos showed gang members wearing balaclavas and face masks as they rampaged outside the Palestine 69 Collective meeting in Lyon, France Lyon's police force were called at around 8pm on Saturday evening Police arrived within half-an-hour and, following a chase, managed to arrest one of the gang, who admitted to being a member of a far-Right group Police were called at around 8pm on Saturday, as Jerome Faynel, the Collective 69 president, said: 'It's the extreme right. They attacked with fireworks, iron bars and glass bottles. 'Chairs and tables were used to reinforce the locked door, preventing the attackers from getting in.' Gregory Doucet, a Lyon mayor, said the conference was 'the target of a far-Right group, and what they did is completely unacceptable. I want to express my support for the victims.' Police arrived within half-an-hour and, following a chase, managed to arrest one of the gang, who admitted to being a member of a far-Right group. There were marches across France on Saturday calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza War, following the killing of thousands of civilians. French President Emmanuel Macron spoke out against Israel on Friday night, saying it should stop killing children, women and pensioners. He said: 'These babies, these ladies, these old people are bombed and killed. So there is no reason for that. So we do urge Israel to stop.' An estimated 11,000 Palestinian have been killed since Israel suffered some 1200 deaths during the Hamas attack on October 7. According to the Gaza health authority, some 4500 children and 3000 women in the invaded enclave are among the dead. The Lyon attack follows far-Right thugs in London trying to disrupt a pro-Palestine march on Saturday. Many of them were arrested around the Cenotaph, following scuffles with police. The First Minister of Scotland has laid a wreath at the Stone of Remembrance today to honour the country's war dead on what he believes to be 'one of the most sacred days of the year'. Humza Yousaf was among dignitaries who participated in the Remembrance Sunday service at the City Chambers in Edinburgh this morning. Mr Yousaf was joined by a Ukrainian family who arrived in Scotland more than a year ago, fleeing the war in their home country. Holyrood Presiding Officer Alison Johnstone, defence minister and former Scottish Tory leader Baroness Goldie, and Edinburgh Lord Provost Robert Aldridge also participated in the commemorations. Today's solemn ceremony comes after the First Minister called on Home Secretary Suella Braverman to resign after police were injured by far-right thugs during a pro-Palestinian protest in London yesterday. Mr Yousaf has also asked Scottish Labour's two MPs to back his party's push for a ceasefire in Gaza. First Minister Humza Yousaf lays a wreath at the Stone of Remembrance on the Royal Mile to honour the country's war dead on what he believes to be 'one of the most sacred days of the year' Humza Yousaf was among dignitaries who participated in the Remembrance Sunday service at the City Chambers in Edinburgh this morning.Mr Yousaf is pictured alongside Lord Provost Robert Aldridge, Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament Alison Johnstone and Baroness Annabel Goldie Pictured are the High Constables followed by the Lord Provost Robert Aldridge and First Minister Humza Yousaf during the Remembrance Sunday service in Edinburgh today Hundreds turned out on a cold morning in the Scottish capital today to pay their respects, observing a two-minute silence and a parade by military personnel. Speaking to journalists before the commemorations, the First Minister said: 'This, to me, is one of the most sacred days of the year. 'It's an opportunity for all of us, all communities, to come together, to reflect, to remember, and to honour all of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice in order so that we can enjoy the freedoms that we cherish every single day. 'I am proud and honoured to be able to play a part on behalf of the Scottish Government.' A military parade from Edinburgh Castle began the memorial, with current and former personnel from different branches walking in formation down the Royal Mile to the City Chambers. Ukrainian Lesya and her children Marichka, 16, and Sviatoslav, nine - who was draped in a Ukrainian flag - laid a wreath on behalf of children who have lost a parent since the Russian invasion last year. The trio arrived in the Scottish capital after the war broke out, with their father Koli staying behind to fight. He was killed two days before the family were due to be reunited in their home country. Hundreds turned out on a cold morning in the Scottish capital today to pay their respects, observing a two-minute silence and a parade by military personnel. Pictured are members of the Royal Navy alongside the Stone of Remembrance on the Royal Mile during the Remembrance Sunday event in Edinburgh today Veterans are pictured during the Remembrance Sunday event at the Stone of Remembrance on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh today First Minister of Scotland, Humza Yousaf, attends Scotland's Remembrance Sunday Event at Edinburgh City Chambers today The Royal Air Force Central Scotland Pipes and Drums play during Scotland's Remembrance Sunday Event at Edinburgh City Chambers today A member of the Ukrainian community stands with the wreath laying party at the Stone of Remembrance outside the Edinburgh City Chambers today Hannah Beaton-Hawryluk, chairwoman of the Association of Ukrainians in GB branch in Edinburgh, said: 'We have to remember. War is all over the world, all of the time. 'Our forefathers fought for our freedoms - we cannot forget that. If we fail to remember the mistakes of the past, we will never, ever learn. 'Lesya's family are one of thousands that have experienced terminal heartbreak in the last 20 months. 'The loss of her beloved husband, and father to her children, Koli, brutally outlines why to fail to learn from historic mistakes creates nothing other than an unstable world full of horror, destruction and immense sadness. 'I know how proud Lesya is of Marichka and Sviastoslav, who today laid a wreath on behalf of all children of Ukraine who have lost a parent to this war.' Legion Scotland chief executive Claire Armstrong stressed the importance of remembering those who served in the armed forces. 'Many people have made the ultimate sacrifice in order to sustain our current way of life,' she said. 'Many more have made unthinkable sacrifices to maintain our freedoms. To them, and for them, we must say 'thank you', and we must remember them.' First Minister of Scotland, Humza Yousaf, lays a wreath during Scotland's Remembrance Sunday Event at Edinburgh City Chambers today The Massed Pipes and Drums perform and march during the Remembrance Sunday event at the Stone of Remembrance on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh today Military personnel attend a wreath laying at the Stone of Remembrance outside the Edinburgh City Chambers today First Minister of Scotland, Humza Yousaf, attends Scotland's Remembrance Sunday Event at Edinburgh City Chambers today A veteran lays a wreath during the Remembrance Sunday event at the Stone of Remembrance on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh today Military personnel attend a wreath laying at the Stone of Remembrance outside the Edinburgh City Chambers today Ahead of today's solemn service, Mr Yousaf called for Mrs Braverman to resign. The SNP leader tweeted yesterday: 'The far right has been emboldened by the Home Secretary. She has spent her week fanning the flames of division. They are now attacking the police on Armistice Day. 'The Home Secretary's position is untenable. She must resign.' He has called on Scottish Labour's two MPs to back his party's push for a ceasefire in Gaza. An SNP amendment to the King's Speech - which calls for an end to hostilities - is expected to come to a vote in the House of Commons this week, with the party urging other MPs to support it. In a letter to Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, Mr Yousaf asked him to confirm his MPs will vote for the motion. Mr Sarwar has broken with the UK Labour leadership on the issue, despite his initial reticence to confirm he supports calling for a ceasefire. Sir Keir Starmer has come under increasing pressure to back the calls, both from inside and outside Labour. The SNP vote - expected on Wednesday - could present an issue for Sir Keir if his MPs back calls for a ceasefire. In his letter, Mr Yousaf wrote: 'As you will be aware, I have been calling for an immediate ceasefire for a number of weeks now. 'I welcome the stance you have taken as leader of your party in backing those calls for a ceasefire, in stark contrast with the position taken by Sir Keir Starmer. 'Given that Scottish Labour has two MPs, I am urging you to confirm that they will vote in accordance with the policy you have set out as their leader - which is widely supported among the general public in Scotland and across the UK, as well as by the United Nations and its aid agencies - rather than the inadequate position being taken by Sir Keir. Tens of thousands of people turned up on the streets of London yesterday to protest the Israel-Hamas conflict At least 300,000 protesters marched Park Lane near Hyde Park to the US embassy in Vauxhall as part of the demonstration calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Police made 126 arrests at the rally and nine officers were left injured Police officers detain a man in the street close to the National March For Palestine in central London yesterday Protesters hold flares during a pro-Palestinian protest in central London yesterday Police clash with far-right counter-protesters in Parliament Square yesterday A large crowd gathered near Parliament Square yesterday. Police said the group threw projectiles and insulted officers Mr Yousaf has called for the resignation of Home Secretary Suella Braverman, pictured during the National Service of Remembrance at The Cenotaph on Whitehall, London today 'If both Scottish Labour MPs choose to defy you as leader of Scottish Labour by not backing a ceasefire, they will not only be out of step with the Scottish public, but on the wrong side of history. 'Given the mounting death of innocent children, women and men, nothing less than an immediate ceasefire can meet the humanitarian needs of the moment. 'I trust that you are in a position to offer this reassurance regarding how Scottish Labour's two MPs will vote.' Speaking to the Daily Record at the end of last month, Mr Sarwar said comments made by Sir Keir - which have since been rowed back - that Israel had the right to cut off food and water from Gaza had been 'hurtful'. He added there would be 'repair work to do' with Muslim communities ahead of the next general election, but said the Labour leader had been 'pained' by the comments. An evening dinner menu for first-class passengers onboard the Titanic has sold for more than 80,000 at auction. The dinner - including oysters, beef, spring lamb and mallard duck - was served on the evening of April 11, 1912, after the liner left Queenstown in Ireland for New York during its maiden journey. The menu was sold for 84,000 at Henry Aldridge & Son in Devizes, Wiltshire on Saturday. The 6.25ins x 4.25ins menu bears an embossed red White Star Line burgee and would have originally shown gilt lettering depicting the initials OSNC (Ocean Steamship Navigation Company) alongside the lettering RMS Titanic. More than 1,500 passengers and crew died when the Titanic struck an iceberg on the evening of April 14 and sank the following day. The dinner was served on the evening of April 11, 1912 after the liner left Queenstown in Ireland for New York during its maiden journey More than 1,500 passengers and crew died when the Titanic struck an iceberg on the evening of April 14 and sank the following day Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said: 'The latter shows signs of water immersion having been partially erased, the reverse of the menu also clearly displays further evidence of this. 'This would point to the menu having been subjected to the icy North Atlantic waters on the morning of April 15 either having left the ship with a survivor who was exposed to those cold sea waters or recovered on the person of one of those lost. 'Having spoken to the leading collectors of Titanic memorabilia globally and consulted with numerous museums with Titanic collections, we can find no other surviving examples of a first-class April 11 dinner menu. 'The menu is a remarkable survivor from the most famous ocean liner of all time.' Among the first-class passengers onboard the Titanic was multi-millionaire John Jacob Astor, millionaire Benjamin Guggenheim, Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff Gordon and socialite Molly Brown. The menu was discovered in a photo album from the 1960s after the passing of the late Len Stephenson by his daughter and son-in-law. Mr Stephenson was a keen historian of his hometown Dominion in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia and collected and preserved many records. Other items which featured in the sale included a Swiss-made pocket watch owned by and recovered from second-class Titanic passenger Sinai Kantor, which sold for 97,000. A first-class tartan-patterned deck blanket, which was likely used during the rescue of passengers, fetched 96,000. Benjamin Netanyahu says his Israeli Defense Forces will be able to swiftly defeat Hamas terrorists operating out of Gaza as he previews release of more hostages. The Israeli prime minister took a dig at American efforts to take-out al-Qaeda and ISIS terrorist organizations, claiming Israel will act faster in defeating Hamas. It comes as he dodged questions from CNN on whether he would take responsibility for not preventing the terrorist attacks on October 7. Many claim there was an intelligence failure on the part of Israel's government. The conflict between Israel and Hamas has been ongoing for more than a month. 'I don't think it's going to take the time that it took the United States and the international coalition to defeat ISIS or to defeat al-Qaeda. It took you many years. I don't think it's going to be many years,' Netanyahu told NBC News host Kristen Welker during a Sunday interview on Meet the Press. He also claimed that there are negotiations for the release of more hostages from the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, where Hamas is the de facto government. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that IDF is working toward a quick defeat of Hamas terrorists, and said it would be done more swiftly than the U.S. took out al-Qaeda and ISIS Meanwhile, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said during an interview on ABC This Week that the U.S. believes there should be 'no reoccupation of Gaza' after Hamas is defeated by Israel. 'No reduction in the territory of Gaza. No forcible displacement of Palestinians,' he added. Netanyahu told NBC that he has set 'targets' for the road to defeating Hamas, but claimed he doesn't have a specific deadline in mind. 'We're proceeding as quickly as we can but also as carefully as we can, because we want to minimize civilian casualties and we want to minimize casualties on our side while maximizing the, the casualties of the Hamas terrorists,' he added. In the same interview, the Israel PM said that 'there could be' a deal on Gaza releasing more hostages held by Hamas terrorists but he didn't want to say too much publicly. 'The less I say about it, the more I've increased the chances that it materializes,' Netanyahu said. 'Do you know where all of the hostages are being held right now, Mr. Prime Minister?' Welker asked Netanyahu. He replied: 'We know a great deal, but I won't go beyond that.' Netanyahu previewed on Sunday that there might be a deal on the table for release of more hostages from the Hamas stronghold of war-torn Gaza (pictured on November 12) Asked in a separate interview on CNN's State of the Union Sunday program about taking responsibility for the failures that led to the October 7 attack, Netanyahu said there would be time for such 'difficult' questions once the war is over. 'We're going to answer all these questions. Right now, I think what we have to do is unite the country for one purpose; to achieve victory,' he told CNN host Dana Bash. 'Let's focus on victory that's my responsibility now.' Pressure has built on Netanyahu regarding the failure of Israel to anticipate and prepare for the deadliest attack in Israel's history. On October 7, Hamas killed the most amount of Jewish people in a single day since the Holocaust. Around 1,400 Israelis were killed in the attacks and 200 were taken hostage. Sullivan says there are still nine Americans missing, as well after 32 were killed in the terrorist attacks. This is the horrifying moment an Iranian man holding a sign comparing Hamas with Isis is attacked on Vauxhall Bridge during the pro-Palestine protests yesterday. As roughly 300,000 people descended on England's capital for an Armistice Day protest amid the Israel and Hamas war, chilling footage emerged of the threatening exchange. Video shows a man, wearing a black cap and hoodie, calmly standing on the side of the road as pro-Palestine protesters march beside him. He later claimed he was attacked 'by a mob with knives and bats' although the footage does not appear to show any weapons. In the clip, one individual goes over to confront him with a group of hooded men bearing the Palestinian flag follow close behind. Within seconds, the man is surrounded. Two of the men then attempt to snatch the poster, reading 'October 7 genocide. Hamas ISIS', from his hands, before following after him and insisting he gives it to them. Video shows the man, wearing a black cap and hoodie, calmly standing on the side of the road as pro Palestine protestors march beside him Dozens of people begin to join in the chase, shoving and harassing the man to let go of the poster Dozens of people begin to join in the chase, shoving and harassing him to let go of the poster. The confrontation is broken up by other pro-Palestine protesters as one launches to attack him. The man then scuffles away with the scrunched up poster in his hands. Writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, he claimed: 'When in a free country like England, telling the truth causes masked men like mobs to attack you with bats and knives, imagine what crimes and genocide Hamas terrorists committed with guns on the 7th of October in Israel!!' In another horrifying video shared to social media a women screams 'death to all the Jews' as she confronts a group of counter protesters at Victoria station in London. Footage appears to show pro-Palestine supporters engaging with pro-Israel supporters, with the latter asking questions about one of the Hamas hostages. The pro-Palestine supporters, seemingly aggrieved by the confrontation, shout back: 'Excuse me? You've lost your mind'. 'How old was Aisha? She was nine', the counter protestors ask back. It is at this point that a woman wearing a white jacket walks past the arguing groups, violently yelling: 'Killers! Killers! Death to all the jews'. Taking to social media this afternoon, the British Transport police issued an appeal to identify the woman. They explained they were searching for her in relation to an 'anti-Semitic hate crime'. A woman wearing a white jacket walks past two arguing groups, violently yelling: 'Killers! Killers! Death to all the jews' It came as 300,000 people descended on the country's capital for an Armistice Day protest amid the Israel and Hamas war. Indeed the search for London's most wanted is on, as police confirmed their hunt for a slew of 'activists' and 'counter protestors'. It comes as police are searching for four men over a 'racially aggravated altercation' after video showed them hurling abuse at pro Palestine protestors at Waterloo station in London. The British Transport Police launched an appeal on social media in an attempt to identify the men who were filmed. The force said officers were looking to speak to the individuals in the images 'who they believe may have information that could help their investigation'. Video shared to X showed four men, including one in an Arsenal shirt, walking through the station before shouting vile expletives at protestors in the station. The Arsenal fan is seemingly the first to hit out, calling the group of individuals 'terrorist f***ers'. Another man then steps forward, agreeing: 'Yeah who are you? You terrorist c***'. The confrontation appears to escalate as one of the men shouts: 'Who are you? Who are you f***ing hitting'. He is then held back by another man as he leaps forward. Pro Palestine supporters then hit back, telling the group of men: 'You are being disrespectful towards the dead'. The right-wing mob then declare in response: 'Who are you? We were born in this country. You f***ing tourist c***s'. The man behind the camera filming the incident then claps back: 'I was born here too'. The group then become increasingly confrontational as they tackle more protestors with abusive language. Shouts of 'where are the police?' can be heard in the background. It comes as p olice are searching for four men over a 'racially aggravated altercation' after video showed them hurling abuse at pro Palestine protestors at Waterloo station in London Four men, including one in an Arsenal shirt, can be seen walking through the station before shouting vile expletives at protestors in the station One of the mob then declare: 'We care about the country', as the man behind the camera shouts back: 'You care about this country? You care about this country so you're causing a riot for no reason.' The man in the Arsenal shirt violently shouts back: 'You are causing the riot mate'. As station security begin to appear, the men disperse and begin to walk away. Sharing the video to X, a user by the name @QueerhanKhan wrote: 'Thank you @SuellaBraverman - your dog whistle rhetoric made mine, and other peoples day at @LondonWaterloo extremely frightening. 'Your words have inspired racists to terrorise us and make it harder for @metpoliceuk to do their job today. You need to resign, NOW #ThankYouSuella'. A spokesperson for The British Transport Police said: 'British Transport Police is aware of a video circulating on social media of an incidents at Waterloo Station yesterday. 'Senior detectives are currently reviewing the footage and anyone with any information is urged to contact British Transport Police as soon as possible.' Afghanistan is a landlocked country with Iran as its western neighbor and Pakistan in the east. In the north there are two neighboring central Asian nations, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, plus three other stans that do not border Afghanistan. Iran is a problem for Afghanistan. With the withdrawal of American troops and financial support in 2021, the Taliban, now called the IEA (Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan), took it over and had a difficult time running Afghanistan or dealing with Islamic terrorists and local rebel groups. That has sent a growing number of Afghan refugees into Iran. Relations between Iran and the IEA have been tense but, so far, not violent. Pakistan is a different matter, with many groups hostile to Pakistan finding sanctuary in Afghanistan and continuing to make attacks on Pakistan. Chaos inside Afghanistan is not unusual and can be considered the normal state of a country that never really came together as a unified state. The IEA is discovering that occupying the capital, Kabul, does not produce a lot of benefits for them. When the IEA took control in 2021, the literacy rate began to fall. At that point the adult (all those over 15) literacy rate was 46 percent compared to 31 percent in 2001 and 18 percent in 1979, when the four decades of war began. For school-age Afghans the current literacy is nearly 50 percent because since 2002 over a third of Afghans have received at least a basic education and nearly half of those have been female, despite vigorous Taliban efforts to block that. Since 2014 the Taliban have put a priority on destroying schools, especially those that educate girls. The number of girls getting an education has been declining. The current Afghan literacy rate is 46 percent compared to 72 percent for India, 96 percent in China and 87 percent in Iran. Countries with higher literacy rates tend to have stronger economies and more prosperity in general. The U.S. has a literacy rate of 99 percent, as does Britain and most other Western nations. The more prosperous Arab states, like the UAE (United Arab Emirates) have a 93 percent literacy rate. The higher literacy rate usually leads to a better educated and more productive workforce. The two decades of IRA (Islamic Republic of Afghanistan) rule were made possible by $2.3 trillion dollars of American aid. Some of this money also went t0 Pakistan, which turned out to be a mistake. In 2019 Pakistan admitted that for the last fifteen years it had lied about the presence of over 30,000 armed men in Pakistan and Kashmir working for 40 Islamic terror groups. That deception was one of the reasons the U.S. cut off all aid to Pakistan. In addition to halting cash assistance of Afghanistan, the United States pulled the last of its troops in late 2021 and the U.S. backed IRA government collapsed, replaced by the IEA. If the IEA does allow groups based in Afghanistan to make attacks on the United States or American in other countries, the response will be sanctions and air strikes on Afghanistan. Untrustworthy Afghan governments are nothing new, and it is a tradition that is several centuries old. Outsiders are considered fair game for all manner of deceptions and costly mistakes while trying to do business in Afghanistan. The Americans proved to be the most lucrative victim and, after 20 years of persistent corruption, decided the situation was not going to change and left. The U.S. still supplies support for Afghanistan through its donations of UN food programs for Afghanistan. The Pentagon's outgoing UFO chief has said he does believe extraterrestrial life exists - but that you'd have to go to Mars or beyond to find it. Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the longtime laser and materials physicist and head of the Pentagon's UFO-chasing All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, delivered his assessment following news of his retirement from government service. Kirkpatrick's 18-month tenure as the office's first-ever director has been laced with controversy, as expected for an area once relegated to the scientific fringe. In the summer, there was a Congress hearing into claims the American government is covering up its knowledge of alien craft - which included the resurfacing of the 'Tic Tac' shaped UFO saga from 15 years ago. Kirkpatrick's office was established in July 2022. He said his mission is to 'is raise the level of the conversation' around aliens and their potential existence. Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the longtime laser and materials physicist and head of the Pentagon 's UFO-chasing All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office delivered his assessment following news of his retirement from government service The description 'Tic Tac' was used for the 'perfectly white' wingless oblong that was captured from a cockpit's in-flight video (pictured) When asked by Politico if aliens are real, he said: 'That is a great question. I love that question. 'Number one, the best thing that could come out of this job is to prove that there are aliens, right? Because if we dont prove there are aliens, then what were finding is evidence of other people doing stuff in our backyard. And thats not good. 'Two, from a scientific perspective: The scientific community will agree that it is statistically invalid to believe that there is not life out in the universe, as vast as the universe is and the number of galaxies and solar systems and planets. 'That is what part of NASAs mission is to look for that life. The probability, however, that that life is intelligent and that it has found Earth and that it has come to Earth and that it has repeatedly crashed in the United States is not very probable. 'So part of what weve been trying to do, and part of what I will continue to do until Im done, is raise the level of the conversation. 'If you are talking with NASA or the European Space Agency, and youre talking about looking for life out in the universe, it is a very objective, very scientifically sound discussion and discourse. Kirkpatrick's 18-month tenure as the office's first-ever director has been laced with controversy, as expected for a mandate once relegated to the scientific fringe 'As that discussion gets closer to the solar system, somewhere around Mars, it turns into science fiction. And then as you get even closer to Earth, and you cross into Earths atmosphere, it becomes conspiracy theory. 'We need to change the level of the [public] conversation. Its one of the reasons why weve engaged academia to work on a number of scientific papers that look at the probabilities of these things, and what are the signatures associated with that? 'So that we can benchmark what were doing in scientific proofs and in scientific fact and not hearsay and pointing fingers and government cover ups and conspiracies with no evidence of any of them.' Kirkpatrick also revealed he's had over 30 whistleblowers 'come in to talk,' adding: 'We have investigated every single one of them, every single story, every lead that provided any substantive evidence for us to go after.' According to the director of the Pentagon's UFO investigation office, 'the best thing that could come out of this job is to prove that there are aliens.' The alternative to what would be a literally Earth-changing discovery of extraterrestrial life exploring our own planet would be that a rival foreign power could be 'doing stuff in our backyard,' he said. Kirkpatrick added: 'And that's not good.' While some UFO whistleblowers now accuse Kirkpatrick of fostering an 'atmosphere of disinterest,' others have suggested his superiors are holding AARO's efforts back even though a few have described 'really positive' experiences with the office. 'I'm ready to move on,' Kirkpatrick told Politico, upon official confirmation of his retirement. 'I have accomplished everything I said I was going to do.' Whistleblowers with knowledge of a classified UFO 'reverse engineering' program have opted to testify to the Senate intelligence committee, in part over their reported mistrust of Kirkpatrick and his Pentagon UFO office. Above, a page from Project 1794 declassified in 2012 Kirkpatrick added there remains lingering tasks he hopes to have finished including the office's congressionally directed 'Historical Record Report' on UFOs, which is due to Congress in June 2024, over six months after Kirkpatrick's departure. At a press conference this past Halloween, Kirkpatrick announced a new secure reporting mechanism designed to help the office investigate claims of alleged highly secretive and potentially illegal US government UFO programs. 'The reporting mechanism is for current or former US government employees, service members, or contractors with direct knowledge of alleged US government programs or activities related to UAP [UFOs] dating back to 1945,' he said. Ever since UFOs exploded back into public consciousness with a series of New York Times exposes in December 2017, government officials, scientists and devotees have reframed the mysteries as unidentified aerial, or anomalous, phenomena: 'UAP.' The new name hopes to add caution and reduce preconceived notions as to the true nature these airborne mysteries. When asked at the Halloween press conference whether AARO has reached out to officials from adversarial foreign nations in an effort to pool UAP data, Dr. Kirkpatrick replied that the concept was a non-starter from a national security standpoint. 'We certainly have not reached out to any adversaries, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which they're adversaries,' Kirkpatrick said. While the office's annual UAP report released this October found that 'none' of its hundreds of military UFO cases 'have been positively attributed to foreign activities,' Kirkpatrick expressed concern over telling, but less concrete, evidence. 'I am worried from a national security perspective,' Kirkpatrick told CNN in advance of the report's release. 'There are some indicators that may be attributed to foreign activity, and we are investigating those very hard,' he said. This time last year, a classified 22-page report, compiled by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, described hundreds of unresolved cases, some involving 'orbs' caught on drone cameras that were then seen 'suddenly bolting off the screen.' Some non-government groups, including specialists Bellingcat, have offered prosaic explanations for one of these 'orbs' but Kirkpatrick has openly speculated in a paper with Harvard physicist Dr. Avi Loeb that these UAP could be alien probes. Despite serious concerns from AARO's soon-to-be-departing director that the solution the UAP mystery might prove to be advanced tech flown by a foreign power, evidence exists that these 'metallic orbs' predate even the Cold War era. One 1944 Newsweek article, titled 'The Silver Sphere Puzzle,' explored similar cases of flying orbs during WWII, as did a report from the Associated Press headlined 'Balls of Silver Seen Over Reich Intrigue Science.' Then too, journalists and investigators suspected it was a wartime anti-radar device from one of America's then-adversarial nations, Nazi Germany. 'It could be that those floating silver balls encountered by American airmen over the Reich are another German attempt to create interference for radio communications,' the AP's wartime radio editor wrote. 'The most common misconception is that [the possible phenomena] are all the same thing and they're all extraterrestrial,' as Kirkpatrick told ABC News last July, 'and neither of those are true.' French politicians across the political spectrum have joined tens of thousands of people for a march through Paris to protest against rising antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Centrist Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, representatives of several left-wing parties as well as far-right leader Marine Le Pen attended the march in the French capital on Sunday, amid tight security. While President Emmanuel Macron did not attend, he expressed his support for the protest and called on citizens to rise up against 'the unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism'. The leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, Jean-Luc Melenchon, meanwhile stayed away from the march, saying last week on X, formerly Twitter, that it would be a meeting of 'friends of unconditional support for the massacre' in Gaza. Le Pen attended the march amid fierce criticism that her once-pariah National Rally party has failed to shake off its anti-Semitic heritage despite growing political legitimacy. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen (pictured, centre) attended the march in the French capital on Sunday Thousands of Parisian police officers kept order at the march, which took place on Sunday Former president Nicolas Sarkozy (pictured, left), whose grandfather was Jewish, was seen at the march Also in attendance was former president Francois Hollande (pictured, second from left) Also seen at the march were former Presidents of France Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, whose grandfather was Jewish. Paris' authorities deployed 3,000 police troops along the route of the protest, which was called by the leaders of the Senate and parliament's lower house, the National Assembly, amid an alarming increase in anti-Semitism in France since the start of the conflict last month. Thousands were seen holding signs in solidary with France's Jewish population. One sign read: 'Jewish lives matter.' Another sign, translated, read: 'Fascists f*** you, the Jews don't want you.' Holding a French flag, Robert Fiel, 67, said marching against antisemitism is 'more than a duty'. 'It's a march against violence, against antisemitism, against all [extremists] that are infiltrating society, to show that the silent majority does exist,' he said. France has the largest Jewish population in Europe, with the Institute for Jewish Policy Research claiming that the country has a 'core' Jewish population of 442,000. More than 1,000 acts against Jews around the country have been registered in the past month alone. Thousands were seen holding signs in solidary with France's Jewish population, with one reading: 'Jewish lives matter' Another sign, translated, read: 'Fascists f*** you, the Jews don't want you.' In a letter addressed to the French people on Sunday, Macron vowed that perpetrators of anti-Semitism will be prosecuted and punished. 'A France where our Jewish fellow citizens are afraid is not France,' he said in the letter, published in Le Parisien newspaper. He called on the country to remain 'united behind its values... and work for peace and security for all in the Middle East'. He noted that 40 French citizens were killed in the initial Hamas attack, and eight remain missing or held hostage. 'To this pain of the nation has been added the unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism,' he said. As of Saturday, officials counted 1,247 anti-Semitic acts in France since October 7 - nearly three times as many as for the whole of 2022, according to the Interior Ministry. France has largely banned pro-Palestinian demonstrations, although supporters have marched in several cities in the past weeks. Thousands demanded a ceasefire in Gaza in an authorised protest in Paris last Sunday. MIT admitted the reason it failed to follow through with threats to suspend students who participated in an unauthorized anti-Israel protest was because the school feared the agitators could be deported. Institute President Sally Kornbluth acknowledged the elite university's position in a statement in response to a protest that posed a threat to Jewish and Israeli students. The demonstration was held on Thursday in 'Lobby 7,' the entrance to MIT. University regulations specifically prohibit demonstrations occurring at the site of heavy campus traffic. A group called the Committee Against Apartheid organized the protest, which began at 8am. Upon learning what was happening, a group of Jewish and Israeli students showed up to stage a counter-protest. The statement issued by Kornbluth - who has served as president of the university since January - said after the confrontation between protestors erupted 'we had serious concerns that it could lead to violence.' This is a math class this morning at @MIT. Professor allows students to say and free Palestine and wave the Palestine flag in front of the class pic.twitter.com/PDVdzOgI5e Sal Gueli (@sal_gueli) November 10, 2023 MIT students staged an unsanctioned anti-Israel protest in the university's main entrance hall on Thursday 'After exhausting all other avenues for de-escalating the situation, we informed all protesters that they must leave the lobby area within a set time, or they would be subject to suspension,' she continued. 'Many chose to leave, and I appreciate their cooperation. Some did not. Members of my team have been in dialogue with students all day. 'Because we later heard serious concerns about collateral consequences for the students, such as visa issues, we have decided, as an interim action, that the students who remained after the deadline will be suspended from non-academic campus activities. The students will remain enrolled at MIT and will be able to attend academic classes and labs.' The semi-suspension, said Kornbluth, would be referred to an ad-hoc complaint response team for final judgment on the situation. As is the case with many prestigious American institutions of higher education, a significant portion of MIT's student body is international students. In the weeks since the outbreak of the war triggered by Palestinian terrorists' barbaric attack on innocent Israeli citizens, it has been widely speculated that many of the students at the heads of the anti-Israel protests unfolding across American college campuses are not US citizens. According to Haaretz, Kornbluth's statement is the first time a US university has acknowledged that many of the protests' lead organizers are not American. Last week, anti-Israel groups organized demonstrations across campuses around the nation using the slogan 'Shut it down for Palestine.' In response to the protest, and ongoing protests of the same nature on MIT's campus, a group called 'The MIT Israel Alliance and its Supporters' issued a statement claiming the Committee Against Apartheid has repeatedly harassed MIT students and staff for being Jewish. 'All of this has occurred with no clear response from the administration.' 'With each passing day, MIT admins silence makes Jewish and Israeli students feel unsafe at MIT,' it read. A statement from MIT President Sally Kornbluth - who has been at her current post for less than a year - said the students who protested in flagrant violation of university policy and after the administration told them to stop under threat of suspension, would not actually be removed because it may lead to their deportation Jewish students were told not to enter MIT through the main lobby on Thursday due to concerns for their physical safety In the weeks since the outbreak of the war triggered by Palestinian terrorists' barbaric attack on innocent Israeli citizens, it has been widely speculated that many of the students at the heads of the anti-Israel protests unfolding across American college campuses are not US citizens The group said that Jewish students were told not to enter MIT through the main lobby on Thursday due to concerns for their physical safety. The statement further said the Jewish and Israeli counter-protestors exited the site of the protest as soon as the administration issued its warning about suspensions. Separately, a widely shared video taken last week, shows a student interrupting a math class at MIT to condemn Israel's actions in Gaza. The student then waves a Palestinian flag and encourages students to join him as he chants: 'Free, free Palestine.'. Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, 57, shared the video and slammed MIT for a 'failure of leadership'. The student got up to interrupt the math lecturer - who politely asked if the disruption could wait until he was done explaining a math problem, saying 'can I just finish this line?' When the teacher was finished - the student demonstrator said 'as you witness an ongoing genocide of Gaza in MIT silence - I'm joining hundreds of students city-wide walking out of class, 'We stand for the liberation of Palestine against active genocide that is perpetuated by MIT, Israel and the United States.' The student then grabbed a Palestinian flag and chanted 'free, free Palestine' along with his fellow protestors. At Columbia University - the site of some of the most virulently anti-Semitic protests that have occurred since October 7 - the school announced on Friday that it was suspending Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace - two extremely anti-Israel organizations. The groups are suspended at least throughout the remainder of the fall semester after violating multiple school rules and regulations with their unsanctioned protests. A wife beater Alaska mayor's two abusive sons each dated a woman who turned up dead at the lawmaker's home two years apart - but no-one has ever been charged. Jennifer Kirk and Sue Sue Norton were found dead with signs of strangulation and beating in 2018 and 2020 in the Alaskan town, Kotzebue. Both women were dating the ex-mayor Clement Richards's sons at the time, with cops accused by ProPublica of inaction following the two women's deaths. Richards was previously convicted of beating his wife Annette, while his two sons Anthony and Amos also have a history of domestic violence. Anthony had been convicted of beating Kirk prior to her death in May 2018, which cops claimed was a suicide. Amos admitted kicking Norton in the stomach while she was six months pregnant before she was killed in March 2020. Despite those convictions - and a long track record of abuse allegations from multiple other women - neither of the sons have been charged in their deaths. Holes in the police investigations and the judicial process have raised serious questions over a potential cover-up, after ProPublica and the Anchorage Daily News jointly reported the story. EX-MAYOR IS WOMAN-BEATER AND WIFE WORKED FOR COPS Clement Richard is pictured while campaigning to become the mayor of Kotzebue, Alaska. A shocking new report has detailed the deaths of two of his domestic abuser sons' girlfriends at his home two years apart - and subsequent police inaction Mayor Clement Richards Sr. and his wife Annette Richards The Richards family, shared on Facebook by Clement Richards Sr Clement Richards Sr. was elected to the city council in 1999, holding positions as vice mayor and then mayor until 2018. Ten years before he was first elected, he beat his pregnant wife, Annette, and pleaded no contest to felony domestic violence assault - he received a six-month jail sentence, according to ProPublica. No mention of his domestic abuser past was made during this campaign. Annette worked in a local office of the Alaska State Troopers where her duties involved assisting state prosecutors, including one who later served as the judge in domestic violence cases against her sons. There is no suggestion she directly interfered in either case. Unexplained holes in the subsequent police investigations and judicial proceedings involving the couple's sons have called into question whether Richards' and his wife's positions have helped their children avoid charges in their girlfriends' deaths. FIRST DEATH, MAY 2018: 'SUICIDE' Jennifer Kirk, 25, was found lying dead at the foot of a bed with a rifle at her feet, strangulation marks around her neck and a bullet hole under her chin. She was dating the son of the former mayor, Anthony Richards, at the time and had previously made a series of police reports alleging he had beaten her. Despite this, her death was declared a suicide. On May 23, 2018, police were called to the pair's home on the ex-mayor's property - they found Anthony in the bedroom, holding Kirk's body covered in blood. Anthony told police that he had been watching TV when he heard a gunshot and found Kirk dying on the floor - he did not tell police they had had a fight, or that he had strangled her. Jennifer Kirk was found dead in 2018, her death was declared a suicide after one day of investigation A police report, seen by ProPublica noted that 'the length of the rifle from the tip of the barrel to the tip of the trigger as being 27 1/8 inches long'. But Kirk, who was just 5'5 tall, had an arm that measured 26 3/18 inches long - raising questions over whether she could have even held such a long gun. Then two days later, when the state medical examiner found the 'signs of strangulation', Richards reportedly admitted he had fought violently with Kirk on the day of her death and strangled her in self defense. He told police he 'held her away by the neck and didnt know how hard he was squeezing.' It wasn't the first time Richards was harmed Kirk. In 2015, Kirk had presented at the local hospital and told police he had punched her five times. Anthony Richards had admitted to beating Kirk in the past Then in 2017, Kirk told police he had strangled her until her field of vision began to shrink and she nearly passed out. The case could have been a felony charge, but the prosecutor let him off with an assault misdemeanor. Despite his history, then-police chief, Thomas Milliette, closed the case of Kirk's death after a single day of investigation, labeling it as a suicide. After reviewing the records, former Kotzebue Police Chief Ed Ward said Kirk's death appeared to have all of the ten red flags for domestic violence killings that police are instructed to look for - Ward did not work at the police department at the time of her death. Kirk's family told ProPublica she had given no hints she was suicidal. Her mother, Dora Stalker, said she had spoken to her on the day of her death and she had sounded upbeat, making plans for the future. She added: 'They should have investigated a lot better, a lot more thorough before they said it was a suicide.' SECOND DEATH, MARCH 2020: HOMICIDE Two years after Kirk's death, Susanna 'Sue Sue' Norton, 30, was found dead in an adjacent house also on the former mayor's property. At the time, she was dating the former-mayor's son, Amos Richards. Police were called to the house on March 9 where they found Norton's body with her head covered. She had been beaten and strangled and an autopsy determined the cause of death to be homicide by 'asphyxiation due to obstruction of airways and compression of neck.' Despite this, no one has been charged in her death. Police reportedly did not tell her family she had been strangled, never interviewed key witnesses and a judge refused a search warrant, meaning key evidence was not collected from the scene. Shockingly, no appeal for information was made to the public. That was in marked contrast to a year previously, when cops had urged the public to come forward with anything that could help them catch the killer of the local fire department's dog. Susanna Norton was found dead in March 2020, her death was ruled a homicide, but no one has been charged Susanna Norton and Amos Richards in 2018 Richards had attacked Norton in the past. In 2018, police found Norton, who was six months pregnant at the time, crying with a swollen black eye. She reportedly told them that she had tried to stop her Richards from drinking by pouring out his beer, and that he had 'kicked her repeatedly in the head, face, stomach and back.' Norton then flew to Anchorage where doctors reportedly noted she had suffered 'premature rupture of membranes' and her baby was born 3-months early, weighing just 3.1 pounds. In 2020, Norton's mother, Susanna, said: 'My family is not going to have peace until they know that they found someone that did this to her'. COPS' BIZARRE BEHAVIOR Both Anthony, Amos and the third Richards' son, Clement Jr have a long history of domestic violence and assault - but they have all dodged serious punishment. The Daily News and ProPublica reportedly reviewed 31 criminal court cases involving the three sons and six different women. Twelve of the cases were for domestic violence, seven of which were filed while Clement Sr. held political office. Despite the multiple charges and multiple victims, the sons were repeatedly let off with light sentences and lower bail. Superior Court Judge Paul Roetman cited knowing Anthony Richards' mother as a reason for giving him low bail Once, when Anthony Richards was accused of sexual assault, Superior Court Judge Paul Roetman set an unusually low bail, and cited knowing his mother as the reason. At the bail hearing, he reportedly said: 'I know Mrs. Richards from when she used to work for the troopers. She has a lot of experience with these types of cases and knows what these are like.' Although a Kotzebue grand jury indicted him on felony charges of sexual assault and attempted sexual assault, Anthony was eventually let off with a single misdemeanor count of indecent exposure. Roetman reportedly told him in court: 'To say that you dodged a bullet is probably an understatement on this one.' Roetman declined to comment through a court system spokesperson when approached by ProPublica. The spokesperson said: 'Judicial officers cannot and do not comment on their cases, in order to maintain the integrity of their decisions and to ensure that, for fairness reasons, their thinking is reflected solely in the official court record without extraneous commentary.' DailyMail.com contacted the Richards family and the Kotzebue police department for comment. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is still gaining traction as so-far the only third-party candidate that could serve as a spoiler but most surveys show him more likely to ruin Donald Trump's chances at the White House in 2024 than President Joe Biden's. A recent poll this month from Quinnipiac shows Biden still earning most support with 39 percent of the vote when put in a hypothetical general election match-up with Trump and Kennedy. Meanwhile, the same poll shows the former president with 36 support, while Kennedy earned 22 percent. Reaching nearly one-third support in a general election poll this early is shocking, and shows that RFK Jr. does have a following that could lead him to spoiling Trump's shot at gaining back control of the White House. Originally, Kennedy was running as a Democrat, but last month changed his mind and decided he would run as an independent instead. Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could serve as a spoiler to Donald Trump in 2024, several polls and analyses indicate Before Kennedy, the last independent presidential candidate able to earn over 20% percent support within a year of the election was Ross Perot in 1992 who went on to receive 19% of the popular vote that year. The last independent presidential candidate that was able to earn over 20 percent percent support in a pre-election poll within a year of the election was Ross Perot in 1992. He received 19 percent of the popular vote that year. A separate Quinnipiac University poll released early in October shows that Republican voters like RFK Jr. a lot more than their Democratic counterparts. Republicans have a more favorable view of Kennedy by a 30-point margin, while Democrats have a more unfavorable view of him by a 43-point gap. Despite his initial Democrat run, Kennedy has a lot of views specifically in regards to COVID-19 and the vaccination that line-up with ideals of the MAGA base. In swing states, RFK Jr. is also performing well. A shock New York Times/Siena College survey where Trump was shown beating Biden in five of the six battleground states key to winning in 2024, Kennedy also earned some impressively high marks as a third-party candidate. Kennedy earned 24 percent support in Arizona, 23 percent in Georgia, 25 percent in Michigan, 19 percent in Nevada and 21 percent in both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Those six states are ones Biden won in 2020 over Trump many of them flipping from red to blue between 2016 and the last presidential election. Although the NYT/Siena poll has Trump winning in five of the six states against Biden in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, RFK Jr.'s entry into the decision ruins it for the ex-president. When Kennedy was added as an option for likely voters, Trump was only ahead of Biden in two of the six states Georgia and Nevada and his five-point leads in Arizona and Pennsylvania lowered to ties with the current president. Essentially what Trump's team touted as a win for Republicans in the latest poll become less clear considering Kennedy's addition to the race leads to questions over the favorite to win the Electoral College in 2024. A NYT/Siena poll this month showed Trump winning against Biden in five of the six key swing states for 2024 but when Kennedy was added into the mix, Trump only won two of the six Independent Cornel West announced his bid on June 5 under the People's Party. He garnered 6 percent and 4 percent respectively in the recent Quinnipiac and CNN/SSRS surveys. Additionally, Jill Stein announced Thursday she is running for the Green Party nomination in 2024. She was the third-party's nominee in 2012 and 2016. On Thursday, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin said Thursday he is not seeking reelection for Congress next year fueling speculation he will launch a third-party bid with the No Labels movement, which aims for bipartisanship in the executive. A PRRI poll over the summer showed Manchin taking 10 percent of the vote as a No Labels candidate. The relatives of a father who died after being found unconscious in the street have paid tribute to the 'devoted family man'. Vincent McDonagh was found unconscious with a serious head injury just before midnight on Thursday. Police were called to Abbey Hills Road in Oldham, Greater Manchester, where they found the 45-year-old. But despite the best efforts of emergency services, he tragically passed away a short time later. A 38-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder. Mr McDonagh, who was originally from Ireland and had six brothers and seven sisters, was dedicated to his family, according to his fiancee Demi. Mr McDonagh, who was originally from Ireland and had six brothers and seven sisters, was dedicated to his family, according to his fiancee Demi In a touching tribute, she said: 'Vinny was an amazing fiance, a loving dad and devoted family man. He was kind and helpful to everyone and nothing was ever too much to ask. 'He loved his little boy to pieces, he doted on him and would always make sure his had everything. 'He loved his music and would always sing to me and his little boy, he was always making jokes and was the life of the party. 'He was from a big family in Ireland and had six brothers and seven sisters, and would always speak about their memories and his love for his dad Barney. 'Our lives are so empty without him, we cannot believe someone would just take him away. 'He will be missed so much, and we don't know how to go on without him. We always used to say we loved each other to the moon and stars and now I won't hear that from him again.' Police are still appealing to anyone with information or footage including CCTV, mobile or dashcam to get in touch. If you have information about the incident, you can make a report by calling 101 quoting log 3909 of 09/11/2023. The terrorists of Hamas are 'losing their grip' on Gaza in the face of the Israeli Defence Forces onslaught, a senior IDF spokesman told the Mail today. Civil disobedience, looting and unprecedented criticism of Hamas on social media show that Hamas control in Gaza is slipping away, Lt Col Jonathan Conricus, the IDF's international spokesman said in an exclusive briefing. 'Our assessment is that their command functions and their ability to effectively conduct military operations and control the population simultaneously, is challenged,' he said. 'And their ability to do so is limited they're not totally vanquished. They still have some control and influence, but it is far from what they would like and a big difference from what there was a month ago.' He said as well as civil unrest and looting, 'Public resentment is showing on social media, where people are expressing their feelings towards Hamas about how disappointed they are, how challenged. IDF soldiers walk past houses that were destroyed on Oct 7 when Hamas attacked this kibbutz near the Gaza border on November 12, 2023 in Kfar Aza A month after Hamas's Oct. 7 attacks, the country's military has continued its sustained bombardment of the Gaza Strip. Pictured: November 12, 2023 in Kfar Aza Pictured: IDF soldiers in Kfar Aza, November 12, 2023 'According to what they're saying it feels they are abandoned by Hamas, with civilians being exposed to the horrors of the fighting while Hamas have taken to the bunkers and tunnels. 'But in terms of control, our troop presence on the ground, and the advances we've made in the heart of Gaza City are challenging Hamas' ability to control and exert power. 'Our aim is to disrupt their ability to conduct combat operations and to sustain themselves. We're doing that by attacking their strongholds and infrastructure wherever they are. 'We've dismantled more than 15 company-size and battalion-size Hamas strongholds.' READ MORE - Gaza hospitals are under constant fire and running out of power Advertisement He denied that the IDF was attacking hospitals, even Al Shifa, which the Israelis claim sits above Hamas' huge main command and control bunker. He said Israel had told the manager and senior staff of the hospital they could evacuate to the east of the facility and denied they had laid siege to Al Shifa. He added: 'But we have troops around it, and of course, we are applying pressure on Hamas combatants. ' Asked about an Israeli offer to help move up to 40 babies in a neo-natal unit to safety, he said: 'It's a complicated medical manoeuvre, even in peacetime to move babies like this, but we understand the sensitivity. 'We want these babies and other non-combatants to be spared, and not affected by the fighting, and hopefully we'll be able to succeed and we're working on it now.' Lt Col Conricus' words came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Hamas was 'doing everything in its power' to keep civilians in hospitals. He said the terrorist group was purposefully attempting 'to keep them in harm's way' and added that an Israeli offer to supply fuel to the hospital had been turned down by the Hamas-run health ministry. Palestinians injured as a result of the attacks of the Israeli army are being taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, in Deir Al-Balah, Gaza. Pictured: November 12, 2023 Israeli soldiers and volunteers from the Zaka Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jewish emergency response team searches through the debris in Kibbutz Beeri Israeli soldiers and volunteers from the Zaka Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jewish emergency response team search through the debris in Kibbutz Beeri But Melanie Ward, chief executive of the group Medical Aid for Palestinians, questioned how the evacuation of babies from Al Shifa could be undertaken safely. 'The transfer of critically-ill neonates is a complex and technical process,' Ward said. READ MORE - Hamas leader 'back from the dead' to attack Israel Advertisement 'With ambulances unable to reach the hospital.... and no hospital with capacity to receive them, there is no indication of how this can be done safely.' For days, Al-Shifa officials have said that dozens of bodies have been abandoned near the hospital and in its courtyard. Al Shifa and another major one, Al-Quds, announced they were suspending operations. More people are killed and wounded daily, but there are fewer and fewer places for the injured to go. A plastic surgeon in Shifa hospital said bombing of the building housing incubators had forced them to line up premature babies on ordinary beds, using the little power available to turn the air conditioning to warm. 'We know this is very risky,' said Dr Ahmed El Mokhallalati. 'We are expecting to lose more of them day by day.' Palestinian officials said on Friday that 11,078 Gaza residents had been killed in air and artillery strikes since then, around 40% of them children. Pictured: Kibbutz Beeri near the border with Gaza on November 12, 2023 Pictured: Israeli soldiers and volunteers from the Zaka Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jewish emergency response team on November 12, 2023 Disease is spreading among evacuees packed into schools and other shelters and surviving on tiny amounts of food and water, international aid agencies say. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said said 13 people were killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in Khan Younis in southern Gaza yesterday. READ MORE - Israeli troops and Hamas engage in heavy, close-quarters fighting in Gaza City Advertisement Residents also reported increased fighting around Al-Shati refugee camp, by the coast in northern Gaza. The IDF said it had killed a number of militants there and called on civilians to use a four-hour pause to evacuate south. Meanwhile, Lebanon's Hezbollah group, which like Hamas is backed by Iran, escalated its attacks on northern Israel, firing anti-tank missiles at electricity workers, injuring several of them, one critically, Israel said. The strike was followed by tit-for-tat exchanges between the IDF and Hezbollah with the Israelis firing artillery and mounting air strikes while the terrorists fired rockets and mortars. The escalation followed a speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah at the weekend, threatening to increase the number and severity of weapons aimed at Israel. The Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant threatened Hezbollah saying 'What we can do in Gaza, we can also do in Beirut.' Five US servicemen were killed in the eastern Mediterranean when a routine air refuelling training exercise went wrong, the Pentagon said. The Israeli government said the IDF provided 300 liters of fuel for urgent medical purposes for the Shifa Hospital but Hamas prevented the hospital from receiving the fuel. It said that last night, the IDF coordinated the transfer of fuel for urgent medical use to the Shifa Hospital. Early in the morning, IDF troops arrived at the entrance of the hospital and placed 300 liters of fuel for urgent medical purposes. But later on the IDF received evidence that Hamas officials prevented the hospital from receiving the fuel, the Israeli government said. An Arabic copy of Hitler's Nazi manifesto 'Mein Kampf' was found in a children's bedroom used as a terror base in northern Gaza, the Israeli President said today. IDF forces operating in northern Gaza made the shocking discovery on the body of a terrorist in a civilian home, being used as a Hamas base, President Isaac Herzog told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg today. The family home had also housed explosives laboratories, and represented further proof of Hamas's terrorist activity in the heart of the civilian population in Gaza, he said. The anti-Semitic and partly autobiographical tract, written by Hitler in 1925, was among the personal belongings of one of the terrorists and included notes in the margins, highlighted sections, and annotated post-it notes. President Herzog said: 'This is Adolf Hitler's book, Mein Kampf, translated into Arabic. 'The terrorist wrote notes, marked the sections, and studied again and again, the ideology of Adolf Hitler to hate the Jews,' President Herzog said as he flicked through the book to show annotations and highlights President Herzog made the revelation in an interview on the BBC, in which he held up the book 'This is the book that led to the Holocaust and the book that led to World War II. This book was found a few days ago in northern Gaza. 'In a child's room, which became a base used for terrorist activities by the terrorist organization Hamas. The terrorist wrote notes, marked the sections, and studied again and again, the ideology of Adolf Hitler to hate the Jews, to kill the Jews, to burn and slaughter Jews wherever they are. This is the real war we are facing.' In response to reports about the desperate humanitarian crisis in northern Gaza, the Herzog stressed, 'There is a lot of spin by Hamas. There is electricity in Shifa [hospital], everything is operating. 'We're speaking to the managers. We haven't gone into Shifa where unfortunately underneath Shifa, there is a huge, huge terror base, actually the headquarters, the headquarters of the Hamas-ISIS operations is right there under Shifa. 'Now exactly what are we supposed to do? Leave it as is and then in a few years time go again through the same motions - and you will say it's disproportionate and we will have civilians being killed? 'So we are calling on all of those uninvolved to go out to another hospital nearby, and we're coordinating it very delicately with all forces around that place. Hamas is stopping them.' Israel has 48 AH-64s which all have been modified and upgraded over the years with Israeli electronics, and made capable of using a number of Israeli missiles and sensors. These are now known as AH-64DIs and were seen in action in Gaza with a pod mounted behind the 30mm autocannon. This pod contains additional electronic systems including a missile warning receiver, a radar jammer and countermeasures dispensers. Israel has modified its AH-64s to use Israeli weapons like the Spike NLOS missile with a range of 25 kilometers. This is a loitering missile that can be programmed to hit a specific target location or loiter until a suitable target is seen by AH-64 weapons operator using the video camera in the nose of the missile. Using Israeli electronics also meant it was easier integrating AH-64 systems with Israeli made communications and battle management systems. This also reduced the cost as has the decision to switch to Israeli missiles instead of, or in addition to, the American Hellfire. With the improved electronics the AH-64 can be used at night and in bad weather and be able to spot things on the ground up to about ten kilometers away. Up to sixteen missiles (plus its 30mm cannon) can be carried, and these weapons are particularly useful for urban warfare when you want to minimize civilian casualties. It was the civilian casualties sometimes caused when Israeli AH-64s were used against Islamic terrorists in Gaza that created political opposition to the U.S. selling Israel more AH-64s or allowing them to upgrade using American suppliers. Based on past experience, Israel developed tactics that integrated the AH-64s closely with ground units by using its enhanced surveillance capabilities to seek targets at night and in bad weather. This requires more time in the air and that is made possible by carrying one or more RCEFS (Reduced Size Crashworthy External Fuel System) tanks. The Israelis examined how the U.S. has been using AH-64s in Iraq and Afghanistan and picked up some tips there as well. Now the Israelis are using all that knowledge to upgrade and refurbish their AH-64s with Israeli equipment and ideas and also switch to UAVs or AH-64s controlling one or more UAVs in combat. The customized Israeli AH-64 has more capabilities than those used by any other country, including the United States. The Americans are adopting some of the Israeli AH-64 modifications, which the Israelis have demonstrated work in combat. A middle school counselor in southeastern Pennsylvania has been charged with the alleged sexual assault of a student with encounters happening in her car, her home and the student's own bedroom. According to the District Attorney, Bucks County middle school counselor Kelly Ann Schutte, 35, was charged last week with three counts of institutional sexual assault, as well as three counts of indecent assault of a person less than 16 years old and one count of corruption of minors. According to court documents, the middle school student in question was, at the time of the alleged crimes, 14 years old. Court documents allege the relationship between the pair began during a class field trip in the fall of 2022, during which Schutte sat next to the minor on the bus. Kelly Ann Schutte, 35, has been placed on administrative leave by a Pennsylvania middle school after being accused of engaging in an inappropriate sexual relationship with a minor Filings revealed details of the ongoing, intimate ordeal between Schutte and the student, which was reported to 911 by the student's mother, who told authorities when she learned that her son had been kissed and touched inappropriately by his high school counselor. The student then admitted to having a romantic and sexual relationship with Schutte, which began in Schutte's home. Schutte would also allegedly call the student to her office during school hours, resulting in missed classes. An affidavit goes on to reveal that the duo's inappropriate relationship continued even when classes were dismissed for summer. Through apps like Canvas and Snapchat, the two kept in touch. Documents also revealed that the alleged sexual contact occurred in, among other places, Schutte's car while parked outside of a local supermarket, her home, and even the student's bedroom, while his family was away. Schutte (left) with an unidentified male at the 2nd annual Pennridge South Middle School color run The school in southeastern Pennsylvania was made aware of the allegations in July of this year and promptly placed Schutte on leave pending the outcome of the investigation The Pennridge School District released a statement last week revealing that Schutte has been placed on administrative leave. The statement said that the district has been aware of the allegations since July, which prompted the decision to place the counselor on immediate administrative leave pending the investigation's outcome. In response to the charges filed against Schutte, the school said: 'While we refrain from making premature judgments about the actions of the staff member facing prosecution, it is crucial to reiterate the district's stance against any inappropriate contact between a Pennridge School District employee and a student. Such behavior will NOT be tolerated.' A landlord's snarky email to a tenant who took them to the tribunal and won has summed up the rental power imbalance as Australia's housing crisis worsens. Landlords have gained the upper hand in the nationwide rental crisis, giving desperate renters no other choice but to accept below-standard living conditions, along with inspections and rent rises without notice. As one South Australian tenant recently learned, they're also flexing their muscle regarding breaches of lease conditions. The dispute ended up in the state's Civil and Administrative Tribunal, which ruled in favour of the tenant. The landlord didn't take the decision well and sent a brutal email to the departed tenant. The landlord who sent this email to a former tenant didn't take the tribunal's decision well 'I hope U appreciate how cheap U got out of breaking a binding contractual agreement. U think U were such good tenants just because U paid the rent on time LOL LOL,' the landlord wrote. The snarky message was shared on X by tenant advocate Jordie van den Berg, who recently launched rental website, S**t Rentals. 'These tenants won in a tribunal hearing, and the landlord sent them this,' he captioned the message. The post sparked dozens of comments roasting the 'unprofessional' landlord. 'Nothing like a little entitled narcissism to make your day,' one wrote. Another added: 'Bro, shut up. Youre literally getting these people to pay your mortgage. Landlords have gained the upper hand in the nationwide rental shortage. Pictured are Sydneysiders at a rental inspection Some called for the agent to be named and shamed. 'That is appalling, not just unprofessional, it's a form of harassment to the tenant. Not to mention a big middle finger to the Tribunal,' one commented. Other shared their own rental horror stories. 'I left otherwise good rental as the landlord tried to rebuild with me still paying rent. Middle of winter he removed all the laundry wall exposing me to elements. Then remodelled kitchen and bathroom. ALL WITHOUT NOTICE,' one man recalled. But not everyone was on the tenant's side. 'Tenants now have more rights than owners,' one wrote. Renters have no other choice but to accept below standard living conditions, along with inspections and rent rises without notice. Pictured is queues at a rental inspection in Sydney The national vacancy rate sits at just 1.02 per cent after falling slightly in October, with most major capital cities following the trend according to PropTrack's Market Insight Report. Renters faced more competition for housing with vacancies down in both capital city and regional areas, PropTrack economist Anne Flaherty said. Renters faced more competition for housing with vacancies down in both capital city and regional areas, PropTrack economist Anne Flaherty said. 'Tenants faced even tougher conditions in October, with the proportion of rental properties sitting vacant falling to the lowest level on record,' she said. Vacancies in Sydney fell to a record low of 1.11 per cent, more than 60 per cent lower than in March 2020. The number of available properties in Melbourne has halved compared to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The rental vacancy rate is at a record low in Queensland with available options in Brisbane sitting at less than one per cent. Disgraced fashion mogul Peter Nygard has been found guilty of sexually assaulting four women at his Toronto home after luring them into a room without a door handle. The Canadian designer, 82, was convicted Sunday after a six-week trial. Nygard - who once hosted Prince Andrew in the Bahamas - appeared emotionless as the verdict was handed down after the jurors' fifth day of deliberation. Prosecutors said he used his 'status' to attack five women aged 16 to 28 in a series of incidents from the late 1980s to 2005. Nygard denied the charges and his defense lawyers branded his accusers 'gold diggers.' But he was found guilty on four counts of sexual assault. He was cleared of one count of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement. Peter Nygard, clockwise from bottom left, Justice Robert Goldstein, defense lawyer Brian Greenspan, the jury, Ana Serban and Neville Golwalla attend Nygard's sexual assault trial in Toronto Peter Nygard leaves court in a police van, after being found guilty of four counts of sexual assault, in Toronto, on Sunday, Nov., 12, 2023 Throughout the month-and-a-half trial, the jury heard graphic testimony from all five complainants, four whom said they were in their late 20s when they were assaulted, and one who said she was 16 when the alleged attack took place. Each of the women ended up in Nygard's private bedroom suite. Some of the women testified there was a mirrored door leading into Nygard's bedroom and it had no handle on the inside and that two of the doors leading to the outside of his bedroom needed to be unlocked and opened by pressing a button inside the room, or by punching a security code. Two of the complainants told the court they felt trapped inside that room because they believed there was no way out. One of the women told the court she repeatedly pleaded with Nygard to let her out of the room and that he eventually relented. It was that allegation which led to the forcible confinement charge. The disgraced mogul testified in his own defense over the course of five days. He said he could not recall four of the five of the women, nor did he remember interacting with any of them. He additionally claimed any of the allegations of sexual misconduct against him could not have happened because he would never engage in such behavior. Nygard contradicted some of the complainants' testimony, arguing there was a handle on the inside door of his private bedroom and denying a person could get locked or trapped inside. Prosecutors closed their case by arguing that Nygard's testimony was inconsistent, unreliable, lacked credibility and should be rejected. In contrast, the prosecutor argued, the testimony of the five women was consistent, and the similarities of their stories defied coincidence, thereby proving Nygard's guilt. Nygard's attorney, however, argued that it was the testimony of the five women that lacked credibility. Brian Greenspan - Nygard's lawyer - told the jury that they needed to carefully consider all the evidence and reflect on the 'fatal flaw and lack of testimonial trustworthiness' of the five women. This undated handout picture provided by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on October 4, 2023, shows fashion mogul Peter Nygard's Toronto offices, including a top floor bedroom suite where five women say he raped them Seen through a police vehicle window, Finnish-Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygard leaves a Toronto courthouse in Toronto on November 12, 2023 after being found guilty of four counts of sexual assault Nygard, 82, was arrested on sex trafficking charges in December of 2020 - he is the founder of one of the largest clothing brands in Canada Crown attorneys Neville Golwalla (L) and Ana Serban address media outside the Toronto courthouse in Toronto on November 12, 2023 after former fashion mogul Peter Nygard was found guilty of four counts of sexual assault Kai Bickle-Nygard, son of former fashion mogul Peter Nygard, addresses media outside the Toronto courthouse in Toronto on November 12, 2023 after his father was found guilty of four counts of sexual assault In addition to the trial that ended Sunday, Nygard is also facing a civil lawsuit in New York that is currently on hold - it involved 57 women and the allegations date back as far as 1977, some of whom claim they were assaulted when they were as young as 14 or 15. He is fighting extradition to the US for the charges in New York. He faces a slate of other charges across Canada stemming from other alleged acts of sexual misconduct and assault. Nygard was born in Finland and raised in Canada and was the founder of Nygard International, which was at one time Canada's largest women's clothing manufacturer. Before the mogul was arrested, his business employed 1,450 people and operated more than 150 stores in North America and more than 6,000 shops inside department stores. In 2020, the company began to fall apart when ten unnamed female plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan accusing the elderly businessman of raping women and underage girls at his estate in the Bahamas. The suit was then expanded to include 57 unnamed accusers. The Duke of York visited the Canadian businessman at his Bahamas home in 2000, shortly after Nygard settled out of court with three employees who had accused him of sexual harassment. Former Minneapolis city counselor and anti-defund the police backer Don Samuels says he will try to unseat controversial 'squad' member Rep. Ilhan Omar in Minnesota's upcoming Democratic primary. The pair have clashed over the defund the police movement in Minneapolis and the Israel-Hamas war, with Samuels accusing Omar of having a 'predilection to divisiveness and conflict.' Omar, 41, is a charter member of 'the squad' of progressive House Democrats, and has won re-election twice despite making comments that were widely criticized for invoking anti-Semitic tropes. But now she has come under renewed fire for condemning the Israeli governments handling of its war against Hamas. Democrat Samuels, 74, is taking advantage of it, accusing Omar of having 'frightened the Jewish community.' Former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels poses outside his home Rep. Ilhan Omar speaks during a news conference by the Congressional Progressive Caucus Samuels nearly managed to unseat Omar in the 2022 primary, losing 50.3 percent to 48.2 percent. He maintains the close race shows she is beatable. The big issue during their run in 2022 was the defund the police movement, after George Floyd was murdered in the city in 2020 by a former Minneapolis police officer. At the time, Omar strongly backed the movement and slammed former President Barack Obama for criticizing it as just a 'snappy slogan.' She posted on Twitter, now X: 'Its not a slogan but a policy demand.' In contrast, Samuels has opposed the defund movement and helped lead the opposition that defeated a proposal that would have replaced the police force with a revamped public safety agency. 'The long tails of the George Floyd and COVID issues continue, with empty storefronts and empty strip malls because people dont want to invest anymore. They dont think its safe,' he said. Omar issued a written statement on Sunday touting her work in Congress and for her district, including fighting to combat climate change and codify abortion rights. She said 'right-wing donors' had targeted her and accused Samuels of taking hundreds of thousands in contributions from far-right donors and political action committees. She said: 'If were going to stop Donald Trump, we need record turnout, and I am confident in our ability to drive turnout, particularly in a presidential election year.' Samuels poses at his home and announces he will be trying to unseat Omar again Samuels nearly managed to unseat Omar in the 2022 primary, and maintains the close race shows she is beatable Omar has been critical of Hamas for attacking Israel and taking hostages - but even more so of Israels military response. Samuels said he believes the war will be a big concern for voters. He said Omar had 'frightened the Jewish community.' He added that the community 'understands that there is a latent and lurking anti-Semitic sentiment that always needs discouragement, and always in times of national crisis raises its ugly head.' The American Israel Public Affairs Committee has been actively trying to recruit a credible challenger to Omar. Samuels said people sometimes 'mistake her oppositional nature and divisive nature for someone who's speaking truth to power when in fact she is misusing her power, or not using her power, to make change.' Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie has declared the US should stand 'shoulder to shoulder' with Israel during his visit to areas hit by attacks from Hamas militants last month. The comments came as Christie, 61, toured a kibbutz that was ravaged in the October 7 rampage - making him the first GOP hopeful to do so since the two groups entered a war that is currently still raging. As Israeli troops waged fierce battles against Hamas Sunday, the former New Jersey Governor spoke at length with Israeli leaders, wounded soldiers, and families of hostages during what amounted to a one-day visit. Calling the IDF's ongoing response 'a noble effort,' he pledged to return to the US to tell his colleagues what he had seen - after bearing witness to the aftermath of a strike on one of more than 20 towns and villages attacked by Hamas that fateful day. More than a month later, Israel says more than 1,200 people were killed and 239 taken hostage - with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently rejecting a ceasefire proposal the terror group claims would have seen the hostages returned. Scroll down for video: Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie declared the US should stand 'shoulder to shoulder' with Israel on Sunday, during a promised visit to on one of more than 20 towns and villages attacked by Hamas on October 7 The daylong visit saw him tour the savaged town of Kfar Azza (seen here), before pledging his devotion to the Middle Eastern nation in its ongoing conflict against the group responsible As Israeli fighter jets buzzed overhead, Christie toured the kibbutz alongside the speaker of Israel's parliament, Amir Ohana, before expressing his horror at what he had seen. 'Leaders in our country need to see this for themselves, because you cant - just from this you cant really understand it until you see it,' he told reporters after the tour of Kfar Azza. 'I came here because I wanted to see this for myself,' he added. Days after he announced his intent to make the visit - namely to speak to families of the people taken hostage to get a better understanding of some of the sticking points of the conflict - he aired intent to stand with Israel during whatever may come. Donning a flak jacket and flanked by an entourage of Israeli soldiers, he made his stance known. 'I intend to go back to the US and talk about this regularly so that the American people who are being asked to sacrifice - and to help Israel financially and militarily - will know what theyre doing is not only a noble effort on their part, but also what friends do for friends. 'And America has no greater friend in the world than Israel,' he quickly added, citing the two countries' long history. 'We need to make sure that we refresh that friendship at times of peril like this.' As Israeli fighter jets buzzed overhead, Christie toured the kibbutz alongside the speaker of Israel's parliament, Amir Ohana (to Christie's left) and IDF Spokesperson Maj. Liad Diamond (his right), before expressing his horror at what he had seen Christie, center, looks at crime scene photos as he visits Kibbutz Kfar Azza, near the Israel-Gaza border, the site of one of the October 7 massacres by Hamas, with Ohana, left and Army Maj. Diamond, right, Sunday Christie, center right, looks at a baby carriage as he visits Kibbutz Kfar Azza, near the Israel-Gaza border with Israel's Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, left and Israeli Army Maj. Diamond Diggers clear the site of the former police station on October 12 in Sderot, Israel. Israel has sealed off Gaza and conducted airstrikes on Palestinian territory after the October attack As Israeli troops waged fierce battles against Hamas Sunday, the former New Jersey governor spoke at length with Israeli leaders, wounded soldiers, and families of hostages during what amounted to a one-day visit. A shot from city of Sderot shows rockets fired from the Gaza Strip intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome defense missile system on October 14 During the visit - which also saw him speak with IDF Army Maj. Diamond - Christie watched a film of gruesome footage pulled from the body cameras of one of Hamas's militants who engaged in the attack, now compiled by the Israeli army. He also made his way through homes with walls riddled by bullet holes and couches stained with blood - evidence of some of the heinous acts that transpired there just a few weeks before Over a month removed, many Kfar Azza houses are burnt out and destroyed - structures that are left standing are scribbled with Arabic graffiti. Speaking to reporters and several Israeli officials and citizens, Christie spoke about the visit's significance - and how it was affecting him personally 'To be able to walk through a neighborhood like this and see what was done to the people, to still be able to walk into one of these homes and smell the death still, a month later, is something that I think the American people need to know,' he said Christie, the 2024 races most vocal critic of former president, Donald Trump, has cast himself as the only Republican willing to directly take him on. Trump has not visited Israel during the current campaign cycle, though President Joe Biden has. The Republican candidates have all lined up behind Israel, even as the country comes under growing international pressure to halt or scale back an offensive in the Gaza Strip in which more than 11,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2,700 people have been reported missing and are thought to be trapped or dead under the rubble. Days after he announced his intent to make the visit - namely to speak to families of the people taken hostage to get a better understanding of some of the sticking point of the conflict - he aired intent to stand with Israel during whatever may come An Israeli soldier makes a call during a visit by Christie to Kibbutz Kfar Azza, near the Israel-Gaza border, the site of an Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas, Sunday A home destroyed at Kibbutz Kfar Azza, near the Israel-Gaza Border, the site of an Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas, seen during a visit by Christie An Israeli soldier stands guard along Kibbutz Kfar Azza, near the Israel-Gaza border, the site of an Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas Christie, meanwhile praised the way that Biden has handled relations with Israel during wartime. As widespread protests of Israels bombardment of Gaza in major cities like New York and Los Angeles attract thousands, the Biden administration has sought to increase humanitarian aid into Gaza while backing the Israeli war effort by moving US troops and defense systems into the region. Biden has largely ducked calls to pressure Israel into a ceasefire. Christie said that he thought protesters calling for a ceasefire did not represent the vast majority of Americans. 'I dont think its the role of the United States to instruct the state of Israel on how to provide safety and security for its people,' he said. 'I think we can give advice, as friends give advice in private. But publicly, my view is that we need to stand with Israel.' The military has screened the film to international press and multiple world leaders who have visited Israel since the start of the war. Christie, right, makes remarks at the end of a visit to Kibbutz Kfar Azza, near the Israel-Gaza Border, the site of an October 7 massacre by Hamas, during which he expressed horror at the aftermath of the attacks Christie also praised the way that Biden has handled relations with Israel during wartime, despite the president's hesitance to pressure Israel into a ceasefire Christie, left, visits Kibbutz Kfar Azza, near the Israel-Gaza Border, the site of an Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas, as volunteers with ZAKA emergency service stand by 'I want the people of Israel to know that there are hundreds of millions of Americans who stand with them, who understand the atrocities that were committed, and why in the future we need to stand absolutely shoulder to shoulder with Israel,' Christie said Sunday 'I want the people of Israel to know that there are hundreds of millions of Americans who stand with them, who understand the atrocities that were committed, and why in the future we need to stand absolutely shoulder to shoulder with Israel,' Christie said. Christie has positioned himself as someone who if elected would defend U.S. interests and democracy abroad. He has previously visited Ukraine to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The trip marks his second trip to a warring country since the start of his presidential bid, after a visit to Ukraine in August. By far the most strident critic of Trump in the Republican field, Christie has consistently been in the low single digits in national polls, far behind the former president. A people smuggler has been jailed following an undercover Daily Mail expose of gangs helping foreign fugitives flee the UK. Muhamed Alievski, 28, was caught as he was about to leave for France with a wanted Albanian drug offender in the back of his lorry. Detectives said the driver had provided a 'crucial service' for the organised criminal networks that have spirited crooks wanted for serious offences out of the country. Officers swooped on Alievski hours after a Mail investigation revealed how gangs were cashing in twice by bringing illegal immigrants into Britain and helping fugitives escape back across the Channel. Before publication, we supplied the National Crime Agency (NCA) with information about the Albanian traffickers brazenly advertising on TikTok who had spoken to our undercover reporters. Muhamed Alievski (pictured), 28, was caught as he was about to leave for France with a wanted Albanian drug offender in the back of his lorry Detectives said the driver had provided a 'crucial service' for the organised criminal networks that have spirited crooks wanted for serious offences out of the country Officers swooped on Alievski hours after a Mail investigation revealed how gangs were cashing in twice by bringing illegal immigrants into Britain and helping fugitives escape back across the Channel (file image) It included one offering to help 'anyone who wants to return to the EU from England by lorry, people with problems who cannot get an airplane' who promised a '100 per cent guarantee'. Contacted by a reporter, an Albanian smuggler with a UK phone number said he could arrange passage to France that night for 3,000. He gave the postcode of a meeting place in Ashford, Kent a short drive from the Channel Tunnel and Port of Dover. He added: 'The driver will be there. Hand the money to the driver and without any worries he will be in France.' All the intelligence provided by the Mail was fed into an NCA investigation into people smuggling to and from the continent. On the morning our story ran, officers met Alievski in Ashford after setting up a sting in which the gang agreed to take a migrant out of the country for a fee of 2,500. Incredibly, after he was arrested following the exchange of cash, investigators found he already had a wanted man hidden in his lorry. Prosecutor Daniel Stevenson told Canterbury Crown Court: 'His lorry was located around the corner. It was searched because officers heard a noise from within the lorry and they discovered a foreign national inside who initially tried to flee before being detained.' The 22-year-old Albanian hidden in the back was wanted by Oxford Crown Court for breaching a court order for a drug offences conviction. He was arrested and taken into custody. Alievski later admitted a charge of participating in the activities of a people-smuggling organised crime group. Jailing him for three years, Judge Mark Weekes told him: 'You were willing to lend yourself to what was obviously a dangerous enterprise for those in the back of the vehicle. These offences create a general risk to safety and security.' John Barker, defending, told the court Alievski was 'just a driver' who had been contacted by the main organiser at the '11th hour' and who had agreed to it because his fee would clear his debts. Officers swooped on Alievski hours after a Mail investigation revealed how gangs were cashing in twice by bringing illegal immigrants into Britain and helping fugitives escape back across the Channel (Pictured: Albanian traffickers brazenly advertising on TikTok) Prosecutor Daniel Stevenson told Canterbury Crown Court (pictured): 'His lorry was located around the corner. It was searched because officers heard a noise from within the lorry and they discovered a foreign national inside who initially tried to flee before being detained' Alievski, an ethnic Albanian who had been due to wed on October 15, lived with his family in a village just outside the Macedonian capital of Skopje which is notorious for the number of hardened criminals who live there. His father, Ajvaz Alievski, said that after his arrest his son had protested his innocence to them and claimed that the wanted Albanian had sneaked into his truck as he slept. After the sentencing, NCA senior investigating officer Andrew Macgill said: 'This man was willing to smuggle a wanted criminal out of the country for money. 'Corrupt lorry drivers like him provide a crucial service for the organised criminal groups involved in people smuggling, and the NCA is determined to disrupt and dismantle these networks.' Alievski is the second criminal to be jailed in three months following Mail exposes. In August, Albanian Selamet Mehmetaj was locked up for four-and-a-half years for running cannabis factories staffed by illegal immigrants that distributed drugs worth millions of pounds a year across the UK. Eighty potential threats to public safety - including a paedophile and a convicted killer - have been released from indefinite detention after last week's landmark High Court ruling which found they were being held unlawfully. The mass release comes after a refugee, known in proceedings only as NZYQ, who raped a 10-year-old boy was let out into the community by the High Court decision. The key ruling immediately prompted the possible release of up to 92 non-citizens held in detention who could not be deported to their home countries. The total includes those convicted of serious offences, who had failed the good character test, or were feared to be threats to national security. On Monday, immigration Minister Andrew Giles said 80 of those being detained, including a Malaysian hitman, had already now been freed and given a visa. He insisted Australian Federal Police and Border Force were involved in the release of those detained and their future supervision to protect public safety. The Australian government had opposed the court's decision, but the minister said they had prepared to deal with the consequences. Eighty asylum seekers have been released from indefinite detention after a refugee who raped a 10-year-old boy as freed by a High Court ruling that indefinite immigration detention is unlawful. High Court Chief Justice Stephen Gageler is pictured The court ruled in favour of a Rohingyan paedophile known only as NZYQ who has been in detention since serving a prison sentence for child sexual abuse The court found in favour of a Rohingya paedophile - known in proceedings as NZYQ - who has been in detention since serving a prison sentence for child sexual abuse. NZYQ arrived in Australia by boat in 2012 and had his bridging visa cancelled in 2015 when he pleaded guilty to having sexual intercourse with a 10-year-old child. He was transferred to an immigration detention centre in May 2018 after serving a minimum sentence of three years and four months and being denied a 'safe haven enterprise' visa. Until the High Court ruling, NZYQ faced remaining in immigration detention for life because Rohingya people are considered stateless and unable to be deported to Myanmar. He has now been released into the community and the Commonwealth will pay his legal costs. In the wake of the decision, the government admitted a further 92 people were being held in similar circumstances, and up to 300 in total could be affected. Among those now freed is Sirul Azahr Umar, 51, who was sentenced to death for the 2006 murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu, the pregnant girlfriend of a political operative, whom he killed and then blew up the body. NZYQ was transferred to an immigration detention centre in May 2018 after serving a minimum sentence of three years and four months and being denied a visa. Villawood detention centre in western Sydney is pictured Umar, who had been a bodyguard for the Malaysian prime minister, was freed from Villawood Detention Centre in Sydney on Saturday and is now understood to be staying with a relative in Canberra. Umar, a former commando, escaped to Australia while on bail waiting for an appeal after being sentenced to death for murder. His claim for asylum was turned down in 2019 and he remained in indefinite detention because Australia would not deport him to Malaysia unless it abolished the death penalty. The woman he murdered was the partner of Razak Baginda, a close associate of former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak. A court in Malaysia found that Uman kidnapped Ms Shaariibuu and brought her to the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, where he shot her and blew her body up. He has previously claimed that he took part in the abduction of Ms Shaariibuu - a Mongolian national who worked as a model and translator - but not her murder. Though no motive for her killing was ever established, it has been speculated that her involvement in a defence deal to buy two French Scorpene submarines may have led to the murder. Sirul Azahr Umar (left), who committed a horrific murder in his home country of Malaysia is now walking free in Australia after a High Court ruling against indefinite detention. Umar was sentenced to death for the 2006 murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu (right), the pregnant girlfriend of a political operative, whom he killed and then blew up the body All those released by the High Court ruling have now been given a bridging visa and are obliged to report in to police or appropriate authorities on a regular basis. 'That's obviously one of the bases on which we ensure community safety,' Mr Giles told ABC National. The immigration minister said the ruling had changed the law after two decades. 'What we need to do now is to work through it appropriately, doing all the short-term things,' he said. 'Those immediate actions to ensure community safety today, while being focused resolutely on ensuring into the longer term we can keep the community safe and uphold the laws of Australia. 'We also need to have the opportunity to consider the reasons the High Court has handed down the decision last week, and we don't yet have those reasons.' The opposition has demanded to know more about the details behind the releases and the ongoing supervision they will face on the streets. 'We know of the 92 people who are caught by this High Court decision, that 83 were being held on character grounds,' Shadow Immigration Minister Dan Tehan said. 'The public needs to know, and the public wants to know, what is the government doing to keep them safe? 'What are the character grounds that these people were being held on, what are they doing to liaise with state and territory authorities to keep the community safe?' MBABANE Newly-elected Senator Linda Nxumalo will soon know the findings of an investigation into fraud allegations that rocked her previous employer and caused her sleepless nights. Before being appointed a senator, she was the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Eswatini Tourism Authority (ETA), an entity she found in shambles amid allegations of fraud amounting to millions of Emalangeni. In an effort to clean up the mess, following pressure from various sectors including Parliament, she reported the allegations to the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS). The Times SUNDAY has gathered that the ACC has completed the investigation. Dlamini also confirmed having been informed by the ACC that the investigation had been completed. There was also confirmation by ACCs Public Relations Officer Thabsile Mondlane, who said the next step would be a meeting with Dlamini so that they could share how the investigation went. law did not allow them Mondlane said as the ACC, they could not divulge anything regarding the investigation as the law did not allow them. Since she is the one who reported the case, we have a duty to engage with her and give her the report. During the meeting, it will be up to her if she wants the report to be written and made official or not, Mondlane said. She had said that the meeting had been scheduled for last Friday. However, when Nxumalo was called yesterday morning, she stated that the meeting had been postponed to tomorrow. Last year, it was reported that a forensic audit of the ETA had discovered that the fraud dated back seven years ago and was allegedly masterminded by the deceased Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Gcinithemba Fakudze, who died in 2020, the year on which the alleged fraudulent activities were unearthed. It was also discovered that the fraudulent acts had been going on for some years ago way before Nxumalos arrival at the institution. dragged to inquiries The unresolved issue made life difficult for Nxumalo regarding executing her duties because as she was often dragged to inquiries to answer on the fraud matter. Last year, she was grilled by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the 11th Parliament, which wanted her to provide answers on the same fraud matter. The PAC bashed Nxumalo for failure to produce receipts of the E19.7 million expenditure and unaccounted-for petty cash amounting to E300 000. This was because the Auditor General (AG) Timothy Matsebula had said in his report that in the absence of supporting documents, it could not be confirmed that the expenditure was spent on the authoritys activities or on personal items, adding that that resulted to unaccounted for public funds. At some point, the PAC made it known that it was losing patience with Nxumalo and went to an extent of saying if she failed to account for the funds, she was going to be expected to repay the full amount. The PAC was of the idea that they had given Nxumalo ample time to put her house in order and further threatened to issue a recommendation directing her to repay the funds. As if that was not enough, Nxumalo was also hauled before the Ministry of Tourism and Environmental Affairs Disciplinary Tribunal to answer on allegations of suspected fraudulent financial statements, notwithstanding that the statements were accepted by all parties concerned. stifling the renewal So serious was the matter that at some point, it became apparent that it was stifling the renewal of Nxumalos contract and this was despite that Cabinet had approved it. In an effort to get to the bottom of the alleged fraudulent activities committed under the watch of the deceased CFO, Nxumalo sought the assistance of both the police and ACC to launch a full investigation into how the money belonging to the public company was fraudulently stolen. In May 2021, both REPS and ACC acknowledged that the case was reported and was under investigation but the process dragged on for months while she continued being subjected to the torture of having to provide answers before relevant structures such as the PAC. It should be noted that Nxumalo arrived at the parastatal when it was facing serious challenges of over-expenditure and was receiving backlash for not having conducted statutory audits. To correct this, Nxumalo conducted the statutory audits for six financial years and reports were compiled and submitted to the relevant parties. She also acted promptly in requesting the Board to fill the position of the CFO, after the demise of the incumbent. She presented a request for approval to the Board for initiating the recruitment of a CFO, following Fakudzes demise. Also worth noting is that in February 2020, she raised a concern that this department was understaffed and had one person running the operation of the finance department something which she felt was not proper since there was no segregation of duties and exposed ETA to a lot of risks. The CEO also made a request for the appointment of a temporal staff member, to assist to address potential risks in the department. alleged forgery Nxumalo requested the Board to invite Kobla Quashie and Associates to present the last audits they performed and present their submission on the alleged forgery of audited financial statements for five years beginning in 2015. Kobla Quashie and Associates is said to have presented in detail what happened when they last performed the audit for ETA and this included a questionable E1.9 million which relates to staff loans. From this amount, the late CFO had a loan of E980 000, the then CEO had a loan of E390 000, the former Marketing Manager had a loan of E277 000 and the remainder of about E235 000 was for the rest of the staff, the minutes state. It was highlighted that Kobla Quashie then presented all certain items in the reports including those signatures, including that of the then Board chairperson, were forged. The reports were reportedly obtained by Kobla Quashie from the Public Enterprise Unit (PEU). Meanwhile, Nxumalo was elected a senator on Thursday October 12, 2023 together with four other women and five male candidates. The elections were held at the House of Assembly, where Members of Parliament (MP) exercised their power conferred to them by Section 94 (2) of the Constitution which provides that 10 senators should be elected while 20 have to be appointed by His Majesty King Mswati III. The election of Nxumalo has left the parastatal without a CEO which means that the next minister of Tourism and Environmental Authority will be expected to appoint one so that the vacant seat could be filled. Deal could also be turned into a harder to strike down diplomatic treaty Ministers will continue to try to make the Rwanda asylum deal work if they lose the Supreme Court case this week. Government lawyers are pessimistic about the chances of judges backing the Prime Minister's flagship scheme to deter small boat crossings. But Rishi Sunak is said to be determined to pursue a deterrent to stop migrants from making the perilous journey across the Channel even if the Government is defeated. The Home Office is drawing up contingency plans which include tweaking the scheme or agreeing a new deal with Rwanda in the form of a treaty, which could be harder to defeat in the courts. Declaring more countries 'safe' on the official list would also allow migrants from those places to be deported. Turkey and Egypt which are in the top ten countries for crossings could be added to the list. Another option is to seek reform of the Human Rights Act, with ministers reportedly being given legal advice on amending it so that it no longer applies to illegal migration. Rishi Sunak is said to be determined to pursue a deterrent to stop migrants from making the perilous journey across the Channel even if the Government is defeated The Home Office, under Suella Braverman, is drawing up contingency plans which include tweaking the scheme or agreeing a new deal with Rwanda in the form of a treaty Should those options be deemed unworkable, they could pursue the 'nuclear option' of leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). While supporters of Home Secretary Suella Braverman are said to favour the latter route, No 10 is said to believe the crossings could be stopped without having to go that far. A senior Tory MP told The Mail on Sunday: 'Quitting the ECHR would be the nuclear option. It's Suella's preferred option. Rishi wants to keep his options open.' The Supreme Court will rule on the legality of the Government's scheme which has been stalled since it was blocked by the ECHR last year. The Supreme Court will rule on the legality of the Government's scheme which has been stalled since the first flight was blocked by the ECHR last year and the Court of Appeal ruled it was unlawful. If the Government is successful, flights would begin in the new year. If it is ruled unlawful, ministers would have to pursue other options. Sources pointed to the direction of travel in other European countries that are becoming hardline on immigration. Mr Sunak is due to give a speech this evening ahead of Wednesday's judgment outlining a 'hard-headed' foreign policy approach to defending the UK's values. The Prime Minister will warn that 'moral clarity' is needed at a time when war is raging in the Middle East and Ukraine. He will tell international dignitaries: 'In these dangerous times, we're not just defending a better vision of the future against those who would destroy it, we're marshalling our expertise, our people and our alliances to bring that future into being. 'We'll continue to stand up for what is right... and show that our values will prevail.' With an estimated 86 billion neurons, the 3lb organ between your ears may be one of the most complex objects in the universe. All that complexity allows the brain to process more than 70,000 thoughts every day - but creates quite a headache for neuroscientists. Research has identified hundreds of different brain areas and, the closer scientists look, the more structures seem to appear. Incredible graphics now reveal the weird and wonderful functions of these different areas - from the lobes that create your personality to the mysterious origins of language. So, if you've ever wondered just what is going on between your ears, read on to find out how the shape of the brain shapes your mind - and what happens when it goes wrong. At the simplest level we can divided the brain into lobes which are responsible for emotions and reason, sensory information, memory, and visual perception READ MORE: Are YOU easily scared? Scientists pinpoint brain region that controls fear of the unknown Advertisement At a very simple level, the brain has four main areas, each with its own component parts. Around the outside of the brain there is the Cerebrum, one of the biggest structures which includes the wrinkly Cerebral Cortex. Peeling this outer layer back, we reach the Forebrain, a complex set of different glands and brain regions where we find the key control centres of the body. Go another layer deeper and, nestled at the very core of the brain is the Midbrain. Finally, connecting the rest of the parts to the nervous system, there is the Hindbrain, believed to be the most evolutionarily ancient part of the human brain. The Cerebrum If you imagine a brain, what you are envisioning is most likely the cerebrum. The pinkish wrinkly mass of folded grey matter makes up around 85 per cent of the entire human brain and is where most of our higher mental functions occur. Planning, language, and thought - all the things that make us distinctly human - have their origins somewhere in this region of the brain. The very outer layer of the Cerebrum, that pink layer normally seen in pictures, is called the Cerebral Cortex and is typically divided into four lobes: the Frontal, Parietal, Temporal and Occipital. The Frontal Lobe is believed to be where our higher executive functions take place such as planning, reasoning, and controlling our emotions. In cases where the Frontal Lobe is damaged, we often observe sudden and dramatic changes to someone's personality. Phineas Gage, helped early neuroscientists understand that the frontal lobe is involved in emotional control as this region of his brain was severely damaged Sketches show how a metal rod shot through Phineas Gage's skull, destroying much of his Frontal Lobe and totally changing his personality Phineas Gage: The man who was shot in the head with an iron rod - and survived In 1848, a 25-year-old Phineas P Gage was working as a railroad foreman in Vermont. While tamping gunpowder, a meta rod was shot through his head with such force it threw him back several feet. Gage was semiconscious for a month but ultimately survived. After the accident, his doctor, John Martyn Harlow, noted that Gage's friends found him 'no longer Gage'. He became childish and foul-tempered despite having been well-mannered and well-liked before the injury. He travelled with the tamping iron that had injured him and worked for a time as an exhibition in P.T Barnum's circus. Gage ultimately died in May 1861 after a series of epileptic seizures after rejoining his family in San Francisco. Advertisement In the most famous case, a railroad worker named Phineas Gage suffered severe damage to his Frontal Lobe after a metal rod was accidentally shot through his head. Gage was packing gunpowder in a hole when a stray spark ignited the explosive, sending a 43 inch long, 1.25 inch wide and 13.25 lbs tamping iron clean through his eye and out the top of his skull. Phineas survived the accident, but reportedly went from a mild-mannered respectful man to someone who was violent, ill-tempered, and disorganised. The Parietal Lobe is believed to be responsible for integrating sensory information like touch, temperature, and pain. Damage to the Parietal Lobe causes a condition called Gerstmann Syndrome which reveals some of the important functions of this region. This rare neurological disorder causes patients to lose the ability to express themselves in writing, perform arithmetic, recognise their own fingers, and tell the left and ride sides of their body apart Meanwhile, the Temporal Lobe is dedicated to processing sensory information, particularly hearing and recognizing language. Finally, the Occipital Lobe is the brain's visual processing centre. This region receives signals from the eyes which it sends to several different areas to process information such as depth, location, and the identity of objects. However, scientists haven't stopped with just the four big lobes, as the cerebral cortex can be further divided into 52 regions known as Brodmann's areas. Brodmann assigned each of the brain regions a number, some of which have been associated with functions such as memory recall, emotional control, and abstract reasoning Published in 1909, Korbinian Brodmann's groundbreaking analysis of the brain can still be found in neurology textbooks and on classroom posters to this day. Using a specialized microscope, Brodmann painstakingly analyzed the entire surface of the Cerebral Cortex on cellular structure alone. After a decade of effort, Brodmann produced the most detailed map of the Cerebral Cortex yet produced, assigning each region a different number. Over time these areas have been widely used to link brain regions with specific functions, such as area four: the primary motor cortex. This region of the Cerebral Cortex is believed to control motor movements such as moving the hands and face as well as breathing and voluntary blinking. Brodmann's areas have also been mapped to functions such as processing numbers, planning, and processing emotions. Of course, the complexity doesn't stop there as scientists now believe the Cortex has at least 180 distinct regions important for language, perception, consciousness, and attention. Scientists have now revealed that there are more than 180 distinct regions in the Cerebral Cortex, more than tripling the number of areas found by Brodmann The Forebrain The Cerebrum is part of a structure called the Forebrain, which makes up the majority of the brain and controls most of our important bodily functions. In addition to the Cerebrum and Cerebral Cortex, the Forebrain also contains structures such as the Thalamus, Hypothalamus, Corpus Callosum, and Pituitary gland. The Thalamus functions like a 'relay station' for the brain's sensory information processing, linking up the spinal cord to other parts of the brain. The Hypothalamus, however, which sits just beneath the Thalamus, controls our 'autonomic motor system'. This means it is responsible for regulating everything from heart rate and breathing to digestion and sexual arousal. Tucked in between the two lobes of the Thalamus is an even smaller but vital region called the pineal gland. Called the 'seat of the soul' by philosopher Renee Descartes, this small gland was once believed to be the point at which the immaterial soul interfaced with the body. Although its function is more mundane it is no less vital as the Pineal Gland controls our sleep patterns by secreting the hormone melatonin. The Forebrain is the largest section of the human brain and is responsible for most of our higher thought, injuries to areas like the Corpus Callosum can have serious consequences This scan of the brain shows the inner areas of the Midbrain and Hindbrain, around the outside you can see the wrinkly layer of the Cerebral Cortex where higher thought processes take place Another important section in the Forebrain is a region called the Corpus Collosum which is the band of white matter which connects the left and right hemispheres. Made up of more than 200 million nerve fibers the Corpus Collosum is the largest connective pathway in the brain and keeps growing until we reach our 30s. In some cases epilepsy patients will have this region severed as a last resort to stop seizures spreading throughout the brain. But these operations, called Corpus Callosotomy, sometimes create so called 'split brain cases'. Damage to the Corpus Callosum is associated with 'alien hand syndrome', or 'Dr Strangelove Syndrome' as it is often called in reference to the 1964 film Dr. Strangelove. This can lead patients to lose control of their own hands, with their limbs acting as if controlled by another consciousness. Psychologists Michael Gazzinga and Roger Sperry described the case of a patient whose left hand tried to strike his wife while the right fought to stop it. In 2011 a woman named Karen Byrne reported that she was frequently attacked by her own hand after undergoing a Corpus Callosotomy. In the 1964 film Dr Strangelove, the titular character appears to be afflicted by Alien Hand Syndrome as they are repeatedly attacked by their own right hand READ MORE: Scientists identify the region of the brain associated with risk-taking Advertisement The Midbrain Move another layer deeper and you find the Midbrain, the smallest structure of the brainstem at just over half an inch (1.5cm) thick. However, it is indispensable for the movement of signals between the nervous system in the body and the processing centres of the brain. The Midbrain plays an important role in our ability to understand where we are in space as well as controlling our movement. Scientists also believe that parts of the Midbrain might play an important role in both consciousness and sleep. The Hindbrain The Hindbrain is the most ancient structure that makes up the human brain, it is responsible for overseeing our basic survival functions but regions like the Cerebellum have also been linked to functions like abstract thought and creativity Finally, we arrive at the deepest and oldest structure of the human brain: the Hindbrain. This region, which makes up most of the brainstem, connects the spine to the brain and is where we find our most basic functions that are essential for life. At the very top of the Hindbrain is the Pons, which takes its name from the Latin word for bridge, and acts as the interface between the rest of the Hindbrain and the Cerebral Cortex. The Pons contains four nerves which each have a unique function. These nerves contribute to eye movement, sensations in the face, balance and hearing, and chewing. The lowest part of the Hindbrain is the Medulla Oblongata, a one-inch-long lump of white and grey matter which plays a vital role in the body's automatic functions. Without the Medulla Oblongata, you would be unable to control your heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, or even sneezing. At last, we arrive at the Cerebellum, meaning 'little brain', this is the largest part of the Hindbrain and is part of the evolutionary ancient structure sometimes called the 'lizard brain'. Just like the Cerebrum, the Cerebellum has a wrinkly outer layer of grey matter and is divided into two hemispheres. The Cerebellum is so densely packed that it contains 80 per cent of all the neurons in the brain. Scientists believed it originally evolved to facilitate the smooth execution of motor functions. However, it is also believed to play a big role in abstract thinking and several studies link insight and creativity to the Cerebellum. Neuroimaging has allowed us to peer deeper into the human brain than ever before, but the question of how to explain the brain's functions is still one scientists are grappling with How do we know what the brain does? Since the Ancient Greeks, thinkers and philosophers alike have been puzzling over the function of the brain. While Aristotle might have thought the brain existed only to cool the blood, serious investigation into how the brain produced thought began to gather speed in the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the most important breakthroughs occurred in 1861 when a scientist called Paul Broca first visited a patient - a 21-year-old named Louis Victor Leborgne. The patient suffered from a progressive loss of speech but no loss of the ability to understand or comprehend language. When Leborgne died, Brocca removed his brain and found a lesion in the frontal lobe and hypothesized that this must be the site of language in the brain. To this day, 'Broca's Area' is still associated with the ability to produce language. Broca's Area, or Brodmann Areas 44 and 45, is still believed to play an important role in the production of language What is a fMRI scan and how do they help us map the mind? Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging is a technique used to scan brains. It works by detecting the small changes in blood blow that occur with brain activity. Scanners use powerful magnetic fields and radiofrequency pulses to track the blood's movement. Patients are awake and fully conscious during the procedure so they can conduct tasks while researchers observe changes in their brain. Advertisement While Broca's methods may seem simple, Professor Richard Bethlehem Director, of Neuroimaging at the Cambridge University Autism Research Centre, says modern methods are not all that different. Professor Bethlehem told MailOnline: 'There are probably multiple ways that scientists interrogate the topology of brain function, very broadly you could say they often use either neuroimaging or lesion studies in combination with specific tasks designed to elicit specific functions. 'The premise of both branches is relatively simple though: find a task that you think elicits a specific function and then measure the activity/response or conduct the task with individuals that have specific lesions or brain damage in a region that might be crucial for that task.' However, what has changed since Broca's day is that the neuroscientists' view of the brain is much less simple and views the brain's regions as far less isolated. 'Current consensus is more likely to suggest that there are often multiple brain regions involved in different functions and they may not even be selective to a singular function,' Professor Bethlehem added. Some researchers think this theory should be pushed even further, and that we should reject the idea of there being particular brain regions for certain functions. Dr Jeremy Skipper, principal investigator at UCL's Language, Action, and Brain Lab, told MailOnline that a function like language cannot be limited to just one part of the brain. 'What was classically called Broca's area,' Dr Skipper says, 'is not a real region but is composed of serval regions that have different cytoarchitectonic [cell structure] properties. 'That should be a clue from the very offset.' To try and show that language was distributed throughout the brain, Dr Skipper and his team had subjects watch films while inside an fMRI scanner. What he found was that 'when you listen to colour worlds, you activate colour regions. When you listen to words that involve motion, you activate motor processing regions.' Dr Skipper believes that the regions typically called 'language regions' are really just processing connectivity hubs which are all that are left behind when scientists average out lots of individual brain scans. Dr Skipper's brain scans show that nouns (blue) and verbs (red) tend to activate very different regions of the brain than the typical language processing areas (outlined in white) READ MORE: Brain images just got 64 million times sharper thanks to new turbocharged MRI scans Advertisement For example, imagine a city that still used telephone switchboards. If you averaged out all phone activity all that would be left behind would be the call centres which coordinate everyone's phones. If that was all the data left, you might think that phone calls only happen inside switchboards but then you would miss out on understanding who is talking to who. The radical conclusion, Dr Skipper says, is that 'there is no speech region in the brain.' 'There is no language comprehension region,' he added. 'Brain regions on their own are not functional modules, their functions are determined by what other brain regions they are talking to.' Like all scientific theories, Dr Skipper's theory isn't without its critics and some researchers still believe that there are brain functions that can be restricted to specific areas. Some point to lesion studies and cases like strokes where specific brain damage does cause specific cognitive issues with associated functions. However, theories like these are gaining traction, and there is a growing assumption that functions of the brain are far more spread out than Broca would have ever considered. Professor Bethlehem added: 'I think nowadays we tend to think of the brain as a distributed network where there are certainly hubs and areas that have preference for certain functions, but they are not isolated chunks of information processing tissue.' It's almost time to break out the camping chair and thermos of tea, as the night sky will be filled with a spectacular shower of 'fireball' meteors tonight. The Taurid Meteor Shower will reach its peak this evening, with up to five shooting stars visible every hour from the UK. As Earth passes through the debris cloud left by the asteroid 2004 TG10, meteoroids up to three feet (one metre) in length will be visible burning up in the Earth's atmosphere. These particularly slow-moving shooting stars will be visible until December 10 in the Northern Hemisphere, but will be most numerous from midnight tonight until the early hours of Monday morning. Best of all, experts say that no special equipment will be needed to view this impressive display, as the meteors are best seen with the naked eye. Tonight the Taurid Meteor Shower will reach its peak. From the constellation of the Pleiades, viewers should be able to see bright shooting stars moving relatively slow Meteor showers get their names from the region of the sky they appear to emerge from. In this case, it is from the Taurus Constellation What are the different types of space rocks? Between Mars and Jupiter there is a band of rocky material called the Asteroid Belt The largest rocky objects are called asteroids and often contain high levels of iron Smaller pieces are called meteoroids When these burn up in our atmosphere they are called meteors, and if they collide with Earth then they are called meteorites Comets are chunks of ice, rock, and frozen gasses that come from beyond the orbit of Jupiter They can come from the Kuiper Belt or Oort cloud and leave trails of debris that become meteor showers Advertisement Dr Minjae Kim, Research Fellow at the University of Warwick, told MailOnline: 'The best time to view this shower is November 13, 2023, at 00:21, when the moon won't interfere. You don't even need any equipment such as telescopes or binoculars. 'It's visible all around the world, so long as you have a clear sky. No matter where you are on Earth with Antarctica being the sole exception, the Taurids meteor shower graces the skies of almost every corner of our planet.' To find the Taurids, look South towards the Taurus constellation from which the meteors appear to emerge, giving them their name. Dr Kim adds that the Taurids shower is unique for its long display, lasting through October and November, and also for the fact it comes in two streams. 'The Northern Taurids, peaking this weekend, are created by Earth's passage through the remnants of the eccentric asteroid 2004 TG10,' Dr Kim said. 'In contrast, the Southern Taurids, which peaked between November 4th and 6th, are a result of our planet passing through the debris left by the short-period comet Encke.' Dr Greg Brown, astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, explains that the meteor shower occurs at the same time each year due to the predictable patterns of space debris. 'When the Earth passes through the cloud of debris left behind by a comet or asteroid in our solar system, pieces of rock and dust will be swept up, crashing into our atmosphere and producing a bright streak of light in our sky: a meteor,' he told MailOnline. 'These meteor showers occur at somewhat predictable times in our year and will appear to originate from a particular part of our sky based mostly on the direction the Earth is travelling in at the time.' The Taurid shower and the Encke comet are both believed to have once been a part of a much larger comet which has slowly broken into pieces over the last 20,000 to 30,000 years. These clouds of debris remain at the same point in Earth's orbit, meaning meteor showers always appear to come from the same place in the night sky. This will be a slow year for the Taurid Meteor Shower but the meteors still should be bright enough to clearly see with the naked eye The meteors seen during the Taurid shower tonight are especially slow-moving and bright, making them easy to spot with the naked eye. Most are classified as 'fireballs', which means they appear brighter than Venus - the brightest thing in the night sky after the moon. And, while they might appear to move slowly to us, the meteors are really moving at 17 miles/second (27 km/s), or 65,000 miles/hour (104,607km/h). Unfortunately, Dr Brown says tonight won't be a particularly good year for the Taurid Meteor Shower compared with other showers in the past. 'This shower isn't particularly strong with only around 5 meteors per hour at its peak which can be reduced greatly by your observing conditions,' he told MailOnline. To get the best view of the meteors you should find a place that has as little artificial light as possible as this will make the meteors easier to spot. Tonight, the shower's peak is perfectly timed with the arrival of the new moon, meaning there will be no light to interfere with the view. Avoid shining any lights towards your eyes, including looking at your phone, and give your eyes at least half an hour to adjust to the darkness. Dr Brown said: 'To see them, head out to a place with a low horizon, with no trees or buildings in the way, ideally after midnight to maximise your chances. 'Fill your view with the sky and wait. There's no point trying to use a telescope or a pair of binoculars as their view is far too small.' With the weather expected to be quite cold during the shower's peak, remember to pack warm clothes as you might be waiting for a long time to see the shooting stars. The Met Office forecasts a foggy start to Sunday, but this should have cleared by the evening. Some rain and blustery showers are to be expected in the evening, but are predicted to blow over before midnight with clear skies expected over much of the South East and Midlands. The Taurid Meteor Shower will be active until December 10 but there will be far fewer meteors to see, however, there will be three more meteor showers this year to see If you do miss the chance to see the Taurid Meteor shower tonight there is no need to worry, as there are three more meteor showers to spot before the end of the year. Between November 17 and 18, the Leonids will reach their peak activity, followed by the Geminids between December 13 and 14. Finally, closing out the year of stargazing, the Ursids Meteor Shower will reach its peak between December 21 and 22. Throughout the whole year, those with their eyes on the sky might also be able to spot sporadic meteors. These random pieces of space debris are made up mostly of material from asteroids, which are large chunks of rock, rather than from icy comets. They can appear from any direction in the night sky and generally pass through the atmosphere at a rate of one every ten minutes. You're browsing photos on your camera roll, your finger slips and poof - a cherished image is gone forever. Before you panic, know there might be a way to bring it back from the dead. The best part? It works even if you accidentally deleted something days ago. Perfect for those times you realize, 'Dang it, I deleted the best pic I took of my dog/kid/self the other day.' Many people have accidently deleted the perfect photo, but there are several ways to recover it Google Photos Google Photos is one of the most forgiving apps for accidental deletions. An 'undo' button usually flashes on your screen for a few seconds after your misstep. Any photo you delete will land in the 'Trash' folder for up to 60 days as long as you've enabled 'Back up and Sync.' Dang, a whole two months to change your mind! On your iPhone or Android, open Google Photos. At the bottom, select Library > Trash. Touch and hold the photo you want to keep. Tap Restore. FYI: Even if you don't have 'Back up and Sync' enabled, there's a good chance your photo will stick around for up to 30 days. If you empty the 'Trash' folder, you're out of luck. Apple Photos Any images you delete will appear in the Recently Deleted album. Whether you have iCloud enabled or not, you'll have up to 30 days to get them back Any images you delete will appear in the Recently Deleted album. Whether you have iCloud enabled or not, you'll have up to 30 days to get them back. Open the Photos app on your iPhone or iPad. Select Albums and tap Recently Deleted. Use Face ID or Touch ID if prompted. Select the deleted photo and tap Recover. If you can't find a deleted pic, there's a slim chance it's actually 'hidden.' Open the Photos app. Select Albums and tap Hidden under Utilities. Use Face ID or Touch ID if prompted. Select the photo you want to unhide. Tap the More button and select Unhide. Voila! And now your deleted (or hidden) photo is back. Let's say you struck out A cute picture of your dog/cat/kid isn't in the 'Trash' folder. It's time to bring in the heavy hitter. About Kim Komando Sound like a tech pro, even if you're not! Award-winning popular host Kim Komando is your secret weapon. Listen on 425+ radio stations or get the podcast. And join over 500,000 people who call her free 5-minute daily email newsletter. Advertisement When all else fails, you can try a third-party tool. Stellar Data Recovery is a popular option, but it's not cheap. The program starts at $29.99 for Android users and $39.99 for iPhone users. It's not the cheapest software out there but it's a safer alternative when compared to nasty, invasive programs that claim to be free. Here's a quick step-by-step guide on how it works: Download Stellar Data Recovery onto your computer. Connect your Android or iPhone via USB, then launch the software. Choose the type of data you'd like to recover. In this case, photos. Select your Android or iPhone device and click Scan. Once finished, any recoverable photos will be displayed. When moving to the UK from America, you can experience a lot of culture shocks - from ways of speaking to food shopping and weather. One US citizen who moved to Britain has shared the names of popular UK brands that she believes just 'wouldn't work' back home. Lisa Dollan, who goes by @yorkshirepeach on TikTok, moved from the USA to Yorkshire and makes videos about her experiences. Her recent video on brand names has been seen by 470,000 people and racked up over 600 comments. Beginning her list, she told viewers 'Now then, I've got popular UK brands that just wouldn't work in America, let's go' One US citizen who moved to Britain has shared the names of popular UK brands that she believes just 'wouldn't work' back home Digestives The American's first brand that she thinks wouldn't work in the US, is a British favourite - McVities Digestives. She explained 'Coming in strong at number one, Digestives. 'Now, when I saw this on the shelf when I first moved here, I though aw that's a medicinal biscuit for people with IBS. 'But it's not, it's just the name of a biscuit, a digestive, and they even do them with chocolate on. 'It wouldn't work in America, people would automatically think it's a medicine and start abusing it - I'm kidding.' Magnums Sticking to sweet treats, she adds the popular UK ice cream magnums to the list. Lisa laughed 'A magnum where I am from is a contraceptive right that you put on. 'It doesn't work, it's not an ice cream. Maybe they are in America now but they weren't when I left.' She continued 'If you went into a store and asked for a magnum they would ask you if you wanted ribbed or smooth.' Lisa Dollan, who goes by @yorkshirepeach on TikTok , moved from the USA to Yorkshire and makes videos about her experiences READ MORE: American woman who moved from California to the north of England reveals FOUR huge culture shocks Advertisement Minstrels Her final brand that she thinks wouldn't make it out of the UK is minstrels. Even though it doesn't share a name with something else in America, it sounds a little too similar to something very different. She said 'Minstrels. I know the spelling is not the same, but I immediately think menstrual cycle, which we refer to a lot. 'You guys here will say like 'I'm due on,' 'I'm on at the minute' - you guys have so many ways to say 'I'm on my period. 'We quite often say menstrual cycle, I just immediately think of the menstrual cycle, I just don't think it would pop off, I really don't.' Both Brits and Americans flocked to the comments to talk about the differences. One user wrote 'Digestives were a aid to help with digestion,' to which someone else wrote 'Founded by 2 Scottish doctors in the 1800s it contained bicarbonate sods so they thought it would be beneficial. Now I just love them in my tea!' Another added 'Digestive has a small dose laxative in it to help with your Digestive system' and someone else chimed in with 'I'm pretty sure it's just the fibre'. Others wrote 'A Minstrel was a traveling musician in medieval times!' and 'well now I'm gonna think of the minstrel cycle whenever I'm in the chocolate aisle'. An American added 'It sounds so weird to say this but I tried Magnum when I visited England and it tasted wonderful'. What is and isn't acceptable to take home from a hotel bedroom? This is a question etiquette expert William Hanson answers in a viral TikTok post he filmed in a 'sun deck' cabin on the QE2 floating hotel in Dubai that has been viewed 2.5million times. Mr Hanson explains that 'basically anything small' is fine to take home, for example the dental and shaving kits, miniatures of shampoo and body wash, and the slippers. In fact, Mr Hanson points out, the slippers in his room carry a label that reads 'love me, use me, take me home'. 'Words to live by,' says Mr Hanson, who added in an email to MailOnline Travel: 'The postcard with the pretty picture of the hotel, or the writing paper with their details on are also acceptable for you to remove from the room, if you want. It's good, low-level marketing for the hotel.' So, what's not acceptable to pack before checking out? In the video, Mr Hanson says: 'Things like the mug or the cups and saucers, the glasses, the pillow, the robe... please leave it in the room because stealing is not good etiquette.' Mr Hanson told MailOnline: 'If you do take a fancy to the china, you may discover it's for sale in the reception area. Always ask. What is and isn't acceptable to take home from a hotel bedroom? This is a question etiquette expert William Hanson (above) answers in a viral TikTok post he filmed in a 'sun deck' cabin on the QE2 floating hotel in Dubai that has been viewed 2.5million times WHAT'S THE IDEAL STATE TO LEAVE A HOTEL ROOM IN? Mr Hanson said: 'You don't need to leave your hotel bedroom looking like a show home, but it should not look like a bomb's just gone off. That's unfair to the housekeeping team, who don't just have your room to service, but many others. Put all towels in the bathroom - in the bath or on the floor in a neat heap - make sure the bedding is on the bed and no pillows or duvets are on the floor, and return all hangers to the wardrobe.' Advertisement 'And pillows and scatter cushions these are items you must never remove. It's astonishing how many guests think they can get away with stuffing one or two in their cases. Again, they may be available to purchase, or the hotel may be able to tell you the name of its supplier.' We asked Mr Hanson if it's bad form to give people presents that are hotel freebies. He replied: 'I probably wouldn't give many people a freebie from a hotel, but a close friend or family member may get a spare pair of fluffy slippers, for example. 'A few weeks before the UK entered lockdown, many Brits were panic-buying. I was staying abroad in a hotel and decided to purloin the spare loo roll to give to a friend as a (joke) hostess gift.' And what are Mr Hanson's favourite small items to whisk away? He said: 'I love taking the sachet of bath salts home with me, especially if I have enjoyed a bath in that hotel. Then, when in my own tub, I can close my eyes and imagine I'm on holiday again somewhere else.' For more from Mr Hanson visit his TikTok and Instagram profiles. Sex Education actress Jemima Kirke has compared tying the knot to getting a tattoo - claiming it's not 'permanent'. The twice married actress, who found fame in her iconic role as Jessa Johansson on Lena Dunham's hit TV series Girls, also admitted she would opt for a shotgun wedding should she say 'I do' for a third time. Jemima, 38, split from her second husband, Alex Cameron, 33, earlier this year. She was previously married to lawyer Michael Mosberg from 2009 until 2017. Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com at the 2023 Glamour Women of the Year event, she said: 'I think a shotgun wedding is always a good idea no matter what because they're reversible. 'It's not a child, you're not having a baby, you're having a wedding! The tradition has been bastardized already so it's okay, it's just a big party and it's fun, it's kind of like getting a tattoo but even less permanent!' Jemima Kirke has admitted she'd rather 'wait it out' than use an online dating app to find love following her split from her second husband earlier this year Jemima, 35, and musician Alex Cameron, 33, pictured here in April 2019, parted ways earlier this year Jemima married her first husband, lawyer Michael Mosberg, in 2009 but the couple got divorced in 2017 When asked about finding love again in the future, Jemima revealed she is 'willing to wait' to meet someone in real life as opposed to using dating apps like Tinder or Hinge. 'With dating, I know that it's really hard not to meet on apps and the world has changed, but if it can happen organically, that would be amazing wouldn't it?' she said, before adding: 'I'm willing to wait it out!' Jemima was born in London but raised in New York City and says being a Brit in the Big Apple has it's advantages thanks to the way she speaks. 'Well, you've got a one up because you've got the accent,' she said. 'It's sexy and intriguing, men love it, people love it.' But she added: 'In New York everyone is busy, busy, busy and completely overwhelmed and has too much going on and is on the side having a nervous breakdown. 'They're just like rushing past you and when they do have a chance to talk, it's a lot and I don't know, are they even listening?' Jemima currently resides in Brooklyn with her two children, daughter Rafella, 13, and son Memphis, 10, whom she shares with her first husband. In May, Jemima confirmed that she was single again in an interview with GQ in which she discussed how it can get 'harder' to be with someone the longer two people have been together. Jemima, pictured here with Alex in September 2022, previously said that falling in love is 'a huge risk' Jemima joked that getting married is 'kind of like getting a tattoo but even less permanent' Jemima pictured with editor-in-chief for Glamour magazine Samantha Barry on November 7 'What Ive learned... recently, is that everything ends,' she told the publication. 'And that doesnt necessarily mean that all relationships end, although most of them do. But there will be an ending of at least an era of a relationship. 'But you know, falling in love is a huge risk. And as fun as it is, as you get older, its something you really have to consider if youre capable of withstanding. It gets harder, I think. Well it depends, I mean Im single now.' Jemima also opened about becoming a mother, age 26, when she was filming the first season of Girls. 'I just felt like a cow and a maid,' she explained. 'I was thinking then more about what I didnt have, rather than what I had. Because all I saw was a baby. And I loved the baby, of course. 'But I wanted the baby and I wanted to go out with my friends and I wanted to go to the studio and have a career. When youre that age, often were not very good at thinking that this moment isnt forever.' Dubbed 'the ultimate job interview' The Apprentice candidates are subjected to a gruelling two-month process, with the goal to impress Lord Alan Sugar and bag a 250,000 investment in their business. Over the years, winners have gone on to launch many successful businesses as a result of their work with Lord Sugar. However, not everyone has continued to work alongside the magnate, with the likes of Joseph Valente, Alana Spencer, Sian Gabbidon and James White all parting ways with Lord Sugar. Last year's winner Harpreet Kaur is the latest entrepreneur to have cut ties, announcing in August that she had bought back her shares in bakery business, Oh So Yum!, just 18 months after winning the show. Now, in an exclusive interview with MailOnline, Harpreet, 32, has revealed exactly why she decided to part ways as well as revealing an insight into the real nature of Lord Sugar. End of an era: The Apprentice winner Harpreet Kaur has revealed why she parted ways with Lord Sugar just 18 months after he invested 250,000 in her desserts business Oh So Yum! Speaking about Lord Sugar's nature as a person she confessed: 'What you see is what you get. Business is business.' Addressing the spiky nature of the businessman that viewers so often see on The Apprentice she explained: 'If you want investment for your business you have to take criticism. 'You get lots of feedback because the investor is testing you to see if you're a tough cookie and you can handle these questions because if you can't handle a little bit of criticism in the boardroom, you've got no chance in in the real world of business. 'He's just asking those harsh questions that you would have to face in reality. 'I acknowledged that none of it is ever personal, he just want to find out a little bit more about you and your business.' She added that while she doesn't really speak to Lord Sugar anymore, noting that he's a 'very busy guy', she still has a good relationship with his team. 'If I did need anything in the future, it's good to know that we've got a good relationship and I'm sure if I needed to I could pick up the phone,' she said of his advisers and team. Harpreet's win last year was controversial, with Lord Sugar voicing concerns over the 'scalable' nature of her business, and that she ran her business with her sister - who Lord Sugar had not met. As a result her sister Gurvinder became the joke of Internet memes during the show's final after viewers believed she would be sacked from the company and replaced as a shareholder by Lord Sugar. Businesswoman: Harpreet said that by appearing on The Apprentice last year she achieved what she'd set out to do for her business, which was give it a national platform Two of a kind: Harpreet's win last year was controversial, with Lord Sugar voicing concerns that she ran her business with her sister Gurvinder (pictured) who he had not met Yet Harpreet has revealed that her sister Gurvinder's involvement had no bearing on her decision to part ways with Lord Sugar and she was still able to remain a director and own a stake in the company. Discussing how the split came to be, she told MailOnline that the decision was 'completely amicable and mutual' but allowed her and her sister to have more creative control in the business. 'The decision came about through a board discussion,' she explained. 'We are asked would we like to kind of take that ownership and buy back our shares but there are definitely no bad feelings.' Harpreet - who is engaged to her The Apprentice co-star Akshay Thakrar - added that by appearing on the BBC show she achieved what she'd set out to do for her business, which was give it a national platform. READ MORE: Where are The Apprentice winners now? Advertisement Revealing that she'd been approached on the street by viewers who had asked her about Oh So Yum! she added: 'We may only have been with Lord Sugar for a short period but it benefited us.' Offering advice to future candidates on The Apprentice, she said: 'You have to be prepared to put that groundwork in. Winning an investment isn't a magic formula. 'Nobody's going to hold your hand and you have to work extremely hard, there can be a lot of pressure. 'You have to be willing to take on that pressure, take on the feedback and take on board someone else's ideas and opinions, so I think you just have to be prepared. 'There's no hiding. With The Apprentice, I think one of the reasons that I got as far as I did is because I fully invested in myself.' Since winning the show, Harpreet has gone on to open another Oh So Yum! parlour in Bradford and also sealed a deal with luxury department store Selfridges. She has also just collaborated with the Hilton hotel group, with Oh So Yum! launching its debut six-flavour Cookie Cup collaboration with the Hilton London Metropole, now available in-house at the Tyburn Market restaurant Speaking about the move, Harpreet said: 'Theres nothing sweeter than seeing our Cookie Cups available to buy at Hilton London Metropole - its truly a dream collaboration and to have the opportunity to work alongside such an iconic hotel is incredible. 'I'm really pleased about because I feel like if a brand like Hilton recognizes the of what we do, we must be doing something, right. 'The journey Oh So Yum! has been on so far has already been phenomenal, but this marks a very exciting new chapter and I couldnt be more thrilled.' In the world of celebrity, it's no real shock to see stars flaunting their endless pins in daring dresses and thigh-skimming skirts. But in a bold new move, some of Hollywood's biggest stars are ditching their trousers in favour of sexy micro-minis, no doubt catching the eye of their die-hard fans and fashion lovers alike. Margot Robbie and Hailey Bieber are among those to have shown off their legs in sexy oversized shirts and barely-there bottoms. And whether it be heading out for dinner or just popping to a cafe for lunch, they prove that the revealing look can be dressed up or down. So, as showbiz's biggest names showcase a racy new fashion trend, MailOnline takes a look at some of the stars who have worn it best... Wow! Margot Robbie is among the stars who have embraced the new trend of the micro-mini, ditching her trousers in favour of an oversized shirt Here she is! Hailey Bieber also cut a stylish figure in tiny brown mini skirt layered under a matching jumper and snakeskin jacket as she headed out for dinner at Sushi Park Casual: This is far from the first time Hailey has sported such an outfit, as back in February she donned a tiny black mini dress under an oversized bomber jacket Leading the big names embracing the oversized shirt is Margot, who slipped into a loose white shirt while heading out for lunch at The Sandbar Scarbough Beach on Monday. The Barbie star teamed her casual look with chunky white sliders and a taupe chain-strap bag. Hailey also cut a stylish figure in tiny brown mini skirt layered under a matching jumper and snakeskin jacket as she headed out for dinner at Sushi Park. The model accessorised her eye-catching outfit with black patent loafers and white ankle socks. This is far from the first time Hailey has sported such an outfit, as back in February she donned a tiny black mini dress under an oversized bomber jacket while running errands in Los Angeles. Ever the fashion guru, Victoria Beckham has also embraced the micro-mini trend, as she unveiled her new range of 95 monogrammed tights. Proving she is the best advert for her brand, Victoria modelled the hosiery in the dressing room of her 31million London townhouse. Speaking to her followers on Instagram, she said: 'I feel like it's my holiday uniform, whether I'm wearing my tights with a small dress or a slashed jacket like this, a midi length dress - I'll just have the monogrammed tights poking out the bottom.' Sensational! Ever the fashion guru, Victoria Beckham has also embraced the micro-mini trend, as she unveiled her new range of 95 monogrammed tights Low-key: Known for her boho sense of style, Taylor Swift has also been opting for a more laid-back version of the look last month Sizzling: Nicola Peltz also showed off her endless pins in a red leather shirt dress as she joined her husband Brooklyn Beckham at the premiere of his dad David's Netflix series Daring: One of the first names to show off the trend was Kendall Jenner, who as far back as 2015 donned an oversized jumper dress, and little else Here she is! And in 2019, the model slipped into a plunging orange silk blazer dress while heading out in NYC Legs for days: Jennifer Lopez also wowed in a plunging white shirt dress and funky denim knee-high boots that same year Revealing! Alexa Chung left little to the imagination in a mini version of the classic trench coat as she headed to Paris Fashion Week in March Here she is! Mary Charteris donned an oversized black pussybow dress and a sparkling blazer for the same fashion event Unusual! And taking the trend in a bold new direction, Cara Delevingne opted to completely forego her bottoms when she headed to the Vogue World event in September Known for her boho sense of style, Taylor Swift has also been opting for a more laid-back version of the look. The hitmaker was seen heading out for dinner in an oversized black shirt and thigh-high brown leather boots. Nicola Peltz also showed off her endless pins in a red leather shirt dress as she joined her husband Brooklyn Beckham at the premiere of his dad David's Netflix series. One of the first names to show off the trend was Kendall Jenner, who as far back as 2015 donned an oversized jumper dress, and little else. And in 2019, the model slipped into a plunging orange silk blazer dress while heading out in NYC. Jennifer Lopez also wowed in a plunging white shirt dress and funky denim knee-high boots that same year. And taking the trend in a bold new direction, Cara Delevingne opted to completely forego her bottoms when she headed to the Vogue World event in September. LOZITHA His Majesty King Mswati III has joined the many calls for emaSwati to end the killings, which are as a result of gender-based violence (GBV). The Kings call comes when the nation recently woke up to the shocking news of a shooting of four women by a deputy sheriff and another case of a socialite who shot his wife and later turned the gun on himself. Addressing the attendees of the End of Year Prayer Service at Mandvulo Grand Hall yesterday, the King noted that there have been many incidents where couples have killed one another; something he said was bad for society. He condemned the killings, saying: There is no reason to kill one another. We, therefore, ask God to help us as emaSwati so that we do not face such circumstances where a person has killed another. joyous The King had begun his address by stating that the prayer service was a joyous one and that the music dished out by the choirs and artists of the day was uplifting. His Majesty said the service had been so good such that he wished it could go on and on. We heard and enjoyed the good music and may God bless all the performers. We also heard the messages delivered by the men of God through the sermons they shared. The message was powerful. In vernacular the King said: Letingoma tiyasikitata, which means, These songs tickle us. In jest, His Majesty said as he was coming for the service he felt like he was a lucky man because all the selected pastors had prepared for the sermons, while he had not due to that the past few days have been hectic with many commitments. Touching on the theme for the day, His Majesty said it was spot on as it encouraged all to thank God for the wonders and miracles he has done for the country. We need to lift up our hands and sing Halellujah because we are blessed. Blessings, by their nature, bring life to a person, the King said. The attendees were thrown in stitches as the King clarified that the real blessings were those from God in heaven and not the ones from what is referred to as blessers. The word blesser is used when referring to people who spoil others with money in return for certain favours. It is also used to refer to old men who spoil young women with money. A blessed person thrives in life and I can confidently say that in the Kingdom of Eswatini we are blessed. God has indeed been with us ever since we started talking about a turnaround. That idea of a turnaround was a message from God, His Majesty said. Elaborating on blessings, The King said people needed to know that they would not receive them if God decided that they did not deserve them. His Majesty shared the story of Isaac and Jacob in the Bible and said the latter thrived because God had blessed him. Another message that His Majesty gave to the attendees regarding blessings was that whenever they received them, they should not take them lightly. You need to hold your blessings with both hands because they are a favour from God. Because we have received blessings, it means that God has shown us Hismercy and grace. He will never forsake us. The King stated that God had been with the people of Eswatini since the time of King Somhlolo during which the word of God was not known. Through Somhlolo, The King said, God showed His mercy for emaSwati through a vision where he called for them to choose between the Bible and money. The King said the onus was on all emaSwati to never leave the Bible for money. Do not just pretend to be living for the Bible, but your actions must show as well. When God decides to give someone else blessings and not you, it shows that they did not belong to you in the first place. What is also important is that once you receive blessings, you then need to stay away from sin. Staying in sin will destroy you, the King said. Elaborating, His Majesty said blessed people had a duty to ensure that they remained humble and not treat others badly. The King emphasised his message by sharing the story of Petro and the disciples who decided to go fishing at night and did not catch anything. It was only in the morning that God felt their pain and made a decision to help them and ordered that they threw their fishing nets in the water. This, His Majesty said, saw the disciples catching the highest number of fish and this happened when they had lost all hope. With this story, His Majesty said he was emphasising that as the Bible says, weeping may endure for a night but joy will come in the morning if people believed in God. The King also encouraged emaSwati to never stop believing in God as such would cause them problems and sleepless nights. In God there is peace. By coming to this service, it shows that God loves you. Even those who are following the service on social media platforms from all the four regions of the country have been blessed by God, The King said. Meanwhile, the service was well handled with Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) Deputy Chairperson Reverend Sipho Tembe taking the lead in the proceedings. Tembe began by sharing humorous words, saying he was proud to be from Logoba where the newly-appointed Prime Minister Russell Dlamini is from. Tembe used the popular saying, Nawe Logoba awumncinyana. Some of the notable figures at the service included Chief Justice Bheki Maphalala, Judge Mumcy Dlamini, Liqoqo Chairman Paul Dlamini, Members of Parliament and senators, businessmen and leaders of corporate entities to name, but a few. Actress Evanna Lynch was one of the few Harry Potter stars to back J.K. Rowling when the author became embroiled in a trans rights row. Now Evanna, who played Harrys friend Luna Lovegood in the films, admits she was naive not to expect an online backlash for supporting Rowling. Her actions were in stark contrast to Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, who all criticised the writer. It was a big wake-up call, Evanna, 32, told me at the Irish Post Awards. Luna was famous for her blonde hair in the Potter films but it seems Evanna is keen to explore her dark side, sporting a new brunette style. Actress Evanna Lynch was one of the few Harry Potter stars to back J.K. Rowling when the author became embroiled in a trans rights row. Now Evanna, who played Harrys friend Luna Lovegood in the films, admits she was naive not to expect an online backlash for supporting Rowling Evanna's actions were in stark contrast to Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, who all criticised Harry potter creator J.K. Rowling (pictured) Karens dressing down... for Karen Fashion designer Karen Millen, 61, sold her brand for 35million in 2004 Fashion designer Karen Millen has launched a stinging attack on Karen Millen. Karen, right, who has just created a second The Founder collection for the eponymous brand, has rubbished its way of working. Appearing on Amanda Wakeleys Style DNA podcast, Karen, 61, took a few shots at the current management of the Karen Millen brand, which she sold in 2004 for 35 million. Chatting about how samples are now made out of house, she says: Im having to get used to that and it is frustrating because when you get samples back there are silly mistakes or they havent followed the instructions. I just think, What a waste of time. TV chef James Martin rues the day he urged viewers to feed leftover bread to ducks because it led to a three-hour dressing down. Speaking at a gig in Bath, James said: It makes ducks stomachs bloat. Three-and-a-half-thousand complaints I got. I was dragged into the BBC in front of 15 Bill Oddies who gave me abuse for three hours! Keke Palmer reportedly gave ex Darius Jackson several opportunities to make things right before she went her separate way and took legal action against him, including filing claims of domestic violence. The 30-year-old actress who was granted temporary sole custody of their baby son and a restraining order against Jackson, 29 'did what she had to do' after attempting to have an 'amicable split,' a source told People on Saturday. 'She gave him a lot of chances to do the right thing,' the insider noted. 'Keke tried so hard to have an amicable split and [custody] arrangement.' Palmer's court filings included shocking allegations of ongoing 'physical and emotional abuse' against her former partner, with whom she shares eight-month-old son Leodis. 'She needed to prioritize her safety and the safety of her baby,' the source added. 'She wants the best for Leo. She did not want it to get to this point. But she did what she had to do.' Giving chances: Keke Palmer reportedly gave ex Darius Jackson several opportunities to make things right before she went her separate way and took legal action against him , including filing claims of domestic violence; seen in March Taking control: The 30-year-old actress 'did what she had to do' after attempting to have an 'amicable split' Trying to keep peace: 'She gave him a lot of chances to do the right thing,' the insider noted. 'Keke tried so hard to have an amicable split and arrangement [custody]' In the request filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Thursday, Palmer said she is seeking protection from Jackson after he allegedly 'trespassed into my home without my knowledge or consent, threatened me, then physically attacked me' on Sunday. On Friday, DailyMail.com obtained shocking surveillance camera images of Palmer being beaten by Jackson, with the images obtained from court documents. Palmer accused Jackson of abusing her as recently as November 5, stating that she has security footage to back up claims that he 'trespassed into my home without my knowledge or consent' and 'threatened' her before 'lunging for my neck, striking me, throwing me over the couch and stealing my phone.' DailyMail.com has reached out to Palmer's representatives for comment on this story. In response, Jackson posted a picture of him holding his child on X. The caption reads: 'I love you, son. See you soon.' In the restraining order request, which she filed in Los Angeles on Thursday, it was noted that the relationship which began in 2021 'finally ended for good' early last month 'primarily due to the physical and emotional abuse inflicted.' Palmer alleges that Jackson would also 'love bomb' her during their relationship. 'The abuse during our relationship was not just physical, but emotional and manipulative. Darius would 'love bomb' me and make me feel like I was the most important woman in the world, only to get extremely distant and cold over a perceived insult to him.' Protection: 'She needed to prioritize her safety and the safety of her baby,' the source added. 'She wants the best for Leo. She did not want it to get to this point. But she did what she had to do'; seen in April Filing: In the request filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Thursday, Palmer said she is seeking protection from Jackson after he allegedly 'trespassed into my home without my knowledge or consent, threatened me, then physically attacked me' on Sunday 'If we were at a party or event, and I spoke with one person too long or looked at someone a "certain way," he would storm off in a rage telling me I was "slut" and a "whore," accuse me of cheating on him, and that I did not love him.' 'Darius had a way of gaslighting me to make me feel like I was doing something wrong even though I wasnt,' she wrote in documents. Palmer alleged there have been 'many instances of physical violence' with Jackson, including him 'hitting' her in front of their son. In April 2022, Palmer said that she was out for dinner with Jackson in Santa Barbara when he accused her of flirting with a woman, forcing them to come home early. 'Darius grabbed my prescription eyeglasses away from me, threw them on the ground and stomped on them. He then opened my bag, threw all of my belongings onto the pavement in the rain, and threw my car keys across the parking lot before he got into his own car and drove off,' she alleges. Other incidents listed by Palmer reportedly involved him 'destroying personal property, including diaries and prescription eyeglasses' as well as throwing her 'belongings into the street.' She also accused him of 'throwing my car keys to prevent me from driving away, spewing profanities about me to our son, threatening to kill himself with a gun if I left him, harassment, and other physical and emotional abuse.' In her filing Palmer also expressed being 'concerned for Leo's safety' due to prior incidents. Evidence: On Friday, DailyMail.com obtained shocking surveillance camera images of Palmer being beaten by Jackson, with the images obtained from court documents Footage: Palmer accused Jackson of abusing her as recently as November 5, stating that she has security footage to back up claims that he 'trespassed into my home without my knowledge or consent' and 'threatened' her before 'lunging for my neck, striking me, throwing me over the couch and stealing my phone' She claimed that on September 26, 2023 Darius became 'very frustrated with him when Leo was crying while Darius changed his diaper.' Palmer explained that her former partner 'started getting rough with Leo physically and I stepped in to make sure Darius would not hurt him.' She continued: 'Darius was angry and it almost became a tug of war with Leo. Darius finally let go and Leo was not harmed, but as I was holding Leo trying to comfort him and finish changing his diaper, Darius hit me in the head before storming out of the room.' Keke also shared incidents of emotional abuse, writing, 'If we were at a party or event, and I spoke with one person too long or looked at someone a "certain way", he would storm off in a rage telling me I was 's**t' and a 'w***e,' accuse me of cheating on him, and that I did not love him.' Keke revealed it was the birth of their son that helped her make the decision to end their relationship. 'It is because of our son, Leo, that I was finally able to end my relationship with Darius once and for all and escape the abuse. Leo is the most important thing in the entire world to me; he needs and deserves to be safe and grow up in an environment free from violence,' she wrote. This comes after Palmer's mother broke her silence after the actress accused her ex Jackson of repeated 'physical and emotional abuse' - and claimed she told his brother Sarunas he was abusive one year ago. Palmer's mother Sharon took to Instagram on Thursday to share a video message slamming his brother Sarunas for branding Jackson 'a disgusting, vile, abusive, manipulative person' in a now deleted Tweet. Other claims: Other incidents listed by Palmer reportedly involved him 'destroying personal property, including diaries and prescription eyeglasses' as well as throwing her 'belongings into the street' Saving grace: Keke revealed it was the birth of their son that helped her make the decision to end their relationship Shayla said: 'For Sarunas Jackson to post on his Twitter the ridiculous stuff he posted when he knew his brother was abusive. 'I went to Sarunas over a year ago and told him that his brother was abusive to my daughter, and he said, "Well, I used to be like that too' 'So now hes posting on Twitter like hes this special guy when we know hes the biggest f***boy in Hollywood; hes disrespectful to women just like his brother.' She also claimed Sarunas 'taught his brother how to be abusive' and added: 'He dont get to act like hes this special guy. No. Youre a f***boy, and youre part of the problem.' The video was captioned: 'I dare you , mess with my family. family means everything to me ! you and your family act like sociopaths and like the world cant see it. you are phony ! and i saw you from day one, my daughter is kind and our family treated you with kindness and this is how you treat it. i wont take this laying down anymore IM DONE!' DailyMail.com has contacted Saruna Jackson's representative for comment.' Keke and Darius' relationship hit a rough patch when he went viral for tweeting his disapproval of a tight, sheer, thong bodysuit dress she wore to attend Usher's Las Vegas residency in July. At the time, he wrote online, 'It's the outfit tho... you a mom.' When fans came to Palmer's defense, Jackson doubled down as he fired off a second tweet defending himself. 'We live in a generation where a man of the family doesn't want the wife & mother to his kids to showcase booty cheeks to please others & he gets told how much of a hater he is,' he said. 'This is my family & my representation. I have standards & morals to what I believe. I rest my case,' he added. Meanwhile, Palmer did not address the situation explicitly, but appeared on Instagram to share outtakes from the evening and tell fans she wished she had taken more photos. Kendall Jenner slipped into a clinging brown shorts onesie for a workout in Los Angeles on Saturday. The 28-year-old supermodel who stars in a new Jacquemus holiday campaign showed off her svelte physique in the snug look. The 818 Tequila founder wore a pair of dark shades over her eyes and wore her lustrous locks loose and in a center part. She carried a cream-colored Cupshe sweater while exiting a Brentwood gym after working up a sweat. The reality television personality carried a large brown leather tote over her arm while making her way to her car. Athleisure: Kendall Jenner slipped into a clinging brown shorts onesie for a workout in Los Angeles on Saturday Jenner bared her arms in the sleeveless look, which also featured a structured wire bodice. It comes after the star was active on Instagram earlier this week, posing in a clinging look from the brand Alo. She recorded herself standing in front of a bathroom mirror, dressed in pale green-toned biker shorts, a matching bra, and a long-sleeved white shirt worn over it. The beauty, who is dating Puerto Rican music artist Bad Bunny, clutched her phone with a dark manicured hand. Kendall, who is the only one of her five siblings without children, recently celebrated her birthday. She was treated to a slew of heartwarming messages online from her famous family and friends. On her special day, November 3, big sister Kim Kardashian, 43, uploaded a carousel of photos with the runway regular. Kardashian captioned the post, 'Happy Birthday my beautiful Horse Girl KJ! our road trips and our travels will always be my favorite memories together and I cant wait to create even more! You always bring the grounding energy we all need. You are such a light! I pray this year will bring you peace and more love and happiness.' Fit: The 28-year-old supermodel showed off her svelte physique in the snug look Social media: Her gym outing comes after the star was active on Instagram earlier this week, posing in a clinging look from the brand Alo Celebration: Kendall, who is the only one of her five siblings without children, recently celebrated her birthday Birthday girl: She was treated to a slew of heartwarming messages online from her famous family and friends And the birthday girl herself later took to her online platform to share a glimpse at her festivities. In one photo she donned an off-the-shoulder white dress with a long pleated skirt as she stood in front of a sprawling living room space. Behind her was a banner of metallic silver balloons that read: 'Scorpio Baby.' Kendall wrote a cheeky caption as she simply said, 'twenty ate.' Call The Midwife's Helen George was seen leaving her co-star Olly Rix's home, sparking rumours of a growing connection following their recent breakups. The actors, known for their roles as on-screen lovers Trixie Franklin and Matthew Aylward in the BBC drama, are said to be supporting each other as they navigate through their heartbreak. Olly, 36, who recently split from his makeup artist girlfriend Natasha of seven years, was spotted at his West London home, with Helen, 39, emerging a few hours later carrying a large bag. Her dog Charlie was also with her as she made her way back to her own house - ten miles away in East London. An onlooker told The Sun on Sunday how Olly 'looked relaxed' and when Helen left the premises, she looked a 'little dishevelled'. Spotted: Call The Midwife 's Helen George was seen leaving her co-star Olly Rix 's home, sparking rumours of a growing connection following their recent breakups (pictured in character as Trixie Franklin and Matthew Aylward) Close friends: Olly was spotted at his West London home, with Helen emerging a few hours later carrying a large bag and her dog The sightings have fuelled speculation about a budding bond between the two co-stars who share a close connection, despite Olly's character reportedly being written out of the show. An inider said: 'Its been a tricky year for both Helen and Olly. They have been spending a lot of time together on set, walking their dogs together and chatting a lot. 'They both have respect for each other as actors and they are supportive of each other and dedicated to their roles on the drama. The changes in their relationships have caused a lot of upheaval.' A spokesperson for Helen said: 'Yes, she went to visit a friend for a cup of tea - like all friends do - and as we have always said, there is nothing more to this.' Mail Online has contacted Olly's representatives for further comment. Helen split from her partner Jack Ashton after they first met on the set of Call The Midwife seven years prior. She has played Trixie Franklin on the show since 2012, while Jack joined the series two years later as Tom Hereward. The pair's characters embarked on a romance on screen and Tom proposed to Trixie, before she ended their relationship. In real life, the couple were said to have fallen for each other after travelling to South Africa to film the show's 2016 Christmas Special. Split: Olly, who recently split from his makeup artist girlfriend Natasha of seven years, was spotted at his West London home, with Helen, emerging a few hours later carrying a large bag Exes: Olly, who plays Helen's onscreen lover in Call The Midwife, pictured with his ex Natasha Budding bond: The actors play on-screen lovers Trixie and Matthew (pictured here in 2021) despite Olly's character being written out of the show Split: Helen George split from her partner Jack Ashton in July (both pictured in March 2022) seven years after meeting on Call The Midwife Co-stars: Helen met Jack while they were both starring on smash hit BBC drama series Call the Midwife and started dating while filming in South Africa in 2016 A year later, they welcomed their first child Wren, before their second daughter Lark was born in November 2021. In May 2021, Helen gave a rare insight into her relationship with Jack and told how both of them working in the same industry helped their romance. The pair are now focusing on co-parenting their two children. Before her romance with Jack, Helen was married to actor Oliver Boot for three years before they split in 2015. She met her former partner on set of BBC drama Hotel Babylon, and the couple married in December 2012. They confirmed they had parted ways in September 2015, saying that had separated 'some time ago.' Call The Midwife is set in the 1950s and 1960s in London's East End - and focuses on a group of midwives in a nursing convent. He was confirmed as a I'm A Celeb contestant earlier this week and Nigel Farage has reportedly made a big lifestyle change ahead of entering the jungle. The politician, 59, has reportedly decided to ditch the booze ahead of his stint down under. The ex-UKIP leader has reportedly swapped his usual pint for a ginger beer or orange juice as he attempts to get used to the sober lifestyle. A source told The Sun: 'Nigel is already preparing himself for what life could be like in camp. 'He hasnt touched a drop of booze for days and he isnt substituting pints with coffee after completely cutting out caffeine.' New lifestyle: Nigel Farage has ditched the booze as he goes teetotal ahead of I'm A Celeb as he makes his way down under on Saturday Cheeky bev: The ex-UKIP leader has reportedly swapped his usual pint for a ginger beer or orange juice as he attempts to get used to the sober lifestyle The politician is known for enjoying a pint and even created his own GB News show Farage at Large where he travels the country to debate tough subjects over a pint. On Saturday, Nigel was pictured arriving at Heathrow airport in London, appearing to confirm his appearance in the I'm A Celebrity jungle, despite crisis talks with ITV. He is the first person to leave the UK and head to Australia ahead of the new series, which kicks off a week on Sunday. Nigel was spotted puffing on a cigarette in the smoking area following claims he nearly rejected the offer to appear on the show due to the smoking ban. ITV bosses were said to be in crisis talks with Nigel's team after he raised concerns about the show's cigarette ban. In an attempt to keep Nigel interested, producers were event reportedly considering changing this rule for him. Speaking on the Paper Cuts podcast, political journalist Ava Evans said: 'Would you like some insider knowledge of why Nigel Farage was considering not doing it? It is the smoking ban. You can't smoke and he is a very heavy smoker.' 'Will they let him smoke at the back?' host Miranda Sawyer asked. Caffeine free: The politician has also reportedly foregone coffee and tea as such luxuries won't be available in the jungle Yikes: ITV bosses were said to be in crisis talks with Nigel's team after he raised concerns about the show's cigarette ban Heading off: Nigel was spotted puffing on a cigarette in the smoking are at Heathrow airport in London, appearing to confirm his appearance in the I'm A Celebrity jungle 'I think that's being negotiated,' Ava replied. 'That was a discussion that Chris Moyles also had last year because he is also a very heavy smoker.' However it seems Nigel's team worked out a deal, as he flashed a beaming smile as he strolled through the terminal, before stopping for a pint at The Queen's Arms pub before boarding his 24-hour flight. Nigel was sporting a pink checked jacket with a blue shirt and beige chinos, which he wore with a pair of deck shoes for the trip. According to sources, Nigel will be making his journey Down Under in a Singapore Airlines suite cabin, which costs 8,000 for a one-way fare. One of the longest-serving producers on ITV's This Morning has quit amid concerns over alleged bullying and a 'toxic' culture. Harry Bott had worked for a decade on the show, which is under external investigation after turmoil in which Phillip Schofield left over an affair with a young colleague. Workmates were stunned when Mr Bott revealed his departure on Instagram beside a screenshot of a website story highlighting allegations of a 'toxic culture, bullying and harassment' on the programme. American-born Mr Bott worked on the show once the jewel in ITV's crown through much of the reign of Schofield and Holly Willoughby, who quit last month after an alleged plot to kidnap and murder her. A This Morning source said: 'Harry was quite the stalwart and took his role very seriously. It has been pretty gruelling to be a member of the production team for the last year or so but things were still tough before that.' His resignation follows the inquiry into Schofield's affair, and the alleged toxic culture, being pushed back by two months. Lawyer Jane Mulcahy, who leads the investigation, is now due to deliver her report this month. Harry Bott, pictured with This Morning presenter Josie Gibson, had worked for a decade on the show The show is currently under external investigation after turmoil in which Phillip Schofield left over an affair with a young colleague One worker said: 'Staff want to move on from a nightmare that's been hanging over the show since May when Schofield quit. There's been turmoil behind the scenes, tears and down-in-the-mouth people. The show needs a new start but it's impossible while the investigation hangs over us.' The Mail on Sunday revealed Schofield, 61, was having an affair with the runner on the show. He later apologised for lying about that. He quit after 21 years but Holly, 42, had planned to stay then resigned last month after learning of the alleged plot. She is set to be replaced tomorrow by Cat Deeley, 47, who has hosted US competition So You Think You Can Dance since 2006. ITV said: 'We are unable to comment on the details of any specific employment-related matters.' Strictly Come Dancing producers are reportedly ramping up security measures ahead of next week's live show amid concerns of potential disruptions by pro-Palestine and Just Stop Oil activists. Next Saturday marks the ninth week in the dancing competition which will take place at the iconic Blackpool Tower Ballroom, but there are worries around the safety of the cast and crew. A source told The Sun: 'There have been high level meetings about safety for cast and crew at Blackpool. 'The roads routes in and out are limited so blocking the streets for hours would cause a major issue and huge security risk. 'Security is additionally tight away from London as they are them vulnerable to opportunists who want to make their mark and have their moment.' Concerned: Strictly Come Dancing bosses are ramping up security measures ahead of next week's live show amid concerns of potential protestors Iconic: Next Saturday sees Strictly mark its ninth week where the competition will take place at the Blackpool Tower Ballroom Strictly contestants returned to Blackpool last year for the first time since the 2020 Covid pandemic. However, in 2019 police was forced to guard the venue during filming after thieves targeted dressing rooms. Back in 2016 Spanish pro dancer Gorka Marquez was attacked by a gang of youths and lost two teeth on a night out after the show. A BBC spokesman declined to comment when contacted by MailOnline. A source said: 'Strictly Come Dancing has robust security protocols in place for Blackpool and take any threats extremely seriously. 'The team work closely with relevant authorities throughout the planning and live stages of the Blackpool special, and thorough security checks upon entry. 'The safety of cast, crew and audiences is of paramount importance.' It comes after the Strictly pros have had quite the week already. Vito Coppola 'confirmed' his romance with partner Ellie Leach, calling her 'my baby' in a seductive Instagram post. Worried: A source told The Sun that there have been insdepth talks about the safety for cast and crew at Blackpool Jinxed: Strictly has faced issues with Blackpool in the past when thieves broke into the dressing room causing security to guard the doors Reassurance: A source at the cooperation assured that Strictly has robust security protocols in place for Blackpool and take any threats extremely seriously The Italian, 31, posed in the sultry black and white photograph while flexing his tattooed muscle, captioning the upload: 'Just finished another day of rehearsal. Well done to my baby Ellie Leach.' Dianne Buswell then broke her silence on what her boyfriend Joe Sugg thinks of her close friendship with Bobby Brazer, saying he is 'supportive'. And Karen Hauer's estranged husband Jordan Wyn-Jones spoke out, blaming Strictly for ruining the pair's relationship. The pair who married last year, split after just 16 months after going through a tough time. Jordan revealed their relationship became a series of video calls due to her demanding Strictly schedule and tour. He said: 'We wanted different things. There was a plan about having children but then there wasn't a plan. 'When we first met, we discussed it. You do say things like, 'I want to have kids'. And she'd mentioned to me that she wanted to have kids with me. But in the interview, Karen said 'kids aren't the future' which did make me sad. I've always wanted to be a father. 'I wouldn't say it was a shock but I knew subconsciously in the back of my head... why would she want to have a child with me? 'I'd become vacant in our relationship. I was loving and so caring for her but I was vacant because of the situation that we found ourselves in.' Netflix drama The Crown may risk angering the Royal Family in an upcoming episode from the show's final series. In the controversial episode, Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) is seen chatting on a yacht with her boyfriend Dodi Al Fayed (Khalid Abdalla) when she likens her wedding day to Charles to stepping on a landmine. Yet a royal biographer has insisted the late Princess would never have made such a comparison. Discussing the harrowing stories of landmine victims after her visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina in August 1997, Diana tells Dodi about the Landmine Survivors Network. She says: 'A man called Ken Rutherford drew my attention to it. He started the Landmine Survivors Network. After his jeep hit a landmine in Somalia he lost both of his legs. Drama: The Crown has risked angering the Royal Family as it depicts Princess Diana 'wedding day slur' in final series of the hit Netflix show Controversial: Princess Diana is seen chatting on a yacht with her boyfriend Dodi Al Fayed in the episode when she likens her wedding day to Charles to stepping on a landmine (Charles and Diana pictured on the royal balcony in 1981) 'He said to me every survivor has a date of the day they stepped on the landmine. He said, "Mine was December 16, 1963". I said, "Mine was 29 July, 1981 my wedding day".' But royal biographer Ingrid Seward has contested the line in the drama. Ingrid, who knew Diana, told The Sun: 'Diana would never have said anything like that. I think it is an unfortunate comparison. 'I think the mere fact that The Crown is depicting Diana's life and her death is exploiting her memory so they can put into her mouth anything that they want to however distasteful people might find it.' Referring to Diana's work to raise awareness of landmines, she said: 'It was very important - it was her big thing and it was a great success too. It is something that she will always be remembered for.' The Ottawa Treaty which banned landmines was signed in December 1997, just three months after her death. MailOnline have contacted Netflix for comment. The emotional first four episodes of the sixth and final series of The Crown cover the tragic car crash in Paris that killed Princess Diana in August 1997 alongside her lover Dodi Fayed and their chauffeur Henri Paul. Viewers also see the Royal Familys reaction to it, as well as the summer holiday Diana and Dodi enjoyed in St Tropez prior to the tragedy. Speaking out: But royal biographer Ingrid Seward has contested the line in the drama, 'Diana would never have said anything like that. I think it is an unfortunate comparison' Final series: Elizabeth Debicki plays Princess Diana in the final series of The Crown. The first four episodes not only cover the fatal car crash in Paris but also Diana and Dodi's summer holiday in St Tropez, which came before the tragedy The Paris scenes were shot in the French capital, while a yacht was hired for the St Tropez scenes, although these were actually filmed in Mallorca. For sensitivity reasons the exact moment of Dianas death is not re-created, but there are controversial scenes in which Charles tenderly converses with an imaginary Diana in the cabin of the royal plane as he accompanies her body from Paris to London, and later when she also appears to the Queen. Critics who have seen these scenes called them farcical for portraying Diana as a ghost, but series creator Peter Morgan has insisted that wasnt the intention. I never imagined it as Dianas ghost in the traditional sense, he told Variety magazine. It was her continuing to live vividly in the minds of those she has left behind. READ MORE: Amy Shark holds back tears as she meets sick children at Ronald McDonald House in Westmead ahead of McHappy Day 2023 Australian Paralympic swimmer Ellie Cole visited Ronald McDonald House in Sydney on Friday to meet a 10-year-old girl being treated for sarcoma. Her visit came ahead of McHappy Day on Saturday, the annual fundraiser which helps seriously ill children. Ellie, 31, was all smiles as she posed with young Isabella and took part in some fun activities with the youngster including completing a jigsaw puzzle. Cole, whose right leg was amputated due to cancer when she was two, said she was thrilled to give something back to the organisation which had done so much for her. 'Ronald McDonald House provided a haven for me and my family during those tough times,' she said in a statement. Australian Paralympic swimmer Ellie Cole, 31, (right) visited Ronald McDonald House in Sydney on Friday to meet a 10-year-old girl (left) being treated for sarcoma 'Being able to give back and support other families going through similar struggles, in the lead up to McHappy Day, is such a privilege.' Barbara Ryan, CEO of Ronald McDonald House Charities Australia, added: 'It has been so special having Ellie Cole meet with families staying at RMHC. 'There were plenty of heartfelt moments and exchanging of stories and we thank her for lending her voice to help us raise these much-needed funds.' The swimming champion's visit came ahead of McHappy Day on Saturday, the renowned annual fundraiser which helps sick children Ellie was all smiles as she posed with young Isabella and took part in some fun activities with the youngster including completing a jigsaw puzzle RMHC provides a home away from home for sick children and their families as they are treated at nearby hospitals. The charity has 18 houses across Australia and accommodates close to 10,000 families on an annual basis. At the age of two, Ellie had her right leg amputated after a devastating neuro-sarcoma cancer diagnosis. Cole, whose right leg was amputated due to cancer when she was two, said she was thrilled to give something back to the organisation which had done so much for her RMHC provides a home away from home for sick children and their families as they are treated at nearby hospitals Eight weeks after the amputation, she took up swimming as part of her rehabilitation and fell in love with the sport. She has worked hard to prove her disability is no barrier to greatness and has since gone on to win 15 Paralympic swimming medals, including six golds. Australian's can support McHappy Day on November 18 by buying a Big Mac from their local McDonalds, with two dollars from each purchase going to the charity, or donating directly here. A former Eastenders star is reportedly making a surprise return to the soap, a year after after she left. According to The Mirror, actress Kim Medcalfe is set to reprise his role as tough Sam Mitchell - the sister to Phil and Grant Mitchell. And her surprise arrival on Albert Square will be explosive from the start when she is thrown out the back of a van infront of her older brother Phil. Sam left the square in April when she was given the chance to front a business in Spain with her ex-fiance Don. But viewers will see Sam settle back into Walford and the lives of her son Ricky and new granddaughter Charli Slater. She's back: Actor Kim Medcalfe is set to reprise his role as tough Sam Mitchell laster this mobth- the sister to Phil and Grant Mitchell Making memories: Danniella Westbrook originally played Sam but then quit in 1993, however Sam, played by Kim and Danniella reappeared from 1995 to 1996; 1999 to 2000; 2002-2004, 2009; 2016; last year and now MailOnline had contacted Eastenders representatives for further comment. Sam made yet another explosive return to Albert Square, six years after her last appearance during Peggy Mitchell's funeral. Going head-to-head with rival Sharon Watts, Sam made a huge splash as soon as she arrived on The Square. Earlier this year she came close to leaving Albert Square with Ricky Butcher for a new life in Germany, but decided to stay and support her son Ricky Jnr. after he learned he was going to be a father. But, when she was offered a better life in Spain and realising the money could help Ricky Jr. with his unborn child, Sam decided to leave the Square for a sunny life abroad. In April 2022, actress Kim Medcalf reprised the role for the first time in 17 years. Kim previously played Sam between 2002-2005 before Danniella Westbrook reprised the role in 2009. Viewers were gutted over Sam's departure, however it was never confirmed as a permanent exit. Shock: Her surprise arrival on Albert Square will be explosive from the start when she is thrown out the back of a van infront of her older brother Phil Catch up:Sam is returning from Spain where she was offered a better life and realised the money could help Ricky Jr. with his unborn child Showrunners confirmed that that the character would make a return to Walford at some point 'before the autumn'. They told The Sun: 'We can confirm that Sam Mitchell has not left Walford for good and Kim Medcalf will be returning to EastEnders.' Qabil Ashirov ECO, established in 1985, is a world-known organization whose importance increases year by year. Even some predict that the organization will follow the EU and will turn into a single market. As is known the organization frequently holds multilateral Summits to discuss investment, trade, transport, and much more in relevant fields. The last summit, which was called the 16th ECO Summit was held in Uzbekistan and leaders of member countries, including the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, participated in the summit and had fruitful meetings. Azerbaijan is determined to further strengthen bilateral and multilateral cooperation with the ECO Member States, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said while addressing the 16th Summit of the Economic Cooperation Organization held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Azerbaijan is indeed one of the countries in the South Caucasus that gives importance to economic cooperation. Despite the fact that its territories have been under occupation for over three decades, Azerbaijan has always managed to maintain a high pace of its economy. Today, Azerbaijan is also becoming a green energy country. This trend, which started in Azerbaijan, has made it possible for the country to appear among the most interesting partners both in the West and in the East. Besides, expert opinion on the recent 16th summit meeting of the ECO was also obtained. In an interview with AZERNEWS on the issue, CEO, and Belt & Road Consultans Pvt Limited Muhammad Asif Noor noted that the 16th ECO Summit held in Tashkent on November 9, 2023, under the thematic banner Through Cooperation to Economic Stability and Development provided a platform for the heads of state and government from ECO member countries to address regional concerns and foster collaboration across diverse sectors. Speaking in detail, he pointed out that the summit proved to be a significant point in the ECO's trajectory, with specific objectives. It sought to evaluate the ongoing activities of the organization and measure the current state of regional cooperation in priority sectors. Additionally, it charted the course for the ECO's future activities, outlining directions that would steer the organization toward greater efficiency and impact. According to Noor, the summit strengthened the organization's activities, with the aim of developing a climate conducive to expanding trade and economic cooperation among member states. "The anticipated outcomes held the promise of propelling the ECO to new heights, with President Shavkat Mirziyoyev expressing confidence in the event's success. As the leaders assembled in Tashkent, the collective efforts and discussions were meant to leave a lasting imprint on the ECO's journey toward enhanced efficiency and impactful regional cooperation, he noted. The expert stressed that there are some points that can be expected moving forward: "Firstly, the summit's primary objective is to catalyze cooperation among member countries across sectors, including trade, investment, transport, environment, tourism, agriculture, industry, and the green transition. This collaborative effort is set to boost regional development. Secondly, serving as a platform for member countries to engage in functional discussions, the summit facilitated the examination of regional challenges and the formulation of practical solutions. This process holds the potential to resolve conflicts, promote peace and stability, and contribute to improvement in regional security. Thirdly, the reinforcement of the ECO's activities and the expansion of trade and economic collaboration among member states can be seen as a strategic initiative that aims to make the organization work better and have a bigger effect, benefiting the region at large. And finally, the summit was an important milestone for setting the progression of the organization's future activities. By providing clear directions, it enabled the ECO to focus on its priorities and execute its goals with improved efficiency, he noted. He also touched on the meeting between the leaders of Azerbaijan and Pakistan at the Summit and underscored that the meeting holds significance for deepening collaboration between the two nations. Asif Noor added that the positive progress in bilateral relations, particularly in trade, defense, and energy, signals a potential for increased collaboration. The summit's focus on expanding trade and economic cooperation among member states can provide a platform to strengthen these ties further. The announcement of direct flight operations between Azerbaijan and Pakistan is seen as a positive development. This can enhance people-to-people exchanges and boost two-way business and tourism. Moreover, the summit can facilitate discussions on improving transportation links, contributing to increased connectivity. The discussions on common challenges such as Islamophobia and climate change highlight shared concerns, he noted. The Pakistani expert said that the discussions on global and regional developments, including the humanitarian situation in Gaza and issues in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IIOJ&K), emphasize a shared understanding of geopolitical challenges and finally Pakistan's reaffirmation of support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, especially regarding Garabagh, underscores strong diplomatic ties. The Summit provided an opportunity for both countries to collaborate on diplomatic and strategic fronts within the ECO framework and by addressing these issues collectively, it is capable of strengthening the bond between Pakistan and Azerbaijan and fostering a sense of mutual cooperation, he concluded. Mbabane His Majesty King Mswati III has a history of appointing political activists and unionists into high profile positions. His Majesty recently appointed former Secretary General of the Peoples United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO) Stukie Motsa into Senate. Her appointment caused a brief uproar online, as people speculated if she was still a member or not. Motsa confirmed in our sister publication Times of Eswatini that she once held the position for about six months in 2005, but resigned from the organisation in the same year. She explained that she resigned because she no longer ascribed to the organisations activities and principles and, therefore, terminated her relationship. political affiliations However, Motsas appointment adds to a number of others who were appointed by the King despite previous political affiliations. His Majesty ascended to the throne in 1986. Six years later, in 1992, he set up a Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) to spearhead a new constitutional dispensation for the country. PUDEMO stalwart Mandla Hlatshwayo, a known political activist and leader of the organisation was also appointed into the commission. However, Hlatshwayo withdrew from the 1992 commission, citing conflict of interests. His appointment into the commission was viewed as a progressive thought by His Majesty and the international community saw it as gesture for inclusive participation in the commission. political party PUDEMO and Hlatshwayo, however, said the appointment was not representation of the political party because he was not chosen by the organisation but by the King. Section 64 (4) (G) of the Constitution provides that the King in his capacity as Head of State has authority, in accordance to the supreme law and any other subordinate legislation, among other things to establish any commission or vusela. In the exercise of his functions under the constitution or any other law, the King is also mandated to act on the advice of the Cabinet or a minister acting under the general authority of the Cabinet, where there is a need. The provisions of the constitution have been the premise of His Majestys appointment of different individuals into different offices as required. Worth noting is that political parties were banned from participating in the formation of government in accordance to the 1973 Decree, which repealed the independence constitution promulgated in September 6, 1968. In 1996, the King made another attempt to include the late Mario Masuku, the then president of PUDEMO, in another commission to review the Constitution. Masuku also withdrew for the same reasons, as his colleagues in 1992. The 1996 commission was very large, composed mainly of a cocktail of individuals from different backgrounds. progressive background Former Deputy Prime Minister, the late Arthur Khoza was also one of those appointed by His Majesty, who had a progressive background in politics. Khoza came from the class of the 1960s and he was a member of the Ngwane National Liberation Congress (NNLC), which strongly opposed Imbokodvo. He was groomed under the leadership of the late Dr Ambrose Zwane and was very scholastic in his approach of politics. Khoza grew in the ranks of the Tinkhundla system of Government under King Mswati III until he passed on. prominent figure Another NNLC member, the late Obed Mfanyana Dlamini, was appointed by the King into the office of Prime Minister (PM) in 1989. In the 1970s, Dlamini was a prominent figure at NNLC and later became a strong unionist. He also had the influence of Dr Zwane and Dr J.I Nquku and was the incumbent president of the organisation when the King appointed him. He went back to the organisation after finishing his tenure as PM in 1993. However, His Majesty once again appointed him into Liqoqo (Kings Advisory Council) and was one of the members who had political affiliation in the council. appointed by the King Sishayi Simon Nxumalo was also among those who were appointed by the King. He served as Acting Prime Minister of the country from May 8, 1996, to July 26, 1996, after serving as the DPM. Nxumalo was the leader of the now defunct Swaziland Democratic Party (SDP). Unionist, Albert Heshane Shabangu led teachers in the early 70s to the late 80s under the banner of the then Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT). Shabangu mobilised teachers all over the country in opposition of the system of governance. He changed camps in 1991 and he introduced very strong laws such as the no-work no-pay rule. His Majesty appointed him into the office of Deputy Prime Minister and he died in September 2006. strong unionist Magwagwa Mdluli was also another unionist who was appointed by His Majesty King Mswati III, after serving in a civil servant union known as Swaziland National Association of Civil Servants (SNACS). Mdluli was a strong unionist, who challenged the Tinkhundla system of Government. He was appointed and later became Maseyisini South MP and Minister of Public Service and Information. strongly opposed Another activist to be appointed by His Majesty was Sam Mkhombe. Mkhombe also strongly opposed of the Tinkhundla system of government. Nevertheless, the king saw him fit to be appointed as his Private Secretary in 1993, a position he served under for 18 years, until his controversial sacking in January 27, 2011. Mkhombe was the founding Chairman of the then Human Rights Association of Swaziland (HUMARAS) and also the founding chairman of the Institute for Democracy and Leadership (IDEAL). The King has continued over the years to appoint renowned liberal minds such as Phineas Magagula and others into higher positions in Cabinet and emabandla. current member He also appointed former trade unionist, Bheka Mabuza. Mabuza is the current member of the Border Restoration Committee. He also served as member of Liqoqo for many years. Another one to be appointed by the King is former vice president of the defunct Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions, Themba Msibi who has served as a member of the CRC, Cabinet minister and is currently the Lubombo Regional Administrator. The late former Minister of Labour and Social Service Winnie Magagula was also among those appointed by the king from a political and trade unions background. She was one of the founding members of Sive Siyinqaba; Sibahle Sinje, a cultural organisation that later changed into a political movement. It was later mentioned that she had resigned from Sibahle Sinje. She was the first female Secretary General of the Swaziland Union of Financial Institutions and Allied Workers (SUFIAW). Popular trade unionist and former Secretary General of the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) Vincent Ncongwane succeeded her. She was working for Central Bank of Eswatini when she served SUFIAW as the SG. His Majesty appoints the prime minister from the legislature and also appoints a minority of legislators to both chambers of parliament, with help from the Advisory Council. special interests Ingwenyama is also allowed by the constitution to appoint some members to parliament (MPs) for special interests. These special interests are usually citizens who might have been left out by the electorate during the course of elections or did not enter as candidates. This is usually done to balance views in parliament. Special interests could be people of gender, race, disability, business community, civic society, scholars, Chiefs and others. The Senate consists of 30 members, of which some are appointed by the king on recommendation of the Advisory Council and others elected by MPs in the House of Assembly. The House of Assembly has 65 seats, of which 59 are occupied by elected representatives from the 59 constituencies around the country, and 10 are appointed by the king on recommendation of the advisory council. Michael j. Fox was feeling the love from his family as they supported him at his Parkinson's charity event in New York on Saturday. The Hollywood icon, 62, was surrounded by his wife Tracy Pollan, 63, and their son Sam Michael, 34, and twin daughters Aquinnah Kathleen and Schuyler Frances, 28, at the Michael J. Fox Foundation Hosts A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Cure Parkinson's at Cipriani South Street. Dressed in a purple sweat and matching plaid jacket, the Back to the Future star -- who recently admitted he would have forgiven his wife if she had 'stepped out' on their marriage -- looked happy and healthy at the star-studded event. The couple -- who also share and daughter Esme Annabelle, 21 -- were spotted with their arms around each other as they stole the spotlight on the red carpet. Their three children were dressed to the nines as well, as they flanked their famous parents for a fabulous family photo opportunity. Big support: Michael j. Fox was feeling the love from his family, including wife Tracy Pollan, as they supported him at his Parkinson's charity event in New York on Saturday. Family fun: The Hollywood icon, 62, was surrounded by Tracy and their son Sam Michael, 34, and twin daughters Aquinnah Kathleen and Schuyler Frances, 28, at the Michael J. Fox Foundation Hosts A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Cure Parkinson's at Cipriani South Street Besties: Michael's BFF and Back to the Future costar Christopher Lloyd threw his arm around the man of the hour on the red carpet While Tracy looked like a billion bucks in a sparkling black blazer and tuxedo pants, her daughter Aquinnah shimmered in a floral mini dress as Schuyler glowed in a shiny blue suit. Michael's mini-me Sam looked dapper in a striped oxford, brown suede jacket and matching dark pants. The adorable family was joined by a who's who of illuminati for the big event, with Michael's BFF and Back to the Future costar Christopher Lloyd throwing his arm around the man of the hour on the red carpet. Newly engaged couple Justin Long and Kate Bosworth looked so loved up, as they stared into each other's eyes between snaps from the shutterbugs. Oscar winner Julianne Moore kept it casually chic in a simple white top, black blazer and sensible pants. Joan Jett was every inch the rock star in a black leather jacket, matching pants and chains galore hanging from her ensemble. Meanwhile, on Thursday's CBS Mornings, Michael said he'd have forgiven Tracy if she had decided to 'step out' amid their 35-year marriage as he battles Parkinson's disease. 'At any time she would have been forgiven to say, "I'm just gonna step out,"' he exclaimed. 'But, she didn't do that.' Engaged couple: Newly engaged couple Justin Long and Kate Bosworth looked so loved up, as they stared into each other's eyes between snaps from the shutterbugs Bright stars: Tracy and Michael posed with Justin and Kate Rock stasr: Joan Jett was every inch the rock star in a black leather jacket, matching pants and chains galore hanging from her ensemble The Back To The Future star was 29 in 1991 when he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, and went public with the information in 1998. 'I love Tracy obviously and she's an amazing person and has gone through a lot,' Fox said. 'I realize she has a life separate from me having Parkinson's, from me being Alex Keaton or Marty McFly, she's a person. I think that's why it's gone okay.' Fox said of their marriage, 'She had indicated to me by saying, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. She was able to get me through it, and go through it with me. And she has for 35 years.' Fox and Pollan are parents to son Sam Michael, 34, twin daughters Aquinnah Kathleen and Schuyler Frances, 28, and daughter Esme Annabelle, 21. On the CBS broadcast, the Spin City star explained how Pollan has stayed by his side amid his health woes. Luminous: Oscar winner Julianne Moore kept it casually chic in a simple white top, black blazer and sensible pants Stunning: Bart Freundlich and Julianne posed together Denim delight: Actor Ronny Chieng rocked a denim jacket Gangs all here!: Clark Gregg, Tracy, Michael, Keegan-Michael Key and Elle Key look fabulous Country casual: Bob Weir and Natascha Weir looked casually hip Famous couple: Willie Geist and Christina Geist were all smiles for the occasion Loved up: Paulina Neely and Cam Neely stole the spotlight on the red carpet 'We knew the bus was coming and we knew it was going to hit, but we didn't know how far away it was or how fast it was going,' he said. The pair celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary this past July, taking to Instagram to commemorate the occasion. Fox, who also played the role of Alex P. Keaton on Family Ties, captioned a carousel of shots: '35 years of laugher, living, listening and loving you @tracy.pollan. Thank you for it all. Forever yours, Mike.' Pollan said on her account: '35 years!!! Happy anniversary my love. Here's to many more glorious adventures together. I could not love you more.' Fox told CBS that amid his health difficulties, he makes a concerted effort to remain upbeat. Buddies: George Wallace and Ajmal Zemme joked on the red carpet Stylish stars: Joan posed with a friend on the red carpet Shimmer: Tracy rocked a sparkling black jacket and matching pants Cool vibe: Christopher gave off a cool vibe in his jacket and blue jeans Class act: Michael and his wife Elle were a gorgeous couple on the red carpet 'The positivity is really sincere,' he said. 'I really feel it, and it's genuine. But it's hard fought and it's hard won, I should say.' The Teen Wolf actor gave more insights as to how he and his spouse move forward amid the tough times. 'We can find ways to just give ourselves a break, give ourselves credit for getting through life on life's terms,' he said. 'And in order to do that, you have to stop and say, "It's not that bad; it's not that bad" ... they say the absence of fear is faith.' In the autumn of 2000, he launched The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinsons Research, which 'is dedicated to finding a cure for Parkinson's disease through an aggressively funded research agenda and to ensuring the development of improved therapies for those living with Parkinson's today.' Reunion! Michael's Family Ties costar Tina Yothers joined in on the fun Table of smiles: Tina, Michael, Kate and Justin were a happy bunch According to the foundation, it has raised more than $1.75 billion for the cause. 'Parkinson's patients are the experts on what we have,' Fox said in a statement on the foundation's site. 'We have a responsibility as patients to share our experience - what works for us, what we respond to, what we can contribute to research.' Fox last year was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with an honorary Academy Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, for his efforts toward finding a cure. All stars: The tables were full of Hollywood's best and brightest Big thanks: Tracy and Michael made a speech during the charity gala Here's the thing: Michael and Kate looked deep in conversation Nicolas Cage is currently staying with his family in Yallingup, Western Australia as he films his upcoming movie The Surfer. And on Saturday, the Hollywood star, 59, shocked onlookers as he stumbled across the beach looking worse for wear while filming a fight scene. Cage was almost unrecognisable underneath bloodied and bruised makeup as he performed an intense fight scene with co-star Alexander Bertrand. He sported an orange dress shirt, which was covered in sweat and blood, and grey pants and walked barefoot along the glistening sand. His brown hair was mussed up and he sported a rugged looking five o'clock shadow as he jumped in the water to wrestle with a co-star. Nicolas Cage, 59, (pictured) shocked onlookers as he stumbled across the beach in Yallingup, Western Australia while filming a dramatic scene for his movie The Surfer At one point, Cage grappled with another actor during filming and trapped him in a headlock as his character emerged victorious during their fight scene. The California native was then seen picking up a sign at the beach which said 'Locals Only' and pretending to hit his co-star over the head with it, as filming wrapped. The Con Air star then enjoyed a well-deserved rest and a drink of water on a chair at the unit base as he put on a pair of stylish sunglasses to enjoy the scenic view. He was almost unrecognisable underneath bloodied and bruised makeup as he performed an intense fight scene Cage sported an orange dress shirt, which was covered in sweat and blood and grey pants His brown hair was mussed up and he sported a rugged looking five o'clock shadow Nic, his wife Riko, and their daughter August are in the Margaret River to film his latest project. The couple welcomed their baby daughter August, who is Riko's first child and Nicolas' third, in September last year. The Kick-Ass actor has son Weston Coppola Cage, 32, with ex Christina Fulton and son Kal-El, 18, with ex-wife Alice Kim. He looked focused as he jumped in the water to wrestle with Aussie co-star Alexander Bertrand At one point, Cage grappled with another actor during filming and trapped him in a headlock as his character emerged victorious during their fight scene The California native was then seen picking up a sign at the beach which said 'Locals Only' and pretending to hit his co-star over the head with it, as filming wrapped The Con Air star then enjoyed a well-deserved rest and a drink of water on a chair at the unit base as he put on a pair of stylish sunglasses to enjoy the scenic view Nicolas is shooting The Surfer, a psychological thriller, in Western Australia's most famous surfing and wine region Nicolas and Riko met in Japan in 2020 when he was filming Sion Sono's Prisoners Of Ghostland and after getting engaged on FaceTime, the couple tied the knot at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas in February 2021. The star is shooting The Surfer, a psychological thriller, in Western Australia's most famous surfing and wine region. CinefestOZ chief executive Cassandra Jordan said of Cage: 'It is beyond exciting to have something of this calibre shooting in our region. '[The film] follows Nicolas Cage, a man returning to his hometown after many years of leaving the region, and it's all about him up against a local gang of surfers who claim ownership over a secluded beach of his childhood.' The film concerns a man taking on a gang of local surfers who claimed ownership over a secluded beach from his childhood Cage looked focused as he filmed the intense fight scene Jason Derulo sent fans wild on Friday night when he hit the stage during RnB night at Ms Collins club in Melbourne. The Talk Dirty hitmaker, 34, was in his element as he performed to a screaming crowd, proving why he is a worldwide music star. He wasn't afraid to get up close and personal with the audience as he rocked a monochrome ensemble which featured a black and white racing jacket. Underneath he sported a black graphic T-shirt and a pair of black jeans to complete his look. Fans reached for him as he walked the stage while others whipped out their phones to film the pop and RnB sensation. Jason Derulo, 34, (pictured) sent fans wild on Friday night when he hit the stage during RnB night at Ms Collins club in Melbourne Elsewhere, Flo Rida donned a more colourful attire as he arrived at the venue in a tank top to show off his numerous tattoos. The rapper, 44, pulled a blue cap onto his head and slipped on a pair of trendy frames which matched the silver rings and necklaces he wore. Fatman Scoop also performed on the night, wearing a pair of basic black shirts and a black T-shirt which read Blessed. The Talk Dirty hitmaker was in his element as he performed to a screaming crowd, proving why he is a worldwide music star He wasn't afraid to get up close and personal with the audience as he rocked a monochrome ensemble which featured a black and white racing jacket Underneath he sported a black graphic T-shirt and a pair of black jeans to complete his look Fans reached for him as he walked the stage while others whipped out their phones to film the pop and RnB sensation At one point, he was spotted playing some tunes in the DJ booth as the crowd danced up a storm. Later, Fatman Scoop, 52, took to the stage once more to perform with Naughty by Nature. Vin Rock, one of the vocalists from the hip hop trio, donned a similar dark ensemble to his friend, slipping on a basic black tee and shorts. Elsewhere, Flo Rida, 44, (right) donned a more colourful attire as he arrived at the venue in a tank top to show off his numerous tattoos Fatman Scoop, 52, (pictured) also performed on the night, wearing a pair of basic black shirts and a black T-shirt which read Blessed At one point, he was spotted playing some tunes in the DJ booth as the crowd danced up a storm Pictured: Fatman Scoop The American actor and composer, 53, kept his accessories simple with a simple brown bracelet wrapped around his wrist. Travie McCoy was a popular act of the night as he performed some of his biggest hits. The Gym Class Heroes frontman, 42, stood out in a long-sleeved white shirt and bright green shorts with a grey beanie pulled down over his dreads. Also in attendance at Ms Collins was '90s sensation 112 with one of the members flaunting a brightly coloured jacket. Later, Fatman Scoop took to the stage once more to perform with Naughty by Nature Vin Rock, 53, (pictured) one of the vocalists from the hip hop trio, donned a similar dark ensemble to his friend, slipping on a basic black tee and shorts The American actor and composer kept his accessories simple with a simple brown bracelet wrapped around his wrist Travie McCoy, 42, (pictured) was a popular act of the night as he performed some of his biggest hits The Gym Class Heroes frontman stood out in a long-sleeved white shirt and bright green shorts with a grey beanie pulled down over his dreads Pictured: Travie McCoy Travie's locs swung about his body as he performed At one point, he jumped down into the crowd to perform Fans were enamoured with the rapper's performance Confetti rained down onto the stage The lighting created a dark atmosphere as the Gym Class Heroes bandmember performed The crowd went wild for Travie Effie Kats has walked down the aisle with her finance broker fiance James Cerolini in Melbourne. The designer was married at a lavish ceremony at St Patrick's Cathedral on Saturday, and held her opulent reception at State Library Victoria. The 32-year-old stunned in an elaborate, semi-sheer lace gown by Zuhair Murad, which she acquired after making trips to Paris for fittings. Effie later changed into a second dress for her reception, this time from local designer Alin Le'kal. It was no small affair, with 260 in attendance on the star-studded guest list, including Nadia Bartel, Bec Judd, Khanh Ong, Jessie Murphy and Lana Wilkinson. Effie Kats has walked down the aisle with her finance broker fiance James Cerolini in Melbourne. Both pictured The designer was married at a lavish ceremony at St Patrick's Cathedral on Saturday, and held her opulent reception at State Library Victoria The 32-year-old stunned in an elaborate, semi-sheer lace gown by Zuhair Murad, which she acquired after making trips to Paris for fittings Women were asked to wear black or gold to what was described as an elegant affair. The founder of the Effie Kats and Bayse brands said the wedding, 'exceeded every expectation I had'. She told the Herald Sun: 'Every part of it just blew my mind. It was great. I had a wedding planner, Valentina, I could not have done it without her. 'There were small hiccups along the way, but it was the perfect day.' It was no small affair, with 260 in attendance on the star-studded guest list, including Nadia Bartel (left), Bec Judd (right), Khanh Ong, Jessie Murphy and Lana Wilkinson Women were asked to wear black or gold to what was described as an elegant affair The groom looked dapper, opting for less traditional white jacket The founder of the Effie Kats and Bayse brands said the wedding, 'exceeded every expectation I had' 'Every part of it just blew my mind. It was great. I had a wedding planner, Valentina, I could not have done it without her' she said Effie added: 'There were small hiccups along the way, but it was the perfect day' The society couple became engaged in 2021 during lockdown, giving Effie lots of time to plan her big day Effie later changed into a second dress for her reception, this time from local designer Alin Le'kal The society couple became engaged in 2021 during lockdown, giving Effie lots of time to plan her big day. 'I've attended so many events and we want to create something spectacular for our guests,' she told Confidential earlier this year. 'It's on Stakes Day and Remembrance Day so it'll add to an already insane schedule.' Effie had at first decided to organise the event herself without the help of a wedding planner, but later changed her mind. 'I've attended so many events and we want to create something spectacular for our guests,' she told Confidential earlier this year Effie had at first decided to organise the event herself without the help of a wedding planner, but later changed her mind A truly lavish reception was set up inside the iconic library space Many of the guests opted for black, which was suggested by the invitation Around the time of their engagement, Effie and James purchased a home in Melbourne's Malvern. The 'rundown' three bedroom property, which cost $1.65 million, is a fixer-upper project for the pair. 'We wanted a house in the right location with some character, that needed a lot of love' Effie told news.com.au. Effie is a beloved Australian designer whose clothing has been seen on A-list clients like Dannii Minogue, Kelly Rowland, Carrie Bickmore and DJ Havana Brown. Bec Judd (far right) was among the A-list guest list Kylie Jenner exuded effortless glam on Saturday night in a tight-fitting black ensemble as she headed to the SNL afterparty to support her beau Timothee Chalamet after his hosting gig. The Kardashians sister, 26, and her rumoured boyfriend, 27, have been linked since April this year, although they have both studiously refrained from discussing the relationship in public. But Kylie was keen to support their sizzling romance once more as she stepped out in NYC to head to the STK venue. The stunning media personality wore all black for a chic look, adding a pair of sunglasses to stay low-key but give an impression of timeless style. She was joined by Timothee - who hosted SNL for the second time on Saturday - and headed to the crowds to sign autographs. Style: Kylie Jenner exuded effortless glam on Saturday night in a tight-fitting black ensemble as she headed to the SNL afterparty to support her beau Timothee Chalamet Glam: The stunning media personality wore all black for a chic look, adding a pair of sunglasses to stay low-key but give an impression of timeless style Man of the hour: Timothee opted for a more casual look as he headed to STK after hosting Saturday Night Live He looked casual after the high-intensity performance, donning a purple fur-lined jacket over his hoodie and adding a black cap to match his girlfriend. Kylie's figure-hugging off-the-shoulder top emphasised her famous hourglass figure, while a pair of tight-fitting leggings showed off her incredible legs. Hours before Timothee's hosting gig, Kylie's mother Kris seemed to give her seal of approval to the blossoming relationship by dropping a hint on her stories. The 68-year-old 'momager' reposted a promo for Timothee's Saturday Night Live shot and plugged: 'Tune into SNL tonight!' Timothee headlined the fourth installment of the long-running sketch comedy show's 49th season, which happened to be the first episode of the program to air after the end of the SAG-AFTRA strike. The performer began his time on the program by speaking about how Lorne Michaels 'kept calling me Winona' during his first time hosting the program. The Dune star then celebrated the end of the Hollywood strikes, which prevented him from promoting his projects in public, and stated that he had been contacted by Martin Scorsese to film an ad for Chanel. The performer quipped that, after being called by the Taxi Driver director, 'the first thing you think is, "man, I really hope it's a perfume commercial."' Chalamet then promoted the upcoming release of his fantasy drama Wonka, and quipped that his costar, Hugh Grant, had 'that oompa loompa dump truck.' The performer was joined by Marcello Hernandez, and the the two rapped about having a 'baby face, but I'm hung like my dad.' Sizzling: Kylie and Timothee have been linked since April this year - but her latest appearance to support him once again appeared to confirm the nature of their relationship Incredible: Kylie opted for a natural make-up look with glowing skin and a glossy lip Popular: Timothee signed autographs as he opted for a casual look in a fur-lined jacket and hoodie Style queen: She added a pair of sunglasses and a black clutch bag to accessorise her look Gorgeous: Her figure-hugging off-the-shoulder top emphasised her famous hourglass figure Front and center: Timothee Chalamet served as the host of the newest episode of Saturday Night Live Plug: Kris dropped a hint on her Insta Stories this weekend, hours before Timothee was due to host Saturday Night Live Elsewhere in the show, Boygenius, made up of Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, performed their track Not Strong Enough, and much of their backing band started jumping up and down during the performance. The episode ended after Chalamet celebrated the end of the SAG-AFTRA strike and wished Leonardo DiCaprio a happy birthday. Timothee, whose dating history includes Eiza Gonzalez and Lily-Rose Depp, has repeatedly hit the headlines for his current runaround with Kylie. After being trailed by rumors for months, Kylie and Timothee took their romance public by kissing in the stands at a Beyonce concert near the end of the summer. Last month a People insider remarked that the pair were enjoying what Kylie regards as a 'fun and uncomplicated' dalliance. Elsewhere in her personal life, Kylie is amicably co-parenting her daughter Stormi, five, and son Aire, one, with her rapper ex Travis Scott. When her boy was born in February 2022, his given name was Wolf Jacques Webster - a nod to Travis, whose legal name is Jacques Webster. However, not long afterwards, Kylie shocked her fans by revealing on social media: 'FYI OUR SONS NAME ISN'T WOLF ANYMORE.' Braggadocio: The performer was joined by Marcello Hernandez, and the the two rapped about having a 'baby face, but I'm hung like my dad' Musical guest: Boygenius, made up of Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, performed their track Not Strong Enough She explained: 'WE JUST REALLY DIDN'T FEEL LIKE IT WAS HIM. JUST WANTED TO SHARE BECAUSE I KEEP SEEING WOLF EVERYWHERE.' Their decision prompted Eddie Van Halen and Valerie Bertinelli's son Wolfgang, who goes by Wolf, to cheekily tweet: 'THANK F***.' On an episode of Hulu's The Kardashians, Kylie told her gal pal Stassie Karanikolaou about the impetus behind the decision to name her son Aire. 'I just always wanted a name for him that had meaning. Its a Hebrew name and it means: "Lion of God,"' Kylie explained. Strictly Come Dancing's Ellie Leach has revealed she has 'lost a lot of weight' during her intense training for the show with Vito Coppola. The Coronation Street star, 22, and Vito, 31, scored 35 points out of 40 for their Rumba to True Colours by Cyndi Lauper on Saturday night. The couple - who appeared to confirm their romance last week - spend every day except Sunday training and dancing together from 9am until 6pm. Ellie revealed that the intense schedule has completely changed her physique - as she has never really been interested in going to the gym or physical exercise. She told Ok! Magazine: 'I've lost a lot of weight. You're training so much. Stunning: Strictly Come Dancing's Ellie Leach has revealed she has 'lost a lot of weight' during her intense training for the show with Vito Coppola (pictured in May) Intense: Ellie and Vito train from 9am until 6pm every day for Strictly apart from on Sundays 'I still need to work on my fitness levels but even the dance we're doing this week, I wouldn't have been able to do three weeks ago. 'My body and my mindset are changing so much each day. I don't know how much weight I've lost but I can feel myself getting stronger, which I think is great.' It comes after Vito 'confirmed' his romance with partner Ellie, calling her 'my baby' in a seductive Instagram post. The Italian hunk posed in the sultry black and white photograph while flexing his tattooed muscle, captioning the upload: 'Just finished another day of rehearsal. Well done to my baby Ellie Leach.' He shared the update on the Strictly couple on Wednesday evening after they had spent hours in the training room ahead of Saturday night's live show. They were then pictured putting on a very cosy display in rehearsals, practicing the intimate dance with their faces just inches away from kissing. His declaration of love towards the former Coronation Street actress, 22, comes after their ex-Strictly co-star Amanda Abbington , 51, called them the 'most beautiful couple' on social media while saying she was 'so proud' of their performance. Wow: Ellie and Vita scored 35 out of 40 for their sexy rumba on Saturday night Incredible: The intimate dance came days after they appeared to confirm their romance Strictly pro dancer Vito Coppola has 'confirmed' his romance with partner Ellie Leach, calling her 'my baby' in a seductive Instagram post Just days earlier the dancing duo declared their love for each other in gushing social media tributes amid reports 'sparks are flying' behind the scenes. And Amanda, who quit the BBC show last month, appeared to let the cat out of the bag as she took to Instagram on Sunday, referring to the pair 'the most beautiful couple'. Ellie shared a snap of hers and Vito's latest performance which she branded as a 'magical night' as they topped the leaderboard for a second time. Writing: 'Thank you, thank you, thank you. What a magical night, we are so grateful for all of your support and were soooo happy to be through to another week on that Strictly dance floor'. Fans and famous friends rushed in their droves to praise the pair with former co-star Amanda commenting: 'Stunning. So proud of the both of you. You are the most beautiful couple!'. MailOnline contacted Ellie and Vito's reps for comment at the time. Advertisement Nigel Farage was the first celebrity to arrive in Australia ahead of the new series of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here. The Brexit Party founder, 58 - rumoured to be earning 1.5million for his imminent stint in the jungle - is the first confirmed campmate to enter the jungle as he led the stars arriving into the airport on Sunday. Josie Gibson, 38, is the the second confirmed campmate as she was spotted checking in at Heathrow airport for a Singapore Airlines flight to Australia. First Dates star Fred Sirieix was also seen at Heathrow - the French TV personality, 51, is expected to travel on the same flight as Gibson. Elsewhere social media influencer Nella Rose, 26, greeted onlookers with a wave after following Farage to Brisbane head this year's launch on November 19. First confirmed! Nigel Farage (left) was the first celebrity to arrive in Australia ahead of the new series of I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here! Josie Gibson (centre) and Fred Sirieix (right) were seen checking in at Heathrow airport Touchdown: Social media influencer Nella Rose greeted onlookers with a wave as she arrived in Australia on Sunday Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly have already touched down to start rehearsing for the show. Nigel, who will become the series' highest paid contestant ever, touched down at 9.45am following a 20-hour flight from London this morning to become the first confirmed camp mate for this series. Nigel has been paid a staggering 1.5 million for his time in the jungle where he will face frightening Bushtucker trials where he will be forced to eat pigs testicles and deers blood. He was all smiles as he revealed that he had made the decision to take part so he could engage with potential young voters who want to hear his political views. Speaking to the MailOnline, he said: 'I just think there's a big young audience out there that watches the programme. 'They're people who are worth talking to and I've been messing around with TikTok for the past couple of months and you'd be surprised there are a lot of people out there who are interested in what I have to say. So that would be the reason, if you do see me there.' When asked if he had watched fellow MP Matt Hancock on last years series, he replied: Who didnt? TikTok star Nella arrived just three hours after the politician landed, evading questions about who here least favourite co-star would be. Heading into the camp: The Brexit Party founder is the first confirmed campmate to enter the jungle as he led the stars arriving into the airport on Sunday Second confirmed: Josie (left) is the the second confirmed campmate as she was spotted arriving into Australia, not long after Nigel (right) Beaming: He was all smiles as he revealed that he had made the decision to take part so he could engage with potential young voters who want to hear his political views However, I'm A Celeb fans reckon it's Farage and are anticipating fireworks between Nigel Farage and influencer Nella Rose as they come face to face in the jungle. The outspoken pair both popular with Generation Z on TikTok have opposing views when it comes to politics, with viewers predicting one of the biggest feuds ever on the ITV show. Taking to X, one fan wrote: Nella Rose and Nigel Farage interacting is going to be CRAZY, while another comment read: I never watch Im a celeb but I'm watching it this year just for this. Another fan added: Nella and Nigel living together, this is going to be so funny, shes gonna destroy him lol. Sitting back to watch, this is going to be interesting, commented another. Farage has a long history of campaigning for Brexit and anti-immigration laws while Nella herself immigrated to the UK from Belgium at the age of seven and is of Congolese descent. Nella rose to fame when she began posting videos on the platform with her friends discussing topics such as Growing up in an African household and Things girls do that boys dont like. Her charisma has earned her 750,000 YouTube subscribers with 81 million views and close to 1 million Instagram followers alongside hosting MTVs show Catfish among other high-profile hosting gigs. Set to attract a younger audience, the beauty content creator will be a clear favourite as countless fans on TikTok are flooding Im a Celebrity videos with cries of Nella Rose for the win. Meanwhile, Farage has drummed up his own set of followers on the social media app - popular among Generation Z - with many hailing him the Goat. Exciting: Speaking to the MailOnline, he said: 'I just think there's a big young audience out there that watches the programme Shaking it up: 'They're people who are worth talking to and I've been messing around with TikTok for the past couple of months and you'd be surprised there are a lot of people out there who are interested in what I have to say. So that would be the reason, if you do see me there' Aiming to be better: When asked if he had watched fellow MP Matt Hancock on last years series, he replied: Who didnt?' Nerves: ITV insiders reveal that they hope the decision to pay him the seven-figure sum will ensure this series is as popular as last years which starred Matt Hancock Worth 'every penny': It comes as ITV hope that their investment in the former MP pays off, while those close to Farage insist he will be worth every penny particularly since he has become a TikTok Popular: Nigel's surge in popularity is thanks to social media platform TikTok where he has 379,000 followers and his videos amassing 6.5 million likes Here he comes: Fred Sirieix was seen checking in a t Heathrow airport ahead of his 24-hour flight to Australia on Sunday Here we go: The First Dates star waved his French passport while making his way across the busy terminal Low-key: Fred looked relaxed in a hooded top, blue jogging bottoms and trainers ahead of his trip to the other side of the world on Sunday morning Excited: The French star completed his look with a cap bearing the words Oh La La as he prepared for his lengthy flight ITV insiders reveal that they hope the decision to pay him the seven-figure sum will ensure this series is as popular as last years which starred Matt Hancock. A source said: ITV need him more than he needs them. His TikTok has taken off in quite a big way and his social media presence on platforms that appeal to a younger audience has exponentially expanded within the last six to nine months and he is reaching that younger demographic. One of ITVs biggest priorities is to capture the younger viewers so Nigel will be a huge driver for that. The source close to Nigel continued: Off the back of Matt Hancocks relative success they had to fill this void. Last year, the former Health Secretarys arrival into the jungle heralded a 300,000 boost in viewing figures with a peak of 9.1 million tuning in to watch his first appearance and Bushtucker trial. Nigel's deal was brokered by his friend and 2017 Jungle Queen Georgia Toffolo who tripled the original 500,000 fee that ITV offered. It comes former Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss turned down big money offers to appear on the reality show. Nigel's surge in popularity is thanks to social media platform TikTok where he has 379,000 followers and his videos amassing 6.5 million likes. Farage even canvassed opinion on the social media site over whether he should sign for Im A Celeb. One wrote: Ill watch it this year for Nigel, while others have hailed him the Goat - an acronym for Greatest of all Time. Not long: The This Morning presenter has confirmed rumours she was heading into the jungle as she was spotted at the airport on Sunday Spotted: Josie pictured chatting and having selfie's with fans in the airport Can't wait: Josie was characteristically upbeat as she greeted onlookers while checking her luggage on Sunday Say cheese: A fan was seen attempting to grab an unexpected selfie with the This Morning star Let's talk: She chatted to staff while waiting with one of her cases at the sprawling airport ahead of her flight I'm A Celebrity's Declan Donnelly was just 'metres away' from a nasty bite from a venomous snake as he enjoyed a beach day with family. The presenter - half of famous duo Ant and Dec - has touched down in Australia ready to begin filming for the latest series of the jungle reality show, which kicks off again on November 19. But as Dec spent time at his favourite spot Cabarita Beach with his children Jack and Isla, he was much closer to danger than he thought. In an incident scarily reminiscent of an I'm A Celebrity trial, Dec managed to narrowly avoid some dangerous reptiles during his visit. Large signs were seen on the beach, reading: 'WARNING: Large brown snake seen crossing here,' The Sun reported. Close shave: I'm A Celebrity 's Declan Donnelly was just 'metres away' from a nasty bite from a venomous snake as he enjoyed a beach day with family Scary: The Eastern Brown Snake is one of Australia's most venomous snakes, according to Australia Geographic (file photo) Even one sighting can put a community on high alert during to the danger of the snakes, also known as Pseudonaja Textilis. The Eastern Brown Snake is one of Australia's most venomous snakes, according to Australia Geographic. Some can reach up to two metres in length and even one bite can cause paralysis. In addition, the snakes cause between one and two deaths each year - although anti-venom medicine is very advanced. Medical attention should be sought immediately after coming into contact with the venom as a severe headache can develop within 15 minutes. Its brown colour means it can often slope around undetected. The snake makes its home throughout eastern Australia from northern Queensland to South Australia - but not Tasmania. Not long to go! As the show starts to creep closer, Ant, 47, revealed how excited he is to be reunited with his righthand man Declan Donnelly, 48 Touch down: Dec has also been spotted out and about in Australia with his wife Ali Astall as he prepares for the new series It comes after Ant McPartlin teased the new series of I'm A Celeb has an 'incredible' cast, as he touched down in Australia on Saturday. Speaking to The Mirror, Ant said: 'I can't wait for the show to begin, it's an incredible cast. It'll be nice to be reunited with Dec and it'll be nice to see him. 'It will be nice to be reunited with him, hes had a family holiday. It will be nice to see his tan lines. We will run towards each on the beach in open arms. 'I thought last year's series was great and with this year's series, the cast is shaping up to me really strong. Very strong.' The mystery celebrity campmates have also begun to land Down Under ahead of the 2023 series launch date of Sunday, November 19 - with Nigel Farage seemingly the first to confirm his entry into the jungle. MBABANE Experts argue that in order for local economic development to be sustainable the environmental aspect needs to be well analysed. Also, experts advise that the environment should be preserved so that current economic development does not happen at the expense of future generations. In the country, the Eswatini Environment Authority (EEA) is responsible for ensuring that the environment is preserved. Following the concern raised by some Mbabane retail business owners, this publication engaged the EEA. In response to a questionnaire, EEA Executive Director Gcina Dladla acknowledged classification of the mentioned project as Category 2. The executive director also acknowledged the undertaking of an initial environmental evaluation and comprehensive mitigation plan (IIE/CMP), which he said was approved. Projects under this category are considered to have some significant adverse environmental impacts, which are relatively well-known and easy to predict and the mitigation measures are also well-known. impacts The decision of the classification is guided by the nature and scale of the project, its location and the anticipated impacts that it may have on the environment, Dladla stated. He then clarified that Category 2 projects do not undergo public review unless deemed necessary by the authority. Please be reminded that allocation and zoning of land for the different land uses within urban areas is the responsibility of the local authority in terms of the Urban Government Act, 1969, highlighted the CEO. Kayla Itsines celebrated her bridal shower with loved ones over the weekend as she prepares to marry her partner Jae Woodroffe. Unable to wipe the smile off her face, the fitness queen, 32, shared a series of photos from the happy event to her Instagram on Saturday. Garbed in white linen slacks and a glittering silver crop top, the multimillionaire looked every inch the bride-to-be as she spent the day with her friends. After going out for lunch by the beach with her soon-to-be husband and their loved ones, the Sweat co-founder spent the afternoon with her closest girlfriends. The celebration comes over a year after Jae got down on one knee and proposed to the Adelaide native with a gorgeous diamond ring. Kayla Itsines, 32, (left) celebrated her bridal shower with loved ones over the weekend as she prepares to marry her partner Jae Woodroffe 'YES #engaged @jaewoodroffe @itsjlahhere,' Kayla wrote alongside a caption of images in which she flaunted her engagement ring and cuddled up to Jae. Little is known about Jae, who is one of the 732 people Kayla follows on Instagram, but his social media activity suggests he enjoys travelling and motorcycles. The pair went public with their relationship more than a year after Kayla confirmed her split from ex-fiance Tobi Pearce in August 2020. Unable to wipe the smile off her face, the fitness queen shared a series of photos from the happy event to her Instagram on Saturday Garbed in white linen slacks and a glittering silver crop top, the multimillionaire looked every inch the bride-to-be as she spent the day with her friends The former couple, who dated for eight years and are parents to daughter Arna, co-founded Bikini Body Guides - later renamed Sweat - after meeting in late 2012. The business partners sold their health and fitness empire to U.S. software giant iFIT for $400million in 2021. Tobi has since departed the company. After going out for lunch by the beach with her soon-to-be husband and their loved ones, the Sweat co-founder spent the afternoon with her closest girlfriends The celebration comes over a year after Jae got down on one knee and proposed to the Adelaide native with a gorgeous diamond ring READ MORE: Twist in Kayla Itsines' romance with fiance Jae Woodroffe: He was dating her good friend before moving on with the fitness star Advertisement In May of 2022, Jae hinted he wanted to have children with Kayla during an Instagram Q&A. He answered the question, 'Would you like biological children of your own one day?' with a photo of himself playing with his stepdaughter Arna and writing 'absolutely'. Before he started dating Kayla, Jae was in a long-term relationship with a woman named Lauren Belotti. She is believed to be one of Kayla's friends. Jack Fincham admitted he has 'never been happier' since he returned to his old job selling pens, following his three year driving ban. The former Love Islander, 32, was hit with a driving ban and charged with two counts of drug-driving after crashing his BMW into a traffic island two days after taking cocaine last month. And now Jack has returned to his career pre Love Island at AJ Office Supplies in London selling pens. Jack has credited his old firm for getting him 'back on the straight and narrow', according to The Sun. Speaking to the publication, he said: 'I'm back to work now and having a routine keeps me sane, it gives me a purpose, right? That's why I'm so happy. Opening up: Jack Fincham, 32, admitted he has 'never been happier' since he returned to his old job selling pens, following his three year driving ban 'Given him a purpose': Jack was hit with a driving ban and charged with two counts of drug-driving after crashing his BMW into a traffic island two days after taking cocaine last month 'After Love Island I had more money than I knew what to do with. I could go out on a Wednesday and not have to worry about getting up for work early the next day. 'I've been gradually falling to pieces since 2018... then the money ran out.' Jack won Love Island's 50k prize with his then-girlfriend Dani Dyer in 2018. The reality star recently broke his silence about his secret stint in rehab after his drug addiction became too much for him to handle. Jack became addicted to cocaine and diazepam pills after he was thrust into the limelight. At one point, Jack was taking at least 30 diazepam pills a day before his mother tricked him when he was high and he found himself in rehab. Speaking to The Sun, Jack confessed: 'Death was on the cards for me, it was imminent.' The night before he went to rehab he had taken a high quantities of sleeping and anti-anxiety tablets and was completely unaware of where he was or what he was doing. 'Death was on the cards for me, it was imminent': Jack recently revealed his mum tricked him into rehab while he was high on drugs Addiction: At one point, Jack was taking at least 30 diazepam pills a day before his mum (pictured) tricked him when he was high and he found himself in rehab Tragic: After a night filled with sleeping and anti-anxiety tablets, his mum, Samantha, then told her son to pack a bag as she suggested he 'go away for a while' Turning his life around: Jack has now been clean since August, in his longest drug-free spell since he left the Love Island villa Where it all started: The former Love Island star, who won the show in 2018 with girlfriend at the time Dani Dyer, became addicted to cocaine and diazepam pills after he was thrust into the limelight (pictured on the show) His mum, Samantha, then told her son to pack a bag as she suggested he 'go away for a while'. Jack recalled being totally out of it and didn't even question where he was going. 'I got in there and then realised 's*** I'm not coming out of here now. I started kicking off, shouting "I don't need to be here, I'm not like that, I don't have a problem".' Jack has now been clean since August, in his longest drug-free spell since he left the Love Island villa. The star revealed that he wouldn't be here today if he hadn't received help: 'If I had carried on how I was, even up to six months ago, I would definitely be dead. Without a shadow of a doubt.' It hasn't been an easy journey for Jack, who suffered from crippling anxiety and terrifying hallucinations whenever he tried to get clean. Jack attended The Haynes Clinic in Bedfordshire for rehab back in November 2020, yet he relapsed after just months after his treatment. The influencer has now returned to his job as a pens salesman while he gets back on his feet and continues to attend therapy and Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Elle Macpherson lost her temper with customs officers at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport in America when she was kept waiting in line. The Australian supermodel, 59, snapped at a staff member when she was waved through customs only to be called back again, reported Perth Now on Sunday. And the WelleCo founder made no effort to hide her irritation at being made to wait with everyone else going through customs. Forced to wait in line for longer than she anticipated, Elle vented her frustrations to security and demanded answers. 'Why did you just say I could go through and then tell me I had to come back?' Elle snapped. Elle Macpherson, 59, (pictured) lost her temper with customs officers at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport in America when she was kept waiting in line She continued: 'You just let five people through. I was before them and now I'm at the back again.' The tall beauty was carrying a $5,300 leopard print Christian Dior tote bag and garbed in a luxe Texan-style ensemble as she went on her tirade. Elle's outburst comes after she was slammed by followers in September when her wellness brand WelleCo failed to deliver paid-for orders. The Australian supermodel snapped at a staff member when she was waved through customs only to be called back again, reported Perth Now on Sunday After she shared a glamorous selfie to her company's Instagram account, disgruntled customers who were still waiting on their products lashed out at her. Some flocked to the comments and claimed they had yet to receive orders they ordered up to a month ago and were being ignored by customer service. 'Why do you have time to post on IG but you don't get back on orders outstanding since 1 Sep,' one person wrote. And the WelleCo founder made no effort to hide her irritation at being made to wait with everyone else going through customs Another said: 'Please could someone respond to my email or direct message as I have been charged for my subscription and still not received my product.' 'Hi I've been trying to get my order! And no one has responded to my email and customer service request,' a third added. Someone else suggested that Elle and WelleCo should 'dial back the advertising' until they have 'adequate supply'. WelleCo CEO Leighton Richards released a statement to address the issue and ease customers' concerns by blaming 'upsizing' for the missing orders. Elle's outburst comes after she was slammed by followers in September when her wellness brand WelleCo failed to deliver paid-for orders 'This year the brand has experienced exponential growth with a 560 per cent increase in new customers. Naturally this has come with some challenges,' he wrote in September. 'Our formulations depend on the highest-quality, premium ingredients. They are harder to source, often leading to wait times of multiple months to match demand.' He continued: 'As much as we strive to maintain a healthy inventory, we simply didn't have the steps in place to keep up with this recent level of growth.' Leighton went on to say the company has since upsized their warehouse, implemented new systems and tripled their team to keep up with orders. 'Like any wellness transformation, this is a process. But we've been delivering Elixirs since 2014 so we've got a strong foundation to build upon,' he said. 'We hope you'll see that we are the real deal and our intentions are as good as our ingredients.' Poppy Delevingne stunned on Saturday in a sequinned rose gold evening gown as she hosted a dinner to celebrate the anniversary of her Prosecco brand. The model, 37, hosted a glamorous bash at the IHG's InterContinental Hotel on London's swanky Park Lane alongside a sweep of famous guests. Poppy looked glamorous in the shiny number from Reformation, which was held up by tiny straps and clung to her slim figure, while the nude colour flattered her flawless skin. She opted for a sleek half-up, half-down hairstyle and style her iconic Delevingne blonde locks into light waves. Poppy was celebrating the third anniversary of her vegan Prosecco brand Della Vite with the InterContinental London Park Lane as part of their Incredible Occasion series. Glitz and glam: Poppy Delevingne stunned on Saturday in a the 'Bevelyn Dress' - a sequinned rose gold evening gown from Reformation as she hosted a dinner to celebrate the anniversary of her Prosecco brand Glamorous hostess: Poppy was celebrating the third anniversary of her vegan Prosecco brand Della Vite, which she founded in August 2020 with sisters Chloe and Cara The eldest Delevingne sister Chloe, 38, wowed in a fireworks-style jumpsuit which boasted a low neckline and flared trousers as she attended the event alongside her husband Edward Grant, whom she married in 2014. Meanwhile Princess Maria-Olympia of Greece and Denmark - who dated Peregrine Pearson before he was spotted smooching newly-single Sophie Turner - wowed in a sleek black maxi dress. The gorgeous royal, who is King Charles's goddaughter, showed off her lithe torso in the figure-hugging black dress, while styling her hair into a chic bob. Model Cara didn't seem to be present at the event. Poppy's close friend Lady Mary Charteris stunned in a light yellow co-ord, showcasing her ripped physique and toned stomach. It comes after Poppy shared photos from her late summer break with her new squeeze Prince Constantine Alexios of Greece, 24, who is 13 years her junior. She has been enjoying a blossoming relationship with the Alexios - a member of the non-reigning royal Greek family - since the breakdown of her eight-year marriage to businessman James Cook. The new couple seemingly took the next step in their relationship; enjoying a family holiday with his mother, 54-year-old Crown Princess Marie Chantal of Greece. A royal occasion: Poppy was joined by Princess Maria-Olympia of Greece Having a good time: Poppy looked glamorous in the shiny number, which was held up by tiny straps and clung to her slim figure Glam dinner: Chloe Delevingne, Princess Maria-Olympia of Greece and Denmark, Mary Charteris and Poppy Delevingne Sisters: Chloe and Poppy Delevingne both celebrated the three-year anniversary of their business Loved-up: Chloe Delevingne was joined by her husband Edward Grant, whom she married in 2014 In February the model was spotted with Constantine during a stroll together in West London. Despite the 12-year age gap between Poppy and Constantine known to his pals as Tino they are believed to have been enjoying each other's company for some time. Constantine, who was once Europe's most eligible royal bachelor, is the eldest son and second child of Crown Prince Pavlos and Crown Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece. He's also the grandson of Greece's late King Constantine II, who was a cousin of King Charles and one of Prince William's five godparents. He remains close to the royal family and is said to be William's godson. Meanwhile, Tino, son of Crown Prince and Princess Pavlos, has often been considered one of Europe's most eligible royal bachelors. Rumours started to circulate about the state of Poppy's marriage since James, 43, resigned as a director of her company, Poppy Delevingne Limited in January, the firm which files the accounts for her 'photographic activities'. Poppy and James, who works for his family's aerospace company, tied the knot in 2014 at a Knightsbridge church ceremony, with sisters top model Cara and Chloe among her many bridesmaids. Exes James and Poppy have not addressed their split publicly but are said to have called time on their union at the beginning of last year. Main man: Edward Grant posed for a photo alongside celebrity chef Theo Randall at the event Sparkling: The eldest Delevingne sister Chloe, 38, wowed in a fireworks-style jumpsuit which boasted a low neckline Royalty: The gorgeous royal Princess Olympia, who is King Charles's goddaughter, showed off her lithe torso in the figure-hugging black dress Incredible Occasion: Poppu put on a lavish spread for her guests Stunning: Poppy's close friend Lady Mary Charteris stunned in a light yellow co-ord, showcasing her ripped physique and toned stomach Krishnan Guru-Murthy was the seventh celebrity to be eliminated from Strictly Come Dancing 2023 following Sunday's dreaded dance off. The newsreader who danced a Samba on Saturday, left the show alongside professional partner Lauren Oakley after landing at the bottom of the leaderboard. Krishnan faced TV presenter Angela Rippon in the tense dance off as both stars tried to impress the judges one final time. First up was Krishnan who once again performed his routine to to Bamboleo by Gipsy Kings, before Angela Rippon and her dance partner Kai Widdrington performed their Paso Doble to Hung Up by Madonna. After both couples took to the floor for a second time judges Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse and Anton Du Beke all opted to save Angela. Exit: Krishnan Guru-Murthy (C) was the seventh celebrity to be eliminated from Strictly Come Dancing 2023 following Sunday's dreaded dance off - pictured with partner Lauren Oakley (R) and host Tess Daly (L) Bottom two: Krishnan faced TV presenter Angela Rippon (R, with partner Kai Widdrington) in the tense dance off as both stars tried to impress the judges one final time Despite three votes to Angela and Kai meant they had won the majority vote and would be staying in the competition regardless, head judge Shirley Ballas said she would have decided to save Krishnan and Lauren. Craig said: 'Well Krishnan you really upped your game in that dance off, it was magnificent. Angela you nearly lost your supporting leg darling in the kick but you saved it, miraculously. 'But the couple that I would like to save and go through to Blackpool is Angela and Kai.' While Motsi, who also saved Angela and Kai, admitted she struggled with her decision. she said: 'To be honest Ive never been so undecided in my decision, Ive been going back and forth, back and forth, in the end Ive decided for fundamentals and technical level so I will be saving Angela and Kai.' Anton Du Beke chose to save Angela and Kai too explaining: 'Well also I thought both couples danced very well it was a super dance off, if there is such a thing. 'But just for the cleaner technique really, and the more recognisable fundamentals, Im going to save Angela and Kai.' Despite her vote not being counted Shirley Ballas said: 'Well I picked the person that I felt was more grounded on their feet without any technical errors and I would have saved Krishnan & Lauren.' Speaking about his time on the show Krishnan gushed: 'Look this has been the most incredible experience. Dance: First up was Krishnan who once again performed his routine to to Bamboleo by Gipsy Kings Loveable: Krishnan's time on the show has earned him thousands of young fans on social media who hail him a 'legend' and a 'hero' Hard work: Angela Rippon and her dance partner Kai Widdrington then performed their Paso Doble to Hung Up by Madonna for a second time Gutted: Krishnan (C) and Lauren (L) couldn't disguise their disappointment as they discovered they were leaving the show Sad to go: Speaking about his time on the show Krishnan gushed: 'I said it has been life changing and it genuinely has. I am incredibly grateful to the entire production team, judges, my incredible Strictly family up there' 'I said it has been life changing and it genuinely has. I am incredibly grateful to the entire production team, judges, my incredible Strictly family up there. 'Its right I am going out this week and I have got to get back to life. The thing that has made Strictly really special is Lauren. She is most incredible teacher, partner, friend. She is the real Strictly star and I am so delighted I am the first partnership you have had. She is going to go a long way and I am very proud of her.' The remaining seven couples will take to the dancefloor next week when the Strictly Come Dancing Blackpool Special returns to the Tower Ballroom. Watch on Saturday 18th November at 6:40pm, with the results show on Sunday 19th November at 7:20pm on BBC One. Strictly Come Dancing viewers were ecstatic to see diver Tom Daley in the studio audience during Saturday's show. The Olympian, 29, who won bronze in the 2012 games, showed off his impressive build and toned arms in a sleeveless black vest for the outing. Tom was spotted by excited fans as he cheered and applauded fellow athlete Annabel Croft and her dance partner Johannes Radebe following their Samba. Whilst his appearance on the show was welcome, it left some viewers wondering why he was there. Shock: Strictly Come Dancing viewers were stunned to see diver Tom Daley, 29, in the studio audience during Saturday's show Deep dive: The Olympian, who has an array of medals, looked worlds away from his sporting attire (pictured at the Men's 10m Platform at Tokyo 2020) Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, one eagle-eyed fan questioned: 'Why is Tom Daley in the audience' followed by a pair of eyes . Another wondered: 'Why is Tom Daley in the audience with a singlet on?' A third said: 'Awww, nice to see Tom Daley in the audience'. A fourth fan suggested that Tom should take part in the show saying: 'Tom Daley watching Strictly. He would be amazing paired with Johannes.' Viewers will be disappointed though as Tom announced he is returning to diving after a two-year break and will bid for a place at next summer's Olympics in Paris, meaning it is unlikely he will be available for next year's show. Tom's Oscar-winning husband Dustin Lance Black was cleared of assault earlier this week. Lance, 49, who married the champion diver, 29, in 2017, was accused of assaulting BBC presenter Teddy Edwardes' as she partied with her ex-girlfriend, Love Island star Amber Gill, at the Freedom nightclub in Soho on August 18 last year. He was alleged to have grabbed Teddy's wrist 'very hard' and spilled her drink over her, but those claims were dismissed in court. Support: Tom was spotted by excited fans as he cheered and applauded pal and former athlete Annabel Croft and her professional partner Johannes Radebe following their Samba Impressive: Annabel and partner Johannesstayed in the competition despite coming decond from the bottom on the leaderboard Loved it: Many shared their surprise and delight at seeing the diver in the crowd, with some even suggesting he paired up with Johannes on next years show Cleared: It has been quite the week for Tom whose Oscar-winning husband Dustin Lance Black was cleared of assault Meanwhile, Krishnan Guru-Murthy was the seventh celebrity to be eliminated from Sunday's dreaded Strictly dance off. The newsreader who danced a Samba on Saturday, left the show alongside professional partner Lauren Oakley after landing at the bottom of the leaderboard. Krishnan faced TV presenter Angela Rippon in the tense dance off as both stars tried to impress the judges one final time. The remaining seven couples will take to the dancefloor next week when the Strictly Come Dancing Blackpool Special returns to the Tower Ballroom. Big Brother's Jordan and Henry took their romance up a notch on Sunday night's episode as they shared multiple passionate kisses together. The lawyer, 25, made a move on the food writer, also 25, in the night when the other housemates were asleep. Jordan told Henry he wanted to tell him a secret, before planting an enthusiastic smooch on him and swiftly tucking back into bed. Jordan then asked: 'Can't you come over here?' Henry went to Jordan's bed and responded: 'What are you trying to say?' before kissing him again. Steamy: Big Brother's Jordan and Henry took their romance up a notch on Sunday night's episode as they shared multiple passionate kisses together Getting it on: The lawyer, 25, made a move on the food writer, also 25, in the night when the other housemates were asleep Romance: Jordan told Henry he wanted to tell him a secret, before planting an enthusiastic smooch on him and swiftly tucking back into bed Overhearing the situation, Jenkin gasped and told the room: 'I see them kissing!' Tom chimed in from his bed: 'They were, I saw.' Jordan then said: 'I can't believe I kissed a Tory, while Henry laughed in response then both leaned in and kissed again. The pair later got into the hot tub together the next day, where they shared another few steamy kisses. Their fellow housemates couldn't help but tease the couple over breakfast, and then dared them to snog in front of them while they cheered. A shocked Olivia then walked in on Jordan and Henry kissing each other once again in the bedroom. Viewers at home were delighted by their PDA after weeks of Jordan and Henry dancing around each other. One fan declared: 'NAH AINT NOBODY KISSING THEIR MATE LIKE THAT JORDAN AND HENRY ARE BACK BABY'. Hotting up: The pair later got into the hot tub together the next day, where they shared another few steamy kisses Packing on the PDA: Their fellow housemates couldn't help but tease the couple over breakfast, and then dared them to snog in front of them while they cheered Awkward! A shocked Olivia then walked in on Jordan and Henry kissing each other once again in the bedroom Another echoed: 'I've never been more happy to see two people kiss in my life then Jordan and Henry'. A third said: 'jordan and henry really putting the hot in hot tub' while another added: 'JORDAN AND HENRY HOLDING HANDS IN BED OMGGGG'. Someone else tweeted: 'Woww jordan and henry are really making up for the last 5 weeks' while a sixth wrote: 'JORDAN AND HENRY KISSING IN THE HOT TUB!!! OH MY GOD!!!!' A seventh joked: 'Right, so it's just Jordan and Henry porn at this point' with an eigth agreeing, writing: 'Jordan and Henry have been utterly feral this episode it's beyond belief'. And another gushed: 'I have never, I repeat NEVER shipped a reality TV couple as hard as I do Jordan and Henry'. Other fans took to Twitter to declare they wanted to see the couple on another show together after Big Brother ends this week. One wrote: 'I need ITV2 to give Jordan and Henry a show of their own after #BBUK ends'. Thrilled: Viewers at home were delighted by their PDA after weeks of Jordan and Henry dancing around each other Another agreed, writing: 'When Jordan and Henry get married they better get an ITVBe Show'. A third suggested: 'Somehow I can really imagine Jordan and Henry pottering around together in 20 years and guest starring on daytime telly shows'. While someone else added: 'I could totally see Jordan and Henry being a great little couple on Googlebox.' Big Brother continues on Monday at 9pm on ITV2 and ITVX. Demands: Other fans took to Twitter to declare they wanted to see the couple on another show together after Big Brother ends this week Nigel Farage arrived in Australia yesterday to become I'm A Celeb's highest-paid contestant ever but admitted he was scared of 'everything' the show will throw at him. The former Ukip leader and Brexit Party founder will be paid a staggering 1.5million for his time in the jungle, where he will be forced to eat pig testicles and drink deer blood as part of a series of Bushtucker Trials. Despite the stomach-turning tasks ahead of him, Mr Farage looked happy and relaxed as he arrived at Brisbane airport, following a 20-hour flight from London, to become this year's first confirmed campmate. He may have been smiling because ITV bosses have promised him he can continue his habit of smoking at least ten cigarettes each day. Sources close to Mr Farage have told the Mail that he will be able to smoke but not in front of the cameras. Nigel Farage arrived in Australia yesterday to become I'm A Celeb's highest-paid contestant ever but admitted he was scared of 'everything' the show will throw at him One said: 'He will have to stick to behind the scenes. It is a huge relief to Nigel, who absolutely loves his fags.' It is also likely he will be given special permission to avoid certain Bushtucker trials and challenges due to the injuries sustained to his spine following a plane crash back in 2010. A source said: 'It will be a miracle if you see Nigel jumping out of any aircraft.' As well as the huge pay packet he's picking up, Mr Farage said he was hoping his appearance on the show will help him engage with younger voters. He added: 'There's a big young audience out there that watches the programme. I've been messing around with TikTok for the past couple of months and there are a lot of people out there interested in what I have to say.' The former Ukip leader and Brexit Party founder will be paid a staggering 1.5million for his time in the jungle, where he will be forced to eat pig testicles and drink deer blood as part of a series of Bushtucker Trials ITV bosses, meanwhile, are hoping their decision to break the bank for Mr Farage will ensure this series is as popular as last year's, when former health secretary Matt Hancock's arrival into the jungle boosted viewing figures, with a peak of 9.1million tuning in. Those close to Mr Farage, meanwhile, insist he will be 'worth every penny' particularly since his appearances on TikTok have helped him gain popularity among the younger generations. A source claimed: 'ITV needs him more than he needs them. 'His TikTok has taken off in quite a big way and his social media presence on platforms that appeal to a younger audience has exponentially expanded. 'One of ITV's biggest priorities is to capture the younger viewers so Nigel will be a huge driver for that.' MBABANE One of the noticeable diplomats in the global political space was in the country for an investment project that will benefit the Kingdom of Eswatini. Widely known in the United Kingdom and USA, Jean Pillard, the former Ambassador of Haiti to the United Kingdom met several stakeholders that included Eswatini Sugar Association (ESA) over an alcoholic beverage project valued at E5.7 billion. He wants to set up a plant in Eswatini, an investment that will, for a start, create 300 jobs. beverage Pillard was in the country a fortnight ago. His business interest is in rum, an alcoholic beverage. Rum is an alcoholic beverage made from sugar cane. It is made from 100 per cent cane products that include raw cane juice, white or brown cane sugar, cane syrup, evaporated cane sugar and cane molasses. Rum is distilled under 95 per cent alcohol by volume. For it to be legally considered a rum beverage, the finished product should be a minimum of 37.5 per cent in European Union countries and 40 per cent in the United States of America; making it a strong spirit. ARK Behavioural Health warns about over-proof rum. The USA-based organisation states that a rum with an ABV (alcohol by volume) of about 57.5 per cent is not good. This means that it has to be at least 114-115 proof. This is much higher than regular rum, which has an ABV of 40 per cent or 80 proof. dangerous Overproof rum is popular in the Caribbean. Brands like J. Wray & Nephew White Overproof Rum, Bacardi, and Cruzan can go up to 75.5 per cent ABV or 151 proof. This makes for a very strong drink that can be dangerous in large quantities. Because of its strength, its most often used in mixed drinks like daiquiris although some people drink it straight. Because the US has a limit on the proof of alcohol that can be shipped from another country, any overproof rum one finds is probably going to be in the 150 proof range. Some over-proof rums include Bacardi 151, Hampden Estate Rum Fire Overproof, Lemon Hart 151, Smith & Cross, Goslings 151, and Worthy Park Overproof. History Of Overproof Rum This rum originally got its name when British Royal Navy officers used to test the quality of the rum by using gunpowder. If the gunpowder still lit up after being soaked in rum; that meant it was of high quality and plenty strong. This is why some over-proof rums are also advertised as navy strength or gunpowder proof. How is overproof rum made? Most rum produced today is made with sugar cane and goes through a distillation process to remove any of the impurities. This leads to a spirit that is anywhere from 160-190 proof. Normally, the alcohol is diluted through aging and blending to bring it down to 80 proof. It has been established that Pillard is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Crosswave LLC, a US investment group that has interest in investing in the African region. He is a Haitian national, who previously served as Haitis Ambassador to the United Kingdom (UK) and Northern Ireland, where his focus was restarting diplomatic relations between Haiti and the UK after over half a century of strained relations. He facilitated the creation of the first ever Haitian Chamber of Commerce in Great Britain, where he served as Chairman. With over 25 years of experience in the private and public sectors, Pillard currently serves as President of Life Skills Haiti, a non-profit organisation that focuses on vocational education in Haitis countryside. In August 19, 2022, he was announced as Pure Water for the World (PWW) new Board member. He confirmed, through his agent, that he was in the country to assess business opportunities. He also confirmed that Pillard was interested in investing in the country. He said the project was valued at US$300 million (about E5.7 billion). confirmed His visit to the country was further confirmed by Dudu Dlamini, who explained that the former ambassador came to the country on invitation by an entity known as the Organisation for Women in International Trade Eswatini. Dlamini is also a member of this organisation. She said Pillard was on a fact-finding mission for possible investment opportunities. Appointments were set up with government companies and private institutions including Eswatini Sugar Association (ESA) and the Sugar Growers Association, she said. She said a majority of the institutions honoured the invitation. Dlamini said the meetings were conducted in a professional manner. To the best our knowledge, all the institutions presented us with all the information and officials were very helpful to the extent of giving us advice and approaches towards successful investment opportunities, she said. She said they were introduced to the ambassador, as an investor, by his agent and they facilitated his invitation to the country through Eswatini Investment Promotion Authority (EIPA) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. Excellence She said Pillards investment ambitions were divided into three with the rum project being the most expensive one. She said the other two areas were a construction of a centre of excellence in diplomacy and public relations. The value of this project could not be ascertained. Dlamini said it transpired from their engagement with the investor that the centre of excellence was meant to assist the country in countering misinformation and the spread of propaganda. He mentioned that according to his study, the country was found wanting on issues of PR, with social media taking charge in the 2021 political unrest. The centre of excellence would help the country to rebut false information, hence he met different industry players such as the University of Eswatini and others, she said. Dlamini further stated that the investor intended to invest in the sector of health. She said he also mentioned that it was time the country derived some wealth from the health sector. She said Pillard was looking for opportunities to expand on it. investment However, they were not able to get to anyone on the sector until the investor went back. Information gathered from the investors agent, who requested not to be mentioned, was that a hospital investment worth over US$39 million (E741million) was being discussed after receiving a interest from a local businessman. The urgent thanked ESA for an informative meeting and briefly stated that the investor was coming back to finalise the rum plant project and the hospital. We are grateful that there is light at the end of the tunnel. There has been a lot of misinformation already but we are hoping that this article will set the record straight. The investor is very keen and Eswatini is strategically placed to be a base for the investments that are targeting the African continent, said the agent. ESA CEO Banele Nyamane confirmed that they met with the investor who had appointment booked Dlamini. He said Dlamini was the intermediary the delegation was requested to submit a formal request, with a clear business plan and details of the specific product they required from ESA. He said this was met to allow ESA to fully appreciate their request and consider it accordingly. approve He said ESA was not in a position to approve or reject private investment proposals and the investor retained the sole prerogative to go ahead with the project or not. Nyamane said ESA was confined on the expected input required from ESA. It is in ESAs interest to ensure that a viable project is being proposed so that whatever decision it makes, it ensures that its interests for future business are taken care of. This is more-so since there is high demand for the sugar and molasses, with most of it already committed in any case. ESA supplies a number of products such as refined sugar, VHP Sugar, raw sugar and molasses. Before we can commit to supplying a customer, we need to assess our current commitments and capacity to deliver, he said. Nyamane added that they requested the investor to supply ESA with adequate details of the project and to put it all in a proposal form. He emphasised that they were looking forward to feedback from the investor in order to advise accordingly. He said ESAs mandate is to promote the development of the sugar industry in the country, through providing technical services and marketing products such as sugar and all its by-products. support We do have policies that focus on supporting investments that will add value to the sugar industry products (sugar and molasses in the current instance) in the country. We remain open to consider and support such initiatives, subject to ESA having the capacity to supply the required product, added Nyamane. According to the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, post forecasts sugar cane production in Eswatini were expected to increase by 1.5 per cent to 5.6 million metric tonnes in the 2023/24 financial period, based on increased available irrigation water, expanded planted area, and a return to trend yields. Post forecasts sugar production will increase by four per cent, to 652 057 metric tonnes in 2023/24, based on an expected rebound in the volume of sugar cane deliveries to mills and improvement in the recovery rate. Eswatini was fully expected to fully utilise its allocated USA tariff rate quota in 2023/24 and 2022/23. GATX Co. (NYSE:GATX Free Report) Equities researchers at Zacks Research dropped their FY2023 earnings per share estimates for GATX in a report released on Wednesday, November 8th. Zacks Research analyst S. Pal now forecasts that the transportation company will post earnings per share of $6.88 for the year, down from their prior estimate of $6.91. The consensus estimate for GATXs current full-year earnings is $6.93 per share. Zacks Research also issued estimates for GATXs Q4 2023 earnings at $1.54 EPS, Q1 2024 earnings at $1.81 EPS, Q2 2024 earnings at $1.73 EPS, Q3 2024 earnings at $1.72 EPS, Q4 2024 earnings at $1.67 EPS, Q2 2025 earnings at $1.94 EPS, Q3 2025 earnings at $1.89 EPS and FY2025 earnings at $7.86 EPS. Get GATX alerts: GATX has been the topic of several other research reports. Susquehanna reduced their target price on shares of GATX from $122.00 to $115.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a report on Monday, October 16th. TD Cowen reaffirmed a market perform rating and set a $137.00 price objective (up from $135.00) on shares of GATX in a research report on Wednesday, July 26th. StockNews.com assumed coverage on GATX in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating on the stock. Stephens lifted their price target on GATX from $135.00 to $142.00 in a report on Wednesday, July 26th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on GATX from $125.00 to $145.00 in a report on Wednesday, July 26th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $134.75. GATX Price Performance GATX stock opened at $107.47 on Friday. The businesss 50-day moving average is $108.97 and its two-hundred day moving average is $117.29. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.15, a current ratio of 1.84 and a quick ratio of 1.84. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.82 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.04 and a beta of 1.02. GATX has a 1 year low of $97.21 and a 1 year high of $133.01. GATX Announces Dividend The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Sunday, December 31st. Stockholders of record on Friday, December 15th will be given a dividend of $0.55 per share. This represents a $2.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.05%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, December 14th. GATXs dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 32.84%. Insider Activity In other GATX news, SVP John Sbragia sold 625 shares of GATX stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $102.20, for a total transaction of $63,875.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 7,419 shares of the companys stock, valued at $758,221.80. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Company insiders own 1.80% of the companys stock. Hedge Funds Weigh In On GATX A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Orion Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in GATX during the 1st quarter worth $28,000. CWM LLC boosted its holdings in GATX by 95.3% in the 2nd quarter. CWM LLC now owns 336 shares of the transportation companys stock valued at $43,000 after purchasing an additional 164 shares in the last quarter. Adirondack Trust Co. acquired a new position in GATX during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $44,000. Lazard Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of GATX during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $57,000. Finally, Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio acquired a new stake in shares of GATX in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $89,000. 99.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. GATX Company Profile (Get Free Report) GATX Corporation, together its subsidiaries, operates as railcar leasing company in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, and India. It operates through three segments: Rail North America, Rail International, and Portfolio Management. The company leases tank and freight railcars, and locomotives for petroleum, chemical, food/agriculture, and transportation industries. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for GATX Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for GATX and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. NuVista Energy (TSE:NVA Free Report) had its price objective trimmed by Stifel Nicolaus from C$15.25 to C$15.00 in a research report sent to investors on Thursday morning, BayStreet.CA reports. The brokerage currently has a buy rating on the stock. A number of other equities analysts also recently commented on the company. Raymond James lifted their price objective on NuVista Energy from C$16.00 to C$18.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Friday, September 8th. Desjardins lowered their price target on shares of NuVista Energy from C$16.50 to C$14.50 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, July 25th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on shares of NuVista Energy from C$13.50 to C$15.00 in a research report on Monday, October 16th. National Bankshares boosted their target price on shares of NuVista Energy from C$14.50 to C$15.00 and gave the company a sector perform rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, TD Securities raised their price target on shares of NuVista Energy from C$14.00 to C$14.50 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Thursday, August 10th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of C$15.47. Get NuVista Energy alerts: Get Our Latest Analysis on NuVista Energy NuVista Energy Stock Performance NVA opened at C$12.96 on Thursday. NuVista Energy has a twelve month low of C$9.93 and a twelve month high of C$14.16. The firm has a market capitalization of C$2.76 billion, a PE ratio of 6.61, a PEG ratio of 0.59 and a beta of 2.78. The company has a current ratio of 1.10, a quick ratio of 0.78 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 14.00. The firms 50-day moving average price is C$13.05 and its 200 day moving average price is C$11.88. NuVista Energy (TSE:NVA Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, August 9th. The company reported C$0.39 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of C$0.27 by C$0.12. The business had revenue of C$282.06 million for the quarter. NuVista Energy had a net margin of 32.78% and a return on equity of 21.97%. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that NuVista Energy will post 2.2268041 EPS for the current fiscal year. NuVista Energy Company Profile (Get Free Report) NuVista Energy Ltd., an oil and natural gas company, engages in the exploration, development, and production of oil and natural gas reserves in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. It primarily focuses on the condensate rich Montney formation in the Wapiti and Pipestone areas of the Alberta Deep Basin. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for NuVista Energy Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for NuVista Energy and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Shares of Canadian Life Companies Split Corp. (TSE:LFE Get Free Report) traded up 3.4% during mid-day trading on Friday . The stock traded as high as C$3.07 and last traded at C$3.05. 51,919 shares changed hands during trading, an increase of 175% from the average session volume of 18,887 shares. The stock had previously closed at C$2.95. Canadian Life Companies Split Price Performance The company has a market cap of C$35.17 million, a P/E ratio of -7.44 and a beta of 2.95. The companys 50-day moving average price is C$2.96 and its 200-day moving average price is C$3.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 296.48, a current ratio of 1.33 and a quick ratio of 1.33. Canadian Life Companies Split Company Profile (Get Free Report) Canadian Life Companies Split Corp. is a closed-ended equity mutual fund launched and managed by Quadravest Capital Management Inc It invests in the public equity markets of Canada. The fund seeks to invest in stocks of companies operating in the life insurance sector. It primarily invests in stocks of four publicly traded life insurance companies namely Great-West Lifeco Inc, Industrial Alliance Insurance and Financial Services Inc, Manulife Financial Corporation, and Sun Life Financial Inc The fund employs fundamental analysis with a focus on such factors as a firm's earning history, relative price-earnings multiple, cash flow, dividend yield, market position, and growth prospects to create its portfolio. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Canadian Life Companies Split Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Canadian Life Companies Split and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Chicago Partners Investment Group LLC trimmed its holdings in Occidental Petroleum Co. (NYSE:OXY Free Report) by 11.7% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 4,707 shares of the oil and gas producers stock after selling 623 shares during the period. Chicago Partners Investment Group LLCs holdings in Occidental Petroleum were worth $289,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Ironwood Wealth Management LLC. bought a new position in Occidental Petroleum in the first quarter valued at approximately $334,000. Cibc World Market Inc. increased its stake in Occidental Petroleum by 47.2% in the first quarter. Cibc World Market Inc. now owns 55,697 shares of the oil and gas producers stock valued at $3,160,000 after acquiring an additional 17,859 shares during the last quarter. Prudential PLC bought a new position in Occidental Petroleum in the first quarter valued at approximately $1,124,000. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC bought a new position in Occidental Petroleum in the first quarter valued at approximately $313,000. Finally, Candriam Luxembourg S.C.A. increased its stake in Occidental Petroleum by 12.4% in the first quarter. Candriam Luxembourg S.C.A. now owns 54,540 shares of the oil and gas producers stock valued at $3,094,000 after acquiring an additional 6,018 shares during the last quarter. 77.54% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Occidental Petroleum alerts: Occidental Petroleum Price Performance OXY stock opened at $60.98 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $53.68 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.34, a PEG ratio of 0.69 and a beta of 1.70. The company has a quick ratio of 0.73, a current ratio of 0.92 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.88. Occidental Petroleum Co. has a 12-month low of $55.51 and a 12-month high of $75.78. The companys fifty day simple moving average is $63.69 and its 200 day simple moving average is $61.48. Occidental Petroleum Dividend Announcement Occidental Petroleum ( NYSE:OXY Get Free Report ) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, November 7th. The oil and gas producer reported $1.18 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.89 by $0.29. The business had revenue of $7.40 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $7.05 billion. Occidental Petroleum had a net margin of 18.26% and a return on equity of 25.39%. Occidental Petroleums revenue for the quarter was down 22.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.44 earnings per share. On average, analysts expect that Occidental Petroleum Co. will post 4.11 earnings per share for the current year. The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, January 16th. Stockholders of record on Friday, December 8th will be issued a dividend of $0.18 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, December 7th. This represents a $0.72 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.18%. Occidental Petroleums dividend payout ratio is currently 15.75%. Insider Activity In related news, major shareholder Berkshire Hathaway Inc acquired 1,686,368 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 23rd. The shares were purchased at an average price of $62.80 per share, for a total transaction of $105,903,910.40. Following the completion of the acquisition, the insider now owns 225,815,560 shares of the companys stock, valued at $14,181,217,168. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In related news, major shareholder Berkshire Hathaway Inc acquired 1,686,368 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 23rd. The shares were purchased at an average price of $62.80 per share, for a total transaction of $105,903,910.40. Following the completion of the acquisition, the insider now owns 225,815,560 shares of the companys stock, valued at $14,181,217,168. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, major shareholder Petroleum Corp /De/ Occidental sold 5,100,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $25.00, for a total transaction of $127,500,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 185,181,578 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,629,539,450. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 0.31% of the companys stock. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Citigroup lifted their price objective on shares of Occidental Petroleum from $62.00 to $66.00 in a research note on Wednesday, September 20th. Stephens reaffirmed an overweight rating and set a $74.00 target price on shares of Occidental Petroleum in a research note on Thursday, October 12th. Wolfe Research cut shares of Occidental Petroleum from an outperform rating to a peer perform rating in a research note on Friday. Bank of America boosted their target price on shares of Occidental Petroleum from $78.00 to $82.00 in a research note on Wednesday, September 27th. Finally, Raymond James decreased their target price on shares of Occidental Petroleum from $80.00 to $75.00 and set a strong-buy rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, July 24th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating, eight have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $71.13. Check Out Our Latest Research Report on Occidental Petroleum Occidental Petroleum Profile (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. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Occidental Petroleum Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Occidental Petroleum and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Commerce Bank reduced its stake in Ingersoll Rand Inc. (NYSE:IR Free Report) by 5.4% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 47,700 shares of the industrial products companys stock after selling 2,716 shares during the quarter. Commerce Banks holdings in Ingersoll Rand were worth $3,118,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Quintet Private Bank Europe S.A. acquired a new position in Ingersoll Rand in the 1st quarter worth approximately $26,000. Scissortail Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in Ingersoll Rand in the 1st quarter worth approximately $839,549,000. Raleigh Capital Management Inc. increased its holdings in Ingersoll Rand by 87.0% in the 2nd quarter. Raleigh Capital Management Inc. now owns 475 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $31,000 after buying an additional 221 shares during the period. Compass Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in Ingersoll Rand in the 4th quarter worth approximately $32,000. Finally, Farmers & Merchants Investments Inc. increased its holdings in Ingersoll Rand by 127.1% in the 1st quarter. Farmers & Merchants Investments Inc. now owns 679 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $40,000 after buying an additional 380 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 94.54% of the companys stock. Get Ingersoll Rand alerts: Insider Activity In other news, insider Andrew R. Schiesl sold 9,532 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $66.22, for a total transaction of $631,209.04. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 58,263 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,858,175.86. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In other news, CFO Vikram Kini sold 169,153 shares of Ingersoll Rand stock in a transaction on Wednesday, September 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $69.43, for a total transaction of $11,744,292.79. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 47,917 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,326,877.31. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Andrew R. Schiesl sold 9,532 shares of Ingersoll Rand stock in a transaction on Friday, November 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $66.22, for a total value of $631,209.04. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 58,263 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,858,175.86. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.83% of the companys stock. Ingersoll Rand Trading Up 2.0 % Ingersoll Rand Announces Dividend Shares of NYSE:IR opened at $68.34 on Friday. Ingersoll Rand Inc. has a 1 year low of $50.75 and a 1 year high of $70.65. The firm has a market capitalization of $27.66 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 36.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.97 and a beta of 1.47. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.28, a current ratio of 2.26 and a quick ratio of 1.60. The businesss 50 day moving average price is $64.55 and its 200-day moving average price is $63.82. The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 14th. Stockholders of record on Monday, November 20th will be given a dividend of $0.02 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, November 17th. This represents a $0.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.12%. Ingersoll Rands dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 4.28%. Analyst Ratings Changes Several brokerages recently weighed in on IR. Robert W. Baird increased their price target on shares of Ingersoll Rand from $66.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Friday, August 4th. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price objective on shares of Ingersoll Rand from $76.00 to $70.00 in a research note on Monday, October 9th. Stifel Nicolaus raised shares of Ingersoll Rand from a hold rating to a buy rating and set a $73.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, October 24th. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on shares of Ingersoll Rand from $70.00 to $73.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Friday, August 4th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price objective on shares of Ingersoll Rand from $76.00 to $79.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, August 3rd. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Ingersoll Rand currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $71.10. Get Our Latest Research Report on IR Ingersoll Rand Company Profile (Free Report) Ingersoll Rand Inc provides various mission-critical air, fluid, energy, specialty vehicle, and medical technologies in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, India, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. It operates through two segments, Industrial Technologies and Services, and Precision and Science Technologies. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Ingersoll Rand Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Ingersoll Rand and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust (NYSE:BFZ Get Free Report) major shareholder Saba Capital Management, L.P. bought 11,821 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 8th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $10.56 per share, with a total value of $124,829.76. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 4,799,743 shares in the company, valued at approximately $50,685,286.08. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Large shareholders that own more than 10% of a companys stock are required to disclose their transactions with the SEC. Saba Capital Management, L.P. also recently made the following trade(s): Get BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust alerts: On Monday, November 6th, Saba Capital Management, L.P. bought 29,563 shares of BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust stock. The shares were acquired at an average price of $10.36 per share, with a total value of $306,272.68. On Friday, November 3rd, Saba Capital Management, L.P. bought 14,008 shares of BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust stock. The shares were acquired at an average price of $10.39 per share, with a total value of $145,543.12. On Tuesday, October 31st, Saba Capital Management, L.P. bought 39,865 shares of BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust stock. The shares were acquired at an average price of $9.92 per share, with a total value of $395,460.80. On Monday, October 16th, Saba Capital Management, L.P. bought 38,677 shares of BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust stock. The shares were acquired at an average price of $10.37 per share, with a total value of $401,080.49. On Thursday, October 12th, Saba Capital Management, L.P. bought 17,703 shares of BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust stock. The shares were acquired at an average price of $10.43 per share, with a total value of $184,642.29. On Monday, October 9th, Saba Capital Management, L.P. acquired 16,763 shares of BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust stock. The stock was purchased at an average price of $10.20 per share, with a total value of $170,982.60. On Friday, October 6th, Saba Capital Management, L.P. acquired 510 shares of BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust stock. The stock was purchased at an average price of $10.08 per share, with a total value of $5,140.80. On Wednesday, October 4th, Saba Capital Management, L.P. acquired 500 shares of BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust stock. The stock was purchased at an average price of $10.16 per share, with a total value of $5,080.00. On Monday, October 2nd, Saba Capital Management, L.P. acquired 22,053 shares of BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust stock. The stock was purchased at an average price of $10.21 per share, with a total value of $225,161.13. On Tuesday, September 26th, Saba Capital Management, L.P. acquired 90,004 shares of BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust stock. The stock was purchased at an average price of $10.41 per share, with a total value of $936,941.64. BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust Stock Performance BFZ opened at $10.56 on Friday. BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust has a 12 month low of $9.86 and a 12 month high of $12.10. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $10.45 and a 200 day simple moving average of $11.23. BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust Announces Dividend Hedge Funds Weigh In On BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust The business also recently announced a monthly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 1st. Investors of record on Wednesday, November 15th will be paid a $0.039 dividend. This represents a $0.47 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.43%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 14th. Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Raymond James & Associates boosted its stake in BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust by 60.5% in the 3rd quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 18,779 shares of the companys stock worth $193,000 after purchasing an additional 7,079 shares during the period. Oder Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust by 2.4% in the 3rd quarter. Oder Investment Management LLC now owns 122,120 shares of the companys stock worth $1,257,000 after purchasing an additional 2,820 shares during the period. Hennion & Walsh Asset Management Inc. boosted its stake in BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust by 6.5% in the 3rd quarter. Hennion & Walsh Asset Management Inc. now owns 358,458 shares of the companys stock worth $3,689,000 after purchasing an additional 21,799 shares during the period. Miracle Mile Advisors LLC boosted its stake in BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust by 18.2% in the 3rd quarter. Miracle Mile Advisors LLC now owns 13,000 shares of the companys stock worth $134,000 after purchasing an additional 2,000 shares during the period. Finally, LPL Financial LLC boosted its stake in BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust by 24.1% in the 2nd quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 42,342 shares of the companys stock worth $502,000 after purchasing an additional 8,211 shares during the period. BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust Company Profile (Get Free Report) BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust is a closed ended fixed income mutual fund launched by BlackRock, Inc It is managed by BlackRock Advisors, LLC. The fund invests in fixed income markets. It invests primarily in investment grade municipal bonds that are exempt from regular federal and California income taxes. Read More Receive News & Ratings for BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Bahrain's Information & eGovernment Authority (iGA) met the top officials of Saudi Arabias Digital Government Authority to discuss potential collaboration during the 7th meeting of the GCC eGovernment Ministerial Committee, held recently in Oman. iGA Chief Executive Mohammed Ali Al Qaed held talks with the Governor of Saudi Arabias Digital Government Authority, Engineer Ahmed bin Mohammed Alsuwaiyan on the sidelines of the meeting. Al Qaed praised the strong ties between the two kingdoms, highlighting Saudi Arabia's efforts in advancing information and communication technology (ICT). He also acknowledged the Digital Government Authority's role in implementing strategies and advanced technologies for the digital transformation of government services, wishing Saudi Arabia continued success. Al Qaed also shared details about Bahrain eGovernment initiatives, national projects and digital transformation, underscoring the importance of strengthening technical cooperation. The Governor commended the iGAs digital transformation efforts and its implementation of digital policies in Bahrain's government sector. He later extended an invite for Al Qaed to join a high-level discussion at the Digital Government Forum in Riyadh next month to be held from December 19 to 20. The forum serves as a platform for Bahrain to showcase its pioneering experience in digital transformation and meet with experts and decision-makers in digital government, both locally and internationally.-TradeArabia News Service Chicago Partners Investment Group LLC lowered its position in Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. (NYSE:MLM Free Report) by 11.5% during the second quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 594 shares of the construction companys stock after selling 77 shares during the quarter. Chicago Partners Investment Group LLCs holdings in Martin Marietta Materials were worth $268,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in MLM. Fiduciary Alliance LLC bought a new position in shares of Martin Marietta Materials during the second quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Quarry LP acquired a new stake in Martin Marietta Materials in the first quarter worth approximately $30,000. ZRC Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in Martin Marietta Materials in the first quarter worth approximately $39,000. Fairfield Bush & CO. acquired a new stake in Martin Marietta Materials in the first quarter worth approximately $46,000. Finally, Clear Street Markets LLC lifted its position in Martin Marietta Materials by 95.2% in the first quarter. Clear Street Markets LLC now owns 123 shares of the construction companys stock worth $44,000 after purchasing an additional 60 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 93.22% of the companys stock. Get Martin Marietta Materials alerts: Martin Marietta Materials Stock Up 0.6 % Martin Marietta Materials stock opened at $453.87 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $28.05 billion, a PE ratio of 26.34, a P/E/G ratio of 1.15 and a beta of 0.91. The companys 50-day moving average is $425.42 and its 200-day moving average is $427.99. Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $317.94 and a fifty-two week high of $463.41. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.51, a current ratio of 2.47 and a quick ratio of 1.60. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In Martin Marietta Materials ( NYSE:MLM Get Free Report ) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, November 1st. The construction company reported $6.94 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $6.04 by $0.90. The firm had revenue of $1.99 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.99 billion. Martin Marietta Materials had a net margin of 16.10% and a return on equity of 14.89%. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 10.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $4.69 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. will post 18.22 earnings per share for the current year. MLM has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Seaport Res Ptn upgraded Martin Marietta Materials from a neutral rating to a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 25th. Barclays increased their price objective on Martin Marietta Materials from $430.00 to $490.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Friday, July 28th. Stephens increased their price objective on Martin Marietta Materials from $525.00 to $540.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Thursday, November 2nd. StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of Martin Marietta Materials in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating on the stock. Finally, Truist Financial boosted their target price on shares of Martin Marietta Materials from $446.00 to $550.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Friday, July 28th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $471.79. Get Our Latest Stock Report on MLM Insider Buying and Selling at Martin Marietta Materials In other Martin Marietta Materials news, VP Craig M. Latorre sold 1,934 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $431.68, for a total value of $834,869.12. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now owns 9,731 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $4,200,678.08. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Insiders own 0.61% of the companys stock. About Martin Marietta Materials (Free Report) Martin Marietta Materials, Inc, a natural resource-based building materials company, supplies aggregates and heavy-side building materials to the construction industry in the United States and internationally. It offers crushed stone, sand, and gravel products; ready mixed concrete and asphalt; paving products and services; and Portland and specialty cement for use in the infrastructure projects, and nonresidential and residential construction markets, as well as in the railroad, agricultural, utility, and environmental industries. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Martin Marietta Materials Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Martin Marietta Materials and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp boosted its holdings in American Water Works Company, Inc. (NYSE:AWK Free Report) by 2.3% in the second quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 121,509 shares of the utilities providers stock after purchasing an additional 2,759 shares during the period. Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp owned about 0.06% of American Water Works worth $17,345,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich grew its position in shares of American Water Works by 98,401.2% during the second quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich now owns 4,079,919 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $582,408,000 after buying an additional 4,075,777 shares in the last quarter. Zimmer Partners LP bought a new stake in shares of American Water Works in the 1st quarter worth about $308,215,000. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of American Water Works in the 4th quarter valued at about $281,724,000. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of American Water Works by 64,405.1% in the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 1,838,394 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $280,208,000 after purchasing an additional 1,835,544 shares in the last quarter. Finally, American Century Companies Inc. lifted its position in shares of American Water Works by 5,072.0% during the first quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 1,014,945 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $148,652,000 after purchasing an additional 995,321 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 84.99% of the companys stock. Get American Water Works alerts: Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades AWK has been the topic of several research reports. Guggenheim cut their price objective on American Water Works from $147.00 to $126.00 in a research note on Monday, October 9th. Royal Bank of Canada restated an outperform rating and set a $169.00 price objective on shares of American Water Works in a research note on Thursday, September 14th. Mizuho lifted their price objective on shares of American Water Works from $134.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Tuesday, November 7th. Finally, StockNews.com started coverage on shares of American Water Works in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a sell rating on the stock. American Water Works Stock Down 0.6 % AWK opened at $123.50 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.18, a current ratio of 1.03 and a quick ratio of 0.97. American Water Works Company, Inc. has a 12 month low of $114.25 and a 12 month high of $162.59. The stocks 50 day moving average price is $126.04 and its 200 day moving average price is $137.88. The stock has a market cap of $24.05 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.62, a P/E/G ratio of 3.15 and a beta of 0.63. American Water Works (NYSE:AWK Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 2nd. The utilities provider reported $1.66 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.55 by $0.11. The company had revenue of $1.17 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.14 billion. American Water Works had a return on equity of 9.99% and a net margin of 22.26%. The companys quarterly revenue was up 7.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.63 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts predict that American Water Works Company, Inc. will post 4.82 earnings per share for the current year. American Water Works Dividend Announcement The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 1st. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 14th will be issued a $0.7075 dividend. This represents a $2.83 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.29%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, November 13th. American Water Workss dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 58.71%. Insider Activity at American Water Works In other news, Director Michael Marberry purchased 3,786 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Monday, November 6th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $130.20 per share, with a total value of $492,937.20. Following the purchase, the director now owns 7,459 shares in the company, valued at approximately $971,161.80. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Company insiders own 0.08% of the companys stock. American Water Works 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. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding AWK? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for American Water Works Company, Inc. (NYSE:AWK Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for American Water Works Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for American Water Works and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp purchased a new position in shares of iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (NYSEARCA:HYG Free Report) in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor purchased 237,480 shares of the exchange traded funds stock, valued at approximately $17,828,000. Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp owned approximately 0.12% of iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. NYL Investors LLC raised its stake in shares of iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF by 69.0% during the first quarter. NYL Investors LLC now owns 4,413,300 shares of the exchange traded funds stock valued at $333,425,000 after acquiring an additional 1,801,300 shares during the last quarter. Allstate Investment Management Co. bought a new position in iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF during the 4th quarter worth $117,246,000. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its position in iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF by 60.1% during the 1st quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 1,932,275 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $145,983,000 after purchasing an additional 725,272 shares during the last quarter. State of Tennessee Treasury Department lifted its holdings in iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF by 67.9% during the 4th quarter. State of Tennessee Treasury Department now owns 1,438,868 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $105,943,000 after buying an additional 582,040 shares during the period. Finally, Flow Traders U.S. LLC bought a new stake in shares of iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF in the 1st quarter valued at about $36,580,000. Get iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF alerts: iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF Trading Up 0.5 % Shares of HYG stock opened at $74.06 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $73.48 and a 200-day moving average of $74.24. The stock has a market cap of $14.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.33 and a beta of 0.43. iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF has a 1-year low of $71.68 and a 1-year high of $77.34. iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF Profile iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (the Fund), formerly iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond Fund, is an exchange-traded fund (ETF). The Fund seeks to track the investment results of the Markit iBoxx USD Liquid High Yield Index (the Index), which is a rules-based index consisting of liquid the United States dollar-denominated, high yield corporate bonds for sale in the United States, as determined by the index provider. Recommended Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding HYG? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (NYSEARCA:HYG Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) Director Richard K. Davis acquired 3,500 shares of Wells Fargo & Company stock in a transaction dated Thursday, November 9th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $41.22 per share, with a total value of $144,270.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director now directly owns 4,244 shares of the companys stock, valued at $174,937.68. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Wells Fargo & Company Stock Performance NYSE WFC opened at $40.89 on Friday. The companys 50 day moving average is $40.81 and its 200-day moving average is $41.63. Wells Fargo & Company has a 12-month low of $35.25 and a 12-month high of $48.84. The company has a quick ratio of 0.87, a current ratio of 0.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.17. The firm has a market cap of $148.50 billion, a P/E ratio of 8.83, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.78 and a beta of 1.17. Get Wells Fargo & Company alerts: Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Friday, October 13th. The financial services provider reported $1.39 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.24 by $0.15. Wells Fargo & Company had a net margin of 17.06% and a return on equity of 11.18%. 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 firm posted $1.30 earnings per share. The companys quarterly revenue was up 6.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that Wells Fargo & Company will post 5.06 earnings per share for the current year. Wells Fargo & Company Announces Dividend Wall Street Analyst Weigh In The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, November 3rd will be given a $0.35 dividend. This represents a $1.40 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.42%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 2nd. Wells Fargo & Companys dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 30.24%. A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on WFC shares. UBS Group lifted their price objective on shares of Wells Fargo & Company from $51.00 to $53.00 in a report on Thursday, October 12th. StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of Wells Fargo & Company in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating on the stock. Citigroup boosted their price target on shares of Wells Fargo & Company from $50.00 to $52.00 in a report on Sunday, July 16th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft restated a buy rating and set a $44.00 price target on shares of Wells Fargo & Company in a report on Friday, September 22nd. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group cut their price target on shares of Wells Fargo & Company from $48.00 to $43.00 in a report on Tuesday, October 10th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seven have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $48.31. Read Our Latest Research Report on WFC Institutional Trading of Wells Fargo & Company Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Wells Fargo & Company during the 4th quarter worth approximately $2,049,693,000. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Wells Fargo & Company by 129,312.1% during the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 26,287,479 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $1,085,410,000 after acquiring an additional 26,267,166 shares during the period. Capital International Investors increased its holdings in Wells Fargo & Company by 69.1% during the 2nd quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 61,833,769 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $2,638,987,000 after acquiring an additional 25,268,032 shares during the period. Renaissance Technologies LLC increased its holdings in Wells Fargo & Company by 1,478.6% during the 1st quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 8,390,611 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $406,609,000 after acquiring an additional 7,859,100 shares during the period. Finally, Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board bought a new stake in Wells Fargo & Company during the 1st quarter worth approximately $345,861,000. Institutional investors own 72.47% of the companys stock. Wells Fargo & Company Company Profile (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. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Wells Fargo & Company Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Wells Fargo & Company and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. State Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana 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 D.C. West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Puerto Rico US Virgin Islands Armed Forces Americas Armed Forces Pacific Armed Forces Europe Northern Mariana Islands Marshall Islands American Samoa Federated States of Micronesia Guam Palau Alberta, Canada British Columbia, Canada Manitoba, Canada New Brunswick, Canada Newfoundland, Canada Nova Scotia, Canada Northwest Territories, Canada Nunavut, Canada Ontario, Canada Prince Edward Island, Canada Quebec, Canada Saskatchewan, Canada Yukon Territory, Canada Zip Code BJP national president J.P. Nadda along with Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and others release election manifesto in Bhopal on Saturday. (Twitter) Bhopal: Employment for at least one member of each family, LPG cylinder at Rs 450, retention of Ladli Behna scheme, pension for senior citizens and free education to girls are among the key promises made in the manifesto of BJP released for poll-bound Madhya Pradesh here on Saturday. Unveiling partys Sankalp Patra (resolution document), BJP national president J P Nadda said that unlike other political parties whose policy is make promises, then forget them, his party always ensured that each and every pledge made by it is executed. Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan who was present on the occasion said that "We will implement every word of the Sankalp Patra". The manifesto has announced sops for women, farmers, youth and tribals. The party has promised to provide employment to each family in the state if BJP retains power in the state. The party has pledged provision of subsidised LPG cylinder at Rs 450. The manifesto has declared to retain the Ladli Behna scheme of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government if it forms government in the state in the November 17 assembly elections. The state government is currently providing financial assistance of Rs 1,250 per month under Ladli Behna scheme to 1.36 crore women beneficiaries. The manifesto has pledged to expand the Ladli Behna scheme to provide houses to the beneficiaries also. It has promised to provide every house with 100 units of electricity for Rs 100. The BJP has promised procurement of paddy and wheat at Rs 3,100 per quintal and Rs 2,700 per quintal respectively. Free education will be provided to the girls up to post-graduation. The BJP has assured a monthly pension of Rs 1,500 each to the senior citizens and the physically challenged persons. The party has pledged Rs 20,000 crore-investment for the development of health infrastructure in the state and also metro rail for Gwalior-Chambal and Mahakoshal regions. The tendu leaf collectors will be given Rs 4,000 per bag of the forest produce. The party has promised to provide nutritious breakfast along with mid-day meals in the government-run schools. An annual stipend of Rs 10,000 to unemployed youth has been promised in the manifesto. The Congress released its manifesto for Madhya Pradesh on October 17. Rahul Gandhi. (Image By Arrangement) NEW DELHI: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said it is time to usher back an era of people-centric governance across India as he claimed that the BRS government was incapable of providing for the needs of the people of Telangana. Gandhi also shared a video on his YouTube channel of his recent visit to the house of a family of a farmer who committed suicide in 2020 in Telangana. In his post along with the video, the former Congress chief stressed the partys guarantees in Telangana, saying that they are designed to provide a minimum floor to the people of the state. "Mahatma Gandhi once said, the most important voice is the one last in the line. Kummari Chandrayya was one such voice. And the 'Dorala' BRS govt failed him. He was a small farmer from Telangana, struggling to make ends meet and burdened by loans. He died by suicide leaving behind his loving family," Gandhi said and shared the video of his visit to the family of the deceased farmer. "Had he been given government support at the right time, he would have been still alive and amongst his loved ones. 'Dorala' govt like that of the BRS & the BJP is incapable of providing for the needs of the people of Telangana," the Congress leader claimed. "Would a Congress government make a difference? Absolutely, yes!" Gandhi said. He asserted that the Congress guarantees are a manifestation of the aspirations of crores of such voices, who stand last in the line. "Our Guarantees are designed to provide a minimum floor to our people in Telangana. Kummari Tirupathamma told me that her family continues to struggle under the burden of loans. This will change very soon," he said. The Congress 'Prajala government' will provide Mahalakshmi, Rs 2,500/month to women; free bus travel; and gas cylinders at Rs 500. The party has also promised Rythu Bharosa -- Rs 15,000/year to farmers; and Rs 12,000/year to agri labourers, he pointed out. "Our fight now is to ensure Nyay, Justice to all our people. It is time to usher back an era of people-centric governance across India, Gandhi asserted. In the video, Gandhi is seen hearing out the problems of the family and also instructs a local Congress leader to ensure that the soil of the family's infertile land is tested and the ownership is transferred to the widow of the deceased farmer who had committed suicide. The Congress is seeking to oust the K. Chandrashekhar Rao-led government of the BRS. AltaGas Ltd. (TSE:ALA Get Free Report) Senior Officer Vernon Dai-Chung Yu acquired 50,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 8th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of C$26.59 per share, with a total value of C$1,329,300.00. AltaGas Stock Performance TSE:ALA opened at C$26.39 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of C$7.44 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.87, a PEG ratio of -4.97 and a beta of 1.18. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of C$26.39 and a 200 day simple moving average of C$25.14. The company has a current ratio of 0.82, a quick ratio of 0.44 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 114.73. AltaGas Ltd. has a 1-year low of C$21.25 and a 1-year high of C$27.66. Get AltaGas alerts: AltaGas Announces Dividend The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 29th. Shareholders of record on Friday, December 15th will be paid a dividend of $0.28 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, December 14th. This represents a $1.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.24%. AltaGass dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 54.63%. Analyst Ratings Changes ALA has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. National Bankshares cut their price objective on AltaGas from C$32.00 to C$31.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, October 19th. Scotiabank set a C$31.00 price objective on AltaGas and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Monday, September 18th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price objective on AltaGas from C$31.00 to C$32.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Friday, September 1st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on AltaGas from C$31.00 to C$33.00 in a research report on Tuesday, October 17th. Finally, ATB Capital raised their price objective on AltaGas from C$34.00 to C$35.00 in a research report on Friday, September 1st. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating, According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Buy and an average target price of C$32.38. Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on AltaGas AltaGas Company Profile (Get Free Report) AltaGas Ltd. operates as an energy infrastructure company in North America. The company operates through Utilities and Midstream segments. The Utilities segment owns and operates franchised, cost-of-service, rate-regulated natural gas distribution and storage utilities in Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and the District of Columbia serving approximately 1.7 million customers. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for AltaGas Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for AltaGas and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Barnes Group Inc. (NYSE:B Get Free Report) Director Hans-Peter Manner purchased 50,000 shares of Barnes Group stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 7th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $22.78 per share, for a total transaction of $1,139,000.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 66,079 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $1,505,279.62. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Barnes Group Stock Up 3.6 % Shares of NYSE:B opened at $24.27 on Friday. The firms 50 day moving average price is $31.57 and its 200 day moving average price is $37.37. The stock has a market cap of $1.23 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 51.64, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.47 and a beta of 1.23. Barnes Group Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $18.79 and a fifty-two week high of $47.36. The company has a quick ratio of 1.40, a current ratio of 2.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.98. Get Barnes Group alerts: Barnes Group Dividend Announcement The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 8th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, November 22nd will be paid a $0.16 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, November 21st. This represents a $0.64 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.64%. Barnes Groups dividend payout ratio is currently 136.17%. Analyst Ratings Changes Several brokerages have recently issued reports on B. Truist Financial reduced their price target on shares of Barnes Group from $40.00 to $37.00 and set a hold rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, October 20th. Oppenheimer reduced their price target on shares of Barnes Group from $48.00 to $30.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, October 30th. Finally, StockNews.com cut shares of Barnes Group from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Monday, October 30th. Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on Barnes Group Hedge Funds Weigh In On Barnes Group Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC purchased a new position in shares of Barnes Group during the second quarter worth approximately $31,000. WFA of San Diego LLC purchased a new position in shares of Barnes Group during the second quarter worth approximately $49,000. Lazard Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Barnes Group during the second quarter worth approximately $51,000. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC grew its position in shares of Barnes Group by 275.3% during the first quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 1,715 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $69,000 after acquiring an additional 1,258 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Counterpoint Mutual Funds LLC purchased a new position in shares of Barnes Group during the third quarter worth approximately $82,000. 86.03% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. About Barnes Group (Get Free Report) Barnes Group Inc provides engineered products, industrial technologies, and solutions in the United States and internationally. It operates in two segments: Industrial and Aerospace. The Industrial segment offers precision components, products, and systems used by various customers in end-markets, such as mobility, industrial equipment, automation, personal care, packaging, electronics, and medical devices. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for Barnes Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Barnes Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Derry based eco friendly childrens bedding and accessories specialists boey + becci are looking forward to connecting with new customers and other craft and design specialists when they exhibit for the first time at this years Guildhall Craft Fair. Lisa McLaughlin founded the business just two years ago with the aim of using organic fabrics to offer people the highest quality products that are not only kind to mothers and babies but the planet too. A graduate in Textile Design, Lisa was able to give more attention to her passion for fashion and set up the business during the Covid pandemic. She returned home to Derry at the start of this year to give the enterprise her full focus and she now has her own space in the city centre at the Fashion and Textile Design Centre in Shipquay Street. Boey + becci are part of a growing cluster of new textile businesses in the city with a sustainable ethose at their core and a number of them will be taking part in this years Craft Fair which returns to the Guildhall from Friday November 17th to Sunday November 19th. I was a Civil Servant for 20 years but I decided I wanted to focus on my passion for design and after completing a HND in Fashion and Textiles at the North West Regional College I decided to move to Hereford in England to complete the final year of a Textile Design Degree in 2018, Lisa recalls. I thought it was going to be a real challenge as a mature student living in halls but those three years turned out to be the best years of my life. I graduated in 2019 and won various awards for my final major project which focused on designing waste out of the system and having a more innovative and sustainable approach to traditional textile design. In 2019, I moved to Wellingborough with my partner and started to look for a job in textile design. Within a few months I was unable to find a job and decided to work in a private bank until I could find a job in textiles. Three months into my new role lockdown happened and I felt the need to refocus on my passion and decided to start my own business whilst working full-time. Boey + becci was inspired by the births of six beautiful babies in our immediate and extended family. I concentrated on building the business in the evenings and weekends and signed up for new businesses start up courses. Using the skills I had learned when studying I designed the logo, branding, website and all of the products always keeping in mind that boey + becci was a sustainable brand. Using organic fabrics is particularly important to Lisa, not just for the environmental benefits but because they add to the quality of her products. Organic cotton is softer, more durable and more breathable than conventional cotton, she explained. In addition, because no toxic chemicals are used in its production, organic cotton is less irritating to sensitive skin and less likely to cause allergies & therefore better for babies/children and the planet. We currently design and make quilts, bedding, cushions, kids gym bags, everyday totes and baby changing bags. Returning home to Derry has allowed Lisa to be back near family and friends but the support that is available locally for new start-ups also had a major bearing on her decision. I had a strong feeling that I needed to come back home to Derry as I knew there was a lot more support for new business start-ups, she continued. Returning home was the best decision that I have made as we have received an overwhelming amount of support from various local businesses including Derry City and Strabane District Council, AwakenHub and The Fashion and Textile Design Centre (FTDC). We now have a studio based in the FTDC in Shipquay Street which has enabled us to develop the business even further with the added bonus of having access to all of the facilities and support from numerous experienced designers, seamstresses and business owners. Celebrating its 27th edition this year, the Guildhall Craft Fair will showcase an exquisite range of bespoke craft items created by craft design-makers and artisan food producers throughout Ireland. The fair takes place in the Guildhall in Derrys city centre and is renowned for attracting a large number of visitors looking for that special gift or purchase for Christmas. All goods on display are exclusively handmade in Ireland and Lisa is excited to be showcasing with some of the top local names in the county in her home town. Im really excited to be part of the Guildhall Craft Fair as it will be our first one and no better place to start than in my home town. We have had a huge amount of support from the people of Derry since we setup and it will be lovely to connect with our customers face-to-face and also meet with other designers/sellers. I am a big advocate of shopping locally and supporting local businesses and I can't wait to get stocked up with a few Christmas presents myself. Our focus going forward is to develop our product portfolio, brand awareness and build an in-house team for manufacturing, sales and marketing. We are working on developing a baby gift box and will be creating new collections using different colour/print fabrics, designing our own unique boey + becci print using digital embroidery and developing a new range using locally sourced soft Irish linen with the boey + becci motif. In addition to all of this, we are also very excited to be selected to be part of the AwakenHub SheGenerate 3.0 accelerator programme which starts next week. Opening Times for the Fair are Friday 17th November: 12noon - 8pm, Saturday 18th November: 10am - 6pm, Sunday 19th November: 11am - 6pm The Fair marks the start of a packed programme of events to celebrate Christmas in Derry and Strabane, visit: www.derrystrabane.com/Christmas for more. A project operated by Park's Learmount Community Development was honoured at the prestigious Pride of Place community awards on Friday evening (November 10) at a gala ceremony in Armagh city. The CARE Project came runners up in the Community Age Friendly Initiative category, losing out to an older person support group in Drogheda. CARE stands for Collective Approach to Rural Exclusion and the project has been running for over a year in the Sperrin DEA. Also nominated on the night was Strabanes Fountain Street Community Development Associations Neighbourhood Renewal Youth Engagement Programme in the Community Wellbeing Initiative but it was ultimately to miss out on a prize. The awards, hosted by UTVs Pamela Ballentine, took place in in front of 400 community volunteers from across the island. The awards were delivered in partnership with Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council. Sponsored by IPB Insurance, the Pride of Place competition was initiated 21 years ago though a Co-operation Ireland programme to acknowledge the invaluable work undertaken by volunteers and those involved in local community development. It has grown into the largest competition recognising community development achievements on the island of Ireland. President Michael D. Higgins, who is Joint Patron of Co-operation Ireland, said the awards played an important role. The Pride of Place awards are a most important initiative, reminding us that creating societies that are ethical and inclusive is a task for all of our citizens, of all ages and circumstances, he said. Lord Mayor of Armagh City, Banbridge, and Craigavon, Alderman Margaret Tinsley, said: We were delighted to host this year awards to celebrate and recognise the wonderful work voluntary people and organisations make to community life. Congratulations to all award winners, and thank you to everyone who played their part in organising this fantastic event. Pride of Place founder and Chairman Tom Dowling added: I am very proud after 21 glorious years of celebrating so many wonderful Pride of Place communities to be at another Gala Awards night, excellently hosted by Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council. All our communities recognise the importance of their place and people and are constantly seeking to make it better. These awards are now even more important as communities face ever increasing challenges and are responding to them with energy, positivity, and commitment. The communities deserve their well-earned recognition and all participants are truly winners. Sir Julian King, Chairman of Co-operation Ireland said: "Co-operation Ireland has no other programme that embodies the charity's ethos better than Pride of Place. We work to build relationships across the island and Pride of Place plays a critical role in that work. The impact the awards have had in towns and villages across the island since they started 20 years ago cannot be underestimated, and the continuing success of the awards is down to the dedicated volunteers and their love of where they live. John Hogan, Chairman, IPB Insurance added: On behalf of our local authority members we are proud to be associated with the Pride of Place awards as title sponsors. This competition provides a fitting platform to recognise the great strides volunteers across the island of Ireland are making in building more sustainable and liveable communities. Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content. Kindly add us to your ad blocker whitelist. If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider contributing and/or subscribing to our free daily Newsletter . Support our mission and join our community now. Bruce Robbins [and others] at n + 1: I MAY HAVE BEEN INVITED because I can speak as a Jew. Thats fine with me, though there are a lot more Jews speaking out against Israel these days, which means I get less credit than I used to. Getting less credit makes me happy and, at least on the discursive level, somewhat optimistic. For a number of reasonsone reason is Bernie Sanders, another is Jewish Voice for Peaceits now possible for us to say many things that used to be unsayable. Mainstream media coverage of Gaza is still nauseating in its double standards and its callousness toward Palestinian lives. But now and then you can see glimmers of moral common sense in it. Im not going to speak as a Jew, however, but as the son of a World War II veteran. More here. Dundalk-Carlingford's Cllr Antoin Watters says that the community in north Louth did not get enough support during the recent flooding which has devastated houses, businesses and roads across the Cooley Peninsula. Louth County Council's response to the flooding was discussed in detail at the Dundalk Municipal District November meeting, with standing orders suspended to allow for a full discussion with the Council executive on the local authority's response. The response was discussed under six separate topics: initial response; members' communication; external support; staffing levels; media plan; and infrastructure. During the discussion that followed, while councillors voiced numerous concerns over what transpired, all councillors spoke very highly of and commended first responders, frontline and outdoor staff, for their work and commitment. during the crisis. Cllr Watters has today shared his views on the Council's response with the Dundalk Democrat. He said that "following the meeting last night, where all aspects of the councils response to the recent flooding incident were discussed, the main thing is that the community in North Louth did not get enough support. "While council workers have to be commended for working very hard on the ground, there simply was not enough of them and the workers were not supported enough to deal with the destruction and damage that was in front of them." Cllr Watters explained, "on the Monday when the flooding started, I received a call from a friend of mine in Whitestown whose property was in danger of flooding he said. I contacted the councils out of hours service, which I have to say was very helpful, and sandbags were provided. "But then I started to receive more calls about flooding in different parts of Carlingford and I went to the council depot at the Bush where sandbags were provided and given out. "However, by early on the following day, the sandbags had run out and I could see there were problems. I contacted the council early that morning and asked for an emergency meeting to throw the kitchen sink at it. "At that meeting, I asked for consideration to be given to asking for assistance from the Defence Forces and at the meeting last night, it transpired that the Defence Forces offer of help was not accepted. This, to me, was a detrimental failing by the council." He continued, "looking back overall, the scale, the manpower and the expertise of the Defence Forces would have been a huge help and addition to the community in Cooley. Council workers are not trained to get people out of flood waters or flooded houses the Defence Forces are. "On the issue of sandbags, while there were a lot of bags available on the Monday, the stock was depleted on Tuesday and it should have been replenished quicker. The Defence Forces could also have helped with that." Looking at what needs to happen next, Cllr Watter said that "at the meeting last night, I asked for infrastructure to be triaged for repair. There are still a lot of people isolated, more than a week later, because of damage to roads and bridges. "I was glad to hear that work is going to commence on repairs to the Turf Road, which Deputy Ruairi O Murchu and I visited at the weekend, and it was the most badly damaged road in North Louth. "However, we need a plan to see when and where these roads and bridges are going to fixed temporarily and permanently. "Today, I was still going to meet people in Castletowncooley and in Glenmore, who were showing me the damage that has been done to roads and bridges. The damage still has to be quantified." Ardee's Cllr Dolores Minogue has said that the opening this week of the Macroom Bypass has left the people of Ardee frustrated at the lack of one for the mid Louth town. Work on the long awaited N52 Ardee bypass has not yet commenced due to a Judicial Review of An Bord Pleanalas decision that neither an Environmental Impact Assessment Report nor a Natura Impact Statement are required for the bypass that would cross Ardee Bog. Cllr Minogue told the Dundalk Democrat that "myself and Fergus [O'Dowd TD], we share the concerns concerns in regard to the current position of the Ardee Bypass" and that she hopes the Judicial Review will "deliver a positive outcome for the people of Ardee". Cllr Minogue continued, "the government reaffirmed their commitment to the Ardee Bypass in February, in fact it was Minister Eamon Ryan who announced that the project was included in the national roads funding for 2023. "350k was made available for 2023 to cover the ongoing legal costs of the case. I hope that the judicial review will be dealt with as quickly as possible and if successful, I would expect to see construction commencing shortly afterwards. "Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) confirmed to us in June that assuming ABPs findings are upheld, the award date for the construction contract for the scheme is likely to be in late 2024." The Ardee councillor added, "As frustrating as this is we cannot do anything about the length of time the judicial review will take." On November 12th science communicator and explorer, Dr. Niamh Shaw will join 73 other female scientists and engineers from 18 countries to begin their 19 day voyage to the Antarctic. She begins the first leg of this epic adventure on Wednesday November 8th, leaving from Ireland to begin the long journey to the southern hemisphere. This is not a vacation, Niamh explained. We will be working and living together in cramped conditions, surviving extreme cold, rough seas and 12-15 hour working days. Were on a mission for climate change as part of a global leadership programme for women led by Australian not-for-profit Homeward Bound projects. They have pledged to bring 1,000 women in the sciences (aka Women in STEM) to this region, so that they step up and speak out about climate change. I chose to be part of this mission because as a respected communicator of science and space topics, a fellow of the Explorers Club and a ESA champion for space science education, I felt a responsibility to assist in breaking down barriers around climate change. Niamh explained. I want to become a better advocate for climate change and work closely with people in Ireland and abroad to find more effective ways of engaging with the topic on a personal and community level. I understand from Homeward Bound and others who have witnessed firsthand the devastating impact of climate change on the Antarctic landscape, that this experience has a profound and life-changing effect on people. During the pandemic, I joined the sixth cohort of 100 women, as we began an extensive and challenging leadership programme to support women in science. The programme focussed on improving our clarity, confidence, shared vision and strategic capabilities. We will now complete the final portion at this iconic and challenging landscape which is experiencing some of the most severe consequences of climate change. We voyage to the Antarctic to witness first-hand the implications of climate change on our planet. Homeward Bound have worked hard on minimising the impact of this voyage on the Antarctic ecosystem, rolling out a vigorous biosecurity and carbon footprint offset programme throughout the voyage. We have received extensive training on calculating and offsetting our travel carbon footprint, Niamh explained, and there are strict guidelines on cleaning our baggage and footwear before we even leave our homes. These are all part of strict biosecurity measures to ensure we dont accidentally contaminate this very special continent. When on land or ice, we wear specialist rubber boots provided by the boat which are vigorously cleaned before and after embarkation, we use a special waterproof bag called a dry bag which can only contain cameras notebooks etc. No food is allowed on land or ice and we cannot collect stones or other objects under any circumstances. Lastly, theres no sitting or lying on the ice allowed, and because of the threat of avian flu we have to remain at least 5metres from all wildlife, no matter how cute the penguins are. Niamh has been working with a number of groups in Ireland in the lead up to her Antarctic mission: While men have been exploring the Antarctic since the mid 19th century, the first woman to set foot on the continent was in 1935; this was Caroline Mikkelsen, the wife of a Norwegian whaling captain. I wanted to use my expedition to raise awareness of women in science from Ireland's past whose stories and achievements have largely gone unrecognised. I worked with a womens crafts group in Gorey (partnering with WWETB, Waterford and Wexford Education and Training Board) who created a patchwork quilt (made up of 12 panels all from sustainable and pre-loved materials) to bring with me, to honour some of these inspiring women scientists. Women such as Annie Maunder, Kathleen Lonsdale, Agnes Clerke who blazed their own trail in science at a time when it was not encouraged for them to pursue the sciences. We owe these women a great debt and Id like to dedicate my voyage to highlighting their stories. I have also been working with the Environmental Awareness Office of Laois County Council to create an educational programme and teacher resources for the classroom on climate change and the extreme environment of the Antarctic. I will be providing classroom activities on these topics during my voyage, facilitated through the Laois Education Centre. Niamh will not be the only Irish woman on the voyage. She is joined by Emer Dennehy, an energy engineer working at the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland and atomic physics professor at the Okinawa Institute of Science & Technology, Japan, Prof. Sile ni Chormaic. Other Irish graduates of Homeward Bound include climate activist and co-founder of Change by Degrees Dr. Tara Shine and Dr. Jessamyn Fairfield, physicist at NUI Galway and founder of Bright Club Ireland, a science communication initiative bringing comedy to academic research . Each woman has the responsibility to raise funds for their place on the voyage, and between the leadership programme and voyage costs, that amounts to an investment of over 20,000 per person. I wont deny that the fundraising aspect of this mission has been challenging, Niamh admitted. As a freelance science communicator and educator, this was especially difficult. But Ive been overwhelmed by the support from people on my crowdfunding campaign on GoFundMe. Everyone who supports me will at the very least receive a postcard sent from the Penguin Post Office in Antarctica. Im also indebted to Laois County Council, Gas Networks Ireland and Abbott Ireland for their support. Thanks to the kindness of all these people and organisations, Im so proud to be able to participate in this project and share my Antarctic experiences with Ireland. Niamh added: The success of my work in the past has always been in sharing the human side of science through personal experiences of living in extremes, most recently a Mars analogue science assignment in the Kalahari desert of Botswana. Armed with firsthand experience of climate change at the Antarctic, I hope to bring the same human understanding of this complex topic when sharing my adventures with the Irish public. I aim to leave the boat in early December with a stronger commitment to the climate agenda and armed with a personal strategy to lead the change in Ireland and on the global stage. I feel very privileged for the opportunity to visit one of the most remote parts of our planet; it will be gruelling and challenging Im sure, and Im terrified and excited in equal measure. And I look forward to sharing my adventures with the world. You can follow and support Niamhs journey to the Antarctic at her crowdfunding page below. https://gofund.me/2222a445 Or www.tiny.url/niamh2023 Tim Sahay interviews Guy Laron in Polycrisis: TIM SAHAY: Bibi Netenyahu is Israels longest serving prime minister, surviving many corruption scandals and public protests. In a tweet you said: the Bibi doctrine has collapsed: it created a Hamas monster, Apartheid in the West Bank, and a hollow state. But hes not letting go of his efforts to create a personalist dictatorship. What is the Netanyahu doctrine? What are its bases of domestic support? GUY LARON: It started in 2009, when Netanyahu came back to power. Nobody then thought that he would be in power this long. The starting point of the Bibi doctrine is neoliberalism. From that you can derive all other aspects of his policy. The doctrine is upheld by his domestic coalition. That is where his foreign policy begins. What he cares about is getting the support of two demographically ascending sectors of Israels society: the ultra-Orthodox and the settlers in the West Bank. The ultra-Orthodox are not that important for his foreign policy, but they are important for his domestic policy. While the rest of society suffers cuts in spending for public health, public education, and public transport, the ultra-Orthodox are exempt from cuts. Next is support for settlers in the West Bank. Its an open secret that there is a welfare state in Israel, which exists only in the West Bank, and only for Jews. Each time Netanyahu wrote new legislationto make the state smaller, the budget smaller, the taxes lighterparties representing the ultra-Orthodox and the settlers supported him. In everything he does, then, Netanyahu needs to show settlers in the West Bank that he is meeting their needs. This is where Hamas comes in. More here. Strengthening access to justice across the country has been identified as the priority for his term by the new President of the Law Society of Ireland, Charleville based solicitor Barry MacCarthy. As he began his one-year term as the 153rd president of the 24,000-member society, which represents solicitors across the nation, Mr MacCarthy said the society had a 'pivotal role in ensuring that legal practice in Ireland is at the highest level and supported in every community in the country'. There is no doubt that the solicitors profession is thriving as demand for legal services grow, especially in emerging areas like intellectual property, aviation law, mediation, and arbitration," said Mr MacCarthy. "That said, this is not the case for all solicitors and all parts of the country. As a sole practitioner, I recognise that smaller community-based legal practices are facing challenges, and the availability of legal services in many communities is at risk. "The legal profession, like many others, is heavily concentrated in major urban centres and Dublin in particular. "I believe the Law Society has a pivotal role in ensuring that legal practice in Ireland is at the highest level and supported in every community in the country, Mr MacCarthy said. He said that the Law Society had a 'leading role in advocating for justice and law reform' in order to help build a fair and just legal system that works for all because that is the foundation for a thriving, modern and progressive Irish society. "I look forward to taking significant steps in that direction during the next 12 months. As we look ahead, we are focused on shaping a vibrant and relevant Law Society that works with others to adapt to meet the evolving needs of the economy and society. Collaboration is, and will remain, key to ensuring access to justice for all, said the new president of the society. A sole practitioner practicing as MacCarthy Solicitors, Main Street, Charleville, Mr. MacCarthy went to school in the town and studied Law at UCC, before qualifying as a solicitor in 1991. He has served in a number of key positions within the society including as its junior vice president in 2020/1 and as the chairman of its conveyancing, complaints, client relations and professional indemnity committees. A CORK mum of two is among well-known Irish personalities who have penned stories for a new book to benefit the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Kate Durrant from Blarney has contributed to a new book called Stories from the Heart of Ireland which was compiled by broadcaster and journalist Brendan Power in memory of his granddaughter Niamh. The nine-year-old had been a beneficiary of the charity who organised for her to meet Santa Claus in Lapland before she passed away in 2012. Ms Durrants offering, Practically Perfect Puppies, was inspired by her work with Dogs for the Disabled which provides fully-trained assistance dogs for children and young adults living with physical disabilities. Hers is just one of 61 stories with authors ranging from humanitarian Adi Roche to broadcaster Joe Duffy. Kate said that she was delighted that she was invited to have her work feature in the book. Its a huge honour, made all the more so by the fact that one of the stories is about Dogs for the Disabled who also makes the dreams of small children come true. In that respect it was like the beautiful rounding of a circle. She described what makes the book so special. People say you can lose yourself in a book, but you can also find yourself. I supposed that one of the hopes that Brendan-who put together this book-has is that people will find his granddaughter and other small children who arent lucky enough to be with us today. Thats very important too. The writer explained why Make-a-Wish is so close to her heart. When you wish upon a star, the song tells us, your dreams come true. When you donate to Make-A-Wish you give the gift of hope the gift of forgetting about your illness for an hour or a day and the gift of something to look forward to rather than hospital appointments and heartbreak. It is such a privilege to have my stories included in this wonderful book that will now go to help make some ogf the big dreams of small children to come true. Meanwhile, Brendan Power, who compiled the book, is urging people to support the charity. Every year this wonderful charity, which relies entirely on donations from the public, makes wishes come true for dozens of children with life-threatening illnesses but they cant do it without our help, Brendan said, and this book is one way of helping as all money raised from sales will go directly to Make-A-Wish. Stories from the Heart of Ireland is currently available in Easons as well as other outlets The leader of Irelands newest political party has said that if in Government, he will look to cap the number of migrants coming into the country. Independent Ireland is the name of the new party whose leader is to be Cork South West TD Independent TD Michael Collins and he told The Echo yesterday he and others had been holding meetings across the country about establishing such a party for at least a year. He said the party will be contesting the local, European and General Elections next year and early 2025 with candidates across Ireland. People have expressed to us that they want a new party, said Mr Collins. What were doing is giving them an alternative by setting up this party. Were long enough talking about it and I felt that its either youre going to do something or youre going to talk about it and do nothing, he said. The new party has been registered with the Electoral Commission, with the Cork TD named as its leader and Limerick TD, Richard ODonoghue, as its general secretary. It is intended to officially launch the party early in the New Year. I will still be an Independent TD and I will remain an Independent TD until the next election, thats what the people of Cork South West elected me on but the party has to start somewhere and the structures are very important so weve put down a foundation. Agriculture, fishing, immigration are a cause of massive concern and people just feel that their day-to-day living, theyre working the whole week and finding nothing left in their pockets. Things have gone out of all reason. He said the party would intend to be either a part of government after the next election or else a very, very strong opposition. On immigration, Mr Collins said that he had been a longtime opponent of undocumented immigrants coming into Ireland. If Im part of any government that will stop immediately. Its scandalous that people will come in here undocumented and nobody knows anything about them, most countries are not allowing that but Ireland has left anybody and everybody slip in here. We also have to cap the numbers of people coming in here. We cant have people sleeping in tents. The group will only become Irelands 27th political party after a 21-day appeal period lapses or after the outcome of any appeals. The formal notification for the party was published yesterday in the official Irish State gazette, Iris Oifigiuil, the Electoral Commission said. 41266885/readmore] A young man confessed to stabbing another man in the back on New Years Eve 2021 in Cork city and now he has been given a suspended sentence of two and a half years. Ben Murray, 21, who was living in a flat at 1 John Redmond Street, Cork, pleaded guilty at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to assault causing harm to the other man on December 31 2021 at Castle Street, Cork. Judge James McCourt said, The fact that you went out and about with a knife in your possession is certainly an aggravating factor. The judge said it was fortunate that the victim had recovered and did not have long-term health consequences other than scarring. I regard the extent of the injuries as an aggravating factor. A mitigating factor is your early plea of guilty, your cooperation with the investigation and I note you have shown remorse. That is backed up by a manifestation of your significant insight after the event you have gone away from negative peers and got away from cannabis use and abuse. You have yourself a job and you are back under the protective umbrella of your family home. You had barely turned 19 when this criminality occurred. You displayed some significant degree of maturity in the nearly two years since this occurred. Brandishing a knife and using a knife would ordinarily attract a custodial sentence. Given the efforts you have made including the fact that you are gainfully employed I think the interests of society would not be served (by a custodial sentence) so I am going to suspend the entirety of the sentence. Judge McCourt suspended the sentence of two and a half years on the condition that the accused would keep the peace for the next three years. MAHON Point Shopping Centre is set to become the first dementia-inclusive shopping centre in the country. On Tuesday, representatives from the Alzheimer Society of Ireland (The ASI) and Mahon Point Shopping Centre will officially launch the initiative which will see the store work to create a space where every individual can navigate the centre with ease. Management and staff across the store will be partaking in dementia-inclusive training from the ASI which will allow Mahon Point to provide a welcoming and positive shopping environment to people living with dementia and their families. Topics will include What is Dementia? Signs and Symptoms, Communication, and Creating a Dementia Inclusive Community. Mahon Point will then become the first shopping centre in Ireland to be awarded the Dementia Inclusive Community Friends of ASI accreditation and display the emblem. An estimated 7,509 people live with dementia in Cork, and more than 11,000 people develop the disease annually at least 30 people daily. Nationally, the number of people with the condition is expected to double in the next 25 years to over 150,000 by 2045. General manager at Mahon Point Justin Young said the shopping centre is delighted to partner with the ASI as it plans to become Irelands first dementia-friendly shopping centre. Together with our retail stores, we aim to create a space where every individual can navigate with ease and dignity, ensuring inclusivity for all, he said. Siobhan OConnor, head of operations at the ASI, added: Were so grateful to the Mahon Point management team and its tenants for taking the brave steps to become the first of its kind in Ireland. We hope that more centres will follow their shining example and join Mahon Point to create an Ireland where people with dementia and their families can carry out their daily lives securely. Ms OConnor said that Mahon Point will welcome people living with dementia and their families to the shopping centre on Tuesday to celebrate this wonderful initiative. TWO reporters from The Echo have been nominated for the 2023 Headline Mental Health Awards. Established more than a decade ago, the Awards aim to recognise excellence in media coverage of mental health issues, celebrating those whose work brings to light challenging mental health stories. With nine categories, the awards highlight work from all platforms across local, national, and online media. Headline Programme Leader Aine OMeara said that previous winners are among the best storytellers, investigators and advocates in the country "who champion under-reported issues and amplify the voice of lived experience." The reporters from The Echo received nominations in the Mental Health Journalism local print and online category. Donal OKeeffe received a nomination for his piece Simon reaching out to Corks homeless while Chris Dunne was nominated for her piece Reaching out to other bereaved dads in Cork. Congratulating Donal O'Keeffe and Chris Dunne on being shortlisted for the awards, Eoghan Dinan, Deputy Editor of The Echo said the recognition of their work and their nominations were "thoroughly deserved". "We try all the time to encourage responsible coverage of mental health issues, and the team at The Echo is encouraged by having this recognised." Chris, who lives in Garryvoe east Cork and a mother of four grown-up children, is a journalist for 25 years, having studied journalism as a mature student She joined the Evening Echo as a feature writer back in 2000. She has been contributing regularly, as a freelancer, to The Echo for more than two decades, her speciality being in human interest stories. She has been shortlisted in the category; Mental Health Journalism Local Print and Online, for a feature in The Echo headline, 'Reaching out to other bereaved dads in Cork'. The feature was about a new soccer team for bereaved dads, set up by Feileacain volunteer Mark Millard, following the loss of his son, Isaac. Mark spoke about how his mental health suffered and how he wants to support other fathers. Chris was shortlisted as Regional Journalist of the Year in 2013 and also nominated last year, 2022, in the Mental Health Media Awards. She said: "As a young girl I always harboured an ambition to see my name in print rather than in lights. I had good training for my future career in school when I would write essays for other pupils, and they would do my maths! They only had to come up with one right answer, I had to create a couple of different stories with different angles-hence good practice! "Also I think growing up in a pub listening to many conversations from many people helped my natural curiosity about people develop. Writing for The Echo gives me great job satisfaction and I am proud of my long association with the paper." Meanwhile, Noel Baker of the Irish Examiner was shortlisted in the national print/online category for his piece Its very hard to see a loved one, with cuffs on, in prison because there is nowhere else for him to go. Last year, Ann Murphy received the Headline Mental Health Journalism award in the Local Print/Online category for her story My only chance to survive which was published in The Echo. The winners of the 2023 Headline Mental Health Awards will be announced on December 6. Cillian Sherlock, PA Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and UK Northern Ireland secretary Chris Heaton-Harris have laid wreaths at a Remembrance Sunday ceremony in Co Fermanagh. On a rainy day in Enniskillen, hundreds stood in silence for two minutes to mark the occasion at the war memorial in the town. New PSNI chief constable Jon Boutcher and head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service Jayne Brady were among those who laid wreaths during the commemoration. Mr Heaton-Harris laid a poppy wreath on behalf of the UK government. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar during the Remembrance Sunday service (Liam McBurney/PA) The gathered crowd also heard music from the Ballyreagh Silver Band. Britain's King Charles III's representative, the Lord-Lieutenant for County Fermanagh Viscount Brookeborough, as well as a representative from Enniskillen Guides, also placed wreaths. Mr Varadkars presence continued a tradition started by former taoiseach Enda Kenny by attending and placing a laurel wreath at the base of the memorial. UK Northern Ireland secretary Chris Heaton-Harris lays a wreath (Liam McBurney/PA) Mr Kenny became the first taoiseach to attend a Remembrance Day service in Northern Ireland when he took part in commemorations at Enniskillen in 2012, in a move seen as symbolic of greater recognition afforded in the Republic to Irishmen who fought and died serving in the British army in the First World War. His attendance also marked the 25th anniversary of an IRA bombing at the memorial in 1987. Eleven people who had gathered to pay their respects to the war dead were killed and dozens more were injured in the no-warning blast on November 8th, 1987, just minutes before Remembrance Sunday was due to start. A 12th victim of the bombing died 13 years later, having never woken from a coma. JUST a short skip from her home, Cork city was one big playground in 1922 for 8-year-old Eileen Gallagher. Known as Lily, she lived at West View, Western Road, and on October 18 that year, was with a friend on Washington Street - one report said they were seen playing in the street. As Lily and Margaret Twomey, 11, of College Road, passed the Lee Boot Factory (later Square Deal furniture store) around 6pm that Wednesday, tragedy struck A grenade was thrown by an Anti-Treaty IRA Volunteer at a passing Free State lorry, it bounced off it, and landed on the footpath in front of the two girls where it exploded. Lily suffered severe head injuries and died five days later at the Mercy Hospital. Margaret lost the sight in one eye. More bombs were thrown and shots were fired. Washington Street was packed at the time and many sought refuge in peoples houses, only venturing out when the trams began to run again. One cyclist, unnamed by the Examiner but described as a well known athlete, threw himself off his bike and lay flat on the ground. A bullet ricocheted off a wall and narrowly missed his face, and a bomb wrecked the front wheel of his bicycle. The noise of the explosions could be heard as far away as Bishopstown and Clogheen. The men who threw them, from the Hive Ironworks near the courthouse, fled and could not be located by troops. Lily was just one of the many innocent child victims of the Civil War in Cork. On November 13, 1922, in Brookhill, Riverstown, Eileen ODriscoll, 3, was sat on her mothers lap by the hearth. Her brothers had been playing in the local cemetery and found bullets hidden by a headstone. They brought them home and placed them near the fireplace. Before the childrens mother could scold them, one of the bullets rolled towards the open fire and exploded upon hitting the hot grate. When the smoke settled, little Eileen had suffered terrible injuries to her abdomen. Her anguished mother wrapped her in a blanket and made the harrowing journey to the Mercy Hospital on a pony and trap, but poor Eileen had died before they got there. A few days before Christmas, 1922, James OSullivan, 8, ran out of the school gate at Ballyhilow, Leap, just as a Free State military lorry was passing. The four soldiers on board roared at him to clear the way, but in confusion James darted in zig-zag fashion in front of the lorry. It hit him and he suffered a severe head injury. He was carried to his home nearby where he died later that evening. Ellen Patrica Hayes, known as Nellie, was a 17-year-old drapery apprentice from Tracton Park, Montenotte. On the evening of February 13, 1923, she was standing at her front door chatting with her sister and a friend. Two young Free State soldiers passing by stopped to chat. One of the mens rifles had an unsecure safety catch, resulting in a shot going off, hitting Nellie in her face, killing her instantly. In an inquest which followed, the soldier was exonerated. On November 4, 1922, a small sailing vessel, The Isabella, landed in Youghal from Gloucester, England. On board were Captain Arthur Jones, shipmate James Lacy, and Jones 15-year-old son Samuel. It was late and the three ventured up Grattan Street in search of a hot meal. As they neared a barracks controlled by Free State troops, an inexperienced sentry on duty fired his rifle. A bullet passed through Lacys chest and hit Samuel in the head. Lacy died instantly and the teenager died hours later in hospital. A military inquest found the sentry blameless as it was a warning shot to persons unknown. In Blackpool, Peter Francis Cahill, 11, and his brother James, 18, were members of republican youth movement, Na Fianna Eireann. On July 14, 1922, they were at home at 38, Thomas Davis Street when Daniel Mulroy, O/C of Na Fianna 1st Battalion, arrived with two revolvers he had just used as part of a firing party for the funeral of Jeremiah Pierce, O/C of the Fianna. As James handled one of the guns in the kitchen, it went off accidentally and a bullet hit Peters chest, killing him in front of their mother, Annie. James was exonerated of all blame. On April 8, 1923, a Free State sentry accidentally discharged his rifle on Timoleagues main street, killing passer-by James Hunt Jr, 12. The incident caused local outrage when the authorities refused to conduct an inquest. The boys father, James Snr, was offered just 10 compensation. When local Labour TD Timothy J Murphy brought this up in the Dail, General Richard Mulcahy said it was merely an ex-gratia grant to cover funeral and incidental expenses. There is no legal liability on the military authorities to pay any compensation. (Reuters)Pensive Pope Francis Pope Francis has dismissed the Texas bishop Joseph E. Strickland who had strongly criticised and questioned the Catholic leader for changes he has sought in the church's teaching on social matters. The removal of Bishop Strickland of Tyler, Texas, from his post on Nov. 11, came after he refused to resign, Vatican News reported, and the firing is seen as a rare move. The Pope has appointed Bishop Joe Vasquez of Austin in Texas as apostolic administrator of the same diocese. The Argentine pope, who is now 86, has sought since taking office 10 years ago to forge a more compassionate church, open to different views, the Monitor newspaper in Uganda reported in a dispatch by AFP. "The Vatican did not explain the move, a rare sacking in the Catholic Church, where troublesome senior clerics are normally encouraged -- or told -- to resign," said the AFP report. 'APOSTOLIC VISITATION' "The decision came after an apostolic visitation ordered by the Pope last June in the Diocese of Tyler, which was entrusted to two US bishops, Bishop Dennis Sullivan of Camden, and Bishop Emeritus Gerald Kicanas of Tucson." In a May 12 tweet, Bishop Joseph Strickland wrote, "I believe Pope Francis is the Pope, but it is time for me to say that I reject his program of undermining the Deposit of Faith. Follow Jesus." Cardinal Daniel Nicholas DiNardo, the Metropolitan Archbishop of Galveston-Houston, released a statement published on the website of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. In it he noted that the prelates "conducted an exhaustive inquiry into all aspects of the governance and leadership of the Diocese of Tyler by...Bishop Joseph Strickland." "As a result of the Visitation," the statement continues, "the recommendation was made to the Holy Father that the continuation in office of Bishop Strickland was not feasible." "After months of careful consideration by the Dicastery for Bishops and the Holy Father, the decision was reached that the resignation of Bishop Strickland should be requested. Having been presented with that request on November 9, 2023, Bishop Strickland declined to resign from office." Pope Francis then decided to remove the bishop." BISHOP SADDENED According to Catholic Culture, Bishop Strickland wrote in email to The Wall Street Journal, "I'm saddened for the harm to the faithful but at peace in His Truth, stay Jesus Strong." "I stand by all the things that were listed as complaints against me," Bishop Strickland said in a phone interview with LifeSiteNews. "I know I didn't implement Traditionis Custodes [the Pope's 2021 letter on the traditional Latin Mass] because I can't starve out part of my flock," Catholic Culture quoted him saying. He added, "I'd do it the same way again. I feel very much at peace in the Lord and the truth that He died for." In September, Bishop Strickland said he would not resign from office if requested to do so, but Catholic Culture reported that he accepted the Pope's decision to remove him from office. Strickland is a prolific user of social media who was named to the diocese by the late Pope Benedict in 2012, tweeted earlier this year that he rejected Pope Francis' "program undermining the Deposit of Faith," Reuters news agency reported. He has been particularly critical of the Pope's attempt to make the church more welcoming to the LGBT community and attempts by Francis to give lay people more responsibility in the church and opposed a recent synod. Fox News reported that in 2020, Strickland maintained that the Roman Catholic Church has become "weak" under the leadership of the current pontiff and challenged Francis to fire him. He has also retweeted a video blasting Pope Francis as a "diabolically disoriented clown," according to the National Catholic Reporter. 19 October 2023 in Kabul, Afghanistan: An estimated 114,000 most affected people are in urgent need of life-saving health assistance following series of earthquakes in western Afghanistan between 7 and 15 October. The WHO-led health sector requires $7.9 million to ensure affected communities will be provided with essential health services in the next six months. The multiple earthquakes flattened villages, displaced thousands of people and left many families in urgent need of humanitarian and health assistance. The disaster has severely impacted women, girls, boys, and vulnerable populations, who account for over 90% of the deaths and injuries. I have talked to people affected by earthquakes and the sense of loss is heartbreaking, says Dr Luo Dapeng, WHO Representative in Afghanistan. Many people spent days digging under the rubble to search for family members who either died or got injured. As they rebuild their lives, survivors are gripped with physical and emotional trauma and this is also affecting our health workers. Based on the initial assessment, at least 40 health facilities across nine districts were reported damaged, resulting in severe disruptions in access to health services for an estimated 580,000 people. The health consequences are staggering. As one of the very first responders the World Health Organization (WHO) in Afghanistan was on the ground within hours and has been supporting hospitals, especially the Herat Regional Hospital in mass casualty management, treating the injured, providing medicines and medical supplies. Thanks to the long and established presence in Herat, WHO rapidly mobilized resources and extended immediate lifesaving support to the affected population at the most critical time of the emergency, says Dr Alaa AbouZeid, WHO Team Lead for Emergencies. We were able to deploy mobile health and nutrition teams (MHNTs), surged personnel for mental health and psychosocial support services (MHPSS), emergency management, trauma care, maternal and reproductive health services. WHO has also activated its surveillance system to prevent, detect and respond to outbreak-prone diseases, especially with the upcoming winter season. As WHO and Health Cluster partners scale up the response, the appeal for $7.9 million in funding will cover life-saving health services, while working to restore and build back critical health services in the affected communities, says Dr Jamshed Tanoli, Health Cluster Coordinator. The needs are high and we hope to reach as many people as possible with donor support. WHO's immediate response to the earthquake in Herat has been made possible through the support of the Afghanistan Humanitarian Fund and ECHO. Subsequent efforts have been made feasible by the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, the German Federal Government, USAID and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. WHO expresses deep gratitude to these donors for their crucial support during this critical time. Immediate and flexible resources are needed to allow WHO to swiftly scale up to address emerging health needs and continue its emergency response to this disaster. References: Herat Earthquake Response Plan, Afghanistan in this link: Afghanistan: Herat Earthquake Response Plan (October 2023 - March 2024) - Afghanistan | ReliefWeb WHO and Heath Cluster Situations Reports in this link: WHO EMRO | Earthquake in Herat province | News | Media centre For more information, please contact: For media contact Ms Joy Caminade, WHO Head of Communications (Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) For more details on the Health Cluster appeal Dr Jamshed Ali Tanoli, Health Cluster Coordinator (Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) Mr Mohamed Kakay, External Relations and Partnerships Team Lead (Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) Statement by Ms. Laila Baker, UNFPA Arab States Regional Director; Ms. Adele Khodr, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa; Dr. Ahmed Al-Mandhari, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean More than half of the hospitals in the Gaza Strip are closed. Those still functioning are under massive strain and can only provide very limited life-saving surgeries and intensive care services. Photo credit: WHO 12 November 2023, Cairo/Amman The regional directors of UNFPA, UNICEF and WHO call for urgent international action to end the ongoing attacks on hospitals in Gaza. We are horrified at the latest reports of attacks on and in the vicinity of Al-Shifa Hospital, Al-Rantissi Naser Paediatric Hospital, Al-Quds Hospital, and others in Gaza city and northern Gaza, killing many, including children. Intense hostilities surrounding several hospitals in northern Gaza are preventing safe access for health staff, the injured, and other patients. Premature and new-born babies on life support are reportedly dying due to power, oxygen, and water cuts at Al-Shifa Hospital, while others are at risk. Staff across a number of hospitals are reporting lack of fuel, water and basic medical supplies, putting the lives of all patients at immediate risk. Over the past 36 days, WHO has recorded at least 137 attacks on health care in Gaza, resulting in 521 deaths and 686 injuries, including 16 deaths and 38 injuries of health workers on duty. Attacks on medical facilities and civilians are unacceptable and are a violation of International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law and Conventions. They cannot be condoned. The right to seek medical assistance, especially in times of crisis, should never be denied. More than half of the hospitals in the Gaza Strip are closed. Those still functioning are under massive strain and can only provide very limited life-saving surgeries and intensive care services. Photo credit: WHO More than half of the hospitals in the Gaza Strip are closed. Those still functioning are under massive strain and can only provide very limited emergency services, lifesaving surgery and intensive care services. Shortages of water, food, and fuel are also threatening the wellbeing of thousands of displaced people, including women and children, who are sheltering in hospitals and their surrounds. The world cannot stand silent while hospitals, which should be safe havens, are transformed into scenes of death, devastation, and despair. Decisive international action is needed now to secure an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and prevent further loss of life, and preserve whats left of the health care system in Gaza. Unimpeded, safe and sustained access is needed now to provide fuel, medical supplies and water for these lifesaving services. The violence must end now. Related links WHO loses communication with contacts in Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza amid reports of attacks Children with cancer evacuated from Gaza for treatment to Egypt and Jordan Risk of disease spread soars in Gaza as health facilities, water and sanitation systems disrupted Attacks on health care in Gaza Strip unacceptable, says WHO WHO welcomes decision by Egypt to receive patients from Gaza Strip Multi-Country Funding Appeal: occupied Palestinian territory and Egypt, Lebanon, Syrian Arab Republic and Jordan As Gazas health system disintegrates, WHO calls for safe passage of fuel, supplies for health facilities WHO health supplies move towards Gaza Joint statement by UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, WFP and WHO on humanitarian supplies crossing into Gaza WHO delivers medical supplies to Lebanon as violence in the occupied Palestinian territory intensifies Lifesaving WHO health supplies land in Egypt for people-in-need in Gaza WHO pleads for immediate reversal of Gaza evacuation order to protect health and reduce suffering Hospitals in the Gaza Strip at a breaking point, warns WHO October 2023 emergency situation reports Occupied Palestinian territory website Many of the wounded have been cared for in Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza since early October 2023. Photo from 15 October 2023. Credit: WHO 12 November 2023 WHO has lost communication with its contacts in Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza. As horrifying reports of the hospital facing repeated attacks continue to emerge, we assume our contacts joined tens of thousands of displaced people who had sought shelter on the hospital grounds and are fleeing the area. There are reports that some people who fled the hospital have been shot at, wounded and even killed. Over the past 48 hours, Al-Shifa Hospital--which is the largest medical complex in Gaza--has been reportedly attacked multiple times, leaving several people dead and many others injured. The intensive care unit suffered damage from bombardment, while areas of the hospital where displaced people were sheltering have also been damaged. An intubated patient reportedly died when electricity was at one point cut. The last reports said that the hospital was surrounded by tanks. Staff reported lack of clean water and risk of the last remaining critical functions, including ICUs, ventilators and incubators, soon shutting down due to lack of fuel, putting the lives of patients at immediate risk. WHO has grave concerns for the safety of the health workers, hundreds of sick and injured patients, including babies on life support and displaced people who remain inside the hospital. The number of inpatients is reportedly almost double its capacity, even after restricting services to lifesaving emergency care. Patients seeking health care should never be exposed to fear, and health workers who have taken an oath to treat them should never be forced to risk their own lives to provide care. WHO calls again for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as the only way to save lives and reduce the horrific levels of suffering. Hospitals, patients, health staff, and persons sheltering in health facilities are protected under the Geneva Conventions and International Humanitarian Law. WHO also calls for the sustained, orderly, unimpeded and safe medical evacuations of critically injured and sick patients into Egypt through the Rafah Border Crossing. All hostages should receive appropriate medical care and be released unconditionally. Related links Children with cancer evacuated from Gaza for treatment to Egypt and Jordan Risk of disease spread soars in Gaza as health facilities, water and sanitation systems disrupted Attacks on health care in Gaza Strip unacceptable, says WHO WHO welcomes decision by Egypt to receive patients from Gaza Strip Multi-Country Funding Appeal: occupied Palestinian territory and Egypt, Lebanon, Syrian Arab Republic and Jordan As Gazas health system disintegrates, WHO calls for safe passage of fuel, supplies for health facilities WHO health supplies move towards Gaza Joint statement by UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, WFP and WHO on humanitarian supplies crossing into Gaza WHO delivers medical supplies to Lebanon as violence in the occupied Palestinian territory intensifies Lifesaving WHO health supplies land in Egypt for people-in-need in Gaza WHO pleads for immediate reversal of Gaza evacuation order to protect health and reduce suffering Hospitals in the Gaza Strip at a breaking point, warns WHO October 2023 emergency situation reports Occupied Palestinian territory website A Reuters investigation into unsafe working conditions at SpaceX has uncovered more than 600 injuries going back to 2014 that have not been publicly reported until now. Current and former employees cited in the report blame CEO Elon Musks aggressive deadlines and hatred of bureaucracy, alleging his goal of getting humans to Mars as fast as possible has led the company to cut corners and eschew proper protocols. Injury rates at some SpaceX facilities are much higher than the industry average of .8 injuries or illnesses per 100 workers, Reuters found. At its Brownsville, Texas location, the 2022 injury rate was 4.8 per 100 workers. At the Hawthorne, California manufacturing facility, it was 1.8. In McGregor, Texas, where the company conducts rocket tests, the injury rate was 2.7. Employees have suffered broken bones, lacerations, crushed fingers, burns, electric shocks and serious head wounds including one that blinded Brownsville worker Florentino Rios in 2021 and another that left employee Francisco Cabada in a coma since January 2022. At SpaceXs McGregor site, one worker, Lonnie LeBlanc, was killed in 2014 when wind knocked him off the trailer of an improperly loaded truck. Yet over the years, SpaceX has only paid meager fines as a result of its safety lapses. After LeBlancs death, the company settled with OSHA for $7,000, according to Reuters. Reuters spoke to over two dozen current or former employees, as well as others with knowledge of SpaceX safety practices. One SpaceX ex-manager told Reuters that workers take care of their safety themselves, and others said employees were even told not to wear bright-colored safety gear because Musk does not like it. SpaceX has also repeatedly failed to submit injury data to regulators for much of its history, according to Reuters. Amazing, it is, what people see in an old photo. When that photo is of a person, then the image probably invokes memories when viewed by a friend or family member. What if an artist, or photographer, studies the image on the old photo? Do they think of it with a critical eye to composition? Exposure? Myself, I think of that instant of time, when a image reflected onto film is frozen for eterinity. There is an old photo, taken around 1938, that is part of the Arthur Rothstein collection of WPA photos taken of Fairfield and the surrounding area in order to document the progress of the Sun River Project/Greenfields Irrigation District. Upon discovering the images, the Sun Times ran most of the photos that were available at the time, and as a result the paper was able to identify many of the people whose likeness were permanently recorded on film. One image that we had not identified was a photo of a lady taking water from a handpump. That photo is the basis for the painting now on the west side of Vandolah Chiropractic on Fairfields Central Avenue. Until recently, no one had been able to identify the lady at the well. On day, Clint Hilt, of Hilt Veterinary Services, stopped by the office and told of growing up in the area around Greenfield School and that he knew who the ladys husband was. Gottlieb Siegle. And his wife was named Christine. Referring to the Fairfield Times Archives, our first story actually involved the Siegles son, Arthur. On February 1, 1939, a story that appeared in the Times bore the headline, Local Potatoes Shipped South For Testing Out The story reads, At the request of E.E. Isaac, extension horticulturist at Bozeman, 15 pounds of seed potatoes were shipped to the university of Louisiana at Baton Rouge, Wednesday of this week. These potatoes were produced by N.J. Konen of Fairfield last summer, and are to he used for experimental work in Louisiana. Mr. Konen has been producing certified seed potatoes the past four years and he has also been acting as leader of the 4-H Certified Seed Potato Club during the past year. Members of the club during the year were John McInerney, Jr., Edward Konen, Clarence Southard, Lowell Carver, Howard Knapp, Archie Knapp, Raymond Knapp, Arthur Konen, Leonard Knapp, Leo McInerney, Bill McInerney, Louis Tackes, Jerome Tackes, Teiney Carver, Arthur Siegle, Gordon McOmber and Joe Tackes, Jr. These boys have earned a reputation as potato growers and have selected and culled until at the present time their seed is widely recognized as being the best obtainable. The Siegle family, based on the amount of mentions in this newspaper, were well known and highly regarded in the Fairfield community. The Siegle journey to Fairfield began in 1898 when Gottlieb, along with this father, John and mother, Charlotte, boarded the Christiana, a Hamburg-Amerika Line ship. The family, who came from Hoffnungsfeld Russia sailed from Hamburg, Germany on June 22, 1898, bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia. Gottlieb next shows up in the records when he registered for the World War I draft from Marsh, Prairie County, Montana on June 5, 1918. He was, by that time, a naturalized citizen. On July 6. 1945, The Fairfield Times reported on the Siegles 25th Anniversary. According to the story, The Lutheran Guild was in charge of the party. The couple were married on July 13, 1920, in Eureka, South Dakota. The Siegles had, at the time of this story, six children. The story reads, Arthur, their eldest son, is a prisoner of the Japanese. Their other children are Mrs. Arthur Schmidt and Mrs. Gene Shambo of Great Falls and Lorraine, Oscar and Arnold, still at home. Our story is about Artur Siegle. Arthurs family was notified of his death in August of 1945, the report appeared in The Fairfield Times on August 9: Siegles Notified of Sons Death In Philippine Prison Camp DIED OF MALARIA THREE YEARS AGO; MEMORIAL SERVICES AUGUST 26th After four long years of waiting for news, Mr. and Mrs. Gottlieb Siegle received official word from the War Department last week that their son, Pvt. Arthur Siegle, died on July 31, 1942, as the result or malaria while a prisoner of the Japs in the Philippines. The message read as follows: I am deeply distressed to inform you report just received states your sone, Private Arhtur Siegle, who was previously reported missing in action, died July 31, 1942, in the Philippine Islands, as a result of malaria while a prisoner of war of the Japanese government. The secretary of war asks that I express his deep sympathy in your loss and his regret that unavoidable circumstances made necessary the unusual lapse of time in reporting your sons death. To you, confirming letter follows. Edward W. Witsell, Acting Adjutant General The Fairfield Times next presented Pvt. Siegles obituary: Pvt. Arthur Siegle was born on May 27, 1921, in Marsh, Montana. He grew up to young manhood at Terry, where he attended grade school. In the fall of 1937 he came with his parents to Fairfield and attended Power High School, graduating with the class of 1940. He enlisted in the Army at Great Falls May 27, 1941, his 20th birthday, and received his training at Hamilton Field, California. He wrote his last letter to his parents before he was sent overseas on September 22, 1941. They never heard from him after that. All of the letters his parents had written him after he left were returned to them in March 1942. On July 31, 1945, they received the official notice of his death, or just three eyars to the day after his death on July 31, 1942. Survivors are his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Gottlieb Siegle; three sisters, Mrs. Arthur Schmidt and Mrs. Jean Archambeau of Great Falls and Lorraine of Fairfield; two brothers, Oscar and Arnold of Fairfield and his grandparents, Mrs. Gust Mauser of Bismark, ND. There will be memorial services at St. Pauls Church on Sunday, August 26. The American Legion Post No. 80 will be in charge. Much heartfelt sympathy is extended to the Siegle family in their sorrow. Even the long period of waiting could not lessen the pain of their loss. According to the Fairfield Times of August 4, 1949, the Siegle family were informed that their son would be laid to rest in the U.S. Cemetery in the Philippines: Mr and Mrs. Gottlieb Siegle received word this week that their son, Pvt. Arthur Siegle, ASN 19054764, has been permanently interred in the U.S. Armed Forces Cemetery, Manila, No. 2, Philippines, side by side with comrades who also gave their lives for their country. Customary funeral services were conducted over the grace at the time of burial, and that they may rest assured that his final internment was conducted with fitting dignity and solemnity and that the grave0site will be carefully and conscientiously maintained in perpetuity by the United States government. The story goes on to say that the Siegle family began to search for someone would could tell them something about their son and finally a buddy of Arthur, Lloyd E. DeBoy of Independence Oregon, saw their request for information in the Bataan Veterans National Bulletin and wrote them these details on November 7, 1946. I was a platoon sergeant in the 680th Ordinance Co. and knew him very well. We went oversees together, through the fighting on Bataan, and made the death march together. Arthur had an attach of malaria before we surrendered and even then, we had very little to eat and very little medicine, so you see, anyone who was ill had no chance to recover before we fell into Japanese hands. After making the death march, we were taken to Camp ODonnell, where Arthur began to feel ill with malaria. This camp was a filthy place and badly overcrowded. Many of us has to sleep in the rain and we had to depend entirely on rainwater for washing. We were lucky to get a quart of good water a day for drinking. The food consisted of a small helping of rice and sometimes a boiled sweet potato twice a day. We remained in Camp ODonnell about three weeks and then we were taken out on a work party to repair roads and bridges. Living conditions were a little better, but the food was terrible. In June 1942, we were taken to Rabanataun Camp No. 1 (Note, there is no history of a Camp Rabanatuan, so the notorious Camp Cabanatuan, is most likely the camp mentioned here) which was almost as bad as ODonnell, but was not so quite crowded. There were four of us who had remained together all this time, and we did all we could for each other. By then all of us had malaria and also other diseases caused by overwork, starvation and the terrible living conditions. We stole food whenever we had a chance and the man who was weakest got the largest share. We did all we could, but of course there wasnt much that we were able to do, as everyone was in the same circumstances. I am the only one alive today of the four of us who made the march together. In closing, I wish to say only this: Arthur served under me during the fighting on Bataan and was buddy [until] the end. During all his trials and hardships, I never once heard him utter a complaint. I shall always think of him as a good soldier and a man. I will always consider it a privilege to have known him and serve with him, and I trust that God will be kind to him where he has gone to rest in peace, far from the trials of this troubled world. Mr. and Mrs. Siegle have the sympathy of people in this community in the loss of such a brave and gallant son. The Times joins many others in hoping they find peace as their son has in his final resting place, where peace has come at last through the great sacrifice of many of the American boys. For junior Rylan Signalness, the decision to serve her country was an easy one. I enlisted before I graduated high school, Signalness said. I have service members in my family, and the Montana Air National Guard had a job opening for what I want to do in my future career. Signalness, a resident of Fairfield, serves as an E-3 Bioenvironmental Engineer. She has completed two years of a six-year commitment with the 120th Airlift Wing based out of Great Falls, Montana. Signalness says her service allows her to make a difference, helps pay for her education, and will help launch her post-graduate career. Signalnesss experience started with basic training, seven weeks of intense exercise meant to hone recruits physical and mental strength. Much of this time is spent without any contact with the outside world. Its so worth it, Signalness said. Basic training is not fun, and spending time away from your family is not fun, but what comes out of it is worth it tenfold. They want you to be comfortable in doing what you are doing by yourself. It goes by so fast. You wake up, and every minute of your day is scheduled. It sets you in a routine, but also requires you to push yourself way out of your comfort zone. The Montana Air National Guard requires members to spend one weekend per month training. Signalness usually leaves on Fridays after class, but occasionally shes called away for a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Guard members have to be ready to deploy at any time, however. In July 2023, she received notice that her unit was being sent to Monroe, Louisiana, for Individual Readiness Training. For two weeks, Signalness worked with her fellow service members to deliver medical care to low-income individuals in the community. By providing immunizations, dental care, checkups, prescriptions, and optometry services, recipients of the care were able to save more than $800,000. Montana Tech has been extremely accommodating, Signalness said. I have not had an issue with any professors. They have always been super understanding. Leaving on six-month trips and coming back, Ive never had an issue jumping right back in. Professors are willing to work with you when you get back. Signalness is on track to graduate early, despite her extended absences. Thats because she was able to work with her department to gain credit through her service experience. She brought with her 24 transfer credits from the Community College of the Air Force. Its a lot of comparing the classes I need to take for Montana Tech versus what I have for serving with the Montana Air National Guard, Signalness said. There are also generous tuition benefits offered for National Guard members. It is so beneficial coming into my college career with experience in the field and no student loans when I get out, Signalness said. In addition to serving, Signalness is also a Prospector, a student ambassador for Montana Tech. Prospectors give tours and provide prospective students insight into campus life. As a student veteran, I wanted to appeal to those other students, Signalness said. I was not really shown that was an option at Montana Tech, so I really wanted to promote that. Signalness also has a part-time job teaching safety classes and serves as an ASSP club officer on campus. She plans to be at Montana Tech a little longer to purse a masters degree in industrial hygiene. Once she graduates, she hopes to join the military as a commissioned officer. You gain a family, Signalness said. Its a little support system. Thats the biggest part of the military, the bonds you make with the people you work next to. "Taps" carries on high the character of the common GI: Simple in their daily lives, but profound in their character, strength and dedication to the ideal of freedom. (Photo by Ed Saunders for States Newsroom) Promptly at 5 p.m., every day, rain or shine, blizzard or heat, a volunteer bugler wearing a period World War I U.S. Army uniform stands at attention near the flagpole at the National World War One Memorial not far from the White House in Washington D.C. On a brilliant autumn day, I watched as a Black soldier attired in a World War I Army uniform marched to the memorials flagpole. He wore the distinctive blue helmet of the 93rd Infantry Division, the Blue Helmets one of two all-Black infantry divisions of the American Expeditionary Force assigned to the blue-helmeted French army in World War I. With a polished bugle under his arm, he faced the memorial. At attention the bugler watched and waited. Promptly at 5 p.m. he snapped the bugle to his lips and played Taps. Pedestrians stopped at the memorial and along the nearby busy street. Downtown Washington D.C. quieted for a minute. Removing my western-styled broad-brimmed Montana hat, I covered my heart and honored the moment. A thousand thoughts flowed through my heart while watching the American flag and hearing Taps at the Memorial. Thoughts a military veteran cannot speak but only feel. The ceremony ended. I talked with the bugler: An active-duty soldier who performs with the Army band. He volunteers playing Taps to honor all Americans in uniform and commemorates the black soldiers of the 93rd Infantry Division. He said he is honored to serve at the memorial. I thanked him. We exchanged salutes, and he marched away. Today the meaning blurs between Veterans Day and Memorial Day: Veterans Day honors the living in uniform, Memorial Day honors the dead in uniform. But the strong sinews of remembrance and honor bind both into lasting chords of who we are and what we are as a people. Taps honors the living and the dead. The mournful 24-note bugle tune Taps remains recognizable throughout America. The tune lasts about a minute. Taps crosses all ethnic, racial, religious, societal, and gender boundaries. Buglers play Taps at veterans funerals, memorials, and ceremonies, honoring those who served in Americas armed forces. The simple but profound tune carries on high the character of the common GI: Simple in their daily lives, but profound in their character, strength and dedication to the ideal of freedom. Taps is not a song, but a bugle tune. Taps began in 1862 during the Civil War. Bugle calls gave commands to soldiers above the din of battle. U.S. Army Major Gen. Daniel Butterfield wanted a bugle tune to end the day and call soldiers to rest from their efforts and extinguish lights. Butterfield worked with bugler Oliver Wilcox Norton and together they modified an existing but long tune and created Taps. Much fact and fiction, legend and lore, surrounds Taps. Thats OK. The tune does not belong to anyone, it belongs to all who wish to render honors for those who wore the uniform of a nation, which thirsts for freedom. In the words of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. The post On Veterans Day, Taps honors the living and the dead appeared first on New Jersey Monitor. The World War I Memorial in Washington, D.C. (Ed Saunders for States Newsroom) Promptly at 5 p.m., every day, rain or shine, blizzard or heat, a volunteer bugler wearing a period World War I U.S. Army uniform stands at attention near the flagpole at the National World War One Memorial not far from the White House in Washington D.C. On a brilliant autumn day, I watched as a Black soldier attired in a World War I Army uniform marched to the memorials flagpole. He wore the distinctive blue helmet of the 93rd Infantry Division, the Blue Helmets one of two all-Black infantry divisions of the American Expeditionary Force assigned to the blue-helmeted French army in World War I. With a polished bugle under his arm, he faced the memorial. At attention the bugler watched and waited. Promptly at 5 p.m. he snapped the bugle to his lips and played Taps. Pedestrians stopped at the memorial and along the nearby busy street. Downtown Washington D.C. quieted for a minute. Removing my western-styled broad-brimmed Montana hat, I covered my heart and honored the moment. A thousand thoughts flowed through my heart while watching the American flag and hearing Taps at the Memorial. Thoughts a military veteran cannot speak but only feel. The ceremony ended. I talked with the bugler: An active-duty soldier who performs with the Army band. He volunteers playing Taps to honor all Americans in uniform and commemorates the black soldiers of the 93rd Infantry Division. He said he is honored to serve at the memorial. I thanked him. We exchanged salutes, and he marched away. Today the meaning blurs between Veterans Day and Memorial Day: Veterans Day honors the living in uniform, Memorial Day honors the dead in uniform. But the strong sinews of remembrance and honor bind both into lasting chords of who we are and what we are as a people. Taps honors the living and the dead. The mournful 24-note bugle tune Taps remains recognizable throughout America. The tune lasts about a minute. Taps crosses all ethnic, racial, religious, societal, and gender boundaries. Buglers play Taps at veterans funerals, memorials, and ceremonies, honoring those who served in Americas armed forces. The simple but profound tune carries on high the character of the common GI: Simple in their daily lives, but profound in their character, strength and dedication to the ideal of freedom. Taps is not a song, but a bugle tune. Taps began in 1862 during the Civil War. Bugle calls gave commands to soldiers above the din of battle. U.S. Army Major Gen. Daniel Butterfield wanted a bugle tune to end the day and call soldiers to rest from their efforts and extinguish lights. Butterfield worked with bugler Oliver Wilcox Norton and together they modified an existing but long tune and created Taps. Much fact and fiction, legend and lore, surrounds Taps. Thats OK. The tune does not belong to anyone, it belongs to all who wish to render honors for those who wore the uniform of a nation, which thirsts for freedom. In the words of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. This article was initially published by The Daily Montanan, a States Newsroom affiliate. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post Taps mournful tune sets the right tone for Veterans Day remembrance appeared first on Missouri Independent. A case of Bluetongue has been confirmed in a cow on a farm near Canterbury, with farmers being urged to be 'extremely vigilant' for signs of the disease. Defra said the single case of Bluetongue virus 3 (BTV 3), a notifiable exotic disease, was discovered in Kent on Saturday (11 November). The last outbreak of bluetongue in the UK was in 2007, meaning it had been officially free of the virus since 2011. As part of a 10km temporary control zone which has been established around the affected premises, the movements of susceptible animals will be restricted. Additional surveillance is also being undertaken to ensure that this is an isolated case, Defra said, adding that the cow was culled to reduce the risk of onward disease transmission. BTV infects ruminants, such as sheep and cattle, and is transmitted by biting midges which are most active between the months of April and November. The virus can spread rapidly amongst ruminants and can cause significant production losses. Some animals will show no clinical signs of infection whilst mortality can occur in severe cases. There is currently no commercial vaccine against BTV 3 that is approved for use in the UK. Chief Veterinary Officer Christine Middlemiss said: Bluetongue does not pose a threat to human health or food safety, but the disease can impact livestock farms, and cause productivity issues. This detection is an example of our robust disease surveillance procedures in action and it is also a clear reminder for farmers that the disease remains a threat, despite coming towards the end of the midge activity season." Responding to the outbreak, the Farmers' Union of Wales (FUW) has urged farmers to be 'extremely vigilant' for the disease. It called on farmers in Wales to consider the origin of purchased stock and the use of over-wintering in high risk areas of England. FUW deputy head of policy, Dr Hazel Wright, said: It is perhaps confirmation of our robust GB annual BTV disease surveillance programme that this single case was detected in a non-imported animal. "This early detection has allowed the appropriate measures to be put in place to minimise the risk of disease transmission further afield in England and offers some protection to our farmers here in Wales. Whilst this virus does not affect people or food safety, understanding the risks associated with buying in stock is imperative as the impact of this disease on livestock can be extremely variable." For BTV serotypes 1,2, 4 and 8, vaccination is possible, with the FUW urging farmers to discuss the best options for protecting their stock with their vet. Vaccines do not offer cross protection so vaccination against these BTV serotypes will not protect stock from BTV3. King Charles led the UK in a two-minute silence on Remembrance Sunday (12.11.23). King Charles attended the service in Central London The 74-year-old monarch led a moving service and laid a wreath in front of the Cenotaph in Central London, as the UK stopped to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth soldiers who served in the two World Wars and other conflicts. The king wore the uniform of the Marshal of the Royal Air Force and his wreath featured 41 open style poppy petals that were made from bonded fabric. Charles was joined at the service by other senior members of the Royal Family, including his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, who also laid a wreath at the Cenotaph. The service featured around 10,000 veterans and 800 Armed Forces personnel, while the streets of London were lined by thousands of members of the public. Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak, the UK Prime Minister, also attended the annual service in Central London. Sunak, 43, said in a statement: "The courage and commitment shown by our servicemen and women, both today and throughout the generations that came before them, is humbling and I know many across the country will be honouring their memory today in quiet reflection. "Recent events have served as a stark reminder that we cannot take the hard-earned peace we live in for granted, which is why I am honoured to lay a wreath on behalf of the nation in the memory of all those that have lost their lives defending our country and the values we hold so close. "I am determined to ensure we never forget the ultimate sacrifice they have made." Kel Mitchell had to drive himself to hospital after suddenly losing the ability to swallow. Nickelodeon star Kel Mitchell reveals sudden health scare The 45-year-old actor was out shopping just before the weekend when he took ill and worried he was dehydrated before going "numb" in his arm and immediately panicked and hurried to the emergency room. Speaking in a video posted to Instagram, he said: "I was out shopping when suddenly the whole room started spinning. So I was like, 'I must be dehydrated so I need to go get some water, some food.' "When I did that, the whole right side of my arm was numb, followed by me not being able to swallow. That's when I panicked. And so I drove myself to the hospital." The former 'Kenan and Kel' star went on to explain that when he went to the hospital he had to have a CT scan and stay overnight but eventually found out that his sudden issues were being caused by a "bulging disc" that had been brought on by a previous injury. He added: "Because I could not move my right arm, my motor skills were not working, so CT scan, EKGs, everything they started doing on me. That's why I had to stay overnight. It was actually a bulging disc that I had from a prior injury that was pressing up against a nerve, mimicking all those symptoms that I was going through." Kel concluded his video by thanking God for his health as well as his followers for all of their well-wishes. He said: "I'm thanking God that I am good. Thank y'all for all the prayers in the comments. Even the crazy ones. I saw the, 'Give him some orange soda in his IV." Bangladeshs National Board of Revenue (NBR) recently extended tax benefits for jute product manufacturing companies for three years. Jute product manufacturers will enjoy the reduced tax rate of 10 per cent until fiscal 2025-26, according to an NBR notification. Apart from the mills, individuals involved in the production of jute products will also be eligible for the benefit. Bangladesh's National Board of Revenue recently extended tax benefits for jute product firms, which will enjoy the reduced tax rate of 10 per cent until fiscal 2025-26. Individuals involved in jute goods production will also receive the benefit. The benefit for such firms had expired on June 30 and they had requested NBR to continue the benefit until 2030. The tax benefit for such companies had expired on June 30 and they had requested NBR to continue the benefit until 2030. The September request by the Bangladesh Jute Mills Association (BJMA) noted a consistent decline in jute and jute goods export amid declining demand in major destinations. During July-October period of this fiscal, the countrys jute and jute goods exports fell 11 percent year on year to $289.70 million, Export Promotion Bureau data showed. Both BJMA and the Bangladesh Jute Diversified Products Manufacturers and Exporters Association welcomed the decision that is expected to offer some relief to the jute sector, according to domestic media reports. Out of 300 jute mills in the country, only around 120 are reportedly operational now. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS) The Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO) can turn an effective tool for regional integration, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov recently told the 16th ECO Summit in Tashkent. Integration based on common economic interests is a key element of future vision, Japarov was quoted as saying in a statement issued by his office. He outlined a vision for the core areas of development cooperation within this format that includes trade, transport and logistics, energy security and information and communication sectors. The Economic Cooperation Organisation can turn an effective tool for regional integration, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov told the 16th ECO Summit in Tashkent. Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev proposed an initiative on joint development of green economy, introduction of resource-saving technologies in the industry and achievement of carbon neutrality. Uzbekistan, meanwhile, advocated creation of interregional transit hubs, development of modern transport and road infrastructure, optimisation of transport and transit tariffs, simplification of conditions for international freight and passenger traffic and introduction of digitalisation in the transport industry. Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev put forward an initiative on active joint development of green economy, wide introduction of resource-saving technologies in industrial sectors and achievement of carbon neutrality. The ECO countries today are the largest trade partners of Uzbekistan. Trade turnover between Uzbekistan and ECO countries totaled $12.3 billion last year and $5.8 billion in January-July 2023, according to information about the summit on the ECO website. Inter-governmental organisation ECO was founded by Turkiye, Pakistan and Iran in 1985 to serve as a platform to discuss and improve development and promote trade and investment opportunities. It has seven other members: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS) To read the full story, become a PRIME member today. PRIME Unlimited Access to Insightful Industry Information All Corporate Members and TexPro Subscribers are eligible to access F2F PRIME CONTENT using the same login credentials. The American Potential podcast, an initiative of Americans for Prosperity and a leading voice in news and political commentary, received a Gold Award win in the "Individual Episodes & Specials-News & Politics" category at the esteemed w3 Awards. Washington, D.C. and Hagerstown, Maryland--(Newsfile Corp. - November 11, 2023) - The American Potential podcast, an initiative of Americans for Prosperity and a leading voice in news and political commentary, received a Gold Award win in the "Individual Episodes & Specials-News & Politics" category at the esteemed w3 Awards. American Potential Wins Gold Award at the 18th Annual w3 Awards with Episode Featuring Cesar Grajales of the LIBRE Initiative To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8814/187121_f1f92942547f3a77_002full.jpg The award-winning episode, titled "The American Dream: Immigrating from Colombia to the United States" featured Cesar Grajales, the public affairs director for the LIBRE Initiative. In the episode, Cesar shared his family's journey of immigrating from Colombia to the US and their path to success, emphasizing the values and hard work that make America great. Since its launch in February 2023, American Potential has garnered an 6.5 million episode views or downloads, with episodes like Cesar's resonating deeply with listeners. Jeff Crank, host of American Potential, remarked, "This recognition from the w3 Awards is a testament to our team's dedication and passion for telling these incredible stories. We're committed to sharing stories that highlight the American dream, and Cesar's story is a prime example of that." For more information about American Potential and to listen to the award-winning episode with Cesar Grajales, visit here. About American Potential: American Potential is a project of Americans for Prosperity, an advocacy and accountability organization that champions policies to expand freedom and opportunity. Through stories of ordinary Americans achieving extraordinary feats, American Potential showcases that with freedom and opportunity, the American Dream is attainable. Check out American Potential here: https://americanpotential.com. American Potential is a national award-winning podcast that shares how individuals are taking action in their community to break barriers. While some of the invited guests may be public officials or influencers, many are ordinary Americans who decided, "enough is enough" and are stepping up in a big way. American Potential share policy solutions to the most important challenges the country faces and talk to people who are doing something about it. The goal is that when audience hear about other people's stories of success - and struggle - They can realised their capacity for extraordinary things within their own community and understanding that they are not alone.. Jeff Crank hosts the American Potential podcast. Jeff serves as a regional vice president at Americans for Prosperity, a political advocacy and accountability organization that helps pass policies to expand freedom and opportunity. He previously hosted The Jeff Crank Show from 2008-2022, and is the president of his own real estate investment company. American Potential is now a national award-winning podcast. Having won the Gold Award at the 18th annual 3w Awards in the News and Politics Podcast category. The 3w Awards is judged by the Academy of Interactive & Visual Arts. MEDIA CONTACT Organisation: American Potential Website URL: https://americanpotential.com Name: Jeff Crank Email: info@americanpotential.com Address: 4201 Wilson Blvd, Arlington, VA 22203 To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/187121 Veteran actors Sanjay Khan and Zeenat Aman had tied the knot in 1978 but it had been reported the marriage was traumatic, tragic, and tumultuous. Several reports stated the actress was in a physically abusive marriage and one incident that occurred to her was the one that led to her eye injury, when she was beaten up at a hotel lobby. In a throwback interview where the veteran actor was promoting his autobiography, he opened up on the accusations that were levied against him. While speaking to Hrishikesh Kannan, Khan revealed, I was so pained and horrified with the one-sidedness of the entire story because nobody even asked me that what happened. This was a well planned PR attack against me which came like a blitzkrieg. I was even accused of her eye going outshe is losing her eye which is not right. If you see 81, 82, 83, 84, she has done several films. The actor added, There is evidence to the fact that she has perfect eyes. Later on in life she became a little squint because her mother was squint a little bit. It was a hereditary thing that was labelled one me that I slapped her, I never slapped her, and this was blasphemy. Zeenat Aman on her eye surgery The ageless actor recently said she underwent a surgery to treat a condition in her right eye called ptosis, which she described as an elephant in the room with me for the past 40 years. Ptosis is known as the drooping of the upper eyelid that usually leads to defective vision or makes things look blurry for the patient. Aman said her younger son Zahaan and his partner, Cara, drove her to a city-based hospital here to get her admitted for the procedure on May 19, a day after the actor shot for the cover of a leading fashion magazine. There has been an elephant in the room with me for the past 40 years. It is time to show this elephant the door. I have a condition known as ptosis-the result of an injury I suffered many decades ago that damaged the muscles around my right eye. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Zeenat Aman (@thezeenataman) Over the years, it caused my eyelid to droop further and further. And a few years ago it became so acute that it began to obstruct my vision, the 71-year-old actor wrote in an Instagram post. Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And just like that, the second week of November has also come to an end. Its Diwali, a time for celebration for millions the world over. A lot happened this week around the globe that you may have missed because of the festivities. We have you covered. It has been a little over a month since Israels deadly war with Hamas broke out. Over 11,000 Palestinians, including over 4,000 children, have been killed in Gaza by Israel in its retaliatory strikes, according to Hamas-run Health Ministrys data. Over 1,200 people, mostly civilians, died during Hamas initial 7 October attacks on the West Asian country. As criticism of Israel grows amid the rising death toll in Gaza, the United States has managed to convince the West Asian country to allow a four-hour humanitarian pause daily in its operations in northern Gaza so civilians can flee to the south. American startup WeWork has failed. The firm, backed by Japanese technology company SoftBank Group Corp, filed for US bankruptcy protection this week. We will return to this story later. A new COVID-19 variant has been detected by scientists in the US. Even though the coronavirus has slipped from our minds, it is still there and keeps grabbing headlines every now and then. Check out our list of important world stories in this weeks roundup of explainers. 1. Israel has hit out at four global media outlets the New York Times (NYT), CNN, Associated Press (AP) and Reuters, claiming their photojournalists in Gaza had prior knowledge of Hamas 7 October attack. The news organisations have strongly rejected the Israeli governments allegations, with NYT terming them outrageous and stating that such claims put journalists on the ground in Israel and Gaza at risk. Israeli communications minister Shlomo Karhi wrote on X, It has come to our attention that certain individuals within your organisation, including photographers and others, had prior knowledge of these horrific actions and may have maintained a troubling connection with the perpetrators. Why did Israel make such claims and does it have any proof? You can read our explainer here. 2. Although Israels war has overshadowed Russias invasion of Ukraine (a fact lamented by Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently), Kyiv had something to cheer about this week. The European Unions executive commission has recommended that formal talks on Ukraine and Moldova becoming member states can be started next year. It also suggested granting the status of a candidate country to Georgia once it meets certain conditions. While experts say this is a key milestone for Kyivs aspirations of Western integration, the process may actually take a lot longer. Read all about it here. 3. The stunning fall of office-sharing company WeWork was one of the biggest news this week. Once the most valuable US startup worth $47 billion, the rising losses due to reduced demand for office space from companies and increasing debt led to the meteoric fall of WeWork. As concerns about the operations of the flexible workspace provider in other locations rose, WeWork India CEO, Karan Virwani, clarified that its business will not be impacted. WeWork India is a separate entity from WeWork Global. The recent Chapter 11 filing will not impact our members and stakeholders in India. We will continue to operate and serve our members, landlords, and partners as usual. Committed to the growth and success of our business, the company said in a statement on X. 4. An Indian man was sentenced to life in prison in Florida in the United States for the horrific murder of his wife in 2020. Philip Mathew had stabbed his 26-year-old wife, Merin Joy, 17 times and then drove over her body before fleeing from the scene. Read our Explainer on the heart-rending case here. 5. Israel has vowed to crush Hamas and has no plans to stop before achieving its goal. The rising death toll in Gaza does not seem a deterrent either. But what happens after it eliminates the Palestinian militant group? Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has finally shed some light on that, saying his country would maintain indefinite overall security responsibility in the narrow enclave. Israels ally, the US, has cautioned the war-stricken nation must not reoccupy Gaza but can control the territory for a transition period. However, Israels security role in the enclave could risk further fueling tensions in West Asia. We explain how this would happen. 6. Japan has a new island. An underwater volcanic eruption has given birth to the unnamed island off the coast of the Japanese island of Iwo Jima in the Pacific Ocean. According to the Japanese Geospatial Information Authority, the Asian country was home to over 14,125 islands. While it adds some islands, it also loses others. Lets take a deep dive into the story here. 7. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has flagged a new COVID-19 variant, known as JN.1. First detected in Luxembourg on 25 August, JN.1 has also been found in England, Iceland, France and the US. A strain of Omicron, scientists say it has increased transmissibility and could become the the winter variant. The news can be grim. But as we find some cheer this festive season, we can only hope and pray that light and love prevail. We will continue analysing the news. To read our explainers, you can bookmark this page. Fourteen Bangladeshi nationals, including four children, who were allegedly trying to illegally enter into India were held in Tripuras Gomati district on Sunday. Acting on a tip-off, raids were conducted at two houses in Baishnabpur village near the international border, and the illegal immigrants were held, said Apu Das, the officer-in-charge of the Sabroom police station. We also arrested three locals who provided shelter to these Bangladeshi nationals, he said. The 62-km border in Sabroom subdivision could not be fully fenced due to geographical problems, and human traffickers are using it as a result, Das said. We are showing zero tolerance towards human trafficking. Those accused of assisting in infiltration are also being booked under stringent charges that deal with human trafficking, he said. With inputs from PTI It is said that Ayodhya is where Lord Ram is, but for me the temple is where our security forces stand guard, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday as he reached Himachal Pradeshs Lepcha to celebrate Diwali with soldiers. #WATCH | Lepcha, Himachal Pradesh: Prime Minister Narendra Modi says, I come and celebrate Diwali every year with our security forces. It is said that Ayodhya is where Lord Ram is, but for me, the festival is where our security forces areI have not celebrated any Diwali for pic.twitter.com/ebXl08V4Mi ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2023 Addressing a Diwali event on Sunday, he said, I come and celebrate Diwali every year with our Army personnel. It is said that Ayodhya is where Lord Ram is, but for me, festival is where our security forces areI have not celebrated any Diwali for the last 30-35 years when I was not with you people. When I was not the PM or CM, even then I visited some or the other border area to celebrate the festival of Diwali. PM Modi arrived in Lepcha in the morning. The prime minister shared photographs of his interactions with the soldiers in which he is seen offering sweets to them. In his post on X earlier, Modi said, Spending Diwali with our brave security forces in Lepcha, Himachal Pradesh has been an experience filled with deep emotion and pride. Away from their families, these guardians of our nation illuminate our lives with their dedication, he said. The courage of our security forces is unwavering. Stationed in the toughest terrains, away from their loved ones, their sacrifice and dedication keep us safe and secure, the prime minister added. Special greetings Extending his warm wishes on the occasion of Diwali, PM Modi said that as he is celebrating the festival of lights with security forces, these Diwali greetings towards people become even more special. After Independence, these brave hearts (Army personnel) fought so many wars and won the countrys heartIn the International Peace Mission, Indias global image was improved because of them. Is there any such issue, to which our brave hearts have not provided solution? he asked. Talking about the image of India globally, the Prime Minister said given the situation in the world today, expectations from the country are continuously increasing. #WATCH | Lepcha, Himachal Pradesh: Prime Minister Narendra Modi says, Given the situation in the world today, expectations from India are continuously increasing. In such a situation, it is important that Indias borders remain secure. We are creating an atmosphere of peace in pic.twitter.com/bSqYC0xAuW ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2023 In such a situation, it is important that Indias borders remain secure. We are creating an atmosphere of peace in the country and you have a big role in this. India is safe as long as our Army stands firm and unshakable like the Himalayas, on its borders, said PM Modi. He said that in the past years, in the Indian Army, more than 500 women officers have been given permanent commission. Today, women pilots are flying fighter planes like Rafale he added. PM Modis Diwali celebrations over the years Since coming to power in 2014, Modi has been visiting military facilities to celebrate Diwali. In 2014, the prime minister celebrated the festival of lights with soldiers at the Siachen Glacier. In the following year, on the 50th anniversary of the 1965 war with Pakistan, Modi visited three memorials in Punjab where the Indian armed forces had fought pitched battles that proved to be key to the countrys victory. In 2016, the prime minister travelled to Himachal Pradesh to meet the personnel of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), the Dogra Scouts and the Army at Sumdoh near the China border. Modi, in 2017, was in the Gurez sector in north Kashmir, while in 2018, he celebrated Diwali in Harsil, Uttarakhand, which was followed by a visit to Kedarnath. After being re-elected to the high office in 2019, Modi celebrated Diwali in Rajouri in Jammu and Kashmir. In 2020, he was at a border post of Longewala on Diwali and in 2021, he celebrated the festival with soldiers in Nowshera. The prime minister celebrated Diwali with the armed forces in Kargil last year. With inputs from agencies Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said that India is fast emerging as a big global player in the defence sector and that the capabilities of its security forces are constantly rising. His comments came as he addressed soldiers of the Indian Armed Force in Himachal Pradeshs Lepcha during Diwali celebrations. At such an important time, it is necessary that Indias borders are protected and there is an environment of peace in the country and you have a big role in this, Modi, dressed in Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) fatigues, said. India is protected till the time my bravehearts are standing on the borders like the Himalayas, the prime minister said. #WATCH | Lepcha, Himachal Pradesh: Prime Minister Narendra Modi says, Given the situation in the world today, expectations from India are continuously increasing. In such a situation, it is important that Indias borders remain secure. We are creating an atmosphere of peace in pic.twitter.com/bSqYC0xAuW ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2023 After Independence, these bravehearts (Army personnel) fought so many wars and won the countrys heart Our jawans have snatched victory in the face of challenges, he said. It is said that parv is where the parivaar is. On festivals, being away from the family and deployed on the borders exemplifies the commitment to duty The country is indebted to you, Modi told the soldiers. Therefore, on Diwali, one diya is for your safety, and in every prayer, people wish for your safety, the prime minister said. Since 30-35 years, there has been no Diwali that I have not celebrated with you. When I was neither the PM nor the CM, I celebrated Diwali amongst you in border areas, Modi said. Indias soldiers have always walked ahead, risking their lives and have always proven that they are the strongest wall at the borders, he added. For me, a place where our security forces are deployed is no less than a temple, Modi said. The prime minister also hailed the role played by the armed forces in evacuations in earthquake-hit areas and during other calamities. When we had to pull out people from Sudan, Indias bravehearts completed the mission with courage When there was an earthquake in Turkiye, they risked lives to save people, Modi said. Wherever Indians are in danger, security forces are always committed to ensuring their safety, he asserted. We are proud of our forces and soldiers, Modi added. With inputs from PTI Abbas Ganbay On November 7-10, 2023, the delegation headed by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan Elnur Mammadov paid a working visit to the Republic of France in order to participate in the 42nd session of the General Conference of UNESCO. Azernews reports with reference to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry. It was noted that Azerbaijan was elected one of the vice presidents of the General Conference by a unanimous decision on the first day of the session. Within the framework of the visit, Deputy Minister Elnur Mammadov spoke during the general political debates of the General Conference, as well as held a number of bilateral meetings. Delivering a national statement on November 10, Deputy Minister Elnur Mammadov said that Azerbaijan is one of the key partners of the Organization and regularly promotes intercultural and interreligious dialogue with important global initiatives. In his speech, the deputy minister touched on the issue of the complete destruction of the existing historical, cultural, and religious monuments in Azerbaijan's liberated Garabagh economic region, as well as in the territories of Armenia, on the basis of ethnic hatred against the Azerbaijani people, and pointed out that our country has repeatedly appealed to UNESCO and other international organizations in this regard. Despite Azerbaijan's numerous calls to take urgent measures to ensure the protection of the existing cultural heritage and the organization of relevant fact-finding missions, it was regrettably emphasized that this was not possible due to the obstacles of the Armenian side. In his speech, the deputy minister also talked about the large-scale reconstruction and restoration work carried out by our country in the post-conflict period and said that Azerbaijan attaches special importance to the restoration of existing cultural and religious objects in the region and that many steps have been taken in this direction. Within the framework of the visit, Deputy Minister Elnur Mammadov also held bilateral meetings with UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azule and Deputy Director-General for Social and Humanitarian Sciences Gabriela Ramos. At the meetings, views were exchanged on Azerbaijan-UNESCO relations, the current agenda of cooperation, including the Organization's prospects for cooperation in the field of social and humanitarian sciences, and numerous initiatives put forward by our country. Also, in the meetings, Armenia was informed in detail about the destruction of historical, cultural, and religious monuments in the territories of Azerbaijan and Armenia. In this regard, a call was made to send a relevant fact-finding mission to Armenia in order to assess the current state of Azerbaijan's cultural heritage. It was brought to attention that after the anti-terrorist measures carried out by Azerbaijan, Armenia's claims about the danger of cultural and historical monuments in the region are groundless, and this was confirmed by two UN missions in the region. The importance of the "Baku Process" initiative on intercultural dialogue was emphasized at the meeting. Stating that UNESCO is the main supporter and partner of the "Baku Process" as well as the World Intercultural Dialogue Forum, hope was expressed for the continuation of this cooperation. During the 42nd session of the General Conference, which will last until November 22, 2023, Azerbaijan will be represented by various institutions in relevant fields. Mehbooba Mufti, the president of the PDP, paid a visit to the impacted families on Sunday who had lost their homes and houseboats to a fire on Saturday. In the incident, three tourists from Bangladesh had perished. Visited Dal (Lake), where several houseboats were ravaged by a massive fire on Saturday. Apart from extensive damage, three tourists tragically died despite the efforts of locals, Mufti posted on X. She asked the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Manoj Sinha, to grant soft loans to the impacted families so they could repair their houseboats. Request @manojsinha_ ji to provide soft loans & other essentials necessary for houseboat owners to rebuild. Perhaps in the future moving fire stations will help to prevent such incidents, she added. Apni Party leader Altaf Bukhari, while expressing sympathies with the affected, urged the administration to assess the losses and compensate the victims accordingly. Sympathies with the house boat owners of Dal Lake who have lost property worth crores in a devastating fire mishap today. May the victims find strength in these testing times. I urge the authorities to assess the loss caused to the property and compensate the victims accordingly, Bukhari said. A team of Apni Party leaders, including Noor Mohammad and Ashraf Mir, visited the site of the incident in the Dal Lake. Expressing anguish over the incident, Lt Governor Sinha on Saturday said, I am deeply pained by the loss of lives due to the unfortunate fire incident at the Dal Lake, Srinagar. My heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families. I have directed the district administration to provide all necessary assistance to the affected people. Srinagar Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Aijaz and senior tourism department officials visited the scene of the blaze on the Dal Lake and assured all possible help in rebuilding the damaged houseboats, the officials said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will celebrated Diwali 2023 with troops of Indo-Tibetan Border Police and the Indian Army in Himachal Pradeshs Lepcha near the border with China. Upon his arrival, PM Modi said in a post on X, former Twitter, Reached Lepcha in Himachal Pradesh to celebrate Diwali with our brave security forces. Reached Lepcha in Himachal Pradesh to celebrate Diwali with our brave security forces. pic.twitter.com/7vcFlq2izL Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 12, 2023 Himachal Pradesh shares a 260-km porous border with China. Of the total length, 140 km is in tribal Kinnaur district, while 80 km is in the tribal Lahaul and Spiti district. Five ITBP battalions deployed in 20 posts that guard the border with China. In 2022, the Prime Minister celebrated the occasion with soldiers in Kargil and said Diwali means the "festival of end of terror" and that Kargil had made it possible. The Prime Minister has been celebrating the festival with soldiers for several years now. In 2019, the Prime Minister celebrated Diwali with soldiers in the Rajouri district along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir. He had called soldiers as his family and lauded them for guarding the borders even during festivals. He had exchanged Diwali greetings with the Indian Air Force (IAF) personnel at Pathankot Air Force Station.In 2018, Prime Minister Modi celebrated Diwali with jawans of the Indian Army and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), at Harsil in Uttarakhand. Following that he had offered prayers at the Kedarnath shrine. In 2017, the Prime Minister celebrated the festival of light with army soldiers and Border Security Force (BSF) personnel in the Gurez Valley of Jammu and Kashmir's Bandipora District. In 2016, the PM went to Himachal Pradesh to celebrate the festival with Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel at an outpost. He visited the Punjab border to celebrate Diwali with soldiers in 2015. In 2014, Prime Minister Modi spent Diwali in Siachen with soldiers. Notably, PM Modi has been visiting soldiers on Diwali, ever since he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat. With inputs from ANI Uninterrupted power supply and access to medical care remain important worries for Asias oldest monastery in Arunachal Pradeshs Tawang. The waste left behind by the monasterys expanding number of tourists has also become a source of concern for Abbot Shedling Tulku Thupten Tendar Rinpoche, the monasterys chief. The Rinpoche, who has been the head of the Tawang Monastery for a year, is pleased with the monks and learners under him, but he is concerned about other facilities accessible to them. Tawang Monastery is Asias second largest and oldest. It was established between 1680 and 1681. Speaking to PTI in his native Tibetan through an interpreter, Rinpoche said, The monks of our monastery are much disciplined and concentrate on their studies. They have been following the laid-down traditions well enough. For us, one major issue is healthcare facilities. In case of any health-related emergency, our monks have to travel to Guwahati or Tezpur. If the government can ensure similar facilities here, it will be helpful, the Abbot said. Guwahati is about 430 km from Tawang while Tezpur is at a distance of nearly 330 km. The Rinpoche also urged the state government for uninterrupted power supply to the Monastery. It is a technology-driven world nowadays and electricity is important. But power supply is erratic. We request the government that if it can ensure uninterrupted supply, it will be beneficial not only for the monks but also for the tourists and VIPs, who frequently come here, he added. As the Monasterys popularity grows and it draws more visitors, the Abbot had a word of caution about the pitfalls that come with more people entering. As the number of visitors increases, it has also led to the problem of the people not caring about the environment. People are bringing packets and other such things with them, and littering all around. It makes the place dirty and is bad for the environment too. I request them to take care of this aspect, the Abbot said, requesting the visitors to be more conscious. On attracting the young generation to religion, the spiritual leader said the religious teachings have to be blended with a scientific temperament to keep it relevant. We cannot make the youth believe in a religion by prayers or parikrama. We have to make them study the religious teachings (scriptures). For the youth to put faith in religion, we have to ensure that we make them study the scriptures in comparison with a scientific outlook, he said. Buddhism is about the journey of mind, consciousness and attainment of enlightenment. Enlightenment is not only about meditation, it is about removing negative thoughts. And we have to make the youth see this aspect, the Abbot added. He also stressed that it is important to follow any religion with the focus on concept of how one can help others, and this will keep the followers of a faith together. Minhaz Merchant stands out for his journalistic neutrality. It is indispensable for him in journalism to not only be politically neutral but also seen to be politically neutral. So much so that he makes it a point not to follow any politician on a social networking site. Even when Prime Minister Narendra Modi followed him on X, he refused to return the compliment. One may not agree with the premise of his argument, for following a politician, more so a Prime Minister, doesnt mean any compromise in ones journalistic neutrality. In todays world, following politicians or celebrities means you dont miss out on any of their statements, observationsa prerequisite for basic journalism. Still, Merchants stand is laudatory, especially at a time when one is tempted to crawl when asked to bend by those in power. It is this nature of Minhaz Merchant to vigorously pursue journalistic neutrality, besides his long, illustrious innings in the media sphere, that makes his latest work, Modi: The Challenge of 2024 (Amaryllis, Rs 899), a must-read book. It needs to be clarified at the very outset that this is not a biography of Modi. The book, instead, covers his two terms as prime minister and explains why 2024 is going to be a watershed year. He calls it the year of reckoning that would witness the battle for India. The book starts with the author meeting Modi for the first time in 2012, when the latter was the chief minister of Gujarat. What struck Merchant then were Modis eyes. They (eyes) bore into you. The gaze is unflinching. A year later, Merchant found himself in Gandhinagar. Modi was in high spirits. He had just won a landslide third term as Gujarat chief minister. In that meeting, Modi asked Merchant if he would be willing to write a biography on him, given so much misinformation about his life, especially over the Godhra riots. Merchant politely refused, saying: One prime ministerial book is enough. Merchant had already written a biography of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. Interestingly, the author, after declining the offer, suggested the name of British author Andy Marino for the job. I then suggested that if he (Modi) wanted a neutral and completely objective examination of his life and work, perhaps a foreign author could be invited to write the book. Modi liked the idea. Coming to Modi: The Challenge of 2024, it does an objective analysis of the major achievements of the Modi governmentfrom helping India take a big digital stride forward, to putting the country on the high lane of infrastructure development. Unlike the Left-liberal commentators, he doesnt shy away from talking about the good works done by the Modi dispensation. And, he is equally upfront about the failures and weaknesses of the Union government. He, for instance, is wary of the growing trend in the BJP towards Prime Minister Modis deification, reminding the readers of the delusional Indira-is-India narrative of the 1970s. He is equally concerned about the growing yes-man culture in the current dispensation, though he reiterates that Modi detests sycophancy and appreciates honest feedback. Merchant is also unhappy over the fact that the governments tentacles have grown, not receded on matters of economy. He writes, The prime minister won his mandate on the promise of minimum government, maximum governance. The opposite has been the case. Still there is no decline in the personal popularity of Prime Minister Modi. Merchant believes this has to do with Modis understanding of the Indian mind. His teenage wandering in the Himalayas, eating and living with monks, sadhus and ordinary villages, gave him rare insights. During a varied career in the RSSfrom doing menial jobs to fixing organisational issuesModi learnt much about human nature. This innate understanding of the Indian mind gives Modi an edge over other politicians. Add to it the prime ministers personal probity and he becomes an almost invincible force in Indian politics. Modi believes that the people are willing to forget and forgive mistakes if the governments intent is right. It is Modis success in conveying the earnestness of each of his initiatives that makes him and his government anti-incumbency-proof. Demonetisation is a case in study. People suffered. They were not sure if it was carried out competently and if it could achieve its desired results. But people on the whole never doubted Modis intentions. Demonetisation didnt hurt Modi a bit, electorally or otherwise. So, is 2024 a done deal for the BJP? While reading the book one gets the sense that the party is comfortably placed in the race, and can easily secure 300 Lok Sabha seats if things remain the way it is today, but it would be suicidal to think its a done deal for the saffron party. All depends, Merchant writes, on how smartly Opposition parties stitch their alliances across the country. Also, the BJP should be wary of complacency creeping in among its leaders and cadres after two consecutive Lok Sabha wins. Merchant believes that the 2024 elections would be a make or break election for not just the BJP and the Congress but also the county. It, after all, could determine the course of Indian politics for the next decade. He adds, With India set to be the worlds third largest economy by 2026-27 behind the United States and China, 2024 could be a historic turning point. More so given the fact that Chinas hegemonistic challenge and the US-led Wests good cop-bad cop attitude vis-a-vis India would only get intense in coming years. Interestingly, the author doesnt stop at 2024 and makes a forecast for 2029. He believes Modi will step aside in 2029 after 15 years as prime minister. Merchants assessment seems rather convincing. Politicians in India tend to cling on to power as long as they can. But Modi is made of different stuff. He writes, Modi had wandered in the Himalayas for two years after walking out of his Vadnagar home in Gujarat at the age of 17. Modi lived in caves and ate with monks. He told me during our several meetings that he did not have a meal at the same place more than once. Modi lived like a rishi. Merchant adds a rider, though. Modi would have to first win the 2024 Lok Sabha election before even thinking of 2029. Modi is not given to long-term projections. He lives in the present. The author also delves into the post-Modi phase in the chapter Modi: The New Vajpayee?. While recalling how in the 1990s and the early 2000s, the liberal Vajpayee was projected against hardliner Advani, Merchant exposes the same farce being played up in the media as the country approaches another general election early next year. Ironically, the harshest critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who have vilified him since 2002 now look fearfully at Amit Shah and Yogi Adityanath The prospect of Amit Shah or Adityanath as Prime Minister unnerves them so much that they are prepared to put up with Modi 3.0 as the new Vajpayeeinternationalist, moderate, statesmanlike. Interestingly, in a later chapter, Merchant further narrows down upon Modis successor as he writes on how Yogi, a hard taskmaster, is feared the most by the Congress-Left opposition. Minhaz Merchants Modi: The Challenge of 2024 is one of the best and most dispassionate accounts of Narendra Modi and his two terms in New Delhi. What makes it worth a read is its sheer scrupulousness in etching out why 2024 is the year of reckoning for India, Indians, and Indian politicsand, of course, the way forward. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views. Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Wars are never pretty. But from the accounts of those who have watched the footage released by Israel on the October 7 attacks by Hamas on its kibbutz now gingerly seeping into social media with graphic content warnings are particularly disorienting. They breach the red lines of depravity that even humans most inured to violence are able to take. The body of a baby who seemed to have been baked in an oven, possibly alive. Bloodied corpses lying in a heap in bedrooms, bathrooms, and by the roadside. Hamas terrorists taking turns to rape a woman from behind and finally one of them shooting her in the head during the act. Brutalised, naked young women being transported in open vehicles. Two soldiers without heads. Israeli captives being humiliated and jeered at in Gaza. Men hitting a dead Jewish young man repeatedly on the head with spades. It is a steady stream of images of unconceivable violence. One was reel of nearly 44 minutes of raw footage curated by the Israeli military from hundreds of hours of material collected about the October 7 attacks from Hamas assailants body cameras, traffic cams, CCTV, mobile phones and social media accounts of victims, soldiers and medical workers was screened at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles recently. Similar footage was shown at the military base in Tel Aviv to journalists. There were collective gasps and groans; many looking away from the screen in sheer horror. On the other side are Israeli missiles whistling through the night air towards Gaza; the earth-shaking explosions followed by screams of men, women and children; photos of commercial buildings, homes, hospitals and schools pummelled by thousands of tons of explosives into rubble; tens of thousands fleeing to safety with their thin baggage. Can one choose a side in such encompassing human tragedy in which cornerstones of morality lie in smithereens in five hundred shades of grey? Yes, perhaps. Not by the doctrine of greater good but by a two-step test to figure the greater evil. By asking just two questions. First: Which side is at war the world over? Hamas is not a local militia fighting a localised war. It is one of the hundreds of heads attached to a much larger body called Islamism. Hamas, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Al Shabab, Boko Haram or the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army are different faces of the same monster called global jihad. Islamism is the worlds most determined and amoral expansionist force armed with an unfiltered medieval ideology and modern tech. In October, month of the kibbutz massacre, 2,036 people were killed in the name of Islam just in widely reported cases. A website named The Religion of Peace tracked 147 such attacks across 26 countries. Islamists are at war with local populations from China to Europe, Myanmar to the US, Sri Lanka to Sudan, and Indian to Nigeria. In contrast, Jews are fighting to save their piece of land mentioned for over 3,000 years as the land of Israel surrounded by enemies. They are not involved in a single war elsewhere. It has repeatedly offered to coexist in a two-nation arrangement, but Palestinians have stuck to the slogan, From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. Palestinians elect a terror organisation like Hamas to govern Gaza, fills its ranks with its children, and have never held a protest about Hamas using billions of dollars worth aid on building tunnels under schools and hospitals so it can hide behind the helpless, kill with impunity and feign victimhood. The hunger for endless war, brutalities and conquests is clearly an Islamist and not Zionist trait. Second: Who lies, and lives in stubborn denial? Sara Greenberg, an ex-foreign affairs adviser to the Israeli prime minister, said eloquently at the Los Angeles event: We not only need to defend ourselves: We also need to defend the truth. Just as there are those who deny the Holocaust, there are those who are attempting to deny and distort the atrocities committed by Hamas, despite the fact that the Hamas terrorists documented the attacks themselves. Even in the face of incontrovertible evidence, Islamists and Leftists who form the bulk of pro-Palestinian groups have kept denying that Hamas went beyond all accepted norms of warfare to brutalise Israelis. They have even concocted stories about Hamas terrorists being kind to the hostages, trying to paint one of the worlds most brutal terror groups as little more than an abrasive NGO fired up by a just cause. The normalising of gore is so total that at dozens of street corners and on campuses, they have torn down or defaced photos of the Israeli hostages. Their extent of denial is so deep that Islamists and their Leftist handlers in European Parliaments keep flashing words like genocide. In which genocide do the victims (Hamas, according to the pro-Palestine lobby) kill nearly 1,400 people in a single day? The Gaza deception and sympathy porn is so entrenched that a number of heart-rending images of so-called victims of IDF bombings have been exposed as staged photoshoots. Israel is no saint. It is guilty of unleashing enormous collateral damage to either defend itself or avenge attacks. But it is not an expansionist force or the face of one. It does not revel in inhuman torture and degrading while killing the enemy. Its bombs may kill babies as an unwitting damage. But it does not bake babies wilfully in ovens or behead them. Choosing a side in the Israel-Palestine conflict may not be easy on the face of it, but think of the greater evil and it becomes clear. The author is contributing editor, Firstpost. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views. Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. I have been to the Lepakshi temple complex more times than I can remember, including this summer. One, because I find this temple architecturally very impressive. Second, because I find that it exudes a deeply spiritual aura. After the temple found a place on the tentative UNESCO World Heritage Sites list in 2022 with UNESCO calling it a masterpiece of creative effort, I found another reason to visit. Lepakshi temple has also been designated a monument of national importance by the Archaeological Survey of India. The temple located in the eponymous village, in Sri Sathya Sai District, Andhra Pradesh, is dedicated to Sri Veerabhadra Swami, the fiery avatar of Lord Shiva and also has shrines to other deities like Papanasheshwara, Raghunatha, Bhadrakali, etc., and large, outdoor Ganesha and Shivalinga. So, it is called the Veerabhadra temple though it is widely and popularly known as Lepakshi temple. Historians say it was built over three time-periods ranging from 1100 A.D. to 1800 A.D. The middle phase between 1350 to 1600 A.D. is when the Vijayanagara kings added some of its most outstanding elements. Many of the inscriptions on the walls are attributed to the reign of Achyutaraya Maharaya (16th century A.D.). UNESCO sums up the historical value saying that the temple preserves important examples of Vijayanagara sculptures and paintings, and is a unique example of continuity of traditions, creative ideas and knowledge of Chalukyas, Hoyasalas, and Kakatiyas combined with local customs. The entire temple is built in trikuta style and sits on a low hill, shaped like a tortoise, called Kurmasaila (kurma means tortoise, and saila means hill). A prominent feature (a short distance from the main temple) is a magnificent seated Nandi, a colossal monolithic structure in granite, complete with ornaments, garlands and bells. It is considered to be one of the largest of its kind in India. Towering above the landscape, it is a big favourite with visitors who want to take back a photo-souvenir so it is always crowded around this vehicle of Shiva. The Nandi faces another enormous structure, though at a distance: the Nagashivalinga. This is a basaltic Shivalinga made from a huge boulder, and canopied by a large, monolithic sculpture of a seven-hooded Naga (snake) as if protecting it. Rivalling this in sizeand popularity for photo-ops toois a massive Ganesha carved on one side of a boulder. This Ganesha, which you see just after the Nagashivalinga has a rock canopy supported by pillars. The scale and proportions of all three prominent elements: Shivas mount, Nandi; the Ganesha; and Nagashivalinga all testify to the outstanding skills of the architects and craftsmen. The temple name is attributed to two legends. The most popular one is associated with the Ramayana. When Sita was being abducted by Ravana, the noble-eagle Jatayu tried to come to her rescue but was wounded and felled by the demon-king, in this very village. Lord Rama, following in search of Sita, arrived there, saw Jatayu and said, lovingly: Le Pakshi, meaning, in Telugu, Rise, O Bird. There is also a gigantic stone footprint in the temple which devotees believe to be that of Sita. Another theory breaks down the word Lepakshi into Lepa and Akshi meaning painted eye. In Indian temples, history, local lore, legends and myths all merge to form several narratives for each structure. The red blotches on the western-side wall have a rather gory and sad story behind them. The temple is said to have been built by the brothers Virupanna and Veeranna (16th century), ministers/governors of the Vijayanagara king Achyutaraya. It was alleged later that Virupanna secretly used funds from the royal treasury, nearly emptying it. When the kings successor learnt of this, Virupanna was terrified. He did not want to face the new kings ire and the fate of being summoned and blinded as punishment. So, to forestall that, he blinded himself at Lepakshi, offering his two eyes to his lord, the presiding deity Sri Veerabhadra, believing that was a more noble way out. The red blotches are said to be the blood from his eyes. Legend has it that Sage Agastya was also associated with the temple. Except for the Ganesha and the Nagashivalinga, almost every exposed surface of the temple is covered with frescoes or carvings. All of them are testimony to the artistic brilliance of the craftsmen. In fact, a major draw of the Lepakshi temple complex is the superb paintings on ceilings and walls of mandapas. The technique employed is known as Fresco-secco or painting in lime-medium on plaster. All the frescoes and sculptures represent different characters and scenes from the Puranas, Ramayana and Mahabharata. The fresco paintings include that of Shiva-Parvati Kalyanam, Kiratarjuneeyam, a much-liked Krishna who seems to look back directly at you from whichever direction you view him, etc. UNESCO holds that the temple is valuable also because it bears witness to the only surviving fresco paintings of the mid-Vijayanagara period. The pillars of the natya-mandapam are also elaborately carved with figures of gods, goddesses, dancers and musicians. Of course, the big attraction with many lay visitors is the so-called Hanging Pillar, a pillar which does not touch the ground! Actually, to the naked eye, the gap between the base of the pillar and floor is almost imperceptible. Guides love to impress their groups by passing a thin-cloth or sheet of paper from one end of the bottom of the pillar to another and watch the onlookers surprise and gasps of awe! Long ago, in an unsuccessful effort to uncover the mystery, the British are said to have tampered with and even slightly dislodged this and nearby pillars. After you visit the Veerabhadra shrine, you can also see the shrines of Papanasheshwara, Raghunatha, Bhadrakali, Parvathi, etc., and the images of Brahma and Vishnu on pillars. Interestingly, there is a superb image of Durga on an inside-facing pillar before which a large mirror is placed for easy darshan by devotees, and where we and other visitors received kumkum and flowers. Moving to the left from the main shrine, you can descend a few steps and turn right to see the awe-inspiring Nagashivalinga. Walking ahead, you will see the other monolith: Ganesha after which you arrive at the open-air mandapam with multiple pillars all on a large, raised platform. Once you descend this platform, you can go and see Sitas footprint. The temple not only has several layers of history given how it was built over three time periods but is also built over several levels. You can first visit the Nandi which is on ground-level. Walking down the road you will arrive at the main temple, whichbeing built on a hillis reached by a short flight of steps. Once you enter, there are several more, narrow steps to climb. Throughout the visit, you will find yourself ascending and descending steps to view the different attractions like sanctum-sanctorum, the Nagashivalinga, mahamandapam, natya-mandapam and so on, until you return to the entrance from where you can exit the temple. The temple complex is mercifully free of graffitti, very well-maintained and there is an Andhra Pradesh Government resort, Haritha Hotel, located beside the Nandi which offers good-quality accommodation and a walk-in restaurant. Another draw of Lepakshi is the presence of nearby attractions all within an hour to two-and-half-hours driving distance. There is the Penukonda Fort, associated with the Vijayanagara kings. Check out Gutibayalu which has a gigantic banyan-tree, Thimmamma Marrimanu, with branches spread over several acres (considered one of Indias biggest banyan trees). On the way to this tree, you can visit the famous Kadiri Lakshmi Narasimhaswamy temple. Closeby is the Puttaparthi and Prashanti Nilayam pilgrim-centre where you can visit the ashram of the spiritual leader and philanthropist Sri Sathya Sai Baba or if you want to skip the ashram, you can check out the attached multi-religion spiritual museum and flat-domed planetarium. For birdwatching, you can visit Veerapuram where migratory birds arrive seasonally. If your travel is incomplete without shopping, head to Dharmavaram, a large and bustling silk-weaving town where you will find silk sarees, dress materials, etc., in vibrant hues and myriad designs. You can also visit Hindupur and pick up Mudireddipalli sarees. Take time to savour the regions culinary specialities like Chepala Pulusu, Ragi Mudda, Jonna Rotti, Naatu Kodi curry, etc. How to reach: Lepakshi is in Sri Sathya Sai District, Andhra Pradesh. The nearest railway station is Hindupur. Other nearby rail stations are Prashanti Nilayam and Dharmavaram. The nearest airport is Bengaluru, around 110 km away. From Bengaluru, take NH 7 (new number NH 44). The writer is a journalist, photographer, translator and author of Forgotten Composers. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views. Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To woo voters ahead of the Assembly polls, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel Sunday said if his party, Congress, retains power in the state, it will give women an annual financial assistance of Rs 15,000. Baghels announcement comes ahead of the second phase of Chhattisgarh elections 2023 scheduled on November 17. The financial assistance announced by Congress in Chhattisgarh is being seen as a counter to the opposition BJPs promise in its poll manifesto of giving Rs 12,000 per year to married women. Today, on the auspicious occasion of Diwali, with the blessings of Maa Lakshmi ji and Chhattisgarh Mahtari, an important decision has been taken for women empowerment, Baghel told reporters in Raipur. #WATCH | Raipur: Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel says, On the occasion of Diwali, I want to announce that, if Congress forms govt again in Chhattisgarh, we will launch Chhattisgarh Griha Lakshmi Yojana and will give Rs 15,000 per year to all mothers and sisters https://t.co/1Ex1aslhmx pic.twitter.com/9XwHfq64ga ANI (@ANI) November 12, 2023 "After the Congress government is formed again in Chhattisgarh, women in the state will be provided an annual assistance of Rs 15,000 directly into their bank accounts under the "Chhattisgarh Gruha Lakshmi Yojana'," he said. The first phase of polling in 20 out of the total 90 assembly seats in Chhattisgarh was held on November 7. The remaining 70 seats will see voting on November 17. With inputs from agencies On Sunday, Israels military said it was ready to evacuate babies from Gazas main hospital, where Palestinian sources said two newborns died and scores more were in danger after fuel ran out during heavy fighting. As the humanitarian crisis worsened, Gazas border authority said that the Rafah gate into Egypt, which had closed on Friday, would reopen on Sunday for foreign passport holders. In the last 48 hours, Hamas claimed to have fully or partially destroyed more than 160 Israeli military targets in Gaza, including more than 25 vehicles. According to an Israeli military spokeswoman, Hamas has lost control of northern Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reported the deaths of five more Israeli troops in Gaza at a news conference late Saturday. The Israeli military reported 46 deaths there since its ground operations began. Reports of possible hostage deal Israels three major TV news channels, without citing named sources, said there was some progress toward a deal to free hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. Netanyahu said he would not discuss details of any possible deal, which according to N12 News would involve 50 to 100 women, children and elderly being released in stages during a three to five day pause in fighting. According to the reports, Israel would release women and minor Palestinian prisoners from its jails and consider letting fuel in to Gaza, while reserving the right to resume fighting after the deal. When we have something concrete to say then we will update the families and bring it to the government, Netanyahu said. Until then silence would be best. In Tel Aviv, thousands joined a rally to support families of the hostages. Gaza residents said Israeli troops, who went to war to eliminate Hamas after its bloody cross-border assault on Oct. 7, had been clashing with Hamas gunmen all night in and around Gaza City where the Al Shifa hospital, Gazas largest, is located. Ashraf Al-Qidra, who represents the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza, said the hospital suspended operations after fuel ran out. He said two babies had died in an incubator as a result. He said there were 45 babies in total. He said Israeli shelling killed a patient in intensive care and that Israeli snipers on rooftops fired into the medical complex from time to time, limiting peoples ability to move. We are besieged inside the Al Shifa Medical Complex, and the (Israeli) occupation has targeted most of the buildings inside, he told Reuters by phone. Colonel Moshe Tetro, head of coordination and liaison at COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body handling civil affairs in Gaza, said there had been clashes but added: There is no shooting at the hospital and there is no siege. Israel says it will help evacuate babies Israels chief military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said the Israeli military would help evacuate babies from the hospital. The staff of the Shifa hospital has requested that tomorrow we help the babies in the pediatric department to get to a safer hospital. We will provide the assistance needed, he said. Israel has said doctors, patients and thousands of evacuees who have taken refuge at hospitals in northern Gaza must leave so it can tackle Hamas gunmen who it says have placed command centres under and around them. Hamas denies using hospitals this way. Medical staff say patients could die if they are moved and Palestinian officials say Israeli fire makes it dangerous for others to leave. Israeli Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter was asked by N12 about images of Gaza residents evacuating south and whether that was a goal of the war, or only temporary. He described the situation as being Gazas Nakba a reference to mass dispossessions of Palestinians after Israel was founded in 1948. Operationally theres no way to conduct a war the way the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) wants to conduct it inside Gaza territories while the masses are between the tanks and soldiers, Dichter said. I dont know how it will end. Totally scary atmosphere Ahmed al-Mokhallalati, a senior plastic surgeon at Al Shifa, told Reuters there had been continuous bombardment for more than 24 hours. He said most hospital staff and people sheltering there had left, but 500 patients remained. Its totally a war zone. Its a totally scary atmosphere here in the hospital, he said. The military wing of Hamas ally Islamic Jihad, the Al-Quds Brigades, said it was engaged in violent clashes in the vicinity of Al Shifa Medical Complex, Al Nasr neighbourhood, and Al Shati camp in Gaza. Al Nasr is home to several major hospitals. Israel said earlier it had killed what it called a Hamas terrorist who it said had prevented the evacuation of another hospital in the north, which Palestinian officials have said is out of service and surrounded by tanks. It said Ahmed Siam was killed along with other militants while hiding in the Al Buraq school. Palestinian officials told Reuters on Friday at least 25 Palestinians had been killed in an Israeli strike at the school, which was packed with evacuees. Israel said rockets were still being fired from Gaza into southern Israel, where it has said about 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 taken hostage by Hamas last month. Palestinian officials said on Friday that 11,078 Gaza residents had been killed in air and artillery strikes since Oct. 7, around 40% of them children. Israel said it had increased the number of places in which it said it would stop firing for several hours at a time so Gazans could move south, and a military spokesperson said the last three days had seen the evacuation of at least 150,000 people. In London, at least 300,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched and police arrested over 120 people as they sought to stop far-right counter-protesters ambushing the rally. Over 20,000 people joined a pro-Palestinian rally in Brussels. Meeting in Saudi Arabia, Muslim and Arab countries called for an immediate end to military operations in Gaza, rejecting Israels justification of self-defence. On Sunday, the Australian government conducted crisis discussions in response to a cyber intrusion that has affected operations at critical ports around the country. According to a spokeswoman for port operator DP World, internet connectivity was suspended at ports in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Fremantle on Friday to prevent any ongoing unauthorised access to its network. The continuous interruption has not prevented containers from being removed off ships, but vehicles required to transport them have been unable to drive into or out of terminals, according to DP World senior director Blake Tierney in a statement. The company is working around the clock to restore normal operations safely, he added. Australian Federal Police have said they are investigating the incident. The interruption is likely to continue for a number of days and will impact the movement of goods into and out of the country, National Cyber Security Coordinator Darren Goldie said on X, formerly Twitter. DP World Australia has advised it has restricted access to its Australian port operations while it investigates the incident, he added. After holding emergency meetings on Saturday, Goldie again convened the National Coordination Mechanism on Sunday with representatives from government, maritime and logistics sectors to manage the governments response. Australias National Emergency Management Agency also attended the talks. Lucrative target Goldie, an air marshal in the Royal Australian Air Force, was appointed the inaugural national coordinator last July in response to several cyber attacks. Cybersecurity experts have said inadequate safeguards and the stockpiling of sensitive customer information have made Australia a lucrative target for hackers. Medibank, Australias largest private health insurer, said in November 2022 that hackers had accessed the data of 9.7 million current and former customers, including medical records related to drug abuse and pregnancy terminations. Just two months earlier, telecom company Optus fell prey to a data breach of similar scale in which the personal details of up to 9.8 million people were accessed. Those two incidents were among the largest data breaches in Australian history. Optus, Australias second-largest phone provider, apologised to its more than 10 million customers last week over a technical network outage that crashed electronic payments, disrupted phone lines used by emergency services and stopped people accessing government services. The Australian government has launched an investigation into that unexplained glitch, although it has not been described as a cyber attack. There were 76,000 cybercrimes reported to the Australian Cyber Security Centre last year, although experts warn many more go unreported. Calling it deeply worrisome and frightening, World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Sunday that the organisation has lost communication with Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City amid horrifying reports of the hospital facing repeated attacks. Taking to X, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, @WHO has lost contact with its focal points in Al-Shifa Hospital in #Gaza, amid horrifying reports of the hospital facing repeated attacks. There are reports that some of those who fled the hospital have been shot at, wounded, or killed. The latest reports say the hospital was surrounded by tanks. WHO is gravely concerned about the safety of health workers, hundreds of sick and injured patients, including babies on life support, and displaced people who remain inside the hospital, he added. Ghebreyesus further called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, as it is the only way to save lives and reduce the horrific levels of suffering. WHO also calls for the sustained, orderly, unimpeded and safe medical evacuations of critically injured and sick patients, the post added. Additionally, the WHO raised concerns about hostages, stating that all hostages must receive appropriate medical care and be released unconditionally. The war between Israel and Hamas has intensified in the last days, and reportedly, Israel said that Hamass terror group has been maintaining a major command centre as part of its vast network of tunnels, according to The Times of Israel. Meanwhile, Jerusalem has urged Al-Shifa Hospitals staff and patients, along with other Gazans, to flee to the south to avoid being attacked as Israeli forces continue to attack Hamas in the Gaza Strip. According to The Times of Israel, there have been reports of gunfire targeting civilians seeking to exit the hospital to flee. Adding to that, Israel said that the shooters were Hamas gunmen; however, the terror group blames Israel. The organisation also called for the sustained, orderly, unimpeded and safe medical evacuations of critically injured and sick patients into Egypt through the Rafah Border Crossing. As the Hamas terror group has captivated over 230 hostages in the Gaza Strip, WHO said, All hostages should receive appropriate medical care and be released unconditionally. With inputs from agencies If re-elected in 2024, former US President Donald Trump would expand his first-term immigration enforcement to include massive roundups of people who would be kept in vast camps to await deportation, according to the New York Times on Saturday. According to the Times, the article was based on interviews with many aides, including Stephen Miller, who managed Trumps first-term immigration plans. It described Trumps plans as an assault on immigration on a scale unseen in modern American history and said it aimed to deport millions of people every year, including those who have been settled in the United States for decades. Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, and he will almost certainly face US President Joe Biden in a replay of their 2020 campaign. The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment. The White House did not respond. In a campaign address in Claremont, New Hampshire, Trump did not discuss the idea of establishing huge detention camps. The Biden-Harris campaign in a statement called Trumps immigration plans extreme, racist, cruel policies that are meant to stoke fear and divide us, betting a scared nation is how he wins this election. Trump will reinstate his ban on people from certain Muslim-majority nations, among other things, according to the publication. He would reinstate other extreme practises, such as the COVID-19-era denial of asylum petitions, but this time the refusals would be based on suspicions that migrants carry other dangerous diseases, according to the report. According to the publication, Trump wants to expedite deportations by expanding a type of removal that does not require due process hearings. According to the report, Trump will transfer federal agents and deputise local police and National Guard troops volunteered by Republican-led states to assist US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in widespread roundups of undocumented immigrants. He would ease the strain on ICE detention facilities by building huge camps to hold detainees while their cases are processed as they await deportation. To underwrite the massive operation if Congress refused, Trump would redirect Pentagon funds as he did with his border wall in his first term, the Times said. Well stop the invasion on our southern border and begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history, Trump said on Saturday. In September, Trump told a rally in Iowa the deportation operation would be along the lines of the Eisenhower model, the Times said. That was a 1954 campaign named after an ethnic slur Operation Wetback to detain and expel Mexican immigrants. Other parts of Trumps plan call for screening visa applicants for ideological views, revoking the temporary protected status of people from certain countries deemed unsafe, and trying to end the citizenship birthright for babies born in the United States to undocumented parents, the newspaper said. Israels defense ministry on Sunday revealed a landmark agreement worth 317 million euros ($340 million), marking the sale of its advanced Davids Sling air defense system to to new NATO member Finland. Described as a historic agreement, this cutting-edge system, a collaborative effort between Israeli and US companies, boasts the capability to intercept a range of threats, including ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as aircraft and drones. Director General MG (Res) Eyal Zamir signed an agreement for the sale of the Davids Sling to Finland valued at approx. 317 million EUR. It is one of the worlds leading systems for intercepting advanced threats including ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, aircraft & drones. pic.twitter.com/lqeAxy7WiK Ministry of Defense (@Israel_MOD) November 12, 2023 This development follows Israels substantial $3.5 billion deal signed in September, which stands as the largest-ever agreement for the nations flourishing arms industry, reported AFP. The earlier deal involved the sale of Israels Arrow 3 hypersonic missile system to Germany, a strategic move amid Germanys efforts to enhance NATOs air defenses in the aftermath of Russias invasion of Ukraine. Notably, the Arrow 3 system, designed for long-range interception, was developed in collaboration between Israeli and US companies, requiring approval from Washington for its finalisation. As part of the growing trend, Finland swiftly announced its intention to procure an Israeli defense system capable of countering aircraft, rockets, and missiles. Analysts predict that the ongoing conflict in Ukraine is likely to fuel a heightened demand for Israeli defense technologies across Europe. With inputs from agencies In response to cross-border firing directed at the Golan Heights, Israeli fighter jets launched attacks against terror infrastructure targets inside Syria, the military said on Sunday. A short while ago, in response to the attack toward the Golan Heights yesterday (Saturday), IDF (Israel Defense Forces) fighter jets struck terror infrastructure sites in Syria, the army said on Telegram. The army announced on Saturday that two missiles shot from Syria had landed in unoccupied areas of the Golan Heights, and rocket alert sirens had sounded in the area. On Friday, Israel also bombed targets in Syria after a drone launched from there crashed into a school in the southern town of Eilat. During the 1967 Six Day War, Israel conquered much of the Golan Heights and eventually annexed it in a move that was never recognised by the United Nations. Cross-border fire has also been exchanged on a regular basis along Israels border with Lebanon, as Israel continues its offensive against Hamas. Intense battle continued Sunday between troops of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and gunmen in and around Gaza City as military moves closer to Shafia hospital. Israel forces say Hamas main headquarters are situated close to Shifa Hospital in Gaza. Visuals from the area showed heavy fighting in the vicinity of Shifa Hospital, with loud and persistent sounds of gunfire and explosions. With heavy fighting underway, thousands of people have been trapped in Gazas hospitals, with medics and aid workers warning patients will die in the crippled facilities unless there is a pause in the battle. Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, the biggest in the territory, is totally surrounded and bombardments are going on nearby, said the hospitals director, Mohammad Abu Salmiya. The medical team cannot work and the bodies, in their dozens, cannot be managed or buried, he said. If we do not stop this bloodshed immediately with a ceasefire or at the bare minimum a medical evacuation of patients, these hospitals will become a morgue, medical aid group Doctors Without Borders warned Sunday. Health officials further said thousands of medics, patients and displaced people are trapped in the area surrounding Shifa Hospital, with no electricity and dwindling supplies. The IDF has said it will help to evacuate babies from the hospital in the coming hours. In the recent weeks, Israel has presented evidence that Hamas main command center is located underneath Shifa and accused the terror group of using the hospital and its occupants with 1,500 beds and some 4,000 staff as human shields for the elaborate bunkers and tunnels beneath it. Israel has also said Hamas has stockpiles of fuel and supplies that it is keeping from an increasingly desperate civilian population. With inputs from agencies A Myanmar fighter plane crashed amid confrontations between the military and an insurgent group, according to both sides, adding to the juntas woes as it faces the most serious challenge to its control since a coup in 2021. The plane was shot down over Kayah State in eastern Myanmar, near the Thai border, on Saturday during combat between the military and the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF), which claimed responsibility. According to Junta spokeswoman Zaw Min Tun, the plane crashed owing to a technical malfunction, and the pilots escaped safely and were in communication with the military. The event occurs as Myanmars military fights opposition groups on many fronts, with ethnic minority troops and anti-junta militias mounting an unprecedented level of coordination, according to security analysts. Last week, Myanmars military-installed president warned that the country was on the verge of disintegrating owing to a failure to deal with the insurgency more effectively. Conflict in Shan State, bordering China, has displaced at least 50,000 people, with trade lines blocked off and many towns captured since three ethnic minority insurgent groups launched an anti-junta offensive last month. China has urged all parties to halt hostilities. The insurgent alliance says it has seized more than 100 army posts. Assaults on towns have also taken place in Sagaing region, in central Myanmar, west of Shan State. Hundreds of foreign workers, many of whom rights activists say are victims of human trafficking, are trapped by the fighting, including citizens of Vietnam and of Thailand. The Thai foreign ministry said on Saturday 200 of its nationals were waiting to be evacuated as soon as possible when the situation permits. The KNDF said on its Facebook page it shot down the jet on Saturday using heavy machine guns and its members were searching for the pilots. Reuters could not verify the information. News outlet Mizzima on its Facebook page posted images of what it said were the abandoned helmet and parachute of one of the pilots. The defense chiefs of South Korea, Japan, and the US have decided to begin a real-time data sharing program on North Korean missiles in December, as scheduled, the countrys defense ministry announced on Sunday. On Sunday in Seoul, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with his South Korean counterpart Shin Won-sik; Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara participated virtually in the meeting. According to Kihara, the ministers talked about stepping up their three-way cooperation in the face of severe security environments. He said that this was the first time the three ministers had ever held a gathering of that nature. We confirmed that we are steadily making adjustments, bringing the process to the final stage, Kihara added. U.S. President Joe Biden agreed with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at an Aug. 18 summit that by the end of this year the three countries would share North Korea missile warning data in real time. The ministers also condemned growing military cooperation between North Korea and Russia as a violation of U.N. resolutions, the South Korean defence ministry said in a statement, and also stressed the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. Separately, General Charles Q. Brown, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, held talks with his South Korean counterpart in Seoul on Sunday, the South Korean military said. In his first visit to South Korea since he took office in October, the top U.S. general discussed the continuous provocations of North Korea including missile launches, and reaffirmed the United States commitment to the defence of South Korea, the South Korean joint chiefs of staff said in a statement. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has once again ignited the India-Canada row by reiterating that the Indian government was involved in the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. We have serious reasons to believe that agents of the government of India could have been involved in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil, Trudeau said. He added that the Canadian government is working constructively with India and other partners to get to the bottom of this serious matter. In September, India expelled 40 Canadian diplomats in a retaliatory move. Trudeau said, We were so disappointed when India violated the Vienna Convention and arbitrarily revoked the diplomatic immunity of over 40 Canadian diplomats in IndiaWe have serious reasons to believe that agents of the government of India could have been involved in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil and Indias response is to kick out a whole bunch of Canadian diplomats by violating their rights under the Vienna Convention. That is of concern to countries around the world because if a given country can just decide that their diplomats of another country are no longer protected, that makes international relations more dangerous and more serious. But every step of the way, we have tried to work constructively and positively with India, and we will continue to and that means continuing to work with Indian government diplomats. This is not a fight we want to be having right now but we will unequivocally always stand up for the rule of law he added. Ties between India and Canada have hit rock bottom after Trudeau alleged that the Indian government had a hand in the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was shot dead by two masked gunmen in June in Surrey in the Canadian province of British Colombia. Tetiana Kocheva fled to Israels coastal town of Ashkelon, near Gaza, after Russia seized Ukraines northern city of Kharkiv last year. Her husband had previously worked in Israel, and she reasoned that bringing their three children there, away from Russian attacks, would ensure a peaceful existence. But then, on October 7, Hamas launched an attack on Israel, sparking a war that has killed thousands. Kocheva, like thousands of other Ukrainian exiles, escaped the fighting a second time. If I am killed then at least its on my native land, the 39-year-old said. When Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2022, Kocheva spent 10 days hiding in a Kharkiv cellar, which nearly fell to the Russian army. The family departed for Israel five months into the invasion. They started a new life in Ashkelon, which is around 10 kilometres (six miles) from Gaza. She felt compelled to flee during Hamass surprise strike, which murdered over 1,200 people. My hands started to shake and I had the same feeling that I did when it all started in our country, she said. Israel then launched a military campaign in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian militant group Hamas has said over 11,000 have since died. I needed to come home Kocheva slept in a shelter again, recalling endless sirens and explosions. Then she decided she had to flee. When it intensified I started to panic, she said. I got scared, I realised that I needed to come home. The family was evacuated to central Israel, where they stayed several days, before going back to Kharkiv. War is still a feature of life in Kharkiv while being firmly under Ukrainian control, the city is regularly hit by Russian attacks. Sirens are still a regular part of life. But for Kocheva, it was a relief to be back. I walk here, its my native land, my flag, I dont know how to express it, I am happy, she said. Kyiv has said that some 4,000 Ukrainians have left Israel since the Hamas attack. Exactly the same feeling In the capital Kyiv, Anna Lyashko and her eight-year-old daughter Diana were also back from Israel. They had fled to Israel in the first weeks of Russias invasion. in March last year. They had been living close to areas of the Kyiv region that fell to Russian forces early in their attack, living without electricity, water or communication, the 28-year-old mother said. My daughter was very scared and I decided to leave, the 28-year-old said. She decided to take her daughter to Israel, where she had a relative. But when hostilities started in Israel last month, it brought her back to the day Russia invaded Ukraine. My first feelings were the same as 24th of February (2022) in Ukraine, she said. Someone called me in the morning and said Anna, war has started, it was exactly the same feeling I had in Ukraine. She said her daughter had fear in her eyes and that she understood that I could not stay. They flew out of Tel Aviv a week later, with the help of the Ukrainian embassy. As her daughter played in fallen leaves in a Kyiv park, Lyashko said the pair were also happily home, reunited with family. Kyiv calmer than Israel Sitting in her office on the opposite side of the Dnipro River in Kyiv, Oksana Sokolovska said she thought Israel would be the safest country in the world when she fled Russias invasion there. Like many women with children, the 39-year-old lawyer left Ukraine with her three children at the start of the war last year. I had no right to risk their lives, she said. As she spoke Hebrew, she chose Israel as their destination and they settled in Rishon LeTsiyon, near Tel Aviv. But she, too, spent October 7 in a shelter with her children. Massive bombing started, she said. Once again, she took a quick decision to leave Israel. It is difficult to leave one war for another, she told AFP. But Sokolovska was nonetheless happy to be home. Right now in Kyiv, the situation is calmer than in Israel, she said, almost two years into the Russian invasion. It is the only reason why I came back. Quote: RidgwaySD Originally Posted by Tires are your limiting factor. No matter what sort of traction device you fit, the tall narrow inflated like a rock tires, will kill any soft surface capability anyway. The front locker will just help you get more stuck in a place you should not have taken something this heavy. The factory LSD is an old style clutch pack likely only capable of transferring 20-25% power from one side to the other, and only for a while because they wear out pretty quickly. Better than nothing but not something to rely on off road. It sounds like a neat idea but you just are not going to get a loaded F600 towing a camper into anything remotely challenging anyway. That rig needs to stay on established roads, dirt/gravel roads but roads. I am not sure that is even a great idea because rough roads at that weight tears things up fast. Just Texas oil field roads destroy all manner of trucks. I get that you are pretty committed at this point but I am seeing more problems than solutions trying to make this rig off road capable and actually using it that way. Good Luck likely only capable of transferring 20-25% power from one side to the other, and only for a while because they wear out pretty quickly. Better than nothing but not something to rely on off road. 20-25% power from one side to the other is a considerable improvement that I will rely on off road as all the folks in my Jeep club with LSD's (theirs might work better). My Juggy has a winch if necessary and the F-600 4x4 will have front/rear winches so a rare winch pull or Juggy tug might be needed. Quote: OverheadCram Originally Posted by My 550s with limited slip didnt get any further than the ones without. Reason why any heavy spec offroad truck runs wide singles and not duals. Having driven 2wd F-500 off road for many years, My F-250 pulling a trailer off road - dry camping, I think I know what I'm getting into.That's not the goal. I won't be taking it where I take my Jeep. But a front locker makes a HUGE difference. I may go to super singles someday, but a locked axles more than doubles the capability of a open diff. It will easily go where I did all my dry camping with my F-250 and 27' trailer. I can always unload my Juggy and use the Juggy to pull the camper the last mile.I'm skeptical you've done any sort of reasonable testing. Every weekend I see the Jeeps with LSD's do far more lines than the ones without. Of course they can't do the lines I do with front and rear lockers that are found in all 3 of my Rubicons. Asserting the LSD provides no traction value without evidence isn't compelling. Question 3 of 10 He wished that he could find a girlfriend. He wished he could live in the wild. He wished that he would be transfered to the San Diego Zoo. 404 Something's wrong here Sorry. We can't find the page you're looking for. RETURN HOME Public domain photo through Wikimedia Ellis Meredith, a reporter with the Rocky Mountain News, became known as the Susan B. Anthony of Colorado and was a leader of the 1893 drive to win the right to vote for women. Wed Wednesday 51 /29 More sun than clouds. Highs in the low 50s and lows in the upper 20s. Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. U.S. Army Sergeant First Class William Montgomery shakes hands with members of the community after being awarded with a Purple Heart for his sacrifices in service and injuries endured in the line of combat at the Western Region One Source on Nov. 11, 2023. Telephone call between Federal Chancellor Scholz and the President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, Al-Sisi Germany - Federal Government The following statement has been issued by the Spokesperson of the Federal Government, Steffen Hebestreit: Press release 240_en Thursday, 9 November 2023 Press and Information Office of the Federal Government (BPA) Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke on the telephone today with the President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. The Federal Chancellor and the President agreed that it remains essential to prevent the conflict between Israel and Hamas from spreading across the region. Federal Chancellor Scholz reaffirmed that Germany was working intensively for the protection of civilians, as well as for humanitarian pauses to facilitate the safe and adequate provision of humanitarian aid for people in the Gaza Strip. The Federal Chancellor thanked President Al-Sisi for enabling German nationals to enter Egypt from Gaza. The Federal Chancellor and the President agreed that a political solution to the conflict is the only way to achieve lasting peace. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The IDF struck over 15,000 terror targets in Gaza and seized over 6000 weapons Since the Beginning of the War; "Yahalom" (Patriot) MDS intercepted a UAV Adjacent to Eilat IDF Press Release 10.11.23 IDF Since the beginning of the war, the IDF has struck over 15,000 terror targets in the Gaza Strip and located 6000 weapons, including anti-tank missile launchers, anti-aircraft missiles, rockets and mortars, explosives, ammunition, and more. In recent days, combined IDF forces have continued to strike numerous terror targets in the Gaza Strip, including operational command centers, terror and rocket infrastructure, weapons and logistics depots, launch posts, terror tunnels, numerous Hamas terrorists, as well as command, control, and intelligence targets. The coordination between aerial, naval, and ground forces continues, as hundreds of targets, guided by intelligence and infantry, are struck in short timeframes by the IAF and Israeli Navy. Yesterday (Thursday), the "Yahalom" (Patriot) system intercepted a hostile UAV before it crossed into Israeli territory, near the city of Eilat. This interception is one of many carried out by the Aerial Defense Array during the war. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address IDF & ISA Kill Hamas Nukbha Terrorists, Including Terrorists That Took Part in the October 7th Massacre IDF Press Release 10.11.23 IDF Over the past day, based on precise IDF intelligence, IDF troops killed numerous Hamas' Nukbha terrorists who participated in the October 7th massacre. Among the terrorists were Ahmed Musa, a company commander and Omar Al-Hindi, a platoon commander, both were located in western Jabalya. Ahmed Musa was one of the commanders of the invasion into the Zikim Base, Kibbutz Zikim, and the Yiftach Post. Over the last day, he led attacks against IDF troops in the area of western Jabalya. Additionally, based on IDF and ISA intelligence, the Head of the Sniper Array of Hamas' Northern Brigade, Mohammed Kahlout was killed. Based on ISA intelligence, IDF troops struck overnight 19 Hamas terrorists who planned to attack IDF troops. Furthermore, IDF troops struck a shipping container located at a beach, containing approximately 20 rocket launchers. During an activity in Sheikh Ijlin, the troops searched for traces in the southern part of the front and located a rocket launcher adjacent to resident buildings. All weapons located were struck or confiscated by IDF troops. Attached is a video of the shipment container containing rocket launchers on the beach: https://bit.ly/469NeE2 Attached is a video of the IDF strikes in the Gaza Strip: https://bit.ly/3MEfvvD NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address U.S. Support for the Philippines in the South China Sea US Department of State Press Statement Office of the Spokesperson November 10, 2023 The United States stands shoulder-to-shoulder with our Philippine ally in the face of the People's Republic of China's (PRC) repeated harassment in the South China Sea. The PRC's actions are inconsistent with international law and follow a pattern of dangerous operational behavior in the South China Sea. An international tribunal's July 2016 decision - legally binding on both the Philippines and PRC - made clear that the PRC has no lawful territorial or maritime claim to Second Thomas Shoal. We urge the PRC to respect the high seas freedoms of navigation guaranteed to all States under international law. The United States reaffirms that Article IV of the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty extends to armed attacks on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft - including those of its Coast Guard - anywhere in the South China Sea. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General Department of Public Information . News and Media Division . New York 10 November 2023 The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's noon briefing by Stephane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General. All right, good afternoon. ** Guest Today Right after we are done, we will be joined by the Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator ad interim for Nigeria, Matthias Schmale. He will brief on the humanitarian situation in Nigeria. And Monica is not briefing today, but she will be back on Monday. ** Chief Executives Board Just to tell you that in Greentree, in Long Island, the Secretary-General has been meeting and chairing the UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB) for its biannual session. The fall session always takes place here in New York. It started Wednesday night, and it is ending shortly. The Secretary-General chaired the two-day session, which brought together the heads of the UN system organizations. CEB members reflected on current world affairs as they affect and are related to the UN system. They held deliberations on Governance and Use of Artificial Intelligence for the Common Good and on Climate Change, reflecting on COP28 and Beyond. ** Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territory A humanitarian update for you on the situation in Gaza and the West Bank. Just to let you know, we remain very concerned about the escalating violence and tensions we are seeing in the West Bank. Apparently, according to our UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) colleagues, 18 Palestinians, including one child, were killed by Israeli forces. The deadliest incident, which lasted for 12 hours, took place in Jenin Refugee Camp, with 13 fatalities. The operation involved armed clashes and air strikes resulting in extensive infrastructure damage in the camp. And turning to Gaza, on the situation there, our colleagues at OCHA tell us that people continued to flee southwards. More than 50,000 people fled yesterday on foot or on other modes of transportation, including donkey carts. Our humanitarian colleagues tell us that more trucks entered Gaza yesterday through the Rafah crossing in Egypt and southern Gaza. But as we have been saying repeatedly, the volume of aid entering Gaza remains wholly inadequate, and more than one entry point is needed. Yesterday, 65 trucks came in carrying food, medicines, health supplies, bottled water, blankets and hygiene products as well as seven ambulances. This brings the total number of trucks that have entered Gaza since October 21st to 821. There continues to be damage to health facilities, and they continue also to be impacted by the lack of fuel, with some being forced to close surgical wards and oxygen generation plants. The World Health Organization tells us today that some 12 children with cancer or other blood disorders have been evacuated, with their companions, from Gaza into Egypt and Jordan so they may continue their treatment safely. Additional children are expected to be evacuated for cancer treatment as part of this initiative. The Security Council will meet at 3:00 p.m. this afternoon to hear a briefing from Dr. Tedros [Gebreyesus], the head of the World Health Organization. He will give you much more details on the health sector in Gaza. In the northern part of the Strip, our colleagues warn that the deteriorating food situation is continuing. Our food security partners have not been able to deliver assistance there in the past eight days. As of yesterday, no bakery was active due to lack of fuel, water and wheat flour as well as damage sustained by many. This is the north. In the south, access to bread is also challenging, as the only operative mill cannot operate due to lack of electricity and fuel. Only one of the bakeries contracted by the World Food Programme, along with eight other bakeries in the south, is able to provide bread intermittently to shelters, obviously, also depending on the availability of fuel and flour. People are lining up for hours in front of bakeries and are exposed to air strikes. Some essential food items, such as rice and vegetable oil, are nearly depleted in the public markets. Other items including flour, dairy products, eggs and mineral water have disappeared from the shelves in shops across Gaza in the past two days. For his part, Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, today concluded his visit to the Middle East with a press conference in Jordan, where he spoke on what is going on in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. And there is a press release on that. Also, sadly, our colleagues at UNRWA now tell us that 101 UNRWA staff members were confirmed killed in the past month, and there were parents, teachers, nurses, doctors and support staff. Mr. [Philippe] Lazzarini, the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, said that Palestinians are mourning, and Israelis are mourning, and of course all of us at the UN also mourn the loss of our colleagues. As a reminder, on Monday, the UN flag will be lowered at half-mast to pay tribute to our UNRWA colleagues who have lost their lives. That will be the flag in the traffic circle. There will be an opportunity for those who are interested to take photos and video. We will let you know through that media alert the exact time. At 9:30 a.m., all UN offices around the world will observe a minute of silence. 9:30 a.m. local time wherever UN offices are located. ** Venezuela/Guyana You will have seen that last night we issued a statement on Venezuela [and Guyana] in which the Secretary-General said he is following with concern the recent escalation of tension between Guyana and Venezuela over the border controversy between the two countries. The Secretary-General said that he trusts that both parties will demonstrate good faith and avoid any action that would aggravate or extend the controversy, which is now before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, in the Netherlands. ** South Sudan You heard, I think, an update from Sudan and all the horrific things that are going on there. Just to flag that, to the south, in South Sudan, our [Acting] Humanitarian Coordinator, Marie-Helene Verney, today condemned a deadly attack on humanitarian workers in the south-east of the country. On November 6th, a nutrition officer a South Sudanese national working for an international NGO was killed while responding to a suspected measles outbreak in the Greater Pibor Administrative Area. Since the beginning of the year, four aid workers have been killed in South Sudan. We never stop stressing that humanitarians are on the front lines to provide life-saving support to the most vulnerable South Sudanese. South Sudan remains the country with the highest proportion of food-insecure people globally at 56 per cent of the population. That is an estimated 7.1 million men, women and children with malnutrition. 1.6 million of those are children. The effects of ongoing climate shocks in South Sudan are compounded by rising food and fuel prices and the lingering impact of the conflict; many families now need humanitarian assistance for the first time. And just to flag that the African Union Mission in South Sudan (AUMISS), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and our Mission (UNMISS) issued a joint statement yesterday welcoming the recently announced presidential decrees on the commencement of the process to reconstitute South Sudan's National Constitutional Review Commission, National Elections Commission and the Political Parties' Council. These critical developments highlight key milestones in preparing for and clarifying the way forward for the country's permanent constitution-making process and its first post-independence elections, scheduled for December 2024. ** Libya A couple more updates for you. From Libya, our humanitarian colleagues tell us that two months after deadly floods devastated the east of the country impacting a quarter of a million people international support for relief efforts there remains critical. Our $71 million flash appeal for the flood response is less than half funded, and more than 43,000 people remain displaced by the flooding while more than 8,000 are still missing. We, along with our partners, have reached some 180,000 people with humanitarian assistance in the past two months including food, cash assistance and shelter kits. We remain concerned over the heightened risk of infectious diseases due to damaged water and sanitation infrastructure. Water trucking continues to ensure that women, men and children have access to safe drinking water. ** Nepal In Nepal, we continue to support the Government-led response one week after the devastating earthquake that hit the west part of the country. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says that more than 400 aftershocks were reported this week. People have been forced to spend nights outside or in makeshift shelters in freezing temperatures. The World Food Programme has distributed 8 tons of ready-to-eat food to cover 10,000 people for three days. UN Women established two community kitchens led by a women's group. Meanwhile, UNICEF installed three medical tents and has distributed buckets, hygiene kits and mobile toilets to meet the needs of more than 20,000 people. The World Health Organization is providing technical, coordination and information management support and has provided six vehicles to assist. UNFPA has provided more than 10,000 dignity kits to women and adolescent girls. OCHA says that, given that it is winter, there is an urgent need for warm clothing, winterized shelter, health care and food support. ** Myanmar And from Myanmar, we can report, thanks to our humanitarian colleagues, that intense fighting in northern Shan providence continues and has now extended to the north-west of the country. Within two weeks, some 90,000 people have been displaced in northern Shan and the region of Sagaing. Essential routes within northern Shan continue to be obstructed by checkpoints operated by both sides. Phone and internet services remain limited outside Lashio township, and the main airport has been closed since the escalation of the fighting. Provision of life-saving assistance to affected civilians including cash, food and essential relief items continues wherever possible. We estimate that one-third of people in need have been reached with some form of assistance so far. $1 million from the Myanmar Humanitarian Response Fund will be disbursed to respond to emerging needs in northern Shan providence. This support, however, is insufficient to meet the surge in needs. The Humanitarian Response Plan for Myanmar is currently just 28 per cent funded. Nationwide, more than 2 million people are now internally displaced and remain in urgent need of adequate shelter, food, basic services for their survival and protection. Local and international humanitarian partners remain committed to staying and delivering despite underfunding and heavy access constraints. The humanitarian community in Myanmar urges all parties to the conflict to adhere to international humanitarian law, safeguarding the lives and well-being of civilians and of course the aid workers who are trying to assist the civilians. ** Food Production I just want to flag, this is the last item, that the Food and Agriculture Organization predicts a decline in international trade in some basic foodstuffs. According to its new report, FAO says that extreme weather events, rising geopolitical tensions and sudden policy changes pose risks for global food production systems and could potentially tip delicate demand-supply balances and dampen prospects for trade and global food security. The report shows that trade volumes in coarse grains and rice are expected to decline in the 2023-24 period and that world trade in vegetable oils and fats is expected to dip modestly, while global production and consumption are anticipated to expand. ** Questions and Answers Spokesman : Yes, sir? Question : Thank you very much, Steph. I'm with Sky News Arabia. Well, today there seems a sliver of hope, at least to me how I see it, when you mentioned something about the kids in Gaza, that they are patient with cancer that's been... starting to be evacuated. Correct me if I'm wrong. And if there's any way...? Spokesman : Yes. You're not wrong. Question : Perfect. If there's any way to elaborate more on this? And the numbers, I believe, they are around 30 patients with cancer in Gaza. Those are definitely in terrible state health-wise. So... and it's a small number. Being able to evacuate them, this could be like, humanitarian-wise, this is a win. Can you elaborate more about what happened? Spokesman : Of course, it's a win for those children and their families who were able to accompany them to hospitals in Egypt and Jordan and further afield. But let's not forget the amount of effort and time it takes to negotiate case by case is intolerable, especially for the patients and their families. So, it is a win, but we are still working for and need a humanitarian ceasefire, so all those who can get help and all those who need to seek medical help can actually receive it. Question : Awesome. Can we have the numbers, please, Steph? The exact numbers for those kids. Spokesman : I can reread what I said. Question : Thank you. Spokesman : Again, I think I have to pay attention to what I say, you have to pay attention to what I say, but we'll reread it. Let's see, 12 children with cancer and other blood disorders were evacuated with their companions, but we hope to have more. Maggie and then Edie and then Emily. Question : Thank you. I don't think I heard you mention Al-Shifa. There was bombing at the hospital, around the hospital, today. Do you have any on-the-ground reports? Spokesman : Listen, the bombings are continuing. The fighting is continuing. That is having a direct impact on the health care system. But as I mentioned, Tedros, who will be briefing at 3:00 p.m., will have a lot more details for you. Question : The IDF says that Hamas has its command centre under Al-Shifa. So, they're tightening the noose in that area. Does the Secretary-General have a message to the IDF about Al-Shifa? Spokesman : The message to all combatants is that hospitals and civilian infrastructure should not be used in combat. Question : And just, sorry, one quick one. Spokesman : Yeah. Question : Mr. Volker Turk, you said he concluded his visit to the Middle East. So, I believe when he started it, he was seeking permission to go to Israel as well or seeking meetings... [Cross talk] Spokesman : Yeah, my understanding is that he will not be going there. Question : Were they... Did they reject his request for meetings? What's the details? [Cross talk] Spokesman : He's not going. I know he had expressed his intention to go, and he's not going. Edie and then Emily. Question : Thank you, Steph. First, does the United Nations have any indication that these four-hour humanitarian pauses announced by the White House are actually taking place? Spokesman : Well, we've seen the announcement of these pauses that were in a sense unilaterally declared. We've seen some movements of people, but I would reiterate what I said yesterday, is that we'll continue to look for a humanitarian ceasefire and for ceasefires to be coordinated, and we need to ensure that they're actually safe in order for them to be effective. Question : And is the UN being contacted by the Israeli Defense Forces about they say that they're doing this locally? Spokesman : Colleagues on the ground remain in constant contact with the relevant Israeli counterparts. Question : I have one other question. Spokesman : Please. Question : You've talked about this terrible plight of bakeries and getting flour and the other key ingredients to make bread, which is apparently keeping most of Gaza's population alive. Are there any fresh efforts, talks with officials either in Egypt or the Israelis themselves, about getting these supplies in and the bakeries reopen? Spokesman : Well, the critical supply that we're not able to get in is fuel. I mean, the fuel powers electricity plants, powers generators, it powers desalination plants, it powers pumps. Fuel powers everything that we need. So, without, you know, there is some foodstuff coming in, but without fuel, without clean water, you cannot operate a bakery. Emily and then Dezhi. Question : Thanks, Steph. A follow-up on Myanmar. You said 90,000 people displaced in two weeks. There was a press release from OCHA overnight saying 50,000 people as of 9th of November. So, I'm wondering if they got really wrong with that number or we are talking another... about something else, in terms of geographic displacement or... I mean, because the number are really, really... like, almost doubled. So... Spokesman : What we said is, 90,000 have been displaced in the northern regions. Again, we'll try to get some accounting details from our friends at OCHA. You know how good we are with math here. [Mumbling] No. No. You're right to ask the question. Even that I can figure out. It's a big difference. Thank you. Dezhi, then Ibtisam, then Denis, then Stefano. Question : A couple of questions on Gaza. And this afternoon, the Security Council is going to discuss the situation in Gaza. From the Secretary-General, there's not... there is no voting on any resolutions or joint statement. What do you think the message would this Security Council meeting convey into the world? Spokesman : Well, I think there are two separate things. We keep hoping and yearning for a united message from the Security Council to see an end to the conflict in Gaza. You know the process better than I. It hasn't happened. This meeting, if I'm not mistaken, was asked for by the UAE as a humanitarian briefing. It's a general occasion for the head of the World Health Organization to give, I'm sure, a very detailed description of the impact on the health care system in Gaza. Question : So, that would let everybody know what happened in Gaza? Spokesman : Statement or a question? Question : No. I'm just wondering what's the...? How to say that? Well... [Cross talk] Spokesman : I mean, the message will be carried by you. I'm just saying this is, they've asked for a humanitarian briefing. Security Council members, as they wish, are getting what they've asked for. They're getting a humanitarian briefing, which will amplify the humanitarian message and the disastrous humanitarian situation in Gaza. Question : The UN always ask for a humanitarian ceasefire? But last night, the Prime Minister Netanyahu actually said there's no ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza. Given the fact that the Israeli government didn't really consider a real ceasefire, what plan does the UN have to really... how to say that? To make a difference on the situation? Spokesman : Well, we will continue to advocate both in public and in private for what we think is necessary. And at the same time, we will continue to deliver whatever humanitarian aid we can under the circumstances that currently exist. Question : And one last thing, this probably is a statement; you don't need to answer this. [Cross talk] I was wondering... Just now I was wondering, when you're saying there's lack of fuel, lack of flour and everything to make hopes for those people, I was thinking, which one is worse? To be being bombed to death or to be starved...? You know. Spokesman : Again, we're here to answer questions. Denis, then Ibtisam. Question : Nowadays, it's about 100 trucks going, on average, going every day... Spokesman : Less. Less. Question : Less than 100 trucks going into Gaza every day. So... is the UN ready to ramp up delivering humanitarian aid if there will be such an opportunity? And how many resources does UN have? Spokesman : Yes. We will be ready to ramp up. The current system right now is very heavy in the sense that the trucks have to drive about two hours south to undergo a clearance process and then drive back two hours, back to Rafah. It's a very cumbersome process, as we've been saying. It would be very useful to have more entry points. But the trickle of aid that is going in is not due to our lack of ability to meet the needs. Ibtisam and then Stefano. Question : A follow-up on the aid and the trucks. So, when you go... when you say that the trucks have to go two hours south, you mean to the Israeli borders? Spokesman : To Nitzana, which is a border checkpoint between Egypt and Israel. They go through an inspection protocol. Question : By whom? Spokesman : By the Israelis and others. And then they go back to Rafah, but it's two hours up, two hours down. Question : And, I mean, you have your... you... the UN worked in other conflict regions and zones, including, for example, Syria and cross-border, et cetera. Why isn't... why can't you, instead of going all the way to the south, et cetera, why don't you have your own teams near Rafah? Who can inspect these...? [Cross talk] Spokesman : Well, it would be great if we could. All of this is negotiated amongst a number of parties. It's a system as it exists. We would like to see it made easier and in greater volume. But we are dealing with the cards that have been dealt to us, and we keep trying to change our hand, but we don't control the cards. Question : Okay. I have a follow-up on the bakeries too. Giving the fact that the Israelis actually bombed many bakeries in Gaza. Some of the major bakeries already, actually. The question is here, how many bakeries do you have still functioning there? If you... like, 20 per cent or...? Spokesman : What are the percentages of working bakeries? I'll ask. It's a good question to ask. Question : Yeah. And then on the issue of four-hour pause, the thing is, can you really call it a humanitarian pause, giving the fact that you are not able, actually, in these four hours to deliver aid? And the purpose of these four hours is actually to enforce or to make it easy for the Israeli forces to occupy North Gaza in troops and not actually delivering aid or... Spokesman : I think you did not hear me use the term "humanitarian pause". Question : Okay. Spokesman : Okay. Question : So, you don't call... okay. Okay. Spokesman : Well, I try to be very careful about the words that I use, and I did not use that expression. Question : Okay. I have a last question. According to local report, Israelis in their air strikes are using different weapons, partly new weapons. My question is here, who document from the UN side these issues, whether when it comes to weapons that are forbidden to be used internationally but still used, how do you do it like? Spokesman : We don't have any visibility on that as the fighting goes on. There will be, as I think, as in any conflict, there will be time for accountability through different mechanisms in the UN. Stefano and then Margaret Besheer. Question : Thank you, Stephane. Thank you for responding on the Paciolla case. That I asked yesterday. In your response, you said that the Secretary-General states that the United Nations cooperated to the maximum extent possible with investigation by the Italian authority into the tragic death of our colleagues, and it stands ready to provide any further assistance that it can to help shed light on the case. Does this also mean that family lawyers can contact, the full cooperation of the UN, including the mission in Colombia? Spokesman : I don't think the legal proceedings will be decided between the two of us, Stefano. I've no doubt that lawyers have been in touch with our mission if they have questions. If lawyers have questions, they should go through our legal counsel. Question : And then I have a question on Libya. There are... I asked this before, there are very disturbing video on the Internet, especially on X, on Twitter, where there are Eritrean, or at least they said that they're Eritrean, refugee that been tortured and asked a ransom from the family in Eritrea. Now to... Are you aware of that? Are these fake videos? Are real? Anything? [Cross talk] Spokesman : Let me explain this. It's hard to judge the veracity of what we see on social media, but what we do know from our own experience is that many, many migrants and refugee seekers, asylum seekers, have been going through horrendous, horrendous situation in Libya as they seek to go to Europe. Margaret Besheer, and then Tony. Question : Steph, on Thursday, the US Special Envoy David Satterfield said that Washington is working to ensure that UNRWA can replenish its fuel supplies, quote, in a secure and timely fashion. Can you give us some insights? Spokesman : I think the insights we'll be able to share with you is when it happens. There are obviously discussions that are going on. They've been going on, frankly, for quite some time. Question : Are you hopeful that there'll be a breakthrough soon then? Spokesman : I mean, we need a breakthrough soon. Let me put it that way. Question : And he also said that two pipelines from Israel had been turned back on, water pipelines, into the south. Is that your understanding? Spokesman : I'll check. We have been getting reports of some water pipelines being turned on for some time, but we'll check with our UNRWA colleagues. Tony? Question : Thank you, Steph. Recently, SG stated clearly in his statements that Rafah crossing is no longer enough for the trucks to be, like, what... the number needed to be entering Gaza. My question is, and Lazzarini as well mentioned, like, he asked for the opening of Kerem Shalom as well. Is the UN doing anything, and on this front is there anything...? [Cross talk] Spokesman : We don't have keys to these gates. Right? We don't control these checkpoints. So, all we can do is try to advocate for it very publicly. As well as privately. Okay. Ibtisam, and then I'll go get our guest. Question : Just a quick follow-up on that. I mean, what the Israelis are telling you why they don't want to open Karm Abu Salem? Because this would be even cheaper for you and easier. And before the October 7th, if I'm not mistaken, I'm not sure about that, but most of the delivery and trucks were going through that crossing. Spokesman : I don't disagree with anything you said. But I think you have to ask... I said this before. I can only speak for us and not for anyone else. Yes. And then really will go to Matthias, who's been very patient in the back. Question : Thank you very much. I'll make it quick. There is an Italian initiative that was, like, floated days ago about, like, hospital ship that could be next to the Gazan coast. Do you have any information about this? [Cross talk] We haven't heard the details. Spokesman : I've seen those reports. Obviously, any of those initiatives would entail creating areas that are... which, whose safety... areas whose safety are guaranteed by everyone who's involved in this fighting. Matthias, please. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Daily Recap: Hamas - Israel War November 11th, 2023 - Day 36 IDF Press Release Hamas - Israel War 11.11.23 IDF Humanitarian aid: Despite Hamas' continuous genocidal, terrorizing actions, we continue to operate to protect and restore the security of Israeli civilians, as well as minimize harm to uninvolved Gazans. We are constantly opening and securing humanitarian corridors and creating tactical pauses, allowing Gazan civilians to evacuate south. These tactical pauses are a few hours long and are limited to certain areas. As a result of the activity of IDF troops, over 900,000 Gazan civilians moved south. While our troops are enabling their movement, Hamas is blocking residents from evacuation, murders and threatens the lives of many who attempt to move south. On Thursday, November 9, 2023, 65 trucks entered Gaza; 10 trucks containing flour, 13 containing other food and 11 containing medical equipment. So far, a total of over 850 821 trucks carrying over 6,000 tons of food, 2,500 tons of medical supplies and 1,200 tons of tents and shelter construction supplies have entered Gaza. There is no limitation in place for the amount of food, water and medical equipment that can enter Gaza. The IDF is also supplying southern Gaza with water pipes providing over 2 million liters a day to southern Gaza. This war is against Hamas, not the civilians of Gaza. We will continue to offer support to Gazan civilians just as we have before the war. Arena Overview Southern Arena Our troops are simultaneously conducting ground, aerial and naval operations, encircling and closing in on Hamas in northern Gaza. Significant operational activities are underway in Hamas' terrorist military quarter in Gaza City. We have struck over 15,000 targets, neutralizing tens of senior Hamas commanders. In the past 24 hours, our troops eliminated a number of members of Hamas' senior leadership: Mohammed Kahlout, Ahmed Musa and Omaer Al-Hind, who were hiding in their bunker. Mohammed Kahlout was the head of Hamas' Sniping Array in the Northern Gaza Strip Brigade. Ahmed Musa was a company commander and commanded during Hamas' brutal invasion into Israel's Zikim Base (the Search and Rescue Brigade's Training Base) on October 7. Omaer Al-Hindi was a Hamas platoon commander. Ahmed Siam, who was responsible for holding approximately 1,000 Gazan residents and patients hostage at the Rantisi Hospital and preventing their evacuation southward. Siam was a commander in Hamas' Naser Radwan Company, and is another example of Hamas' use of civilians in Gaza as human shields and their shameful disregard of civilian lives. Additionally, the troops neutralized terrorist cells, took control of 11 Hamas terrorist posts and neutralized a vehicle rigged with explosives. They also located and destroyed an underground terrorist tunnel route and struck Hamas weapons storage facilities and military targets inside the area of Al-Shati. Over 6,000 weapons and 700 RPGs were found hidden in mosques and residential buildings. Northern Arena: On Friday, November 10, 2023, 3 aircraft infiltrated Israeli territory from Lebanon; 1 was intercepted and the other 2 fell in an open area in the north. In addition, anti-tank missiles were launched from Lebanon toward an IDF post in the area of Manara. Today, sirens sounded in northern Israel, warning of a hostile aircraft intrusion. A launch was also identified toward the Margaliot area, and fell in an open area. IDF artillery responded by striking the source of the launch in Lebanon. Furthermore, overnight (Friday), a launch was identified toward an IDF aircraft. An IDF UAV targeted the launcher responsible in the area of the Lebanese border. Additional Arenas: Since the October 7 massacre, Israel has been under attack on the southern and northern fronts, with over 9,400 rockets being launched toward its territory. Over 1,000 of these were failed launches. As of today, over 1,200 Israelis have been killed, 5,400 have been injured, and the families of 361 fallen soldiers have been notified. The number of hostages stands at 239 with dozens of Israelis still considered missing. The IDF will do everything to bring all hostages home. Key links: Video footage of the IDF troops' activity in Gaza https://bit.ly/3QSS306 Video footage of the strikes in Gaza: https://bit.ly/40wVigW footage of UAV strikes to aid the ground forces in Gaza: https://bit.ly/4770N8Q footage from a combat helicopter strike to aid the ground forces in Gaza: https://bit.ly/3SCQtkr NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Press Briefing by IDF Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari November 11th, 20:15 IDF Press Release Press Briefing 10.11.23 IDF During the past day, significant ground forces, with cover from air and naval forces are deepening the operation in Shati Camp, a major stronghold of Hamas in the Northern Gaza Strip, near the heart of Gaza City. We are continuing to target terrorists. Today, in conjunction with the ISA, we killed terrorists who were planning, in Gaza, terror attacks to be carried out in Judea and Samaria, in central Israel. Hamas lost its grip in Northern Gaza. The residents of Northern Gaza are evacuated, contrary to Hamas' instructions. To prevent this, Hamas is lying about what is going on in the hospitals. Yesterday, they were quick to blame us for the attack on the Shifa Hospital. We checked our systems and again we found that it was a misfired rocket belonging to terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip. Hamas is firing and killing Gazans. Hamas is committing a war crime by its use of hospitals. During the past hours, false information is being spread, that we are encircling Shifa Hospital and striking it. These are false reports. We are engaging in combat with murderous Hamas terrorists who purposely choose to engage in combat next to the Shifa Hospital. We are targeting them precisely and killing them. There is a set passage for exit and entry on the eastern side of the hospital. We killed the terrorist who held some one thousand Gazans as hostages in the Rantisi Hospital and prevented them from leaving the hospital. The hospital has been evacuated. We spoke with the staff of the Shifa Hospital today and told them clearly: the IDF is not attacking the hospital. We will continue to allow the patients and medical staff, and all residents of Northern Gaza, to move south safely. I want the world to know this, so I'll say it in English: (In English): There has been a lot of misinformation from Gaza today. So I want to clarify the facts. There is no siege, I repeat there is no siege on the Shifa Hospital. The east side of the hospital is open on Al-Wehda street, for the safe passage of Gazans who wish to leave the hospital. We're speaking directly and regularly with the hospital staff. The staff of the Shifa Hospital has requested that tomorrow we will help the babies in the pediatric department get to a safer hospital. We will provide the assistance needed. And, there's something that the world must not forget and we will not let the world forget it: Hamas has been holding hostages, 239 men, women, children, elderly and babies. Don't forget - babies. For 36 days. This is a crime against humanity and we will not let the world forget it. (In Hebrew:) In the north, we struck today and this evening, using fighter jets and artillery, a wide range of military targets in Lebanon of the Hezbollah terror organization, in response to fire on Israeli communities in the north over the past day. Hezbollah, with the guidance of Iran, are trying to challenge Israel with the aim of distracting the IDF's attention from Gaza. We are focused on Gaza and will continue to operate and respond to Lebanon, and Hezbollah specifically against every firing, every terror cell, that will try to attack Israel. During the past hour, we targeted Syria using artillery fire in response to two rockets that were fired into the Golan Heights and fell in an open area. Nasrallah and other terror organizations in the north continue to endanger residents of Lebanon and Syria in order to advance the interests of Iran and Hamas-ISIS. In parallel, we are also following the Houthi terror, supported by Iran and Hezbollah, with our American partners and other partners in the world; we are monitoring Iran and Hezbollah's support of Houthi terror. On the homefront, Homefront Command instructions save lives. They are updated on our websites. Continue to follow the instructions fully. They save lives. Today marks 6 weeks from the beginning of the war. It's important to emphasize: we are working constantly, around the clock, on a variety of options to bring the hostages home. These are complicated processes, and they take time. We need to wait for them to come to fruition, and for us to update the families. The IDF, together with the other security organizations, are working around the clock, making a supreme effort - through intelligence, operational, and civilian avenues - to bring them back. We will miss no opportunity to bring them home. To date, we have notified the families of 239 hostages. We will continue to update the families with every piece of information that we have and afterwards, the public. We have also notified the families of 361 families of IDF fallen soldiers who died in battles defending Israel. Among them, today we announced that 5 reservists fell in battle in Gaza. They fought bravely and courageously for the security of the State of Israel. The IDF is the people's army, and reservists are the source of its strength. They left everything to enlist, to fight for their homes, to fight for the State of Israel. They fought bravely and left behind families and children and did not hesitate for a moment before they reported for duty to fight for their home, for the State of Israel. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Hezbollah actions based on wisdom, prudence: President Raisi IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Nov 11, 2023 Tehran, IRNA -- Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi has said that actions by Lebanon's Hezbollah Resistance Movement are based on wisdom and prudence, but the Zionist regime has no logic and only understands the language of force. "Resistance is based on deterrence and prevention of aggression by enemies. Hezbollah actions are based on wisdom and prudence, but the Zionist regime has no logic and understands no language but the language of force," Raisi told Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Saturday. They met in the Saudi capital Riyadh on the sidelines of a joint summit by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Arab League on the Gaza war. The Iranian president rejected claims that resistance groups in the region take orders from the Islamic Republic, saying that the groups "are independent in identifying, making decisions and taking action." The Lebanese prime minister also hailed Hezbollah for its wise and prudent actions in the face of provocative behaviors of the Zionist regime. Hezbollah has shown that resistance is not for fighting only, it also makes efforts to establish peace and tranquility in the region, Mikati said. The Lebanese resistance movement has been engaged in sporadic clashes with the Israeli regime at Lebanon's southern border since the Gaza war broke out on October 7. Hezbollah has said that its actions are in support of Palestinian resistance forces who are fighting the Israeli regime in the Gaza Strip. 4194 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Zionist regime condemned morally before standing trial on genocide in Gaza: Raisi IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Nov 11, 2023 Tehran, IRNA -- Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi has discussed the Gaza war with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, telling him that the Israeli regime has set such a record in genocide and crimes against humanity that it has already been condemned morally before being tried in international courts. The Iranian president and the Malaysian prime minister met on Saturday in the Saudi capital Riyadh on the sidelines of a joint summit by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Arab League on the Gaza war. Raisi said that the countries, which advocated normalization with the Israeli regime, today regret their stance even though they do not express it. He also said the defeat that Palestinian resistance fighters inflicted on the regime will remain irreparable. That was in reference to Operation Al-Aqsa Storm that Hamas launched on Israeli positions from the Gaza Strip on October 7. The Iranian president stressed that future belongs to the Palestinian people, and that the resistance front is the final winner of the battlefield. The Malaysian premier on his part called on the countries, which back the Israeli regime, to stop their support. He said that the issues, which were agreed on during the Saturday summit, should be implemented including the dispatch of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Raisi and Anwar Ibrahim also discussed bilateral relations between their countries. 4194 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Riyadh summit urges end to Gaza siege, halt to arms exports to Israeli regime IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Nov 11, 2023 Tehran, IRNA -- An Arab-Islamic summit hosted by Saudi Arabia, which discussed Israel's war on Gaza, has called for an end to the siege of the territory and halting arms exports to the regime. In its final communique, the summit rejected on Saturday justifying the Israeli regime's actions in Gaza as self-defense or any other excuse. The summit strongly condemned the Israeli regime's "aggression on the Gaza Strip, war crimes and barbaric and inhumane massacres by the occupation government." Leaders of Islamic and Arab countries also called for allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza, and demanded the United Nations Security Council adopt "a decisive and binding resolution" to halt Israel's aggression in Gaza. In addition, the leaders demanded the International Criminal Court launch an immediate investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Zionist regime across the occupied territories including East Al-Quds. 4194 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Gaza war major blow to Zionist plans for normalization of relations: Nasrallah IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Nov 11, 2023 Tehran, IRNA -- Secretary General of Lebanon's Hezbollah Resistance Movement Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has said that the Zionist regime has dealt major blow to its own efforts to normalize relations with other countries. Nasrallah said on Saturday that from now on the regional nations will take a much tougher stance in rejecting this normalization. Noting that the US is managing the war in Gaza war, Nasrallah said that by committing crimes against civilian people, the Zionist regime has inflicted a severe blow on its own body. He said that the aggressions in Gaza are dangerous, big, unprecedented developments which are indicative of the brutal revenge of the Zionist regime. Nasrallah also hailed the operations of the Islamic Resistance of Iraq in targeting US military bases in Syria and Iraq which took place in support for the oppressed people of Palestine. He noted that after the October 7, Israel is different from its previous version. He added that future developments will prove this fact. 9341**2050 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran's Army cmdr. says Zionist regime has lost war to Palestinians IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Nov 11, 2023 Tehran, IRNA -- Iranian Army Commander Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi has said that the Zionist regime has lost the war and is fast taking steps towards destruction. Noting that Al-Aqsa Storm operation was the biggest and most unprecedented event of the history of Palestine, the commander said that no matter how much the Zionist regime bombards hospitals, schools and homes, it cannot compensate for the damage caused by the Al-Aqsa Storm operation. He said that Al-Aqsa Storm operation was a milestone in the Palestinian fights for liberation and the annihilation of the child-killing regime of Israel. The US and the Zionist regime were long seeking to normalize the issue of Palestine and some other countries also intended to do so, while the Al-Aqsa Storm Operation destroyed all their plans, Mousavi said. The commander added that the real image of the US and the Zionist regime has become evident to the whole world. 9341**2050 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Raisi calls on Islamic countries to take firm decision, action on Palestine IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Nov 11, 2023 Tehran, IRNA -- Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has called on the leaders of Islamic countries to reach a firm decision on the issue of Palestine and fully implement it. Speaking before departing Tehran on Saturday morning to attend the extraordinary meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Raisi said the meeting is what all people expect, especially the Islamic Ummah (community). "It is expected that the heads of Islamic countries will reach a firm decision on the issue of Palestine, which is the most important issue in the world, and the decision will be fully implemented," he said, calling for action instead of paying lip service to the Palestinian issue. He noted that Palestine is the reason behind the establishment of the OIC, adding that an immediate halt to Israeli bombardment of Gaza, opening of a way to help the people of Gaza, lifting the blockade of the enclave, and realization of Gaza's rights are the main goals of the organization. "Iran had requested this extraordinary meeting to be held a month ago, but it was not held due to some reasons every time," he stated. Elsewhere in his remarks, the Iranian president said the US has control over the "war machine" in Gaza. "The US has prevented a ceasefire in Gaza and is expanding the scope of war. The true face of the US should be laid bare before the world." Riyadh is hosting the extraordinary summit of the OIC on Saturday, amid unprecedented Israeli attacks on the Palestinian people. The Zionist regime waged the war on Gaza after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out a surprise operation into the occupied territories. At least 11,078 people have been killed by Israeli raids on Gaza, including 4,506 children and 3,027 women. 4354**9417 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran president to call for end of Gaza genocide in OIC meeting: FM IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Nov 11, 2023 Tehran, IRNA -- Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian has emphasized that President Ebrahim Raisi will use the opportunity of his presence in the extraordinary summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Riyadh to put forward important suggestions regarding the end of Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip. Prior to the departure of the Iranian delegation to Saudi Arabia to take part in the extraordinary summit, Amirabdollahian said on Saturday that in order to use the opportunity, the Iranian president will propose key suggestions in respect to halting war crimes and genocide in Gaza, as well as calling for delivery of humanitarian aid to the besieged region, and combating forced displacement of Gaza residents. According to the top diplomat, the Iranian chief executive is expected to underline that the resistance movement of Hamas is a Palestinian liberation faction. During the short trip, President Raisi will hold talks with certain influential leaders of the OIC member states on the issue of Palestine as well as bilateral cooperation with those nations. The OIC summit in Riyadh is supposed to send a strong message to warmongers in the West Asia region and pave the way for the end of war crimes and genocide in Palestine, the minister noted. The Iranian president left Tehran for Riyadh on Saturday morning with the aim of pursuing deterrent strategies in the face of the Israeli regime and to take part in the OIC extraordinary meeting. Raisi was seen off by deputy head of the Iranian Supreme Leader's office on international affairs and communications Mohsen Qomi. 4208**7129 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address First Group of Gaza Evacuees Arrives, Efforts Ongoing to Bring Others Home Republic of the Philippines - Department of Foreign Affairs PASAY CITY 11 November 2023 -- An initial group of thirty-four (34) Filipino nationals who had been caught in the armed conflict in Gaza finally arrived today in Manila, where the Filipinos were welcomed by Secretary for Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo, together with officials of the Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers' Affairs (OUMWA), the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW), Department of Health (DOH), Department of Social Welfare & Development (DSWD), and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), as well as Rep. Ron Salo of Kabayan Party-List. The Filipino evacuees are composed mostly of spouses and dependents of Palestinian nationals. Their journey out of the conflict zone was facilitated through intense, round-the-clock coordination between the DFA headquarters and the Philippine embassies in Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, as well as through painstaking diplomatic efforts led by the Secretary for Foreign Affairs in reaching out to several foreign governments. "President Marcos had been deeply concerned about the condition of our kababayans in Gaza, and therefore he constantly issued guidance for us to do everything necessary to bring them home", Secretary Manalo shared. The evacuees are part of the hundreds of foreign nationals who have been so far allowed to leave Gaza, as the territory has seen intense fighting and challenging humanitarian conditions over the past weeks. They entered the relative safety of Egypt through the Rafah border crossing, and were afterwards received by the Philippine Embassy in Cairo. From there, the Embassy facilitated their repatriation using the Department's Assistance-to-Nationals (ATN) Fund. "This would not have been possible without the determination and courage of our DFA personnel, especially those in our Embassies in Tel Aviv, Cairo, and Amman", said Secretary Manalo. "We are also very grateful to Israel, Egypt, and Qatar for extending assistance in the departure of our nationals", he added. Meanwhile, operations are still ongoing to arrange the exit of more Filipinos from Gaza, with another group being processed at the Rafah border crossing. Secretary Manalo stated that the DFA is strongly committed to perform its mandate of upholding the welfare of Filipinos overseas, and conveyed that no efforts will be spared to bring all of the affected nationals home. END NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Israeli forces gun down 3 Palestinian youths in violent attacks across West Bank Iran Press TV Sunday, 12 November 2023 12:49 AM Israeli forces have fatally shot three Palestinian young men in violent raids across the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Health Ministry announced the fatalities on Saturday, noting that one of those killed was from the northern city of Jenin, while the other two were from the southwestern town of Arraba. The official Palestinian Wafa news agency cited Wissam Bakr, the director of Jenin Governmental Hospital, as identifying the young male killed in the city as 19-year-old Amir Maher al-Qaisi. The agency added that another Palestinian was injured during the regime forces' attack on Jenin and its refugee camp. The raid saw the troops invading the city from various directions, deploying military vehicles and bulldozers and positioning snipers on the rooftops of several homes, it said. "The forces [then] began vandalizing infrastructure and roads, and destroying a number of power transformers in the city and in the vicinity of the refugee camp," Wafa reported. It added that following the attack, power outages were reported in the Jenin camp and its surroundings. The attack prompted confrontations with the locals, during which the regime's forces opened live fire on civilians, causing casualties. No further information was provided on two Palestinian youths who were killed by Israeli forces in the town of Arraba. The regime has escalated its violent raids across the West Bank, killing over 180 Palestinians throughout the occupied territory, since October 7, when it launched a war of aggression against the besieged Gaza Strip. More than 11,000 Palestinians, including 4,506 children, have been killed, and 27,490 others injured since the regime started the Gaza war in response to an operation staged by the territory's resistance groups. Reporting on Friday, the World Health Organization said a Palestinian child is being killed on average every 10 minutes in Gaza, warning that "nowhere and no one is safe" under Israel's relentless onslaught against the coastal territory. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN says 'horrible suffering' in Sudan only growing as more people are displaced Iran Press TV Saturday, 11 November 2023 7:09 PM The United Nations has raised the alarm over the "horrible suffering" of refugees in Sudan, warning that the dire situation is only getting worse as more people are displaced. More must be done to alleviate the suffering of the millions of people who have fled their homes to avoid the ongoing fighting in the country, Mamadou Dian Balde, the top regional official for the UN's refugee agency (UNHCR) said. According to a UN report, since a power struggle began in April between Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commander General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, thousands have been killed and millions more forced to flee from their homes. "Six months and six million people forced to move, that's an average of one million per month, it's horrible suffering," the top UN regional official told AFP. He said 1.2 million have left the country, "very proud people who find themselves begging" and whose lives have been "totally disrupted." The UN official warned that while the world's attention has been shifted to the Israeli war on Gaza, the number of people fleeing their homes in Sudan had started to rise again, as RSF forces advance toward Nyala, the country's second city in the heart of Darfur. Balde cited a cessation of fighting between the two sides as the top priority. Till now, attempts to put a binding ceasefire in place have failed, only resulting in brief and shaky truces. He reminded that extending aid to those affected by the war was also important. "We must alleviate the suffering (of refugees) by providing resources to these people whose numbers are only increasing," he added. The UN's humanitarian response plan in August called for around $1bn in finances, expecting the number of refugees to rise to about 1.8mn people by the end of 2023. Until now, the UN relief plan has only received 38 percent of the funding required, while "the needs are growing," the UN official noted, adding, "We need to create new camps, because the populations are at the border" and in "extremely miserable conditions .... We want development. We have to invest in these places because if we only give support to refugees, it will create tensions and tensions can translate into violence." Another UN official in the region, Dominique Hyde, said on social media on Thursday that "10,000 people seeking safety have arrived in the last three days." In related news, images posted online on Saturday showed the strategic Shambat Bridge, which crosses the White Nile connecting Khartoum's sister cities of Khartoum North and Omdurman, had collapsed. The army and the rivaling RSF paramilitary forces each blamed the other side for the collapse of the bridge. The army said, "The rebel militia destroyed the Shambat Bridge early this morning... adding a new crime to their record." On the other side, the RSF claimed, "The Burhan terrorist militia... destroyed the Shambat Bridge this morning, thinking that they could defeat our brave forces." According to local sources, the paramilitary forces had been allegedly using the Shambat Bridge as a route for sending supplies to their troops. Meanwhile, fresh peace talks between Sudan's two fighting sides resumed in late October in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. However, millions of people across the country are running out of food and the nation is on the brink of famine, according to the UN. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Israel will be eventually forced to back down in face of resistance front: Nasrallah Iran Press TV Saturday, 11 November 2023 5:49 PM The secretary general of Lebanon's Hezbollah resistance movement has hailed the steadfastness of Palestinian and Lebanese fighters in the face of Israeli aggression in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, stressing that Tel Aviv will eventually have no option but to retreat in another humiliation for its army. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah made the remarks in a Saturday televised speech broadcast live from the Lebanese capital city of Beirut on the occasion of Hezbollah Martyr's Day, which falls on November 11 annually. "Time is not in favor of the [Israeli] enemy and all factors, including the captives file, will build up pressure on it. We must continue the pressure, and those placing the main burden are the people of Gaza. "The enemy is confused and this is reflected in the contradictory statements being made by [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu," Nasrallah said. He emphasized that Hezbollah's operations have continued on a daily basis since his last speech on November 3, and that the activities of resistance fighters have intensified both in terms of numbers and type over the past week. "We have used attack drones for the first time in Lebanon's history as well as the heavy-caliber Burkan (Volcano) missiles, which can carry a warhead weighing up to 500 kilograms," the Hezbollah chief said. Nasrallah further noted that Hezbollah fighters quickly responded to the brutal killing of four civilians - three children and their grandmother - in an Israeli airstrike on the southern Lebanese town of Ainata, and struck Kiryat Shmona city near the Lebanese border with salvos of Katyusha rockets. "Israelis are doing their utmost to conceal their losses. We are sending reconnaissance drones into the northern sector of the occupied territories on a daily basis, and some of them are reaching Haifa and beyond," the Hezbollah leader said. He said high-ranking Israeli military officials have admitted that confrontations on Lebanon's border have escalated lately. "Pressure will continue from Lebanon's front and I salute heroic resistance fighters for this. The talk of the town here in Lebanon remains to be about developments on the battlefield. Eyes must remain fixed on the matter, as this battle is not akin to the previous ones," Nasrallah said. Attacks on Gaza hospitals reflect Israeli spirit of vengeance Elsewhere in his remarks, the Hezbollah chief stated that the Israeli military is publicly and openly attacking hospitals in the Gaza Strip under pathetic excuses, stressing that assaults on medical facilities reflect the Israeli spirit of vengeance. "A number of Zionist officials have said that all this carnage, acts of terror and barbaric actions have one main objective, which is subjugation. They are trying to say that the cost of demanding one's right is very high. "Through their crimes in Gaza, the Israelis want the Palestinians to forget all about their land. Israel wants Lebanon to stand idly by and observe wholesale destruction in Gaza," Nasrallah said. He argued that the Israeli army considers every home and every family in Gaza to be a legitimate target. "Since 1948, Israeli massacres have not deterred Palestinians from pursuing their rights. Did Israel manage to force the Lebanese nation to give up resistance in 1982 despite the destruction of thousands of homes and the killing of thousands of people? Israel killed thousands in the 2006 war in Lebanon, but the Lebanese people did not abandon the resistance," the Hezbollah secretary general said. Nasrallah also stated that Israelis should be the ones to despair as their atrocities in Gaza are dealing a heavy blow to the so-called normalization scheme. "The world public opinion has changed, and Israel's lies have been exposed. This is in favor of the resistance front and the people of Gaza. Time is running out for the enemy and the parties that are advocating it. All world leaders are calling for a ceasefire, except for the US administration and the British government," he stated. "Palestinians are not calling on participants in the extraordinary joint Arab-Islamic summit [in the Saudi capital city of Riyadh on Gaza conflict] to dispatch armies. They only want Arab and Muslim nations to stand united, shout in the face of Americans and demand an end to this aggression," Nasrallah said. On drone and missile attacks on US military bases in Syria and neighboring Iraq, Nasrallah said that Iraqis have stated that the assaults will stop only when the Israeli strikes on Gaza end. "Americans have threatened us through several channels. If you (Americans) want the other fronts to calm down, you have to stop the war on Gaza," the Hezbollah leader said. Power of resistance front emanates from Iran's support Nasrallah also emphasized that the power of Lebanese, Palestinian and other resistance groups in West Asia stems from Iran's support. "Iran does not direct the resistance movement, but rather protects and supports them." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Children in Gaza being denied right to life and health: UNICEF Iran Press TV Saturday, 11 November 2023 4:59 PM The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) says children in Gaza are facing a dire humanitarian situation amid an ongoing Israeli aggression which has paralyzed medical and healthcare services in the Palestinian territory. "Children in Gaza are hanging by a thread, particularly in the north ... Children's right to life and health is being denied," said Adele Khodr, UNICEF Middle East and North Africa Regional Director, on Saturday. A UNICEF report released on Saturday said many healthcare facilities dedicated to children in Gaza had ceased their operations either due to the Israeli regime's bombardment of hospitals or areas around them or due to an electricity shortage that has been caused by the Israeli blockade. The report said the Israeli regime has a duty to protect hospitals and ensure the delivery of lifesaving medical supplies during war. Khodr said children in Gaza, especially those living in the north of the enclave, would face serious problems if the Israeli regime does not stop its attacks on hospitals. "Thousands and thousands of children remain in northern Gaza as hostilities intensify. These children have nowhere to go and are at extreme risk. We call for the attacks on health care facilities to stop immediately and for the urgent delivery of fuel and medical supplies to hospitals across all Gaza, including the northern parts of the Strip," he said. More than 11,000 people have been killed in over a month of Israeli bombardment of Gaza. The death toll includes more than 5,000 children. The UN and other international organizations have documented numerous cases of attacks on hospitals or buildings around them by the Israeli regime in Gaza, including an attack targeting the Ahli Arab hospital on October 14, which left nearly 500 people dead. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Israeli forces kill a child every 10 minutes in Gaza: WHO Iran Press TV Saturday, 11 November 2023 2:33 PM A Palestinian child is killed on average every 10 minutes in the besieged Gaza Strip, says the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), warning that "nowhere and no one is safe" under Israel's relentless onslaught on the coastal enclave. Speaking to the United Nations Security Council on Friday, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the situation in Gaza as "desperate". "On average, a child is killed every 10 minutes in Gaza," he told the 15-member council. The WHO chief, who is from Ethiopia's Tigray region, recalled the sounds of tracer bullets, gunfire, and "the smell and images" of war, saying, "Nowhere and no one is safe." "I understand what the children of Gaza must be going through because as a child, I went through the same." The WHO director also warned that the Palestinian territory's health system "is on its knees." He said there have been more than 250 attacks on health centers in Gaza since the start of Israel's brutal attacks on the enclave. "Hospital corridors crammed with the injured, the sick, the dying; morgues overflowing; surgery without anesthesia; tens of thousands of displaced people sheltering at hospitals." The head of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, Marwan Jilani, also addressed the Security Council by video, calling on members to "do all you can to spare further deaths and sufferings." Jilani warned about the dire situation at the Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City, which the Red Crescent said was fired on Friday by Israeli snipers. "Our utmost concern is the direct threat to the lives of all those wounded and sick, together with tens of thousands of civilians, including thousands of children." "They are looking at you, imploring you to act to stop another possible massacre unfolding," he told the council. The Security Council has so far failed to issue a resolution on Israel's war on the Gaza Strip. Israel waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm into the occupied territories in response to the occupying regime's intensified crimes against the Palestinian people. The regime's forces have so far killed over 11,078, including more than 4,500 children, according to health authorities. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Muslim leaders call for immediate end to Israeli war on Gaza at Riyadh summit Iran Press TV Saturday, 11 November 2023 1:33 PM Muslim and Arab leaders have gathered in Saudi Arabia for an extraordinary Islamic-Arab summit to discuss the dire situation in the besieged Gaza Strip amid Israel's savagery against the Palestinians. Leaders from Iran, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Iraq and other countries attended the summit in Riyadh on Saturday. In his opening speech, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reiterated the kingdom's call for an "immediate cessation" of military operations in Gaza, holding Israel responsible for "crimes" against civilians in the blockaded territory. "This is a humanitarian catastrophe that has proved the failure of the international community and the UN Security Council to put an end to Israel's gross violations of international humanitarian laws, and prove the dual standards adopted by the world," the Saudi crown prince said. Bin Salman further called for unified efforts to end the siege on Gaza and deliver aid, adding that the "only solution" to achieve stability in the region is through "ending occupation and settlement [policies]." "Israel's flagrant violations of international laws must be stopped," he said. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas also noted that in addition to Gaza, Israel has intensified its raids in the occupied West Bank. He urged the US administration to put an end to "Israel's aggression, occupation, violation and desecration" of Palestine's holy sites." "No military and security solutions are acceptable as they have all failed. We categorically reject any efforts to displace our people from Gaza or the West Bank," Abbas said. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi also emphasized that the policy of "collective punishment" by killing, siege and forcible transfer are unacceptable. "This cannot be interpreted as self-defense and must be stopped immediately," Sisi said, calling for "an immediate sustainable ceasefire in Gaza." Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for an international peace conference to find a permanent solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestinians. "What we need in Gaza is not pauses for a couple of hours, rather we need a permanent ceasefire," he said. The Turkish president also noted "it is a shame that Western countries, which always talk about human rights and freedoms, remain silent in the face of the ongoing massacres in Palestine." Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim also expressed hope that a humanitarian truce would be reached soon. "For how long will the international community treat Israel as if it is above international law," he said. President Bashar al-Assad of Syria said a lack of concrete punitive measures against Israel would render the summit toothless. "If we do not have real tools for pressure, then any step we take or speech we give will have no meaning." Assad further stated that no country in the region should engage in any "political process" with Israel given the ongoing violence in Gaza, until a lasting ceasefire is reached. Jordan's King Abdullah strongly condemned Israel's complete blockade of Gaza, saying Amman rejects "the mentality that wants to turn the Gaza Strip into an unviable place." "The injustice inflicted on our Palestinian brothers is proof of the failure of the international community to do justice to them and guarantee their rights to dignity, self-determination and the establishment of their state," he said. The extraordinary joint summit come as Israel is continuing its deadly bombing campaign in Gaza despite growing calls to end the regime's atrocities. Israel waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm into the occupied territories in response to the occupying regime's intensified crimes against the Palestinian people. The regime has killed over 11,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Raeisi calls for international tribunal to prosecute Israeli leaders for Gaza genocide Iran Press TV Saturday, 11 November 2023 1:29 PM President Ebrahim Raeisi of Iran says the Israeli regime must be brought to justice in international courts over its genocide of the Palestinian people in the besieged Gaza Strip. Raeisi made the remarks while addressing the joint emergency meeting of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on the issue of Gaza in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, on Saturday. The Iranian president said the crimes committed by the usurping Zionist regime in recent weeks have brought shame on a historical scale to morality, law and humanity. Raeisi said the US government was the mastermind and main accomplice in the crimes of Israel. "Now that the international assemblies under the influence of the United States are suffering from indecisiveness, and lack of character and identity, we must take the field." The president said the Arab and Muslim countries shoulder the responsibility towards the issue of Palestine and the oppressed people of Gaza. Raeisi proposed Iran's 10 urgent solutions and suggestions for the benefit of the Palestinian nation. The president urged Muslim leaders attending the summit to take a "decisive and swift" decision in favor of Palestinians. Raeisi said the United States and Israel must be obliged to accept an immediate halt to the war machine. The Iranian president gave primacy to the complete lifting of the human blockade of Gaza and immediate and unconditional reopening of the Rafah border crossing in cooperation with Egypt to send humanitarian aid to people in Gaza as Iran's second proposal. The president said the pressure exerted by the US and its Western allies is by no means an excuse to close borders. As Iran's third offer, Raeisi urged Israel's immediate military withdrawal from Gaza, saying the Gazan territory belongs to Palestinians and not those who act under the command of the US and Israel. He warned all countries, including Muslim nations, to be cautious about any American-Zionist plot under the pretext of ensuring security in Palestine. Raeisi said Iran's fourth proposal urges all Muslim countries to terminate any political and economic relations with Israel. He said economic sanction, particularly in the energy sector, against the regime must figure high on the agenda. As Iran's fifth offer, the president called on all Muslim countries to label the Israeli regime's army a terrorist organization. He stressed the importance of establishing an international court to prosecute the criminal leaders of Israel and the US, particularly those who have played a role in the genocide in Gaza. The president called for the establishment of a special fund for the immediate reconstruction of Gaza with the acceptance of the Muslim countries attending the summit. Referring to an Israeli airstrike on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in the besieged Gaza Strip, which killed at least 500 Palestinians, the president said October 18 should be named as the day of genocide and crime against humanity. If Israel keeps its crimes going in the "unequal war," Raeisi said, Muslim countries must arm the Palestinian people and help them fight the occupying warmonger. The president undercored the importance of the liberation of Palestine "from the river to the sea" as a permanent and democratic solution. US main perpetrator, accomplice in Israeli war crimes in Gaza President Raeisi lashed out at Israel for launching the bombardment of Gaza in violation of all international rules using phosphorus bombs and other prohibited weapons with the aim of genocide, saying the regime has turned half of the besieged territory into a hill of dirt. "What is taking place in Gaza is a confrontation between the axis of honor and axis of evil, and everyone must clarify their side." The president said the US is the main perpetrator and accomplice in Israel's war crimes in Gaza. Israel is the "illegitimate child of America," Raiesi said. "It is America that has preferred support it over the sacred lives of thousands of oppressed Palestinian children. By immediately forming its security cabinet in the occupied territories, America encouraged the Zionist regime to carry out criminal operations against the helpless people of Gaza and called it legitimate defense," the president said. The claim of legitimate defense is "one of the bitter ironies of history, which goes against any established legal rules and international standards," the president said. He said the US sent its warship to the region to effectively enter the war on behalf of Israel. "The all-out support of the Zionist regime in the UN Security Council and preventing the adoption of a resolution to stop the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza was another service of America to the aggressors, allowing them to conduct war crimes more than ever," Raeisi stated. The Iranian president drew an analogy between the scale of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza and the US crime of atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Raeisi said the Muslim world would be able to overcome problems and hardships through unity and integrity. He said Iran is for the policy of good neighborliness and harmony within the Muslim world. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Drones strike 2 US military bases in eastern Syria, northern Iraq Iran Press TV Saturday, 11 November 2023 1:14 PM Amid rising anti-US sentiment over Washington's unconditional support for the Israeli onslaught on the Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, unmanned aerial vehicles have separately targeted two major bases in eastern Syria and neighboring Iraq, where US military forces and trainers are stationed. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of anti-terror fighters, in a statement published on its Telegram channel claimed responsibility for the attack on the Rmeilan airfield in Syria's northeastern province of Hasakah on Saturday afternoon. It said the base was targeted by two drones and the aircraft "directly hit their targets." There were no immediate reports about the extent of damage at the military facility, and possible casualties. Earlier, Lebanon's Arabic-language al-Mayadeen television news network, citing informed sources speaking on condition of anonymity, reported that a drone had targeted al-Harir Air Base, situated 45 kilometers (27.9 miles) north of the Erbil International Airport in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region. Abu Alaa al-Walaei, secretary general of the Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada anti-terror resistance group, emphasized on Thursday evening that retaliatory assaults by Iraqi resistance fighters on American occupation forces will continue unabated. He said the strikes on US military positions in Iraq will stop only when the Israeli strikes on Gaza end, and humanitarian aid convoys reach locals in the besieged Palestinian coastal enclave without any restrictions. The general secretary of the Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada group also said the Islamic Resistance in Iraq will firmly stand by the side of the Palestinian nation and its resistance fighters. The US House of Representatives on November 2 passed a standalone $14.3-billion military assistance package for Israel. The legislation, however, is yet to clear the Senate. Washington, which has backed Tel Aviv's ferocious attacks on Gaza as a means of "self-defense," has also been casting its veto against the United Nations Security Council resolutions that called on the occupying regime to cease its aggression. US occupation troops have been attacked at least 40 times in Iraq and Syria since October 7, when Israel launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip, including hospitals, residences, and houses of worship, following Palestinian resistance fighters' surprise attack, dubbed Operation al-Aqsa Storm, against the regime. More than 11,000 Palestinians, including 4,506 children and 3,027 women, have been killed as a result of the savage Israeli bombardment. So far, 56 American personnel have been injured in retaliatory attacks with traumatic brain injuries or minor injuries, though all have returned to duty, according to the Pentagon. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Gaza's largest hospital shuts down after running out of fuel Iran Press TV Saturday, 11 November 2023 11:20 AM Operations at the largest hospital in the besieged Gaza Strip have been suspended after it ran out of fuel, the spokesperson for the territory's health ministry says. "As a result, 39 newborn babies inside incubators are at the risk of death" at the hospital, "where there are 45 babies," said Ashraf al-Qidra on Satrday. The complex is also a temporary home to thousands of Palestinians who are seeking refuge from the Israeli aggression. "The situation is worse than anyone can imagine. We are besieged inside the al-Shifa Medical Complex, and the occupation has targeted most of the buildings inside," Qidra said, confirming that at least one baby has died after the hospital ran out of fuel. Qidra said Israeli forces are firing on people moving inside the complex, which is limiting the ability to move from one department to another. "Some people tried to leave the hospital and they were fired at," he said, adding that there was no electricity and no Internet. Aid agency Doctors Without Borders said that it was "extremely concerned" about the safety of patients and medical staff at al-Shifa hospital. "Over the last few hours, the attacks against al-Shifa Hospital have dramatically intensified. Our staff at the hospital has reported a catastrophic situation inside just a few hours ago," it said in a statement. The director of the hospital said the compound was struck repeatedly overnight Friday-Saturday and lost power for hours after its generator was hit. "We received calls about dozens of dead and hundreds wounded in air and artillery strikes, but our ambulances weren't able to go out because of gunfire," said Mohammad Abu Salmiya. The regional director for Near and Middle East at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said information coming out of Al-Shifa hospital were "distressing". In a brief post on X, Fabrizio Carboni said the situation "cannot continue like this" as "thousands of wounded, displaced people and medical staff are at risk". Palestinian Minister of Health Dr Mai Al-Kaila condemned the international community for failing to protect hospitals from Israel's bombardment of Gaza. "What is happening now against hospitals is a decision to kill those in them, as the wounded are dying due to the exhaustion of fuel and medical consumables," Kaila told reporters. "Surgeons are performing surgeries without anesthesia, and there is no electricity on the lights of mobile phones for them to operate in the night. "The catastrophe that is occurring in Gaza now is unprecedented in Palestinian and international history. "Our hospitals are being besieged and bombed, and their patients, medical staff, and displaced people are being killed in full view of the entire world." At least 198 health personnel have been killed. Fifty-three ambulances have been destroyed. Twenty-one hospitals and 47 primary care centers are out of service since the war broke out on October 7. The health ministry said 135 health institutions were targeted by Israel. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address On first Saudi visit for emergency meeting, Raeisi says US stonewalling Gaza ceasefire Iran Press TV Saturday, 11 November 2023 8:59 AM Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi says the US is stonewalling a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip as he starts a visit to Saudi Arabia to attend an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). President Raeisi arrived in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, his first visit since the two countries agreed to restore diplomatic relations in March. Footage aired on the al-Ekhbariya channel showed Raeisi, wearing a traditional Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, greeting Saudi officials at the airport after disembarking from his plane. "If the crimes being committed nowadays in Gaza are not crimes against humanity, what is a fine example of such criminal acts then?" he said at Mehrabad airport in Tehran before heading to the kingdom. "America declares in its statements that it does not want the scope of the war to expand and has even sent messages to Iran and some countries. "The statement is, however, not consistent with its actions. America is directing the war machine in Gaza. It is blocking a ceasefire in Gaza and expanding the scope of the war. The true nature of the United States must be exposed to the entire world," the Iranian president noted. Raeisi highlighted that his trip comes at the invitation of Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. He went on to state that the Iranian request for an extraordinary summit on Gaza conflict dates back to a month ago. "Heads of Muslim countries are expected to come up with a landmark decision on the issue of Palestine, which is the most pressing matter in the world. This decision should then be fully implemented and put into effect. This arena is no longer the sphere of words and declaration of positions. It should be the scene of actions," the Iranian president underlined. Raeisi described the immediate cessation of Israeli bombardments, mechanisms aimed at helping the oppressed and resilient people of Gaza, removal of the Israeli blockade on the territory, and realization of Gazans' rights as the primary responsibilities of the OIC, stressing that the intergovernmental organization was originally founded to resolve the Palestinian issue. "Upon my return from Tashkent, I stated that the issue of Palestine had overshadowed all other topics at the 16th ECO (Economic Cooperation Organization) Summit. I hope to make the Iranian nation's voice heard, and that convergence and unity of Muslim countries could solve the Palestinian conflict," he said. Raeisi highlighted that all thinkers, scholars and the intelligentsia across the globe have expressed their solidarity with Palestinians, saying, "The international community is loudly protesting at the US support for the Zionist regime's crimes and genocide, which in fact amount to war crimes." Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip, including hospitals, residences, and houses of worship, since Palestinian resistance movements launched their surprise attack, dubbed Operation al-Aqsa Storm, against the regime on October 7. At least 11,078 Palestinians have been killed, including 4,506 children and 3,027 women. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Colombia brings war crime charges against Israel's Netanyahu over Gaza bloodshed Iran Press TV Saturday, 11 November 2023 8:29 AM Colombian President Gustavo Petro says he will formally bring war crime charges against Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his regime's ongoing bloodshed in the besieged Gaza Strip. Petro said on X on Thursday that his foreign minister Alvaro Leyva would meet with the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday to formally prosecute Netanyahu over "the massacre of the Palestinian people's children and civilians he has caused." Israel waged the war on the impoverished Gaza Strip on October 7 after Palestinian resistance groups launched the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm into the occupied territories in response to the Israeli regime's intensified crimes against Palestinians. Since then, the occupying regime has embarked on an incessant bombardment of the densely-populated enclave, with the Gaza-based health ministry announcing on Friday that 11,078 people, including 4,506 children, have been killed, and 27,490 others have sustained injuries. Petro's announcement came on the heels of a supportive statement for his Algerian counterpart, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who called for a similar prosecution, earlier in the week, against Netanyahu and his regime. "The Republic of Colombia will contribute to the complaint by the Republic of Algeria filed before the International Criminal Court for war crimes against Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu in light of the massacre of children and civilians of the Palestinian people that he has caused," the Colombian president said. Petro previously recalled his ambassador to Tel Aviv over what he called "genocide of Palestinians", as the Tel Aviv regime has faced mounting international pressure to do more to protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza. ICC prosecutor Karim Khan has already warned that his office is collecting evidence that could result in an international investigation against Israel's political and military leaders, as the occupying entity keeps pounding almost all areas and facilities of the blockaded territory, including hospitals, schools and residential buildings. Israel, like the United States, is not a member of the ICC. It refused to cooperate with the court in 2021 over the war crimes investigation into the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN rights chief calls for probe, rights groups sue Israel at ICC for Gaza 'genocide' Iran Press TV Saturday, 11 November 2023 8:10 AM The United Nations human rights chief has called for an investigation into Israel's use of "high-impact explosive weapons" in the Gaza Strip as the regime presses ahead with its brutal onslaught against the besieged area for more than a month. Volker Turk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, made the call in a news conference during a visit to Jordan's capital of Amman on Friday and said the high-impact explosive weapons used by Israel had caused indiscriminate destruction in the Gaza Strip. "The extensive Israeli bombardment of Gaza, including the use of high-impact explosive weapons in densely populated areas ... is clearly having a devastating humanitarian and human rights impact," Turk told reporters in Amman, without specifying what weapons he was referring to. "The attacks must be investigated ... We have very serious concerns that these amount to disproportionate attacks in breach of international humanitarian law." Israel waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after Palestinian resistance groups launched the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm into the occupied territories in response to the Israeli regime's intensified crimes against Palestinians. The Palestinian resistance movements of Hamas and Islamic jihad fired about 5,000 missiles at the occupied territories, killing at least 1,400 Israeli troops and settlers, also taking captive some 250 Israelis during their attack. Since then, the occupying regime has embarked on an incessant bombardment of the Gaza Strip, with the Gaza-based health ministry announcing on Friday that 11,078 people, including 4,506 children, have been killed, and 27,490 others have sustained injuries. The Tel Aviv regime has also blocked access to water, food, and electricity in Gaza, plunging the coastal area into a humanitarian crisis. Israel must protect Palestinians in West Bank Speaking at the news conference, Turk called on the Israeli regime to take immediate action to safeguard Palestinians in the occupied West Bank as they face ramped-up violence in the wake of the occupying entity's ongoing onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip. "I also appeal, as a matter of urgency, for Israeli authorities to take immediate measures, to take steps to ensure the protection of Palestinians in the West Bank, who are being on a daily basis subjected to violence from Israeli forces and settlers, ill treatment, arrests, evictions, intimidation and humiliation," Turk told reporters. Highlighting the grim statistics, the UN human rights chief said 176 Palestinians, including 43 children and one woman, had lost their lives in incidents involving Israeli security forces since October 7, when the regime launched a bombardment campaign against Gaza. At least eight Palestinians fell victim to violence perpetrated by Israeli settlers. Turk underlined Israel's responsibility to thoroughly investigate all incidents of violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank promptly and effectively, providing victims with the remedies they deserve. The UN human rights chief condemned the prevailing impunity for such violations by the Israeli regime, denouncing it as "unacceptable, dangerous, and a clear violation of Israel's obligation under international human rights law." The escalating violence in the occupied West Bank has raised concerns that the region could evolve into a broader conflict as the Israeli regime has for the past 35 days been pounding the besieged Gaza Strip with missiles. Palestinian rights groups submit anti-Israel lawsuit at ICC In another development on Friday, three Palestinian rights organizations filed a lawsuit in the International Criminal Court (ICC) and called on the institution to probe Israel for enforcing an apartheid system and committing genocide in Gaza. Lodged by Al-Haq, Al Mezan, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, the lawsuit stressed the need for immediate "attention to the continuous barrage of Israeli air strikes on densely populated civilian areas within the Gaza Strip." The legal document also urged the ICC to broaden its ongoing investigation into war crimes by examining issues such as "the suffocating siege imposed on [Gaza], the forced displacement of its population, the use of toxic gas, and the deprivation of essential necessities like food, water, fuel, and electricity." These actions, as asserted in the lawsuit, constitute "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity," encompassing allegations of "genocide." Moreover, the three organizations called for the issuance of arrest warrants targeting Israel's President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Military Affairs Minister Yoav Gallant. Since 2021, the ICC has been investigating Israel's violations of international law in the occupied Palestinian territories, particularly looking into the occupation's possible war crimes and crimes against humanity from 2014 onwards. Israel is not a member of the ICC and rejects the court's jurisdiction. The illegal entity has previously refused to formally engage with the international tribunal's investigations. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Lebanese resistance fighters fully prepared for Israeli aggression, says Hezbollah officer Iran Press TV Saturday, 11 November 2023 6:07 AM A Hezbollah officer says his comrades with the Lebanese resistance movement are fully prepared for any Israeli assault, and have been mobilized in two regions on the border between Lebanon and the 1948 Israeli-occupied territories, as well as the occupied Golan Heights and the Galilee region. The officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Lebanon's al-Mayadeen television news network in an interview aired on Friday that the mobilization of Hezbollah resistance fighters has operational purposes, emphasizing that the forces remain on high alert to face any Israeli act of aggression. "The most outstanding achievement by Hezbollah was to draw a large number of Israeli forces from the internal and southern sectors of the occupied Palestinian lands to the northern front, which consequently eased the pressure on our brethren in the Gaza Strip," he said. The officer added that another major achievement was confusion of the occupying Tel Aviv regime, and avoidance of the conflict from spilling over the border. He went on to hail operations carried out by Hezbollah fighters against Israeli reconnaissance and monitoring facilities on the border, referring to Jal al-Alam outpost and the al-Abad military site as the most strategic targets struck. The officer highlighted that the operations commenced in the occupied Shebaa Farms, and expanded to include any area within a radius of 100 kilometers (62 miles). "A large number of Israeli Merkava battle tanks were targeted with our guided missiles, and taken out of service. Hezbollah resistance fighters struck and seriously damaged many Israeli military sites near the border with Lebanon through missile and artillery strikes." "The Israeli military consequently had to mobilize far away from its conventional facilities, and abandon some of them in order to avoid being hit," he pointed out. "Hezbollah fighters have launched salvoes of rockets toward the occupied Palestinian territories. They have managed to disable the Iron Dome anti-missile system in several instances, especially during the latest attacks on Kiryat Shmona town as well as Israeli military positions in the Golan Heights, Zaoura village, and Wadi al-Asal area in the Shebaa Farms," the officer noted. The remarks came on the same day that Israeli media outlets reported that Hezbollah forces had fired three guided missiles at Margaliot moshav, located along the border with Lebanon in the Upper Galilee. Later on, the Lebanese resistance fighters targeted Israeli army positions in Burket Risha, Hadab al-Bustan and Ramim regions, inflicting damages at the sites. Hezbollah announced in a separate statement that its fighters had targeted Israeli infantry troops in Shtula moshav in northern Israel, leaving casualties on the soldiers. The Lebanese forces also launched an attack with the help of three armed aerial vehicles, inflicting losses on Israeli forces. Israeli media reported that three soldiers were transferred to Rambam Hospital in Haifa to receive medical treatment, following the Hezbollah drone strike. The Israeli military, in response to the missile and artillery attacks, struck a number of Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon. Seven Hezbollah members were reportedly killed in the attacks, taking the total death toll of the Lebanese fighters to 78 since the cross-border clashes began in early October. Hezbollah has warned that it will join the Palestinian resistance group Hamas and its allies in the fight against Israel if the regime escalates its aggression on Gaza and in case foreign military forces intervene to help the Israeli regime in the battle. Hezbollah's Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on November 2 that the Lebanese resistance movement entered the battle against Israel on October 8, a day after Gaza-based Palestinian resistance movements launched their surprise attack, Operation al-Aqsa Storm, against the regime. Nasrallah said the daily exchange of fire with Israeli forces along the Lebanese border might seem modest but is of prime significance, calling the confrontations unprecedented since 1948. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Gaza's healthcare system 'has reached point of no return': Red Cross Iran Press TV Saturday, 11 November 2023 3:10 AM The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned that the healthcare system in the Gaza Strip, which has been under a hugely indiscriminate Israeli war for over a month now, has "reached a point of no return." In a statement on Friday, the body described the coastal sliver's healthcare apparatus as "overstretched, running on thin supplies, and increasingly unsafe." The overall situation, it added, was "risking the lives of thousands of wounded, sick, and displaced people." More than 11,000 Palestinians, including 4,506 children, have been killed, and 27,490 others sustained injuries since October 7, when the occupying regime started the war against the coastal sliver in response to an operation staged by the territory's resistance groups. During the war, the regime has been taking direct aim at hospitals, ambulances, and other healthcare targets under the pretext that they are used to either accommodate or transport members of Gaza's resistance groups. Also on Friday, the head of the World Health Organization said the healthcare system in Gaza "is on its knees." "The situation on the ground is impossible to describe. Hospital corridors are crammed with the injured, the sick, and the dying. Morgues overflowing. Surgery without anesthesia. Tens of thousands of displaced people sheltering at hospitals. Families crammed into overcrowded schools, desperate for food and water," he said. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, said 20 of Gaza's 36 hospitals were no longer functioning, including a pediatric hospital that has stopped operations after a reported Israeli strike in the area. Earlier on Friday, the regime pummeled Gaza's Shifa Hospital, which was housing nearly 80,000 people running from heavy ground battles and airstrikes. Reports said at least three strikes laid into the facility over several hours, hitting its courtyard and obstetrics department. Some of those fleeing the hospital said only a few hundred badly wounded patients and doctors had remained behind. Marwan Jilani, director-general of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, meanwhile, said that the concern for civilian life had now shifted to the survivability of the sick and wounded. "If no aid gets to the north of the Gaza Strip, we will soon see infants dying because their mothers cannot feed them," Jilani said. "Many people will starve and die of diseases." The regime has also cut off the flow of basic supplies, such as water, electricity, medicines, and fuel, to one of the world's most densely populated territories that houses over two million Palestinians. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address America's 'blind support' encouraging Israel in committing genocide: Palestinian envoy Iran Press TV Saturday, 11 November 2023 1:36 AM The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations Office in Geneva has lashed out at the US for its "blind support" for the Israeli regime amid Tel Aviv's ongoing genocidal war against the Gaza Strip. Addressing a UN gathering in Geneva on Friday, Ibrahim Khraishi said the American support served to encourage the regime to behave as if it was "above the law." "The real friend of Israel," he said, referring to Washington, "should raise the red flag in front of their face and tell them you have to stop." More than 11,000 Palestinians, including 4,506 children, have been killed, and 27,490 others sustained injuries since October 7, when the occupying regime started the war against the besieged coastal sliver in response to an operation staged by the territory's resistance groups. The US, Israel's biggest and oldest ally, has backed Tel Aviv's ferocious attacks on the Palestinian territory as "self-defense," and has provided the regime with thousands of arms consignments since the onset of the war. Washington has also been casting its veto against the United Nations Security Council's resolutions that call on the regime to cease its aggression. Khraishi insisted that what was taking place was "not a war between Israel and the fighters of [the Gaza-based resistance movement of] Hamas. It is a genocide." And "the genocide is taking place in full view of the whole world, on TV screens," he added. The envoy, meanwhile, slammed shocking "double standards" in the international response, contrasting Western countries' total condemnation of Russia's war in Ukraine with the refusal by many to condemn the Israeli regime's bloodletting in Gaza. "This is something that humanity should be ashamed of," he said. The meeting saw dozens of ambassadors observing a minute of silence for the thousands killed in the war raging in Gaza. Some 40 ambassadors, mainly from Muslim countries, also signed a joint call demanding that the international community take urgent action to halt the bloodshed and address the dire humanitarian crisis in the territory. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Cambodia's Hun Manet goes up against the private sector Higher taxes coupled with an inexperienced government could create the friction that every authoritarian fears. A commentary by David Hutt 2023.11.11 -- On November 13, Cambodia's princeling prime minister, Hun Manet, will meet with Cambodia's aggravated private sector for his administration's first Government-Private Sector Forum which his nascent government has been preparing for months. There has already been a public furore over the likely rise in taxation, which Hun Manet has denied will happen, but anyone with sense knows it must happen. The property sector is in a very bad way. Worse is the banking sector, where high private debt has everyone on alter and is leading to sleepless nights amongst the middle classesdomestic credit to the private sector stands at 182 percent of GDP as of last year, according to a World Bank report from last month (p. 46). By comparison, in China, it was 220 percent. Wetting our appetites, Hun Manet has suggested that he will announce new policies, including for the property sector, later this month. One could be to allow foreigners to buy villas in gated communities (boreys), where most of the toxic credit in the property sector seems to be. At the same time, however, Hun Manet will be being told by his eldersincluding his father, Hun Sen, Cambodia's ruler for almost four decadesthat he cannot give away too much to the private sector. Hun Manet is an inexperienced, slightly hollow leader whose legitimacy is tied to being his father's chosen successor, not any of his own achievements (yet). No 'social bargain' The upcoming forum will be a moment when some people in the private sectorthose expected to fund the lavish lifestyles of the political nobility and the increasing tax burdens of the state, but without getting an actual seat at the political tablethink they can gain an advantage. There is no "social bargain" in Cambodia between the political nobility and commoners. If the economy goes pear-shaped, the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) won't voluntarily resign from power, nor would it allow the masses to openly protest on the streets. However, there is a delicate bargain between the political nobility and the private sector. The task for all authoritarian regimes is this: how do you ensure that the private sector pays the piper but doesn't call the tune? After all, why maintain the political nobility (which is rentier in nature) when the private sector isn't getting something in return? Why not go over the heads of the political rent-seekers? This dynamic isn't specific to Cambodia. In China and Vietnam, the defining policies of Xi Jinping and Nguyen Phu Trong, the two communist parties' general secretaries, have been a mammoth crackdown on the private sector that reasserts the communists' monopoly on power as part of vast anti-corruption campaigns. Why? Because authoritarian governments only have to be good at one thing: denying space for any alternative to their authority. But private sectors would be an alternative if they weren't constrained, as seemed to be the case in both communist states before 2012, the year Xi and Trong came to power. Indeed, businesses and tycoons might start demanding the predictability of the rule of law and private property rights; they might want a direct say in politics; they might start to publicly criticize their political masters (think Jack Ma of Alibaba!); and they might protest by denying the state the taxation it needs to survive. Splurging on titles How do you rectify this? You co-opt the private sector; you turn a blind eye to its dodgy actions; you create policies favorable to its advancement; you intermarry your political nobility with the economic elites; you arrest outspoken individuals for corruption to set an example of what happens if someone steps out of line. During its succession process this year, the CPP in Cambodia has tried to appease the private sector. It has splurged on the number of oknha titles it awarded; as of June 2023, there were 1,299 people with the honorific, although the number grew after the July general elections The number of land concessions and other corrupt practices also boomed. The Cambodia Oknha Association was launched in June by Cambodia's most prominent tycoons, with Hun Sen as honorary president. Ostensibly a way for the ruling party to collect "charitable" donations, it is actually a way for the most powerful oknha to constrain their lessors and do Hun Sen's bidding. Hun Manet's government now has 1,422 secretaries or undersecretaries of state, more than double the number his father's government had. Many of these positions are bought and allow the occupiers to extract patronage payments. Moreover, the new administration has vowed to run the country in a more technocratic and economic-minded manner. The apparent insinuation is that it will focus on finances, not playing at geopolitics. It has maintained or appointed ministers whom the private sector trusts. Aun Pornmoniroth, the powerful finance minister, kept his job and is now the real architect of government policy. Sok Chenda Sophea, formerly the head of the Council for the Development of Cambodia, the government body tasked with attracting and managing foreign investment, is now foreign minister. Keo Rottanak, the new Minister of Mines and Energy, was managing director of the state-owned electricity provider Electricite du Cambodge. Chheang Ra, the new health minister, was director of the state-run Calmette Hospital. However, constraining the private sector and economic barons will become a lot more difficult. Things were easier in the past when the lifestyles of the political nobility were relatively cheap (a few billion dollars) and when the Cambodian state had a small budget that was primarily funded by foreign aid. In other words, when the political nobility wasn't so reliant on the private sector for funds. Higher taxation coming? But that's changing. Domestic revenue increased from $247 million (or 8 percent of GDP) in 1998 to $6.8 billion (23 percent of GDP) in 2022. During the same period, expenditure rose from $409 million (13 percent of GDP) to $7.9 billion (27 percent of GDP). In fact, the spike was much more recent. In 2013, domestic tax revenue was just $900 million. By last year, it had spiked to $3.45 billion, more than a threefold increase in less than ten years. The government's Panglossian Pentagonal Strategy imagines Cambodia being an upper middle-income country by 2030, and an advanced economy by 2050. These grand plans will have to be paid for by higher taxation and new levies, despite Hun Manet's assertions otherwise. As the IMF put it in a report last year: "A higher revenue-to-GDP ratio would be needed to finance the higher public spending (such as on health, education, and infrastructure) typically associated with middle income countries." The task for Hun Manet's stewardship over the vast CPP system is how the political nobility gets more revenue without giving away more of its political power in return. Do you turn an even blinder eye to corruption? Do you give the private sector more of a say in policy? Do you seek to divide and rule by unleashing a vast anti-corruption campaign that reasserts your monopoly of power? Whether the CPP can continue to appease the private sector remains to be seen. Perhaps Hun Manet's regime will be less threatened while Hun Sen is still around; the private sector is either terrified or loyal to the former premier. But greater taxation coupled with an inexperienced government could create the sort of friction that every authoritarian regime fears. David Hutt is a research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS), the Southeast Asia Columnist at the Diplomat, and associate editor at Contemporary Southeast Asia journal. As a journalist and analyst, he has covered Southeast Asian politics since 2014. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of RFA. Copyright 1998-2023, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content November not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address After Winning Back Nagorno-Karabakh, What Will Azerbaijan's Authoritarian Leader Do Next? By Joshua Kucera November 11, 2023 Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stood in the main square of the conquered capital of the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh on October 15. He raised the Azerbaijani flag up the pole, a symbolic completion of the country's long-awaited victory over Armenian occupation. Aliyev was being filmed but was entirely alone in the frame. "All the promises I made during the last 20 years and all the tasks I set before myself have been fulfilled," he said into the camera. It raised the question: If all the tasks have been fulfilled, then what now? The quest to recapture Nagorno-Karabakh from the Armenian forces that occupied it since the early 1990s has represented the guiding light of Aliyev's entire presidency; it is the issue to which all other priorities were to be subordinated. "The struggle to restore independence, territorial integrity, and sovereignty has been the main motive in the last, more than 20 years, ever since our lands became occupied," Elchin Amirbayov, a senior Aliyev envoy for special assignments, told RFE/RL. "Now the issue is over. We restored our pride. We also restored historical justice." But many observers are not sure that the issue is over. For decades, rallying the nation against the Armenian enemy and the injustice of the occupation was a surefire method to mobilize a population even as economic and social discontent rose. Giving that up, many say, will be difficult. In his speeches, Aliyev still devotes considerable time to Armenians' past misdeeds. At the flag-raising ceremony in October, he spoke of "Armenian savagery" and gloated over the fates of the former de facto leaders who are now sitting behind bars in Baku. "The one unifying mobilizing ideology in the country is that the Armenians are the enemy. You've mobilized people and there's no sign of demobilizing people on that. So, there is a temptation just to keep on pushing," said Tom de Waal, an analyst at Carnegie Europe. "It's a serious issue." There remain many levers on which to push. Armenia and Azerbaijan are still negotiating over a peace agreement that would demarcate their shared border and establish transportation routes connecting the two countries. Azerbaijan has also been raising the issue of ethnic Azerbaijanis who used to live in what is now Armenia, arguing that they should be allowed to return. All those issues are centered in the Armenian province of Syunik, which Azerbaijanis know as Zangezur, and has local Armenians concerned that Baku has further designs on their territory. "They say 'peace' but all day long on TV, in parliament, they are talking about Zangezur," said Altay Goyushev, the head of the Baku Research Institute think tank. "This hate toward Armenians, it could be diminished at least a little bit but I don't see that, it keeps on going." Baku and Yerevan were locked in a conflict over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh for decades. Armenian-backed separatists seized the mainly ethnic Armenian-populated region from Azerbaijan during a war in the early 1990s that killed some 30,000 people. Diplomatic efforts to settle the conflict brought little progress, and the two sides fought another war in 2020 that lasted six weeks before a Russian-brokered cease-fire, resulting in Armenia losing control over parts of the region and seven adjacent districts. In 2022, the two countries began to negotiate an end to the conflict. But the process did not go quickly enough for Baku, and, in September, Azerbaijan launched a military offensive that resulted in the capitulation of the ethnic Armenian de facto Karabakh leadership and the exodus of nearly the entire population of the territory. Negotiations for a peace agreement are still continuing, though the momentum has slowed. The diplomatic process "is not over because Aliyev doesn't want it to be over, he wants to keep this sentiment alive," Goyushev said. "As long as Aliyev is in power there is always going to be war, because he understands that this war rhetoric is the only thing that brings him public support." Aliyev and other senior officials frequently warn Armenians against "revanchism," which has become a post-2020 buzzword in Baku. While this revanchist sentiment is strongest among Armenia's political opposition, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian dabbles in it as well, Amirbayov argued. France, Armenia's closest ally in Europe, is preparing a resolution for the United Nations Security Council. French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said the "deportation" of the Armenians of Karabakh was a "serious crime [that] cannot go unanswered." Amirbayov, the Aliyev envoy, said that Pashinian was "misusing" France's seat as a permanent member of the Security Council. "They are not going in the right direction," he said. "The first step which would send us a signal [that Armenia has given up revanchism] would be a clear expression by Pashinian -- not only in declarations but in real actions -- that he does not consider the outcome of the latest military confrontation as something that he has to contest," Amirbayov said. A New Ideological Vacuum In the vacuum that has emerged after the Karabakh victory, it will be tempting for the government to continue to rely on nationalism, said Shujaat Ahmadzada, a nonresident research fellow at the Baku-based Topchubashov Center, which focuses on international relations and security. "There is no clear answer about how to reconstruct the national identity, which had been centered around the (once utopian) dream of 'the day that Karabakh will be free,'" Ahmadzada said in a text interview over WhatsApp. "Now Karabakh is 'free,' and the identity is somehow a mix of shock/denial of reality, as well as joy." Azerbaijani nationalism could turn to the issue of the return of ethnic Azerbaijanis to Syunik in the south and other parts of Armenia, or on agitating for the rights of Iran's substantial ethnic Azerbaijani minority, Ahmadzada said. But neither could mobilize the same level of public support as Karabakh, which most Azerbaijanis felt acutely, he said. Instead, according to Ahmadzada, it is more likely that Baku will rely on an approach combining "continued commemoration and celebration of the [Karabakh] victory, an increase in statism (similar to some Central Asian republics), and the evolution of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict into a long-lasting (but low-intensity) rivalry, akin to the India-Pakistan rivalry that almost never ends," Ahmadzada said. But it remains unclear whether that mix could be a reliable mobilizing factor in the face of persistent economic and social discontent in the country. That discontent had been rising, but the 2020 war tamped it down, rallying the public and restoring Aliyev's popularity, Baku-based analyst Goyushev said. The currency of victory depreciates rapidly, though, and the euphoria of 2020 "didn't last long," Goyushev said. Even this year, public attention was again focused on social problems such as the protests in the village of Soyudlu over pollution, which faced a heavy crackdown by security forces. Many Azerbaijanis have also become wary of Azerbaijan's continuing pressure on Armenia, which has spilled over the border from the formerly occupied territories into Armenia itself. A September 2022 offensive against targets inside Armenia led to public complaints that Azerbaijan was "changing from the country which tried to restore its territorial integrity to the country, which is actually an invader, an occupier," Goyushev said. And the public reaction to this September's offensive and the Karabakh leaders' capitulation was much more muted than three years ago, he said: 2020 "was a game changer, and this was something which was expected." Political science shows how authoritarian leaders maintain power by balancing three "pillars": repression, co-optation, and legitimacy, said Laurence Broers, an associate fellow at the London-based Chatham House's Russia and Eurasia Program. Azerbaijan's abundant resources have foregrounded co-optation as the main pillar, but they are finite and the dynastic succession in 2003 -- where Ilham Aliyev took over from his late father, President Heydar Aliyev -- had always left lingering doubts about legitimacy, he argued. But the 2020 war "rebalanced the system by providing a massive buy-in for the population on the country's standout consensus issue," Broers said. "So, we are seeing the rebranding of the elite's legitimacy formula -- or rather Aliyev's, since this is very much about him." "But the question now is whether he can let go of that, or whether Azerbaijani citizens are going to have to celebrate victory over peace for years to come," Broers continued. "If Azerbaijan does go down that route, it's very hard to see a landing zone for an agreement with Armenia because that would require a new equilibrium of equality with Armenia incompatible with the hierarchy of winner and loser in the victory narrative." The Fourth Republic One of the few official articulations of a new national idea has been put forward by a pro-government member of parliament, Zahid Oruc. With the raising of the flag in Xankendi (which Armenians call Stepanakert), Azerbaijan is entering the period of the "Fourth Republic," Oruc wrote in an article on the website Moderator.az. (The first three republics were the pre-Soviet Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, and post-1991 independent Azerbaijan.) "The era of tragedy and loss has come to an end," he wrote. Oruc's vision of the new era for Azerbaijan was largely centered around foreign policy and geopolitics. "The Great Eurasian Project -- a new alliance of Turkey, Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia -- will be realized, the world will be reorganized in the wake of the wars in Russia-Ukraine and the Middle East, and a transition from a multipolar (in fact Western-centric) world to a new architecture is taking place," he wrote. "It is the first time in history that Azerbaijan controls its own destiny, rather than being divided at the negotiating table." Another rallying point could be the return of the Azerbaijani population to Nagorno-Karabakh. In the first war between the two sides, over 600,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis were displaced from the territories that Armenians seized. The Azerbaijani government is now spending billions on demining and rebuilding those areas to make them ready for the return of their former residents. That should serve as a unifying force for Azerbaijanis now, Amirbayov said. "I think now the idea of Azerbaijan, the national idea which will be pursued by the government would be to try to consolidate peace, try to live as a country which is independent but which has never had a chance to live in possession of all of its territories," he said. "The most important challenge for the decades to come would be to inject normal life back into those liberated territories." President Aliyev has spoken in these terms as well. In another post-offensive speech on September 29, Aliyev described the return of the displaced people as "the number one task for us." Within three years, he said, 100,000 of them would be resettled. But Aliyev also spent more than half that speech recounting a long litany of what he referred to as Armenians' past crimes in the territory and added a warning against revanchism. "The Armenian leadership, those who stand behind them, and those who may think about some unacceptable plans against Azerbaijan -- my advice is not to test our patience again," he said. Focusing on the return of the displaced holds risks as well as potential. One Azerbaijani media outlet recently reported that of 1,200 former residents of Karabakh's Lacin region (also known as Lachin) who had returned to great fanfare from the government, about half had left because of poor conditions. The story was discussed widely on Azerbaijani social media, Goyushev said, an indication of public skepticism about the prospects for large-scale returns to Karabakh. "Everybody understands that the government is going to face a big problem now, because there is no infrastructure [in the retaken territories], nothing," he said. And talk of victory is likely to remain the most reliable way to rally people, Goyushev said. "So I think we are going to see more criticism of the government due to social issues, economic issues," he said. "And the government is going to try to divert the public. I don't know if he will attack Armenia or not. But I do know that he will continue this military rhetoric." Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/azerbaijan-karabakh- regained-what-next-aliyev-armenia/32680561.html Copyright (c) 2023. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address "It is shameful that Western countries remain silent in the face of the ongoing massacres in Palestine" Presidency Of The Republic Of Turkey 11.11.2023 Addressing the Extraordinary Joint Summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Arab League, President Erdogan said: "It is shameful that the Western countries, which always talk about human rights and freedoms, remain silent in the face of the ongoing massacres in Palestine." President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a speech at the Extraordinary Joint Summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Arab League. Expressing his wish for the summit to yield auspicious developments for the Palestinians and the Muslim world, President Erdogan stated: "With today's meeting, we as the Islamic world show in a clear manner our solidarity with the Palestinian people. We will consolidate this solidarity message with the decisions we will take and implement." "WE ARE FACED WITH A BARBARISM UNPRECEDENTED IN HISTORY" President Erdogan stated: "Words fall short of describing what has been occurring in Gaza and Ramallah since October 7. We are faced with a barbarism unprecedented in history in which hospitals, houses of worship, schools, refugee camps and ambulances are bombed and the civilians migrating to the zones called safe are massacred. The children whose innocent bodies lie one after another in hospital corridors; mothers that lose their lives hugging their children whom them cannot get enough of smelling; fathers who search their family members under houses that have turned into rubble; in short, the lives lost in attacks that directly target civilians, all stand witness to the savagery raging on for exactly 36 days. The Israeli administration has been taking the revenge of the October 7 incident, which most of us do not approve of, on Gazan babies and innocent Palestinian kids and women." President Erdogan added: "It is not possible for us to equate the Hamas resistance fighters who defend their homeland with the occupiers. Our brothers and sisters in the West Bank are also negatively affected by the attacks of the Israeli forces and the occupying settlers. 73 percent of the nearly 12 thousand Palestinians massacred in Gaza and Ramallah are women and children according to the United Nations. There is nothing about this state of lunacy that can be justified. It is shameful that the Western countries which always talk about human rights and freedoms remain silent in the face of the ongoing massacres in Palestine. These countries cannot even call on Israel for a 'ceasefire' while nearly 12 thousand people have died and almost the entire Gaza has been annihilated." "THOSE WHO REMAIN SILENT IN THE FACE OF OPPRESSION ARE AS MUCH AN ACCOMPLICE IN THE BLOODSHED AS THE OPPRESSORS" Noting that the heads of state and government who held a rally in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attack now take no action for Gaza where over 12 thousand people have been massacred, President Erdogan stated: "This is not only impotence but also cowardice and unscrupulousness. Those who remain silent in the face of oppression are as much an accomplice in the bloodshed as the oppressors. The U.S. and the Western countries have sacrificed all the values they claim to be defending for the Israeli administration's ambitions. The resolution adopted at the United Nations General Assembly with 121 yes votes show how lonely the Israeli administration and its supporters are." Describing the voices rising in all corners of the world against the Israeli massacres as a source of hope, President Erdogan stated: "We expect the administrations supporting Israel to give ear to this outcry. As different than other crises, the Islamic world has this time taken a stance in solidarity and unity. I particularly congratulate the countries working, just like us, to stop the conflicts and deliver humanitarian aid to the region." "HUMANITARIAN AID SHOULD CONTINUE UNINTERRUPTEDLY" Noting that 10 planeloads of humanitarian aid have been sent to the Al Arish Airport for Gaza in cooperation with Egypt, President Erdogan went onto say: "Our civilian ship, carrying 666 tons of humanitarian aid supplies, set sail yesterday. It will inshallah have reached the Al Arish Port today. Our works also continue for the treatment of the wounded, particularly cancer patients and children. Likewise, our preparations are underway for the meeting to be held under my wife's auspices with the participation of the spouses of heads of state and government in Istanbul on November 15. In the current phase, our first priority is the declaration of ceasefire and the uninterrupted delivery of humanitarian aid. What is urgently needed is not a few hour-long pauses but a permanent ceasefire. Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, describes Israel's decision to allow a four-hour humanitarian pause as very cynical and cruel. We view the decision in question similarly." President Erdogan continued his remarks as follows: "Humanitarian aid should continue uninterruptedly. It is vital to deliver fuel to places in urgent need, particularly hospitals. The spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs likens Gaza's north, where humanitarian aid trucks cannot deliver aid supplies, to hell. All the members of the OIC should lend the necessary support to our Egyptian brothers in a bid to keep open the Rafah Border Crossing. We should also make endeavors to hold Israel to account before law for the war crimes and the crimes against humanity it commits. These must be investigated and the required actions should be taken about the culprits by the UN Human Rights Council and the International Criminal Court. In a similar manner, the nuclear weapons, the existence of which Israeli ministers acknowledge, must be investigated, and if there are any that may have evaded international control, they must be disclosed." "WE BELIEVE THAT A FUND SHOULD BE ESTABLISHED WITHIN THE ORGANIZATION OF ISLAMIC COOPERATION TO REBUILD GAZA" Stressing that such an issue which has the potential to put at risk the future of not only the region but of the whole humanity, President Erdogan said: "Another critical issue is the reparations. The factor that makes Israel more reckless every time is that it doesn't pay reparations to the people whom it oppresses and whose lands it occupies and annihilates. The Israeli government, which behaves like the spoiled child of the West, is obligated to make amends for the harm it has caused. Until this happens, we as the Islamic world cannot leave our Palestinian brothers and sisters unprotected and helpless. We believe that a fund should be established within the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to rebuild Gaza." Stressing that Turkiye will never refrain from providing every kind of support for Gaza's revival and reconstruction, President Erdogan stated: "It is important that we turn this crisis into an instrument of permanent solution of the Palestinian issue. As long as the Palestine issue is neglected, normalization efforts in the region are doomed to fail. And the way to a permanent solution is through the elimination of the main causes. This can be achieved only if a sovereign and geographically integrated State of Palestine, with Al-Quds as its capital, is established within the 1967 borders. We are of the opinion that the International Peace Conference, which we have put forward, serves as the best platform in this direction. It also appears that new mechanisms are necessary to ensure the security of our Palestinian brothers and sisters. We are ready to make the necessary efforts, including as a guarantor, to maintain the peace that will be established." "IT IS OUR WISH THAT AL QUDS AND ALL PALESTINIAN LANDS RETURN TO THEIR OLD DAYS" "Lasting peace will ensure calm and welfare not only for the Palestinians but for the entire region, including the Israeli people. We should also be on high alert against the violation of the sanctity and the historical status of Al Haram Al Sharif, which also houses our first qiblah, Al Aqsa Mosque. It is highly probable for Israel to take advantage of the ongoing incidents to engage in faits accomplis regarding Al Haram Al Sharif. This is best evidenced by the delusions of 'promised lands' that threaten the territorial integrity of many countries in the region, Turkiye included. As I always say, Al Quds is our red line. It is our wish that Al Quds, the city of peace, and all Palestinian lands return to their old days. We hope that our Palestinian brothers and sisters put an end to their disagreements and defend their rights in unity and solidarity." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Statement of Mr. Philippe Lazzarini The Commissioner-General at The Joint Emergency Summit of the League of Arab States and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation UNRWA 11 Nov 2023 Riyadh, 11 November 2023 Your Majesties, Heads of States and Governments, Mr. Chair, Your Royal Highness Mohamed Ben Salman Excellencies, Thank you for the opportunity to address the joint extraordinary summit. The past month has been incredibly painful for all of us. UNRWA, the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees, is in mourning for 101 colleagues confirmed killed in Gaza. On Monday, UN flags worldwide will be at half-mast to honor their memory. Across the Gaza Strip, more than 10,000 people have reportedly been killed, with the majority to be women and children. Many more are surely still under the rubble. The Israeli Forces have pushed over 1.5 million people out of the north of the Gaza Strip. More than 700,000 women, children and men now live in UNRWA schools and shelters. I was in Gaza last week, my first time since the war started. What I saw will mark me forever. Every little girl and boy I met in an UNRWA shelter asked me for bread and water. Children used to learn and laugh in the school I visited. Now, the school is an overcrowded shelter that lacks the minimum standards for a dignified life. The continuous bombardment, together with the siege, are choking Gaza and its people. Basic services are crumbling. Everything is running out -- food, water, medicine, and fuel. The dramatic developments at the al-Shifa hospital last night pushed many health staff and wounded people to leave. Excellencies, I have 13,000 colleagues in Gaza. Most are displaced. Many continue to work. They operate 150 UNRWA shelters. They keep one third of our health centres open and manage mobile clinics. They deliver medicines to hospitals. They deliver flour to bakeries and bring bread back to the shelters. My colleague Maha calls her job a "mission impossible." Especially when she tries to reassure her children every morning that they will not die. Excellencies, Today, Gazans feel de-humanized and abandoned. They are yearning for reassurance, especially from their Arab and Muslim brothers and sisters, that they hear the crying of their children, and see the fear in the eyes of their mothers. On Thursday, I addressed the International Conference in Paris to support civilians in Gaza. I warned of the dangers of double standards. I explicitly described the ongoing campaign aimed at dehumanizing Palestinians. I also firmly stated our position against the forced displacement of the people of Gaza, most of whom are descendants of Palestine Refugees. I cautioned against the spillover of the conflict into the region. The West Bank has reached a boiling point, with the Israeli Forces and settler violence claiming lives daily. The Lebanon-Israel border is simmering with tension. Excellencies, The Palestinians in Gaza have always relied on the Arab and Muslim world for solidarity. Today, they also need you to turn this solidarity into further and stronger action. I am seeking your support for three specific and urgent matters: First, to reach a humanitarian ceasefire, with strict adherence to international humanitarian law. We must insist on protecting civilians and civilian infrastructure, including UN facilities and hospitals. This should be our recurrent request. I am sure that many of you can influence action on the ground. No efforts should be spared at this point. Second, a meaningful and continuous flow of humanitarian aid is essential. We must make the flow of supplies match the immense humanitarian needs. But the logistics and the verification of trucks by Israel are extremely cumbersome. They only allow a limited number of trucks into Gaza. We must increase the volume of aid and use other crossings, including those within Israel, like Kerem Abu Salem. Third, UNRWA urgently needs funds and your voice. UNRWA is not only the largest UN agency in Gaza but also the last remaining lifeline for 2.2 million people. We can offer much more if we have the means. I sincerely thank the countries that have already announced contributions for their generous response. And I respectfully call on other members of the League and the OIC to also show your solidarity by supporting UNRWA. I want to tell people in our shelters that the Arab and Islamic world tasked us to help them and gave us the resources to do so. Finally, I need you to firmly defend the Agency against false and insidious claims that its schools teach hatred or that it has let the civilians in Gaza down. These accusations come from those who want us to fail. They fuel a toxic and deeply polarized environment. To conclude, We must also consider the day after. A political solution has become a matter of life and death for millions of people. A genuine prospect of Palestinian statehood is critical. We must step back from the brink before it's too late. I urge you, members of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to act now to change the trajectory of this crisis. With your support, UNRWA is ready to do its part. Thank you. Background Information: UNRWA is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. The United Nations General Assembly established UNRWA in 1949 with a mandate to provide humanitarian assistance and protection to registered Palestine refugees in the Agency's area of operations pending a just and lasting solution to their plight. UNRWA operates in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, The Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Tens of thousands of Palestine refugees who lost their homes and livelihoods due to the 1948 conflict continue to be displaced and in need of support, nearly 75 years on. UNRWA helps Palestine Refugees achieve their full potential in human development through quality services it provides in education, health care, relief and social services, protection, camp infrastructure and improvement, microfinance, and emergency assistance. UNRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Netanyahu Rules Out Palestinian Authority Governing Gaza After War By VOA News November 11, 2023 The latest developments: Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Palestinian Authority will not govern Gaza after the war. The Israeli military will help evacuate babies trapped in Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital on Sunday. Four patients and a premature baby at Al-Shifa die as generator runs out of fuel. Thousands flee north Gaza after strikes on its largest hospitals. Israel Foreign Ministry lowered the death toll from Hamas' October 7 terror attack from 1,400 to about 1,200. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says the Palestinian death toll from Israel's military campaign has surpassed 11,000, overwhelmingly women and children. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the idea of the Palestinian Authority governing Gaza once the Israel-Hamas war is over, a position at odds with the Biden administration. "There will have to be something else there," Netanyahu said at a news conference Saturday, when asked whether the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the occupied West Bank, may govern Gaza after the war. "There won't be a civilian authority that educates their children to hate Israel, to kill Israelis, to wipe out the state of Israel." U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken outlined conditions Wednesday for a postwar government. "It must include Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority," he said. Earlier Saturday, as the humanitarian crisis intensified at the Al-Shifa Hospital, Israel said it was ready to evacuate babies from the facility after two died and dozens more were at risk when fuel for the generators ran out on Saturday. "Medical devices stopped. Patients, especially those in intensive care, started to die," Al-Shifa Hospital Director Mohammed Abu Selmia said by phone with gunfire and explosions heard in the background. The Israeli military will help evacuate babies trapped in Al-Shifa on Sunday, chief Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said. "The staff of the Shifa hospital has requested that tomorrow we help the babies in the pediatric department to get to a safer hospital," Hagari told a news conference. "We will provide the assistance needed." Israeli troops fought with Hamas gunmen outside Al-Shifa on Saturday with thousands of war-wounded, medical staff and displaced civilians caught in the crossfire. Selmia said Israeli troops were "shooting at anyone outside or inside the hospital" and preventing movement between buildings. An Israeli officer, Colonel Moshe Tetro, confirmed clashes outside the hospital but denied Al-Shifa Hospital was under siege or direct attack. He said he was in touch with the director and had offered safe passage for those willing to leave through the hospital's east side. Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, told broadcaster Channel 12 that taking control of the hospitals would be key to Israel's goal of rooting out Hamas. But it would require "a lot of tactical creativity" to do so without hurting patients, other civilians and Israeli hostages. Israeli army officials accuse Hamas of hiding weapons in tunnels under hospitals and setting up a command center beneath Shifa and other hospitals, making the buildings legitimate military targets. Hamas and hospital staff deny this. Israel Defense Forces denied firing on Al-Shifa Friday and accused Hamas of firing a rocket aimed at Israeli troops that hit the hospital instead. 'A state of extreme panic' Elsewhere, the Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli tanks were 20 meters (66 feet) from Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City, causing "a state of extreme panic and fear" among the 14,000 displaced people sheltering there. Prime Minister Netanyahu reiterated Saturday that the responsibility for civilian deaths and injuries lies with Hamas, and he repeated long-standing charges that the militant group uses civilians in Gaza as human shields. Israel's military has said soldiers have encountered hundreds of Hamas fighters in underground facilities, schools, mosques and clinics during fighting in Gaza. Israel launched its offensive in response to Hamas' October 7 terror attack in southern Israel. On Friday, Israel lowered the estimated death toll to about 1,200 people. "This is the updated number," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat told Agence France-Presse. "It is due to the fact that there were a lot of corpses that were not identified and now we think those belong to terrorists ... not Israeli casualties." Hamas also took about 240 people hostages. The U.S., U.K., EU and several other Western countries have designated Hamas a terrorist organization. Four Gaza hospitals attacked The Palestinian death toll has steadily grown to more than 11,000, about 40% of them children, according to Palestinian officials. The World Health Organization chief says a child dies every 10 minutes. The head of the World Health Organization told United Nations Security Council members that Gaza's health system "is on its knees" with 18 of 36 hospitals and two-thirds of its primary health centers not functioning. "The situation on the ground is impossible to describe," Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. "Hospital corridors crammed with the injured, the sick, the dying; morgues overflowing; surgery without anesthesia; tens of thousands of displaced people sheltering at hospitals; families crammed into overcrowded schools, desperate for food and water." "If there is a hell on earth today," said Jens Laerke, U.N. humanitarian spokesperson, "its name is northern Gaza." Israel warns Hezbollah The threat of regional conflict between Israel and Hamas could spill into Lebanon as tensions rise between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah. During a tour to Israel's northern border with Lebanon on Saturday, Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant sent a sobering warning to Hezbollah's leaders. "My message to Lebanese citizens I see Gazan civilians evacuating [their homes] and walking along the beach, heading south as they carry white flags [because of Hamas]. Hezbollah is dragging Lebanon to a possible war and is making mistakes. If [Hezbollah] makes such mistakes here, the first to pay the price will be the citizens. What we can do in Gaza, we can also do in Beirut," he cautioned. Afterward, Gallant met with soldiers and reservists stationed in the area where he expressed his appreciation for their defense operations, as well as for their actions eliminating targets in Lebanon. Saudi leader condemns 'barbaric war' Saudi Arabia and Muslim countries asked Saturday for an immediate end to military operations in Gaza, declaring at the Joint Emergency Summit of the League of Arab States in Riyadh that Israel bears responsibility for crimes against Palestinians. Dozens of leaders, including Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who was welcomed back into the Arab League earlier this year attended the summit. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler and organizer of the summit, said the kingdom affirms its "condemnation and categorical rejection of this barbaric war against our brothers in Palestine." The United Arab Emirates plans to maintain its diplomatic ties with Israel despite international outcry over the mounting toll of the war in Gaza. UAE officials have publicly condemned Israel's actions and repeatedly called for an end to the violence but say they also hope to have some moderating influence over the Israeli military operation in the enclave while safeguarding its own interests, according to four sources familiar with UAE government policy. UNRWA Commissioner Philippe Lazzarini addressed the summit, describing the desperate situation for civilians in Gaza. He also said that in the past month, the U.N. Agency for Palestine Refugees has lost 101 colleagues and more that 1.5 million people have been displaced. "Every little girl and boy I met in an UNRWA shelter asked me for bread and water," he said. "Children used to learn and laugh in the school I visited. Now, the school is an overcrowded shelter that lacks the minimum standards for a dignified life." VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed reporting for this report. Some information for this article was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Arab, Islamic Leaders Condemn IDF Operations in Gaza, Call for Cease-Fire By Edward Yeranian November 11, 2023 As Israel continued its military operation in the Gaza Strip, targeting Hamas for its Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, Arab and Islamic leaders met in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, blasting the Israeli operation and its heavy toll on Palestinian civilians and infrastructure. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who hosted Saturday's summit, used strong language to condemn Israeli military operations on Gaza. He spoke against the war and its heavy toll on women, children and the elderly and on hospitals, places of worship and civilian infrastructure. Saudi Arabia, he said, is working with its partners to put an end to this war and called for an immediate end to fighting and the opening of humanitarian corridors. He also called for the freeing of hostages held by Hamas. Saudi-owned al Arabiya TV reported the summit's resolutions call for an international war crimes tribunal, an end to any forced displacement of the Palestinian people inside Gaza or elsewhere, and an immediate cease-fire. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, whose visit to Saudi Arabia for Saturday's summit was the first by an Iranian president in more than a decade, said the Israeli military operation in Gaza was "the worst crime witnessed in human history." Raisi went on to urge Arab and Islamic states to designate the Israeli Army a "terrorist group," and to "impose a boycott on Israel," including oil and other goods. He also demanded the establishment of a war crimes tribunal for both U.S. and Israeli leaders and officials who he said have committed war crimes in Gaza. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, using a more measured tone, called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, and the establishment of a Palestinian state "in accordance with the borders of June 4, 1967, and with East Jerusalem as its capital." He said Egypt condemns the killing of innocents and "this collective punishment of Gaza, including killings and the blockade and the unacceptable forced displacement of people," which he said cannot be justified as an act of self-defense. Sissi called on the international community and the U.N. Security Council "to impose an immediate and unconditional cease-fire in Gaza," an "end to any forced displacement of the Palestinian people," and for the international community to "guarantee the security of civilians." He added that "humanitarian aid must be allowed into Gaza," and that Israel must "bear its international responsibility as the 'occupying power' to permit this passage of aid." Volker Turk, the U.N. human rights chief, who on Friday called Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel "atrocious crimes," addressed the summit, decrying the war in Gaza and its human toll. "Across the Gaza Strip, more than 10,000 people have reportedly been killed, with a majority of women and children," he said. "Many more are surely still under the rubble. [The Israeli] forces have pushed over 1.5 million people out of the north of the Gaza Strip." It was not immediately clear what concrete actions the Arab and Islamic states were prepared to take to implement the resolutions or declarations made at Saturday's summit. Several Arab states, including Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, have diplomatic ties with Israel, while Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Algeria do not. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Somalia Fears Worst Humanitarian Catastrophe in 30 Years By Mohamed Olad Hassan November 11, 2023 Somalia's government warns that flooding which has uprooted hundreds of thousands of people may turn into the country's worst humanitarian disaster in decades, unless Somalis and the international community act quickly. "The situation is dire, and the extent of the human impact of the floods is rearing its ugly face. We are calling for the Somalis in the diaspora and the international community to urgently respond to the situation before it turns into bigger humanitarian catastrophe," the head of the National Disaster Management Agency, Mohamed Mo'alim Abdulle told VOA Somali on Thursday. He said the flooding has killed 29 people and forced more than 300,000 to flee their homes in the southern and central regions of Somalia. Worst-hit regions Somali authorities say the worst-hit areas are in the Southwest and Jubbaland states. In Baidoa, about 225 kilometers southwest of Mogadishu, residents continue to stay in the open as the flooding water left their homes completely under water. "We have been spending [our time] outside in the open for a week. We have no shelter, food and all our belongings and our house are under water," Madey Osman, a father of seven, told VOA Somali. "I have nowhere to go; there is no guarantee that I will receive aid if I run to another place. We have decided to wait our fate here," said Markabo Malaq, a single mother raising eight children. Abdulkadir Ali Mohamed, chairperson of the regional state agency for internally displaced people affairs, said the flooding has also affected IDP camps in the outskirts of the town, which was already hosting hundreds of people displaced by an Islamist insurgency and the worst drought in the country in four decades. "We have seen traumatized families fleeing for a third time with no hope on the horizon," said Mohamed. Mohamed Hussien Hassan, former regional justice minister, is concerned the circumstances will lead to the spread of diseases or worse. "When people have no shelters, and the drinking water and the entire environment is contaminated with human waste from the local poor sewage system and the latrines, you only expect the spread of diseases like cholera and malaria," said Hassan. "When people cannot work or harvest, you only expect hunger and malnutrition which can eventually degenerate into famine," he added. "We fear that this situation turns into shocking humanitarian disaster." Baidoa was once nicknamed "the City of Death." It earned the title in 1992 when war and famine claimed the lives of more than 220,000 people, many left dying in the streets. The city is also known for the 1993 visit by former U.S. President George H.W. Bush, who committed the U.S. military to a mission that saved thousands of innocents from death during Operation Restore Hope. Meanwhile, according to local officials, in the southern Somali state of Jubbaland, there is no access to tens of thousands of families trapped by flood waters. "The flooding has destroyed bridges and roads and cut the entire access to more than 70,000 families. There is a big fear of [a] humanitarian catastrophe," the president of the state, Ahmed Mohamed Islam, better known as "Madobe," warned. "Several nights of heavy rainfall compounded major flooding in Bardhere and Luuq, towns in the Gedo region, leaving hundreds of thousands of people completely under water," said Gedo Deputy Governor Mohamed Hussein Al-Qadi. "Most of the areas are only accessible with boats, and we have no capacity to airlift aid or carry out rescue mission[s], which means the needy, trapped families will remain helpless, until the land dries and they are able to move [on] their own," said Al-Qadi. Large parts of both the Southwest and Jubbaland states are under control of al-Shabab militants, which makes it difficult for the government and aid agencies to reach those in need. On Thursday, heavy floods swept the streets of the country's capital, Mogadishu. Photos and videos shared on social media showed women, children, old people, and even motorized three-wheeled rickshaws swept away by floodwaters. "In more than 14 years, I have lived in Mogadishu and through history; I have never seen or heard of floods of such extent in Mogadishu," Osman Mohamud, one of the city's residents told VOA. The United Nations has described the flooding in Somalia and neighboring countries as a "once-in-a-century event." Around 1.6 million people in Somalia could be affected by the heavy seasonal downpours, which have worsened by the combined impact of two climate phenomena, El Nino and the Indian Ocean Dipole, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement late Thursday. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Taliban's acting energy minister in Tehran for talks: Report IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Nov 12, 2023 Tehran, IRNA -- Acting Minister of Energy and Water of Afghanistan's Taliban ruling government Abdul Latif Mansour has departed for Iran on Saturday, Afghan Voice Agency (AVA) announced. During his stay in Tehran, Latif Mansour is to hold talks with his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Mehrabian and attend the Iran International Electricity Exhibition on November 14. In Iran, the Taliban acting minister is to discuss various issues including the extension of the bilateral agreement on electricity. In a related development, the Taliban's acting economic deputy minister Abdul Ghani Baradar has visited Iran recently at the head of a trade delegation and met with Mehrabian. In the meeting, the two sides signed five documents on cooperation and held talks on Iran's rights from the water of the Helmand (Hirmand) River. 1483**9417 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Gaza death toll climbs to 11,100, including 8,000 kids, women IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Nov 12, 2023 Tehran, IRNA -- The Israeli regime keeps on committing atrocities against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, as the number of martyrs goes up to 11,100, some 8,000 out of which are children, women, and senior citizens. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza announced on Sunday that the casualties of the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have reached 11,100. According to the report, some 8,000 martyrs are children, women, and senior citizens, and the number of the wounded has also reached 27,000 as the conflict between the Zionist regime and Hamas in Gaza enters its 37th day. 6125**9417 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran's reaction to some of articles of Riyadh summit's final resolution ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency Sun / 12 November 2023 / 15:33 Tehran (ISNA) - Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanaani stressed that the most of Iran's proposals are included in the final resolution of the joint meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League in Riyadh, and the tone and wording of this resolution are strong and firm. The Joint OIC and Arab League Extraordinary Summit, which concluded in Riyadh on Saturday, adopted the following resolution: -Call on all countries to stop exporting weapons and ammunition to the occupation authorities that are used by their forces to kill the Palestinian people and destroy their homes, hospitals, schools, mosques, churches and all their capabilities. -Call on the Security Council to promptly pass a resolution condemning Israel's barbaric destruction of hospitals in the Gaza Strip, the obstruction of medicine, food and fuel and the severing of crucial services like electricity, water, communication and internet access. These acts of collective punishment amount to war crimes under international law. We emphasize the need to impose this resolution on Israel, the occupying power, to ensure compliance with international laws and to immediately cease these barbaric and inhumane measures. We stress the necessity of lifting the blockade that Israel has imposed on the Gaza Strip for years. -Break the siege on Gaza and impose the immediate entry of Arab, Islamic and international humanitarian aid convoys, including food, medicine and fuel into the Gaza Strip. We call on international organizations to participate in this process, stressing the need for their entry to the strip and for protecting their teams to enable them to fully fulfill their role. We affirm the necessity of supporting the United Nations Relief and Works for Palestine Refugees Agency (UNRWA). -Call on the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to complete the investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed by Israel against the Palestinian people in all the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Al-Quds. We assign the General Secretariats of the OIC and the Arab League to follow up on the implementation of this investigation and establish two specialized legal monitoring units to document Israeli crimes committed in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023. The units will then prepare legal proceedings on all violations of international law and international humanitarian law committed by Israel, the occupying power, against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Al-Quds. Each unit shall submit its report 15 days after its formation to be presented to the Arab League Council at the level of foreign ministers and to the Council of Foreign Ministers of the OIC. Subsequently, monthly reports should be submitted thereafter. -Assign the Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in its capacity as the presidency of the 32nd Arab and Islamic Summit, along with counterparts from Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Palestine, and any other interested countries, and the Secretary-General of both organisations to initiate immediate international action on behalf of all member states of the OIC and the Arab League to formulate an international move to halt the war in Gaza and to pressure for a real and serious political process to achieve permanent and comprehensive peace in accordance with established international references. -Call upon member states of the OIC and the Arab League to exert diplomatic, political, and legal pressures, and take any deterrent actions to halt the crimes committed by the colonial occupation authorities against humanity. -Condemn the double standards in applying international law; warn that this duality seriously undermines both the credibility of countries shielding Israel from international law and placing it above the law, as well as the credibility of multilateral action, exposing the selectivity in applying the system of humanitarian values; and emphasize that the positions of Arab and Islamic countries will be affected by such double standards that lead to a rift between civilizations and cultures. -Condemn the displacement of nearly one and a half million Palestinians from the northern to the southern areas of the Gaza Strip as a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and its 1977 Protocol; call on the parties to the Convention to collectively denounce and reject this action; call on all United Nations organizations to confront the attempt of the colonial occupation authorities to perpetuate this miserable inhuman reality; and stress the immediate necessity for the return of these displaced individuals to their homes and regions. -Emphasize the necessity of releasing all prisoners and civilians; condemn the heinous crimes committed by the colonial occupation authorities against thousands of Palestinian prisoners; and call on all concerned nations and international organizations to put pressure for the cessation of these crimes and the prosecution of those responsible. -Stop the occupation forces' killing crimes and the settlers' terrorism and crimes in the Palestinian villages, cities and refugee camps in the occupied West Bank and all assaults on the Al Aqsa Mosque and all Islamic and Christian sanctities. -Condemn the extremist and racist hate speech and actions by ministers within the Israeli occupying government, including one minister's threat to use nuclear weapons against the Palestinian people in Gaza, and considering them a serious threat to international peace and security, necessitating support for the conference aimed at establishing a nuclear-weapon-free zone and eliminating all other weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, conducted within the framework of the United Nations and its goals to address this threat. -Condemn the killing of journalists, children, and women, the targeting of medics, and the use of internationally banned white phosphorus in the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip and Lebanon; denounce the repeated Israeli statements and threats to return Lebanon to the "Stone Age"; emphasize the importance of preventing the expansion of the conflict; and call on the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to investigate Israel's use of chemical weapons. -Reject any proposals that perpetuate the separation of Gaza from the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and emphasize that any future approach to Gaza must be within the framework of working towards a comprehensive solution ensuring the unity of Gaza and the West Bank as part of the Palestinian state, which must materialize as a free, independent, sovereign entity with its capital in East Jerusalem on the borders of June 4, 1967. -Call for convening an international peace conference, as soon as possible, through which a credible peace process will be launched based on international law, legitimate resolutions, and the principle of land for peace, within a defined timeframe and international guarantees, ultimately leading to the end of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories since 1967, including East Jerusalem, the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, the Shebaa Farms, the Kfar Shuba Hills, and the outskirts of the Lebanese village of al-Mari, and the implementation of a two-state solution. -Activate the Arab and Islamic Financial Safety Net in line with the decisions of the fourteenth session of the Islamic Summit Conference and the Arab Summit resolutions, to provide financial contributions and support economic, financial, and humanitarian to the government of the State of Palestine and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Emphasize the necessity of mobilizing international partners to reconstruct Gaza and alleviate the comprehensive destruction caused by the Israeli aggression immediately upon cessation. -Assign both the Secretary-General of the Arab League and the OIC to closely oversee the implementation of the resolution and present a report on it at the upcoming sessions of their respective councils. Regarding the position of the Arab League that the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, Kanaani emphasized, "Iran believes that all Palestinians and Palestinian groups, including the PLO are the representatives of the Palestinian nation and they have the right to fight against the occupier and self-determination according to international laws". End Item NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iraqi resistance forces target Israeli settlement "Eilat" for second time in two weeks Iran Press TV Sunday, 12 November 2023 5:58 AM The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has claimed responsibility for an attack on the Israeli settlement of "Eilat" for the second time in two weeks, vowing to carry out more attacks against the Israeli occupation amid the regime's bombardment campaign against Gaza. The Iraqi resistance movement, an umbrella group of anti-terror fighters, in a statement published on its Telegram channel on Sunday announced they targeted the illegal Israeli settlement (built on the ruins of the Palestinian town of Umm al-Rashrash), south of occupied Palestine. "In support of our people in Gaza, and in response to the massacres committed by the usurping entity against Palestinian civilians, including children, women, and elders, the fighters of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq targeted a site in occupied Umm Al-Rashrash (Eilat) under, using appropriate weapons," the statement said. "The Islamic Resistance reaffirms its continuation in striking the enemy's strongholds," it added. The settlement was first targeted by the Iraqi resistance forces on November 3. A group calling itself "Al-Jazeera Al-Arabiya SWAT" also claimed in a statement responsibility for targeting "Eilat" with two drones, affirming that its operations have just begun and will not cease "until the savage war on Gaza stops." The resistance group has also targeted major US military bases in Syria and Iraq, where forces and trainers are stationed, warning the United States against funding and supporting Israeli war crimes against the Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip. Abu Alaa al-Walaei, secretary general of the Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada anti-terror resistance group, said on Thursday evening that retaliatory assaults by Iraqi resistance fighters on American occupation forces will continue unabated. He said the strikes on US military positions in Iraq will stop only when the Israeli strikes on Gaza end, and humanitarian aid convoys reach locals in the besieged Palestinian coastal enclave without any restrictions. Anti-Israel and anti-US sentiments are running high across the region over Washington's firm support for the Israeli onslaught against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 11,000 people, including 4,506 children and 3,027 women. Another 27,490 people have been wounded as well. At least 2,550 individuals are reported missing, including at least 2,550 children, who may have died or been trapped under the rubble waiting to be rescued. The Apartheid Israeli regime forces have cut off water, food, medicine, and electricity to Gaza while pounding the blockaded Palestinians from the air, ground, and sea, relentlessly targeting homes, hospitals, and places of worship in the past 36 days. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Operation Iron Swords - Day 37 - 12 November 2023 Palestinian armed group Hamas launched thousands of missiles at Israel and deployed its militants to infiltrate Jewish settlements near the countrys border with Gaza on 07 October 2023. The 1,200 Israelis killed on the first day would be the equivalent of 36,000 Americans killed in an attack, as a proportion to Israels population of 9.3 million people (compared to 332 million in the USA). Israeli President Isaac Herzog stated: Not since the Holocaust have so many Jews been killed in one day". PM Netanyahu stated "On October 7th, Hamas murdered 1,400 Israelis. Maybe more. This is in a country of fewer than 10 million people. This would be equivalent to over 50,000 Americans murdered in a single day. Thats twenty 9/11s. That is why October 7th is another day that will live in infamy." It is the second largest loss inflicted on the Israeli forces after the 1973 war, as the Palestinian resistance killed more than 1,200, wounded more than 5,132 others, and captured more than 250, most of them military personnel, some of whom were high-ranking officers in the army. Butcher's Bill / Oasis of Martyrs It is worth noting that the HAMAS Palestinian Health Ministry had not updated casualty figures in 48 hours, citing difficulties in establishing contact with hospitals due to the communications blackout. The hospitals in northern Gaza are under heavy assault by the Israeli military, making it difficult to document casualty figures. Palestinian health authorities say that more than 11,180 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza, more than four times the number killed in the six-week-long war in 2014. The death toll included 4,609 children [down from 4,800 children previously reported, and Israels attacks had killed 4,104 children in Gaza during the current war, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported] and 3,100 women, and 678 elderly people. These subtotals fluctuate inexplicably]. The average of children martyrs was six per hour, while female martyrs is five per hour. In addition, the number of injured rose to about 27,500 [though some earlier reports had totaled over 32,000 Palestinians injured since October 7th, including at least 6,360 children and 4,891 women]. More than 2,650 were missing, including 1,500 children, and presumed buried under rubble. On the West bank, at least 183 Palestinians had been killed, and more than 2,300 injured [a big jump from the previous 1,980 injured]. Alalam News Network, part of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, reported "War crimes committed in Gaza , affecting 42,000 Palestinians , who are direct victims of this war, including martyrs, wounded and missing, meaning about 2 percent of the total population of Gaza became direct victims as a result of this aggression, either martyrs or wounded, which means that the hospitals of the Gaza Strip are receiving an average One " Israel revised down the death toll from the October Hamas attacks in southern Israel from 1,400 to 1,200, according to a foreign ministry spokesman. This is the updated number. It is due to the fact that there were lot of corpses that were not identified and now we think those belong to terrorists ... not Israeli casualties, ministry spokesman Lior Haiat told AFP. IDF had said previously it was holding 1,500 bodies of terrorists, a total that now would increas to about 1,700. The leader of the Hamas movement Osama Hamdan confirmed that the number of Israeli army deaths during the battles in the Gaza Strip is double what the occupation announced, Hamdan stated: "We confirm with complete confidence that the number of deaths in the Israeli army is many times higher than what is announced, and the Israelis brazenly admit that telling the truth serves Hamas, so they are lying." The Israeli army reported the death of 356 soldiers and officers, 43 of them were killed since the start of the ground operation in the besieged Gaza Strip. At least 5,431 Israelis were injured. The Israeli army said five more soldiers were killed during battles in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli Ynet news website cited a military statement saying four soldiers were killed in a booby-trapped tunnel in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza while the fifth died in fighting elsewhere. The number of Israeli soldiers killed since the start of ground operations on October 27 rose to 43. Some 241 [down from 242 the previous day] hostages are being held by HAMAS in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said 03 November 2023. About 40 Israelis remained missing. Abu Ubaida, the spokesperson for the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said on Hamas telegram account that 23 bodies of the 60 missing Israel hostages were trapped under the rubble. It seems that we will never be able to reach them due to the continued brutal aggression of the occupation against Gaza, he said. During the night, the IDF, the Shin Bet and the Israel Defense Forces arrested 15 wanted persons throughout Judea and Samaria, including six terrorists from the terrorist organization Hamas. So far, since the beginning of the war, approximately 1,570 wanted persons have been arrested throughout the Judea and Samaria Division and the Bekaa and Valleys Division, approximately 950 of whom are associated with the terrorist organization Hamas. Based on the Prisoner Clubs statistics, since October 7, Israel had arrested 2,300 Palestinians. Various areas in the West Bank and Jerusalem witness daily raids and incursions by Israeli forces into villages and towns, accompanied by confrontations and arrests, in addition to shooting and the use of gas bombs against Palestinians. By another account, more than 2,280 Palestinians were arrested in the West Bank. For its part, the Israeli army announced the arrest of about 1,430 Palestinians throughout the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, including 900 from the Islamic Resistance Movement ( Hamas ). An American official said that there is a possible prisoner exchange deal between the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and Israel, which was updated by a number of sources over the past few days. This official explained - to the American network "NBC" - that the deal being discussed includes the release of about 80 women and children held by Hamas in exchange for female prisoners held by Israel. The American mediation, according to Lebanese News Agency, is divided into 3 axes: A temporary ceasefire for 3 to 5 days, prisoner exchange , and humanitarian aid . As for the section related to the exchange of prisoners , an agreement is made to release living Israeli civilian prisoners, including women, children and teenagers, who are held by the Al-Qassam Brigades and Al-Quds Brigades (without specifying additional details about the number and age), in addition to foreign prisoners, In exchange for the Israeli occupation releasing about 140 Palestinian boys or young men who were arrested on the basis of unarmed activity. As well as the release of about 35 or 36 Israeli female prisoners held by the Palestinian factions in Gaza, in exchange for the release of all Palestinian female prisoners in Israeli prisons. As for humanitarian aid, negotiations revolve around the introduction of 7,000 aid and fuel trucks to all areas of Gaza, in addition to restarting hospitals and introducing new ambulances into the Strip. Regarding the implementation mechanism, the discussion revolves around stopping [Israel] military operations, except for reconnaissance sorties, but the Hamas movement says that the sorties will be an obstacle that prevents facilitating the process of implementing the deal. On the other hand, [Israel] demands that the deal begin with Hamas releasing its prisoners, while the movement confirms that this step will not take place all at once. The information indicates many details that are being investigated, such as the presence of a large number of bodies under the rubble of buildings destroyed by [Israel] in Gaza, and therefore there is no way to hand over any of the prisoners before removing the rubble and verifying the bodies, especially since a number of Israeli prisoners were killed in the Israeli bombing. On Gaza. The Israeli side tried to be clever by saying that everyone who was captured by Hamas and was not on active duty was a civilian and not a soldier, which was rejected by Hamas, stressing that the soldiers, whether men or women, would remain in captivity regardless of whether they were captured while they were in captivity. Active duty or off duty. According to the information, there is another clause related to what [Israel] considers the right of the Red Cross to visit the rest of the prisoners not included in the deal, but Hamas rejects this matter. In a related context, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated - in an interview with the same network - the possibility of reaching an agreement to release detainees held by Hamas. When asked about the possibility of reaching an agreement regarding women, children, and the elderly held captive by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu replied, It is possible, but the less I say about this issue, the greater the chances of it being achieved. Hamas on Sunday said it is suspending hostage negotiations because of Israels handling of the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, a Palestinian official briefed on the hostage talks told Reuters. Operational Update Satellite images revealed the extent of the darkness that descended on the Gaza Strip after the war that broke out between Israel and Hamas since October 7. About two-thirds of Gaza's energy comes directly from Israeli power lines, and most of the rest from imported fuel used in the Gaza power plant. But since the outbreak of the war, more than a month ago, Israel has cut off electricity and fuel supplies to the Strip's population of about 2.3 million people. An analysis conducted by the British magazine The Economist of satellite images taken at night revealed that Gaza's nights have become "the darkest over the past decade." The magazine said that the Gaza Strip has witnessed a significant increase in night lights, more than doubling, since 2012, with the increased need for electricity due to the increase in population. But this increase in night lights was interspersed with a series of declines as a result of power stations stopping work on several occasions and as a result of successive wars. But no other event over the past decade has caused as much darkness as the current war, according to the new images, which are part of NASA's Black Marble project. The pictures indicate that night lights have dimmed by 90 percent since the start of the war, which means that electricity use has decreased by a similar percentage. Hezbollah and the Al-Qassam Brigades-Lebanon exchanged missile and artillery shelling with the Israeli occupation forces, amid Israeli admission of casualties among its forces. On the ground, the Palestinian resistance clashed with the occupation forces on several fronts west of Gaza City. A Palestinian medical source reported the death of patients in the intensive care department of the Al-Shifa Complex in western Gaza, which has been subjected to Israeli attacks and a stifling siege for days that led to it being out of service. A spokesman for the HAMAS Government Information Office in Gaza announced - this evening - the death of two premature infants in Al-Shifa Complex due to the cessation of supplies. While journalist Mustafa Sarsour - from inside Al-Shifa Hospital, told Al Jazeera - that the number of premature infants who died today reached 5. The spokesperson for the HAMAS Ministry of Health in Gaza, Ashraf al-Qudra, reported that two premature infants and an ICU patient died after the hospital had completely lost power as the last generator ran out of fuel, expecting more to die unless action is taken. The Palestine Today website reported, quoting the head of the ambulance department at Al-Shifa Medical Hospital, that all intensive care patients in Al-Shifa Complex were martyred, indicating that there was no longer a safe place in the entire complex. He said: We have approximately 700 injured people and we cannot provide any assistance to them, and there is no safe place in the entire complex. For his part, the journalist present in the hospital, Mustafa Al-Sarsur, said that the occupation drones sniped a number of displaced civilians in the courtyard of Al-Shifa Hospital , indicating that the hospital includes about 15,000 displaced people. Speaking to Al-Hurra website, the spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Ashraf Al-Qudra, points out that all hospitals in northern Gaza are out of service, attributing this to the lack of fuel, medical supplies and capabilities, and focused targeting. There is a complete Israeli siege of Al-Shifa Medical Complex from all directions, and inside and around the hospital are being targeted, according to capabilities. There are 10,000 people stranded inside Al-Shifa Hospital, including medical staff, patients, wounded, and displaced people, and they cannot leave or move inside the complex because they are being targeted, according to Al-Qudra. He confirms the presence of "dead bodies lying on the ground in front of the emergency department, and the authorities in charge of the complex did not obtain Israeli approval to bury them inside the complex." He says that the Israeli army requested the evacuation of those stranded inside the hospital, but without a clear mechanism, while the Palestinian health authorities demand the evacuation of 600 to 650 patients in need of clinical care to Egypt due to the lack of treatment for them in any of the hospitals in the Gaza Strip, but without obtaining a response from Israel. Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said, False information has spread that we are encircling Al-Shifa Hospital and bombing it. These are false reports, adding, Hamas is lying about what is happening in the hospitals. Hagari said, "The Al-Shifa Hospital staff requested that we help evacuate the infants from the pediatrics department to a safer hospital. We will provide the necessary assistance." Israel said that doctors, patients and thousands of evacuees who took refuge in hospitals in northern Gaza must leave so that it can deal with Hamas militants who it says have set up command centers under and around these hospitals. The military and strategic expert, Major General Fayez Al-Duwairi, who is retired from the Jordanian military. said that 70% of the total forces of the Al-Qassam Brigades , the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas , are fully or partially engaged in confronting the occupation army penetrating into several areas in the northern Gaza Strip. Al-Duwairi explained in his military analysis on Al-Jazeera that the strike forces in Gaza City have not yet participated in the battle, referring to the Shuja'iya and Al-Tuffah brigades, which are among the reserve brigades in the Al-Qassam Brigades that have not yet entered the ground battle, alongside the Tal Al-Zaatar and Jabalia Al-Balad brigades. The military expert pointed out that the Shuja'iya and Al-Tuffah brigades were responsible for the capture of the Israeli soldier Shaul Aaron in the aggression against Gaza in 2014 , as they strongly confronted the Golani Brigade, which is the No. 1 Brigade in the occupation army. Al-Duwairi stressed in a forward-looking reading that the Al-Qassam forces and the rest of the resistance factions in Gaza are still cohesive and performing their role wonderfully after 15 days of ground war waged by Israel, despite the pain, destruction and siege. He stressed that the resistance is fine and has the upper hand in the field, and added that the occupation army and its leaders will not be able to defeat or eliminate Hamas. Al-Duwairi pointed out that the organization of the Qassam Brigades is based on brigades and battalions, and the structure of the battalion varies from one location to another. He pointed out that the Qassam Forces were built on a geographical basis, as the Gaza Strip was divided into regions and each region was allocated a battalion and sometimes a brigade, but this is not consistent with the global standard, as it is specific. In Gaza only. There are 12 Al-Qassam battalions, regardless of their numbers and components - according to Al-Duwairi - who said that some of them are engaged in a complete and decisive clash with the occupation forces that are attacking from the north and south, and another part is engaged in a partial clash. The battalions that have been fully engaged since 15 days of the ground operation are: the Beach Battalion, the Tal al-Hawa Battalion, the West Jabalia-Beit Lahia Battalion, and the Beit Hanoun Battalion. According to Al-Duwairi, these brigades are equivalent to 35% of the total Al-Qassam forces, and he stressed that they are still cohesive, maintain command and control, and prevent the occupation forces from making any achievements. As for the partial engagement brigades, according to the military expert, they are: the Sheikh Radwan Brigade, the Zaytoun Brigade, the Jabalia Brigade, and the Beit Lahia Brigade, as he pointed out that they have a high combat capability and that 30 to 50% of their strength was involved in confronting the occupation army. Al-Duwairi pointed out that there is a strategic reserve in the Al-Qassam Brigades, represented by: the Rafah Brigade, the Khan Yunis Brigade, and the Al-Wusta Brigade, which is divided into Deir Al-Balah, Al-Nuseirat, Al-Barih, and Al-Maghazi. He noted that these brigades constitute 30% of the total forces of the Qassam Brigades, which is consistent with military concepts that the reserve force must be 30% of the total. Israel facied a complex landscape of challenges that puts not only its internal situation at risk but also its regional and global posture and image, Israeli military analyst Yoav Limor detailed in a piece published by Israel Hayom. These challenges span from regional security concerns to diplomatic endeavors and include the need to address ongoing tensions in the northern front, the hot situation in the West Bank, the prisoner exchange deal, complications in Western diplomatic support, and its deteriorating economy, as well as the United Nations and international public media. Among these challenges, according to Limor, is the need to prevent the escalation on other fronts, especially as tensions continue to rise in the north on the Palestine-Lebanon border. He suggested that "Hezbollah, in reality, is not initiating a war, but the challenge from its direction is steadily increasing." This challenge is compounded by ongoing rocket launches from Yemen and mounting pressure from Iraq in support of Palestinians in Gaza. Therefore, Limor suggests that "the Israeli military must maintain deterrence and prevent escalation on multiple fronts to continue focusing on Gaza." The second challenge lies in the West Bank, where operations and tensions are on the rise in solidarity with Gaza. Consequently, the analyst points out that "Israel must remain vigilant to ensure that the region does not ignite, as leaving the West Bank unmonitored is impossible." On the Israeli captives held by the Resistance in Gaza, Limor said that the "political and security leadership must go to bed every night and wake up every morning" with the images of the 239 captives in sight. He emphasized the need for both operational and diplomatic efforts to make progress in this matter, noting that "negotiations for a major deal, involving 80 to 100 prisoners in exchange for a ceasefire lasting several days, are ongoing, but the chances of success remain modest." The military expert explained that "producing legitimacy for the continuation of the operation" has become a diplomatic challenge. While most "Western and regional governments continue to support Israel, they also raise more questions and face increasing public criticism," he explained. This requires Tel Aviv to put in efforts in that arena alongside the ongoing fighting in Gaza, he added. Economic stability is of utmost importance during wartime and is crucial for the overall success of the ground invasion, especially in financially assisting settlers who have been evacuated, including those in border areas, Limor stressed. In that regard, Limor warned that the economy is deteriorating and criticized Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's performance, sarcastically saying that while the minister "overwhelems the media with the wonders of his actions," he is only producing poor outcomes. The sixth challenge is the international public opinion, Limor noted, stressing that the this holds significant influence and impact on the decisions of leaders worldwide. According to him, "Israel is bleeding in this field, which has been constantly neglected," adding that this situation has been spiraling down "over the past year.... While Israel will not win in this arena, it must significantly improve its approach by employing the expertise of specialized individuals and companies in the field of media." Al-Alam News Channel [paart of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting] correspondent, Ahmed Sahmoud, said: There are still ongoing battles between the Palestinian resistance forces and the Israeli occupation army and its tanks, which are trying to advance on more than one axis of Gaza City, especially the axis of the Shifa Medical Complex and the axis west of Gaza City, in addition to the axis north of the city, and the axis north of Gaza City. Gaza Governorate, from the Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun areas. He added: These axes are witnessing a violent response from the Palestinian resistance to the armor and tanks of the Israeli occupation, and the army, along with the world, is surprised at how these fighters have persevered for the thirty-seventh day in a row, despite all the bloodshed in Gaza, where no children, civilians, civil and international institutions, etc. were spared. He explained that the resistance is not only confronting the occupation in the field, but also continues to fire missile barrages from various areas in the Gaza Strip into the areas surrounding the Gaza Strip, and some missiles also landed in Tel Aviv. The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement ( Hamas ), published a video recording that it said documents two operations by its members against Israeli occupation soldiers in the West Bank in recent days, one of which is being revealed for the first time. The Brigades explained that the recording shows the Beit Lid Junction operation near Tulkarm on the 2nd of November, stressing that it comes within the Battle of Al- Aqsa Flood , which was launched by the resistance on the 7th of last month. The scenes document the moment of shooting from a speeding car towards a car driven by an Israeli soldier. The soldier is then shown covered in his own blood inside the car after it overturned. The occupation army then admitted that the soldier had been killed. In the other operation - which the Israeli army did not disclose - the Al-Qassam Brigades said that they were able to lure an occupation army force into an ambush near the town of Balaa in Tulkarm via a burning car. She explained that she detonated an explosive device remotely when the Israeli force approached the car. Abu Ubaida, the military spokesman for the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement ( Hamas ), announced yesterday, Saturday, the documentation of the total or partial destruction of more than 160 Zionist military vehicles since the start of the ground aggression on the Gaza Strip. Abu Ubaida explained - in a recorded speech obtained by Al Jazeera - that the Phalange "destroyed 25 Zionist vehicles during the past 48 hours," stressing that the occupation tanks are facing violent resistance and fierce clashes that force them to retreat and change the course of the incursion. The spokesman for the HAMAS Ministry of Health in Gaza, Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, said that Al-Shifa Medical Complex is completely out of service, and cannot provide any health service to the wounded as a result of the Israeli aggression or even to the patients inside the complex, and it is also under siege from inside and outside. Al-Qudra added - in exclusive statements to Al Jazeera Net - that the complex is now still under constant bombardment, and is subjected to a siege from inside and outside. The Israeli bombing targets its external surroundings and everyone who wants to wander inside its courtyards or move between its various buildings, or even wants to reach the gate of the Medical complex. The Ministry's spokesman indicated that the occupation asked them to evacuate the Shifa Medical Complex, but the response to those who contacted them from the International Committee of the Red Cross was, "If the occupation wants to evacuate the complex, it can only take the patients out to hospitals in the Arab Republic of Egypt because it is absolutely impossible to evacuate these wounded." Or the patients into the street, as happened with the patients and medical teams who were forced by the Israeli occupation, along with the displaced people, to go out of several hospitals into the street. Al-Qudra said that a number of children died during this movement because there were no life support devices, and therefore we do not want to repeat this crime on the 650 patients inside the Al-Shifa Medical Complex, in addition to the fact that it is not possible to evacuate the patients from the complex to the hospitals in the southern Gaza Strip, which are It is also crowded with sick cases and will also stop working in less than two days due to the lack of fuel in its generators. The IDF coordinated to transfer diesel fuel for urgent medical use to Shifa Hospital. Early in the morning, an IDF force arrived near the hospital and placed 300 liters of diesel fuel for urgent medical purposes. Later, the IDF released evidence that officials in Hamas prevented the hospital from receiving the fuel. In a recording of a conversation between an IDF officer and a senior official in the health system in Gaza, he says that the Director General of the Ministry of Health in Hamas, Yosef Abu Rish, forbids them and prevents them from getting the fuel. The IDF is enabling a passage from the Shifa, Rantisi and Nasser hospitals and opened an additional passage to enable the civilian population to evacuate southwards. In recent days, a senior officer in Israels Coordination and Liaison Administration to Gaza spoke with the manager of the Shifa Hospital multiple times, and presented him with possible passages from the hospital. IDF soldiers opened and secured a passage which enables the civilian population to evacuate, on foot and by ambulance. The Hamas terrorist organization continues to use civilian structures in the Gaza Strip, including hospitals, for its terrorist activity. IDF troops are operating in the Al-Shati Camp in the Gaza Strip; IDF killed numerous terrorists in several different battles. Over the past day, IDF soldiers began operating in the Al-Shati Camp in the northern Gaza Strip. During the operational activity, the soldiers killed numerous terrorists and uncovered a large number of terrorist infrastructure in the area. During one of the battles with the terrorists, IDF troops identified civilians who were located in a building in the area. The IDF secured an evacuation route for the civilians, and as the civilians were evacuating, terrorists fired at the troops from the outskirts of the area. In order to protect the evacuation route, IDF troops responded with light weapons fire and tanks to kill the terrorists. In another engagement, IDF troops identified a terrorist cell barricaded inside a house in the area and posed a threat to the forces. IDF troops directed an aircraft and fired at the terrorists, killing the terrorists. In addition, following an identification of an anti-tank missile launched from a weapons storage facility inside a building, a fighter jet struck the source of the fire. IDF forces from the Nahal Brigade operated yesterday in the area of ??the neighborhood and identified four terrorists near them. The forces directed a remotely manned aircraft to the location that attacked three terrorists. The vehicle continued in pursuit of the other terrorist who fled through crowded alleys, and attacked him after a short time. In recent days, the fighters of the Harel Reserve Brigade's combat team raided the Al-Karman area between Beit Hanun and Jabaliya. During the raid, they destroyed enemy and terrorist infrastructure in the area, including long-range launchers aimed at Israel, anti-tank launchers, tunnel shafts and Hamas observation posts. "From the battles for independence in 1948 to the battles for independence today, we are being pushed by our older brothers Jimmy, Poza, Rabin, Raful, Uri Ben Ari, and many other great ones," said the commander of the Harel Brigade, Col. Itamar Michaeli, when the troops left for the raid on Merhav Alkarman, "Now is our hour, we have a great privilege to join the ranks of the wall guards, to protect our families and our dear country. We will return to our home only after we finish our work and the reality of the lives of the residents of the south will change." The Chief of Staff, Lt. Col. Hartzi Halevi, met today (Sunday) with the mayors and local councils in the Gaza Strip and in the south in the city of Ashkelon. "The IDF is deeply committed to the settlements of the south and the surrounding areas, we will do everything to restore security and prosperity in the region," stated the Chief of Staff, "For years the IDF has been working in great partnership with the local leadership that has led this region forward, and we believe in you very much. Thanks to the resilience of the residents and their bravery, we will continue to fight to bring security that will allow a return to the settlements. The entire IDF, and I personally, are focused on only one goal now - to defeat and dismantle Hamas. We failed in our mission to protect the residents, and we are also now responsible for security in the future. We will remember what happened, we will fight and we will not allow such an incident to happen again." Following the initial reports regarding sirens that sounded in northern Israel, 15 launches from Lebanon toward Israeli territory were identified over the last hour. The IDF Aerial Defense Array intercepted four of the launches, with the rest falling into open areas. IDF soldiers are currently responding with artillery toward the origins of the launches. Furthermore, seven IDF soldiers were lightly injured as a result of the mortar shell launches in the area of Manara. In response to the fire earlier today, IDF fighter jets struck a number of Hezbollah terror targets in Lebanon. Among the targets struck were military infrastructure used by Hezbollah to direct its terrorist activity. In addition, IDF soldiers struck the terrorist cell that opened fire toward the area of Dovev in which a number of civilians were injured. Furthermore, a short while ago, a terrorist cell launched a number of mortar shells toward northern Israel. The IDF struck the cell, as well as an additional terrorist cell in the area of Yarin. Moreover, a short while ago, a number of mortar shell launches toward northern Israel were identified. No injuries were reported. IDF soldiers responded with artillery toward the origin of the launches. Terrorists launched anti-tank missiles toward the area of Dovev in northern Israel. A number of civilians were injured as a result of the launches. IDF artillery is striking the origin of the launch. In addition, a short while ago, a terrorist cell embedded in a civilian area in Lebanon that intended to open fire toward Israeli territory was struck by the IDF. Furthermore, overnight, an IDF UAV struck a terrorist cell that attempted to launch anti-tank missiles toward the area of Metula. Hezbollah announced in a statement that it had targeted a logistical force belonging to the occupation army that was about to install transmission poles and eavesdropping and spying devices in a new gathering near the Doviv Barracks. According to confirmed information, more than fifteen Zionists were killed or wounded in the specific double operation that targeted the Doviv Barracks. . For its part, eight IDF soldiers and two IDF officers were reportedly killed at the targeted site by Hezbollah members, while Hebrew media reported about forty casualties on Sunday on the northern border, between dead and wounded due to Hezbollah strikes. The resistance also targeted a gathering of the occupation army in the Ruwaisat al-Asi site with appropriate weapons, and they achieved confirmed casualties, according to the pictures published by the resistances military media. The resistance also announced targeting a gathering of enemy infantry in Birkat Risha and the Zarait barracks, and achieved direct casualties. As a result of these specific operations, the southern Lebanese border witnessed unprecedented tension, as a result of which occupation aircraft and artillery targeted Lebanese villages and civilian homes. Israeli forces used internationally banned white phosphorus bombs against civilian sites. Lebanese media sources confirmed that more than two hundred and fifty phosphorus shells fell, in addition to several air strikes that targeted the outskirts of the town of Yaroun in the central sector of southern Lebanon. Egyptian security sources said that a group of foreigners and injured Palestinians who were evacuated from Gaza arrived in Egypt after the reopening of the Rafah crossing. The sources said that several injured Palestinians arrived in Egyptian territory to receive treatment, in addition to 80 holders of foreign nationalities and their families, while others are subject to transit procedures. Evacuation operations through the crossing were stopped for the third time on Friday after obstacles in transporting injured Palestinians from the northern Gaza Strip. The General Authority for Crossings and Borders had announced the resumption of operation of the Rafah crossing, and called on travelers holders of foreign passports listed on the travel lists to go to the crossing. A White House advisor announced the evacuation of more than 300 Americans or permanent American residents and their family members from the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing, after intense negotiations with all parties concerned with the Israeli war on Gaza. Jonathan Viner, a national security adviser, explained in an interview with the American CBS network that the United States believes that there are still a number of Americans inside Gaza. Viner added that the Americans in Gaza are a major priority, stressing the continuation of work until every American who wants to leave the Strip can do so. The Gaza Strip government suspended the evacuation of foreigners and dual nationals to Egypt due to Israel's refusal to transfer wounded Palestinians to Egyptian hospitals, according to what an official source in the crossings authority. Israel's refusal to evacuate wounded Palestinians came on the grounds that a third of the list of wounded who need to be evacuated belongs to fighters of the Islamic Resistance Movement ( Hamas ), according to a White House official. Bystanders UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the United States has a special ability and responsibility to contribute to how Gaza is managed. Guterres added to the American CNN network that it is difficult for the Palestinian Authority or Arab countries to assume their responsibilities in Gaza with the presence of the Israeli army. He added that the best scenario is for the revitalized Palestinian Authority to take over leadership in Gaza. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for pressure on the United States to stop Israels offensive in Gaza, but said there would be no agreement unless Washington accepted the enclave as Palestinian land. Erdogan returned from the summit of Arab and Muslim leaders in the Saudi capital Riyadh, which condemned Israeli forces barbaric actions in Gaza. We should hold talks with Egypt and the Gulf countries, and pressure the United States, Erdogan told Turkish reporters on board his return flight from Riyadh. The US should increase its pressure on Israel. The West should increase pressure on Israel ... Its vital for us to secure a ceasefire, he said. Erdogan, who was on a trip to a northeastern Turkish village when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Ankara on November 5, did not rule out a meeting with President Joe Biden. The most important country that needs to be involved is the United States, which has influence on Israel, Erdogan said. But he said he would not call Biden. Blinken has just been here (in Turkey). I guess Biden will host us from now on. It would not be suitable for me to call Biden, he said. Erdogan said the US must accept Gaza as Palestinian land. We cannot agree with Biden if he approaches (the conflict) by seeing Gaza as the land of occupying settlers or Israel, rather than the land of the Palestinian people, he said. Turkey is technically a candidate for eventual EU membership and, even if this seems a distant prospect, Erdogans portrayal of Hamas militants as liberators -- which differs sharply from the blocs -- has caused unease. In its annual report on candidate countries progress published this week, the EU said Turkeys rhetoric in support of terrorist group Hamas following its attacks against Israel ... is in complete disagreement with the EU approach. The European Union thinks exactly the same as Israel regarding Hamas. But we did not think like them, Erdogan said. I see Hamas as a political party that won the elections in Palestine. I dont look at it the same way they do, he added. Irish lawmakers have prepared a motion that will see them voting on the expulsion of the Israeli occupation's ambassador to the country next week as opposition to the Israeli occupation continues to grow in the West over its massacres in Gaza. Reports from local media, including the Irish Examiner, suggest that the motion will further call for the imposition of EU-wide economic sanctions on the Israeli occupation and refer it to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate it for war crimes. Holly Cairns, the leader of the Social Democrats, expressed her concern over what she described as the Israeli occupation's "cruel and disproportionate response" to Operation Al-Aqsa Flood which "has, to date, seen more than 11,000 people killed in Gaza over 5,000 of them children and resulted in the collective punishment and mass displacement of millions of innocent civilians." The motion is expected to call for "the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, on the grounds that the human rights clause in the trade deal has been seriously breached," as well as the suspension of the Israeli occupation's access to the 95 billion Horizon Europe fund for research and innovation. "Given Israels failure to cease the deliberate targeting of civilians, journalists, UN staff, and healthcare workers, the Government must withdraw the diplomatic status of the Israeli Ambassador to Ireland," the Irish MP said. The Irish Examiner hinted at another motion from Ireland's largest party, Sinn Fein, which is expected to call for the referral of "Israel" to the International Criminal Court. Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald underlined that the situation in Gaza was a "moment of reckoning for world leaders, for the European Union; a test of commitment to human rights, peace, and democracy." "Where is the protection of international law for every child killed in Gaza, for every Gazan mother holding the cold body of their dead child?," she asked, underlining that the Israeli occupation must not go unpunished and continue committing crimes with impunity, calling for the Israeli occupation to be referred to the International Criminal Court. "When the European Commission gives carte blanche to Israel to massacre Palestinians, we say, no, never. They do not speak for us," she added. "The world sees Israeli actions for what they are. Barbaric. Hateful. Cowardly. War crimes." Matt Carthy, the party's foreign affairs spokesperson, referenced Prime Minister Leo Varadkar's acknowledgment that "Israel's" failure to observe humanitarian law "can't be inconsequential." Carthy urged consequences for "Israel's" actions, including the deliberate targeting of civilians, destruction of civilian infrastructure, mass forced displacement, and denial of essential supplies to the civilian population of Gaza. "Ireland should also exercise our right as a state party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court to refer the actions in Palestine and Israel to the prosecutor of the court for the purpose of requesting an investigation into any acts of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide that have occurred in Gaza over the past month," he said. 'If someone violates your right to self-determination, you are entitled to embrace resistance' says UN rapporteur on human rights Francesca Albanese The UNs special in the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, said that Israel should make peace with the terrorist organization Hamas. It needs to make peace with Hamas in order to not be threatened by Hamas," Albanese said during a series of speeches and media events in Australia, as quoted by The Sydney Morning Herald. After the October 7 massacres, she said a more limited military campaign to arrest and prosecute those responsible for the attacks would have been better, adding that the UN should have been called to help demilitarize Gaza. Axis of Resistance The President of the Republic, Ibrahim Raisi, confirmed that the Islamic Republic of Iran has a clear vision regarding Palestine, and said that Iran declared from the beginning that the Zionist entity is an usurping entity. After his return on Saturday evening from a short and intensive visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to participate in the joint meeting of leaders of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League, Dr. Raisi explained the results and achievements of the visit and said: This meeting was important in two respects: One is that it was held in the presence of all Islamic and Arab countries, and the other is that its topic was the fundamental issue of todays world and all the peoples of the world. He added: The Islamic Republic of Iran has careful words to say regarding the issue of Palestine , and I tried to be the voice of the Iranian people and the demonstrators who are calling for the rights of Palestinians in the streets. The Islamic Republic of Iran, since the beginning of the victory of the Islamic Revolution, has had a frank and clear opinion regarding the rights of the Palestinian people. On the other hand, it has always viewed the Zionist entity as a false, usurping entity that has no identity. Raisi stressed that the passage of time, even if it was 75 years, does not create legitimacy and property rights for a usurping and occupying entity, and said: "The Islamic Republic of Iran, based on the clear and frank opinion of the late Imam and Leader of the Islamic Revolution, considered the issue of liberating Jerusalem and ensuring the rights of the Palestinian people to be the first issue for the Islamic world and a standard for determining and knowing the true positions of countries." The President of the Republic considered clarifying the Islamic Republics point of view towards Palestine and clarifying the dimensions of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the genocide of the Zionists in Gaza , among his other goals for participating in this meeting. He added: The most important fundamental difference between our presence and our speech in this meeting compared to the other participants is that America is considered the culprit. The main role in these crimes is the establishment, survival, arming and support of the Zionist entity in Palestine and the killing of Palestinian women and children. Ayatollah Raisi also explained his ten solutions and proposals that he presented at this meeting for Gazas exit from the current crisis, and stressed the necessity of supporting the resistance as the only way to liberate Holy Jerusalem. He said: We are in this meeting, and contrary to what some say about the future of the Palestinian issue in the form of a two-state solution, we presented A fully democratic solution based on returning to the voices of all Palestinians, including Muslims, Christians and Jews, to determine their fate. He pointed out that about 10 side meetings were held on the sidelines of this summit with the heads of Arab and Islamic countries, and he expressed his satisfaction with the statement of the Islamic Republics clear position on the issue of Palestine and Gaza, as well as the review of bilateral and friendly relations and international relations during these meetings and other opportunities. He said: We hope that what was done in this visit and in this meeting aims to secure the national interests and the Islamic nation. A joint meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Arab League was held in Riyadh on Saturday to discuss the ways to help Gaza and stop the Israeli regimes atrocities against the Palestinian people besieged in the enclave. Asked about a resolution passed at the conclusion of the emergency summit in Saudi Arabia, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said on Sunday that the bulk of the proposals that Iran had put forward in the course of negotiations on a final communique have been incorporated in the resolution. The tone and phrases of the resolution are strong and sturdy, the spokesperson said. He noted that the resolution is deemed to be concrete as it has: Called on all countries to stop exporting weapons and ammunition to the Zionist regime; Called on the UN Security Council to promptly pass a resolution condemning Israels barbaric destruction of hospitals in the Gaza Strip, the obstruction of medicine, food and fuel and the severing of crucial services like electricity, water, communication and internet access; Demanded an end to the siege on Gaza and allowing the immediate entry of Arab, Islamic and international humanitarian aid convoys into the enclave; Called on the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to complete the investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed by the Israeli regime; Called for the establishment of monitoring units at the Secretariats of the OIC to document all the crimes committed by the Zionist regime; Assigned the Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in its capacity as the presidency of the 32nd Arab and Islamic Summit, along with counterparts from Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Palestine, and any other interested countries (Iran, Malaysia and Pakistan have also expressed their readiness in the meeting) to initiate immediate international action on behalf of all member states of the OIC and the Arab League to formulate an international move to halt the war in Gaza and to pressure for a real and serious political process to achieve permanent and comprehensive peace in accordance with established international references; Called upon member states of the OIC and the Arab League to exert diplomatic, political, and legal pressures, and take any deterrent actions to halt the crimes committed by the colonial occupation authorities against humanity; Condemned the double standards in applying international law (a reference to the Westerners double standards on the wars in Ukraine and Gaza); Condemned the displacement of Palestinians from the northern to the southern areas of the Gaza Strip; Fully and absolutely rejected any attempts at individual or mass forced displacement, deportation, or exile of the Palestinian people whether within the Gaza Strip, the West Bank including Al-Quds, or outside their territories to any destination; Emphasized the necessity of releasing all Palestinian prisoners and civilians; Called for a halt to the occupation forces killing crimes and the settlers terrorism and crimes in the Palestinian villages, cities and refugee camps in the occupied West Bank and all assaults on the Al-Aqsa Mosque and all Islamic and Christian sanctities; Emphasized the Israeli regime's need to fulfil its obligations as the occupying power by ceasing all illegal actions that perpetuate the occupation; Condemned the extremist and racist hate speech and actions by ministers within the Israeli occupying government, including one ministers threat to use nuclear weapons against the Palestinian people in Gaza, and considering them a serious threat to international peace and security; Condemned the killing of journalists, children, and women, the targeting of medics, and the use of internationally banned white phosphorus in the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip and Lebanon; has denounced the repeated Israeli statements and threats to return Lebanon to the Stone Age; and has called on the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to investigate Israels use of chemical weapons; Rejected any proposals that perpetuate the separation of Gaza from the West Bank; Called for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem, the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, the Shebaa Farms, and the Kfar Shuba Hills; Called for the activation of the Arab and Islamic Financial Safety Net to provide financial contributions and support -economic, financial, and humanitarian- to the government of the State of Palestine and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and has emphasized the necessity of reconstruction of Gaza; And has assigned the Secretary-General of the OIC to oversee the implementation of the resolution and present a report on it at the upcoming sessions of their respective councils. Kanaani also noted that although the OIC summit resolution had a strong text, it contains a number of articles about which Iran has expressed reservations, particularly the articles about the implementation of a two-state solution, the 1967 borders, and the Arab Peace Initiative. The Islamic Republic of Iran still has reservations about the Arab Leagues stance stipulated in the resolution that the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and believes that all Palestinians and Palestinian groups, including the PLO, are the representatives of the Palestinian nation and have the right to struggle against the occupiers and the right to self-determination according to the international law, Kanaani added. Osama Hamdan, a member of Hamas' Political Bureau, stressed that all entities and organizations that have acted in complacency in regard to "Israel's" bombing of hospitals in the Gaza Strip bear responsibility for the occupation's continued breaching of international law. The official pointed out the Israeli previous attempts to conceal its responsibility for the bombing of al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, saying that it is currently blatantly targeting hospitals via its warplanes. The leader emphasized that "Israel" will pay a heavy price for targeting hospitals in Gaza both on the battlefield and in international courts. On the developments on the battlefield in Gaza, Hamdan said that occupation forces are receiving heavy blows in Gaza's streets, stressing the effectiveness of al-Yassin rocket-propelled grenades, in the face of the occupation's armored vehicles. "Gaza will only be ruled by its people", he stressed, after reports indicating that an international force would be deployed to the Strip and official Israeli statements suggesting that "Israel" will reoccupy the Strip once the Israeli aggression ends. The Resistance movement had expected Arab and Muslim nations to take a stronger stance in support of Palestine. "We expected our Arab and Muslim brothers to play their card of power during the summit in Riyadh, in order to stop the suffering of Gazans," Hamdan said, expressing clear disappointment with the summit's closing statement. Finally, the official reiterated that "facing the Zionist entity is a global humanitarian mission," as he thanked the masses who protested the occupation's crimes in Gaza all over the world. Hezbollah Executive Council chief Sayyed Hashem Safieddine said the Islamic Resistance has the initiative as the Israeli occupation is deterred by its capabilities. The Resistance will work around the clock and remain vigilant to protect the homeland and the people, Sayyed Safieddine said, emphasizing that this is "a necessity". Safieddine insisted that "we will continue to bear arms in the face of the enemy, which cannot be trusted," pointing out that what has been happening in the Gaza Strip confirms that "there can be no reliance on any force in the world for protection because we face an enemy that has no values." In a speech delivered during a memorial ceremony in the southern suburbs of Beirut, he said, "We respond to the enemy by confirming that we will work to improve our missile capabilities." "Security and safety are maintained with our arms, blood, and capabilities," renewing Hezbollah's stance on adhering to the principle of an eye for an eye, i.e., any targeting of civilians will be met with the targeting of civilians. "If the enemy's goal is to intimidate us through its crimes, it must realize that these scenes make people more attached to the Resistance to deter it," he said. "No one in this world can stop the tide of Resistance in our region." The Resistance, Sayyed Safieddine said, is the sole guarantor of the people's safety and the region's security. "We cannot rely on the so-called major powers that promote the two-state solution," talks about which are over, he added. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement commented on the resolutions of the joint Arab-Islamic summit held in Riyadh to discuss the situation in Gaza, expressing its strong astonishment at the summit's final statement. In a statement, the PIJ indicated that condemnations, demands, and calls highlighted in the summit's final statement gave the impression that the statement was issued by an entity unrelated to the massacres against the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. It said that, through its statement, the summit of 57 countries appeared incapable of anything except plead and demand. The PIJ said the summit's final statement reflects the collective evasion of Arab and Islamic countries from their responsibilities and distancing themselves from their duty to protect Arab and Islamic national security. It also accused these countries of abandoning Palestine and its people to the Zionist entity and its Western backers. The PIJ movement expressed its strong disagreement with the final statement's affirmation of adhering to the so-called 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, emphasizing that the prerequisite for peace with "Tel Aviv" and establishing normal relations with it is ending its occupation of all Palestinian and Arab territories, especially as some Arab regimes are rushing toward normalization with the Zionist entity. The spokesman for the Ansar Allah movement in Yemen, Muhammad Abdel Salam, confirmed that there are many pressure cards in the hands of Arabs and Muslims to pressure the United States to stop the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip and its people, the latest of which is the threat of using force. Muhammad Abdel Salam said in his statements: "We regret the inability of the Arab Islamic Summit to take a position that supports Gaza, even to the minimum, while we found that some of them did not delay in forming a war and siege alliance against Yemen." Abdel Salam added: "The requirements of belonging to Islam are that the nation should be for each other, and the aggressive alliance against Yemen was the opposite of that, and Gaza today is asking for the help of Arabs and Muslims, but it has not found much except blindness and betrayal." He continued: "We are here to advise and remind of responsibilities and not to harm anyone. The tragedy of Gaza and the Palestinian issue cannot afford the luxury of debate, and it is not in the interest of the Arab and Islamic regimes except for them to stand as one man and raise one voice in the face of America to stop the aggression of its protege Israel against Gaza." Abdel Salam added: "There are many pressure cards in the hands of the Arabs and Muslims, the latest of which is the threat of using force. If they were honest and took one position, America would have acquiesced and stopped Israels aggression against Gaza without war." Allied for Democracy The Israeli newspaper "Maariv" quoted Nissim Faturi, Vice Speaker of the Knesset and member of the Security and Foreign Affairs Committee in the Israeli Parliament, demanding that the people of the Gaza Strip be deported to Scotland. MK Fattore explained that if the Prime Minister of Scotland, Hamza Yousef, comes, we ask her to receive the people of Gaza, open the Gaza port for her and bring her ships to deport them. The Israeli "Channel 7" had earlier quoted Itamar Ben Gvir, the Israeli Minister of National Security, as demanding that Benjamin Netanyahu deport Palestinian citizens from the Gaza Strip to Scotland, claiming that the Scottish Prime Minister, Hamza Yousef, had announced Scotland's readiness to provide humanitarian asylum for refugees from Gaza. Providing them with the necessary medical assistance. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cast more doubt on his allies about the future of Gaza , indicating that the Palestinian Authority in its current form should not take responsibility for the Strip, But Tel Aviv did not specify in the statements of its officials who should rule the Gaza Strip after the end of the conflict in its favor, as it hoped, saying only that Israel would maintain public security. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said that his authority could play a future role in governing the Gaza Strip, but Netanyahu indicated that he does not want to unleash the current Palestinian Authority rulers in Gaza. During a press conference, Netanyahu expressed his long-standing complaints about the curriculum in Palestinian Authority schools, which he says fuels hatred for Israel, and its policy of paying salaries to the families of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Netanyahu said, "There will be no civil authority that teaches its children...to eliminate the State of Israel, and there cannot be an authority that pays the salaries of the families of the killers." He added, "There cannot be an authority headed by someone who has not condemned the massacre (on October 7) more than 30 days later." The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the administration of US President Joe Biden contacted Israeli officials, and asked them to clarify what Netanyahu meant when he said, Israel will continue to have security control over the Gaza Strip. The newspaper said that Netanyahu kept repeating this phrase about the situation in Gaza after the end of the war several times during recent days, in a statement, in interviews with foreign media, and in a meeting with Israeli officials. In a statement at his press conference last night, Netanyahu addressed the issue of the day after the war in Gaza, and said, We will not agree to give up security control over Gaza under any circumstances, adding, The next day, Gaza will be demilitarized, and there will be no Another threat from the Gaza Strip to Israel. The Israeli analyst, Eli Nissan, considered that the Palestinian Authority is weak and cannot assume this responsibility. Nissan, said in statements to Al-Hurra website that the authority is weak and did not issue any statement denouncing the massacre and killing that the Jewish people witnessed on October 7th, and Abu Mazen also went to the International Criminal Court in The Hague accusing Israel of committing war crimes. This means, according to Nissan, that from Abbass point of view, Israel does not have the right to defend itself against Hamas, which means that Hamas is capable of committing massacres, and when Israel responds to that, it is accused of committing war crimes. The Israeli analyst, Wadih Awada, considered that Netanyahu wants to keep the separation between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in place. Awada believes in his statements to Maa Al-Hurra that Netanyahu wants to prolong the war because he realizes that with its end, a political war will begin, as he will fight for his reputation and to remain in power in the hope of surviving the difficult (political) day of reckoning. According to the analyst, Netanyahu rejects the return of the Palestinian Authority because he does not want a two-state solution, so the return of the Authority would be an important step towards that, and it is something the American administration talked about, even if it did not demand its immediate implementation. He believes that all "this damage to Israel is the result of his strategy, which is based on preventing the achievement of the two-state solution by perpetuating the dispute between Gaza and Ramallah until this strategy exploded in his face." In addition to this grave strategic damage, accepting power there now would mean accepting political defeat for all his political project, which is based on preventing a two-state settlement, or squandering the chances of it occurring. Awada adds that Netanyahu officially rejects the return of the Authority because it did not denounce the Hamas attack, "but the question is: If the Authority had denounced the attack on Israel, would he have accepted the return of the Authority? Of course not. They are just pretexts in order to avert the nightmare of a settlement." The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs considered in a statement that Netanyahu, and his followers from the right, are dealing with the Authority as an obstacle to the implementation of these plans, and as a strong obstacle to the official Israeli trend to maintain the separation between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, in order to undermine the unity of the Palestinian people and the unity of their homeland, and any An opportunity to embody the Palestinian state on the ground, according to the statement. Nabil Abu Rudeina, Abbas's spokesman, had told Reuters that the Israelis were seeking to "preserve the division between the West Bank and Gaza." He added, "Israeli attempts to separate Gaza from the West Bank will fail, and will not be allowed, no matter the pressure." The Palestinian Authority administered both the West Bank and Gaza but was expelled from the Strip in 2007 after a conflict with Hamas. Diplomats told Reuters there are also concerns that Abbas, 87, does not have enough power or support from his people to take charge. A diplomat based in Jerusalem told the agency: At the present time, there is no clear idea regarding what might happen in Gaza once the fighting stops. Israeli Minister of Agriculture Avi Dichter said that the displacement of residents of the northern Gaza Strip to the south at the request of the occupation army is a repetition of the Palestinian Nakba, which angered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , as he asked his ministers not to make any statements that might cause harm to Israel. Avi Dichter - a member of the Israeli security ministerial team - commented on the scenes of the displacement of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza that what is happening is the Gaza Nakba 2023, as he put it, in an interview with the Israeli Channel 12. In response to a question about whether the occupation forces request for the people of Gaza to move south was one of the psychological goals of the operation, Dichter said, This is an operational event, and we must realize that a large number of our soldiers are there, and this is a very densely populated area, and in a crowded place like this you have to reduce the number. civilian population." The Israeli minister continued by saying, "We are now practically repeating the Nakba, if you like. This is the Nakba of Gaza, and there is no room for waging a war the way the army wants to conduct it if the masses are present among the tanks and soldiers. This is the Nakba of Gaza 2023." Dichter's statements angered Netanyahu, who quickly asked his government ministers not to utter any statements that might cause harm to Israel. He said in television statements, "You should not say anything if you do not know the impact of that," and added, "Every word has its weight in terms of the media position." For Israel in the world. Two legal groups in France announced that they will file lawsuits locally and internationally regarding the legal responsibility of arms companies and European officials for exporting weapons that contributed to the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the occupied Palestinian territories. The "Coalition of Lawyers for France to Respect its International Commitments" and the "Committee of Lawyers for France to Respect its International Commitments" said - in a statement - that countries such as Germany, France, Italy and Britain continued to export weapons and spare parts, provide maintenance, and provide technical support and training to the Israeli army, despite reports of violations. International humanitarian law . The two groups said that there is strong and credible legal evidence regarding the responsibility of European arms companies and European officials for the Israeli armys violation of international humanitarian law, including its commission of war crimes. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Sunday he opposed an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, as calls multiply globally to halt the conflict triggered by Hamas unprecedented attack on Israel. I dont think the calls for an immediate ceasefire or long pause -- which would amount to the same thing -- are right, Scholz said in a debate organized by the German regional daily Heilbronner Stimme. That would mean ultimately that Israel leaves Hamas the possibility of recovering and obtaining new missiles, he added, calling instead for humanitarian pauses. Leading Republican lawmakers are pushing to deny new funding for the largest humanitarian relief operation in Gaza, provided by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). They allege ties between the organization and Hamas, despite UNRWA's plea for assistance amid the brutal Israeli aggression on Gaza. US President Joe Biden has reportedly requested $9 billion for urgent global humanitarian aid, including replenishing UNRWA's supplies, but this faces rejection in a bipartisan Senate deal. Some Republicans claim Hamas used UNRWA aid in an attack, an accusation denied by both aid groups and the White House. The political fight may impact the US response to the war and hinder humanitarian efforts in Gaza. I have grave concerns about how weve been expending humanitarian aid in Gaza, said Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who said he would vote against any efforts to give more money to UNRWA. I dont see a need for it right now, as long as the war is going on, he said. The White House has stated that there are no known instances of US aid for UNRWA being diverted to Hamas or any other group in Gaza or the West Bank in recent years. It is worth noting that the US government is considered the largest donor to UNRWA, providing over $371 million this year and more than $1 billion since 2021. The Trump administration suspended funding in 2018, but Biden reinstated it shortly after taking office. UNRWA is currently seeking additional support and is said to play a crucial role in providing humanitarian aid in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. The organization is facing challenges in the ongoing Israeli aggression, with over 100 of its staff members reportedly killed since Israeli airstrikes began last month. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini has urged global leaders to contribute $481 million to address urgent humanitarian needs. "For UNRWA not to be able to function in Gaza would be devastating under normal circumstances, but to do so now would be exponentially worse. There are no words to describe how horrible it would be, said Yousef Munayyer, former executive director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, as quoted by The Washington Post. This is just nut-job stuff from Republicans that is absolutely not true and cruel. You want to take food out of the mouths of refugee children? What is wrong with you?, he added. If UNRWA is excluded as a means of delivering aid, the method of providing Gaza with assistance becomes uncertain. Due to constant Israeli aggressions and total blockades, UNRWA has been responsible for ensuring that aid entering Gaza through the Rafah Crossing with Egypt is delivered to its intended destinations, handling shipping and storage in UNRWA warehouses. Even before the current aggression on Gaza, the organization transported food for 1.2 million forcibly displaced Palestinians in Gaza, importing 60% of the territory's food and providing education for over 330,000 children. With about two-thirds of Gaza's population being refugees or their descendants, fears are heightened that the ongoing war could result in permanent displacement, referred to by Palestinians as a "second Nakba". NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russo-Ukraine War - 11 November 2023 - Day 626 Su M Tu W Th F Sa 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 A number of claims and counterclaims are being made on the Ukraine-Russia conflict on the ground and online. While GlobalSecurity.org takes utmost care to accurately report this news story, we cannot independently verify the authenticity of all statements, photos and videos. On 24 February 2022, Ukraine was suddenly and deliberately attacked by land, naval and air forces of Russia, igniting the largest European war since the Great Patriotic War. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "special military operation" (SVO - spetsialnaya voennaya operatsiya) in Ukraine in response to the appeal of the leaders of the "Donbass republics" for help. That attack is a blatant violation of the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine. Putin stressed that Moscow's goal is the demilitarization and denazification of the country. The military buildup in preceeding months makes it obvious that the unprovoked and dastardly Russian attack was deliberately planned long in advance. During the intervening time, the Russian government had deliberately sought to deceive the world by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace. "To initiate a war of aggression... is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." [Judgment of the International Military Tribunal] The UK Ministry of Defence reported that Russia's State Archive Agency has published a collection of documents "On the historical unity of the Russians and Ukrainians". It opens with Russian President Vladimir Putin's July 2021 article on the subject, immediately followed by his address on the situation in Ukraine given on 21 February 2022, the eve of the invasion. The book features 242 documents ranging from the 11th century to the 20th century, which are used to justify the Kremlin's current policy and support the claim that foreign subversion turned Ukraine into "anti-Russia". The documents are accompanied by Putin's interpretative comments. Last week former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ostensibly wrote an article on the history of Russo-Polish relations. He accused Poland of conducting an aggressive revisionist "Russophobic" policy, warning this could lead to the destruction of Polish statehood and threatening that Russia and Belarus are able to provide an adequate military response if necessary. The weaponisation of history by the Russian leadership is intensifying, aimed at inculcating anti-westernism in the minds of the Russian population and intimidating its immediate western neighbours. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that during the day of November 11, there were 71x combat engagements. Russian forces launched a total of 1x missile and 41x air strikes, 44x MLRS attacks at the positions of Ukrainian troops and various settlements. Unfortunately, Russian attacks have resulted in civilian casualties and injuries. Private residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure were destroyed and damaged. The operational situation in east and south of Ukraine remains difficult. Volyn and Polissya axes: no significant changes. No signs of formation of an offensive group. Certain units of the armed forces of Belarus continue their missions in the areas bordering Ukraine. Sivershchyna and Slobozhanshchyna axes: Russia maintains its military presence in the areas of Russia bordering Ukraine. Russia continues its sabotage and reconnaissance activities, shelling Ukrainian settlements from the territory of Russia and increases the density of minefields along the state border of Ukraine. Around 20x settlements came under Russian artillery and mortar fire, including Zaliznyi Mist, Halahanivka, Leonivka (Chernihiv oblast), Seredyna-Buda, Stepok, Basivka (Sumy oblast), Starytsya, Mali Prokhody, Vovchans'ki Khutory (Kharkiv oblast). Kup'yans'k axis: Russian forces conducted unsuccessful assault operations in the vicinities of Syn'kivka, Ivanivka (Kharkiv oblast) and Stel'makhivka, Nadiya (Luhansk oblast). The Ukrainian defenders repelled 7x attacks in the area. The Russian occupiers launched air strikes near Kyslivka, Stepova Novoselivka (Kharkiv oblast). The Russian invaders fired artillery and mortars at around 10x settlements, including Dvorichna, Syn'kivka, Petropavlivka, Ivanivka, Berestove (Kharkiv oblast). Lyman axis: Russian forces made failed assaults with air support in the area of Serebryans'ke forestry (Luhansk oblast). The Russian invaders launched air strikes in the vicinities of Kopanky (Kharkiv oblast), Bilohorivka (Luhansk oblast) Terny, Sivers'k, Spirne (Donetsk oblast). The Russian occupiers fired artillery and mortars at around 10x settlements, including Nevs'ke, Bilohorivka (Luhansk oblast), Tors'ke, Serebryanka, Spirne, Rozdolivka (Donetsk oblast). Bakhmut axis: Russian forces conducted unsuccessful assault operations with air support in the vicinities of Andriivka and Klishchiivka (Donetsk oblast), where Ukrainian defenders repelled 10x attacks. Also, Russian forces launched an air strike near Kurdyumivka (Donetsk oblast). Around 10x settlements came under artillery and mortar fire, including Klishchiivka, Kurdyumivka, Ivanivske, New York (Donetsk oblast). Avdiivka axis: Russian forces conducted assault operations with air support near Avdiivka, Sjeverne and Pervomais'ke (Donetsk oblast), where the Ukrainian Defense Forces repelled 14x attacks. The Russian occupiers launched air strikes near the settlements of Novobakhmutivka, Lastochkyne, Orlivka (Donetsk oblast). Russian forces fired artillery and mortars at around 10x settlements, including Berdychi, Sjeverne, Avdiivka, Pervomais'ke (Donetsk oblast). Mar'inka axis: Russian forces made unsuccessful assaults with air support in the vicinities of Mar'inka and Novomykhailivka (Donetsk oblast), where Ukrainian defenders repelled 17x attacks. Around 10x settlements of Donetsk oblast, including Heorhiivka, Mar'inka, Novomykhailivka, were under artillery and mortar fire of the Russian occupiers. Shakhtars'ke axis: the Russian invaders conducted assaults with air support in the vicinities of Vuhledar, Zolota Nyva and Staromaiors'ke (Donetsk oblast), to no success. Ukrainian defenders repelled 11x attacks in the area. Also, the Russian adversary launched an air strike near Urozhaine (Donetsk oblast). Around 10x settlements, including Vodyane, Vuhledar, Prechystivka, Staromaiors'ke (Donetsk oblast), came under artillery and mortar fire. Zaporizhzhia axis: Russian forces made failed assaults with air support in the vicinity of Robotyne (Zaporizhzhia oblast). Around 30x settlements, including Malynivka, Huliaipole, Charivne, Robotyne, P'yatykhatky (Zaporizhzhia oblast), came under artillery and mortar fire. Kherson axis: Russian forces launched an air strike near the settlement of Tyahynka (Kherson oblast). The settlements of Chornobaivka, Stepanivka (Kherson oblast), the city of Kherson and the city of Ochakiv (Mykolaiv oblast) suffered from Russian artillery shelling. At the same time, the Ukrainian Defense Forces continue their offensive operation on Melitopol' axis and offensive (assault) operations on Bakhmut axis, inflicting losses in manpower and equipment on the Russian occupation forces, exhausting Russian forces all along the front line. During the day of November 11, Ukrainian Air Force launched 10x air strikes on concentrations of troops, weapons and military equipment of the Russian occupiers. On top of that, Ukrainian air defense destroyed 1x S-400 anti-aircraft guided missile. The Ukrainian missile troops hit 2x artillery systems, 6x concentrations of troops, weapons and military equipment, 2x air defense systems of the Russian invaders. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported that in Kupyansk direction, in the course of active operations, units of the Zapad Group of Forces, supported by aviation and artillery, have repelled three attacks by assault groups of 54th and 67th mechanised brigades of the AFU close to Sinkovka, Zagoruykovka (Kharkov region). The enemy losses were up to 50 Ukrainian servicemen, two armoured fighting vehicles, and two pickup trucks. In the course of counter-battery warfare, two Polish-manufactured Krab self-propelled artillery systems, one Gvozdika self-propelled artillery system, and one D-30 howitzer have been hit. In Krasny Liman direction, as a result of coordinated actions of units of the Tsentr Group of Forces, helicopters and artillery, two attacks by assault groups of the 47nd Mechanised Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been repelled close to Petrovskoye (Lugansk People's Republic). In addition, AFU 24th and 47th mechanised brigades' units have been hit close to Petrovskoye and Rozovka (Lugansk People's Republic). The enemy losses were up to 80 soldiers, three armoured fighting vehicles, and four motor vehicles. In Donetsk direction, units of the Yug Group of Forces, in cooperation with aviation and artillery, have repelled three enemy attacks and eliminated enemy personnel and hardware near Vasyukovka, Razdolovka, and Kleshcheevka (Donetsk People's Republic). The enemy losses were up to 305 soldiers killed and wounded, five armoured fighting vehicles, six motor vehicles, one Polish-manufactured Krab self-propelled artillery system, and one D-30 howitzer. In South Donetsk direction, units of the Vostok Group of Forces, in cooperation with helicopters and artillery, have inflicted a fire attack on manpower and hardware concentration areas of the AFU 79th Air Assault Brigade near Novomikhailovka (Donetsk People's Republic). The enemy losses were up to 140 troops and two motor vehicles. In the course of counter-battery warfare, one U.S.-manufactured M119 Paladin self-propelled artillery system, two Polish-manufactured Krab self-propelled artillery systems, two British-manufactured FH70 howitzers, four U.S.-manufactured M777 artillery systems, and one Msta-B howitzer have been destroyed. In Zaporozhye direction, units of the Russian Group of Forces, aviation and artillery have launched an attack on manpower and hardware concentration areas of 33rd and 118th mechanised brigades of the AFU close to Rabotino (Zaporozhye region). The enemy losses were up to 50 soldiers, two motor vehicles, one Akatsiya self-propelled artillery system, and one U.S.-manufactured M119 howitzer. In Kherson direction, the enemy losses were up to 60 AFU servicemen, one tank, three motor vehicles, and one Msta-B howitzer close to Antonovka and Shlyakhovoye (Kherson region). Operational-Tactical and Army aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, Missile Troops and Artillery of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation have neutralised manpower and military hardware in 114 areas. In addition, one ammunition depot of the 43rd Mechanised Brigade of the AFU has been hit near Devichki (Kiev region). Air defence facilities have shot down Ukrainian Air Force's MiG-29 aircraft near Zaporozhye. 5 HIMARS multiple-launch rocket system projectiles have also been intercepted. In addition, 38 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles have been destroyed close to Ploshchanka, Svatovo, Kremennaya (Lugansk People's Republic), Peski, Kurdyumovka, Vasilyovka, Kamenka (Donetsk People's Republic), Chistopolye, Tokmak, and Pologi in (Zaporozhye region). In total, 534 airplanes and 254 helicopters, 8,829 unmanned aerial vehicles, 441 air defence missile systems, 13,346 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,183 fighting vehicles equipped with MLRS, 7,059 field artillery cannons and mortars, as well as 15,194 special military motor vehicles have been destroyed during the special military operation. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address High-level China-US trade talks underscore the significance of healthy economic ties, dismiss 'decoupling' Global Times By Global Times Published: Nov 11, 2023 02:03 PM A fresh round of economic and trade talks between Chinese and US high-level officials ahead of the upcoming China-US summit meeting in San Francisco next week agreed against "decoupling" and emphasized the paramount importance of ensuring healthy economic and trade relations. High-level China-US economic and trade talks made substantial steps in building trust in stabilizing economic and trade relations, preparing for potential economic outcomes for the upcoming China-US summit meeting, Chinese experts said, noting the importance for the two sides to eliminate differences in understanding on the consensus against "decoupling." Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng met with US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen several times during his visit to the US from November 8 to 12, with cumulative duration of the talks reaching 10 hours, the pair struck consensus on strengthening communication and against "decoupling," according to a statement released by the Ministry of Finance on Saturday. Both sides are committed to implementing the important consensus reached by the leaders of China and the US, preparing for the economic outcomes of the for the upcoming China-US summit meeting in San Francisco, and promoting the return of China-US economic and trade relations to a healthy and stable development track, according to the statement. Both sides agreed to strengthen communication, seek consensus, manage differences, and avoid misunderstandings that may lead to escalating friction, the statement read. The meeting welcomes the establishment of a China-US economic and financial working group led by deputy ministerial officials, reporting to the lead persons for China-US economic and trade affairs. The lead persons for China-US economic and trade affairs agreed to regular direct communication, according to the statement. The economic relationship between China and the US is built upon shared interests. Strong cooperation is driven by a solid foundation and immense potential, but it requires equality and mutual respect as a prerequisite. Only by addressing the legitimate concerns of both parties can the bilateral economic and trade relationship truly remain stable and achieve long-term development, Vice Finance Minister Liao Min said, in response to whether China-US economic and trade relationship comes to a turning point. The outcome of the fresh round of economic and trade talks between Chinese and US high-level officials was within expectations, as it continued to strengthen high-level engagement between the world's two largest economies seeking to stabilize bilateral ties for some time, He Weiwen, senior fellow of the Center for China and Globalization, told the Global Times on Saturday. "The length of this discussion indicates that both the Chinese and American sides have shown patience, which demonstrates the importance of the economic relationship as part of overall China-US relations," He Weiwen said. The meeting set the stage for the economic agenda to be discussed at the upcoming China-US summit, He Weiwen noted. High-level China-US economic and trade talks made substantial steps in building trust in stabilizing economic and trade relations, Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times. The core of the communication is to ensure further and extensive cooperation between the two parties, effectively manage divisive issues, and gradually alleviate tension, in order to maintain a stable and fruitful economic and trade relationship between China and the US, Li said. The Chinese side has clearly expressed concern about the US restrictions on bilateral investment, sanctions against Chinese companies, export controls, and tariffs on China. China demands that the US respond with concrete actions. The talks were candid, pragmatic, in-depth, and constructive, Xinhua reported. The meeting emphasized that China and the US do not seek economic "decoupling" and welcome the development of healthy economic relations, providing a fair competitive environment for businesses and workers in both countries, the report said. Although the US has repeatedly denied "decoupling," its restrictive measures on China in economic and trade matters indicate that it has not changed its monopolistic and zero-sum approach, which contradicts its statements of "not decoupling," Chinese experts noted. There are still obvious differences in understanding between China and the US regarding the issue of whether the US is pushing "decoupling" in the economic and trade field, Li said. The series of specific concerns raised by the Chinese side indicate that the US is still moving toward "decoupling" in its economic and trade policies toward China. The US side can only address China's concerns and eliminate communication barriers to the maximum extent through taking action, so as to promote the healthy development of bilateral economic and trade relations, Li noted. Despite repeatedly stating that it does not seek to "decouple" from China in terms of trade and investment, the US has yet to take concrete actions. The US' "small yard, high fence" approach in trade and investment restrictions, which attempts to exclude China from supply chains based on its own values, contradict its claims of not seeking "decoupling," He Weiwen noted. To promote the healthy development of bilateral economic and trade relations, the US needs to strike a balance between competition and cooperation. By moving toward China, managing differences, and expanding the scope of cooperation, the differences will become more manageable, the expert added. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address China tightens curbs on rare metal exports amid tensions with US Iran Press TV Saturday, 11 November 2023 10:00 AM China has announced a decision to tighten reporting controls on rare metal exports, a move that could choke off the United States' supply of critical minerals used in the production of electric cars and missiles. The Chinese Commerce Ministry said on Tuesday that exporters of rare earth elements would need to report their shipment orders. The country's decision is being viewed as a message to Washington about Beijing's potential to target specific industries as a response to the US's own restrictions on high-end semiconductors. China is the biggest producer of rare elements. He Yadong, a ministry spokesperson, said that the establishment of an import and export statistical survey and reporting mechanism for certain bulk products is an "internationally accepted practice." "Statistics on the import and export of goods helps us to grasp the incomings and outgoings of bulk products in a timely manner in order to examine trends," he said. The new reporting requirement is an update to the commodity reporting regulations published in 2022 by China's statistics bureau and will last two years starting from October 31. China currently accounts for 60 percent of the world's rare earth extraction and 87 percent of processing, according to an analysis by the Paris-based International Energy Agency. Rare earth elements are a group of 17 minerals that, although abundant, are challenging to extract and process for use in cutting-edge technologies, from new electric vehicles and solar panels to microchips used by the defense industry. In July, Beijing imposed export restrictions on two rare earth mineralsagallium and germaniumawhich are crucial for semiconductor manufacturing. The act was viewed as a counter-blow to Washington's controls on China's access to high-end computer chips. Meanwhile, the US has worked with its allies to reduce dependence on China for rare earth metals. Renewed efforts are being made to shore up domestic production at sites such as Fort Worth in Texas. In April, the United States moved to block China's access to the most advanced semiconductors and the equipment and talent needed to make them. China slammed Washington's act as "technological terrorism" and unfairly hindering its economic growth. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address China Expresses Concern Over US Pressure on Chinese Companies - State Council Sputnik News 20231111 MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng expressed concern over the United States restricting Chinese companies and demanded actions taken by Washington to address this matter during the talks with US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the State Council of the People's Republic of China said on Saturday. On Friday, the Treasury Department said that Janet Yellen and He Lifeng had "candid, direct and productive" discussions on the US-China economic relationship. "The Chinese side unequivocally raised concerns over U.S. restrictions against China on two-way investment, sanctions on and suppression of Chinese enterprises, export controls against China, and extra tariffs, and demanded earnest action from the U.S. side to address China's concerns," the State Council of China said in a statement. The two officials agreed that the both countries did not "seek to decouple their economies" and welcomed the development of healthy economic relations between China and the United States, the State Council added. The talks were held ahead of the meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping on November 15. The Chinese president will visit the United States from November 14-17 to participate in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address North Korea slams Blinken's 'provocative' comments on Pyongyang-Moscow ties Iran Press TV Saturday, 11 November 2023 6:42 AM North Korea has slammed US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's hostile comments on Pyongyang's ties with Moscow, saying the remarks were "irresponsible and provocative." Blinken said on Thursday he shared South Korea's concerns about growing military cooperation between North Korea and Russia, which he called "growing and dangerous." "This is a matter of deep concern for both of us, as well as for other countries around the world," he said at a press conference in Seoul after meeting with South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin. Blinken also accused Russia of providing "technology and support" for North Korea's military programs. "We have real concerns about any support for North Korea's ballistic missile programs, for its nuclear technology, for its space launch capacity," he said. North Korea's foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday that Blinken's comments only "intensify political and military tensions" on the Korean peninsula, North Korea's state media KCNA reported. "The US should be accustomed to the new reality of the DPRK-Russia relations," the statement said. The ministry described the Moscow-Pyongyang relation as "friendly and cooperative," asserting that it will "steadily grow stronger." "No matter what others may say, the friendly and cooperative relations between the DPRK and Russia aspiring after independence, peace and friendship will steadily grow stronger." The United States has time and again accused Pyongyang of providing arms to Russia to help combat the West-supplied Ukrainian forces. Last month, Washington accused Pyongyang of sending a shipment of weapons to Russia, claiming that North Korea was sending more than 1000 containers of artillery and munitions to Moscow. North Korea and Russia have, however, dismissed US claims as part of its usual publicity campaign against unfriendly countries. The US has also said it will continue to enforce sanctions, expose the alleged arms deals, and make the case at the United Nations that the actions "violate Security Council resolutions." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Saudi crown prince welcomes Iranian president in Riyadh IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Nov 11, 2023 Tehran, IRNA -- Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who is on a visit to Riyadh to attend an extraordinary OIC Summit, was accorded warm welcome by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The OIC extraordinary summit is scheduled to deal with the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and help end the Zionist atrocities in the Palestinian region. President Raisi is going to address the summit shortly. President Raisi also had a meeting with Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani on the sidelines of the event in Riyadh earlier today. When the Qatari Emir said "how are you?" to President Raisi, the president answered that "we and the whole Muslim Ummah are not well with the situation going on in Gaza". 9341**2050 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Saudi Crown Prince welcomes Iranian President ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency Sat / 11 November 2023 / 15:13 Tehran (ISNA) - Iranian President, Ebrahim Raisi was welcomed by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman upon his entrance to the venue of the extraordinary meeting of the leaders of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Riyadh. In this meeting, the development of bilateral relations and regional cooperation was discussed and emphasized, and the parties agreed to discuss bilateral and regional issues in detail in the future. This is the first visit of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran to Saudi Arabia after 11 years. Upon his arrival in Riyadh, President Raisi also held a meeting with Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani on the sidelines of the extraordinary meeting of the leaders of the OIC focusing on Gaza. In the meeting with Emir of Qatar, president Raisi pointed out that the management of the scene in the crimes of the Zionist regime against the defenceless and innocent people of Gaza is in the hands of the Americans, emphasizing on the implementation of an immediate cease-fire in Gaza as soon as possible and to prevent the procrastination of the US and the Zionist regime in this regard. The President stated that the military and intelligence apparatus of the Zionist regime collapsed in the first days of the war, but the Americans are trying to keep them standing, and added, "The Zionists are incapable of confronting the resistance forces, have only turned to massacre the defenceless and innocent women and children of Gaza". Referring to the deadly silence of governments claiming to defend human rights and the inaction of international organisations in the face of the barbaric crimes committed by the Zionists in killing the oppressed and defenceless people of Gaza, including the massacre of more than 5,000 innocent Palestinian children, president Raisi warned, "If the nations become disappointed of governments' inaction, their resilience is weakened and there is a possibility of anything happening in the region and no one will be able to stop the rage of the nations". The President also stated, "The passage of time does not legitimize the occupation, nor does it create a right for the occupier; Any solution to the Palestinian issue must include the key point that the Zionist regime is a usurper and occupier and does not have any rights in the Palestinian land". In this meeting, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, for his part, described the role of the Islamic Republic of Iran and president Raisi as pioneering and decisive in the Islamic world, and spoke about the pressure of public opinion in forcing the governments that support the Zionist regime to change their positions and added, "I hope that today's meeting will be useful in concrete and practical assistance to the Palestinians in Gaza". President Raisi will also meet other leaders of the Islamic states on the sidelines of the summit. End Item NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Raeisi, Saudi crown prince meet in first encounter since rapprochement Iran Press TV Saturday, 11 November 2023 5:47 PM Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have met for the first time since the two countries mended their strained ties as part of an agreement reached in Beijing earlier this year. Raeisi and bin Salman met in the Saudi capital of Riyadh on Saturday as they were preparing to attend a joint summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Arab League to discuss the conflict in Palestine. The official IRNA news agency said Raeisi and bin Salman had agreed in the meeting that Iran and Saudi Arabia should expand their bilateral and regional cooperation. The two had also agreed to have detailed discussions in the future about issues of bilateral interest and regional developments. The meeting was the most high-profile encounter between Iranian and Saudi Arabian officials since the two regional powers decided to set aside differences and resume diplomatic relations as part of an agreement mediated by China in March. Iran and Saudi Arabia then moved to reopen their respective embassies while exchanging trade delegations to deepen their economic cooperation. Raeisi met with other regional leaders on the sidelines of the joint OIC-Arab League summit in Riyadh on Saturday. Better ties with 'friendly Egypt' The president said during a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi that Iran seeks to engage in stronger ties with Egypt. "Iran sees no obstacle in expansion of relations with the friendly country of Egypt," said Raiei in the meeting where Sisi also declared that his country is determined to build "realistic relations" with Iran. Raeisi and his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad also emphasized in a meeting on Saturday that resistance is the only way to determine the fate of Gaza and its freedom struggle against the Zionist regime. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address IRGC intelligence forces bust anti-revolutionary terrorist team in southeastern Iran Iran Press TV Saturday, 11 November 2023 10:41 AM Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) intelligence forces have disbanded an anti-revolutionary terrorist team that had plotted to carry out assassinations in the country's southeastern province of Kerman. Ebrahim Hamidi, head of the provincial judiciary office, said on Saturday that members of the pro-monarchy terror team were identified and arrested following intricate surveillance operations. The terrorists were in contact with hostile elements and foreign-based anti-Iran media outlets, and had taken a series of measures over the past year to undermine security, such as attacks on various facilities, acts of vandalism against public properties, setting city banners ablaze, distribution of anti-revolutionary leaflets, and sending video clips to foreign-based satellite television channels, Hamidi added. The senior judiciary official highlighted that members of the terrorist team had received orders from pro-monarchy terrorist ringleaders, and were involved in armed activities. The arrestees had plans to assassinate a provincial security force, and also target members of the morality police. The IRGC forces, however, could foil their plot and capture them, Hamidi pointed out. Back in late September, Iranian intelligence forces thwarted a plot to carry out a string of terrorist bombing attacks in the capital Tehran, arresting dozens of elements linked with Daesh Takfiri terrorist group. The Iranian Intelligence Ministry announced in a statement at the time that its forces had foiled a ferocious plot to carry out 30 simultaneous bombing attacks on populous areas of Tehran, and had arrested all terrorists involved in the plot. The statement said the bombing attacks had been planned with the purpose of undermining Iran's security, displaying a false image of instability in Iran, fomenting disappointment and terror in the society, and provoking chaos and protests exactly on the anniversary of the last year's foreign-backed riots. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Prime Minister's Office announcement Israel - Prime Minister's Office The 37th Government 10.11.2023 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited today the reopened Nahal Oz Command Center at the Re'im army base and the 411th artillery brigade. The commanders presented an overview of the sector and described the events of October 7th. The Prime Minister spoke with the soldiers and joined them and their commanders in a Friday night Kiddush service. The Prime Minister expressed his sorrow over the terrible murder by Hamas of their fellow soldiers from the Nahal Oz command center, and praised them for their important work, which is vital to the security of Israel. The Prime Minister then went to the assembly sites near the Gaza border, where he met with the 411th Artillery Brigade. The Prime Minister spoke with one of the teams and heard about the vehicle they operate and its capabilities, and about their cooperation on the ground with other forces. The Prime Minister then joined the soldiers of the brigade for a Shabbat dinner. Prime Minister Netanyahu said to the fighters: "You are doing a great job. You provide a screen of fire for our forces. We are moving forward. We will not stop until we fulfill the mission. The mission has two parts: deterrence in the north, and some of you were there, and a decisive win in the south. A win means eliminating Hamas. We are not going back to the way things were. And with the help of God, and yours, that is what will happen. Our fighters in there - on the ground - count on you. The people of Israel count on you. I wish to tell your parents, who will see you later: You sent us the best. You are doing fantastic work, outstanding. I want to thank you and tell you that we are moving forward until we win. Shabbat Shalom". NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Prime Minister's Office announcement Israel - Prime Minister's Office The 37th Government 10.11.2023 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier today visited the wounded and their families in the Intensive Care Unit of the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon. The Prime Minister heard first-hand accounts by the fighters of the fierce battles they took part in and about their injuries, and thanked them for their heroism and bravery. The Prime Minister told the wounded fighters: "We're not holding back and we're not stopping. Your friends that are now inside are hitting them hard". The Prime Minister was briefed by the Director of Barzilai Medical Center, Prof. Chezy Levi, on the medical condition of the wounded and the treatment provided to them in the ICU. The Prime Minister thanked the medical staff, saying: "The work you're doing here is sacred. You are the angels who are taking care of heroes and heroines". The Prime Minister was accompanied by Ashkelon Mayor Tomer Glam during his visit. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Prime Minister's Office announcement Israel - Prime Minister's Office The 37th Government 10.11.2023 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met today in the Kirya in Tel Aviv with local council heads of Gaza adjacent communities, now called Tekuma. The local government leaders at the meeting included the Mayor of Sderot, Acting head of Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council, Head of Eshkol Regional Council, Head of Hof Ashkelon Regional Council, Head of Sdot Negev Regional Council, Head of Merchavim Regional Council and Chair of the Regional Council Center. The Prime Minister and the meeting's attendees stood for a moment of silence in memory of the Head of the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council, Ofir Libstein. The regional council heads raised critical concerns and requested long-term, comprehensive solutions so that they can provide their residents with the necessary services to get through the war. They stated their backing for the Prime Minister and security forces in achieving the central mission of eradicating terrorism. The Prime Minister said the matter of tax benefits would be re-examined and extended to beyond the Gaza adjacent communities, and that the educational, health and welfare solutions will be increased. Prime Minister Netanyahu at the end of the meeting: "We are now concluding a meeting with the local government leaders from Gaza adjacent communities. These people, the community leaders and the residents of the communities neighboring Gaza, have exhibited remarkable resilience. Civilians and soldiers alike fought tooth and nail. The residents of the region and the government are exhibiting great determination to re-establish more than was ever before. To renovate, build and develop. First of all, restore security a ensure that there is no Hamas and that Hamas does not come back a but also to ensure robust life once we achieve that. I am very impressed by these people, and by the work of Moshe Edri, Yossi Shelley, the Minister of Tourism and the Home Front Command. They are working together. We have a great task ahead, and we will succeed." The meeting was also attended by the Minister of Tourism, the Director General of the Prime Minister's Office, the Head of the Tekuma Authority, the Cabinet Secretary, the Military Secretary to the Prime Minister, the Commander of the Home Front Command and the Deputy Director General of the Prime Minister's Office for planning and development. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address November 11, 2023 Release Readout of Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III's Call With Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder provided the following readout: Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III spoke with Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant today to discuss Israel's war with Hamas. The Secretary reaffirmed Israel's right to self-defense and reiterated the importance of both protecting civilians and delivering humanitarian relief. He emphasized the need to contain the conflict to Gaza and avoid regional escalation. https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3586349/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran president says normalization emboldened Israeli regime IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Nov 11, 2023 Tehran, IRNA -- Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi has said that normalization of ties with the Zionist regime by certain countries emboldened the regime and caused miscalculations for it, describing the normalization as a stab in the back of the Palestinian resistance. Raisi made the comment in his meeting with Mauritania's President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani on Saturday. The two met in the Saudi capital Riyadh on the sidelines of a joint summit by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Arab League on the Gaza war. The Iranian president expressed hope that the summit can help bring an end to the Zionist regime's war on Gaza as soon as possible and lead to the lifting of the siege of the territory. Mauritania's President, for his part, praised Raisi for the speech he made at the summit earlier in the day, and expressed hope that the Islamic Republic's stance towards Gaza helps improve the situation there. Also in their talks, the two presidents discussed relations between Iran and Mauritania, with both expressing readiness to expand mutual cooperation. 4194 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry once again called on Armenia to step forward to peace and cooperation in the region and to give up its baseless anti-Azerbaijani claims, Azernews reports. "We call on the Armenian side, which continues aggressive slanderous rhetoric against our country using various international platforms, to stop making statements that harm the prospects of peace and to use the historical opportunities created to transform the South Caucasus region into a place of peace and cooperation." It was noted that Armenia will give an adequate response to calls made by Azerbaijan in the direction of normalizing relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia and signing a peace treaty in the near future. Iran president says Zionist regime is root cause of many global troubles IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Nov 11, 2023 Tehran, IRNA -- Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi says the Zionist regime is the root cause of many troubles across the globe, including those in Africa. He made the remarks in a meeting in Riyadh on Saturday with Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the chairman of the Sudanese ruling Sovereign Council. The meeting took place on the sidelines of an extraordinary OIC summit in the Saudi capital. Speaking during the meeting, the Iranian president said that many troubles for the Muslim world, Islamophobia, Iranophobia and sowing discord among Muslims and African people have been caused by the Zionist regime. He voiced Iran's readiness for exchange of diplomatic delegations and further expansion of relations with Sudan. The Sudanese official, for his part, said that his country welcomes resuming ties with Tehran. 9341**2050 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 'War on Gaza 'major shock' to Israeli economy' IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Nov 11, 2023 Tehran, IRNA -- The Zionist regime's war on the Gaza Strip has proven to be a "major shock" to the Israeli economy and costlier than initially estimated, according to Bank of Israel Governor Amir Yaron. According to a Saturday report by the IRNA, Yaron said on Thursday in Washington that "there is no doubt the war will have fiscal implications and generate budget pressures." He explained that the regime's gross domestic product (GDP) growth is likely to be lower by 1% in 2023 and 2024. "The debt-to-GDP ratio is likely to rise somewhat more than 65 percent by the end of '24, as costs are larger than it was initially projected," he added. Meanwhile, experts say the cost of the bloody war on Gaza on the Zionist regime's economy will be unprecedented, with estimates suggesting that the war will cost as much as $51 billion. Late last month, a group of about 300 top Israeli economists wrote to the regime's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to warn of a looming economic disaster. "You do not understand the magnitude of the economic crisis that Israel's economy is facing," they warned in the letter. 4354**7129 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address National Security Adviser and National Security Council Director Tzachi Hanegbi Meets with his Polish Counterpart Jacek Siewiera Israel - Prime Minister's Office The 37th Government 11.11.2023 National Security Adviser and National Security Council (NSC) Director Tzachi Hanegbi, this evening, at the Kirya in Tel Aviv, met with Polish National Security Bureau Head Jacek Siewiera, and thanked him for visiting Israel at this time and for Poland's support of Israel. NSC Director Hanegbi emphasized that all European countries needed to apply relentless pressure to bring about the immediate release of the hostages, including Polish nationals. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statement regarding the remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron Israel - Prime Minister's Office The 37th Government 11.11.2023 "The responsibility for any harm to civilians lies with Hamas - ISIS and not with Israel. It must be remembered that Israel entered the war due to that terrorist organisation's brutal murder of hundreds of Israelis and holding hostage more than 200 Israelis. While Israel does everything in its power to avoid harming civilians and urges them to leave the battle areas, Hamas - ISIS is doing all it can to prevent them from moving to safe areas and uses them as human shields. Hamas - ISIS is cruelly holding our people hostage - women, children, the elderly - and thus committing a crime against humanity. Hamas - ISIS is using schools, mosques and hospitals as terrorist command centers. The crimes being committed today by Hamas - ISIS in Gaza will be committed tomorrow in Paris, New York and all over the world. The leaders of the world should be condemning Hamas - ISIS, not Israel". NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address How a Myanmar Offensive Challenges China Stance on Stability By Ingyin Naing November 11, 2023 A sudden coordinated attack by three ethnic groups along the China-Myanmar border in northeastern Myanmar poses a challenge to China's stance on regional stability. A Burmese American analyst told VOA that it is now imperative for China to determine whether it prioritizes stability or influence in the region. "China has to make the decision: Do we want stability, or do we want manipulation?" said Miemie Winn Byrd, who holds a doctorate in education, is a former U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and has been associated with the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies since 2007. She has extensive expertise in U.S.-Myanmar relations and Southeast Asian security dynamics. The recent offensive, referred to as "Operation 1027," was launched on October 27 by the Three Brotherhood Alliance a comprising the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, the Ta'ang National Liberation Army and the Arakan Army a in northern Shan state near the China border. It has resulted in the takeover of numerous military posts, control of major roads and the surrender of over 100 soldiers. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. VOA: Some analysts are saying China gave the green light to the 1027 operation launched by three ethnic brotherhood groups in northern Shan state bordering China in order to suppress cybercrime gangs from operating in the area. What is your view on this? Miemie Winn Byrd, Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies: I think that rather than China giving them [a] green light, I think more that China really doesn't have that much control of these groups, because up until this point, China was trying to pressure them to sit down with the military for a cease-fire negotiation. But I think the Three Brotherhood, I think they were very clever. They were able to utilize China's latest interests a the security interests, of getting after the organized crime ring that is running in that area. So, they were able to utilize that, but I don't think that China gave them the green light. But I think China kind of stepped back from putting pressure on them. VOA: On the other hand, the Chinese government has often sent its high-ranking representatives to Myanmar and is in close contact with the junta. What calculation do you think China is making with this move? Byrd: I think that China lost confidence in [junta leader] Min Aung Hlaing and his group's ability to control and manage the country. The data also shows that they no longer control the country a a very small fraction of the country is controlled by the State Administrative Council, SAC, Min Aung Hlaing's military regime. China has a decision to make: They need to decide whether they want stability on their borders and stability for all the investment that they have put into Myanmar. They want someone in charge that they can manipulate, because military regimes have always been ones that they can manipulate. Under the military regime, Myanmar has been sold out to China a lot more, and China has gained a lot more than it was ever able to do in the civilian government. But now China has to make the decision: Do we want stability, or do we want the manipulation? You can manipulate the bad governance, but then you don't have the stability, and all the investment that you put into the area is at risk. VOA: Regarding Myanmar, China's concern is that the United States is close to the resistance groups and is trying to exert more influence. The United States officially supports the expenses for the civilian offices of the ethnic armed groups. Some analysts have said that this is seen as a way to counter China in the region. What do you think of the U.S. position? Byrd: U.S. policy on Myanmar is always led by democracy. Democracy is the best defense against manipulation by the major powers for any country. If Myanmar is able to develop and to govern with good governance principles a an inclusive and federal democracy a it will be strong enough to withstand pressure from a major power. So, that ... has always been U.S. policy, to support democracy in Myanmar. China pressures the ethnic armed groups it supports not to deal with the U.S., but they really don't offer anything. Everything that armed groups get, they have to buy it. [The Chinese] really don't give free support, because it's transactional. It's all about China taking whatever is best for them and then sucking [the other side] dry, so to speak. So, China doesn't want the groups to get closer to us, but it doesn't really offer much alternative. The ethnic armed groups didn't really get recognition from the West before because of some of their previous dealings with drugs and that type of thing. But now, since the February 1 coup, it's different, because the Burma Act really recognized the ethnic armed groups as a viable political group. VOA: Now, if you look at the fact that the Myanmar junta and Russia's navy conducted joint military exercises for the first time in the beginning of November, does the closeness of the junta and Russia pose a threat to the United States and China? Byrd: Russia is just a spoiler, really. They don't really have that much presence in Asia - it's kind of far away for them. Even in Ukraine, which is in their backyard, they have a hard time projecting their power and dealing with logistics at the front line. Myanmar is just too far away. What they're doing with these types of little actions is, one, they want to be able to sell some of their old weapons and equipment to Myanmar. Two, they need Myanmar on their side because they have very few friends left, and they want to be able to say Myanmar is one of their friends. When Myanmar gets closer to Russia, China doesn't like it either. China thinks of Myanmar as its area of influence. So, Russia is encroaching, and that could become an area of contention between Russia and China. I think the Myanmar military does use it as a balancing function. They go to Russia because they want to balance China, and China knows that. VOA: Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing said at a National Defense and Security Council meeting held on November 8 that operations of the Three Brotherhood ethnic armed groups are being funded with money from the drug trade. What is your view on this claim? Byrd: That's their normal propaganda. If anybody is supporting these types of organized criminal activities ... it's his forces. We have a lot of evidence that shows that the military has been involved in enabling these types of organized criminal networks and allowing them to operate. So, it's just his normal propaganda, and we shouldn't fall victim to it. They're all about misinformation, and that's why the people of Myanmar don't believe what they say. VOA: So, what is the significance of the Three Brotherhood-coordinated operation near the China border? Byrd: The Three Brotherhood offensive was really like a kickoff - it launched other people to follow. So it had kind of a landslide effect. So they alone might not be that impactful, per se. Yes, the operation was very successful, but the operation's success really instigated others to follow suit. It's almost like a signal that they gave to all the resistance coalition forces. That's why everybody is doing operations within their controlled area. The Myanmar military is not set up at the best of times to fight everything across the country. They can do it in the periphery, but now it's across the country. And like I said, the Myanmar military is at its weakest point after three years ... because of the corruption, defection, desertion and those killed an action. So if it was not set up to do it before, it is even less now. So that's why you can say the launch [of] the Northern Alliance operation was like a trigger for the landslide, because it gave momentum, and everybody is following along with that momentum. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Montenegro Told The EU It Had Frozen Assets Of Blacklisted Russians, But It Wasn't True By Milos Rudovic November 11, 2023 PODGORICA -- In the wake of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Montenegro, once a close ally of Moscow, announced after a bit of foot-dragging that it was joining Western sanctions against the Kremlin. Shortly thereafter, Podgorica, a member of NATO and aspirant to join the EU, claimed that it had seized the assets of Russians who had been blacklisted by Brussels. The move was heralded by the media, making headlines throughout the Balkan region, and included in an official report of the European Commission, the top executive body of the EU. There was only one problem: It wasn't true. Instead of dozens, Podgorica had only frozen the assets -- an apartment and storage space -- of one Russian national sanctioned by the EU, a former separatist leader in eastern Ukraine, RFE/RL's Balkan Service has learned. The others were mistakenly included. Moscow On The Adriatic For years, Montenegro -- in particular its beachfront on the Adriatic coast -- has attracted well-heeled Russians looking to park some of their wealth in real estate. Even now, Montenegro's backing of Western sanctions doesn't appear to be deterring Russians from snatching up apartments, villas, and other buildings in Montenegro. Russian nationals own some 19,000 properties in Montenegro, according to 2022 data from the Land Registry Administration, including oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who has been sanctioned by the West. In most cases, determining the actual owners is tricky as many of the assets may be in the name of family members or companies, as is the case of Deripaska. But in June 2022, then-Interior Minister Filip Adzic announced a major victory for Podgorica in cracking down on sanctioned Russian nationals holding property in Montenegro. "For 44 properties, the Land Registry Administration issued rulings limiting the disposal of property in Montenegro. It applies to 34 Russian citizens who have been sanctioned," Adzic said at the time. That supposed success was included in the European Commission's annual report on Montenegro issued four months later. However, the initial enthusiasm was not warranted. After accessing and analyzing official documents, RFE/RL's Balkan Service has learned that instead of 34, only one EU-sanctioned Russian national had his property in Montenegro frozen. The other 33 were not on any sanctions lists but just happened to share the first and last names of those who were. Their assets were temporarily frozen until the error was realized and then corrected. In response to questions from RFE/RL's Balkan Service, the Montenegrin Land Registry Administration explained that it was an honest mistake, with no intention to deceive, and largely due to initial confusion and incomplete information on which Russians on the EU blacklist actually had assets in Montenegro. The Interior Ministry, which had initially announced the wider asset crackdown on sanctioned Russians, did not respond to RFE/RL requests for comment. The Land Registry Administration said in a statement it had examined the entire list of Russian nationals who, at the time, had been sanctioned by the EU, looking for possible matches with Russians who owned assets in Montenegro. That searched turned up 34 people whose first and last names matched those on the EU blacklist. "Decisions were taken...to freeze access to property [in Montenegro] due to the assessed risk that the assets in question could be sold or used as collateral to secure bank loans," the Land Registry Administration said in the statement. Ines Mrdovic, an activist with Action for Social Rights, a Montenegrin NGO advocating for good governance, lays the blame for the mistake at the feet of the Montenegrin institutions at the center of the scandal. "It's just wrong to provide the EU with information that does not reflect the situation on the ground," Mrdovic told RFE/RL. The identity of the one Russian national whose assets were correctly frozen in Montenegro was never made public. However, official documents seen by RFE/RL's Balkan Service indicate that it was likely Marat Bashirov, a Russian political strategist who was a senior leader in Ukraine's Luhansk region, which is partially occupied by Russia-backed separatists. Bashirov has an apartment measuring 33 square meters in Becici on Montenegro's Adriatic coast. He is also a part owner with several other individuals of a storage space in the same building. Montenegrin officials fumbled their handling of the whole affair, Mrdovic says, acting in a manner that was not sufficiently transparent neither to its own citizens nor European partners. "We get ourselves into situations where someone says one thing and another something else. And then you wonder what is actually true. In any case, it is horrible that our European partners are not given complete and accurate information," Mrdovic says. Westward Shift Montenegro has strengthened ties with the West in recent years, joining NATO in 2017 and applying for EU membership in 2008. The country's pivot to the West has irked Russia, its traditional ally. In 2016, the pro-Western government accused Russian-backed forces of a coup attempt on the eve of parliamentary elections. In October, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on Montenegro, applauding its compliance with EU sanctions on Russia while also expressing concern over the large number of Russian citizens, including many oligarchs, who have settled in Montenegro. "We call on the Montenegrin authorities to ensure that the country does not become a hub for companies and individuals who want to circumvent sanctions," the resolution states. On a visit to Podgorica on October 31, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen urged Montenegro to push ahead with its European Union integration process. "Montenegro has been for a long time the most advanced Western Balkan country on the EU accession path, and I am happy to see that you are determined to keep the...position," von der Leyen said after talks with President Jakov Milatovic. Montenegro was given EU candidate status in 2010 but has only closed three of 33 accession chapters -- areas of governance where EU hopefuls have to introduce new policies and reforms in order to align with the bloc's standards. The EU delegation in Podgorica did not respond to RFE/RL's requests for comment on the matter. In 2023, Freedom House designated Montenegro as a hybrid regime rather than a democracy "due to a constitutional crisis caused by renewed political dysfunction, with the collapse of two governments in short succession, unconstitutional moves that obstructed electoral processes and the Constitutional Court, and a blockade to forming a new government." Written by Tony Wesolowsky based on reporting by Milos Rudovic from RFE/RL's Balkan Service. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/montenegro-sanctions- blacklisted-russians-frozen-assets/32680495.html Copyright (c) 2023. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Sabotage Suspected After Russian Freight Train Derails In Ryazan Region By RFE/RL's Russian Service November 11, 2023 Russian authorities said sabotage is suspected after a freight train with 19 wagons derailed early on November 11 in the Ryazan region, injuring at least one member of the rail staff. The news comes on the same day that another suspected sabotage incident was reported at a Russian munitions factory. Residents in Ryazon told local media that an explosion had been heard shortly before a train carrying fertilizer derailed near Rybnoye, some 200 kilometers southeast of Moscow. Officials said an assistant conductor of the train was injured and is being treated at a hospital. Local authorities said the incident occurred at 7:12 a.m. when "an improvised explosive device was detonated," derailing the train. A number of suspected sabotage cases have been reported in Russia following its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, although details usually are scarce and potential perpetrators are often unknown. The derailment report came on the same day as another suspected sabotage incident took place at a gunpowder factory in Kotovsk in the Tambov region. Witnesses said a fire broke out after an explosion was heard, according to several Russian news outlets' Telegram channels. The Emergency Situations Ministry of the region confirmed the fire at the factory, saying the blaze broke out in a detached one-story building. No deaths or injuries were reported and the ministry said the fire was being investigated. In June, four people were killed at the Kotovsk factory when an unexplained explosion rocked the site. According to the Tambov Gunpowder Plant website, the factory "is one of the largest enterprises in the ammunition and special chemistry industry. It produces pyroxylin powders for all types of weapons, artillery systems of all calibers in service with the Army, Navy, and Air Force." Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-freight-train- derails-ryazon-sabotage-explosion/32680674.html Copyright (c) 2023. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Washington Post Calls Ukrainian Colonel Chervinsky 'Coordinator' of Nord Stream Attacks Sputnik News 20231111 MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Ukrainian colonel Roman Chervinsky was the alleged coordinator of the attack on the Nord Sream pipelines, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing Ukrainian and European Officials as well as other people familiar with details of the operation. The newspaper, which called Chervinsky a senior Ukrainian military officer with close ties to the country's intelligence, reported that the colonel allegedly played a key role in the attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines last year. Chervinsky was the "coordinator" of the operation, and he did not act alone, the report also said. The Ukrainian officer took orders from more senior officials, who ultimately reported to Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny, the newspaper reported, citing people familiar with how the attack was carried out. The Nord Stream pipelines, built to deliver gas under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, were hit by explosions in September 2022. The pipeline's operator, Nord Stream AG, said that the damage was unprecedented and it was impossible to estimate the time repairs might take. Denmark, Germany and Norway have left Russia out of their investigations into the attack, prompting Moscow to launch its own investigation with charges of international terrorism. No official results of the investigations have yet been announced, but Pulitzer Prize-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a report in February 2023 alleging that the explosions had been organized by the United States with the support of Norway. Washington has denied any involvement in the incident. In mid-July, media reported that Dutch military intelligence had informed the CIA of Ukraine's plans to sabotage the Nord Stream pipelines - months before the attacks happened. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Peace remains elusive as stalemate tests Russia, Ukraine People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 13:57, November 11, 2023 MOSCOW/KIEV, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine began to find itself at an impasse as President Volodymyr Zelensky submitted draft laws on extending martial law and a general mobilization period for another 90 days, beginning on Nov. 16, as reported by the state-run Ukrinform earlier this week. This move comes as the Ukraine crisis continues its prolonged "war of attrition," with both sides making little headway on the offensive front. John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the U.S. National Security Council, said on Wednesday that the United States has spent 96 percent of the funds allocated for Ukraine since the beginning of the crisis. The weariness of this prolonged crisis, which has been dubbed "Ukraine fatigue," is now permeating Western nations, leading to a divided stance on providing further support to the country. The ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict has further limited the ability of the West, particularly the United States, to focus on Ukraine, though efforts to aid Ukraine are continuing. Currently, both Russia and Ukraine remain committed to advancing military operations, with the prospect of peace talks still elusive. STALEMATE ON BATTLEFIELD The Russian Defense Ministry has recently claimed that the Russian army has repelled Ukrainian attacks and initiated multiple offensives in several directions including Kupyansk, Donetsk and Kherson. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian General Staff said in its morning report on Thursday that they had successfully thwarted around 30 Russian attacks on the Bakhmut front. In recent weeks, both Russia and Ukraine have focused on the strategic importance of Avdiivka, located just 20 km from Donetsk and controlled by Russian forces. This city plays a crucial role in securing the northern front lines for the Ukrainian army in the Donetsk region. Recent reports suggest that the Russian military is intensifying its efforts to encircle Ukrainian forces in this area, which could lead to significant casualties for the Ukrainian side. Oleksiy Hetman, a retired Ukrainian serviceman, said the Russian military is launching offensives from the northern and southern flanks of Avdiivka. The Russian military is attempting to encircle the Ukrainian forces, he said, adding that if it holds the ground, the Ukrainian side will suffer substantial casualties due to its being outnumbered 10- to 15-fold by the Russian troops. Similarly, Boris Jereliyevsky, a Russian military expert, believes that the Russian army has recently accelerated its advance toward Avdiivka, making significant progress. If Avdiivka falls after Bakhmut, it will be another significant setback for the Ukrainian military, he said. As Ukraine's commander-in-chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi said in a recent interview, the crisis has now entered a new phase characterized by stalemate and attrition. DRAINING WESTERN AID Global attention to the Ukraine crisis has dwindled recently, and people in the West, particularly in the United States, are becoming increasingly tired of the ongoing crisis. A recent Gallup poll revealed declining support for providing additional aid to Ukraine among Americans, with 41 percent of respondents believing that the United States has already done "too much" to assist Ukraine. In contrast, this number was 24 percent three months ago. This sentiment has been growing, especially in light of the escalating Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which diverts international attention. However, Zelensky denied in a recent NBC interview that the Ukraine crisis had reached a deadlock, urging the United States to provide more military aid. The U.S. Democratic administration has reportedly provided a total of 75 billion U.S. dollars in military, humanitarian, and financial aid to Ukraine since February 2022. However, further assistance to Ukraine has faced strong opposition from Republicans in the U.S. Congress. Earlier last month, U.S. President Joe Biden requested a total of 106 billion dollars in special appropriations from Congress to cover military aid to Ukraine and Israel. However, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives only approved 14.3 billion dollars for aid to Israel last week. ELUSIVE PEACE Even though there have reportedly been discussions among the United States, European countries and Ukrainian officials on the possibility of initiating peace talks to end the crisis, Zelensky said that neither the United States nor the European Union has pressured Ukraine into making significant concessions to end it and Ukraine is not yet prepared to engage in negotiations with Russia. For the Russian side, after repeated calls for peace talks were denied by Ukraine, the Kremlin indicated that Russia's top priority remains achieving its goals through military means. Meanwhile, Western countries are mulling a new round of aid to support Ukraine to sustain the crisis. The U.S. Department of Defense has recently announced a new 425-million-dollar military aid package for Ukraine, which includes missiles, rockets, ammunition, and laser-guided munitions. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited Kiev to discuss new financial support for Ukraine last week. Given the significant differences in goals and the Western nations' continued support for Ukraine, peace remains unlikely in the near future. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ukraine Says Situation In South, East 'Remains Difficult' Amid Russian Onslaught By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service November 11, 2023 KYIV -- Ukraine's military late on November 11 said the situation in the east and south of the country "remains difficult," citing dozens of Russian air strikes and rocket attacks, even as Ukraine marked the first anniversary of the liberation of the strategic city of Kherson. Reports also surfaced late on November 11 that Ukrainian forces had retaken the village of Topoli in the Kharkiv region about 5 kilometers from the Russian border. The Ukrainian military's General Staff said earlier on November 11 that Russian forces for the day had launched 41 air strikes and 44 rocket launches against "positions of our troops and populated areas," hitting private residential buildings and infrastructure sites. "Unfortunately, there are dead and wounded among the civilian population," the General Staff said without being specific. "The operational situation in the east and south of Ukraine remains difficult." The military statement added that during the day, Ukrainian air forces carried out 10 strikes on "areas of concentration of personnel, weapons and military equipment of the enemy," claiming to have destroyed a Russian S-400 antiaircraft guided missile system, among other hardware. Battlefield claims from either side cannot immediately be verified. Earlier, the Ukrainian Air Force overnight issued a warning of drone attacks, reporting that defense forces had destroyed five unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) over the Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Mykolayiv, Poltava, and Kyiv regions. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko posted on Telegram that air-defense forces had been activated and civilians should take shelter. No injuries were reported The alarms came as Ukraine marked the first anniversary of the liberation of the southern city of Kherson, the only regional administrative center captured by Russian forces during the massive invasion launched in February 2022. Amid a lightning counteroffensive by Ukraine in the late autumn of 2022, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered troops to withdraw from the city on November 9. Kyiv announced the liberation of the city two days later. During the months of occupation, Russian forces caused considerable destruction to the city's infrastructure and looted its two main museums. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Facebook thanked the people of the city for their "stability and faith in Ukraine" during the occupation and "each of the soldiers who made this possible." In a post on Telegram, General Kyrylo Budanov, head of military intelligence, called the liberation of the city "a significant turning point." Ukraine's border guard published photos and a video showing its forces raising the country's national flag reportedly in the village of Topoli in an area where the Ukrainian military said Russian forces had conducted "unsuccessful assault actions." Details were not available. During its daily briefing on November 11, the Ukrainian General Staff reported some 87 clashes over the previous 24 hours, saying that Russia has launched numerous missile strikes, artillery salvos, and air strikes targeting "the positions of our troops and populated areas." The General Staff reported Ukrainian forces were "continuing assault operations" near the eastern city of Bakhmut and in other parts of the Donetsk region, including around Maryinka and Novomykhaylivka. Meanwhile, at least two incidents of possible sabotage were reported inside Russia on November 11. Russian authorities said a criminal investigation has been opened after a freight train with 19 wagons derailed in the Ryazan region, injuring at least one member of the rail staff. Officials said it appeared that an explosive device had detonated prior to the derailment. Another suspected sabotage incident was reported at a Russian munitions factory in Kotovsk in the Tambov region. Residents reported hearing an explosion at the site before a fire broke out. A number of suspected sabotage cases have been reported in Russia following its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, although details usually are scarce and potential perpetrators are often unknown. The Kremlin reported that President Vladimir Putin visited Russian military headquarters in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on November 10 for an update on military operations against Ukraine. He was reportedly accompanied by Shoigu and General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of Russia's General Staff. It was the fifth time Putin, 71, has visited the southern military district in the 20 months since Moscow invaded its neighbor. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-kyiv-air-raid- kherson-liberation-anniversary/32680442.html Copyright (c) 2023. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address EU Foreign Policy Chief Says Russia's Defeat in Ukraine Conflict 'Not Expected in Near Future' Sputnik News 20231111 BRUSSELS (Sputnik) - The European Union is currently dealing with many problems, including the Ukraine conflict where Russia's defeat is "not expected in the near future," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Saturday. "We are facing many problems. Europe is dealing with a double challenge. Firstly, it is Ukraine where Russia's defeat is not expected in the near future," Borrell said in his video address to the congress of the Party of European Socialists. Despite this fact, the EU should keep supporting Kiev since assistance provided to it by the United States is "highly likely to decrease," he added. The second serious challenge faced by Europe is the current crisis in the Middle East, the top EU diplomat said, adding that it had resulted from the "political and moral failure of the international community." Western allies began providing financial assistance to Kiev and pouring weapons and ammunition into Ukraine shortly after Russia launched its military operation in the country in February 2022, with the amount of money allocated for financial, humanitarian and military support to Ukraine exceeding $150 billion. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia Repels Six Attacks in Donetsk Direction Sputnik News 20231111 MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russia has repelled six attacks by the Kiev regime in the Donetsk direction, Ukraine's casualties amounted up to 185 servicemen, Vadim Astafyev, a spokesman for Russia's South group of troops, told Sputnik. "In the Donetsk direction, units of the South group of troops, supported by aircraft and artillery fire, repelled six attacks by assault groups of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The enemy suffered significant losses in manpower and equipment in the areas of the settlements of Razdolovka, Nikolayevka and Kleshcheyevka. Overall, up to 185 servicemen were killed and wounded in this direction. Five pickup trucks and an enemy KAMAZ truck were destroyed," Astafyev said. The Ukrainian counteroffensive began in June and was largely described as a failure despite Western equipment, including Leopard tanks. In October Vladimir Putin said that Ukrainian counteroffensive attempt had failed, with Ukraine losing over 90,000 troops. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Our defense and security forces will respond to the Russian army's strikes on Kherson and the villages of Kherson region - address by the President of Ukraine President of Ukraine 11 November 2023 - 20:44 Dear Ukrainians! Before the end of this day, a few important things should be said. First - about our Kherson. Today marks the anniversary of the liberation of the city, and I am grateful to everyone who remembers how the people of Kherson resisted the occupiers, awaited the return of the Ukrainian flag, and welcomed our soldiers. I thank everyone who today honored the memory of those who gave their lives for Kherson and for our entire state to be free. It is crucial to remember who and how fought for Ukraine, who and how saved lives and our country. I thank all journalists who remind us of this, and every person who preserves the memory of the liberation of Kherson and the bravery of its residents. On the eve, I signed a decree on state awards for soldiers and civilians who distinguished themselves there - in the defense of Kherson. Those who fought for the state. Those who assisted in resistance. Those who saved and continue to save lives. And those who are as courageous as the world now knows the courage of Ukrainians. Alongside our soldiers, the decree also honors local government officials. These are people who did not abandon their communities, helped defend against occupiers, assisted in resistance. They treated and continue to treat, organized assistance for those who could not take care of themselves, saved children from deportation, and rescued people from Russian terror. They are saving lives even now, under constant bombings and in the face of ongoing attacks. I thank all of you for your courage and dedication to your work and Ukraine. Thanks to each and every one who stays and works right there - in the communities along the front line. Of course, our security and defense forces will respond to the Russian army's strikes on Kherson and the villages of Kherson region, just as it always happens. This week has shown that in the Black Sea, in the territory of Crimea, and anywhere else, we will reach the occupier. Glory to all our guys who are bringing justice back to Ukraine in this way! Secondly, there's something important to say today. I spoke today with President Duda of Poland. A good conversation. I congratulated Andrzej and all Poles on the Independence Day of Poland. This day is as important for Poland as it is for us, Ukrainians. The history of our nations is intertwined, and in this, it reflects the restoration of independence in our states and how we now take care to protect it. Ukraine and Poland must stand together so that our people are always free. I thank Andrzej for his kind words today about Ukraine and Ukrainians. Thank you for the extremely valuable support that Poland provides to our state and people. And one more thing. We continue the evacuation of Ukrainian citizens from the Gaza sector. This work has been ongoing literally all day. The number of those successfully rescued changes almost every hour. Already 214 of our people. We are also assisting citizens of Moldova. We expect this number to increase. I thank Defense Intelligence, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ukrainian embassies in the region, and all those who are helping us with this work. Today, I also held a meeting with international experts regarding negotiations and meetings that can strengthen Ukraine - both our defense and international attention to Ukraine. Every day we add strength to the state. Glory to our soldiers! Glory to our strong people! Glory to Ukraine! NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Andriy Yermak had a phone call with Jake Sullivan President of Ukraine 11 November 2023 - 09:03 Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak had a phone call with National Security Advisor to the President of the United States Jake Sullivan in the framework of the ongoing dialogue with the allies. Andriy Yermak informed the interlocutor about the current situation in the hottest spots of the frontline, in particular, about the defensive operations and offensive actions of Ukrainian forces. He emphasized the importance of timely supply of weapons and ammunition for the successful defense of Ukrainian lands from Russian invaders. The parties also discussed the situation in the Middle East and the importance of avoiding escalation and civilian casualties. In addition, the parties continued the dialogue on the implementation of the Peace Formula. Andriy Yermak and Jake Sullivan paid special attention to the results of the third meeting of national security advisors and foreign policy advisors on the points of the Formula implementation, which took place in Malta. Andriy Yermak expressed gratitude to U.S. President Joseph Biden, his entire team, both houses of the U.S. Congress and the American people for their strong support of Ukraine and Ukrainians in the fight for freedom, independence and democratic values in Europe. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Amid Shelling, Kherson Marks Year Since Liberation From Russia By VOA News November 11, 2023 Kherson residents in Eastern Ukraine are marking one year since the liberation of their city from occupying Russian forces. And though they experience constant shelling from the left bank of the Dnipro River, where Russian troops are positioned, they say they have become resilient against such attacks. Municipal workers are accustomed to wearing bullet-proof vests and staying ready to sweep up the rubble from yet another strike. Between lulls of artillery fire coming from the river, Ukrainians venture out to buy food, bicycle down grassy residential lanes, or gather in the few restaurants that remain open. "When you have lived under occupation, you know what freedom means," say residents marking the anniversary of their city's liberation, on Nov. 11, 2022. "It's why we have a special attitude toward the continued shelling. We can withstand it because we know how it could be worse," said Grigori Malov, who owns one of the three restaurants still operating in the city. Russia launched a missile attack Saturday on Kyiv and the nearby region and pounded the east and south of the country with drones, Ukrainian officials said. "After a long pause of 52 days, the enemy has resumed missile attacks on Kyiv," Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv city military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app. "The missile failed to reach Kyiv, air defenders shot it down as it was approaching the capital," he said. Russian anti-aircraft units downed two Ukrainian drones over the Moscow region and Smolensk region to the west near the border with Belarus, the Russian Defense Ministry said early Saturday. Reuters could not independently verify the reports. The British Defense Ministry reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin and former President Dmitry Medvedev have issued documents described by the British ministry as the "weaponization of history ... aimed at inculcating anti-Westernism in the minds of the Russian population and intimidating its immediate Western neighbors." In Saturday's intelligence update on Ukraine, the British Defense Ministry said Putin's publication is a collection of 242 documents entitled, "On the historical unity of the Russians and Ukrainians." The documents, from the 11th century to the 20th century, are Putin's attempt to justify the Kremlin's current Ukraine policy and features "interpretative comments" from the president. Medvedev's publication is an article the British ministry says he "ostensibly wrote" about the history of Russian-Polish relations. He accuses Poland of engaging in "aggressive revisionist Russophobic policy," according to the British ministry, and he threatens Poland with a military attack. EU aid to Ukraine Meanwhile, European Union countries are having reservations about committing a long-term fund of $21.4 billion in military aid for Ukraine as its grinding military campaign continues against Russia's invasion. EU defense ministers prepared to discuss the plan Tuesday in Brussels. It was proposed by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell last July. However, diplomats say multiple countries, including Germany, have voiced reservations about committing up to $5 billion annually over four years as part of broader Western security commitments to bolster Ukraine's defenses. The EU has provided aid in the form of arms and equipment worth $26 billion, according to the bloc's diplomatic service. "Germany has had a lot of questions ... and rightfully so. We're talking about a lot of money," said a senior diplomat, who asked to remain anonymous. The debate over military aid comes as EU nations are also debating a proposal to give Ukraine almost $54 billion in economic assistance. Some EU members have argued they will struggle to make a big long-term pledge as domestic budgets are squeezed. "For some member states, there is the reality of the public finances," said a second EU diplomat. Additionally, the EU is also facing challenges meeting a target of supplying Kyiv with 1 million artillery shells and missiles by March next year. Obstacles from Hungary For months, Hungary has been holding up more than $500 million in payouts from the Peace Facility to EU members for Ukraine aid over Ukraine's blacklisting of a Hungarian bank, OTP. Since the bank was removed from the blacklist, Hungary has insisted on guarantees it will not return there. Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Friday he does not support moving forward on negotiations about Ukraine's accession in the European Union, signaling that his country could be an obstacle to Kyiv's ambitions to join the bloc. Unanimity among all member states is required to admit a new country into the bloc, giving Orban a powerful veto. In an interview with state radio Friday, Orban said Ukraine is nowhere near gaining membership in the world's largest trading bloc. "The clear Hungarian position is that the negotiations must not begin," he said. Orban's government has refused to supply Ukraine with weapons in the war against Russia. It also accuses Ukraine of violating the rights of an ethnic Hungarian minority in western Ukraine by restricting its use of the Hungarian language in schools. Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address /NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES/ VANCOUVER, Nov. 12, 2023 - Eros Resources Corp. ("Eros") (TSXV: ERC) and Bell Mountain Exploration Corp. ("BMEC" and together with Eros, the "Company"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Eros, reports that it has entered into an agreement with Lincoln Gold Mining Inc. ("Lincoln" or the "Byer") (TSXV: LMG) and Lincoln Resource Group Corp., a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company, to sell all of the assets that comprise the Bell Mountain project (the "Project" or "Bell Mountain") located in Churchill County, Nevada (the "Transaction"). Transaction Terms Under the terms of the purchase agreement, Lincoln has agreed to issue to either BMEC or Eros, as directed by Eros, (a) 3,000,000 common shares in the capital of the Company ("Shares") on the closing date of the Transaction (the "Closing Date"), and (b) 1,500,000 Shares within five business days of the date on which Lincoln completes any issuance of Shares, the result of which is that there are at least 28,500,000 Shares issued and outstanding. Following the Closing Date, one of Eros or BMEC will be an insider of the Company. Lincoln Resource Group Corp. will also grant to BMEC a net profits interest of 7.5% of the net returns from gold and silver produced or extracted from the Project up to a maximum amount of US$2,000,000. No finder's fees will be paid in connection with the Transaction. "How best to move the Bell Mountain Project forward has beena key focus of the Company for some time and the strategic impact of this transaction has been meticulously considered. As a part of the proposed transaction, Lincoln assumes responsibility for the entirety of the capital required to initiate production at Bell Mountain, which materially reduces the financial and dilutive strain on Eros and allows the company to continue focusing on trading within its marketable securities portfolio. This deliberate allocation of funds highlights Eros' commitment to judicious resource management and its emphasis on creating value for its shareholders." commented Andrew Davidson, CFO of Eros The closing of the Transaction remains subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions for a transaction of such nature, including acceptance by the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange"). The Transaction will be an arm's length transaction under Exchange policies. "The leadership team at Eros is enthusiastic about the potential of this strategic initiative, confident that the shift to a holding company structure and the partnership with Lincoln will open up fresh avenues for growth, ultimately strengthening the company's standing in the mining sector." further added Ronald Netolitzky, CEO of the Company. About Bell Mountain Project The Project is located in Churchill County, Nevada, approximately a three hour drive south-east from Reno. Bell Mountain has excellent access and is in a mining friendly county. Lincoln is very familiar with the Project as it was part of Lincoln's group of projects several years ago, until it was optioned and sold to Eros. The Project is made up of 174 unpatented lode claims and is under the jurisdictions of the Bureau of Land Management and the State of Nevada. Bell Mountain is 100% controlled by Eros and has a gold and silver resource. The Project has all major permits in place to advance it through construction and into operations. Bell Mountain is only a two hour drive from Lincoln's Pine Grove project, located in Lyon County, Nevada. The properties are close enough in distance so that one team of management, engineering, environmental, cultural, and administrative personnel could operate both properties and one recovery plant could handle both projects. Both projects are advanced-stage gold exploration projects with established resources and both projects have significant exploration potential. All these factors will help reduce overall capital and operating costs and will make for an exciting operating plan. For further details on Bell Mountain, please see the Company's website at https://www.erosresourcescorp.com/active-projects. .About Lincoln Lincoln Gold Mining Inc. is an advanced-stage gold mine exploration and development company holding a 100% interest in the Pine Grove Gold Project, in the Walker Lane structural zone of western Nevada. The Company has prepared a preliminary economic assessment of the Pine Grove Gold Project pursuant to National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Lincoln holds its interests in the US projects through its wholly owned subsidiaries,Lincoln Resource Group Corp. and Lincoln Gold US Corporation, both Nevada corporations. About Eros Eros Resources Corp. is a Canadian public company listed on the Toronto Venture Exchange. The Company's business objective is the identification, acquisition, and exploration of advanced-stage projects with a North American focus. In addition, the Company plans to make strategic investments with a global focus on a diverse commodity base. Eros management's expertise supports this strategy. Forward Looking Statements This release includes forward-looking statements regarding EROS and its business. Such statements are based on the current expectations and views of future events of EROS's management. In some cases the forward-looking statements can be identified by words or phrases such as "may", "will", "expect", "plan", "anticipate", "intend", "potential", "estimate", "believe" or the negative of these terms, or other similar expressions intended to identify forward looking statements. The forward-looking events and circumstances discussed in this release may not occur and could differ materially as a result of the failure to complete the amendment of the Warrants, known and unknown risk factors and uncertainties affecting EROS, including risks regarding the resource industry, economic factors and the equity markets generally and many other factors beyond the control of EROS. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed. Forward-looking statements and information by their nature are based on assumptions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statement or information. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements or information. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and EROS undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. 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 Eros Resources Corp. negotiation process with Hong Kong, as we are already in the fourth round of negotiations," "We are working on new free trade agreements. We are expediting the, as we are already in the fourth round of negotiations," Foreign Trade and Tourism (Mincetur) Minister Juan Carlos Mathews said in an interview with Andina news agency. "We estimate that Peru could be on the verge of completing negotiations with Hong Hong in the middle of said year," he added. Similarly, the FTA with India, whose negotiations started a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, is expected to be concluded in the second half of next year. "We have already resumed negotiations for an FTA with India, which we anticipate to conclude in the second half of 2024 as well," Mathews explained. Likewise, Peru has set its sights on a third Asian country: Indonesia, a nation with which initial negotiations will be launched in the last month of 2023. "Next December, the country will start negotiations with Indonesia: a market of 500 million consumers," the government official pointed out. (END) GDS/RMB Peru expects to sign two free trade agreements (FTAs) with India and Hong Kong, for which it has been working actively so that talks can be concluded in 2024.Published: 11/12/2023 Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed a bill Thursday closing a loophole that exempted family members who helped fugitives flee the state from criminal prosecution. Illinois had been one of just 14 states to grant such an exemption. Under the new law, helping immediate family members evade prosecution becomes a felony punishable by one to three years in prison and/or a fine of $25,000.It is my duty to keep the people of Illinois safe and ensure we have a sound criminal justice system, Quinn said in a statement. This legislation will prevent criminals from evading punishment and help us bring them to justice.The legislation came about partly due to a series in The Chicago Tribune, Fugitives from Justice, which showed cases of relatives helping fugitives - some of whom were guilty of murder.We cant have a system where people are hiding criminals, Democratic Sen. Ira Silverstein, one of the sponsors of the bill, told The Chicago Tribune. Ill give kudos to the Tribune for bringing this to everyones attention. This loophole had to be closed.The new law takes effect on Jan. 1, 2013. Bisa Aberwa Museum launches Rediscover Africa project Graphic Showbiz Showbiz News Nov - 11 - 2023 , 20:32 The Bisa Aberwa Museum, which houses one of the worlds largest private collections of artefacts, sculpture has launched the Rediscover Africa project. The project seeks to reshape Africans and diasporas understanding of African roots, heritage, and shared identity. The launch, which was held at the premises of the museum at the National Theatre in Accra, was graced by the founder of the museum, Mr. Kwaw Ansah, former Member of Parliament for Ablekuma Central, Mr. Fritz Baffour, and important personalities within the art industry, notably among them was legendary David Dontoh. The event featured several activities, including the unveiling of new artefacts that were designed and directed by Kwaw Ansah and the Abrewa Museum. Speaking at the launch, Madam Halimatu Yussif, one of the lead coordinators said the project is a journey of cultural reconnection, education, appreciation, commitment to celebrate the diverse, vibrant, rich heritage of Africa. She also stated that the project was a call to action among stakeholders in the tourism and art industries as they revamp the sector which had lots of tourism potentials. Mr. Fritz Baffour, former Member of Parliament for Ablekuma Central said there has not been continuity in the achievements of the country, as the country has not worked on its history to identify the foundation on which the country was built. He said events like the one the Abrewa Museum has organised and the screening of plays demonstrate the human resource potential of the country, particularly art and tourism. (Related article: Narrating Africas story: Bisa Aberwa Museum presses on) Mr. Baffour urged the guests to take pride and keen interest in their culture by speaking the local language among themselves. Other activities at the launch of the event included the screening of plays, the playback of Mabo Loss, a 1959 composition by Kwaw Ansah for the then Kumasi-based Comets Band, and the display of Kwaw Ansahs Aban Kaba wax cloth design for the United Africa Company, now Unilever. The Bisa Abrewa Musuem is one of the largest sculptural representations in clay, wood, cement, paintings and photographs of personalities whose sacrifices have shaped African history, both within the continent and the diaspora. It has about 2,200 artefacts, sculptural pieces and photographs of heroes of the African struggle and the African American Civil Rights Movement as well as other Black personalities in the French, Portuguese and Spanish Caribbean. Presidential run-off election in Liberia: Head of the ECOWAS election observation mission meets with stakeholders Zadok Kwame Gyesi International News Nov - 12 - 2023 , 07:35 The Head of the ECOWAS Electoral Observation Mission (EOM), Prof. Attahiru Jega, who arrived in Monrovia, Liberia on Thursday 9 November 2023, met with some actors and stakeholders involved in the Presidential Runoff Election. The election is scheduled to hold on Tuesday, November 14, 2023. On Friday, November 10, 2023, Prof. Attahiru Jega met successively with Mr. Frank Musa Dean Jr, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Liberia, Mrs. Davidetta Browne-Lansanah, President of the National Electoral Commission (NEC), some civil society actors and the ECOWAS Technical Team. In his meetings with these actors, Prof Attahiru Jega discussed on the preparation towards the polls and challenges for a peaceful, free, transparent and credible electoral process. In the morning of Saturday, November 11, 2023, Prof. Attahiru Jega met with ECOWAS Short-Term Observers in the presence of Dr. Abdul-Fatau Musah, ECOWAS Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, Mr. Abdou Kolley, Director of the Cabinet of the President of the ECOWAS Commission, Ambassador Josephine NKRUMAH, ECOWAS Resident Representative in Liberia, members of ECOWAS Parliament, member of the ECOWAS Permanent Representative Committee and member of the ECOWAS Council of Wise. Addressing the ECOWAS observers, Prof Attahiru Jega urged them to carry out their tasks within the confines of the extant electoral legal frameworks and accordance with international standards. He also urged them to avoid interfering in the electoral process and to use the skills and tools acquire through their training. Finally, he asked them to make possible recommendations to improve the electoral process and the ECOWAS election observation mission. Ambassador Josephine NKRUMAH, while addressing the observers earlier, described the current political and electoral context under which the polls will be held. She also gave a background on the electoral campaign atmosphere ahead of the polls. She further briefed the observers on the NECs deployment plan of electoral materials and security arrangement for forces on the ground. Dr Abdul-Fatau Musah, Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security of ECOWAS, expressed satisfaction with the high profile of ECOWAS Electoral Mission observers. While enjoining them to be objective and impartial in the course of the Mission, he urged the observers to submit timely report from their observation in the field to enrich the overall report of the Mission. 3-years on: Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings remembered Zadok Kwame Gyesi Nov - 12 - 2023 , 13:42 Today marks the third anniversary of the passing on of Ghana's former President Jerry John Rawlings. Three years on after passing, the Rawlings Foundation and the JJ Rawlings Family have described his loss "as difficult pill" to swallow. On Thursday November 12, 2020, Ghana was shaken by the sudden demise of Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings, former President of the Republic. The family and The JJ Rawlings Foundation in a statement to mark his third anniversary called on Ghana to use the occasion to "unite as a people to lift high the image of our country, pursuing Ghanas socio-economic revival and development with selflessness and purposeful devotion." REMEMBERING PRESIDENT JERRY JOHN RAWLINGS THREE YEARS ON On Thursday November 12, 2020 Ghana was shaken by the sudden demise of Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings, former President of the Republic. The shock and pain of the loss of a husband, father and champion of the masses was very heavy to bear and is indeed still a difficult pill for many to swallow. Today marks three years of the loss of a man who endeared himself to millions in our country Ghana, our continent Africa, and across the world. Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings stood for selflessness and a rare form of candour. He was a strong man whose approach to leadership has redefined what we ought to espouse as leaders regardless of our fields. His courageous hands-on style of leadership, juxtaposed with his understanding and appreciation of the struggles of the common man defined his raison detre right throughout his life. As we mark the third year of the loss of President Rawlings, we remember him as A MAN OF THE PEOPLE. He was a soldiers soldier; a patriot; a fighter for The People. Jerry John Rawlings loved his country deeply. He remained boldly steadfast in his position on political and social issues that affected Ghana and other countries within our continent. As President and former President, he never paused in his desire to help the underprivileged or distressed as in the cases of Buruli ulcer in the 1990s and the memorable photograph of him standing knee deep in flood waters at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle. We cannot forget how one June 4 morning he cut short the celebration to visit the site of the June 3, 2015 disaster, also at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle. As the JJ Rawlings Foundation and Family, we join all Ghanaians whose lives were impacted by President Jerry John Rawlings, to celebrate his memory. To celebrate his selflessness and make a call to Ghanaians to revive the spirit of nationalism and love for country above personal pursuits and political bias. Jerry Rawlings stood for integrity, probity, accountability, equity and transparency. Let us reflect on his lifetime of dedication to these ideals, and embody them in our daily lives. As we celebrate the memory of Chairman Rawlings, we pray that we will unite as a people to lift high the image of our country, pursuing Ghanas socio-economic revival and development with selflessness and purposeful devotion. JJ Rawlings joined the ancestors on November 12, 2020. May his spirit continue to watch over Ghana. Issued By: The Rawlings Foundation and The JJ Rawlings Family Mepe: Some chiefs accused of hijacking, diverting flood relief items to their personal homes and misappropriating them - Regent alleges Alberto Mario Noretti Nov - 12 - 2023 , 11:49 Some prominent individuals, including sub-chiefs are said to be intercepting relief items meant for flood victims, diverting them home and misappropriating them. This is in relation to the floods that have rendered many homeless following the spillage of the Akosombo and Kpong dams. Rudolph Kwadzo Gli, a regent of the Anipati Stool at Mepe, made the allegation. He expressed this misgiving prior to the presentation of food stuff and various relief items worth GH20,000 by the Avazorli Union of which Mepe is a member, to the flood victims in the town, last Friday (November 10). He, therefore, appealed to all donor groups to hand over the relief items to the palace at Mepe to ensure an equitable sharing of the items among the displaced persons. Rudolph Kwadzo Gli did not give further details on those perpetrating the said acts, reports Graphic Onlines Alberto Mario Noretti who was in Mepe and witnessed the handing over of the donated items. The other Avazorli communities are Ziavi, Kpedze-Todze, Etordome, Botoku, Ando (Ghana and Togo), and Kpando-Anyigbe. The Paramount Chief of Ziavi, Togbe Kwaku Ayim IV led a delegation of Avazorli chiefs and queens in a touching visit to Mepe to present the items at the palace. The items included bags of gari, plantain, maize, corn flour, cassava dough, and a consignment of sachet water, bales of clothes and an undisclosed amount of money. We may be separated by distance but our strong bond of kinship will always hold us together, said Togbe Ayim. He entreated the chiefs and queens of Mepe not to leave out physically challenged people in the sharing of the items. Togbe Ayim gave an assurance that the other Avazorli groups would stand firmly behind their siblings in Mepe, in thick and thin, and always share their pain in times of suffering. Unity in grief He entreated the people of Mepe to remain united in grief and wait patiently for life to return to normal as efforts by the government and other stakeholder organisations were underway to tackle the problem. For his part, Rudolph Kwadzo Gli who received the items on behalf of the people of Mepe said the kind gesture by the Avazorli Union was overwhelming and a true demonstration of love and goodwill towards the flood victims. This will further strengthen the unbreakable ties of unity among us, he added. He gave an assurance that the items would be shared among the flood victims in utmost fairness. The Avazorli Union trace their ancestry from Goshen in ancient Egypt through Nostie in the present day Republic of Togo, where they were once an identifiable group, before fleeing in a mass exodus from the tyrannical rule of King Agorkoli to their present locations in Ghana, with the Ando group in both Ghana and Togo. To foster unity and cohesion among them, a union was formed in 1984 and this culminated in its launch in Ziavi in 1987 where the name Avazorli Union was unveiled. A quick-thinking Aussie man has been hailed a hero for springing to action in the aftermath of an illegal act that could have caused an environmental disaster. Dominic, who runs a chauffeur company, spotted what appeared to be an escalating fire while driving a passenger along a busy highway on Thursday, and swiftly pulled over to take matters into his own hands. "I saw the smoke on the side of the road," Dominic told Yahoo News Australia. "I was doing 110km/h and I decided to pull over and I told the client, 'I have to deal with this'. We've had a lot of rain but the leaves on the side of the road were quite dry. A cigarette was there in the fire; a rollie." Dominic prevented a potentially disastrous bushfire. Source: Facebook/Byron Chauffeur The incident occurred on the M1 near Brunswick Heads in northern NSW, where fire danger is fresh in the minds of locals following horrific bushfires in the area a few weeks ago. The blazes destroyed 740ha of land between Byron Bay and Brunswick Heads, Dominic told Yahoo. Firefighters spent days trying to control the inferno, which was helped along by hot, dry and windy conditions. A total fire ban is now in place for large parts of NSW due to the high risk of more bushfires. "This was just north of there and a similar type of bushland," Dominic told Yahoo. "It would have been devastating. If I had left it three more minutes, the fire would have been up in the trees. It was starting to run up there, towards the trees, which were only a couple of metres away." Dominic's bravery and quick thinking stopped a horrifying situation from unfolding but unfortunately for him, he lost a "decent pair of leather Converse" while stamping out the flames. "No one else stopped," he said of fellow motorists, before adding he was planning to keep a fire extinguisher or a five-litre bottle of water in his car in case something similar happened again. Story continues On social media where he shared dashcam footage of the incident, the operator of Byron Chauffeur was praised for being a "hero" and taking action. "Thanks for doing that, that could have been a repeat of the last big fire," one local wrote. "Great job thinking quickly and acting." Another stated, "WTF is wrong with people!? Good on you mate. Well done!" "Good work," a third added. "I can't believe people still throw their butts outside." Motorists face $11k fine for cigarette butt act A NSW Rural Fire Service spokesperson told Yahoo News Australia putting out small fires before they spread was encouraged "if it's safe to do so and appropriate", but people should always prioritise their own safety, especially when stopping along a busy road. In the case of a fire that looked dangerous or was getting out of control, the advice is to "immediately call Triple-0". "Throwing lit cigarette butts from cars and trucks is dangerous," a NRFS spokesperson said. "Cigarettes can start bush and grass fires, and place lives at risk. It's also bad for the environment. There are heavy penalties for people caught throwing lit cigarette butts from vehicles, especially on days of a total fire ban." The NRFS encourages members of the public to "report a tosser" by filling out an online form including the date, time, and location details, along with a description of the suspected offender's vehicle and licence plate. Tough penalties including a $660 fine and five demerit points apply for those caught discarding a lit cigarette from a vehicle, which increases to a whopping $11,000 fine and 10 demerit points for doing so during a total fire ban. Fines also apply to passengers. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. NACCC extends support to Akosombo Dam spillage victims in Sokpoe and Sogakope Dorcas Anagli Nov - 11 - 2023 , 13:35 In response to the impact of the Akosombo Dam spillage on the Sokpoe community, the National Association of Charismatic and Christian Churches (NACCC) swiftly organized a team of leaders to provide essential support. The group, led by Reverend Dr. Emmanuel Kwabena Ansah, the former General Secretary of the National Association of Charismatic and Christian Churches, and Apostle James Nii Amponsah, the National Prayer Director, included esteemed figures such as Chairman of the Southern Volta, Rev. James Solaga, the founder of Christ Alive Campaign, and other dedicated men of faith. Despite initial aid efforts, the residents continued to face ongoing challenges, prompting the NACCC to intervene and extend their assistance. Bishop Stephen Adukpo, a former chairman of the Southern Volta, offered words of encouragement to the affected people of Sokpoe, assuring them that, regardless of the circumstances, God would work things out for their good. Reverend Dr. Emmanuel Kwabena Ansah stressed the importance of sharing burdens and spreading love, urging the affected community not to lose hope. Apostle James Nii Amponsah echoed this sentiment, stating, "We are here to show compassion and love. We pray that the Lord Himself will strengthen them. We need not come and go empty-handed; we need to sow a little seed, and that's what we have done." The outreach specifically aimed to address the overlooked monetary needs of those impacted by the spillage. Reverend James Solaga, the Chairman for the Southern Volta of NACCC and founder of Kingdom Light Chapel International, expressed dismay at the dire situation, emphasizing the destruction of infrastructure and the community's pressing needs. Acknowledging the widespread challenges faced by residents, Assemblyman Edmond Fingero Dickah highlighted the significant impact on businesses and homes. To alleviate some of the immediate struggles, each person on the list of over one hundred households received GH200, providing a measure of relief. The community expressed gratitude through Torgbui Agbitor, the chief of the community. Watch Mustapha Abdul-Hamid 'leading' praise song at Trinity Theological Seminary graduation Graphic.com.gh Politics Nov - 12 - 2023 , 05:27 The Chief Executive of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid who is also an Islamic scholar was seen happily leading and singing a Christian praise song in the Trinity United Church auditorium at Mempeasem in Accra on Saturday. This was when he attended the 78th Graduation Ceremony of the Trinity Theological Seminary, Legon on Saturday as a Guest of Honour. It comes at a time when there is public discussion on religious tolerance as part of politicking in Ghana. Read also: The gospel according to St George - Ocassional Kwatriot Kwesi Yankah writes Bawumias presence in churches is to promote peaceful co-existence, stop the dangerous name-calling - Ahiagbah Watch a video of the singing below The king was on his last legs Symbian once ruled the smartphone world, but the introduction of the iPhone followed by the arrival of Android spelled the end for the platform. However, it would not go gentle into that good night. Symbian is the core of the OS and there were several user interfaces built on top of it. Series 60 is perhaps the best-known among them it made its debut with the Nokia 7650, which was not only Nokias first camera phone, but also the first mass-market Symbian phone (there were some niche phones before it). Nokia 7650, the first mass-market Symbian phone For the most part, Series 60 ran on phones with a display between 2 and 3 inches. The UI was built around a D-pad, which was used to navigate between elements on the screen, and several smart buttons, which triggered context-sensitive actions. There was also the Series 80, used in QWERTY-packing Communicator phones from Nokia, but the Finns primarily used S60. None of those Communicators had a touch display, anyway. There was also Symbian UIQ, which was built for PDA-style devices. We revisited that branch of Symbian back in our Sony Ericsson P910 Flashback. UIQ was designed for touchscreens resistive touchscreens that were intended to be used with a pointed stylus more so than a finger (a finger, especially a fingernail, worked most of the time, though). Sony Ericsson P910 Fast forward to 2008 and we get to Symbian Series 60 5th edition or as it was later called, Symbian^1. This one was a Symbian UI built for touch, but instead of drawing inspiration from the now-dead PDAs like UIQ did, 3rd edition cribbed from the iPhone. Weve already discussed the reasons why it failed in our Nokia 5800 retrospective bolting touch on top of a D-pad based UI just didnt work. The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic was a major push towards touch UI - a failed one Today we want to focus on what came next, Symbian Anna, which arrived a year after the launch of Symbian^3 (Symbian^2 launched only in Japan). Anna was unveiled in early 2011 alongside the Nokia X7 and Nokia E6. The E6 was a bar phone with a QWERTY keyboard (and a 2.45" touch display), but the X7 was all touch (4.0" display). Even better, owners of certain older Nokias would receive Anna as an update, that was the case for the Nokia N8 and E7. The Nokia C7 and C6-01 got it too. Nokia E6 Nokia X7 Nokia C7 Nokia C6-01 We updated our Nokia C7 review to cover all the new features lets go over them together. Honestly, this feels more like rediscovering the limitations of older Symbian instead. Was it really that bad? Yes, it was. Perhaps the two biggest upgrades that came with Anna over ^3 were the new keyboard and the new browser. Thats it? you may be thinking. Well, a picture is worth a thousand words, so here it goes: the portrait keyboard of Symbian^3 is on the left, the one from Anna is on the right. Portrait keyboard: Symbian^3 Symbian Anna In case it still isnt clear, what youre seeing on the left isnt an app that is sharing the screen with the keyboard. No, this is the text input interface it covered the whole screen and showed a panel for text and the keyboard underneath. In contrast, Annas keyboard (like any sane OS today) just appeared on the bottom half of the screen, obscuring part of the app but also leaving the other part visible. And yes, the only portrait option in ^3 was a virtual T9 keyboard. If you wanted QWERTY, you had to go in landscape mode. Landscape keyboard: Symbian^3 Symbian Anna. This is what we mean by touch features being bolted on top of a non-touch OS. The text input interface made sense when phones had 2.6 displays with 240 x 320px resolution, it just wasnt worth it to split such a screen between text and app. It was worse than it might seem too, since multi-touch wasnt supported meaning that you couldnt hit multiple keys even on the full QWERTY keyboard in landscape mode and if you type with any sort of speed, you would do just that. Multi-touch wasnt available in Anna either. As mentioned earlier, the other big upgrade was the browser. In the early days of mobile Internet there was this thing called WAP, which was very limited. Eventually as screens got better, CPUs got faster, RAM increased and mobile data got quicker, phones ventured into the true World Wide Web, the one that PCs were browsing. But this required a new generation of browser to get the full experience. The browser UI was redesigned to leave as much of the screen to the page the status bar/URL field were on top, there was a back button in the bottom left corner and a menu button in the bottom right. Speaking of URLs, you could type one in without a silly text input UI covering up your whole screen. The much-improved Symbian browser Tabs were supported as were new web technologies like HTML5. Flash still wasnt quite there the Symbian browser could only do Flash Lite 4. This pretty much excluded playing Flash games and watching YouTube videos in the browser (you had to use the app). The Symbian Anna homescreen There were other improvements too. For example, Symbian had supported home screen widgets for a while at this point, even multiple home screens. However, navigating between them wasnt as fluid as on Android you would swipe to the side, then the sliding animation would play out. With Anna (like on Android), the homescreen would immediately follow your finger. Nokia also polished the email app, the calendar app and the Ovi Maps app. It changed the icons to the still-popular squircle shape too. Things were looking good well, looking better but Anna was still well behind Android. Former Symbian users like Sony Ericsson and Motorola had switched over to Android, it was just Nokia that kept the old OS going. The Finnish giant had even more improvements in the pipeline, however, those wouldnt be enough either. Do you remember Symbian Anna and is it a good memory or a bad one? We will have a closer look at that followed it Symbian Belle next week. The Redmi Note series doesnt challenge the flagships from the main Xiaomi line, but these models do bring some impressive cameras and decently fast chipsets at a low price. The Redmi Note 12 Pro+ is the top of the line model with a 200MP main camera a fairly large 1/1.4 sensor with in-sensor zoom capabilities and the f/1.7 lens also supports OIS. The 8MP ultra wide and 16MP selfie cameras seem almost pedestrian in comparison. The Pro+ model boasts 120W fast charging for its 5,000mAh battery in our testing 15 minutes was enough to get to 81% with Boost enabled (and 58% with it disabled). The display is a 6.67 FHD+ panel with 10-bit colors (and Dolby Vision and HDR10+) and a 120Hz refresh rate. Xiaomi picked the Dimensity 1080 as the brain of this phone. And its the same chipset that powers the Redmi Note 12 Pro. This one has the same high quality display as well. What it doesnt have is a 200MP main camera you get a 50MP 1/1.56 sensor instead. Also, charging for the 5,000mAh battery is capped at 67W, which gets to 78% in 30 minutes (it needs a total of 55 minutes for a full charge). Weve looked at 5G models, but the Note 12 series also has 4G phones. The Redmi Note 12 Pro 4G loses the next-gen connectivity and drops to a weaker Snapdragon 732G chipset. The display is also missing the HDR support. On the plus side, the 50MP sensor is swapped for a similarly-sized 108MP 1/1.52 sensor and there is a microSD slot. Further down the ladder is the Redmi Note 12 4G. This one runs on a Snapdragon 685 and has a tiny 50MP sensor (1/2.76). The 5,000mAh battery also drops down to 33W charging so it needs 1 hour and 11 minutes for a full charge. We leave the Notes to visit the Redmi 12 funnily enough, this one is bigger than the Notes. It has a 6.79 IPS LCD (a 90z panel) and uses the Helio G88 chipset. The camera is the same as the Note 12 4G (except for the selfie module, which has an 8MP sensor). The 5,000mAh battery is even slower to charge at only 18W. If you want a 200MP camera, but the Redmi Note 12 Pro+ isnt to your liking, check out the Realme 11 Pro+. This one also has a 200MP 1/1.4 sensor and OIS, along with a basic 8MP ultra wide (112) and fast charging for its 5,000mAh battery its rated at 100W and gets to 63% in 15 minutes and needs 28 minutes to get to 100%. There is an option with a vegan leather back with decorative stitching on the back. The front is covered with a curved 6.7 AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate and 10-bit colors (HDR10+). It might be a while before Google releases a Pixel 8a, so the Pixel 7a is the one to look at if the Pixel 8 series is above your budget. It uses the older Tensor G2 chipset and has a 6.1 90Hz OLED display (FHD+). The camera hardware includes a 64MP sensor (1/1.73) and OIS, plus a 13MP ultra wide. The battery has 4,385mAh capacity with 18W wired and 7.5W wireless charging. The Realme C55 is a large and cheap phone with a 6.72 IPS LCD, a 90Hz FHD+ panel. It is powered by a Helio G88 chip like the Redmi 12 above and ha a 64MP main camera (but not ultra wide). The Realme has faster charging for its 5,000mAh battery, 33W vs. 18W. We may get a commission from qualifying sales. Week 45 in review: iQOO 12 and Dimensity 9300 are official This week, Xiaomi said that it won't issue HyperOS updates to devices with unlocked bootloaders. And, phones with HyperOS will be harder to unlock. Right now, to unlock a Xiaomi phone, the company requires you to submit an application via their Windows app and wait one week until you can finally unlock the bootloader. Chinese HyperOS users will be required not only to wait out the one week, but also gain level 5 on their community forums. Users outside of China will have to wait for an official Xiaomi announcement on how the new unlocking process will work. Of course, if you lock back your device, you will immediately receive your next HyperOS update. The iQOO 12 series was unveiled in China. Both phones have Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipsets, 144Hz displays, and impressive triple cameras on the back. The Pro has a higher-res 1440p panel, wireless charging, and a slightly bigger 5,100mAh battery. Both phones will go on sale in China on November 14, with the iQOO 12 Pro starting at CNY 4,999 (642, INR 57,150), and the iQOO 12 at CNY 3,999 (515, INR 45,700). MediaTek announced the Dimensity 9300 with four Cortex-X4 cores and four Cortex-A720 cores - there are no efficiency cores here. It will be intriguing to see how well the four ultra-fast X4 cores are cooled and the level of performance the Dimensity 9300 can offer in real life. We expect the Oppo Find X7 series and vivo X100 series to be among the first to use the new flagship SoC. We worked very hard over the past few months to revamp our beloved battery test, and we're proud to announce our Battery Life test 2.0. In keeping with the times, the new test focuses on video streaming and gaming, while keeping the staple call test and browsing test, albeit with a twist - scrolling web pages and touch input every 3 seconds! Gone is the Endurance Rating, say hello to the Active User Score - an estimate of how long the battery will last if you use the device with a mix of all four activities. One exciting feature is that you can adjust the Active Use Score based on your usage patterns and preferences. We are discontinuing the Endurance rating, and the new name more clearly conveys the change in our approach to battery testing. You can find the rest of the top stories of the week below! Introducing: GSMArena Battery Life Test 2.0 and the new Active Use Score The way we use our mobile phones has evolved, and so has our new Battery Life test. Xiaomi Redmi 13C listed on Amazon ahead of launch It brings a Helio G99 chipset and a 50MP main cam. Xiaomi Redmi 13C officially announced The entry-level phone is now on sale in Nigeria. JioPhone Prima 4G announced with KaiOS and VoLTE The device is already on open sale from Amazon and Reliance stores. Infinix Smart 8 brings 90Hz display and 5,000 mAh battery The device is nearly identical to the Tecno Pop 8 which launched last month. Vince Reyes, master of CHamoru dance and director of Inetnon Gef Pago, said hes tremendously grateful after the Guam performing arts program was announced as one of 11 nationwide finalists for the Lewis Prize for Musics fifth annual Accelerator Awards. The philanthropic music arts organization each year recognizes a number of outstanding creative youth development groups across the U.S. and offers prizes ranging from the $50,000 Catalyst Awards to the $500,000 Accelerator Awards. I think were the first from Guam to ever become a finalist, and so Im just so grateful that our island has been able to reach this level, especially in music, Reyes said. Its really a demonstration of the quality of programming and the effectiveness of music when it comes to perpetuating our culture. Im really tremendously grateful for this opportunity. Daniel Lewis, founder of the Lewis Prize for Music (www.TheLewisPrize.org.), stated the 11 Accelerator Awards finalists have smart, articulate, passionate leaders that collaborate with their teams and local leaders to provide adolescents most negatively impacted by inequities with all they need to have productive, exciting and rewarding lives. The announcement described Inetnon Gef Pago as an award-winning program whose aim is to promote awareness and pride in CHamoru heritage through performance arts, with the group representing Guam at major on-island events as well as folk festivals around the world. The winners of the Lewis Prize for Musics 2024 Accelerator Awards will be announced Jan. 9, 2024. Perpetuating and promoting our culture Reyes said the group prides itself in always striving for artistic excellence and providing safe and positive platforms for our members to express themselves and our culture. If they were to be named among the $500,000 Accelerator Award winners in January, Reyes said Inetnon Gef Pago would use the prize money to expand its programming to provide more opportunities for our youth to express themselves and express our CHamoru identity and our re-indigeneity of Guam through the arts. Fostering individual and cultural pride is a cornerstone of the groups mission, Reyes added. Our efforts in perpetuating and promoting our culture is something we take very seriously, and something we believe can be an inspiration for others, he said. And by doing that, we elevate our community and inspire our young kids to continue to believe in our culture and our island and our identity, and how we can express that through the arts. Finalists The finalists for the Lewis Prize for Musics 2024 Accelerator Awards are: Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero reduced by another $20 million her federal American Rescue Plan funding allocation for a new Guam Memorial Hospital, which is now down to $133 million, based on the latest ARP spending data as of October. Thats less than half of her initial $300 million plan in 2021. It was $153 million as of September. Where to build a new GMH and whether it should be a part of a medical complex remain mired in debate. Just recently, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials who completed their inspection of GMH said they are working to see if Guam can get funding for a new GMH. If and when this happens, $133 million in ARP funding could be freed up for other needs. ARP funds are meant to help Guams economy recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. To this end, Sen. Telo Taitague questions the governors use of $6,000 in ARP funds on a sexual assault awareness video production, the Department of Military Affairs $30,000 overspending, and a lack of details on a $10 million reserve funding. The senator questions how such a video production relates to COVID-19 or economic recovery. In the true spirit of transparency, I think (the Bureau of Budget and Management Research) should be more forthcoming with the details of a $10 million reserve allocation, especially as we fight to repair a failing mold-infested hospital and find solutions to fix public school campuses, Taitague said in a statement. The governor has until Dec. 31, 2024 to obligate or encumber ARP funds. The deadline to spend all the money is Dec. 31, 2026. $213.89M remainingAll this leaves Guam with $213.89 million in available ARP funds under the governors control, as of October. Thats higher than what was supposed to be the remaining funds as of September, because two years later, Guam continues to receive additional ARP funds. ARP funding received since 2021 has gone up to $598.3 million-plus as of October, up from $593 million just the month before, and up from $570 million in November 2021, based on BBMRs latest report to the Legislature. To date, Guam has spent more than $369 million in governor-directed ARP funding since 2021, including relief for GovGuam agencies, direct cash assistance for residents, and paying for COVID-19 quarantine and isolation hotels. The October report shows the governor allocated $20 million for GMH facility repairs, but that $20 million was still available as of the reporting date. GMH was also supposed to get $30 million in excess revenue funds for prior years. Meanwhile, building a new hospital is expected to cost $800 million to $1 billion. Credit card fee waiver With 62% of the remaining ARP funds still being saved for a new hospital project, that means theres only about $80 million available for other programs and services that the governor also wants to fund. Three years since the COVID-19 pandemic started, some relief programs are still ongoin. These include the credit card convenience fee waiver that has so far cost more than $23 million. Under this pandemic-era relief program, people making tax- and non-tax-related payments to GovGuam do not incur processing fees when they use their credit cards. GovGuam has been absorbing the processing fees since April 2020. Adelup earlier said because of the credit card fee waiver, government collections have stabilized or increased likely as a result of removing the costs associated with using credit cards. More details Taitague introduced an amendment to the fiscal 2024 budget law requiring that more details be provided in financial reports submitted by the administration. She said shes glad that her amendment to the Budget Act is being followed as some of the items listed in these hundreds of pages of expenditures raise serious questions. I think it would be in the administrations best interest to explain some of the expenses on this list because I dont see how a $6,000 sexual assault awareness video production relates to COVID-19 or economic recovery, she said. The senator is also preparing to seek further information regarding the more than $30,000 that is listed as a negative balance for the Department of Military Affairs, along with a $10 million allocation listed simply as a reserve item in BBMRs ARPA expenditure report. Where else to spend money?These are some of the programs and agencies that still have the most amount of available ARP funding allocation: The government of Guam is asking the U.S. for an estimated $367 million to fix damages from Typhoon Mawar, though that number is still subject to change, according to officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA is putting up about 9 cents for every dollar of damage that needs to be fixed, which means the actual total damages are slightly higher, said Chris Baggot, FEMA deputy infrastructure branch director for the Typhoon Mawar disaster aid program. Based on Baggots figures, total damages to public assets from Mawar are now looking closer to $407 million. Over in the private sector, the Bureau of Statistics and Plans initially estimated about $111 million worth of damage to businesses back in June, the PDN reported, but the number could be much higher. While numbers are still in the air, those public and private cost estimates put Mawar in the ballpark of the estimated damages from 2002s Typhoon Pongsona, which was the most costly disaster in any state or territory that year. Pongsona and its 150 mile per hour winds cost Guam an estimated $700 million, according to reports from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Mawar saw sustained windspeed of about 140 miles per hour during its agonizingly slow crawl over northern Guam in May. Over 6,000 get housing aid All told, more than 6,000 households who were unable to return to their homes in the two months after Mawar received initial rental assistance from FEMA, according to Jonte De Leon with FEMA external affairs. Costs amounted to about $18.9 million in rental aid. An additional 35 households were unable to return home for even longer periods of time, and applied for continued housing assistance amounting to $229,028. Additional $50M Besides the $367 million that GovGuam is billing FEMA for, Guam will also get another $50 million in 404 mitigation money, which can be used by the governor to strengthen the island against future disasters. It is the governors discretion how to use those funds. Those mitigation funds can be used for pretty much anything she wants, that deals with strengthening the resilience of the infrastructure on the island against future events, Baggot said. Spending examples included buying generators for gas stations to keep them pumping gas in the aftermath of a storm, better communications equipment for first responders, or getting additional heavy equipment for the Department of Public Works to clear roads after a typhoon. Payout All told, the local government will end up spending very little on the final bill for public damages incurred by Mawar, Baggot said. But how soon all that money will be coming in is hard to pin down, according to Richard White, FEMA infrastructure branch director. FEMA only obligates the money, and it will be up to GovGuam to fulfill paperwork to get the money paid out in a timely manner. We obligate, it trickles in. Weve already obligated about $1.1 million last week, White said. Another $200,000 would be coming through soon. The recipient is the keeper of the funds. And theyre legally obligated to make sure that they distribute it to the applicants in a legal manner, he said. Lawmakers authorized the executive branch to shift up to $50 million away from their intended purposes and toward Mawar recovery immediately after the storm struck in May. Transferred funds will have to be reimbursed by FEMA. Its unclear what the final amount of money transferred toward the typhoon was, but at least $20 million originally meant for repairs at the Guam Department of Education was put to disaster recovery. Guam Girl Scout cadets from Troop 217 bring their famous cookie selections to Guam Premier Outlets in Tamuning for an in-person cookie selling event on Feb. 25, 2023. A popular trampoline park business with 21 venues across Australia has reassured customers there is nothing to worry about after the operators of one of the brand's UK franchises were found to have had a "total disregard" for safety regulations. Flip Out first opened in Sydney's west in 2012 and has since expanded to over 100 venues globally. The owners of one of the overseas franchises in the UK city of Chester last month pleaded guilty to health and safety offences and now face potential jail time after a string of injuries at their park between 2016 and 2017, including 11 broken spines. Many of the injuries occurred on a piece of equipment called The Tower Jump, where customers jumped four metres into a pit filled with foam. Injuries were occurring daily, and so frequent, that the local hospital moved to investigate a spike in admissions linked to the franchise. David Shuttleworth and Matthew Melling, former directors of Flip Out Chester, could face prison time over health and safety offences. Source: MEN Media (Cheshire Live/MEN Media) 'Safety is of paramount importance' at Australian venues However, Flip Out Australia Managing Director Steven Stone told Yahoo News Australia venues in Australia "have never installed any free fall device" like the one previously in use at the Chester franchise. Stone stressed Flip Out Australia is "Australian owned and operated independently of any other country". "Safety is of paramount importance, and we have invested significantly in team training, systems and processes which are consistently audited to ensure compliance," he said. Flip Out Australia has previously faced several lawsuits in relation to injuries sustained at its locations, including from Frankie Kuzba, who broke his neck in four places while landing in a foam pit at Flip Out Warrawong in 2015. One of Australia's Flip Out locations in Caringbah, Sydney. Source: Flip Out "I went straight through and hit my head 96kg straight onto my head," he said, according to the Daily Telegraph. "I heard my neck crunch and my ears were ringing real loud at first I thought I had died." Guests to Flip Out venues are required to sign a waiver before using apparatus inside. Flip Out Australia previously told the Daily Telegraph that "given the very nature of the activity it is important for all guests to appreciate that it is an activity in which injury can occur". Story continues After David Shuttleworth and Matthew Melling, both 33, pleaded guilty to health and safety offences at Chester Crown Court on October 9, Cheshire West and Chester Cabinet Member for Homes, Planning and Safer Communities Christine Warner said the offences at the Chester franchise were taken very seriously. "Our Public Protection team always deal strongly with businesses who put residents or visitors to the borough at risk. This business had a total disregard for safety regulations," she said. The pair will be sentenced at a date yet decided. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. Catherine Bejerana Camacho is a Filipino-American attorney raised on Guam and licensed to practice in Guam and California. She specializes in employment and family-based immigration law, corporate law and family law. Pro-choice supporters and others attend and participate in the Rally for Roe awareness wave conducted at the ITC intersection in Tamuning on July 6, 2022. Dave Lotz is a vocal advocate for protecting Guams unique heritage, a knowledgeable and long-time hiking enthusiast and environmental advocate, and critic of inept government. He has been a resident of Guam since 1970 and retired from the Guam Department of Parks and Recreation, Andersen AFB Environmental Flight and the National Park Service. Visitors and residents are treated to a fireworks display July 21, 2023, during the Liberation Day Block Party. Haiti - Social : $50 million grant to fight against food insecurity and the use of preventive health services The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) approved this week a $50 million grant to continue addressing food insecurity among vulnerable populations in Haiti and increase the use of preventive and essential health services. The program will be implemented by the Haitian Social and Economic Assistance Fund (FAES), which also executes the other ongoing IDB-funded social protection program in Haiti. In this role, FAES was just awarded IDBs 2023 Superheroes of Development Award. Large segments of the Haitian population face difficulties accessing food. This new grant, approved by the IDB Executive Board of Directors on November 8, will finance transfers for selected vulnerable families throughout Haiti, conditional on the participation of a family member in small works for the creation, restoration, and maintenance of community assets. A total of 16,000 beneficiaries will receive transfers for 3 to 6 months, depending on the magnitude of the project identified by the community and to which they are assigned. The income they will receive is expected to reduce the vulnerability of their households. To improve access to healthcare, the project will provide cash transfers conditional on complying with preventive or healthcare programs and will finance essential healthcare services to 18,000 beneficiaries. The initiative will prioritize women in general, lactating women, women heads of households and mono-parental families, victims of gender-based violence, people with disabilities, and older adults. In addition, the program will train medical and administrative personnel in 75 health centers throughout the country and will provide essential medical equipment for selected hospitals. It will set up two blood banks. The training will focus on hospital management and clinical protocols for children and maternal health, services related to gender-based violence, and the detection and treatment of chronic patients using a gender-sensitive approach. To support the efforts of the Government and the development community to target and reach the most vulnerable in Haiti, the program will also support the coverage expansion of the Systeme dInformation of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor (SIMAST) and will further scale up the use of the social protection management IT solution "COMMCARE ". The IDB grant of US$50 million has a disbursement period of four years. HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - Diplomacy : Colombia wants to advance cooperation mechanisms Following a meeting with Pierre Philippe Brunet, Charge d'affaires of Haiti in Colombia, Colombian Chancellor Alvaro Leyva announced that he will visit Haiti on December 14 and 15, accompanied by the Vice-Representative of the People, Luis Andres Fajardo, the Colombian Ambassador to the Dominican Republic Dario Villamizar and the Head of the Internal Legal Advice Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Francy Paola Ramirez. During his stay, Chancellor Leyva is expected to meet Prime Minister a.i. Ariel Henry and his Haitian counterpart Jean Victor Geneus. The Chancellor reiterated that Colombia owes a historic debt to the Haitian people and expressed his interest in strengthening relations with Haiti. He informed that this week, the Coordinator of the internal working group of legal affairs of the Colombian Chancellery Andres Mendoza Paredes, will visit Haiti. Accompanied by Consul Vilma Uribe Paredes, Rocio Velasquez https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-40503-haiti-flash-dr-closes-its-land-sea-and-air-borders-with-haiti-goods-and-passengers.html comes to inquire in person about the situation of the 17 Colombian members of the commandio, incarcerated for their alleged participation in the assassination of the President of Haiti, Jovenel Moise at his residence, on July 2021 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34162-haiti-flash-president-jovenel-moise-assassinated-by-mercenaries-official-updated-7am-+-video.html During his visit in December, Leyva will deploy his efforts to advance cooperation mechanisms on issues of security and defense, drug trafficking, trade and investment, tourism, air connectivity, food security, disaster risk management, civil protection and immigration. Furthermore, and after almost 20 years without diplomatic representation in this country, the Port-au-Prince consulate opened in July 2023 will be officially inaugurated. Photo thumbnail : on the left the Colombian Chancellor Alvaro Leyva and on the right Pierre Philippe Brunet the Charge d'affaires of Haiti in Colombia. PI/ HaitiLibre An Aussie pulling into a Dan Murphys liquor store car park captured the moment an alleged thief ran off holding two bottles of Jim Beam. The moment, filmed outside a store in Sydney last week was shared to Reddit. Aussies were left stunned by the brazen act - with many quick to point out the lack of action by staff. The moment brought to light the danger many retail workers face - with shocking statistics revealing that 92 per cent of Aussie retailers reported team members experiencing verbal or physical abuse at work. The alleged thief was caught on dashcam footage making off with two bottles of Jim Beam. Source: Reddit Man spotted sprinting out of store The person who captured the footage on their rear dashcam said he witnessed the man sprinting out of the car park. Then noticed him carrying two bottles of Jim Beam, Security guy standing by the door looking dismayed, they wrote. In the 15-second clip, the man races off down the street, with no one following after him. As someone who worked at Dan Murphy's for years, don't bother running, we don't care enough to stop you, said one Aussie. Another pointed to a recent case where a man was stabbed to death at a Darwin bottle shop after he allegedly refused to serve alcohol to a customer at the bottle shop. So unfair to expect bottle shop workers to police the sale of grog, they added. Cost of living has really hit hard for Sydneysiders, added a third. Sad statistics affecting retail workers A recent survey by the Australian Retailers Association found that more than 92 per cent of retailers surveyed said they have experienced or have had a team member experience verbal or physical assault whilst at work. Being yelled at, spat at, punched or groped is not tolerated in any other workplace, and must not be accepted in retail, said Paul Zahra, ARA Chief Executive. Story continues Being asked to show your receipt doesnt give you an excuse to crack someone over the head. Thats why we want to see other states take the steps of NSW, SA and NT and toughen laws to better protect our retail workers and keep them safe. Dan Murphys puts safety first A spokesperson for Dan Murphys said that the incident has been referred to the police. The incident has been referred to NSW Police for investigation, they said. Our priority, as always, is the safety and wellbeing of both our customers and our team members. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. A mum opened her front doorstep only to discover a horrific sight in front of her. Maxi Mayhew, 31, had no choice but to contact the police after she discovered a huge pile of excrement piled on her front doorstep. The beauty therapist, who is a mum-of-two, claims the stinking mess was disposed of by a neighbour with a grudge against her. She believes the nasty surprise is a pile of dog poo, not human excrement. But it is such a large amount that Maxi thinks the person has stored it up over time. Mum Maxi Mayhew has been left wondering who would do such a thing. Source: Jam Press Mum left wondering why someone would do something like this The shocking incident, in Kent, England, has left felt the mum feeling disgusted and terrified. There really are some sick people out there, Maxi said of the incident. Its not even funny, Im terrified. Its absolutely disgusting and what makes anyone do something like this? I assume its dog poo and it looks like whoever did this has been saving it up for ages just to put on my doorstep. I suffer from anxiety and this has just made things worse for me. Police forced to step in Maxi contacted the police regarding the incident after discovering the sick mess. Kent Police was contacted on the morning of Friday 20 October 2023 and a report of criminal damage was made relating to a property in King Street, Ramsgate, A spokesperson said. The criminal damage is reported to be part of harassment by someone known to the victim. Officers are in touch with the victim and enquiries to establish the circumstances surrounding the incident are ongoing. Jam Press Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. Pakistan is punishing the Taliban government by sending around 1.7 million Afghan refugees across the Khyber and Khojak passes for not being able to bring Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorist group on the negotiating table with Islamabad and refusing to accept the Durand line as the international border between two countries. Pak-Afghan flags at Spin Boldak crossing near Quetta. Implicit in Pakistans TTP problem is a canard that the proscribed group is attacking the army of the Islamic Republic at the behest of India with the tacit support of the Taliban government. While the Taliban has demanded dignity for the Afghan people during repatriation and the refugees have been uprooted from their homes for the past two decades, Islamabads callous move to send the refugees back has neither humanitarian nor any historical basis. A cursory look at the 1893 treaty between then Amir of Afghanistan, Abdur Rahman Khan, and the British colonial government of India and the subsequent demarcation of the border by Mortiner Durand reveals that actually, the Afghan refugees are living on their own land, west of Indus river, or what has been defined as Pashtunistan. The 1893 treaty which was amended in 1919 by the British colonials has never been ratified by Afghanistan. It was the line drawn by British colonial Babu that gave parts of Pashtun lands and entire Balochistan to Islamic Republic to ensure that Afghanistan remains a buffer between imperial Britain and Russia. Over the past century, the Afghan leadership has never ever recognized Durand Line as the international border as the Pashtun community has historically existed way beyond the current borders. Mullah Omars son Mullah Yaqoob is the acting Defence Minister of Afghanistan and controls the powerful Kandahari faction of Taliban. As the validity of 1893 treaty or Durand Line Treaty was 100 years, Rawalpindi GHQ approached Amir-ul-Momin Mullah Omar in 1996 after the Taliban had captured Kabul to recognize Durand Line as the international border between the two countries in lieu of military and political support given by Pakistan to his proteges but the then Supreme Leader of Afghanistan flatly refused. His successors Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani also refused to know-tow to the Pakistani demand as Durand Line divided the Pashtun people who were spread beyond Peshawar and Quetta in the erstwhile North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), now renamed as Khyber-Paktunkhwa (KPK). One must remember that Afghanistan opposed the formation of Pakistan in the UN and took its own time to forge bilateral relations with the newly formed Islamic Republic in 1947. While the caretaker government of Pakistan has decided to push the Afghan refugees into frozen Afghanistan, the move is going to rebound on Islamabad in the long run as it will open the historical wound of Durand Line. Simply put, the Taliban occupiers of Kabul have the option to brand the move illegal and without any historical or political basis. The same Afghans/Pashtuns that the Pakistani ISI used as cannon fodder against the Soviets in 1980-1990s and later against the US forces post 9/11 are now being sent back across unacceptable Durand Line as a punishment for supporting terrorism (read TTP) against Pakistan. While the west is focused on war in Gaza and Ukraine and China always supports its client state Pakistan, the humanitarian aspect of this relocation of Afghan people and their suffering is lost to the world. But the Taliban government now also has an opportunity to correct a historical wrong perpetrated by the colonial British. My phone pings. Its a message from my daughter. Why are you in the middle of a cemetery? she demands. Were connected via a location tracking app, the result of a panicked moment on a darkened street, and I suppose she has cause for alarm. Its early November in New York; though its only 6 pm, its pitch dark. And I am in a cemetery. Yet I have never felt safer. Walking down a darkened path, I see grey tombstones looming on my left. And in the distance is a dome that looks almost Mughal-like, lit up in a mellow yellow light. Perhaps this feeling of safety springs from having Meryl Streeps voice in my ear. Coincidentally, Streep is in a cemetery too; its late afternoon for her character, on the most perfect day of the most perfect summer of her life. I am listening to Streep's voice in the story of Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. Tom Lake A car drives by, and then another. I look at my watch. It is time. I head to the Modern Chapel Building. A small group of people have arrived and sat around on the upholstered chapel benches. I learned later that many of these people are part of the cemetery community, attending workshops and discussions on grief and loss as part of the death education program. A cheery moderator with curly black hair and oversized black-rimmed spectacles greets us all. Phoebe Bridgers' Funeral is playing in the background. And on the dais sits the writer - a svelte and slim figure, all in black. Then the music stops and the moderator begins to speak. Im Gaby, she says. And this is Alix Straussshes a contributing writer for The New York Times and also the author of our book for today, The Joy of Funerals, first published 20 years ago. Author Alix Strauss ( Right) talking to Gabrielle Gatto (left) the coordinator of public programs for The Green-Wood Cemetery, New York When I was young, I loved going to funerals, she says. Strauss grew up on the Upper East Side in Manhattan, the only child of a wealthy Jewish couple who were estranged from their siblings. She missed being invited to family functions like weddings and bar mitzvahs. It was only at funerals, that she got a taste of being part of an extended family. Loving funerals sounds morbid, even macabre. Then Strauss reads out an extract of The Joy of Funerals, and I am drawn in. Suddenly I am in the world of lonely Nina, a young woman who gate-crashes funerals to find connection. The prose flows and the dialogue sparkles, as Nina forges an instant bond of sorts with a grief-stricken widow. The next day I find myself surrounded by a different sort of death. Literally. Around me are murder mysteries, each featuring at least one corpse. From Ross Macdonald to George Pelecanos, a cornucopia of crime stories line the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves of this cosy space. I am in the Mysterious Bookshop on Warren Street in downtown Manhattan, listening to crime writer David Swinson. The son of a foreign service CIA officer, Swinson grew up all over the world. He studied film, met a girl who introduced him to the alternative punk movement, set up a record store, and then opened a nightclub before finally electing to join the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington DC, where he spent 17 years fighting crime. From those days on the streets come his homicide novels, and his dubious detectivesthe morally compromised Frank Marr in The Second Girl, and the even more dubious detective Alexander in Sweet Child, his latest police procedural. By the time I exit the bookstore, its dark outside and the streets are deserted. Walking to the subway, I shiver in the autumn chill. I think of my home eight thousand miles away. It will be warm in Mumbai, and festive, with Diwali parties and gifts. The stories will be differentthose of the many Ramayanas and of gifting. And yet, in this world of sundered families scattered all over the globe, I am grateful for my gift of Diwali the gift of spending this festival with my firstborn, of a Sunday spent reading, walking, and playing board games, never mind that we are minus mithai and sparklers. And what about you, dear Reader? How are you spending your Diwali, what gifts are you giving yourself and your families consider adding some books to this mix here are some book gift recommendations for you. And until next week, happy reading! Sonya Dutta Choudhury is a Mumbai-based journalist and the founder of Sonyas Book Box, a bespoke book service. Each week, she brings you specially curated books to give you an immersive understanding of people and places. If you have any reading recommendations or suggestions, write to her at sonyasbookbox@gmail.com The views expressed are personal Books referred to in this edition of Book Box: Tom Lake by Ann Patchett The Joy of Funerals by Alix Strauss The Second Girl by David Swinson Sweet Child by David Swinson With BJP facing "dynasty politics" criticism, following the appointment of veteran leader B S Yediyurappa's son B Y Vijayendra as its Karnataka unit president, party's senior leader C T Ravi on Saturday tried to dodge related questions, and in a cryptic remark said he too is being haunted by certain "questions". CT Ravi The BJP on Friday appointed Vijayendra, the younger son of Yediyurappa, as its state unit president. He was earlier state vice president of the party. Also Read - Karnataka govt announces KHIR city. Here's what we know The names of Ravi, who has in the past served as BJP's national general secretary, and Union Minister of State Shobha Karandlaje, were earlier doing the rounds for the post. "I have conveyed my congratulations to Vijayendra. This is not power, this is a responsibility. This responsibility is not something that is taken by asking for it...I'm not an aspirant for any post, and in the last two and half decades I have not asked for any post, but have fulfilled the responsibility given to me by the party," Ravi said, in response to a question about him being upset. Speaking to reporters he said, "When I have not asked for the post there is no question of being upset or disgruntled." The party has given the responsibility to Vijayendra to strengthen the organisation and ensure good results in upcoming Lok Sabha polls and other elections in the future, he said, adding that, "I wish him the best and we will all work together in this direction." The appointment of 47-year-old Vijayendra, who is the first time MLA from Shikaripura in Shivamogga district, just ahead of 2024 Lok Sabha polls, is significant, as the new president will have responsibility of galvanising the party after the drubbing in assembly polls held in May. To a question on Vijayendra's appointment being seen as dynasty politics, against which he and PM Narendra Modi have repeatedly spoken in the past, Ravi said, "If I speak anything about this, there are chances of attaching a wrong meaning to it. You (media) will show my earlier video, and you may connect it to different things. I don't want to comment on it in this situation. It is haunting me as questions, in the same way, it is haunting you. It is a question that I too have." "There are certain questions that are haunting me too, as we (in BJP) have grown in a certain mold...I have never thought against party interest and will never do it...If I say something it will become hot news for you. I have never tried to hurt feelings when the celebrations are on," he said cryptically. Asked if the BJP now had the moral authority to criticise Congress for dynasty politics after this appointment, he said, "It will not be appropriate to discuss the questions in the minds of a karyakartas like me, in public." Stating that he will work as a partyman in ensuring Prime Minister Modi-led government comes back to power once again, and there is no question of getting disturbed from it, Ravi said, "Regarding my personal politics, I'm not a Sanyasi, personal politics is after 2024 Lok Sabha polls, until then it is politics of national interest, aimed at bringing back Modi government." Asked about loyal party workers not being considered for the post of party president, he said, who is right for which post and should be appointed at what time is decided by the party, and should not be discussed in front of media. Though there are some murmurs in the state BJP circles that some seniors in the party are upset about Vijayendra's appointment as state unit chief, none have come out and made their disgruntlement public. Senior legislators like Basangouda Patil Yatnal and V Somanna, who have been at loggerheads with Yediyurappa in the past, too have not made any comments regarding the appointment. However, there are some media reports stating that both leaders have congratulated Vijayendra over the phone. Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah urged the people of Karnataka to use only green crackers for this Deepavali. He stressed that bursting green crackers can only tackle pollution and other fire accidents at the festival. Use only green crackers for this Deepavali: Karnataka CM's message Also Read - Four of family stabbed to death in Karnataka's Udupi district In a video message to the people of the state, the chief minister said, The air and sound pollution cause severe health hazards to those suffering from asthma, lung and heart diseases. Birds and animals undergo silent pain. Hence, I appeal to the citizens that they must use only green crackers. He also said that the state government has also permitted the sale of green crackers during this Deepavali. The state government has given permission to use green crackers to check air and sound pollution, and fire accidents. Various chemicals used in the crackers lead to many health complications, added Siddaramaiah. The Karnataka state government in its recent decision has directed officials to restrict the bursting of crackers between 8pm and 10pm only, on the day of the festival. This comes in the backdrop of a tragedy in Attibele recently, wherein as many as 17 people lost their lives when a cracker go-down caught fire. Pollution control board officials in Karnataka came down hard on sellers of non-eco-friendly crackers and constituted a special task force to ensure thesale of only "green ones. The department of municipal administration directed authorities, civic agencies and corporations across the state to enforce the two-hour rule for bursting of crackers by prescribing to the guidelines issued by the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB), which were in line with the Supreme Court (SC) directive. Japanese technology is all set to transform the Indo-Norway Trout Fish Farm at Patlikuhal in Kullu district. Japans recirculating aquaculture system recycles and filters the water from the fish farming tanks, allowing it to be reused for fish production. The trout fish farm at Patlikuhal in Kullu which is run by the department of fisheries (Aqil Khan/HT) Consequently, fish production is expected to increase fourfold while conserving water and space. This technology enables the farm to continue functioning even in the polluted waters caused by the periodic flooding of the Beas River. The project, which has been in the planning stages for a year, is likely to be completed by March 2024. Khem Singh Thakur, deputy director of the department of fisheries, affirmed that this technology will bring about a revolution in fish production. The trout fish farm in Patlikuhal has been a vital source of fish supply for renowned hotels in the country. The project that commenced between 1988 and 1991, when Norway and India collaborated to introduce commercial production. They imported brown and rainbow trout seeds from Denmark, resulting in an annual production of 15 to 20 tonnes. These fish generate approximately 2 crore annually for the state government. Has health benefits The consumption of trout fish is associated with various health benefits, including reducing the risk of cancer and enhancing cognitive function. The fisheries department successfully reared high-value trout fish in warm water in the Gobind Sagar and Kol dam reservoirs in Bilaspur district . Experts from the fisheries department have made significant progress by installing fish cages at the Kol dam reservoir at Kasol, specifically for rainbow trout, under the CSS-Blue Revolution initiative in 2020. The rapid growth of the fish has shown promise, as they gained nearly 1 kg in just eight months, compared to the usual time of 2 to 2.5 years required in cold-water regions. This experiment has paved way for culturing trout fish in warm districts during the favourable water-temperature span of 5 to 9 months. Around eight metric tonnes of trout fish are produced at Kol dam, with an average weight of 300gm and a maximum weight of 1 kg.. In the coming years, an estimated 100 metric tonnes of trout fish will be harvested. This success is contributing to the growth of the fishery industry with over 12,000 registered fishermen and thousands of households depending on fisheries for their livelihood. Delhi-NCR Air Pollution Latest News: Following the rainfall on Friday, the average air quality in Delhi remained in the 'poor' category, while the air quality index (AQI) in Noida and Gurugram is hovering between the poor and moderate categories on Sunday morning, on the day of Diwali, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) website showed. A flock of birds flies over the Rashtrapati Bhavan amid smog as the air quality in the national capital slightly improves in New Delhi. (ANI) The CPCB's pollution forecast released for the next six days suggested the relief might be temporary, making for rather sooty days when the air quality will deteriorate on and post Diwali. According to the forecast, the AQI would reach very poor on Sunday and further fall to severe on November 13. Latest updates on Delhi NCR air pollution: According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the AQI in Anand Vihar was recorded 267 at 7am, while it stood at 241 in RK Puram. In Punjabi Bagh, the AQI clocked at 233 and 227 in ITO on Sunday morning. In Noida Sector 62 in Uttar Pradesh, the AQI stood at 184 (moderate) AQI at 7am. However, the average AQI in Nodia Sector-125, AQI remained poor at 217. Similarly, in Haryana's Gurugram, while AQI recorded at 260 in Sector-51, the air quality index improved at the moderate category (181) in Teri Gram, the CPCB data showed at 7am. Despite recent rains offering a slight respite, Delhi's air quality continues to be a matter of concern. The overall air quality in Delhi at 7am on Friday was 407, according to data by the government's air-quality monitoring agency, SAFAR. The Air Quality Index recorded at 10am was 361, which, according to the index range, falls in the 'Very Poor' category but showed a slight improvement from the "Severe" category. According to the data released by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), two stations recorded 'severe'' AQI. Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium had an AQI of 407 at 10am on Friday. This year, between November 2 and November 9, Delhi lives through its longest and most severe stretch of air pollution when the AQI was above 390 for a record eight consecutive days. For the six days after November 14, the air quality is likely to remain in severe to very poor category, said the forecast. Officials said that despite lower pollution levels, measures under stage 4 of the Graded Response Action Plan (Grap) which include a ban on construction and most heavy vehicles from outside of Delhi -- will remain in place until a review on Monday. On Saturday, the MCD issued 383 challans to violators in Delhi for open burning of waste and other material during November 1-10, civic officials said. Besides, 887 tandoors have either been removed or demolished as part of pollution control measures. Officials of Delhi Police conducted patrolling in the Chandni Chowk market in the national capital on Saturday, a day ahead of Diwali. The Delhi Police carried out the exercise across the city. Similar foot patrolling was also conducted at Malviya Nagar in the South Delhi district. (With inputs from agencies) Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal went to meet the families of his jailed former deputy Manish Sisodia and Aam Aadmi Party MP Sanjay Singh on Diwali on Sunday. Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal with Sanjay Singhs family.(ANI) Delhi CM met Sisodias family at AB 17 Mathura Road, the premises which is now officially allocated to Delhi minister Atishi. The same premises were earlier allotted to Sisodia. This comes a day after Sisodia, on a special permission from the court, visited his ailing wife. After the brief meet, Kejriwal left for Sanjay Singhs house who has also been arrested in connection with the Delhi Excise policy case. Visuals from CMs meet with Sanjay Singh family showed, his wife, Sunita Kejriwal, also accompanied him. Singhs mother and wife can be seen interacting with Kejriwal. In another video, visuals show Kejriwal meet Manish Sisodias wife. On Saturday, accompanied by police personnel, Sisodia reached his home on Mathura Road in a prison van at around 10am and returned to the jail after the meeting time lapsed in the evening. During the brief meeting with his wife, the AAP leader lighted diyas on 'Choti Diwali'. Sharing a photo of Sisodia hugging his wife as he was leaving his house to return to jail, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, "This picture is very painful." "Is it right to do such injustice to a person who gave hope to the poor children of the country?" Kejriwal wrote on X (formerly Twitter). Sisodia was arrested by the CBI on February 26 and by the ED on March 9 in the liquor case. The Supreme Court recently rejected Sisodia's bail petition, following earlier rejections by the High Court and trial court. AAPs Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh is also under judicial custody in the Delhi Excise policy money laundering case until November 24. Delhi environment minister Gopal Rai on Sunday issued an appeal to citizens in the national Capital and adjoining areas not to burst firecrackers during the festival of Diwali, ANI reported. Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai.(X) The environment minister urged people to instead celebrate the festival in a grand manner by lighting earthen lamps, or diyas. "I appeal to people in Delhi and nearby areas of Delhi. Diwali is a festival of diyas. Celebrate Diwali in a grand manner by lighting diyas but don't burst crackers and make it difficult for people to breathe because the festival is to spread happiness," Rai told ANI. The appeal from the environment minister comes a day after the Delhi government issued an advisory ahead of Diwali amid concerns over the poor air quality in the city. The advisory recommended citizens avoid going to places with high air pollution levels, such as slow and heavy traffic roads, areas near polluting industries, and construction-demolition sites, according to ANI. It also discouraged the use of firecrackers and added that burning wood, leaves, crop residues, and waste is not advised. Before this, the Delhi government announced the 'Diya Jalao, Patakhe nahi' campaign in the city on Friday. Delhi's air quality Delhis air quality was recorded in the lower half of the poor category on Sunday. The 24-hour average air quality index (AQI) for Delhi was 202 (poor) at 7am this morning, a slight improvement from Saturdays 4 pm reading of 220 (poor). Forecasts show a gradual deterioration in air quality is expected in the next 24 hours, with the AQI touching the very poor category later today and possibly touching severe by Monday, as firecracker emissions possibly get added into the atmosphere. Central Pollution Control Board data from 2016 onwards shows that the AQI has increased the day after Diwali every year, with the exception of last year, when strong winds helped disperse firecracker emissions. While the AQI remained in the very poor category on the day of Diwali as well as the next day in 2022, strong winds on the day after Diwali helped in dispersing pollutants, possibly negating the impact of firecrackers burst in Delhi NCR during the festival. The air quality is likely to deteriorate and will reach in Very Poor category on November 12. The air quality is likely to reach in Severe category from November 13 to 14. For the subsequent six days, the air quality is likely to remain in Severe to Very Poor category, said a forecast issued by the Early Warning System (EWS) for Delhi. Hours after Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday shared a photograph of Manish Sisodia embracing his wife, while pointing out the injustice being done to a person who gave hope to the poor children of the country, other AAP leaders, including Raghav Chadha and Atishi, also shared their emotional posts on social media offering sympathy to the jailed leader. Former Delhi deputy chief minister Manisha Sisodia hugs his ailing wife as he leaves for jail after spending some time at his home, in New Delhi, on November 11. (PTI) Manish Sisodia, who is currently embroiled in an alleged liquor scam case, was granted permission by the court to visit his ailing wife for a duration of six hours, from 10 am to 4 pm on Saturday. The former Delhi deputy chief minister, currently in Tihar jail, met his ailing wife on Saturday after permission from a city court. Sisodia, who is in jail in connection with the alleged liquor scam case, was allowed to meet his wife for six hours between 10 am and 4 pm. Accompanied by police personnel, Sisodia reached his home on Mathura Road in a prison van at around 10am and returned to the jail after the meeting time lapsed. My eyes are moist after seeing this picture. Today Manish ji got permission to meet his ailing wife for a few hours. Manish ji will not be able to light the lamp at his home on Diwali tomorrow, but he definitely brightened the future of lakhs of children of Delhi, Chadha wrote on social media X. Truth always prevails over untruth, righteousness over unrighteousness. This oppression will end, Manish ji will return, the Aam Party Rajya Sabha MP added. This picture shakes the soul Manish Sisodia is the person who awakened a dream in the eyes of millions of children. One day Modi ji will have to pay the price for these tears in the eyes of his family, Delhi education minister Atishi wrote. During the brief time Sisodia spent with his wife, the AAP leader lighted diyas in his house on 'Choti Diwali'. He did not interact with mediapersons who were gathered outside his residence. Sharing a photo of Sisodia hugging his wife as he was leaving his house to return to jail, Kejriwal said, "This picture is very painful." "Is it right to do such injustice to a person who gave hope to the poor children of the country?" Kejriwal wrote on X. In June too Sisodia was granted permission by the Delhi high court to meet his wife Seema, who suffers from multiple sclerosis. However, he could not meet her as she was hospitalised after a sudden deterioration in her condition. The court while permitting Sisodia to meet his wife ordered him not to talk to the media or indulge in any political activity. A senior leader of AAP, Sisodia held the post of deputy chief minister besides holding various portfolios, including the Excise Department, in the Arvind Kejriwal government before his arrest by the CBI in February. He resigned as deputy CM and minister of different departments after being arrested but his family lived at his then-official residence on Mathura Road sharing it with Education Minister Atishi. Recently, Sisodia's bail application in the case was rejected by the Supreme Court. West Bengal forest minister Jyotipriya Mallick, who was arrested on October 27 by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the alleged public distribution system scam, made his wife and daughter directors of three shell companies, the federal agency claimed before a Kolkata court on Sunday, lawyers who attended the hearing said. West Bengal forest minister Jyotipriya Mallick being produced before the Bankshal court by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with an alleged ration distribution scam in Kolkata on Sunday. (ANI) The court remanded Mallick in judicial custody till November 16. He was taken to Presidency correctional home in a prison van late in the afternoon as Bengal celebrated Kali puja and Diwali. I am extremely unwell. My left arm and left leg are getting paralysed. Today, I am free from ED custody. I am going to jail, Mallick told reporters when he was taken out of the court. The alleged scam, in which subsidised food grains meant for the PDS system were allegedly siphoned to the open market for sale, took place when Mallick was the food minister of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government between 2011 (when the party came to power for the first time) and 2021. EDs lawyers told the Bankshall court on Sunday that Mallick instructed his chartered accountants to make his wife, Manidipa, and daughter, Priyadarshini, directors of three shell companies which are among several others under scanner. Mallick refuted this while talking to reporters outside the court. You (the media) gave such instructions. ED is saying a lot of things, Mallick said. The ED claimed before court that Mallick confessed this when he was interrogated in the presence of this wife and daughter who were summoned for questioning, a lawyer present during the hearing said on condition of anonymity. Sundays development became significant in view of what ED told the Bankshall court on Saturday when rice mill owner and hotelier Bakibur Rahaman, who was arrested on October 14 and is alleged to be a key player in the scam, was produced before a judge. The ED claimed before the court that Rahaman gave an interest-free loan of 9 crore to the ministers companies in 2016-17 without any collateral. The money, which was later transferred to the bank accounts of the ministers wife and daughter, was proceeds from the scam, the ED claimed before the court on Saturday when Rahamans judicial custody was extended till November 22. Mallick was taken to the Armys Eastern Command Hospital in Kolkata for medical examination before he was produced before the court. Mallicks lawyers did not appeal for his bail although the tenure of his remand in ED custody came to an end on Sunday but claimed that he was extremely unwell. Refuting this, EDs lawyers told the court that doctors at the Army hospital declared the minister physically fit. A medical report was also placed before the judge in a sealed envelope. The TMC has already spoken in support of Mallick. Ten million fake ration cards were issued in West Bengal during the 34-year-rule of the Left Front, chief minister Mamata Banerjee alleged on November 1 referring to the ED probe and said Mallick worked hard to cancel the fakes ones and ensure 100 % digitisation of ration cards. A woman has thanked her local community for coming together to help find her two missing pet pythons after her ex-boyfriend allegedly set the pets free last month in an apparent act of revenge. The 25-year-old was reunited with Mango on Sunday after a desperate three-week search. Bagel, the other pet snake, was found on October 31. Shes in perfect condition, if a little tired, the woman told Yahoo News Australia. She took the opportunity to thank the community in Coogee, a suburb in Sydneys east, for coming together to help find the reptiles. The 25-year-old Coogee local has finally been reunited with her missing pet Mango. Source: Facebook I definitely couldnt have done it without the help of the community, the tireless searching, the effort of the local police and WIRES - it was a real genuine show of human empathy and care for others to see how much everyone wanted to help, she told Yahoo. I never expected to feel so supported by such a huge collective during a time as difficult as this. Locals come together to find pets Social media was set alight on Sunday morning with reports that albino python Mango had been found hiding under a pile of rocks just hundreds of metres away from where it went missing three weeks ago. A crowd of locals gathered to watch the second of the two missing pythons be captured and placed into a bag where it was taken to a local vet. Sharing the moment online, many reacted with delight. Wonderful news, said one happy resident. Even better we are not looking over our shoulder for 2 pythons on the streets. So pleased to see its still alive and been found, said another. A third shared that theyve been looking behind nooks and crannies for the snakes for the past three weeks. Snakes dumped on the street The snake owner's calls for help went viral last month when she took to social media to raise the alarm. Speaking to Yahoo News Australia at the time, the woman explained that she and her pets, aged five and six, had been living with her boyfriend on Mount Street before she ended things. Story continues "When I broke up with him on the weekend he threatened to smash the enclosure and dump them," she alleged. He then took action, reportedly putting all of her items out on the nature strip including the snakes in an open box next to the smashed enclosure. But by the time the woman got there, the snakes were gone. The 25-year-old ex has since been charged with two counts of destroying or damaging property. The 25-year-old pet owner said Bagel the python was found "thirsty and tired but otherwise not a scratch on her". Source: Facebook (Facebook) Locals urged to keep an eye out While both snakes are native to Australia, but not to Sydney, they were hand-reared so were in serious danger outside their enclosure. "Captive-bred and raised animals do not thrive in the wild," wildlife expert Sam Chatfield told Yahoo. "They don't have the awareness of the dangers the wild presents, from cars to dogs. The likelihood they get killed is extremely high." The pet owner was relieved to learn that neither of the pythons had a meal while out on the streets. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Friday decided to process fresh proposals for approval of construction projects within 500 metres of defence establishments without insisting on No Objection Certificates (NOC). The decision is likely to bring relief to hundreds of families living near the central ordnance depots at Kandivali and Malad and the Materials Organisation in Ghatkopar, whose properties could not be redeveloped due to the NOC requirement. The decision is also expected to benefit builders and developers in these up-and-coming suburbs. HT Image As reported by HT, the states urban development department (UDD) had on November 3 issued a clarification saying it had sought legal opinion from the state advocate general regarding curbs on construction activities near defence installations. The department had clarified that guidelines regarding buffer zones were no longer applicable as the Bombay high court had struck down all four defence circulars from 2011, 2015, 2016, and 2022 in its September 27 order. The clarification was sent to BMC as well as the Slum Rehabilitation Authority. Three days after the clarification was issued, BMCs chief engineer (development plan) put up a proposal before municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal, stating, In view of recent clarification issued by UDD dated 3.11.2023, it is proposed to process the proposals for further approvals without insisting on Naval NOC for plots within 500 m, irrespective of their earlier rejection or stop work notice issued by this office. The proposal, a copy of which was reviewed by HT, was approved by Chahal on Thursday with remarks that the law officer be consulted on legal issues. The proposal noted that following the 2011 defence circular, the 500 m buffer line was marked on the 1991 Development Plan and the BMC would forward applications for construction projects to the Naval authorities for their NOC before issuing Commencement Certificates. But following the 2016 defence circular, naval authorities would reject NOCs for development of plots within the 500 m buffer zone. On December 23, 2022, the defence ministry issued a fresh circular relaxing curbs on construction within the buffer zone, but said that construction projects within 50 metres of highly sensitive installations would continue to require an NOC from local military authorities. Two months later, on February 23, Shamishtha Maitra, director (lands) at ministry of defence stayed this circular till further orders. Referring to these developments, the proposal put up by the chief engineer noted, The circular dated 3.12.2022 mandating NOC for 50 m is also in abeyance as per circular dated 23.2.2023. Hence, the same is not applicable at the present stage. The proposal further noted that since there are many suits pending pending in the Supreme Court regarding the issue, the BMC would insist on an affidavit from the owner/developer stating they would withdraw their petitions, if any, before giving them fresh approvals for construction within the buffer zone. Mumbai: Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawars sudden meeting with home minister Amit Shah in Delhi was necessitated for multiple reasons but chiefly it was about chief minister Eknath Shindes handling of the Maratha agitation and the short shrift being given to Pawar and his team. Unease in alliance: Ajit gets Amit Shahs word on power-sharing deal The NCP rebel leader was conspicuously absent during the last few days of Manoj Jarange-Patils agitation, as he was laid low by dengue. But his sudden dash to Delhi, a day after he tweeted that he wouldnt be meeting anyone as he was still unwell, would suggest that his self-isolation was also a way to show his unhappiness at the way things have been unfolding in the three-party alliance. Sources say Pawar and party leaders Praful Patel and Sunil Tatkare went to meet Shah with a laundry-list of grouses that ranged from much-promised and much-delayed cabinet expansion, the undermining of his authority after Shinde ensured that all his decisions are first routed through deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis, effectively leaving Pawar with two bosses. Ajit Pawar also conveyed his concerns about the governments handling of Jarange-Patil. He fears too much importance is being accorded to the Maratha agitator, and that it has the potential of upsetting the equally powerful OBC bloc in Maharashtra. Amit Shah heard him out and after the 40-minute-long meeting assured the NCP rebel delegation that he would look into the issues raised by them. He assured us that he would speak to his party and to the Shiv Sena after the assembly elections and we hope the changes will be visible soon, said one of the NCP leaders present at the meeting. Ajit Pawars contention is that with barely a year left for the assembly elections, maximum legislators and leaders from his faction should be given positions of powers which they can use to improve their presence at local level. However, Shinde is not letting that happen. We have very little time in our hands. If they want us to deliver in the Lok Sabha elections, then they will have to give what has been agreed upon, the leader quoted above said. The friction between Shinde and Ajit began with the former opposing induction of the NCP camp into the coalition government and allocating him finance portfolio. It took BJP 12 days to convince Shinde to let it go. A tough administrator, Ajit was expecting a free hand in the three-party government. On August 8, he chaired a meeting to review projects related to Pune that were being monitored by the chief ministers war room. But it did not go down well with the CM. As finance minister when Ajit on August 21 put stringent conditions on six sugar cooperative mills controlled by BJP leaders for securing loans from National Cooperative Development Corporation, Shinde reversed the decision in the same month, on August 30. Shinde and Fadnavis then worked out a system that all the major decisions taken by Ajit would first be screened by Fadnavis and then would come to Shinde for approval. This has upset Ajit and he wants his authority back as deputy chief minister, a senior NCP leader said. Ajit has made no secret how he disapproves Shindes handling of Maratha reservation issue and the hunger strike by Jarange-Patil. As a result, he made no efforts to either defend the government or convince Marathas to bring violent protests under control. Coincidentally, Chhagan Bhujbal - a prominent OBC leader from Ajit camp - has begun publicly objecting to Shindes decision to undertake a drive to give Kunbi caste certificates to Marathas if they produce pre-Independence era documents to support their claim and get benefits of OBC reservation. Ajit has made no efforts to restrain Bhujbal either. Ajits main problem is that he thinks Shinde is not fit to lead the government, said a BJP leader. Since he has split the party of BJPs biggest enemy, Sharad Pawar, and given a chance to decimate MVA, he should be made chief minister. Under current circumstances, that is unlikely to happen. Our leadership will take a call on how to deal with his problems. Political analyst Abhay Deshpande said BJP thought their combination with Shinde was not strong enough against MVA and hence Ajit was brought in, but that too doesnt seem to be working. On the contrary it has led to confusion. Ajit, who was inducted as a mass-based politician, was completely aloof during the Maratha reservation issue along with Fadnavis who was on the backfoot after the Jalna lathicharge. Pimpri-Chinchwad police on Saturday arrested a 23-year-old man for allegedly stealing valuables of women during Diwali shopping in Pimpri-Chinchwad city. Police have recovered two gold chains stolen in two different crimes and investigation regarding his involvement in such cases is underway. (REPRESENTATIVE PHOTO) The accused has been identified as Rohit Dashrath Gavade, a resident of Chikhali, who hails from the Indapur area of the Pune district. Police said, that on November 7, a case of gold chain snatching was reported in the Chikhali area. A 24-year-old woman who had gone for Diwali shopping was robbed of a gold chain. In another similar incident, on October 26, the accused snatched the gold chain of another woman from the same locality. Considering the back-to-back incidents, police were instructed to trap the accused. During the investigation, police collected CCTV footage in the locality to ascertain the identity of the accused. On Saturday, while patrolling, police found a man with suspicious activity, after which they intercepted him. During interrogation, it was found that he was involved in many theft cases. Police officials from Chikhali police station said, The accused used to target women who were busy in Diwali shopping. Police have recovered two gold chains stolen in two different crimes and investigation regarding his involvement in such cases is underway. Pune city police arrested six suspects including three from Delhi on Saturday for their alleged involvement in an open firing on a jeweller on BT Kawade road, said officials. The accused Sagar Rakumar, Bilal Ahmed Asad Ali and Hany Jite were nabbed from Delhi, while three arrests were made in Pune. The accused Sagar Rakumar, Bilal Ahmed Asad Ali and Hany Jite were nabbed from Delhi, while three arrests were made in Pune. (REPRESENTATIVE PHOTO) Reacting to the development, deputy commissioner of police (DCP Zone 5) Vikrant Deshmukh said, Our team has detained three suspects in this case from Delhi and they will be brought back to Pune. Only after further interrogation, more details will come out. Police said, the accused trio were working as drivers, and labourers at various places in Pune during the Covid-19 pandemic, hence they knew the entry and exit points of the city. Sanjay Patange, senior police inspector at Wanowrie police station said, During the initial investigation, the accused informed that they had borrowed a loan and failed to repay it. Hence to clear the dues, they hatched a robbery plan in the city. During the probe, it was relieved that they decided to target low-profile jewellers to avoid security and it will be easier for them during execution. Before execution, the accused conducted reiki and noticed that, after the closure of the shop, the jeweller along with his son went home carrying a bag. On Wednesday, at around 9:30 pm, the accused fired at Pratik Madanlal Oswal, who owns a jewellery shop in the Sayyadnagar area when he was returning home on a motorbike with his father. The accused snatched a bag in his hand and robbed him of a gold chain. Immediately after the incident, the accused headed towards Delhi but unfortunately stole a bag from a jeweller carrying clothes. There were no valuables found in that bag, said police officials. It was also revealed that the trio also hired three more people from Pune to help them in the execution of the plan against which they promised them a handsome amount of money. The crime branch unit 5 of the Pune city police arrested three accused from Pune in this case and more investigation in this case is going on. Patange said, Interrogation is at a very primary level, and we are investigating from where firearms were purchased. The Pune Regional Transport Office (RTO) has suspended as many as 879 driving licences for rash and negligent driving in the last ten months, said officials. The RTO authorities have also recommended permanent cancellation of driving licences of some of the violators who have been found to have indulged in serious offences which resulted in fatalities. (HT FILE PHOTO) Action has been taken against violators for breaching speed limits and offences ranging from rash driving, speaking on mobile phone while riding or driving, not wearing seat belts etc. The authorities have also recommended permanent cancellation of driving licences of some of the violators who have been found to have indulged in serious offences which resulted in fatalities. Sanjeev Bhor, Pune Regional Transport (RTO) officer, said, We have suspended 879 licences from January 1 till November 9 on careful study and analysis of the proposal sent by the traffic branch. The law stipulates that licence suspension means that the offenders cannot drive vehicles for three to six months, depending on the period of suspension. If caught driving, they can be fined 5,000 and their vehicles can be impounded under the Motor Vehicles (MV) Act. The violators can also be prosecuted for a criminal offence under the Indian Penal Code for rash and negligent driving without a valid licence. According to the RTO office, the action has been taken after it received recommendations from traffic aimed at making Pune roads safer by enforcing traffic discipline and instilling fear of law amongst the violators. Vijay Kumar Magar, DCP (traffic), said that the department had submitted the proposal to the RTO authorities. The proposal is specific to those violators who have been booked for being involved in two or more violations during a month. We have recommended the RTO authorities to suspend their driving licences, said Magar. Bhor said, The proposal seeking license suspension has been received from the traffic department as we suspend their licences either for fifteen days or for six months duration. If an offender is found violating the traffic rules thrice during four months, then we recommend license cancellation as part of a strict action process. Hence the drivers must be careful that they dont break the law so that no action will be taken against them, he said. K-dramas have undoubtedly taken up an important chunk of the streaming market, and the slice-of-life genre has particularly emerged as the favorite, aiding the business to grow globally. Today's K-dramas break away from the stereotype of being just about rich boy-poor girl love stories, mouthwatering Korean food, and an office romance with chaebols. Here are the top 5 K-dramas that can be your perfect company when nobody really gets you. These dramas transcend the boundaries of our everyday lives, capturing our hearts with their larger-than-life stories. My Liberation Notes Slice of life K-dramas that can change your life My Liberation Notes If you enjoy slow-burning love stories and watching characters grow, My Liberation Notes could be your perfect show. Starring Kim Ji Won and Son Suk Ku, this K-drama follows the Yeom siblings, who are figuring out life like many of us. It's a relatable series, especially if you're in your late 20s or early 30s. The story revolves around Yeom Mi Jeong, Yeom Chang Hee, and Yeom Ki Jung as they strive for stability with their 9-5 routines, hoping for small promotions. Loves spending time with families, but at the same time are burdened with responsibilities, and cannot let their parents down. They want to explore and experiment but are too afraid to fail. Their daily grind, including the one-and-a-half-hour journey from Seoul to Dangmi station, highlights that K-dramas are sometimes about something other than fancy restaurants, dating, and love tales. Twenty-Five Twenty-One This K-drama from 2022 has once again raised the bar for the industry. Set in the 90s backdrop, it goes beyond the romance between the main characters. Inspired by a real-life story, it delves into a time before technological advancements, where friendship held a significant place in life, dreams were more important than mere ignorance, and love required sacrifice. Vigilantes Nam Joo Hyuk stars as Baek Yi Jin, whose family went from riches to rags during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, while Kim Tae Ri plays Na Hee Do, who strives to become Korea's top fencer. They bond as they undergo difficult situations to achieve their goals together. The ending might have left a lot of us reeling. But sometimes the story is so strong that it leaves a lasting impression. Our Blues Away from the bustling city of Seoul, where many K-dramas unfold, Our Blues stands in a league of its own. The K-drama unfolds against the picturesque and tranquil backdrop of Jeju Island, boasting a star-studded cast including Shin Min Ha, Kim Woo Bin, Han Ji Min, Lee Byung Hun, Kim Jae Won, and more in key roles. The series introduces us to the lives of those living and working on Jeju Island. If you're in search of a healing drama, this one is an excellent choice. This slice-of-life K-drama imparts valuable lessons, reminding us that not everything we cherish will always be with us, and sometimes, the most beautiful things can happen when least expected. Overall, the K-drama revolves around themes of hope, second chances, simple living, and appreciating life. Adding a reason to definitely give this drama a try is the soulful OST by BTS member Jimin. The track is crooned by both Jimin and Ha Sungwoon, and is titled With You. Extraordinary Attorney Woo When life gets too much to handle, take a break and lose yourself in stories that have the power to alter your perspective on life. Extraordinary Attorney Woo, featuring Castaway Divas Park Eun Bin, is one such K-drama. While it falls into the legal drama genre, the narrative beautifully captures the journey of Woo Young Woo, an attorney with autism, portrayed commendably by Park Eun Bin. Although the storyline is fictional, the character in Park Eun Bin's drama draws inspiration from a real-life autistic genius, Temple Grandin. Did it ring a bell? Temple Grandin, an American industrial designer and scientist driven to pursue a career in this field by her own experience with autism. Thirty-Nine Let's finally explore the K-drama Thirty-nine, which includes Kim Ji Hyun, Son Ye Jin, Jeon Mi Do, and Kang Tae Oh. As the title implies, Thirty-Nine chronicles the lives of three closest friends who are about to turn forty. The unwavering support these three friends offer to one another continues in the face of personal relationships, professional challenges, and a devastating medical diagnosis. While Thirty-Nine may not be your usual romantic K-drama, it is a much-needed escape if you are also coping with stress and setbacks as you get older. The series teaches us to embrace the parts and live in the now. These unbreakable friends set the standard for friendship goals by navigating through the highs and lows and providing solace while confronting the challenges of age. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday called the deepotsav in Uttar Pradesh's Ayodhya amazing, divine and unforgettable. Sharing pictures from the deepotsav event Modi wrote in Hindi, Amazing, divine and unforgettable! The whole country is becoming illuminated with the grand festival of lights of Ayodhya which is illuminated with millions of lamps. The energy emanating from this is spreading new zeal and enthusiasm throughout India. I wish that Lord Shri Ram does well for all the countrymen and becomes the inspiration for all my family members. Hail Siya Ram! An aerial view of the 'deepotsav' program in Ayodhya (ANI) The PM's comments came as Ayodhya set a new Guinness World Record on Saturday by lighting over 22.23 lakh diyas during 'Deepotsav 2023' and broke its previous world record of 15.76 lakh diyas. Ayodhya began Deepotsav celebrations in 2017 under the Yogi Adityanath-led government. That year, about 51,000 lamps were lit and the number went up to 4.10 lakh in 2019. In 2020, over 6 lakh earthen lamps were lit and more than 9 lakh lamps were illuminated in 2021. In 2022, more than 17 lakh diyas were lit across the ghats of Ram ki Pairi. However, taking into consideration the lamps that remained lit for five minutes or more the previous record was set at 15.76 lakh diyas. READ | Deepotsav: Over 22 lakh diyas light up Ayodhya as part of grand Diwali celebrations However, this year's festivities have an added significance due to the ongoing construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. The inauguration of the Ram Mandir will be held on January 22, 2024, with Prime Minister Modi expected to be in attendance. Earlier in the day Prime Minister Modi visited Lepcha in Himachal Pradesh and celebrated Diwali with the jawans. Taking to X he praised the courage and sacrifice of the security forces. "The courage of our security forces is unwavering. Stationed in the toughest terrains, away from their loved ones, their sacrifice and dedication keep us safe and secure. India will always be grateful to these heroes who are the perfect embodiment of bravery and resilience," Modi wrote on X. Prime Minister Narendra Modi celebrated this years Diwali with soldiers in Himachal Pradesh's Lepcha on Sunday. Sharing heartfelt moments of offering sweets, Modi expressed deep emotion and pride, praising the unwavering courage of defence forces in challenging terrains. Prime Minister Narendra Modi with soldiers in Himachal Pradesh's Lepcha.(X/narendramodi) PM Modis Diwali with soldiers at Lepcha | Top quotes India is safe so long as its brave soldiers are standing on its borders, unflinching as the Himalayas, the PM said. In his speech at Himachal Pradesh's Lepcha, PM Modi said, We are creating an atmosphere of peace in the country and you have a big role in this. I have not celebrated any Diwali for the last 30-35 years when I was not with you people. Even when I was not PM or CM, I would go to border areas during Diwali to celebrate with security forces PM Modi said in his address at Lepcha. It is said that Ayodhya is where Lord Ram is, but for me, where Indian Army personnel are, is not less than a temple he said. PM said, "More than 500 women officers have been given permanent commission. Today, women pilots are flying fighter planes like Rafale. Given the situation in the world today, expectations from India are continuously increasing. In such a situation, it is important that India's borders remain secure, PM addressed to security forces. After Independence, these brave hearts (Army personnel) fought so many wars and won the country's heart...In the International Peace Mission, India's global image was improved because of them. Is there any such issue, to which our brave hearts have not provided solution?..."PM lauded the efforts of defence personnels. Earlier, before leaving for Himachal Pradesh, PM Modi greeted the nation on Diwali and wished them joy, prosperity and health. "Wishing everyone a Happy Diwali! May this special festival bring joy, prosperity and wonderful health to everyone's lives," he wrote in an X post. (Inputs from agencies) Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel on Sunday assured an annual financial assistance of 15,000 to women under the Chhattisgarh Gruha Lakshmi Yojana if Congress retains power in the state. This comes as a counter to the BJP's promise in its poll manifesto of giving 12,000 per year to married women. Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel Today, on the auspicious occasion of Diwali, with the blessings of Maa Lakshmi ji and Chhattisgarh Mahtari, an important decision has been taken for women empowermentAfter the Congress government is formed again in Chhattisgarh, women in the state will be provided an annual assistance of 15,000 directly into their bank accounts under the Chhattisgarh Gruha Lakshmi Yojana, Baghel told the media in Raipur. Earlier on November 5, the Congress launched its poll manifesto titled Bharose ka Ghoshna Patra 2023-28 for the upcoming elections. According to the manifesto, the Congress has promised a caste-based census in the state, waiving off farmers' loans, free education for students from KG (kindergarten) to PG, and a subsidy of 500 per cooking gas cylinder to all women of all income groups. It also promised that farmers would get 3,200 per quintal against paddy procurement, including input subsidy currently being given under the Rajiv Gandhi Nyay Yojna to paddy cultivators. Apart from this, all the schemes that are currently operational will continue as well if Congress retains power in the state, Baghel had said. Elections to the 90-member Chhattisgarh assembly are being held in two phases. While the first phase of polling in 20 seats was held on November 7, the second phase of polling for the remaining 70 seats will be held on November 17. The results will be announced on December 3. (With inputs from agencies) The first global stocktaking of the progress made on containing climate change, expected to conclude at the UN summit in Dubai in a few weeks, has often received polarising views from nations that are signatories to the 2015 Paris Agreement. HT Image India has underlined that equity, fair share of the global carbon budget, and obligations of developed country parties to provide finance for transition and technology transfer will be critical to address in the global stocktake (GST). In its submission to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in September, India said equity has to be designed in the GST. India has always maintained that Equity is an important component for preserving the collective and facilitative nature of GST, therefore a commonly agreed guidance to operationalize Equity needs to be designed in the GST, through inclusive equity indicators arrived at by Parties. Equity needs to be captured not only as an overarching but also a cross cutting issue in each and every element of the GST outcome, India said. Developed country parties must lead in the ambition of their climate action and support, and their efforts to achieve or exceed their commitments on mitigating the impacts of the climate crisis, India said. The synthesis report of the first GST released by UNFCCC found that global efforts on the climate crisis are falling short of meeting the Paris Agreement goals of keeping global warming well under 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial times and pursuing efforts to keep it under 1.5 degrees, HT reported on September 9. This year, the 1.5 degree threshold was breached temporarily on certain months. The United Arab Emirates, which holds the presidency of the 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) of the UNFCCC, where parties denote nations, is trying for consensus on contentious issues of GST. We dont think about red lines. Our job is really to get countries together and deliver an outcome that all of us can have consensus on. Our job is to be that mediator. Thats what we did on the Loss and Damage piece. We went in and helped parties come to an outcome and we will do the same for the GST. We know that the GST needs to lay out how we can accelerate both ambition and action to bridge the gaps we know we face. We are getting a lot of great ideas from parties but at the end of the day its a party-driven process. We have already framed what we believe we need to see in the GST outcome in several of our letters sent to parties and now its for parties to deliver an outcome for us at COP28, said COP28 director-general Ambassador Majid Al Suwaidi. Countries have varying expectations from the final round of discussions, which have been provided to the UNFCCC as submissions from February. The key negotiating blocs, including the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDCs), Least Developed Countries (LDCs), G77 and China, BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) and African Group of Negotiators (AGN), Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay (ABU) have made submissions, along with individual countries and regions like the US, the UK, Australia and the European Union. While the different contexts of the Global North versus the Global South issue lead to differing perspectives on climate change concerns, consensus is crucial in this decade as the window to rapidly reduce GHG emissions by 2030 is closing, the Centre for Science and Environment, an advocacy group, said in an analysis. The GST process revealed the many existing debates with predictable opponents on each side that are holding us back from equitably furthering climate ambition. For instance, the principle of common but differentiated responsibility, established under the UNFCCC, recognises that while all countries are responsible for acting on climate change, their historical obligations are different. In their GST submissions, most developing countries, including India and South Africa, have demanded that the GST assesses pre-2020 failures by developed countries. Developed countries including US, Japan and UK have highlighted the rise of emissions since 2019 in emerging economies significantly contributing and, therefore, the GST should focus on the future, instead of looking towards the past. Another polarised debate has been on acknowledging how the global carbon budget has been utilised so far. Historical emitters have used up a majority share of the global carbon budget (GCB) and developing countries must be allowed to use the remaining budget, countries like China and India have demanded. The language on phasing down or phasing out of fossil fuels is also likely to raise a storm, experts said. These contentious issues are closely linked to delivery of finance; share of carbon budget exhausted; and per capita and overall emissions of countries. Global carbon budget is the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that can be emitted to meet the 1.5 or 2 degree goal. There should a rule-based scenario for the post first GST period, CSE has recommended. Today, China is yesterdays USA; its per capita emissions will be equal to the USA in 2030. It will appropriate a share of the carbon budget equal to the USA in 2030. It should have been moved to the category of polluters. But now there is no way to do this. The zero-sum game continues. At our cost, it said. This is what the Global Stocktake should work to correct so that it builds the framework of action for the future. While it might initially look like a healthy forest, once you look closer it's clear there's a problem. Cast your eye along the canopy and you'll see dead white manna gum branches stretching through the healthy leaves. They were stripped bare by koalas who favour the species over other eucalypts. The carnage occurred on a property near Victoria's famed Great Ocean Road, and the biodiversity loss has left its owner "seriously concerned". Peter Myroniuk's wife no longer ventures out into the Cape Otway forest they purchased together over 20 years ago. She gets too upset and anxious about it, he said. Hungry koalas have destroyed mature manna gums across a Victorian forest. Source: Peter Myroniuk Myroniuk, a leading conservation zoologist, had until recently felt the same, but after he mustered the courage to walk down into the forest, he discovered resident koalas are now killing younger trees that are trying to establish themselves, threatening the habitat's future. Hoping to protect some of these new trees, hes fashioned protective bands around them to block hungry koalas. The trees dont only support koalas, birds and other mammals need them too. So what were seeing is a huge environmental loss he said. While the damage frustrates him, it's not the animals themselves who he blames. The problem, he believes is one of human making. Authorities argue koala density declining Tourists flock to Cape Otway's forests to see koalas in the wild, but Myroniuk has concerns about the management of the species. He believes the "failings" of successive governments have negatively impacted their welfare and the forests they live in. Something he says is clear from his images. The property is close to Victoria's famed Great Ocean Road where many tourists stop to see the Twelve Apostles (pictured) or snap photos of koalas in the wild. Source: Getty After Yahoo posed questions about Myroniuks denuded trees and koala management to Victorias Department of Environment (DEECA), it issued a statement. "Over-abundance of koalas is a difficult, long-term issue brought about by their love of Manna Gums, their reluctance to change food source, favourable climatic conditions and an absence of predators, it said. Story continues "Our ongoing koala management programs have led to a steady decline in koala density across Cape Otway and their overall health and condition has improved." Discover more of our environment coverage. (Discover more of our environment coverage.) Koalas in southwest Victoria routinely euthanised As indicated by DEECAs statement, the problem is not just confined to Myroniuks property, with the issue extending beyond the hundreds of hectares affected in the Otways. Many of the issues facing koalas are manmade, with some caused by pressure from development. Travelling further west towards the South Australia border there is another major concern large populations of koalas thrive in timber plantations but are regularly harvested and this leaves the animals homeless. After he discovered young trees were being killed (left), Myroniuk fashioned protective bands to try and save some of them. Source: Supplied When they wander into neighbouring properties, national parks or state forests they put pressure on existing populations and trees become denuded. Authorities then survey the forests and euthanise animals whose welfare is assessed as compromised. In December, of the 93 animals examined at the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Budj Bim site, 28 were found to have health issues and be unviable. Of the 58 females assessed, 34 received fertility control. Government accused of being frightened to spend on environment While the government has committed over $3.3 million over two years to tackle problems with overabundance which are addressed in the states 10-year plan, Myroniuk argues serious money must be invested to tackle issues facing this iconic marsupial. He wants to see the government do something big and employ teams of people to plant more manna gums in existing forests, and connect habitats with tree corridors to stop animals becoming landlocked in forests where they over-browse. The governments not afraid to put tunnels in the ground for rail and freeways. When it comes to huge infrastructure projects well spend big, he said. But we seem to be afraid to spend money on the environment. Love Australia's weird and wonderful environment? Get our new weekly newsletter showcasing the weeks best stories. The first global stocktaking of the progress made on containing climate change, expected to conclude at the UN summit in Dubai in a few weeks, has received polarising views from nations that are signatories to the 2015 Paris Agreement. The United Arab Emirates holds the presidency of the 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. India has underlined that equity, fair share of the global carbon budget, and obligations of developed country parties to provide finance for transition and technology transfer will be critical to address in the global stocktake (GST). In its submission to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in September, India said equity has to be designed in the GST. India has always maintained that Equity is an important component for preserving the collective and facilitative nature of GST, therefore a commonly agreed guidance to operationalise Equity needs to be designed in the GST, through inclusive equity indicators arrived at by Parties. Equity needs to be captured not only as an overarching but also a cross cutting issue in each and every element of the GST outcome, India said. Developed country parties must lead in the ambition of their climate action and support, and their efforts to achieve or exceed their commitments on mitigating the impacts of the climate crisis, India said. The synthesis report of the first GST released by UNFCCC found that global efforts on the climate crisis are falling short of meeting the Paris Agreement goals of keeping global warming well under 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial times and pursuing efforts to keep it under 1.5 degrees, HT reported on September 9. This year, the 1.5 degree threshold was breached temporarily in certain months. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), which holds the presidency of the 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) of the UNFCCC, where parties denote nations, is trying for consensus on contentious issues of GST. We dont think about red lines. Our job is really to get countries together and deliver an outcome that all of us can have consensus on. Our job is to be that mediator. Thats what we did on the Loss and Damage piece. We went in and helped parties come to an outcome and we will do the same for the GST. We know that the GST needs to lay out how we can accelerate both ambition and action to bridge the gaps we know we face. We are getting a lot of great ideas from parties but at the end of the day its a party-driven process. We have already framed what we believe we need to see in the GST outcome in several of our letters sent to parties and now its for parties to deliver an outcome for us at COP28, said COP28 director-general Ambassador Majid Al Suwaidi. Countries have varying expectations from the final round of discussions, which have been provided to the UNFCCC as submissions from February. The key negotiating blocs, including the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDCs), Least Developed Countries (LDCs), G77 and China, BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) and African Group of Negotiators (AGN), Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay (ABU) have made submissions, along with individual countries and regions like the US, the UK, Australia and the European Union. While the different contexts of the Global North versus the Global South issue lead to differing perspectives on climate change concerns, consensus is crucial in this decade as the window to rapidly reduce GHG emissions by 2030 is closing, the Centre for Science and Environment, an advocacy group, said in an analysis on Friday. The GST process revealed the many existing debates with predictable opponents on each side that are holding us back from equitably furthering climate ambition. For instance, the principle of common but differentiated responsibility, established under the UNFCCC, recognises that while all countries are responsible for acting on climate change, their historical obligations are different. In their GST submissions, most developing countries, including India and South Africa, have demanded that the GST assesses pre-2020 failures by developed countries. Developed countries including US, Japan and UK have highlighted the rise of emissions since 2019 in emerging economies significantly contributing and, therefore, the GST should focus on the future, instead of looking towards the past. Another polarised debate has been on acknowledging how the global carbon budget has been utilised so far. Historical emitters have used up a majority share of the global carbon budget (GCB) and developing countries must be allowed to use the remaining budget, countries like China and India have demanded. The language on phasing down or phasing out of fossil fuels is also likely to raise a storm, experts said. These contentious issues are closely linked to delivery of finance; share of carbon budget exhausted; and per capita and overall emissions of countries. Global carbon budget is the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that can be emitted to meet the 1.5 or 2 degree goal. There should be a rule-based scenario for the post first GST period, CSE has recommended. Today, China is yesterdays USA; its per capita emissions will be equal to the USA in 2030. It will appropriate a share of the carbon budget equal to the USA in 2030. It should have been moved to the category of polluters. But now there is no way to do this. The zero-sum game continues. At our cost, it said. This is what the Global Stocktake should work to correct so that it builds the framework of action for the future. The death toll from the blasts that rocked a Christian religious gathering near here two weeks ago has risen to five, the Kerala government said on Sunday. The victim, identified as 45-year-old Sally Pradeepan from Malayattoor in Ernakulam district of the state, died at a private hospital on Saturday night, a government health bulletin said. She was on ventilator support, it said. The blasts took place at a convention centre in Kalamassery in Ernakulam district of Kerala on October 29. (PTI) Presently, 17 people who were injured in the blasts are undergoing treatment in various hospitals here, the bulletin by a medical board constituted to treat those who were wounded in the incident said. Of them eight are in ICU with one in critical condition and the remaining nine in wards, it said. The blasts were set off at a religious gathering of a Christian sect known as Jehovah's Witnesses on October 29. A 12-year-old girl named Libina from Malayattoor had succumbed to her injuries on October 30 at the Kalamassery Government Medical College Hospital, and two women who were part of the gathering were killed on the day of the blasts. READ | Kerala blast: IED with timer fuse likely behind blast; NIA, NSG teams reach spot Subsequently, 61-year-old Moly Joy from Kalamassery died at a private hospital on November 6. Over 50 people were injured, some seriously, during the multiple blasts at an international convention centre in Kalamassery, near this port city of Kerala. They had gathered for the final day of a three-day-long prayer meeting of the Jehovah's Witnesses. A few hours after the incident, a man -- Dominic Martin -- claiming to be an estranged member of Jehovah's Witnesses surrendered before the police in Thrissur district, claiming he carried out the multiple blasts. The police later recorded his arrest. In addition to Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) (punishment for murder) and Section 3 of the Explosive Substances Act, relevant sections of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) have also been invoked against Martin. Maintaining his tradition of meeting soldiers on Diwali, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday reached Lepcha in Himachal Pradesh to celebrate the festival with security forces. Since coming to power in 2014, Modi has been visiting military facilities to celebrate Diwali. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday reaches Lepcha in Himachal Pradesh to Diwali with security forces. "Reached Lepcha in Himachal Pradesh to celebrate Diwali with our brave security forces," Modi said in a post on X. Earlier, he greeted people on Diwali and wished them joy, prosperity and health. "Wishing everyone a Happy Diwali! May this special festival bring joy, prosperity and wonderful health to everyone's lives," Modi said. How PM Modi celebrated Diwali since 2014: Diwali 2014 (Siachen): The prime minister celebrated Diwali in 2014, the year the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power at the Centre, the festival with security forces in Siachen. From the icy heights of the Siachen Glacier & with the brave Jawans & Officers of the Armed Forces, I wish all of you a Happy Diwali, he had tweeted at the time. Diwali 2015 (Punjab): In 2015, Modi visited three memorials in Punjab to honour the successes of the Indian Army in the 1965 war. This was on the 50th anniversary of the 1965 war, and Modi said he had "chosen to visit locations where the brave soldiers of the Indian Armed Forces had shed blood and made the supreme sacrifice during that war". The battles of Dograi and Barki were the key successes during the 1965 war. Diwali 2016 (Himachal Pradesh): In 2016, Modi visited Himachal Pradesh to celebrate with soldiers near the China border. He interacted with men from the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), the Dogra Scouts and the Army at Sumdoh; and made an unplanned stop at a village, Chango, where he said he was deeply touched by the impromptu reception and their joy. Diwali 2017 (Gurez sector, Kashmir): In 2017, the prime minister visited the Gurez sector in North Kashmir and asserted that spending time with our forces gives me new energy. Diwali 2018 (Uttarakhand): In 2018, Modi spent Diwali in Uttarakhands Harsil where he paid a surprise visit to troops. This was followed by a visit to the iconic Kedarnath Dham. Diwali 2019 (Rajouri, J&K): The next year, Modi met the personnel in Jammu and Kashmirs Rajouri. Diwali 2020 (Longewala): In 2020, Modi visited the border post of Longewala in Rajasthan. Diwali is complete, he was quoted as saying in a statement, only when he is with the soldiers whether in the snow-clad mountains or in the desert. Diwali 2021 (Nowshera, Kashmir): In 2021, Modi celebrated the festival of lights in Jammu and Kashmirs Nowshera. I feel privileged that I got to spend Diwali with our brave soldiers in Nowshera, not as Prime Minister but as a member of their family, the PM had tweeted along with some photographs of the interaction. Diwali 2022 (Kargil): Last year, Modi celebrated Diwali with soldiers in Kargil and paid tribute to the Army personnel who lost their lives in the 1999 Kargil war. Modi, addressing the soldiers, said India is against war but also underscored the need for strength to ensure peace and asserted that its growing power boosts the chances of global peace and prosperity. Four members of a family from Madhya Pradesh died in Rajasthan's Bundi district in the early hours of Sunday when their car collided with a truck on National Highway 52, police said. The accident took place around 12.30 am when the SUV carrying the four people rammed into a heavy-duty truck from behind near Hindoli town, Circle Inspector at Hindoli police station Manoj Sikarwal said. The incident occurred in the Hindoli police station area when the victims were headed for Pushkar, they said. The deceased were identified as Devi Singh (50), his wife Maankhor Kanwar (45), his brother Rajaram (40) and nephew Jitendra (20), all residents of Gangukhedi village in Agar-Malwa district of Madhya Pradesh. The accident took place around 12.30 am when the SUV carrying the four people rammed into a heavy-duty truck from behind near Hindoli town, Circle Inspector at Hindoli police station Manoj Sikarwal said. The SUV was probably speeding and it seems that the truck ahead applied its brakes all of a sudden, causing the vehicle to ram into it, he said. Three people died on the spot and the woman succumbed to injuries during treatment at a hospital on Sunday morning, the official said. The truck driver fled the spot leaving his vehicle behind, Sikarwal said, adding that efforts were underway to nab him. The bodies are at a mortuary and post-mortem examinations will be conducted later in the day after their family members arrive, police said. India was one of the 145 countries that voted in favour of a UN resolution adopted on November 9 condemning Israeli settlements in Palestine. "Very glad that Republic of India voted in favour of the resolution. Israel's occupation of Palestine through settlers is ILLEGAL. Israel's apartheid must end NOW," Trinamool national spokesperson Saket Gokhale posted on X sharing the voting result. 18 countries abstained on the vote while seven countries including the US, Canada, Hungary, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Nauru voted against the resolution. Israeli soldiers take position, amid the ongoing ground operation of the Israeli army against Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in the Gaza Strip.(via REUTERS) "By a recorded vote of 145 in favour to 7 against (Canada, Hungary, Israel, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, United States) with 18 abstentions, the Committee approved the draft resolution titled Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the occupied Syrian Golan (document A/C.4/78/L.15). By its terms, the Assembly would condemn settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan and any activities involving the confiscation of land, the disruption of the livelihood of protected persons, the forced transfer of civilians and the annexation of land, whether de facto or through national legislation," the UN statement on the resolution said. Earlier, India abstained from voting on a UN resolution which sought a truce in Gaza as the resolution did not condemn Hamas. The resolution was proposed by Jordan and was adopted as 120 votes were in favour and 14 were against apart from 45 abstentions. While several opposition leaders condemned New Delhi's abstention on the issue, India explained that the terrorists must be condemned. India's abstention was guided by India's steadfast and consistent position on the issue, New Delhi explained. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday interacted with Indian Army soldiers in Lepcha in Himachal Pradesh on the occasion of Diwali and extended greetings to the people of the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi celebrates Diwali with security personnel in Lepcha, Himachal Pradesh, on November 12. (PTI) "In the last 30-35 years, there has not been a single Diwali that I have not celebrated with you (Army jawans). When I was neither the PM nor the CM, I still used to go to the border on the occasion of Diwali," said Modi, who arrived Lepcha in the morning, while interacting with the soldiers. Even when I was not PM or CM, I would go to border areas during Diwali to celebrate with security forces, Modi added. PM Modi's no less than a temple remark For him, Modi said, a place where security forces are deployed is no less than a temple. Earlier, the prime minister shared photographs of his interactions with the soldiers in which he is seen offering sweets to them. In his post on X, Modi said, "Spending Diwali with our brave security forces in Lepcha, Himachal Pradesh has been an experience filled with deep emotion and pride." "Away from their families, these guardians of our nation illuminate our lives with their dedication," he said. "The courage of our security forces is unwavering. Stationed in the toughest terrains, away from their loved ones, their sacrifice and dedication keep us safe and secure," the prime minister added. India will always be grateful to these heroes who are the perfect embodiment of bravery and resilience, Modi said in another post. Interacting with the soldiers, Modi also said between Diwali in 2016 and now, India's defence exports have risen eightfold; domestic defence production is now 1 lakh crore. In his speech, Modi lauded security forces for their contribution to nation-building and enhancing the country's global prestige. India is safe so long as its brave soldiers are standing on its borders, unflinching as the Himalayas, the PM told security forces. Recalling his government's approval to the permanent commission for women, Modi said, "...In the past years, in the Indian Army, more than 500 women officers have been given a permanent commission. Today, women pilots are flying fighter planes like Rafale..." Earlier in the day, he greeted people on Diwali and wished them joy, prosperity and health. "Wishing everyone a Happy Diwali! May this special festival bring joy, prosperity and wonderful health to everyone's lives," Modi said. Since coming to power in 2014, Modi has been visiting military facilities to celebrate Diwali. In 2014, the prime minister celebrated the festival of lights with soldiers at the Siachen Glacier. In the following year, on the 50th anniversary of the 1965 war with Pakistan, Modi visited three memorials in Punjab where the Indian armed forces had fought pitched battles that proved to be key to the country's victory. In 2016, the prime minister travelled to Himachal Pradesh to meet the personnel of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), the Dogra Scouts and the Army at Sumdoh near the China border. Modi, in 2017, was in the Gurez sector in north Kashmir, while in 2018, he celebrated Diwali in Harsil, Uttarakhand, which was followed by a visit to Kedarnath. After being re-elected to the high office in 2019, Modi celebrated Diwali in Rajouri in Jammu and Kashmir. In 2020, he was at a border post of Longewala on Diwali and in 2021, he celebrated the festival with soldiers in Nowshera. The prime minister celebrated Diwali with the armed forces in Kargil last year. Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has recently joined the just looking like a wow parade on social media. In a series of posts on X, the chief minister shared the photos of the Kolia Bhomora Setu in Assam's Tezpur and captioned his post, So beautiful, So Elegant, Just Looking Like a WOW! Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. (HT File) What a majestic view! The mighty Himalayas visible on a winter morning from Kolia Bhomora Setu,Tezpur Low AQI & a pollution-free environment enable this crystal clear view, captured by Gautam Deka, of the magnificent mountain range located near the Arunachal-Tibet border, he added further. Built over the Brahmaputra river in 1987, the Kolia Bhomora Setu connects Tezpur in Sonitpur district on the northern bank with Kaliabor in Nagaon district on the south bank of the river. The bridge bears the name of the Assamese General, Kalia Bhomora Phukan. The Just looking like a wow trend on social media Instagram Reels showcasing the 'just looking like a wow' audio have flooded social media, with even ministers joining the trend. Earlier Nagaland minister Temjen Imna Along also embraced the viral trend. So beautiful, so elegant, just looking like a wow. Maza aa gaya (Enjoyed it), wrote Temjen Imna along with a video of him getting his neck and legs adjusted by a chiropractor. The video has accumulated over 1.6 lakh views since being shared, and the numbers are still increasing. Similarly, the Ministry of Railways too recently joined the bandwagon and used the viral phrase to describe mesmerising pictures of Vande Bharat trains. Blue and tangerine #VandeBharatExpress So beautiful, so elegant, just looking like a wow! Location: Vellayil Station in Thiruvananthapuram- Kasaragod section of Kerala, read the caption written alongside the pictures shared by the Ministry of Railways on X. Nine people, including a fireman, were injured on Sunday in a fire that gutted seven firecracker shops and 10 motorcycles in Gopalbagh on the outskirts of Uttar Pradesh's Mathura city, officials said. Locals at the site after a fire broke out at a shop and spread to six others in Gopalbagh on the outskirts of Mathura city on Nov 12.(PTI) The incident took place in the afternoon at a temporary firecracker market set up at Raya for Diwali, Mahavan Circle Officer Alok Singh said. He added that there were several people at the market. "Seven shops selling firecrackers in the Gopalbagh area caught fire. Nine people suffered burn injuries. It seems that the fire was caused by an electrical short circuit," Raya police station SHO Ajay Kishor said. He added that the seven shops had permission to sell firecrackers. Of the nine hurt, four suffered serious burn injuries. They have been sent to the SN Medical College in Agra for treatment, Alok Singh said. The rest are under treatment at the Mathura district hospital, the officials added. In the incident, fireman Chandrashekhar, who was deployed at the market, was injured while trying to stop the fire from spreading further to about six other shops and saving people, the officials said. "Seven shops bore the maximum damage. Their owners were injured while they were trying to save their goods from the fire. Fireman Chandrashekhar suffered burn injuries while saving others. Besides them, another person was also injured," Singh said. Chief Fire Officer Narendra Pratap Singh, citing eyewitnesses' accounts, told PTI that an electricity wire fell on the firecrackers. "By the time, one could understand anything, the fire started spreading rapidly," he said. The extent of loss of goods and property is yet to be ascertained, Narendra Singh said and added that the fire, in which 10 motorcycles were also gutted, was doused within half an hour. Oxygen is being supplied through the debris to the 40 labourers who are trapped after a portion of an under-construction tunnel on the National Highway (NH) in Uttarakhands Uttarkashi collapsed in the early hours of Sunday. State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and Police Revenue teams conduct a rescue operation at an under-construction tunnel from Silkyara to Dandalgaon that collapsed in Uttarkashi on Saturday.(ANI) About 40 to 41 workers are trapped inside. Oxygen is being supplied through the debris, but more rubble is coming down as rescuers try to remove the obstruction, Durgesh Rathodi, a state disaster response official, told AFP from the site. Rathodi added that a message was sent to the trapped workers through a tube that is pumping oxygen into the blocked portion of the tunnel, assuring them that all efforts are being made for their safety. "No response to the message has come from inside yet," he told AFP adding that more rubble was coming down from above as machines constantly removed the debris. Uttarkashi's disaster management officer Devendra Patwal said that the rescue operation will continue overnight. SDRF workers during a rescue operation at the under-construction tunnel from Silkyara to Dandalgaon in Uttarkashi that collapsed late on Saturday night.(ANI) The incident took place around 4 am when a 150-metre-long portion of the four-and-a-half-kilometer-long tunnel collapsed. Teams of the State Disaster Response Force, fire brigade and employees of the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) were roped in for rescue operations. We received information around 9.15 am that a part of the tunnel on the national highway from Silkyara to Dandalgaon in Uttarkashi collapsed. We dispatched our teams from the local outposts. Our rescue operation is on a war footing," Lalita Negi, SDRF media in charge, said. Border Roads Organisation and ITBP teams led by Commanding Officer Naman Narula and Assistant Commandant Jadhav Vaibhav were also roped in later to assist in rescue efforts, according to PTI. Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said that he has instructed the district magistrate to speed up the rescue operations. He also said that he spoke with Prime Minister Narendra Modi who sought detailed information regarding the incident and rescue efforts. The Prime Minister was given detailed information about the rescue operations conducted to get the workers out safely. Honourable Prime Minister has assured all possible help to deal with this accident. Central agencies have been directed by the Government of India to cooperate in relief and rescue operations, he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday called on President Droupadi Murmu and Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar separately and exchanged greetings on Diwali. Prime Minister Narendra Modi with President Droupadi Murmu.(X) In a post on X, PM Modi said, Called on Rashtrapati Ji and conveyed Diwali wishes. He also shared a picture of his meeting with the president. PM Modi also called on Vice President Dhankhar. Met Vice President Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar Ji and wished him a happy Diwali, the Prime Minister said on X after his meeting with Dhankhar. Azerbaijan, as a member of the UNESCO Executive Board, makes a valuable contribution to the effective implementation of the organization's mandate, the country's Deputy Foreign Minister Elnur Mammadov said at the 42nd session of the General Conference of UNESCO, Azernews reports. We also work on the Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, a committee that is extremely important to us because we suffered for a long time from armed aggression and occupation, he added. The 42nd session of the UNESCO General Conference has begun on November 8. During the session, elections took place for a new president and vice-presidents of the General Conference, as well as chairmen and vice-chairmen of commissions and committees. Azerbaijan was elected vice-president of the UNESCO General Conference. The 42nd session of the General Conference will continue until November 22. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday morning reached Lepcha in Himachal Pradesh to celebrate Diwali with soldiers. Reached Lepcha in Himachal Pradesh to celebrate Diwali with our brave security forces, PM Modi wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, and shared pictures. PM Modi reaches Himachal Pradesh's Lepcha to celebrate Diwali with soldiers The PM also shared photos in which he can be seen dressed in military attire and interacting with security personnel. In another post, he wrote: Spending Diwali with our brave security forces in Lepcha, Himachal Pradesh has been an experience filled with deep emotion and pride. Away from their families, these guardians of our nation illuminate our lives with their dedication. PM Modi has been visiting military facilities to celebrate Diwali since he came to power in 2014. During these visits, he interacts with the military personnel and celebrates the festival. This will be his ninth Diwali celebrating with the soldiers. In 2014, the PM celebrated the festival with security forces in Siachen. The next year, he visited three memorials in Punjab to honour the successes of the Indian Army in the 1965 war. In 2016, he went to Himachal Pradesh to meet soldiers near the China border and held interactions with the men in uniform from the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), the Dogra Scouts, and the army at Sumdoh. In 2017, the PM went to the Gurez sector in North Kashmir, in 2018 he spent Diwali in Uttarakhands Harsil where he paid a surprise visit to troops, in 2019 he visited the soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri, and in 2020, he was at the border post of Longewala. In 2021, he celebrated the festival of lights in Jammu and Kashmirs Nowshera. Last year, Modi celebrated Diwali with soldiers in Kargil. Meanwhile, earlier in the day, PM Modi extended his wishes to people on the occasion of Diwali. Wishing everyone a Happy Diwali! May this special festival bring joy, prosperity and wonderful health to everyone's lives, he wrote in a post on X. Notably, Diwali is observed on Amavasya (or the new moon), the 15th day of the month of Kartik, every year. The festival - also known as the festival of lights - is the symbol of the victory of light over darkness and good over evil. Panaji: A Goa-based anti-trafficking NGO on Saturday said that the Supreme Court has accepted their suggestion to replace the term sex worker in its handbook on gender stereotypes with trafficked victim/survivor or woman engaged in commercial sexual activity or woman forced into commercial sexual exploitation. HT Image It came after a group of anti-trafficking NGOs from across the country wrote to chief justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, pointing out that using the word sex worker for words like hooker and prostitute as preferred in the Handbook on Combating Gender Stereotypes published by the top court in August this year may end up promoting another set of gender stereotypes. Arun Pandey, an official from ARZ (Anyay Rahit Zindagi), Goa-based anti-trafficking NGO, said they received an email from Anurag Bhaskar, deputy registrar of the Supreme Courts Centre for Research and Planning (CRP) on Friday evening, saying the CJI has accepted the change as suggested in the letter by NGOs. Based on your suggestion, the nomenclature/word sex worker is being changed to the following: Trafficked victim/survivor or woman engaged in commercial sexual activity or woman forced into commercial sexual exploitation, Pandey said, reading from the email to ARZ. The email, Pandey added, mentioned that the change will be updated soon to the handbook. Earlier, a group of NGOs under the banner of Anti-Human Trafficking Forum and comprising ARZ, Prayas from Mumbai, KIDS from Karnataka, and SPID from Delhi, among others, on August 28 wrote to CJI Chandrachud, requesting him to reconsider use of the term sex worker in the glossary of terms mentioned in the handbook. Most women are forced, kidnapped, lured, and trafficked into situations of commercial sexual exploitation. By using a generic term like sex worker, one may be assuming that all women engaged in commercial sexual activity may be in this out of free and positive choice, the NGOs wrote to the CJI. It negates the reality that most women enter the trade through force or fraud and many remain in it out of negative choice due to lack of better alternatives. It further said that under the Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act, 1956, while women are free to engage in commercial sexual activity, anyone who forces or lures them into this activity shall be prosecuted including those living off their earnings. Section 2 (f) of the 1956 law defines prostitution as the sexual exploitation or abuse of persons for commercial purposes, and the expression prostitute is to be construed accordingly, the suggestions from the NGOs added. Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi on Sunday hit out at the railway ministry and said that it should get a reality check before putting out posts over viral trends on social media. She targetted the ministry over the stampede-like situation at Surat railway station on Saturday where a man lost his life. In a post on X Priyanka Chaturvedi shared a video of the incident and wrote, Before Rail Ministry comes up with looking like a wow tweets for publicity, maybe they should get out and check the reality This is so sad and horrific. Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi(ANI) Taking to X, the Ministry of Railways posted pictures of the new Vande Bharat trains and wrote, Blue and Tangerine #VandeBharatExpressSo beautiful, so elegant, just looking like a wow! Location: Vellayil Station in Thiruvananthapuram- Kasaragod section of Kerala. A 40-year-old man died, while two others were hospitalised following the chaos that occurred when passengers were boarding a Bihar-bound special train for the upcoming Chhath festival, PTI reported. One man fell due to crowding and was declared brought dead. The exact cause of death will be ascertained in the post-mortem. Two other passengers suffered breathlessness and are undergoing treatment, the news agency quoted Jayesh Patel, the resident medical officer of SMIMER Hospital. The Minister of State for Railways, Darshana Jardosh, met with those injured due to the stampede in Gujarat. She wrote on X, During the festival time, everyone goes to their hometown, mostly using rail transport. Today, due to overcrowding, some passengers complained of suffocation, the railway administration has remained vigilant and provided medical treatment to all. Met all the passengers and inquired about their condition and gave appropriate instructions to the administration. The Western Railway, in its statement, said it has taken special measures regarding the operation of special trains from Surat and Udhna in view of the festive season. It said that personnel from the Government Railway Police and Railway Protection Force were deployed for security and crowd management during the time. The Western Railway has scheduled 400 trips for 46 pairs of special trains to different destinations. Among them, 27 pairs either start from or pass through Surat and Udhna railway stations, the statement said. Three people including the nurse at a government primary health care centre in Chikkamagaluru district -- were arrested on charges of sexual exploitation of minor girls, police said on Saturday. Police said the accused were produced before JMFC court, Kadur, which sent the them to judicial custody of four days. (HT Archives) The accused were identified as Suresh (37), Vinay (27) and Chandana (26), an officer aware of the matter said. Suresh who was a D group employee in a residential school in Kadur town would interact with minor girls parents at the school and persuade them to send their children to paramedical courses, saying that there is a scope of getting high salary after completing the programme, Kadur police inspector M Dhananjay told HT. Once the girls parents give their consent for the course, Suresh would take the students to the government quarters allotted to Chandana a staff nurse at the PHC, where her partner Vinay would sexually assault them and give them drugs, Dhanajay added. According to police, Vinay runs a provision shop and he and Chandana have been in a live-in relationship for quite some time. The harassment was ongoing for several months, but no minor came forward... The incident came to light when one of the victims narrated the incident to her parents, who filed a complaint with Kadur police based on which an FIR (first information report) was registered, an officer aware of the matter said. A case under section 328 (administering drugs) and 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act was registered. The accused were produced before JMFC court, Kadur, which sent the them to judicial custody of 4 days, the inspector said. Medical examination was conducted on victims and accused and police are waiting for a report, he said. Carnatic musician and activist TM Krishna on Sunday got trolled on social media platform X after he posted a message on Diwali -- on the difficulty to celebrate the festival of lights amid the war in Palestine. The musician wrote that light means impending death for the people of Palestine. "Support for the Palestinians is support for all those who have been marginalised," TM Krishna wrote along with a photo of himself. TM Krishna on Sunday put up a post on X saying it is difficult to celebrate the festival of light as Palestine is suffering. "Difficult to celebrate the festival of lights when for people of Palestine lights indicate incoming death. Support for the Palestinians is support for all those who have been marginalised. In prayer for peace and a return of humanity," his tweet read. Social media users criticised his post on the occasion of Diwali and questioned why he did not feel the same for the Israelis who lost lives in the Hamas attack on October 7 while many wished that the musician should be sent to Gaza. TM Krishna replied to the trolls and wondered whether his point was too difficult to understand or if hate runs so deep that there is no end to it. "Reading the responses/quote posts to this message one has to wonder if understanding the 'tragic' point being made regarding the lights and the prayer for peace on a festival day is so difficult to comprehend or hate runs so deep that no pause is possible," the musician noted. The Israel-Hamas war has opinions divided in India over support for Israel or Palestine. India's official stance is condemning the terrorist attack on Israel and supporting the establishment of a "sovereign, independent and viable state of Palestine'. Kerala recently saw a pro-Palestine rally which became controversial as a Hamas leader virtually addressed the rally organised by the youth wing of Jamaat-e-Islami. While the Kerala government has been probing the incident, Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Saturday said BJP's policy should not be counted as India's and India always stood with Palestine. Tribal activists on Saturday threatened self immolation if Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not make any announcement on the long-standing demand for recognition of Sarna religion during his proposed November 15 visit to Jharkhand. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses (PTI) The activists will also observe a fast between 10 AM to 1 PM in Jharkhand and other states on the day in support of the demand, 'Adivasi Sengel Abhiyan' (ASA) president Salkhan Murmu said. Modi is scheduled to visit Ulihatu, the birth place of tribal icon Birsa Munda, in Khunti district of the state on his birth anniversary on November 15, which is also the Jharkhand Foundation day. The threat was issued by two activists of the ASA but their decision on it was made independently, Murmu said. "We are expecting the prime minister to make an announcement on our long-standing demand for the recognition of a separate 'Sarna' religion ... If he does not make the Centre's stand clear over our demand, the two activists have decided to immolate themselves at 4 pm at Ulihatu and Bokaro," Murmur, a former parliamentarian said. ASA held a rally in Ranchi on November 8 demanding the Centre's recognition to tribal Sarna religion. Incidentally, the Centre declared November 15 as 'Janjatiya Gaurav Diwas' since 2021. Murmu said majority of the states in the country like Punjab, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal were formed on linguistic basis to preserve their cultures, identities and languages but Santhali, despite being recongnised under the 8th schedule of Constitution in 2003, was not made the official language of Jharkhand till date though it was carved out of Bihar after a long tribal movement for statehood. ASA leaders from Assam, Bengal and Jharkhand in a meeting on Friday decided to hold a rail and road blockade in support of Sarna religion on December 30. Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren earlier this week said Modi is welcome in Jharkhand but the decision to recognise the 'Sarna' religion is still pending with the Centre. "We have already sent all the papers (related to demands for a separate Sarna religious code for tribals) to him ... Now he has to take a decision on it," Soren said on Thursday. The recognition of Sarna religion is necessary to identify tribals as different from the followers of other religions and to ensure the protection of their constitutional rights, he said. Soren in a letter to the prime minister in September had sought the recognition of the 'Sarna' code for tribals and claimed that their population in the region has declined to 26 per cent from 38 per cent in the last eight decades. Sarna is a religious faith of the Indian subcontinent, predominantly followed by indigenous communities in the Chota Nagpur Plateau region across states like Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, and Chhattisgarh. It holds the distinction of being India's largest tribal religion. At least 36 workers were reportedly trapped after a portion of a tunnel under construction between Silkyara and Dandalgaon on the Brahmakhal-Yamunotri national highway in Uttarkashi district in Uttarakhand collapsed in the early hours of Sunday. Rescue operations are underway.(HT Photo) Police said the incident took place around 4am when a 150-metre-long portion of the four-and-a-half-kilometer-long tunnel collapsed. As soon as information about the incident was received, Uttarkashi Superintendent of Police Arpan Yaduvanshi immediately reached the spot and launched a relief and rescue operation, news agency PTI reported. National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force, fire brigade and employees of the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL), the organisation that is constructing the tunnel, are at the spot as well, the report added. "In Silkyara Tunnel, a part of the tunnel has broken about 200 meters ahead of the starting point. According to the officials of HIDCL, which is looking after the construction work of the tunnel, about 36 people are trapped in the tunnel and efforts are being made to rescue them safely. Police force, NDRF and SDRF team are present at the spot. Till now, no casualty has been reported. We will soon rescue all the people safely," Uttarkashi SP Arpan Yaduvanshi told reporters at the spot. "About 200 metres (218 yards) of the tunnel have collapsed," Durgesh Rathodi, a state disaster response official, told news agency AFP from the site. "About 40 to 41 workers are trapped inside. Oxygen is being supplied through the debris, but more rubble is coming down as rescuers try to remove the obstruction," he added. Photographs released by the government rescue teams showed huge piles of concrete blocking the wide tunnel, with twisted metal bars on its broken roof poking down in front of the rubble. "Pray to god that those workers trapped inside the tunnel are brought out safely," Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami wrote on social media platform X. Accidents on large infrastructure construction sites are common in India. With the construction of this all-weather tunnel under the Char Dham Road Project, the journey from Uttarkashi to Yamunotri Dham will be reduced by 26 kilometres. Your home is not just a place; it's an extension of your identity, a sanctuary for your mind and when it comes to enhancing your living space, especially this Diwali, consider the power of Dopamine Home Decor, a concept that revolves around boosting your mood and well-being through thoughtful design choices. Dopamine home decor is a juxtaposition of vintage style with strong bold colours and patterns. Dopamine home decor for Diwali 2023: Elevate your space with a feel-good interior flair this Deepavali (Photo by on Unsplash) It is about creating a space that nurtures your happiness and mental well-being and renders a boost to our feel good hormone - dopamine. To give you a few cues, we got some home decor and interior design experts on board to share tips on how to make this Diwali decluttering not just about organising your space but as a powerful tool for fostering mental clarity. In an interview with HT Lifestyle, Vijai Subramaniam, Founder and Chairman at Royaloak Furniture, suggested, Start by selecting furniture that resonates with your style and comfort. Each piece should tell a story and evoke positive emotions, making you feel more at ease in your own space. Art and decor items add a touch of uniqueness, creating a sense of belonging for each member of the family. Incorporate indoor plants and natural elements for air purification and a mood boost. The vibrant greens and soothing earthy tones will instantly elevate your ambiance. Asserting that decluttering is not just about organising your space but it is a powerful tool for fostering mental clarity, he revealed, "A tidy environment acts as a catalyst for reducing stress and amplifying focus, allowing you to channel your energy towards what truly matters. By consciously removing unnecessary items, you create space for elements that genuinely spark joy, cultivating a sense of peace and serenity within your living space. According to Kiran Ranga, Managing Director at IRIS Home Fragrances, Fragrances have not only become an integral part of our homes but also an essential component in the tapestry of our lives, particularly in the wake of the post-Covid era. The need for mental peace and serenity has taken center stage as our society undergoes a transformative shift. With each passing generation, the value placed on mental health has become increasingly apparent. It's evident that individuals are prioritising their well-being like never before. In this context, fragrances emerge as powerful tools for cultivating a sense of mental and emotional well-being." Highlighting that the concept of 'Dopamine Decor' is now a captivating phenomenon that resonates deeply with the zeitgeist, he said, It is a testament to the profound connection between fragrances and the release of dopamine, our brain's natural 'feel-good' chemical. The enchanting world of fragrances possesses the remarkable ability to uplift our spirits, creating an immediate and lasting improvement in the ambiance of our surroundings while instilling a sense of hope and positivity. He added, Through the magic of home fragrances, such as diffusers, essential oils, room fresheners etc, houses are transformed into more than just mere structures; they evolve into warm and inviting homes. This transformation doesn't stop at mere aesthetics; it extends to the very essence of our living spaces, creating an environment that fosters happiness, emotional well-being, and contentment. In a world where the home has become a sanctuary, fragrances play a vital role in enhancing the overall quality of life and the cherished moments we experience within its walls. Bringing her expertise to the same, Atreyee Choudhury, Founder and Principal Interior Architect at De Panache in Bangalore, encouraged creating spaces that not only look good but also make you feel good. She said, Dopamine home decor, a concept that focuses on enhancing your mood and mental well-being through thoughtful design choices, is a trend that I believe can truly revolutionise our living spaces. Dopamine is a chemical released in the brain that sparks joy. Dopamine decor is a unique decor style which aims to boost our feeling of joy everytime we interact and live in a decor inspired by dopamine. Vibrant colours with bold patterns and electric prints are a must for dopamine home decor. She advised, Thoughtful furniture selection is the cornerstone of dopamine home decor. Furniture should not only be functional and aesthetically pleasing, but also comfortable and inviting. Consider pieces that evoke positive memories or feelings. A cosy armchair, a vintage table inherited from your grandparents, or a vibrant rug that you picked up during your travels can all contribute to a feel-good atmosphere.It is a powerful design which can elevate your mood. Personalised art and decor play a crucial role in creating an environment that stimulates happiness. Art, in particular, can have a profound impact on our mood and mindset. Choose pieces that resonate with you on a personal level, whether it's a painting that brings back fond memories, a sculpture that inspires you, or a photograph that makes you smile. She concluded, Incorporating elements of nature, such as indoor plants, can also significantly enhance the mood-boosting effects of your decor. Plants not only improve air quality but also have a calming effect, helping to reduce stress and increase feelings of well-being. Interior designers from not only Bangalore but also from other metros like Delhi and Mumbai are using plants for almost each style of interiors with panache, be it eclectic or Bohemian or even Victorian. By seamlessly integrating these elements, you can guarantee a daily welcome to an environment that radiates positivity and enhances your well-being. Visiting the 16th century Dutch Palace in Kerala in the autumn of 2019, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands faced an odd appeal from a local historian. Michael Tharakan, who was then the Chairman of Kerala Council for Historical Research (KCHR), sought the royal couple's help to access old manuscripts from Kerala lying unexplored in the Dutch national archives. Cosmos Malabaricus, a seven-year-long collaborative project between Leiden University (above), National Archives of the Netherlands and Kerala Council for Historical Research, aims to explore medieval Dutch manuscripts from Kerala(Courtesy of Leiden University, the Netherlands) "Your country gave us Captain De Lannoy," Tharakan told the King and the Queen, narrating the strange story of a Dutch military officer, who switched sides after his army was defeated in the famous Battle of Colachel in 1741 by the erstwhile kingdom of Travancore. "Travancore got a centralised army because of the expertise of De Lannoy. Now we need another help from you," the professor said, referring to Eustachius Benedictus de Lannoy, the Dutch naval officer who became the Travancore army commander after the Colachel War. "We are eager to learn the old Dutch language so that our historians can study the medieval manuscripts taken from here to the Netherlands," Tharakan, a former vice-chancellor of Kannur University, continued. "They took it nicely," he says recalling the incident at the Dutch Palace in Mattancherry in October 2019. Four years later, the 1575-founded Leiden University in the Netherlands is ready to receive four Indian students for a Masters in Colonial and Global History and teaching medieval Dutch under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in April last year with KCHR. A vast collection of old Dutch records from 17th and 18th century Kerala lie unexplored in the National Archive, The Hague(Courtesy of National Archive, The Hague) Cosmos Malabaricus Kerala Council for Historical Research, Thiruvananthapuram and Leiden University will have a student exchange programme under the Cosmos Malabaricus project(Courtesy of Kerala Council for Historical Research) The students from Kerala form the first from a batch of six students who will be heading to Leiden under Cosmos Malabaricus, a seven-year-long collaborative project between KCHR, Leiden University and the National Archives of Netherlands in the Hague, all signatories of the MoU. Dutch research scholars from Leiden will be arriving in Kerala for summer school and as interns. According to KCHR, the collaboration will see Indian students training in medieval and early modern Dutch and in the use of archives, translation of select Dutch documents and encouraging research in the histories of the Dutch colonial period. Their work has been made easier by the recent massive digitisation of manuscripts by the Dutch national archives. The project's name derives from Hortus Malabaricus, a botanical treatise of the Malabar coastal region by the 17th century Dutch Governor Hendrik van Rheede. Negotiations have been going on between Indian and Dutch historians for a joint academic project long before the Dutch King and Queen's visit to India. The India-Dutch academic collaboration, approved by the Union government's Ministry of External Affairs, marks a crucial first step in analysing old Dutch manuscripts that could rewrite the medieval history of present-day Kerala. The old Dutch manuscripts, which contain facts of history based on maritime trade compared to land and temple records in the Indian sources, have largely never been studied by Indian or Dutch historians before. "The old Dutch records of Malabar are largely unexplored," says Gautam Das of KCHR. "Historians of the Malabar are not familiar with historical Dutch, and scholars who know historical Dutch aren't familiar with the Malabar history," he adds. "The relevant manuscript collection in the Hague fills up shelves over 100 metres long." An original manuscript from Kerala dating back to 1772 at the National Archive, The Hague(Courtesy of National Archives, The Hague) The old Dutch records from Kerala could shed light on hitherto unknown facts of the state's early modern history(Courtesy of National Archive, The Hague) Four decades ago, Prof. Tharakan got a glimpse of the vast collection, which offers a unique opportunity for the study of interconnected histories, when he visited the national archive in the Hague to understand the historical roots of a new hypothesis that said the Kerala model of development experience was different from the rest of India and most of countries. "In the Dutch records there are references to a historically evolved system in education, health, transportation and banking offering a uniqueness in Kerala's development," he says. "The Dutch were very observant. They made records of everything they saw." Unknown History The daily records of Dutch administrators and bureaucrats included observations about trade and the economy, politics of the regional courts, religious institutions like churches, mosques and temples, extended to the village-level. Hidden in the old Dutch manuscripts could be little known aspects of Kerala's history like the origin of the coir industry in Alappuzha, trade by Jews, Arabs, and Romans across Kerala and even the caste system. But even unknown basic facts, like the ruling period of certain kings, can be found in the Dutch records. The old Dutch manuscripts span one-and-half century from 1650 to 1800 (Courtesy of National Archives, The Hague) The Dutch, who defeated the Portuguese to become colonisers in the country, were in turn defeated by the British, but not before they ruled for nearly two centuries, an empire that stretched along India's west coast and was present from Basra in Iraq to Deshima in Japan with Batavia (now Jakarta) as its headquarters. The Dutch manuscripts cover one-and-half centuries from circa 1650 to 1800 and are still largely unexplored," says Jos Gommans, Professor of Colonial and Global History at the Leiden University. "Compared to other Dutch establishments in Asia, the material on Kerala is extremely rich, as such the Dutch sources provide a huge window on the early modern history of Kerala." adds Gommans, the author of The Dutch Overseas Empire, 1600-1800 and The Unseen World: India and the Netherlands from 1550. Gommans conceived the idea of Cosmos Malabaricus when he visited Kerala in 2010 and became inspired by the cosmopolitanism and global connectedness of the region. Shilpa Shetty and her husband, Raj Kundra, hosted a grand Diwali bash at their residence in Mumbai. The party was attended by many celebrities dressed in gorgeous ethnic ensembles. The guest list included stars and power couples like Kriti Sanon, Tamannaah Bhatia with Vijay Varma, Bhumi Pednekar, Shraddha Kapoor, Shahid Kapoor with Mira Rajput, Sushmita Sen with Rohman Shawl, Rakul Preet Singh with Jackky Bhagnani, Huma Qureshi, Tejasswi Prakash, and others. Scroll through to find out who wore what at Shilpa's Deepawali festivities. Kriti Sanon, Tamannaah Bhatia with Vijay Varma and Bhumi Pednekar pose at Shilpa Shetty and Raj Kundra's Diwali party. (HT Photo/Varinder Chawla) Who wore what to Shilpa Shetty and Raj Kundra's Diwali party Shilpa Shetty and Raj Kundra Shilpa Shetty made heads turn at her star-studded Diwali bash in a deep red-coloured velvet ensemble featuring a halter-neck cropped blouse, a floor-sweeping skirt with a gathered pleated front, and a matching dupatta draped on her arms. Her outfit comes embroidered with gold rose patterns and shimmering beaded tassels. Lastly, side-parted open wavy locks, statement earrings, stacked chunky bracelets, rings, glossy muted pink lip shade, glowing blushed cheeks, kohl-lined eyes, and mascara-adorned lashes gave the finishing touch. Meanwhile, Raj complemented her in an off-white sherwani and a deep red velvet dupatta. Kriti Sanon Kriti Sanon attended the Diwali party with her sister, Nupur Sanon. The actor looked glamorous at the celebrations in a shimmering festive-ready look featuring a bustier blouse, sharara pants, and a cape-style jacket. While the top and pants come in a muted pink shade and are adorned with sparkling sequin embellishments, the jacket has an open front, mirror embellishments, and a multi-coloured patch design. In the end, Kriti chose hoop earrings, embroidered juttis, rings, side-parted sleek hairdo, and minimal makeup for the styling. Tamannaah Bhatia and Vijay Varma Tamannaah Bhatia and Vijay Varma attended Shilpa Shetty's Diwali party in gorgeous traditional ensembles. While Tamannaah chose a purple-hued cropped backless choli, sheer dupatta and a lehenga set decked in shimmering silver embellishments, Vijay wore an embroidered asymmetric black kurta and flared pants set. Tamannaah glammed her ensemble with a mang tika, a sleek bracelet, matching footwear, glossy pink lip shade, blushed glowing skin, matching eye shadow, feathered brows, mascara, and feathered brows. Bhumi Pednekar Bhumi Pednekar turned into a golden girl for Shilpa Shetty's Diwali party dressed in the viral tissue silk saree. Her six yards come adorned with heavily embellished pallu and a broad embroidered border. She wore the drape with a sleeveless bralette blouse featuring mirror embellishments, a plunging neckline, a backless design, a cropped silhouette, and a fitted bust. A choker necklace, a messy bun adorned with gajra, jhumkis, bangles, kadhas, an embellished box handbag, high heels, and minimal glam gave the finishing touch. Shraddha Kapoor Shraddha Kapoor attended Shilpa Shetty's Diwali party in an Amit Aggarwal lehenga set featuring an A-line skirt, a shimmering sequinned blouse, and a matching dupatta draped around her svelte frame. She wore the ensemble with bracelets, a choker, high heels, muted smoky eyes, blush pink lip shade, a top knot, glowing skin, and blushed cheekbones. Shahid Kapoor and Mira Rajput Shahid Kapoor and Mira Rajput made it to our best-dressed couples list from Shilpa Shetty's Diwali party with their steal-worthy ethnic fits. While Mira wore an ivory heavily-embellished blouse, sharara pants and dupatta set, Shahid complemented her in an indigo blue embroidered kurta, open bandhagala jacket, and churidar pants set. Mira wore her outfit with a choker, an embellished handbag, high heels, and minimal glam. Sushmita Sen and Rohman Shawl Sushmita Set proved she is the queen of sustainable fashion as she attended Shilpa Shetty's party in a gold sequin chiffon saree with a heavily embellished border. She had worn the drape to one of the early seasons of Koffee With Karan. Shilpa complemented the six yards with a matching full-sleeved blouse, high heels, a dainty necklace, bracelets, open locks, and striking glam picks. She arrived with her daughter, Renee Sen, and Rahman Shawl. Rakul Preet Singh and Jackky Bhagnani Rakul Preet Singh, with Jackky Bhagnani, was also one of the stars at Shilpa Shetty's Diwali bash. She embraced spring shades like pink, purple, mustard, indigo blue, red and black in a gorgeous multi-coloured lehenga and bustier set. While the bustier has a plunging neckline, backless design and a cropped hem, the skirt has an A-line silhouette and heavy ghera. She wore it with a statement choker necklace, centre-parted open tresses with crown braids, glossy pink lip shade, and muted glam picks. In a state often known for its outdoors and larger-than-life wildlife, we often hear a lot of discussion about the need to improve our wildlife habitats. Recently, through a statewide planning process regarding elk management, much of the discussion by a citizen-appointed committee was focused on improving our lands and increasing access to some elk populations that are as much as 300% over the state's objectives. Releasing public land from a Wilderness Study Area designation simply would allow land management agencies (U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management) to help advance forest management projects for enhancing forest health, and providing habitat improvement for wildlife that all Montanans agree needs to happen. It is refreshing to see Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., a hunter himself, not just talk the talk, but walk the walk. Daines Montana Sportsmen Conservation Act removes one of the onerous layers of red tape that impedes the ability of Montanans to properly manage just over 100,000 acres of public land according to the best available science and public input. Currently, and for nearly 20 years it has been harder or impossible to implement active measures to improve wildlife habitat due to Middle Fork Judith, Hoodoo Mountain and Wales Creek Wilderness Study Areas (WSA) designations, despite the recommendations of the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management recommending that these areas are not suitable for Wilderness designation. This unnecessary designation not only prevents the agencies from doing whats best for the wildlife that call these WSAs home, but it completely silences Montanans' voices from the managing process. Daines bill would return all three WSAs to general management by the controlling land agencies. This would empower Montanans to be involved in decisions that are best for the lands they know and most of all, improve the habitats of wildlife in the area. Importantly, under Daines bill, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management will still be required to follow all existing strong environmental laws including the National Forest Management Act (NFMA), National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), with federal protections like the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the 2001 Roadless Rule remaining intact. Returning these lands to general management, for example, the U.S. Forest Service would finally be able to implement vegetation management to restore wildlife habitats in the Middle Fork Judith WSA, specifically benefitting elk herds that are being pushed out of federal forests because of a lack of grazing opportunities onto private lands, which in some cases make the elk unavailable to Montana elk hunters and cause depredation issues on private lands. If released from the WSA designation, the Hoodoo Mountain and Wales Creek WSAs would be managed as Backcountry Conservation Areas (BCAs) or as Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC), which means that both would retain critical wildlife habitat protections while providing the land management agencies the flexibility to do needed work to manage and improve habitat. A BCA designation would help support wildlife-dependent recreation and hunting opportunities, and facilitate the long-term viability of big game wildlife populations. Montanans know best how to manage the wildlife we encounter every day, and not having the ability to manage and maintain habitats according to the best available science is a shame. Im glad to see Daines fighting to give Montanans the tools we need to manage our lands, manage our wildlife and protect our Montana way of life. It's the holiday season with Thanksgiving just around the corner on Thursday, November 23. To avoid any last-minute confusion, it is best to plan ahead the activities for the day. If you are still wondering where to eat Thanksgiving dinner in Chicago this year, then look no further as we have compiled a list of best places to dine at. From seafood to traditional turkey, there's a place for everyone's choice of palate. Best places to have Thanksgiving dinner in Chicago(Pixabay) Bistronomic This modern bistro offers French dishes with a creative twist. For Thanksgiving, Bistronomic has a special three-course meal for $85 per person with various choices of appetizers, entrees, and desserts. Their special artisanal cheese plate is for $25 extra. They also offer different vegetarian options. Adorn Bar & Restaurant This hotel restaurant features the talented Michelin star chef Richie Farina. The in-house Thanksgiving dinner will be hosted at the venue on Thursday, November 16. With a five-course meal dinner, the event is dubbed Friendsgiving, priced at $275 per person. Etta Etta is a popular wood-fired restaurant with two different locations- Bucktown and River North. The Thanksgiving special menu at both locations includes fire-baked focaccia and bubbling shrimp. However, keeping up with the tradition, the highlight delicacy will be roasted turkey breast and leg confit with stuffing and lumache mac and cheese with porcini mushrooms. Its priced at $85 per adult and $25 for kids aged 12 and under. The Robey This cafe is located at the first-floor restaurant inside the Robey Hotel in Wicker Park. They will host the Thanksgiving dinner from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. with sumptuous foods like roasted turkey and roasted cauliflower with caper pesto, and sides like roasted garlic mashed potatoes. Shaw's Crab House Known for its world-class seafood menu, on the occasion of Thanksgiving, Shaw's Crab House will be offering, herb-roasted turkey breast with seasonal sides and dessert in addition to its regular menu. Israel-Hamas War Day 38 Updates: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday yet again rejected growing international calls for a ceasefire and said the battle to crush Gazas ruling Hamas militants will continue with full force". At a press conference with defence minister Yoav Gallant and minister Benny Gantz, Netanyahu also urged the leaders of Arab nations to come out against Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with soldiers.(REUTERS FILE) Benjamin Netanyahu also insisted that after the Israel-Hamas war, now entering its sixth week, Gaza would be demilitarized and Israel would retain security control there. Asked what he meant by security control, Netanyahu said Israeli forces must be able to enter Gaza freely to hunt down militants. Hamas has, in effect, lost control of the northern Gaza Strip. It has no place to hide there. From Sinwar to the last terrorist all of Hamas are dead men. Our forces are attacking them above ground and underground. We will continue at full force, at full strength, until victory, the Israeli prime minister at the press conference. Netanyahu's warning to Hezbollah Issuing a direct warning to Hezbollah, Netanyahu said, We are also prepared on the northern front. We are operating there with heavy fire from the air and on the ground. I have warned Hezbollah: Do not make a mistake and enter the war because this will be the mistake of your lives. Your entry into the war will decide Lebanon's fate. Hezbollah, which was founded by Iran's Revolutionary Guards in 1982, is the spearhead of an Iran-backed alliance hostile to Israel and the United States. It fought a month-long war against Israel in 2006. The group has been exchanging fire with Israeli forces at the Lebanese-Israeli frontier since October 8, but the tit-for-tat shelling has been largely restricted to the border and Hezbollah has mostly struck military targets. Come out against Hamas: Netanyahu to Arab leaders To the leaders of the Arab states, leaders who worry about the future of their countries and of the Middle East, I say one thing: You must come out against Hamas. In the 16 years of its tyranny, Hamas has brought disaster to Gaza. It has brought only two things to the residents of the Gaza Strip: Blood and poverty. Hamas is an integral part of the axis of terrorism led by Iran, and this axis of terrorism and evil endangers the entire Middle East, and the entire Arab world as well. I am convinced that many Arab leaders understand this, the PM said. Ruling out a role for the current Palestinian Authority government in Gaza post-war, Netanyahu said, "There will have to be something else there." When asked whether the Palestinian Authority (PA), which has partial administrative control in the occupied West Bank, may govern Gaza after the war. "There won't be a civilian authority that educates their children to hate Israel, to kill Israelis, to wipe out the state of Israel," he replied. For now, Netanyahu said, the war against (Hamas) is advancing with full force, and it has one goal, to win. There is no alternative to victory". On hostages held by Hamas Speaking on hostages held captive by Hamas, Netanyahu said he has heard all kinds of reports in the global media from unauthorised sources. My directive and that of the Cabinet is clear: There will be no ceasefire without the return of our hostages. I would also like to clarify that the holding of the international contacts on the release of the hostages is being carried out by Mossad Director David Barnea, with the assistance of Maj.-Gen. (Ret.) Nitzan Alon, and when we have something to say, something concrete, we will update the families and submit it to the full Government. Until then, prudence would dictate silence." A cease-fire would be possible only if all 239 hostages held by militants in Gaza are released, the Israeli prime minister said in a televised address. Chaos at Shifa hospital in Gaza Pressure was growing on Israel after frantic doctors at Gazas largest hospital said the last generator had run out of fuel, causing the death of a premature baby, another child in an incubator and four other patients. Thousands of war-wounded, medical staff and displaced civilians were caught in the fighting. In recent days, fighting near Shifa and other hospitals in northern Gaza has intensified and supplies have run out. The Israeli military has alleged, without providing evidence, that Hamas has established command posts in and underneath hospitals, using civilians as human shields. Medical staff at Shifa have denied such claims and accused Israel of harming civilians with indiscriminate attacks. Shifa hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia said the facility lost power Saturday. (With inputs from agencies) Israeli strikes pounded Gaza City overnight and into Sunday as ground forces battled Hamas militants near the territory's largest hospital, where health officials say thousands of medics, patients and displaced people are trapped with no electricity and dwindling supplies. Smoke rises as displaced Palestinians take shelter at Al Shifa hospital, amid the ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel, in Gaza City on November 8.(Reuters) In a televised address on Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected growing international calls for a cease-fire unless it includes the release of all the nearly 240 hostages captured by Hamas in the Oct. 7 rampage that triggered the war, saying Israel was bringing its full force to the battle. Israel has vowed to end Hamas 16-year rule in Gaza and crush its military capabilities, while blaming the militants for the war's heavy toll on the 2.3 million Palestinians trapped in the besieged territory. Israel has come under mounting international pressure, even from its closest ally, the United States, as the war enters a sixth week. An estimated 300,000 pro-Palestinian protesters marched peacefully through London on Saturday the biggest demonstration in the city since the war began. HEAVY FIGHTING NEAR SHIFA HOSPITAL In Gaza City, residents reported heavy airstrikes and shelling overnight, including in the area around Al-Shifa Hospital. Israel, without providing evidence, has accused Hamas of concealing a command post inside and under the hospital compound, allegations denied by Hamas and hospital staff. We spent the night in panic waiting for their arrival, said Ahmed al-Boursh, a resident taking shelter in the hospital. They are outside, not far from the gates. The hospital's last generator ran out of fuel on Saturday, causing the death of a premature baby, another child in an incubator and four other patients, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza. It says another 37 babies are at risk of death because there's no electricity. Health Ministry Undersecretary Munir al-Boursh said Israeli snipers have deployed around Shifa, firing at any movement inside the compound. He said airstrikes had destroyed several homes next to the hospital, killing three people, including a doctor. There are wounded in the house, and we cant reach them," he told Al Jazeera television in an interview from the hospital. We cant stick our heads out of the window. It was not clear if he was related to the other man with the same surname. Israel's military said there was a safe corridor for civilians to evacuate from Shifa to southern Gaza, but people sheltering in the hospital said they were afraid to go outside. The military said troops would assist in moving babies on Sunday, and that it was in contact with hospital staff. It was not possible to independently ascertain the situation in and around the hospital. The Health Ministry says there are still 1,500 patients at Shifa, along with 1,500 medical personnel and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter. Thousands have fled Shifa and other hospitals, but physicians said its impossible for everyone to get out. Smoke rises as displaced Palestinians take shelter at Al Shifa hospital, amid the ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel, in Gaza City, November 8, 2023.(Reuters) The Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service said another Gaza City hospital, Al-Quds, is no longer operational because it has run out of fuel. Gaza's sole power plant was forced to shut down a month ago, and Israel has barred any fuel imports, saying Hamas would use them for military purposes. With Shifa and other hospitals now inaccessible, people sheltering in Gaza City said they were cut off from emergency care. Heba Mashlah, who was sheltering at a UN compound along with thousands of families, said a strike late Saturday killed four people and wounded 15. The wounded are bleeding, and no one is able to come and help them, she said, adding that the dead were buried inside the compound. The UN Development Program confirmed one of its compounds was hit. UN agencies have not been able to provide services in the north for weeks. NETANYAHU REJECTS US POSTWAR VISION Netanyahu has said the responsibility for any harm to civilians lies with Hamas. Israel has long accused the group, which operates in dense residential neighbourhoods, of using civilians as human shields. The Israeli military said that during a battle in Gaza City, its forces helped clear a corridor for civilians to exit a building before coming under fire. The troops returned fire, killing the militants, it said. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a press conference.(Reuters) On Saturday, Netanyahu began to outline Israel's postwar plans for Gaza, which contrast sharply with the vision put forth by the United States. Netanyahu said Gaza would be demilitarized and that Israel would retain security control, with the ability to enter Gaza freely to hunt down militants. He also rejected the idea that the Palestinian Authority, which currently administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would at some stage control Gaza. Hamas drove the PA's forces out of Gaza in a week of street battles in 2007. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the US opposes an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza and envisions a unified Palestinian government in both Gaza and the West Bank as a step toward Palestinian statehood. Even before the war, Netanyahu's government was staunchly opposed to Palestinian statehood. EVACUATION WINDOWS, BUT NO PAUSES The US has also pushed for temporary pauses that would allow for wider distribution of badly needed aid to civilians in the besieged territory, where conditions are increasingly dire. But Israel has only agreed to brief daily periods during which civilians can flee the area of ground combat in northern Gaza and head south on foot along two main north-south roads. Israel is meanwhile striking what it says are militant targets across southern Gaza as well, often killing women and children. The war has displaced over two-thirds of Gaza's population, with most fleeing south. Egypt has allowed hundreds of foreign passport holders and medical patients to exit through its Rafah crossing. It has also allowed hundreds of trucks loaded with food and medicine but no fuel to enter, but aid workers say it's nowhere near enough to meet the mounting needs. More than 11,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2,700 people have been reported missing and are thought to be trapped or dead under the rubble. At least 1,200 people have been killed on the Israeli side, mostly civilians killed in the initial Hamas attack. Forty-six Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground offensive began. About 250,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate from communities near Gaza, where Palestinian militants are still firing barrages of rockets, and along the northern border with Lebanon, where Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have traded fire repeatedly. Israel-Hamas War highlights: The war between Israel and Hamas terrorists entered its second month following the surprise October 7 terror attacks by the terror group. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now facing global pressure, including from its main ally the US, to protect the civilians in Gaza as the death toll rose and fighting intensified between Israeli forces and Hamas militants near and around hospitals. Israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.(via REUTERS) Meanwhile, Israel's military IDF has said that it was ready to evacuate babies from Gaza's largest hospital on Sunday, where Palestinian officials said three babies died and dozens more were at risk after fuel ran out amid intense fighting in the area. It also said that the army is working with hospital staff to provide safe passage southward for Gazans from the city's Civil Hospital. Netanyahu pushed back against global pressure for a ceasefire, saying Israels battle to crush Gazas ruling Hamas militants will continue with full force". A ceasefire would be possible only if all 239 hostages held by militants in Gaza are released, Netanyahu said in a televised address. He also insisted that after the war Gaza would be demilitarized and Israel would retain security control there. Two major hospitals in northern Gaza closed to new patients on Sunday, with staff saying that Israeli bombardment and a lack of fuel and medicine meant those already being treated could die. Palestinians wounded in Israeli strikes amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian group Hamas lie at Nasser hospital to receive treatment, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip November 12.(REUTERS) Hospitals in the north of the Palestinian enclave are blockaded by Israeli forces and barely able to care for those inside, medical staff said. Israel says it is homing in on Hamas militants in the area and the hospitals should be evacuated. Gaza's biggest hospital Al Shifa and another major one, Al-Quds, both said they were suspending operations on Sunday. More people are killed and wounded daily, but there are fewer and fewer places for the injured to go. "My son was injured and there was not a single hospital I could take him to so he could get stitches," said Ahmed al-Kahlout, who was fleeing south in accordance with Israeli advice while fearing that nowhere in Gaza was safe. A plastic surgeon in Shifa hospital said bombing of the building housing incubators had forced them to line up premature babies on ordinary beds, using the little power available to turn the air conditioning to warm. "We know this is very risky," said Dr Ahmed El Mokhallalati. "We are expecting to lose more of them day by day." Gaza health ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qidra, also inside the hospital, said Israeli fire was "terrorising medical officials and civilians alike". Israel says Hamas has placed command centres under and near the hospitals and it needs to get at them to free around 200 hostages the militants took in Israel on a killing spree just over a month ago. Hamas has denied using hospitals in this way. On Sunday a Palestinian official briefed on talks over the release of hostages said Hamas had suspended the negotiations because of the way Israel had handled Shifa hospital. There was no immediate comment from either Hamas or Israel, which has said military pressure on Hamas was the only way to get hostages out. Officials in Qatar, which has been mediating the talks, did not respond to a request for comment. No one is allowed in, nobody is allowed out Israel's chief military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, had said the military would help evacuate babies from Shifa on Sunday. But Qidra said they had not been told how to get the babies to safety. He said that of 45 babies in total, three had already died. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the hospital had been offered fuel but had refused it, without giving details. Shifa was out of reach for the newly wounded, said Mohammad Qandil, a doctor at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in south Gaza, who is in touch with colleagues there. "Shifa hospital now isn't working, no one is allowed in, nobody is allowed out," he said. The World Health Organisation said it had lost contact with the hospital and was worried about people trapped there. The Palestinian Red Crescent said Al-Quds hospital was also out of service, with staff struggling to care for those already there with little medicine, food and water. "Al Quds hospital has been cut off from the world in the last 6-7 days. No way in, no way out," said Tommaso Della Longa, spokesperson for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. With the humanitarian situation across Gaza worsening, 80 foreigners and several injured Palestinians crossed into Egypt in the first evacuations since Friday, four Egyptian security sources said. Poland said 18 of them were its citizens, and U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told CBS News American citizens would be moved out of Gaza during Sunday. Aid deliveries by truck and parachute At least 80 aid trucks had also moved from Egypt into Gaza by Sunday afternoon, two of the sources said. Jordan said earlier it had air-dropped a second batch into a field hospital. Very little aid has entered Gaza since Israel declared war on Hamas more than a month ago after militants rampaged through southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostage, according to Israeli officials. Palestinian officials said on Friday that 11,078 Gaza residents had been killed in air and artillery strikes since then, around 40% of them children. Disease is spreading among evacuees packed into schools and other shelters and surviving on tiny amounts of food and water, international aid agencies say. Speaking from inside Gaza City, Jamila, 54, said she and her family could hear the roar of tanks nearby. "During the day, people try to look for essential items such as bread and water, and at night people try to stay alive," she said. "We hear explosions throughout the night, sometimes we can tell that some of these explosions are exchanges of fire between the resistance fighters and the Israeli forces." The mother-of-six said her family was scared to leave. "We hear lots of bombings in the south, and there is no food. Things there don't seem different from our situation here," she said by phone, giving only her first name. Palestinian health officials said 13 people had been killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Sunday. Residents reported increased fighting around Al-Shati refugee camp, by the coast in northern Gaza. The Israeli military said it had killed a number of militants there and called on civilians to use a four-hour pause to evacuate south. The Gaza conflict has reignited conflict on Israel's northern border with Lebanon, which has seen the worst cross-border clashes since 2006. Lebanon's Hezbollah group, which like Hamas is backed by Iran, said it attacked Israeli army troops near the Dovev Barracks on Sunday, inflicting casualties. The Israeli military said earlier that anti-tank missiles fired by militants had hit a number of civilians, adding that it was retaliating with artillery fire. The U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon said one of its members near the town of Al-Qawzah in southern Lebanon had been wounded by a bullet overnight. A Myanmar fighter jet has crashed during clashes between the military and an insurgent group, both sides said, in another setback for a junta facing the biggest challenge to its rule since a coup in 2021. This photo taken on November 7 shows a man watching smoke rising from the direction of a Myanmar military base in Lashio township.(AFP) The jet went down over Kayah State in eastern Myanmar, near the border with Thailand, on Saturday during fighting between the military and the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF), which said it shot down the plane. Junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun told state-run MRTV the jet crashed due to a technical problem and the pilots had ejected safely and were in contact with the military. The incident comes as Myanmar's military battles opposition forces on multiple fronts, as ethnic minority forces and anti-junta militias mount a rebellion that security analysts say is being carried out with an unprecedented level of coordination. The military-installed president last week said Myanmar was at risk of breaking apart due to the failure to deal with the insurgency more effectively. This photo taken on November 10, 2023 shows fighters of the ethnic rebel group Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) standing guard at a check point in the town of Namhkam in northern Shan state.(AFP) Conflict in Shan State, in the northeast bordering China, has displaced at least 50,000 people, with trade routes cut off and several towns seized since an anti-junta offensive launched last month by three ethnic minority insurgent groups. China has called for all sides to cease hostilities. The insurgent alliance says it has seized more than 100 army posts. Assaults on towns have also taken place in Sagaing region, in central Myanmar, west of Shan State. Hundreds of foreign workers, many of whom rights activists say are victims of human trafficking, are trapped by the fighting, including citizens of Vietnam and of Thailand. The Thai foreign ministry said on Saturday 200 of its nationals were waiting to be evacuated "as soon as possible when the situation permits". The KNDF said on its Facebook page it shot down the jet on Saturday using heavy machine guns and its members were searching for the pilots. Reuters could not verify the information. News outlet Mizzima on its Facebook page posted images of what it said were the abandoned helmet and parachute of one of the pilots. Activists protesting corporate profits, environmental abuses, poor working conditions and the Israel-Hamas war are among those planning to march in downtown San Francisco on Sunday, united in their opposition to a global trade summit that will bring leaders from nearly two dozen countries, including US President Joe Biden. Nora Todd, acting senior officials meeting chair of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), left, delivers remarks during the Concluding Senior Officials meeting, ahead of the APEC summit in San Francisco.(Bloomberg) Protests are expected throughout this week's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders' conference, which could draw more than 20,000 attendees, including hundreds of international journalists. The No to APEC coalition, made up of more than 100 grassroots groups, says trade deals struck at summits such as APEC exploit workers and their families. It's unlikely world leaders will even glimpse the protests given the strict security zones accessible only to attendees at the Moscone Center conference hall and other summit sites. But Suzanne Ali, an organiser for the Palestinian Youth Movement, says the US government needs to be held to account for supplying weapons to Israel in its war against Hamas. Even if they cannot see us, as we're mobilizing and marching together, they will know that we're out there, she said. San Francisco has a long tradition of loud and vigorous protests, as do trade talks. In 1999, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Seattle during a World Trade Organisation conference. Protesters succeeded in delaying the start of the conference and captured global attention as overwhelmed police fired tear gas and plastic bullets, and arrested hundreds of people. Chile withdrew as APEC host in 2019 due to mass protests. Last year, when Thailand hosted the summit in Bangkok, pro-democracy protesters challenged the legitimacy of the Thai prime minister, prompting police to fire at the crowd with rubber bullets that injured several protesters and a Reuters journalist. San Francisco Police Department Chief Bill Scott said he expects several protests a day, although it's uncertain how many will materialise. He warned against criminal behaviour. People are welcome to exercise their constitutional rights in San Francisco, but we will not tolerate people committing acts of violence, or property destruction or any other crime, Scott said. We will make arrests when necessary. APEC, a regional economic forum, was established in 1989 and has 21 member countries, including the world's two largest economic superpowers China and US, as well as Mexico, Brazil and the Philippines. An accompanying CEO summit is scheduled for this week, which critics also plan to protest Wednesday. Headlining the summit is a highly anticipated meeting between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who rarely - if at all - encounters protesters on home soil. China has heavy security ahead of any events within its borders to ensure no protests occur. It also steps up border checks at city limits and at transit points such as railway stations and airports. Human rights activists based in China will often receive visits or phone calls from police ahead of important events as reminders to not demonstrate. Rory McVeigh, sociology professor and director of the Center for the Study of Social Movements at University of Notre Dame, says politicians use protests to gauge public opinion, and media attention helps. Probably a lot of protests just don't make much difference, but occasionally they do and occasionally they can make a huge difference," he said. The United Vietnamese American Community of Northern California plans to protest Xi and Vietnam President Vo Van Thuong. The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines will be rallying for the rights of indigenous Filipinos and protesting the presence of President Bongbong Marcos, the son of dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Protesters are disappointed that San Francisco, with its rich history of standing up for the working class, would host CEOs of companies and leaders of countries that they say do great harm. It's silly, from the mayor to the governor to the president, they want to say this is a great idea to have all these people who have been profiting off the intersecting crises of our time, said Nik Evasco, a climate activist. It's just sickening. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Saturday condemned the violent, wholly unacceptable scenes by far-right groups who tried to ambush a pro-Palestine rally in central London, saying that the despicable actions of a minority of people undermine those who have chosen to express their views peacefully. He also slammed the pro-Palestine protesters by calling them Hamas sympathisers. Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak(AFP) Remembrance weekend is a time for us to come together as a nation and remember those who fought and died for our freedoms. What we have seen today does not defend the honour of our Armed Forces, but utterly disrespects them, Sunak said in a statement. He added, That is true for EDL thugs attacking police officers and trespassing on the Cenotaph, and it is true for those singing antisemitic chants and brandishing pro-Hamas signs and clothing on todays protest. The fear and intimidation in the Jewish Community have experienced over the weekend is deplorable. All the criminality must be met with the full and swift force of the law. That is what I told the Met Police Commissioner on Wednesday, that is what they are accountable for and that is what I expect. I will be meeting the Met Police Commissioner in the coming days, the statement read. Tensions were running high in London as more than 300,000 people joined the pro-Palestine rally on the Armistice Day observed on Saturday. According to reports, several of those marchers chanted From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free - a rallying cry viewed by many Jews as antisemitic and a call for Israel's eradication. Other protesters were heard chanting and carrying banners that read: Free Palestine and 'Stop Bombing Gaza. Amid this, far-right groups also gathered to protest against the demonstration taking place by the pro-Palestine protesters. Soon after, skirmishes broke out between the police and the far-right groups, leading to violence. The police have arrested over 120 people in the incident, reported Reuters. (With inputs from agencies) Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has again accused India of violating the Vienna Convention as over 40 Canadian diplomats moved out of India at the request of New Delhi amid the ongoing diplomatic crisis. Trudeau recently spoke on the crisis and said if bigger countries can violate international law without consequences, then the whole world gets more dangerous for everyone. "From the very beginning when we learnt of credible allegations that agents of the Indian government were involved in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil, we reached out to India and asked them to get to the bottom of this matter. We also reached out to our friends and allies like the United States and others to work on this really serious violation of international law and sovereignty," Trudeau said on Hardeep Singh Nijjar's killing. Justin Trudeau accused India of violating international laws. "If might starts to make right again, if bigger countries can violate international law without consequences, then the whole world gets more dangerous for everyone," he added. "We were so disappointed when India violated the Vienna Convention and arbitrarily revoked diplomatic immunity of over 40 Canadian diplomats. Think about it from our perspective. We have serious reasons to believe that agents of the government of India could have been involved in the killing of a Canadian citizen and India's response is to kick out a whole bunch of Canadian diplomats by violating the rights under the Vienna Convention that is of concern to countries around the world.," Trudeau said. "If a given country can just decide that the diplomats of another country are no longer protected, that makes international relations more dangerous and more serious. But every step of the way, we have tried to work constructively and positively with India and will continue. This is not a fight we want to be having right now. But we will always unequivocally stand up for the rule of law because that is what Canada is," Trudeau said. Canada will continue to work with all partners as law enforcement investigative agencies will do their work, Trudeau said adding: "Canada is a country that will always stand up for the rule of law." "We have been very very clear that we want to work constructively on this matter with India. From the very beginning, we shared the real allegations that we are deeply concerned about. We had reached out to the Indian government and partners around the world to get to the bottom of this, to take it seriously," Trudeau said. Hardeep Singh Nijjar killing, India-Canada diplomatic meltdown India has rejected Canada's accusation that it played a role in Hardeep Singh Nijjar's killing and made it clear that this is not New Delhi's way of functioning. Canada instead provides safe haven to terrorists despite India's several prods, New Delhi claimed. India had suspended visa services in Canada which has now been partially restored. Over 40 diplomats who were previously posted in India had to shift out as India accused them of interfering in India's internal affairs. In a recent development, Canada told India that it took the threat to Air India flights on November 19 very seriously. The threat was issued by Sikhs for Justice general counsel Gurpatwant Pannun. Diwali, the Festival of Lights, has found a unique home in the heart of American politicsthe White House. Over the years, the celebration has evolved, with each president adding a unique touch to this luminous tradition. Let's take a journey through the years of Diwali celebrations at the White House. US President Joe Biden lights a lamp as First lady Jill Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris look on during an event to celebrate Diwali, at the White House in Washington. (PTI) 1. First-ever White House Diwali in 2003: George W. Bush's illuminating initiative President George W. Bush initiated the tradition of Diwali celebrations in 2003. Although he couldn't attend personally, his chief political advisor, Karl Rove, presided over the festivities in the Indian Treaty Room. Rove lit the symbolic brass lamp, conveying President Bush's personal greetings to the Indian American community present. This historic event set the stage for future celebrations. "Indians celebrated Diwali for the first time ever at the White House with President George W Bush's chief political advisor Karl Rove presiding over the festivities..." 2. Barack Obama's personal White House Diwali in 2009 First lady Michelle Obama watches as priest Janaki Ram Marthi lights the candle during the White House Diwali celebration in the White House in Washington. (AP photo) Continuing the tradition, President Barack Obama took it a step further in 2009. He became the first U.S. president to personally celebrate Diwali, lighting a diya in the ceremonial East Room. With humility, he bowed before a Hindu priest, emphasizing the festival's values of reflection and compassion. President Obama's gesture endeared him to the Indian community, solidifying Diwali's place in the White House. "While this is a time of rejoicing, it's also a time for reflection, when we remember those who are less fortunate and renew our commitment to reach out to those in need," Mr. Obama said. 3. Obama's Oval Office diya lighting in 2016: A symbol of overcoming darkness US President Barack Obama lit a diya at the Oval Office on Diwali.(Picture courtesy: The White House/Facebook) In 2016, President Obama marked another milestone by lighting the first-ever diya in the Oval Office. Expressing hope for the tradition's continuity, he emphasized the symbolism of light triumphing over darkness. The image of the President kindling the diya became viral on social media, resonating with people worldwide. "It is a tradition that I hope future Presidents will continue," Obama expressed. 4. Trump's Diwali celebrations in 2017: A continuation and interruption US president Donald Trump participates in the Diwali ceremonial lighting of the diya as Indias ambassador to the US Navtej Sarna (R) looks on in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington.(REUTERS) President Donald Trump carried on the Diwali tradition in 2017, lighting a diya alongside his daughter Ivanka and Indian American members of his administration. However, in 2018, the crucial midterm elections disrupted the 15-year-long tradition of formal Diwali celebrations at the White House. Despite the break, the Diwali flame continued to burn in the Oval Office, honoring the festival. 5. Biden's grand Diwali celebration in 2022: A historic gathering US President Joe Biden and the First Lady hosted a Diwali reception at the White House.(Twitter / @WhiteHouse) US President Joe Biden and the First Lady hosted a Diwali reception at the White House.(Twitter / @WhiteHouse) US President Joe Biden and the First Lady hosted a Diwali reception at the White House.(Twitter / @WhiteHouse) In 2022, President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden hosted the largest Diwali celebration ever held at the White House, with 200 guests in attendance. President Biden lit a diya, addressing the significance of Diwali in the Indian American and South Asian American experience. The event showcased the vibrant tapestry of cultures woven into the American story. "This is the first Diwali reception of this scale, in this house, ever to be held," President Biden proudly proclaimed. 6. Kamala Harris' 2023 Diwali reception Vice President Kamala Harris hosted Diwali event at the White House(Jonathan Hay) Vice President Kamala Harris continued the tradition with an early Diwali reception at her official residence in 2023. The event saw influential figures from the Indian and South Asian communities coming together for a grand celebration. Vibrant decorations, delicious ethnic cuisine, and traditional music marked the festivities, capturing the spirit of Diwali. As the White House continues to illuminate with the glow of Diwali, each celebration adds a new chapter to this tale of cultural harmony and inclusivity. Research continues to prove that employees want to be involved in more than just their jobs. They hope and trust their employers will provide opportunities on company time to serve their communities. Simply put, they want to make a difference in partnership with their employer. Companies that pay it forward by investing and reinvesting in their communities tend to attract and retain superior talent. On Friday, Oct. 13, our Alpha Omega Disaster Restoration team in Billings dedicated ourselves to Restoring Kindness by partnering with Habitat for Humanity of Mid-Yellowstone Valley to help paint and organize the Habitat ReStore, the home improvement and building product resale store. In many cases, our team members worked side by side with fellow community members who share our same spirit of service above self. We made new friends while we served others. Thats a big part of what volunteerism is all about. Throughout October, our eight communities across Montana benefited as our team has volunteered for a dozen nonprofits. As I visited with our volunteers, I heard some consistent statements: Thank you for allowing us to contribute to Billings by donating company time it makes me want to volunteer even more in the future This is the first time Ive worked for an employer who funded my community involvement I felt better because I better understand what these nonprofits do to serve our community Ive always liked working for my employer, and now I trust and respect them even more because I saw the heart of our company in action Kindness is one of our companys core values an extension of who we are, both as individuals and as a team. We proved once again that a single act or a few kind words can actually turn somebodys day around. We truly made a difference. Giving our time to create smiles on the faces of our fellow community members also warms our hearts. Im also encouraged because several of our team members have had friends or relatives who have been served by at least one of these non-profits. That makes volunteering even more personal to them. It raises their level of community investment. Restoring Kindness saw us volunteer alongside our sister company, Dayspring Restoration, with a dozen non-profits in October. From Billings to the far points of Montana, we made a difference in the hearts and minds of our team, our sister companies, and our communities. As we approach World Kindness Day on Monday, Nov. 13, please allow me to remind you that kindness never goes out of style. I invite you to Restore Kindness and use the #RestoringKindness hashtag on social media whenever you do. Halloween celebrations in the United States are closely followed by Diwali festivities. The scale of Diwali celebrations in America has increased over the years, with the festival of lights being celebrated in popular spots like California's Disneyland and New Yorks Times Square. Even the White House has been celebrating Diwali. The scale of Diwali celebrations in America has increased over the years, with the festival of lights being celebrated in popular spots like California's Disneyland and New Yorks Times Square (Pixabay) Diwali will now also be a school holiday in New York, mayor Eric Adams announced in June. He said he would be a proud part of the legislation that makes Diwali a holiday in schools. For Indian students in the US, celebrating Diwali means staying rooted to their culture, and these students attempt to stay connected to their roots, in turn, has started to bring together Americans, and people of other countries living in America, to embrace other cultures. Indian students form their own little communities and groups to keep the festivities alive, and their groups often comprise Americans. Kajari Saha, 28, who studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said she believes that in some parts of the country, Halloween celebrations may make Diwali appear dimmer. But that, I think, is normal to expect when coming to live in a different country, Kajari told Hindustan Times. Halloween was a fun experience. I was also fortunate enough to have friends from India living here with me, who I could celebrate Diwali with. I have celebrated Diwali with my friends every year after having moved here two years back. Its more about feeling a sense of homeliness for me. There is a significant presence of Indian immigrants in America, so I think its becoming increasingly more commonplace. Its mostly celebrated among Indian communities living in different pockets of the country, but over the years, Americans have been joining in. The cultural transmission is delightful, she added. "Celebrating Diwali is more about feeling a sense of homeliness for me," said Kajari Saha As per my observation, Diwali celebrations are low key here in the US, and possibly more tuned to the idea of a party and not really a festival. But it works for me, as long as I have friends to celebrate with, she said. I have celebrated Diwali with my American friends, as well as friends from other nationalities. They really enjoyed the food and the atmosphere. A cultural transmission Diwali is just around the corner, and various neighbourhoods and college campuses have already begun their decorations complete with lamps, lights and rituals. During Diwali, a key point of convergence are Hindu temples. For Americans, Diwali is a festival that brings people together they wouldnt necessarily look at it through the lenses of religiousness, as Indians would. I learned about the festival when I was a college freshman. We had a celebration with food, Elizabeth Fraysse, a student of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, said. I really like the spirit of the holiday and the food is amazing. I really like the spirit of Diwali holidays," said Elizabeth Fraysse Back in 2022, I remember being part of a half-Thanksgiving, half-Diwali celebration, said 27-year-old Jack Schmidt, also a student of Purdue University. I love the food and the kinship. Everybody feels like family during Diwali. We celebrate with friends not a lot of ceremonies but lots of delicious food. There are at least about 100,000 Indian students from India in various universities in America, with many of them enrolled in American universities. Diwali celebrations in Duke, Princeton, Howard, Rutgers and various other university campuses is not just a way to help them stay connected with their tradition, but also to ensure that American students know more about other cultures. Generally, Americans are open to participating in Diwali celebrations As an Indian student living in the US, celebrating Diwali is a way to stay connected to my culture and heritage, Dipesh Tamboli, a Purdue University student, said. It not only allows me to connect with my roots but also serves as a bridge to share our culture with friends and the local community. It's a reminder of the values, customs, and the sense of unity that Diwali represents. Diwali is celebrated in the US with a mix of traditional Indian customs and local culture, and its observance varies depending on the size of the Indian community in the area. In larger cities with significant Indian populations, Indians form communities and host public Diwali events that are open to everyone, often involving Americans and people from diverse backgrounds. In smaller towns with fewer Indians, like West Lafayette near Purdue University, the celebrations are more community-focused (although many non-Indians are present in Purdue organised events) but still welcoming to non-Indians. Generally, Americans are open to participating in Diwali celebrations and learning about Indian culture, promoting cultural exchange and understanding, he added. Does Halloween overshadow Diwali? Dipesh went on to explain that he thinks while Halloween is huge in the US, it does not necessarily overshadow Diwali. However, the extent of the impact it has varies from location to location. "Diwali serves as a bridge to share our culture with friends and the local community," said Dipesh Tamboli In cities like Boston, where there is a significant Indian student population, Diwali can be a highly visible and vibrant celebration. The enthusiastic Indian community, especially those studying in numerous universities in the area, ensures that Diwali festivities are a prominent part of the cultural landscape. It's not uncommon to witness grand Diwali events, cultural performances, and festive decorations throughout the city. So as per my observation, in Boston, the two celebrations coexist, with each having its own place, he said. Dipesh added, On the other hand, in places like Purdue University in West Lafayette, where the Indian community is smaller and the city is more university-centric, Halloween tends to be a bigger and more widely celebrated event. Diwali celebrations in West Lafayette are often limited to student groups organising Purdue-wide activities or friends gathering to celebrate in a more intimate setting. The smaller community size and the predominance of Halloween festivities in the area may make Halloween more noticeable, but it doesn't necessarily overshadow the significance of Diwali for those who celebrate it. Deepeshs friend, Koustuv Saha, also from Purdue University, reflected on the topic, saying, I dont think that Halloween celebrations overshadow Diwali that much at least on campus. Diwali is big. My North American/European friends join the celebrations. We usually have a potluck at my place. "I dont think that Halloween celebrations overshadow Diwali," said Koustuv Saha How different is Diwali in the US? Dipesh said that while Diwali involves huge family gatherings, large-scale fireworks and religious ceremonies in India, celebrations in the US are more intimate and community-focused, involving Indian students and their local friends. While the core traditions of lighting diyas, wearing traditional attire, and sharing meals remain, the scale and public visibility of celebrations can be smaller. Fireworks are limited due to regulations, and the emphasis is on maintaining cultural connections while adapting to the local environment, he said. In the US, our Diwali celebrations typically involve several key elements. First, we clean and decorate our homes, creating intricate rangoli designs to welcome prosperity and good fortune. We often bring friends and classmates together, including our PhD labmates and other classmates, to celebrate. We enjoy a feast with homemade traditional Indian dishes and sweets. We also make it a point to wear Indian ethnic clothes like kurtas, adding to the festive atmosphere, he continued. The focus is more on coming together, sharing the spirit of Diwali, and maintaining our cultural traditions while adapting to our new surroundings, Dipesh added added. Reflecting on the same, Anukta Datta, 28, from the University of California, Santa Barbara said, The big difference is that in the US, we do not burst crackers which are otherwise ubiquitous in India during Diwali. Its mostly people getting together, decorating the space with lights and enjoying a hearty feast amidst friendly banter. "In the US, Diwali is mostly about people getting together, decorating the space with lights and enjoying a hearty feast amidst friendly banter," said Anukta Datta Diwali will be observed on November 12 this year. As the festival knocks at the doors, Indian students in the US light up their campuses to feel at home after all, in faraway lands, togetherness, inclusion and embracing each others cultures and traditions are what matter the most. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Sunday extended greetings of Diwali which symbolises the triumph of light over darkness. Justin Trudeau at an event celebrating Diwali and Bandi Chorr Divas.(X/@FP_Champagne) Read Justin Trudeau statement on Diwali: Canadian PM Trudeau said: Today, we join millions of people in Canada and around the world to celebrate Diwali. Today, we join millions of people in Canada and around the world to celebrate Diwali. On this joyful holiday, families and friends gather to pray, exchange gifts, share meals, and decorate their homes and temples with colour and the glow of diyas to mark the triumph of light over darkness. Diwali is also a time to reflect on the values of selflessness, optimism, gratitude, and compassion for those less fortunate. As we mark Diwali, we also recognize the many contributions of Canadians from Hindu, Jain, Sikh, and Buddhist communities to our countrys cultural fabric, and we celebrate their role in making Canada the diverse and inclusive place we call home. On behalf of all Canadians, I wish everyone celebrating a very happy Diwali. Read Justin Trudeau statement on Bandi Chorr Divas In another statement, Canadian PM also wished Band Chhor Divas to Sikhs. Celebrated annually on Diwali, it marks Guru Hargobind Singhs release by Mughal King Jahangir. Canadian PM said: This important day commemorates the story of the sixth Guru, Guru Hargobind Sahib Ji, who upon his release from prison, refused to leave his captors unless the 52 innocent kings imprisoned alongside him were also freed. Generations later, his story continues to inspire values of selflessness and generosity in Sikhs around the world. Families and friends will observe Bandi Chhor Divas today by getting together to share festive meals and sweets, watch fireworks, illuminate their homes and Gurdwaras, and read the Sikh holy book the Guru Granth Sahib. For those celebrating, this holiday is a reminder that when we come together as a society, we can achieve a world that stands for peace, freedom, and community. Today is also an opportunity to recognize the contributions of Sikh Canadians, past and present, to building a better and more diverse country. On behalf of the Government of Canada, I wish a happy Bandi Chhor Divas to all those celebrating. Earlier on Wednesday, Justin Trudeau attended a Diwali and Bandi Chorr Divas event where he lighted lamps to mark the occasion on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. US President Joe Biden on Sunday extended Diwali greetings to South Asian Americans and all those celebrating the festival of wisdom, love, and unity over the darkness of ignorance, hate, and division. US President Joe Biden.(AP) Read Joe Bidens Diwali wish Over the course of generations, South Asian Americans have woven Diwali traditions into the fabric of our nation symbolizing the message of seeking the light of wisdom, love, and unity over the darkness of ignorance, hate, and division. Its a message that has helped our nation emerge stronger from the past few difficult years, and matters now more than ever. On this Diwali, may we reflect on the strength of our shared light and embrace the enduring spirit of this holiday and of our nation. To the more than one billion Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, and Buddhists celebrating in America and around the world, we wish you a happy Diwali, Biden said in his Diwali message. Diwali at White House Vice President Kamala Harris, who shares her root with India, hosted a Diwali event at the White House on Wednesday, welcoming influential figures from South Asian communities. In her speech, Harris said: This year we celebrate Diwali at a time where there's a lot happening in our world, the vice president said The event was attended by Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank, Bela Bajaria, CCO of Netflix, US Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, US Rep. Pooja Bavishi, Miss USA Nina Davaluri and others. US Ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti celebrated Diwali for the first time in India. Taking to social media platform X, Garcetti said, Delighted to celebrate #Diwali with dance, food and music with my colleagues for the first time here in India! At this auspicious time, may the festival of light bring you happiness and prosperity in the new year! The World Health Organization said on Saturday it has lost communication with its contacts in Al Shifa hospital in northern Gaza, and expressed "grave concerns" for the safety of everyone trapped there by the fighting while calling for an immediate ceasefire. An injured person is assisted at Shifa Hospital after an Israeli air strike hit the nearby Al-Ahli Hospital(REUTERS) The spokesperson for the Gaza health ministry said that operations in Al Shifa hospital complex, the largest in the Palestinian enclave, were suspended on Saturday after it ran out of fuel. WHO said it has "grave concerns for the safety of the health workers, hundreds of sick and injured patients, including babies on life support and displaced people who remain inside the hospital", and reiterated its call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. North Dakota State University has announced a scholarship program amid higher education leaders' worries of losing Minnesota students eligible for free tuition in their home state under a new program beginning next year. The Fargo university is offering its Tuition Award Program for the 2024-25 school year. Minnesota's North Star Promise program begins in fall 2024. It will cover undergraduate tuition and fees at the states public post-secondary schools and tribal colleges for Minnesota residents whose family income is under $80,000, after they have used other sources of financial aid, such as grants and scholarships. NDSU President David Cook has spoken of catastrophic implications" due to North Star Promise. North Dakota State is the No. 1 out-of-state choice for first-year Minnesota students, who make up nearly half its student body. The Fargo-based university is just across the Red River from Minnesota. The Tuition Award Program came about because of North Star Promise, confirmed Seinquis Leinen, the universitys senior director of strategic enrollment management. The new scholarship is available to North Dakota and Minnesota first- and second-year students who are eligible for the federal Pell Grant and whose family income is $80,000 or less -- nearly identical to North Star Promise. We wanted to offer a similar program, Leinen told The Associated Press. To offer similar programs to students allows them to better analyze and explore their different options, and again, knowing that a lot of our students come from Minnesota, wanted them to be able to be aware of other options that are right in their neck of the woods and right on the other side of the border. The scholarship will cover those students' base tuition and fees after all other gift aid is applied, she said. About 1,000 students are expected to be eligible, Leinen said. The program is estimated to cost $3.5 million, covered by the NDSU Foundation. The university will explore future funding for the scholarship, she said. State leaders view higher education as a key component to addressing North Dakota's labor shortage. Eighty-two percent of North Dakotans and 42% of Minnesotans who graduate from NDSU pursue their first job in North Dakota, Leinen said. State Sen. Tim Mathern, D-Fargo, is proposing a workforce-focused Dakota Promise forgivable student loan tuition program for the next legislative session in 2025. He commended NDSU's new scholarship but said a long-term solution was needed. We, in fact, need to do something about free tuition, Mathern said. However, we need to do it in a creative manner wherein we're solving issues for the long term, not just a knee-jerk response to what Minnesota has done. About 15,000-20,000 Minnesotans could use North Star Promise in its first year, according to that state's Office of Higher Education. About 1,400 Minnesota students at five eastern North Dakota institutions might be eligible for the Minnesota program, according to the North Dakota University System. Dalton Historical Commission Reviews Next Steps for 2nd District DALTON, Mass. The Historical Commission is reviewing next steps toward establishing its second historical district. The proposed Dalton Center Historic District runs along Main Street and features a variety of landmarks including Mitchell Tavern, St. Agnes' Church, Zenas Crane Colt's colonial revival, and many more buildings that showcase Italian and Greek revival styles. It has been nearly 10 years since the commission established its first district, the Craneville Historic District. The district, located on Main and South Street, was established on the national database on Sept. 14, 2005, and has a rich history because of the activity in building, acquiring, and using the homes in the center of Craneville. The current commissioners are uncertain what the most effective and feasible way to proceed in establishing its second district, as it is new territory for them so they want to hire an expert to aid in the endeavor. A majority of the commissioners involved in the Craneville District designation are no longer part of the Historical Commission. Commissioner Mary Walsh, who was involved in the process of establishing the Craneville District, said the town hired preservation specialist Norene Roberts for guidance. She had compiled information for the first district and part of the second district but it is unclear what additional material is needed. Walsh recommended contacting Roberts to assist or to see if she could recommend someone but it was later determined that she passed away in 2022. The commissioners will be reaching out to the Massachusetts Historical Society to see if it can recommend an expert to help get them started There is money available to hire a preservation specialist, co-Chair Deborah Kovacs said. The commission has funding from a state cultural grant in the amount of $5,000. In addition, there is funding from a $15,000 matching grant that was approved during a town meeting in May 2022 for the establishment of the second and a third historic district. At the time of town meeting, the Historic Commission believed that it would cost $30,000 to establish the next two districts. When the commission decided to lower the scope for establishing its remaining two historical districts in June, it was determined it would cost $10,000 to establish each district. The commission originally planned on establishing Dalton Center and the third district, East Main Street, simultaneously but decided it would be easier to establish them one at a time. Using the $5,000 from the state cultural grant will allow for a matching amount of $5,000 from the town, which will be used to establish the Dalton Center Historic District. The commission will attempt to establish the third district at a later time and will need to come up with $5,000 to qualify for another matching grant of $5,000 from the town. Kovacs recommended reaching out to the new Town Planner Janko Tomasic since he has experience related to establishing historic districts. While interning in the Worcester County town of Athol, Tomasic helped inventory, update and organize historical documentation needed for establishing a historic district there. "The research was done by the Historical Commission in Athol and I kind of worked in tandem with them, because I like history and I've been interested in historic preservation since I got into planning," Tomasic said in a follow up interview. Depending on what tasks the Historical Commission needs, Tomasic said he believes he can aid in this endeavor and hopes to do so. An initiative like this is more involved than his previous experience working in an auxiliary support role but he is hoping to help in any way he can, he said. "I'm hoping that I can bring something to the table that will help make this easier for them, or will just improve the overall district, the overall community, and just help the historic commission," Tomasic said. He plans to keep in contact with Kovacs and co-Chair Louisa Horth to see what he can do to help within the bounds of his other duties so he does not fall behind. Adams Community Bank President Sets Retirement ADAMS, Mass. The Adams Community Bank Board of Directors announced that Charlie O'Brien, President and CEO of the Bank, plans to retire in January 2025. A Pace University graduate, O'Brien has been president and CEO of Adams Community Bank since 2002 and has worked in the financial services industry for 43 years. During his career, O'Brien was a senior leader in six bank merger and acquisition transactions across Massachusetts. Under his direction, Adams Community Bank assets have grown from $127 million to $994 million, branches increased from three to ten, and employees grew from 40 to 130. O'Brien has been active on numerous volunteer boards, including the Northern Berkshire United Way and the Adams Lions Club, both of which he's served as a past president or Board Chair. Within the banking industry, O'Brien has been elected by his peers to various boards/committees of banking trade groups, including the American Bankers Association, the Massachusetts Bankers Association, and the Depositors Insurance Fund. He is a past Board chair of both the Massachusetts Bankers Association and the Depositors Insurance Fund. O'Brien expressed his gratitude for the opportunity to serve the bank, its customers, the staff, and the Berkshire community. "It has been an honor to lead Adams Community Bank through a period of growth and stability and to work with such dedicated and talented individuals. I am proud of what our team has accomplished and remain confident in the bank's future success," he said. "Our team aspires to double in size and grow to $2 billion in assets over the coming decade." To prepare for O'Brien's planned retirement in 2025, the Board of Directors has engaged an executive search firm to oversee the search and selection of the next President and CEO, ensuring the bank's continued success and commitment to the community. The board and senior management are dedicated to a seamless transition and upholding the high standards O'Brien has set. Most importantly, the bank desires to remain a mutual bank that is designed to serve the people and businesses of the Berkshires. "Throughout Charlie's tenure, Adams Community Bank has achieved notable milestones with our growth and bank culture," Board Chair Jeff Grandchamp said. "His unwavering commitment to the community and tireless dedication to the bank's mission have helped it flourish and earned him the respect and admiration of colleagues, staff, and customers alike." Architect To Give WCMA's Plonsker Lecture WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. Florian Idenburg, co-founder of SO-IL, the architecture firm selected to design and build WCMA's new home in Williamstown, will give the annual Plonsker Family Lecture on Thursday, Nov. 16, at 6 p.m. in the '62 Center for the Theatre and Arts. The presentation will include an historical overview of the museum's evolution as a building type, touching on the drivers that have changed our thinking and how to design a museum for the future. Idenburg also will discuss some of SO-IL's previous work. The lecture will be preceded by a reception at the '62 Center from 5 to 6 p.m. SO-IL was founded by Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu and has been based in New York City since 2008. Diverse in origin, SO-IL's team of collaborators speaks a dozen languages and is informed by global narratives and perspectives. They are both locally-rooted and nationless, coming together as a mid-size, well-recognized company. With their ambitious private and public clients, they explore how the creation of environments and objects inspires lasting positive intellectual and societal engagement. They have completed projects in Leon, Seoul, and Lisbon, as well as their hometown, Brooklyn, New York. Their concept home for nomadic living in Milan encourages an active awareness of life beyond routine. At the University of California, Davis campus, they designed a museum that cultivates an intentionally open-ended relationship between the visitor and the site at the outset. They design with time in mind. Whether working with existing structures or building from the ground, they carefully investigate physical properties and history. They have been featured in the New York Times, CNN, and Frankfurter Allgemeine. Their work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Their team has received numerous accolades, including the Vilcek Award, the Curbed Groundbreakers Award, and the MoMAPS1 Young Architects Program Award. The Plonsker Family Lecture Series in Contemporary Art, established in 1994 by Madeleine Plonsker, Harvey Plonsker '61 and their son, Ted Plonsker '86, examines current issues in contemporary art. Past lecturers have included artists Arthur Jafa, Lynda Benglis, Kenturah Davis, Sharon Hayes, Senga Nengudi, Clifford Owens, Trevor Paglen, Cara Romero, John Rubin, and Jessica Stockholder. The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the museum at 413-597-2429 or visit artmuseum.williams.edu. WCMA is open to the public Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free. Carr Hardware Donates to Berkshire Humane Society PITTSFIELD, Mass. Carr Hardware celebrated 95 years during their Carr-nniversary Weekend in September and with assistance from their loyal customers, was able to raise $7,232, which will be donated to the Berkshire Humane Society today. Over the Weekend, Carr Hardware hosted a bucket sale that allowed customers to purchase a bucket that they could then fill with discounted products. During the month of September customers were offered the option to round-up their purchases to the nearest dollar. The bucket sale and the Round Up were used to raise the $7,232 that was donated directly to the Berkshire Humane Society. "Our four legged friends need food, shelter, veterinary care and a suitable home," President of Carr Hardware Bart Raser said. "Nobody does this better than the Berkshire Humane Society and they need financial support to continue their good work. As a community business, we appreciate their impact in the Berkshires and we are proud to support them." Carr Hardware has a long-standing history of working with the Berkshire Humane Society. A dozen or so protestors last week called for a ceasefire in Gaza. Protestors Call for a Ceasefire in Gaza PITTSFIELD, Mass. A man who came to argue with protesters on Thursday for calling for a ceasefire in Gaza left with a better understanding of their position. "That guy came basically supporting Israel, and saying that Israelis have a right to defend themselves, and basically supporting the American policy position. By the end of that conversation. He was saying, war is not the answer," one of the organizers, Tamir Novotny, said. Novotny told the man that a stop to the war starts with the United States government calling for a ceasefire. "He was more aligned with us than he realized when he first came," Novotny said. The reason for this is because "people don't realize the extent to which we've internalized Israeli propaganda talking points, U.S. rightwing propaganda talking points, American Israel Public Affairs Committee talking points, and haven't actually looked at them critically," he said. "We need things like this to get people to start thinking about why they believe what they believe. People have the right to believe what they believe, but we got to think it through. We got to check our sources and see where our information is coming from." Community members gathered outside U.S. Rep. Richard Neal's office urging him to advocate for sanctions with the hope of encouraging a ceasefire. The congressman was not there. Hamas' attacks on Israel have been condemned by human rights experts, political theorists, and Western countries. The United States has been one of Israel's closest allies for decades, providing aid in the form of equipment, weapons, and military and economic aid, amounting to more than $260 billion. Although the United States has condemned the actions of Hamas, a Palestinian militant group, it has declined to sanction Israel for its attacks against Gaza. Hamas, which has controlled Gaza for nearly two decades, launched an attack over the Israeli border on Oct. 7 that killed more than 1,400 people. Israel responded by bombarding Gaza and killing and injuring thousands. "We want our voices to be heard. We want our representative Richard Neal to know that we are watching what he's doing," one of the organizers, Mohamad Junaid, said. "We are watching that he's not representing the county fully, that there is a lot of his constituents who live here, who do not agree with his deflection and not wanting to call for a ceasefire." The protestors want to know why the word "ceasefire" is taboo in Congress, he said. "This is the most ethical thing to do. This is the first step before we can think about long-term solutions for the people in that region," Junaid said. The protest formed from residents feeling hopeless, isolated, and desperate to have their voices heard, Novotny said "We realize we're only hopeless because we're isolated," he said. They describe themselves as a "multiracial," "interfaith," and "multigenerational" group who came together in "solidarity with Palestinians, and the belief that all lives have equal value, and that what's happening in Palestine right now is a genocide and it has to stop," Novotny said. One of the organizers, Farah Momen, said, "our systems are designed to make you feel small" and "powerless. We are not. That is why it's important we educate ourselves." These protesters decided they will not tolerate "the decisions and the blood that are on the hands of this country," she said. "Individual actions actually do matter. Conversations you have with your family members and friends do matter. Showing up to a protest matters," Momen said. "All of these things in isolation can feel futile, but it's actually the collective action of us all choosing to do that [which] will make a difference and it has made a difference in the past. This is not a hypothetical. This is what works in justice movements." Throughout history the combination of small moments and individual voices come together to facilitate change, Novotny said. "History will remember what we do right here right now. They may not remember me. They may not remember you, but they will remember us," he said. Tension between Israel and Palestine has been going on for generations, dating back to the early 1900. Despite ongoing violence, Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have taken place over the years. The United Nation Partition Plan in 1947 split Palestine roughly in half. The War of 1948 resulted in Israel controlling the majority of land in historic Palestine; further wars and actions on both sides have reduced Palestinian areas to Gaza and the West Bank. "Since 1948, we have seen a process of continuing dispossession of Palestinians from their country from their lands to make space for new arrivals from Europe," Junaid said. "We need to recognize that the roots of this problem lie in the history of anti-Semitism in Europe, the history of pogroms in Europe, the Holocaust in Europe, and the Palestinians have had to bear the price for the crime that Europeans committed against the Jewish people." Despite what has been reported by media outlets "this is not a religious conflict. This is not a conflict between Muslims and Jews this is a conflict that has been caused by colonization, colonial mentality, coloniality of power, and a history of genocide," Junaid said. "[The] American government needs to stop funding this ideology. It needs to stop weaponizing the pain of one people to dispossess another so that's why we are here. We are an interreligious diverse group of residents of this county. We want our voices to be heard." This war can not continue. It is the continuation of the long process of "deflecting the guilt onto another people," Junaid said. There needs to be a resolution and the first step to that is a ceasefire. The thought on what the best long-term solution can not be had in the midst of atrocity and the violation of international human law," Momen said. "We need a resolution. We need a long-term resolution of this problem, a resolution that will allow both Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security and mutually Thrive next to each other," Junaid said in agreement. Genres : Drama Starring : Lily Gladstone, Raymond Lee, Richard Ray Whitman Director : Lily Gladstone Plot Synopsis Reeling from a devastating loss, Tana (Lily Gladstone) is pulled back into the world by an unexpected invitation to her cousin's wedding. She packs up her late grandmother's Cadillac and hits the open road, driving from her home in Minnesota to South Dakota. After reconnecting with her Oglala Lakota family, Tana sets off to retrace a surreal journey that her grandmother took decades ago, searching for the spot captured in an old family photograph. As she travels, Tana finds connection in the stories of everyday people who've settled down far off the main roads including Isaac (Raymond Lee), who provides a pivotal clue to understanding the lost location that could cultivate closure. A personal reverie summoned from a beguiling mix of fact and fiction, The Unknown Country is an arresting debut feature from Morrisa Maltz. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} US president Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will meet in San Francisco this week for the first time in over a year. The leaders of the worlds two largest economies are expected to hold talks on Wednesday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, with the aim of stabilising diplomatic relations that have plummeted over issues such as Taiwan, human rights and spy balloons. China's aggressive stance towards Taiwan and the South China Sea, as well as discussions of how to boost mutually beneficial trade in spite their geopolitical differences, are likely to be the dominating topics during the conversation, analysts say. The leaders views on the latest developments in the Israel-Hamas war and Russia's invasion of Ukraine are also expected to feature. While the talks are unlikely to fix the fundamental differences between the two countries, officials in Washington believe there is scope for productive discussions that result in modest announcements. There is already optimism that the two leaders will commit to some form of new joint US-China climate agreement, after Beijing took a step in this direction by unveiling its plan to tackle methane emissions earlier last week. We dont know exactly when or where Biden and Xi will sit down to talk, with both administrations refusing to share key details about the meeting citing security reasons. The leaders will discuss the continued importance of maintaining open lines of communication and how they can continue to responsibly manage competition and work together where our interests align, particularly on transnational challenges that affect the international community", White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. Having the worlds two largest economies at loggerheads at such a fraught moment exacerbates the negative impact of various geopolitical shocks that have hit the world economy," Eswar Prasad, senior professor of trade policy at Cornell University, told the Associated Press. Preventing any further deterioration in the bilateral economic relationship," he said, "would already be a victory for both sides." The meeting has been months in the making, with experts dubbing it a logistics nightmare. The world leaders will be meeting for only the second time in person since Mr Biden entered office, and the San Francisco summit will mark Mr Xi's first visit to the US in six years. They last faced each other over a year ago on the sidelines of the 2022 G20 leaders summit in Bali for an in-depth meeting that lasted nearly three hours. Since then the relationship between the two biggest economies has turned sour over Washington's unrelenting support to Taiwan a sticking point for China. Beijing claims Taipei is obliged to reunite with the mainland, by force if necessary, and has no right to conduct foreign relations. While the US officially obliges by the "one China" policy, it supplies the largest amount of weapons to Taiwan of another country in the world. Ahead of Taiwan's presidential election, Beijing expects Washington to provide reassurances that the US doesn't support the island's sovereignty. Beijing had abruptly cut off communication with the US military last year following then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan. Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wens pit stop in the US this year added another dent to ties. Since then a plethora of Biden officials have visited Beijing in an effort to restore military communication channels. Beijing last month fired US-sanctioned defence minister Li Shangfu, which could allow the resumption of high-level military talks with the US. The relationship has also been strained with Beijing bristling over new US export controls on advanced technology and president Biden ordering the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon after it traversed the US mainland. Mr Biden will also likely press Mr Xi on using Chinas influence on North Korea, during heightened anxiety over an increased pace of ballistic missile tests by North Korea as well as Pyongyang providing munitions to Russia for its war in Ukraine. Mr Biden is also expected to let Xi know that he would like China to use its burgeoning sway over Iran to make clear that Tehran or its proxies should not take action that could lead to expansion of the Israel-Hamas war. His administration believes the Chinese, a big buyer of Iranian oil, have considerable leverage with Iran, which is a major backer of Hamas. The leaders are expected to pledge a ban of the "use of artificial intelligence in autonomous weaponry, such as drones, and in the control and deployment of nuclear warheads", South China Morning Post reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter. Thousands of people protesting the climate crisis, corporate practices, the Israel-Hamas war and other issues are expected to descend on San Francisco during the summit. San Francisco Police Department Chief Bill Scott said his department expects several protests a day but doesnt know which ones will materialise where and when. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Rescue operations are underway to save nearly 36 workers feared trapped inside an under-construction tunnel that collapsed on Sunday in India's Himalayan state of Uttarakhand. A 150-metre portion of the structure collapsed around 4am (local time) on Sunday, trapping a team of construction workers. The 4km-long tunnel in Uttarkashi district is being built to connect the Silkyara and Dandalgaon regions in an effort to reduce the journey from Uttarkashi to Yamunotri Dham, a Hindu religious shrine, by about 26km. The National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF), State Disaster Relief Force (SDRF) and the local police have been pressed into action to rescue the workers. A narrow opening has been made to insert an oxygen pipe while the rescue workers continue their effort to clear nearly 200 metres of slab to open the tunnel. Devendra Patwal, the districts disaster management officer, said the workers were not crammed inside the tunnel and had a buffer space of around 400 metres to walk and breathe. They have enough oxygen to easily survive for over 8-10 hours, and that should give us enough time to rescue them, he told The Indian Express. Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said he had been in contact with officials since he was first informed of the incident on Sunday morning. "NDRF and SDRF are at the spot. We pray to god for the safe return of everybody," he told news agency ANI. Vertical drilling machines were reportedly being arranged to cut through the debris, the authorities said, but some officials said it could still take up to three days to evacuate the workers. Falling rubble posed a significant challenge for rescuers trying to remove the obstruction. Photographs released from the accident site showed huge piles of concrete blocking the tunnel as metal bars poked down in front of the rubble. Uttarkashis police superintendent Arpan Yaduvanshi told the Press Trust of India that rescue operations were under way on a war footing. Around 36 workers are trapped inside, as per record[s], he said. We will rescue all of them safely. He said there had been no casualty reported so far. Five ambulances have been brought to the accident spot for the trapped workers. The construction workers were reportedly from the eastern states of Bihar and Jharkhand. Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Lifestyle Edit email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} On Saturday 11 November, the US will honour military veterans of the United States Armed Forces for Veterans Day. Every year, Americans celebrate soldiers on what used to be called Armistice Day and which was first enacted by President Woodrow Wilson after the end of World War I. In 1954, President Dwight D Eisenhower signed off on the name change, officially making the day Veterans Day. However, this year, the holiday falls over the weekend, meaning businesses will observe it on Friday 10 November and state and federal buildings will be closed. First introduced by Congress in 1885 when it was decided that federal employees should have certain days off from work, the list of US federal holidays is made up of 11 days of significance that Americans recognise - and celebrate. To ensure that these holidays are observed, certain guidelines have been put in place, with federal holidays that fall on a Saturday observed by federal employees on the previous Friday, while holidays that fall on Sunday are observed the following Monday. On these 11 days, all non-essential federal offices are closed, while banks, post offices and schools may also be closed. However, that doesnt mean that all Americans will receive a day off from work, as employees in the private sector may or may not get the day off, depending on their employer. From Memorial Day to Thanksgiving, these are the dates of the 2023 federal holidays. 2023 federal holidays: New Years Day: Sunday, January 1 (Observed Monday, January 2) Martin Luther King Jr Day: Monday, January 16 Presidents Day: Monday, February 20 Memorial Day: Monday, May 29 Juneteenth: Friday, June 16 Independence Day: Tuesday, July 4 Labor Day: Monday, September 4 Indigenous Peoples Day (also observed as Columbus Day): Monday, October 9 Veterans Day: Saturday, November 11 (Observed Friday, November 10) Thanksgiving: Thursday, November 23 Christmas: Monday, December 25 Other important days to note: Valentines Day: Tuesday, February 14 St Patricks Day: Friday, March 17 Passover: Thursday, April 6 Good Friday: Friday, April 7 Easter: Sunday, April 9 Mothers Day: Sunday, May 14 Fathers Day: Sunday, June 18 Sign up to IndyEat's free newsletter for weekly recipes, foodie features and cookbook releases Get our Now Hear This email for free Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the IndyEats email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Jamie Oliver has said that some posh restaurant chains merely assemble plates of food and mislead customers into thinking that the meal that theyre eating is fully prepared on-site. The celebrity TV chef, who shot to fame in his early twenties thanks to the launch of his BBC cooking show, The Naked Chef, saw his UK-wide high street restaurant chain Jamies Italian go into liquidation in 2019. Now, in a new interview with The Times, Oliver has reflected on what restaurant chains have to offer in 2023. If you look at some places [posh chains] theyre assembling food, Oliver told the publication. Theres so much happening off-site and everyone thinks theyre getting a posh meal. Its like, really? Come on. By contrast, Oliver says, his now-closed restaurant chain was marinating, cooking, [and] making all our dressings on site. Oliver opened his first branch of Jamies Italian in 2008 and saw rapid expansion across the UK in the early 2010s. But that came crashing down when the debt of the business started piling up. Oliver told The Times that he had aimed to run a proper kitchen operation, to pay above minimum wage and to bring ethnically sourced food to the mid-market, but, when rents increased and profits were down, it was difficult for the restaurant to maintain quality. At the time of its launch, Oliver said he intended to positively disrupt mid-market dining in the high street in the UK. But in 2018, Oliver declared he had no more money to invest in Jamies Italian and it was revealed at the time that Jamies Italian had debts of 71.5m, including 2.2m in wages owed to staff and 30.2m of overdrafts and loans. Just before the companys collapse, The Sunday Times Marina OLoughlin reviewed the tagliatelle with truffles dish at Jamies in Westfield Stratford. Appalling, a honking, salty swamp of a sauce, brown and dusty with nutmeg, OLoughlin wrote. Tiny chunks, not shavings, of tasteless black truffle lurk around, like mouse poos in soup. The celebrity TV chef has admitted that the model for Jamies Italian was wrong from day one (Getty Images) Oliver has now admitted that he realises the model for Jamies Italian had been wrong from day one, with the business often punching above its weight when outbidding competitors for premium high street locations. He said that when he opened the restaurant chain in 2008, he and his team were so hot, which brought a feeling of cockiness. Elsewhere in the interview, Oliver revealed why he bought his 16th century Essex mansion while his business was heading for collapse and 1,000 employees lost their jobs. He was scrutinised in some quarters after builders were spotted carrying out work on the mansion house shortly after the business folded. Oliver explained that he realised the irony of the decision at the time. If I was just being media savvy, I wouldnt have moved there when everything was going wrong, he explained. No one really knows why I bought this house. The Essex home, where Olivers new Channel 4 TV series 5 Ingredient Meals is filmed, has 70 acres of lush lawns, a beautiful old wooden kitchen and a three-bedroom lodge in the woods. Oliver continued: There was a whole host of things that were quite specific, quite intimate I dont care what anyone thinks. They dont need to know. Its an old gaff thats falling down; only an idiot would buy it.. Every year, the registered charitable organization Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand Inc.aka "Forest & Bird"asks the public to determine Aotearoa New Zealand's bird of the year. Well, this year the organization is turning 100 and to celebrate its birthday, they're asking for help to determine the "Bird of the Century." On the contest website, they ask, "Which New Zealand native bird from the last 100 years has captured your heart?"will it be the Reef Heron? Black-billed Gull? Morepork? Yellow-eyed Penguin? North Island Brown Kiwi? You can vote for five birds. Here were my choices: Takahe. Conservation Status: In serious trouble. Known as the bird which became alive again, the takahe was thought to be extinct for 50 years until 1948. There are now recovery programmes to prevent the extinction of New Zealand's biggest flightless bird. Kuaka/Bar-tailed Godwit. Conservation Status: In some trouble. Breeding in Alaska, the kuaka return to Aotearoa and eastern Australia each year with about 80,000 of their whanau. These troopers take the longest non-stop flight of any bird because they do not rest or feed on the sea. Even more amazingly, young birds make the same journey at just four months old. Tawaki piki toka/ Eastern Rockhopper Penguin. Conservation Status: In serious trouble. Who says you need arms to climb almighty rock stacks? The Eastern rockhopper tackles rock mountains with the determination and grit of Hillary. Its population has declined by 30% in the past 30 years, so it needs your support for survival! Torea pango/Variable Oystercatcher. Conservation Status: Doing OK. Variable oystercatcher is the party leader species representing all of the adorable oystercatcher species in Aotearoa. Always focused on food, the variable oystercatchers work the beach and mudflats. Opening bivalve shellfish is tough when you are twisting with a bill or hammering a hole in the shell. Watching the adults teach their young this skill provides a constant source of amusement. Kotuku ngutupapa/Royal Spoonbill. Conservation Status: In some trouble. Royal spoonbills are immediately distinguishable by their long, black, spatulate bills. You may see them in shallow wetlands, hunting for crustaceans and aquatic insects. When they have caught something, they lift their bill up and let the morsel slide down their throat. Even if you don't care about voting, you should visit the contest website, which provides a treasure trove of information about over 75 native New Zealand birdsyou can even listen to their songs! Forest & Bird's mission is "To defend New Zealand's wildlife and wild placeson land and in our oceans." Learn more about the organization on their website. Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Lifestyle Edit email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The romance between Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed is set to take centre stage on The Crown season six, but many viewers may be unaware that Dodi was dating a model who claimed they were engaged when he met the royal. Netflixs historical drama is returning for its final outing in November, with the first part of season six arriving on Thursday (16 November). It centres on the late 1990s to mid-2000s, and features the blossoming romance between the late Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) and Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla), the son of Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed. It was Mohamed who planned for Diana, then 36, and Dodi, then 42, to date, and took them both on a holiday on one of his yachts in the summer of 1997. However, his son was already engaged to someone else although the public didnt know about the relationship until it was over. Just months before he and Diana met, film producer Dodi had been engaged to model Kelly Fisher (played by Erin Richards in The Crown). Born in Kentucky, Fisher later relocated to Ontario, Canada, with her family, where she began modelling aged 16. She attended college for two semester before dropping out to focus on modelling full time. Fisher modelled for brands such as Victorias Secret, Armani and Calvin Klein, and appeared on the covers of publications such as Elle, Marie Claire, and W. It was July 1996 when Fisher met Dodi in Paris. The pair dated for eight months before they allegedly got engaged in February 1997, with Dodi proposing with a sapphire and diamond ring. Following the couples reported engagement, Dodi allegedly told Fisher that hed bought a house in an exclusive Malibu neighbourhood for him and Fisher to live in using money from his father. Khalid Abdalla and Elizabeth Debicki in The Crown' (Daniel Escale/Netflix) But mere months later, in August 1997, Dodi was photographed kissing Diana on his fathers yacht, the pictures splashed on The Sunday Mirrors front page and seen across the world. Mohamed had invited Diana and the young princes William and Harry to join his family on a trip to St Tropez, with historian Katie Nicholl claiming that his ulterior motive was to play Cupid between the princess and his eldest son, Dodi. Humiliated and emotional, Fisher, who was 31 at the time, held a press conference in Beverly Hills, California. Here, it was announced that she was filing a breach-of-contract lawsuit against Dodi. She claimed that Dodi wanted Fisher to put her career in second place behind him and to spend more time with him and less on her modelling career, and had offered her half a million dollars to spend more time with him. Instead, she claimed, she received $60,000 and a cheque for $200,000, which bounced. Accompanied by top lawyer Gloria Allred, she claimed that Dodi had brought her the ring, and had promised to buy her a house too. After Dodis death, Fisher claimed that she and Dodi had been due to marry that very month. The Fayed family denied that Dodi had asked Fisher to marry him. Fisher (left) with Gloria Allred (PA) Reading a prepared statement, Allred claimed that Dodi led [Fisher] emotionally all the way up to the altar and abandoned her when they were almost there. He threw her love away in a callous way with no regard for her whatsoever. It was claimed that Fisher wasnt told about the kiss by Dodi, but learnt when photos of the pair kissing were published and circulated around the world to Miss Fishers utter dismay, shock and shame. At the time, Fisher had reportedly been staying on another yacht owned by the Fayed family, and was told not to contact Dodi again when she reached out to him. However, Allred claimed that Fisher was only making her claim public because we care about Princess Diana and her future. We would like the Princess, who has suffered greatly in the past, to know about Miss Fishers experiences with Mr Fayed so she can make an informed decision regarding her future and that of her children. Fisher sold her story to Rupert Murdochs newspaper group for an estimated 200,000, where her side of the story was told in the News of the World and The Sun. Fisher pictured in 2007 after giving evidence for the inquest into the deaths of Dodi and Diana (PA) On 31 August, just weeks later, Diana and Dodi died in a car crash in Paris. Shortly after, Fisher announced that she was dropping the lawsuit against Dodi. However, it was insisted that Fisher did not regret filing the lawsuit. Allred announced in a statement that Fisher had voluntarily chosen to dismiss the case out of respect for the tragedy, and tremendous loss the Fayed family has suffered. Kelly loved Dodi very much, and she is devastated by his loss, and that of Princess Diana, she said. Nothing is more important than the life of a human being. In the light of this enormous tragedy, Kelly forgives Dodi for all of his past injustices against her. In 2007, Fisher gave evidence for the inquest into the deaths of Dodi and Diana. The following year, transcripts of calls between Fisher and Dayed, in which she accused him of two-timing, were made public. You even flew me down to St Tropez to sit on a boat while you seduced Diana all day and f***ed me all night, she said, saying in another call: We were together the whole time. And you knew it. The transcripts show Dodi trying to end the call, branding Fisher hysterical and insisting that they were broken up when he was dating Diana. The Crown season six part one is on Netflix now, with part two following on 14 December. Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Lifestyle Edit email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} King Charles led a moving Remembrance Day service at the Cenotaph on Sunday as the nation fell silent to honour those who died at war. A two-minute silence took place across the UK at 11am to commemorate the end of the First World War and other conflicts involving British and Commonwealth forces. Wreaths were laid by members of the royal family, senior politicians and dignitaries at the Cenotaph in London, where a major policing operation remained in place after more than 120 arrests were made mostly of far-right counterprotesters as a pro-Palestinian march was held on Armistice Day. Thousands of people braved drizzly weather and descended on Whitehall for the service, with many arriving hours early to get a good spot. The Massed Pipes and Drums played songs such as Rule Britannia in the rain but the showers stopped before Charles led the country in quiet reflection at the Whitehall memorial. Wearing the uniform of the Marshal of the Royal Air Force with greatcoat, poppy and sword, Charles who as sovereign is commander-in-chief of the British armed forces laid a wreath similar to the one produced for King George VI. Prince William and King Charles attend the National Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph on Whitehall in central London (AFP/Getty) The wreath featured 41 open poppy petals mounted on an arrangement of black leaves traditional for sovereigns wreaths of 27in diameter ribbon and bow using the colours from Charless racing silk: scarlet, purple and gold. The Prince of Wales also laid a wreath, as did the Duke of Edinburgh and the Princess Royal. Senior politicians including prime minister Rishi Sunak, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, home secretary Suella Braverman and foreign secretary James Cleverly also laid wreaths. Major Ollie Plunket of The Rifles, equerry to Queen Camilla, laid a wreath on behalf of the Queen, who was watching from a balcony with the Princess of Wales. Prince Edward, Prince William, King Charles and Princess Anne attend the National Service of Remembrance (AFP/Getty) Buckingham Palace said the Queens wreath closely resembled the one produced for the Queen Mother. They were joined in paying tribute by the living former UK prime ministers: Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Sir Tony Blair and Sir John Major. Almost 10,000 veterans and 800 armed forces personnel from all three services were then due to take part in a march-past, and members of the public applauded as they processioned past. Nine D-Day veterans were due to participate in the Remembrance Day service and the oldest, Joe Randall, 100, was due to march with the Spirit of Normandy Trust, a Government spokesperson said. King Charles III walks towards The Cenotaph during the Remembrance Day service (Reuters) Among those marching were nuclear test veterans, who for the first time will wear a medal acknowledging their contribution. After 70 years of waiting for recognition, those exposed to the effects of nuclear bombs during the UKs testing programme were given a medal, depicting an atom surrounded by olive branches, for the Remembrance Sunday service. More than 300 armed forces and civilian organisations were represented, as well as 300 veterans not affiliated with an association who were invited to join for the first time. A statue of the late Queen Elizabeth II was unveiled by King Charles at the Royal Albert Hall (Getty) Edward donned the Royal Wessex Yeomanry uniform for the ceremony, while Anne wore a Royal Navy uniform in the rank of admiral with a greatcoat, cap, sword and poppy. Before the service, City of Westminster street cleaners swept and washed the Whitehall road approaching the Cenotaph, and volunteers handed out hymn sheets to the crowd. Mr Sunak said: The courage and commitment shown by our servicemen and women, both today and throughout the generations that came before them, is humbling and I know many across the country will be honouring their memory today in quiet reflection. Recent events have served as a stark reminder that we cannot take the hard-earned peace we live in for granted, which is why I am honoured to lay a wreath on behalf of the nation in the memory of all those that have lost their lives defending our country and the values we hold so close. I am determined to ensure we never forget the ultimate sacrifice they have made. Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Lifestyle Edit email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The estranged husband ofStrictly Come Dancing professional Karen Hauer has claimed that the BBC dancing show had a role to play in their split. Last month, it was reported that Venezuelan dancer Hauer the shows longest-serving professional and businessman Jordan Wyn-Jones parted ways last month after marrying in summer 2022. Hauer competed on the current series of Strictly with comedian Eddie Kadi, with the pair becoming the fourth couple to leave the competition. In a new interview with The Mail on Sunday, Wyn-Jones said that while he will always admire Hauers career, it took her away from him. He began: Its a bit of a love story, a sad story. Im incredibly sad not to be in Karens life, and not on this journey with her but were not right for each other in terms of her career. I will always admire her for her career but it took her away from me a lot, he said. Shed be away and Id be at home on my own. Wyn-Jones added that he admires Hauer for being so career-driven, but eventually, it turned out they wanted different things, especially when it came to deciding whether to have children together. There was a plan about having children but then there wasnt a plan, he claimed. Wyn-Jones said that he had previously expressed a desire to have children with Hauer, but was left shocked when he read a magazine interview where she reportedly said that kids were not in her future. The Independent has contacted Hauers representatives for comment. The pair wed in summer 2022 (Instagram via @karenhauer) You do say things like, I want to have kids. And shed mentioned to me that she wanted to have kids with me. But in the interview, Karen said kids arent in the future which made me sad. Id always wanted to be a father. Id become vacant in our relationship. I was loving and so caring for her but I was vacant because of the situation that we found ourselves in. Wyn-Jones claimed that he and Hauer met to discuss the magazine interview eight weeks ago, when they both eventually admitted that their marriage was over. There were tears on both sides. A lot of tears of sadness, he told the publication. We didnt want to let go of each other but were also not right for each other. The businessman added that if they had stayed together and not had children, he would have ended up resenting her. Karen Hauer photographed in October (PA) This is the perfect moment for us to love each other and leave each other, he said. The pair originally met after exchanging messages online for about six months before Wyn-Jones moved from Australia to the UK to live with Hauer. However, Wyn-Jones said he does not blame the so-called Strictly curse, a fan theory that participating in Strictly (whether as a celebrity or a professional dancer) threatens the status of the relationship youre in when you sign up. Wyn-Jones and Hauer pose together in Instagram post (Instagram via @karenhauer) We used to laugh about the Strictly curse because its so silly, Wyn-Jones told the publication. Karen doesnt have it in her to be unfaithful and dishonest shes just not that person. I just trusted her. It was never a thing in our relationship when I met her I knew who she was. Shes very proud to be the shows longest-serving professional. Shes worked very hard and shes so good, shes such a professional. He told the paper: I see it as a love story. We are going to remain friends. We havent filed for divorce yet but theres nothing to fight over or to be concerned about. We will text and its all lovely and nice. Hauer was previously married to former Strictly professional Kevin Clifton for three years before they split in March 2018. Clifton is now in a relationship with TV presenter Stacey Dooley and they share one child together. The pair met on the set of Strictly. Read about all of the Strictly curses so far, here. Strictly Come Dancing continues Sunday 12 November at 7.20pm on BBC One. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Israeli strikes pounded Gaza City overnight and into Sunday as ground forces battled Hamas militants near the territory's largest hospital, where health officials say thousands of medics, patients and displaced people are trapped with no electricity and dwindling supplies. In a televised address on Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected growing international calls for a cease-fire unless it includes the release of all 239 hostages captured by Hamas in the Oct. 7 rampage that triggered the war, saying Israel was bringing its full force to the battle. Israel has vowed to end Hamas 16-year rule in Gaza and crush its military capabilities, while blaming the militants for the war's heavy toll on the 2.3 million Palestinians trapped in the besieged territory. Israel has come under mounting international pressure, even from its closest ally, the United States, as the war enters a sixth week. A 57-nation gathering of Muslim and Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia on Saturday called for the war to end, and an estimated 300,000 pro-Palestinian protesters marched peacefully through London the biggest demonstration in the city since the war began. HEAVY FIGHTING NEAR SHIFA HOSPITAL In Gaza City, residents reported heavy airstrikes and shelling overnight, including in the area around Shifa Hospital. Israel, without providing evidence, has accused Hamas of concealing a command post inside and under the hospital compound, allegations denied by Hamas and hospital staff. We spent the night in panic waiting for their arrival, said Ahmed al-Boursh, a resident taking shelter in the hospital. They are outside, not far from the gates. The hospital's last generator ran out of fuel on Saturday, causing the death of a premature baby, another child in an incubator and four other patients, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza. Medical devices stopped. Patients, especially those in intensive care, started to die, hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia said by phone over the sound of gunfire and explosions. He said Israeli troops were shooting at anyone outside or inside the hospital and prevented movement between buildings. The World Health Organization said it lost communication with its contacts at Shifa. Israels military confirmed clashes outside the hospital, but Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a spokesman, denied Shifa was under siege. He said troops will assist Sunday in moving babies treated there and said we are speaking directly and regularly with hospital staff. The Health Ministry says there are still 1,500 patients at Shifa, along with 1,500 medical personnel and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter. Thousands have fled Shifa and other hospitals that have come under attack, but physicians said its impossible for everyone to get out. The unbearably desperate situation at Shifa must stop now, the International Committee of the Red Cross director general, Robert Mardini, said on social media. Elsewhere, the Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli tanks were 20 meters (65 feet) from al-Quds hospital in Gaza City, causing extreme panic and fear among the 14,000 displaced people sheltering there. NETANYAHU REJECTS US POSTWAR VISION Netanyahu has said the responsibility for any harm to civilians lies with Hamas. Israel has long accused the group, which operates in dense residential neighborhoods, of using civilians as human shields. On Saturday, Netanyahu began to outline Israel's postwar plans for Gaza, which contrast sharply with the vision put forth by the United States. Netanyahu said Gaza would be demilitarized and that Israel would retain security control, with the ability to enter Gaza freely to hunt down militants. He also rejected the idea that the Palestinian Authority, which currently administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would at some stage control Gaza. Hamas drove the PA's forces out of Gaza in a week of street battles in 2007. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the U.S. opposes an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza and envisions a unified Palestinian government in both Gaza and the West Bank as a step toward Palestinian statehood. Even before the war, Netanyahu's government was staunchly opposed to Palestinian statehood. In another sign of international frustration with Israel, Saudi Arabia welcomed Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi on Saturday in the first such visit since the two countries mended ties this year. Israel views Iran as its main enemy and had sought to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia before the outbreak of the war. EVACUATION WINDOWS, BUT NO PAUSES Israels allies have defended the countrys right to protect itself after the Hamas attack, which killed at least 1,200 people, mostly civilians. But now into the second month of war, there are growing differences over how Israel should conduct its fight. The U.S. has pushed for temporary pauses that would allow for wider distribution of badly needed aid to civilians in the besieged territory where conditions are increasingly dire. However, Israel has only agreed to brief daily periods during which civilians can flee the area of ground combat in northern Gaza and head south on foot along two main north-south roads. Since these evacuation windows were first announced a week ago, tens of thousands of civilians have fled the north. But Israel is striking what it says are militant targets across central and southern Gaza as well, often killing women and children. The war has displaced over two-thirds of Gaza's population, with most fleeing south. Egypt has allowed hundreds of foreign passport holders and medical patients to exit through its Rafah crossing. It has also allowed hundreds of trucks loaded with food and medicine but no fuel to enter, but aid workers say it's nowhere near enough to meet the mounting needs. More than 11,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2,700 people have been reported missing and are thought to be trapped or dead under the rubble. Forty-six Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground offensive began, and Palestinians have continued firing rockets into Israel. Hamas is still holding scores of captives men, women and children after releasing four women last month. A fifth captive was rescued by Israeli forces. Late Saturday, thousands of Israelis participated in a rally in Tel Aviv, calling for the return of hostages. In Caesarea, hundreds of protesters gathered near Netanyahu's home, calling for his removal. About 250,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate from communities near Gaza and along the northern border with Lebanon, where Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have traded fire repeatedly. ___ Magdy reported from Cairo. ___ Full AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Irish premier Leo Varadkar and Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris have laid wreaths at a Remembrance Sunday ceremony in Co Fermanagh. On a rainy day in Enniskillen, hundreds stood in silence for two minutes to mark the occasion at the war memorial in the town. New PSNI chief constable Jon Boutcher and head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service Jayne Brady were among those who laid wreaths during the commemoration. Mr Heaton-Harris laid a poppy wreath on behalf of the UK Government. The gathered crowd also heard music from the Ballyreagh Silver Band. The Kings representative the Lord-Lieutenant for County Fermanagh Viscount Brookeborough, as well as a representative from Enniskillen Guides, also placed wreaths. Mr Varadkars presence continued a tradition begun by former taoiseach Enda Kenny in 2012 by attending and placing a laurel wreath at the base of the memorial. Mr Kenny became the first taoiseach to attend a Remembrance Day service in Northern Ireland when he took part in commemorations at Enniskillen in 2012, in a move seen as symbolic of greater recognition afforded in the Republic of Ireland to Irishmen who fought and died serving in the British Army in the First World War. His attendance also marked the 25th anniversary of an IRA bombing at the memorial in 1987. Eleven people who had gathered to pay their respects to the war dead were killed and dozens were injured in the no-warning blast on November 8 1987, minutes before the Remembrance Sunday ceremony was due to start. A 12th victim of the Poppy Day bombing died 13 years later having never woken from a coma. People like to see the British and Irish government work together and remember together. That can only be good for our individual futures Chris Heaton-Harris Mr Heaton-Harris said: It is an honour to be here in Enniskillen. Were here to remember the fallen from World Wars one and two, from the various battles and conflicts that weve had, and to remember the Poppy Day bomb as well and all the families that suffered. It was a lovely service and amazing to see so many people turn out in slightly inclement weather and just good to see the community come together. Asked about the presence of Irish Government officials, he added: It is really important. I think, from what I can gather, people like to see the British and Irish government work together and remember together. That can only be good for our individual futures. A politician from Mr Varadkars party was also in attendance. Frank Feighan said: Ive always attended the services of Remembrance in appreciation and respect of the Irish men and women from across the island of Ireland who gave the great sacrifice in World War One and many wars after that. I think it shows respect and it also shows that it wasnt unique to this part of the island, and indeed across our two islands. Asked if the Irish Government presence was controversial, he said: We have to have an agreed Ireland, we have to respect histories that are different but sometimes unite us as well. I felt that 15-20 years ago in the Republic, that we didnt pay that respect, that we didnt remember the sacrifices of many men and women that came from our communities. I think that has changed in the last 10 or 15 years. Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald was among those scheduled to attend a Remembrance Sunday service at St Patricks Cathedral in Dublin hosted by the Royal British Legion. Ms McDonald said: This is an important day of reflection for many people on the island. Many Irishmen, from across all 32 counties, died in these conflicts, leaving a profound loss that continues to be felt in many families and communities to this day. It is important to recognise all that we share in common and to commemorate our shared history in a respective and inclusive way. Such reflections are also a timely reminder of the need for peaceful dialogue to end conflict around the world. Several other wreath-laying events and Remembrance ceremonies were held across Northern Ireland. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Nestle has announced the discontinuation of a second chocolate bar just hours after chocolate fans were told the iconic Caramac bar was being axed. Now, the confectionary company has dealt a further blow to sweet-toothed Brits and has decided to stop manufacturing Animal Bars. The Animal bar was launched in 1963 as a real milk chocolate bar, with a fun game on the inside of each wrapper. Every bar has two different named animals moulded on the surface. Animal Bars have been on the market for 60 years (Alamy) After 60 years on the market, Nestle said sales of the nostalgic treat have steadily declined, forcing them to ditch the bar. A Nestle spokesperson said: I can confirm that Animal Bar is also being delisted due to the low performance of the product and a steady decline in its sales over the past few years. Fans of the chocolate took to social media to express their grief. One said Nestle had gone too far while another said the discontinuation marks the downfall of the UK. One person on X wrote: Ive woken to the news that the Animal bar will soon be extinct. It brings back fond memories from my childhood, and I know of no other chocolate bar that cracks in the same deliciously satisfying way. Responding to angry social media users on X, Nestle wrote: Hi, dont scare us please! We understand its disappointing when your favourite bars are no longer available. Were just as upset as you, it wasnt an easy decision for us to make. (PA) After more than 60 years as a staple on confectionary shelves, Nestle also revealed on Wednesday it was axing the iconic Caramac bar for similar reasons. Fans of the caramel treat called the double chocolate elimination a confectionary catastrophe and others said they would be stockpiling both bars. Chocolate lovers shouldnt be too disheartened though - some bars that have been previously axed made it back it the shelves, including Wispas. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Its a sunny Sunday in the east Kent town of Folkestone, as locals and tourists take full advantage of the unseasonable weather to enjoy pints and fish and chips on the beach. The Creative Quarter, set in the heart of the town, thrums as visitors duck into artist enclaves, and just a few minutes walk away, the Harbour Arm a half-mile-long promenade is abuzz with people as they sample delectable street food. The idyllic scenes in the town, which is frequently named one of the best places to live in the UK, mask a backlash against future development, as locals fear the area is being gentrified and turned into a new Dubai. Folkestones revival is the brainchild of Sir Roger De Haan, previously chair of insurance giant Saga, a company started by his father, Sidney. The Shoreline Crescent development on the seafront has prompted mockery from locals due to its whistling when the wind picks up (Joe Middleton) He took over the firm after his fathers retirement in 1984, and later sold it for 1.35bn in 2004. He received a knighthood for services to education and charity in 2014. De Haan has spent more than two decades investing millions in the town through his charitable trust and his development company, the Folkestone Harbour & Seafront Development Company. Locals who spoke to The Independent said there had been significant improvements to Folkestone but were concerned about future building work that will culminate in 1,000 homes along the beach and harbour. They point to the first stage of the development, the new luxury Shoreline Crescent homes on the seafront, where the cheapest property starts at 430,000 for a one-bedroom flat, far more than most locally can afford. The as-yet-unfinished properties have prompted mockery as they make a loud whistling sound as the strong seaside air whips along the seafront, annoying locals who complain it has left them struggling to sleep. Concerns about the direction the town is going in and future development has spawned a campaign group called Block the Blocks to try and prevent the monstrous towers. Jasmine Fagg says that rents in the town have soared (Joe Middleton) A petition has gained more than 8,000 signatures. The most recent designs for flats on the seafront were described as looking like a home for the Flintstones, giant turds and a millionaires vanity project. Jasmine Fagg owns Silver by the Sea, a jewellery business that trades in the market on the Harbour Arm, and is concerned about how she and other businesses will be affected. A lot of people arent feeling great about the Harbour Arm development, especially as we have the market down there, she says. They are all going to be million-pound flats, like the new flats that have been built down on the beach. People who maybe visit in the summer and dont know how bad the weather is sometimes and that the flats whistle. A lot of people in the older houses have been complaining about it as they just hear it nonstop. The 22-year-old says that rents in the town recently have soared and it is difficult for young people to move out. Many independent shops in the town support the Block the Blocks campaign (Joe Middleton) She adds: I cant afford to move out, its just crazy. You pay 500 or 600 for a room for a houseshare with four or five other people. The flats they are building are not for people from Folkestone, they are for Londoners or for people who want holiday homes. She says there were a lot of positives with Folkestone and pointed out the heavy footfall from tourists and new food and drink businesses opening. And she says Folkestone has definitely got better compared to what it used to be, but fears the looming redevelopment of the Harbour Arm. She says: The amount of tourists and holidaymakers who come down and say how much they love the high street and going down to the Harbour and the beach. That will all completely change and it just wont have that anymore. I just wonder how much that is going to affect the general footfall for Folkestone. The Creative Quarter in Folkestone, home to many artists and small independent businesses (Joe Middleton) Local jeweller Amy Craddock has lived in the town for four years and is hesitant about the direction the town is heading in, saying the new development feels incongruous for the area. I dont really feel like thats a positive direction for the town to be heading in, she says. Im not anti-development, I just think things could be done in a way that is a bit more sympathetic to its surroundings. Maybe something a bit more low level, a bit more considerate for the financial climate at the moment. Not just building great big blocks like Dubai down there. The 45-year-old says the development proposals for more luxury flats had changed perceptions of De Haan who was seen as a bit of a hero for regenerating the town. However, public opinion now seems to have backfired on him a little bit. Olivia Corriette, 25, a local and floor manager at The Lighthouse Tasting Rooms, has similar concerns about the changes to housing in the area. The Prince of Wales with Roger De Haan CBE, as he presents him with the Prince of Wales Medal for Arts Philanthropy at Clarence House in central London in 2008 (PA) She says: I think its going the right way for eating out, drinking out and events going on, but the wrong way property-wise. They are building a lot of beautiful but expensive flats, which unfortunately considering Im in my twenties I cannot afford. Eventually you are hitting a point where you feel like you are getting pushed out of where youve grown up because you literally cannot afford it. One thing Ive noticed is that a lot of our customers are from London or out of town, they are the ones that are looking at the properties being built and treating them as their holiday homes. Local Folkestone bartender Michaela Kolmosova, 24, says: There are a lot of people unhappy about it. It will change this area [the Harbour Arm] a bit too much, maybe more than people are ready for. She adds that locals were concerned about further development pushing up rents, but that overall the town has improved massively in recent years and become much friendlier. Olivia Corriette thinks the town is not going the right way in terms of what types of property are available (Joe Middleton) Labour Councillor Bridget Chapman, who represents Folkestone Harbour Ward, says complaints about the development are a large part of the correspondence I receive from residents. About the whistling buildings, some locals she spoke to dubbed them tinnitus towers. My own view is we need housing in the area, but that this development is not providing what the local area needs. The ward that its being built in is the 11th most deprived in Kent, she says. A number of residents have come to me after being given a Section 21 a no-fault eviction. The landlords have told them they can get more money from people coming down from London. People are really struggling to keep a roof over their heads. She says she agrees with the campaigners and that the town needs more affordable housing for key workers on lower budgets rather than luxury homes, which is not what the town needs at all. In regards to the whistling flats, the Folkestone and Harbour Seafront development says: The minor noise issue will be resolved once the construction works, including the installation of the balconies to West Shoreline are complete. Sir Roger De Haan told The Independent he has spent 20-25 years regenerating Folkestone and that before the recent improvements the local economy was really struggling. He defends his investment in the town and says initiatives from his charitable trust, such as purchasing 90 derelict properties in the old town and leasing them to creatives on a peppercorn rent, had helped revitalise the economy. To the accusations the town was being gentrified, he says: If I had taken down inexpensive housing and put up expensive housing that would be gentrification, but I am not doing that. The 1,000 new homeowners in the area, will use the shops, bars and restaurants in the town, it will be a significant boost to the local economy. In response to criticism of the design of the yet-to-be-built flats, he says that the architects have moderated the design so they are less cutting edge and have also lowered the density and widened the streets. He says the modified design had a positive response from the local civic groups. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Remembrance Sunday is held on the second Sunday of November every year to honour Britains war dead. In 2023, it follows neatly one day after Armistice Day on Saturday 11 November, which specifically honours the signing of the ceasefire agreement that brought the First World War to an end at 11am on 11 November 1918, a prelude to the peace negotiations that would finally be completed with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles the following June. The two Remembrance dates are marked in the UK by ceremonies across the country in memory of those who have given their lives fighting for their country and its most visible symbol is the poppy, sold by the Royal British Legion (RBL) since 1921 as a means of raising donations to support the servicemen and women of today and worn on the lapel as a gesture of respect. On Armistice Day, the annual Festival of Remembrance takes place at the Royal Albert Hall, which will be broadcast on BBC One at 9pm and feature classical music, patriotic readings and recitals and a spectacular display of military pageantry from the historic Kensington auditorium. This year, we pay tribute to the two million National Servicemen who served in the post-war years up until 1963, the RBL says of the upcoming event. Hundreds lost their lives, particularly during the Korean War, and we mark 70 years since the end of the fighting. We also acknowledge the unique contribution of the Windrush Generation, 75 years after the arrival of HMT Empire Windrush, which is symbolic for the settlers from the Caribbean who helped rebuild Britain. We honour too those who served in the Battle of the Atlantic 80 years ago, the longest campaign of the Second World War. You can see the full schedule for the programme here. The key event of Remembrance Sunday itself is the televised National Service of Remembrance, which sees a parade of veterans march through central London in dress uniform and the royal family join the prime minister, the leader of the opposition, members of the Cabinet, the mayor of London and other dignitaries to lay floral wreaths at the foot of the Cenotaph in Whitehall to remember the fallen. The service, according to the RBL, provides the nation with a physical reminder of all those who have served and sacrificed, with British and Commonwealth soldiers, sailors, airmen and women represented, together with members of the emergency services and civilians, ensuring that no-one is forgotten. You can review the Legions Order of March for 2023 here and more information about the service and its schedule is available via the UK governments website here. There will also be a major service at the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas near Lichfield in Staffordshire on Sunday, which you can find out more about here. A host of other Remembrance Sunday services, commemorations, concerts and parades will be taking place in towns and cities across the country and a two-minute silence will be observed nationwide at 11am. For events in your area, please check your local listings. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} First Minister Humza Yousaf was among dignitaries who laid wreaths at the City Chambers in Edinburgh to commemorate Remembrance Sunday. Hundreds of people turned out on a cold morning in the capital to pay their respects, observing a two-minute silence and a parade by military personnel. The First Minister was joined by a Ukrainian family who arrived in Scotland more than a year ago, fleeing the war in their home country. Speaking to journalists before the commemorations, the First Minister said: This, to me, is one of the most sacred days of the year. Its an opportunity for all of us, all communities, to come together, to reflect, to remember, and to honour all of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice in order so that we can enjoy the freedoms that we cherish every single day. I am proud and honoured to be able to play a part on behalf of the Scottish Government. Holyrood Presiding Officer Alison Johnstone, defence minister and former Scottish Tory leader Baroness Goldie, and Edinburgh Lord Provost Robert Aldridge also participated in the commemorations. A military parade from Edinburgh Castle began the memorial, with current and former personnel from different branches walking in formation down the Royal Mile to the City Chambers. Ukrainian Lesya and her children Marichka, 16, and Sviatoslav, nine who was draped in a Ukrainian flag laid a wreath on behalf of children who have lost a parent since the Russian invasion last year. The trio arrived in the Scottish capital after the war broke out, with their father Koli staying behind to fight. He was killed two days before the family were due to be reunited in their home country. Hannah Beaton-Hawryluk, chairwoman of the Association of Ukrainians in GB branch in Edinburgh, said: We have to remember. War is all over the world, all of the time. Our forefathers fought for our freedoms we cannot forget that. If we fail to remember the mistakes of the past, we will never, ever learn. Lesyas family are one of thousands that have experienced terminal heartbreak in the last 20 months. Many more have made unthinkable sacrifices to maintain our freedoms. To them, and for them, we must say 'thank you', and we must remember them Claire Armstrong The loss of her beloved husband, and father to her children, Koli, brutally outlines why to fail to learn from historic mistakes creates nothing other than an unstable world full of horror, destruction and immense sadness. I know how proud Lesya is of Marichka and Sviastoslav, who today laid a wreath on behalf of all children of Ukraine who have lost a parent to this war. Legion Scotland chief executive Claire Armstrong stressed the importance of remembering those who served in the armed forces. Many people have made the ultimate sacrifice in order to sustain our current way of life, she said. Many more have made unthinkable sacrifices to maintain our freedoms. To them, and for them, we must say thank you, and we must remember them. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Scotlands First Minister has called on Scottish Labours two MPs to back his partys push for a ceasefire in Gaza. An SNP amendment to the Kings Speech which calls for an end to hostilities is expected to come to a vote in the House of Commons this week, with the party urging other MPs to support it. In a letter to Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, Humza Yousaf asked him to confirm his MPs will vote for the motion. Mr Sarwar has broken with the UK Labour leadership on the issue, despite his initial reticence to confirm he supports calling for a ceasefire. Sir Keir Starmer has come under increasing pressure to back the calls, both from inside and outside Labour. The SNP vote expected on Wednesday could present an issue for Sir Keir if his MPs back calls for a ceasefire. In his letter, Mr Yousaf wrote: As you will be aware, I have been calling for an immediate ceasefire for a number of weeks now. I welcome the stance you have taken as leader of your party in backing those calls for a ceasefire, in stark contrast with the position taken by Sir Keir Starmer. Given that Scottish Labour has two MPs, I am urging you to confirm that they will vote in accordance with the policy you have set out as their leader which is widely supported among the general public in Scotland and across the UK, as well as by the United Nations and its aid agencies rather than the inadequate position being taken by Sir Keir. If both Scottish Labour MPs choose to defy you as leader of Scottish Labour by not backing a ceasefire, they will not only be out of step with the Scottish public, but on the wrong side of history. Given the mounting death of innocent children, women and men, nothing less than an immediate ceasefire can meet the humanitarian needs of the moment. I trust that you are in a position to offer this reassurance regarding how Scottish Labours two MPs will vote. Speaking to the Daily Record at the end of last month, Mr Sarwar said comments made by Sir Keir which have since been rowed back that Israel had the right to cut off food and water from Gaza had been hurtful. He added there would be repair work to do with Muslim communities ahead of the next general election, but said the Labour leader had been pained by the comments. United Auto Workers members at the regions two General Motors plants will have their say this week on the unions tentative deal with the automaker. Members of UAW Local 774 at the GM Town of Tonawanda engine plant are scheduled to vote Monday, while members of Local 686 at the Lockport components plant will cast ballots Wednesday. Companywide, the UAW has about 46,000 members at GM facilities. That figure includes about 1,400 members at the Lockport plant and 753 members at the Tonawanda plant. The UAW went on strike at selected GM, Ford and Stellantis plants for about six weeks before reaching tentative agreements with the automakers in late October. UAW members at the GM and Ford plants in the Buffalo Niagara region were not called to join the walkout. The deals still need to be ratified in order to take effect. If approved, the UAW contracts with the Detroit Three would run through April 2028. GMs tentative deal with the UAW includes a pledge by the automaker to invest $300 million in the Tonawanda engine plant, for drive-unit production for electric vehicles. That investment would give the Tonawanda plant which builds internal combustion engines a clear connection to GMs electric vehicle future, as GM aims to build an all-electric fleet by 2035. GM didnt pledge any additional investment in the Lockport plant under the tentative deal. But the automaker affirmed a previously announced $154 million investment in the site that would include production of stator modules for electric vehicles. Meanwhile, UAW members at Ford plants are scheduled to finish voting Friday on the tentative deal with their employer. The UAW has about 56,000 members at Ford plants, including 749 at the stamping plant in Hamburg. Workers at Fords stamping plant in Hamburg voted strongly in favor of the deal. Automotive News reported that production workers at the plant voted 288 to 82 in favor, while skilled trades workers voted 183 to 45 in favor. Ford has pledged to invest $80 million in the Hamburg plant under the agreement, including to make stamped parts for electric vehicles. As of Sunday, 69% of production workers and 82% of skilled trades workers at plants across Ford had voted in favor of the deal, with more locals yet to vote or report their results, according to the Automotive News vote tracker. In 2019, a majority of UAW members at both the Tonawanda and Lockport plants voted against a tentative deal with GM, but the agreement still passed on a national level. At the Hamburg stamping plant four years ago, a majority of members voted in favor of the deal with Ford. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A man who evacuated from a town in Iceland after earthquakes put the region on alert for a volcanic eruption said he fears he might never see his home again. Caitlin McLean, from Scotland, was visiting her boyfriend, Gisli Gunnarsson, in Grindavik when they were forced to flee his home at midnight on Friday, packing only a few essential items, to stay with Mr Gunnarssons mother in Reykjavik. Police evacuated Grindavik after seismic activity in the area moved south towards the town, with a corridor of magma, or semi-molten rock, now thought to be extending under the community, Icelands Meteorological Office said. Ms McLean, 34, captured the moment the furniture and light fixtures shook violently in Mr Gunnarssons home on Friday. At around four on Friday, (the earthquakes) just started being non-stop. Just constant big quakes for hours, Mr Gunnarsson, 29, told the PA news agency The music composer, who was born and raised in Grindavik, described the situation as grim. He said: First and foremost, the thought that you might never see your home town ever again, thats tough. We all rushed out of (Grindavik) so quickly, in a matter of hours, so we didnt really think at the time that might possibly be the last time we see our home, so thats been difficult. Its a pretty grim situation at the moment. Ms McLean, an artist, added that the situation has been difficult for people to understand. She told PA: I think its difficult for the residents to really process that. I think everyones still a wee bit shocked and its not really sinking in there is a possibility theyre not going to be able to go home. It's a pretty grim situation at the moment Gisli Gunnarsson, resident of Grindavik Ms McLean has urged volcano enthusiasts to avoid the area and be respectful to people whose homes have been affected. She said: I would definitely say theres been quite a lot of people wanting to fly over (to Iceland), like people that are interested in volcanoes and lava. Theyre trying to keep tourists away because theres been people already trying to fly drones over the town. I understand for a lot of people this is a big spectacle, but these people are losing their homes potentially, so just to be respectful. Mr Gunnarsson said the earthquakes on Friday were the worst he has experienced. Not even the search and rescue are really going (to the town) at the moment. The uncertainty is too high and its ready to pop at any moment, the eruption, he said. The Blue Lagoon geothermal spa, one of Icelands biggest tourist attractions, said on Thursday it would close until November 16 due to the risk of an eruption. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Sir Keir Starmer is on course for a landslide general election victory bigger than 1997, despite party tensions over the Israel-Hamas conflict. The Labour leader would become prime minister with a 212-seat majority if an election were held tomorrow, according to a Survation poll on behalf of the UK Spirits Alliance. The survey, based on new constituency boundaries taking effect at the next election, is the first of its kind since Hamas launched a wave of terror attacks on Israel on 7 October. In the month since, Sir Keirs party has been plagued by infighting over whether to call for a ceasefire as the civilian death toll grows in Gaza. The Labour leader has defied pressure to call for an end to Israels assault, warning that to do so would solely benefit Hamas. He has instead called for humanitarian pauses to allow aid into the besieged Strip, in line with the UK and US governments. But several frontbenchers have rejected the principle of collective responsibility, breaking the party line and backing a ceasefire. Last week Imran Hussain, the MP for Bradford East, announced he was quitting his role as shadow minister for the new deal for working people, to be able to strongly advocate for a ceasefire. The Labour leader has been struggling to maintain discipline in his top team over the Israel-Hamas conflict (PA Wire) Almost 50 Labour councillors have quit and hundreds of local representatives oppose the leaderships stance. Despite the weeks of infighting dominating media coverage of Labour, the new poll suggests the party could secure 431 seats, compared to the Conservatives on 156. In his 1997 victory, Sir Tony Blair won 418 seats, compared with Sir John Majors Tories on 165, securing a 179-seat majority. The Survation poll, reported by The Sunday Times, suggests nine cabinet ministers would lose their seats, including former leadership contender Penny Mordaunt, seen by many as a major contender to replace Rishi Sunak. Other major scalps that are expected include defence secretary Grant Shapps, transport secretary Mark Harper, work and pensions secretary Mel Stride and justice secretary Alex Chalk. A separate Opinium poll this weekend revealed Labours lead over the Conservatives has increased to 17 points, up from 15 a fortnight ago. Labour now has 43 per cent of the vote share, while the Conservatives are on 26 per cent. Opinium said Labour and Sir Keir have taken some big hits in terms of public perception over the conflict in Gaza, but the Conservatives have let them off the hook. James Crouch, Opiniums head of policy and public affairs, said: The government seems to have let Labour off the hook on what could have been a very difficult week for the opposition. Labours response to the conflict in the Middle East has made the party look less united, and Starmer look much weaker than before. However, by the end of the week the news had moved on to Conservative divisions and indecision, leaving the door open to a 17-point Labour lead in the polls. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The advertising giant that helped to put Margaret Thatcher in power has attacked the cruelty of the Conservatives and predicted a Labour victory at the general election. The strategy chief at Saatchi & Saatchi the agency behind the Labour isnt working ads prior to the 1979 landslide says Britain needs saving from five more years of stagnation, cruelty and despair. Writing for The Independent, Richard Huntington condemns Tory divisiveness but also insists that Sir Keir Starmer still has to prove he can be an effective leader like Thatcher. The intervention by the Saatchi & Saatchi chief represents the latest blow for Rishi Sunaks party after Conservative grandee Kenneth Clarke threw his weight behind Rachel Reeves as chancellor following a ringing endorsement from former Bank of England governor Mark Carney. It comes as a new poll suggests Keir Starmer is on course for a landslide general election victory bigger than that secured by Sir Tony Blairs in 1997. The Labour leader would become prime minister with a 212-seat majority if an election were held tomorrow, according to the Survation surgvey on behalf of the UK Spirits Alliance. Despite the desertion of top Tory donors as big business turns to Labour, Mr Huntington says Sir Keir still has to overcome deep public pessimism and overturn the idea that government of any stripe is ineffective. Whether you loved or hated her, Margaret Thatcher was the embodiment of effective government, writes the ad guru, challenging Sir Keir to show how both main parties have been able to change things for the better over the decades. Labour Isnt Working was an advertising campaign run by Saatchi & Saatchi for the Tories in 1978 (No Name) He adds that, with a generation of voters only knowing 15 years of national regression, Labour is almost certain to win the next election. Mr Huntington writes: He [Starmer] will need to show humility and champion effective government. The intervention represents another coup for Sir Keir and shadow chancellor Ms Reeves as they continue their efforts to reassure business chiefs that they are ready to govern. The renowned advertising firm had been closely tied with the Conservatives after helping deliver three successive electoral victories for Thatcher though the party later moved to the breakaway M&C Saatchi. Mr Huntington said that while Labour was set to be the biggest party, there was still a question over whether Sir Keir can pull off a majority or even a landslide unless he creates real public enthusiasm for his party. Saatchi & Saatchis chief strategy officer said the crucial difference between Tony Blairs landslide in 1997 and today was cynicism about the idea of effective government. He wrote: In 1997, people believed that the UK government could deliver. In 2023, they dont believe that any government has the power to make the slightest bit of difference. Saatchi & Saatchi, which previously ran a series of anti-Labour ads, is now backing Keir Starmer (The Advertising Archives) Mr Huntington said that while the Tories scrap for votes through a deliberate strategy of divisiveness ... Labour could spend the next year restoring British peoples belief in the basic concept of effective government. He said a new generation of voters has only known 15 years of national regression since the global financial crisis calling on Sir Keir to champion real-world examples of effective government from across the political spectrum. He added: Because, while we desperately need saving from five more years of stagnation, cruelty and despair, there is a far bigger prize at hand: the restoration of effective government and, with it, faith in our democracy itself. Frozen food chain Icelands executive chair, Richard Walker, became the latest Tory donor to withdraw his support last month, saying he was open to supporting Sir Keir, while Phones4U founder John Caudwell said he would not back the Tories after the madness of Mr Sunaks U-turn on net zero and that he was thinking of giving to Labour instead. Another Tory donor, Philip Harris, founder of Carpetright, said the Conservative Party did not deserve to win the 2024 general election. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Sir Keir Starmer has accused Suella Braverman of whipping up division and sowing the seeds of hatred and distrust ahead of Armistice Day commemorations that saw far-right thugs clash with police. The Labour leader accused Ms Braverman of demeaning the office of home secretary by accusing police of bias for allowing the pro-Palestine march through London to go ahead, and piled fresh pressure on Rishi Sunak to sack her. He joined a slew of senior Tories, as well as London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Scottish first minister Humza Yousaf who blamed Ms Braverman for stoking tensions that led to far-right protesters target police. A mass rally of around 300,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators in London passed off without major incident while more than 100 far-right thugs who turned up to confront them were detained by police after a series of violent skirmishes. Ms Braverman was accused of inciting the violence by criticising police for refusing to ban the pro-Palestine march. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Sir Keir said Ms Braverman had set her face against the values Britain fought for. He accused some pro-Palestinian demonstrators of glorifying the terrorists of Hamas or calling for the destruction of Israel, but said blanket calls for the march to be cancelled were wrong. The fact those calls have come from the highest levels of government should trouble everyone, regardless of whether you agree with their cause or not, he said. Sir Keir added: The home secretary and the prime ministers treatment of the police and protesters alike this week coming just a few days after she shamefully described homelessness as a lifestyle choice betray a total lack of respect for this countrys values and its principles. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak i sunder mounting pressure to sack Suella Braverman (PA Wire) Few people in public life have done more recently to whip up division, set the British people against one another and sow the seeds of hatred and distrust than Suella Braverman. In doing so, she demeans her office. She also sets her face against the very values that Britain has fought for: values that the rest of the country will pay tribute to this weekend. It came as Tory grandee Dominic Grieve repeated his call for Ms Braverman to quit. The former attorney general told Sky News she made community cohesion and community relationships more difficult. And Mr Grieve said the home secretary showed she was incapable of understanding her duty to maintain the right to demonstrate under the rule of law. She should resign, he added. Mr Khan said it was disturbing to see the violence towards police and if the prime minister does not sack Ms Braverman, hes too weak or agrees with her. Sadly, these scenes were predictable after a week of efforts from some to stoke tension, Mr Khan wrote in the Sunday Mirror. They were a direct result of the home secretarys words and behaviour. Keir Starmer said Bravermans comments about police undermined her office (PA) If Suella Braverman had any honour she would resign and if not, Rishi Sunak should sack her. Nine officers were injured as they prevented a crowd storming the Cenotaph with Met Police Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist calling their extreme violence towards the police extraordinary and deeply concerning. A week of intense debate about protest and policing helped increase community tensions, he said. Mr Sunak has so far maintained confidence in his home secretary, even after a week in which ministers distanced themselves from her claims that homelessness is a lifestyle choice. There has been speculation the prime minister will carry out a ministerial reshuffle, which could see her moved, but not before next weeks Supreme Court ruling on the Rwanda deportation policy which she has championed. Her incendiary language on pro-Palestinian mobs has angered many, including within the Tory party, with demands for her to go increasing. Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: Suella Braverman was warned repeatedly of the dangers of inflaming tensions and undermining the police. A home secretary that doesnt take seriously the security of our streets is only allowed to remain in a government that has lost all sense of governing. Britain is better than Rishi Sunak and his cabinet. Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf earlier called for Mrs Braverman to resign. Braverman has been blame dfor inciting violence at pro-Palestine march counter protests (PA) The SNP leader tweeted: The far right has been emboldened by the home secretary. She has spent her week fanning the flames of division. They are now attacking the police on Armistice Day. The home secretarys position is untenable. She must resign. Hope Not Hate echoed the demand, with the campaign groups chief executive Nick Lowles saying Ms Braverman has inflamed tensions and, as we have seen today, whipped up the far right into a violent frenzy. Shes got to go. But Ms Braverman has supporters on the right of the party and any move against her by Mr Sunak could deepen divisions within Tory ranks. Conservative former minister Brendan Clarke-Smith defended the home secretary, saying: Ive heard some daft takes, but to try and justify this appalling behaviour by blaming an op-ed in The Times, which simply stated the flaming obvious, is pathetic. Tory backbencher Danny Kruger said: You know what, with the benefit of hindsight, maybe it would have been best if the march today hadnt been allowed to go ahead. Ms Braverman rowed back her language on the eve of Armistice Day, giving police her full backing at a meeting with Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley. It came after her article in The Times, in which she claimed officers play favourites towards pro-Palestinian protesters, was disowned by Downing Street and provoked fury among Tory MPs. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Grant Shapps has refused to say if Suella Braverman will still be home secretary next week amid growing calls for her to be sacked. The defence secretary said a week is a long time in politics and he would never make predictions about these things as it was a matter for the prime minister. His refusal to back Ms Braverman comes as she faces mounting pressure to quit having been accused of inciting a mob of far-right protesters to descend on London and attack police on Armistice Day. There has been speculation Mr Sunak will carry out a ministerial reshuffle, which could see her moved, but not before next weeks Supreme Court ruling on the Rwanda deportation policy which she has championed. Asked about a potential reshuffle, Mr Shapps told Sky News: The makeup of the cabinet is entirely a matter for the prime minister. He will decide that in his own time. Home Secretary Suella Braverman is under fire from all sides after accusing police of bias (Jordan Pettitt, PA) (PA Wire) Pressed on whether Ms Braverman would be home secretary this time next week, he said: As you and I know well, a week is a long time in politics and I never make predictions about these things. Ms Braverman will lay a wreath at the Cenotaph in London on Sunday morning, having remained silent on Saturdays demonstrations so far. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, she said: This morning I will be attending the National Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph, paying my respects to our fallen heroes. We must honour them and the veterans who survive for the sacrifices they made so that we may live safe and free. Her appearance comes after a mass rally of around 300,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators in London passed off without major incident on Saturday while more than 100 far-right thugs who turned up to confront them were detained by police after a series of violent clashes. Mr Shapps denied that ministers were partly to blame for the chaos that unfolded despite Ms Braverman talking about pro-Palestinian mobs in the run up to the Armistice Day commemorations. Grant Shapps refused to back Suella Braverman (PA Wire) He said that the people who were going to come and disrupt this weekend had already said they were going to do it. Some people just turned up determined, by the way nothing to do with what the home secretary said, having already said they would be here doing these things to disrupt things here at the Cenotaph, he added. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, mayor of London Sadiq Khan, Scottish first minister Humza Yousaf and a slew of senior Tories blamed Ms Braverman for the violence that erupted, calling for Rishi Sunak to sack her. Mr Sunak has so far maintained confidence in his home secretary, even after a week in which ministers distanced themselves from her claims that homelessness is a lifestyle choice. Labour leader Sir Keir has accused Ms Braverman of demeaning the office of home secretary with her remarks in the run up to Remembrance Weekend. Sir Keir said: Few people in public life have done more recently to whip up division, set the British people against one another and sow the seeds of hatred and distrust than Suella Braverman. In doing so, she demeans her office. She also sets her face against the very values that Britain has fought for: values that the rest of the country will pay tribute to this weekend. It came as Tory grandee Dominic Grieve repeated his call for Ms Braverman to quit. The former attorney general told Sky News the home secretary showed she was incapable of understanding her duty to maintain the right to demonstrate under the rule of law. She should resign, he added. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A centenarian who is one of the last surviving air crew from the Second World War Bomber Command said it is important to keep memories alive after honouring fallen soldiers for Remembrance Day. Clifford Storr, 100, a resident at Care UKs Seccombe Court in Banbury, fulfilled his wish to visit the International Bomber Command Centre (IBCC) and pay tribute to those who served with him, which he described as a day to remember. Mr Storr laid a wreath and observed a moment of silence to remember his fallen comrades, calling the experience humbling. It was a day to remember. It was such a thrill to be taken to the IBCC. Keeping these memories alive is so important, Mr Storr said. Meeting other retired RAF personnel was an honour as well as being able to lay a wreath for all the fallen soldiers, especially locating the names of two of my crew members who did not survive, and placing a poppy for them was humbling. The centenarian travelled in style in a limousine along with members of Seccombe Court to the IBCC where he saw the Memorial Spire and Walls of Names. Mr Storr joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) aged 17 and in 1942 trained as a Lancaster Bomber navigator becoming a flight lieutenant at RAF Coningsby, in Lincolnshire. Mr Storr, who survived a crash landing uninjured and completed two tours in Germany as well as more than 50 operations, said the hardest part of the war was losing his friends. He said he never knew if it was his turn next and would see the empty places at breakfast the next morning. The IBCC, in Lincoln, recognises the contributions of Bomber Command and hopes to teach future generations about its role in the Second World War. Mr Storr was greeted by IBCC chief executive Nicky van der Drift as well as former air chief marshal Sir Michael Graydon, retired air vice-marshal Paul Robinson and former RAF officer Sidney MacFarlane. Wojciech Kuczkowski, general manager at Seccombe Court, said: It was important for us to help grant his wish to honour those who have served in the military just like he has. Here at Seccombe Court, we recognise the importance of paying tribute to those who served in the Armed Forces, as many of the residents have, especially in the lead up to Remembrance Day. We want to say a massive thank you to the International Bomber Command Centre for helping Clifford fulfil his wish and continuing to keep an important part of history alive and ensure people like Cliffords legacy is remembered for generations to come. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Suella Braverman has condemned sick, inflammatory and, in some cases, clearly criminal chants and placards at a pro-Palestinian march on Armistice Day as police charged seven people over disorder that mainly stemmed from far-right counter-protests. The Home Secretary demanded further action as she warned that Londons streets are being polluted by hate, violence and antisemitism, in comments that appear unlikely to calm tensions. She praised police for their professionalism in the face of violence and aggression from protesters and counter-protesters. But her first public remarks since Saturdays ugly scenes focused on displays of antisemitism by some on the pro-Palestinian march she had urged police to ban. The Metropolitan Police said seven men had been charged with offences including assault on an emergency worker, criminal damage and possession of an offensive weapon. Officers made 145 arrests during the main demonstration and the counter-protest by far-right groups, the force said. Mrs Braverman has been under fire for inflaming tensions after she last week branded pro-Palestinian protesters hate marchers and accused police of bias for allowing the rally coinciding with remembrance events to go ahead. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is facing intensifying calls to sack her as his Home Secretary. Her latest intervention appeared to pile pressure on police to stop weekly pro-Palestinian demonstrations by saying this cant go on. Writing on social media site X on Sunday, she said: The sick, inflammatory and, in some cases, clearly criminal chants, placards and paraphernalia openly on display at the march mark a new low. Antisemitism and other forms of racism together with the valorising of terrorism on such a scale is deeply troubling. This cant go on. Week by week, the streets of London are being polluted by hate, violence, and antisemitism. Members of the public are being mobbed and intimidated. Jewish people in particular feel threatened. Further action is necessary. Praising police, she said: Our brave police officers deserve the thanks of every decent citizen for their professionalism in the face of violence and aggression from protesters and counter protesters in London yesterday. That multiple officers were injured doing their duty is an outrage. Nine officers were injured as they prevented a violent crowd reaching the Cenotaph. Mr Sunak has said he expects far-right thugs and Hamas sympathisers to face the full and swift force of the law. The Prime Minister said he will meet Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley in the coming days and repeated his threat to hold the police chief accountable for allowing the pro-Palestinian march to take place on Armistice Day. With Mr Sunak under growing pressure to fire Mrs Braverman, senior Cabinet minister Grant Shapps failed to back her survival as Home Secretary for another week, saying a weeks a long time in politics. Mr Shapps played down suggestions that her comments had emboldened far-right groups who caused trouble in London, saying the counter-protest was already going to happen. But shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper blamed the unrest on Mrs Bravermans appalling and unprecedented attack on the polices impartiality and her deliberate stoking of tensions. Hundreds of thousands of people took part in the biggest UK rally since the Israel-Hamas conflict began on October 7. Police said that while the march did not see the sort of violence carried out by far-right groups, officers were investigating serious offences relating to antisemitism and hate crimes. The Met said on Sunday that seven men between the ages of 21 and 75 had been charged, hailing from areas including London, Kent, Norfolk and West Lothian. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor, who led the Metropolitan Police operation on Saturday, said: Public order policing doesnt end when demonstrators go home. We have teams of officers who continue to build cases against those in custody and launch investigations into those who come to our attention when images and videos are shared on social media.Appeals in relation to eight incidents have been published, with more expected, he said. A total of 91 people were arrested to prevent a breach of the peace in Pimlico as they tried to confront the main pro-Palestinian march, the Met said. Meanwhile, Cabinet minister Michael Gove thanked police for getting him home safely after he was mobbed by pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Londons Victoria station. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Pope Francis forcibly removed a conservative Texas bishop who had been a staunch critic of his progressive reforms of the Catholic Church. The Vatican announced on Saturday 11 November that Bishop Joseph Strickland had been relieved of his position as the head of the Diocese of Tyler after the pope ordered an apostolic visitation in June. Bishop Strickland emerged as a leading critic of the pontiff, claiming his leadership was undermining the Deposit of Faith and amplifying videos on social media that described Francis as a diabolically disordered clown. Cardinal Daniel Nicholas DiNardo, of the Metropolitan Archbishop of Galveston-Houston, said in a statement that his removal came after the Vatican ordered an investigation into all aspects of the governance and leadership. Pope Francis has fired Texas bishop Joseph Strickland, a staunch critic of his leadership (AFP via Getty Images) An exhaustive probe by two US bishops concluded that his continued leadership would be unfeasible, the cardinal added. Bishop Strickland had declined a request to resign, leading to the Pope ordering his firing, Cardinal DiNardo said. The firing has led to an outcry among conservative Catholic commentators in the US. This is total war, The Remnant Newspaper editor Michael Matt wrote on X. Francis is a clear and present danger not only to Catholics the world over but also to the whole world itself. It appears now that he is actively trying to bury fidelity to the Church of Jesus Christ. Bishop Joseph Strickland was relieved as head of the Diocese of Tyler (AP) This week, the Pope said that the church would allow transgender Catholics to be baptised and serve as godparents as long as it did not create scandal or confusion. He has previously stated that gay marriages could be blessed and the church was open to all as part of growing outreach to the LGBTQ community. Pope Francis has also spoken out frequently about climate change as a grave threat. His approach has put him at odds with more conservative elements of the church in the US. Bishop Strickland, 65, was appointed head of the diocese in 2012 by Benedict XVI. He was an outspoken critic of Covid-19 vaccines and lockdowns, and described Joe Biden as an evil president for his support of abortion rights. He will be temporarily replaced by Bishop Joe Vasquez of Austin. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} President Emmanuel Macron has called on the French people to rise up against anti-Jewish acts ahead of a march in the capital later on Sunday to protest against rising antisemitism. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and numerous other politicians are to attend the march in the French capital. Paris authorities have deployed 3,000 police troops along the route of the protest called by the leaders of the Senate and parliaments lower house, the National Assembly, amid an alarming increase in anti-Jewish acts in France since the start of Israels war against Hamas after its Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel. French authorities have registered a more than 1,000 acts against Jews around the country in a month since the conflict in the Middle East began. In a letter addressed to the French on Sunday, and vowed that perpetrators will be prosecuted and punished. A France where our Jewish fellow citizens are afraid is not France, Macron said in the letter, published in Le Parisien newspaper. He called on the country to remain united behind its values ... and work for peace and security for all in the Middle East. He noted that 40 French citizens were killed in the initial Hamas attack, and eight remain missing or held hostage. "To this pain of the nation has been added the unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism, he said. Macron said he will attend in my heart and in spirit, but not in person. My role is to build unity of the country and to be firm on values, Macron said Saturday on the sidelines of Armistice Day commemorations to mark the end of World War I. French far-right leader Marine Le Pen is likely to attend Sunday's march amid fierce criticism that her once-pariah National Rally party has failed to shake off its antisemitic heritage despite growing political legitimacy. As of Saturday, officials counted 1,247 antisemitic acts since Oct. 7, nearly three times as many as for the whole of 2022, according to the Interior Ministry. France has the largest Jewish population in Europe, but given its own World War II collaboration with the Nazis, antisemitic acts today open old scars. France has largely banned pro-Palestinian demonstrations, although supporters have marched in several French cities in the past weeks, including thousands demanding a cease-fire in Gaza in an authorized protest in Paris last Sunday. What to know about the week ahead Buffalo Startup Week will begin Monday as a weeklong celebration of entrepreneurship in Western New York with plenty of movers and shakers from the local and national ecosystem gathering at Seneca One tower. It will feature an array of daily speakers, seminars, sounding boards and roundtable discussions for entrepreneurs, investors and employees, as well as networking events and product and tech expos. Hosted by BootSector and inside the building that is home to 43North and M&T Tech, the programs are intended to educate, inspire and connect Buffalos community of entrepreneurs and those who support them in a variety of ways. Also during the week, there will be a Made in WNY expo, availability of a drop-in work space and programming detailing free resources and tools available to founders in the region. Lorine Pendleton will be the keynote speaker for Buffalo Startup Week, discussing her journey as an entrepreneur and investor at 7:30 p.m. Thursday. Among the speakers during the week will also be Richard Kim, director of startup ventures at the University at Buffalo, who will give a talk at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday about the regions emerging startup ecosystem. The full schedule is available at https://buffalostartupweek2023.sched.com. The Bengal Entrepreneurship Competition finals, featuring business plan pitches, will be 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, at the Jacqueline Vito LoRusso Alumni and Visitor Center at SUNY Buffalo State University. The total prize package is $3,000, with funding from Bank of America. The event is presented by the Small Business Development Center at SUNY Buffalo State. Members of United Auto Workers Local 774 at General Motors' Town of Tonawanda engine plant will vote Monday on a tentative agreement with the automaker. Members of UAW Local 686 at GM's Lockport plant are scheduled to vote Wednesday. The Buffalo Niagara Partnership will deliver its annual report to members from 8 to 10 a.m. Thursday at Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park. Ten entrepreneurs from the Buffalo and Rochester areas will pitch their businesses Tuesday with a chance to win up to $5,000. The pitch competition serves as the finale of the Business Plan Loan Readiness Workshop, offering emerging and existing entrepreneurs with a focus on diverse entrepreneurs a platform to showcase their business ideas and compete for financial support. The event will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. at The Exchange at Beverly Gray, 334 E. Utica St., Buffalo. It marks the final session of an eight-week training program designed in collaboration between the Enterprise Center at PathStone and Rochester Economic Development Corp. to prepare entrepreneurs to create complete business plans and loan packages. A Buffalo event on Thursday will help nonprofit organizations learn how they can benefit from free technology resources. Tech Connect: Unlocking Nonprofit Potential with Tech Resources is a half-day forum from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Seneca One that will feature speakers and practical advice. Admission is free and open to any employee of a Western New York nonprofit. The event is being organized by TechBuffalo, in collaboration with New York State Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes and Microsoft TechSpark. Register at https://lu.ma/TechConnect. THE LATEST A Clarence company is acquiring a Medina adult care facility. Renovations at a closed Buffalo school provide housing for veterans. Where will the local auto plants fit in an electric vehicle world? Gov. Hochul formed a new health commission. What will it do? The Buffalo Bisons are looking for state money for stadium improvements. Windsong Radiology was hit by a big data breach. A Wheatfield electronics firm wants tax breaks to expand. Evans Bank sellling its insurance business. New commercial space is planned near Larkinville. GM's engine plant in the Town of Tonawanda is getting a big investment, with big implications for the future. JC Penney is still fighting an eminent domain proceeding in Amherst. ICYMI Five reads from Buffalo Next: 1. Flexlume is aglow over its new Lackawanna home. 2. A high-priced sale has property owners around the new Buffalo Bills stadium hoping that they, too, can sell for big bucks. 3. Hideaway Bay Resort brings luxury 'eco-resort' to Lake Erie beach. 4. The long-abandoned Trico Products building in downtown Buffalo is slowly taking shape. 5. Why the Buffalo Niagara job market doesn't look quite as vulnerable as it did a month earlier. 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. Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up to get the latest in your inbox five days a week. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A volcanic eruption could destroy the Icelandic town of Grindavik or lead to extensive ash clouds, experts have warned. The country has been shaken by more than 2,000 small earthquakes in the past few days, prompting fears that the tremors could disrupt the Fagradalsfjall volcano on the Reykjanes peninsula in the southwest of the country. Thousands have been told to evacuate Grindavik as a precautionary measure, while a magma tunnel stretches below the surface. If an eruption occurs in or close to the town, the consequences will be devastating, volcanologist Armann Hoskuldsson warned. He told state broadcaster RUV: This is very bad news. One of the most serious scenarios is an eruption in the town itself, similar to that in Vestmannaeyjar 50 years ago. This would be much worse. Ragga Agustsdottir, who lives close to Grindavik, said residents were fearful of what could happen if an eruption struck. The scenario on the table now is that it will happen in or just north of the town of Grindavik. Theres no good option here, she told The Independent. If a volcanic eruption does not happen in Grindavik, one could occur out at sea, experts have said. Damage due to volcanic activity at a golf course in Grindavik (Reuters) MP Gisli Olafsson said the country is praying that the worst-case scenarios do not happen. He shared on X/Twitter: The situation in Grindavik continues to become even more grave than before. The town has already suffered considerable damage from the earthquakes and from the shifts in the ground as the magma thrusts itself upwards. He said a 15km (9.3-mile) magma tunnel could turn into a fissure vent eruption as the chamber beneath the area is twice as large as in previous eruptions in Reykjanes over the past few years. There is a chance that the eruption could occur under the ocean, resulting in an explosive eruption and extensive ash clouds, he said. A danger zone has been defined based on the location of the magma tunnel (Icelandic Met Office) Scientists have warned that they may not be able to give any further warning of when the magma reaches the surface, making it quite dangerous to go in there, he added. The warning comes as 880 earthquakes below magnitude three were recorded overnight, compared to the previous 1,485 earthquakes that rocked the country in previous days. Some 3,000 residents have been evacuated, with many forced to leave their pets behind. Seismic activity mapped around Grindavik (Provided) A meeting on Saturday afternoon determined that only residents from the Porkatlustao district were able to return safely for a short time to collect necessities, reported RUV. Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson, a professor of geophysics, told RUV that seismic activity has continued despite slowing down. He predicted three scenarios: the first is an eruption near Grindavik or north of the town; the second is that there is no eruption; and the third, and least likely prediction, according to Mr Gudmundsson, is an undersea eruption. Iceland is highly susceptible to natural disasters because it lies on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge a divergent plate boundary where the North American Plate and the Eurasian Plate are moving away from each other, leading to volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Lava spurts and flows after the eruption of a volcano on the Reykjanes peninsula in July (Reuters) I dont think its long before an eruption, hours or a few days. The chance of an eruption has increased significantly, Thorvaldur Thordarson, professor of volcanology at the University of Iceland, told RUV yesterday. Reykjanes is a volcanic and seismic hotspot southwest of the capital Reykjavik. In March 2021, lava fountains erupted spectacularly from a fissure in the ground measuring 500-750m long in the regions Fagradalsfjall volcanic system. Close Kyiv suffers largest ever drone attack by Russia leaving five wounded For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Russian troops have failed to move forward in six areas along the frontline, Ukraine military has said amid heavy missile attacks and ground clashes between the opposing forces. A total of 73 combat skirmishes took place across the wars frontline in the past 24 hours, an update from Ukraines General Staff of the Armed Forces on Thursday read, a day after Russia launched more than 100 attacks to recapture its lost positions in eastern Ukraine s Robotyne. Meanwhile in Pokrovsk, emergency crews helped rescue a man with a six-month-old baby, covered in blood, in his hands, officials said. The strikes destroyed a multi-storey building, nine houses, a police office and cars. Emergency workers pulled the body of a 62-year-old man from the wreckage of a destroyed multi-storey building in Novohrodivka. Four more people may be under the rubble, including a child, authorities said. It comes as statistics by a longtime Russo-Ukraine War military data researcher suggested Russian forces have faces record losses this month. Data published by Ragnar Gudmundsson said more than 25,000 Russian service personnel died or were severely wounded in combat in Ukraine in November. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Watch from Gaza as displaced Palestinians continue fleeing from the north to the south. Thousands of people are fleeing northern Gaza as Israels military pushed deeper into dense urban neighbourhoods in its battle with Hamas militants. Officials in the besieged enclave said the Palestinian death toll has surpassed 11,000. The search for safety in Gaza is growing more desperate as combat intensifies, with residents who escaped to the south and Palestinian health officials reporting strikes in and around Gaza Citys main hospital overnight. Israel claimed at least one was the result of a misfired Palestinian rocket. Calls for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict continued on Saturday (11 November) as a large pro-Palestine march took place in London. Scores of counter-protesters were arrested in the capital as hundreds of thousands of people took part in the biggest UK rally since the conflict began on 7 October. Police said there were 300,000 people on the march but organisers said the latest estimate was more than 800,000. Sign up to our free weekly IndyTech newsletter delivered straight to your inbox Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the IndyTech email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Google will begin deleting inactive Gmail, Photos and Drive accounts from Friday, 1 December, the technology giant has warned. The purge is part of a major update to the platform, impacting all personal Google accounts that have been left dormant for at least two years. Millions of accounts may be at risk of being permanently deleted, with some users warning that among those affected could be parents who have set up accounts to share memories and milestones with young children. Google has already begun warning users that might be impacted, saying in a blog post earlier this year that the policy would come into effect in December 2023. We are updating our inactivity policy for Google Accounts to two years across our products, Ruth Kricheli, Googles vice president of product management, wrote in a blog post in May. This update aligns our policy with industry standards around retention and account deletion and also limits the amount of time Google retains your unused personal information. The move is aimed at protecting active Google users from security threats like phishing scams and account hijacking. Old accounts that have not been used for years are typically at risk from hackers as they may use the same passwords that have been compromised in other security breaches, which are easily available on the dark web. Google is gearing up to start deleting millions of inactive users this Friday, across all of its services, including Google Drive and Gmail. It may sound alarming, but you still have time to rescue your files before Google hits the terminate button, said Alex Tofts, broadband expert at Broadband Genie. Cloud services have suffered cybersecurity breaches in the past and this latest measure will not only free up space for the tech giant, but also prevent inactive accounts from becoming compromised by hackers. Unfortunately, it does mean that many users who havent used their accounts in the past two years will soon lose access to photos and other files that had been stored automatically. Any account at risk of deletion will receive multiple notifications before any action is taken, Google said, including to any associated recovery email addresses. The tech giant has already begun sending emails to those affected, telling users it is to protect your private information and prevent any unauthorised access to your account even if youre no longer using our services. Losing access to a Gmail account could also potentially prevent people from using other online platforms and services that are associated with that email address, even if they are not related to Google. In order to keep an account active and avoid being deleted, Google users are advised to open or send an email, use Google Drive, download an app on the Google Play Store, or simply make a Google Search while logged in to the account. Any account that has posted a video to YouTube will also not be impacted, regardless of when it was last active. Google did not respond to a request for comment from The Independent, or offer any further information about how many accounts may be impacted. Timothee Chalamet referenced the conclusion of the long-running actors strike in his Saturday Night Monologue and promoted his new film by signing in the style of Willy Wonka. Hollywood stars have been unable to talk about their work during the 118-day despite, but all that was forgotten as Chalamet took centre stage in New York. Come with me, and youll be in a world of shameless self-promotion - its OK, I can say the actor crooned, before turning to the camera to plug the Wonka premiere on 15 December. He then name-dropped Martin Scorseses film Killers of the Flower Moon and his own sci-fi epic Dune: Part Two as he sang more lines. A group of pro-Palestine protesters surrounded Michael Gove shouting shame on you! as he was heading into Victoria Station after the Cenotaph ceremony on Saturday 11 November. In footage posted on X, the Levelling up secretary was seen walking through the station entrance as Palestinian flags were waved around him and demonstrators called free Palestine. Tension across the capital was on the rise after far-right groups clashed with police in London on the same day that around 300.000 protesters gathered to call for a ceasefire in Israels war against Hamas. Far-right groups clashed with police in London on the same day that hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered across the capital, calling for a ceasefire in Israels war against Hamas. Expected to be the biggest demonstration in a single day over the Israel-Palestine conflict to date, the pro-Palestine march began at midday, shortly after an Armistice Day service at the Cenotaph. Ahead of the demonstration, scuffles broke out between police and far-right counter-protesters opposing the march in a number of locations across the capital, including in Chinatown and Westminster. Officers arrested dozens of counter-protesters in Tachbrook Street, Pimlico, to prevent a breach of the peace on Saturday afternoon. A rescue ship saved 118 migrants plucking them out of unseaworthy boats in rough seas in the Maltese rescue zone. On Friday 10 November, the Life Ship run by the non-profit group Emergency conducted two different operations, one rescuing 41 people in a fiber-glass boat at dawn and another at night 77 migrants in a wooden boat. Emergency confirmed the migrants rescued were Eritreans, Ethiopians, Sudanese, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Syrians, Egyptians and Palestinians. According to Italys Interior Ministry, over 145,000 migrants have arrived in Italy by sea in 2023. M&A Insurance brokerage group Ardonagh has acquired the largest independent commercial broker for small and medium-sized enterprises in Switzerland. According to a statement from the company, Ardonagh has completed the acquisition of Assepro. The Swiss broker, which also has operations in Austria and Liechtenstein, has 300 employees across 24 locations, placing CHF1.2bn (1.24bn) of premiums annually. Commenting on the acquisition, Dubliner Conor Brennan, executive chairman of Ardonaghs international platform and chief executive of its Irish platform Arachas, said Assepro had ambitious growth targets. Assepro offers a diverse range of general insurance, accidental and health, and life and pensions products. The business has grown significantly in recent years through a combination of organic growth and targeted mergers and acquisitions. Since 2017, Assepro has successfully acquired and integrated more than 20 businesses, supporting its expansion across Europe. Ardonagh is growing its presence in Europe, with operations in Portugal, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Spain, France and Cyprus. Arachas, one of the most active dealmakers in the industry in the Republic in recent years, was acquired in 2020 by Ardonagh, which is backed by US private equity firms Madison Dearborn and HPS Partners, for 250m. Ardonagh is led by Irishman David Ross. Buffalo Public Schools has substantially trimmed its number of students disciplined for vaping when comparing the first two months of last school year to September and October this year. According to a presentation last week to the Buffalo School Board by Sharon Brown, Buffalo Schools chief of student support services, the district recorded 41 disciplinary referrals for vape use so far this year, down from 86 during the same span in 2022. Browns talk focused on the impact of Kids Escaping Drugs, a community partner of Buffalo Schools introduced last spring after new board member Terri Schuta and Board President Sharon Belton-Cottman urged the district to engage the free program that has long worked with school districts throughout the region. Brown said Kids Escaping Drugs educational presentations have reached 4,144 adults and children across 19 schools since February. The nonprofit organizations two program specialists have worked primarily with sixth- to eighth-grade students and high schools, helping to correct misinformation students may have regarding the impact of vaping. Kids are asking a lot of questions, Brown said. The American Lung Association says the liquid in e-cigarettes includes toxic chemicals, can cause chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and is not a safe way for smokers to quit. Its a group effort, Altman said. Since Kids Escaping Drugs is not a prevention service its considered an add-on, focused on early intervention and education program specialists Ashley Gedra and Mikayla Martin have greater flexibility to handcraft presentations to meet schools needs. Altmans team focuses on three: youth vaping for students, the dark side of social media for parents and a peer-to-peer program led by recovered drug users. Vaping has been the organizations chief focus in its presentations to Buffalo schools so far, Altman said. Vexed by student vaping, schools add detectors to bathrooms As students get savvier about concealing their vaping, districts such as Maryvale, Clarence and Grand Island say they need the latest technology to keep up. The executive director said she hopes to add another element to Buffalo Schools, targeting kindergarteners through fifth-graders. The Back2Basics program does not discuss drug use but rather emphasizes building resiliency skills, identifying safe adults and learning to avoid peer pressure. Back2Basics has been piloted in area community centers and could be a useful after-school option for Buffalo, she said. Pleased to hear positive feedback presented to the School Board, Altman reflected on what she long believed to be a missed opportunity partnering with the district. Getting into Buffalo that has always been my dream, she said, before again thanking Schuta and Belton-Cottman. I will be forever grateful. Hospitality A major backlog of cases at An Bord Pleanala means the organisation has only now issued a judgment. Photo: Getty Planners have given the green light to a temporary ice-skating rink at Leopardstown racecourse. Cork-based event management company Cool Running Events first lodged an appeal to An Bord Pleanala in October 2022, with the hope that the Leopardstown ice rink could be operational by Christmas. However, a major backlog of cases at An Bord Pleanala means the organisation has only now issued a judgment. Cool Running Events is behind some of Irelands biggest ice-skating rinks, with locations in Dun Laoghaire and Blanchardstown in Dublin, and Fota in Cork. As well as an ice rink and marque, the Leopardstown project would also include 98 temporary car parking spaces. It would be operational for three months of the year, from the end of October to the end of January. It had been rejected by Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, which said its proposed location lacked public transport and would be too heavily reliant on private car access. This point had been raised by Dundrum on Ice, the business that operates what would be a rival ice rink at the Dundrum Town Centre shopping centre. In a submission to An Bord Pleanala, the firm said the location would be car dependent and added: Facilities such as this should be in town and district centres where customers can use public transport. It said: There can only be one ice rink in any given catchment. By allowing this use in this location the prospects of attracting such activities to designated town and district centres is eliminated. An Bord Pleanala disagreed and granted permission. It said: The proposed development would not seriously injure the commercial amenity of any major or district town centre, nor would it adversely impact on the residential and transport amenities of the area. Asked if it will open an ice rink at Leopardstown during the 2023 winter season, Cool Running Events had not responded at the time of publication. Former Web Summit chief executive Paddy Cosgrave resigned in the wake of his recent comments on Israel. Photo: Horacio Villalobos Corbis/Getty Images Two years ago, in a Web Summit press conference in Lisbon, I asked Paddy Cosgrave whether he ever worried that his relentless criticism of the IDA, among other institutions, could cost him or his company business. He dismissed the question and took a shot at me in front of the press conference, half-jokingly suggesting that I was only asking the question because the IDA could be an advertiser in this newspaper. Two years later, his outspoken views have finally cost both him and his business dearly. But it wasnt inevitable that Paddy Cosgraves combative persona would cost him his job. Up until his remarks about Israel last month, his views and pronouncements mostly on things within Ireland were largely regarded as something separate, harmless even, by most of the multinationals, venture capitalists and startups that form the backbone of the Web Summits business. Nowhere was this more apparent than on his opening-night, centre-stage presentation in Lisbon in 2021. To the bemusement and confusion of the thousands present, his remarks turned to a large image on stage of Leo Varadkar as a lawbreaker. Despite ructions back home in Ireland over the comments, the thousands gathered in Lisbons impressive Altice Arena just looked blankly at it for a minute and then quickly moved on. Barely anyone outside this island seemed to give it a further thought or mention. Cosgrave has always understood the limits of what, where and who he can excoriate while still running a highly successful, profitable business. He knows that constantly laying into corrupt political and institutional bodies in Ireland holds little resonance outside these shores. But he has rarely, if ever, criticised any of the cities or countries hosting Web Summit events, despite seemingly having more than enough material in the cases of Brazil (Jair Bolsonaro was in charge when he struck the Rio Web Summit deal) or Qatar, with its numerous human rights and inequality problems. Business is business, after all. Part of the deal that the Web Summit strikes with host cities is that they will be promoted as an emerging, new or incredible hub of talent and opportunity. Pointing out oppressive anti-LGBT or discriminatory anti-female policies in those same locations wouldnt really gel with the business side of things. Cosgraves answer to this accusation has always been that he is doing nothing more than any other Irish or European company or state body does trading with those countries. He might even argue that by helping to foster a (mostly) liberal tech ecosystem and entourage, he is contributing to a more progressive political and cultural climate in those places. Ultimately, though, Cosgrave has always seen himself in two distinctive roles one as a follower and admirer of Noam Chomsky and anti-institutional 19th and 20th century economic scholars, the other as an innovative, energetic and ambitious business-builder who understands how to spot opportunity, motivate people and build competitive tension. Ive often wondered whether one of these was a mask and the other the real person. But I think that its possible to incorporate both. The world has lots of examples of mavericks Branson, Musk, Turner who seemingly tempt fate with their unconventional views while knowing when to bow to some parts of the status quo in order to advance their essential business interests. None of this mattered, though, when Cosgrave started tweeting about Israel. His usually adroit commercial antennae either let him down or was ambushed by the viscerally sharp response. This was not the same as telling the Lisbon audience about Leo the Lawbreaker. As I write this, with the Web Summit kicking off tomorrow, its hard to see a way back for him in the short term. Yet while Cosgrave is in the doghouse right now, with no shortage of schadenfreude going around, its worth acknowledging that the Web Summit remains one of Irelands most successful tech-era exports. A lot of this, maybe even the majority of it, is down to Cosgraves energy and ambition. Conferences are very hard to create and sustain. Small ones require fanatical attention to detail. Large ones need that too, but also require almost unheard-of levels of energy, passion and commitment. This is probably why Cosgrave engendered the idea of the Web Summit as a mission those working on it, or for it, sometimes needed that extra sense of purpose to pull the whole thing off. If and when Cosgrave does return to the tech conferencing business theres little chance that weve heard the last of him in a public capacity he may well hold a different view about how potent some public remarks can be. The obvious thing to say about the Government and Apples impending loss of its European Commission tax battle, is that its a real setback and very damaging. It is a lot less obvious explaining what form that damage will take. Gina London: Managers need to move beyond the tell and sell approach with staff Sorry, folks, youd think that after all the years Ive been diligently toiling away as your beloved Communicator columnist, wed have all the problems fixed. But no. In fact, the latest State of Business Communication report, published by Grammarly, points out that ineffective communication costs businesses more than 12,000 per employee in the US this year alone. How much that might translate to us living and working here in Ireland, I dont know, but Im sure its significant. So, we can all use a reminder on how to make our communications more effective. I was struck by this ongoing need for razor-sharp communication as I was meeting this past week with fellow corporate culture and communications consultant, Dayna Caceres. We were discussing the town hall event that one of my clients had put on to showcase their new company values. I was a bit disappointed because the senior leadership team chose to make an announcement to rank and file employees rather than follow my suggestion to include them in the creation process, I confided to my friend. Ah, yes, the old tell and sell approach, Dayna remarked. Thats a perfect way to describe it, I responded. Can I use that? Dayna said, by all means, because the pithy term isnt proprietary to her. Its one of the five different kinds of managerial communication styles coined by Phillip G. Clampitt, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Each style can significantly impact an organisations culture, employee morale, and overall effectiveness. Lets take a peek at each. Which one sounds most like you? 1 Spray and Pray This is characterised by a one-way, high-volume approach to sharing information. Imagine a rapid-fire presentation with no clear message or theme. Ideas, take-aways and call-to-actions shoot out like a sizzling pan of popping corn with the lid off. This could be used when youre announcing company-wide policy changes that dont pack an emotional punch or sharing generic updates. But consider the drawbacks. This style lacks personalisation and doesnt engage employees in meaningful dialogue. At least one of your many points is sure to be missed. If something is triggering, like layoffs, people will zero in only on that. Even if everything is equal, this approach can still lead to information overload, causing employees to be overwhelmed or tune out altogether. 2 Tell and Sell This is the approach Dayna mentioned. Here, a decision has been agreed upon by management and now theyre going to dedicate time explaining and persuading employees to support the decision. After the fact. In this approach, managers communicate the what and why behind a decision, often with an emphasis on the benefits of the decision to the organisation. This can be effective in situations where there is a clear need for directive leadership, such as during a crisis or when making a strategic shift. However, Tell and Sell can sometimes lead to resistance among employees who feel excluded from the decision-making process; that their input was not valued. This style also limits creativity and innovation, as employees arent empowered to contribute ideas. 3 Underscore and Explore This style focuses on highlighting key issues, challenges, or opportunities while encouraging open dialogue and exploration. In this approach, managers emphasise the importance of the issue and at the same time invite employees to participate in problem-solving and decision-making. This style is well-suited for fostering collaboration, creativity, and innovation within an organisation. It empowers employees to take ownership of the issues at hand and encourages them to contribute their ideas and solutions. Some fast-moving managers dont embrace this approach because it does take time to consider multiple perspectives. But when the outcome needs to be fully embraced by a team, I think its worth the effort to gain positive and lasting results. That said, I do agree in crisis situations which demand quick decisive action, this style wont work. 4 Identify and Reply The Identify and Reply communication style is similar to the third style in that it involves managers listening to employee concerns, identifying specific issues, and then responding directly to those concerns. This style is distinct as it imagines responsiveness to employee needs and questions on an individual level. Think a town-hall or brainstorming session with a lot of Q&A. This style is regularly necessary for building trust and maintaining strong relationships within an organisation. When employees feel heard and their concerns are addressed promptly, they are more likely to be engaged and satisfied in their roles. However, Identify and reply can be time-consuming for managers, especially in larger organisations where there may be hundreds of employee concerns. It may also result in a fragmented approach to communication, if each employees issue is addressed individually. 5 Withhold and Uphold This style is characterised by managers withholding information, often due to concerns about its potential impact. You see this playing out in redundancy announcements. How long did they know who was getting the chop? During some times of uncertainty, this may be a preferred approach. But be cautious. If its used too often, youll be left with a workplace full of suspicion and lack of transparency and trust. Im grateful to Dayna for introducing me to Professor Clampitt and the pros and cons of these approaches. The more we learn, the more informed our choices can be about how we connect. Write to Gina in care of SundayBusiness@independent.ie With corporate clients in five continents, Gina London is a premier communications strategy, structure and delivery expert. She is also a media analyst, author, speaker and former CNN anchor. @TheGinaLondon Theres no doubt that we are at an inflection point. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a defining technology of our time. Like the dawn of the internet, mobile devices and the cloud, AI has the potential to transform and augment how we live and work. Today, were seeing rapid advances in large language models and generative AI that are not only capturing our imaginations but unlocking even more possibilities across search, productivity and creativity, and in uses like healthcare and security. At Microsoft, were optimistic about the positive impact AI can have on people, industry and society and, grounded in our company mission, ambitious about how we can help every person and organisation on the planet to achieve more through AI. Microsoft recently commissioned a study by IDC that revealed how AI is contributing to the economic impact of organisations. It found that 71pc of respondents were already using AI in their companies, that organisations are achieving a return on their AI investments within 14 months, and that for every $1 that a company invests in AI, it is getting an average return of $3.5. Moreover, IDC is estimating that generative AI will increase global GDP by almost $10trn in the next decade. The research backs up the theory. The impact of AI on increasing competitiveness is clear and at a time of heightened global competition, harnessing the potential of AI will be essential to the future success of businesses across Ireland. The Irish Government recognises this opportunity and thats why, as part of its National Digital Strategy, a target has been set to ensure that three in four businesses use AI by 2030. New AI tools have the power to revolutionise many types of work, provide substantive productivity gains, and increase employee satisfaction. The ability to work alongside and utilise AI technology effectively and ethically in the workplace is rapidly becoming an essential skill for many jobs in a growing number of sectors. As AI systems evolve, its reasonable to expect that these advances will change the nature of some jobs and how we carry out our work, and we can also expect to see this technology create jobs that dont exist just yet. For the opportunity and benefits of this shift to be realised it requires everyone to think differently about skills and training. The World Economic Forum has estimated that 60pc of all employees will need reskilling by 2027, showing how important it is that people and organisations embrace upskilling and adopt a lifelong learning approach. As things currently stand, a significant shortage of skilled workers is challenging the momentum and positive outlook for what AI can help organisations to achieve. Recent research by IBEC revealed that nearly two in three Irish businesses believe that AI has the potential to enhance productivity and work conditions, however, only 29pc currently have the skills in place to adopt AI in their operations. Increasing this number must be our common goal as the potential of AI can only be realised if everyone, everywhere has the skills to use it responsibly and effectively. We believe no one entity can equip people with the in-demand digital, AI and, importantly, cybersecurity skills that will shape our future. Its essential that industry, government and the education sector work together to provide the solutions to this upskilling challenge. This collaborative approach underlies our recently launched national AI skilling programme that aims to ensure that everyone, whatever their age, experience or background, has the opportunity to develop their AI skills. Our Introduction to AI course will give graduates and mid-career professionals the foundational knowledge, skills and competencies they need to engage more confidently in AI. Through dedicated AI learning pathways for adults and new learning opportunities for young people in primary and post-primary school, we will play our part in helping everyone gain the analytical, creative thinking and technical skills that are necessary to participate fully in our AI-enabled economy. Indeed, it has been our ability to produce, attract and develop the talent that businesses need to innovate and compete globally that has made Ireland a preferred destination for FDI. To maintain this competitive advantage, we must continue to work together to skill up Ireland for the era of AI and ensure that everyone, everywhere is empowered to succeed. Im optimistic about Irelands digital future. Weve proven time and time again that we are an innovation island. If we continue on this path and take an all-of-society approach to digital skilling, we can strengthen Irelands position as a global digital leader and fully harness the AI opportunity that lies ahead. James OConnor is Microsoft Ireland site leader and vice-president of Microsoft Global Operations Service Centre Ivy Bannister (72) is a writer. Born in New York, she came to Dublin in 1970, where she lives with her husband Frank, with whom she has two adult sons. Bannister is part of the Womens Education Bureau (WEB) a womens writing group formed in 1984 and she has contributed to their first anthology. A new Sky documentary series looks at the disappearances of Annie McCarrick, Josephine Dullard, Fiona Pender, Ciara Breen, Fiona Sinnott and Deirdre Jacob The story is grimly familiar: the six young women Annie McCarrick, Josephine Dullard, Fiona Pender, Ciara Breen, Fiona Sinnott and Deirdre Jacob who vanished over five years during the 1990s. Their disappearances took place in an area of Leinster traceable from Co Louth, out left at an angle to Co Offaly, then down and right to Co Wexford the triangle explored in a new Sky documentary series starting today. Filmed, produced and directed by British documentarian Colette Camden, Six Silent Killings: Irelands Vanishing Triangle re-examines these cases through interviews with family members, ex-detectives, forensic experts and more. At the heart of it all is Geraldine Niland, a reporter of many years standing who has covered the cases extensively. It begins 30 years ago, in the spring of 1993, when Annie McCarrick went missing. Niland was assigned to the story, having covered missing women since 1987, starting with the case of young mother Antoinette Smith, who disappeared that summer after a David Bowie concert and whose body was found in the Dublin Mountains nine months later. Niland eventually went to the Garda Missing Persons Unit in the Phoenix Park everything was on paper back then, there was no computerisation or anything like that and went through old files, focusing on similar unsolved disappearances. Two clusters of cases emerged, she recalls. One cluster involved Michael Bambrick [convicted in 1996 of two killings], the other those of six girls whod gone missing. These days, its something I continue to work on in my own time. Its difficult to be a retired journalist anyway, it doesnt sit well with me or probably with any of us, and Im not done yet. I just do my research on this. The extent of that exploration is laid bare in the series, focusing on a room in her home in south Dublin given over to painstaking research. It features maps and charts with diagrams pinned to boards like something you might see on True Detective. Niland says she doesnt really work with other people on the Vanishing Triangle stuff, online or anything like that. But Ive had some very good contacts that I always maintained. One of those contacts is now-retired detective Alan Bailey. Hed worked with Operation Trace, set up in late 1998 to investigate the missing women, including trying to establish if a serial killer was involved. I had been quite close to Alan and the crew when they were based in Naas, during the early days of Trace, she says. Nilands part of the show, consisting of mostly to-camera interviews, was filmed over about two weeks earlier this year. She also went on location. It was strange to be out there in the mountains in Wicklow. Its so vast, you kind of forget that. It really has that end-of-the-world feeling, she says. Is it difficult, I ask, mentally or emotionally, to go over this stuff again? Not really, no. I suppose as time goes by, youve gone through various emotions, so now youre just looking at it coolly and dispassionately. You cant afford to get upset or flustered, you have to stay focused to do the job properly. Tenacious reporter Geraldine Niland The job, ultimately, is finding out what happened to the six women. So far nobody has been charged, tried or convicted of anything; a strange situation, Niland points out, in what is a tiny country, relatively. In Ireland someone always knows someone, or saw something, or recognised someone. But here... You would have thought something would have broken by now. There have been a few developments. Most of the disappearances have now been upgraded to murder inquiries, which is significant. The problem with old cases is that you might have no crime scene, or the offender might have died. But in this instance, I think if we give it one last shot... theres always someone who knows something. And the passage of time might open the gate for them to come forward. Well have to wait and see. I am optimistic; I do feel something will break, eventually. You have to be optimistic. For 20 years, Larry Murphy has been the name most associated with the cases. The carpenter was convicted of the savage rape and attempted murder, of a Carlow woman in 2001. He served 10 years in jail and now lives in the UK. Earlier this year it was reported that gardai are still hopeful of pressing charges against Murphy for Deirdre Jacobs murder. Niland studied social science at UCD, and on graduating went to work with the ISPCC. Her caseload area was Dublin North-Central: Sherriff Street out to Ballymun, she says. Exciting idealism, sadly, soon ran head-first into the brick wall of disappointing reality. She has covered some big, memorable stories over the years, including Brian Meehans conviction for killing Veronica Guerin and the disappearance of Dublin schoolboy Philip Cairns in 1986. A strange, almost feverish, atmosphere surrounded that case. Niland remembers lots of rumours going around at the time, that Philip had been abducted by a cult or whatever. In 2016, a TV3 documentary pointed the finger at the late Eamonn Cooke, a former DJ and convicted paedophile. Geraldine is unconvinced. I dont believe that for a minute. Some girl had implicated him. Back in 1986, one of my garda contacts, who I nicknamed Paddington Bear, had asked me for input on the case. Three years later, I went back to it again. I dont think Cooke had anything to do with it. Six Silent Killings: Irelands Vanishing Triangle is available on Sky Documentaries and NOW Former owner of Dublin Distillers & Co Teoranta faces criminal charges over annual returns A liquidators report into a drinks firm ultimately owned by Carlow entrepreneur Illann Power has said he had not acted honestly and responsibly in his role with the company. Power, who is now based in the US, where he is seeking to become bankrupt in the face of legal objections from Revenue, faces criminal charges from the Corporate Enforcement Authority (CEA) in Ireland in relation to annual returns filed by Dublin Distillers & Co Teoranta. Cadaver dogs detect scent on site near former home of rapist Larry Murphy Specialist sniffer canines called in three times over summer Dog indicates the presence of what might be human remains at a forest near the Kildare and Wicklow border Maeve Sheehan Sun 12 Nov 2023 at 03:30 Gardai investigating Irelands missing women are being urged to search a wooded site on the Wicklow-Kildare border after a trained cadaver dog has detected what might be human remains. Modern Morals: My best friend says she cant afford to go to my foreign wedding next year. Is it insensitive to ask her to get a loan? Saying hes frustrated with a House of Representatives where its everyone demonizing one another, Rep. Brian Higgins has decided to leave Congress after 19 years in which he cut a low profile in Washington while using the power of his office to reshape Buffalos landscape. In an exclusive interview with The Buffalo News, Higgins, a 64-year-old Buffalo Democrat, refused to confirm what other sources told The News and other media outlets last week: that hes leaving to become president of Sheas Performing Arts Center. But he said he plans to resign from Congress in early February and sounded glad to be leaving. Congress is not the institution that I came to 19 years ago, Higgins said in an hourlong interview in his Larkinville office. And, you know, its in a very, very bad place right now. I am hopeful, as I always am, that it gets better. But unfortunately, I think were at the beginning phases of a deterioration of the prestige of the institution. Over the course of nine and a half terms in the House, Higgins earned a reputation as a low-key lawmaker who focused far more on Buffalos future than the nations. Key to his legacy will be a $279 million settlement with the New York Power Authority that funded Buffalos waterfront revival, which Higgins pushed into reality over vehement opposition during his first term in Congress. Speaking about that settlement along with other highlights of his tenure, Higgins sounded as if he thought his job in Washington was largely done. When I went to Congress 19 years ago, I didnt go to change the world, Higgins said. I went with the plan of changing my community. And I think thats what we have done, along with the extraordinarily talented people that work with me and have worked with me individually and collectively. Higgins pending resignation likely opens a chaotic race to replace him one that could begin with a springtime special election with party-picked candidates in New Yorks deeply blue 26th Congressional District, to be followed by June primaries that could feature multiple contenders on the Democratic side. Possible candidates include State Sen. Timothy M. Kennedy, Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz, Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown and others. As for Higgins future, he said only one thing is clear at this point. Now I can be back to the city I love, and I want to spend time here, Higgins said. A bad patch Higgins made clear during the interview that a paramount reason for his decision to leave Congress was frustration with the tribally partisan political landscape both in the House and in the nation. A lifetime politician with long stints in the Buffalo Common Council and State Assembly before his election to Congress in 2004, Higgins said he started contemplating leaving the House shortly after his last re-election a year ago. Republicans took control of the House in that contest, pushing Higgins and other Democrats back into the minority. A new breed of Republicans seemed empowered even before that. Higgins noted that at this years State of the Union address, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, was in the back, flailing around, yelling expletives about Joe Biden, Higgins said. Congress has become performative, he added. Everybody thats making a name for themselves is making a spectacle of themselves. The more outrageous they act, the more attention they get. Meanwhile, many of the historic tools at the institution are being ... weaponized to demonize the other side, he said. The budgetary process, he said, is breaking down into one politically inspired government shutdown after another, with each one endangering the economy. And all that makes the business of legislating harder. Its very frustrating, he said. Its a very slow process. It doesnt encourage creativity. It doesnt encourage the establishment of an ambitious agenda ... Unfortunately, I think were at the beginning of a bad trend, a bad patch. Its a trend that grew under former President Donald Trump, Higgins added. He announced his candidacy coming down an escalator at Trump Tower (in 2015) and the first thing he did was demonize immigrants, he said. From there, Higgins said, Trump cultivated a cohort of aggrieved Americans to the point where a mob of them stormed the U.S. Capitol in 2021 in the vain hope of keeping their hero in power. He was the only person responsible for January 6th, Higgins said, pounding his desk to emphasize the word only. Amid it all, Higgins continued to operate in the low-key way that in 2009 prompted Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, to name him to its list of most obscure lawmakers. We never chased MSNBC or CNN, he said. You know, Im more of a workhorse than a show horse. A local legacy Higgins wont be remembered for any major legislation that bears his name as chief sponsor. While the late Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, a Rochester-area Democrat, was pushing to pass big bills on issues as divergent as congressional ethics and genetic privacy, her neighbor to the west kept his focus on one thing: whatever he could do in Washington that would help Buffalo. And what he did starting in 2005, in his first year of Congress, was to use the bully pulpit of a congressional seat to win the Buffalo waterfront the gigantic investment it sorely needed and never had. Over the opposition of Slaughter and several state legislators, Higgins pushed and prodded the New York Power Authority to agree to send $279 million from its hugely powerful Niagara Power Project south to Buffalo to fund waterfront improvements. Higgins argued that the regions hydropower riches were being drained away to other parts of the state. Threatening to introduce federal legislation to change all that, Higgins got the Power Authority, during its relicensing process, to agree to give the Buffalo waterfront nearly three times as much money as it had originally offered. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something at that particular moment, Higgins said. And the people that were against me didnt understand the issue. They were just, you know, aggrieved that a freshman member ... was going to be so aggressive about this issue. That same year, Higgins pushed for creation of the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp. to oversee a waterfront revival thats been funded largely through the Power Authority settlement. Key to that redevelopment was the acquisition of more than 350 acres of waterfront property from the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, which agreed to sell the property for $2 after Higgins publicly embarrassed the agency for letting the land sit derelict for decades. That land transfer led to the creation of Buffalo Harbor State Park in 2015. Higgins said he saw the renovation of Buffalos waterfront as not only key to its economic future, but also to the repair of the regions psyche after decades of job losses. When I came into office, Buffalo suffered from an inferiority complex, he said. The community psychology was that our fate as a community is determined by external forces over which we have no control and you know, Wide Right, No Goal. That was a defeatist mentality. So part of what weve tried to do in addition to rebuilding the infrastructure of the city, including the waterfront, is to rebuild the human infrastructure as well: To say to Buffalo that if we continue to decline, we have nobody to blame but ourselves. Now, though, Buffalo is no longer declining. Thanks to the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and Higgins advocacy of it, the Buffalo River is now a destination rather than a hazardous waste site. Thanks to the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus and the restoration of historic properties under a program Higgins championed, downtowns population is growing, as did the citys in the 2000 census. That being the case, Higgins is likely to be receiving plenty of accolades not much different than those offered in a statement by Erie County Democratic Chairman Jeremy Zellner. Brian Higgins has been our regions most consequential elected official for a generation, and it is no exaggeration to say that his leadership has transformed Western New York, Zellner said. The future While Higgins was open and voluble while discussing his reasons for leaving Congress and his legacy, he had little to say about his future during The News interview. As The News and other media outlets across Buffalo quoted anonymous sources saying hes headed to Sheas, Higgins insisted that isnt set in stone. Asked about those news reports, Higgins said: Theres been news reports on speculation. And you know, whether its Buffalo State University or Sheas Performing Arts Theater or others, Im getting calls from people who have read the reports of speculation. There was one recently this week about my availability. So I will assess those opportunities and be discussing them when they reach a point of seriousness. Higgins said he wanted to let some time pass before leaving office because he has some last pieces of work to complete and to give his office staffers time to plan for their futures. And when asked if he would ever again run for public office, he said: I dont think so. He offered no comments about who his successor should be. But political sources have long viewed Kennedy whos close to Higgins and who, like Higgins, hails from South Buffalo as a likely candidate if Higgins were to leave Congress. Poloncarz has also long been seen as a potential congressional candidate, but the timing might not be right for him, given that he just won a fourth term as county executive . And Brown, Buffalos longest-serving mayor, appeared to hint at a potential candidacy in a statement on Friday. After praising Higgins tenure, Brown said: When the appropriate time comes, I look forward to a conversation about the future of this very diverse district so it can meet the needs of all our residents. Meanwhile on X, formerly Twitter, three-time congressional candidate Nate McMurray said: If I decide to run to replace Higgins to represent where I was a local leader, where I was born, where my brothers and sister live, my hometown I expect at least a fair and open chance to meet with the Democrat committees of Western New York. Ive been blocked by party bosses before. Party bosses, in fact, will decide the candidates in the special election thats likely to take place in the spring to fill Higgins seat. Gov. Kathy Hochul must schedule a special election within 10 days of Higgins resignation, with that contest to take place 70 to 80 days later. That timetable points to a late-April contest to fill Higgins seat through the end of 2024. But people who dont get their party nomination can always file for the June primary in hopes of winning a full two-year term in New Yorks 26th Congressional District, which includes the most urbanized parts of Erie and Niagara counties. Meanwhile, Higgins will go into the next phase of his career satisfied with his years in Congress. What Ive tried to do, and I think successfully in many areas, along with the very, very talented people that work with me, is identify whats important, find a focus, sustain a focus and produce an outcome to have vision, but be prepared to do the hard work necessary to make that vision real, he said. Man badly injured in motorbike crash has been waiting three years for an answer A man who lost an arm in a motorbike accident has asked if he is not disabled enough following a lengthy delay in assessing his eligibility for a tax relief driving scheme. Former commercial diver David Digan (38), from Moate, Co Westmeath, was lucky to survive the crash in May 2019 as he travelled to visit his parents, and had to abandon his career. He was left in a coma and spent three months in the Midlands Regional Hospital in Tullamore, Co Offaly, and another three in the National Rehabilitation Hospital (NRH) in Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin. He has no recollection of the crash, and the first thing he remembers is waking from the induced coma after two weeks. The father of one suffered several serious injuries, principal among them being permanent paralysis in his left arm. It was later amputated, and earlier this year he received a robotic prosthetic arm. His neck was broken, several bones in his shoulder were shattered and he also sustained a brain injury. He now lives with chronic pain. Mr Digan said that as well as his physical injuries, he has also had to deal with the loss of his career and livelihood. He worked as a commercial diver for 12 years in countries including Denmark, France and Germany, as well as in Ireland, on offshore projects. I was due to go back offshore just after the accident, he said. A lot of my job was working on offshore windfarms, and I absolutely loved it. Diving has been my passion since I was a teenager, but its not possible for me to continue since the loss of my arm. Ive managed to scuba-dive a couple of times since, as a sport, but in terms of my job and career as a commercial diver, unfortunately that is gone for ever. Its great to have my prosthetic robotic arm, but it doesnt enable me to continue with my work. As he began his recovery three years ago, Mr Digan learned he could apply for a scheme to claim tax relief for a specially adapted car as a disabled driver. This would secure a significant reduction on the cost. Ive been applying for this for nearly three years, he said. It would mean I could purchase a car and not have to pay the Vat, which would be a 20pc or so reduction, so it would be significant. It would make my life much easier, including being able to visit my daughter with greater ease. Shes 17 now. But Ive essentially been told Im not disabled enough. The outdated criteria states that you have to have lost both your arms, or one or both of your legs, to qualify. This is entirely outdated and makes no sense. If you had no arms at all, it wouldnt be possible to drive a car. The entire Disabled Drivers Medical Board of Appeal (DDMBA) resigned in November 2021, which complicated matters. The board was recently replaced, but is still not up and running, the Department of Finance said. It is understood the mass resignations came because the board disagreed with the overly-strict criteria being applied to applicants. A spokeswoman acknowledged it had taken far longer than anticipated to appoint a new board Mr Digan is one of 1,138 people waiting to have their cases heard, and he said the delay is having a real impact on his life. The Department of Finance said five new members have recently been appointed to the board, which it is hoped will become operational next month. It will be based at the NRH in Dun Laoghaire in south Dublin. A spokeswoman acknowledged it had taken far longer than anticipated to appoint a new board, and said the priority was now to clear the backlog. Progress has been made in efforts to convene a new Disabled Drivers Medical Board of Appeals and to secure hosting arrangements for it and to recommence the appeals process, she said. Funding arrangements between the Department of Finance and the Department of Health have been agreed. On this basis, the NRH has confirmed they will again host the DDMBA. Preparatory work is under way, that will include due deliberation on how best to clear the backlog. The appeals process will re-commence upon completion of this work. It is hoped the board will be operational by mid-December. Mr Digan said he hopes his case is re-evaluated promptly, and added: If I did get this primary medical cert and then qualify as a disabled driver, it would help give me back some quality of life. It would help me live much more independently. Ive been trying to apply for this for nearly three years. When my arm was amputated, that wasnt enough. I felt like asking if I should get the other one taken off to qualify. An opposition party has called for Israel to be referred to the ICC Micheal Martin said Ireland is a consistent supporter of the International Criminal Court (Brian Lawless/PA) Tanaiste Micheal Martin has said Ireland is a consistent and strong supporter of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in investigating the Israel-Hamas conflict. It comes after Sinn Fein announced its intention to bring a motion to the Dail seeking a referral of Israel to the ICC by Ireland. The Tanaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister said the ICC is the cornerstone of the system of international criminal justice. In a statement on Sunday, he said: Ireland is a consistent and strong supporter of the court, and of its independence and impartiality. Mr Martin said the ICC has jurisdiction over the situation in Palestine and the prosecutor opened an investigation into Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem in March 2021. The investigation covers all crimes within the jurisdiction of the court, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, alleged to have been committed since the date of referral in 2014. This gives the court jurisdiction over any crimes committed within Palestine, and/or by Palestinian nationals outside it, including in Israel. Importantly, the current prosecutor, Karim Khan, has made absolutely clear on a number of occasions over the last month that this investigation covers the current conflict, including all events on and from October 7 this year. He has confirmed that there is an active investigation ongoing in relation to the situation in Palestine. Mr Martin added: Ireland will continue to fully support the ICC in its vitally important work in investigating all the situations before it, whether that be in Ukraine, Darfur, Palestine, Libya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo or elsewhere. All victims, everywhere, are equally deserving of justice and accountability. Health Minister Stephen Donnelly defies unions fears with contract result More than 1,000 hospital consultants have signed up to a new public-only contract, according to figures to be announced by Health Minister Stephen Donnelly today. The figure represents between a quarter and a third of the overall number of consultants working in the State and comes despite surveys carried out earlier this year by health unions which indicated large numbers would not move to the new deal. The contract, which does not allow consultants to treat private patients in public hospitals, comes with annual pay of between 217,335 to 261,051 on a six-point salary scale plus overtime and allowances. Health sources have told the Sunday Independent that many hundreds more consultants, who are on existing contracts, have applied to take the new contract, under which consultants can be rostered to work on a Saturday. While consultants who take the deal will be able to continue to do private work, they must do so away from the site of the public hospital where they work and in their own time. The new figures are an increase on the 418 consultants that were reported by RTE at the end of August as having accepted the new contract. The contract was introduced by Mr Donnelly despite strong criticism from the consultative body Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA). The IHCA raised concerns it places no limits on the number of late evenings and Saturdays that a consultant on the contract may be rostered to work. A survey by the IHCA earlier this year showed strong opposition to the contract, while most members of the Irish Medical Organisation also indicated in a ballot they would not move to the new contract. The HSE has launched an international marketing campaign to recruit consultants to work in Ireland, including a specific campaign targeted at Irish doctors working in the UK and Australia. The new contract enables hospitals to roster consultants to work an extended day and on Saturdays 8am to 10pm Monday to Friday and 8am to 6pm Saturday with the aim of ensuring hospitals had more senior decision makers on site. Mr Donnelly is likely to hail the deal as a landmark by the Government in its long-held ambition to deliver universal healthcare. He has previously said the new contract would enable the health service to maintain efficient and timely patient flow out-of-hours and at weekends. It would also, he has argued, enhance senior decision-maker presence on-site and reduce waiting times for patients by maximising capacity in Irish hospitals. There are 3,500 permanently filled consultant posts, up from just under 2,600 in 2019, although there are some estimates that as many as 3,800 consultants work in the public system. I needed to find out who Zoe Rocha was without being defined by the family The TV producer on family ties and forging her own path Zoe Rocha's famous parents, John Rocha and Eily Doolan, split when she was an infant and raised her in a blended family with celebrity ties on both sides. Focused on succeeding through merit rather than connections, she now runs her own film and TV company where shes working with her new husband on a Netflix series about the world of high fashion "I have never known my parents together. They were always these two separate families." Zoe Rocha, photo: Ray Burmiston Barry Egan Sun 12 Nov 2023 at 03:30 Zoe Rochas first memory is of being in Thomastown, Co Kilkenny, at five years of age with her grandparents, Michael and Kathleen Doolan. On a walk by the river, the child leaned over to have a better look. Her beret tumbled in. Panic ensued. I managed to fish it out eventually, she remembers. I dont know why that stays with me, but Ive never forgotten that day. An amateur psychologist might, perhaps, speculate as to the significance of a lost hat to the child of two fashion designers, John Rocha and Eily Doolan. Rocha was born in Dublins Mount Carmel hospital on February 6, 1983. Her parents marriage broke up soon afterwards. It was a girl in a wine jacket. The first person that entered my mind was her father. I wasnt at all pleased In the 1960s, Phyl Herbert had a relationship with a married man and became pregnant. He suggested abortion but instead she went to a mother and baby home Author Phyl Herbert has written a powerful memoir. Photo: Gerry Mooney Donal Lynch Sun 12 Nov 2023 at 03:30 On a sunny June morning in 1993 the postman delivered a letter to Phyl Herberts home on Cowper Road in Dublin. It was a small notebook-sized piece of paper from the Eastern Health board. There was, she observes, nothing small about its impact. In China, the government plans to allow children aged eight to 15 just one hour a day of smartphone screentime and block access overnight. In the state of Utah, a new law requires parental consent for social media accounts for under 18s; a similar bill has been proposed in New York. The smells are always the same. That stench of sewage seeping out from carpets, skirting boards and floor coverings. The sounds are always the same too: the squelching of liquid under your feet as you walk from room to room. And the experiences are also always the same: It came so fast, we had no chance We never had anything like this happen here before It was like something surreal, like something out of a film. Since I was appointed Minister for the Office of Public Works (OPW) in the summer of 2020, Ive visited a number of communities, which are now bound by a common thread: theyve all been flooded. These include Bandon, Kenmare, Clifden, Bantry, Enniscorthy, Cork City, Glanmire, Carlingford, Kilmallock, Listowel, Tralee, Skibbereen, Bridgetown, Rosslare and Midleton. Theyre miles apart from each other, but the stories of devastation and destruction visited upon each of them are so similar. Thankfully we have been lucky that lives werent lost, given the magnitude and severity of some of these events. For example, after Storm Babet wreaked havoc in East Cork, costing millions of euro, it went on to do the same and tragically resulted in a number of fatalities in the UK. Talking to the local authority personnel across the country and officials from the OPW who routinely have to go out to face the aftermath of such events, there is no doubt that the frequency and severity of these events is increasing rapidly. The climate is not changing, it has already changed. While the frequency of these events has accelerated, the speed at which those same local authority and OPW teams including engineers, project managers and others are allowed to deliver protection schemes has in reality slowed. The time it now takes to deliver a flood relief scheme that will protect people has been lengthened by years, and the ambition of some to extend that process even further is supported in some quarters. We know from experience that completed flood relief schemes work and are effective at protecting communities. Just look at the places where schemes are in place including Clonmel, Ennis, Mallow, Bandon, Clonakilty and lots of others. Places such as Athlone and Clonlara will soon join that list. All of these were once synonymous with the news reports that dominated our bulletins, but no longer. So if we know they work, why arent we delivering them faster to other towns? The simple answer is were not allowed. We require planning permission that is largely based on legislative requirements. The bottom line is that towns waiting for protection for years must sit and wait longer. In seeking to obtain planning permission before any construction, the OPW and the councils are often wrongly accused of being environmental vandals who seek to destroy our biodiversity and nature. In some cases, we need permission just to carry out the surveys needed for a planning application. The OPW and the councils very much value our biodiversity and our environment and we have strategies, policies and work practices for them within which we operate. But we also value the lives of our neighbours including those who worry about being drowned in bed. In short, we strive to prevent the catastrophic devastation wrecked on towns and villages. We are sometimes accused of not adapting to new methods, including nature-based solutions, but anyone who looks at the Clonakilty flood relief scheme would see that this is not the case. Nature-based solutions do have a role, but exclusive focus on these often fails to recognise where the water is actually coming from, and its hazard, such as a flashy, overcome stream on a mountain with a village directly underneath or a massive tidal surge driven by powerful onshore winds or by gales. Our ambition is to keep the water out of peoples homes and businesses. We will, and do, use all technologies, methodologies and international best practice to achieve that. While our designers, project managers and engineers survey the destruction of towns and villages with devastated families, we are more acutely aware of the importance of our work. It drives us on to try to deliver, in the face of the many challenges we face. Ireland has some very difficult challenges facing it in terms of the communities that live alongside rivers or in proximity to the coast and whether they will still be able to live there in 10 or 20 years. As an island we face threats from rainfall and from the sea. Its an issue thats very politically hot at the moment, but for how long? Operating most of the time with one hand and sometimes both tied behind our back restricts us. But it doesnt mean well do what some want us to do: which is pack up and abandon these communities. We wont be doing that. Patrick ODonovan is minister of state with responsibility for the Office of Public Works and the Gaeltacht Smoke rises over Gaza as seen from southern Israel, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian group Hamas. Photo: Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein Palestinians fleeing north Gaza walk towards the south amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. Photo: Reuters The world must know what happened and never forget, Dwight D Eisenhower said at the end of World War II. A few years later, he said: The only way to win World War III is to prevent it. Today is Armistice Day, when the 40 million people who died in World War I are remembered. It was supposed to have been the war to end all wars, but it was not. World War II followed. Combat deaths were estimated at nearly 15 million. Civilian deaths numbered more than 38 million. Despite such an appalling toll, the evidence suggests we have learned little. Our species remains drawn to destruction. As Martin Luther King put it: Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. This week, Israel agreed to daily four-hour localised pauses in its bombardment of Gaza. The temporary cessations of hostilities are called humanitarian. But a return to the business of mass bloodshed resumes for the remaining 20 hours of the day. Since last weekend, tens of thousands of Palestinians have left Gaza on foot. Many carry white flags with their hands held up. It has been a massive exodus, yet US estimates say about 250,000 civilians remain in northern Gaza. Israeli troops continue to advance, block by block, in street fights against Hamas militants, while using air-strikes to drive them out of underground tunnels. As this happens, the Palestinian death toll currently believed to be 10,500 can only grow. We must also remember the 1,400 Israelis who were murdered by Hamas, and the 240 hostages they continue to hold. The pauses, while too brief, will still be viewed as progress, and a partial victory for pressure from the Biden administration. The glimpse offered by Washington of how it views the post-war future of Gaza is significant. It wishes to see the enclave politically unified with the West Bank under the administration of the Palestinian Authority. US secretary of state Antony Blinken also reiterated Americas position that Israel should not reoccupy Gaza after its war with Hamas. For this to happen, the US and its Arab allies would have to revitalise the Palestinian Authority and try to restore credibility. This week, we also saw G7 foreign ministers meet in Tokyo, where Gaza and Ukraine were discussed. Globally, the potential for meeting jaw to jaw to borrow Winston Churchills phrase is too readily dismissed, making it easier for war to proceed. Sadly, the UN Security Council appears increasingly redundant. Tensions between the US and Europe on one side, and China and Russia on the other, guarantee deadlock. World peace and security remain the overwhelming wish of the vast majority of people on our planet. Despite two world wars, we are no closer to realising it. Brian Cosgrove (Letters, November 8) draws nobly, and with succinct currency, from a worthy pair of wise assessors on conflict dynamics. Referencing both philosopher Hegel and poet William Blake, he distils the fundaments of conflict down to two key contrasting modes of behaviour as embodied and enacted by Blakes mythical figures Urizen and Orc and their cyclical propensity to ever-enduring conflict. His analogy hits the mark with depressing accuracy regarding the current catastrophic carnage in the Middle East. Unfortunately, his endearing exhortation for a shift towards dialogue rather than dialectical engagement as one way of escaping entrapment in this vicious cycle seems more than a tad elusive, despite Anthony Blinken as the possible overseer of such a process. Given the age-old conflicted tapestry of social, political, ethnic and colonial dynamics of the Middle East, all manipulated by the variegated proxy players and their perennial machinations towards self-interest, the chances of a dialogic solution seems remote. No quotient of urbanity will likely cut the mustard. The history of US protectionism as acted out in Korea, Vietnam, Central and South America, Afghanistan and other places seriously challenges the notion that they could rise to anything like a neutrally satisfying outcome. Funding Israel constantly to the hilt and furnishing endless armaments to boot, could the US really be considered an honest broker in the scheme of things these terrible and terrifying things? Hope is undoubtedly a fine thing, but truth must first out to expose the core realities before Orc or Urizen can ever contemplate settling down in harmony. Jim Cosgrove, Lismore, Co Waterford Cutting bombing of Gaza from 24 hours a day to 20 how very considerate I understand Israel has agreed to reduce its bombardment of Gaza from 24 hours a day to a mere 20. What a wonderful humanitarian gesture. Kieran Furey, Drumcondra, Dublin 9 Hypocrisy of dithering EU states in continuing to use the Ode to Joy anthem As the massacre of the innocents continues in the Middle East, the EU states, by and large, stand idly by. As Beethoven was a strong defender of the weak and a powerful advocate for justice, the EU must now be prohibited from using his symbol of hope, peace and fellowship, Ode to Joy, as its anthem. The hypocrisy is unbearable and unforgivable. Jim OSullivan, Rathedmond, Sligo World leaders should look to the Treaty of Versailles and goodwill may prevail Peace without victory was the underlying concern of US president Woodrow Wilson when he, Clemenceau of France and Lloyd George of Britain tried to draw up a peace settlement at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919/20 at the end of World War I. Known as the Versailles Settlement, it consisted of five separate treaties signed with each of the enemy powers and was dominated by America, Britain and France. Wilson hoped for a treaty founded on principle, not on the selfish interests of the victors. US president Joe Biden and UK prime minister Rishi Sunak would do well to reflect on the views of Wilson. When Mr Sunak visited Israel after the horrific attack by Hamas, he shook hands with Benjamin Netanyahu and said: We hope you win. However, the Treaty of Versailles failed for many reasons. JM Keynes, a distinguished Cambridge economist, said it took little account of the economic structure of Europe. Lloyd George and Clemenceau had clear support from their electorates. Lloyd George could not resist the demand for revenge. Clemenceau wanted a vindictive peace. Wilsons guiding principle was self-determination so that all people speaking the same language should be together in independent states. Nevertheless, the Versailles Settlement, in spite of its shortcomings, bears the stamp of goodwill and justice, which Wilson gave it. Peace without victory remains unburied. Geraldine Groarke, Drumraney, Co Westmeath Memories are short, but I will never forget who let the unthinkable happen When the last body has been pulled from the ruins of Gaza and the final death count determined, when ICC prosecutors make their decisions about who to charge and who not, I will always remember. When it begins to dawn on our politicians and diplomats that we have once again allowed the unthinkable to happen, I will always remember. When we again declare Never again, there will be those who would soon forget that the slaughter was conducted under American drone surveillance, using American weapons, with constant communication and in-person meetings between American, Israeli and European officials, with American aircraft carriers and strike forces sitting just offshore and that the White House publicly declared, in defiance of worldwide protest, that there are no red lines for Israel, I will remember. James Beirne, Maynooth, Co Kildare It is heartening to hear our holders of high office promoting cause of peace It was good to hear Tanaiste Micheal Martin stand up to Vladimir Putin at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Praise is also due to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar for cautioning the Israeli authorities not to overstep this revenge mission for the bloodshed of October 7 and thereby cause the human rights concept to be sullied forever. It was positive for Sabina Higgins early on in the Russian invasion to attempt to introduce the peace talks process. And it is proper that her husband, President Michael D Higgins, pushes for peace talks between Israel and Hamas. Peter Kennedy, Sutton, Dublin 13 It is medias duty to report only the verified facts and figures of all conflicts I have been listening to the casualty figures coming out of Gaza and Israel since the attack by Hamas on October 7 and they are truly appalling. The horror of what happened when Hamas terrorists entered Israel is unbelievable. They killed at least 1,400 innocent people, including babies; they raped and murdered young women attending a peace concert; the naked body of one was paraded through the streets of Gaza, cheered on by onlookers. They also took more than 200 hostages, including families with young children. Since then, we have had saturation media coverage of innocent inhabitants of Gaza being killed, including at least 4,000 children, by the Israel bombardment. In the interests of balance, when footage of the bombardment is broadcast, surely it should be accompanied by footage of what Hamas terrorists did on October 7. There is now growing support for the people of Gaza, who need humanitarian assistance. Hopefully, they will get it. Those who are protesting against the Israeli bombardment must be commended for their humanity, but are they basing their protests on the casualty figures released by Hamas, a murderous terrorist group who control the news coming out of Gaza? Why is the world media listening to anything a terrorist organisation has to say? The media should, by all means, continue reporting on the casualties in Gaza as well as in Israel, but with a proviso that the figures coming from a terrorist-controlled part of Gaza cannot be verified. Anthony McGeough, Kingswood Heights, Dublin 24 It appears we are all too busy looking ahead to live in and enjoy the present The Christmas season used to start on December 8. Now it appears to come earlier every year. Nearer the big day, we will be reminded Easter eggs will soon be available in the shops. It seems we are too busy trying to catch up with the future to live for the present. Leo Gormley, Dundalk, Co Louth Scatter the rain and share the pain is my reading of the wet-weather forecast Every time I hear a weather forecast predicting scattered showers, I reckon this is the Lords way of ensuring we all get a fair share. Tom Gilsenan, Beaumont, Dublin 9 President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has approved the law "On approval of the Agreement on Defense Cooperation between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Government of Georgia", Azernews reports. According to the law, the "Agreement on Defense Cooperation between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Government of Georgia", signed on April 24, 2023 in Baku, has been approved. News / Local by Staff reporter President Emmerson Mnangagwa has shifted the oversight of the Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency (ZIDA) Act from the Ministry of Finance, Economic Development, and Investment Promotion to his own office, prompting concerns about a potential consolidation of power and increased control over critical economic sectors.Initially falling under the jurisdiction of the Finance Minister, the ZIDA Act has been modified through two Statutory Instruments, transferring its administration to the president. In Statutory Instrument 224 of 2023, Mnangagwa specified that the ZIDA Act is no longer under the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, while Statutory Instrument 225 of 2023 designates him as the administrator of the AIDA Act. Statutory Instrument 224 of 2023 states:"The Assignment of Functions Minister of Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion) Notice, 2018, published in Statutory Instrument 197 of 2023, is amended by the deletion of the following item in the Schedule thereto: 'Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency Act [Chapter 14:38] (Act No. 10 of 2019).' Supplement to the Zimbabwean Government Gazette dated the 10th November, 2023."Statutory Instrument 225 of 2023 reads:"The Assignment of Functions (His Excellency the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe) Notice, 2023, published in Statutory Instrument 189 of 2023, is amended by the inclusion of the following item in the Schedule thereto: 'Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency Act [Chapter 14:38] (Act No. 10 of 2019).' Supplement to the Zimbabwean Government Gazette dated the 10th November, 2023."Under the ZIDA Act, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube previously held diverse responsibilities related to the promotion and implementation of investment strategies, both domestically and internationally. These included advocating for the decentralization of investment activities, coordinating investment programs, facilitating the entry and execution of investment projects, and employing modern communication methods to promote Zimbabwe as an attractive investment destination.Ncube was also tasked with fostering dialogue between the public and private sectors, creating and regulating Special Economic Zones, assessing and recommending public-private partnerships, and offering investor aftercare services to support investment retention and expansion.Economic analyst Mike Vareta expressed concerns that the removal of the ZIDA Act from the Finance Minister's purview could empower President Mnangagwa to negotiate deals in secrecy, potentially hindering investor understanding of opportunities in Zimbabwe. Vareta recommended that the government prioritize creating a favorable investment environment by addressing infrastructure issues, reducing corruption, and ensuring fair competition.Political analyst Romeo Chasara suggested that the transfer of the ZIDA Act from the Finance Minister's authority may complicate operations for investors and could signify an attempt to consolidate power in the hands of the President, potentially negatively impacting the private sector and hindering economic growth. Sir I am a former member of the Artane Boys Band, having been a proud and enthusiastic member for seven years through the 1990s. These years were hugely formative for me. During the life of the old St Josephs Industrial School (1870-1969), Artane in Dublin was a mainly rural area, and so the name of Artane became synonymous with the school. For some who are not familiar with the Artane of today, they still wrongly associate the name with the now-closed industrial school. However, for many years, Artane has indeed been a fantastic and large community which takes great pride in its band, and is much bigger than the industrial school that was once located there. Neither it nor the Christian Brothers owns the name Artane. The Artane Band of today is an independent organisation and draws its identity from its proud ethos, musicianship, camaraderie and community. The motion that was passed by Dublin City Council last Monday, calling upon the band to have its name and uniform removed, has greatly disappointed me and many others. I have huge sympathy for the victims of abuse in St Josephs Industrial School in Artane, which closed its doors in 1969. However, I do not believe that a way of rectifying those crimes is to do away with the identity of the Artane Band and of its members. The band today and the Artane School of Music of which it is a part has no relationship with the individuals of many decades ago who perpetrated such cruelty in St Josephs. It is run to the highest professional standards by a dedicated staff and management, and their number one loyalty is to its many young and talented members. Suggesting associations between an amazing group of young people today and some horrendous perpetrators of abuse from decades ago is deeply unfair, and damaging to these young people. I strongly suggest that the council members reconsider this motion and instead work to ensure that the young people within its jurisdiction have the proper care and opportunities that previous generations were wrongly denied. Mark OKeeffe, Fairview, Dublin 3 Anti-Zionism not the same as antisemitism Sir I participated in the Pro-Palestinian march in Cork on November 4 and can assure Eilis OHanlon I saw no evidence of antisemitism (In a world full of horrors, why is it only ever Israel that excites deep loathing?, November 5). The focus of attention was on calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an end to Israeli military and settler harassment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Eilis must know it is standard Israeli propaganda practice to claim that antisemitism is on the rise as soon as they engage in yet another campaign of murder by attacking homes, schools, churches, mosques, medical institutions and ambulances in Gaza, in a relentless aerial bombardment of an essentially defenceless people. We must continue to repeat loudly that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism, despite Israeli propaganda efforts to conflate the two. Con Hayes, Blarney, Co Cork Benjamin Netanyahu is storing up future problems Sir Hamas is a terrorist and barbaric organisation. It is impossible to eliminate its members from Gaza. The killings and mayhem there serve only as effective recruitment engines for the next generation of deluded fanatics. Netanyahu is inducing a new generation of ruthless paramilitaries that will prove a huge threat to Israel. Dr Wahba Abdalmajid, the Palestinian ambassador to Ireland, gave a classic exhibition of ducking and diving evasion on the core issue of Hamas terrorism in a revealing interview with Niamh Horan (Sunday Independent, November 5). I concur with Eilis OHanlon. It is possible to be anti-war and pro-Israel. Bill Tormey, Glasnevin, Dublin 11 We have to stand up for what is right Sir Eilis OHanlon is selective in her recollections and, as is now customary, labels any criticism of Israel in the West as antisemitic. Students of history and those with good memories will recall then taoiseach Charlie Haughey standing up to Britain and its prime minister, Maggie Thatcher, over the sinking of the Belgrano during the Falklands War in 1982 with the loss of 368 lives, mostly young sailors who were in their teens. Charlie Haughey united the country over Argentina This action precipitated a massive rift in British-Irish relations when the Irish government of the day withdrew its support for European sanctions imposed on Argentina after its invasion of the Falklands and, as a member of the Security Council, Ireland called for the United Nations to promote a diplomatic settlement. It was one of the few occasions when Haughey had the whole country behind him in support of Argentina. Tom McElligott, Listowel, Co Kerry Murder is murder and it has to stop Sir As a young man many years ago in London, I lodged with a Polish-Jewish family. I say lodged, but in time I became almost a member of the family. I read the Jewish Chronicle each week. Ignace, the father of the house, told me his family had a milling business in Poland. He spoke of the Holocaust once, perhaps at my instigation, Im not sure. Some members of his close circle disappeared, never to be seen again. Is it not ironic that there is many a man in Palestine, like Ignace, mourning lost family and friends, annihilated not by the gas chamber but by the bomb? Patrick Fleming, Glasnevin, Dublin 9 Neither side can win this zero-sum fight Sir The tragedy of history is that it is repeated we learn nothing. This is an unwinnable war. Neither Israelis nor Palestinians can destroy each other. Neither the US nor Iran can win the war for either side. Its time to end the carnage, free the hostages and broker a lasting solution. Otherwise, it will go on and on. Deep down, everybody knows this. Chris Fitzpatrick, Dublin 6 Kim isnt scared of Shane Ross either Sir Shane Ross wrote a cynical article (November 5) about Taoiseach Leo Varadkars trade mission to South Korea, saying that North Koreas Kim Jong Un must have been quaking in his boots when he heard that Irelands premier was prowling around his borders. Your readers will recall that in November 2014, minister Shane Ross with junior ministers John Halligan and Finian McGrath had intended to travel to North Korea for a meeting with the same Kim Jong Un. The supreme leader (I mean Kim) was throwing a few shapes and launching a few ballistic missiles. Our three heroes were going there to sort him out. However, they cancelled their mission when it became apparent they were becoming a national laughing stock. I doubt if Kim was doing any quaking then. Shane also criticises Leo for going abroad to get photo opps, something Micheal Martin wouldnt do. But Micheal was in China for the past week, photo opps wall to wall, and he is away this week too. Irony is lost on Shane. John McKeown, Waterford Suspended pupils can come good Sir School suspension and expulsion numbers have increased significantly across Ireland since the Covid-19 pandemic, according to new figures from Tusla. Knowing that students who experience suspension are more likely to disengage from the education system, become involved with the juvenile justice system and are more likely to experience homelessness, what are we doing to prevent the escalation of these issues? At YMCA Dublin, we run an Alternative Suspension (AS) programme, which supports students who are at risk of disengagement from education or have been suspended. As an alternative to the traditional exclusionary school suspension approach, this is an internationally proven intervention. Students are empowered to work through their difficulties in a constructive manner. Last year, we saw a 43pc reduction in negative behaviours among participants. Such supports need to become a national priority to help support vulnerable students, prevent educational disadvantage and transform future outcomes for young people. If we fail to invest in our youth, who will? Leanne Young, YMCA Dublin, Dublin 8 Lawyers are left in the hapenny place Sir Someone once said the professions have the country by the throat. Reading Jody Corcorans article (Plunged into state of disrepair after brush with elusive, tardy tradespeople, October 29), it would appear that tradespeople have overtaken the professions in this regard. This is nowhere better illustrated than in the story told about the New York lawyer who complained to a plumber about the exorbitant fee he had been charged. Im a lawyer, he remonstrated, and I dont make that kind of money. To which the tradesman responded: Neither did I when I was a lawyer. Jim OConnell, Blackhorse Avenue, Dublin 7 Women could be the churchs last hope Sir Your editorial last Sunday stated that women priests might be the last hope for the Catholic Church. It said some dioceses for example, Perth, Australia have bucked the trend of the decline in religion throughout the western world. A third cousin of mine (born in Belfast) has been a parish priest in Perth for many years. Why dont some of the Irish bishops contact him to discover the secrets of Perths success? He has a sister who is a nun there. If she had been given the chance, Im sure she would have been as successful a priest as her brother. However, she was never given that chance and so the loss has been to the church. If we are all equal in Gods eyes, maybe the church has some catching up to do with God. D OSullivan, Belfast Sir I was delighted to read your view that women priests might be the last hope for the Catholic Church. It is going down the Swanee River. The number of priests has dropped amazingly since I was a girl. The winds of change blow slowly in Rome. We could have married priests to save the church. We are all Gods children and the church will fall if Rome doesnt hurry up with a solution. Terry Healy Riordan, Kill, Co Kildare Government is steering assemblys final vote Sir I was selected to be on the Citizens Assembly on Drugs, organised by a government secretariat, which sat for six weekends between April and October. We sat in groups, we listened to presentations, had discussions and asked questions. A steering group was selected from members of the assembly, but this mainly received information from the secretariat. There was also an opportunity for outside groups or individuals to make submissions. Assembly members had no contact with these people or groups, and no input into the selection of presenters or topics. There were 20 hours of high-quality formal presentations from over 120 speakers covering international, European and national perspectives, drug research, legal approach, rehabilitation, benefits and prevention. The presentations concentrated on addiction being the result of trauma (six hours) and the solution being more funding for rehabilitation. Except for cannabis, there was little or no information on the nature and impacts of the most commonly used drugs in Ireland, no information on the science or biology of addiction, little reference to the problems of drug use for fun and its consequences, or how the drug trade is being funded by the more affluent in society. There was acceptance that supply cannot be stopped and the approach was on mitigating harm. At the third, fourth and fifth weekends, members were invited to propose solutions. These were steered towards topics that had been presented. At the final vote, members were presented with choices selected by the secretariat, reflective of the government plan, Reducing Harm, Supporting Recovery. As there are other causes of addiction, the emphasis in the assembly on trauma and addiction left members, in my view, with a skewed view of the issue of addiction. I feel the assembly was steered in a particular direction. At the final vote, we were voting on what the Government had already decided. To me, the Citizens Assembly was not a democratic process, and it arrived more or less at the solution already decided by the Government. These assemblies are using taxpayers money. They should not be window dressing for government policy. Helen Carty, Enfield, Co Meath Victims recalled as beacons of kindness Sir We will remember the names of Jason Corbett and Ashling Murphy, not just because of who they as individuals were, but how in their short lives they were beacons of fun, laughter, kindness and, most of all, love. What must be remembered by those who grieve at their loss is the beautiful, pleasant and happy days spent with those who were loved. That can never be taken away while we forget the sadistic murderers who have nothing left in their lives but time. Christy Galligan, Letterkenny, Co Donegal Irish exams fuel teacher shortage Sir Eight-hundred teaching posts in Irelands primary schools remain unfilled due to a shortage of teachers. Its anticipated that there will be an additional 1,200 vacancies within the next three months. Disadvantaged schools and special schools, especially, are experiencing particular difficulties finding teachers, and the teacher shortage is having a huge impact on special education provision. I have always had a great fondness for Irish history, language, literature, culture and traditional music. In the beautiful words of Padraig Pearse, tir gan teanga, tir gan anam (a country without a language is a country without a soul), but needs must when the devil drives. In my work as a career guidance counsellor, I regularly engage with young people who would love to become primary teachers. Unfortunately, many of them cannot apply because they are not studying Higher Level Irish at Leaving Cert or are eliminated for not achieving a minimum of 60pc in that exam. I wonder, considering the acute shortage of primary teachers, if its time to relax the Leaving Cert Irish requirement a little to allow many suitable and enthusiastic young people to enter the teaching profession. With the emphasis on oral, functional and interactive learning in the primary school language curriculum, Id expect a young person with a minimum of 40pc at Higher Level or 60pc at Ordinary Level in Leaving Cert Irish would be capable of teaching Irish at primary level. I may be incorrect in that observation, but it would certainly open up primary teaching to many fine young people who would love to become primary teachers. Billy Ryle, Spa, Tralee, Co Kerry Leo Varadkars Korea toast was stout of order Sir On a recent trade mission to Korea, our Taoiseach and his team saw fit to raise a glass and propose a toast of Slainte to their hosts. Each of the team held aloft a pint of the black stuff; there was no mistaking what product they were holding. Our Taoiseach is a doctor and a former health minister. He knows only too well the harm and destruction that alcohol has brought to so many of our citizens John Higgins, Ballina, Co Mayo Millie Bobby Brown will star in the new film Damsel. (Ian West/PA) A trailer for a film starring Millie Bobby Brown has been released along with a host of other first looks at new content on Netflix. Stranger Things star Brown, 19, features in the upcoming Damsel as a princess on the run who becomes trapped in a cave with a dragon. The teaser sees Robin Wright, known for the title role in 1987 fantasy film The Princess Bride, as a queen as well as a brief appearance of Oscar nominee Angela Bassett. Wright says: Welcome princess, for generations, it has been our task to protect our people so tonight, you join a long line of women who have helped to build this kingdom. The price is dear, but so too the reward. Brown is seen mostly in darkness in the trailer, released on Saturday, as she looks around the cave before Netflix says the movie will be released next year. The streaming giant has also teased, during its geeked week, an animated series of blockbuster science fiction franchise Terminator. Terminator: The Anime Series will see an female soldier try to protect scientist Malcolm Lee in 1997 as an assassin arrives. The first film in franchise was 1984s The Terminator, which saw Arnold Schwarzenegger as the cyborg and Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor. Dead Boy Detectives, based on the comic books by British author Neil Gaiman and American artist Matt Wagner, will be part of the same universe as The Sandman, according to Netflix. The series is about teenagers investigating ghosts and will feature a clairvoyant named Crystal, played by Pirates and Hollyoaks star Kassius Nelson. The Sandman, released last year, sees Tom Sturridge as Lord Morpheus in the fantasy show. A final trailer for animated series Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, which will be released on Netflix on November 17, has also been put on YouTube. The show sees stars of the 2011 film Scott Pilgrim Vs The World reprise their roles including Michael Cera as Scott Pilgrim, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona Flowers and Kieran Culkin as Wallace Wells. Elsewhere, an trailer for the adaption of tabletop card game Exploding Kittens has featured Lucifer star Tom Ellis as GodCat. The popular game is about avoiding explosions from kittens while playing other cat-based cards. A woman has been taken to hospital after being hit by flying debris as Storm Debi's trail of destruction also brought coastal flooding and widespread power outages across Ireland. Heavy winds and fallen trees have been reported across Ireland as local authorities moved to respond to the damage following the lifting of red and orange weather alerts. More than 34,000 people remain without power across the country this evening as ESB Networks work to restore supply. A postwoman was taken to hospital after being hit by flying debris in County Limerick during Storm Debi, according to the postal service. In a statement, a spokeswoman for An Post said: "Thankfully, she was not seriously injured." The ESB has said 34,000 customers remain without supply this evening, from the peak of 100,000 customers. The main areas in which customers will remain without supply overnight include Athlone, Cavan, Drogheda, Dundalk, Longford, Mullingar and Tuam. It is important that any impacted customers who use electrically powered medical devices contact their healthcare professional to make alternative arrangements if necessary, said the ESB. All available resources have been deployed and ESB Networks crews will continue to work late into the night to restore power to as many customers as possible. However, due to the severity of the damage to the network in certain parts and sustained high winds throughout the day, some customers will remain without supply overnight. It comes as Taoiseach Leo Varadkar defended Met Eireanns red weather warning despite complaints about no clear messaging about whether schools would open or not this morning. Mr Varadkar said 100,000 homes were left without power due to the storms overnight and that, while some people were injured, nobody was killed. He also pledged prompt help for householders and businesses hit by flooding, giving special mention to those in Galway city and county. When it comes to weather warnings, I think we all know that weather forecasting isnt an exact science. I think Met Eireann does a really good job in providing us with updated forecasts and the best advice they can, the Taoiseach said. I think it was serious enough and severe enough to warrant the red warning given that we had 100,000 homes without power this morning, Mr Varadkar insisted. Galway business owners' clean-up efforts following Storm Debi Severe weather saw extensive flooding in Galway city and nearby Oranmore and Clarinbridge. Storm surge knocked over a sea wall and a boat was washed off moorings in Oranmore. Council teams worked to clear the sea wall and debris, which had been strewn across a road. Downed trees and flooding were reported in Co Cavan while Louth County Council also recorded fallen power lines. Fire crews in Meath responded to a number of incidents involving vehicles and fallen trees but reported no injuries. Storm Debi: Strong winds and flooding in Galway The ESB said it would have to work late through the night to return power to some areas, after more than 100,000 homes and businesses were without electricity at the peak of outages this morning. Minister for Social Protection Heather Humphreys said the Humanitarian Assistance Scheme will also be extended to other affected areas as required. Ms Humphreys said: "I'm very conscious of the serious disruption that severe weather and flooding is causing for individuals and families in County Galway, especially in Oranmore and parts of Galway City." Workers attend to fallen trees in Chapelizod area of Dublin due to Storm Debi this morning. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins Photos Forecasters had warned of a potential "danger to life" as schools and services in parts of Ireland delayed opening due to weather warnings across the island. The majority of the country was placed under a series of now-expired red and orange wind warnings due to "severe and damaging gusts", after which a yellow warning remained in place until 3pm. The weather caused disruption to early morning flights at Dublin Airport, while commuters in the city saw cancellations on a number of services. An Post has adjusted schedules due to the storm and deliveries in the north, midlands, south and east of the country will be delayed due to road conditions and power outages. Dublin Bus and Luas tram services have resumed in the city after being axed before 10am due to the storm. The bus service operator advised services were returning on a phased basis with further disruption possible. A speed restriction of 50kmh was put in place across the entire Irish Rail network as a precaution this morning. An ESB spokesman said approximately 80,000 customers remained without power supply at 10.30am. Brian Tapley, of ESB Networks, said the worst affected areas are Tuam, Longford, the Midlands, Ashbourne and Navan. We need your consent to load this Social Media content. We use a number of different Social Media outlets to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review your details and accept them to load the content A gust of 115kmh was recorded at a Met Eireann weather station in Athenry, Co Galway. Junior minister Patrick O'Donovan said the scale of the damage will be clearer later in the day. He asked people to leave it to local authority workers and ESB workers to clear trees from the roads. "The warning really to people that are going to go out on the roads is to stay away from trees because they could be very easily entangled with power lines and there is other risks associated with trees," he told RTE Radio. This is the fourth storm to affect Ireland since September, which saw main streets in Ireland hit by flooding after intense rain from Storms Babet and Ciaran. The Irish national director for fire and emergency management said Storm Debi is "probably the most intense storm" of the season so far. Keith Leonard said: "It was probably the high winds of that leading edge of the storm as it came across the country that was the most hazardous piece. So probably the most intense storm we've had so far in the season." He said there is a "general trend" of coastal flooding. The UK Met Office has also issued a yellow wind and rain warning for all of Northern Ireland on Monday, while an amber warning applied to counties Down and Amragh. The yellow warning came into effect at 3am and applies until 2pm, while the amber warning was in effect from 6am until noon. The Met Office said heavy rain and strong winds may bring disruption and flooding to parts of the region. It advised people to be aware that homes and businesses could be flooded and there could be disruption to bus, rail and air travel. The agency also said fast-flowing or deep floodwater and flying debris could cause a danger to life. Dun Laoghaire Dublin this morning. A Status Yellow wind and rain warning for Ireland is in operation until 3pm. Picture: Stephen Collins/Collins Photos School and creche disruption Schools, preschools and creches in 20 counties affected by this morning's red and orange weather warnings had been asked to stay closed until 10am at the earliest on Monday as Met Eireann had warned of a potential danger to life. Read more Storm Debi: Motorists and commuters warned to expect delays as public transport starts to resume School managers at local level advised parents of any disruption to school services throughout the morning. The National Emergency Co-Ordination Group had given their advice on school opening hours based on the balance of risk and to ensure public safety for students and staff in all schools. The Department of Children contacted creches and early childcare providers late on Sunday evening asking them to also delay their opening on Monday until 10am. Its understood that many creches may remain closed on Monday over concerns for the safety of staff, children and parents travelling to and from the early childcare facilities. One industry spokesperson told the Irish Independent that there was concern within the industry that many providers would not be insured to operate during such severe weather warnings. Dublin Airport: Eight flights cancelled and said they are open and operational but to expect disruption Public transport chaos Bus Eireann services started to resume in Cavan, Dublin, Kildare, Laois, Louth, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Westmeath and Wicklow from 11am while services in other parts of the country have been operating since 10am. A spokesperson added that there are significant service disruptions in Galway and Roscommon. A phased resumption of services in these areas started to commence from 8am. Dublin Bus and Go-Ahead services all resumed after 10am with some delays expected. Bus Eireann said afternoon school transport services are intended to operate as normal, subject to local road conditions being safe to travel. Construction workers battling the elements of Storm Debi outside Liberty Hall in Dublin during very strong winds. Photo by Steve Humphreys 13th November 2023. Irish Rail has lifted the speed restriction of 80kph across the rail network, although some restrictions remain in place between Ennis and Athenry. Ongoing delays are expected due to earlier weather conditions. Air travel cancellations Eight flights were cancelled pre-emptively last night by airlines at Dublin Airport due to Storm Debi four incoming and four outgoing. Graeme McQueen, Media Relations Manager at DAA, said: "Dublin Airport continues to operate as normal today. "Passengers should continue to contact their airline directly for updates regarding specific flights. As of 11am, three inbound flights have been diverted from Dublin, with some minor delays to outbound flights. "Winds peaked between 8am and 9am this morning, resulting in a number of aircraft having to hold or perform "go-arounds" and some short delays to outgoing flights. "One inbound flight from Newark diverted to Glasgow Airport due to weather conditions." We need your consent to load this Social Media content. We use a number of different Social Media outlets to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review your details and accept them to load the content We need your consent to load this Social Media content. We use a number of different Social Media outlets to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review your details and accept them to load the content There was some flooding in Galway city centre, particularly on low streets around the Spanish arch. A sea wall was damaged in Galway City, with 60ft of the wall destroyed by full tide at 5am, with chunks of masonry and stones strewn across the road. Houses and gardens there have also been flooded. There has been significant flooding in Salthill, as cars became submerged by water overnight. 7 Day Weather Forecast: November 13th - 20th Closure of public amenities As a precautionary measure Carlow County Council closed Carlow Town Park, Oak Park, Duckett's Grove, Tullow Town Park and Thomas Traynor Memorial Park for all of Monday. All Dublin city libraries, parks, sports and recreation facilities, and City Hall opened at 10am this morning. Councils had crews on standby overnight and into this morning to assess any damage caused as a result of the storm and to carry out repairs. All Bank of Ireland and AIB branches delayed opening this morning and should now be operating as normal. O'Connell Street suffering from the elements of Storm Debi. Photo by Steve Humphreys 13th November 2023. Safety advice for the public The National Emergency Co-ordination Group (NECG) described Storm Debi as probably the most intense storm we have had in the season. Keith Leonard said there are a huge amount of trees down, and lots of road disruption throughout the country. Very widespread trees down across pathways, with coastal overtopping and flooding in Glaway City and Oranmore. Thankfully not too much structural damage caused, he told RTEs Morning Ireland. Mr Leonard said it was the very high winds and the leading edge of Storm Debi that was the "most hazardous. He stressed that the most dangerous part of any storm is in the recovery phase. Heights on ladders, standing on roofs and on farm equipment and infrastructure, are the most dangerous, particularly when people are going out to assess the damage caused to their property. We advise people to be very careful for the rest of the day. Be very careful around heavy machinery or any hazardous places, he said. The advice would be to be very aware of your local conditions, storms arent uniform conditions, if you are moving about, be aware of the local conditions, particularly in coastal areas. He added: Given the disruption to travel networks, employers are asked to be flexible to those who will be disrupted getting to work and consider the option of working from home. Importantly, I would remind people that it is critical that they never ever touch or approach fallen wires. "Be sure to stay safe and stay clear of fallen or damaged electricity wires and, if you encounter any, do contact ESB Networks at 1800 372 999. Where power cuts do occur, use the PowerCheck App to check for reconnection times. We will continue to monitor the ongoing weather conditions and ensure that all relevant state bodies are responding speedily and appropriately to meet any challenges. " Road safety during Storm Debi The Road Safety Authority urged road users to be extremely careful when travelling in the aftermath of the storm. "Road users are also advised to check local traffic and weather reports before setting out on a journey as storm damage could impact routes, the RSA said in a statement. Those who must travel are advised to; slow down and allow a greater braking distance; take special care when driving behind goods vehicles; after going through water, drive slowly with your foot on the brake pedal for a short distance - this helps to dry the brakes; beware of objects being blown out onto the road; watch out for falling / fallen debris on the road and vehicles veering across the road; and drive with dipped headlines at all times. Wake of Storm Debi A Status Yellow wind and rain warning is in effect nationwide until 3pm on Monday. Very windy or stormy on Monday due to Storm Debi, accompanied by heavy rain with a chance of embedded thunderstorms and hail, Met Eireann stressed. Possible impacts of the Status Yellow wind and rain warning include the potential for fallen trees and branches, localised flooding and wave overtopping as well as hazardous travelling conditions. Hezbollah attacks wound Israeli troops along Lebanon border The clashes came as skirmishes between the Iran-backed group and Israeli military continue to intensify along the Lebanon-Israel border Hezbollah fighters carry the coffin of their comrade, Mohammed Ali Assaf, who was killed by an Israeli strike in Syria on Friday (Hassan Ammar/AP) Amy Teibel Sun 12 Nov 2023 at 18:06 Attacks by Lebanons Hezbollah group on Sunday wounded seven Israeli troops and 10 other people, Israels military and rescue services said. Screengrab of video posted on tripurasundari.tripura.gov.in Agartala: Elaborate security arrangements have been made at Udaipur in Tripuras Gomati district, where thousands of devotees have been gathering in serpentine lines since early Sunday morning to offer obeisance and make offerings at the Mata Tripureswari Templeone of the 51 Shakti Peethas, on Diwali. More than 2,000 men in uniform from paramilitary forces along with state police have been deployed to hold a peaceful Diwali celebration at the holy Tripureswari Temple. Police authorities have also set up security surveillance from an elevated vantage point, allowing for a sweeping overview of the area, and have imposed restrictions on vehicle movement in the city, including for VIPs. To facilitate the travel of the devotees besides regular and scheduled train services, the Northeast Frontier Railway has been running a pair of special passenger trains between Dharmanagar-Udaipur-Sabroom routes on the occasion of Diwali. A stretch of at least 3 km, on both sides of the temple, on the National Highway has been declared a no-vehicle zone. Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha along with his cabinet colleagues, former Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Dev Varma, Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Pratima Bhowmik, Lok Sabha member Rebati Tripura, Rajya Sabha member and former Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb are scheduled to inaugurate the two-day long Diwali festival at Tripureswari temple on Sunday evening. Tripura Finance Minister and Udaipur MLA Pranajit Singharoy told the media that a large number of saints from different parts of the country have assembled in the temple to take part in special prayer, while devotees from different parts of India and Bangladesh have come to offer puja on the auspicious occasion like the previous years. We are expecting the gathering of more than five lakh people in the temple, Singharoy stated. Meanwhile, Tripura Police spokesperson Jyotishman Daschoudhury said that all major motor stands, car, auto parking areas, and crowded areas in Agartala, Udaipur, and Dharmanagar have been brought under CCTV surveillance. The organisers of various pujas, especially, where big pandals have been set up, have been requested to install CCTV cameras in and around their pandal areas. Police mobile, foot patrols, anti-liquor raids, surprise checks of hotels, and checking of vehicles have been intensified and action is being taken against anti-social elements, he said and urged people to limit their festivities to bursting green crackers. A special measure has been adopted to ensure only safe and green firecrackers are allowed at AD Nagar police line, where thousands of devotees will take part in the Diwali celebration. The city police along with civil administration and the officials of Tripura State Pollution Control Board (TSPCB) have launched a crackdown over the last three days against the storage and selling of firecrackers, which have above 90 decibels, to control noise pollution during Diwali and the ban on such crackers will remain till the end of the festival. Meanwhile, the BSF troops on Saturday opened a two-day Diwali fair at Frontier headquarters at Salbagan to bring a happy change and break in the daily routine of the BSF Jawans guarding the Indo-Bangladesh border of Tripura. There were ethnic food stalls, games, entertainment activities as well as cultural programs for the seema praharies, their family, children, and other invitees. (With UNI inputs) The Asiatic wildcat, also known as the Indian desert cat, faces threats such as hybridisation of the species with the domestic cat, roadkills and expansion of infrastructure projects that fragments its habitat. In conversation with Mongabay-India correspondent Shuchita Jha, wildlife biologist Sumit Dookia who has been studying the Asiatic wildcat for over a decade discusses why the species hasnt been a focal point in conservation priorities and possible ways to conserve the species. Known for its black or reddish-brown spots, the Asiatic wildcat (Felis lybica ornata), commonly known as the Indian desert cat, faces a number of anthropogenic threats, which is leading to a decline in its population. Wildlife experts have confirmed that the threat of hybridisation with domestic cats, poses a risk of loss of genetic material and endangers the population of the species. Once abundantly present across the Thar Desert, with scientific records tracing its presence back to some regions in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, the sightings of the cat have become few and far between in the country. Though its range spans Southeast and Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Mongolia and China, the population status across the habitat is ambiguous. The Asiatic wildcat plays an essential ecological role by preying on insects such as grasshoppers and small herbivores such as hares and ground-nesting birds, thereby helping regulate the populations of rodents, locusts and other potential pests. These ecosystem services benefit local communities by protecting crops and maintaining a balance in the environment. The Asiatic wildcat helps regulate the populations of rodents, locusts, and other potential pests. Photo by Radheshyam Bishnoi. However, scientific studies about the species are limited and in the absence of a census it is difficult to determine the current population, as well as the scale of decline in numbers, especially in India. Yet, it is categorised as a species of least concern in the IUCN Red List, indicating low extinction risk because they are plentiful in the wild and hence not a focus of species conservation. Only a few scientists and wildlife experts have studied this lesser cat for a long period of time. Sumit Dookia, Assistant Professor, University School of Environment Management, GGS Indraprastha University, New Delhi, one among these researchers, who has been studying the Asiatic wildcat for over 15 years, shares his insight and findings from his long-term research. Q: How and when did you decide to study the Asiatic wildcat? A: I was nine years old when I first saw an Indian desert cat (Asiatic wildcat) at my maternal grandparents place in Khunkhuna, a village in the Nagaur district of Rajasthan. The cat is locally called rohi minno (male cat that lives in the scrubs) or roni minni (for females). I was fascinated with the creature as it emerged from the shrubs, dashed more than 100 metres in the blink of an eye and disappeared into its den in the winter. I then started to spot these cats frequently and learnt to identify them with their prominent spots and sand colours. My interest in biodiversity, particularly zoology, further grew when my father, a zoologist, offered deep insights to my most basic questions as a child. I grew up exploring the wilderness in the Gogelao Enclosure, near Nagaur, a vast 700-hectare natural landscape where wildlife thrives on a piece of land donated by a local Marwari family, just two kilometres from my hometown. My encounters with local wildlife led me to pursue a career in zoology and I focused my doctoral thesis on the Indian gazelle in 2002. However, during this time, I realised that the sightings of the Indian desert cat had gone down drastically, with just one or two individuals being sighted in a year within the Gogelao Enclosure. I thought that this was a worrying trend. While the IUCNs Red List Assessment categorises the desert cat as least concern, scientific studies on this feline remained scarce. Even during my doctorate, I could only pinpoint a handful of places where sightings of the cat were relatively frequent. This realisation spurred me to embark on landscape-level studies, seeking a deeper understanding of their habitat preferences and ecological relationships. Q: How does the Asiatic wildcat differ from its European cousin? A: The Asiatic wildcat is often referred to as the Afro-Asian wildcat due to its more predominant distribution across Asian regions compared to African territories. It differs from its European counterpart in terms of the size and colour of the pelt. The Asiatic wildcat is much smaller than the European wildcat and has yellow or reddish fur, with small black or reddish-brown spots. Some might have stripes too. Depending on where they live, their colours can vary. For example, wildcats in drier places have paler fur, while those in wetter areas have darker, more distinct patterns. In contrast, the European wildcat tends to have a more muted and consistent fur pattern. The changing of colours and patterns shows its excellent adaptability according to the varied ecosystems where it thrives. Q: How do these cats interact with local species such as the desert fox, given that they share dens and water resources? A: The Asiatic wildcat coexists with many other small carnivores of similar size like the desert fox and red-footed fox, Bengal fox and even jungle cat in a few areas in the Thar Desert. It is possible because all these animals have different niches in the greater similar-looking habitat from far away. They are territorial and occupy abandoned dens of the foxes and can be seen in these defended territories. They share the same water source with wild as well as domestic animals in remote areas and coexist. Q: What are the main challenges in studying the species distribution, collecting data and using camera traps in the wild? A: The Asiatic wildcats elusive nature turns studying them into a task similar to finding a needle in a haystack. The foremost challenge in studying the Asiatic wildcat lies in pinpointing optimal observation sites and strategically placing non-invasive camera traps. These tools aid in photographic documentation and validate sightings of the shy feline. Over the past 15 years, despite persistent efforts, Ive only managed to identify a handful of sites with consistent wildcat sightings. Whenever Im on the field, I scan areas based on the shared sighting information, employing methods like scat searches, and setting camera traps near waterholes, and off-road drives. My starting point always stems from insights provided by local field volunteers, whom I have been working with for the past 25 years. Q: In several years of documenting the Asiatic wildcat, what are the trends youve observed about its population? A: I have sighting location data for this cryptic cat species from more than 42 spots in five districts of Western Rajasthan. This number has now reduced to 16 spots over the years, which means the population has become locally extinct in 27 localities. Estimating the population at a landscape level is a colossal task, yet it is essential, especially as many small populations face extinction due to habitat loss. Another concerning issue is the hybridisation of these cats with domestic cats. Some populations in Jalore, Jaisalmer and a few other orans in Rajasthan are under close observation now. It is evident that the Asiatic wildcat represents a separate population, potentially even at the sub-species level, and is predominantly found in the Indian subcontinent. However, without a comprehensive population estimate and an inventory of these issues, the IUCN Red List Assessment for this species cannot be justified. The Asiatic wildcat. Photo by Radheshyam Bishnoi. Q: While big cats and charismatic species get ample conservation support, how does the Asiatic wildcat fare when it comes to funding and resources for conservation? A: Our conservation and population monitoring programmes have predominantly had a single species focus, which can be myopic, as this approach tends to overlook the species coexisting with these more popular ones. In my endeavour to survey and document the Asiatic wildcat, I havent received much external funding. The notable exception has been the consistent financial support from GGS Indraprastha University in New Delhi, through their Faculty Research Grant Scheme. This grant has provided me the freedom to delve into various aspects of the landscape. Ive conducted two to three surveys annually over the past seven years in western Rajasthan. Through these efforts, Ive gathered significant data on the wildcats feeding ecology, breeding patterns, habitat preferences, and distribution across several districts. Unfortunately, the Asiatic wildcat has long been overlooked in conservation priorities, both at the state and federal levels. This becomes more evident when considering landscape-level conservation efforts for the species. Q: As renewable energy projects, such as solar and wind, expand in the uncultivated desert areas of Rajasthan, do they have an influence on the wildcats behaviour? A: Yes. The recent boom in renewable energy projects poses a significant threat to the cats natural habitat. The Asiatic wildcat is predominantly a species of uncultivated areas. It feeds on a diverse array of native fauna that thrive on the untouched terrains in the natural vegetation while perennial shrubs in these regions provide the cat with breeding space as it utilises abandoned fox dens to protect its offspring. However, solar plant projects often entail large-scale removal of indigenous shrubs and trees, transforming vast landscapes into controlled grasslands. Such uniform habitats created by humans usually lack the rich biodiversity necessary for the survival of small carnivores. The mushrooming of these energy projects not only amplifies the problem but might also jeopardise the survival of this wild ancestor of our domestic cats. Q: What conservation measures would you recommend for the protection and population revival of the Asiatic wildcat? A: Hybridisation with domestic cats is a major issue for the Asiatic wildcat, but we have not seen any major steps being taken in any conservation planning to address such a clearly identified problem. There is an urgent need for genetic screening of different populations of the Asiatic wildcat, which will help identify the genetically pure individuals. We will also have to start landscape-level conservation projects for this species. The available habitats should be identified and some sort of legal protection needs to be granted to these open habitats either under village commons or conservation reserves, which will be helpful for any further habitat diversion or conversion. It has been seen that wherever any good hedge is available around agricultural fields, the sighting probability increases. This shows that hedge rows are an integral part of the habitat of the Asiatic wildcat and local communities should promote growing hedge rows around the fields. Photo Courtesy: UNI Indians across the globe are celebrating Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, on Sunday with celebrities and politicians joining in greeting countrymen on the auspicious occasion. Apart from worshipping Laxmi (the Hindu goddess of wealth), people also indulge themselves in feasting, decorating their house with diyas (earthen lamps), candles and chains of light on this day of festivity that is observed as a national holiday in India. Major activities associated with Diwali evening are indulging in bursting crackers and distributing sweets to neighbours. Amid celebrations, the norm of bursting firecrackers is also associated with the fear of spiking air pollution in the nation, especially in New Delhi, the nation's capital, which is fighting desperately to reduce the trouble. New Delhi witnessed a spike in air pollution for the past several days with a thick layer of smog enveloping the city. In a bid to avoid further deterioration of the air quality in the city, the state government has imposed a ban on the sale and use of firecrackers this year. Primarily celebrated in the month of October and November every year, Diwali symbolises the spiritual "victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance". East India celebrates Kali Puja: Interestingly on the occasion of Diwali, the entire India worships goddess Lakshmi- the Hindu goddess of wealth while the Bengalis, Assamese and Oriyas adore Goddess Kali. In Kolkata, Kali puja is celebrated with immense fun and mirth. Like Durga Puja, the goddess is worshipped by the people in this city in both their homes as well by the local organizers in pandals (marquee). A lot of rituals is associated with the worship of goddess Kali, who is worshiped at night with Tantric rites and mantras. She is offered red hibiscus flowers, animal blood in a skull, sweets, rice and lentils, fish and meat. It is prescribed that a worshipper should meditate throughout the night until dawn. Homes may also practise rites in the Brahmanical (mainstream Hindu-style, non-Tantric) tradition with ritual dressing of Kali in her form as Adya Shakti Kali. Animals are ritually sacrificed on Kali Puja day and offered to the goddess though the practice is now less in vogue. Animal rights groups have protested too this ritual of sacrifice. A celebration of Kali Puja in Kolkata is also held in large cremation grounds where she is believed to dwell. Kalighat temple and Dakshineswar Kali Temple are two of the famous Kali temples in the city and on this day the priests worship goddess Kali in different ways in this two temples. In Kalighat temple, Kali is worshipped as Lakshmi on the day of Kali Puja, reflecting an essence of Vaishnava Haldars on Kali worship. Thousands of devotees flock to the temple on this day. On the other hand in Dakshineswar Kali Temple, where famous Kali devotee Sri Sri Ramakrishna was a priest, the celebrations have changed little from his times. Chetla area in South Kolkata hosts a few of the popular pujas in the city. Revellers go pandal hopping even on Kali Pujas with theme-based decorations setting in this festival as well. In households, just like Diwali festivities, people light diyas and decorate homes with chains of lights to mark the occasion. Many Bengali homes also host Lakshmi Puja on this day. President and PM wish nation: President Droupadi Murmu wished the nation on Diwali by posting her message on X. Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi called on President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan. pic.twitter.com/5ss71jcIjC President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) November 12, 2023 Prime Minister Narendra Modi also met her at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Wishing everyone a Happy Diwali! May this special festival bring joy, prosperity and wonderful health to everyones lives. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 12, 2023 Earlier in the day, Modi greeted the nation and wrote on X: "Wishing everyone a Happy Diwali! May this special festival bring joy, prosperity and wonderful health to everyones lives." ! pic.twitter.com/i2T8lPdKm9 President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) November 12, 2023 Modi visited Himachal Pradesh to celebrate Diwali with security personnel. News / Local by Staff reporter There is a new name on Liverpool's bench for the clash with Brentford, and 16-year-old Trey Nyoni could become the club's youngest-ever league debutant.Liverpool confirmed their teamsheet for the latest Premier League fixture at 1pm on Sunday, with the average age of Jurgen Klopps substitutes just 20 years old.The youngest of those is Nyoni, who makes the first-team squad for the first time.It comes just three months after the teenager completed a summer move from Leicester, as part of Liverpool's ongoing focus on recruiting elite-level youngsters from the UK.A versatile midfielder, Nyoni has largely spent his time as part of the U18s so far, though in recent weeks he has become a fixture at U21s level.That has included back-to-back starts in the last two U21s games, with an assist for Mateusz Musialowskis wonderstrike in the 2-1 defeat to League Two side Barrow on Tuesday night.In 10 games for the club's academy sides so far this season, Nyoni has scored four goals and laid on five assists.Born in the UK to Zimbabwean parents, Trey Nyoni has represented England at junior ranks but is still eligible to switch this allegiance to Zimbabwe.Nyoni has also trained regularly with the senior side, and has clearly caught the eye of Klopp and his staff in the process.He is very highly rated within the club, which vindicates his decision to turn down almost every other top club in England in favour of a move to Merseyside.If he comes on, Nyoni would become Liverpool's youngest-ever league debutant at 16 years, four months and 13 days, breaking the record currently held by Jack Robinson.The club's youngest-ever player across all competitions remains Jerome Sinclair, who debuted in the League Cup just six days after his 16th birthday in 2012.While Nyoni's inclusion in the matchday squad against Brentford is enforced by injuries to the likes of Curtis Jones and Ryan Gravenberch, there is a firm belief in his ability and potential.He is capable of playing in a variety of roles in midfield, and has showcased his fine range of passing, smart interplay and work rate off the ball since joining.Such is the surprise over his involvement vs. Brentford, however, that the teenager was not even included on the back of Liverpool's official matchday programme. Photo Courtesy: US Embassy India X page The US embassy community in India, including ambassador Eric Garcetti, joined the nation in celebrating Diwali (the Hindu festival of lights) on Sunday. The embassy shared a video on X (formally known as twitter), in which the US embassy community was seen celebrating the festival in Indian attire, making rangoli and decorating the embassy. In the video, people were also seen dancing and enjoying Indian tunes on the festive occasion. "Join in the festivities as the U.S. Embassy community celebrates #Diwali with festive lights, good cheer, and a grateful heart. Wishing everyone a prosperous Diwal!" the embassy wrote on X. Join in the festivities as the U.S. Embassy community celebrates #Diwali with festive lights, good cheer, and a grateful heart. Wishing everyone a prosperous Diwali! pic.twitter.com/l12TpkRVbz U.S. Embassy India (@USAndIndia) November 12, 2023 Earlier on Thursday, New York State Senator Kevin Thomas joined US Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff in their Diwali celebrations. New York State Senator Thomas posted on X, "Tonight is D.C. It was an honour to celebrate Diwali with Kamala Harris. May your Diwali be free from darkness and full of light. Happy Diwali." Kamala Harris said, "We celebrate Diwali at a time when there is so much happening in the world. We are definitely facing a difficult moment, especially the reports coming from Israel and Gaza are devastating and heartbreaking for all." Image Credit: wikipedia.org New Delhi: An 11-year-old boy appeared before a Supreme Court bench today in an attempt to convince the judiciary that he is alive and that the alleged murder case involving him is fabricated, media reported. The Uttar Pradesh police registered the murder case in Pilibhit when Abhay Singhs father falsely accused his grandfather and uncles of murdering him, reported NDTV. The boy approached several authorities to bring closure to the case and tried to prove that he was alive. He even approached a bench at the Allahabad High Court, but his petition was dismissed, prompting him to present his case before the Supreme Court. On Friday, he stood before a division bench of the Supreme Court and said "I am alive". According to the boy's lawyer, Kuldeep Jauhari, the 11-year-old has been residing with his maternal grandfather since 2013 due to his father's abusive behaviour towards his mother and demands of more dowry, the report said. Following his mother's death, the boy's grandfather took legal action against the father, but Abhays father accused the grandfather of murdering Abhay, stated the report. In light of the situation, the court has directed the Uttar Pradesh government, the Superintendent of Police in Pilibhit, and the station house officer at the Neuria police station to provide reports on the case. The boy told the SC bench that he was alive and well and was living with his grandparents, the report added. The police keep coming to our house and threaten my grandparents. I want to continue staying with them, and hence want the case to be closed," he told the court, according to the report. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the case in January. Photo Courtesy: PIB Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday visited Himachal Pradesh to celebrate Diwali with security personnel and said India is safe as its borders are protected by the brave jawans with Himalaya-like determination. Addressing the Jawans on the occasion of Diwali today, the Prime Minister remarked that the amalgamation of the festival of Diwali and the echoes of acclamation of the courage of the jawans is a moment of enlightenment for every citizen of the country. He conveyed his best wishes on Diwali along with the jawans from the border areas of India, the countrys last village, which has now been deemed the first village. Recounting his experience, Modi said, "Festivities are wherever the family is there and called the situation of being away from family on the day of the festival for safeguarding the border pinnacle of devotion to duty." He said that the feeling of treating 140 crore Indians as their family gives the security personnel a sense of purpose. Country is grateful and indebted to you for this. That is why one Diya is lit for your safety in every household, the PM said. The place where jawans are posted is not less than any temple for me. Wherever you are, my festival is there. This is going on for perhaps 30-35 years, he added. Modi paid tribute to the jawans and the tradition of sacrifice by the armed forces. Our brave jawans have proven themselves to be the strongest wall on the border, he said. Our brave jawans have always won the hearts of the citizens by snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. the Prime Minister said as he highlighted the contributions of the armed forces in nation-building. He mentioned natural calamities like earthquakes and tsunamis as well as international peace missions where the armed forces have saved numerous lives. Armed forces have taken Indias pride to new heights, Modi remarked. The Prime Minister also mentioned proposing a memorial hall for peacekeepers at the United Nations last year which was unanimously passed and said that it will immortalize their contributions towards establishing world peace. Underlining the role of Indian armed forces in evacuation missions not only for Indians but for foreign nationals as well, he recalled the successful evacuation carried out from the turmoil in Sudan and the rescue mission after the earthquake in Turkiye. From the combat field to rescue missions, Indian armed forces are committed to saving lives, the Prime Minister said. He added that every citizen feels pride in the countrys armed forces. Pointing towards the global expectations from India in the current world scenario, Modi reiterated the importance of the secured border, peace and stability in the country. The Prime Minister narrated the achievements in the last one year since the last Diwali and mentioned Chandrayaan landing, Aditya L1, test related to Gaganyaan, indigenous aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, Tumkur helicopter factory, Vibrant Village campaign, and sporting achievements. Continuing further with global and democratic gains in the last one year, he talked about the new Parliament Building, Narishakti Vandan Adhiniyam, G20, biofuel alliance, preeminence in real-time payment in the world, crossing 400 billion dollars in exports, becoming 5th biggest economy of the world and strides in 5G roll out. The past year is a milestone year in nation-building, Modi said and added India made great strides in infrastructure development and became the country with the worlds second-largest road network, longest river cruise service, rapid rail service Namo Bharat, Vande Bharat on 34 new routes, India-Middle East-Europe Corridor, two world-class convention centers in Delhi Bharat Mandapam and Yashobhoomi. India became the country with the highest number of universities, best tourism village award for Dhordo village and inclusions of Shanti Niketan and Hoysala temple complex in UNESCO world heritage list. The Prime Minister emphasized that the country can strive for a better future as long as its borders remain guarded. He credited the development of India to the strength, resolutions and sacrifices of the armed forces. Noting that India has created possibilities from its struggles, Modi said that the nation has now stepped on the path of Atmanirbhar Bharat. He highlighted Indias unprecedented growth in the defence sector and its emergence as a global player and said that the strength of Indias armies and security forces is continuously increasing. The PM recalled how the nation was dependent on others for the smallest needs earlier, while it is meeting the needs of friendly nations today. He informed that Indias defence exports have increased more than 8 times since he visited the region in 2016. Defence production worth more than Rs 1 lakh crore is taking place in the country today. This is a record in itself.' Modi touched upon the integration of high-tech technology and important systems like CDS and said that the Indian Army is continuously becoming more modern. He added that India will no longer have to look towards other countries in times of need in the near future. Amidst this increasing spread of technology, the PM urged the armed forces to always keep human understanding paramount in the use of technology. Modi said, Today, indigenous resources and top-class border infrastructure are also becoming our strength. And I am happy that Narishakti is also playing a big role in this. He mentioned the commissioning of 500 Women Officers during the past year, women pilots flying Rafale fighter jets and the posting of women officers on warships. Speaking about the importance of taking care of the needs of the armed forces, the Prime Minister mentioned dresses suitable for extreme temperatures, drones to augment and protect jawans and payment of Rs 90,000 crore under the One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme. He recited a couplet and said that every step by the armed forces determines the direction of history. Modi expressed confidence that the armed forces will continue to serve Mother India with the same determination and said, With your support, the nation will continue to touch new heights of development. Together we will fulfill every resolution of the country. (With UNI inputs) Photo Courtesy: S Jaishankar X page Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, who is currently visiting the UK, met PM Rishi Sunak on Sunday and exchanged Diwali greetings with him. "Delighted to call on Prime Minister @RishiSunak on #Diwali Day. Conveyed the best wishes of PM @narendramodi," Jaishankar wrote on X. Delighted to call on Prime Minister @RishiSunak on #Diwali Day. Conveyed the best wishes of PM @narendramodi. India and UK are actively engaged in reframing the relationship for contemporary times. Thank Mr. and Mrs. Sunak for their warm reception and gracious hospitality. pic.twitter.com/p37OLqC40N Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) November 12, 2023 "India and UK are actively engaged in reframing the relationship for contemporary times," he said. "Thank Mr. and Mrs. Sunak for their warm reception and gracious hospitality," he said. Jaishankar will be visiting the UK from Nov 11 to Nov 15. "During his visit, EAM will be holding discussions with his counterpart, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and will meet several other dignitaries," read a statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs. The India-UK Comprehensive Strategic Partnership was launched in 2021 along with the India-UK Roadmap 2030. IDF claims to have killed Hamas commander Ahmed Siam accused holding 1,000 people as hostage. (Image Courtesy: twitter.com/IDF) Gaza: The Israeli military has claimed that it killed a top Hamas commander Ahmed Siam, who allegedly held almost 1,000 people and patients as hostages in a Gaza hospital, preventing them from escaping to safety. Siam, identified as a commander in Hamas's Naser Radwan Company, was killed in an airstrike conducted by Israel, according to IDF. In a tweet on X, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) also alleged that Siam employed civilians as human shields in terrorist activities. IDF aircraft just struck Ahmed Siam, responsible for holding approximately 1,000 Gazan residents and patients hostage at the Rantisi Hospital, and preventing their evacuation southward. Siam was a commander in Hamas' Naser Radwan Company, and is another example of Hamas using pic.twitter.com/RGJAISFjxL Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) November 11, 2023 While expanding its ground operations against Hamas in Gaza last month, Israeli forces have eliminated several Hamas operatives linked to the October 7 attacks, during which the Palestinian group launched an unprecedented assault on Israel. Palestinian militant group killed 1,200 people in its surprise assault, while over 10,000 lives have been lost in Gaza in the counter-offensive by Israel. Earlier this month, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant urged the residents of the Palestinian enclave to identify and eliminate Hamas's Gaza chief, Yahya Sinwar, stating that doing so "would shorten the war." "We will get to (Hamas Gaza chief) Yahya Sinwar and eliminate him. If the residents of Gaza get there ahead of us, that will shorten the war," he said, adding, "Hamas has no limits". Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his military cabinet have dismissed appeals for a ceasefire, even as the global community expresses concerns over the repercussions of the ongoing fighting and the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza. File image of Gaza's hospital tweeted by WHO Geneva/IBNS/UNI: The World Health Organisation (WHO) has lost communication with its contacts in the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip, Al-Shifa Hospital, amid reports that the facility was facing attacks by Israel, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Sunday. "WHO has lost contact with its focal points in Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, amid horrifying reports of the hospital facing repeated attacks. There are reports that some of those who fled the hospital have been shot at, wounded, or killed," Ghebreyesus said on X. .@WHO has lost communication with its contacts in Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza. As horrifying reports of the hospital facing repeated attacks continue to emerge, we assume our contacts joined tens of thousands of displaced people and are fleeing the area. pic.twitter.com/SouW2W3cad WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean (@WHOEMRO) November 12, 2023 According to the latest reports, the facility was surrounded by tanks, he said. The WHO chief once again called for a ceasefire and protection of civilians. On Friday, the hospital was struck by the Israeli military, doctors told NBC News. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that it did not surround or target Al-Shifa, but confirmed there were clashes between the IDF and Hamas around the hospital, adding that people were guaranteed a safe exit from Al-Shifa, on the east side of it. On October 7, Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise attack against Israel from Gaza, killing and abducting people in neighboring Israeli communities. Israel retaliated with missile strikes and a complete blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to more than 2 million. On October 27, Israel launched a large-scale ground incursion into Gaza with the declared goal of eliminating Hamas and rescuing the hostages. File photo by Nasim Online via Wikimedia Commons Riyadh: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, on Saturday, slammed the United States, asserting that it played a central role as the "primary instigator" and "accomplice" to Israel in the conflict with Hamas. He called for the imposition of sanctions on Israel, targeting both oil and goods, in response to its military operations in Gaza, which is governed by Hamas. Raisi, addressing an emergency joint Arab-Islamic Summit in Saudi Arabia focusing on the situation in Gaza, accused the US of providing military support to Israel. He claimed that Israel had dropped bombs on the besieged enclave equivalent to "seven atomic bombs." "The US government is the main perpetrator and accomplice to this crime. Israel is the illegitimate child of America. It is America that has preferred supporting it over the sacred lives of thousands of oppressed Palestinian children. By immediately forming its security cabinet in the occupied territories, America encouraged the Zionist regime to carry out criminal operations against the helpless people of Gaza and called it legitimate defence," he was quoted by news agency ANI as saying. "The events in the Gaza Strip are a confrontation between the axis of honour and the axis of evil, and everyone must clarify which path they have fallen into," he said. 10 immediate proposals for definite action in favor of the Palestinian nation. pic.twitter.com/v4hUgPkY3V (@raisi_com) November 12, 2023 He said leaders from the Islamic world had gathered at the summit to "save the Palestinians". Israel has repeatedly accused Iran of funding and supporting Hamas in its fight against its forces in Gaza. Raisi called on Muslim-majority countries to send weapons to Palestinians fighting the Israeli armed forces. "Muslim countries should arm the Palestinian people. Resistance is the only answer to Israeli violence. Countries around the world, including Muslim ones, should ensure the protection of the Palestinian people in the occupied territories," he said at the Summit in Riyadh, news agency Sputnik reported. Raisi, who is in Riyadh for what is the first Saudi trip of a sitting Iranian president in more than a decade, also called for "an end to trade and cooperation between Muslim countries and the Zionist formation" as well as for a boycott of Israeli-made goods. Photo Courtesy: Unsplash A shooting at a McDonald's parking lot in the southern French port city of Marseille left two people dead and three others injured overnight, media reported on Sunday, citing police. "We are dealing with the settling of scores," Marseille prosecutor Nicolas Bessone told Le Parisien daily. The fast food restaurant's manager called police at 10:50 pm (21:50 GMT) on Saturday to report gunfire in the parking lot, the newspaper reported. Police found five people inside a bullet-ridden car, two of them dead and three others hurt. The deceased were identified as a 22-year-old male driver and a 25-year-old female passenger. The wounded were a man and a woman aged 19 and another man aged 29 who was hit in the throat and is fighting for his life. A Peugeot SUV was found ablaze near the crime scene. Police believe it was used by the shooters, who also left 24 shell castings used in Kalashnikov assault rifles at the scene. The police are investigating the shooting as an instance of gang violence. At least two of the people in the car, including the dead driver, were known to police for involvement in drug trafficking. Fauda crew member Matan Meir dies in Line of Duty in Gaza Photo Courtesy:Avi Issacharoff X page A crew member of an Israeli TV series Fauda was killed while serving on duty in Gaza on Friday amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas members for over one month now, media reports said on Sunday. The deceased person was identified as 38-year-old St-Sgt. Maj. (res.) Matan Meir. He was reportedly a member of the production crew of the series. Confirming his death, the official X page of the series said: "We are devastated to share that one of our Fauda family members, Matan Meir, was killed in action in Gaza. Matan was an integral crew member. The cast and crew are heartbroken by this tragic loss. We extend our condolences to Matans family and friends. May his soul rest in peace" We are devastated to share that one of our Fauda family members, Matan Meir, was killed in action in Gaza. Matan was an integral crew member. The cast and crew are heartbroken by this tragic loss. We extend our condolences to Matans family and friends. May his soul rest in peace pic.twitter.com/kuaJ2gclGk Fauda Official (@FaudaOfficial) November 11, 2023 His is one of the most recent names of fallen soldiers published by the IDF, reported The Jerusalem Post. Meir was from Odem (a collective village in the northern Golan Heights), the IDF stated in its publication of his death. The Fauda crew member fought in the 697th Battalion of the IDFs 551st Brigade, the Israel-based newspaper reported. What is Fauda? Fauda is an Israeli television series developed by Lior Raz and Avi Issacharoff drawing on their experiences in the Israel Defense Forces. The series premiered on 15 February 2015. The first season was filmed in Kafr Qasim during the 2014 Gaza War. It premiered on 15 February 2015. The second season premiered on 31 December 2017. The third season takes place in the Gaza Strip and was aired in 2019 and 2020. Photo Courtesy: Pixabay Three police personnel, including a station house officer (SHO), died in a terrorist attack on police in Paksitan's Kari Shah Noor area on Saturday. Police spokesperson informed that DSP Chan Shah was leading a police party to arrest kidnappers of a woman in Shah Noor village when unidentified assailants opened fire on the vehicle, reported Dawn News. Upon seeing the police team, the attackers opened fire at the police. SHO Shaheed Mureed Akbar police station Abdul Ali Khan, and two constables Wahab and Mohammad Alam embraced martyrdom, the spokesperson told the newspaper. He added that five police personnel, including DSP Chan Shah, constables Ishfaq, Wafaq and Hidayat of Elite Force and constables Riaz and Ikram of district Tank sustained injuries and were shifted to Tank hospital. A heavy contingent of police, including the Quick Response Force, reached the spot after the incident. News / National by Staff reporter A Bulawayo pushcart operator Calvin Sawunyama says he works six days every week, mainly operating from the busy vegetable market in the city centre.Sawunyama's pushcart, like that of his colleagues, has a South African number plate.He laughs it off when asked where he got the number plate.Like Sawunyama, some push carts have trade names, the most populous in the city being Zikhali and Gomba transport.The majority of pushcart operators eke out a living through carrying goods mainly for vendors from the vegetable markets to various destinations in the city."I make approximately US$15 to US$25 per day," Sawunyama said."It's busy, especially in the mornings. However, some days may be dry in terms of business."Sawunyama is, however, worried that his only source of income is now under threat after the Bulawayo City Council announced new by-laws banning push carts in the city centre.With the by-law still new and operators yet to familiarise with it, this has set the two parties, council and operators, for a long cat-and-mouse fight.The ban on the push carts in the city centre is contained in the council's clamping and tow-away by-laws that were approved by the Local Government ministry last week.With the economy heavily informalised, Sawunyama is a concerned man.Sawunyama is one of the many pushcart operators who have been prowling the city's streets seeking customers to make a living."I know that is about to become a game of cat and mouse, they will hunt us down as if we are fugitives and confiscate our wares," Sawunyama said."I am hardly making enough; where am I going to get the money to recover my cart and my wares?"Imagine I charge US$2 sometimes US$3 to move goods from one place to another."It is my only source of income and that is how I am providing for my family. This ban will really hurt us."Another cart operator Bhekizulu Sibanda who also sells fruits along Fifth Avenue, echoed the same sentiments."I have been selling fruits from this push cart every day from 6am for the past four years," Sibanda said."This is my only source of income."Mind you, the council has always been on us and it is clear that they do not care about us."Tell me, if they confiscate my cart, what will become of me? They have shown us that they do not care about us."The new by-law stipulates that pushcarts shall not be allowed in the central business district area bounded by Nelson Kutshwekhaya Ndlovu Avenue, Lobengula Street, Joseph Msika and R. Mugabe Way.It further denotes that any violation will attract a level 1 fine plus impounding costs.Earlier this year, the council conducted a crackdown on pushcart operators and imposed a US$120 fine after accusing them of littering and congesting the city centre.Push cart vendors have been contributing to the local economy by creating employment opportunities for the jobless, especially in a city with closed industries.Pushcart vending requires minimal start-up costs compared to opening a traditional store, making it an accessible option for the jobless.There are also no operational costs such as fuel and rentals.However, another push cart operator Carlton Jongwe, said he was determined to stand his ground."Given the prevailing economic hardships, I don't think I will ever stop operating, I will take my chances," Jongwe said."They will chase us all over the city as they have been doing but we will not stop, because that is how we put food on our table."He added: "These by-laws do not really change anything, we will continue to work."Jongwe, however, did not hide his frustration of not having a formal job to escape the daily cat-and-mouse struggle with municipal police."I wish I can get a job at a company, a job with better working conditions and a better pay so I can take care of my wife and children, the need to fend for them keeps me going," he said.A Bulawayo resident, Anne Ncube, said she often relied on pushcart operators for ferrying her goods across the city."I was not aware of such a development but in the past, we have seen council police descending on these operators," Ncube said,"We have always opted for them instead of hiring expensive taxis."I hope these pushcart operators will also stand their ground and continue operations because we need them." Matan Meir, who fought in the 697th Battalion of the IDF's 551st Brigade and was a crew member of the popular Israeli TV series Fauda has reportedly been killed in action in Gaza. Amid the Israel-Palestine war, many actors including Fauda stars Lior Raz and Idan Amedi have joined the frontlines. The team of Fauda in a joint statement said that they were devasted. Twitter "We are devastated to share that one of our Fauda family members, Matan Meir, was killed in action in Gaza. Matan was an integral crew member. The cast and crew are heartbroken by this tragic loss. We extend our condolences to Matan's family and friends. May his soul rest in peace," the statement read. Matan Meir was announced in an IDF list of those soldiers who died in the line of duty in Gaza, The Jerusalem Post reported. Apart from Fauda, Meir was also involved in the production of other shows, including the series, The Cops. Faudas creator, Avi Assacharoff, also took to X to share his condolences, explaining that the production crew member had fallen in battle in northern Gaza. We are devastated to share that one of our Fauda family members, Matan Meir, was killed in action in Gaza. Matan was an integral crew member. The cast and crew are heartbroken by this tragic loss. We extend our condolences to Matans family and friends. May his soul rest in peace pic.twitter.com/kuaJ2gclGk Fauda Official (@FaudaOfficial) November 11, 2023 Hamas launched an offensive on Israel on October 7. Following this, Israel launched a counter-offensive on Hamas and vowed to destroy the terrorist group. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called Hamas an integral part of the axis of terrorism led by Iran, which he said endangers the Middle East and Arab world as well. AFP While addressing the press conference along with Israels Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Minister Benny Gantz at Kirya in Tel Aviv, he said, Hamas is an integral part of the axis of terrorism led by Iran, and this axis of terrorism and evil endangers the entire Middle East, and the entire Arab world as well. I am convinced that many Arab leaders understand this.The Israeli Prime Minister urged the leaders of Arab states to come out against Hamas. He noted that Hamas in the past 16 years has brought disaster to Gaza. AFP He said Hamas has brought two things to the residents of Gaza, "blood and poverty." He asserted that no international pressure would change Israels faith in the justice of cause. He said, "In any case, I would like to make it clear: No international pressure or reviling of IDF soldiers and our state will change our faith in the justice of our cause and in our right and our obligation to defend ourselves." Netanyahu said Israel's war against Hamas is advancing at "full force" with the goal of "victory." He said that Israel would eliminate Hamas and bring back hostages. He said Israeli forces has killed thousands of terrorists, including senior commanders and arch-murderers who were involved in the attack on Israel on October 7. "The war against Hamas-ISIS is advancing at full force and it has one goal - victory. There is no substitute for victory. We will eliminate Hamas and bring back our hostages. IDF forces have completed the encirclement of the city of Gaza," Netanyahu said. (With inputs from ANI) For more news and updates from the world of celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment. Happy Diwali 2023 wishes for teachers: Diwali, also known as Deepavali, is a Hindu festival of lights celebrated on the new moon day of the Kartika month. It is one of the most joyous festivals in India, marked by fireworks, Diyas, and colourful lights. The Sanskrit word "dipavali" means "row of lights." Different parts of India celebrate Diwali for different reasons: In Bengal, people worship the goddess Kali; in South India, they celebrate Krishna's victory over Narakasura; and in North India, they celebrate Lord Rama's return to Ayodhya after defeating Ravana. The festival of Diwali will be observed on Sunday, November 12, 2023. On the day of Diwali, Lakshmi puja is performed at every Hindu household in the country. Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth. The Lakshmi puja is performed in the evening to invite Goddess Lakshmi at home. People pray and wish for peace, wealth, and prosperity in their and their family members' lives. Happy Diwali 2023 | Photo: Canva As the auspicious day of Diwali 2023 is celebrated today, sharing Happy Diwali 2023 wishes, messages, quotes, WhatsApp status and images with your teacher virtually is the new normal. So, here are Happy Diwali 2023 best wishes, messages, quotes, Whatsapp statuses, and Diwali images to share with your favourite teacher. Happy Diwali 2023 Wishes, Images, Messages, Quotes, and Images to send your favourite teacher Express your gratitude and warm wishes to your esteemed teacher this Diwali with heartfelt messages that reflect appreciation and admiration. Acknowledge their role as a guiding light in your academic journey and convey your sincere hopes for continued success, prosperity, and joy. Let your teacher know how their teachings have illuminated your path with knowledge and wisdom, making this festival of lights an opportune moment to express your deep respect and admiration. Extend your wishes for a Happy Diwali, filled with the glow of happiness and the warmth of success, as a token of appreciation for their dedication and impact on your life. Best Happy Diwali wishes in English Send heartfelt Diwali wishes to your favorite teacher with these five warm and festive messages. Express gratitude, joy, and appreciation for the guiding light in your life as you celebrate the festival of lights together. Happy Diwali 2023! 1. Dear Teacher, on this joyous occasion of Diwali, may the light of knowledge and wisdom continue to shine brightly in your life. Wishing you a Happy Diwali filled with joy and prosperity! 2. Happy Diwali, dear teacher! Your guidance has been a beacon of light in our lives. May this festival bring you immense joy, success, and fulfillment. 3. Wishing a wonderful Diwali to our amazing teacher! May the festival of lights brighten your days with happiness, and may you continue to inspire and illuminate the minds of many. 4. Happy Diwali, respected teacher! Your teachings have lit up our paths with knowledge and wisdom. May your life be as radiant and prosperous as the lights of Diwali. 5. On this auspicious occasion of Diwali, I express my heartfelt gratitude to you, dear teacher. Your guidance has been a source of inspiration. Wishing you a Happy Diwali filled with blessings and joy. 6. Happy Diwali to the teacher who has been a guiding light in our academic journey! May your life be adorned with the glow of happiness, success, and prosperity. 7. Wishing a Happy Diwali to the teacher who has ignited the flame of learning within us. May your days be filled with the brightness of joy and the warmth of success. 8. Dear Teacher, may this Diwali bring you the recognition and appreciation you truly deserve. Your efforts and dedication have made a significant impact on our lives. Happy Diwali! 9. Happy Diwali to the mentor who has enlightened our minds with knowledge and wisdom. May the festival of lights fill your life with joy, peace, and prosperity. 10. Wishing a Happy Diwali to the teacher whose guidance has been a constant source of inspiration. May your days be illuminated with success, and your journey be filled with happiness. 11. Wishing my favorite teacher a Diwali filled with joy, light, and the warmth of love! May this festival of lights illuminate your life with happiness and prosperity. Happy Diwali 2023! 12. On this auspicious occasion of Diwali, I express my deepest gratitude to the teacher who has been a guiding light in my life. May your days be as bright and colorful as the festival itself. Happy Diwali 2023! 13. To the teacher who has not only enlightened my mind but also brightened my days, wishing you a Diwali filled with laughter, love, and countless moments of joy. Happy Diwali 2023! 14. As we celebrate the triumph of light over darkness, I extend my heartfelt wishes to my cherished teacher. May your life be as radiant and beautiful as the Diwali lamps. Happy Diwali 2023! 15. This Diwali, I want to express my gratitude to the teacher who has been a source of inspiration and wisdom. May your life be adorned with the glow of happiness and success. Happy Diwali 2023! Happy Diwali messages to send your favourite teacher Explore heartwarming Diwali 2023 messages for your teacher, expressing gratitude for their guidance and wisdom. Wish them joy, prosperity, and the light of knowledge as you celebrate the festival of lights together. 1. Happy Diwali! May the festival of lights bring an abundance of joy and prosperity into your life, dear teacher. Your dedication to teaching has made a lasting impact, and I'm grateful for your guidance. 2. Wishing my brilliant teacher a Diwali filled with joy, prosperity, and the light of knowledge. May your path be illuminated with success and happiness. 3. On this auspicious occasion of Diwali, I extend my heartfelt gratitude to you, dear teacher, for being the guiding light in my educational journey. Wishing you a sparkling and prosperous Diwali! 4. Happy Diwali, dear teacher! May this festival of lights brighten your life with happiness, success, and the fulfillment of all your aspirations. Thank you for being an inspiration. 5. As we celebrate the festival of Diwali, I want to express my gratitude for your guidance and wisdom. May your life be as vibrant and joyful as the colors of Diwali. Happy Diwali, dear teacher! 6. Wishing a Happy Diwali to the teacher who has ignited the lamp of knowledge within us. May your life be as radiant and fulfilling as the Diwali lights. Thank you for being an incredible mentor. 7. Happy Diwali, dear teacher! May the divine light of Diwali fill your life with happiness, success, and boundless blessings. Your teachings continue to illuminate our minds. 8. On this festival of lights, I extend my warmest Diwali wishes to the teacher who has been a beacon of inspiration. May your life be adorned with the glow of prosperity and fulfillment. 9. Wishing you a Diwali as bright and cheerful as your teachings, dear teacher. May this festival bring you joy, good health, and all the success you deserve. 10. Happy Diwali to the mentor who has shaped my academic journey! May the diyas of Diwali light up not just your home but also your heart with immense joy and contentment. 11. As we celebrate Diwali, I want to express my gratitude for your constant encouragement and support. May this festival mark the beginning of new successes and accomplishments in your life, dear teacher. 12. Warm Diwali wishes to the teacher who has been a guiding force in my life. May the festival of lights usher in prosperity, good health, and moments of sheer happiness for you. 13. Happy Diwali, respected teacher! May the glow of the diyas brighten your path and lead you to new heights of success and fulfillment in the coming year. 14. On this joyous occasion of Diwali, I want to convey my heartfelt thanks to you, dear teacher, for being a source of inspiration. May your life be filled with the warmth of love and the sparkle of success. 15. Wishing you a Diwali filled with laughter, love, and the company of dear ones, dear teacher. Your wisdom has been a guiding light, and I am truly grateful for your influence in my life. Happy Diwali 2023 best quotes for teacher Celebrate Diwali 2023 with gratitude and warmth by sending heartfelt quotes to your teachers. Express appreciation for their guidance and wisdom that light up your educational journey. Brighten their day with wishes that reflect the joy and prosperity of this festival of lights. 1. "Wishing my inspiring teachers a Diwali filled with the light of knowledge, joy, and prosperity. Your guidance illuminates our paths just like the Diwali diyas light up the darkness." 2. "On this auspicious festival of Diwali, I express my gratitude to the teachers who have been the guiding lights in my educational journey. May your lives be as bright as the Diwali lamps!" 3. "Happy Diwali to the incredible teachers who have sparked the fire of curiosity within us. Your teachings are the real fireworks that light up our minds. Grateful for your wisdom and guidance." 4. "Wishing a Happy Diwali to the mentors who brighten our lives with the lamp of knowledge. Your dedication and wisdom create a festival of learning every day in our classrooms." 5. "May the festival of lights illuminate not just our homes but also the minds of our wonderful teachers. Happy Diwali to the educators who ignite the flame of knowledge within us!" 6. "Wishing my amazing teachers a Diwali filled with the sweetness of success and the brilliance of wisdom. Your teachings are the real treasures that light up our futures." 7. "On Diwali, let's express gratitude to the teachers who light the way for us, much like the diyas light up the darkness. Your guidance is our true source of inspiration." 8. "Happy Diwali to the mentors who add sparkle to our lives with their knowledge and encouragement. May your days be as radiant as the festival itself." 9. "As we celebrate the triumph of light over darkness, I extend my heartfelt wishes to the teachers who lead us from ignorance to knowledge. Happy Diwali, and thank you for being our guiding stars." 10. "Wishing a Diwali filled with wisdom, joy, and prosperity to the educators who mold young minds into bright beacons of the future. Your impact goes beyond the classroom." 11. "May this Diwali bring an abundance of joy and success to the educators who work tirelessly to shape our intellects. Your efforts are the real fireworks in the celebration of knowledge." 12. "On this Diwali, I bow with gratitude to the teachers who illuminate our lives with the light of education. May your days be as colorful and vibrant as the festival itself." 13. "Happy Diwali to the mentors who kindle the lamp of curiosity within us. Your teachings not only enlighten our minds but also inspire us to shine bright in the world." 14. "Wishing a Diwali filled with prosperity and growth to the teachers who plant the seeds of knowledge in our minds. Your dedication creates a garden of learning that lasts a lifetime." 15. "As we celebrate the festival of lights, let's also celebrate the brilliance of our teachers. Happy Diwali to the guiding forces who lead us towards success and enlightenment." Happy Diwali Whatsapp status for the teacher Celebrate Diwali 2023 with these heartwarming WhatsApp statuses for teachers. Express gratitude and wishes to your mentors who've illuminated your path with knowledge and inspiration. 1. Wishing my amazing teachers a Diwali filled with joy and light! 2. Grateful for the wisdom you've shared, Happy Diwali dear teachers! 3. May your Diwali be as bright as the knowledge you've imparted to us! 4. Celebrating the festival of lights with the teachers who've illuminated my path! 5. Wishing a Happy Diwali to the mentors who've sparked a love for learning in us! 6. May the glow of Diwali shine as brightly as the inspiration you've given us, dear teachers! 7. This Diwali, I'm sending heartfelt gratitude to the teachers who've shaped my future! 8. Light up the world with your knowledge, Happy Diwali, dear educators! 9. Wishing the best teachers a Diwali filled with happiness, prosperity, and success! 10. Your teachings have been the guiding light in my life, Happy Diwali, respected teachers! 11. May the festival of lights bring endless joy to the mentors who've brightened our minds! 12. Celebrating Diwali with gratitude for the teachers who've ignited a passion for excellence! 13. Wishing my teachers a Diwali full of laughter, love, and beautiful moments! 14. May the divine festival of Diwali bless you, our wonderful teachers, with fulfillment and joy! 15. Happy Diwali to the mentors who've made a lasting impact on our lives! Happy Diwali wishes for Everyone May Shri Ram ji fill your home with joy, vanquish your sorrows, illuminate your home with the sparkle of love and happiness, and fill your life with light like the lights of Diwali. Happy Diwali 2023. Happy Diwali and a prosperous new year to you! I hope you and your family have a lovely and pleasant Diwali. On this festival of lights, may you and your loved ones get the blessings of Goddess Lakshmi. I wish you success, fame, good wealth as well as the blessings of relationships, prosperity, and the brotherhood of love. May the festival of light fill you with joy and prosperity. May the joy of Diwali enter your life and make you happy always. Happy Diwali 2023. Happy Diwali Images, cards, and posters to send your favourite teacher #1. Happy Diwali Images, cards, and posters | Photo: Canva #2. Happy Diwali Images, cards, and posters | Photo: Canva #3. Happy Diwali Images, cards, and posters | Photo: Canva #4. Happy Diwali Images, cards, and posters | Photo: Indiatimes #5. Happy Diwali Images, cards, and posters | Photo: Indiatimes Diwali 2023: FAQs What are the 5 days of Diwali? The five days of Diwali festivals are - Dhanteras, Naraka Chaturdasi, Lakshmi Puja, Govardhan Puja, and Bhai Dooj. When is Diwali 2023? Diwali 2023 will be celebrated on Sunday, November 12, 2023. What is the significance of Diwali? Diwali is a Hindu festival that celebrates the victory of good over evil, light over darkness, and knowledge over ignorance. It is also a time to welcome the goddess Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and prosperity, into the home. How is Diwali celebrated? Diwali is celebrated over five days, each with its own special significance. On the first day, people clean and decorate their homes and businesses. On the second day, they worship Goddess Lakshmi and Lord Ganesha. On the third day, they celebrate the return of Lord Rama to Ayodhya after defeating Ravana. On the fourth day, they visit family and friends and exchange gifts. On the fifth day, brothers and sisters celebrate their bond with Bhai Dooj. What are the best wishes for Diwali? - Wishing you a joyous and safe Diwali celebration! - May the festival of lights bring you new beginnings and renewed hope. - May the blessings of Goddess Lakshmi fill your home and life with wealth, happiness, and good health. - Wishing you a very happy and prosperous Diwali! - May the lights of Diwali illuminate your life with joy, peace, and prosperity. Wishing you a happy, safe, and prosperous Diwali! For more informative articles on historical and upcoming events from around the world, please visit Indiatimes Events A pond in Hawaii has taken on an enigmatic bright pink hue, raising questions among specialists about this odd phenomenon. Viewers have been swarming the pond in curiosity ever since the photos went viral on social media. Some of the volunteers at Maui's Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge have been around the water for seven decades, and they claim to have never seen anything like it. What Happened To The Pond In Hawaii? Credit: SkyNews Hawaii's pond has turned a weird bubble-gum pink that looks like it belongs on the set of "Barbie," but this isn't enough to throw a dance party. Scientists say the unusual colour could be caused by drought, and they advise against drinking or going near the water. When Did This Happen? Since October 30, personnel at Maui's Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge have been keeping an eye on the pink water. The refuge manager, Bret Wolfe, stated, "I just received a report from someone who was strolling on the beach, and they called me up like, 'There's something weird going on over here.'" Credit: AP How Did It Turn Pink? The intense pink hue alarmed refuge manager Bret Wolfe, but studies in the lab revealed that harmful algae were not the source of the colour. Alternatively, halobacteria are a possible culprit. One kind of archaea, or single-celled organism that does well in highly salinized waterways, is the halobacterium. At present, the salinity within the Kealia Pond exit area exceeds 70 parts per thousand, which is equivalent to twice the salinity of seawater. According to Wolfe, a DNA study will be required by the lab in order to confirm the organism's identity. The drought in Maui probably exacerbates the situation. Waikapu Stream typically feeds into Kealia Pond, raising the water levels there, but Wolfe claimed it hasn't in a while. The stream empties into Kealia's main pond and the now-pink outlet area when it rains. This will lessen the salinity and maybe alter the colour of the water. Credit: AP Wolfe remarked, "That might be what makes it go away." Even the volunteers who have been around the pond for 70 years have never seen it this hue before at the refuge. Although the pond has previously experienced dry spells and excessive salinity, Wolfe is unsure of the reason behind the current hue shift. Following the appearance of images of the pink pond on social media, curious parkgoers have descended upon it. The wildlife refuge is a wetland that serves as a habitat for Hawaiian coots, or alae keokeo, and the endangered Hawaiian stilt, or are. In the winter, migratory birds spend time there as well. Credit: AP The birds don't seem to be harmed by the water, according to Wolfe. People are not allowed to walk on the pond's surface or allow their pets to swim in it because it is a wildlife refuge. However, since the cause of the hue is still unknown, authorities are taking extra precautions to alert the public not to get into the water or consume any fish that has been caught there. What do you think about it? Do let us know in the comments. For more trending stories, follow us on Telegram. The governorship candidate of the Action Alliance (AA) in Kogi State, Olayinka Braimoh, has described how he was arrested and disenfranchised during the Saturday elections. Information Nigeria reports that Braimohs Media Aide, Musa Yakubu, had earlier raised the alarm over the AA candidates whereabouts. He however confirmed the arrest to journalists, adding that his principal was taken by security operatives in Kabba. Musa revealed that the candidate and seven of his security details were arrested after campaign materials were allegedly found in his car. READ ALSO: Kogi Poll: APC Pulls 200 Votes Against PDP 2 Votes In Forged Result YIAGA Africa Raises Alarm (Video) The last time I heard from him was in the morning when he called from Kabba town, but all attempts to get through to him since that time proved abortive. His mobile lines have been switched off, including his entourage, the aide had said. Meanwhile, speaking on how he was arrested earlier in the day by security operatives, Braimoh said nothing incriminating was found on him. I was disenfranchised, illegally locked up in Kabba Area Command for over eight hours and my security details denied bail, he lamented. An official from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been apprehended by the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) during the Imo State governorship election for having a large sum of money. It was gathered that the INEC staff was caught at Polling Unit 005, Township Primary School, Ikenegbu 1, in the Owerri Municipal LGA. The money was allegedly offered to the official by an unnamed party for the purpose of vote-buying. READ MORE: INEC Has No Candidate In Bayelsa, Imo, Kogi Polls Yakubu However, the ICPC and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) dispatched officers to monitor off-cycle elections in Imo, Kogi, and Bayelsa. INFORMATION NIGERIA learnt that party agents in the off-cycle election in Kogi State resorted to offer financial incentives to voters in Lokoja to secure their votes for their respective candidates. The said agents were reportedly positioned at a distance of approximately 500 meters from the polling units and handed out cash to voters in exchange for their support. Athan Achonu, governorship candidate of the Labour Party (LP) Imo State, on Saturday, called for a cancellation of results from some polling units over alleged irregularities. The Senator made the call while speaking with newsmen in his hometown, Umulumo, in Ehime Mbano council area of Imo. According to him, agents of his party returned with disturbing reports of hijacking of ballot boxes and other electoral materials as well as vote buying. He added that the LP had officially written to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for requisite action and called for the cancellation of results emanating from the affected locations. In parts of Ideato, the process was characterized by ballot box snatching and all manners of irregularities, including intimidation of voters. This is unacceptable. We have already written to INEC to take appropriate steps to ensure that fake results are not uploaded, he said. READ ALSO: Therell Be Severe Consequences For Disrupting Todays Elections Nuhu Ribadu Warns Achonu further decried the absence of security personnel in certain places around Orlu and Orsu, while commending the military for turning up to save the situation in some other areas. Speaking on how thugs beat up his Partys agent during the election, he said: Of course where this thing is happening, they must cancel it. There is no other alternative than to cancel it so that every person will come there and watch it conducted. They beat up so many of our agents. We are sad, we are going to upload some of their pictures. This is crazy, this is what our democracy has come to. But we are resisting. Cant you see the people here? They will not allow it. I hope it is the same thing going on everywhere so that we can have proper democracy and bring in good governance. INECs Head of Voter Education, Mrs Emmanuella Opara, however said that the Commission was yet to receive an official report on the alleged irregularities. The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kogi State, Dino Melaye has demanded the cancellation of ongoing election process in five Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the State. The LGAs, according to the PDP candidate are Okene, Okehi, Adavi, Ajaokuta and Ogori/Mangogo. Melaye, in a post via X, described the exercise in the five council areas as a coordinated scam by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). READ ALSO: We Need To Stop Off-Season Elections, Not Best For Nigeria Jonathan Tells NASS He alleged that areas were compromised from the polling unit. INEC must cancel the election in the 5 local governments of Kogi-Central. The election in Okene, Okehi, Ajaoukuta, Adavi, and Ogori/Mangogo is a scam coordinated from the highest level of INEC. However, Dino Melaye won his polling unit. According to election results recorded and declared by the presiding electoral officer after ballot casting on Saturday, Melaye defeated the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate, Ahmed Ododo, with 210 to 22 votes. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has suspended elections in nine wards of Ogori/Magongo Local Government Area of Kogi State. Mohammed Kudu Haruna, a National Commissioner and Member of INECs Information and Voter Education Committee disclosed this in a statement issued Saturday night in Abuja. According to him, the move is due to reported cases of electoral malpractices, particularly the incident of result sheets completed before voting. The statement reads: The Commission has received reports from our officials in Kogi State on incidences of electoral malpractices, particularly the incident of result sheets completed before voting. Reports indicate that the incidents occurred in Adavi, Ajaokuta, Ogori/Magongo, Okehi and Okene Local Government Areas. The most serious incidents occurred in Ogori/Magongo, affecting nine of 10 Registration Areas. READ MORE: INEC Has No Candidate In Bayelsa, Imo, Kogi Polls Yakubu This is entirely unacceptable. Any result not emanating from the Commissions process in the Polling Units will not be accepted. The Commission is determined not to reward bad behaviour. Consequently, the election in the nine Wards in Ogori/Magongo LGA (Eni, Okibo, Okesi, Ileteju, Aiyeromi, Ugugu, Obinoyin, Obatgben and Oturu) is at this moment suspended. The incidences in the other Local Government Areas are being thoroughly investigated, and the outcome, including the way forward, will be announced in the next 24 hours. Meanwhile, as the processes continue, we follow the audit trail of personnel and materials to ascertain those who may have been complicit in undermining the process. We have a record of all officials deployed at various levels as supervisors, monitors, technical staff or polling unit officials and all election materials issued to them. Appropriate sanctions will be applied where necessary. The Commission assures voters in Kogi State that their votes are protected, and their wishes will be respected. Nigerias Senate President, Godswill Akpabio has described the legislature as the least misunderstood arm of government, saying they are always the subject of attacks and ridicule. Akpabio disclosed this in Abeokuta, Ogun State, at the 100th birthday colloquium in honour of Senator Kunle Oyero, a member of the Senate in the Second Republic, representing Ogun Central. The colloquium themed Legislation in Nigeria: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, was organised by the Abeokuta Grammar School Old Boys Association (AGSOBA). In his remarks, Akpabio, represented by the Ogun Central Senator, Shuaib Afolabi Salis, said a number of Nigerians dont even see the necessity of the legislature. The one arm of government that people dont really understand and its always a subject of ridicule and attack is the legislature. In fact, people sometimes dont think the legislature is doing anything at all. But picture a situation where there was no legislature in 2007, there would have been a life president in Nigeria. Picture a situation in Nigeria where there was no legislature, a number of things would have gone wrong in Nigeria. Because people dont understand the legislature, there is also a problem. Like someone puts it, Legislators are sometimes the victim of the system. I gave Dr Reuben Abati (a moderator at the event) a few examples. In the ninth legislature, there were some senators that even from afar, you could say they were doing what senators should do. They were moving motions, sponsoring bills and making the right interventions. READ ALSO: Our Officials Held Hostage In Bayelsa INEC In the chamber, roles of the legislature are three: making laws, oversight function and appropriation. Most of those senators were doing those things, but guess what? None of them returned back. This is because the metric of measuring the performance (of senators) by the people who vote is different from what the syllabus dictates. The syllabus will say as a legislator your role is to make law, perform oversight and make appropriation, those are the three things a legislator is expected to do. But any senator, any member of the National Assembly that confines himself to that will not get a return ticket even in his party. because the metric of measuring the performance of legislators is the number of transformersDistinguished Senator, my wife has put to bed, Distinguished Senator, my mother-in-law is dead, Distinguished Senator, I want to do a freedom ceremony from my apprenticeship, among other requests are those of the things that people who truly vote, measure your performances with. He expressed worry that the elite have left the voting power to those who do not understand the choices before them, and asked them to take keen interest and participation in the election process. Akpabio described Oyero as the last of Nigerian Senates living legend and assured him that the Red Chamber would continue to follow his footprints. Senator representing Edo North, Adams Oshiomhole has described Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State as his friend, despite their political differences. In his goodwill message at the ongoing 2023 Alaghodaro Summit in Benin City, the former State Governor asserted that he and Obaseki are friends, not enemies. Regardless of what people say, we should not give the impression that different opinions translate to war. Having [had] the privilege of being governor, I have high regard for the Office of the Governor and for the governor himself. The All Progressives Congress chieftain said: To have all the civilian governors elected in the state present here today speaks volumes. We definitely belong to different political parties but the sum total of those parties is not equal to Edo State. READ ALSO: Labour Party Elements Dragging Afeniferes Reputation In The Mud With Concocted Narratives Pa Fasoranti What this means to me is that we can politic differently but never have doubt about the shared commitment to the citizens of the state that should be the greatest in Nigeria. The language of leaders matters to followers. What defines democracy is ideology; even if we share the same destination, the route to get there may differ; it should not be a matter of war. I thought the world should know that Godwin is my friend. It doesnt matter; being friends does not mean we cannot debate or disagree but being friends means we treat ourselves with love and care and bring our followers together, Oshiomhole added. News / National by Staff reporter A WAR of words has erupted in Lupane, with locals taking aim at the Kusile Rural District Council (KRDC) which oversees the administration of the Matabeleland North provincial capital, over misplaced priorities on the use of money collected from the sale of timber.KRDC has a permit from the Forestry Commission to harvest 350 cubic metres of timber every month, which it then sells to various furniture-making companies in Lupane.However, Lupane Youth for Development Trust's programmes coordinator Tawanda Mazango says villagers are not benefiting from the proceeds of timber sales.Mazango said villagers are facing challenges such as absence of facilities to easily access education, health, recreation, among others, yet the KRDC was raking in thousands of money from timber that is being harvested in the communities.He said his organisation had gathered that the RDC had an agreement with the Forestry Commission to harvest 350 cubic metres of timber every month and sell it to companies in Lupane.A single cubic metre of timber costs US$33 implying the KRDC rakes in about US$11 500 every month."School children still walk for as far as seven kilometres to school, yet the money which the council is getting can build six blocks of classrooms a year because we gathered that a single block costs US$16 000," he said."It is sad that we are still poor, yet our area is rich in timber which is being sold out by the KRDC every month. The money, it seems, is now only for the big boys. The community people are angry about this."The biggest natural forest in Zimbabwe found in Lupane measures a total of 286 165 hectares of hard wood.The forest comprises solid hardwood such as teak, rosewood and mahogany.The NewsHawks gathered that due to the failure of the community to benefit from these natural resources, community members were now venting their anger through committing acts of sabotage.Such actions include the deliberate starting of veld fires in areas with matured timber so that they disrupt the council's bid to generate money from timber.Mazango confirmed the development."They are doing what we call compensatory behaviour. They don't care. In the next coming few years there will be no teak to talk about in Lupane," he said."There is a need to create a community account where we say 70% of revenue from timber goes into it and 30% is left for KRDC administration. It used to happen."Sifiso Hadebe, the KRDC chief executive refused to comment."I cannot comment because I do not know the agenda of the people who are complaining to the media instead of coming to us. I also do not know the context under which the said community people spoke about that issue," Hadebe said.The NewsHawks also observed that despite the brisk commercial activity involving timber in Lupane, infrastructure such as roads is in a deplorable state.The government has also not invested in the rehabilitation of the road that leads to Victoria Falls.As part of measures to make sure that local people benefit from their resources, devolution was adopted as a key component of the constitution of Zimbabwe voted for in a referendum in 2013.Chapter 14 of the constitution states that whenever appropriate, governmental powers and responsibilities must be devolved to provincial and metropolitan councils and local authorities which are competent to carry out those responsibilities efficiently and effectively.The objectives of the devolution of governmental powers and responsibilities to provincial and metropolitan councils and local authorities are to give powers of local governance to the people in communities.It is also meant to enhance their participation in the exercise of the powers of the state and in making decisions affecting them.According to the constitution, devolution also aims at promoting transparent, accountable and coherent governance in Zimbabwe as a whole.The supreme law also recognises the right of communities to manage their own affairs and to "further their development; ensuring the equitable sharing of local and national resources;" while" transferring responsibilities and resources from the national government in order to establish a sound financial base for each provincial and metropolitan council and local authority."However, as seen in Lupane, the devolution policy is not benefitting the local people as enshrined in the constitution. Clark led this out when a group, South-South Diamond Ladies paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja. He said that the discovery of completed result sheets with names of voters even before the first vote was cast is unfortunate. Clark also added that for INEC to redeem its image from the fallout of the 2023 general elections, the commission must investigate alleged irregularities reported in the three states. READ MORE: Kogi Guber: Dino Melaye Raises Alarm Over Alleged Forged Result Sheet Showing APC With 530 Votes Lead He said: This is an election to give the INEC the opportunity to redeem itself. Discovering completed result sheets with names of voters and so on is very unfortunate. INEC should investigate and make a public statement on this issue otherwise, they will be condemned as we did in the last general election. I still believe the election will be free and fair to a greater extent. The elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi. I think INEC should redeem its image. What happened in the last election was very disappointing because if you say that you are going to use technology, you must use it because you provide it in your guidelines and in the electoral law. INEC should redeem its image because without an effective, honest INEC, we are in trouble because democracy will not work in this country. Operatives of Nigeria Police Force, on Sunday morning, reportedly denied medias access into the result collation centre for the Kogi State governorship election. This came after the resumption of collation at the centre in Lokoja by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). It was gathered that the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Kogi State, Gabriel Longpet, said that the collation of results of the November 11 governorship election will commence by 10 am. READ MORE: Kogi Guber: INEC Suspends Elections In 9 Wards Over Malpractice Meanwhile, the electoral body, however, stated that it received reports from its officials in the state on electoral malpractices. According to INEC, the incident of result sheets completed before voting was a major issue leading to the decision to suspend elections in some locations. The places affected include Adavi, Ajaokuta, Ogori/Magongo, Okehi, and Okene Local Government Areas. Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Saturday arrested 14 suspected vote buyers in the off-cycle governorship elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi States. Dele Oyewale, EFCCs head of media and publicity, said the suspects were arrested in Otueke, Adawari playgrounds in Bayelsa State and at various polling units in Imo and Kogi States. According to him, the arrest followed intelligence-driven operations that commenced several days before the elections in the three states. Also, a total sum of N11,040, 000( Eleven Million, Forty Thousand Naira only) comprising N9,310,00 (Nine Million, Three Hundred and Ten Thousand Naira) intercepted from suspected vote buyers and sellers in Bayelsa and N1,730, 000 (One Million, Seven Hundred and Thirty Thousand Naira) intercepted from electoral fraud suspects across Imo State, were recovered from them. READ ALSO: Kogi Guber: Council Chairman, APC-Sponsored Thugs Intercepted With Ammunition, Millions Of Naira For Vote-Buying (VIDEO) Also, two vehicles were intercepted from the suspects. They will be charged to court as soon as investigations are concluded. Also, ahead the elections, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) said it deployed its operatives to monitor the elections in the three states. The commission said the operatives were to prevent vote buying and other electoral malpractices during the elections. A middle-aged man, identified as George Sibo has reportedly died at Brass Local Government Area Headquarters, after he was attacked by suspected thugs. INFORMATION NIGERIA learnt that the deceased, popularly called Kobo-Kobo, an aide to the Local Government Chairman, Hanson Alabo-Karika, was murdered when thugs invaded the collation center on Sunday. A source who spoke with Vanguard, disclosed that Sibo, is a supporter of the PDP and was attacked at the Governorship Election Collation Centre at the Local Government headquarters when results for some wards in Constituency 2 were being submitted. READ MORE: Our Officials Held Hostage In Bayelsa INEC Speaking on the incident, the lawmaker representing Brass Constituency I, Daniel Charles condemned the murder of the young man by people he described as desperate power seekers. Charles urged the security agencies to immediately arrest and prosecute perpetrators of the dastardly act. Amy Nieves-Renz (left) was lost in addiction on Christmas Day in 2014 when she accepted a meal from Margaux Murphy (right), who, at the last minute, took to the streets to feed those who were hungry that day. Years later, Nieves-Renz, newly clean and sober, ran into Murphy and recalled her earlier kindness. They have since become dear friends. Read more My memories of active addiction come back to me in snapshots. Very rarely do I have a fully formed memory that Im able to place on the messy timeline that makes up most of my life story. A lot of these isolated images are ugly and lonely and sad. But some are of unwarranted kindness and generosity. One such memory is of me sitting on a cold pavement by the corner of Kensington and Lehigh Avenues when a woman drove up to offer me a platter of food from Boston Market. If that were all I could say about the memory, it would not be particularly noteworthy. It didnt become significant until much later, when I came full circle with it. Meantime, in the years between those two moments, I left an abusive relationship, took a few trips to jail and a few more to rehab, could not stay clean for more than a handful of weeks, spent many days in various emergency rooms and hospitals, overdosed both unintentionally and intentionally, slept under overpasses and in abandoned houses, and hurt everyone who -- even after years of this cycle -- still cared enough to be near me. Finally, I found myself in yet another treatment center after a particularly frightening overdose. My body was giving out, my spirit was beaten, and for the first time, I felt afraid of what was to come if I did not make some changes. Advertisement So I stayed for as long as they allowed me to, and when I left I actually followed the directions and suggestions I had been given. I moved into a recovery house in an area of the city that didnt have temptation and regret attached to every corner. I joined a twelve-step group, faithfully got myself to daily meetings, and began to form connections with people who knew I was an addict and still wanted to be around me. One of the meetings I regularly attended was held in a church basement that was shared with the Sunday Love Project, a nonprofit dedicated to feeding anyone in need. When I would arrive to the meeting early to set up chairs, I found myself getting to know the groups founder, Margaux Murphy, as she was often clearing away food and dishes when I got there. From the day we first chatted, I was convinced Id met her before but could not remember where or when. And then one day it clicked: She was the woman who had fed me years before, on that desolate Kensington corner. At the time, I had no idea that it was Christmas Day, or that it was the first time Margaux had ever brought food to the neighborhood. The experience so moved her that she returned, again and again, to feed hungry people in need. From that humble beginning in 2014, Sunday Love grew into an organization that has fed thousands of people from all walks of life. I began volunteering for Margaux every week. I celebrated six months clean, then nine months, then one year. My life was messy, full of hurdles, damage, and a warehouse of baggage, but when I showed up every Tuesday night at Sunday Love I was able to forget about that for a little while. I began to understand what people meant when they told me that helping others is the best way to help myself, and that I didnt get clean to forget about those still suffering. I spent those nights at Sunday Love with a varied cast of amazing people, made some of the unlikeliest friendships, and would stay late to polish the silverware just to squeeze in some extra time with them. I began to feel part of a community of people who were looking to better themselves and the lives of those around them. Some of these people became friends I will have for a lifetime. (When the woman who cooked every Tuesday turned 70, Margaux and I had the privilege of taking her to get her very first tattoo.) Others I met lost their battles. Some have been pulled in other directions by moves, new careers, and parenthood and are not able to volunteer as often as they once did. My life became so full it was overwhelming at times: I went to school and started a new career, moved into my own space and adopted a dog, got married, and now have a baby on the way next year. I was not able to be as involved at Sunday Love as I had been -- and yet, when I got laid off earlier this year, one of my first calls was to Margaux so I could fill that unexpected free time in service with people I love. I do not know what exactly made my last attempt to get clean, 3 years ago, different from all of the other times I tried to turn my life around. I am not sure it even really matters. One thing I am certain of, though, is that I wouldnt have succeeded if not for the kindness of others and the hope people had for me, which went against all logic and reason. Its easy to feel invisible when youre living in those circumstances, to believe that the world would either be better off -- or not even notice -- if you were no longer part of it. But each time someone offered me help, a few kind words, a smile, a willingness to listen, or an unexpected meal on a day I didnt even know was Christmas, I was being offered a lifeline -- even though I was unable to recognize those acts as lifelines until long after theyd been offered. Cumulatively, I believe they were what both led me back -- and reminded me of what was worth coming back for. Today, I feel bottomless hope for those who are still dealing with homelessness, mental illness, and active addiction. I can only encourage all of us to live with a generous spirit, for the impact spreads farther than we can ever know. Amy Nieves-Renz, who works for a facilities management company, lives in West Philadelphia with her wife. They are expecting their first child in February. Noura Erakat speaks to demonstrators during an October rally at 18th and Walnut Streets in Philadelphia calling for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. Read more The first month of the Israel-Hamas war has led to a significant uptick in reported acts targeting Jewish, Muslim, and Arab residents in the Philadelphia area, according to advocacy groups that track such complaints. Advocates said the spike is alarming but perhaps not surprising, given the social upheaval brought by the latest chapter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Reports of harassment and violence against both Jews and Muslims have spiked nationwide since the Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7 and the ensuing military siege in the Gaza Strip. In Philadelphia, Andrew Goretsky, regional director for the local Anti-Defamation League chapter, said his office received more than 100 complaints since the war began. That total may fall as cases are investigated, but Goretsky said it nonetheless represents more than double the volume of a typical month. The volume is heavier and the vileness with it, Goretsky said. We had 500 [complaints] for all of 2022, he said. Advertisement The Council for American-Islamic Relations, the nations largest Muslim advocacy group, tracked 1,283 acts of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias nationwide over the last month, describing the spike as an unprecedented increase at more than triple the average volume for the same period last year. About 50 of those new claims came from the Philadelphia region, said Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu, executive director of CAIR-Philadelphia. For us, it definitely feels like post-9/11 with the range of cases and the different situations, he said. Harassment and vandalism, ethnic slurs and assaults, intimidation and bullying the alleged acts ranged in severity and touched virtually every corner of life in the region, from schools to office buildings to public spaces. Goretsky said most cases under review by the ADL involved slurs and vandalism, with 17 allegedly occurring on college campuses and 22 at K-12 schools. The bulk could be linked to the war, but also included what Goretsky described as the typical antisemitic acts the ADL might track in a normal month, such as public sightings of swastikas and white supremacist literature. In one new case, he said, a Jewish man reported that his yarmulke was ripped off his head while he was in public. Goretsky said he personally attended a pro-Israel rally after the Hamas attack at which a woman yelled Heil Hitler at the crowd. Its utterly horrific and theres no excuse for that type of behavior, he said. Tekelioglu said harassment and bullying at schools and on the streets was a common complaint among Muslim and Arab residents. At least one local business endured shouting and threats from visitors over its public support for Palestine, he added: People are shouting baseless claims and other anti-Palestinian messaging, and accusing them of being pro-Hamas. Both the ADL and CAIR acknowledged that some of the acts may not meet the legal threshold for discrimination or ethnic intimidation. But the reported volume nonetheless speaks to the inflamed divisions wrought by the conflict, and the challenges employers and universities face as they grapple with the volatile public discourse and fears over public safety. Whether in social media posts, public statements, or rally slogans, language itself has been the most common and perhaps most slippery source of grievance. Philadelphias largest universities have seen a number of blatant antisemitic acts as well as fractious debates over what defines antisemitic speech on campus. The University of Pennsylvania, in particular, has been roiled by complaints of antisemitism and now faces a federal complaint accusing the school of failing to proactively root out such behavior. Other students, meanwhile, have accused university leaders at Penn, Temple and Drexel of pro-Israel bias in failing to support Palestinian students through their public statements. Tekelioglu said many cases under review by CAIR also deal with alleged workplace retaliation over pro-Palestinian social media posts. Such cases have made headlines nationwide, and in some instances led to high-profile firings due to the inflammatory nature of the posts, but Tekelioglu said such complaints created a chilling effect on Arab and Muslim workers in the region. Some now fear that expressing public support for Palestine could lead to their being labeled terrorist sympathizers and losing their jobs. That level of censorship, that level of panic ... our community has not seen this since 9/11, not even at the height of the Trump presidency, he said. Tekelioglu said at least two people reported that FBI agents had questioned them about their pro-Palestinian social media activity. (A spokesperson for the FBI field office in Philadelphia said it could not confirm whether such visits occurred, but said that the government will never open an investigation based solely on First Amendment protected activity, including a persons political beliefs or affiliations.) While the ADL focuses on tracking antisemitism, Goretsky said, his office asked local law enforcement to increase patrols at both Jewish and Muslim institutions in the city after Oct. 7, as he knew the vitriol incited by the conflict would not be targeted at just one ethnic or religious group. This unfortunately wasnt unexpected, he said. Abby Bailey, an occupational therapist, sells her budgeting templates on Etsy for $5 each as a "side hustle." She is shown here with the template in Philadelphia's Kahn Park. Read more Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter A sunny Sunday is in store, with a high near 48. With many elements of our finances being automated and digitally available, its easy to skip over reflecting on spending habits and financial goals. Our lead story explores why some Gen Z Philadelphians and financial experts say to put down the apps and budget by hand. Paola Perez (@pdesiperez, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com) If someone forwarded you this email, sign up for free here. When Abby Bailey tried the popular budgeting app Mint, she wasnt sold. To Bailey, an occupational therapist who lives in Center City, the app didnt feel user-friendly. She wanted more personalized spending categories. And she felt like the platform provided more of a retrospective look at her monthly spending, as opposed to a tool for holding herself accountable. Advertisement So Bailey instead opted for what might be considered an old-fashioned strategy to some of her peers: She made a budget herself. Popular apps like the one Bailey used are shutting down, so millions of active users will need to use another tool soon. Some, like Bailey, have found success going offline. What experts are saying: I dont think apps are bad, said Wayne W. Williams, an associate professor of accounting at Temple University and a certified financial planner. In fact, these apps are very useful and convenient, but you lose the control and the ability to do long-term planning and goal-setting. Keep reading to learn how some Philadelphians are overcoming financial anxiety and changing their relationship with money by trying different budgeting methods. What you should know today Now Im passing the mic over to features reporter Zoe Greenberg. Rabbi Lonnie Kleinman of Mount Airy was arrested at the U.S. Capitol three weeks ago, calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. Soon after her arrest was broadcast on Fox News, she received a text message from her father. He said he was deeply disappointed, and that her grandparents, who survived the Holocaust, would have been devastated if they were still alive, Kleinman, 32, said. She and her father are not currently speaking, she said. Her experience speaks to a growing generational rift that has been highlighted in Jewish communities across the city and country in recent weeks. In interviews, Philadelphia Jews and their relatives described heated exchanges that veered from the academic about the global history of Judaism and geopolitics in the Middle East to the highly personal, touching on family memory, trauma and obligation. Read more about the many families experiencing what is effectively a microcosm of the fierce debates that are playing out on college campuses, social media platforms, and workplaces. Pop quiz The worlds most famous prehistoric fish returns to Philly for one more show. What is it called? A) Arandaspis prionotolepis B) Placodermi C) Dunkleosteus D) Tiktaalik roseae Think you got it? Check your answer here. Unscramble the anagram Hint: South Philly-bred and Grammy nominated BOTH CHALK TUG Email us if you know the answer. Well select a reader at random to shout out here. Cheers to Phyllis Salzman, who correctly guessed Fridays answer: Federal Donuts. Photo of the day Our Sunday track goes like this: Youre opening my eyes / Thank you for what you share. Im baking banana bread today. I hope you have a great rest of the weekend. Taylor will bring you the latest news bright and early on Monday. Penn president Liz Magill has underscored the need to protect free speech even as she pledges to fight antisemitism, notes Jonathan Zimmerman. Read more The test of a first-rate intelligence, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. Consider these claims: 1. Antisemitism at American universities is real, and we should raise our voices against it. 2. We must protect free speech, even for ideas that we find antisemitic. That sounds like a contradiction, I know. But if we erect new rules to restrict what we can say about Jews, Israel, or anything else well lose the ability to function as teachers, scholars, and citizens. Rather than censoring antisemitism, we need to speak up wherever we see it. Advertisement And right now, it seems like its everywhere. At Tulane, a Jewish students nose was broken in a melee that started when someone tried to burn an Israeli flag. Jewish students took shelter in a library at Cooper Union in New York City while pro-Palestinian protesters banged on its glass walls. At Cornell, a student was arrested last week for posting messages calling on readers to shoot pig jews and slit their throats. And at Penn, where I teach, staff members received emails threatening violence against members of the Jewish community. Lets be clear: Violence is illegal, and so are direct threats of the same. Its not enough for universities to denounce these acts; we must discipline people who engage in them. Nobody on campus should fear for their physical safety. But at the same time, nobody should expect that our schools will be safe from offensive speech. Consider From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free, which students at Temple Law School chanted as they walked out of class on Oct. 25. To my ears, that sounds like a demand to eliminate Jews from Israel. I fully understand and, Ill admit, share the wish to stamp out those kinds of odious sentiments. But its not an explicit threat to harm Jews on campus, like the Cornell and Penn posts. And if we banned it on those grounds, we wouldnt hear from people like Palestinian American Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), who was censured by the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday for using the same phrase. Tlaib has described it as an aspirational call for freedom for Palestinians not a demand to eradicate Jews and I think the history of the phrase suggests shes wrong. But muzzling protesters who use it would prevent everyone else from deciding whether shes right. Ditto for claims that Israel is a colonial or even a white supremacist power. These statements ignore the fact that most Jews in the country descend from people who lived in Palestine before Israel was founded and that half of the current Jewish population came from Arab or Persian lands. Many of them fled to Israel when they were exiled by Iraq, Egypt, and other countries in the region. READ MORE: In war between Israel and Hamas, explaining evil doesnt excuse it | Jonathan Zimmerman Calling these people white imposes Americas own racial typology upon a country that doesnt share it. You might even call the claim colonialist, insofar as it assumes that our way of defining and counting race is right and proper for everyone else. But it would be an enormous mistake to ban these statements from campus, which would deprive us of the opportunity to confront and refute them. And thats precisely what several GOP presidential candidates are proposing. Sen. Tim Scott (R., S.C.) has argued that any school coddling antisemites should lose its federal funding. Likewise, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum says he would use Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to revoke funding from any university that enables antisemitism. Never mind that Scott cosponsored a 2021 Senate resolution blasting restrictive speech codes on campus as inherently at odds with the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment, or that Burgum signed a North Dakota law that same year barring universities in the state from discriminating against speakers based on their viewpoint. Apparently, all of that goes out the window if Scott and Burgum think a viewpoint is antisemitic. Then we should shut it down, they say, via precisely the kind of restrictive speech codes that they used to deplore. I dont want to live in a country where politicians get to decide what is so heinous that the rest of us shouldnt hear it. And I certainly dont want to work at a university that places some ideas even ideas I detest out of bounds. To her credit, Penn president Liz Magill has underscored the need to protect free speech even as she pledges to fight antisemitism. Those in positions of leadership must not act as censors, Magill told a trustees meeting last week. Shes right. We can denounce hate and defend the right to say hateful things, all at the same time. Its the mark of a first-rate intelligence. And, I hope, of a first-rate university. News / National by Staff reporter ZIMBABWE'S largest referral hospital, Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals, which services Harare and other nearby provinces, has been operating with only one functional ambulance, reflecting the country's continually crumbling healthcare services.The hospital was established in terms of the Health Service Act [Chapter 15:16], and is a principal referral centre located in Harare, consisting of Mbuya Nehanda Maternity Hospital, Sekuru Kaguvi Eye Unit, Annex Hospital for the Mentally Disabled and the Main Hospital.Findings by acting Auditor-General Rheah Kujinga in her report on State-Owned Parastatals for the year ended 31 December 2022 have revealed that the institution was operating with an aged vehicle fleet of 16 vehicles, with only four functioning."As a result, the Hospital incurred repairs and maintenance costs of ZW$11.2 million. In addition, the Hospital had only one out of four ambulances which was functional," reads the report.The hospital's infrastructure is dilapidated, with four out of 21 functional theatres, two out of eight functional X-Ray machines and one non-functional CT Scan as at 31 December 2021, which saw patients being referred elsewhere for services such as computerised tomography (CT) scans. The remaining functional theatres have been in dire need of re pairs.Parirenyatwa has also been operating without analysing tools for maintenance and calibration of medical equipment to ensure safe and effective use in the diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of patients.The equipment includes: "Biomedical De[1]vices Electrical Safety Tester, Electrosurgical Analyser, Incubator Performance Analyser, Intravenous (IV), Pum Analyser, Non-Invasive Blood Pressure Monitor Analyser, Pressure and temperature Measurement Device, Ventilator Performance Analyser, Bio-Signal Simulator, Radiation Compliance Testing Device and Defibrillator Analyser." The hospital's residential facilities are also in a shambles, in need of immediate renovations, with 27 rooms now uninhabitable."The residential buildings' plumbing works, floors, ceilings and cardboards were damaged and needed to be repaired. As a result, some students were now sharing rooms while some of them had been on the waiting list for a long time whilst other occupants were now renovating their rooms contrary to the lease agreements. Upon enquiry, management indicated that the capital budget for 2021 was released in October 2021 and was inadequate to fund the renovations," reads the report.Parirenyatwa's accounting system has also been under scrutiny, with the hospital failing to settle in time money owed suppliers."The Hospital was offering services to those who were exempt from paying. The cost of offering such services during the year was ZW$370.4 million and the budgetary support for these services amounted to ZW$117.6 million leaving a funding gap of ZW$253.1 million (68%)," reads the report."The Hospital was not settling its payables as and when they fell due. The Hospital had payables amounting to ZW$113.7 million which were more than 120 days. As a result, the Hospital experienced periods of stock-outs of essential medicines. This was contrary to the Essential Drugs List of Zimbabwe (EDLIZ) which requires the minimum quantities of drugs to be available at the Hospital at all times."Things are also not looking good at other hospitals, with the AG's report showing other key referral hospitals such as the United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH) and Sally Mugabe Central Hospital incurring losses."I draw your attention to the fact that the Hospital (UBH) incurred a deficit amounting to ZW$86.5 million during the year ended December 31, 2020 and it had accumulated losses amounting to ZW$251.3 million as at year end," reads the report."These factors indicate that a material uncertainty exists that may cast doubt on the Hospital's ability to continue operating as a going concern. However, the financial statements have been prepared on a going concern basis."The UBH consists of four hospitals that have different service lines, namely Richard Morris Eye Unit, Lady Rodwell Maternity Hospital, Robbie Gibson, an infectious diseases hospital and the Main hospital.On Sally Mugabe Hospital, Kujinga said: "In my opinion, because of the significance of the matters described in the Basis for Adverse Opinion section of my report, the financial statements do not present fairly, the financial position of Sally Mugabe Central Hospital as at December 31, 2021, and its financial performance and cash flows for the year then ended in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs)."In June, the parliamentary portfolio committee on Health also revealed the state of dereliction in Zimbabwe's healthcare facilities, after it emerged that radiotherapy cancer treatment machines at Mpilo Hospital purchased by the taxpayer for US$2 million have not functioned for four years because central government has not bought spares worth US$80 000. The chairperson of the committee, Dr Ruth Labode, described the negligence and dereliction of duty as "sad".Mpilo Central Hospital in Bulawayo is a referral institution serving patients from Bulawayo and the Matabeleland region.A public resource management situation report by the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (Zimcodd) released in June showed that only a paltry 4% of 57 districts surveyed have good healthcare facilities, with the majority (85%) reporting poor medical facilities. Dear Daithi, My husband and I have moved back to Ireland from Canada this summer. I'm from Cork, he's from Dublin, we live temporarily in County Waterford, renting for the time being. We didn't know each other before we met in Vancouver but it was instant attraction that led very quickly to a serious relationship. We got married within two years of meeting each other and have a beautiful daughter together now. That's why we moved home, we wanted to raise our daughter in Ireland. The plan is eventually to build a house in Cork, we both work remotely so it's more so I can be close to my parents and brothers and sister all of them live near enough to each other in north Cork. The problem I'm writing to you about came up when we started talking about Christmas. It's my husband and myself's first Christmas home in Ireland for four years, and it's the first as a family. It's our daughter's first Irish Christmas, I think this is a really big deal and I want to spend it at home in Cork, with all her cousins. Her nanny and granddad are so excited as well for her to wake up in their house on Christmas morning to see what Santy brings her. My husband says since we're going to be living in Cork eventually there will be plenty of time for her to do that and we should go to Dublin this year to stay with his family. The thought of it depresses me. There isn't really room for us all and his family aren't the most traditional. There won't be other kids for our daughter to play with either. This is really upsetting me. He doesn't even care about Christmas, but he knows it's a huge deal for me and my family we get matching PJs and everything! Should I insist or maybe even suggest he goes to Dublin, and myself and my daughter go to Cork and we can meet up again St Stephen's Day? I really do love hearing about Irish people who met abroad and came home to settle down with a family the reason being that this is my family story. Both my parents left Kerry in the early 60s and being from two different parts they didnt know each other beforehand. They met and fell in love and moved home in 1969 to my fathers homeplace with two small children. My mother moved to the Gaeltacht and didnt speak the lingo. Tough woman! Ive never been to Vancouver, and I believe its a beautiful place. A big change from Dublin, Cork and now Waterford where you are renting and with plans to build in your native Cork the excitement levels must be through the roof, once you get over this Christmas anyway! I always loved Christmas, but I never really understood the real meaning until Ogie came along. Like most, I thought it was a time to be out on the lash, buy a few presents, and go out on the lash some more. Looking back now I did have a good time but being home with your partner/husband/wife and children at this time of year is the best feeling ever. This is even more special this year as it's your daughter's first Christmas in Ireland and there will only be one of those and with that the familys first. What an exciting time. I can only imagine how excited your parents are with this and with Santy coming to the house again... nothing will be spared. Lets not decorate the Christmas tree yet though: this is your husband's first at home in four years too and that means a lot to him. He does have a point that ye are going to be living in Cork forever and going to Dublin for Christmas might be a small consolation prize. You do have concerns about the place being too small and his family being less traditional. High up or low down, you dont want this and it will mean so much to you to be with your own family for Christmas. You say he doesnt care, and you are probably right for the most part. Even though he mightnt say he loves it, he probably does like it and just never felt it necessary to say it out loud, Id be like that. The good news is that you spoke up in time. I know loads of people who dont say a word and then just as everyone is sitting down for the turkey it kicks off. I feel a lot of Christmas day dilemmas coming down the track. For such a lovely day it does cause problems for some. Ive a deal with my wife Rita. As long as Santy is still coming to the house, I want to have Christmas in Ireland in our home. And even though I think she would love to go to New Jersey for Christmas, having Santy coming to our home is something special and we all get why. Id say after Santy does his final flyby it's us that will be flying westward from then on and Im good with that. To see what Santy has brought is the best feeling in the world. I thought when Santy came to me was great... him bringing presents for my son is out of this world! I think when your husband sees the happiness Santy has brought and seeing you with all your family in this light, hell know that he made the right decision about spending Christmas in Cork. So, yes I think for the greater good you all should spend Christmas in Cork. This shouldnt be taken as a win for you, its more to avoid a lose-lose situation. The last part of your question kinda upset me, when you asked if ye should be in different places for the few days and meet up on Stephenss Day. If I thought Id be away from my gang for Christmas day Id go cracked! Id find even the suggestion of it hard to take, so please dont even mention that one. Youll floor him. I think being away like this for such a special day could cause an unnecessary divide down the road. Christmas is about being together. I think the way to approach it is to explain how you feel. Sometimes we expect our partner to know how we really feel about things. They dont and then we get frustrated thats a natural reaction. Explain to him what it means to you. Also, and I think this is important, tell him about all the pints and nights out hes going to have. A lot of men like that Im told! Get up the yard with you A man in his 20s has been killed in a road traffic crash in Dublin in the early hours of Sunday morning. The incident happened on the N7 Naas Road at approximately 12.20am. It is understood that the man was getting out of a parked car when he was hit by another vehicle. His body has been removed to Dublin City Mortuary. The driver of the first car, a man in his 20s, and a male passenger from the second, also in his 20s, were taken to Tallaght and St James's Hospital for non-life-threatening injuries. The road was closed for a time to allow for a forensic examination of the scene to take place, but it has since reopened to traffic. A male, aged in his 20s, was later arrested in connection with the incident. He is currently detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984 at a Garda station in South Dublin. Investigating gardai have issued an appeal for witnesses to the collision. Any road users who were travelling on the Naas Road or in the Red Cow area between midnight and 12.45am, and who may have camera footage, have been asked to contact gardai. Anyone with information should contact Clondalkin Garda Station on 01 666 7600, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any Garda station. A Mallow man caught with almost 3,000 worth of cocaine was given a suspended jail term as the judge urged him to continue with pro-social activities, including playing rugby. Sergeant Patrick OConnell said gardai called to the house at Connolly Avenue, Mallow, Co Cork, for an unrelated reason that had nothing to do with Colm Flaherty. Defence barrister Emmet Boyle said of the accused: He is now working. He is back in pro-social activity. He is a keen rugby player. He is now 22. I cannot gainsay previous convictions but they are going back four and a half years. Mr Boyle said the plea of guilty was significant as others were in the house and Mr Flaherty accepted responsibility. The defence barrister said there could have been a legal argument about the warrant but the defendant opted not to take that route and chose to plead guilty from the outset. Mr Boyle said the young man had difficult formative years but was doing well now and there were testimonials speaking of his otherwise good character. Judge James McCourt said: You could have played ducks and drakes with the system and turned this into a lengthy process but you did not. You have shown a degree of insight and you are involved in pro-social activity, playing rugby. That is commendable. The drug in question is a scourge on society. But with a street value of less than 3,000 you were at the lower end of the chain. The judge imposed a two-year sentence suspended on condition that he keeps the peace for the next three years. Judge McCourt said to the young man as the case concluded: That should see you through the gap. Stay pro-social, stay employed, stay playing rugby. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected growing international calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, saying Israels battle to crush Hamas militants will continue with full force. A ceasefire would be possible only if all 239 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza are released, he said in a televised address. The Israeli leader also insisted that after the war, now entering its sixth week, Gaza would be demilitarised and Israel would retain security control there. Such a position appears to run counter to the post-war scenarios floated by Israels closest ally, the United States, which has said it opposes an Israeli reoccupation of the territory. (PA Graphics) Asked what he meant by security control, Mr Netanyahu said Israeli forces must be able to enter Gaza when necessary to hunt down militants. Earlier, Israels prime minister rejected calls from Western allies to do more to protect Palestinian civilians, as troops encircled Gazas largest hospital where doctors said five patients died, including a premature baby, after the last generator ran out of fuel. Israel has portrayed Shifa Hospital as Hamas main command post, saying militants were using civilians as human shields there and had set up elaborate bunkers underneath it, claims Hamas and Shifa staff deny. In recent days, fighting near Shifa and other hospitals in the combat zone of northern Gaza has intensified and supplies have run out. There is no electricity. Medical devices stopped. Patients, especially those in intensive care, started to die, said Mohammed Abu Selmia, the director of Shifa, speaking by phone over the sound of gunfire and explosions. Mr Abu Selmia said Israeli troops were shooting at anyone outside or inside the hospital, and prevented movement between the buildings in the compound. Palestinians mourn relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, at a hospital in Khan Younis (Fatima Shbair/AP) The claim that Israeli troops were the sole source of fire could not be verified independently. Asked about reports of troops firing into the Shifa courtyard, the Israeli military would only say that troops are engaged with fighting Hamas in the vicinity and take all feasible measures to prevent harm to civilians. It said soldiers have encountered hundreds of Hamas fighters in underground facilities, schools, mosques and clinics during fighting in Gaza. At Shifa, five patients died after the generator shut down, including a premature baby, said Medhat Abbas, a spokesman for the Health Ministry. Mr Netanyahu said the responsibility for any harm to civilians lies with Hamas, repeating long-standing allegations that the militant group uses civilians in Gaza as human shields. He said that while Israel has urged civilians to leave combat zones, Hamas is doing everything it can to prevent them from leaving. His statement came after French President Emmanuel Macron pushed for a ceasefire and urged other leaders to join his call, telling the BBC there was no justification for Israels ongoing bombing. Following Hamas deadly October 7 attack on Israel, in which at least 1,200 people were killed, Israels allies have defended the countrys right to protect itself. But now into the second month of war, there are growing differences in how many feel Israel should conduct its fight. The US has been pushing for temporary pauses that would allow for wider distribution of badly needed aid to civilians in the besieged territory where conditions are increasingly dire. An Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip is seen from southern Israel (Leo Correa/AP) However, Israel has so far only agreed to brief daily periods during which civilians are able to flee the area of ground combat in northern Gaza and head south on foot along the territorys main north-south artery. Since these evacuation windows were first announced a week ago, more than 150,000 civilians have fled the north, according to UN monitors. On Saturday, the military announced a new evacuation window, saying civilians could use the central road and a coastal road. On the main road, a steady stream of people could be seen fleeing southward, clutching children and bags of belongings, many on foot and some on donkey-drawn carts. One man pushed two children in a wheelbarrow. Tens of thousands more remain in northern Gaza, many sheltering at hospitals and overcrowded UN facilities. Palestinian civilians and rights advocates have pushed back against Israels portrayal of the southern evacuation zones as relatively safe, noting that Israeli bombardment has continued across Gaza, including airstrikes in the south that Israel says target Hamas leaders, but that have also killed women and children. The US and Israel also have diverging views on what a post-war Gaza should look like. Mr Netanyahu and military leaders have said this needs to be dictated solely by Israels security needs, such as ensuring no threats emerge from the territory. Palestinians flee to the southern Gaza Strip (Fatima Shbair/AP) Israel has said a key goal of the war is to crush Hamas, a militant group that has ruled Gaza for 16 years. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking to reporters during a tour of Asia, laid out what he said were fundamental principles for a post-war Gaza, some of which seemed to run counter to Israels narrow approach. Mr Blinken said these principles include no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, no use of Gaza as a platform for launching terrorism or other attacks against Israel, no diminution in the territory of Gaza, and a commitment to Palestinian-led governance for Gaza and for the West Bank, and in a unified way. Saudi Arabia hosted Muslim and Arab leaders in Riyadh on Saturday with the aim of devising their own cohesive strategy on Gaza. Initially intended to be two separate gatherings, the country decided to merge them into one to expedite the process in response to the escalating violence, according to the Saudi Foreign Ministry. Israel's military said it was ready to evacuate babies from Gaza's largest hospital on Sunday, where Palestinian officials said two newborns died and dozens more were at risk after fuel ran out amid intense fighting in the area. As the humanitarian situation worsened, Gaza's border authority said the Rafah crossing into Egypt would reopen on Sunday for foreign passport holders after closing on Friday. Hamas said it had completely or partially destroyed more than 160 Israeli military targets in Gaza, including more than 25 vehicles in the past 48 hours. An Israeli military spokesperson said Hamas had lost control of northern Gaza. At a news conference late on Saturday, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the deaths of five more Israeli soldiers in Gaza. The Israeli military said 46 had been killed since its ground operations there began. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. File Picture: Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP Israel said rockets were still being fired from Gaza into southern Israel, where it has said about 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 taken hostage by Hamas last month. Palestinian officials said on Friday that 11,078 Gaza residents had been killed in air and artillery strikes since October 7, around 40% of them children. Reports of possible hostage deal Israel's three major TV news channels, without citing named sources, said there was some progress toward a deal to free hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. Netanyahu said he would not discuss details of any possible deal, which according to N12 News would involve 50 to 100 women, children and elderly being released in stages during a three to five day pause in fighting. According to the reports, Israel would release women and minor Palestinian prisoners and consider letting fuel in to Gaza, while reserving the right to resume fighting. In Tel Aviv, thousands joined a rally to support families of the hostages. Gaza residents said Israeli troops, who went to war to eliminate Hamas after its deadly cross-border assault on October 7, had been clashing with Hamas gunmen all night in and around Gaza City where the Al Shifa hospital, Gaza's largest, is located. Ashraf Al-Qidra, who represents the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza, said the hospital suspended operations after fuel ran out. He said two babies had died in an incubator as a result. He said there were 45 babies in total. Palestinians flee to the southern Gaza Strip on Salah al-Din Street in Bureij. Picture: AP Photo/Fatima Shbair He said Israeli shelling killed a patient in intensive care and that Israeli snipers on rooftops fired into the medical complex from time to time, limiting people's ability to move. The World Health Organisation expressed "grave concern" for the safety of everyone trapped in the hospital by the fighting and said it had lost communications with its contacts there. Israel's chief military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said the Israeli military would help evacuate babies from the hospital, at the request of the staff at Al Shifa. Muhammad Abu Salmiya, the hospital's director, told Al Jazeera TV, that protecting patients was the priority. "We contacted the Red Cross and informed them we ran out of water, oxygen, fuel, and everything," Abu Salmiya said. "The premature babies, patients of the intensive care, and even wounded people couldn't survive with the lack of electricity... If the occupation forces want to evacuate the wounded people to any place in the world that is safer than the Gaza Strip, we are not against that." Israeli soldiers are seen during a ground operation in the Gaza Strip. Picture: (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg Israel has said doctors, patients and thousands of evacuees who have taken refuge at hospitals in northern Gaza must leave so it can tackle Hamas gunmen who it says have placed command centres under and around them. Hamas denies using hospitals this way. Medical staff say patients could die if they are moved and Palestinian officials say Israeli fire makes it dangerous for others to leave. Israeli Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter called the evacuations "Gaza's Nakba" - a reference to mass dispossessions of Palestinians after Israel was founded in 1948. "Operationally there's no way to conduct a war the way the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) wants to conduct it inside Gaza territories," Dichter said. "I don't know how it will end." 'Totally a war zone' Ahmed al-Mokhallalati, a senior plastic surgeon at Al Shifa, told Reuters there had been continuous bombardment for more than 24 hours. He said most hospital staff and people sheltering there had left, but 500 patients remained. "It's totally a war zone. It's a totally scary atmosphere here in the hospital," he said. The military wing of Hamas ally Islamic Jihad, the Al-Quds Brigades, said it was "engaged in violent clashes in the vicinity of Al Shifa Medical Complex, Al Nasr neighbourhood, and Al Shati camp in Gaza." Al Nasr is home to several major hospitals. An Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip is seen from southern Israel. Picture: AP Photo/Leo Correa Israel said earlier it had killed what it called a Hamas "terrorist" who it said had prevented the evacuation of another hospital in the north, which Palestinian officials have said is out of service and surrounded by tanks. It said Ahmed Siam was killed along with other militants while hiding in the Al Buraq school. Palestinian officials told Reuters on Friday at least 25 Palestinians had been killed in an Israeli strike at the school, which was packed with evacuees. In London, at least 300,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched and police arrested over 120 people as they sought to stop far-right counter-protesters ambushing the rally. Over 20,000 people joined a pro-Palestinian rally in Brussels. Protesters wave Palestinian flags and shout slogans during a demonstration in solidarity with Gaza, in Tunis, Tunisia. Picture: AP Photo/Hassene Dridi Meeting in Saudi Arabia, Muslim and Arab countries called for an immediate end to military operations in Gaza, rejecting Israel's justification of self-defence. A communique issued at the summit urged the International Criminal Court to investigate "war crimes and crimes against humanity that Israel is committing." - Reuters A wildfire burning in a remote rainforest in Hawaii is underscoring a new reality for the normally lush island state just a few months after a devastating blaze on a neighbouring island levelled an entire town and killed at least 99 people. No-one was injured and no homes were damaged in the latest fire, which scorched mountain ridges on Oahu, but the flames wiped out irreplaceable native forestland that is home to nearly two dozen fragile species. Experts said the ingredients were the same as they were in fire-ravaged Mauis historic town of Lahaina: severe drought fuelled by climate change is creating fire in Hawaii where it has almost never been before. JC Watson, the manager of the Koolau Mountains Watershed Partnership, which helps take care of the land on Oahu. He recalled the beautiful native forest had uluhe fern, which often dominate Hawaii rainforests, and koa trees whose wood has traditionally been used to make canoes, surfboards and ukuleles. Its not a full-on clean burn, but it is pretty moonscape-looking out there, he said. The charred forest left behind by the wildfire on Oahu (Ryan Aguilar/Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources/AP) The fact the latest fire was on Oahus wetter, windward side is a red flag to all of us that there is change afoot, said Sam Ohu Gon, senior scientist and cultural adviser at the Nature Conservancy in Hawaii. The fire mostly burned inside the Oahu Forest National Wildlife Refuge, which is home to 22 species listed as endangered or threatened by the US government. They include iiwi and elepaio birds, a tree snail called pupu kani oe, and the Hawaiian hoary bat known as opeapea. The US Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the refuge, said it does not yet know what plants or wildlife may have been damaged or harmed by the fire. The fire incinerated 2.5 square miles since first being spotted on October 30 and was 90% contained as of Friday. Officials were investigating the cause of the blaze, which was roughly 20 miles north of Honolulu. The flames have left gaping, dark bald spots amid a blanket of thick green where the fire did not burn. The skeletons of blackened trees poke from the charred landscape. The burn area may seem relatively small compared to wildfires on the US continent, which can raze hundreds of square miles. But Hawaiis intact native ecosystems are not large to begin with, especially on smaller islands like Oahu, so even limited fires have far-reaching consequences. The rainforest was home to koa trees and uluhe fern (JC Watson/AP) One major concern is what plants will grow in place of the native forest. Hawaiis native plants evolved without encountering regular fires and fire is not part of their natural life cycle. Faster-growing non-native plants with more seeds tend to sprout in place of native species afterwards. Mr Watson said an Oahu forest near the latest fire had uluhe ferns, koa trees and ohia trees before a blaze burned less than a square mile of it 2015. Now the land features invasive grasses that are more fire-prone, and some slow-growing koa. A much larger 2016 fire in the Waianae mountains on the other side of Oahu took out one of the last remaining populations of a rare tree gardenia, said Mr Gon. There are also cultural losses when native forest burns. Mr Gon recalled an old Central Oahu story about a warrior who was thrown off a cliff while battling an enemy chief. His fall was stopped by an ohia tree, another plant common in the incinerated area. Feathers from Hawaiis forest birds were once used to make cloaks and helmets worn by chiefs. Mr Watsons organisation is co-ordinating with the Fish and Wildlife Service to conduct initial surveys of the damage. They will devise a restoration plan that will include invasive species control and planting native species. But there are limits to what can be done. Itll never be able to be returned to its previous state within our lifetimes, Mr Watson said. Its forever changed, unfortunately. President Emmanuel Macron has called on the French people to rise up against anti-Jewish acts ahead of a march in the capital to protest against rising antisemitism. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and numerous other politicians are to attend the march on Sunday. Paris authorities have deployed 3,000 police troops along the route of the protest, which was called by the leaders of the Senate and parliaments lower house, the National Assembly, amid an alarming increase in anti-Jewish acts in France since the start of Israels war against Hamas last month. French authorities have registered more than 1,000 acts against Jews around the country in a month since the conflict in the Middle East began. In a letter addressed to the French people, Mr Macron vowed that perpetrators will be prosecuted and punished. After marking Armistice Day on Saturday, Emmanuel Macron said a France where its Jewish citizens are afraid is not France (Mohammed Badra/pool/AP) A France where our Jewish fellow citizens are afraid is not France, he said in the letter, published in Le Parisien newspaper. He called on the country to remain united behind its values and work for peace and security for all in the Middle East. He noted that 40 French citizens were killed in the initial Hamas attack, and eight remain missing or held hostage. To this pain of the nation has been added the unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism, he said. Mr Macron said he will attend the protest in my heart and in spirit, but not in person. French far-right leader Marine Le Pen is likely to attend the march amid fierce criticism that her once-pariah National Rally party has failed to shake off its antisemitic heritage despite growing political legitimacy. As of Saturday, officials counted 1,247 antisemitic acts in France since October 7 nearly three times as many as for the whole of 2022, according to the Interior Ministry. Volodymyr Zelenskyy has described Kherson as a symbol of heroism and hope on the day the city marks one year since Ukraine retook it from occupying Russian forces. The Ukrainian President posted on X on Saturday: Kherson is a symbol of heroism and hope. It is a city of our people who have not bowed down to the enemy and inspired all of us and the entire world with their resistance. The flight of Russian troops from Kherson under prolonged Ukrainian assault a year ago was one of Ukraines biggest successes in the war. It comes after big explosions were heard in Kyiv as the Ukrainian capital came under air attack on Saturday, in the first major attack on the city since late September. Strong explosions were heard on in the left bank of the capital, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram. Preliminary, air defence was working against ballistic (missiles). Russian troops are intensifying their attacks on the key eastern town of Avdiivka, a senior Ukraine officer has said, while the countrys general staff reported its military repelled many Russian assaults in widely separated sectors of the frontline. Key Points Strong explosions in Kyiv as Ukrainian capital comes under attack Two Russian landing boats filled with armoured vehicles destroyed Russia intensifies attacks in Avdiivka Ukraine warns any peace talks with Russia are a trap' Volodymyr Zelensky says he is certain of battlefield success Blast kills three Russian officers in occupied town, says Ukrainian intelligence 18:00 , Tara Cobham Ukraine's intelligence directorate said on Sunday that an explosion in the Russian-occupied town of Melitopol killed at least three Russian servicemen in an attack it described as an "act of revenge" by local underground groups. The blast occurred during a meeting on Saturday of Russian officers in the town, a hub of Russian forces in the south, the directorate within the defence ministry said in a statement. "This act of revenge, carried out by representatives of the local resistance, took place in the New Post offices seized by the Russians," it said. Story continues There was no mention of the incident from Russian officials. Reuters was unable to verify the Ukrainian statement. The intelligence statement said the meeting on Saturday at the local military headquarters was attended by Russian National Guard and FSB intelligence service officers. "As a result of the explosion at least three National Guard officers were killed at the headquarters," the statement said. "Information of other enemy losses is being clarified." The statement said police converged on the area and a burned-out car was later seen being towed through the town. Bidens reelection pitch when it comes to Ukraine 17:00 , Tara Cobham US President Joe Biden is facing two wars on two continents, and the fallout from each conflict will shape a second term even if the fighting ends before that. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been going on for almost two years, and Israel and Hamas began their latest clash about a month ago. Biden wants to send military support to Ukraine and Israel, something that he describes as "vital" to U.S. national security interests. "History has taught us 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," he said in a recent Oval Office address. His plans will require challenging congressional negotiations. Some Republicans are resisting more assistance for Ukraine after Congress has already approved $113 billion in security, economic and humanitarian resistance. Both conflicts will likely require years of U.S. involvement. For example, Biden is looking for a new opportunity to push for a two-state solution in the Middle East, creating an independent Palestinian country alongside Israel. US President Joe Biden speaks at the National Veterans Day Observance at the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. on Saturday (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) Senior Ukrainian officer coordinated Nord Stream attack 16:05 , Lydia Patrick A Ukrainian military officer coordinated last years attack on the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing anonymous sources in Ukraine and Europe. No one has taken responsibility for the September 2022 blasts, which occurred off the Danish island of Bornholm and ruptured three out of four lines of the system that delivers Russian gas to Europe. Washington and NATO called it an act of sabotage, while Moscow said it was an act of international terrorism. Roman Chervinsky, a former intelligence official who served in the Ukrainian militarys special forces, managed a six-person team but did not plan the attack, the Post reported. He denied involvement. A spokesperson for Ukraines military told Reuters he had no information about the claim. The Ukrainian foreign ministry and Kyivs domestic security service, the SBU, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. His commanding officer at the time, Maj. Gen. Viktor Hanushchak, told Ukrainian media earlier this year that senior military leadership had signed off on the plot to lure the Russian pilot. Morning light falls on the landfall facility of the Nord Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline and the transfer station of the OPAL gas pipeline, the Baltic Sea Pipeline Link, in Lubmin, Germany, on July 21, 2022 (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) Russian troops continue effort to encircle Avdiivka 13:30 , Lydia Patrick Ukraines General Staff said that Russian troops were also continuing their weekslong push to encircle Avdiivka, an Ukrainian stronghold south of Bakhmut and a key target since the beginning of the war. Its considered the gateway to parts of the eastern Donetsk region under Kyivs control. The General Staff said the air force was playing a key part in the latest Russian assault.Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, who leads Ukrainian troops fighting in and near Avdiivka, said Sunday that the attacking Russian forces were ramping up airstrikes, particularly those using guided bombs. He wrote on Telegram that Russian troops over the previous day had launched 30 airstrikes and 712 artillery barrages at the city and surrounding areas, and clashed almost 50 times with Ukrainian units. An elderly civilian woman stands with a cat on the balcony of her destroyed house in the city of Avdiivka (Getty Images) Russia ramps up attacks on key cities in eastern Ukraine 12:35 , Lydia Patrick Moscows troops have begun a push to regain territory near Bakhmut, the eastern mining city that was the site of the wars bloodiest battle before falling into Russian hands in May, the head of Ukraines ground forces wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Ukrainian troops had recaptured the heights over Bakhmut and made some advances to the citys west, north and south since Kyiv launched its summer counteroffensive. Toward Bakhmut, the Russians have become more active and are trying to recapture previously lost positions. ... Enemy attacks are being repelled, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote in a Telegram update on Sunday afternoon. Ukraines long-awaited counteroffensive has so far resulted in only incremental gains and heavy losses, with Ukrainian troops struggling to punch through Russian lines in the south. Meanwhile, Moscows forces have attempted to press forward in the northeast, likely with a view to distract Kyiv and minimize the number of troops it is able to send to key southern and eastern battles. The Ukrainian ground forces spokesperson similarly reported that Russian troops had switched from defense to active defense near Bakhmut, putting pressure on Ukrainian troops south of the city. Vladimir Fityo made the remarks on Ukrainian TV, adding that Russian troops were searching for weak points in Ukrainian defenses and ramping up artillery strikes on Ukrainian positions. Dozens of Russians are said to make up the Siberian Battalion (Getty Images) Germany set to double Ukraine military aid under Scholz plan 12:05 , Lydia Patrick German chancellor Olaf Scholzs governing coalition has agreed in principle to double the countrys military aid for Ukraine next year to 8 billion euros ($8.5 billion), a political source in Berlin said. If approved by parliament, where Scholzs parties hold a majority, the boost would lift Germanys defence spending to 2.1% of its gross domestic product target, beyond the 2% pledged by all North Atlantic Treaty Organization members, the source added. Lawmakers of Scholzs Social Democrats, the Free Democrats and the Green party agreed on the increase in negotiations over the proposed 2024 federal budget ahead of a formal meeting of the budget committee of the Bundestag - or lower house of parliament - on Thursday, Nov. 16, the source said. A spokesperson for Germanys Ministry of Defence said the Bundestag committee has not finished negotiations and declined to comment further. Germanys Bild am Sonntag newspaper also said the committee is due to approve the additional 4 billion euros. Doubling the military spending is both the right thing to do and important, it quoted member of parliament Andreas Schwarz, who acts as an SPD military budget official, as saying. With the move we will underscore our promise to Ukraine with the necessary funds. The fact that we will also be able to fulfil our NATO obligation is a great success of the ... coalition, he was reported as saying. A European Union plan to spend up to 20 billion euros ($21.4 billion) on military aid for Ukraine is meeting with resistance from EU countries, diplomats said this week. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz greets 102-year-old German Holocaust survivor Margot Friedlaender (POOL/AFP/Getty) 'We want her back,' husband of US journalist detained in Russia appeals for her immediate release 11:30 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain This wasnt how Pavel Butorin expected to celebrate his anniversary this week, with his wife of 21 years in a Russian prison and barely any communication available. Russian-American journalist, Alsu Kurmasheva who works as an editor for U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe has been detained in Russia for almost a month and charged with failing to self-register as a foreign agent. Alsu should be celebrating this anniversary with me and our children at home, not in a Russian prison, Butorin told The Associated Press in an interview in Prague on Friday. We want her back. Alsu must be released as soon as possible, he said, visibly shaken. 'We want her back,' husband of US journalist detained in Russia appeals for her immediate release Putin drafting Wagner Group mercenaries into national guard, UK says 10:57 , Lydia Patrick Large elements of the Wagner Group mercenary group are likely serving in Russias National Guard, says the UKs Ministry of Defence. Rosgvardiyas national guard is thought to be led by Pavel Prigozhin, the son of the late Yevgeny Prigozhin - the Wagner leader who died in a plane crash in August of this year soon after the rebel group captured Rostov-on-Don. Other Wagner fighters are likely to have joined Redut, another Private Military Company, which have a total of 7,000 personnel, say the Ministry of Defence. Wagner group fighters also joined Chechen Akhmat special forces and 170 former Wagner fighters had already joined Akhmat, according to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. The UK government describes the Wagner mercenary group as a terrorist organisation. Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine 12 November 2023. Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/5yy8Og2gg3 #StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/y7g7HRnSxx Ministry of Defence (@DefenceHQ) November 12, 2023 Hungary's Orban says negotiations on Ukraine's future EU membership should not move forward 10:30 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Hungarys prime minister said Friday he does not support moving forward on negotiations on Ukraines future membership in the European Union, signaling again that his country could pose a major roadblock to Kyivs ambitions to join the bloc. EU leaders are to decide in mid-December whether Ukraine should be formally invited to begin talks to join the 27-member union, with Hungary seen as a potential obstacle. Unanimity among all member states is required to admit a new country into the bloc, giving Hungarys prime minister, Viktor Orban, a powerful veto. The EUs executive branch on Wednesday recommended that Ukraine should be permitted to open membership talks once it has addressed some shortfalls. But in an interview with state radio on Friday, Orban said the embattled country is nowhere near gaining membership in the worlds largest trading bloc. Hungary's Orban says negotiations on Ukraine's future EU membership should not move forward Somber bugles and bells mark Armistice Day around the globe as wars drown out peace messages 09:30 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain With somber bugles and bells from Australia to western Europes battlefields of World War I, people around the globe on Saturday remembered the slaughter and losses just over a century ago that was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Yet the rumble of tanks and the screeching of incoming fire from Ukraine to Gaza pierced the solemnity of the occasion and the notion that humankind could somehow circumvent violence to settle its worst differences. This time last year, our thoughts were focused on Ukraine. Today, our minds are full with the terrible images emerging from Israel and Gaza. These are just two of the more than 100 armed conflicts in the world today, said Benoit Mottrie, the head of the Last Post Association in western Belgiums Ypres, where some of the fiercest and deadliest World War I battles were fought. Somber bugles and bells mark Armistice Day around the globe as wars drown out peace messages Two Russian landing boats filled with armoured vehicles destroyed by Ukraine in significant loss for Putin 08:51 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Ukraine on Friday said its naval drones had destroyed two small Russian landing boats in Crimea, in an embarrassment for President Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian military intelligence said two amphibious Russian ships loaded with armoured vehicles had been hit by naval drones overnight. One of the boats was identified as an Akula class vessel, while the other landing vessel was a Serna class. The results of intelligence conducted on 10 November 2023 near Vuzka Bay in temporarily occupied Crimea show that after an attack by naval drones, two small Russian landing ships have been destroyed, a Ukraine military report said. Ukraine destroys Russian landing boats in significant loss for Putin What the Republican candidates have said on the war in Ukraine 07:00 , Tara Cobham As President Joe Biden likes to remind anyone who will listen, This is not your grandfathers Republican Party. That has never been more evident than when examining the way the 2024 Republican presidential candidates approach the topic of Ukraine. Support for Ukraine is dividing the GOP field. Several candidates believe the US should continue to support the war effort a stance that adheres to more traditional Republican foreign policy beliefs. Gustaf Kilander and Ariana Baio report: What are the Republican candidates views on the war in Ukraine Recap: EUs 20 billion euro plan for Ukraine military aid hits resistance 06:00 , Tara Cobham A European Union plan to spend up to 20 billion euros ($21.4 billion) on military aid for Ukraine is meeting resistance from EU countries and may not survive in its current form, diplomats have said. Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign policy chief, proposed in July that the bloc create a fund with up to 5 billion euros a year over four years as part of broader Western security commitments to bolster Ukraine as it fights Russia's invasion. But as EU defence ministers prepare to discuss the plan in Brussels on Tuesday, diplomats say multiple countries - including EU heavyweight Germany - have voiced reservations about committing such large sums years in advance. The EU and its members have been among the biggest donors of military aid to Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022, providing arms and equipment worth some 25 billion euros, according to the bloc's diplomatic service. Borrell's proposal was an effort to put support on a longer-term footing, by creating a cash pot for Ukraine aid inside a bigger fund, the European Peace Facility, used to reimburse EU members for military assistance to other countries. "I'm not going to declare it dead at this point yet. But of course, improvements can always be made," a senior EU diplomat said on Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Germany has had a lot of questions ... and rightfully so. We're talking about a lot of money." Ukraines current frontline stalemate with Russia is hurting Kyiv 05:00 , Askold Krushelnycky Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that his troops can still deliver results on the frontline and says that country has a battlefield plan for 2024, without revealing details. "We have a plan. We have very concrete cities, very [concrete] directions where we go. I can't share all the details but we have some slow steps forward on the south, also we have steps on the east," he said. "And some, I think good steps ... near Kherson region. I am sure we'll have success. It's difficult." Ukrainian forces have been trying to establish a bridgehead on the eastern, Russian-occupied, bank of the vast Dnipro river in Kherson region. A rapid counteroffensive liberated the region west of the Dnipro and its capital, Kherson City, almost exactly a year ago. Read more here: Analysis: Ukraines current frontline stalemate with Russia is hurting Kyiv Recap: Watch Zelensky saying Russian soldiers must go out of Ukraine to end war 04:00 , Tara Cobham Polish President warns of threat of Russian imperialism on Independence Day holiday 03:00 , Tara Cobham The Polish President warned that Russian imperialism once again threatens not just Ukraine but the wider region as Poland celebrated its Independence Day holiday. Thousands of people walked through Warsaw on Saturday in a march organized by nationalist groups, 105 years after the nation regained its statehood at the end of World War I. Participants carried Poland's white-and-red flag and some burned flares as they marched along a route leading from the city center to the National Stadium. President Andrzej Duda delivered a speech at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier where he warned: "Russian imperialism will go further: it will want to seize more nations, taking away their freedom and their states. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sent Poland a message on X, formerly Twitter, telling Poles: "May your independence be invincible and eternal." While many patriotic events take place across the nation of 38 million each year, the yearly Independence March has come to dominate news coverage because it has sometimes been marred by xenophobic slogans and violence. This years event was attended by some 40,000 and passed off peacefully, the Warsaw mayor, Rafal Trzaskowski, said. People take part in the Independence March 'Poland Is Not Yet Lost' in Warsaw, Poland on Saturday (EPA) Russian forces preparing for large-scale winter strike, says think tank 02:00 , Tara Cobham Russian forces have been launching significantly smaller and less frequent drone strikes against Ukraine over the past month compared to previous months ahead of an anticipated large-scale winter strike, according to a US war think tank. The Institute for the Study of War added that Vladimir Putins forces continue to struggle with low morale and poor discipline. #Russian forces are launching significantly smaller and less frequent drone strikes against #Ukraine in the past month than in previous months ahead of an anticipated large-scale winter strike campaign. Russian forces continue to struggle with low morale and poor discipline. 4/8 Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) November 11, 2023 Ukrainian border guard filmed reuniting with young daughter after months 01:00 , Tara Cobham A Ukrainian border guard has been captured hugging his daughter as the two reunited having spent months apart as a result of the war. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence posted the touching footage on social media of Stanislav and his child Mia embracing after the pair were separated for five months. Family reunion. Border guard Stanislav hugs his daughter Mia after five months apart. : @DPSU_ua pic.twitter.com/VkRjYnIspz Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) November 10, 2023 Orban says negotiations on Ukraines EU membership shouldn't move forward 00:00 , Tara Cobham Hungarys prime minister said Friday he does not support moving forward on negotiations on Ukraines future membership in the European Union, signaling again that his country could pose a major roadblock to Kyivs ambitions to join the bloc. EU leaders are to decide in mid-December whether Ukraine should be formally invited to begin talks to join the 27-member union, with Hungary seen as a potential obstacle. Unanimity among all member states is required to admit a new country into the bloc, giving Hungarys prime minister, Viktor Orban, a powerful veto. The EUs executive branch on Wednesday recommended that Ukraine should be permitted to open membership talks once it has addressed some shortfalls. But in an interview with state radio on Friday, Orban said the embattled country is nowhere near gaining membership in the worlds largest trading bloc. Justin Spike reports: Hungary's Orban says negotiations on Ukraine's future EU membership should not move forward Freight cars carrying cargo in Russias Ryazan region were derailed by improvised explosive device' Saturday 11 November 2023 23:34 , Joe Middleton Freight cars carrying cargo in Russias Ryazan region were derailed Saturday morning by an improvised explosive device, Russian law enforcement said. Nineteen carriages traveling from the town of Rybnoye were thrown from the tracks and 15 were damaged, investigators wrote in a statement on social media. They said they would be opening a criminal investigation on terrorism charges. Both the train driver and assistant train driver received medical attention at the scene. Russian officials have previously blamed pro-Ukrainian saboteurs for several attacks on the countrys railway system since Moscow invaded the country in February 2022, although no group has claimed responsibility for the damage. Kyiv has not commented on Saturdays attacks. Recap: Watch Ramaswamy appearing to call Ukraines Zelensky a Nazi Saturday 11 November 2023 23:00 , Tara Cobham Husband of US journalist detained in Russia appeals for immediate release Saturday 11 November 2023 22:00 , Tara Cobham This wasnt how Pavel Butorin expected to celebrate his anniversary this week, with his wife of 21 years in a Russian prison and barely any communication available. Russian-American journalist, Alsu Kurmasheva who works as an editor for U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe has been detained in Russia for almost a month and charged with failing to self-register as a foreign agent. Alsu should be celebrating this anniversary with me and our children at home, not in a Russian prison, Butorin told The Associated Press in an interview in Prague on Friday. We want her back. Alsu must be released as soon as possible, he said, visibly shaken. Karel Janicek reports: Kherson is symbol of heroism and hope, says Zelenskyy on liberation anniversary Saturday 11 November 2023 21:00 , Tara Cobham Volodymyr Zelenskyy has described Kherson as a symbol of heroism and hope on the day the city marks one year since Ukraine retook it from occupying Russian forces. The Ukrainian President posted on X: Kherson is a symbol of heroism and hope. It is a city of our people who have not bowed down to the enemy and inspired all of us and the entire world with their resistance. Kherson is a symbol of heroism and hope. It is a city of our people who have not bowed down to the enemy and inspired all of us and the entire world with their resistance. Last year, Ukraines entire south saw that Russia never comes forever, no matter how many times it says pic.twitter.com/c3U4WjAUFo Volodymyr Zelenskyy / (@ZelenskyyUa) November 11, 2023 In pictures: Russias overnight strike on Kyiv Saturday 11 November 2023 20:00 , Tara Cobham People sit in a metro station to shelter from an air raid, during Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv (REUTERS) Missile traces are seen in the sky over the city after a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv (REUTERS) One year after liberation, Ukrainians in Kherson hold on to hope amid constant shelling Saturday 11 November 2023 19:00 , Tara Cobham One year since Ukraine retook the city of Kherson from occupying Russian forces, residents have grown accustomed to hearing outgoing fire from the left bank of the Dnieper river, where Russian troops are positioned. They know that familiar crackle means they have seven seconds to find a shelter, or a sturdy wall to hide behind. Their lives are mostly limited to the comfort of home and the necessity of the supermarket. Many shops are still shuttered. Municipal workers wear bullet-proof vests and wait to be dispatched to sweep up the rubble from yet another impact. Between lulls of artillery fire coming from the river, which marks the contact line between battling armies in the Kherson region, Ukrainians venture out to buy food, bicycle down grassy residential lanes or convene in the few restaurants that dare to remain open. Marking the anniversary of Russia's defeat on 11 November is a bittersweet occasion, many residents say, as Ukraine's counteroffensive grinds on without producing the spectacular gains many had hoped for. But those who stay are steadfast in their belief that one day normal life will return. "When you have lived under occupation, you know what freedom means," said Grigori Malov, who owns one out of three restaurants still operating in the city. "It's why we have a special attitude toward the continued shelling. We can withstand it because we know how it could be worse." The flight of Russian troops from Kherson under prolonged Ukrainian assault a year ago was one of Ukraine's biggest successes in the war and was seen as an inflection point. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy triumphantly walked the streets of the newly liberated city back then, hailing Russia's withdrawal as the "beginning of the end of the war." Many hoped it would serve as a springboard for more advances into occupied territory. Today, both sides are locked in a stalemated battle of attrition. People hold national flags and pose for a photo as the city marks one year since Ukraine retook the city of Kherson from occupying Russian forces, in central square in Kherson (AP) Armistice Day marked around globe as wars drown out peace messages Saturday 11 November 2023 18:00 , Tara Cobham With somber bugles and bells from Australia to western Europes battlefields of World War I, people around the globe on Saturday remembered the slaughter and losses just over a century ago that was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Yet the rumble of tanks and the screeching of incoming fire from Ukraine to Gaza pierced the solemnity of the occasion and the notion that humankind could somehow circumvent violence to settle its worst differences. This time last year, our thoughts were focused on Ukraine. Today, our minds are full with the terrible images emerging from Israel and Gaza. These are just two of the more than 100 armed conflicts in the world today, said Benoit Mottrie, the head of the Last Post Association in western Belgiums Ypres, where some of the fiercest and deadliest World War I battles were fought. Raf Casert and Marta Fiorin report: Somber bugles and bells mark Armistice Day around the globe as wars drown out peace messages Recap: Watch footage Ukraine releases of damaged Russian ship in Crimea Saturday 11 November 2023 17:00 , Tara Cobham ICYMI - A Russian missile hits a Liberia-flagged ship in Odesa, Ukraine's main Black Sea port Saturday 11 November 2023 16:00 , Lydia Patrick A Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian port of Odesa hit a Liberian-flagged freighter, killing a port worker and wounding another, as well as three citizens of the Philippines, crew members on the ship, Ukraines armed forces said Thursday. The report did not give the name of the ship or the country of its owners, but Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said the ship was to carry iron ore to China. The extent of the damage was not immediately reported. The Odesa port and others in the region are economically vital to Ukraine as its outlets to the Black Sea, from which ships can head for world markets. Odesa port facilities have come under Russian attack 21 times since Russia in August declined to renew a deal allowing Ukraine to safely export grain via the Black Sea, Kubrakov said. A Russian missile hits a Liberia-flagged ship in Odesa, Ukraine's main Black Sea port ICYMI - Two Russian landing boats filled with armoured vehicles destroyed by Ukraine in significant loss for Putin Saturday 11 November 2023 15:00 , Lydia Patrick Ukraine on Friday said its naval drones have destroyed two small Russian landing boats in Crimea, in an embarrassment for president Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian military intelligence said two amphibious Russian ships loaded with armoured vehicles had been hit by naval drones overnight. One of the boats has been identified as an Akula class vessel, while the other landing vessel was a Serna class. The results of intelligence conducted on 10 November 2023 near Vuzka Bay in temporarily occupied Crimea show that after an attack by naval drones, two small Russian landing ships have been destroyed, a Ukraine military report said. Ukraine destroys Russian landing boats in significant loss for Putin Ongoing wars drown out calls for peace Saturday 11 November 2023 14:10 , Lydia Patrick With somber bugles and bells from Australia to western Europes battlefields of World War I, people around the globe on Saturday remembered the slaughter and losses just over a century ago that was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Yet the rumble of tanks and the screeching of incoming fire from Ukraine to Gaza pierced the solemnity of the occasion and the notion that humankind could somehow circumvent violence to settle its worst differences. This time last year, our thoughts were focused on Ukraine. Today, our minds are full with the terrible images emerging from Israel and Gaza. These are just two of the more than 100 armed conflicts in the world today, said Benoit Mottrie, the head of the Last Post Association in western Belgiums Ypres, where some of the fiercest and deadliest World War I battles were fought. During a ceremony with Prime Minister Alexander De Croo and dozens of dignitaries, Mottrie expressed the sense of powerlessness that so many feel that the lessons of the past cannot automatically be translated into peace today. It would be naive to think that our presence here in Ypres will have any direct impact on any of the 100 conflicts. The emotions of those involved are too raw for us to understand, and for them to see the light of what we regard as reason, Mottrie said. France Armistice Day ((Ludovic Marin/Pool via AP)) A recap of overnight strikes Saturday 11 November 2023 12:45 , Lydia Patrick Russian forces targeted Ukraines capital, Kyiv, as part of an overnight bombardment felt across the country, local officials said Saturday, while drones that Russian officials blamed on the Ukrainian military targeted areas around Moscow and the region of Smolensk. A ballistic missile was shot down as it approached the Ukrainian capital, said Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration. He said that no one was injured. The Ukrainian air force later confirmed an Iskander-M missile ballistic missile was used in the attack, the first attempted missile strike on Kyiv in almost two months. The missile was destroyed by the countrys Patriot air defense system.Ukraines air defense systems actively repelled attacks in Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Poltava, Sumy, and Kirovohrad regions. The countrys air force said Russian troops launched 31 Shahed-136/131 drones, of which 19 were shot down. The strike in the Odesa region damaged the citys port infrastructure and a small community of cottages, injuring three people including a 96-year-old woman, said regional governor, Oleh Kiper. Russias military spokesperson, Yuri Ihnat, also said they launched an X-31 aircraft missile, an Onyx anti-ship missile, and an S-300 anti-aircraft guided missile targeting Ukraine overnight, but did not give further details. Russias defense ministry also said it shot down two Ukrainian drones over the Smolensk and Moscow regions.Smolensk governor, Vasiliy Anokhin, said that no one was hurt in the attack. Municipal workers wearing protective vests clear autumn leaves from the streets in Kherson, Ukraine (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.) Russian train carriages derail due to 'unauthorized interference' Saturday 11 November 2023 12:15 , Lydia Patrick Trains carrying cargo in Russias Ryazan region were derailed Saturday morning due to unauthorized interference, Moscow rail operator MZHD said.Russian law enforcement said that 15 train carriages had been derailed southeast of the capital, while MZHD reported the number as 19. Several Russian media outlets also reported that an explosion was heard in the vicinity on Saturday morning, although this could not be independently verified by The Associated Press.Russian officials have previously blamed pro-Ukrainian saboteurs for several attacks on the countrys railway system since Moscow invaded the country in February 2022, although no group has claimed responsibility for the damage.Kyiv has not commented on Saturdays attacks. Russian Railways Company employees works at the side of derailed train carriages carrying cargo in Ryazan region, Russia. Train carriages carrying cargo in Russias Ryazan region were derailed Saturday morning due to unauthorized interference 'We want her back,' husband of US journalist detained in Russia appeals for her immediate release Saturday 11 November 2023 11:37 , Lydia Patrick Russian-American journalist, Alsu Kurmasheva who works as an editor for U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe has been detained in Russia for almost a month and charged with failing to self-register as a foreign agent. Alsu should be celebrating this anniversary with me and our children at home, not in a Russian prison, Butorin told The Associated Press in an interview in Prague on Friday. We want her back. Alsu must be released as soon as possible, he said, visibly shaken. Kurmasheva was detained on Oct 18, becoming the second U.S. journalist detained in Russia this year, after Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested on espionage charges in March. She is being held in a detention center, awaiting a trial that could sentence her to up to five years in prison.Her ordeal began in May when she decided to travel to Russias Tatarstan to see her ailing, elderly mother for what was supposed to be a short trip. On June 2, she was about to board a return plane for home at Kazan International Airport when she was temporarily detained, both her passports and phone seized and fined for failing to register her U.S. passport with Russian authorities. But before Alsu was able to pay the fine that was eventually issued, she was charged with a much more serious offense, and that is failure to register as a foreign agent, Butorin said. The state-run news website Tatar-Inform said Kurmasheva faces charges of failing to register as a foreign agent and was collecting information on Russian military activities in order to transmit information to foreign sources. ICYMI - Saturday 11 November 2023 11:07 , Lydia Patrick Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the Southern Military District headquarters in Rostov-on-Don as he assessed the state of his countrys forces in Ukraine as the war drags on toward winter. It was his second public visit to the headquarters in less than a month. Video shared by a Russian state news agency showed Putin being greeted late Thursday by Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff. Almost 21 months of war have significantly eroded both Russias and Ukraines military resources. As winter comes, the fighting is likely to further settle into attritional warfare and analysts expect little change to the more than 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line. Putin and top military leaders visit southern military headquarters to assess his war in Ukraine A recap of last nights strike on Kyiv Saturday 11 November 2023 10:30 , Lydia Patrick Russia launched a missile attack on Ukraines capital Kyiv and the nearby region for the first time in weeks and pounded the east and south of the country with drones, Ukrainian officials said. Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv city military administration, said a Russian ballistic missile was launched toward the capital at about 08:00 a.m.(0600 GMT). After a long pause of 52 days, the enemy has resumed missile attacks on Kyiv, Popko said on the Telegram messaging app. The missile failed to reach Kyiv, air defenders shot it down as it was approaching the capital. Popko said there were no casualties or major damage in the capital. Ruslan Kravchenko, regional governor for the central Kyiv region, said five private houses and several commercial buildings in the area were damaged. He said two Russian missiles struck a field between settlements. Ukraines air defenders also shot down 19 Iranian-made Shahed drones out of 31 launched by the Russian forces in the overnight attack on southern and eastern regions, the air force said in a statement. Oleh Kiper, Odesas regional governor, said the southern region was attacked with missiles and drones on Friday evening and overnight. The strikes wounded three people and damaged port infrastructure facilities, he said without offering further details. Russia has intensified its bombardments of Ukraines ports, including Odesa, and grain infrastructure since July when Moscow pulled out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a wartime deal that enabled Ukraines exports to reach many countries facing the threat of hunger. Missile traces are seen in the sky over the city after a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine (REUTERS) North Korea condemns Blinkens remarks on Pyongyangs relations with Russia Saturday 11 November 2023 10:00 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar North Korea has condemned US Secretary of State Antony Blinkens comments on North Korea-Russia relations. Mr Blinken said on Thursday he shared South Korean concerns about growing military cooperation between North Korea and Russia, which he called a two-way street. The US should be accustomed to the new reality of the DPRK-Russia relations, North Koreas foreign ministry said. No matter what others may say, the friendly and cooperative relations between the DPRK and Russia aspiring after independence, peace and friendship will steadily grow stronger, the statement added. Ukraine shoots down 19 Shahed drones Saturday 11 November 2023 09:28 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar Russia on Saturday launched a missile attack on Ukraines capital Kyiv and the nearby region for the first time in weeks. Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv city military administration, said a Russian ballistic missile was launched toward the capital at about 8am (local time). After a long pause of 52 days, the enemy has resumed missile attacks on Kyiv, Mr Popko said. The missile failed to reach Kyiv, air defenders shot it down as it was approaching the capital. Ukraine said its air defenders shot down 19 Iranian-made Shahed drones out of 31 launched by the Russian forces in the overnight attack on southern and eastern regions. Putin and top military leaders visit southern military headquarters Saturday 11 November 2023 08:30 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar Russian president Vladimir Putin visited the Southern Military District headquarters in Rostov-on-Don as he assessed the state of his countrys forces in Ukraine. It was his second public visit to the headquarters in less than a month. Video shared by a Russian state news agency showed MrPutin being greeted late Thursday by defence minister Minister Sergey Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff. Almost 21 months of war have significantly eroded both Russias and Ukraines military resources. As winter comes, the fighting is likely to further settle into attritional warfare and analysts expect little change to the more than 1,000km front line. In Rostov-on-Don, less than 100km from Ukraines southeastern border, Mr Putin was introduced to new types of military equipment and was informed about the progress of the war, his spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, according to Russian state news agency Tass. More here. Putin and top military leaders visit southern military headquarters to assess his war in Ukraine Two Russian landing boats filled with armoured vehicles destroyed Saturday 11 November 2023 08:00 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar Ukraine on Friday said its naval drones have destroyed two small Russian landing boats in Crimea, in an embarrassment for president Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian military intelligence said two amphibious Russian ships loaded with armoured vehicles had been hit by naval drones overnight. One of the boats has been identified as an Akula class vessel, while the other landing vessel was a Serna class. The results of intelligence conducted on 10 November 2023 near Vuzka Bay in temporarily occupied Crimea show that after an attack by naval drones, two small Russian landing ships have been destroyed, a Ukraine military report said. More here. Ukraine destroys Russian landing boats in significant loss for Putin 'Strong explosions in Kyiv as Ukrainian capital comes under attack Saturday 11 November 2023 07:52 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar Russian air strikes targeted Ukraines capital Kyiv on Saturday, in a first attack since September, the city mayor said. There was no immediate information on if there were any casualties.Strong explosions were heard on the left bank of the capital, mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram. Preliminary, air defence was working against ballistic (missiles). Air alerts for Kyiv and a nearby region were announced just minutes before the explosions were heard as city authorities urged residents to stay in shelters. Watch: US presidential hopeful appears to call Ukraine's Zelensky a 'Nazi' Saturday 11 November 2023 06:59 , Andy Gregory Ukraine beats back Russian attacks on frontline as rain slows down Putins troops Saturday 11 November 2023 06:02 , Andy Gregory Russian forces were failing to advance against Ukrainian troops as they scaled up their attacks on the eastern town of Avdiivka, senior military officials said on Friday. They said Moscow wanted to advance while attention remained on Israel. My colleague Arpan Rai has more here: Ukraine beats back Russian attacks on frontline as rain slows down Putins troops Putin and top military leaders visit southern military headquarters to assess his war in Ukraine Saturday 11 November 2023 05:02 , Andy Gregory Vladimir Putin visited the Southern Military District headquarters in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don mutinously seized by the late Yevgeny Prigozhin in June as he assessed the state of Russias forces in Ukraine, in his second public visit to the headquarters in less than a month. Footage shared by a Russian state news agency showed the Russian president being greeted late on Thursday by defence minister Sergey Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of Russias General Staff. Mr Putin was introduced to new types of military equipment and was informed about the progress of the war, his spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, according to Russian state news agency Tass. He made the visit on the way back from a trip to Kazakhstan, where he aimed to cement ties with Russias ex-Soviet neighbour and major economic partner. Putin and top military leaders visit southern military headquarters to assess his war in Ukraine Ukraines global peace summit deferred to next year amid war in Gaza Saturday 11 November 2023 04:05 , Andy Gregory Ukraines global peace summit is likely to take place next year, amid concerns over diplomatic rallying for the end of war in Europe with a simultaneous war raging in Gaza. The war-hit country is arranging a fourth meeting of national security advisers in late November or early December, said Ihor Zhovka, president Volodymyr Zelenskys top diplomatic adviser. And the Global Summit might take place in February 2024, he said in a statement. He added that the summit will definitely take place as it will mark both the symbolic beginning of the practical implementation of the Ukraine peace formula and summarise all the results that have already been achieved on this track. Kyiv is looking to build a global coalition to come together and endorse a 10-point formula for peace in the region drafted by Volodymyr Zelensky. My colleague Arpan Rai has more details: Ukraines global peace summit deferred to next year amid war in Gaza Teenager taken to Russia from Mariupol to be allowed to return to Ukraine, officials say Saturday 11 November 2023 03:04 , Andy Gregory Ukrainian and Russian officials say they have reached an agreement to bring home a Ukrainian teenager taken to Russia from Mariupol by Moscows forces as they devastated the city last year. Bohdan Yermokhin, a 17-year-old whose parents passed away years ago, will be reunited with a cousin in a third country on his 18th birthday later this month, with a view to then return to Ukraine, Russian childrens rights official Maria Lvova-Belova said. Ukraines human rights official Dmytro Lubinets also confirmed on Friday that Mr Yermokhin will soon be in Ukraine. Mr Yermokhin is one of thousands of Ukrainian children taken to Russia from Ukraine since the invasion began, which has seen the International Criminal Court issue war crime arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and Lvova-Belova. Mr Yermokhin was taken to Russia from the port city of Mariupol, seized by Moscows forces early on in the war. He was placed in a foster family in the Moscow region and given Russian citizenship, but repeatedly expressed the desire to return to Ukraine, his lawyer and family say. The teenager appears to have already tried to escape Russia. In April, Lvova-Belova admitted Russian authorities had caught Mr Yerkmohin near Russias border with Belarus, as he was heading to Ukraine. The childrens rights ombudswoman argued that he was being taken there under false pretenses. Lvova-Belova said on Friday that in August, her office offered Yermokhin the option of returning to Ukraine, but he clearly stated that he doesnt plan to move to Ukraine before turning 18 and confirmed it in writing. He later changed his mind, she claimed, and an agreement with Ukraine regarding his return was reached. Watch: Putin struggles to pronounce the name of Kazakh president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev Saturday 11 November 2023 02:04 , Andy Gregory Full report: Hungarys Orban says talks on Ukraines EU membership should not progress Saturday 11 November 2023 01:02 , Andy Gregory Viktor Orban has said he does not support moving forward on negotiations on Ukraines future membership in the European Union, indicating once again that Hungary could pose a major roadblock to Kyivs ambitions to join the bloc. EU leaders are to decide next month whether Ukraine should be formally invited to begin talks to join the union. Unanimity among all member states is required to admit a new country into the bloc, giving Mr Orban a powerful veto. The EUs executive branch on Wednesday recommended that Ukraine should be permitted to open membership talks once it has addressed some shortfalls. But in an interview with state radio on Friday, Mr Orban said: Ukraine is in no way ready to negotiate on its ambitions to join the European Union. The clear Hungarian position is that the negotiations must not begin. Justin Spike has the full report: Hungary's Orban says negotiations on Ukraine's future EU membership should not move forward Ukraine claims to sink two Russian boats loaded with armoured vehicles Saturday 11 November 2023 00:01 , Andy Gregory Ukrainian naval drones have destroyed two small amphibious Russian landing boats loaded with armoured vehicles in Crimea, Ukraines military intelligence agency has claimed. An evening update claimed the attack had been carried out by naval drones on the two vessels in Vuzka Bay, on the west side of the peninsula. It identified one landing craft as an Akula class vessel, the other a Serna class. As a consequence of the attack, both vessels went to the bottom, the Akula straight away and the Serna after attempts to save it. The Ukrainian military said the vessels were crewed, and loaded with armoured vehicles. In the latest fighting reports, the Russian state-backed news agency RIA quoted Russias defence ministry as saying Russian air defences had brought down two Ukrainian drones over Crimea and one over the Tula region south of Moscow early on Friday. Long-term EU aid plan for Ukraine may not survive in current form, say diplomats Friday 10 November 2023 23:04 , Andy Gregory A European Union plan to spend up to 20bn on military aid for Ukraine is meeting resistance from EU countries and may not survive in its current form, diplomats have told Reuters. Josep Borrell, the EUs foreign policy chief, proposed in July that the bloc create a fund with up to 5bn annually over four years as part of broader Western security commitments to support Ukraine against Russias invasion. But as EU defence ministers prepare to discuss the plan in Brussels on Tuesday, diplomats say multiple countries including Germany have voiced reservations about committing such large sums years in advance. Im not going to declare it dead at this point yet. But of course, improvements can always be made, a senior EU diplomat told Reuters on Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity. Germany has had a lot of questions ... and rightfully so. Were talking about a lot of money. US tells China it must not provide material support for Russian defence industry' Friday 10 November 2023 22:01 , Andy Gregory US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen and Chinese vice-premier He Lifeng have agreed to intensify communication and work together on a range of economic, financial stability and regulatory issues, Washington has said. The two had candid, direct, and productive discussions on the US-China bilateral economic relationship and a wide range of issues, including areas of cooperation and areas of disagreement, the US Treasury said. The two met in San Francisco ahead of the summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) country leaders, and Ms Yellen emphasised the need for Russia to end its war against Ukraine, stressing that Chinese companies must not provide material support for Russias defence industrial sector. Watch: Ukraine releases footage of damaged Russian ship in Crimea Friday 10 November 2023 21:02 , Andy Gregory Hungary asks EU to take action against Bulgaria's transit tax on Russian gas Friday 10 November 2023 20:01 , Andy Gregory Hungary has asked the European Unions executive to open a legal procedure against Bulgaria over a tax it recently imposed on Russian natural gas passing through its territory, Budapests minister for EU affairs has said. Bulgaria believes the tax, which it levied in October, will reduce the privileged position of Russias state-owned energy company Gazprom in southeastern Europe and deter Russian influence in the region. But the tax has angered Bulgarias neighbour Serbia, as well as fellow EU member Hungary, which are heavily dependent on Russian gas coming mostly via Turkey and Bulgaria through the TurkStream pipeline. Hungarian minister Janos Boka said on Friday he had sent a letter to the European Commission urging it to launch an infringement procedure against Bulgaria, the first potential step the bloc can use to ensure its laws are upheld by member states. Three killed and seven injured in Russian attacks on Dnipropetrovsk and Kherson, officials say Friday 10 November 2023 19:06 , Andy Gregory Russian artillery and drone attacks killed three people and injured at least seven others in the Dnipropetrovsk and Kherson regions on Friday, damaging an infrastructure facility, power lines and a gas pipeline, local officials said. In Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region, a 67-year-old woman was killed in an afternoon drone attack, said regional governor Serhiy Lysak. A 68-year-old man received shrapnel wounds. Hes hospitalised, he added. An infrastructure facility, a gas pipeline and power lines, as well as 11 private houses, had been damaged. Images from the site shared by Lysak showed buildings with shattered windows, huge holes in the walls, and a burnt car. In Kindiyka, Kherson region, shelling in the morning killed a 69-year old man and injured another 63-year-old, governor Oleksandr Prokudin said, later adding that a 61-year-old man was killed and five more injured in a separate shelling in Novoraysk. Putin and top military leaders visit southern military headquarters to assess his war in Ukraine Friday 10 November 2023 18:00 , Matt Mathers Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the Southern Military District headquarters in Rostov-on-Don as he assessed the state of his countrys forces in Ukraine as the war drags on toward winter. It was his second public visit to the headquarters in less than a month. Video shared by a Russian state news agency showed Putin being greeted late Thursday by Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff. Full report: Putin and top military leaders visit southern military headquarters to assess his war in Ukraine Hungary's Orban says negotiations on Ukraine's future EU membership should not move forward Friday 10 November 2023 17:00 , Matt Mathers Hungarys prime minister said Friday he does not support moving forward on negotiations on Ukraines future membership in the European Union, signaling again that his country could pose a major roadblock to Kyivs ambitions to join the bloc. EU leaders are to decide in mid-December whether Ukraine should be formally invited to begin talks to join the 27-member union, with Hungary seen as a potential obstacle. Unanimity among all member states is required to admit a new country into the bloc, giving Hungarys prime minister, Viktor Orban, a powerful veto. Read the full report here. Russia thwarts attempt to forge bridgehead on River Dnipros east bank' Friday 10 November 2023 15:45 , Matt Mathers Russias military said on Friday that its forces had thwarted a Ukrainian attempt to forge a bridgehead on the eastern bank of the River Dnipro and on nearby islands, killing around 500 Ukrainian soldiers in the past week. Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield claim, which was made in a Russian defence ministry statement and said the fighting had happened in the Kherson area of southern Ukraine. "On 9 November, personnel from a motorised rifle company in the Russian military grouping Dnipro under the command of Senior Lieutenant Zolto Arsalanov destroyed servicemen from a unit of Ukraines 36th Marine Infantry brigade as they were trying to gain a foothold on the left bank of the Dnipro River," the statement said. The claim could not immediately be independently verified. French court rejects appeal to extradite Ukrainian billionaire Zhevago Friday 10 November 2023 15:13 , Matt Mathers A French court rejected an appeal from the Ukrainian government and ruled that Ukrainian billionaire Kostyantyn Zhevago should not be extradited over accusations of embezzlement, a court spokesperson said on Friday. Zhevago, who controls London-listed iron pellet producer Ferrexpo, was arrested at a French ski resort in December 2022 at the request of Ukraine, which wants him for alleged embezzlement involving a now-collapsed bank. Zhevago has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. "(The court) concludes that the petitioning state (Ukraine) is not able to guarantee that Mr. Zhevago will be tried by a court that can ensure fundamental procedural guarantees and protection of the defence rights," a court verdict said. Kostyantyn Zhevago (REUTERS) Biden to meet Xi in first face-to-face talks for a year Friday 10 November 2023 14:35 , Matt Mathers President Joe Biden will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping face-to-face for the first time in a year on Wednesday, the White House said, in high-stakes diplomacy aimed at curbing tensions between the worlds two superpowers. The closely watched interaction, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the San Francisco Bay area, could last hours and involve teams of officials from Beijing and Washington. It is expected to cover global issues from the Israel-Hamas war to Russias invasion of Ukraine, North Koreas ties with Russia, Taiwan, the Indo-Pacific, human rights, fentanyl, artificial intelligence, as well as "fair" trade and economic relations, senior Biden administration officials said. "Nothing will be held back; everything is on the table," according to one U.S. official, who declined to be named, in a briefing with reporters. "Were clear-eyed about this. We know efforts to shape or reform China over several decades have failed. But we expect China to be around and to be a major player on the world stage for the rest of our lifetimes." United States China (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.) 30,000 Ukrainians trained on Operation Interflex Friday 10 November 2023 14:04 , Matt Mathers Britains Ministry of Defence says it has now trained 30,000 Ukrainians as part of Operation Interflex. The UK and its ten partner nations continued to train Ukrainian recruits in the fight against the illegal invasion of their country, the MoD said in a statement. It added that the milestone had been reached ahead of schedule. Operation Interflex, to help train Ukrainian troops in their battle against Russias invasion, was launched in June 2022 with the target of training 30,000 troops by the end of this year. 30,000 Ukrainians are now trained on Op Interflex. Training target met ahead of schedule. The UK and its ten partner nations continued to train Ukrainian recruits in the fight against the illegal invasion of their country https://t.co/3b96YOZyRS #StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/lXaxFAoeqM Ministry of Defence (@DefenceHQ) November 10, 2023 Germany talks up NATO spending pledge, fighter jet project Friday 10 November 2023 13:31 , Matt Mathers German government leaders on Friday pledged to raise regular budget outlays for defence to ensure Berlin meets its NATO spending target of 2 per cent of economic output even after a special 100 billion euro ($106 billion) defence fund has been exhausted. Defence minister Boris Pistorius said Germany would incorporate higher spending into medium term financing plans. He was speaking a day after the government pledged to make the German military the "backbone" of European defence as part of a major policy shift to boost spending and modernise its forces following Russias invasion of Ukraine in 2022. File photo: Germanys defence minister Boris Pistorius (left) (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) Officials in Russia-annexed Crimea say private clinics have stopped providing abortions Friday 10 November 2023 12:40 , Matt Mathers Russian-installed health officials in Crimea said Thursday that private clinics on the Moscow-annexed peninsula have voluntarily stopped providing abortions, which means that the procedure is now only available there in state-run medical facilities. The move comes amid a wider effort in Russia to restrict abortion, still legal and widely available, as the country takes an increasingly conservative turn under President Vladimir Putin. Full report: Officials in Russia-annexed Crimea say private clinics have stopped providing abortions What the Republican candidates have said on the war in Ukraine Friday 10 November 2023 12:02 , Matt Mathers As President Joe Biden likes to remind anyone who will listen, This is not your grandfathers Republican Party. That has never been more evident than when examining the way the 2024 Republican presidential candidates approach the topic of Ukraine. Support for Ukraine is dividing the GOP field. Several candidates believe the US should continue to support the war effort a stance that adheres to more traditional Republican foreign policy beliefs. Gustaf Kilander reports: What are the Republican candidates views on the war in Ukraine Russian attacks intensify after war broke out between Hamas and Israel - Ukraine Friday 10 November 2023 11:01 , Matt Mathers Russian attacks on a town near the eastern frontline have intensified after war broke out between Hamas and Israel, a Ukrainian military spokesman has said. Putins troops have been bearing down since mid-October on the shattered town of Avdiivka, known for its coking plant and its position as a gateway to the city of Donetsk, 20 km (12 miles) to the east. Oleksandr Borodin, press officer for Ukraines third separate assault brigade, said Russian forces were launching major infantry attacks, while trying to keep equipment intact. "All this started after the events in Israel," he said. "Perhaps they believe it is the best time to advance, but they have no serious successes." Vitaliy Barabash, head of Avdiivkas military administration, told Espreso TV Russian forces were shelling the town "round the clock" but wet ground from several days of rain was holding their troops back. Putin visits military HQ near border with Ukraine - state media Friday 10 November 2023 10:13 , Matt Mathers Russian president Vladimir Putin visited the southern military district headquarters in Rostov-on-Don as he assessed the state of his countrys forces in Ukraine as the war drags on toward winter. It was his second public visit to the headquarters in less than a month. Video shared by a Russian state news agency showed Mr Putin being greeted late on Thursday by defence minister Sergey Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff. In Rostov-on-Don, less than 60 miles from Ukraines south-eastern border, Mr Putin was "introduced to new types of military equipment" and was informed about the progress of the war, his spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, according to Russian state news agency Tass. Mr Putin made the visit on the way back from a trip to Kazakhstan, where he aimed to cement ties with Russias ex-Soviet neighbour and major economic partner in the midst of tensions with the West over Ukraine. Putin with defence minister Sergey Shoigu (Sputnik) Ukraine GUR post video of Crimea attack Friday 10 November 2023 08:50 , Tom Watling Ukraines special intelligence service have posted a video purporting to show their overnight operation that destroyed multiple Russian landing ships docked in northwestern Crimea. They claimed that multiple small vessels carrying a crew and loaded armoured vehicles were destroyed in the early hours of this morning. Local reports suggest the attack took place around the port village of Chornomorske. Previously, Ukraines Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) have used small groups of its operatives to carry out swift attacks on Crimea, traversing the Black Sea using jet skis to avoid detection. "" . . pic.twitter.com/O9vNBtCu2n UA_StratCom (@StratCom_AFU) November 10, 2023 Ukraines global peace summit deferred to next year amid war in Gaza Friday 10 November 2023 08:33 , Tom Watling Ukraines global peace summit is likely to take place next year, amid concerns over diplomatic rallying for the end of war in Europe with a simultaneous war raging in Gaza. The war-hit country is arranging a fourth meeting of national security advisers in late November or early December, said Ihor Zhovka, president Volodymyr Zelenskys top diplomatic adviser. And the Global Summit might take place in February 2024, he said in a statement. He added that the summit will definitely take place as it will mark both the symbolic beginning of the practical implementation of the Ukraine peace formula and summarise all the results that have already been achieved on this track. Arpan Rai reports. Ukraines global peace summit deferred to next year amid war in Gaza Germany to adapt defence budget to meet NATO target even after special fund exhausted Friday 10 November 2023 08:16 , Tom Watling German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Friday that the government will adapt the defence budget to ensure that the country achieves its NATO spending target even after its 100-billion-euro special defence fund has been exhausted. "This is because procurement processes can only be planned and implemented sustainably if the Bundeswehr can rely on" receiving sufficient funds, said Scholz. He added that adapting the budget to reach the two percent NATO defence spending target from 2028, without the help of a special fund, would be a formidable but feasible political task. "Everybody understands that we need to spend more on defence," Scholz said. While the need for longterm planning for defence investment in Europe has long been known, low levels of stockpiles across the bloc after nearly two years of supporting Ukraine have compounded this problem. Mr Scholzs announcement appears to be an attempt to remedy this. German chancellor Olaf Scholz said procurement packages needed to be sustainable ((c) Copyright 2023, dpa (www.dpa.de). Alle Rechte vorbehalten) Zelensky says more than 150 Ukrainians evacuated from Gaza in last 24 hours Friday 10 November 2023 08:10 , Tom Watling More than 150 Ukrainians have been evacuated from the Gaza Strip through the southern border crossing with Egypt in the last 25 hours, Volodymyr Zelensky has said. The Ukrainian president issued a statement on X to say that the last round of refugee rescues brought the total to more than 200. Hundreds of foreign passport holders have been allowed to leave Gaza through the Egyptian Rafah crossing this week, according to local officials, though many others have been refused. Ukraine has evacuated 160 more Ukrainian and 9 Moldovan citizens from Gaza throughout the last day and night. 203 Ukrainian nationals have already been rescued this week. Ukraine stands for the protection of civilians and cares for all of its citizens, no matter where they are. Volodymyr Zelenskyy / (@ZelenskyyUa) November 10, 2023 Ukraine beats back Russian attacks on frontline as rain slows down Putins troops Friday 10 November 2023 08:03 , Tom Watling Russian forces were failing to advance against Ukrainian troops as they scaled up their attacks on the eastern town of Avdiivka, senior military officials said. They said Moscow wanted to advance while attention remained on Israel. There were major infantry attacks being launched by the Russian forces as they tried to keep equipment intact, said Oleksandr Borodin, press officer for Ukraines third separate assault brigade. The battlefield is not seeing any dramatic statistics on destruction of Russian equipment because they use it much less, mainly from a distance, he said. But their movements are quite dense now. It is not just infantry advancing but also parallel work of artillery, drones, aviation, the same air bombing and more, Mr Borodin said but added that Russian forces were unable to replenish supplies quickly while Ukraines defensive positions remained solid. Arpan Rai reports. Ukraine beats back Russian attacks on frontline as rain slows down Putins troops Russia will struggle to redeploy to southern Ukraine, claims ISW Friday 10 November 2023 07:56 , Tom Watling Russia will struggle to redeploy combative forces to respond to the ongoing Ukrainian operations in eastern Kherson Oblast, across the Dnipro River, without compromising their defences along what was formerly the main axis of the counteroffensive in western Zaporizhzhia, the Institute for the Study of War said. Russian military bloggers have claimed that Ukrainian forces are now in the land corridor south of the Dnipro River, in the village of Krynky. What were formerly small, special forces operations appear to have escalated into a larger scale attack in that region. Russias own specialist VDV forces relocated from Kherson to Zaporizhzhia to fight off the Ukrainian march on Robotyne during the counteroffensive. But Russia forces will now have to move back if the forces in Kherson prove insufficient. That feat will be difficult. Redeployments of considerable elements of the 7th VDV Division or other VDV formations and units in western Zaporizhia Oblast would likely disrupt Russian defensive operations there, the ISW wrote. A Ukrainian military member checks the area with binoculars at a position outside the southern city of Kherson (AFP via Getty Images) This mornings top stories from Ukraine Friday 10 November 2023 07:40 , Tom Watling Below is a list of this mornings top stories in and around Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday discussed the war in Ukraine with his military top brass in the southern military command HQ in Rostov-on-Don. Putin was shown new models of military equipment. Rostov HQ is where Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin staged his coup in June. Two Russian high-speed landing craft in northwest Crimea were reportedly hit in the early hours this morning by Ukrainian drones. Local Telegram channel Crimean Wind posted a video of one of the explosions. Russian troops are intensifying their attacks on the key eastern town of Avdiivka, a senior Ukraine officer said on Thursday, while the countrys general staff reported its military repelled many Russian assaults in widely separated sectors of the front. Oleksandr Borodin, press officer for Ukraines third separate assault brigade, said Russian forces were launching major infantry attacks, while trying to keep equipment intact. Ukrainian forces shot down five of the six Shahed "kamikaze" drones and one of the two cruise missiles launched by Russia overnight, according to a statememt by the Air Force. Ukrainian servicemen of the 123rd Territorial Defense Brigade in action while firing a mortar over the Dnipro River toward Russian positions (AFP via Getty Images) Here are some of the latest photos from Ukraine Friday 10 November 2023 07:29 , Tom Watling Good morning. Below are some of the latest photos from Ukraine. A Ukrainian serviceman of the 123rd Territorial Defense Brigade stands guard on a position next to the Dnipro River (AFP via Getty Images) Putin speaks to defence minister Sergei Shoigu (L) and military chief Valery Gerismov (R) in southern Russia (via REUTERS) Ukrainian woman Tatyana Tapalova displays her passport as she waits for an opportunity to escape Gaza (REUTERS) Ukraine working to secure more air defence systems, Zelensky says Friday 10 November 2023 06:58 , Andy Gregory Ukraine is working with all of its allies to secure air defence systems, Volodymyr Zelensky has said in his nightly address. We are trying to add strength to our sky shield virtually every week, the Ukrainian president said. The more protected the Ukrainian sky, Ukrainian cities and villages are, the more opportunities our people will have for economic activity. For production, in particular, for defense production. No matter what happens in the world, Ukraine will have its own strength to defend its sovereignty. (Reuters/screengrab) Watch: US presidential hopeful Ramaswamy appears to call Zelensky a Nazi Friday 10 November 2023 05:44 , Andy Gregory Russian nuclear submarine test launches intercontinental ballistic missile, Moscow says Friday 10 November 2023 04:31 , AP The Russian military has reported the successful test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile designed to carry nuclear warheads from a new nuclear submarine. It came days after Vladimir Putin signed a bill revoking Russias ratification of a global nuclear test ban, in a move that Moscow claimed was needed to establish parity with the United States. The Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement on Sunday that the Emperor Alexander III strategic missile cruiser fired the Bulava missile from an underwater position in Russias northern White Sea, and hit a target in the far-eastern region of Kamchatka. It wasnt immediately clear when the test launch occurred. The Emperor Alexander III is one of the new Borei-class nuclear submarines that carry 16 Bulava missiles each and are intended to serve as the core naval component of the nations nuclear forces in the coming decades. According to the ministry, launching a ballistic missile is the final test for the vessel, after which a decision should be made on its induction into the fleet. The Russian navy currently has three Borei-class submarines in service, one more is finishing tests and three others are under construction, the ministry said. MEPs call for stronger oversight of EU sanctions scheme Friday 10 November 2023 03:22 , Andy Gregory The European Parliament has called for stronger oversight and more effective efforts to limit Russias ability to bypass EU sanctions. In a resolution adopted on Thursday, the parliament voiced its alarm over loopholes in the EUs sanctions regime, with MEPs concerned about the lack of proper enforcement and attempts to undermine the effort to strategically weaken the Russian economic and industrial base. A statement on the European Parliament website said: MEPs call on the EU and its member states to reinforce and centralise EU-level oversight of sanctions implementation and to develop a mechanism for circumvention prevention and monitoring. Ukraine drone pilots fear early advantage over Russia now lost Friday 10 November 2023 02:15 , Reuters The soldiers piloting Ukraines fleet of small, cheap assault drones are voicing concerns that, despite pioneering their use, they are now being leapfrogged by their adversary as Moscow pumps money and resources into its drone sector. The use of agile First Person View (FPV) drones in battle has been one of the most successful of the various low-cost strategies Ukraine has used to defend itself from Russias invasio. However, Moscow has also gradually mirrored and increased its use of these drones, which were originally made for racing by hobbyists and enthusiasts but are modified to carry explosives, to devastating effect. Every week, both countries publish onboard camera footage from FPVs which cost just hundreds of pounds destroying enemy tanks and radar systems worth millions. Speaking to Reuters in a field in Donetsk where they had come to perform a test flight, drone pilots from the 80th Airborne Assault Brigade fighting near Bakhmut warned Russia was gaining the upper hand through more organised supplies and greater spending. Their drones are always in the air, day and night. We can see theyve implemented serial production of drones for reconnaissance, surveillance and for strikes, said a 34-year-old drone platoon commander, who introduced himself by the callsign Komrad. Tens of thousands of people have marched through the streets of Amsterdam calling for more action to tackle climate change, in a mass protest just 10 days before a national election. Organisers claimed 70,000 people took part in the march and called it the biggest climate protest ever held in the Netherlands. Activist Greta Thunberg was among those walking through the historic heart of the Dutch capital. She and former European Union climate chief Frans Timmermans, who now leads a centre-left, two-party bloc in the election campaign, were among speakers who addressed the crowd behind the landmark Rijksmuseum. Climate activist Greta Thunberg joined the march (Peter Dejong/AP) The march was organised by the Climate Crisis Coalition, which said in a statement: We live in a time of crises, all of which are the result of the political choices that have been made. It has to be done and it can be done differently. While the coalition included the Fridays for Future youth movement, protesters were all ages and included a large contingent of medics in white coats carrying a banner emblazoned with the text: Climate crisis = health crisis. Medic Laura Sonneveld said: I am a paediatrician. Im here standing up for the rights of children. Children are the first to be affected by climate change. Organisers said 70,000 people joined the protest (Peter Dejong/AP) Margje Weijs, a Spanish teacher and youth coach, said: It is time for us to protest about government decisions. I hope this influences the election. Tackling climate change is one of the key policy areas for political parties contesting the November 22 general election. Preparing to wrap up a very busy year, Jorge Gonzalez Capiello and his wife, Mariana Tello-Sucre, owners of The Golden Hog market, look forward to helping residents and other customers celebrate a sumptuous Thanksgiving holiday. The entire staff including store manager Gabriel Marin, sommelier Marcella Carneiro, and bakery manager Yelitza Suarez -- has been busy improving what was an already delicious and popular Thanksgiving Holiday menu. Continuously improving its holiday offering is a tradition at the Golden Hog and is as much a trademark of the establishment as its famous stuffing, considered the ultimate Thanksgiving comfort food. The Golden Hogs recipe has been tweaked and perfected over the years. Tello-Sucre recently told Islander News the recipe is a combination of meat, breadcrumbs and spices, with a sweet touch provided by prunes and plums. Last year, chestnuts were added. What will the 2023 tweak be? Whatever it is, you should, as always, you might want to order a little extra for day-after leftovers. Absolutely spectacular, is how Marin described his favorite addition to this years Holiday menu: Bone-In whole beef short ribs that are braised for 10-hours overnight, Marin says. The portions are 4 pounds, which Marin says is great for families, serving up to 8 people. We started doing them as a special over the weekends, and they gained traction, customers loved them, adding that it makes great products a great item for families. Other additions to the Holiday offering are large stone crabs, served with traditional mustard sauce and lemon, and Alaskan King Crab, which is served with a lemon butter sauce. The orders are 3 pounds and serve 4 to 6 people. As for Marins favorite menu item? I absolutely love the beef short ribs and also the Berkshire Pork Chops, a dish he called very underrated. This year, a popular Friday item at The Golden Hog, their Asado Negro, a slow-cooked eye-round roast and a traditional Venezuela dish. We are known for it, says Marin. Of course, no Thanksgiving celebration is complete without a turkey. The Golden Hogs is the organic Bell and Evans turkey, prepared in their time-honored baking process, starting with braising the turkeys two days before baking. The birds are then slow-baked all day on Wednesday to prepare for Thanksgiving. The turkeys range from Small (serving 4 to 6 people), Medium (6-8 people), Large (10-12 people) and XL (12-14 people). For those families not needing a whole turkey, organic Bell and Evans oven-roasted turkey breasts are available. Marin recommends ordering both the whole turkey. And each turkey comes with precise reheating instructions to, as Marin says, help you to avoid you drying the turkey. Also back this year is the traditional Venezuelan holiday staple, ensalada de gallina (chicken, potatoes, carrot, peas, and apples, perfectly blended). Also, the traditional pan con jamon (ham bread) and Hallacas (tamales), staples of Venezuela and South American holiday menus. This past week, The Golden Hog officially opened their expanded bakery, something Bakery Manager Suarez is beyond thrilled. We will be able to expand our bakery lab and continue to tweak our recipes and add new ones, Suarez told Islander News. An example of this is a new item available for special orders, a Smoked Break pudding, made with brioche bread and Bourbon sauce. Marins reaction to the bread pudding? Oooooohhhhh. Suarez favorite dessert is the fresh Pear and Almond tart, a dish she said is not readily available and hard to find. All our fruit tarts are incredibly delicious, the pear one happens to be my favorite, said Suarez, also adding the Dinamita Chocolate Mousse Cake, a thick layer of rich Belgian chocolate mousse over a thin layer of chocolate cake. It is sweet but not overbearing, said Suarez, who has been with part of the Golden Hog team for almost five years, having started in bakery production and who says she is fascinated with the new bakery setup. Suarez says The Golden Hog pies are the absolute best sellers for Thanksgiving. The offering includes the traditional apple pie, a recipe which has been in Tello-Sucres family for generations, as well as Key Lime, pecan, pumpkin and a Nutella cream pie. What would a Thanksgiving gathering be without wine? Carneiro, Golden Hogs in-house Sommelier, says that, yes! Turkey goes well with red, and recommends light to medium-bodied wines like Pinot Noir or a special bottle of Beaujolais, with their balanced acidity and fruit-forward profiles. Try Walt La Brisa Pinot Noir, from California; Trimbach Pinot Noir Reserve, from Alsace, France; Mommessin Morgon Cote de Py, from Beaujolais, France, she adds. For stronger dishes such as short ribs, wines with more structure do better, says Carneiro. Great wines from Tuscany, like a nice Brunello di Montalcino or a Bolgheri, Shiraz from both New and Old Worlds, and the widely planted Cabernet Sauvignon, are classic options. If you go. The Golden Hog, located in Harbor Plaza at 91 Harbor Drive, is open from 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday to Saturday, and until 7 p.m. on Sunday. You can reach them at (305) 361-1300. They encourage you to order early, which can be done both online and at the store. Their deadline for placing your Thanksgiving order is Tuesday, Nov. 21. You can also order online by clicking here. For the Islander's last #tasteofkb feature, click here. FTX Bankruptcy Team Sues Crypto Exchange Bybit for $1 Billion Whats Going On? Disclosure: Crypto is a high-risk asset class. This article is provided for informational purposes and does not constitute investment advice. By using this website, you agree to our terms and conditions. We may utilise affiliate links within our content, and receive commission. FTXs bankruptcy advisers have filed a lawsuit against crypto exchange Bybit Fintech and its two affiliated companies. The lawsuit aims to recover approximately $953 million worth of cash and digital assets that were withdrawn from Sam Bankman-Frieds FTX exchange prior to its Chapter 11 filing a year ago. The lawsuit, filed in a Delaware court on Friday, alleges that Bybits investment arm, Mirana Corp., enjoyed special VIP benefits that were not available to most FTX customers. It claimed that Mirana exploited these privileges to withdraw a significant portion of its assets from Bankman-Frieds platform just before its collapse in November 2022. According to the complaint, Mirana exerted pressure on FTX employees to fulfill its withdrawal requests while regular customers of FTX.com were left waiting for hours to access their funds as the exchange faced imminent collapse. The lawsuit seeks to recover assets amounting to around $953 million, including more than $327 million that Mirana allegedly withdrew from FTX between the early morning of November 7 and November 8, 2022, when FTX paused withdrawals. The bankruptcy lawsuit names Bybit Fintech Ltd., Mirana, and affiliated crypto trading firm Time Research Ltd. as defendants. It also lists a senior Mirana executive and Singaporean residents who allegedly benefited from or played a role in the FTX withdrawals, which are now subject to the bankruptcy proceedings. Chapter 11 bankruptcy typically grants failed companies the opportunity to recover funds in the months leading up to the filing. This provision is designed to prevent certain creditors from benefiting unfairly simply because they were able to withdraw their funds from a failing business while others could not. FTX said in the lawsuit that it determined the value of the assets withdrawn by Bybit and its affiliates using November 1 pricing, with the possibility of supplementing pricing information as the litigation progresses. The complaint also acknowledges that some of its legal claims may be subject to subsequent new value defenses. FTX Ramps Up Efforts to Recover Lost Funds The lawsuit against Bybit is the latest in a series of legal actions initiated by FTXs new management to reclaim funds disbursed prior to its Chapter 11 filing in November of the previous year. For one, the company has initiated legal action against Kives and his venture capital firm, K5, to recover the estimated $700 million Bankman-Fried had invested in it. The complaint claims that Bankman-Fried was a profligate patron who sent millions to Kives, K5 Global, and Baum after he attended a social event hosted by Kives in 2022. the company has also tried to recover funds donated to politicians and charitable organizations, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Just recently, the companys advisers revealed that they are investigating the possibility of reclaiming millions of dollars paid to celebrities, including Shaquille ONeal and Naomi Osaka, for their endorsements of the platform. Reddit 15 Email 489 Shares Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) Israels repeated shelling in the vicinity of hospitals and clinics in Gaza has led 20 of 38 hospitals to close their doors to patients, since they lacked the electricity, medicine and functioning equipment they needed to treat patients. The Israeli governments cut-off of electricity has killed premature babies in incubators, diabetes patients on dialysis, and other people with health crises. The al-Shifa medical complex in the northern Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City had valiantly attempted to continue to function, having had stores of fuel for its generators, and even though its gate was shelled by the Israelis on Friday and there was bombing all around it as Israeli troops advanced on it as though it were Hamburger Hill in an old Vietnam war movie. Attacking hospitals and ambulances is strictly forbidden in international law even if enemy combatants are sited there. It is a war crime. The commanders of the Serbian militiamen who cut off water and electricity to Sarajevo and bombarded it for 3 years in the 1990s ended up on trial at the Hague. Staffers at Al-Nasr Pediatric hospital came under such heavy Israeli fire that they were forced to flee the premises, according to WaPo, leaving five premature babies in incubators behind. RIP. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports, that Israeli bombardment repeatedly hit hospitals on Saturday. The Israelis say they were only bombing in the vicinity of hospitals. But why in Gods name were they doing that? OCHA says, Israeli shelling and ground attacks intensified around hospitals in Gaza city and northern Gaza on 11 November, with several being directly hit. According to media reports, civilians, patients, and staff were shot at while attempting to flee the Shifa hospital in Gaza city. It isnt only hospitals. OCHA reports, On 10 November, at about 17:00, an Israeli airstrike hit Al Buraq school in Gaza city, which was being used as a shelter for IDPs, killing 50 people. The Israeli military stated that the airstrike targeted a Palestinian commander hiding in the school. IDPs are internally displaced people. On Saturday morning, we learned that al-Shifa had collapsed as a medical center when the complexs generator stopped working. No electricity, no lights, no machines, no medical care. OCHA says, On 11 November, power at the Shifa and the Indonesian hospital (northern Gaza) was reportedly cut off after fuel for generators ran out; generators at Al Quds hospital (Gaza city) failed and could not be repaired due to the bombardment and fighting. At Shifa, two babies died when their life support stopped working and 37 babies in incubators are at imminent risk of death, according to the Ministry of Health in Ramallah. Doctors without Borders: No one hears us, Doctor in Gazas Al-Shifa Hospital Describes the Harrowing Scene Some 39 of the hospitals patients, then, could not hit the road for south Gaza as the Israeli military insisted. They were premature babies in incubators. Preemies need to be kept warm and provided with extra oxygen. The incubators that do that work dont function without electricity. As OCHA reported, two of the babies died on Saturday, killed by the Israeli army as surely as though they had been propped up against a wall and shot. The other 37 are in urgent danger of dying. These brown, Muslim premature babies havent made the headlines, in contrast to their fictional Israeli counterparts. A few days after the sanguinary October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, President Joe Biden came out for a news conference and said, I never really thought that I would see, have confirmed, pictures of terrorists beheading children. President Biden had not in fact seen such pictures of the decapitated babies of Kfar Aza kibbutz, since they do not exist. The incorrect allegation was first floated as a trial balloon by a journalist on the Israeli i24 channel. Then Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahus picked up the report, saying that it had confirmed the information. Sarah Snider of CNN, who like several thousand other Western journalists had flown to Israel to cover events from an Israeli point of view, heard the accusation from the prime ministers press office and repeated it on screen. But then the next day someone with some common sense in the Israeli government shot down the entire talking point, saying that the report could not be confirmed. Snider and CNN apologized. Biden never did, though his staff issued clarifications the way Reagans staff used to when he said things like trees cause air pollution. Why was it necessary to float this horror story about beheaded babies or children? Hamas committed plenty of brutal crimes on October 7, including mowing 260 people down at a music festival and firing unguided rockets at civilian neighborhoods. Hamas even killed Israelis of Palestinian heritage. Amnesty International reports that indiscriminate rocket fire killed and wounded many people and that these unlawful attacks killed both Israelis and Palestinians. They also hit unrecognised Palestinian villages in the Negev/Naqab region, killing at least six civilians, five of them children. Thats right. Hamas killed at least 5 Palestinian children on October 7. Plus they killed Jewish Israeli children, and kidnapped others as hostages. The Israeli government has revised down the death toll of that gut-wrenching day to 1,200, about a thousand of them innocent non-combatants. This atrocity was a series of horrific Hamas war crimes, one after another. So we can agree that Hamas killed children. But it didnt behead any babies. Beheading babies was such compelling war propaganda because anyone who would do such a thing is a savage, not a civilized person. It is essential to put the Palestinians under the sign of the savage, because the lives of such people do not matter. The civilized can subject savages to genocide without repercussions. Back in the 19th century in North America, it was the American Indians who were branded savages by immigrant Europeans. The European whites constantly encroached on Indian lands and resources, and if they fought back, as the Cree did in attacking Fort Mims in 1814, white Tennessee militiamen massacred them. That nice Mr. Davy Crockett said of the bloodbath, We shot them like dogs! Whom a people would destroy, they first make animals, make them less than human. Mr. Crockett was later killed at the Alamo by Mexican troops defending their territory from a land grab by white slavers. Mexico had completely abolished slavery in 1837. So just as the European settler-colonists genocided the indigenous population, leaving less than 238,000 American Indians alive by 1900, so the Israeli settler-colonists are now wreaking a revenge genocide on the Palestinians. That the current brutal attack on densely populated Gaza has killed 11,000 people, only a handful of them Hamas fighters, shows that revenge and mass murder are the point of the exercise. I mean, I started out with my historian and journalist hats on, speaking of reckless disregard for civilian life. But that diction is by now ludicrous. You cant polish off the entire population of Half Moon Bay, California, in a fit of absent-mindedness. As for the babies, we wont know the story of how the Israeli army was responsible for their deaths, since the Gaza Ministry of Health can no longer gather statistics from the collapsed hospital system. No US president will speak out against the unnecessary deaths of the preemies denied warmth and oxygen, which they needed to live. I guess those are savage preemies, doomed to expire before the unholy might of the civilized. Reddit Email 24 Shares Navy Lt. Kylan Jones-Huffman was killed in Iraq in August 2003. His story is one of many untold episodes in the terrible history of human conflict By Ibrahim Al-Marashi | ( San Francisco Chronicle ) If someone had asked the students at my Monterey high school which one of us would be the first to go to Iraq, everyone would have probably said me. After all, my parents were the ones who emigrated from Iraq in the 1970s to escape Saddam Husseins brutal dictatorship. We were just waiting for a safer time to visit our relatives and make pilgrimages to Iraqs many shrines. But Kylan Jones-Huffman, a student I ran track with, ended up being the first. He would lose his life there in August 2003 as an intelligence officer temporarily assigned to the I Marine Expeditionary Force during the Iraq War. Kylan was a well-liked, well-read student a jock-nerd if you will. We didnt speak much but he was always kind to me and even stood up for me when other students picked on me for being Iraqi and Muslim. He was a year ahead of me in school and we lost touch after he graduated. But from his obituary, I saw how his life had paralleled mine. During his undergraduate years at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., he studied Arabic and Persian just as I had at UCLA. He, too, had wanted to become a university history professor. In early 2003, hed been accepted to a doctorate program at George Washington University and presumably would have started that fall. Meanwhile, I would go on to graduate a year later from my own doctorate program in history. Kylan was also a budding poet. He was a member of an online haiku group in which he shared his poems while abroad. The last one he ever wrote: uncomfortable / body armor shifting/ on the car seat My old classmate would lose his life in that same body armor in the scorching heat of Al-Hilla, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, not far from where my family is from. He was there to brief arriving Polish and Spanish troops on Iraqi cultural sensitivities and differences. While sitting in the passenger seat of a Humvee stuck in traffic, a gunman approached and opened fire. His final poem more poignant words, I could not imagine. Art reflecting reality. I picture Kylan, sitting uncomfortably, sweating under his body armor in the last moments of his life. His killing was one of the first acts of an insurgency that grew from the official end of combat that President George W. Bush had declared on May 1, 2003. That insurgency against the U.S. occupation of Iraq would last until 2011 when U.S. forces finally left the country. Kylan was the 64th fatality out of an eventual 4,424. But he, like everyone else who lost their life, was more than a statistic. It would take 20 years for America to have any sort of meaningful reckoning on why our country went to war and the repercussions for the nation, the region and American foreign policy. However, as a historian who spent much of the past 20 years studying the aftermath of the invasion, whats always been missing from these conversations is the human element the individuals, both Iraqi and American, who became victims of the war and occupation. I have written about some of the Iraqi victims in the past, such as the 2006 Mahmudiyya murders, when five U.S. soldiers gang-raped and killed a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, murdered her father, mother and sister, dousing the family in petrol and setting the home on fire to hide the evidence. I also wrote about how in 2007, U.S. private military contractor Blackwater massacred 14 Iraqi civilians in Nisour Square in Baghdad. Kylan was a victim, too alongside the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of Americans who died as a result of the invasion. All of their lives were lost due to faulty intelligence in Washington, D.C., used to justify the war. The politicians behind that deadly decision will never be held accountable for their actions. Its these same misguided rationales that historians like myself see driving most wars, and the toll on society is always heavy. Kylans life is one episode in this greater history of combatants and civilians untold numbers of people who have died or endured post-traumatic stress disorder. There are victims of gender-based violence during conflict, those maimed by landmines and amputees, many reliant on prosthetics. Landscapes and waterways are poisoned by Agent Orange, depleted uranium or white phosphorus. Animals killed on the frontlines or dying underneath rubble. And eventually, there are always internally displaced people and refugees desperate for any sense of peace and safety. Over the years, Ive been working on a course that centers these stories instead of the conventional military history so commonly taught. Its a course I call Victims of War. My hope is that one day Ill be able to teach it, and I know Kylan will be right there beside me as the history professor he always wanted to be. Ibrahim Al-Marashi is an associate professor of history at California State University San Marcos. He is co-author of Iraqs Armed Forces: An Analytical History and The Modern History of Iraq. Reprinted from San Francisco Chronicle with the authors permission. Featured photo: Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash Reddit Email 48 Shares By Ahmad Rayees | Where should the birds fly after the last sky? Where should we go after the last sky? ( Middle East Monitor) In the haunting verses of Mahmoud Darwishs poetry, the tragic tale of Gaza unfoldsa narrative of shattered hopes, enduring resistance and the stark reality of life under Israeli occupation. Darwishs words transcend the boundaries of literature, reaching into the core of a crisis that demands our attention and condemnation. As the world closes in on the Palestinian people, life in the Gaza Strip morphs into an agonising reality. Israeli bombardments, like thunderous echoes, shatter the dreams and lives of those trapped in this open-air prison. Blood flows beneath the rubble, a silent testimony to the wounds inflicted upon a people confined in a cage where access to basic necessitiesfood, water and electricityis ruthlessly denied. The dignity of life is trampled under the weight of colonial occupation. The siege tightens, ushering in a cruel fate of hunger, thirst and the unyielding descent of missiles upon residential areas, hospitals, schools and mosques. The world, however, seems content to watch this unfolding tragedy as if it were a mere spectacle in a circus, where actors play their roles, crafting a narrative that leaves the metaphorical birds grounded, denied the freedom to soar. A looming ground assault threatens millions with the dire choice of leaving their homes or facing murder and uprooting. In the face of this unfolding genocide, world leaders remain unmoved, their indifference casting a shadow on the inevitable suffering of Palestinians that will persist until the occupation concludes. History echoes through the ages as 1948, 1967 and 2014 witnessed the world turning a blind eye to Palestinian suffering. Once again, as Israelis prepare for a ground invasion in Gaza, the world watches silently. The Palestinians find themselves caught in a tragic dilemmato be bombed or to seek refuge away from their homes, facing another Nakba, another catastrophe that threatens the uprooting, displacement and killing of two million people defending their right to exist. The ultimate aim of the Zionists, to carve out a greater Israel on Palestinian land, unfolds as a tragic circus. A disconcerting parallel emerges as the media and the West, in the context of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, label Palestinians defending their homeland as terrorists, while Ukrainian fighters are seen as defenders. The identity of the oppressed is chased and knocked down in the relentless pursuit of an apartheid regime. In the heart-wrenching reality of Gaza, where babies, women and elders are ruthlessly murdered by Israeli bombs, the unfolding tragedy paints a stark contrast that renders even mourning a luxury for the surviving families. Amidst the unrelenting assault, the desperate search for the deceased beneath the rubble becomes a symbol of last hopes, a haunting reminder of lives lost in a struggle for survival. In this dire landscape, the people of Gaza find themselves torn between the agony of mourning their dead and the pressing need to secure shelter and food. The constant cycle of grief and survival defines their existence, a testament to the unimaginable challenges faced by a population caught in the crossfire. As this grave genocide unfolds, the worlds collective conscience is put to the test. A crisis demands condemnation, yet the Wests historical unkindness to the East and the repercussions of colonial projects that endanger the lives of the poor persist. Photo by Mohammed Ibrahim on Unsplash The silence of Muslim leaders in the face of desolation becomes a glaring question. Those who once voiced justice and stood against oppression now stand silent, leaving the oppressed to face their plight alone. The silence, like an echo, reverberates through the rubble of nations, hurting oppressed Muslims and condemning them to further suffering. A stark warning emerges against supporting Israel and the US in wiping out the people of Gaza. The consequences are foreseena world in ruins, where the broken wings of metaphorical birds and sealed borders pose existential questions with no easy answers. In the face of such tragedy, where the wings of a bird are broken, where should it fly? If the borders are sealed, where should we go? These questions resonate, demanding urgent action, compassion and an unwavering commitment to justice. As the world ignores the continuous onslaught, the question looms heavy: how can the global conscience rest when an entire population is subjected to the merciless hands of destruction, enduring the horrors of days and nights stained by relentless violence? The worlds silence becomes a deafening echo, resonating with the cries of a people in desperate need of empathy, solidarity and an end to their harrowing ordeal. We will die here, here in the last passage. Here and here our blood will plant its olive tree. Mahmoud Darwish The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment. Middle East Monitor The Southwest Virginia woman charged with stabbing a friend to death in a University of Virginia parking garage two months ago will be evaluated both for her competence to stand trial and for her sanity to be convicted, a judge ruled last month. As the suspect, Tabatha Lynn Head, watched via video, Judge Andrew Sneathern approved the two evaluations during a brief October hearing. Yes, sir, said Head, smiling and briskly nodding as she indicated that she understood the process. In contrast to a typical video appearance of someone held at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail, Head beamed broadly when her case was called on Oct. 12. Her seemingly happy demeanor on the video screen in the Charlottesville General District Courthouse was also a stark contrast to her dour appearance in the mugshot taken shortly after she was charged with killing her friend. The 47-year-old Head, who has used the surname Dotson and whose first name is spelled Tabitha in the Charlottesville court records, is accused of intentionally stabbing 53-year-old Brian Patrick Kiser in a car in the 11th Street Garage at University of Virginia Medical Center. We have a bloody knife on scene with a puncture wound, a police officer could be heard to say on emergency radio on the afternoon of Sept. 7. The next day, the University of Virginia Police Department issued a statement to the press indicating that it was called to the scene around 4:15 p.m. to find the victim already receiving life-saving procedures. Investigators believe that Head and Kiser are well-acquainted and that they traveled together to the University of Virginia Medical Center earlier in the day, the statement reads. Indeed, both Head and Kiser were residents of Russell County, she in the county seat of Lebanon and he about 7 miles away in the hamlet of Cleveland. The two had recently been dating, according to Kisers mother, Pauline Salyers. He was really, really good to that lady, Salyers told the Daily Progress. He was always for the underdog. Kiser enjoyed hunting and fishing and was devastated, Salyers said, by the 2008 death of his wife, Diane Crabtree Kiser, due to complications from diabetes. Two years later, Salyers said, her son reluctantly ended his 21-year career as a track worker with the Norfolk Southern railroad due to back injuries. He was a little lost, said Salyers. But he was just a good-hearted guy; he had no animosity to anybody. The trip to Charlottesville was to accompany Salyers ex-husband, Kisers father, to kidney surgery. The surgery was completed earlier on the day of her sons death, Salyers said. I talked to Brian, and he said, Theyve got dad back in the room. And he was going to check on him. His dad told him he would like to get something to eat, and that was the last anyone saw him when he went back to the car. What transpired in that car was not premeditated, but was a product of the sudden heat of passion, according to a report penned by UVa police officer Jamie Kennison. While Kennisons criminal complaint provides little detail about what precipitated the stabbing, it sounds to veteran Charlottesville lawyer David Heilberg like a case of an escalating argument. I dont know this, Heilberg stressed. But there could have been some kind of fight that got physical. Heilberg explained that Virginia law reserves the more serious homicide charges, the various levels of murder, for instances of malicious intent. If you kill someone unintentionally in a physical fight, said Heilberg, then thats voluntary manslaughter. A voluntary manslaughter conviction calls for a term of one to 10 years behind bars. If this case moves upward to the circuit court, Heilberg noted, the commonwealth could seek an indictment for greater or additional charges. Head has a lengthy criminal record. In addition to her several felony convictions for multiple instances of drug dealing, check forgery and probation violations, she also has a previous accusation of violence. In 2007, she was indicted in Russell County Circuit Court on charges of attempted murder and shooting into an occupied vehicle. Kisers mother said that she later learned that it was an attack on one of Heads husbands. The ensuing bench trial resulted in convictions for lesser misdemeanor charges: assault and battery, brandishing a firearm and reckless firearm handling. Head received a trio of 12-month sentences, with all of her jail time suspended. The absence of a murder charge in Charlottesville and the pending mental health evaluations have Kisers mother worrying that Head wont be held accountable for the death of her son, her only child. I dont think she should ever be free, said Salyers. She should be locked up. Salyers said she recently suffered a broken wrist and was grateful when Head came over to help. She took care of me, and she was perfectly sane, said Salyers. Can you instantly go insane? In court last month, Heads lawyer, public defender Lauren Reese, said she expected the two mental evaluations would be completed by the end of November. Judge Sneathern agreed and set Dec. 14 as the next hearing. Thank you so much, said Head, who then gave Sneathern an enthusiastic and smiling wave of goodbye. Park Bo Young returned to the spotlight with the healing K-drama "Daily Dose of Sunshine" which fans can't stop talking about in various online communities. Unlike her previous works, the actress was able to showcase her more serious and emotional sides through the new Netflix show, leaving the viewers awestruck. "Daily Dose of Sunshine" is definitely one of the actress' greatest works. If you're not familiar with Park Bo Young yet, then this is for you. Keep on reading to get to know her more. 1. Park Bo Young is a top-notch star with flawless filmography. Unbeknownst to many, the "Daily Dose of Sunshine" star began her acting career with a major acting role right away. In 2006, Park Bo Young kicked off her career as she was coupled with Lee Min Ho in the youth romance drama "Secret Campus," which follows the high school life of South Korean youngsters. With her flawless acting abilities, she was able to land countless acting roles in the following years including "A Werewolf Boy," "Oh My Ghost," "Strong Woman Do Bong Soon" and more. 2. She is a fur mom. Like most of South Korean stars, Park Bo Young is also fond of animals. In fact, she's a fur mom to a dog and a cat. If you stalk the actress' Instagram page, there will be no shortage of cuteness as she loves to boast her pets' adorable faces, much to her fans' delight. 3. Park Bo Young is a multi-awarded star. With her impressive filmography and top-notch acting, Park Bo Young has bagged major acting awards from various ceremonies since her debut. She has been named the Best Actress at the Baeksang Arts Awards, Blue Dragon Film Awards, Buil Film Awards and more for performances in "Strong Woman Do Bong Soon," "Concrete Utopia," "On Your Wedding Day" and more. READ MORE: Kang Han Na Fashion: 3 Styles To Cop From Hallyu Superstar Moreover, she has also taken home the Daesang (Grand Prize) for her outstanding work in "Scandal Makers" in 2009. Way to go, Park Bo Young! 4. She is musically inclined. Besides the home and silver theaters, Park Bo Young is also talented when it comes to the musical stage. While not many know, the "Daily Dose of Sunshine" plays the guitar and piano. She is also a good vocalist, proving that she's a triple threat of a star. ALSO READ: Lee Se Young Net Worth 2023: How Rich Is Hallyu Favorite Star? Check out Park Bo Young's exclusive performance here: KDramaStars owns this article. Written by Elijah Mully. Jang Dong Yoon returns to the spotlight with a brand new image this 2023. From being a "flower boy," the actor completely showcased his mature side in "Daily Dose of Sunshine." Besides his impeccable performance, the actor also boasts his handsome looks and great style. Here are three fashion items that one must have in their wardrobe for when you have nothing to wear. Jang Dong Yoon's Favorite Item #1: A Trusted Tote Bag While it's most common in women's fashion, a lot of men also carry a handbag, Jang Dong Yoon included. In his pictorial with 1st Look Korea, Jang Dong Yoon stressed the importance of carrying a purse around. Not only does it carry his day-to-day belongings, it's also a stylish accessory to his overall outfit. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE THIS: Ryeoun Fashion: 3 Style Must-Haves To Elevate Style Like 'Twinkling Watermelon' Heartthrob His favorite type of bag would be a tote; a perfectly sized carry-on that doesn't overpower his looks but just enough to add pizazz. Click here to buy a tote bag for a cheaper price. Jang Dong Yoon's Favorite Item #2: A Cardigan or Sweater As an actor, Jang Dong Yoon is surrounded by glitz and glamor most of the time which means he can be mostly seen in a black tie ensemble. However, there's nothing the actor loves more than being comfortable and feeling cozy. This is also applicable to his style which consists of knitwear and cotton pieces. Like his gentle facial features, he loves wearing colorful cardigans and sweaters that give a total boyfriend look which fans love the most. Cop a sweater without breaking the bank by clicking here. Jang Dong Yoon's Favorite Item #3: A Trendy Jacket When feeling more casual and trendy, Jang Dong Yoon puts down his trusted knitwear clothing and picks up his favorite jackets and outerwears. In his photoshoot with Elle Korea, he donned his beloved see-through bomber jacket from the luxury brand Dior. He paired it up with wide pants, giving off a put-together ensemble. YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN THIS: Kang Han Na Fashion: 3 Styles To Cop From Hallyu Superstar For an edgier vibe, he would put on his leather jacket sourced from the same brand, exuding a total boy-next-door aura. While he doesn't have any shirt on in the pictorial, Jang Dong Yoon would put on a black turtleneck or statement tees depending on the occasion. Buy an outerwear here without sacrificing your savings. Which Jang Dong Yoon fashion item is your favorite? Tell us in the comments down below! RELATED CONTENT: Choi Hyun Wook Fashion: 3 Styling Must-Haves As Seen On 'Twinkling Watermelon' Star KDramaStars owns this article. Written by Elijah Mully. "Moon in the Day" struggles to keep the rating up as the ENA series airs episode 4. Headlined by Pyo Ye Jin and Kim Young Dae, the webtoon-based K-drama depicts the story of the thousand-year-long revenge of a nobleman against his lover. In the 14-episode romance series, Pyo Ye Jin plays Han Ri Ta, who comes from a noble family. She witnessed her parents die at the hands of General Do Ha, portrayed by Kim Young Dae. READ MORE: 'Moon in the Day' Episode 3: Kim Young Dae Finds Pyo Ye Jin's Amulet In the present time, she lives as the brave firefighter Kang Young Hwa, who met celebrity Ha Jun Oh in a twisted fate. Things changed when a pivotal incident shook Jun Oh. After thousands of years of waiting, Do Ha enters Lee Jun Oh's body to seek revenge against Kang Young Hwa. Other than the duo, the "Moon in the Day" cast includes Ohn Joo Wan, who takes on the role of Han Min, Lee Jun Oh's brother and manager, while veteran actor Lee Kyung Young plays So Ri Bu, Do Ha's stepfather. 'Moon in the Day' Viewership In a report, Nielsen Korea recorded an average nationwide rating of 1.530 percent for "Moon in the Day" episode 4. After a minimal increase in the third episode, the historical K-drama experienced a significant decrease as it struggled to keep the rating up to 2 percent. Kim Young Dae and Pyo Ye Jin's drama airs every Wednesday and Thursday via ENA, Genie TV, and Viki. Meanwhile, the fifth episode is set to air on November 15. 'Moon in the Day' Episode 4 Highlights A mix of past and present time, "Moon in the Day" episode 4 features a flashback during the Joseon period when Han Ri Ta is seeking to avenge her parents. That is when Kang Young Hwa gets in danger after protecting Ha Jun Oh from a speeding car. While unconscious at the hospital, she recalled her past life as Han Ri Ta who tried to assassinate Do Ha but she failed after Do Ha suddenly woke up. In one scene, she unexpectedly learned the truth about Do Ha. He built a memorial tower for the Gaya people who innocently sacrificed themselves in the war. This is where he prayed for their souls to rest in peace. Do Ha, who knew that Han Rita was General Gaya's daughter, tells her not to forgive him. She also learned that Do Ha's intention is to escape from his hellish life, but he vows to wait for the moment when he gains the will to live. IN CASE YOU MISSED: Kim Young Dae Booked & Busy! Actor Joins Upcoming Thriller Series 'Perfect Family' For more K-Drama, K-Movie, and celebrity news, keep your tabs open here at KDramaStars. KDramaStars owns this article Written by Geca Wills Jo In Sung's friends exposed him for being addicted to using this. Can you guess what makes the actor occupied these days? Jo In Sung Revealed to Be Addicted To THIS On November 10, tvN's variety show "GBRB: Reap What You Sow" episode 5 was released, featuring celebrity friends Kim Woo Bin, Lee Kwang Soo, Doh Kyungsoo, and Kim Ki Bang. During the broadcast, they mentioned one of their closest friends, Jo In Sung. While the group was on their way to their next destination, EXO's Doh Kyungsoo took a snap of the sky. Lee Kwang Soo immediately saw it and teased him, "You're almost an influencer now. You said you don't do SNS, but now you're addicted." Kim Woo Bin then advised the idol to use SNS, but Kyungsoo acted like he didn't hear him. Later on, their attention turned to Jo In Sung, who was not at the show. The members exposed him for starting using social media and was already addicted to it. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: Viewers Demand More Jo In Sung, Han Hyo Joo's 'Couple' Chemistry in 'Unexpected Business 3' "He said he wouldn't use it, but... He told me 'What? SNS?' then started using it." Adding to the revelation, Kim Ki Bang made everyone laugh when he said, "When I talked to Jo In Sung over the phone, he said 'Ki Bang, let's communicate. Send me a message then hang up.'" Jo In Sung Actively Communicates With Fans Jo In Sung launched his official social media account in 2022 with the intention of communicating with his fans actively. Through this, many fans were delighted to see the actor updating them about his whereabouts. The "Moving" actor has received attention for actively communicating with fans on Instagram. To recall, he attended the 13th Beautiful Artist Award ceremony, where he surprised many with his mustache and beard, a different from his usual clean look. Since his new look became viral, Jo In Sung made hilarious ways of answering the public's questions about his beard and mustache. Later on, the "It's Okay, That's Love" star confirmed that he will appear in the new project "Hope" to be directed by Na Hong Jin. It has been said that his mustache and beard are preparation for his next role. Following the success of his comeback drama "Moving," the veteran actor is currently appearing in tvN's "Unexpected Business" and has become more active in updating his fans, presenting a more approachable and friendly charm off the screen. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Jo In Sung's Transformation in Recent Event Sparks Debate - Does the 'Ahjussi' Look Really Not Suit Him? What can you say about the news? 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. After a series of events that shook Park Bo Young as a newbie at the psychiatry ward, her body and mental health shut down on her. In "Daily Dose of Sunshine" episode 7 to 9, viewers witness Park Bo Young go into a spiral as the fatigue takes its toll on her whole well-being. Read to know more. Dong Go Eun Shoots His Shot Dong Go Eun (Yeon Woo Jin) finally confesses his feelings to Jung Da Eun (Park Bo Young). He wants to date her but before she can answer, another patient is rushed to the hospital, which interrupts their moment. Meanwhile, Song Yoo Chan (Jang Dong Yoon) throws himself into work after blowing his chance with Jung Da Eun. Jung Da Eun Takes Hits The nurses in the ward worry over Jung Da Eun's well-being but Park Soo Yeon (Lee Sang Hee) believes that it's just a way of keeping her mind off things. The death of a patient is a tough pill to swallow especially when she made great memories with the deceased. Jung Da Eun's grief then manifests itself through Dissociative Amnesia where she doesn't register her patient's death, believing that he's only been discharged. She is offered a few days away from the hospital to come to terms with what happened to her patient. Jung Da Eun Suffers From Depression Jung Da Eun and Song Yoo Chan then spend more time with one another. The latter allows her to cry into his arms, letting her grieve. A month later, she is still in the same place, wallowing in her own grief and depression. Dong Go Eun pays her a visit and convinces her to see a psychiatrist. At the hospital, Jung Da Eun uses her knowledge to be a model patient and escape the psychology test. She even flushes her medicines down the drain. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 'Daily Dose of Sunshine' Episode 4-6: Yeon Woo Jin Shares Affection For Park Bo Young Like many of her patients, she refuses to accept that she's a person who needs psychiatric help. She later lashes out in frustration, which results in her being isolated from the others. Jung Da Eun finally understands what's happening to her. She also recovers memories of her patient, making clear that she needs to recover. At the hospital, she apologizes to the doctors and her fellow nurses for her actions. She also asks for forgiveness from her mother who's only worried about her mental health and well-being. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE THIS: Park Bo Young Stopped Watching 'Daily Dose of Sunshine'? Here's What She Said KDramaStars owns this article. Written by Elijah Mully. Updated figures from the scene of the Quaker Run Fire suggest the blaze has consumed more than previously reported. The unified command of local, state and federal authorities on the ground at the Madison County wildfire reported Sunday that the fire now spans 3,877 acres, more than 100 additional acres than what authorities reported 24 hours earlier when they congratulated crews for holding fire lines and protecting the camps and historic landmarks within Shenandoah National Park near the fires perimeter. The increase is due to more accurate mapping, officials said in a Sunday update. That said, authorities said the fire lines meant to contain the flames are holding and the blaze remains 40% contained. Crews had a productive weekend, they said, mopping up hot spots, strengthening containment lines, monitoring and patrolling. Light rain and the return of cold temperatures are helping to drive down the flashpoint of fuels in the path of the fire, but officials warned Sunday of a predicted wind event Monday night that could hinder firefighting efforts. The Quaker Run Fire, which is about to enter its fourth week, is the largest of the roughly a dozen active wildfires burning in the commonwealth of Virginia. As of Sunday afternoon, there were 201 personnel, seven fire engines, six bulldozers and two helicopters just in Madison County battling the Quaker Run Fire. Personnel on the ground has included Virginia National Guard since last Tuesday, when Gov. Glenn Youngkin declared a state of emergency. The rocky terrain, intermittent winds, falling leaves and severe drought in much of the region have not helped firefighters efforts to keep the blaze under control. Crews have been working to keep the fire away from Rapidan Camp, also known as Camp Hoover, the former retreat of President Herbert Hoover and first lady Lou Henry Hoover above the confluence of the Mill and Laurel prongs of the Rapidan River. The lodge, often called the Brown House during Hoovers administration, served as a getaway for the president between 1929 and 1933; it is considered a precursor to Camp David today. Crews are making every effort to protect Camp Hoover, the Virginia Department of Forestry said in a statement, putting fire hoses, water tanks and sprinkler heads in and around the camp. The National Park Service, which oversees Rapidan Camp, thanked crews for their work to protect the landmark. They have done a lot of preparation to protect Rapidan Camp, the National Historic Landmark within the Park, the National Park Service said in a statement. Rain across much of the area has been much appreciated and firefighters continue their work. Northeast of the camp, a strategic burn was conducted Thursday south of Upper Dark Hollow Trail, a 4-mile trail near the village of Syria in Madison County where the fire first started on Oct. 24. The state Department of Forestry said Friday the burn should help prevent the fires spread to the northeast. Firefighters were challenged by weather conditions during the day but completed the operation successfully, the state agency said. They also held and strengthened containment lines, mopped up and patrolled. While no residences or other structures have been damaged to date, residents living near Syria, specifically north of Finks Hollow Lane near Shenandoahs eastern boundary, have been urged to evacuate. Crews have also added extra protection, including widened fire lines and added patrols, around structures near the fire's path. The National Park Service has issued daily reminders that trails near the flames remain closed and a burn ban is in effect for all of Shenandoah National Park and Madison County. Trail closures within Shenandoah include: Graves Mill Trail from the intersection of the Staunton River Trail to the Rapidan Fire Road. Wilhite Wagon Trail. Mills Prong Trail. Mill Prong Horse Trail. Stony Mountain Trail. Fork Mountain Trail. Laurel Prong from Cat Knob intersection. Upper Dark Hollow Trail. And the lower Rapidan Fire Road. While they remain open, Whiteoak Canyon and Old Rag trails have seen a tremendous amount of smoke, and the National Park Service has urged hikers take extra precautions there or avoid the trails entirely. Power remains out in the Big Meadows area of the park after lines were cut a week ago. Big Meadows remains open to visitors, however, and generators are operating and keeping the visitor center and campground there open. There are roughly a dozen fires within state lines, all west of the Fall Line and concentrated along the mountainous western spine of the commonwealth. The causes of many of the fires, including the Tuggles Gap Fire in Patrick County, the Rocklick Fire in Buchanan County and the Rachel's Chapel Fire in Dickenson County, remain unknown. Republican state Sen. Bryce Reeves of Spotsylvania released a statement on Oct. 26 suggesting the Quaker Run Fire was caused by a lightning strike. The Department of Forestry, however, has said the cause of the fire is still under investigation and continues to emphasize that escaped burning debris is the leading cause of wildfires in Virginia. Minister of National Defence Bill Blair gestures as he speaks at the Canadian Aerospace Summit Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023 in Ottawa. Defence Minister Bill Blair says he's recently instructed his team to rejig the Liberals' long-promised defence policy update, to give industry more clarity on long-term spending plans. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld 23 Shares Share With my first thrust on his chest, I shattered his sternum, feeling his bones crumble in my hands. His eyes were wide open but lifeless. Dried secretions crusted his lips. His dusky skin tone indicated my efforts would be futile. Nonetheless, I proceeded with cardiopulmonary resuscitation as I was trained to do. Soon the room was bustling with medical residents and nurses. A controlled chaos ensued. We inserted a breathing tube into his airway. We alternated pounding on his chest 100 times per minute to the beat of Staying Alive by the Bee Gees. We drilled into his fibula to gain IV access and pumped him full of epinephrine and saline. After 45 minutes, the 90-year-old man was pronounced dead. The commotion abruptly shifted to an eerie stillness, with alarm bells still chiming in the background. The floor was littered with syringes and streaked with blood. I returned to my windowless, fluorescent-lit room and plopped in front of the computer to complete the required checklists for the 50 other patients I was responsible for that night. There was no debriefing. No reflection on the loss of a life. No processing of the emotional trauma of a human being dying as I tried to save him. I didnt even acknowledge it. I began my decade of medical training as an optimistic, well-intentioned student who wanted to devote his career to service and healing. I came out the other side a cynical physician devoid of compassion for myself and the world around me. The selection of medical school applicants, the training process itself, and ultimately, the system for delivering health care have eroded compassion and human connection in medicine. Yet, in the coming age of algorithm-based medicine, rapid technical integration, and artificial intelligence, human connection will be the primary offering of the physician of the future, and compassion will be fundamental to delivering quality care. The future of health care demands a new paradigm for selecting and teaching students and training physicians that instills humanity in medicine. Many students enter college with the aspiration of applying scientific knowledge to cure disease and ease suffering. However, a C on the first organic chemistry midterm exam quickly ends this dream. In this weeding-out process, the pre-medicine basic science classes discourage countless students from pursuing medicine. They learn that if you cannot recreate the Williamson Ether Synthesis on an exam or achieve a sufficient purified compound yield in the laboratory, medicine is not for you. As a quintuple board-certified cardiologist, I can confidently say that my organic chemistry knowledge had no bearing on my progression through medical training and is irrelevant to the day-to-day demands of clinical medicine. Too many potentially wonderful physicians are turned away from the field within the first months of collegeor later when they become discouraged by the Medical College Admissions Test that rewards fast reading and test-taking skills. The rigid premedical science curriculum squelches creative thinking, crowds out social consciousness, and disproportionately discourages those who are most underrepresented in medicine. In medical school, classes are then filled with organic chemistry whiz kids, speed readers, and top-notch test-takers. They are thrown into a highly competitive, academic pressure cooker where the top performers are granted access to the specialties with the highest compensation and greatest prestige. A superior medical student can consume and reproduce facts and perform research to generate publications in high-impact journals. This process is not designed to produce conscientious, fastidious, and empathetic physicians. On the contrary, medical school molds future doctors who are focused on personal achievement and notoriety. The next stages of trainingthe internship, residency, and fellowshipare the most formative years of professional development, and they define the clinicians identity. The physician trainee is the primary clinician responsible for patients hospitalized for a vast number of complex medical conditions. The daily patient roster is simply a list of medical conditions, devoid of the human experience connected to them. Bedside rounding and patient interactions are formalities at best, and more often a distraction and nuisance. Daily work involves hours in front of a computer screen, poring through troves of clinical data, with a focus on logistics: following up test results, calling consultants, arranging patient transportation. At least the regimen is a distraction from the ubiquitous pain and suffering. Facing that reality would be debilitating. The newly credentialed physicians enter a health care environment driven by productivity, efficiency, and procedural intervention. With hospital systems under immense financial pressure, physicians are asked to see more patients in less time. Revenue-generating procedures garner institutional support and recognition. Establishing patient rapport, preventive health interventions, and lifestyle counseling receive far less attention. Cardiology, my specialty, serves as a clear microcosm of health cares broader failures. Valve replacements, ablations, and angiograms produce the highest reimbursement, provide content for interesting research, and generate partnerships with industry. Thus, interventional cardiology sits at the head of the table. Meanwhile, preventive cardiology services are inadequately reimbursed and, consequently, generate less interest. In-depth data analyses have shown that a patient-clinician relationship driven by compassion has a significant and direct effect on health care outcomes. In my field of preventive cardiology, we take a holistic approach to patient care and offer low-risk, high-yield interventions to promote long-term wellness. At the core of this patient-centered clinical approach is a profound connection between the physician and the human being in the exam room. Compassionate care is built on trust and empathy. It allows for more effective communication of the medical information the patient needs and what the patient should expect. When patients are treated as valued partners in their care and are engaged in shared decision-making, their treatment adherence and outcomes improve. Understanding the patients psychosocial environment allows for a more effective and tailored clinical approach. I remain optimistic that compassion can be reinfused into medicine and that a therapeutic presence can be cultivated in the future generation of doctors. This will require shaking up the current pathway to education, clinical training, and health care delivery. First, medical schools should refine their admissions criteria to place a greater emphasis on community service, emotional intelligence, and broader life experience. In addition, there must be an overhaul of the pre-med college curriculum. A shift from esoteric basic science coursework to the humanities would help tease out more well-rounded, psychologically minded candidates. The curriculum must incorporate more instruction on motivational interviewing techniques and have students directly work with psychology professionals on a regular basis. In the crucial and formative clinical years after medical school, trainees would greatly benefit from enhanced psycho-education, mental health resources, and more humane work hours. Medical residents and attendings should receive more robust support from mid-level providers and medical scribes. Such support would offload the burden of medical documentation and allow physicians to leave their computers and spend more time at the bedside. Finally, health care itself must reward patient-centered care. Physicians who take the time to build rapport and connect with their patients would be compensated similarly to their colleagues who perform invasive procedures. Fortunately, the current/evolving shift from a fee-for-service model to a value-based care system will help realign hospitals priorities. To be sure, some of the leading academic institutions and health care systems have begun to reform the training process and the delivery of care. Mount Sinais Icahn School of Medicine offers a non-traditional premedical track that allows college students to major in the humanities and condense the basic science coursework into an eight-week summer program. Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine has integrated resilience training into the medical school curricula. RUSH Medical College, my institution, offers small learning communities, a pass/fail grading system, and a faculty mentorship program to build interpersonal connection and prevent burnout. RUSH offers all its students, trainees, and employees robust mental health services and places a strong emphasis on quality of life. Hospital systems are adopting time-based physician compensation models, and more institutions are participating in accountable care organizations, valuable strides toward improving the quality of care. These examples are among the steps that can lead to better health care overall. We must overhaul the current model of medical education and training, and hospital systems need to have the will and the financial resources to fully embrace compassionate, patient-centered care. If the financial vise continues to tighten on hospital systems and bedside medicine fails to keep up with technology, physician compassion will continue to erode, and patients will suffer. Daniel Luger is a cardiologist. 3 Shares Share An excerpt from 2060. Willis murmured, Not again. He approached his mother, who was lying in bed with an uneaten tray of food on the bedside table. A stream of drool collected on her gown as she slumped to the right. Mom. Willis gently shook her, and she attempted to open her eyes, but fell back into a stupor. Willis said louder, Mom, wake up. She opened her eyes again, but moved nothing else. He grabbed her shoulders and tried to straighten her in the bed. Her head stayed upright for a moment, then slumped straight down. Mom, its Willis. She tried to lift her head again, briefly made eye contact, but only produced garbled speech. The personal e-assistant in the room didnt recognize Williss voice. Willis kept a hand on her shoulder and reached over to press the help button on her bed control device. I need some help in here. Adriana Smith is hypercalcemic again. No answer. He repeated the message. A few moments later, a voice said, May I help you? Adriana Smith is hypercalcemic again and needs some fluids. What? Willis realized he was talking to the secretary with no medical training. Hypercalcemia. It means her calcium levels are too high. Ill tell your nurse. A few minutes later, an overweight woman in orthopedic shoes ambled into the room. What seems to be the problem? Willis was sure his face belied his inner frustrations, but at the moment, he didnt care what this woman thought of him. Where is Joanna? She knows my mother and knows what to do. I dont know about any Joanna, sir. Im just covering this facility tonight and tomorrow night. Now, why did you call? Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the uneaten tray of food, the drool spot on her gown, and the shoulders of a 67-year-old woman he actively had to re-position to keep her from slumping down into a crumpled ball of human tissue. What do you mean, Why did you call? There is nothing normal in this picture. He said, Shes hypercalcemic again. This is what she looks like when it happens. I wasnt told anything about hypercalcemia at shift change. Willis let out a huff, took another breath and said, She has kidney cancer that has spread to her bones. Thats why her calcium level gets so high. The nurse said, All I see recorded in the nurses notes from the past few shifts is nausea, and they gave her medicine for it. Exactly. Thats what happens. She gets nauseous, doesnt eat as much, she gets dehydrated, and her calcium level skyrockets. All she needs is a couple of bags of IV fluid and shell wake up again. Ive seen this a dozen times. I need to call the doctor. No, you dont. The nurse glared at Williss infringement on her job, implicitly threatening her nursing license. He quickly added, Joanna sets up the IV of normal saline and runs it in full blast. Usually, two bags do the trick. Thats a violation of protocol. The nurse turned and walked towards the nursing station and called the on-call physician. Willis harrumphed in disgust and just stared at his mother. He knew he would have to prop her up a while longer. Ten minutes later, the nurse walked back into the room. The doctor ordered her sent to the ER for further evaluation. No, no, no, yelled Willis. Thats ridiculous. There is no reason for her to make yet another trip to the ER. Sir, she is clearly not doing well and needs a proper evaluation. Get me the Team Lead. The nurse rolled her eyes and left the room. A few minutes later, an older woman walked in. I hear you are upset that we called an ambulance. Youre damn right Im upset. Willis recounted his version of what had transpired and added, Heres what will happen. After she gets the IV fluid for a few hours, shell become more alert, and then shell freak out because she wont recognize her surroundings. If Im not there to calm her down, they will give her tons of sedatives and were right back where we started. The nurse and Team Lead stared impassively at Willis, offering no reaction. He continued, But if she gets the IV fluid here, she wakes up in familiar surroundings, she wont freak out, and all is well. And then I dont have to spend hours in an ER exhausting myself, just so I can look like I was out all night partying when I show up to my new forty job Ive only had for a few months. The Team Lead said, Sir, we are following protocol and so is our on-call physician. Then your protocol sucks. Willis could hear an ambulance in the distance. The Team Lead stiffened her back. I will have you know that IntegraHealth has created the highest quality data-driven protocols in the industry. Anything less is not acceptable on my watch. Willis stared at her for a moment, still propping up his mother, realizing that this company woman, this fellow employee, would not move easily off of her position. Where is Joanna? Do you know? I believe she was let go, not surprisingly, for not following policies and procedures. The sound of the ambulance grew louder and a minute later, paramedics walked into the room. Willis said, I am her medical power of attorney, and I refuse to let her go to the ER. The Team Lead looked at the shift nurse, who nodded that yes, the record showed he was his mothers medical power of attorney. The Team Lead walked over to the computer and clicked more buttons. She said, I do not see an Advance Directive on file. She is a full code. Thats right. Well then, we, and by that I mean your mother, is in a bit of a pickle. If you dont let these fine paramedics take her to the hospital, then that will trigger a care plan review by our general counsels office. They will undoubtedly make a finding of significant family neglect, which will result in her being transferred to another facility. You cant do that. The Team Lead smiled. Oh, yes I can. And you can be damned sure that I will do everything I can to transfer her out of here. I will not let your poor decisions taint out excellent quality score. The paramedics stood there waiting for someone to break. The roommate groaned louder, agitated by the people crowding next to her bed and shouting in her room. Willis knew he was trapped. He had applied for his mother to live here ever since the cancerous lesion in her lower spinal column eroded through enough bone that the vertebrae collapsed, which left her paralyzed. When the Team Lead said, another facility, he knew exactly what she threatened. A substandard nursing home full of Medicaid patients. Willis backed away from the bed and his mother slumped over again. He made a slight movement of his head to the paramedics. They approached the bed and loaded her up. The Team Lead said, Thats a wise decision Mr. Smith. Richard Young is a family physician and author of 2060. With Virginia's legislative elections behind, Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-7th, is set to launch her bid to become Virginia's first woman elected governor. But the three-term congresswoman - a Henrico County resident who now represents a highly populated swath of Northern Virginia and its Fredericksburg-area exurbs - would first have to win a Democratic primary in two years that will include Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney, who signaled this week that he will launch his own campaign for governor by the end of the year. Spanberger's run has been rumored for months, but a source close to the congresswoman confirmed that she plans to launch her gubernatorial campaign "imminently." Stoney, coming off the bruising defeat of a referendum he had championed to allow a $550 million casino in an underdeveloped neighborhood of South Richmond, let his own intentions be known in a national story by Politico on Thursday that reported the mayor already has hired campaign staff for a gubernatorial run he will formally launch before the end of the year. He first tipped his plans in an interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch in April. I think I am young enough to still serve the public and I am seriously considering my next step, and that would be taking a look at the governors race in 2025, he said at the time. Im a firm believer that if you stay ready, you never have to get ready. Whoever wins the nomination is likely to face a formidable Republican opponent, either Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, the first Black woman elected to statewide office in Virginia, or Attorney General Jason Miyares, the first Hispanic person elected as attorney general. Earle-Sears or Stoney would be Virginia's second Black governor. In 1990 Virginia's Doug Wilder became the nation's first elected Black governor. Spanberger enters the Democrats' showdown as the favorite because of her name recognition in two of Virginia's largest media markets - greater Richmond and Northern Virginia - political commentators say, but someone who knows both candidates well said each must answer questions about their ability to win in a 2025 statewide primary that will be decided by core Democratic Party voters. "Levar has never run outside of the City of Richmond," said the person, who hasn't taken sides and doesn't want to be identified. "Abigail has never run in a race with a significant number of Black folks" as voters. Spanberger has won 3 U.S. House races Spanberger, 44, a former CIA officer and law enforcement officer for the U.S. Postal Service, has won three congressional races in challenging political districts. Her first victory came in 2018 in a district that had been held by Republicans for almost 50 years, encompassing parts of Henrico and Chesterfield counties and outer, more rural counties in the region. She won the same district again in 2020. Last year, she won in district that the Virginia Supreme Court had moved from the Richmond area to eastern Prince William County, the Fredericksburg area and outlying counties that extend from western Tidewater to the Blue Ridge Mountains. The district leaned Democratic but had voted for Republican Glenn Youngkin as governor in 2021, but she carried it by almost 5 percentage points. In all three of her elections to Congress, Spanberger has lost most of the localities in the district, but trimmed her deficit in rural areas by enough votes to prevail in the suburbs. In both her 2018 victory over Rep. Dave Brat, R-7th and her 2020 win against Del. Nick Freitas, R-Culpeper, Spanberger lost eight of 10 counties, but won by running up margins in Henrico and Chesterfield counties. In 2022 Spanberger carried the newly configured Northern Virginia district in a similar scenario. She trailed Republican Yesli Vega in nine of the district's 11 localities - all but Fredericksburg and Prince William County - but ran nearly even in Stafford County and carried Prince William by a decisive margin of nearly 29,000 votes. "Congresswoman Spanberger won a difficult district a year ago and is likely seen more like a winner right now than Stoney," said Stephen Farnsworth, director of the Center for Leadership and Media Studies at Mary Washington University in Fredericksburg. Farnsworth said the rejection of the proposed casino for a second time "may demonstrate that Mayor Stoney has a significant challenge ahead of him." Spanberger also is helped by the departure of former House of Delegates Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, D-Fairfax, from the primary race to run instead for the 10th Congressional District seat that Rep. Jennifer Wexton, D-10th, will vacate because of a severe health condition. "The mayor needs a win in the next year to be more viable as a candidate for governor, and I'm not sure where he gets it," Farnsworth said. Stoney's political story Stoney, 42, has some advantages as a Black politician with a compelling life story, as the child of unwed parents who moved to Hampton Roads at age 7 to be raised by his working-class father and grandmother. As former political and executive director of the Democratic Party of Virginia, he knows party officials across Virginia and is closely allied with former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a prodigious political fundraiser who named Stoney as secretary of the commonwealth in 2014. Who would you vote for? You voted: Abigail Spanberger Levar Stoney Neither Vote View Results Back He's won two races for mayor against intense competition, defeating Richmond civic leader Jack Berry and then-former Del. Joe Morrissey, D-Richmond in 2016, and then against progressive challenger Alexsis Rodgers and then-City Councilwoman Kim Gray in 2020. But Stoney also benefited both times from a crowded field, winning with pluralities of less than 36% in the first race and 38% in the second. "The one thing that could advantage Levar is a Northern Virginia progressive getting into the race - not center-left, but left," said Bob Holsworth, a Richmond political scientist and former dean at Virginia Commonwealth University. At the moment, Holsworth said, there is no one in the race like former U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello, D-5th, who unsuccessfully challenged then-Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2017. Del. Luke Torian, D-Prince William, a senior Black legislator and state budget leader from Spanberger's new district, isn't picking a favorite now, but he also is watching to "see if anybody else gets into the race." Stoney is expected to lean on his executive experience as Richmond mayor, running Virginia's fourth most populous city, behind Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Norfolk, one with a high rate of poverty and unequal educational and business opportunities for African Americans who comprise almost half of the population. "If a mayor of Richmond runs for governor, you pay attention," said Larry Sabato, president of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "We've had a mayor of Richmond become governor - Tim Kaine," now a U.S. senator. "It's too early to rule him in or out," Sabato said. His legacy as mayor is mixed. Stoney championed the Navy Hill downtown economic development project pushed by then Dominion Energy CEO Tom Farrell, which failed in the face of public opposition, just as the two casino referendums did. But he won re-election in 2020 after the Navy Hill defeat and sometimes violent political protests that racked Richmond in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder by Minneapolis police. Stoney took criticism from the right for not doing more to maintain law and order and from the left for police handling of nightly protests during the depth of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the unprovoked teargassing of some protesters. In the end, Stoney was re-elected after reminding voters that he had ensured the removal of public statues to Confederate generals and leaders, which had become the targets of nightly protests and vandalism as symbols of racism. His supporters argue that Richmond thrived economically during his two terms and that the casino defeats won't matter much to primary voters more than 18 months from now. I will continue to be a voice for communities that have been historically overlooked and underserved," Stoney said in response to the casino referendum's defeat on Tuesday. Cool on the left Neither Spanberger nor Stoney has had a warm relationship with the political left. She voted twice against re-electing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who was unpopular in Spanberger's Republican leaning swing district. After Democrats lost congressional seats the same election that Joe Biden won the presidency, she castigated Pelosi and Democratic leaders for not stopping calls by some to "defund police" and promote socialism. After Republicans won the governorship and control of Virginia's House of Delegates in 2021, The New York Times quoted Spanberger as saying of President Joe Biden: Nobody elected President Biden to be the Franklin Delano Roosevelt of this moment. They elected him to be normal and to stop the chaos." Spanberger, who was in the House chamber when protesters aligned with President Donald Trump assaulted the U.S. Capitol to block certification of Biden's victory on Jan. 6, 2021, has voted closely with Democrats but also tried to stay close to the political center on law enforcement, national security and farm policy, as well as funding of public infrastructure and semiconductor chip manufacturing. She has been rated one of the most bipartisan members of Congress. Stoney, as a protege of McAuliffe, has generally aligned with business Democrats, who are progressive on social issues and keen on economic development as a way to employ people and pay for progress. He was point man for McAuliffe's effort to broadly restore voting rights of felons who had done time for their crimes. One of his biggest challenges in a primary with Spanberger is overcoming her name recognition with voters. "While he knows the Democratic Party insiders, I'm not sure how well known he is to Democratic Party voters outside of Richmond," Holsworth said. "Spanberger just begins with a broad geographic base and better name recognition inside the Democratic Party just because of where she's been elected," he added. Stoney may have an advantage in reaching Black voters who make up a larger percentage of the Democratic electorate. However, Holsworth said, Black primary voters tend to be "pragmatic," as they showed in strongly backing Biden for the Democratic nomination in 2020, rather than his future Vice President Kamala Harris, then a California senator who was the most prominent Black candidate in the party field. "They want to go with somebody who has a good chance of winning," Holsworth said, "and Levar is going to have to convince them of that." Going for Growth past participants from Kilkenny are encouraging female entrepreneurs in the county who are determined to grow their businesses to apply for the award-winning business development programme. Going for Growth has started accepting applications for the 16th year of the programme and the deadline to apply is Friday November 17, 2023. The programme, which is supported by Enterprise Ireland and KPMG, helps ambitious female entrepreneurs to achieve their growth ambitions helping to build stronger companies, create new jobs and increase revenues. Up to 60 places will be available and applications are sought from female entrepreneurs across all sectors who are strongly focused on growth. There is no charge for those selected and the six-month initiative will begin in January 2024. Going for Growth has seen more than 900 businesswomen take part since its first cycle in 2008. Past participants from Kilkenny include Aisling Carroll of Momentum Healthcare which specialises in providing people with complex physical disabilities the opportunity to enjoy an active and independent lifestyle. This programme has been a great addition to my company and to me personally," says Aisling. "It will take you out of your comfort zone, where you will meet likeminded entrepreneurs, that will challenge and support you. Take a deep dive into your company, question your role, your methods, your systems and see what you can achieve and what changes could be made for the betterment of the company and profitability. It is a commitment of time and attitude that will pay dividends. Other past participants from Kilkenny include Alexandra Nicole Server-Pawlukojc of Aran Bakery & Bistro. Alexandra, a participant on the most recent cycle of Going for Growth, says: Going for Growth helped me find my tribe. It was such an amazing experience because it gave me the support system I needed in bringing my business to the next level and it helped open my eyes to so many opportunities that I never knew were there before. I couldnt recommend it enough. Feedback from the previous cycle of Going for Growth has been extremely positive, with 96% of participants saying their involvement brought about practical change within their business and 97% saying they felt nearer to achieving their ambitions. All participants said they would recommend the programme to others. Going for Growth brings together female entrepreneurs for monthly peer-to-peer roundtable discussions facilitated by successful businesswomen. They are known as Lead Entrepreneurs. Their participation is completely voluntary and is done in a spirit of altruism and the wish to share their experience and insights with others at an earlier stage of their growth journey. Seven of this years Lead Entrepreneurs are former Going for Growth participants. This years voluntary Lead Entrepreneurs include Anne Cusack, formerly Critical Healthcare; Chupi Sweetman-Durney, Chupi; Jeananne OBrien, Artizan Food Co.; Leonora OBrien, formerly Pharmapod;Louise Phelan, formerly Phelan Energy Group; Marissa Carter, Carter Beauty; Monica Flood, formerly Olas IT; Oonagh OHagan, Meaghers Pharmacy Group and Tara Beattie, Prepsheets.com. The support provided does not end on completion of the six-month cycle, with most past participants becoming part of the Going for Growth community. Going for Growth alumni can apply for the Continuing the Momentum programme, which offers Lead Entrepreneur facilitated roundtables to those looking to continue their growth journey, with the aid of peer support, focused goals, and milestones. Log onto www.goingforgrowth.com for more details. The Irish meteorological agency has extended the area of the country which will fall under its highest level of wind warning ahead of Storm Debi, which forecasters warned carries a potential danger to life. Schools in parts of Ireland have been asked to delay opening, as the country prepares for winds of up to 130 kilometres per hour (80mph). Weather warnings for the entire island were due to come into effect overnight due to the developing storm. #StormDEBI UPDATE Red Wind WarningDublin, Kildare, Laois, Louth, Meath, Offaly, Westmeath, and Wicklow, Clare, Galway, Kerry, Limerick, Roscommon, & Tipperary Cork upgraded from Yellow to Orange Details on impacts & times for your areahttps://t.co/1P0YPQeYTB pic.twitter.com/DBmOgD4LVJ Met Eireann (@MetEireann) November 12, 2023 While a yellow warning applies to every county in Ireland from midnight until 3pm on Monday, the majority of people are also living in areas where a red warning applies due to the risk of severe and damaging gusts from Sunday night. It comes after parts of the island were devastated by floods during intense rain from Storms Babet and Ciaran. A status red wind warning will apply to Clare, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary, east Galway, and south Roscommon between 2am and 5am. As the storm tracks north east over the country, a separate status red warning will come into effect for Dublin, Kildare, Laois, Louth, Meath, Wicklow, Offaly, and Westmeath between 5am and 8am. A status orange wind warning additionally applies to these counties as well as Longford, Cavan, Monaghan, Kilkenny, and Carlow from 2am until 10am. A separate orange wind warning has been announced for between 1am and 4am for Cork. Met Eireann says it will be very windy or stormy due to Storm Debi across the country, with heavy rain and a chance of embedded thunderstorms and hail. It warned there is a possibility of localised flooding, hazardous driving conditions and fallen trees. Irelands National Emergency Co-ordination Group (NECG) advised schools and pre-schools in counties with red and orange warnings to remain closed until 10am on Monday. Speaking after a meeting of the group, director for emergency management Keith Leonard said schools have been asked to delay opening in parts of the country. Mr Leonard said: On the balance of risk and to ensure public safety, all schools and pre-schools are asked to remain closed until 10 oclock tomorrow morning in the orange and the red areas. Mr Leonard, the national director for fire and emergency management, said local authorities and response agencies have been preparing for the storm over the weekend. He advised people to stay away from coastal areas as conditions will be extremely hazardous. He added: People are advised to keep track of the Met Eireann weather forecast because those counties in red, orange could change at short notice. Mr Leonard said people should expect lengthy delays across public transport and delays at ports and airports. He added: Employers are asked to have some flexibility in relation to employees who have to travel to work tomorrow and if working from home is an option, that will be the preferred option for people tomorrow in the counties affected. Mr Leonard said road users should be aware of the very hazardous and difficult conditions on Monday. He said there will be a substantial number of downed trees and other debris during the serious winter storm with some dangerous features. A very important message in relation to keeping your phone charged. Theres going to be extensive electricity outages tomorrow, and your mobile phone is your link to the emergency services. #StormDebi will bring very strong winds across parts of Northern Ireland, northern England and northern Wales on Monday Gusts could reach 70-80 mph over some coasts and high ground Take care travelling and be #weatheraware pic.twitter.com/uRDVk4nZTc Met Office (@metoffice) November 12, 2023 Met Eireanns head forecaster said gusts of up 130 kilometres per hour are expected in the red areas. We can expect some disruption with travel, some infrastructural issues such as power cables coming down. Asked about issuing the initial red wind warnings 12 hours before they are due to come into effect, Eoin Sherlock said the current system is very chaotic, fast evolving and very difficult to predict. We did give people a heads up yesterday, there was an advisory. Various marine advisories also apply to coastal waters, including a red warning for westerly winds reaching violent storm force 11 between 2am and 5am from Valentia to Loop Head to Slyne Head. The UK Met Office has also issued a yellow wind and rain warning for all of Northern Ireland on Monday, while an amber warning applies in the south east of the region around Newry and Downpatrick. It said heavy rain and strong winds may bring disruption and flooding to parts of the region. It will be a very wet and windy start to Monday as #StormDebi crosses Northern Ireland and northern England Take care and stay #weatheraware pic.twitter.com/OSBxzgod8X Met Office (@metoffice) November 12, 2023 It advised people to be aware that homes and businesses could be flooded and there could be disruption to bus, rail and air travel. The agency also warned that fast-flowing or deep floodwater and flying debris could cause a danger to life Power cuts are also possible. The yellow warning comes into effect at 3am on Monday and applies until 2pm, while the amber warning applies between 6am and midday. In May of this year, a wonderful group of supporters of Anam Cara walked part of the famous Camino de Santiago. Each person on the trip could relate to the overwhelming sense of loss, whether they had lost a child themselves or supporting someone, whos child had died. Anam Cara are delighted to announce that the 2024 walk is in planning and the date is confirmed for next April. Speaking about her experience taking part, one bereaved Mum said "I came across an advertisement for the Anam Cara Camino walk a few months after my son's death and completed one month before his first anniversary. Anam Cara has been so good for my mental wellbeing, and I had heard that people find great peace walking the Camino, so decided to find out more. With being able to focus on very little, they made the whole experience very easy from setting up our just giving pages and the detailed preparation information to the support along the way. "I had the absolute pleasure of walking with other bereaved parents who understood what the experience meant to me. By sharing our stories along the way, I felt that each of us brought our children along with us on the journey. This was so much more than just a fundraiser and will be back on another Camino with Anam Cara soon!" On the 28th of April 2024, the group will depart Dublin to take on the final section of the Portuguese Coastal Camino, where they will be walking from Oia to Santiago. The total distance is approx. 110km over the week. If you would like some more information, please contact Jamie on j.conway@anamcara.ie or 01 4045378. All funds raised will ensure Anam Cara continue their support services for bereaved parents, nationwide. On Monday 20th November, Anam Cara will hold their Tipperary meeting in The Horse & Jockey Hotel, Thurles at 7:15pm. All bereaved parents in the area are most welcome to attend, regardless of age of the child or circumstances of death. For further information, please contact Anam Cara on 085 2888888 or info@anamcara.ie On November 9, the Minister of Investments, Industry and Trade Laziz Kudratov held talks with the President and Chief Executive Officer of Vision Invest Company Omar Al-Midani, Azernews reports, citing Kun.uz News Agency. At the meeting, agreements were reached on the implementation of new investment initiatives in the fields of energy, infrastructure development and telecommunication technologies, as well as the use of water resources. The Saudi side announced that it is opening a regional office in Tashkent on November 10 to effectively manage the implementation of joint projects. Vision Invest is an infrastructure holding company with more than $50 billion in assets in energy, water supply, construction and transportation sectors, writes Spot. They include ACWA Power, refrigeration equipment provider Saudi Tabreed and plumbing operator Miahona. The value of the companys assets under management is $96 billion. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board cut its holdings in Canadian Natural Resources Limited (NYSE:CNQ Free Report) (TSE:CNQ) by 13.4% during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 26,724,689 shares of the oil and gas producers stock after selling 4,146,000 shares during the period. Canadian Natural Resources makes up approximately 2.3% of Canada Pension Plan Investment Boards investment portfolio, making the stock its 3rd largest position. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board owned about 2.45% of Canadian Natural Resources worth $1,504,217,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. SPX Gestao de Recursos Ltda bought a new stake in Canadian Natural Resources during the second quarter worth about $563,000. Fisher Asset Management LLC bought a new stake in Canadian Natural Resources during the second quarter worth about $205,000. Kestra Private Wealth Services LLC lifted its position in Canadian Natural Resources by 7.8% during the second quarter. Kestra Private Wealth Services LLC now owns 61,819 shares of the oil and gas producers stock worth $3,478,000 after purchasing an additional 4,496 shares during the period. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC lifted its position in Canadian Natural Resources by 4.7% during the second quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 8,719 shares of the oil and gas producers stock worth $491,000 after purchasing an additional 393 shares during the period. Finally, Quantinno Capital Management LP lifted its position in Canadian Natural Resources by 75.9% during the second quarter. Quantinno Capital Management LP now owns 7,089 shares of the oil and gas producers stock worth $399,000 after purchasing an additional 3,058 shares during the period. 73.88% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Canadian Natural Resources alerts: Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth Several research firms recently weighed in on CNQ. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on shares of 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. Jefferies Financial Group increased their target price on shares of Canadian Natural Resources from $84.00 to $94.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a report on Monday, August 28th. National Bank Financial cut shares of Canadian Natural Resources from an outperform rating to a sector perform rating in a report on Friday, August 4th. StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of Canadian Natural Resources in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating for the company. Finally, CIBC increased their target price on shares of Canadian Natural Resources from $90.00 to $93.00 and gave the stock an outperformer rating in a report on Tuesday, August 29th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $90.63. Canadian Natural Resources Trading Up 1.6 % Shares of Canadian Natural Resources stock traded up $1.03 on Friday, hitting $64.58. The stock had a trading volume of 2,566,201 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,299,722. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $64.48 and a 200 day moving average of $60.15. Canadian Natural Resources Limited has a twelve month low of $48.81 and a twelve month high of $68.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25, a quick ratio of 0.65 and a current ratio of 0.91. The firm has a market capitalization of $69.97 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.54 and a beta of 1.52. Canadian Natural Resources Increases Dividend The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, January 5th. Stockholders of record on Friday, December 8th will be paid a $0.7203 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, December 7th. This represents a $2.88 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.46%. This is an increase from Canadian Natural Resourcess previous quarterly dividend of $0.67. Canadian Natural Resourcess dividend payout ratio is currently 55.97%. 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). Read More Receive News & Ratings for Canadian Natural Resources Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Canadian Natural Resources and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. CoreCivic (NYSE:CXW Free Report) had its target price lifted by Wedbush from $14.00 to $17.00 in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday morning, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an outperform rating on the real estate investment trusts stock. Wedbush also issued estimates for CoreCivics Q4 2023 earnings at $0.40 EPS, FY2023 earnings at $1.40 EPS, Q2 2024 earnings at $0.39 EPS, Q3 2024 earnings at $0.42 EPS, Q4 2024 earnings at $0.44 EPS, FY2024 earnings at $1.67 EPS and FY2025 earnings at $1.92 EPS. CXW has been the topic of a number of other research reports. StockNews.com started coverage on CoreCivic in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a buy rating on the stock. Northland Securities started coverage on CoreCivic in a research note on Thursday, October 19th. They set an outperform rating and a $16.00 target price for the company. Get CoreCivic alerts: Read Our Latest Stock Report on CoreCivic CoreCivic Stock Down 0.4 % CXW opened at $13.63 on Wednesday. The business has a 50 day moving average of $11.52 and a 200-day moving average of $10.15. The company has a current ratio of 1.38, a quick ratio of 1.29 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.72. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.55 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.91 and a beta of 0.85. CoreCivic has a 1-year low of $7.84 and a 1-year high of $14.44. CoreCivic (NYSE:CXW Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, November 6th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.14 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.34 by ($0.20). CoreCivic had a return on equity of 4.64% and a net margin of 3.49%. The company had revenue of $483.71 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $474.75 million. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that CoreCivic will post 1.4 earnings per share for the current year. Insider Activity at CoreCivic In related news, CFO David Garfinkle sold 7,500 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $10.38, for a total value of $77,850.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 325,886 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,382,696.68. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other CoreCivic news, EVP Cole G. Carter sold 5,000 shares of CoreCivic stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $10.34, for a total value of $51,700.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 231,162 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $2,390,215.08. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CFO David Garfinkle sold 7,500 shares of CoreCivic stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $10.38, for a total value of $77,850.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 325,886 shares of the companys stock, valued at $3,382,696.68. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 22,500 shares of company stock worth $236,250 in the last ninety days. 1.89% of the stock is owned by company insiders. Hedge Funds Weigh In On CoreCivic Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Goodman Advisory Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of CoreCivic during the 1st quarter worth $26,000. Quantbot Technologies LP acquired a new position in shares of CoreCivic during the 1st quarter worth $36,000. Sound Income Strategies LLC acquired a new position in shares of CoreCivic during the 2nd quarter worth $42,000. Quarry LP acquired a new position in shares of CoreCivic during the 1st quarter worth $57,000. Finally, Lazard Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of CoreCivic during the 2nd quarter worth $58,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.89% of the companys stock. About CoreCivic (Get Free Report) CoreCivic, Inc owns and operates partnership correctional, detention, and residential reentry facilities in the United States. It operates through three segments: CoreCivic Safety, CoreCivic Community, and CoreCivic Properties. The company provides a range of solutions to government partners that serve the public good through corrections and detention management, a network of residential reentry centers to help address America's recidivism crisis, and government real estate solutions. See Also Receive News & Ratings for CoreCivic Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for CoreCivic and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Highland Capital Management LLC cut its holdings in Cheniere Energy, Inc. (NYSEAMERICAN:LNG Free Report) by 1.2% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 37,562 shares of the energy companys stock after selling 451 shares during the quarter. Highland Capital Management LLCs holdings in Cheniere Energy were worth $5,723,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. AdvisorShares Investments LLC acquired a new position in shares of Cheniere Energy in the second quarter valued at about $387,000. Lido Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Cheniere Energy by 5.3% in the second quarter. Lido Advisors LLC now owns 34,562 shares of the energy companys stock valued at $5,266,000 after purchasing an additional 1,732 shares during the period. Banque Cantonale Vaudoise increased its holdings in shares of Cheniere Energy by 29.8% in the second quarter. Banque Cantonale Vaudoise now owns 10,486 shares of the energy companys stock valued at $1,598,000 after purchasing an additional 2,407 shares during the period. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS increased its holdings in shares of Cheniere Energy by 7.9% in the second quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS now owns 350,268 shares of the energy companys stock valued at $53,367,000 after purchasing an additional 25,576 shares during the period. Finally, Jones Financial Companies Lllp acquired a new position in shares of Cheniere Energy in the second quarter valued at about $95,000. 85.86% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Cheniere Energy alerts: Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth Several analysts recently commented on LNG shares. Capital One Financial started coverage on Cheniere Energy in a report on Wednesday, September 6th. They set an overweight rating and a $200.00 target price on the stock. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their target price on Cheniere Energy from $230.00 to $222.00 in a report on Tuesday, August 8th. The Goldman Sachs Group began coverage on Cheniere Energy in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a buy rating and a $205.00 price objective on the stock. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price objective on Cheniere Energy from $189.00 to $183.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a report on Friday, September 29th. Finally, Bank of America raised their target price on Cheniere Energy from $172.00 to $194.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Thursday, September 14th. Twelve equities research analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Cheniere Energy has an average rating of Buy and a consensus target price of $196.00. Cheniere Energy Stock Performance Shares of NYSEAMERICAN LNG traded up $0.95 during trading on Friday, reaching $171.62. The stock had a trading volume of 1,104,780 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,463,214. Cheniere Energy, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $135.00 and a fifty-two week high of $179.04. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.02, a quick ratio of 1.43 and a current ratio of 1.54. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $155.40. The stock has a market capitalization of $40.89 billion, a P/E ratio of 5.60, a P/E/G ratio of 0.35 and a beta of 0.96. Cheniere Energy (NYSEAMERICAN:LNG Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Thursday, November 2nd. The energy company reported $2.37 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.55 by ($0.18). Cheniere Energy had a return on equity of 154.07% and a net margin of 50.46%. The company had revenue of $4.16 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.90 billion. Analysts forecast that Cheniere Energy, Inc. will post 18.48 EPS for the current fiscal year. Cheniere Energy Increases Dividend The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 17th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 9th will be given a dividend of $0.435 per share. This is a boost from Cheniere Energys previous quarterly dividend of $0.40. This represents a $1.74 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.01%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, November 8th. Cheniere Energys dividend payout ratio is currently 3.44%. Cheniere Energy Company Profile (Free Report) Cheniere Energy, Inc, an energy infrastructure company, primarily engages in the liquefied natural gas (LNG) related businesses in the United States. It owns and operates the Sabine Pass LNG terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana; and the Corpus Christi LNG terminal near Corpus Christi, Texas. The company also owns Creole Trail pipeline, a 94-mile pipeline interconnecting the Sabine Pass LNG terminal with various interstate pipelines; and operates Corpus Christi pipeline, a 21.5-mile natural gas supply pipeline that interconnects the Corpus Christi LNG terminal with various interstate and intrastate natural gas pipelines. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding LNG? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Cheniere Energy, Inc. (NYSEAMERICAN:LNG Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Cheniere Energy Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Cheniere Energy and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Kansai Paint Co., Ltd. (OTCMKTS:KSANF Get Free Report) was the target of a large growth in short interest in October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 171,300 shares, a growth of 124.8% from the October 15th total of 76,200 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 0 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently days. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In Several research firms recently issued reports on KSANF. Nomura downgraded shares of Kansai Paint from a buy rating to a neutral rating in a report on Thursday, August 17th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Kansai Paint from a sell rating to a neutral rating in a research note on Thursday, July 20th. Get Kansai Paint alerts: View Our Latest Report on Kansai Paint Kansai Paint Stock Performance Kansai Paint Company Profile Shares of KSANF stock remained flat at $16.84 during mid-day trading on Friday. The stocks 50-day simple moving average is $16.84 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $15.96. Kansai Paint has a twelve month low of $12.42 and a twelve month high of $16.84. (Get Free Report) Kansai Paint Co, Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells paints and coatings in Japan, India, Asia, Africa, Europe, and internationally. The company offers decorative coatings for protecting exterior and interior of buildings; protective coatings; automotive refinish coatings; automotive coatings; and industrial coatings that are used in construction machinery, industrial vehicles, steel furniture, external building materials, electronics, and internal coatings and external designs of beverage cans. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Kansai Paint Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Kansai Paint and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Nuveen Pennsylvania Quality Municipal Income Fund (NYSE:NQP Get Free Report) was the recipient of a significant increase in short interest in October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 23,200 shares, an increase of 149.5% from the October 15th total of 9,300 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 64,100 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 0.4 days. Insider Buying and Selling In other Nuveen Pennsylvania Quality Municipal Income Fund news, major shareholder Saba Capital Management, L.P. bought 23,625 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 7th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $10.26 per share, for a total transaction of $242,392.50. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 3,766,282 shares of the companys stock, valued at $38,642,053.32. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. 1.00% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders. Get Nuveen Pennsylvania Quality Municipal Income Fund alerts: Hedge Funds Weigh In On Nuveen Pennsylvania Quality Municipal Income Fund A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. CWM LLC bought a new stake in Nuveen Pennsylvania Quality Municipal Income Fund in the first quarter worth about $29,000. Fifth Third Bancorp purchased a new stake in shares of Nuveen Pennsylvania Quality Municipal Income Fund during the second quarter valued at $48,000. Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC increased its stake in Nuveen Pennsylvania Quality Municipal Income Fund by 43.3% in the 4th quarter. Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC now owns 4,300 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $48,000 after buying an additional 1,300 shares during the period. Captrust Financial Advisors bought a new stake in Nuveen Pennsylvania Quality Municipal Income Fund during the 2nd quarter valued at about $85,000. Finally, Summit Trail Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in Nuveen Pennsylvania Quality Municipal Income Fund in the 2nd quarter valued at about $114,000. 22.87% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Nuveen Pennsylvania Quality Municipal Income Fund Stock Performance Nuveen Pennsylvania Quality Municipal Income Fund Increases Dividend NYSE:NQP traded up $0.06 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $10.39. 41,142 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 88,839. The firms fifty day moving average is $10.23 and its 200-day moving average is $10.82. Nuveen Pennsylvania Quality Municipal Income Fund has a 12-month low of $9.65 and a 12-month high of $12.01. The company also recently announced a monthly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 1st. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, November 15th will be paid a $0.0325 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, November 14th. This represents a $0.39 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.75%. This is an increase from Nuveen Pennsylvania Quality Municipal Income Funds previous monthly dividend of $0.03. Nuveen Pennsylvania Quality Municipal Income Fund Company Profile (Get Free Report) Nuveen Pennsylvania Quality Municipal Income Fund is a closed ended fixed income mutual fund launched by Nuveen Investments, Inc The fund is co-managed by Nuveen Fund Advisors LLC and Nuveen Asset Management, LLC. It invests in the fixed income markets of Pennsylvania. The fund invests in tax exempt municipal bonds, with a rating of Baa/BBB or higher. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Nuveen Pennsylvania Quality Municipal Income Fund Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Nuveen Pennsylvania Quality Municipal Income Fund and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. TransDigm Group (NYSE:TDG Get Free Report) issued an update on its FY24 earnings guidance on Thursday morning. The company provided earnings per share guidance of $31.00 to $32.94 for the period, compared to the consensus earnings per share estimate of $31.41. The company issued revenue guidance of $7.48 billion to $7.68 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $7.40 billion. TransDigm Group also updated its FY 2024 guidance to $31.00-$32.94 EPS. TransDigm Group Stock Up 2.0 % Shares of NYSE:TDG opened at $992.50 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $54.77 billion, a P/E ratio of 45.07, a PEG ratio of 1.35 and a beta of 1.38. TransDigm Group has a 52 week low of $598.00 and a 52 week high of $996.25. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $859.85 and a 200 day moving average price of $849.06. Get TransDigm Group alerts: TransDigm Group (NYSE:TDG Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 9th. The aerospace company reported $8.03 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $7.10 by $0.93. The company had revenue of $1.85 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.84 billion. TransDigm Group had a net margin of 19.70% and a negative return on equity of 52.65%. The companys revenue for the quarter was up 22.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm earned $4.74 EPS. Analysts expect that TransDigm Group will post 28.71 EPS for the current year. TransDigm Group Increases Dividend Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth The company also recently announced a special dividend, which will be paid on Monday, November 27th. Shareholders of record on Monday, November 20th will be issued a $35.00 dividend. This is a positive change from TransDigm Groups previous special dividend of $22.00. The ex-dividend date is Friday, November 17th. A number of brokerages recently commented on TDG. Barclays increased their price objective on shares of TransDigm Group from $930.00 to $1,040.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Monday, August 14th. StockNews.com cut shares of TransDigm Group from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Friday, September 29th. Truist Financial reaffirmed a buy rating and issued a $1,044.00 target price on shares of TransDigm Group in a research note on Friday, October 20th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on TransDigm Group from $840.00 to $910.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 15th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft initiated coverage on TransDigm Group in a research report on Wednesday, September 27th. They issued a buy rating and a $1,001.00 price objective on the stock. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $997.54. Get Our Latest Analysis on TDG Insider Transactions at TransDigm Group In other news, CFO Sarah Wynne sold 5,420 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $883.16, for a total transaction of $4,786,727.20. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 700 shares in the company, valued at approximately $618,212. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. In related news, CFO Sarah Wynne sold 5,420 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $883.16, for a total transaction of $4,786,727.20. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 700 shares in the company, valued at approximately $618,212. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director Robert J. Small sold 547 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $882.66, for a total value of $482,815.02. Following the sale, the director now owns 191,456 shares in the company, valued at $168,990,552.96. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 38,442 shares of company stock worth $33,770,866 in the last three months. Company insiders own 7.18% of the companys stock. Institutional Investors Weigh In On TransDigm Group Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Beacon Pointe Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of TransDigm Group by 1.3% during the 2nd quarter. Beacon Pointe Advisors LLC now owns 925 shares of the aerospace companys stock valued at $827,000 after buying an additional 12 shares during the period. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans grew its stake in TransDigm Group by 0.7% during the 1st quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 2,227 shares of the aerospace companys stock valued at $1,641,000 after purchasing an additional 15 shares in the last quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC grew its stake in TransDigm Group by 1.5% during the 1st quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC now owns 1,071 shares of the aerospace companys stock valued at $790,000 after purchasing an additional 16 shares in the last quarter. Wetherby Asset Management Inc. grew its stake in TransDigm Group by 0.4% during the 1st quarter. Wetherby Asset Management Inc. now owns 3,845 shares of the aerospace companys stock valued at $2,834,000 after purchasing an additional 16 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Integrated Wealth Concepts LLC grew its stake in TransDigm Group by 3.2% during the 2nd quarter. Integrated Wealth Concepts LLC now owns 523 shares of the aerospace companys stock valued at $467,000 after purchasing an additional 16 shares in the last quarter. 95.78% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. About TransDigm Group (Get Free Report) TransDigm Group Incorporated designs, produces, and supplies aircraft components in the United States and internationally. Its Power & Control segment offers mechanical/electro-mechanical actuators and controls, ignition systems and engine technology, specialized pumps and valves, power conditioning devices, specialized AC/DC electric motors and generators, batteries and chargers, databus and power controls, sensor products, switches and relay panels, hoists, winches and lifting devices, and cargo loading and handling systems. Read More Receive News & Ratings for TransDigm Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for TransDigm Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Welltower Inc. (NYSE:WELL Get Free Report) announced a quarterly dividend on Monday, October 30th, Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 14th will be paid a dividend of 0.61 per share by the real estate investment trust on Wednesday, November 22nd. This represents a $2.44 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.84%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, November 13th. Welltower has increased its dividend by an average of 7.1% per year over the last three years. Welltower has a payout ratio of 214.0% indicating that the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Analysts expect Welltower to earn $3.95 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.44 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 61.8%. Get Welltower alerts: Welltower Stock Performance Welltower stock traded up $1.34 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $85.98. 4,190,376 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 3,766,295. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $83.67 and a 200 day moving average price of $81.25. The company has a quick ratio of 3.37, a current ratio of 3.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67. The company has a market cap of $47.59 billion, a PE ratio of 179.13, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.77 and a beta of 1.07. Welltower has a one year low of $62.62 and a one year high of $89.69. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In Welltower ( NYSE:WELL Get Free Report ) last announced its earnings results on Monday, October 30th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.24 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.89 by ($0.65). The business had revenue of $1.66 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.63 billion. Welltower had a net margin of 3.94% and a return on equity of 1.15%. The firms revenue was up 12.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.84 EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast that Welltower will post 3.61 EPS for the current year. WELL has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded Welltower from an overweight rating to a neutral rating and set a $90.00 price target on the stock. in a report on Thursday, October 12th. Wedbush initiated coverage on Welltower in a report on Tuesday, October 3rd. They set a neutral rating and a $83.00 price target on the stock. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on Welltower from $89.00 to $93.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Monday, August 7th. StockNews.com upgraded Welltower from a sell rating to a hold rating in a report on Wednesday, November 1st. Finally, Raymond James raised Welltower from an outperform rating to a strong-buy rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $95.00 to $101.00 in a research report on Thursday. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $88.23. Read Our Latest Report on WELL Institutional Trading of Welltower A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in WELL. Panagora Asset Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Welltower by 40.0% in the first quarter. Panagora Asset Management Inc. now owns 17,381 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $1,671,000 after buying an additional 4,962 shares during the last quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Welltower by 35.4% in the first quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 5,254 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $505,000 after buying an additional 1,373 shares during the last quarter. Baird Financial Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Welltower by 3.3% in the first quarter. Baird Financial Group Inc. now owns 31,094 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $2,989,000 after buying an additional 982 shares during the last quarter. Covestor Ltd lifted its position in shares of Welltower by 97.4% in the first quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 298 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $29,000 after buying an additional 147 shares during the last quarter. Finally, West Family Investments Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Welltower in the first quarter worth about $220,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.61% of the companys stock. Welltower Company Profile (Get Free Report) Welltower Inc (NYSE:WELL), a real estate investment trust ("REIT") and S&P 500 company headquartered in Toledo, Ohio, is driving the transformation of health care infrastructure. Welltower invests with leading seniors housing operators, post-acute providers and health systems to fund the real estate infrastructure needed to scale innovative care delivery models and improve people's wellness and overall health care experience. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Welltower Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Welltower and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Two Koreans were among 18 people sentenced to death on drug smuggling and trafficking charges in Vietnam, state media said. The communist country has some of the toughest drug laws in the world, and is notoriously secretive about its executions. Korean ex-police officer Kim Soon-sik, 63, and compatriot Kang Seon-hok, 30, were sentenced to death following a four-day trial in Ho Chin Minh City, state media said late Saturday. Chinese citizen Li Tian Guan, 58, and alleged Vietnamese ringleader Le Ho Vu, 36, were also handed death sentences. Fourteen other people were also handed death sentences in connection with the case, following the trial in the Family and Juvenile Court, under Ho Chi Minh City People's Court. The group "illegally stored, trafficked and traded more than 216kg of drugs" between May and June 2020, state media news site Cong an Nhan dan reported. More than 168 kilograms of "all kinds of drugs" were confiscated, it reported, without specifying what type. The narcotics were trafficked from Cambodia to Ho Chin Minh City, according to Vu, where some were "consumed domestically" while others were transported to Korea, Cong an Nhan dan said. Officers busted the operation on July 19 in Ho Chin Minh City, according to the reported indictment, when they searched a container truck preparing to complete customs clearance for shipment to Korea. Inside they found "40 plastic packages containing white crystals, with a total of 39.5kg of methamphetamine." State media reported Vu was convicted of "illegal transportation of drugs" and "using fake seals or documents of organisations." The other 17 people were convicted of "illegal possession of drugs," "illegal trading of drugs," "illegal drug trafficking" and "organisation of illegal use of drugs," state media said. Three defendants were also sentenced to life imprisonment for "illegal drug trafficking," Cong an Nhan dan reported. It added that one person, who was under 18 years old, was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. There was no indication when the executions would be carried out. Highly secretive Vietnamese courts routinely hand out death sentences for drug convictions, and the country is a leading executioner globally, according to Amnesty International. The country is close to the lawless "Golden Triangle" region that covers parts of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar, with Vietnamese police saying Ho Chi Minh City is increasingly becoming a hub for drug gangs as transport infrastructure has improved in recent years. Anyone caught with more than 600 grams of heroin or more than 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine can face the death penalty. A 2021 Amnesty International report said partial disclosures by authorities "indicated that hundreds of people continued to be sentenced to death yearly." More than 100 people were sentenced to death in Vietnam last year, according to the international monitoring NGO the Death Penalty Information Center. Many face long spells in detention before they are executed, with information about their trials and deaths scarce. However, Vietnamese authorities declassified some data in 2017, with state media running stories that 429 people had been executed in the country between 2013 and 2016. In 2017, Vietnam's courts handed down death sentences to eight drug traffickers for smuggling heroin to China. Since 2013, Vietnam has carried out death sentences by lethal injection, replacing executions by firing squads. (AFP) By Andrew Hammond The eyes of much of Europe are, squarely, on next years key European Parliament elections. Yet, an increasing number of key EU officials, including Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, are looking further ahead to the Europe of the 2030s by which time the bloc could have grown to over 30 members. For some historians, the blocs biggest achievement in recent decades has been various waves of enlargement. It is no coincidence therefore that von der Leyen visited the West Balkans in recent days where there are no less than six states aspiring to EU membership Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia. This showcases how the bloc could grow to more than 30 members in the 2030s with not just West Balkan states under consideration for accession, but others too including Ukraine and Turkey. The European integration process began in the 1950s, with six founding members, and the bloc has steadily expanded, Brexit aside, since. This includes the accession in 2004 of new members from formerly communist Central and Eastern Europe (the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia), plus Mediterranean countries (Malta and Cyprus). This huge enlargement has had many successes, including powering reform in Central and Eastern Europe. For instance, the regions most powerful state, Poland, has increased its GDP per capita almost three-fold since joining the EU. In the period since, however, there has been significant enlargement fatigue. This has meant that the accession process for Turkey and the Western Balkan countries has been much more challenging than for the various Central and East European countries prior to 2004. Yet, the stalled process of recent years has now been rejuvenated. One of the fundamental questions that the bloc must decide therefore is whether its serious about another big bang enlargement, as in 2004. A key EU update report was published on the progress of aspirant states in meeting accession targets, with a decision on formal negotiations expected as soon as next month. These enlargement questions are huge, and answers are needed from key existing member states to move forward. Otherwise, negotiations could be opened with Ukraine, but then driven on a long, slow road to potential accession as has been the case with Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey. Part of the reason these questions are so difficult is that growing the bloc has key implications for day-to-day decision-making rules and procedures. In addition, the nature of the bloc will also change, significantly, with the GDP per capita of potential accession states in the West Balkans for instance below the EU average. This will have consequences for the EU cohesion policy, which accounts for about one-third of the overall EU budget, which is the blocs key policy to help poorer regions catch up with richer ones. Take the example of Ukraine which, according to a leaked internal EU document recently, could get up to 61 billion Euros in cohesion money over seven years, post-accession. Even if cohesion budgets grow, this would leave less money for other members. Unsurprisingly, therefore, some existing EU members have expressed concern about moving too fast, and too far, on enlargement. It is not just decision-making that will be challenging going forward, but also budgets. It is for these reasons that key countries like Germany and France are already looking at a detailed roadmap of potential future options. This includes proposals for a multi-speed bloc from a Franco-German working group, the General Affairs Council (GAC). What that body has proposed is an inner core of select EU states such as Germany and France prepared to go further and faster with integration. Some, but not all, of the wider EU 27 members would join this group, as is the case with the current Eurozone of 20 EU states. GAC asserts that these multi-speed options should include the possibility of new arrangements for non-EU members with the bloc that are short of full membership. For instance, there might be associate members, including those members of the European single market such as Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein in the European Free Trade Area. Beyond that, more possibilities for future relationships may exist for other states with the EU, including the new European Political Community (EPC) which French President Emmanuel Macron is a big advocate of. For Macron, the EPC could serve as a potential bridge to an enlarged EU, for candidate nations like Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Ukraine, Moldova and Turkey, all EPC members. If any of these nations dont ultimately become full EU members, EPC could also provide a context for greater institutional proximity to the bloc. EPC has already, for instance, given a new context for the United Kingdom to reach new, post-Brexit accords with some EU member states to increase cooperation in what Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has called a new phase of UK-EU cooperation. Taken together, the EU therefore, has much to think through about its approach to a new wave of enlargement. Russias invasion of Ukraine has transformed the context for this process, however, there are huge challenges remaining in any new, big bang of members in coming years. Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics. LG, SK struggle to prevent oversupply of EV batteries By Park Jae-hyuk The deceleration in global demand for electric vehicles (EVs) is putting the brakes on Korean battery makers plans to build manufacturing facilities overseas, according to industry officials, Sunday. LG Energy Solution (LGES) said Saturday that Turkeys Koc Holding announced the dissolution of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed in February by the two companies and Americas Ford Motor to build a battery plant near the Turkish capital of Ankara. Ford and Koc, which have jointly produced commercial vehicles for the European market, failed to establish a joint venture with SK On last year, so LGES was chosen as an alternative. After thoughtful discussions, the three parties have mutually agreed that due to the current pace of consumer electrification adoption, now is not the appropriate time to continue with the investment into a battery cell production facility in Turkey, intended for future commercial EVs, LGES said in a statement. It added that its plan to produce batteries for Fords commercial EVs remains on track, as the products will be produced at existing facilities. LGES remains committed to collaborating on Fords ambition to offer an electric portfolio of vehicles across Europe by 2035, the Korean firm said. The companys announcement is interpreted as proof of sluggish demand for EVs in Europe. Amid the economic downturn, European consumers have been reluctant to buy EVs which are more expensive than internal combustion engine vehicles. Earlier this month, Volkswagen announced that it would delay the construction of its fourth battery plant, citing sluggish EV demand in Europe. Although demand for EVs in North America was once expected to remain solid, realignments of investment plans are also visible in the U.S. market. SK On and Ford are considering postponing the operation of their joint battery plant in Kentucky, which was initially supposed to start in 2026. This came as Ford decided to postpone $12 billion worth of investment into EVs. To meet demand and ensure our success, BlueOval SK Battery Park in Kentucky will postpone production at its second plant, known as Kentucky 2, said Ursula Madden, external affairs director of BlueOval SK, a joint venture between SK On and Ford. Our ultimate goals have not changed, but the time to reach those goals has been revised. When SK On temporarily stopped the expansion of its factory in Seosan, South Chungcheong Province, last week, there was speculation that the battery maker may slow down its investment in the Korean market as well, in line with the possible decrease in Hyundai Motors EV production. The SK Groups battery manufacturing unit, however, denied the speculation, saying that it had suspended the construction to wait for the boards decision on construction costs. Following the boards decision, we resumed construction on Saturday, the company said. Auburn, IN (46706) Today A steady rain this morning. Showers continuing this afternoon. High 43F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a half an inch.. Tonight Light rain early...then remaining cloudy with showers overnight. Low 39F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 70%. Curious about how Red Velvet Yeri and (G)I-DLE Miyeon smell like? Smell like a K-pop idol with these personally-recommended perfumes! While celebrities and K-pop idols usually use perfumes that they endorse, they also have their favorites! Even without ads of PPL, the listed-below female stars revealed their personal picks when it comes to perfumes. 4 Personally-Recommended Perfumes by Korean Celebs: Red Velvet Yeri, (G)I-DLE Miyeon, More! [1/4] Red Velvet Yeri - Le Labo Gaiac 10 The maknae of Red Velvet is known for her love for perfumes that she already tried various products. However, she only sticks to the ones she has been using. During an interview with Allure Korea, Yeri revealed one of the two of her favorites, Le Labo Gaiac 10. Unfortunately, this is a limited edition product exclusively released and can be purchased in Tokyo, Japan. ALSO READ: Red Velvet Receives Rave Reviews for 'Chill Kill' Teaser: 'They're truly concept queens' She fell in love with its scent after either buying it during her trip to the country or after receiving it as a gift from a Japanese friend, so Yeri has been using it frequently. Although it can't be purchased from another country, you might want to try other scents from Le Labo, such as the Santal 33, which costs around $18 to $316, depending on its size. [2/4] Red Velvet Yeri - Tom Ford White Suede Another perfume that Yeri is fond of is the Tom Ford White Suede, which is known for its musky scent with the combination of elegant velvet rose and warm ambergris. It might be a little pricey with a starting cost of $280, but it isn't bad to invest in worthy goods once in a while! [3/4] (G)I-DLE Miyeon - Jo Malone Dark Amber & Ginger Lily Cologne Intense During an overseas tour, Miyeon purchased this perfume at a duty-free shop. The Jo Malone Dark Amber & Ginger Lily has a unique scent of heavy wood, rich amber, spicy ginger, and pure black cardamom, so if you like sweet and soft scents, you may find this one as strong. In fact, Miyeon, who is known for her soft, elegant yet pure image was called out by her co-(G)I-DLE members for not suiting this scent. However, Miyeon has a strong taste contrary to her image, revealing that this perfume made her feel like a wonderful woman. If you find it expensive, there is a travel-size version of this perfume for about $55! [4/4] Dancer NO:ZE NO:ZE, an idol choreographer and dancer who rose to popularity after joining Mnet's "Street Woman Fighter Season 1," confessed that she is sensitive to scents. She prefers the woody and neutral scents, but she's also a fan of layering various perfume brands. Just like Yeri, she also likes the Le Labo brand especially the Santal 33. She's also a fan of expensive products like Diptyque Lombre Dans Leau, which costs $800. But if you have less budget than this, NO:ZE also recommended Maison Margiela Replica Soul of the Forest, which is a little bit over $100. Tip for a long-lasting scent from NO:ZE: Use moisturizer to extend the fragrance. Applying moisturizer first and spraying the perfume on top of it made the scent stick throughout the day. READ MORE: 5 Fragrances Worn by TXT Under $200 You Can Gift To Your Significant Other For more K-Pop news and updates, keep your tabs open here at KpopStarz. KpopStarz owns this article. Written by Eunice Dawson. In K-pop, one beloved team caught everyone's attention with their music, dance, and performances. This act is none other than KARD, the well-loved K-pop co-ed group, who thrilled fans with their stages. However, what are they up to nowadays? Here's what we know. Delving Through KARD's History: Debut, Members, Ventures, MORE! KARD is a four-membered co-ed group, consisting of BM, J.Seph, Jeon Somin, and Jeon Jiwoo. KARD is also managed by the label DSP Media, which is currently under RBW. On July 19, 2017, the quartet debuted with their first mini album "Hola Hola" and title track of the same name. The year 2017 was a memorable phase for KARD, as the group didn't just make their iconic debut, but immediately held their "Wild Kard Tour" in September 2017. The group's prominence took them across London, Lisbon, Madrid, Milan, and Rotterdam, completing their European venture. Afterwards, they went for their North American leg, threading through Minneapolis, Washington D.C, New York City, Miami, and San Francisco. YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN: KARD Announces Comeback - Here's Why It's Drawing Divided Opinions KARD is also known for releasing bops such as "Oh NaNa," "Bomb Bomb," "Don't Recall," "RUMOR," "Ring The Alarm," "RED MOON," and many more. On May 23, 2023, KARD officially released their sixth mini album "ICKY" and the title track of the same name. Watch the MV for "ICKY" here: Here's how their fandom Hidden KARD reacted: "Not only is the dance incredible the visuals and voices OMG." "A mixed group, and so many different concepts for each and every one of their comeback. I hope more people can recognize KARD and their immense talent!" "Jiwoo and Somin look amazing and I loved their vocals so much, and J.Seph and BM ate the raps up so hard." READ MORE HERE: This Summer's Deck of KARDs - A WILD KARD North American Tour in NYC Review On June 6, 2023, KARD officially announced their world tour "PLAYGROUND," which will take them to North America, South America, and Europe. Where is KARD Now? Here's Current Update on Group On November 2, it was reported that KARD had signed with UTA (United Talent Agency), a major music agency in the United States. According to sources, KARD will now be represented by UTA in North America, South America, the United Kingdom, and Europe. UTA's headquarters is located in Los Angeles. The major label is also affiliated with numerous popular international artists such as Halsey, Jason Derulo, The Jonas Brothers, Post Malone, Paramore, Cardi B, and many more. Which performances from KARD are your favorites? Are you looking forward to more of their activities? Let us know in the comments below! Read KpopStarz for more K-pop news IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: KARD BM Shares How J.Y. Park and Yang Hyun Suk Told Him He's Too Late to Become an Idol KpopStarz owns this article Written by Riely Miller Hirai Momo is the talented main dancer, sub-vocalist, and lead rapper of TWICE. The group is one of the most successful K-pop acts today, and her inclusion has significantly contributed to their success. To celebrate Momo's special day on November 9, it's time to appreciate our "Dancing Mo-chine!" Here are 6 fun facts about TWICE's Main Dancer Momo! 1. Momo Once Appeared in SNSD's Japanese Documentary I first saw momo in a snsd japanese documentary when she wasnt even in twice yet. She got interviewed back in 2011, this is like core memory to me idek why. This is the interview BUT IM SO PROUD OF MOMO OMFG https://t.co/LKNDOvqWyd pic.twitter.com/04VAQrC0pq Freenoyip ! CHUU HOWL | HEEJIN ALGORITHM (@consti_ss) October 3, 2023 Before debuting with TWICE, Momo was featured in SNSD's Japanese documentary. In the clip, Momo was asked why she loves SNSD, to which she expressed her admiration for the second-gen icons' talent and style. Question: "What is the reason why you like SNSD" Momo: "They sing well, and their style is very good too. That is why I admire them. We want to be like SNSD!" Years later, in August 2020, SNSD's main dancer Hyoyeon mentioned that she would want to collaborate with Momo in the future due to her flawless dance lines. This was followed by Momo's reciprocation in 2021, as the idol also desires to collab with Hyoyeon. SNSD Hyoyeon chose Momo as the idol she wanted to collab with in the future "If I were to work with another idol for a dance collab next time, I think TWICE Momo would be great because her dance lines are really beautiful."https://t.co/JjK3kFvY7L pic.twitter.com/7iU79NGxLH misa (rest) (@misayeon) August 9, 2020 She also met YoonA in the 2023 Paris Fashion Week. We just love seeing queens support each other! 2. Momo Always Passes the Microphone in TWICE's Speeches Momo is definitely the main slayer on the dance floor. However, when it comes to giving speeches, fans could always see her hilarious antics just to avoid the mic! As shown in numerous clips, Momo is shown to be ignoring the microphone when passed across the group, which never fails to make ONCEs laugh. 3. Momo is a Food Lover Everyone knows how much of a food lover Momo is. With her fit physique, disciplined exercise routine, and powerful dance moves that consume energy, it's no surprise that the idol is not one to go all out in food. Many of her favorite foods are jokbal, mayonnaise, budae jjigae (Army Stew), omasum, and many more! 4. Momo Has Amazing Dance Performances Capable of modern dance, contemporary, freestyling, and hip hop, Momo has shown time and time again that she's one of the fiercest dancers in the K-pop industry. Watch some of her performances below: 5. She once struggled with her first language (Japanese...) In contrast to her charisma on the stage, Momo can also be adorable, weird, and unintentionally funny! From making her own "Momo" language to freezing in the middle of a sentence, the list goes on. However, Momo still managed to surprise everyone with her quirky demeanor, and it's not something that anyone could've expected. One time, Momo fumbled through her Japanese by stuttering and adding Korean language to the mix, sparking laughter between the TWICE members and ONCEs online! 6. Momo is a big fan of Rain! Many have wondered as to why Momo aspired to become an idol in the first place. That's because she was inspired by legendary K-pop icon Rain. In 2020, Momo couldn't hide her fangirl side, as she finally met her fave in person! Wishing Momo more birthdays to come! Read KpopStarz for more K-pop news. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: TWICE Momo Breaks THIS Record Among Japanese Idols, Celebrities KpopStarz owns this article Written by Riely Miller GILMER, Texas An East Texas man who's been on the run for more than a week after allegedly murdering two women in Upshur County has been tak Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. At the working session between the Vietnamese delegation and member of the Politburo of the French Communist Party (PCF) Taylan Coskun. (Photo: VNA) The delegation had a working session with member of the Politburo of the French Communist Party (PCF) Taylan Coskun and Secretary General of the PCF-run lHumanite (Humanity) newspaper Anthony Draguet. Draguet briefed the guests on the communication work of the newspaper as well as challenges that it is facing amid the current strong digital transformation. The two sides exchanged experience and discussed cooperation opportunities to promote partnership between the lHumanite newspaper with press agencies of Vietnam as well as those under the Party Central Committees Commission for Popularization and Education in particular. On this occasion, Lam presented Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong's book entitled "Some theoretical and practical issues on socialism and the path towards socialism in Vietnam which was translated into French to Daguet. At a working session with leaders of the France-Vietnam Friendship Association (AAFV), the Vietnamese delegation studied the operations of Perspective magazine, the information agency of the association. The magazine has worked to introduce and promote the image and information about Vietnam as well as the AAFV's activities to strengthen the friendship and cooperation between the governments and people of Vietnam and France. The delegation also worked with the Vietnamese Embassy and representatives of Vietnamese press agencies in France, including the Vietnam News Agency, Nhan dan (People) Newspaper and Radio the Voice of Vietnam. Ambassador Dinh Toan Thang highlighted recent progress in Vietnam-France relations and contributions from media agencies in this regard. During their stay, the delegation laid flowers at President Ho Chi Minh's statue and visited Ho Chi Minh space in Montreau park in Montreuil city. They also attended the Vietnamese Culture Day in France held at the Vietnamese Cultural Centre in France on the occasion of the 50th founding anniversary of Vietnam-France diplomatic relations and the 10th founding anniversary of bilateral strategic partnership./. Gorakhpur (UP), Nov 12 (PTI) Continuing the tradition he started nearly two-and-a-half decades ago, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday and celebrated Diwali with the people of the Vantangia community in Gorakhpur. Celebrating Diwali with the Vantangia community in Kusmahi forest, the chief minister also recalled the struggles undertaken for their rights. He said that any struggle done with a positive attitude never goes in vain. Also Read | Tamil Nadu: Fearing Diwali Firecrackers, Leopard Takes Shelter Inside House in Coonoor for 15 Hours. "For the deprived, getting all the facilities of governance and civil rights is indeed akin to Diwali and Ram Rajya in the true sense," he said. Adityanath reached the Vantangia village from Ayodhya. As a Diwali gift, he initiated Rs 153-crore development projects in various village panchayats of the district and inaugurated and laid the foundations for 52 development projects. Also Read | Diwali 2023: PM Narendra Modi Calls on President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Occasion of Deepavali Festival (See Pics). Addressing the people, the chief minister expressed his satisfaction on seeing concrete houses for the poor, water supply facilities, electricity, schools and anganwadi centres in the village. Adityanath said that in the last few years, everyone has witnessed the "changing face of Uttar Pradesh and the country." He emphasised that when efforts are made with honesty, the results are also positive, often blessed by divine grace. He said that six years ago, no one could have imagined that the construction of Lord Ram's temple in Ayodhya would be possible. "It was just a dream, but today, not only has the construction of the Ram temple begun, but the date for Lord Ram's manifestation has also been determined. This is a moment of pride not only for the entire India, but also for all followers of the Sanatan Dharma around the world," he said. The chief minister called upon the people to connect with the chanting of the name of Lord Ram and the recitation of the Ramayana along with lighting five lamps in their homes from a week before Lord Ram's manifestation in his "grand temple" in Ayodhya. The chief minister highlighted the road, rail, and air connectivity in Gorakhpur and announced that in the coming years, waterway connectivity will also be developed. He said that the people of Vantangia community used to live in fear earlier. "They were afraid of eviction, fake FIRs, and arrests from the forest department. However, in the government of double engine, their fear has gone. They have received their rights. Now, the people of Vantangia talk about their rights without fear. "Today, Vantangia people also have basic amenities like permanent housing, toilets, cooking gas connections, electricity connections, and Ayushman cards," he said. The neglected communities like Musahar, Tharu, Cheru, Buksa etc are also being provided with facilities such as housing, electricity, kitchen, and Ayushman cards, he added. Providing basic amenities and rights to neglected people is the real Diwali, he further said. Chief Minister Adityanath honoured the beneficiaries of various schemes, including the Ayushman Yojana, agricultural department schemes, Chief Minister Housing Scheme, Chief Minister Youth Self-Employment Scheme, and the National Rural Livelihood Mission. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Validating your browser . . . Please turn JavaScript on and reload the page. Please enable cookies and reload the page. This may take up to 5 seconds Event ID: 653122349449738137317630297888194136828 Kupwara (Jammu and Kashmir) [India], November 12 (ANI): Numbers of earthen lamps lit the Teetwal hamlet in Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district on Sunday as Diwali was celebrated for the first time at the Mata Sharda Devi temple in the last 75 years, the organiser of the event claimed. Prayers on the occasion were also performed in the temple, which is now reconstructed in the area on the Line of Control (LoC). Also Read | Diwali 2023: People Across Country Celebrate Deepavali Festival, Transcending Religious and Cultural Barriers by Decorating Houses With 'Diyas', Rangolis and Flowers (Watch Videos). Ravinder Pandita, Head and founder of the Save Sharda Committee said that this is happening for the first time in 75 years. "It's a matter of happiness that Diwali is being celebrated in the same way as it used to be before 75 years. The inauguration of this temple was done on March 22 after its renovation," Pandita said while speaking to ANI. Also Read | Diwali 2023: US President Joe Biden Extends Deepavali Greetings, Says South Asian Americans Have Woven Diwali Traditions Into the Fabric of United States. He further appealed to the government to open the Sharda Peeth -- "the seat of Sharada" like that of Kartarpur Sahib. "This is our request to the government that Sharda Peeth gets open like Kartarpur Sahib," he said. After performing the Diwali rituals, the people gathered outside the temple and burst firecrackers. The ancient temple and its centre were rebuilt with a view to reviving centuries-old pilgrimage to Sharda Peeth temple in the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). Sharda Peeth is an abandoned temple located in Sharda village along the Neelum River, which was a major centre of learning. It is regarded as one of the 18 highly revered temples across South Asia. The Save Sharda Committee took the lead in the reconstruction of the temple and a Sikh gurdwara after reclaiming the same. The temple was inaugurated on March 22 this year, Pandita said. "The inauguration of this temple was done on March 22 after its renovation as it was demolished during the attacks in the past. Prior to the tribal raids in 1947, a dharmshala and a Sikh gurdwara used to exist in the same plot that was burnt down in the raids," Pandita said. Teetwal was a traditional route of pilgrimage to Sharda Peeth which was last stopped in 1948 after the tribal raids and partition. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Validating your browser . . . Please turn JavaScript on and reload the page. Please enable cookies and reload the page. This may take up to 5 seconds Event ID: 1302028683435481002010460293969860151123 National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue joins the great national unity festival in residential area No.10 in Hoa Hiep Bac ward, Lien Chieu district, the central city of Da Nang, on November 11. (Photo: VNA) The top legislator made his remarks while attending the great national unity festival in residential area No.10 in Hoa Hiep Bac ward, Lien Chieu district, the central city of Da Nang, on November 11. Chairman Hue took this occasion to praise and thank local people for their unanimous support and cooperation with the city in implementing the Partys and State's policies, especially in deploying Lien Chieu port project, which is expected to become an international gateway connecting the central coastal region to the world. At the event, he presented gifts to 20 local social welfare beneficiary families and others gaining the outstanding cultural family title. The NA Chairman also witnessed the Vietnam National Petroleum Group (Petrolimex) donating 5 billion VND (205,550 USD) to fund the building of 100 charity houses in the locality. NA Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue and workers at the construction site of the Lien Chieu port project. (Photo: VNA) Earlier, the top legislator inspected the construction progress of the Lien Chieu port project and presented gifts to workers who are working on the site. The project covers an area of 450 hectares, with total investment of over 3.42 trillion VND. It began in December 2022, and is expected to be completed in November 2025./. Validating your browser . . . Please turn JavaScript on and reload the page. Please enable cookies and reload the page. This may take up to 5 seconds Event ID: 1456379022289932374716090022828736454104 Thane, Nov 12 (PTI) Police have arrested a 40-year-old man from Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh for allegedly killing a 19-year-old person in Maharashtra's Thane district after a personal dispute, an official said on Sunday. On November 8, the body of an unidentified man was found under Narpoli police station limits in Bhiwandi area here, senior police inspector Sachin Chowdhari of crime unit II said. Also Read | Ryan Gosling Birthday: From The Notebook to La La Land - Top 15 Movies of Barbie's Ken You Must Definitely Watch!. The police then registered an offence under section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code and launched a probe into the crime. After analysing the CCTV footage and based on technical and intelligence inputs, the victim was identified, the official said. Also Read | Dal Lake Fire: Three Bangladeshi Tourists Killed, Eight Others Rescued After Blaze Erupts at House Boats in Srinagar (Watch Videos). During the probe, it came to light that the accused was angry as the victim had helped the former's third wife to leave him. Hence he killed the victim, he said. The police got to know that the accused also wanted to kill his wife who was in Pratapgarh (UP) after leaving him and hence he had taken a train to UP, the official said. The accused stopped using his mobile phone, making it difficult for the police to track him. Based on technical inputs and bank details of the accused, the police traced him to a village under Buxa police station limits in UP's Jaunpur district. A police team from Bhiwandi took the assistance of their counterparts in UP and nabbed him from the village on Friday and brought him here on Saturday, the official said. The accused was a habitual offender and had around 25 criminal offences, including theft, dacoity attempt and assault, registered against him by the Narpoli, Bhiwandi taluka, Ulhasnagar, Navi Mumbai and Thane police, he said. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Uttarkashi (Uttarakhand) [India], November 12 (ANI): The SDRF team, which is leading the rescue operations at an under-construction tunnel in Uttarkashi, a portion of which collapsed earlier on Sunday, started removing debris from the scene. At least 36 workers are feared trapped under the debris from the collapse on the Yamunotri National Highway in the Uttarkashi district. Also Read | Diwali 2023: Sales of Liquor Up by 37% in Delhi Ahead of Deepavali Festival. Earlier in the day, Uttarkashi District Magistrate Abhishek Ruhela said the priority of the administration is to evacuate workers trapped inside the under-construction tunnel, and rescue operations are ongoing on war footing. The DM, while canceling the leaves of all the officers of the district, instructed them to immediately report to their respective workplaces and be ready round the clock for relief and rescue operations. Also Read | Telangana Fire: Massive Blaze Erupts at Slipper Godowns in Hyderabad (Watch Video). According to Uttarkashi SP Arpan Yaduvanshi, a portion of the under-construction tunnel, connecting Silkyara to Dandalgaon, collapsed on Saturday night. A part of the tunnel broke about 200 meters ahead of the starting point on the Silkyara side of Brahmakhal-Polgaon. Yaduvanshi said according to the officials of Hydroelectricity Investment and Development Company Limited (HIDCL), which has been contracted to build the tunnel, about 36 people are feared trapped under the debris and efforts are underway to pull them out alive. "Efforts are on to open up the tunnel. The process of removing debris from inside the tunnel is already in progress," an official said. A team from the State Disaster Response Team (SDRF) and the police are in charge of the ongoing rescue operations. Word about the tunnel collapse was received at the District Control Room, Uttarkashi, with the caller requesting the assistance of an SDRF team at the spot. Acting on the information, Commander, SDRF, Manikant Mishra, directed a rescue team led by Inspector Jagdamba Vijalwan to leave for the spot with the necessary rescue equipment, they said. "After reaching the spot, the SDRF personnel launched a relief and rescue operation on a war footing in coordination with other rescue units," the official said. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Noida (Uttar Pradesh) [India], November 12 (ANI): A man killed his wife by slitting her throat in Noida's sector 118 on Sunday, said police. "We received information in Sector-113 police station on November 12 that a person who was residing in the slum area in Sector-118 killed his wife," said Noida ADCP Shakti Mohan Awasthi. Also Read | Diwali 2023: US President Joe Biden Extends Deepavali Greetings, Says South Asian Americans Have Woven Diwali Traditions Into the Fabric of United States. As per the information from the police, the accused has been identified as Sunil Das. The Noida ADCP mentioned that the police, upon receiving the information of the incident, reached the spot and found that the accused had killed his wife by slitting her throat. Also Read | Madhya Pradesh Assembly Elections 2023: PM Narendra Modi to Hold Mega Roadshow in Indore Next Week Ahead MP Polls. "The incident occurred at around 2:40 pm during the day," said ADCP Awasthi. "The senior officer investigated the spot of the incident. Sunil Das is absconding as of now and six police teams are continuously involved in an attempt to apprehend Sunil,' he added. He further informed that the forenisc team also investigated the spot of the incident and a case is being registered while further proceedings are underway. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Tel Aviv [Israel], November 12 (ANI/TPS): The IDF reported that its forces together with Border Police units, working under the intelligence guidance of the Shin Bet (Israel's anti-terror General Security Service), arrested 15 wanted terrorists throughout Judea and Samaria overnight, including six terrorists from Hamas. Since the start of the war in Gaza, the IDF has captured about 1,570 wanted terrorists throughout Judea and Samaria, about 950 of whom are associated with the terrorist organization Hamas. Also Read | Israel-Hamas War: India Votes in Favour of UN Resolution Condemning Settlement Activities in Occupied Palestinian Territories. At the direction of the Shin Bet, a terrorist squad was thwarted in the village of Burka in Samaria. The terrorist Meneser Sif, 34 years old, tried to escape with a bomb in his hand but was eliminated by the forces. He was a resident of the village who was imprisoned by Israel for a period of 17 years due to his involvement in terrorist activities. Three other terrorists were arrested These are terrorists who belong to a terrorist cell responsible for several attacks in the area, including a bomb attack that injured an IDF soldier on October 23. Also Read | Canadian PM Justin Trudeau Says 'Fight' With India Not Something Canada Wants Right Now; Seeks To 'Work Constructively' With New Delhi. Also, additional explosive devices that were found in Sif's vehicle and on the roof of his house were destroyed by the forces. The forces also confiscated two "Carlo" type weapons that were in the terrorist squad's possession. During an operation of the forces in the city of Hebron, the fighters located a lathe and confiscated four machines for the production of weapons. In an engineering operation to counter terrorism in the city of Jenin, terrorists fired at the forces who responded with fire, a terrorist was killed. At the end of that activity as Israeli forces were leaving Jenin, they arrested another suspect and found three ready-to-use improvised explosive devices in his bag. (ANI/TPS) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Tel Aviv [Israel], November 12 (ANI/TPS): Terrorists in Lebanon fired anti-tank missiles in the area of Moshav Dovev, injuring several civilians, the Israel Defence Forces said. The army is shelling the source of the fire with artillery. Also Read | Diwali 2023 Wishes: UK PM Rishi Sunak, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, Australian PM Anthony Albanese and Other World Leaders Extend Greetings on Deepavali Festival. The IDF also struck a terror squad planning to fire rockets from a civilian area. Meanwhile, Hezbollah claimed responsibility for firing a guided anti-tank rocket in the area of Moshav Dovev that injured several employees of the Israel Electric Corporation. Also Read | Israel-Hamas War: India Votes in Favour of UN Resolution Condemning Settlement Activities in Occupied Palestinian Territories. The Electric Company said its employees were repairing power lines damaged in previous fire from Lebanon. Hezbollah claimed the victims were installing surveillance equipment near the border.(ANI/TPS) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Kabul [Afghanistan], November 12 (ANI): Several residents in Kabul have complained and reported that they are unable to buy coal and firewood because of financial difficulties, especially when winters are approaching, Pajhwok News reported. In Kabul's Chahar Rahi Shaheed neighbourhood, vendors of coal and firewood said that the public's willingness to buy these goods had decreased by 50 per cent as a result of economic woes. Also Read | Israel-Hamas War: India Votes in Favour of UN Resolution Condemning Settlement Activities in Occupied Palestinian Territories. One of the wood vendors, Abdul Hakim, stated that whereas he was selling more than 10 tonnes of wood per day last year, he is currently selling more than 1.5 tonnes of coal and firewood per day. According to Abdul Hakim, 560 kilogrammes of Archa wood cost between 2,700 and 8,000 afs last year, while 560 kilogrammes of Baloot wood cost between 7,000 and 8,000 afs, reported Pajhwok News. Also Read | Canadian PM Justin Trudeau Says 'Fight' With India Not Something Canada Wants Right Now; Seeks To 'Work Constructively' With New Delhi. "The price of coal had declined because the government reduced duty on coal and its exports to Pakistan had declined but the Bora Arah price declined because of reduction in its demand; people are unable to purchase it thus shopkeepers had reduced its rate," he said. When questioned about the cost of firewood, the respondent stated that since the government forbade deforestation and obstructed transportation routes, the cost of wood has increased, according to Pajhwok News. One of the firewood vendors in Taimani's Chaman Babrak neighbourhood, Jamshid, admitted that the cost of wood had increased. "There are no customers; a few people whose relatives are in the foreign country get remittances and then they could purchase wood but most of the people are poor and unable to purchase wood," Pajhwok News quoted him as saying. Since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, the country's economic situation has deteriorated. The Afghans have repeatedly complained of lack of basic amenities under the interim government and the country is now heavily dependent on humanitarian aid. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Tel Aviv [Israel], November 12 (ANI/WAM): Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem on Saturday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ruled out the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza after the war. Asked about the possibility of the PA administering the Strip, Netanyahu said, "I repeat: total security control with the ability to enter whenever you want to eliminate terrorists who could re-emerge." Also Read | Israel-Palestine War: IDF Kills Hamas Commander Who 'Prevented 1,000 Palestinians From Evacuating Gaza Hospital'. He added that "no matter what, there will be no Hamas... There will not be a civil authority that educates children to hate the State of Israel, to kill Israelis, to eliminate the State of Israel... There cannot be an authority there whose leader did not condemn this terrible massacre more than 30 days later." The Iran-backed Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007. Members of the rival Fatah in Gaza were either killed, imprisoned, or expelled. (ANI/WAM) Also Read | Israel-Hamas War: Pro-Palestinian Rally Kicks Off in UK To Show Anger Against Israeli Aggression in Gaza (Watch Video). (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Paris [France], November 12 (ANI/WAM): Sheikh Salem bin Khalid Al Qasimi, UAE's Minister of Culture and Youth, called on member states of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to join the efforts of the UAE and its friends in leading climate change to save the planet, on the occasion of the country's hosting of The Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28) will take place from November 30 to December 12 in Expo City, Dubai. This came in the UAE's speech delivered by His Excellency, during the 42nd session of the UNESCO General Conference, which was held yesterday at the organization's headquarters in Paris, in the presence of ministers of education and culture from 195 countries around the world, in addition to representatives of international organizations. Also Read | Israel-Hamas War: Popular Israeli Web Series 'Fauda' Star Matan Meir Killed in Gaza, Says IDF. At the beginning of his speech, he conveyed the greetings and wishes of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of UAE, may God protect him, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President of the UAE, Prime Minister, and Ruler of Dubai, may God protect him, and Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Vice President of the State, Deputy Prime Minister, Head of the Presidential Office, and their brothers, members of the Supreme Council of the Federation and Rulers of the Emirates, to the participants in the conference. Sheikh Salem bin Khalid Al Qasimi said: "We call on all member states of UNESCO to join us in this group of friends who are leading climate change to save the planet, during the UAE's hosting of the COP28 conference at the end of this month in Dubai," noting the efforts The UAE in the field of environmental sustainability, and its keenness to empower its children and train them to be fully prepared to face the requirements of the digital age in which we live today, pointing out that the UAE proposed to the General Conference of UNESCO an item that was accepted, regarding allocating a World Day of Programming and celebrating it globally on October 29th. Every year, with the aim of supporting digital transformation." Also Read | Diwali 2023: Google CEO Sundar Pichai Wishes Happy Deepavali, Shares Top 'Why' Questions on Tradition. He touched on the state's efforts in developing culture, education, and preserving wealth, stressing that the UAE government has developed its strategies as required by the determinants of the future and according to stable pillars that enhance the renaissance and development of the state, and is centered around building the foundations of comprehensive development for various sectors, foremost among which is culture and education of its various types, including... Digital education. Sheikh Salem bin Khalid Al Qasimi renewed the UAE's support for UNESCO's programs in preserving, maintaining and restoring archaeological sites in the world, as is the case in Iraq, when the organization launched a pioneering initiative entitled Reviving the Spirit of Mosul, to rebuild the Al-Nuri Mosque, the humpback minaret, two churches and other archaeological sites. The UAE was the first financier and partner of this initiative, and allocated an amount exceeding fifty million US dollars to it. He said that after completing extensive preparatory work that included documentation and demining, cleaning the site and clearing it of rubble, cleaning stones of historical value and storing them for reuse, consolidating the structure, conducting surveys, consulting with the public, field studies and soil tests, conducting archaeological excavations, and preparing designs. Executive work was undertaken to rebuild prominent landmarks in the old city. He added: "As we approach the sixth anniversary of the project, the final construction phase of the Al-Nuri Mosque, Al-Tahira Church, and the Church of the Hour is at hand to complete this giant project that has provided more than 2,600 job opportunities for the people of Mosul." He stressed that the country is harnessing all its capabilities to achieve sustainable development and develop culture and education, while at the same time sending an invitation to all participants in the work of the UNESCO General Conference to attend the activities of the Education, Culture and Arts Conference, which will be held in mid-February next year in Abu Dhabi, which will seek to bring together stakeholders. The key figures to reshape policies and direction and formulate new ideas to promote culture and artistic education for future generations, pointing out that the UAE is harnessing all its potential to achieve sustainable development. Regarding regional and international affairs, His Excellency Sheikh Salem bin Khalid Al Qasimi, before the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, renewed the UAE's call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and said: "The United Arab Emirates calls again for the necessity of an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, stop the loss of life and demand the protection of civilians in accordance with international law, including international treaties. He renewed the UAE's commitment and its continued support of all UNESCO programs and objectives, stressing that its participation in the General Conference comes within the framework of its directions aimed at strengthening global efforts to preserve global human heritage and sustain education and culture, and that the role played by the UAE is pivotal and derives its importance from supporting the wise leadership. Which spares no effort in consolidating global efforts in this direction to achieve the benefit of future generations. He stated that the United Arab Emirates will celebrate its fifty-second National Day on the second of next December. It was founded by the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, may God have mercy on him, in very complex regional circumstances, stressing that the founding leader, may God have mercy on him, realized that wisdom is the way to build the future, so he transferred the people of the Emirates, its geography, and its history, from time to time. Another, and established change in minds, visions, and choices, and he was aware that the world respects you, to the extent of the achievements you achieve, and the line of deeds that leave global imprints. (ANI/WAM) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Validating your browser . . . Please turn JavaScript on and reload the page. Please enable cookies and reload the page. This may take up to 5 seconds Event ID: 2047922619411403789604101847313311415 BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 12. On November 12, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan Jeyhun Bayramov left for an official visit to the Kingdom of Morocco, Trend reports citing the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry. The ministry reported that as part of the visit, it is planned to hold a meeting of the Joint Commission on Bilateral Cooperation between the government of the Republic of Azerbaijan, co-chaired by Minister Jeyhun Bayramov, and the government of the Kingdom of Morocco. In addition, bilateral and multilateral meetings are planned with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Morocco, as well as with the Director General of the World Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) and other senior officials. DEAR MISS MANNERS: My college senior -- a very capable, autistic young adult -- was traveling by train from Washington to Philadelphia. Seats were scarce. My child ended up seeking a seat in the quiet car. They found an empty seat and asked the woman next to it if it was taken. The woman very loudly and dramatically shushed them and pointed out that it was a quiet car, causing everyone in the car to turn and stare. My child was quite upset and embarrassed by this interaction, and very much wants to know the correct approach: Simply sit down without inquiring if the seat is available? Inquire anyway and risk quiet-car wrath? GENTLE READER: There is quiet and then there is ridiculous. Your child was being polite by asking. And if it makes your senior feel any better, Miss Manners has no doubt that this rude passenger would have been just as upset if she had not been asked. *** MORE FROM MISS MANNERS: Miss Manners: Woman seeks job connections from friend she hasnt contacted in years Miss Manners: To the person texting from the car ... please proceed to the front door Miss Manners: Single woman is tired of answering questions about the ring she wears on her left hand Miss Manners: How do I get a friend to stop sending text messages that include photos of my ex? Miss Manners: Wait, I get a pork chop and the groom gets a porterhouse?! *** (Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.) *** COPYRIGHT 2023 JUDITH MARTIN DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106; 816-581-7500 New Moon Prep Though they are commonplace and happening around us all the time, there are few things more fascinating than transformations: trees change color; water insects grow wings; children get tall; professionals change jobs; lovers change their mind. Tomorrows new moon of transformation warrants preparation. If you could choose the change, what would it be? SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). Youre well aware of the difference that a stellar presentation can make. Youll teach and lead. Explaining things well will make all the difference. A light dose of humor will make the hard work that follows more palatable to all. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). Focus on your own wishes and things will come together quickly for you. Your mind and heart will be filled with contentment before you get what you want because being in the flow of it is already so exciting. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19). Syncing up with others will be a challenge. Consider that all the inhabitants of Earth dont use the same calendar. Youll have the most luck when you follow your animal instincts instead of the clock. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18). Theres something about you that makes people want to live up to your expectation of them. Youre constantly looking for opportunities to connect, uplift and support others. Youll give your trust, and in turn, people will behave in a trustworthy manner. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20). Settle into an easy pace. Leisurely activities are worthwhile endeavors. The best use of your time will be the thing that takes the least amount of effort. Relax and be free. ARIES (March 21-April 19). The problem will be boring, the solution interesting. Youre the magic ingredient that makes it so. Your curiosity drops into places others wouldnt think to investigate. Youre the spark. TAURUS (April 20-May 20). Your opinion of yourself will affect the outcome of endeavors professional and personal, major and minor. All interactions will be affected. Just feel good about yourself. Its a decision that doesnt cost a thing. GEMINI (May 21-June 21). Youll consider different work. The financial aspect aside, an effective criterion by which to determine the right position for you will be the jobs capacity to add value, depth and richness to your life. CANCER (June 22-July 22). Of course how you see yourself is more important than how others see you, yet today its practically impossible to get a good angle on it. Better to forget yourself entirely and get lost in a project. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). Dont let anyone go lonely on your dime! There are people around you who need more attention, interaction or help than they let on. Keeping up with your social life will be some of the most important work youll do. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Youll plan an upcoming event. In some ways, youll stick to tradition. In other ways, youll veer from it or build on it. Because you think things through, youll end up doing the impossible -- pleasing everyone. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23). There are those who will try to get away with anything and everything they can. Youll uphold the ideal of justice for all. Where justice is denied, everyone suffers. TODAYS BIRTHDAY (Nov. 12). Even as a work in progress you feel completely yourself. This uncensored version attracts true friends, love and opportunities that resonate at a very deep level. Also, youll experience excitement and money, though not at once. A position of status doesnt pay, and an extremely lucrative though humble job does. Gemini and Capricorn adore you. Your lucky numbers are: 1, 4, 44, 18 and 30. CELEBRITY PROFILES: On the heels of the enormous success of Barbie, theres a Hollywood rumor that Ryan Gosling will reunite with Margot Robbie in a new Oceans 11 project. But first comes the release of The Fall Guy, a thriller so mysterious that no hints of the plot have been disclosed. Gosling is a former Mickey Mouse Club star whos been in show business since childhood. Four natal Libran planets suggests that relationships always come first for this soulful Scorpio. Holiday Mathis debut novel, How To Fail Epically in Hollywood, is out now! This fast-paced romp about achieving Hollywood stardom is available as a paperback and ebook. Visit http://www.creatorspublishing.com for more information. Write Holiday Mathis at HolidayMathis.com. COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS.COM Somerset and Middlesex counties have chipped in to literally uncover a piece of history from the American Revolution. A stone arch bridge where British and Hessian troops clashed with Americans in 1777 lies buried beneath asphalt in the driveway of the Handle with Care Express trucking company off South Main Street in Bound Brook. Handle with Care Express is moving its operations and recently sold the two-acre property for $3 million to Somerset and Middlesex counties, which split the cost and plan to uncover the bridge and turn it into a park. Its been on the radar for some time as a significant historic landmark, but because it was privately owned, the county couldnt get a hold of it, said Thomas Boccino, the supervising planner for Somerset. We got lucky; when the owner was looking to relocate, we took the opportunity to negotiate. Boccino said Somerset County is scheduled to take title to the property in March, and will then will clear the land and begin to uncover the 80-foot stone arch bridge, which dates to 1731 and is believed to be intact. Commonly known as the Old Stone Arch Bridge, the span is on the National Register of Historic Places and believed to be the oldest structure of its kind in New Jersey. The high-level vision is to expose the bridge, make it available for people to experience and create a park around it. It would become a small pocket park, he said. Thomas Boccino, supervising planner of preservation for Somerset County, touches a part of an old stone arch bridge that is next to Handle with Care Express, a truck transportation business, in Bound Brook on Thursday, November 9, 2023. The stone arch bridge, that has been covered and paved over, was the scene of the Battle of Bound Brook in April of 1777.Julian Leshay | For NJ Advance Media The acquisition comes as Somerset and other counties are gearing up for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Many of the major battles in the war that followed were fought in New Jersey at Trenton, Princeton, Monmouth and Springfield but also smaller encounters like the one-day skirmish at Bound Brook on April 13, 1777. On that day, about 4,000 British and Hessian troops marched from New Brunswick to Bound Brook, where they were met by a garrison of 500 Americans protecting the village on the banks of the Raritan River. Somerset County commemorates the event every year with a historic reenactment on the Queens Bridge located just a few feet away. Crossing the stone bridge, the redcoats were met by the murderous fire of the Americans, in the words of a Hessian captain who led the assault, Johann von Ewald. Vastly outnumbered, the Americans managed to hold the bridge long enough to allow most of the garrison to escape to the nearby Watchung mountains. Accounts differ, but most sources estimate that 30 to 40 Americans were killed, and only a few British. But rather than chase the Americans, the British plundered the village, then fell back to New Brunswick. That gave the ragtag Continentals a chance to regroup in the Watchung Mountains, an encampment outside of Bridgewater in Somerset County known as Middlebrook. The American commander, Gen. George Washington, had been headquartered in Morristown, but decided to concentrate his army at Middlebrook after the loss at Bound Brook. Bound Brook gave Washington a lesson in warfare, said Jim Stempel, a Westfield native and the author of The Enemy Harassed: Washingtons New Jersey Campaign of 1777. The hills of Middlebrook protect him from a British assault and give Washington time to raise and train a larger army, Stempel said. After Bound Brook, Washington decides his army is spread too thin, Stempel said. His evolution of thought is really quite remarkable. He comes to a different understanding of how he is going to fight. A truck drives over a paved old stone arch bridge, from the American Revolution, that is next to Handle with Care Express, a truck transportation business, in Bound Brook on Thursday, November 9, 2023. The stone arch bridge, that has been covered and paved over, was the scene of the Battle of Bound Brook in April of 1777.Julian Leshay | For NJ Advance Media Outside of Morris County, Washington spent more time in Somerset County than anywhere else. His Continental Army would return to Middlebrook encampment for the Winter of 1778-79, after the British had been driven out of New Jersey. Washingtons army left its footprints all over Somerset County. Besides the stone arch bridge, the county is building a new access road and meeting center at Washington Valley Park in Bridgewater, site of the Middlebrook encampment. In addition, the county has a retained a consultant, Richard Hunter and Associates, and an archaeologist at Monmouth University, Richard Veit, to investigate the homesite of William Alexander, a general in the Continental Army who went by the title Lord Stirling. The site is in 1,000-acre Lord Stirling Park in Basking Ridge. Another project underway at Lord Stirling Park involves restoration of the Elias Boudinot Mansion. Boudinot was an intelligence officer in the Continental Army who later served in Congress. Boccino said he hopes the stone arch bridge is on display in time for Americas 250th birthday in 2026. Were really excited about the possibilities and were itching to get started, Bocchino said. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Richard Cowen may be reached at rcowen@njadvancemedia.com. By Sue Wandalowski After reviewing the Lehigh County controller report dated Aug. 23 -- The Cost of Misdiagnosis -- Controller Mark Pinsley appears ill-informed as to the practical aspects of a child protective services investigation and the procedures followed by child welfare agencies. This ignorance has the potential to make the Lehigh Valleys children less safe. Mr. Pinsley erroneously assumes that an indicated finding [is] is based on minimal evidence (Report, p. 6). He incorrectly assumes that the 60-day determination deadline may unintentionally encourage caseworkers to prematurely determine an indicated status, especially if they feel time-pressured and lean towards caution. (Report, p. 39). He implies that a single caseworker determines whether a report of child abuse may be marked as indicated, opining that investigators take a conservative approach, marking cases as indicated if the investigator is unsure if the case should be indicated or unfounded. (Report, p. 36). Contrary to Mr. Pinsleys assumptions, an indicated status requires a determination by the child welfare agency that substantial evidence exists to support a finding that child abuse occurred, as defined by the Child Protective Services Law. Accordingly, a county agency must mark the case as unfounded without substantial evidence, even if the agency personnel believe the alleged incident occurred. The 60-day deadline for completion of a CPS status determination can have the opposite effect than what Mr. Pinsley assumes; the agency must mark a case as unfounded if reports/records/interviews necessary to establish substantial evidence are not obtained within the timeframe. A single caseworker cannot decide that substantial evidence exists to support an indicated status. Under Pennsylvania law, a final determination that a report of suspected child abuse is indicated must be approved by the county child welfare agency administrator or his/her designee and reviewed by a county solicitor. Mr. Pinsley proposes implementation of safeguards to the case status determination process without mentioning if he took any steps prior to publication of the report to ascertain if any county agencies in Pennsylvania already implement such safeguards. This gives a false impression that none exist and that determinations are reached throughout Pennsylvania without significant consideration of the information obtained. Mr. Pinsley recommends second opinions from unrelated medical professionals. (Report, pp. 6, 32). Northampton County CYF often has medical reports obtained during CPS investigations reviewed by unrelated medical professionals. Mr. Pinsley proposes that caseworkers receive medical condition training. Northampton County CYF contracts with St. Lukes Visiting Nurses Association and has nurses on-site to review medical records and provide guidance. Case status determinations resulting in an indicated status in Northampton County are made after a formal review, including each involved caseworker, his/her supervisor(s), and the child protective services program director or her administrative-level designee, with an agency attorney present. Mr. Pinsley notes that many indicated reports are changed to an unfounded status following appeals to the Pennsylvania Bureau of Hearings and Appeals (BHA). (Report, p. 37). Many BHA appeals never proceed to a hearing on the merits due to a childs reluctance to undergo the trauma of testifying before the BHA in the alleged perpetrators presence. Appeal hearings are often scheduled months (or years) after the incident. By then, some victims have made progress dealing with their trauma and do not want to revisit the incident. Additionally, appeals may result in an unfounded status due to technical issues that have nothing to do with whether or not the alleged incident happened. (e.g., a missed filing deadline or the alleged perpetrator not being a close enough relative to the child to meet statutory criteria.) Overall, the Lehigh County controllers report gives an inaccurate impression that an indicated status, or even the mere allegation of child abuse, leads to a childs placement in foster care. This ignores the legal criteria and procedures outlined in the Pennsylvania Juvenile Act that apply when a child welfare agency requests court action for removal of a child from home. Not all indicated status of abuse lead to juvenile dependency cases. Before proceeding to a dependency action, county agencies are required to exert all reasonable efforts to avoid requesting removal. These include family engagement efforts to assist the family in creating a plan to minimize disruption and trauma to the child while the agency performs the required investigation. If temporary removal of the child is necessary due to a risk to the childs safety, the agency must look for relatives and family friends before considering foster care. The agency must show the court that it made reasonable efforts to prevent removal, unless impossible due to emergency circumstances. Families sometimes refuse to provide information that would help alleviate concerns and/or refuse to participate in family engagement efforts designed to try to avoid placement. Although such conduct does not necessarily indicate a problem in the home warranting court intervention, this conduct makes it much more difficult for the agency to complete a thorough investigation/assessment and provide appropriate assistance to families. Inciting families to distrust the status determination process based on incorrect assumptions has the potential to lead more families to refuse to cooperate with investigations, participate in family engagement, and accept services designed to keep families together. It makes the necessary work of the CPS workers even more difficult as they strive to keep children safe. Having accepted a $50,000 donation to his PAC from the same attorney representing the families of these children, is Mr. Pinsley genuinely concerned about the search for truth? His apparent lack of understanding of the child welfare system, coupled with his political ambitions and donation from Francis Malofiy, it is my opinion that Mark Pinsley has made children in the Lehigh Valley less safe. Sue Wandalowski is Northampton County Director of Human Services. River Pointe Logistics Center has applied for several permits to be issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. The DEP is hosting a public hearing for the proposed 800-acre Slate Belt development at 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 13, in the Bangor Area High School theater, 187 Five Points Richmond Road in Upper Mount Bethel Township. The DEP hearing is for a National Pollutant Discharge and Elimination System (NPDES) permit for stormwater, and a Water Obstruction and Encroachment Joint Permit Application. River Pointe has proposed building up to 6 million square feet of industrial buildings on land in the township bordered by River Road, Potomac Street and North Delaware Drive, also known as Route 611. The NPDES permit application would allow discharge of stormwater from construction activities at the site to an unknown tributary to Delaware River, an unknown tributary to Allegheny Creek and to other wetlands, which are subject to special protections under the federal Clean Water Act. Individuals wishing to testify at the hearing are requested to submit a written notice of intent to Colleen Connolly, DEP Regional Communications Manager at coconnolly@pa.gov. Requests will be accepted up to the day of the hearing. Testimony will be limited to five minutes per person so that all will have the opportunity to testify. The hearing is scheduled to end at 9 p.m. Monday. Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust. John Best is a freelance contributor to lehighvalleylive.com. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 12. According to the plan approved by the Minister of Defense, Colonel General Zakir Hasanov, a number of events were held in the Azerbaijan Army on the occasion of 12 November - Constitution Day, Trend reports citing the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry. First, the memory of the National Leader of the Azerbaijani people Heydar Aliyev, and Shehids, who sacrificed their lives for the territorial integrity and independence of the Motherland, was honored with observing a minute of silence. The national anthem was performed. The speakers highlighted the historical significance of the adoption of the new constitution, prepared under the leadership of Great Leader Heydar Aliyev after the restoration of independence, and emphasized that November 12 was declared Constitution Day by the order of the National Leader dated February 6, 1996. 28 years after its adoption, the Constitution consisting of 5 sections, 12 chapters and 158 articles was supplemented and amended by referendum in 2002, 2009 and 2016. It was noted that due to the resolute will and far-sighted policy of the Victorious Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Mr. Ilham Aliyev, after the occupation and ensuring territorial integrity, the constitutional system was restored in all regions of our republic. Today Constitution Day is celebrated with great pride in the whole country. People who died in World War One and other conflicts around the world will be remembered at events in Laois in November. A remembrance ceremony for those who died in World War One and in subsequent conflicts across the globe will be held on Sunday, November 2023 in Portlaoise. A service of remembrance will be conducted in St Peter's Church of Ireland at 10:45 am and this will be followed by a wreath-laying ceremony at the War Memorial Millview, Portlaoise at 12:00 with members of the public invited to attend. Fine Gael's Laois Offaly TD and former Minister Charlie Flanagan will give a speech at the war memorial. He has attended the annual event which has taken place in the town for many years. He posted a simple message on Armistice Day, November 11, 2023 in memory of those who have died: We remember them. An estimated 50,000 Irish fought in the First World War. Many signed up from Laois, then Queens County, to fight in what is termed 'The Great War'. Armistice Day was marked with ceremonies in the county well after independence in towns around Laois. The Portlaoise ceremony is the only official marking of the end of the 1914-18 war and 'the fallen'. Terry Dunne, Laois Historian-in-Residence, with Laois Local Studies writes that he Leinster Express began its local round-up of remembrance events in November 1928 with a "cosmopolitan vision". In every city, town and remote hamlet in the British Isles, and in far distant places in the Empire where Britons dwell, homage was paid on Sunday to those who laid down their lives in the Great War. . . . . The ceremony at the Cenotaph, where the King led his people in the tribute to those who had fallen, was broadcast for the first time. Terry writes that the paper went on to detail Remembrance Sunday, as it is now known, in Maryborough, Abbeyleix, Mountmellick, Mountrath, Portarlington, Coolbanagher and Rathdowney, as well as in the adjacent counties. Read Terry's full article HERE. The 2023 commemoration is supported by Laois County Council. The CEO of Concern has thanked Laois supporters for raising nearly a quarter of a million euros last year. CEO David Regan was in Portlaoise on Friday (November 3) to meet supporters of the Irish humanitarian organisation and thank them for their unfaltering support over the years. Speaking to gathered volunteers at the Parish Centre in Portlaoise, he said, "The commitment and dedication that our supporters have given in the last almost fifty years has helped Concern and humanitarian issues stay in the public consciousness. Its great to be able to come and thank them in person and update them on what were doing with the money theyve raised." He continued: "Ive recently returned from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where almost 7 million people have been forced to flee their homes due to conflict, making it one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world. "Concern has been working to support people, providing safer housing, toilets, clean water sources and soap, among other things. The continued support of the people of Laois allows us to respond to situations like the ones Ive seen in DRC. Many volunteers have been with the organisation since the 1970s, either through raising funds at home in county Laois or through working with Concern in countries such as Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Thailand, Tanzania, Sudan, Angola and Uganda. Helen Corbett, who has fundraised for Concern in Portlaoise since 1974, started the group with friends, stating, "Laois is a very generous place, with a strong community spirit. Despite the current economic climate and difficulties, people continue to donate. They want to give and contribute to Concerns work. Ive fundraised for almost 50 years, as its not about just handing people money, its about giving them the skills and training to improve their own lives." The group will be holding a collection for Concern around Portlaoise town on Friday November 24. She added: We have a lot of dedicated volunteers who come to the aid of the organisation on every occasion to raise funds. There are people from surrounding parishes who help at every event and have so for a number of years. COVID has brought its own problems because we have not got back to our full strength since, and people not carrying cash anymore is also a challenge." This year marks 55 years since Concern was founded by a small group of people in Ireland to respond to famine and conflict in Biafra. In 2022 the humanitarian organisation reached 36 million people in 25 of the worlds poorest countries. Former Scoil Chriost Ri Portlaoise student Molly McNultys significant performance in the Leaving Certificate 2023 has been acknowledged and celebrated by Maynooth University. A first year student in the BBA Business and Languages degree, Molly is one of over 70 Maynooth University Entrance Scholars, each having achieved 575 points or more in their Leaving Certificate examination. Maynooth University President Professor Eeva Leinonen presented each scholar with a bespoke piece of crystal in recognition of their achievement during the awards ceremony held on the campus on October 25. Family members and guests were treated to an evening of music and refreshments .Director of Admissions, Ita McGuigan spoke at the event. We are delighted to celebrate with Scholarship recipients, their family and schools, their outstanding achievement in the Leaving Certificate. Tonight, we had over 70 Scholars from more than 60 schools from all over Ireland in attendance, who chose to study at Maynooth University. The 1,000 Entrance Scholarship is awarded to incoming first year students, via the CAO, who have obtained 575 points or more in their Leaving Certificate. Academic and sport scholarship information features among more than 80 talks planned for each of the Maynooth University Open Days, pn November 24 and 25, April 27 and June 29 2024. More information is available at www.mu.ie/opendays. Storm Debi is on course to hit Laois and most Leinster counties making for a hazardous start to the week due its impact. Met Eireann has issued a series of warnings for Storm Debi which is forecast to hit Ireland on Sunday night and Monday morning. Ireland's forecaster has put Laois and 15 counties under a wind warning for the early hours of Monday morning. They are: Carlow, Dublin, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Longford, Louth, Meath, Offaly, Westmeath, Wicklow, Clare, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary and Galway. Met Eireann warns Storm Debi will bring "severe and damaging gusts." Met Eireann warns of damage to exposed and vulnerable structures, dangerous travelling conditions, disruption to services and damage to power lines. This warning is valid from 2am to 12pm on Monday. Met Eireann has also issued a Status Yellow wind and rain warning for the entire country. Forecasters says it will be "very windy or stormy on Sunday night and Monday due to Storm Debi, accompanied by heavy rain with a chance of embedded thunderstorms and hail." Possible impacts include fallen trees/branches, localised flooding, wave overtopping and hazardous travelling conditions This warning is valid from midnight on Sunday to 3pm on Monday. The national outlook is for mixed and unsettled weather with blustery showers on many of the days ahead. MORE FORECAST BELOW post. #StormDebi will sweep across Ireland on Sunday night & Monday morning There will be severe and damaging gusts, likely to lead to: Damage to vulnerable structures Dangerous travelling conditions Disruption to services & power lines More here https://t.co/Xg3aMJlyuS pic.twitter.com/TUuzgodvdg Met Eireann (@MetEireann) November 12, 2023 National forecast issued at 10.41am on 12 November. Sunday: Rain will continue to track northeastwards, becoming mainly confined to Ulster by the afternoon and clearing before the evening. A mix of sunny spells and showers elsewhere will follow behind the rain. Moderate to fresh southeasterly winds, will veer southwesterly, and ease as the rain clears. Highest temperatures will range 8 to 13 degrees, coolest in the north and mildest in the south. A mix of clear spells and scattered showers to begin at night. Thundery spells of rain will follow later, turning very heavy in places, especially over Connacht and Ulster with some flooding, hail and lightning possible. Cyclonic variable winds will pick up in strength too with very windy or stormy westerly winds developing with some severe and damaging gusts possible. Lowest temperatures of 5 to 9 degrees. Monday: Begins very windy or stormy with further severe or damaging gusts along with thundery rain in places. Rain will clear to the north through the morning, followed by sunny spells and heavy showers. Strong to gale force westerly winds will gradually ease off into the afternoon. Highest temperatures of 9 to 13 degrees. Clear spells and blustery heavy showers, mainly affecting Atlantic counties at night. Lowest temperatures of 6 to 9 degrees in moderate to fresh southwest winds. TUESDAY: Blustery with sunny spells and widespread heavy showers with the best of the drier brighter spells across the southeast and east. Highest temperatures of 10 to 13 degrees in fresh and gusty westerly winds. The winds will ease overnight with showers confined to the northwest. Lowest temperatures of 3 to 7 degrees. WEDNESDAY: Current indications suggest it will be mostly dry with sunny spells and calmer winds. Highest temperatures of 8 to 11 degrees in light southwesterly breezes. THURSDAY: Sunny spells and scattered showers - most of which will affect Atlantic counties. Quite breezy in moderate to fresh westerly winds. Cool with highest temperatures 7 to 10 degrees. FURTHER OUTLOOK: Unsettled later this week. Ireland's emergency response team has issued a range of warnings, directions and guidance in response to Storm Debi which Met Eireann forecasts will be a damaging and life-threatening weather event. With Status Red, Orange and Yellow alerts declared, the National Directorate for Emergency and Fire Management (NDFEM) called a National Emergency Coordination Group met on Sunday, November 12. It was attended by Met Eireann, the OPW, the local authorities, principal response agencies, key Departments and responding national organisations to prepare for Storm Debi which is expected to impact Ireland from the early hours of Monday, November 13. Speaking after the meeting, Keith Leonard, Director-General of the NDFEM issued advise the public. Given the challenging wind and rain conditions expected, I would urge members of the public to stay away from all coastal areas for the duration of the Met Eireann warnings. Travel in counties under a red warning is not advised until the alert has finished. Furthermore, all road users should only travel where necessary and be aware of the potential for hazardous travelling conditions. Motorists should slow down and be aware of the dangers of fallen trees and debris. High-sided vehicles, cyclists and motorcyclists are particularly vulnerable during this time. With all issues in relation to transport tomorrow, people can expect lengthy delays and should check their travel plans in advance of setting out on their journey. Public transport operators will provide updated information throughout the day. There is likely to be disruption across all ports and airports tomorrow. Given the disruption to travel networks, employers are asked to be flexible to those who will be disrupted getting to work tomorrow and consider the option of working from home. Importantly, I would remind people that it is critical that they never ever touch or approach fallen wires. Be sure to stay safe and stay clear of fallen or damaged electricity wires and, if you encounter any, do contact ESB Networks at 1800 372 999. Where power cuts do occur, use the PowerCheck App to check for reconnection times. Everybody is encouraged to keep mobile phones charged and at hand in case of emergencies and to check for updates where necessary We will continue to monitor the ongoing weather conditions and ensure that all relevant state bodies are responding speedily and appropriately to meet any challenges. I would advise everybody to monitor national and local media, including social media, over the course of tomorrow to keep up to date with information regarding the developing weather situation. Above all, make sure you stay safe and keep in touch with vulnerable or elderly neighbours, he said. The following are key areas highlighted. ESB Networks: Customers can check estimated restoration times or report an outage on Powercheck.ie. Safety of public and crews is critical. ESB Networks will be making safe any faults which occur throughout the day and restoring supply remotely and on site when safe to do so. Local Authorities: Councils, who are the lead agency for the response to severe weather events on the ground, have activated their Crisis Management Teams and Local Coordination Groups and have been meeting and co-ordinating preparation for the arrival of Storm Debi including readiness for restoring road networks following any weather disruption. Education: On the balance of risk and to ensure public safety all schools and preschools, are being asked to delay opening in orange and red counties until 10am tomorrow. School managers at local level will advise parents of any disruption to school services. Transport: The Department of Transport is engaging with agencies and operators in preparation for any disruption to transport services and has initiated its severe weather protocol. The public are encouraged to use the relevant public transport provider websites to check for any disruption to services at local level. Summary of advice Stay away from all coastal areas for the duration of the Met Eireann warnings All road users should be aware of the potential for hazardous travelling conditions. Motorists should slow down and be aware of the dangers of fallen trees and debris. High-sided vehicles, cyclists and motorcyclists are particularly vulnerable during this time. It is critical that people never ever touch or approach fallen wires, stay safe and stay clear of fallen or damage electricity wires, and contact ESB Networks at 1800 372 999. Use the PowerCheck App to check for reconnection times. Check transport websites for updates Check in on vulnerable neighbours Keep mobile phone charged WATCH LIVE: Storm Debi direction Ireland Watch on weather tracker To track Storm Debi press the player on the video and you can zoom in and out using the + and - in the top corner. WEATHER SUMMARY Met Eireann advised that a Status Red Wind warning has been issued for Clare, Galway and Roscommon between 2.00-5.00am and for Westmeath and Offaly between 5.00-7.00am tomorrow (Monday 13th November) morning. Status Orange Wind warnings have been issued for Carlow, Dublin, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Longford, Louth, Meath, Wicklow, Kerry, Limerick and Tipperary from 02:00am-12:00pm on Monday. Severe and damaging gusts are expected on Sunday night and Monday due to Storm Debi. Potential impacts include damage to exposed and vulnerable structures, dangerous travelling conditions, disruption to services and damage to power lines. There is also a Status Yellow Wind and Rain warning for the rest of Ireland due to Storm Debi, with very windy or stormy on Sunday night and throughout Monday, accompanied by heavy rain with a chance of embedded thunderstorms and hail. Possible impacts include fallen trees or branches, localised flooding (including wave overtopping) and hazardous travelling conditions. The latest Met Eireann forecasts and warnings are available at the following links: https://www.met.ie/ https://www.met.ie/warnings/tomorrow The NDFEM Crisis Management Team says it will continue to monitor developments, liaising with Local Authority Severe Weather Assessment Teams and Crisis Management Teams who are actively monitoring the evolution of the storm. Niamh Eldridge Barry, a talented 24-year-old local artist from Rathmore, Naas, who was diagnosed with Dyspraxia at the age of eight, showcased and presented one of her pieces of artwork to Anne Rabbitte, T.D., Minister of State at the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration, and Youth, at an event in Connections Arts Centre (CAC) Dublin this week (Wednesday, 8th November 2023) as part of Dublin City Council Inclusion and Integration Week 2023. Miriam Spollen, founder and CEO of CAC, an award-winning social enterprise promoting inclusivity and equality for individuals with disabilities, expressed her gratitude. "We hope our event and other events happening to mark Dublin City Council Inclusion and Integration Week will help shine a light on the work and programmes we deliver to break down barriers faced by individuals with disabilities daily." Speaking at the event, Minister Rabbitte said: "I am delighted to be part of Inclusion Week and this special event. Miriam Spollen, the driving force behind Connections Arts Centre, has created a space dedicated to inclusion, participation, and equality. Even since my first visit, I could see there was amazing work taking place and I refer to it frequently. Here, individuals with diverse abilities direct themselves to participate in programmes rooted in creativity and I think its a blueprint that could be replicated elsewhere. This Centre is breaking barriers, broadening its horizons, and fostering inclusion." The latest *Census data highlights that 22% of Ireland's population lives with a disability, signifying a needed shift towards a more inclusive approach following the adoption of the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Alarmingly, 43% of individuals aged 15 and over in Ireland report some form of depression, reflecting a significant mental health challenge. Loneliness is a pressing issue, as it is associated with a 26% increased risk of premature death, rising to 32% for those living alone. Loneliness poses a greater health threat than obesity and is comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Additionally, the adult disability population is forecasted to grow by 18% in the 20-29 age group and 21% in the 50+ age group by 2025. This underscores the need for prompt support and connection. CAC's vision centres on empowering people with disabilities to overcome daily challenges that lead to exclusion and devaluation. Leveraging its three core pillars Creativity, Community, and Change CAC offers accessible arts, lifestyle, training, and mentoring programmes with a focus on enhancing creativity, connection, social, digital, and life skills while reducing loneliness and isolation, fostering social acceptance, and raising awareness of rights. Miriam adds: "Since we set up in 2021, we've had the privilege of engaging with over 2,125 participants through our programmes. These programmes are not just about what we do but the transformation they bring to our community. We offer several weekly programmes at our Rathgar Centre in addition to our bespoke programmes to encourage inclusive participation in various arts and lifestyle activities, from art and drama to music and yoga. The Centre showcased its 'Creative TY Connections' programme, designed to assist the disability community acquire basic IT, money management, and life skills. The 2023 Creative TY Connections programme engaged participants from the disability community and transition year (TY) students from Loreto High School, Beauford, working as peers to enhance their money management and personal development skills, aligning with CAC's creative approach. The event culminated with a special graduation ceremony officiated by Minister Rabbitte. A review conducted upon programme completion revealed a significant impact on the participants, promoting a sense of belonging, self-respect, and confidence. TY students also developed an appreciation for others, feelings of empowerment, and the ability to make a difference. Furthermore, artist Jennifer Humphries and mentor Christine Foley shared their personal experiences from the Connecting Artists 2023 programme. The Connecting Artists Programme is designed for visual artists with intellectual disabilities who wish to develop their creative practice. The 10-week online programme partners the artists with mentors and culminates in an exhibition at the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland. Based on the success of the programme to date, CAC will be running a 2024 Connecting Artists Programme and will be seeking participants soon. CAC also unveiled details of its collaboration with Sogeti, a leading IT management consultancy, its innovation partner that is redesigning the website to reflect their commitment to inclusivity, accessibility, and the continued growth of their programmes and partnership with Sogeti. In her closing remarks, Minister Rabbitte emphasised the importance of inclusive practices and collaboration in achieving equality and inclusion. In conclusion, Miriam made a call for financial support: Connections Arts Centre is actively seeking sponsors and partners to join us in empowering the disability community through our Connecting Artists and TY programmes. By becoming a sponsor, you can make a significant impact and contribute to the success of these life-changing initiatives. If you or your organisation are interested in collaborating with the Centre or providing sponsorship, please get in touch with me at miriam@connectionsartscentre. ie. "Together, we can create a more inclusive and equal society. For more information, please visit www.connectionsartscentre.ie or follow @connectionsartcentre on Instagram. Irish premier Leo Varadkar and Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris have laid wreaths at a Remembrance Sunday ceremony in Co Fermanagh. On a rainy day in Enniskillen, hundreds stood in silence for two minutes to mark the occasion at the war memorial in the town. New PSNI chief constable Jon Boutcher and head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service Jayne Brady were among those who laid wreaths during the commemoration. Mr Heaton-Harris laid a poppy wreath on behalf of the UK Government. The gathered crowd also heard music from the Ballyreagh Silver Band. The Kings representative the Lord-Lieutenant for County Fermanagh Viscount Brookeborough, as well as a representative from Enniskillen Guides, also placed wreaths. Mr Varadkars presence continued a tradition begun by former taoiseach Enda Kenny in 2012 by attending and placing a laurel wreath at the base of the memorial. Mr Kenny became the first taoiseach to attend a Remembrance Day service in Northern Ireland when he took part in commemorations at Enniskillen in 2012, in a move seen as symbolic of greater recognition afforded in the Republic of Ireland to Irishmen who fought and died serving in the British Army in the First World War. His attendance also marked the 25th anniversary of an IRA bombing at the memorial in 1987. Eleven people who had gathered to pay their respects to the war dead were killed and dozens were injured in the no-warning blast on November 8 1987, minutes before the Remembrance Sunday ceremony was due to start. A 12th victim of the Poppy Day bombing died 13 years later having never woken from a coma. Mr Heaton-Harris said: It is an honour to be here in Enniskillen. Were here to remember the fallen from World Wars one and two, from the various battles and conflicts that weve had, and to remember the Poppy Day bomb as well and all the families that suffered. It was a lovely service and amazing to see so many people turn out in slightly inclement weather and just good to see the community come together. Asked about the presence of Irish Government officials, he added: It is really important. I think, from what I can gather, people like to see the British and Irish government work together and remember together. That can only be good for our individual futures. A politician from Mr Varadkars party was also in attendance. Frank Feighan said: Ive always attended the services of Remembrance in appreciation and respect of the Irish men and women from across the island of Ireland who gave the great sacrifice in World War One and many wars after that. I think it shows respect and it also shows that it wasnt unique to this part of the island, and indeed across our two islands. Asked if the Irish Government presence was controversial, he said: We have to have an agreed Ireland, we have to respect histories that are different but sometimes unite us as well. I felt that 15-20 years ago in the Republic, that we didnt pay that respect, that we didnt remember the sacrifices of many men and women that came from our communities. I think that has changed in the last 10 or 15 years. Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald was among those scheduled to attend a Remembrance Sunday service at St Patricks Cathedral in Dublin hosted by the Royal British Legion. Ms McDonald said: This is an important day of reflection for many people on the island. Many Irishmen, from across all 32 counties, died in these conflicts, leaving a profound loss that continues to be felt in many families and communities to this day. It is important to recognise all that we share in common and to commemorate our shared history in a respective and inclusive way. Such reflections are also a timely reminder of the need for peaceful dialogue to end conflict around the world. Several other wreath-laying events and Remembrance ceremonies were held across Northern Ireland. Met Eireann has said Storm Debi has the strength to take down trees, cause damage to buildings and result in serious flooding overnight. The deep depression has developed rapidly over the Atlantic and will batter Ireland in the early hours of Monday morning, according to forecasters. The severity of the system has prompted Met Eireann to issue a series of warnings, including a Status Orange wind warning for 16 counties, from the west coast to the east coast. Met Eireann has issued a series of warnings for Storm Debi which has been named and will hit Ireland on Sunday night and Monday morning. The national forecaster had earlier warned of a deepening depression bearing down on the west coast but the now-named storm will affect more than coastal counties. 16 counties have been placed under a Status Orange wind warning for the early hours of Monday morning. They are Carlow, Dublin, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Longford, Louth, Meath, Offaly, Westmeath, Wicklow, Clare, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary and Galway. In its warning, Met Eireann says it will be "stormy on Sunday night and Monday due to Storm Debi with severe and damaging gusts." They list possible impacts as "damage to exposed and vulnerable structures, dangerous travelling conditions, disruption to services and damage to power lines." This warning is valid from 2am to 12pm on Monday. Alan O'Reilly from Carlow Weather said Storm Debi seems to have "sneaked up" on weather models as the system developed rapidly before being named overnight. "Over 30mm of rain and gusts of over 100km/h possible as this storm develops rapidly as it moves into Ireland. The weather models are struggling to handle it but the latest high resolution ensembles have increased the risk of damaging winds significantly," he said. You can track Storm Debi as it moves towards Ireland here: Met Eireann has also issued a Status Yellow wind and rain warning for the entire country. Forecasters says it will be "very windy or stormy on Sunday night and Monday due to Storm Debi, accompanied by heavy rain with a chance of embedded thunderstorms and hail." Possible impacts include fallen trees/branches, localised flooding, wave overtopping and hazardous travelling conditions This warning is valid from midnight on Sunday to 3pm on Monday. BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 13. Today, the capital of Belgium, Brussels, will host the next meeting of the foreign ministers of 27 EU countries, Trend reports. At the meeting, diplomats will discuss peace negotiations between Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Another main topic will be the conflict in Ukraine and all related issues, including financial and military assistance. Cllr Enda McGloin wants Leitrim to follow in the footsteps of the Oscar-nominated The Banshees of Inisherin and take advantage of The Wild Rose County's stunning landscape through the Western Region Audiovisual Producer's Fund (WRAP fund) which was created specifically to fund productions in the audio-visual sector in the West, covering the counties of Clare, Donegal, Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon and Sligo. The fund supports West of Ireland regional producers and companies as well as actively promoting the regions to incoming productions. Speaking at the latest meeting Cllr McGloin said, "We saw what that did for the Achill area in terms of the scenery and I would argue that we have very huge assets in terms of scenery in this county and that exposure like that on a large scale would have huge benefits to the county." He said that other films that put areas on the map include The Quiet Man and Ryan's Daughter. He had asked in a notice of motion that Leitrim County Council consider the potential of this county been part of the WRAP film region alongside other counties in the West and North West. He said that in just two years, "the Regional Fund has generated over 16.8m in expenditure, putting the West at the epicentre of production and welcoming many high profile, indigenous and international productions, so perhaps Leitrim should consider been part of the successful project." The report by Director of Services, Housing and Community, Corporate Services, Cultural and Emergency Services, advised Cllr McGloin that Leitrm has indeed joined the programme. He was told that Leitrim County Council, Roscommon County Council and Sligo County Council have worked together as a three-county region in the area of film development since 2015. In December 2020, the three counties joined the WRAP II programme, which commenced in April 2021 and will continue until April 2024. Cllr Felim Gurn said that a new dark comedy 'Obituary' filmed in Ballyshannon in Donegal has brought in 100 jobs and "puts Ballyshannon on the map." He continued: "Movies were made here years ago like Jimmy's Hall and The Mapmaker. Around twenty years ago, our biggest problem was that we had no accommodation so a lot of the crew had to stay in The Slieve Russell and we still have that problem." Cllr Gurn said that Leitrim was "missing a major opportunity because Netflix is spending around 5bn on content every year. You can see what Game of Thrones has brought to Northern Ireland and put it on the world map, and Stars Wars did for Skellig Michael." He also noted that Barry Keoghan's film Calm With Horses was partly funded by the WRAP Fund. He concluded that the 20,000 it costs to become part of the fund should be taken from the county's tourism budget. "I don't want to hear this ends in April 2024. This has to be on a continuing basis and we can't miss out on opportunities. With the landscape we have in Leitrim and the blueways, etc, what better way could we promote the county?" He noted that TV host Ant McPartlin discovered his Drumkeeran roots on Ant and Dec's DNA Journey and said this should have been capitilised on. "That was a missed opportunity because that went out to two million UK viewers." Cllr Brendan Barry also supported the motion as did Cllr Enda Stenson and Cllr Sean McDermott. Cllr McGloin said: "Hopefully Leitrim can benefit from this programme." PJ ODonnell of Gibbons Centra in Drumshanbo has received the sought-after Length of Service award at the Pride of Centra awards, Centras national award ceremony. Taking place in the Mansion House in Dublin on Wednesday 8th November, Centras national award ceremony recognises and celebrates the best of Centra stores, its people and exemplary retail excellence. The Length of Service award recognises employees that have shown true dedication and commitment to their Centra store. PJ ODonnell has worked in Centra for 36 years and was commended for his essential role and positive impact he makes not only instore but to the local community. Commenting on the award ceremony, Ian Allen, Managing Director of Centra said: As the leading convenience retailer with approximately 12,000 employees and 496 stores across Ireland, we are delighted to recognise and reward the very best of convenience excellence from our people and stores. Congratulations to PJ ODonnell of Gibbons Centra in Drumshanbo winning Length of Service award; this win is a testament to the exceptional commitment and service he offers on a daily basis. The award ceremony presented 18 awards on the night and welcomed 93 finalists. The awards fell into three categories - People, Excellence and Store of the Year. The People category acknowledged staff who demonstrated exceptional passion and enthusiasm for the such as Length of Service award and Employee of the Year. The Excellence awards shone a light on stores delivering the best of Centra across the in-store categories Deli, Mood, Bakery, Off Licence and Local Activations. The Store of the Year awards celebrate excellence in convenience retailing and exceptional consumer experience. Cormac Dawson, Sales Director, Centra, commended finalists in the People and Excellence category. We are proud to recognise and celebrate our people who deliver exceptional service to their local community. These finalists offer the very best in retail excellence and are a testament to their teams hard work and determination in offering a consistently great service to their community on a daily basis. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store (left) and Emmanuel Macron arrive at the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris on November 10, 2023. YOAN VALAT / AFP Talking about the fate of the poles and the cryosphere at a time when the world is torn apart by conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East wasn't easy. This week, despite the geopolitical crises, Emmanuel Macron held his Peace Forum, a cycle of meetings covering a wide range of themes, including the situation of the civilian population in Gaza, digital technology and artificial intelligence, and the situation of glaciers and ice floes, sentinels of climate change. Read more Article reserve a nos abonnes Paris summit opens to discuss rapid deterioration of poles and glaciers On Friday, the French president concluded the One Planet Polar Summit with a speech at the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle (Museum of Natural History) in Paris. "We are in a multi-crisis world where everything is connected and interrelated," Macron told scientists and government leaders gathered in the Grande Galerie de lEvolution. "The subjects of biodiversity and climate (...) are the subjects of tomorrow's crises, and they are inseparable from the hottest security issues we face today. We will avoid tomorrow's misfortunes by doing this. Our duty is not to deviate from this agenda." Gathered since Wednesday, the scientific community from some 40 countries drew up an assessment of a world in danger. Climate change is three times faster in Arctic regions, and at least half the world's glaciers are set to disappear even if global warming is limited to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Noting that 1 billion people are threatened by rising sea levels, Macron spoke of an "unprecedented" and "civilizational" challenge for humanity. And he pledged to mobilize 1 billion to support polar research. His ambition is to build a polar ship bearing the name of Michel Rocard, the former French prime minister and a key player in Antarctic environmental protection. No mention of fossil fuel phase-out The money will also be used to finance two projects, explorer Jean-Louis Etienne's Polar Pod to study the Southern Ocean and the Tara Foundation's Arctic Station. Starting in 2026, France will rebuild its Dumont d'Urville station and work to renovate the French-Italian Concordia station, both in Antarctica. But the summit was also an important diplomatic rendezvous three weeks before the start of the 28th Conference of the Parties on Climate Change (COP28), to be held in Dubai from November 30 to December 12. After bitter negotiations on certain terms, 32 countries signed the "Paris Call for Glaciers and Poles," which expresses alarm at the situation of polar ice caps and explains that 200,000 glaciers are threatened with "almost irreversible retreat." You have 65% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only. MEPs at a vote on nature restoration at the European Parliament, in Strasbourg, France, on July 12, 2023. FREDERICK FLORIN / AFP This is, in theory, the end of the drama that has kept the European sphere busy since the summer. On Thursday, November 9, the 27 member states and the European Parliament agreed on a compromise that will enable the European Union (EU) to adopt a law on nature restoration, designed to enact into Community law the Montreal agreement on biodiversity and the need to restore 30% of degraded land and sea areas by 2030, followed by 60% by 2040 and 90% by 2050. Spain's Minister for Ecological Transition Teresa Ribera Rodriguez, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council, said she was "proud" of the law, "the first of its kind." "It will help us rebuild healthy biodiversity levels across member states and preserve nature for the future generations while fighting climate change," she said, noting that, according to EU data, over 80% of natural habitats are in a "poor or bad" condition (particularly wetlands, dunes and grasslands), and up to 70% of soils are in poor health. "Today, there is no continent-wide governance of biodiversity. The legal concept of nature restoration does not exist. This is a significant step forward," said Pascal Canfin, chair of the European Parliament's Environment Committee. Commitments to means, not results Although the compromise reached on Thursday evening does not guarantee that the EU-27 will achieve this objective it only sets out obligations in terms of means, not results it nevertheless gives member states a direction that the European right-wing of the European People's Party (EPP) and the far right did not want to hear about at the start of the summer. Read more Article reserve a nos abonnes Europe's Green Deal initiative is stalling Manfred Weber, president of the EPP, and his populist and nationalist allies demanded the outright withdrawal of this bill, which they claimed would jeopardize food security in the EU and the development of renewable energies. In the run-up to the European elections, scheduled for June 2024, they wanted to make the Nature Restoration Act the emblem of their battle to put a stop to the European Green Deal. Their attempt partially failed. On July 12, after an epic battle in the European Parliament, MEPs finally adopted a bill that was largely devoid of substance, but which had the merit of existing, and whose adoption alone represented a political victory. Even though the member states reduced the ambition of the draft law proposed by the Commission, the ensuing negotiations between the two co-legislators were not straightforward. "We had a more rational discussion with the EPP than in July," said Canfin. You have 45% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only. Passengers fleeing from the Gaza Strip arrive in the Egyptian part of the Rafah border crossing with the Palestinian enclave on November 12, 2023. - / AFP Around 500 foreigners and dual nationals, as well as several wounded Palestinians, were evacuated from the Israeli-bombed Gaza Strip to Egypt on Sunday, November 12, reports from both sides of the border said. Some "500 foreign nationals from 15 different countries entered Egypt," an Egyptian security official told Agence France-Presse on condition of anonymity. AlQahera News, an outlet close to the Egyptian intelligence services, reported the crossing of an additional "seven wounded Palestinians" through the terminal. Rafah is the only crossing out of Gaza not controlled by Israel, and had been closed on Friday and Saturday. The vast majority of Gaza's 2.4 million residents are unable to escape the war, which erupted between the territory's Hamas rulers and Israel on October 7. The border authority of the Hamas government in Gaza had called late Saturday for "all foreign passport holders and people on evacuation lists" to report to the terminal, located at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip and leading to Egypt's Sinai. Representatives from various embassies wait for dual nationals arriving in the Egyptian part of the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip on November 12, 2023. - / AFP Since November 1, dozens of wounded Palestinians have been evacuated to Egyptian hospitals, with hundreds of dual nationals and foreigners, including Americans, French, Russians and Poles, also leaving through Rafah. Read more Article reserve a nos abonnes Arab and Muslim countries united to call for Gaza ceasefire The bloodiest-ever Gaza war broke out after Hamas fighters poured through the militarised border with Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 240 people hostage, according to the most recent Israeli figures. Among the captives there are at least 30 children, according to Israeli officials. Israel's relentless bombing campaign in response has killed more than 11,000 people, also mostly civilians and including thousands of children, according to the latest figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. Catholic bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas walks during a procession to protest the Los Angeles Dodgers honoring the pro-LGBTQ+ group Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, on June 16, 2023. USA TODAY SPORTS / VIA REUTERS Pope Francis on Saturday, November 11, ordered the removal of the bishop of Tyler, Texas, a conservative prelate active on social media who has been a fierce critic of the pontiff and has come to symbolize the polarization within the US Catholic hierarchy. A one-line statement from the Vatican said Francis had "relieved" Bishop Joseph Strickland of the pastoral governance of Tyler and appointed the bishop of Austin as the temporary administrator. Strickland, 65, has emerged as a leading critic of Francis, accusing him in a tweet earlier this year of "undermining the deposit of faith." He has been particularly critical of Francis' recent meeting on the future of the Catholic Church during which hot-button issues were discussed, including ways to better welcome LGBTQ+ Catholics. Bishop Joseph Strickland walks in front of a reliquary bearing the bones of Saint Maria Goretti, dubbed "The Little Saint of Great Mercy," into the sanctuary at Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in 2015, in Tyler, Texas. ANDREW D. BROSIG / AP Earlier this year, the Vatican sent in investigators to look into his governance of the diocese, amid reports that priests and laypeople in Tyler had complained and that he was making unorthodox claims. The Vatican never released the findings and Strickland had insisted he wouldn't resign voluntarily, saying in media interviews that he was given a mandate to serve as bishop in 2012 by the late Pope Benedict XVI and couldn't abdicate that responsibility. The conservative website LifeSiteNews, which said it interviewed Strickland on Saturday, quoted him as saying one of the reasons given for his ouster was his refusal to implement Francis' 2021 restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass. Francis' crackdown on the old liturgy has become a rallying cry for traditionalist Catholics opposed to the pontiff's progressive bent. Strickland told LifeSite he refused to implement the restrictions "because I can't starve out part of my flock." He said he stood by his decision, would do it again and "I feel very much at peace in the Lord and the truth that he died for." Outcry His firing sparked an immediate outcry among some conservatives and traditionalists who had held up Strickland as a leading point of Catholic reference to counter Francis' progressive reforms. Michael J. Matt, editor of the traditionalist newspaper The Remnant, wrote that with the firing, Francis was "actively trying to bury fidelity to the Church of Jesus Christ." "This is total war," Matt wrote on X, formerly Twitter. The two Vatican investigators sent to investigate Strickland Bishop Dennis Sullivan of Camden, NJ, and the retired bishop of Tucson, Arizona, Bishop Emeritus Gerald Kicanas "conducted an exhaustive inquiry into all aspects of the governance and leadership of the diocese," said the head of the church in Texas, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo. After their investigation, a recommendation was made to Francis that "the continuation in office of Bishop Strickland was not feasible," DiNardo said in a statement Saturday. The Vatican asked Strickland to resign Thursday, but he declined, prompting Francis to remove him from office two days later, DiNardo's statement said. Read more Article reserve a nos abonnes Pope Francis warns against 'ideological battles' on first day of Catholic Church synod It is rare for the pope to remove a bishop from office. Bishops are required to offer to resign when they reach 75. When the Vatican uncovers issues with governance or other problems that require a bishop to leave office before then, the Vatican usually seeks to pressure him to offer to resign for the good of his diocese and the church. That was the case when another US bishop was forced out earlier this year following a Vatican investigation. Bishop Richard Stika of Knoxville, Tennessee, resigned voluntarily, albeit under pressure, following allegations he mishandled sex abuse allegations and his priests complained about his leadership and behavior. But with Strickland, the Vatican statement made clear that he had not offered to resign and that Francis had instead "relieved" him from his job. Conservative bishops replaced faith with ideology Francis has not been shy about his concerns about the right wing in the US Catholic hierarchy, which has been split between progressives and conservatives who long found support in the doctrinaire papacies of St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI, particularly on issues of abortion and same-sex marriage. Read more Article reserve a nos abonnes Pope Francis opens Vatican meeting on the Church's future In comments to Portuguese Jesuits in August, Francis blasted the "backwardness" of these conservative bishops, saying they had replaced faith with ideology and that a correct understanding of Catholic doctrine allows for change over time. Strickland had been associated with the most extreme of these bishops, including the former Vatican ambassador to the US, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a fierce Francis critic who in 2018 called for the pope to resign. Strickland backed Vigano's conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 pandemic, and on Saturday Vigano wrote that Strickland's ouster showed a "cowardly form of authoritarianism" by Francis. "This affair will reveal who stands with the true Church of Christ and who chooses to stand with His declared enemies," Vigano wrote on X. Read more Article reserve a nos abonnes 'The pope's stardom is a recent phenomenon' 'Travesty' Most recently, Strickland had criticized Francis' monthlong closed-door debate on making the church more welcoming and responsive to the needs of Catholics today. The meeting debated a host of previously taboo issues, including women in governance roles and welcoming LGBTQ+ Catholics, but in the end, its final document didn't veer from established doctrine. Ahead of the meeting, Strickland said it was a "travesty" that such things were even on the table for discussion. "Regrettably, it may be that some will label as schismatics those who disagree with the changes being proposed," Strickland wrote in a public letter in August. "Instead, those who would propose changes to that which cannot be changed seek to commandeer Christ's Church, and they are indeed the true schismatics." In a statement Saturday, the diocese of Tyler announced Strickland's removal but said the church's work would continue in Tyler. "Our mission is to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to foster an authentic Christian community, and to serve the needs of all people with compassion and love," it said. MET Eireann has issued a status orange wind warning for 16 counties, including Limerick, as the latest storm system is set to batter the country. A national weather advisory, which was issued on Saturday, has been upgraded by the forecaster this Sunday morning. The status orange orange warning for Limerick is due to come into effect at 2am on Monday and will remain valid until midday. It also applies to counties Clare, Kerry, Tipperary, Carlow, Dublin, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Longford, Louth, Meath, Offaly, Westmeath, Wicklow and Galway. "(It will be stormy) on Sunday night and Monday due to Storm Debi with severe and damaging gusts," states the warning. Met Eireann says possible impacts associated with Storm Debi include damage to exposed and vulnerable structures, dangerous travelling conditions, disruption to services and damage to power lines. It's understood crews from Limerick City and County County Council have been placed on standby as have crews from ESB Networks. Motorists are particularly being urged to exercise caution if driving overnight or Monday morning. A status yellow wind warning for Ireland will be in effect between midnight and 3pm on Monday. BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 12. Director General of the Kazakhstans Kazspetsexport Arman Ramazanov has been arrested, the Astana court says, Trend reports. "On November 11, the specialized interdistrict investigative court of the city of Astana authorized a preventive measure in the form of detention for a period of 2 months against the suspect Arman Ramazanov", the statement reads. Earlier, the Agency for Financial Monitoring of Kazakhstan reported that officials of the Kazspecexport company and heads of legal entities controlled by the company were detained on suspicion of theft of about 1 billion tenge (2,147 million dollars) of budget funds during the purchase of goods (products) for military and military-technical purposes by inflating prices as part of the implementation of state defense orders. AS 7,000 people in west Limerick deal with an ongoing boil water notice over pollution concerns, the question that remains on the tips of tongues is What exactly is polluting our waters and where is it coming from?. A boil water notice has been affecting the Foynes/Shannon Estuary Public Water Supply since May of this year and last week saw a special meeting of Limerick City and County Council (LCCC) over the ongoing boil water notices in county Limerick. The motion for the meeting was submitted by Adare-Rathkeale councillors John ODonoghue, Adam Teskey, Bridie Collins, Stephen Keary, Emmett OBrien and Kevin Sheahan due to the number of boil water notices in Limerick City and County and they asked for a full update including a schedule of works and timeline to alleviate the problem with a view to ending boil water notices. Over 9,000 customers of Uisce Eireann are currently affected by a boil water notice in Limerick - approximately 7,000 customers as part of the Foynes/Shannon Estuary Public Water Supply and 2,300 as part of the Cappamore Foileen Public Water Supply. Both of these boil water notices have been issued due to a large amount of cryptosporidium being detected in the water. Cryptosporidium is a parasite, and, more specifically, it is a parasite that spreads due to human or animal faeces. Cryptosporidium or crypto for short can cause the diarrheal disease cryptosporidiosis if ingested. The parasite is protected by an outer shell that allows it to survive outside the body for long periods and makes it very tolerant to chlorine disinfection, a reason why the parasite, once detected, is difficult to render inactive. During a special meeting of the municipal district of Adare-Rathkeale back in May of this year, Uisce Eireann (formerly Irish Water) made clear that they intended to remove an ultraviolet (UV) reactor from a water treatment plant in Cork and transport it to the Foynes plant where it would be installed. This UV reactor renders the crypto inactive and therefore will allow for the lifting of the boil water notice affecting the 7,000 people who receive their water supply from the Foynes plant. During last weeks special meeting, Cllr Sean Hartigan of the Green Party felt the installation of the UV reactor would be like placing a bucket in your house to catch water droplets while ignoring the leak in the roof. The cause, according to Mr Hartigan, needs to be found and dealt with as crypto doesn't just come from outer space. This crypto has to come from some place. The real shame is that the water supply that we are taking in for drinking is polluted in the first place, Mr Hartigan said. The cause of the problem needs to be sourced and, according to Mr Hartigan, the problem can only be coming from either wastewater treatment plants or from the agriculture industry as both deal with either human or animal waste. To fully address this issue what we need is genetic analysis of the cryptosporidium thats coming into our water treatment plants to identify the source of it whether it be wastewater treatment plants or agriculture, Mr Hartigan said. We need the council, Uisce Eireann, the EPA, the HSE, and the Department of Agriculture to work together to find the sources of this pollution and to stop this pollution, he added. According to Cllr Teskey, councillors in his district (mentioned above) were informed by Uisce Eireann that agriculture was not the source of the issue. [We were told] That it was an internal problem in the plant that caused the cryptosporidium. It is also explained to us that it is the lack of investment in the filtration system that has caused this, Mr Teskey said. Its very important to note now and I would hate for it to be taken out of this room that the agriculture industry locally was any way responsible for this when it is not the case. We are aware that it was internally in the plant, Mr Teskey added. When cryptosporidium is detected and if a sufficient number of oocysts (a cyst containing a zygote ie. crypto) are detected, Uisce Eireann generally arranges for genotyping to be undertaken to try to determine the source. According to a letter sent to Mr Hartigan by Uisce Eireann at the end of September this year and seen by this reporter, results to find the source of the cryptosporidium in the Foynes/Shannon Estuary Public Water Supply have been inconclusive, meaning they are not sure (at the time the letter was sent) if the cryptosporidium is caused by the agriculture industry. Ive been in constant contact with Uisce Eireann, asking them over and over again to carry out genotyping to determine exactly where [the cryptosporidium] comes from, Mr Hartigan said. Cryptosporidium doesnt just have implications for human health, it also has implications on wildlife. There was a study in Wales where they looked at the impact of cryptosporidium on wild mammals and birds. It also impacts fish in the water, he added. According to the Green Party councillor, we are essentially putting faeces into water and then we are trying to clean the water before we drink it. That is essentially what the UV reactor will be doing, cleaning the faecal matter. The EPA have documentation as well to say it comes from agriculture or wastewater treatment plants and it increases significantly from March to June which is the calving and lambing season, Mr Hartigan said. We are spending money on treating water instead of protecting the water courses, he added. According to the EPA, our water quality is largely impacted by excess nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) coming mainly from agriculture and urban wastewater discharges. Agriculture, according to the EPA, affects the majority of affected water bodies in Ireland, affecting over 1,000. Following new data on the water quality of rivers and lakes in June of this year, Dr Eimear Cotter, director of the EPAs Office of Evidence and Assessment, said: Clean water is essential for our health and wellbeing, our economy and for wildlife. The failure to improve water quality in 2022 and over the longer term is extremely disappointing. We will not meet our water quality objectives until nutrient levels are reduced in those areas where they are too high. Addressing this must be a priority for the agriculture sector and Uisce Eireann to reduce the losses of nutrients to water. A LARGE Limerick contingent will be expected to attend the ICMSA AGM at the Radisson Blu Hotel on the Ennis Road on Friday November 17. Local members will be expected to turnout for a line-up of speakers that begins with Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue, then Pat McCormack, ICMSA president, An Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar and ends with the Minister for Transport, Environmental, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan a very controversial figure for farmers and who has been the recipient of serious and sustained criticism from ICMSA. In what has been an extremely challenging year for Irelands critical dairy sector and one that was, according to ICMSA, most certainly not helped by Government policy, its probable that the problems in and around milk production will dominate. While the ICMSA will absolutely insist on decorum and proper procedure being observed, it seems that there will be a deal of straight-talking to the politicians attending. And in the best traditions of the association, as many questions as possible will be taken from the floor so no-one will be left in any doubt as to the depth of feeling and frustration being experienced by members. There is an upper limit on the number who can attend and those intending to travel for the AGM and stay for the dinner that ends the day must contact ICMSA at 061-314677 or info@icmsa.ie and confirm if they are not to miss out. The HSE has issued a warning after a cluster of drug overdoses, mostly in Dublin, in recent days. It has been confirmed through analysis conducted by Forensic Science Ireland (FSI) that a trace amount of a Nitazene type substance has been identified in a brown powder associated with a Dublin overdose, the HSE said as it upgraded its warning regarding the heroin overdose clusters. Ongoing analysis is being conducted on the sample to identify the exact composition of the substance. The HSE advises that there is EXTRA RISK at this time and strongly recommends people do not try new types of drugs or new batches being sold on the market. Professor Eamon Keenan, HSE National Clinical Lead, Addiction Services, said: We are urging extreme caution following a sharp rise in the number of overdoses related to a powder being sold as heroin in the Dublin region. Preliminary laboratory analysis has confirmed that recent overdoses may be caused by heroin mixed with nitazene, a potent and dangerous synthetic opioid.These pose a substantial risk of overdose, hospitalisation and death. The HSE statement added: "A total of 40 drug related overdoses have been reported to the HSE in the last 36 hours. We are reminding people to be extra careful, and avoid using new drugs, new batches of drugs or buying from new sources. It is safer not to use drugs at all. Your well-being is important, remember to look after yourself and care for others. "Naloxone is available free from every Dublin Addiction Service. Naloxone temporarily reverses the effects of opiate-type drugs like heroin, keeping the person alive until emergency services arrive. "The HSE asks people who use drugs to follow harm reduction steps, which can help reduce the harm if they are using substances. Be aware, be extra vigilant at this time, there is increased risk at present and a number of overdoses have occurred in Dublin City this morning. Avoid new batches of heroin, avoid buying from new suppliers and avoid trying new batches or new types of drugs. This brings unknown risks. Access Naloxone, talk to your local service or doctor about accessing naloxone as soon as you can. Avoid using alone and make a rescue plan, and let someone know you are using and where. Test the dose, start low and go very slow, there is an increased risk of overdose at this time. Avoid using other drugs, including methadone, benzodiazepines or alcohol. Get medical help immediately, look out for the signs of overdose and dont be afraid to get medical help if someone is unwell. Stay with the person until help comes. Due to this concerning rise in opioid overdoses in the Dublin area and the risks posed by nitazene type substances, the HSE is continuing to collaborate with various partners, including Hospital Emergency Departments, Dublin Fire Brigade, non-governmental organisation (NGO) service providers, An Garda Siochana, and laboratories at the National Drug Treatment Centre and Forensic Science Ireland to monitor the situation closely. Laboratory tests are underway to identify the substances involved. More than 1,000 consultants have signed the new public-only Slaintecare contract. It means more than one in every four consultants working across the public health service is on the new contract. The 1,056 contracts include 241 new-entrant consultants who have joined the health service and 815 consultants who have switched from their previous contracts. Under the new contract, consultants can be asked to work 8am to 10pm Monday to Friday and 8am to 6pm Saturday as part of their core 37-hour week. It offers basic pay of 217,325 euro to 261,051 euro on a six-point scale, with additional remuneration for on-call duties and overtime. The Department of Health says it offers more flexibility for consultants who want to work-share, do less than whole-time, work compressed hours or opt for different work patterns. It said hundreds more applicants are being processed by the Health Service Executive (HSE). Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said he was delighted with the response to the new contract. He said: The introduction of this contract represents a landmark in delivering universal healthcare. It is a progressive contract that puts the interests of patients to the fore. This new contract is facilitating a transition away from the provision of private care in public hospitals and ensuring that state resources are provided in accordance with patient need rather than a patients ability to pay. The contract compares very favourably with other health services around the world and it is clearly proving attractive to potential candidates. There are 3,928 consultants working across the public health service, with 3,487 of these in permanent posts an increase of 34% on 2019 levels. The Department of Health said having an extended consultant presence on duty results in reduced emergency admissions, more rapid and appropriate decision-making, shorter lengths of stay, better patient flow and improved outcomes for patients. HSE chief executive Bernard Gloster said: It is a very significant development to have over a quarter of all consultants in the HSE now on the new contract, and this has happened over a short period of time. It is an important step towards enabling us to introduce reforms to our health system which will allow for enhanced care and greater out-of-hours and weekend presence of consultants in our hospitals, thus enhancing patient flow. This contract is helping us to operate in a highly competitive international employment market, enticing new entrants into the HSE. A spokesperson for the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) said it would support members with their individual choices on whether to take up the new contract. The organisation said: We appreciate the transparency with which Minister Donnelly has shared these latest figures. Transitioning those signing up for the new contract into actual filled positions on the ground is the next critical challenge. Ultimately, the real test will be the ability of this contract, together with the announced increases in hospital beds, theatre and other facilities which are urgently required, to address the 900 vacant consultant posts, the record number of patients on waiting lists and to make the Irish health service a place which attracts and retains consultants in order to improve the daily lives of our patients. THE majority of schools and preschools across Limerick are expected to remain closed until 10am on Monday due to safety concerns associated with Storm Debi. Met Eireann has issued status red wind warnings for several counties, including Clare, while a status orange warning will come into effect in Limerick 2am and remain valid until 10am. The National Directorate for Emergency and Fire Management (NDFEM) called a National Emergency Coordination Group meeting this Sunday with Met Eireann, the OPW, local authorities, principal response agencies, key Departments and responding national organisations to prepare for the bad weather which is expected to impact Ireland from the early hours of Monday. Following that meeting, Keith Leonard, director-general of the NDFEM urged members of the public to be vigilant to and to exercise caution as Storm Debi passes over the country. Travel in counties under a red warning is not advised until the alert has finished. Furthermore, all road users should only travel where necessary and be aware of the potential for hazardous travelling conditions. Motorists should slow down and be aware of the dangers of fallen trees and debris. High sided vehicles, cyclists and motorcyclists are particularly vulnerable during this time," he said. Andrew brings you the latest warnings relating to #StormDebi directly from Met Eireann HQ. Read more here https://t.co/BoUueCIxKa pic.twitter.com/tXUhTrMKTD Met Eireann (@MetEireann) November 12, 2023 Please be aware that the UL Campus will be closed from midnight tonight until 7am tomorrow for non-residents This is due to the Status Red Warning issued by Met Eireann Status Red Warning See here for latest weather updates:https://t.co/2QpUViMh3A#StormDebi pic.twitter.com/nXrvzrso4q University Of Limerick (@UL) November 12, 2023 Mr Leonard has appealed to employers to consider allowing staff to work from home, where possible and he confirmed that schools and preschools are being asked to open later than normal. "On the balance of risk and to ensure public safety all schools and preschools, are being asked to delay opening in orange and red counties until 10am on Monday. School managers at local level will advise parents of any disruption to school services," read a statement. Some schools in Limerick have already informed parents and staff that they will not open until 10am while others are expected to confirm their arrangements later this Sunday night. Bus Eireann says school transport services will not operate on Monday morning in counties under a status red or status orange warning. However, afternoon services will operate as normal, subject to local road conditions being safe to travel. Ahead of the arrival of Storm Debi, Limerick City and County Council has activated its Crisis Management Team and all relevant agencies in Limerick have been placed on standby as have crews from Met Eireann. According to Met Eireann, potential impacts during Monday's bad weather include damage to exposed and vulnerable structures, dangerous travelling conditions, disruption to services and damage to power lines. Stay with Limericklive.ie and our social media platforms for updates on Storm Debi Billionaire Warren Buffett's personal trading records indicate a misalignment between his public statements and private actions, as per a report by ProPublica. The Oracle of Omaha, known for his "ethical billionaire" image, appears to have engaged in personal stock transactions contrary to his declared principles raising questions around conflict of interest, the non-profit publication found. Warren Buffett did not respond to ProPublica's queries, the report added. Inconsistencies in Personal Trading Buffett, who has consistently emphasized avoiding personal trades aligned with Berkshire's moves, has a track record that tells a different story, the report states. It adds that leaked IRS data covering two decades, exposes at least three instances where Buffett traded stocks in his personal account just before or during the same quarter as Berkshire's transactions, potentially violating the company's ethics policies, authored by Buffett himself. Also Read: Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway Q3 net loss widens to $12.77 billion, operating profit up 41% YoY The policy requires all Berkshire's securities transactions to be publically disclosed before employees can personally trade the stock. In 2011, a rare scandal involving David Sokol, then heir apparent to Buffett, who resigned over personal stock trades, did not damage Buffett's reputation. Public Endorsement of Wells Fargo Among Buffett's moves tracked by the publication include his enthusiastic endorsement of Wells Fargo in an interview with Fortune magazine back on April 20, 2009. He had then lauded it for its "superior business model" compared to other major banks. Buffett, who is looked up to by many investors as a model thus significantly influenced market dynamics, causing a substantial +20 percent surge in Wells Fargo shares, the report said. Also Read: 8 money lessons to learn from Warren Buffetts letters to shareholders By April 24, Wells Fargo had jumped 13 percent. However, the report noted that hidden from public view, Buffett privately sold $20 million worth of Wells Fargo shares on the same day, revealing a contradiction between his words and actions. Contradictory Moves Another instance is one in October 2012 when Buffett sold $35 million worth of personal shares of Johnson & Johnson, which Berkshire also did. However, the company's moves were not revealed in a press release but in the quarterly filing, which revealed the sale when compared to the previous quarter with no specific date of sale. It also did not disclose the sales made in the following two quarters. Here, by possibly shedding his stake first, Buffett avoided the price dip that Berkshire's sales caused for Johnson& Johnson stock, the report noted. Watch: What Can You Learn From Warren Buffetts World Record Mistakes The third instance was in August 2009, when Buffet sold $25 million of Walmart stocks in his personal account while Berkshire doubled its stake in the company during the same quarter. Exact dates were unavailable, the report said but noted that Buffett's choices for his personal and company portfolios seem to be contradictory and verged on violating insider trading policies. Personal Portfolio Insights The leaked records unveil Buffett's personal stock sales amounting to at least $466 million between 2000 and 2019. While this may seem a modest sum for a billionaire of his stature, the absence of data on stocks bought and held leaves the actual size of his personal portfolio unknown. Buffett remains tight-lipped about his personal trades, and questions about these actions remain unanswered. Watch: Warren Buffetts Secret Playbook For Picking Multibaggers Warren Buffett, a financial luminary, faces scrutiny as revelations about his personal trading practices cast a shadow over his consistent public image. The apparent inconsistencies between his words and actions highlight the challenges in maintaining ethical standards, even for the most revered figures in the financial world. Milestone Alert!Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Every year, on the auspicious occasion of Diwali, the Indian market opens for a one-hour special trading session in the evening known as 'Muhurat trading'. The word Muhurat means an auspicious time. While the market is closed on the day of Diwali, both the BSE and the NSE will conduct the Muhurat trading between 6:00 pm and 7:25 pm on Sunday, November 12. The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), Asias oldest stock exchange, has been conducting the Diwali Muhurat trading sessions since 1957. The NSE started this tradition in 1992. Over the past ten Muhurat trading sessions, the market concluded seven such one-hour windows with positive returns. According to the Hindu calendar, Diwali marks the start of a new year (Samvat) and this session sets the tone for the upcoming year. Should you buy in the one-hour window this year? And if yes, what should be your strategy? Most analysts believe that investors should buy on the day of Diwali. According to them, since Muhurat trading marks a new beginning, its the right time to review your asset allocation and find out if your portfolio is performing as per your financial goals and rebalance. They suggest maintaining a stock-specific approach to buying for the long term and at the same time exercising caution. Since liquidity is very limited on the Muhurat trading day, it is not advisable to buy or sell a lot. Still, most investors, especially new investors, can get started by making token investments in stocks they are interested in, on this auspicious occasion. In case you are confused regarding where to invest or what to buy, consult a financial advisor. Most brokerages have also come out with a number of top stock picks to help investors decide what to buy this Diwali. Read here: SBI, L&T and more: ICICI Direct lists 7 stocks to buy this Diwali Ajit Mishra - SVP, Technical Research, Religare Broking Ltd We have been seeing consolidation in markets amid mixed global cues, however, select stocks from across the sectors are performing well. We thus feel it is prudent to maintain a stock-specific approach and shift the bias more on long trades if Nifty manages to hold the 19,500 mark decisively. Manoj Dalmia of Proficient Group of Companies Muhurat trading, a special one-hour session on Diwali, often sees high trading volumes and rising stock prices. While it may seem like an opportunity for quick gains, it's important to exercise caution. It is advisable to maintain a long-term perspective when investing, avoid relying solely on stock tips, and be mindful of the potential for price volatility. If you're new to trading, consider refraining from intraday trading during this brief session. In summary, approach Muhurat trading with a strategic and cautious mindset to make the most of this unique trading opportunity. Trivesh D, COO, Tradejini On Muhurat trading day, you don't just throw darts at a board and hope for the best. You look for stocks that are the real deal strong fundamentals, and a history of solid performance. It's about respecting the day and going for investments that are meant to last, not just the quick wins. Harjeet Singh Arora, Managing Director at Mastertrust Meticulous planning is imperative, particularly within the short time frame of Muhurat trading. We have to clearly outline our financial goals whether we are looking for short-term gains or long-term investments. Usually, we witness volatile trading sessions hence thorough research is very important before deploying any trade. Look for companies with strong fundamentals, positive earnings reports, and growth potential. Additionally, we can also find stocks based on technical studies for short-term trading opportunities. Risk management is a highly important part that we cant afford to ignore. Risk appetite varies from individual to individual, for long-term investment, portfolio risk could be mitigated by proper diversification. Investors are not recommended to concentrate all investments in one stock or sector. However, given the short duration of Muhurat trading, liquidity is also a big factor. Especially for intraday traders - choose stocks with sufficient liquidity to ensure smooth execution of trades. Kunal Ambasta, Co- Founder and Chief Investment Officer at Liquide Diwali, the festival of lights, is deeply rooted in sentiments of optimism, hope, and fresh beginnings. Embarking on an investment journey during this auspicious time symbolises the victory of financial enlightenment and wealth creation over the challenges and uncertainties that often overshadow our financial paths. Regarding trading strategy, the principles during Mahurat trading remain consistent. It is imperative to conduct comprehensive research into a company's financial health, business model, industry trends, and competitive position prior to making stock investments. Muhurat trading is primarily about sentiment rather than technical or fundamental stock selection, given its deviation from standard market dynamics due to its brief duration, the festive ambiance, and reduced participation from foreign investors. For investors with a long-term horizon, purchasing small amounts of blue-chip stocks during Muhurat trading is seen as a propitious move. Another option for investors is to invest in baskets/ ETFs, which offer exposure to a diversified array of assets, requiring a smaller investment outlay. However, on the contrary, SP Toshniwal, Founder and CEO of ProStocks, has advised investors to avoid trading, especially on Muhurat day. But, if you want to buy for the long term, you can look for stocks with a good track record of execution of order book, he said. 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. BSE More Information Milestone Alert!Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Google Doodle is celebrating Father's Day today with a doodle dedicated to fathers that shows a penguin in the role of a father with its egg. This doodle shows how fathers serve their responsibility by taking different roles in their child's development beginning from the incubation period. Father's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday of November in Finland. This year Father's Day will be celebrated today on, November 12, which is an established flag flying day. Flag flying days in Finland are specific occasions throughout the year when the national flag is officially flown across the country. This practice is either mandated by law or observed as a customary tradition. The Finnish flag is raised to celebrate or honour events or individuals. The government officially hoists the flag on certain days of the year including on Father's Day and encourages citizens to do the same. While the state designates certain flag-flying days, any citizen has the right to display the flag on their private property to celebrate occasions such as birthdays or weddings in the family. Father's Day across world countries is usually celebrated on the third Sunday of June. This day was founded by Sonora Smart Dodd in 1910 which was first celebrated in Washington, United States. In some Catholic countries of Europe, the day is celebrated on March 19 as Saint Joseph's Day since the Middle Ages while Sikhs celebrate Father's Day on December 29 on the occasion of Guru Gobind Singh's birthday. The day is held on various dates across the world and different regions maintain their own traditions in honour of fatherhood and cherish the roles fathers play in their child's life ranging from caretaker, homemaker, mentor, support system and many more. Milestone Alert!Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Hostile takeovers are rare in India, and the power struggle that follows such moves often turns messy. The board of Religare Enterprises Ltd., chaired by Dr. Rashmi Saluja, is opposing a takeover proposed by the Burman family, which owns Dabur and is looking to buy a majority stake in Religare for about Rs.3,400 crore. As the power tussle between the Burmans and the Religare board unfolds, recent revelations that Dr Saluja herself sold Religare shares after a hitherto-unknown meeting at The Oberoi with a Burman family representative on the evening of 20 September (just before the open-offer announcement) could have two serious consequences. Both potential outcomes could severely weaken Dr Salujas position and the current Religare board's arguments unless she or her board quickly collects enough evidence to prove their latest allegations that the Burmans are involved in fraudulent funding activities and unfair trade practices, and thus not fit to be Religare 's new promoters. There is also a third possible scenario, one that may only earn Dr. Saluja a costly victory over the Burmans. Battle over pricing When the Burmans announced an open offer for Religare at Rs. 235 a share, the board vociferously protested the takeover, urging Sebi to halt it. It said the price offered was too low and a fair price would be above Rs. 275. But Saluja herself sold her own Religare shares just a few days before making such an argument. The sale, she claimed, was planned during July-September as a part of exercising her employee stock options. After her meeting with a Burman family representative on 20 September, Saluja sold shares worth crores in Religare on 21 and 22 September . Now, between the start of July and 20 September, Religare stock was hovering between a low of 160.20 (on 21 July) and a high of Rs. 270 (on 18 September). Going by Dr. Saluja's own submissions, she was ready with a share-sale plan and happily sold her shares within this price range, just two days before the open-offer announcement. But when it came to the hostile takeover announcement on 25 September, Dr. Saluja and the board argued that any offer price below Rs. 275 was not fair. Despite everything, if Sebi accepts Dr. Saluja's argument for a higher valuation, the Burmans may only postpone the takeover and come up with a better offer when the share price goes up. But, at this juncture, Dr. Saluja's "planned" share sale defies her board's fair-price argument. In fact, the latest share-sale revelation may completely upend her board's efforts to prevent the takeover. This, in turn, could cause her to lose her job at Religare. Allegations of insider trading The second possible outcome could be even more dangerous for Dr. Saluja. In a 26 October letter to the Religare board, the Burmans claimed that to their surprise, Dr. Saluja sold the shares immediately after getting insider information from Lamba, just prior to the open offer announcement. If this allegation is true, and Dr. Salujas share sale wasnt pre-planned, she could be found guilty of violation of Sebi's rules against insider-trading. The exchange data shows Dr Saluja and a few other employees sold Religare shares worth over Rs. 34 crore on 21 September and 22 September. Sebi's rules on preventing insider trading say violations could result in a penalty of Rs. 25 crore or three times the illegitimate gains made from trades, whichever is higher. In the interest of preserving market integrity, Sebi may opt for the harsher penalty, given the Dr Salujas influence in the corporate world, and because JM Financial, the banker for the Burmans open offer, decided the open-offer price based on Sebi's own formula under the takeover code. The art behind Dr. Saluja's war against Burmans While the corporate world is closely tracking the power struggle between Dr Saluja and the Burmans, the latest share-sale revelation gives rise to another question, whose answer could justify the Religare board's strong resistance to the open-offer price of Rs. 235 a share. If one goes by Dr. Saluja's argument that the share sale was pre-planned, it may be noted that during August, while she was well on her way to selling her Religare shares, the Burmans were getting ready to accumulate more shares of Religare. On 16 August, Burman family-owned MB Finmart Pvt. Ltd, VIC Enterprises Pvt. Ltd and Puran Associates Pvt. bought 2.45 crore equity shares in Religare Enterprises at Rs.217.95 a share. This means that unless the Religare board opposes the Burmans' open offer of Rs. 235 and pitches a price above Rs. 270, it could be a long time before small shareholders, including Dr. Saluja (who holds 1.42%), see the value of their investment grow. It may even result in much lower personal gains than anticipated. This fear among shareholders may rise further thanks to the persistent fall in Religare shares after the Burmans' open-offer announcement. After all, no investor would like to sell shares of a steady company at Rs. 270 and then sell them months later for smaller gains. Dr. Saluja holds 1.42% in Religare, which would be worth Rs. 128.58 crore at Rs. 275 a share, but only Rs. 109.8 crore if shares are valued at Rs. 235, as per the Burmans' open offer. While market-research reports have predicted Religare's shares will gain after the Burmans' takeover, it is not known how long public investors, including Dr. Saluja, would have to wait to see the value of their Religare shares across Rs. 275 from the current Rs. 222.65. If the Burmans succeed in becoming Religares promoters rather than mere investors, the company may have enough cash for faster growth and the way the company is run may change. "We need to make some changes," said Mohit Burman, chairman of Dabur India, adding that his family began their Religare takeover journey when the company was on its deathbed in 2018. "...this company did not have money to pay salaries. There was chaos . We stabilized the ship then," said Burman. The Burmans have put in money several times via preferential allotments since then, and "there came a time we realized that this company needs a promoter", Burman said, adding that such a change may remove the fraud tag from Religare, whose original founder brothers Shivender and Malvinder Singh were jailed for defrauding the company by siphoning off funds. Burman also said Religare would do much better in terms of cost of capital and credit rating if his family took over. Stopping the Burmans at the gate In letters to Sebi, RBI and Irdai, the board led by Dr. Saluja has accused the Burmans of fraud and other breaches. They have accused the family of colluding with the Singh brothers, questioned the source of their funds for the acquisition, and alleged market manipulation. "Just by saying that it is fraud, and the money is tainted, you cannot just trust you have to prove it as well," said Burman, adding that the family earns around Rs.900 crore of dividends every year. "Throwing mud is easy, let us see how much of it sticks," he added. Sebi, meanwhile, has asked REL to provide evidence and documents to back the Religare board's allegations in an 18 October letter. This is where a third possible scenario comes in. If the Religare board proves that the Burmans offer was fraudulent, it could halt the attempted takeover. But this could involve huge costs, in terms of time, effort and money for Dr. Saluja herself and her board. In the Tata-Cyrus Mistry case at NCLT in 2016, aggrieved by his abrupt removal as the Tata Sons chairman, late Cyrus Mistry and his Shapoorji Pallonji group had alleged fraudulent dealings concerning Air Asia and dubious, biased and unfair transactions at certain Tata group firms. This first drew a vehement criticism from NCLT since the tribunal noted that Mistry was still a director on the board of flagship Tata Sons when the things he alleged were taking place. In 2021 the Supreme Court, while passing its final verdict in the case, rebuked Mistry, noting that he was a director of Tata Sons during the period, and that a person who set his own house on fire could not be tolerated to be on the board of any company. "The directors have a fiduciary responsibility to act reasonably with the highest level of duty and, once appointed, owe their allegiance to the company and not their nominators. The provisions (in the Companies Act)further strengthen the case for corporate governance in listed companies," noted the Supreme Court. In the present case, the Dr Sajula-led board's fraud allegations against the Burmans were revealed recently, but since 2018, under her own chairmanship, the Burmans were never prevented by the board from acquiring shares in the company. The board first approved a preferential allotment to the Burmans to raise Rs.183 crore in 2018, and then Rs. 175 crore in 2021. Any preferential allotment requires the board's approval and intervention at every stage, including verifying the credibility of the allottees. Both under Sebi's ICDR norms and Section 13 of the Companies Act, a company's shares can be issued or allotted on a preferential basis only after authorization by the board. The allotment must also be authorized by the articles of association and the directors must attach an explanatory statement with information about the preferential issue. Ever since Dr. Saluja was brought in as Religare chairman, the Burmans have invested in the firm through at least two preferential allotments. Both were approved by the board led by Dr. Saluja. So, unless the board can prove that it was not aware until mid-October about the allegedly fraudulent nature of the deal, it could face serious charges from Sebi and the court. This could not only cause Dr. Saluja to be expelled from the Religare board but also prevent her from being a director in any Indian company forever. An Indian Coast Guard (ICG) ship, on Saturday, evacuated a critically injured Philippines national, after he fell from 20 feet into an empty cargo ship. The Philippines national has sustained multiple fractures and was critically injured after the accident, according to ICG officials. As per the ICG, the Filipino crew had fallen from fallen from 20 feet into an empty cargo- MV Rostrum Cynic-- leading to multiple fractures. The injured person was evacuated on Saturday, they said. "@IndiaCoastGuard Ship Rajkiran evacuated a critically injured crew from MV Rostrum Cynic on 11 Nov. The Filipino crew had fallen 20 feet into an empty cargo hold sustaining multiple fractures," ICG wrote on X. DUSHANBE, Tajikistan, November 12. Tajikistan is set to introduce new power generation capacities to meet the growing needs of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon said at the 16th summit of the ECO in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Trend report. President Rahmon reaffirmed the country's commitment to use its hydroelectric potential in accordance with the notion of 'green' energy. He emphasized the significance of growing the ECO's usage of renewable energy sources. President Rahmon also emphasized the importance of programs such as CASA-1000. CASA-1000 proposes to increase the region's energy potential by creating intergovernmental power lines that will allow surplus electricity from Central Asian countries, particularly Tajikistan, to be transmitted to high-demand markets in South Asia, specifically Afghanistan and Pakistan. The CASA-1000 project comprises the construction of new substations and high-voltage power transmission lines in participating nations in order to upgrade their electrical systems. The 16th ECO Summit was held on November 8-9. ECO is a regional interstate economic organization established in 1985. It includes Iran, Pakistan, Turkiye, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Six individuals, including a journalist documenting the rescue efforts, sustained injuries during a leopard attack in Brookland near Coonoor in the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu. Chasing a domestic dog, the leopard came out of the forest and intruded into a dwelling in Brookland near Coonoor in the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu, ANI reported. Meanwhile, residents informed the Coonoor Forest Department and fire rescue team. Also Read: Bengaluru: Leopard captured after roaming on city streets for days, dies during treatment As the leopard continued to attack people, the leopard department that went to save the person in the house, 6 people have been attacked by Leopard so far including a journalist who was on duty to cover the Leopard rescue operation. Due to the leopard attack, 6 people have been injured," ANI reported citing an official from the forest department. All six injured people have been admitted to Conoor Hospital. Also Read: Mumbai: Toddler attacked and killed in another leopard attack at Aarey Colony All the injured people including the journalist have been admitted to Coonoor Hospital," said the official, adding, The Leopard is still inside the house, the forest team is now in operation to catch the leopard. We are trying to catch the leopard." Also Read: Watch: Leopard enters housing complex in Maharashtra's Kalyan, injures 3 people A number of leopards have recently been observed within the municipal limits of the Coonoor area of the Nilgiris. Further operation is underway. This is a developing story. (With inputs from ANI) Milestone Alert!Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Despite the ongoing war with Hamas fighters from Gaza, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 's cabinet minister announced a 317 million euro ($340 million) deal for the sale of its David's Sling air defence system to new NATO member Finland. Israel has been bombing Palestine's Gaza for 38 days, killing over 11,100 civilians and Hamas fighters. Calling it a "historic agreement," the ministry said the system jointly developed by Israeli and US companies can intercept ballistic and cruise missiles, aircraft and drones. The announcement comes after Israel in September signed a $3.5-billion deal -- the biggest ever for the small country's outsized arms sector -- to sell its Arrow 3 hypersonic missile system to Germany. "Exciting news! Mint is now on WhatsApp Channels Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest financial insights!" Click here! The long-range Arrow 3 system was also jointly developed and produced by companies in Israel and its top ally the United States, and the sale had to be approved by Washington before it could be finalised. That deal came as Germany has led a push to bolster NATO's air defences in Europe after the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, urging allies to buy deterrence systems together. According to Reuters report, German chancellor Olaf Scholz's governing coalition has agreed in principle to double the country's military aid for Ukraine next year to 8 billion euros ($8.5 billion). Germany's decision seems to be contributing to the nations aim to build out its role as the central hub" of NATO in Europe. Scholz announced the 100 billion ($107 billion) fund three days after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Bloomberg reports, two thirds of the cash will likely be allocated by the end of this year, enabling Germany to meet NATOs goal of spending at least 2% of GDP on defense for the first time in more than three decades next year and beyond, Scholz said Friday in a speech in Berlin. Newly minted NATO member Finland was also quick to announce plans to buy an Israeli defence system against aircraft, rockets and missiles. A European Union plan to spend up to 20 billion euros ($21.4 billion) on military aid for Ukraine is meeting with resistance from EU countries, diplomats said this week. Milestone Alert!Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. On the 37th day of the Israel-Gaza conflict, the Israeli military is set to assist in the evacuation of infants stranded at Gaza's Al Shifa Hospital on Sunday. Here are the top ten developments on the Israel-Hamas war. Israel-Gaza War LIVE 1. The Chief Israeli military spokesperson Admiral Daniel Hagari, said that the military will facilitate the evacuation of children who are currently trapped in Gaza's Al Shifa Hospital on the upcoming Sunday. The staff of the Shifa hospital has requested that tomorrow we help the babies in the pediatric department to get to a safer hospital. We will provide the assistance needed," Hagari told a news conference, as reported by Reuters. Also Read: Living hell Gaza graveyard for thousands of children: UNICEF amid Israels relentless airstrikes 2. Three babies died in the neonatal unit of Al-Shifa Hospital located in northern Gaza after the hospital went out of service" amid continuous Israeli fire in the vicinity, CNN reported quoting the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health on Saturday. View Full Image Patients and internally displaced people are pictured at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on November 10, 2023, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. Heavy fighting was raging near Al-Shifa hospital, with Israel saying it had killed dozens of militants and destroyed tunnels that are key to Hamas's capacity to fight. Israel launched an offensive in Gaza after Hamas fighters poured across the heavily militarised border on October 7, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 240 hostages. (Photo by Khader Al Zanoun / AFP) (AFP) It reported quoting Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, Director-General of the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health that the doctors in the neonatal ward are now being forced to carry out artificial respiration by hand on the 36 babies that they are treating in the hospital. Also Read: We want to live, says Palestinian children in Gaza call out peace in a heartfelt video 3. Meanwhile, the Palestinian health ministry said on Saturday that 39 babies are at risk of death in Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital after electricity was cut off and amid a lack of oxygen and medicine. The ministry sent out a statement correcting remarks made by Health Minister Mai al-Kaila in a televised press conference in which she said 39 infants died in the modern care for children department because they couldn't get oxygen or medicine to them and electricity was cut off." Also Read: Israeli foreign minister Cohen calls Iran worlds number one financer of terror 4. According to the spokesperson for the Gaza Health Ministry, operations at the Al Shifa hospital complex, the largest in the enclave, came to a halt on Saturday due to the depletion of fuel supplies. As a result, one newborn baby died inside the incubator, where there are 45 babies," Ashraf Al-Qidra, the spokesman for the Health Ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza told Reuters. View Full Image A medical worker assists a premature Palestinian baby who lies in an incubator at the maternity ward of Shifa Hospital, which according to health officials is about to shut down as it runs out of fuel and power, as the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas continues, in Gaza City October 22, 2023. REUTERS/Mohammed Al-Masri (REUTERS) 5. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in response to French President Emmanuel Macron's call for Israel to cease attacks on civilians in Gaza, asserted that Hamas bears responsibility for the casualties, not Israel, as reported by The Times of Israel. Also Read: Israeli PM Netanyahu rejects five-day ceasefire-hostages deal with Gaza. What does it include? 6. "While Israel is doing everything to refrain from harming civilians and calling on them to leave areas of fighting, Hamas-ISIS is doing everything to prevent them from leaving for safe areas and is using them as human shields," Netanyahu said in a statement. 7. The World Health Organization (WHO) said a loss of communication with its contacts at Al Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza. Expressing "grave concerns" for the safety of those caught in the conflict, the organization called for an immediate ceasefire. A battle has ensued between the Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and Uddhav Thackeray -led Shiv Sena (UBT) over the industrial district of Thane in Maharashtra. While the Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and state Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) has distanced themselves from this political turmoil, the saffron party in the state also has taken the seat of a diplomatic observer. Political tension embroiled in the state after the Shiv Sena (UBT) faction's branch office building was demolished in the Muslim-dominated Mumbra region in Thane district. Naresh Mhaske of the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena on Saturday said his party will take over all those 'shakhas' of the undivided party that were being used for inappropriate activities. The Sena had recently taken over a shakha in this manner in Mumbra and had proceeded with its demolition to build it anew, causing tension with functionaries of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT). Attacking the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena for "bulldozing" a 'shakha' (local level office) controlled by the Shiv Sena (UBT), its chief Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday said those high on power will be taught a lesson. "Exciting news! Mint is now on WhatsApp Channels Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest financial insights!" Click here! Thackeray, along with top leaders of the Sena (UBT), went to Mumbra here to visit the razed shakha but had to face resistance from workers of the CM's Shiv Sena, who also showed black flags. As the situation turned tense, Thackeray and his party colleagues left the site, just metres away from the razed shakha. Mumbra is the stronghold of CM Eknath Shinde. Maharashtra Chief Minister Ekanth Shinde on Sunday dismissed Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackerays outburst over the demolition of his partys shakha in the Thane district, calling it an empty threat. However, BJP might not see it as an empty threat. CM Shinde's declining approval in the state have worried the BJP, who even though has now gained the support of Ajit Pawar faction of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), has been feeling the victim card being used by Uddhav Thackeray can alter the political mood in his favour in Thane. Notably, Thane was the bastion of an undivided Shiv Sena. In the faction fight, BJP has grown in establishing a hold over the industrial district of Maharashtra. Any unthought about move could hamper their newly acquired win. A BJP MLA from Thane said while the Shinde Senas argument of misuse of the shakha by its rivals may be true, the timing was not right", Indian Express reports. The report also adds, a senior party functionary saying, The high-handedness of the Shinde faction could prove detrimental. Especially, at a time when people are rejoicing in Diwali celebrations". Milestone Alert!Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. AAP minister and former Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi, Manish Sisodia presently incarcerated in Tihar jail due to his involvement in an alleged liquor scam case, was granted permission by a city court to visit his unwell wife on Saturday. As reported by PTI, the court allowed a six-hour meeting window, from 10 am to 4 pm. Accompanied by police officers, Sisodia arrived at his residence on Mathura Road in a prison van around 10 am, and he returned to jail once the allotted meeting time concluded. Also Read: Delhi excise policy case: AAP-BJP war of words after ED summons CM Arvind Kejriwal While spending a short period with his wife, Manish Sisodia, a leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), lit diyas in his home to observe 'Choti Diwali' (a festival celebrated before Diwali). He refrained from engaging with the media personnel present outside his residence during this time. Sharing a photo of Sisodia hugging his wife as he was leaving his house to return to jail, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, This picture is very painful." Also Read: Delhi excise policy case: 'Should Kejriwal resign or...,' AAP to ask people as fear of ED arrest looms "Is it right to do such injustice to a person who gave hope to the poor children of the country?" Kejriwal wrote on X. In June, the Delhi High Court granted permission to Sisodia to visit his wife, Seema, who suffers from multiple sclerosis. He was unable to meet her at that time as she had been hospitalized due to a sudden deterioration in her health. Also Read: CM Arvind Kejriwal skips ED questioning on alleged Delhi excise policy case: What lies ahead? As part of the court's permission, Sisodia was instructed not to engage with the media or participate in any political activities during the visit. Sisodia, a prominent leader of the AAP, previously served as the deputy chief minister and held several portfolios, including the Excise Department, within the Arvind Kejriwal government. Also Read: Delhi Excise Policy case: Rouse Avenue court extends judicial custody of Manish Sisodia till 22 November However, Sisodia faced arrest by the CBI in February. Subsequent to his arrest, he resigned from his position as deputy CM and minister of various departments. Despite this, his family continued to reside at his former official residence on Mathura Road, sharing the space with Education Minister Atishi. Notably, the Supreme Court recently denied Sisodia's bail application in the ongoing case. (With inputs from PTI) Milestone Alert!Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Few series have had the ability to irritate audiences as reliably as Netflixs The Crown", whose sixth and final season will be released on November 16th. There has been affection, too: at least 73m viewers worldwide, critical acclaim, a glitter of awards and whatnot. But irritation reigns. The series has been criticised for its portrayal of Prince Charles (too scheming), the Queen Mother (too nasty) and the Duke of Windsor (too Nazi). It has been called crude", cruel", intrusive", impertinent" and several sorts of nonsense, including pure nonsense", nonsense on stilts", and a barrel-load of nonsense". Rumours that this season will feature Princess Dianas ghost led one historian to call it farcicaljust a sick joke". There are two ways to look at The Crown". One is as soap opera with added sceptres, a royally expensive royal drama. (It was rumoured to be Netflixs costliest show yet.) The other is to see it as an excellent if impromptu education in what history is and what it is nota historiographical triumph if not a historical one. Millions who hitherto might never have wondered how the sausage of history is formed from the raw meat of the past are, with each successive season, turned into amateur historical analysts, as they google primary sources, fact-check phrases and scrutinise photographs. Again and again, the same question is asked: is this history? It is not asked without cause. A great deal of The Crown"even before you get to the ghastly prospect of a ghostis manifest historical bunkum. Prince Philip did not, as was claimed in the second season, inadvertently cause his sister to be killed in a plane crash (a fact that he found so offensive he reportedly considered suing). Prince Charles did not hint to the then prime minister, John Major, that Queen Elizabeth II ought to abdicate. The short answer to the question of whether or not The Crown" is history is clear: no. It is not. The longer answer is more complicated. History might be problematic for The Crown", but it is also part of the appeal. Many viewers interest is not just in the drama but in its historical backdrop. People have found themselves fascinated by forgotten facts, including the finer details of the Suez crisis, the severity of the Great Smog of 1952 and the (to many astounding) fact that the late queen had, once upon a time, been young. In its defence, The Crown" does not claim to be history. On the contrary, as its new disclaimer explains, it is merely a fictional dramatisation" that was inspired by real events". In doing so it is following in a grand dramatic tradition of playing fast and loose with the facts. Had Shakespeare had to slap a disclaimer on Richard III" he would have had to opt for something stronger even than that, like highly fictional dramatisation", says Emma Smith, a professor of Shakespeare Studies at Oxford University. To get cross with The Crown" for not being history is, on this reading, a simple category error: it never said it was. Though it is not quite so simple as that. For one thing, the is it history?" question assumes there is something that is history" that is true and beyond reproach and something separate and all made-up that is drama". In fact, there is a porous line between history and historical fiction", says Dan Jones, a historian and author. Not for nothing was Herodotus, the father of history", also called the father of lies". When the Greek historian Thucydides wanted to quote a speech whose text he did not have, he simply made it up and had the speakers say what was in my opinion demanded of them by the various occasions". History has a long and august history of blending fiction and truth. Modern historians are more careful and do notor should notmake things up. But it is foolish to imagine that sleight of hand and imagination are not involved in writing history. One of the most essential aspects of that art is also the least visible, namely what historians choose not to include. Leaving things out is essential: there is a lot of past out there. As the historian Gregory of Tours glumly observed: A great many things keep happening, some of them good, some of them bad." That was in the sixth century; a whole lot more has happened since then. History is therefore as much about what is unwritten as what is written. The creator and writer of The Crown", Peter Morgan, has complained that he is criticised for what he included but not praised for what he tactfully omitted: Speculation about paternity, affairs, this, that. Its unbelievable, all we could have written." Moreover historical facts are tricky things. It is not necessary to endorse the your truth" truthiness of Oprah Winfreys infamous interview with Meghan Markle to know that more than one historical narrative can be correct at the same time. Just as a mountain might appear to take on different shapes from different angles of vision", so a simple historical fact" can appear differently to different people, wrote the historian E.H. Carr. That does not mean that there are no facts butas the royals themselves might sayrecollections may vary." Newspaper fact-checks of the series (and there are many) often start by harrumphing but tail into ho-humming. So much is debatable. History does not sit preserved from the pollution of fiction, like an insect in amber. History and drama interact. There is, wrote Carr, a two-way traffic between past and present". When Edward VIII abdicated, Winston Churchill turned to Shakespeares Richard II to see how to draft the instrument of abdication; when Queen Elizabeth II was crowned, the man chosen to narrate the footage was not an august elder statesman but Laurence Olivier, an actor. Those close to the royals admit that the family has watched The Crown" and been affected by it. The series reportedly led the late queen to think about how she had treated her sister, Margaret. The debate over whether or not The Crown" is history or not might be fraught. It is also largely moot. To write history, as one philosopher observed, is the only way of making it". Historians might complain that Shakespeares Richard III" is incorrector that The Crown" isbut both have something more powerful than accuracy: popularity. In Shakespeares day, people were already complaining that there were those who learn their history not from the chronicles but from the play-books". This series continues that tradition. The Crown" might not be true history in the technical, academic sense of the term. However, that is immaterial. It will change how history is seen nonetheless. 2023, The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. From The Economist, published under licence. The original content can be found on www.economist.com The Chinese government has rolled out a series of supportive measures to shore up the property sector, including reducing down payment ratios for first-time homebuyers, lowering mortgage rates, and easing purchase restrictions for people wanting to buy a second house. Chinas Property Sector in the Process of Transformation Knightsbridge: Expert in Chinas Property Market Knightsbridge is a leading consultancy firm with extensive experience in the Chinese market. According to Knightsbridge, Chinas property sector is undergoing a significant transformation as the country grapples with major changes in the relationship between supply and demand in the real estate market. Shayne Heffernan, founder of Knightsbridge has stated that China is firmly committed to implementing policy pledges to meet the housing demands of the people and promote high-quality development of the sector. Positive Impacts of Policy Measures Ni Hong, Chinas Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, has stated that these policy measures have yielded positive impacts on the sector. In the first 10 months of 2023, combined transaction volume of new and second-hand homes saw an upward trend compared with a year ago. Chinas Property Sector Adheres to the Principle of Housing is for Living In, Not for Speculation Ni Hong has emphasized that Chinas property sector should adhere to the principle of housing is for living in, not for speculation and meet the essential housing demands of residents and their need for better living conditions. Key Characteristics of a Better Living Condition Ni Hong outlined the key characteristics of a better living condition, which should be characterized by green, low-carbon, intelligent, and safe, enabling people to lead healthy and convenient lives at a low cost. Chinas Support for Sustainable Development of the Property Sector Ni Hong has stated that Chinas property sector has solid support for sustainable development despite challenges in the current transformation period. He expressed confidence in high-quality development of the sector as the policy package will gradually pay off. Chinas Commitment to Solving Housing Problems of New City Dwellers and Young People Ni Hong has stressed the importance of solving the housing problems of new city dwellers and young people to empower them to strive for a better life. Knightsbridge with its deep understanding of the Chinese market and its proven track record of success, Knightsbridge can help developers, policymakers, and investors make informed decisions that will support the sectors long-term growth. Conclusion Chinas property sector is facing a period of significant change, but with the right policies and guidance, it is well-positioned for sustainable development. Knightsbridge is committed to helping Chinas property sector achieve its full potential. BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 12. More than 850 trucks with humanitarian aid have arrived in the Gaza Strip, Spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces in the reserve, Jonathan Conricus said, Trend reports. Conricus noted that the aid is not delivered from Israel, but the country is facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid. "More and more trucks are entering the Gaza Strip. At the moment, more than 850 of them have arrived in the Gaza Strip," he said. In addition, he said that food, medicines, shelter equipment, tents, temporary houses and water have been delivered to the Gaza Strip. Former Taoiseach John Bruton has said he is deeply saddened to learn of the death of his old friend, Louis J Belton. Mr Bruton described the Kenagh man as a 'formidable grassroots campaigner' and he expressed sympathy with the Belton family, and the people of Longford on their great loss. Paying tribute, Mr Bruton said, "Coming from a family that has members in the Oireachtas almost since the foundation of the state, Louis brought his own distinctive style to politics. "His contributions at meetings of the Fine Gael parliamentary party were particularly noteworthy. He mixed self-deprecation humour, with the fruits of serious reflection on the political issues of the day." Mr Bruton continued, "Louis was a formidable grassroots campaigner. One of my happiest political memories is of campaigning with him in Ardagh, in the 1997 general election, when, against the national trend, Louis regained his seat. "I extend heartfelt sympathy to all the Belton family, and to the people of Longford on their great loss." MAIN PHOTO Collage Captions: During his visit to Longford in April 1999, John Bruton met with members of the public in Longford Shopping Centre and they included Delia Kiernan and little Deirdre Kiernan Picture: Joe McDonagh June 1989 general election: Newly elected Louis Belton celebrating with Paddy Cooney Picture: Joe McDonagh Crime By Long Island Published: November 12 2023 Police yesterday arrested an Islandia man for burglarizing four businesses a total of 14 times during the past 11 months. Suffolk County Police yesterday arrested an Islandia man for burglarizing four businesses a total of 14 times during the past 11 months. Following an investigation by Fifth Squad detectives, Christopher Lacker was identified as the man who committed multiple burglaries at storage facilities within the confines of the Fourth and Fifth Precinct between December 7, 2022 and November 9, 2023. During each burglary, Lacker entered storage facilities, cut locks from individual storage units, and stole property from within. Lacker, who was located by detectives at his home on November 11 at 4:33 p.m., burglarized the following locations: Public Storage, located at 770 Nesconset Highway in Nesconset, on December 7, 2022. Extra Space Storage, located at 3016 Express Drive in Islandia, on February 24 and 28, September 29, October 3, 4, 13 and 14, November 8 and 9, 2023. Extra Space Storage, located at 1590 Lakeland Ave. in Bohemia, on September 27, 2023 Public Storage, located at 745 Calebs Path, Hauppauge, on October 16, 2023. Seth Frantzman is reporting from Israel. Israel struggled on two fronts over the weekend, trying to simultaneously pick through a densely populated Gaza while also warding off Hezbollah in northern Israel. In Gaza, the IDF paused operations during parts of the weekend to enable humanitarian evacuations. Israel Defense Forces are operating in several sectors of Gaza, in essence surrounding Gaza City itself and moving forces into various outlying neighborhoods around the city. As IDF forces press closer to the city center, they have encountered numerous densely populated neighborhoods. Many of these neighborhoods also include hospitals. The IDF has accused Hamas of using hospitals for cover, either using the patients as human shields by having gunmen in the hospital, or by utilizing tunnels underneath and near the facilities. For instance, the IDF said on Sunday that the commander of a Givati infantry unit received an indication of the unusual presence of Ahmed Siam at a school in northern Gaza. It was revealed that Ahmed Siam held about a thousand residents of the Gaza Strip as hostages and human shields in the Rantisi hospital and prevented them from evacuating to the south of the Gaza Strip, the IDF said. That incident occurred on Friday and the IDF was able to quickly process the intelligence to carry out a precision airstrike on the terrorist. Hospitals have become a center of major international concern. The World Health Organization said they had lost communications with Al-Shifa hospital, the largest in Gaza. That hospital is located near the Mediterranean coastline west of Gaza City. To the north of Shifa is a densely populated area called Shati that grew out of a refugee camp established in 1948. South of Shifa is another hospital named Al-Quds hospital. North of Gaza City are other medical facilities also near the frontline. These include the Rantisi and Nasr hospitals and the Indonesian hospital. Each hospital has become its own miniature crisis because of the complexity of evacuating patients. For instance, the IDF said on Sunday that it coordinated the transfer of fuel for urgent medical use to the Shifa Hospital. Early in the morning, IDF troops arrived at the entrance of the hospital and placed 300 liters of fuel for urgent medical purposes. At the same time, the IDF also said that it had opened and secured a passage which enables the civilian population to evacuate, on foot and by ambulances, from the Shifa, Rantisi and Nasser hospitals. Fighting also continued in various neighborhoods in Gaza. This included gun battles in Shati, which is near the beach and is west of Gaza City, where the 401st armored brigade fought terrorists near the beach. This area was once an area of resorts and hotels but now churned up into a battlefield. A video released by the IDF showed operations in the area. The IDF also said that its 551st Brigade, which is made up of Israeli reserves, clashed with terrorists in Beit Hanoun north of Gaza City. Four members of the brigade were killed when a booby-trapped tunnel exploded. Their deaths were announced on Saturday. This brought total IDF casualties since Oct. 7, when Hamas launched its large attack on Israel, to 361 soldiers killed. More than 300 of them were killed on the first day of battle. Israel has revised the total death toll for the attack down from 1,400 to 1,200 killed, meaning around 800 civilians were killed in the Hamas attack on October 7. The IDF also provided new strike numbers for the ground campaign. The campaign began on Oct. 27 and is entering its third week. Since the beginning of ground operations in Gaza, the Air Force, with the assistance and direction of the ground forces, has struck approximately 5,000 targets in the Gaza Strip to eliminate threats in real-time. Approximately 3,300 strikes were carried out by fighter jets, 860 strikes were carried out by combat helicopters, and over 570 strikes were carried out by UAVs, the IDF said. The new data illustrates that drone strikes constitute around ten percent of the strikes. In northern Israel, a number of escalating incidents on Sunday increased the number of Israelis injured from attacks by Hezbollah. The IDF said seven soldiers were lightly injured by mortars targeting an area called Manara. This hill overlooks Israels Huleh valley and is an important hilline because it sits on the Lebanese border. In Dovev, another community on the Lebanese border around a thirty-minute drive south of Manara, anti-tank missiles were launched from Lebanon. A number of civilians were injured as a result of the launches, the IDF said. In each case, Israel has retaliated. A third serious incident set off sirens in cities north of Haifa. Israeli defense officials have warned Hezbollah to stay out of the fighting in Gaza. However, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah also warned Israel and the U.S. over the weekend. He insinuated that if the U.S. did not stop the war in Gaza, Hezbollah or other members of the Iranian-backed groups in the region would continue to threaten the U.S. in Syria and Iraq. There have already been more than forty attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria. Hamas also called for international pressure to end the fighting in Gaza. Members of the Arab League and Muslim countries met in Saudi Arabia on Saturday for a joint League-Islamic conference to discuss Gaza. Although their views were divided on what to do next, the presence of the Iranian and Syrian presidents in Saudi Arabia illustrates how the conflict in Gaza has brought together countries in the region. Reporting from Israel, Seth J. Frantzman is an adjunct fellow at FDD and a contributor to FDDs Long War Journal. He is the acting news editor and senior Middle East correspondent and analyst at The Jerusalem Post. 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. Russian GDP growth in 2023 is expected to be 3%, which is higher than previous forecasts, Russian Economic Development Minister Maxim Reshetnikov said at a joint meeting of the boards of the Russian Economic Development Ministry and the Belarusian Economy Ministry in Brest, Azernews reports, citing Interfax. "This year we expect the Russian economy to grow by 3%. These are very good figures, and better than our August estimates [2.8%]," he said. The Economic Development Ministry has estimated that Russia's GDP grew 2.8% in January-September 2023, with a rise of 5.2% in annual terms in September. The ministry in September raised its forecast for growth in the country's GDP to 2.8% in 2023. The Central Bank on October 27 raised its forecast for growth in the country's GDP to 2.2%-2.7% in 2023 from its previous outlook of 1.5%-2.5%. Analysts told Interfax in a consensus forecast at the beginning of November that they thought the economy would grow 2.7% in 2023. BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 13. The European Union has called for a humanitarian pause in Gaza, Trend reports. This was stated by EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Josep Borrell. The statement noted that the EU is seriously concerned about the deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The EU joins calls for an immediate cessation of hostilities and the creation of humanitarian corridors, including increased capacity at border crossings and a dedicated maritime route, so that humanitarian aid can safely reach the people of Gaza, the EU high representative said. The statement notes that the EU recognizes Israel's right to self-defense. Four large projects due to be completed by 2028 will change the plateau's skyline The headquarters of the European Stability Mechanism, the extension of the European Investment Bank, the headquarters of ArcelorMittal and the new site of the European Commission. The headquarters of the European Stability Mechanism, the extension of the European Investment Bank, the headquarters of ArcelorMittal and the new site of the European Commission. Photo credit: EM2N, Mecanoo, Wilmotte & Associes, KSP (montage) The headquarters of the European Stability Mechanism, the extension of the European Investment Bank, the headquarters of ArcelorMittal and the new site of the European Commission. Photo credit: EM2N, Mecanoo, Wilmotte & Associes, KSP (montage) It's not exactly Manhattan, but Kirchberg's European district, already home to some of the tallest buildings in Luxembourg, will add new dynamism in the coming years with the addition of four new buildings and more than 400,000 square metres of space . European Commission's new flagship By far the most advanced project is the Jean Monnet 2 building, code-named JMO2. The 190,000 m2 that make up the complex have been built, and the structures are being glazed. The state of progress of Jean Monnet 2 at the end of October. Photo credit: Christophe Lemaire The project, designed by KSP Jurgen Engel Architekte, is a seven-storey complex adjacent to the Pierre Werner administrative centre stretching 180 m along boulevard Konrad Adenauer and 80 m along rue Erasme. It will include offices, a conference centre with six rooms, a library, a medical centre, a catering area, a logistics operation, a health centre and an underground car park with 2,000 spaces. It adjoins a 93-metre, 24-storey tower. A sketch of the finished Jean Monnet 2 complex Photo credit: KSP Jurgen Engel Architekten Accommodating up to 3,600 European Commission staff, the complex comes equipped with 5,000 m of photovoltaic panels and aims for an "excellent" BREEAM sustainability certification. The 526 million cost was pre-financed by the Luxembourg state prior to handing it over to the EU. Completion is scheduled in 2025. ArcelorMittal's glass and steel diamond ArcelorMittal's future world headquarters, dubbed K22, will feature 22 floors (plus three parking levels) of steel and glass measuring 80 metres. It will be a status symbol for the steel giant, which plans to deploy 10,000 tonnes of recycled steel from its Luxembourg plants to make up 90% of the building's solid structure. "A jewel of Luxembourg technology," says ArcelorMittal Luxembourg chairman Michel Wurth in a video also eaturing Xavier Bettel, Francois Bausch, ArcelorMittal CEO Aditya Mittal and architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte, whose firm designed K22. Under construction along Avenue John F Kennedy between the European Convention Center (ECCL) and the future Kennedy-Sud residential district, K22''s 89,000 m of gross floor area forms a slender pentagon whose faces are linked at the centre by a 1,800 m atrium. One of the sides, facing the city centre, will be planted with vegetation, as will the roof terraces. The ground floor of the complex will house retail outlets open to the public. 1 / 8 Photo credit: Wilmotte & Associes 2 / 8 Photo credit: Wilmotte & Associes 3 / 8 Photo credit: Wilmotte & Associes 4 / 8 Photo credit: Wilmotte & Associes 5 / 8 Footbridges will link the different levels of the building. Photo credit: Wilmotte & Associes 6 / 8 Photo credit: Wilmotte & Associes 7 / 8 K22 will be built between the ECCL and the future Kennedy-Sud district. Photo credit: Wilmotte & Associes 8 / 8 Photo credit: Wilmotte & Associes K22 is expected to provide 2,600 workplaces shared between ArcelorMittal and Luxembourg state, which controversially acquired 50% of the building in return for 273.5 million, half the estimated 497 million cost of the project. Also read: Luxembourg to buy half of ArcelorMittal headquarters The building's long-planned opening will not take place until early 2026. EIB campus The new headquarters of the European Investment Bank and ArcelorMittal's K22 have one thing in common: work scheduled for completion in 2021 were years late in starting. Five years behind schedule, the EIB's new HQ, designed by Dutch architects Mecanoo, will have capacity for 1,500 new workstations from 2026. Also read: EIB breaks ground on new building The project involves the construction of a "near-zero energy building", which will accommodate staff currently working in the West building, designed by British architect Denys Lasdun. 1 / 4 The EIB's new main entrance will be at the foot of the 16-storey tower Photo credit: Mecanoo 2 / 4 Photo credit: Mecanoo 3 / 4 The complex is aiming for BREEAM 'excellent' certification Photo credit: Mecanoo 4 / 4 The base building will comprise three open-air courtyards Photo credit: Mecanoo The extension will add 63,500 m of gross floor area, including 45,000 m above ground, to the EIB's portfolio. Like Jean Monnet 2, the design is based on two monoliths - a horizontal six-storey building and a vertical 16-storey tower. They will be built along the boulevard Konrad Adenauer, which will be the site of a new tram line serving the future Kuebebierg and Laangfur districts by the end of the decade. New for ESM and the state By 2028, three new buildings should make up the complex housing the headquarters of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and the government's administrative services. Nestled between the new Jean Monnet 2 building, the European Court of Justice towers and the European Parliament's Konrad Adenauer building, it will be built on the ruins of the old Jean Monnet building. The plot of land is between the rue Charles-Leon Hammes, the rue Alcide de Gasperi, the rue Albert Wehrer and the rue Antoine de Saint-Exupery. The specifications called for approximately 59,600 m gross surface area divided between the ESM headquarters (19,500 m), the state administration building (32,600 m), and a third, smaller building (7,500 m) whose occupant has yet to be defined. 1 / 6 The ESM will move from the Circuit de la Foire Internationale to the European Quarter Photo credit: EM2N Architekten 2 / 6 Photo credit: EM2N Architekten 3 / 6 The 70-metre tower to be occupied by government officials Photo credit: EM2N Architekten 4 / 6 Photo credit: EM2N Architekten 5 / 6 Photo credit: EM2N Architekten 6 / 6 Photo credit: EM2N Architekten Following a European architecture competition organised by the Public Works Ministry, an international jury chose a consortium led by Zurich-based EM2N Architekten. The concept is based on a 70-metre tower to be occupied by Luxembourg officials, with shops and restaurants on the ground floor in a green environment accessible to the public. The provisional timetable has work starting at the end of 2024. This article was originally published by Virgule and has been translated and edited by Duncan Roberts Starting Sunday, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) lovers can try the ultimate combination of fried and mac & cheese in one bite. The fast food chain debuted their KFC Mac & Cheese Wrap on Nov. 12, the same day KFC re-introduced their lineup of wraps including The Spicy Chicken Wrap and Classic Chicken Wrap. The Mac & Cheese Wrap features an extra crispy fried chicken tender topped with KFCs cheddar mac & cheese and a sprinkle of three-cheese blend. The Spicy Slaw Chicken Wrap features a mix of coleslaw, spicy sauce and pickles while the Classic Chicken Wrap features a hand-breaded tender with pickles and mayonnaise wrapped in a warm tortilla. The wraps will be available to order on the KFC mobile app, online or in restaurants. Individual wraps are $5 while a combo meal is $8.49. The combos offer a choice of two wraps with a medium drink and side of fries. Since we introduced KFC Wraps earlier this year, others have followed with their versions but why go to a burger chain for a fried chicken wrap, when you can get a craveable wrap with KFCs world-famous fried chicken? said CMO of KFC United States Nick Chavez. Our KFC Wrap lineup offers more variety with three finger lickin good flavors, at the same incredible value. KFC also introduced their new Colonels Homestyle Brownie, which is big enough to share with a whole family looking to satisfy their sweet tooth. Customers can add the brownie to the $20 Fill Up Box or any bucket meal for just $5 ($6.99 a la carte). KFC is also offering several deals and discounts on National Fast Food Day, which is Thursday, Nov. 16. The delicious deals include: 2 for $5 KFC wraps $5 Colonels Homestyle Brownie as an add-on to $20 Fill Up Box or any KFC bucket meal Free delivery on KFC.com/KFC app $3 off $20 minimum purchase on UberEats $4 off $20 for DoorDash DashPass customers For more information on deals or to find a KFC store near you, click here. Five U.S. servicepeople were killed when a military helicopter crashed over the eastern Mediterranean Sea during a training mission Saturday, U.S. officials said Sunday. The militarys European Command said all five crew members on board were killed when the aircraft went down during a routine air refueling mission as part of military training. The military first announced the crash on Nov. 11, and said that the cause was under investigation, but there were no indications of any hostile activity involved. The military said on Sunday that search and rescue efforts began immediately, including nearby U.S. military aircraft and ships. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that we mourn the tragic loss of five U.S. service members during a training accident in the Mediterranean Sea early Saturday morning. While we continue to gather more information about this deadly crash, it is another stark reminder that the brave men and women who defend our great nation put their lives on the line each and every day to keep our country safe, he said. European Command said that out of respect for the families of the service members and in line with Department of Defense policy, the identities of the crew members are being withheld for 24 hours until the families of those killed have been notified. It wasnt immediately clear which military service the aircraft belonged to. The Air Force has sent additional squadrons to the region and the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, which has an array of aircraft on board, has also been operating in the eastern Mediterranean. As a rally with a reported 100 attendees continued Friday in support of Palestinian civilians being killed amid the Israel-Hamas war, seven people were arrested. The Waltham police, which responded to a mutual aid request from Brandeis University police around 3:30 p.m. on Friday, made seven arrests after they said rally participants refused to cooperate. In a statement posted to social media, Waltham police said the seven people face charges of disorderly conduct, unlawful assembly and assault and battery on a police officer. Brandeis police had already issued multiple dispersal orders when Waltham police arrived, Waltham police said. The rally, announced on Instagram by the Revolutionary Student Organization at Brandeis, was advertised as being in support of Palestinian people and their struggle for peace, justice, and liberation. It is absurd for Brandeis to frame itself as an institution for social justice while openly supporting an ongoing genocide, and attempting to censor students for speaking out or even holding a vigil, the Instagram post read. The demands of the rally included that Brandeis stop its support of the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank in Israel, that Brandeis stop what the organization called harmful rhetoric and defense of bigoted students, and that Brandeis reinstate the universitys chapter of National Students for Justice in Palestine. Earlier in the week, Brandeis University President Ron Liebowitz put out a statement to the school community saying it no longer recognized the Brandeis chapter of the National Students for Justice in Palestine. The group supported of Hamas and its call for the violent elimination of Israel and the Jewish people, he wrote. Brandeis was founded in 1948 by the American Jewish community. On Oct. 7, Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on Israel from Gaza, killing more than 1,000 people and taking more than 200 as hostages. Since then, Israel has responded by declaring war on Hamas. Through an Israeli campaign of airstrikes and a ground invasion, more than 10,000 Palestinians have died since Oct. 7, with more than 4,000 estimated to be children. The Boston Globe reported that Fridays rally lasted about an hour in front of the Shapiro Campus Center without any disturbances. Nearly 100 people attended, with some saying they were there to support students but arent directly associated with the university, the Globe reported. The Globe reported that protesters were marching away from the campus center while continuing to chant when police, who were following behind them, took one person to the ground and worked to put him in handcuffs as he cried out. Others nearby were also placed in handcuffs and forced to the ground. Those arrested were placed in the back of a Waltham police van, the Globe reported. An email sent by administrators to Brandeis community members said they support open dialogue about the difficult issues involved in the war between Israel and Hamas, the Globe reported. But todays demonstration did not encourage thoughtful dialogue instead it created an atmosphere of intimidation, which is antithetical to a learning environment. In the days to come, we will be sharing opportunities for our community members to reflect and engage respectfully with one another. A community member, who came out to support students at the rally, told the Globe she was horrified by the actions of the police. Shame on Brandeis, shame on the police for their cruel, barbaric tactics. [The students] have every right to speak out, she said. A Plymouth family with three young children that had been trapped in Gaza for about a month during the Israel-Hamas war has been staying in Cairo this week and expects to arrive back in Massachusetts on Tuesday, a family member has said. Hazem and Sanaa Shafai, and their three children, Seera, 12, Yumna, 10, and Jasser, 2, crossed from the territory of Gaza into Egypt on Monday, Nov. 6, according to Hani Shafai, Hazems brother. But the journey from Rafah, the community in which the family was staying in Gaza, to Cairo lasted a full 24 hours, the family member said. It was really difficult, and it is my understanding it took them just to make it across the border about 12 hours and then to drive from the border to Cairo it was an additional 12 hours, Hani Shafai said on Sunday. The distance between the Rafah crossing and Cairo should be less than half of that, but there have been check points installed and many questions at each check point to answer, Shafai said. On Oct. 7, Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on Israel from Gaza, killing more than 1,000 people and taking more than 200 as hostages. Since then, Israel has responded by declaring war on Hamas. Through an Israeli campaign of airstrikes and a ground invasion, more than 10,000 Palestinians have died since Oct. 7, with more than 4,000 estimated to be children. The Shafai family has been staying in Cairo for much of the past week as family members recover from illnesses brought on by their being trapped in Gaza amid the war. Two-year-old Jasser had been quite ill when the family escaped. After taking him for blood tests, the family learned he was lacking iron and some other minerals, making him anemic. Doctors in Cairo provided the family with some medications, Shafai said. The first couple of days he was not doing too well, but hes turning the corner and making a lot better of a recovery, he said. Waiting for Jasser to recover was among the reasons the family has been waiting in Cairo, Shafai said. The oldest daughter, Seera, has braces that became loose while the family was trapped in Gaza, causing her pain. She was able to see an orthodontist on Saturday to tighten the wires. The family was almost split up at the Rafah crossing with Egypt when a list of U.S. citizens allowed to cross included the two parents, but none of the three young children. The parents refused and returned another day to cross. Shafai, who lives in South Dakota but has many family members in Gaza, said almost every day he learns of a new friend or family member who has been killed in the conflict. Yesterday it was my cousin. She was trying to hang clothes on the rope because they dont have electricity and she got hit right there, Shafai said. Earlier, he heard about his sisters children and grandchildren killed, with some injured in the hospital with shrapnel in their bodies. From his home in South Dakota, Shafai has been meeting with Israeli and Palestinian intellectuals to work toward a solution to end the fighting. I think it is sad to see the suffering on both sides, but the retaliation by Israel is overhanded and very aggressive, Shafai said. We hope they could stop that attack and allow for the release of hostages and allow supplies to come into Gaza, especially fuel and medical supplies and water. Shafai said media reports of the conflict dont come close to giving a picture of the horrors of what is happening on the ground that he hears from his friends and family. He described hearing about injured people unable to make it to a hospital attempting to deal with their wounds without anesthesia or any medical supervision. Another Massachusetts family Another Massachusetts family from Medway escaped Gaza on Nov. 2 and returned to Massachusetts on Monday, Nov. 6. Abood Okal, Wafaa Abuzayda and their 1-year-old son Yousef Okal had been visiting relatives in Gaza when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7. With the borders closed, they were unable to leave amid an increasingly dangerous environment. They slept in a home with 40 people in the community of Rafah in southern Gaza, and had to scramble to find water each day. Food supplies ran low, as well. The Okal Family is overwhelmed with the love and support they have received from home and abroad, but they are also exhausted, physically and emotionally drained, and have a long journey ahead of them back to the United States, wrote Sammy Nabulsi, a friend from Boston who has advocated for the family. The Okal Family expresses its deepest gratitude to their family and friends around the world, the Medway community, the media for sharing their plight and the plight of the hundreds of other Americans trapped in Gaza, their elected officials who fought hard for their return, and the State Department for providing them with safe departure,Nabulsi wrote. The family is asking for the immediate safe departure of the remaining American citizens and their families in Gaza, of which there are hundreds. They also have asked for compassion and prayers for the innocent civilians in Gaza, who gave them shelter, who helped them find food and water, but who continue to be without their own supply of food, water, fuel, or medicine to live, Nabulsi wrote. Conditions had been terrifying for the family, Okal had said over text, and supplies, particularly drinking water, had been difficult to obtain. Drinking water remains to be the biggest issue where we try to find it every day on a day-to-day basis one gallon for the house, Okal wrote last week. BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 12. 20 senior Hamas members were killed, Israeli intelligence officials said in a statement, Trend reports. According to the information, these individuals held key positions in the Hamas leadership. It is reported that their location was identified in the West Bank. Representatives of the Israeli Air Force worked to destroy them. It is noted that employees of the Israel Defense Forces and the Israeli General Security Service also took part in the operation. A Massachusetts family is mourning the loss of an 18-year-old high school student who died in a car crash last week. Theresa Sparks Wood, who identified herself as Brenna Caisses grandmother on Facebook, said she was still processing everything since hearing that her granddaughter was killed in a car crash in Lawrence Thursday. As I sit here this morning sipping my coffee, I am crying thinking of you, Wood wrote Saturday. You were such a sweet angel and will always have a place in Papa Woods and my heart! The fatal two-car crash happened at 9:17 p.m. on Nov. 9, on the northbound side of Interstate 495, and involved a 2022 RAM pickup truck hauling a camper and a 2005 GMC Envoy, Massachusetts State Police said. The truck was being driven by a 28-year-old man from Du Bois, Penn. and the SUV, being driven by Caisse, had three other teenagers inside. Police said the SUV was speeding near the truck, which had been driving in the center lane of the highway, and said the car veered into the trucks lane. Read More: Two people hospitalized after car crashes into home in Swansea The SUV collided with the right side of the trucks camper, causing it to drive off the road to the right, police said. The car with the teenagers rolled over the guardrail and down a steep hill, then burst into flames. Caisse was thrown from the vehicle and onto the road in the crash where she was hit and killed by multiple oncoming cars, police said. I never imagined picking up that phone call and hearing the news, Samantha Catalano wrote Saturday night on Facebook. Ill cherish any small moments I had with you! From the little moments when you were little, to then growing up to be this stunningly gorgeous young lady! You will forever be missed! A 17-year-old boy riding passenger was also ejected later in the crash, police said. He had minor head injuries. The 15- and 16-year-old girls in the back seats had minor injuries, police said, and all three teenagers were brought to Lawrence General Hospital. The driver of the pickup truck was not injured. All four teenagers were students at North Andover High School, according to school officials. Last night, four of our students were involved in a car accident on I-495, Superintendent Gregg T. Gilligan wrote in a statement posted to the high schools website Friday. One of our grade 12 students, Brenna Caisse, and three other students were driving together when the accident occurred. Sadly, Brenna was killed on impact, Gilligan continued. This is a tragedy for the Caisse family, our school, and the North Andover community. Our thoughts are with the Caisse family and the families of the other students involved in the accident. North Andover High School Principal Chet Jackson added that Brenna had tremendous connections with staff and students. The school was open Friday and Saturday to offer counseling resources for students and staff. I promise to be here for your family and will be here to help them in anyway I can, Wood continued. Although it breaks my heart there is nothing I can do to take away their pain! All we can do is be here for them! Until we meet again beautiful, you will forever be in my heart! The crash remains under investigation by the State Police-Andover Barracks, State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Section, and State Police Crime Scene Services Section. A deck of cards wasnt just for playing Poker or Rummy, it was to help find new leads and tips for unsolved homicides and missing person cases in Massachusetts. More than a year and a half after their release, Massachusetts State Police said the cards have created more than 75 new leads. In February 2022, The Unresolved Cases Unit, in partnership with the state Department of Correction, and the various district attorneys created the playing cards that featured photos and information on 52 of the states unsolved homicides and missing person investigations. The decks two Joker cards have no photo, but instead have text saying that unsolved crime is no joke. Read more: Killing of Beverly Polchies in Maine remains unsolved nearly 40 years later Each card contained the toll-free number to call with information, 855-MA-SOLVE, or 855 627-6583. The victims in this deck were someones mother, father, sister, brother, wife, husband, child, or partner, state police Col. Christopher Mason said. Much time may have passed since the crime that took them from their loved ones. But they, and the victims of all our unresolved cases, are not forgotten. Several cards involve notorious, unsolved cases from Western Massachusetts. Molly Bish, the 16-year-old girl abducted from her lifeguard job in Warren, and whose body was found three years later in Palmer, is the Queen of Spades. Holly Piirainen, abducted in 1993 in Sturbridge and found murdered in Brimfield months later, is the 2 of Hearts. Other cards included lesser known cases. 14 1 / 14 'A glimmer of hope'; State Police playing cards feature unsolved homicide cases Patrick Johnson The card decks were distributed to the district attorneys, who distributed them to local police. The Department of Correction also distributed them among the state prison population. The hope was that inmates playing cards will have their memories jogged, and then be motivated to share what they know. Several other states and countries have also utilized playing cards as a means to seek leads on unresolved cases. That included Florida where, within three months, the cards generated 60 tips, leading to four convictions. As of Friday, the 76 leads received through the cards, including Essex county, were investigated and several have been deemed to contain reliable information, Massachusetts State Police told MassLive. However, none of the leads have resulted in arrests, as the investigations are ongoing. State Police also hope to get additional funding for future cards to include more cases. To submit information regarding these unresolved cases, call toll free 1-855-MA-SOLVE, email mspunresolved@pol.state.ma.us, or send a letter to the Unresolved Cases Unit at 470 Worcester Road, Framingham, MA 01702. The East Longmeadow Police Department is advising residents to use extra caution around town after one person reported being chased by two coyotes on Saturday night, the department said on Facebook. The resident told police that while he was walking his dog near Birchland Park Middle School and Mapleshade Elementary school, two coyotes chased him back to his house on Nov. 11. This is just a reminder to use caution and be aware of wild life in the area, the department wrote. According to Mass Audubon, coyotes will avoid people at all costs. Coyote attacks on humans are rare in Massachusetts, and less than 10 have been reported in the state in the last 60 years, the agency said. That said, there are several methods to keep coyotes from knocking on your back door. These include feeding pets indoors, securing garage, picking up fallen fruit, not feeding coyotes and keeping pets indoors. Massachusetts residents who have further issues with coyotes or questions, can contact their nearest MassWildlife District Office or visit the organizations website. HOLYOKE A veteran is a person, at some point in their life, who wrote a blank check up to losing their life. State Sen. John Velis, D-Westfield, shared this grave contemplation during Saturdays Veterans Day ceremony at the citys War Memorial Building. Velis knows the sacrifice intimately, as hes an Army reservist and one of several speakers who honored past and present service members at the weekend event. Velis noted that fewer than 1% of Americans serve in the military, which is reliant on volunteer service since the draft was abolished in 1973. He noted that war will remain part of the human condition, a fact he took no joy in. More vets here than elsewhere in US In his address, local veteran and attorney Isaac Mass highlighted that the regions veterans constitute a larger portion of the population compared to the national average, despite a statewide decline in veteran numbers. Mass also discussed the importance of resources for veterans, particularly considering the declining population. He emphasized the vital role of the Holyoke Soldiers Home, where hes a board member. Mass said it provides quality care without financial burdens for veterans and their families. Its been one of the greatest honors of my life to serve on this board, said Mass, who also served in the National Guard, including deployment to Bosnia-Herzegovina. He detailed efforts to enhance the facility, including adding beds and ensuring no loss of capacity, attributing these achievements to effective advocacy. Continued activism needed Addressing challenges to veterans political engagement and representation, Mass pointed out that fewer lawmakers are veterans, and that service organizations are aging. He underscored the need for continued activism and vigilance in protecting veteran resources, especially as demographics shift toward post-9/11 service members. Mass concluded by stressing the importance of community and veteran engagement in the current era, where such involvement is diminishing. He called for a sustained effort to support and advocate for veterans, particularly those less likely to be engaged. Honoring his forebears Christopher Simms, honored as the citys Veteran of the Year, began military service in 2002 with the U.S. Army, with crucial roles including food operations and service in the 794th Quartermaster Detachment. His deployments included Iraq and Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne Division, and he earned several military awards, including the Army Commendation Medal and the Good Conduct Medal. Simms described the experience as incredibly surreal, emphasizing his commitment to honoring past veterans and influencing future generations positively. The primary reasons to do anything even remotely worthy of an award like this is more for the veterans that came before us, and to leave it better than (when) I found it, Simms said. He acknowledged several groups, including the Soldiers Home Commission and the Massachusetts Trial Court, where he is employed. Simms worked as a court officer in Massachusetts and held leadership roles in various veterans organizations. He significantly contributed to Veterans Services in Holyoke, notably in preserving and recognizing the War Memorial Building. Ill detective lands award for public safety In a touching moment, Holyoke Police Detective Liam Glasheen was presented with the Public Safety Officer of the Year Award. Glasheen has been battling an aggressive form of cancer for the past few months and faces a procedure and further treatments. He expressed gratitude for the overwhelming support from colleagues, friends and family. I just cant put it into words, he said. He mentioned his wife, Jackie, whom he called his best friend and biggest supporter, especially during his illness. Highlighting the support from his colleagues, he described them not just as bosses and co-workers but also as friends. He paid tribute to his father, a veteran, crediting him for instilling a solid work ethic and teaching him how to be a good husband, father and man. Glasheen noted the irony of feeling blessed despite his cancer diagnosis, attributing it to the remarkable levels of support and love he has received. Its the community that gave me this award, he stated, and that his colleagues do remarkable work every day without seeking accolades. Threats are changing Beside the battlefield, threats to the nations security now include space and cyber-attacks, said Sen. Velis. How blessed we are that young men and women are still raising their hands and saying, I will serve, Velis said. The senator serves in the state National Guard. He noted that during his deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, a disconnect existed between the realities of war and the perception by civilians at home, where the conflicts fell from the headlines. Support under the dome State Rep. Patricia Duffy, D-Hampden, emphasized her commitment to supporting veterans, highlighting the importance of continuous efforts to enhance veterans benefits in Massachusetts. Acknowledging the states strong reputation in caring for veterans, Duffy pointed to recent legislative initiatives to improve veterans welfare. One of my most important roles is making sure that were living up to our reputation here in Massachusetts and taking good care of veterans, Duffy said. She referenced a significant piece of legislation recently introduced by the governor, addressing veterans benefits, which she is keen to explore further in her role on the Joint Committee on Veterans and Federal Affairs. Velis is also that boards chairman. Grateful, indebted City Council President Todd McGee read a statement from Mayor Joshua A. Garcia, who could not attend. There are many ceremonial responsibilities that come with the job, but none are more humbling for me than Veterans Day, Garcia stated. Its humbling, because those who serve and those who will continue to serve took a burden and made sacrifices that I can only imagine. I am deeply grateful and indebted to you veterans and active-duty personnel for your service to the country. Laddy Rua, the chair of the Soldiers Memorial Commission, presided over the ceremony, where The Holyoke Caledonian Pipe Band played and the Rev. Steven Miller, of Mountain View Baptist Church, provided an invocation and benediction. A covered bridge over the Connecticut River in New Hampshire is closed until further notice after Lancaster officials believe an oversized vehicle damaged it. Lancasters Mount Orne Covered Bridge is closed until further notice due to what appears to be an oversized vehicle driving through it, officials wrote in a notice to community members on Friday. Officials ask that anyone with any information related to the damage to the bridge to contact the Lancaster Police Department. The vehicle is believed to have traveled over the bridge between the overnight hours of Thursday, Nov. 9, and Friday, Nov. 10. The bridge, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was built in 1911. It joins Lancaster with Lunenberg, Vermont. A pedestrian was killed after they were hit by a tractor-trailer in Canton Sunday morning, according to Massachusetts State Police. Spokesperson Dave Procopio told MassLive that the pedestrian was fatally struck on Interstate 95 South at the Interstate 93 interchange shortly before noon on Nov. 12. The persons identity was not released. State police from Framingham and Foxobourgh were said to be on the scene, along with the State Police Crash Reconstruction team, H Troop Detectives, Crime Scene Services, and Mass DOT. No other information was initially released. A Brockton business that first opened its doors in the year 1900 will soon be closing them for good. Romm Diamonds at 1280 Belmont St. in Brockton announced over social media that the owners will be retiring. Founded in 1900, Romm Diamonds is the most trusted and oldest family jeweler in the Boston MetroSouth area, a notice posted to Facebook reads. Now after a long, thoughtful deliberation, we want you to be the first to know that we have decided it is time to retire and close our store. Gladys and Alexander Romm Rysman are currently the third generation of the family to run the store. Alexander Rysmans grandfather, Alexander Romm, opened the store after immigrating to Boston from Russia at the age of 14, according to WCVB. He went as far as he could afford to go, and that was Brockton, Rysman told WCVB. The Rysmans took over the store in the 1980s, after it was run by Romm, and then his son and son-in-law. Now, the Rysmans are both 81, and are ready to retire, they told the news outlet. Its been a great life, Rysman said. In the same post announcing their retirement, the owners announced a 70% off sale of all of their inventory. Selling it off will be the Rysmans final act before leaving the store for good. Dozens of comments responded to the post. One wrote: Walk in the door at Romms and you felt special. Such nice people worked there. Wishing the Rysmans many years of health and joy in your retirement. At the beginning of the year, a private water company approached Ware officials with a proposal: Would it be interested in selling its water system? For decades, Ware provided water to its community by drawing groundwater from five wells that it collects in a cistern inside a low, cinder block building on Barnes Street. A pumphouse displays a plaque boasting that its been there since 1886. In a town with a population of 10,066, not everyone relies on the water department. But for those that do, the system provides about half a million gallons of water a day, sending it through 42 miles of water main to about 2,340 customers. The sewer system collects wastewater from 1,740 locations, treating it at a plant off Robbins Road before releasing it into the Ware River. After decades of use, the system needs repairs and upgrades that could cost millions of dollars. Aquarion Water Co., a subsidiary of energy company Eversource, told the town it could take it off its hands, handle the repairs and manage the system. But after it more closely examined Wares system, Aquarion decided a few weeks ago it wanted to tweak its proposal. At that point, town officials said the town needs to determine whether it wants to continue to pursue privatization, amid doubts by top officials. The Ware Selectboard is scheduled to discuss the matter Tuesday night. The town will likely not be the last Massachusetts community confronted with the question of whether to hand control of its water system to a private company. Like all of New England, the infrastructure is certainly aging and the costs are mounting. So this is certainly going to be something that more towns are looking at, whether its just operation or the sale, said Stuart Beckley, Wares town manager. Ware Town Manager Stuart Beckley sits in his office on Oct. 31, 2023. (Daniel Jackson / The Republican)Daniel Jackson Already, Aquarion operates water systems in five Massachusetts communities: Sheffield, Millbury, Oxford, Dover and Plymouth. Over the years, Beckley said, one company or another would approach Ware to discuss either operating or buying its system. Near the start of 2023, Aquarion, which is based in Connecticut, broached the subject with him and Department of Public Works Director Geoffrey McAlmond. They brought the matter to the Selectboard. An aging system Citing looming challenges, the town announced in mid-March it would seek bids from companies interested in buying its water system. It pointed to a study conducted by engineering consultant Tighe & Bond in 2021 that said the town would have to hike rates to maintain the infrastructure. The study predicted that Ware would have to consistently increase sewer rates until fiscal year 2027, with most of those bills growing by 13% every year. Thats not all. In February, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a new permit to the town to discharge wastewater into the Ware River. But with that came requirements that called for upgrades to the plant, which hasnt seen major improvements since the 1980s. In 2016, the town created master plans for its water and wastewater systems. They showed $6.39 million in needed upgrades to the wastewater treatment plant and $10.26 million in fixes to the water system over 10 years. But when Ware held a town meeting to get approval to pay for water infrastructure upgrades a few years ago, residents said no. Selectboard member Nancy Talbot said at the time of that meeting, Wares population sat below 10,000. Had the measure been approved, the town could have sought a U.S. Department of Agriculture loan for rural communities. Beckley said pursuing privatization, getting a company to address the repairs in the system, is an alternative one that makes daily management someone elses headache. Right now, Ware is looking for a screener to catch the flushable wipes that clog operations. Large pumps that move millions of gallons of sewage a day sometimes have to be lifted with chains so workers can clear wipes and toilet paper away. A tank of sewage aerates at the Ware's Water Pollution Control Plant on Oct. 31, 2023. (Daniel Jackson / The Republican)Daniel Jackson Adding that screener is a necessary step before the facility can address nitrogen levels in the sewage, which is done by aerating it, said David Comeau, chief plant operator for the wastewater treatment plant. Comeau said nitrogen released by wastewater plants along the Ware River are a concern for environmental regulators. Beckley said the screener will cost the town $2 million to install. The town has OKd paying for it with pandemic recovery money. A deep engineering bench Although eight companies considered buying Wares water system, only one submitted a proposal. Aquarion, in its pitch to the town in July, said it would transform the towns regulatory and equipment woes. Aquarion described itself as one of the largest investor-owned water companies in the nation, operating in 72 municipalities, largely in Connecticut but also in New Hampshire and in Massachusetts. In 2022, it said it brought in $222.5 million in revenue and had $2.16 billion in assets. The company offered Ware $9.69 million for its water and sewage systems, claiming the water system needs $37.8 million in upgrades. If Aquarion operated the water system, the town wouldnt have to worry about repairs and upgrades or meeting state and federal water quality requirements. And the buyer would become a taxpayer in the town. (The) Town will be able to focus its attention and capital on other core municipal functions now and into the future, the company wrote in its proposal. Aqarion said it would freeze rates for two years. Meanwhile, Ware in June approved a rate increase for its water and sewer systems that is scheduled to go into effect in February: a quarterly base rate of $41.24 for water, plus a rate of $6.59 per 748 gallons after the first 3,740 gallons, for instance. While its water rates vary across Massachusetts, Aquarion charges customers of Pinehills Water Company $34.25 for a - or -inch hookup every quarter and $7.31 for every 1,000 gallons. Aquarions acquisition of that Plymouth system, with 2,700 customer connections, was approved by the state Department of Public Utilities in June. Meanwhile, in Sheffield, the company charges $44.73 per month for a fire hydrant. Ware has 347 fire hydrants. The Ware River flows through Ware, Massachusetts on Oct. 31, 2023. (Daniel Jackson / The Republican)Daniel Jackson Peter Fazekas, spokesperson for Aquarion, said in its pitch to municipalities, the company boasts of its deep engineering bench from which it can draw to solve problems. Aquarion manages much of the water for towns in western Connecticut. On Oct. 6, it closed on its purchase of the water system of New Hartford, Connecticut. Fazekas said the company had contracts managing wastewater systems years before but had gotten out of that side of the business. The New Hartford system is the first sewer system Aquarion owns and it marks the companys return to wastewater management. But in the end, Fazekas said the company needed to change its offer to Ware after conducting due diligence. Itll be up to the town to determine what their next steps are, what works best for the town, Fazekas said. And we respect that. Beckley said Aquarion returned to the town no longer wanting to buy both water and sewer systems. Rather, it proposed to only operate the wastewater system, while buying the water system. Beckley said Aquarion had questions about what improvements would need to be done to the sewer system to comply with regulations. Because Aquarion had significantly changed its proposal to Ware, officials said they needed to start the request-for-proposal process over again, Beckley said. The Selectboard, which serves as the towns water and sewer commission, is scheduled to discuss whether or not to restart that process at its Nov. 14 meeting. Problem with personnel Aquarions bid caused another problem for the town: Skilled workers managing the water system left after officials announced the potential sale. Comeau, who helps manage the plant on Robbins Road, learned of the bid to sell the water system as he was riding a bus at Disney World with his family. He said it felt like a bomb was dropped. David Comeau, chief plant operator of Ware's wastewater treatment plant, stands before a pool of treated wastewater on Oct. 31, 2023. A private water company based in Connecticut had offered to purchase the system. (Daniel Jackson / The Republican)Daniel Jackson Comeau spent the early part of his career working at private wastewater companies, including a stint managing the plant at Westover. He settled in Ware hoping for a stable place to raise his three kids, who are 13, 10 and 7. I really, really tried to do a great job here at the plant, he said, so when Im at the local diner, or the grocery store, and I run into my fellow residents, I can hold my head up high. After the town said it might sell the system, one member of the three-person crew at the treatment plant left. Three at the water department moved on. Comeau said privatization typically happens when a municipal plant doesnt have enough people to run the facility. When youre fully staffed, and you have the structure and the funding, you dont sell it, he said. Aquarion said it would offer Wares water employees jobs if it bought the system. Municipalities struggle to fill jobs in wastewater treatment, which requires a license. Private companies, Comeau said, often move employees around to fill demand across an area. A slew of challenges Christine Hatch, a professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst who studies hydrogeology, said not only are water companies struggling to find and retain water operators, if a communitys population decreases, it may not have the tax base to fund water infrastructure projects. At the same time, contaminants such as the groups of chemicals known as PFAS present new challenges for water systems. Theyre in a really tricky situation to try to make this work and so theyre desperate to find a solution, Hatch said. Ware Town Hall on Oct. 31, 2023. (Daniel Jackson / The Republican)Daniel Jackson Hatch said the region has been dealing with a boom-and-bust cycle when it comes to water, periods of drought followed by torrential rain that brings flooding that, like in July, roared through Vermont and washed out farms lying along the Connecticut River. Its a cycle made worse with climate change that puts pressure on smaller water systems with less flexibility. She said although the region is water rich, the way the Connecticut River Valley was formed with hard basalt rock doesnt leave much room to store water underground. Hatch is a public member of the states Water Resources Commission, a body that approves transfers of water from one watershed to another. It also advises the state on its water policies. Shes critical of moves by municipalities to privatize their water. How do you ensure that the public good is really preserved? I really just have a very difficult time believing that you can have the profit motive coexist with the public good of providing inexpensive, safe drinking water, she said. Hatch said Ware was lucky to dodge the proposal from Aquarion. A better, albeit more difficult way, she said, was found in the Boston area. Smaller operators can buy into the Metropolitan Area Planning Council and with a fee and by meeting criteria, gain access to a water distribution system run in a cooperative way. A water system of its own Back in Ware, Comeau gave a tour of the wastewater plant, showing off circular tanks that skim contaminants off the surface and other tanks aerating hundreds of thousands of gallons of sewage. In a basement, he points out a test he and the other wastewater operators are running that adds a polymer to sludge to see if it will clump together more densely. A five-gallon bucket with a hose running into it rests on some pallets. We kind of just roughly built this up with what we had lying around the plant, [to] see if it would work, he said. If all goes well, Comeau said, it could help save the system money. Outside, water ran down a long pool. Here, before it rushes to the Ware River, it is injected with chlorine gas. At the end of the pool, Comeau placed seven goldfish in the water a few years back where they now live, even in winter. The fish have grown to the width of a hand. A hard sell Meanwhile, officials have heard from Ware residents. They are not happy with the proposal to privatize. Beckley said some residents are proud that the town manages its own water system. Others worry about what a private company might do to levy fees and raise rates. Selectboard member Joshua Kusnierz said the residents hes spoken with, about 20 in all, oppose the move to sell the water system. Were not going through with that, Kuznierz said. On Friday, he predicted the Selectboard would not be reviving talks to open up a request for proposals from companies to buy the water system. While he personally isnt on the town water supply, he said hes on the board to represent residents. And he has a mentality: Lets take care of ourselves. Talbot, who is Wares town clerk as well as a member of the Selectboard, believes there is unfinished business with Aquarions proposal. While members of the board said in late October they would not move forward with a sale, Talbot believes proper procedure dictates the board needs a formal vote. After that, theres the question of funding. Talbot said she was critical of Aquarions limited experience running wastewater treatment plants. It was a sentiment echoed by residents who spoke nothing except negativity about the privatization proposal. According to the 2021 Tighe & Bond study, about 70% of residences in Ware are connected to the water system, while 50% use the sewer system. When Ware built the wastewater treatment plant in the 60s, it did so with bonding that affected the tax rates of every resident in town, Talbot said. While the town often turned to all residents to fund upgrades to the system, it created an enterprise fund in the last decade or so to which just the users contribute. In the meantime, Talbot said she feels a responsibility to seek out whatever funding could be available for water system upgrades from the state and federal governments. But we have to have discussions first as to how our community wishes to proceed and move forward, Talbot said. And as water and sewer commissioners, thats our duty. The third Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF2023) kicked off in Cairo with Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, former President of Nigeria and Chairman of the IATF2023 Advisory Council, saying that intra-African trade holds the key to unlocking Africas true potential and fuelling economic growth, fostering industrialisation and creating job opportunities for the people of the continent. Addressing participants and guests at the trade fair, Chief Obasanjo said that beyond being just an exhibition of goods and services, IATF2023 was a platform for networking, collaboration and knowledge sharing and was bringing together entrepreneurs, investors, innovators, and policymakers from across Africa and its Diaspora to exchange ideas, forge partnerships and explore new opportunities. It is through this spirit of cooperation and collaboration that we will unlock the untapped potential of our continent, he said, adding that the trade fair signified the commitment of Africa and its diaspora nations to economic integration and to their collective determination to create a prosperous future. President Obasanjo called on African government leaders, policy makers, and representatives to foster an environment conducive to trade by eliminating unnecessary bureaucracy, harmonising regulations and investing in necessary infrastructure. IATF2023 was a stepping stone towards a future where African nations traded freely, breaking down barriers and opening doors of opportunities for all, he added. He urged entrepreneurs and innovators to seize the moment to build bridges of commerce between nations and within communities by embracing the spirit of entrepreneurship and leveraging technology to unlock new markets, connect small-scale farmers with global partners and empower women-owned businesses. Earlier, Ahmed Samir Saleh, Minister of Trade and industry of Egypt, had welcomed guests to the trade fair and expressed Egypts happiness at hosting the event. The ceremony also featured the projection of a hologram of Kwame Nkrumah, the former President of Ghana who was a key proponent of a united Africa. IATF2023 is Africas largest trade and investment fair projected to attract over 1,600 exhibitors and 35,000 visitors and buyers. Trade and investment deals valued at US$43 billion are expected to be concluded during the trade fair seen as a must attend event for everyone interested in trade and investments in Africas single market of 1.4 billion people created by the AfCFTA which has a combined gross domestic product of over US$3.5 trillion. Attendees include buyers, sellers, importers, exporters, investors, manufacturers, captains of industry, senior government ministers, trade finance and advisory specialists, trade and economic organisations, senior executives from corporates and multinationals and innovative entrepreneurs from across Africa and beyond. Storm Debi is bearing down on Ireland and has prompted Met Eireann to issue a number of warnings, including a Status Orange wind warning for 16 counties. Alan O'Reilly from Carlow Weather said Storm Debi seems to have "sneaked up" on weather models as the system developed rapidly before being named overnight. "Over 30mm of rain and gusts of over 100km/h possible as this storm develops rapidly as it moves into Ireland. The weather models are struggling to handle it but the latest high resolution ensembles have increased the risk of damaging winds significantly," he said. Met Eireann has issued a series of warnings for Storm Debi which has been named and will hit Ireland on Sunday night and Monday morning. The national forecaster had earlier warned of a deepening depression bearing down on the west coast but the now-named storm will affect more than coastal counties. 16 counties have been placed under a Status Orange wind warning for the early hours of Monday morning. They are Carlow, Dublin, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Longford, Louth, Meath, Offaly, Westmeath, Wicklow, Clare, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary and Galway. In its warning, Met Eireann says it will be "stormy on Sunday night and Monday due to Storm Debi with severe and damaging gusts." They list possible impacts as "damage to exposed and vulnerable structures, dangerous travelling conditions, disruption to services and damage to power lines." This warning is valid from 2am to 12pm on Monday. You can track Storm Debi as it moves towards Ireland here: Met Eireann has also issued a Status Yellow wind and rain warning for the entire country. Forecasters says it will be "very windy or stormy on Sunday night and Monday due to Storm Debi, accompanied by heavy rain with a chance of embedded thunderstorms and hail." Possible impacts include fallen trees/branches, localised flooding, wave overtopping and hazardous travelling conditions This warning is valid from midnight on Sunday to 3pm on Monday. Between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth century, Africa was targeted by several European powers. In the early 1960s, many countries that were granted independence attempted to form a continental organization that would defend the interests of its state members. In 1961, King Hassan II urged African leaders from countries that were proclaimed independent to attend a high-level meeting in Casablanca, to discuss ways of fighting against the consequences of colonialism, promote the African unity, and strengthen diplomatic ties linking African nations in the continent. Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Libya and the Algerian interim government responded to the call of Hassan II and in January the 4th, the meeting took place. Africa has come a long way, achieving great progress in terms of liberation and emancipation. Victories followed one another over the years, until 1960, a date that marked the revival of the African continent. But, colonialism resurfaced taking a new form leading to an incomplete kind of freedom. As a result, the African people must remain cautious, focusing their attention on the new colonialism, to eradicate its dangers. In his speech, the Moroccan king told the African leaders that : This meeting is considered determinant and crucial for the history of Africa. The continent has been divided for many years. Africa now has a series of independent states in the east, west and center, coming together to build a new Charter to serve the emancipation and happiness of its present and future generations. A series of recommendations were put forward during the conference, held from the 4th to the 7th of January 1961. The attendees called for the establishment of an effective cooperation between African countries in both the economic and social fields and the formation of the African Advisory Council Committee. The latter included representatives from all African countries. Four other committees was also created namely : The African Economic Commission, the African Cultural Commission, the African Joint High Command and the Liaison office. Establishing the Organization of African Unity Two years after the Casablanca Conference, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was created on May 26, 1963 in Addis Ababa with 30 signatory governments. It was unanimously agreed on to accept the membership of independent and sovereign African states, including African islands. Membership in the OAU was decided through an absolute majority of the Member states, and the organization allows each member to withdraw by submitting a written withdrawal request, applied after one year. Since then, the organization started holding each year a meeting attended by Heads of Member states. Every year, an African leader was supposed to chair the meeting. Thus, between the 12th and 15th of June 1972, Rabat hosted the ninth summit of the OAU. King Hassan II was elected President of the Union by the Mauritanian President Mokhtar Ould Dabbah. Accepting the Polisario Front's membership In 1976, and after being pressured by Algeria and Libya, the Organization of African Unity Committee, based at the time in Maputo, Mozambique, recognized the Polisario Front calling it a liberation movement in Africa. The separatist movement had self-proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. At the OAU conference held in Khartoum, Sudan, on the 17th of July 1978, leaders of the participating countries called for a cease-fie in Western Sahara urging the two parts to find a political solution for the conflict. The summit was concluded by the establishement of a committee of five African leaders, including Sudanese, Guinean, Malian, Nigerian and Tanzanian presidents, to study the Western Sahara conflict in order to put forward a number of concrete proposals at the next African summit. In 1979, an during a summit organized in Monrovia, Liberia, the OAU called for holding a referendum for the Western Sahara people to self-determination. The summit held later on in Sierra Leon in 1980 also recommended a free referendum to determine the fate of the region. In 1981, Hassan II visited Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, to attend the OAU summit. In his speech, he announced that Morocco accepts a referendum in the Sahara. In February 1982, at the thirty-eighth session of the Council of African Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, SADR was declared a member of the OAU with the approval of 26 Member States. OAU summit expected to be held in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, the Polisario Front was invited to attend the meeting for the first time, but hostility between the US administration led by Ronald Reagan and Gaddafi has led Washington to put pressure on a number of African countries to boycott the Summit. As a result, the meeting was canceled. Morocco's withdrawal The summit held on November the 12th, 1984 in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa was attended for the first time by a delegation representing SADR and led by Mohamed Abdelaziz. It was the reason why Morocco decided to withdraw from the OAU. A decision that was based on the violation of one of the most important principles set by the OAU board : to be an independent and sovereign state. During the opening session, the head of the Moroccan delegation, the Royal Council Reda Guedira, delivered a speech on behalf of the King of Morocco : The Organization of African Unity is violating the fourth chapter of its charter, contributing to a serious misconduct that its consequences will remain unpredictable for a long time. King Hassan II added : Now, we can only wish you good luck with your new partner, who will essentially fill the void that Morocco will leave, in terms of originality, credibility and respect for African and the world. The king has expressed his belief that there will come a day when history will help get things to normal. In the meantime, some of us - and this is a painful reality - can assume responsibilities far from any rationality. Morocco's return to the African Union On July the 9th, 2002, the African Union (AU) was created upon the ruins of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). The new members of the organization remained the same, including the separatist movement. More than three decades after Morocco's withdrawal from the Organization of African Unity, the situation in Africa has dramatically changed. The Algerian and Libyan influence started to fade away and many African countries have stopped recognizing SADR as a state. On the 18th July 2016, King Mohammed VI sent a letter to the 27th Summit of the Union, held in Kigali, capital of Rwanda: Surely the African Union is out of step with international law since this so-called state is not a member of the United Nations Organization, nor of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Arab League or any other sub-regional, regional or international institution. In fact, I am more interested in our Continents stance. Will the AU remain out of step with its own Member States national stances, since at least 34 AU countries have never recognized or no longer recognize that entity?. At the African Union summit held in Addis Ababa at the end of January 2017, Morocco's request to formally join the African Union was accepted, despite the opposition of the SADR delegation, Algeria and South Africa. Time is relentless, and after reaching the age of 30, each of us starts to feel the effects of aging, and our bodies begin to change. It's impossible to halt this process, but you can slow it down, and the method is quite simple and accessible to everyone. ADVERTISIMENT According to Chronicle Live, British physician and TV presenter Michael Mosley discussed this in his podcast "Just One Thing," in an episode dedicated to prolonging youth. He suggests that strength training is the answer. The need for such training arises because, after the age of 30, muscle mass begins to decrease. Maintaining it can rejuvenate the body at the cellular level and even boost brain function. Dr. Mosley referred to studies showing that weight training can increase muscle mass by 10 percent and strength by 150 percent in just 12 weeks. "A review of dozens of studies on the effects of exercise on people over 50 found that both aerobic and weight training are good for the brain, but studies have shown that weight training is particularly good for memory and executive function, which improves things like problem-solving," the presenter said. ADVERTISIMENT He also mentioned that strength training has another positive effect: it improves sleep. Recent research on the effects of physical activity showed that those who exercise sleep better and longer, with an additional 20 minutes of sleep each night. And, of course, such training helps with weight loss. One study Dr. Mosley discussed was conducted at Harvard and involved over 10,000 men over 12 years. The study showed that strength training is more effective at burning abdominal fat than cardio exercises. This is significant because abdominal fat can passively produce chemicals that have adverse effects on blood sugar levels. "Muscle cells, on the other hand, have a positive effect when you exercise; they absorb blood sugar like a sponge. In fact, one study showed that every 10 percent increase in your skeletal muscle reduces the risk of developing prediabetes by 10 percent," the doctor added. ADVERTISIMENT In addition to improving one's appearance, building muscle mass can make you feel younger and even add years to your life. For example, a recent analysis Dr. Mosley described showed that 30 to 60 minutes of strength training per week reduces the risk of death from heart disease and cancer by up to 20 percent. Abigail McKay, a muscle health researcher at the University of Copenhagen, explained what happens to muscles as we age. She said that muscle fiber loss occurs with age. Over time, these muscle fibers begin to lose their connection with nerves. When this connection weakens due to inactivity, the muscles will weaken and eventually die. However, McKay emphasized that it's never too late to start weight training. "It doesn't matter how old you are; you'll benefit. What's also coming out now is that if you're active throughout your life, you can slow down some of these negative changes that happen as you age or even prevent them completely," she said. ADVERTISIMENT Dr. Mosley advised those who have never exercised and want to start now to consult their doctor first. Depending on their health conditions, it might be necessary to start slowly, avoid certain exercises, and gradually increase intensity. Earlier, OBOZREVATEL told you how the habit of sitting on the floor can extend your life. Subscribe to OBOZREVATEL's Telegram, Viber, and Threads channels to keep up with the latest developments. Advertisement USC's Trailblazing Prostate Study Unlocking Prostate Secrets Characterizing prostate cancer risk through multi-ancestry genome-wide discovery of 187 novel risk variants - (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-023-01534-4) With these findings, the researchers improved a system they developed for measuring genetic risk so that it was more effective in predicting who would or wouldn't develop prostate cancer even distinguishing between the likelihood of aggressive and less serious cases among men of African descent.The finding that higher risk scores based on the 451 variants correlated with more-aggressive disease in men of African ancestry is a meaningful step toward improving early detection and making better-informed decisions about screening.The study builds on 2021 research documented in the same journal that found 269 genetic variants correlating with prostate cancer risk, based on a sample of nearly 235,000 men.The new results were derived from genomic information from close to 950,000 men."We're not going to learn everything there is to know about the genetics of prostate cancer by studying only white men," said co-senior author Christopher Haiman, ScD, holder of the AFLAC Chair in Cancer Research and professor of population and public health sciences at the Keck School of Medicine."Larger and larger studies, engaging a broader spectrum of populations, are important if we're going to identify genetic markers of risk and develop risk prediction tools that are equally effective across populations."The researchers compared genomic data from 156,319 prostate cancer patients with that of a control group totaling 788,443.From the previous study, there was an 87% increase in the number of prostate cancer cases including men of African ancestry, 45% of Latino ethnicity, 43% of European ancestry, and 26% of Asian ancestry.Haiman and his colleagues found 187 new genetic variants associated with prostate cancer risk.They also found 150 genetic variants from earlier research that were replaced by variants in nearby spots on the DNA double helix that better correlated with prostate cancer risk through the lens of the larger, more diverse sample."It's an important refinement to find markers that are better at capturing risk across populations," said Haiman, who is also director of the USC Center for Genetic Epidemiology and co-leader of the Cancer Epidemiology Program at USC Norris cancer center."The idea of precision medicine and global medicine for all rely on including and integrating information across populations because the best marker determined in whites might not be the best marker overall."In addition to fueling further research, the results have the potential to benefit human health by providing men with personalized risk information that they can use when having discussions with their doctors about screening and treatment.Ultimately the research could lay the groundwork for genetic testing to identify those at greater risk for aggressive prostate cancer and enable early detection by screening them earlier and more often.Because many prostate cancer cases diagnosed today might never reach the point where they are life-threatening leading to unnecessary treatment that can degrade the quality of life differentiating between risk for aggressive disease is key.Up until now, the scientists' system for calculating risk scores has correlated with the likelihood of developing prostate cancer but lacked predictive value about how serious a given case may be."We'll continue to improve this risk score, and look for markers that help to distinguish aggressive from less aggressive disease," Haiman said. clinical trials will be required to evaluate the effectiveness of the risk score in helping doctors and patients make decisions about screening."This research combined the data from virtually every study to date examining DNA for genetic variants associated with prostate cancer risk. The U.S. Veterans Health Administration's Million Veteran Program and Argonne National Laboratory proved to be essential partners [for including diverse populations in the study].Bringing it all together required a team effort encompassing more than 300 researchers from well over 100 institutions, in 26 nations from Barbados to Bulgaria, Nigeria to the Netherlands, and Japan to Ghana."This shows what happens when the world research community comes together to make improvements for all," Haiman said."The fact that everyone was so willing to collaborate was enormously critical."Source: Eurekalert A whole new island has suddenly appeared in the Pacific Ocean, a few kilometers from the Japanese island of Iwo Jima. This happened as a result of an underwater volcanic eruption that began on October 21. ADVERTISIMENT According to The New York Times, scientists have been monitoring underwater activity in the region for months. But it was the most recent eruption that finally raised a piece of new land from the ocean abyss (To see photos and video, scroll to the bottom of the story). "Now that it's visible, people are paying attention," said Yuji Usui, senior analyst for volcanic activity at the Japan Meteorological Agency. Such fascinating geological processes responsible for the formation of islands in the Pacific Ocean are a reminder that our Earth is in a process of constant transformation, and its surface hides a whole range of known and unknown activity. "The eruptions that shaped Hawaii took place before our time. But also, until they came to the surface of the water, we would not have seen them even if we were sitting above them in a Polynesian canoe," said James White, a professor of geology at the University of Otago in New Zealand. ADVERTISIMENT Earlier, OBOZ.UA reported that the supervolcano in the south of Italy could have destroyed Neanderthals and now it is probably preparing to explode again. Subscribe to OBOZ.UA channels in Telegram and Viber to keep up with the latest events. Hill 60 was a low rise south-east of Ypres made from the soil removed in digging a cutting for the Ypres to Comines railway. It had excellent views over both Ypres and Zillibeke, and was captured by the Germans during the first Battle of Ypres in November 1914. On 17 April 1915, in one of the first tunnelling operations by the British Army, six mines were exploded under Hill 60, which was then quickly captured with minimal casualties. But, in early May, the Germans recaptured the hill with the use of gas. In August 1915, 175th Tunnelling Company RE began deep-mining beneath Hill 60. The 3rd Canadian Tunnelling Company completed the task, building two deep chambers. One under Hill 60 was filled with 53,300 pounds of Ammonal explosives; a second branch, under what was known as the Caterpillar, was filled with 70,000 pounds of explosives. To try to solve the problems of the wet soil, the mines were dug through blue clay 80-120ft below the surface. In November 1916, the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company commanded by Captain Oliver Woodward took over the tunnels and maintained them through the winter. Eventually there were about 8,000 yards of tunnels in the area. The Germans very nearly discovered the main chambers on more than one occasion. At 3.10am on 7 June 1917, these two mines and 19 others, containing nearly one million pounds of explosives, were detonated as a prelude to the Battle of Messines. The effect was like that of a particularly violent earthquake. There was a mighty roar, and columns of flame shot into the air. Thousands of tons of rubble, debris, and human remains were scattered over a wide area. Survivors spoke of a blast of hot air that could be felt 20 miles from the Front. The sound could be heard in London. It is estimated that 10,000 Germans were killed in the explosion. It wrecked the German lines, and provided the Allies with a huge advantage. Two of the mines did not explode. They were later abandoned, and details of their location were lost. One blew up when hit by lightning in 1955; the other has never been found. The Masua hub was a complex of several mining operations in the Sulcis area, a region of Sardinia rich in coal, sulphur, barium, zinc, lead, silver and other metals. Extraction began in 1600, but became economically relevant only in the early 1900s when the mining business in the whole region experienced a quick expansion. The extraction, especially of the coal caves, was operated on a low-technology basis until the early 20th century. Since the late 1800s metal-gathering enjoyed more modern techniques, as it was controlled mostly by rich north-European corporations more willing to commit money in improving the mining efficiency.In 1922, the Masua mines were acquired by the Belgian Vieille Montagne Company, and exploitation increased with the growing need for zinc and lead for reconstruction after World War I as well as because of technological advance in steel alloys. The zinc and lead ore was extracted in the mines by men (aged 16 and above), processed by women and children in a centralized "washing plant" (called Lavatorio), and was finally stored.Until 1924, sailors from Carloforte moved the processed ore in wicker baskets placed on their shoulders and loaded their bilancelles (a traditional Sardinian boat design with two lateens) to their limits (up to 30 tons per boat). The ore was brought 30 kilometres (19 mi) to Carloforte Island harbor, where it was manually unloaded from the boats. The ore was then stored in the magazines or in the hold of waiting steamships until a full load could be shipped to the foundries in France, Belgium and Germany.The transport process was costly, slow and dangerous. The bilancelle could not stand stormy seas, especially when loaded with lead, and so the service was discontinuous and the boats commonly sank. Sailors had terrible working conditions with low wages, no rest, and great physical fatigue. In bad weather, up to two months could be needed to fully load a steamship in Carloforte, while in good conditions no less than seven days were needed: the cost of the wages for so many workers in addition to the much larger cost of the steamship and quay rent made the transportation of the ore a very significant expense in the production process.The mines' owner asked the Italian engineer Cesare Vecelli to devise a solution to improve steamship loading time and cost. Vecelli surveyed the coasts of Masua, ultimately finding the perfect spot in the high cliffs in front of the Pan di Zucchero stack. Here, the sea was deep enough and well-protected from wind and waves to allow a safe mooring, while the ore could be loaded from the cliffs by gravity.After one year of study, he devised a detailed plan to build two superimposed tunnels, each 600 metres (2,000 ft) long, that were linked by nine huge vertical reservoirs for the processed ore. In the upper tunnel an electric train was used to bring the load the reservoirs: the ore was unloaded by gravity into hatches on top of the reservoirs. In the lower tunnel a conveyor belt received the ore from the reservoirs and brought it to an extensible 16-metre (52 ft) long conveyor belt capable of fully loading a steamship moored at the base of the cliff in about two days. The reservoirs, carved directly into the rock, were capable of holding over 10,000 metric tons (11,000 short tons) of ore.A special crew of miners expert in explosives and rock climbing was assembled. They worked in shifts, day and night, to complete the excavations in record time. Despite safety measures being practically ignored to speed up work, no casualties were reported in the building phase. Because the tunnel was without angles or trenches, the usual technique for dynamite-drilling was impossible (the crew used those angles and trenches as shelter while blowing up charges just a few meters away). Instead, small cavities were excavated at regular distances to allow the workers to gain cover after igniting explosives. They are still visible in the guided tour.The workers began drilling the upper gallery, 37 metres (121 ft) above sea-level, with dynamite and mechanical drills (many mines at the time mostly used pickaxes) until they reached the sea. They then hung from ropes and began drilling the lower tunnel from the cliff-face, 16 metres (52 ft) above sea-level, going the opposite direction under the upper gallery. This way, they could dump the removed rocks directly into the sea. Finally, the reservoirs were excavated by creating holes in the basaltic rock, starting from the bottom of the cavities and going up. This again eased the removal of rubble, although this procedure was very dangerous. Each storage reservoir was 4 to 8 metres (13 to 26 ft) in diameter and 20 metres (66 ft) high.Venting holes were opened on the side of the galleries. Mechanical iron hatches were installed, along with the electric railway into the upper tunnel. The train brought the ore to the loading hatches of the reservoirs, while in the lower tunnel the unloading hatches fed the ore to the conveyor belt leading to the ships. The belt was covered with a steel casing to prevent the wind blowing away zinc oxide powder. It was extensible, and retracted after a load was delivered to the ship's hold. The main conveyor belt featured an innovative movable alignment system, designed to reduce the risk of the belt escaping the driving wheels under the pressure of the falling ore. The main belt dumped the ore on the slightly lower extensible conveyor belt, which could be protruded for 15 metres (49 ft) and channeled the ore powder into a vertical shaft going to the hold of a moored ship.Construction took only two years, ending in 1924, a remarkably short period of time for a work of that size. The ends of the tunnels facing the sea were adorned with concrete towers and decorative nameplates. They were not necessary to the operation, but were asked to be constructed by the owner of the company as a mark of prestige. Vecelli's daughter, Flavia, was born earlier in 1924 and the engineer obtained permission from the company to name the harbor after her.When Porto Flavia became operative in 1924, it slashed ore production costs by up to 70 percent, allowing Vieille Montagne to gain a strong market share in a short time. The construction of Porto Flavia paid for itself in under two years, and was considered a technical marvel in the mining business. Other mine operators were not allowed to use the tunnel and harbor, still relying on manual labor or on longer railway routes. The opening of Porto Flavia left many sailors from Carloforte without a job, damaging the nearby island economy.Working conditions in Porto Flavia were better than in the mines because of a functional powder removal system, good venting, natural light, top-class machinery and better wages. But there were lethal accidents: one of the more risky jobs was done by the Squadra della Morte (Death Team), a special group of workers who had to enter the reservoirs by hanging from above and removing with poles and picks the ore that got stuck on the rocky walls.Under normal conditions, the plant was able to deliver over 500 metric tons (550 short tons) of ore per hour to a waiting ship.Porto Flavia's importance decreased in the 1960s after the decline of mining activity in Sulcis-Iglesiente, and it was closed in the 1990s when mineral production in Masua ceased. Today, it is owned by IGEA SpA, a public company charged with the restoration and preservation of the old mining plants.Porto Flavia is a UNESCO-protected site, and is one of the suggested destinations for tours of mining and industrial archaeology sites in the region. Daily tours are held in the tunnel, guided by former workers or mining technicians of IGEA. How to use the mindat.org media viewer Click/touch this help panel to close it. Welcome to the mindat.org media viewer. Here is a quick guide to some of the options available to you. Different controls are available depending on the type of media being shown (photo, video, animation, 3d image) Controls - all media types Zoom in and out of media using your mousewheel or with a two-finger 'resize' action on a touch device. Use the mouse or your finger to drag the image or the view area of the image around the screen. < and > at the left and right hand side of the screen move forwards and backwards for the other images associated with the media you selected. Usually this is used for previous/next photo in a gallery, in an article or in search results. Keyboard shortcuts: use shift + the left and right arrow keys. < and > in the bottom center are used for switching between the photos of the same specimen. Keyboard shortcuts: use the left and right arrow keys. > in the bottom center, raises the information box giving details and further options for the media, < at the top of this box then hides it. Keyboard shortcuts: use the up and down arrow keys. ? opens this help window. Keyboard shortcuts: use the H key or the ? key. Other keyboard shortcuts: 1 Fit image to screen 2 Fill screen with image 5 Display at full resolution < Make background darker > Make background lighter space Hide/dim titles and buttons Scalebar If the field of view (FOV) is specified for the photo, the scalebar appears in the left bottom corner of the viewer. The scalebar is draggable and resizeable. Drag the right edge to resize it. Double click will reset the scalebar to it's default size and position. If the scalebar is in default position, double click will make it circular. Controls - Video Video files have a standard set of video controls: - Reset to start, - Skip back, - Play, - Pause, - Skip forwards. Keyboard shortcuts: You can stop/start video play with the P key. Controls - Animation (Spin Rotation) Animation (usually 360 degree spin rotations) have their own controls: - enable spin mode. Note that while images are loading this option will not be available but will be automatically activated when the animation has loaded. Once active you can spin the image/change the animation by moving your mouse or finger on the image left/right or by pressing the [ or ] keys. The button switches to move mode so that you can use your mouse/fingers to move the image around the screen as with other media types. The button, or the P key will start playing the animation directly, you can interrupt this by using the mouse or finger on the image to regain manual movement control. Controls - 3D Stereoscopic images If a stereoscopic 3D image is opened in the viewer, the 3D button appears in the bottom right corner giving access to "3D settings" menu. The 3D images can be viewed in several ways: - without any special equipment using cross-eyed or parallel-eyed method - with stereoscope - with anaglyph glasses. - on a suitable 3D TV or monitor (passive 3D system) For details about 3D refer to: Mindat manuals: Mindat Media Viewer: 3D To enable/disable 3D stereo display of a compatible stereo pair image press the 3 key. If the left/right images are reversed on your display (this often happens in full-screen mode) press the 4 key to reverse them. Controls - photo comparison mode If a photo with activated comparison mode is opened in the viewer, the button appears in the bottom right corner giving access to "Comparison mode settings" menu. Several layouts are supported: slider and side by-side comparison with up to 6 photos shown synchronously on the screen. On each of the compared photos a view selector is placed, e.g.: Longwave UV . It shows the name of currently selected view and allows to select a view for each placeholder. Summary of all keyboard shortcuts While easy to overlook throughout most of the year, tamaracks are practically impossible to miss in the fall. In the spring and summer, these wetland trees generally blend in with the rest of the greenery around them. Come autumn, however, their needles turn a showstopping bright yellow hue that lights up the landscape. Even the historic American naturalist and writer Aldo Leopold was taken by the tamaracks enchanting autumn color, describing it in his writing as smoky gold. This striking autumn display isnt the tamaracks only trick, either. These trees are actually a bit of a curiosity: They belong to the pine family, but unlike evergreens, they lose their needles in the fall, making them Michigans only native deciduous conifer. RELATED: Michigans newest old-growth forest is on a college campus After tamaracks drop their pretty yellow needles in late autumn, they spend the winter fully dormant, looking a lot like spindly sticks. Then, come spring, they produce little bundles of incredibly soft, green needles, becoming perhaps the most pettable of all pines. Also known as American larch or Eastern larch, tamaracks can reach heights of 40-80 feet, and are quick to spread in open, sunny locations in bogs, swamps and along the edges of lakes. According to the Michigan Natural Features Inventory, their roots often form dense mats that help create a special type of forested wetland known as a rich tamarack swamp, where fascinating flora and fauna, such as the carnivorous pitcher plant and federally endangered Mitchells satyr butterfly, may be found. Tamaracks are hardy and cold tolerant, surviving winters across the upper Midwest and as far north as Alaska. In Michigan these beautiful trees are found throughout the entire state. To find them, check out your local wetlands in the late fall, and look for the tamaracks unmistakeable golden glow. This story has been updated with a statement from American House Senior Living. A state investigator has recommended the closure of an adult foster facility in Jenison after an 83-year-old resident died Oct. 14 just outside the facility, seven hours after walking out the front door, according to a newly-released report The facility, named American House Jenison Cherrywood, is geared toward seniors needing memory care or hospice and is supposed to prevent seniors with memory issues from wandering away. But on Oct. 13 at about 7 p.m., a resident of the facility pulled the fire alarm, then 16 minutes later walked out the front door. More than seven hours later, according to an Ottawa County Sheriffs deputy, the resident was found dead, face down in the grass just outside of the facility, approximately 25 feet away from his walker. It was 46 degrees and raining, and the resident had been wearing pajama pants and a hunting jacket, according to the deputy. WOOD-TV 8 named the resident as 83-year-old Calvin Powers. According to the state report, he suffered from delusions/hallucinations that led to him looking for an unknown baby and/or his mother, leading to him to look for means to leave the facilities where he had been housed. He had recently been transferred from a different part of the American House Jenison complex, and had been aggressive toward staff in the past. The front doors alarm, which might have notified staff of his departure hadnt been reset after the earlier fire alarm, according to the investigators interview with facility Executive Director Theresa Bursley. Michigans Bureau of Community and Health Systems posted the report, which was finalized in late October, online Saturday, recommending the the facilitys license as an adult care facility be revoked. The 20-bed home is part of the larger American House Jenison complex but has a separate license. It is owned and operated by Toledo, Ohio-based American House Senior Living, which released a statement on Monday. We are deeply saddened by the passing of one of our residents on Oct. 14, and we are offering our support and condolences to the residents loved ones. We respect the states advocacy for ensuring the implementation of adult foster care regulations and are working closely with state officials to review their findings to ensure we continue to provide the high-quality care our residents deserve and have come to expect. A blind woman with Alzheimers died in June at another location owned by American House, after she managed to walk out of an unalarmed front door in their Cobblestone facility in Kentwood, fell into a pond and drowned, according to a state investigation. The Jenison facility has faced several investigations from the state in recent months, including that a staff members rough handling of another senior led to the seniors dislocated shoulder, and another that found staff at the business had repeatedly failed to give residents their proper medications. Those state-determined violations wouldve have effected the business licensure status, provided they demonstrated to the state they fixed the problem. American House Senior Living has 19 facility licenses in Michigan, according to state records, and the company has faced numerous investigations in recent years. If the Jenison facilitys license is ultimately revoked, the state can refuse to issue the business a new license of the particular licensee for five years, but each of American Houses four complexes in Michigan is licensed under the names of different Ohio companies. American House touts being the 27th largest chain of senior homes in the country, totaling 54 communities in the Midwest, New England and Florida, according to the companys website, and has nine more locations under development. In its statement, the business said its committed to its mission providing thousands of American House residents we care for and have cared for over the past 44 years with high-quality housing and care. American House promised to continue to work with all stakeholders during this ongoing investigation to identify opportunities for improvement moving forward. TYRONE TWP, MI - A 7-foot boa imperator wrapped around your neck, hand-feed ring-tailed lemurs and talk with a parrot. These are just a few things people can enjoy at Supes Exotic Jungle - the Flint-areas interactive Zoo located at 7443 Hartland Road in Tyrone Township, 25 miles from Flint. But no worries, the 20-pound brown leathery boa named Ruby from South America wont strangle or bite. Its the nicest snake in the world, said owner Brent Barrick, adding the snake can grow to 10 feet and 40 pounds. She doesnt even bite us when we deserve it. The jungle area also includes two ball pythons, which have been held by thousands of kids, and chameleons. Brent and Shannon Barrick own and operate the zoo on their 5-acre property and host private tours for $240 for up to 10 people and $24 for each individual person. On-site tours are available the first day of spring through the week before Christmas. The couple primarily accept private tours and will travel to schools within 40 miles to bring their exotic animals for children to enjoy. No walk-ins are allowed. People bring their kids here for a fun experience and then the adults are the ones that want to come back, Brent Barrick said. The Barricks have hosted private tours at their home since 2015, and before that were visiting schools as a favor to their teacher friends showing off their animals. Outside the home when individuals walk in they can expect to be greeted by ring-tailed lemurs -- Nyah the female leader, and twin brothers Tazz and Toby. Their backs are gray to rosy brown with gray limbs and dark gray heads and necks. They have white bellies, four long fingers and a thumb on each hand, and their faces are white with dark triangular eye patches and a black nose. These creatures can only be found in Madagascar, an island off the coast of Africa, and can jump 20 feet from tree to tree. Feeding them is allowed, as is with most of the roughly 35 animals the zoo features. Most of the exotic animals are rescue animals from various states around the country. Exotic, circus or zoo animals must have an official interstate certificate of veterinary inspection filled out by a U.S. Department of Agriculture accredited veterinarian in the animals state of origin, according to the Michigan Department Agriculture & Rural Development. Brent Barrick, originally from Detroit, worked at the Detroit Zoo for five years and had no plans of doing this when he moved to Tyrone Township. But owning Nyah, a friend asked if her boyfriend can come visit the animal for his birthday and the idea was sparked. The couple helped Tyrone Township write an exotic animal ordinance so they wouldnt get kicked out. If we were a mile away, it probably never happens, Brent Barrick said. Definitely never expected to be working with endangered primates in my backyard. Shannon Barrick is from Livonia and has always had a love for animals. On each tour, she can be seen with Brent Barrick providing fun facts. The Barricks have raised many of the animals from when they were babies, such as fox, all three wallabies, coati, alligator and porcupines. A couple of the worlds largest porcupines -- Imani and Amari -- North African crested porcupines, can be found here. These types of porcupines are capable of killing lions, leopards and hyenas in the wild with their foot-long quills. Imani is about 40 pounds, with a maximum size of approximately 50 pounds. Its one of my favorites, Brent Barrick said. I raised them from a two-week old softball sized babies and one of them follows me around giving me kisses. There are three wallabies -- an animal from the kangaroo family -- and its best to pet them from their backs. They live in Southern Australia and Tasmania where it gets cold, Brent Barrick said. So we get to leave them out here in the winter time. One of the more popular animals at the zoo are the skunks -- which children fall in love with and hold like a teddy bear -- whose scent glands have been removed. A couple red-footed tortoises that can live up to 60 years old, stingrays, chocolate chip sea stars, foxes and lynx are also popular among the people. The Eurasian lynx, Zuri, is behind a fenced area. People can place a piece of meat on a stick and feed it, experiencing the powerful bite from Zuri as it snatches the food. It can jump about six-feet high and is the largest species in the world related to a bobcat. Extreme safety measures are taken at the zoo, Brent Barrick said. Typically wearing a dark gray Supes Exotic Jungle hoodie while hosting tours, he has a brownish beard and gray goatee. Brent Barrick has been around the block studying animals and only chooses safe species to keep in his yard. He and Shannon Barrick hold USDA Class C Exhibition licenses, which involves the showing or displaying of animals to the public. Were not going inside with the lemurs as an example he said. We have liability insurance and we have to maintain that. Close interactions is what we do and we work within what the species is capable of doing. Supes Exotic Jungle host birthday parties in a private room for up to 20 people and have held parties for people up to 81 years old. The Barricks own a young Alligator named Gordo. Theyre keeping him inside until he becomes healthy after he was found in Ohio with his mouth zipped shut and was rescued. Gordo still has those scars on his head. In the back area, cockatiel birds and parakeets are featured where guests can hold a stick and have the birds sit on, and also will station on your head and shoulders. While touring the zoo, just dont forget to say hello to the Amazon parrot inside, Mrs. Gru, who is in her mid-20s. She will likely will say hello back. But shes one of the few animals at the zoo that doesnt like getting touched. She has a great laugh like a supervillain, Brent Barrick said. FLINT, MI -- A first-of-a-kind partnership between Kettering University and BAUHOUSE, a Flint streetwear and sneaker store, has plans to teach students how to merge the industries of fashion and technology. The pilot program called STEM Fashion: Blending Tech and Streetwear will feature a handful of students from the university who were seeking an opportunity to break into the fashion space outside of their co-ops and university studies. Students will be empowered to explore their passion for fashion, art and design by driving innovation through technology in the streetwear/retail industry in the following areas: augmented reality, sustainability and 3D modeling. Sophomore Ethan Arun told MLive-The Flint Journal he plans to approach this partnership with the same drive and focus as a co-op experience. Kettering University students graduate with roughly two years of full-time work experience through co-op partnerships. Students will be mentored by BAU-HOUSE owners Lee Grant Allen and Antonio Forte II throughout the process. Related: BAU-HOUSE brings sneakers, streetwear and artists together at new downtown Flint business Senior Aaron Saijan was attracted to the program from the entrepreneurial aspect, noting Allen and Forte are business owners in the city. Ive always had kind of an entrepreneurial mind, so seeing someone like Lee start BAUHOUSE and see how I can get involved in that helps me understand how it would be for me if I were to start something in the future, Saijan said. Students are hoping this program will help them prepare for the next big boom in technology with artificial intelligence in fashion and retail. Weve really just seen it in the automotive industry and our phones and laptops, Sophomore Andrew Ricard said. We havent seen (the new technology) touch fashion and streetwear. It would be cool to start exploring that. Venetia Petteway, Kettering Universitys Director of STEM Diversity Initiative, spoke highly of the partnership in its inaugural stage. Its a wonderful venture for Kettering students to get involved with BAU-HOUSE and explore a new business industry within the Flint community, Petteway wrote in a statement. This new club on campus will provide a chance to engage students creative ability, technical prowess, their love for fashion and fun, while hearing and learning from some neat local and statewide talent. This is one of two partnerships BAU-HOUSE operates with Michigan colleges. The business has a college preparedness program for up-and-coming designers in partnership with Pensole Lewis College, an HBCU in Detroit. Want more Flint-area news? Bookmark the local Flint news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Flint daily newsletter. If you would like more reporting like this delivered free to your inbox, click here and signup for our weekly newsletter: Michigan Schools. Read more at The Flint Journal: Crash on I-475 in Flint leaves two dead, one in critical condition One of Flints oldest school buildings demolished Flint Township Police Department to receive $140K federal grant for equipment Jelly Roll to perform for Genesee County inmates in December FLINT, MI -- Washington Elementary is finally being demolished. Originally built in 1922, demolition was started Thursday, Nov. 9, on one of Flint Community Schools districts oldest buildings. Washington Elementary was closed to students in 2013 and has been vacant since a 2021 fire that destroyed much of the building. Related: One of Flints oldest school buildings demolished The building was unsafe, contained contaminated materials and had been a target for arson and other crimes. Washington Elementary was originally scheduled to come down in October, but a legal technicality in the bidding process caused the Flint Board of Education to reissue bids for the project. Several construction vehicles could be seen tearing the building down on Thursday. The demolition is a win for several board members who ran on a platform to address Flint Community Schools contribution to blight in the city. Flint police, fire and blight officials approached the school board earlier this year asking them to secure the 20 vacant properties thatve become safety concerns, including Washington Elementary. Superintendent Kevelin Jones described the property as being in ruins when the board originally voted to demolish the building in February. See more photos of the demolition below. 23 1 / 23 Crews work to demolish long-standing Flint education beacon Washington Elementary Want more Flint-area news? Bookmark the local Flint news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Flint daily newsletter. If you would like more reporting like this delivered free to your inbox, click here and signup for our weekly newsletter: Michigan Schools. Read more from The Flint Journal: Pearl Harbor, GM and a love-filled life: WWII veteran honors family, service to country Hidden passageways and surprise slides: This six-story Michigan oasis hits market at $6.5 million Take a video tour of new state-of-the-art St. Michaels Conference Center Michigans Best Local Eats: Shirleys Cafe offers breakfast with an Elvis theme Michigan high school choir aims to stun in once-in-a-lifetime show WYOMING, MI No injuries were reported in an afternoon blaze that started in a homes attached garage. Wyoming firefighters responded to a 3:45 p.m. report of a garage fire on Saturday, Nov. 11, in the 2000 block of Wyoming Avenue. Upon arrival, crews found a well-involved attached garage fire that was spreading into the home. Firefighters were able to contain and extinguish the fire and prevented it from fully extending to the rest of the home. No injuries were reported, and officials said all residents inside were able to safe evacuate the home. The Red Cross was notified to assist the homeowners. Wyoming firefighters were assisted at the scene by the Grandville Fire Department. The department is encouraging those in the community to practice regular fire safety measures such as checking smoke alarms as well as having a well-rehearsed evacuation plan and meeting place. Anyone with additional information regarding this fire is asked to contact the Wyoming Fire Department Fire Investigator at 616-257-9764. Happy Sunday! After a feeding frenzy of final legislation this week, state lawmakers are going into hibernation for the winter. Leaders of the Democratic majority said it was a historic year of accomplishments. Go deeper: Success, division and whats next: Dems proud of shorter but busy 2023 But this past week was full of big- bills that the governor will sign. Here are some major packages to know, plus other important stories from the week. Energy: clean but controversial MLive file photoChronicle file Michigan will need to get 100% of its energy from renewable sources by 2040 under a landmark bill package. Defining terms: Renewable includes solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal and hydropower. A target for 80% clean energy is set for 2035. This includes natural gas, thanks to negotiating from utility companies. Climate change is real, and it is an immediate threat to the wellbeing and economic prosperity of our state, said Rep. Jenn Hill, D-Marquette. Long way to go: Renewables were just 12% of Michigans energy generation last year. Democrats power play to quicken the transition: give the state control over approving large solar and wind farms. Rural areas, often heavily conservative, have been resistant to these projects often for aesthetic reasons. How it will work: Landowners can come to the state instead of their township for approval. The Michigan Public Service Commission will oversee each monthslong decision process, inviting locals to the table. But locals wont be able to put any restrictions on projects stricter than state rules. This type of community involvement is pretend, said Sen. John Damoose, R-Harbor Springs. Also read: After mistake, Michigans hurried clean energy mandate is finalized Abortion barriers lifted MLive file photo.Daniel Shular | MLive.com Its not everything they wanted, but Democrats passed repeals of certain abortion restrictions. Advocates call them TRAP laws: unique and politically targeted restrictions of abortion providers. Here are some to be repealed: Facility requirements like hallway width and procedure room size. A requirement that patients be given state-mandated materials on alternatives like adoption. A ban on colleges referring abortion services to students. These are laws that apply to no other form of health care in the state, said Rep. Laurie Pohutsky, D-Livonia. Dems abandoned repeals of Michigans 24-hour waiting period and ban on Medicaid abortion coverage due to Detroit Rep. Karen Whitsetts majority-breaking opposition. Pohutsky told reporters a possible avenue for nixing the 24-hour waiting period. Someone could argue in a lawsuit it violates Michigans new constitutional right to abortion. Related: One year after Michigan approves abortion access, Right to Life sues to overturn it A transparency compromise MLive file photo.Ben Orner | MLive.com Remember voting on Proposal 1 last year? It requires annual financial disclosures from legislators, the governor and other top officials. But it allowed lawmakers to decide how stringent to be. Their answer: Not as much as they could be. Simon Schuster, MLives resident follower of the money, followed the issue this week. The end result: Bills approved Thursday afternoon require elected officials report sources of earned and unearned income and descriptions of assets. But they dont have to report amounts. Officials spouses will only have to report their employer, occupation (if theyre a lobbyist) and relationships with companies that do business with the state. With bipartisan approval, the bills are reflecting the wishes of our constituents, said House Speaker Joe Tate, D-Detroit. What could have been: Lawmakers who say these bills dont go far enough come from both sides of the aisle. Reporting of free travel paid by special interests didnt make the cut. Neither did substantial penalties for not complying with the law. We took a step forward. The smallest step possible, but it was a step forward, said Rep. Tom Kunse, R-Clare, a no vote. More from Simon: Michigans COVID-19 spending topped $18 billion Registering to vote two years early MLive file photo.Joel Bissell | MLive.com Sixteen-year-olds will soon be able to preregister to vote because of a bill that passed this week. What is preregistering? Signing up to be automatically registered to vote when youre eligible. 17-year-olds can currently do so in preparation for the first election for which theyll be 18. How it works: These future voters can sign a form and essentially be placed on a waiting list inside Michigans voter rolls. This will undoubtedly increase participation in our elections by ensuring when they are legally eligible to vote at 18, they will be all set to become a lifelong voter, said Rep. Betsy Coffia, D-Traverse City. Getting the word out: Beginning next summer, the Secretary of States office will annually contact Michiganders aged 16-18 about the preregistering option. The Michigan Department of Education will also provide public high schools with voter registration and preregistration materials. More for the SOS: Decades later, three classic Michigan license plates will return In other politics news... Ex-U.S. Rep. Peter Meijer is running for Senate in a tough GOP primary for the occasional critic of ex-President Donald Trump. Hes running a policy-focused campaign thats sincere and authentic, Meijer told Simon A Michigan court is deciding if Trump should be thrown off the states 2024 ballot. Plaintiffs argue Trump cant run because of his role in the U.S. Capitol riot, reports MLives Jordyn Hermani The 14th Amendment says insurrection or rebellion is a disqualification. Voters in Green Charter Township, future home of an electric vehicle battery plant run by Chinese company Gotion, recalled their entire board. Those officials backed the plant, but mobilized residents dont like the China connection Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed legislation expanding protections and services for crime victims. The bipartisan bills include protecting domestic and sexual violence victims identities and allowing victim impact statements to be made virtually. U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, was censured meaning officially condemned by her House colleagues. In calling for Palestinian rights, she used a phrase that many Jews see as antisemitic. It angered Republicans and some Democrats. 5 more stories from MLive: Hospitals, nurses split on proposed law to address staffing shortage Former Hamtramck officials sue city over unconstitutional LGBTQ Pride flag ban State to launch climate corps to help Michigan decarbonize Michigan to forgive $114M of school district debt in plan sent to governor Tribal efforts lead to native wild rice as Michigan state symbol American actress Demi Moore celebrates her 61st birthday on November 11. The star began her career 42 years ago when she ran away from her alcoholic mother, who had raped her at the age of 15. ADVERTISIMENT Later in her life, the screen star faced difficult trials, which she passed with dignity, remaining beautiful and in demand in Hollywood. On the occasion of the artist's birthday, OBOZ.UA decided to recall some facts from her biography and show how Demi Moore looked back in 1981 (to see the photo, scroll to the bottom of the page). Difficult childhood Demetria Jean Hines, the name Demi Moore had before she got married, grew up in a dysfunctional family with alcoholic parents. She did not have a happy childhood with friends, teenage adventures, and adult care. By the time she was 16, Moore had moved 40 times. Even at a young age, the future star was very attractive, which her immoral mother took advantage of. In her memoirs, the actress recalled that her closest friend regularly took her to clubs where she seduced men for drinks. ADVERTISIMENT The most tragic episode in the life of an American woman was a rape that took place at the suggestion of her mother. She sold her daughter's sex to a friend for 500 dollars. Shortly afterwards, Demi Moore ran away from home and entered the modeling business. Film career As soon as the young beauty came of age, she met rock musician Freddie Moore, whom the aspiring actress quickly married. The union lasted only 5 years, but it gave her a recognizable surname. ADVERTISIMENT In 1981, Demi Moore made her screen debut in the movie Choices, then appeared in the horror film Parasite and starred in the soap opera General Hospital. The seductive brunette was rapidly gaining fans, and eminent producers began to notice her diligence. Very soon, Moore's filmography began to include films in which the actress played the lead roles. Complexes One marriage managed to undermine the actress's stable emotional state and awaken her complexes. A crazy romance with actor Ashton Kutcher became the darkest page in the star's biography. ADVERTISIMENT Demi Moore said that her husband spiked her with alcohol, cheated on her, and did not support her after a miscarriage. Due to the pressure of her chosen one, the artist agreed to a threesome, withdrew into herself, believed that she lacked sexuality, and began to drown her vagina in alcohol. She was afraid to leave her husband even after he started cheating with her daughter's friends, but she eventually cut the abuser and traitor out of her life. For several years, she treated her broken heart, gave up acting, and was even hospitalized with a diagnosis of "nervous exhaustion". Since then, the actress has not married and devoted herself to her children. She also maintained a very warm relationship with Bruce Willis, with whom the star lived for 13 years before her unsuccessful marriage to Kutcher. ADVERTISIMENT Earlier, OBOZ.UA wrote that Willis, who is struggling with frontotemporal dementia, did not recognize Demi Moore and their children. The actress visited her ex-husband after a summer vacation in Italy, but he did not realize who she was. Only verified information on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! ROCKFORD, MI Looming over Janet and Royce Washburns home of 46 years is a water tower adorned with the Wolverine Worldwide logo, which stores clean municipal water at the corner of the footwear giants global headquarters. Below their home is polluted groundwater. The couple, in their 70s, are Wolverines neighbors, but they havent been able to get a callback from the company lately after toxic PFAS chemicals were found in their well. Theyre not sure what to do, but theyre wondering how long their family has been drinking contaminated water and whether that might explain Janets bout with kidney cancer and other health problems associated with PFAS exposure. Weve always eaten right we dont drink, we dont smoke, and I used to say to my husband, how can we be so medically challenged when we take good care of ourselves? she said. The Washburns home on Courtland Drive is among 27 properties near Wolverines headquarters with a polluted well. The contamination was first discovered by consultants last fall and the mushrooming investigation is reminiscent of the initial probe into Wolverines dumping in Plainfield and Algoma townships more than six years ago. This time, the contaminants are in Courtland Township, which, before this year, had escaped involvement in an industrial disaster that many had thought was mostly over with. Its early on and were still kind of waiting to figure out what the extent is and what the best action to take is, said Matt McCannon, Courtland Township supervisor. We have avoided it up until now. Of the 27 polluted wells in Courtland Township, 10 are contaminated with PFAS above the states allowable criteria. The highest is the Washburns, which totals up to about 200 parts-per-trillion (ppt) from five different individual PFAS chemicals. Of those, 110-ppt is just PFOS, which is almost seven times the states safety threshold for exposure from drinking water. Other nearby homes have lower amounts which, thankfully, differentiates the Courtland Township contamination from wells in Belmont and Algoma Township, which have some of the highest levels of PFAS ever found in residential well water. This time the contamination is apparently coming from Wolverines main office campus rather than a forgotten landfill or old farm gravel pit. The company headquarters sits on about 200 acres of mostly wooded land within the eastern edge of Rockfords municipal limits. The campus was built in 1963 and once housed a Wolverine shoe manufacturing facility. Until this week, Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) officials had scratched their heads at the PFAS detections in wells bordering the property. They speculated that it may have served as an undisclosed dumpsite or storage area for materials from the companys tannery, which treated leather with 3M Scotchgard. Then Wolverine cleared that up this week. In response to questions from MLive, Wolverine disclosed on Wednesday, Nov. 8 that the property received Rogue River sediment dredged to ensure proper operation of the water intake pipes at the tannery before the facility closed in 2009. The company says it put an unspecified amount of dredge spoils at the headquarters in the 1980s and 2000s under a state permit. We are actively working to identify and delineate the sediment, and will coordinate with EGLE to determine any next steps, Wolverine posted on its environmental public relations blog. The revelation surprised EGLE investigators, who had directed the company to test groundwater this summer but did not know about the sediment dumping or that Wolverines environmental consultant, GZA, was developing plans to conduct soil borings around the property based on historic aerial photos. We have not seen that scope of work didnt know it existed until now, said Karen Vorce, EGLE remediation division district supervisor in Grand Rapids, on Thursday. Local environmental activists say the sediment disposal permits should have been shared with EGLE and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) long before now specifically in 2012 and 2017 when the EPA subpoenaed Wolverines records. Why didnt Wolverine let everybody know about this during the EPA 104e information requests? asked Lynn McIntosh, a Rockford mother whose environmental sleuthing during and after Wolverines tannery demolition led to the discovery of PFAS in Kent County. How come they can find these records now and they couldnt then? Vorce said EGLE is trying to determine whether the sediment disposal records were shared when it received copies of the tens of thousands of documents Wolverine gave to EPA. Wolverine is performing site work at headquarters under a self-directed, voluntary state program which previously allowed the company to slow-walk tannery remediation before the EPA forced that cleanup to accelerate and expand. If testing confirms that contaminated sediment is buried at headquarters, EGLE will want it removed, Vorce said. Depending on where exactly the sediment came from, it could contain high PFAS levels. The chemicals are highly concentrated in groundwater where the tannery water intake house was located. It would likely also contain traditional contaminants such as mercury, chromium and lead. In 2019, the EPA ordered Wolverine to dig soil and sediment with high levels of those toxic metals from the riverbed and banks. Vorce said EGLE is currently trying to confirm the existence of old monitoring wells on the headquarters property possibly related to sediment dumping sites. This weeks disclosure is a good piece of the puzzle, she said. That puzzle initially began to take shape in July, when EGLE directed Wolverine to begin testing groundwater around its headquarters after it received a Baseline Environmental Assessment (BEA) from a nearby vacant 100-acre property at 5312 11 Mile Road NE across from the companys warehouse at 9300 Courtland Drive. The vacant property changed hands last year and the new owner assessed the land for contamination per a procedure in Michigan law which allows property buyers who conduct a BEA to escape liability for pollution existing on the property before the purchase. The property had been checked for contamination before; during a frantic search for Wolverine dump sites in 2017 sparked by the discovery of Wolverines House Street dump in Belmont. But the states cursory check six years ago didnt show anything amiss and investigators moved on. This time, PFAS was found in shallow groundwater near a stream leaving Wolverines 50-acre warehouse property across from headquarters. The state received those results in April, which triggered state residential well sampling. Each testing expansion has found more homes with PFAS and some are far enough away from Wolverines headquarters that EGLE speculates there may be another contamination source involved. Low PFAS levels are being found in the Windmill Drive and Oakbrook Ridge neighborhoods. The latest testing turned up an elevated PFAS at a home on Sunshine Lane off 10-Mile Road, about a mile south of Wolverine headquarters. Were trying to figure out whats causing that, Vorce said. Its getting bigger. In the meantime, the Kent County Health Department is giving Courtland Township residents with contaminated wells a filter to install under their kitchen tap. Some residents are turning to bottled water or buying filtration out-of-pocket. Homeowners expressed confusion and worry during a special township board meeting on Sept. 20. Until this summer, Wolverines PFAS issue was something of an abstraction that had struck in a different part of town not on their bucolic street next to corporate headquarters. Its kind of tainted how I feel about living here, said Janet Washburn. Next door, Greg and Cathy Crowe are going through an education process; reading state guidance paperwork on understanding test results, talking to neighbors about well depth and different results, and reading up on the past experience of others in the area. Either give us a whole house filter or give us city water, said Cathy Crowe. Were your neighbors. Weve been here forever and youre basically poisoning us. I just wish they would come forth, be good neighbors and fix it. If past is prologue, it could be a while before that happens. Sign up to receive MLive's free new environment and climate newsletter, "Lake Effect." Enter your email here: Related stories: How citizen sleuths cracked the Wolverine case DEQ ignored crucial warning about House Street Michigan CEO who hid pollution to be honored Tannery pollution is extensive, report shows Wolverine tannery stored PFAS outdoors Tannery cleanup start pushed into 2024 Wolverine, 3M to pay $54M to PFAS victims EPA to list PFAS chemicals as hazardous Years after flags, PFAS found at Wolverine plant Wolverine PFAS sites eyed for Superfund list Michigan PFAS activist says blood testing saved her life Cancer, ailments plague Wolverine dump neighbors In early November in 1913, Michigan was hit by a massive winter storm that, over the course of several days, killed 250 people. A dozen shipwrecks occurred during the storm, particularly on November 9 from 6 p.m. to midnight. Blizzard conditions and powerful winds lashed the state, and historical information shows us that the unique nature of the storm caught people off-guard. This image shows two storm tracks converging to become a November gale. This type of collision course caused the White Hurricane over the Great Lakes in 1913, and the storm that sunk the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975. RELATED: The White Hurricane of November 1913 was the Great Lakes worst disaster in history From Nov. 7-10 in 1913, a storm system impacted Michigan and the Great Lakes region. This storm was the result of two different low-pressure systems, one from the Northern Plains and one from near the East Coast, merging over Lake Huron. This caused the new, combined low-pressure center to rapidly intensify, bringing powerful winds and heavy snowfall. Over a foot of snow was recorded in the eastern U.P. and northeastern Lower Peninsula, with other areas in the state receiving 3-6 inches of snow. In Cleveland, Ohio, almost 2 feet of snow fell during the storm, causing power to be knocked out for several days. Heavy snowfall over the lakes caused whiteout conditions. A neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio digs out after the White Hurricane of 1913. Winds produced by the storm were also quite strong, particularly on Lake Huron. Winds over land varied widely throughout the storm, ranging from 34 to 62 mph, and increased over the lakes. Over water, wind speeds reached 60-80 mph during the strongest portions of the storm. Another factor of the White Hurricane was the large waves that were churned up by the winds, especially over Lake Huron. During the storm, the low-pressure center was located on the southeast portion of the lake, causing winds to blow in a generally northern direction. Since the winds were blowing along such a large fetch, it caused wave heights to increase. Wave heights between 30 and 40 feet were recorded on the open water of Lake Huron, with waves as high as 20-30 feet on Lake Superior. The waves and wind were so powerful that coastal flooding occurred in Port Huron, causing damage to lakeside buildings. Recorded wave heights from the White Hurricane in 1913.National Weather Service During this time period, the Weather Bureau wasnt able to release weather warnings as efficiently as the National Weather Service does today. Meteorological knowledge was limited at the time, as well as technology. Flags and lanterns were used to warn ships of incoming gales and storms, but those already on the open water couldnt see the warnings. Many ships ended up lost on the lakes during the White Hurricane from reduced visibility, and waves and wind led to many being damaged or sunk. Total damages both on land and on water from the storm reached $6 million dollars, or $117 million in todays dollars. Ghanaian gospel artist, Perez Musik, has reacted to recent comments made by Prophet Obrempong CP regarding gospel songs and their purported lack of emphasis on repentance. Perez Musik defended gospel musicians, asserting that not every artist in the genre is obligated to center their music on repentance. In an interview on Daybreak Hitz on Hitz FM, Perez Musik shared his perspective on the diversity of roles gospel artistes play in the industry. "Just as everybody has a role to play in the body of Christ, everyone has a role to play in the ministry. I dont think necessarily everybody needs to preach the message of repentance with music. I dont think thats what everybody is called to do," Perez Musik stated. The gospel artist clarifies that his music focuses on encouragement. "I think my music is more of encouragement. I preach Christ through my music. The messages in my song console the individual soul," he explained. Perez Musik emphasized that the central theme of his ministry is the exaltation of Christ, stating, "The pinnacle of the ministry is that Christ is exalted; at the end of the day, its all about revealing Jesus. If you want to focus on repentance and salvation, you might miss the mark." The Vice President cannot be free from the economic difficulties Ghanaians are saddled with, South Dayi Member of Parliament Rockson Nelson Dafeamekpor has said. Mr Dafeamekpor indicated that as head of the economic management team, Dr Bawumia cannot claim that he is not part of the economic problems. He described the resolve of the vice president to present his own vision as a fallacy. As for Dr Bawumia we in the NDC we are ready, all we need is a generator and projector and will use his own voice to sink him, he said on the Key Points on TV3 Saturday, November 11. Dr Bawumia in his address to the nation after he was elected NPP flagbearer in the November 4 internal elections, invited the youth of Ghana to come on board and join him as he seeks to win the presidency to implement his vision for Ghana. I have my own vision and priority, he said, adding that I will listen to your concerns because we are partners in its process. Regarding the sufferings of Ghanaians, he said I am as concerned as my fellow countrymen and women the work of economic recovery is underway, GDP growth has picked up. Dr Bawumia further thanked the NPP for the support he has enjoyed over the years leading to his victory as flagbearer of the party for the 2024 general elections. He recounted the support that he has enjoyed since he was first picked as running mate in for the 2008 elections. I do not take this support for granted, he said in his acceptance speech. He further said he is prepared to work with all the aspirants in the just-ended presidential primaries of the NPP for victory in the 2024 general elections. In his victory speech on Saturday, November 4, he said I am determined to work with all of them and all our supports to break the 8. To his main contender Kennedy Agyapong , he said Well done, you really wanted to give me a down today. Kennedy Agyapong also called for unity among the members of the NPP to defeat the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the 2024 general elections. Mr Agyapong who contested in the NPP presidential primaries said he accepts defeats in the just-ended presidential primaries of the NPP. He asked the rank and file of the party to put whatever happened in the elections and come together to win the 2024 general elections. I believe the party has been fair and transparent. That is the only thing I have always been preaching, this election is fair, my grassroots have spoken, I accept the results in good faith, he said. He added We are going to work tirelessly to break the 8. We should put everything behind us and let us unite this party, with unity I believe we can break the 8, that is all I have been preaching for, I congratulate the Election Committee, Police, EC , and the party members for the commitment you have shown for peace . We have to come together and give the NDC a showdown. Dr Bawumua polled a total of 118,210 votes out of 193,346 to become the winner. His votes represent 61.47 percent of the total valid votes cast. His closest contender was Assin Central Member of Parliament ( MP ) Kennedy Ohene Agyapong , who polled a total of 71,996 votes, representing 37.41 percent to come second. Former Minister of Food and Agriculture Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto polled 1,459, representing 0.76 percent to come third. He was followed by former Mampong MP Francis Addai-Nimoh , who polled a total of 781, representing 0.41 percent. 3news.com Deputy General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Haruna Mohammed, has debunked assertions that Dr Mahamudu Bawumias election as flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party was a project orchestrated by President Nana Akufo-Addo. In an interview on the Big Issue on Saturday, November 11, Haruna Mohammed clarified that Bawumias electoral pursuits were driven by his ambitions and not orchestrated or directed by the President. The Deputy General Secretary highlighted that Dr Bawumia was genuinely elected by delegates of the party and not whipped into line by President Akufo-Addo. Responding to claims by former Tamale Central MP Inusah Fuseini that Dr Bawumia was elected because of President Akufo-Addos machinations, Haruna Mohammed said: Bawumias election was not Akufo-Addos project, the NPP never sponsored a candidate in the elections, we supervised an election. President Akufo-Addo delivering a speech after Dr Bawumia was elected flagbearer on Saturday, November 4, gave his assurance to help Dr Bawumia win the 2024 elections. He said the move remains one of his main tasks. He said he would assist Dr Mahamudu Bawumia with all his energy to help him win the election of 2024. President Akufo-Addo who was speaking at a ceremony to outdoor Vice-President Bawumia as the newly elected flagbearer and leader of the NPP on Saturday night [Nov 4] in Accra, stressed that Ghana could not afford the return of the NDC especially under the leadership of John Dramani Mahama. To that, end, he has called on all members of the party to pull together and join hands and work hard during the campaign. The President acknowledged that the election next year would not be easy but expressed the hope that when we are united and courageous, God will make the way for us to be victorious on December 7, 2024. Citi Newsroom With Israeli forces stepping up their assault on the Gaza Strip and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continuing to ramp up his rhetoric against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ankara is nonetheless resisting calls to cut off vital oil deliveries to Israel. Supertankers continue to deliver oil to Israel from the Turkish port of Ceyhan. Oil pipelines from Azerbaijan and Iraqi Kurdistan terminate at the Mediterranean harbour, making Turkey a key oil supplier for Israel. "The bulk of Israeli oil needs come from either Azerbaijan or Iraqi Kurdistan," says analyst Mehmet Ogutcu of the London Energy Club. "I think the latest figures show Azerbaijan provides around 40 percent of Israel's oil needs. It comes all the way to Ceyhan, and from Ceyhan, it's sent to an Israeli port where it's moved to one of the refineries," Ogutcu explains. But with the death toll mounting from Israel's invasion of Gaza, calls for Turkey to cut off oil deliveries are growing. Iran's foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, speaking with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan in Ankara earlier this month, urged countries delivering oil to Israel to cut their supplies, a call Fidan ignored. Despite Erdogan ramping up his rhetoric against Israel, oil deliveries from Turkey to Israel continue to flow. And questions remain about how effective any embargo by Turkey would be. "I don't think that Israel will suffer in any way because oil is plentiful in the world markets," points out Ogutcu. Even if Turkey were to cut off Israel's supply, "they can bring it from Brazil or Canada or from some of the African countries where they have good relations", he says. "Israeli consumption, if I'm not mistaken, is around 225,000 barrels per day. That's not a significant amount. It can be easily secured either through long-term contracts or on the spot market," he adds. Talking tough But Turkey has other ways of harming Israel if it wants to strike a blow. "Turkey could stop the working of the Kurecik radar station in Malatya in Turkey, which is crucial to the Nato missile defense system, and as far we know, it also protects the airspace of Israel," says Ilhan Uzgel, an international relations expert and columnist for Turkey's Kisa Dalga news portal. So far Erdogan has not taken any of these options. "What he has to do is please his audience, so he makes tough statements," says Uzel. "It's not hurting anybody; in the end, it's just words." Erdogan is continuing with his rhetoric against Israel, even describing Hamas as a liberation movement while personally attacking Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But the Turkish leader's actions remain more measured. Announcing the recall of Turkey's ambassador from Israel for consultations this month, Erdogan stressed that diplomatic relations with Israel would remain open and that Turkish efforts were continuing to seek the release of hostages held by Hamas. "The rhetoric is harsh, but the concrete actions are not that harsh, at least in terms of the bilateral relationship," observes Galip Dalay, an associate fellow at Chatham House in London. "I think the idea is that if you burn bridges, you will not be able to play the diplomatic role as much as you hope to." Attempts at diplomacy On Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Ankara for the first time since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. In a tacit acknowledgment of Turkey's efforts, Blinken said third-party countries were playing a role in securing the release of the hostages. Erdogan is expected to join Arab leaders for a summit in Riyadh to discuss the crisis. But Dalay warns there may be limits to Ankara's nuanced approach toward Israel. "If Turkey is convinced that actually the diplomatic track is not working and if other regional countries, not only Turkey, reach the same conclusion that Israel is not paying any attention to this diplomatic track or call for a ceasefire, then we might see both at a regional level and a Turkey level countries taking punitive action," Dalay warns. With Erdogan's large religious base at the forefront of growing protests against Israel, that will likely add pressure on the Turkish leader to take a harder stance if the violence continues. The neem tree has garnered considerable attention for its healing qualities, especially in light of the COVID-19 outbreak in 2019. However, it is currently facing the risk of extinction in the Krobo areas of the Eastern region due to changing climate patterns and irresponsible human actions. Mr Kojo Odum Eduful, the President of the Traditional Medicines Practitioners Association, said drinking and inhaling boiled leaves of neem trees during the COVID era enhanced the human immune system, protecting against the virus. Additionally, it was used in the treatment of various ailments, including malaria, as well as conditions like nosebleeds, intestinal worms, stomach discomfort, decreased appetite, and more. The neem tree was extensively cultivated in various African countries, including Ghana, Mauritania, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Mali, Benin, Niger, Nigeria, Togo, Cameroon, Chad, Ethiopia, and Sudan. Nevertheless, there had been a growing concern among traditional medicine and environmental experts regarding the situation in the Eastern region, specifically in the Yilo and Lower Manya Krobo areas. Mr Tetteh Moses Appenahier, a resident of Ayirmersu, said he and other individuals in the area had been cutting down numerous trees for charcoal and firewood to sustain their livelihoods. Unfortunately, the activity was posing a threat to the neem tree population. He said he has felled more than 50 neem trees, saying: I only use neem trees to burn charcoal because my customers say it is very hard and doesnt consume faster when they use it. He emphasised the higher profitability of charcoal made from neem trees, which could be sold for 170 Ghana cedis per bag. In comparison, charcoal made from mango trees is priced at 80 cedis per bag. Mr Solomon Teye Kwame, a farmer, told the Ghana News Agency that he was aware of the medicinal properties of the treatment for malaria but not familiar with its impact on vegetation. He viewed the neem tree primarily as a means of treating malaria and producing charcoal, without considering any other potential uses. Indians introduced the tree to Africa in the 19th century, Mr Francis Nii Clottey, the Head of Yilo Krobo Agriculture Extension said. He emphasised the significant value of the tree and the need for human efforts to protect and preserve it. All parts of the tree have become very useful because of their economic value; theyre used to produce neem oil, neem cake, and neem extract, he said. These were used in producing pesticides, fungicides, and insecticides that are used in controlling pests, curatives for fungal diseases, and repellents for killing insects like cockroaches and mosquitoes, he said. He noted that reports showed the neem tree has emerged as a thriving industry in certain regions of Ghana, such as the Upper West and Central regions, and that the production of neem oil has witnessed significant growth, particularly for export purposes. Mr Clottey emphasised the importance of the Environmental Protection Agency to consistently educate the public about its economic benefits and to discourage individuals from selfishly destroying trees. Highlighting the significance of the neem tree in the ecosystem along the Tema-Akosombo Road, he emphasised the detrimental effects of tree cutting on the environment, as trees play a crucial role in combating erosion and mitigating climate change. Over the years, human activities have taken a toll on Ghana's forest trees, with an estimated 6.6 million hectares, or 80 percent of the countrys land area, being depleted, according to experts. GNA China is owed more than a trillion dollars through its Belt and Road Initiative, making it the biggest debt collector in the world, a report said this week. An estimated 80 percent of the loans support countries in financial distress. Beijing says upwards of 150 countries worldwide, from Uruguay to Sri Lanka, have signed up to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a vast global infrastructure initiative launched by President Xi Jinping in 2013. The first decade of the project saw China distribute huge loans to fund the construction of bridges, ports and highways in many countries in the so-called Global South, Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Today, an analysis of almost 21,000 projects across 165 countries shows that Beijing has committed aid and credit "hovering around $80 billion a year" to low- and middle-income nations. More than half of those loans have now entered their principal repayment period, according to the "Belt and Road Reboot" report released on 6 November by AidData, a US-based research institute tracking development finance. But according to Bradley Parks, AidData's executive director and responsible for the report: "China is not going to stand by and watch its flagship global infrastructure initiative crash and burn." Chinese authorities have already launched "a far-reaching effort to de-risk Belt and Road," he told RFI. According to Parks, Beijing is in the process of trying to "future-proof" the BRI, "by putting in place a set of loan repayment safeguards and project implementation guardrails". Problem projects China has made some 5,000 loans to developing countries worth nearly $1.3 trillion, most of them to big-ticket infrastructure projects such as railroads, airports or mines. AidData's report found that 80 percent of China's overseas lending portfolio is currently supporting borrowers in financial distress. China had already started to engage in overseas projects by the year 2000, more than a decade before the BRI was officially launched. But, says Parks, at the turn of the century, there were only 17 "problem projects" with a value of around $450 million. Today the problem is a staggering hundred times that, with nearly 1,700 such projects worth more than $450 billion, spread over 125 countries. "Those headaches are really far-flung," says Parks. When China launched the BRI in 2013, it did so "to win friends and gain influence by doling out a lot of cheap credit for these large infrastructure projects," Parks says. Initially, the strategy worked. Some 140 countries jumped on the BRI bandwagon, but within a few years, things started to falter. "Beijing has seen its public approval rating in the developing world plunge from 56 percent to 40 percent," according to Parks. "Projects that were supposed to be reputational assets became liabilities," he says. Things got worse when the grace periods on Chinese loans starting to expire. Many countries were not able to service their debts and Beijing responded with heavy-handed tactics, trying to use its leverage as the world's largest official debt collector to muscle its way to the front of the repayment line. "The thing about debt collectors is that they just don't win a lot of popularity contests," says Parks. Alternatives to 'debt-trap diplomacy' Yet Parks and AidData did not find evidence that Beijing pursued systematic "debt-trap diplomacy". According to that heavily disputed theory, China deliberately extended unsustainable loans in order to take collateral in the form of raw materials or infrastructure assets. Although this may have happened in some isolated cases, "China is much smarter than that," says Parks. Beijing is currently seeking to de-risk the BRI by imposing "increasingly stringent safeguards to shield itself from the risk of not being repaid," according to the AidData report. That includes allowing key BRI lenders to pay themselves principal and interest due by "unilaterally sweeping" borrowers' foreign currency reserves held in escrow. "These cash seizures are mostly being executed in secret and outside the immediate reach of domestic oversight institutions... in low- and middle-income countries," it said. Parks estimates that some 50 percent of China's non-emergency lending portfolio in the developing world is now provided through collaborative arrangements with a group of banks known as a syndicate. And 80 percent of China's syndicated loans to the developing world involve Western commercial banks, including French banks and multilateral institutions a pivot that, Parks says, "has gone undetected until now". But it means that Beijing is taking the BRI "off of a strictly bilateral track" while trying to spread repayment as well as reputational risk across a larger group of lenders, both inside and outside China. "Think about this strategy as a de-risking shortcut," says Parks. Many belts, multiple roads? The BRI triggered a flurry of action among western countries, which suddenly woke up to the nightmare scenario that the world's roads, telecom infrastructure and transport networks might be dominated by China. Against the backdrop of a deteriorating relationship with Beijing, the west together with Beijing's arch-enemy India launched a series of massive counter-initiatives. They include 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; the EU's Global Gateway; the G7 initiative Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment; and the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor. But Parks thinks these projects can't really compete with the Belt and Road. "There's a lot of talk," he says. "There's not a lot of action. And I think what we see in our analysis in this new report is that Beijing is really a step ahead of its competitors". Police fired tear gas on Saturday to disperse supporters of Madagascar's opposition and detained 11 ahead of a presidential election on November 16. Several hundred people, mostly youths, gathered in the centre of the capital Antananarivo in protest at what the opposition calls an "institutional coup" to favour the sitting president. AFP reporters said they put up barricades, set fire to some tyres and threw stones at anti-riot police carrying shields. Police prefect Angelo Ravelonarivo told a press conference 11 people had detained. The Red Cross said a dozen people were treated for light injuries. Protesters put up barricades, set fire to some tyres and threw stones at police. By MAMYRAEL (AFP) The Indian Ocean island nation has for weeks been shaken by a fierce battle between President Andry Rajoelina, who is running for re-election, and several opposition leaders. Eleven out of 13 opposition candidates have led near daily, unauthorised marches in Antananarivo, for more than a month. "I'm fighting against an incompetent government for the law to be respected in Madagascar," said one young protester who did not want to be named. "No one is above the law, no one," he said. "We are fighting for change," said another demonstrator. The head of the lower house of parliament on Thursday called for the election to be suspended, arguing that the current situation in the country does not allow for a free and credible vote. Opposition candidates have led near daily, unauthorised marches in Antananarivo for more than a month. By MAMYRAEL (AFP) A spokeswoman for president Rajoelina called the request a "far-fetched idea". The European Union, the United States and other members of the international community this week expressed "deep concern following the violent incidents of recent days". Voters in Madagascar were initially due to head to the polls on November 9, but the top court in October ordered that the elections be postponed after a presidential candidate was injured during a demonstration. The date for a potential second round vote on December 20 was kept unchanged. Dr Mohammed Ibn Chambas, former United Nations Envoy to West Africa and the Sahel Region, has cautioned Ghanaians to be wary of the divisive, religious, and ethnic sentiments emerging ahead of the 2024 general elections. He stated: The commitment to the betterment of our country is a collective responsibility and must transcend political, religious, and ethnic boundaries". Unfortunately, we are seeing some divisive tendencies in our society, and we must all be careful about them, especially when we have elections in 2024. When it comes to election year, all our demons come out. He made the remarks at STAR Ghana Foundations anniversary lecture on Empowering Citizens and Enriching Nation Building, at the British Council, in Accra, on Friday. The lecture, which formed part of activities marking the 5th anniversary of STAR Ghana Foundation, was attended by Prof Akilagpa Sawyerr, a former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, lawyers, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), organised groups, media among others. Dr Chambas said the criteria used in electing the leaders of the country must transcend religious and ethnic considerations. Thus, the yardstick the citizens should use must be based on the messages, policy recommendations, and alternatives on how the best political parties manage the affairs of the country. He, therefore, urged citizens and political parties to make the 2024 General Election an issue-based campaign. So, please, let us focus on messages when we are choosing our leaders in this country, he emphasised. He expressed concern that despite Ghanas significant progress in democracy, there were lingering challenges that prevented the country from fully harnessing the benefits of democracy. The former UN envoy said Ghanas recent drop on the corruption perception index, coupled with a drop in World Press freedom ratings, had undermined the countrys democratic credentials. He suggested that Ghana should address those challenges by creating an open dialogue platform for citizens to actively participate in governance. The dialogue platforms, he explained, would serve as an avenue where citizens could share their concerns, aspirations, ideas, and feelings about governance in the country. STAR Ghana Foundation describes itself as a national centre for active citizenship and philanthropy. It works towards the development of a vibrant, well-informed and assertive civil society able to contribute to transformational national development and inclusive access to high-quality, accountable public services for all Ghanaian citizens. GNA Manicure with gel polish has already become a common thing. Women often prefer this type of coating because it lasts much longer than regular ones. ADVERTISIMENT However, what to do when it comes to removing it? There is always a temptation to do it yourself, but experts urge you to avoid it at all costs. Manicurist Millie Horton told Who What Wear that removing gel polish on your own can lead to nail plate detachment. The truth is that caring for gel nails is actually quite difficult, and Horton (like most experts) advises to consult a professional. "You can easily damage your natural nails during the removal process. A professional will know how to remove the product in the best way possible," she explains. However, if you have a force majeure and need to remove gel polish at home, WWW has collected some tips on how to do it in the safest way. Sanding ADVERTISIMENT Regardless of the type of gel you have on your nails, you will have to file off the glossy top coat of polish before using a remover. The key is to carefully file off the glitter layer without touching the nail itself. This step may not seem so important, but according to Horton, it will significantly speed up the removal process. Soaking Unlike conventional nail polish, gel formulas require special remover. Horton recommends first moistening a cotton pad with an acetone-based product and placing it on the nail. Then it should be wrapped in foil and fixed on the nail. To make the process easier, you can buy ready-made wraps and nail clips. ADVERTISIMENT The key to this stage is patience. Different polishes take different amounts of time, but Horton says that 10 minutes is usually enough. Removal After removing the foil, you can see which areas need more attention. If there are still large chunks of nail polish on certain parts of the nail, it is best to wrap the nail again and wait a little longer. However, you can remove small areas where the coating has noticeably weakened with a cuticle pusher or an orange tree stick. The final touch ADVERTISIMENT Nail care requires nourishing the nail plate and cuticle after the removal is complete. "Polishing the nail to smooth the nail plate provides a great finish," explains Horton. "After removal, oil the cuticles and moisturize your hands. Repeat these steps regularly to keep your nails and hands healthy," she adds. Earlier, OBOZ.UA told you how a popular manicurist showed a perfect nude that you will want to repeat. Only verified information is available on the OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Don't fall for fakes! The public utterances of the outgoing President, Akufo-Addo clearly confirm my assertion that his nightmare is to hand over power to the determined and reinvigorated former President Mahama when Ghanaian voters re-elect him as President on December 7, 2024. President Akufo-Addos anointed and preferred NPP Presidential Candidate to replace him, Dr. Bawumia has been confirmed by the NPP Delegates on November 4, 2023. However, Dr. Bawumia will now lock horns with former President Mahama for the ultimate Presidency slot in the next General elections. Before I come to what President Akufo-Addo said on the victory day speech to outdoor Dr. Bawumia as the Flagbearer of the NPP, he made a very profound pronouncement a year ago which confirmed that President Mahama is his nightmare. In order not to dilute Akufo Addos submission, let me quote and unquote him. He mockingly said in an interview on Ho-based Stone City FM and reported by Ghanaweb that Mr. Mahama still has not been able to assimilate his defeat twice to me and l think every night when he goes to bed, he is confused about the man who has not just come back but given him a good whipping on two separate occasions (read www.ghanaweb.com , 15 September 2022). The above quotation of the President was not humorous enough in my opinion as elections are determined by various obvious and confounding factors and not all about whipping another Candidate to prove a point. Despite his victory in 2020, President Akufo-Addo might have forgotten that Ghanaians were not happy with his seemingly kleptocratic style of governance in his first term, which reduced the NPP Majority in Parliament in his second term from 169 Members of Parliament (MPs) to 137 MPs now to produce the first-ever hung Parliament in Ghana. Additionally, the most recent public utterance of President Akufo-Addo was the victory day of his anointed and favoured Presidential Candidate of the NPP, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia. He said that I have one more task to do, and that is all my strength all my energy to help Bawumia win the elections of 2024. Ghana cannot afford the return of NDC especially under the leadership of John Mahama. (published by www.3News.com , November 4, 2023). From the two instances cited above, it clearly elucidates the uncalm and nightmarish disposition of the outgoing President Akufo-Addo when it comes to the second coming of former President Mahama who was defeated twice after he left office in 2016. With the gargantuan track record of disappointing achievements in various sectors of the economy coupled with failed corruption and galamsey fights under President Akufo-Addo and Dr. Bawumia, this governing NPP government is bound to be rejected by the decerning Ghanaian voters in 2024. This regime has also taken Ghanaians for granted for the past 7 years and the NPP Party should be heavily punished for that. The overwhelmingly endorsed former President Mahama by the NDC Delegates as the Flagbearer going into 2024 is evidential proof of his return to the Presidency to finish his visionary agenda for Ghana. Believing my gut feeling, if the NDC Party had presented a different Presidential Candidate for 2024 and there is the possibility for that Candidate to win, President Akufo-Addo would not be bothered so much because of his public utterance about former President Mahama. Afterall, he got his two terms in office. Considering Akufo-Addo, Dr. Bawumia and the NPPs shenanigans with respect to the performance of the Mahama-led regime and having succeeded twice in convincing Ghanaians with their too good promises before, President Akudo-Addo is having sleepless nights of handing over power to the same person he so criticised and mocked for whipping him twice. I find it very instructive and intriguing at the time that President Akudo-Addo assured Dr. Bawumia and NPP Delegates that he would do all he could to ensure Bawumia wins. It will be the track record of former President Mahama and that of yours including the contribution of Dr. Bawumia that will speak loudly on the day of elections. Mr. President, it is Ghanaians who will assess your performance in government including Dr. Bawumia, your anointed and favoured Candidate for the past eight years and decide which political Party and leader should replace you in 2024. I think what is in your powers (energy and strength) is to prove to Ghanaians that you can make their living conditions now better than you and the NPP came to meet under former President Mahama and the NDC. I am, however, afraid that it is too late for you and the NPP to reset the clock to do better in just a year left to go. As former President Mahama is still constitutionally qualified to be in the Presidential race, unlike you now, he has a very high probability of winning the Presidency next year if majority of Ghanaians approve of his second coming. Mr. President, your demonstration of approval for Dr. Bawumia is understandable as many will consider that you may want him to cover up perceived rots of your government which is plagued with a myriad of ongoing or unresolved scandals associated with your unenviable accolades such as Clearing Agent and Mother Serpent of Corruption. To state the obvious, it is up to the Ghanaian Voters to vote and choose who they want to lead them but not through any Presidential powers to replace or retain a Candidate or political Party in our 30-year-old democratic dispensation. Ghanaians, let us all assess our current living conditions under this Akufo-Addo-Bawumia-led government and vote wisely next year to redirect and rebuild the country we all want together. Inusah Fuseini, a former Minister of Lands and Natural Resources under the erstwhile Mahamas administration has said that the election of Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia as the flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) was a conscious and deliberate effort by President Nana Akufo-Addo. This was a conscious deliberate effort by Nana Akufo-Addo, I mean there is no explanation for it than to say that this was project Nana Akufo-Addo and he said it after the election of Bawumia. He said he had gotten Bawumia elected as flagbearer and now he needed to get him elected as president, Mr Fuseini said in an interview on the Nig Issue on Saturday, November 11. Meanwhile, the Deputy General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Haruna Mohammed, has debunked assertions that Dr Mahamudu Bawumia's election as flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party was a project orchestrated by President Nana Akufo-Addo. Haruna Mohammed clarified that Bawumia's electoral pursuits were driven by his ambitions and not orchestrated or directed by the President. The Deputy General Secretary highlighted that Dr Bawumia was genuinely elected by delegates of the party and not whipped into line by President Akufo-Addo. Responding to claims by former Tamale Central MP Inusah Fuseini that Dr Bawumia was elected because of President Akufo-Addo's machinations, Haruna Mohammed said: Bawumia's election was not Akufo-Addo's project, the NPP never sponsored a candidate in the elections, we supervised an election. President Akufo-Addo delivering a speech after Dr Bawumia was elected flagbearer on Saturday, November 4, gave his assurance to help Dr Bawumia win the 2024 elections. He said the move remains one of his main tasks. He said he would assist Dr Mahamudu Bawumia with all his energy to help him win the election of 2024. President Akufo-Addo who was speaking at a ceremony to outdoor Vice-President Bawumia as the newly elected flagbearer and leader of the NPP on Saturday night [Nov 4] in Accra, stressed that Ghana could not afford the return of the NDC especially under the leadership of John Dramani Mahama. To that, end, he has called on all members of the party to pull together and join hands and work hard during the campaign. Citi Newsroom Thousands of people demonstrated in Paris and other major cities on Saturday under the rallying cry "Stop the massacre in Gaza". The left-wing organisers called for France to "demand an immediate ceasefire" between Israel and Hamas militants. "I came to support the Palestinian cause, for a ceasefire in Gaza," said engineer Ahlem Triki, a Palestinian flag over her shoulders. Hamas's shock 7 October attack killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in Israel and 239 people taken hostage, according to Israeli officials. The Israeli air and ground military campaign in response has left more than 11,000 people in Gaza dead, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. "It is elementary that as activists or simple citizens, you go out on to the street to support the Palestinian people," said 85-year-old trade unionist Claude Marill. French MPs Mathilde Panot and Eric Coquerel, whose hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party has come under fire for an ambiguous stance on anti-Semitism, were present at the march. Gaza ceasefire rallies also took place in other French towns including Marseille, Toulouse, Rennes and Bordeaux. "This mobilisation is essential, in the face of massacres," said LFI coordinator Manuel Bompard at the demonstration of about 1,300 people in Marseille. Elsewhere, more than 20,000 people marched through Brussels, some chanting "EU, shame on you" for perceived bias towards Israel at the expense of Palestinian lives and rights. In London, police estimated that 300,000 people had turned out, 800,000 according to organisers. Some 150 people from the mass protest were detained under public order legislation for wearing face coverings and setting off fireworks, while 82 counter-protesters were held to prevent them infiltrating the main march. Hospitals besieged On the ground in Gaza, fighting has reduced some streets to ruins, with the sounds of apparent explosions and gunfire caught Saturday on AFPTV's Gaza City camera. This comes as Israel pursues its offensive into Gaza City aimed at destroying the militant group Hamas in the territory it rules. Tens of thousands of people have fled, many taking shelter in northern Gaza's hospitals which have been repeatedly hit by explosive strikes and gunfire. "The hospital is besieged, with no option to bring in the corpses and injured people sprawled outside. There is no movement in or out of the hospital," said Physicians for Human Rights Israel, citing doctors at Al-Shifa Hospital. The Israeli doctors' group added that due to an overnight power outage, the neonatal intensive care unit had stopped working and two premature infants had died, while leaving the lives of 37 other infants at risk. The Israeli military has denied strikes or a siege at Al-Shifa hospital, and has repeatedly accused Hamas of using medical facilities as command centres and hideouts a charge the group denies. The Israeli army also said it would "provide the assistance needed" to help "babies in the paediatric department to get to a safer hospital" on Sunday, at the request of Al-Shifa staff. Almost 1.6 million people have been internally displaced since 7 October, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA about two thirds of Gaza's population. (with AFP) The Assin Central Member of Parliament Kennedy Agyapong says his performance at the just-ended New Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential primary shows that he is a force to be reckoned with. He indicated that no major decision can be taken by the party without consulting him. Mr. Agyapong made the comments on Saturday, November 11, during a Showdown Thanksgiving party organized for his supporters and coordinators during the NPP presidential primary campaign. Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia won the presidential primary with 118,210 votes, representing 61.47%, while his closest contender, Mr Agyapong, polled 71,996 votes, representing 37.41%. Speaking at the party, Mr Agyapong thanked his campaign team and said that he was underestimated ahead of the primary. They underestimated us, but weve proven to them that we now control one-third of the NPP, Mr. Agyapong said. No major decision will be taken without consulting us. Mr. Agyapong added that he had been underestimated by many, including a pastor who predicted that his best performance would be 16%. There was this pastor who even said if I get more than 16 percent, he [pastor] should be killed, Mr. Agyapong said. But today, I am praying for that pastor, that God should grant him long life and he should not die soon. The showdown Thanksgiving party brought together in Accra all coordinators of Mr. Agyapong from every region in Ghana. Citi Newsroom Over 155,000 guests have visited the re-developed Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park since it opened in July this year, says management. The figure includes 63,000 children and about 51,000 Ghanaian adults. Visitors from Junior and Senior High Schools numbered about 17,000 while those from tertiary institutions stood at about 4,000, Mr Edward Quao, Acting Director of the park, told the Ghana News Agency. He said the facility was looking forward to receiving more guests during the festive season and beyond as marketing and promotion activities continued on all fronts. Notable among the events is an upcoming Food Fair to be held, December 1, 2023 (Farmer's Day) in collaboration with Chatter House to promote Ghanaian delicacies and other cultural products and heritage. Mr Quao said things were running smoothly at the Park as management and partners, including Ghana Tourism Authority, took various steps to keep the facility vibrant and attractive. We still have the support of our Ministry, the Minister and his Deputy, and all agencies have been supportive in ensuring that the place is well promoted for us to get the numbers, he stated. He encouraged patrons to spend time at the Park and other tourist sites in the country during the Yuletide to help promote domestic tourism. Visitors to the Park, he explained, also included other nationals from diverse backgrounds. We have seen more families visiting the Park on weekends and on holidays which is a good phenomenon. Ghanaian families are stepping out more and we encourage them to do more. Anywhere you are in Ghana, as part of the festive occasion, you should also add a tourist site to the itinerary, he stated. Speaking about children forming the chunk of visitors, the Acting Manager observed that many schools were visiting tourist sites, including the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park as field trips were part of the course of study. Mr Quao said there were good prospects for the facility and that projections made for tourism in the years ahead were feasible. The Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park, with its in-built modern facilities, is now one of the destinations of choice for guests from far and near. The Park has been buzzing with activities in the past months since it was commissioned. Dr. Ibrahim Mohammed Awal, Minister for Tourism, Arts and Culture, had reportedly disclosed that the facility rakes in GH1.1 million revenue monthly an increase from GH 3,000 which was being generated prior to the renovation. The Minister projected 1.2 million international arrivals for the tourism sector, with about 115,000 visitors from the United States alone between December 1 to 15th, this year. GNA Reverend Dr. Lawrence Tetteh, a renowned international evangelist, has urged religious leaders not to make statements that will divide the citizens along religious conflicts ahead of the 2024 General Election. Irresponsible statements, he explained, would undermine the peace and admirable interfaith cohesion the nation had enjoyed over the decades and lead the nation into violent conflict. Contributing to a panel discussion on a state television programme, Dr Tetteh said Ghana needed a leader who would serve the interests of all citizens, regardless of his or her religious background. We want a president, not a religious leader; we want a leader who can embrace all and sundry to resolve the common challenges we face, and we need to be very careful at this time, he emphasised. I am quick to say that I am a Christian; my grandfather was a king, so he was an Aglican; and my grandmother was a Methodist. My father died a Presbyterian, and my mom, who is watching me today, is a Methodist. I am a Christian, Charismatic, and Pentecostal, and that should not negate the fact that we need to bring our nation together, he added. Therefore, I am also cautioning my brothers and sisters who are into the prophetic ministry that this is not the time to make statements that will only make you popular. Don't take advantage of the current situation to castigate or make statements that will just make you popular without considering the repercussions. Kings, he said, were ordained by God, so whoever would emerge as president of the country in 2024 would be a reflection of Gods will, and must be embraced by all. He cautioned that the peace and the socio-economic progress of some countries had been disrupted by reckless religious and ethnocentric speeches and Ghana need not follow suit. Following the ruling New Patriotic Partys election of Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, on November 4, as its flagbearer, some political activists and social commentators are making religious affiliation one of the yardsticks for becoming a president. This is the first time a Muslim is leading one of the dominant parties (NPP and NDC) to the general election in the Fourth Republic. Though a secular state, more than 70 per cent of Ghana's population is Christian. The country, however, enjoys inter-faith harmony, with the clergy, including the National Chief Imam, working together to advance many causes in peace building and national socio-economic development. GNA 12.11.2023 LISTEN African cosmology teaches that we reincarnate, but it is very clear that we only come back through our own species, and even only through our race. This is why there are names like Babatunde (father has returned) or Iyatunji (mother reincarnates). This is why you must build generational wealth and prepare for your returning in the next generations. This truth is known in all secret occult elite groups (Masons, Brahmans, etc). They only teach the masses the lie that they reincarnate outside of their race so that the masses don't secure power of their race in the future. The myth of reincarnating into different races or species was created by the "Aryan-Indians" invaders of South Asia to convince the Black Dravidians that they do not need to protect or empower their race, but could reincarnate into a higher caste/race in the next life. It is because they believe this nonsense, Black Dravidians gave up protecting their future and have been slaves to Aryan-Indians for nearly 3,000 years. Similarly, modern African-Descendants prefer the Aryan-Indian reincarnation myth because they would rather fantasize about escaping the African race in the next life than improve the African race for the next life. This is the same sort of escapist after-life mythology that Christians give when they claim you can escape the world in heaven or paradise. Like it or not, our ancestors did not teach reincarnation as a trans-species or trans-racial phenomena nor did they teach a false escape like "heaven." You were an African-Descendent in your previous life and will be again in your next life. There is no heaven in the clouds for you to escape to. You will NEVER ESCAPE YOUR AFRICANNESS on Earth. It is because of this truth that you must commit yourself to improving your race. You will come back in it again and again and again. It is crucial that you do not assume Asian reincarnation beliefs to be equivalent to the Afrakan reincarnation concept. Firstly, no Afrakan culture considers reincarnation to be trans-species. This conflicts greatly with Asian mythology, which foolishly believes humans, chickens, ants, pigs, etc, all can reincarnate betweeen each other. Not only does Afrakan reincarnation limit human reincarnation to human species, but it limits it to the race. In other words, an Afrakan cannot reincarnate into an Asian or European, and vice versa. Why? Because reincarnation is not simply a spiritual act, but a genetic act, similar to lineage. You have to possess close genes to the person you reincarnate to. In fact, that is the purpose of genes having codes; they are identifiers for the spirits to locate their next body after life. Of course, you don't have to have too close of genes and be actual family members, but close enough that you can physically pass for relatives (i.e, a person of your race). It is important you realize this concept that reincarnation is limited to race is not "my opinion" on reincarnation, but the definition described in African systems, particularly the Yoruba. In fact, the majority of Afrakan spiritual systems don't just limit it to race but suggest that reincarnation only cycles within someone's extended family. In other words, you will not only be unable to reincarnate into another race, you can't even reincarnate into another family clan. The African concept of reincarnation was taken to India from Afrakan Twa migration. However, when the Namu (misnamed Aryans) invaded India, they altered the religious beliefs into caste systems and purposely twisted the concept of reincarnation. They wanted the Dravidians to believe that they could reincarnate into higher castes (brahmins/beige Aryans). This way, the Dravidians stopped resisting the Aryan colonization, imagining that they don't need to keep fighting because they could simply become Aryan in the next life if they were obedient to Aryan religion. As Eurasians, the Namu (Aryans) control people through fear. While the Greco-Christians use the myth of "hell," the Namu used the myth of animal reincarnation; suggesting that disobedience to the Hindu Brahmin authority could result in you becoming an animal and losing humanity. As a myth of escapism, the Buddhists then suggest that if you are good you can escape reincarnation entirely. However the Odu Ifa (Yoruba sacred text) is the most detailed account of reincarnation in Afraka and it is clear that reincarnation cannot be escaped. This is because in Afrakan spirituality, the a race's spirit is not an individual but a collective. Therefore, everyone reincarnates until EVERYONE of your race has reached enlightenment. The note here is that all people (good and bad) reincarnate. Some will ask, then where is the "reward" or "punishment" if everyone still reincarnates? Afrakans don't create a fake heaven in the sky or fake hell in the abyss. For Afrakans, the "reward or punishment" is right here on Earth. For Afrakans, being a good person is not if you follow ten commandments in a book; but about how hard you worked to improve the conditions of your people. Thus, if you did this in this life, your reward is that when you reincarnate, your people will be in a better position. If you did not work to improve your people, then when you reincarnate, your people will still be weak. The European understands this very well, which is why they operate based on generational wealth. They are steadily improving the condition of their people and future generations. Meanwhile, they sell you a myth called Christianity that they don't even practice so that you can pursue heaven in the sky and neglect your future generation reincarnation. So let me make it clearer for those of you who don't read well: If you are Afrakan today it is only because you were Afrakan in the past life. You will be Afrakan forever. The only "escape" from reincarnation is if your children have equal or more non-Afrakan genes and they mate with someone even less Afrakan than them. Then your spirit will have no home to reincarnate into and live in a void. In other words, if your children are mulatto, the only way you will reincarnate into your great grandchildren is if your children mate with people more Afrakan than them. If they continue to mate only with other mulattos or non-Afrakans, then the non-Afrakan gene will dominate and a non-African will reincarnate thru their line. However, if a mulatto were to--for example Obama's mating with Michelle--mate with someone more Afrakan than them, then the Afrakan reincarnation process continues thru them. Your only option for "hell or heaven" is based on how committed you are to improving the conditions for the Afrakan race today. If you work for your people, you increase the chances that your people will be strong when you reincarnate in the future. If you don't work for your people--but continue to give all your money to Eurasians and send your children to them to be miseducated--then you will reincarnate into a world where your people are in the same weak condition. That is your hell. Based on African reincarnation concept regarding genetics, how do Minoans (mixed African-Europeans) fit in the scheme? What about people who cannot bare children? The term Minoan is being used here in place of "mulatto" because it offends some, but unfortunately these people have not created a term for themselves. Terms like "mixed" are too vague and can mean a person of mixed Japanese and Russian blood, which has no meaning for this discussion. For this reason, I will use the term Minoans to refer specifically to half-African and half-European people. The term derives from the Minoan civilization (ancient Crete), which was founded by African men who brought civilization to Europe when they married Greek-Turk women in the Aegean. So now that we have an appropriate term for these people, how do the Minoans fit in African genetic reincarnation? Firstly, the spirit that reincarnates is called the Akh. It requires similar genetics for it to incarnate a new body. It looks first for an extended family member, but can expand its search to within the ethnic group or race if it shares at least 51% kinship. Therefore a Minoan person can reincarnate as African but if and only if they mate with a person with more African blood than they (51 percent or more). A Minoan cannot prefer to mate only with other Minoans (lightskin4lightskin mentality) and then want to claim African. Their progeny must have more African blood than non-African, to allow the Minoan re-entrance into the African cycle of reincarnation. An example of this is Obama, who will reincarnate as African despite his half European ancestry because he mated with someone more genetically African than he and his children are therefore African dominant genetically. Likewise, if a Minoan mates with someone European, then their progeny will not be sufficiently African to allow reincarnation. Someone like Meghan Markle for example, pursued the Europeanization of her progeny and will thus not be able to reincarnate as African. Even a person who is Mycenean (a more respectful term for a Quadroon, which was the historical racial make up of the earliest Greek citystates) can reincarnate as African. But then they have to mate with someone 76% African in order for their 25% African blood to allow their progeny to be genetically African dominant. Basically if you are Minoan or even Mycenean, you don't have to feel outcasted from Africans as long as you mate African. But you can't be half European and expect to mate European and still claim your progeny as African. Sorry it just doesn't work that way. This is NOT about political correctness, but just the mathematical nature of spiritual biology which the Kemetyu called Akh Khepera; the reincarnation process of the Akh. Because the akh cannot die nor can two akhs share the same body they wish to reincarnate into, your akh becomes a "servant" to the akh that has access to the body due to race compatibility. However, this "servitude" can be seen as more of an ally if you have purposely intended it. Thus, while an African can never reincarnate into a European, thru generational intermixture they can become a spiritual servant of the European that controls their progeny's body. As you know, there are many of our race who wish to be Europoid and thus there are many African akhs who mixed with other races and are happily serving their European progeny who now appears purely European. Likewise, those Europeans who wish to be African can never directly become one, but they can mate with an African and if their children mates African as well, the European will be granted a role as an ally servant for the African in their progeny's body. In this way, the European's akh can help their African progeny to reverse all the evil the Europeans did in the world. Believe it or not, there are some (though very few) Europeans today so disgusted with their ancestors' behavior, that they will do this in order to help the African cause. Part II: How do Childless people reincarnate if they bore no children? The Odu Ifa is clear that there is no person who is so baren that they cannot have children. There are always children who have no parents and childless adults are intended to mind these lost children. Thus, being a spiritual parent to a person is equal to a biological parent in the eyes of Ma'at and Khepera, the deities who designed the entire reincarnation system. Remember, the akh is a spirit and thus it recognizes SPIRITUAL parenting even more than biological parenting. Thus, if you don't have biological children, you have no need to worry. Your akh will be able to reincarnate thru the progeny of the child you cared for like a parent as long as the child is genetically similar (i.e., of the same race). This does not require actually adopting the child, but being a mentor that the child can rely on is sufficient. The catch to this is that while Amen-Ra Olodumare doesn't demand all people to have children in order to reincarnate, you cannot escape the responsibility all adults have to help raise the community's children, especially a neglected child. As a reward, a childless person who raises a parentless child becomes the akh (reincarnating spirit) for that child's future generations. As a punishment, a parent who neglects their child relinquishes their akh's power to reincarnate in their child, allowing the space to be available for someone else. Unless you are killed while your child is young, Ma'at does not entertain any other excuse (financial hardship, "I wasn't ready," the "white man," etc) for why you neglected your child. You lose your role in their akh, period. Thus you see that the reincarnation system that Ma'at and Khepera designed is not just about reincarnation, but is a way to reinforce parental devotion in society, even for those who cannot biologically have children. It is also a system that reinforces devotion to one's community and race. Why would the Creator be concerned with race to even use it as guidelines in reincarnation? For the same reason that the Creator is concerned with family. A race is simply the mega family of a people. The Creator wants each family to be strong and to do this by making their race (mega family) strong. But of course, the Creator is not a racist. The goal is not to be so strong that you destroy the other races. No, the goal is that once each race is equally strong, THEN they can unite. But a strong race and weak race cannot unite, just like a strong family and weak family cannot. Unity requires equality. But equality is not a speech or a vote or a bill; equality is only established when both parties are too powerful to subjugate the other. That is the equality of the races that Amen-Ra Olodumare sees as the goal and the reason for His race-based reincarnation strategy so that the races are empowered first separately to allow them to then unite equally. Give thanks to MaTseba. MaTseba MoKga-a-Bjwala Edward Mitole, PhD Professor of Development Studies and Dean of Faculty of African Renaissance Studies at the University of the African Diaspora (USOAD) Dr. Kwame Aduhene-Kwarteng (Castro) 12.11.2023 LISTEN After 66 years of independence from the United Kingdom, Ghana is still dealing with social and economic issues such as inadequate public investment in education and healthcare, high unemployment, low earnings, a high degree of poverty, and armed robbery, to name a few. The widespread corruption in the public sector has been blamed for the current scenario. Corruption, also known as Protocol or "Keteashye ne Proye" (placing it beneath the bed and letting it rot), has spread like endemic cancer in Ghana, jeopardizing future generations and the country. Corruption has grown so entrenched in Ghanaian culture that it has become the norm rather than the exception. This societal blight is divided into three types: grand corruption, bureaucratic corruption, and legislative corruption. These types of crime differ mainly in terms of the person participating in them. Still, the result is the same: misallocation of resources and decreased system efficiency. Governments have attempted to halt this societal scourge, but their attempts have been ineffective. The president, courts, members of parliament, public officials, and other state institutions are blamed by the majority of people. In fact, when the topic of corruption is brought up among Ghanaians, the Ghana Police Service takes the brunt of the criticism. Those who criticize public institutions fail to recognize that parents seeking school entrance for their children bribe school authorities. Government contracts are secretly sold, while healthcare personnel demand money before treating patients; people's fates are sealed once judges and court officials are visited and handed sealed envelopes. To increase profits, gas station attendants mix fuel with water, defrauding innocent customers; landowners and chiefs who are custodians of lands in Ghana repeatedly sell the same piece of land; and media professionals who are expected to expose corrupt practices accept "soiree" (payments) before deciding whether to air a story. Even in the church, those who contribute the most have a voice in positions and preaching. I am not defending public officials who accept bribes since everyone is responsible for this societal scourge. This is because even young children are implicated in bribery. Some may think this writer is insane for making such a remark. When our children are unhappy with us, we don't hesitate to promise or give them things to encourage them to behave well. When we keep our word, they expect to get a present whenever they are unhappy before they will be at peace with us. Are we not bribing them to do what we expect them to do? Can't we, as parents, shower our children with presents on our own will rather than on condition? In the current economic climate, the Ghanaian system has rendered it incredibly difficult for people with low incomes to live comfortably. Ordinary residents rely on law enforcement personnel for protection and safety. Still, regrettably, they (officers) demand payment before providing any help to those in need. Lawbreakers may avoid legal consequences by bribing their way out. Political leaders steal and distribute public funds to their families and cronies. I occasionally agree with those who argue that politicians are the primary source of systemic corruption because, as leaders, they do not set good examples for citizens to follow. Ghanaian religious leaders have failed to show why they should be considered representatives of God/Allah. Hence, they must set positive examples for others to follow but they do the opposite. Most religious leaders charge exorbitant fees for consultations despite Christ and Mohammed not charging anything for the services they provided to humanity. How do bribes get paid? As indicated in the preceding paragraph, children take bribes, but governmental and private sector authorities do it more. A bribe may be paid to a public official by a direct or indirect request from the public official to the service user, including a request through a third party or an offer made by the bribe-payers themselves. Another technique to pay a bribe is to express gratitude in the form of a present from a bribe-payer to a public official. Approximately two-thirds of all bribes are paid before the service is performed. Such a substantial portion of bribes are settled before a service indicates that payments to public officials are often anticipated in Ghana. It also emphasizes public officials' negotiating power since their relative authority allows them to demand money in return for the promise of delivering a public service that should have been supplied upon request and, on occasion, even free of charge. Factors that encourage corruption Politicians are one of the primary drivers of corruption in Ghana. Politicians seeking jobs in Ghana's Parliament who finance their own campaigns contribute to political corruption. This statement is based on the reality that affluent politicians who fund their own campaigns have stakes. At the same time, those who are supported by wealthy donors become their proxies once elected. This has created an ideal environment for government corruption. In Ghana, for example, the need to address constituents' social and economic conditions drives Members of Parliament to seek alternative illicit methods of obtaining extra monies. This technique invites political corruption. Another aspect that promotes corruption is the inability of the state to pursue those caught up in the web of corruption. People who serve as whistleblowers or reveal corrupt activities are sometimes required to give proof. When whistleblowers feel dissatisfied, they opt to remain silent and enable wrongdoing to continue in the institutions where they work. Offenders who are unlucky enough to be punished are handled with child gloves, so the penalty meted out is ineffective in deterring others. In Ghana, the slow judicial process encourages corruption. Courts in Ghana need to process matters on time. Swift procedures have a higher exemplifying impact than those in which the offense is practically forgotten by the time the judgment is delivered. Justice necessitates appeals and warranties, but not at the expense of dragging down the administration of justice. Furthermore, Ghanaians minimize or dismiss corruption allegations. In Ghana, organizations have minimal authority to prosecute acts of corruption in order to set a good example. This creates a climate that encourages corruption. Aside from that, there is the need for more openness, particularly at the institutional level. People are not frightened to participate in corrupt acts since they know that everything they do is unknown to others. However, suppose individuals know their actions are being watched by everyone, they are less likely to participate in unlawful activities like corruption. Some devastating effects of corruption Corruption significantly impedes democracy and the rule of law. On the economic front, It depletes national resources. It is often held accountable for allocating scarce public funds to high-profile programs with minimal socioeconomic impact. The most major adverse effect of corruption is on the social fabric of society. It weakens people's trust in the political system, institutions, and leadership. It breeds public disenchantment and widespread apathy, resulting in a weak civil society. Corruption may also be detrimental to democratic stability and social fairness. For example, it is one reason for the recent military coup in Guinea. Corruption was also a significant cause of previous coups in Ghana, which disturbed democratic rule. How Can Ghana Fight Corruption? Fighting corruption in Ghana entails a variety of activities. To properly battle corruption in Ghana, citizens must be honest with ourselves and Mother Ghana. Leaders must, without a doubt, behave honestly. As regular people, must also review their beliefs and habits. They must begin by fostering uprightness, honesty, and patriotism in their children as early as elementary school and investigating corruption cases. Little doubt, politicians and public officials need a refresher course in ethical leadership. Ghanaian political leaders or rulers must be transformative leaders, not just rulers. It is also critical that the nation enhance its institutions and the rule of law. This will include enacting and executing anti-corruption legislation and establishing solid and independent institutions such as the court and the media. Transparency and accountability must also be promoted. Making government information more available to the public and making government officials accountable for their actions. Finally, people must be empowered to speak out against corruption. This would entail boosting corruption awareness and providing individuals with the tools and resources to denounce corruption and hold corrupt officials responsible for their actions. Dr. Kwame Aduhene-Kwarteng (Castro) Blackrock Municipal 2030 Target Term Trust (NYSE:BTT Get Free Report) was the recipient of a large increase in short interest in the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 77,200 shares, an increase of 493.8% from the October 15th total of 13,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 175,200 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 0.4 days. Blackrock Municipal 2030 Target Term Trust Stock Up 0.7 % Shares of Blackrock Municipal 2030 Target Term Trust stock traded up $0.14 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $20.16. 139,780 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 123,408. Blackrock Municipal 2030 Target Term Trust has a twelve month low of $18.90 and a twelve month high of $22.50. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $19.70 and a 200-day simple moving average of $20.43. Get Blackrock Municipal 2030 Target Term Trust alerts: Blackrock Municipal 2030 Target Term Trust Announces Dividend The business also recently declared a monthly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 1st. Investors of record on Wednesday, November 15th will be paid a $0.0464 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, November 14th. This represents a $0.56 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.76%. Institutional Inflows and Outflows About Blackrock Municipal 2030 Target Term Trust Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Fifth Third Bancorp grew its position in shares of Blackrock Municipal 2030 Target Term Trust by 80.0% in the 1st quarter. Fifth Third Bancorp now owns 1,350 shares of the companys stock worth $29,000 after acquiring an additional 600 shares in the last quarter. Luken Investment Analytics LLC acquired a new position in Blackrock Municipal 2030 Target Term Trust in the second quarter worth $30,000. Wolverine Asset Management LLC bought a new stake in Blackrock Municipal 2030 Target Term Trust during the second quarter valued at $43,000. MRP Capital Investments LLC raised its holdings in shares of Blackrock Municipal 2030 Target Term Trust by 75.0% during the first quarter. MRP Capital Investments LLC now owns 7,000 shares of the companys stock worth $152,000 after purchasing an additional 3,000 shares during the period. Finally, Tortoise Investment Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Blackrock Municipal 2030 Target Term Trust by 26.3% in the 1st quarter. Tortoise Investment Management LLC now owns 7,200 shares of the companys stock worth $156,000 after buying an additional 1,500 shares during the last quarter. (Get Free Report) Blackrock Municipal 2030 Target Term Trust is a closed end fixed income mutual fund launched by BlackRock, Inc The fund is managed by by BlackRock Advisors, LLC. It invests in fixed income markets. The fund invests primarily in investment grade municipal bonds that are exempt from regular federal income tax. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Blackrock Municipal 2030 Target Term Trust Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Blackrock Municipal 2030 Target Term Trust and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Abrdn Australia Equity Fund Inc (NYSEAMERICAN:IAF Get Free Report) was the target of a significant increase in short interest in the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 14,900 shares, an increase of 547.8% from the October 15th total of 2,300 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 53,200 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 0.3 days. Institutional Inflows and Outflows A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in IAF. Cetera Investment Advisers lifted its stake in Abrdn Australia Equity Fund by 22.3% in the first quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 42,414 shares of the companys stock worth $267,000 after acquiring an additional 7,741 shares during the last quarter. Royal Bank of Canada lifted its stake in Abrdn Australia Equity Fund by 519.7% in the third quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 8,856 shares of the companys stock worth $35,000 after acquiring an additional 7,427 shares during the last quarter. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. lifted its position in shares of Abrdn Australia Equity Fund by 18.7% during the 4th quarter. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. now owns 96,161 shares of the companys stock worth $422,000 after buying an additional 15,138 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley lifted its position in shares of Abrdn Australia Equity Fund by 15.4% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 120,403 shares of the companys stock worth $529,000 after buying an additional 16,064 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Belvedere Trading LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Abrdn Australia Equity Fund during the 4th quarter worth approximately $108,000. Get Abrdn Australia Equity Fund alerts: Abrdn Australia Equity Fund Price Performance Shares of NYSEAMERICAN IAF remained flat at $3.77 during midday trading on Friday. 41,893 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 53,859. Abrdn Australia Equity Fund has a twelve month low of $3.60 and a twelve month high of $5.24. Abrdn Australia Equity Fund Company Profile Abrdn Australia Equity Fund Inc is a closed ended equity mutual fund launched and managed by Aberdeen Standard Investments (Asia) Limited. The fund is managed by Aberdeen Standard Investments Australia Limited. It invests in the public equity markets of Australia. The fund makes its investments in firms operating across diversified sectors. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Abrdn Australia Equity Fund Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Abrdn Australia Equity Fund and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev has issued a new batch of nonsense in his "signature style." He managed to link the war between Israel and Hamas, pro-Palestinian rallies in Europe, and Ukraine's accession to NATO. ADVERTISIMENT Medvedev generously seasoned this explosive mixture with Kremlin talking points about the alleged absence of Ukraine, Ukrainians, and the Ukrainian language. Another "pearl" by a representative of the Russian ruling elite appeared on his Telegram channel. Mentioning the pro-Palestinian rallies in the streets of European cities, Medvedev managed to link the prospects of Ukraine's accession to NATO to them, and suddenly concluded that the West had "recognized" Russia's occupation and annexation of Ukrainian Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions. "Europe is seething. Hundreds of thousands of people are protesting in the streets against the cynical Western support for violence in Gaza. Amidst the cry of much Middle Eastern blood, some current and former NATO officials are gently throwing out new ideas on Ukraine. They say it should be accepted into the Alliance, but without Crimea and Donbas. So, these territories are definitely not Ukraine in their understanding," wrote the deputy head of the Russian Security Council. ADVERTISIMENT Then the Russian official, who has long been suspected of having an excessive addiction to strong alcoholic beverages, came to even more unexpected "conclusions": he stated that no Ukraine exists, and that President Volodymyr Zelensky is allegedly a usurper. "It is important to move on. We need to recognize that Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kyiv, and virtually everything else is not Ukraine. After that, there are only three steps to recognizing the obvious: Zelensky, who is not running for election, is not a president, but a usurper. The Ukrainian language is not a language, but a mix. Ukraine is not a country, but artificially assembled territories," Medvedev gave NATO countries "advice" that no one asked him for. To Ukraine, the great "expert" on democratic elections and ethnopolitics, Medvedev "left" the city of Lviv, which he invariably calls in the Polish manner, trying to emphasize that western Ukraine should allegedly belong to Poland. ADVERTISIMENT "And then what should we accept about NATO, you may ask. Well, you can accept the city of Lemberg and its surroundings (Lviv region for now), if they insist. Or we could even go for more, expanding the criteria for membership in the Alliance once again. To invite Israel along with Palestine, turning eternal enemies into allies. And in addition to them, Afghanistan. It was in vain that the NATO troops stayed there for twenty years in a row. That's when enlightened democracy in the Anglo-Saxon manner will reign in the Middle East. And there will be complete happiness," the representative of the ruling elite of the Russian Federation flashed his "intelligence." It is worth noting that this time Medvedev managed to avoid his usual threats of a nuclear strike, focusing on his other favorite thesis: denying the right of Ukrainians and Ukraine to exist. ADVERTISIMENT Earlier, Medvedev called Bulgarians and residents of the Baltic states a "second-rate rabble". Such "compliments" from a representative of the Russian "political elite" were "honored" by the residents of Eastern Europe in connection with the European Commission's call for the start of EU accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova. Such statements by the former president of the Russian Federation, which positions itself as the main "fighter against Nazism" on the planet, have even stunned Russian propagandists. One of the most popular Kremlin-controlled media outlets in Russia published an article with the headline "Dmitry Medvedev is carried away" after his passage. ADVERTISIMENT Ashford (NYSEAMERICAN:AINC Get Free Report) released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday. The financial services provider reported $0.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $1.51 by ($0.60), reports. The business had revenue of $181.22 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $186.70 million. Ashford had a negative net margin of 0.26% and a negative return on equity of 19.41%. Ashford Price Performance Shares of AINC traded down $0.61 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $5.29. 534 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,608. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $9.58 and a 200 day simple moving average of $10.99. The company has a market cap of $16.98 million, a PE ratio of -0.42 and a beta of 1.94. Ashford has a 52 week low of $5.26 and a 52 week high of $17.54. Get Ashford alerts: Analyst Ratings Changes AINC has been the subject of several research reports. StockNews.com assumed coverage on Ashford in a research note on Saturday. They issued a buy rating for the company. Oppenheimer lowered their price objective on Ashford from $20.00 to $17.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, August 10th. Hedge Funds Weigh In On Ashford An institutional investor recently raised its position in Ashford stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in Ashford Inc. (NYSEAMERICAN:AINC Free Report) by 5.6% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 81,717 shares of the financial services providers stock after buying an additional 4,314 shares during the quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. owned about 2.71% of Ashford worth $1,400,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 12.95% of the companys stock. Ashford Company Profile (Get Free Report) Ashford, Inc is an asset management firm. The firm provides investment management and related services to the real estate and hospitality sectors. Ashford, Inc was formed on April 2, 2014 and is based in Dallas, Texas. Ashford Inc(NYSEAM:AINC) operates independently of Ashford Hospitality Trust, Inc as of November 5, 2019. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Ashford Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Ashford and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Becton, Dickinson and Company (NYSE:BDX Get Free Report) updated its FY24 earnings guidance on Thursday. The company provided EPS guidance of $12.70 to $13.00 for the period, compared to the consensus EPS estimate of $13.48. The company issued revenue guidance of $20.1 billion to $20.3 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $20.35 billion. Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of brokerages recently commented on BDX. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on shares of Becton, Dickinson and Company from $295.00 to $310.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Friday, August 4th. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Becton, Dickinson and Company from $284.00 to $303.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Monday, August 7th. TheStreet downgraded shares of Becton, Dickinson and Company from a b rating to a c+ rating in a research report on Thursday. Piper Sandler decreased their target price on shares of Becton, Dickinson and Company from $305.00 to $280.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research report on Friday. Finally, Raymond James decreased their target price on shares of Becton, Dickinson and Company from $304.00 to $269.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research report on Friday. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Becton, Dickinson and Company currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $279.33. Get Becton Dickinson and Company alerts: Read Our Latest Report on BDX Becton, Dickinson and Company Price Performance Shares of Becton, Dickinson and Company stock opened at $234.65 on Friday. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $260.07 and a 200-day simple moving average of $261.59. The company has a current ratio of 1.31, a quick ratio of 0.73 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.57. Becton, Dickinson and Company has a 1-year low of $218.82 and a 1-year high of $287.32. The stock has a market capitalization of $68.07 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 47.31, a PEG ratio of 1.84 and a beta of 0.55. Becton, Dickinson and Company (NYSE:BDX Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 9th. The medical instruments supplier reported $3.42 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting analysts consensus estimates of $3.42. Becton, Dickinson and Company had a net margin of 7.66% and a return on equity of 13.91%. The business had revenue of $5.09 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $5.02 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $2.75 earnings per share. Becton, Dickinson and Companys revenue for the quarter was up 6.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Becton, Dickinson and Company will post 12.96 earnings per share for the current year. Becton, Dickinson and Company Increases Dividend The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 29th. Investors of record on Friday, December 8th will be paid a dividend of $0.95 per share. This is a boost from Becton, Dickinson and Companys previous quarterly dividend of $0.91. This represents a $3.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.62%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, December 7th. Becton, Dickinson and Companys dividend payout ratio is presently 73.39%. Insider Activity at Becton, Dickinson and Company In related news, Director Claire Fraser sold 848 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Monday, August 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.66, for a total transaction of $238,847.68. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 21,608 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,086,109.28. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In related news, Director Claire Fraser sold 848 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Monday, August 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.66, for a total transaction of $238,847.68. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 21,608 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,086,109.28. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, EVP Richard Byrd sold 459 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $274.48, for a total transaction of $125,986.32. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 3,444 shares in the company, valued at approximately $945,309.12. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.31% of the companys stock. Institutional Investors Weigh In On Becton, Dickinson and Company Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Advisors Asset Management Inc. bought a new stake in Becton, Dickinson and Company in the 1st quarter valued at $40,000. PCA Investment Advisory Services Inc. bought a new stake in Becton, Dickinson and Company during the 2nd quarter worth about $61,000. Fairfield Bush & CO. bought a new stake in Becton, Dickinson and Company during the 1st quarter worth about $114,000. Fortis Capital Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Becton, Dickinson and Company during the 4th quarter valued at about $110,000. Finally, Zions Bancorporation N.A. lifted its position in Becton, Dickinson and Company by 13.0% during the 1st quarter. Zions Bancorporation N.A. now owns 504 shares of the medical instruments suppliers stock valued at $134,000 after purchasing an additional 58 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 86.72% of the companys stock. About Becton, Dickinson and Company (Get Free Report) Becton, Dickinson and Company develops, manufactures, and sells medical supplies, devices, laboratory equipment, and diagnostic products for healthcare institutions, physicians, life science researchers, clinical laboratories, pharmaceutical industry, and the general public worldwide. The company's BD Medical segment provides peripheral intravenous (IV) and advanced peripheral catheters, central lines, acute dialysis catheters, vascular care and preparation products, needle-free IV connectors and extensions sets, closed-system drug transfer devices, hazardous drug detections, hypodermic syringes and needles, anesthesia needles and trays, enteral syringes, and sharps disposal systems; IV medication and infusion therapy delivery systems, medication compounding workflow systems, automated medication dispensing and supply management systems, and medication inventory optimization and tracking systems; syringes, pen needles, and other products for diabetes; and prefillable drug delivery systems. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for Becton Dickinson and Company Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Becton Dickinson and Company and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Lake Street Advisors Group LLC boosted its stake in Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. (NYSE:BIP Free Report) (TSE:BIP.UN) by 1.8% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,437,958 shares of the utilities providers stock after purchasing an additional 25,088 shares during the quarter. Brookfield Infrastructure Partners comprises approximately 2.9% of Lake Street Advisors Group LLCs holdings, making the stock its 9th largest holding. Lake Street Advisors Group LLC owned 0.31% of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners worth $52,486,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. Several other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the stock. Alterity Financial Group LLC lifted its stake in Brookfield Infrastructure Partners by 3.6% in the 1st quarter. Alterity Financial Group LLC now owns 8,601 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $290,000 after purchasing an additional 300 shares in the last quarter. Global Retirement Partners LLC raised its position in shares of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners by 15.2% during the 2nd quarter. Global Retirement Partners LLC now owns 2,270 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $83,000 after buying an additional 300 shares in the last quarter. Lido Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners by 8.9% during the 1st quarter. Lido Advisors LLC now owns 3,925 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $259,000 after buying an additional 320 shares in the last quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC raised its position in shares of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners by 2.6% during the 2nd quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC now owns 15,699 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $573,000 after buying an additional 399 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Tranquility Partners LLC raised its position in shares of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners by 2.8% during the 1st quarter. Tranquility Partners LLC now owns 14,604 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $493,000 after buying an additional 400 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 55.52% of the companys stock. Get Brookfield Infrastructure Partners alerts: Brookfield Infrastructure Partners Price Performance BIP stock traded down $0.35 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $25.53. The company had a trading volume of 514,254 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,404,519. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $27.81 and a 200 day moving average of $32.48. Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. has a 12 month low of $21.03 and a 12 month high of $38.20. The company has a market capitalization of $11.71 billion, a PE ratio of 82.35 and a beta of 0.93. Brookfield Infrastructure Partners Dividend Announcement Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 29th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 30th will be paid a dividend of $0.382 per share. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, November 29th. This represents a $1.53 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.99%. Brookfield Infrastructure Partnerss dividend payout ratio is presently 493.55%. Several analysts have recently issued reports on BIP shares. BMO Capital Markets decreased their target price on shares of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners from $42.00 to $38.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, November 3rd. National Bank Financial upgraded shares of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners from a sector perform overweight rating to an outperform overweight rating and set a $33.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, October 18th. Raymond James reduced their price objective on shares of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners from $45.00 to $40.00 and set a strong-buy rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, November 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price objective on shares of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners from $37.00 to $35.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, September 22nd. Finally, Credit Suisse Group reissued an outperform rating and issued a $44.00 price objective on shares of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners in a research report on Wednesday, August 30th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with 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, the stock has an average rating of Buy and a consensus target price of $38.44. Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on Brookfield Infrastructure Partners Brookfield Infrastructure Partners Company Profile (Free Report) Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. owns and operates utilities, transport, midstream, and data businesses in North and South America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. The company's Utilities segment operates approximately 60,000 kilometers (km) of operational electricity transmission and distribution lines; 2,900 km of electricity transmission lines; 4,200 km of natural gas pipelines; 7.8 million electricity and natural gas connections; and 540,000 long-term contracted sub-metering services. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Brookfield Infrastructure Partners Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Brookfield Infrastructure Partners and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. China Feihe Limited (OTCMKTS:CHFLF Get Free Report) saw a large decline in short interest in the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 5,206,700 shares, a decline of 38.7% from the October 15th total of 8,499,800 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 1,219,600 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 4.3 days. China Feihe Stock Performance Shares of China Feihe stock remained flat at 0.64 during trading on Friday. China Feihe has a 1-year low of 0.53 and a 1-year high of 1.02. Get China Feihe alerts: About China Feihe (Get Free Report) Recommended Stories China Feihe Limited, an investment holding company, produces and sells infant milk formula products in Mainland China and the United States. The company provides a range of raw milk, adult milk powders, liquid milk products, and health care products, as well as soybean powder and goat milk powder. It is also involved in the retail of vitamins, minerals, herbs, and other nutritional supplements. Receive News & Ratings for China Feihe Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for China Feihe and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Summit Hotel Properties (NYSE:INN Get Free Report) and AG Mortgage Investment Trust (NYSE:MITT Get Free Report) are both small-cap finance companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, profitability, analyst recommendations, risk, dividends, earnings and valuation. Profitability This table compares Summit Hotel Properties and AG Mortgage Investment Trusts net margins, return on equity and return on assets. Get Summit Hotel Properties alerts: Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Summit Hotel Properties -0.94% -0.49% -0.23% AG Mortgage Investment Trust 12.55% 9.89% 0.53% Risk and Volatility Summit Hotel Properties has a beta of 1.94, suggesting that its stock price is 94% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, AG Mortgage Investment Trust has a beta of 1.94, suggesting that its stock price is 94% more volatile than the S&P 500. Valuation & Earnings Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio Summit Hotel Properties $675.70 million 0.95 -$1.05 million ($0.22) -27.09 AG Mortgage Investment Trust $180.30 million 0.59 -$53.10 million $0.55 9.60 This table compares Summit Hotel Properties and AG Mortgage Investment Trusts revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation. Summit Hotel Properties has higher revenue and earnings than AG Mortgage Investment Trust. Summit Hotel Properties is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than AG Mortgage Investment Trust, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks. Dividends Summit Hotel Properties pays an annual dividend of $0.24 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.0%. AG Mortgage Investment Trust pays an annual dividend of $0.32 per share and has a dividend yield of 6.1%. Summit Hotel Properties pays out -109.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. AG Mortgage Investment Trust pays out 58.2% 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. Summit Hotel Properties has raised its dividend for 1 consecutive years. Insider & Institutional Ownership 95.1% of Summit Hotel Properties shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 33.3% of AG Mortgage Investment Trust shares are held by institutional investors. 3.0% of Summit Hotel Properties shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 4.5% of AG Mortgage Investment Trust shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term. Analyst Ratings This is a summary of current ratings and target prices for Summit Hotel Properties and AG Mortgage Investment Trust, as provided by MarketBeat. Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score Summit Hotel Properties 0 1 1 0 2.50 AG Mortgage Investment Trust 0 2 2 0 2.50 Summit Hotel Properties currently has a consensus price target of $8.50, indicating a potential upside of 42.62%. AG Mortgage Investment Trust has a consensus price target of $7.13, indicating a potential upside of 34.94%. Given Summit Hotel Properties higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Summit Hotel Properties is more favorable than AG Mortgage Investment Trust. About Summit Hotel Properties (Get Free Report) Summit Hotel Properties, Inc. is a publicly traded real estate investment trust focused on owning premium-branded lodging properties with efficient operating models primarily in the upscale segment of the lodging industry. As of November 1, 2023, the Company's portfolio consisted of 101 assets, 57 of which are wholly owned, with a total of 15,035 guestrooms located in 24 states. About AG Mortgage Investment Trust (Get Free Report) AG Mortgage Investment Trust, Inc. operates as a residential mortgage real estate investment trust in the United States. Its investment portfolio comprises residential investments, including non-agency loans, agency-eligible loans, re-and non-performing loans, and non-agency residential mortgage-backed securities. The company qualifies as a real estate investment trust for federal income tax purposes. It generally would not be subject to federal corporate income taxes if it distributes at least 90% of its taxable income to its stockholders. The company was incorporated in 2011 and is based in New York, New York. Receive News & Ratings for Summit Hotel Properties Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Summit Hotel Properties and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. DB Fitzpatrick & Co Inc decreased its holdings in shares of Crown Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CCK Free Report) by 5.0% during the second quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 16,116 shares of the industrial products companys stock after selling 852 shares during the quarter. Crown makes up 1.5% of DB Fitzpatrick & Co Incs investment portfolio, making the stock its 18th largest position. DB Fitzpatrick & Co Incs holdings in Crown were worth $1,400,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of CCK. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its stake in Crown by 1.1% in the first quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 735,554 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $60,838,000 after purchasing an additional 7,953 shares in the last quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Kokusai Asset Management Co. Ltd. grew its stake in Crown by 0.7% in the first quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Kokusai Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 40,019 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $3,310,000 after purchasing an additional 271 shares in the last quarter. State of Alaska Department of Revenue purchased a new position in Crown in the second quarter valued at about $1,293,000. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. grew its stake in Crown by 36.8% in the second quarter. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. now owns 4,328 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $376,000 after purchasing an additional 1,164 shares in the last quarter. Finally, First Republic Investment Management Inc. grew its stake in Crown by 15.3% in the second quarter. First Republic Investment Management Inc. now owns 26,438 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $2,297,000 after purchasing an additional 3,499 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 95.18% of the companys stock. Get Crown alerts: Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth Several research firms have recently issued reports on CCK. Barclays decreased their price target on Crown from $110.00 to $100.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 26th. TheStreet downgraded Crown from a b- rating to a c+ rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 1st. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price target on Crown from $86.00 to $74.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 19th. Citigroup boosted their price objective on Crown from $103.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 25th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group cut their price objective on Crown from $123.00 to $122.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, October 18th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $101.33. Crown Stock Performance Crown stock traded up $0.55 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $80.42. The stock had a trading volume of 1,038,279 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,446,209. The company has a 50-day moving average of $84.88 and a two-hundred day moving average of $85.94. The company has a quick ratio of 0.70, a current ratio of 1.13 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.21. The company has a market cap of $9.70 billion, a PE ratio of 19.01, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.66 and a beta of 1.10. Crown Holdings, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $75.61 and a fifty-two week high of $96.35. Crown (NYSE:CCK Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 24th. The industrial products company reported $1.73 EPS for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $1.73. Crown had a return on equity of 26.84% and a net margin of 4.17%. The firm had revenue of $3.07 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $3.23 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.46 EPS. The companys revenue for the quarter was down 5.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Crown Holdings, Inc. will post 6.04 EPS for the current fiscal year. Crown Dividend Announcement The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, November 22nd. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, November 8th will be issued a $0.24 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, November 7th. This represents a $0.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.19%. Crowns payout ratio is presently 22.70%. Insider Transactions at Crown In related news, COO Gerard H. Gifford sold 13,535 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $80.48, for a total transaction of $1,089,296.80. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 109,864 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,841,854.72. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In related news, COO Gerard H. Gifford sold 13,535 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $80.48, for a total transaction of $1,089,296.80. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 109,864 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,841,854.72. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, COO Gerard H. Gifford sold 9,784 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $92.24, for a total value of $902,476.16. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 123,399 shares in the company, valued at $11,382,323.76. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.90% of the stock is currently owned by insiders. Crown Profile (Free Report) Crown Holdings, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, supplies rigid packaging products in Pennsylvania and internationally. It operates through Americas Beverage, European Beverage, Asia Pacific, and Transit Packaging segments. The Americas Beverage segment manufactures recyclable aluminum beverage cans and ends, glass bottles, steel crowns, and aluminum caps. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding CCK? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Crown Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CCK Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Crown Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Crown and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Drone Delivery Canada Corp. (OTCMKTS:TAKOF Get Free Report) was the target of a significant decrease in short interest in October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 100 shares, a decrease of 98.6% from the October 15th total of 6,900 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 29,900 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 0.0 days. Drone Delivery Canada Trading Down 3.5 % Drone Delivery Canada stock traded down $0.01 during trading on Friday, hitting $0.18. 10,932 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 31,428. The businesss 50 day moving average is $0.20 and its 200 day moving average is $0.24. Drone Delivery Canada has a 52 week low of $0.15 and a 52 week high of $0.40. Get Drone Delivery Canada alerts: About Drone Delivery Canada (Get Free Report) Featured Stories Drone Delivery Canada Corp. designs, develops, and implements a commercial drone-based logistics platform in Canada and internationally. The company's logistics infrastructure solution is an integrated turnkey logistics platform, which include industrial-grade drones, automated DroneSpot depots, automated battery management systems, a detect and avoid radar system, and proprietary FLYTE software to integrate various components into a solution. Receive News & Ratings for Drone Delivery Canada Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Drone Delivery Canada and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Reinsurance Group of America (NYSE:RGA Get Free Report) and Everest Group (NYSE:EG Get Free Report) are both large-cap financial services companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, earnings, dividends, profitability and risk. Analyst Ratings This is a breakdown of current recommendations and price targets for Reinsurance Group of America and Everest Group, as reported by MarketBeat.com. Get Reinsurance Group of America alerts: Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score Reinsurance Group of America 0 4 5 1 2.70 Everest Group 0 0 4 1 3.20 Reinsurance Group of America presently has a consensus target price of $165.36, suggesting a potential upside of 1.98%. Everest Group has a consensus target price of $451.00, suggesting a potential upside of 17.24%. Given Everest Groups stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Everest Group is more favorable than Reinsurance Group of America. Earnings & Valuation Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio Reinsurance Group of America $16.26 billion 0.66 $623.00 million $14.08 11.52 Everest Group $12.06 billion 1.38 $597.00 million $53.86 7.14 This table compares Reinsurance Group of America and Everest Groups gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation. Reinsurance Group of America has higher revenue and earnings than Everest Group. Everest Group is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Reinsurance Group of America, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks. Volatility & Risk Reinsurance Group of America has a beta of 0.86, meaning that its share price is 14% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Everest Group has a beta of 0.58, meaning that its share price is 42% less volatile than the S&P 500. Insider & Institutional Ownership 93.8% of Reinsurance Group of America shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 90.5% of Everest Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.3% of Reinsurance Group of America shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 1.4% of Everest Group shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth. Profitability This table compares Reinsurance Group of America and Everest Groups net margins, return on equity and return on assets. Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Reinsurance Group of America 5.29% 17.43% 1.39% Everest Group 15.57% 21.85% 5.00% Dividends Reinsurance Group of America pays an annual dividend of $3.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.1%. Everest Group pays an annual dividend of $7.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.8%. Reinsurance Group of America pays out 24.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Everest Group pays out 13.0% 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. Reinsurance Group of America has increased its dividend for 15 consecutive years. Reinsurance Group of America is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth. Summary Everest Group beats Reinsurance Group of America on 9 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks. About Reinsurance Group of America (Get Free Report) Reinsurance Group of America, Incorporated engages in reinsurance business. The company offers individual and group life and health insurance products, such as term life, credit life, universal life, whole life, group life and health, joint and last survivor insurance, critical illness, disability, and longevity products; asset-intensive and financial reinsurance products; and other capital motivated solutions. It also provides reinsurance for mortality, morbidity, lapse, and investment-related risk associated with products; and reinsurance for investment-related risks. In addition, the company develops and markets technology solutions; and provides consulting and outsourcing solutions for the insurance and reinsurance industries. It serves life insurance companies in the United States, Latin America, Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, and the Asia Pacific. Reinsurance Group of America, Incorporated was founded in 1973 and is headquartered in Chesterfield, Missouri. About Everest Group (Get Free Report) Everest Group, Ltd., through its subsidiaries, provides reinsurance and insurance products in the United States, Bermuda, and internationally. The company operates through Reinsurance Operations and Insurance Operations segments. The Reinsurance Operations segment writes property and casualty reinsurance; and specialty lines of business through reinsurance brokers, as well as directly with ceding companies in the United States, Bermuda, Ireland, Canada, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The Insurance Operations segment writes property and casualty insurance directly, as well as through brokers, surplus lines brokers, and general agents in the United States, Bermuda, Canada, Europe, South America, France, Germany, Spain, Canada, Chile, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the Netherlands. The company also provides treaty and facultative reinsurance products; admitted and non-admitted insurance products; and property and casualty reinsurance and insurance coverages, including marine, aviation, surety, errors and omissions liability, directors' and officers' liability, medical malpractice, mortgage reinsurance, other specialty lines, accident and health, and workers' compensation products. In addition, it offers commercial property and casualty insurance products through wholesale and retail brokers, surplus lines brokers, and program administrators. The company was formerly known as Everest Re Group, Ltd. and changed its name to Everest Group, Ltd. in July 2023. The company was founded in 1973 and is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda. Receive News & Ratings for Reinsurance Group of America Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Reinsurance Group of America and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Intech Investment Management LLC decreased its position in Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY Free Report) by 30.1% during the second quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 1,324,749 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock after selling 571,152 shares during the quarter. Bristol-Myers Squibb makes up 0.9% of Intech Investment Management LLCs investment portfolio, making the stock its 17th largest position. Intech Investment Management LLCs holdings in Bristol-Myers Squibb were worth $84,718,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. SevenBridge Financial Group LLC lifted its stake in Bristol-Myers Squibb by 1.6% in the second quarter. SevenBridge Financial Group LLC now owns 49,112 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock worth $3,141,000 after acquiring an additional 797 shares during the period. Plancorp LLC lifted its stake in Bristol-Myers Squibb by 3.2% in the second quarter. Plancorp LLC now owns 8,973 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock worth $574,000 after acquiring an additional 275 shares during the period. Security Asset Management lifted its stake in Bristol-Myers Squibb by 20.3% in the first quarter. Security Asset Management now owns 9,230 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock worth $640,000 after acquiring an additional 1,558 shares during the period. Wealth Architects LLC lifted its stake in Bristol-Myers Squibb by 4.8% in the second quarter. Wealth Architects LLC now owns 8,012 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock worth $512,000 after acquiring an additional 366 shares during the period. Finally, Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc lifted its stake in Bristol-Myers Squibb by 3.5% in the second quarter. Richard P Slaughter Associates Inc now owns 22,040 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock worth $1,409,000 after acquiring an additional 750 shares during the period. 74.98% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Bristol-Myers Squibb alerts: Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of analysts recently commented on the company. William Blair lowered Bristol-Myers Squibb from an outperform rating to a market perform rating in a research note on Friday, October 27th. UBS Group reissued a neutral rating and set a $60.00 price objective (down previously from $70.00) on shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb in a research report on Friday, October 20th. TD Cowen lowered their price objective on 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. The Goldman Sachs Group lowered their price objective on Bristol-Myers Squibb from $81.00 to $69.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Monday, October 30th. Finally, Bank of America lowered their price objective on Bristol-Myers Squibb from $85.00 to $80.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Friday, July 28th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, thirteen have assigned a hold rating, five have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $64.76. Insider Buying and Selling In other Bristol-Myers Squibb news, EVP Ann Powell sold 17,986 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $61.25, for a total transaction of $1,101,642.50. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 27,868 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,706,915. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. 0.09% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders. Bristol-Myers Squibb Stock Performance NYSE BMY traded up $0.20 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $50.61. The companys stock had a trading volume of 12,698,121 shares, compared to its average volume of 14,731,422. Bristol-Myers Squibb has a 12 month low of $49.49 and a 12 month high of $81.43. The companys 50 day simple moving average is $56.58 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $61.49. The company has a market cap of $102.98 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.85, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.59 and a beta of 0.38. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.11, a current ratio of 1.18 and a quick ratio of 1.07. Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 26th. The biopharmaceutical company reported $2.00 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.76 by $0.24. Bristol-Myers Squibb had a return on equity of 51.59% and a net margin of 18.44%. The company had revenue of $10.97 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $10.96 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.99 EPS. Bristol-Myers Squibbs revenue for the quarter was down 2.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Bristol-Myers Squibb will post 7.56 EPS for the current fiscal year. Bristol-Myers Squibb Dividend Announcement The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, November 1st. Investors of record on Friday, October 6th were issued a $0.57 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 5th. This represents a $2.28 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.51%. Bristol-Myers Squibbs payout ratio is 57.87%. 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. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding BMY? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Bristol-Myers Squibb Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Bristol-Myers Squibb and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Invesco High Income Trust II (NYSE:VLT Get Free Report) was the recipient of a significant decline in short interest during the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 20,700 shares, a decline of 22.2% from the October 15th total of 26,600 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 16,500 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 1.3 days. Institutional Trading of Invesco High Income Trust II A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Guggenheim Capital LLC boosted its position in Invesco High Income Trust II by 15.6% during the second quarter. Guggenheim Capital LLC now owns 113,784 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $1,195,000 after acquiring an additional 15,325 shares during the last quarter. Osaic Holdings Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Invesco High Income Trust II by 7.5% during the second quarter. Osaic Holdings Inc. now owns 19,047 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $180,000 after purchasing an additional 1,323 shares during the period. Shaker Financial Services LLC raised its holdings in shares of Invesco High Income Trust II by 13.1% during the second quarter. Shaker Financial Services LLC now owns 106,664 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $1,120,000 after purchasing an additional 12,321 shares during the period. Sterling Financial Planning Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Invesco High Income Trust II during the second quarter valued at about $202,000. Finally, Ameriprise Financial Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Invesco High Income Trust II by 18.6% during the first quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 45,203 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $475,000 after purchasing an additional 7,084 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 16.07% of the companys stock. Get Invesco High Income Trust II alerts: Invesco High Income Trust II Stock Performance Shares of NYSE VLT traded down $0.02 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $9.88. 7,857 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 16,521. The stocks 50-day moving average price is $9.87 and its 200-day moving average price is $10.22. Invesco High Income Trust II has a one year low of $9.29 and a one year high of $11.25. Invesco High Income Trust II Announces Dividend About Invesco High Income Trust II The firm also recently disclosed a monthly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, November 30th. Investors of record on Wednesday, November 15th will be paid a $0.0964 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 14th. This represents a $1.16 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 11.71%. (Get Free Report) Invesco High Income Trust II is a closed ended fixed income mutual fund launched by Invesco Ltd. The fund is co-managed by Invesco Advisers, Inc, INVESCO Asset Management (Japan) Limited, INVESCO Asset Management Deutschland GmbH, INVESCO Asset Management Limited, Invesco Hong Kong Limited, INVESCO Senior Secured Management, Inc, and Invesco Canada Ltd. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for Invesco High Income Trust II Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Invesco High Income Trust II and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. This year, one of the largest and most prestigious beauty pageants, Miss Universe, is taking place in El Salvador, and for the first time in its history, two transgender women will participate in it. The representatives of Portugal and the Netherlands are Marina Machete and Ricky Kolle, who were biologically born male. ADVERTISIMENT The Portuguese contestant is 28 years old. For the last 5 years of her life, she worked as a flight attendant when she suddenly decided to try her hand at modeling, so she entered Miss Universe Portugal, where she won the coveted crown. Her competitor from the Netherlands is 22. She dreams of becoming an inspiring example for all people who suffer from gender discrimination. OBOZ.UA decided to show how the two transgender beauties look like. Marina Machete from Portugal As we have already mentioned, Marina is a 28-year-old flight attendant. She became the first transgender woman in her country to win the Miss Portugal title. ADVERTISIMENT "As a transgender woman, I have gone through many obstacles on my way, but fortunately, and especially in my family, love has been stronger than ignorance," Machete said. She regularly shares photos and videos from El Salvador on her social media, where she was completely inactive until recently. All 90 beauties who will compete for the main crown in the final on November 18 have already gathered there. "For many years I was not eligible to participate in the competition, and now it is such an honor to be part of this incredible group of candidates," shares her impressions the representative of Portugal. ADVERTISIMENT Rikki Kolle from the Netherlands The representative of the Netherlands is only 22 years old, but she already knows what mission she will fulfill throughout her life - to fight gender discrimination, inspire and support all those who suffer from it. "I have overcome so much mental and physical pain. I am grateful to have heard my name called when the final casting was announced. I was very nervous, but at the same time I was very motivated, I really wanted to take advantage of this opportunity," said Kolle after becoming the winner in her country. ADVERTISIMENT After the victory, Rikki faced the so-called anti-trans reaction, but the actions of the haters, as the model herself later noted, only played into her hands, providing her with a better opportunity to inform society about the rights of trans people and the long queues for gender-affirming care in the Netherlands. "The only thing I want to say to the haters is thank you, because you are giving me a bigger platform than I could have imagined... I want to speak out in defense of trans people who need it. I had no one to look up to as a child, and I want to be a role model and inspiration for others," Kolle said. ADVERTISIMENT The model, who hails from Breda in the southern Netherlands, began her transgender journey when she was 16 and gained her first wave of fame through her participation in the 11th season of Holland's Next Top Model. It should be noted that transgender people have been able to participate in Miss Universe since 2012 after the rules were revised. "Transgender women are women, period," the organizers argued at the time. It is also worth noting that Anne Jakrayutatip, who acquired the Miss Universe organization in 2022, is also a transgender woman. ADVERTISIMENT Angela Ponce, a representative of Spain, became the first such contestant at Miss Universe. She participated in the contest in 2018 and reached the final. As OBOZ.UA previously reported, Ukraine's representative at Miss Universe Angelina Usanova has already presented her luxurious national costume, which she will wear on November 16. The symbolic image called "Guardian Mother" was created for 1.5 months, and some of its elements were printed on a 3D printer. Read more about the production and symbolism of the costume in the article. The event was not without scandals. At the welcome party in El Salvador, Angelina sat at the same table as a Russian woman. Apparently, the pageant organizers are once again trying to create the illusion of "friendship" between participants from countries at war. Interestingly, the Ukrainian woman did not refuse this seat and did not ask to be moved. This caused concern among Ukrainian fans. ADVERTISIMENT Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Don't fall for fakes! Lokken Investment Group LLC increased its position in shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY Free Report) by 8.7% during the second quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 4,965 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock after acquiring an additional 398 shares during the quarter. Lokken Investment Group LLCs holdings in Bristol-Myers Squibb were worth $318,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. A number of other large investors have also made changes to their positions in BMY. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich increased its stake in Bristol-Myers Squibb by 86,002.1% in the 2nd quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich now owns 659,143,253 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock valued at $42,152,211,000 after buying an additional 658,377,716 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Bristol-Myers Squibb in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $1,873,696,000. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC increased its stake in Bristol-Myers Squibb by 114,228.7% in the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 21,469,785 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock valued at $1,544,751,000 after buying an additional 21,451,006 shares during the period. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. increased its stake in Bristol-Myers Squibb by 193.4% in the 1st quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 7,214,000 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock valued at $186,351,000 after buying an additional 4,755,058 shares during the period. Finally, Boston Partners increased its stake in Bristol-Myers Squibb by 31.1% in the 1st quarter. Boston Partners now owns 18,080,568 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock valued at $1,252,480,000 after buying an additional 4,286,479 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 74.98% of the companys stock. Get Bristol-Myers Squibb alerts: Bristol-Myers Squibb Stock Performance NYSE:BMY traded up $0.20 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $50.61. 12,698,121 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 14,731,422. The stock has a market capitalization of $102.98 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.85, a P/E/G ratio of 1.59 and a beta of 0.38. Bristol-Myers Squibb has a twelve month low of $49.49 and a twelve month high of $81.43. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $56.58 and a 200 day moving average of $61.49. The company has a current ratio of 1.18, a quick ratio of 1.07 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.11. Bristol-Myers Squibb Announces Dividend Bristol-Myers Squibb ( NYSE:BMY Get Free Report ) last released its earnings results on Thursday, October 26th. The biopharmaceutical company reported $2.00 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.76 by $0.24. The firm had revenue of $10.97 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $10.96 billion. Bristol-Myers Squibb had a net margin of 18.44% and a return on equity of 51.59%. The businesss quarterly revenue was down 2.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $1.99 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that Bristol-Myers Squibb will post 7.56 EPS for the current year. The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, November 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 6th were issued a dividend of $0.57 per share. This represents a $2.28 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.51%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 5th. Bristol-Myers Squibbs payout ratio is 57.87%. Analysts Set New Price Targets Several research analysts have weighed in on BMY shares. TheStreet lowered shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb from a b- rating to a c+ rating in a research note on Thursday. Atlantic Securities dropped their price objective on shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb from $90.00 to $85.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, July 28th. Daiwa Capital Markets downgraded shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb from an outperform rating to a neutral rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $68.00 to $54.00 in a research report on Thursday, November 2nd. The Goldman Sachs Group decreased their target price on shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb from $81.00 to $69.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Monday, October 30th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets downgraded shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb from an outperform rating to a market perform rating and set a $60.00 target price for the company. in a research report on Friday, October 27th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, thirteen have given a hold rating, five have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $64.76. Check Out Our Latest Analysis on Bristol-Myers Squibb 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 that occurred on Thursday, August 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $61.25, for a total transaction of $1,101,642.50. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 27,868 shares of the companys stock, valued at $1,706,915. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Company insiders own 0.09% of the companys stock. Bristol-Myers Squibb Company Profile (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. Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding BMY? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Bristol-Myers Squibb Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Bristol-Myers Squibb and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Maiden Holdings North America, Ltd. (NYSE:MHNC Get Free Report) announced a quarterly dividend on Saturday, November 11th, Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, November 15th will be paid a dividend of 0.4844 per share on Friday, December 1st. This represents a $1.94 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 10.78%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 14th. Maiden Holdings North America Price Performance Maiden Holdings North America stock opened at $17.97 on Friday. Maiden Holdings North America has a fifty-two week low of $14.84 and a fifty-two week high of $19.96. The firms fifty day moving average price is $17.85 and its 200-day moving average price is $17.79. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Maiden Holdings North America Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Maiden Holdings North America and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Kellanova (NYSE:K Free Report) had its price target decreased by Morgan Stanley from $68.00 to $57.00 in a report published on Thursday, Benzinga reports. Morgan Stanley currently has an equal weight rating on the stock. Several other research firms have also recently issued reports on K. TD Cowen began coverage on shares of Kellanova in a research report on Wednesday, September 13th. They set a market perform rating and a $63.00 price objective for the company. Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price objective on shares of Kellanova from $70.00 to $60.00 and set a sector perform rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price objective on shares of Kellanova from $71.00 to $56.00 and set a hold rating for the company in a research report on Friday, October 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price objective on shares of Kellanova from $73.00 to $72.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, August 10th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group decreased their price objective on shares of Kellanova from $82.00 to $73.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, October 3rd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have issued a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Kellanova presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $63.71. Get Kellanova alerts: Get Our Latest Stock Report on Kellanova Kellanova Stock Performance Shares of K stock opened at $51.82 on Thursday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.40, a current ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.29. Kellanova has a 52 week low of $47.63 and a 52 week high of $74.72. The stock has a market capitalization of $28.50 million, a PE ratio of 21.77, a P/E/G ratio of 2.76 and a beta of 0.42. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $54.38 and a two-hundred day moving average of $62.28. Kellanova (NYSE:K Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 8th. The company reported $1.03 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.91 by $0.12. Kellanova had a net margin of 5.21% and a return on equity of 34.38%. The company had revenue of $3.94 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $4.04 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $1.01 EPS. The firms revenue was down .2% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts predict that Kellanova will post 3.95 EPS for the current fiscal year. Kellanova Cuts Dividend The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 15th. Shareholders of record on Friday, December 1st will be paid a $0.56 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, October 30th. This represents a $2.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.32%. Kellanovas dividend payout ratio is presently 100.84%. Insider Buying and Selling at Kellanova In other Kellanova news, major shareholder Kellogg W. K. Foundation Trust sold 77,800 shares of Kellanova stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $59.42, for a total value of $4,622,876.00. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 54,254,038 shares in the company, valued at $3,223,774,937.96. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, major shareholder Kellogg W. K. Foundation Trust sold 100,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $61.10, for a total transaction of $6,110,000.00. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 54,331,838 shares in the company, valued at $3,319,675,301.80. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, major shareholder Kellogg W. K. Foundation Trust sold 77,800 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $59.42, for a total transaction of $4,622,876.00. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 54,254,038 shares in the company, valued at $3,223,774,937.96. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 722,400 shares of company stock worth $40,223,744. 1.40% of the stock is owned by company insiders. Institutional Inflows and Outflows A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Sandy Spring Bank grew its position in Kellanova by 902.5% during the second quarter. Sandy Spring Bank now owns 401 shares of the companys stock worth $27,000 after buying an additional 361 shares during the period. CGC Financial Services LLC acquired a new position in Kellanova during the second quarter worth about $27,000. Oakworth Capital Inc. grew its position in Kellanova by 491.3% during the third quarter. Oakworth Capital Inc. now owns 473 shares of the companys stock worth $28,000 after buying an additional 393 shares during the period. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust lifted its holdings in shares of Kellanova by 48.0% in the first quarter. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust now owns 453 shares of the companys stock valued at $30,000 after purchasing an additional 147 shares in the last quarter. Finally, RFP Financial Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Kellanova in the second quarter valued at approximately $30,000. 83.87% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. About Kellanova (Get Free Report) Kellanova, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and markets snacks and convenience foods. The company operates through four segments: North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Its principal products include crackers, crisps, savory snacks, toaster pastries, cereal bars, granola bars and bites, ready-to-eat cereals, frozen waffles, veggie foods, and noodles. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Kellanova Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Kellanova and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. New China Life Insurance Company Ltd. (OTCMKTS:NWWCF Get Free Report) was the target of a significant decline in short interest in October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 268,400 shares, a decline of 60.6% from the October 15th total of 680,700 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 500 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 536.8 days. New China Life Insurance Stock Performance OTCMKTS NWWCF traded up $0.04 on Friday, reaching $2.15. The stock had a trading volume of 475 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,380. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $2.45 and a 200 day moving average price of $2.63. New China Life Insurance has a 1 year low of $2.11 and a 1 year high of $3.18. Get New China Life Insurance alerts: Analysts Set New Price Targets Separately, JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded New China Life Insurance from a neutral rating to an underweight rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 23rd. About New China Life Insurance (Get Free Report) New China Life Insurance Company Ltd. provides life insurance products and services to individuals and institutions in China. The company operates through three segments: Individual Insurance Business, Group Insurance Business, and Other Business. The company also offers asset management, training, electronic commerce, and medical services; and invests in, develops, leases, and manages real estate properties. Read More Receive News & Ratings for New China Life Insurance Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for New China Life Insurance and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Nordea Bank Abp (OTCMKTS:NRDBY Get Free Report) was the target of a large drop in short interest in the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 45,400 shares, a drop of 21.5% from the October 15th total of 57,800 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 167,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 0.3 days. Nordea Bank Abp Stock Up 0.6 % Shares of NRDBY traded up $0.06 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $10.88. The stock had a trading volume of 52,218 shares, compared to its average volume of 80,759. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $10.91 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $10.87. Nordea Bank Abp has a twelve month low of $9.81 and a twelve month high of $12.92. The firm has a market cap of $38.71 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.30, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.71 and a beta of 0.99. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 6.46, a current ratio of 1.38 and a quick ratio of 1.38. Get Nordea Bank Abp alerts: Nordea Bank Abp (OTCMKTS:NRDBY Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 19th. The company reported $0.41 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.36 by $0.05. The firm had revenue of $3.21 billion for the quarter. Nordea Bank Abp had a return on equity of 16.90% and a net margin of 22.69%. On average, analysts anticipate that Nordea Bank Abp will post 1.47 EPS for the current year. Nordea Bank Abp Company Profile Nordea Bank Abp offers banking products and services in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, and internationally. It operates through Personal Banking, Business Banking, Large Corporates and Institutions, and Asset and Wealth Management segments. The Personal Banking segment provides various financial services to household customers through mobile banking, over the phone, online meetings, and branch offices. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Nordea Bank Abp Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Nordea Bank Abp and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Nuburu (NYSEAMERICAN:BURU Get Free Report) announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday. The company reported ($0.14) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, reports. The business had revenue of $0.19 million for the quarter. Nuburu Stock Down 44.0 % Shares of NYSEAMERICAN:BURU traded down $0.15 on Friday, reaching $0.18. 2,121,410 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 923,093. Nuburu has a 1-year low of $0.18 and a 1-year high of $14.00. Get Nuburu alerts: Institutional Investors Weigh In On Nuburu Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Two Sigma Securities LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Nuburu in the 1st quarter worth about $37,000. Barclays PLC purchased a new position in Nuburu in the 1st quarter valued at about $48,000. HighTower Advisors LLC purchased a new position in Nuburu in the 1st quarter valued at about $49,000. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. purchased a new position in Nuburu in the 1st quarter valued at about $86,000. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in Nuburu in the 1st quarter valued at about $228,000. 9.34% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Nuburu Company Profile Nuburu, Inc develops high power precision blue light engine lasers for the metal processing and 3D printing industries worldwide. The company offers Nuburu AO and NUBURU BL series lasers. Its products have applications in battery, e-mobility, consumer electronics, and 3D printing metal systems. Nuburu, Inc is headquartered in Centennial, Colorado. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Nuburu Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Nuburu and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Nuveen AMT-Free Municipal Credit Income Fund (NYSE:NVG Get Free Report) was the recipient of a large decline in short interest in October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 59,400 shares, a decline of 59.9% from the October 15th total of 148,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 700,800 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 0.1 days. Institutional Trading of Nuveen AMT-Free Municipal Credit Income Fund Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Rivernorth Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Nuveen AMT-Free Municipal Credit Income Fund by 48.4% during the 2nd quarter. Rivernorth Capital Management LLC now owns 4,710,926 shares of the companys stock valued at $55,118,000 after purchasing an additional 1,536,331 shares during the last quarter. Sit Investment Associates Inc. grew its stake in Nuveen AMT-Free Municipal Credit Income Fund by 27.0% during the 2nd quarter. Sit Investment Associates Inc. now owns 2,995,180 shares of the companys stock valued at $35,044,000 after purchasing an additional 636,370 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley grew its stake in Nuveen AMT-Free Municipal Credit Income Fund by 35.2% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 2,116,563 shares of the companys stock valued at $25,695,000 after purchasing an additional 550,607 shares during the last quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp grew its stake in Nuveen AMT-Free Municipal Credit Income Fund by 1.2% during the 3rd quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 1,420,340 shares of the companys stock valued at $14,644,000 after purchasing an additional 16,787 shares during the last quarter. Finally, UBS Group AG lifted its holdings in shares of Nuveen AMT-Free Municipal Credit Income Fund by 22.6% in the 1st quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 1,057,572 shares of the companys stock valued at $15,641,000 after buying an additional 194,787 shares during the period. Get Nuveen AMT-Free Municipal Credit Income Fund alerts: Nuveen AMT-Free Municipal Credit Income Fund Stock Up 1.4 % NVG stock traded up $0.15 on Friday, hitting $10.78. 708,128 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 572,642. Nuveen AMT-Free Municipal Credit Income Fund has a 12-month low of $9.68 and a 12-month high of $12.84. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $10.45 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $11.15. Nuveen AMT-Free Municipal Credit Income Fund Increases Dividend Nuveen AMT-Free Municipal Credit Income Fund Company Profile The firm also recently announced a monthly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 1st. Investors of record on Wednesday, November 15th will be paid a dividend of $0.051 per share. This represents a $0.61 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.68%. This is an increase from Nuveen AMT-Free Municipal Credit Income Funds previous monthly dividend of $0.04. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, November 14th. (Get Free Report) Nuveen AMT-Free Municipal Credit Income Fund is a closed ended fixed income mutual fund launched by Nuveen Investments, Inc The fund is co-managed by Nuveen Fund Advisors LLC and Nuveen Asset Management, LLC. It invests in the fixed income markets of the United States. The fund invests in undervalued municipal securities and other related investments exempt from regular federal income taxes that are rated Baa/BBB or better by S&P, Moody's, or Fitch, and that have an average maturity of 17.02 years. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Nuveen AMT-Free Municipal Credit Income Fund Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Nuveen AMT-Free Municipal Credit Income Fund and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Olo Inc. (NYSE:OLO Get Free Report) was the target of a significant decrease in short interest in October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 4,160,000 shares, a decrease of 30.3% from the October 15th total of 5,970,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 1,300,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 3.2 days. Currently, 4.2% of the companys stock are short sold. Insider Activity In other news, CFO Peter J. Benevides sold 8,391 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Wednesday, September 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $6.19, for a total transaction of $51,940.29. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 365,690 shares in the company, valued at $2,263,621.10. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. In other news, General Counsel Robert Morvillo sold 4,421 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Wednesday, September 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $6.20, for a total transaction of $27,410.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the general counsel now directly owns 78,638 shares in the company, valued at $487,555.60. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Peter J. Benevides sold 8,391 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Wednesday, September 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $6.19, for a total value of $51,940.29. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 365,690 shares of the companys stock, valued at $2,263,621.10. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 71,815 shares of company stock worth $445,159 over the last three months. 39.12% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders. Get OLO alerts: Institutional Inflows and Outflows Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of OLO. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. boosted its position in OLO by 43.6% in the first quarter. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. now owns 13,657 shares of the companys stock worth $182,000 after purchasing an additional 4,144 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its position in OLO by 50.1% in the first quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 499,588 shares of the companys stock worth $6,619,000 after purchasing an additional 166,839 shares during the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its position in OLO by 2,469.3% in the first quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 713,763 shares of the companys stock worth $9,458,000 after purchasing an additional 685,983 shares during the last quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of OLO by 12.3% during the 1st quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 16,036 shares of the companys stock valued at $213,000 after buying an additional 1,758 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Citigroup Inc. grew its stake in shares of OLO by 130.0% during the 1st quarter. Citigroup Inc. now owns 12,328 shares of the companys stock valued at $163,000 after acquiring an additional 6,969 shares during the period. 81.79% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. OLO Trading Up 4.9 % Analysts Set New Price Targets NYSE:OLO traded up $0.22 on Friday, hitting $4.72. The stock had a trading volume of 1,675,318 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,961,319. The businesss 50-day simple moving average is $5.71 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $6.45. OLO has a 52-week low of $4.25 and a 52-week high of $9.12. Several research firms recently commented on OLO. Piper Sandler dropped their price objective on OLO from $10.00 to $7.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, November 7th. StockNews.com began coverage on OLO in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price objective on OLO from $11.00 to $9.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, November 7th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on OLO from $10.00 to $11.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 2nd. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus increased their price objective on OLO from $9.00 to $10.00 and gave the company a hold rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 2nd. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, OLO presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $9.25. Get Our Latest Report on OLO OLO Company Profile (Get Free Report) Olo Inc operates an open SaaS platform for restaurants in the United States. The company's platform enables on-demand digital commerce operations, which cover digital ordering, delivery, front-of-house management, and payments. Its solutions include Order, a suite of solutions powering restaurant brands' on-demand commerce operations, enabling digital ordering, delivery, and channel management through ordering, dispatch, rails, switchboard, network, virtual brands, kiosk, catering, and sync modules; Engage, a suite of restaurant-centric marketing solutions optimizing guest lifetime value by strengthening and enhancing the restaurants' direct guest relationships, through the guest data platform, marketing, sentiment, and host modules; and Pay, a frictionless payment platform that enables restaurants to grow and protect their digital business through customer payment experience that offers advanced fraud prevention to improve authorization rates for valid transactions, and increase basket conversion through its Olo Pay module. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for OLO Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for OLO and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. PIMCO Dynamic Income Fund (NYSE:PDI Get Free Report) was the recipient of a large decline in short interest in October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 88,800 shares, a decline of 59.0% from the October 15th total of 216,800 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 1,403,700 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 0.1 days. Institutional Trading of PIMCO Dynamic Income Fund Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. CWM LLC raised its position in shares of PIMCO Dynamic Income Fund by 11.8% during the second quarter. CWM LLC now owns 5,387 shares of the companys stock worth $101,000 after purchasing an additional 567 shares during the period. Gateway Advisory LLC raised its position in shares of PIMCO Dynamic Income Fund by 1.6% during the first quarter. Gateway Advisory LLC now owns 36,379 shares of the companys stock worth $656,000 after purchasing an additional 574 shares during the period. Kaizen Financial Strategies raised its position in shares of PIMCO Dynamic Income Fund by 1.2% during the second quarter. Kaizen Financial Strategies now owns 51,215 shares of the companys stock worth $970,000 after purchasing an additional 596 shares during the period. WFA of San Diego LLC raised its position in shares of PIMCO Dynamic Income Fund by 22.6% during the third quarter. WFA of San Diego LLC now owns 3,298 shares of the companys stock worth $57,000 after purchasing an additional 608 shares during the period. Finally, Chicago Partners Investment Group LLC raised its position in shares of PIMCO Dynamic Income Fund by 2.5% during the first quarter. Chicago Partners Investment Group LLC now owns 25,602 shares of the companys stock worth $460,000 after purchasing an additional 616 shares during the period. Get PIMCO Dynamic Income Fund alerts: PIMCO Dynamic Income Fund Stock Down 1.2 % Shares of PDI traded down $0.22 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $17.13. The stock had a trading volume of 1,600,836 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,234,597. PIMCO Dynamic Income Fund has a 52 week low of $15.45 and a 52 week high of $21.15. The firms 50 day moving average price is $17.00 and its 200-day moving average price is $18.00. PIMCO Dynamic Income Fund Cuts Dividend About PIMCO Dynamic Income Fund The company also recently disclosed a monthly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 1st. Stockholders of record on Monday, November 13th will be paid a $0.2205 dividend. This represents a $2.65 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 15.45%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, November 10th. (Get Free Report) PIMCO Dynamic Income Fund is a close ended fixed income mutual fund launched and managed by Allianz Global Investors Fund Management LLC. It is co-managed by Pacific Investment Management Company LLC. The fund invests in fixed income markets across the globe. It invests in multiple fixed-income sectors, including non-agency residential and commercial mortgage-backed securities and below investment-grade securities. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for PIMCO Dynamic Income Fund Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for PIMCO Dynamic Income Fund and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. PT Astra International Tbk (OTCMKTS:PTAIY Get Free Report) saw a large drop in short interest in the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 900 shares, a drop of 60.9% from the October 15th total of 2,300 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 41,700 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 0.0 days. PT Astra International Tbk Stock Performance PTAIY traded up $0.05 during trading on Friday, hitting $7.35. The stock had a trading volume of 9,272 shares, compared to its average volume of 19,691. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $7.72 and a 200-day simple moving average of $8.45. PT Astra International Tbk has a 12 month low of $6.62 and a 12 month high of $9.37. Get PT Astra International Tbk alerts: PT Astra International Tbk Cuts Dividend The business also recently disclosed a dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, October 16th will be issued a dividend of $0.0883 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, October 13th. PT Astra International Tbks payout ratio is 30.21%. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In Separately, JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of PT Astra International Tbk from a neutral rating to an underweight rating in a report on Friday, September 15th. Get Our Latest Stock Report on PT Astra International Tbk PT Astra International Tbk Company Profile (Get Free Report) PT Astra International Tbk, together with its subsidiaries, operates in the automotive, financial services, heavy equipment, mining, construction, energy, agri, infrastructure and logistics, information technology, and property businesses in Indonesia. It offers cars, trucks, and motorcycles of various brands; manufactures and sells automotive components to the original equipment for manufacturers and replacement markets, as well as provides consultation services to its customers; financing for cars, motorcycles, and heavy equipment; life, vehicle, and health insurance, as well as other insurance for commercial business; and various banking products and services. Read More Receive News & Ratings for PT Astra International Tbk Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for PT Astra International Tbk and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. US President Joe Biden's administration and the Senate criticized and then rejected House Speaker Mike Johnson's draft law to prevent a shutdown. They are against the mechanism to temporarily continue funding various government agencies of the country without helping Ukraine. ADVERTISIMENT This was stated by White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre, Inquirer.Net reports. According to her, Johnson's proposal is "just a recipe for more Republican chaos and even more opportunities for a shutdown." The department emphasized that the actions of Republican Party members only jeopardize critical aspects of US national security, as well as the country's domestic priorities. At the same time, they noted that to achieve their own goals, Republicans are ready to stop funding the military performing combat missions. "House Republicans are wasting precious time on a frivolous proposal. They should stop doing this and work in a bipartisan manner to prevent a shutdown," Jean-Pierre said. ADVERTISIMENT The U.S. Senate, which is controlled by a Democratic majority, sharply criticized the initiative of the conservative wing of the Republicans too. They emphasized that the upper house would not adopt such a resolution. As a reminder, Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson, who recently became speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, has submitted a two-stage bill that offers an unusual approach to preventing a government shutdown, which is passing the law without U.S. aid to Israel and Ukraine. As OBOZ.UA previously reported, Europe is already predicting that US aid to Ukraine may decrease. In particular, EU High Representative Josep Borrell noted that the EU should be ready to compensate for this. Only verified information is available on OBOZ.UA Telegram and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! Ipsos (OTCMKTS:IPSOF Get Free Report) and Franklin Covey (NYSE:FC Get Free Report) are both industrials companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings, dividends, profitability, risk and institutional ownership. Valuation & Earnings This table compares Ipsos and Franklin Coveys gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation. Get Ipsos alerts: Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio Ipsos N/A N/A N/A $1.90 31.40 Franklin Covey $280.52 million 1.78 $17.78 million $1.25 30.26 Franklin Covey has higher revenue and earnings than Ipsos. Franklin Covey is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Ipsos, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks. Insider & Institutional Ownership Profitability 34.2% of Ipsos shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 68.8% of Franklin Covey shares are owned by institutional investors. 12.9% of Franklin Covey shares are owned by 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. This table compares Ipsos and Franklin Coveys net margins, return on equity and return on assets. Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Ipsos N/A N/A N/A Franklin Covey 6.34% 20.88% 7.74% Analyst Recommendations This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Ipsos and Franklin Covey, as provided by MarketBeat.com. Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score Ipsos 0 0 0 0 N/A Franklin Covey 0 0 3 0 3.00 Franklin Covey has a consensus target price of $73.33, suggesting a potential upside of 93.85%. Given Franklin Coveys higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Franklin Covey is more favorable than Ipsos. Summary Franklin Covey beats Ipsos on 8 of the 10 factors compared between the two stocks. About Ipsos (Get Free Report) Ipsos SA, through its subsidiaries, provides survey-based research services for companies and institutions in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, and the Asia-Pacific. The company offers services in the information production and analysis chain, including data collection, data processing and integration, data analysis, information delivery and presentation, and information activation. It also provides audience measurement, automotive and mobility development, brand health tracking, channel performance, corporate reputation, creative excellence, customer experience, healthcare, innovation, Ipsos MMA, Ipsos UU, market strategy and understanding, observer, public affairs, social intelligence analytics, and other specialist services, as well as research methodologies, such as device agnosticism, programmatic sampling, and digital face-to-face interview. In addition, the company offers online and mobile integrated services and device agnostic solutions that include online surveys adapted to laptops, smartphones, and tablets; and qualitative research services, as well as operates Ipsos.Digital, a do-it-yourself platform. Further, it provides artificial intelligence and data science solutions that develops and provides analytical tools based on data science, machine learning, big analytics, and modelling; and behavioral science and neuroscience solutions, as well as operates Ipsos Knowledge Centre for teams and clients. Ipsos SA was incorporated in 1975 and is headquartered in Paris, France. About Franklin Covey (Get Free Report) Franklin Covey Co. provides training and consulting services in the areas of execution, sales performance, productivity, customer loyalty, and educational improvement for organizations and individuals worldwide. The company operates through three segments: Direct Offices, International Licensees, and Education Practice. It also provides a suite of individual-effectiveness and leadership-development training and products. Franklin Covey Co. was incorporated in 1983 and is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. Receive News & Ratings for Ipsos Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Ipsos and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. North American Construction Group (NYSE:NOA Get Free Report) and SMG Industries (OTCMKTS:SMGI Get Free Report) are both energy companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, dividends, risk, earnings, analyst recommendations, valuation and profitability. Valuation and Earnings This table compares North American Construction Group and SMG Industries revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation. Get North American Construction Group alerts: Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio North American Construction Group $591.92 million 0.88 $51.82 million $1.75 11.18 SMG Industries N/A N/A N/A $0.52 0.58 North American Construction Group has higher revenue and earnings than SMG Industries. SMG Industries is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than North American Construction Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks. Institutional and Insider Ownership Profitability 61.7% of North American Construction Group shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 92.7% of SMG Industries shares are owned by institutional investors. 9.7% of North American Construction Group shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term. This table compares North American Construction Group and SMG Industries net margins, return on equity and return on assets. Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets North American Construction Group 8.27% 24.51% 8.20% SMG Industries N/A N/A N/A Analyst Ratings This is a breakdown of recent recommendations for North American Construction Group and SMG Industries, as reported by MarketBeat.com. Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score North American Construction Group 0 2 1 0 2.33 SMG Industries 0 0 0 0 N/A North American Construction Group currently has a consensus target price of $29.50, indicating a potential upside of 50.82%. Given North American Construction Groups higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe North American Construction Group is more favorable than SMG Industries. Summary North American Construction Group beats SMG Industries on 9 of the 10 factors compared between the two stocks. About North American Construction Group (Get Free Report) North American Construction Group Ltd. provides equipment maintenance, and mining and heavy construction services in Canada, the United States, and Australia. Its Heavy Construction & Mining division offers constructability reviews, budgetary cost estimates, design-build construction, project management, contract mining, pre-stripping/pit pioneering, overburden removal and stockpile, muskeg removal and stockpile, site preparation, air strip construction, site dewatering/perimeter ditching, tailings and process pipelines, haulage and access road construction, tailings dam construction and densification, mechanically stabilized earth walls, dyke construction, and reclamation services; and Equipment Maintenance services. As of December 31, 2022, the company operated a heavy equipment fleet of 637 units. It serves resource development and industrial construction sectors. The company was formerly known as North American Energy Partners Inc. and changed its name to North American Construction Group Ltd. in April 2018. North American Construction Group Ltd. was founded in 1953 and is headquartered in Acheson, Canada. About SMG Industries (Get Free Report) SMG Industries Inc. operates as a transportation services company in the United States. It engages in the transportation of infrastructure components, such as bridge beams and power generation transformers; wind energy components; and midstream compressors. The company is also involved in the heavy haul of production equipment, heat exchangers, coolers, construction equipment, and refinery components; transportation of natural gas compressors; flatbed freight; and crane activities used to set equipment on compressor stations, pipeline infrastructure, and load drilling rig components. In addition, it offers drilling rig relocation services for drilling contractors and oil and gas operators; and freight brokerage and driveaway services. The company was formerly known as SMG Indium Resources Ltd. and changed its name to SMG Industries Inc. in April 2018. SMG Industries Inc. was incorporated in 2008 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. Receive News & Ratings for North American Construction Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for North American Construction Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Roundview Capital LLC raised its position in Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA Free Report) by 0.2% during the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 31,515 shares of the credit services providers stock after purchasing an additional 57 shares during the quarter. Mastercard accounts for approximately 1.2% of Roundview Capital LLCs holdings, making the stock its 15th biggest holding. Roundview Capital LLCs holdings in Mastercard were worth $12,395,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in MA. Bornite Capital Management LP bought a new position in Mastercard in the 1st quarter worth about $21,442,000. United Bank grew its stake in Mastercard by 34.5% in the 1st quarter. United Bank now owns 6,007 shares of the credit services providers stock worth $2,147,000 after acquiring an additional 1,541 shares in the last quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp grew its stake in Mastercard by 30.1% in the 1st quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp now owns 272,358 shares of the credit services providers stock worth $97,335,000 after acquiring an additional 63,040 shares in the last quarter. First Western Trust Bank bought a new position in Mastercard in the 1st quarter worth about $1,168,000. Finally, Bridgewater Associates LP bought a new position in Mastercard in the 1st quarter worth about $12,926,000. 74.94% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Mastercard alerts: Mastercard Stock Up 1.7 % NYSE:MA traded up $6.42 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $394.38. 2,807,108 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,808,075. Mastercard Incorporated has a 12-month low of $336.02 and a 12-month high of $418.60. The business has a 50-day moving average of $396.88 and a two-hundred day moving average of $390.77. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.24, a quick ratio of 1.17 and a current ratio of 1.17. The stock has a market capitalization of $369.84 billion, a PE ratio of 34.35, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.78 and a beta of 1.08. Mastercard Announces Dividend Mastercard ( NYSE:MA Get Free Report ) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 26th. The credit services provider reported $3.39 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $3.21 by $0.18. The business had revenue of $6.53 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $6.53 billion. Mastercard had a net margin of 44.85% and a return on equity of 188.83%. The businesss quarterly revenue was up 13.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $2.68 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts forecast that Mastercard Incorporated will post 12.16 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, November 9th. Shareholders of record on Monday, October 9th were issued a $0.57 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 5th. This represents a $2.28 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.58%. Mastercards dividend payout ratio is currently 19.86%. Insiders Place Their Bets In related news, Director Richard K. Davis purchased 1,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Thursday, November 9th. The stock was acquired at an average price of $390.96 per share, with a total value of $390,960.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director now owns 9,743 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,809,123.28. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other Mastercard news, Director Richard K. Davis bought 1,000 shares of Mastercard stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, November 9th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $390.96 per share, with a total value of $390,960.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director now directly owns 9,743 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,809,123.28. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Timothy H. Murphy sold 7,419 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Friday, September 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $397.28, for a total transaction of $2,947,420.32. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 39,007 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $15,496,700.96. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 659,240 shares of company stock valued at $256,112,223. Insiders own 0.13% of the companys stock. Analyst Ratings Changes A number of brokerages have commented on MA. KeyCorp dropped their target price on shares of Mastercard from $440.00 to $430.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, October 27th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of Mastercard from $425.00 to $440.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Friday, July 28th. Susquehanna increased their price objective on shares of Mastercard from $433.00 to $486.00 and gave the company a positive rating in a research note on Friday, July 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price objective on shares of Mastercard from $510.00 to $496.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, October 9th. Finally, Robert W. Baird increased their price objective on shares of Mastercard from $435.00 to $450.00 in a research note on Friday, July 28th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nineteen have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $450.09. View Our Latest Research Report on Mastercard About Mastercard (Free Report) Mastercard Incorporated, a technology company, provides transaction processing and other payment-related products and services in the United States and internationally. It facilitates the processing of payment transactions, including authorization, clearing, and settlement, as well as delivers other payment-related products and services. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Mastercard Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Mastercard and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Secom Co., Ltd. (OTCMKTS:SOMLY Get Free Report) saw a large increase in short interest in October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 47,400 shares, an increase of 167.8% from the October 15th total of 17,700 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 55,200 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 0.9 days. Secom Stock Up 2.8 % Secom stock traded up $0.48 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $17.54. 19,285 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 30,692. The company has a market cap of $16.37 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.64 and a beta of 0.39. Secom has a twelve month low of $13.34 and a twelve month high of $18.39. The company has a quick ratio of 2.64, a current ratio of 2.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.02. The company has a fifty day moving average of $17.15 and a 200-day moving average of $16.89. Get Secom alerts: Secom (OTCMKTS:SOMLY Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, August 9th. The company reported $0.23 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. Secom had a net margin of 8.96% and a return on equity of 7.62%. The company had revenue of $1.93 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.93 billion. Sell-side analysts expect that Secom will post 0.81 EPS for the current year. Secom Company Profile SECOM CO., LTD., together with its subsidiaries, provides security services in Japan and internationally. The company operates through Security Services, Fire Protection Services, Medical Services, Insurance Services, Geospatial Information Services, BPO and ICT Services, and Other Services. The Security Services segment offers static guard, armored car, merchandise, and other services, as well as online security systems. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Secom Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Secom and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Shimano Inc. (OTCMKTS:SMNNY Get Free Report) was the target of a large increase in short interest during the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 45,700 shares, an increase of 1,423.3% from the October 15th total of 3,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 424,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 0.1 days. Shimano Stock Performance Shares of OTCMKTS SMNNY traded down $0.05 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $14.95. 64,543 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 178,107. The stock has a market cap of $13.52 billion, a PE ratio of 15.10 and a beta of 0.54. The companys fifty day moving average is $14.07 and its two-hundred day moving average is $15.22. Shimano has a fifty-two week low of $12.85 and a fifty-two week high of $18.65. Get Shimano alerts: About Shimano (Get Free Report) Featured Articles Shimano Inc develops, produces, and distributes bicycle components, fishing tackles, and rowing equipment. It has operations in Japan, Asia, Europe, North America, Latin America, and Oceania. Shimano Inc was founded in 1921 and is headquartered in Sakai, Japan. Receive News & Ratings for Shimano Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Shimano and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. BlackRock MuniYield Quality Fund, Inc. (NYSE:MQY Get Free Report) was the target of a large increase in short interest in the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 48,500 shares, an increase of 124.5% from the October 15th total of 21,600 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 221,700 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 0.2 days. Institutional Investors Weigh In On BlackRock MuniYield Quality Fund Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Raymond James & Associates grew its holdings in BlackRock MuniYield Quality Fund by 6.2% during the 1st quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 133,511 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $1,841,000 after purchasing an additional 7,852 shares in the last quarter. Cetera Advisor Networks LLC increased its position in shares of BlackRock MuniYield Quality Fund by 34.0% during the first quarter. Cetera Advisor Networks LLC now owns 20,281 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $280,000 after acquiring an additional 5,142 shares during the last quarter. Bank of Montreal Can purchased a new position in BlackRock MuniYield Quality Fund in the first quarter valued at about $353,000. Worth Asset Management LLC acquired a new stake in BlackRock MuniYield Quality Fund during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $171,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. increased its holdings in BlackRock MuniYield Quality Fund by 26.8% during the 1st quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 74,963 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $1,034,000 after purchasing an additional 15,860 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 21.94% of the companys stock. Get BlackRock MuniYield Quality Fund alerts: BlackRock MuniYield Quality Fund Stock Up 0.9 % BlackRock MuniYield Quality Fund stock traded up $0.09 during trading on Friday, reaching $10.59. 184,136 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 285,968. BlackRock MuniYield Quality Fund has a 52-week low of $9.82 and a 52-week high of $12.53. The companys 50-day moving average is $10.45 and its two-hundred day moving average is $11.11. BlackRock MuniYield Quality Fund Dividend Announcement About BlackRock MuniYield Quality Fund The business also recently announced a monthly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 1st. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, November 15th will be given a $0.0435 dividend. This represents a $0.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.93%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 14th. (Get Free Report) BlackRock MuniYield Quality Fund, Inc is a close ended fixed income mutual fund launched by BlackRock, Inc It is managed by BlackRock Advisors, LLC. The fund invests in fixed income markets. It invests in long-term municipal obligations the interest on which is exempt from federal income taxes. The fund also invests in short-term securities. See Also Receive News & Ratings for BlackRock MuniYield Quality Fund Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for BlackRock MuniYield Quality Fund and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. SSAB AB (publ) (OTCMKTS:SSAAF Get Free Report) was the recipient of a significant increase in short interest during the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 70,900 shares, an increase of 1,441.3% from the October 15th total of 4,600 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 100 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 709.0 days. SSAB AB (publ) Stock Performance Shares of SSAAF remained flat at $6.29 on Friday. The businesss 50 day simple moving average is $5.50 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $6.30. SSAB AB has a 52-week low of $5.17 and a 52-week high of $7.96. Get SSAB AB (publ) alerts: SSAB AB (publ) Company Profile (Get Free Report) Further Reading SSAB AB (publ) produces and sells steel products in Sweden, Finland, Rest of Europe, the United States, and internationally. It operates through five segments: SSAB Special Steels, SSAB Europe, SSAB Americas, Tibnor, and Ruukki Construction. The SSAB Special Steels segment offers quenched and tempered steels, and advanced high-strength steel products. Receive News & Ratings for SSAB AB (publ) Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for SSAB AB (publ) and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Strawberry Fields REIT, Inc. (NYSEAMERICAN:STRW Get Free Report) saw a significant growth in short interest in October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 5,300 shares, a growth of 2,550.0% from the October 15th total of 200 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 2,500 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.1 days. Approximately 0.2% of the companys shares are short sold. Strawberry Fields REIT Stock Performance Shares of STRW stock traded down $0.06 on Friday, hitting $6.91. The stock had a trading volume of 424 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,661. Strawberry Fields REIT has a 52-week low of $5.79 and a 52-week high of $9.25. Get Strawberry Fields REIT alerts: Strawberry Fields REIT Company Profile (Get Free Report) Read More Strawberry Fields REIT, Inc, is a self-administered real estate investment trust engaged in the ownership, acquisition, development, and leasing of skilled nursing and certain other healthcare-related properties. The Company's portfolio includes 79 healthcare properties, of which 78 are owned, located throughout the states of Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas. Receive News & Ratings for Strawberry Fields REIT Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Strawberry Fields REIT and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Superior Industries International, Inc. (NYSE:SUP Get Free Report) was the target of a large drop in short interest in the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 78,600 shares, a drop of 28.6% from the October 15th total of 110,100 shares. Currently, 0.4% of the companys stock are short sold. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 87,900 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 0.9 days. Insider Activity In related news, major shareholder Mill Road Capital Iii, L.P. acquired 11,020 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 18th. The stock was acquired at an average price of $3.56 per share, for a total transaction of $39,231.20. Following the purchase, the insider now owns 4,330,940 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $15,418,146.40. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. In the last quarter, insiders purchased 30,322 shares of company stock worth $108,912. 8.90% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders. Get Superior Industries International alerts: Hedge Funds Weigh In On Superior Industries International Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in SUP. Millennium Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Superior Industries International by 208.1% in the second quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 321,046 shares of the auto parts companys stock worth $1,268,000 after acquiring an additional 216,846 shares during the last quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC raised its stake in shares of Superior Industries International by 15.0% during the first quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 931,709 shares of the auto parts companys stock valued at $4,612,000 after purchasing an additional 121,700 shares during the period. Essex Investment Management Co. LLC raised its stake in shares of Superior Industries International by 16.9% during the first quarter. Essex Investment Management Co. LLC now owns 749,540 shares of the auto parts companys stock valued at $3,710,000 after purchasing an additional 108,450 shares during the period. Legato Capital Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Superior Industries International by 35.9% during the second quarter. Legato Capital Management LLC now owns 326,269 shares of the auto parts companys stock valued at $1,175,000 after purchasing an additional 86,193 shares during the period. Finally, Barclays PLC purchased a new stake in shares of Superior Industries International during the first quarter valued at approximately $419,000. 43.80% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth Separately, StockNews.com cut shares of Superior Industries International from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Thursday, November 2nd. Check Out Our Latest Analysis on SUP Superior Industries International Price Performance Shares of SUP traded down $0.02 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $2.61. The company had a trading volume of 64,546 shares, compared to its average volume of 45,255. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $2.95 and a 200-day simple moving average of $3.44. The company has a current ratio of 2.20, a quick ratio of 1.49 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 25.43. The company has a market capitalization of $73.31 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -0.65 and a beta of 3.72. Superior Industries International has a 12-month low of $2.49 and a 12-month high of $7.38. Superior Industries International Company Profile (Get Free Report) Superior Industries International, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and sells aluminum wheels to the original equipment manufacturers and aftermarket distributors in North America and Europe. It offers its products under the ATS, RIAL, ALUTEC, and ANZIO brand names. The company was founded in 1957 and is headquartered in Southfield, Michigan. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Superior Industries International Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Superior Industries International and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Telecom Italia S.p.A. (OTCMKTS:TIAIY Get Free Report) was the target of a large increase in short interest in October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 300 shares, an increase of 200.0% from the October 15th total of 100 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 1,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 0.3 days. Telecom Italia Price Performance Shares of Telecom Italia stock remained flat at $2.67 during trading on Friday. 21 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 5,649. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.03, a quick ratio of 0.56 and a current ratio of 0.58. The businesss fifty day simple moving average is $2.96 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $2.84. Telecom Italia has a 1-year low of $1.99 and a 1-year high of $3.34. Get Telecom Italia alerts: Telecom Italia Company Profile (Get Free Report) Featured Stories Telecom Italia S.p.A., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the provision of fixed and mobile telecommunications services in Italy and internationally. The company operates through Domestic, Brazil, and Other Operations segments. It offers fixed and mobile voice and Internet, and public telephony services, as well as products managed and developed for individuals and families; and voice, data, and Internet services and products, and information and communications technology solutions for small and medium-size enterprises, small offices/home offices, the public sector, large accounts, and enterprises in the fixed and mobile telecommunications markets. Receive News & Ratings for Telecom Italia Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Telecom Italia and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Toronto Pearson International Airport, the largest and busiest airport in Canada, has been showcasing a photo exhibition of Georgias travel destinations until December 31, with the cooperation of the Georgian National Tourism Administration and the countrys Embassy in Canada, the GNTA said on Friday, Azernews reports, citing Agenda. Pictures of various tourist attractions taken by Canadian photographers, father and son Randy and Spencer VanDerStarren, who travelled to Georgia last year as part of the GNTAs press tour, are demonstrated at the exhibition. Passengers of the Toronto Airport will see pictures of the village of Ushguli in northern Georgia's mountainous Svaneti region, the mountain resort of Gudauri, as well as the capital city of Tbilisi and other travel destinations of Georgia. In Izmail, Odesa region, a market seller demanded that a customer speak Russian or Uzbek with her. As it turned out, the woman does not live in Ukraine, but in a separate state called Bessarabia. ADVERTISIMENT The video of the conflict was posted on Telegram by Ukrainian journalist Konstantin Andriyuk. The footage shows that a woman of Uzbek nationality first sent a Ukrainian woman to war, and then accused her of Nazism and infringement of her rights. "There are Russian-speaking people here," the woman claimed. In the end, security was even called to the shopper. Earlier, a language scandal broke out at the Dnipro State Medical University. During a practical class, a teacher allegedly demanded that a student speak Russian, and when the girl refused, she did not want to accept her answer. The network called the teacher's actions absolute discrimination on the basis of language, a violation of language legislation and human rights, which in times of war is also an outright work for the enemy. As reported by OBOZ.UA: ADVERTISIMENT - The Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine supported the students of Lviv Polytechnic, who appealed to the educational institution with a demand not to cooperate with the teacher Iryna Farion. In its response, the ministry noted that the decision to terminate working relations is made by the educational institution. - Earlier, NSDC Secretary Oleksiy Danilov, commenting on the language scandals, called on the service sector to comply with the law, according to which the Ukrainian language is mandatory. He emphasized that no one in Ukraine prohibits speaking Russian in everyday life. Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! South32 Limited (OTCMKTS:SOUHY Get Free Report) was the target of a large growth in short interest in the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 328,500 shares, a growth of 636.5% from the October 15th total of 44,600 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 530,200 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 0.6 days. South32 Trading Down 0.8 % SOUHY stock traded down $0.08 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $10.00. 161,994 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 218,971. The firms 50-day moving average is $10.62 and its 200-day moving average is $12.08. South32 has a 12 month low of $9.85 and a 12 month high of $17.10. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a current ratio of 2.08 and a quick ratio of 1.37. Get South32 alerts: South32 Cuts Dividend The company also recently disclosed a dividend, which was paid on Thursday, October 12th. Investors of record on Friday, September 15th were issued a dividend of $0.1472 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, September 14th. Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price objective on shares of South32 from GBX 410 ($5.06) to GBX 400 ($4.94) in a report on Friday, August 25th. BMO Capital Markets lowered their price objective on shares of South32 from GBX 210 ($2.59) to GBX 200 ($2.47) in a research report on Thursday, August 24th. Citigroup raised South32 from a neutral rating to a buy rating in a research note on Friday, September 29th. BNP Paribas cut South32 from an outperform rating to a neutral rating in a research note on Thursday, September 14th. Finally, UBS Group dropped their price target on South32 from GBX 245 ($3.02) to GBX 230 ($2.84) in a research report on Friday, August 25th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, South32 currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $253.00. Check Out Our Latest Analysis on South32 South32 Company Profile (Get Free Report) South32 Limited operates as a diversified metals and mining company in Australia, India, China, Japan, the Middle East, Mozambique, the Netherlands, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, the United States, and internationally. The company operates through Worsley Alumina, Brazil Alumina, Brazil Aluminium, Hillside Aluminium, Mozal Aluminium, Sierra Gorda, Cannington, Hermosa, Cerro Matoso, Illawarra Metallurgical Coal, Australia Manganese, and South Africa Manganese segments. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for South32 Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for South32 and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Stellar AfricaGold Inc. (OTCMKTS:STLXF Get Free Report) was the target of a large growth in short interest in October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 18,200 shares, a growth of 152.8% from the October 15th total of 7,200 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 3,500 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 5.2 days. Stellar AfricaGold Price Performance Shares of STLXF remained flat at $0.01 during mid-day trading on Friday. Stellar AfricaGold has a 12 month low of $0.00 and a 12 month high of $0.04. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $0.01 and a 200-day moving average price of $0.02. Get Stellar AfricaGold alerts: About Stellar AfricaGold (Get Free Report) Featured Articles Stellar AfricaGold Inc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the acquisition, exploration, and evaluation of mineral properties in West Africa and Canada. The company primarily explores for gold deposits. It holds interest in the Lullwitz-Kaepelli gold property located in Lacoste and De Sales township in the Charlevoix Area of Quebec; the Birimian Geology, Priko, and Zenoula permits situated in Cote d'Ivoire; the Tichka Est gold project located in the Atlas region of Morocco; and the Namarana gold project situated in region of Koulikoro. Receive News & Ratings for Stellar AfricaGold Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Stellar AfricaGold and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Tokuyama Co. (OTCMKTS:TKYMF Get Free Report) was the recipient of a significant increase in short interest during the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 170,900 shares, an increase of 51.9% from the October 15th total of 112,500 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 0 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently days. Tokuyama Price Performance Shares of OTCMKTS:TKYMF remained flat at $15.10 during trading on Friday. 1 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 100. The firms 50-day moving average price is $15.10 and its 200-day moving average price is $15.10. Tokuyama has a 1 year low of $13.56 and a 1 year high of $15.10. Get Tokuyama alerts: Tokuyama Company Profile (Get Free Report) Featured Stories Tokuyama Corporation produces and sells various chemical products in Japan. The company operates through six segments: Chemicals, Cement, Electronics and Advanced Materials, Life Science, Eco Business, and Others. The Chemicals segment offers caustic soda, soda ash, calcium chloride, sodium silicate cullet, sodium bicarbonate, purified, vinyl chloride monomer, polyvinyl chloride resin, propylene oxide, methylene chloride, and chloroform. Receive News & Ratings for Tokuyama Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Tokuyama and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Toyo Suisan Kaisha, Ltd. (OTCMKTS:TSUKY Get Free Report) was the target of a large growth in short interest during the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 400 shares, a growth of 300.0% from the October 15th total of 100 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 300 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 1.3 days. Toyo Suisan Kaisha Stock Performance OTCMKTS TSUKY traded up $0.21 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $52.22. The company had a trading volume of 24 shares, compared to its average volume of 154. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $42.34 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $43.24. Toyo Suisan Kaisha has a fifty-two week low of $35.83 and a fifty-two week high of $55.48. Get Toyo Suisan Kaisha alerts: Analyst Ratings Changes Separately, The Goldman Sachs Group started coverage on shares of Toyo Suisan Kaisha in a research note on Wednesday, October 4th. They issued a buy rating on the stock. About Toyo Suisan Kaisha (Get Free Report) Toyo Suisan Kaisha, Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, produces and sells food products in Japan and internationally. The company operates through Seafood, Overseas Instant Noodles, Domestic Instant Noodles, Frozen and Refrigerated Foods, Processed Foods, and Cold-Storage segments. It purchases, processes, and sells seafood. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Toyo Suisan Kaisha Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Toyo Suisan Kaisha and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited (NYSE:TNP Get Free Report) was the recipient of a large decrease in short interest in the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totalling 228,800 shares, a decrease of 21.5% from the October 15th total of 291,600 shares. Approximately 1.1% of the companys stock are sold short. Based on an average trading volume of 283,400 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 0.8 days. Institutional Investors Weigh In On Tsakos Energy Navigation A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of TNP. Citigroup Inc. purchased a new position in Tsakos Energy Navigation in the 4th quarter worth about $32,000. Point72 Asset Management L.P. purchased a new position in Tsakos Energy Navigation in the 4th quarter worth about $47,000. Royal Bank of Canada increased its stake in Tsakos Energy Navigation by 100.9% in the 3rd quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 4,182 shares of the shipping companys stock worth $64,000 after purchasing an additional 2,100 shares in the last quarter. Altshuler Shaham Ltd increased its stake in Tsakos Energy Navigation by 33.3% in the 4th quarter. Altshuler Shaham Ltd now owns 4,000 shares of the shipping companys stock worth $75,000 after purchasing an additional 1,000 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Counterpoint Mutual Funds LLC purchased a new position in Tsakos Energy Navigation in the 3rd quarter worth about $91,000. 21.18% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors. Get Tsakos Energy Navigation alerts: Analyst Ratings Changes A number of equities analysts have weighed in on TNP shares. StockNews.com assumed coverage on Tsakos Energy Navigation in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a buy rating for the company. Jefferies Financial Group reiterated a buy rating and set a $28.00 target price on shares of Tsakos Energy Navigation in a research note on Thursday, August 31st. Tsakos Energy Navigation Stock Performance Shares of TNP stock traded up $0.13 on Friday, hitting $21.84. 153,050 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 269,784. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.84, a current ratio of 1.54 and a quick ratio of 1.49. The company has a market capitalization of $644.50 million, a PE ratio of 1.82 and a beta of 0.11. Tsakos Energy Navigation has a 1-year low of $15.00 and a 1-year high of $24.78. The companys fifty day moving average is $20.80 and its 200 day moving average is $19.33. Tsakos Energy Navigation (NYSE:TNP Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, September 7th. The shipping company reported $1.65 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.60 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $182.56 million for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $174.10 million. Tsakos Energy Navigation had a return on equity of 39.40% and a net margin of 39.90%. During the same period last year, the business posted $1.31 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts predict that Tsakos Energy Navigation will post 8 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Tsakos Energy Navigation Increases Dividend The business also recently announced a Semi-Annual dividend, which was paid on Thursday, October 26th. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 20th were paid a $0.70 dividend. This represents a yield of 3%. This is a boost from Tsakos Energy Navigations previous Semi-Annual dividend of $0.30. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 19th. Tsakos Energy Navigations dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 5.00%. About Tsakos Energy Navigation (Get Free Report) Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited provides seaborne crude oil and petroleum product transportation services worldwide. The company offers marine transportation services for national, major, and other independent oil companies and refiners under long, medium, and short-term charters. It also operates a fleet of double-hull vessels, comprising of conventional tankers, LNG carriers, and suezmax DP2 shuttle tankers. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Tsakos Energy Navigation Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Tsakos Energy Navigation and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Kennicott Capital Management LLC increased its position in Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:UBER Free Report) by 200.0% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 22,047 shares of the ride-sharing companys stock after purchasing an additional 14,698 shares during the quarter. Kennicott Capital Management LLCs holdings in Uber Technologies were worth $317,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. American Century Companies Inc. increased its stake in shares of Uber Technologies by 28.7% in the first quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 23,045 shares of the ride-sharing companys stock worth $822,000 after buying an additional 5,142 shares during the last quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Uber Technologies in the 1st quarter valued at about $3,359,000. Panagora Asset Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Uber Technologies by 29.3% during the first quarter. Panagora Asset Management Inc. now owns 22,650 shares of the ride-sharing companys stock worth $808,000 after purchasing an additional 5,134 shares during the last quarter. Yousif Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Uber Technologies by 11.7% in the first quarter. Yousif Capital Management LLC now owns 26,298 shares of the ride-sharing companys stock worth $938,000 after purchasing an additional 2,756 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its holdings in Uber Technologies by 17.3% in the first quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,144,337 shares of the ride-sharing companys stock valued at $40,838,000 after buying an additional 168,475 shares during the last quarter. 74.07% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Uber Technologies alerts: Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of research analysts have commented on the company. Wolfe Research lifted their target price on Uber Technologies from $52.00 to $57.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 2nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on shares of Uber Technologies from $56.00 to $62.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Wednesday. BTIG Research increased their target price on shares of Uber Technologies from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Tuesday, August 1st. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on shares of Uber Technologies from $60.00 to $62.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Wedbush reiterated an outperform rating and set a $57.00 price objective (up previously from $55.00) on shares of Uber Technologies in a research note on Tuesday, November 7th. Thirty research analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating, Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of Buy and an average price target of $56.28. Insider Buying and Selling In other news, CFO Nelson Chai sold 100,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Monday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $45.05, for a total transaction of $4,505,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 291,807 shares of the companys stock, valued at $13,145,905.35. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other Uber Technologies news, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi sold 50,016 shares of Uber Technologies stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $50.00, for a total transaction of $2,500,800.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,266,227 shares in the company, valued at approximately $63,311,350. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CFO Nelson Chai sold 100,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Monday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $45.05, for a total transaction of $4,505,000.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 291,807 shares in the company, valued at $13,145,905.35. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 3.84% of the companys stock. Uber Technologies Price Performance Shares of NYSE UBER traded up $1.53 during trading on Friday, hitting $51.58. The company had a trading volume of 27,238,617 shares, compared to its average volume of 24,035,960. Uber Technologies, Inc. has a 52 week low of $23.90 and a 52 week high of $52.10. The businesss 50-day moving average is $45.72 and its 200 day moving average is $43.43. The company has a market cap of $106.14 billion, a P/E ratio of 105.27 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 1.23 and a current ratio of 1.14. Uber Technologies Company Profile (Free Report) Uber Technologies, Inc develops and operates proprietary technology applications in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia excluding China and Southeast Asia. It operates through three segments: Mobility, Delivery, and Freight. The Mobility segment connects consumers with a range of transportation modalities, such as ridesharing, carsharing, micromobility, rentals, public transit, taxis, and other modalities; and offers riders in a variety of vehicle types, as well as financial partnerships products and advertising services. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Uber Technologies Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Uber Technologies and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. The UAE, which has the presidency for COP28, and the International Energy Agency on Friday highlighted a set of "decarbonisation initiatives" that can set the world on a path to an energy system consistent with keeping 1.5C degrees within reach. The initiatives were part of the summary published by COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber and International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director Fatih Birol of the series of high-level dialogues they have co-chaired in the run-up to the United Nations 'Conference of the Parties' on Climate, known as COP28. The summary provides a call to action on accelerating the energy transition and keeping 1.5C in reach. Ministers, decision makers and chief executive officers (CEOs) from over 40 countries and 20 organisations have participated in the dialogues, discussing key elements of the energy transition including renewables, energy efficiency, financing, fossil fuel demand and supply, and decarbonisation. Through these high-level dialogues, we have defined critical gaps and crucial opportunities in climate action to build the most comprehensive set of decarbonisation initiatives ever, Jaber said. The summary of the dialogues sets the tone for countries to decide an ambitious response to the Global Stocktake, setting us on a path to an energy system consistent with keeping 1.5C degrees within reach, he added. The fifth and final session of the COP28 and IEA high-level dialogues will be held at the World Climate Action Summit (WCAS), which starts Friday, as part of COP28 taking place in Dubai. The dialogue will bring together Heads of State, leaders of government and international organisations to share ambitions for a 1.5C-aligned energy transition. Attendees will also exchange perspectives on the critical components and global priority actions to enable this pathway and discuss practical actions. The dialogues show that there is recognition that concrete, collective action is required from all countries and industries to deliver a clean energy transition whilst ensuring energy security and energy access fundamental for growth, particularly in developing countries, according to the summary. Participants in the dialogues have broadly converged around the target of tripling global installed renewable energy capacity to 11,000 GW by 2030 and doubling annual energy efficiency improvements in the same timeframe. In parallel, fossil fuel demand and supply must phase-down this decade to keep 1.5C within reach, as outlined in the summary, which calls on the fossil fuel industry to decarbonise existing operations whilst increasing investment in renewable and low-carbon alternatives and to set and deliver on ambitious target to cut methane emissions by 2030. There was a strong consensus that climate finance and clean investment will need to be significantly scaled up, with the IEA estimating USD 4.5 trillion will be needed annually by the early 2030s, the summary states. Governments, alongside public and private financial institutions, must deliver assistance to de-risk investments and reduce the cost of capital. With around 760 million people around the world lacking access to electricity, and 2.3 billion lacking access to modern cooking facilities, participants in the dialogues have also stressed the importance of making the energy transition just and orderly, according to the summary. Developed economies should move faster and support developing economies, it stated. Jaber said by redefining the relationship between the government, the biggest energy producers and heavy industry, "we can align the supply and demand side of the equation to build the energy system of the future, while decarbonising the system we have today". "This has been one of the key priorities of my Presidency, and the dialogues have played a crucial role in building consensus on how best to keep 1.5C within reach," he said. Due to the war between Hamas and Israel, there is a high probability that US assistance to Ukraine will be reduced. Therefore, in order to continue to counter Russian aggression and prevent the Kremlin's war from spreading further into Europe, the EU must be ready to fill this gap and provide the necessary support package. ADVERTISIMENT This is the opinion of the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell. He made his statement during the Congress of the Party of European Socialists held in Malaga (to watch the video, scroll to the bottom of the page). Borrell said that the EU has many problems that will be a real challenge. He called Ukraine the main one in this regard. The head of diplomacy also said that it is impossible to defeat Russian aggression instantly and called on Europe to be ready to lend a helping hand if necessary. "We have many problems that will be a test for the EU. First of all, Ukraine, where the prospect of defeating Russia is not immediate. And we, the Europeans who have the necessary funds for this, must be ready, politically speaking, to continue to help Ukraine, given that US support is likely to decline," Borrell said. ADVERTISIMENT The Pentagon recently assured that Ukraine will continue to receive military assistance from Washington, but it is likely to be somewhat less. In total, the United States has allocated more than $60 billion to our country. According to John Kirby, 96% of the funds have been spent out of the total amount allocated to Ukraine since the beginning of the war. By the way, Germany plans to double its military assistance to Ukraine. Thus, Germany will provide 8 billion euros to Kyiv. As OBOZ.UA reported earlier, Borrell noted that the situation in the Middle East is already affecting international support for Ukraine in the Russian war. He said that this is a "real problem" and called on Europe to make every effort to support our country. ADVERTISIMENT Only verified information on our Telegram OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! Russian occupation troops have once again intensified their activities near Bakhmut in the Donetsk region. At the same time, the Defense Forces are acting professionally and are giving a powerful response to the enemy. ADVERTISIMENT Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi, Commander of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, announced this in Telegram. He noted that the Russians are trying to regain previously lost positions, but all attacks are being repelled. It should be noted that Volodymyr Fitio, head of the public relations service of the Ground Forces Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, also said that the enemy had launched attacks with renewed vigor. According to him, the situation began to escalate last week. "The occupants are trying to 'test' the defense of our heroes, looking for weaknesses and conducting active artillery work on Ukrainian positions. ADVERTISIMENT At the same time, 140 Russians and more than 28 pieces of equipment were eliminated in the Bakhmut direction over the last day, including more than 10 artillery systems of various types. At the beginning of the month, the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported that due to setbacks on the battlefield, the invaders changed their tactics near Bakhmut. The fighting there continues 24 hours a day and the guns do not stop firing either at night or during the day. The occupiers are "shuffling" the personnel involved in the assaults. In some areas, they let in mobilized soldiers or invaders from the Storm Z unit. In others, they let in professionally trained contractors. As reported by OBOZ.UA: - The State Border Guard Service showed how border guards destroyed the enemy's position near Bakhmut with accurate shots from mortars. The occupiers found themselves under the rubble. ADVERTISIMENT - On November 8, ISW reported that the Ukrainian Defense Forces continued counteroffensive operations south of Bakhmut. Meanwhile, the occupiers were advancing northwest and southwest of the city, in particular in the area of Klishchiivka. Only verified information on our Telegram OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! Russians in the temporarily occupied Sevastopol in Crimea forced a local resident Kateryna Osypova to apologize. The girl was "guilty" of publishing photos with blue and yellow objects - cocktail straws and pillows . ADVERTISIMENT The corresponding video was published in one of the Crimean Telegram channels. In the footage, the Crimean woman assured that she loves and respects Russia very much, and that she took the photos a long time ago and "on emotion." It should be noted that Russians are actively persecuting pro-Ukrainian citizens in the temporarily occupied Crimea and on the territory of the Russian Federation. Complaints are filed against such people, after which they are detained by security forces and brought to administrative and criminal liability for "discrediting" the Russian army. ADVERTISIMENT Earlier, the DIU reported that Russian mobilized soldiers in the temporarily occupied Crimea beat their commander, a colonel named Musurbekov. He died from his injuries in a Simferopol hospital. After that, the suspected soldiers of the 20th Motorized Rifle Division, part of the 8th Army of the Southern Military District of the Russian Armed Forces, fled from the location of their unit in Crimea to the Krasnodar Territory of the Russian Federation. As reported by OBOZ.UA: - The Defence Intelligence of Ukraine reported that the Russians are transferring additional air defense and missile defense systems to the territory of the temporarily occupied Crimea. There are no safe places left for the Russian invaders on the peninsula, and Ukrainian intelligence is tracking the occupiers' movements. - Russian occupiers, as well as men from Crimea mobilized into the ranks of the aggressor country's army, have been surrendering to Ukrainian captivity more and more often lately. And all because they are afraid of the prospect of becoming "cannon fodder", as happened to more than 309.5 thousand invaders. ADVERTISIMENT Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! From left, Northern Marianas College President Galvin Deleon Guerrero, EdD, Bonnie Gio Sagana, Associated Students of NMC president; Mary-Jo Camacho, ASNMC vice president; Jinkim Abogado, ASNMC secretary; Rownel Jody Coloma, ASNMC treasurer; and Claire Barozzo, Ariel Villagomez, and Henry San Nicolas, ASNMC senators Russia launched its aggression against Ukraine back in 2014. And while Russian propagandists and Kremlin officials denied Russia's involvement in a hybrid war on the territory of our country, the Ukrainian Armed Forces resisted the invaders long before the full-scale invasion began in February 2022. ADVERTISIMENT The 25th Sicheslav Separate Airborne Brigade, whose soldiers continued to defend their homeland even after the full-scale invasion, is among the brigades that have been defending Ukraine's independence since 2014. The photos of the defenders who have been repelling the invaders since 2014 were shown by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky. "The 25th Sicheslav Separate Airborne Brigade is a real Ukrainian force. Brave and efficient warriors who prove that Ukraine can resist Russian evil with their resilience," the head of state emphasized. The President emphasized that the soldiers of the 25th Airmobile Brigade have been repelling the invaders from Russia with honor and victory for over nine years. "The brigade's soldiers have been defending our independence since 2014. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, they have been defending Ukraine in the Lyman direction in particular. They took part in the counter-offensive near Balakliia in the Kharkiv region and the liberation of the city of Izium. Thank you for your service to our country, soldiers! Glory to all those who are fighting for the freedom of Ukraine!" Zelensky addressed the Ukrainian soldiers. ADVERTISIMENT ADVERTISIMENT ADVERTISIMENT Earlier, Zelensky's representative commented on Zaluzhny's hostile diplomatic video. In the low-quality video, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhny allegedly calls on Ukrainians to protest in city squares and on the military to disobey "criminal orders" from their commanders. Mykhailo Podolyak, advisor to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, noted that the emergence of such fakes indicates the low intellectual level of Russians, as well as the fact that neither before the full-scale invasion nor after more than 1.5 years of the great war did Russia understand anything about Ukraine or Ukrainians. 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. Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Claremont, New Hampshire, U.S., November 11, 2023. CONSTANTINE, Algeria (AP) An Algerian journalist who was expected to be released this week after serving a six-month sentence was kept behind bars in a move that surprised his attorneys and colleagues and underscored ongoing concerns about press freedom in the North African country. Mustapha Bendjama, the editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Le Provencal, has faced a raft of charges since authorities accused him of helping political activist Amira Bouraoui leave Algeria in the face of criminal charges in February. Authorities February raid on Bendjamas office and subsequent charges against him related to Bouraouis escape followed years of problems with the Algerian government, which accused him of writing favorably about pro-democracy street protests that led to the resignation of former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in 2019. Mustapha absolutely must be freed, because he has served his six-month sentence in the so-called Amira Bouraoui affair, his lawyer, Abdellah Haboul, told The Associated Press on Thursday. Bendjamas continued detention after an appeal from the local prosecutor shocked his family, lawyers and colleagues at his newspaper. They expected him to be released on Tuesday even though he faces other charges, including a 20-month sentence issued in October for allegedly disclosing classified documents and using foreign funds to disrupt public order. The foreign funding charge is similar to the one under which another Algerian journalist Ihsan El Kadi is currently serving a seven-year sentence. Habboul said it was out of the ordinary to remain behind bars while facing two sets of charges because in Algeria, defendants typically serve one sentence and then are freed while appealing their second. Amira Bouraoui, the Franco-Algerian activist who fled to France in October, was also sentenced in absentia to ten years in prison. Her escape with the help of French authorities set off a diplomatic spat between France and led Algeria to withdraw its ambassador from Paris. Everyone accused of helping Bouraoui escape, including her mother and cousin, faces criminal conspiracy charges for aiding her escape. Attacks by Lebanons Hezbollah group wound 7 Israeli troops, 10 others along border with Israel View Photo JERUSALEM (AP) Attacks by Lebanons Hezbollah group Sunday wounded seven Israeli troops and 10 other people, Israels military and rescue services said. The clashes came as skirmishes between the Iran-backed group and Israeli military continue to intensify along the Lebanon-Israel border, threatening to escalate into another front in the Mideasts latest war. The assault was the most serious incident involving civilians along the Lebanon-Israel border since an Israeli airstrike in south Lebanon on Nov. 5 killed a woman and three children. The Israeli armys chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said the Hezbollah attack on Israeli civilians was very serious. He said Israel is focused on its war in Gaza but it also remains at a very high level of preparedness in the north and ready to take further action. The Israeli military has operational plans to change the security status in the north, he told reporters. The security status will not remain such that the civilians of the north do not feel safe returning to their homes. The Israeli military said in a statement that seven IDF soldiers were lightly injured as a result of the mortar shell launches in the area of Manara in northern Israel earlier today. Israeli rescue services did not identify the location or provide information about the 10 others wounded by rocket blasts and shrapnel, but said two of them were in critical condition. The Israeli military said they identified 15 launches from Lebanon over the past hour and their defense systems intercepted four of them. The rest fell into open areas. Hamas military wing, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for shelling the northern Haifa and the Israeli border towns of Naura and Shlomi from southern Lebanon without giving any further details. Hezbollah first fired antitank missiles at an Israeli community just over the border on Sunday, Israeli officials said, badly wounding utility workers. The Israeli military said it was striking the origin of the launch with artillery fire. The Israel Electric Corp. said workers in the rural community of Dovev were wounded while repairing lines damaged in a previous attack. Israeli media reported that six people were wounded, including one critically. Israel struck several southern Lebanese towns, including Yaroun, Mays el-Jabal, and Alma al-Shaab. The Israeli military Sunday night shared an aerial video showing strikes on what it said was Hezbollah militant infrastructure including a military compound with a warehouse of weapons and military infrastructure. It did not give any additional details. Hezbollah said it launched guided missiles against a logistical force belonging to the occupation army that was about to install transmission poles and eavesdropping and spying devices near the Dovev barracks. It said it hit an Israeli military bulldozer in a separate strike. Shortly after the attack, air raid sirens were heard in northern Israel. Army Radio reported that another antitank missile had been fired from Lebanon. Hezbollah later announced attacks on Israeli military gatherings and barracks in border areas Birket Riche and Zareit, as clashes continue to intensify. Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants and their allies have been clashing along the border since the Israel-Hamas war started five weeks ago with a bloody incursion into southern Israel by Hezbollah ally Hamas. While largely contained, clashes have increased in intensity as Israel conducts a ground offensive in Gaza against Hamas. Also Sunday, the United Nations peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, UNIFIL, said one of its peacekeepers had been wounded by gunfire overnight near the Lebanese town of al-Qawza. It was not immediately clear where the shooting had come from or whether the peacekeepers were targeted or caught in crossfire. UNIFIL said it was investigating. ___ Associated Press writers Kareem Chehayeb and Abby Sewell in Beirut and Julia Frankel and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report. By AMY TEIBEL Associated Press Sen. Manchin is the last in a line of formidable West Virginia Democrats who promoted coal interests Sen. Manchin is the last in a line of formidable West Virginia Democrats who promoted coal interests View Photo CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) Joe Manchins impending departure from the U.S. Senate marks the end of an era for West Virginias conservative Democrats, who for decades held outsize influence in Washington. Its the latest sign of the partys steady decline in the state that often has paralleled the demise of Appalachian coal. Manchin, 76, is the last in a line of formidable Democratic senators from the Mountain State who promoted coal interests at the national level. He stayed true to a path set by stalwarts like Robert C. Byrd, Jennings Randolph and Jay Rockefeller, even as he navigated the shifting terrain of national energy policy. While Democrats moved aggressively away from fossil fuels in an effort to combat the threat of climate change, Manchin pressed for an all of the above energy policy intended to maintain coal as at least a component of the nations energy portfolio. He presented himself to voters as the reasonable moderate between two extremes. Manchin has played that role to the hilt during President Joe Bidens administration, on everything from infrastructure and prescription drug prices to health care aid, as Democrats cling to a 51-49 Senate majority after narrowly losing their House edge last fall. He had faced a difficult path forward to reelection next year, in a prospective matchup against popular Republican Gov. Jim Justice, in a state that Donald Trump carried by nearly 40 percentage points in 2020. Bidens clean energy agenda could stall if Republicans retake the Senate or be replaced if the Democrat is unseated. Manchin worked with both Biden and President Barack Obama on energy policy, embracing clean energy subsidies and pressing fellow Democrats to invest in clean coal technology and other alternative ways to keep miners employed as chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He was a longtime promoter of mine safety and federal benefits and regulations to protect coal miners with black lung disease. Some advocates say he did not do enough and sometimes blocked more aggressive measures or looked to limit their impact on the industry. In West Virginia, the national partys aggressive move toward clean energy often left Manchin and other Democrats vulnerable to Republican attacks, including when Trump campaigned in 2016 on a promise to end what he described as Obamas war on coal and to save miners jobs. Trumps Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, openly acknowledged that coal jobs were going away and would need to be replaced, causing a political backlash that further damaged the standing of Democrats in West Virginia. Manchin never defended the remark but was criticized by West Virginia Republicans for what his partys nominee said. Trump did not bring back the industry back. The number of coal jobs in West Virginia fell from 11,561 at the start of his presidency to 11,418 at the end in 2021, slowing coals precipitous decline but not stopping it. Still, Democrats like Manchin often found themselves targeted as enemies of coal in a state where it was still widely seen as a cornerstone of the economy. Ironically, Manchins Senate retirement announcement came in the aftermath of big victories this past week for Democrats in the neighboring states of Kentucky and Virginia, but they are not as reliant on coal economically. Though the number of employees has dipped, West Virginia has had the highest percentage of all coal mining employees in the nation since 2004. By 2022, coal mining employees in West Virginia made up nearly 30% of all coal employees in the country. John Deskins, director of the West Virginia University Bureau of Business and Economic Research, said 75% of West Virginias coal jobs were disappearing before coal production dropped because of mechanization. Much of coals decline also stems from a major drop in use of the resource for electric power generation, and not much there changed after the 2016 election, said Deskins. West Virginia Democratic Party Chair Mike Pushkin said Trump never fulfilled his promise. Donald Trump did absolutely nothing for the coal industry, he said Friday. Less than 20 years ago, coal made up 50% of electric power generation nationally. Now its down to less than 20%, said Deskins. At its peak in the 1950s, coal mining employed 100,000 in West Virginia, whose population at the time was about 2 million. Manchin, who was first elected to the state House of Delegates in 1982, entered politics amid a massive loss of coal jobs in West Virginia. The first year he was in the Legislature, the state unemployment rate was 21%. The states politics at the time were dominated by Democrats, but under a big tent that included liberals, moderates and conservatives. Retired West Virginia Wesleyan political history professor Robert Rupp, who called Manchin the last of the old Democrats, said the strategy made sense back then. There was one tent where everyone could go underneath that tent and they would tolerate each other, as long as they won, Rupp said. He was right there. Rupp said it ultimately became untenable for Manchin to embrace Bidens environmental initiatives and defend coal. Hes the middle guy, Rupp said. To pin him down is very difficult. Manchin, Rupp said, was neither an avid New Deal Democrat nor a hard-core conservative. Hes effectively straddling the issue, he said. If your job is to protect the coal industry, then you would run away from Biden and his plans. But instead, you get on the table on that. Manchins refusal to disown coal completely helped him stay viable in a state with deep roots in the industry. Coal was what dozens of West Virginia communities were founded on. Towns and cities started as coal camps owned by mining companies where workers were paid low wages to work in unsafe conditions. Immigrants from Europe and Black Americans from the Jim Crow South migrated to isolated hills and hollers and made homes. They fought for workers rights and took pride in difficult work that helped power the nation. Manchin, whose uncle died in the coal mines his grandfather started working in when he was 9 years old, understood all that. It is such a part of the history and culture, said West Virginia University history professor William Hal Gorby, that any sort of outside criticism of it naturally leads to sort of this perception that if you criticize the whole thing, youre also criticizing my grandparents, my parents, my brothers, my relatives who worked in coal. Its a personal attack more than anything. Manchin, he said, had the ability to sort of talk that language to ordinary West Virginians in a way that they also understand. West Virginia University law professor Pat McGinley, who was part of then-Gov. Manchins team investigating an explosion in 2010 at Upper Big Branch mine that killed 29 miners, said Manchin, Randolph and Byrd had a long history of publicly advocating for safer mines. The Upper Big Branch report was, he said, the first real objective investigation of a mine disaster going back a century. The independent investigation led by a former federal mine safety official held both the federal Mine Safety Administration and the West Virginia mine safety agency responsible as well as the operator, Massey Energy. Still, he said, it didnt result in meaningful policy changes on the state or federal level. Government regulators played a major role in that disaster, McGinley said. Its one thing to support coal mine health and safety, its another thing to enforce the law to protect miners. West Virginia Democrats just wanted to ensure that mine operators were being responsible, said retired Democratic Sen. Mike Caputo, a former coal miner and United Mine Workers of America representative. He said the state Democratic Party was branded anti-jobs and anti-coal because of environmental policies coming from the national party. Nothing could be further from the truth, he said. No one that I served with wanted to shut the coal mines down and put people out of work. Associated Press data journalist Kavish Harjai in Los Angeles contributed to this report. BY LEAH WILLINGHAM and JOHN RABY Associated Press Trumps plans if he returns to the White House include deportation raids, tariffs and mass firings View Photo NEW YORK (AP) A mass deportation operation. A new Muslim ban. Tariffs on all imported goods and freedom cities built on federal land. Much of the 2024 presidential campaign has been dominated by the myriad investigations into former President Donald Trump and the subsequent charges against him. But with less than a year until Election Day, Trump is dominating the race for the Republican nomination and has already laid out a sweeping set of policy goals should he win a second term. His ideas, and even the issues he focuses on most, are wildly different from President Joe Bidens proposals. If implemented, Trumps plans would represent a dramatic government overhaul arguably more consequential than that of his first term. His presidency, especially the early days, was marked by chaos, infighting and a wave of hastily written executive orders that were quickly overturned by the courts. Some of his current ideas would probably end up in court or impeded by Congress. But Trumps campaign and allied groups are assembling policy books with detailed plans. A look at his agenda: DISMANTLING THE DEEP STATE Trump would try to strip tens of thousands of career employees of their civil service protections. That way, they could be fired as he seeks to totally obliterate the deep state. He would try to accomplish that by reissuing a 2020 executive order known as Schedule F. That would allow him to reclassify masses of employees, with a particular focus, he has said, on corrupt bureaucrats who have weaponized our justice system and corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus. Given his anger at the FBI and federal prosecutors pursuing criminal cases against him, Trump probably would target people linked to those prosecutions for retribution. Beyond the firings, he wants to crack down on government officials who leak to reporters. He also wants to require that federal employees pass a new civil service test. THE U.S.-MEXICO BORDER Trump has pledged to immediately stop the invasion of our southern border and end illegal immigration. As part of that plan, he says he would immediately direct U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to undertake the largest domestic deportation operation in American history. He would target people who are legally living in the United States but harbor jihadist sympathies and revoke the student visas of those who espouse anti-American and antisemitic views. In a bid to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump says he will move thousands of troops currently stationed overseas and shift federal agents, including those at the Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI, to immigration enforcement. He also wants to build more of the border wall. Trump wants to reimpose his travel ban that originally targeted seven Muslim-majority countries and expand it to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the country. In the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel, he has pledged to put in place ideological screening for immigrants. His aim: bar dangerous lunatics, haters, bigots, and maniacs, as well as those who empathize with radical Islamic terrorists and extremists. To deter migrants, he has said he would end birthright citizenship, using an an executive order that would introduce a legally untested interpretation of the 14th Amendment. The order would prevent federal agencies from granting automatic citizenship to the children of people who are in the U.S. illegally. It would require that at least one parent be a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident for their children to be eligible for passports, Social Security numbers and other benefits. TRADE Trump says he will institute a system of tariffs of perhaps 10% on most foreign goods. Penalties would increase if trade partners manipulate their currencies or engage in other unfair trading practices. He will urge that Congress pass a Trump Reciprocal Trade Act, giving the president authority to impose a reciprocal tariff on any country that imposes one on the U.S. Much of the agenda focuses on China. Trump has proposed a four-year plan to phase out Chinese imports of essential goods, including electronics, steel and pharmaceuticals. He wants to ban Chinese companies from owning vital U.S. infrastructure in sectors such as energy, technology and agriculture, and says he will force Chinese owners to sell any holdings that jeopardize Americas national security. FOREIGN POLICY Trump claims that even before he is inaugurated, he will have settled the war between Russia and Ukraine. That includes, he says, ending the endless flow of American treasure to Ukraine and asking European allies to reimburse the U.S. for the cost of rebuilding stockpiles. It is unclear whether he would insist that Russia withdraw from territory in Ukraine it seized in the war that it launched in February 2022. Trump has said he will stand with Israel in its war with Hamas and support Israels efforts to destroy the militant group. He says he will continue to fundamentally reevaluate NATOs purpose and mission. TRANSGENDER RIGHTS Trump says he will ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that only two genders, as determined at birth, are recognized by the United States. As part of his crackdown on gender-affirming care, he will declare that hospitals and health care providers that offer transitional hormones or surgery no longer meet federal health and safety standards and will be blocked from receiving federal funds, including Medicaid and Medicare dollars. He would push Congress to prohibit hormonal or surgical intervention for transgender minors in all 50 states. Doctors typically guide kids toward therapy before medical intervention. At that point, hormone treatments such as puberty blockers are far more common than surgery. They have been available in the U.S. for more than a decade and are standard treatments backed by major doctors organizations, including the American Medical Association. ENERGY Trumps goal, he says, is for the U.S. to have the lowest-cost energy and electricity of any nation in the world, including China. Under the mantra DRILL, BABY, DRILL, he says he would ramp up oil drilling on public lands and offer tax breaks to oil, gas, and coal producers. He would roll back Biden administration efforts to encourage the adoption of electric cars and reverse proposed new pollution limits that would require at least 54% of new vehicles sold in the U.S. to be electric by 2030. And again, he says, he will exit the Paris Climate Accords, end wind subsidies and eliminate regulations imposed and proposed by the Biden admiration targeting incandescent lightbulbs, gas stoves, dishwashers and shower heads. EDUCATION Trump has pledged to terminate the Department of Education, but he also wants to exert enormous influence over local school districts and colleges. He would push the federal government to give funding preference to states and school districts that abolish teacher tenure, adopt merit pay to reward good teachers and allow the direct election of school principals by parents. He has said he would cut funding for any school that has a vaccine or mask mandate and will promote prayer in public schools. Trump also wants a say in school curricula, vowing to fight for patriotic education. He says that under his administration, schools will teach students to love their country, not to hate their country like theyre taught right now and will promote the nuclear family including the roles of mothers and fathers and the things that make men and women different and unique. To protect students, he says he will support school districts that allow trained teachers to carry concealed weapons. He would provide federal funding so schools can hire veterans, retired police officers, and other trained gun owners as armed school guards. HOMELESSNESS Trump wants to force the homeless off city streets by building tent cities on large open parcels of inexpensive land. At the same time, he says he will work with states to ban urban camping, giving violators the choice between being arrested or receiving treatment. He also wants to bring back large mental institutions to reinstitutionalize those who are severely mentally ill or dangerously deranged. PUBLIC SAFETY Trump would again push to send the National Guard to cities such as Chicago that are struggling with violence. He would use the federal governments funding and prosecution authorities to strong-arm local governments. He says he will require local law enforcement agencies that receive Justice Department grants to use controversial policing measures such as stop-and-frisk. As a deterrent, he says local police should be empowered to shoot suspected shoplifters in the act. Very simply, if you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store, he said in one recent speech. Trump has called for the death penalty for drug smugglers and those who traffic women and children. He has also pledged a federal takeover of the nations capital, calling Washington a dirty, crime-ridden death trap unbefitting of the country. By JILL COLVIN Associated Press Things to know this week include Meriden holding recounts of its City Clerk and BOE races, and the Wallingford Planning and Zoning Commission having a public hearing on an application to renovate the former Quinnipiac Valley Center nursing home into apartments. In Cheshire, an assisted housing district will be on the agenda of the Planning and Zoning Commission, and in Southington, Town Council members will elect a chair and other officers. Heres our complete list of eight things to know this week. 1.Automatic recounts Monday on Meriden City Clerk, BOE races Meriden will hold two automatic recounts on Monday that were triggered by close results to City Clerk and Board of Education races in Tuesdays election. Deputy Mayor Michael Cardona defeated incumbent City Clerk Denise Grandy by just 29 votes in the clerk race. Another recount will take place in the Board of Education race to decide the fourth elected spot after Enileika Lopez-Riddle received 29 votes more than Diadette Hernandez. There will be recounts for both Monday at 9 a.m. at the ballot office on Paddock Avenue. 2.Renovating nursing home into apartments on Wallingford PZCs agenda The Wallingford Planning and Zoning Commission will meet Monday at 7 p.m. at Town Hall in the council chambers. The agenda includes a public hearing on an application to renovate the former Quinnipiac Valley Center nursing home into apartments. The application had been before the commission earlier this year, but was withdrawn for the applicant to make changes to the plans. Neighbors of the Kondracki Lane facility have expressed opposition to allowing apartments at that location. 3.Wallingford Town Council again discusses plans for former railroad station The Wallingford Town Council will meet Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. in the council chambers at Town Hall and will discuss the former railroad station. The towns fire marshalls office released a report on its inspection, which will be discussed, and economic development officials will also discuss plans with the council for redevelopment of the building. 4.Meetings on tap at Meriden City Hall, airport The Municipal Pension Board (Tuesday, 5 p.m.) and the Hybrid Public Works and Parks & Recreation (Thursday, 5:30 p.m.) will both meet this week. Also, the Meriden Aviation Commission will meet Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Meriden Markham Airport, 213 Evansville Ave. 5.Assisted housing district on agenda of Cheshire Planning and Zoning Cheshires Planning and Zoning Commission will hold a public hearing Monday at 7:30 p.m. regarding a proposed zone text change that seeks to add an assisted housing district to Highland Avenue. The developer, Metro Realty, will rely on Connecticuts affordable housing statute. The meeting is at Town Halls council chambers. 6.Southington Town Council to elect new officers Southington Town Council members will elect a chair and other officers during a meeting scheduled for Monday at 7 p.m. Republicans maintained their majority on the council following Tuesdays election, keeping six of the nine council seats. Thats the maximum seats allowed to one party by the towns charter. The meeting will be at the John Weichsel Municipal Center, 200 N. Main St. 7.Cheshire Town Council to discuss recent meetings with health districts On Tuesday, also at Town Hall, the Cheshire Town Council meets for the first time post-election for its regular meeting. Among other topics, the Council will likely address recent meetings with the South Central Regional Health District and Chesprocott, and the possibility of making a change. 8.Southington Board of Finance holding organizational meeting Southingtons Board of Finance has an organizational meeting scheduled after Republicans maintained a majority and hold three of the five seats. The finance board plans to meet Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Town Hall, 75 Main St. Large-scale blackouts due to massive missile attacks by the terrorist state of Russia this winter are unlikely to occur. However, terrorists are likely to focus on knocking out energy infrastructure in one, two or three regions. ADVERTISIMENT This opinion was expressed by military expert Mykhailo Zhirokhov in an exclusive interview with OBOZ.UA . He noted that the Russians have experience of attacks on the Ukrainian energy sector last winter, when they launched 100-200 missiles at a time, but even then they failed to plunge our country into darkness for a long time. Now, according to the expert, the occupiers will change their tactics. Currently, they have changed the range of missiles. Most of them are Iskanders, which cannot hit targets at long range. Zhyrokhov explained that they cannot reach the western or central regions because of their limited range, so they pose a threat primarily to the frontline regions of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, and Kharkiv. At the same time, the invaders have fewer long-range missiles than last year. Given the information that Russia has amassed more than 800 missiles of higher accuracy, the expert believes that this number is clearly not enough for large-scale attacks. ADVERTISIMENT However, unfortunately, this approach can be effective in knocking out energy infrastructure in several separate regions, Zhyrokhov noted. "I think that our General Staff understands this, so it can redeploy air defense systems to cover specific areas if the need arises," the military expert added. As a reminder, DTEK Energy said that the enemy does not stop attacking energy facilities and has fired at one of the company's thermal power plants three times over the past three weeks. The power engineers are preparing for further actions of the aggressor, who has not abandoned his desire to destroy the Ukrainian energy system. They rely on air defense to protect energy facilities, but they have also taken preparatory steps to mitigate the consequences of possible damage. As reported by OBOZ.UA: - Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said that the occupiers are changing the tactics of missile and drone attacks on Ukraine. They have switched from massive strikes to the use of a small number of munitions, but they attack our country almost every night. ADVERTISIMENT - Ukraine's Energy Minister Herman Galushchenko said that if Russia starts attacking Ukraine's energy infrastructure again this winter, Ukraine may retaliate. Conor here: This reminds me of the quote, When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. Well, with Russia emerging victorious in Ukraine, the elite minds in the West suddenly seem to be realizing that their Project Ukraine required some actual planning. This piece about how the Biden administration is just now getting around to maybe trying attempting to reduce its nuclear fuel reliance on the country it wants to destroy is a great example, as is the Royal United Services Institute dropping some late-in-the-game wisdom this week: The unprecedented sanctions against Russia have highlighted the importance of third countries those countries that are neither the target of sanctions nor adopters of sanctions against Russia/Belarus (and thus are not legally bound by sanctions). Such third countries make up a majority of the world and are therefore an important factor in determining whether sanctions are ultimately effective. Is it beginning to dawn on the Wests elite minds that theyre essentially isolating themselves with their over reliance on sanctions? That remains unlikely as the takeaway is that more must be done to make sanctions more effective. Similarly, in the the following OilPrice piece there is no admission of faulty planning (one wonders what would the US have done had Project Ukraine been successful and Putin was overthrown and Russia descended into chaos, thereby disrupting the nuclear supply chains in addition to the gas and oil supply chains). And the Biden administration is still going off the script that they just need to up the pressure a little more. By Haley Zaremba, a writer and journalist based in Mexico City. Originally published at OilPrice. The U.S. depends on Russian state-operated firm Rosatom for nearly 50% of global uranium enrichment, essential for the nations nuclear energy production. Americas reliance on Russian nuclear supply chains continues despite sanctions, inadvertently funding Russias defense sector and creating a critical vulnerability in energy security. The Biden administration is seeking $2.16 billion to boost domestic uranium enrichment capabilities, emphasizing the urgency to diminish dependence on Russian nuclear fuel for national security and energy independence. The United States has enough uranium to power the country for 100 years but lacks the nuclear fuel enrichment capacity to become self-reliant. As a result, the nation is dangerously reliant on Russian nuclear energy supply chains to keep the lights on. This is problematic on several levels. Not only does it undercut and water down the Wests energy sanctions on Russia to condemn the ongoing war in Ukraine, it also severely compromises the United States energy security. The United States is reliant on nuclear energy for nearly a fifth of the national energy mix (18.2%, according to the Energy Information Agency). In fact, the U.S. is the largest nuclear energy producer in the world, accounting for a whopping 30% of global production. But while the United States is first in the world in terms of nuclear energy production, its far from first place in terms of uranium enrichment capacity to produce nuclear fuel. That distinction belongs to Russia. Indeed, almost 50% of the worlds uranium enrichment is conducted by Russian state-operated nuclear energy firm Rosatom. Companies in the United States sent nearly $1 billion to Russian state-operated nuclear energy firm Rosatom in 2022 alone, according to the Royal United Services Institute in London. Thats a serious chunk of change for an economy that the West is supposedly trying to choke off. Thats money thats going right into the defense complex in Russia, Scott Melbye, executive vice president of uranium miner Uranium Energy and president of the Uranium Producers of America, was quoted by the Wall Street Journal earlier this year. Were funding both sides of the war. In fact, throughout the entire energy sanctions timeline following the illegal invasion of Ukraine in February of last year, the Russian nuclear sector has never stopped raking in export revenue. While sanctions from the United States, the European Union, and their political allies have cost the Kremlin tens of billions of dollars in lost revenues, their ongoing reliance on Russian nuclear energy supply chains represents a critical weak spot in the offensive. And that weak spot may not be patched up all that quickly, as Rosatoms services will be extremely difficult to replace. Other suppliers are extremely limited and have much smaller enrichment capacities. Whats more, Russia is well positioned to make itself even more essential to the sector as Rosatom subsidiary Tenex is the only company on planet Earth providing commercial sales of Haleu a high-assay low-enriched uranium that could be a key fuel source for small modular reactors, a new technology which many think will soon be the new industry standard. Russia doesnt only control global enriched uranium supply chains, its also a key source of funding for new nuclear facilities. Nearly one in five nuclear power plants in the world are either in Russia or are built by Russia. And Rosatoms influence is still growing around the world, especially as Russia continues to push into emerging economies that could not otherwise afford to build up their own nuclear sectors a massively expensive pursuit. Reducing reliance on Russia for nuclear fuel has become an increasingly important political priority in the United States. Kathryn Huff, assistant secretary for nuclear energy for the Biden administration, told the Financial Times it was gravely concerning that Russia for a fifth of its nuclear fuel. The Biden administration has reportedly appealed to Congress for $2.16 billion to fund incentives for domestic companies to ramp up their uranium enrichment and conversion capacities. Its really critical that we get off of our dependence, especially from Russia, Huff went on to say. Without action Russia will continue to hold on to this market . . . this is really important for national security, for climate, for our energy independence. Larger Beaks, Smaller Bodies: Could Climate Change Literally Change Birds? The Nature Conservancy JWST May Have Finally Confirmed How Planets Take Shape Science Alert Desert birds lay larger eggs when they have more helpers Science Daily Climate/Environment After the Flood The Baffler. Perpetual crisis and recovery in Eastern Kentucky. #COVID-19 Syraqistan I cant adequately describe my rage at my country endorsing and bankrolling this depravity. https://t.co/MVyDt2Vqa8 pic.twitter.com/OYbx0G3WFH The Israeli assault on this pediatric hospital was so intense, it forced doctors and nurses to make an impossible choice to leave five babies in the ICU behind. The Israeli public has embraced the Smotrich doctrine +972 Magazine The Extreme Ambitions of West Bank Settlers The New Yorker. A leader of the settlement movement on expanding into Gaza, and her vision for the Jewish state. *** Israel Warns Hezbollah That Beirut Could Face Similar Fate To Gaza AFP Nasrallahs Second Speech On Gaza Moon of Alabama Israeli drone strikes deep into Lebanon The Cradle *** As Israeli bombs rain down on Gazan hospitals and healthcare workers, millions participate in global protests WSWS Irish lawmakers to debate expulsion of Israeli ambassador, referral of Israel to International Criminal Court Anadolu Agency Calls for a Gaza cease-fire divide Europes Socialists Politico EU EU weighs sanctions against Iran over Israel-Hamas war Politico EU The River to the Sea Rorschach test Robert Wright, Nonzero Newsletter Levelling Gaza is No End-Game For Biden Alastair Crooke, Al Mayadeen *** Historic meeting today in Riyadh of Iranian president Raisi and Saudi Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) about which mainstream is telling you nothing Gilbert Doctorow US military aircraft goes down in Mediterranean after training mishap Task & Purpose Gaza becomes graveyard for children as civilian death toll hits 10,000 As the conflict in Gaza enters its second month, Palestinian health authorities reported the death toll exceeded 10,000 , triggering United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to call the enclave to have become "a graveyard for children." According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, the gruesome milestone indicated that 4,104 children and 2,641 women have already died from brutal Israel attacks. Meanwhile, in the West Bank, 155 people have been murdered since Oct. 7, the health ministry added. There have been more than 100 attacks on healthcare facilities as per various humanitarian groups, including the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). There have been reports that 89 UNRWA workers have been killed, "the highest number of United Nations fatalities ever recorded in a single conflict." "We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. It's been 30 days. Enough is enough. This must stop now," an earlier statement by 18 U.N. organizations said. In 1 month Israel has killed more than 10,000 Palestinians in Gaza, incl more than 4,000 children. That is 1 in every 200 people, in Gaza alone. In 1 month. Let that sink in. https://t.co/XKd8DN6qqm Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) November 6, 2023 Guterres told reporters that ground operations by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and continued bombardment are hitting civilians, hospitals, refugee camps, mosques, churches, and U.N. facilities, including shelters. "No one is safe," he said "At the same time, Hamas and other militants use civilians as human shields and continue to launch rockets indiscriminately towards Israel," he added calling for an immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. Just this weekend, Israeli forces reached the coast of Gaza, splitting the enclave in half and cutting off the north from the south, Israel's military said. "In the last 12 hours, the soldiers of the division struck around 50 targets, including combat zones, operational residences, outposts, military positions, and underground infrastructure, and eliminated terrorists in close-quarter combat," the military added. Meanwhile, Israel continues to urge people to head south to avoid being affected by their attacks, however, many roads have become impassable. The Rafah border crossing, the sole crossing point between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, was reopened on Monday for foreign passport holders whose names appeared on the approval list, according to a statement by the General Authority for Crossings and Borders. However, individuals whose names don't appear on the list were not allowed to leave Gaza. On Saturday, the military also allowed passage for a few hours, but people trying to flee found the roads impassable. On Sunday, for the second day in a row, Israel's military announced another window for civilians in the north of Gaza to travel south. According to Israel, Hamas fired on their troops who were attempting to secure the route for civilian passage. The ones that have managed to flee have mostly traveled by foot for miles, adults carrying babies or pushing wheelchairs with the elderly, and holding the hands of children lugging bags full of whatever belongings they could grab. Some waved white pieces of cloth to show they were civilians. The United Nations estimated that of the roughly 300,000 people trapped in northern Gaza, only 2,000 were able to move south this weekend, according to monitors on the ground. Biden claims he wants to pause Middle East conflict, Netanyahu rejects U.S. President Joe Biden reportedly discussed a "tactical pause" and possible hostage releases in a phone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, reiterating his support for Israel while emphasizing that it must protect civilians, the White House said. But no apparent agreement was reached as National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said the administration considered the parties to still be at the "beginning of this conversation." (Related: Muslim Americans to Biden: Declare a ceasefire in Gaza, or lose our donations and votes.) However, in a recent interview with ABC News's "World News Tonight" with anchor David Muir, Netanyahu once again rejected the idea of a ceasefire in Gaza unless hostages are released. "What they're proposing is a humanitarian pause, there will be no pause?" Muir pressed Netanyahu, shortly after he had spoken with Biden. "Well, there'll be no cease-fire, general cease-fire, in Gaza without the release of our hostages," Netanyahu responded. "As far as tactical little pauses, an hour here, an hour there. We've had them before, I suppose, will check the circumstances to enable goods, humanitarian goods to come in, or our hostages, individual hostages to leave. But I don't think there's going to be a general cease-fire." The Israeli prime minister also said that he thinks it will hamper the war effort and their efforts to get hostages out "because the only thing that works on these criminals in Hamas is the military pressure that we're exerting." Check out WWIII.news for updates on the escalating conflict between Israel and Palestine. Sources for this article include: AlJazeera.com NPR.org Reuters.com ABCNews.go.com U.S. government to purchase Japanese seafood for the military despite Fukushima radiation concerns The government of the United States recently announced that it has agreed to purchase Japanese seafood for its military to help ease the economic fallout from Japans decision to release radioactive wastewater from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean. In an interview, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said the U.S. Armed Forces is ready to sign a long-term contract with Japanese seafood suppliers to help address the fallout from the restrictions and total bans made against Japanese seafood exports. Emanuel added that seafood such as Japanese fish, scallops and other products will be served on U.S. Navy ships and stocked in commissaries and mess halls at 17 American military bases in the region. However, Emanuel acknowledged that feeding Japanese seafood to U.S. soldiers is not enough to offset the economic downturn coming for the Japanese seafood industry, especially due to the loss of the massive Chinese market. But the move should be enough to make a statement about Beijings "economic coercion." Emanuel explained that the best way to help "wear out China's economic coercion is [to] come to the aid and assistance of the targeted country or industry." China bans all seafood imports from Japan China, which was formerly the largest importer of Japanese fish, banned all seafood imports from Japan in August due to concern over possible radioactive contamination. Additionally, Beijing heavily criticized the Japanese government's decision to start unloading Fukushima wastewater into the Pacific Ocean, calling the move "extremely selfish and irresponsible." (Related: Expert: RADIOACTIVE WATER from Fukushima nuclear power plant could cause ANIMAL MUTATIONS.) Despite the criticism from concerned countries and organizations, the Japanese government has repeatedly insisted that its wastewater discharges are safe, with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) backing the plan. Despite the agency's assurances, China's Foreign Ministry responded to the IAEAs claims by suggesting that anyone who claims that the releases are safe should "drink or swim in" Fukushima wastewater themselves. Emanuel has mocked Chinese leaders on social media. In an interview earlier in October with Japans Sankei newspaper, he said that Beijing lacked any scientific basis for raising concerns over the Fukushima discharges. Emanuel also said that despite China barring imports of seafood harvested by Japanese fishermen, it has continued to allow sales of fish caught by Chinese crews in Japanese waters. When asked if he was "hawkish" on China, Emanuel replied that he was only being honest and realistic. "Maybe honesty is painful, but it's honest," chided Emanuel. In response to Emmanuel's latest comments, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters that it is the duty of diplomats to promote friendship between countries, not smear other countries and "[stir] up trouble." Reports found that the first purchase under the U.S. military's new seafood deal with Japan will total less than one metric ton of scallops. By comparison, Japan exported more than 100,000 metric tons of scallops to China in 2022. Russia also temporarily bans all seafood imports from Japan Early in October, the Russian government also announced that it would enforce a temporary ban on imports of seafood from Japan following Tokyo's release of treated radioactive water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea. A statement released by Rosselkhoznadzor, the Russian regulator responsible for food safety, the restrictions will be in place until the safety of aquatic products is confirmed to comply with Eurasian Economic Union requirements. The discharge into the Pacific Ocean started on August 24, 12 years after the Fukushima plant's disastrous meltdown following a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Aside from China and Russia, South Korea has also extended a ban on the import of fish and seafood from eight prefectures in Japan. Visit FukushimaWatch.com for more articles about Japan's defunct Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant. Watch the video as experts discuss a concrete solution for Fukushima. This video is from the What Is Happening channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: RADIOACTIVE fish discovered near Fukushima renews concerns over plans to dump nuclear wastewater into the ocean. Radioactive Fukushima water to be released into the ocean. Hundreds of fish KILLED following nuclear power plant radioactive leak in Minnesota. Sources include: RT.com 1 RT.com 2 Brighteon.com GRID DOWN ALERT: North America at risk of blackouts during cold weather events, regulator warns America's power grid is at escalated risk of faltering due to the imminent major storms or prolonged cold snaps this coming winter, warned the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC), the regulator that monitors the electricity system. As per NERC's "20232024 Winter Reliability Assessment" published November 8, a sweeping portion of the country that extends from Texas to the Canadian border is not adequately equipped for tough winter conditions. The report indicated that the power grid continues to fray and suffer from underinvestment, despite promises by politicians and regulators to shore it up following deadly blackouts in recent years. "As observed in recent winter reliability events, over 20 percent of generating capacity has been forced offline when freezing temperatures extend over parts of North America that are not typically exposed to such conditions," the report alerted. "When electricity supplies become constrained, [bulk power system] operators can face a simultaneous sharp increase in demand." In a call, NERC told reporters that the grid has traditionally faced its greatest challenges in the summer heat but a confluence of factors in recent years has led the grid to be equally unstable during severe winter weather. "We've seen the system become more vulnerable to winter conditions," said John Moura, NERC's director of reliability assessment and performance analysis. "For decades, the system had been built and planned around summer peaks." However, during summer this year, the non-profit also warned that two-thirds of the grid was actually at risk of experiencing summer outages during peak energy use. (Related: Warning: Two-thirds of the North American power grid is at an ELEVATED RISK of experiencing summer outages during peak demand.) Back in February, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved new cold weather reliability standards for U.S. generators. NERC proposed the standards in response to Winter Storm Uri in 2021, which left almost 250 dead and made Texans face widespread blackouts. "Additional cold weather standards recently adopted by NERC's Board have been filed for FERC approval," Moura said in a statement. "This is a positive development in ensuring industry is prepared for extreme cold weather." Other issues NERC identified include the growing complexity of forecasting winter load and the curtailment of electricity transfers between reliability coordinators and balancing authorities. "While the curtailments alleviate an issue in one part of the system, curtailments can contribute to supply shortages or affect local transmission system operations in another area," NERC said. Meanwhile, as the grid continues to be unstable as winter season approaches, NERC warned Texas, where voters earlier this week approved a plan to fund more power generation to be at higher risk of energy shortages this year than last. This is because it is not bringing enough new power online to meet the state's surging demand, and its existing infrastructure has not been adequately weatherized. Similar challenges plague areas north of the Lone Star state, according to the report. The regional grid that serves 15 states from Arkansas to Wyoming will be operating with significantly lower backup energy reserves than last year. NERC warned that while the region has the resources it needs to make it through a normal winter, extreme cold weather could "result in shortfalls that can trigger energy emergencies." The authors warned that a winter storm of similar scale in the region could result in a repeat of the outages that disrupted last year's holiday season for millions. The report also concluded that power grid operators are struggling to bring on new generation and weatherize equipment at the pace required to meet the challenges of increased demand and the more extreme and unpredictable weather patterns created by climate change. "This forecast again shows that our nation faces looming grid reliability challenges while electricity demand continues to soar," said Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, which represents 900 local electricity providers. "That's unacceptable and should be cause for concern for all Americans." The looming grid disruption is due to neglect and not because of greenhouse gas emissions According to Mark Spurr, legislative director at the International District Energy Association and president of engineering and consulting firm FVB Energy, a massive grid disruption is inevitable due to three trends that are "getting worse, not better." He listed the increase in severe weather events due to climate change, rising peak electricity demand, and a growing dependence on natural gas. "We're thrilled to see NERC acknowledge what everyone already knows: failure of fossil-fueled power plants, especially gas-fired ones, during the winter, is the greatest threat to grid reliability today," said Tom Rutigliano, senior advocate for the Sustainable FERC Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council. But he said that NERC's focus on fuel supply risk "hides that the root cause is simply poor maintenance by power plant owners and the gas industry." He further pointed out that grid operators must plan for the poor reliability gas plants have demonstrated time and again and hold non-performing plants accountable. "Congress should follow FERC'S recommendation to set reliability standards for the gas industry," he added. The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association reportedly warned the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) proposed limits on greenhouse gas emissions from coal-, gas- and oil-fired power plants could worsen the grid's precarious situation. NERC's reliability assessment showed that our "nation faces looming grid reliability challenges while electricity demand continues to soar," Matheson said. EPA's "unlawful, unrealistic and unachievable proposal will result in less electricity, more power outages and higher costs for American families and businesses." Visit PowerGrid.news for news related to America's dwindling electric source. Sources for this article include: MSN.com NERC.com Finance.Yahoo.com Saving the best for last? IDF has trapped Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in a Gaza bunker but the killings of civilians, including children, continue Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are claiming they have trapped Hamas' most senior leader in a Gaza bunker on Nov. 7 exactly one month after the militant group attacked Israel. According to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Yahya Sinwar, the alleged mastermind behind the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, was "hiding in his bunker without contact with his associates." Sinwar is suspected of hiding in a Hamas control center beneath a Gaza Strip hospital, although Gallant did not disclose his exact location. IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht compared Sinwar to Osama Bin Laden, calling him the "face of evil" for his role in Hamas atrocities. Sinwar, also known as the "butcher of Khan Younis," was jailed in the late 1980s for abducting and murdering two Israeli soldiers. After spending 22 years behind bars, he became the leader of jailed Hamas fighters. Sinwar, now listed as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" by the U.S. Department of State, was released in 2011 as part of a prisoner swap. Now, Gallant has boasted that the IDF is tightening the noose around Gaza City while isolating Sinwar within a bunker. "[Israel Defense Forces] came from the north and the south. They stormed it in full coordination between land, air and sea forces. They are maneuvering on foot, armored vehicles and tanks, along with military engineers from all directions, and they have one target Hamas terrorists," said Gallant. Meanwhile, in a prime-time address on that same day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted that Israeli soldiers had killed "thousands of terrorists above and beneath the ground" in the Gaza Strip as the IDF invaded the 300-mile tunnel of the Hamas group. He even claimed that as the IDF "surrounded" the city, they deepened "the pressure on Hamas every hour, every day." "In the south, the war in the Strip is progressing with a force that Hamas has never known. Since the beginning of the ground maneuver, we have destroyed countless Hamas headquarters, tunnels, bases and facilities. We are reaching places that Hamas never thought we would reach," Netanyahu said. Death toll rises as IDF continues ground and aerial attacks Palestinian deaths continue to mount as the IDF successfully secured a military stronghold in the northern Gaza Strip. The IDF has used a D9R armored bulldozer, nicknamed "Doobi" or "Teddy Bear," designed to clear mines, tackle tunnels and deflect rockets to clear out explosives and demolish buildings in the Hamas-claimed territories. Moreover, Israel has also deployed killer drones to locate tunnel entrances and specially trained military dogs to navigate the extensive tunnel network used by Hamas. According to the IDF, a fighter jet targeted a group of approximately 10 terrorists, and subsequent ground operations identified and neutralized an anti-tank missile cell. An Israeli minister also disclosed that over 3,000 Hamas fighters had been killed in Gaza as Israeli forces intensify their efforts against the group. Hamas-led health officials also reported that at least 23 Palestinians were killed in separate Israeli airstrikes on that same day. The Israeli offensive has resulted to over 10,000 deaths, with more than 2,300 people suspected of being buried under rubble. But despite the mounting humanitarian toll and uncertainty about the hostages taken by Hamas, Netanyahu declared that "Operation Swords of Iron" will carry on until Hamas is gone. "Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel. Out of the darkness and pain, we will come out stronger, more just, and more united. Together, we will fight, and with God's help, together we will win," Netanyahu said. (Related: Hamas leaders preparing for "permanent war" with Israel.) Learn more about the ongoing invasion of Gaza and the genocide of the Palestinian people at WWIII.news. Watch this video from discussing the very costly gains Israel is making in its invasion of Gaza. This video is from the channel The Prisoner on Brighteon.com. More related stories: No, Hamas didn't "bake a Jewish baby alive in an oven" it's just another pro-Israel HOAX aiming to justify the GENOCIDE of Gaza. Netanyahu promises to turn Gaza into "rubble" following Hamas attack they will pay "unprecedented price." Rick Wiles of TruNews: Hamas attack on Israel was WELL-PLANNED and CHOREOGRAPHED. World War 3 could be imminent as Israel-Hamas war escalates, experts warn. Son of Hamas leader denounces Israel-created terror group: "They don't care" about Palestinians. Sources include: TheSun.co.uk NYPost.com Jordan airdrops urgent medical supplies to field hospital in Gaza Strip According to Jordan's King Abdullah II, his nation air-dropped medical supplies to a Jordanian military field hospital in the Gaza Strip on Monday. He posted on X, formerly Twitter, saying that his fearless Air Force personnel air-dropped, at midnight, urgent medical aid to the Jordanian field hospital. "This is our duty to aid our brothers and sisters injured in the war on Gaza. We will always be there for our Palestinian brethren," he said. Jordanian Government Communications Minister Muhannad Mubaidin said "a lot of complicated logistics" were required to carry out the operation to the healthcare facility in the enclave. The field hospital is located in a "difficult area that sees fierce fighting," and the government holds Israel accountable for any harm to the facility, he said. "Israel is striking the surroundings of hospitals in Gaza and Jordan has made it clear since the beginning of the conflict that its field hospital will remain," the minister said, adding: "They [Israelis] have been notified about that." He also said that the aid was "tons of medical supplies," reiterating Jordan's call for an end to the war on Gaza and the delivery of relief aid to the besieged coastal enclave. Jordan officials claim that its field hospital was facing an "existential" threat first due to the lack of supplies and Palestinians' inability to reach the facility as a result of the heavy bombardment. But Abdullah reaffirmed that the hospital would continue operating despite its difficulties. Our fearless air force personnel air-dropped at midnight urgent medical aid to the Jordanian field hospital in Gaza. This is our duty to aid our brothers and sisters injured in the war on Gaza. We will always be there for our Palestinian brethren pic.twitter.com/HOWI2VL7hL ??????? ?? ?????? (@KingAbdullahII) November 5, 2023 Meanwhile, Israeli media quoted a military statement saying on Monday that it had "coordinated" with Jordan to air-drop vital medical supplies to a Jordanian hospital in Gaza, which has been under constant Israeli bombardment for nearly a month. "The medical staff will use the equipment for patients," the Israeli military said. (Related: WAR CRIMES: Israeli jets strike Turkish-run cancer center, severely disrupting healthcare services for Gazans.) Last week, Jordan recalled its ambassador in Tel Aviv in protest against the "unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe" Israel has caused in Gaza. Foreign Minister Ayman Al-Safadi told envoy Rasan al-Majali to return to Amman "as an expression of Jordan's position of rejection and condemnation of the raging Israeli war on Gaza," according to a statement released by the country's foreign ministry. The Arab nation's airdropping of supplies came as United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Turkey as part of a high-stakes diplomatic tour of the region, following visits to Israel, the occupied West Bank, Jordan, and Iraq. Queen Rania: Being pro-Palestinian is not tantamount to being 'antisemitic' For Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, supporting the protection of Palestinian lives does not equate to being antisemitic or pro-terrorism as she called for a ceasefire in Israel's war against Hamas. "Let me be very, very clear. Being pro-Palestinian is not being antisemitic, being pro-Palestinian does not mean you are pro-Hamas or pro-terrorism," Rania told CNN's Becky Anderson on Sunday. "What we've seen in recent years is the charge of antisemitism being weaponized to silence any criticism of Israel." She added that she wants to absolutely and wholeheartedly condemn antisemitism and Islamophobia but she wants to remind everyone that Israel does not represent all the Jewish people around the world. "Israel is a state and is alone responsible for its own crimes," the queen said and further questioned how many more people must die before "our global conscience awakes." "All they want to hear is apologies from Palestinians. You're being bombed, that's your fault," she said. "You're being starved, that's your fault. You dare be born in the occupied territories, that's your fault It's been unbearable to watch the avalanche of human suffering." She also stated that those who are against the ceasefire argue that it will help Hamas but she feels that in that argument, "they are inherently dismissing the death, in fact, even endorsing and justifying the death of thousands of civilians, and that is just morally reprehensible." U.S. President Joe Biden reportedly discussed a "tactical pause" and possible hostage releases in a phone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, reiterating his support for Israel while emphasizing that it must protect civilians, the White House said. But no apparent agreement was reached as National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said the administration considered the parties to still be at the "beginning of this conversation." But in a recent interview with ABC News's "World News Tonight," Netanyahu rejected the idea of a ceasefire in Gaza unless hostages are released. "There'll be no ceasefire, general ceasefire, in Gaza without the release of our hostages," Netanyahu told the host. "As far as tactical little pauses, an hour here, an hour there. We've had them before, I suppose, will check the circumstances to enable goods, humanitarian goods to come in, or our hostages, individual hostages to leave. But I don't think there's going to be a general ceasefire." Also, Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan said on Sunday that no pause was needed because "there's no humanitarian crisis." Head to WWIII.news to read more stories similar to this. Sources for this article include: AlJazeera.com ArabNews.com TimesOfIsrael.com Edition.CNN.com King Charles announces TOTAL BAN on cigarette smoking in UK is it because the nicotine in tobacco helps protect against COVID? At the state opening of the British Parliament this week, King Charles shocked the nation with a plan to completely ban smoking all throughout the United Kingdom. In his King's Speech, which ceremonially marks the beginning of the new legislative year, King Charles revealed that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will be imposing a historic crackdown on cigarettes and the smoking of tobacco. The first phase involves passing legislation to raise the legal age for buying cigarettes. In every year that follows, the legal age will be raised again and again until eventually there are no more smokers left in Great Britain. "We must tackle the single biggest entirely preventable cause of ill health, disability, and death," Sunak previously stated in anti-tobacco messaging to the nation. "And that is smoke, and our country. Smoking causes one in four cancer deaths," he further proclaimed. If the plan moves forward as intended, a 14-year-old living in the UK today will never legally be sold a cigarette. (Related: Research out of Texas A&M University found that nicotine can help protect aging brains against Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease.) Is nicotine all bad? Nicotine can actually be beneficial in protecting against cytokine storms. The first of the smoking ban legislation will be subject to a "free vote," meaning Members of Parliament (MPs) will not be told how they should vote by party enforcers. The Labour Party has confirmed, however, that it intends to vote alongside the Conservative government to pass the bill, which means it is "expected to fly through," to quote The Sun. "People take up cigarettes when they are young," Sunak claims. "Four in five smokers have started by the time they are 20. Later, the vast majority try to quit." "But many fail because they are addicted and they wish they had never taken up the habit in the first place. If we could break that cycle, if we could stop the start, then we would be on our way to ending the biggest cause of preventable death and disease in our country." Along with many other things on the world stage right now that are slated to reach their endgame on this particular timeline, England intends to become completely smoke-free by the year 2030, meaning fewer than five percent of the public using cigarettes. There has been much speculation over the years as to why governments of the world really want people to stop smoking. It cannot be about public health, otherwise they would ban other things like genetically modified organisms (GMOs), vaccines, fluoridated water, 5G, and many, many other things that are much more dangerous than the tobacco plant. It may come as a shock to some, but there are actually some medicinal benefits to tobacco and its nicotine constituents. For one, nicotine inhibits cytokine storms, also known as hypercytokinemia, an overreactive innate immune response that releases too many pro-inflammatory signaling molecules, sometimes resulting in death. The issue of tobacco and cytokine storms came up more than once during the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) "pandemic" when it was discovered that nicotine actually provides protective benefits for the lungs when faced with severe respiratory infections. "Statistical surveys of COVID-19 patients indicate, against all common logic, that people who smoke are less prone to the infection and / or exhibit less severe respiratory symptoms than non-smokers," reads the abstract of one study about all this that was published in the journal Immunology Letters (Elsevier). "This suggests that nicotine may have some preventive or modulatory effect on the inflammatory response in the lungs. Because it is known that the response to, and resolution of the SARS-CoV-2 infection depends mainly on the lung macrophages, we discuss the recent scientific findings, which may explain why and how nicotine may modulate lung macrophage response during COVID-19 infection." When Big Brother or in this case, Big Royalty tells you something has to be banned in order to protect public health, you are probably being lied to. Learn more at Tyranny.news. Sources for this article include: The-Sun.com NaturalNews.com On November 11, 2023, a powerful explosion occurred in the temporarily occupied Melitopol, Zaporizhzhia region. "Bavovna" visited the occupiers' headquarters when the invaders were holding a meeting there. ADVERTISIMENT At least three Russian officers were killed. The details were reported by the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine. According to the military intelligence, activists of the local resistance movement were involved in the explosion. "The revenge action, which was carried out by representatives of the local resistance movement, took place in the Russian-occupied premises of the Nova Poshta located on Dmytro Dontsov Street (the occupants call it Pavlo Sudoplatov Street). The Russian invaders have set up their headquarters in this building," the Main Directorate of Intelligence noted. The timing of the explosion was not chosen by chance. The resistance activists carried out the attack when officers of the Russian Federal Security Service and the National Guard of Russia were gathered in the building for a meeting. ADVERTISIMENT "An hour before the meeting, the Russians blocked traffic on the adjacent stretch of road - from the Melitopol Auto-Hydro-Aggregat to the former Melitopol Refrigeration Plant Refma. Both industrial facilities were turned into a military base by the Moscow invaders," the military intelligence said. It is known that at least three National Guard officers were killed in the explosion. Data on other enemy losses are currently being clarified. "After the attack, there was a commotion in Melitopol - many policemen rushed to the scene with their sirens on. After a while, they dragged a car that had been burned near the headquarters through the occupied city to their department," the Main Directorate of Intelligence added. The mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, reported a loud explosion in the temporarily occupied city after 6 p.m. the day before. According to him, the explosion was heard almost throughout the city. ADVERTISIMENT A little later, he spoke about the invaders' intensification after the "bavovna". "Residents report blocking traffic between the Refma and Agat factories, which the enemy turned into military bases. At the same time, after the explosion, which was heard by the whole city, security forces vehicles are driving through Melitopol at breakneck speed," Fedorov said at 19:32 on November 11. ADVERTISIMENT As a reminder, on November 9, explosions occurred in the temporarily occupied Skadovsk, Kherson region. Almost immediately, there were reports of the liquidation of high-ranking Russian officers upon arrival at the occupiers' location, including representatives of the Russian Investigative Committee. Later it became known that 10 occupants were killed, 11 others were wounded, and the acting chief of the 126th Military District of the Russian Armed Forces was among those eliminated. Netanyahu: Israel to take over security in Gaza after the Israel-Hamas war Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared that Israel will assume "overall security" in Gaza for an "indefinite period" after the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. In an exclusive interview on ABC News, "World News Tonight" anchor David Muir asked Netanyahu who should govern the territory after the war. "I think Israel will, for an indefinite period, have the overall security responsibility [in Gaza] because we've seen what happens when we don't have it. When we don't have that security responsibility, what we have is the eruption of Hamas terror on a scale that we couldn't imagine," Netanyahu said. (Related: Breitbart editor Joel Pollak: Israel should wipe out Gaza and the U.S. should take the refugees.) However, the statement contradicts the previous words of senior Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Last month, Gallant suggested that the final phase of the war would be to sever "Israel's responsibility for life in the Gaza Strip" and establish a "new security reality for the citizens of Israel." Gallant even hinted at the possibility of involving a third party in post-conflict governance. U.S. and Palestinian officials warn Israel against reoccupying Gaza In a recent interview with CBS, President Joe Biden also rejected the prolonged occupation in Gaza, even though it supports the military operations of Israel against Hamas. "It would be a mistake for Israel to occupy Gaza again. But going in and taking out the extremists the Hezbollah up north and the Hamas down south is a necessary requirement," Biden said. Likewise, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Israel against the reoccupation of Gaza after the war due to the risks associated with the Oct. 7 attacks. During a recent Tokyo meeting attended by Blinken, foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) nations supported "humanitarian pauses and corridors" but stopped short of calling for a ceasefire. Blinken then outlined the vision of the Biden administration for post-conflict Gaza, emphasizing key elements such as no forced displacement of Palestinians, no use of Gaza for terrorism and no reoccupation. "The United States believes key elements should include no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza not now, not after the war. We must also ensure no terrorist threats can emanate from the West Bank. It must include Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority. And it must include a sustained mechanism for reconstruction in Gaza, and a pathway to Israelis and Palestinians living side-by-side in states of their own, with equal measures of security, freedom, opportunity and dignity," Blinken said. When asked about Netanyahu's comments on the "overall security responsibility" in Gaza, Blinken acknowledged the need for a "transition period at the end of the conflict," but he confidently said Israel did not intend to reoccupy and govern Gaza. Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer also clarified to the BBC what Netanyahu meant by "security responsibility." "Governance requires an administration we assume will be Palestinian. There's a question of the overriding security responsibilitythat's what he was talking aboutto ensure that in a post-Hamas Gaza, we don't have the re-emergence of a terror threat from Gaza. Israel wasn't operating or doing any operations in Gaza, and we saw what happened over nearly two decades. They built this terror state right in the south of Israel and we saw the effects of this," Dermer explained. Mustafa Barghouti, head of the Palestinian National Initiative, echoed the statement. He said Palestinians needed a unified leadership that "could prepare the ground for free democratic elections and end the occupation, not only of Gaza Strip but also of the West Bank and East Jerusalem." Visit WWIII.news for more stories related to the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Watch this clip that talks about the warning signs of World War III. This video is from the High Hopes channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Israel admits bombing Gaza refugee camp, killing and wounding HUNDREDS of civilians just to take out ONE man. Israel deploying next-generation weapons in Gaza, including AI-powered weapons systems. Israel to consider civilians terrorist accomplices if they stay in North Gaza. Communications in Gaza are DOWN as Israel now surrounds Gaza City with plans to divide coastal Palestinian city into two. Irans supreme leader calls for SANCTIONS against Israel, demands halt to Gaza bombing. Sources include: RT.com ABCNews.com BBC.com October 7 testimonies reveal that IDF shot up Israeli homes, burned alive Israeli civilians Hamas only responsible for SOME of the civilian deaths Evidence continues to emerge that points the finger atbeing the responsible party that killed innocent Israeli civilians on October 7, According to many accounts, Hamas militants exclusively targeted Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in its raid, leaving alone innocent civilians. It was the IDF itself that killed its own citizens while fighting to neutralize Palestinian gunmen. According to Tuval Escapa, a member of the security team for Kibbutz Be'eri Escapa was responsible for setting up a hotline to coordinate between kibbutz residents and the Israeli army as desperation began to set in for the IDF on October 7, "the commanders in the field made difficult decisions, including shelling houses on their occupants in order to eliminate the terrorists along with the hostages." (Related: Did you catch our story about Yasmin Porat, who escaped the desert music festival on October 7 and took refuge in Kibbutz Be'eri? She told Israeli State Radio that the Hamas militants were nice to her and the other hostages it was IDF soldiers who were shooting and killing Israeli civilians.) In other words, Israel indiscriminately bombed Israeli housing to kill both Hamas militants and Israeli innocents together this is the same thing Israel is now doing in the Gaza Strip by bombing hospitals, churches, and refugee camps, killing both militants and civilians. Israeli media publishes report showing IDF bombed civilians in Israel "to repulse the terrorists" According to a report by Haaretz, an Israeli media outlet, the IDF's high command instructed Israeli soldiers to attack homes and other civilian sites in Israel "in order to repulse the terrorists." The Israeli military was also "compelled to request an aerial strike" against its own facility inside the Erez Crossing to Gaza, which was filled with Israeli Civil Administration officers and soldiers at the time. In other words, many of the Israeli deaths in the official October 7 death count occurred at the hands of Israel itself, not the Palestinians as we continue to be told by the Zionist-controlled media and government. It was only because of the IDF "shelling" of Israeli homes where hostages had been taken captive that Israel was able to restore control over Be'eri. It was not Hamas that killed civilians there it was the IDF. "The price was terrible: at least 112 Be'eri residents were killed," Haaretz says about the death toll from IDF in that kibbutz. "Others were kidnapped. Yesterday, 11 days after the massacre, the bodies of a mother and her son were discovered in one of the destroyed homes. It is believed that more bodies are still lying in the rubble." A reporter for the Israeli Foreign Military-sponsored media outlet i24 noted that during a visit to Be'eri, it was observed that "small and quaint homes [were] bombarded or destroyed" by Israeli tank crews, along with "well-maintained lawns [that were] ripped up by the tracks of an armored vehicle, perhaps a tank." Various pilots have also reported to Israeli media that they were instructed to bring out the big guns with no intelligence whatsoever, leaving them unable to differentiate between Hamas fighters and Israeli noncombatants. "I find myself in a dilemma as to what to shoot at because there are so many of them," one Apache pilot confirmed, explaining that he and the others were instructed to "empty the belly" of their war machines regardless. Confirmed video footage shows Israeli soldiers shooting Israeli civilians with Kalashnikov rifles on October 7 There is plenty of video footage out there, including the short clip below, showing that it was Israeli soldiers who shot up Israeli civilians on October 7, not Hamas militants. The following clip shows Israeli soldiers shooting Israeli civilians with Kalashnikov rifles: The IDF just screened 43 minutes of horrors from the Hamas massacre on October 7 for foreign journalists. I was not there, my colleague @cjkeller8 was. Here is the one minute of footage approved for mass publication at this point, barring most of it out of respect for the dead. pic.twitter.com/UDmQSrkYBL Amy Spiro (@AmySpiro) October 23, 2023 "The objective behind Tel Aviv's atrocity exhibition is clear: to paint Hamas as 'worse than ISIS' while cultivating support for the Israeli army's ongoing bombardment of the Gaza Strip," reports The Grayzone. "While hundreds of wounded children in Gaza have been treated for what a surgeon described as 'fourth degree burns' caused by novel weapons, the Western media's focus remains trained on Israeli citizens supposedly 'burned alive' on October 7." "Yet the mounting evidence of friendly fire orders handed down by Israeli army commanders strongly suggests that at least some of the most jarring images of charred Israeli corpses, Israeli homes reduced to rubble and burned-out hulks of vehicles presented to Western media were, in fact, the handiwork of tank crews and helicopter pilots blanketing Israeli territory with shells, cannon fire and Hellfire missiles ... Indeed, it appears that on October 7, Israeli military resorted to the same tactics it has employed against civilians in Gaza, driving up the death toll of its own citizens with the indiscriminate use of heavy weapons." The latest news about Israel's war on Gaza can be found at Prophecy.news. Sources for this article include: TheGrayZone.com MiddleEastMonitor.com NaturalNews.com Haaretz.com Twitter.com RFK Jr. abandons free speech principles, calls on college campuses to impose zero-tolerance policies on antisemitism Early on, he seemed like a promising "dissident" candidate who might actually follow through with shaking up the establishment if elected president in 2024. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s positions on free speech seem to have changed , though, ever since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. Now, RFK Jr. is in agreement with billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who recently wrote a letter to the president of Harvard University calling on the school's administration to crack down on campus speech that defies Israel's war on Gaza because some people consider it to be "antisemitic." "It's time to hold college administrations responsible for the epidemic of campus antisemitism by insisting on zero-tolerance policies," RFK Jr. wrote in response to Ackman's letter, which nitpicks even on-campus message board speech for allegedly containing "antisemitic statements, memes, and images." "Four weeks after the barbaric terrorist acts of October 7th, I have lost confidence that you and the University will do what is required," Ackman, a Harvard alumnus, wrote in his screed. Keep in mind that there have not been any physical assaults or even threats of actual violence against Jewish people at Harvard that warrant the free speech crackdown that both Ackman and RFK Jr. are calling for it is mere free speech they have a problem with. "In a painful internal about-face as I grapple with human cognitive dissonance, I am forced to concede that the criticism of RFK Jr. as a trojan horse appears to have been right all along," writes Ben Bartee on his Armageddon Prose Substack blog. "He has outed himself as nothing less than a total enemy of the sacred right to free expression and, as a result, my political enemy." (Related: Israel's civilian targets in Gaza include hospitals, refugee camps, and schools.) Questions raised about RFK, Jr's loyalties To make matters even worse, it was also reported that RFK Jr. was a passenger on Jeffrey Epstein's private "Lolita Express" airplane, which we know was routinely used to transport guests to the financier's private Caribbean island, known as Little Saint James. "Given that Jeffrey Epstein is credibly suspected of having been a CIA and / or Mossad agent running an industrial-level blackmail operation, the question has to be asked: what do they have on RFK Jr.?" Bartee wants to know. It really is too bad that RFK Jr. has taken this new anti-free speech position or rather that the truth about what he really thinks concerning the First Amendment has finally been made known. "I gave up on RFK Jr. when he refused to meet with our Moms for Liberty group in Florida after the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) labeled us a hate group," wrote one of Bartee's followers, a woman named Julie Spatzier. "We just want porno out of our kids' schools." "It seems that the political reality in the U.S. (and UK, mostly France too ... other G7 nations?) is that the Zionist money (kompromat too perhaps a la Epstein) is irresistible on the question of [Zionists screwing] up the Middle East and military with taxpayer support." On the flip side, one commenter defended RFK Jr., stating that it is not so much censorship he is calling for on college campuses but rather "civility, which is in short supply at campuses." "It's mostly about civility, not censorship," this person further suggested. "As I recall, RFK was on that plane (like scores of other people and dignitaries) with his wife to attend some function, and was not part of the intelligence 'honeytrap' by Epstein." The latest news about the establishment's assault on free speech in the name of fighting "antisemitism" can be found at Censorship.news. Sources for this article include: ArmageddonProse.substack.com NaturalNews.com A federal judge in Texas issued a nationwide injunction, preventing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) from enforcing the ban. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled that the ATF's attempt to legislate through regulation, rather than enforcing existing gun laws, was unlawful, particularly in the case of pistol braces. (Related: Top gun rights group leads effort urging House GOP action following Biden regimes ban on pistol braces.) The ATF's rule, implemented earlier this year, aimed to penalize the estimated 40 million U.S. pistol brace owners who refused to reclassify their weapons as short-barrel rifles. This reclassification requires government registration and a $200 tax stamp or the destruction of the pistol brace. In states with short-barrel rifle bans, gun owners faced the dilemma of surrendering their firearms or destroying the pistol brace to avoid legal consequences. The plaintiffs in Britto v. ATF, described as "three decorated Marine veterans" and represented by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), argued that the rule infringed upon the Second Amendment and was "void for vagueness." Kacsmaryk agreed with this argument, highlighting the undue financial burden on both gun owners and pistol brace manufacturers. He noted that the ATF admitted the 10-year cost of the rule exceeded one billion dollars and could force certain manufacturers reliant on stabilizing braces to cease operations. While expressing sympathy for the ATF's concerns about public safety in the aftermath of tragic mass shootings, Kacsmaryk emphasized that addressing public safety concerns must be done within the bounds of the law, which the ATF's rule failed to do. A win for all pistol brace owners in America This decision marked a significant development in the legal battle, as it extended the injunction to all pistol brace owners nationwide, not just the plaintiffs involved in the case. WILL Deputy Counsel Dan Lennington said: "This new federal ruling protects the 2nd Amendment Rights of millions of Americans. WILL is proud to work alongside our clients and blaze a trail against this unconstitutional federal action." The "Factoring Criteria for Firearms with Attached 'Stabilizing Braces'" rule was introduced by the ATF in response to an executive order from President Joe Biden directing the agency to address pistol braces. The ATF categorized all braced pistols on the market as short-barreled rifles (SBRs) and subject to the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA). Gun owners were presented with limited options, including registering their firearms with the ATF, replacing the barrel to exceed 16 inches, removing the brace (rendering it non-reusable), or turning the firearm over to the ATF. Failure to comply could lead to felony charges with a 10-year prison sentence, equivalent to owning an unregistered machine gun. The judge's decision to issue a nationwide stay hinged on several factors. Firstly, the likelihood of the plaintiffs succeeding in their challenge was considered, particularly drawing on a previous ruling in the Mock v. Garland case, where the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) claimed that the ATF had exceeded APA boundaries. The judge concluded that the ATF rule was "not a logical outgrowth of the Proposed Rule" and must be set aside as unlawful. Secondly, the judge examined whether the plaintiffs would suffer irreparable harm without an injunction. One of the plaintiffs, Gabriel A. Tauscher, a Marine with a partially paralyzed arm due to a combat injury, highlighted the need for stabilizing braces for individuals with physical disabilities. The judge also acknowledged the compliance costs that gun owners would face, quoting the judge in the Gun Owners of America (GOA) case challenging the rule. Finally, the judge assessed whether an injunction would be in the public interest. Given that the rule was deemed likely unlawful and public interest cannot be invoked to defend an unlawful rule, the judge concluded that the public interest favored the plaintiffs. Watch this video about the controversy that followed an appeal court's upholding of the assault gun ban in Illinois. If its war on Hamas doesnt end, Israel will cease to exist by 2030, warns former UN consultant In an interview this week, military specialist, member of the United Nations (UN) Disarmament Commission, and former consultant to the UN Secretary General Igor Nikulin warned that Israel will no longer exist by 2023 if it continues its war with Hamas. Nikulin was asked a series of questions by major Spanish news outlet El Mundo about who finances Hamas, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iran, as well as what is currently preventing Hamas from being destroyed. El Mundo, by the way, reported that Israel hired mercenaries to kill Palestinians, a claim that was also supported by testimony from Pedro Diaz Flores, who served in the ranks of Ukraine's neo-Nazi Azov Battalion. "There is Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia standing behind Hamas because this is a Sunni organization," Nikulin stated about how Hamas was created by allies of the United States, not Iran. "It is absurd to blame Iran for this. Iran stands behind Hezbollah because this is a Shiite group." When then asked if this is the reason why Israel is attacking Lebanon: to strike Hezbollah and thereby move on to greater military action against Iran. "In general, I have a feeling that it was Israel that provoked this whole story," Nikulin responded. "This all looks similar to the 9/11 event. Israeli intelligence services would never fail if it was not for a command from above. It appears that they turned everything off in advance, sent everyone on vacation, nothing was working and the entire system failed to operate." (Related: So far, Israel has killed 88 United Nations humanitarian officials in Gaza since October 7.) U.S. sending warships, marines to Middle East to target Iran, not Hamas By all appearances, it is the deep state that controls the U.S. and even Israel itself, against the will of the people, that is behind all this chaos and fighting. And the goal, it seems, is to go after Iran, not just Hamas. "This is a common policy of the States," Nikulin responded when asked why the U.S. is sending warships and about 4,000 marines to the Middle East. "The Americans move their fleet forward in case of any aggravation and start shelling Lebanon or the Gaza Strip from the sea. It then ended in a terrorist attack in which 200 Americans died. They wrapped up their operation and left the battlefield. I think something similar will happen this time as well, but there are Chinese warships nearby now." While it is certainly possible for Israel to win what Nikulin describes as a "lightning war," there is simply no way that Israel will be able to fight and win a long war. So far, all wars that Israel has actually won were brief. When then asked why the U.S. would even want to get involved with starting and fighting yet another new war in the Middle East on behalf of Tel Aviv, Nikulin explained that these are globalist policies at work, not the policies of actual nation-states. "Globalists want to destroy all nation-states, including Israel," Nikulin contends. "Thats why globalists create crises. According to their plans, Israel should not be on the map by 2030. All Jews will have to move to territories of what is now Ukraine, Russia, and the United States." Even if Israel does get full support from the U.S. for a full-scale regional war in the Middle East, it will not be enough, Nikulin says, to actually win. "Israel will ... have to wage war with a coalition of Arab states, the total population of which exceeds 200 million people," he says. "It is unlikely that the ten-million-strong Israel will cope with this, even if the U.S. supports it. Even if Israel annihilates all Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip, there will be enough of them left in other Arab states to continue the fight." "The only reasonable option is to recognize the State of Palestine within the 1947 borders." The latest news about the war in the Middle East can be found at Prophecy.news. Sources for this article include: GreatGameIndia.com NaturalNews.com White men suddenly being featured in ads for woke U.S. military now that Israel needs more non-Jewish blood to fight its ethnic war in Gaza Clown-world USA strikes again, this time with the "woke" United States military releasing new cringeworthy ads featuring white men that clearly aim to lure and funnel the next, and probably last, generation of white guys in this God-forsaken country to fight Israel's latest genocidal war in Gaza. After years, and years, and years of releasing ads featuring primarily black and brown women, transgenders, "furries," and whatever other non-white beings they could find as the future of the new "diverse" U.S. military, suddenly the U.S. Army is targeting white men once again and right on schedule as Israel whines about its "existence." Check out the following "Be All You Can Be" video from the Army, which even features a parachute just like the alleged paragliders who descended into Israel on October 7 and somehow outsmarted the most advanced police state on earth for a full seven hours before Israel Defense Forces (IDF) finally took action: (Related: The U.S. government, including the CDC, is filled with Zionist politicians who hold dual citizenship in both America and Israel.) NOBODY wants to fight Israel's genocidal war, ESPECIALLY white guys The above video received a resounding hell no from the internet, with not so much as one single post that this writer could find, anyway supporting the Army's obvious agenda to once again use American white men to advance "Greater Israel." "Not this generation, Moshe," one wrote. "You're not getting my sons like you got my father and I before. Have fun with the Diversity Squad." Another clever X user wrote that, now that our "greatest ally" once again needs non-Jewish bodies to feed into the woodchipper, there is suddenly "no time for diversity" in the U.S. military. "There are no women in this advertisement," commented another. "Why is that, @USArmy?" Someone else wrote that instead of fighting Israel's wars, American men and really all Americans who care would do much better by protecting the southern border from the relentless invasion taking place. "I really wanted to reenlist, but I don't see any Latinx females in wheelchairs," joked another. "Not sure where I would fit in." "You recruited and promoted obese troons," said another. "They can fight your war for Israel." On and on and on these types of comments go for quite some time, illustrating the disconnect between the military-industrial complex and the average able-bodied American who wants absolutely nothing to do with fighting any kind of war, especially for Israel. "I'm not f***ing dying for Israel," wrote another, straight to the point. "White men in an army commercial instead of obese they / thems telling their story how the army helps them live their life as a poly cat family? You must be looking for bullet catchers to fight another BS sand war. Too late, pass," said someone else. The new ad was released not even 24 hours after it was announced that the U.S. Army has successfully renamed all of its military bases that were named after Confederate generals, all to advance its "Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity" (DIE) agenda. "Even those currently in the military should refuse to participate," said someone about how everyone needs to just say no to fighting more wars on behalf of Israel. "Damn the consequences." "At least they will be alive. And, if the Feds try to execute them, well then there should be no holds barred." The latest news about Israel and its war against Gaza can be found at Antichrist.news. Sources for this article include: InformationLiberation.com NaturalNews.com Experts said that Campi Flegrei, which is located in Italy, could be reawakening as seismic activities in the area has intensified. Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) said that the last major eruption of Campi Flegrei was in 153. This eruption later on created a new mountain in the bay. Intensifyinh Seismic Activities Experts said that seismic activities in the area has been intensifying since December 2022 and they warned that the volcano could be reawakening after generations of being in a restive mode. On November 7, it was reported that the level of alert in the volcanic Campi Flegrei area near Naples currently affected by bradyseism, or ground uplift, would remain at yellow, according to Civil Protection Minister Nello Musumeci. Musumeci said that the national commission for major risks has maintained that the earthquake is evolving, prompting the raising of the yellow alert. Authorities stressed that it is necessary to prepare for the possible need to quickly move towards a higher level of alert than yellow in the area known as the Phlegrean Fields, where recent big seismic activity has led to fears of harm to people and property. Experts noted that the densely populated region, which is less than 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Vesuvius, is prone to bradyseism, which is defined by cycles of uplift and gradual lowering of the ground. The last time the region saw such seismic activity was in 1984 when the ground rose 3.5 meters (11.5 feet) before it began a slow descent accompanied by seismic activity that is similar to what is presently happening in the area. The entire volcanic zone has also been experiencing a surge in earthquakes that has rattled nerves and force residents to seek safety into the streets. Experts pointed out that the local population should be better prepared so that they may cope with the seismic activities and the possibility of an eruption. Read Also: Biggest Earthquake in 40 Years Strike Italy's Campi Flegrei, Alarming Experts of Repeated Seismic Activity Reawakening Supervolcano? A supervolcano could be distinguished from an ordinary volcano through the amount of volcanic material that they had ejected during previous eruptions. Experts said that a supervolcano is one that has ejected more than 240 cubic miles of material and reached a level 8 - the highest threat - on the Volcano Explosivity Index or VEI, according to the US Geological Survey. A previous study said that a rupturing sequence has been developing across four episodes of ground uplift at Italy's Campi Flegrei caldera: in 1950-1952, 1969-1972, 1982-1984 and since 2004. Researchers have predicted in 2016 that the approach to rupture would continue after an additional uplift of 30-40 cm at the location of largest movement. They have updated their analysis with new data on changes in the numbers of local earthquakes with amounts of ground movement. About 12-15 km across, Campi Flegrei is the largest active caldera in Europe and extends west from the outskirts of Naples to the Tyrrhenian Sea. About a third is partially submerged beneath the Bay of Pozzuoli; the remaining two-thirds are home to more than 360,000 people. Experts said that the volcano has been restless since 1950. It last erupted in 1538 after an interval of about 3000 years. Previous intervals have been as short as decades or centuries, meaning a return to eruption after nearly 500 years is a realistic possibility. Related Article: Campi Flegrei Volcano in Italy Likely to Erupt After Being Restless for Over 70 Years [Study] Attenborough's long-beaked echidna, a long-thought-extinct animal named after British naturalist David Attenborough, was rediscovered in the Cyclops Mountains in the Indonesian part of New Guinea island. The long-lost species was spotted again during a scientific expedition on the said island led by researchers from Oxford University in England. Prior to the breakthrough sighting, the only evidence of the animal was a collected specimen placed in a museum, according to reports. Also called Sir David's long-beaked echidna or the Cyclops long-beaked echidna, is a peculiar mammal since its appearance resembles the spines of a hedgehog, the feet of a mole, and the snout of an anteater. The spiky animal was last seen more than 60 years ago in the same area, Indonesia's Cyclops Mountains. The researchers recorded the wild animal when it passed through one of their trail cameras during the last day of their 1-month expedition. Extinct Animal Rediscovered The expedition to the Cyclops Mountains, located in the Indonesian province of Papua, was led by James Kempton, who reportedly stated that his team collected thousands of specimens from thousands of invertebrates, as well as specimens from almost 100 frogs and reptiles. However, what they discovered in the wild answered a decades-long mystery that involved the seemingly sudden disappearance of Attenborough's long-beaked echidna. The camera sighting of Sir David's long-beaked echidna is the first-ever digital recording of the long-lost animal with the scientific name Zaglossus attenboroughi, under the phylum Chordata. It is also one of the three species belonging to the genus Zaglossus that is native to New Guinea. The video captured by the Oxford University researchers has been circulating throughout social media since Friday, November 10. In the 30-second clip, the first footage of the rare long-beaked echidna shows the animal wandering the wilderness of the Cyclops Mountains at night. Also Read: Australia's Extinct Long-Beaked Echidna May Still Exist Attenborough's Long-Beaked Echidna As mentioned earlier, it has been decades already since Attenborough's long-beaked echidna was last spotted by scientists in 1961, a time when they also called the only known specimen of the egg-laying mammal. Despite reports of their extinction before or designation as an extremely rare animal, there are still people who believe that the long-beaked echidna never disappeared at all in the first place. In a 2009 research article published by the Cambridge University Press, fieldwork was carried out by scientists in the northern and southern parts of the Cyclops Mountains to investigate the 'continued survival of Z. attenboroughi' by using methods like community interviews, sign surveys, and visual encounter surveys. Survey results from the research showed that many local villagers recognized photographs of Sir David's long-beaked echidna and they were able to describe some biological features of the said animals. They even reported several recent sightings at that time in areas with below 300-meter elevation, where they called the animal "payangko." However, there was no evidence of the survival of Attenborough's long-beaked echidna from the 2009 research, until more than a decade later when doubts about its continued existence finally ended. Related Article: Endangered Anteaters: Long-Beaked Echidnas Successfully Bred By Conservationists Experts alerted people to the possibility of an enormous volcanic explosion near Blue Lagoon, prompting Iceland to declare a State of Emergency and order an evacuation. State of Emergency Iceland has declared a state of emergency and evacuated a town 25 miles southwest of its capital Reykjavik due to the imminent threat of a volcanic eruption. The decision comes as weeks of tremors suggested an underground magma intrusion near Grindavik on the Reykjanes peninsula. Grindavik, home to around 3,600 people and located near the famed Blue Lagoon, is near the Svartsengi power plant. The Icelandic Met Office says that the likelihood of a magma intrusion extending beneath Grindavik, with heightened seismic activity. Authorities are fortifying the area's infrastructure, temporarily closing the Blue Lagoon as a precaution. There have been three eruptions in the region since 2021 after 800 years of dormancy. If a rift extends into the sea, an explosive eruption could impact air traffic at Reykjavik's Keflavik Airport, although the overall impact may be less severe than the 2010 Eyjafjallajokull eruption that disrupted European air travel for weeks. Iceland Impending Volcanic Eruptions Iceland, with over 30 volcanic systems and 600 hot springs, is highly geologically active due to its location on the mid-Atlantic ridge. Positioned where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet, the country faces frequent eruptions. The last significant threat occurred in 1973, burying part of a town in the Westman Islands. The current situation on the Reykjanes peninsula remains uncertain, but experts like Thordarson emphasized that an eruption is a matter of when, not if. Earthquake Updates for Grindavik on the Reykjanes Peninsula On November 10, a dike intrusion near Grindavik, Reykjanes Peninsula, triggered the Civil Protection's emergency phase, leading to Grindavik's evacuation. In 24 hours, 3000 earthquakes, mainly along the inferred magma path, were detected. Stress-induced earthquakes were observed offshore, south of Reykjanes. The Icelandic Meteorological Office closely monitors. Since midnight, 800 earthquakes have occurred in the magma region, with reduced but still high activity. Recent earthquakes centered near Grindavik suggest the magmatic dike's southwest end location. A joint analysis of ground and satellite data reveals the intrusion's unprecedented size and movement rate on the Reykjanes Peninsula. Latest Updates of Fagradalsfjall Volcano In recent weeks, thousands of tremors were recorded around Iceland's Fagradalsfjall volcano, concentrated in the Reykjanes Peninsula. However, volcanic activity was last reportted on August 5, at 17:06, when the Icelandic Meteorological Office lowered the Aviation Color Code for Fagradalsfjall to Yellow. This second-level status reflected a decline in eruption and minimal crater activity visible in webcam images. Tremor levels dropped to background levels by 15:00 on August 5, with gas plumes typically reaching 1-2 km, though exceeding 2.5 km on August 1. The crater became deeper and smaller by August 4, with the last observed activity on August 5 and a thermal anomaly identified on August 6. Also Read: 100-Meter New Island Off Coast of Japan Made From Undersea Volcano Ioto Eruption Won't Last Long, Says Experts Latest Updates of Eyjafjallajokull Volcano On the other hand, Eyjafjallajokull's sustained activity ceased on May 22, 2010. By June 23, 2010, the Iceland Meteorological Office and the University of Iceland Institute of Earth Sciences (IES) stopped regular status reports. This report covers the eruption's final stages and references selected abstracts and papers from conferences and publications on the event. The initial eruption phase occurred at Fimmvoruhals from March 20 to April 12, 2010, followed by ash emissions from Eyjafjallajokull's summit crater on April 14, disrupting air travel over Europe for nearly a week. Related Article: 1000 Earthquakes Shut Iceland Geothermal Spa Blue Lagoon, Rockslide Blocks Road Russia has launched a new fake against Ukraine. This time, Russian social media are spreading the "news" that the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhny and the Chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Kyrylo Budanov allegedly conspired to carry out a "coup d'etat" in Ukraine. ADVERTISIMENT The Russians tried to "disguise" their fake as foreign "primary sources," but they did it extremely poorly. The details are reported by InfoLight.UA, a project that specializes in raising media literacy and combating fakes and propaganda. Russian Telegram channels began to spread a new fake about the alleged preparation of a "coup d'etat" in Ukraine on November 10. The messages circulating in public, in particular, those of the so-called "Novorossiysk" orientation, stated that the "coup" would be led by Zaluzhny and Budanov, who, according to Russian propagandists, had entered into a conspiracy. InfoLight.UA noted that such attempts to split the military and political leadership of Ukraine and undermine the situation inside our country are not the first to have been recorded. But this time, there are some interesting details. ADVERTISIMENT According to the project, the primary source of the "sensation" is the Chinese website sina.com.cn. However, InfoLight.UA was unable to find the actual "news" on this site. "Despite all our efforts, we did not find this information on the sites whose screenshots are being distributed by the enemy. However, our team does not have people who are fluent in Chinese, so we leave open the possibility that such information was published. For now, everything looks like a simple editing of the page code," the statement said. ADVERTISIMENT Another "source" was the Asia Times website, which is visited by up to 2 million users every month, mostly from the United States. There is some "news" there. However, it exposes the creators and beneficiaries of the "sensation". In particular, the publication states, "There is a growing consensus that the West (meaning the United States with the help of the United Kingdom) wants to replace Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. My friend and colleague Larry Johnson believes that the CIA and MI6 in the UK are already preparing the ground. Either Zelensky will be forced to call a presidential election scheduled for March next year and then be replaced or he will be replaced anyway in a Maidan-style upheaval if he resists." ADVERTISIMENT The words "Larry Johnson believes" are accompanied by a hyperlink, which, when clicked, takes the reader to a resource where "Larry Johnson," who is presented as a "retired CIA officer," allegedly expressed his position on the website of the Sputnik news agency, which is part of the Kremlin-controlled Rossiya Segodnya media group. "To sum it up, taking advantage of the internal Ukrainian situation and 'heating up' the topic of Valeriy Zaluzhny's resignation and his alleged conflict with President Volodymyr Zelensky, the enemy almost immediately, albeit very poorly, created another fake aimed at making another split in Ukrainian society and the Ukrainian Defense Forces. It is important to be careful and not to spread unverified information. It is also important to minimize internal political conflicts until the end of the war," the InfoLight.UA team summarizes. ADVERTISIMENT Earlier, the Russians published a fake about Olena Zelenska. However, they were exposed once again. Russian propagandists have accused the First Lady of Ukraine of involvement in child trafficking. According to the fake "Western resource," the Russians claim that Olena Zelenska's foundation sends orphans abroad to save them from the war and then allegedly sells them into sex slavery. In order to spread the fake, Russians were looking for photos of Ukrainian children online. This is where they got caught because they used a photo of the daughter of the adviser to the head of the Office of the President Daria Zarivna to spread the lie. Sorry, something doesn't look right. Something seems unusual about your device or browser. Please contact support. By PTI NEW DELHI: A Class 12 student was allegedly assaulted and his finger chopped off by his senior for talking to a female classmate in Delhi's Dwarka South, police said on Friday. The accused had studied in the same school and already graduated. The alleged incident occurred on October 21. The victim was so scared that he did not tell his parents about the assault and had claimed that his finger was chopped off by a motorcycle chain, the police said. On Friday, he disclosed the incident to his parents, who lodged a complaint with the police. An FIR has been registered in this connection, they added. The victim told police that the accused met him outside the school and took him to a park. The accused objected to the victim's friendship with a female student in the boy's tuition class and attacked him with a stone. An FIR has been registered and the allegations are being verified, the police said. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp NEW DELHI: A Class 12 student was allegedly assaulted and his finger chopped off by his senior for talking to a female classmate in Delhi's Dwarka South, police said on Friday. The accused had studied in the same school and already graduated. The alleged incident occurred on October 21.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The victim was so scared that he did not tell his parents about the assault and had claimed that his finger was chopped off by a motorcycle chain, the police said. On Friday, he disclosed the incident to his parents, who lodged a complaint with the police. An FIR has been registered in this connection, they added. The victim told police that the accused met him outside the school and took him to a park. The accused objected to the victim's friendship with a female student in the boy's tuition class and attacked him with a stone. An FIR has been registered and the allegations are being verified, the police said. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp By Express News Service KOCHI: Concerns about the babys gender and the expenses associated with its upbringing prompted two Assam natives to strangle their 10-day-old girl child and abandon its body in a canal in Kochi, the Perumbavoor police have found. A police team from Perumbavoor arrested the duo Makshidul Islam, 31, of Nagaon and Mushida Kathur, 31, of Morigaon from Assam, where they had gone into hiding after the crime. The officers said the duo worked in a plywood factory in Ernakulam and had been in a live-in relationship. The police had launched a probe after the newborns body was found inside a bag discarded near a canal in Mudikkal, Perumbavoor, on October 8. The lack of solid leads had left the probe team stumped initially. Our lone lead was the assessment that the child was born to a migrant worker. CCTV camera footage from the area did not yield any clue, said an officer. The police checked records of newborns in hospitals in Perumbavoor, Kalady, Muvattupuzha and Aluva, but to no avail. The officers then visited factories and camps of migrant workers in these areas, enquiring whether any of them knew about a baby being born to any couple. We learnt that a couple employed at a plywood factory in Methala recently had a child. However, none had seen them after October 8. We collected the address of Makshidul in Assam and sent a team. He was nabbed with the aid of Assam police. He confessed. Later, Mushida, the mother, was also taken into custody, said the officer. The police brought the duo to Perumbavoor on Friday night. They are being interrogated. The officer said Makshidul and Mushida had been married to different people. They fell in love, and eloped from Assam and reached Kerala around three years ago. They worked at various places before shifting to Methala last year. While here, Mushida became pregnant, said the officer. The couple would fight frequently over the unborn child. They mostly argued about looking after the child, its gender and financial constraints, said the officer. Mushida gave birth at her house in the last week of September. The police suspect the delivery was performed at the house with the plan to kill the child. Makshidul was also concerned about its gender and the duo agreed to kill it, said the police. They strangled the child on the night of October 8. They put the body in a carry bag and reached the canal area in an autorickshaw. After abandoning the body, they left for Assam the next day, said the officer. The police said the duo was living in Makshiduls village. Perumbavoor SHO Renjith R said the investigation is almost over. Ernakulam Rural Police chief Vivek Kumar supervised the investigation. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp KOCHI: Concerns about the babys gender and the expenses associated with its upbringing prompted two Assam natives to strangle their 10-day-old girl child and abandon its body in a canal in Kochi, the Perumbavoor police have found. A police team from Perumbavoor arrested the duo Makshidul Islam, 31, of Nagaon and Mushida Kathur, 31, of Morigaon from Assam, where they had gone into hiding after the crime. The officers said the duo worked in a plywood factory in Ernakulam and had been in a live-in relationship. The police had launched a probe after the newborns body was found inside a bag discarded near a canal in Mudikkal, Perumbavoor, on October 8.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The lack of solid leads had left the probe team stumped initially. Our lone lead was the assessment that the child was born to a migrant worker. CCTV camera footage from the area did not yield any clue, said an officer. The police checked records of newborns in hospitals in Perumbavoor, Kalady, Muvattupuzha and Aluva, but to no avail. The officers then visited factories and camps of migrant workers in these areas, enquiring whether any of them knew about a baby being born to any couple. We learnt that a couple employed at a plywood factory in Methala recently had a child. However, none had seen them after October 8. We collected the address of Makshidul in Assam and sent a team. He was nabbed with the aid of Assam police. He confessed. Later, Mushida, the mother, was also taken into custody, said the officer. The police brought the duo to Perumbavoor on Friday night. They are being interrogated. The officer said Makshidul and Mushida had been married to different people. They fell in love, and eloped from Assam and reached Kerala around three years ago. They worked at various places before shifting to Methala last year. While here, Mushida became pregnant, said the officer. The couple would fight frequently over the unborn child. They mostly argued about looking after the child, its gender and financial constraints, said the officer. Mushida gave birth at her house in the last week of September. The police suspect the delivery was performed at the house with the plan to kill the child. Makshidul was also concerned about its gender and the duo agreed to kill it, said the police. They strangled the child on the night of October 8. They put the body in a carry bag and reached the canal area in an autorickshaw. After abandoning the body, they left for Assam the next day, said the officer. The police said the duo was living in Makshiduls village. Perumbavoor SHO Renjith R said the investigation is almost over. Ernakulam Rural Police chief Vivek Kumar supervised the investigation. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp Ramashankar By Express News Service PATNA: Armed with empirical data on the population of all castes and sub-castes in the state as well as their economic status, the Bihar Assembly recently opened the Mandal 2.0 door by approving a bill to raise the quota ceiling from the Supreme Court-mandated 50 per cent to 65 per cent. The overall size of the reservation basket in the state will now be 75 per cent as 10 per cent is to be allocated to the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) of society. The Mandal 2.0 exercise began peacefully as there was complete unanimity in the Assembly in approving the bill. The only voice of dissonance came from Hindustani Awam Morcha founder Jitan Ram Manjhi, who questioned the caste survey's outcome on the floor of the House, thus appearing to align with Union Home Minister Amit Shah who recently alleged that the data was cooked up to inflate the numbers of Yadavs and Muslims while suppressing the headcount of the Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs). In an uncharacteristic outburst, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar screamed at his one-time protege, admitting he made a stupid call by installing Manjhi as chief minister while stepping down from that post in 2014. "He keeps saying he too has been a chief minister. He became chief minister because of my stupidity. Does he have any sense (Ye bolta hai ki hum Mukhyamantri the. Meri moorkhta ki vajah see mukhyamantri bana. Isko koi sense hai)," Nitish fumed, despite his colleagues tugging at his kurta trying to calm him down. Manjhi, a prominent Dalit leader, is in the opposition camp now. Such intemperate language from a seasoned politician who dreams of occupying the highest chair in the land was rather surprising. Just the other day, he created a huge controversy by graphically describing copulation in the Assembly while explaining how the education of girls helped reduce fertility in the state. Mandal 2.0 resonated with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's pitch for Jitni abadi utna haq (rights proportional to population) as the amendment bill proposed to enhance OBC reservation to 18 per cent, EBCs to 25 per cent, SCs 20 per cent and STs 2 per cent. It's a big leap from the current quota for OBCs, which is 12 per cent, EBCs 18 per cent, SCs 16 per cent and STs less than 1 per cent. For context, the caste-wise composition of the Bihar Assembly at present is OBCs 33 per cent, EBCs 11 per cent, Muslims 7 per cent, SCs 15 per cent, STs less than 1 per cent and general category 24.58 per cent. ALSO READ | Caste census a revolutionary step, will conduct it if voted to power: Rahul When Rahul first made the proportional rights pitch, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had mocked him, asking if welfare benefits to Muslims should be restricted since they constitute just 17.7 per cent of the population in Bihar. The BJP has since nuanced its stand, realising that the Congress promise for caste census in all poll-bound states is possibly striking a chord. Shah recently said the BJP is not against caste census but does not want to rush into it without examining all its implications. No wonder then that the party voted with the ruling Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) to pass the amendment bill to raise the quota cap. The BJP keeps underlining that it was part of the delegation led by Nitish that met top BJP leaders at the Centre demanding caste census in Bihar when the former was with the NDA. The bill was yet another step towards identity politics and social justice, a brand of politics pursued by both Nitish and his fellow ideological traveller and RJD boss Lalu Prasad. It has also been passed by the Legislative Council. It now awaits Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar's assent. With the 2024 Lok Sabha election barely five months away, Nitish's latest gambit could enhance his stature within the Opposition's INDIA bloc. Whether or not he would be made INDIA's convener despite direct and indirect feelers from his Janata Dal (United) for an honourable position in the grouping remains to be seen. Nitish recently criticised the Congress publicly as INDIA has remained static since the grand old party is too tied up with state elections to look at the bigger picture. EXPLAINER | Googly caste survey to counter Hindutva consolidation Former Patna University teacher Prof Nawal Kishore Choudhary said the increase in the Bihar quota regime would put pressure on the BJP. The caste survey, he said, was conducted to revive Mandal politics to counter BJP's Kamandal politics. He expects the Mahagathbandhan government in Bihar to benefit from the hike in the quota pie. Nitish, he added, scored a tactical point by conducting the caste survey as even Marxist parties that traditionally harp on politics of classes have now started talking about castes. EBCs have highest population According to the caste data, the OBC and EBC population in Bihar is 27.13 per cent and 36.01 per cent, respectively. Their combined strength is 63 per cent of the state's total population, which is over 13.1 crore. At 14.26 per cent, Yadavs constitute the biggest caste chunk among the OBCs. The size of the Kushwaha caste is 4.21 per cent and that of Kurmis - the caste Nitish belongs to - is 2.8 per cent. Nitish said he was surprised at the Kurmi data; the popular sense before the survey was that it had much more numbers. As for the SCs, the caste data placed their population at 19.65 per cent and STs at 1.68 per cent. The population of the general category was 15.52 per cent. Among upper castes, the Brahmins had the highest headcount at 3.65 per cent. Rajputs followed with 3.45 per cent, Bhumihars 2.86 per cent and Kayasthas less than 1 per cent. 95.5 per cent do not own vehicles The survey threw up the surprising figure of 95.49 per cent of people (12.48 crore) in the state not owning any vehicle. That was one index of poverty in Bihar that is yet to shake off its Bimaru (sick) state tag. According to the report, the number of four-wheeler owners is 0.44 per cent of the total population, which works out to 5,72,146, while 3.8 per cent (49,62,000) have two-wheelers. On the other hand, 0.11 per cent (1,42,689) have three-wheelers while only 0.03 per cent (40,336) have vehicles with six or more wheels. A total of 11.99 lakh of the 2.01 crore people belonging to the general category own two-wheelers. 34.13 per cent earn less than 200 a day The survey found that 34.13 per cent of the total 2.76 crore families (nearly 94 lakh families) are economically poor and earn less than Rs 6,000 a month, which translates to Rs 200 a day. It includes 42.93 per cent SCs and 42.70 per cent STs. Given their acute poverty, the Nitish government plans to provide one-time assistance of Rs 2 lakh each to these 94 lakh families to take up some form of economically productive work. Besides, Rs 1 lakh families that do not have a roof over their heads would get support for the construction of houses. While the poverty data is an eye-opener, the Lalus and Nitishs cannot escape blame for the horrible state of affairs in the state. They have been at the helm of the government for decades. Such dismal numbers naturally question Nitish's claim of development in the state. As for the count of families earning between Rs 6,000 and Rs 10,000 per month, it is 29.61 per cent. It means the number of families in the state with an income of up to Rs 10,000 per month or Rs 334 a day is more than 63 per cent. Their total count is a whopping 82 lakh. Those earning above Rs 6,000 per month do not fall within the government's economically poor category. As many as 33.16 per cent of OBCs and 33.58 per cent of EBCs are poor. Even within the general category, 25.32 per cent of people are poor, most of whom are Bhumihars (25.3 per cent) followed by Brahmins (25.3 per cent), Rajputs (24.89 per cent) and Kayasthas (13.83 per cent). Among Muslims, 25.84 per cent of Sheikhs, 22.2 per cent of Pathans (Khan) and 17.61 per cent of Sayyids are poor. OPINION | Despite caste census, empowering EBCs not an easy task Employment The survey showed that 67 per cent of people 88.2 million are housewives and students. Only 1.57 per cent (2 million) have government jobs; 1.22 per cent (1.59 million) have private jobs in the organised sector; 2.14 per cent (2.79 million) work in the private unorganised sector; 3.05 per cent (3.9 million) are self-employed; 7.70 per cent (10.7 million) are farmers or agricultural help; and 16.73 per cent (21.8 million) are labourers. Unsurprisingly, 3.19 per cent of people in the general category are government employees, compared to 0.98 per cent of EBCs, 1.13 per cent of SCs and 1.37 per cent of STs. General category castes such as Bhumihars, Brahmins and Kayasthas have the highest share of government jobs. Housing Roughly 36.76 per cent of the state's population lives in two-room or bigger houses, but 26.54 per cent are housed in tin-roofed rooms, and another 14.09 per cent in hutments. A little more than half of all people in the general category live in two-room houses or bigger accommodations, compared to 24.26 per cent of SCs and 25.81 per cent of STs. Migration The survey revealed that 3.5 per cent of the state's population is working in other states. The break-up: general category 5.68 per cent, backward classes 3.30 per cent, EBCs 3.3 per cent, SCs 2.5 per cent and STs 2.84 per cent. A major chunk of people belonging to the general category live abroad or are in other states for studies. In all, 0.17 per cent of Biharis work abroad and 0.02 per cent are in educational institutions outside India. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp PATNA: Armed with empirical data on the population of all castes and sub-castes in the state as well as their economic status, the Bihar Assembly recently opened the Mandal 2.0 door by approving a bill to raise the quota ceiling from the Supreme Court-mandated 50 per cent to 65 per cent. The overall size of the reservation basket in the state will now be 75 per cent as 10 per cent is to be allocated to the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) of society. The Mandal 2.0 exercise began peacefully as there was complete unanimity in the Assembly in approving the bill. The only voice of dissonance came from Hindustani Awam Morcha founder Jitan Ram Manjhi, who questioned the caste survey's outcome on the floor of the House, thus appearing to align with Union Home Minister Amit Shah who recently alleged that the data was cooked up to inflate the numbers of Yadavs and Muslims while suppressing the headcount of the Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs). In an uncharacteristic outburst, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar screamed at his one-time protege, admitting he made a stupid call by installing Manjhi as chief minister while stepping down from that post in 2014.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); "He keeps saying he too has been a chief minister. He became chief minister because of my stupidity. Does he have any sense (Ye bolta hai ki hum Mukhyamantri the. Meri moorkhta ki vajah see mukhyamantri bana. Isko koi sense hai)," Nitish fumed, despite his colleagues tugging at his kurta trying to calm him down. Manjhi, a prominent Dalit leader, is in the opposition camp now. Such intemperate language from a seasoned politician who dreams of occupying the highest chair in the land was rather surprising. Just the other day, he created a huge controversy by graphically describing copulation in the Assembly while explaining how the education of girls helped reduce fertility in the state. Mandal 2.0 resonated with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's pitch for Jitni abadi utna haq (rights proportional to population) as the amendment bill proposed to enhance OBC reservation to 18 per cent, EBCs to 25 per cent, SCs 20 per cent and STs 2 per cent. It's a big leap from the current quota for OBCs, which is 12 per cent, EBCs 18 per cent, SCs 16 per cent and STs less than 1 per cent. For context, the caste-wise composition of the Bihar Assembly at present is OBCs 33 per cent, EBCs 11 per cent, Muslims 7 per cent, SCs 15 per cent, STs less than 1 per cent and general category 24.58 per cent. ALSO READ | Caste census a revolutionary step, will conduct it if voted to power: Rahul When Rahul first made the proportional rights pitch, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had mocked him, asking if welfare benefits to Muslims should be restricted since they constitute just 17.7 per cent of the population in Bihar. The BJP has since nuanced its stand, realising that the Congress promise for caste census in all poll-bound states is possibly striking a chord. Shah recently said the BJP is not against caste census but does not want to rush into it without examining all its implications. No wonder then that the party voted with the ruling Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) to pass the amendment bill to raise the quota cap. The BJP keeps underlining that it was part of the delegation led by Nitish that met top BJP leaders at the Centre demanding caste census in Bihar when the former was with the NDA. The bill was yet another step towards identity politics and social justice, a brand of politics pursued by both Nitish and his fellow ideological traveller and RJD boss Lalu Prasad. It has also been passed by the Legislative Council. It now awaits Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar's assent. With the 2024 Lok Sabha election barely five months away, Nitish's latest gambit could enhance his stature within the Opposition's INDIA bloc. Whether or not he would be made INDIA's convener despite direct and indirect feelers from his Janata Dal (United) for an honourable position in the grouping remains to be seen. Nitish recently criticised the Congress publicly as INDIA has remained static since the grand old party is too tied up with state elections to look at the bigger picture. EXPLAINER | Googly caste survey to counter Hindutva consolidation Former Patna University teacher Prof Nawal Kishore Choudhary said the increase in the Bihar quota regime would put pressure on the BJP. The caste survey, he said, was conducted to revive Mandal politics to counter BJP's Kamandal politics. He expects the Mahagathbandhan government in Bihar to benefit from the hike in the quota pie. Nitish, he added, scored a tactical point by conducting the caste survey as even Marxist parties that traditionally harp on politics of classes have now started talking about castes. EBCs have highest population According to the caste data, the OBC and EBC population in Bihar is 27.13 per cent and 36.01 per cent, respectively. Their combined strength is 63 per cent of the state's total population, which is over 13.1 crore. At 14.26 per cent, Yadavs constitute the biggest caste chunk among the OBCs. The size of the Kushwaha caste is 4.21 per cent and that of Kurmis - the caste Nitish belongs to - is 2.8 per cent. Nitish said he was surprised at the Kurmi data; the popular sense before the survey was that it had much more numbers. As for the SCs, the caste data placed their population at 19.65 per cent and STs at 1.68 per cent. The population of the general category was 15.52 per cent. Among upper castes, the Brahmins had the highest headcount at 3.65 per cent. Rajputs followed with 3.45 per cent, Bhumihars 2.86 per cent and Kayasthas less than 1 per cent. 95.5 per cent do not own vehicles The survey threw up the surprising figure of 95.49 per cent of people (12.48 crore) in the state not owning any vehicle. That was one index of poverty in Bihar that is yet to shake off its Bimaru (sick) state tag. According to the report, the number of four-wheeler owners is 0.44 per cent of the total population, which works out to 5,72,146, while 3.8 per cent (49,62,000) have two-wheelers. On the other hand, 0.11 per cent (1,42,689) have three-wheelers while only 0.03 per cent (40,336) have vehicles with six or more wheels. A total of 11.99 lakh of the 2.01 crore people belonging to the general category own two-wheelers. 34.13 per cent earn less than 200 a day The survey found that 34.13 per cent of the total 2.76 crore families (nearly 94 lakh families) are economically poor and earn less than Rs 6,000 a month, which translates to Rs 200 a day. It includes 42.93 per cent SCs and 42.70 per cent STs. Given their acute poverty, the Nitish government plans to provide one-time assistance of Rs 2 lakh each to these 94 lakh families to take up some form of economically productive work. Besides, Rs 1 lakh families that do not have a roof over their heads would get support for the construction of houses. While the poverty data is an eye-opener, the Lalus and Nitishs cannot escape blame for the horrible state of affairs in the state. They have been at the helm of the government for decades. Such dismal numbers naturally question Nitish's claim of development in the state. As for the count of families earning between Rs 6,000 and Rs 10,000 per month, it is 29.61 per cent. It means the number of families in the state with an income of up to Rs 10,000 per month or Rs 334 a day is more than 63 per cent. Their total count is a whopping 82 lakh. Those earning above Rs 6,000 per month do not fall within the government's economically poor category. As many as 33.16 per cent of OBCs and 33.58 per cent of EBCs are poor. Even within the general category, 25.32 per cent of people are poor, most of whom are Bhumihars (25.3 per cent) followed by Brahmins (25.3 per cent), Rajputs (24.89 per cent) and Kayasthas (13.83 per cent). Among Muslims, 25.84 per cent of Sheikhs, 22.2 per cent of Pathans (Khan) and 17.61 per cent of Sayyids are poor. OPINION | Despite caste census, empowering EBCs not an easy task Employment The survey showed that 67 per cent of people 88.2 million are housewives and students. Only 1.57 per cent (2 million) have government jobs; 1.22 per cent (1.59 million) have private jobs in the organised sector; 2.14 per cent (2.79 million) work in the private unorganised sector; 3.05 per cent (3.9 million) are self-employed; 7.70 per cent (10.7 million) are farmers or agricultural help; and 16.73 per cent (21.8 million) are labourers. Unsurprisingly, 3.19 per cent of people in the general category are government employees, compared to 0.98 per cent of EBCs, 1.13 per cent of SCs and 1.37 per cent of STs. General category castes such as Bhumihars, Brahmins and Kayasthas have the highest share of government jobs. Housing Roughly 36.76 per cent of the state's population lives in two-room or bigger houses, but 26.54 per cent are housed in tin-roofed rooms, and another 14.09 per cent in hutments. A little more than half of all people in the general category live in two-room houses or bigger accommodations, compared to 24.26 per cent of SCs and 25.81 per cent of STs. Migration The survey revealed that 3.5 per cent of the state's population is working in other states. The break-up: general category 5.68 per cent, backward classes 3.30 per cent, EBCs 3.3 per cent, SCs 2.5 per cent and STs 2.84 per cent. A major chunk of people belonging to the general category live abroad or are in other states for studies. In all, 0.17 per cent of Biharis work abroad and 0.02 per cent are in educational institutions outside India. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp Jeyalakshmi Ramanujam By Express News Service MADURAI: The Supreme Court bench recently said the courts earlier orders restricting the manufacture and sale of barium and joint crackers to curb air and noise pollution were applicable across the country and not just to Delhi-NCR. While hearing a plea seeking directions to the Rajasthan government to ban barium crackers during festivals, justices A S Bopanna and M M Sundresh observed that polluting the environment with such celebrations amounted to selfishness. On September 22, the court had rejected petitions by firecracker units seeking permission for the manufacture and sale of firecrackers containing barium and joined fireworks as per new standards. "It is a wrong perception that it is the duty of the court when it comes to pollution and environmental protection. People have to come forward. It is for everyone to manage air and sound pollution," the bench said. Coming as it did days ahead of Deepavali, its advisory was a wake-up call to all stakeholders. The ban Except for green crackers, the Supreme Court had banned all other fireworks in October 2018, the ramifications of which were felt by manufacturers and lakhs of workers at Sivakasi in Virudhunagar, a small town in Tamil Nadu, and other hubs elsewhere in the country. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) told the Supreme Court that two ingredients in firecrackers, barium nitrate and aluminium powder, were major pollutants. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) submitted that garland crackers are a major causative agent of noise pollution and litter. However, the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO), the nodal agency granting licenses to cracker units, filed an affidavit favouring cracker manufacturers. The CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (CSIR-NEERI) suggested zeolite as an additive to reduce emissions by 30-35 per cent. As part of their concerted effort to cushion the industry from the adverse effects of the verdict, the CSIR-NEERI on August 22, 2018, inaugurated the Green Fireworks Testing Laboratory at AAA College in Sivakasi. The lab helped manufacturers test their products and get certification from CSIR-NEERIs head office in Nagpur. Currently, more than 900 manufacturers have CSIR-NEERI certification. The Barium Problem Barium compounds are used as oxidisers as they produce green flames Barium nitrate is a noxious chemical that is responsible for cardiotoxic and bronchoconstrictor effects Barium sulphate and barium carbonate, two naturally occurring barium compounds, are insoluble and do not affect human health But barium compounds produced as a byproduct of fireworks combustion like barium oxide and barium hydroxide are soluble and easily absorbed by the body Workers exposed to dust containing barium could experience severe baritosis and bronchial irritation over time Rapid hypokalemia caused by barium poisoning results in cardiac dysrhythmias, weakened muscles, and respiratory failu re Green crackers CSIR-NEERI chief scientist Sadhana Rayalu describes green crackers as those that reduce emissions. They have a typical pyrotechnic composition comprising the fuel, oxidiser and an optional binder to give structural integrity for special light and sound effects. Green crackers are environmentally benign by design with characteristic features for reduced environmental footprint. The term gained formal recognition in October 2018 subsequent to the Supreme Court order, adds Rayalu, who is also the coordinator for fireworks activities across the nation. The facilitator CSIR-NEERI tests firecracker manufacturers trial samples to ensure that emissions are as per guidelines. Green firecrackers have a smaller shell size, eliminate ash usage, reduce the use of raw materials in the composition, are of uniform acceptable quality, use additives such as dust suppressants to reduce emissions with specific reference to particulate matter (PM), SO2 and NO2. So far, CSIR-NEERI has tested nearly 4,000 firecracker samples from across the country. The possible alternatives for barium salt are potassium and strontium nitrate. Transition procedure To transition to green crackers, manufacturers first need to register by signing a non-disclosure agreement with the CSIR-NEERI. Manufacturers are then given proprietary formulas developed by CSIR-NEERI for producing various varieties of crackers. They need to strictly follow them and submit samples of their products to the CSIR-NEERI for testing. If the samples are in line with CSIR-NEERI's specifications, they get a certification. Then, the manufacturers approach the PESO for final approval. The government and the CSIR-NEERI jointly set up a testing centre in Virudhunagar four years ago to help manufacturers easily get their samples processed. Tamil Nadu Fireworks and Amorces Manufacturers Association (TANFAMA) president P Ganesan says firecracker sales dived after the Supreme Court verdict in 2018. "Green crackers have lesser emissions. TANFAMA members have stopped producing barium products like garland crackers (saravedi in Tamil or lari in Hindi). At present, we use potassium nitrate, calcium nitrate and sodium nitrate for manufacturing green crackers. Following the Supreme Court order, TANFAMA members make green firecrackers alone," he says. State Fire and Industrial Safety Committee member and Indian Fireworks Manufacturers Association (TIFMA) general secretary K Kannan concurs. He says nearly 95 per cent of TIFMA members have had their crackers tested at CSIR-NEERI and received certification from PESO. A PESO-Nagpur license is mandatory for units that handle more than 150 kg of chemicals a day, while the PESO-Chennai license is sufficient for units handling chemicals in the range of 15-150 kg a day. There isn't a satisfactory substitute for barium for manufacturing garland crackers and flower pots. Using strontium nitrate, a few manufacturers do produce flower pots, sparklers and other crackers. But, they are not of high quality. Besides, they are stable only for three months, Kannan adds. Oversight failure So, are Indian firecrackers largely green? Far from it. Small cracker manufacturer associations president G Vinayagamoorthi says 70 per cent of the firecracker units are blatantly manufacturing garland crackers and other unapproved varieties of fireworks despite the barium ban. Oversight authorities collecting bribes during inspections and letting them continue with barium is the main cause for violation of the court's order, he adds. For example, about 280 cracker units function in Tamil Nadu's Virudhunagar district with a District Revenue Officer's (DRO) license. The DRO license is issued to units that handle up to 15 kg of chemicals a day. Many of these small units are leased or subleased. Whether or not the actual manufacturer has a license is uncertain. That is one of the reasons why accidents occur in such units. Officials turn a blind eye to this, Vinayagamoorthi informs. TIFMA general secretary Kannan says most accidents occur in DRO-licensed firecracker units that do not adhere to rules. "Use of banned chemicals and accommodating more workers in one room beyond the prescribed capacity are the other causes for accidents. Compared to other districts, Sivakasi manufacturers with PESO licenses strictly adhere to norms. Other districts use banned chemicals like potassium chlorate and silver fulminate, which are risky chemicals. This is the major cause for recent accidents at trading centres. It must be monitored and prevented, he adds. As per the Explosive Rules, licensees are responsible for the entire unit. If a licensee wants to lease out his cracker unit, he/she must get a 'no-objection' certificate from district authorities. This, however, is hardly followed and most contractual units operate illegally. All firecracker manufacturers must be brought under PESO in order to prevent accidents and make the industry safe, suggests Kannan. Fake stamping Activist S Veera Perumal alleges that all firecracker units in Virudhunagar simply label their product as green crackers. The inspection team just reads the labels and clears them. Proper inspection must be done to identify the ingredients before certification to eliminate fly-by-night operators, he suggests. In sum, can we expect less smoke this Deepavali? That might be hoping for too much as the proliferation of barium crackers remains unchecked. Unless there is stringent testing at the small units that are out of the PESO ambit, the problem will not go away. Weaning small manufacturers away from barium while protecting livelihoods and saving lives is the only way forward. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp MADURAI: The Supreme Court bench recently said the courts earlier orders restricting the manufacture and sale of barium and joint crackers to curb air and noise pollution were applicable across the country and not just to Delhi-NCR. While hearing a plea seeking directions to the Rajasthan government to ban barium crackers during festivals, justices A S Bopanna and M M Sundresh observed that polluting the environment with such celebrations amounted to selfishness. On September 22, the court had rejected petitions by firecracker units seeking permission for the manufacture and sale of firecrackers containing barium and joined fireworks as per new standards. "It is a wrong perception that it is the duty of the court when it comes to pollution and environmental protection. People have to come forward. It is for everyone to manage air and sound pollution," the bench said. Coming as it did days ahead of Deepavali, its advisory was a wake-up call to all stakeholders. The bangoogletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Except for green crackers, the Supreme Court had banned all other fireworks in October 2018, the ramifications of which were felt by manufacturers and lakhs of workers at Sivakasi in Virudhunagar, a small town in Tamil Nadu, and other hubs elsewhere in the country. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) told the Supreme Court that two ingredients in firecrackers, barium nitrate and aluminium powder, were major pollutants. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) submitted that garland crackers are a major causative agent of noise pollution and litter. However, the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO), the nodal agency granting licenses to cracker units, filed an affidavit favouring cracker manufacturers. The CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (CSIR-NEERI) suggested zeolite as an additive to reduce emissions by 30-35 per cent. As part of their concerted effort to cushion the industry from the adverse effects of the verdict, the CSIR-NEERI on August 22, 2018, inaugurated the Green Fireworks Testing Laboratory at AAA College in Sivakasi. The lab helped manufacturers test their products and get certification from CSIR-NEERIs head office in Nagpur. Currently, more than 900 manufacturers have CSIR-NEERI certification. The Barium Problem Barium compounds are used as oxidisers as they produce green flames Barium nitrate is a noxious chemical that is responsible for cardiotoxic and bronchoconstrictor effects Barium sulphate and barium carbonate, two naturally occurring barium compounds, are insoluble and do not affect human health But barium compounds produced as a byproduct of fireworks combustion like barium oxide and barium hydroxide are soluble and easily absorbed by the body Workers exposed to dust containing barium could experience severe baritosis and bronchial irritation over time Rapid hypokalemia caused by barium poisoning results in cardiac dysrhythmias, weakened muscles, and respiratory failu re Green crackers CSIR-NEERI chief scientist Sadhana Rayalu describes green crackers as those that reduce emissions. They have a typical pyrotechnic composition comprising the fuel, oxidiser and an optional binder to give structural integrity for special light and sound effects. Green crackers are environmentally benign by design with characteristic features for reduced environmental footprint. The term gained formal recognition in October 2018 subsequent to the Supreme Court order, adds Rayalu, who is also the coordinator for fireworks activities across the nation. The facilitator CSIR-NEERI tests firecracker manufacturers trial samples to ensure that emissions are as per guidelines. Green firecrackers have a smaller shell size, eliminate ash usage, reduce the use of raw materials in the composition, are of uniform acceptable quality, use additives such as dust suppressants to reduce emissions with specific reference to particulate matter (PM), SO2 and NO2. So far, CSIR-NEERI has tested nearly 4,000 firecracker samples from across the country. The possible alternatives for barium salt are potassium and strontium nitrate. Transition procedure To transition to green crackers, manufacturers first need to register by signing a non-disclosure agreement with the CSIR-NEERI. Manufacturers are then given proprietary formulas developed by CSIR-NEERI for producing various varieties of crackers. They need to strictly follow them and submit samples of their products to the CSIR-NEERI for testing. If the samples are in line with CSIR-NEERI's specifications, they get a certification. Then, the manufacturers approach the PESO for final approval. The government and the CSIR-NEERI jointly set up a testing centre in Virudhunagar four years ago to help manufacturers easily get their samples processed. Tamil Nadu Fireworks and Amorces Manufacturers Association (TANFAMA) president P Ganesan says firecracker sales dived after the Supreme Court verdict in 2018. "Green crackers have lesser emissions. TANFAMA members have stopped producing barium products like garland crackers (saravedi in Tamil or lari in Hindi). At present, we use potassium nitrate, calcium nitrate and sodium nitrate for manufacturing green crackers. Following the Supreme Court order, TANFAMA members make green firecrackers alone," he says. State Fire and Industrial Safety Committee member and Indian Fireworks Manufacturers Association (TIFMA) general secretary K Kannan concurs. He says nearly 95 per cent of TIFMA members have had their crackers tested at CSIR-NEERI and received certification from PESO. A PESO-Nagpur license is mandatory for units that handle more than 150 kg of chemicals a day, while the PESO-Chennai license is sufficient for units handling chemicals in the range of 15-150 kg a day. There isn't a satisfactory substitute for barium for manufacturing garland crackers and flower pots. Using strontium nitrate, a few manufacturers do produce flower pots, sparklers and other crackers. But, they are not of high quality. Besides, they are stable only for three months, Kannan adds. Oversight failure So, are Indian firecrackers largely green? Far from it. Small cracker manufacturer associations president G Vinayagamoorthi says 70 per cent of the firecracker units are blatantly manufacturing garland crackers and other unapproved varieties of fireworks despite the barium ban. Oversight authorities collecting bribes during inspections and letting them continue with barium is the main cause for violation of the court's order, he adds. For example, about 280 cracker units function in Tamil Nadu's Virudhunagar district with a District Revenue Officer's (DRO) license. The DRO license is issued to units that handle up to 15 kg of chemicals a day. Many of these small units are leased or subleased. Whether or not the actual manufacturer has a license is uncertain. That is one of the reasons why accidents occur in such units. Officials turn a blind eye to this, Vinayagamoorthi informs. TIFMA general secretary Kannan says most accidents occur in DRO-licensed firecracker units that do not adhere to rules. "Use of banned chemicals and accommodating more workers in one room beyond the prescribed capacity are the other causes for accidents. Compared to other districts, Sivakasi manufacturers with PESO licenses strictly adhere to norms. Other districts use banned chemicals like potassium chlorate and silver fulminate, which are risky chemicals. This is the major cause for recent accidents at trading centres. It must be monitored and prevented, he adds. As per the Explosive Rules, licensees are responsible for the entire unit. If a licensee wants to lease out his cracker unit, he/she must get a 'no-objection' certificate from district authorities. This, however, is hardly followed and most contractual units operate illegally. All firecracker manufacturers must be brought under PESO in order to prevent accidents and make the industry safe, suggests Kannan. Fake stamping Activist S Veera Perumal alleges that all firecracker units in Virudhunagar simply label their product as green crackers. The inspection team just reads the labels and clears them. Proper inspection must be done to identify the ingredients before certification to eliminate fly-by-night operators, he suggests. In sum, can we expect less smoke this Deepavali? That might be hoping for too much as the proliferation of barium crackers remains unchecked. Unless there is stringent testing at the small units that are out of the PESO ambit, the problem will not go away. Weaning small manufacturers away from barium while protecting livelihoods and saving lives is the only way forward. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp Usha Peri By Express News Service VISAKHAPATNAM: Padmavathi, who hails from Visakhapatnam, is on a mission to promote health, happiness and peace worldwide through yoga, meditation and Kuchipudi. Emphasising the significance of individual well-being over wealth, the 42-year-old believes that the lack of both physical and mental health is akin to living in a state of turmoil on earth. Now, residing in the UK, Padmavathi was recently honoured with the She Inspires Women Award 2023 in the Bright Artist category at Westminster Parliament House in London. This recognition acknowledges her contribution to the society through her academy, PYDA: The Pyramid Yoga Dance Academy. Padmavathi, a masters graduate in Kuchipudi dance and a yoga diploma holder from Andhra University, embarked on a journey to spread the essence of Kuchipudi and yoga globally. After conducting numerous dance classes and yoga camps in India, Padmavathi and her family established PYDA in Vietnam in 2010. Since then, she has trained over 400 students, emphasising the positive impact of yoga and Kuchipudi on individuals and promoting traditional Indian culture abroad. Through PYDA, she advocates not only for physical well-being but also for the enrichment of ones life through the learning of the art form. She believes that art, beyond its creative aspects, imparts valuable lessons in expression, body language and more. PYDAs influence extends across various countries, including the UK, Vietnam, Malaysia, Dubai, Cambodia and Indonesia. For the past three years, Padmavathi has been teaching Kuchipudi dance in and around Manchester, with a particular focus on engaging local professionals. The academy celebrates its anniversary, marked by events like the Autumn Cultural Festival held on October 15 every year. The festival witnesses a significant turnout, with a diverse group of people participating in Kuchipudi dance performances. Highlighting the unique composition of her student body, she said, Now, I am teaching Kuchipudi to 35 students, including a group of 12 doctors. They are pursuing Kuchipudi either out of a childhood passion for the art form or as a means of achieving a balance in their lives amidst professional and family responsibilities. Mentioning the initial challenges in establishing PYDA in the UK, she said, When I started the academy three years ago in the UK, there was not much response from the public, but it is gradually becoming popular. Padmavathi, recognised for her dedication to Indian semi-classical dance forms, holds a Limca Book of Records for her remarkable feat of continuous dance performance for 24 hours. Under her leadership, PYDA collaborated with the Malaysia Telugu Meditation Centre in 2018 to organise a grand dance festival featuring 108 dancers. The event showcased diverse dance forms, including Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, Kathak, Manipuri and more.Sharing her perspective, Padmavathi said, The ultimate goal for everyone is to be happy, healthy and lead a contented life, and that is precisely what I am working towards now, along with the mission of spreading the art of Kuchipudi and our Indian culture. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp VISAKHAPATNAM: Padmavathi, who hails from Visakhapatnam, is on a mission to promote health, happiness and peace worldwide through yoga, meditation and Kuchipudi. Emphasising the significance of individual well-being over wealth, the 42-year-old believes that the lack of both physical and mental health is akin to living in a state of turmoil on earth. Now, residing in the UK, Padmavathi was recently honoured with the She Inspires Women Award 2023 in the Bright Artist category at Westminster Parliament House in London. This recognition acknowledges her contribution to the society through her academy, PYDA: The Pyramid Yoga Dance Academy. Padmavathi, a masters graduate in Kuchipudi dance and a yoga diploma holder from Andhra University, embarked on a journey to spread the essence of Kuchipudi and yoga globally. After conducting numerous dance classes and yoga camps in India, Padmavathi and her family established PYDA in Vietnam in 2010.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Since then, she has trained over 400 students, emphasising the positive impact of yoga and Kuchipudi on individuals and promoting traditional Indian culture abroad. Through PYDA, she advocates not only for physical well-being but also for the enrichment of ones life through the learning of the art form. She believes that art, beyond its creative aspects, imparts valuable lessons in expression, body language and more. PYDAs influence extends across various countries, including the UK, Vietnam, Malaysia, Dubai, Cambodia and Indonesia. For the past three years, Padmavathi has been teaching Kuchipudi dance in and around Manchester, with a particular focus on engaging local professionals. The academy celebrates its anniversary, marked by events like the Autumn Cultural Festival held on October 15 every year. The festival witnesses a significant turnout, with a diverse group of people participating in Kuchipudi dance performances. Highlighting the unique composition of her student body, she said, Now, I am teaching Kuchipudi to 35 students, including a group of 12 doctors. They are pursuing Kuchipudi either out of a childhood passion for the art form or as a means of achieving a balance in their lives amidst professional and family responsibilities. Mentioning the initial challenges in establishing PYDA in the UK, she said, When I started the academy three years ago in the UK, there was not much response from the public, but it is gradually becoming popular. Padmavathi, recognised for her dedication to Indian semi-classical dance forms, holds a Limca Book of Records for her remarkable feat of continuous dance performance for 24 hours. Under her leadership, PYDA collaborated with the Malaysia Telugu Meditation Centre in 2018 to organise a grand dance festival featuring 108 dancers. The event showcased diverse dance forms, including Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, Kathak, Manipuri and more.Sharing her perspective, Padmavathi said, The ultimate goal for everyone is to be happy, healthy and lead a contented life, and that is precisely what I am working towards now, along with the mission of spreading the art of Kuchipudi and our Indian culture. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp By PTI AGRA: A woman working in a homestay here has allegedly been gang-raped and five persons, including a woman, have been arrested for it, police said on Sunday. The victim, who is around 25 years of age, said that an objectionable video of her was made earlier and she was blackmailed over it, they said. The woman was also forced to drink alcohol and a glass bottle was broken on her head, they said. Police said a purported video of the woman crying for help has also surfaced. Apart from rape charges, attempt to murder charges have also been slapped against the accused, police said. Police said they received a call from the victim late Saturday night, following which they rushed to the homestay and took action against the accused. The incident happened on Saturday night at a homestay, said Archana Singh, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Sadar. "Four men and a woman have been arrested after the incident. The medical examination of the victim will be done and legal action is being taken in the case," the ACP said. The homestay which is a rented property has been sealed, she said. "We got a call at around midnight on Saturday from the victim who was crying for help. We rushed to the homestay and took action against the accused. The victim's age is about 25 years old and she works at the homestay," in-charge of Basai police post, Mohit Sharma told PTI. "She narrated the whole incident to us about being raped, and said she was beaten by the accused. They had also broken a glass bottle on her head. She was also forced to drink alcohol," he said. "She also informed that the accused had made an objectionable video of her in the past, based on which they were blackmailing her," Sharma said. He further added that all are residents of Agra. A 25-year-old woman is also among those arrested in connection to the case. "A case under IPC sections 376 (rape), 307 (attempt to murder), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), among other relevant sections, and sections 7 and 8 of The Immoral Traffic Prevention Act has been lodged," he said. Further legal action is being taken against the arrested accused, he added. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp AGRA: A woman working in a homestay here has allegedly been gang-raped and five persons, including a woman, have been arrested for it, police said on Sunday. The victim, who is around 25 years of age, said that an objectionable video of her was made earlier and she was blackmailed over it, they said. The woman was also forced to drink alcohol and a glass bottle was broken on her head, they said.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Police said a purported video of the woman crying for help has also surfaced. Apart from rape charges, attempt to murder charges have also been slapped against the accused, police said. Police said they received a call from the victim late Saturday night, following which they rushed to the homestay and took action against the accused. The incident happened on Saturday night at a homestay, said Archana Singh, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Sadar. "Four men and a woman have been arrested after the incident. The medical examination of the victim will be done and legal action is being taken in the case," the ACP said. The homestay which is a rented property has been sealed, she said. "We got a call at around midnight on Saturday from the victim who was crying for help. We rushed to the homestay and took action against the accused. The victim's age is about 25 years old and she works at the homestay," in-charge of Basai police post, Mohit Sharma told PTI. "She narrated the whole incident to us about being raped, and said she was beaten by the accused. They had also broken a glass bottle on her head. She was also forced to drink alcohol," he said. "She also informed that the accused had made an objectionable video of her in the past, based on which they were blackmailing her," Sharma said. He further added that all are residents of Agra. A 25-year-old woman is also among those arrested in connection to the case. "A case under IPC sections 376 (rape), 307 (attempt to murder), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), among other relevant sections, and sections 7 and 8 of The Immoral Traffic Prevention Act has been lodged," he said. Further legal action is being taken against the arrested accused, he added. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp The former head of the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Linas Linkevicius, has criticized Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for his humiliating comments about our country. He stated that it is Hungary who is moving away from the EU by light years, not Ukraine. ADVERTISIMENT Linkevicius wrote about this on his account on X, formerly known as Twitter. He emphasized that while Orban criticizes Ukraine, Hungary itself has seriously drifted away from the European Union. "According to Orban, Ukraine is light years away from EU membership. Perhaps it seems so because he sees Ukraine, which is undoubtedly together with the EU, from his own country, which itself is light years away from it," Linkevicius said. As a reminder, the administration of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is called a friend of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, has once again spoken negatively about Ukraine's potential membership in the European Union. They said that our country allegedly failed to fulfill the requirements, so the EU should offer Kyiv a "privileged partnership" instead of membership. ADVERTISIMENT European Union diplomats express dissatisfaction with Hungary's position, which is constantly changing its demands for military assistance to Ukraine in its fight against Russia and for the country's membership. Budapest's position was called a "Russian nesting doll". As reported by OBOZ.UA, Hungary threatens to veto a record-breaking 50 billion EU aid package to Ukraine. However, the EU already has a "plan B" for such a case. Representatives of the union assure that our country will receive funding even if Viktor Orban's government implements its threats. Only verified information is available on the OBOZ.UA Telegram and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! By PTI VADODARA: A man arrested for allegedly posing as an official from the Gujarat chief minister's office (CMO) and also raping a model escaped from police custody by dodging a cop at a court premises in Vadodara, police said on Sunday. The accused conman, Viraj Patel, was arrested in April on charges of cheating, forgery, rape and pretending to hold a particular office as public servant. He was lodged at the Vadodara Central Jail as an undertrial. He had also posed as president of the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City), police earlier said. Patel was taken to the court of additional sessions judge MN Saiyad on Friday for a hearing. He managed to escape after dodging a head constable who was given the charge of his custody, an official from Gotri police station said quoting an FIR registered on Friday night. The fresh FIR was lodged against Patel under Indian Penal code Section 224 (for resistance or obstruction by a person to his lawful apprehension) and efforts were underway to nab him, the official said. Patel was arrested in April after being brought to a police station following a quarrel with some person at a multiplex in the city. His girlfriend was accompanying him. He had told the police that he worked as an official in the CMO. When police checked his identity, it was found that he used a different surname on his PAN card, while there was no surname mentioned on his Aadhaar card. During interrogation, Patel revealed he was neither working in the CMO nor was he president of the GIFT City, the police earlier said. After his real identity came to light, the model from Mumbai accompanying him claimed he had raped her under the pretext of giving her a job as the brand ambassador of GIFT City and promised to marry her, they said. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp VADODARA: A man arrested for allegedly posing as an official from the Gujarat chief minister's office (CMO) and also raping a model escaped from police custody by dodging a cop at a court premises in Vadodara, police said on Sunday. The accused conman, Viraj Patel, was arrested in April on charges of cheating, forgery, rape and pretending to hold a particular office as public servant. He was lodged at the Vadodara Central Jail as an undertrial.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); He had also posed as president of the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City), police earlier said. Patel was taken to the court of additional sessions judge MN Saiyad on Friday for a hearing. He managed to escape after dodging a head constable who was given the charge of his custody, an official from Gotri police station said quoting an FIR registered on Friday night. The fresh FIR was lodged against Patel under Indian Penal code Section 224 (for resistance or obstruction by a person to his lawful apprehension) and efforts were underway to nab him, the official said. Patel was arrested in April after being brought to a police station following a quarrel with some person at a multiplex in the city. His girlfriend was accompanying him. He had told the police that he worked as an official in the CMO. When police checked his identity, it was found that he used a different surname on his PAN card, while there was no surname mentioned on his Aadhaar card. During interrogation, Patel revealed he was neither working in the CMO nor was he president of the GIFT City, the police earlier said. After his real identity came to light, the model from Mumbai accompanying him claimed he had raped her under the pretext of giving her a job as the brand ambassador of GIFT City and promised to marry her, they said. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp Gurbir Singh By India hasnt earned much international praise for its abstention diplomacy. It sat out on most UN resolutions to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, and now it is in sixes and sevens over balancing its stand on the Gaza war. For a country that pioneered the non-aligned movement (NAM) under Jawaharlal Nehru, Indias leadership position is now seriously dented because of its dithering foreign policy. Soon after the Hamas attack on 7 October, Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X that he was deeply shocked, adding, We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour. The statement was reiterated in a phone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The PMs tweet was seen widely as a signal of its realignment with the US and its allies, and a debunking of its traditional support for Palestine. A scramble followed for a calibrated balancing on 13 October. 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, spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said in support of the two-nation formula. ALSO READ | Understanding the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in five charts Abstention politics But then when it came to taking a hard stand, India abstained. On 27 October, Jordon moved a General Assembly resolution calling for a ceasefire of the relentless bombing of the Gaza Strip. It was overwhelmingly adopted by 121 votes. But India was among the 44 that abstained. In effect, it was an endorsement of the continuing slaughter of Palestinian civilians and children. Express illustrations | Sourav Roy The Gaza approach was a continuum of Indias Ukraine stance. Last year, after Russia attacked Ukraine, and the UN Security Council, in an emergency meeting, took up the Ukraine invasion on 26 February, India and China stood alone in abstaining from condemning Russia. The resolution was vetoed, and it moved to the United Nations General Assembly. Here too, while 141 countries condemned the invasion, India stood with 35 nations who abstained. ALSO READ | Israel-Hamas war: Six key moments for the Gaza Strip External Affairs minister S Jaishanker has in the past made a virtue of this non-comital stance. Four years ago he spoke of having many balls up in the air at the same time and displaying the confidence and dexterity to drop none. But today Indias foreign policy seems to be failed jugglery with all the balls on the floor. Look how far we have changed on Palestine. The Non-Aligned Movement that came into existence with a convention in 1961 of over 100 emerging nations, had a program of anti-colonialism, peaceful coexistence and upholding the sovereignty of the newly independent nations. Led by Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia and Pandit Nehru, India was at the forefront of the Palestine cause. Who better than a 2014 External Affairs ministry note that records Indias engagement with Palestine. ALSO READ | India is free to decide its stance on any particular crisis: White House In 1947, India voted against the partition of Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly. India was the first Non Arab State to recognize the PLO as the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people in 1974. India was one of the first countries to recognize the State of Palestine in 1988. In 1996, India opened its Representative Office to the Palestine Authority in Gaza, which later was shifted to Ramallah in 2003. Changing pull and push A few factors have dictated this change. Over the years, an equidistant policy with a pro-Soviet tilt has been replaced with closer ties with the US and its ally Israel. Israel has increasingly stepped in for emergency arms supply and is an important source of spy and security systems for India. There is a changing vocabulary for terrorism and India, with its own cross-border issues, is in sympathy with the US definitions. More importantly, the recent aggressive Hindu majoritarianism has triggered a natural pro-Israeli, and anti-Palestine tilt in foreign policy. In the geopolitical realignment, India a leader of the emerging bloc of post-colonial nations has been reduced at best to a regional satrap warding off a hostile China by walking the tightrope between Russia and the US. ALSO READ | India curbs pro-Palestinian protests, but Analysts say a pro-Israel shift helps at home As the Gaza war intensifies, one can see countries like South Africa and Brazil picking up the mantle of leading the South where India left off. South Africa has recalled all its diplomats from Tel Aviv. So have Bolivia, Columbia and 6 other African and Arab countries in an aggressive show of condemnation of the continued decimation of Gaza. Even as a regional leader, India which punched above its weight on the world stage, is facing rebuff from small nations. The new incoming president of the Maldives, Mohamed Muizzu, has asked the Indian government to withdraw its contingent of 70 soldiers from the small but strategic island nation. Sri Lanka has turned a blind eye to Indian warnings against allowing Chinese spy vessel Shi Yan 6 to dock in Colombo. Even little Bhutan has signed a new level of diplomatic and border ties with China that are detrimental to India. Foreign policy needs to be bold and clear so that it helps other nations reach a consensus for action. If we have shifted alliances, so be it and we vote for Israel. But a balancing act cannot go on forever. It is neither-here-nor-there, and earns no respect. ALSO READ | Gazas 'graveyard' for children: Why Palestinians must be included in the international refugee protection regime Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp India hasnt earned much international praise for its abstention diplomacy. It sat out on most UN resolutions to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, and now it is in sixes and sevens over balancing its stand on the Gaza war. For a country that pioneered the non-aligned movement (NAM) under Jawaharlal Nehru, Indias leadership position is now seriously dented because of its dithering foreign policy.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Soon after the Hamas attack on 7 October, Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X that he was deeply shocked, adding, We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour. The statement was reiterated in a phone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The PMs tweet was seen widely as a signal of its realignment with the US and its allies, and a debunking of its traditional support for Palestine. A scramble followed for a calibrated balancing on 13 October. 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, spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said in support of the two-nation formula. ALSO READ | Understanding the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in five charts Abstention politics But then when it came to taking a hard stand, India abstained. On 27 October, Jordon moved a General Assembly resolution calling for a ceasefire of the relentless bombing of the Gaza Strip. It was overwhelmingly adopted by 121 votes. But India was among the 44 that abstained. In effect, it was an endorsement of the continuing slaughter of Palestinian civilians and children. Express illustrations | Sourav RoyThe Gaza approach was a continuum of Indias Ukraine stance. Last year, after Russia attacked Ukraine, and the UN Security Council, in an emergency meeting, took up the Ukraine invasion on 26 February, India and China stood alone in abstaining from condemning Russia. The resolution was vetoed, and it moved to the United Nations General Assembly. Here too, while 141 countries condemned the invasion, India stood with 35 nations who abstained. ALSO READ | Israel-Hamas war: Six key moments for the Gaza Strip External Affairs minister S Jaishanker has in the past made a virtue of this non-comital stance. Four years ago he spoke of having many balls up in the air at the same time and displaying the confidence and dexterity to drop none. But today Indias foreign policy seems to be failed jugglery with all the balls on the floor. Look how far we have changed on Palestine. The Non-Aligned Movement that came into existence with a convention in 1961 of over 100 emerging nations, had a program of anti-colonialism, peaceful coexistence and upholding the sovereignty of the newly independent nations. Led by Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia and Pandit Nehru, India was at the forefront of the Palestine cause. Who better than a 2014 External Affairs ministry note that records Indias engagement with Palestine. ALSO READ | India is free to decide its stance on any particular crisis: White House In 1947, India voted against the partition of Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly. India was the first Non Arab State to recognize the PLO as the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people in 1974. India was one of the first countries to recognize the State of Palestine in 1988. In 1996, India opened its Representative Office to the Palestine Authority in Gaza, which later was shifted to Ramallah in 2003. Changing pull and push A few factors have dictated this change. Over the years, an equidistant policy with a pro-Soviet tilt has been replaced with closer ties with the US and its ally Israel. Israel has increasingly stepped in for emergency arms supply and is an important source of spy and security systems for India. There is a changing vocabulary for terrorism and India, with its own cross-border issues, is in sympathy with the US definitions. More importantly, the recent aggressive Hindu majoritarianism has triggered a natural pro-Israeli, and anti-Palestine tilt in foreign policy. In the geopolitical realignment, India a leader of the emerging bloc of post-colonial nations has been reduced at best to a regional satrap warding off a hostile China by walking the tightrope between Russia and the US. ALSO READ | India curbs pro-Palestinian protests, but Analysts say a pro-Israel shift helps at home As the Gaza war intensifies, one can see countries like South Africa and Brazil picking up the mantle of leading the South where India left off. South Africa has recalled all its diplomats from Tel Aviv. So have Bolivia, Columbia and 6 other African and Arab countries in an aggressive show of condemnation of the continued decimation of Gaza. Even as a regional leader, India which punched above its weight on the world stage, is facing rebuff from small nations. The new incoming president of the Maldives, Mohamed Muizzu, has asked the Indian government to withdraw its contingent of 70 soldiers from the small but strategic island nation. Sri Lanka has turned a blind eye to Indian warnings against allowing Chinese spy vessel Shi Yan 6 to dock in Colombo. Even little Bhutan has signed a new level of diplomatic and border ties with China that are detrimental to India. Foreign policy needs to be bold and clear so that it helps other nations reach a consensus for action. If we have shifted alliances, so be it and we vote for Israel. But a balancing act cannot go on forever. It is neither-here-nor-there, and earns no respect. ALSO READ | Gazas 'graveyard' for children: Why Palestinians must be included in the international refugee protection regime Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp By Express News Service KOZHIKODE: Regrettably, some people in the state are echoing the stance of Zionists and imperialists that those who are fighting for the rights of the Palestine people are terrorists, said Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Inaugurating the Palestine Solidarity Rally organised by the CPM in Kozhikode on Saturday, Pinarayi said former Palestine Liberation Organisation chief Yasser Arafat was the leader of the Palestinian freedom struggle on the lines of Gandhiji and Nehru for India. To the Western media and Zionists, he was a terrorist, he said. He said the Iranian fighters who defeated the US, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and Saddam Hussein who refused to bow down before America were terrorists for imperialists. We hear the anti-human Yankee stand from certain people here, he said. It may be recalled that Congress leader Shashi Tharoors remark at the IUML rally that the attack on Israel by Hamas was a terror act had sparked a controversy. BJP govt backing aggressor, says CM The CPM cited the statement as an example of Congresss pro-Israel approach. The CM said what is happening in West Asia is not a war between two countries. It is aggression from a group to completely wipe out another group. What the people of Palestine are doing is to resist the genocide, he said. The BJP government in the country is supporting the aggressor. It is not surprising that the BJP is taking such a stand. Israel is driven by a motive of genocide as happened in Germany under Hitler. The Sangh Parivar is led by a similar mindset. There is an unseen link of Nazism that acts as a bond between Israel and Sangh Parivar, he said. Pinarayi said the affection shown by Sangh Parivar should not be interpreted as the love of the people of India. India always stood for the people of Palestine, he said adding that BJPs approach should not be projected as the stand of the Indian government. Indirectly referring to the IUMLs unwillingness to attend the rally, Pinarayi said the party knew what would happen when the invitation was extended to them. We have no ill feeling towards them, he said. CPM faces flak from Shibu Baby John RSP state secretary Shibu Baby John criticised CPM for inviting only IUML to the Palestine solidarity rally, alleging that the move appeared to be an attempt to exploit the Palestine issue for communal purposes. In a Facebook post, Shibu compared CPM to vultures capitalising on disasters, contrasting it with the unity displayed by Left bodies in a similar meeting in New Delhi. His criticism came in response to CPMs decision to exclusively invite IUML to their solidarity event in Kozhikode. Shibu accused CPM of using the issue and the Muslim community for political gains while aiding BJPs agenda. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp KOZHIKODE: Regrettably, some people in the state are echoing the stance of Zionists and imperialists that those who are fighting for the rights of the Palestine people are terrorists, said Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Inaugurating the Palestine Solidarity Rally organised by the CPM in Kozhikode on Saturday, Pinarayi said former Palestine Liberation Organisation chief Yasser Arafat was the leader of the Palestinian freedom struggle on the lines of Gandhiji and Nehru for India. To the Western media and Zionists, he was a terrorist, he said. He said the Iranian fighters who defeated the US, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and Saddam Hussein who refused to bow down before America were terrorists for imperialists. We hear the anti-human Yankee stand from certain people here, he said. It may be recalled that Congress leader Shashi Tharoors remark at the IUML rally that the attack on Israel by Hamas was a terror act had sparked a controversy. googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); BJP govt backing aggressor, says CM The CPM cited the statement as an example of Congresss pro-Israel approach. The CM said what is happening in West Asia is not a war between two countries. It is aggression from a group to completely wipe out another group. What the people of Palestine are doing is to resist the genocide, he said. The BJP government in the country is supporting the aggressor. It is not surprising that the BJP is taking such a stand. Israel is driven by a motive of genocide as happened in Germany under Hitler. The Sangh Parivar is led by a similar mindset. There is an unseen link of Nazism that acts as a bond between Israel and Sangh Parivar, he said. Pinarayi said the affection shown by Sangh Parivar should not be interpreted as the love of the people of India. India always stood for the people of Palestine, he said adding that BJPs approach should not be projected as the stand of the Indian government. Indirectly referring to the IUMLs unwillingness to attend the rally, Pinarayi said the party knew what would happen when the invitation was extended to them. We have no ill feeling towards them, he said. CPM faces flak from Shibu Baby John RSP state secretary Shibu Baby John criticised CPM for inviting only IUML to the Palestine solidarity rally, alleging that the move appeared to be an attempt to exploit the Palestine issue for communal purposes. In a Facebook post, Shibu compared CPM to vultures capitalising on disasters, contrasting it with the unity displayed by Left bodies in a similar meeting in New Delhi. His criticism came in response to CPMs decision to exclusively invite IUML to their solidarity event in Kozhikode. Shibu accused CPM of using the issue and the Muslim community for political gains while aiding BJPs agenda. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp By Express News Service KOCHI: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan blamed a section of Indian mainstream media for rushing to cover the war in West Asia while siding with Israel but at the same time refraining from bringing out the real picture from Manipur, despite months of ethnic clashes that have claimed over 200 lives as per official figures. Speaking after releasing 'Manipur FIR', a book by veteran journalist George Kallivayal, here, the Chief Minister said the book stands out at a time when most reports from Manipur have been a watered-down version of the clashes that continue to happen. "The violence in Manipur began in May, and there are still reports about the clashes. We should not forget the fact that there were Internet blackouts to ensure that the scale of violence did not come out," Pinarayi said. Praising the book, the CM said, "Another feature of the reports from Manipur was that they were twisted and served to the public. This is where this book by Kallivayal would stand out. I'm sure that the book by Kallivayal would be a reference point for those who would want to study the genesis of the clashes in Manipur and its current situation." FOLLOW OUR LIVE COVERAGE OF ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR HERE Pointing out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had not uttered a word about the violence in Manipur until 80 days after, the Chief Minister said several leaders of opposition parties went to the northeastern state, interacted with the people there, and stood with them after the violence erupted. "The prime minister of the country chose to utter a word about Manipur only when the news about an incident that became a blot on the civilized society came out," Pinarayi said, without directly referring to the video of two women, allegedly belonging to the Kuki community, being molested and paraded naked that went viral on social media. "For three months, neither the union ministers nor the prime minister bothered about the escalating violence in Manipur," he said. "We saw cases being foisted upon those who spread the visuals on social media, while those who spread the violence got away scot-free. Several fact-finding missions went to Manipur to study the situation, and this resulted in cases against journalists and lawyers, We also witnessed an FIR being registered against the Editors Guild of India. And finally, the Supreme Court was forced to intervene," the Kerala CM observed. "The official statistics put out by the government said about 200 people died in the Manipur violence. Over 1,000 people were injured, and 5,000 houses were burned down. We know that the official figures will downplay the incident. This shows that unofficial figures will be much higher," Pinarayi said. Senior Congress leader and Congress Working Committee member Ramesh Chennithala, who received the first copy of the 'Manipur FIR' book remarked that it was sad to see the beautiful state of Manipur being wrecked by the violence, which is the result of hatred that was injected into the communities by the ruling BJP. He added that 150 churches have been destroyed in the ongoing clashes. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp KOCHI: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan blamed a section of Indian mainstream media for rushing to cover the war in West Asia while siding with Israel but at the same time refraining from bringing out the real picture from Manipur, despite months of ethnic clashes that have claimed over 200 lives as per official figures. Speaking after releasing 'Manipur FIR', a book by veteran journalist George Kallivayal, here, the Chief Minister said the book stands out at a time when most reports from Manipur have been a watered-down version of the clashes that continue to happen. "The violence in Manipur began in May, and there are still reports about the clashes. We should not forget the fact that there were Internet blackouts to ensure that the scale of violence did not come out," Pinarayi said. googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Praising the book, the CM said, "Another feature of the reports from Manipur was that they were twisted and served to the public. This is where this book by Kallivayal would stand out. I'm sure that the book by Kallivayal would be a reference point for those who would want to study the genesis of the clashes in Manipur and its current situation." FOLLOW OUR LIVE COVERAGE OF ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR HERE Pointing out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had not uttered a word about the violence in Manipur until 80 days after, the Chief Minister said several leaders of opposition parties went to the northeastern state, interacted with the people there, and stood with them after the violence erupted. "The prime minister of the country chose to utter a word about Manipur only when the news about an incident that became a blot on the civilized society came out," Pinarayi said, without directly referring to the video of two women, allegedly belonging to the Kuki community, being molested and paraded naked that went viral on social media. "For three months, neither the union ministers nor the prime minister bothered about the escalating violence in Manipur," he said. "We saw cases being foisted upon those who spread the visuals on social media, while those who spread the violence got away scot-free. Several fact-finding missions went to Manipur to study the situation, and this resulted in cases against journalists and lawyers, We also witnessed an FIR being registered against the Editors Guild of India. And finally, the Supreme Court was forced to intervene," the Kerala CM observed. "The official statistics put out by the government said about 200 people died in the Manipur violence. Over 1,000 people were injured, and 5,000 houses were burned down. We know that the official figures will downplay the incident. This shows that unofficial figures will be much higher," Pinarayi said. Senior Congress leader and Congress Working Committee member Ramesh Chennithala, who received the first copy of the 'Manipur FIR' book remarked that it was sad to see the beautiful state of Manipur being wrecked by the violence, which is the result of hatred that was injected into the communities by the ruling BJP. He added that 150 churches have been destroyed in the ongoing clashes. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp B kartheek By Express News Service HYDERABAD: Asserting that he was committed to the long-felt need for sub-categorisation of the SCs for the purpose of applying reservations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said that he will constitute a committee to address the issue for which Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi (MRPS) has been fighting for decades besides extending help in the ongoing litigation in the Supreme Court on behalf of the government of India. Modi was speaking at a public meeting - Anagarina Vargala Vishwaroopa Sabha - organised by MRPS at Parade Grounds here to declare its support to the BJP in the ensuing Assembly elections slated to be held on November 30. Addressing the massive gathering consisting of predominantly Madiga community, Modi acknowledged Manda Krishna Madigas three-decade-long selfless struggle and expressed commitment to work under his leadership for justice. Emotions ran high as Krishna Madiga was visibly moved by Modis support and reciprocated the gesture by declaring his support for the BJP. No BRS, No Congress, No other parties, only BJP, said Krishna Madiga.The Prime Minister, seeking mercy for the perceived sins committed by the political class post-independence, also launched a scathing attack on the ruling BRS and the Congress, accusing them of betraying and disrespecting Dr B R Ambedkar. Lashing out at the governance in Telangana, he alleged that the BRS dispensation betrayed all communities, including the Madiga. He said that Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao failed to fulfil promises such as providing three acres of land to Dalit families and not being able to cover all Dalits under the Dalit Bandhu scheme, which, according to him, only benefited the relatives of BRS MLAs. KCR did not deliver on his promise of allotting three acres of land to Dalits. The Dalit Bandhu scheme has ended up as one benefiting the relatives of BRS MLAs, he said. Accusing KCR of delivering irrigation scams, the PM cautioned the people of Telangana to be wary of the designs of not only the BRS but also those of the Congress.BRS and Congress are anti-Dalit parties. By demanding that the Constitution of India should be rewritten, KCR has insulted Ambedkar, and Congress defeated Ambedkar in elections twice. The Congress failed to instal the Ambedkar photo in Parliament Central Hall. Neither did it confer Bharat Ratna on him. It was the BJP-supported government which honoured him. He accused the Congress of making all efforts to stall the election of Dalit leader Ramnath Kovind and an adivasi Droupadi Murmu to the office of the President of India. Levelling serious allegations, the Prime Minister said that BRS with the help of the AAP government in Delhi resorted to liquor scam involving thousands of crores of rupees. The State governments of Delhi and Telangana helped each other not in development but in corruption, he alleged. Juxtaposing BJP against the Congress and the BRS, Narendra Modi said that the latter were fighting the election to rule but the saffron party, to serve and empower SC/STs. He also recalled how he worked under the leadership of former BJP president Bangaru Laxman and trained under him. Meanwhile, in his speech, Krishna Madiga remarked, When Madigas remained suppressed in the State with no representation in the KCRs cabinet, Modi gave priority to them by giving cabinet berths. This is the proof that Modi is committed to ensuring social justice.During the two-hour-long public meeting, Krishna Madiga broke down multiple times as the Prime Minister showered affection. In return, Krishna Madiga extended support by raising the slogan - No BRS, No Congress, No other parties, but only BJP. Woman climbs floodlight tower, PM pleads her to climb down A woman created a flutter at the PMs meeting by climbing up the floodlight tower when he was speaking on sub-categorisation of SCs. Seeing this, Narendra Modi requested her to climb down. Please, come down. Dont this. I am with you. I will listen to you. If you do this it would not serve any purpose. I came here for you and you must listen to Krishna Madiga, said the PM. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp HYDERABAD: Asserting that he was committed to the long-felt need for sub-categorisation of the SCs for the purpose of applying reservations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said that he will constitute a committee to address the issue for which Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi (MRPS) has been fighting for decades besides extending help in the ongoing litigation in the Supreme Court on behalf of the government of India. Modi was speaking at a public meeting - Anagarina Vargala Vishwaroopa Sabha - organised by MRPS at Parade Grounds here to declare its support to the BJP in the ensuing Assembly elections slated to be held on November 30. Addressing the massive gathering consisting of predominantly Madiga community, Modi acknowledged Manda Krishna Madigas three-decade-long selfless struggle and expressed commitment to work under his leadership for justice. Emotions ran high as Krishna Madiga was visibly moved by Modis support and reciprocated the gesture by declaring his support for the BJP. No BRS, No Congress, No other parties, only BJP, said Krishna Madiga.The Prime Minister, seeking mercy for the perceived sins committed by the political class post-independence, also launched a scathing attack on the ruling BRS and the Congress, accusing them of betraying and disrespecting Dr B R Ambedkar.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Lashing out at the governance in Telangana, he alleged that the BRS dispensation betrayed all communities, including the Madiga. He said that Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao failed to fulfil promises such as providing three acres of land to Dalit families and not being able to cover all Dalits under the Dalit Bandhu scheme, which, according to him, only benefited the relatives of BRS MLAs. KCR did not deliver on his promise of allotting three acres of land to Dalits. The Dalit Bandhu scheme has ended up as one benefiting the relatives of BRS MLAs, he said. Accusing KCR of delivering irrigation scams, the PM cautioned the people of Telangana to be wary of the designs of not only the BRS but also those of the Congress.BRS and Congress are anti-Dalit parties. By demanding that the Constitution of India should be rewritten, KCR has insulted Ambedkar, and Congress defeated Ambedkar in elections twice. The Congress failed to instal the Ambedkar photo in Parliament Central Hall. Neither did it confer Bharat Ratna on him. It was the BJP-supported government which honoured him. He accused the Congress of making all efforts to stall the election of Dalit leader Ramnath Kovind and an adivasi Droupadi Murmu to the office of the President of India. Levelling serious allegations, the Prime Minister said that BRS with the help of the AAP government in Delhi resorted to liquor scam involving thousands of crores of rupees. The State governments of Delhi and Telangana helped each other not in development but in corruption, he alleged. Juxtaposing BJP against the Congress and the BRS, Narendra Modi said that the latter were fighting the election to rule but the saffron party, to serve and empower SC/STs. He also recalled how he worked under the leadership of former BJP president Bangaru Laxman and trained under him. Meanwhile, in his speech, Krishna Madiga remarked, When Madigas remained suppressed in the State with no representation in the KCRs cabinet, Modi gave priority to them by giving cabinet berths. This is the proof that Modi is committed to ensuring social justice.During the two-hour-long public meeting, Krishna Madiga broke down multiple times as the Prime Minister showered affection. In return, Krishna Madiga extended support by raising the slogan - No BRS, No Congress, No other parties, but only BJP. Woman climbs floodlight tower, PM pleads her to climb down A woman created a flutter at the PMs meeting by climbing up the floodlight tower when he was speaking on sub-categorisation of SCs. Seeing this, Narendra Modi requested her to climb down. Please, come down. Dont this. I am with you. I will listen to you. If you do this it would not serve any purpose. I came here for you and you must listen to Krishna Madiga, said the PM. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp Jitendra Choubey By NEW DELHI: In a significant move, the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), a coalition of more than 400 farmers organisations, has launched a campaign against Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar in the Morena assembly seat in Madhya Pradesh. The focal point of their opposition is Tomars perceived anti-farmer policies. Contrary to their previous approach, SKM leaders clarified that they would not be actively participating in elections across five states. This decision follows dissatisfaction within the organisation when three of its constituent members in Rajasthan extended support to a specific political party, a move deemed against the agreed-upon decision. The SKM, in an official statement, expressed its disappointment, stating, It has come to our attention that our members violated our agreed decision not to support and engage a particular party. Emphasising their commitment to neutrality, the statement reiterated that the SKM would refrain from contesting elections or endorsing any candidate or political party. During the 35-member National Coordination Committee (NCC) meeting, SKM leaders unveiled the slogan Drive Out Corporates, Punish BJP, Save the Nation.Senior farmers leader Dr Darshan Pal, a member of the NCC, emphasised the directive to members, SKMs platform should not be used for election campaigns or support to any party and members must strictly adhere to its declared policy. The SKMs decision to abstain from electoral politics follows a series of unsuccessful forays into state elections after a year-long protest in 2020-21 against three contentious farm laws favoring corporates. These electoral setbacks have raised concerns about the credibility of the SKM among the farming community. In accordance with the NCCs resolution, SKM leaders conducted a campaign in the Dimni Assembly constituency in Morena District, Madhya Pradesh, on November 8. Their primary objective was to mobilise farmers to ensure the defeat of BJP candidate Narendra Singh Tomar, whom they accused of enacting three anti-farmer laws. ALSO READ | Farmers' collective Samyukt Kisan Morcha revives protest in Delhi Rakesh Tikait, a prominent farmer leader and NCC member, pointedly remarked, The anti-farm laws led to the death of 725 farmers during the 380 days long historic farmers protest in 2020-21.This underscores the deep-rooted discontent within the farming community, driving their sustained opposition against policies perceived as detrimental to their livelihoods. Not in poll fray: SKM Contrary to their previous approach, the Samyukta Kisan Morcha leaders clarified that they would not be actively participating in elections across the states. They conducted a campaign in the Dimni Assembly constituency in Morena seat in Madhya Pradesh, on November 8. The primary objective was to mobilise farmers to oppose BJP candidate Narendra Singh Tomar, whom they accused of enacting three anti-farmer laws. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp NEW DELHI: In a significant move, the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), a coalition of more than 400 farmers organisations, has launched a campaign against Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar in the Morena assembly seat in Madhya Pradesh. The focal point of their opposition is Tomars perceived anti-farmer policies. Contrary to their previous approach, SKM leaders clarified that they would not be actively participating in elections across five states. This decision follows dissatisfaction within the organisation when three of its constituent members in Rajasthan extended support to a specific political party, a move deemed against the agreed-upon decision.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The SKM, in an official statement, expressed its disappointment, stating, It has come to our attention that our members violated our agreed decision not to support and engage a particular party. Emphasising their commitment to neutrality, the statement reiterated that the SKM would refrain from contesting elections or endorsing any candidate or political party. During the 35-member National Coordination Committee (NCC) meeting, SKM leaders unveiled the slogan Drive Out Corporates, Punish BJP, Save the Nation.Senior farmers leader Dr Darshan Pal, a member of the NCC, emphasised the directive to members, SKMs platform should not be used for election campaigns or support to any party and members must strictly adhere to its declared policy. The SKMs decision to abstain from electoral politics follows a series of unsuccessful forays into state elections after a year-long protest in 2020-21 against three contentious farm laws favoring corporates. These electoral setbacks have raised concerns about the credibility of the SKM among the farming community. In accordance with the NCCs resolution, SKM leaders conducted a campaign in the Dimni Assembly constituency in Morena District, Madhya Pradesh, on November 8. Their primary objective was to mobilise farmers to ensure the defeat of BJP candidate Narendra Singh Tomar, whom they accused of enacting three anti-farmer laws. ALSO READ | Farmers' collective Samyukt Kisan Morcha revives protest in Delhi Rakesh Tikait, a prominent farmer leader and NCC member, pointedly remarked, The anti-farm laws led to the death of 725 farmers during the 380 days long historic farmers protest in 2020-21.This underscores the deep-rooted discontent within the farming community, driving their sustained opposition against policies perceived as detrimental to their livelihoods. Not in poll fray: SKM Contrary to their previous approach, the Samyukta Kisan Morcha leaders clarified that they would not be actively participating in elections across the states. They conducted a campaign in the Dimni Assembly constituency in Morena seat in Madhya Pradesh, on November 8. The primary objective was to mobilise farmers to oppose BJP candidate Narendra Singh Tomar, whom they accused of enacting three anti-farmer laws. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp Jaison Wilson By NEW DELHI: While commuting a convicts capital punishment in connection with a 2003 political murder in a Uttar Pradesh village, the Supreme Court observed that the criminal history of a convict cannot by itself be a ground for the court to award him the death penalty. Considering the age of the convict Madan, a 64-year-old man who has been serving a jail term for 18 years and three months a bench of Justices BR Gavai, BV Nagarathna and PS Narasimha also held that old age is a mitigating circumstance in his favour. The top court, however, said that the convict has to serve at least 20 years in jail as part of his life-imprisonment sentence before he could be considered for release. It was also noted by the bench that Madan has been imprisoned for a long time, while another co-accused, Sudesh Pal, who had an equal role in the murder case but had no criminal history, got only life imprisonment. Citing this, the apex court observed that the criminal history of the convict cannot be the reason for two people who committed the same crime to be treated in different ways.No doubt that there is a history of previous conviction insofar as appellant Madan is concerned. However, this court, in the case of Rajendra Pralhadrao Wasnik (supra), has held that the history of the convict by itself cannot be a ground for awarding him death penalty, the order read. ALSO READ | Case of naval veterans facing death penalty in Qatar may be discussed at India-US 2+2 meet The case is related to a shootout related to political and family rivalry in a UP village, in which six people lost their lives. On July 31, 2015, the trial court held three accused persons guilty of committing the murder of the six persons and accordingly convicted them under various offences including murder, rioting and other charges. Two were sentenced to death, while one was sentenced to life imprisonment. Being aggrieved thereby, Madan and Sudesh Pal preferred their respective appeals before the high court. The high court commuted the death penalty of Sudesh Pal, but Madans capital punishment remained. When there was no relief from the high court, Madan moved an appeal in the apex court. The bench commuted his death sentence. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp NEW DELHI: While commuting a convicts capital punishment in connection with a 2003 political murder in a Uttar Pradesh village, the Supreme Court observed that the criminal history of a convict cannot by itself be a ground for the court to award him the death penalty. Considering the age of the convict Madan, a 64-year-old man who has been serving a jail term for 18 years and three months a bench of Justices BR Gavai, BV Nagarathna and PS Narasimha also held that old age is a mitigating circumstance in his favour. The top court, however, said that the convict has to serve at least 20 years in jail as part of his life-imprisonment sentence before he could be considered for release.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); It was also noted by the bench that Madan has been imprisoned for a long time, while another co-accused, Sudesh Pal, who had an equal role in the murder case but had no criminal history, got only life imprisonment. Citing this, the apex court observed that the criminal history of the convict cannot be the reason for two people who committed the same crime to be treated in different ways.No doubt that there is a history of previous conviction insofar as appellant Madan is concerned. However, this court, in the case of Rajendra Pralhadrao Wasnik (supra), has held that the history of the convict by itself cannot be a ground for awarding him death penalty, the order read. ALSO READ | Case of naval veterans facing death penalty in Qatar may be discussed at India-US 2+2 meet The case is related to a shootout related to political and family rivalry in a UP village, in which six people lost their lives. On July 31, 2015, the trial court held three accused persons guilty of committing the murder of the six persons and accordingly convicted them under various offences including murder, rioting and other charges. Two were sentenced to death, while one was sentenced to life imprisonment. Being aggrieved thereby, Madan and Sudesh Pal preferred their respective appeals before the high court. The high court commuted the death penalty of Sudesh Pal, but Madans capital punishment remained. When there was no relief from the high court, Madan moved an appeal in the apex court. The bench commuted his death sentence. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp Ashish Srivastava By NEW DELHI: Vigilance Minister Atishi on Saturday initiated an inquiry into a complaint against Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar after the government received a complaint of alleged corruption in the acquisition of land at Bamnoli village for the construction of Dwarka Expressway. The complaint alleged that the chief secretarys son was employed by a relative of a landowner who received enhanced compensation for land acquired for a road project, official sources said on Friday. The minister on Saturday directed the divisional commissioner to provide her information related to Bamnoli land acquisition. In May 2023, then DM (southwest Delhi) Hemant Kumar awarded 353 crore as compensation to two individuals for the 19-acre land in Bamnoli at the rate of Rs 18.54 crore per acre, which was acquired by NHAI for Dwarka eway construction. However, the original award for the same parcel of land was Rs 41 crore at a price of Rs 53 lakh per acre. The money was raised to Rs 353.79 crore on May 15 this year. The matter was flagged by Divisional Commissioner Ashwani Kumar on June 2 to the chief secretary. According to the minister, the two landowners Subhash Chand Kathuria and Vinod Kathuria are family members of a business aide of the chief secretarys son. The complaint related to this was received by CM Kejriwal on Friday. The role of the Chief Secretary has not been examined yet. An inquiry has been initiated on this, on the directions of the Chief Minister, Atishi said. The chief secretary, however, said that it was an act of mudslinging by disgruntled persons facing vigilance probes. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp NEW DELHI: Vigilance Minister Atishi on Saturday initiated an inquiry into a complaint against Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar after the government received a complaint of alleged corruption in the acquisition of land at Bamnoli village for the construction of Dwarka Expressway. The complaint alleged that the chief secretarys son was employed by a relative of a landowner who received enhanced compensation for land acquired for a road project, official sources said on Friday. The minister on Saturday directed the divisional commissioner to provide her information related to Bamnoli land acquisition. In May 2023, then DM (southwest Delhi) Hemant Kumar awarded 353 crore as compensation to two individuals for the 19-acre land in Bamnoli at the rate of Rs 18.54 crore per acre, which was acquired by NHAI for Dwarka eway construction.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); However, the original award for the same parcel of land was Rs 41 crore at a price of Rs 53 lakh per acre. The money was raised to Rs 353.79 crore on May 15 this year. The matter was flagged by Divisional Commissioner Ashwani Kumar on June 2 to the chief secretary. According to the minister, the two landowners Subhash Chand Kathuria and Vinod Kathuria are family members of a business aide of the chief secretarys son. The complaint related to this was received by CM Kejriwal on Friday. The role of the Chief Secretary has not been examined yet. An inquiry has been initiated on this, on the directions of the Chief Minister, Atishi said. The chief secretary, however, said that it was an act of mudslinging by disgruntled persons facing vigilance probes. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp Harpreet Bajwa By CHANDIGARH: Four people, three of them friends, were killed on Friday night when a speeding oil tanker coming from Jaipur smashed the road divider and hit a car and a pickup van near Sidhrawali village in Gurugram on the Delhi-Jaipur highway. Sources said the accident took place around 11.50 pm near Triveni Hotel on the highway as the tanker ploughed through the divider and swerved to the other side hitting a car and a pickup van coming from the opposite direction. The CNG-driven car immediately burst into flames, the police said. The occupants of the vehicle were travelling to Bhiwadi in Rajasthan. The police said the three youths worked in a private company in Manesar. After a complaint by a friend of the deceased, a case was registered against the tanker driver under Sections 279 (rash driving) and 304-A (causing death by negligence) of the IPC at Bilaspur police station. The police team found the car totally burnt down with the three occupants being charred to death. The driver of the pickup van also died, said a police officer. The deceased were described as friends and were identified as Jitender of Samalkha in Panipat, Lokesh Saini of Anaj Mandi in Jind and Pawan Dubey from Bihar. The driver of the pickup van was identified as Trilok Sharma of Chilhar village near Pataudi in Gurugram. The Bilaspur police said a fire tender was used to put out the fire. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp CHANDIGARH: Four people, three of them friends, were killed on Friday night when a speeding oil tanker coming from Jaipur smashed the road divider and hit a car and a pickup van near Sidhrawali village in Gurugram on the Delhi-Jaipur highway. Sources said the accident took place around 11.50 pm near Triveni Hotel on the highway as the tanker ploughed through the divider and swerved to the other side hitting a car and a pickup van coming from the opposite direction. The CNG-driven car immediately burst into flames, the police said. The occupants of the vehicle were travelling to Bhiwadi in Rajasthan. The police said the three youths worked in a private company in Manesar. After a complaint by a friend of the deceased, a case was registered against the tanker driver under Sections 279 (rash driving) and 304-A (causing death by negligence) of the IPC at Bilaspur police station. The police team found the car totally burnt down with the three occupants being charred to death. The driver of the pickup van also died, said a police officer. The deceased were described as friends and were identified as Jitender of Samalkha in Panipat, Lokesh Saini of Anaj Mandi in Jind and Pawan Dubey from Bihar. The driver of the pickup van was identified as Trilok Sharma of Chilhar village near Pataudi in Gurugram. The Bilaspur police said a fire tender was used to put out the fire.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp Preetha Nair By NEW DELHI: The Law Commission will need more time for wider consultations to formulate a comprehensive draft bill on a Uniform Civil Code (UCC), according to sources in the Law Ministry. It is going to be a time-consuming process as it involves complex personal laws, said a source. The Law Commission of India, headed by Ritu Raj Awasthi, has already held several rounds of consultations with experts and stakeholders, including religious scholars and representatives from various religious and womens organisations, said the source, adding that the panel cannot give any time frame for the completion of its work. It is a complex process and it cannot be done in a day or two. Every relevant personal law will be considered. It is not limited to any particular religion. We are planning to hold conferences, seminars, and public meetings in various states, said the source, pointing out that the panel received more than 75 lakh responses about UCC after its notification inviting suggestions. We are sifting through every response and will give due consideration, he said. When asked whether amendments should be made to family laws of various religions to make them gender-just, the official said, We dont know what form it will take. We are examining all aspects of the issues. A political row broke out after Prime Minister Narandra Modi on June 27 made a strong pitch for the implementation of UCC nationwide. Many questioned the Law Commissions decision to revisit the UCC. Draft Uttarakhand UCC bill in print There is a fresh buzz that the Uttarakhand government will table a draft of its UCC in a special Assembly session after Diwali. That draft was expected to be a model for the Central law. A member of the Uttarakhand panel said the report has gone to print. The draft bill will seek a complete ban on polygamy, a proposal for live-in couples to register their relationship, and to keep the marriageable age for women at 18 years Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp NEW DELHI: The Law Commission will need more time for wider consultations to formulate a comprehensive draft bill on a Uniform Civil Code (UCC), according to sources in the Law Ministry. It is going to be a time-consuming process as it involves complex personal laws, said a source. The Law Commission of India, headed by Ritu Raj Awasthi, has already held several rounds of consultations with experts and stakeholders, including religious scholars and representatives from various religious and womens organisations, said the source, adding that the panel cannot give any time frame for the completion of its work. It is a complex process and it cannot be done in a day or two. Every relevant personal law will be considered. It is not limited to any particular religion. We are planning to hold conferences, seminars, and public meetings in various states, said the source, pointing out that the panel received more than 75 lakh responses about UCC after its notification inviting suggestions. We are sifting through every response and will give due consideration, he said.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); When asked whether amendments should be made to family laws of various religions to make them gender-just, the official said, We dont know what form it will take. We are examining all aspects of the issues. A political row broke out after Prime Minister Narandra Modi on June 27 made a strong pitch for the implementation of UCC nationwide. Many questioned the Law Commissions decision to revisit the UCC. Draft Uttarakhand UCC bill in print There is a fresh buzz that the Uttarakhand government will table a draft of its UCC in a special Assembly session after Diwali. That draft was expected to be a model for the Central law. A member of the Uttarakhand panel said the report has gone to print. The draft bill will seek a complete ban on polygamy, a proposal for live-in couples to register their relationship, and to keep the marriageable age for women at 18 years Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with other leaders responsible for directing Israel's war in the Gaza Strip, are promising victory over Hamas, even if it means "standing firm against the world." Netanyahu also sharply responded to French President Emanuel Macron's criticism of Jerusalem. ADVERTISIMENT This was reported by The Times of Israel. During a joint press conference, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Minister Benny Gantz rejected growing international criticism for the civilian costs of the war. They also called on Western leaders to support Israel, arguing that its victory would be a victory for the entire free world. Netanyahu also sharply criticized French President Emmanuel Macron's remarks a day earlier. He expressed his belief that public outrage and condemnation should be directed at Hamas, not Israel. He put all the responsibility for the deaths of civilians in the Gaza Strip that occurred during the current conflict with Israel on this terrorist organization. Netanyahu noted that the Israeli army is trying to evacuate civilians from the combat areas, while Hamas is using them as human shields. ADVERTISIMENT He also noted that Israel would oppose the return of Palestinian authorities to Gaza after the war, which is what Washington is seeking. "I will tell you what will not happen. There will be no Hamas. There will also be no civilian government that brings up its children to hate Israel, to kill Israelis, to destroy the state of Israel. There cannot be a government whose leader has not yet condemned the horrific massacre 30 days later," the prime minister said, referring to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. As a reminder, French President Emmanuel Macron called the events taking place in the Gaza Strip a genocide of the civilian population. According to the politician, Israel needs to wind down the operation, which is killing not only terrorists, but also women, children, and the elderly. ADVERTISIMENT As OBOZ.UA reported, when Jerusalem first announced a ground operation in the Gaza Strip, Macron called it a mistake for Israel. He explained his words by saying that the invasion would not ensure Israel's security in the future and would endanger the lives of civilians. Only verified information is available on the OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! By AFP JERUSALEM: A Hamas health official said Sunday that an Israeli air strike destroyed the cardiac ward of Gaza's biggest hospital, Al-Shifa, as fighting raged around the facility. "The occupier (Israel) completely destroyed the cardiac department of Al-Shifa hospital... The two-storey building has been completely destroyed in an air strike," Youssef Abu Rish, deputy health minister in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, told AFP. Witnesses confirmed a strike on the hospital, which AFP was unable to independently verify. FOLLOW OUR LIVE COVERAGE OF ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR HERE The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But it has previously denied deliberately targeting the hospital and has repeatedly accused Hamas of using medical facilities or tunnels underneath them as command centres and hideouts -- a charge Hamas denies. An Israeli military statement on Sunday said soldiers "opened and secured a passage which enables the civilian population to evacuate, on foot and by ambulances, from the Shifa, Rantisi and Nasser hospitals." ALSO READ | Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp JERUSALEM: A Hamas health official said Sunday that an Israeli air strike destroyed the cardiac ward of Gaza's biggest hospital, Al-Shifa, as fighting raged around the facility. "The occupier (Israel) completely destroyed the cardiac department of Al-Shifa hospital... The two-storey building has been completely destroyed in an air strike," Youssef Abu Rish, deputy health minister in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, told AFP. Witnesses confirmed a strike on the hospital, which AFP was unable to independently verify.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); FOLLOW OUR LIVE COVERAGE OF ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR HERE The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But it has previously denied deliberately targeting the hospital and has repeatedly accused Hamas of using medical facilities or tunnels underneath them as command centres and hideouts -- a charge Hamas denies. An Israeli military statement on Sunday said soldiers "opened and secured a passage which enables the civilian population to evacuate, on foot and by ambulances, from the Shifa, Rantisi and Nasser hospitals." ALSO READ | 2 premature babies die at Gaza hospital due to power cuts: Israeli NGO Deadly strike at Gaza's largest hospital kills 13 Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp By Associated Press DEIR AL-BALAH: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back Saturday against growing international calls for a cease-fire, saying Israel's battle to crush Gaza's ruling Hamas militants will continue with "full force." A cease-fire would be possible only if all 239 hostages held by militants in Gaza are released, Netanyahu said in a televised address. The Israeli leader also insisted that after the war, now entering its sixth week, Gaza would be demilitarized and Israel would retain security control there. Asked what he meant by security control, Netanyahu said Israeli forces must be able to enter Gaza freely to hunt down militants. He also rejected the idea that the Palestinian Authority, which currently administers autonomous areas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would at some stage control Gaza. Both positions run counter to post-war scenarios floated by Israel's closest ally, the United States. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the US opposes an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza and envisions a unified Palestinian government in both Gaza and the West Bank at some stage as a step toward Palestinian statehood. For now, Netanyahu said, "the war against (Hamas) is advancing with full force, and it has one goal, to win. There is no alternative to victory." Pressure was growing on Israel after frantic doctors at Gaza's largest hospital said the last generator had run out of fuel, causing the death of a premature baby, another child in an incubator and four other patients. Thousands of war-wounded, medical staff and displaced civilians were caught in the fighting. ALSO READ | Israel-Hamas war: Six key moments for the Gaza Strip In recent days, fighting near Shifa and other hospitals in northern Gaza has intensified and supplies have run out. The Israeli military has alleged, without providing evidence, that Hamas has established command posts in and underneath hospitals, using civilians as human shields. Medical staff at Shifa have denied such claims and accused Israel of harming civilians with indiscriminate attacks. Shifa Hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia said the facility lost power Saturday. "Medical devices stopped. Patients, especially those in intensive care, started to die," he said by phone, with gunfire and explosions in the background. He said Israeli troops were "shooting at anyone outside or inside the hospital" and prevented movement between buildings. The World Health Organization later said it lost communication with its contacts at Shifa, according to a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. Israel's military confirmed clashes outside the hospital, but Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari denied Shifa was under siege. He said troops will assist Sunday in moving babies treated there and said "We are speaking directly and regularly" with hospital staff. 'Unbearably desperate situation' Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, told broadcaster Channel 12 that as Israel aims to crush Hamas, taking control of the hospitals would be key but require "a lot of tactical creativity," without hurting patients, other civilians and Israeli hostages. Six patients died at Shifa after the generator shut down, including the two children, spokesmen with the Hamas-run Health Ministry said. The "unbearably desperate situation" at Shifa must stop now, the International Committee of the Red Cross director general, Robert Mardini, said on social media. UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths posted that "there can be no justification for acts of war in health care facilities." ALSO READ | Gaza war: Neither-here-nor-there foreign policy has isolated India Elsewhere, the Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli tanks were 20 meters (65 feet) from al-Quds hospital in Gaza City, causing "a state of extreme panic and fear" among the 14,000 displaced people sheltering there. Israel's military released footage which it said showed tanks operating in Gaza. The images showed shattered buildings, some on fire, and destroyed streets empty of anyone but troops. Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, in the hospital in Khan Younis, Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023. (Photo | AP) A 57-nation gathering of Muslim and Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia called in their communique for an end to the war in Gaza and the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid. They also called on the International Court of Justice, a UN organ, to open an investigation into Israel's attacks, saying the war "cannot be called self-defence and cannot be justified under any means." Netanyahu has said the responsibility for any harm to civilians lies with Hamas, which denied it was preventing people in Gaza City from fleeing. The spokesman of the Hamas military wing said militants were ambushing Israeli troops and vowed that Israel would face a long battle. The Qassam Brigades spokesman, who goes by Abu Obaida, acknowledged in audio aired on Al-Jazeera that the fight is disproportionate "but it is terrifying the strongest force in the region." ALSO READ | Israel warns Hezbollah that Beirut could face similar fate to Gaza Israel's military has said soldiers have encountered hundreds of Hamas fighters in underground facilities, schools, mosques and clinics during the fighting. Israel has said a key goal of the war is to crush Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for 16 years. Following Hamas' deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which at least 1,200 people were killed, Israel's allies have defended the country's right to protect itself. But now into the second month of the war, there are growing differences over how Israel should conduct its fight. 'Where to go?' The US has pushed for temporary pauses that would allow for wider distribution of badly needed aid to civilians in the besieged territory where conditions are increasingly dire. However, Israel has only agreed to brief daily periods during which civilians can flee the area of ground combat in northern Gaza and head south on foot along the territory's main north-south artery. Over the weekend, Israel said it opened a second route along the coast. Since these evacuation windows were first announced a week ago, tens of thousands of civilians have fled the north, including on Saturday, according to UN monitors. A stream of people fled southward on the main road, some on donkey-drawn carts. One man pushed two children in a wheelbarrow. "Where to go, and what do they want from us?" said Yehia al-Kafarnah, one fleeing resident. Palestinian civilians and rights advocates have pushed back against Israel's portrayal of the southern evacuation zones as "relatively safe." Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, in the hospital in Khan Younis, Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023. ( Photo | AP) They note that Israeli bombardment has continued across Gaza, including airstrikes in the south that Israel says target Hamas leaders but that have also killed women and children. Demonstrations and outrage continued. Police said 300,000 Palestinian supporters marched peacefully in London, the largest such event there since the war started. Right-wing counterprotesters clashed with police. ALSO READ | Fights in bread lines, despair in shelters as war unravels Gaza's close-knit society Fear grows inside Shifa "Shelling and explosions never stopped," said Islam Mattar, one of thousands sheltering at Shifa. "Children here are terrified from the constant sound of explosions." The Health Ministry told Al Jazeera there were still 1,500 patients at Shifa, along with 1,500 medical personnel and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter. Thousands have fled Shifa and other hospitals that have come under attack, but physicians said it's impossible for everyone to get out. "We cannot evacuate ourselves and (leave) these people inside," a Doctors Without Borders surgeon at Shifa, Mohammed Obeid, was quoted as saying by the organization. Casualties rise More than 11,070 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2,700 people have been reported missing and are thought to be possibly trapped or dead under the rubble. At least 1,200 people have been killed in Israel, mainly in the initial Hamas attack, Israeli officials say. The military on Saturday confirmed the deaths of five reserve soldiers; 46 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground offensive began. Nearly 240 people abducted by Hamas from Israel remain captive. Late Saturday, thousands of Israelis participated in a rally in Tel Aviv, calling for the return of hostages. In Caesarea, hundreds of protesters gathered near Netanyahu's home, calling for his removal. About 250,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate from communities near Gaza and along the northern border with Lebanon, where Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have traded fire repeatedly. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp DEIR AL-BALAH: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back Saturday against growing international calls for a cease-fire, saying Israel's battle to crush Gaza's ruling Hamas militants will continue with "full force." A cease-fire would be possible only if all 239 hostages held by militants in Gaza are released, Netanyahu said in a televised address. The Israeli leader also insisted that after the war, now entering its sixth week, Gaza would be demilitarized and Israel would retain security control there. Asked what he meant by security control, Netanyahu said Israeli forces must be able to enter Gaza freely to hunt down militants.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); He also rejected the idea that the Palestinian Authority, which currently administers autonomous areas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would at some stage control Gaza. Both positions run counter to post-war scenarios floated by Israel's closest ally, the United States. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the US opposes an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza and envisions a unified Palestinian government in both Gaza and the West Bank at some stage as a step toward Palestinian statehood. For now, Netanyahu said, "the war against (Hamas) is advancing with full force, and it has one goal, to win. There is no alternative to victory." Pressure was growing on Israel after frantic doctors at Gaza's largest hospital said the last generator had run out of fuel, causing the death of a premature baby, another child in an incubator and four other patients. Thousands of war-wounded, medical staff and displaced civilians were caught in the fighting. ALSO READ | Israel-Hamas war: Six key moments for the Gaza Strip In recent days, fighting near Shifa and other hospitals in northern Gaza has intensified and supplies have run out. The Israeli military has alleged, without providing evidence, that Hamas has established command posts in and underneath hospitals, using civilians as human shields. Medical staff at Shifa have denied such claims and accused Israel of harming civilians with indiscriminate attacks. Shifa Hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia said the facility lost power Saturday. "Medical devices stopped. Patients, especially those in intensive care, started to die," he said by phone, with gunfire and explosions in the background. He said Israeli troops were "shooting at anyone outside or inside the hospital" and prevented movement between buildings. The World Health Organization later said it lost communication with its contacts at Shifa, according to a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. Israel's military confirmed clashes outside the hospital, but Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari denied Shifa was under siege. He said troops will assist Sunday in moving babies treated there and said "We are speaking directly and regularly" with hospital staff. 'Unbearably desperate situation' Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, told broadcaster Channel 12 that as Israel aims to crush Hamas, taking control of the hospitals would be key but require "a lot of tactical creativity," without hurting patients, other civilians and Israeli hostages. Six patients died at Shifa after the generator shut down, including the two children, spokesmen with the Hamas-run Health Ministry said. The "unbearably desperate situation" at Shifa must stop now, the International Committee of the Red Cross director general, Robert Mardini, said on social media. UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths posted that "there can be no justification for acts of war in health care facilities." ALSO READ | Gaza war: Neither-here-nor-there foreign policy has isolated India Elsewhere, the Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli tanks were 20 meters (65 feet) from al-Quds hospital in Gaza City, causing "a state of extreme panic and fear" among the 14,000 displaced people sheltering there. Israel's military released footage which it said showed tanks operating in Gaza. The images showed shattered buildings, some on fire, and destroyed streets empty of anyone but troops. Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, in the hospital in Khan Younis, Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023. (Photo | AP) A 57-nation gathering of Muslim and Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia called in their communique for an end to the war in Gaza and the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid. They also called on the International Court of Justice, a UN organ, to open an investigation into Israel's attacks, saying the war "cannot be called self-defence and cannot be justified under any means." Netanyahu has said the responsibility for any harm to civilians lies with Hamas, which denied it was preventing people in Gaza City from fleeing. The spokesman of the Hamas military wing said militants were ambushing Israeli troops and vowed that Israel would face a long battle. The Qassam Brigades spokesman, who goes by Abu Obaida, acknowledged in audio aired on Al-Jazeera that the fight is disproportionate "but it is terrifying the strongest force in the region." ALSO READ | Israel warns Hezbollah that Beirut could face similar fate to Gaza Israel's military has said soldiers have encountered hundreds of Hamas fighters in underground facilities, schools, mosques and clinics during the fighting. Israel has said a key goal of the war is to crush Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for 16 years. Following Hamas' deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which at least 1,200 people were killed, Israel's allies have defended the country's right to protect itself. But now into the second month of the war, there are growing differences over how Israel should conduct its fight. 'Where to go?' The US has pushed for temporary pauses that would allow for wider distribution of badly needed aid to civilians in the besieged territory where conditions are increasingly dire. However, Israel has only agreed to brief daily periods during which civilians can flee the area of ground combat in northern Gaza and head south on foot along the territory's main north-south artery. Over the weekend, Israel said it opened a second route along the coast. Since these evacuation windows were first announced a week ago, tens of thousands of civilians have fled the north, including on Saturday, according to UN monitors. A stream of people fled southward on the main road, some on donkey-drawn carts. One man pushed two children in a wheelbarrow. "Where to go, and what do they want from us?" said Yehia al-Kafarnah, one fleeing resident. Palestinian civilians and rights advocates have pushed back against Israel's portrayal of the southern evacuation zones as "relatively safe." Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, in the hospital in Khan Younis, Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023. ( Photo | AP) They note that Israeli bombardment has continued across Gaza, including airstrikes in the south that Israel says target Hamas leaders but that have also killed women and children. Demonstrations and outrage continued. Police said 300,000 Palestinian supporters marched peacefully in London, the largest such event there since the war started. Right-wing counterprotesters clashed with police. ALSO READ | Fights in bread lines, despair in shelters as war unravels Gaza's close-knit society Fear grows inside Shifa "Shelling and explosions never stopped," said Islam Mattar, one of thousands sheltering at Shifa. "Children here are terrified from the constant sound of explosions." The Health Ministry told Al Jazeera there were still 1,500 patients at Shifa, along with 1,500 medical personnel and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter. Thousands have fled Shifa and other hospitals that have come under attack, but physicians said it's impossible for everyone to get out. "We cannot evacuate ourselves and (leave) these people inside," a Doctors Without Borders surgeon at Shifa, Mohammed Obeid, was quoted as saying by the organization. Casualties rise More than 11,070 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2,700 people have been reported missing and are thought to be possibly trapped or dead under the rubble. At least 1,200 people have been killed in Israel, mainly in the initial Hamas attack, Israeli officials say. The military on Saturday confirmed the deaths of five reserve soldiers; 46 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground offensive began. Nearly 240 people abducted by Hamas from Israel remain captive. Late Saturday, thousands of Israelis participated in a rally in Tel Aviv, calling for the return of hostages. In Caesarea, hundreds of protesters gathered near Netanyahu's home, calling for his removal. About 250,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate from communities near Gaza and along the northern border with Lebanon, where Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have traded fire repeatedly. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp By AFP JERUSALEM: Intense fighting raged around Gaza's biggest hospital Sunday where doctors said thousands of Palestinians were trapped in dire conditions, as Israel pledged to help evacuate babies from the crippled facility. Fears have intensified for patients and people taking refuge in Al-Shifa and other healthcare facilities in Gaza, and medical aid group Doctors Without Borders warned that without a ceasefire or evacuation the hospital "will become a morgue". A Hamas health official said on Sunday that an Israeli air strike destroyed the cardiac ward of Gaza's biggest hospital, Al-Shifa, as fighting raged around the facility. Witnesses confirmed a strike on the hospital, which AFP was unable to independently verify. Palestinians seeking refuge at Gaza's largest hospital and staff said they were trapped in increasingly horrific conditions on Saturday. The gun battles and intense bombardment around the Al-Shifa hospital came as Israel pressed deep into Gaza City in its offensive aimed at destroying the militant group Hamas in the territory it rules. "Shooting is never stopping, airstrikes are unabated as well as artillery shells," said a witness who spoke on condition of anonymity. "There are dozens of bodies around the complex that nobody can reach." Though tens of thousands of people have fled the fighting, many have taken shelter in northern Gaza's hospitals which have been repeatedly hit by explosive strikes and gunfire. "The hospital is besieged, with no option to bring in the corpses and injured people sprawled outside. There is no movement in or out of the hospital," said Physicians for Human Rights Israel, citing doctors at Al-Shifa. FOLLOW OUR LIVE COVERAGE OF ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR HERE The Israeli doctors' group added that due to an overnight power outage, the neonatal intensive care unit had stopped working and two premature infants had died, while leaving the lives of 37 other infants at risk. "The situation in Al-Shifa is truly catastrophic," said Ann Taylor, head of the Palestinian Territories mission for the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF). The Israeli military has denied strikes or a siege at Al-Shifa hospital, and has repeatedly accused Hamas of using medical facilities as command centres and hideouts -- a charge the group denies. The Israeli army also said it would "provide the assistance needed" to help "babies in the paediatric department to get to a safer hospital" on Sunday, at the request of Al-Shifa staff. Hamas fighters poured through the militarised border with Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 240 people hostage, according to the most recent Israeli figures. Israel's campaign has killed more than 11,000 people, also mostly civilians and thousands of them children, according to the latest figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. The toll, normally updated daily, could not be calculated Saturday "because of the targeting of hospitals", the ministry said. Other buildings serving as shelters have also been hit, including a strike on a UN compound in Gaza City that the United Nations Development Programme said late Saturday caused "a significant number of deaths and injuries." The bloodiest ever Gaza war broke out after Hamas fighters smashed through the militarised border with Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 240 people hostage, according to the most recent Israeli figures. Israel's relentless campaign in response has killed more than 11,000 people, also mostly civilians and including thousands of children, according to the latest figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. The ministry has not updated tolls for two days citing the collapse of hospital services. Witnesses inside the Al-Shifa hospital told AFP by phone on Sunday that "violent fighting" had raged around the hospital the whole night. Dire conditions in Gaza hospitals Inside Al-Shifa hospital, Doctors Without Borders surgeon Mohammed Obeid said there was no water, power, food or internet access for about 600 post-operative patients, 37-40 babies and 17 people in intensive care. The surgeon said in an audio message posted Saturday on social media that two babies died in the Al-Shifa neonatal unit after power to their incubators was cut off and a man also died when his ventilator shut down. The Israeli military pledged Saturday to aid the evacuation of babies from the hospital, noting that "staff of the Al-Shifa hospital has requested that tomorrow". Military spokesman Daniel Hagari said that "we will help the babies in the paediatric department to get to a safer hospital. We will provide the assistance needed." A "safe passage" was to be opened from Al-Shifa to allow people to flee toward the south, The Israeli military said Sunday. Twenty of Gaza's 36 hospitals are "no longer functioning", according to the UN's humanitarian agency. Very little aid has made it into Gaza in the five weeks of war, with the densely populated coastal territory effectively sealed off by a total blockade that Israel has vowed to maintain until the hostages are freed. The Israeli military confirmed that a Jordanian plane dropped medical equipment and food to the Jordanian Hospital in the Gaza Strip. The army declined to elaborate further, and Israel's Foreign Ministry also made no comment. Calls for ceasefire grow The conflict has stoked regional tensions, with deadly cross-border exchanges intensifying between the Israeli army and Lebanon's Hezbollah movement. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Saturday said the group has "bolstered" its action "on the Lebanese front in terms of the number of operations, targets and the type of weapons". Nasrallah's speech prompted a warning from Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who said Lebanese citizens would "pay the price" and added: "What we're doing in Gaza, we can also do in Beirut." Speaking at a summit of Arab and Muslim leaders in the Saudi capital Riyadh, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi called on Islamic governments to designate Israel's military a "terrorist organisation". Iran backs Hamas as well as Lebanon's Hezbollah and Yemen's Huthi rebels, placing it at the centre of concerns the war could expand. A final statement from the summit rejected Israeli claims that it is acting in "self-defence" and demanded that the United Nations Security Council adopt "a decisive and binding resolution" to halt Israel's "aggression". Israel has said it aims to secure the release of hostages taken by Hamas in the October 7 attack and to destroy the militant group. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated that Israel does not want to occupy Gaza again, as it did between 1967 and 2005. Israel would however have "security control" of Gaza when the war ended, Netanyahu has said. The Israeli leader on Saturday ruled out a role for the current Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership in Gaza after the war. "There will have to be something else there," he said of the PA, which was driven out of Gaza by Hamas in 2007 and has partial administrative control in the occupied West Bank. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said late last month that the PA should retake control of the Gaza Strip from Hamas, with international players potentially filling a role in the interim. 'State of panic' In addition to the clashes around Al-Shifa, the situation was fraught at other hospitals in northern Gaza, where Palestinians have sought refuge from intense gun battles and bombardment. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said that fighting around the Al-Quds hospital had created a "state of panic and extreme fear" among the displaced people sheltering there. The director of the Indonesian hospital said lack of fuel forced the facility to cut power to their desalination plant, medical scanners and lifts. "The hospital is working with 30-40 percent of its capacity," Atef Al-Kahlot said. A wounded boy at the Indonesian hospital, Youssef Al-Najjar, said he was waiting for surgery but the necessary machines were off due to lack of power. "I'm very thirsty but I'm not allowed to drink or eat until the operation is done," he said. Twenty of Gaza's 36 hospitals are "no longer functioning", the UN's humanitarian agency OCHA said. Tens of thousands flee Fighting has reduced some streets in Gaza to ruins, with the sounds of apparent explosions and gunfire caught Saturday on AFPTV's Gaza City camera. The bodies of about 50 people killed in a strike on Gaza City's Al-Buraq school were taken to the Al-Shifa hospital, its director said Friday. Israel on Saturday said its forces launched an air strike on the school that killed a Hamas company commander, accusing the group of using civilians as "human shields" -- a charge it denies. The exodus toward Gaza's south, which has accelerated under intense fighting, has seen tens of thousands of people flee in recent days. An estimated 30,000 additional Palestinians went southwards through an evacuation corridor opened by the Israeli military on Friday, according to OCHA. In all, the Israeli army said that in the last three days around 200,000 Palestinians had left southwards from the area of the northern Gaza Strip where combat is heavy. However, strikes were hitting buildings at the southern end of Gaza in Rafah, the area of the densely populated territory to which civilians have been urged to evacuate. "They struck us with a missile, and these are innocent people," said Harb Fojou, standing near the rubble of a destroyed building. Almost 1.6 million people have been internally displaced since October 7, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA -- about two thirds of Gaza's population. Hamas's bloody October 7 attacks and Israel's relentless military campaign have sparked public demonstrations around the world. An estimated 300,000 marched through London in support of Palestinians on Armistice Day, Britain's annual commemoration of its war dead. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp JERUSALEM: Intense fighting raged around Gaza's biggest hospital Sunday where doctors said thousands of Palestinians were trapped in dire conditions, as Israel pledged to help evacuate babies from the crippled facility. Fears have intensified for patients and people taking refuge in Al-Shifa and other healthcare facilities in Gaza, and medical aid group Doctors Without Borders warned that without a ceasefire or evacuation the hospital "will become a morgue". A Hamas health official said on Sunday that an Israeli air strike destroyed the cardiac ward of Gaza's biggest hospital, Al-Shifa, as fighting raged around the facility. Witnesses confirmed a strike on the hospital, which AFP was unable to independently verify.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Palestinians seeking refuge at Gaza's largest hospital and staff said they were trapped in increasingly horrific conditions on Saturday. The gun battles and intense bombardment around the Al-Shifa hospital came as Israel pressed deep into Gaza City in its offensive aimed at destroying the militant group Hamas in the territory it rules. "Shooting is never stopping, airstrikes are unabated as well as artillery shells," said a witness who spoke on condition of anonymity. "There are dozens of bodies around the complex that nobody can reach." Though tens of thousands of people have fled the fighting, many have taken shelter in northern Gaza's hospitals which have been repeatedly hit by explosive strikes and gunfire. "The hospital is besieged, with no option to bring in the corpses and injured people sprawled outside. There is no movement in or out of the hospital," said Physicians for Human Rights Israel, citing doctors at Al-Shifa. FOLLOW OUR LIVE COVERAGE OF ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR HERE The Israeli doctors' group added that due to an overnight power outage, the neonatal intensive care unit had stopped working and two premature infants had died, while leaving the lives of 37 other infants at risk. "The situation in Al-Shifa is truly catastrophic," said Ann Taylor, head of the Palestinian Territories mission for the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF). The Israeli military has denied strikes or a siege at Al-Shifa hospital, and has repeatedly accused Hamas of using medical facilities as command centres and hideouts -- a charge the group denies. The Israeli army also said it would "provide the assistance needed" to help "babies in the paediatric department to get to a safer hospital" on Sunday, at the request of Al-Shifa staff. Hamas fighters poured through the militarised border with Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 240 people hostage, according to the most recent Israeli figures. Israel's campaign has killed more than 11,000 people, also mostly civilians and thousands of them children, according to the latest figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. The toll, normally updated daily, could not be calculated Saturday "because of the targeting of hospitals", the ministry said. Other buildings serving as shelters have also been hit, including a strike on a UN compound in Gaza City that the United Nations Development Programme said late Saturday caused "a significant number of deaths and injuries." The bloodiest ever Gaza war broke out after Hamas fighters smashed through the militarised border with Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 240 people hostage, according to the most recent Israeli figures. Israel's relentless campaign in response has killed more than 11,000 people, also mostly civilians and including thousands of children, according to the latest figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. The ministry has not updated tolls for two days citing the collapse of hospital services. Witnesses inside the Al-Shifa hospital told AFP by phone on Sunday that "violent fighting" had raged around the hospital the whole night. Dire conditions in Gaza hospitals Inside Al-Shifa hospital, Doctors Without Borders surgeon Mohammed Obeid said there was no water, power, food or internet access for about 600 post-operative patients, 37-40 babies and 17 people in intensive care. The surgeon said in an audio message posted Saturday on social media that two babies died in the Al-Shifa neonatal unit after power to their incubators was cut off and a man also died when his ventilator shut down. The Israeli military pledged Saturday to aid the evacuation of babies from the hospital, noting that "staff of the Al-Shifa hospital has requested that tomorrow". Military spokesman Daniel Hagari said that "we will help the babies in the paediatric department to get to a safer hospital. We will provide the assistance needed." A "safe passage" was to be opened from Al-Shifa to allow people to flee toward the south, The Israeli military said Sunday. Twenty of Gaza's 36 hospitals are "no longer functioning", according to the UN's humanitarian agency. Very little aid has made it into Gaza in the five weeks of war, with the densely populated coastal territory effectively sealed off by a total blockade that Israel has vowed to maintain until the hostages are freed. The Israeli military confirmed that a Jordanian plane dropped medical equipment and food to the Jordanian Hospital in the Gaza Strip. The army declined to elaborate further, and Israel's Foreign Ministry also made no comment. Calls for ceasefire grow The conflict has stoked regional tensions, with deadly cross-border exchanges intensifying between the Israeli army and Lebanon's Hezbollah movement. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Saturday said the group has "bolstered" its action "on the Lebanese front in terms of the number of operations, targets and the type of weapons". Nasrallah's speech prompted a warning from Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who said Lebanese citizens would "pay the price" and added: "What we're doing in Gaza, we can also do in Beirut." Speaking at a summit of Arab and Muslim leaders in the Saudi capital Riyadh, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi called on Islamic governments to designate Israel's military a "terrorist organisation". Iran backs Hamas as well as Lebanon's Hezbollah and Yemen's Huthi rebels, placing it at the centre of concerns the war could expand. A final statement from the summit rejected Israeli claims that it is acting in "self-defence" and demanded that the United Nations Security Council adopt "a decisive and binding resolution" to halt Israel's "aggression". Israel has said it aims to secure the release of hostages taken by Hamas in the October 7 attack and to destroy the militant group. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated that Israel does not want to occupy Gaza again, as it did between 1967 and 2005. Israel would however have "security control" of Gaza when the war ended, Netanyahu has said. The Israeli leader on Saturday ruled out a role for the current Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership in Gaza after the war. "There will have to be something else there," he said of the PA, which was driven out of Gaza by Hamas in 2007 and has partial administrative control in the occupied West Bank. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said late last month that the PA should retake control of the Gaza Strip from Hamas, with international players potentially filling a role in the interim. 'State of panic' In addition to the clashes around Al-Shifa, the situation was fraught at other hospitals in northern Gaza, where Palestinians have sought refuge from intense gun battles and bombardment. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said that fighting around the Al-Quds hospital had created a "state of panic and extreme fear" among the displaced people sheltering there. The director of the Indonesian hospital said lack of fuel forced the facility to cut power to their desalination plant, medical scanners and lifts. "The hospital is working with 30-40 percent of its capacity," Atef Al-Kahlot said. A wounded boy at the Indonesian hospital, Youssef Al-Najjar, said he was waiting for surgery but the necessary machines were off due to lack of power. "I'm very thirsty but I'm not allowed to drink or eat until the operation is done," he said. Twenty of Gaza's 36 hospitals are "no longer functioning", the UN's humanitarian agency OCHA said. Tens of thousands flee Fighting has reduced some streets in Gaza to ruins, with the sounds of apparent explosions and gunfire caught Saturday on AFPTV's Gaza City camera. The bodies of about 50 people killed in a strike on Gaza City's Al-Buraq school were taken to the Al-Shifa hospital, its director said Friday. Israel on Saturday said its forces launched an air strike on the school that killed a Hamas company commander, accusing the group of using civilians as "human shields" -- a charge it denies. The exodus toward Gaza's south, which has accelerated under intense fighting, has seen tens of thousands of people flee in recent days. An estimated 30,000 additional Palestinians went southwards through an evacuation corridor opened by the Israeli military on Friday, according to OCHA. In all, the Israeli army said that in the last three days around 200,000 Palestinians had left southwards from the area of the northern Gaza Strip where combat is heavy. However, strikes were hitting buildings at the southern end of Gaza in Rafah, the area of the densely populated territory to which civilians have been urged to evacuate. "They struck us with a missile, and these are innocent people," said Harb Fojou, standing near the rubble of a destroyed building. Almost 1.6 million people have been internally displaced since October 7, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA -- about two thirds of Gaza's population. Hamas's bloody October 7 attacks and Israel's relentless military campaign have sparked public demonstrations around the world. An estimated 300,000 marched through London in support of Palestinians on Armistice Day, Britain's annual commemoration of its war dead. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp New York, Nov 11 A s the searing images of Israels fury unleashed through the aerial bombing of Gaza roiled the world and even sections of the US, Washington cajoled Prime Minister Netanyahu to agree to a daily four-hour humanitarian pause in the fighting. US President Joe Biden admitted that he had asked for a three-day pause in the fighting but four hours daily was all that he got. He said he had asked for an even a longer pause, and getting the pause was "taking a little longer than I had hoped. Bidens request for the pause was motivated by an equally important reason, getting the release of the 240 or so people taken prisoner by Hamas, some of them Americans. Far too many Palestinians have been killed, far too many have suffered these past weeks, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in New Delhi on Friday, and we want to do everything possible to prevent harm to them and to maximise the assistance that gets to them. According to the Gaza-based Palestinian Health Ministry, the fatality toll in Gaza since the start of the hostilities on October 7 stands at 11,078, of whom 4,506 are said to be children and 3,027 women. Visiting the Indian capital for the US-India defence and foreign affairs ministerial meeting after a whirlwind diplomacy in the Middle East, Blinken said: Well be continuing to discuss with Israel the concrete steps to be taken to advance these objectives." But his leverage is limited. For all its status as a superpower if not the sole superpower the US cannot bend Israel or Netanyahu to its will. As several US officials have said, it is a sovereign country and it does what it does. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Netanyahu speaks for a sovereign nation and for a sovereign people and Israels defence forces are a sovereign military. Bidens leverage with Israel is blunted by a variety of reasons. Bound by their democratic values and broad strategic outlook, he US needs Israel as a reliable partner in a troubled region. They share close people-to-people ties, not just among Jews but among a broad swath of the people, with conservative Christians showing greater affinity than even some Jews. During his visit to Israel after the deadly October 7 Hamas massacre of about 1,200 people in the Jewish nation, Biden mirrored those sentiments saying: As long as the US stands -- and we will stand forever -- we will not let you ever be alone." Although the US sent $3.3 billion in defence aid to Israel in the 2022 fiscal year, it is equally dependent on Israel for some of its own defence technology. The country's strong sentiment for supporting Israel was reflected earlier this month in the Republican-majority House of Representatives passing a bill to provide it with an assistance package of $14.3 billion although it has been held up because the Biden administration and the Senate want to tie it to aid for Ukraine. Despite qualms about the impact of the civilian toll from Israels attacks on Gaza, Biden also shares Netanyahus desire for the complete annihilation of Iran-aligned Hamas, which the US has declared an international terrorist organisation. The leaders in most of the Arab nations in the region also share the sentiment. Netanyahus personality and the conditions he is trapped in are factors in how the situation plays out and how far he is amenable to suggestions. While he is the prime Minister, he is also a defendant facing several corruption charges in a criminal trial that began in 2020. For all his attempts to project a tough guy image, the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust took place under his watch. Blindly hitting out at the people of Gaza, even if the victims include women and children, is his way of getting even with Hamas and he has the backing of many in his country who are shaken by the viciousness of the Hamas attacks that also victimised women and children. But there is one difference: Civilian victims of Israel's bombarments are collateral to the hunt for the Hamas cadres, but the Hamas storm-troopers deliberately targeted women and children. A measure of the temperature of Iraeli sentiments is one of his ministers, Amichay Eliahu, suggesting nuclear bombing Gaza, which Netanyahu, to his credit, quickly condemned and suspended him from the cabinet. Any strong movement against the impact of the bombings in Gaza has not emerged in Israel so far. Emerging victorious in the battle against Hamas, whatever the cost, Netanyahu would see as vindication whie he faces the trial and Hamas breaking through during his watch. Although Biden had pledged solidarity with Israel declaring, you are not alone, he is also facing a changed domestic and international scenario that makes him reconsider the blank check he gave Netanyahu but finds it not entirely in his powers. Vocal Arab and Muslim constituencies joining hands with a radicalised student body that links the Palestine cause to their domestic agenda of the oppressed have emerged, bringing tens of thousands to the streets across the country and right up to the periphery of the White House. Last week, 24 senators, all but two from his party, raised with Biden getting assurances that Israel was taking all possible measures to protect civilians in Gaza. The world is different too. While the threat of an oil embargo will not affect the US as it did in 1973 after the Yom Kippur War because it is now a net exporter of petroleum, Washington has to contend with the quest for influence by China, Russia and Iran in an unstable region and with numerous hotspots that could export terror and further destabilise the neighbourhood and beyond. The images of children killed in Israeli bombardments and the toll on civilians is angering people across the Arab world and beyond, and this could lead to challenges from the Arab street to the leaders who stabilise the region and empower radical Islamists. All these make Biden seek moderation from Netanyahu, which he can seek, but not command. (Arul Louis can be contacted atarul.l@ians.inand followed at @arulouis) He presides over a superpower, but Biden can't make Netanyahu bend Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! Rachel Zegler says she bonded with Jennifer Lawrence on set of new 'Hunger Games' movie Los Angeles, Nov 11 A ctress Rachel Zegler, who is currently gearing up for the release of her live action version of 'Snow White', has said that she had bonded with actress Jennifer Lawrence on the set of 'The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes'. Speaking to 'People' magazine at the London premiere of the franchise's latest outing, Zegler, 22, opened up about how appearing in the movie spin-off has brought her close to the Academy Award-winning 'X-Men: First Class' alum, 33. She said, "I had already filmed it when I had met her and we really just were able to bond over the fact that we know so many of the same people." Funny enough, she also went on to say that Lawrence hadn't realised that they had so many mutual friends in the 'Hunger Games' world, including director Francis Lawrence, who filmed three of the movie's franchise sequels and returns to helm the latest installment. "One of my good friends is Andrew Barth Feldman, who she just did 'No Hard Feelings' with and, obviously, Francis Lawrence is obsessed with her," Zegler told the outlet. "Everyone who worked on our movies came over from the original trilogy to work on ours." While Lawrence played the role of protagonist Katniss Everdeen in the first four 'Hunger Games' movies, Zegler portrays the role of Lucy Gray Baird. A prequel set 64 years before the original movies, 'The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes' focuses on the journey of Coriolanus Snow as to how he became the tyrannical ruler of Panem. Zegler told 'People' that she had not met Lawrence before filming the spin-off movie. Upon meeting her, she said: "It relieved the pressure and made us feel like we were able to do our own thing." "Though, if she had ever wanted to give me tips, I absolutely would have been open to hearing them," she joked. Rachel Zegler says she bonded with Jennifer Lawrence on set of new 'Hunger Games' movie Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! Chandigarh, Nov 12 T he Golden Temple complex, where the holiest of Sikh shrines Harmandar Sahib is located, was illuminated on Sunday to mark the Bandi Chhor Diwas and Diwali. There has been festive spirit at the Golden Temple complex in Punjabs Amritsar since early morning as tens of thousands of people came there to offer prayers and seek blessings. Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann extended warm greetings to the people on the historic Bandi Chhor Diwas, to mark the release from prison of the sixth guru, Guru Hargobind, and 52 other princes with him, in 1619. The guru and the princes arrived in Amritsar during Diwali festivities. Since then, the Bandi Chhor Diwas and Diwali celebrations coincide at the Golden Temple complex. Elsewhere in Punjab, gurdwaras and markets wore a festive look. Hundreds of people thronged various markets in Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Patiala, Amritsar and other towns. The festival spirit for Diwali could also be seen in Chandigarh and towns and cities in Haryana. In a message, Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit said the festival celebrated by people of various religious and sects, strengthens the sense of unity, goodwill and fraternity among the people of the country. The festival inspires us to work for the service of humanity, he added. Massive crowds converge at Golden Temple to mark Bandi Chhor Diwas, Diwali Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! New Delhi, Nov 12 D iscover mouth-watering Diwali recipes to celebrate the festival of lightsby Swapnadeep Mukherjee, Executive Chef, The Metropolitan Hotel & Spa. CHATPATA BABY POTATO Ingredients Baby Potatoes, boiled and peeledCoriander SeedsCumin seedsFennel seeds 1Whole Black PeppercornsDry Red ChilliesAsafoetidaa pinchOil, as requiredGinger Garlic PasteTamarind PasteSugarWaterSalt, to tasteCoriander Leaves Method: Heat a heavy bottomed pan; add coriander seeds, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, black peppercorn and dry red chillies. Roast them for few seconds.Add the roasted dry masala in a mixer and turn them into a coarse powder.Heat oil in a wok/kadhai. Add asafoetida and after few seconds, add ginger garlic paste. Saute it properly for 1 to 2 minutes.Add baby potato and cook them till the colour turns golden brown.Meanwhile, mix tamarind paste and sugar in water and add into the potatoes.Add salt to taste and the roasted dry masala. Mix and cook the ChatpataAloo for 2 more minute and serve hot.Serve Chatpata Baby Potato along with Panchmel Dal, Lauki Raita and Pudina Tawa Paratha for a great Diwali meal. BAGICHE KI TIKKI Ingredients Mashed Boiled potatoTomatoOnionCapsicumBlack pepper powderAll spice mix powder / Garam masalaBlack saltSaltChaat masalaOil Method: Take boiled potato in a bowl. Add tomato, onion, capsicum, black pepper powder, all spice mix powder, black salt, salt, and chaat masala. Mix well.Take a small ball-sized portion of the mixture. Press it with hands and prepare tikkis.Meanwhile, heat a tawa over medium flame. Grease it with oil. Place the tikkion a tawa. Add oil to it. Roast them on a low flame for 2-3 mins.Flip it and cook it on low flame from another side. Likewise, roast all tikkis.Once done take it out on the serving plate, BagichekiTikki is ready to be served. NAVRATAN KHEER Ingredient White pumpkin (lauki)sabudanamilksugarkhoya (paste)seasonal fruitsPomegranate Method Scrape lauki lightly and grate.Soak sabudana in water for about half an hour. Boil the grated pumpkin in at least litre of milk for about 10 mins. When cool, make into a paste.Cook the remaining milk with sugar. Then add lauki paste, soaked sabudana and khoya.Allow it to cook till it reduces to almost half of its volume and reaches a smooth texture. Remove from heat and allow it to cool.Add chopped fruits to the kheer. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.Serve chilled, garnishwith Kabuli anardana. PANEER DIL KHUSH TIKKA Ingredient PaneerYellow chili powderRed chili powderGaram masalaGinger garlic pasteKasurimethiCurdLemon juice Method: Cut paneer into heart shape.Take a bowl , mix curd and masalato make a marination pasteMarinate paneer for min two hours.Cook in tandoor or pan grill on gas.Serve with coriander chutney. LADOO CHOOR BESAN Ingredient BesanDesi gheePowder cardamomSugarAlmong and pista kernels Method: Put besan into a pan and add desi ghee gradually.Stir cook till besan turns light brown.Add sugar and keep aside.Make into round ladoo shape. PANEER ALOO PAKORA Ingredient Potato( mashed)PaneerBesanAjwainSaltGaram masalaFresh corianderCheese Method: Put mashed potato, masala and cheese in a bowl.Mix well and keep aside.In another bowl mix besan, ajwain and water. Make a batter.Cut the paneer slice in half resembling bread slice.Put potato mashed in between two paneer slices.Dip into batter and fry.Serve with mint chutney. Festival of Flavors: Diwali Delicacies from Chef Swapnadeep Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! New Delhi, Nov 12 D ont want to celebrate the festive season the usual way? Add the perfect twist to your travel checklist by visiting these four places in India that offer a unique blend of cultural immersion and festive vibrancy for solo travellers seeking spiritual rejuvenation and adventure. To make the most of your time, book comfortable, luxurious stays with unique experiences crafted exclusively through CRED escapes- Mysore Situated in the southern part of India, close to Bengaluru, The Mysore Palace is embellished with hundreds of lamps, earthen diyas and lights at dusk and the sight is truly magnificent. Besides this, several pandals are set up across the city, where you can enjoy music, dance, cultural activities, and other fun-filled things. Check out Sandesh Palace, a luxury hotel, located at the centre of the city or the Fortune JP Palace that offers the old-world charm of Mysore to stay at. Goa Goa has always been in the limelight for parties but did you know Goa celebrates Narak Chaturdashi, where humongous effigies of the demon king Narakasura, composed of papers, straws, grass, crackers, etc are taken around in vehicles, are taunted, and burnt, eventually signifying the win of good over evil. The entire celebration is a spectacle and one of its kind. Udaipur While Udaipur is a magical city at all times during the year, it is at Diwali, when you see the royal town in its full glory. Udaipur hosts a unique event titled Udaipur Light Festival (previously Udaipur Lantern festival) where post 10 pm, thousands of lanterns are lit and released into the open sky to signify the festival of lights, but in a responsible and eco-friendly way. Do check out Shiv Nivas or the Fateh Niwas, which are heritage stays situated right in the heart of Udaipur. Book through CRED escapes to get exciting and unique member benefits on your booking. Dharamshala If you wish for a quieter and more spiritual getaway from the chaos and pollution of the cities, then you must try Dharamshala. Home to His Holiness, Dalai Lama the 14th, this hill station, situatedin the Kangra valley is the perfect spot to park your bags at. Spend a few days practising self-reflection, introspecting, and truly reconnecting with your roots amidst the serene valley. A solo traveller's guide to festive travel Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! Microsoft may bring its AI Copilot to 1 bn Windows 10 users: Report San Francisco, Nov 12 M icrosoft is reportedly planning to bring its generative AI-powered personal assistant, Copilot, to one billion Windows 10 users soon. According to Windows Central, citing sources, similar to Windows 11, this update will place a Copilot button directly on the Windows 10 taskbar, opening the same Copilot sidebar experience found on Windows 11. The Windows 10 Copilot update will also include plugins that work across both operating systems. "I understand the experience and capabilities of Copilot across Windows 10 and Windows 11 will be roughly the same, including plugin compatibility across both versions of the OS," the report said. According to the report, the primary reason for this new update is to increase market share. Windows 10 continues to be used on approximately 1 billion monthly active devices, compared to 400 million monthly active devices on Windows 11. Microsoft sees an additional 1 billion users as an untapped market for Copilot expansion, so integrating Copilot into Windows 10 is a natural next step for the company, the report stated. The AI assistant for Windows 11 launched in beta in August and officially in September. Meanwhile, Microsoft has started rolling out the next major update to its Windows 11 PC operating system with some new features. The main change in the new update (known as Windows 11, version 23H2) includes the name change of Microsoft Teams to Chat. "Chat is now Microsoft Teams (free) and is pinned by default to the taskbar," VP of programme management for Windows servicing and delivery, John Cable, said in a blogpost. Microsoft may bring its AI Copilot to 1 bn Windows 10 users: Report Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! On 10 November, the Third Committee of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly adopted by consensus the traditional Belarusian resolution " Improving the coordination of efforts against trafficking in persons, Azernews reports, citing BelTA. The resolution, which has been adopted by the UN General Assembly since 2006, is a practical contribution to the development of the initiative put forward by Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko at the UN summit in 2005 to build a global partnership to combat trafficking in human beings. The document has a significant number of co-sponsors (more than 40 states) representing all regions of the world, which testifies to the relevance of the Belarusian initiative and the high level of confidence given to Belarus in consolidating international efforts to combat trafficking in human beings. The resolution ensures that the UN continues to give consistent priority attention to the issue of combating trafficking in human beings and is a one-of-a-kind umbrella, universal document on this topic. The document brings together all the individual thematic initiatives in the field of combating trafficking in human beings promoted by states in the UN. In practice, the resolution demonstrates the ability of the international community to overcome the fragmentation that previously existed in the UN and serves as an additional platform for further strengthening international partnership on such an important issue. The resolution reflects the integral contribution of universal and regional organizations and mechanisms to combat trafficking in persons, including within the framework of the Inter-Agency Coordination Group against Trafficking in Persons, a number of UN entities (the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, the Office on Drugs and Crime), the OSCE and others. The resolution focuses on a number of recent global challenges that the international community continues to face in the fight against human trafficking. In particular, attention is drawn to trends in the use of information and communication technologies for trafficking in persons. There has been an increase in the number of migrants among victims of human trafficking. It also calls on the international community to step up measures to assist victims of trafficking. Egypt's Ministry of Finance has secured $500 million in financing from Deutsche Bank, Bahrain-based bank ABC, and Kuwait-based Arab Investment and Export Credit Guarantee Corporation, known as "Dhaman", the ministry announced in a statement on Sunday. According to the statement, the finance package will be allocated to implement crucial educational and health projects. Additionally, The partnership underlines Egypt's commitment to diversifying its financial resources through the utilization of innovative and sustainable tools, the Ministry said. This step marks the first instance in which the Egyptian government has obtained development finance backed by a multilateral financial institution, Dhaman, which provides low-cost financing options, the statement highlighted. Moreover, this strategic move aligns with Egypt's ongoing endeavours to address its financing gap of $17 billion through 2026, according to estimates from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Furthermore, the government consistently targets the funding of its budget deficit, which stood at six percent of the country's GDP in the fiscal year 2022/2023. With an external debt totalling $165.3 billion, Egypt faces the obligation of servicing $71.6 billion of debt in the next three years, including $29.23 billion due in 2024. To meet its financial requirements, the government has set a goal of securing $3 billion in financing from various external markets by the end of this year, Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait said in July. To achieve this objective, Egypt will leverage the support of institutions such as the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Asian Investment International Bank (AIIB). Additionally, the government plans to continue issuing Panda and Samurai bonds, targeting investors in the Asian market. Search Keywords: Short link: Download Now The News-Gazette mobile app brings you the latest local breaking news, updates, and more. Read the News-Gazette on your mobile device just as it appears in print. More than 180,000 people across France march against soaring antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war More than 180,000 people across France, including 100,000 in Paris, have marched peacefully to protest against rising antisemitism in the wake of Israels ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza Illinois man dies after being fatally shot in face by fellow hunter, authorities say Authorities in central Iowa say an Illinois hunter has died after being shot in the face by someone in his hunting party Despite the raft of health care changes that occurred after the Affordable Care Act was signed into law in 2010, racial and ethnic disparities in aging needs among older adults persist today, a new study shows. Researchers from the University of Michigan and Syracuse University found that wide disparities in difficulties with daily tasksand who can afford to pay for care to help meet those needsremain. However, those disparities were not present among the poorest Americans, they say. Hoping Americas long-term care problems away wont work. Policies not directly targeting the millions of Americans with unmet needs wont do the job. We need direct solutions to ease burdens that disproportionately impact minority groups, older Americans and their family members. Geoffrey Hoffman, assistant professor in the School of Nursing The study examined how white, Black and Hispanic older adults differed in the need for and receipt of help with self-care, mobility and household activities from 2008 to 2018, a period marked by major health care changes spurred by the ACA. While the ACA brought forth large-scale policy changes and is believed to have reshaped U.S. health care, little is known about how it has altered long-term care, including the prevalence of older adults with functional difficulties and their use of family and paid care. Key findings include: One-third of Black and Hispanic older adults had difficulties with daily tasks compared to one-fifth of white older adults. Black and Hispanic older adults who had difficulty with daily tasks were 1.5 times more likely to be without care support for one or more tasks than white older adults. These racial and ethnic differences were not present among low-income older adults, where rates of people without care support were high for everyone. Even though more Black and Hispanic older adults had difficulty with daily tasks than white older adults, they were no more likely to receive paid help, but relied heavily on family and friends. These differences between groups were consistent over time. I was surprised by the prevalence of people with unmet needs who were not getting care support. Given all the hopes that we had with trying to equalize disparities (by expanding) many home and community-based services, were still seeing these high rates, said study first author Jun Li, who received a doctorate from the U-M School of Public Health and is now an assistant professor at Syracuse University. Hoffman said the lack of disparities for lower-income people offers hope that Medicaid is an equalizer. But the very high rates of need and unmet need for this group means much more is needed, as expanded Medicaid wasnt able to bring these rates down, he said. The study, which uses data from U-Ms Health and Retirement Study, appears in the journal Health Affairs Scholar. The UK Prescribing Safety Assessment (PSA) is a ground-breaking medical exam with strong stakeholder support and is associated with increased confidence in prescribing and decreased reporting of medication-related patient harm. The PSA is a joint initiative by the British Pharmacological Society (BPS) and Medical Schools Council (MSC) created to address findings in the first decade of this century that prescribing errors were common amongst junior doctors. The use of medicines saves many lives but is also associated with harm. Some of these avoidable harms come from prescription errors, estimated to be present in up to one in every ten hospital prescriptions. The UK PSA is a targeted education initiative to prioritize patient safety. It is a national exam that all medical students or doctors entering NHS clinical practice after medical school must pass, to demonstrate that they can prescribe medicines to patients safely. Although most UK medical students will pass the exam before becoming doctors, it is currently not mandated until the end of the first year of clinical practice in the NHS. This means that some newly qualified prescribing doctors have not yet passed this exam at present. A review of the first decade of implementation of this exam, sat by over 80,000 medical students and doctors, by Professor Dame Jane Dacre, has found that students and educators think the assessment has driven more and better prescribing education and has been accompanied by trends that suggest NHS prescribing may now be safer. In what would be a major paradigm shift, this review recommended that all clinicians should be required to pass the exam prior to prescribing for patients in clinical practice. Because this recommendation would require a shift in medical education nationally, a parallel study was undertaken to put all the exam information provided to the Dacre review into the public domain. This study is now published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology (BJCP). The analysis of ten years of data shows that the PSA is a good test that measures how prepared someone is to prescribe. It is a reliable and efficient exam, and provides a national standard, which the vast majority of UK medical students will pass (>90%) prior to working in the NHS. This study, by Magavern et al, supports the Dacre Review recommendations that passing the PSA should be a requirement for newly qualified medical practice in the UK, so that the NHS can continue to prioritize patient safety and ensure an appropriate threshold of experience prior to prescribing for patients. This study was a large collaborative effort from academics at multiple institutions; for a full list of affiliations, please see footnote below. Dame Jane Dacre, Emeritus Professor of Medical Education UCL, said: "Prescribing safety is essential to protect patients. Our review recommends that assessment of prescribing is best done before doctors qualify, so that relevant education, training and assessment happens before they are expected to prescribe for patients. Addition of the PSA to medical school finals would give new doctors better competence and confidence in safe prescribing." James Titcombe, Patient Safety Advocate, said: 'Safe prescribing is key to patient safety and has the potential to reduce medical error which can be costly to the lives of patients, as well as being a financial burden for healthcare systems. 'I welcome both the study and report, which highlight the importance of up-to-date knowledge of safe prescribing, and the consistency of applying that knowledge when prescribing to patients. 'The PSA is the key to ensuring better patient safety for all, which should be a healthcare priority for all involved in the prescribing of medicines.' Dame June Raine DBE, Chief Executive of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said: "Innovative medicines have brought hope to many patients for whom treatment options were previously unavailable. As medicines become more powerful and complex, safe prescribing by healthcare professionals plays an even more vital role." "A prescriber must have a detailed knowledge of a medicine's indication, dose, and potential adverse reactions. Now more than ever, all prescribers have a duty to proactively stay up to date with the constantly-evolving risks and benefits of medicines in clinical use." "This includes playing an active role in reporting suspected side effects to the MHRA's Yellow Card scheme to ensure adverse reactions are recorded and appropriate action is taken. Safe prescribing is a professional duty, and I therefore welcome the recommendations of this timely report." Prescribing medicines is the most important means by which healthcare professionals treat illness, alleviate symptoms and prevent future ill health. Given the complexity of the task, it is inevitable that mistakes will occur, but minimizing them should be a key priority for improving the quality of healthcare delivery. This research demonstrates that developing the first national assessment of basic competence to prescribe has encouraged greater emphasis on training to undertake this important task. I am pleased to see that the Dacre review recommends extending this principle to all new doctors entering the NHS and believe that this will drive future improvements in patient safety." Professor Simon Maxwell, the PSA Medical Director Dr Emma Magavern, the lead author of the study in the BJCP, said: "The data all suggests that we can make prescribing safer for our patients by expanding the use of the PSA" Researchers from the University of Minnesota Medical School examining the cause of cardiomyopathy discovered one out of every six patients with coronary artery disease had non-ischemic or dual cardiomyopathy. The findings of this study were published this week in the peer-reviewed journal Circulation, the flagship journal of the American Heart Association. Cardiomyopathies are diseases of the heart muscle. Patients with coronary artery disease can have cardiomyopathy from heart muscle damage as a result of heart attacks. Therefore, in patients with cardiomyopathy, the current clinical practice is to look for coronary artery disease using coronary angiography-;an X-ray test that shows whether coronary arteries are narrowed or blocked. If coronary artery disease is found, it is assumed the patient has ischemic cardiomyopathy. Non-ischemic cardiomyopathy refers to a heart muscle condition where the cause of the problem is not related to blood supply. Dual cardiomyopathy refers to two simultaneous problems with the heart muscle-;both ischemic and non-ischemic. Patients with these conditions had worse long-term outcomes compared with patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy. The research team studied patients with coronary artery disease who had cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) for clinical reasons, which allowed a more accurate determination of the presence and the cause of cardiomyopathy. Investigating the cause of cardiomyopathy using CMR for a myocardium-centric approach-;in contrast to the conventional coronary-centric approach using coronary angiography-;provided us new insights with important clinical implications. Our findings have implications for the treatment of patients with coronary artery disease and cardiomyopathy, traditionally assumed to all have ischemic cardiomyopathy." Chetan Shenoy, MBBS, MS, senior author of the paper, associate professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School and cardiologist with M Health Fairview The findings imply that in patients with obstructive coronary artery disease, coincidental non-ischemic or dual cardiomyopathy may contribute to the lack of prognostic benefit from coronary revascularization-;procedures which restore blood flow to areas of the heart that are not getting enough blood. Future research should investigate whether non-ischemic or dual cardiomyopathy in patients with coronary artery disease influences outcomes, specifically after coronary revascularization. If it does, the next step would be to investigate whether routine CMR before coronary revascularization to identify the cause of cardiomyopathy would improve the selection of patients for coronary revascularization, and overall outcomes. This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health [grants K23HL132011, R03HL157011, and R01HL158756]. Neuropsychiatric symptoms of Long COVID, including brain fog, inability to concentrate, and headache, have puzzled researchers and clinicians, who are hunting for those symptoms' causes. A new study found that neuroinflammation and blood-brain-barrier dysfunction are not likely drivers of the symptoms, giving researchers more clues in their quest to uncover what actually may be the culprit. Scientists have proposed many potential causes behind the neuropsychiatric symptoms including damage of the blood vessels in the brain, ongoing brain inflammation, and lingering viral infection. This study is the first time researchers have tested a large cohort of people living with Long COVID for spinal fluid markers of brain inflammation and blood-brain-barrier dysfunction. The researchers published their findings in JAMA Network Open on November 11, and the outcome is significant even with the negative finding. Our study suggests that interventions that are aimed at quieting brain inflammation likely won't help people with Long COVID." Shelli Farhadian, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine (infectious diseases) at Yale School of Medicine (YSM) and first author of the study For many years, Farhadian and Serena Spudich, MD, Gilbert H. Glaser Professor of Neurology and senior author, have been studying neurological abnormalities caused by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. An important way to assess this is through cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), which offers a window into the brains of living people. "It's the only part of the central nervous system that's easily accessible," says Farhadian. "It can and has already told us a lot about the brain and people living with other infections and inflammatory diseases like multiple sclerosis, HIV, and Parkinson's disease." Researchers can look at proteins and cells in the spinal fluid to see if there is any neurological dysfunction, including abnormal immune activity or blood-brain-barrier impairment. Researchers Analyze Cerebral Spinal Fluid and Blood for Signs of Dysfunction Beginning in late 2020, the team began enrolling participants with self-reported neurological or psychiatric Long COVID symptoms. Many of the patients were enrolled with the YSM Department of Neurology's neuroCOVID clinic. The researchers had to rely on the self-reporting of symptoms because there are no established diagnostic criteria for Long COVID. As a control, researchers were able to use CSF and blood samples that predated COVID-19. "It's increasingly difficult to find people who have never had COVID-19," says Farhadian. "The CDC estimate that over 90 percent of people by this point have been infected." But fortunately, over the past decade, Farhadian and Spudich were already enrolling healthy people from the New Haven community as volunteers to donate blood samples and CSF as research volunteers. Their team was able to use these samples collected before the pandemic as a control. All participants in the experimental cohort consented to give blood samples and underwent a lumbar puncture to collect CSF. Using these samples, researchers measured levels of inflammatory proteins called cytokines, immune cells, and neopterin, another marker of inflammation. They also evaluated the CSF-to-blood albumin ratio, which indicates blood-brain-barrier integrity. "We chose these markers because they've previously been found to be elevated in other neuroinflammatory conditions," says Farhadian. The researchers did not find any significant differences between the experimental and control groups, suggesting that neuroinflammation and blood-brain-barrier dysfunction are unlikely to be the causes of neuropsychiatric symptoms associated with Long COVID. Now, the team can turn its attention to other potential causes of Long COVID and eventually home in on those that are supported by scientific evidence. "It's been two years since the pandemic, and it's time to reassess what we know and don't know about Long COVID so that we can focus our efforts on finding a solution," says Farhadian. "We were really lucky that our participants were generous in agreeing to enroll in our study." Ongoing Long COVID research at Yale will evaluate other possible causes of brain fog Farhadian and Spudich now plan to focus on other hypotheses that may reveal the biological underpinnings of neuropsychiatric symptoms of Long COVID. They will do this by leading translation research conducted through The COVID Mind Study at Yale, Specifically, the team will study whether lingering viral infection of the central nervous system plays a role in symptoms. Other research led by Lindsay McAlpine, MD, instructor in the division of neurological infections and global neurology and co-author of the neuroinflammation and blood-brain-barrier study, is assessing structural and vascular brain abnormalities. "We still don't understand what's causing neurological Long COVID," says Farhadian. "But our hope is that with more studies, we can start to eliminate some of the possibilities and zero in on some of the others." A US reporting system designed to detect potential safety issues with vaccines is supposed to be user-friendly, responsive, and transparent. But an investigation published by The BMJ today finds it's not meeting its own standards. The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), co-managed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), collects reports of symptoms, diagnoses, hospitalizations, and deaths following vaccination that might indicate a possible safety concern about a vaccine, explains journalist Jennifer Block. It relies on a mixture of voluntary adverse event reports from doctors and patients and mandatory reporting from vaccine manufacturers, which are required by law to report all adverse events of which they are aware. According to VAERS' standard operating procedure for covid-19, reports must be processed quickly, within days of receipt. But The BMJ has learned that in the face of an unprecedented 1.7 million reports since the rollout of the covid-19 vaccines, VAERS staffing was likely not commensurate with the demands of reviewing serious reports submitted, including reports of death. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documents seen by The BMJ suggest that Pfizer has more than 1,000 more full time employees than the CDC, despite the latter's responsibility for handling adverse event reports for all manufacturers. What's more, other countries have acknowledged deaths "likely" or "probably" related to mRNA vaccination, whereas the CDC, which says it has reviewed nearly 20,000 reports (far more than other countries) hasn't acknowledged a single death linked to mRNA vaccine. The BMJ has spoken to more than a dozen people, including a number of physicians and a state medical examiner, who have filed VAERS reports of a serious nature on behalf of themselves or patients and were never contacted by clinical reviewers, or were contacted months later. Some were told conflicting information about updating their report or discouraged from making a report altogether. A group of physicians and advocates have met multiple times with representatives of the FDA between 2021 and 2022 to express their concerns that the system is not operating as intended and signals are being missed. In response to several questions about these meetings and the issues raised therein, the FDA responded by email that the agency "is actively engaged in safety surveillance of these vaccines to identify and address potential safety concerns" and that "physicians and epidemiologists from the FDA and CDC continuously screen and analyse data from VAERS for covid-19 vaccines to identify potential signals that would indicate the need for further study." The BMJ has also found that the FDA and CDC essentially maintain two separate VAERS databases - a public-facing database containing only initial reports, and a private, backend system containing all updates and corrections - for example, a formal diagnosis, recovery, or a death. CDC told The BMJ that this was to protect patient confidentiality. Yet, interestingly, Block notes that the FDA's adverse event reporting system (FAERS), which collects reports on drugs, does maintain a publicly accessible database that gets updated, as does the Medical Device Reporting system, raising the question of why VAERS can't do the same. Neither the CDC nor the FDA provided an explanation. An FDA spokesperson told The BMJ that "patients can submit formal requests under FOIA to obtain the full record of their report." For serious cases, reporters to VAERS are supposed to receive emails prompting them for updates. It includes a code and upload link, but reporters The BMJ spoke with didn't get confirmation emails, and if they search for their report in the database it will remain unchanged. Similarly, if a reporter successfully treated their diagnoses and improved, or confirmed that the cause for their illness was unrelated to a vaccine, that would not be reflected in the public database. Narayan Nair, the FDA division director who oversees VAERS, acknowledged in a meeting with advocates that people get frustrated when they look for an updated report, find the original untouched, and feel like they're "being ignored." "They never see it on the front end, because we don't alter that initial report." If you are already a car owner, you must be aware that there are many kinds of expenses one needs to keep in mind. This also includes vehicle insurance premiums. If you have a luxurious car, then you might be paying a higher sum of insurance. As per the laws of the country, insurance is now mandatory. The purpose of having it is that the insurance company compensates for the damage caused to the vehicle in case of an accident. It also covers injury or death of a person due to the insured vehicle. Make sure to not make decisions in haste, as it can lead to you choosing the wrong policy, for which you will have to pay more and get fewer perks. If you are shelling out a lot for your vehicles insurance, there are a few tips to reduce the premium and save money. Lets take a look at them. Research is the key The more knowledge you have, the more informed you will be able to select the right insurance policy. To gain knowledge and information, make sure to engage in lots of research. You can do this from the comfort of your home. Check out various websites, and see informative videos on the internet. This will help you in choosing the cheapest plan, which will meet your needs. Understand what the insurance covers It is important to note that car insurance generally has two parts. One is third party damage and the other is the damage to your own vehicle. While it is mandatory to take third-party cover, self-cover is for you to choose. Insurance for your vehicle will cover various losses to the vehicle and driver which can be caused due to accidents, fire or waterlogging. There are various add-ons available, which can lead to higher premiums. Do not buy add-ons that you do not require. Pay-as-you-drive insurance Pay-as-you-drive is a usage-based car insurance and is a new concept in India. Traditionally, the insurance of a vehicle is determined by the model of the car and not by the driving pattern of the vehicle owner. The new insurance model focuses more on driving behaviour than usage. Calculating the premium based on the distance covered by your vehicle will reduce the premium cost. If you are someone who drives less, then this option is the best for you. No Claim Bonus When no insurance claim is made in a year, the insurance company generally offers a No Claim Bonus (NCB). It offers a discount of 20 to 50 percent on the insurance policy premium for next year. If you have collected NCB for many years and are thinking of buying a new car, then NCB can be transferred. DIWALI 2023: The Diwali Muhurat Trading sessions are known to prove profitable due to the auspicious timing, however, the trading window is limited to just one hour. Diwali Muhurat Trading 2023 Session for Samvat 2080 is slated for November 12. This special trading session has a lot of importance as it is said to be quite lucky in stock market investment. Moreover, it marks a new year according to the Hindu Calendar, making it even more significant. ALSO READ: Happy Diwali 2023: 100+ Shubh Deepavali Wishes, Messages, Quotes, Photos and WhatsApp Status to Share on Festival of Lights! DIWALI MUHURAT TRADING 2023 TIMINGS Stock Market Timings on November 12: 6:00 PM to 7:15 PM Pre-Open Session: 6:00 PM to 6:08 PM Block Deal Window: Opens at 5:45 PM Normal Market Session: 6:15 PM to 7:15 PM Trade Modification: Permitted until 7:25 PM Closing Session: 7:25 PM to 7:35 PM Block Deal Session: 5:45 PM to 6:00 PM Call Auction Illiquid Session: Between 6:20 PM and 7:05 PM. Muhurat Trading: All You Need To Know Stock exchanges are open for trading for only an hour during Diwali, generally in the evening. Within this short period, traders indulge themselves in symbolic trades to announce the arrival of the new year. Whats different about these trades is that they all settle on the same day. This is preceded and succeeded by a 15-minute pre-open and post-open phase. ALSO READ: Happy Diwali 2023: 20 Heartfelt Ways to Reply to Deepavali Wishes, Messages, and Greetings This year, the Diwali Muhurat Trading Session will begin at 6 pm on November 12 and will conclude at 7:15 pm. Investors eagerly join the Diwali Muhurat Trading Session and believe that doing so will make them wealthy for every year of the year thereafter. Stock traders typically begin new settlement accounts on Diwali as for this one hour, the stock markets are superactive even though regular trading is still closed. Diwali Muhurat Trading Significance Muhurat Trading is based on the concept of auspicious timing of trading stocks that is calculated using astrology. This is viewed by investors as a good platform to begin their investment journey and add new stocks to their portfolios as well as increase their holding in existing ones. The stock markets were positive in the last two Muhurat sessions. In 2022, the Sensex and Nifty moved up at 0.88% each and so was also the case in 2021 where these indices rose by 0.49% each. However, the Diwali Muhurat Trading period lasts only one hour, and it is important to note that the market movements can be very volatile during this period. Also, positive past results dont assure future performance, therefore, it is advised to be cautious while trading during the special Diwali Muhurat Trading session. Muhurat Trading FAQs What is Diwali Muhurat Trading? Diwali Muhurat Trading is a one-hour trading session that takes place on the day of Diwali. This year the session will begin at 6 PM IST and ends at 7:15 PM IST. Why is Diwali Muhurat Trading important? Diwali Muhurat Trading is considered to be a auspicious time to start new ventures or make investments. It is also a time for traders to celebrate the festival and wish each other good luck. What are the rules of Diwali Muhurat Trading? The rules of Diwali Muhurat Trading are similar to those of regular trading sessions. However, there are a few key differences: The session is shorter, lasting only one hour. The margin requirements are typically lower than for regular trading sessions. The trading volume is often higher than for regular trading sessions. What are the benefits of Diwali Muhurat Trading? There are several potential benefits to Diwali Muhurat Trading, including: The opportunity to make significant profits. The chance to participate in a festive and auspicious event. The potential to gain exposure to a new market. What are the risks of Diwali Muhurat Trading? As with any investment, there are also some risks associated with Diwali Muhurat Trading, including: The potential for losses. The need to do your research before trading. The importance of managing your risk. Who should participate in Diwali Muhurat Trading? Diwali Muhurat Trading is a good option for experienced traders who are looking to make significant profits. It is also a good option for traders who are new to the market and want to participate in a festive and auspicious event. Here are some tips for participating in Diwali Muhurat Trading: Diwali Muhurat Trading 2023: The Indian equity market on Sunday traded with strong gains in the special one-hour Muhurat trading session, marking the beginning of the Hindu Samvat Year 2079 on an auspicious note. The BSE Sensex opened 514.30 points higher at nearly 65,430, and later settled to close at 354.77 points up at 65,259.45. The NSE Nifty also opened about 100 points up at 19,524.95 and after an hour of trade closed 100 points higher at 19,525.55. During the trade, among the 30 Sensex shares, Infosys rose the most by 1.41 per cent, followed by Wipro (0.88 per cent), Asian Paint (0.78 per cent), and TCS (0.77 per cent). NTPC, Titan, Reliance Industries, Larsen & Toubro, HDFC Bank and Nestle were also among the lead gainers. Broader markets also advanced with the BSE MidCap gaining 217.21 points or 0.67 per cent and BSE SmallCap by 437.32 points or 1.14 per cent. All the sectoral indices were trading in positive territory led by industrials, IT, metal and services indices. On the auspicious occasion of Diwali Muhurat trading, we have the key dignitaries Mr. Michael Schreuder- Deputy Principal officer, US Consulate General Mumbai, Padma Shri. Milind Kamble Chairman of IIM Jammu and the joyous team of Khichdi (Shri. Jd Majethia, Shri. Aatish pic.twitter.com/MMbuXUIX1L NSE India (@NSEIndia) November 12, 2023 In the pre-open market deal which opened at 6:00 pm till 6.08 pm, the Sensex was up by nearly 600 points at nearly 64,600, while the NSE Nifty also jumped 186 points. The stock market on Sunday opened for an hour for Diwali muhurat trading at 6:15 pm and ended after one hour at 7:15 pm. However, the pre-open market session took place between 6:00 pm and 6:08 pm on the BSE and the NSE. Matching timings on the muhurat trading session were from 6:08 pm to 6:15 pm. Trade modification in the call auction ends at 7:40 om. All trades executed at the Indian stock market in Diwali 2023 muhurat trading session shall result in a settlement obligation. A special stock market session will take place today on Sunday Muhurat Trading to mark the beginning of a new Hindu calendar year Samvat 2080. The session will be one hour long. So, investors need to research thoroughly beforehand for the stock market session today. Here are the top stock picks by brokerage houses Motilal Oswal and Kotak Securities. Muhurat Trading 2023: Top Stock Picks By Motilal Oswal: 1) State Bank of India Ltd (SBI) Motilal Oswal said it noted the performance of the countrys largest bank in terms of operating profit and its strong liability franchise, which commands a 12 per cent market share in Tier 1 cities in India, making it a firecracking stock to have in your portfolio. 2) Titan Titan, part of Tata Group, has been a beloved stock of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala. Titan is expanding into other consumer-centric industries such as fragrances, fashion accessories, and Indian dress-wear. Motilal Oswals analysts said this expansion is expected to show a record double-digit growth, making Titan a must-have stock in your Diwali portfolio. 3) Mahindra & Mahindra Mahindra & Mahindra, which controls about 65 per cent of the automotive market in terms of volume, has established a significant presence in rural India. Analysts at Motilal Oswal expect the company to deliver a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16 per cent in passenger utility vehicles (UVs) volume from FY23 to FY25, making it an attractive stock to consider. 4) Cipla With its future growth prospects and current market strength, Motilal Oswal said Cipla is projected to achieve an earnings 19 per cent CAGR for FY23-25E, making it a powerful stock to hold your portfolio in perfect health. 5) Dalmia Bharat An increase in cement prices has benefitted its manufacturers. Analysts at Motilal Oswal expect an 11 per cent rise in the volume CAGR over FY 23-36, which can be achieved with the reduction in Operating efficacy and cooling fuel prices. Apart from these, Motilal Oswal also suggested stocks such as Indian Hotels, Kaynes Technology India, Raymond, Spandana Sphoorty Financial, and Restaurant Brand Asia. Top picks By Kotak Securities for Muhurat Trading Session 2023 include Canara Bank, Cipla, Cyient, Dalmia Bharat, Godrej Consumer Products, PCBL, and Reliance Industries. Muhurat Trading 2023 Timings Today Leading stock exchanges BSE and NSE will host the one-hour special Muhurat Trading session on November 12 between 6 pm and 7.15 pm, which includes a 15-minute pre-market session. The customary special session would mark the start of Samvat 2080 according to the Hindu calendar year. The stock market will open for an hour for Diwali muhurat trading on November 12 at 6:15 pm and will end after one hour at 7:15 pm. However, the pre-open market session will take place between 6:00 pm and 6:08 pm on the BSE and NSE. Muhurat Trading 2023: Key Things To Keep In Mind Harjeet Singh Arora, managing director at Mastertrust, said, Usually, we witness volatile trading sessions during muhurat trading. Hence, thorough research is very important before deploying any trade. Look for companies with strong fundamentals, positive earnings reports, and growth potential. Additionally, we can also find stocks based on technical studies for short-term trading opportunities. Investors are not recommended to concentrate all investments in one stock or sector, he said adding that over the past 10 muhurat trading sessions, seven instances concluded with positive returns. For traders, Arora said, Given the short duration of muhurat trading, liquidity is also a big factor. Especially for intraday traders, choose stocks with sufficient liquidity to ensure smooth execution of trades. The Haryana Staff Selection Commission (HSSC) conducted the Group D Common Eligibility Test (CET) on October 21 and 22 across the state at more than 700 exam centres. The official HSSC Group D CET answer key 2023 has now been released by the commission. Candidates who appeared for the Common Eligibility Test 2023 for Group D posts can go to the official website of the commission at hssc.gov.in and download the answer key. It is to be noted that the answer key has been published for both shifts, Shift 1 which was held from 10 AM to 11:45 AM, and Shift 2 which was conducted from 3 PM to 4:45 PM. To download the answer key, candidates will be required to key in their registration or application number and date of birth at the login window of the website. HSSC Group D CET Answer Key: How To Check Candidates can follow these steps to download the HSSC Group D CET Answer Key 2023 for the written exam: Step 1: Go to the official portal of the Haryana Staff Selection Commission at hssc.gov.in. Step 2: Select the HSSC Group D CET Exam Answer Key Link on the homepage Step 3: Post that, a new window will be displayed on the screen Step 4: Key in your login credentials and hit submit. Step 5: After submitting, the HSSC Group D Answer Key 2023 will appear on the screen Step 6: Download the Answer Key PDF and match the HSSC Group D Answer Key responses with your responses as filled out in the examination Step 7: Evaluate your score by tallying the correct and incorrect answers with the help of the HSSC Group D CET Answer Key. The Haryana Staff Selection Commission Common Eligibility Test is a state-level offline examination to recruit a total of 13,536 candidates for various Group D posts in the state of Haryana. The test consists of 100 multiple-choice questions, which are divided into six sections, including general intelligence, reasoning, numerical ability, English language, general knowledge, and current affairs. Candidates have to answer the 100 multiple-choice questions in 2 hours, 45 minutes. It is to be noted that every correct answer will be awarded 0.95 marks, and 0.95 marks will be deducted for unanswered questions. However, there will be no negative marking in the exam. From UPSC Civil Services to SSC recruitment exams, from college admissions to group discussions, general knowledge questions mark a significant part of almost every exam. For candidates preparing to crack an exam or those who need to get their news in a compact form, News18 offers a weekly column GK Capsule. While we provide you a weekly news wrap, to get more information on a specific topic or an exam, reach out at @news18dotcom. Staying informed about global events is crucial for various competitive exams such as UPSC and bank entrance exams. It not only enhances general knowledge but is also essential for tackling questions in these challenging examinations. Lets delve into the detailed summaries of the major events that unfolded during this week to provide a comprehensive understanding. Bombay HC Reduces Time for Bursting Firecrackers During Diwali: On November 10, the Bombay High Court took a significant step in reducing the duration of Diwali fireworks to just two hours. This decision stemmed from concerns about air quality in Mumbai, particularly in crucial areas where the air quality index (AQI) remains low. The new rule restricts fireworks from 7 pm to 10 pm. The revised directive now allows fireworks only between 8 pm and 10 pm during the Diwali celebration. Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) chairman Iqbal Chahal urged residents to adhere to the courts decision, emphasizing the importance of respecting the prescribed time frame. US and India Kick Off the Fifth Edition of the 2+2 Meeting: In a significant diplomatic development, the fifth edition of the India-US 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue commenced on Friday in New Delhi. The meeting saw the participation of key figures such as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. During the dialogue, Jaishankar expressed appreciation for the strong support provided by the US during Indias G20 chairmanship. The successful G20 Summit in September was attributed to this support, as acknowledged by Jaishankar. The meeting highlights the ongoing collaboration and strategic engagement between India and the United States. Biker in Kerala Fined Over Rs 86,000 for 155 Traffic Violations: In a rather unusual case, the Kerala Motor Vehicle Department (MVD) imposed a substantial fine of around Rs 86,000 on a young motorist for committing 155 traffic violations. The violations were captured by AI cameras, showcasing the individual riding his two-wheeler without a helmet and carrying two passengers through the Mattool area of northern Kannur district. Even more unexpected, reports suggest that the individual even made faces in front of the AI camera. In addition to the hefty fines, the MVD suspended his license for a year and seized his bike, with the condition of returning it only upon payment. Punjab Sees Drop in Farm Fires: On November 9, Punjab witnessed a notable decrease in the number of stubble-burning incidents, recording 639 agricultural fires. This reduction came as a result of police and civil administration crackdowns on erring farmers to prevent the burning of crop waste. The Supreme Court issued orders on November 7, directing the immediate cessation of crop waste burning. As part of these measures, the apex court assigned the local station house officer (SHO) to take charge of curbing agricultural residue burning. The burning of paddy straw in Punjab and Haryana has been identified as a significant contributor to the worrisome increase in air pollution levels in Delhi-NCR during October and November. Nepal Earthquake: On November 6 a 5.6-magnitude earthquake struck Nepal, leading to tremors felt in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR). The epicenter was located 233 km north of Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, according to the National Centre for Seismology. This event caused widespread panic, with people frantically evacuating residential buildings. The earthquakes impact was particularly significant in Delhi-NCR, emphasizing the seismic vulnerability of the region. Earlier, on November 3, severe earthquake tremors were observed in Delhi-NCR and adjacent states following a magnitude-6.4 earthquake in Nepal. Diwali, also known as Deepavali, is one of the most significant festivals celebrated by millions of people across the world. The festival of light is not only celebrated across India but also celebrated by millions across the world. The auspicious Hindu festival of Diwali, which falls on November 12, this year, is marked with pomp across the country. It symbolises the spiritual victory of light over darkness, good over evil and knowledge over ignorance. The festival is marked according to the lunisolar Hindu calendar and falls between mid-October and mid-November on the 15th day of Kartik month. Heres how the festival of light is celebrated in different parts of India: North India In North India, the festival marks Lord Ramas return to Ayodhya with Maa Sita and Lord Lakshman after spending 14 years in exile and defeating the King of Lanka, Ravana. Everyone lights the house with rows of diyas to celebrate the return of Lord Rama, his wife Sita, and his brother Laxman. The tradition of lighting diyas and fireworks continues in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Bihar and neighbouring areas while in Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and Punjab, people also engage in gambling on Diwali night as it is considered to be auspicious. Uttar Pradesh The holiday is always celebrated with tremendous zeal by the people of Uttar Pradesh. The banks of the sacred Ganga including Varanasi come alive with festivities while priests recite prayers on the banks, it is illuminated by floating earthen lanterns. Uttar Pradeshs Ayodhya witnessed grand Deepotsav celebrations and illuminated its ghats with lakhs of earthen lamps. On the eve of Diwali, the temple city broke its own world record as about 22.23 lakh diyas were lit at the same time across 51 ghats in Ayodhya to create a new Guinness World Record. Gujarat In Gujarat, Diwali is a time for Garba and Dandiya Raas dances. As per reports, a very auspicious Diwali custom in Gujarat is to keep a diya lit with ghee and left burning the whole night, then the flame is collected next morning and use it to make kajal, which is applied to ward off bad luck. South India In the southern states, Diwali is marked by the creation of exquisite kolams intricate rangoli designs that adorn doorsteps. Families gather for prayers and traditional rituals, offering sweets and savouries. The bursting of crackers adds to the celebrations, and the air is filled with the rich aroma of festive delicacies. Maharashtra The festival is interestingly different from other parts of the country as Diwali in Marathi families start with Vasubaras, a celebration held in honour of cows. As part of the rituals, married women worship cows having calves. The tradition symbolises a womans gratitude towards cow for serving them and their children. Northeast India In northeast India, the festival is celebrated with unique cultural flavours including traditional dance and rituals. The lighting of diyas symbolises hope and positivity, creating a harmonious blend of tradition and regional diversity. In Sikkim, a local festival called Tihar is organised, which is celebrated by the Gorkha-Nepali community. The celebration commemorates different animals on different days, including cows, dogs and bullocks. Punjab In Punjab, Diwali coincides with Bandi Chhor Diwas, a Sikh festival marked by lighting homes and gurudwaras, fireworks and feasting. Punjabi Hindus worship Goddess Lakshmi during Diwali. This celebration also signifies the onset of winter in Punjab. Uttarakhand is set to become the first state in the country to implement the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in the coming weeks. The state government will hold a special session of the state assembly post-Diwali to clear the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Bill which would pave the way for its implementation in the state. The report is expected to place emphasis on gender equality and equal rights for daughters in ancestral properties. However, it does not suggest raising the marriageable age of women from 18 to 21. How UCC Came A Long Way in Uttarakhand? A five-member panel headed by retired Supreme Court judge Ranjana Desai completed a draft report for Uttarakhands Uniform Civil Code in June. The report is expected to be handed over to the state government in the next few days, a report in The Times of India said. Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said once the report is handed to the government, there will not be any delay. Desai was appointed as the chairperson of the Delimitation Commission of India on 13 March 2020. She was also one of the judges who had ruled for a provision of NOTA in voting. What is Uniform Civil Code? The UCC proposes to formulate and implement personal laws of citizens which apply to all citizens equally regardless of their religion, sex, gender and sexual orientation. Currently, the personal laws of various communities are governed by their religious scriptures. UCC is also expected to have strong recommendations for live-ins, polygamy and polyandry ban and raising the marriage age of girls. The code comes under Article 44 of the Constitution, which states that the State must seek to ensure for people a uniform civil code across Indias territory. However, as Article 37 states, directive principles are guiding principles for government policies and are not enforceable by courts. The proposal of the UCC has encountered resistance from orthodox groups among the Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and other minority communities whose customs have remained untouched since the time of British rule. The highlights of the draft, according to sources, are: Age for marriage: The age of girls for marriage to be increased to 21 years from present 18 years. The age of girls for marriage to be increased to 21 years from present 18 years. Marriage registration: The draft has suggested making registration of marriages mandatory. The draft has suggested making registration of marriages mandatory. Live-in couples: It will be mandatory for live-in couples to inform their parents. It will be mandatory for live-in couples to inform their parents. Halala and iddat: The proposed UCC draft mentions discontinuing the practice of halala and iddat terms commonly used while settling marriage disputes among Muslims. The proposed UCC draft mentions discontinuing the practice of halala and iddat terms commonly used while settling marriage disputes among Muslims. Polygamy: The UCC bans the practice of polygamy the custom of having more than one wife a feature among Muslim marriages. The UCC bans the practice of polygamy the custom of having more than one wife a feature among Muslim marriages. Divorce rights: The draft gives equal grounds and rights to both husband and wife, irrespective of the faith, to seek divorce. The draft gives equal grounds and rights to both husband and wife, irrespective of the faith, to seek divorce. Population control: The draft has reportedly recommended fixing the number of children. UCC Debate in Other States Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a strong pitch for the implementation of Uniform Civil Code in Bhopal in June, there are speculations that a bill may be introduced in the winter session of the Parliament. However, sources have said that the centre will follow an elaborate procedure before introducing a bill. The BJP, in its 2019 Lok Sabha election manifesto, promised the implementation of UCC if it came to power. Gujarat may also implement the Uniform Civil Code before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, as per reports. Other states like Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Assam are also expected to pass the code in some time. As of now, Goa is the only state that has a civil code that was introduced during the Portuguese rule. The Kerala Legislative assembly earlier in August passed a resolution unanimously against the UCC terming it unilateral and hasty, becoming the first in the country to do so. The resolution, presented by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, expressed concern and dismay at the central governments move to impose a Uniform Civil Code. A quadcopter drone manufactured in China was found in Amritsars Bharopal village on Sunday during a joint search operation carried out by the Border Security Force (BSF) and Punjab police. This came after the forces received a specific tip-off regarding the presence of a drone on the outskirts of Bharopal village. On 12th November 2023, during morning hours, on specific information regarding the presence of a drone, a Joint search Operation was launched by BSF and Punjab Police on the outskirts of Village Bharopal, District Amritsar, an official statement from BSF read. #BreakingNews | BSF & Punjab police recover a China-made quadcopter drone in Amritsar which was used to push narcotics from Pakistan to the Indian side @TejinderSsodhi shares more details with @JamwalNews18#BSF #Pakistan #PunjabPolice pic.twitter.com/AU5YQtFNSG News18 (@CNNnews18) November 12, 2023 During the joint search operation, at about 12:40 pm, a drone was recovered from the farming field adjacent to Bharopal village. The release from the BSF identifies the drone as a Quadcopter manufactured in China with DJI Mavic 3 Classic model. Yet another attempt of smugglers to smuggle narcotics via drone was foiled by BSF and Punjab Police, said BSF which is responsible for safeguarding the India-Pakistan border running along Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. On Friday, the border force recovered another China-made Pakistani quadcopter drone near Punjabs Tarn Taran district. PAKISTAN RELEASES INDIAN FISHERMEN Eighty Indian fishermen who were recently released from a jail in Pakistan have been handed over to BSF authorities at the Attari-Wagah border here, officials said on Saturday. The Pakistan government on Thursday released 80 Indian fishermen from the Malir jail in Karachi. Punjab police protocol officer Arun Mahal said all the prisoners crossed over to India on Friday night through the land transit route of the Attari-Wagah border through the Emergency Travel Certificate issued by the Indian High Commission based at Islamabad. After their repatriation, the medical examination of the fishermen was conducted by a team of Indian doctors, said Mahal, who was posted at the Joint Check post (JCP) of the Attari-Wagah border. (with PTI inputs) Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached Lepcha in Himachal Pradesh early on Sunday to celebrate Diwali with soldiers and hailed their unwavering courage. He said a place where security forces are deployed is no less than a temple to him. The prime minister shared photographs of his interactions in which he is seen offering sweets to them. In his post on X, Modi said, Spending Diwali with our brave security forces in Lepcha, Himachal Pradesh has been an experience filled with deep emotion and pride. Away from their families, these guardians of our nation illuminate our lives with their dedication, he said. Spending Diwali with our brave security forces in Lepcha, Himachal Pradesh has been an experience filled with deep emotion and pride. Away from their families, these guardians of our nation illuminate our lives with their dedication. pic.twitter.com/KE5eaxoglw Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 12, 2023 The courage of our security forces is unwavering. Stationed in the toughest terrains, away from their loved ones, their sacrifice and dedication keep us safe and secure, he added. Prime Minister Modi said India will always be grateful to these heroes who are the perfect embodiment of bravery and resilience. Earlier in the day, he greeted people on Diwali and wished them joy, prosperity and health. Wishing everyone a Happy Diwali! May this special festival bring joy, prosperity and wonderful health to everyones lives, he said. Here are the top quotes from his address to security personnel at Lepcha: Modi lauded the soldiers bravery and said: For me, a place where our security forces are deployed is no less than a temple. I come and celebrate Diwali every year with our army personnel. It is said that Ayodhya is where Lord Ram is, but for me, Ayodhya is where Indian Army personnel are The PM has celebrated Diwali with soldiers since he was first elected to the office in 2014. There has not been a single Diwali in the last 30 to 35 years, that I have not celebrated with you (army jawans). When I was neither the PM nor CM, I still used to go to the border on the occasion of Diwali, he said. He recounted the sacrifice made by fallen soldiers in past battles. Our brave men who fought so many wars immediately after independence, our warriors who won the heart of the country in every difficulty, our brave sons and daughters who snatched victory from the jaws of challenges, he added. Modi also spoke about the contribution of the security forces during times of natural disasters or distress. Our soldiers who face every challenge in disasters like earthquakes, our soldiers who save lives by fighting in the sea in situations like tsunami What are the problems to which our heroes have not given a solution? he asked. The prime minister said India of the 21st century is moving towards self-reliance. India has borne the burden of centuries of struggles, but the Bharat of the 21st century is moving forward towards aatmanirbharta! Now, the resolutions will be ours, and the resources will also be ours! he said. He said in such troubled times, it was important to keep Indias borders secure. Given the situation in the world today, expectations from India are continuously increasing. In such a situation, it is important that Indias borders remain secure. We are creating an atmosphere of peace in the country and you have a big role in this. India is safe as long as our Army stands firm and unshakable like the Himalayas, on its borders he added. Talking about women in the armed forces, Modi said more than 500 female officers have been given permanent commission over the past few years. In the past years, in the Indian Army, more than 500 women officers have been given permanent commission. Today, women pilots are flying fighter planes like Rafale he said. Heres a timeline of the years Prime Minister Narendra Modi celebrated Diwali with security personnel: 2022: Modi celebrated Diwali with the armed forces in Kargil last year 2021: The prime minister celebrated the festival with soldiers in Nowshera 2020: He was at a border post of Longewala on Diwali 2019: After being re-elected to the high office, Modi celebrated Diwali in Rajouri in Jammu and Kashmir 2018: The PM celebrated Diwali in Harsil, Uttarakhand, which was followed by a visit to Kedarnath 2017: He was in the Gurez sector in north Kashmir 2016: Modi travelled to Himachal Pradesh to meet the personnel of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), the Dogra Scouts and the army at Sumdoh near the China border 2015: In the following year, on the 50th anniversary of the 1965 war with Pakistan, the prime minister visited three memorials in Punjab where the Indian armed forces had fought pitched battles that proved to be key to the countrys victory 2014: He celebrated the festival of lights with soldiers at the Siachen Glacier. (With PTI inputs) India was one of the 145 nations voting in favor of a UN resolution against Israels settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan on Saturday. As many as seven countries, including Canada, Israel and US, voted against the resolution, while 18 abstained. The UN resolution was passed two days after its draft resolution was approved on Thursday. By a recorded vote of 145 in favour to 7 against (Canada, Hungary, Israel, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, United States) with 18 abstentions, the Committee approved the draft resolution titled Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the occupied Syrian Golan, UN said in a statement. By its terms, the Assembly would condemn settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan and any activities involving the confiscation of land, the disruption of the livelihood of protected persons, the forced transfer of civilians and the annexation of land, whether de facto or through national legislation, it added. Last month, India had abstained from voting on a resolution in the United Nations proposed by Jordan that called for an immediate humanitarian truce amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. A dhaba owner was beaten to death by two of his workers upon being denied a Diwali bonus in Maharashtras Nagpur on Saturday. The deceased, identified as Raju Dhengre, was allegedly strangled, stabbed and bludgeoned to death after refusing his workers demand for a Diwali bonus at the eatery near Kuhi phata in Nagpur rural police area in the early hours of Saturday. The assailants, Chhotu and Adi, hailing from Mandla in Madhya Pradesh, are still at large. Police said that Dhengre had hired the accused duo via a labour contractor near the Madhya Pradesh state bus stop in the city around a month ago. Police noted that Dhengre had a disagreement with Adi and Chhotu while having dinner together over the duos demand for money and a bonus on Diwali. Dhengre was willing to pay them but at a later date. After dinner, Dhengre went and slept on a cot when Adi and Chhotu strangled him with a rope before smashing his head with a blunt object and slashing his face with a sharp weapon. According to a TOI report, the victim, Dhengre, was the former sarpanch (village head) of Surgaon village in Kuhi taluka and had won the recent gram panchayat polls. SP Harssh A Poddar stated that prima facie the reason behind the murder seems to be a monetary issue but a political rivalry angle is also being explored. The case is being investigated from different angles, the SP was quoted by TOI as saying. According to sources, Dhengre enjoyed a good reputation with good political connections and was backed by the BJP. The accused, Chhotu and Adi, covered Dhengres body with a quilt before fleeing with his car but rammed it into the divider on Nagpur-Umred road near Vihirgaon and suffered injuries. The incident was caught in CCTV footage which showed the two perpetrators emerging from the car travelling from Panchgaon to Nagpur and fleeing towards Dighori naka. They hailed an e-rickshaw from Dighori but their movement could not be traced afterwards. On the other hand, Dhengres daughter tried reaching him via phone but received no response. After failing repeatedly, she dialled up a pan kiosk owner in the dhabas vicinity, who then went to the eatery to find Dhengres lifeless body on the cot and raised an alarm. Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached Himachal Pradeshs Lepcha on Sunday as a part of his Diwali celebrations with security forces. Since the time he came to power in 2014, Modi has been visiting military facilities to celebrate Diwali. Taking to X, the prime minister said, Reached Lepcha in Himachal Pradesh to celebrate Diwali with our brave security forces. Reached Lepcha in Himachal Pradesh to celebrate Diwali with our brave security forces. pic.twitter.com/7vcFlq2izL Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 12, 2023 Earlier, he also greeted people on Diwali and wished them joy, prosperity and health. Wishing everyone a Happy Diwali! May this special festival bring joy, prosperity and wonderful health to everyones lives, Modi posted on X. Heres a look at PM Modis Diwali celebrations since coming to power: In 2014, on getting elected, the Prime Minister started his Diwali day at Siachen, the worlds highest battlefield with soldiers to boost the morale of the troops guarding the icy peaks. During his address that year, the PM praised their valour and courage. From the icy heights of the Siachen Glacier & with the brave Jawans & Officers of the Armed Forces, I wish all of you a Happy Diwali. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) October 23, 2014 In 2015, PM Modi inaugurated military installations that were associated with the 1965 Indo-Pak war in Punjab. At the event, he praised their valour and character. Again in 2016, Modi visited a remote and strategic area in Himachal Pradesh, adjoining the Chinese border to celebrate Diwali with armed forces. Similarly in 2017, he visited Gurez sector of north Kashmir along the Line of Control where he spent almost two hours celebrating the festival with troops posted in the forward area. In 2018, he had halted at the Harsil station to spend time with ITBP jawans and exchanged Diwali wishes while returning from Kedarnath temple in Uttarakhand. After winning the second term as PM in 2019, Modi celebrated the festival with troops deployed in Jammu and Kashmirs Rajouri. He visited just a few hours after Pakistani army had targeted forwarded posts in the district. Celebrated #Diwali with the brave soldiers of the Indian Army in Rajouri, Jammu and Kashmir. It is always a matter of great joy to be able to interact with these courageous personnel. pic.twitter.com/e9th01wwiy Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) October 27, 2019 Similarly in 2020, he spent the festival of lights with soldiers at Longewala in Rajasthans Jaisalmer.Talking about his visit, the prime minister said, Diwali is a festival we celebrate with family, and with those, we call our own so each year I spend time with you all because you all are my own, my family. I bring sweets for you all today. But these are not just from me. It is from all 130 crore Indians. In 2021, Modi celebrated Diwali in Jammu and Kashmirs Nowshera. In a post on , formerly known as Twitter he said, I feel privileged that I got to spend Diwali with our brave soldiers in Nowshera, not as Prime Minister but as a member of their family. He also shared some photos from the interaction. Last year, Modi celebrated Diwali with soldiers in Kargil and paid tribute to the Army personnel who lost their lives in the 1999 Kargil war. While addressing the soldiers, Modi said that India is against war but at the same time focussed ib the need for strength to ensure peace. In his address, the PM further asserted that the countrys growing power boosts the chances of global peace and prosperity. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus statements since the diplomatic freeze between Ottawa and New Delhi over the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar have not been consistent, top government sources told News18. Officials said Trudeau went against diplomatic norms by wrongly naming India for a crime committed in Canada. Nijjar was constantly in touch with Canadian intelligence agencies. Why was he not given protection then? Trudeau should retract his statement and stop defaming India, an official said. Trudeau on Friday underlined that a fight with India was not something Canada wanted to be having right now, but reiterated his allegations and said Ottawa wants to work constructively with New Delhi on this very serious matter. Addressing the media, he also alleged that India violated the Vienna Convention as over 40 Canadian diplomats were shifted from India after New Delhi threatened to strip them of their diplomatic immunity. From the very beginning when we learned of credible allegations that agents of the Indian government were involved in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil, we reached out to India to ask them to work with us in getting to the bottom of this matter, he said while addressing the media. He said Canada also reached out to its friends and allies like the United States and others to work on this really serious violation of international law and of the sovereignty of a democracy and added that this is something that we are taking very seriously. We will continue to work with all partners as law enforcement and investigative agencies continue to do their work. Canada is a country that will always stand up for the rule of law because if might starts to make right again, if bigger countries can violate international law without consequences, then the whole world gets more dangerous for everyone, he added. A diplomatic spat had erupted between India and Canada after Trudeau said in September that there were credible allegations of Indian involvement in the killing of Nijjar in suburban Vancouver in western Canada. Nijjar was a 45-year-old Khalistani sympathiser who was killed by masked gunmen in June in Surrey, outside Vancouver. India has accused Canada of harboring separatists and terrorists, but dismissed the Canadian allegation of its involvement in the killing as absurd. Questions have been raised as to why Nijjar was only warned about the threat to him but not offered protection. Why was he only advised and not protected? Why close proximity protection was not given to him if credible intelligence was available against Indian agents? an official questioned. India last month announced an easing of its visa ban on Canadian nationals imposed more than a month ago. The announcement came days after Canada said it was recalling 41 of its 62 diplomats in India. That decision came after Canada said New Delhi warned it would strip their diplomatic immunity something Canadian officials characterized as a violation of the Geneva Convention. The Indian government last week rejected any notion that it violated international law in asking Canada to recall diplomats so that both governments have roughly the same number stationed in each country. Arun Govil became widely recognised as Lord Ram following his portrayal in the famous TV series Ramayan. Ironically, despite the shows success, it led to a dip in work opportunities for him. The series, created, written, and directed by Ramanand Sagar, ran for a year, propelling Govil to stardom. Although he gained immense respect and love for his role, getting mainstream work became challenging thereafter. The response of Ramayan led to both, good and bad things. I got a lot of respect and honour but I was completely distanced from commercial films. All the producers and directors would tell me that my image of Lord Ram had became so strong that they would wonder what role to cast me in for. People see only Lord Ram in you, they dont see any other character is what they said, the actor said during an interview with Rajshri Unplugged. Arun Govil said that such a situation is not favourable for any actor as it implies limitations. The actor recalled attempting to break away from the image later by taking on some grey roles but soon realised that it wasnt a good fit for him. For an actor, this is not good. The negative effect of it stayed with me for many years. At that point, I would think, What do I do now? I tried after that. Films were totally out of question for me but TV was growing. There I did some grey shades intentionally, but after watching myself play those, parts I realised that this is not made for me, sorry, he added. After Ramayan, the actor starred in television series such as Luv Kush, Vishwamitra, Phoolwanti, and more. His recent role was in OMG 2, alongside Akshay Kumar and Pankaj Tripathi. The film opened to good reviews. Bipasha Basu welcomed her daughter Devi with husband-actor Karan Singh Grover on November 12, 2022. The couple had announced their babys name in a joint statement on social media that read, Devi Basu Singh Grover. The physical manifestation of our love and blessings of Ma is here now and she is divine. Today, on Diwali, the little one has turned one. Bipasha took to social media to share a photo from the delivery room when Devi was born. She wrote, The magic of birth9 months in mammas belly and now today Devi is 1 year old. This time has been the most amazing time of our lives Looking forward to many many adventures with our little goddess Devi. I always wonder at the magical things around her and now her first birthday and Diwali being on the same dayShe is truly Mas mishti blessing to us Our Lakshmi Ma Happy Diwali to everyone Thank you for the love and blessings for Devi and us So grateful #deviturnsone #grateful #mishtidevi. The actress had earlier revealed that their daughter underwent heart surgery 3 months after her birth. Devi was born with two holes in her heart. The actress shared that Devi suffered from ventricular septal defect (VSD) when she was born. The actress has also shared that the surgery happened and the operation went on for six hours. The actress said that her life stopped when their daughter was inside the operation theatre and added surgery was successful and Devi is doing better. Earlier this week, Bipasha shared snippets from her Maldives trip with her husband, actor Karan Singh Grover, and their daughter, Devi, on her Instagram. The happy parents celebrated Devis birthday week in the pristine island country and shared photos and videos with fans on social media. Kiara Advani and Sidharth Malhotra are undoubtedly one of the most loved couples in Bollywood. As they celebrate their first Diwali after marriage, the former recently dropped in a bundle of photos with her hubby calling him her love and light. Sharing the photos, she wrote, My love and light Wishing you all a very Happy Diwali In the photos, Sidharth and Kiara held each other with all the love and affection. Donning their brightest smiles, they found the perfect balance between elegance and charm. Dressed in all things ethnic, they complemented each other well. Kiara Advani married Sidharth Malhotra on February 7 this year in the presence of their close friends and family members in Rajasthan. They fell in love with each other while shooting for their hit film Shershaah. The couple later hosted a mega star-studded reception later in Mumbai. Later, in an interview with News18 Showsha, Kiara opened up on life post her wedding and how it has made her appreciate her mother more than ever. For the first time, Im running a home. I used to live in my parents home. My mum did it all and weve so much respect and value for her right now. But its lovely and a beautiful phase. Im very, very happy, she said. Recently, their film Shershaah won big at the National Film Awards. The film, which is based on the life of late Captain Vikram Batra, has been honoured with the Special Jury Award in the Features Film category. On the work front, Sidharth Malhotra will be next seen in Yodha with Disha Patani and Raashii Khanna. He will also be making his OTT debut with Rohit Shettys Indian Police Force which would be streaming on Prime Video. Sidharth was last seen in Mission Majnu alongside Rashmika Mandanna. Kiara on the other hand, will share the screen space with Ram Charan in Game Changer. Besides this, Kiara is also likely to be seen in Don 3 with Ranveer Singh. Kiara was last seen in Satyaprem Ki Katha with Kartik Aaryan. Disha Patani has carved out a name for herself in Bollywood with hits like Baaghi 2, M.S Dhoni-The Untold Story and Malang. The stunning actress has also delivered some of the most iconic statements in the field of fashion. As a charismatic face for the millennials and the Gen-Zs, the actress is also quite fond of keeping her social media feed up to date with glimpses from her personal as well as professional life. Disha recently set the internet on fire by sharing some sizzling snaps from her latest photoshoot. In the photo album that Disha Patani shared on Instagram on Sunday, the Ek Villian Returns actress was seen flaunting her curves in a glossy dark green saree and blouse. She added more oomph to her look with a pair of accessories around her wrists, beautiful earrings and striking red lip colour. She also kept her tresses flowing as she struck various poses for the pictures. The photos went viral in no time. Take a look: Fans were enamored by Dishas charm as they didnt go frugal with their comments. One of them wrote, MYYYY GODDDD. Another one commented, Go green. Someone else said, So Beautiful. A fan also stated, Sexy! Earlier, Disha Patani raised temperatures with her sexy look at Manish Malhotras Diwali party. However, not everyone was on board with her bold outfit. The actress was seen making her way to the star-studded party wearing a chocolate brown saree. Disha styled the saree with a plunging blouse and heels. While videos of her appearance went viral, many were unimpressed by her look. Meanwhile, it is reported that Disha is set to reunite with Tiger Shroff. Filmmaker Jagan Shakti confirmed to ETimes that the duo will be starring in his upcoming film, Hero No 1. Initially, Sara Ali Khan was cast for the role. Reacting to reports about Disha replacing Sara, Jagan of Mission Mangal-fame said, Disha is the fittest and apt to do action. Sara was definitely a part of it, but unfortunately, we couldnt match the date. Hero No 1 will reportedly feature two heroines. Hrithik Roshans cousin, Pashmina Roshan, will play Tigers love interest in the film. The project is an original film, not a remake or sequel of the 1997 Govinda-starrer directed by David Dhawan. The film is being produced by Jackky Bhagnanis production house. In 2022, rumour mills were abuzz about the breakup between actors Disha Patani and Tiger Shroff, who were dating for quite some time. While both actors remained silent about the speculations, reports suggested that Tiger had moved on with Akanksha Sharma, with whom he has collaborated on two music videos. Shilpa Shetty and Raj Kundra on Saturday hosted a grand Diwali party for their industry friends. The whos who of the industry gathered to celebrate the festival of lights in style. The star-studded event witnessed the presence of several power couples, adding an extra layer of charm to the festivities. From Shahid Kapoor and Mira Rajput to Tamannaah Bhatia and Vijay Varma, all couples were seen posing for the camera. Shahid Kapoor and Mira Rajput, known for their stylish appearances, made heads turn as they arrived hand-in-hand at the Diwali extravaganza. Shahid, suave in traditional attire, and Mira, resplendent in a gorgeous ethnic outfit, radiated the couple goals. Tamannaah Bhatia and Vijay Varma also made an appearance together and turned heads with their impeccable style. Tamannaah, known for her sartorial elegance, donned a stunning purple colour lehenga, while Vijay Varma looked dapper in traditional wear. Their presence added a touch of glamour to the festivities. Sushmita Sen and Rohman Shawl were also seen together for the party. They have not confirmed whether they are back in the relationship of not. Rakulpreet and Jackky Bhagnani, Kapil Sharam with wife Ginni and Shriya Sara and husband were also spotted. They looked ravishing in their ethnic best wear. Take a look here: View this post on Instagram A post shared by Viral Bhayani (@viralbhayani) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Viral Bhayani (@viralbhayani) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Viral Bhayani (@viralbhayani) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Viral Bhayani (@viralbhayani) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Viral Bhayani (@viralbhayani) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Viral Bhayani (@viralbhayani) Shilpa Shetty opted for a deep red-coloured velvet ensemble featuring a halter-neck cropped blouse, a floor-sweeping skirt with a gathered pleated front, and a matching dupatta draped on her arms. Meanwhile, Raj complemented her in an off-white sherwani and a deep red velvet dupatta Kareena Kapoor Khan also hosted a Diwali party and celebrities were also seen attending it. For the last few days, many celebrities have hosted parties including Sara Ali Khan. On the work front, Shilpa Shetty was last seen Sukhee. It also stars Kusha Kapila in a pivotal role. The story revolves around a housewife who finally breaks free from her monotonous routine and goes to Delhi for her school reunion. The film was released on September 22. On the occasion of Diwali, a Gurudwara brightens up with people and lamps. (Image: PTI) This festival of lights is being broadcast live in more than 100 countries of the world. The world is watching how Lord Shri Ram would have come to Ayodhya in Pushpak Viman thousands of years ago, said UP CM. (Image: PTI) Microsoft and OpenAI have been cordial with their focus on building and growing the value of ChatGPT. However, the Windows maker had reportedly blocked access to the AI chatbot for its employees earlier this week, owing to some major concerns. Microsoft is the company that invested over $10 billion in OpenAI which has given it access to the latest versions and features of ChatGPT since its public release. In fact, Microsoft has used the AI prowess for its Bing Search and Edge browser which has made them popular among users in a short time. But the company had to pause its use briefly on Thursday because of privacy and security concerns, as reported by CNBC. The company doesnt exactly say what the security concerns were but it is hardly surprising to see Microsoft take this call for the sake of its employees and business. Earlier this year, Samsung and other tech companies ordered their employees to use ChatGPT for work purposes as it could reveal and even leak confidential data on the internet. Just because Microsoft is a partner with OpenAI doesnt mean it is immune to possible threats posed by AI chatbots, especially when the technology is still evolving with more data being fed into the system. And because the company has not shared the exact details for the stoppage, were left to assume that Microsoft observed some leaks at its end which needed to be fixed, and blocking the use of ChatGPT was probably the only way to fix the issue. OpenAI hosted its developer event recently, where it showed the next phase of ChatGPT, including the option for other developers to build their own ChatGPT-like AI models. Australian government agencies held crisis talks on Sunday in response to a cyber incident that has disrupted operations at key ports across the country. Port operator DP World halted internet connectivity at ports in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Fremantle on Friday to prevent any ongoing unauthorised access to its network, a spokesperson said. The ongoing disruption has not prevented containers from being taken off vessels, but trucks needed to transport them have not been able to drive in or out of the terminals, DP World senior director Blake Tierney said in a statement. The company is working around the clock to restore normal operations safely, he added. Australian Federal Police have said they are investigating the incident. The interruption is likely to continue for a number of days and will impact the movement of goods into and out of the country, National Cyber Security Coordinator Darren Goldie said on X, formerly Twitter. DP World Australia has advised it has restricted access to its Australian port operations while it investigates the incident, he added. After holding emergency meetings on Saturday, Goldie again convened the National Coordination Mechanism on Sunday with representatives from government, maritime and logistics sectors to manage the governments response. Australias National Emergency Management Agency also attended the talks. Lucrative target Goldie, an air marshal in the Royal Australian Air Force, was appointed the inaugural national coordinator last July in response to several cyber attacks. Cybersecurity experts have said inadequate safeguards and the stockpiling of sensitive customer information have made Australia a lucrative target for hackers. Medibank, Australias largest private health insurer, said in November 2022 that hackers had accessed the data of 9.7 million current and former customers, including medical records related to drug abuse and pregnancy terminations. Just two months earlier, telecom company Optus fell prey to a data breach of similar scale in which the personal details of up to 9.8 million people were accessed. Those two incidents were among the largest data breaches in Australian history. Optus, Australias second-largest phone provider, apologised to its more than 10 million customers last week over a technical network outage that crashed electronic payments, disrupted phone lines used by emergency services and stopped people accessing government services. The Australian government has launched an investigation into that unexplained glitch, although it has not been described as a cyber attack. There were 76,000 cybercrimes reported to the Australian Cyber Security Centre last year, although experts warn many more go unreported. Israeli fighter jets pounded Hezbollah hideouts in southern Lebanon with air strikes on Sunday, after an incoming anti-tank missile wounded Israeli civilians near the border, the army said. The Israeli army said a number of civilians were wounded in the anti-tank missile strike near the village of Dovev, just half a mile (800 metres) from the frontier with Lebanon. In response, fighter jets struck a number of Hezbollah terror targets including military infrastructure used by Hezbollah to direct its terrorist activity, the army said. The Israel Electric Corporation said that the missile from Lebanon had hit employees who were in Dovev to repair power lines downed by earlier strikes. Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah claimed responsibility and said it had fired on an Israeli team installing eavesdropping and spying devices near the border. Since the October 7 Hamas attacks which launched Israels war in Gaza, Israel has also traded fire with militant groups in southern Lebanon on a near-daily basis. In addition to Hezbollah, Hamass Lebanese branch has launched attacks into southern Israel in recent weeks. The Israeli army also said it had struck a terrorist cell embedded in a civilian area in Lebanon that intended to open fire toward Israeli territory. Overnight, a drone also hit another group in Lebanon that the army said was attempting to launch an anti-tank missile towards Israel. Israel has evacuated tens of thousands of residents from communities in the north since the October 7 attacks which officials say killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians. In response to the worst attacks in Israels history, it has launched an offensive on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, killing more than 11,000 there, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Cross-border militant attacks from Lebanon have killed at least six Israeli soldiers and two civilians, according to the army and paramedics. Israeli leaders have warned Hezbollah against launching a full-scale attack on Israel, saying it could suffer a similar fate to besieged Gaza if it enters the war. Israel and Hezbollah fought a month-long war in 2006. President Emmanuel Macron has urged the French people to combat the unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism in the country. In a letter published by Le Parisien on Saturday night, Macron revealed that more than a thousand antisemitic acts have taken place in a month, three times more than last year. The letter was released on the eve of a historic march against antisemitism being held in the French capital. Macron highlighted the legitimate anguish of the Jewish community, saying that a France where citizens fear is not the true France, CNN reported. Fear of taking their children to school. Fear of going home alone. Fear to the point of erasing their name to protect themselves. As if the grief was not enough, they are gripped by anguish and loneliness. As if the past feelings transmitted by their parents, their grandparents were suddenly resurfacing, he said. Rien ne doit nous diviser.La France doit rester unie derriere ses valeurs, son universalisme, unie pour elle-meme, pour porter son projet et uvrer a la paix et la securite de tous. Ma lettre aux Francais :https://t.co/HzucWzBZ0i Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) November 11, 2023 Last week, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said France has recorded more than a thousand anti-Semitic acts since the deadly October 7 attack by Hamas gunmen on Israel. The number of anti-Semitic acts has exploded, he told France 2 television, adding that 486 people have been arrested for such offences, including 102 foreigners. Last months Hamas attack killed 1,200 people, and around 240 were taken hostage. Since then, Israel has relentlessly pounded the besieged Gaza Strip in its battle to destroy Hamas, levelling entire city blocks and killing more than 10,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. In an impassioned appeal, Macron wrote, A France where our Jewish fellow citizens are afraid is not France. A France where French people are afraid because of their religion or their origin is not France. The French President went on to reiterate his belief that Israel has the right to defend itself, saying putting Hamas out of harms way is a necessity. However, he also stressed that this defence must be accompanied by the resumption of political dialogue and ensure the protection of civilians and hostages in Gaza. We want justice, peace and security for the people of Israel, for the Palestinian people and for the states of the region, he said. (With agency inputs) A Myanmar military jet has crashed in the east of the country where fighting is ongoing, the junta said on Sunday, with anti-coup fighters claiming they had shot it down. The country has been riven by conflict since the 2021 military coup, with multiple armed ethnic groups battling the junta on different fronts. In the last two weeks fighting has intensified in northern Shan state, near the Chinese border, in what analysts say poses the biggest military challenge to the generals since they seized power. The light fighter jet, carrying two pilots, came down Saturday between the eastern Kayin and Kayah states. Junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun told state news MRTV that the jet was on a training flight and came down due to engine failure. He said both pilots were in contact with the military. It comes as armed groups in Kayah state and the junta clashed over the weekend, Zaw Min Tun told MRTV. The Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF) claimed to have shot down the plane, but did not detail how it had been brought down. We are looking for remains, and the two pilots now, KNDF chairman Khun Bedu told AFP. The KNDF is among dozens of groups battling to restore democracy after the army ousted Aung San Suu Kyis government. Almost 50,000 people have been displaced in the fighting in Shan state, according to the United Nations, after three anti-junta groups launched a combined offensive. Over 100 more workers of jailed prime minister Imran Khans Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party have been arrested in Pakistans Punjab province capital Lahore in connection with attacks on military installations in May, police said on Sunday. We have arrested 105 PTI workers wanted in the attacks on Lahore Corps Commander House and Askari Tower (allegedly owned by the son of former army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa) in different parts of the city on Saturday, a Lahore police statement said on Sunday. It said a crackdown has been launched against around 1,000 PTI workers who still managed to escape the arrest in connection with the May 9 attacks. On May 9, violent protests erupted after the arrest of Khan by paramilitary Rangers from the premises of the Islamabad High Court. His party workers vandalised a dozen military installations, including the Jinnah House (Lahore Corps Commander house), Mianwali airbase and the ISI building in Faisalabad. The Army headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi was also attacked by the mob for the first time. On Wednesday, police arrested 62 workers of Khans party in Lahore in this respect. Police action against the PTI leaders and workers has been intensified across the country following the announcement of general elections in Pakistan on February 8, 2024. According to Khans party, over 10,000 leaders and workers of the party have been in jail since early May in connection with attacks on military and state installations following the arrest of the former prime minister. The partys core committee has strongly condemned the states coercive tactics, and reprisal actions against the PTI workers and leaders even after the announcement of the polls date. We condemn the illegal fascist measures of the state against peaceful political activities before the elections. The nation will not accept rigged polls held in such uneven electoral field and with state interference, it said. It added that after fixing the poll date, the reprehensible attempts to force the PTI out of the electoral arena and deprive it of a level playing field have become more prominent before the world. Khan has been detained at Adiala Jail Rawalpindi in the cipher case. Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau once again accused India of violating the Vienna Convention over revoking the diplomatic immunity of more than 40 Canadians. Amid the ongoing diplomatic crisis between the two countries, Trudeau recently spoke about how the whole world gets more dangerous for everyone if bigger countries violate international law without any consequences. On Canada-based Khalistani extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjars killing, which triggered the crisis, Trudeau said: We have been very clear that we want to work constructively with India on this very serious matter. From the very beginning, we shared the real allegations that we are deeply concerned about but we have reached out to the Indian government and to partners around the world to get to the bottom of this, to take it seriously. Thats why we were so disappointed when India violated the Vienna Convention and arbitrarily revoked the diplomatic immunity of over 40 Canadian diplomats in India he said. Trudeau said there were serious reasons to believe that agents of the Indian government could have been involved in killing Nijjar, who was a Canadian citizen, on Canadian soil. And Indias response is to kick out a whole bunch of Canadian diplomats by violating their rights under the Vienna Convention, Trudeau said. ALSO READ | Trudeaus Statements Inconsistent Since Diplomatic Row Broke Out Over Nijjar Killing: Sources Trudeau said New Delhis actions were a matter of serious concern because if a country simply decides that diplomats of another country are no longer under protection, it could set a dangerous precedent and puts international relations at peril. That is of concern to countries around the world because if a given country can just decide that diplomats of another country are no longer protected, it makes international relations more dangerous and more serious, Trudeau said. The prime minister further said Canada has tried to constructively work with India every step of the way and does not want to pick a fight. But, he added, that Canada will unequivocally stand up for the rule of law. But every step of the way, we have tried to work constructively and positively with India, and we will continue to and that means continuing to work with Indian government diplomats. This is not a fight we want to be having right now but we will unequivocally always stand up for the rule of law US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had said the Canada must move forward with its investigation into Nijjars killing, and that India needs to help make it happen. From the very beginning, when we learned of credible allegations that agents of the Indian government were involved in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil, we reached out to India to ask them to work with us to get to the bottom of this matter. We also reached out to our friends and allies like the US and others to work on this really serious violation of international law and of sovereignty of a democracy. This is something that we are taking very seriously, he said. He added: We will continue to work with all partners as law enforcement and investigative agencies continue to do their work. Canada is a country that will always stand up for the rule of law because if might starts to make right again, if bigger countries can violate international law without consequences, then the whole world gets more dangerous for everyone. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is believed to be worried about the escalating tensions with Iran-backed proxies such as Hezbollah, Yemens Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, which could de-stabilise Iraq where Saudis, Emiratis, and others recently invested billions of dollars. The GCC, comprising Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain, is concerned that Iran could be the new leader and decision-maker in the region with the recent turn of events vis-a-vis Gaza-Israel conflict. Although Saudi Arabia has normalised ties with Iran to an extent, but there are tensions inherent as it remains a target of Irans theocratic dogma and single-minded dedication to become the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, thus, asserting religious, not just geopolitical, primacy over the region and the whole Muslim world. According to top intelligence sources, Iran has been calling the shots behind the scenes on the theatre of war in Gaza and regionally the entire time. Lebanese military group Hezbollah, which is engaged in exchange of fire with Israel at their border, is making its decisions on Irans guidance. The GCC summit represented a weak Saudi Arabia, and the attempt by the Arab world to appease Iran and follow its lead on information warfare. Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries called on Saturday for immediate action to end military operations in Gaza. The extraordinary joint Islamic-Arab summit in Riyadh urged the International Criminal Court to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity that Israel is committing in the Palestinian territories, according to a final communique, according to news agency Reuters. Dozens of leaders including Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Qatars Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who was welcomed back into the Arab League this year, attended the joint Islamic-Arab summit in Riyadh. Finally, the collective gathering to issue the statement calling for an immediate ceasefire and rejecting Israels claim of self-defence, shows they are, however reluctantly, agreeing to accept Iran as the leader on the Palestinian cause. They also accepted Irans position that Hamas, rather than anyone else, represents Palestinians. This means that Hamas legitimacy in public and its rule over Gaza may eventually take shape in the future, sources said. They may in the future also impose oil embargo to force the US and its allies to pressure Israel into putting a stop on combat and save Hamas from severe military losses. The Muslim community in the United Kingdom held the biggest pro-Palestine rally in London, calling for an immediate ceasefire in war-torn Gaza. Around one million protestors flooded the main streets of the capital in a resounding march, marking the largest demonstration in the country since the anti-war protests over the Iraq war in 2003. The powerful show of support resonated with a fervent call for peace in Palestine as Israel continued to pound the enclave to eliminate Hamas, in retribution for the October 7 attack that killed 1,200 Israelis. Protestors, wielding banners declaring Free Palestine and Free Al Aqsa Mosque, passionately voiced their demand for an end to the Gaza conflict and the liberation of Palestine from occupation. The march went ahead after a week of tensions, which saw the government call for the protest to be scrapped, and police said they made scores of arrests. Nearly 2,000 police were out in force to keep rival groups apart, with the march organised on Armistice Day, the annual event when Britain remembers its war dead with solemn ceremonies at war memorials. Groups of men, waving Englands St Georges flag and the Union Jack, tried to break through police lines at The Cenotaph war memorial on Whitehall. Police in riot gear then faced a barrage of bottles in nearby Chinatown, the Metropolitan Police said. In a statement, Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist said the extreme violence from the right-wing protestors toward the police was deeply concerning. Police intercepted a group of 150 who were wearing face coverings and firing fireworks. Arrests were made after some of the fireworks struck officers in the face, he said. Nine officers were injured during the day, two requiring hospital treatment with a fractured elbow and a suspected dislocated hip. Those officers were injured on Whitehall as they prevented a violent crowd getting to the Cenotaph while a remembrance service was taking place, he added. Todays policing operation is now drawing to a close.Officers worked tirelessly to keep London safe, making at least 126 arrests in the face of significant violence. Sadly, nine officers were injured. Assistant Commissioner Matt Twists statement gives an overview of events. Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) November 11, 2023 On Saturday, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak condemned far-right protesters and Hamas sympathisers. I condemn the violent, wholly unacceptable scenes we have seen today from the EDL (English Defence League) and associated groups and Hamas sympathisers attending the National March for Palestine, said Sunak in a statement. The despicable actions of a minority of people undermine those who have chosen to express their views peacefully. Sunak, who has resisted calls for him to back a ceasefire in Israels war with Hamas, said far-right thugs, anti-Semitic chants and pro-Hamas signs and clothing had marred remembrance weekend. All criminality must be met with the full force of the law, he added. (With agency inputs) Activists protesting corporate profits, environmental abuses, poor working conditions and the Israel-Hamas war are among those planning to march in downtown San Francisco on Sunday, united in their opposition to a global trade summit that will bring leaders from nearly two dozen countries, including U.S. President Joe Biden. Protests are expected throughout this weeks Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders conference, which could draw more than 20,000 attendees, including hundreds of international journalists. The No to APEC coalition, made up of more than 100 grassroots groups, says trade deals struck at summits such as APEC exploit workers and their families. Its unlikely world leaders will even glimpse the protests given the strict security zones accessible only to attendees at the Moscone Center conference hall and other summit sites. But Suzanne Ali, an organizer for the Palestinian Youth Movement, says the U.S. government needs to be held to account for supplying weapons to Israel in its war against Hamas. Even if they cannot see us, as were mobilizing and marching together, they will know that were out there, she said. San Francisco has a long tradition of loud and vigorous protests, as do trade talks. In 1999, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Seattle during a World Trade Organization conference. Protesters succeeded in delaying the start of the conference and captured global attention as overwhelmed police fired tear gas and plastic bullets, and arrested hundreds of people. Chile withdrew as APEC host in 2019 due to mass protests. Last year, when Thailand hosted the summit in Bangkok, pro-democracy protesters challenged the legitimacy of the Thai prime minister, prompting police to fire at the crowd with rubber bullets that injured several protesters and a Reuters journalist. San Francisco Police Department Chief Bill Scott said he expects several protests a day, although its uncertain how many will materialize. He warned against criminal behavior. People are welcome to exercise their constitutional rights in San Francisco, but we will not tolerate people committing acts of violence, or property destruction or any other crime, Scott said. We will make arrests when necessary. APEC, a regional economic forum, was established in 1989 and has 21 member countries, including the worlds two largest economic superpowers China and U.S, as well as Mexico, Brazil and the Philippines. An accompanying CEO summit is scheduled for this week, which critics also plan to protest Wednesday. Headlining the summit is a highly anticipated meeting between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who rarely if at all encounters protesters on home soil. China has heavy security ahead of any events within its borders to ensure no protests occur. It also steps up border checks at city limits and at transit points such as railway stations and airports. Human rights activists based in China will often receive visits or phone calls from police ahead of important events as reminders to not demonstrate. Rory McVeigh, sociology professor and director of the Center for the Study of Social Movements at University of Notre Dame, says politicians use protests to gauge public opinion, and media attention helps. Probably a lot of protests just dont make much difference, but occasionally they do and occasionally they can make a huge difference, he said. The United Vietnamese American Community of Northern California plans to protest Xi and Vietnam President Vo Van Thuong. The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines will be rallying for the rights of indigenous Filipinos and protesting the presence of President Bongbong Marcos, the son of dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Protesters are disappointed that San Francisco, with its rich history of standing up for the working class, would host CEOs of companies and leaders of countries that they say do great harm. Its silly, from the mayor to the governor to the president, they want to say this is a great idea to have all these people who have been profiting off the intersecting crises of our time, said Nik Evasco, a climate activist. Its just sickening. In a scathing report published this week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) raised grave concerns about the restrictions on movement imposed by governments in the Americas that have pushed migrants and asylum seekers to risk their lives crossing the Darien Gap, a swampy jungle at the Colombia-Panama border. The 62-page report, This Hell Was My Only Option: Abuses Against Migrants and Asylum Seekers Pushed to Cross the Darien Gap, is the first in a series of Human Rights Watch reports on migration via the Darien Gap. The New York-based watchdog found that restrictions on movement from South American countries to Mexico and Central America have helped contribute to sharp increases in numbers of people crossing the Darien Gap. This exposes migrants to abuses, including sexual violence, and empowers organized crime in the area, according to the group. The devastating stories we heard in the Darien Gap are the result of failed immigration policies that push people into danger and abuse, said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at HRW. The increasing immigration challenges in our region require new, region-wide policies that ensure the rights of people on the move. Half a million people have crossed Darien Gap Over the last year, over half a million people have crossed the Darien Gap on their journey north, often to the United States, fleeing human rights crises in the Americas, including violence and persecution, and escaping poverty. Venezuelans, Haitians, and Ecuadorians, along with people from other regions like Asia and Africa, risk their lives in this difficult terrain. Since January 2022, over 440,000 Venezuelans have crossed the Darien Gap, the largest number for any nationality. They are fleeing an ongoing humanitarian emergency in their country, which has undermined access to food and medicine, as well as abuses and persecution by security forces, armed groups, and gangs. HRW visited the Darien Gap four times between April 2022 and June 2023 and interviewed almost 300 people to document the drivers and responses to this crisis. Those interviewed included migrants and asylum seekers who had or were about to make the crossing, victims of serious abuses, aid workers, Colombian and Panamanian authorities, and migration experts from across the region. Researchers also reviewed data and reports by the Colombian, Panamanian, and US governments; UN agencies; international, regional, and local human rights and humanitarian organizations; and local legal clinics. Long walk amid fear of robbery and abuse The rights group found that visa requirements imposed by Mexico and Central American governments contribute to the increase in migrants crossing the Darien Gap. Following the imposition of visa requirements by some of these countries for Venezuelans and Ecuadorians in 2021 and 2022, the numbers of people of both nationalities crossing the Darien Gap have skyrocketed, suggesting a cause-and-effect relationship. During their days-long walk across the gap, migrants and asylum seekers of all nationalities frequently experience robbery and serious abuses, including sexual violence. On the Colombian side of the Darien Gap, the Gulf Clan, an armed group involved in drug trafficking, regulates the routes that migrants and asylum seekers can use, decides who can assist them on the way, extorts people who benefit from migrant flows, and establishes rules of conduct for locals and migrants alike, at times enforcing these rules through violence. The Colombian military estimates that the Clan collects, on average, US$125 per person crossing the Darien Gap. If the estimate is accurate, the armed group may have made a total of US$57 million between January and October 2023 from its control over this migration route, the HRW said. Criminals and bandits prey upon migrants and asylum seekers as they cross the many routes through the jungle, especially on the Panamanian side. People are routinely robbed, sexually abused, and at times raped. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF or Doctors without Borders) has assisted 950 people, most of them women, who reported sexual violence crossing the Darien Gap since April 2021. 1984 Cartagena Declaration Governments in the Americas should implement rights-respecting immigration policies that build on the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection, signed by 21 states in 2022, according to HRW. They should seize the upcoming 40th anniversary of the 1984 Cartagena Declaration, a landmark international instrument on refugees rights in Latin America, to respond to the increasing migration challenges in the region. The rights watchdog argued that governments should put in place a region-wide temporary protection system that would grant all Venezuelans and Haitians legal status for a reasonably timed and renewable term and ensure that their visa requirements do not effectively prevent access to asylum and push people to resort to dangerous crossings, including the Darien Gap. It said governments should also take steps toward creating an equitable and rights-focused regional mechanism to determine the responsibility of countries to examine asylum claims and protect refugees, considering individual factors, like social or family ties and individual choices, to the extent possible. Governments should distribute costs equitably and offer member states incentives for sharing responsibility. Whether fleeing persecution or seeking economic opportunities, migrants and asylum seekers deserve safe and dignified ways to move, Goebertus said. They are all entitled to basic safety and respect for their human rights during their journey. An Indian couple, identified as Kurush Mistry and Shailja Gupta, has become the focus of a New York hate crime investigation, accused of covering up images of Israeli hostages held by Hamas and harassing a Jewish man. The incident unfolded near the citys 68th Street and Riverside Boulevard on November 9. It was first reported by US-based journalist Andy Ngo on social media platform X, formerly Twitter. Mistry and Gupta, both of whom are said to be Indian nationals, were observed concealing photos of civilians kidnapped by Hamas and displaying signs reading occupiers face consequences." They also allegedly harassed a Jewish man, instructing him to return to his country." A video of the incident, shared by Ngo, quickly went viral, prompting widespread criticism. Update: Ive been able to identify the two people racially harassing a Jewish man in NYC and covering up photos of civilians kidnapped by Hamas with OCCUPIERS FACE CONSEQUENCES" signs. They are husband and wife Kurush Mistry and Shailja Gupta. The two Indian nationals told the pic.twitter.com/OGn6Upce0d Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) November 10, 2023 Ngo later provided an update, identifying the suspects as Kurush Mistry and Shailja Gupta. The couple allegedly told the Jewish man to go back" to his country. The videos circulation ignited public outrage and discussions about rising incidents of hate crimes. Kurush Mistry, an IIM Ahmedabad graduate and an Oil Analyst at Freepoint Commodities, has been identified as Guptas husband. Kurush was reportedly fired from his oil analyst role at the company. Without specifying the name of the employee, Freepoint Commodities, in a LinkedIn post said that the individual involved in a recent antisemitic incident is no longer with them. This incident comes as Jewish civil rights groups say theyve seen large increases in reports of harassment, bias and sometimes physical assaults against members of their communities since the October 7 Hamas attacks. More than 1,200 people in Israel died, most of them in the Hamas attack, and about 240 hostages were taken from Israel into Gaza by Palestinian militants. Thousands of Palestinians are fleeing northern Gaza as Israels military pushed deeper into dense urban neighborhoods in its battle with Hamas militants. Officials in the besieged enclave said the Palestinian death toll has surpassed 11,000 people. (With agency inputs) A political novice and one of the worlds wealthiest millennials, Vivek Ramaswamy has waged a whirlwind presidential campaign mirroring his meteoric rise as a biotech entrepreneur. On everything from deporting people born in the United States to ending aid to Israel and Ukraine, he consistently displays the bravado of a populist, self-declared outsider. I stand on the side of revolution, he declares. Thats what Im going to lead in a way that no establishment politician can. In business and politics, though, Ramaswamy has run into skeptics and sometimes hard facts that threatened to derail his ambitions. In the 2024 campaign, the Israel-Hamas war has refocused the Republican primary on foreign policy and exposed just how much Ramaswamys self-declared revolutionary approach puts him at odds with the partys most powerful figures and many of its voters. At Wednesdays primary debate, Ramaswamy joined the rest of the field in supporting Israels offensive but returned to his practice of not just critiquing his opponents but mocking them. Ramaswamy skewered Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who some online sleuths suggest wears lifts in his boots, by asking, Do you want Dick Cheney in three-inch heels? The performance drew eye rolls and derision on stage. When Ramaswamy implied Haley was being hypocritical in criticizing the social media platform TikTok because her daughter has previously used it, the 51-year-old mother of two called him scum. Ramaswamy, an Ohio native who also lives there, has wowed many audiences with his rapid-fire, wide-ranging discourse. Yet even some Republican voters who come away impressed are not backing him. Hes among a group of candidates who trail former President Donald Trump and generally fall behind DeSantis in national surveys, polling in the mid to high single digits. Ann Trimble Ray, a Republican activist from Early, Iowa, suggested Ramaswamy exposes his naivete in part with what hes said about Israel, but also his inexperience. Unless youve had the experience of someone who has had exposure to the briefings, what you communicate is a whole lot of conjecture, said Ray, who is leaning toward backing Haley. The 38-year-old son of Indian immigrants has spent his adult life as a sort of boastful savior. In business, that meant building a fortune by hyping a drug that ultimately failed. In politics, it means arguing he can return Trumps America First vision to the White House without the baggage. Ramaswamy set his course at Harvard, a pillar of the American establishment. Ramaswamy majored in biology and participated in the campus Republican club, standing out even there as a libertarian. He drew attention from the campus newspaper for his alter ego, Da Vek, a rapper who performed using libertarian ideology as lyrics. I consider myself a contrarian; I like to argue, Ramaswamy told The Crimson. Harvard introduced Ramaswamy to the hedge-fund class. He interned at Goldman Sachs, the most prestigious Wall Street investment house, then won a job at QVT Financial, founded by another Harvard alumnus, Dan Gold. Ramaswamy led the firms pharmaceutical investments. Ramaswamy launched his own venture in 2014. He named it Roivant the ROI standing for return on investment and had a clear business model in mind: Buy discount patents for drugs languishing in the development phase, then resurrect them. In his first big move, Ramaswamy used a subsidiary, Axovant, and paid GlaxoSmithKline $5 million for RVT-101, a potential Alzheimers drug already put through multiple trials and deemed not promising enough to continue. Ramaswamy rebranded it as intepirdine and, despite the earlier studies, touted it as a game-changer, a best-in-class drug candidate, he told The New York Times during Axovants infancy. He landed on the cover of Forbes magazine. The hype worked. Intepirdine never would. Axovants initial public stock offering in 2015 drew $315 million, the largest-ever biotech IPO to that point, and Axovants valuation approached $3 billion. In 2017, Axovant released more trial results that found the drug ineffective at dampening Alzheimers symptoms or its advancement. Axovant stock tanked. Ramaswamy, though, had pocketed tens of millions, divesting himself of shares whose value had swelled because of public buy-in. He pumped up the image and the name so people invested, while he was selling out, said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a scholar at the Yale School of Management who tracks Ramaswamys business dealings. Thats classic pump and dump. On his 2015 tax return, one of 20 years worth he has disclosed, Ramaswamy reported almost $38 million in capital gains income. He parlayed that into a portfolio now measured in the hundreds of millions, enough to dwarf the $15 million he has loaned his own campaign. He became a conservative author and cable news regular, mainly as a critic of corporate Americas focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. In that role, and as a candidate, Ramaswamy sidesteps that some of his own interests he invested in Disney, a punching bag for conservatives are leaders in DEI efforts. Ramaswamy embraces the notion that he is Donald Trump 2.0. I believe Donald Trump was an excellent president, Ramaswamy said while campaigning in Atlanta. But I do believe that we need to take our America First agenda to the next level, and I think it will take an outsider from a different generation with an actual positive vision. Ramaswamy has promised to pardon the former president if he is convicted of federal crimes, including those related to the Capitol Hill attack in 2021. In one of his earlier books, Ramaswamy called Jan. 6 a dark day for democracy and criticized Trumps abhorrent behavior assessments he no longer repeats. Ramaswamy advocates deporting the American-born children of immigrants in the country illegally, though they are U.S. citizens under federal law and Supreme Court precedent. He questions the governments account of 9/11. Hes called for firing 75% of the federal workforce. He wants to raise the U.S. voting age. Two days after Hamas Oct. 7 attack killed 1,400 people, Ramaswamy suggested the U.S. withhold aid to Israel until its government detailed plans for Gaza. While many conservatives dislike foreign aid, Republican voters align heavily with Israel. About 4 in 10 Republicans (44%) say the United States current level of support for Israel in the conflict with the Palestinians is about right, according to a new Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Research poll conducted in November. Another one-third of Republicans (34%) say the U.S. isnt supportive enough, compared with 9% of Democrats who say the same. During Wednesdays debate, Ramaswamy endorsed Israels right to counterattack Hamas but said Americans should not have a financial stake in the war. He chided his opponents for framing U.S. aid to Ukraine as a fight for democracy against Russian aggression. I want to be careful to avoid making the mistakes from the neocon establishment of the past. Corrupt politicians in both parties spent trillions, killed millions, he said. Made billions for themselves in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, fighting wars that sent thousands of our sons and daughters, people my age, to die in wars that did not advance everyones interests, adding $7 trillion to our national debt. Ramaswamy jousted recently with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson over Ramaswamys accusations of systemic corruption in the U.S. establishment. When Sean Hannity, the hugely influential Fox News personality, challenged Ramaswamy after his interview with Carlson, the candidate insisted he was mischaracterized. Retorted Hannity: You do this in every single interview. You say stuff but then you deny it, your own words. Trumps critics accuse him of doing that as well. The former president also got in trouble with top Republicans for denigrating Israels prime minister after the Hamas attack. Yet Trump remains such an overwhelming favorite to win the GOP nomination that he has skipped each debate, leaving Ramaswamy to absorb punches most candidates never direct toward the former president. I am telling you, Putin and President Xi are salivating at the thought that someone like that could become president, Haley retorted Wednesday, saying the Russian and Chinese leaders would love his isolationism. Ramaswamy showed his core strategy earlier this year in a brief huddle with a 16-year-old who asked for advice. Find where the pack is going and then figure out what they missed, Ramaswamy told him. You have to buck the consensus. But he added a bottom line: You have to be right. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has lost contact with its focal points in Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, amid reports of the hospital facing repeated attacks. Over the past 48 hours, the largest medical complex in Gaza has been reportedly attacked multiple times. The intensive care unit suffered damage from bombardment, while areas of the hospital where displaced people were sheltering have also been damaged. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there are reports that some of those who fled the hospital have been shot at, wounded, or killed. WHO has lost communication with its contacts in Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza. As horrifying reports of the hospital facing repeated attacks continue to emerge, we assume our contacts joined tens of thousands of displaced people and are fleeing the area, WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean said in a statement. Deeply worrisome and frightening: @WHO has lost contact with its focal points in Al-Shifa Hospital in #Gaza, amid horrifying reports of the hospital facing repeated attacks.There are reports that some of those who fled the hospital have been shot at, wounded, or killed. The https://t.co/buhccOjRqF Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) November 12, 2023 In a statement posted on X, Tedros said the hospital was surrounded by tanks. WHO is gravely concerned about the safety of health workers, hundreds of sick and injured patients, including babies on life support, and displaced people who remain inside the hospital, he added. WHO again calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza as the only way to save lives and reduce the horrific levels of suffering. WHO also calls for the sustained, orderly, unimpeded and safe medical evacuations of critically injured and sick patients. All hostages must receive appropriate medical care and be released unconditionally, said. This report comes as WHO has verified more than 250 attacks on hospitals, clinics, patients and ambulances in Gaza since Hamas incursion into Israel on Oct. 7 as well as 25 attacks on health care in Israel. In Gaza, the health system is on its knees and the situation on the ground is impossible to describe, Tedros earlier told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council. As we speak, there are reports of firing outside the al-Shifa and Rantisi hospitals, he said, adding that Palestinian health workers were still saving lives despite being directly in the firing line. Last week saw attacks on five hospitals in one day in Gaza, the UN chief said, and in the past 48 hours, four hospitals with some 430 beds were put out of action. He said half of the Gaza Strips 36 hospitals and two-thirds of its primary health care centers are not functioning, and facilities that are functioning are operating way beyond their capacities. (With agency inputs) MORE than one million Zimbabweans who had left the country returned to settle home permanently during the first half of 2023. This marks a significant surge in returnees, driven mainly by Governments efforts to attract skilled locals back home. Statistics from the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStat) show that 1,03 million Zimbabweans who had declared themselves as emigrants when they left the country had returned home between January and June. In total, about 378 000 locals relocated back to Zimbabwe during the first three months of the year, while the number of returnees surged to 655 377 between April and June. ZimStat classifies returning expatriates as returning former residents who had declared themselves as emigrants when leaving the country but, nevertheless, remained away for more than one year. There were 331 982 visitors from abroad who came to Zimbabwe during the second quarter of 2023, compared to 231 107 in the second quarter of 2022, representing an increase of 43,6 percent, said the ZimStats Quarterly International Migration Statistics report. There were 655 377 residents returning from abroad, compared to 250 147 in the second quarter of 2022. This indicates an increase of almost 162 percent. While ZimStats 2022 national census concluded that only 908 914 Zimbabweans were living abroad, South Africas national statistics agency, Statistics South Africa, estimated that there were about one million Zimbabweans living in the neighbouring country last year. The new ZimStat immigration figures, however, account for Zimbabwean expatriates who did not move to foreign countries on a permanent basis. The agencys first-quarter international migration report also indicates that the country recorded 603 412 arrivals during the January-March period this year, and 63,4 percent (about 378 000) were returning residents, while 36,6 percent were visitors from abroad. Zimbabwes economy has been growing steadily in recent years, creating new job and investment opportunities for skilled workers, making relocating home more attractive for Zimbabweans living abroad. Government has also embarked on a drive to attract skilled Zimbabweans back into the country, including providing tax breaks, subsidies and support for setting up businesses. Sunday Mail South Africas statistician-general Risenga Maluleke says Limpopo has a new language that was not captured in the census of 2011. Presenting the 2022 census report to premier Stanley Mathabatha in Polokwane, Risenga noted that the province now has Shona as a language. He points out that the language is spoken in more than 28 000 households. The province now has a population of 6.6 million. He attributed the population growth to Zimbabwean migrants. Lets look at this province: 55.5 % speak Sepedi followed by 17.4% who speak Tshivenda, followed by Xitsonga 17.3%, but there is this one which was never there before Shona 1.6 %, Risenga said. So, the people from Zimbabwe are moving into this province and this is their first port-of-call which was never picked up in the previous Census. Now, this is what we are picking up. The census revealed that Zimbabwe had the highest number of immigrants in South Africa at over one million. Meanwhile, Mathabatha has expressed concern about the migration of the provinces residents to provinces such as Gauteng in search of greener pastures. Standard Unless you're a geography buff, you may never have heard of the tiny Pacific territory of Tokelau. It's no wonder: As Jacob Judah explains in the MIT Technology Review , Tokelau is made up of three small atolls, has only about 1,400 inhabitants, and didn't even get telephone service until 1997. But a strange thing happened despite that late embrace of technology, or perhaps partly because of it: Little Tokelau would go on to become "an unlikely internet giant," writes Judah. Unbeknownst to islanders, however, it would do so by becoming a cybercrime hub, all thanks to its .tk domain name. The story unpacks how it happened, going to back to the Wild West days of the early internet in the year 2000 and a Dutch entrepreneur named Joost Zuurbier. That year, Zuurbier struck a deal with Tokelau to manage its country-code top-level domain, or ccTLD, the string of characters that come after a URL. Tokelau had neither the money nor the knowhow to do that on its own. In fact, until that deal, Tokelau officials hadn't even known they'd been assigned a ccTLD, writes Judah. In broad strokes, Zuurbier's plan to was to allow anyone to obtain a .tk website for free, so he (and, theoretically, Tokelau) could make money off ads. The end result is that, until recently, the .tk domain "had more users than any other country's," writes Judah. The problem is that virtually all of them were spammers and cybercriminals. It's a safe bet you (and almost everyone else) have encountered a .tk website, even if you weren't aware of it. Today, officials in Tokelau, who say the territory did not see a financial windfall, are angry about how it all unfolded and the damage to their reputation. Read the full story. (Or check out other longforms.) The founder of athleisure company Lululemon has a rare form of muscular dystrophy, and he's spending millions to find a cure before time runs out. Bloomberg details Chip Wilson's story, from becoming an entrepreneur in the outdoor and fitness realm (when he was first diagnosed in the late '80s), to launching the billion-dollar company that sells high-end yoga pants in 1998, and what he's done since he stepped down from leadership at Lululemon after putting a hiking boot in his mouth one too many times. Now 68 and with a net worth of over $7 billion, one of his main focuses has been sinking serious money ($100 million) into experimental research via his Solve FSHD funding body. Wilson took Bloomberg along to experience his experimental regimens, which are overseen by medical professionals he's hired. During one, a doctor administers painful, 90-minute plasma injections that are distilled from Wilson's blood into inflamed areas along his back and legs (Insider notes this process is commonly used by athletes with arthritic knees). Twice a year, Wilson flies with his doctor to Mexico for stem-cell injections, which he cannot legally receive in the US. Along with those experimental procedures, Wilson is testing out longevity treatments, including the cancer drug rapamycin. While the jury is still out on which treatments may work (and with so many going on at once, if he can nail potential success to a specific one), he is happy to play guinea pig for a cure. "I have the right amount of money at the right time," he says. "And I'm willing to take the risks." Read the full story, which delves into the ethical issues at play when billionaires cherry-pick their own diseases to research. (Or check out other longforms.) The recent dip in airfare we are experiencing is about to cross the pond. According to the Wall Street Journal , those record-setting prices people paid to travel to Europe over the last year are simmering down thanks to moves from airlines. "Everybody really wanted to go to Europe this past summer and pretty much everybody did," says Kyle Potter of Thrifty Traveler. "And they paid a lot to do it." So what's changing to bring down costs? More flights are being scheduled over the spring and summer months, the Journal notes, and new nonstop routes will also be added between more US airports and European destinations by airlines like United, Lufthansa, and JetBlue. Some destinations are seeing costs drop to pre-pandemic levels, with searches for flights to Dublin, Rome, Paris, and Amsterdam yielding deals at or under $500 in early March. Right now, the average cost of a roundtrip flight to Europe is about $655, but ticket prices to popular destinations (especially in southern Europe) can still creep upflights to Athens, Madrid, and Lisbon were about 20% higher than last year. With the Olympics being held in Paris this summer, factoring where and when to book will also make a difference. Flights to Paris in late July are already upwards of $1,000, and since it's a travel hub for other European destinations, Yale economist Kevin Williams says "further-flung" destinations will be trickier to reach. "That is going to be a more expensive ticket." Thrifty Traveler deems October and November "booking season," due to softer demand, and suggests capitalizing on low ticket prices, especially to Europe, now. "Think of it like a hangover for the airlines after the incredibly busy (and incredibly profitable) summer," says Gunnar Olson. "As Americans tune out travel before heading into the holidays, airlines are eager to start filling seats through the end of the year and deep into 2024." But not everyone believes searching for hot summer deals will reflect pricing drops just yet. "Airlines know that travelers booking that far in advance are either anxious or not flexible," says Hopper's Hayley Berg. She suggests waiting until March to book summer tripsor as early as January for spring vacationsand to set price alerts. (More air travel news). The Florida Virtual School gave a veteran teacher a choice of courtesy titles to use in its materials and communications: Ms., Mrs., or Miss. Instead, the teacher used Mx, and was fired on Oct. 24, told that was a violation of a new state law. "Obviously, I'm not OK with that," said AV Vary, who recently identified as non-binary rather than female, the Orlando Sentinel reports. "I think it's a direct result of my gender identity." On Wednesday, Vary filed a complaint with the Florida Commission on Human Relations and the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, claiming discrimination under the Civil Rights Act. The law the school was referring to is the Parental Rights in Education Act, also called the "Don't Say Gay" law, that Gov. Ron DeSantis signed last year. In May, the provision barring teachers from the use of pronouns with students that don't align with birth sex was added, per NBC News. DeSantis said the law would ensure students aren't "forced to use pronouns not based on biological sex." Vary, who uses they/them, said the principal initially accepted the use of Mx. but later backtracked. The statewide, online school told USA Today that it's obligated to follow Florida laws and rules, including those governing "the use of Personal Titles and Pronouns." Vary said: "There's all this worry that teachers are going to indoctrinate students into some secret society. I'm telling you, we do not have time." (Read more Florida stories.) Hospitals in Gaza, surrounded by Israeli troops and tanks, neared the point of collapse on Saturday as fuel and water supplies ran low and electricity went out. The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was "shocked and appalled" by reports from the hospitals, and Doctors Without Borders called the situation at Gaza's largest health care center, al-Shifa, "catastrophic," the Washington Post reports. Two premature infants died at that hospital when power to the incubators was cut, health officials said. The increased fighting reportedly prevented people from fleeing the hospitals. Al-Shifa has been powered by generators for weeks. But without fuel to run them after Israel stopped supplies, medical equipment is no longer working, and the hospital has gone dark, per the New York Times. The Israeli military denied launching direct strikes at the hospital. But the head of surgery held out the phone in a call with the AP and said "Listen": gunfire and artillery shelling could be heard outside as Israeli troops and Hamas fighters were engaged in close combat. Hamas controls Gaza. Thousands of people wounded in the fighting, medical staff employees, and displaced civilians had taken shelter at Al-Shifa, but Dr. Marwan Abu Sada said it has become a deathtrap. A military spokesman for Israel said its troops were not attacking the hospital but were battling Hamas forces "who choose to fight next to al-Shifa Hospital." Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said evacuees will be given safe passage along the east side of the hospital complex, per the Times. "Everyone is on top of one another, displaced people, wounded people, even the medical staff," a resident at al-Shifa said. "They try to save this person and that person, but they can't. There's no electricity or medicine or anything." (Read more Israel-Hamas war stories.) Tens of thousands of people marched in Paris on Sunday to protest increasing acts of antisemitism during Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and representatives of several parties on the left, as well as far-right leader Marine Le Pen, attended Sunday's march in the French capital amid tight security, the AP reports. President Emmanuel Macron did not attend but expressed his support for the protest and called on citizens to rise up against "the unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism." The leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, Jean-Luc Melenchon, stayed away from the march, saying last week on X that the march would be a meeting of "friends of unconditional support for the massacre" in Gaza. Paris authorities deployed 3,000 police troops along the route of the protest called by the leaders of the Senate and parliament's lower house, the National Assembly. France has the largest Jewish population in Europe, but given its own World War II collaboration with the Nazis, antisemitic acts today open old scars. Marching against antisemitism is "more than a duty," said one demonstrator who was holding a French flag. "It's a march against violence, against antisemitism, against all (political extremes) that are infiltrating the society, to show that the silent majority does exist," said Robert Fiel, 67. Family members of some of the 40 French citizens killed in the initial Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, and of those missing or held hostage, also took part in the march. As of Saturday, officials counted 1,247 acts against Jews around France since Oct. 7, nearly three times as many as in the whole of 2022, according to the Interior Ministry. In a letter addressed to the French on Sunday, Macron vowed that perpetrators will be prosecuted and punished. "A France where our Jewish fellow citizens are afraid is not France," Macron said in the letter, published in Le Parisien newspaper. He called on the country to remain "united behind its values ... and work for peace and security for all in the Middle East." (Read more antisemitism stories.) A military aircraft crashed into the eastern Mediterranean Sea, killing all five US service members aboard, the Pentagon announced Sunday. The accident took place Friday evening "during a routine air refueling mission as part of military training," according to a statement by US European Command, the Hill reports. US military aircraft and ships deployed nearby joined the search and rescue effort, per the Wall Street Journal . American officials said there are no indications that hostile activity was involved. The European Command did not identify the service members killed, pending notification of their families. Nor did it say which branches of the military were involved. The Air Force has deployed squadrons to the region since the Israel-Hamas war began, and the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier is in the eastern Mediterranean, per the AP. (Read more US military stories.) All of the major Republican candidates for president have expressed support for Israel in its war against Hamas. On Sunday, Chris Christie became the first of them to go there, seeing the destruction left by Hamas' Oct. 7 attack, including the blood-stained remains of homes, the New York Times reports. "I want the people of Israel to know that there are hundreds of millions of Americans who stand with them, who understand the atrocities that were committed, and why in the future we need to stand absolutely shoulder to shoulder with Israel," Christie said at the Kfar Aza kibbutz, where he saw burned-out homes still splattered with blood. The former New Jersey governor had meetings with Israeli leaders scheduled during his one-day visit, per the AP. Christie, who visited Ukraine in August, has made foreign policy a centerpiece of his GOP campaign. Accompanied on Sunday by the speaker of Israel's parliament, Christie talked about the horror of walking into a home and encountering the smell of death still, a month after the attack. The protesters in the US calling for a cease-fire don't reflect majority opinion in the nation, he said in his remarks. Christie said that if the demonstrators saw what he just saw, at least some of them would change their minds. "Come to Israel and see it for yourself," he told them. (Read more Israel-Hamas war stories.) Making friends, gaining confidence, and doing good for the community - just some of the reasons why Miss New Zealand Georgia Waddington believes beauty pageants still have a place in 2023. Having been crowned Miss New Zealand earlier this year, the 22-year-old secured a spot at the prestigious Miss International, a major global pageant held annually in Tokyo, Japan. It was there that Waddington was crowned Miss Photogenic, an honour she was awarded for her "endearing" photos, she told AM on Monday morning. It's hoped donations from the public will help cover the remaining $200,000, YWAM managing director Marty Emmett told AM on Monday morning. "The mission is to empower a healthy future for the Pacific. We have dental clinics on the ship, we take basic primary health services - such as optometry - to the maritime regions in Fiji with the ship's volunteer medical team, providing services right there in their villages where they can't access them," he explained. "We've got dates on dry dock in Fiji at the end of this month, around November 29, for two weeks. We're hoping that two-week window gives us enough time to get it fixed and get home before more cyclones come through the Pacific." Until November 28, every donation will be matched by Trinity Lands, the charity said in an update to its Facebook. YWAM has already served over 3800 people this year, delivering 13,500 medical services at no cost, Emmett added. If you're in a position to donate, you can do so at saveourship.nz. We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. A U.S. Army Soldier marches recruits onto the football field at the Alamodome where they will take their oath of enlistment before the U.S. Army All-American Bowl Jan. 6, 2018, in San Antonio, Texas. The All-American Bowl is the nations premier high school football game, serving as the preeminent launching pad for Americas future college and National Football League stars. (Photo by Sgt. Ian Valley) Bahrain court jails man for stealing BD11,000 given for converting to US dollar Bahrain court jails man for stealing BD11,000 given for converting to US dollar TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com The Court of Cassation has confirmed a one-year prison sentence awarded to a man found guilty of embezzling money from an associate. The incident traces back to a year ago when the victim enlisted the accuseds services to convert BD11,000 into US dollars. As per court records, the accused had agreed to handle the currency exchange and return the equivalent funds to the victim. However, after receiving the money, the accused allegedly reneged on the transaction, failing to return the funds as promised. Prosecutors assert that the accused diverted the money for personal use instead of honouring the arrangement, despite repeated pleas from the victim. The victim finally lodged a formal complaint, submitting social media exchanges as evidence of the transaction. An investigation ensued. Following a thorough review of evidence, the lower court found the accused guilty of embezzlement, resulting in a one-year prison sentence last year. Unsatisfied, the convicted individual appealed the ruling, but the appellate court dismissed the plea. With no other recourse, the defence escalated the case to the Court of Cassation, Bahrains highest judicial authority. In a recent ruling, the Court of Cassation upheld the initial one-year jail term. This decision marks the culmination of legal proceedings, affirming the convicted individuals imprisonment for misappropriating entrusted funds meant for a service previously agreed upon. By Captain Mahmood Al Mahmood Time and again we hear that entrepreneurship is the touchstone of national development and the small and medium industry is the lifeblood of progress. Bahrain has a long and illustrious history of independent business. It is embedded in the story of our pearling industry when fleets borrowed money to equip themselves and sail to search for the finest treasures in the sea and make their profits by selling the pearls to royalty, famous jewellers and nobility around the world. In turn, the exposure to technology of that time such as electric generator sets, air coolers and automobiles sparked a brisk series of new business ventures and built the fortunes of several families and led the way towards the modernising of Bahrain. This week, we saw the Board of Directors of the Entrepreneurs Organisation reiterate their commitment to keeping the flame of business adventure alive with support and nurturing of the entrepreneurial spirit in Bahrain. In a key meeting with HRH the Crown Prince and PM, the global mentoring body discussed future plans where the spotlight will be firmly on sharing success lessons and guiding new and future entrepreneurs. The EO is not a school for entrepreneurs - that is a phrase that comes loaded with hierarchy and patronising overtones. Instead, it represents a global camaraderie that mentors fellow entrepreneurs and inspires them to push the envelope and build new success. After all, Bahrain has the ingredients for a great entrepreneurial story - the right business environment, the correct geographic location and the vital human resources - educated and eager to put their shoulder to the wheel - to use as building blocks for entrepreneurship. I am sure the day is not far when the Manama Entrepreneurial Model will take on the world. Experts have warned Iceland that its volcano could erupt within hours or days. Around 3,000 residents have evacuated the southwestern town of Grindavik close to the Fagradalsfjall volcanic system in the Reykjanes region. Over the past 48 hours, Iceland has faced a seismic swarm as 1,485 earthquakes have hit the country. In addition, a magma tunnel is forming underground beneath the town, which South Icelands Volcano and Natural Hazards group believe could be 12km long. celand is one of the most active volcanic areas on the planet. Rather than having a central volcano, the Reykjanes Peninsula is dominated by a rift valley, with lava fields and cones. The 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajokull, Iceland caused widespread disruption to air travel between Europe and North America. The eruption produced an ash cloud that forced the cancelation of roughly 100,000 flights. The aviation industry lost an estimated $2.6 billion. The eruption stranded millions of tourists worldwide. The eruption caused widespread disruption to air travel between Europe and North America. The area broadly known as Fagradalsfjall, has erupted three times since 2021 and is predicted to continue to blow with some frequency based on latest measures. Of Icelands 32 active volcanoes, none is watched more closely than Katla. One of the nations largest and most feared, Katla lies under glacial ice hundreds of meters (yards) thick, meaning that any eruption is likely to melt the ice and cause widespread flooding. Levent Kemal reports on X/Twitter : Clashes in Gazas western flank intensify around hospitals, approximate latest situation: According to the hospital director who spoke to Al Jazeera a few hours ago, Rantisi Hospital has been under siege for nearly three days. Clashes are still ongoing around the hospital. According to reports, Al-Shifa Hospital has also been besieged by the Israeli army. Local reports have said that the Israeli army reached al-Wahda Street. The hospital is thus besieged. Approaching al-Quds hospital at noon, the Israeli army surrounded the hospital about two hours ago. #Gaza situation update: The #IDF has advanced around the extremely high-density buildings of Al Shati camp towards the east of the Shifa hospital. Further advances from the South bring the hospital within 700 meters of being surrounded, if it hasn't been already. pic.twitter.com/x7nhBMgTez War Mapper (@War_Mapper) November 11, 2023 The fact that Hamas conceals its fighters and commanders beneath Shifa Hospital is a widely known yet unspoken truth in Gaza. Hamas exploits this tactical advantage, banking on the unlikelihood of Israeli forces attacking the hospital. And as IDF ground operations in Gaza continue, more evidence of Hamass transgressions against its own people will gradually come to light.Joe Truzman, Research Analyst at FDDs Long War Journal Hamas has a long history of placing military assets inside and below civilian sites. The terrorist group also fires rockets from these areas, putting Palestinians in harms way. Footage from the 2014 Gaza war shows Hamas launching rockets from the premises of al-Wafa Hospital in Gaza City, rendering the facility a military target. International law prohibits the use of hospitals for military activity. In October, Hamas quickly blamed Israel for an errant Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that struck a parking lot near Gazas al-Ahli Hospital. In the morning, pictures showed that the hospital building were not damaged and there were about ten burned cars in a small parking lot by the hospital. Hamas had instantly claimed the blast killed over 500 civilians, but the U.S. intelligence community estimated that 100 to 300 people died, while a European official put the figure at 50 or less. A relatively small explosion in a parking lot with some people on a lawn one hundred feet away is not consistent with high casualty figures. Hamas uses their own civilians as human shields and uses hospitals for military operations and propoganda. Clashes in Gaza's western flank intensify around hospitals, approximate latest situation: According to the hospital director who spoke to Al Jazeera a few hours ago, Rantisi Hospital has been under siege for nearly three days. Clashes are still ongoing around the hospital. - pic.twitter.com/chfiP2FHfe Levent Kemal (@leventkemaI) November 11, 2023 "There is no shooting at the hospital and there is no siege. The East Side of the hospital remains open." Head of the Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA) to Gaza in @cogatonline COL Moshe Tetro explains the situation at the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/pIyQ0wU225 Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) November 11, 2023 A hospital in Gaza funded by foreign Muslim donors was custom-built with tunnels for Hamas terrorists to use according to Israel. The Israel Defense Forces produced video evidence that it said proved that two hospitals in Gaza, funded by donors from Qatar and Indonesia, were equipped with underground tunnels that were part of Hamass terror Metro. The IDF alleged that Hamas fighters had opened fire on Israeli troops from the buildings of Gazas Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani Hospital, built by Qatars former ruler in 2016. And they said that the Indonesia Hospital, funded by Indonesian donors including the Indonesian Red Cross Society, had been specially equipped with tunnels for Hamas to use when its foundations were first laid. Hamas systematically built the Indonesia Hospital to disguise its underground terror infrastructure, said Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an IDF spokesman, in a media briefing. Many sources have reported on the Hamas tunnel network. According to reports, Al-Shifa Hospital has also been besieged by the Israeli army. Local reports have said that the Israeli army reached al-Wahda Street. The hospital is thus besieged.https://t.co/Tu5FF4L4Xu Levent Kemal (@leventkemaI) November 11, 2023 The joint Riyadh Statement reads all countries to cease all weapons exports to Israel. But no mention of ceasing arms imports from Israel. Currently, Arab states make up 24% of Israels arms exports, amounting to 3 billion dollars annually https://t.co/cbh7OAYEbt Yusuf Selman Inanc (@yusufsinanc) November 11, 2023 Israeli tanks are just 20 metres (65 feet) away from al-Quds Hospital. [Al Jazeera] BREAKING: GAZA'S AL-SHIFA HOSPITAL HAS FALLEN! Israeli Military Presence Reported Within Al-Shifa Medical Complex, Gaza's largest hospital, located in Gaza City. Will we finally see the alleged tunnels and Hamas headquarters? Source: Al Jazeera https://t.co/ENEjftLc0V Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) November 11, 2023 UPDATE: More coverage at an updated article at this link. "There is no shooting at the hospital and there is no siege. The East Side of the hospital remains open." Head of the Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA) to Gaza in @cogatonline COL Moshe Tetro explains the situation at the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/pIyQ0wU225 Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) November 11, 2023 Times of Israel: Fierce fighting continued in and around Gaza City between Israel Defense Forces troops and armed gunmen on Saturday, as the military closed in on Shifa Hospital, where Israel believes Hamass main headquarters to be located. Live footage of the area appeared to show heavy fighting in the vicinity of the hospital, with the constant sounds of gunfire and explosions and heavy smoke rising from the area. Israel has presented evidence in recent weeks that Hamass main command center is located underneath Shifa and accused the terror group of using the hospital and its occupants with 1,500 beds and some 4,000 staff as human shields for the elaborate bunkers and tunnels beneath it. A small modular nuclear reactor by NuScale is getting canceled because it would have produced 450 Megawatts and cost over $9 billion. The Vogtle Unit 3 and unit 4 are each 1,114 megawatt (MW) AP1000 nuclear reactors, and they will cost a combined $30 billion. The US was trying to shift to small modular nuclear reactors to make up for large project incompetence and over regulation of the nuclear energy industry. The US was trying to make nuclear reactors that are 3 to 10 times smaller than traditional nuclear reactors to make up for them costing 5 to 10 times more. However, the cost overruns outpace the shrinking of reactors. China is buying 6600 Megawatts of nuclear for $17 billion. This will be about 3500 megawatts for the price that Nuscale was trying to make 450 megawatt. Units 5 and 6 of the Ningde Nuclear Power Plant in Fujian Province, China are ACPR-1000 or HPR1000 reactors (power in the range of 1020MW to 1150 MW). Units 1 and 2 of the Shidaowan plant in Shandong Province Units 1 and 2 of the Xudabao plant in Liaoning Province. China has the third most nuclear power in the world. Both China and the USA have not had fatal nuclear power accidents. China has had no nuclear power plant accidents. The US had Three Mile Island but that resulted in no deaths. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has not approved any completely new nuclear reactor designs since it was formed about 50 years ago. The Atomic Energy Commission approved the boiler water and pressure water nuclear reactor designs. The NRC has only approved follow on modifications and modernizations based upon the already approved nuclear reactors. The NRC has taken several actions to modify its licensing process to include advanced nuclear reactors. CNNC plans to start building an improved Hualong Two by 2024. It will be a more economical version of the Hualong One using similar technology, reducing build time from 5 years to 4, and reducing costs by around a fourth from 17,000 yuan per kW to 13,000 yuan per kW. Bill Gates and GE are backing Terrapower to make a 345 MW sodium reactor for about $4 billion. This will be 6.5 times more expensive than Chinas reactors. $11600 per kW for the Terrapower Natrium reactor vs $1780 per kW for the Hualong Two. Nuclear Regulation in the USA The NRC (from 1974-2023) has certified seven designs: the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor, System 80+, AP600, AP1000, the Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor, Nuscale and the APR1400. Designs for original pressure water reactors and the boiler water reactors were all approved under the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) which ran from 1946 to 1974. After the AEC was replaced by the NRC, the approval of new nuclear reactor designs ground to a near halt. It takes 7-20 years for an NRC approval and the odds of successfully getting through certification are about 20% or less. The odds seem even worse if your reactor is not submitted by Westinghouse or something Westinghouse-related. CANDU heavy water reactors (which have had versions built around the world), pebble bed reactors and high temperature reactors tried to get licenses and then applications get withdrawn after a decade or so. Gregory Jaczko served on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 2005 to 2009, and as its chairman from 2009 to 2012. He was appointed by President Obama. Jaczko is now openly vehemently anti-nuclear energy. He was already anti-nuclear when he was appointed to run the NRC. It is shocking that nuclear agencies run by anti-nuclear fanatics do not advance nuclear energy. Jaczko rails about the dangers of nuclear energy despite the evidence that nuclear is the safest energy source. Nuclear energy displaced 20% of the overall electricity used by coal in the US by the 1970s. This saved millions of lives from air pollution deaths. France built nuclear energy in the 1980s for three times less than Germany spent for the past two decades on wind and solar. France reached 80% clean energy from nuclear while Germany is stuck at about 30-40% energy from solar and wind. France did it in about a decade while Germany will take at least four to five times longer and eventually spend ten times the money. 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Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe Usman Ododo, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has been declared the winner of the Kogi state governorship election. Ododo polled 446, 237 votes to defeat Murtala Ajaka of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), who came second with 259,052 votes. Dino Melaye, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), scored 46,362 votes. Johnson Urama, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) returning officer for Kogi, announced Ododo as the winner at 10:23 p.m. on Sunday. Ododo, a former auditor general of local government in Kogi under Yahaya Bello, was anointed by the governor who is finishing his two-term of eight years. Before the final results were announced, the APC said its candidate was coasting to spectacular victory. In a statement, Felix Morka, APC national publicity secretary, asked INEC to protect the votes of the electorate in the state. Morka said the announced and uploaded results, so far, show Ododo maintaining a landslide lead in Kogi west and central, with a competitive showing in Kogi east. However, PDPs Melaye called for the cancellation of the Kogi gubernatorial election. He alleged that result sheets manifested even before the commencement of the accreditation of voters on Saturday. Yesterday in the five local governments of central senatorial district in Kogi state, there was no election. In the end surprisingly, accreditation was done manually, the BVAS was not used, Melaye had said. The SDP had also called for the cancellation of the election in the central senatorial district of Kogi. David Edibo, an agent of the SDP, in a petition addressed to the INEC returning officer at the collation centre in Lokoja, said the party did not accept the results of the election in five LGAs of the state. While INEC announced fresh elections in nine wards in Ogori Magongo LGA of the state due to cases of irregularities, the returning officer said the final results were not affected. PVCs collected in the cancelled areas is 16,247. It doesnt affect the result significantly so we will go into the announcement of results, he said. Leaders of Arabic and Muslim countries at a joint summit in Saudi Arabia took turns to condemn Israels war on Gaza and call for an international investigation of war crimes in what the Palestinian president described as "an unparalleled genocidal war". Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman opened the summit in Riyadh on Saturday by noting that Saudi Arabia "holds the occupation (Israeli) authorities responsible for the crimes committed against the Palestinian people." Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of carrying out "an unparalleled war of extermination against our Palestinian people (in Gaza)" and that the occupying state has "crossed all red lines." He also condemned Israel's "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians stressing that "we will pursue war criminals before international courts, and the United States bears responsibility for any failure to reach a solution." King Abdullah II of Jordan reiterated the message, adding that "Israel's prevention of water, food, and medicine from entering Gaza is a war crime and the injustice to which the Palestinians are exposed did not begin on 7 October but rather began seven decades ago." Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi for his part accused Israel of carrying out "collective punishment" against the people of Gaza that cannot be justified as self-defence or under any other pretext. El-Sisi, demanding a halt to "inhumane practices" against Gaza Palestinians, said Israeli "violations should be investigated internationally". Similarly, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stressed that "Israel's crimes must be examined by the Human Rights Council and the International Criminal Court." "Israel is trying to avenge the events of October 7 by killing innocent people, children and women, and we cannot accept that," Erdogan said. "We must make efforts to hold Israel accountable for its humanitarian crimes and initiate the necessary investigation," he emphasized. Similarly, Indonesian President Joko Widodo condemned how Israel "kills civilians and imposes collective punishment on Gaza." "We demand international investigation committees in the Gaza Strip," Widodo added. Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani of Qatar observed that "the international community has failed to bear its legal and ethical responsibilities," and called on the UN to send a team to investigate Israel's hospital bombings. "Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip must stop," he said. "We must not remain at the limits of denunciation and denial, but rather we must take deterrent steps to stop the aggression." In the same vein, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi accused Israel of "using internationally prohibited bombs" against women and children, noting that "Gaza is witnessing the worst crimes committed in history." "Israel is violating international laws in the Gaza Strip," Raisi stressed. "We want to take a decisive, historic decision regarding what is happening in the Palestinian territories." Crown Prince of Kuwait Sheikh Meshaal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah also condemned Israel's crimes stressing any practice of collective punishment reveals "double standards" and "cannot be justified". "We call on the international community to do its part and protect the Palestinian people," Sheikh Meshaal said. Similarly, Iraqi President Abdul Latif Jamal Rashid concurred and rejected Israel's "policy of collective punishment." Head of the Libyan Presidential Council, Mohammed Al-Menfi urged Muslim countries to implement "binding decisions" against Israeli crimes. "We face a real challenge and a responsibility before history to stop Israels persistence in its crimes," Al-Menfi added. Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ghazouani said in a short statement that "Israel is carrying out genocide in front of the world." The Commissioner-General of the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini urged the joint Arab-Islamic summit to act now to change the trajectory of the war in Gaza. "Gazans feel dehumanized and abandoned. They are yearning for reassurance, especially from their Arab and Muslim brothers and sisters, that they hear the crying of their children, and see the fear in the eyes of their mothers," Lazzarini stressed. "The continuous bombardment, together with the siege, are choking Gaza and its people. Basic services are crumbling. Everything is running out food, water, medicine, and fuel." The statements at the Arab-Islamic summit come on the 36th day of Israel's war on Gaza, as the U.N. humanitarian agency describes northern Gaza as hell on earth. In a specific proposal, the leaders emphasized the need to create two specialised legal monitoring units to document Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip since October 7. These units would also be tasked with preparing legal proceedings to be filed in international courts. Going further, the leaders urged the International Criminal Court to initiate an immediate investigation into crimes against humanity committed by Israel in all the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem. Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians are evacuating toward southern Gaza as Israel's occupation army pushes deeper into densely populated urban areas. The Palestinian health ministry says the death toll from Israel's relentless bombardment of the strip has surpassed 11,000, many of them women and children. Search Keywords: Short link: The All Progressives Congress (APC) has rejected an alleged attempt to move the collation of the governorship election results in Brass LGA to Yenagoa, capital city of Bayelsa. In a statement on Sunday, Felix Morka, national spokesperson of the APC, said the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has come under pressure from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Douye Diri, governor of Bayelsa. Morka said Brass is a stronghold of the APC and Timipre Sylva, its governorship candidate in the state. Brass, remarkably, is a major stronghold of our great party where the people have voted massively for our candidate, Timipre Sylva. The move is a calculated attempt to manipulate the result of the votes in favour of the PDP, he said. INEC must stand its ground and collate the votes of Brass LGA in Brass as mandated by law before moving to Yenagoa for the final state collation. We also vehemently condemn Governor Diris fervent incitement of violent protests at the Peace Park in Yenagoa. This is utterly irresponsible and a violation of his oath of office as Governor. The people of Bayelsa deserve to vote and have the results of the election declared in peace and safety. The spokesperson said any attempt to set Bayelsa ablaze must be resisted. Protesters laid siege to the Bayelsa office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Sunday over the alleged manipulation of governorship election results from Nembe Bassambiri. Among the protesters were Bayelsa-based civil society organisations, women groups, youth groups, state and national assembly members and other concerned citizens. The protesters accused the umpire of attempts to distort the votes of Saturdays election. They blocked the busy Swali Road location of INEC at 9 am on Sunday to prevent the commission from accepting the results from Nembe Bassambiri which they said were concocted. Speaking to journalists during the protest, Dambo Biriyai, state attorney general and commissioner for justice, said the election did not hold in Nembe Bassambiri. He called on Obo Effanga, INEC resident electoral commissioner in the state, and May Agbamuche-Mbu, south south commissioner for INEC, to do what is right by rejecting the alleged fake results. Biriyai added that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members who visited Bassambiri, were prevented entry by the combined team of SWAT police and All Progressives Congress (APC) thugs. If what we are here for is allowed to go on, it would be a massive rape of democracy. We are here because we were disenfranchised in Nembe Bassambiri. And no voting took place there, Biriyai said. Precisely on the 10th of November to vote for our candidate, about 60 buses left Yenagoa to Nembe Bassambiri with escort. When we got there, the SWAT team was blocking the entrance with other APC youths. They said we should come down. When one of our boys, Barrister Dilli came down, they manhandled him and he escaped by the whiskers. Thereafter, they started blocking them up to the extent that they threw tear gas at us. They said we cannot come in. So most of us were scared, so they had to leave. There were no votes. No election in Nembe Bassambiri constituency 2 and 3. And we now found out that results started coming on social media. Results that were uploaded in the BVAS. And you see that these results are the kind of results that are so outrageous. We dont know where they are coming from. So we are here to appeal to INEC. They manipulated everything. INEC should cancel Nembe Bassambiris results because there were no elections there. Biriyai said the protest was not to discourage the commission but for INEC to do what is right, which is to have a free and fair election in the country. Hope Uzodinma, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has won the Imo governorship election by a landslide. Uzodinma secured the majority of votes cast after sweeping all 27 LGAs in the state. The APC candidate polled 540,308 votes to beat Samuel Anyanwu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who scored 71,503 votes; and Athan Achonu of Labour Party (LP) who secured 64,081 votes. Some of the LGs Uzodinma won are Ideato South, Onuimo, Okigwe, Orsu, Ihitte Uboma, Mbaitoli, Owerri municipal, Nkwerre and Ahiazu Mbaise. Abayomi Fashina, returning officer of the Imo gubernatorial poll, declared Uzodinma winner of the election on Sunday morning. I, Professor Abayomi Sunday Fashina, the returning officer, hereby, declare that Hope Uzodinma of the All Progressives Congress (APC), having satisfied the requirements of the law, is hereby declared the winner and he is returned elected, Fashina said. Uzodinma became governor in January 2020 following a supreme court verdict that nullified the election of Emeka Ihedioha. He was seeking re-election in Saturdays vote. Earlier, a fight broke out between party agents at the collation centre for the Imo gubernatorial election. The violence resulted in the party agent of the LP being beaten and bundled out of the hall while the PDP agent was ushered out. The party agents had alleged that some of the results were manufactured. Fashina had urged the agents to return to their seats and accused them of disrupting the collation exercise. Achonu, the LP candidate, has described the election as an attack on democracy. The governorship candidate of the Action Alliance in the ongoing gubernatorial elections in Kogi State, Olayinka Braimoh, has been arrested. His media aide, Musa Yakubu, who confirmed the arrest to journalists, said his principal was arrested by security operatives in Kabba. Musa revealed that the candidate and seven of his security details were nabbed after campaign materials were allegedly found in his car. The state police command could not be reached for comment as of the time of filing this report. Braimohs media aide had earlier raised the alarm over the AA candidates whereabouts. The last time I heard from him was in the morning when he called from Kabba town, but all attempts to get through to him since that time proved abortive, Yakubu said. His mobile lines have been switched off, including his entourage. Hope Uzodimma, re-elected governor of Imo, says his victory at the gubernatorial election on Saturday has vindicated him as the real winner of the 2019 poll. Uzodimma spoke on Sunday at the government house chapel according to a statement released by Oguwike Nwachuku, the governors chief press secretary. Uzodinma became the governor of Imo in January 2020 after a supreme court verdict that nullified the election of Emeka Ihedioha, who was elected into the government house on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Uzodinmas legal victory led to Imo becoming the eighth state in the country to conduct off-season elections. Abayomi Fashina, returning officer of the Imo gubernatorial poll, declared Uzodinma the winner of the election on Sunday morning. The All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate polled 540,308 votes to beat Samuel Anyanwu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who scored 71,503 votes; and Athan Achonu of the Labour Party (LP), who secured 64,081 votes. Addressing the congregation, the governor said he had been denied his well-deserved victory in 2019, leading him to embark on a tortuous court process that ruled in his favour. He expressed joy over his victory and thanked those who contributed to the process, adding that it would spur him to more action in the service of Imo. My heart is full of joy and grateful to all, Uzodimma said. My good people of Imo State, I am humbled and honoured by your overwhelming support in yesterdays (Saturdays) election. Your trust in me to continue leading our dear State is both inspiring and deeply appreciated. Together, we have achieved a resounding victory and I am committed to delivering on the promises made during our campaign. Uzodimma commended the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for ensuring a fair and neutral electoral process and urged his contenders to join him in building the state. In the spirit of inclusivity, we will operate a government that transcends political differences for the benefit of all, he added. Achonu, the LP candidate, has described the election as an attack on democracy. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has adjourned the collation of governorship election results in Bayelsa state till 12 p.m. on Monday. Results from two LGAs Brass and southern Ijaw are yet to be collated. Announcing the development to party agents, election observers and journalists at the collation centre on Sunday, Wilfred Ifogah, head of INEC voters registration in Bayelsa, said there are challenges in the collation of results of some polling units and wards of the two LGAs. Kuta Farouq, the state returning officer, had previously adjourned the exercise and said it would resume at 6 p.m. Earlier, the All Progressives Congress (APC) that alleged there was an attempt to manipulate the election results of Brass LGA in favour of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In a statement, Felix Morka, spokesperson of the APC, said INEC has come under pressure from the PDP and Douye Diri, governor of Bayelsa. Morka said Brass is a stronghold of the APC and Timipre Sylva, its governorship candidate in the state. In another development, INEC said some of its officials were held hostage in Brass LGA. The commission, in a statement, said it was closely monitoring the situation, adding that the development was detrimental to credible elections. The commission also called on security agencies to immediately facilitate the release of the officials. Yiaga Africa, a civil society organisation (CSO), has asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to clarify the status of locations where voting did not hold in the off-cycle polls. On Saturday, off-season polls took place in Bayelsa, Kogi, and Imo states. Through its Watching The Vote (WTV) initiative, Yiaga said its observers in Imo state say elections did not take place in 12% of sampled polling units. The CSO said these cases were prevalent in Orsu, Okigwe, Oru East, and Orlu LGAs. Yiaga said it monitored the upload of results on the IReV, especially those from polling units where elections did not hold. For Orsu LGA in Imo, Yiaga Africas WTV observers reported that the election did not take place in nine sampled polling units in the LGA. There were speculations that INEC may have relocated all polling units to the LGA headquarters on election day. Yiaga Africa said voters in Orsu LGA were not informed of the change in polling unit location and INEC failed to issue an official statement on the supposed temporary relocation of polling units. In Okigwe LGA in Imo State, Yiaga Africa observers reported that elections did not occur in eight sampled polling units. In Oru East LGA, the election was not held in eight of Yiaga Africas sampled polling units, the CSO added. In addition, elections were not held in seven of our sampled polling units in Orlu LGA and in one (1) of our sampled polling units each in Ideato North, Ikeduru, Oru West and Owerri West LGAs. Yiaga called on INEC to investigate these scenarios. Yiaga is concerned with the upload of results form EC8A for some of the sampled polling units where elections were not conducted in Orsu, Oru East, Oru West, Ideato North, Ikeduru and Okigwe LGAs on the IReV, it said. To ensure transparency and to protect the integrity of the process, Yiaga Africa calls on the INEC to clarify the status of voting across polling units in Orsu, Okigwe, Oru East and Orlu LGAs in Imo state. Additionally, INEC should investigate the report of likely election malpractices in these polling units, especially for locations where results have been uploaded on the IReV without the conduct of accreditation and voting. Usman Ododo, the gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kogi state, has won the polling unit of Yahaya Bello, the incumbent governor of the state. According to the result at polling unit 11, Agassa, Okene LGA, Kogi, Ododo scored 840 votes while his close challengers Murtala Ajaka, candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and Dino Melaye of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) did not have any vote. While casting his vote at the unit earlier in the day, the governor said Ododo would coast to victory in the election. Bello commended the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the conduct of the election. He also praised security operatives for offering residents of Kogi a peaceful environment to participate in the election. I am optimistic that our candidate, Usman Ododo, will emerge victorious at the end of the exercise, NAN quoted Bello as saying. We have come out in numbers to cast our votes. I have just cast my vote and others are casting their votes. It is timely. All materials were deployed within the time stipulated. So far I havent heard of complaints from any quarter. The conduct of INEC so far has been so fantastic. All the security agencies have conducted themselves so far very professionally. Citizens that are exercising their franchise are doing that freely. There are no hitches; no rancour. Ododo had also expressed satisfaction with the conduct of security operatives and commended them for ensuring that things were smooth and peaceful. While I express confidence at winning this election, I thank the Kogi people for turning out en-masse to vote in the crucial exercise, he said. The Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP) governorship candidate in Saturdays election in Kogi State, Dino Melaye, has rejected the election, calling for its cancellation. On Sunday, at a press conference in Lokoja, the state capital, Melaye described the election as a sham. There was no election; accreditation was done manually, BVAS was not used, and prepared result sheets were available before the election. INEC must cancel the election. We have evidence to back it up. INEC has manifested gross incompetence; it cannot be trusted, it is biased and compromised, he said. He said INEC is the bane of the development of the nation, adding that the time has come for Nigerians to rise and effect a leadership change at the electoral umpire. The PDP candidate stated that the INEC officials refused to make available result sheets in most polling units, claiming that there were no available result sheets to record in the areas he won. I call for a total cancellation of the election. I sympathize with the Kogi people; I weep for Nigeria and the unborn generation. According to results trickling from collation centres across the state, the candidate of All Progressives Congress, Usman Ahmed Ododo, is in an early lead. The Returning Officer for the Kogi State governorship election, Prof Johnson Urama, on Sunday threatened to use his statutory powers to remove the Secretary of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, from the collation centre. Urama issued the warning after the SDP official questioned results from Okene Local Government Area (LGA), which had just been read out. I thought it was one party agent per [party] There is somebody representing your party here, the Returning Officer said. The party official insisted that although his colleague had spoken, he had observed something that he probably has not seen. He described the figures read out as a doctored result, alleging that the results had been made known to the party since yesterday. The SDP official further alleged that the results were on the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV). I want to understand why the result was changed now. Why should the result be changed now? My party has been manipulated up until this point in time, he said. However, Urama maintained that the SDP official was not allowed to speak and was at risk of being thrown out. Secretary of SDP, you know I have the powers to remove anybody trying to disrupt this. Dont push me to use those powers. You have an agent here and he has spoken, the returning officer said. Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz visited the Agrokombinat Dzerzhinsky agricultural company as part of his official visit to Belarus, Azernews reports, citing BelTA. "I was looking forward to visiting this particular enterprise. Agricultural products and the agricultural industry in general are one of the main priorities of the current government of Cuba. During the visit, we handed over to the Belarusian side a list of products that we need and that we would like to import. But we did not limit ourselves to this and outlined several projects that will allow us, together with the Belarusian side, to produce some goods on our territory," Manuel Marrero Cruz told reporters. The prime minister also noted that Cuba seeks to implement a joint project with Belarus to manufacture meat and dairy products. "We had very good impressions of visiting this agricultural company. This is a full-cycle production. The company raises poultry, processes meat and sells finished products. This is what we are striving for - to establish joint production of this nature," he stressed. Manuel Marrero Cruz added that Belarus and Cuba are at a good stage to establish joint production of this nature. "In addition, I believe that joint agricultural projects with Belarus will be among the first to be implemented. In this regard, I would like to thank the agriculture and food minister and the director general of the Agrokombinat Dzerzhinsky for all the information provided and the opportunity to exchange views. I think that we can jointly establish such production," the Cuban prime minister concluded. Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz arrived in Belarus on an official visit on 9 November. During a meeting with Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko an agreement was reached to step up trade and economic cooperation to match the level of political relations. The parties identified priority avenues of cooperation, including agriculture and joint ventures in Cuba to manufacture meat and dairy products. Manuel Marrero Cruz also met with Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko to discuss specific areas of bilateral ties, including cooperation in pharmaceuticals. On 11 November, the prime minister of Cuba toured Minsk Tractor Plant, got familiar with the tractor line-up and the history of the plant. The parties outlined a number of promising areas for the development of cooperation. Another item in the program of Manuel Marrero Cruz's visit was a trip to Fanipol near Minsk to see the Agrokombinat Dzerzhinsky. The Cuban head of government examined the production process at the company and the types of products that the company manufactures. What Lawal, the husband of Toluige Olokobi Babalola, who went viral in the popular Mummy Calm Down video, told the Police about her purported suicide contradicts what the neighbours narrated. One of the points of disagreement is the rope with which she reportedly committed suicide. Recall that in 2021, the woman and her son became internet sensations after a video showed the little boy on his knees frantically begging his mother after offending her. In the video, the little boy was seen crying and begging his mother to Be calming down and rest a little. However, on Tuesday this week, a user on X (Twitter) disclosed that Toluige committed suicide in Benin, Edo State, for unknown reasons. Confusing stories Speaking on the issue at the Edo State Police Command Headquarters in Benin City, the Police Public Relations Officer, Chidi Nwabuzor, said the husbands account of what happened and that of the neigbhours differed. Therefore, he added, the Commissioner of Police, Muhammed Dankwara, has ordered investigation into the issue. Nwabuzor said: On November 8, the husband, by name Lawal, reported to the Evbuotubu Division in Benin City, Edo State. He said that he returned from the market and met his two-year-old child, Ife Lawal, crying. immediately, he burst the door open and saw the wife on a rope tied to the ceiling. So he loosened it and cried out to the neighbours. They came and accompanied him to the hospital where the wife was confirmed dead and they deposited the body at a hospital mortuary in Benin City. Thereafter, he went to the Evbuotubu Police Station to report the incident. The DPO went with his operatives to the house, where they recovered the rope and suicide note allegedly written by the late woman. From there, the DPO went down with him to the hospital to check the body of the deceased for mark of violence. With all diligence, the DPO checked, but there was no mark of violence. Based on this, the Commissioner of Police, Dankwara, directed the DPO to immediately transfer the case to SCID for further investigation. Neigbhours deny seeing rope There are issues alleged and there are so many sides of the coin. The husband said the neigbhours came when he cried for help. And that they helped him loosen the rope from his wifes neck. However, the neigbhours are saying no, we do not know anything about loosening the rope. They said when he shouted for help, they came in and met him lying on the woman. There are so many issues and that is why the Commissioner of Police, in his wisdom, ordered for investigation. Moreso when there was a report from the DPO that there was no mark of violence. One would have expected, in all truism, a mark from the rope on the woman that died from hanging. That is the mark of violence we are talking about. So he is under investigation. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has assured Saudi Arabian investors that Nigeria will not disappoint them, committing to the application of free market economics in the country. Tinubu spoke on Saturday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, when he met with the countrys captains of industry, according to a statement by Ajuri Ngelale, presidential spokesperson. A free market economy is driven by the market forces of supply and demand, as opposed to one regulated by the government. In this type of economic system, sellers of different goods do not face any barriers as the government does not control how resources are allocated or exchanged in the economy. At the meeting with the Saudi government, Tinubu also said the country is open to doing business, adding that all bottlenecks have been removed. I believe in the full application of free market economics. Your money will flow easily in and easily out. The arbitrage around our nations old foreign exchange policy regime and the corruption that was associated with it is also gone, the president said. We took on those bold endeavours from day one in preparation for serious investors like you seated here. The greatest opportunity for any entity to prosper lies in its human capital. My team is prepared. We can produce. Our market is full of Nigerian youths who are brilliant, highly educated, industrious, and passionate about innovation and engagement with world-class services. The navigation of the ship of this great nation lies in the membership seated here. We are ready to answer all of your questions directly, even into this night if need be. The sky is not just the limit, but it is the destination for our two countries and peoples. NIGERIA-SAUDI BUSINESS COUNCIL On his part, Kahlid El-Falih, Saudi Arabias trade and investment minister, said Nigerians can expect that the Saudi investment community would respond not in words alone, but with substantial new investment across several sectors of the Nigerian economy. The minister of commerce and I will be visiting Nigeria either before the end of this year or very early next year with a very large delegation of Saudi CEOs from all key sectors, El-Falih said. We know you are ready for business, so we do not want to come to Nigeria for any exploratory discussion. We are coming for implementation. It is an action visit. Mr. President, you agree with me that good intentions alone will not take us anywhere, so we will prepare well with your team and our investors will align with your officials, beginning now, to develop a concrete work plan of investments in the key sectors for takeoff when we meet again. When we meet soon in Abuja, it will be to sign and begin delivery on all agreements. We will also use the opportunity to formally inaugurate the Nigeria-Saudi Business Council. Aliko Dangote, chairman of Dangote Group, told Saudi investors that Nigeria is the worlds best-kept secret in terms of investments and returns. We are also looking to ensure that our investments are a two-way process. Nigerian companies have a lot of value to add to the Saudi economy, and we look forward to working together, he said. Dangote said the soon-coming launch of the Nigeria-Saudi business council will be a huge opportunity for both countries to expand. Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) have arrested 14 suspected vote buyers in the off-cycle governorship elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi states. In a statement on Saturday, Dele Oyewale, EFCC head of media and publicity, said the suspects were arrested in Otueke, Adawari playgrounds in Bayelsa state and at various polling units in Imo and Kogi states. According to Oyewale, the arrest followed intelligence-driven operations that commenced several days before the elections in the three states. Also, a total sum of N11,040, 000( Eleven Million, Forty Thousand Naira only) comprising N9,310,00 (Nine Million, Three Hundred and Ten Thousand Naira) intercepted from suspected vote buyers and sellers in Bayelsa and N1,730, 000 (One Million, Seven Hundred and Thirty Thousand Naira) intercepted from electoral fraud suspects across Imo State, were recovered from them, the statement reads. Also, two vehicles were intercepted from the suspects. They will be charged to court as soon as investigations are concluded. Ahead of the elections, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) said it deployed its operatives to monitor the elections in the three states. The commission said the operatives were to prevent vote buying and other electoral malpractices during the elections. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says some of its officials have been held hostage in Brass LGA of Bayelsa state. The electoral umpire, in a statement, said it is is closely monitoring the situation, adding that the development is detrimental to credible elections. The commission also called on security agencies to immediately facilitate the release of the officials. The Commission is closely watching the situation in Brass LGA of Bayelsa State where our officials are held hostage, the statement reads. This is detrimental to credible elections. We call on the security agencies to immediately facilitate their release. Alongside Kogi and Imo, Bayelsa held its off-cycle gubernatorial election on Saturday, November 11. On Saturday, the presiding officer (PO) of a polling unit (PU) in Yenagoa LG recounted his ordeal during the Bayelsa election. The official who did not want to be named, said they were harassed and physically assaulted by some youths upon their late arrival at the polling station due to prior safety concerns. The PO, a National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member, mentioned being physically attacked. The situation escalated when voting finally commenced around noon, as some voters demanded ballot papers without accreditation, causing a dispute that resulted in the destruction of ballot papers, he said. Edo Norths Senator Adams Oshiomhole has described Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State as his friend, despite their political differences. Oshiomhole, giving his goodwill message at the ongoing 2023 Alaghodaro Summit in Benin City, asserted that he and Obaseki are friends, not enemies. Regardless of what people say, we should not give the impression that different opinions translate to war, he said, noting that having [had] the privilege of being governor, I have high regard for the Office of the Governor and for the governor himself. The former Edo governor further said: To have all the civilian governors elected in the state present here today speaks volumes. We definitely belong to different political parties but the sum total of those parties is not equal to Edo State. What this means to me is that we can politic differently but never have doubt about the shared commitment to the citizens of the state that should be the greatest in Nigeria. The language of leaders matters to followers. What defines democracy is ideology; even if we share the same destination, the route to get there may differ; it should not be a matter of war. Oshiomhole then stated: I thought the world should know that Godwin is my friend. It doesnt matter; being friends does not mean we cannot debate or disagree but being friends means we treat ourselves with love and care and bring our followers together. Six-day (Tuesday through Sunday) print subscribers of the Watertown Daily Times are eligible for full access to NNY360, the NNY360 mobile app, and the Watertown Daily Times e-edition, all at no additional cost. If you have an existing six-day print subscription to the Watertown Daily Times, please make sure your email address on file matches your NNY360 account email. You can sign up or manage your print subscription using the options below. Faimon Roberts III covers rural communities in Louisiana. His work is supported by a reporting grant from the Microsoft Journalism Initiative and is administered by the Greater New Orleans Foundation. He can be reached at froberts@theadvocate.com. NOTRE DAME Our world is on fire. Our leaders are warning of a coming cataclysm. Purdue University President Mung Chiang told the U.S. Global Leadership forum in Indianapolis that the human race is facing the most dire conditions "since 1939." U.S. Sen. Todd Young told a "Future of Democracy" Forum at the University of Notre Dame last week that We live in a perilous world. This is the most dangerous time in my lifetime, from a geopolitical standpoint." Young's Democratic colleague, U.S. Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, said at Notre Dame, Were at one of those hinge points in history where there are dramatic changes unfolding strategically in several theaters around the world at the same time. These leaders are citing Russias genocidal invasion of Ukraine, creating the most dangerous European military confrontation since World War II; the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel and the Jewish states ferocious response; and Chinas threatening actions aimed at Taiwan and the South China Sea. In addition, there is Irans widespread aid to terror networks such as Hamas and Hezbollah that are threatening a broader Middle East conflict, and North Koreas continued development of intercontinental nuclear weapons. In 2002, President George W. Bush cited Iran, Iraq and North Korea as the axis of evil. Two decades later, the new axis is on steroids. For added consternation, the planet continues to heat up (last summer was the hottest on record and the eight warmest years have all occurred since 2015), triggering widespread migration from Africa to Central America and Asia. And there is the political instability tormenting the United States, as former President Donald J. Trump remains the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination despite facing 91 criminal charges. Trump could be the first president wearing an ankle bracelet and a jump suit matching his hair color. Should he be nominated next year, Trump would face a rematch with the oldest U.S. president in history when President Biden will be 82 years old. Believe it or not all of these hotspots are connected, in multiple ways, Young said. They are connected because Xi, Putin, and Iran collaborate on their major activities. (Journalist) Anne Applebaum has characterized this collaboration as Autocracy Inc., Young said. Unlike in the Cold War where you had collaboration because of ideological reasons, they invested themselves in Communist ideology and their aim was to coordinate activities and foment a global revolution to ensure their side wins. This is different in the sense that there is no ideology underneath it. While a third Trump Republican nomination never came up during these two forums, he was an underlying element. There is a coordination and collaboration ... so that autocrats can stay in power, Young said. Thats it. Its about staying in power. That is their end game. To elevate and venerate themselves and expand their power. When President Chiang cited "1939," that was in reference to the year World War II started with Germanys invasion of Poland, ending six years later when the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. There were 15 million battlefield deaths in that conflict along with 25 million wounded, while civilian deaths were estimated to be 45 million, including 7 million in the Holocaust. As this unrest and apocalyptic violence spreads from Ukraine and Gaza, Young's Republican Party appears to be returning to its isolationist tendencies that last occurred during the ramp up to World War II. U.S. Rep. Jim Banks, the GOP frontrunner for Indianas U.S. Senate seat open in 2024, now opposes further funding for Ukraine. So does Youngs Senate colleague, Mike Braun, who said this week, I fully support Speaker Johnsons plan to support our ally Israel in their fight against Hamas terrorists in a standalone bill with the funds offset by cuts to President Bidens bloated $80 billion IRS budget. 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. Punchbowl News reported on Tuesday: We cant emphasize this enough support for Ukraine among congressional Republicans is eroding quickly. Both Young and Coons reference the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, signed by Ukraine, the U.S., the United Kingdom and Russia. Ukraine had the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world and they voluntarily gave it up, Coons said. That is now being tested. Is our word worth anything? Young added, It was not forgotten we made that agreement. They are looking to us for our credibility. The world is paying attention. Young told the Global Coalition that supporting the Israeli and Ukrainian armies is a no-brainer. There are no boots on the ground, he said of U.S. aid stopping well short of putting U.S. forces into combat. It is expensive. But what I would argue is it would be even more expensive if you had to put boots on the ground. Asked by host Liz Schrayer at the Global Leadership Conference whats it worth for America to be engaged in the world, Young responded: Our nation was founded on universal principles that apply to all of humanity for all time: Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that exist within a universal framework. You have to be engaged in the world to defend those foundational principles. At Notre Dame, Young said, Only by reengaging with each other as people can we get out of the rabbit hole our politics has been pulled into. I taught social studies a long time. Taught a bunch of kids, or tried to, how our government works. I think Id have a tougher time of it now. In fact, one huge element of our government wasnt working at all for about three weeks. The House of Representatives. The body of 435 representatives is elected every other year. Ones representative should be your closest contact with our federal government, thats why they are elected fairly often. Each representative represents about three quarters of a million people from a specific geographic area of his/her state. States get a number of the 435 representatives according to the states population. Indiana gets nine, Illinois has seventeen. This is different than the U.S. Senate where each state gets two. And although each of the two halves of the Congress have a few things the other doesnt do, both houses have to pass a bill for it to become a law. And therein lies the problem. The House wasnt working. They had no speaker. No, not the kind that amplifies ones voice, but the kind that is the presiding officer of the House. The U.S. Constitution says you need one, but doesnt necessarily say what a speaker does. Obviously its considered pretty important because the Speaker is second in line to be President. The political party with the majority of the House members picks a speaker. And the vote must be a majority. Here is where an embarrassing problem cropped up for Republicans. The Republicans have a slim majority in the House. But they couldnt seem to bridge the major rifts that exist between the more old-line Republicans and the MAGA Republicans and the relatively small number of, lets call them mega-MAGA Republicans, sometimes known as the clown caucus even by their fellow Republicans. Im not sure why, maybe the arcane rules of the Congress, maybe precedent and history from our British political heritage, dont know, but the House doesnt function until a speaker is chosen. Normal business is not conducted, bills dont come to the floor, committees dont meet, legislating for "we the people" doesnt get done. Democrats didnt vote for a Republican speaker, especially for the first three choices, Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan, all of whom would not vote to certify the election of Joe Biden as President, even after they themselves were under siege by the violent mob that attacked the Capitol where they all were on Jan. 6. And it was a tough time to be without this major aspect of the government. With whats happening in Israel and Ukraine, as well as on our southern border as well as the normal business of the Congress, the Republicans needed to get their act together. Especially since by mid-November another complete shutdown of the government looms. This shutdown would be a function of the last speaker being forced to renege on a plan to finance the government until after the presidential election. A plan that had been agreed to by the administration and the House. They were looking bad. And there have been some extremely heated, profanity laced meetings of the Republicans in their caucuses as the old-line Republicans and the more moderate Republicans, and the Freedom/Clown caucus did battle and blamed each other while failing to elect a speaker. What complicates all the battles is that so many of the even the moderate and old-line Republicans who want to govern, cant seem to shed themselves of the overriding aura of Donald Trump. Many are still showing fealty, at least publicly, to twice impeached, 91-count indicted, election denying, threat to democracy that is the ex-President, and, frighteningly, is the leading contender of that party for President. The compromise candidate who was finally elected is Mike Johnson. His credentials? Apparently, no one knows him well enough to hate him. And, of course, hes loyal to the Big Guy. He worked hard to sell the Big Lie that Trump won the 2020 election. He voted against certifying that election trying to contravene the democratic process for choosing the President. Now hes second in line to be President. He will be liked by the social conservatives as hes a hardline conservative Evangelical. He introduced a bill similar to the Dont Say Gay bill Florida has become famous (infamous?) for, for the whole country. He has made the argument that the Founding Fathers (contrary to what they wrote in the Bill of Rights) intended the U.S. to be a Christian theocracy. But who knows? He started off well accepting the gavel from Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and saying he will work with both parties for the good of us all. I hope so. Well see. He carries a lot of MAGA baggage, and he has to appease that hard-right wing, but people change. Again, well see. Ive heard for awhile from numerous pundits, including Republicans and former Republicans, that Donald Trump, or Trumpism, is going to destroy the Republican party. I never really thought that could happen. Now, I think that may come to be. Thanks for reading. On Wednesday, January Feeder cattle futures posted a new low for the move sinking to $227.425/cwt before rallying back and closing positive on the day at $232.775/cwt. A spike lower with a higher close like this can lead one to think a short-term bullish development, in an otherwise bearish market, is in the works, where a nearby low has now been established. That was not the case. January Feeders blew through Wednesdays lows the next day, closing at $224.925/cwt, down $7.85/cwt on the day. January Feeders are now roughly $44/cwt off the highs from mid-September, a 16% drop, and Thursdays move lower was the equivalent of a kick to the ribs after taking a heavy beating already for cattle bulls. Putting fundamental discussions aside for the moment, this is a market that will probably trade with some technical aspects going forward. Both cash fat cattle and the feeder cattle index are now trading well above the board in price, but still the market broke hard lower on Thursday. Technical speculative traders who enjoyed a bountiful two years of a buy the dip market have now switched to sell the rip until further notice, that is, if they are truly disciplined technical traders. Besides the fact that not everybody reads a chart the same, the kind of discipline required to switch sides after Team Bull just won the super bowl for you isnt easy. Neither are margin calls. With this kind of volatility, it is likely that margin call exhaustion will be a real player in dictating how low prices can go between now and the end of the year. The difference between, Its due for a bounce, It cant go any lower and Ive had enough, get me out arent labeled on a chart, but they are the prices that matter most. Two out of three aint bad but the third can ruin more than a weekend. WASDE report raises yields The November WASDE report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture was released Thursday. The USDA raised both corn and soybean yields. Corn went from 173 bu/ac in last months report to 174.9 bu/ac, and soybeans went from 49.6 bu/ac to 49.9 bu/ac. The price impact of the yield increase was minimal, as the market has already shifted its focus to the weather in South American production areas. However, the window for the USDA providing any more bullish fodder with yield reductions to the 2023 crop has probably been shut. Have a comment or question? Please reach out to derrick.hermesch@pinion.global.com. WINAMAC Indiana Conservation Officers are investigating a Tippecanoe River incident that left a 1-year-old in critical condition on Saturday morning. The Pulaski County Dispatch Center received at 911 call at 10:50 a.m. reporting a 1-year-old and 5-year-old were found struggling in the river behind a residence on Stamper Drive. Upon arrival, it was determined the children were playing outside when they entered the river for unknown reasons, a news release states. Family members pulled the children from the water after hearing the 5-year-old call for help. Both children and two adult family members were transported to Pulaski Memorial Hospital for treatment. The 1-year-old was later transported to Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis in critical condition. Indiana Conservation Officers were assisted in the investigation by the Winamac Police Department, Pulaski County Sheriff's Department, Pulaski County Dispatch Center and the Indiana Department of Child Services. This is an ongoing investigation, the news release said. Gallery: Recent arrests booked into LaPorte County Jail Kristy Miller Donald Starks Jeremy Marshall Andre Johnson Victoria Vasquez Allen Fugate Thomas Reeder Samuel Fleming Giovanni Ferreyra-Ruiz Cleophis Swanson Jr. Yvonne Noe Bonnie McGriff Tabitha Ramirez Rickey Bureau Quayshuan Kelly Almani Flippins Amber Coursel Barry Geber Jordan Glancy Donald Franklin Lauren Smith Jermaine Carter Calvin Simmons On October 29, 1923, Berlin Radio broadcast the first musical performance ever heard in Germany over the airwaves. It was a concert that began with an Italian andantino, by violinist Fritz Kreisler, which was followed by other pieces by Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann and Tchaikovsky. The instrumentalists who participated in that historic concert were shortly after the founders of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. For that reason, were celebrating the centenary of the orchestra, explains Vladimir Jurowski by phone. He spoke to EL PAIS from the German capital. The 51-year-old German conductor of Russian origin is about to start a tour in Spain at the helm of his orchestra, which he has been directing since 2017. With three concerts scheduled in Valencia, Madrid and Zaragoza, his program is focused on Symphony No. 3 by Sergei Rachmaninov, the legendary Russian composer who would have been 150 this year. Jurowski comments on the disturbing news in the headlines. Unfortunately, concerts cannot heal the world. Music cannot save lives although it can unite people and provide them with the healing power of its energy, he affirms. For him, music is an extremely peaceful and healthy activity, although it can only help those who have an ear for it. However, hes also pessimistic. Im starting to stop believing that initiatives like [the project led by] Edward Said and Daniel Barenboim can change anything today. Although that doesnt mean we shouldnt try, he adds. He recalls the famous feat of the conductor Kurt Masur, in October 1989, when he welcomed numerous protesters who were demonstrating against the communist government of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) into the Gewandhaus, the concert hall in Leipzig. Masur had influence over the politicians of the time and thus prevented a massacre like that of Tiananmen [Square] from being repeated. Nowadays, on the contrary, politicians dont hesitate to use violence indiscriminately again, he laments. The concert hall should be according to him a place free of violence and open to dialogue. A haven of peace and culture where democratic values must prevail. He demonstrated this on September 8, during a concert at the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland with his other orchestra, the Bavarian State Opera ensemble. While conducting the third movement of Anton Bruckners Symphony No. 4, two young climate change activists bounded onto the stage and glued themselves to the podium. It was a challenge, but also a happy experience. I reached an agreement with them. I told them I knew why they were there and that I would let them talk [to the audience]. But, in exchange, I would need them to allow us to finish the symphony afterwards. The audience resisted and Jurowski threatened to leave the stage if the activists were not allowed to speak. I wanted to prevent the police from acting and a violent scene from occurring that would have prevented me from continuing [conducting], since I am radically against any violent [acts]. The incident received significant media coverage and was interpreted as a gesture of tolerance, empathy and climate awareness on the part of the director. Its clear that we cannot stop the weapons or prevent politicians from sending troops to kill civilians but at least we can sound the alarms and warn of other dangers such as climate change by taking advantage of the visibility we have as artists, he acknowledges. After the invasion of Ukraine began, in February 2022, Jurowskis militant pacifism led him to promote a collective reaction against Putin in the form of an open letter. A text where he also cried out against Russophobia in Europe. In reality, the problems with Russian music and musicians were limited to the first months after the invasion of Ukraine. Although there are still exceptions, such as with Poland, whose anti-Russian policy has been an instrument of the populist government. Lets hope that everything changes now with Donald Tusk, he sighs, referring to the recent return of the centrist Polish politician to the premiership of his country, following the recent elections. Jurowski was born and trained in Moscow, within a Jewish musical family. He later emigrated to Germany, in 1990, where he obtained citizenship. As a German citizen, I never thought I would see the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) win so many seats in parliament. But, no matter how many difficulties German politics has, we live in a full democracy here, unlike Russia. Im quite skeptical about a true democracy [emerging] in Russia, he maintains. But the director has never given up on returning to his country of origin. In the 1990s, I couldnt return, because I was afraid of being drafted into the Russian Army. When I was finally able to return, in 2002, I found a very receptive audience, extremely curious and eager for music, he recalls. In those years, Jurowski had become a musical fixture in the United Kingdom, both at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera and at the head of the London Philharmonic. Nevertheless, he also assumed responsibilities in Russia, first in the Russian National Orchestra and between 2011 and 2021 as conductor of the Russian State Symphony Orchestra, Moscows main orchestra. The Bavarian State Orchestra with its chief conductor, Vladimir Jurowski, in September of 2023. Peter Fischli The last two decades have been extremely healthy and happy for the development of music in Russia. And true freedom of musical expression was enjoyed, he says. I remember that, with my orchestra, in March 2014, in Moscow, I conducted a program that included Beethovens Symphony No. 9, but I preceded it with A Survivor from Warsaw the cantata that Schonberg dedicated to the victims of the Nazis. And I asked the audience not to applaud after the cantata, as a sign of respect for the victims. I didnt have to say anything about the Maidan [Revolution] or Crimea for the public to understand and accept it, he recalls. Jurowski was criticized for continuing to work in Russia after the 2014 annexation of Crimea. However, he replied that his country was sick and needed his help. Maybe I was naive, but I felt that, with my music, I could give peace, comfort and some hope to many people. That changed drastically after the invasion of Ukraine, on February 24, 2022. Im now aware that it will take a long time before I can set foot in Russia again, he admits. The program that he will conduct in Spain doesnt have a specific political meaning, but he assures EL PAIS that, in the three compositions, there are echoes of modern tragedies. It will open with the Fantastic Scherzo, from 1903, by the Czech composer Josef Suk. This is the first major work of [Antonin] Dvoraks promising student and son-in-law. A piece that begins as a folkloric fairy tale, but ends surprisingly, tragically and aggressively, as an anticipation of the events of the 20th century, he points out. He finds a similar contrast in the Piano Concerto No. 2, by Sergei Prokofiev, from 1913. It begins as a very lyrical piece, but soon, theres an incredible explosive eruption that leads to the most incredible, extensive and difficult piano cadenza of the entire 20th century. In the remaining three movements, he also visualizes allusions to demonic power, which he relates to his operas. We know that Prokofiev was, for a time, very interested in demonic power, as he demonstrated in [the operas] The Fiery Angel and even in the satirical The Love for Three Oranges. And that satanic element found political expression in the different revolutions, civil wars and dictatorships. As for Symphony No. 3 which Sergei Rachmaninoff completed in 1936 those demonic powers are combined with nostalgia. Unlike Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff never returned to Russia, [yet] the country of his youth is very present in this work. But demonic powers are immediately heard in the first movement, which become more prominent in the second and apocalyptic in the third. We can hear, in this music, the fears and concerns of someone who lived in the first half of the 20th century. The version of this symphony that Jurowski will conduct in Spain has the particularity of dispensing with the repetition of the exposition of the first movement. It was the last will of the composer, who didnt repeat it in his 1939 recording. [The score is also cut down] when you see what he sent to [composer] Henry Wood for its premiere in the United Kingdom. In fact, its perfectly coherent to suppress this repetition, since Rachmaninoff describes his time in Russia in it. And youth cannot be repeated, Maestro Jurowski concludes. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition Before Ezekiel Oliver Smith and Michael Nicolas Briones Santos attended the GLAAD Media Awards in Los Angeles in April 2018, Mr. Smith enjoyed his time alone more than his time on dates. He loved his own company, and he had a strong community and a thriving social life. When he was alone, he never felt lonely, and he thought that maybe he was happiest when he was single. Mr. Santos, on the other hand, was focused on his career. He told himself that he would never find his true love, and he was OK with that. He had moved to Los Angeles 13 years prior and finally achieved the dream: He was financially stable, supporting his family and proud of his career. He had a main role on NBCs Superstore and a supporting role in Crazy Rich Asians. The fact that I had achieved this in my career was already such a win that in my head, Mr. Santos said, there was just no way I was going to be able to have it all. Then, they met, and in a matter of a few weeks, they fell in love. Mr. Santos, 44, found out that he could indeed have it all. And Mr. Smith, 35, found someone he enjoyed spending time with more than he enjoyed spending time alone. For most of that period, its commercial operations outstripped its military business. By 2021, commercial output which includes retail sales as well as purchases by law enforcement agencies and foreign governments had outpaced military production by more than two times, according to a historical overview provided by the Army. As those rifles have appeared in crimes, so has the plants ammunition. The vast majority of Lake City rounds sold by retailers have gone to law-abiding citizens, including hunters, farmers and target shooters. Some are drawn to them because they are made with the same materials and often to the same specifications as the militarys, while others see them as an authentic accessory for their tactical weapons and gear. But some Lake City rounds have been seized from drug dealers, violent felons, antigovernment groups, rioters at the U.S. Capitol and smugglers for Mexican cartels. They were confiscated from a man in Massachusetts who threatened to assassinate President Barack Obama and from a man at Los Angeles International Airport after he fired at a civilian and three T.S.A. agents, killing one. Lake City rounds have been tied to at least a dozen mass shootings involving AR-15-style guns. The list includes shootings at the Century 16 cinema in Aurora, Colo., in 2012; a social services center in San Bernardino, Calif., in 2015; a music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in 2017; the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, the next month; Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla, in 2018; the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh that same year; the streets of Midland and Odessa, Texas, in 2019; a FedEx warehouse in Indianapolis in 2021; tattoo studios in the Denver area later that year; a Tops supermarket in Buffalo in 2022; the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, days afterward; and a Colorado Springs nightclub, also last year. The son of a once prominent Hollywood agent and executive has been charged in the murder of a woman investigators believe to be his wife and whose remains were found bagged inside a dumpster in Los Angeles this week, the police said. A Los Angeles Police Department spokeswoman said on Saturday that investigators believed the woman whose torso was found on Wednesday to be Mei Li Haskell, 37, the wife of the suspect, Samuel Haskell, 35, though confirmation of identity was still pending. As of Saturday, officials also were still searching for Mr. Haskells in-laws, Yanxiang Wang, 64, and Gaoshan Li, 71, who remained missing. Detective Efren Gutierrez of the Los Angeles police said in a news conference this week that officers had been sent to a residence on Coldstream Terrace in Tarzana, Calif., on Tuesday night because construction workers had reported seeing a dead body inside a plastic bag. The head of Lebanons powerful Hezbollah militia, Hassan Nasrallah, said on Saturday that his group intended to keep up pressure on Israel and claimed that it was striking deeper into Israeli territory with powerful new weapons. Since war erupted more than a month ago between Israel and Hamas, the armed Palestinian group that controls Gaza, Israel and Hezbollah have clashed repeatedly along Israels northern border with Lebanon. Hamas and Hezbollah are backed by Iran and share the goal of eradicating Israel. But in the assessment of analysts, Israel and Hezbollah appeared to be calibrating their actions to avoid setting off what Israeli officials fear could become a broader regional war. Mr. Nasrallah has previously described Hezbollahs objective as a controlled battle along the border aimed at sapping Israels morale and resources. Mr. Nasrallah once again stopped short on Saturday of calling for an immediate, all-out regional war, echoing remarks he made in a speech last week, though he continued to dangle the threat. For now, Hezbollah along with militant groups from the West Bank and Yemen will instead continue to support Hamas by keeping Israeli forces engaged on multiple fronts. The pressure must continue, Mr. Nasrallah said during his televised address in Lebanon, adding that events on the battlefield would dictate whether this would grow into a bigger conflict. We are in a battle of steadfastness and patience. As clashes continued along Israels increasingly volatile border with Lebanon, the Hezbollah leader said his group was now trying to hit targets deeper inside Israel with newer and more advanced weapons. There has been a quantitative improvement in terms of the number of operations and the type of weapon used, he claimed, adding that Hezbollah for the first time had used drones and powerful new missiles and rockets some of them containing as much as 500 kilograms of explosives or roughly 1,100 pounds against Israeli forces in recent days. Hezbollah has also increasingly deployed surface-to-air missiles against Israeli drones, which have caused heavy casualties among Hezbollah fighters in recent weeks, according to the Israeli military. In response to what the Israelis noted was an uptick in attacks by Hezbollah with more sophisticated weaponry, the Israeli military stepped up its airstrikes inside Lebanon on Friday evening, targeting Hezbollah weapons depots and intelligence infrastructure after a series of Hezbollah attacks using self-destructing drones and missiles seriously injured four Israeli soldiers. Last week, after an Israeli drone strike killed a woman and three girls in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah also fired a barrage of Grad rockets at the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona, a first for the group since the fighting began. Hwaida Saad and Yara Bayoumy contributed reporting. As developing countries weigh the consequences of borrowing heavily from China for major infrastructure projects, anti-corruption officials in Nepal have begun an investigation into a flagship airport financed and built by Chinese state-owned companies. Nepals $216 million international airport in Pokhara, the countrys second-biggest city, opened in January. China agreed to provide loans to build the airport more than a decade ago. Nepal tapped China CAMC Engineering, the construction arm of a state-owned conglomerate, Sinomach, as the contractor. The airport has failed to attract any regular international flights, raising concerns about whether it will generate enough revenue to repay loans to its Chinese lenders. Nepali officials have asked Beijing to change the loans into a grant to ease the financial burden, but China has not agreed to do so. Last month, The New York Times reported that CAMC had inflated the cost of the project and undermined Nepals efforts to maintain quality control, putting a priority on its own business interests. Nepals Civil Aviation Authority, the agency overseeing the airports construction, did not put up much resistance reluctant to upset Beijing on an important project for both countries. At Lake Champlain Chocolates, the owners take shifts stacking boxes in the warehouse. At Burlington Bagel Bakery, a sign in the window advertises wages starting at $25 an hour. Central Vermont Medical Center is training administrative employees to become nurses. Cabot Creamery is bringing workers from out of state to package its signature blocks of Cheddar cheese. The root of the staffing challenge is simple: Vermonts population is rapidly aging. More than a fifth of Vermonters are 65 or older, and more than 35 percent are over 54, the age at which Americans typically begin to exit the work force. No state has a smaller share of its residents in their prime working years. Vermont offers an early look at where the rest of the country could be headed. The baby boom population is aging out of the work force, and subsequent generations arent large enough to fully replace it. Immigration slumped during the pandemic, and though it has since rebounded, it is unclear how long that will last, given a lack of broad political support for higher immigration. Birthrates are falling. After all, even in marriages where husbands and wives earn about the same amount, women still take on more housework and caregiving responsibilities. And when work and caregiving conflict, women are more likely to take a step back. Work by Claudia Goldin who won a Nobel Prize in economics in October has shown that occupations like finance and law pay a premium for long, inflexible hours, which contributes to the gender pay gap. Now, many of those demanding jobs are a little more flexible. Business travel is down, and all sorts of workers are likely to be absent from the office at 6 p.m., not just parents who have to pick up the children which many fathers would like to do, too. Most post-pandemic debate around remote work has focused on whether its here to stay. Some version of it seems likely: About 70 percent of workers who can do their jobs off-site still work remotely either all or some days. Job satisfaction is at the highest its been in the 36 years the Conference Board has tracked the metric, and its highest among workers who do some work remotely. But if old attitudes about more flexible work resurge outspoken executives have recently described it as lazy, not for leaders and a perk for those who dont work as hard then it may not matter if hybrid options are widespread. In the end, Ms. Williams said, they may just be strengthening the invisible escalator for white men. The value of flexibility In the grand economic picture, keeping mothers in the work force is a smart idea. An economy with a high labor supply of women is an economy that is easier to hire in, and thats good for all businesses, said Betsey Stevenson, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan. This is especially true for highly skilled jobs, because women hold the majority of college degrees. At the time he contacted the Fire Department, Mr. Adams was completing his second term as Brooklyn borough president, a largely ceremonial job whose authority did not extend to the Manhattan site of the new consulate building, Turkevi Center, across First Avenue from the U.N. But his emergence as the mayoral primary winner in early July all but assured he would prevail in the November general election, given New York Citys heavily Democratic electorate. His influence among city officials had grown accordingly. Mr. Adams already had a long-running relationship with the Turkish consulate general, which paid for part of his trip to Turkey while he was Brooklyn borough president in 2015, according to a public filing. The warrant to search the home of Mr. Adamss 25-year-old fund-raiser, Brianna Suggs, indicated that the investigation was examining the role of KSK Construction, a Brooklyn building company owned by Turkish immigrants that organized a fund-raising event for Mr. Adams on May 7, 2021. On that day, 48 donors, including the companys owners, employees and their families, along with others in the construction and real estate industries, donated $43,600, Mr. Adamss campaign reports show. Those contributions enabled him to obtain another $48,000 in public matching funds for a total of nearly $92,000. The citys generous public matching funds program, intended to reduce the influence of money in politics, provides cash infusions to candidates by increasing donations from city residents up to $250 by a factor of eight. Mr. Adamss campaign filings do not specify which donations were made through the fund-raising event. KSK Construction does not appear to have played a role in building the new consulate in Manhattan. Neither Mr. Adams nor his campaign has been accused of wrongdoing, and no charges are publicly known to have been filed in connection with the investigation. The mayor, who retained lawyers last week to represent him, his campaign and Ms. Suggs, has denied knowledge of any impropriety and defended the campaigns fund-raising. For high-powered Wall Street and banking executives, one of the hallmarks of the job comes into play only at the end: a signed noncompete agreement. The employment clauses have long been used by big-name companies to prevent top employees from working for a nearby competitor, typically for six months to two years after leaving, allowing firms to protect intellectual property and deter brokers and consultants from poaching clients. But that may soon change in New York. Five months ago, the State Legislature passed a bill that would outlaw noncompete agreements, one of several efforts nationwide in recent years to protect a range of employees. All kinds of workers from doctors to hairstylists to sandwich makers are sometimes unknowingly trapped by the restrictive clauses. But as the implications of a ban at New York Citys most powerful industries have come into focus, so has a deep-pocketed lobbying effort to persuade Gov. Kathy Hochul to not sign it into law or at least blunt its impact. To the Editor: Re The Democrats Are Their Own Worst Enemies, by Pamela Paul (column, Nov. 3), about why polls are showing a loss of support for the party among minorities and the working class: Ms. Paul writes that the Democratic Party cannot win and America cannot flourish if it doesnt prioritize the economic well-being of the American majority over the financial interests and cultural fixations of an elite minority. That, she says, is the reason that the Democratic Partys reliable base the working class, middle-class families, even Black and Latino Americans and other ethnic minorities have veered toward the G.O.P. Is she talking about the same G.O.P. that, under the former president, passed legislation that gave enormous tax breaks to the wealthiest in the country? Is she referring to G.O.P. legislators who now want to reduce funding for the I.R.S., an agency that serves as a watchdog against unfair tax manipulation that leaves the middle class with a proportionately greater tax burden than the richest? If so, it is hard to imagine that the G.O.P., as opposed to the Democratic Party, is prioritizing the economic well-being of the American majority. Alexander Iolas, pictured at his home in Athens, in 1983. In the background, theres a sculpted bar in the shape of a cat, designed by Claude & Francois-Xavier Lallane. She called herself Maria Callas. And, like the Greek mythological character Medea, she unleashed a tragedy with her revenge. It happened in 1985. Gallery owner Alexander Iolas fired Kallas for theft. He had employed the trans woman as an assistant in his Athenian mansion. After she was dismissed, Callas began to accuse him of drug trafficking, pedophilia and antiquities smuggling. In the tabloid press, she declared that the gallerist held Roman orgies at the property. The chorus of editorials declared: Iolas is rotten. The hatred that these newspapers generated for the man was such that, when Iolas died just two years later, the anger didnt completely disappear. It was instead directed at his famous art collection. Unprotected by the authorities, the gallerists residence on the outskirts of Athens was looted and vandalized. One day, intruders set fire to one of his Egyptian antiquities. On another occasion, they torched his catalogs. The mansion was sprayed with graffiti; the furniture was chopped up. However, despite all of this as with all martyrdom sites over time, the Villa Iolas (as it began to be called) also attracted some devotees. I visited [the house] a few years ago and found Iolas phone book. He had written down the numbers of [Marcel] Duchamp, of Peggy Guggenheim in Venice, of [Rene] Magritte... he was a fascinating man, says Greek artist Andreas Angelidakis by email. The clandestine visit inspired several of his works. Iolas house was an avant-garde mecca in a Greece [that was] full of mediocrity and homophobia, says fellow Greek artist Angelo Plessas, when talking about his own visit. I was a child, but I remember very well the harshness of the attacks and slander from the press that led to his [fall from grace]. The decline of Iolas mansion became a symbol of his collapse. However, before the final years of his life, it was a symbol of his greatness. Eleni Coutsoudis the niece and heir of the gallery owner explains in the documentary Villa Iolas (2017) that it was Iolass father, an Egyptian cotton merchant, who began building the house in the Agia Paraskevi area, northwest Athens, in 1950. By then, the name of Alexander Iolas was already well-known in the art world. Like the Macedonian king who inspired him, he went through numerous journeys. Born in Alexandria in 1908, Iolas was named Constantine Coutsoudis by his parents. When he was a teenager, he became friends with Constantino Cavafis, the great poet of the Egyptian city. It was he who encouraged Constantine to move to Athens, a place where encouraged this time by the prestigious conductor Dimitris Mitropoulos he learned piano and took his first steps as a dancer. In 1930, he left Greece to study dance at Tatiana and Victor Gsovskys school in Berlin. But the rise of the Nazis and the beating he claimed to have received from a group of them made him go to Paris. There, his famous encounter with a painting by the Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico took place. I had never seen a modern painting, Iolas recalled. The frequent visits I made there [planted the seeds] of my desire to be a gallery owner. In 1935, his ambitions followed him to New York City, where with his new name and a decade under his belt with ballet companies he left dance and began directing the Hugo Gallery, which was sponsored by the aristocrat Maria dei Principi Ruspoli (who was married to a great-grandson of Victor Hugo). This is where Iolas commitment to surrealism saw him display important collections, such as one provided by the famous De Menil family in Houston. Iolas exhibited artists such as Magritte, Max Ernst and Leonor Fini. And, in 1952, he saw Andy Warhols depictions of Truman Capote. With these drawings, he put together the artists first exhibition. Iolas discovered Warhol: the two men shared a taste for the marginal and the bizarre. Andy adored Iolas, writer Bob Colacello recalls, in his memoirs about his years working with Warhol at Interview magazine. With his extravagant turquoise and emerald satin suits, and matching upholstered platform shoes, he passed for one of [Warhols models]. A sculpture inspired by Magritte's version of 'Madame de Recamier' by Jean-Jacques David. GETTY IMAGES The current state of Villa Iolas. GETTY A view of the villas terrace, with works by the sculptor Takis, in 1981. SHUTTERS An ancient relief carving and a sculpture by the artist Marina Karella, at the foot of the stairs of Villa Iolas, in 1983. Getty Images Alexander Iolas dancing, in the late-1920s. GETTY IMAGES The golden age came in the 1960s, with the expansion of the Iolas Gallery. Now the owner, he began to expand to a variety of locations around the world. He opened galleries in Paris, Milan, Geneva, Madrid, as well as in Athens, where he returned every summer. As his success grew, his mansion was transformed. And he didnt simply add a second floor in 1971, or expand the surface area to 35 times its original size. Behind the engraved bronze gates of the house (believed to have been designed in part by Dimitri Pikionis, the architect of the modern touches to the Acropolis) a myriad of works of art and antiquities unparalleled in Greece filled the various marble rooms. A visit to Iolas kitchen became a masterclass in art. From a room dedicated to Ancient Greece, one moved to another filled with works from the Byzantine period, or to one displaying paintings by Picasso. As a consequence of the death of Max Ernst in 1976, Iolas closed his galleries. He had promised the artist that, when he was gone, he would retire permanently in Athens. However, as Eleni Coutsoudis explains, her uncle didnt know how to be idle. So, he began to run the mansion as if it were a new gallery, filling it with works by Warhol, Niki de Saint-Phalle and other artists he had worked with. I was tired of paying $700,000 in storage costs, Iolas joked in 1981, downplaying the presence of the various pieces in his house. But the excuse fell short when he invited artists such as Marina Karella to create new works there, or when he designed surprising spaces like his bathroom, covered by a gold ceiling. The house was the best gallery of all the ones he ran, his niece sighs. Iolass big mistake was to open the doors of this avant-garde kingdom to the Greek public, through an interview given in his home in 1983. He boldly stated his opinions about his countrys society and, in particular, about president Georgios Papandreous rise to power. The government in Athens wasnt amused. He was made to feel uncomfortable within Greece. And, two years later, his former employee Maria Callas threw a match on the bonfire. Alexander Iolas died of complications from AIDS in a New York hospital on June 8, 1987. Supposedly, he wished that his house would become a museum that would help redeem his name in Greece. His niece denies this. My uncle didnt care what happened to the house. He used to quote Louis XV: After me, the flood. Be that as it may, the theft of hundreds of works of art during the looting of the house along with attacks by vandals made such a museum impossible. Much of the blame for its neglect lies with the municipal authorities of Agia Paraskevi. The local government has owned the property since 2013. That the house remains in ruins shows how even in todays Greece Iolas is still marginalized, laments George Vamvakidis by phone. He is the co-founder and director of the Breeder Gallery in Athens. For the new generations of Greek artists and especially for those who are queer what happened to the house not only represents the lost opportunity to see his collection, but, on a symbolic level, to have [lost] a place where they could feel heard, seen and celebrated. But perhaps the mansion isnt the place where young artists should honor Iolas. At the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, you can visit some works from the series that in 1984, perhaps foreseeing how the traitors would come for him Iolas commissioned his friend to create: the pop art version of Leonardo da Vincis The Last Supper. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition The projects mission is to give Palestinians a chance to tell their own stories without relying on Western gatekeepers or foreign intermediaries. Although the project pairs aspiring journalists and activists with mentors in the United States and Europe who give them advice on their writing, the point is to allow Palestinians to decide what stories are told, according to Pam Bailey, who co-founded the project with Mr. Alnaouq. It is part of a broader trend of Palestinians speaking directly to the world, enabled by the rise of social media and technologies like Google Translate. It is perhaps why Gallup polls show sympathy for Palestinians rising since 2018, particularly among millennials and Democrats. It used to be difficult in the United States to hear a Palestinian perspective on the conflict. While Israelis have an embassy in Washington and a host of well-known groups dedicated to communicating with the American public and scrutinizing what journalists write Palestinians have not had the same public relations capacity. Now that hole is being filled by wrenching social media posts from ordinary people whose family members have just been killed by the Israeli military. Many Israelis and American Jews are outraged by the vocal criticism of Israel on display at protest marches in recent weeks, which feel particularly painful in the wake of the devastating Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians. At times, pro-Palestinian demonstrators have veered into blatant antisemitism or worse. Indeed, some critics have called We Are Not Numbers an anti-Israeli organization. But the number of outlets that have been accused of bias in recent weeks has also diluted the impact of such criticism. Mr. Alnaouq received permission to leave Gaza in 2019 to attend journalism school in Britain. He lives in London now and helps manage the project from afar. He told me he wholeheartedly believes in peace and is very, very anti-violence a worldview he said he developed as a journalist and human rights defender. He said he rejects the killing of any civilians, including the Oct. 7 attacks. He also insisted that peaceful coexistence can be achieved only once Israelis understand the injustice that Palestinians endure and address it. Israels response to the horrifying Hamas attack on Oct. 7 has caused widespread protest among its critics and soul-searching among some of its supporters. The deaths of thousands of Palestinian civilians in a ferocious bombing campaign and an increasingly intense ground war in the Gaza Strip cry out for a careful examination of the moral basis for Israels actions. The most prominent moral framework that applies is just war theory, which has guided Western thought for centuries and forms the intellectual framework for international law on the use of force. Based on works by thinkers ranging from Roman philosophers to modern-day jurists, just-war theory offers a time-honored set of criteria to consider whether and how force should be used though it is admittedly impossible for any analysis to be absolutely impartial. The standard elements used in assessing whether a war is just are just cause, right intent, legitimate authority, net benefit or likelihood of success, last resort, proportionality of means and noncombatant distinction. Ideally a state should meet all of the criteria, but the case for a just war can still be made even if a few of the benchmarks are weak. While Israel easily has just cause and constitutes a legitimate authority, its case is far weaker regarding the other five criteria. In addition, the fact that Hamas has violated these principles does not absolve Israel from an obligation to live up to higher moral standards. While applying these standards to Israel is ultimately a theoretical exercise, a perception that it falls short could have major practical effects, potentially damaging Israels diplomatic standing and trade and the world economy while strengthening support for its enemies. If Israel is widely seen to have committed war crimes, a trial could be held at the International Criminal Court in The Hague though Israel does not recognize its jurisdiction or Israeli soldiers could be arrested and tried in any of the nations that have adopted universal jurisdiction to prosecute such crimes. To determine how just or unjust are Israels current actions, lets examine each criterion and the evidence, based on the approach in my scholarship examining some 20 conflicts. On the first measure, just cause, Israel would seem to have plenty of that, given its inherent right to self-defense, as provided for in the United Nations Charter. Even Israels declared aim of eliminating Hamas though perhaps more properly formulated as destroying the fighting capacity of Hamas seems well justified, especially as rockets continue to fly into Israel. Certainly, the rescue of Israeli hostages held in Gaza is a meritorious goal. Right intent, the second criterion, means that force should be used to help establish peace in the long term, rather than in pursuit of a short-term or politically self-serving gain or in an act of vengeance. Though some might argue that Israel is fighting to establish peace in Gaza from a position of strength and dominance, Israeli actions can easily be questioned. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus governments have scant history of genuinely seeking peace, even with the more pliable Palestinian Authority and even with the road map of the Oslo Accords. Israel recognized the United States-backed two-state solution, but the current government has made no progress toward carrying it out, and several ministers actively oppose such a plan. Instead, the steady growth of settlements has resulted in the de facto confiscation of Palestinian land. The Israeli government does satisfy the criterion of having legitimate authority. The government was democratically elected, even if Mr. Netanyahus right-wing coalition has sought to undermine the checks and balances provided by the Israeli judiciary. The criterion of net benefit, weighing the gain against the harm, would include the potential gain of removing Hamas from power or at least neutralizing its capacity to attack Israel in the short term. The war might also provide new opportunities for the Palestinian Authority or some other transitional administration to govern Gaza, and eventually free and fair elections. Israel might also be able to rescue the hostages held by Hamas. However, the enormous loss of Palestinian lives will most likely create intergenerational rage against Israel and catalyze recruitment for extremist groups. Even if Hamas is effectively disarmed and loses control of Gaza, more extremist groups are likely to spring up. Further, there is a great risk of a wider war, with fire already being exchanged over Israels borders with Lebanon and Syria, and escalating violence in the West Bank. Damage to Israels foreign relations is also likely: the suspension of peace talks with Saudi Arabia and possible withdrawals from the Abraham Accords, which Israel recently signed with certain Arab states with the goal of normalizing relations. So the downside of Israels war outweighs any benefit. The criterion of last resort is key to all just-war considerations. Force should be used only when all other means have failed or would be clearly ineffective. Israel sees no other way to neutralize Hamas and rescue the hostages. But it has forsworn direct negotiations out of hand, and it is not considering a peace process for Gaza. Mr. Netanyahu has dismissed Hamass proposed deals for the release of hostages. He has said that he does not want to negotiate with Hamas, though we know that negotiation with adversaries, however distasteful, has often proven successful. Proportionality of means is an important principle to uphold during fighting. Civilian casualties and damage in Gaza have been far in excess of any military advantage gained by Israel and thus not proportionate. Demanding the almost immediate evacuation of half the population of over two million to the southern part of the Gaza Strip is unrealistic, especially as corridors of travel are extremely hazardous. Israel has attacked Gaza, including the southern part, with ferocity. The death toll of many thousands is climbing alarmingly. Noncombatant distinction is another major criterion for a just war. Civilians should not be targeted. Israel can rightly claim that its ground invasion helps Israeli forces better distinguish Hamas fighters from civilians. Israel accepts the risk of sending in soldiers instead of carpet bombing to destroy Hamas. Furthermore, the extensive labyrinth of tunnels underground, probably holding hostages, need to be cordoned off and searched. But engaging in urban warfare is exceedingly difficult and leads to soldiers killing civilians, especially as Hamas fighters hide among the population. The ethics of using force to overcome the use of human shields is debated among international human rights lawyers, but any future trials of both Israeli and Hamas fighters can examine each specific situation. In any case, a law-abiding combatant must find ways to reduce civilian casualties to a bare minimum. Israel claims it is not deliberately targeting civilians, but this is hard to reconcile with the extreme level of death and destruction in the first month of its response, including bombings that destroy entire apartment buildings. Furthermore, significant human suffering has resulted from shortages in electricity, water, food, fuel and medical supplies in Gaza because of Israels blockade. Humanitarian aid has been stifled for weeks. A U.N. agency said that more than 100 of its employees have been killed and at least one U.N. school has been bombed. Just-war theory reinforces the human instinct to not only preserve human life but also lament its loss, and to try to find solutions. Israels conduct will be judged not only by theorists but by the nations and peoples of the world as well. It will also help determine Israels place in history. Hopefully, that prospect will turn the Israeli government toward peace, and solutions other than war. The difference between libertarianism and libertinism can be summed up as the difference between rights and desires. A libertarian is concerned with her own liberty but also knows that this liberty ends where yours begins. The entire philosophy of libertarianism depends on a healthy recognition of human dignity. A healthy libertarianism can still be individualistic, but its also deeply concerned with both personal virtue and the rights of others. Not all libertarians are pro-life, but a pro-life libertarian will recognize the humanity and dignity of both mother and child. A libertine, by contrast, is dominated by his desires. The object of his life is to do what he wants, and the object of politics is to give him what he wants. A libertarian is concerned with all forms of state coercion. A libertine rejects any attempt to coerce him personally, but hes happy to coerce others if that gives him what he wants. Donald Trump is the consummate libertine. He rejects restraints on his appetites and accountability for his actions. The guiding principle of his worldview is summed up with a simple declaration: I do what I want. Any movement built in his image will be libertine as well. Trumps movement dismisses the value of personal character. It mocks personal restraint. And its happy to inflict its will on others if that achieves what it wants. Libertarianism says that your rights are more important than my desires. Libertinism says my desires are more important than your rights, and this means that libertines are terrible ambassadors for any cause that requires self-sacrifice. I dont think the pro-life movement has fully reckoned with the political and cultural fallout from the libertine right-wing response to the Covid pandemic. Here was a movement that was loudly telling women that they had to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, with all the physical transformations, risks and financial uncertainties that come with pregnancy and childbirth, at the same time that millions of its members were also loudly refusing the minor inconveniences of masking and the low risks of vaccination even if the best science available at the time told us that both masking and vaccination could help protect others from getting the disease. Prosecutors formally advised lawyers for former Vice President Mike Pence this past June that he would not be charged for retaining classified materials after leaving office. I expect that the special counsel Robert Hur will similarly soon announce that President Biden will not face charges for his own handling of classified documents. The merits of those determinations, no less than the one to indict Donald Trump for hoarding such documents in Mar-a-Lagos bathrooms and ballrooms, are properly debated. Criminal investigations into holders of high office invariably raise questions about equal treatment and equal justice under the law. Is there, people ask, a double standard? Well, there is one species of double standard and special treatment that reveals an overlooked unfairness in our justice system: It is generally only the famous and the powerful who get the courtesy of closure, who get the benefit of formal notice that the case against them is over. In too many cases and for no good reason, people never know when they are out of jeopardy. Outside of the most high-profile cases, a prosecutors decision to close an investigation remains a secret from the public, the victim, and even the target of the inquiry. In Dobbs, the conservative justices said that a right to abortion was not explicit in constitutional text and was not deeply rooted in the history or traditions of this country. In withdrawing the longstanding right to abortion, the court relied on a history in which women were not considered full members of the polity to justify imposing on women today a crabbed vision of equal citizenship. In Bruen, the court devised a test under which contemporary gun regulations can survive Second Amendment scrutiny only if the government can demonstrate that they are consistent with the nations historical tradition of firearm regulation. The requirement that present-day gun laws resemble gun laws of the distant past prioritizes history and tradition in much the same way the Dobbs court looked to the historic regulation of abortion, pregnancy and birth to support the view that the Constitution did not protect a right to abortion. In this regard, Rahimi is not only a sequel to Bruen, but also a sequel to Dobbs. Rahimi has little to do with abortion rights, but as Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar noted in her stirring defense of the gun law on Tuesday, the courts decision will have real consequences for womens safety, as well as the safety of police officers who respond to domestic violence calls and the broader public. The court may seem poised to uphold the law, but the conservative justices did not appear interested in revisiting the history-and-tradition test announced in Bruen. Only Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson appeared openly skeptical of the test. In one remarkable back-and-forth with attorneys for both sides, Justice Jackson, who was not a member of the court when Bruen and Dobbs were decided, said that she was trying to understand if theres a flaw in the history-and-traditions kind of framework to the extent that when were looking at history and tradition, were not considering the history and tradition of all of the people but only some of the people. Her point was clear. The history-and-tradition methodology privileges laws enacted in eras like the 1780s, when the original Constitution was ratified, and the 1860s, when the 14th Amendment was drafted and ratified moments in time when neither women nor people of color were able to fully join the political community and played no official role in enacting laws. The two lappet-faced vultures had been together for just a few months, yet the massive birds, with their watchful, featherless gargoyle faces and their dark mottled body plumage so plush it looks like fur, had already mastered the avian version of monkey-see-monkey-do. Kenya, the female vulture, hopped onto a tree stump in the middle of their outdoor enclosure at the Maryland Zoo. Shredder, the male vulture, hopped onto another stump nearby. Kenya jumped back to the ground. Shredder waited a beat and did likewise. He lumbered over to a corner of the enclosure and spread his wings wide to their nearly seven-foot span, exposing fluffy white feathers that covered his legs like a pair of bloomers. Kenya positioned herself a few inches behind him and added novelty to the mimicry, unfolding first one wing, then half of the other, then the second half: Ta-da! Its called mirroring behavior, Jen Kottyan, the zoos bird curator, said, and it was a promising sign. Lappet-faced vultures, native to Africa and named for the flaps of skin, or lappets, that dangle from either side of their head, are among the worlds most endangered birds. In 1991, the Maryland Zoo became one of the first in the United States to successfully breed the vultures in captivity, and Ms. Kottyan predicted that the newly installed pair, now 2-and-a-half years old, would prove similarly obliging. Theyre doing really well, and they seem to get along, she said. So were hoping things will go easy when they hit sexual maturity in another three or four years. Sometimes stops working as expected when swapped, sometimes fine. Part doesnt work as expected when swapped with the same working part from an identical, new iPhone. Year iPhone Face ID or Touch ID sensor Display Battery Front facing camera Taptic Engine (vibration) Rear camera LIDAR (distance sensor) 2023 15 Part doesnt work as expected when swapped with the same working part from an identical, new iPhone. 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Copeland Jr., a Baptist pastor and grocery store owner known as Bubba, once told a colleague that being mayor of Smiths Station, Ala., reminded him of a real-life version of the popular Sims computer game: building a community, then dealing with the complexities and crises that emerged along the way. There had been plenty during his seven years in office: a deadly, devastating tornado; the coronavirus pandemic; neglected roads that the city could not afford to fix. But Smiths Station pulled through. Mr. Copeland had devised a plan to pay for repaving roads. He was proud of businesses, like a truck stop, that he had brought in. He was contemplating another term. Many in the city would have welcomed it. Then, on Nov. 3, sheriffs deputies, who had been called by worried friends of Mr. Copeland to check on him, trailed him until he pulled over miles from Smiths Station and fatally shot himself. Two days earlier, a conservative online news outlet in Alabama published an article detailing what it described as Mr. Copelands secret life. There were photos of him in womens clothes and wearing makeup, and sexually explicit social media posts and fiction that the outlet said he had written about transgender women. Drivers in Los Angeles who use one of the busiest freeways in the area will need to change their travel plans for an indefinite period of time as authorities assess the damage from a fire early Saturday that shut down part of an interstate downtown. All lanes in a nearly two-mile stretch of Interstate 10 will be closed until further notice, Caltrans, the states transportation department, confirmed on Sunday, and it was unclear how long repairs would take. The section is what one official called one of the largest arteries going in and out of downtown Los Angeles, just west of the East Los Angeles Interchange, where several freeways come together. About 300,000 vehicles use the freeway for daily commuting, Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a news conference on Sunday afternoon. And it is a major conduit connecting Southern California ports to the rest of the country, carrying about 20,000 trucks daily. While Interstate 10 remains closed between Alameda Street and Santa Fe Avenue, officials said that people planning to travel to and from downtown Los Angeles should plan for delays and check for alternative routes. Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey who is challenging Donald J. Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, said Mr. Trumps rhetoric of intolerance as evident today as it was during his presidency had fueled the surge of bigotry confronting Jews and Muslims after Hamass brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the fierce Israeli response in Gaza. And Mr. Trumps lopsided adherence to the wishes of Israels right-wing government, while widely praised in Republican circles, secured only the low-hanging fruit of Middle Eastern diplomacy during his presidency, Mr. Christie said, denigrating one of Mr. Trumps chief foreign policy accomplishments. He argued that Mr. Trumps lack of intellectual curiosity and foreign policy ambition had led his administration to give up the pursuit of a more elusive peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Mr. Christie delivered a scathing assessment of Mr. Trumps Middle East policy in an interview as he traveled to Israel on Sunday for what proved an emotional one-day visit in which he toured a kibbutz, Kfar Azza, near Gaza, where 58 residents were butchered by Hamas terrorists last month. Mr. Christie watched raw footage of the attacks at a military base near Tel Aviv, commiserated with survivors and families in a hospital and conferred with Israels president, Isaac Herzog, in Jerusalem. Nahia Alkorta recalls the mountains and fields of the Spanish village of Riglos, a natural gate of the Pyrenees, from July 2012. The Spaniard who was 25 at the time had decided to go to Riglos to spend the weekend with some friends and her husband. She recalls that, while they were playing sports, she took pictures with the camera she had bought to document her new life: she was 38 weeks pregnant. Just a few days later, upon returning home, she began to feel her first contractions. With the excitement of a woman who is about to have her first child, she and her partner went to a hospital in the Basque Country. And that was when her nightmare began. In her recently-published memoir, My Stolen Birth, the woman now 37-years-old recounts how, in the hospital, she was the victim of obstetric violence during the birth of the first of her three children. Its been 11 years since she went through this terrible episode. Alkorta is the woman behind the second of the three U.N. condemnations against Spain for obstetric violence. This type of aggression which occurs in both the public and private health systems consists of any actions by healthcare personnel that cause physical or psychological harm to women during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. Despite the time that has passed, Alkorta relives the aggression she was subjected to on a daily basis. Eleven years ago, she went to the hospital at dawn. A few weeks earlier, she had sent a birth plan to her referral center. Nothing I wrote was taken into account, she laments. She remembers every detail from those days in July 2012, discussing what happened to her without hesitation. They took her up to the ward and they infantilized her: several residents then proceeded to examine her without her consent. Subsequently, they ended up performing a C-section they treated her like an animal, stapling her up after she gave birth to her son. She remembers the burning smell from the C-section and how they separated her from her son for more than four hours as soon as he was born. She never signed a single document to give her consent. I was unable to walk for several weeks. I needed help from my family, I wasnt autonomous. But the psychological damage was greater. I still, in a way, carry it with me. I cant bear to smell something burning. Years ago, [the incident debilitated me]. Now, I can move on but my guts churn when I remember everything that happened, Alkorta explains. But, for her, the worst thing was the guilt. I blamed myself, my husband and even my son. The writer ended up being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. I cant bear to smell something burning, explains Nahia Alkorta, who still suffers from the psychological effects of what she lived through during the birth of her first child. Victoria Iglesias Nahia Alkorta waits in her lawyers office. Francisca Fernandez has her office in the San Lorenzo de El Escorial, about 30 miles from Madrid. Clouds cover every corner of the sky: it doesnt take long for the first drops of rain to fall. The landscape is very different from what she encountered back in 2012, when it was warm and sunny. Her first appointment with Fernandez took place on an October morning, a few months after she gave birth. Today, Alkorta has come to tell her lawyer and friend about how the system broke her and she has tried to rebuild herself. And how she ended up writing a story about what she and her son went through. When she explained her case to her lawyer for the first time, Francisca Fernandez nodded constantly. She was also a victim of obstetric violence, nine years before Alkortas incident took place. They performed the Kristeller maneuver on Fernandez, which consists of pressing the bottom of the uterus when the babys head is wedged in the birth canal, in order to speed up the process. Her daughter suffered asphyxiation and had to be resuscitated. Fernandez, meanwhile, suffered physical and psychological problems (she was diagnosed with PTSD, like Alkorta) that she still carries with her. This practice is discouraged by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Spanish Society of Gynecology and Obstetrics (SEGO), due to the damage it can cause to the mother and baby. After that first birth, Fernandez decided to specialize in health law. The lawyer doesnt dare estimate the number of cases she has handled since she began practicing in this area, although, she does mention that she handles about 60 cases a year. Alkortas message came to her through an email forum dealing with C-section support in 2012, where several women recounted their experiences with obstetric violence. There are terrible testimonies. 20 years ago [which was when Fernandez joined the forum to tell her story], every week, 10 or 12 mothers would join. Its outrageous, she fumes. In 2022, Alkorta and Fernandez received the second U.N. ruling condemning Spain for obstetric violence. They share a fierce criticism of their country. Nahia Alkorta and Francisca Fernandez, in the lawyer's office in San Lorenzo de El Escorial (Madrid). Victoria Iglesias The author of My Stolen Birth laughs when asked if there has ever been any apology from her health center. The only thing Ive received is a press release in which they [affirmed] their excellence, she emphasizes. Nahia Alkorta became pregnant again. Her daughter was born in the middle of the pandemic lockdowns. She was paralyzed, she says, by the terror of going through the same thing again. Luckily, everything went well. I didnt have to live through another nightmare. Shes attentive to the gaze of her children, who accompany her to the interview with EL PAIS. While the little ones carefully observe as photographs are taken of the two women for this report, Alkorta looks at Fernandez. The photographer tells them to get closer together. As the flash goes off, a thank you can be heard from Nahia Alkorta. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition As Speaker Mike Johnson likes to tell it, it was love at first sight when he first met Kelly Lary, the sunny, blonde former Kappa Delta who caught his eye in a red dress at the wedding of a mutual friend. On their first date, they discovered they both wanted to name their first daughter Hannah and their first son Jack. Three weeks later, Mr. Johnson confessed his love. They were engaged after six months and exactly 364 days later, Ms. Lary became Mrs. Johnson. Its an uncomplicated origin story about a marriage that Mr. Johnson, an evangelical Christian who has put his faith at the center of his political life and policy decisions, has made a focal point of his biography. That has thrust Mrs. Johnson, who has been very vocal about her deeply held conservative views many of which are at odds with mainstream public opinion in the United States into an unusual spotlight for the spouse of a speaker of the House. Mrs. Johnson, who turned 50 last month, is also an evangelical Christian and a licensed pastoral counselor, and has co-hosted Mr. Johnsons podcast about religion and politics. In her professional capacity, she has opposed homosexuality and same-sex marriage, both of which she views as sins. In her work as an activist, as a leader in her church and in her counseling, she has proselytized her hard-line anti-abortion views. As a wife, she has championed more legally binding marriages that make it difficult to divorce. The United States conducted a new round of airstrikes against facilities used by Iran and its proxies in eastern Syria late Sunday in retaliation for a spate of recent attacks against American troops, Pentagon officials said on Sunday. Officials said the strikes most likely killed or injured an undetermined number of people at the sites. The airstrikes appeared to be an escalation by the Biden administration, which had previously conducted two sets of strikes that officials said were meant to deter Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the militias it supports in Syria and Iraq. U.S. officials had said those strikes had caused no known casualties. On Sunday night, Air Force F-15E fighter jets struck several buildings in Abu Kamal used for training, logistics and storing munitions, as well as a safe house in Mayadin used as a command headquarters, the officials said. The strikes came just four days after American warplanes hit a munitions warehouse in eastern Syria. Another set of retaliatory strikes by the United States came on Oct. 27. U.S. officials blame Iran and the militias aligned with it for what has become a daily barrage of rocket and drone attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria. But President Biden had in recent weeks rejected more aggressive bombing options proposed by the Pentagon out of fear of provoking a wider conflict with Iran. Republican critics in Congress and some air power advocates have said a narrow White House response has only invited more frequent and more dangerous attacks against U.S. troops in the region. Pentagon and other Biden administration officials rejected that criticism on Sunday, saying that the latest American airstrikes were intended to disrupt the militias activities and to put their personnel at risk, not just their munitions or buildings. The president has no higher priority than the safety of U.S. personnel, and he directed todays action to make clear that the United States will defend itself, its personnel and its interests, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said in a statement while traveling in Asia. In a news conference in Seoul on Monday, he reiterated that the United States would continue to do what was necessary to protect its troops. Pentagon officials said that fewer than a dozen Iran-backed militia personnel were present at the bombed sites on Sunday and that some were likely to have been killed or injured in the attack. American analysts were unable to provide a more precise casualty estimate. The Pentagon said on Sunday that there had been at least 48 attacks against U.S. forces in Syria and Iraq since Oct. 17 and that at least 56 U.S. service members had been injured. About half of them suffered traumatic brain injuries, and two had to be flown to Landstuhl military hospital in Germany for treatment. The United States has 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria, mostly to help local forces fight remnants of the Islamic State. The United States has been shifting military assets to the Middle East since Hamass surprise attack against Israel on Oct. 7 to try to prevent a regional war that could drag U.S. forces into conflict with Iranian proxies in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria. It has deployed one aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean near Israel, and another recently left the Red Sea and is sailing toward the Arabian Sea. The Pentagon has also sent dozens of additional warplanes to the Persian Gulf region, as well as additional Patriot antimissile batteries and other air defenses to several Gulf nations to protect U.S. troops and bases in the region. These air defenses so far have mostly been successful in knocking down incoming threats to American military personnel, but U.S. military officials said that troops have been lucky that none have been killed as the attacks have increased. It is quite clear that Iran and its proxy groups are escalating against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, and we have a range of options at our disposal to defend ourselves, Dana Stroul, the Pentagons top Middle East policy official, told a House committee last week. A search-and-rescue group in British Columbia advised hikers to use a paper map and compass instead of street map programs after it said two hikers had been rescued by helicopter after likely following a trail that did not exist but that appeared on Google Maps. The group, North Shore Rescue, said on Facebook that on Nov. 6 Google Maps had removed the nonexistent trail, which was in a very steep area with cliffs north of Mount Fromme, which overlooks Vancouver. The group said it had deployed a helicopter and a rope rescue team on Nov. 4 to the backside of the mountain, which is 3,888 feet high and covered in temperate rainforests, to help a stranded hiker who did not have a light and could not be seen below the dense tree canopy. The team was able to locate the subject, get him in a harness, and bring him safely down to a location where he and the team could be extracted by helicopter just before the clouds closed in and would have otherwise prevented helicopter access, the group said. A Toronto jury on Sunday found Peter Nygard, the high-profile executive behind a fallen fashion empire, guilty of four counts of sexual assault after just over three days of deliberation at the end of a six-week trial. He was found not guilty of one count of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement. His sentencing date will be set later this month. The maximum prison sentence for sexual assault in Canada is 10 years. The verdict represents the first criminal conviction against Mr. Nygard, 82, who has been in jail for the last two years. He is also expected to stand trial on charges of sex crimes next June in Montreal, and in Winnipeg, where a trial date has not been set. At the conclusion of the Canadian proceedings, Mr. Nygard will be extradited to New York to face sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and other charges in a nine-count indictment. Mr. Nygard appealed the New York extradition ruling in Winnipeg his hometown and the former base of Nygard International, his clothing company citing poor health, but the court has not yet issued its decision. More than 100,000 demonstrators in Paris and cities across France took to the streets on Sunday to show their solidarity with the countrys Jews and to deplore antisemitic acts that have multiplied across the nation since Hamass attack on Israel on Oct. 7. The marches were called by the leaders of both houses of the French Parliament, the Senate and the National Assembly, and unfolded under gray skies mostly without incident, with 3,000 police officers in Paris alone patrolling the route. The marches in France came a day after a huge pro-Palestinian protest in London that police said involved about 300,000 people. Tensions have been rising in France and particularly in Paris, home to large Jewish and Muslim communities, after Hamass attack and during Israels subsequent military campaign in the Gaza Strip. In the past month, over 1,240 antisemitic acts have been reported in France. The police had made 539 arrests as of Nov. 10. President Emmanuel Macron condemned the unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism in France in an open letter published in Le Parisien newspaper on Saturday, and said there would be no tolerance for the intolerable. He added: A France where our Jewish citizens are afraid is not France. French presidents typically do not participate in such marches, and Mr. Macron said that while he would not be present, he would be there in my heart and in my thoughts. Christened Marichka and measuring about 20 feet from bow to stern, the vessel can travel beneath the surface of the waves for more than 600 miles, although the size of its payload has not been made public and there is no evidence that it has been used in combat. About two dozen Russian ships and one submarine have been damaged or destroyed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion, Admiral Neizhpapa said. Oryx, a military analysis site that counts only losses that it has visually confirmed, has documented at least 16 damaged or destroyed ships. Standing in front of a classified chart that lists damage done to Russian vessels, Admiral Neizhpapa said he had no time for what he called wishful sinking any exaggeration of what Ukraine has achieved. There are still scores of powerful Russian warships that Ukraine wants to take off the board. On Friday, Ukraines intelligence agency released a video of a naval drone attack on two ships that it said played an important role in the layered air defenses that protect Russias fleet. The extent of the damage was not clear. The enemy also learns very quickly, and he also makes his own conclusions, counteracting our actions, Admiral Neizhpapa said. The war at sea can only be won with new solutions that must be implemented as quickly as possible. Anna Lukinova , Nataliia Novosolova and Anastasia Kuznietsova contributed reporting. With Israel consolidating its hold on northern Gaza, its forces are closing in on a sprawling medical center that for Israelis and Palestinians alike has emerged as a symbol of the other sides inhumanity. By Israels account, Al Shifa the name of the hospital has become shorthand for Hamas willingness to turn its own people into human shields and sacrifice them as cannon fodder in the fight for global sympathy. The militants, Israeli security officials say, have spent the better part of 16 years building a vast command complex under the hospital, and setting up similar bases underneath other medical facilities in the enclave. American officials agree, citing their own intelligence. Hamas denies doing anything of the sort, and hospital officials say the facility houses nothing but the sick and injured and the medical professionals dedicated to helping them. In the estimation of most Palestinians, the obsession with Al Shifa is evidence of Israels willingness to target even the most helpless civilians without justification. The hospitals director, Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, flatly described the Israeli allegations as untrue in an interview on Friday. While it is impossible to independently verify many of the assertions of either side, the competing claims are likely to be tested soon. The hospital, Israeli officials said, was spared in past Israeli operations out of concern for civilian life, but at the cost of leaving whatever may be underneath it intact. Israel revised its official estimated death toll of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, lowering the number to about 1,200 people, down from the more than 1,400 initially cited, a spokesman for the countrys Foreign Ministry said on Friday night. The spokesman, Lior Haiat, said the original figure was an initial estimate that had now been updated. He declined to provide further details on the change, but emphasized that the numbers could continue to fluctuate as the remains of those killed are identified. For both Israelis and Palestinians, the casualty counts in the monthlong war between Israel and Hamas have become emotionally charged figures. The tolls have become symbols for the depth of the agony gripping both peoples, and partisans on either side have sought to play down the number of those killed on the opposite camp. Here whats we know about the death toll in Israel from the Oct. 7 attack. How many people were killed in Israel during the Oct. 7 attacks? On Oct. 7, scores of Hamas gunmen swept into Israeli towns and military bases near the border with Gaza, opening fire on people in their homes, on the streets, and at a music festival. The attackers fatally shot the elderly, women and young children, according to survivors; others were burned after attackers set their homes ablaze. The vast majority of those killed in the Oct. 7 assault around 70 percent have been identified as civilians, not soldiers, by Israeli authorities. According to Israeli police, health officials have identified at least 846 civilians killed in the fighting. At least 278 soldiers were killed in the battles inside Israel, according to the Israeli militarys website, and at least 44 police officers died in the fighting, the Israel Police said in mid-October. (Additionally, at least 46 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ground invasion of Gaza began at the end of the month.) Those killed in Israel on Oct. 7 also included foreigners and dual nationals. At least 31 U.S. citizens and 39 French citizens were killed during the attacks, authorities in both countries have said. Other victims included at least 34 Thai nationals; Asian workers were a common sight in the farms near Israels border with Gaza. Why did Israels figures change? Israels original estimated toll from the attacks was subject to less scrutiny than the death toll compiled by the Hamas-controlled authorities in the Gaza Strip, where thousands have died in weeks of heavy Israeli bombardment and a ground invasion. Some news outlets including The New York Times occasionally used those Israeli figures without attributing them to Israeli officials or noting that they were an initial estimate and subject to change. One reason for the fluctuating death toll is that Israeli health officials say they have struggled to identify many Israelis and foreigners killed in the attacks, and they excluded from the official toll the remains of those they considered to have been attackers, highlighting the complicated task of giving an accurate, authoritative count. Even as Israeli tanks and ground troops continued to battle Hamas militants in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday outlined a postwar vision for the territory, one that he said would not involve the Palestinian Authority in its current form. We need to see the following two things, Mr. Netanyahu told NBCs Meet the Press. Gaza has to be demilitarized and Gaza has to be de-radicalized, he said. And I think so far, we havent seen any Palestinian force, including the Palestinian Authority, that is able to do it. Mr. Netanyahu said overall military responsibility would be handled by Israel after the war. The comments were at odds with views expressed by the Biden administration, which last week made it clear that there should be no Israeli re-occupation of Gaza. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken left open the possibility of a transition period after the war, but said that eventually Gazas administration must include Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority. The Israeli military released footage over the weekend of tanks rolling past the concrete shells of half-destroyed buildings in Gaza and soldiers scrambling through abandoned homes. The military said five Israeli soldiers were killed on Friday, including four in a blast from a booby-trapped tunnel shaft. More than 360 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel that killed 1,200 people and triggered the war. The death toll among Gazans has been more than 11,000, according to health authorities in Hamas-controlled Gaza. And 1.58 million Gazans, around three-quarters of the territorys population, have been displaced, according to estimates by the United Nations. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said on Sunday that the Israeli Army was the only force that could take military responsibility for Gaza after the war and guarantee his countrys security, while stating that he saw no future administrative role there for the Western-backed Palestinian Authority at least in its current form. We need to see the following two things, Mr. Netanyahu told NBCs Meet the Press. Gaza has to be demilitarized and Gaza has to be de-radicalized. And I think so far, we havent seen any Palestinian force, including the Palestinian Authority, that is able to do it. Asked who could therefore govern Gaza, he said it was too early to say. He added, The first task we have to achieve is defeat Hamas. Mr. Netanyahus remarks echoed those he made to the Israeli public at a televised news conference on Saturday night that had been his most extensive public description of his vision for Gaza after the end of Israels military campaign there against Hamas, which controls the enclave. He said that Israel must maintain security control there for as long as necessary and have the ability to enter Gaza at will to deal with perceived threats there. His remarks appeared to be somewhat at odds with the Biden administration, which last week made it clear that there should be no Israeli re-occupation of Gaza. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken left open the possibility of a transition period after the war, but said that eventually Gazas administration must include Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority. The United Nations secretary general, Antonio Guterres, acknowledged the challenges ahead on CNNs Fareed Zakaria GPS on Sunday, saying that the best-case scenario would be that a reinvigorated Palestinian Authority assume leadership in Gaza, where Hamas militants ousted it from power in 2007. The best-case scenario, he said, would also require Israel to agree to negotiate a two-state solution with the support of the international community. He added, What would be a one-state solution, with such a large number of Palestinian people inside that state without any rights? That would be inconceivable. Israel has been vague on who might administer Gaza if and when Hamas is pushed out, even as it comes under increasing international criticism for the humanitarian crisis and spiraling death toll from its airstrikes and subsequent ground invasion of the enclave. More than 11,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, according to Gazan health officials. The war was prompted by a cross-border assault by Hamas on Oct. 7 in which an estimated 1,200 people were killed and about 240 more were taken as hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli officials. Israels stated goals for the war are to dismantle Hamass military strength and ability to rule Gaza, as well as to bring the hostages back home. Asked about a potential hostage deal, Mr. Netanyahu told Meet the Press there could be one, but added, The less I say about it, the more Ive increased the chances that it materializes. Israeli representatives have been engaging in talks with intermediaries including Qatar. But Mr. Netanyahu has now made it clear that he will not agree to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority handling civilian affairs in Gaza unless it changes some of its conduct and unless its leader, President Mahmoud Abbas, forthrightly condemns the Oct. 7 assault against Israel something Mr. Abbas has refrained from doing so far. As well as the lack of condemnation, Mr. Netanyahu pointed to the teaching of hatred of Israel to children and monetary payments to assailants convicted of attacks against Israelis all common Israeli accusations against the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in parts of the occupied West Bank. The massacre of Oct. 7 proved once and for all that in every place that Israel does not have security control, terrorism entrenches itself, Mr. Netanyahu said on Saturday. In the end it comes back to hit us, and that is also true of Judea and Samaria, he added, referring to the West Bank by its biblical names. That, he said, is why he will not agree to give up security control of Gaza under any circumstances. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Mr. Abbas, emphasized on Sunday that any Israeli attempt to separate Gaza from the West Bank was destined to fail. In an apparent response to Mr. Netanyahus remarks, Mr. Abu Rudeineh said in comments carried by Wafa, the official Palestinian Authority news agency, that the consolidation of Israels occupation in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem would not bring security to anyone. Mr. Abu Rudeineh added that stability would only be achieved by ending the Israeli occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state in those areas. Mr. Netanyahu, a conservative and Israels longest-serving prime minister, has been prosecuting the war amid plummeting approval ratings. The ultranationalist parties that make up a key part of his governing coalition do not see the Palestinian Authority as a partner, and after the Oct. 7 attacks, there is a broad consensus among Israelis that Hamas must be ousted from Gaza even though its complete elimination will most likely prove impossible. The view in the Israeli government is that so long as Mr. Abbas has not directly condemned Hamas for the Oct. 7 attacks, any agreement to install his authority in Gaza as a replacement for the group would make Mr. Netanyahu look weak in the eyes of many Israelis, according to an Israeli government official who was not authorized to speak openly about internal discussions. As a U.S. Navy surveillance plane flew in circles, keeping a close watch, dozens of Chinese coast guard and accompanying ships chased and encircled Philippine vessels in the latest confrontation in one of the most dangerous flashpoints in the South China Sea. At the height of Fridays four-hour faceoff in the high seas, a Chinese coast guard ship blasted a water cannon toward a Philippine motorboat delivering food and other supplies to Filipino forces on a marooned, rusting warship that serves as the countrys fragile territorial outpost at Second Thomas Shoal. China has steadfastly stood by its claim to virtually the entire strategic waterway, clashing with its smaller neighbors and drawing in the United States, Manilas treaty ally and Chinas main rival in the Asia-Pacific region. Washington and its allies have deployed navy ships and fighter aircraft to promote freedom of navigation and overflight, build up deterrence and reassure allies like the Philippines. There are fears that the recurring confrontations at Second Thomas Shoal, which lies within the U.N.-sanctioned Philippine exclusive economic zone but is claimed by China and surrounded by its flotilla, could ignite an armed conflict pitting the U.S. against China. Philippine officials said Saturday they would never take any step that could ignite a larger conflict but would not be deterred in defending the countrys sovereign rights in the South China Sea. Despite the Chinese blockades and coercive maneuvers, the Philippine contingent managed to deliver supplies to the handful of Filipino marines aboard the BRP Sierra Madre and left without incident. The slightly listing Philippine warship, donated by the U.S., has been crumbling with age but is still actively commissioned, meaning an armed attack would be considered by Manila as an act of war. Two Associated Press journalists and several other members of the media who were invited on board three Philippine coast guard ships securing two supply boats witnessed the dangerous cat-and-mouse maneuvers in rough waves. Its part of a shame campaign Philippine officials said they would press on to expose Chinas growing aggression in one of the worlds most important trade routes. Filipino forces would continue to adhere to the rule of law and would not be provoked by Chinas strong-arm tactics, Philippine coast guard Commodore Tarriela said. Regardless how dangerous the maneuver that theyre going to throw at us, whether they use water cannon, whether they use military-grade laser, we are not going to allow them to make Philippine coast guard personnel on board our vessels to escalate the tensions, Tarriela said. At least 38 Chinese ships were spotted in Second Thomas Shoals vicinity on Friday, including a Chinese navy fast assault craft and a hospital ship, the Philippine coast guard said. One of the Philippine coast guard ships, the BRP Cabra, was surrounded five times by the Chinese coast guard and other ships, but managed each time to move away until it was hemmed in near the shoal. We grow more confident each time we steer past through the Chinese blockades, the Cabras commander, Emmanuel Dangate, told AP. We feel all the more the need by all to follow the international regulations to prevent collisions. The campaign to expose Chinas aggression at sea would continue, Tarriela said in a news conference, where photographs, video and drone shots of Fridays confrontations were shown. I believe that our effort in transparency initiative has been very successful in rallying support from the international community to condemn the illegal actions of China and to make the Filipino people aware of whats happening, Tarriela said. Washington reacted to Fridays confrontation by repeating that it stands with its oldest ally in Asia in the face of the Peoples Republic of Chinas repeated harassment in the South China Sea. The U.S. State Department renewed a warning that Washington is obligated to defend the Philippines under a 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty if Filipino forces, public vessels or aircraft, including those of its coast guard face an armed attack anywhere in the South China Sea. The PRCs actions are inconsistent with international law and follow a pattern of dangerous operational behavior in the South China Sea, the State Department said in a statement. It cited a 2016 international arbitration decision that invalidated Chinas expansive claims to the waterway on historic grounds, including Second Thomas Shoal. China refused to participate in the arbitration, which was brought up by the Philippines in 2013, after Chinese ships took control and surrounded another disputed area, Scarborough Shoal. Beijing dismissed the 2016 ruling as a sham and continues to defy it. A Philippine government task force said Friday that vessels belonging to Chinas coast guard and its paramilitary maritime militia recklessly harassed, blocked and executed dangerous maneuvers in another attempt to illegally impede or obstruct a routine resupply and rotation mission. Chinas coast guard said it followed the Philippines ships in accordance with the law, taking necessary control measures, and made temporary special arrangements for the Philippines side to transport food and other daily necessities, spokesperson Gan Yu said in a statement. It urged the Philippines to stop actions that infringe upon Chinas rights and said China would continue to uphold its national sovereignty. China urges the Philippine side to immediately stop making trouble and provocation at sea and to tow away the illegal grounded vessel as soon as possible, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said at a briefing in Beijing. China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a 10-nation bloc that includes the Philippines, have stepped up efforts to hasten negotiations for a nonaggression pact called a code of conduct that aims to prevent war from breaking out in the South China Sea. But the skirmishes at Second Thomas Shoal would likely continue on a regular basis with Chinese ships, including its navy, surrounding the shoal and the Philippines vowing to defend it at all cost and keep its forces there. Last month, a Chinese coast guard ship and another vessel blocked then collided with a Philippine coast guard ship and a military-run supply boat near the shoal. China accused the Philippine vessels of trespassing in what it said were Chinese waters. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition As Moish Feiglin pulls up to his settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, he points to an eight-foot-tall concrete slab blocking the middle of the road. Thats new, he says. He slowly drives around it and nods his head to more security barriers and heavily armed soldiers peering from behind the entrance gate. And so is that and that and that. In the past month, his settlement, Tekoa, has turned into an army base, he says, which goes against his personal code. I dont have rock-proof glass on my car windows, he says. I dont want rock-proof glass. But you have to understand what people are preparing for, he adds. They are preparing for 200 terrorists to come in. The West Bank, an area many times the size of Gaza and complicated in its own way, is once again a flashpoint, and all sides are clearly on edge. While the world is increasingly critical of Israel for its bombardment of Gaza, deep concern is also rising about the actions of the Israeli military and Jewish settlers in the West Bank, a contested patchwork of Palestinian areas and Israeli settlements like Tekoa that most of the world considers illegal. Jewish settlers of all political stripes are arming themselves, and extremists among them have attacked Palestinians and driven hundreds off their land. At the same time, there have been more Israeli military raids, more violent protests, more arrests and more Palestinian attacks on Israelis this past month than there have been in any similar period in years. Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald has said she would talk to everybody after the next general election should opportunities to establish a coalition government. Speaking to BBC Northern Irelands Sunday Politics programme, the Sinn Fein president said current rhetoric from major parties in Ireland is a far cry from their rejections to building a coalition with her party after the 2020 general election. At the time, I thought that was kind of farcical. I have invited people to imagine the opportunity for change and to make that real. A government without Fianna Fail or Fine Gael for potentially the first time in a century, that would be mighty and momentous. I happen to think that that would equip us best to drive the kind of change we need. She added: After the election, I will talk to everybody. Not out of deference to political parties but out of respect to the electorate and because I think thats what grown-ups do. However, Ms McDonald said her party has substantial differences with Fianna Fail and Fine Gael. In a series of media interviews on Sunday, Ms McDonald also called for the referral of Israel to the International Criminal Court and the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador as part of pressure for a ceasefire. Addressing the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza, she told RTE radio: In my view, the only way that we can guarantee anybody is safe, including the hostages, is for ceasefires. Asked about the partys call to expel the ambassador, Ms McDonald added: The issue of the ambassador is not an end in itself, all of this has to be with a precise focus in achieving ceasefire. Across multiple interviews, Ms McDonald defended the right of Sinn Fein politicians to sue media outlets as the party faced new criticism for taking legal action against the press. She told RTEs This Week: The requirement that all of us operate within the law should not be sinister or intimidating to anybody. She said, generally, approaches to media outlets will be made before legal action is taken. Ms McDonald said neither she nor the party were informed about a Sinn Fein politicians decision to sue an individual journalist personally. The objective of this should never be to personalise it to an individual, she added. A minister in the current coalition Government said suing the media is not the first lever a politician should pull. Also appearing on the broadcast media circuit on Sunday, Simon Harris said he believes lawsuits against the media carried out by Sinn Fein have had a chilling effect on potential press coverage of the party. The Fine Gael TD told Newstalk radio: This, a party [Sinn Fein] that is leading in the opinion polls. If theyre a party that wishes to be in government, you got to get ready for a bit of scrutiny. Thats what happens in Irish politics and like Im saying, of course people have a right to go to the courts, theres no doubt about that thats an absolutely right in democracy, but doesnt mean its a lever you have to pull. And it certainly shouldnt be pulled lightly or as frequently as it seems to be by some parties. Mr Harris said the Fine Gael party position is extraordinarily clear that it would not enter into a coalition with Sinn Fein after the next election. The further education minister also criticised Sinn Feins plans for the housing sector in an appearance on RTEs The Week In Politics. Ms McDonald had told that programme about 50,000 new homes need to be delivered every year. Mr Harris described Ms McDonalds comments as an absolute masterclass in terms of telling you the problem but not answering the question of what the party would do to address housing. Also setting out the Government position on the Hamas-Israel conflict, he told the same programme that the situation in Gaza has become a war on children. The absolute priority for this government and I think this country has led on this is to call for an immediate ceasefire. He said expelling the ambassador would result in the expulsion of Irelands ambassador in Israel at a time when we need to keep communication open due to Irish citizens still being in Gaza. BJP Doesn't Need Votes From 'Miya' Community For Next 10 Years, Says Himanta Sarma Sharad Pawar Will Send Supriya To Gaza To Fight For Hamas: Assam CM On NCP Chief's Palestine Support Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma Accuses Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel of Looting Money in the Name of Lord Mahadev Just Looking Like A Wow: Himanta Joins Internet Trend In Describing Photos Of Assam Bridge India oi-Prakash KL By Pti Joining the social media trend, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday shared a photo of a picturesque bridge over the Brahmaputra with the Himalayas in the background, stating that it was "just looking like a wow". The bridge, Kolia Bhomora Setu, is in Sonitpur district's Tezpur town. "So beautiful, So Elegant, Just Looking Like a WOW," Sarma posted on X, picking up the viral phrase to describe the view. In another post, he said that a pollution-free environment enabled this crystal clear view of the magnificent mountain range. "What a majestic view! The mighty Himalayas visible on a winter morning from Kolia Bhomora Setu, Tezpur. Low AQI & a pollution-free environment enable this crystal clear view, captured by Gautam Deka, of the magnificent mountain range located near the Arunachal-Tibet border," he said. What a majestic view! The mighty Himalayas visible on a winter morning from Kolia Bhomora Setu,Tezpur. Low AQI & a pollution-free environment enable this crystal clear view, captured by Gautam Deka, of the magnificent mountain range located near the Arunachal-Tibet border. pic.twitter.com/I5zWkoSRN5 Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) November 12, 2023 The seemingly ordinary phrase, "so beautiful, so elegant, just looking like a wow", became a rage after the video of a woman using it repeatedly to sell clothes on social media went viral. Since then, celebrities such as Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, Nick Jonas and Ishan Kishan joined the bandwagon in using it. Chhattisgarh Election: Cong To Give 15,000 To All Women, Rs 3000 More Than BJP's Rs 12,000 For Married Women India oi-Prakash KL The ruling Congress will give Rs 15,000 a year for women if it returns to power in Chhattisgarh, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel announced on Sunday. The big announcement came days ahead of the second phase of polling in Chhattisgarh. This is seen as an attempt to give counter to the BJP's poll promise in its manifesto where the saffron party has promised the women to give Rs 12,000 to married women. "Today, on the auspicious occasion of Diwali, with the blessings of Maa Lakshmi ji and Chhattisgarh Mahtari, an important decision has been taken for women empowerment," PTI quoted Baghel as telling reporters in Raipur. After the Congress government is formed again in Chhattisgarh, women in the state will be provided an annual assistance of Rs 15,000 directly into their bank accounts under the ''Chhattisgarh Gruha Lakshmi Yojana'', he said. Baghel also wished people of the state on Diwali. While the first phase of polling in 20 out of the total 90 assembly seats in the state was held on November 7, the second phase of polling for the remaining seats will be held on November 17. Uttarakhand Tunnel Rescue: Evacuation Of Workers To Take 3-4 Hours, Says NDMA Joyful Reunion: Families Express Thanks To Govt After Successful Rescue of 41 Workers From Silkyara Tunnel Practised Yoga, Took Walks To Keep Spirits Up: Rescued Workers Tell PM Modi Under-Construction Tunnel Collapses In Uttarakhand, 40 Workers Trapped India oi-Prakash KL At least 40 workers are feared trapped after a portion of a tunnel under construction between Silkyara and Dandalgaon on the Brahmakhal-Yamunotri national highway collapsed in the early hours of Sunday. The incident occurred around 4 am when a 150-metre-long portion of the four-and-a-half-kilometer-long tunnel collapsed, PTI reported citing officials. As soon as information about the incident was received, Uttarkashi Superintendent of Police Arpan Yaduvanshi rushed to the spot and launched a relief and rescue operation, Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Dunda, Brajesh Tiwari said. National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force, fire brigade and employees of the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL), the organisation building the tunnel, are at the spot as well trying to rescue the trapped labourers, he said. #WATCH | Uttarakhand: Uttarkashi SP Arpan Yaduvanshi says, "In Silkyara Tunnel, a part of the tunnel has broken about 200 meters ahead of the starting point. According to the officials of HIDCL, which is looking after the construction work of the tunnel, about 36 people are https://t.co/zTnZDAtcyy pic.twitter.com/rv6sxufYz0 ANI UP/Uttarakhand (@ANINewsUP) November 12, 2023 The tunnel is part of the Char Dham all-weather road project. Its construction will reduce the journey between Uttarkashi and Yamunotri by 26 km. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, November 12, 2023, 13:24 [IST] EC Show-Cause Notice To Kejriwal For 'Disparaging' Remarks By AAP Against PM Modi On Social Media 'Very Painful': Delhi CM Posts A Pic Of Manish Sisodia Hugging His Ailing Wife India oi-Prakash KL Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal posted a photo of Manish Sisodia embracing his ailing wife, and claimed that the injustice is being done to a "person who gave hope to the poor children of the country". Sisodia, who is in jail in connection with the alleged liquor scam case, was allowed to meet his wife for six hours between 10 am and 4 pm. Accompanied by police personnel, Sisodia reached his home on Mathura Road in a prison van at around 10 am and returned to the jail after the meeting time lapsed. During the brief time Sisodia spent with his wife, the AAP leader lighted diyas in his house on 'Choti Diwali'. He did not interact with mediapersons who were gathered outside his residence. Sharing a photo of Sisodia hugging his wife as he was leaving his house to return to jail, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, "This picture is very painful." "Is it right to do such injustice to a person who gave hope to the poor children of the country?" Kejriwal wrote on X. In June too Sisodia was granted permission by the Delhi High Court to meet his wife Seema, who suffers from multiple sclerosis. However, he could not meet her as she was hospitalised after a sudden deterioration in her condition. The court while permitting Sisodia to meet his wife ordered him not to talk to the media or indulge in any political activity. A senior leader of AAP, Sisodia held the post of deputy chief minister besides holding various portfolios, including the Excise Department, in the Arvind Kejriwal government before his arrest by the CBI in February. He resigned as deputy CM and minister of different departments after being arrested but his family lived at his then-official residence on Mathura Road sharing it with Education Minister Atishi. Recently, Sisodia's bail application in the case was rejected by the Supreme Court. Linda was forced to leave her home in Ixtaro, Michoacan, Mexico, in February 2021. Hiding under blankets in a van, she took her children and fled the cartels threats. Her brother Willie, a retired military officer, had confronted the group that controlled the town, and after a clash with them, he injured some members and killed others. His body showed signs of torture when it was found a few miles away. But these criminal groups do not forgive or forget; one of the men Willie injured was seeking revenge, and Linda knew that if she didnt escape, sheor her childrenwould be next. Linda takes the son of her brother Williewho was murdered by a cartelto summer school in California. stephania corpi arnaud The Pueblos Unidos [United Towns] criminal organization had taken over the small town of just 1,500 people in an attempt to take control of avocado production. The group was born as a self-defense group, the supposed purpose of which was to defend the villagers from Los Viagras, one of Michoacans most bloodthirsty armed groups. The high fees that this cartel imposed began to stifle local producers, who had to pay between 3,000 and 5,000 pesos per hectare (between $150 and $250, at the early 2021 exchange rate). In less than a year, the United States armed the avocado producers. Business was booming; they themselves sold weapons at exorbitant prices and the people were obliged to buy them. There had to be at least one gun in every family, Linda says. Her family was sold a rifle for 100,000 pesos; they had to pool their money together to pay for it. Members of Pueblos Unidos arrived in Ixtaro, representing themselves as peasants concerned about the presence of criminal groups. They asked the community to choose a leader or representative to act as an intermediary. But when Los Viagras left town, the new organization took control of laboratories, houses and weapons. It soon became clear that Pueblos Unidos was just another criminal gang. Members of Pueblos Unidos gather for a demonstration in Nuevo Urecho, Michoacan, Mexico, on Saturday, November 27, 2021. Armando Solis (AP) Avocados had arrived there only a decade before; prior to that, as in many towns, people in Ixtaro cultivated milpas [small fields] or peach trees. The hectares of avocado trees brought a bonanza to the villagers. Their adobe houses gave way to brick houses, the streets were paved and there was generally more cash in circulation. But in Mexico, money always attracts organized crimes attention. Extortion and kidnapping became routine in a territory where the Jalisco Cartel-New Generation seeks to eliminate all rivals and reign supreme. The towns of Patzcuaro, Santa Clara del Cobre and Uruapan, all of which are in Michoacan, are the scene of disputes between armed groups. It has become a much more complex business, says Brown University professor Ieva Jusyonite, whose book Exit Wounds draws on her years of research on arms trafficking. Drug trafficking requires more planning and risk; owning guns gives organized crime the power to extort and kidnap farmers. That business is easier, Jusyonite adds. A group of Pueblos Unidos self-defense groups perform guard duty to protect the areas avocado plantations in Ario de Rosales, Michoacan, Mexico, July 8, 2021. ENRIQUE CASTRO (AFP) Taking the risk of not complying with the cartels demands has fatal consequences. A farmer from Ario de Rosales says it has become commonplace to find bodies on his land. The second body we found, I [told] them the head was already missing, he says. And the reason they buy the weapons themselves is to not [have to] get involved with Pueblos Unidos. You want to owe them as little as possible...[its] better to save, he says. Mexico is currently the worlds largest exporter of avocados. It represents a market worth around US $3 billion, and the state of Michoacan accounts for 75% of that production. The business continues to grow; exports to the United States went from 121,600 metric tons in 2019 to around 135,000 in 2022. Thus, the lucrative business attracted the cartels, which have diversified their activities over the years. Irene Alvarez, an academic who has researched self-defense groups in different regions of Michoacan, explains that the state is one of the leading branches of organized crime, which is largely due to agribusiness. Indeed, in addition to the enormous production of avocados, they also cultivate different types of berries. In Michoacan, there is an agribusiness boom, and that money somehow generates specific dynamics of violence, says Alvarez. Ixtaro is an example of these dynamics at work. In this region, the practice of making payments to the cartels was established much later than in other regions like Tierra Caliente, which is located between Guerrero and the State of Mexico. The so-called peace that the people bought by acquiring weapons and allowing the entry of Pueblos Unidos ended in disaster. The communitys elected leader and his brothers were murdered for opposing increased avocado planting; they argued that water shortages would end up becoming a problem for all farmers. Lindas brother Willie died trying to defend them. Willie is now buried in the towns cemetery, where many have relatives who have become statistics in the war on drugs. The weapons Criminal organizations that have members on both sides of the U.S. border coordinate the trafficking of weapons into Mexico. The process begins with the legal purchase and registration of a gun in the United States, which is generally done by frontmen. In almost all cases, those who purchase the guns are U.S. citizens who operate in border states like Arizona and Texas, Ieva Jusyonite explains. However, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has traced weapons in Mexico to all 50 states. A rifle painted with the U.S. flag is displayed at the National Rifle Association (NRA) annual convention on May 28, 2022, in Houston, Texas. Toya Sarno Jordan Traffickers wait until they make several purchases so that another person from the same organization can later take the merchandise to a border checkpoint, where a third member is responsible for bringing the weapons into Mexico. There is no inspection on the Mexican side, says Timothy Sloan, the former ATF attache in Mexico. As a result, the number of weapons seized at the border is very small. Taking advantage of Mexican officials lack of controls, these people often hide guns inside car doors, in diesel tanks, or disassemble them to make their identification difficult. I have records of stories, for example, of one person who passed his gun off as a car seat, adds Irene Alvarez. Tijuanas San Ysidro border crossing is one of the most commonly used to transport weapons; while Californias laws are less lax, traffickers often take guns to this checkpoint because they know it is very busy. The operation involves a chain of at least five people, and by the time the merchandise arrives in Mexico, its cost has increased three or four times. As with drugs traveling north, the further the weapon moves away from the border, the more its value increases. Sales are made primarily through WhatsApp groups. That was how one of the weapons used in the crime that led to the March 2023 murder of two U.S. citizens in the border city of Matamoros arrived in Mexico in the first place. Kidnapped by a criminal organization, the Americans were found four days later. The gun was traced back to its purchase by an American man who admitted that he knew the weapon would find its way into the hands of the Gulf Cartel and received $100 for the transaction. The military regulates the flow of weapons in Mexico, but the lack of transparency contributes to not knowing how many guns there really are in the country. Some estimate that there are 15 million in circulation, 85% of which come from illegal trafficking. Lisa Sanchez, the executive director of Mexico United Against Crime (MUCD), explains that since 2017 the government has been required to prepare a National Registry of Ammunition Weapons, through the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection. And that registry has either not been done or, if it has been done, it is not public, she says. Sanchez argues that this creates a void in quantifying the arms market, and theres a lack of records on weapons diverted to illicit markets. What happens, for example, with those weapons that are lost or stolen? the expert asks. In June, the Mexican Army said that over the course of this six-year presidential administration, it has seized more than 39,000 illegal weapons. Andres Manuel Lopez Obradors government filed a criminal lawsuit against 11 gun shops in Massachusetts; the case was dismissed, but the Mexican president has appealed the decision. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs then filed a civil lawsuit in Arizona, which is pending resolution. In any case, in addition to the issue of how many guns there are, the type of guns also poses a problem. In the war [on drugs], there is an arms race, explains Irene Alvarez. The caliber of weapons circulating within the country worries the authorities, because even the municipal police are often less armed than these groups. Their ability to do damage is completely over the top now. 50-caliber Barretts, AR-15s, drones and tactical gear are turning entire regions of Mexico into ghost towns. Nothing makes you want to flee your home as much as a gun pointed at you, says Ieva Jusionyte, a professor at Brown University. The flow of guns and their proliferation in Mexico is definitely associated with forced displacement, Jusionyte continues. Thats why Linda only had time to gather a change of clothes before she fled her home with her family. Mexicans on the border On the border between Mexico and the United States, there are thousands of stories of displaced Mexicans hidden among Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Haitians, Afghans...In just a few days, a dozen women in Tijuana shared their stories of violence, extortion and kidnapping. Just as the United States is concerned about deaths from fentanyl overdoses, in Mexico we are concerned about the lives lost to homicides and the firearms that enter the country illegally, explains Cecilia Farfan, the head of security research programs at the University of California, San Diego. A view of the border fence from Tijuana, Baja California, in August 2022 Toya Sarno Jordan One woman from Michoacan says that her daughter was shot five times on the street corner by her house six days ago. She didnt even have time to bury her; she got in a truck with her two children en route to Tijuana. MUCDs Lisa Sanchez says the statistics show how guns have affected communities. Seven out of ten violent deaths of women are caused by firearms, says Sanchez; in 2000, they were only responsible for three out of 10 such deaths. Another woman from Michoacan tells us about the videos her ex-partner sends her in which he holds a long gun, telling her that he has already identified her. He threatens to dismember her son and then her. A Guanajuato woman was kidnapped for almost a month and had to flee with her sister and two daughters. Another woman from Ixtapa, in Guerrero, filed a complaint after she was unable to make her payments to protect her taqueria (taco shop). The Mexican state of Michoacan has a very close relationship with the United States; not only because of avocados, but also because of a decades-long migratory flow. In 2022 alone, remittances reached US $5 billion. But migration dynamics are changing. Migrants are no longer just single people in search of a better life but entire families displaced by violence. Linda, for example, traveled with 25 family members. And, in the end, the problem is always guns. To the extent that you have more people who are armed and have this significant firepower, (...) it allows different groups to use the threat of violence if they want to displace people from an area, Farfan says. This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition Israel And Hamas Agree To Extend Truce For 2 More Days, And Free More Hostages And Prisoners India Welcomes Release Of Israeli Hostages By Hamas, Calls For Immediate Release Of Those Remaining Israel Announces Strikes On Gaza After Truce Expires, Clear Sign That War Has Resumed In Full Force India Votes In Favour Of UN Resolution Condemning Israeli Settlements In Palestine International oi-Prakash KL India was one of the 145 countries that supported the United Nations resolution denouncing settlement activities in "the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan." The resolution draft received approval on Thursday, November 9. The draft was passed with an overwhelming majority. The seven countries that voted against the resolution included Canada, Hungary, Israel, the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, United States. Trinamool Congress MP Saket Gokhale shared the picture of the UN resolution and said that he was "very glad that the Republic of India voted in favour of the resolution." "Israel's occupation of Palestine through settlers is ILLEGAL. Israel's apartheid must end NOW (sic)," Saket Gokhale added. Last month, India abstained from voting in the UN General Assembly draft resolution submitted by Jordan which had called for an immediate truce in the Israel-Hamas conflict. The resolution did not address the Hamas terrorist group, which initiated an attack on Israel on October 7, leading to the subsequent war. India was one of 45 countries that abstained from voting, while 14 voted against it. The resolution was overwhelmingly adopted, with 120 nations voting in favour. Israel has been carrying out a massive military offensive in Gaza following the unprecedented and multi-pronged attacks on Israeli cities by Hamas militants on October 7. On Friday, Palestinian officials reported that 11,078 Gazans lost their lives due to air and artillery strikes since October 7, with 40 percent of the casualties being children. The Israeli military has announced its readiness to evacuate infants from Gaza's largest hospital on Sunday, as it has run out of fuel. Intense clashes between Israeli forces and Hamas gunmen in and around Gaza City, where the largest hospital, Al Shifa, is situated, have led to the suspension of hospital operations. Unfortunately, two babies in the incubator lost their lives due to the fuel shortage. Israel And Hamas Agree To Extend Truce For 2 More Days, And Free More Hostages And Prisoners Israel-Hamas War: IDF Says Troops In Gaza Strip Targeted With Bombs, Breaking Ceasefire India Welcomes Release Of Israeli Hostages By Hamas, Calls For Immediate Release Of Those Remaining Israel Announces Strikes On Gaza After Truce Expires, Clear Sign That War Has Resumed In Full Force Israel-Hamas War: Fighting Continues Near Al-Shifa Hospital International dwnews-DW News Fighting around al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza intensifies Germany announces increase in aid to Palestinian Territories Pro-Palestinian protesters march on Armistice Day Fighting around Al-Shifa hospital intensifies In recent days, fighting near the Al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza has intensified and supplies have run out. Israeli authorities claim that Hamas has established command posts underneath the hospital and other health facilities. Hamas and Al-Shifa staff deny the existence of the tunnels. Al-Shifa hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia was cited by the Associated Press as saying that the facility lost power on Saturday. Spokesmen for the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said six patients died at the hospital after the generator was shut down. Israel's military confirmed clashes outside the hospital, but army spokesman Daniel Hagari denied Al-Shifa was under siege. He said troops would on Sunday assist in moving babies treated there and said "we are speaking directly and regularly" with hospital staff. sdi/msh (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters) Pro-Palestinian protesters march in Europe, US More than 300,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched through central London in an event coinciding with Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of World War I. Police said they had arrested 126 people as they sought to stop far-right counter protesters from ambushing main rally. Officer Matt Twist said that small groups broke away from the main rally, and about 150 people wearing face coverings had fired fireworks which struck officers in their faces. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak condemned "Hamas sympathizers" who he accused of "singing antisemitic chants and brandishing pro-Hamas signs and clothing on today's protest." Previously, Interior Minister Suella Braverman had called pro-Palestinian protests "hate marches" led by "mobs." London's Metropolitan Police refused ministerial requests to block the event, saying they did not have indication there would be serious violence. Meanwhile, in the US, hundreds of protesters demonstrated near President Joe Biden's house in Wilmington, Delaware. In Brussels, around 21,000 people took party in a pro-Palestinian rally on Saturday, and in Paris, 16,000 people attended demonstrations that were accompanied by left-wing lawmakers. Germany announces 38 million in aid for Palestinian Territories German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has announced Berlin will increase its humanitarian aid for the Palestinian territories by 38 million (roughly $40 million). Baerbock made the announcement during her diplomatic tour of the Middle East and after she spoke with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. Germany will provide a total of 160 million for the Palestinian territories this year. "Every life is worth the same. And every person in Israel and every person in Palestine has a right to live in peace and security," Baerbock said. She said that humanitarian pauses in the Gaza Strip "must be expanded further." In his statement following the talks with Baerbock, Shtayyeh urged Berlin to call for an end to the war in Gaza. Germany must "take a position on Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip that is in line with international human rights law," he said. "Not calling for an end to the war, supporting Israel with weapons, encourages it to continue its aggression against our people in Gaza," he said. On Saturday evening, Baerbock met with Israeli counterpart Eli Cohen in Tel Aviv. Following the meeting, she said: "International humanitarian law recognizes civilian casualties. However, it also contains clear guidelines," which includes "both the requirement to protect the civilian population and the distinction between civilian and military targets." She said that how Israel proceeds in the Gaza Strip will also affect Israel's long-term security. Cohen said that it was important to stop Hamas' sources of funding in Europe and elsewhere. "Israel will continue to fight Hamas until it is no longer a threat," said Cohen after speaking with Baerbock. "Germany has stood by Israel's side since October 7, expressing its commitment to Israel's security and its support for its right to self-defense." Source: DW Will Unequivocally Stand Up For Rule Of Law: Trudeau On India-Canada Row International oi-Prakash KL Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has once again accused India of violating the Vienna Convention as he reiterated his allegation of India's involvement in the murder of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. The Canadian PM has urged India "to get into the bottom of this matter" while asking its allies to investigate Ottawa's claims on Nijjar's killing on Canadian soil. "This is something that we are taking very seriously. We will continue to work with all partners as law enforcement and investigative agencies continue to do their work. Canada is a country that will always stand up for the rule of law. Because if it might start to make them right, and if bigger countries can violate international law without consequences, then the whole world gets more dangerous for everyone," he told reporters. When questioned about an incident where Indian-origin parliamentarian Chandan Arya invited High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma for an event on Parliament Hill, Trudeau alleged that India had breached the Vienna Convention. He pointed to the evacuation of over 40 Canadian diplomats from the Asian country, who were subsequently relocated to other destinations, including Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. The Canadian PM expressed his disappointment over the move and said, "Think about it from our perspective. We have serious reasons to believe that agents of the government of India could have been involved in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil. And India's response is to kick out a whole bunch of Canadian diplomats by violating their rights under the Vienna Convention. That is of concern to countries around the world." "Because if a given country can just decide that their diplomats of another country are no longer protected, that makes International Relations more dangerous and more serious, but every step of the way, we have tried to work constructively and positively with India and we will continue to and that means continuing to work with Indian government diplomats," he added. "This is not a fight we want to be having right now. But we will unequivocally always stand up for the rule of law because that's who Canada is," he added. Tensions flared between India and Canada last month following Trudeau's explosive allegations of the "potential" involvement of Indian agents in the killing of Khalistani extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on June 18 in British Columbia. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Sunday, November 12, 2023, 16:35 [IST] Penny Wong condemned Hamas for its terrorist attack on Israeli civilians, but said Israel should abide by humanitarian law that forbids attacks on medical centres. A former Malaysian prime ministerial bodyguard has walked free from detention in Australia, nine years after fleeing a death sentence over a gruesome, politically charged murder. Tens of thousands of people were joined by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg as they marched through the Dutch capital demanding lawmakers take action. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian supporters have marched through central London calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. Meanwhile, far-right counterprotesters clashed with police. India has voted in favour of a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly that condemns Israeli settlement activities in Occupied Palestinian Territory. Canada, Hungary, Israel, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru and the United States voted against the draft resolution. It was approved by the Special Political and Decolonization Committee (Fourth Committee) of the UN General Assembly by a recorded vote of 145 in favour, seven against and 18 abstentions on Thursday. Democrat congressional candidate Monica Tranel was silent when asked to explain her position on the Israel-Hamas conflict and opposition to GOP opponent Rep. Ryan Zinke's new bill. Evanston IL (SPX) Nov 13, 2023 With help from an experienced underwater cave-diving team, Northwestern University researchers have constructed the most complete map to date of the microbial communities living in the submerged labyrinths beneath Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Although previous researchers have collected water and microbial samples from the cave entrances and easily accessible sinkholes, the Northwestern-led Spains acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez s chances of forming a new coalition minority government following an inconclusive election in July were greatly boosted this week after reaching an agreement with a tiny party he surely hoped he would never have to rely on. The deal is with Together for Catalunya, also known as Junts a group bent on achieving independence for the northeastern region of Catalonia thats headed by Carles Puigdemont, who fled Spain after leading a failed illegal secession bid in 2017 that brought the country to the brink. Key to the agreement signed Thursday is a massively controversial amnesty that could benefit Puigdemont and thousands of other secessionists. But the proposal, backed by several smaller left-wing parties, has roused the ire of the conservative and far-right opposition parties that represent roughly half the countrys population. Many in the judiciary and police are also opposed. Here is what you need to know about the amnesty and how it all came about. Whats the amnesty for? Few details have been released of the amnesty proposal being debated between Sanchezs Socialist party and Junts, which will have to be approved by Spains Parliament. However, the idea is it would wipe away the legal cases against Puigdemont and thousands of others who took part in the secession bid or participated in protests, some of which turned violent, when Spain implemented a crackdown in response. Sanchez, whose government has already granted pardons to several jailed leaders of the Catalan independence movement, says the amnesty will be positive for Spain because it will calm waters inside Catalonia. Puigdemont is one of several Catalan leaders who fled justice after an illegal independence referendum was held in 2017. An amnesty would allow the five that are still abroad, including Puigdemont, to return to Spain and even run for office again someday. Who wants an independent Catalonia? The idea of independence from Spain stretches back decades, if not centuries, for a region that is fiercely proud of its institutions, traditions, and Catalan language, which is spoken along with Spanish. It gathered momentum during the financial crisis of 2008-2013 and then peaked in 2017 when Puigdemont, as regional president, held the illegal ballot on secession and made an ineffectual declaration of independence that received zero international recognition. The nearly 8 million inhabitants of Catalonia, whose capital is Barcelona, are roughly divided over independence, although latest opinion polls in the region indicate fewer favor secession. Why is Sanchez offering amnesty? Given that Puigdemont is considered public enemy No. 1 for many Spaniards, and Catalan independence a politically toxic issue, some wonder why Sanchez, who has long opposed any amnesty, is now pushing for it. The answer, critics say, is pure political necessity and the desire to stay in office. A national election in July left no party close to an absolute majority. Sanchezs Socialists with 121 seats, and their leftist coalition partner Sumar translated as Joining Forces with 31, need the support of several smaller parties to clinch a 176 majority in Parliament and stay in power. Those include the two pro-secession Catalan parties who led the unsuccessful 2017 breakaway attempt. Junts, with seven seats, became the key. The chance given to Puigdemont to play kingmaker by the summers election outcome breathed new life into his political career and his cause just when his party was losing ground inside Catalonia, where Sanchezs Socialists are on the rise. How have opponents responded? Tens of thousands of people have staged massive protests against the amnesty in recent weeks. The demonstrations were called by the Popular Party and Vox, who accuse Sanchez of betraying the country and handing power to a fugitive. Violence broke out at rallies backed by Vox outside the Socialist Partys headquarters in Madrid several nights in November. Police say the violence has been caused by a minority of extreme right-wing radicals. Another major protest has been called for Sunday by the Popular Party. What are the key points of the deal with Junts? Under the deal signed Thursday between the Socialists and Junts, both parties recognize their vastly different points of view on the Catalan conflict but agree to work together to resolve it. Junts says it will propose holding another self-determination referendum but agrees to not do it unilaterally, like in 2017. Instead, it will be under Article 92 of the Constitution, which demands the authorization of the prime minister, the Parliament and the king. Junts also demands that more tax revenues stay in Catalonia, one of Spains richest regions, similar to agreements signed with rich Basque Country and Navarra regions. The two parties also agree that the amnesty must cover all those who have been subjected to judicial processes both before and after the 2017 referendum. One clause that is seen as a possible interference in the judiciary is the mention that commissions may investigate if there were cases of lawfare, meaning that the justice system was used for political purposes against secessionists that might require legislative modifications. A legal quagmire Any amnesty approved by Spains Parliament is likely to be contested by the opposition parties and several courts in Spain. This may not immediately affect the beneficiaries of the amnesty, but it would cause a legal quagmire of gigantic proportions in an already clogged judiciary. Meanwhile, Spains Supreme Court is still trying to have Puigdemont extradited from Belgium for embezzlement. On top of that, the lower National Court recently named him and another secessionist leader in an investigation into possible terrorism during the independence push. The amnesty talks have also drawn the attention of the European Union Commissioner of Justice, Didier Reynders, who sent Spains government a request for more information. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition ODN 06 Nov 2023 Rishi Sunak says the home secretary will be meeting police chiefs to discuss how to handle pro-Palestinian protests on Armistice.. FourFourTwo 30 Nov 2023 Chelsea 4-4 Manchester City might already be the game of the season. But while Cole Palmer's dramatic late penalty might only have.. Ebrahim Raisi, who traveled to Riyadh on Saturday for an extraordinary summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) about the Gaza tragedy, became the first Iranian president to visit Saudi Arabia in 11 years. The Iranian president and his entourage departed Tehran for Riyadh on Saturday morning. The OIC summit... Chaos erupted at the Sea Point promenade in Cape Town on Sunday where a prayer meeting for Israel was scheduled to take place,.. News24 13 Nov 2023 Protests against the war in Gaza brought more than 300,000 to the streets of London on Saturday. And in Paris today, there's a march against antisemitism. Gaza: Israel's military said it was ready to evacuate babies from Gaza's largest hospital on Sunday, where Palestinian officials said two newborns died and dozens more were at risk after fuel ran out amid intense fighting in the area. As the humanitarian situation worsened, Gaza's border authority said the Rafah crossing into Egypt would reopen on Sunday for foreign passport holders after closing on Friday. Hamas said it had completely or partially destroyed more than 160 Israeli military targets in Gaza, including more than 25 vehicles in the past 48 hours. An Israeli military spokesperson said Hamas had lost control of northern Gaza. At a news conference late on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the deaths of five more Israeli soldiers in Gaza. The Israeli military said 46 had been killed since its ground operations there began. Reports of possible hostage deal Israel's three major TV news channels, without citing named sources, said there was some progress toward a deal to free hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. Netanyahu said he would not discuss details of any possible deal, which according to N12 News would involve 50 to 100 women, children and elderly being released in stages during a three to five day pause in fighting. A Palestinian reacts at the site of an Israeli strike on a house belonging to Fojo family in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled According to the reports, Israel would release women and minor Palestinian prisoners from its jails and consider letting fuel in to Gaza, while reserving the right to resume fighting after the deal. "When we have something concrete to say then we will update the families and bring it to the government," Netanyahu said. "Until then silence would be best." In Tel Aviv, thousands joined a rally to support families of the hostages. Gaza residents said Israeli troops, who went to war to eliminate Hamas after its bloody cross-border assault on Oct. 7, had been clashing with Hamas gunmen all night in and around Gaza City where the Al Shifa hospital, Gaza's largest, is located. Ashraf Al-Qidra, who represents the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza, said the hospital suspended operations after fuel ran out. He said two babies had died in an incubator as a result. He said there were 45 babies in total. He said Israeli shelling killed a patient in intensive care and that Israeli snipers on rooftops fired into the medical complex from time to time, limiting people's ability to move. "We are besieged inside the Al Shifa Medical Complex, and the (Israeli) occupation has targeted most of the buildings inside," he told Reuters by phone. Colonel Moshe Tetro, head of coordination and liaison at COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body handling civil affairs in Gaza, said there had been clashes but added: "There is no shooting at the hospital and there is no siege. Smoke rises as displaced Palestinians take shelter at Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City. Photo: REUTERS/Doaa Rouqa/File Photo Israel says it will help evacuate babies Israel's chief military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said the Israeli military would help evacuate babies from the hospital. "The staff of the Shifa hospital has requested that tomorrow we help the babies in the pediatric department to get to a safer hospital. We will provide the assistance needed," he said. Israel has said doctors, patients and thousands of evacuees who have taken refuge at hospitals in northern Gaza must leave so it can tackle Hamas gunmen who it says have placed command centres under and around them. Hamas denies using hospitals this way. Medical staff say patients could die if they are moved and Palestinian officials say Israeli fire makes it dangerous for others to leave. Israeli Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter was asked by N12 about images of Gaza residents evacuating south and whether that was a goal of the war, or only temporary. He described the situation as being "Gaza's Nakba" - a reference to mass dispossessions of Palestinians after Israel was founded in 1948. "Operationally there's no way to conduct a war the way the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) wants to conduct it inside Gaza territories while the masses are between the tanks and soldiers," Dichter said. "I don't know how it will end." A girl is assisted as Palestinians search for casualties at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled 'Totally scary atmosphere' Ahmed al-Mokhallalati, a senior plastic surgeon at Al Shifa, told Reuters there had been continuous bombardment for more than 24 hours. He said most hospital staff and people sheltering there had left, but 500 patients remained. "It's totally a war zone. It's a totally scary atmosphere here in the hospital," he said. The military wing of Hamas ally Islamic Jihad, the Al-Quds Brigades, said it was "engaged in violent clashes in the vicinity of Al Shifa Medical Complex, Al Nasr neighbourhood, and Al Shati camp in Gaza." Al Nasr is home to several major hospitals. Israel said earlier it had killed what it called a Hamas "terrorist" who it said had prevented the evacuation of another hospital in the north, which Palestinian officials have said is out of service and surrounded by tanks. It said Ahmed Siam was killed along with other militants while hiding in the Al Buraq school. Palestinian officials told Reuters on Friday at least 25 Palestinians had been killed in an Israeli strike at the school, which was packed with evacuees. Israel said rockets were still being fired from Gaza into southern Israel, where it has said about 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 taken hostage by Hamas last month. Palestinian officials said on Friday that 11,078 Gaza residents had been killed in air and artillery strikes since Oct 7, around 40% of them children. Israel said it had increased the number of places in which it said it would stop firing for several hours at a time so Gazans could move south, and a military spokesperson said the last three days had seen the evacuation of at least 150,000 people. In London, at least 300,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched and police arrested over 120 people as they sought to stop far-right counter-protesters ambushing the rally. Over 20,000 people joined a pro-Palestinian rally in Brussels. Meeting in Saudi Arabia, Muslim and Arab countries called for an immediate end to military operations in Gaza, rejecting Israel's justification of self-defence. Remarks at Veterans For Peace event in Iowa City, Iowa, November 11, 2023 On December 2nd the Monroe Doctrine will turn 200. That is, it will be 200 years from the day President James Monroe made a speech from which years later politicians and pundits excerpted some paragraphs and labeled them the Monroe Doctrine. If the purpose was to allow a privileged clique the power to lawlessly create policy and elevate it above all actual laws, it worked. Over the years, more presidents were given doctrines, and now we can't get through a single presidency without a doctrine being announced. Some presidents are given, by newspaper columnists, doctrines that they themselves never said at all. The Monroe Doctrine, or the part that endured and was built and expanded upon, basically says that the United States will wage war against any outside power that tries anything anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. From Day 1 the ambition extended beyond that hemisphere, even though it would be many years before the United States focused on much outside of North America. By Theodore Roosevelt's day the doctrine was made explicitly global. Now, of course, the U.S. military has bases ringing the globe. U.S. weapons are sold or given to dictatorships and so-called democracies in every corner of the Earth. Wars thousands of miles away are proclaimed defensive. The Monroe Doctrine was not simply an announcement that the United States would attack people. It was much subtler and more dangerous than that. It was a means of allowing people to engage in imperialism while thinking of it as humanitarianism. This began with the Doctrine of Discovery, also put into U.S. law in 1823. Native Americans were not real people with real nations just as we're told today that the Palestinian people do not really exist and this is why people will tell you with a straight face that Afghanistan or Vietnam was the longest U.S. war. If people don't exist, you can hardly be killing them or stealing their land. Next, people did exist but they were not fully formed people, they were not smart enough to know that they wanted to be part of the United States, so you simply had to show them for their own good. This, too, is still with us. At the height of the destruction of Iraq, polls found the U.S. public resentful that Iraqis were not appreciative or grateful. Third, people were simply imagined as actually wanting to be part of the United States. And, fourth, apart from the trivial matter of the people living on the land, the point is that the U.S. was taking North America to save it from the Russians and French and Spanish. If you're fighting to save people from imperialism then what you're doing cannot be imperialism. For many of the past 200 years, including this year, you could also substitute the word "Russia" for imperialism. If you're fighting to save people from Russia then what you're doing cannot possibly be imperialism. Ironically, Russia's notion that it, too, can have a Monroe Doctrine in Eastern Europe has run up against the U.S. insistence that this planet is only big enough for one Monroe Doctrine, and that has thrust us all to the edge of nuclear apocalypse. Part of what's needed to undo the Monroe Doctrine, the other war doctrines built on it, and the wars that never end can be found in what the people of Latin America are doing. To some significant extent, the U.S. government doesn't need what FDR called "our sonofabitch" (as in, "he may be a sonofabitch but he's our sonofabitch") running each Latin American country anymore. The United States has bases, weapons customers, U.S.-trained troops, U.S.-educated elites, corporate trade agreements that overrule constitutions, and the financial powers of debt, aid, and sanctions. In 2022, the Wall Street Journal insisted that the Earth's climate (how's that for a new excuse?) would require that corporations, and not the nations of Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina, control lithium. How did our lithium get under their ground? Meanwhile the people of Latin America keep resisting coups and election interference and sanctions, to empower independent-minded government. The year 2022 saw the list of "pink tide" governments enlarged to include Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Colombia, and Honduras. For Honduras, 2021 saw the election as president of the former first lady Xiomara Castro de Zelaya who had been ousted by the 2009 coup against her husband and now first gentleman Manuel Zelaya. For Colombia, 2022 saw its first election of a left-leaning president ever. Colombian President Gustavo Petro now speaks up for independence from U.S. control and for an end to militarism, but for cooperation and collaboration as equals, including on generating power for the U.S. from the sunshine in Colombia. In 2021, on the 238th anniversary of Simon Bolvar's birth, Mexican President Andre's Manuel Lopez Obrador proposed to recreate Bolvar's "project of unity among the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean." He said: "We must put aside the dilemma of joining the United States or opposing it defensively. It is time to express and explore another option: to dialogue with the U.S. rulers and convince and persuade them that a new relationship between the countries of the Americas is possible." He also said: "Why not study the demand for labor and, in an orderly manner, open the migratory flow? And within the framework of this new joint development plan, investment policy, labor, environmental protection and other issues of mutual interest to our nations must be considered. It is obvious that this must imply cooperation for the development and well-being of all the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean. The politics of the last two centuries, characterized by invasions to install or remove rulers at the whim of the superpower, is already unacceptable; Let's say goodbye to impositions, interference, sanctions, exclusions, and blockades. Instead, let us apply the principles of non-intervention, self-determination of peoples and the peaceful settlement of disputes. Let's start a relationship in our continent under the premise of George Washington, according to which, 'nations should not take advantage of the misfortune of other peoples.'" AMLO also rejected a proposal from then-U.S. President Trump for a joint war against drug dealers, proposing in the process the abolition of war. In 2022, at the Summit of the Americas hosted by the United States, only 23 of 35 nations sent representatives. The United States had excluded three nations, while several others boycotted, including Mexico, Bolivia, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Antigua and Barbuda. Also in 2022, Nicaragua completed the process of withdrawing from the OAS. The changing of the times can also be seen in the trajectory from Lima to Puebla. In 2017, Canada, as Monroe-Doctrine-Junior-Partner (never mind if Monroe supported taking over Canada) took the lead in organizing the Lima Group, an organization of American nations intent on overthrowing the government of Venezuela. Members included Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela (the pretend Venezuela governed in his own mind by Juan Guaido). But nations have been dropping out to the point that it's not clear anything is left. Meanwhile, in 2019, the Puebla Group of Members of Parliament from Latin American nations was formed. In 2022, it issued a statement: Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Remarks in Cedar Rapids on November 11, 2023 Henry Nicholas John Gunther was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to parents who had immigrated from Germany. In September 1917 he was drafted to help kill Germans. The world's first modern war propaganda campaign was underway. It was a hard sales pitch for war, including if you said the wrong thing you'd go to prison. Henry wrote home from Europe to describe how horrible the war was and to encourage others to avoid being drafted. Well, his letter was censored and he was demoted. After that, he told his buddies that he would prove himself. He would prove how much he hated and was willing to murder the right group of people. As the deadline of 11:00 a.m. approached on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 the war was scheduled to end. The armistice had been signed early in the morning, but with 11:00 chosen as quitting time, allowing an extra 11,000 people to be killed, wounded, or go missing. I would say for no good reason, but wouldn't want you to think that the millions killed before that morning had been for some good reason. As the clock ticked down, Henry got up, against orders, and bravely charged with his bayonet toward two German machine guns. The Germans were aware of the Armistice and tried to wave him off. What was the point? But Henry kept approaching and shooting. When he got close, a short burst of machine gun fire ended his life at 10:59 a.m. Henry was given his rank back because he had done the proper thing. If he'd come home and done it in a bowling alley it would have been the improper thing. He was not given his life back, and we label him the last man to die in World War I, even though World War I continued for weeks in Africa, and even though the so-called Spanish flu that came out of the war would kill as many as the bullets and the gas, and even though many of the veteran suicides were yet to come, and even though farmers would go on being killed by unexploded ordinance indefinitely, and even though deaths caused by needless hunger, poverty, and deprivation of proper medicine would continue, and even though the peace agreement would eventually be concocted in such a way as to practically guarantee and in fact elicit predictions of the continuation of the war in what we call World War II, and even though the military industrial complex was now slouching determinedly toward Washington to be born. The moment of ending the Great War was supposed to end all war, and it kicked off a world-wide celebration of joy and of the restoration of some semblance of sanity. It became a time of silence, of bell ringing, of remembering, and of dedicating oneself to actually ending all war. That was what Armistice Day was. It was not a celebration of war or of those who participate in war, but of the moment a war had ended and a remembrance and mourning of those war has destroyed. Congress passed an Armistice Day resolution in 1926 calling for "exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding " inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples." Later, Congress added that November 11th was to be "a day dedicated to the cause of world peace." That lasted until the holiday was renamed Veterans Day in 1954. Veterans Day is no longer, for most people in the United States, a day to cheer the ending of war or even to aspire to its abolition. Veterans Day is not even a day on which to mourn the dead or to question why suicide is the top killer of U.S. troops or why so many veterans have no houses. Veterans Day is not generally advertised as a pro-war celebration. But chapters of Veterans For Peace are banned in some small and major cities, year after year, from participating in Veterans Day parades, on the grounds that they oppose war. Veterans Day parades and events in many cities praise war, and virtually all praise participation in war. Almost all Veterans Day events are nationalistic. Few promote "friendly relations with all other peoples" or work toward the establishment of "world peace." Jane Addams and her colleagues not only predicted in 1919 that a second world war would come, but also detailed what would need to be changed about the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations in order to avoid it and launched a global peace organization to advocate toward that end. The famous 14 points promoted by President Woodrow Wilson were largely lost in the Treaty of Versailles, replaced by brutal punishment and humiliation for Germany. Addams warned that this would lead to another war. The British economist John Maynard Keynes wrote in 1919 in The Economic Consequences of the Peace, "If we aim deliberately at the impoverishment of Central Europe, vengeance, I dare predict, will not limp." Thorstein Veblen, in a highly critical review of Keynes' book, also predicted the Treaty of Versailles leading to more war, though he understood the basis of the treaty to be animosity toward the Soviet Union, against which, it should be noted, the United States and allied nations were fighting a war in 1919 that rarely shows up in U.S. history books but which every Russian knows about to this day. Veblen believed that reparations could have easily been taken from wealthy German property owners without imposing suffering on all of German society, but that the primary goal of those making the treaty had been to uphold property rights and to use Germany as a force against the communist Soviet Union. Woodrow Wilson had promised "peace without victory," but, in the treaty negotiations, given in to French and British vengeance toward Germany. Afterwards, he predicted World War II unless the United States joined the League of Nations. Veblen thinks Wilson didn't cave in and compromise at the treaty negotiations, but rather prioritized enmity toward the Soviet Union. I think the British did that, but that Wilson's is a stranger story. Wilson began by forcefully arguing against vindictive punishment of Germany, but was struck down by the so-called Spanish flu, was weakened severely, spoke as though delusional, and quickly agreed to abandon much of what he had promised the world. It was called the Spanish flu because, although it probably came from U.S. military bases to the European war, Spain allowed its newspapers to write about unpleasant news, whereas the U.S. and other nations did not allow such liberties. But the ridiculously named Spanish flu had infected the White House. The previous fall, on September 28, 1918, Philadelphia had held a massive pro-war parade that included flu-infected troops just back from the war. Doctors had warned against it, but politicians had announced that nothing would go wrong if everyone refrained from coughing, sneezing, and spitting. Raise your hand if you think ever person in a giant crowd refrained from coughing, sneezing, and spitting. The flu spread. Wilson got it. He didn't do what he might have done in Paris. It's not inconceivable that WWII could have been avoided had a parade in Philadelphia been avoided. That may sound crazy, but the parade in Philadelphia was just one stupid thing in an ocean of stupid things that didn't have to be done. Nobody could have predicted World War II as a result of that parade, but such a prediction was possible and in fact made about many other of the unnecessary and foolish actions in the years between the wars. Ferdinand Foch, a Frenchman, was Supreme Allied Commander. He was very disappointed with the Treaty of Versailles. "This is not peace," he supposedly exclaimed. "It is an armistice for 20 years." World War II began 20 years and 65 days later. Foch's concern was not that Germany was punished too severely. Foch wanted Germany's territory limited on the west by the Rhine River. With widespread agreement that all governments would arm and prepare for more wars, predicting that Germany would be embittered by too much punishment or that too little punishment could allow Germany to launch a new attack were both safe predictions. With the ideas of prosperity without armament, the rule of law without violence, and humanity without tribalism still so marginal, Foch's prediction made as much sense as Jane Addams'. The Treaty of Versailles was only one thing among many that did not have to happen. The people of Germany did not have to allow the rise of Nazism. Nations and businesses around the world did not have to fund and encourage the rise of Nazism. Scientists and governments did not have to inspire the Nazi ideology. Governments did not have to prefer armaments to the rule of law, and did not have to wink at German outrages while encouraging a German attack on the Soviet Union. A major change to any one of these factors would have prevented WWII in Europe. It's not as though nobody tried for peace. The peace movement of the 1920s in the United States and Europe was larger, stronger, and more mainstream than ever before or since. In 1927-28 a hot-tempered Republican from Minnesota named Frank who privately cursed pacifists managed to persuade nearly every country on earth to ban war. He had been moved to do so, against his will, by a global demand for peace and a U.S. partnership with France created through illegal diplomacy by peace activists. The driving force in achieving this historic breakthrough was a remarkably unified, strategic, and relentless U.S. peace movement with its strongest support in the Midwest; its strongest leaders professors, lawyers, and university presidents; its voices in Washington, D.C., those of Republican senators from Idaho and Kansas; its views welcomed and promoted by newspapers, churches, and women's groups all over the country; and its determination unaltered by a decade of defeats and divisions. The movement depended in large part on the new political power of female voters. The effort might have failed had Charles Lindbergh not flown an airplane across an ocean, or Henry Cabot Lodge not died, or had other efforts toward peace and disarmament not been dismal failures. But public pressure made this step, or something like it, almost inevitable. And when it succeeded although the outlawing of war was never fully implemented in accordance with the plans of its visionaries much of the world believed war had been made illegal. Frank Kellogg got his name on the Kellogg-Briand Pact and a Nobel Peace Prize, his remains in the National Cathedral in Washington, and a major street in St. Paul, Minnesota named for him a street on which you cannot find a single person who doesn't guess the street is named after a cereal company. Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Ukraine needs an armistice. Palestine needs an armistice. Nagorno-Karabakh needs an armistice. Syria, Sudan, Nigeria, and so many countries need an armistice. The U.S. public and its mass shooters need an armistice. And by armistice I do not mean a pause to re-load. I mean an end to the idiotic madness of mass-murder that risks nuclear apocalypse, an end in order to negotiate a wiser path, a compromise without further killing. And by negotiate I do not mean You shut up and grovel and do everything I demand or I'll start the murder machine back up. By negotiate I mean How can we find a solution that respects everyone's concerns and allows us to move toward the day we can put this conflict behind us? Negotiating is the opposite of easy. It's much easier to blow stuff up. The world's weapons dealer, the arsenal of dictatorships and so-called democracies alike, can move wars toward armistice and negotiation very powerfully, by halting the flow of weapons. You wouldn't hand a mass shooter more bullets while asking him to stop shooting. Nor should our demands of the U.S. government be limited to imploring it to speak in favor of a ceasefire while shipping over more mountains of free weaponry paid for by you and me, the proud, overly proud residents of the one wealthy nation that can't do healthcare or education or retirement or infrastructure because it only cares about war. We need a global armistice. And we need more than that. We need a society in which it is acceptable to say that, in which saying that doesn't make you a treasonous servant of various enemies. We need the sort of society that celebrates Armistice Day as it was created, not as it was transformed into Veterans Day. Armistice Day was a day of ending a war and hoping to end all war making, of imagining that the world had now seen something so awful that it would not allow it to be repeated, of supposing that the peace that would be negotiated at Versailles would not be horribly mangled into effectively a guarantee of World War II. Armistice Day was a day of committing to work for an end to all war. Exactly at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, in 1918, people across Europe suddenly stopped shooting guns at each other at least in Europe; they continued for weeks in Africa. Up until that moment, they were killing and taking bullets, falling and screaming, moaning and dying, from bullets and from poison gas. And then they stopped, at 11:00 in the morning. They stopped, on schedule. It wasn't that they'd gotten tired or come to their senses. Both before and after 11 o'clock they were simply following orders. The Armistice agreement that ended World War I had set 11 o'clock as quitting time, a decision that allowed 11,000 more men to be killed, injured, or missing we might add "for no reason," except that it would imply the rest of the war was for some reason. Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Nestled at the western edge of Portlands urban frontier, the tiny city of North Plains sits at the point dividing the regions farms and forestland from subdivisions and semiconductor factories. North Plains has straddled that divide since a railroad set up the town a century ago, seeking to connect Washington County farms to markets in the city 18 miles east. An Israeli tank in the occupied part of the Golan Heights, which is located on the border between Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. The fear that the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza would spread across the region has become in part a reality. Five weeks after Hamas launched its attack on October 7, Israel is facing new fronts of attack beyond the Palestinian enclave, but within Israels borders. Benny Gantz, Israels former minister of defense and a current member of the emergency government, admitted that his country is now in a multi-front war. The main focus is on Gaza, but we are fighting in defense and offense in the north and other areas, Gantz, who led in 2014 as chief of staff general the previous large-scale contest in the Strip, warned Tuesday at the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) headquarters in Tel Aviv. His statements were made a month after the start of the war, which has killed 1,200 people in Israel and more than 11,000 in Gaza. The attacks against Israel, mostly by militias and armed groups linked with Iran, extend from the borders of Lebanon and Syria, to the West Bank and the Red Sea. North Front The escalation of the war on the Lebanese-Israeli border has opened the largest and most explosive front of hostilities after the conflict in the Gaza Strip. Since October 7, 90 people 70 of them members of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia have been killed in Lebanese territory. Exchanges of rocket fire from Shiite guerrillas and Israeli artillery on both sides of the Blue Line which marks the dividing line between two countries that are still technically at war are becoming more intense and more far-reaching every day. On Saturday, they reached an area located 28 miles north of the border, where an Israeli drone attacked a Lebanese vehicle. Former Israeli general Yossi Kuperwasser, who was head of the IDFs intelligence research division, believes that the escalation on the Lebanon front is happening in a controlled manner. But as Israel infiltrates Gaza City, we are going to see more warlike confrontation on the Lebanese border, he said on Thursday at a conference for foreign journalists in Jerusalem. In his opinion, neither Israel nor Hezbollah seem willing to launch into a full-scale war, as in 2006. That year, 1,300 Lebanese people, mostly civilians, and 165 Israelis, nearly all soldiers, were killed in 33 days of fighting. Subsequently, 10,800 U.N. peacekeepers from 40 countries were deployed to the border. In his second address since the start of the war in Gaza, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Saturday that Iran provides military, financial and diplomatic support. If the resistance is strong in Lebanon, Palestine and the region, it is thanks to the material, military and financial support from Iran, he added. This has brought about a shift in the balance of regional deterrence. Nasrallah revealed that Hezbollah is attacking new targets in Israel, with an increase in the number of operations and type of weapons in recent days, and vowed that the Lebanon front will remain active. Hezbollah has to take into account what the rest of the Lebanese people are saying. They know that their country, mired in a severe economic crisis, could be devastated if a war with Israel breaks out. No one wants that, argued Kuperwasser, who is also an expert on security issues at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. First and foremost, he said, Hezbollah is seeking to distract Israel from its fundamental objective against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Other actors are also operating on the northern front, such as the Palestinian militias exiled in Lebanon, affiliated with both Hamas and the secular nationalist party Fatah. From Syria, on the border with the Golan Heights (the Syrian plateau occupied by Israel since 1967), the Quds Force, the expeditionary force of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard, is also playing a role. Further afield, Iraqs Shiite militias are also attacking the bases from which the United States protects its allies in the Middle East, such as Israel. Southern Front (Red Sea) Nasrallah also said the axis of resistance was restraining Israel with heroic containment, in reference to the attacks by the Yemeni Houthi rebels against the southern tip of Israeli territory. Israel has been forced to divert part of its air defense system to the Eilat area. Eilat is a popular tourist destination on the Gulf of Aqaba, where Israel has access to the Red Sea. Suicide drones and cruise and ballistic missile launches from Yemen have redoubled the threat of pro-Iranian forces against Israeli territory, precisely in an area where more than 60,000 Israeli civilians displaced by the war from areas bordering the Gaza Strip have been resettled. Israel resorted for the first time to the new Arrow defensive system. This is the most advanced rocket shield it has, after the Iron Dome system (for short-range rockets) and the Davids Sling (medium range). The Houthis have claimed responsibility for the attacks, some of which have hit nearby Egyptian territory. From the Red Sea, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. are also shielding Israel from the attacks of the Yemeni rebels. The U.S. destroyer Carney, equipped with the Aegis anti-missile system, has intercepted several of the missiles and drones launched by the Houthis. We are facing a new type of multifront war, said Kuperwasser. But not all fronts are being fought with the same intensity. The main one is in Gaza, and the others, against Hezbollah or the Houthi militia, are secondary. We are present on the rest of the fronts, and with more forces than we usually deploy in normal times. This analyst believes that Irans allies have been exerting more pressure as part of a simultaneous operation of the Shiite forces. Kuperwasser says that Iran supplies arms and finances its militias, which have a deep ideological commitment against Israel. West Bank Front Israel has deployed soldiers on its borders with Lebanon and Syria, and in the waters of the Red Sea. At the same time, it has intensified its military presence in areas theoretically controlled by the Palestinian National Authority, in the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel for 56 years. The military deployment is very strong in the north, around Jenin, said Kuperwasser. Since October 7, at least 175 Palestinians have lost their lives at the hands of Israeli security forces or radical settlers. Before the attack by Hamas militias that triggered the war, some 220 Palestinians had lost their lives since the beginning of 2023, which was already the deadliest in the West Bank since the Second Intifada (2000-2005). Hamas has high expectations of expanding its influence in the West Bank, and among Israels Arabs [20% of the population of Palestinian origin], but these now remain calm, he said. Contrary to what happened during the Gaza war of 2021, the outbreak of violence in cities with a mix of Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews, such as Lod or Haifa, has not been seen so far in the current conflict. In East Jerusalem, also under occupation since 1967, there have been at least three episodes of stabbings against security forces, in which one officer was killed and the attackers shot dead. For Kuperwasser, the main question now is whether the Palestinian Authority which Palestinians consider to be corrupt and weak against Israel will in a possible future scenario, be able to take over the West Bank areas under its control amid the current climate of violence, and also assume control over the Gaza Strip. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition More than 100,000 people marched in Paris on Sunday to protest against rising antisemitism in the wake of Israels ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, representatives of several parties on the left, conservatives and centrists of President Emmanuel Macrons party as well as far-right leader Marine Le Pen attended Sundays march in the French capital amid tight security. Macron did not attend, but expressed his support for the protest and called on citizens to rise up against the unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism. However, the leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, Jean-Luc Melenchon, stayed away from the march, saying last week on X, formerly Twitter, that the march would be a meeting of friends of unconditional support for the massacre in Gaza. Paris authorities deployed 3,000 police troops along the route of the protest called by the leaders of the Senate and parliaments lower house, the National Assembly, amid an alarming increase in anti-Jewish acts in France since the start of Israels war against Hamas after its Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel. France has the largest Jewish population in Europe, but given its own World War II collaboration with the Nazis, antisemitic acts today open old scars. Holding a French flag, Robert Fiel said marching against antisemitism is more than a duty. Its a march against violence, against antisemitism, against all (political extremes) that are infiltrating the society, to show that the silent majority does exist, the 67-year-old said. Family members of some of the 40 French citizens killed in the initial Hamas attack, and of those missing or held hostage, also took part in the march, which Paris police said drew 105,000 participants. Patrick Klugman, a lawyer and a member of Freethem committee working to obtain the release of people held by Hamas and other groups in Gaza, said the large participation in the march is meaningful and symbolic in reassuring Jewish communities in France. I am very proud of my country because of this mobilization, Klugman said. I feel less alone than in the past weeks and days. Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France known as CRIF said he was encouraged Sundays show of support, but the question remains, he told French broadcaster BFM at the march, what will be done (against antisemitism) tomorrow? Tomer Sisley, an Israeli and French actor insisted the massive show of solidarity proves that a majority of French citizens are against violence and hate against any religious and ethnic group. Were not Jews, were not Muslims, were not Christians, Sisley said. We are French and we are here to show that we are all together. French authorities have registered more than 1,000 acts against Jews around the country in the month since the conflict in the Middle East began. In a letter addressed to the French on Sunday, Macron vowed that perpetrators will be prosecuted and punished. A France where our Jewish fellow citizens are afraid is not France, Macron said in the letter, published in Le Parisien newspaper. He called on the country to remain united behind its values ... and work for peace and security for all in the Middle East. Macron said he will attend in my heart and in spirit, but not in person. My role is to build unity of the country and to be firm on values, Macron said Saturday on the sidelines of Armistice Day commemorations to mark the end of World War I. French far-right leader Marine Le Pen attended Sundays march amid fierce criticism that her once-pariah National Rally party has failed to shake off its antisemitic heritage despite growing political legitimacy. After arriving to the march with the president of the party, Jordan Bardella, Le Pen dismissed critics and said that she and the party members are exactly where we need to be. She called on other politicians to take a break from fomenting political controversies during the march. As of Saturday, officials counted 1,247 antisemitic acts since Oct. 7, nearly three times as many as in the whole of 2022, according to the Interior Ministry. France has largely banned pro-Palestinian demonstrations, although supporters have marched in several French cities in the past weeks, including thousands demanding a cease-fire in Gaza in an authorized protest in Paris last Sunday. By SYLVIE CORBET and BARBARA SURK Associated Press Surk contributed from Nice, France. Video journalist Nicholas Garriga in Paris contributed reporting. Former President Donald Trump testified in the New York civil fraud trial, earning rebukes from the judge for his off-topic comments. In the editorial cartoon gallerys lead image, Nick Anderson pokes fun at Trumps courtroom theatrics by showing him descending a golden escalator to the witness stand, a visual reference to the announcement at Trump Tower of his first presidential bid. Trump and other defendants are accused of duping banks, insurers and others by inflating his wealth on financial statements. The ex-presidents children Ivanka and Donald Jr. also testified, provoking visual barbs from Jack Ohman and Drew Sheneman. Mike Luckovich draws Trump in an overvalued prison cell. Sheneman has him overseeing an overpriced garage sale. In the weeks other big news, Election Day produced victories for abortion rights in Ohio, Kentucky and Virginia. Bill Bramhall sums it up by drawing a woman standing over a dazed GOP elephant and saying, Its the autonomy, stupid. Its an echo of the catchphrase for Bill Clintons presidential campaign, Its the economy, stupid. Other news events in this weeks cartoons include President Joe Bidens sinking poll numbers; the war in Gaza; Supreme Court arguments in a gun rights case involving domestic violence protection orders; cryptocurrency executive Sam Bankman-Frieds fraud conviction; Veterans Day thanks; and the Christmas seasons early arrival before Thanksgiving. Cartoons were drawn by Jack Ohman, Nick Anderson, Bill Bramhall, Dana Summers, Drew Sheneman, Scott Stantis, Walt Handelsman, David Horsey, Phil Hands, Joel Pett and Joey Weatherford of Tribune Content Agency; and Mike Luckovich, Steve Breen and Michael Ramirez of Creators Syndicate. View more editorial cartoon galleries. When Earl Blumenauer decided, at 75, that the precious time he has left is best spent far from Capitol Hill, Susheela Jayapal quickly resigned from the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners and announced she will run for Oregons 3rd Congressional District seat. When Jayapal, 61, was asked about her motivation and inspiration, she said, Its about certainly continuing the work that Ive been doing at the county on local issues, addressing the homelessness crisis, public safety, wages for front-line workers, all of these really important issues. Continuing the work shes been doing? At Multnomah County? On what, pray tell? The non-existent 24-hour mental-health crisis and sobering center? The wretched conditions at Animal Services? The incomprehensible underspending of tens of millions in tax revenue to provide services for the homeless, ineptness that so infuriated Gov. Tina Kotek she yanked back $2.7 million in state emergency funds? The spike in deaths at the county jail? The deplorable delays in ambulance response times by the countys provider, American Medical Response? The countys refusal to provide social services for the citys mass outdoor shelter on Southeast Powell Boulevard? I know. Its hard to keep up, and Im only hitting the highlights of Multnomah Countys 2023 disasters. Leadership is not impossible in these chaotic times. Koteks initiative, decisiveness and purpose over the last 10 months are proof of that. But when county governance is a train wreck, how might anyone in the cab or the baggage car convince us they deserve re-election, much less a raise to a Congressional seat? If I sound like the old man policing his front yard, Im not. Im the old man who took his granddaughter to Powells Books last Saturday, and had to maneuver around two disheveled guys in the midst of mental-health crises on the short walk back to the car. One was preaching vengeance at a Northwest 11th storefront, the other caterwauling into an empty parked car on Couch Street. I know how to dodge these situations downtown but theres another level of disquiet when you have a two-and-a-half-year-old in your arms. That dystopian stroll came to mind Sunday when I read the front-page story by Shane Dixon Kavanaugh of The Oregonian/OregonLive on Jessica Vega Pederson, the county chair, and the miscarriage of Housing Multnomah Now, her signature policy initiative. In February, Vega Pederson promised that initiative would only need a glorious three months to house 300 of the homeless. Nine months later, the county is still 282 individuals shy of that goal because, Kavanaugh writes, those vaunted county experts failed to anticipate the challenges of working with a high-needs population. They dont spend much time on city sidewalks, I guess. When I asked Jayapal about her legacy and her upcoming campaign, she said, I am as frustrated with where we are as anyone. While she decried the county boards lack of tenacity and follow-through, she said I was too quick to dismiss COVID-19s impact on the burnout at the countys health department and decried the federal disinvestment in affordable housing. As a commissioner, Jayapal added, she chose to work largely behind the scenes to figure out the issues that I can have an impact on, and to solve them. The suggestion that the countys struggle to get to where we need to be with the homeless should bar her from higher office? Thats painting with too broad a brush. I dont think you can write off people who have worked pretty hard on this. The problems at Multnomah County extend far beyond the homeless, but fair enough. Im also well aware the county board isnt a total loss, what with the occasional bravado of Sharon Meieran and the much-needed transfusion of Julia Brim-Edwards. But I dont know when voters have ever had better reason to be cranky. The county budget $3.6 billion has increased 80% in the last four years, and residents now pay the second highest income tax rate in the nation, even if county officials cant figure out how to invest the money they collect. County leaders are routinely roasted by other political veterans Metro, Blumenauer and Kotek for their lack of efficiency and vision. And Im sure Im not the only Powells regular who contemplates Jayapals run for Congress, or another woebegone mayors race, and wonders whatever happened to the vibrant community in which a fair number of talented, engaged and creative workaholics ran for political office? So much has changed. As Ive long said, the easy problems in the region were long ago put to bed. Only the exhausting, complex problems remain. And elections are the one enduring opportunity we have to grade the incumbents and calmly dismiss those who have failed us. -- Steve Duin stephen.b.duin@gmail.com Most people go to Tumalo Falls to see the main attraction: Tumalo Falls. But keep hiking beyond the thundering waterfall and youll find another, and another and another. The Tumalo Falls Loop Hike, found in the central Cascade Mountains just outside Bend, can make a case as one of Oregons best waterfall hikes, with nearly a dozen plunges found on only three miles of trail. The full loop, which runs seven miles, also offers quiet forest, trickling creeks and the occasional vista. Unsurprisingly, its also an incredibly popular spot. The small trailhead parking lot is known to fill up early and often, leading the Deschutes National Forest to set up separate overflow parking areas nearby. While the trail is technically open year-round, the gravel road to the parking lot closes seasonally with the snowfall, usually open from June through October. (Those who want to ski or walk their way down the closed road in winter will need to add an extra 2.4 miles each way.) From the trailhead, the North Fork Trail leads .2 miles uphill to a great viewpoint over Tumalo Falls, an 89-foot waterfall that cascades into a wide canyon. Its a fine destination in its own right, but those who turn around here will be missing out on a lot. Keep hiking up the North Fork Trail and youll find several more beautiful falls. Tumalo Falls is the main attraction on the North Fork Trail, part of the popular Tumalo Falls Loop Hike in the Deschutes National Forest near Bend. Jamie Hale/The Oregonian A sign post points to a viewpoint on the popular Tumalo Falls Loop Hike in the Deschutes National Forest near Bend. Jamie Hale/The Oregonian A viewpoint at Lower Middle Fork Tumalo Falls, found on the North Fork Trail, part of the popular Tumalo Falls Loop Hike in the Deschutes National Forest near Bend. Jamie Hale/The Oregonian Youll find Double Falls, a multi-tiered waterfall that ends with twin plunges; Middle Tumalo Falls, an impressive 43-foot waterfall thats mostly obscured by trees; Lower Middle Fork Tumalo Falls, which can be seen from above with a short trail to the lip of the falls; and the very pretty Middle Fork Tumalo Falls, coming in at the end of the North Fork Trail. In between those main four plunges are several smaller waterfalls that occur as Tumalo Creek rolls off the nearby Cascade Mountain peaks. The creek is fed by its two forks, North and Middle Fork Tumalo Creeks, both of which begin on the eastern slopes of Broken Top. Tumalo Creek proper runs 20 miles before meeting the Deschutes River near Tumalo State Park. The North Fork Trail, home to most of the waterfalls in the tributary, comes to an end about 3.3 miles from the Tumalo Falls Trailhead. From here, hikers can turn around and head back for a moderate six-and-a-half-mile hike, or continue on for the slightly more difficult, slightly longer loop hike. A viewpoint at Lower Middle Fork Tumalo Falls, found on the North Fork Trail, part of the popular Tumalo Falls Loop Hike in the Deschutes National Forest near Bend. Jamie Hale/The Oregonian Views from the Swampy Lakes Trail, part of the popular Tumalo Falls Loop Hike in the Deschutes National Forest near Bend. Jamie Hale/The Oregonian One of many waterfalls on Tumalo Creek is seen from the North Fork Trail, part of the popular Tumalo Falls Loop Hike in the Deschutes National Forest near Bend. Jamie Hale/The Oregonian A junction with the Swampy Lakes Trail offers deeper exploration into the Deschutes National Forest, but for this adventure, hikers will want to go left, eventually meeting up with the Bridge Creek Trail, which runs back to the trailhead. This section of the hike is much quieter, with fewer hikers and very little in the way of waterfalls. There is one stretch with some open views over the forest, but the vista is short lived. While the loop doesnt add any more difficult elevation, there are two possible complications that hikers should be aware of. The first is a shallow crossing over Middle Fork Tumalo Creek, found just after the North Fork Trail and Swampy Lakes Trail junction. The crossing can be done over a pair of downed trees, which requires a little balance. The second is a special permitting area as the trail crosses through the Bend Municipal Watershed. Dogs, bikes and camping are not allowed in the watershed, and all hikers need to fill out a free permit upon entry. Anyone who doesnt want to make the crossing or deal with the restrictions of the watershed should simply turn around and hike back down the North Fork Trail to the beginning. While the loop itself is nice, those who dont do it shouldnt be disappointed with so many spectacular waterfall views, the hike along Tumalo Creek is a stunning experience itself. Tumalo Falls is the main attraction on the North Fork Trail, part of the popular Tumalo Falls Loop Hike in the Deschutes National Forest near Bend. Jamie Hale/The Oregonian TUMALO FALLS LOOP HIKE The hike begins at the Tumalo Falls Trailhead, found just west of Bend. To get there, take Galveston Avenue west from downtown, then continue on Skyliners Road. Continue for 9.4 miles, then stay right onto Tumalo Falls Road. Cross Tumalo Creek and stay left onto the gravel road that leads to the trailhead in 2.5 miles. Theres a nice viewpoint of Tumalo Falls at the trailhead, but the main view is a little higher up. Begin hiking uphill on the North Fork Trail, and in .2 miles, youll find it. Keep walking upriver to continue on the North Fork Trail, which runs another three miles through the main waterfall corridor. Look for viewpoints on the side of the trail to see Double Falls and Middle Tumalo Falls, then, about three miles from the trailhead, look for a pair of side trails on the left that lead down to views of Lower Middle Fork Tumalo Falls and Middle Fork Tumalo Falls. Continue up the North Fork Trail until it reaches a junction with the Swampy Lakes Trail, then go left to do the loop. In .3 miles, youll reach a shallow crossing over Middle Fork Tumalo Creek. With a little balance, the crossing can be done over a pair of downed trees. Continue on the Swampy Lakes Trail for two miles, then go left onto the Bridge Creek Trail, where you can find a couple of obscured views of waterfalls on Bridge Creek. In a little over a mile, the trail meets back up with the North Fork Trail just below the upper Tumalo Falls viewpoint. Turn right and walk downhill to the trailhead parking lot. Jamie Hale 503-294-4077; jhale@oregonian.com; @HaleJamesB Cairo, Egypt (PANA) - UN agencies issued an urgent call for international action on Sunday to end the ongoing attacks on hospitals, as Israeli forces battle Palestinian militants in the heart of the Gaza Strip Photo: (Photo : Monica Schipper / Getty Images) In the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, consumers like Li Yi are encountering a financial quandary tied to color preference. Li, among many women in China, finds herself at a crossroads when faced with notably higher prices for products marketed in pink, a phenomenon popularly termed the "pink tax." This issue has gained widespread attention, coinciding with the much-celebrated Singles Day shopping event in the country. The tag #PinkTax is making waves across Chinese social platforms as women voice their dissent against the disparity in pricing. The debate focuses on the inequity in pricing solely based on gender-associated choices, especially when the price difference for identical products in different colors is stark. The Pink Tax's Broader Reach The "pink tax" issue extends beyond the mere preference for a particular color; it is emblematic of broader gender-based pricing discrepancies. Chinese women have been particularly vocal about the inflated costs of menstrual products. An online campaign recently advocated for the elimination of a 13% tax on these essential items, drawing attention to the inequality in taxing basic necessities. Nancy Qian, an economics professor at Northwestern University, emphasizes the repercussions of this pricing disparity. The added cost of menstrual products can significantly impact women on tight budgets, sometimes leading to the compromise of their health by resorting to historically used alternatives, ultimately resulting in health issues. The relentless appeal for tax relief on menstrual products has faced rejection, echoing similar battles fought in other countries. Notably, in the United States, menstrual products are exempt from taxation in several states, a move advocated by groups aiming to eradicate "period poverty." Pushback and Social Dynamics Opponents of the gender-based pricing strategy in China have found solidarity in the "Pink Tax Resisters Alliance" on Douban, a group that has gained substantial traction since its inception in 2020. The group, now nearly 30,000 members strong, deliberates strategies and highlights the impact of gender-based pricing on women in the country. The fervor against the "pink tax" emerges in a time where China's feminist movement gains strength, propelled by a substantial increase in women joining the urban workforce. However, this evolution unfolds against the backdrop of a more traditional governmental stance, a dichotomy fueled by concerns over the nation's dwindling birth rates. The persistent battle against the "pink tax" parallels the slower-than-expected economic recovery in China post-COVID, significantly impacting consumer behavior and financial considerations. Read Also: Florida High School Grieves as 14-Year-Old Boy Dies of Cardiac Arrest During 5K Race The Burden of Expectations China, like many societies, holds deeply entrenched gender biases, compelling women to incur additional costs. Sun Xin, a senior lecturer in Chinese and East Asian business at King's College London, notes the societal pressure on women regarding appearances. This often results in women perceiving products like cosmetics as necessities, compelling them to overlook price discrepancies. Chen Haiyu, a 40-something supermarket supplier residing in the coastal city of Qingdao, expressed the compulsion to wear makeup during formal dinners, particularly in the presence of older men. She highlighted that foregoing makeup in these situations might lead to a perception of disrespect. Despite acknowledging the expenses and potential skin damage associated with makeup, Haiyu deemed it an indispensable requisite for such social engagements. Related Article: Johns Hopkins Hospital Found Guilty in Maya Kowalski Case on Netflix's 'Take Care of Maya' A local friend (who prefers to remain anonymous) sent me a question: Today I was listening to a podcast where they mentioned a recent incident of a metaphysical shop in Pennsylvania where the police came in to remind the proprietor about an anti-fortune telling law still on the books [heres a link to the Wild Hunt story on that incident]. One presenter on the show talked about how a recent order his wife placed at a bakery was rejected at the last minute because of the nature of her business. So, my question is, what do we do if society becomes less friendly to folks like us? On one hand, the United States is the most religiously diverse and religiously tolerant society in the history of humanity. My workplace includes Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, atheists, and at least one Pagan. We all get along just fine. Ive been leading public rituals in Texas for 20 years and Ive never had a problem with any of it. Its not just me each generation is more open and accepting than the last when it comes to religion, culture, sexuality and gender, and pretty much everything else. On the other hand, being a religious minority always comes with risks and it only takes one aggressive bigot to ruin your day or to ruin much more. Whatever your thoughts on the horrible events in Israel and Palestine, there are no excuses for attacks physical or verbal on American Jews, or on Jewish people anywhere. Nor are there excuses for attacks on Muslims. Of specific concern to Pagans and witches are the Christian nationalists who make baseless claims that this is a Christian nation and who want to turn it into a white Protestant Christian theocracy. These people are politically active and many of them have made their way into positions of power in local governments. This is why we have to vote in every election in every race, especially for things like school boards. We cant ignore them and hope theyll go away thats how theyve been able to get power far in excess of their numbers. Theyre happy to use archaic and obsolete laws such as the one in Pennsylvania to force people to conform to their religion-based morality. And because they and their allies have taken control of the courts, what should be a simple appeal to reason and justice is often impossible. See things as they are As always, it is essential that we see things as they actually are. We cannot allow ourselves to be paralyzed by fear. Neither can we ignore threats that may escalate locally, nationally, or worldwide at any time. For the most part, we can be Pagans and witches, Druids and Heathens, polytheists and pantheists, and all that involves to whatever degree we desire and to whatever degree were called. Two years ago USA Today quoted Jason Mankey saying were in the middle of a witch moment. That moment is still going on and it isnt likely to be over any time soon. At the same time, we need to pay attention to our environment and be ready if a situation gets out of hand if society really does become less friendly to Pagans and witches. Take care of ourselves By take care of ourselves I mean mundane street safety and mental health and everything in between. Before the first public ritual I led, I came up with a plan for what to do if someone showed up to disrupt it or worse. That was 20 years ago. Ive never needed that plan, but its there if I ever do. Its just like walking in an unfamiliar city: whos around me, are there any potential threats, and how can I respond if I have to? Beyond that, theres the question of whats worth fighting over. As a straight white cis man I dont face the subtle (and sometimes not subtle) discrimination many of my friends do. But there have been times Ive been in places where it was clear I wasnt welcome. I went somewhere else. That doesnt justify unwelcoming behavior much less violating equal accommodations laws and the bigots who tell LGBTQ people there are plenty of other wedding cake bakers who would be happy to have your business are legally and ethically wrong. It does mean my resources are limited and Im going to spend them where I think theyll do the most good, not in responding to people who enjoy making me angry. It may mean moving to a more friendly location. I always thought Id be in Texas forever, but its become too big of a drain on my mental health. As soon as I can retire, Im out of here. If youre up for a fight, take it on. If youre not, then do what you can to make things better without becoming a martyr. Take care of yourself. Work to repeal unjust laws The Pennsylvania law in question is intended to protect the public from fraud. Every so often well see cases of someone who convinces a gullible person that theyre cursed and will offer to remove the curse for a price. A reading turns into magical working turns into a major ritual and the victim has spent thousands of dollars to remove a curse that in almost every case wasnt there to begin with. This is fraud, and no special laws are required to prosecute it. For all its problems, Texas law gets this right. There are no state laws against fortune telling just against fraud. A client who pays for divination understands what theyre buying. When the reader delivers an honest reading, a fair transaction is completed. It does not take an advanced degree in constitutional law to understand that while the Pennsylvania law was passed with good intentions, it makes religious and spiritual assumptions that cannot be substantiated (namely, that all divination is fraud). It does not apply to ordinary divination because there is no fraud, and the assumption that it does is religiously discriminatory. Unfortunately, the police chief in question takes the position that the law is the law and vows to enforce it. Hes just following orders. Given the conservative takeover of the courts, judicial relief is unlikely. And so we do what we must do. Namely, petition legislators to repeal the law in question, and keep pestering them about it until they do. This shouldnt be necessary. But it is, so we do what we have to do. Insist on our full rights under the law Were in a difficult situation when the law is against us. But when the law is on our side as it is when it comes to equal opportunity in public accommodations we must aggressively assert and defend our rights. At the least, this means understanding our rights and being able to articulate them clearly, succinctly, and accurately. Screaming thats discrimination! rarely accomplishes much. Being able to calmly cite the precise law such actions violate carries much more weight. Bigots dont care that something isnt fair. They care that they could be prosecuted or sued for violating a law. At some point, though, laws have to be enforced and enforcement costs money. The ACLU does not have a bank of lawyers just waiting to take your case on a pro bono basis. If you have the resources to pursue legal enforcement time as well as money please do. Still, the court of public opinion can often do what courts of law will not. Theres a reason why homophobic wedding service providers rarely post we serve straight couples only signs it would cost them too much business from people who would never patronize them if they knew. That doesnt always work some bigots love their bigotry more than they love their business. But there are ways to insist on your legal rights even if you cant access the courts. Make alliances with other people of good will We dont have to do this alone. We cant do it alone. And so we join together with other people of good will to build a better world. This is one of the main reasons Im a Unitarian Universalist. Most UUs dont share my beliefs, but they do share my values. They support me in my free and responsible search for meaning and truth, and I support them in theirs. Most of my family are mainline Protestants. We dont agree on the number of Gods, but we do agree that we should treat other people with dignity and respect. Religiously, politically, and socially, there are people who share our values. Lets find them and work with them where ever we can. We do what witches have always done For centuries, people have feared and persecuted witches and people thought to be witches because witches could not be controlled. Witches are people who work unauthorized magic, who live life their own way, who do as they will and not as theyre told. The witch stands in opposition to the mainstream world and to its values. If society becomes less friendly to witches and Pagans, then we will continue doing what we do in private, in secret, deep in the forest and behind closed doors, behind passwords that for all their metaphorical meaning have the practical value of letting us know who we can trust with our magic and who we cant. There are some in our community who think we should be doing that now. I dont agree I think we need to be as out as possible (with the full understanding that some people cant). Some mysteries must be preserved for the proper times and places, but worshipping the many Gods and working magic is something we need to normalize as much as we can. But if we cant do it in public, then we will continue to do it in private. Because its part of who and what we are, and we cant not do it. And if we happen to hex a few regressive and fascist politicians in the process, so much the better. The Diocese of Tyler, Texas announced on its website today: Bishop Joseph Strickland has been relieved of pastoral governance of the Diocese of Tyler and Bishop Joe Vasquez of Austin has been appointed Apostolic Administrator of the diocese. Though shocking that a Bishop would be removed from his Diocese, it should not be shocking when considering the events that lead up to it. Last summer, Rome conducted as Apostolic Visitation of the Diocese of Tyler. Cardinal DiNardo of Houston stated today, that the Visitation recommended that the continuation in office of Bishop Strickland was not feasible. In other words, he should be relieved of his responsibilities as Bishop of Tyler. Bishop Strickland has been very critical of Pope Francis, and has openly opposed him. In an institution where adherence to the Bishop of Rome is a requirement to remain in communion, those who reject the Popes authority, find themselves outside the Catholic Church, or at least in disobedience to the Roman Pontiff. News reports indicate that on October 31st, Bishop Strickland read a letter from a friend during a conference. The letter attacked the validity of the Pope as successor of Saint Peter, claiming that Pope Francis had pushed aside the valid successor of Peter, Pope Benedict. I wonder if the date was chosen purposefully, since it was a fateful October 31st, 1517 which began an ongoing schism in the Church. I also wonder how Pope Francis pushed aside Pope Benedict, when Pope Benedict freely and peacefully resigned as Bishop of Rome. I came across this afternoon a letter written by a priest of Tyler regarding his outgoing bishop. The letter reveals that many in the Diocese have been hurt during the time of Bishop Strickland. Seven years ago, something dark descended upon the Diocese of Tyler, writes Father Kelly. He recommends that Bishop Strickland needs to take some time away from the public, and reflect on all that has unfolded. He continues, in the past, Bishop Strickland was a nice, unassuming, likable man, but in his addiction to celebrity he has ruined lives and ruptured decades-long friendships. The revolt against the legitimately chosen successor of Saint Peter continues, primarily in the United States. I pray for healing and understanding. I pray for a calming of the outrage that blinds, and for Christians to behave in the manner which Jesus calls us to act. The next few weeks will be interesting, to say the least. As the Bishops of the United States meet in Baltimore later this month, I am certain this will be a major topic of conversation, and there will be much more to read and to report. Picture used with permission. Fidelity Bank Ghana Ltd, the largest privately-owned Ghanaian bank, has once again showcased its commitment to excellence by delivering an impressive and robust financial performance in the third quarter of 2023. This achievement underscores the bank's resilience in the face of recent sector challenges, positioning it as a driving force in Ghana's financial landscape. Fidelity Bank continues to forge ahead on a significant growth trajectory, underpinned by solid figures across key financial metrics. This success is a testament to the bank's well-thought-out strategy, aimed at fortifying operational capabilities, diversifying its service portfolio, and deepening its commitment to sustainability and community development. According to the Q3 report, Fidelity Bank Ghana achieved a remarkable surge in its operating income, reaching an impressive GHS 1.38 billion, representing a substantial 36% increase compared to the same period last year. This robust growth showcases the bank's strategic agility in seizing market opportunities even in a challenging business environment. Notably, the bank's profit before income tax soared by 40%, reaching GHS 620.73 million, reaffirming its prudent financial management and forward-thinking approach. The bank also registered a commendable 7% growth in assets, amounting to GHS 15.94 billion, a testament to its strong financial standing and astute risk management practices. A notable 5% increase in loans and advances to customers, totaling GHS 3.03 billion, underscores the bank's unwavering commitment to facilitating access to credit. Furthermore, a substantial 25% growth in deposits from customers reinforces the efficacy of the bank's customer-centric strategies and innovative product offerings. Moreover, Fidelity Bank maintained a robust Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) which remains pegged well above the prudential minimum regulatory requirement. This achievement underscores the bank's strong capital base and a culture of rigorous risk management. The bank also reported a 67% increase in Shareholders funds, closing the third quarter at GHS 1.09 billion. Notably, this amounts to a full-scale recovery of the post-DDEP impact losses incurred. John Glover, Director for Strategy and Performance at Fidelity Bank, expressed his delight with these results and emphasized the bank's commitment to exceeding expectations and meeting the needs of its customers, shareholders, and stakeholders. He remains confident that the bank will continue to perform well and achieve its objectives. Beyond being a financial powerhouse, Fidelity Bank Ghana is a shining example of social responsibility. The bank's recent contribution of GH 147,614 to the Enactus team at C.K. Tedam University of Technology and Applied Sciences underscores its dedication to nurturing youth entrepreneurship. Furthermore, the bank's donation of GH100,000 worth of essential relief items to the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) to aid flood victims in the Volta region demonstrates its unwavering support for the community during times of crisis. The bank's commitment to sustainability and environmental stewardship was further highlighted through a month-long awareness campaign designed to foster a culture of sustainability consciousness among Ghanaians. Julian Opuni, Managing Director of Fidelity Bank Ghana, emphasized the bank's resilience and community-centric values, which have been pivotal in driving impactful change within Ghana's banking industry. He stated, "Our resilience extends beyond our financial performance; we are integral to the communities we serve. Our commitment to sustainable development, youth empowerment, and environmental stewardship remains at the core of our values." "As an indigenous financial institution, we are proud of our role in fostering a prosperous future for Ghana, and we remain poised to elevate our impact even further," he added. Fidelity Bank's exceptional performance in the third quarter of 2023 not only highlights its resilience, strategic acumen, and robust operational capabilities but also reinforces the bank's commitment and significant contribution to ensuring societal well-being. The institution steadfastly upholds its core values, placing significant emphasis on a customer-centric approach, resilience, and sustainability in all its endeavors. Source: Peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Ninety-nine irregular migrants were caught by Turkish security forces while 60 were saved after being pushed back Friday by Greek forces, Azernews reports, citing Anadolu Agency. The irregular immigrants pushed into Turkish territorial waters by Greek forces and dragged due to engine failure, were rescued off the coast of western Mugla provinces Fethiye and Datca districts. According to the statement from the Coast Guard Command's website, information was received that there were irregular immigrants on a rubber boat off the coast of Fethiye and coast guard boats were dispatched to the region. The teams rescued 45 irregular immigrants. Crews were directed to the area after receiving information that the rubber boat with irregular immigrants was drifting off the coast of Datca due to engine failure and a request for help was made. Fifteen irregular immigrants were rescued and brought ashore by the coast guard teams. Irregular immigrants were handed to the Provincial Directorate of Immigration Management after their procedures. Meanwhile, Turkish security forces caught nine irregular migrants in northwestern Kirklareli province and 38 off the coast of western Canakkale province. In eastern Erzincan province, two migrants were nabbed while 42 off the coast of western Balikesir provinces Ayvalik district were also caught. In northeastern Ardahan province, two people accused of smuggling irregular migrants were arrested while eight more irregular migrants were caught. At night, the floor of the parish church is completely covered with thin mattresses. While the benches and the rest of the furniture are piled up against the walls, more than a thousand migrants use this space to rest, eat and receive medical attention and legal help. In the Church of La Soledad (our lady of solitude) one of the largest and oldest in Mexico City weddings, first communions, or baptisms are no longer celebrated. Only Sunday Mass and a few others are celebrated during the week. Practically all the efforts of the parish priest and the three principal volunteers who support him are dedicated to helping those who for a variety of reasons have chosen to leave their countries of origin. In recent years given the growing presence of groups of migrants in the Mexican capital this church, located in the central neighborhood of La Merced, in the Venustiano Carranza district, has become one of the main shelters for those on their way to the United States. Many stop in Mexico City along their journey. Minutes before five in the afternoon, on October 27, around 50 people line up next to one of the side doors of the parish. The church is full, but this doesnt matter: the 50 people are going to enter. Benito Torres Cervantes is the parish priest of La Soledad. Originally from Mexico City and a priest for the past 18 years, he dedicates almost all of his time to caring for the hundreds of migrants who arrive, week after week, at his church in search of help. He either provides them with spiritual support, or offers them shelter and food. His motto is clear and he repeats it frequently to the volunteers and brigade members who provide their assistance to the church: Until the last migrant. Father Benito arrived at this parish in 2015. Since then, he opened the doors of the church to help homeless people. Some of those who arrived were displaced foreigners who had no way of surviving in Mexico City. Generally speaking, though, there were never more than a couple of families who needed help. But everything changed with the arrival of the caravans from Central America and Venezuela. And, more recently, with the end of Title 42 in the United States, which allowed for immediate deportations during the pandemic. The priest estimates that there are currently around 1,300 migrants sheltering in the church. Groups of migrants enter the parish church, on October 27, 2023. Nayeli Cruz Claudia Torres, shelter coordinator, gives instructions to a newly-arrived group of migrants. Nayeli Cruz Jason Oliveros and Wilber Giovanni hail from Venezuela. They rest on mats in the Church of La Soledad. Nayeli Cruz A child runs around on a patio in the parish church. Nayeli Cruz One of the rooms in the Church of La Soledad, reserved for migrants who are ill. Nayeli Cruz Last night, Father Benito could only sleep for a couple of hours. The rain forced him and the volunteers to relocate a group of migrants who were sleeping in the parish parking lot. He then had to take a Venezuelan woman and her young daughter to the hospital the child had trouble breathing. And, finally, he had to separate two men who had gotten into a fight, because one had supposedly stolen a watch from the other. Extreme fatigue is evident in his eyes, but, at the same time, an excess of will is evident in his speech: Given the situation of these people, we cannot turn around and act as if nothings wrong. They are men and women [we must] seek to ensure that their dignity is no longer trampled on. They are looking for a new dawn and we are going to give them any help that is in our hands, the priest affirms. The Church of La Soledad was built at the beginning of the 17th century by brothers of the Order of Saint Augustine. Its the seventh-oldest in the Mexican capital. Father Benito explains that it was built with the idea of always being at the service of those most in need. This temple was aimed at people who arrived from [the cities of] Texcoco or Xochimilco, with the intention of selling merchandise in La Merced. While the cathedral was designed for the Spanish, La Soledad received the Indigenous people who came in search of spiritual help, the parish priest explains. Nowadays, those who come looking for help are migrants. La Soledad will always have its doors open for them. Part of the work of Father Benito and the volunteers consists of visiting markets and food banks in search of donations. Only in this way has the improvised shelter managed to survive: the churchs income has been reduced to a minimum, since its currently not able to officiate ceremonies such as weddings and baptisms given the space constraints. Every day, the municipal government of Mexico City sends prepared food to the parish. However, these meals dont always arrive on time, or they contain ingredients that migrants havent been able to get used to, such as heavy spices. Despite the bits of support, the parish priest feels that the actions of the authorities have been lacking when it comes to addressing a crisis thats getting worse every day: When you do some good work, everyone applauds you but when there start to be problems, youre guilty. The government lets institutions like the [Catholic] Church deal with crises that they can no longer control. For the government, the easiest thing is to wash its hands [of the matter] and let others do what they cannot. We saw this with the fire that occurred in March at the Ciudad Juarez migrant detention center. Dozens of people died due to the inaction of the authorities, the priest laments. Father Benito Torres in front of the main altar of the parish church. Nayeli Cruz Most migrant shelters in Mexico City are overcrowded. Large spaces such as Casa Tochan or Cafemin in the Alvaro Obregon and Gustavo Madero municipalities, respectively now exceed their maximum capacity by up to seven times. The same overcrowding has occurred with the improvised shelter in La Soledad, which according to Father Benito was initially designed for a maximum of 80 people. The main nave of the church is already packed: theres no room for anyone else in the interior patios. The few rooms that are reserved for the sick have no space left. Father Benito and the volunteers who help him have had to empty some of the churchs warehouses, to be able to settle more migrants there. For now, theres just enough room to cram everyone in although the team doesnt rule out that, in the coming weeks, they will have to empty the remaining spaces to continue hosting people. Mexico City, a new stopover along the route that migrants take Claudia Torres is the coordinator of La Soledads shelter. Originally from Mexico City, shes 48-years-old and a single mother. Among an endless list of tasks, shes in charge of receiving everyone who comes to the parish in search of refuge. To each person who enters, Torres informs them that they will only be able to spend two to three days in the shelter. Ideally, by then, the migrants manage to get some work or other accommodations. Meanwhile, a few of them choose to continue advancing towards the border with the United States. This is how the shelter coordinator explains it: Its very dangerous for them to go north. They prefer to stay in Mexico City, where they can earn income more easily and where families feel safer. For migrants, its more convenient to wait in Mexico City for the U.S. authorities to assign them an appointment through the CBP One cellphone application, rather than to simply show up at the border and risk being deported back to their countries of origin. A family of Venezuelan migrants rests inside the parish. Nayeli Cruz Some of the migrants have managed to extend their stay in La Soledad by volunteering. These people prepare food or help with cleaning tasks. This is the case of Jason Oliveros, a 26-year-old young man from the Venezuelan city of Maracaibo. Oliveros and his family have been staying at the shelter for 21 days. He supports Father Benitos team by arranging the mats and distributing them to people, so that everyone can have a place to sleep. For Oliveros, it was 10 times easier to cross the Darien jungle between Venezuela and Panama than to cross through Mexico. This is how the Venezuelan explains it: No one helps you here. If a ticket to a city costs 25 Mexican pesos [$1.50], when they see that youre a migrant, they charge you up to 150 pesos ($8.50). People take advantage of us. And the authorities dont protect us, they take us off the buses and return us to Tapachula. If they return you, you lose a lot of time and money. Oliveros came to La Soledad on the recommendation of his brother, who stopped by the church eight months ago. At first, he thought that the shelter was funded by the government. However, after speaking with Father Benito, he realized that all the help is voluntary. His goal is to stay in Mexico City, get a formal job and rent some housing, at least until he gets an appointment through CBP One. I dont care if it takes a month, four months or a year. I dont want to leave this city until I have an appointment. Im very afraid that theyll [deport me] on the way. I dont want to have swam so much to die on the shore, the young Venezuelan concludes. Two migrants cook their lunch on improvised stoves, in the camp located on the outskirts of La Soledad, on October 27, 2023. Nayeli Cruz A group of children play in the camp that has been set up in the plaza near the church. Nayeli Cruz A group of migrants in front of the parish church. Nayeli Cruz At a makeshift barbershop outside the parish church, a man gets a haircut. Nayeli Cruz A family has a meal in the camp set up alongside the church. Nayeli Cruz In the surroundings of the church in a space known as Plaza de la Soledad a camp has been set up. It consists of more than 150 tents. They are home to migrants who, for the most part, have already stayed in the church and havent managed to find a place in another shelter, nor have they been able to save enough money to rent accommodation. Father Benito estimates that there are about 400 people in the square, all waiting for an appointment with the U.S. authorities. The camp resembles a small town, with businesses such as food stalls, makeshift showers and barbershops. However, the possibility that the authorities will evict everyone is a constant fear among its inhabitants. Officials from the district mayors office showed up at this space on October 27. Dressed in cherry-colored vests, they talked with the migrants and collected their information. A rumor quickly began to spread: the camp would be torn down the next day. Fortunately for the inhabitants of this space, that didnt happen. However, in the face of recent evictions around Mexico City, migrants refuse to let their guard down. Many shelters are full and job opportunities are scarce. Given the limited space, the inhabitants of the square have nothing left to do but constantly check their cellphones, hoping that a notification will soon arrive from the CBP One application. A group of Venezuelan migrants rests on mats distributed inside the parish. Nayeli Cruz Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition The Head of the ECOWAS Electoral Observation Mission (EOM), Prof. Attahiru Jega, who arrived in Monrovia, Liberia on Thursday 9 November 2023, met with some actors and stakeholders involved in the Presidential Runoff Election. The election is scheduled to be held on Tuesday, November 14, 2023. On Friday, November 10, 2023, Prof. Attahiru Jega met successively with Mr. Frank Musa Dean Jr, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Liberia, Mrs. Davidetta Browne-Lansanah, President of the National Electoral Commission (NEC), some civil society actors and the ECOWAS Technical Team. In his meetings with these actors, Prof Attahiru Jega discussed the preparation towards the polls and challenges for a peaceful, free, transparent and credible electoral process. In the morning of Saturday, November 11, 2023, Prof. Attahiru Jega met with ECOWAS Short-Term Observers in the presence of Dr. Abdul-Fatau Musah, ECOWAS Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, Mr. Abdou Kolley, Director of the Cabinet of the President of the ECOWAS Commission, Ambassador Josephine NKRUMAH, ECOWAS Resident Representative in Liberia, members of ECOWAS Parliament, member of the ECOWAS Permanent Representative Committee and member of the ECOWAS Council of Wise. Addressing the ECOWAS observers, Prof Attahiru Jega urged them to carry out their tasks within the confines of the extant electoral legal frameworks and in accordance with international standards. He also urged them to avoid interfering in the electoral process and to use the skills and tools acquired through their training. Finally, he asked them to make possible recommendations to improve the electoral process and the ECOWAS election observation mission. Ambassador Josephine NKRUMAH, while addressing the observers earlier, described the current political and electoral context under which the polls will be held. She also gave a background on the electoral campaign atmosphere ahead of the polls. She further briefed the observers on the NECs deployment plan of electoral materials and security arrangement for forces on the ground. Dr Abdul-Fatau Musah, Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security of ECOWAS, expressed satisfaction with the high profile of ECOWAS Electoral Mission observers. While enjoining them to be objective and impartial in the course of the Mission, he urged the observers to submit timely report from their observation in the field to enrich the overall report of the Mission. Source: graphic.com.gh Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video By Wafaa Shurafa and Samy Magdy, The Associated Press KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip Health officials and people trapped inside Gazas largest hospital rejected Israels claims that it was helping babies and others evacuate Sunday, saying fighting continued just outside the facility where incubators lay idle with no electricity and critical supplies were running out. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed urgent international calls for a cease-fire unless it includes the release of all the nearly 240 hostages captured by Hamas in the Oct. 7 rampage that triggered the war. A day after Netanyahu said Israel was bringing its full force with the aim of ending Hamas 16-year rule in Gaza, residents reported heavy airstrikes and shelling, including around Shifa Hospital. Israel, without providing evidence, has accused Hamas of concealing a command post inside and under the compound, allegations denied by Hamas and hospital staff. They are outside, not far from the gates, said Ahmed al-Boursh, a resident sheltering at the facility. The hospitals last generator ran out of fuel Saturday, leading to the deaths of three premature babies and four other patients, according to the Health Ministry. It said another 36 babies are at risk of dying. Israels military asserted it placed 300 liters (634 pints) of fuel near Shifa overnight for an emergency generator for incubators for premature babies and coordinated the delivery with hospital officials. Sadly, they havent taken the fuel yet, spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said. He said if this fuel doesnt work, they will seek other solutions for the babies. A Health Ministry spokesperson, Ashraf al-Qidra, told Al Jazeera that someone contacted the director and said they have 200 liters of fuel. These 200 liters give less than an hour to run the generator. ... This is a mockery towards the patients and children. Speaking to CNN, Netanyahu asserted that 100 or so people had been evacuated from Shifa and that Israel had created safe corridors. But Health Ministry Undersecretary Munir al-Boursh said Israeli snipers have deployed around Shifa, firing at any movement inside the compound. He said airstrikes had destroyed several homes next to the hospital, killing three people, including a doctor. There are wounded in the house, and we cant reach them, he told Al Jazeera. We cant stick our heads out of the window. The military said troops would assist in moving babies on Sunday. But Medical Aid for Palestinians, a U.K.-based charity that has supported Shifas neonatal intensive care unit for years, questioned that. The transfer of critically ill neonates is a complex and technical process, CEO Melanie Ward said in a statement. With ambulances unable to reach the hospital ... and no hospital with capacity to receive them, there is no indication of how this can be done safely. Adva Rozenblit mourns over the coffin of her son staff Sgt. Gilad Rozenblit , 21, in Kibbutz Ginegar, northern Israel, Sunday Nov. 12, 2023. He was killed during a ground operation in the Gaza Strip.(AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)AP The only safe option is for Israel to stop its assault and allow fuel to reach the hospital, Ward said. The Health Ministry said there are still 1,500 patients at Shifa, along with 1,500 medical personnel and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter. The Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service said another Gaza City hospital, Al-Quds, is no longer operational because it has run out of fuel with 6,000 people trapped there. Gazas sole power plant was forced to shut down a month ago, and Israel has barred fuel imports, saying Hamas would use them for military purposes. One woman fleeing northern Gaza, Fedaa Shangan, said shed had a cesarean section at Al-Quds: The wound is still fresh. She said the Israeli army near the hospital did not care about the presence of patients, children, women and the elderly. They did not care about anyone. Alarm was growing. We do not want to see a firefight in a hospital where innocent people, helpless people, people seeking medical care are caught in the crossfire, President Joe Bidens national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told ABCs This Week. Decisive international action is needed now to secure an immediate humanitarian cease-fire and prevent further loss of life amid attacks on health care, the U.N. regional directors of the World Health Organization and others said in a statement, adding that more than half of Gazas hospitals are closed. Muhammed Zaqout, director of hospitals in Gaza, said the Health Ministry has been unable to update the death toll since Friday as medics are unable to reach areas hit by Israeli bombardment. The situation is extremely dire, he said. About 2.3 million Palestinians remain trapped in the besieged territory. Netanyahu has said the responsibility for any harm to civilians lies with Hamas. Israel has long accused the group, which operates in dense residential neighborhoods, of using civilians as human shields. EVACUATION WINDOWS, BUT NO PAUSES The U.S. has pushed for temporary pauses that would allow for wider distribution of badly needed aid to civilians in the besieged territory, where conditions are increasingly dire. But Israel has only agreed to brief daily periods during which civilians can flee the area of ground combat in northern Gaza and head south on foot along two main roads. Israel continues to strike what it says are militant targets across southern Gaza, often killing women and children. Dozens of wounded people, including children, were brought to a hospital in Khan Younis after an Israeli airstrike demolished a building in the southern town. Hospital officials said at least 13 were killed. The war has displaced over two-thirds of Gazas population, with most fleeing south. Egypt has allowed hundreds of foreign passport holders and medical patients to exit through its Rafah crossing, as well as the entry of a small amount of humanitarian aid. Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on X, formerly Twitter, that he asked European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell to apply the same legal, moral grounds for EU support of Ukraine to define its stand on Israels war crimes. More than 11,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2,700 people have been reported missing and are thought to be trapped or dead under the rubble. A Palestinian wounded in Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip is brought to a hospital in Khan Younis, Sunday, Nov. 12, 2023. ( AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)AP At least 1,200 people have been killed on the Israeli side, mostly civilians killed in the initial Hamas attack. Forty-six Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground offensive began. About 250,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate from communities near Gaza, where Palestinian militants are still firing barrages of rockets, and along the northern border with Lebanon. NETANYAHU REJECTS US POSTWAR VISION Netanyahu has begun to outline Israels postwar plans for Gaza, which contrast sharply with the vision put forth by the United States. On Saturday, he said Gaza would be demilitarized and Israel would retain the ability to enter Gaza freely to hunt down militants. He rejected the idea that the Palestinian Authority, which currently administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would at some stage control Gaza. Hamas drove the PAs forces out of Gaza in 2007. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the U.S. opposes an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza and envisions a unified Palestinian government in Gaza and the West Bank as a step toward a Palestinian state. Even before the war, Netanyahus government was staunchly opposed to Palestinian statehood. Family members of Sgt. Roni Eshel cry during her funeral in Kfar Saba, Israel, Sunday Nov. 12, 2023. Eshel was killed during Hamas' bloody cross-border rampage on Oct. 7, 2023. At least 1,200 people were killed and some 240 captured in an unprecedented, multi-front attack on Israel by the militant group that rules Gaza. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)AP The war threatens to trigger a wider conflict, with Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon frequently trading fire along the border. Hezbollah fired anti-tank missiles into Israel on Sunday, and Israel responded with artillery and fighter jets. Tens of thousands of people marched in Paris on Sunday to protest against rising antisemitism. And in Tel Aviv, several hundred women gathered seeking the return of the hostages taken by Hamas. Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Amy Teibel in Jerusalem, Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed to this report. Full AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war. By Zoe Greenberg, The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS) PHILADELPHIA Rabbi Lonnie Kleinman of Mount Airy was arrested at the U.S. Capitol three weeks ago, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Soon after her arrest was broadcast on Fox News, she received a text message from her father. He said he was deeply disappointed, and that her grandparents, who survived the Holocaust, would have been devastated if they were still alive, Kleinman said. She and her father are not currently speaking, she said. He is acting from a place of wanting to protect the Jewish people and honor his parents legacy. And so am I, said Kleinman, who is 32. Were just going about it in very different ways. Kleinmans experience speaks to a growing generational rift that has been highlighted in Jewish communities across the city and country in recent weeks. National polls in the past few weeks have found younger Americans are far more skeptical of the Israeli government and the United States relationship with Israel than their older counterparts. In some cases, differences by age were even starker than differences by party. A Wall Street Journal/Ipsos poll found that only 40% of respondents under 30 said the U.S. has a responsibility to help Israel fight Hamas, compared to more than 70% of people over 65. Even before the most recent violence, younger Jewish voters across the country were more critical of Israel than older ones. The Jewish Electoral Institute, led by prominent Jewish Democrats, conducted a 2021 survey of 800 Jewish American voters. The poll found that 38% of those under age 40 compared to just 13% of those over 64 agreed with the statement Israel is an apartheid state, an analysis backed in recent years by international and Israeli human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, BTselem and Amnesty International. In the Philadelphia area, which has one of the largest Jewish populations in the country, this generational disconnect has taken the shape of grief, fury, and splintering conversations among loved ones who cannot see eye to eye on the crisis. The local stakes are raised by an increasing number of Jewish-led demonstrations against Israels escalating siege of Gaza. In the past month, Hamas killed upward of 1,200 people and kidnapped more than 240 people as hostages, most in the terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, according to the latest figures from Israeli authorities. Since Oct. 7, Israels military has killed more than 11,000 people in Gaza, including more than 4,100 children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. At a protest and sit-in at 30th Street Station last Thursday, many of the activists, including Kleinman, wore black t-shirts that said Not in our name and Jews say ceasefire now. Hundreds of young Jews, alongside older Jewish activists and others, demanded the U.S. government call for a ceasefire. I was a chaplain in a hospital and I just thought, whats going to happen to the hospitals (in Gaza) without fuel? Without water? Kleinman said. She grew up in a mainstream Jewish community in Tucson, Arizona; at home and in youth group, she learned that Israel is a democracy under constant attack. When she turned 18, she studied in Israel for a gap year and spoke for the first time with Palestinians. Learning about the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza, she left Israel feeling that people were being harmed and oppressed on my behalf and I didnt even know it, she said. David Mandell, 55 and a member of Rodeph Shalom synagogue, agrees with much of the criticism about Israels current government. But the bloodshed on Oct. 7 sparked fear and a familiar sense of dread for him as did the ensuing, in his view lopsided, public condemnations of Israel. Never far from the surface, theres this idea that a Holocaust or something similar could happen again. The Hamas attacks were a reminder of that in Israel, and the worlds response was a reminder of that globally, Mandell said. His two daughters, on the other hand, both under 20, are much less forgiving of Israeli transgressions, he said. In interviews, Philadelphia Jews and their relatives described heated exchanges that veered from the academic about the global history of Judaism and geopolitics in the Middle East to the highly personal, touching on family memory, trauma and obligation. Many families are experiencing what is effectively a microcosm of the fierce debates that are playing out on college campuses, social media platforms, and in workplaces. Rabbi Nathan Kamesar, 40, of Society Hill Synagogue, described the broad strokes of the debate as between an older generation that sees the Jewish people as perpetually vulnerable, even while they go through periods of relative stability and safety, and sees Israel as the best available protector of them, versus a younger generation less convinced that a formal nation-state is the way to provide safety for Jews, and that sees the Palestinians as the vulnerable population in need of protection. There is, of course, a diversity of opinion in every generation, he added, and some families are largely in agreement across generations. Others, fearing an even more irreconcilable breach, are avoiding the subject with each other. A photo of Keshet Casarotti, 21, who was killed in Hamas' militants rampage through Nova Music Festival in southern Israel on Oct. 7, is displayed at a vigil on the beach honoring the victims in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023. At least 260 Israelis were killed by Hamas militants at the outdoor music festival, among the total 1,200 people killed and 240 people abducted from Israel during Hamas' unprecedented cross-border assault. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)AP Elya Piazza, 30, a rabbinical student who lives in Germantown and is getting a Ph.D. in Jewish Studies, joined the recent ceasefire protests organized by Jewish Voice for Peace at the U.S. Capitol, 30th Street Station, and the Statue of Liberty. Pretty much my entire adult life is devoted to learning our history and serving Jewish people, said Piazza, who also speaks and teaches Yiddish. After being arrested at the Capitol, Piazza messaged their family group chat. Ideally I would have liked my mom to be proud of the work I was doing, Piazza said. Their mother, Laurel Kallen, 70, messaged back, Glad to see you standing up for your ideals with a heart emoji, along with an article about progressive Jews feeling abandoned by the left as they mourned the victims of the Hamas attacks. At this point, mother and child, both closely tracking the violence in the Middle East, are barely speaking to each other about it, they each said in interviews with The Philadelphia Inquirer. Kallen has a friend whose child is not speaking to her mother at all because of their disagreement, and so Kallen has been hesitant to bring up the subject too much with Piazza, she said. Thats a fear that I have, with them getting so frustrated with me that they would cut off communication completely, Kallen said. In some families, the intergenerational conversation is slow and difficult but it is happening. Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, in the hospital in Khan Younis, Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023. ( AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)AP Zach Malett, 27, lives in West Philly and has spent the last few weeks trying to get his dad to call his representatives and push for a ceasefire. I really do fundamentally think that my Jewish upbringing made me a justice-oriented person, and I like to think thats part of why I feel so strongly about this, he said. Zachs father, Danny Malett, 57, said recently the two had what was supposed to be a brief workday phone conversation that ended up lasting nearly two hours. Danny Malett described himself as being in a sandwich generation between his own parents, who raised him with the belief that, basically, without Israel, thered be no more Jews in the world, and his children, who see Israel, at best, as a regional super power imposing military control over a vulnerable population. Recently, after difficult text conversations, Zach lent him two books to read on the history of the region. Would I read them on my own if I found them on a coffee table? I dont know, Malett said. But Zach asked me to, and so I intend to to keep the dialogue open. 2023 The Philadelphia Inquirer. Visit inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. By WAFAA SHURAFA and BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back Saturday against growing international calls for a cease-fire, saying Israels battle to crush Gazas ruling Hamas militants will continue with full force. A cease-fire would be possible only if all 239 hostages held by militants in Gaza are released, Netanyahu said in a televised address. The Israeli leader also insisted that after the war, now entering its sixth week, Gaza would be demilitarized and Israel would retain security control there. Asked what he meant by security control, Netanyahu said Israeli forces must be able to enter Gaza freely to hunt down militants. He also rejected the idea that the Palestinian Authority, which currently administers autonomous areas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would at some stage control Gaza. Both positions run counter to post-war scenarios floated by Israels closest ally, the United States. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the U.S. opposes an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza and envisions a unified Palestinian government in both Gaza and the West Bank at some stage as a step toward Palestinian statehood. For now, Netanyahu said, the war against (Hamas) is advancing with full force, and it has one goal, to win. There is no alternative to victory. Pressure was growing on Israel after frantic doctors at Gazas largest hospital said the last generator had run out of fuel, causing the death of a premature baby, another child in an incubator and four other patients. Thousands of war-wounded, medical staff and displaced civilians were caught in the fighting. In recent days, fighting near Shifa and other hospitals in northern Gaza has intensified and supplies have run out. The Israeli military has alleged, without providing evidence, that Hamas has established command posts in and underneath hospitals, using civilians as human shields. Medical staff at Shifa have denied such claims and accused Israel of harming civilians with indiscriminate attacks. Shifa hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia said the facility lost power Saturday. Medical devices stopped. Patients, especially those in intensive care, started to die, he said by phone, with gunfire and explosions in the background. He said Israeli troops were shooting at anyone outside or inside the hospital and prevented movement between buildings. Israels military confirmed clashes outside the hospital, but Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari denied Shifa was under siege. He said troops will assist Sunday in moving babies treated there and said we are speaking directly and regularly with hospital staff. Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, told broadcaster Channel 12 that as Israel aims to crush Hamas, taking control of the hospitals would be key but require a lot of tactical creativity, without hurting patients, other civilians and Israeli hostages. Six patients died at Shifa after the generator shut down, including the two children, spokesmen with the Hamas-run Health Ministry said. The unbearably desperate situation at Shifa must stop now, the International Committee of the Red Cross director general, Robert Mardini, said on social media. U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths posted that there can be no justification for acts of war in health care facilities. Elsewhere, the Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli tanks were 20 meters (65 feet) from al-Quds hospital in Gaza City, causing a state of extreme panic and fear among the 14,000 displaced people sheltering there. Israels military released footage which it said showed tanks operating in Gaza. The images showed shattered buildings, some on fire, and destroyed streets empty of anyone but troops. A 57-nation gathering of Muslim and Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia called in their communique for an end to the war in Gaza and the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid. They also called on the International Court of Justice, a U.N. organ, to open an investigation into Israels attacks, saying the war cannot be called self-defense and cannot be justified under any means. Netanyahu has said the responsibility for any harm to civilians lies with Hamas, which denied it was preventing people in Gaza City from fleeing. The spokesman of the Hamas military wing said militants were ambushing Israeli troops and vowed that Israel will face a long battle. The Qassam Brigades spokesman, who goes by Abu Obaida, acknowledged in audio aired on Al-Jazeera that the fight is disproportionate but it is terrifying the strongest force in the region. Israels military has said soldiers have encountered hundreds of Hamas fighters in underground facilities, schools, mosques and clinics during the fighting. Israel has said a key goal of the war is to crush Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for 16 years. Following Hamas deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which at least 1,200 people were killed, Israels allies have defended the countrys right to protect itself. But now into the second month of war, there are growing differences over how Israel should conduct its fight. The U.S. has pushed for temporary pauses that would allow for wider distribution of badly needed aid to civilians in the besieged territory where conditions are increasingly dire. However, Israel has only agreed to brief daily periods during which civilians can flee the area of ground combat in northern Gaza and head south on foot along the territorys main north-south artery. Since these evacuation windows were first announced a week ago, more than 150,000 civilians have fled the north, according to U.N. monitors. On Saturday, the military announced a new evacuation window, saying civilians could use the central road and a coastal road. A stream of people fled southward on the main road, some on donkey-drawn carts. One man pushed two children in a wheelbarrow. Where to go, and what do they want from us? said Yehia al-Kafarnah, one fleeing resident. Palestinian civilians and rights advocates have pushed back against Israels portrayal of the southern evacuation zones as relatively safe. They note that Israeli bombardment has continued across Gaza, including airstrikes in the south that Israel says target Hamas leaders but that have also killed women and children. Demonstrations and outrage continued. Police said 300,000 Palestinian supporters marched peacefully in London, the largest such event there since the war started. Right-wing counterprotesters clashed with police. A photo of Keshet Casarotti, 21, who was killed in Hamas' militants rampage through Nova Music Festival in southern Israel on Oct. 7, is displayed at a vigil on the beach honoring the victims in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023. At least 260 Israelis were killed by Hamas militants at the outdoor music festival, among the total 1,200 people killed and 240 people abducted from Israel during Hamas' unprecedented cross-border assault. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)AP FEAR GROWS INSIDE SHIFA Shelling and explosions never stopped, said Islam Mattar, one of thousands sheltering at Shifa. Children here are terrified from the constant sound of explosions. The Health Ministry told Al Jazeera there were still 1,500 patients at Shifa, along with 1,500 medical personnel and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter. Thousands have fled Shifa and other hospitals that have come under attack, but physicians said its impossible for everyone to get out. We cannot evacuate ourselves and (leave) these people inside, a Doctors Without Borders surgeon at Shifa, Mohammed Obeid, was quoted as saying by the organization. CASUALTIES RISE More than 11,070 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2,700 people have been reported missing and are thought to be possibly trapped or dead under the rubble. At least 1,200 people have been killed in Israel, mainly in the initial Hamas attack, Israeli officials say. The military on Saturday confirmed the deaths of five reserve soldiers; 46 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground offensive began. Nearly 240 people abducted by Hamas from Israel remain captive. About 250,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate from communities near Gaza and along the northern border with Lebanon, where Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have traded fire repeatedly. Hezbollah is dragging Lebanon into a possible war, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said after meeting with soldiers stationed along the border. Mroue reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Julia Frankel in Jerusalem, Samy Magdy in Cairo and Baraa Anwer in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, contributed to this report. By Huda Giddens As I sit by the television in my cozy American home watching the forced exodus of Palestinians from northern Gaza, I think back to 1947 when I was a young girl living in Jerusalem. My parents and I, Palestinian Christians, lived on the upper floor of a two-story home owned by my aunt and uncle. A Jewish doctor, a friend of my parents, lived on the first floor. We lived a good life. I had many Jewish and Muslim friends in the all-girls school I attended. After school, my cousin and I enjoyed doing things together. In 1947, she and I overheard our parents whispering about the killing and forced expulsion of Palestinians from their homes by the Zionist militia. We had witnessed violence firsthand the year before, when the King David Hotel, housing the administrative offices for the British Mandate, collapsed before our eyes. It had been bombed by the right-wing Zionist organization Irgun as part of its effort to persuade the British to leave Palestine. The violence was too close to home. My immediate family fled to Egypt. Between 700,000 and 800,000 Palestinians fled to refugee camps in neighboring Arab countries, Gaza, and the West Bank. Palestinians refer to this exodus as the Nakba, or the Catastrophe. Now, those in Gaza are forced to flee again, another Trail of Tears. My parents believed we would soon return to Palestine. That belief was supported by UN Resolution 194, which guaranteed right of return to those who were forced to flee their homes without compensation. Israel refuses to abide by this resolution. What followed the Nakba was a time when Palestinians lived under Israeli military law. It was bad but got much worse after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, when Israels illegal occupation began. I came to the U.S. for graduate study, where I met and married an American veterinarian. I lived on Okinawa during the Vietnam War my husband treated military dogs at a clinic in Vietnam and upon return to the U.S., we had a son. I became a U.S. citizen. Ive returned to the Palestinian territory four times, once for a 12-year period during which I taught in Gaza. Ive seen a lot of change, none of it good. Conditions in the West Bank and Gaza continued to deteriorate. Gaza was locked up by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, becoming an open-air prison, where Palestinians were and still are deprived of potable water, electricity, sanitary waste disposal, adequate food and building materials. They have few jobs, and no future for themselves or their children. Palestinians living in the Occupied West Bank have their homes invaded at night. Schools, crops, homes, and villages are destroyed. They are limited to substandard and often blockaded roads, and are humiliated at Israeli checkpoints. Many, including children, are held in Israeli jails. Israel continues to steal Palestinian water and land. Israels leaders have been clear that they wont negotiate for peace. They wont accept a two-state, or a one-state solution with equal rights for all. Lately, conditions worsened. Israeli lawmakers in 2018 passed the Nation State Law, institutionalizing apartheid. Furthermore, extreme right-wing Knesset members stated that it was time to get rid of all Palestinians, enabling Jewish settlers to put this into effect. Without a negotiated peace, it seems that violence that is now happening in Gaza will expand. My hope for a just resolution is evaporating. I love this country. But I am ashamed that, by our support of Israel, we have abandoned our own values. My fervent hope is to see peace with justice, for both Palestinians and Israelis. Huda Giddens is a Palestinian Christian and educator. She lives in Seattle. Of all the collectors and experts, Oscar Jimenez, university professor and researcher in Translation and Interpretation, is a Fase luminary. He began collecting the lamps in 2014 as a way to reveal all kinds of anecdotes. He combed through the avatars of its two founders and investigated the international success of these luminaries, which soon made the leap to the United States and became famous. All these years of work and effort on this collection of lamps has earned Jimenez a place as a member of the Chair of Innovation in Crafts, Design and Contemporary Art of the University of Granada (Spain). In his passion for research, Jimenez has managed to create a systematic collection of pieces. He has more than 200 lamps and more than 100 different models among which he has a special weakness for the Torpedo model (he has eight or nine of them), designed by Tomas Diaz Magro. His ultimate goal is to set up a museum that reflects the care with which he has been accumulating the stories that go with each lamp in the collection. I would like them not to be scattered, and it would be good for an institution to buy or rent the collection so that they could be displayed together. The National Museum of Decorative Arts in Madrid has shown in interest in doing so, he says. How did an icon so unknown until recently become a coveted collectors item? The answer is found in Fase, The Book, which, in its 360 pages, details the entire history of the company, its founders and designers. The books subtitle The mystery solved hints that, in addition to being dedicated to recovering the lamps memory and reclaiming its legacy as indicated by its authors, Oscar Jimenez Serrano and Juan Luis Gomez Frieiro, it also gives names, surnames, and a date of creation to many Fase models that were anonymous until now. It constitutes the only existing critical catalog of Fase lamps, along with detailed information on its associated brands (Lupela, GEI, Grin Luz, Ma-Of), according to Jimenez, and is prefaced by Claudette Didul, art director of the series Mad Men, which placed the lamp in the protagonist Don Drapers office, he adds. This book has become a design object in itself for which collectors have paid up to 500. Without a doubt, it has served to put the lamps that are part of the collective imagination of several generations in the spotlight. The Fase lamps, whose timeless design is now an object of desire for lighting enthusiasts and collectors in general, appeal to our sense of nostalgia because they were the typical cheap office and desk lamps that our grandparents and parents had in their homes in the 1960s and 1970s. Tomas Diaz Magro signs some of the most successful Fase designs, such as Torpedo, Apolo, Minifase, and Sauce. The true success of the brand was the spring lamps made by some brave men who plucked Spain out of anonymity and brought the designs to Canada and Japan, explains Jimenez. Those brave people are Pedro Martin and Luis Perez de la Oliva, the two who patented the Presidente lamp on May 31, 1963 (which has just turned 60), says Jimenez. They patented the lamp before setting up the Fase company in Madrid in 1964 and, as its anniversary will also be celebrated in 2024, I would like to organize several activities around this international phenomenon due to Pedro Martins entrepreneurial instinct. For Jimenez, this great commercial visionary made it possible to export Fase lamps to half the world, in fact, many of them are found abroad, and Martin even opened a branch in the United States in the seventies, he says. The marketinian look consisted of adding a Fase lamp to the furniture equipment pack that an office or office needed and, in this way, the lamp accessory became more and more ubiquitous. This expert in Fase unravels a frequent phenomenon in manufacturer sagas and that is that Fernando Martin (Pedros brother) was the owner of Lupela, another leading brand of office lamps in Spain in the sixties. It was one of Fases competitors in manufacturing [and part of] an interesting story that has parallels with Adidas and Puma, and that represents two brothers competing for the same market, he says. One might wonder why Fase lamps are so photogenic, from the classic sprung lamp that every grade student had on their desk to the six Fase models that appear in the film Killing El Nani or appearances in series such as Valeria, Supergarcia or telenovelas such as Amar es para siempre. They are photogenic and timeless, their design is attractive and in the cinema they are used more as sculptures, which is why art directors have fallen in love with them and, above all, why they always choose them when they want to make a period portrait of Spain in the 1960s. We see them in films by Antonio Banderas and Pedro Almodovar, in Don Drapers office in the aforementioned Mad Men and even in Indiana Jones, he says. Another expert collector, Lucio Torrijos, has 600 lamps, among which a total of 400 Fase models stand out, and which he has taken the trouble to restore and catalog with care. Before, no one wanted them, they even sold them in the Rastro (fleamarket in Madrid). However, their price has gone from the initial 50 ($52) to the current 300 ($316) in a few years, while the rarest examples reach exorbitant figures, he comments. If this article awakens the collecting bug, Oscar Jimenez guides us through the different means to obtain these coveted lights, from Wallapop, for the lowest profile, to Todocoleccion, which is more reliable because it is a collecting platform where serious auctions are held, and finally through the stores. One of them is Tiempos Modernos, in Madrid, where the most expensive models are found, but where the interested party finds more professional advice and where a Torpedo can reach 3,000 ($3,163). Added to this are international platforms such as Pamomo, Etsy, and 1stDibs or going to markets such as El Rastro in Madrid, where Fase lamps used to be found. Now it is difficult to find them at an affordable price because everyone already knows their market value, he argues. As for restoration, if someone has their grandfathers lamp, but the glass diffuser is broken or has long since disappeared, the market has also increased prices exponentially and finding the glass for less than 50 ($52) is an impossible task. Among collectors, Lucio Torrijos is one of those who catalogs them but not before restoring them with care. Another is Jose Luis, an industrial engineer who discovered Fase and also declares himself passionate for their attractive design. He comments that he began to buy some incomplete lamps to restore them and leave them as they were in their glory days. To do this, he has created the Instagram account @larestauraciondeobjetos where he shows the work he has done on his own lamps and those he restores for his clients. As Oscar Jimenez predicts, 2024 will be the year of Fase, which is when the brand and the Presidente lamp both turn 60. It is to be hoped that this mythical design will explode and acts as a catalyst to the creation of a collection that we can all admire because it is part of the DNA of Spanish design. At the moment, the manufacturer has already announced the making of a documentary. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition Poker Dealer & Soon-to-Be-Father Sami Bechahed Wins PokerStars NAPT Main Event ($268,945) November 11, 2023 Chad Holloway Executive Editor U.S. The PokerStars North American Poker Tour Las Vegas $1,650 Main Event wrapped up at Resorts World Las Vegas on Saturday. The final seven players from a 1,095-entry field returned to battle it out at a live-streamed final table, and after eight hours of play, it was poker dealer Sami Bechahed, whose wife is nine months pregnant, emerging victorious to claim a $268,945 top prize and the first NAPT Main Event title in 12 years! (It took) a lot of patience. I dont know what to say, Im seriously so shaken, Bechahed told PokerNews after the win. Its surreal to me with this stacked final table with (Sergio) Aido, (Nick) Schulman, (David) Coleman very good players. I came out on top. Its surreal. Bechahed started collecting live tournament cashes in July 2018 when the French-born poker dealer moved to the other side of the felt. He had already nabbed three six-figure scores in his five-year career and had $941,234 in prior tournament earnings. Two of those came from sub-$400 buy-in tournaments in L.A.; a runner-up finish among 5,302 entries and a victory in a 3,065-entrant field. In addition to that, Bechahed claimed $274,916 for his win in the WSOP Circuit Dallas/Oklahoma Main Event in November of last year. I came in as the chip leader, so I didnt have to be intimidated by anybody, he added. I have a lot of mad respect for all of them, but Im here to play poker. Im mostly playing poker to have fun but I take it very seriously. So, I came here to have fun, play my best game, and got really lucky. 2023 NAPT Las Vegas Main Event Final Table Results Place Player Country Prize 1 Sami Bechahed United States $268,945 2 Jonathan Borenstein United States $168,175 3 David Coleman United States $120,130 4 Ping Liu United States $92,410 5 Sergio Aido Spain $71,080 6 Nick Schulman United States $54,680 7 Sandeep Pallampati United States $42,060 Final Table Action The 2023 NAPT Main Event final table. Image: Joe Giron Day 4 resumed at 12:30 p.m. PST in Level 30 with blinds of 50,000/100,000/100,000, and there was an elimination in the very first hand! It happened when Sergio Aido raised to 200,000 from early position with two red tens and Ping Liu called from the button with queen-jack suited. Sandeep Pallampati was in the big blind with jack-four suited and opted to call. A jack-ten-four flop had action written all over it, and sure enough, Pallampati got his stack all in with two pair and ultimately failed to get there against Aidos set. It took a few hours for the next elimination to occur but happened when four-time bracelet winner Nick Schulman lost a flip with pocket fours against the king-seven of Bechahed. Nick Schulman It was another four hours before the next elimination, and it occurred on the first hand back from the dinner break. That is when Aido open-jammed his short stack from the cutoff with king-three only to have Jonathan Borenstein call from the button with ace-ten. An ace on the flop ultimately led to Aidos demise in fifth place for $71,080. Not long after, Bechahed and Ping Liu, who sat first and second in chips respectively, clashed in a huge hand. The former flopped a set of nines on a nine-high board and the latter held pocket queens. The chips went in and Liu failed to get there, falling in fourth place and giving Bechahed a huge chip lead over his remaining two opponents Borenstein and David Coleman, East Coast grinders who happened to be good friends. David Coleman & Jonathan Borenstein Bechahed soon dispatched Coleman in third place and took a nearly 5:1 chip lead into heads-up play against Borenstein. On the fourth hand of their match, Borenstein jammed with ten-nine only to have Bechahed wake up with ace-ten. Borenstein, who earlier this year finished fourth in the Borgata Return for a career-best $368,324, was left drawing dead on the turn and had to settle for second place and $168,175 in prize money. While Bechahed took down a major poker tournament as a player, dont expect him to give up his day job. I will never do poker full time, ever. I dont need the stress of the downswings, he shared. I like to have my little (dealing) job and it keeps me in the poker. Im always thinking poker, whether Im at work or Im playing. Complete North American Poker Tour (NAPT) Results Location Date Buy-In Entries Winner Prize PCA (Bahamas) Jan. 5-11, 2010 $10,300 1,529 Harrison Gimbel $2,200,000 PCA (Bahamas) Jan. 11-14, 2010 $25,500 84 William Reynolds $576,400 Venetian (Las Vegas) Feb. 20-24, 2010 $5,000 872 Tom Marchese $827,648 Venetian (Las Vegas) Feb. 23-25, 2010 $25,600 49 Ashton Griffin $560,000 Mohegan Sun (Connecticut) April 7-11, 2010 $5,000 716 Vanessa Selbst $750,000 Mohegan Sun (Connecticut) April 23-25, 2010 $25,600 35 Jason Mercier $475,000 Bicycle Casino (Los Angeles) Nov. 12-17, 2010 $5,000 701 Joe Tehan $725,000 PCA (Bahamas) Jan. 8-15, 2011 $10,300 1,560 Galen Hall $2,300,000 Mohegan Sun (Connecticut) April 9-13, 2011 $5,000 367 Vanessa Selbst $450,000 Resorts World (Las Vegas) Nov. 5-12, 2023 $1,650 1,095 Sami Bechahed $268,945 Stay tuned as the PokerNews live reporting team will be back on-site at Resorts World tomorrow for continued coverage of the NAPT. Be sure to check out the NAPT Las Vegas portal in the meantime. 2023 NAPT Main Event Champ Sami Bechahed. Sharelines Sami Bechahed (@SoWIZZSami) won the @PokerStarsUSA #NAPTLasVegas for $268,945. Holdem with Holloway, Vol. 131: How New Players Frustrated Me on WPT at Sea November 12, 2023 Chad Holloway Executive Editor U.S. Its been nearly three years since I last penned a Holdem with Holloway strategy article, but I am back thanks to some recent poker action I played on the high seas and felt compelled to write about. Back in October, I had the opportunity to take a cruise on the Virgin Voyages ship Scarlet Lady, which departs out of Miami and sails about the Caribbean. As if taking a leisurely cruise wasnt reason enough, I was keen to check out WPT at Sea, the first permanent poker room on the high seas, one that happens to be sponsored by the renowned World Poker Tour (WPT). WPT Voyage vs. WPT at Sea What's the Difference? Here's Everything You Need to Know The room features eight poker tables and is manned by an experienced crew of industry professionals and dealers. There are tournaments every day, as well as cash games and other special events. One of my favorite things that the room does is cater to new players by welcoming them into the room, explain whats going on, and even offering free training. As a result, the cruise I was on had a large number of players whove never played poker before. With decades of experience under my belt, and a World Series of Poker (WSOP) gold bracelet around my wrist, youd think Id run over my opponents. Unfortunately, that wasnt the case. In fact, I found myself frustrated time and again, mainly because I was left conflicted. Let me explain why. Chad playing poker on the WPT at Sea. In one hand at a $1/$2 no-limit holdem table, a bunch of players limped so I did the same from the button holding the 87. The flop fell 747 to give me trip sevens, and action checked to me. I bet $5 and only the player in the cutoff, who was a new, inexperienced player, made the call to see the 10 turn. He led out for $5 and I opted just to call. I figured there was a good chance he called my flop bet with a flush draw, and if so, the turn card gave it to him. My concern over a flush was alleviated though when the 4 paired the board on the river to improve me to a full house, sevens full of fours. My opponent bet $10 and I wanted to make some money. If he had a flush, I didnt think he would fold, so I raised to $50. He just called and I tabled my hand. Much to my surprise, he rolled over the 107 for a bigger full house, sevens full of tens. There were only three hands that could beat me, and that was one of them (the other two were either pocket fours or tens). I was left a bit shell shocked as I thought for sure I had a winner hand. So, why was I conflicted? Well, it stung not to win the hand, but I guess I was also lucky that my inexperienced opponent didnt reraise me, as I surely wouldve lost more. You can never tell what an inexperienced player is going to do, so if you cant beat them, sometimes youve just got to count your blessings that you didnt lose more! The above hand was just one of many similar ones that literally left me shaking my head. I just couldnt beat the cash game on board. Chopping a tournament at the WPT at Sea. Luckily for me, while I lost money playing cash about $600 by my count I was fortunate enough to win even more playing onboard tournaments. On the first night, I did a heads-up chop in the $60 Nightly for a few hundred bucks, and then on the final night I won the $125 Bounty tournament, which only had nine players but was winner-take-all (aside from the bounties). I was able to win that for close to $1,000 thanks to a bunch of bounties, so all in all in proved to be a profitable trip. Ill definitely be taking another Virgin Voyages cruise and have every intention of returning to the WPT at Sea Poker Room, I just need to go in with a better game plan on how to contend with those cash game players! Check out the WPT at Sea Poker Room review here on PokerNews! What is WPT at Sea? Outside the WPT at Sea Poker Room on the Scarlet Lady. Not to be confused with WPT Voyage, WPT at Sea is an actual poker room on the Scarlet Lady ship (and soon-to-be other Virgin Voyages). That poker room is operating on the high seas right now as you read this. After witnessing the magic of cruise-line poker with Virgin Voyages last season, we instantly sought to establish a permanent fixture, said WPT CEO Adam Pliska. Scarlet Lady provides the perfect residence for WPT at Sea, which will bring the WPT poker experience to the high seas. The room features eight custom poker tables staffed with professional dealers. For cash games, the rake is a reasonable 10% up to $10, which is much lower than other cruises. As for tournaments, buy-ins on a typical sailing range from $80-$320. Recently, WPT at Sea has held a $240 buy-in Main Event, which awards a WPT prize package to a future sailing. Inside the WPT at Sea Poker Room. The room caters to players of all experience levels, from absolute beginner to seasoned pro. For the former, the staff holds beginner training courses on each sailing, and dealers also offer their services if 1:1 instruction is desired. WPT at Sea goes wherever the ship does, meaning those who go for the poker will also get to experience new and exciting destinations. The room is closed when the ship is docked so sailors are incentivized to get off the ship and check things out. But fear not, when everyone is back on board it doesnt take long for cards to get back in the air. Here are some other things to know about WPT at Sea: The WPT at Sea poker room doesnt accept cash. Sailors handle all transactions via their wearable devices (all sailors have a bracelet they wear that allows them to be scanned at various outlets across the ship), meaning buy-ins can simply be charged to your account. Likewise, tournament winnings are credited to the account as well (you can cash out either at the casino cage or at the end of the cruise). Private and meet-up games are allowed at WPT at Sea. There is a casino area next door that features a wide variety of slot machines, roulette, craps, Blackjack, and other table games. The WPT at Sea poker room has windows, so you can get a view of the ocean outside. The poker room has its own set of private bathrooms. Not only is there a bar located in the casino just outside the poker room, but drink serves are quick to serve the poker-playing sailors. WPT at Sea offers up to 25% off and up to $600 in free drinks depending on the cruise, so be sure to inquire when you book. WPT at Sea is very active on Instagram, which you can follow by clicking here. WPT at Sea is taking reservations through the end of 2024. To learn more or book your cruise,visit wptatsea.com. Can you make the final table in the WPT at Sea Poker Room? Sharelines In a new Hold'em w/ Holloway, Chad highlights his experience on the @WPTatSEA. The PokerStars North American Poker Tour Las Vegas $1,650 Main Event wrapped up at Resorts World Las Vegas on Saturday. The final seven players from a 1,095-entry field returned to battle it out at a live-streamed final table, and after eight hours of play, it was poker dealer Sami Bechahed, whose wife is nine months pregnant, emerging victorious to claim a $268,945 top prize and the first NAPT Main Event title in 12 years! (It took) a lot of patience. I dont know what to say, Im seriously so shaken, Bechahed told PokerNews after the win. Its surreal to me with this stacked final table with (Sergio) Aido, (Nick) Schulman, (David) Coleman very good players. I came out on top. Its surreal. Bechahed started collecting live tournament cashes in July 2018 when the French-born poker dealer moved to the other side of the felt. He had already nabbed three six-figure scores in his five-year career and had $941,234 in prior tournament earnings. Two of those came from sub-$400 buy-in tournaments in L.A.; a runner-up finish among 5,302 entries and a victory in a 3,065-entrant field. In addition to that, Bechahed claimed $274,916 for his win in the WSOP Circuit Dallas/Oklahoma Main Event in November of last year. I came in as the chip leader, so I didnt have to be intimidated by anybody, he added. I have a lot of mad respect for all of them, but Im here to play poker. Im mostly playing poker to have fun but I take it very seriously. So, I came here to have fun, play my best game, and got really lucky. 2023 NAPT Las Vegas Main Event Final Table Results Place Player Country Prize 1 Sami Bechahed United States $268,945 2 Jonathan Borenstein United States $168,175 3 David Coleman United States $120,130 4 Ping Liu United States $92,410 5 Sergio Aido Spain $71,080 6 Nick Schulman United States $54,680 7 Sandeep Pallampati United States $42,060 Final Table Action The 2023 NAPT Main Event final table. Image: Joe Giron Day 4 resumed at 12:30 p.m. PST in Level 30 with blinds of 50,000/100,000/100,000, and there was an elimination in the very first hand! It happened when Sergio Aido raised to 200,000 from early position with two red tens and Ping Liu called from the button with queen-jack suited. Sandeep Pallampati was in the big blind with jack-four suited and opted to call. A jack-ten-four flop had action written all over it, and sure enough, Pallampati got his stack all in with two pair and ultimately failed to get there against Aidos set. It took a few hours for the next elimination to occur but happened when four-time bracelet winner Nick Schulman lost a flip with pocket fours against the king-seven of Bechahed. It was another four hours before the next elimination, and it occurred on the first hand back from the dinner break. That is when Aido open-jammed his short stack from the cutoff with king-three only to have Jonathan Borenstein call from the button with ace-ten. An ace on the flop ultimately led to Aidos demise in fifth place for $71,080. Not long after, Bechahed and Ping Liu, who sat first and second in chips respectively, clashed in a huge hand. The former flopped a set of nines on a nine-high board and the latter held pocket queens. The chips went in and Liu failed to get there, falling in fourth place and giving Bechahed a huge chip lead over his remaining two opponents Borenstein and David Coleman, East Coast grinders who happened to be good friends. David Coleman & Jonathan Borenstein Bechahed soon dispatched Coleman in third place and took a nearly 5:1 chip lead into heads-up play against Borenstein. On the fourth hand of their match, Borenstein jammed with ten-nine only to have Bechahed wake up with ace-ten. Borenstein, who earlier this year finished fourth in the Borgata Return for a career-best $368,324, was left drawing dead on the turn and had to settle for second place and $168,175 in prize money. While Bechahed took down a major poker tournament as a player, dont expect him to give up his day job. I will never do poker full time, ever. I dont need the stress of the downswings, he shared. I like to have my little (dealing) job and it keeps me in the poker. Im always thinking poker, whether Im at work or Im playing. Complete North American Poker Tour (NAPT) Results Location Date Buy-In Entries Winner Prize PCA (Bahamas) Jan. 5-11, 2010 $10,300 1,529 Harrison Gimbel $2,200,000 PCA (Bahamas) Jan. 11-14, 2010 $25,500 84 William Reynolds $576,400 Venetian (Las Vegas) Feb. 20-24, 2010 $5,000 872 Tom Marchese $827,648 Venetian (Las Vegas) Feb. 23-25, 2010 $25,600 49 Ashton Griffin $560,000 Mohegan Sun (Connecticut) April 7-11, 2010 $5,000 716 Vanessa Selbst $750,000 Mohegan Sun (Connecticut) April 23-25, 2010 $25,600 35 Jason Mercier $475,000 Bicycle Casino (Los Angeles) Nov. 12-17, 2010 $5,000 701 Joe Tehan $725,000 PCA (Bahamas) Jan. 8-15, 2011 $10,300 1,560 Galen Hall $2,300,000 Mohegan Sun (Connecticut) April 9-13, 2011 $5,000 367 Vanessa Selbst $450,000 Resorts World (Las Vegas) Nov. 5-12, 2023 $1,650 1,095 Sami Bechahed $268,945 Stay tuned as the PokerNews live reporting team will be back on-site at Resorts World tomorrow for continued coverage of the NAPT. Be sure to check out the NAPT Las Vegas portal in the meantime. What Day 1b of the 10,350 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event lacked in numbers compared to yesterdays opening flight it certainly made up for in star power and tension-filled pots. A total of 120 players entered over the course of the day, bringing the total combined field up to 677 with late registration still open. Only 73 made it through the day and will now join with the 360 survivors from Day 1a, led by Levan Rcheulishvili. Rcheulishvili busted Daniel Dvoress in a controversial pot when he had the clock called on him and put in the chips after the countdown had seemingly reached zero. Dvoress only had a bluff, while Rcheulishvili showed top pair. He later made a set of sevens to crack the queens of Santhosh Suvarna and eliminate the 50K Diamond High Roller champion on his way to bagging up 586,800. The Georgia native already has three cashes at this years WSOPE, including deep runs in the 2K PLO and the Mini Main Event. David Miscikowski, a WSOP bracelet winner from nearly a decade ago, is in second place with 448,900. Nicola DAnselmo doubled up with set over set earlier in the day and finished with 381,400, good for third place on the leaderboard. Ramzi Zuraikat was seemingly near the top the entire day after he was responsible for the first bustout of Day 1b, hitting a set of sixes on Roman Stoica as he ended up with 370,000. Hen Rosilio rounds out the top five with 363,600. Day 1b Top 10 Chip Counts Rank Player Country Chip Count Big Blinds 1 Levan Rcheulishvili Georgia 586,800 367 2 David Miscikowski United States 448,900 281 3 Nicola D'Anselmo Italy 381,400 238 4 Ramzi Zuraikat Switzerland 370,000 231 5 Hen Rosilio Israel 363,600 227 6 Jovan Kenjic Serbia 357,200 223 7 Miroslav Salaj Slovakia 352,300 220 8 Andrej Cintula Slovakia 345,800 216 9 Renat Bohdanov Ukraine 340,000 213 10 Aliaksei Boika Belarus 336,600 210 Dvoress, who won his second WSOP bracelet earlier this week in the 25,000 GGMillion$, reentered after losing the pot to Rcheulishvili and finished the night among the top stacks with 251,600. Hes joined by Renat Bohdanov (340,000), James Chen (333,500), Felipe Ramos (251,600), 2019 runner-up Claas Segebrecht (180,100), 2013 champion Adrian Mateos (174,300), and Andrea Dato (110,000). Quan Zhou (99,700), 2020 WSOP Online Main Event champion Stoyan Madanzhiev (85,500), and Ben Heath (83,200) ended up near the bottom and have work to do to get back in contention for the bracelet. Adrian Mateos Defending champion Omar Eljach waited until nearly the last minute before making an appearance. Eljach fired his second bullet into the event with just a few minutes to spare in the day and managed to increase his stack up to 137,200 as he continues his pursuit of an unprecedented repeat performance. Notables who failed to make it out of Day 1b include Nick Palma, Roland Israelashvili, Emil Bise, Shawn Stroke, and Julien Sitbon. Wooram Cho was sitting on a big stack until he tried a six-bet all-in shove but ran right into the aces of Miroslav Salaj, who ended the night with 352,300 thanks largely to that pot. Day 2 begins at noon local time tomorrow with 433 players returning from the two starting flights. Theyll be joined by any new arrivals and reentries, as late registration remains open until the start of Level 13. The tournament needs just 87 more entries to break last years record field of 763. The action picks up on Level 8 with blinds of 800-1,600 and a 1,600 big blind ante. In this incredibly deep-stacked structure, the starting stack of 100,000 is still worth more than 60 big blinds at the start of Day 2. Tomorrow is the day everyone will find out what they are playing for. It will also be the last chance for players to jump into the tournament and give themselves a chance to enter the record books as a WSOPE champion. Kings Resort in Rozvadov will be packed tomorrow, and PokerNews will be right there following all the action and providing live updates. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print Rep. Jim Jordans answer revealed that after almost a year of investigating Biden, they have no new evidence and are relying on Russian propaganda. Jordan was still selling his debunked Weiss was denied his request to be named a special counsel in the Hunter Biden investigation and he said: I most certainly was a denial because he asked for it in the spring of 2022 and he wasnt given it and he asked for it, the timing I think is important, Maria, because he asked for it right before he went to the US attorney in the District of Columbia to ask about partnering with the District of Columbia US attorney. And I asked him specifically, I said, when you asked to partner with another US attorney, what does that mean? He says, partner in prosecuting the case. So asked the US attorney of the District of Columbia, can you partner with me to prosecute Hunter Biden in the District of Columbia? And guess what years that was focused on? Guess what that charge was going to be? That was going to be the tax years that dealt with the Burisma income. And the US attorney told him no. And at the same time before he goes there, he asks, can I have special attorney status? And the Department of Justice turns him down that to me is huge, hugely significant because the Barista years where all that income coming into Hunter Biden that statute of limitation, they let it expire and I think it expires because if they go there, that takes them right back to the White House, right back to Joe Biden. Video: Jim Jordan has spent almost a year on this Biden investigation, and all he's got is Burisma, "Guess what year and charge was going to be that was going to be the tax years that dealt with the Burisma income." pic.twitter.com/UkGqdjbTzc Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) November 12, 2023 It is all the same crazy loop of unending nonsense. The scandal that House Republicans are relying on for Bidens impeachment was debunked years ago. There is witness testimony from the current investigation that debunks the claims of House Republicans. House Republicans have spent millions of taxpayer dollars on this investigation, and they have nothing. By retreating back to Burisma, Jim Jordan is exposing the failure of the GOP efforts. Republicans are still going to try to use Burisma to impeach Biden, but they have already miserably failed to build a Biden scandal. A Special Message From PoliticusUSA If you are in a position to donate purely to help us keep the doors open on PoliticusUSA during what is a critical election year, please do so here. We have been honored to be able to put your interests first for 14 years as we only answer to our readers and we will not compromise on that fundamental, core PoliticusUSA value. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print Fox Newss Maria Bartiromo continued her quest for evidence of Biden crimes, but when asked Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) made it clear that Republicans have nothing. Bartiromo asked Cruz on Fox Newss Sunday Morning Futures, Ask you about the evidence that you have seen. Do you have evidence that the DOJ is covering up crimes for Joe Biden? Cruz answered: Well, unfortunately, it is abundantly clear that the Biden Justice Department is, is covering for the White House, is doing everything they can to impede the investigation into Hunter Biden, but more significantly into Joe Biden. We have two IRS whistleblowers who have come forward. Theyve accused the attorney general of the United States Merrick Garland of lying under oath to Congress. Thats a felony. Theyve accused the attorney general in the Department of Justice of obstruction of justice. One of the clearest examples is we have the text message that Hunter Biden sent to a Chinese Communist official demanding millions of dollars and saying Im sitting next to my father. The investigators naturally wanted to get GPS data to confirm that Hunter was next to Joe Biden and that the retaliation that Hunter was threatening could happen. The Department of Justice said, no, you cant find out where Hunter was when he said that you cant find out where Joe was when he said that. Look, David Weiss, the special prosecutor has been prosecuting this for five years at this point, Mr Weiss is the slowest prosecutor on the face of the planet and thats not an accident. He deliberately allowed the statute of limitations to expire on, on, on, on several of the worst criminal offenses. Hunter Biden committed in particular, those dealing with millions of dollars from Barista. And I think the reason he allowed them to expire is those dollars are directly tied to daddy, to president Joe Biden. None of what Cruz said was actual evidence of anything, so Bartiromo tried again, Do you have evidence that Joe Biden made policy decisions based on events that he was actually paid for? Cruz said, Well, listen on the China piece, Joe Biden wont answer questions on that. So we dont have any information. Sen. Cruz continued by retreating to the debunked Russia propaganda of Rudy Giulianis Burisma conspiracy theory. Maria Bartiromo is absolutely desperate for an elected Republican to explain the evidence against Joe Biden to her, and each Sunday, Republicans like Ted Cruz come on her show do a little song and dance about evidence that doesnt contain any evidence, and then the cycle repeats again. Republicans have no evidence that President Biden did anything wrong, so they keep trying to fluff up Rudy Giulianis debunked Russian propaganda from nearly four years ago in the hope that no one will notice that there is no proof to support the Republican allegations. Another week brings another big zero in terms of evidence justifying Biden impeachment. A Special Message From PoliticusUSA If you are in a position to donate purely to help us keep the doors open on PoliticusUSA during what is a critical election year, please do so here. We have been honored to be able to put your interests first for 14 years as we only answer to our readers and we will not compromise on that fundamental, core PoliticusUSA value. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print President Joe Biden celebrated a victory by the culinary union in Las Vegas, which is the latest in a series of labor victories since he took office. Biden said in a statement provided to PoliticusUSA: Congratulations to the Culinary and Bartenders Unions who worked together in good faith towards an agreement that gives all workers the quality of life they deserve. Las Vegas has a long union history and workers have been critical to the citys growth and success. All workers including hospitality workers should have good jobs with fair pay and benefits that give them the opportunity to provide for themselves and their families. As a candidate for President, I had the honor of joining Culinary Union members on the picket line and standing shoulder-to-shoulder with men and women who form the backbone of a city that brings joy to millions around the world. These workers understand better than just about anybody that a job is about more than just a paycheck. Its about dignity. Its about respect. Most importantly, its about being able to look your kid in the eye and say, Honey, its going to be okay. Union members made clear that one job should be enough. Culinary Union members will have the final say on this tentative agreement, and there are still Las Vegas workers in negotiations who deserve a fair deal. But the sacrifices made by hospitality workers, autoworkers, actors, Teamsters, writers, port workers, rail workers, and health care workers are the driving force behind a growing movement to ensure workers receive a fair share of the value theyve helped create. This agreement will help give all workers the quality of life they deserve. Unions have been on a roll since Biden took office. While the President has been unable to get major unionization legislation through Congress, he has done everything in his power through executive orders and the use of the bully pulpit to encourage unionization and the creation of good union jobs. President Biden promised to be the most pro-union president in history, and his support has helped to create a climate where unions are scoring victories for their members. From autoworkers to healthcare workers, it is good to be in a union right now. After decades of assault and attrition, the tide may be starting to turn for the US labor movement. A Special Message From PoliticusUSA If you are in a position to donate purely to help us keep the doors open on PoliticusUSA during what is a critical election year, please do so here. We have been honored to be able to put your interests first for 14 years as we only answer to our readers and we will not compromise on that fundamental, core PoliticusUSA value. A retired Air Force general helped put Veterans Day into perspective for an audience of more than 100 Nov. 11 at Aiken High School, as Aiken County Veterans Council observed the holiday via its annual ceremony. This year's host site, due to rain, was Aiken High School's gymnasium, and the featured speaker was Ralph J. Jodice, who joined the military in 1976 and rose to become commander of NATO air command in western Turkey, which included leadership in enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya during the 2011 civil war. Jodice, who was also a fighter pilot, shared a list of concepts for success via service, including dedication to a purpose, commitment to excellence, discipline to see a task through to completion and "courage to see outside of yourself." Completing the list were "loyalty to the unit you serve in and those you serve with," fortitude (both physical and mental) to endure hardship and "compassion for your fellow human being." Among prominent guests in attendance was Gail Diggs, largely known as an Aiken City Council member. Diggs gave the event an upbeat review and recalled Jodice's advice. "His seven attributes of service that he shared were just perfect," she said. "That was so thought-provoking. I loved the way that he applied it to things that we are going through today." Air Force veteran Dick Chelchowski noted that he, having a background in aircraft maintenance, enjoyed having the chance to talk with Jodice about the retired general's time as a pilot in F-15 fighters. "It gets to be a small world sometimes," said Chelchowski, who was was an F-15 manufacturing officer when the aircraft first went into production. This year's gathering had a few unusual guests, as Lowell Koppert's company included fellow veterans who had been with him since Nov. 8 for a walk across South Carolina to raise money and awareness regarding the rate of veterans who commit suicide. Remembrance, honor and respect was the message for all who came to honor veterans during a ceremony Friday at Horse Creek Academy. Veterans Day is the day we get to honor the men and women who served this country, retired submarine assistant navigator Jack Westbrook said. Students, community members and veterans gathered at the school Friday morning to honor veterans who live in Aiken and surrounding areas, with patriotic music from the school's band, inspirational words from students and a guest speaker. The program also honored about 70 veterans who served in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard with a certificate. This was awesome and its nice to feel recognized and supported, Navy veteran Destiny Johnson said. Several students read notes of praise to veterans and thanked them for their service, like Jolee Sistare, whose grandfather was in the Air Force. Westbrook spoke about teamwork, commitment to service and respecting veterans. Westbrook said students be servants as well helping a friend or being there for someone. You might not be old enough to serve in the military yet, but you can serve your community and school in many ways, he said. He said all people can show respect to veterans by thanking them for their service. Whenever you see a veteran, thank them for their service and remember to respect each other, he said. Sarah Morris, who serves as the school's Director of Assessments and Community Relations, said the school has been having the program for many years and the school would have about 20 veterans come in its early years, but Friday's event was the largest the school has had. It has grown to what you saw today with over 200 in attendance and over 70 veterans here, she said. She said Westbrooks speech was meant to speak to the students so they can learn ways to honor veterans. I think honoring veterans and showing what it means to kids to say thank you, when we should say thank you and why it is so special in the United States that we can do this for our veterans, she said. As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 2025, we also have to remember what led up to that point. Two important events were the Tea Parties and the Shot Heard Around the World. This December marks the 250th anniversary of two of the Tea Parties. Whi Read moreLetter: Charles Town Tea Party part of America's history Jose Luis Hernandez Ramos (Murcia, 37) is a Marie Skodowska-Curie researcher at the University of Murcia, Spain where he also received his bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees in computer science. When I was a kid and would play with the little machines like Game Boys, I always wondered how it was possible that all those images could be produced just from inserting a games cartridge, he says. In the course of his career, he has worked as a scientific officer for the European Commission and has published more than 60 research papers, as well as collaborating for five years with the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) and the European Cybersecurity Organization (ECSO), where he began to seek out work that would have real-life impacts. Any researcher has to ask what artificial intelligence can do in their field, he says. Now, Hernandezs Gladiator project is one of 58 research initiatives selected for the BBVA Foundations Leonardo 2023 grant program to develop an artificial intelligence tool capable of detecting cybersecurity threats and analyzing malicious software. Question. How would you summarize the goal of the Gladiator project? Answer. The project seeks to apply or use a large language model, like ChatGPT, Bard, or Llama, to understand how we can use these programs to address cybersecurity problems. When we want to adapt one of these models to a certain domain, such as cybersecurity, we need to fit the model to a terminology related to that particular discipline. We want to understand how to adapt these models to detect an attack and, at the same time, adapt them with cybersecurity information to improve their performance and make them capable of solving problems of this type. The project will run until March 2025. Q. How will the language models be adapted to the needs of the project? A. You take information related to cybersecurity, with databases containing threat information, and you train or tune your model with that information. This is how you will be able to improve your understanding of what a cybersecurity threat is. Q. How does artificial intelligence detect cybersecurity threats and how does it combat them? A. Many artificial intelligence-based systems are based on learning what is and what is not an attack. For example, using data sets related to network connections in a certain environment. What were looking for with the project is to be able to analyze cybersecurity information that comes in text format, that may be related to vulnerabilities or that may be found on social media and other sources, and then determine whether it is a threat or not. Q. What is the difference between the systems used in the past to combat cybersecurity and those used today? A. Security systems need to be increasingly intelligent to detect potential threats, by considering artificial intelligence techniques. In the past, these systems detected attacks by looking for known threats in databases. Systems need to evolve to be able to identify attacks that they do not know about. Q. And what kinds of attacks could be prevented or identified? A. The application of artificial intelligence techniques in cybersecurity will allow us to improve the identification and detection of a wide variety of attacks. A phishing attack is a clear example of how the use of language modeling can help by analyzing the text or content that appears in an email. We can identify if multiple devices are colluding to launch an attack, and also if its coming from not just one source, but several. Jose Luis Hernandez Ramos next to a cluster of computers at the University of Murcia, Spain. Fundacion BBVA Q. And in the home context, how can artificial intelligence be used to combat attacks? A. We now have 24-hour access to artificial intelligence through tools like ChatGPT, and it gives us the ability to promote cybersecurity education and awareness. Everyone can ask the tool about how to protect themselves or how to configure a device to be less vulnerable. Its important to know that the models are not perfect, we still need to test the results and the answers they provide. Q. Would artificial intelligence help detect if an application has been tampered with? A. Absolutely. It would help detect, for example, whether an application is fake or malicious. In fact, one of the things that youre also seeing with this kind of analysis of applications, of code and software in general, are language model initiatives to analyze software code. Q. Is artificial intelligence capable of detecting data theft or disinformation? A. Yes, although attackers are getting more and more creative and using more sophisticated tools. Q. Does artificial intelligence help both those who want to create disinformation and those who want to fight it? A. Yes, it is a double-edged sword. If its in the wrong hands, it can be used to launch increasingly sophisticated attacks. Therein also lies the danger of the access that you now have, in general, to artificial intelligence systems, such as ChatGPT or others. Q. How can a tool like ChatGPT be used to define or generate an attack? A. When you ask a system like ChatGPT to generate an attack for you, the first thing it tells you is that it wont generate it because it can lead to a cybersecurity problem. But its quite easy to trick the tool, by telling it that you need to generate the attack in order to study it, because you want your system to be more robust, or you want to teach the attack in a class. In those cases, the system will give you the answer. Q. Will the project system allow for designing a tool without sharing sensitive data? A. This research project is an attempt to try to understand the problems and limitations so that the language model can be designed in a decentralized way. Right now, a model is trained and tuned with various sources of information, such as what I give it myself when I interact with the system. The idea is that this process is decentralized, and instead of having to share sensitive information, related information can be shared, but without having to send information about the specific vulnerability for the system to identify an attack. Q. What is the goal you hope to achieve with your project when you complete it in 2025? A. To improve our ability to understand language models that can help address cybersecurity problems, to create a system that helps us identify an attack, to understand how and why it occurred, and to look for relationships between different attacks that can help predict whether my specific system will be attacked. We also want to know how artificial intelligence is able to generate measures that can addresses and resolves this cybersecurity attack, for example, by automatically implementing a security patch. The labor union that represents dockworkers at the Port of Charleston and other East and Gulf coast ports told its members last week to prepare for a strike in 2024 if the container shipping lines that hire them don't agree to a large wage increase in their upcoming contract renewal. "Start saving money because that day may come," Harold Daggett, president of the International Longshoremen's Association, told union leaders at their South Atlantic and Gulf Coast District Educational Conference in Nashville. News of a potential strike was first reported by the Journal of Commerce. The ILA has not had a coastwide strike since 1977, but we must be prepared if our demands are not met, Daggett said, according to the JOC report. A strike could start as early as next Oct. 1 one day after the ILA's six-year labor contract expires. Daggett said negotiations have gone nowhere with the U.S. Maritime Alliance, a consortium of container lines that hire ILA workers to move cargo to and from ships. He did not specify how much the union wants but said the ILA "expects the companies to compensate its workforce with a substantial increase in hourly pay." Under the current contract, ILA members with at least six years of experience are paid a basic hourly salary of at least $39 while new hires start at $20. Fulltime dockworkers on the West Coast made a base wage of $46.23 an hour in 2022 and recently agreed to a new deal that will increase pay there by 32 percent over the coming six years retroactive to 2022. It also provides a one-time $70 million bonus spread among 20,000 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. A similar percentage increase along the East and Gulf coasts would bring base wages in those areas to more than $51 an hour for experienced dockworkers. As timeshare pitches go, it was a blockbuster of a presentation that concluded with a $1.5 billion commitment from the purchaser. In cash. And without a lick of buyer's remorse. A pair of Florida-based companies that control nearly 1,800 weekly "interval ownership" units up and down the South Carolina coast agreed to combine their operations early last week. Under the terms, Hilton Grand Vacations Inc. will acquire rival Bluegreen Vacations Holding Corp. for $75-a-share in a deal that's expected to close by the middle of next year. The $1.5 billion transaction value includes existing debt the buyer will take on. The deal is poised to deliver a big payday for investors of Boca Raton-based Bluegreen. The stock, which had been trading in the $35 range, more than doubled after Monday's announcement. The timeshare tie-up will combine two hospitality industry veterans that operate leisure getaways in popular tourist destinations ranging from downtown Charleston to the Las Vegas Strip. "This acquisition gives us the unique opportunity to create the industry leader in vacation ownership and experiential travel," Hilton Grand CEO Mark Wang told investors and financial analysts during a conference call last week. He said the purchase is "one more critical piece of the strategic journey of expansion and diversification" that the Orlando-based company began two years ago, when it bought luxury timeshare operator Diamond Resorts International for $1.4 billion. Wang said Bluegreen "has a strong track record of demonstrated organic growth" and a loyal customer base of more than 200,000 members. It also has developed "key lead-generating strategic partnerships that will broaden our reach and diversify our tour flow," he added. Once the sale is finalized, Hilton Grand's membership base will swell to more than 740,000 owners, and its real estate portfolio will expand by 48 properties to almost 200. Eleven of the resorts are near and in some cases on the Palmetto State coastline, with seven concentrated along the Grand Strand. The four others are in Charleston and on Hilton Head Island. NEW YORK Stocks closed mostly higher Thursday as the market ended November with its biggest monthly gain in more than a year. Read moreWall Street closes out its best month in more than a year KERSHAW Hundreds of spectators of all ages braved the chilly fall rain for a chance to transport themselves back in time as Revolutionary War reenactors demonstrated how American and British soldiers of the era lived their lives. Dense military encampments, soldiers (some on horseback), drummers, merchants and craftsmen lined the sprawling grassy fields enclosed by pine forests at 1208 Keys Lane in unincorporated Kershaw County, roughly an hour's drive northeast of Columbia. Lasting for two-and-a-half days, the annual event is touted as the nation's largest Revolutionary War reenactment, according to the nonprofit Southern Campaign 1780, which focuses on educating people about the South's role in the American Revolution. "We homeschool, and so this is an educational opportunity and a chance for the children to experience some authentic history," said David Morgan, a father of five who brought his children and their grandparents to the event on Nov. 11, Veteran's Day. One man tinkered away at a smithing table. Another man practiced swordsmanship and explained the evolution of the weapon over time. Two women taught a ropemaking course. A small child in 18th century garb helped her mother make breakfast on an open fire. Between more than 40 on-going demonstrations among them artillery, calvary, blacksmithing, woodworking, weaving and 18th century cooking volunteers reenacted two major battles that took place in South Carolina: the Battle of Stono Ferry and the Battle of Camden. Volunteers explained that the Stono Ferry battle in 1779 in the Lowcountry, though not one of the major battles like in Camden or Cowpens, was significant as one of many smaller victories that would pile up and wear the British down. Get your fill of oysters and holiday scenery at Drayton Hall. View the annual City of Charleston Holiday Parade and Tree Lighting. Or, satisfy your taste buds and gift-shopping needs at either the Foodees Food and Culture Festival or the annual Christmas Made in the South market. Read moreMy Charleston Weekend: December signals holiday cheer Mr. Ferraras analysis showed that although seven death-row inmates were resentenced as a result of a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision that executing people with intellectual disabilities is unconstitutional, the 11 others had their death sentences overturned because of solicitor actions during trial or procedural problems. Four of them were the result of unconstitutionally provocative courtroom antics on the part of a single prosecutor, Lexington Countys Donnie Myers, who spent a career looking for suspects to try to execute and found nearly 40. On the other hand, we have solicitors and their ranks are growing who have never even tried to send a prisoner to death row, and not for a lack of crimes that met the states legal requirements. Combined, those two stories point to one of the biggest flaws in our states death penalty law: its randomness. Today, if two people commit identical crimes in adjacent counties, one could end up on death row while the other was allowed to plead guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Its unfortunate that our Legislature didnt use that 12-year hiatus from the death penalty to work on ways to resolve the problems with it. Part of the reason is that most lawmakers either want to abolish the death penalty (a decided minority) or else support it without question. This doesnt make sense. Even if they dont share our belief that the death penalty should be used judiciously, reserved for that tiny portion of crimes that are so heinous that they compel society to respond with the ultimate punishment, supporters at least should recognize that every flaw in the way we handle death penalty cases is a potential constitutional problem that could eventually lead a court to invalidate the whole thing. And even those who want it abolished should see the merit in correcting its problems short of that. The central problem with the death penalty is that the standards for seeking it (much less winning a death sentence) vary so drastically from one judicial circuit and even from one county to the next. That variation is a big reason there remains even today such a clear racial component for its application. Its why one co-killer can be executed while the other one gets a life sentence sometimes even when the one whose life is spared was the ringleader. Its why even death-penalty supporters such as us sometimes find ourselves uncertain if the person being executed really committed the crime. Could 3D concrete printing be the answer to making housing affordable on Guam? That is a question stakeholders will seek to answer during the Additive Construction Round Table event to be held Friday at the University of Guam. Affordable housing on Guam over the last few years has become a major issue, as the cost of a home has skyrocketed and supply has dwindled. For many, the dream of owning a home remains just that, a dream, but Ann Dela Cruz, a real estate investor and co-founder of Starsand Technologies, believes 3D printing could make the dream more attainable. One of the concepts (Adrian Sinclair, Starsand Technologies co-founder) introduced to me is 3D printing. And so, first thing I said was, 'Oh, that sounds great.' And he said, 'We can print houses now.' I was like, 'Yeah, but you know Guam is different. Guam uses concrete.' He said, 'No, no, no, we can print homes with concrete,' Dela Cruz told The Guam Daily Post. Dela Cruz, who is also an Army Reservist, met Sinclair while stationed at Yokota Air Base in Japan, where Sinclair is a Department of Defense civilian government employee and has helped the Air Force enhance operational capabilities. Together, the two founded Starsand Technologies, which aims to deliver sustainable, long-lasting and economical housing and infrastructure solutions to Guam through 3D concrete printing. The two will be speaking at UOGs Additive Construction Round Table event, where they hope to learn if 3D printing is a viable option for building homes on Guam. If its our objective is to build a home with a 3D concrete printer, who are all the people, the key stakeholders that we need to have in the room who can tell us what their requirements are to make this possible? Dela Cruz said. Getting all the stakeholders in the same room is important, Dela Cruz said. For us, we can bring the printer here, but if you dont have enough supply here on island to do the projects, then we are not going to be able to go very far, she said. The event will bring Ernesto Guades, UOG assistant professor of civil and structural engineering, to the table to discuss his research on sustainable concrete on Guam. Hes trying to find a way to utilize Guam natural resources, ... what can we do to reduce our dependency on imports, and to us, thats concrete. We can use limestone, sea salt or fiber from bamboo. Lets see what we can do, Dela Cruz said. Starsand Technologies also will be speaking about its role in the effort. Our desire is to basically design and build using these printers and, for us, its all about designing concrete, Dela Cruz said. Alexander De Vore, the chief executive officer of 3D Printing Corp. in Japan, will also share his expertise in the realm of 3D printing and digital supply chain solutions. We also have a company out of Japan, they are a 3D printing corporation, so they are already in the additive manufacturing phase. They dont use a concrete printer. They use mainly plastics, Dela Cruz said. While 3D printing homes is in its infancy on Guam, Dela Cruz is hopeful the conversation will open the doors to affordable homeownership on island. The Additive Construction Round Table is set for 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 17. As soon as you enter Temu, you are assaulted by a barrage of stimuli. A central banner reminds you that Black Friday is approaching and sets a starting price: there will be products from 0.39 [$0.42]. At the top, a countdown clock appears, promising free shipping for orders placed before the end of the period. Further down, the platform displays another countdown: in this case, the timeframe is much shorter if you want to take advantage of its flash deals. Temu is one of the new e-commerce platforms from China; Shein and Miravia are two others. They all share a common style based on a deluge of promotions of all kinds. In this way, they have flooded social media sites with advertisements and have become the talk of influencers within a very short time. Their arrival in the United States and Europe is threatening Amazons overwhelming dominance in the e-commerce battle. Known for selling clothes at low prices, Shein has been a runaway success among young people, who flock to its pop-up stores whenever they open. Moreover, in 2022 it was the third most popular fashion brand among Spanish consumers, behind only Zara and Primark, according to the Fintonic Intent HQ Barometer, prepared by the IESE Business School and the Fintonic expense control app. The platform has gained popularity through discounts and sales. The same is true of Temu, which arrived in Spain in April 2023; by July, it was already the most downloaded application nationally. In August alone, it had one million downloads, while the second on the list was TikTok, far behind, with 600,000. Shein and Miravia occupied the third and fourth positions, respectively. According to Jordi Ordonez, a consultant specializing in e-commerce, the growth of these platforms is quite viral: They make the strongest inroads by going viral on social media. From there, they take you to the applications, which always have a super-big discount in exchange for registering. And then they bombard you with notifications and discounts, he explains. These apps base their strategy on a steady stream of incentives for consumers to buy. They launch expiring offers and hand out discount codes, which are disseminated through social media, including WhatsApp and Telegram groups. For instance, Sheins interface greets you with 25% off and a free gift, along with a countdown clock. A simple search on Temu shows discounts of 40%, 45% and up to 85%. At Miravia, youre greeted with a 20% welcome coupon. That is in addition to their Flash Offers, a showcase of products discounted by 27%, 54% or 74%. Everything serves to create a feeling of anxiety to consume and seek immediacy, says Ordonez. There are flash sales, which are fleeting offers that last for 24 or 48 hours, and countdowns, so that you feel pressured to go in now and buy now because otherwise youll lose the discount. These tactics inspire a sense of urgency in consumers. It rushes them to go get that deal that they cant pass up, says Nuria Consola, a psychologist who specializes in addictions and is the director of Centre Benavet, in Tarragona, Spain. They are often impulse purchases, because we dont need anything; we just want to take advantage of the discount because it seems to us like we have made the purchase of the century. A piece of Amazons pie This models business costs are high. But there is financial muscle behind these platforms. Temu belongs to Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo, which has over $100 billion in capital. Miravia is owned by Alibaba, which also owns AliExpress and has capital in excess of $200 billion. For its part, Shein has raised over $4.1 billion in rounds of funding and is unofficially valued at $64 billion. There are tremendous investments behind capturing market share. At the end of the day, its all about luring and attracting a lot of users, getting a lot of sellers on the platform and increasing orders, explains Ordonez, adding that the strategy clearly makes financial sense: If you enter a market like the United States and steal 1% of it from Amazon, thats millions and millions [of dollars]. Amazon facilities in Illescas, Toledo. Victor Sainz And Amazon has already started to feel the pinch in some areas. According to the analytics website Statista, in the United States, Amazons unique visitors fell by 17 million to 211 million between December 2022 and March 2023. In the same period, Temu went from 44.5 million unique visitors to 70.5 million, while Shein gained 6 million visitors for a total of 41 million. According to the Global Wireless Solutions consultancy, in the UK, Amazon lost 1 million cellphone users in the first six months of the year, falling to 8.3 million. Meanwhile, Shein doubled its cellphone users to 2 million. And, after its April arrival, Temu reached 3.5 million users on its app in just one month. Growth based on aggressive offers These online marketplaces have based their rapid rise on promotions. However, Consola says that this type of sales strategy encourages impulse and compulsive buying among users. The former refers to buying something impulsively and the latter implies reiterative consumption. When a purchase is impulsive or compulsive, what produces pleasure is the fact of having won the prize, which is a big discount. What you buy is the least important thing, the psychologist says. The brain generates the segregation of dopamine, which is the neurotransmitter of pleasure, and we feel happy. But this happiness is very short-lived. She adds that the best feeling occurs at the moment of purchase, not when one receives the package. According to Ordonez, these tactics come from the Chinese market, where consumers want everything immediately and buy a lot from their cell phones. They are trying to export this formula and it is working very well, he stresses. However, he warns about the formulas future, given the high costs of the business model. Consola describes the models tactics as dangerous. Why? Its very similar to how gambling works. Its made-up, but at bottom the purpose is the same as in gambling: to win something. And when we want to win, depending on [our] personality type and how much control [we] have over [ourselves], were going to try again and again, she stresses. Some sales gimmicks dont even bother to hide this similarity. At Shein, there is a games icon as soon as you enter. Clicking on it brings up a panel with prizes, as seen in a video broadcasting a recent campaign, and you can use virtual coins to tap on a button and, after a stimulating beep, you find out which discount coupon you get. It all has a whiff of the casino about it, and it includes a suggestive final message: Play again. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition The Black Lives Matter era is over. The BLM organization turned out to be a fraud, and, worse, the anti-police movement caused a spike in crime that continues to this day. Voters have ejected Soros prosecutors, and even liberals are vowing to crack down on criminals. The story of Marilyn Mosby illustrates the downfall of BLM. Mosby was the States Attorney in Baltimore when a man named Freddie Gray died while he was under arrest. She went on an anti-police campaign, over-charging the officers who were involved. So she exemplified the zeitgeist, and, better yet, she was young and good-looking. So she was lionized by liberals, including those at Vogue magazine, who did a spread on her that I wrote about here. Vogue was hagiographic, mingling admiration for Mosbys anti-police activism with appreciation of her style: Dressed in a simple pantsuit, sleeveless blouse, and not a trace of makeup, Mosby is warm and willing to accept hugs from fellow diners who thank her for giving us justice. Otherwise, she is every inch the prosecutor: straight-backed, concise, a portrait of self-control. The day after our dinner is a busy one. Mosby is meeting with her external-affairs team to plan the announcement of a program that puts first-time, nonviolent offenders in a work-training program. Dressed in a beige pin-striped skirt suit and Tory Burch heels, she scrutinizes every detail of the presentation, down to how many minutes she wants to spend shaking hands and who will be standing behind her when she speaks. That was probably Mosbys peak. An incompetent prosecutor, she failed to get a single conviction of a police officer. Then it turned out that she herself is a crook: A federal jury today convicted Marilyn J. Mosby, age 42, of Baltimore, Maryland, on federal charges of perjury, relating to the withdrawal of funds from the City of Baltimores Deferred Compensation Plan claiming that she suffered adverse financial consequences during the COVID-19 pandemic when she was Baltimore City States Attorney. *** According to the evidence presented at trial, on May 26, 2020 and December 29, 2020, Mosby submitted 457(b) Coronavirus-Related Distribution Requests for one-time withdrawals of $40,000 and $50,000, respectively, from City of Baltimores Deferred Compensation Plan. Trial evidence proved that Mosby falsely certified that she met at least one of the qualifications for a distribution as defined under the CARES Act, specifically, that she experienced adverse financial consequences from the Coronavirus as a result of being quarantined, furloughed, or laid off; having reduced work hours; being unable to work due to lack of childcare; or the closing or reduction of hours of a business she owned or operated. In signing the forms, Mosby affirm[ed] under penalties for perjury the statements and acknowledgments made in this request. As proven at trial, Mosby did not experience any such financial hardships and in fact, Mosby received her full gross salary of $247,955.58 from January 1, 2020 through December 29, 2020, in bi-weekly gross pay direct deposits of $9,183.54. Mosby faces up to five years in prison on that conviction. I take it that she used the money she obtained fraudulently to buy properties in Floridaliberals denounce Ron DeSantis, but they all want to live in his state. Mosby also has been indicted for mortgage fraud in connection with those purchases. Those federal charges are pending. Given the general absence of accountability these days, Mosbys downfall is good to see. I dont suppose fashion magazines will be interested in her orange jumpsuit. I seriously doubt that President Biden could pass a Medicare cognitive ability test. Its not exactly challenging, but Biden is too far gone. Everyone sees it. Everyone knows it. We are in any event way beyond the emperor-wears-no-clothes phase of inhibition controlling the unruly multitude. The mainstream press continues to serve as a sort of bodyguard for Biden, but the New York Post blurts it out on the cover today: Saving Private Biden (Honor Guard rescues confused prez on Veterans Day). Mary Kay Linge and Jon Levine report the cover story in Disoriented Biden needs help from Arlington honor guard during solemn wreath-laying ceremony. You be the judge. In May 2021 I wrote a lot about the protestations of the Associated Press when the IDF destroyed the 11-story Gaza City office building in which it was holed up with tenants including Hamas. No one was injured in the blast. Among other precautions, the Israeli military telephoned the AP occupants of the office with a warning to evacuate an hour in advance of the strike. The AP declared the strike shocking and horrifying. By contrast, the AP expressed no shock or horror to find itself housed with Hamas. The AP asserted that it knew nothing about the presence of Hamas. The AP goes Sgt. Schultz was only the first of several posts I devoted to the strike. AP executives demanded information supporting the IDFs targeting of the building. The IDF subsequently issued a statement explaining its action. I found the statement persuasive and the incident as a whole revealing. Here is video of the impressively precise strike that leveled the office building. The New York Post now returns to that incident in the editorial If AP really didnt know it shared space with Hamas, why trust its reporting? Well, we dont trust the APs reporting. We havent trusted it for a long time. This is nevertheless a good time to revisit the 2021 incident, as the Post does: If its true that AP was so unaware and the evidence suggests its unlikely how can anyone trust its reporting in the region? The Israeli military ordered the 12-story al-Jalaa Tower, which hosts AP and Al Jazeera offices, evacuated an hour before the strike, saying it was being used by Hamas military intelligence. For a week, tensions between Israel and Hamas, the terrorist group that controls Gaza, have been at their highest since their 2014 conflict, with Hamas raining thousands of rockets into residential areas of the Jewish state. Israel later shared some intelligence with the United States. We showed them the smoking gun proving Hamas worked out of that building, a source close to Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi told the Jerusalem Post. I understand they found the explanation satisfactory. Of course, weve known for years that, as the Israel Defense Forces put it, Hamas intentionally locates its military assets in the hearts of civil populations, even hiding behind media outlets and using them as human shields. And AP knew that well, according to one account. When Hamas leaders surveyed their assets before this summers round of fighting, they knew that among those assets was the international press. The AP staff in Gaza City would witness a rocket launch right beside their office, endangering reporters and other civilians nearby and the AP wouldnt report it, says a 2014 Atlantic piece by Matti Friedman. Hamas militants would regularly burst into the APs Gaza bureau and threaten the staff and the AP wouldnt report it. It seems that what AP doesnt know and doesnt report always favors Hamas over those the group terrorizes. Some things never change. All things considered, Peggy Noonan must be the worst columnist in the United States. That is a rash judgment, I concede. She certainly has a lot of competition over at the New York Times. For the combination of fatuity and self-love, however, she must be in a class by herself. In her weekly Wall Street Journal column published in the paper on November 4 (whole thing here) Noonan opined: We continue to think in this space [editors translation: Peggy Noonan continues to think] that the invasion and bombardment of Gaza was a mistake, and not only because of the intractable question of who will govern it when the Israelis are done. After the morning of 10/7 Israel was a wounded and grieving nation. It had endured a profound and gruesome shock; everyone in the country knew someone among the dead or abducted. In the world, those with a fully developed moral interior suddenly saw Israel differently. In their shock, opponents felt an easing of their coldness, supporters a quickening of their warmth. In our view what was needed for Israel was an absorbing, a regirding. Sometimes you must wait, build up your strength, broaden your resources, reach out to friends, let opportunities present themselveseverything shifts in life; some shifts are promising. But dont get sucked into Gaza and spend months providing the world with painful and horrifying pictures of innocent Palestinian babies being carried from the rubble. (We told them to leave, isnt enough. Some people cant leave, theyre not capable, theyre old people in an apartment somewhere.) A few weeks of that and the world goes back to its corners. Every day as things turn more kinetic, more fiery, with more casualties, there is the increased possibility it all spills over into the region, and new fronts are opened, and, as Israel goes deeper, the hostages are killed. All this is a gift to cable news. Here is a truth: Anything good for cable news is bad for humanity. Movie Title: The Origin: Madam Koi Koi Release Date: 7, November, 2023 Director: Jay Franklyn Jituboh Runtime: 1 hour, 30 minutes (average per part) Cast: Ireti Doyle, Chioma Akpotha Chukwuka Jude, Martha Ehinome, Nene Aliemeke, Tolulope Odebunmi, Omowunmi Dada, Ejiro Onojaife, Chuks Joseph, Kevin T. Solomon, Temidayo Akinboro, Iremide Adeoye and Racheal Emem Issac. Most Nigerians who attended boarding school in the 1990s could not sleep at night, sometimes due to the tales whispered in their ears. Unlike moral-driven stories like The Tortoise and the Hare, these folklores were more sinister, focusing on scary creatures like the Bush Baby, Madam Koi Koi, and Mr. Cabin. Despite their thrilling effect, these folklores have become a staple of many Nigerian boarding houses. Imagine the wave of nostalgia when Nigerians heard that Netflix was releasing a two-part film around Mrs Koi Koi, providing a relatively new interpretation of how the creature of the night came to be. Several Nigerian films boast of horror but need to catch up on the essential elements of what makes a scary film. With a lineup of talented actors, top-tier cinematography, and well-executed special effects, The Origin Story: Madam Koi Koi stands out, positioning itself as a contender in the horror genre and a blueprint for producers. However, in the second half, the film fails to detach itself from horror tropes entirely and becomes anticlimactic, bland, and uninteresting. It also deviates from the popular idea of who Madam Koi Koi is, rewriting her as a monsterlike creature who stomps rather than the ghost of a lady who sends thrills down spines with the clack of her heels. The Plot The year is 1991, and we see a young woman and her daughter, Amanda, driving into Malomo, a small town. Amanda argues with her mother against attending a boarding house. Despite her constant refusal, she quickly settles in, finding comfort in the hands of her new friend/bunkmate. During the first assembly, her new best friend warns her to avoid a group of boys known for treating ladies harshly. Amanda refuses to believe her until one morning when a girl seen with the boys cries about being raped. Before that morning, at midnight, the girl was invited by Idowu, one of the boys and the person she was dating, to a house outside the school. Upon arriving, she was cornered by the four boys and raped. Feeling guilty, Idowu follows after her. Unfortunately, a mysterious creature emerges from a red light and kills him. The rest of the morning, she had everyone, especially Mother Superior, the head of the school, panicked as Idowu was nowhere to be found. News soon reached the school that the dead body of a boy wearing the schools uniform was located in the forest. Mother Superior, in an attempt to protect the rest of the boys and the reputation of the school, denies the body bearing a resemblance to the school. Fortunately, her lie is accepted as the corpses face was disfigured. The rest of the films first half shows Amanda having several visions where she sees the creature emerging from shadows and killing the people around her. Towards the end of part one, we know how the beast came to be; she was raped to death by some men in the village. Part 2 provides more context. There was a witch trial for a woman some years ago. The injustice against the woman made her spirit wander around town, so when Omo was raped, she used that opportunity to possess her dead body and exact revenge on the city. The security gate man of the school and ex-herbalist Baba Fawole, narrated the story of the monsters origin. Alongside two detectives, Baba Fawole sets out to find a solution to banish the monster from the town. Long story short, they realise that to get rid of the beast, they must identify the person whose presence triggered the monster and put their lives on the line. The Good The cinematography was top-notch. As a Gen-Z would say, It gave what it was supposed to give. The camera movements, bright lighting, and even sound sent chills down the spines. The way the cameras tilted as Amanda had her weird dreams added more depth to the story and made it aesthetically pleasing. Casting was also on point in the film, especially Mother Superior. After watching The Origin Story: Madam Koi Koi, its hard to picture Ireti Doyle being anything apart from a two-faced nun who would do anything to hold her head high. The actors who played the boys were also convincing in making themselves look like disgusting men/rapists you would want to punch in the face. Now, lets talk about those visual effects. The scary scene where Madam Koi Koi emerged was heart-racing; red lights and black fog surrounding her were a good creative choice. The makeup done on the faces and bodies of the corpses was next level. It was the right amount of gore. The Bad A portion of the problem of the film lies in the writing. The Origin Story: Madam Koi Koi is divided into two parts; the first part is excellent and offers viewers an element of suspense. Unfortunately, the same cant be said for the second part, as it was predictable. The clues and mysteries were on the nose, taking away the joy of trying to figure things out for the viewers. For example, it was apparent that Amanda was the unknown figure that triggered the creatures arrival. The way Baba even discovered she was the one was effortless, super easy, and barely an inconvenience. Madam Koi Koi also lacked believability. The producers want us to believe that Amanda quickly agreed to be offered as a sacrifice or something, no one talked about Idowus disappearance again, the village, in some weird unspoken way, got to know about the rape case that triggered the event, that the death of a couple of a few villagers/rapists was generalised as the imminent death of an entire community. There were exaggerations and several violations of the show, dont tell rule. Lastly, what happened to Madam Koi Koi? It refers to the creative direction of the character. While its understandable that the producers want to put their spin on the folklore, it felt as if they deprived the film of the essence of her name. Stories around Madam Koi Koi have focused on the sound her shoes made. The film deviates by having Madam Koi Koi stomp. Final Verdict 7/10. The Origin: Madam Koi Koi shows Nollywood producers are finally taking risks exploring horror while sticking to indigenous elements. While it has its shortcomings, grounded in its storyline, the film promises to be a horrific (in a good way) watch. The Origin: Madam Koi Koi is now streaming on Netflix. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has commenced the final collation of gubernatorial election results in Imo State, where elections were held on Saturday. Collation for Bayelsa and Kogi, two other states where off-cycle elections took place, had been postponed late on Saturday till 10 a.m. on Sunday. Abayomi Fasina, a professor and vice-chancellor of Federal University Oye Ekiti, is the returning officer for Imo State. Some party agents attempted to resist the collation, noting that it was too early to start collating results but the push was ignored by the returning officer. Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo State is seeking a second and final term in office. He is up against 17 challengers but his main opponents are Samuel Anyanwu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Athan Achonu of the Labour Party (LP). The state has 27 local governments in all. Stay on this page with PREMIUM TIMES for live updates of the final results announced by INEC at the state collation centre in Owerri. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Usman Ododo, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the ongoing governorship election in Kogi, has won the polling unit of the incumbent governor of the state, Yahaya Bello. At the polling unit 011, Agassa, Okene LGA, Kogi Central, the APC got 840 votes to defeat other top parties in the race. Muktar Ajaka of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and Dino Melaye of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) got zero votes at the polling unit. Mr Bello, while casting his vote on Saturday, boasted that his partys candidate would win the governorship election. Meanwhile, the governorship candidate of the SDP, Mr Ajaka, also won his polling unit at Grade 1 Area Court, Ajaka Ward 07 in Igalamela/Odolu LGA of the state. He polled 111 votes against the APCs five votes, while Mr Melaye of PDP secured zero. In the same vein, Mr Melaye of the PDP won the election in his polling unit in Iluafon Quarters in Ijumu LGA. He polled 210 votes. 18 candidates are contesting the governorship seat in the off-cycle election in the state. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print US President Joe Biden delivers remarks at the Memorial Amphitheater as part of a National Veterans Day Observance at the Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, USA, 11 November 2023. President Joe Biden said Americas veterans are the steel spine of this nation as he marked Veterans Day during a visit to Arlington National Cemetery. In remarks at the Memorial Amphitheater, the commander in chief recounted famous battles fought by U.S. troops and said those deployments of soldiers are linked in a chain of honor that stretches back to our founding days. Each one bound by a sacred oath to support and defend. Not a place, not a person, not a president, but an idea, to defend an idea unlike any other in human history. That idea is the United States of America. Nov. 11, once known as Armistice Day, is the anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I in 1918. Biden said that was unlike any war the world had ever seen before. The ceremony was personal for Biden and first lady Jill Biden. Bidens son Beau enlisted in 2003 in the Delaware Army National Guard and deployed to Iraq in 2008 for a year as a member of the 261st Theater Tactical Signal Brigade. A captain, he earned the Legion of Merit and Bronze Star. Beau Biden later served two terms as the states attorney general. He died in 2015 of brain cancer. We miss him, the president told the crowd, recounting how he pinned the bars on his son on the day he joined the National Guard. We come together today to once again honor the generations of Americans who stood on the front lines of freedom. To once again bear witness to the great deeds of a noble few who risked everything, everything, to give us a better future, he said, paying tribute to those who have always, always kept the light of shining bright across the world. Biden said that as commander in chief, I have no higher honor. As the father of a son who served, I have no greater privilege. He said that our veterans are the steel spine of this nation and their families, like so many of you, are the courageous heart. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition Lawrence Mofoluwaso Olamiti, the author of A Peep Into The Past, is essentially a newsman, an inquisitive reporter in the footsteps of Africas legendary news hounds like inimitable Segun Osoba, Theo Ola, Peter Ajayi, Dayo Duyile, Femi Ogunleye, Femi Sonaike and Sola Odunfa to mention a few. He masters the rudiments , the art and craft of news reporting the way a surgeon trains his scalpels. Luckily for Folu Olamiti, fortune brought him into the notice of the sage, Obafemi Awolowo, very early in his career and this singular fortune enriched the quality and scope of his news reporting and eventful journalism career. As to be expected, A PEEP INTO THE PAST chronicles the most outstanding news and feature stories written by Folu Olamiti over the years and most of those stories are about Obafemi Awolowos journeys and travails in politics since 1978, the year the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) was founded. This is where Folu Olamitis exceptional reportirial skills are best demonstrated, and surprisingly so, because this period coincides with his formative years in journalism. The section titled Tributes is a grand display of emotions and appreciation. And leaving through those pages Olamiti shows he is very sincere and appreciative. That section also portrayed him as one who places a great premium on friendship. He lavished praises on those who helped him one way or the other in his climb in the journey of life. The tribute to the Matriarch of Awo Dynasty, Hannah Dideolu Awolowo, gives an insight into the historic ladys underestimated greatness and political sagacity. The piece is a classic example of Folu Olamitis mastery of imagery and visuals and Mrs Awolowo is presented in a way that one feels her physical presence. The same vividness runs through the tributes to Caroline Akin- Deko, Arisekola Alao, Isaac Aluko- Olokun, MacDonald Chikwendu Nwariaku, Uriah Angulu, Ebenezer Babatope and Venerable Rufus Eniola Ariyo among several people Folu Olamiti brings up for praise and appreciation. This book is more or less a guide and a tutorial on political reporting as well as a study in human and public relations. Even though it is not a biography or autobiography, it nonetheless reveals the innermost character trait of Folu Olamiti as a humanist, a philosopher imbued with the deepest candour and spiritual piety. It could well have been titled A Peep into Folus Mind. It is in the travelogue that Folu Olamiti displays his mastery of prose and development of cinematography in a way that marks him out as a distinguished record keeper with keen eye on details. He describes the towns, cities and other places he has visited such that would create curiosity in the reader and may compel unscheduled adventure. His narratives are so appetizing and tantalizing and the reader is put in the same mode of a traveller thirsting for wine. The book gives a vivid account of Folu Olamitis meritorious service as the longest-serving resident public affairs director for the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) as well as an insight into the workings of the agency. Similar attention is given to Idanre, the place of his birth, which he celebrates to no end. Idanre to Folu Olamiti is like Water to Life, or more appropriately like Air to Life. It is with the same gusto he treats Idanre the he gives to narratives about his international affairs. A PEEP INTO THE PAST showcases news reporting, features writing, exemplary deployment of images and imagery, while in the same vein showing the techniques of public relations and image management . The reader is led into the workings of international journalism, international politics, and how rare opportunities shape the life of man. The book has opened my mind to Olamitis mind , and readers will find the book stimulating and engaging. A Peep into the Past is highly recommended to journalism institutions, students of public and human relations as well as to everyone who likes to read great historical narratives. The book will be formally presented to the world on November 30 at the International Conference Centre of the University of Ibadan. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Minister of State for Defence has blamed those he described as conflict entrepreneurs as being responsible for unending banditry in Nigerias northwest. Mr Matawalle said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in Abuja. Banditry has its economy, which is fuelling the crime in the country. Conflict entrepreneurs dont want insecurity to finish in this country. Many people in the North are part of the business. I call it business now because those selling drugs are part of it, those selling food, fuel and other essentials are all part of it. The informants get a lot from doing that. They are paid handsomely for that crime. So, they dont want the evil to finish. Many people have keyed into the business, he said. Mr Matawalle, who is the immediate past governor of Zamfara State, one of Nigerias most terrorised states, said during his tenure he observed that when a bottle of coke was sold for N100 in the city, some people sold it for as much as N500 to bandits in their enclaves. Also, when a bag of rice was sold for between N18,000 and N21,000, when it gets to the enclave of the bandits, it goes for as much as N80,000, he added. The minister, however, said that security was a collective responsibility for all Nigerians, urging all to put their differences aside, and team up to fight it. He said that if not for some of the actions he took as a governor, the Northern part of the country would have been burning by now. If not for some actions I took when I was a governor, by this time, northern Nigeria would be in a big fire. Remember that I was the first governor in the whole North, who cut off the communication network in his state. I cut off the network to allow security agencies to go in and push out those criminals. I did that because there were many times that if our soldiers were going to do some operations before they reached the enclave of the bandit, the bandits would be informed. Their informants will inform them, so they normally ambush our soldiers, killing them. The minister said that the worst part of the situation was that people didnt appreciate what the military was doing. I feel so because if one civilian is killed, the news would be everywhere, but if it is a soldier that is killed, nobody says anything. There was a time that 22 army officers were killed, but because the conflict entrepreneurs were involved, people didnt care but were busy promoting fake news, propaganda and all sorts of things. So, the issue of security is very delicate; the actions that we will adopt now is to make sure that we smoke out every single criminal in this country. We hope that with you peoples prayers, we can be able to achieve much through many actions that I know are going to be taken, he said. Mr Matawalle, who has been criticised by his successor Dauda Lawal, for worsening the insecurity in the state, debunked the claims. Some people are saying my government was negotiating. What kind of negotiation? With whom and for what? They should come out and tell the world what kind of negotiation. In military operations, there are kinetic and non-kinetic approaches. In a non-kinetic approach, for example, the community has to be involved, just like what happened in the Niger Delta. I was in the House of Representatives when amnesty was granted to the Niger Delta militants. It was for them to stop carbon deregulation and other criminalities in the region. But, if you look at bandits, what are they agitating for? Nothing. They are just normal criminals like armed robbers. But now, with what we have put in place through community reforms, we can fight these killers. Mr Matawalle said that the bandits were not faceless, pointing out that people knew them. They are actually known, so its just to have proper equipment to clear them off. And we are going to do it one by one. We want to do it. We shall do it. But, even if we finish with the bandits, what about the people within the community who are already benefiting from that business? The informants. The fuel suppliers. The food vendors. The other people who are controlling the conflict are entrepreneurs. Yes. Yes, other non-state actors. How about them? We have to devise a way to tackle all segments of the violence so as to destroy the whole chain and free Nigeria from every shackle, he said. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print A journalist at HumAngle Nigeria, Muhammed Akinyemi, has emerged the best West African journalist of the year in the seventh edition of the West African Media Excellence Awards (WAMECA). Mr Akinyemi, one of the 17 journalists earlier shortlisted for the regional awards, clinched the overall best at an award ceremony in Accra, Ghana, on Saturday night. The previous 2022 edition of WAMECA was won by Tessy Igomu, head of investigations at Punch Newspapers in Nigeria. The organisers of the awards, Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), said 855 entries were received from journalists in 15 West African countries for the latest 2023 edition. Sulemana Braimah, the Executive Director of MFWA, said the 825 entries were filtered to 100 before, a three-member jury chose the 17 finalists, and then whittled it down to six winners in six categories. The finalists are winners in their own right. The winners At the colourful award ceremony on Saturday, the winners of the six categories were unveiled. Mr Akinyemi won the Environmental reporting category with his story titled, All Die Na Die: At The Heart Of Nigerias Soot Problem. Published in May 2022, Mr Akinyemis story painstakingly detailed how illegal oil activities cause irreparable environmental pollution in Port-Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigerias south-south region. The article, which won the Environmental reporting category with a cash reward of $500, also earned Mr Akinyemi the West African journalist award and a $2000 cash prize. Other categories of winners were: Gbenga Salau (Guardian Newspaper Nigeria) who won the Business reporting prize; Emmanuel Debrah (Multimedia Group Limited Ghana) clinched the ICT reporting category; migration reporting prize went to Emmanuel Ayamga (Pulse Ghana); Komla Adom (TV3, Ghana) took away the prize for Human rights category; and the award for Investigative reporting went to Francisca Enchill (Joy News, Ghana). The six winners received $500 each for their efforts in enterprising reporting. A PREMIUM TIMES report on migration was among the 17 finalists shortlisted for the awards. Journalists must engage in accountability reporting Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, who presented the grand prize to Mr Akinyemi, urged journalists on the African continent to engage in accountability reporting. Mr Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), in his remarks as guest speaker, decried the rise of military regimes across Africa. Also, he condemned the undemocratic conduct of some African heads of give who tampered with their constitution in a desperate bid to remain in power. The lawyer advised journalists to engage in critical reporting to uncover persons and institutions involved in illicit financial flows in Africa. Democracy endangered in Africa Earlier, the Executive Director, MFWA, Mr Braimah, said there is a recession in democratic governance in Africa. He expressed concern that fundamental human rights and press freedom which are cornerstones of democracy are being eroded. We should all be concerned about the erosion of the fundamental tenets of democracy, Mr Braimah said. Decrying the stifling of media space across Africa, Mr Braimah urged journalists to brave the odds and hold the government to account. Speaking at the commencement of WAMECA on Thursday, a renowned professor of communication and founder of MFWA, Kwame Karikari, said, democracy is under siege in Africa. He pointed at the rise of military regimes across West Africa, especially in Francophone countries of Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, and Niger, where there is a shrinking of democratic space. Mr Karikari spoke on the theme of the conference, Media and Democracy in Africa. He noted that the state of democratisation across the continent today confronts threats of major recessions. The academic lamented that key pillars of democracy press freedom, Human rights, and freedom of expression were vanishing from Africa. Referencing the conduct of elections on the continent, Mr Karikari said all kinds of imaginable acts of fraud have undermined the sanctity of elections and reduced the institution to a farce in many, many cases. In Nigeria, for instance, electoral outcomes including the recent presidential poll was challenged by opposition political parties up to the Supreme Court where the ruling partys victory was affirmed. Elections continue to be marred by fraud and violence in many countries of Africa. The ideals of transparent multi-party elections, human rights, freedom of expression, socio-economic progress and security, are, today, seriously under siege across our continent. These explain why nearly every election in Africa ends in some level of controversy, legal dispute, or in the extreme violence or even a coup detat as has happened in some West African states. Corruption and disregard for democratic norms and values by ruling elites and the political classes in general have undermined the rule of law and rendered the institutions of the state ineffectual. The system of checks and balances supposed to be introduced in political management of the state are generally dysfunctional. The awards ceremony was attended by Ghanaian deputy minister for information, Fatimatu Abubakar; Robert Karanja, senior director at Co-Develop; and Emily Fertik, public affairs counsellor, US Embassy, Ghana, among other dignitaries. The three-member jury comprising Hamadou Tidiane Sy, Reyhana Masters-Smith, lauded the improvement in the topic of investigative journalism in the sub-region. It, however, observed issues around context, weak or poor writing, and grammatical errors in headlines. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Department of Development Control, Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has demolished 11,705 shanty colonies across Abuja city, from January to October. The department also generated N2.5 billion and created 13,873 direct and indirect jobs within the period. The Director of Development Control, Abuja Metropolitan Management Council, FCTA, Mukhtar Galadima, said this on Sunday during a media briefing on the activities of the department in Abuja. Mr Galadima explained that the shanties and illegal developments were demolished in conjunction with the Ministerial Enforcement Task Force Team. He identified the affected areas as Kabusa, Kasuwan dare, Galadimawa junction, Mabushi scavenger colony and Gudu District along Oladipo Diya Way. He equally said the department removed obstructing structures on waterways at Lugbe, Jahi and Lokogoma. This, according to him, has curtailed the flooding being experienced within the city in recent years. He also said the encroachment on rights of way and security black spots were equally dismantled in collaboration with security agencies in the FCT. The director also disclosed that a total of 1,764 building plan applications were received within the period, out of which 1,422 were granted approvals, including backlogs from previous years. On revenue generation, Mr Galadima said the N2.5 billion was generated from building plan approval and land use contraventions from January to October. He said that amount represents 68.5 per cent of the N3.7 billion target for the year, adding that of the N2.5 billion, N1.7 billion was generated from building plan approval alone. The director also explained that the 13,873 direct and indirect jobs were created at different stages of construction at various sites as approved by the department. Another achievement according to Mr Galadima included the inauguration of a One-Stop Vetting Team to treat backlog of files and fast-track of building plan approval for Plots within areas serviced with infrastructure. He added that the department also established Regional Offices to decentralise monitoring and enforcement activities in the Area Councils and Satellite Towns. We equally inaugurated a Committee on the Prevention of Building Collapse in the FCT to proffer modalities and institutional framework to avert building collapse in the territory. The department also inaugurated a Post-Development Audit which commenced at Dawaki as a pilot scheme. The staff of the department equally carried out routine monitoring of physical development activities within the territory where contravening developments are served either with stop work, quit notice or demolition notice, he said. On staff welfare, Mr Galadima said the department has institutionalised end-of-year activities where it appraises itself, enhances staff bonding as well and presents awards to deserving staff to boost morale. There is also a monthly medical fitness check for all staff and monthly sporting activities to boost the physical fitness of staff, he added. He identified increasing cases of land grabbing and harassment of the department staff by security agencies as some of the challenges recorded within the period under review. There is also the problem of non-resettlement of indigenous communities which created pockets of expanding slums throughout the city. Another challenge is the inadequate and obsolete utility vehicles for monitoring and heavy-duty equipment for enforcement to cover the ever-growing territory. Others are inadequate office accommodation, slow adoption of information and communication technology, and non-0utilisation of land after removal of squatter settlements. There is also the challenge of the slow pace of infrastructural development especially in the satellite towns and abandoned buildings serving as criminal hideouts among others, he said. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The challenges faced by civil society organisations in Nigeria as they strive for international funding were the focus of discussion during the 2nd National Conference on Civil Society Operational Environment held in Abuja last week. Many organisations were accused of not considering the potential benefits of collective efforts and shared objectives, in their efforts to attract funding. The conference featured panellists such as Chris Okeke, senior governance advisor of foreign, commonwealth and development office; Oreoluwa Lasi, founder and executive director of Women Technology Empowerment Centre; Wynyfred Egbuson, Project Manager, civil society, human rights and youth governance, peace and migration section, delegation of the European Union, and Irene Ayanwale, divisional head of business support services, Nigerian Exchange Limited, among others. Speaking at the event, Ms Ayanwale emphasised the importance of aligning organisational objectives to ensure focus, suggesting a thorough review of areas of interest. Beyond that, she said it is better as a small scale to carry out free outreach first before beginning to write cost for funding, with that such organisations can realise if they are willing to go further with such projects or review purposes. You need to run your CSO as a business, putting up and imbibing the true principles of business even though it wont be carried out to get profits but as a community service, yet it needs to be run with business principles, she said. The CSO needs to have a good financial funding character which must also include financial strategy and financial plan, she said. Capacity building On her part, Ms Egbuson spoke on the importance of localisation in international development with an emphasis on publicising every activity carried out. She said publicising every activity guarantees that trust will be established for support and funding from bigger organisations. There is a need for every CSO to have a website and social media pages where all data and activities carried out can be infused for publicity. When people see what you do, it establishes public trust and brings credibility from donors, she said. People can easily go to your website to see what the organisation is about, its purposes, mission and objective. It will give deeper insights. In his remark, the Organisational development advisor, USAID Strengthening Civil Advocacy and Local Engagement (SCALE), ThankGod Obosun, spoke on capacity development for SOs in the country. Mr ThankGod said there is a need for capacity building especially among the youths. For us to achieve this, we have partnered with the Nassarawa State University for courses on capacity building to be integrated. MoU has been signed and we now have education development studies and advocacy development studies as a course of study in the school, he said. CSOs regulation Earlier in his presentation, the executive director, the African Centre for Leadership, strategy, and Development, Otive Igbuzo, said there is a need for CSOs to increase the call for regulations to restrict individuals who are masquerading as an organisation engaging in criminal activities, including terrorism and money laundering. Mr Igbuzo, however, said the government regulation of CSOs more often than not results in a clampdown on advocates of transparency and accountability, necessitating the need for CSO self-regulation. While he highlighted the arguments for the CSO self-regulation in Nigeria, stating that the development of any country requires the cooperation and partnership of government, civil society and the private sector he however commented on the failure of government and the focus of the private sector on profits. He said There is an increasing role for civil society across the world and also an increasing challenge of legitimacy, transparency and accountability. In addition, there is increasing regulation of civil society and a demand for more regulation. Globally, civil society organisations have developed mechanisms for self-regulation. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Femis middle name, Peter, holds an intriguing prescience in the narrative of his life and his ascent as a philanthropic powerhouse. Like the biblical figure Peter, known as the rock upon which the Christian church was built, Otedolas journey through wealth and giving also mirrors the establishment of a firm foundation for positive change. We are accustomed to Nigerian big men and their prima donna dispositions, often surrounded by mean-looking, gun-toting entourages vying for prominence. However, witnessing a billionaire, denominated in dollars, swaying to the rhythm of Joeboys chart-topping track Alcohol, while his highly impressed daughters share gleeful laughter in the backdrop, presents an entirely unique and invigorating perspective on life. Femi Otedola is a man of extraordinary wealth, but even more extraordinary is his self-effacing nature. Despite commanding a stupendous fortune, he prefers to be addressed simply as Mister, shunning the grand titles that society often bestows upon the wealthy elite. His modesty struck me the very first time we spoke, and though he may not know it, behind his back I refer to him as Ogbeni Oja. Perhaps its a name that has stuck with me, resonating with the legacy of the late Chief Timothy Adeola Odutola, one of Nigerias most prominent industrialists of his era and a former chairman of the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Like Odutola, Otedola, the billionaire businessman and chairman of Geregu Power PLC, has achieved numerous firsts. Yet, in recent years, his philanthropic endeavours have made him akin to Robert Frederick Smith, the African-American billionaire founder and CEO of Vista Equity Partners. Smiths remarkable act of philanthropy, during the 2019 commencement speech at Morehouse College, is etched in history. He paid off the loan debts of nearly 400 graduating students, a gesture totaling $34 million. What makes Smiths story even more inspiring is his commitment to the Giving Pledge, a campaign founded by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, encouraging wealthy individuals to allocate the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes. Morehouse President David A. Thomas hailed Smiths donation as a liberation gift, freeing graduates to embark on their careers without the burden of debt. Starting life debt-free offers an invaluable head start to those graduates and sets the stage for their future successes. Femi Otedolas actions demonstrate a fundamental truth: giving is not merely an act of charity; it is a testament to the transformative power of philanthropy. His contributions to education illustrate how giving can shape the future by providing opportunities to those who might otherwise be left behind. In Nigeria, Augustine University, a private Catholic institution affiliated with the Lagos Catholic Archdiocese, received a generous dose of Femi Otedolas heart. On 26th October, Otedola was inaugurated as the universitys chancellor, and he chose that moment to make yet another extraordinary and selfless gesture. He granted N1 million scholarships to all 750 students of the university, an act that is consistent with his ongoing commitment to promoting education and societal well-being as a whole. Otedolas generosity extended even further. He pledged N140 million to furnish the newly completed Engineering Faculty building in the university and an additional N110 million to install streetlights around the campus and acquire a standby generating set. His total contribution amounted to a substantial N1 billion, in addition to his earlier contribution of $6 million for the construction of the multistory Faculty building. This facility was subsequently named The Lady Doja Otedola Building in honour of his mother. Otedola, like his other high net worth friends, is no stranger to philanthropy. However, what sets him apart is the share scale of his magnanimity. In November 2019, Otedola donated N5 billion (approximately $14 million at the time) through his daughter, DJ Cuppys Foundation, the largest individual charitable donation in Nigerias history. This generous contribution was intended to support various intervention programmes aimed at assisting needy children in the Boko Haram-ravaged North-East region of Nigeria. The charity focused on improving the welfare of Nigerias vulnerable and marginalised children, emphasising early childhood education and healthcare, among numerous other initiatives. Femi Otedolas actions demonstrate a fundamental truth: giving is not merely an act of charity; it is a testament to the transformative power of philanthropy. His contributions to education illustrate how giving can shape the future by providing opportunities to those who might otherwise be left behind. However, the influence of giving reaches far beyond those who directly benefit from it, as it significantly enriches the lives of the givers themselves. Numerous studies and anecdotal accounts consistently demonstrate that giving leads to heightened personal happiness and a profound sense of fulfillment. Femi Otedola undeniably exemplifies this, as he is a man of immense contentment, who dedicates time to his family. He appears to be in his finest form when surrounded by his gorgeous daughters. When individuals like Otedola contribute to causes they are deeply passionate about, it, in turn, fosters a collective sense of purpose and gratification within the family, transcending the limitations of material wealth. Engaging in philanthropic activities can also lead to personal growth and self-discovery. Givers often learn more about themselves and their values as they become involved in causes they are passionate about. This journey of self-discovery enriches the givers life in ways that extend far beyond the act of giving itself. Moreover, philanthropy allows individuals to build lasting legacies. While material possessions can be fleeting, the impact of philanthropy can endure for generations. By creating a legacy of giving, wealthy individuals can ensure that their values and principles live on long after they are gone. Engaging in philanthropic activities can also lead to personal growth and self-discovery. Givers often learn more about themselves and their values as they become involved in causes they are passionate about. This journey of self-discovery enriches the givers life in ways that extend far beyond the act of giving itself. Nevertheless, it is essential for society to acknowledge and appreciate philanthropists without developing an entitlement mindset. No one is obliged to give, regardless of their financial standing. Recognising philanthropy as a voluntary, altruistic choice, society should express gratitude and appreciation for the generosity of individuals like Otedola. Femis middle name, Peter, holds an intriguing prescience in the narrative of his life and his ascent as a philanthropic powerhouse. Like the biblical figure Peter, known as the rock upon which the Christian church was built, Otedolas journey through wealth and giving also mirrors the establishment of a firm foundation for positive change. His role as the Rock of Philanthropy embodies the enduring impact that one individual can have on the well-being and progress of many, just as Peters faith laid the foundation for the Christian faith. The power of giving is profound and multifaceted. In recognising the power of giving, we honour the positive impact it has on individuals and communities, leaving a lasting legacy of compassion and social progress. Much respect and kudos to Mr Olufemi Peter Otedola, or should I say, Ogbeni Oja. May your ships sail on calm waters. Amin! Osmund Agbo is the author of Black Grit, White Knuckles: The Philosophy of Black Renaissance. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print In spite of the challenges, African literature has witnessed tremendous growth and positive evolutionary bouts since the advent of the digital era. Today, 12 November, The Toyin Falola Interviews, in collaboration with the Pan-African Writers Association, will host a panel discussion on the topic African Literature and the Digital World. In this piece, I have only scraped the top layers of what there is to discuss. Our panelists will go fully in-depth on several nuances, dimensions, and realities of African literature in the digital era. The second week of November reminds us of African Literature Day. It is a good moment for creative writers and their readers to interact at a most intense level. In partnership with the Pan-African Writers Association, The Toyin Falola Interviews is pleased to be associated with the moment and to feature ideas on the frontiers of African literary journeys. Every form of literature, whether fictitious or not, is founded on thoughts thoughts jointly shared by the populace; contrarian thoughts held by a select number of people and propagated through writing; thoughts that reflect beliefs, norms, cultures, and values that the individual stands by, in a way that reflects the human society they are a part of. Since our thoughts form the basis of our literature, it suffices to say that literature is a portal that opens us to the thought processes, worldviews, and evolution of any given society or conglomerate of societies. Africa is not left out. African literatures rich and diverse history exploring multiple mediums from the oral and then written, and comprising thousands of languages, cultures, beliefs, and societies has seen systemic changes in how it is produced, perceived, interacted with, distributed, and critiqued a huge thanks to the digital era. These changes have encompassed a variety of aspects, including literary creation, publishing and distribution, while also presenting opportunities and challenges, giving a voice to independent writer-publishers, and rightly positioning Africa as a force in the literary world. Digital Tools and African Literary Creation Since the advent of the digital age, the creative process has witnessed a reinvention, and African authors have not been left out. This reinvention has mostly been in the availability of digital tools to facilitate a smoother creative process for authors. Although becoming an author is still a Herculean task, however the access of African writers to word processors, internet research, and writing and editing software has brought about a more structured and faster writing and editing process, giving authors the ability to collaborate with their fellow African authors in the diaspora or other African countries. Although I had authored several books well before the mainstream digital age, I have seen a more productive career as an African author since this age commenced, evident in the sheer number of books I have been able to author or co-author, in comparison to what I could achieve in the pre-digital era. The coming of the digital age has afforded authors the opportunity to infuse their writing with African-centric styles humour, idioms, proverbs, oral traditions, folklore, and oral poetry thanks to digital word processors and language processing software. This, in turn, has served as a more effective way to preserve the oral traditions and richness of African cultures. Another all-important influence of the digital age on African literature is the exponential rise in self-publishing. Prior to the mass digital era, numerous challenges militated against African authors, especially as they struggled to get favourable publishing contracts for their writings. This meant that there were more writers than authors of African descent, thus leading to an indirect stifling of the African voice. Digital publishing platforms such as Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, PublishDrive, Okadabooks, Apple Books, and AfricaRead, among others, have made it possible for authors to self-publish at more affordable rates and without the roadblock of being rejected by traditional publishing houses and agencies. Aside from giving a home to emerging voices, these online communities have also created an ecosystem to facilitate worldwide visibility for and engagement with African literature. They now serve as online cafes for discussions, recommendations, and even literary events that bring African authors together. Thanks to social media, African authors can situate their voices within the already established online communities and reach global audiences The recently minted independence of African authors to self-publish has led to a surge in the number of authors from the continent, making it possible for several diverse voices to be heard and giving room for multiple narratives, all needed ingredients for the full evolution and positioning of the African continent, without the constraints, censure, or limitations that would have come with traditional publishing. This also means that authors do not have to pick pseudonyms or be famous to get published. Digital Platforms for Publishing and Distribution The democratisation of book publishing and distribution in the digital era is yet another important point of discourse. Prior to the digital era, agencies and book publishing companies were the sole guardians and gatekeepers of authorship they decided who could publish, what they could publish, and whom the published books could reach. The downside to this was that while books misrepresenting African cultures and the African people written by colonial historians who had little to no encounter with the people or their continent were gaining global penetration, the books that African authors afterward wrote to counter the misrepresented histories and wrong narratives did not gain as much global penetration. Today, the digital era has not only made it possible to self-publish, but it has also made book distribution more flexible, allowing authors to cater to a wide range of audiences across print books, e-books, and audiobooks. For example, Google Books, Project Gutenberg, and several other digital platforms have made African literary classics reach a larger global audience by digitally archiving books that were written prior to the digital era. In the same vein, online literary journals and blogs have been a vital part of the distribution of African literature to a wider global audience. Several of these platforms run by Africans mostly have offered a home for the works of African authors, giving them visibility and setting the foundation for the raw and independent African voices and authors, especially the younger ones. These platforms also seek out collaborations with African literary heavyweights for contests and awards that could set the pace and establish the career of many young African writers. I have watched Lunaris Review, Brunel African Prize for Poetry, African Poetry Book Fund, Brittle Paper, The Chimurenga Chronic, Open Country Mag, All Africa, and several other platforms serve as the foundation for emerging and established African authors, such as Romeo Oriogun (recent winner of the NLNG Prize for Literature), Warsan Shire, and Tsitsi Dangarembga, among several others. Aside from giving a home to emerging voices, these online communities have also created an ecosystem to facilitate worldwide visibility for and engagement with African literature. They now serve as online cafes for discussions, recommendations, and even literary events that bring African authors together. Thanks to social media, African authors can situate their voices within the already established online communities and reach global audiences by interacting with and belonging to online communities of African authors or simply using popular hashtags related to African literature. African Literature and the Global Literary Canon The facilitation of the integration of African literature into the global literary canon is perhaps the most significant contribution of the digital era to African literature. This era has brought about a steady recognition, positive positioning, and the prominence of authors and books from Africa on the global literary stage, hugely thanks to the affordability of translation and the provision of cross-cultural exchanges that the digital era has made smoother. The digital divide also has limiting effects on African authors who have poor access to the internet and digital resources, shutting them off from accessing the now mostly digital global literary community. Another big issue caused by the digital era in African literature is the widespread copyright problems. Digitisation makes it difficult to protect the copyright of African books. Since the advent of the mass digital era, there has been an exponential rise in the recognition attributed to African literature on the global scene. Several African authors much more than there were prior to the digital age have attained critical acclaim and global recognition, reaching a broader audience in fewer years of actively being an author than was possible before. Chimamanda Adichie, Bernadine Evaristo, Tomi Adeyemi, Ben Okri, and Aminatta Forna, among others, have received recognition and placements on the global literary map, thus contributing to the present attention that African literature is receiving. Furthermore, translation projects have helped to integrate African literature into the global literary canon. Several African books have been translated into French, Greek, Chinese, Spanish, Italian, and other languages, helping the authors reach a wider audience and making African narratives more accessible. Challenges and Opportunities of African Literature in the Digital Age Theres no denying that African literature has seen tremendous growth and exposure in the digital age. Nonetheless, as with everything in life, there are downsides to the infusion of digital approaches in the African literary world. The first of them is the widening digital divide. African literature is increasingly tilting toward the digital, yet it is important not to forget that Africa is one of the slowest, if not the slowest, continent when it comes to the digital adoption. As of 2022, Statista reported Africas internet penetration rate to be 43.2 per cent, which is more than 20 per cent shy of the global average of 67.9 per cent. Several Africans still do not have access to stable internet or are not aware of the wide range of literature-related tools available online. This means that while Africa is rushing to adopt digitisation for its literary world, it may well be leaving about 60 per cent of its population unaware of the literary works being published on the continent. Even though there have been concerted efforts to publish literature in native languages, what use would that be if the target readers do not have access to the digital tools to read? The digital divide also has limiting effects on African authors who have poor access to the internet and digital resources, shutting them off from accessing the now mostly digital global literary community. Another big issue caused by the digital era in African literature is the widespread copyright problems. Digitisation makes it difficult to protect the copyright of African books. Several African authors are subjected to cloned copies of their books, being shared widely as PDFs and even being publicly published on websites. This is especially true of books in print. The problem with this is that while it potentially brings a deeper penetration rate for the authors books into the markets, there is little to no evidence to show for that in terms of money earned. In spite of the challenges, African literature has witnessed tremendous growth and positive evolutionary bouts since the advent of the digital era. Today, 12 November, The Toyin Falola Interviews, in collaboration with the Pan-African Writers Association, will host a panel discussion on the topic African Literature and the Digital World. In this piece, I have only scraped the top layers of what there is to discuss. Our panelists will go fully in-depth on several nuances, dimensions, and realities of African literature in the digital era. Join us. Sunday, 12 November 5 PM Nigeria // 5 PM Congo // 10 AM Austin Register and Watch Here. Join via Zoom. Toyin Falola, a professor of History, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, and Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at The University of Texas at Austin, is the Bobapitan of Ibadanland. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print When a child pours libation and gives iba (respect) to the shade of the farm, our elders say he will till the land till evening in comfort. I owe the inspiration to write this piece to one of the few surviving icons of the Nigerian newspaper press, hugely venerated Lade Bonuola, a.k.a Ladbone, ex-Managing Director of The Guardian. He is one of the ancestors who trod this path of column-writing long before those of us, todays masquerades, knew the way to Igbo Igbale, the sacred grove. Seventy-something-year-old Bonuolas piece, published by The Guardian on 10 November and entitled Truth and its Majesty not only served as a balm on an aching soul, it provoked the need to pay tribute to the Nigerian Tribune, Nigerias oldest surviving newspaper. The Tribune will celebrate the 74th anniversary of its founding in four days time, 16 November. The paper first hit the newsstand on that day in 1949. A tribute becomes necessary, as we say in journalism, so that we can do a tieback to the newspapers avant-garde and gadfly pedigree in pre and post-colonial Nigeria. That pedigree is what many are naive about or have chosen to gloss over due to the atmosphere of complacency that pervades Nigeria today. A tribute is also curative to the scorched souls of those of us who have kept aloft the tradition of the Tribune in holding leaders to account. Perhaps, it can heal us of the unwarranted verbal assaults, derogatory name-calling and deliberate rings ran round us by commissars of the present federal government, which we have endured. These are all in the bid to ostracize us as bastards and our Yorubaness impugned. The tribute is excerpted from my doctoral thesis entitled The Nigerian Tribune and hegemonic politics in Nigeria, 1949 1993, supervised by one of Nigerias very best political scientists, Professor Adigun Agbaje. That thesis which I submitted to the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan in 2010 thirteen years ago, will soon be a book with its own light shed on the role of the press in Nigerian politics. On the 70th anniversary of the Tribune, I had the honour of presenting same tribute in a paper I delivered to an august gathering that had the late Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi as well as Gen Theophilus Danjuma, Pa Ayo Adebanjo, ex-Gov Gbenga Daniel and many more in attendance. I entitled the paper Tribune at 70: Journey through barbwires, arson and anger of the State. In his piece, Bonuola reminded the world of the ideals behind Chief Obafemi Awolowos establishment of the Tribune and the eternal essence of its 74-year old editorial policy. It is necessary to remind us that the freedom of Nigeria and the democracy Nigerians enjoy today were, in part, a product of the decision by Awolowo to found the newspaper. Nigeria of the 1940s witnessed a drift toward subgroup nationalism and tribalism, provoked and exacerbated by Nnamdi Azikiwes dominance of newspaper press ownership. This was the impetus that fired some Yoruba and Hausa elites desire to have a rival hold that would define their own socio-politics. Founding a newspaper was one of them. Azikiwe and his associates were resented because their politics and influence in the media threatened the socio-political positions of Yoruba leaders and challenged their individual aspirations for leadership. With his West African Pilot newspaper founded in 1937, Azikiwe attacked the Egbe of Oduduwa, a socio-political group founded by Awolowo and his Yoruba-conscious group elites, frequently lampooning topmost Yoruba and their chiefs, as well as some emirs of the north. Quite predominant in the growing disenchantment with Azikiwe was the widespread bitterness with his over-protection of his tribal bloc, while seeking to whittle others down. For instance, Dr Okechukwu Ikejiana, one of the first Nigerians to be appointed at the University College Ibadan, (UCH) had claimed to have a DSc. from Toronto, Canada. Ikejiani was a favourite of Dr. Mellanby who was the first Principal of the College. It was later found out that Ikejianis DSc. degree was contrived. Thus, Dr Mellanby, though fond of Ikejiani, had no choice but to dismiss him from the University College. Miffed by this action against his godson, favourite kinsman and party man in the NCNC, Zik had to mount virulent attacks on the University College, as well as Dr Mellanby, in the Pilot. As a way of spiting the university, Zik got Ikejiani appointed as member of the Governing Council of the university between 1961 and 1965 as Chairman of the Governing Council of the university where he had earlier been dismissed. He later appointed him Chairman of the Nigerian Railway Corporation. Azikiwes NCNC and his Igbo stock became identified with the Pilot group of newspapers, Ahmadu Bellos NPC with the Nigerian Citizen and later on, the New Nigerian which he founded shortly before he was killed in the 1966 coup. Awolowo became signposted by, and even identifiable with the Nigerian Tribune. Seeing the need to situate the place of the Yoruba in national politics and to counter Azikiwes unfairly domineering influence in the Nigerian press of the time, the idea of founding a newspaper to project the voice of the Yoruba in the national scheme of things was conceived. The Nigerian Tribune newspaper was agreed to be its name. And on November 16, 1949, the baby, conceived with fecund thought for the place of the Yoruba nation and ultimately, the Nigerian Project, was born. Aside his foray into politics, the founder of the Tribune, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, had once been a practicing journalist, having been employed in 1934 as a reporter-in-training by the Nigerian Daily Times and having worked for a cumulative eight months in the establishment. Though he never wanted to be a journalist, due partly to the unenviable public image of the profession at the time, especially the perception of its practitioners as scum of society, as well as the deprivation imprimatur that its leading editors and practitioners in general presented, Awolowo, however, found journalism as a pedestal to earning some money to enable him achieve his life-long ambition of studying law abroad. On November 16, 1949, however, the Nigerian Tribune appeared on the newsstand. An eight-page tabloid, it came smoking-hot from the beginning, from both ends of its canons. For example, its first edition carried a lead story entitled, Chemists protest. It identified with the protest of the Association of Pharmaceutical Students of Nigeria against the Pharmaceutical School, Yaba, Lagos. The students were protesting the payment of the sum of 5. 5s per month subsistence allowance to them and demanding its increase to 7 per month. The fact that the newspaper chose as its lead story this particular story, as against another story on the front page of the paper, entitled, Mystery tree near Oyo, was unusual. The Enugu Colliery incident of December 1949, in which the police shot and killed some coalminers, gave the newspaper its desired nationalistic underpinning and recognition as a fighter for the oppressed, no matter where the oppressed was domiciled. The miners were said to have protested against the oppressive conduct of their bosses, low wages and poor conditions of service. The brutal quelling of the demonstration by the police led to the death of about 21 miners which provoked very fierce editorial and features from the Tribune. Because of this publication, which fell into about five weeks of the beginning of its operations, the editor of the Tribune was summoned by the colonial authorities before the Fitzgerald Commission probing the Enugu coal mine killings for what was considered a seditious publication. Thereafter, however, due to the Tribune publications and the concerned voices of the people, the Western part of the country was co-opted into the drastic steps taken to get to the roots of the crisis and give succour to the families of the victims. According to Arifalo, a coalition was organised by Nigerian political leaders as a response to the police shooting which had Dr Akinola Maja as chairman and Mbonu Ojike, the deputy chairman. Even though there was no formal Mission Statement on the direction that the Tribune newspaper would follow at its inception, what could be held as the geography of its advocacy was, one, a piece written by the founder of the newspaper in the maiden edition of the publication and the second, a proper editorial policy of the newspaper articulated by Alhaji Lateef Jakande, the newspapers managing director and editor-in-chief (Editorial comment, 23 May, 1977 with the title, A leap forward.). This was reproduced by the newspaper on 4 March, 1984 under the title, Why we are that way. Prefaced by a recalcitrant poetry from one C. E. Henley which says my head is bloody but unbowed, among other things, Jakande espoused the J. S. Mill utilitarian ideology of the greatest good as the force that fires the newspapers zeal and stating that Tribune owes a tremendous responsibility to the public it serves. The editorial policy, said Jakande, focuses on, the expression of public opinion, rather than the service of any hegemonic quest. Having performed this role creditably well, however, the years between 1962 and 1966 could unarguably be said to be the most politically tumultuous for the Tribune, as well as the Western region. Nigeria eventually partook of the turmoil, with the overthrow of the First Republic by the military. Even though not as tumultuous as the former, the period of the Second Republic, that is 1979 to 1983, was also as turbulent for the newspaper which witnessed constant struggle to subvert and delegitimise arrayed forces against the interest of the Yoruba people and that of the Awolowo political group. In the fight between the Premier, Samuel Ladoke Akintolas political group and Awolowos, the government of Akintola nearly grounded the Tribune. Beginning from 1963, the newspaper faced an endless regime of violence visited on it at the whim of the runners of government, as well as persecution, discrimination, intimidation, and many litigations designed to cripple it economically and wind up its overall operations. During the period of the Emergency Rule, the Majekodunmi administration brought several sedition charges against both the Tribune and other newspapers allied to it, especially those in its chain of merger called Amalgamated Press Ltd., like the Daily Service and the Daily Express. The Daily Express editor, Timothy Olu Adebanjo, courted the ire of Majekodunmi. He was arrested and charged to court. At the trial, in which the Amalgamated Press was defended by the duo of one Mr Odedina and Chief Awolowos son, Segun (who was shortly killed in a car crash), the judge found the newspaper chain guilty for going beyond the bounds of fair, decent and honest criticism and held that it had the intention of ridiculing and lowering the prestige of the Administrator. It fined it 300. The Akintola government and the Michael Okpara government in the Eastern Region, in alliance with the Action Group that formed UPGA, both engaged in retaliatory media salvoes against adversarial press reporting of their governments. While the Eastern Region, through its Local Government Councils, in 1965, imposed ban on the Daily Times, Morning Post, Daily Sketch etc for certain publications felt to be inimical to the running of its government, the Western Region, in a retaliatory move, also banned the circulation of the Pilot, Outlook and the Tribune from the Western region. Prior to this, from 16 March to 19 May, 1963, the Tribune newspaper was completely off the newsstands as the Akintola government-owned National Bank had instituted a court action against the newspaper, as well as Service Magazine, Iroyin Yoruba, and COR, which were all under the management of the Allied Newspapers Limited. At the commencement of the legal action, the Tribune management tried to wean itself of liability for the debt, citing its being a different legal entity from the Allied Newspapers. It sought to be treated as such in the liquidation of the debt. The court, however, saw things differently as it ordered that the premises and properties of the newspaper be attached for a total recovery of the debt owed the bank. At the end of the attachment, which resulted in total paralysis of the operations of the newspaper, eight of its printing machines were carted away and were subsequently auctioned at give-away prices to the rival Sketch newspaper established by Akintola as a counter-poise to the Tribune. The newspaper was to make a come-back to the newsstand on May 20, 1965 and it did with a recalcitrant, unbendable editorial on the same day. As the newspaper sought to deflate the Akintola government by subjecting its policies to scrutiny, the Akintola government too in turn sought to emasculate the newspaper and this it did in several forms, one of which was harassment of its personnel, especially the ones behind what it felt was the irritancy of the newspaper. On 5 February, 1964, a Tribune reporter, Mr Adetunji Adeoye, was arrested by the police and was immediately charged for wandering at the Premiers Lodge at Iyaganku, Ibadan. He had in fact gone to the Lodge to cover the special meeting of the Egbe Omo Olofin, the cultural counter-poise to the Egbe Omo Oduduwa, formed by Akintola to finally sound the knell on the Awolowo political brand. The Tribune had visited very scathing diatribes on the founding of the rival organisation and it was thus predictable that the Premier would view any impending report on the budding organisation by the Tribune as an adversarial report. The charge could however not stand as the police eventually withdrew it from the court. Also on April 16, 1964, the newspapers editorial courted the ire of the Premier who ordered the police to swoop on the premises of the newspaper. In the editorial, the newspaper had quoted a Minister who said that the Akintola NNDP-led government had upped awareness among the Yoruba people. In its interpretation of this, the editorial reasoned that the Akintola government was trying to incite the Yoruba against other ethnic groups. The Tribune was raided and at the end, several documents were carted away by the police, including a copy of the newspapers editorial comment for the second day, 17 April, 1964. This later became the subject of a one-count sedition charge slammed on the newspaper by the government. The Akintola government was still not done with visiting its wrath on the newspaper. For publishing a story entitled COP sacked for querying NNDPer in its 31 August, 1964 edition, the government ordered that a team of men from the Nigeria Police raid the newspaper. They arrived on 2 September, 1964. They were ostensibly searching for the manuscript of the said story. At the end of the raid, the police took along with them the newspapers acting editor, Mr Ayo Ojewumi and a reporter, Mr Bola Aragbaye, who were grilled and eventually, they, alongside the Tribune, were charged to court for false publication. On 4 January, 1965, for writing an editorial which was a critique of the 1964 Federal Elections, where the Tribune took the government of Tafawa Balewa to the cleaners for what it perceived were shoddy elections targeted at promoting the NPC and its NNDP ally into office, police again, for over an hour, swooped on the premises of the newspaper at Adeoyo, Ibadan, ferreting for documents. At the end of the day, the newspapers acting editor, Mr Folarin Adeeko, was arrested and quizzed by the police and was later released on bail. Again, on 21 April, 1965, a team of policemen arrived the premises of the Tribune alleging that it was looking for the News Rooms Assignment Book and Desk Diary, an itinerary of reporters on duty and their operations. The team could however not retrieve anything from the premises. On 5 June, a sedition charge was slammed on the newspaper for a leader in the 16 April edition entitled, Where do we go from here? The notice of the sedition charge was published on the front page of the paper of 6 June, 1964.Also, for writing a story the previous day on its front page on a supposed arms cache linked to the NNDP, a detachment of police men, on 27 June, 1965, stormed the Tribune. They searched the offices of the newspaper, as well as the home of its editor, Mr Ojewumi, for the manuscript of the story, in vain. Six days after, precisely on 3 July, 1965, Ojewumi was again questioned by the police in connection with a story in the newspaper to the effect that the Western Regional Minister of Information had boasted that 60 prospective NNDP men would be returned unopposed at the rescheduled Regional Elections. Again, on 25 August, 1965, the newspapers offices were thoroughly ransacked and its editor interrogated over a story in its 17 August edition. The government didnt end at this. It, on the basis of this story, instituted a sedition suit against the newspaper. On October 6, the police again swooped on the premises of the newspaper at Adeoyo, alleging that it had come to investigate an anti-NNDP story it had written in the edition of the day. When it could not lay its hands on the manuscript, the police went with two members of staff of the newspaper, to wit the editor, Mr Ojewumi and Mr Kanye Eleko. The story of this swoop was published on the front page of the newspapers 7 October edition. The paper alleged that the raid was dictated by a story it carried on 7 September, 1965 entitled Ogundina asked to stop threat and thus, the the CID men dashed to the Red Lion House of the editor, Mr Ayo Ojewumi, only for them to reappear at about 4pm of the same day looking for the manuscript of the previous days editorial comment. Again, on 13 October, 1965, at two hourly intervals, the police raided the premises of the Tribune four times. Two days before, the re-arranged Regional Elections had taken place and the two alliances, viz NNA and UPGA, had declared themselves winner. Expectedly, the Tribune had trumpeted the win of UPGA and Adegbenro, urging the Acting Leader of the Action Group Adegbenro to form his cabinet immediately. It backed this seditious call with features and editorial comments. Miffed by this, the police carted away heaps of the days edition of the newspaper and manuscripts of the stories that proclaimed Adegbenros victory. This raid was followed by a threat from the NNDP Secretary, Richard Akinjide, to thenceforth clampdown on irresponsible journalism and publication of false news.A detached team of Nigerian and local government policemen, on 14 November, again swooped on the Tribune. Numbering about 150, they were at the newspapers premises before sunrise, ostensibly searching for thugs and arms allegedly kept in the premises. Some arrests were made, including four night guards that the newspaper hired to keep watch over the premises after the NNDP thugs arson of November 7 and they were subsequently charged for wandering and remanded in detention. Mr. Ojewumi, who was to face stiffer wrath of government later, was on 1 December, 1965 accosted by the police who said they had information that he was in possession of Indian hemp. A team of men of the police, led by Chief Superintendent Kofo Lasekan, had swooped on the Tribune and accosted Ojewumi that the team was looking for Indian hemp in your possession. The story was written in the newspaper of 2 December, 1965, with Ojewumi warning, in the Editors note corner, all UPGA leaders and supporters (against) receiving any stranger they do not know very well. He had earlier been assaulted by men who were said to be NNDP thugs and his car damaged in his Ilobu, now Osun State, country home. He was subsequently detained for assaulting another person. Then, from 6 January 1966, the Tribune was off the newsstand. Giving reasons for this, the newspaper said it was not published because the Nigeria Police, in a surprise swoop on the premises of the African Press, succeeded in paralyzing the production of the paper. It was apparent that the newspapers editorial comment of the previous day, denouncing the Premier as a shameless liar and in another segment of the edition, speculating that the Deputy Premier, Fani-Kayode might have been mortally wounded in a political fracas in his hometown of Ile-Ife, had led to the raid. The police, led by the Chief Superintendent for Ibadan Division, Mr. Kofo Lasekan, eventually carted 21 persons into detention, including visitors to the premises of the newspaper. However, one long-drawn strain and intimidation on the newspaper was the trial and imprisonment of its editor, Mr. Ayo Ojewumi. The newspaper, on its own, most times in conjunction with Ojewumi, was slammed sedition charges and on some occasions, ordered to pay fines. Some of the charges had not been resolved as at the time of the collapse of the republic. The sedition charge against Ojewumi was however concluded. Charged for seditious publication of the leader entitled Where do we go from here? (16 April, 1964), the editor was immediately detained by the police. The editorial comment, quite frankly, contained one of the newspapers most mordant strictures ever. It called government actions awful, stinking, disgraceful and ugly, and accused it of reckless squandermania and abuse of office, alleging in the same mould that ministers in the Akintola government, including the Minister of Agriculture, were deploying government farm equipment to plough their fields. Also on the editorials allegations was that that ministers, numbering over 50, collected 1000 and 3000 respectively in bonuses during the Republic and Christmas day celebrations. It also accused the Premier of hiring an Apala musician for personal fancy, at the public expense, for 20 a day, during the census celebration. The crisis was so bad that on November 5, 1963, a woman, Mrs. Sikuola Odunaro, shouted the name of Awolowo while the Premier was passing by. Premier Akintola ordered her bundled into a police van. This it became the second lead story of the Tribune and entitled Woman arrested for Awo cry. As it were, on the morning of 15 January, 1966, the military took over government via a bloody putsch, after an initial failed bid by Major Kaduna Nzeogwu and other Majors to oust the Federal Government. That was after Akintola, Balewa, Sardauna and other government officials had been killed. Doing an epilogue of the Akintola government and the fate of the Tribune in its hands, Ojewumi had written an opinion article entitled, The collapse of the First Republic. During the civilian government of President Shehu Shagari, the Tribune equally faced persecution in the hands of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and its elements. Having now been in the hands of the UPN, the Daily Sketch also joined the positive press received by the UPN and negative reports by the NPN. For all these, however, the Sketch became a recipient of federal repression. Its Managing Director, Mr. Segun Osoba, was on September 1, 1981 charged before a Yaba Chief Magistrates Court for authorizing the publication of a false news item. The news item in question was a story in the newspaper of May 5, 1981. The prosecutor claimed that the story was capable of causing fear and alarm to the public. Its editor, Sola Oyegbemi, also went to court over the same story. The paper had reported that a police source confirmed to it that a robbery had taken place in broad daylight in Lagos. Mr. Oyegbemi was promptly arrested by the police and charged to court for conspiracy to commit felony in the publication of the false news. Mr. Oyegbemi prayed the court to restrain the police to desist from compelling him to disclose the source of his information. The court granted Odugbemis prayers and ruled that the disclosure would be an infringement on the fundamental human rights of the journalist. During the military era that began from 1983 and ended in 1999, the newspaper received ambivalent responses to its publications by the military governments. While the Ibrahim Babangida government was cautious of public backlash for rising against the newspaper of Awolowo, the Sani Abacha government, though didnt attack the organization as a corporate entity, showed its displeasure with its adversarial attacks on it by singling individual journalists out for sanction. On May 1, 1998, seven persons were killed in a May Day riots in Ibadan. In the melee, Editor of the Sunday Tribune, Femi Adeoti, Bola Ige and Lam Adesina were hauled into detention as a result of the chaos. They were detained on the order of the Abacha government whose military governor, Ahmed Usman, called Prisoners of War. Since 1999 when the civilian government came into being, the Tribune has continued its avant-garde role of communicating the reality of society, jabbing governments in power when necessary and essentially acting out the role of public ombudsman. That role has not changed and is not going to change as the newspaper prepares its journey towards its centenary celebrations which is just 26 years away. Ladbone (Lade Bonuola) held in his seminal article earlier referenced that it is too late to get the Tribune to bend to anybodys inclination, tendencies or beliefs or gag her editors. While Tribune continues on that road of honourable intransigence, to its apakamaku (undying) spirit, I pour libation of victory while I wish it a happy 74th birthday in advance. Festus Adedayo is an Ibadan-based journalist. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Gunmen attacked a 12-year-old herder, Mohammed Muhammed and cut off his two hands in Lapai Local Government Area of Niger State. The incident occurred on Tuesday while the teenager was grazing cattle at Kwashimi. Three armed persons attacked Mohammed, and amputated his two hands, his father, who only identified himself as Muhammed, told PREMIUM TIMES. The attackers ran after him, violently cut off both of his hands and inflicted a knife wound on his neck before callously abandoning him. Mohammeds plight went unnoticed until the next morning when the cattle returned home without him. Concerned, his siblings formed a search team, following the tracks of the cattle. They discovered a trail of blood leading them to the gruesome scene where Mohammed lay unconscious in a pool of blood, the father said. PREMIUM TIMES gathered that the incident was reported to the Lapai Police Division, and the Divisional Police Officer visited the scene of the incident. Traces of blood and the exhibits used to cut off his hands were visible, and reasons for the atrocity committed on the teenager were sketchy at the time of filing this report. The teenager lives with his family in the village of Kwashimi, in Mayaki, in the Lapai local government area. Mohammed is being treated at the General Hospital Lapai. The police spokesperson in Niger State, Wasiu Abiodun, in a statement confirmed that the incident was reported to the police on Thursday. Police operatives attached to Lapai Division immediately rushed to the scene and the boy was taken to Lapai General Hospital for medical attention while he was responding to treatment. Meanwhile, one Jafaru Yunusa was arrested in connection with the crime, while two others mentioned are presently at large and effort is ongoing to apprehend them. The incident is under investigation, the police said. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The electoral commission, INEC, has declared Governor Hope Uzodinma of the All Progressives Congress (APC) winner of Saturdays governorship election in Imo State. The INEC Returning Officer, Abayomi Sunday, vice chancellor of the Federal University, Oye Ekiti, Ekiti State, declared the winner Sunday morning at the state collation centre in Owerri. Mr Sunday said the APC candidate scored 540,308 votes to defeat his closest challenger of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Samuel Anyanwu, who scored 71,503 votes while the Labour Party candidate, Athan Achonu, came third with 64,081 votes. None of the other 15 candidates had up to 10,000 votes. Hope Odidika Uzodinma having satisfied all the requirements of law and scored majority of the lawful votes, is hereby declared elected, Mr Sunday declared. PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported how Mr Uzodinma won in all the 27 local government areas of Imo. However, both the PDP and LP candidates had alleged fraud and demanded the cancellation of the election. According to INEC, the number of registered voters in the state for the poll was 2,419,922 with 2,318,919 Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) collected. The voter turnout was less than 40 per cent. Sundays announcement means Mr Uzodinmma will spend four more years as Imo governor unless his victory is upturned by the courts. Road to Imo Government House Mr Uzodinma was first declared governor of Imo State in January 2020 by the Supreme Court which nullified the declaration of Emeka Ihedioha of the PDP as the winner of the 9 March 2019 governorship election in the state. The APC candidate had emerged fourth in the election, according to results declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). But the Supreme Court held that results from 388 polling units were not added for Mr Uzodinma during the exercise. The court said after adding the results from the affected units, Mr Uzodinma polled a majority of the lawful votes. Mr Uzodinma, thus, earned the moniker Supreme Court governor, which he frowned at. Mr Ihedioha had served as governor of the state for seven months and two weeks before he was sacked by the court. He could not, however, secure the PDP ticket to challenge Mr Uzodinma again as he stepped down just before the primary election which was won by Mr Anyanwu. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Eden Roth, a Jewish student at Tulane University in New Orleans, discusses tensions on campuses in the aftermath of the Hamas raid on Israel and Israel's response, at the Hillel Center in New Orleans on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023. As a Jewish student, Eden Roth always has felt safe and welcome at Tulane University, where more than 40% of the students are Jewish. That has been tested by the aftermath of last months Hamas incursion into Israel. Graffiti appeared on the New Orleans campus with the message " from the river to the sea, a rallying cry for pro-Palestinian activists. Then came a clash between dueling demonstrations, where a melee led to three arrests and left a Jewish student with a broken nose. I think that the shift of experience with Jews on campus was extremely shocking, said Roth, who was in Israel last summer for a study-abroad program. A lot of students come to Tulane because of the Jewish population feeling like theyre supported, like a majority rather than a minority. And I think thats definitely shifted. Tulane isnt alone. On other campuses, long-simmering tensions are erupting in violence and shattering the sense of safety that makes colleges hubs of free discourse. Students on both sides are witnessing acts of hate, leaving many fearing for their safety even as they walk to classrooms. Threats and clashes have sometimes come from within, including at Cornell, where a student is accused of posting online threats against Jewish students. A University of Massachusetts student was arrested after allegedly punching a Jewish student and spitting on an Israeli flag at a demonstration. At Stanford, an Arab Muslim student was hit by a car in a case being investigated as a hate crime. The unease is felt acutely at Tulane, where 43% of students are Jewish, the highest percentage among colleges that are not explicitly Jewish. To see it on Tulanes campus is definitely scary, said Jacob Starr, a Jewish student from Massachusetts. Within the student Jewish community, there is a range of perspectives on the conflict. The latest war began with an attack on Oct. 7 by Hamas militants who targeted towns, farming communities and a music festival near the Gaza border. At least 1,200 people have been killed in Israel, mainly in the initial Hamas attack, Israeli officials say. Israel has responded with weeks of attacks in Gaza, which have killed more than 11,000 people, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza most of them Palestinian civilians. Emma Sackheim, a Jewish student from Los Angeles who attends Tulanes law school, said she grew up as a supporter of the Jewish state but now considers herself an opponent of Zionism. Sackheim says she knows students who oppose Israels policies but dont feel comfortable to publicly say anything. I was standing on the Palestinian side, she said when asked about the Oct. 26 demonstration, which took place along a public New Orleans street that runs through campus. Still, she said Tulane is where she feels most comfortable as a Jew. I know that I have so many options of community, she said. On campuses around the U.S., students on both sides say they have been subjected to taunts and rhetoric that oppose their very existence since the invasion and the subsequent Israeli assault on Hamas in northern Gaza. They see it in campus rallies, on anonymous message boards frequented by college students, and on graffiti scrawled on dorms and buildings. In one case under police investigation as a possible hate crime, Free Palestine was found written this week on a window of Boston Universitys Hillel center. Colleges have been scrambling to restore a sense of security for Jewish and Arab students and stressing messages of inclusion for diverse student bodies. But untangling whats protected as political speech and what crosses into threatening language can be a daunting task. Tulanes president, Michael Fitts, has described an increased police presence and other security measures on campus. In messages to the campus community, he has lamented the loss of innocent Israeli and Palestinian lives and said the university was reaching out to Jewish and Muslim student groups and religious organizations. He has faced criticism from people on both sides seeking more forceful statements. Islam Elrabieey, for example, seeks condemnation of Israels actions. To condemn Hamas is a good thing, said Elrabieey, a native of Egypt and a visiting scholar in Tulanes Middle East and North African Studies program. But at the same time, if you didnt condemn Israel for committing war crimes, this is a double standard. As places that encourage intellectual debate, it isnt surprising that colleges have seen heated conflict, said Jonathan Fansmith, a senior vice president for the American Council on Education, an association of university presidents. But when different factions disagree about what crosses the line between free speech and abuse, it puts colleges in a difficult place, he said. Everyone should be incredibly sympathetic to Jewish students who feel under threat, and the alarming rise in antisemitic actions is something college universities take very seriously, Fansmith said. But they have a requirement, a responsibility under the law as well, to balance the free speech rights of people who may disagree, who may have critiques that they find disagreeable or dislike. And finding that line is very, very difficult. After facing criticism for trying to remain too neutral on the war, Harvard Universitys president on Thursday condemned the phrase from the river to the sea, saying it has historical meanings that, to many, imply the eradication of Jews from Israel. Pro-Palestinian activists around the world chanted the phrase in the aftermath of the Hamas raid. At Tulane, Roth said some Jewish students have been rattled enough to make them think twice about visiting the Mintz Center, the headquarters for the Tulane Hillel organization. I dont feel completely safe, but I feel like we have no other choice but to embrace who we are in these times, Roth said in an interview at the building. I know a lot of my friends are nervous to wear their Star of David necklaces, to wear a kippah or even come into this building. But I think its critical that we do not let fear consume us. Lea Jackson, a freshman from New Jersey who describes herself as a modern Orthodox Jew, said she is concerned supporters of a Palestinian state are nervous expressing their views because of the large numbers of Jewish students on campus. The Hamas raid may have made some people more reluctant to speak even as others become more outspoken, said Jackson, who said she recently spent a gap year in Israel and has friends and family there. But its a lot harder to have a civil conversation, Jackson said, when emotions and tension are so high and so many people are so personally connected to this. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition Lucknow, Nov 12 : A taxi driver named Vinay Dwivedi shot himself only to implicate a friend who was having an affair with his wife. Police probe revealed that Mahendra Singh Rana of Trauna village and Vikas Yadav of Unnao were not in the city on the day of the attack on Vinay Dwivedi on November 1. Police said that he had sustained a gunshot injury on his hand and the wound had blackening and tattooing marks which proved that the shot was from point blank range. Police said Rana was in Thakruganj area while Vikas was in Shivpuri locality in Madhya Pradesh at the time of the incident. "The police had authentic evidence of Rana's presence in Thakurganj, while Vikas's location was found to be MP and he also showed his travel ticket," the police said. Police said two witnesses, Sooraj Singh and Prem Bahadur Singh, both from Unnao, confirmed they saw Dwivedi shooting himself. Basti : , Nov 12 (IANS) The Basti police arrested 12 people for their involvement in clashes between two communities during the installation of an idol in Tigodiya village of Basti district. Meanwhile, a heavy police force, including two companies of PAC, have been stationed in the village and the situationis now said to be under control. SHO, Rudhauli, Dinesh Chandra Chaudhary said that tension prevailed in the village when a group of people dancing to DJ and playing with gulal during installation of Laxmi idol on Friday accidentally threw colours on a mosque. "The dispute soon turned ugly when both the communities blamed each other for the incident," said Chaudhary. Those arrested include Shani Basant , Umesh Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav, Pawan Yadav, Ashiq Ali, Shoaib, Jahangir Alam, Shabbir Ahmed, Safiullah, Alauddin, Fida Hussain and Abdul Salam. They have been booked under the charges of IPC Section 149 (rioting), 452 (criminal trespass) and other relevant sections. Some foreign passport holders from Gaza cross into Egypt via Rafah. Image Source: IANS News Tel Aviv , Nov 12 : The Rafah land crossing from Gaza land strip to Egypt would reopen from Sunday morning for foreign passport holders and their dependents.. The crossing between Gaza strip and Sinai peninsula in Egypt is the only border not controlled by Israel. Evacuations from Gaza strip into Egypt were suspended on Friday due to issues in transporting medical evacuees from North Gaza. The border will open from 9am local time (7am GMT) on Sunday. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has been pressing for more aid trucks into Gaza from Rafah crossing as there was an acute shortage of medical and other necessary materials. Hyderabad, Nov 12 : Goshamahal was the only Assembly seat won by the BJP in 2018 and it has been in the news due to the controversies created by MLA T. Raja Singh with his hate speeches. Raja Singh has entered the fray in a bid for a third consecutive victory from this constituency in central Hyderabad. This time the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) is going all out to defeat Raja Singh as the party leaders see his anti-Muslim utterances as a ablota on Hyderabad and Telanganaas secular image under BRS rule. The BRS, which is looking for a third consecutive term in power, has been projecting communal harmony and peace as its main achievements during the last 10 years. It showcases Hyderabad as the best model of aGanga Jamuna Tehzeeba with people belonging to various faiths living in harmony. The ruling party leaders are concerned over the impact Raja Singhas hate speeches can have on communal harmony. BRS working president K. T. Rama Rao is confident that the party will wrest Goshamahal. Notorious for his hate speeches, the BJP MLA had made certain derogatory comments last year about Prophet Muhammad, triggering massive protests. The BJP had suspended Raja Singh from the party over his comments.He was arrested by the Hyderabad police but on the same day a city court had granted him bail. Amid the continuing protests, he was again arrested and sent to jail on August 25 after the Hyderabadpolice commissioner invoked the Preventive Detention (PD) Act. According to the police, Raja Singh, a rowdy sheeter of Mangalhat police station, has been habitually delivering provocative and inflammatory speeches and driving a wedge between communities, leading to public disorder. As per the order issued by the police, a total of 101 criminal cases have been registered against him since 2004. He was involved in 18 communal offences in the limits of different police stations in Hyderabad. Raja Singh was released in November after the Telangana High Court set aside the PD Act proceedings against him. The court, however, asked the MLA not to make any provocative speeches against any religion or post any derogatory or offensive posts on any social media platform. However, Raja Singh continued delivering hate speeches during religious rallies in other states like Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Gujarat. Last month, the BJP revoked the suspension of Raja Singh and the party fielded him again from Goshamahal. According to the affidavit submitted by him while filing his nomination this week, Raja Singh has 75 criminal cases against him. Most of them are hate speech cases booked in different parts of Telangana and other states. The number of cases against him in 2018 was 43 including 38 hate speech cases. Raja Singh, who was a corporator from Mangalhat, was first elected as MLA in 2014, defeating Congress heavyweight and former minister M. Mukesh Goud by a big margin of 46,793 votes. Raja Singh had polled 92,757 votes (58.9%) while Mukesh Goud secured 45,964 votes (29.2%). This time the BRS has fielded Nand Kishore Vyas while the Congress has fielded Mahila Congress president Mogili Sunitha. Nand Kishore Vyas had contested as an independent candidate in 2014 and was a distant third with 7,123 votes (4.49%). Prem Kumar Dhoot of the TRS (now BRS) had finished fourth with only 6,312 votes (3.98%). This was the first election after the Bill for the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh was passed in Parliament and the TRS did not have much presence in Hyderabad. In 2018, the TRS emerged as a strong force in Goshamahal but this was not enough to defeat Raja Singh, who retained the seat by a majority of 17,734 votes. He polled 61,854 votes (45.18%) while Prem Singh Rathore of the TRS finished runner-up with 44,120 votes (32.23%). Mukesh Goud of the Congress was a distant third with 26,322 votes (19.23%). Prem Singh Rathore was elected to the Assembly in 1999 on a BJP ticket from Maharajgunj, as the constituency was known before delimitation in 2009. The constituency, where the majority of the 2.7 lakh voters are migrant businessmen from Rajasthan, Gujarat and other states, had first elected a BJP candidate (Ramaswamy) in 1994. The Lodha community, to which Raja Singh belongs, is the dominant migrant population. Hyderabad, Nov 12 : It will be an interesting battle in Kodangal between Telangana Congress chief A Revanth Reddy and the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS). Revanth Reddy, a front runner for the chief minister's post if the Congress comes to power, may find the going tough with the BRS working aggressively to defeat him once again on his home turf in undivided Mahabubnagar district. Though Revanth Reddy has also entered the fray from Kamareddy against Chief Minister and BRS supremo K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR), the BRS is focusing on wresting Kodangal. A two-time MLA from Kodangal, Revanth Reddy had suffered a shocking defeat in 2018 at the hands of Patnam Narender Reddy of the TRS (now BRS) by a margin of 9,319 votes. The Congress, however, fielded him in the Lok Sabha elections from Malkajgiri in Greater Hyderabad and Revanth Reddy did not disappoint the leadership. He defeated his nearest rival Marri Rajasekhar Reddy by 10,919 votes. This victory helped him in consolidating his position in the party and the leadership appointed him the state unit president in 2021, giving him the big responsibility of reviving the party's fortunes. An aggressive, albeit controversial, Revanth Reddy has succeeded in lifting the party's morale. A bitter critic of KCR and his family, he is credited with the momentum the party has seen in recent months, especially after the Congress win in Karnataka. Now, Kodangal is all set to witness a repeat of the 2018 battle. BRS has once again fielded Narender Reddy. Though the BJP has fielded Bantu Ramesh Kumar, it will be a direct fight between Revanth Reddy and Narender Reddy. During the campaign, Revanth Reddy is highlighting the failures of the BRS in fulfilling the promises it had made in 2018 for the constituency's development. Indirectly pitching himself as the CM face, the TPCC chief is trying to explain to voters how Kodangal can benefit if the Congress comes to power in the state. Addressing a rally before filing his nomination, he mentioned the role played by the Karnataka PCC chief and Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar in bringing the Congress party into power in Karnataka. "If the Kodangal people help the Congress win, Kodangal's name would be popular at the Delhi level," he said. He also told the people that the Congress should win in Kodangal with a larger majority than what was secured by Shivakumar in Karnataka. "If the Congress party comes to power, this will bring recognition to Kodangal in the entire country," he added. "In the last elections the BRS had promised to establish cement factories, junior colleges, degree colleges, engineering colleges but no development activity has taken place," he said. Revanth Reddy, who has repeatedly challenged KCR to contest from Kodangal, is seen by the BRS and KCR's family as the main threat. Ever since Revanth Reddy was made the TPCC chief, a bitter war of words has been going on between them. Both sides use harsh words to attack each other. BRS working president and KCR's son KT Rama Rao has vowed to defeat Revanth Reddy in Kodangal. Taking the fight to Revanth Reddy's home-turf, KTR conducted a huge road show. He said Revanth Reddy will soon land in jail in the cash-for-vote case and asked people to decide whether they want a leader who will be with them or one who will go to prison. "Do you want current (power) or Congress, Rythu Bandhu or Rabandhu (vultures), schemes or scams, an MLA with people or MLA in jail," asked the BRS leader. After a huge response to the November 9 roadshow in Kodangal, KTR declared that BRS is once again winning the seat. Interestingly, Revanth Reddy began his political career with TRS (now BRS) in 2003. He quit the party two years later after he was not given a chance to contest. Contesting as an independent, he became a Zilla Parishad Territorial Committee (ZPTC) member in 2006. He got elected to the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council in 2008 as an independent candidate. The same year he joined the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). Revanth Reddy was first elected from Kodangal in 2009 on a TDP ticket, defeating his nearest rival Gurunath Reddy of the Congress party by about 7,000 votes. He became close to TDP president and former Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu. He retained the seat in 2014, defeating Gurunath Reddy, who had contested as a TRS candidate, by over 14,000 votes. However, the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh had weakened the TDP in Telangana. In October 2017, he resigned as MLA and also quit the TDP. He vowed to fight for the "liberation of Telangana from KCR's autocratic rule" and later joined the Congress party. Tel Aviv, Nov 12 : The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said that it would help in evacuating babies trapped in Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza Strip. The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that it lost contact with Al-Shifa hospital and that children and aged people were suffering in the hospital due to Israeli attack. The WHO said that its contacts in Al-Shifa hospital would have left for South Gaza after fighting increased in the premises. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry had earlier said that Israel army was shelling the hospital and there was no electricity in the hospital leading to the death of people in the Intensive care unit(ICU). Meanwhile, the IDF has been all along maintaining that the Al-Shifa hospital was a major command centre of the Hamas with underground tunnel networks linked to the hospital. The IDF has also charged that Hamas was using children and old people alike as human shields to escape from the attacks and have been allowing mobility of civilians from northern Gaza to south. The Israeli military has been allowing four hours daily for people to evacuate from northern Gaza to the southern strip. New Delhi, Nov 12 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday greeted the nation on the occasion of Diwali, and said "may this festival brings joy in everyone's lives". In a post on X, PM Modi said, "Wishing everyone a Happy Diwali! May this special festival bring joy, prosperity and wonderful health to everyoneas lives." Diwali, festival of lights and one of the major festivals is celebrated all over India. Diwali symbolises the spiritual "victory of light over darkness". After assuming the post of Prime Minister, PM Modi has been celebrating the festival of Diwali with the soldiers either on the International Border, or the Line of Actual Control or Line of Control. In 2014, PM Modi celebrated Diwali with the soldiers at Siachen Glacier, in 2015 he spent time with soldiers at Amritsar border; in 2016 he celebrated Diwali in Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh and in 2017, he went to Gurez in Jammu and Kashmir. In 2018, the Prime Minister celebrated Diwali with the Army personnel in Kedarnath in Uttarakhand while in 2019 he went to Rajouri in Jammu, in 2020 he celebrated Diwali in Rajasthan's Jaisalmer; in 2021 he celebrated Diwali in J&K's Nowshera and last year he spent time with Indian Army soldiers in Kargil during Diwali. However, his this year's programme is still unknown. New York Mayor Eric Adams smiles while addressing athletes before they make their way onto the Verrazano Narrows Bridge at the start of the New York City Marathon, Nov. 5, 2023, in New York. FBI agents quietly seized phones and an iPad from New York City Mayor Eric Adams early this week as part of an investigation into political fundraising during his 2021 campaign, his attorney disclosed Friday. The seizures happened as Adams was leaving a public event in Manhattan, according to a statement from the mayors attorney, Boyd Johnson. On Monday night, the FBI approached the mayor after an event. The Mayor immediately complied with the FBIs request and provided them with electronic devices, Johnson said. The mayor has not been accused of any wrongdoing and continues to cooperate with the investigation. The seizure of the devices, first reported by The New York Times, came four days after federal agents searched the Brooklyn home of Adams top campaign fundraiser, Brianna Suggs. That search prompted the mayor to cancel a planned trip to meet with White House officials in Washington and instead return to New York. In a statement on Friday, Adams, a former police captain, said he had nothing to hide. As a former member of law enforcement, I expect all members of my staff to follow the law and fully cooperate with any sort of investigation and I will continue to do exactly that, he said. The revelation of the seizure is the clearest evidence yet that federal investigators are interested in Adams, who has previously kept an arms-length distance from ethics scandals that have dogged several of his associates. Adams, a Democrat, said nothing publicly about his phones being seized when he met with reporters on Wednesday and insisted he wasnt aware of any wrongdoing by members of his campaign team. He said he would be shocked if anyone on his campaign acted inappropriately. But in his statement Friday, Adams attorney said they had discovered that an individual had recently acted improperly. His campaign spokesperson declined to identify the person involved or say what they did wrong. After learning of the federal investigation, it was discovered that an individual had recently acted improperly. In the spirit of transparency and cooperation, this behavior was immediately and proactively reported to investigators, Johnson said, offering no further details. Representatives for the U.S. attorney in Manhattan and the FBI both declined to comment. The focus of the investigation hasnt been publicly disclosed by prosecutors, but a search warrant obtained by The New York Times indicated authorities are examining whether the Adams campaign conspired with the Turkish government to receive donations from foreign sources, funneled through straw donors. The warrant also requested information about Adams use of New York Citys matching funds program, which provides candidates with an eightfold match of a city residents first donations. Over the summer, Manhattan prosecutors brought charges against six people who allegedly sought to manipulate the fundraising program to funnel tens of thousands of dollars to Adams 2021 mayoral campaign. Adams has not been charged in that case. A campaign spokesperson said the FBI has since returned some, but not all, of Adams devices. Photos show Adams spoke Monday evening at an autism awareness event at New York University. The following day, his spokesperson announced that Adams would not travel to Puerto Rico for an annual conference widely attended by New Yorks political players. At his news conference Wednesday, Adams told reporters his absence at the conference was the result of New Yorks serious fiscal crisis, adding that it wouldnt be appropriate to have on a flowery shirt lying on a beach drinking a margarita. He was previously scheduled to receive a humanitarian award at the conference, according to a flyer of the event. The Democrat also reiterated earlier statements that he had no personal knowledge of any improper fundraising, and didnt believe he had anything to personally fear from the investigation. He praised Suggs, 25, as a brilliant young lady who followed the rules. Suggs has declined comment through a spokesperson. At the time, the mayors chief City Hall lawyer had confirmed that the administration was communicating with federal prosecutors, but declined to discuss what that entailed. Adams, 63, was elected mayor two years ago and has been in office since January 2022. He went into politics after a 22-year police career, serving as a state senator and in the largely ceremonial position of Brooklyn borough president before running for mayor. A political centrist, Adams rode a tough-on-crime message to victory in the 2021 Democratic mayoral primary before defeating Republican Curtis Sliwa in the general election. In September, Adams top building-safety official, Eric Ulrich, was charged with taking $150,000 in bribes and improper gifts from associates and repaying them with favors that included access to top officials, including Adams, and help doing business with the city. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition Seoul, Nov 12 : Samsung, Google and Qualcomm are reportedly geared up to bring 30,000 units of their mixed reality (MR) headsets to the market in late 2024, to take on Apple Vision Pro. According to reports from Upload VR and the Korean newspaper The JoonAng, the XR alliance, formed by Samsung, Google, and Qualcomm, is planning to launch a mixed reality headset next year. The JoonAng report claimed that the production target for the Samsung headset will be 30,000 units for 2024. The South Korean giant has apparently commissioned higher resolution screens from Samsung Display for its XR headset. Samsung has reportedly communicated to developers that its new MR headset will launch at the end of 2024. The price of the Samsung headset is likely to be around $2,000, compared to $3,499 for the Apple Vision Pro. In December, South Korean news outlet ETNews reported Samsung had built prototypes of a headset and planned to ship samples to developers in 2023. In September, mobile carrier LG Uplus said it has formed an alliance with global telecom operators, content developers and chipmaker Qualcomm to develop 5G-based augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) content to boost the budding industry. The Global XR Content Telco Alliance will collaborate on developing 5G-based extended reality (XR) content, which covers all immersive content such as AR and VR. The alliance includes Japan's KDDI Corp., China Telecom Corp., Bell Canada and Qualcomm, and it will be headed by LG Uplus at launch. The cross-border alliance will develop XR content based on Qualcomm's platform that promises more immersive quality using high-speed 5G networks. In August, the mobile carrier released a 5G-based AR glasses device with Chinese mixed-reality developer Nreal, and it has partnered with Google to develop AR and VR content since last year. IMD warns of heavy rainfall across multiple regions in country, some areas to experience exceptionally heavy downpours. Image Source: IANS News Suva, Nov 12 : Heavy rain, thunderstorms, and isolated heavy falls in Yasawa, Mamanuca, Lau and Lomaiviti Groups are predicted in Fiji on Sunday night as tropical disturbance TD02F, is approaching towards the Pacific island country. A strong wind warning is active for various land and coastal areas as well as all Fiji waters, Xinhua news agency reported. Localised flooding in low-lying regions is expected particularly in areas under heavy rain alerts. Minor roads, Iris crossings and bridges may be affected causing disruptions to traffic flow. Poor visibility at sea and on land heightens the risk of motor vehicle accidents due to slippery roads. The Fiji Meteorological Service is closely monitoring the evolving situation. New Delhi: There have been open debates lately on the issues of governance and public policy in a democratic dispensation and in the Indian context, a narrative is projected that the political executive ought to run the country on Constitutional norms -- the implication being that the regime of the day is perhaps not fully pursuing that path. This is an unfair criticism. India rightly described as the mother of democracy has been governed for decades on the robust principle of aone man one votea not affected by caste, class, region, community or gender making the words awe the people..a come alive - as used in the Constitution adopted way back in 1950. The majority-minority question raised politically by interested parties was traceable to the fact that India won its freedom -- that was coterminous with Partition made on communal lines -- but inherited a Muslim population that could match that of Pakistan. The competitive politics made it tempting for the parties to seek votes in the name of aminority rightsa and this encouraged many Muslim leaders to take a separatist approach and demand a apolitical sharea for the minority in the governance at the national level. With the rise of BJP as the ruling party, the forces of the opposition also floated a view that the Narendra Modi regime was moving towards amajoritarianisma, aauthoritarianisma and neglect of aminoritiesa. Civil society groups, sections of media and lobbies abroad seemed to have joined the apolitics by proxya on these lines. This invites examination as to what fundamental practices of governance in a democracy should remain unchanged in the larger national interest. In a democratic country, secularism is built into the system of adult franchise and enactment of laws that would not distinguish between one community and the others. The state carried no stamp of religion but it professed respect for all faiths and granted freedom of worship as a fundamental right. Supreme Court interpreted the abasic structurea of the Constitution that could not be amended. As an important pillar of democracy, the Judiciary had the final authority to declare that any policy of the government or enactment of Parliament, was an ultra virus of the Constitution. The political executive selected on the basis of the majority of the ruling party would not adopt a policy favouring a community or group -- outside of the system of areservationsa -- and hence considering all of this, the burden of good governance in the eyes of the people falls chiefly on the administrative machinery of the government headed by and large by the officers of IAS and IPS who were expected to ensure that the implementation of a policy was impartial and that the law and order maintenance -- a prerequisite of good governance -- was uniform across the length and breadth of the country. The validity of the All India Civil Services was tested in independent India and those at the top levels did consciously contribute to policy formulation. They were also expected to monitor law and order management of the states in the light of the Constitutional provision that gross failure on that front could even lead to the Centre taking over the reins of governance in the concerned state. Gradually, however, the efficacy of these services declined on account of excessive bureaucratisation, weak supervision down the line and most of all, political interference. Young officers prided themselves on their ability to serve the people as DM or SP of the district but saw how the bureaucrats in top positions succumbed to the dictates of the political masters -- they crawled when merely asked to bend -- and did that often for their gain which undermined their image as role models. There is no civil service like IAS and IPS in any other country - that offered a career of leadership from the very beginning and created a certain degree of expectation regarding their capacity to resist the wrongdoing of the politicians. It would be incorrect to put the entire blame for flawed governance on the political executive. In a large democracy like Indiaas, there are changes in the political complexion of the ruling dispensation but the principles governing the administrative functioning of the Centre remained constant. The execution of the policies of the day by the administrative machinery should be kept aapoliticala for the reason that the decisions of the political executive ruling the country set the relationship of citizens with the latter -- it is for the people to criticise or welcome the policy. Those heading the administrative machinery should express their reservations if any during the formulation of a policy but should make it a point to keep the official set-up of the government insulated from any public criticism the policy might attract. Unfortunately, the heads of administration and Police in the states do not understand the importance of this clinical separation between the political executive and the implementing machinery of the government -- in many cases, they themselves adopted a style of work that would please their political masters but not necessarily the people at large. In 1993, the Vohra Committee report on the Politician-Bureaucratic-Criminal nexus that was ultimately accepted by the government threw light on the role such bureaucrats played in taking corruption to an entirely new level. In the debate on where the blame lies for misgovernance, the attention is always on ruling politicians but there is a glaring underestimation of the expectations people had from the administrative machinery headed by the IAS and IPS, whose members enjoyed a great deal of respect for their supposed dedication to public cause, apowera and capacity to deliver. There was a time when the Collector and District SP were looked upon as the ahighest doora for grievance removal leaving people with little ground to go to the state or the national capitals. There is learning from the practice, the British followed of elevating a Collector to the status of Commissioner without moving him out of the district in a case where he had proved exceptionally effective in keeping the public contented. On the other hand, however, the politician-criminal nexus had operated in many cases even without the complicity of bureaucracy creating a situation where the upright officers doing their duty with fervour might run the risk of direct or indirect attack from hired criminals. Any case of assault on officials during the discharge of their duties will deserve to be investigated from this angle. It is natural that after Independence, the advent of democratic rule would change the position of bureaucracy in terms of its equation with the new rulers, preservation of its own turf and the challenge of facing the pressure of politicians in many spheres of its duties. What did not change was the widely accepted code of professional ethics that IAS and IPS were expected to follow and the degree of accountability that they had to measure up to in regard to the implementation of the legitimate policies of the government of the day. What also did not change was the impartiality of recruitment to these services through a national-level competitive examination, the guarantee of security of service to them and an attractive salary structure -- comparatively speaking -- with the added facility of housing and travel. Perhaps the biggest shortfall these services have allowed is in the area of improving the performance of revenue and police officials on the ground - at the level of overseers, civic Inspectors and Station House Officers. Not all of this can be ascribed to apolitical interferencea. Senior officials as they moved up the ladder progressively lost their image as a role model for the younger lot -- generally speaking. They tried to please those with political influence to gain some personal advantage, gave up the responsibility of asupervisiona that entailed exercising their administrative power and working harder or simply fell for the lure of illicit money. As someone said the officials of administration and Police were supposed to be afriendly not familiara. It is a matter of public concern that the core of bureaucracy that upheld ethical norms of profession, was shrinking. This is a contagious flaw that must be checked and halted. Police Performance should be a point on the agenda of the annual DGPs Conference chaired by the Director, Intelligence Bureau. The current ruling dispensation at the Centre is headed by a Prime Minister, who came onto the scene on the strength of personal integrity and the capacity to run the administration with a firm hand. These were the weak spots in the earlier regimes. There is a visible improvement in inter-ministerial coordination, the pace of execution of policy and recognition for good work. Prime Minister Narendra Modi can further stabilise the working of the nationas administrative machinery by taking certain measures that had been talked about but were still not fully put in place. First is the strengthening of the Centreas role in the appointment of the Chief Secretary and the DGP of the state. In what has the backing of the highest judiciary, the UPSC should draw a panel of three names on a seniority cum merit basis in consultation with the state government which would then have a certain autonomy in exercising its choice. Secondly, the Centre should continue monitoring the performances of officers of IAS and IPS allocated to the states after training, through the DoP&T and ensure that the legitimate directives of the Centre were scrupulously followed by them. Thirdly, the Centre should be able to send a strong message to the states that any unfair treatment of the officials faithfully carrying out their duties would be firmly opposed by the government. Fourth, India being a democratic Union of states, the Centre expected that the law and order management would be kept at a certain level of efficiency throughout the length and breadth of the country in accordance with the Penal codes of the nation. The IPS was created precisely for this purpose. It has to be made clear that failure of law and order indicated by a series of instances would invite a firm response from the Centre as provided for by the Constitution. And finally, the combined Foundational Course in which All India and Central Civil Services Officers were brought together at the beginning of their career must be utilised for inculcating in them the values of professional and personal ethics, making them aware of Indiaas strategic and national security profile and impressing on them the importance of cooperating with each other as they rose to handle national level responsibilities in future. All these are steps that are feasible and capable of being implemented with the right amount of effort. (The writer is a former Director of the Intelligence Bureau. Viewsare personal) New Delhi, Nov 12 : The recent high-profile data breaches have underscored the challenges faced by the law enforcement agencies in keeping pace with the rapidly advancing cyber threats. The question looms: are these agencies up to speed on data breaches, and are they successful in apprehending the perpetrators responsible for these cybercrimes? According to cyber security experts, the law enforcement agencies have been investing heavily in cybercrime units and technologies to combat the rising tide of data breaches. However, the sheer scale and complexity of the digital landscape, coupled with the anonymity provided by the dark web, makes it an uphill battle for the authorities to stay ahead of the cybercriminals. One of the primary challenges faced by law enforcement is the constantly evolving nature of cyber threats. The perpetrators adapt quickly to new security measures, employing increasingly sophisticated techniques to breach systems and extract valuable data. As a result, the investigative process becomes a game of cat and mouse, with law enforcement often playing catch-up. While some high-profile cases have resulted in successful arrests and convictions, a significant number of data breach perpetrators remain at large. The elusive nature of these individuals, often operating from jurisdictions with limited extradition agreements, further complicates the efforts of law enforcement to bring them to justice. A key factor contributing to the difficulty of tracking down cybercriminals is the use of advanced encryption and anonymity tools. These tools enable the perpetrators to cover their tracks effectively, leaving investigators with limited leads to pursue. The global nature of cybercrime also poses jurisdictional challenges, as different countries have varying levels of expertise, resources, and legal frameworks to combat such offences. "Undoubtedly, law enforcement agencies currently lack the necessary expertise and resources to effectively address the escalating issue of data breaches. Their primary focus remains on conventional physical crimes such as kidnapping, rape, and murder, diverting attention away from the increasingly prevalent cyber threats. Unfortunately, this oversight disregards the potential detrimental impact of data breaches on India's projected economic growth, necessitating a heightened level of awareness and sensitivity within law enforcement," saysthe International Commission on Cyber Security Law Chairman Pavan Duggal. "It is evident that the perpetrators behind these cybercrimes often go unidentified and unpunished. The evolving landscape of cyber threats involves a complex chain of actions, with individuals commissioning cybercrime agencies or actors on the darknet to carry out security breaches using sophisticated tools, including artificial intelligence. Identifying and prosecuting these elusive figures has become an immense challenge, further compounded by the reluctance of law enforcement to register cases without a clear path to successful resolution," says Duggal. "Addressing this growing concern requires comprehensive action from the government. Firstly, there is an urgent need for a dedicated national cybersecurity law, as the existing Information Technology Act of 2000 and associated regulations are insufficient. The recently introduced IT Directions 2022, mandating the reporting of cybersecurity breaches, falls short of providing an effective solution and faces challenges in enforcement," Duggal stressed. "Moreover, the government's development of a national cybersecurity strategy is a step in the right direction, but its timely implementation is critical. To safeguard those affected by cyber breaches, effective legal remedies must be put in place," Duggal suggested. "Additionally, building awareness and capacity at all levels is imperative. A national strategy should include public sensitization campaigns, training programs, and capacity-building initiatives to instil the importance of cybersecurity as an integral part of daily life for individuals," says Duggal. "Lastly, existing laws and legal frameworks must be rigorously enforced, requiring specialised training for law enforcement agencies on the latest tools and techniques for investigating cybersecurity breaches. Safeguarding India's critical information infrastructure from potential exposure to these breaches should be a top priority," says Duggal. "In conclusion, a multifaceted approach is essential to address the growing challenges posed by data breaches. The government must act swiftly to enact dedicated legislation, implement effective strategies, and foster awareness and capacity building to protect the nation's digital landscape and economic interests," Duggal added. (Shekhar Singh can be reached at shekhar.s@ians.in) New Delhi, Nov 12 : With three days left of campaigning for Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh Assembly Elections, the Congress is hopeful that it will get a clear majority in both states as the BJP has no face except Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the misuse of central agencies will backfire. Explaining the situation in Chhattisgarh, where the first phase of elections took place on November 7 for 20 Assembly seats, a senior Congress leader said the BJP is raising the issue of Mahadev app to target Congress and tarnish the image of the party leaders as they have no face in the states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.But they are forgetting that they themselves are accused of not doing any work in the Mahakal scam in Madhya Pradesh and are raising the name Mahadev in Chhattisgarh for their gains, the party leader said. He explained that the Baghel government will get votes on the basis of work in the last five years in the mineral rich state. "They won't succeed. They don't have a face there," he said. Commenting on the BJP's strategy to project Prime Minister Narendra Modi's face in place of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and similarly in Chhattisgarh, the source said that the saffron party has nothing to show. "In Chhattisgarh, the BJP has no face, like the case of Karnataka, where we had Siddaramaiah, who took on the Prime Minister. But in case of BJP there is no such face in Chhattisgarh. Similar is the situation in Madhya Pradesh, where all the posters and banners have the Prime Minister's face instead of the sitting Chief Minister's face," he added. He said that former Chief Minister and senior BJP leader Raman Singh is also no longer a major force in the state. Thus BJP has gone faceless in Chhattisgarh, he added. The party leader said that the Congress will form a government in Chhattisgarh as it will get a clear majority. He said, the BJP's main issue is Mahadev (online books betting scam), while ours is the work in the last five years, he added.The party leader also said that in Madhya Pradesh there is strong undercurrent for Congress and there are two reasons for the same. "First the long 18 years rule of BJP, which has made people feel that the government is not doing anything for them and second is the backstabbing of Kamal Nath in 2020 after Congress won in the 2018 assembly elections," he explained. He said that many people still remember the work of the Kamal Nath government after it came to power in the state as it immediately announced waiving farm loans.In Jabalpur, Mahakaushal matters. In Jabalpur first cabinet meeting was held in Jabalpur and the Rs 3,000 crore project was given approval. After that the government lost the majority and no work was done, the party leader explained.Agniveer scheme is also important in Jabalpur. There is sympathy for Congress, he said. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, party leader Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra have addressed several public meetings in the state and also held roadshows. The party already had several guarantees for people in both the states. The polling for the 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assemblyand second phase of Chhattisgarh for 70 seats is scheduled on November 17. The campaigning will stop on November 15 evening. Commenting on the situation in Telangana where election for the 119-member Assembly is scheduled on November 30, the party leader said that the Congress has overtaken the ruling BRS led by K.Chandrasekhar Rao and the BJP. The party leader said that in Telangana, there are many 'mausam vaigyaniks', who had left Congress in last few years have returned to party in this election sensing the positive feedback from the people and its chances of forming the government.The party leader also claimed that in Telangana, Karnataka effect is visible. "It is a straight fight between the Congress and ruling BRS. There is an effect of AIMIM in Hyderabad on seven seats. However, it won't have any massive effect on Congress. Similarly, the BJP has lost its plot in the southern states," the party leader said. He said that in Telangana, BJP is the main stronghold in some parts of Hyderabad. Outside Hyderabad they are not stronger as it is projected. "Thus we are hopeful of getting a majority in the state this year and will cross the figure of 60 seats," he said. The party leader also said that the results of the five states will have a positive impact on Congress as it is also hopeful of a good show in Mizoram, where the ruling MNF is facing strong anti-incumbency, despite ZPM making it a tri-cornered fight. Mizoram voted for a 40-member Assembly seat on November 7, along with the first phase of voting in Chhattisgarh for 20 seats. The party leader said that another victory in Rajasthan, where the Ashok Gehlot-led government is seeking a second consecutive term riding high on his works and pro-people schemes and the seven guarantees announced a few days ago will also strengthen the organisation ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Counting of votes for all five states will take place on December 3. New Delhi, Nov 12 : The festival of lights, or Diwali, is a festive occasion to celebrate the victory of good over evil. It is a lovely time of year to spend with loved ones and friends and spread happiness. However, it's also a great opportunity to impart important life skills to your kids. Megha Chopra, entrepreneur and poetoutlines six life lessons in life that one can impart to children on the celebrations of Diwali: The victory of right over wrong:The victory of Lord Rama over the demon king Ravana serves as a reminder that good always triumphs over evil. The significance of justice, truth, and righteousness in our lives is emphasised by this festival. As we light up our hearts and homes with lights, we also teach our children to choose morality, kindness, and compassion over vice and darkness. Teach them to be a light in the world and to speak out against injustice. Overcoming ignorance and fear:The victory over ignorance and fear is symbolised by the tale of Lord Rama's return to Ayodhya following his defeat of the demon king Ravana. Teach your kids that facing anxieties and overcoming challenges in life requires knowledge and fortitude. Assist them in realising that overcoming their worries and choosing wisely will result in success and personal development. Value of selflessness:Another chance to instill in your children the value of selflessness is during Diwali.Laxman gave his all without asking for anything in return. Though he wasn't required to, he stayed with Ram. After leaving behind the aristocratic lifestyle and all its perks, Laxman slept for a continuous 14 years. Even though it seems impossible to locate someone similar to him right now, it is not impossible to apply Laxman's qualities in the actual world. Beauty of Forgiveness:The life of Lord Ram is an example of the great beauty of forgiveness. He endured great hardships, but he was able to forgive everyone who had harmed him, including Ravana. His selfless pardon serves as a symbol of bravery and honesty, showing us that letting go of grudges and anger promotes inner serenity and spiritual development. As Lord Ram did, we can restore relationships, promote peace, and follow the path of righteousness by accepting pardon. Families' unity and bonding:During Diwali, we may learn a lot from the Ramayana about Sita Mata's everlasting devotion and resilience in the face of hardship. Her unwavering love and support for Lord Rama serve as an example of how important family ties and unity are. Like Sita, Diwali serves as a reminder to value our bonds with one another and support those we love during trying times. Through the promotion of love, compassion, and community, this festival inspires us to fortify the ties that bind our families. Importance of Self-Reflection:Diwali is a time of self-reflection and reflecting on the past year. This is an excellent opportunity to teach your kids the value of taking time to think back on their choices and actions. Reminding them to constantly want to be the greatest version of themselves and to make wise decisions is also a wonderful idea at this time. And always be open to learning from their mistakes. (This article is website exclusive and cannot be reproduced without the permission of IANSlife) IANSlife can be contacted at ianslife@ians.in --IANS lh/ tb Hyderabad, Nov 12 : Telangana Congress leader and spokesperson Palwai Sravanthi, who resigned from the party after being denied ticket to contest the Assembly elections, joined the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) on Sunday. Sravanthi resigned on Saturday. BRS working president K.T. Rama Rao welcomed her into the party at a programme held at the BRS headquarters, Telangana Bhavan. Sravanthi, daughter of senior Congress leader Palwai Goverdhan Reddy, said leaving the Congress party was not an easy decision but she remembered the words of her late father that a person should not stay where he does not get the respect. Srvavanthi had contested as the Congress candidate from Munugode constituency last year in the by-election caused by the resignation of sitting MLA Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy, who had entered the fray as a BJP candidate. Rajagopal Reddy, who lost the bypoll to BRS candidate, returned to Congress party recently and secured the ticket from the same constituency to contest the November 30 election. She sent a letter to Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, stating that ever since Revanth Reddy was imported into the party, he had been scripting its end in spirit, nullifying the values and principles that the party stood for. K. Prabhakar Reddy, who won the bypoll and is contesting again as the BRS candidate, was also present on the occasion of Sravanthi joining the BRS. KTR said it was unfortunate that the Congress did not give due respect to Sravanthi, whose father had served the Congress from the times of Jawaharlal Nehru. The BRS leader said that nobody knows why Rajgopal Reddy quit the Congress, joined the BJP, forced the by-election and why he returned to the Congress party. Mumbai, Nov 12 : Producer-actress Arushi Nishank's web series 'Kaphal' has gone on floors in Nainital, and she has called it very special to her, adding that the show is an amalgamation of how India meets Bharat. Calling it a dream come true,Arushisaid: "It all began two years ago with a dream and an idea. Many have come and gone, but the enthusiasm remains unwavering. I've encountered numerous challenging phases where anyone could have easily given up, but by the grace of God and my unwavering belief, I stand tall in the face of adversity. Now, withKaphalhitting the stage, being a producer marks a proud moment for me." She further shared: "Kaphalis a Pahadi native fruit and I am a proud pahadi. The show is anamalgamationof howIndiameetsBharat. Just like the fruit, we want to showcase in the show that in our day-to-day busy life, we fail to appreciate life and the small moments, instead always looking for more." "The show also captures the beautiful landscapes of Uttarakhand, the simple Uttarakhandi people, the traditions and the value exchange between the city people and the village people will also be a thing to look forward to. In short,It'sa heartful, slice-of-life show," she shared. Talking about producing the film, she said: "I serve as the producer ofKaphal, awebseriesproduced by Himshrri Films in collaboration with Disney+Hotstar. The project has very good casting, in the form of Divyenndu Sharma, Vinay Pathak, Mukti Mohan, and Kusha Kapila." Speaking of the ensemble cast,Arushishared: "Every film orwebserieshas its own destiny. We have tried to keep the cast so fresh that it would be a treat to watch each one of them. The pairing is fresh, the concept is new, and altogether I feel we are blessed on how the show is taking its own shape and things are falling into place." She continued: "In the realm of acting, there are numerous projects in the pipeline. One of which is called 'Tarini'.It'sa film based on six Indian women naval officers circumnavigating in a made-in-Indiaboat, and I am playing a pivotal role." "With each project, I feel what truly matters is the storyline, the story should be inspirational, connecting, and impactful to the people. It should encourage them to live their life without any fear and make a mark that impacts other lives in good ways too," she added. Tel Aviv, Nov 12 : The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a body formed for bringing the 239 people kidnapped by Hamas militants back home, is planning to file a law suit in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. Thelaw suit will be filed against top functionaries of the Hamas terror organisation for the massacre, mayhem, kidnap and rape carried out by the Hamas terrorists on October 7 inside the Israeli province. According to those who are in the know of things, the law suit will include charges like genocide, war crimes as also crimes against humanity. The families forum is painfully compiling the video footages of the October 7 crime and is documenting the details in a systematic and professional manner so that the case is taken up at the earliest. The group is planning to include countries whose citizens were also kidnapped during the attack, including countries like the US, the UK, France and Germany. The forum is also putting pressure on the government to bring back those who were kidnapped on October 7. A massive rally was conducted on Saturday at Tel Aviv in which former Israel President, Reuven Rivlin participated. Mumbai, Nov 12 : Actor Ishaan Khattar, who is receiving a lot of good response to his streaming film 'Pippa', has said that the PT-76 tank or as it is "lovingly" called 'Pippa is a true war hero and he will never forget the experience of operating a real tank. ThePT-76is a Soviet amphibious lighttankthat was introduced after WorldWarII in the early 1950s, and soon became the standard reconnaissancetankof the Soviet Army and the other Warsaw Treaty armed forces. It was widely exported to other friendly states like India, Indonesia, Iraq, Syria, North Korea and North Vietnam. In a way, it is the successor of the DD Shermantankwhich was used by American, British, and Canadian forces for the D-Day landings during the Allied invasion of Normandy in WorldWar2. Talking about his experience,Ishaantold IANS: "ThePT-76tankor as we lovingly call it 'Pippa' is a character in the film and is one of the central driving forces of the film if not the only driving force. It was atruewarheroof that time and the fact that we got to shoot and live and interact withPippa, enhanced my performance because as an actor you're feeding offPippa's energy given that it's the titular character." Pippawas used in the Battle of Garibpur fought between India and Pakistan for the control of the village of Garibpur, now in Bangladesh. On 20 November, 1971, Indian troops of the 14th Battalion of the Punjab Regiment with 14 supportingPT-76tanks from the 45 Cavalry moved in to capture the areas around Garibpur in (East) Pakistani territory. The actor further mentioned: "At one pointPippabecame a part of me. Cavaliers were horsemen initially, so it was literally like riding this thing, navigating and controlling it. My body will never forget that experience of being withPippa. It will forever be one of the most special experiences of my life and definitely one of the core memories." Produced by Ronnie Screwvala under the banner of RSVP and Siddharth Roy Kapur's Roy Kapur Films, 'Pippa' is streaming on Prime Video. KYODO NEWS - Nov 12, 2023 - 18:24 | All, Japan A 51-year-old man was arrested Sunday on suspicion of stealing an ambulance from a hospital near Tokyo while possibly drunk, local police said. Keiichi Kudo has admitted to sitting in the driver's seat of the ambulance. But he denied the allegation of stealing it in the early hours of Sunday, saying he "cannot remember driving it away" from the premises of the hospital in Koshigaya, Saitama Prefecture. Alcohol exceeding the legal limit was detected in his breath, the police said. According to the local fire department, paramedics parked the ambulance at the hospital to move a patient inside but found the vehicle missing when they returned. It was found on a road around 400 meters away, the police said. Related coverage: 25 Japanese suspects deported from Cambodia arrested over phone scams 5 nabbed for shinkansen ticket fraud, damage may total 300 million yen Man arrested after holing up in post office, 2 injured at hospital Abu Dhabi, Nov 12 : UN climate conference COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber on Sunday praised India, the current host of the Presidency of the G20, for its energy transition vision. At the 'From G20 to COP28' special forum held here, Al Jaber said the UAE and India shared a "vision for embracing an energy transition in line with sustainable socio-economic development." This joint focus on renewables presents a huge opportunity to develop both economies for the future. "The UAE is a pioneer in renewable energy, home to some of the biggest solar projects in the world and one of the largest global investors in the sector." Al Jaber thanked the leadership of India in delivering the G20 Delhi Declaration and for the immense progress achieved on core climate actions. He specifically thanked the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for delivering a global agreement and highlighted the Indian government's strong approach to cooperation and multilateralism, which the COP Presidency aims to emulate. COP28 would "frame climate action as an opportunity for growth", Al Jaber said, adding it would aim for "ambitious and balanced outcomes through the first Global Stocktake, across mitigation, adaptation and means of implementation." Al Jaber praised Prime Minister Modi's commitment to multilateralism and he reminded delegates that, under Prime Minister Modi's guidance, countries representing 85 per cent of the global economy have agreed to COP28's global goal of tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency by 2030. However, he also acknowledged the critical need for a "new paradigm" in climate finance to ensure every country across the Global South can adopt low carbon development -- which he told delegates must start with "rebuilding trust" between north and south. He renewed calls for the transformation of climate finance to ensure a fair and inclusive global energy transition. "Unmet promises like the $100 billion pledge must be fulfilled," Al Jaber said. "The green climate fund must be fully replenished. Adaptation finance must be doubled. And the fund for loss and damage must be fully operationalized at COP28." He added "the broader climate finance landscape must be transformed. IFIs and MDBs urgently need to reframe their mandates to meet growing climate needs. More concessional funding is essential to attract more private capital. "We need smart policies to ensure the efficiency, integrity and equity of voluntary carbon markets. And we need innovative models of blended finance to combine catalytic and private investment that can be deployed in emerging and developing economies." "In short, the clean technologies that are taking off in the north must be available accessible and affordable across the global south," Al Jaber told delegates. The COP28 President also called for rebalancing of climate finance to focus on adaptation alongside mitigation, noting that currently "for every $10 spent on mitigation, only $1 goes to adaptation." Al Jaber's address to the G20 Presidency comes shortly after the Fifth Meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Transitional Committee on Loss and Damage concluded with agreement on a list of recommendations for implementing the Loss and Damage Fund, which will be taken forward at COP28. Looking ahead, Al Jaber recapped the comprehensive agenda for COP28, which he told delegates will be an opportunity to "show that multilateralism still works". He said it was time to "replace discord with solidarity... let's bring positivity to climate deliberations and restore hope through united climate action." Nearly 200 countries meeting at this year's COP28, which the UAE is hosting, at the end of the month is the place to deliver and operationalise the fund and funding arrangements for loss and damage. Also the Global Stocktake is an opportunity at COP28 to evaluate the world's progress on slashing greenhouse gas emissions, building resilience to climate impacts, and securing finance and support to address the climate crisis. Tel Aviv, Nov 12 : Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Sunday said that the popular Israel web series 'Fauda' star Matan Meir (38) has been killed in Gaza while fighting against Hamas. The IDF commenced ground invasion of Gaza on October 27 and has killed several Hamas men since the invasion while IDF has also lost 38 soldiers. Many countries have called for a ceasefire but the Israeli government and the IDF have not relented so far. New Delhi, Nov 12 : The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Sunday said that it has arrested Manoharlal Satramdas Agicha Chairman of Associate High Pressure Technologies Private Limited (AHPTPL), who has been absconding and changing phone and SIM cards in a bank fraud case causing wrongful loss to the tune of Rs 149.89 crore to the bank. The ED said that Agicha was arrested on November 10 and he was sent to agency's custody for three days by a Mumbai Special court. The ED probe had found that loan amount was illegally diverted by way of fictitious Inland Letters of Credit, bogus unsecured loans and commissions to related entities along with other methods. "In this case 9 searches had already been conducted by ED in Mumbai, Ahemedabad, Kandla and Pune and Ramchand Kotumal Issrani, Managing Director of AHPTPL was earlier arrested by ED on August 8 and currently he is in judicial custody," the ED said. The ED had filed a chargesheet on October 4. Agicha had been absconding during the investigation and had not appeared before ED despite numerous summons hindering the investigation. "Meanwhile, Intelligence was being gathered for some time to trace Agicha after he had been changing phones and SIM cards frequently. Finally, on November 10 a residential premise in Pune was searched where he had been hiding to abscond from the criminal proceedings and was arrested. ED had registered a case on the basis of FIR registered by CBI against Associate High Pressure Technologies Pvt. Ltd and its directors and shareholders. UP: Properties of slain gangster Jeeva to be confiscated. Image Source: IANS News Muzaffarnagar : , Nov 12 (IANS) Muzaffarnagar police have identified properties worth Rs 10.20 crore of slain gangster Sanjeev Maheshwari a.k.a. Jeeva for confiscation in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts. Gangster Jeeva was gunned down by an assailant on the Lucknow district court premises on June 7 this year. Earlier, the police had confiscated Rs 4 crore worth properties of Jeevaas wife Payal Maheshwari in May last year. Jeeva, a resident of Prempuri locality in Kotwali area of Muzaffarnagar district, was on the state list of gangsters and ran a 36-member gang. Muzaffarnagar SSP, Sanjeev Suman, said that properties worth Rs 10.20 crore were identified in Adampur and Balwa villages of Shamli district. Other properties were identified on Shamli-Muzaffarnagar road, Shamli-Kudana road, Link road, Bahawdi village and a market and house in Muzaffarnagar. The SSP said the administration has the power to confiscate such properties under Section 14(1) of the Gangster Act and the process of seizing them has already started. He said similar action was initiated against other gangsters, including Sushil Mooch whose properties worth Rs 90 crore were confiscated last year. The SSP said a majority of Jeevaas properties were in the name of his wife Payal Maheshwari, son and nephew. A few of his properties were sold to prevent their confiscation, but the SSP clarified that action will also be initiated in such instances as well. Agartala, Nov 12 : Four days after National Investigation Agency (NIA) as part of its nation-wide raids against human trafficking and infiltration arrested at least 25 people -- 21 in Tripura and 5 in Assam, Tripura police on Sunday apprehended 14 Bangladeshi for illegally entering into India, officials said. A senior police official said that the 14 Bangladesh nationals including four women and four children were arrested from a house in bordering Sabroom in southern Tripura. "The Bangladesh nationals entered southern Tripura illegally on Saturday and stayed at the house of an Indian in Baishnabpur village under Sabroom subdivision. The Bangladeshi told the police that they are trying to go to Bengaluru in search of jobs. We are verifying their claims," the official told IANS, refusing to be quoted. Two Indians, including the owner of the house, where they night halt on Saturday night, were also arrested. He said that the police in association with the Border Security Forces (BSF) are investigating the illegal entrance of the foreign nationals, who would be produced soon in a local court. Meanwhile, the NIA in association with Assam police on November 8 arrested 25 people -- 21 in Tripura and 5 in Assam, for their alleged involvement in human trafficking and infiltration-related activities. The arrested individuals have been taken out of the state for questioning and further legal action. The NIA in coordination with other security agencies on November 8 conducted raids in Tripura, Assam, West Bengal, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Telangana and Haryana. A total of 44 operatives have been apprehended and arrested by the NIA from these eight states. Senior security officials said that a large number of Bangladeshi and Rohingyas were arrested during this year and last year from Tripura and Assam and during the enquiries and questioning of the infiltrators, it was revealed that the illegal migrants were facilitated in entering India through clandestine routes by Indian touts and middlemen, who have been playing a major role in the infiltration and human trafficking. During the investigation, it was also learnt that touts exist not only on both the sides of India-Bangladesh Border but also on the mainland of the country. "Investigation revealed that a network of touts existed across India, which was a serious national security concern with inter-state ramifications," a source said, adding that Tripura and Assam are used as corridors for infiltration and human trafficking activities. The Bangladeshi and Rohingyas illegally enter India through the unfenced and porous India-Bangladesh Border, which shares 1,880-km frontiers with four northeastern --Tripura (856 km), Meghalaya (443 km), Mizoram (318 km) and Assam (263 km). Shimla, Nov 12 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday celebrated Diwali with Indian Army soldiers in the remote and strategic area of Lepcha in Himachal Pradesh, close to the India-China border, saying "these brave friends of mine stand firm and steadfast like the Himalayas on its borders". Modi shared his pictures and videos with the soldiers on X, saying, "Reached Lepcha in Himachal Pradesh to celebrate Diwali with our brave security forces." Dressed in an Army camouflage jacket and donning a black-banded hat, the Prime Minister interacted with the soldiers and said, "My festival is where you are." "The courage of our security forces is unwavering. Stationed in the toughest terrains, away from their loved ones, their sacrifice and dedication keep us safe and secure. India will always be grateful to these heroes who are the perfect embodiment of bravery and resilience," the Prime Minister said as he celebrated the festival of lights with the soldiers. In an address, the Prime Minister told the soldiers that in the past years, more than 500 women officers have been given permanent commission in the Indian Army. "Today, women pilots are flying fighter planes like Rafale," he said. "Bharat of the 21st century is moving forward towards Aatmanirbharta. Now, the resolutions will be ours, and the resources will also be ours. "India is safe as long as these brave friends of mine stand firm and steadfast like the Himalayas on its borders. It is because of your service that India is safe and is on the path to prosperity," Modi said in his address. Since 2014, Modi has been following the tradition of celebrating Diwali with soldiers. He last celebrated Diwali with soldiers in Himachal Pradesh on October 30, 2016. Lepcha falls in Lahaul-Spiti district, spread over 13,835 sq km. The climatic conditions in the entire district are harsh as much of the land falls under a cold desert where the mercury drops below minus 20-degree Celsius during winter. In 2014, Modi celebrated Diwali with the soldiers at Siachen Glacier, in 2015 he spent time with soldiers at Amritsar border; in 2016 he celebrated Diwali in Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh and in 2017, he went to Gurez in Jammu and Kashmir. In 2018, the Prime Minister celebrated Diwali with the Army personnel in Kedarnath in Uttarakhand, while in 2019 he went to Rajouri in Jammu. In 2020, he celebrated Diwali in Rajasthan's Jaisalmer; in 2021 he celebrated Diwali in J&K's Nowshera and last year he spent time with soldiers in Kargil during Diwali. Hyderabad, Nov 12 : As many as 4,798 candidates have filed their nominations for November 30 elections to Telangana Assembly. Nearly half of them filed their papers in all 119 Assembly constituencies on Friday, which was the last day for filing of nominations A total of 5,716 sets of nominations were received by the electoral officers since November 3. Majority of the candidates are independents. According to Chief Electoral Officer Vikas Raj, 2,324 candidates filed their nominations on the last day. A total of 2,768 sets of nominations were filed on that day. Scrutiny of nominations will be taken up on November 13 while the last day for withdrawal of nominations is November 15. Maximum number of candidates (145) filed their nominations from Gajwel, where Chief Minister and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) president K. Chandrasekhar Rao is seeking re-election for a third consecutive term. In Gajwel which is in KCR's home district Siddipet, BJP has fielded its MLA and former minister Eatala Rajender, who is also contesting from Huzurabad, a seat which he won in the by-election as BJP candidate in 2021 after he KCR dropped him from the Cabinet. This time, KCR is also contesting from Kamareddy constituency, where 92 candidates have filed their nominations. The chief minister is facing Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president A. Revanth Reddy, who has also entered the fray from his home constituency Kodangal. A total of 116 candidates filed their papers in Medchal, where labour minister Malla Reddy is contesting again as BRS candidate. Only 13 candidates filed their nominations in Narayanpet constituency in Mahabubnagar district Only 19 candidates each filed their papers from Wyra (ST) and Makthal constituencies in Khammam and Narayanpet districts respectively. As many as 37 candidates filed their papers on the last day in Kamareddy, one of the two constituencies from where Chief Minister and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) president K. Chandrasekhar Rao is contesting. BRS is contesting all 119 seats on its own while Congress has left one seat for its ally CPI. The BJP is contesting 111 seats and has left remaining seats for its ally Jana Sena Party. MIM is contesting nine seats and backing BRS in the remaining seats. Chandigarh, Nov 12 : A son of a Punjab-born restaurateur, who has been making waves in Norway for 41 years by serving Indian traditional dishes with authentic ingredients, has donated his entire day's turnover of his restaurant to help suffering Palestinians in Gaza. "Such a wonderful show of solidarity," remarked former UN Environment Executive Director Erik Solheim in a post on X on Sunday, while sharing a photo of the Indian-Norwegian restaurant owner. "Oslo most popular Indian restaurant, Baljit Singh at New Delhi, gave his entire turnover from one day to help suffering Palestinians in Gaza. 210 000 NOK, that is Rs 16 lakh. Hats off!" Baljit's father Gurdial Singh from Kapurthala in Punjab opened the first Indian restaurant, Maharaja Restaurant, in Fredensborgveien, in 1982. Since then, he has run several restaurants of his own. Earlier, Solheim, the former Norwegian diplomat, politician and environment minister told IANS the elderly Singh taught him and other Norwegians to love Indian food. His son, Baljit Singh, created 'Listen to Baljit' that donates meals to children in many countries. According to the Embassy of India in Oslo, in the wake of COVID-19, New Delhi Restaurant has been providing Indian food for doctors, nurses and other members of staff working day and night to save lives in hospitals. "The embassy would like to congratulate Baljit Singh, an Indian-Norwegian and owner of New Delhi Restaurant in Oslo, who has been doing wonderful social service for the past many years and making India proud. Keep up the good job!" reads a post on its website. Two killed in road accident in Odisha. Image Source: IANS News Kathmandu, Nov 12 : At least six people were killed and another injured when a jeep rammed into a roadside building in Nawalparasi district of Nepal on Sunday. The incident occurred when jeep, with seven people onboard, was heading to Daldale in the district, Xinhua news agency reported. "Six people died on the spot. The critically injured is undergoing treatment at Chitwan Medical College," said Kalpana Shrestha, the chief district officer. He told Xinhua that a preliminary report suggests the jeep lost control after its brake failed. Kabul, Nov 12 : Following Islamabad's decision to deport undocumented refugees living in Pakistan, more than 6,000 Afghan refugees returned to their home country from Islamabad in a single day, a statement of the Ministry for Refugees and Repatriation said on Sunday. A total of 1,051 families comprising 6,001 persons used to live in Pakistan for years and returned to their homeland via Torkham and Spin Boldak crossing points on Saturday, the statement added, Xinhua news agency reported. More than 2,00,000 Afghan refugees have reportedly returned to their homeland Afghanistan. More than 2.5 million Afghan refugees have reportedly been living in Pakistan. Afghan caretaker administration said it will provide necessary facilities, including temporary shelters, to the returnees ahead of winter By Misbah Saba Malik ISLAMABAD, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Ghulam Khatoon, a native of the underdeveloped Thar Desert in Pakistan's south Sindh province, has evolved from a financially challenged housewife into a resilient and independent woman, all because of the waves of development brought by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to her hometown. Launched in 2013, CPEC, a flagship project under the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), is a corridor linking Pakistan's southwest Gwadar port with Kashgar in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, highlighting energy, transport, and industrial cooperation. Khatoon is now a professional truck driver at CPEC's Thar Coal Block-II Coal Electricity Integration project. Her path to employment has not only improved her life but also profoundly impacted her entire family, which now enjoys a higher standard of living, improved access to education, better-quality food, and a newfound sense of peace and happiness. "Driving a mighty dump truck professionally and making good money out of it by a woman who had never even ridden a bicycle in her lifetime was implausible. No one, except the Chinese company, believed that I could do it," Khatoon told Xinhua. The project, built by China Machinery Engineering Corporation, has a major power plant under CPEC in Pakistan to help the country meet its electricity demands by using locally available coal. "There are several dozen women at work, and CPEC illuminated our lives with colors of happiness and prosperity," she added. CPEC is also acting as a game-changer for Gwadar, where it develops and operates the port as well as brings about positive changes to the lives of the city's residents. Talking about the impact of CPEC on the education sector, Muneer Notezai, a district education officer in Gwadar, said he has witnessed first-hand the changes in his hometown and recalled how many local students had to quit their studies after high school due to poor road infrastructure to other cities. He said it is nothing short of transformative, as a Chinese company supported the expansion of a small school with a capacity of 50 students to a big college building where over 500 students receive a high-quality education. "In the old town of Gwadar, where most of the residents were fishermen for generations, CPEC introduced a technical vocational training institute, offering a wide range of courses, including port management, information technology, and artificial intelligence," he added. Apart from that, a state-of-the-art hospital is being constructed. After its inauguration, healthcare access will be greatly improved so residents will not have to travel long distances to the country's big cities for medical treatment. "The Chinese are also constructing a desalination plant to cater to the need for clean drinking water of the residents of Gwadar, and after its inauguration, a substantial supply of clean drinking water will be available for the area that has long grappled with water scarcity," Notezai said. The China-aided New Gwadar International Airport is a monumental blessing for the region, as it will drastically reduce travel constraints and promise increased economic activities and opportunities, Notezai noted. Infrastructural development in the country's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province under CPEC has made life comfortable for residents, significantly increased business opportunities, and brought prosperity to people's lives. Muhammad Ashfaque, a trader of clothes and dry fruit in the provincial capital city of Peshawar, said that before CPEC, it took him hours to reach cities within the province and the country's north Gilgit-Baltistan region, but now his business has doubled as he can access new markets for buying. "A great dream of businessmen is coming true with the construction of the Rashakai Special Economic Zone in Peshawar under the CPEC framework. It presents a fantastic investment opportunity as after its inauguration, the Chinese will bring investment and technology, which will be instrumental in training our labor force and enable Pakistan to leverage cutting-edge technology for its benefit," he added. Chandigarh, Nov 12 : Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann on Sunday felicitated the Punjabis on the festival of lights, Diwali, and Bandi Chhor Diwas. In a message, the Chief Minister appealed the people to celebrate the festivals in a green and environment-friendly manner. He said since centuries Diwali, a festival of love and prosperity, has been celebrated with utmost devotion and full religious zeal. Mann said the sparkling lights of Diwali "not only illuminate every household but it is also a symbol of the victory of light over darkness, good over evil and hope over despair." The Chief Minister hoped, "May this Diwali once again bring peace, prosperity and happiness to the people, besides strengthening the bonds of communal harmony, peace and brotherhood amongst them." He said the historic Bandi Chhor Diwas, which marks the release of 52 Hindu princes from the Gwalior fort by sixth Guru Hargobind Sahib on Diwali is also celebrated as the sacred day. Mann hoped the people of state would make concerted efforts for making Punjab a frontrunner state in the country. New Delhi, Nov 12 : India has voted in favour of the resolution in the UN General Assembly condemning settlement activities in "the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan". . The resolution was passed on Saturday, two days after its draft was approved on Thursday. The resolution was passed by overwhelming majority, with 145 countries supporting it, while seven -- Canada, Hungary, Israel, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, and the US -- voted against it, and 18 abstained from voting. Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Saket Gokhale said that he was "very glad that Republic of India voted in favor of the resolution" and shared a photo of the voting on the resolution at the UN. "A resolution was moved in UN yesterday seeking to declare Israeli settlements in Occupied Palestine as illegal. Very glad that Republic of India voted in favor of the resolution. Israelas occupation of Palestine through settlers is illegal. Israelas apartheid must end now," he wrote on X. Last month, India abstained in the UN General Assembly from voting on a draft resolution submitted by Jordan, that called for an immediate humanitarian truce in the Israel-Hamas conflict, as it did not make any mention of Hamas. The resolution titled "Protection of civilians and upholding legal and humanitarian obligations" was overwhelmingly adopted with 120 nations voting in its favour, 14 against it and 45 abstaining. Over 600 permanent teachers to be appointed in colleges affiliated to DU. Image Source: IANS News New Delhi, Nov 12 : Over 600 permanent teachers will be appointed in the colleges affiliated to Delhi University -- the process which has been going on for the last one and a half years. The colleges where permanent appointments were made earlier began issuing advertisements to fill the vacancies in the second round. According to a source, a total of 1,282 posts are to be filled here under the OBC quota, adding that around 50 per cent of the colleges affiliated to DU have already made appointments in the second phase. Hansraj Suman, a professor, said that colleges like Swami Shraddhanand College and Atmaram Sanatan Dharma have issued advertisements to fill the posts in the second tranche of the OBC quota. The Vice Chancellor has also been urged to issue a circular to the principals of the colleges regarding filling these posts as soon as possible. Prof Suman has said that orders were given earlier also to appoint the teachers in the second phase. Kolkata, Nov 12 : A special court in Kolkata on Sunday sent West Bengal minister Jyotipriya Mallick, arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the multi-crore ration distribution case in the state, to a four-day judicial custody. Mallick, the current state forest minister and former food & supplies minister, will have to stay in judicial custody and will be presented in the same court on November 16 for the next course of hearing. Meanwhile, even on Sunday, the minister's counsel did not move any bail petition on behalf of his client, which was quite contrary to the minister's earlier claims that he would be released at the next hearing. However, the counsel highlighted the critical medical conditions of his client and made a plea to the court to arrange for his treatment. On Sunday, the ED counsel claimed in court that, following his wish, his wife and daughter were made directors of three out of ten corporate entities whose names surfaced during the course of the investigation in the ration distribution case. "The accused has himself confirmed this during the course of interrogation. However, he had denied playing any role in managing the companies," the central agency counsel argued. The ED counsel also sought the permission of the court to question Mallick within the correctional home premises. "We have already secured some clues by questioning him and we need to conduct further interrogation," the central agency counsel submitted. Kolkata, Nov 12 : The prime accused in the murder of Congress councillor Tapan Kandu in West Bengal's Purulia in March last year, died in judicial custody at a correctional home in Purulia on Sunday evening. As per information available from the state Correctional Department sources, Satyaban Pramanik started feeling uneasy since Sunday afternoon at the correctional home there. He was immediately shifted to Purulia Medical College and & Hospital and died there soon. Since the matter of investigation on Kanduas murder is still under the jurisdiction of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), district police authorities have not given any official comment in the matter. District police sources said that his body will be sent for post mortem and once the autopsy report is available the exact reason of death can be ascertained. In April last year, Niranjan Baishnab, a prime witness in the Tapan Kandu murder case, died under mysterious circumstances at his residence. A suicide note was recovered wherein Baishnab had written that he took the drastic step as he was unable to bear the pressure from the local police following the murder of Kandu. On March 13 last year, Kandu was shot dead while he was on an evening walk with his wife, Purnima Kandu and Baishnab was also accompanying them. The CBI started a probe in the matter following an order of the Calcutta High Court. Hyderabad, Nov 12 : Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and opposition Congress traded allegations after MLA and BRS candidate from Atchampet (SC) constituency, Guvvala Balaraju was injured in an alleged attack by Congress leaders. Balaraju was admitted to Apollo Hospital in Hyderabad, where BRS working president K. T. Rama Rao called on him on Sunday. The clash between the rival groups took place on Saturday night in the constituency in Nagarkurnool district. Balaraju, who was later discharged from the hospital, alleged that Congress candidate Vamshikrishna and his supporters attacked him and the BRS workers. He told media persons that Vamshikrishna attacked him with a stone. Balaraju said he will not be deterred by such attacks and will continue to serve people. He said as the son of a migrant labourer, he was elected twice by the people and unable to face him politically, the Congress candidate was resorting to physical attacks. KTR told media persons that Congress party leaders were resorting to physical attacks in desperation as they realised that they were losing. He said this was the second such incident. Earlier, BRS MP K. Prabhakar Reddy was injured when he was stabbed while campaigning in Dubbaka Assembly constituency. However, state Congress chief A. Revanth Reddy said the alleged attack on Balaraju was a drama by the ruling party. He said such conspiracies were common in states where Prashant Kishor is election strategist. He cited the knife attack on Jagan Mohan Reddy and leg injury to Mamata Banerjee. Revanth Reddy said the alleged attacks on Balaraju and Prabhakar Reddy were part of a conspiracy to gain political mileage. He mentioned that the police have already stated Prabhakar Reddy was attacked to create a sensation. The TPCC chief asked why the police had not presented Raju, who had attacked Prabhakar Reddy, before the media. Even the remand report in the case has not been made public. He demanded that the police reveal all the details of the case. Revanth Reddy alleged that KTR circulated a fake letter by Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D. K. Shivakumar to Foxconn to shift their plant from Hyderabad to Bengaluru. He said BRS brought some hired people from Karnataka to run a false campaign against the Congress. The Congress leader said despite complaints to the Election Commission about these conspiracies, it took no action. Assembly elections in Telangana are scheduled to be held on November 30. New Delhi, Nov 12 : Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) Vice-Chancellor Prof Najma Akhtar handed over the charge of her office to Prof Eqbal Hussain, Pro Vice Chancellor of the university, after she completed her tenure on Sunday. Eqbal Hussain will officiate as Vice-Chancellor until the appointment of a new Vice-Chancellor by the Visitor of the university. Hussain is a professor in the Faculty of Law. Prof Akhtar was given a warm send-off by the teachers and non-teaching staff. Prof Eqbal Hussain lauded the efforts of the outgoing Vice-Chancellor for bettering the academic and administrative profile of the university. He also highlighted how the university attained new heights under the leadership of Prof Najma Akhtar which was reflected in the NAAC and NIRF performance. He noted that JMI is the 3rd top ranked university in the country in the NIRF 2023 with Grade A++ by the NAAC. He assured the outgoing Vice-Chancellor that he would leave no stone unturned to uphold the interests of the institution both in academic and administrative matters. The outgoing Vice-Chancellor, acknowledged the contributions made by all the stakeholders of JMI for the achievements made by the institution. She thanked students, teachers and administrative staff for tirelessly working for the betterment of the university. New Delhi, Nov 12 : The Congress on Sunday hit back at the BJP after its top leadership was accused of giving up in Rajasthan and campaigning slowly there as compared to other states, saying that from November 16 onwards, its senior leaders will be there in the desert state. In a post on X, Congress General Secretary, Organisation, K.C. Venugopal said: "A section of the BJP-sponsored propaganda driven media is spreading canards about our top leadershipas activity in Rajasthan. Recently, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge ji, RahulGandhi ji and Priyanka Gandhi ji have campaigned multiple times in Rajasthan, MP, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram." "From 16 November onwards, Kharge ji will be in Rajasthan for 3 days, Rahul ji will have public events spanning 4 days and Priyanka ji will also be campaigning for 3 days. "This propaganda is being spread against us while there is complete silence about how PM Modi did not even have the courage to campaign in Mizoram," he said, questioning why Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not visit the northeastern state during polls. Venugopal said that "it is extremely unethical and mischievous that these pre-meditated hit jobs cast aspersions on our unflinching commitment towards Rajasthan". "Donat forget, Rahul ji walked for 18 days across Rajasthan during the Bharat Jodo Yatra - one of the longest stretches of the Yatra. The Congressas vision that is being implemented in Rajasthan and its guarantees for the upcoming elections is an outcome of Rahul jias conversations with the poor, youth and marginalised people of Rajasthan," he said. "Our entire party, right from the booth level to the Congress President, is working unitedly to ensure our government is repeated in Rajasthan. There is no doubt that we will return to power with a resounding victory - because the Congress has an unbreakable, solid bond with the 8 crore people of Rajasthan. A bond that is forged by decades of public service and revolutionary governance," he added. The Congress is seeking second consecutive term in Rajasthan and has already announced seven guarantees in the state. Polling for 200 member Assembly is scheduled on November 25 and counting of votes will take place on December 3. --IANS aks/vd Aizawl, Nov 12 : The Assam Rifles and the Mizoram Police in a joint raid seized 15.9 kg of highly addictive methamphetamine tablets valued at Rs 42 crore in Mizoram on Sunday, an official said. According to officials, Assam Rifles and Mizoram Police, acting on secret information, seized the 15.9 kg methamphetamine tablets, contained in soap boxes, from Zokhawthar village in Champhai district, bordering Myanmar. The drug peddler, who possessed the drugs, smuggled from Myanmar, however, fled the spot when the security personnel recovered the methamphetamine tablets, also locally called Yaba tablet or party tablet. These drugs valued at Rs 42 crore were seized 48 hours after the Assam Rifles and the Mizoram Police in a joint operation, seized heroin valued at Rs 18.30 crore, Indian currencies worth Rs 1.21 crore and arrested five Myanmar nationals from Mizoram's Champhai district on Friday. Mizoram's 510 km unfenced borders with Myanmar have become an easy corridor for drugs smuggling in northeast India. Tel Aviv, Nov 12 : Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has said the hostage crisis would be ending soon with a deal on the cards but rejected firmly the US vision for post war Gaza thus defying their diktat for "no for reoccupying the Gaza". Netanyahu said on Sunday that a hostage deal with Hamas could be near but refused to divulge details to avoid what he called "derailing the delicate negotiations to free those taken captive during the militant attack on Israeli communities October 7". "I think the less I say about it, the more I'll increase the chances that it materializes," he told NBC News' "Meet the Press". Netanyahu credited Israel's military pressure for getting Hamas to discuss the release. "That's the one thing that might create a deal," he said. "We will talk about it when it's there. We'll announce it if it's achievable." The hostage talks were drawing extensive and sometimes contradictory signals. A Biden administration official confirmed that a possible deal was round the corner involving the release of about 80 women and children in exchange for the release of Palestinian women and teenagers held by Israel, NBC News reported. The official, whom NBC did not name, acknowledged there is no certainty that any deal will come to fruition. But a UK-based agency reported that Hamas decided Sunday to suspend hostage negotiations because of Israel's assault on Al Shifa Hospital, a Palestinian official briefed on the hostage talks was quoted as saying. Netanyahu has firmly rejected the Biden administration's vision for post-war Gaza, saying the Palestinian Authority that now administers the West Bank will not assume governance over the war-battered enclave. Israel will retain overall security control and retain the right to attack any "terrorists who may pop up again", Netanyahu said Saturday. Israel has been unrelentingly pounding Gaza since Hamas militants crashed over the border on a murderous rampage through Israeli communities on October 7. Netanyahu, who credited the Israeli assault for pushing Hamas closer to a deal to free hostage, vowed not to "cave" to global pressure to cede control of Gaza to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. "There will... not be a civil authority that educates its children to hate Israel, to kill Israelis, to eliminate the State of Israel," Netanyahu said. "There cannot be an authority whose leader still has not condemned the terrible massacre 30 days later." The area around the biggest hospital in Gaza Al Shifa was pounded by heavy artillery. Palestinian officials claimed thousands of civilians have taken refuge there, but Israeli officials accused Hamas of concealing a command post in the hospital compound which militant outfit denied outright. Israel's military said there was a safe corridor for civilians to evacuate from Shifa to southern Gaza, but many Palestinians said they were afraid to go outside. KABUL, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- More than 6,000 Afghan refugees returned to their home country from Pakistan in a single day on Saturday, a statement of the Ministry for Refugees and Repatriation said Sunday. A total of 1,051 families composed of 6,001 persons used to live in Pakistan for years and returned to their homeland via Torkham and Spin Boldak crossing points on Saturday, the statement added. More than 200,000 Afghan refugees have reportedly returned to their homeland Afghanistan, following Islamabad's decision to deport undocumented refugees living in Pakistan. More than 2.5 million Afghan refugees have reportedly been living in Pakistan. Afghan caretaker administration said it will provide necessary facilities, including temporary shelters, to the returnees ahead of winter. New Delhi, Nov 13 : The Delhi Fire Service was inundated with more than 100 calls starting from 6 p.m. on Sunday, grappling with blaze incidents amid the Diwali celebrations. Despite the ban, various parts of the national capital witnessed significant bursting of firecrackers. "Total fire calls received so far are 100 (between 6:00 p.m. and 11:59 p.m.)," said Atul Garg, Director of DFS. On Diwali day, a massive fire was reported at Fruit Mandi beside Tilak Nagar market in west Delhi, where many roadside shops were gutted in the fire. According to the DFS, a call regarding a fire in roadside shops at Tilak Nagar market was received in the evening. "Fire tenders are on the spot and the blaze is under control now," said a senior DFS official, adding that no injuries have been reported so far. The reason behind the fire is yet to be determined. Property details: This 2/1 residential project for sale is a must-have for anyone looking to invest in prime real estate. Located in the heart of Kansas, this property is zoned for residential use and is perfect for those looking to build their dream home. With ample space and a desirable location, this land is waiting for you to take advantage of its potential. Whether you're a first-time buyer or an experienced investor, this property is sure to impress. Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to own a pi... 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Price: $ 1 Seller State of Residence: California Property Address: 29775 Birch Road Type: Homesite, Lot Zip/Postal Code: 92321 Zoning: Residential City: Cedar Glen State/Province: California Location: 926**, Costa Mesa, California You will be redirected to eBay Nearby California The issue of cooperation in the field of halal industry was discussed in Bishkek by the Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of Kyrgyzstan Edil Baisalov with a delegation from Pakistan, Azernews reports, citing 24.kg News Agency. The fourth meeting of the Kyrgyz-Pakistani Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation was held in the capital of Kyrgyzstan. Edil Baisalov noted that the Kyrgyz Republic attaches great importance to Kyrgyz-Pakistani friendship and the development of cooperation in both trade, economic and social-humanitarian spheres. He focused on certain aspects of interaction between the two countries, in particular the development of cooperation in the field of industry and agriculture. The Deputy Head of the Cabinet also proposed to continue work to increase cooperation in the field of tourism, culture and sports, as well as broadcasting, which will make a significant contribution not only to strengthening cultural and humanitarian ties and friendship between the two peoples, but also to the preservation and dissemination of cultural and spiritual values of two countries. He proposed to continue activities to deepen contacts in the field of education between universities and scientific organizations of Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan. The head of the delegation of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Minister of Energy Muhammad Ali noted the Pakistani sides commitment to further strengthening and deepening cooperation between the two republics in trade, economic, cultural, humanitarian and other spheres. Following the meeting, a number of documents were signed, in particular: The China-ASEAN Seaweed Cooperation Forum attendees said it is mutually beneficial to promote complementary seaweed industries in China and the ASEAN region. To tackle increasing demand, the Union ministry of power has urged central and state public-sector power-generating companies (gencos) and state power and energy departments to pick projects that are undergoing insolvency proceedings. Kishore Biyani Photograph: Mukesh Gupta/Reuters The power ministry is looking at a quicker turnaround of these stressed power plants and enhancing power supply. Increasing demand is pushing states to scout for more power sources. It is requested that state-owned gencos may be encouraged to participate in the corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) of stressed power assets, which are of strategic and commercial significance to the capacity addition plans of the states concerned. "It is pertinent to mention here that the benefit of taking the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) route is that the clean state principle is embedded in the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), 2016, said the advisory issued by the power ministry on November 1. On the original list of stressed assets put out by the finance ministry in 2018, there were 34 power-generation projects, worth Rs 2 trillion. Of those, 11 have been resolved through debt-restructuring schemes by the lenders. These include Jaypees Prayagraj, which was bought by a joint venture of Tata Power and ICICI Bank; the Lanco Teesta hydropower project, taken over by state-owned NHPC; and Rattan India Powers Amravati power project, which was sold to a consortium led by Goldman Sachs. Adani Power has bought two stressed assets GMRs Chhattisgarh power project and Avantha Groups Korba West power project. The coal and power ministries initiated two schemes SHAKTI for coal supply and DEEP for medium-term power-purchase agreements to revive the plants that face either a coal shortage or lack of power-purchase agreements. Despite this, there are more than a dozen projects in the NCLT. State-owned NTPC has acquired Jhabua Power through the NCLT route. The company has repeatedly said it will buy only those assets that land in the tribunal. State-owned non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) PFC and REC were some of the key lenders to most of these assets. REC has 14 assets, worth Rs 13,000 crore, undergoing resolution at the NCLT. PFC has 13, worth Rs 14,000 crore, going through the same process. (REC and PFC have some common assets.) A senior government official said close to 24 assets were stressed and failed to find any resolution either in or outside the NCLT. Of the ones not resolved, there are close to 10 assets of 11 Gw which are incomplete and are unlikely to find any taker, said the official. Another executive at one of the NBFCs said the proposition for the state gencos was lucrative because these assets would come cheaper than setting up a thermal power unit. The power ministry in its latest advisory has noted stressed projects mainly faced challenges such as inadequate capital investment, shortage/disruption in coal supplies, prolonged recovery under power-purchase agreements, etc. Participation of gencos would ensure that such issues are addressed, thereby expediting revival of these assets. "Their operational and implementation expertise would also help in reducing turnaround time and bringing these stressed assets to operation stage quickly in partnership with other concerned government agencies, said the advisory, adding this would help the states to meet their increasing power demand economically with significant control. Sonam Chandwani, managing partner, KS Legal and Associates, said: State-owned gencos are encouraged to acquire stressed thermal-power assets through the NCLT route to utilise existing infrastructures at a reduced cost, avoid the gestation period of new projects, and enhance the nations power-generation capacity. The power ministry in its advisory has also listed four assets which, it said, is an indicative list for the stakeholders to consider. These are Rattan India Power (0.5 Gw), Coastal Energen (1.2 Gw), KSK Mahanadi (1.8 Gw), and Shri Maheshwar Hydro (0.4 Gw). These four are ready to operate or already operational. Bharatiya Janata Party leader T Raja Singh expressed confidence of winning from the Goshamahal constituency in the city for a third time in the upcoming Telangana assembly elections. IMAGE: BJP's sitting MLA T Raja Singh. Photograph: ANI Photo BJP legislator Raja Singh, who is seeking a third term from Goshamahal segment, told PTI that he will score a hat-rick of victory. Bharat Rashtra Samithi's Goshamahal in-charge Nanda Kishore Vyas is pitted against Raja Singh from Goshamahal segment. Asserting that the BJP will form the government in Telangana after the assembly elections, Singh said the people will bless (elect) the saffron party. Launching a tirade against All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen president Asaduddin Owaisi and his MLA brother Akbaruddin Owaisi for neglecting the Muslims of Old City in Hyderabad and their welfare, BJP leader T Raja Singh alleged that the assets of Owaisi brothers have increased. "Their (AIMIM) influence is confined to only seven seats. Properties of Asaduddin Owaisi and his brother Akbaruddin increased. Only these two brothers are progressing and Muslims are not developing. Because of these two brothers, Muslims of Old City remained backward," he said. He also accused the Hyderabad MP (Asaduddin Owaisi) of "selling" the votes of Muslims in Goshamahal constituency to BRS during 2014, 2018 and also in the upcoming Assembly polls. Taking a swipe at BRS Working President KT Rama Rao, the BJP MLA said he has been dreaming of defeating him since 2014. "KTR if you want to win Goshamahal then you should first win the hearts of people and people are with me. People have blessed me and elected me as MLA in 2014 and 2018 and I am winning from Goshamahal for a third time," Raja Singh said. Noting that the number of voters belonging to minority community increased in Goshamahal segment, he claimed that they were brought in from neighbouring constituencies. Raja Singh said he will secure minority votes also as the party has been "serving them since 2014. And I will get full support from Hindus also and I will again become the MLA from Goshamahal for the third time". Attacking the Congress, the BJP leader alleged that the grand old party failed to fulfill its poll guarantees in Karnataka and people of that state were now "regretting" electing it. And as far as Telangana is concerned people are not going to be misled by the "guarantees" of Congress, claimed Raja Singh, whose suspension was revoked last month by the BJP leadership considering his explanation in response to the show cause notice served by the party earlier. In August last year, Raja Singh was suspended from the party following his alleged controversial remarks against "Islam and Prophet Mohammed" in a video which was later pulled down by the social media platform on which it was uploaded. He was arrested under the Preventive Detention Act. However, the Telangana high court in November 2022 had set aside the PD Act invoked against him. Later, he was granted bail. Raja Singh is known for his strong views in support of Hindutva. The firebrand Hindutva leader faces several police cases in Hyderabad, including those related to alleged communal offences. Polling for the 119-member assembly would be held on November 30. Ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi MLA Guvvala Balaraju was allegedly attacked during a clash that broke out between workers of BRS and Congress in Achampet town of Nagarkurnool district, the police said on Sunday. IMAGE: BRS and Congress workers clash after BRS MLA Guvvala Balaraju's convoy was stopped in Achampet town of Nagarkurnool district, Telangana, November 11, 2023. Photograph: ANI on X Balaraju, contesting from Achampet constituency in the November 30 assembly polls in the state "suffered injuries" in the "attack" that happened on Saturday night, a complaint from BRS said. Balaraju was shifted to a hospital in Hyderabad and later discharged. Congress workers too lodged a complaint with the police that some of their members suffered injuries during the clash. According to the police, the BRS and Congress followers clashed with each other on Saturday night during which stone pelting was also reported. The police immediately intervened and dispersed them. The incident took place when the convoy of the BRS MLA, who was returning after campaigning, was stopped by some Congress workers, who alleged that the MLA was carrying money for distribution. The clash resulted in minor injuries to some of them, they said, adding that one vehicle in the convoy of the BRS leader was also damaged. The police on Sunday registered cases in connection with the incident after members of both parties lodged complaints, a senior police official told PTI. "Further investigations are on. We are verifying into the matter and analysing videos," the official said. The official further said the BRS in its complaint alleged that Congress workers attacked the MLA's convoy resulting in injuries to the legislator, while Congress in its complaint accused the BRS cadre of attacking them resulting in injuries to some of them. BRS Working President and IT Minister K T Rama Rao on Sunday visited Balaraju at the hospital. Reacting to the incident, he said "These are truly unfortunate incidents. Violence certainly has no place in democracy. I think it's the frustration which is creeping in from the opposition camp as they have realised that they are losing the elections." He added, "The law will take its own course and whoever has done this will have to face the consequences". In an earlier incident of violence, BRS MP Kotha Prabhakar Reddy, the party's candidate from Dubbak assembly segment, was injured after a man allegedly stabbed him during campaigning in Siddipet district on October 30. The assailant was later arrested. The World Health Organisation on Sunday said that it has lost communication with Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, stressing that those who fled the hospital have been reportedly shot, wounded or killed. IMAGE: A Palestinian woman, who was injured in an Israeli strike and was staying at Al Shifa hospital, moves southward after fleeing north Gaza as Israeli tanks roll deeper into the enclave, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in the central Gaza Strip November 10, 2023. Photograph: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters This comes after it was reported that the hospital has been facing repeated attacks. Sharing this on X, the WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that according to the latest reports, the hospital was surrounded by tanks. Moreover, WHO is gravely concerned about the safety of health workers, hundreds of sick and injured patients, including babies on life support, and displaced people who remain inside the hospital. WHO further called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, as it is the only way to save lives and reduce the horrific levels of suffering, the WHO director-general said. "WHO also calls for the sustained, orderly, unimpeded and safe medical evacuations of critically injured and sick patients," the post added. Additionally, the WHO raised concerns about hostages, stating that all hostages must receive appropriate medical care and be released unconditionally. The war between Israel and Hamas has intensified in the last days, and reportedly, Israel said that Hamas's terror group has been maintaining a major command centre as part of its vast network of tunnels, according to The Times of Israel. Meanwhile, Jerusalem has urged Al-Shifa Hospital's staff and patients, along with other Gazans, to flee to the south to avoid being attacked as Israeli forces continue to attack Hamas in the Gaza Strip. According to The Times of Israel, there have been reports of gunfire targeting civilians seeking to exit the hospital to flee. Adding to that, Israel said that the shooters were Hamas gunmen; however, the terror group blames Israel. The organisation also called for the "sustained, orderly, unimpeded and safe medical evacuations of critically injured and sick patients into Egypt through the Rafah Border Crossing." As the Hamas terror group has captivated over 230 hostages in the Gaza Strip, WHO said, "All hostages should receive appropriate medical care and be released unconditionally." India voted in favour of five resolutions relating to the situation in the Middle East, including one that condemned Israeli settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and abstained on one resolution. IMAGE: Smoke rises over Gaza as seen from Southern Israel, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian group Hamas, November 10, 2023. Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters The Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonisation) of the UN General Assembly approved six draft resolutions on November 9 all by recorded votes, relating to the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question. India voted in favour of a resolution that condemns Israeli settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The draft resolution titled Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the Occupied Syrian Golan' was approved by the Special Political and Decolonisation Committee (Fourth Committee) by a recorded vote of 145 in favour, 7 against and 18 abstentions. Those voting against the resolution were Canada, Hungary, Israel, the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru and the United States. India was among the 145 nations that voted in favour of the resolution along with Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, France, Japan, Malaysia, Maldives, Russia, South Africa, Sri Lanka and the UK. By the terms of the resolution, the Assembly would condemn settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan and any activities involving the confiscation of land, the disruption of the livelihood of protected persons, the forced transfer of civilians and the annexation of land, whether de facto or through national legislation. India abstained on a draft resolution Work of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories'. The resolution was approved by a recorded vote of 85 in favour to 13 against, with 72 abstentions. This resolution deplores those policies and practices of Israel that violate the human rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs of the occupied territories, as reflected in the report of the Special Committee covering the reporting period. The resolution also Expresses grave concern about the critical situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, as a result of unlawful Israeli practices and measures, and especially condemns and calls for the immediate cessation of all illegal Israeli settlement activities and the construction of the wall, the lifting of the blockade of the Gaza Strip, as well as the complete cessation of the excessive and indiscriminate use of force and military operations against the civilian population..." Another draft resolution that India voted in favour of was The occupied Syrian Golan' which was approved by a recorded vote of 146 in favour to 2 against (Israel, United States), with 23 abstentions. The resolution would call upon Israel to desist from changing the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure and legal status of the occupied Syrian Golan and in particular to desist from the establishment of settlements. It would also call upon Israel to desist from imposing Israeli citizenship and Israeli identity cards on the Syrian citizens in the occupied Syrian Golan, and from its repressive measures against the population of the occupied Syrian Golan. India voted in favour of a resolution 'Operations of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East'. This draft resolution was approved by a recorded vote of 160 in favour to 4 against (Canada, Israel, Federated States of Micronesia, United States), with 7 abstentions (Cameroon, Guatemala, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, Uruguay, Vanuatu). It would have the Assembly express its deep concern about the extremely critical financial situation of UNRWA and attempt to discredit the Agency despite its proven operational capacity and consistent implementation of its mandate. It expressed grave concern about the extremely difficult socioeconomic conditions being faced by the Palestine refugees in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, particularly in the refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, as a result of the recurrent military operations, continuing prolonged Israeli closures, the construction of settlements and the wall. India also voted in favour of the draft resolution titled Assistance to Palestine refugees. Approved by a recorded vote of 161 in favour to 1 against (Israel), with 11 abstentions, the resolution would affirm the necessity for the continuation of the work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. India then voted in favour of a draft resolution titled Palestine refugees' properties and their revenues. The resolution was approved by a recorded vote of 156 in favour to 6 against (Canada, Israel, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, United States), with 8 abstentions (Cameroon, Guatemala, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, South Sudan, Togo and Vanuatu). India is fast emerging as a big global player in the defence sector and the capabilities of its security forces are constantly rising, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday. IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi poses for a picture as he celebrates Diwali with the security forces at Lepcha village, in Himachal Pradesh. Photograph: ANI Photo Addressing soldiers in Lepcha after celebrating Diwali with security personnel stationed near the border, Modi said the circumstances of the world are such that the expectations from India are constantly rising. "At such an important time, it is necessary that India's borders are protected and there is an environment of peace in the country and you have a big role in this," Modi, dressed in Indo-Tibetan Border Police fatigues, said. "India is protected till the time my bravehearts are standing on the borders like the Himalayas," the prime minister said. "After Independence, these bravehearts (Army personnel) fought so many wars and won the country's heart... Our jawans have snatched victory in the face of challenges," he said. "It is said that parv is where the parivaar is. On festivals, being away from the family and deployed on the borders exemplifies the commitment to duty The country is indebted to you," Modi told the soldiers. "Therefore, on Diwali, one 'diya' is for your safety, and in every prayer, people wish for your safety," the prime minister said. "Since 30-35 years, there has been no Diwali that I have not celebrated with you. When I was neither the PM nor the CM, I celebrated Diwali amongst you in border areas, Modi said. India's soldiers have always walked ahead, risking their lives and have always proven that they are the "strongest wall" at the borders, he added. "For me, a place where our security forces are deployed is no less than a temple," Modi said. The prime minister also hailed the role played by the armed forces in evacuations in earthquake-hit areas and during other calamities. "When we had to pull out people from Sudan, India's bravehearts completed the mission with courage When there was an earthquake in Turkiye, they risked lives to save people," Modi said. Wherever Indians are in danger, security forces are always committed to ensuring their safety, he asserted. "We are proud of our forces and soldiers," Modi added. "I wish the people of the country from the last village, which I call the first, where I am celebrating Diwali with the security forces. The greetings on Diwali from here are special," the prime minister said. He said that the period between the last Diwali and this one has been full of unprecedented achievements for India. Modi went on to list India's achievements such as Chandrayaan 3, Aditya L1 launch, winning over 100 medals in the Asian and Paralympic games, moving into the new Parliament building, passage of the women's reservation bill, successful organising of the G20, and India becoming fifth-largest in the world in terms of GDP. "If India is touching heights of development with its full force, the credit for that also goes to your capabilities, resolve and sacrifices," Modi said, addressing the soldiers. Capabilities of India's security forces are constantly rising and India is fast emerging as a "big global player" in the defence sector, he said. "There was a time when we were dependent on others for small things but now, we are also fulfilling the needs of our friends and allies," Modi said. In his remarks, Modi also pointed out that in recent years, over 500 women officers were given permanent commission in the Army. The prime minister arrived in Lepcha in the morning to celebrate Diwali with the security forces. He shared photographs of his interaction with the soldiers. The prime minister is seen offering them sweets. In his post on X, Modi said, "Spending Diwali with our brave security forces in Lepcha, Himachal Pradesh, has been an experience filled with deep emotion and pride." "Away from their families, these guardians of our nation illuminate our lives with their dedication," he said. "The courage of our security forces is unwavering. Stationed in the toughest terrains, away from their loved ones, their sacrifice and dedication keep us safe and secure," the prime minister added. India will always be grateful to these heroes who are the perfect embodiment of bravery and resilience, Modi said in another post. Earlier in the day, he greeted people on Diwali and wished them joy, prosperity and health. "Wishing everyone a Happy Diwali! May this special festival bring joy, prosperity and wonderful health to everyone's lives," Modi said. Since coming to power in 2014, Modi has been visiting military facilities to celebrate Diwali. In 2014, the prime minister celebrated the festival of lights with soldiers at the Siachen Glacier. In the following year, on the 50th anniversary of the 1965 war with Pakistan, Modi visited three memorials in Punjab where the Indian armed forces had fought pitched battles that proved to be key to the country's victory. In 2016, the prime minister travelled to Himachal Pradesh to meet the personnel of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, the Dogra Scouts and the Army at Sumdoh near the China border. In 2017, Modi was in the Gurez sector in north Kashmir, while in 2018, he celebrated Diwali in Harsil, Uttarakhand, which was followed by a visit to Kedarnath. After being re-elected to the high office in 2019, Modi celebrated Diwali in Rajouri in Jammu and Kashmir. In 2020, he was at a border post of Longewala on Diwali and in 2021, he celebrated the festival with soldiers in Nowshera. The prime minister celebrated Diwali with the armed forces in Kargil last year. BEIJING, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese military will hold a joint exercise with Cambodian, Lao, Malaysian, Thai, and Vietnamese forces in south China's Guangdong Province in mid-to-late November, the Ministry of National Defense said Sunday. Themed on countering terrorism and maintaining maritime safety, the exercise will organize joint and live anti-terrorism and anti-piracy drills, according to the ministry. The aim is to help participants enhance their urban anti-terrorism, maritime anti-terrorism and anti-piracy capabilities, and deepen military mutual trust and cooperation to safeguard regional peace and stability, the ministry said. Buildings were decorated with earthen lamps and colourful lights as people across the country celebrated Diwali with pomp on Sunday and a relatively better air quality than in previous years brought much relief to revellers in Delhi. IMAGE: People throng an illuminated India Gate on the occasion of Diwali festival, in New Delhi, November 12, 2023. Photograph: ANI on X Despite the national capital recording its best air quality on Diwali day in eight years, pollution levels may rise due to low night temperatures and sporadic burning of firecrackers though there is a ban on their manufacture, storage, sale and use within the city. One of the most popular Hindu festivals, Diwali is associated with the day Lord Ram is believed to have returned to Ayodhya with his wife Sita and brother Lakshman after defeating Ravana during his 14 years in exile and is seen as a celebration of the victory of good over evil. People, dressed in their finest, exchanged sweets and gifts, visited temples and greeted each other, and celebrations across the country were largely incident free. However, in Uttar Pradesh nine people were injured in a fire that gutted seven shops at a temporary firecracker market on the outskirts of Mathura. IMAGE: People light earthen lamps in Guwahati, Assam. Photograph: ANI on X President Droupadi Murmu, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar and Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted the people of the country and hoped the festival will bring happiness and wellbeing. Like previous years, Prime Minister Modi celebrated Diwali with soldiers. This time it was in Lepcha in Himachal Pradesh. Security forces have a big role in maintaining peace and keeping India's borders safe at a time of rising global expectations from the country, Modi said while addressing soldiers. He also asserted that India is fast emerging as a big global player in the defence sector and the capabilities of its security forces are constantly rising. Global circumstances are such that the expectations from India are also constantly rising, the prime minister said. IMAGE: Devotees light lamps at the Golden Temple, Amritsar, Punjab. Photograph: ANI Photo Modi, who was dressed in Indo-Tibetan Border Police fatigues, said that "at such an important time, it is necessary that India's borders are protected and there is an environment of peace in the country, and you have a big role in this". "India is protected till the time my bravehearts are standing on the borders, unflinching as the Himalayas," the prime minister said. In Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district, the Indian Army exchanged sweets with its Pakistani counterpart on the occasion of Diwali along the Line of Control, officials said. IMAGE: People light sparklers and burst firecrackers as they celebrate Diwali, in Lucknow, UP. Photograph: ANI on X However, there was no traditional exchange of sweets and pleasantries between the two sides along the International Border, they said, attributing it to the tense situation following the recent ceasefire violations by the Pakistan Rangers that left a Border Security Force jawan dead. On Diwali, 80 fishermen released from a jail in Karachi in Pakistan reached Vadodara in Gujarat by train, from where they were taken to Veraval in the state's Gir Somnath district by bus to be reunited with their families. Delhi Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal wished happiness and prosperity to the people of the city on Diwali. IMAGE: Diwali celebrations in Chennai Photograph: ANI on X Delhiites experienced clear skies and abundant sunshine and the city's 24-hour average air quality index stood at 218 at 4 pm, the best in at least three weeks and also in the last eight years on Diwali day. The city recorded an index of 312 on Diwali last year, 382 in 2021, 414 in 2020, 337 in 2019, 281 in 2018, 319 in 2017 and 431 in 2016, according to Central Pollution Control Board data. Saturday's 24-hour average AQI stood at 220, the lowest for the day before Diwali in eight years. The improvement can be attributed to intermittent rainfall on Friday and wind speeds favourable for the dispersion of pollutants. To put this into perspective, Thursday's 24-hour average air quality index was 437. IMAGE: An illuminated Rashtrapati Bhavan, North Block and South Block in New Delhi. Photograph: ANI on X In accordance with the practice of the past three years, Delhi has announced the comprehensive ban of firecrackers till January 1. Sporadic incidents of firecracker burning were reported on Saturday night and Sunday evening in several parts of the city. Low temperatures and firecracker burning may lead to a rise in pollution levels in Delhi late on Sunday. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath celebrated Diwali with forest dwellers in Gorakhpur, continuing a practice he started about 15 years ago. IMAGE: Poornanadi Maha Mangala Aarti being performed at the banks of Periyar river, Aluva, near Kochi, Kerala, on occasion of Diwali. Photograph: ANI on X The chief minister also inaugurated or laid the foundation stones of 52 development projects worth Rs 153 crore for different gram panchayats of Gorakhpur district on the occasion, the state government said in a statement. He also visited the Hanumangarhi temple and the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya and offered prayers there. "Hearty congratulations and best wishes to the people of the state on the great festival of Diwali the victory of truth over lie, virtue over tyranny and light over darkness. With the blessings of Lord Shri Ram and Mata Janaki, may this holy festival illuminate the lives of all of you... Jai Shri Ram!" the chief minister posted on X. IMAGE: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar lights earthen lamps at his residence in Patna. Photograph: ANI on X In Goa, people burnt giant effigies of demon 'Narakasura' in the early hours to begin Diwali celebrations, while Chief Minister Pramod Sawant extended greetings to the people and urged them to buy local products to celebrate the festival. Goa has a long held tradition of making the effigies of Narakasura and burning them on Diwali, marking the victory of good over evil. The 'Narakasur Vadh' (killing of the demon) competitions were held across the coastal state to celebrate the festival. "It symbolises the victory of good over evil. An artiste dressed as Lord Krishna performs Narakasura Vadh in the early morning hours. This is how we celebrate Diwali," said Panaji-based historian Sanjeev Sardesai. Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann greeted people on the festival of lights and Bandi Chhor Divas. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar also extended heartfelt greetings and best wishes to people on Diwali. Bandi Chhor Divas coincides with Diwali and it marks the historical release of the sixth Sikh guru, Guru Hargobind, along with 52 kings from a Mughal prison in 1620. Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, who returned from AIIMS-Delhi after 15 days of treatment, celebrated the festival with children at the Balika Ashram Tutikandi in Shimla and distributed sweets and fruits among them. Bursting of firecrackers was restricted to just two hours in the state to prevent noise and air pollution in the hills and only "green crackers" were permitted. In Jharkhand, too, revellers got a two-hour window from 8 pm to 10 pm to burst firecrackers. Similar windows will be allowed on Gurupurab, Chhat, Christmas and New Year but the timings will vary, according to officials. Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah greeted people of the state on Diwali and also appealed to them to use only green crackers to avoid fire accidents, and check pollution that can complicate the health of patients with respiratory and cardio-related ailments. "The state government has given permission to use green crackers to check air and sound pollution, and fire accidents. Various chemicals used in the crackers lead to many health complications, Siddaramaiah said in a video message. "The air and sound pollution cause severe health hazard to those suffering from asthma, lung and heart diseases. Birds and animals undergo silent pain. Hence, I appeal to the citizens that they must use only green crackers," he added. Kali Puja celebrations in West Bengal began early in the day with many people thronging temples with the queues getting longer as the day progressed. In Rajasthan, Diwali was celebrated with fervour and gaiety, with prominent markets in the Walled City of Jaipur, landmarks and prominent buildings beautifully decorated. In Tamil Nadu, seven villages in Erode district marked the festival with just lights, and no sound, in a gesture considerate of the winged inhabitants of the bird sanctuary nearby. The villages are located around Vadamugam Vellode, 10 kilometres from Erode where the bird sanctuary is situated. Thousands of local bird species and migratory birds from other regions visit the sanctuary between October and January to lay eggs and hatch them. The death toll from the blasts that rocked a Christian religious gathering near here two weeks ago has risen to five, the Kerala government said on Sunday. IMAGE: Kalamassery blast accused Dominic Martin being brought to a hospital for a medical check-up after he was presented before the Principal Sessions Court, in Kochi on November 6, 2023. Photograph: ANI Photo The victim, identified as 45-year-old Sally Pradeepan from Malayattoor in Ernakulam district of the state, died at a private hospital on Saturday night, a government health bulletin said. She was on ventilator support, it said. Presently, 17 people who were injured in the blasts are undergoing treatment in various hospitals here, the bulletin by a medical board constituted to treat those who were wounded in the incident said. Of them eight are in ICU with one in critical condition and the remaining nine in wards, it said. The blasts were set off at a religious gathering of a Christian sect known as Jehovah's Witnesses on October 29. A 12-year-old girl named Libina from Malayattoor had succumbed to her injuries on October 30 at the Kalamassery Government Medical College Hospital, and two women who were part of the gathering were killed on the day of the blasts. Subsequently, 61-year-old Moly Joy from Kalamassery died at a private hospital on November 6. Over 50 people were injured, some seriously, during the multiple blasts at an international convention centre in Kalamassery, near this port city of Kerala. They had gathered for the final day of a three-day-long prayer meeting of the Jehovah's Witnesses. A few hours after the incident, a man -- Dominic Martin -- claiming to be an estranged member of Jehovah's Witnesses surrendered before the police in Thrissur district, claiming he carried out the multiple blasts. The police later recorded his arrest. In addition to Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (punishment for murder) and Section 3 of the Explosive Substances Act, relevant sections of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act have also been invoked against Martin. The White House coordinator for West Asia, Brett McGurk will reportedly travel to Israel on Tuesday as part of visit to countries in the region with the goal of reaching a US-brokered deal securing the release of many of the hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza, The Times of Israel reported. IMAGE: People check the damage after Israeli forces demolished houses of two Palestinian assailants in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank November 10, 2023. Photograph: Mussa Qawasma/Reuters McGurk will first visit Brussels for talks with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and European Union officials on the Israel-Hamas war, The Times of Israel reported citing The Walla news site which cited two unnamed Israeli and American senior officials. After his visit to Brussels, McGurk will visit Israel where he is slated to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and senior security and intelligence officials. After wrapping up his Israel visit, McGurk will then travel to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain. The White House has refused to comment on the report, which says one of the options under discussion is a deal that could see 80 women and children freed from captivity in Gaza in return for Israel releasing female and underage terror convicts from prison, and several-day halt in the fighting and possibly some fuel entering Gaza. Earlier this week, US President Joe Biden said that there is "no possibility" of a ceasefire in Gaza. Biden said that the US government will not stop until it gets the hostages out. Speaking to reporters about the chances of a Gaza ceasefire, Biden said, "None, No possibility." Asked about an update on getting hostages out, he said, "We're still optimistic." In his message to the families of the hostages in Gaza, Biden said, "We're not going to stop until we get them out." Earlier on November 3, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reaffirmed support for Israel and said, "as long as the United States stands, Israel will not stand alone." Blinken reiterated the commitment during his meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog and the country's war cabinet. Addressing a press conference in Tel Aviv, Blinken brought up the brutality of the Hamas onslaught on Israel, as he recalled seeing the footage of a father grabbing his two sons to get them out of harm's way before terrorists gun him down, The Times of Israel reported. "Where's daddy," he quoted one of the boys as saying."They killed daddy," Blinken quoted the boy's brother as responding. To this, the boy asked, "Where's mommy?", Blinken shared, according to The Times of Israel. The US secretary of state revealed that further in the footage, the terrorist responsible for killing the boys' parents is seen casually eating from the fridge. Blinken said it is "shocking" that the brutality of the slaughter has "receded" in the memory of so many -- "but not in Israel and not in the United States". He said the steps that the US has taken to prevent the war from escalating include counter-strikes on "Iranian proxies" in Syria. Blinken said he was pained to watch how the carnage impacted Israeli children, he felt no different watching Palestinian girls and boys being pulled from the rubble of buildings bombed by Israel, according to The Times of Israel. "When I see them, when I look into their eyes from the TV screens, I see my own children," Blinken said, adding, "How can I not?" He asserted that Hamas doesn't care about Palestinians and uses them as human shields, placing its infrastructure and fighters in residential buildings, schools, mosques and hospitals. Attacking the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena for "bulldozing" a 'shakha' (local level office) controlled by the Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray, its chief Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday said those high on power will be taught a lesson. IMAGE: Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray Uddhav Thackeray meets people in Kalwa, near Mumbai, November 11, 2023. Photograph: Courtesy Shiv Sena-UBT on X Thackeray, along with top leaders of the Sena-UBT, went to Mumbra here to visit the razed shakha but had to face resistance from workers of the CM's Shiv Sena, who also showed black flags. As the situation turned tense, Thackeray and his party colleagues left the site, just metres away from the razed shakha. Mumbra is a Muslim dominated area in Thane, which is the stronghold of CM Shinde. Addressing party workers in Mumbra, Thackeray said, "Those who are high on power bulldozed the shakha. I have come here to show you the bulldozer. Our posters were torn. We will tear your arrogance into pieces in the polls." Alleging that the administration had become helpless, the former CM said, "Our land (shakha) has been encroached upon. We have all the documents." The shakha will assemble everyday, the Shiv Sena-UBT asserted. Cautioning the administration and the police, Thackeray said, "You are not slaves of the thieves. You have protected the thieves, but the thieves have disturbed the honeycomb. Now the honeybees will sting you." Speaking to reporters later, Thackeray said this same government got the police to lathi-charge 'warkaris' as well as Maratha quota agitators. Thackeray said he and his supporters did not break the police barricades kept at the site of the shakha as they did not want a law and order situation during Diwali as it would inconvenience people. "However, it does not mean we will always be silent. The state government brought hired goons and gave them police protection. This is absolutely disgraceful," he said. Thackeray was accompanied by MPs Vinayak Raut, Sanjay Raut, Anil Desai, Rajan Vichare and Nationalist Congress Party leader Jitendra Awhad. Earlier in the day, former Thane mayor Naresh Mhaske, who is part of the Shinde-led Shiv Sena, had said the shakha was taken over and demolished as it was being used for illegal activities. Thackeray refused to comment on questions based on allegations made by Mhaske and other leaders of the Shinde faction. Brattleboro, VT (05301) Today Partly cloudy skies this morning will give way to cloudy skies and rain during the afternoon. High 49F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 80%.. Tonight Rain showers this evening with mostly cloudy conditions overnight. Low 34F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%. RAMALLAH, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- A Palestinian man was killed on Sunday during an Israeli army forces' raid in Nablus, north of the West Bank, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Health Ministry. In a statement to Xinhua, the ministry said it had informed the Palestinian General Authority for Civil Affairs of the death of the 34-year-old man from Burqa village in Nablus due to injuries sustained from Israeli gunfire. The Israeli forces raided Burqa and conducted search and seizure operations, in which they also arrested several citizens and set fire to a vehicle, according to local sources. During the day, the Israeli troops also conducted extensive arrest campaigns in other parts of the occupied West Bank, detaining over 30 individuals. Since the start of the latest round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on Oct. 7, the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli gunfire has risen to 186 across the West Bank, while the total number of Palestinian detainees has exceeded 2,450. A new book says a police detective was following the WhatsApp group in which triad members planned the attacks. Masked assailants attack protesters at Yuen Long MTR train station in Hong Kong, in this image taken from a video, July 21, 2019. Hong Kong government officials knew in advance that white-clad mobsters planned to attack protesters and passers-by at the Yuen Long train station on July 21, 2019, according to a new book about the democracy movement. When dozens of unidentified thugs in white T-shirts attacked train passengers and passers-by with wooden and metal poles that day, police were inundated with emergency calls, but didn't move in until 39 minutes after the attacks began. Now, a recently published account says police knew about the attacks before they started. "It was not the first the police had heard of the brewing attacks," write former Washington Post Hong Kong correspondent Shibani Mahtani and The Atlantic writer Timothy McLaughlin in "Among the Braves." Members of Hong Kong's criminal underworld "triad" organizations had been discussing the planned attack for days on a WhatsApp group that was being monitored by a detective sergeant from the Organized Crime and Triad Bureau, the book says. "He had managed to gain access to the WhatsApp group chat, giving him unfettered insight into the plans, even before rumors reached the residents of the neighborhood," it says, adding that the attack had unified rival gangs in a "singular purpose," with their allegiance suggested by the Chinese national flags they carried at the time of the attack. The book says that then-Chief Executive Carrie Lam was following the news on TV, rather than by following live streamed video, the protester forum LIHKG or protest-related channels on Telegram, at the time. It also says that one of her officials only found out via social media when she visited the bathroom and picked up her phone, which had been placed outside for security reasons. Wear only white It adds that officials from Lam's administration had been rubbing shoulders and eating roast suckling pig alongside some of the attackers only the day before. "The government already knew who some of the men were," the authors write, citing the attendance of government political assistant Kenneth Ng at a banquet in a rural village in Yuen Long the day before the attacks came. Men in white T-shirts and carrying poles are seen in Yuen Long after attacking anti-extradition bill demonstrators at a train station, in Hong Kong, July 21, 2019. Credit: Tyrone Siu/Reuters "There was some overlap between the membership of these rural political bodies and of the triad societies ... [which] provided muscle to the rural committees, intimidating and strong-arming opponents," according to Mahtani and McLaughlin. The Times newspaper later went on to identify one of the banquet attendees among the July 21 attackers on journalist Gwyneth Ho's live stream from Yuen Long MTR naming him as Stephen Ng, they write. "The government officials attending these celebrations ahead of the attacks offered hints that they knew what was about to unfold," the book says. "The political assistant to the secretary for mainland affairs had invited some others to join him at the banquet on July 20," the authors say. "He gave them a very specific dress code: Wear only white." Criminal cops HK01.com reported at the time that staff at the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Office set up a Lennon Wall in their office to protest the government's handling of the attacks. While active coordination between the triads and police was never proven, the attacks, and the relatively light touch applied to the attackers compared with black-clad protesters, sparked a wave of public anger at the police force, who started to get heckled as "hak ging," or "criminal cops," on the streets. "The police knew, and they did nothing," Mahtani and McLaughlin write. "Many police officers outright sympathized with the men in white." "On WhatsApp groups, frontline officers in unrelated units praised the men in white for 'teaching the kids a lesson' ... [believing] that all the victims were protesters and legitimate targets," the book says. The weeks and months after the attack saw a massive wave of public anger at the police, who were later seen as legitimate targets for doxxing and even violent attacks. But instead of investigating the incident, Lam rejected any allegations of collusion, and later quashed a full report from the city's police supervisory body on the handling of the protests. The book also takes aim at the ruling Chinese Communist Party's insistence that the 2019 protests were an attempt by "hostile foreign forces" to foment an uprising against the government in Hong Kong. "There was no foreign interference behind the protests," Mahtani and McLaughlin write. "They were locally driven, planned, and organized," they say, citing their own experience covering the protest movement on the ground. "We never saw American men in sunglasses hand over wads of cash to demonstrators, contrary to the caricature put out by Beijing," the authors write. "The movement was entirely a manifestation of Hong Kong's will, sparked by Lam and her mishandling of the extradition bill, and then fueled by the police's unconstrained use of force," it says, in a reference to Lam's plans, later withdrawn, to allow the extradition of people deemed criminal suspects to face trial in mainland China. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster. Associated Press journalist Thein Zaw is arrested by police in Yangon, Myanmar, Feb. 27, 2021. Myanmars military junta is increasingly using state media outlets for propaganda purposes while it continues its crack down on independent news outlets, several journalists have told Radio Free Asia. The junta has ramped up its use of its channel on the messaging app Telegram to distribute its information, according to the reporters. In addition, there are a number of pro-junta Telegram channels that then amplify the juntas propaganda. People need to be vigilant against fake news, Sein Win, newsroom management editor for Mizzima Media. It is a traditional and common strategy of the military since long, long ago. People might be trapped in their propaganda. The junta has revoked the licenses of four publishers and two printing houses since the junta seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup detat. Some 14 media outlets including Mizzima, Democratic Voice of Burma and The Irrawaddy have also lost their licenses. Last month, junta troops raided and shuttered independent news outlet Development Media Group in Rakhine state, arresting one reporter and a guard. The news outlet covers armed conflict and human rights violations in the western state that borders Bangladesh. But junta-controlled media such as Thazin FM continue to operate. Every Wednesday, the outlet broadcasts its Public Voices Among Public call-in program. Most of the callers are just parroting junta-approved talking points, several residents of the Yangon and Sagaing regions told RFA. Journalists cover a protest against Myanmars junta in Myaynigone, Yangon, on Feb. 27, 2021. Credit: RFA The general message repeated on the program is that the National Unity Government, or NUG, and the anti-junta Peoples Defense Force paramilitaries are creating problems that worsen peoples lives. The NUG is made up of leaders in the former civilian government and other anti-junta activists. Junta leaders visit to friendly media outlets Thazin FM also inserts a variety of songs that carry junta messages into the call-in program, a Khin-U township resident told RFA on condition of anonymity. But the propaganda wont be enough to counteract what many people are experiencing, he said. We love to listen to a variety of music, including modern songs, he said. But actually, people are suffering various hardships in daily life. In June, junta chief Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing spoke about the need for more public interest and educational programs during visits to Thazin FM and the military-owned Myawaddy Television. The military council is preventing spread of accurate information to the world, to the people and to its forces by cracking down on independent media and by creating fake news, said Nay Phone Latt, the spokesman for NUGs Office of the Prime Minister. In addition, they have developed fake media agencies to spread misinformation. Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun didnt immediately reply to RFAs request for comment on the juntas use of propaganda. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed. A rally has urged an end to hydroelectric projects on the Neretva River. Demonstrators gathered in the Bosnian city of Konjic on November 11 to protest the construction of the Ulog dam in Bosnia's Serb entity, Republika Srpska. The company in charge, the Chinese state-owned Sinohydro, is on a U.S. sanctions list due to its business with Iran. More than 30 other, smaller hydropower plants are planned in the upstream sections of the Neretva, which environmentalists would prefer to see preserved as a protected area. The human rights group Memorial has recognized Alsu Kurmasheva, a veteran journalist of RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service who has been in Russian custody since October 18, as a political prisoner. Kurmasheva, a Prague, Czech Republic-based journalist with RFE/RL who holds dual U.S. and Russian citizenships, traveled to Russia for a family emergency in May. She was temporarily detained while waiting for her return flight on June 2 at the airport in the capital of the Tatarstan region, where both of her passports were confiscated. She was not able to leave Russia as she awaited the return of her travel documents. On October 11, Kurmasheva was fined 10,000 rubles ($103) for failing to register her U.S. passport with the Russian authorities, according to local media reports based on court documents they'd seen. Kurmasheva was detained again on October 18 and this time charged with failing to register as a "foreign agent," a crime that carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The Investigative Committee said Kurmasheva was being charged under a section of the Criminal Code that refers to the registration of foreign agents who carry out "purposeful collection of information in the field of military, military-technical activities of Russia," which, if received by foreign sources, "can be used against the security of the country." It gave no further details. The Investigative Committee said its investigation found that while the Russian Justice Ministry did not add her to the list of foreign agents, she failed to provide documents to be included on the registry. Kurmasheva and RFE/RL have both rejected the charge. Russia's detention of Kurmasheva, the second U.S. media member to be detained by Moscow this year, triggered a wave of criticism from rights groups and politicians saying the move signals a new level of wartime censorship. Sergei Davidis, the leader of Memorial's Support of Political Prisoners project, told RFE/RL that Kurmasheva was recognized as a political prisoner because the group considers illegal the Russian Criminal Code's article on foreign agents and its connection with so-called "purposeful collection of information in the field of military, military-technical activities of Russia." Davidis added that Memorial considered the prosecution and possible conviction of people for failing to carry out "a so-called obligation to voluntarily declare themselves as foreign agents...also illegal." "That request is illegal because, de facto, it is not about punishment for failure to declare, but for implementation of legal activities. The information in question is not classified and it is not illegal to collect such information," Davidis said, stressing that the Federal Security Service (FSB) had given a vague explanation about what can be considered information banned for collecting. "Additional to that, we see concrete political goals in [Kurmasheva's] case that were obvious by how the persecution was carried out. First, she was detained and convicted of failure to declare the second citizenship, and after that only, after obvious thinking over and looking for reasons -- they filed the second case," Davidis said. "This is the first criminal case and arrest of that kind. It explicitly indicates the artificial grounds of the whole construction. This illegal charge was thought over for a long time before it was used. They had searched for something to deprive Alsu Kurmasheva of her freedom," he added. 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 alleged spying -- a charge he and the newspaper vehemently deny -- in March. WATCH: The husband of the RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who was detained in Russia on October 18, has said she is a "political prisoner." 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. Amnesty International, the UN Human Rights Office, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the chairman of the U.S. House of Representative's Foreign Affairs Committee have called for the immediate release of Kurmasheva. 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. Memorial, founded in 1987 to remember victims of Soviet repression, was closed down by Russia's Supreme Court in November 2021 -- citing the "foreign agents" law -- although it still functions outside the country and has managed to continue some activities inside Russia. Kurmasheva is one of four RFE/RL journalists -- Andrey Kuznechyk, Ihar Losik, and Vladyslav Yesypenko are the other three -- currently imprisoned on charges related to their work. Rights groups and RFE/RL have called repeatedly for the release of all four, saying they have been wrongly detained. Losik is a blogger and contributor for RFE/RLs Belarus Service who was convicted in December 2021 on several charges including the organization and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Kuznechyk, a web editor for RFE/RLs Belarus Service, was sentenced in June 2022 to six years in prison following a trial that lasted no more than a few hours. He was convicted of creating or participating in an extremist organization. Yesypenko, a dual Ukrainian-Russian citizen who contributed to Crimea.Realities, a regional news outlet of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, was sentenced in February 2022 to six years in prison by a Russian judge in occupied Crimea after a closed-door trial. He was convicted of possession and transport of explosives, a charge he steadfastly denies. Pakistan has issued an ultimatum to the Afghan Taliban: Expel the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) extremist group from Afghanistan or face the consequences. Pakistans special representative for Afghanistan, Asif Durrani, repeated the warning on November 11, saying that the Afghan extremist group must choose Pakistan or the TTP. The Afghan Taliban denies sheltering the TTP, with which it has close ideological and organizational ties. The TTP has intensified its deadly insurgency against Pakistan since the Afghan militants seized power in Afghanistan in 2021. By refusing to rein in the TTP, Pakistan believes the Afghan Taliban has made its choice. Islamabad has sought to strongarm the Afghan militants by expelling hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees from Pakistan, shutting key border crossings, and temporarily blocking Afghan transit goods in recent months. Experts said the relationship between Pakistan and the Taliban, which have been close allies for decades, has reached a crisis point. They warn that further escalation could have major security and economic ramifications for both countries. Pakistan and the Taliban are on a collision course, said Asfandyar Mir, a senior analyst at the United States Institute of Peace. Pakistan's pressure campaign has the potential to be very painful for the Taliban and the Taliban's retaliatory measures, like letting the TTP undertake even more attacks, can impose serious costs on Pakistan as well, Mir added. Pressure Tactics The Afghan Taliban has accused Pakistan of using pressure tactics to make the group bow to Islamabads demands. Last month, Islamabad ordered 1.7 million undocumented Afghan refugees and migrants to leave the South Asian country or face arrest and forced deportation after November 1. Over 400,000 Afghans have returned to their homeland since then, in a move that has further aggravated the devastating humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, the worlds largest. Pakistan said its decision was in direct response to the Taliban's alleged refusal to expel the TTP, also known as the Pakistani Taliban. "After noncooperation by the Afghan interim government, Pakistan has decided to take matters into its own hands, and Pakistan's recent actions are neither unexpected or surprising," Pakistani caretaker Prime Minister Anwar ul-Haq Kakar said on November 8. Kakar claimed that terrorist attacks inside his country have increased by around 60 percent since the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan in August 2021. Since then, he said, some 2,300 Pakistanis have been killed in those attacks. Pakistan also temporarily blocked the transit of thousands of containers filled with imports bound for Afghanistan that were stranded at Pakistans port city of Karachi for months. To open alternative international trade routes for landlocked Afghanistan, the Taliban has sought access to Iran's strategic Chabahar Port, located in the countrys southeast. Pakistan has also sporadically closed the border with Afghanistan, stranding thousands of mostly Afghan civilians and halting hundreds of vehicles carrying goods between the two countries. Pledge Of Allegiance Some experts said Pakistans tactics are unlikely to change the Afghan Talibans calculations. Sami Yousafzai, a veteran Afghan journalist and commentator who tracks the Taliban, said it was unlikely that the Afghan Taliban would expel the TTP. In 2001, the Taliban refused to hand over the Al-Qaeda leaders that Washington held responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In response, the United States invaded Afghanistan and ousted the Taliban regime from power. Today, the TTP is a much closer ally, said Yousafzai. Successive TTP chiefs have sworn allegiance to the Talibans spiritual leader. Like the Afghan Taliban, many TTP fighters are from the Pashtun ethnic group. The TTP also hosted and fought alongside the Afghan Taliban during its nearly 19-year insurgency against the Western-backed Afghan government and international troops in Afghanistan. The TTP made many sacrifices to enable the Taliban to return to power, Yousafzai said. How can the Taliban abandon them now? Yousafzai said the Afghan Talibans confrontation with Pakistan has also allowed it to shed its image as a Pakistani proxy. Islamabad has been the Afghan Talibans key foreign sponsor since the mid-1990s, when the extremist group first emerged. The current tensions give the Taliban a golden opportunity to undo those accusations, he said. Military Option Islamabad could resort to military force to compel the Afghan Taliban to change its behavior, according to some experts. The Afghan Taliban has tried to appease Pakistan. In June, the Afghan Taliban relocated TTP fighters and their families away from the border with Pakistan to other areas of Afghanistan, a move intended to placate Islamabad. Last year, the Afghan Taliban brokered yearlong peace talks between the TTP and Islamabad that broke down. Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud, an Islamabad-based director at Khorasan Diary, a website tracking militant groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan, said that senior Pakistani officials feel they have exhausted all diplomatic and political options. Here, the current mindset is that the TTP can only be contained through force, he said. One possible option being considered here now is to begin cross-border strikes on suspected TTP bases and hideouts inside Afghanistan. In April 2022, Pakistan carried out unprecedented air strikes in eastern Afghanistan, killing dozens of people. Pakistan said it was targeting the TTP. The air strikes provoked harsh exchanges, with the Taliban issuing threats against Islamabad. There have been reports of other Pakistani cross-border attacks that have targeted the TTP over the past year. Some of those incidents have led to the TTP launching retaliatory attacks against Pakistani forces, Mehsud said. Pakistani attacks inside Afghanistan have raised fears of a direct conflict between Islamabad and the Afghan Taliban. But experts said they expect the sides to reach a compromise that would prevent a worst-case scenario. Mir of the United States Institute of Peace said that the Afghan Taliban is unlikely to rein in the TTP unless Pakistan offers concessions to the Pakistani militants. During the failed peace negotiations with Pakistan, the TTP demanded that Islamabad withdraw a large portion of the tens of thousands of Pakistani troops stationed in northwestern Pakistan, the extremist groups former stronghold. The TTPs other demands included the implementation of Islamic Shari'a law in parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the reversal of democratic reforms in the same province. Pakistan may settle for less than a Taliban crackdown or expulsion of the TTP, said Mir. But, at a bare minimum, it will want an end to the TTP violence. ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- Alya is a 27-year-old woman from the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk whose boyfriend is a mobilized soldier participating in Russia's massive invasion of neighboring Ukraine. His long absence and frequent lapses in communication prompted her to study tarot cards, a medieval system supposedly capable of supernatural divination. "I had wanted to study tarot for a long time, but never got around to it," Alya, who like several of the people interviewed for this story asked that her last name be withheld, said. "But when my boyfriend went off to fight, I began doing readings. It calms me down." Alya is far from the only one who feels that way, with the Ukraine war approaching its second anniversary and no clear resolution in sight. According to a Kommersant report in March that cited industry analysts, the number of people enrolling in online courses for "mystic technologies" like tarot cards was 20 times greater in March 2023 than one year earlier. The Padma online occult school, for instance, purports to offer "magic studies from the beginning," "online courses to develop magical capabilities," and "practical esoterica for beginners and the advanced" in the form of "live lessons and master classes." Four-day online seminars cost about 8,500 rubles ($92). The Elara online mysticism "academy" offers courses in tarot reading, "candle magic," and defenses against "the evil eye and curses." "Fortune telling and tarot reading is becoming a form of magical calming in these troubling times, a magic pill for resolving problems," said St. Petersburg psychologist Yelena Oster. "One reason that people are so strongly drawn to magic in such times is a desire to find stability in a changing world. Magic creates the sensation of control over the outside world." Oster added that the absence of reliable independent information channels in Russia has led many people to turn to misleading Internet sources, including those trading in mysticism. "In this digital age, when the boundary between reality and illusion is being erased, our capacity for critical thinking has been significantly reduced," she said. "In times of crisis, people lose confidence in the future and magic creates the illusion of power over one's fate." The market for books on religious and occult themes has grown substantially in 2023, while sales of tarot cards on the Ozon online retailer have increased 36 percent over 2022, Izvestia reported last month. More and more fortune tellers and card readers are advertising their services online. In July, Kommersant reported that demand for "mystical programs" on Russian television was also on the rise. "Television channels have begun rebroadcasting old projects and introducing new ones," the daily reported, quoting experts who connected the trend with a growing public desire to understand "the reasons for everything that is happening." 'I Think I'll Go Again' Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Yekaterina Bykanova's boyfriend volunteered to fight. He later signed a contract with the notorious Wagner mercenary group. "I was doing readings constantly," Bykanova, a 23-year-old from Kursk, told RFE/RL. "Thanks to them, I learned everything that was happening to him. Once I read in the cards about some sort of leg wound. At that moment, I hadn't heard from him for a while. About 10 days after that reading, he wrote to me and said everything was OK. A month later he told me that a friend of his had been wounded in the leg." "He is home now," she added, "but he plans to sign another contract. I don't know how I am going to get through that -- I can't imagine. This is something unfamiliar and terrifying for me. But I have to believe in the best." Tatyana, a 27-year-old woman from Krasnoyarsk, used tarot cards in a bid to learn whether her mobilized boyfriend was being faithful. "My boyfriend -- rather, former boyfriend -- is serving in the Kherson area," she said. "I suspected he was being unfaithful after he became secretive and belligerent. A month ago, I decided to go to a mystic to check on him. In the end, my fears were confirmed. I found out what I needed to know. It was awful that I was sitting and waiting for him while he was betraying me -- and not just once." She said that her boyfriend later confessed -- "apparently he was tired of covering up." "In the end, we broke up," she said. "The mystic did this, with her knowledge of the magic cards. That helped me find out about the betrayal and about the third party in our relationship. I'm glad I went to the mystic. I think I'll go again and see what awaits me in the future." Anna, a 31-year-old from St. Petersburg, consulted a psychic from Moscow to learn that her husband was cheating on her with a female soldier. "I suspected that my husband was cheating on me while he was away at the war and she confirmed it for me," Anna said. "She saw the deception in the cards and described the woman. In the end, my husband confessed. So why shouldn't I believe in magic? But it is OK. He'll come back and we'll get past it." Margarita Yesenina is a 20-year-old from Pskov. Her husband is a mobilized soldier in Ukraine, and she pays a psychic in Moscow to burn candles for his well-being. "Two times I paid 1,000 rubles ($11) for a health ritual after a comrade of my husband's was killed," she said. "My husband survived but had a concussion. Now he's protected by a candle. I ordered the same ritual for our children. I believe in this mystic and now I know that all will be well with my family." 'The Circle Of Power' Russia and other former Soviet countries experienced a similar surge in mysticism during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. State television carried faith-healing broadcasts featuring psychics such as Anatoly Kashpirovsky, who was one of the most well-known people in Russia during the 1990s and was even elected to the State Duma. Kashpirovsky made an unexpected return to the limelight in Russia in 2009, during the global financial crisis. As recently as 2017, the Russian Academy of Sciences reported there were about 800,000 faith healers and occult workers in Russia, compared to just 640,000 medical doctors. In February 2019, a group of self-proclaimed witches conducted a "magic ritual" called "the circle of power" aimed at transferring "mystical energy" to President Vladimir Putin. "The roots of magical thinking go back deep into the centuries," psychologist Oster told RFE/RL. "In a world full of unexpected events that cannot be managed, rituals, spells, a belief in magical amulets, etc., create the illusion of control." RFE/RL's Robert Coalson contributed to this report. This story is based on reporting by correspondents from RFE/RL's North.Realities on the ground in Russia. Their names are being withheld for their protection. Iran's strategy in the Middle East is essentially a take on an old proverb: Give your proxies and partners weapons and you can sustain their battles for a day. Teach them to make weapons and they can fight your enemies for a lifetime. With Iranian-backed militant groups taking the charge in the Islamic republic's fight against Israel and the United States, Tehran is seeing its effort to help them acquire their own weapons-manufacturing capabilities pay off. "Iran has established a network of allies and partners throughout the Middle East, from the Huthis in Yemen, to pro-Iranian groups in Iraq, to pro-Iranian groups in Syria, to Hizballah in Lebanon, to Hamas in Gaza," said Samuel Bendett of the Virginia-based Center for Naval Analyses. "And [Tehran] basically feeds some of its technology there directly, or provides kits and parts and other assistance to the local developers from those units, from those groups, and either gives them training in Iran or trains them on their location." Increasingly, those Tehran-backed militant groups are turning to weapons they have produced themselves, often based on Iranian blueprints or manufactured or assembled with Iran's assistance. "Those groups now have a lot of know-how which was provided to them by Iran," Bendett said. "And they're now using them against the U.S. and its allies in the region." The Iranian-backed Islamic Resistance Movement -- better known as Hamas and considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union -- utilized a vast array of indigenously produced weapons and employed advanced battlefield tactics during its surprise multipronged attack on Israel on October 7 that left around 1,200 people dead. The Israeli Defense Forces said they recovered Iranian-manufactured mortars and explosives used by the Palestinian extremist group after the assault, and Israeli military officials have reportedly estimated that up to 10 percent of the weapons used in the attack were made in Iran. But most were produced or refined by Hamas indigenously in the Gaza Strip, including assault rifles, missiles, rockets, mortars, shells, and ammunition, according to Israeli defense officials. Some of the at least 19 Iranian proxies and partners in the region that help make up Iran's so-called axis of resistance have also used Iranian-derived or indigenously manufactured weapons built with Tehran's help against Israel as well as U.S. troops based in the region since the Hamas assault. These militant groups boast varying levels of firepower in their respective arsenals made up of Soviet-era, Russian, Iranian, and indigenously manufactured weapons based on Iranian designs. While Iran denies delivering arms to the groups directly, many of the missiles, rockets, and other weapons are similar to those produced by Iran. Lebanese Hizballah boasts the most formidable arsenal of projectiles among Tehran's proxies -- including its own manufactured or refitted missiles and rockets. Since October 7, Hizballah has launched hundreds of rockets and missiles at Israel. The Iranian-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen claim to have launched ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as drones, at Israel. On November 8, the Pentagon announced that a U.S. military surveillance drone was shot down off the coast of Yemen by Huthi forces. In an apparent response to U.S. support for Israel's retaliatory land invasion and aerial bombardment of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, Iranian proxies in Iraq and Syria have launched 58 attacks against U.S. forces in the past month, according to the Pentagon. Tehran has denied involvement in the Hamas attack, and in early November Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reportedly pressed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh to silence those calling for Iran and Lebanese Hizballah to join the Israel-Hamas war. According to sources cited by Reuters, Khamenei said during the meeting with Haniyeh in Tehran that Iran would continue to offer political and moral support but would not directly enter the conflict. But Iran has publicly boasted about the military aid it has provided to Hamas in recent years. And despite international sanctions and a sea and land blockade on the Gaza Strip that was imposed by Israel and Egypt in 2005, experts say it is clear that Tehran has provided assistance to boost Hamas's fighting capabilities. Middle East political analyst Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib told RFE/RL that Hamas built up its arsenal by looting weapons from former stockpiles of the Palestinian Authority or illegally purchasing them decades ago from Israeli sources through straw-man sales, smuggling arms and materials across the border with Egypt, and domestically producing drones, rockets, and various munitions. But there is little evidence that any seaborne smuggling of arms has taken place since Hamas took power in the Gaza Strip in 2007, he said. And the smuggling from Egypt that reached its height after the Egyptian revolution in 2011 declined sharply after the Muslim Brotherhood government there was overthrown in 2013 and has since "been reduced to a trickle." Nevertheless, Alkhatib said, "the weaponry and the arsenal that Hamas has right now has been building up for over a decade" and benefited from thousands of tons of smuggled arms and materials that could be used to manufacture its own weapons. "Even if the smuggling stopped, those are still significant and vast enough to offer Hamas and other groups the ability to inflict damage as we saw on October 7 and as we're seeing in their defensive battle with advancing Israeli ground troops," said Alkhatib, a U.S. citizen from Gaza. Whereas Hamas historically focused on building up a stockpile of rifles and machine guns, he says, it turned its attention to developing kinetic capabilities -- including mines, targeted explosive warheads, improvised explosive devices, anti-tank missiles, and rocket propelled grenades. Hamas has also invested heavily in developing longer-range rockets and guidance and targeting capabilities as well as a range of unmanned aerial vehicles, including fixed-wing and weaponized commercial-grade drones. Hamas had a falling out with Tehran, including over the extremist group's support of the Syrian uprising in 2011, Alkhatib says. But Yahya Sinwar, Hamas's leader in Gaza, realigned the organization with Tehran "because they have realized that without Iran, their military capability won't stand a chance in continuing to evolve." The realignment "with Iran, with the Syrian regime, and certainly with [Lebanese] Hizballah," he added, "are directly related to Hamas's needs and reliance on Iran to procure materials and, more importantly in the era of limited to no smuggling, technologies and know-how to domestically produce [weapons] systems." Aided by Iranian weapons blueprints and the use of modern digital platforms for remote training, Hamas has learned how to upgrade old rockets and missiles to expand their range and lethality, he said. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and Lebanese Hizballah have also been able to remotely teach Hamas fighting tactics and how to develop its massive tunnel network. "And, more importantly, Iran is also teaching Hamas how to use strategic capabilities," Alkhatib said, such as how to integrate drones on the battlefield. "What was particularly spectacular about the October 7 attack," Alkhatib said, "is that Hamas for the first time demonstrated a combined-arms approach to guerrilla warfare, whereby intelligence was linked with the artillery barrage, was linked with the aerial capabilities of using the paragliders, was linked with the ground troops with the elite forces, with the logistical networks to transport the hostages back to Gaza and to send the attacks in waves with internal operational security. "This was a qualitative leap forward in Hamas's fighting doctrine. And it could have only been learned and developed through assistance from Iran, broadly, and more specifically, its proxies and its arms in the region such as Hizballah and the IRGC," he added. Elsewhere in the Middle East, Iran's support for proxies and its involvement in the Syrian civil war now leaves it with a significant number of experienced fighters at the ready for future conflicts. Alkhatib notes that Iran supported hundreds of thousands of Shi'ite militias and fighters in Iraq and Syria, both to support the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria and to combat the Islamic State (IS) extremist group alongside Syrian and Iraqi government forces. "Now that both have been largely defeated, IS and the Syrian rebels, Iran was left with these powerful, battle-hardened, well-trained, well-organized militias that had nothing to do," Alkhatib said. "And so, they have been recycled and repurposed by the IRGC to further bolster the so-called axis of resistance, and to be used in a potential fight with Israel and the United States." GAZA, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- An Israeli airstrike has destroyed a building at Gaza's Al Shifa Medical Complex, said a Palestinian health official on Sunday. Munir al-Bursh, the director-general of the pharmaceutical department at the Gaza-based Health Ministry, told reporters that the Al Shifa Complex was subjected to Israeli shelling, with its cardiology department destroyed. Al-Bursh said the Israeli army forces earlier in the day targeted the first floor of the main specialized building at the medical complex, which houses the intensive care units. He noted that the Israeli forces targeted approximately 40 displaced individuals attempting to leave the hospital, resulting in deaths and injuries, without giving the exact number of casualties. Meanwhile, the government media office in Gaza held Israel and the international community, especially the United States, "fully responsible for the ongoing crime of targeting medical staff, wounded, patients, and displaced individuals inside the medical complex." The media office called on all international institutions in Gaza, without exception, to immediately intervene "to protect the hospital, its medical staff, and everyone inside." Established in 1946, the medical complex is the largest health institution in the Gaza Strip, including three specialized hospitals. The services sector in New Zealand fell into contraction territory in October, the latest survey from BusinessNZ revealed on Monday with a Performance of Services Index score of 48.9. That's down from the downwardly revised 50.6 in September (originally 50.7) and it slides beneath the boom-or-bust line of 50 that separates expansion from contraction. Among the individual components, supplier deliveries (49.8), activity/sales (47.4) and employment (49.3) contracted, while stocks (51.1) and new orders (51.9) expanded. "Combined, the PSI (48.9) and PMI (42.5) paint a picture of economic angst. This counsels caution around GDP for Q3, after it posted a surprising gain of 0.9% in Q2," BNZ Senior Economist Craig Ebert said. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Economic News What parts of the world are seeing the best (and worst) economic performances lately? Click here to check out our Econ Scorecard and find out! See up-to-the-moment rankings for the best and worst performers in GDP, unemployment rate, inflation and much more. KIGALI, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The China International Import Expo (CIIE) has made a critical contribution to the growth of global enterprises over the past years, providing a valuable platform for investments in developing countries, Rwandan analysts and businesses have said. Teddy Kaberuka, a Rwandan economic analyst, told Xinhua that the CIIE serves as an excellent platform where Chinese businesses engage with foreign counterparts, fostering opportunities for investment and facilitating export-import agreements. "It is a very good platform for the economy for both Chinese and foreigners doing business with China. China being a very large country geographically makes it challenging for African investors to travel to China and reach all the regions to meet different companies for business. But at an exhibition, African people can meet different companies in one place, discuss, and potentially seal deals," Kaberuka said. The just-concluded sixth edition of the CIIE, held in Shanghai on Nov. 5-10, drew over 3,400 exhibitors from 154 countries, regions and international organizations. Kaberuka underscored the exhibition's global significance, particularly its role in facilitating the export process for less developed countries by bringing together business executives from these nations to interact with a multitude of Chinese companies. "It is much easier for African businesspeople and for the Chinese companies as well. This exhibition helps to increase trade, boost business, and boost investments for China, especially with business-to-business initiatives," he said. Aaron Rutayisire, the sales and marketing manager of Rwanda Farmers Coffee, told Xinhua that the CIIE has presented export opportunities that benefit global enterprises. "It is a very important event, providing companies a great opportunity to showcase their products to Chinese consumers. The CIIE has contributed to our export growth in China," Rutayisire said. His company, based in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, procures high-end coffee beans from coffee farmers' cooperatives in Rwanda, which Rutayisire believes has improved the lives of farmers. It was his company's fourth time to participate in the expo this year, with its product brand, Gorilla's Coffee. The CIIE is significant because it enables global companies to tap China's huge market, Rutayisire said, noting China's open policy ensures that "everyone wins, both the people of China and the exporting countries." "A lot of potential exists in open markets. Many countries lose more than they gain by creating barriers to trade. China itself remains our top export destination for Gorilla's Coffee," he said. Egide Karuranga, a retired Rwandan professor of International Economics at the University of Virginia in the United States, pointed out that global companies introduced their products at the CIIE and ended up forming partnerships with Chinese firms. China's development initiatives and platforms, such as the China Import and Export Fair (Canton Fair) and the China International Fair for Trade in Services, facilitate the sharing of China's development opportunities with developing countries, he told Xinhua. "The CIIE reflects China's dedication to opening up its market, which has been helpful in global economic recovery. It demonstrates China's resolve to impact the global economy," Karuranga added. What do you do with 3,400 animals, birds and reptiles in a wildfire? At the San Diego Zoo Safari Park north of Escondido, you leave them right where they are. Officials with the world-famous animal reserve that covers 1,800 acres in the San Pasqual Valley say they have developed detailed plans to protect the parks denizens. Advertisement And those plans do not include evacuating the animals to another site. Instead, animals are sheltered in place or put in cages and moved to safer environs on the property. The emergency response has been rehearsed many times over the years, often in conjunction with area fire agencies, zoo officials say. Most recently, on July 27, when a brush fire raced up a steep hill in the San Pasqual Valley, park workers were ready. Although the fire was several miles to the east and unlikely to threaten the park, the fire plans were set in motion in case things changed. We have developed extensive plans based on available information as well as our own direct experiences, said Michael Mace, the San Diego Zoo Globals director of animal collection and strategy. Every fire has been unique with its own characteristics. We continue to build on those plans based on those experiences. Three times over the 45 years of the parks existence, fires have burned onto the parks property: in 1993, 2003 and 2007. The most serious was the 2007 Witch Creek fire, which burned about 800 acres of the parks property, most of it outside of the fence and animal enclosures, but including part of the Condor Ridge exhibit. Above all else, Mace said, human life comes first. Saving the roughly 3,400 animals, birds and reptiles in the parks collection is secondary to that, but hardly ignored. The park works closely with first responders and fire officials and takes its cues from them. If they are warned of a fire threat, the park is evacuated of all guests with law enforcement directing which way they should leave and how quickly visitors should exit. As for the critters, various things are done to protect them. The large African Plain enclosure where trams filled with guests get up-close views of giraffes, zebras and antelopes is left undisturbed. Those facilities have never been affected, Mace said. A lot of our animals reside in those and they have been unharmed in every incident. Fire could even come down to that fenceline, but there is no fuel, said San Diego Zoo Global public relations manager Christina Simmons. They are big enough enclosures that what weve seen is the animals just go to the other side. We have various plans on which animals were going to move and which were not going to move based on a number of factors: how far the fire is from the property, the wind direction, the facilities vulnerability., said Mace. Other animals, however, are protected differently. For the gorillas, for instance, a harbor in place strategy is employed. They are brought into areas where they are comfortable, in this case their bedrooms, and then we have systems that seal the exterior of the building, Mace said. Then an air purification system kicks in to keep smoke out. They are safe in very familiar surroundings, he said. The zoo also has various strategies that could include placing some animals like cheetahs and sloths into travel cages and then taking them to a safe building within the park. Park officials dont want to say exactly where the animals would be kept out of fear that someone, during a fire emergency, might want to steal or harm them. Simmons said just last year a poacher killed a white rhinoceros for its horn at a zoo outside Paris. In 2007, part of the Condor Ridge exhibit burned in the northern part of the park during the Witch Creek fire, which had started the day before near Santa Ysabel. We had evacuated the condors about 12 hours before it burned that night, Mace said. It was a great example of being able to anticipate a situation and work proactively before an incident occurred. The condors were safe but one bird and a donkey died, not directly from exposure to smoke or fire. We ended up with more animals after the fire then when it began because animals were still giving birth or hatching, Mace said. Just this past spring, Safari Park hosted a large fire preparedness summit that brought together zoo and aquarium officials from all over the state to share experiences and strategies. Fire officials from Cal Fire, San Diego fire, Escondido fire and police and the California Highway Patrol attended and gave presentations. Were so grateful for the first responders because they are running toward crisis while were managing crisis elsewhere, Mace said. The big takeaways from the summit included the need for each zoo to establish good relations with fire authorities and the need to take officials on tours of the properties so they are familiar with what they could be dealing with in the future. They determined that an evacuation plan is crucial: knowing how to get on and off the grounds and what the routes will be. Its also important to have equipment that will allow for continual communication with staff and first responder agencies. Preserve human life, stabilize the situation, protect the animals, property and environment are some of those key messages, Mace said. Officials said there has never been a time when the park considered releasing animals into the wild. Im not saying it hasnt been discussed, Mace said, but weve been fortunate to manage situations where we have been able to care for everything during these situations. jharry.jones@sduniontribune.com; 760/529-4931; Twitter: @jharryjones Police officers inspect the car accident site at DC-55 state road in Vinkovci, Croatia on Nov. 11, 2023. Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic announced on Saturday to dismiss Defense Minister Mario Banozic who was involved in a serious car accident at Vinkovci and left him seriously injured and the other driver in the car accident killed. (Davor Javorovic/PIXSELL via Xinhua) ZAGREB, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic announced on Saturday to dismiss Defense Minister Mario Banozic who was involved in a serious car accident at Vinkovci and left him seriously injured and the other driver in the car accident killed. "In these circumstances, which are truly extraordinary due to this serious traffic accident, I relieved Banozic of his duties as minister of defense," Plenkovic said, adding that he has authorized Defense Ministry State Secretary Zdravko Jakop to perform all tasks so that the Ministry of Defense can function normally. Banozic was driving a personal vehicle on a private situation when the car accident happened, Plenkovic said, voicing condolences to the family of Goran Saric, the van driver killed in the accident. According to the County State Attorney's Office in Vinkovci, the accident happened earlier Saturday when Banozic was trying to overtake a truck and collided with a van drying in the opposite direction. Banozic, who was also seriously injured, was rushed to a hospital in Osijek and Krunoslav Sego, the deputy director of KBC Osijek and head of the surgical service, said Banozic's life is not in danger. RAMALLAH, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The Palestinian presidency on Sunday rejected the Israeli attempts to "separate Gaza from the West Bank," saying they "will not achieve security and stability for anyone." Nabil Abu Rudeineh, the spokesperson of the Palestinian presidency, stressed in a statement that Gaza is an integral part of the Palestinian territory under the jurisdiction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Abu Rudeineh said the Israeli attempts to separate Gaza from the West Bank will fail and will not be allowed, regardless of any pressure or threat. He urged Israel to stop aggression against Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank, calling on the United States to immediately act to halt the conflict in the enclave. The spokesperson emphasized that security and stability in the region and the world "will only be achieved by ending the Israeli occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders." Moreover, he reiterated that any international efforts would be futile as long as the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem persists. Earlier in the day, Hussein Al-Sheikh, secretary general of the PLO executive committee condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's declaration on retaining security control over Gaza once the ongoing conflict ends. In a televised speech on Saturday, Netanyahu announced that Israel would work to establish full security control over Gaza after the conflict, aiming to "eliminate security threats" while refusing to allow the Palestinian Authority to return to Gaza. The Joint Arab Islamic Extraordinary Summit held in the Saudi capital of Riyadh on Saturday called for an immediate end to the military operations and siege of Gaza to allow the entry of humanitarian aid. Produced by Xinhua Global Service The Telegram is an African American-owned newspaper. It was founded in 1944 by J.C. Wall, who lived in Ecorse, Michigan. In 1996, it was taken over by Mr. Ben Wade, and in June 2006, I bought the newspaper from Mr. Wade. When I purchased a paper, it was distributed weekly in Ecorse, River Rouge, and Southwest Detroit. Those were the only cities that received a weekly copy of The Telegram. Immediately after I purchased the paper, we were able to get a contract with the City of Inkster, and we expanded to Inkster the very next year. Once that expansion started, we started filling in the gaps over the next 10 years to not only just cover those three cities we had when we first purchased the paper, but now to cover 13 of the cities in Wayne County, including the City of Detroit. We were strictly a print newspaper when I first purchased it. In 2008, we launched our first website. So we have been online since that time, which is great because now a lot of people read their paper on a computer as well as on the telephone. We have been intentionally not focusing on negative news ever since I've taken it over, as well as before I took it over, focusing on community news, positive news, letting the community know what is going on locally as well as what's going on nationally. We know we're local, we're called hyper-local, but we also realize that people need to be engaged in their city, their state, their county, and the nation. So we try to make sure we have some news about everything that is going on to keep people engaged and informed.I was born and raised in River Rouge, so this is my hometown area. When I went away to college, I attended Tuskegee University, and got a Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. However, while I was there on campus, I worked at the school newspaper, the Campus Digest, and that's when I got my first taste of working with a newspaper. In high school, I always took pictures. So in college, I worked for the newspaper. I took a lot of pictures, learned how to develop, and then started writing. And when I came home, I retired from engineering after 15 years and then was able to do my passion, which was teaching. So I taught at the River Rouge High School in the career center, and during the time I was working in the career center, helping the students interview and learn about different careers, Mr. Wade, who was the publisher of The Telegram at that time, spoke to the students about The Telegram. Then I started writing columns for the newspaper about different careers and different things the students and the community could be doing to better themselves and get better jobs. Mr. Wade and I formed a relationship, and I started working with him part-time. When he decided he wanted to go home and go fishing and sell the newspaper, he didn't want to sell it to anybody. He wanted someone who could keep the legacy, as you say, going. And he offered me the opportunity to purchase the paper about two years later. I decided to purchase it as a way to continue sharing the news and continue the newspaper because, in our community.Finding the capital for The Telegram was not difficult initially because when I bought the paper, it had a history of success already, so I didn't need to come up with money initially. I used my own money to buy the paper, but then it came with a book of business, which was great. Everybody is not that fortunate, but I felt very blessed to be able to come in after I had worked there a couple of years in the sales and reporting areas, and was able to understand the basics of the business. After my engineering degree, I went on to the University of Detroit Mercy and got a master's in business administration, so learning how businesses actually function academically, and then to be able to put that to work was very helpful for me in making sure we had enough revenue to keep the business going. And then from the relationships that I've built over the years and using all the skills I have from being an engineer and getting my degree, I was able to honor my skills and communications as well as relationship building, and that is how we are able to get the contracts we need to keep our keep our doors open and revenue coming in so that we can always have some funds set aside to give back to the communities by building a relationship with different organizations.One thing, when I look at the goals for The Telegram, is we invest highly in our students, college students, as well as high school students, to prepare the next generation of journalists and graphic artists, including everything you need to produce a product, whether it is digital or print. So we work with a couple of the local colleges to get more students involved. And I would say that all of the reporters except one came through the internship route with The Telegram. So they started off as interns either in high school or college, and they were able to hone their skills at The Telegram newspaper. It's like a lot of people say, if you want to work at Oprah or Channel 4, you need to have some experience first. So when I'm out talking to people, I'm always trying to tell them that it's very important to get an internship. So I would say I always want to invest in the community as well as invest in the people, and that would be the students that want to have a degree in journalism. So that's my main goal, is to make sure that anybody who wants to work in journalism, if they get turned down from other places, I've definitely given them an opportunity at The Telegram.In order to have the students come, you still have to make sure they're trained so they have to go to some training classes. And then, of course, you still have to pay them. For some of the schools, it is a requirement, so they have to take an internship as part of their curriculum. But you definitely still want to be able to pay them some money. And then besides having the interns and the new employees working, you still have to have some people who can do investigative journalism, which is always harder to find seasoned journalists. Even with the website and social media part. Everybody can't do everything, so now we have to find someone who can get the stories on the social media pages to make sure the pictures are quality. We went to the NRA convention this year in Nashville. I took four for the reporters with me, and they came back and said what they learned from it is that they want to do more podcasting. So we're going to need resources, capital, and they're eager, so they want to learn it so we won't have to get any new talent.Once we get that revenue stream going, we always have to budget and set aside. We just can't say we're going to do it. So we have to either get a couple of more contracts or get another revenue stream coming in another way so that we can have money to pay for that new aspect that we want to add to our media company, which is what The Telegram is now.I would have to say access to similar companies that are being successful in the areas that we want to expand. So just like we're trying to do a podcast, I would need to make sure whichever reporters wanted to get that type of experience, they would be able to, so we would have to reach out to different companies or organizations that had that experience, and they would need to come in and teach them or at least have them shadow them so they would know exactly what they were doing. So training would be one aspect that I would be looking for, for the team. And then I would also be looking for avenues for advertising because we still are an advertising-based company. So if someone had resources where we could tap into different businesses like the Chamber of Commerce, and then hopefully from them we can build up some more clients and resources by meeting with them. And maybe a building for more space. Some of our reporters like to work from home, which is great, but we definitely still need to have bonding. We need to have some place where we can go together. A larger space.I would say the National Newspaper Publishers Association and the Michigan Press Auxiliary, which are media trade companies. At the conferences we attend in those areas it's all like-minded individuals in the same place for the weekend and we actually learn from each other. And because they have the pulse of what is going on in our industry, the sessions that we participate in are tailored to that. And when we walk away, we are prepared, at least for the next six months because it's two sessions per year: the midwinter session and then the summer session. And as long as we keep going to those, we're coming back ready to take on the next six months of implementing some of the things that we've learned and I think that is very key to our company because that has helped us steer in the right direction of where media is going because they even came up with the name media moguls and put that in our minds that we need to change the way we think of ourselves.The biggest challenge that I have is a personal one because you put information in the newspaper that you know is relevant, and then you have a conversation with some people and they say, I wish I would have known that. And I say, well, you should have read The Telegram. So, I said, how do we get more people to read? We know that there's a literacy problem in Wayne County, butt we still have a product that needs to be read. Which leads to podcasting and another way to get the information out. But the problem is the biggest challenge is getting more people to read. Before I became the owner of The Telegram, I tutored at the Salvation Army, and it was helping young men and old men who had gotten out of prison to take the GED and pass it. And that is when I became so aware of the fact that they're grown people who have a reading problem. They're basically functionally illiterate, and we realized that they are making it day by day just because they basically can't read any books and have no desire to read. So that's the biggest challenge for me, getting people to read because we put great stuff in The Telegram every week. You have to write it at a level so that they can read it if they pick it up to read it. And that's probably not a new challenge. It's probably been there forever, but that's the biggest challenge that I find for The Telegram.I would tell them to be in the community. You can't just go to your office and go home. You have to be in the community. Everybody knows me. I'm The Telegram Lady. That's what they call me when they see me, the majority of them. And that's because when I first started, I was in the community. If something was going on, I was there. So I was making my face known to the community. And I would encourage all new people who want to do business, people will do business with you if they know you, if they don't know you, they definitely are not going to do business with you. And then I would say they should meet up with their local media company, because they're going to want to get some outreach so people will know who they are. If you're meeting people, you're reading about them. If somebody reads about you, they already know something good must be going on because here's somebody who wrote a story about them. So that's a plus. And the next thing I would say is to see if it's any business associations in the community because businesses normally work together. If I'm supporting you, you'll support me. And if it's five businesses that already have a relationship and you come up as the new business, now you probably have five new businesses that would be willing to support you and then you support them.I would say a lack of exposure to successful businesses. Knowing the importance of presenting themselves as well as their business. And around here there is still a sense of apathy. Were kind of in a poverty-stricken area and we have to be able to think outside of the box to come up with things that would be more revenue-generating. But if you haven't been exposed to that aspect of having that additional money, how do you know to shoot for it? So I guess I'm trying to say lack of setting goals because I know a lot of the businesses around here, and I've talked to the majority of them and I see some of the same roadblocks that they have as in maybe just a little bit more educational experience or training on running a business would be very, very helpful to the majority of them. It's not just thinking of your mom-and-pop business you got to really think about what is it going to take for me to get three levels up. And if I fall short, I'd only get one level up. That's okay. But you gotta be more of a visionary to say this is possible. And I'm not 100% sure that that mindset is flourishing in this community out here. We do have problems with administration because I do believe with all of the empty facilities we have around here, there definitely should be some program set aside for small businesses to draw them to the community and to help them out. I don't know if it's many programs set aside for small businesses. And just investing that time to be, you know, to be the visionary part and say, this is where I want to go and this is what I know I need to do to get there. But that also entails being around other business owners that are successful in their fields where you can be a sponge and learn from them. Editors Note: Welcome to Inside Out, our weekly roundup of stories about Staten Islanders making waves, being seen, supporting our community and just making our borough a special place to live. Have a story for Inside Out? Email Carol Ann Benanti at benanti@siadvance.com. Simona Rodano addresses children about Italian culture in the school of St. Clare. (Courtesy/Simona Rodano)Staten Island Advance STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. Among the hundreds of diverse cultures celebrated in New York City the main port of entry for most immigrants arriving in the US like so many others, the Italian heritage and its presence has always been deeply cherished especially during October, Italian Heritage Month. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. For just over $2 million, this longtime Staten Island bakery and its many beloved recipes could be yours. Alfonsos Bakery, a Victory Boulevard staple with decades of sweet sales, is available for purchase, according to owner Anthony Campitiello. He told the Advance that health concerns prompted the decision to sell the Castleton Corners venue, which has served as the Alfonsos cornerstone location for 45 years. It weighs heavily on my mind to make this decision, said Campitiello. If it wasnt for my health I would have never thought of this. But after youre home for a month recuperating, you tend to reevaluate life. The bakery was founded in 1970 and moved to its current location in 1978. (Staten Island Advance/Pamela Silvestri)Alfonso's The bakery remains open and operational as usual in the meantime. Broker and listing agent Christine DeHart of Salmon Realty offered some of Alfonsos highlights: She said, The businesss sale includes all the equipment, plus the recipes. And youre getting an iconic bakery thats been on Staten Island since 1970. It was the fathers, then the sons, and now its Anthonys. The asking price for 1899 Victory Blvd. is $2,000,025. Separately, DeHart said, Theres also the opportunity to own the real estate at 1899 to 1903 Victory for the same price which includes the bakery, an upstairs office, the restaurant next door (Mambos Cafe) plus a two-family house behind Alfonsos with a garage. The family also owns Alfonsos at 4366 Amboy Rd. The Eltingville business is not for sale. The Red Bank location closed in 2020. FRENCH AND ITALIAN CRAFT Alfonsos Bakery was founded in 1970 with its current home at 1899 Victory Blvd. established in 1978. The business moniker comes from the late Alfonso Campitiello, a native of Salerno, Italy. He learned his craft in Neapolitan bakeries and Brooklyn pastry shops before earning the title of pastry chef at the Plaza Hotel. Alfonsos career further took him to the Essex House and, subsequently, his own baking business on Staten Island. Rodney Dangerfield (right) and Joe Pesci (left) in front of a renamed Alfonso's Bakery in 1983. (Staten Island File Photo by Tony Carannante)SIA file photo Mainstays of his namesake business include Italian and French pastries, breads, chocolates, ice cream cakes plus elaborate cakes, torts, butter cookies and cannoli. The stores cameo in the 1983 movie Easy Money, starring Joe Pesci and Rodney Dangerfield, was among its most famous moments. The making of "Easy Money" with an Alfonso's cameo (Staten Island File Photo by Tony Carannante)SIA file photo Grandaughter Justine Campitiello shared in Alfonsos obituary, My grandpa really did make the cake Joe Pesci and Rodney Dangerfield walk out with. But we never sold fish; they changed the sign on the Victory Boulevard store. The late Alfonso Campitiello (Courtesy of the Campitiello family) Alfonso also co-owned the former Monte Bianco catering hall in Grant City. A long-time Castleton Corners resident, Alfonso was living in Boynton Beach, Fla. until he passed in 2020. Anthony Campitiello, owner of Alfonso's Pastry Shoppe cuts and weighs dough slated for fresh baked bread loaves. (Staten Island Advance/ Jan Somma-Hammel)Staff-Shot Alfonsos is open daily except Mondays. Thanksgiving week hours are Monday, Nov. 20 and Tuesday, Nov. 21 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Wednesday, Nov. 22 from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Thanksgiving from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. The bakery is closed on Friday, Nov. 24 and reopens normal hours for the weekend. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. Like many Staten Islanders, I dread taking the Staten Island Expressway. For a whole bunch of reasons. More on that later. But I have to say that Ive kind of made my peace with the highway over the last few months, at least with the Brooklyn-bound side. And thats something, I guess. Look, its frequently a nightmare to merge onto the highway from the West Shore Expressway. Almost without fail youre going to be faced with a wall of traffic stretching as far as the eye can see. It can be daunting. I cant tell you how many times Ive bailed on the jam-packed Brooklyn-bound expressway after getting off the Goethals Bridge, usually when returning from vacation. Id head for a quick exit, usually the one that dumps you onto Victory Boulevard in Willowbrook, near the College of Staten Island campus. But plodding up Victory Boulevard all the way to my house in Stapleton is no great ride either. First of all, a lot of other motorists from the highway will have the same idea as me and also exit onto Victory. And Victory has its share of traffic lights and speed cameras. Its a long ride and not free of its own congestion. So after a while, I decided to just tough it out on the expressway and see what happened. Was I really saving any time and/or aggravation by jumping off? And, for the most part, I found out that I wasnt. The key is that merge off of the West Shore Expressway. That has the potential to be clogged at pretty much any time. And once youve made it through that and have gotten on to the SIE, you lose the left lane. So everybodys got to merge in, including those drivers who, yes, use that lane to get ahead of other cars and cut them off. But while the traffic can still be heavy after that lane vanishes, it generally starts moving a lot better. At least when Ive been driving it. And its easy to check your progress, because theres an automated sign on the side of the road that tells you how long it will take for you to get to certain exits and the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. Almost without fail, that sign tells me that its six minutes to my exit and Clove Road. And its almost without fail correct. So at least that side of the highway is manageable. Mind you, I dont drive during the morning rush. Thats probably a whole different animal. And I still generally avoid the New Jersey-bound side of the highway if I can. I regularly drive into New Jersey during the evening rush at least once a week, either taking the Bayonne Bridge or the Goethals Bridge. The traffic on the SIE is usually grinding at that time of the day, so I take local roads, including Forest Avenue and Castleton Avenue, to get to those spans. I dont think Im losing any time doing so and I know that Im saving a lot of aggravation, including having to battle drivers who use breakdown lanes and exit-only lanes to cut fellow motorists off. I also avoid the traffic-causing merge that results from the sudden and ridiculous termination of the Jersey-bound HOV lane. So there are ways to manage the Staten Island Expressway. And, hey, for all the stress, at least the SIE doesnt have any speed cameras or speed bumps. Thats something worth celebrating these days. MORE STATEN ISLAND HIGHWAY STORIES FROM TOM WROBLESKI Lost highway: Taking a ghostly stroll on disused exits of abandoned Staten Island parkway Whos watching? Identifying new Staten Island Expressway camera array a frustrating, multi-agency odyssey The Staten Island Expressway is undrivable. Heres how I get around without it (opinion) STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. The 105th anniversary of the end of World War I was commemorated this morning at Ocean View Cemetery in Oakwood during an Annual Veterans Day Observance attended by more than 100 people. Since 1919, the ceremony has paid tribute to veterans on the day that originated as Armistice Day, and later was designated Veterans Day by the 38th Congress in 1954. Initially sponsored by WWI veterans, the event has evolved since the United Staten Island Veterans Organization (USIVO) took charge in 2014. It was a nice day to celebrate our veterans, said Anthony Navarino, commander of the Granito-Smith VFW Post. Borough President Vito Fossella greets veterans at the annual USIVO Veterans Day ceremony, held at Ocean View Cemetery on Nov. 11, 2023. (Steve White for the Staten Island Advance) Steve White This years keynote speaker, veterans advocate JoAnne Nolemi, and founder/president of The Island Heroes Project, researched and remembered the 1,300 men and women from Staten Island who made the ultimate sacrifice in all wars. Their mission of the project is to discover, identify, and research Staten Islands war dead and share with students, young people, and veterans. - Scenes from the annual USIVO Veterans Day ceremony held at Ocean View Cemetery on Nov. 11, 2023.(Steve White for the Staten Island Advance) Steve WhiteSteve White The ceremony included a ceremonial rifle volley executed by the Marine Corps League, Detachment 246, complemented by the Tottenville High School Taps unit. Girl Scout Troop 5525 also paid tribute with wreath-laying ceremonies. Additionally, the Richmond District 369th Veterans solemnly honored their fellow veteran, Leon J. Wallace. - Scenes from the annual USIVO Veterans Day ceremony held at Ocean View Cemetery on Nov. 11, 2023.(Steve White for the Staten Island Advance) Steve White JoAnne Nolemi served 20 years as director of choruses at Tottenville High School, where she integrated her passion for Staten Islands fallen heroes. The students identified more than 70 Islanders killed in action in WWI that to this day are not listed on the WWI Memorial at Hero Park. I want to share three things about our veterans, find their stories, get information on their military background, and share their history with the young people, Nolemi said. Scenes from the annual USIVO Veterans Day ceremony held at Ocean View Cemetery on Nov. 11, 2023.(Steve White for the Staten Island Advance) Steve White She has been recognized as a NYS Woman of Distinction, NYS Educator of the Year, NYC Big Apple Award, and CUNY High School Educator of the Year. She has also received awards from the Four Chaplains Foundation, the American Legion, and the VFW. Her family served in the American Revolution and the Civil War. The annual ceremony receives sponsorship from the USIVO. It was a beautiful ceremony and it shines the light on all the veterans of all the wars, said State Sen. Jessica-Scarcella-Stanton. God bless the veterans, the dead here in this cemetery, said U.S. Navy veteran John Sollazzo, Im sure theyre looking down on us. We will never forget. Scenes from the annual USIVO Veterans Day ceremony held at Ocean View Cemetery on Nov. 11, 2023.(Steve White for the Staten Island Advance) Steve White Lucille Herring, president of the Frederick Douglass Cemetery, poses with the Girl Scouts of Troop 5525 on Veterans Day. (Steve White for the Staten Island Advance) Steve White ATottenville High School student plays the drums on Veterans Day. (Steve White for the Staten Island Advance)Steve White Navy Vet Bernard Eldridge attended the event. (Steve White for the Staten Island Advance)Steve White Scenes from the annual USIVO Veterans Day ceremony held at Ocean View Cemetery on Nov. 11, 2023.(Steve White for the Staten Island Advance) Steve White Lee Covino, President of the USIVO, participates in the event. (Steve White for the Staten Island Advance)Steve White This photo taken on Nov. 11, 2023 shows the unveiling ceremony of Kashgar Area of China (Xinjiang) Pilot Free Trade Zone in Kashgar, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The Kashgar Prefecture, which enjoys unique geographical advantages, serves as a gateway for opening up, connecting China with Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia and Europe. Through favorable policies, improved infrastructure, and the promotion of cross-border exchanges, the prefecture has witnessed rapid development. In the first three quarters of this year, total import and export value in the prefecture reached over 60 billion yuan (about 8.23 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 89.7 percent year on year, according to the customs data. (Xinhua/Ding Lei) Trucks drive into the Karasu port of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Nov. 6, 2023. The Kashgar Prefecture, which enjoys unique geographical advantages, serves as a gateway for opening up, connecting China with Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia and Europe. Through favorable policies, improved infrastructure, and the promotion of cross-border exchanges, the prefecture has witnessed rapid development. In the first three quarters of this year, total import and export value in the prefecture reached over 60 billion yuan (about 8.23 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 89.7 percent year on year, according to the customs data. (Xinhua/Ding Lei) This aerial photo taken on Nov. 6, 2023 shows the Khunjerab Pass in Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The Kashgar Prefecture, which enjoys unique geographical advantages, serves as a gateway for opening up, connecting China with Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia and Europe. Through favorable policies, improved infrastructure, and the promotion of cross-border exchanges, the prefecture has witnessed rapid development. In the first three quarters of this year, total import and export value in the prefecture reached over 60 billion yuan (about 8.23 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 89.7 percent year on year, according to the customs data. (Xinhua/Ding Lei) Customs officers check vehicles to be exported in the comprehensive bonded zone in Kashgar Prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Nov. 4, 2023. The Kashgar Prefecture, which enjoys unique geographical advantages, serves as a gateway for opening up, connecting China with Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia and Europe. Through favorable policies, improved infrastructure, and the promotion of cross-border exchanges, the prefecture has witnessed rapid development. In the first three quarters of this year, total import and export value in the prefecture reached over 60 billion yuan (about 8.23 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 89.7 percent year on year, according to the customs data. (Xinhua/Ding Lei) This aerial photo taken on Nov. 7, 2023 shows the Irkeshtam port in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The Kashgar Prefecture, which enjoys unique geographical advantages, serves as a gateway for opening up, connecting China with Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia and Europe. Through favorable policies, improved infrastructure, and the promotion of cross-border exchanges, the prefecture has witnessed rapid development. In the first three quarters of this year, total import and export value in the prefecture reached over 60 billion yuan (about 8.23 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 89.7 percent year on year, according to the customs data. (Xinhua/Ding Lei) A police officer processes border inspection for travelers at the Khunjerab Pass in Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Nov. 6, 2023. The Kashgar Prefecture, which enjoys unique geographical advantages, serves as a gateway for opening up, connecting China with Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia and Europe. Through favorable policies, improved infrastructure, and the promotion of cross-border exchanges, the prefecture has witnessed rapid development. In the first three quarters of this year, total import and export value in the prefecture reached over 60 billion yuan (about 8.23 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 89.7 percent year on year, according to the customs data. (Xinhua/Ding Lei) This aerial photo taken on Nov. 7, 2023 shows the Irkeshtam port in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The Kashgar Prefecture, which enjoys unique geographical advantages, serves as a gateway for opening up, connecting China with Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia and Europe. Through favorable policies, improved infrastructure, and the promotion of cross-border exchanges, the prefecture has witnessed rapid development. In the first three quarters of this year, total import and export value in the prefecture reached over 60 billion yuan (about 8.23 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 89.7 percent year on year, according to the customs data. (Xinhua/Ding Lei) This aerial photo taken on Nov. 6, 2023 shows the Karasu port of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The Kashgar Prefecture, which enjoys unique geographical advantages, serves as a gateway for opening up, connecting China with Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia and Europe. Through favorable policies, improved infrastructure, and the promotion of cross-border exchanges, the prefecture has witnessed rapid development. In the first three quarters of this year, total import and export value in the prefecture reached over 60 billion yuan (about 8.23 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 89.7 percent year on year, according to the customs data. (Xinhua/Ding Lei) This aerial photo taken on Nov. 7, 2023 shows trucks entering the Irkeshtam port in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The Kashgar Prefecture, which enjoys unique geographical advantages, serves as a gateway for opening up, connecting China with Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia and Europe. Through favorable policies, improved infrastructure, and the promotion of cross-border exchanges, the prefecture has witnessed rapid development. In the first three quarters of this year, total import and export value in the prefecture reached over 60 billion yuan (about 8.23 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 89.7 percent year on year, according to the customs data. (Xinhua/Ding Lei) This aerial photo taken on Nov. 8, 2023 shows a construction site of a section of the G315 highway linking Tuopa Village and the Torugart port, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The Kashgar Prefecture, which enjoys unique geographical advantages, serves as a gateway for opening up, connecting China with Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia and Europe. Through favorable policies, improved infrastructure, and the promotion of cross-border exchanges, the prefecture has witnessed rapid development. In the first three quarters of this year, total import and export value in the prefecture reached over 60 billion yuan (about 8.23 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 89.7 percent year on year, according to the customs data. (Xinhua/Ding Lei) Imported coal from Kyrgyzstan is unloaded at the Irkeshtam port in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Nov. 7, 2023. The Kashgar Prefecture, which enjoys unique geographical advantages, serves as a gateway for opening up, connecting China with Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia and Europe. Through favorable policies, improved infrastructure, and the promotion of cross-border exchanges, the prefecture has witnessed rapid development. In the first three quarters of this year, total import and export value in the prefecture reached over 60 billion yuan (about 8.23 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 89.7 percent year on year, according to the customs data. (Xinhua/Ding Lei) A Pakistani merchant introduces commodities that he imported through the Khunjerab Pass in Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Nov. 5, 2023. The Kashgar Prefecture, which enjoys unique geographical advantages, serves as a gateway for opening up, connecting China with Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia and Europe. Through favorable policies, improved infrastructure, and the promotion of cross-border exchanges, the prefecture has witnessed rapid development. In the first three quarters of this year, total import and export value in the prefecture reached over 60 billion yuan (about 8.23 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 89.7 percent year on year, according to the customs data. (Xinhua/Ding Lei) A traveler goes through border inspection at the Khunjerab Pass in Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Nov. 6, 2023. The Kashgar Prefecture, which enjoys unique geographical advantages, serves as a gateway for opening up, connecting China with Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia and Europe. Through favorable policies, improved infrastructure, and the promotion of cross-border exchanges, the prefecture has witnessed rapid development. In the first three quarters of this year, total import and export value in the prefecture reached over 60 billion yuan (about 8.23 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 89.7 percent year on year, according to the customs data. (Xinhua/Ding Lei) This aerial photo taken on Nov. 8, 2023 shows the Torugart port of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The Kashgar Prefecture, which enjoys unique geographical advantages, serves as a gateway for opening up, connecting China with Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia and Europe. Through favorable policies, improved infrastructure, and the promotion of cross-border exchanges, the prefecture has witnessed rapid development. In the first three quarters of this year, total import and export value in the prefecture reached over 60 billion yuan (about 8.23 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 89.7 percent year on year, according to the customs data. (Xinhua/Ding Lei) A truck drives at the Irkeshtam port in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Nov. 7, 2023. The Kashgar Prefecture, which enjoys unique geographical advantages, serves as a gateway for opening up, connecting China with Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia and Europe. Through favorable policies, improved infrastructure, and the promotion of cross-border exchanges, the prefecture has witnessed rapid development. In the first three quarters of this year, total import and export value in the prefecture reached over 60 billion yuan (about 8.23 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 89.7 percent year on year, according to the customs data. (Xinhua/Ding Lei) This aerial photo taken on Nov. 8, 2023 shows trucks parking at the Torugart port of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The Kashgar Prefecture, which enjoys unique geographical advantages, serves as a gateway for opening up, connecting China with Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia and Europe. Through favorable policies, improved infrastructure, and the promotion of cross-border exchanges, the prefecture has witnessed rapid development. In the first three quarters of this year, total import and export value in the prefecture reached over 60 billion yuan (about 8.23 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 89.7 percent year on year, according to the customs data. (Xinhua/Ding Lei) Staff members check the credentials of a vehicle driving outbound at the Irkeshtam port in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Nov. 8, 2023. The Kashgar Prefecture, which enjoys unique geographical advantages, serves as a gateway for opening up, connecting China with Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia and Europe. Through favorable policies, improved infrastructure, and the promotion of cross-border exchanges, the prefecture has witnessed rapid development. In the first three quarters of this year, total import and export value in the prefecture reached over 60 billion yuan (about 8.23 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 89.7 percent year on year, according to the customs data. (Xinhua/Ding Lei) A traveler walks towards the border inspection hall of the Khunjerab Pass in Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Nov. 6, 2023. The Kashgar Prefecture, which enjoys unique geographical advantages, serves as a gateway for opening up, connecting China with Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia and Europe. Through favorable policies, improved infrastructure, and the promotion of cross-border exchanges, the prefecture has witnessed rapid development. In the first three quarters of this year, total import and export value in the prefecture reached over 60 billion yuan (about 8.23 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 89.7 percent year on year, according to the customs data. (Xinhua/Ding Lei) STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. New York City will begin to fine overweight trucks on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) starting Monday. The city Department of Transportation (DOT) Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez announced the city would begin issuing violations for its first-in-the-nation automated weigh-in-motion enforcement program. The goal is to reduce the number of overweight trucks on the BQE to reduce wear and tear on the triple cantilever that was constructed in the mid-20th century. New York City is leading the country in protecting and reimagining our critical infrastructure, and the early data is clear that this first-in-the-nation weigh-in-motion program is successfully protecting this roadway so we can continue aggressively working to re-envision a safer and greener BQE, said Mayor Eric Adams. While it is evident that our warnings are sending a message that is loud and clear, the few who are ignoring them are now on notice. The BQE is a critical driver of our entire regions economy, and we will enforce the law to keep our citys recovery moving full speed ahead. Beginning Monday, overweight trucks will be subject to a $650 fine per weight limit violation. Vehicles are weighed using sensors in the roadbed and documented through the use of various cameras. Currently, the enforcement focuses on Queens-bound traffic. The enforcement follows a 90-day warning period that began in August. The number of overweight trucks on the BQEs triple cantilever dropped 55% after the DOT began to issue these warnings. During the first full week of the warning period, 344 warnings were issued to overweight vehicles and that number declined to 153 by the end of October. Enforcement for Staten Island-bound traffic starts in the coming months with a 90-day warning period. The new automated enforcement program on the BQE is in effect on the city-owned section of the BQE, between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street, and was authorized by the enactment of S6246/A6225, sponsored by New York State Senator Andrew Gounardes and New York State Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon, and signed into law by New York Governor Kathy Hochul on July 28, 2023. This new toll will help the city protect the structural integrity of the BQE as it works to deliver a permanent, long-term fix for the city-owned section of the highway. The new program also expands on efforts to enforce state laws designed to protect the lifespan of roads and bridges, and it builds on ongoing targeted enforcement efforts by the NYPD, as well as DOTs track record of administering successful automated traffic enforcement programs. New York City is leading the nation with the launch of the first-ever automated weigh-in-motion enforcement system to reduce the number of overweight trucks on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, said Rodriguez. Overweight trucks cause wear and tear that requires costly maintenance and reduces the lifespan of our roads and bridges. Weve seen a sharp decline in overweight vehicles since we began issuing warnings in August and we expect that the program will continue to remove overweight trucks from our streets. Additional information about truck weight limits and the weigh-in-motion program is available online. The Enhanced Subscription provides digital access to all our award winning content from our inception. This package also includes special access to the pdf replica of the print paper which we call the e-edition. We keep the past 90 issues in addition tot he current issue. In addition, you have the ability to comment on our articles. Finally, you have the good feeling of supporting real, local news in your community. How does a business whose sole purpose is refining and selling fossil fuel products embrace a low-carbon future? Thats a challenge Viva Energy boss Scott Wyatt is tackling by building the countrys largest retail convenience business, rolling out EV chargers, refining waste cooking oil into diesel, and processing waste plastics. Under a strategy outlined to investors last week, Wyatt is backing the fuel refiners rapidly transforming retail convenience business a national network of service stations to grow Vivas share of earnings from non-fuel products and is dabbling in producing lower carbon fuels using existing refining infrastructure to help its customers reduce their carbon emissions. Viva Energy CEO Scott Wyatt is growing non-fuel earnings through the companys convenience stores. Credit: Dominic Lorrimer Viva bought out 700 Coles Express outlets in a $300 million deal in May and is waiting on competition approval for its takeover of Adelaide-based On The Runs (OTR) network of 205 company-owned and leasehold stores. Its very much about shifting from being a retail fuels supplier that happens to have a convenience business previously operated by Coles, to being primarily a convenience business that happens to sell energy, which includes fuel but also will include electric vehicle charging time, Wyatt said. Yesterday, the couple tied the knot in what is being described as a bush bash with 80 guests at the family estate in Walcha in northern NSW. Judging by the photos, the vibe appears to be akin to a Bachelors and Spinsters Ball. Guests were encouraged to park their 4WDs side by side to create the aisle and reportedly many were staying overnight in their swags or utes. Joyce and Campion wore matching Akubra hats and the bride wore knee-high cowboy boots under her gown. The couple have two sons, Sebastian and Thomas. It is unclear whether any of Joyces four daughters were at the wedding. Daughter Julia Joyce posted an Instagram video last month wearing a bridal dress while her mother, Natalie Abberfield, makes a quick appearance wearing a veil. The video was captioned: Getting ready to crash my dads wedding I didnt get invited to in my mums wedding dress. PERSONAL JOURNEY Shark Tank judge Dr Catriona Wallace is in New York City this week on official sharky business, but the visit will be a milestone for a personal reason. The former police officer-turned-technology entrepreneur is filming something top secret with five of the six US sharks, and judges from the Brazilian, Indian, Canadian and Finnish versions of the show. Shark Tank judge Dr Catriona Wallace. Credit: The visit is slated to include a shindig in US IT entrepreneur Robert Herjavecs penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park on Monday night (NYC time). It will also mark the first time Wallace is interacting with her Shark Tank colleagues while being fully out as a non-binary or gender-queer person (pronouns: she or they). Wallace was happy to share her story with CBD because she believes it will help her live more authentically. Since selling her ASX-listed software start-up Flamingo AI in 2020, Wallace has been on a journey of self-discovery. Wallace says she spent the first seven years of her life wanting to be a boy called Tommy, until at eight an aunt told her it was time to be a young lady and social conditioning set in. She says she is comfortable in a female body and happily in a relationship with a man, but at 58 she has come to the belief she is neither masculine nor feminine. She first told her family, then a month ago shared it with the queer community at a party at the Bearded Tit in Redfern to screen the Shark Tank episode where Wallace invests in trans-led start-up Sock Drawer Heroes. When this episode aired she got a taste of the vitriol many trans people experience daily, and has opened a police investigation to deal with it. If Wallace comes back as a Shark Tank judge in 2024, she promises to be fully in my queerness on the show. BISHOP DECLINES CHRISTMAS HAT Which former NSW Liberal politician with the initials BB was at the Salvos annual Christmas lunch at the Four Seasons on Friday? Former Liberal senator and MP Bronwyn Bishop accused the public broadcaster of aligning itself with Nazi policies. Credit: You guessed it: Bronwyn Bishop was sitting at one of the tables in the front row. Salvos insiders say she is a longtime supporter of the charity. When MC Joe Hildebrand drew attention to her presence by saying, No, Bronwyn, youre not on Sky News, you cant interrupt me, the erstwhile MP and senator laughed politely. But when she pulled a Christmas cracker with a table-mate and won the prize, Bishop declined to put on the paper crown. Loading Its not the gravest infraction but youd hope that someone even as serious as Bishop might be able to let their hair down once in a while. Bishop had to leave after the first course to chair a meeting and was later on Sky News to address her remarks of the previous evening, in which she accused the ABC of following Nazi policies in its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. CBD imagines she didnt want to squash her trademark coiffed hairdo by donning the hat. Despite our best efforts, CBD couldnt reach Bishop to discuss this. ASTON MERCURIAL, COSTELLO SAYS Recently departed AFR columnist Joe Aston left a hole in the nations media landscape. Loading His departure came up at Nines AGM in a question posed by shareholder activist Stephen Mayne, who asked what the company, which owns this masthead, intended to do about his exit. Chairman Peter Costello sent Aston off with a compliment about his dogged, now-infamous pursuit of former Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce, calling him a real investigative journalist. Costello alluded to a quality of Astons writing that made him the bete noire of Australias business community. When planning death scenes at Sydneys Griffin Theatre Company, playwright and artistic director Declan Greene needs the dying to happen sitting down or standing up. There is no room to store a bed in the wings, such are the constraints of this tiny theatre in Kings Cross. Declan Greene, artistic director of the Griffin Theatre Company. Credit: Rhett Wyman Someone wrote us a play where theyd put an important death scene around a hospital bed, Greene said. But we cant fit a hospital bed backstage or even really onstage! The playwright rewrote it, but it wasnt quite the same with the distraught family gathered around a chair. Greene hopes the days of upright stage deaths will end when The Stables, Griffins home since the 1980s, undergoes its biggest renovation. But first, the company needs to find $2 million by May to meet the $6 million costs of the long-overdue revamp. Buying the house she felt like an arts vulture snagging a Bonnard at a garage sale from an unwitting retiree. Greens founder Bob Brown will attend the event as a 3D animation. Credit: Peter Mathew In an odd sort of way, that old oak will be at the heart of the congress. Kaechele wants delegates to consider and discuss the basic value of Tasmanias forests. That term, she expects, will mean many things to many people. In a world whose gravest threat is rapidly increasing atmospheric carbon, protected forests are of vast value to us all as carbon sinks. They are of increasing monetary value to those who accelerate decarbonisation by fostering carbon trading. They are of value as refuges of what is left of our biodiversty; as drawcards for tourism; and they are of value as a source of wood and paper products. Kaechele insists she has no fixed position here, but her guest list captures those who voice all those views. The chief executive of the free market think tank Blueprint Institute will attend with a report. In the past, Blueprint has called for native forest logging to be abandoned in NSW on cold-blooded economic grounds. According to Blueprints analysis, it costs more to log the trees than the trees are worth, and the industry is an unreasonable drain on the taxpayer. The left-leaning Australia Institute, which has published research sceptical of the use of forests as carbon credit banks, will also be present. Andrew Macintosh, a law professor at the Australian National University who has argued that carbon offsets built into the Australian carbon market are a fraud against the environment, will attend, as will the Nobel Prize winning economist Daniel McFadden. I dont actually give a f--- about diamonds, I prefer my husband pay for my social projects. Kirsha Kaechele Kaechele is well aware that her odd place in Tasmanias cultural firmament is significant to the mission. Walsh famously made his pile as a lead member of what is often described as Australias largest gambling syndicate, before almost bankrupting himself building Mona, the idiosyncratic and determinedly transgressive museum whose collection reflects his own fascination with sex and death. He once told the Australian Financial Review that the museum was his hotted-up Torana, a way to help him pull hot chicks. He presumed it would also attract significant opprobrium. Instead, the museum has boosted Tasmanias cultural standing and economy and won him near-universal affection in his home state. I remember my business model being Ill do a few controversial irreligious things and fundamentalist minorities will picket the streets and Ill get free publicity and of course no one cared, he lamented to the AFR. Kaechele is happy to spend some of that coin and cultural capital in the service of her projects. Kaechele with husband and Mona founder David Walsh. Credit: Amy Brown I once went to the wedding of an Indian diamond barons daughter, she writes in her essay on the congress. And I wore a champagne diamond of alluvial origin. It was expensive relatively. I dont actually give a f--- about diamonds, I prefer my husband pay for my social projects. Kaechele is known both in Tasmania and New Orleans for her projects which, over the years, have lived somewhere in the crossover between the creation of artistic spaces and events. An arts centre she created in a handful of New Orleans homes after Hurricane Katrina attracted some of the Americas leading artists, before becoming so rundown that the citys leading newspaper the Times Picayune reported that residents were complaining. She told the paper that the sites had gone back to the way I found them. It was always about the intersection of creativity and chaos. To draw attention to the devastation caused by feral species in 2019, Kaechele created an exhibition and cookbook with contributions by chefs such as Heston Blumenthal, Tetsuya Wakuda and Shannon Bennett, the performance artist Mike Parr as well as Germaine Greer. Loading A feast of feral animals was held over a vividly coloured 27-metre long musical sculpture that Kaechele described as the worlds largest glockenspiel. Kaechele wore a taxidermied and gilded brown tree snake (a destructive feral from northern Australia that is killing off birds on Guam, where she has also lived) and served, among other things, a cat consomme. In her diplomatic effort to round delegates, Kaechele claims to have worn through three pairs of heels and five tubes of lipstick, but Steve Whitely, chief executive of Sustainable Timber Tasmania, the states leading forestry lobby, says he was quickly won over. He reckons the general affection for Kaechele and Walsh, as well as the curiosity that Mona events inspire, attracted many who will attend. He was impressed that in her first meeting she carried with her a wooden clutch, signalling her love of the material his members felled and milled. The principal of a homeschool tutoring centre that claims to have supported hundreds of Sydney students has been charged with rape, non-consensual choking and assault. Mohamed El Bizry, who also goes by the name Muhammad Al-Bizry, founded Sunnah Life Academy (SLA), an Islamic-based group homeschooling centre in Bankstown for years kindergarten to 10. The Herald can reveal the 41-year-old has essentially been under home detention since he was granted strict bail at Parramatta Local Court on October 22. He was arrested at an Edmondson Park home on October 21 and charged with one count of sexual intercourse without consent, two counts of intentionally choking without consent and one count of common assault. He is yet to enter any pleas. None of the charges relate to any student. Police claim the incidents relate to several alleged assaults in 2021. Since Vito Zepinic was declared a vexatious litigant in 2017 with a judge declaring his obsessive behaviour is wasteful and destructive it must be stopped, Zepinic has chalked up another 23 losses to add to dozens of previous failures. Zepinic, 70, who has criminal convictions for passing himself off as a psychiatrist, was declared a vexatious litigant in relation to 15 years of failed litigation against his builder. Vito Zepinic. Credit: Kate Geraghty In 2014, a court-appointed trustee (who Zepinic has also sued, unsuccessfully) sold Zepinics Turramurra house for $3 million. The builders initially sued in 2008 over a $230,000 payment that was owing. They received $1.7 million from the house sale, largely for the legal costs theyd subsequently incurred. Justice Michael Pembroke, declaring Zepinic a vexatious litigant and so preventing him from taking further action against his builders, said that Zepinics claims against them were hopeless indulgent and irrational and smacking of ill-considered obsessiveness. VLADIVOSTOK, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Russian Technological University (RTU) has developed an autonomous small-sized unmanned underwater vehicle that can dive up to 100 meters and perform emergency and repair work, local media reported on Saturday. According to the university's press service, RTU specialists developed the underwater drone, named BPA-MIREA-T. The device weighs only three kg and can operate at temperatures ranging from minus 5 to 45 degrees Celsius. Unlike larger underwater unmanned vehicles, BPA-MIREA-T can be used with small-sized vessels, such as boats and inflatable rafts, without the need for lifting devices. This enhances the mobility of the device and enables it to perform new tasks, such as working inside the hulls of submerged objects, including ships, planes and cars. The rector of the university, Stanislav Kudzh, expressed his confidence that the vehicle would be well demanded in various sectors of the economy and pave the way for more ambitious projects. Protesters have gathered in Brisbane and across the country for the fifth week straight to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the Israeli siege and its decades-long military occupation of Palestinian territories. Thousands of people gathered in King George Square to hear from speakers condemning Israels collective punishment of Palestinians since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. Pro-Palestinian protesters in Brisbane on Sunday call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Credit: Matt Dennien Many speakers, signs and chants also called for better media coverage of the situation, an end to Israels apartheid policies and the prevention of what United Nations experts have described as the grave risk of genocide against the Palestinian people. One speaker, a Palestinian school student, told the crowd: This is a humanitarian issue, so dont make it a religious issue. A company has been slapped with more than $45,000 in fines for breaching the Environmental Protection Act at an industrial site south-west of Brisbane. NuGrow, which operates in Ipswichs Swanbank Industrial Area, was handed three infringement notices on October 30 by the Department of Environment and Science. Some Ipswich homes at Collingwood Park are now less than 700 metres from dump sites, as residents continue to call for tighter environmental controls over the companies that run them. The landfill and composting area has been the subject of thousands of complaints from residents reporting foul odours and health concerns. Earlier this year, the Palaszczuk government accepted significant changes to Queenslands environment laws after more than 4000 complaints of putrid smells from waste dumps near Swanbank. Foreign Minister Penny Wong has called on Israel to halt attacks on hospitals in Gaza to avoid casualties among Palestinian civilians, stepping up Australian concerns over a widening conflict in the Middle East. Wong condemned Hamas for its terrorist attack on Israeli civilians on October 7 and its use of civilian facilities to shield its fighters, but said Israel should abide by humanitarian law that forbids attacks on medical centres. Penny Wong said Israel needed to listen to its friends, including Australia. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen The government also warned against violence at Australian demonstrations in support of either side in the conflict, with Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles saying people had a right to speak up about government policy but should not aim their protests at other members of the community. The comments came as protesters took to Australian streets on Sunday to call for government action on the conflict, with pro-Palestinian groups highlighting the civilian deaths in Gaza and Jewish groups showing support for hundreds of Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas terrorists. The eruption of hostilities between Israel and Hamas has been a game changer for travel to the region. Most airlines have cancelled flights to Israel, the country is subject to rocket attacks, its military forces are fully mobilised and martial law has been declared. Some Israeli mothers are going shopping with M-16 assault rifles strapped to their chest. People play games on the beach last week in Tel Aviv, Israel. Despite the conflict, the Federal Governments Smartraveller website only advises travellers to reconsider travelling to the country. Credit: Getty Images You might think that the Australian government would be discouraging its citizens against all travel to the region yet the current warning from Smartraveller, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trades travel advisory service, is Reconsider your need to travel. Thats one step below Do not travel on the sites four-level travel advisory ladder, by which it assesses the safety level for travellers at more than 170 countries. Thats a little surprising but the advice Smartraveller is giving to travellers echoes the travel advice from both the US and UK governments. The US State Departments current travel advisory for Israel is Reconsider travel, also level three on its four-step travel advisory ranking, while the UKs Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) advises against all but essential travel to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It also applies a stricter advisory to some parts of Israel, including border areas adjacent to Lebanon, Syria and Gaza and recently evacuated communities in northern Israel, advising against all travel to those areas. What about the advice for other countries in the Middle East region and beyond? Do the US, British and Australian governments concur in their travel advisories? Under the Falepili agreement, all 11,200 Tuvaluans will be entitled to permanent residency in Australia. Initially, a special pathway will be created for 280 citizens to come annually. Under the proposed visa, they will have permission to study, work or live in Australia. As part of the treaty, Australia will provide security assistance to Tuvalu in response to major natural disasters, health pandemics and in the event of security threats. This is a groundbreaking agreement, Albanese said. The Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union will be regarded as a significant day in which Australia acknowledged that we are part of the Pacific family. The government of Tuvalu had been asking Australia to resettle citizens since 2001. On Friday, after months of behind-the-scenes negotiations, the worlds first bilateral agreement on climate mobility, the Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union treaty, was announced at the Pacific Islands Forum by prime ministers Anthony Albanese and Kausea Natano. Until now, most Pacific visa programs in Australia (and the region) have been tied to labour arrangements. New Zealand and the US have migration treaties. However, the climate migration agreement could not come at a more felicitous time for Tuvalu. A recent NASA study found much of Tuvalus land area, along with critical infrastructure, will be below the high tide mark by 2050, should climate change continued as projected. Tuvalu was among island groups named likely to disappear in the 21st century by the United Nations in 1989. In the subsequent debate about climate change, Australia, as one of the worlds highest per capita producers of greenhouse gases, had a difficult time explaining our stand to people on the threatened Pacific nations. The low point perhaps came at the 2019 Pacific Islands Forum when the then-prime minister, Scott Morrison, refused repeated calls to act on climate change. Unimpressed, the then-prime minister of Tuvalu, Enele Sopoaga, said Morrison was trying to save his economy, but he was trying to save his people. Australia was caught napping in early 2022 when the Solomon Islands announced that it had signed a security agreement with China. Since the federal election later that year Foreign Minister Penny Wong has assiduously visited all 18 Pacific Islands Forum nations to rebuild relationships. Australia respected the post-war drive by Melanesian and Polynesian populations for independence and has poured billions of dollars in aid money into the region to help the new nations develop. But denying the Pacific to others has been a historic fact of life since Europeans started arriving in the 1500s and realised its potential. Chinas recent sallies into the Pacific are a concern for Australia and the region. Beijing is investing heavily in defence relations with the Pacific and promoting a different model of governance based on an authoritarian set of values, at the same time duchessing potential partners with financial deals and enticements to local Big Men. That is not going to happen under the proposed Falepili agreement. As the Heralds political and international editor Peter Hartcher noted, it effectively makes Tuvalu an Australian protectorate and gives Canberra veto over any future deal between Tuvalu and another state. On November 10, as part of a working visit to Paris, President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Japarov met with the Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO of Electricite de France (EDF) Luc Remont, Azernews reports. The head of state noted the recent great interest among French companies in participation in promising projects in the energy sector, including the company Electricite de France, with which Kyrgyzstan is building close relationships. This French multinational electricity company is state owned. Its headquarters are in Paris, revenue was 71.2 billion in 2016. EDF operates a diverse portfolio of generating capacity of at least 120 gigawatts in Europe, South and North America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. EDF specializes in the electrical power industry, from design to distribution. The company operates in areas such as nuclear power, hydropower, wind power, solar power, biomass, geothermal power and fossil fuels. The President noted that in order to speed up the implementation of energy projects, issues of attracting financing from international financial institutions are being worked out. He invited the company to participate in ambitious initiatives involving experience, technology and resources to build the largest hydroelectric power plants in the Central Asian region, considering Kyrgyzstan as a reliable partner. Luc Remont expressed his readiness and commitment to substantive cooperation with Kyrgyzstan, noting his rich experience in implementation of projects in the energy sector, in particular in hydropower. At the same time, Luc Remont noted the positive trend of working with the Kyrgyz side in the implementation of previously reached agreements and noted that he would be very pleased to visit Kyrgyzstan to move to the practical stage of cooperation. Following the meeting, the parties stressed the importance of building up and intensifying mutually beneficial cooperation. ISLAMABAD, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- A policeman was killed with two others injured in a firing incident in the Tank district of Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, police said on Sunday. The incident happened on Saturday night when some unknown militants ambushed a police vehicle and sprayed bullets at it when it passed by the area, the police said in a statement. The attack triggered a gun battle between the police and the terrorists, the statement said, adding that the police has cordoned off the area for investigation after the firing. The deceased policeman was the station house officer of Tank police station and had survived two terror attacks in the past, the police said. The injured law enforcers were shifted to a nearby hospital, where both of them are in critical condition. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet. For Baatar, the Mongol Khan is our first attempt to preserve our national identity and then not only preserve it, [but] expand it to the world, and showcase what we can offer. This impetus hasn't been without controversy closer to home the show was closed by the authorities just before a performance in China, with the production team saying that they had been asked to change the script, removing references to the 'Hunnu Empire' and the 'Khan', and were under surveillance as they rehearsed. They were eventually sent home. Reports say it reveals the state's anxiety about separatist sentiment in Inner Mongolia. Lovers of big, juicy birds, rare red meat and plenty of sauce, the French with their penchant for pure indulgence sure know how to put on a show. Before our citys culinary revolution, the countrys food was widely considered the best in town especially when it came to fine dining, with Escoffier setting the bar for the likes of the Roux brothers and Raymond Blanc. Locating and intercepting suspects in a crowd of the size we saw today will always be challenging, but we were further limited in our ability to do so due to the number of officers we had to deploy, from early in the day, in response to violence from the right-wing groups in central London. RAMALLAH, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- A Palestinian official condemned on Sunday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's declaration on retaining security control over Gaza once the ongoing conflict ends. In a televised speech on Saturday, Netanyahu announced that Israel would work to establish full security control over Gaza after the conflict, aiming to "eliminate security threats" while refusing to allow the Palestinian Authority to return to Gaza. Hussein Al-Sheikh, secretary general of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said in a press statement that "the bitterness of failure drives the head of the occupying government into moral, humanitarian, and political blindness, leading to further killing, destruction, and displacement." He added that Netanyahu declared Saturday that his strategic goal in this conflict is the full occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, despite the Palestinians' resilience to challenges. Israel struck Gaza in retaliation for a cross-border Hamas attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7. The conflict, raging for over a month, has so far led to the deaths of more than 11,000 Palestinians in Gaza. On the Israeli side, around 1,200 people lost their lives, the majority of whom were killed in the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, which triggered the ongoing conflict. A man in his 20s was found with stab wounds and, despite the best efforts of emergency services, he died at the scene. Mr Sunak is now facing calls to sack the minister, with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer saying: "Few people in public life have done more recently to whip up division, set the British people against one another and sow the seeds of hatred and distrust than Suella Braverman. In doing so, she demeans her office." This photo taken on Nov. 3, 2023 shows the south square of the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai), the main venue for the sixth China International Import Expo (CIIE), in east China's Shanghai. (Xinhua/Wang Xiang) The CIIE serves as an excellent platform and fosters opportunities for investment and facilitating export-import agreements, said Rwandan economic analyst Teddy Kaberuka. KIGALI, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The China International Import Expo (CIIE) has made a critical contribution to the growth of global enterprises over the past years, providing a valuable platform for investments in developing countries, Rwandan analysts and businesses have said. Teddy Kaberuka, a Rwandan economic analyst, told Xinhua that the CIIE serves as an excellent platform where Chinese businesses engage with foreign counterparts, fostering opportunities for investment and facilitating export-import agreements. "It is a very good platform for the economy for both Chinese and foreigners doing business with China. China being a very large country geographically makes it challenging for African investors to travel to China and reach all the regions to meet different companies for business. But at an exhibition, African people can meet different companies in one place, discuss, and potentially seal deals," Kaberuka said. The just-concluded sixth edition of the CIIE, held in Shanghai on Nov. 5-10, drew over 3,400 exhibitors from 154 countries, regions and international organizations. Kaberuka underscored the exhibition's global significance, particularly its role in facilitating the export process for less developed countries by bringing together business executives from these nations to interact with a multitude of Chinese companies. "It is much easier for African businesspeople and for the Chinese companies as well. This exhibition helps to increase trade, boost business, and boost investments for China, especially with business-to-business initiatives," he said. Aaron Rutayisire, the sales and marketing manager of Rwanda Farmers Coffee, told Xinhua that the CIIE has presented export opportunities that benefit global enterprises. "It is a very important event, providing companies a great opportunity to showcase their products to Chinese consumers. The CIIE has contributed to our export growth in China," Rutayisire said. His company, based in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, procures high-end coffee beans from coffee farmers' cooperatives in Rwanda, which Rutayisire believes has improved the lives of farmers. It was his company's fourth time to participate in the expo this year, with its product brand, Gorilla's Coffee. The CIIE is significant because it enables global companies to tap China's huge market, Rutayisire said, noting China's open policy ensures that "everyone wins, both the people of China and the exporting countries." "A lot of potential exists in open markets. Many countries lose more than they gain by creating barriers to trade. China itself remains our top export destination for Gorilla's Coffee," he said. Egide Karuranga, a retired Rwandan professor of International Economics at the University of Virginia in the United States, pointed out that global companies introduced their products at the CIIE and ended up forming partnerships with Chinese firms. China's development initiatives and platforms, such as the China Import and Export Fair (Canton Fair) and the China International Fair for Trade in Services, facilitate the sharing of China's development opportunities with developing countries, he told Xinhua. "The CIIE reflects China's dedication to opening up its market, which has been helpful in global economic recovery. It demonstrates China's resolve to impact the global economy," Karuranga added. 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County Executive Sam Page nominated longtime federal probation chief Kito Bess to run the jail following the September retirement of former Director Scott Anders. Anders was appointed in October 2021 following a series of arrivals and departures: From early 2019 through fall 2022, the jail had six different directors. "Something is not working there," said Councilwoman Rita Heard Days, a Democrat from BelNor. "And I hope that you're able to address some of the concerns we have." Bess, 49, said once he moved to the St. Louis region, he and his family would make it home. He plans to retire from his job as chief probation officer for the federal district court in Minnesota, a move federal chiefs are able to do beginning at age 50. He began his career in county corrections in the Miami area before serving the federal government for 23 years, focusing on alternatives to imprisonment and community reentry for incarcerated people. Now, he said he wants to work at the local level of government again. "This is an opportunity to do something different back at the county level," Bess said. The jail's interim director, Doug Burris, said he has known Bess for more than 20 years. Burris was serving as the federal probation chief in the Eastern District of Missouri when Bess worked as chief in Louisiana overseeing New Orleans. "During that time I have admired his leadership skills and the outcomes that he has produced. In fact I can't imagine a more effective and professional leader to take St Louis Justice Services into the 2030s than Chief Bess," Burris said. Republican Councilman Dennis Hancock of Fenton asked Bess what he would do his first day on the job. "The first thing for me to do is start building relationships with staff of the St. Louis County Justice Center," and with the council, courts, jail advisory board, jail residents and the community, Bess said. The jail has seen troubling incidents in recent years. Roughly a year ago, a person assaulted a jail officer who was supervising at least 65 maximum security inmates by herself. Later, a supervisor who didn't want to be named for fear of retaliation told the Post-Dispatch following the attack that jail staff were ignoring a policy requiring two guards to be on duty per housing unit. Then there was a broken sprinkler and a mattress set on fire earlier this year, triggering criminal investigations. Bess' salary would be just under $150,500, the same as Anders and the interim director. The council also questioned a candidate to replace the recently retired revenue department director. Kelsey Landis 314-340-8304 klandis@post-dispatch.com Tony Messenger Metro columnist Follow Tony Messenger Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today Taking on City Hall is a lonely task. Thats the sense I got from talking to Rebecca Varney this week. She should have been happy. At least that was my expectation. Earlier this month, Phelps County Circuit Judge John Beger ruled in her favor. Edgar Springs was wrong to kick her out of City Hall. The city was wrong to deny her public documents. The city would have to pay for its violations of the law and her constitutional rights. Beger had already ruled in Varneys favor on some of the issues she raised in 2019. But city officials kept fighting and forced her to take them to trial earlier this year. She won a complete victory. Regular readers will remember that Ive written about Varneys plight since 2019. She was pulled over for allegedly not stopping long enough at a stop sign. If youve been to Edgar Springs, located in the middle of Missouri along Highway 63, you know its a notorious speed trap that generates much of its revenue from traffic tickets. When the Missouri Legislature was cracking down on that practice, Edgar Springs was one of the cities that unsuccessfully tried to stop the legislation. After her ticket, Varney, who lives with her sister, started paying attention to things at City Hall. She asked for records. She attended meetings. She encouraged a state audit. City Hall fought back. The city attorney, Brandi Baird, banned Varney from City Hall. Her Sunshine Law requests were denied. Those actions, Beger determined in his ruling, were an attempt to intimidate and silence Varney. He fined the city $150 and ordered it to pay $43,995 in attorney fees. It was a win for citizens. It was a win for Varney and her attorney, David Roland of the nonprofit Freedom Center of Missouri. But it was a win that came at a personal cost. Its been difficult, Varney told me. Edgar Springs is a town of about 200. Everybody knows everybody. It takes courage to criticize local elected officials. Youll see everybody when dropping your granddaughter off at school or at the grocery store. And youll realize youre the only person not allowed in City Hall. Thats why Begers decision was so important. He wrote in the ruling: The actions of the defendants in this case, apparently seeking to intimidate and silence Varney from exercising her rights to examine and be knowledgeable about the workings of her city government, are disturbing, especially when considered in the context of the free and open democratic society in which we are purported to live. Its not supposed to be that difficult to keep an eye on the inner-workings of government. But in too many places, whether its a big city like St. Louis or a tiny town in Phelps County, government officials too often respond to people like Varney by making it harder for them to attend meetings or obtain documents. And when called on their failures, those officials dig in rather than apologize and move on. Baird, the attorney who blocked Varney from City Hall, is a former judge who once tried to keep me out of a court hearing so I couldnt see her send poor people to jail because they couldnt afford fines and fees issued in Dent County. Roland, the Freedom Center attorney, gave Baird, the citys mayor and the police chief opportunities to remove Varneys no trespassing order, provide her the records she sought and make the dispute go away. The city stood firm. Varney points to Roland, whose nonprofit represents clients for free, as the hero of the case. Without him, she might still be banned from City Hall, and the rest of the state wouldnt know the level to which some cities will go to keep their citizens in the dark. The most important takeaway from this victory and others like it is that citizens can successfully fight City Hall and that those responsible for violating their citizens rights can be held accountable, Roland wrote in an email. No government entity is so big that it should be permitted to ignore its citizens rights and this case also shows that no government is so small that it should avoid similar scrutiny. It should not take a thumping in court to persuade government entities to respect their citizens rights, but if a government entity needs such a thumping, I am glad to help provide it. PORTO-NOVO, Benin For many people in West Africa's Benin, the forests empowered them before they were born, or in the first months of their lives. Barren women performed Voodoo rituals by sacred trees to get pregnant. Others were brought as newborns by parents seeking to ward off evil spirits. Some entered at a crossroads as adults, asking for guidance. In the cradle of Voodoo, the forests were places of hope. Yet as the woodlands shrank, due to economic development and other factors, it has dealt a blow to the communities struggling to protect the spirits believed to live within them. In many cases, according to believers, the spirits fought back. When residents in the village of Houeyogbe agreed to let the government destroy much of its forest to build roads and install electricity, locals say the spirits unleashed a plague, with inexplicable deaths and mounting illnesses. In Ouidah, Benins epicenter of Voodoo, a gas station that replaced the Aveleketezou forest years ago has not turned a profit, residents say. Station employees said that when they filled cars with gas, it turned to water. Benin is home to thousands of sacred forests, which believers say are vital to a religion rooted in nature. They see the forests as homes for spirits, which priests pray to and seek guidance from. But for decades the nations forests have been threatened, initially by anti-Voodoo attacks and then by the expansion of farming and urbanization. Between 2005 and 2015, the total area of Benins forests decreased more than 20%, with the rate of deforestation continuing at more than 2% a year, according to the World Bank. As the government grapples with preserving the forests while developing the country, Voodoo worshippers worry the loss of its spaces could have profound effects. Not only is it an environmental concern but believers say it threatens the social fabric of Benins 13 million people about 11% of whom practice Voodoo. When (the government) brought roads to our region and we had to stop everything in the sacred forest, people started getting sick and having all kinds of problems, said Benoit Sonou, a Voodoo priest who witnessed the destruction of his communitys forest as a young man. Some 50 years later, he sits on the gravel road where the forest once stood, beside the two remaining trees the community salvaged. Theyre cordoned off behind a concrete wall in hopes they wont be touched. One of the worlds oldest religions, Voodoo originated in the kingdom of Dahomey present-day Benin and is rooted in animism, the belief that all things, from rocks and trees to animals and places, have a spirit. Today, millions of people practice it, turning to Voodoo priests to perform rituals to ward off evil spirits, overcome illness and achieve professional and personal success. While Benin has many Christians making up nearly half the population Voodoo is embedded in most peoples lives. Gatherings dont begin without dropping water on the ground, a ritual that pays respect to ancestors. Initiation into Voodoo takes many years. And with few exceptions, only those initiated are allowed to enter the sacred forests. Many of the parks ban women, due to beliefs theyll go mad if they enter. The men must enter naked. In the West, Voodoo is sometimes regarded as evil, or conflated with witchcraft. In Benin, Voodoo priests say the religion is grounded in positivity, based on tolerance and acceptance, and abides by a strict set of rules. Carefully guarded stories about which spirits inhabit which forests have been passed down through generations. Believers say the spirits usually live in baobab or Iroko trees, considered the most sacred, and are places where priests perform the rituals, such as drinking blessed water or gin, eating cola nuts or sitting in a sacred spot, such as inside a tree. The sacred forest is a vital area, said Dada Daagbo Hounon Hounan II, the Supreme Spiritual Voodoo Chief. Its an area that enables the reception of positive energies and positive vibrations to direct and rule the world. Only certain priests can communicate with the spirits, doing so through chants, prayers or making noise like ringing a bell. During an October visit to several sacred forests in southern Benin, The Associated Press heard what sounded like intense swirling wind emanating from two forests after Voodoo priests called to the spirits. Its unclear what the sounds were, but religion experts say what matters is that people believe they can communicate with the forest. It all points back to the idea that we dont live in a world where the only actors are the human ones, said Danny Hoffman, a cultural anthropologist who is director of the University of Washingtons Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. Losing these forests eliminates places for experimentation and innovation, he said. When we lose spaces demarcated for spiritual practices, these are spaces where people come together and try to understand how theyre going to respond to new challenges and new difficulties. Standing in front of a sacred tree, priest Gilbert Kakpo said women with childbirth troubles go there for help. Our divinity is the protector of women, he said. If youre a woman whos had miscarriages or has given birth to stillborn children and you come here for rituals, youll never endure those hardships again ... I cant count the number of people who have been healed or treated here. Its hard to quantify how much sacred space has been lost in Benin, and to pinpoint the root cause. Locals and officials look to the early 1970s. The government at the time cracked down on Voodoo believers, arresting and lynching people and chopping down trees deemed sacred. Decades later, new administrations made amends with the Voodoo community, but by then development had surged. Between 2001 and 2012 about 45% of Benins sacred forests disappeared or were diminished, according to the Circle for Safeguarding of Natural Resources. BANGKOK As Chinese missile testing in the waters around Taiwan grew increasingly aggressive in 1996, the U.S. sailed two aircraft carrier groups to the island that Beijing claims as its own, and China was forced to back down. It employed a similar response to Hamas surprise attack on Israel a month ago, dispatching two carrier groups to the eastern Mediterranean in a rapid and massive show of force meant to deter other countries or Iran-backed proxy groups such as Hezbollah from joining the fight. But what is still viable in the Mideast is increasingly less practical with China, which in 1996 had no carriers of its own and little means to threaten the American ships, but now has the worlds largest navy, including three aircraft carriers, and a coastline bristling with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles. Instead, exercises in Hawaii, which concluded Friday, highlight part of a new American approach to Pacific defense and deterrence, with a focus on small groups of mobile land forces operating from islands like those off Chinas coast. In the exercises, the largest-scale training held in Hawaii so far, more than 5,000 troops from the 25th Infantry Division, along with units from New Zealand, Indonesia, Thailand and Britain and supported by the U.S. Air Force, practiced fighting in an island jungle environment against an advanced enemy force, with exercises including paratrooper drops, a long-range air assault, and re-supply by air and sea. All of those are examples of the importance of being able to project force here in the Pacific, which first requires seizing and holding ground and building up a base of operations where you can consolidate gains, secure and hold key infrastructure such as an airfield, and then introduce additional combat power, said Maj. Gen. Marcus Evans, commanding general of the 25th Infantry Division, in an interview from Wheeler Army Airfield on Oahu. While the exercises are not officially directed against a specific threat, the U.S. Department of Defense in its report last month to Congress reiterated that it considers China its pacing challenge as the only competitor to the United States with the intent and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order. Even though Chinas navy is now larger than that of the U.S. in terms of numbers of ships, the U.S. Navy is still more capable and has 11 carriers to Chinas three, among other advantages. But where Chinas main focus is on its nearby waters, the U.S. Navy operates globally and in the event of a Taiwan conflict, it would take time for many of its assets to get to the region. As part of its Operation Pathways revamp of Pacific defense set in motion nearly a decade ago, the U.S. has been increasing its number of exercises with partners in the Indo-Pacific. It has also been rethinking the way its soldiers and Marines operate in the first island chain off of China, which includes southwestern Japanese islands, Taiwan and the northwest Philippines, and the second island chain, which includes the Mariana Islands and the heavily fortified American territory of Guam. Those islands give them platforms from which anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles can be launched by mobile units that can quickly relocate to avoid counter battery fire, said Euan Graham, a defense analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Beyond just being able to take and hold positions, the military has to overcome what Evans called a tyranny of distance in the Pacific where troops may find themselves on remote islands many hundreds of miles away from new supplies of water, fuel and ammunition. Among several new technologies being tested in the ongoing exercises in Hawaii are three variants of an atmospheric water generator to produce potable water in field conditions. Operating from the first and second island chains would require the consent of the countries they belong to, and the U.S. has also been working hard to shore up and expand alliances in the region. It runs large-scale training exercises with the Philippines, where earlier this year it signed an agreement to expand its use of bases, as well as with South Korea, Japan, Australia, Indonesia, Thailand and India. The exercises provide experience in technical and procedural interoperability and also build human bonds that can be critical in times of crisis. On the political level, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is on his ninth trip to the Indo-Pacific this week with stops in India, South Korea and Indonesia, in which he is to underscore the depth of the longstanding U.S. commitment to strengthening the Indo-Pacifics dynamic security architecture. Austins travels overlap with Secretary of State Antony Blinkens own visits to Tokyo, Seoul and New Delhi. Chinese President Xi Jinping has not ruled out the use of force to take Taiwan, and while the American policy on whether it would come to Taiwans aid is that of strategic ambiguity, or not saying how far it is willing to go, U.S. President Joe Biden has said that Washington would intervene militarily. With tensions rising over Taiwan, the U.S. use of the island chains could both deter China from considering an invasion, and also exact a heavy price if they tried, Graham said. Most expensive US military weapons and programs Most expensive military weapons and programs #30. VH-92 Presidential Helicopters #29. Patriot Advanced Capability Missile Segment Enhancement #28. Cloud #27. Standard Missile-6 #26. Artificial Intelligence #25. THAAD Ballistic Missile Defense #23. Frigate (FFG(X)) (tie) #23. AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defense System (tie) #20. Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) (tie) #20. Landing Platform Dock Ship (LPD) (tie) #20. AH-64E Attack Helicopters (tie) #19. Joint Light Tactical Vehicles #16. M-1 Abrams Tank Modifications/Upgrades (tie) #16. CH-53K King Stallion (tie) #16. Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) (tie) #14. F-15EX (tie) #14. National Security Space Launch (aka EELV) (tie) #13. Global Positioning System III and Projects #12. F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets #11. Space Based Overhead Persistent Infrared Systems #10. B-21 Long Range Strike Bomber #8. CVN-78 FORD Class Aircraft Carrier (tie) #8. KC-46 Tanker Replacements (tie) #7. DDG-51 Arleigh Burke Destroyers #6. Cyberspace Operations #5. COLUMBIA Class Ballistic Missile Submarine #4. Virginia Class Submarine #3. Cybersecurity #2. Nuclear Command, Control and Communications #1. F-35 Joint Strike Fighters Most expensive US military weapons and programs #23. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) Ballistic Missile Defense #22. Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicles #21. Building Pandemic Preparedness #20. Amphibious Combat Vehicles #19. PATRIOT Advanced Capability - 3 (PAC-3) Missile Segment Enhancement #18. Joint Light Tactical Vehicles #17. Frigate (FFG-62) #16. Launch Vehicles - National Security Space Launch (NSSL) and Rocket System Launch Program (RSLP) #15. NGAD (Air Force) #14. Global Positioning System (GPS) Enterprise #13. Ground-Based Midcourse (GMD) and Improved Homeland Defense/Next Generation Interceptors (NGI) #12. F-15EX #11. KC-46 Pegasus #10. Addressing the Climate Crisis #9. LGM-35A Sentinel Weapon System #8. Space-based Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR) Systems #7. B-21 Raider #6. DDG-51 Arleigh Burke Class Destroyers #5. Columbia Class Ballistic Missile Submarine #4. Funds to procure highly survivable, precision-strike, and long-range firesfrom hypersonic to subsonicacross the joint force #3. Virginia Class Submarines #2. F-35 Joint Strike Fighter #1. Increasing cybersecurity and operationalizing Zero Trust Architecture GAZA, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Each day at sunrise, Mohammed Tafish, a Palestinian man from the al-Zaitoun neighborhood in the east of Gaza City, joins dozens of his neighbors to cook free meals for displaced people in his area. The 50-year-old father of six told Xinhua that, due to the shortage of cooking gas, he and his neighbors use about 20 large cookers heated on firewood stoves on the pavement to prepare various types of food. "We have been used to cooking under the sounds of heavy explosions resulting from exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and the Palestinian militants," the middle-aged man said. "We have been involved in this battle in which we have no fault. We face death, either from Israeli raids or from starvation amid this dire situation," Tafish complained. "All the population, rich or poor, suffer the same. No one can buy food as the markets have run out of stock. Even those who have saved some food do not have gas to cook," he said. This is why Tafish and his neighbors decided to do their part to cook meals to feed displaced people in a bid to support each other to survive the current crisis. Every day, he provides food for about 4,000 families, each with an average of seven members. "It is not only about cooking food for poor families but also about strengthening solidarity among the local people who live in the same crisis," he affirmed. In the same spirit, Mohammed Abu Rujaila, along with his ten friends, cooked meals for more than 3,000 displaced families in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis. "People fleeing death were unable to take anything with them. They have no money, no clothes, not even the minimum amount of food to sustain them for a few days," the 45-year-old father of seven told Xinhua. He stressed that in Israel's indiscriminate attacks, "the Palestinian people, distinguished by their social solidarity, are quick to hold out a helping hand to each other." In Rafah, 39-year-old Ahmed Al-Shaer gave a hand to 20 others to cook approximately 10,000 meals a day for the shelterless and poor households in the city to assist them in surviving the catastrophe. Since Oct. 7, the bloody conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) has been raging on unabated in Gaza for more than a month, killing over 11,000 Palestinians in the coastal enclave and around 1,200 people in Israel. Besides massive airstrikes and ground operations, Israel has also imposed punitive measures, including a siege on the enclave, with supplies of water, electricity, fuel, and other necessities being cut off. Gaza residents, including Tafish, Abu Rujaila, and Al-Shaer, all depend on the funds provided by local businessmen, displaced people who have money but cannot buy food, and donors from outside Gaza. However, despite the solidarity among locals, the humanitarian crisis shrouding the enclave loomed larger as the conflict continued unabated. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last week that although some life-saving aid is getting into Gaza from Egypt through the Rafah crossing, this "trickle of assistance does not meet the ocean of need." A recent Post-Dispatch editorial suggested a housing first solution that seeks to build more free housing while removing accountability measures like mandated drug treatment could help the city manage its growing homelessness crisis. ("St. Louis' approach to homelessness clearly isn't working. Here's what might." Oct. 8.) Yet, mounting evidence shows that housing-first policies fail to address the underlying drivers of chronic homelessness mental illness and substance abuse. It's something policymakers are increasingly coming to understand. Similarly, as the public has witnessed and endured the consequences of these quixotic policies, opinion has shifted away from policies that deprioritize and, in many cases, outright ignore the crucial role of mental health and substance abuse treatment in favor of policies that center on accountability, transparency, and long-term outcomes. Housing-first policies do little to help program participants transition to independent and flourishing lives. To make matters worse, the qualifications for housing disincentivize mental health stability, sobriety, and financial well-being. And the housing-first approach isnt just ineffective its expensive. San Francisco has a $1.1 billion budget that is mainly allotted to permanent housing, in addition to federal funding that flows into the city for the same purpose. Like a line from the famous Eagles song, results have been disastrous and even deadly trapping people in their own devices. An investigation by the San Francisco Chronicle found that despite the programs high price tag, individuals were living in squalor, with toxic mold, dilapidated ceilings, and rampant crime. Sadly, 166 people overdosed in these hotels between 2020 and 2021. Housing operators who turned a blind eye to dangerous drug use and crime in their housing units never faced any accountability for these failures. Though program proponents claim that wrap-around services are a central tenant of their policies, all participation in those services is optional. And there is little transparency into how widely available those services really are. Studies have found that Housing First programs do nothing to reduce criminal activity among homeless people. These cracks in the system have stretched across the country. St. Louis is not immune. Making services and treatment optional for tenants struggling with substance abuse and mental illness is woefully ineffective and carries fatal consequences. A 2021 study by the Urban Institute found that 12% of Denver permanent supportive housing program participants died over three years, compared to 8% in the control group who did not enter the program. The good news is that there is a better way for cities like St. Louis to address this growing crisis. Empowering people to transition out of homelessness through short-term shelters and mental health and substance abuse treatment would help them get a stable footing while building a community of support. A meta-analysis of studies comparing the impact of housing-first programs and recovery programs on substance abuse found that the latter had much more effective outcomes for those looking to rebuild their lives. But accountability and recovery cant stop there. Those who refuse to take advantage of much-needed services like short-term shelter and treatment services for mental health and substance abuse cannot be allowed to put themselves and others in the community in danger. A vital component of this is removing and cleaning up dangerous tent encampments, as Phoenix has recently done. To do this, policymakers must swiftly address the shortage of temporary shelter space. The creation of sanctioned camping facilities away from residential and business areas is one immediate solution. Sanctioned camps can be monitored by law enforcement and provide sanitation, clean water, and services, creating a safer environment for homeless individuals than city streets. Denver recently took this approach, serving 242 people in 2021 and helping 47 to transition into more stable housing. Despite crime in Denver increasing by 14% during this time, crime in the sanctioned camp actually decreased. Policymakers should consider ways to expand short-term shelter options as well. St. Louis has options and examples of alternatives to housing first that work well in addressing the homelessness crisis. Providing immediate help to individuals on the street is a more compassionate path to sustained independence and growing research shows the public supports it. Pursuing innovative policies that target the underlying causes of homelessness will help restore communities and the lives of those experiencing homelessness. Like a hung-over reveler after an especially reckless night of excess, most of the U.S. Supreme Courts conservative majority appears ready to somewhat dial back its recent overindulgence in gun-rights extremism. Analysts say the justices questions and comments in a hearing on a Second Amendment case last week indicate the court will likely soften an earlier stance that, on its face, would seem to require that the government must let people under domestic-violence restraining orders keep their guns. If the court ultimately does rule that, no, Mr. Wife Beater, you dont get to keep that AR-15 around to settle the next marital argument, it will be a small victory for common sense on this otherwise deranged bench and a big victory for domestic abuse victims who, statistically, are five times more likely to be killed if their partners have access to firearms. Not that it will matter in Missouri. Here, where the political gun-obsession orgy continues unabated, even people who have been convicted of domestic abuse can still keep their sidearms. Not until the legal process finally, inevitably overturns the insane state law that presumes to nullify federal firearms restrictions here will this recent glimmer of sanity on the high court filter down to St. Louis. The current case before the Supreme Court regarding domestic abusers stems from last years landmark case New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, in which the courts conservative majority enshrined the relatively new concept of originalism. It goes like this: For a modern law to be considered constitutionally valid, it must have some correlation to the law and culture at the time the Constitution was written. This new standard created out of whole cloth by the courts right-wing majority, just because they could effectively decrees that Americans rights today must be defined based on what would have been legally and socially conceivable in the front-loading-musket era. Does that mean states today could repeal womens suffrage and reinstate slavery? No, goes the theory, because subsequent constitutional amendments addressed those issues. But, alas, theres no constitutional amendment that recognizes the special circumstances of domestic abuse that should limit the gun rights of alleged abusers. Thats a modern concept. No one in the late 1700s was pondering whether wives were anything other than the property of their husbands. Thus was it consistent, in a twisted way, that the 5th District U.S. Court of Appeals this year ruled in favor of a Texas drug dealer who argued the state had no authority to convict him for violating a restraining order that required he give up his guns. All he had done, after all, was to beat his girlfriend in a parking lot, fire a gun to ward off bystanders, threaten to shoot his girlfriend in the face if she reported the assault, and then later engage in multiple shooting sprees after the court ordered his guns taken away. The appeals court admitted that the defendant is hardly a model citizen (you think?), yet found he is part of the political community entitled to the Second Amendments guarantees as confirmed by Bruen. Please pause here and re-read the preceding sentence. It says, essentially, that credibly threatening to kill your girlfriend doesnt deprive you of the right to weaponry today because that kind of precaution wasnt common when the Second Amendment was ratified 232 years ago. This is where America is today, thanks to this Supreme Court. As bonkers as the appeals court assessment was, it was arguably in keeping with the Supreme Courts originalist doctrine in the Bruen ruling. There was, after all, no such thing in colonial times as a domestic abuse restraining order to keep guns away from sociopaths who might be inclined to kill their partners. Yet todays Supreme Court is, as the saying goes, crazy but not stupid. Analyses by multiple mainstream media outlets suggest that even most of the conservative justices questions and comments in last weeks hearing appeared to be casting around for ways to reverse the appeals court and let the government continue confiscating guns from alleged abusers, without overtly challenging their own bizarre logic in Bruen. They cant, really, but its clear why they want to. Its one thing to rule in concept that todays Americans must be restricted to whatever rights and legal protections were recognized by men in powdered wigs. Its quite another to confront the unacceptable real-world implications of that standard in the 21st century. Does a single member of this court really want to look America in the eye and declare that, no, you cant disarm someone who has overtly demonstrated that he poses a threat to the very lives of those close to him? Whatever the court decides, the issue will remain murky in Missouri for now, because the states Republican leadership still claims surreally that the state is outside the reach of federal gun laws. Missouris Second Amendment Preservation Act of 2021 has been rejected by every court that has considered it. That includes the U.S. Supreme Court, which last month declined to intervene on behalf of the state to allow the law to go into effect while the lower-court battles play out. Yet Missouris leading Republicans insist on continuing to defend it in court. The state law declares that federal gun restrictions arent enforceable in Missouri if there isnt a correlating state gun law on the books. In addition to challenging the very concept of federalism as laid out by the Framers and confirmed by the outcome of the Civil War, the Missouri law leaves domestic abuse victims vulnerable to their abusers. Thats because not only do current Missouri state statutes not specifically allow for disarming those under orders of protection, they dont even allow for disarming those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence. And the Legislature remains stubbornly opposed to red-flag laws of the kind that could have saved the lives of the student and teacher murdered last years rampage at the Central Visual Arts and Performing Arts High School in St. Louis by a mentally ill former student. If the Supreme Court edges toward rationality on guns in the domestic-abuse case, it will be because, as unaccountable as the justices generally are, they perhaps arent completely blind to the human implications of their ideological extremism. If only the same could be said of Missouris leaders. I recently learned I live in a city where people actually want to see me dead. Imagine going through your day not knowing who among your neighbors would delight in your extermination? They could be standing next to me at the grocery store right now. St. Louis, your Jewish friends and neighbors are not OK. Hamas is an organization that, by its charter, seeks to murder all Jews everywhere in the world the very definition of genocide. And they mean it. They slaughtered 1,400 people a well-planned military attack. Since then, there have been numerous reports of atrocities by Hamas against Jewish citizens, including children. And there are people in St. Louis who are celebrating. These people will take away a persons livelihood because words are violence. But they have no problem with actual violence, when it is directed against Jews. They oppose racism, but they have no objection to racism towards Jews. They will not tolerate "microaggressions," but they have no issue with actual, grotesque aggression directed against Jews. They complain that someone who disagrees with them makes them feel unsafe. But, they have no qualms about terrorizing the Jews of our city in our streets, in our own front yards, and on our college campuses. St. Louis, you are good people and you know the difference between good and evil. Your Jewish friends, probably for the first time in their lifetimes, feel isolated and afraid. There are only about 60,000 of us in the St. Louis area. We cant do it alone. We need you to stand up. And there are things you can do. In the 1990s, when someone threw a rock through a Billings, Montana, window that had a menorah in it, thousands of Billings residents placed menorahs in their windows. They fought back against the hate. Please let your Jewish friends know that you care, privately and also publicly. Please consider tying a light blue ribbon around a tree in your front yard. Thats part of a national movement to support the more than 200 Hamas hostages including babies, young children, and Holocaust survivors currently being held at gunpoint in the tunnels of Gaza. The people who celebrate the death cult called Hamas are bullies. Bullies convince themselves that everyone agrees with them. Please help show them, and your Jewish friends, just how wrong they are. Together, we can stand up to the hate that is infecting our community. David Rubin St. Louis County Zak Mroueh, Creative Officer and Founder of Zulu Alpha Kilo, was honoured with the CMA's Lifetime Achievement Award TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- In the release dated November 10, 2023: This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231110631186/en/ 2023 Marketer of the Year - Eva Salem - Canadian Tire (Photo: Business Wire) Headline and first paragraph: Company should read BMO (instead of Kraft Heinz) First bulleted list, second bullet point: Best of the Best winner should read BMO in partnership with FCB for the campaign: BMO Gamer's Branch (instead of Kraft Heinz in partnership with Rethink for the campaign: Heinz Ketchup Fraud) The updated release reads: EVA SALEM OF CANADIAN TIRE AND BMO NAMED TOP WINNERS AT 2023 CMA AWARDS Zak Mroueh, Creative Officer and Founder of Zulu Alpha Kilo, was honoured with the CMA's Lifetime Achievement Award Canadas biggest names and marketing campaigns showed the important role creativity plays in building brands and businesses, with Eva Salem, senior vice-president of marketing and brand at Canadian Tire Corporation, and BMO among the top winners at the Canadian Marketing Association (CMA) Awards show on November 10. Marketing and creativity are core to business growth and this years winners truly embodied the theme by expanding our notions of creativity and reinforcing that the future of Canadian marketing is truly boundless, said Alison Simpson, president and CEO, CMA. Canada continues to innovate and push the boundaries of creativity. The tremendous calibre of our 2023 CMA Marketer of the Year, AIM Award Winner and CMA Lifetime Achievement Award Winner demonstrate the vibrant health of our profession at every career stage. The future is bright for marketing in Canada. Salem was presented with the prestigious 2023 Marketer of the Year award. I am thrilled to be named Marketer of the Year by the Canadian Marketing Association with so much inspiring work coming out of Canada, it is truly humbling to be recognized by our industry, Salem said. Thank you to the CMA for this honour, our fantastic agency partners for their support, and the entire team at Canadian Tire Corporation, whose creativity, innovation, and passion have solidified our brand in the hearts and minds of Canadians. Winners of the premiere awards, in addition to Salem, are: Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by Kaiser & Partners: Zak Mroueh , Founder, Zulu Alpha Kilo Best of the Best: BMO in partnership with FCB for the campaign: BMO Gamer's Branch in partnership with for the campaign: BMO Gamer's Branch Top Cause: Effing Old by Jems and Dentsu Creative by and Achievement in Marketing (AIM): Ashley Faccenda, Associate Marketing Manager, Kruger Products This year, the CMA introduced the AIM Award for junior to mid-level marketers to highlight the next generation of Canadian marketers, and added the discipline of Public Relations in all categories. In total, 150 awards were presented across seven disciplines (listed below) with Awards entries increasing significantly over last year. More than 800 marketers from across Canada gathered in person at the Awards celebration for an unforgettable evening celebrating the exceptional creativity of Canadas top marketers and agencies. Awards categories and judging Awards were presented across seven disciplines: brand building, business impact, customer experience and shopper marketing, engagement, innovative media and public relations. Within each discipline, entries compete in one of nine categories (automotive, business, consumer products and services, financial, food and beverage, healthcare, retail and social causes). This year's awards were reviewed by a record number of judges from across Canada, through a two-round process. In Round 1 of judging, entries in each discipline and category are evaluated on strategy, creativity and results. In Round 2, senior judges and multi-discipline judges evaluate the top entries in the disciplines and categories. The scores from the first two rounds are combined to determine gold, silver and bronze awards in each category. Top Cause and Best of the Best winners are chosen from the highest-ranking entries across their respective disciplines and categories. The judging committee was co-chaired by Sabaa Quao, Chief Creative Officer, Cossette and Sandra Sanderson, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Empire Company Limited and Sobeys Inc. A full list of CMA Award winners can be found here. About the Canadian Marketing Association The CMA is the voice of marketing in Canada and our purpose is to champion marketings powerful impact. We are the catalyst to help Canadas marketers thrive today, while building the marketing mindset and environment of tomorrow. We provide opportunities for our members from coast to coast to develop professionally, to contribute to marketing thought leadership, to build strong networks, and to strengthen the regulatory climate for business success. Our Chartered Marketer (CM) designation signifies that recipients are highly qualified and up to date with best practices, as reflected in the CMAs Canadian Marketing Code of Ethics and Standards. We represent virtually all of Canada's major business sectors, and all marketing disciplines, channels and technologies. Our Consumer Centre helps Canadians better understand their rights and obligations. For more information, visit thecma.ca. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231110631186/en/ Nathaniel Glassman Kaiser & Partners Inc. [email protected] 416-998-2258 Source: Canadian Marketing Association TORONTO, Nov. 12, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Over 50 towns and cities across Canada and Quebec will hold Ceasefire NOW! protests on Sunday, November 12, part of a pan-Canadian day of action that is making these demands of the federal government: Call for an immediate ceasefire in Israel-Palestine Call for an end to the blockade of Gaza and for the restoration of humanitarian aid and access to the basic necessities of life The day of action is called by the Ceasefire NOW campaign, an ad-hoc coalition of almost 300 humanitarian, faith, labour, and civil society organizations from across the country. See the full list of actions here. Date: Sunday, November 12, 2023Time: All dayLocation: In these 50+ locations For more information, please contact:Ceasefire now coalition[email protected] Source: Coalition 4 Ceasefire Now OTTAWA, Nov. 11, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tens of thousands of participants gathered at the National Remembrance Day Ceremony this year. The Royal Canadian Legion hosted the solemn yet striking event at the National War Memorial in Ottawa; in honour of all those who have given their lives in service to Canada. The arrival of the Veterans Parade captured everyones attention, along with the marching contingents, and 21-gun salute. An expected fly-past of four CF-18 Hornet aircraft could not take place due to weather conditions. The ceremony also paid respects to the 130 Canadian Armed Forces members who have died in the line of peacekeeping duty. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the first United Nations peacekeeping mission. The Act of Remembrance was read in English, French and the Indigenous language of Ojibwe this year. We will never forget the members of our armed forces from all backgrounds who have given their lives to protect our freedoms, said Dominion President Bruce Julian. Remembrance Day is when we share our collective gratitude, but in reality, we feel it every day of the year. Mrs. Gloria Hooper, this years National Silver Cross Mother laid a wreath on behalf of all military mothers who have lost children in service to their country. Her son, Sapper Chris Holopina died in 1996 when the armoured vehicle he was in, rolled over trying to avoid an accident while on the way to rescue allied soldiers. He was performing peacekeeping duties in Bosnia at the time of his passing. Other special guests who laid wreaths at the base of the National War Memorial, included Canadas Governor-General Her Excellency the Right Honourable Mary May Simon; Canadas Prime Minister the Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, the Minister of Veterans Affairs the Honourable Ginette Petitpas Taylor, the Speaker of the Senate the Honourable Raymonde Gagne, and the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Wayne Eyre. Legion Dominion President Mr. Bruce Julian laid a wreath along with representatives of the youth of Canada - winners of the Legion National Foundations senior poster and literary contest. Representatives of many Veteran groups, additional organizations and individuals paid tribute in this same way. Many people took a moment to place their Poppies on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier after the official ceremony, in what has become a memorable act and sight. This year, Canadians also saw thousands of digital signs go black at 11:00 am, followed by a message of Lest We Forget. It was part of a two-minute tribute to fallen veterans by supportive advertisers across Canada, and an effort to show that you can take two minutes to remember, wherever you may be. This was the first year for the Legion-led initiative. On Remembrance Day evening, many thousands of animated Poppies each representing one of Canadas Fallen will once again cascade down the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill and on the Senate building at the National Arts Centre for a final time, until midnight. About The Royal Canadian Legion Founded in 1925, the Legion is Canadas largest Veteran support and community service organization. We are a non-profit organization with a national reach across Canada as well as branches in the U.S., and Europe. With close to 250,000 members, many of whom volunteer an extraordinary amount of time to their branches, our strength is in our numbers. Public Relations / Media Inquiries: [email protected]/ 343-540-7604 Legion.caFacebook.com/CanadianLegionTwitter.com/RoyalCdnLegionInstagram.com/royalcanadianlegionyoutube.com/user/RCLDominionCommandLinkedin.com/company/royalcanadianlegion Photos accompanying this announcement are available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/7a9b0c78-53ae-44ab-a1e1-a4cd74c4def1 https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/7e88f0e1-8380-4ebe-9c71-f507c235c4de https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f4202d4d-8e52-4290-94c1-7d8f4fa0d66b https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/a51b6cf1-bf55-41eb-98d3-70ee145c3543 https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/edc3c5ac-d74c-4e59-a054-4875633fc333 National Remembrance Day Ceremony National Silver Cross Mother lays a wreath National Remembrance Day Ceremony 2023 Tomb of the Unknown Soldier National Remembrance Day Ceremony 2023 Canadas National War Memorial Advertising Blackout Thousands of digital advertisers went black across Canada at 11:00 am on November 11 Advertising Blackout Thousands of digital advertisers went black across Canada at 11:00 am on November 11 Source: The Royal Canadian Legion Mexico City, Mexico--(Newsfile Corp. - November 12, 2023) - A leading law firm in Latin America has unveiled its 2024 Legal Services Trends Report, highlighting the evolving dynamics in the legal sector. The study emphasizes the significance of expertise, specialization, and reputation when businesses select external legal counsel. The report also points out the increasing role of technology, digitization, and artificial intelligence in transforming the legal industry. Chief Legal Officers: 2024 Legal Services Trends Report by Santamarina + Steta To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8814/187132_cf186661e406e999_001full.jpg In the constantly changing landscape of the 21st century, every industry is transforming, and the legal field is no different. Recently published by Santamarina + Steta, a prominent law firm in Latin America, the 2024 Legal Services Trends Report provides an extensive exploration of the shifting dynamics within the legal sector. This study primarily focuses on understanding the requirements and preferences of businesses and their legal departments when seeking external legal advice. The importance of expertise, specialization, and reputation in selecting an external law firm is emphasized in the report. It highlights how businesses prioritize these qualities and cost efficiency when their corporate legal departments search for advisors. Key factors such as recommendations, references, practice areas, and effective communication are pivotal in this selection process. Jorge Len Orantes, Chairman of Santamarina + Steta, shared his insights on the firm's approach, stating, "At Santamarina + Steta, we focus on actively monitoring legal developments in Mexico and internationally. This is combined with a strong emphasis on the ongoing training of our lawyers, which enables us to stay up to date with the latest trends and changes. We leverage our international network to exchange ideas and maintain a global perspective while implementing technology to enhance efficiency in our work. Above all, we maintain a proactive approach, anticipating changes rather than simply reacting to them. This composite approach will allow us to adapt to future regulatory and legal changes." The legal sector, much like other professional services, is experiencing a significant transformation. Technological advancements, digitization efforts, and the growing reliance on artificial intelligence tools drive this change. Juan Carlos Machorro, a Partner at Santamarina + Steta, has provided insights into this evolving landscape. He affirms that the future of all professional services, including legal services, is undergoing a profound transformation by adopting new techniques, digitization processes, and undoubtedly through artificial intelligence tools. Roberto Fernandez del Valle, a partner at Santamarina + Steta, emphasized the need for strengthening these connections, stating, "There will be more and better technological tools that will make the provision of legal services more efficient. Just consider the possibilities of Artificial Intelligence. Therefore, the human connections of legal service providers with clients, from business leaders to members of organizations such as CEOs, Managing Directors, and legal teams, need to be strengthened. Lawyers will require more sensitivity than ever and be truly connected with our clients, their needs, and their ways of working." The 2024 Legal Services Trends Report by Santamarina + Steta is a comprehensive guide for law firms in Mexico and Latin America. It aids them in understanding the evolving needs of their corporate clients. By focusing on these highlighted aspects, law firms can position themselves more effectively within a fiercely competitive market. It ensures they stay ahead of legal trends and deliver exceptional client services In conclusion, the evolution of the legal landscape demands that law firms prioritize understanding their client's needs, embrace technological advancements, and foster genuine human connections. Among them, Santamarina + Steta is a benchmark for excellence in Latin American law firms. Their proactive approach and emphasis on technological innovation and personal relationships undoubtedly position them as leaders in the industry. Individuals can access their official website for more information about Santamarina + Steta and their services. About Santamarina + Steta: Santamarina + Steta is a renowned law firm in Latin America, distinguished by its extensive experience and unwavering commitment to excellence within the legal sector. With a rich history and a forward-thinking approach, this premier firm consistently spearheads legal advancements while providing comprehensive solutions tailored to the unique needs of businesses and individuals. By blending tradition with innovation, Santamarina + Steta proudly adopts a proactive stance, offers a global perspective, and wholeheartedly dedicates itself to ensuring client success. Contact Info: Name: Rhiannon Hammond Email: [email protected] Organization: Santamarina + Steta Website: https://www.santamarinasteta.mx/en/ To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/187132 The company unveils its comprehensive educational resources, in addition to its impeccable client support. Atlanta, Georgia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 12, 2023) - Fairfield Funding, a trusted structured settlement company, has unveiled comprehensive educational resources, in addition to its strong client support, to empower its clients to make the right decisions and unlock their financial freedom. With more than 15 years of experience and a consistent A+ rating with Better Business Bureau, the company, based in the financial district of Atlanta, GA, has become a trusted name for structured settlements and annuities solutions that help clients unlock their financial freedom. Fairfield Funding Based in the financial district of Atlanta, GA, the company has more than 15 years of experience in the field, which it leverages to help clients get only the best results after the settlement. It has a consistent A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau. Backed by a team of experienced finance professionals, which the company also trains, it guarantees that clients are in safe and capable hands. "Our highly trained structured settlement specialists walk you through the process regarding selling your payments at a time and place most convenient for you," said a representative for the company. To access this critical information or reach out to the company's client support team, one can visit https://www.fairfieldfunding.com/about-us/. About Fairfield Funding With more than 15 years of experience and a consistent A+ rating with Better Business Bureau, the company, based in the financial district of Atlanta, GA, has become the trusted name for structured settlements and annuities solutions that help clients unlock their financial freedom. ### Media Contact Fairfield Funding Address: 1441 Dresden Dr NE Suite 290, Atlanta, GA 30319 Phone: 855-815-1711 URL: www.fairfieldfunding.com Email: [email protected] Source: 38 Digital Market News To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/187136 Gyrowin Launches its Cross-Chain Gaming and DeFi Platform on Binance Smart Chain Sydney, Australia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 12, 2023) - Gyrowin is the decentralized cross-chain gaming and DeFi platform. In the latest progress the company is excited to share its upcoming launch on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC), scheduled for the end of November. This pivotal move ushers in a new era of opportunities for the community. Gyrowin Gyrowin's integration with the Binance Smart Chain is a pivotal step forward. The platform is supported by a distinguished web3 incubator and accelerator with a portfolio of over 200 successful projects. Gyrowin's dedication positions it as a notable player in the DeFi and gaming landscape. The main features of Gyrowin's BSC Launch: Omni Chain Compatibility: Gyrowin's innovative Omni chain compatibility ensures that users can seamlessly interact with the platform across different blockchain networks, enhancing accessibility and usability. Zero-Liquidation Lending Platform: The platform empowers users to borrow tokens for active participation with collateral liquidation, ensuring a secure and worry-free experience. Governance Features: The Gyrowin ecosystem now incorporates a governance feature, enabling community members to actively participate in shaping the platform's future. Holding Gyrowin tokens provides the power to delegate votes for weekly game categories and propose governance enhancements. Sustainable Protocol Ecosystem: To establish a sustainable protocol ecosystem, Gyrowin has implemented a buyback and burn mechanism for the token model, placing the power of decentralized decision-making in the hands of the community. The platform prioritizes security through partnerships with renowned auditing firms, ensuring robust tokenomics and contract verification. As part of the commitment to growth and innovation, Gyrowin has raised over $1 million during its Money Plant Sale. This substantial support propels the mission to transform cross-chain gaming and DeFi trading. About the Company - Gyrowin: Gyrowin is a decentralized cross-chain gaming and DeFi platform that offers users a unique blend of gaming excitement and financial empowerment. With innovative features such as the Money Plant staking system, Omni chain compatibility, and zero-liquidation lending, Gyrowin sets new standards in the DeFi and gaming landscape. For further details about Gyrowin and its upcoming launch, potential users can visit the following link: https://www.gyro.win/ Media Contact: Company Name: Gyrowin Contact: Danny Gyrowin Company's Website: https://www.gyro.win/ Contact Email Address: [email protected] Location: Sydney, Australia To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/185562 A student from Beijing teaches a student from Medgar Evers College Preparatory School of New York to practice Chinese calligraphy during a culture exchange event in New York, the United States, Feb. 2, 2018. (Xinhua/Wang Ying) The upcoming meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden here must strive to "stabilize the relationship" between the world's two largest economies, a U.S. expert has said. by Xinhua writers Yang Shilong, Shi Chun SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The upcoming meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden here must strive to "stabilize the relationship" between the world's two largest economies, a U.S. expert has said. "They definitely have a very complex agenda that the two men are going to have to address. But first and foremost, they're going to have to figure out a way how to stabilize the relationship," said Denis Simon, a distinguished fellow of the Institute for China-America Studies, in a recent interview with Xinhua. Simon also served as a professor of Global Business and Technology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the executive director of the Center for Innovation Policy at the Law School at Duke University. "There must be greater clarity about which road we're on, where we're headed, and how we're going to get to some kind of long-term workable relationship between the two countries," said Simon, voicing hope that the wisdom and the leadership of the two leaders can bring "a better tomorrow." "It is incumbent upon both countries and the leaders to find a pathway forward to reduce tensions and to make it worthwhile for the citizenry in both countries to benefit from the engagement between the two governments," he said. Simon voiced hope that the recent positive signs the U.S.-China ties have witnessed can "lead to a better relationship." "The fact that the exchange of senior leaders is occurring is a good thing," said Simon, noting that the trips made by various senior officials from the two countries are indications that "something positive is happening." "And those signals, they filter down into the general population," said Simon. Simon said that people-to-people exchanges between the two countries have shown strong momentum, citing the Philadelphia Orchestra's ongoing visit to China as a "very good omen." The Philadelphia Orchestra first visited China in the early 1970s. "It had such a positive experience way back in the 1970s, I think it is going to have a very good experience again this time." File photo provided by the Philadelphia Orchestra shows musicians with the orchestra performing a concert in Beijing during their first journey to China in 1973. (Xinhua) Simon has over 40 years of experience studying and working in China. From 2015-2020, he held the post of Executive Vice Chancellor of Duke Kunshan University, in Jiangsu Province. "I'm a big believer in people-to-people diplomacy. I think if we look at the last 40-plus years of U.S.-China relations, the people-to-people dimension has grown far beyond what anyone would have imagined," said Simon. The connections among universities, think tanks, research institutes, corporations, as well as cultural organizations, art, literature and music have all become "an integral part of the relationship," Simon said. "They've all become part of the glue, in fact, that has held the two countries together, even in times of difficult political situations," he said. He also called for a renewal of the Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement, initially signed in 1979 and extended recently. "I'm hoping that it can be renewed," he said, noting that adding new points to the documents will give greater comfort to both sides. Upholding a cautiously optimistic attitude towards current relations, he said, "The best of the future is yet to come." "It's been a big boulder sometimes in the way. But I'm hopeful ... that there is a brighter future, working together than remaining estranged from one another," Simon said. BEIJING , Nov. 12, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The 7th Lotus Economic, Trade and Cultural Festival has recently concluded in Nanchang County ( Xiaolan Economic and Technological Development Zone ), east China's Jiangxi Province . Spanning three months, the comprehensive event included over 40 activities, ranging from cultural activities, tourism experiences to business events, such as signing ceremonies, business matchmaking and investment symposiums. This edition of the once-a-year feast has witnessed fruitful results. A total of 24 projects were signed at the closing ceremony, including 17 projects in the secondary industry and seven in the service sector, with total contract value of 13.35 billion yuan (about 1.83 billion U.S. dollars ) and 3.45 billion yuan , respectively. The projects, which fall in various industries, such as automobiles and parts, green food, biomedicine, intelligent equipment manufacturing, semiconductors and integrated circuits and smart logistics, are expected to fuel the establishment of a modern industrial system in the county. Tourism of the county also gained momentum thanks to the festival. It is learned that the county attracted a total of 10.718 million tourists during the festival, achieving a comprehensive tourism revenue of 7.749 billion yuan and cashing in 32.7371 million yuan of supporting funds for characteristic cultural tourism sites. Taking this opportunity, the county, whose gross domestic product (GDP) and fiscal revenue topped Jiangxi counties for a consecutive 13 years, also further promoted itself through six large-scale investment promotion activities. The Xiaolan Economic and Technological Development Zone in Nanchang County, one of the three national-level development zones of Nanchang City, is located at the center of Nanchang's core urban area and is connected with both China's vertical artery of the Beijing-Kowloon Railway and the horizontal artery of the Shanghai-Kunming High-Speed Railway. Original link: https://en.imsilkroad.com/p/337094.html View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/xinhua-silk-road-lotus-festival-in-e-chinas-nanchang-county-yields-fruitful-economic-and-trade-results-301985351.html FILE PHOTO: The corporate logo of communications company Vocus is photographed at their Sydney headquarters, Australia, August 22, 2017. REUTERS/Jason Reed/File Photo (Reuters) -Australia's TPG Telecom ended talks with Macquarie-backed Vocus Group for the sale of some of its non-mobile fibre assets for about A$6.3 billion ($4 billion) as the parties failed to agree commercial terms, sending its shares lower. "The proposed transaction involved considerable complexity and, ultimately, the parties have been unable to reach alignment on the operating model and commercial terms," TPG said in a statement on Monday. Shares of TPG fell as much as 10.5% by 0032 GMT, hitting their lowest level since late July, while the broader market was down 0.1%. In August, Vocus made a non-binding offer to TPG to acquire certain enterprise, government and wholesale (EGW) assets and associated fixed infrastructure assets, including wholesale broadband business Vision Network. TPG extended the due diligence period in September, before it expired in October. On Friday, TPG said it would continue to work on its strategic review, noting "ongoing strong interest" from potential investors in the company's fixed infrastructure assets. Vocus did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The collapse of the fibre sale deal talks with Vocus is a second such setback for TPG, whose asset swap deal with bigger rival Telstra Group was blocked by the country's antitrust regulator and the Australian Competition Tribunal. Under the asset swap deal, Telstra would have bought spectrum and transmission towers from TPG, while TPG would have kept selling 4G and 5G coverage using Telstra infrastructure. ($1 = 1.5743 Australian dollars) (Reporting by Himanshi Akhand in Bengaluru; Editing by Sandra Maler, Grant McCool and Subhranshu Sahu) FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Joe Biden holds a bilateral meeting with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., January 31, 2022. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo By Andrea Shalal and Ahmed Tolba WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden spoke on Sunday with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani about developments in Gaza and "urgent ongoing efforts" to secure the release of hostages being held by the Hamas militant group, the White House said. Biden "unequivocally" condemned the holding of hostages by Hamas, including many young children, one of whom is a 3-year old American citizen whose parents were killed by the group on October 7th, the White House said in a statement. "The two leaders agreed that all hostages must be released without further delay," the statement said. Hamas fighters surged across the border from Gaza into Israel on Oct.7, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostages, according to Israeli officials. Only four hostages have been released to date. The Israeli bombardment of Gaza has since killed more than 11,000 Palestinians, around 40% of them children, according to counts by health officials in the Hamas-ruled territory. Reuters last week reported that Qatar, where several political leaders of Hamas are based, has been leading mediation efforts between Hamas and Israeli officials over the hostages. Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told CNN's "State of the Union" earlier on Sunday that "active, intensive negotiations" were underway involving Israel, Qatar, Egypt and the United States on securing the release of more hostages, but it was not clear if all were alive. "The goal here is to do what is necessary at the negotiating table to ensure that we get the safe return of all of the hostages, including the Americans," Sullivan told CNN, noting that nine Americans were missing, along with one person with permanent resident status in the United States. "We don't know the status, whether they are alive or whether they have passed away, but we are looking to get the safe recovery of all of those individuals," he said. Sullivan said he would meet with the families of the American hostages this week. A U.S. official said Brett McGurk, Biden's senior Middle East adviser, will visit Israel on Tuesday and meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with further visits planned in Brussels, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Qatar. Qatar's government earlier said Al Thani had stressed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the permanent opening of the Rafah crossing into Egypt in the call with Biden. Washington has rejected calls from Arab leaders and others for it to insist that Israel halt its assault on the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip. The White House statement made no mention of any discussion of a ceasefire, saying only that the leaders talked about the need "to protect innocent civilians and ongoing efforts to increase the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza." Biden also affirmed his vision for a future Palestinian state "where Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side with equal measures of stability and dignity," the White House said, adding that Hamas had long been an impediment to that. It said the two leaders agreed to continue their efforts to advance a shared vision for a more peaceful, secure, prosperous, and stable Middle East region. (Reporting By Andrea Shalal and Ahmed Tolba; additional reporting by Steve Holland; editing by Hugh Lawson, Noeleen Walder and Diane Craft) FILE PHOTO: The name of fashion executive and designer Peter Nygard is illuminated on a flagship store he once owned in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada December 15, 2020. REUTERS/Shannon VanRaes (Reuters) -Former Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygard was found guilty of four counts of sexual assault by a Toronto jury on Sunday, according to CBC News. Nygard, 82, was on trial in the Ontario Superior Court for five counts of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement charges linked to incidents between the 1980s and mid-2000s. He was acquitted of a fifth count of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement. Nygard's lawyer did not immediately respond to requests for comment. During the six-week trial, the court heard testimony from five complainants who said during a period between the late 1980s to around 2005 Nygard had attacked them in the private bedroom suite of his Toronto downtown office building, CBC News reported. Canadian police arrested Nygard in late 2020 at the request of the United States, where he was accused of using his businesses to lure women and girls to sexually gratify himself and his associates. Toronto police laid their own charges against him about a year later. Nygard also faces charges of sexual assault and forcible confinement in Manitoba and Quebec. He is fighting extradition to the U.S. where he faces charges in New York for nine offences including conspiracy to commit racketeering, transportation of a minor for purpose of prostitution, and sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, CBC News said. Born in Finland, Nygard grew up in Manitoba, eventually running his namesake clothing companies and becoming one of Canada's wealthiest people. (Reporting by Nia Williams and Ismail Shakil; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Lisa Shumaker) PRAGUE (Reuters) - Former Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, one of the leading figures in the country's post-Communist era, has died, officials said on Sunday. He was 85. Schwarzenberg was born into a prestigious Czech family and became a senior aide to his friend Vaclav Havel after the former dissident won the country's first free election in 1990. He later served twice as foreign minister between 2007 and 2013. He was a strong backer of closer integration in Europe, and while he was a declared conservative, his appeal stretched to urban liberal groups and younger people in politics. The Vaclav Havel Library, which Schwarzenberg co-founded, said he died on Saturday, calling him a "patriot and true European". Czech media had said he had been transported to hospital in Vienna last week. "He was one of the most important and kindest people in my life," Miroslav Kalousek, founder of the TOP09 party that Schwarzenberg led from its start, said in a social media post. "May he rest in peace, the Czech Republic should be forever grateful to him for everything he selflessly did for it." Schwarzenberg had spent a large part of his life in exile as his family was among major targets of the Communists who took power in a 1948 coup, confiscating the vast Schwarzenberg property which included chateaux, forests and land mainly in the south of the country near Austria, where they also had land. While in exile in Austria, he took over the family's estate and also supported the anti-communist human rights movement and sponsored a library of banned Czech literature. RETURN HOME After the Velvet Revolution of 1989, which peacefully toppled Communist rule in then Czechoslovakia, Schwarzenberg became Havel's chief of staff. Czech Television cited him as saying after his return: "You don't know the happiness a person has when he can be home again." The Foreign Ministry called him an inspiration to two generations of diplomats. Like Havel, he hated idle chatter and would reply to discussions on the wrongs of the world with, "Well, what are we going to do about it?" "He knew how uncertain and fragile our freedom and democracy and the position of the Czech Republic in Europe and the world were," the ministry said. Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said on X that Schwarzenberg was an "unwavering advocate" of democracy and the European idea. "He was a Central European in the best sense of the word." Schwarzenberg became a senator in 2004 and then helped start the TOP09 party, which is a junior member in the centre-right government coalition now in power. In 2013, he ran for president, but lost to Milos Zeman, another towering figure of post-1989 Czech politics who finished his second presidential term earlier this year. (Reporting by Jason Hovet and Jan Lopatka; editing by Philippa Fletcher) CHISINAU (Reuters) - Fugitive pro-Russian Moldovan businessman Ilan Shor, accused of "buying" voters to sway an election in the ex-Soviet state, has returned to his exile base in Israel, an Interpol official said on Sunday. Viorel Tentiu, head of Interpol's office in Moldova, said Shor had returned to Israel by air last Wednesday, but Israeli officials were unable to say where he had been or where his flight had originated. "All we have is confirmation that he landed at Ben Gurion airport, but it is unknown where he went or where he returned from," Tentiu told state Moldova-1 television. Tentiu had earlier said that Shor left Israel on Nov. 6. Shor could not be reached for comment. He was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison by a Moldovan court in April over a $1 billion bank fraud and has for months organised street protests from Israel to demand the resignation of pro-European President Maia Sandu's government. The Constitutional Court outlawed his party and authorities barred his allies from running in last week's local elections for a different party. Moldovan officials accused Shor of channelling the equivalent of 50 million euros ($53.5 million) into Moldova for "buying" voters. Tentiu said all Interpol member-states had been asked to report if he was on their territory. Sandu has denounced Russia's invasion of Ukraine and accused Moscow of plotting to remove her as she campaigns to secure European Union membership for Moldova, one of Europe's poorest countries lying between Ukraine and Romania. Russia dismisses Sandu's allegations and accuses her of waging an anti-Russian campaign and infusing an anti-Russian atmosphere in Moldova. (Reporting by Alexander Tanas, Editing by Ron Popeski and Grant McCool) FILE PHOTO: Visitors stand in front of the plane Boeing 777X during the Dubai Airshow, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, November 14, 2021. REUTERS/Rula Rouhana/File Photo By Tim Hepher, Alexander Cornwell and Pesha Magid DUBAI (Reuters) -Dubai carriers threw down the gauntlet to emerging regional rivals with more than $50 billion of Boeing jet orders on Monday, as competition intensifies to secure dwindling supplies of long-haul jets and anticipate growth in international travel. Government-owned Emirates and sister airline flyDubai secured 125 Boeing wide-body jets at the opening of the Dubai Airshow, but left Europe's Airbus waiting for an order for broadly similar A350 jets. Orders included 55 of the 400-seat Boeing 777-9 and 35 of the smaller 777-8 in a boost for the over-arching programme known as 777X, which has been plagued by five years of delays. Emirates also took five extra 787 Dreamliners while flyDubai ordered 30 of the same type in its first ever long-haul order. "Together these orders represent significant investments that reflect Dubai's commitment to the future of aviation," said Emirates and flyDubai Chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum. He said Emirates expected to receive the 777X in 2025, which is in line with Boeing's latest target. Aviation and tourism industries are crucial to Dubai's economy, which lacks the oil wealth of many neighbouring states. In New York, Boeing shares rose 4.4% after the orders, which also included 45 narrow-body 737 MAX for German-Turkish airline SunExpress. Shares were also lifted by a Bloomberg report that talk this week between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping could end a prolonged freeze on Chinese 737 purchases. Medium-haul planes like the 737 MAX and competing Airbus A32neo drive planemaker and supplier profits globally. But the Gulf is the biggest customer for larger wide-body jets given the favourable geography of its UAE and Qatar hubs. Industry officials said latest orders raised the stakes as Saudi Arabia looks to establish its own footprint and Turkey and India forge plans to draw connecting traffic away from the Gulf. "They (Dubai) are saying we are the big elephant in the room (and) demonstrating that they are a big player," Air Lease Corp Executive Chairman Steven F. Udvar-Hazy said. Industry officials estimate airlines worldwide are in talks to buy 700-800 new jets, including 200-300 wide-bodies, as they catch up on replacement plans set aside during the pandemic. But Udvar-Hazy questioned whether there was room for all the capacity being explored simultaneously by the region's carriers. "They are fighting for the same passengers," he told Reuters. Analysts said tight supply chains also remained a concern. "This is a multiple order and a lot of airplanes. The problem is that manufacturers can't make enough of them," said Bernstein analyst Douglas Harned. "Not only are they oversold, but they cant make what they have already sold." Expectations of a 777X deal first surfaced ahead of the show and Bloomberg reported a major order was in the works on Sunday. Turkish Airlines (THY) burst onto the show's agenda on Saturday with word from state-run Anadolu news agency that it was in talks to buy up to 355 Airbus jets. That triggered preparations for a high-profile announcement at the air show on Monday, and then Tuesday, as a Mideast source predicted a "bold move" in the backyard of Gulf rivals. In an unusual holding statement, Airbus said it had reached agreement "in principle" on a significant THY order. But it added the deal needed to be ratified in the coming days, in what sources saw as a sign it may no longer be announced at the show. LOWER BOOKINGS Other significant orders appeared to be in the works without being played out in public in Dubai. Saudi Arabia's newest airline Riyadh Air said it is still in talks with planemakers to place an order for narrow-body jets. Saudia Airlines Group is planning to order about 150 narrow-bodied aircraft for Saudia Airline and low-cost Flyadeal, the group's vice president for fleet management told Asharq TV. Saudi Arabia has established Riyadh Air as part of plans to transform the kingdom into a major aviation hub. With many jets not due to be delivered until 2030 and remain in the skies for two decades, airlines are gambling on long-term demand from future travelers, many of whom have yet to be born. But the show was overshadowed by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza that is pushing up demand for weapons and closing airspace. Ordering six Boeing 787s, Royal Jordanian's chief executive said the airline was seeing a reduction in traffic and having to operate longer routes as a result of the neighbouring war. "There's enough statistical evidence, at least in the short term, to show that there's been a substantial drop in tickets sales into the region," said Daniel Silke, director of Cape Town-based Political Futures Consultancy. Analysts have said the war in Gaza is likely to reinforce demand for weapons on top of a surge in the past 18 months as the United States and its allies rearm Ukraine against Russia. However, few major arms deals were expected at the show where stands of Israeli arms firms Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems remained empty. (Reporting by Tim Hepher, Alexander Cornwell, Pesha Magid, Valerie Insinna; editing by Hugh Lawson, Lisa Shumaker, Shri Navaratnam and Sharon Singleton) People hold flags as they take part in a protest called for by the Popular Party against a deal reached by Spain's socialists with the Catalan separatist Junts party for government support, which involves amnesties for people involved with Catalonia's fai MADRID (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people protested across Spain on Sunday against acting prime minister Pedro Sanchez's plans to grant amnesty to Catalan separatists in exchange for support for another term in office. The government secured a deal with Catalan separatist party Junts on Thursday which includes passing a contentious law granting amnesty to those convicted over Catalonia's attempt to secede from Spain in 2017. The deal sent shockwaves around the country, with Sanchez's conservative opponents accusing him of putting the rule of law on the line for his own political gain. "We will not shut up until there are new elections," People's Party (PP) leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo told a cheering crowd packed into Madrid's Puerta del Sol square. Authorities said 80,000 people turned out in Madrid while the PP, which had called for protests in cities across Spain, put the total closer to one million. Many held Spanish and EU flags, as well as banners with slogans including "respect the Constitution". "He (Sanchez) has betrayed coexistence, democracy...he can't keep governing," said banker Tomas Perez, 38, holding a sign reading "Sanchez traitor". "Many people that I know who vote for the Socialists feel absolutely disappointed because... Sanchez never said the amnesty would be part of his programme," said Inmaculada Herranz Castro, 64. In Barcelona, local police said 6,000 people demonstrated, while numbers reached 30,000 in Granada and 50,000 in Seville according to authorities. Other protests took place in cities including Malaga, Palma and Valencia. After an inconclusive July 23 election, the Socialists spent weeks negotiating with smaller parties including far-left platform Sumar and Catalan, Galician and Basque nationalist parties. The confirmed support of Junts, as well as the Basque Nationalist Party, last week, would give Sanchez an absolute majority in the 350-member lower house in a vote due to take place in the coming days. (Reporting by Miguel Gutierrez and Guillermo Martinez; Writing by Jessica Jones; Editing by Kirsten Donovan) Columns commemorating some of the 22,442 who died under British command between D-Day and the end of the Battle of Normandy are displayed at the British Normandy Memorial, in Ver-sur-Mer, France, July 30, 2023. REUTERS/Tim Hepher/File Photo By Tim Hepher (Reuters) - English soldier Ken Hay was trapped behind German lines and captured while on night patrol in 1944, days after joining the Allied invasion of Normandy, a turning point in World War Two. The ambush near the bitterly contested "Hill 112" came during weeks of fighting after the largest seaborne assault in history, which began the liberation of France from Nazi German occupation. "Thirty of us went out, 16 including my brother got back, five of us got captured and nine got killed," Hay said. As many nations around the world commemorate last century's wars and other conflicts during a weekend of remembrance, preparations are already under way to mark next year's 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings and the Battle of Normandy. Born in the English county of Essex, Hay took part in the early reinforcements of Juno Beach, which had been stormed under Canadian command on D-Day, June 6. He is now an active ambassador for the nearby British Normandy Memorial, overlooking Gold Beach in the UK sector. Until two years ago, Britain was alone among allies on the Western front in not having a dedicated Normandy memorial. An elegant rectangular colonnade now sits on former farmland chosen by veterans themselves at Ver-sur-Mer. In total, 22,440 servicemen and two servicewomen of more than 30 nationalities who died under British command between June 6 and Aug. 31, 1944, are commemorated on 160 stone columns, as well as a ceremonial wall for those who perished on D-Day itself. The 30-million-pound ($37 million) memorial was financed by fines levied on banks by the British government, as well as private donations. Hay, 98, is helping raise funds for an educational pavilion in time for next year's 80th anniversary, likely to be attended by Britain's King Charles III and French President Emmanuel Macron. With the average age of a dwindling number of veterans also 98, it will be the last major chance to gather some of those who helped their fallen comrades push back the Western front. Unusually, the memorial is laid out by date of death. "The fact that names are presented chronologically means you get an understanding of how the battle unfolded: the days that are particularly fierce," said operations manager Sacha Marsac. "When a whole unit is lost on the same day, their names are all next to each other." 'TOO YOUNG' Neatly carved rows of names, ranks and ages can only hint at the personal stories. Four 16-year-olds presumably exaggerated their age to serve before the age of 18. The majority barely knew their 20s. The oldest: merchant seaman Thomas Hardwyre Milligan, 64. Soldiers promoted unusually young, like a major of only 28, hint at heavy losses as their superiors were killed. One name is honoured with special insignia. Corporal Sidney Bates posthumously received Britain's Victoria Cross for "supreme gallantry" after repeatedly charging a critical German position with a light machine gun before dying of his wounds. He was 23. A separate monument honours French civilians. Veterans like Hay refuse to call themselves heroes, deferring to those who fell in battle. Yet many suffered hardship, injury and separation. "I joined at the age of 17 in 1943, but they wouldn't call me [to serve] until I was 17-and-a-half; they said I was too young to die," Hay said in a recent interview. For six days after capture, he and fellow prisoners were hauled in a cattle wagon to Stalag VIII-D prison camp, now in the Czech Republic. Later he was sent to work in a Polish coal mine. Then, in early 1945, began a three-month march westwards as German captors moved their prisoners ahead of the advancing Soviet army. In a forest near Regensburg, Germany, guns approached from the West and the German commanding officer accepted the war was over. "That was April 20. From Jan. 23, we had done 1,000 miles," Hay said. "I've got a good pair of feet." ($1 = 0.8182 pounds) (Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Kevin Liffey) An MH-60S helicopter conducts flight operations in 2014. (John Philip Wagner Jr./U.S. Navy) STUTTGART, Germany Five U.S. service members were killed when their aircraft went down during a training mission in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, the U.S. military said Sunday. The crash occurred during a routine air refueling operation on Friday evening, U.S. European Command said in a statement. Search and rescue efforts began immediately after the incident and involved U.S. aircraft and ships operating in the area, EUCOM said. The troops were Army Special Operations soldiers flying aboard a MH-60 helicopter when it went down off the coast of Cyprus, the New York Times reported, citing unnamed U.S. officials. In response to Israels war with Hamas, the Pentagon has dispatched teams from the Joint Special Operations Command, including the Armys Delta Force and the Navys SEAL Team 6, to Cyprus, the Times reported. Their role is to be on alert in the event Americans need to be evacuated from the region. The Times said that the helicopter crew members who died were aviators assigned to transport special operators for secret missions. EUCOM said it was withholding the names of the troops until 24 hours after next of kin notifications have been completed. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the fallen, EUCOM said. An investigation into the crash is underway. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin said in a statement Sunday that he and the Pentagon mourn the tragic loss of five U.S. service members. We will remember their service and their sacrifice, he said. In an earlier statement on Saturday, EUCOM emphasized that the mishap happened during training and that there wasnt an indication of hostile activity. The incident comes during a time of high tension in the Eastern Mediterranean, where the Pentagon has moved substantial forces in the aftermath of Israels war with Hamas. Just last week, two Navy aircraft carriers, involving some 11,000 U.S. personnel, launched aircraft and practiced missile defense during a three-day exercise in the area. EUCOM did not identify the type of plane involved in the crash, but the KC-135 Stratotanker is the militarys main air refueling aircraft. It wasnt clear whether the air refueling exercise was related to carrier group activities in the region. In addition to Navy warships, the U.S. has also moved an array of ground defenses into the Middle East in an effort to defend U.S. forces in the region and deter a wider war. The hostilities in Gaza have had indirect repercussions for U.S. forces elsewhere. Since mid-October, militant groups aligned with Iran have repeatedly targeted U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria, resulting in more than 50 American troops being injured, according to the Pentagon. MADRID, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of supporters of the right-wing People's Party (PP) on Sunday protested against a possible amnesty for Catalan politicians involved in an independence referendum, days before an investiture vote to decide the country's new prime minister. According to the government delegate in Madrid, 80,000 people were protesting in the capital's Plaza Mayor, while the PP said some 500,000 were there. The protest was called by PP leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo in Madrid and all 52 provincial capitals of Spain against the amnesty for those involved in the Catalan region's October 2017 referendum, which was ruled illegal by Spain's Constitutional Court. The amnesty is part of an agreement signed in the past few days between the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) and the Catalan nationalist parties, Junts Per Catalunya and Ezquerra Republicana. It was supposed to give PSOE leader Pedro Sanchez enough support to secure 179 votes, a slim majority in the investiture vote due next week in the Spanish Congress. In that case, acting Prime Minister Sanchez will win another four-year mandate. Sanchez previously said that the agreement would help assure four more years of "progressive government" in Spain. On Sunday, PSOE Secretary General Juan Espadas asked the PP to respect the result of the general election. "We have been able to build a majority that supports the PSOE candidate Pedro Sanchez to become Spain's prime minister," he said. During the past week, up to 7,000 people -- mainly members and supporters of extreme right-wing group Vox, protested outside the PSOE headquarters in Madrid. These demonstrations were marked by outbreaks of violence, with stones, bottles and fireworks being thrown at police, damages to public facilities and dozens of arrests. The PSOE won 121 seats in the general elections on July 23, while the PP won 137. However, during an investiture vote in September, Feijoo only won the support of the extreme right-wing Vox party and the regional Coalicion Canaria and UPN, four votes short of the majority of 176 needed to form a government. A crew of Hawaiians joins hands in prayer after delivering a boatload of supplies for Lahaina fire victims at Maalaea Harbor, Aug. 14, 2023, Maui, Hawaii. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times/TNS) (Tribune News Service) The state of Hawaii has announced a $150 million recovery fund for the victims and survivors of the states devastating wildfires from the summer. The inferno, which began Aug. 8, killed more than 100 people. Gov. Josh Green said the money would go to families of those who were killed by the blazes, as well as those who suffered severe personal injuries. Recipients could receive more than $1 million each. Our message is clear in Hawaii, during difficult times, we come together to help one another, and right now we are coming together to help those who have suffered the most, the governor said. This fund is made possible by the state and multiple partners who are committed to seeing our Maui community and our whole state heal from the most devastating disaster most of us will ever see. When we all join as one, we can diminish suffering, he added. People receiving money from the fund will have to waive their right to file a lawsuit against any party involved in the fire for wrongful death and severe personal injury, according to ABC News. The cash is the latest part of the One Ohana Initiative, a collection of programs and policy changes to help the state recover from the wildfires. A phase that hasnt been announced includes financial compensation for home and business owners who lost properties. Our hope is that those families who choose to engage in this process can find a healing path to closure, Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen said. 2023 New York Daily News. Visit at nydailynews.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Police in Nazareth, Israel, where they were deployed Nov. 9, 2023, in attempts to prevent protests against Israels war with Hamas in Gaza. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post) NAZARETH, Israel The 21-year-old computer science student was beamed into the small wood-paneled courtroom from jail via video link. She had dark circles under her eyes after 11 nights in detention. To save on personnel during Israels war against Hamas, defendants are no longer transported from their cells. Only urgent court cases are being heard. The prosecution of Rita Murad, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, is deemed to be one of them. Her alleged crimes of identifying with a terrorist organization and incitement to terrorism center on three Instagram posts that she shared on Oct. 7 when Hamas militants rampaged through communities in southern Israel. One of the images used in the prosecution of Murad showed Palestinians using an earthmover to pull down parts of the barbed wire-topped barrier between Israel and the Gaza Strip. While the invincible army was sleeping, read the message in Arabic across the image. A second showed a montage of Palestinian children: Where were the people calling for humanity when we were killed? it read. A third post to her 1,100 Instagram followers showed a group of jubilant Palestinians on a captured Israeli military vehicle. Gaza today, read the caption with an emoji of the Palestinian flag. In normal times such posts wouldnt even warrant a trip to the police station, said Murads defense lawyer, Ahmad Massalha, as he waited for her hearing on Thursday. But these arent normal times. Murad faces up to five years in jail if convicted, while a new draft law seeks to strip citizenship for those convicted in cases like hers. In court in the northern Israeli city of Nazareth, she has made accusations of being beaten in prison. Murad is one of at least 56 people indicted on similar charges. Israeli authorities say they are fighting a second front in the war against Hamas, one set on rooting out anything that could be perceived as sympathy or incitement among the population. Rights groups say as many as 100 others have been arrested or detained in the zero tolerance crackdown, including one of Murads acquaintances who posted an Instagram video about cooking victory shakshuka. According to the Mossawa Center, a rights group in Haifa, Israel, at least 350 Palestinian Israelis have been called to hearings at their workplace and 120 university students are in disciplinary hearings. Meanwhile, ad hoc groups of civilians trawl through social media posts and flag them to the police. Raed Salah, right, speaks with members of the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee at a meeting in Nazareth on Nov. 9, 2023. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post) Defense lawyers and human rights advocates describe the moves as a McCarthy-style clampdown focused on the 20 percent of the Israeli population that has Palestinian heritage. In the current climate, posting anything that does not sit staunchly with the Israeli states framing of the war can lead to arrest. The groups foresee profound implications for freedom of expression, but also for the fabric of Israeli society as even expressing pro-Palestinian sentiment appears enough to be criminalized in some cases. Its McCarthyism on amphetamines, said Ari Remez, a spokesman for Adalah, an Israeli legal rights organization tracking 215 cases of arrests and investigations, drawing a comparison to the Red Scare in the United States in the 1950s when public figures and others were screened for loyalty and sometimes blackballed for any hints of Communist sympathies. The criminalization is on a totally different level, he said. Spearheading the effort is Itamar Ben Gvir, Israels far-right national security minister, who has been convicted himself for inciting racism and supporting a Jewish extremist terrorist organization. Even in the emotionally charged atmosphere post-Oct. 7 that has brought crowds to the streets chanting Death to Arabs! none of the 56 indictments on alleged incitement cover accusations of hate toward Palestinians. Ben Gvirs task force, formed in February to tackle online incitement, has been expanded, said Mirit Ben Mayor, a spokeswoman for Israeli police. Police also are being handed new powers. A law passed by the Israeli parliament last month makes even passively looking at content that praises or calls for terrorist attacks online in a way that indicates identification with the terror group punishable by a year in prison. Its a war inside of a war, said Ben Mayor. We have one war thats going on physically, with our soldiers there. And while that war is going on, theres another war that goes on on the net. But Israeli authorities contend that free speech is being upheld. Freedom of expression and criticism will be preserved even when the guns are roaring, said Shlomi Abramson, head of security at the State Attorneys Office. The investigations are all clear cases of support for horrible and horrific acts of terrorism or identification with a terrorist organization that has committed criminal acts against the citizens of the country, he said. One publication, even a status or a story that is deleted after 24 hours, is enough for us to open an investigation and prosecute in the appropriate cases. Yarmok Zoabi, 57, the owner of a restaurant in Nazareth, on Nov. 9, 2023. Zoabi spent a night in jail late last month over a WhatsApp status picture that showed a fist with a Palestinian flag. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post) Israeli narrative The corridors of the district court in Nazareth, a city largely populated by Palestinian Israelis, are filled with lawyers and family members of those facing the full weight of the Israeli law for their posts. On a bench outside a courtroom on the first floor, Maisa Abd ElHadi, a Palestinian Israeli actress who has been indicted in connection with two Instagram posts, waits nervously. She says she cant speak to journalists. Murads family also declined to comment; too scared in an environment where many fear that a wrong word can lead to jail. Even the owner of a hummus restaurant where some of the defense lawyers regularly grab lunch spent a night in jail late last month over a WhatsApp status picture that showed a fist with a Palestinian flag, and was eventually released without charge. On Thursday, Murad blew kisses to family and friends before an expected hearing on whether shed be released on bail. The proceeding was postponed until Sunday. She is one of three students from Israels prestigious Technion in Haifa the oldest university in Israel to be arrested in connection with their social media posts and appear via video link to the courtroom in Nazareth in recent weeks. The cases are a blatant abuse of the criminal procedure said Nareman Shehadeh, a defense lawyer with Adalah, who said that people can face prosecution merely for not adopting the Israeli narrative on the events that led up to it. She called it part of a campaign aimed at sending a threatening message against these students. Their posts were flagged by other students who compiled a presentation of social media messages and images they found problematic for university and police authorities. Jewish students say they are scared. The Israeli army wont be able to protect us within the campus. They cant put soldiers into the campus, said a 21-year-old physics student who spoke on the condition of anonymity amid fears of reprisals. One Technion student, a 21-year-old woman who studies data science, shared a single Instagram post to 20 friends of a captured Israeli military vehicle. The post added an Arabic turn of phrase used on birthdays and holidays. The student was arrested at her home and was handcuffed and blindfolded, according to family members and her lawyer. Its something youd expect to see for a murderer, not an Instagram post, said a cousin, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his privacy. Police later returned for a night raid on her family home, emptying drawers and cupboards and leaving the contents strewn across the house. Its a witch hunt, said Shehadeh, who is representing the student. She said the image was deleted when the details of the killings emerged. Detaining suspects during the investigation has become the norm rather than the exception, she said. Ben Gvir has publicly berated the judge who released the actress ElHadi to house arrest last month. This is what domestic enemies look like, Ben Gvir tweeted of the judge. Bayan al-Khateeb, 23, outside one of the main entrances to the Technion University in Haifa, Israel, following a six-hour hearing held at the school. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post) The third Technion student, Bayan al-Khateeb, 23, was the one who posted about cooking shakshuka, a popular egg-and-tomato dish. She added it to Instagram Stories with a soundtrack thats been widely used on posts about cooking successes. Today we eat victory shakshuka, she wrote on the clip of a bubbling skillet. Everybody knows Im a bad cook, she explained. And on the 8th of October, I succeeded to make a shakshuka. What I meant was it was a victory in cooking, not a victory happening in the country. Khateeb was suspended from university pending an investigation, and arrested two weeks later. She described being held in a cell that was designed for four people but had nine. All were there for social media cases, she said. She said she was strip-searched three times over the course of her detention, and was awakened every hour to be counted. Investigators asked why shed put a Palestinian flag on her post. She said she opposed violence. It hurts all of us that innocent people were murdered, Khateeb said, adding that some of her closest friends are in the Israeli army. I feel like now Im in a different war. One where I have to defend myself and my identity. Khateeb had hoped to attend Murads hearing on Thursday, but was caught up in her own six-hour hearing at university, where she is fighting to continue her studies. In the immediate aftermath of the deplorable events of October 7th, and facing allegations of social media posts condoning terrorism, Technion officials promptly denounced such expressions in the strongest terms, the university in a statement, saying that three individuals have been suspended pending a conclusive judgement. Khateeb is afraid, though, of returning to campus and of being rearrested. I sleep in my clothes, she said. Im afraid that at any moment they can come and take me away. Not far from the Nazareth courtroom on Thursday were more reminders of the constraints. Mohammad Barakeh, chairman of the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee, which consists of parliamentarians and political representatives, was detained on the way to a downtown demonstration calling for an end to the war. Four other prominent Palestinian political leaders in Israel were arrested. We used to know where the line was, and the line was the law, Mudar Younis, head of the National Council of Arab Mayors in Israel, said at a meeting Thursday. We cant understand whats happening with our students, with our employees, said Younis, fearing far-right groups in Israel seek to stir up communal strife between Jews and Arabs. We are very worried about what is happening but even more about what tomorrow will bring. There is no freedom of speech, he said. Judith Sudilovsky and Sufian Taha contributed to this report. LOS ANGELES, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- The North American Shaolin Kung Fu Games took place Saturday in San Gabriel, a neighboring city of Los Angeles, hosting 1,200 participants, with their teachers and loved ones there to cheer them on. Reconvened after its initial launch in 2013, the event featured performances and competitions for all ages from 4 to 60. The atmosphere buzzed with excitement as Kung Fu lovers from across the United States met to compete for medals. Originating in the Shaolin Temple of China, this ancient martial art has found a new home in the United States, where it continues to impart invaluable lessons to its students. "Shaolin Kung Fu and Tai Chi are something the West can learn from the East," said Grandmaster Sin Kwan The, who is the leader of a number of Shaolin centers across the United States. One of the best effects of Shaolin Kung Fu is physical fitness, he told Xinhua, adding that regular practice can increase cardiovascular fitness, improve muscle tone, enhance flexibility and even better one's posture. Matthew Banks, the owner of a fighting and healing center in the state of Arizona, said that Shaolin Kung Fu is "very good for holistic health." Some participants of the event came for sheer joy though a medal or two are always welcome. "It makes me happy!" said Zoya and Ceadda, both 6 years old from the Shaolin Tai Chi Cultural Heritage Center in Las Vegas. Patrick Clark was there to watch his nieces compete. One of them, Mila Nguyen, 11, pulled in two gold medals and a silver while the other was preparing for her turn in front of the judges. "They're amazing," said the proud uncle. "They've always been interested in martial arts," explained their mother Danvo, who takes them to train at a Shaolin center. Practitioners said the benefits of learning Kung Fu include not only physical fitness, but also reducing stress and anxiety, increasing a sense of calm and mental clarity and getting a better understanding of themselves. "It makes us more calm and collected and more focused during intense moments," said a young competitor. "Our Shifu teaches us about respect, discipline and how to really listen and treat people better," said Allison, a 14-year-old competitor from Las Vegas. Shaolin schools in the United States often infuse cultural elements into their curriculum. Students can learn about Chinese philosophy, history and traditions, gaining a broader perspective on the world. "Chinese Shaolin martial art is a legacy that continues to shape the lives of its practitioners and contributes positively to the world," said Grandmaster Sin Kwang The. CDC Director Mandy Cohen does a television interview while visiting Vida Senior Centers in Washington, D.C., in September 2023. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post) ATLANTA The new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had spent days on television and social media urging Americans to get the updated coronavirus vaccine. The new shot is the most effective protection for the looming virus season, she said. And its free. But by the afternoon of Sept. 21, it was becoming clear to Mandy Cohen that the 9-day-old vaccine rollout was stumbling, with many Americans unable to promptly get shots at pharmacies, insurers making erroneous claims about who would have to pay, and little explanation from the government. Cohen ducked into a small basement conference room at the embattled agencys headquarters for an update. Across the table, Nirav Shah, the CDCs principal deputy director, laid out several insurance and supply chain issues. The federal government was no longer overseeing the manufacturing and distribution of vaccines now that the COVID public health emergency has ended, so the CDC had much less control over the rollout, he explained. Cohen frowned. She wanted to publicly address the delays right away. If we dont say something, it makes it seem like were not paying attention, she told Shah. I dont want to say supply chain. I want to say real words. The next day, Cohen recorded a short video acknowledging the problems. Its important to know that there is vaccine available. You will be able to get one and it should be free for you. Whether or not you have insurance, she said in the message, posted on Twitter. If youve had a problem finding the vaccine, stick with it. The exchange illustrates Cohens approach to leading the once-vaunted public health agency as it tries to recapture public trust battered by its missteps during the coronavirus pandemic. While the rollout for the updated vaccine has improved in recent weeks, uptake remains slow, and some Americans are still having difficulty finding shots dimming a moment Cohen and her colleagues had hoped would showcase her ability to rebuild confidence in the agency. The Washington Post attended public and private meetings over three days with Cohen in Atlanta and Washington, D.C., in September and spoke with three dozen agency officials, Biden administration leaders and public health experts to discuss her early tenure. The snapshot that emerged captures someone who acts quickly and decisively, sometimes at odds with long-standing CDC tradition and engendering frustration among staffers who say her expediency has at times led to confusion and redundant work. Shortly after arriving as an outsider to lead the agency, she sent senior officials a Mandy Cohen User Guide, a two-page document of bullet points detailing the most productive user experience using me. Cohen, a physician and the former North Carolina health secretary, does not like surprises or meandering meetings, the guide warns. She wants to be kept in the loop with frequent, SHORT updates by email. Otherwise, the guide says, I (often wrongly) assume nothing is happening. Several senior officials said they appreciated her candor and readily responded when Cohen asked them to fill out a similar document. But their forms included an assessment of their weaknesses, a category they noted Cohens user guide omitted. Installed at the CDC by the White House in July, Cohen is tasked with restoring staff morale and public credibility at a time of extreme political divisions and fading trust in government and in science. The 12,000-person Atlanta-based agency has become a target in Congress and on the campaign trail: Republican presidential candidates such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy have vowed to gut the CDC if elected next year, insisting that the agencys COVID-19 guidance was too cautious and led to unreasonably long school shutdowns, rising mental health woes and other social problems. We are at this post-COVID moment, where the imperative is rebuilding trust, said J. Stephen Morrison, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who co-authored a January report on much-needed changes at the CDC. He noted that Cohen faces extra demands heading into fall and winter, when respiratory illnesses like flu, COVID and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) tend to spike: Americans are wondering How should I behave? Where do I turn to try to minimize risk or severe illness or worse? The CDC, Morrison said, must be ready to provide answers. Prioritizing COVID, flu and RSV When she took over in the summer, Cohen told senior leaders her foremost priority for the agency is to prepare for the respiratory virus season. Officials said they assumed that meant following well-established protocol of surveillance since there was no crisis with any of the now-familiar illnesses: flu, RSV and coronavirus. But Cohen wanted more. One month into the job, she overhauled the leadership of the center in charge of the agencys response to COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses, a move she felt would help the CDC better stay atop the upcoming virus season. And shes prompted the agency to activate its second-highest level of emergency status to address current cases of flu, RSV and COVID-19 just one level down from the agency-wide mobilization at the height of the pandemic according to three senior officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal conversations. Longtime CDC officials are confused why the agency has taken such an aggressive posture with some staff tasked with focusing intensively on flu, RSV and COVID-19 on top of their day jobs given that none of the viruses has risen to the level of an emergency, said one official, adding that working around-the-clock ... scientifically may not make sense. Cohens prioritization of respiratory viruses has already led to resentment among some agency officials, who say they are concerned that overextended staff will burn out by the time a true emergency hits. Cohens decision to assign one of her deputies to work on COVID messaging also was seen by staff as duplicative and dismissive of their expertise, since another CDC team had already begun that work. I am asking the CDC to be different and the teams to be different. ... I think that is necessary, Cohen told The Post in response to the criticism. Part of being a leader is making sure you have the right people on the bus with you. Cohen, 45, said government leaders should be biased toward action. She acknowledged some growing pains in her efforts to deliver one harmonized response to the three circulating respiratory viruses. Her urgency is driven by a growing public health problem: Many Americans tuned out the CDC during the pandemic. The agency was criticized for the botched rollout of coronavirus tests as the pandemic first menaced Americans in early 2020; was repeatedly mocked for slow and conflicting guidance on when to wear masks, isolate when sick and seek out booster shots; and it remains deeply distrusted by many parents, who blame the CDC for learning loss stemming from school shutdowns. Axios/Ipsos polling shows 86% of Americans in March 2020 said they trusted the CDC to provide them with accurate information about COVID-19. By February 2022, that had fallen to 61%. Cohen has tried to regain public confidence by traveling to health clinics, pharmacies and senior centers around the country urging people to get vaccinated against COVID, RSV and flu. This is the first time the nation has the tools to prevent severe illness from all three viruses, she says over and over again. She repeatedly cites the importance of vaccinating her young daughters and elderly parents with the latest shots targeting the constantly mutating coronavirus. Despite her efforts, uptake of the updated coronavirus vaccine has been low: Just 10% of adults and 4% of children had received the shot as of Nov. 8, according to CDC data. Navigating political pressures Since starting at the CDC, Cohen has been in perpetual motion ping-ponging between her familys home in Raleigh, N.C., on the weekends, her apartment in Atlanta on weekdays and regular trips to Washington, D.C., to meet with Biden officials and members of Congress in her bid to build relationships with her worn-down staff as well as with fellow government officials who have long viewed the agency as aloof and disconnected. The CDC chief is especially conscious that she must win over the lawmakers and officials who can determine the agencys fate, after her predecessor Rochelle Walensky struggled to make inroads in Washington and ultimately lost the confidence of the White House. But unlike Walensky, a Harvard-trained infectious-disease expert with limited political experience, Cohen arrived at the CDC as a known figure to many in the Biden administration. As a senior Obama administration health official, she helped oversee Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. Her longtime allies include Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy and White House senior health official Christen Linke Young. And her most important champion is White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, who played a central role in selecting her to run the CDC. But Cohens limited prior experience with the agency and reports that the White House previously considered her to run the Department of Health and Human Services, a Cabinet-level role has contributed to speculation that the new director is using her role as a steppingstone for higher ambitions. Cohen says she is 100% focused on CDC work and making sure the agency benefits from her previous experience leading crises in federal and state government. Cohen has also been trying to build bridges with congressional Republicans, who are pursuing multiple probes into the CDC over its response to the pandemic and other matters. Her allies insist Cohen is well-prepared for that challenge, saying shes battle-tested after navigating a GOP-led legislature in North Carolina for four years as the states top health official, steering the state through the COVID-19 pandemic. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), the top Republican on the Senate health committee that oversees the agency, credited Cohen with being more forthcoming and quicker to respond than prior CDC directors. She seems to understand what the problems are, said Cassidy, a physician who has repeatedly criticized the CDC over its lack of transparency and slow, research-oriented culture. Walensky had begun a dramatic overhaul of the agency last year, seeking faster release of scientific findings and easier-to-understand guidance, a more nimble and better-trained emergency response workforce, and incentives that would reward actions over publication of research papers. Cohen has embraced those core elements, which she reinforces with her staff every chance she gets. During a recent virtual meeting to tailor coronavirus vaccination messaging to physicians, Cohen pointed out staff presentations contained too much information. Messages must be short, concise, clear, factual, she told participants. For cardiologists, focus on heart-related complications from COVID, she directed. For pediatricians, let them know the ICU numbers for children hospitalized with COVID-19 but who have no underlying medical conditions, she said. I want to make sure thats BEAMING off the page, Cohen said, her voice rising for emphasis, from her 12th-floor office overlooking the sprawling campus in suburban Atlanta. I worry with so much information that were not going to break through with a couple of key points. Trying to win allies even with a song Everything, it seems for Cohen, rests on forging connections whether it is convincing more people to get vaccinated or rustling data from hospitals so the CDC can better track disease threats. When she recently met virtually with David J. Skorton, president of the Association of American Medical Colleges, for the first time, Cohen delighted him by readily agreeing to sing the alma mater of Cornell University, where Skorton had served as president and Cohen received her bachelors degree. I was in the chorus, Cohen explained with a smile. Then she got down to business. We need to, for our country, have visibility in a way that allows us to know whats happening and how to respond well, Cohen told him. That means knowing how many folks are in the hospital, what their vaccine status is, what their race and ethnicity is, so we can have eyes on emerging patterns, she said. Skorton promised to encourage his associations 157 medical schools and 400 teaching hospitals and health systems to work with the CDC in its quest for comprehensive data. The previous day, Cohen had underscored the importance of collaboration in what she referred to as the team sport of public health at a conference in Atlantas Georgia Aquarium. As beluga whales flipped back and forth in a massive tank along the wall, she stressed the need to communicate often, in simple terms, then urged the crowd of largely young health professionals to follow me on Insta. Her CDC social media accounts feature Cohen visiting nursing homes to emphasize the importance of high-risk Americans getting vaccinated ahead of the holidays. Talking about vaccinations on Capitol Hill with Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). Answering questions in the video Check-Ins with Dr. Cohen: When is the best time to get a flu shot? (Before the end of October). Can you get COVID and flu shots at the same time? (Yes.) In addition to focusing on the respiratory virus season, Cohen has selected two other public health priorities intended to be noncontroversial and relatable to average Americans and her GOP critics: opioid use and maternal and infant health. If she repeats herself enough times, using clear, concise language, she hopes more Americans will embrace her message. In a cavernous basement video studio, Cohen read from a teleprompter, urging pregnant people to get the new maternal vaccine to protect newborns against RSV. The words didnt sound right to her. The script referred to RSV season, but the average person doesnt know what that means, Cohen told aides. Should we just say ... fall and winter? She also wanted a different adjective instead of saying extensive clinical trial data. The CDC uses extensive too often, she said. Strong? one aide suggested. Significant? another offered. A third assistant piped up. I just watched this episode on Veep, and I hate to say this, but what about robust? Im okay with robust, but Im going to laugh, said Cohen, catching the reference to HBOs political satire in which the word was repeated multiple times. The head of CDC communications stepped in: No adjective was needed. Say this was based on data and clinical trials, he advised. Okay, no adjective, Cohen agreed. The staff made additional tweaks. A cameraman combed her hair and reshot the take. Diamond reported from Washington. The Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center in Aurora. This image was created using a homemade plastic filter that the photographer attached to a 50mm lens for a stylized look at the hospital on Nov. 9, 2023. (RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post/TNS) (Tribune News Service) In 2021, an employee with the Department of Veterans Affairs in Aurora alerted leadership to a troubling practice within the federal agencys Eastern Colorado Health Care System, a vast network providing services for 100,000 veterans. The whistleblower worked for the Prosthetic and Sensory Aids Service, which supplies military veterans with artificial limbs, wheelchairs, surgical implants, glasses, hearing aids and other devices to help them live more functional lives. Many veterans, however, werent getting these services for up to a year or at all, the whistleblower alleged. Thats because the head of the prosthetics department, Norma Mestas, was directing staff to delete orders as if they had never come in, three former employees who worked in the department told The Denver Post. The motive, they said: reduce wait times and backlogs to make it look as though the department was operating smoothly. The orders, up to 2,500 at one point, would remain untouched for months, the employees said. Some vets in the end would never get their devices, they alleged. I have seen (the prosthetics) service go from broken to highly functioning under our former chief to almost immediately start to crumble and end up where we are today, broken worse than I could have ever imagined, the whistleblower wrote to VA leadership in an April 2022 follow-up email reviewed by The Post. This individual, whom The Post agreed not to identify out of concerns about retaliation, said they had raised the issue for more than a year and nothing had been done. Patient care used to be a priority for the eastern Colorado VA, this person wrote to the systems now-regional director, Sunaina Kumar-Giebel. But not anymore, the whistleblower wrote: The veterans that our service serves are suffering and there is the potential for serious health implications or even veteran deaths that could result due to this services negligence. Last month, VA leaders reassigned the Aurora-based Eastern Colorado Health Care Systems director, Michael Kilmer, and his chief of staff over concerns about operational oversight, organizational health and workplace culture. Recent developments, the VA told staff in an email, prompted referrals to federal oversight agencies tasked with investigating these unspecified issues. The VA has not publicly outlined the problems that prompted the leadership changes in Aurora, but interviews with a dozen current and former nurses, doctors, administrators and high-ranking members of leadership paint the picture of a hostile work environment and a culture of fear among its 4,000-person eastern Colorado workforce. Workers described to The Post a culture that discourages dissent. Those who report concerns about staffing or improper behavior immediately earn targets on their backs, employees said. The human resources department is weaponized to force out individuals who speak up, they said, leading to high turnover and a staff reticent to bring up problems for fear of having their careers ruined. Multiple Black employees said they experienced racism in the VA here, including one who settled a discrimination case after being called a monkey by a section chief. The employees are all unhappy, said Sandra Baker, a retired ER physician in Aurora who sued the VA last year after she said she was forced out of her job after 32 years. Theres no way for you to be able to speak up without being harassed or axed you just have to take it. That place is not run by people who have any idea whats going on in the trenches. Kilmer declined to comment when contacted by The Post. Mestas did not respond to messages seeking an interview. The VA declined interview requests for this story and did not answer a list of detailed questions about alleged misdeeds. Kayla Giuliano, a department spokesperson, said in a statement that the agency would not comment on internal personnel actions, but that it takes allegations of discriminatory or improper behavior seriously. Youre breaking the law Kilmer assumed the mantle of the eastern Colorado VA system in September 2019 after two-plus years running the VA in Grand Junction. His job purview included managing the gleaming $2 billion Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center in Aurora that had opened just a year prior, along with 11 outpatient facilities spread across the Eastern Plains and San Luis Valley. The network has a budget of nearly $1 billion and leadership oversees 300 physicians and nearly 800 registered nurses. As a member of the Coast Guard earlier in his career, Kilmer stood on the verge of becoming an officer when he disclosed to supervisors that he was gay. Instead of a promotion, the 32-year-old was forced out of the service in 2002, Kilmer said in an interview last year. Soon after, he founded American Veterans for Equal Rights, a nonprofit dedicated to equitable treatment for all members of the U.S. armed forces. Over time, he rose through the VA systems ranks. If someone has raised their right hand and given the oath to serve, Kilmer told the University of Washington Magazine, then we owe them support and services when they return. Current and former staff, though, say Kilmers focus appeared more centered on optics than veteran-centric care. I realized I was no longer working for someone striving to be at the top, said Lee Parmley, who served as Kilmers chief of staff until last year. We were trying not to fall off the bottom rung of the ladder. It was really that bad. Nowhere was that more evident than in the prosthetics division, former employees said. Heres how its supposed to work: Veterans go to their doctors, who then enter whats known as a consult into the system for services to be rendered. This might include home modifications so a paraplegic could get into their car or house, or orders for custom braces and orthotics. More than 55% of individuals treated this year across the Veterans Health Administration nationwide received prosthetic care, according to the VAs website, accounting for 21.7 million items, devices and services. These dedicated professionals ensure that our veterans have the essential devices needed to improve their overall well-being and quality of life within the comforts of their homes, the website states. Mestas became chief of prosthetics in 2021 after spending three years as an executive assistant under Kilmer in Grand Junction, according to her LinkedIn profile. Current and former workers said Mestas appeared overwhelmed by the job. Quickly the backlog for prosthetics grew. In November 2021, an employee emailed Mestas boss, David Yarbrough, telling him the department had more than 2,000 open consults half of which were delayed. I have never seen the numbers this bad and I do not see them getting better anytime soon, the worker wrote in an email reviewed by The Post, saying they had begged for help since May. The thought of not taking care of veterans keeps me up at night. Mestas had incentives to keep the backlog in check, staff said: As soon as a consult entered the VA system, the clock started ticking. Longer times to complete consults meant worse metrics and a black eye on the department. So the chief directed newer, lower-level employees to delete consults before ever contacting veterans, the three former department workers told The Post. VA policy mandates staff make at least two attempts within three weeks to contact the individual seeking services. If they dont respond, staff can close the consult. But that wasnt happening. I started telling folks, I know your boss is telling you to close these consults, but Im telling you that this is illegal, one former employee told The Post, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they still receive VA benefits and fear retaliation. These are federal policies. Youre breaking the law. When veterans dont hear anything, they go back to their doctors. The doctor looks at their file, never seeing that the consult was deleted. So they put in another consult which might get canceled again, the VA workers said. Some veterans just give up, they said, while others pay out of pocket for the equipment. Electronic signatures in the system show whos closing these orders. Mestas own name appeared on some entries, the former employee said. The doctor doesnt think the prosthetic chief is closing the consults so the vet looks bad and it creates animosity within the VA environment, the employee said. Now the vet doesnt trust the system. Its perpetual. Other unfilled orders would sit in an off-the-books folder and never even be entered into the VAs official tracking system, multiple employees told The Post. This, in essence, created an illegal, unofficial waitlist that wouldnt count against the departments metrics. The staffer said they saw consults for terminally ill veterans waiting for mobility items to make their final weeks or months more bearable. Those people, this individual said, never got those items before their death. I cant think of anything more disgraceful and heartbreaking, said another employee who witnessed these actions, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they still work for the VA. Thats the sole thing the VA is built for to take care of this population of people who made extraordinary sacrifices. This how is how theyre being treated. Emails reviewed by The Post show employees raised concerns about the consults to leadership as early as 2021. In an April 2022 email, one employee told higher-ups that Mestas was either deliberately trying to hurt the service for whatever reason, or does not have the knowledge and experience to effectively run this service. Either way, the veterans are suffering as a result, this person wrote. A regional prosthetic official, Daniel Gnatz, in a reply email, acknowledged that he wasnt sure where Mestas is getting her direction from or what she is thinking. But a year-and-a-half later, employees said the consult management practice continued. Mestas, though, appears to no longer be with the department, according to staff members. She did not answer calls from The Post and the VA would not comment on her job status. Mestas, on her email signature, includes a quote from Jocko Willink, a retired U.S. Navy SEAL officer: There are no bad teams, only bad leaders. No one is to say a thing Problems inside the VA under Kilmer didnt stop at the prosthetic departments doors. During the early rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, the VA in Aurora received a batch of doses. Staff put them in a freezer, but someone forgot to shut the door, the current employee said. As a result, hundreds or even thousands of doses defrosted overnight, the employee said. With the clock ticking on using these doses, most ended up going to hospital staff instead of the older veterans, this person said. Kilmer, during a meeting with leadership, said they would be filing a report with the regional office saying the freezer broke, not that someone left it open, the employee said. He said, Were not going to report this, the staffer, who took part in the meeting, said. No one is to say a thing. The fully functional freezer, after the incident, was put in the VA basement near the service elevator to collect dust, the employee said. The employee who witnessed the meeting filed a report with the VAs Office of Inspector General. They said they were never contacted. Several individuals discussed reporting it up the chain of command but feared retribution. If you value your career at all, the employee said, you know theres gonna be repercussions for saying things. Fear of retribution The theme of employees fearing reprisal for reporting misconduct or other issues was pervasive among the dozen current and former VA workers who spoke with The Post. Dr. Ronald Robinson learned this firsthand while serving as deputy chief of staff under Kilmer from 2020 until last year. In December 2021, they sounded the alarm over a critical shortage of practitioners on the VAs primary care team. In a memo to leadership reviewed by The Post, Robinson said the department had 22 vacancies for licensed independent practitioners out of 119 positions or 18% of the jobs unfilled. One Colorado clinic was down nine people. As a result, Robinson wrote, the VA would be faced with transferring more than 2,000 veterans from this clinic to community providers or increasing the caseloads of other providers. That was the start of the end for me, Robinson said in an interview. The chief medical officer at the regional level convened a meeting in Denver after the memo, Robinson said, yelling and threatening to take over the service. The physician filed a complaint with the VAs Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection a move Robinson later called a huge mistake. I was sadly naive, they said. That just painted a huge target on me. Robinson ended up being fired for not filling out a timesheet correctly, they said, along with not watching certain training videos for driving a government vehicle. Their first day of unemployment? Veterans Day 2022. You just sweep the problem under the rug by firing the person, they said. That was their mode of operating. Multiple VA employees told The Post that leadership attempted to force them out the door by making their lives miserable. Baker, the retired ER doctor, said she was reassigned in 2019 to a storage room filled with boxes that didnt have connectivity for a computer or phone. It was punishment, she said, for filing complaints over sexist working conditions under her male supervisor. The VA even manipulated records to make it appear Baker was incompetent, she alleged in a lawsuit filed against the VA last year. An appeals board ruled in her favor. From June through December, Baker read books, checked out bathrooms on other floors and chatted with cafeteria workers. What a waste of government resources, she said. Im an experienced ER doctor and Im just sitting there. Parmley, the former chief of staff, said internal investigations served as a way for leadership to remove people from their positions. It was quite a vindictive place, he said. A Black employee filed eight complaints over discrimination, disparate treatment, poor hiring practices and whistleblower violations. In May, the individual was stripped of all his responsibilities, he said. Now he sits at home, responding to a few emails, but otherwise I dont do (expletive), he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of additional retribution. The VA hospital here does more to not do work than to do work, he said. This incident marked one of several racist allegations raised by employees at the Aurora facility. One employee said he overheard Mestas, the prosthetics chief, call a Black employee a dirty N-word, according to a memo reviewed by The Post. The department found the claim to be unsubstantiated though the employee who reported it said in an email that he was never asked to testify. Garland Dotson, a Black Air Force veteran, received a settlement from the VA in August after he alleged a section chief told him You look like a monkey, adding motions with her arms. Dotson went public with the allegations two years ago. On a separate occasion, Dotson said, his boss told him another VA worker stated he had Black rage. How is it possible people are getting away with this? Dotson said in an interview. Its the culture Kilmer created. The Aurora VAs nurses, meanwhile, have sounded the alarm for years over what they call unsafe working conditions and critically low staffing at the hospital. In July, National Nurses United, a nationwide union representing nurses, rallied outside the hospital, demanding management address the epidemic of violence at the facility. Workers reported being assaulted, kicked, spit at, hit and threatened on a daily basis. It feels like our concerns are being dismissed, Sharda Fornnarino, president of the nurses union who works at the VA, told The Post. We feel defeated. Kilmer, during the outside investigation, will serve on a temporary assignment working on a project with the Boise VA in Idaho. Dr. Shilpa Rungta, his chief of staff, was temporarily reassigned to be a physician adviser to the assistant undersecretary for health for clinical services. Both are eligible to return to their leadership posts. Current and former employees said they hope the leadership changes stay permanent a chance for the Aurora VA to wipe the slate clean and rebuild the culture that has long soured. I hope some healing can now begin, Robinson said. This will benefit the veterans receiving the care they need. 2023 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit at denverpost.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Roland Lajoie, March 15, 1990. (Russell F. Roederer/National Archives and Records Administration ) After returning from a family outing in March 1985, Col. Roland Lajoie, head of a U.S. military liaison team authorized to monitor Soviet forces in East Germany under a Cold War accord, was notified of what the Soviets said was an accident involving one of his intelligence officers. Maj. Arthur D. Nicholson had been shot and killed by a Soviet sentry while on a routine, unarmed mission to inspect a tank storage building about 100 miles northwest of Berlin. Lajoie sped to the scene near the East German city of Ludwigslust and encountered Grigori Krivosheyev, the top Soviet general in East Germany, whose forces had their own unit permitted to observe the U.S. military in West Germany. Krivosheyev blamed the shooting on Nicholson, claiming he had ignored the sentrys warning. (The majors driver later testified that no warning was given.) The Soviet general went on to protest what he called a serious violation of the rules governing the observation of each countrys forces. At that point, I interrupted him and said, General, you have killed one of my officers, and you are protesting? he recounted later in an investigative report. For the U.S. commander, the shooting was the low point in a storied but largely behind-the-scenes career in which he rose to major general, became one of the Armys leading experts on the Soviet military, managed dangerous Cold War tensions between the two countries and implemented a historic program to destroy thousands of Soviet nuclear weapons after the breakup of the U.S.S.R. Lajoie died Oct. 28 in Manchester, N.H., of complications from heart surgery, said his daughter, Renee Lajoie Newell. He was 87. Nicholson was regarded by the Defense Department as the last casualty of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War, which lasted from 1947 to 1991 and claimed the lives of more than 30 Americans, although it did not involve direct combat. In another confrontation with Krivosheyev at a Soviet military office in East Germany five days after the shooting, then-Col. Lajoie, accompanied by Marine Lt. Col. Lawrence G. Kelley, asked him repeatedly whether he felt any remorse over the death. The Soviet general emphatically responded Nyet! and resumed a diatribe against the U.S. government in general and Col. Lajoie in particular, according to a confidential Army report. Then, Lajoie and Kelley cut him off in mid-sentence and walked out of the meeting, the report said. The insult shocked the Soviets, Kelley recalled. Four months later, a 5.5-ton Soviet army truck rammed into the back of a Land Rover carrying Lajoie on a mission in East Germany, sending him to the hospital with orbital bone fractures. He was convinced it was deliberate, a response to the insult delivered by walking out on the Soviet general, said his son-in-law, Keith Detwiler. During that era, everything was tit-for-tat, Detwiler said. There was a feeling of an escalation of tensions. In 1988, Gen. Lajoie was assigned by the Reagan administration to set up a unit to verify Soviet compliance with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a landmark arms-reduction agreement. Having formed and staffed the On-Site Inspection Agency (OSIA) in a matter of months, he was on hand at a formerly secret Soviet missile base in southwestern Russia as nuclear-capable SS-20 ballistic missiles were destroyed under the pact. He considered that the high point of his career, Newell said. Working with Soviet generals to ease Cold War tensions and reduce the threat of nuclear war was a remarkable turnaround for an officer who, during two stints as a U.S. military attache in Moscow, had previously watched SS-20 missiles roll through Red Square during Victory Day parades. The OSIA, which Gen. Lajoie directed until 1991, ultimately conducted inspections at 133 sites across the Soviet Union and confirmed the destruction of 1,800 Soviet missiles. It was a major organizational and leadership challenge, said Detwiler, a retired Army colonel. Roland Lajoie was born in Nashua, N.H., on Aug. 11, 1936, and was the youngest of eight children. His parents were French Canadian immigrants from Quebec, and the family spoke French at home. His father worked in a textile mill in Nashua, and his mother was a homemaker. The future general earned a bachelors degree in government from the University of New Hampshire in 1958 and a masters in history from the University of Colorado in 1971. In addition to his daughter Renee, of Arlington, Va., survivors include his wife of 62 years, Jo Ann Sinbaldi Lajoie, of West Wilton, N.H.; two other children, Michelle Detwiler of Falls Church, Va., and Christopher Lajoie of Alexandria, Va.; a sister; and four grandchildren. In the 1960s and early 70s, he served two tours in Vietnam as an intelligence officer. From 1967 to 1970, he studied Russian at military institutes in Washington and West Germany. He was posted to Moscow as an assistant Army attache in 1973 for three years and later as Army attache from 1981 to 1983. From the end of that posting until 1986, then-Col. Lajoie served as chief of the U.S. Military Liaison Mission based in West Berlin and Potsdam, East Germany. One of the most secretive units in the U.S. military, the 14-man team conducted what amounted to mutually accepted espionage on East German territory, while Soviet units did the same in West Germany. Every day, members of the U.S. mission would drive in jeeps over the Glienicke Bridge to East Berlin, the same crossing where captured American U-2 spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers was exchanged for Soviet spy Rudolf Abel in 1962. The Americans and similar teams from France and Britain would fan out across East Germany, hunting especially for tactical ballistic missiles that Moscow had begun to station in Eastern Europe, the New York Times reported in 1984. Lajoie retired from the Army in 1994, then was tapped to serve as a deputy assistant secretary in the Pentagon for cooperative threat reduction under the Clinton administration. He led the implementation of a program under the Nunn-Lugar Act to secure nuclear materials in former Soviet states following the 1991 breakup of the U.S.S.R., a program that ultimately deactivated more than 13,000 nuclear warheads and secured thousands of pounds of fissile material. In 1998, President Bill Clinton appointed Gen. Lajoie chairman of a U.S.-Russia joint commission to search for American service members who had gone missing on the territory of the former U.S. ally during World War II. U.S. bomber crews would fly over Soviet territory en route from the Aleutian Islands to attack Japanese targets on the Kuril Islands northeast of Hokkaido. As chairman, Gen. Lajoie led an expedition to recover the remains of seven crew members whose plane crashed on Russias Kamchatka Peninsula. DNA testing identified two sets of remains; the others were unidentifiable. But the commission was able to locate six of the seven families to inform them that their loves ones were confirmed dead and no longer missing. Justice (retd) Arshad Hussain Shah was sworn in as the caretaker Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister on Sunday, a day after former chief executive Azam Khan passed away following a brief illness. KP Governor Haji Ghulam Ali administered oath to Shah at a ceremony in Peshawar hours after Mahmood Khan met opposition leader Akram Khan Durrani for consultation on the appointment of the new interim chief executive. On Saturday, the governor had sent a letter to Mahmood and Durrani, inviting them to begin the consultation process under Article 224(1A) of the Constitution for the next chief ministers appointment. In separate letters, the governor had said he was under constitutional obligation to call upon them. He added that as per the Constitution, the process should be completed in three days. A notification issued after todays meeting, said Durrani and Mahmood had agreed to appoint Shah as the caretaker CM under clause 1(A) of Article 224 of the Constitution. The same was subsequently sent to the KP governor, who later approved it. Shah was appointed as the law minister in former CM Azam Khans cabinet earlier this year. Previously, he also served as the chief justice of Gilgit-Baltistan. Legal conundrum Azam Khans demise had stirred a debate as to how a new caretaker chief executive of the province would be appointed since there were no explicit constitutional provisions about procedures to be adopted in such a scenario. Articles 224 and 224-A provide a mechanism for the initial appointment of a caretaker chief minister after the dissolution of a provincial assembly, but these provisions are silent about procedures to be adopted in case of the death or resignation of an incumbent. Similarly, the Elections Act 2017 provides for the functions of a caretaker government but has no provision to deal with the present situation. Some legal minds believed that the same mechanism that was enshrined in Article 224 and Article 224-A could be adopted for the new appointment, but a former secretary of the Election Commission of Pakistan begged to differ. According to Kanwar Dilshad, as the assemblies no longer exist, the Senate was empowered to decide in such an emergency. If Senate fails to agree on a name then the matter will be referred to the ECP, Dilshad told reporters. If the leader of the house and the leader of opposition in the Senate failed to agree on a name, then the matter would be referred to the ECP. The situation turned further complicated ex-CM Mahmood Khan, who was a constitutional consultee in the initial appointment of the caretaker chief minister, has already left the former ruling party. This is an unprecedented case, as the slot of the caretaker chief minister has never before fallen vacant, said former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa advocate general Shumail Ahmad Butt. He contested the opinion shared by the ex-ECP official, saying the same mechanism as provided in articles 224 and 224-A needed to be adopted in this case as well. Butt, who is a constitutional lawyer, said that under Article 224 of the Constitution, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor should appoint the new caretaker chief minister in consultation with the chief minister and leader of the opposition in the dissolved provincial assembly. Read more: Justice (retd) Arshad Hussain Shah appointed as caretaker KP CM As per Article 224-A, in case of a disagreement between the CM and the opposition leader, the two forward two names each to a committee of the provincial assembly to be constituted by the speaker. If disagreements persist then the matter is referred to the ECP. When asked about the then chief minister Mahmood Khan no longer being a PTI member, he said the Constitution had not placed a bar that a CM not commanding majority in the dissolved assembly should not be consulted. Senior lawyer Babar Khan Yousafzai said a constitutional crisis had emerged after the demise of Azam as, with the death, his caretaker cabinet also stood dissolved. Articles 224 and 224-A of the Constitution provide for nomination/appointment of a caretaker chief minister but there is complete silence about the procedure to be followed in case of his death, he said. It is a case of first impression and the burden will now be on courts to interpret the constitutional provisions, he added. On the other hand, Caretaker Information Minister Murtaza Solangi had said there was no room for speculation. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), he said after the caretaker CMs demise the governor, chief secretary and the provincial government shall perform their duties accordingly. Rosalyn Joy Few (64) and Normand Larose (62), from Phoenix, Arizona, were killed on April 9, 2018 Normand Larose and Rosalyn Joy Few died in the accident The family of an American couple who were killed in a horse and cart accident in Co Kerry five years ago have settled their High Court case. Rosalyn Joy Few (64) and Normand Larose (62), from Phoenix, Arizona, were killed on April 9, 2018 when their horse and trap went off the road on a narrow mountain pass while they were travelling to Kate Kearney's Cottage at the Gap of Dunloe. The couple had been visiting Few's daughter, son-in-law, and two grandchildren for the Easter holidays at the time of the accident. They had been travelling were in the first pony and trap with members of their family sitting in two other traps behind. It was claimed that the horse and trap lost control on a dangerous stretch of roadway, causing the cart to fall over a verge and into the rocks below. The sixth and final action brought forward by Few's daughter, Tonya Tier of West Richmond, Washington, has now been settled by the High Court. The families of Few and Larose had previously sued the horse and trap driver, Dan Casey of Beaufort, Killarney, and the Kerry County Council. Proceedings against Kerry County Council were struck out in all six cases. In the latest case, Ms Tier sued on behalf of her family over the death of her mother. Counsel Liam Reidy SC, instructed by Adrian Hegarty solicitor, told the High Court that this was the last action to be settled. It is understood that the last case relating to Ms Fews death contained a claim for a significant six-figure sum. It was claimed that the traps were unsafe with an alleged failure to check that they were fitted with adequate braking systems or other security measures. It was also claimed that Mr Casey lost control of the trap suddenly and without warning, leading to it tumbling into the ravine. All claims were denied and proceedings later struck out against Kerry County Council. Breaking News reports that settlements were reached in the other five cases the High Court previously heard after Mr Justice Paul Coffey urged mediation talks. Ms Tier along with her husband, Bill Walther, and children Gavin and Kaitlyn sued for nervous shock, with their cases being settled earlier this year. Mr Laroses brother, Yvan Larose, brought a separate action on behalf of the Larose family, who live in Canada, over the death of Normand Larose, a case that was also settled earlier this year. Southern Health Trust director to be sentenced later this week Matthew Arnold was declared dead at the scene of the accident An NHS director who killed a young dad while using her phone behind the wheel has said she is devastated over the accident. Monica McAlister (53) was distracted when she pulled out in front of motorcyclist Matthew Arnold (24) on a country road in spring 2020. The director at the Southern Health and Social Care Trust admitted to causing his death by careless driving at Newry Crown Court earlier this year. She will be sentenced this week. A tearful and emotional McAlister (53) said: Its all so sad. Its devastating, just so awful. When asked if she would like to express remorse to the victims family or if shed had any contact with them, her voice shook as she replied: I dont know if I should be discussing this without a solicitor. On Tuesday Newry Crown Court heard how McAlister had been trying to organise life-saving PPE for care homes and district nurses during the first lockdown when the fatal accident happened. The hearing was also told Mr Arnold had only married 18 months earlier and had become a father just three weeks before the collision which claimed his life. As his grieving family sat in the public gallery, prosecuting counsel Fiona OKane highlighted how they remained devastated by the loss of a young man who was a loving father, husband, son and brother and have had succour from the faith they have to carry them through this very difficult time. Matthew Arnold was declared dead at the scene of the accident Defence counsel Steven Molloy described McAlister as having spent her life in the NHS trying to save lives and said she recognised that solely by her actions, this man has lost his life. This doesnt rest easy with her in any shape or fashion, he added. Every waking day she thinks of the act that has robbed him of his life, and she wishes to profess her profound apologies to the Arnold family. Shes deeply sorry for her actions on that day. McAlister, from Ballykilbeg Road in Downpatrick, had earlier entered a guilty plea to causing the death of Mr Arnold on April 7, 2020, by driving carelessly on the Lurgan Road in Dromore. Prosecutors said the accident happened at the junction of the Lurgan Road and the Blackskull Road when the Toyota Avensis being driven by McAlister pulled out in front of Mr Arnolds Ducati motorbike. He was thrown from the bike, coming to rest on the grass verge. Despite an off-duty GP and other members of the pubic coming to his aid, he was pronounced dead at the scene. Judge Gordon Kerr KC adjourned sentencing last week to consider reports, with McAlisters representative urging the court to consider a non-custodial sentence. Freeing McAlister on bail until an unspecified day this week, Judge Kerr said he wanted to consider all of the materials put before him before giving his ruling. The photographs were taken at an easily identifiable house in Ranelagh, a Dublin suburb popular with political and media figures The women are offering their services on a site originally set up by Peter McCormick A suspected South American crime gang are openly running a major vice operation from a Dublin town house, organising dozens of women to work as prostitutes. Over 300 sex-for-sale profiles have been linked to the group which advertises on a notorious website originally set up by convicted pimp Peter McCormick. This week photographs of scantily-clad women appeared online offering various sexual services starting at 100 for 30 minutes. The photographs were taken at an easily identifiable house in Ranelagh, a Dublin suburb popular with political and media figures. The operations online activities show that they have used various locations around Dublin as well as a smaller number outside the city. Edith Enoghaghase The multi-million euro earning gang also appears able to provide a steady supply of new faces to the Irish vice trade which is dominated in this country by organised crime gangs. Four separate women claiming to be Spanish featured in photographs taken at the Ranelagh address to and posted online with rates varying from 200 an hour and dinner dates at 1200, while some kept their price list hidden. Their online profiles leave no doubt what is on offer with explicit sexual acts being listed as available to punters. One profile says: I describe myself as very playful, confident, sexy and extremely sensual.. I live pleasing you over and over.. I have a huge sensual appetite so I hope you do too. Another states: My delicious curves, my gorgeous boobs and sweet smile are going to melt your worries and stress away and are going to heighten all of your senses! The profiles were among the total 920 listed on the website this week offering prostitution services across the island of Ireland. Earlier this week Justice Minister Helen McEntee promised a clampdown on the sex trade as the government announced a plan to tackle human trafficking in Ireland. Alicia Edosa During the launch she told reporters that everything would be done to shut down websites that advertise escort services in the country. An Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality recommended the move ten years ago in a 2013 report on prostitution laws which had cross-party support. Internationally, Ireland is seen as having a poor record among developed countries when it comes to tackling people trafficking. US State Department Trafficking in Persons report states Ireland has made little progress since last year in tackling the sex trafficking industry. While two cases of alleged people-trafficking are currently before the courts the only other significant case came in September 2021 when two women were convicted in Mullingar Circuit Court. It was found Alicia Edosa and Edith Enoghaghase had tricked women in west Africa to travel to Ireland for non-existent jobs and then forced to work as prostitutes. They were kept in line by a juju curse which left the women believing their families would be in danger if they did not obey their traffickers. One woman told how the ritual involved pulling out the heart of a chicken and others described being cut with razors and having their bodies shaved. She ended up in brothels all over Ireland before the vice operation was broken up in Mullingar during which time she had generated 44,000 for the gang. Siddharth Kara, a world-renowned expert previously told the Sunday World a trafficked woman is worth 150,000 or more every year to criminal gangs in countries like Ireland. In their annual report published last week Ruhama, a charity that helps women get out of the sex trade said the level of sex trafficking is increasing in Ireland. More victims contacted Ruhama in 2022, who dealt with 147 victims of trafficking, increasing by 60% compared to 2021. Infamous pimp Peter McCormick Chief Executive Barbara Condon said at the launch of the report that the demand for the sex trade among sex buyers is driving the profiteering from human trafficking. It is estimated that 180 million is made every year in Irelands illegal sex trade. Minister McEntee this week expressed frustration that only two people have been prosecuted for human trafficking offences in Ireland. She said it was "hugely encouraging" that other prosecutions have been mounted and are going through the criminal justice system. "I think we all agree that we need to see more prosecutions for human trafficking, we've only had two and that has been in recent years.". "Some of the most significant challenges have been, firstly, gathering evidence, highlighting this as a crime, but encouraging victims to come forward and encouraging victims to tell their story, which can be often very difficult. He destroyed my life, my familys lives, my sisters life Josef Puska is seen on his bike shortly before he murdered Ashling Murphy Radu Floricel initially thought someone was playing a prank on him when he was arrested Radu Floricel initially thought someone was playing a prank on him when he was arrested The man who was wrongly arrested over the murder of Ashling Murphy said I hate him as the real killer Jozef Puska was convicted of her murder. Innocent Radu Floricel, who was briefly wrongly suspected of involvement in the 23-year-olds horrific killing, said Puska had destroyed his life and the lives of his family as the brute sought to cover up his own heinous crime. Evil Puska said nothing as Radu was held by gardai for almost 24 hours and the innocent mans name was blackened on social media as he was falsely labelled the killer. I hate him to bits, Radu told us. He destroyed my life, my familys lives, my sisters life. When I was arrested, my family was put through hell. Im still going through a lot of stuff. I dont really even want to talk about this or see it in the papers. But I hate him and I hate this whole situation and what its meant for my life. =Innocent Radus nightmare ordeal began at 7.41pm on January 12 four hours after Ashlings murder when gardai working off an incorrect identification from CCTV arrested him at his home. So unbelievable was Radus situation to him at the time, he initially thought someone was playing a prank on him when police called to his house in the hours after the young womans murder. Josef Puska is seen on his bike shortly before he murdered Ashling Murphy He later said it was only when he arrived at the Garda station that he realised he was at the centre of a murder probe. He recalled later how during his interrogation, he told officers: As long as you keep me in here, Ashling Murphys real killer is still out there. It would take gardai more than 24 hours to rule the innocent man out of their inquiries. A comparison of his DNA showed the innocent man had never been at the scene while a credit card receipt proved he had been shopping in Centra at the time that Ms Murphy was murdered. As the Garda focus on finding Ashlings killer was temporarily focussed on Radu, Puska had made good use of his time in a bid to throw off any attempt by investigators to capture him. Having stabbed Ashling to death as she ran along a canal path in Tullamore, Co. Offaly at approximately 3.30pm on January 12, 2022, the Czech national lay low for several hours before arriving at the home of fellow Czech Rastislav Pokuta at Church View in Tullamore, seeking a lift back to his home at Lynally Grove in Mucklagh. Radu Floricel initially thought someone was playing a prank on him when he was arrested Mr Pokuta, who initially kept this information from gardai, fearing for the safety of his own family and his job as a school bus driver, later revealed that Puska had arrived at his home at around 9pm saying he had been in some fight in town. Mr Pokuta said Puska looked very scared, wet, and that his face was scratched or something. I said: Why did you not ring the Guards? No answer to that. He said when they arrived at Puskas home, the killer told him: Ill sort you out tomorrow, and went inside. Three hours later, at 12.58am on January 13, footage obtained by gardai showed a car pull up at a building on the Armagh Road in Crumlin. In the footage, Puskas father and mother can be seen exiting the car, followed by Jozef Puska. The next morning, an ambulance was called and Puska was taken to St Jamess Hospital on January 13. Jozef Puska He had sustained a self-inflicted stabbing, needed medical attention and had invented a cock and bull story about being assaulted in Blanchardstown. His trial heard the next time Puska would be seen on camera would be at 11.56am on January 13, when he was wheeled by a paramedic towards an ambulance, which took him to St James Hospital in Dublin. By then, Puska no longer had facial hair. So how did gardai nab Puska and catch a killer who had no connection to Ashling Murphy or motive to carry out her killing? He was not known to gardai, his DNA was not in the system, nor had he previous convictions. The reality, said one senior investigator this week, is that it came down to good police work, Ashling Murphys own efforts to fight Puska off during the murder, and a small slice of good luck. It was Puskas self-inflicted stabbing and not Ashlings murder that brought him to the attention of gardai. On the same day Ashling was killed, there had been a double stabbing in Blanchardstown. An incident room had been set up and detectives in West Dublin knew of two victims. Gardai subsequently became aware of a possible third victim, who had been admitted to St Jamess Hospital with stab wounds and initially spoke to Puska as a possible victim. Garda Conor Newman noticed very clear scratches to Puskas hands. To his mind, they looked like briar marks from a hedge, and there were similar scratches to Puskas forehead. Ashling Murphy Puska claimed to gardai he had arrived at Heuston Station and got a taxi to Blanchardstown, where he planned to meet a woman. He claimed he was immediately set upon and assaulted by two men. Asked about his injuries, Puska told gardai he believed they were from him falling or being dragged to the ground. The detectives returned to Blanchardstown station and outlined the conversation to Detective Inspector Shane McCartan. It was this chat among Garda colleagues that helped identify Puska as a person of interest. Puskas story of being assaulted in Blanchardstown just didnt add up, Insp McCartan said. He knew Puska was living in Tullamore, and had scratches on his hands. There was a lack of detail in how he got to Dublin, who gave him a lift, how he got from Heuston Station to Blanchardstown and who he was meeting. Insp McCartan contacted Detective Sergeant David Scahill in Tullamore, and outlined the information to him. The case which gardai built against Puska was strong. It focused on witness accounts, on Puskas confession in hospital I did it. I murdered. I am the murderer and on evidence which found his DNA underneath Ashlings fingernails and on a bike found at the scene. Puska sought to explain the evidence away. He said he couldnt remember his confession because he had just had surgery. He said he lied about being stabbed because he did not want his family to know hed been attacked. And most insultingly, he claimed the DNA, the vital clue to his guilt that Ashling Murphy had gathered under her fingernails as she desperately fought for her life, had occurred as he tried to fight off a concocted and non-existent third party. Ultimately, it was the evidence that added up for the jury, and not Puskas lies. Radu Floricel, a man were it not for CCTV, DNA and good policing could have found himself taking the rap for Puskas evil crime, said previously he holds no grudge against gardai over his arrest. I do have respect for [the Guards] work, he said. Description Panama, a new musical about Teddy Roosevelt and the Panama Canal, will premiere at the Sid Jacobson JCC Theater on Nov. 11 and 12, 2023 at 2:00 PM. Set in 1906, the play imagines what happens when Roosevelt travels to the jungles of Panama and is hounded by a muckraking reporter and an anarchist revolutionary. The story is very relevant to today, says librettist and lyricist, Stephen Michelman. An assertive president in battle with the press over who controls the narrative of the real America. The score to Panama is by Roslyn Heights-based composer Steven Belfer. The play is directed by Rich Buckley. This event is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrant Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by the Huntington Arts Council, Inc. Reserved Tickets to Panama ($25/$20) are available on-line through November 8th http://buy.tututix.com/panamathemusical and at the door the day of performance. The man is currently detained at a Garda station in the Dublin area A man has been arrested in Tallaght, Dublin 24 after suspected cocaine worth 70,000 was seized following a search on Saturday evening. The man, aged in his 20s, was arrested and is currently detained under Section 2 of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act, 1996 at a Garda station in the Dublin area. During the course of the search, approximately 1 kilogram of suspected cocaine was seized, with an estimated value of 70,000, along with two Rolex watches, and drugs paraphernalia. The search was conducted by the Dublin Crime Response Team (DCRT). The drugs will undergo analysis by Forensic Science Ireland (FSI). Investigations are ongoing. Brutal killer initially told investigating gardai he had been stabbed in attack The parents of twisted killer Jozef Puska are standing by their convicted murderer son despite his defence being described as nonsense by the trial judge. Justice Tony Hunt described Puska as evil after the jury returned their verdict, telling them he was glad you didnt waste any more of your valuable time on the killers lies. But despite the overwhelming evidence presented in the case and the impact of Puskas claims on Ashling Murphys family, his mother and father are continuing to claim he is innocent. Ashling Murphys murderer, Jozef Puska They were approached by this newspaper outside their Crumlin apartment building, a day after a jury had unanimously found Puska (33) guilty of Ashling murder. No! No! One hundred per cent no! Puskas father responded emphatically when asked whether the couple now accepted that their son was responsible for the horrific killing of the young school teacher. Puskas mother also replied No, no to the question. When the Sunday World attempted to put additional questions to the pair, his father, citing poor English, asked for a telephone number and said a family member would be in contact. The couple had been present in a packed Courtroom 13 in the Criminal Courts of Justice on Wednesday as the jury, who had listened to three weeks of evidence and deliberated for two hours, returned a unanimous verdict of guilty. Their son had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Ashling Murphy at Cappincur, Tullamore, Co. Offaly on January 12, 2022. Scratches visible on Puskas hand The teacher had died due to 11 stab wounds to her neck. A senior investigator later described the case to this paper as one of the most evidentiary strong of contested murder cases to go before the court in decades. But, after the verdict was read out, Puskas parents seemed surprised and became upset with his father, speaking loudly in Slovak while his wife held up a small cross and shook it. It had been to their apartment, in a block run for elderly and frail residents in Crumlin, Dublin, that the killer fled on the night of January 12 last year hours after Ashlings murder. It was from there that his efforts to conceal his responsibility for his crime began to unravel. At about midday on January 13, less than 24 hours after the murder, an ambulance was called to the apartment, with Puska alleging he had been stabbed the previous evening in Blanchardstown. But gardai, who were investigating that incident, didnt believe him and alerted colleagues in Tullamore investigating Ashlings murder. Bin close to apartment building On Puskas hands, gardai noticed the scratches which looked like briar marks from a hedge and there were similar marks on his head. Puska underwent surgery on January 13 and later that day, after being told that gardai had a warrant to seize his belongings and a blood sample, he confessed to killing Ashling, saying I did it, I murdered, I am the murderer. It was to be the first and last time Puska would tell the truth. He would later resile from his confession and concoct a story, heard for the first time when he testified in court, that he had fought with Ashlings real killer in a desperate bid to explain his injuries and his DNA found under her fingernails. That day, as Puska was confessing to the murder, gardai were already combing through his parents apartment building. Speaking on Friday, a senior citizen resident in the building said the thought Puska had slept there just hours after the killing makes my blood run cold. We only found out hed been here on the Friday when the gardai came and shut the down, she told the Sunday World. We werent allowed leave our apartments for three or four hours there were gardai everywhere. I looked and saw them (the forensics) up at the bins going through them. The Guards said nothing to us but someone said later they hadnt found the murder weapon hed used to kill Ashling and thats what they were looking for. Reporter Patrick OConnell speaks with Jozef Puskas parents after the verdict Speaking this week, a senior investigator described the failure to recover the knife as a source of frustration but said ultimately Puskas actions that day had made it almost impossible for a jury to do anything other than convict him. If you were to write a handbook and call it: How not to get away with murder! then this would be it, he said. There was no one single big mistake it was everything he did that day from the moment he left his house in Mucklagh with only his bike and his knife up until the moment of his arrest. Asked if gardai had ever garnered any insight into a motive, the investigator said: Maybe in his head, hed had some kind of falling out with all of womankind, we just dont know. What we do know is he spent that morning in Tullamore following women around before he came on Ashling... and brutally murdered her. He went out looking for a woman to kill... Everybody wants a why. Everybody wants a reason. But sometimes there is no why! Sometimes there is just bad. David Jordan was brought to attend the christening of his grandchild and spend time in the company of his family and his co-accused wife Sharon David Jordan is picked up in a Mercedes outside Maghaberry last Sunday Suspected dissident chief David Jordan was seen enjoying a brief glimpse of freedom before returning to his cell. The Sunday World was there to snatch this image of the republican as he emerged from a prison van at the gates of Maghaberry last Sunday morning. We watched as he climbed into a black Mercedes before he was whisked off for a four-hour reprieve from the routine of the maximum-security prison. Granted temporary release, he was brought to attend the christening of his grandchild and spend time in the company of his family and his co-accused wife Sharon Jordan. Jordan came out just before 11am was picked up by two lawyers from Phoenix Law who acted as guardians for the prison release. Jordan being released from custody He sat in the front seat for the 50-minute drive to be reunited with family, and was able to have personal contact for the first time in more than three years without prison officers looking on. Jordan attended a ass in Dungannon the location was kept secret sitting side by side with his spouse and children before a quick and private christening of his youngest grandchild. Sources close to the alleged terror boss say the precious time he spent with his loved ones has had a devastating on him, with a possible further 15 years behind bars. Davy was delighted to get released, but when he came back he was slightly broken, said one prison source. Having a tiny taste of freedom, seeing his kids and grandkids and especially Sharon, having physical contact with them all has left him questioning himself. He is a diehard republican, there is no question about that. Getting out for those few hours has totally f***ed with his head. David Jordan could spend as much as 15 years in Maghaberry if convicted. His temporary release last Sunday could be his last time on the outside for a long time. He returned to Maghaberry just before 3pm, was picked up by a prison van and driven back to his cell. This week, his legal team were back in court to make a bail application. Prosecution lawyers claimed the alleged terror chief travelled to Beirut as chairman of the IRA Army Council in a bid to forge links with international groupings. Based on secretly recorded meetings of its suspected leadership, a judge was told that the 52-year-old has risen through the ranks to the highest echelons of the paramilitary organisation. Jordan, of Cappagh Road in Dungannon, mounted a legal bid to be released on bail after spending more than three years in custody. He is among 10 people facing prosecution following a major surveillance investigation mounted by police and MI5. Codenamed Operation Arbacia, detectives secretly bugged gatherings at properties near Sixmilecross and Omagh, Co Tyrone, in February and July 2020. A total of 16 hours and 17 seconds of combined audio and video recordings was obtained, the court heard. Those in attendance were said to have discussed targets, weaponry, finances and recruitment, as well as the possibility of launching an economic bombing campaign and cyber attacks within the UK. They also explored the possibility of developing a relationship with a foreign regime hostile to the UK. Jordan, who faces charges of directing terrorism, belonging to a proscribed organisation and preparation of terrorist acts, allegedly addressed the meetings as chair of the dissident grouping. David Jordan at a republican parade in Belfast It was claimed that he attended another meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland, with Palestinian doctor Issam Bassalat, who is charged with preparatory acts of terrorism in connection with the same investigation. Based on recordings and travel documents, the prosecution submitted Jordans leadership role also involved a trip to the Middle East in 2019. In his elevated position within the New IRA... hes the one forging these links with international groups. Its him travelling to Beirut, a Crown lawyer said this week. Opposing bail, she argued that Jordan had been involved in dissident activity for 30 years and posed too great a risk. His mindset is impervious to change, counsel claimed. Defence barrister Michael Forde stressed that Jordan does not accept attending any of the meetings. He contended that the prosecution had failed to set out any wrongdoing in connection with travelling to Beirut. They havent outlined in detail what came out of these meetings, or said [anything] about guns being purchased, Mr Forde insisted. Citing the three years and three months his client has been detained, the barrister suggested that a trial of the case is unlikely to begin before 2025. With Jordans elderly parents offering a 15,000 cash surety, the court heard he would be under family pressure to abide by any release conditions. Reserving judgment in the bail application, Mr Justice Fowler indicated he will give his decision next week. Sharon Jordan was bailed last month Last month, Sharon Jordan was released on bail after spending three years behind bars on remand. Along with Mandy Duffy, who was released on bail two weeks later, they were the longest-serving female prisoners on remand in Northern Ireland history. Duffy, who is also known as Amanda McCabe (52) and who is the sister-in-law of dissident figure Collie Duffy, argued that her children needed her at home to help with caring for her grandkids. Since then, sources say both women have been keeping their heads down while visiting family and friends, and they are determined to stick to their bail arrangements. Both Jordan and Duffy deny charges of directing terrorism, belonging to a proscribed organisation, namely the IRA, two counts of preparation of terrorist acts, and conspiracy to direct terrorism. We havent an understanding of it. We havent the knowledge or the wherewithal The scene on Friday morning where two bodies were fround at a house in Kilnaboy, Co Clare on Thursday. Photograph by Eamon Ward A priest has told massgoers in the village of Corofin how the area is numbed by the deaths of local couple, Joe and Claire Collins, in a suspected murder-suicide, as their funeral takes place tomorrow. Fr Pat ONeill asked the congregation at Saint Brigids Church in Corofin this morning for prayers for the couple and "also for the families and all of those who know them, who are traumatised by their deaths, and especially all of the people of this community. The couples bodies will repose at Saint Brigids Church in Corofin from 5pm tonight with prayers at 7.30pm. Requiem mass will take place at 11am tomorrow, followed by a cremation service at Shannon Crematorium at 2pm. Claire Collins The couple are survived by their adult daughters Sara and Tara, and their grandson Rian. Joe Collins (54) is believed to have killed his Claire (51), who was found dead in the bedroom of their home, before Mr Collins took his own life in an outhouse at the detached bungalow in the rural area. Gardai are treating the deaths of the husband and wife last Thursday at Crossard, Kilnaboy as a suspected murder suicide. Fr ONeill told the congregation today: "It is in our togetherness and support for one another that we can continue on. "We pray for Gods blessing on the Collins family - living and dead - and that all of them somehow will be to continue to live their lives and be able live for one another. Speaking after celebrating mass, Fr ONeill said: "We dont understand what has happened. We havent an understanding of it. We havent the knowledge or the wherewithal - that is why we are traumatised in so many ways and all we can do is try to be there for one another and try to support one another in whatever way that we can. He added the people are in shock "and will continue to be. He said: "You never forget things that affect us hugely - we never forget those things and we learn to live with life and live with the difficulties life presents and difficulties come to us in all different shapes and sizes and this is completely different to all the other difficulties that come our way. He continued: "There is no such thing as passing of judgement on any situation or of anybody or anything. We are all one. We are Gods creation. We all belong to one another. Joe Collins Declan Kelleher, who taught Claire Collins for two years during his time as principal at Corofin National School, said: "The community is absolutely devastated for both families. There is very little more you can say. "It is just a terrible, terrible tragedy. I taught Claire for two years in the primary school. Lovely, lovely, lovely girl. They were both lovely people. That is all you can say. There is just utter devastation in the area. Gardai are not looking for anyone else in relation to the deaths of the couple and a file will be prepared for Clare County Coroner, Isobel ODea, for an inquest to be held at a later date. Storm Debi will bring severe and damaging gusts which may lead to damage to exposed and vulnerable structures Met Eireann has named a new storm following the issuing of a Status Orange wind and a Status Yellow rain warning which will impact most of the country tonight and into Monday. Storm Debi will bring severe and damaging gusts which may lead to damage to exposed and vulnerable structures, dangerous travelling conditions as well as damage to power lines and services. The national forecaster has issued a Status Orange wind warning for 16 counties including: Carlow, Dublin, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Longford, Louth, Meath, Offaly, Westmeath, Wicklow, Clare, Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary and Galway. The warning comes into effect from 2am on Monday until midday on Monday afternoon. A Status Yellow wind and rain warning will also come into effect for every county in Ireland from midnight tonight until 3pm on Monday afternoon. Very windy or stormy on Sunday night and Monday due to Storm Debi, accompanied by heavy rain with a chance of embedded thunderstorms and hail, Met Eireann stressed. Possible impacts of the Status Yellow wind and rain warning include the potential for fallen trees and branches, localised flooding and wave overtopping as well as hazardous travelling conditions. A Status Yellow rain warning also comes into effect for Antrim, Armagh, Down, Tyrone and Derry in Northern Ireland, following communication from the Met Office in the UK. Heavy rain is likely to affect parts of Northern Ireland during Monday bringing disruption to travel, the warning stresses, which lasts from 3am tonight until 2pm on Monday afternoon. Two Status Orange marine storm warnings have also been issued by Met Eireann. The first is from Mizen Head to Valentia to Slyne Head from 1am on Monday until 6am the same day. The second is from Belfast Lough to Carlingford Lough to Wicklow Head and on the Irish Sea, starting at 5am on Monday until 2pm in the afternoon. Winds for these warnings will reach storm force 10, potentially reaching speeds of up to 102kph. A Status Yellow gale warning is also due to come into effect for all coasts of Ireland and the Irish sea from 1am tonight until 5pm Monday evening. Cyclonic variable winds will reach gale force 8 or strong gale force 9, potentially storm force 10, overnight and during Monday, on Irish coastal waters and the Irish Sea, Met Eireann warned. This week Monday will begin very windy or even stormy with further thundery rain in places. Some further severe or damaging gusts are possible, as the gale force warning comes into effect. Highest temperatures of 9 to 13 degrees. Monday night will bring clear spells and blustery heavy showers, mainly affecting Atlantic counties, with lowest temperatures of 6 to 9 degrees. It will be blustery on Tuesday with sunny spells and widespread heavy showers with the best of the drier brighter spells across the southeast and east. Highest temperatures of 10 to 13 degrees in fresh and gusty westerly winds. The winds will ease overnight with showers confined to the northwest. Lowest temperatures of 3 to 7 degrees. Current indications suggest it will be mostly dry with sunny spells and calmer winds on Wednesday. Highest temperatures of 8 to 11 degrees, Met Eireann said. Sunny spells and scattered showers are expected on Thursday - most of which will affect Atlantic counties. Quite breezy with highest temperatures of 7 to 10 degrees. The weather is expected to be unsettled for the remainder of next week, Met Eireann added. More to follow I would therefore respectfully request that the matter be addressed immediately and on an urgent basis Delicious salmon fillet, rich in omega 3 oil...Delicious salmon fillet, rich in omega 3 oil, aromatic spices and lemon on vintage cutting board on black wooden background. Healthy food, diet and cooking concept. A lorry load of fish worth up to 200,000 had to be destroyed last month after a mix-up at a Northern Ireland port. The salmon products were transported to Ireland on behalf of a company in the Faroe Islands. The lorry travelled through Belfast Port on October 2 and then on to the Republic where the fish was to be distributed. However, shortly after the lorry passed through the port, the transport company involved was contacted and told there was an issue with its paperwork and the lorry would have to return to Northern Ireland. Belfast City Council, who are in charge of food checks at the port, said the lorry and its consignment of fish did not return to the port until October 11. The situation led to the consignment of fish being in too poor a condition for onward distribution and the salmon had to be destroyed. Atlantic salmon Sources with inside knowledge of the incident claimed the lorrys load was worth between 150,000 and 200,000. The fish was being transported on behalf of Bakkafrost, a company which exports salmon caught off the coasts of the Faroe Islands and Scotland all around the world. At one stage, the Faroe Islands government became involved in the dispute in Belfast last month. On October 6, Kate Sanderson, the Head of Representation for the Faroe Islands government in the UK and Ireland, sent an email to the authorities involved, including Belfast City Council and the food standards agencies on both sides of the border. In the email, which has been seen by the Sunday World, Ms Sanderson describes it as an urgent matter. She said the fish were shipped according to regular and long-standing procedures from Glasgow, through Northern Ireland, to customers in the Republic. As I assume you are all aware, Faroese salmon is subject to veterinary controls and standards in the Faroe Islands in conformity with our bilateral Veterinary Protocol with the EU, and does not therefore require border inspection into the EU. As far as I have understood the issue, Bakkafrost has received no explanation of the reasons for the product recall, and their urgent communications sent to different food safety authorities in both Ireland and Northern Ireland have not so far resulted in any form of satisfactory response or action. As the matter involves premium fresh fish with a limited shelf life, there is a potential for significant financial loss, not to mention unnecessary food waste, if this matter is not handled as a priority. I would therefore respectfully request that the matter be addressed immediately and on an urgent basis, that the basis for the recall be fully reconsidered, and that the company Bakkafrost be kept fully informed without delay of all and any actions and procedures. As well as the authorities involved, Ms Sanderson also copied her email to the Danish Ambassador to Ireland. The Faroe Islands The Faroe Islands is a self-governing nation under the sovereignty of Denmark. It is not known what response Ms Sanderson received to her email. She did not respond to a request for comment from the Sunday World. Both Bakkafrost and the Faroe Islands government also declined to comment. Although Belfast City Council does not operate Belfast Port, the council is responsible for making sure the port meets environmental health standards. This includes carrying out checks on fish and other food products passing through the port. When contacted about last months incident, a council spokesperson said: On 2 October, Belfast City Councils port health team identified irregularities in documents accompanying this particular consignment. Staff contacted the person responsible for the consignment, shortly after the vehicles departure, to ask them to return to the port immediately, so the essential legal checks required to protect public health and support businesses with their compliance obligations could be carried out. The operator responsible did not comply with our request to return, and a legal recall notice for the consignment was served the same day. Unfortunately, the consignment was not returned for inspection until 11 October. A number of other agencies were involved in last months incident, including the food safety authorities on both sides of the border. When contacted about the matter, a spokesperson for the Dublin-based Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) said it was carrying out an investigation, together with the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in Northern Ireland, into a border evasion of a consignment of fish at Belfast Border Control Post. The investigation is ongoing and no further comment can be made at this time, the spokesperson added. Firth Piracha, Head of EU Relations, Trade and Legislation at the FSA in Northern Ireland said: Our role, as the central competent authority for food and feed safety is to oversee and support the delivery of controls by district councils both inland and at Points of Entry. Belfast City Council informed the Food Standards Agency of an incident where a lorry failed to present for necessary official controls. The incident was handled in line with our standard operating procedures. When you are in an interracial marriage you keep learning about the other persons culture and colour doesnt matter RTEs new series A Ring and a Prayer explores what happens when couples from different cultures and faith traditions decide to get married. The series rolling out over six episodes will follow 12 multi-cultural couples living in Ireland leading up to their big day. In an upcoming episode, the show meets Jennifer, originally from Nigeria, and Eoin from Cork. The pair met and began dating in 2019 when Jennifer was studying a Public Health Masters in UCC. On trip to Jennifers home city Benin in 2021, Eoin proposed. It was important for Jennifer to celebrate her culture so the couple decided to get married twice. In August 2022, Jennifer and Eoin had a tradition Nigerian wedding in Benin, followed by a Cork wedding in June 2023. Jennifer and Eoin, who often document their life on social media, are keen to promote multiculturalism and multicultural couples in Ireland. Explaining why they share so much online, Jennifer explained: People should know interracial relationships are beautiful, life is all about learning when you are in an interracial marriage you keep learning about the other persons culture and colour doesnt matter. I have visited over 20 countries, and will always learn different thing about different cultures. I have found love conquers all, every day I learn new things from Jennifer and she learns from me, Eoin added. Viewers will get the chance meet Jennifer and Eoin and see clips from both weddings in the upcoming episode on Friday, November 24. Social media trawled for new Dancing with the Stars series Miriam Mullins has been lined up for the show The new series of Dancing with the Stars could be a popularity contest between social media influencers as the Sunday World can exclusively confirm that TikTok sensation Miriam Mullins has been lined up. The Cork womans inclusion marks a shift for the producers, who are targeting a younger audience and aiming for celebrities who made their name on various social media platforms. Already being named as taking part by some outlets are James Kavanagh and Tadhg Fleming and blogger-turned-influencer Roz Purcell. James Kavanagh Other names include former GAA pundit Pat Spillane, former Miss World Rosanna Davison, former RTE newsreader Eileen Dunne and Virgin Media star Katja Mia. But the Sunday World was unable to confirm those names. An insider told us: Miriam [Mullins] is perfect for this show because she is fun and energetic and has a huge following. She will have to be one of the favourites to win the whole thing. They are clearly looking for votes here by targeting influencers but they will need to ensure that all ages are catered for because it is a widely popular Sunday evening prime time show that needs to pull in huge numbers to justify the cost. Miriam Mullins has been lined up for the show Our source would not confirm how close the show was to being cancelled earlier this year, but there were constant reports that season six would be its last. Luckily for fans of the show, Dancing with the Stars was a major part of the autumn launch at the end of August, which was rolled out over a few weeks to help kill off all the negative headlines surrounding the Ryan Tubridy pay scandal. Mullins (27), who has 2.1 million followers on TikTok and 140,000 followers on Instagram, became famous throughout the various lockdowns thanks to her hilarious lip-sync and comedy content. She is dating another influencer, South African Tiaan Heyns, whom she met while living in Florida. The pair moved back to her home in Cork at the start of Covid, where they remain. Mullins will hope to follow in the footsteps of 2FM DJ Carl Mullan, who jived and quickstepped his way to the title last March. Doireann Garrihy will again join Jennifer Zamparelli as co-host on the show, while all three judges Brian Redmond, Loraine Barry and Arthur Gourounlian will also return to the show. Dancing with the Stars is due to start in the beginning of January and will run for 11 weeks. A planting project for storm recovery in Fletcher Bay is giving youth opportunities in horticulture, as part of a grassroots employment programme in Thames-Coromandel. Four young people have been working in Fletcher Bay on a planting programme to help with the areas storm recovery. The project is focused on the local campgrounds flood resilience, following the impacts of the North Island weather events in early 2023. The first thing I thought when I arrived at the planting site was What a magnificent view, says Tama Reuban. The best part is seeing how much the plants are growing some of them are up to 30cm now. One of the planting sites. Photo: TCDC. The work is the result of a collaboration between the Department of Conservation, the Pare Hauraki Native Nursery, and the Mayors Taskforce for Jobs (MTFJ) Community Employment Programme and delivered in partnership with Local Government New Zealand. The plants used in the project were grown at the Pare Hauraki Native Nursery in Thames by another MTFJ employee, who helped nurture the 75,000 seedlings required for the work. Seeds were collected from the locations where they will be planted, meaning theyll be well suited to the conditions. The Pare Hauraki Native Nursery. Photo: TCDC. TCDC Mayor Len Salt visited the Pare Hauraki Native Nursery in Thames recently. Its clear from talking with these young people that this on-the-job experience is crucial to their success," says Len. "The programme is just one of the great examples in our region of localism in action. Theyre able to put their skills and interests into practice, and its fantastic to see how much theyve enjoyed the outdoors work and seeing the end results of the efforts in the nursery. "Plus, this sort of resilience planting work is of such long-term value to our wider community. The Pare Hauraki Nursery Project is an existing three-year Kaimahi Jobs for Nature Project established in July 2021. DOCs purchase of the 75,000 plants required for the Fletcher Bay project enabled Pare Hauraki, supported by MTFJ, to employ the rangatahi in the nursery. Pare Hauraki employed the four rangatahi as part of the planting team at the DOC Fletcher Bay planting site. The five-month fixed-term contracts were due to finish at the end of October, and Ngati Maru, as a provider for MTFJ, will now continue to work with the rangatahi to secure them further employment. The Pare Hauraki Native Nursery. Photo: TCDC. Employers whod like to support a young person into employment are encouraged to contact Ngati Maru, who will help with placement of work-ready jobseekers and offer continued pastoral care to settle them into their new role. Ngati Maru say they also welcome any new rangatahi whod like to come in and find out about career path or employment opportunities to give them a call on 07 868 9104 Want to get started in horticulture? As part of the native nursery initiative, Pare Hauraki have also teamed up with Valley Education to offer a horticulture Level 3 qualification, providing students with flexible and inclusive options to complete their coursework and assessments, including the option to submit work orally rather than in writing. Valley Education has a rolling intake for the horticulture course. If youd like to register your interest, please contact Valley Education on admin@valleyeducation.co.nz, or 07 868 7042. Visit valleyeducation.co.nz The Pare Hauraki Native Nursery. Photo: TCDC. About Mayors Taskforce for Jobs MTFJ is a movement of mayors around New Zealand who advocate for a bottom-up approach to employment solutions to deliver the Community Employment Programme (CEP) along with broader initiatives. In particular, CEP is a nationwide partnership between Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) and the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) thats delivering great outcomes in our rural and provincial communities. Its championed by mayors who are working together towards the vision of all young people 16-25 engaged in employment, education, or training in their communities. Generation Z is in the House. Or at least, they will be soon. Octobers election saw the first wave of Gen Z representatives elected to Parliament, with three candidates aged 26 years or younger. This is a generation which grew up with the internet, but may still have memories of its earliest days, unlike the up-coming Generation Alpha. Its an age group which has expressed significant changes in thinking on issues such as the environment, race relations and gender. And its a generation which has challenged traditional ways of working, living, and thinking about social issues. The first three Gen Z MPs have been elected through winning electorates for the Green, National and Maori parties. They are: Wellington Central MP Tamatha Paul, Bay of Plenty MP Tom Rutherford, and Hauraki-Waikato MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke. Tamatha and Tom are Gen Z elders, both born in 1997, while Hana-Rawhiiti was born after the turn of the millennium and is 21 years old. Although these three politicians are the first elected Gen Z representatives in Parliament, Gen Zers have filled roles in political offices and taken important positions in political debate for a number of years. Infometrics chief executive Brad Olsen, for instance, is a regular visitor to the halls of power, one of the most high profile economics commentators in New Zealand, and is a Gen Zer. Brad Olsen is the chief executive and principal economist of Infometrics. He is also a member of Generation Z. Photo: Monique Ford/Stuff Brad, who was also born in 1997, says he expects some things to change now Gen Z is entering positions of power in Parliament. I expect that parliamentary debates will become a little bit more fun and a little bit more direct, he says Some of the phrases that us Zoomers are known for, we try and cut through the more dense and dull to add a bit of spice to life. But Brad stresses zingers arent the only thing Gen Z could bring to Parliament. I certainly don't want to make it sound like we're good for a soundbite, and that's it, says Brad. But he does believe that having more straight-talking and relatable MPs will be important for boosting public confidence in, and engagement with, Parliament. Weve got a growing younger population, with a different worldview, with different experiences, with different wants and needs and requirements and asks, he says. So having people there who have that experience, who come from a different generation ensures that when it is the people's house, the House of Representatives, that it is representative. While the result of three Gen Z representatives split across three parties shows that the generations political opinions spread across party lines, Brad says he did expect to see some commonalities especially related to housing. We talk a lot about the housing market, but I think we will increasingly hear about the rental market and what Zoomers are facing there. Green MP Tamatha Paul will enter Parliament as the MP for Wellington Central. Photo: Monique Ford/The Post. Tamatha, who quit being a city councillor to represent Wellington city in Parliament, says there are a number of issues around human rights and climate change, which younger generations want to stand up for. The big thing is climate change. Because at the end of the day, we will live the longest to see the most devastating impacts of climate change, says Tamatha. She also expects to see younger representatives pushing for greater recognition of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. In 17 years, its going to be 200 years since Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed... These are things that we're going to stand up for, because we envisage a future that is informed by Te Tiriti. Until speaking to Stuff, Tamatha hadnt realised she is amongst the first wave of Gen Z MPs. She asked about Chloe Swarbrick, who entered Parliament in 2017 at the age of 23. Oh is Chloe a millenial, says Tamatha. Swarbrick is a millennial. Born in 1994, thats three years before the Gen Z boundary, making her a young millennial. Yeah, right, so Im a really old Gen Z, says Tamatha. She says she doesnt feel much pressure from being a younger MP. But I definitely feel more pressure being a young Maori woman, than I do being just a Gen Z. The year youre born doesnt necessarily prescribe a whole lot, although it does give a unique perspective on the issues of your time. Tom Rutherford (left) beside National leader Christopher Luxon in Tauranga during the campaign. Photo: Ricky Wilson/Stuff. Tom Rutherford, whos entering Parliament with National, says his age isnt that unusual. He points to Simeon Brown, another National MP who had started at 26 years old. He says hed felt supported joining National, and will ensure younger perspectives are heard in the Governments caucus room. The National Party is a broad church. We are looking to be the political party that is representative of all New Zealanders, and that is both in the diversity sense of ethnicity, diversity of thought and background. And in my case, diversity of age, says Tom. He says there were some issues, mainly housing and climate change, where he thought Gen Z as a whole had a different perspective than older generations. I've been looking for the last couple of years to purchase my first home. I know the struggle of what it's like for a lot of people to get together an initial deposit. So when we have those discussions in caucus and at a national level, that's where Im going to be able to provide some input from my first-hand personal experience as a 26-year-old. Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, right, is the youngest MP for 170 years. Photo: Robert Kitchin/Stuff. At 21-years-old, Te Pati Maori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke is the youngest parliamentarian New Zealand has seen since 1853. Hana-Rawhiti says her arrival is the start of the kohanga reo generation taking positions of power. This new generation, with unapologetic rangatahi proud to be Maori and more outspoken, are ready to challenge traditional power, she says. I have one job: and that is to tell our story, Hana-Rawhiti said during the Re News youth voters debate. I represent the voices, I represent 65 per cent of Maori who are under the age of 35. She says respect for Te Tiriti o Waitangi, te reo and tikanga, and rangatahi Maori perspectives on issues such as the cost of living and housing will be her key kaupapa as an MP and are the main issue impacting her generation. Glenn McConnell and Anna Whyte/Stuff This article takes a look at the 25 cheapest and safest places to live in the world. If you wish to skip our detailed analysis, you may go to 10 Cheapest and Safest Places to Live in The World. A Tale of Two Lifestyles William Smith, 68, has no regrets about his life-changing move to Thailand. In fact, he has discovered his life as an expat to be fairly comfortable and remarkably cost-effective as compared to his lifestyle back in the United States. With a monthly budget of just $700, William not only manages to cover his living expenses, but also sets aside savings from his social security income. He has secured a decent place for himself in central Chiang Mai for a modest $170 per month, with a nice big bedroom, a full-size bathroom, and even a fridge. Utilities cost him a mere $200, and the rest he gets to spend on food, transport, and leisure activities. Williams cost-effective lifestyle in Chiang Mai stands as a testament to the quality of retirement he enjoys. In stark contrast, 47 million households with older adults in the USA are facing financial struggles today. As the Social Security Administration notes, 65-year-olds, on average, are expected to live another 20 years, setting the stage for a concerning reality for millions. These individuals are increasingly at risk of falling into a retirement security crisis, as savings diminish, inflation escalates, and requiring long-term care becomes increasingly probable. What makes this predicament even more challenging is that household budgets have gone up by more than what the 3.2% Cost-of-Living-Adjustment (COLA) can adequately address. The Senior Citizens League notes that between January 2021 to December 2022, average social security benefits have been falling short of inflation by roughly $1,504. To quote an example, many seniors who shop for groceries at Walmart Inc. (NYSE:WMT) are now sticking to brands by Walmart Inc. (NYSE:WMT) only. Popular stores such as Dollar Tree, Inc. (NASDAQ:DLTR) and Dollar General Corporation (NYSE:DG) are picking up market share as well when it comes to shelf-stable foods like canned beans and pasta, with many seniors behind these purchases. Moreover, Walmart Inc. (NYSE:WMT) doesnt have the lowest prices for items such as personal care, Goli vitamins and supplements, canned beans and chicken broth, and even cleaning supplies; items that seniors shop cheaper at Dollar Tree, Inc. (NASDAQ:DLTR) and Dollar General Corporation (NYSE:DG) instead. Story continues An estimated 20% of seniors have also been reported to cut back on medication, because of a lack of funds. This situation is compounded by the fact that Medicare premiums and out-of-pocket costs rise dramatically during retirement, further straining the financial resources of retirees. In lieu of this, HealthView projects that by a time a couple reaches 85, healthcare costs are going to consume 92% of their total benefits. Even with Medicare coverage, an average 65-year old could spend an average $157,500 on healthcare costs throughout their retirement period. Over the next several years, inflation will likely drive these health costs higher than any other category that retirees spend on. Due to the rising costs for retirees, saving on every dollar can make a huge difference. Shopping at dollar stores, particularly Dollar Tree, Inc. (NASDAQ:DLTR) and Dollar General Corporation (NYSE:DG), can allow retirees to save sufficiently. Customers have reported saving as much as $300 when shopping at these stores. Nevertheless, costs are still rising, and have been further pushing retirees to make bold moves in order to ease their financial woes. Based on a survey by The Senior Citizens League involving 1,055 lower to middle-income retirees, 26% respondents were found to have depleted their retirement accounts in Q1 2023. 45% of the respondents also had credit card debt for more than 90 days. This is only a glimpse of the cost-of-living crisis that individuals, particularly fixed-income groups, are facing in the USA. For such individuals, countries with a low cost of living and high quality of life present a significantly appealing choice to live their years. Hungary, Indonesia, Chile, and Vietnam are some of the cheapest and safest places to live in the world. Striking the Balance between Safety and Affordability Seeking an affordable country to live as an expat goes beyond mere consideration of its cost of living. Expats, especially retirees, equally prioritize factors such as healthcare, safety, and overall quality of life. Otherwise, they would settle for the cheapest country to live in, like Syria. The cost of living in the country is 64.1% lower than in the United States. Other countries that have a low cost of living include Pakistan, Egypt, India, Bolivia, Sri Lanka, and Colombia, to name a few. As many already know, expats arent motivated to move to these countries as they dont make the cut in terms of safety and healthcare. According to the Global Peace Index Report 2023, Syria ranks at 161 out of 163 countries, signifying an exceptionally low peace ranking for the nation. Pakistan ranks at 146 out of 163 countries, also a notably low ranking in terms of peace. Egypt is ranked 121st, Sri Lanka is positioned at 107th, and Bolivia secures the 78th spot, all falling into the medium category in terms of peace rankings. All of these countries have a GPI score above 2, suggesting low levels of peace and stability within them. Since expats prefer countries that are safe for them to spend their lives, these countries dont seem to be good choices. Instead, some of the cheapest and safest places to live in include Romania, Chile, and Vietnam. Not only do these countries offer affordable living, but also a good quality of life. To learn more about which cities and towns, in particular, are the cheapest and safest to live in, read on below. 25 Cheapest and Safest Places to Live in The World Rusu Dumitru Costinel/Shutterstock.com Methodology To compile the list of cheapest and safest places to live in the world, we used our previous list of cheapest and safest countries. The list ranked countries based on their cost of living index and global peace index rankings, as sourced from Numbeo and Global Peace Index Report 2023. Next, we selected 3 places from each country and ranked the final list on their peace and cost of living indices. Scores were averaged and the final Insider Monkey Score was used to list places on our list. Monthly costs of living for an individual expat include rent for a one-bedroom apartment, utilities, food, and miscellaneous expenses. We have also mentioned the average healthcare insurance that an expat would require in the country. Some countries have made this health insurance obligatory, while many others haven't. On average, international healthcare insurance costs $500 per month. Here are the cheapest and safest places to live in the world: 25. Sofia, Bulgaria Insider Monkey Score: 4 One of the cheapest capitals of Europe, Sofia in Bulgaria is not only affordable but also quite safe. The monthly cost of living for an individual expat is $1,500, which includes national healthcare insurance that costs an estimated 24 BGN ($13) per month. 24. Valdivia, Chile Insider Monkey Score: 4 Known as the Beer Capital of Chile, Valdivia is a beautiful city filled with bridges and waterways. The overall cost of living here is approximately $1,000, with expatriate healthcare insurance accounting for $45 of this amount. 23. Jakarta, Indonesia Insider Monkey Score: 4.14 Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, is a vibrant city for expats boasting vast cultural experiences, a well-established expat community, and modern healthcare facilities. Expats usually live in areas such as Kemang, SCBD, or Senopati. The monthly cost of living in Jakarta is $1,200, including around $100 for healthcare insurance. 22. San Pedro de Atacama, Chile Insider Monkey Score: 4.29 San Pedro de Atacama, a popular spot in South America, might be particularly appealing to expat retirees who appreciate natural beauty such as the Atacama Desert, the dry and sunny climate, and also its peaceful lifestyle. The monthly cost of living for an individual retiree is an estimated $1,000. 21. Shkoder, Albania Insider Monkey Score: 4.41 From its friendly locals to its vibrant culture, Shkoder is a safe place for expats to live. The healthcare system is adequate in the country, and international health coverage is usually not needed if the expat is covered by the local system. The monthly cost of living for an individual expat is $1,100. 20. Chisinau, Moldova Insider Monkey Score: 4.42 Brimming with history and culture, Chisinau is another economic choice for expats. The total cost of living in Chisinau, Moldova is $1,077, with an additional $500 required for international healthcare insurance (if desired). 19. Bucharest, Romania Insider Monkey Score: 4.43 Also known as Little Paris, Bucharest is one of the cheapest and safest places to live in the world. The total cost of living in the country is $1,395, and expats have access to free medical care. However, private healthcare insurance costs an additional $30, on average. 18. Budapest, Hungary Insider Monkey Score: 4.71 As one of the best English-speaking places to retire in Europe, Budapest seems to be an ideal choice for many. The total cost of living in the capital is $1,575, and an additional $70 is required for private healthcare insurance. 17. Tamarin, Mauritius Insider Monkey Score: 4.71 Embraced by beautiful mountains and a black sand beach, Tamarin is a popular place for tourists and expatriates. Individuals get to enjoy a good quality of life here. The monthly cost of living for an individual is $1,400. Public healthcare is free for all residents, while monthly costs for private expat health insurance are an additional $200, on average. 16. Accra, Ghana Insider Monkey Score: 4.86 One of the best places to retire in Africa, Accra, in Ghana, is known for its vibrant culture, friendly people, and affordable cost of living. On average, the monthly cost of living for an individual expat is $1,000. Moreover, international healthcare insurance costs an additional $500 on average. 15. Port Louis, Mauritius Insider Monkey Score: 4.86 Mauritius generally enjoys a low crime rate as well as an affordable cost of living. Port Louis, in particular, enjoys picturesque beaches and lush landscapes, and is also the cultural and economic hub of the country. On average, the monthly cost of living for an individual expat is $1,500 which includes expat health insurance. 14. Varna, Bulgaria Insider Monkey Score: 4.86 Scoring high on the Global Peace Index 2023, Bulgaria is one of the cheapest and safest places to live in the world. The beautiful coastal city boasts an affordable cost of living, with an individual expat living comfortably at $1,300 per month (on average). 13. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia Insider Monkey Score: 5.29 Ulaanbaatar is considered a safe country and boasts an affordable cost of living as well. The capital is considered as the country's economic, political, and cultural center, with very friendly locals. On average, the monthly cost of living (including private expat healthcare insurance) is $1,500. 12. Timisoara, Romania Insider Monkey Score: 5.43 Timisoara, in Romania, is one of those places where expats can even live on $1,000 a month. The cultural scene is thriving, natural beauty abundant, and healthcare quite modern. On average, the monthly cost of living for an individual expat is $1,100, including private healthcare insurance. 11. Tirana, Albania Insider Monkey Score: 5.57 One of the best places to live as an expat is Tirana, the capital of Albania. Deemed as Europe's up-and-coming markets, Tirana offers modern amenities and an urban lifestyle. On average, the monthly cost of living for an individual is $1,200. Expats can also buy international healthcare insurance for an additional $500 on average per month. Click to continue reading and see the 10 Cheapest and Safest Places to Live in The World. Disclosure: The name, William Smith, mentioned in this article is fictional and has been used in place of the real name to protect the individual's privacy and confidentiality. 25 Cheapest and Safest Places to Live in The World is originally published on Insider Monkey. Youth with a Mission Ships NZ is appealing for help to save its medical aid ship after an issue with the tailshaft has left it stranded in Lautoka, Fiji, needing urgent repairs. The YWAM Koha ship and its crew of volunteers were providing much needed medical aid to isolated communities in Fiji when an issue with a bearing in the tailshaft was discovered. The YWAM Koha, which has two dental clinics on board, needs to be urgently dry docked and repaired, leaving the organisation with a $300,000 bill. YWAM Ships Managing Director, Marty Emmett, says YWAM Ships runs on the generosity of people who freely donate their time and expertise. He says the organisation is able to pay $100,000, leaving a $200,000 shortfall which is needed by the end of November. YWAM Ships Managing Director, Marty Emmett. Photo: Supplied. In just two years in Fiji, weve been able to serve more than 5000 people by bringing healthcare services to people in need in isolated islands, where something as simple as a trip to the dentist is out of the question for most people. We feel like we've just got started and there are so many more people in need that we want to reach across the Pacific. "We know its a big ask for New Zealanders right now, but if enough people chip in we can get our ship fixed so we can get to them." Marty says the good news is that Trinity Lands has generously offered to match every donation up to $100,000 "so your donation effectively doubles". Dentists donating their time to help people with free dental care. Photo: Supplied. The YWAM Koha was originally built in 1968 in Germany as a buoy tender and was used as a ferry between NZ and Pitcairn Island before being gifted to YWAM Ships NZ in 2019 as a gifthence the name Koha. The ship is 48m long and is fitted with two dental clinics and equipment to set up pop-up clinics on land, and is based in Tauranga. The YWAM Koha, on deployment in Fiji. Photo: Supplied. During Covid, while borders were closed, YWAM ships pioneered a free dental clinic in New Zealand communities experiencing poverty, providing free dental care and oral health education to more than 3000 kiwis in need. Marty says this is something theyre keen to continue. People tell us I can eat now. I can sleep now. I can go get a job now and get off the benefit. I have my confidence restored. But the greatest thing we hear is I can smile again. Were seeing people smiling at each other again, including communities that have had generations of gang involvement. I think we're best as kiwis when were looking after our communities and neighbours in need. This is an awesome opportunity to give to an outreach that provides immediate and measurable impacts to peoples lives. Whats more, because we all volunteer our time for free you can be confident that 100 per cent of your donation will go towards the ship. To donate, head to saveourship.nz Irene Quirante Malaga Sunday, 12 November 2023, 19:07 Compartir Copiar enlace WhatsApp Facebook X LinkedIn Telegram One of the henchmen involved with the notorious Spanish robber El Nino Saez has been arrested in connection with the attempted murder of a nightclub doorman in Marbella. The man, Omar N.G, was arrested in Melun in France and had been on the run from police since 2012 after the attempted murder of the security guard. According to investigators, the man is considered an expert in safecracking and is linked to the Nino Saez gang. National Police said the suspect had 13 warrants out for his arrest. Among the warrants is the alleged attempted murder that happened in Marbella in 2012. The detained man allegedly drove a vehicle past the nightclub where the doorman was working and fired a gun at him, who had previously refused to allow the suspect access. He allegedly used a gun with a silencing device. The victim was rushed to hospital in a serious condition. The detainee allegedly worked with another person known to the police, Alex di Francesco, with who he allegedly formed a gang dedicated to robbing businesses. They would disguise themselves as telephone technicians and target safes. Both are considered heirs of the well-known "alunicero" who died a few years ago, police said. The suspect will now face the Court of Appeal of Paris. Vanessa Melgar Ronda Sunday, 12 November 2023, 18:38 Compartir Copiar enlace WhatsApp Facebook X LinkedIn Telegram The 66-year-old man who died on Saturday morning (11 November) after being shot during a hunting trip in Antequera was the former mayor of Farajan, the socialist Fernando Fernandez, who announced his decision not to stand in the last municipal elections after 20 years in office in his village. "He was a very good person, who has been at the service of everyone for 20 years", said the current mayor of the village in the Genal valley, Rogelio Barragan, who announced that the town hall will decree several days of official mourning for the loss of Fernandez, who leaves two daughters and who "had just retired and was enjoying the countryside, which he loved", said Barragan. The news has caused great upset in the Serrania de Ronda area, as Fernandez was well-known after his time in politics. Under his leadership, Farajan developed various projects, such as the setting up of the only residence for the elderly in the valley. He was also behind the building of the municipal swimming pool, among other projects, and was one of the key voices of the area in the fight against depopulation. Further details of the hunting incident are not known at the moment. The emergency services were unable to do anything for Fernandez, who died on the estate located on the Las Pedrizas road where the hunt was being held, according to the Junta de Andalucia. At 11.30am, the 112 emergency number received a call to say a man had been accidentally shot during the event. Cartes' tree, on the left, 45 metres high, and Badalona, on the right, 40 metres high and 18 metres in diametre. Alberto Santamaria Santander Sunday, 12 November 2023, 18:59 Compartir Copiar enlace WhatsApp Facebook X LinkedIn Telegram Four Spanish cities and towns are competing against one another to erect the tallest Christmas tree in the country. Vigo, Badalona, Granada and Cartes are all vying for the bragging right and it's sparked some feisty words among respective councillors. Cartes mayor Agustin Molleda said: "If Vigo and Badalona get cocky, we'll put the Christmas tree up as high as necessary and if it has to be taken up to 45 metres, then we'll do it". But Molleda forgot to mention Granada. The Andalusian city is planning to erect a 57-metre Christmas tree in a shopping centre. Cartes, on the left, 45 metres high, and Badalona, on the right, 40 metres high and 18 metre in diameter. D.M. Vigo, in Galicia, under the leadership of Abel Caballero, wants to increase its tree from 40 to 40.5 metres, to at least beat Badalona's, although the mayor recently seemed to give up on the contest and concentrated on their tree having the "greatest light show offering a unique spectacle in the world". Badalona, in Catalonia, has already installed its tree, which stands at 40 metres high. It is illuminated with 82,000 LED lights. Cartes, in Cantabria, is still working on it's 42.5-metre tree and is still deciding how it will be decorated and lit. But it looks as though Granada will outdo them all, with a 57-metre tree planned at the Nevada shopping centre. Martin Diebel / Getty Images In some parts of Europe, governments allow people to purchase abandoned homes in typically remote locations for as little as $1. Dispatches Europe reported that the reason for this initiative is that working-age people continue to leave small towns and villages in rural Europe. As a result, they leave behind houses that dont appeal to todays buyers. See: 5 Expensive Home Renovations That Youll Probably Regret Learn: 3 Things You Must Do When Your Savings Reach $50,000 In an effort to revitalize these areas, the $1 house trend continues to grow as more countries are offering the program to prospective buyers. Four countries in particular have become some of the most notorious. Four Countries Where You Can Find Many $1 Homes Italy Dispatches Europe explains that Italys overall population decreased by a staggering 384,000 in 2020. This was the largest decrease in more than 100 years. While there are thousands of houses available throughout the country, the majority are in poor condition and most towns sell them to interested buyers for the price of 1 euro, with auction prices tending to be elevated. Homes are so cheap, some people are even buying two. There is a catch though: buyers are required to invest significantly in the rehabilitation of the home. This doesnt include additional fees for taxes, the cost of connecting to local utilities, or real estate agents commissions. Its reported that its common for the new owners to have spent roughly 30,000 euros on homes that generally only have about 700 square feet of space. France France isnt the first country to offer 1 euro homes for sale, but youll be able to find decently sized homes (about 1,000 square feet) up for sale for the price of 1 euro. Similarly to Italy, this program is designed to bring people back into remote villages where most original inhabitants have moved to cities and other large urban areas for more opportunities. In some areas of France, like Saint-Amand-Montrond, there is a requirement that you actually have to live in the house, start renovations within 6 months of purchase, and have a plan to complete the work within two years. To add, you arent allowed to use the home as a rental or Airbnb property to earn income. Story continues Discover: 5 Expensive Home Renovations That Youll Probably Regret Croatia Legrad, a village in northern Croatia on the border with Hungary, has started selling abandoned houses for 1 kuna, the equivalent of $0.16. As of mid-2021, the town had listed 19 homes for sale. So far, 17 of the homes have sold. Before you can score a house in Legrad, you must be financially stable and at least 40 years old. Additionally, youll need to commit to staying for a minimum of 15 years. Its not specifically indicated that you have to live in this Croatian rural village for 15 years, just that you need to keep owning the property for that long. To sweeten the deal, Ivan Sabolic, Legrads mayor, says the town will cover 20% of home renovation costs, which equates to 35,000 kunas or about 5,000 euros. Ireland The Republic of Ireland is following in the footsteps of some of its European counterparts. In an effort to repopulate its rural wind-swept islands, Ireland will pay you (pounds, dollars, euros) to move to a remote island, explained Dispatches Europe. The country will even offer grants to move to rural islands. Whats the reason Ireland is willing to pay you to move? Its because so few people want to live in remote and distant areas of the country. Connections to the mainland from Irish islands are challenging, often contingent on weather patterns and tides. Our Living Islands is Irelands 10-year initiative to repopulate about 30 islands. In the June 2023 announcement, it was shared that the republics government will pay up to 84,000 euros if you buy an old, dilapidated, abandoned property located on one of these remote islands and restore the home. Its worth noting that if youre not an Irish citizen, youll have to apply for a long-term residency scheme as per Irish immigration laws. The $1 home trend continues to grow with remote work and digital nomadism that took shape since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic is here to stay. If youre feeling adventurous and looking for a fresh start, you love to travel far and wide, or its your time to retire and youre looking for new life experiences, then the $1 home could be for you. More From GOBankingRates This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: 4 Places Abroad Where You Can Buy a Home for $1 Current Print Subscribers will be prompted to either login to their current site user account or to create a new one. A confirmation email will be sent when a new user account is created, which must be confirmed within three days in order to provide uninterrupted online access through your Print Subscription. Once the email address is confirmed please provide your Account Number to activate your Print Subscription Service. The total capacity of hybrid solar-wind complexes in the two regions will be 623 MW, Azernews reports, citing Kun.uz News Agency. Voltalia hasentered into agreements with the government of Uzbekistan to implement two green energy projects, Energy Storage News reports. The signing of the relevant documents took place a week earlier, on the sidelines of the Uzbek-French business forum. It is noted that both projects will include energy storage systems. Thus, Voltalia signed a protocol on the implementation of a hybrid power plant project in Shurkul near Navoi with a total capacity of 400 MW. A preliminary agreement on it was drawn up in November last year, after Shavkat Mirziyoyevs visit to France. The power plant will combine a wind farm and a farm of solar photo panels with a capacity of 200 MW each. The complex will also include a 60 MW battery system (with a total capacity of 240 MWh). Allegedly, the electric cluster is expected to be commissioned in 2026. Voltalia called it the first facility of its kind in Central Asia. The second power plant will be located in Sarymay, Khorezm region. Voltalia won the tender for its construction in 2022, offering a price of 2.888 cents per 1 kWh. Initially, it was assumed that there would be a 100 MW solar power plant here. However, the projected capacity has now increased to 123 MW, and the company has also signed a protocol to build a 100 MW wind farm and battery system here. In July, Voltalia opened a new office in Tashkent. The ceremony was attended by the Ambassador of France to Uzbekistan Aurelia Bouchez. Key Insights Given the large stake in the stock by institutions, Copperleaf Technologies' stock price might be vulnerable to their trading decisions The top 8 shareholders own 52% of the company Insiders have bought recently If you want to know who really controls Copperleaf Technologies Inc. (TSE:CPLF), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. We can see that institutions own the lion's share in the company with 40% ownership. Put another way, the group faces the maximum upside potential (or downside risk). Because institutional owners have a huge pool of resources and liquidity, their investing decisions tend to carry a great deal of weight, especially with individual investors. Therefore, a good portion of institutional money invested in the company is usually a huge vote of confidence on its future. Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Copperleaf Technologies. Check out our latest analysis for Copperleaf Technologies What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Copperleaf Technologies? Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index. As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Copperleaf Technologies. 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. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at Copperleaf Technologies' earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters. Copperleaf Technologies is not owned by hedge funds. Our data shows that PenderFund Capital Management Ltd. is the largest shareholder with 14% of shares outstanding. Amos Michelson is the second largest shareholder owning 12% of common stock, and Export Development Canada, Asset Management Arm holds about 9.1% of the company stock. Story continues We also observed that the top 8 shareholders account for more than half of the share register, with a few smaller shareholders to balance the interests of the larger ones to a certain extent. 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. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily. Insider Ownership Of Copperleaf Technologies While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. The company management answer to the board and the latter should represent the interests of shareholders. Notably, sometimes top-level managers are on the board themselves. Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances. Our most recent data indicates that insiders own a reasonable proportion of Copperleaf Technologies Inc.. It has a market capitalization of just CA$379m, and insiders have CA$75m worth of shares in their own names. This may suggest that the founders still own a lot of shares. You can click here to see if they have been buying or selling. General Public Ownership The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a 40% stake in Copperleaf Technologies. 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. Next Steps: It's always worth thinking about the different groups who own shares in a company. But to understand Copperleaf Technologies better, we need to consider many other factors. To that end, you should be aware of the 2 warning signs we've spotted with Copperleaf Technologies . Ultimately the future is most important. You can access this free report on analyst forecasts for the company. 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. Increasing usage of generative artificial intelligence, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, has raised questions about the validity of emotionally charged texts like wedding vows, apologies, and eulogies. Recently, 31-year-old Bloomberg data management professional Tori McCun used ChatGPT to write a eulogy for her father, who passed away, as reported by ABC News. Although McCun's sisters received a good reaction, they voiced discomfort with using a non-human creature during such a private time, pointing to a larger societal issue. With over 100 million weekly users as of right now, ChatGPT has seen a rise in popularity, according to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. But worries about the generative AI tool's unrestricted internet access continue, prompting fears about identity theft and possible exposure to misleading material. Efficiency vs. Authenticity People who use ChatGPT for emotive messaging claim that it relieves some of the burden of coming up with eloquent remarks in critical circumstances. Even personalized AI solutions have surfaced to help with writing personal letters, such as vows at marriage. According to research from Israel's Bar-Ilan University, receivers may be less likely to accept AI-generated apologies since they don't think they are as genuine. This belief about AI's inability to handle sensitive tasks may also apply to other types of messaging, such as funeral eulogies and wedding vows. According to research co-author Omri Asscher, AI's work is "perceived to be faulty in terms of its moral authenticity." Some people, like Melissa Buckley from Reading, Pennsylvania, support the usage of ChatGPT despite the criticism by highlighting how the tool's results rely on the user's involvement and effort. Expert in ethics Andrea Lynch advises customers to customize AI-written drafts with their speech patterns. She offers eulogy-writing kits along with guidance on using generative AI. York University Philosophy Professor Alice MacLachlan acknowledges that generative AI like ChatGPT can be helpful for less-fluent writers to better express emotions, but it could be a source of tension between relatives. Read Also: ICBC Ransomware Attack: Financial Authorities on High Alert Amid US Treasuries Disruption Human Traits, Skills Cannot Be Replaced by AI Renowned leadership speaker Francis J. Kong encourages executives to utilize ChatGPT strategically, highlighting how technology may take the place of tedious activities and free up time for innovative projects. From his vantage point, AI improves productivity. He argues in his article in the Philippine Star that successful people possess certain traits that AI cannot replicate. "All the successful business people and effective leaders I have met in my lifetime possess the same qualities that technology can never produce. Furthermore, no matter how intelligent AI becomes, "it cannot replicate resilience, creativity, and humility," Kong. Meanwhile, Forbes reported that Boston Consulting Group (BCG) tested the effectiveness of generative AI, namely OpenAI's GPT-4, in professional services environments using 750 consultants. In activities involving creative product invention, GPT-4 did 40% better than the control group; yet, in tasks involving corporate problem-solving, it fared 23% worse. The research highlights the necessity for care when using AI in situations with a clear "right answer" by cautioning against relying just on GPT-4 for qualitative and quantitative data processing. More than 61% of professionals either use generative AI now or expect to in the future, according to a different poll. Related Article: Consumers Are Better Prepared for Automated Vehicle Delivery Than Drones, Robots - Study 2023 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Insurance firms were granted access to private health information that almost 500,000 UK individuals provided via UK Biobank for medical research, despite earlier claims to the contrary, per an investigation. The Observer discovered that between 2020 and 2023, UK Biobank, founded in 2006 to support illness research times, made its vast biological database available to insurance industry companies. Insurance consulting and tech companies receive the data, which includes blood, saliva, and urine samples, medical records, scans, data from wearable devices, and lifestyle details, to build computerized tools that estimate a person's risk of developing chronic illnesses. Unauthorized Sharing of Sensitive Information? Health advocates, data privacy specialists, and geneticists have expressed concerns about screening and ethical checks at UK Biobank, despite the bank's claims of having strong controls over access to data for legitimate researchers. The inquiry also showed that participants were not made aware of data sharing with insurance firms directly, which raises concerns about Biobank's ethical and transparent business procedures. The UK Biobank is regarded as a vital resource in British science. Originally developed to assist academics, the database has played a significant role in significant medical breakthroughs. Praised as the largest health research resource globally, the UK Biobank has been essential in several ground-breaking discoveries, ranging from genetic testing for coronary heart disease to understanding the influence of genetic and lifestyle variables on COVID-19, as per the Biobank's press release. Recently, the UK Biobank included the biggest proteome dataset and continued results from the world's largest whole-body scanning imaging project. Researchers can investigate novel routes for studying disease processes across a range of illnesses, such as depression, anxiety, cancer, and osteoporosis, because of this varied data gathering, per the UK government's site. Read Also: US FDA Grants Historic Approval to Ixchiq: First-Ever Vaccine for Chikungunya Virus However, the management of sensitive medical data has come under fire after recent discoveries. UK Biobank justified its actions by claiming that participants received updated information during enrolling and that the pledge made before official recruiting in 2007 was no longer valid. Although prior agreements specifically excluded insurance companies, the group said that sharing anonymized data with private corporations for "health-related" research constituted a commitment to them. A Grave 'Breach of Trust' Since Biobank does not regularly provide this information, it is unknown what kind of data is shared with the insurance sector. Project summaries recommend adding participant-level, de-identified data on illnesses, lifestyle, and biomarkers. According to the investigation, ReMark International, a worldwide insurance consultant, was one of the organizations that was given access, and their goal was to use medical records and wristwatch data to create an algorithm that would forecast illnesses and mortality. The firm includes customers, including Legal & General and MetLife, and underwrites one million policies a year. Other firms that gained access to the sensitive data were Lydia.ai, a Canadian "insurtech" company, and Club Vita, a "longevity data analytics company for pension funds," as per the investigative report. Prominent experts, such as genetics and artificial intelligence specialist Prof. Yves Moreau, have denounced the data sharing as a "serious and disturbing breach of trust." Moreau suggested that participants may not have recognized that insurance companies may access their data and stressed the importance of apparently minor variables. Related Article: California Hospital Declares 'Internal Disaster' After Suffering from Cyber Attack 2023 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. GHGSat, a Canadian firm monitoring greenhouse gas emissions, has successfully launched the world's first commercial space-based sensor, Vanguard. Reuters tells us that this cutting-edge orbital sensor is designed to detect carbon dioxide emissions from individual industrial facilities, such as cement or power plants, and its launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California marks a significant advancement in carbon emissions monitoring. GHGSat's Vanguard Satellite GHGSat's Vanguard satellite leverages the company's extensive experience detecting methane emissions and is considered a precursor to a new generation of space instruments. With this new technology, GHGSat aims to provide frequent, accurate, and independent high-resolution carbon dioxide data from individual sites, revolutionizing how we monitor and report carbon dioxide emissions. The satellite's capabilities are truly remarkable. Vanguard offers high spatial resolution, allowing it to focus on individual targets and accurately attribute emissions. While public carbon dioxide emission detection satellites are in orbit, they are not designed to pinpoint specific facilities. This is where Vanguard stands out. The satellite will grant operators of steel mills, power plants, and petrochemical complexes access to independent, accurate, and globally standardized emissions monitoring and data. Accurate and Trusted Data ABP Live tells us that high-resolution carbon dioxide data collected by Vanguard will add significant accuracy to emissions inventories at both the national and international levels. Moreover, this data will enhance the accuracy of the Global Stocktake, an assessment of progress made toward mitigating global warming since the Paris Agreement 2015. At the upcoming COP28, the results from the first-ever global stocktake will be discussed, emphasizing the relevance and importance of this groundbreaking technology. The significance of Vanguard goes beyond the industrial sector. With accurate and trusted data, industries can be incentivized to manage emissions effectively. This will ensure that climate policies are well-founded, helping the world stay on track to achieve Net Zero emissions by 2050, a critical goal for combating climate change. GHGSat's data is available for sale to industrial emitters, governments, and scientists, offering an opportunity for industries to make data-driven decisions in reducing their emissions. The launch of Vanguard adds to the growing network of satellites already detecting emissions from space, holding industries accountable for their contributions to climate change. Read Also: Indonesia Unveils Southeast Asia's Largest Floating Solar Plant, Spanning 250 Hectares! Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Space-based technology is becoming increasingly essential in combating climate change, with the potential to revolutionize emissions monitoring and reduce the environmental impact of industrial facilities. Vanguard's high-resolution data will help bolster the accuracy of government emissions inventories, support scientific modeling, and improve the quality of corporate greenhouse gas reporting for investors. Stephane Germain, CEO at GHGSat, believes that Vanguard will change the conversation around carbon dioxide emissions, making industries more accountable and ultimately contributing to the achievement of Net Zero emissions by 2050. Stay posted here at Tech Times. Related Article: SpaceX's SES O3b mPOWER Falcon 9 Mission Launches to Orbit Later Today: How, Where to Watch 2023 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Alta Equipment Group Inc. (NYSE:ALTG) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript November 11, 2023 Operator: Good afternoon and thank you for attending the Alta Equipment Group Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Matt and Ill be your moderator for todays call. I will now turn the call over to Jason Dammeyer, Director, SEC Reporting and Technical Accounting with Alta Equipment Group. Jason Dammeyer: Thank you, Matt. Good afternoon, everyone and thank you for joining us today. A press release detailing Altas third quarter 2023 financial results was issued this afternoon and is posted on our website, along with a presentation designed to assist you in understanding the companys results. On the call with me today are Ryan Greenawalt, our Chairman and CEO; and Tony Colucci, our Chief Financial Officer. For todays call, management will first provide a review of our third quarter 2023 financial results. We will begin with some prepared remarks before we open the call for your questions. Before we get started, Id like to remind everyone that this conference call may contain certain forward-looking statements, including statements about future financial results, our business strategy and financial outlook, achievements of the company and other non-historical statements as described in our press release. These forward-looking statements are subject to both known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including those related to Altas growth, market opportunities and general economic and business conditions. We have based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that we believe may affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Although we believe these expectations are reasonable, we undertake no obligation to revise any statement to reflect changes that occur after this call. Descriptions of these and other risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements are discussed in our reports filed with the SEC, including our press release that was issued today. Story continues During this call, we may present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in todays press release and can be found on our website at investors.altaequipment.com. I will now turn the call over to Ryan. Ryan Greenawalt: Thank you, Jason. Good afternoon, everyone and thank you for joining us today. Before I begin, I want to recognize our employees because without their hard work and dedication, our continued record performance would not be possible. Also, in light of the recent tragedy that has struck Lewiston, Maine, where we have long operated, we want to extend our heartfelt condolences to all those affected by the senseless act of violence. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families and all members of the community who are grappling with the profound pain and loss. I will now begin with a quick review of our third quarter financial highlights. These are found on Slide 5 of the presentation made available on our website. Demand in our end user markets remained solid. Total revenue increased 15.1% year-over-year to $466.2 million. Construction and Materials Handling revenues increased to $282 million and $168.6 million, respectively. New and used equipment sales grew 20.7% to $253.6 million. Product support revenues increased 12.1% year-over-year with parts sales increasing to $69.5 million and service revenues increasing to $60.6 million. We continue to increase our field population. And at quarter end, we had more than 1,300 factory trained technicians. As a result of our solid performance in our major business segments, which includes contributions from our acquisitions as well as organic growth, adjusted EBITDA grew 15.9% to $51 million. Despite the macroeconomic environment, we continue to see strong demand in the diversified markets we serve. I would like to highlight the resiliency of our Construction segment, especially in Florida, which has experienced tremendous growth. Our Construction segment, despite its name, has a myriad of applications that extend far beyond road, commercial or housing projects. The investments weve made have brought relationships and capabilities that extend into scrap and demolition markets, large-scale aggregate and mining operations, power generation, turf and maintenance and the list only goes on from there. We are focused on further expansion of this segment going forward. We are happy to see supply chains continue to improve. Demand for our material handling equipment also remained strong. Our backlog remains at a record level and customer sentiment remains favorable. In terms of our growth strategy, it is evident we are executing upon our objectives. On October 13, we closed our purchase of Burris Equipment Company, a premier supplier of compact construction and turf equipment with 3 locations in Illinois. Growth in the highly fragmented compact segment of the construction equipment market continues to outpace other segments. This acquisition gives us further coverage and market penetration in the metro Chicago market and brings with it a talented group of experts in the region with long-standing customer relationships. In our second transaction of the quarter, on November 2, we acquired Ault Industries, a privately held Canadian equipment distributor with locations in Ontario and Quebec. This is Altas first investment in Canada for our Construction Equipment segment. Alta has built a high-performing equipment dealership in the aggregate and mining space, a growing end market in that region. This deal meets several of our strategic objectives for growth. First, we are gaining exclusivity with a portfolio of top-performing OEMs with an existing installed base and the potential to grow in a market poised for growth and highly correlated to infrastructure investment. Second, equipment for this segment is highly engineered and specialized to unique end markets, allowing for greater margins on equipment sales. Lastly, the heavy-duty nature of the crushing and screening process creates a steady stream of product support revenue through periodic maintenance and sales of replacement parts and repair services. This business is poised for further organic growth and will likely benefit from our M&A strategy going forward. These transactions are immediately accretive. Since our public offering in 2020, we have added $537 million in total revenue and $65 million in adjusted EBITDA. We have expanded our dealership network as well as entered new end user markets, and well continue to follow this strategic path as evidenced by these recent transactions. Our platform also gives us access to significant organic opportunities. As announced today, we are excited to now enter the Central and Western Pennsylvania market where we will operate as CASE Power & Equipment of Pennsylvania, initially serving Pittsburgh and surrounding areas through two strategically planned locations in Cranberry Township and Delmont with plans to further expand into Central Pennsylvania in 2024. Serving general construction, infrastructure and residential and nonresidential construction contractors, both locations will sell and service the full lineup of CASE heavy, compact and subcompact equipment and attachments as well as provide for complementary services, including captive financing, planned maintenance solutions, telematics and parts support. Altas demonstrated success in supporting OEMs through dealer succession and consolidation issues made this dealer appointment possible and further demonstrates the power of our dealership platform and the value we bring to our OEM partners. Lastly, Id like to again touch on Altas corporate culture. As a company, we strive every day to foster a culture of empowerment, accountability and opportunity, and we rally around the shared purpose, delivering trust that makes a difference. I want to again thank our employees for delivering trust to our customers, our business partners and to our valued shareholders. Our shared purpose is the foundation of our commitment to these key areas. Our commitment to environmental sustainability, including a focused strategy to drive customer adoption and commercial viability of various electromobility solutions, the safety of our employees and technicians and the dedicated and inclusive culture that we continue to develop each day. In closing, Id like to thank the Alta team for all your hard work in delivering another solid quarter. And Ill now turn the call over to Tony Colucci, our CFO. A warehouse manager inspecting a design and structure of a modern warehouse. Tony Colucci: Thanks, Ryan. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for your interest in Alta Equipment Group and our third quarter 2023 financial results. Before I begin, I want to welcome our new team members from Burris Equipment in Illinois and Ault Industries in Canada to the Alta family. The senior leadership team is excited to build upon the legacy of each of those great companies, and we look forward to a bright future together as one team. My remarks today will focus on three areas. First, Ill be presenting our third quarter results, which continue to outpace historical comps as our business continues to benefit from increased equipment availability in the face of strong end market demand and organic growth in our high-margin product support business. Ill also briefly touch on the increase to our adjusted EBITDA guidance for fiscal year 2023. Second, Ill walk through the economics on each of the two aforementioned Q4 acquisitions, Burris and Ault, and their overall impact on the financial profile of the business. Lastly, Ill be presenting a recap of the past 4 years and contrast who Alta is today versus who we were at our IPO in February of 2020. As part of that discussion, Ill summarize notable return on capital metrics over the past 4 years. Before I get to my talking points, it should be noted that I will be referencing slides from our investor presentation throughout the call today. Id encourage everyone on todays call to review our presentation and our 10-Q, which is available on our Investor Relations website at altg.com. With that said, for the first portion of my prepared remarks and as presented in Slides 10 to 14 in the earnings deck, third quarter performance. For the quarter, the company recorded $466 million revenue of $466 million, which is up $61 million versus Q3 of last year. Embedded in the $466 million of revenue for the quarter is a near 10%, $38 million organic increase over Q3 2022, making for a comparatively strong quarter against increasingly more difficult comps. Specifically, equipment sales increased $43 million for the quarter to $282 million, which will ultimately bode well for future incremental product support revenues. To that end, year-to-date, weve now placed approximately $149 million more equipment into field population when compared to the first 3 quarters of 2022. Moving on to our product support business lines. In spite of the quarterly comp hurdles getting more difficult, product support revenues were up $14 million versus last year as we continue to realize organic growth in our high-margin parts and service departments year-over-year. To close out the revenue lines as it relates to our rental business, we saw the natural and expected increase versus Q2 as rental revenues hit $54 million for the quarter, up approximately $4 million from last quarter as Q3 typically represents the strongest quarter of the year for rental in our Northern regions. From an EBITDA perspective, we realized $51 million in adjusted EBITDA for the quarter, which is up $7 million from the adjusted level of second quarter 22 and up $3.5 million on a pro forma basis, a function of our organic growth and realization of operating leverage when compared to last year. On a trailing 12 basis, we achieved $184.4 million of adjusted EBITDA, which converted into $127.4 million of economic EBIT, our version of unlevered free cash flow for approximately 70% conversion rate on EBITDA. Lastly, on EBITDA, and as mentioned in todays press release, given the year-to-date performance, our expectations for a solid Q4 and the 2 acquisitions that were closed this quarter, we are raising guidance to a range of $187 million to $192 million of adjusted EBITDA for fiscal year 2023. On to cash flows. As depicted on Slide 13 of our investor deck, on a pro forma basis, the business is generating just above $81 million in annualized levered free cash flow to common equity prior to growth CapEx, a metric we view as akin to normalized economic earnings available to common equity holders. More on this metric later. Moving on to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with approximately $207 million in availability on our revolving line of credit facility with $36 million suppressed and total leverage came in at roughly 3.9x 2023 adjusted EBITDA. In summary, both leverage and liquidity came in at level similar to last quarter. Lastly, on the balance sheet, I wanted to note the quarter-over-quarter flattening in our inventory levels as we ended Q3 with $493 million of inventory versus $498 million of inventory at the end of Q2. As mentioned in previous calls, as equipment supply chains began to normalize at the end of 2022, Alta, like many other industry participants, saw an unprecedented level of inventory replenishment in the first half of 23, which put pressure on working capital and led to redeployment of floor plan lines. As I mentioned last quarter, we expected the pace of this replenishment to moderate significantly in the second half of the year, and we have seen just that in Q3. Currently, we feel comfortable that we are now back within normal range of inventory levels given both our history and our benchmark KPIs on expected equipment turnover. Moving on to the second portion of my prepared remarks, some financial commentary on the two acquisitions we recently closed on, Burris and Ault. In October, we completed our acquisition of Burris Equipment. This acquisition adds an incremental $40 million of revenue and approximately $4.5 million of incremental adjusted EBITDA on an annualized basis. As Ryan mentioned, this acquisition adds important infrastructure and talent for our compact equipment segment in metropolitan Chicago. At a total purchase price of $14 million, the 3.1x deal is immediately accretive to shareholders and to our leverage profile. On November 1, we completed our acquisition of Ault Industries with operations in Montreal and Toronto. This acquisition adds an incremental $50 million of revenue and close to $8 million of incremental adjusted EBITDA on an annualized basis in U.S. dollars. As noted, the acquisition represents our first investment in Canada in our CE segment and aligns us with a market-leading crushing and screening equipment OEM. In terms of structure, the $35 million purchase price, net of excess working capital, was cut into $22.3 million in cash at close, a $2.2 million 3-year seller note and $10.5 million of ALTG stock, which importantly was valued at $13 a share and thats over a 5-year time frame. The vesting in seller shares mimics the tenor of our new partners employment agreement as it was important to us that sellers were fully aligned and incentivized with our vision going forward. This structure ensures a true partnership and is immediately accretive to Alta shareholders. And like Burris, is accretive to our leverage profile. Now for the final portion of my prepared remarks, Id like to recap where the company stands today versus where we were just 4 years ago at our IPO in February of 2020. In our view, the numbers are impressive and reflect the commitment of our employees and our culture and a relentless pursuit when it comes to the execution of the plan we laid out for investors at the beginning of 2020. As depicted on Slide 19, we have now formally doubled the size of our business since the IPO based on multiple data points. As you can see, weve gone from $900 million in revenue to over $1.8 billion, gone from operating in 43 locations to 85 and increased EBITDA from $94 million to $189 million at the midpoint of our new guidance range. Additionally, weve gone from 1,700 to approximately 3,000 team members and from 850 to over 1,300 skilled mechanics. And weve gone from operating in 10 states to 15 states in the U.S. and the 2 major provinces in Canada in all 3 of our major segments. So the results speak for themselves, and were so proud of the team in these accomplishments. And the growth has come through both organic investments and via strategic acquisitions. To that end, and I reference Slide 20, we believe that weve been good investors along the way. When we deploy capital, we are hyper focused on generating appropriate returns on invested capital for our business. And as presented on Slide 20, our economic EBIT yield, which is our version of ROIC on both M&A and organic investments have been impressive over the past 4 years. All told, weve deployed $432 million of capital since the IPO and have earned a 14.5% return on the capital deployed. I would also note for investors that our executive comp programs most heavily weighted metric is economic EBIT yield, or ROIC. In the end, Altas senior management is highly incentivized to drive returns on investment, which ultimately fully aligns us with shareholders. With both the performance since the IPO and historic returns in mind, at the bottom of Slide 19, you will note what we view as a disconnect between our performance since the IPO and our market cap today. As a reference point, and as previously mentioned, the company is now generating $81 million of free cash flow to equity on an annual basis or approximately $2.50 per share. This compares to $0.74 per share on this metric at the time of the IPO. So in summary, we have grown this metric 3.5x in 4 years with minimal dilution along the way. The reverse side of this metric is to say that Altas equity now trades at 25% free cash flow to equity versus the 7% on that metric at the IPO. While we understand the uncontrollable ebbs and flows of the equity markets, we are highly cognizant of the disconnect for what we believe to be fair value for our equity. And as we head into 2024, we will be laser focused on creating more of our own capacity to grow by optimizing existing cash flow streams and being strategic and opportunistic with capital, as we have demonstrated over the past 4 years. In closing, Id like to thank my Alta colleagues for a great Q3. Im looking forward to a strong finish to the year in the coming weeks, and I wish all of Altas employees, our customers and OEMs and our shareholders a happy upcoming holiday season. Thank you for your time and attention, and I will turn it back over to the operator for Q&A. See also 15 Largest Troop Contributors to UN Peacekeeping and 15 Countries that Have the Best Weather in Africa. To continue reading the Q&A session, please click here. Sighting after more than 80 years: Sniffer dog sniffs out gold mole rat thought to be extinct "We may have made a mistake": at the Monique Olivier trial, the responsibility of the investigators is questioned Sighting after more than 80 years: Sniffer dog sniffs out gold mole rat thought to be extinct Charles III's harangue after arriving by private jet at the Climate Summit: "Our survival is in danger" The average temperature this autumn is 1.39 degrees higher than normal, following spring and summer, and the highest ever. 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An American neural network saw signs of a fake in a photo of a US lunar mission The opening ceremony of the COP28 China Corner and the side event of "Ecological Civilization and Beautiful China Practice" were held in Dubai Haredim in Israel. They refused to conscript and then decided to occupy the army The first woman to marry an AI: "We don't rule out the idea of having children" The Armed Forces of Ukraine shelled Donetsk with missiles of a new type JROF HEF from Slovakia The UN climate chief quotes Yoda from Star Wars: "Do or not do. There is no try" The new version of the "Five-Star Card" of the Permanent Residence Permit for Foreigners is officially launched! Which foreigners can apply? Read it in one article Sanchez coincides with the president of Israel in Dubai in the midst of the diplomatic conflict, but without foreseen contact In the regulatory storm, where are the skits going? On the first day of the issuance and opening of the "five-star card", 50 people received the new version of the permanent residence ID card for foreigners In Ghana, the fight for food sovereignty in the face of land grabbing Communities 2019 - Privacy The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them. Amprius Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:AMPX) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript November 11, 2023 Operator: Good afternoon. Welcome to Amprius Technologies Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Showing us for today's presentation are the Company's CEO, Dr. Kang Sun; and CFO, Sandra Wallach. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Following management's remarks, we will open the call for questions. Please note that this presentation contains forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements regarding future product commercialization, new customer adoption and the timing and ability of Amprius to build its large-scale manufacturing facility, expand its manufacturing capacity, scale its business and achieve a sustainable cost structure. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause Amprius' results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. For a more complete discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please refer to Amprius' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Finally, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being webcast and a recording will be made available for replay on the Company's Investor Relations website at ir.amprius.com. In addition to the webcast, the Company has posted a shareholder letter that accompanies these results, which can also be found on the Investor Relations website. I'll now turn the call over to Amprius Technology's CEO, Dr. Kang Sun for his comments. Sir, please proceed. Kang Sun : Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us this afternoon. On today's call, I will report our progress and accomplishments at Amprius in the third quarter. And our CFO, Sandra Wallach, will discuss our financial results for the period. After that, I will share some closing remarks before opening the call for questions. The third quarter was an exciting quarter for us. Before I give the quarterly report, I would like to briefly introduce Amprius to those who may be new to the Company. Amprius developers, manufacturers and markets high energy density and high-power density batteries with applications across all segments of electric mobility, including aviation and the EV industries. As a pioneer of silicon anode battery technologies, Amprius has spent the last decade developing various silicon anode structures and robust manufacturing processes as well as a strong patent portfolio of over 80 patents. Story continues Amprius silicon anode batteries provide industry-leading performance today, including 450 watt-hour per kilo specific energy density and the 1,150 watt-hour per litre volumetric energy density available commercially since early 2022. And the 500 watt hour per kilo, 1,300 watt-hour per liter battery platform in our lab independently verified back in early 2023. Our battery performed up to 10C power capability, extreme fast charge rate of 0 to 80% state of charge approximately six minutes, a wide operating temperature range of minus 30 degrees up to 55 degrees Celsius and the safety design feature that enable us to pass United States military benchmark nail penetration test. Amprius has been in commercial battery production since 2018. So the Company had many years the experience manufacturing, high-energy density and high-power density lithium-ion batteries. It's our belief that there are no other commercial batteries on the market that can perform at these levels. Amprius high-performance batteries have attracted market attention and customer demand. Company's priority today is to build additional manufacturing capacity as quickly as we can to meet the increase in demand for our products. Our production capacity scale up activities in both California and Colorado, are moving along well. This quarter, we delivered new technologies and new batteries engaged with and sold to additional customers and moved closer to completing our battery production capacity expansion in our California factory. I would like to take this opportunity to note a few highlights of our progress. In August, we unveiled a breakthrough battery cell chemistry and design that enables 400 watt hour per kilo energy density with a simultaneously 10C power capability. The energy and power delivered by this cell, make it an ideal solution for electric mobility applications, such as aviation and EVs. So eVTOLs, this battery is designed to provide the necessary propulsion, power and energy for taking off, cruising and landing, while also extending flight range by as much as 50% as modeled based on commercially available alternatives. We plan to make this better available for customer evaluations this year and to have a commercially available sales in early 2024. Also, to enhance our customers' product performance, Amprius has developed and delivered three additional formats of 450 Wh/Kg of sales. This customer cells were developed in collaboration with Amprius' strategical customers to address their unique high-altitude pseudo satellite HAPS qualification requirements and they enable them to operate in highly challenging environments. With greater energy density and longer cycle life than previously 400 Wh/kg platform, we believe that the new 450 watt per kilo cells are the only known commercially available batteries or that can provide enough power and endurance for HAPS' overnight stratospheric flight. Recently, we announced that we had signed purchase orders with three premier electric aviation manufacturers for custom cells from the Company's 450 Wh/kg ultrahigh-energy density platform for battery pack development and qualification. In addition to high-energy drone applications, these new custom cell form factors are positioned to improve performance for high-energy storage applications for the military as well. We expect the first cells to be commercialized and that we will begin shipping this year. Another exciting accomplishment is the performance of our batteries delivered at the Bridgestone Word Solar Challenge last month. In this race, the four teams that were powered by Amprius batteries swept the top four places out of 3 two teams. As reported by Cosmos Magazine during the race, Amprius power packs provided around 30% better battery capacity for roughly the same amount of weight of units used by other competitors, and are expected to be the standard across all teams by the time the 2025 event rolls around. Although the competing vehicles are not commercial vehicles, their performance requirements tested our battery in very challenging driving conditions Moving to our customer contracts from the quarter. Amprius silicon anode batteries continue receiving strong attention from the customer as well as the industry. In the third quarter, we shipped to 38 customers, up from 27 in the second quarter. This group includes repeat customers who continue to place new orders such as Aalto, AeroVironment, and Teledyne Flir, as well as 18 new accounts, up from 10 last quarter. In addition, we received a volume purchase order from a premier eVTOL OEM during the quarter, which signaled our existing technical engagement and our move into the internal qualification process for our custom cells. Amprius' advanced cells now serve the UAS, UAM, and eVTOL segments of the growing aviation market for electric mobility. The pipeline for new customers remains strong as well, with the third quarter progress across several areas First, for example, we successfully completed the U.S. Army RCCTO program where we demonstrated our technology's capabilities for the nano unmanned aircraft systems nano-UAS market. This is a new market segment for our business, and now that we have proven our viability in the nano -- UAS market, we have transitioned to commercial production. Secondly, another example is our partnership with Tenergy to utilize our high energy density cells in their rechargeable battery packs. The combination offers a significant performance benefit, including both a 31% weight reduction and a 6% energy boost over other comparable rechargeable battery packs. We believe this partnership will open multiple opportunities for our high energy and high-power batteries. Third, recently, we also received forecast customer demand to serve the larger aviation segment with tens of MWs of production through and beyond. With this demand in mind, we moved to a long-term supply agreement with one of the two battery pack manufacturers to which we started shipping samples in Q4 of 2022. Overall, we are still facing demand that greatly outstrips our supply, and are confident that we are building towards enough customer commitments to fill our increased capacity in the coming years. As I mentioned earlier, expanding our production capacity is our main priority. Currently, we have two expansion projects under development. First, our megawatt scale production capacity expansion in Fremont, California is nearly completion. This facility has lithium-ion battery manufacturing capability with Amprius silicon anode technology. We plan to deliver two MWh capacity initially in 2024, which is about 10 times our current production capacity. The additional capacity at our California factory is critical for Amprius to serve both as a production facility for increased customer orders and as a pilot facility for large-scale manufacturing process optimization. Our 2024 capacity in Fremont is already sold out, and our list of customer commitments for 2025 continues to grow. For a look at how we manufacture our ultra-high energy density silicon anode lithium-ion batteries, please check out the overview video posted to the technology section of our website. Also, we look forward to hosting institutional investors and analysts in Fremont, California for our open-house event on December 14, when we will showcase Amprius' high performance silicon anode battery manufacturing facility. Our other production capacity buildup is in the state of Colarado. The manufacturing facility in California is a state-of-the-art facility for our gigawatt-hour scale factory in Colarado, while we have leased 774,000 square feet of the production space with additional 525,000 square feet available for expansion. The initial production capacity is expected to be 500-megawatt hour annually, and we will focus on aviation batteries in this stage. We plan to have this phase operational in 2025 and to then increase capacity over time with five-gigawatt hour module production expansions to keep up the demand. With that, I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Sandra Wallach, to review our financial results for the quarter. Sandra? A close up image of a technician changing a battery cell in a lithium-based battery. Sandra Wallach : Thank you, Kang. I would now like to spend a few minutes covering some key financial updates. As a reminder, our detailed financials can be found in our shareholder letter. We finished the third quarter with $2.8 million in revenue, a $ two million increase compared to $0.8 million in the same quarter last year and up $1. two million sequentially. There were two main drivers of this increase. First, our product revenue increased by $1.7 million from the prior year period to $2. two million, largely driven by shipments to 38 customers in the quarter, a second consecutive quarterly record for Amprius. Although our product revenue remains largely driven by customer purchase orders that can arrive at uneven times throughout the year, we have shown consistent new customer growth and diversification in recent quarters. In the third quarter, we even limited the number of customers that account for greater than 10% of our revenue to only four customers in the quarter compared to five such customers last quarter. Second, our development services revenue was $0.6 million, a reflection of our successful completion of the RCCTL program for the U.S. Army as Kang previously mentioned. Moving to our profitability metrics. Our gross margin was negative 152% for the third quarter compared to negative 185% in Q3 202 two and an improvement from negative 186% in Q2 2023. As we've discussed in prior quarters, we see significant gross margin variation as our product and service revenue mix fluctuates. Also, we anticipate that factory start-up costs will ramp up as we start Colorado Construction in earnest. Longer term, we are confident that our GAAP gross margin will begin to normalize as we approach our capacity expansion goals. Now on to our operating expense management. Our operating expenses for the third quarter were $4.9 million. We maintained a lean operating structure to date, even when accounting for G&A fluctuations in the previous two quarters for transaction-related expenses and targeted staffing increases in R&D in Q2. ur GAAP net loss for the third quarter was $8.5 million or a net loss of $0.10 per share. As of September 30, 2023, our weighted average number of shares outstanding was $86.4 million. Also, as of September 30, 2023, there were 76 full-time employees, up from seven two in the second quarter with those employees primarily based in our Fremont, California location. Our share-based compensation for the quarter was $1.1 million. Turning now to the balance sheet. We exited the third quarter with $53.4 million in cash and no debt. The key drivers of our cash activity for the quarter were negative $8.7 million in operating cash flow. Although excluding transaction costs, our run rate remains at approximately $ two million to $2.5 million per quarter, a negative $8.9 million related to the build-out of the Fremont facility and ordering of long lead time equipment for Colorado and positive $6 million added through the usage of our committed equity facility. Considering our business achievements and ongoing projects, we believe we are efficiently using capital to drive employee forward. Before I turn the call back over to Kang, I would like to take a moment to discuss our outlook. We expect to be capacity constrained until the end of 2023 when our new 2-megawatt capacity is expected to come online. That project and our build-out of Amprius Fab in Colorado remain our top capital allocation priorities as we project our capital expenditures for the rest of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, we expect to spend another $5 million to $7 million over the rest of the year to complete the build-out of the Fremont facility. Also, we estimate that we'll spend another $20 million to $30 million over the balance of 2023 and the beginning of 2024 on the start of construction for the Colorado facility and on procuring long lead time items in production equipment. As part of our ongoing business planning, we filed a shelf registration of October second and included a new at-the-market facility for $100 million in that filing. We have terminated the committed equity facility concurrent with the effectiveness of the shelf. Overall, with the strength of our balance sheet and multiple vehicles to generate additional funding through both equity issuances such as warrant exercises and sales under our ATM and nondilutive sources such as grants, loans and incentives, we believe that we will have enough cash to continue executing on our strategic plan. With that, I will conclude the financial discussion and pass the call back to Kang. Kang Sun : Thanks, Sandra. I'd like to reemphasize a few key points before closing. First, Amprius Silicon or technology continues to demonstrate unmatched performance in our industry. Amprius command a firm lead with their combination of safety, energy, power, charging time, and temperature performance, and are uniquely positioned for the electric mobility market. Second, Amprius battery are commercially available today. We have been shipping commercial products since 2018, and our technological advancement continues to bring in significant customer demand. This quarter, we not only delivered to repeated customers and expand our technical engagements, we added 18 new customers as well. Our demand pipeline is robust, and we look forward to further building out our customer book in the coming quarters. Third, we are scaling our manufacturing capacity to serve significantly ahead with our two MWh production line nearing completion, we are expanding our footprint and the capacity at Amprius Lab in California. We also remain on track to build out Amprius Fab, our gigawatt scale facility in Colorado, which we expect to be operational entering 2025. Finally, we are looking forward to several exciting milestones as we head into 2024. We expect to operationalize our megawatt-scale silicon anode battery manufacturing facility at Amprius lab, continue securing customer commitments to fulfill Amprius Fab, expect production capacity for 2025 and delivered $500 Wh/kg battery prototypes to select customers. As we look to the rest of the year, our strategy and focus in Amprius remains unchanged. We have a tremendous opportunity ahead with a product portfolio that positions us to both growth in aviation market and expand to other industries seeking batteries with leading performance. The opportunities in front of Amprius are enormous, including the $49 billion aviation battery market by 2025, the $67 billion EV battery market by 2025 and the $1.25 billion conformal wearable battery market by 2030; of all of which are Amprius growth path in coming years. 2023 has been a very productive year for the Company thus far. Our solid third quarter performance has demonstrated our team's ability to deliver what we have planned and promised. Thank you for your continued support of Amprius Technologies. With that, I will turn it back to the operator for questions and answers. Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from Colin Rusch with Oppenheimer. Please proceed. See also 10 Best African Stocks To Buy and 10 Cheap Robinhood Stocks That Are Too Cheap To Ignore. To continue reading the Q&A session, please click here. Des militants d'ultradroite ont tente de s'introduire par la force dans un local ou se tenait une conference sur la Palestine, samedi soir dans le Vieux Lyon. Trois personnes ont ete legerement blessees. Des dizaines de personnes vetues de noir et le visage en partie masque. Des militants d'ultradroite ont pris pour cible en debut de soiree samedi soir dans le Vieux Lyon un local ou se tenait une conference organisee par le Collectif Palestine 69, ont decrit plusieurs temoins a un journaliste de l'AFP. Christophe Oberlin, chirurgien habitue de Gaza, qui venait presenter ses deux derniers livres et echanger sur l'actualite avec le public, a decrit des personnes qui "tapaient avec des batons" pour enfoncer la porte de la salle dans laquelle se tenait la conference, sans parvenir a entrer. Trois personnes ont ete legerement blessees, et un des assaillants a ete interpelle, selon la prefecture, qui a "fermement condamne" ces violences. Des attaques "inacceptables" Plusieurs participants decrivent une salle "comble", avec une capacite de "120 places", dont des enfants et des personnes agees. Selon eux, au moins une vitre a ete brisee. Jerome Faynel, president du Collectif Palestine 69, a declare vouloir porter plainte. "C'est l'extreme droite, "ils ont attaque avec des mortiers, j'en tiens un dans ma main", a-t-il dit par telephone, citant aussi des "barres en fer" et des "bouteilles de verre". Le maire ecologiste de Lyon Gregory Doucet a egalement annonce vouloir "saisir la justice". "La Maison des passages a ete une nouvelle fois la cible dun groupe dextreme droite. Ces attaques organisees par des groupuscules ultraviolents sont inacceptables. Je veux dire mon soutien aux victimes", a-t-il ecrit sur X (anciennement Twitter). Alors que des temoins se plaignaient des delais d'intervention des forces de l'ordre, la prefete de la region, Fabienne Buccio, a assure que "la police nationale etait rapidement intervenue". L'appel au 17 a ete passe a 19H15 et les premiers equipages sont arrives a 19H28, selon ses services. "Compte-tenu des faits decrits, il etait necessaire que les equipages se regroupent pour intervenir", ont-ils precise. Environ 1200 personnes avaient defile dans l'apres-midi a Lyon contre l'extreme droite a l'appel d'un collectif soutenu notamment par la France insoumise et des mouvements antifascistes. Les manifestants avaient marche dans le calme derriere des banderoles "Non a l'extreme-droite, ses idees, ses violences", mais aussi de pancartes en soutien a la Palestine, en scandant "Justice pour Gaza". (Bloomberg) -- The worlds biggest producer of iPhones is going to outer space. Most Read from Bloomberg Two prototype low-Earth orbit satellites made by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., better known as Foxconn, took off aboard a SpaceX rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in southern California on Saturday. The launch of the LEO satellites marks a key moment for the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer as it diversifies into new sectors, a shift that is taking greater urgency as some of its established businesses such as smartphones and laptops struggle. Foxconn is aiming to demonstrate that it has satellite technology to tap growing demand for communications from space. While Elon Musks Space Exploration Technologies Corp. has made and launched more than 5,000 LEO satellites for its Starlink constellation, Foxconn is betting it will be able to make satellites primarily for corporate and government clients. The satellites, co-developed with Taiwans National Central University, are the size of a backpack, weigh about 9 kilograms (20 pounds) each and carry cameras, communication devices and other equipment. They are designed to orbit Earth every 96 minutes at an altitude of 520 kilometers (323 miles). New Growth Since taking over from founder Terry Gou in 2019, Foxconn Chairman Young Liu has looked for ways to diversify focusing on electric vehicles, digital health and robotics, as well as technologies for artificial intelligence, semiconductors and communications satellites. I needed to find some something so that the company is able to grow for the next 10, 15 years, Liu said in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. Story continues Revenue at Foxconn, the worlds third-largest private employer after Walmart Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., is expected to drop about 6% this year to NT$6.2 trillion ($192 billion), according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg News. Order Book While Apple Inc. needs millions of iPhones a quarter and frequently updates models, customers can go a long time between orders for LEO satellites, so the businesses is much less predictable, said Tim Farrar, president of Telecom, Media and Finance Associates Inc., a consulting firm in Menlo Park, California. Foxconn makes about two out of every three iPhones in the world. For an outsourcing manufacturers like Foxconn, unless you can find another one that comes along at the right moment, your life can be very difficult, he said. Government orders could provide Foxconn with some security as it builds out its satellite business, according to Farrar. Foxconn is thinking, if the Taiwanese government gives us a baseline of orders every year, that will be OK, he said. Taiwan is working on a plan to launch its first LEO communication satellite, part of a strategy to develop space-based alternatives to the undersea cables that provide most of the islands internet connections. Read More: Foxconn Makes Your iPhone. Now Its Aiming to Make Electric Cars Another line of support will be Foxconns electric-vehicle business, since they require real-time communication technology, said Jason Wang, a Foxconn analyst with MasterLink Securities Corp. in Taipei. You need to have a solution in place for your car to use, Wang said. If they want to export this business, they at least need to have an infrastructure in place to demo the technology in Taiwan. The companys background in electronics and know-how gained from making smartphones, games consoles and other devices should help with that. Taiwan is very good at making all different kinds of commercial products in electronics, said Shiang-yu Wang, a research fellow at the Academia Sinicas Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics in Taipei. These companies can easily switch to space. --With assistance from Debby Wu and Reed Stevenson. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2023 Bloomberg L.P. FILE - A man walks in front of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Jan. 7, 2015, in New Orleans. Biden administration attorneys are set to ask appellate court judges in New Orleans on Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023, to block a Louisiana-based federal judge's broad order limiting executive branch officials and agencies' communications with social media companies about controversial online posts. The 5th Circuit granted a temporary pause on enforcement of the order on July 14, giving both sides time to file briefs and prepare for Thursday's hearing. (AP Photo/Jonathan Bachman, File) Catlins scheme would have required, emails said, a wealthy unnamed donor to pay $8333 a month to Catlins private marketing company, Catchy Media Marketing and Management, who are, incidentally, also the only shareholder in Australian Life Magazine. In these pages you will read people who have achieved greatness in one field and then started out in another, he says in the editors note. Starting out again; hmmm, we wonder why that theme, in particular, might appeal to Catlin. We contacted him to ask, but he didnt respond to our calls and texts. ASTON MERCURIAL, COSTELLO SAYS Recently departed AFR columnist Joe Aston left a hole in the nations media landscape, which wont likely be filled soon. Loading So big are his shoes to fill that his departure came up at Nines AGM last week, with a question posed by shareholder activist and scourge of boardrooms everywhere, Stephen Mayne, who asked what the company, which owns this masthead, intended to do about his exit. Chairman Peter Costello declined to directly respond to the terms of Astons departure but did send off Aston with a compliment about his dogged, now infamous, pursuit of former Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce. I dont think anybody was writing about Qantas until Joe Aston was and I think he brought a lot of material to light that probably wouldnt have come to light otherwise, he told the meeting. He was in that respect, and in other respects, a real investigative journalist. Costello did, however, allude to a quality of Astons writing which made him the bete noire of Australias business community. Joe was a mercurial reporter. He did a lot of good, Costello said. People often complained about his stories, I can assure you of that. When reached, Aston declined to respond. BISHOP DECLINES CHRISTMAS HAT Renowned helicopter enthusiast and provocative Sky News talking head Bronwyn Bishop is not feeling the Christmas spirit. Loading Still reeling from being the subject of a complaint over her comments that the ABC was aligning itself with policies in place in Nazi Germany over their coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, the former speaker of the house seems intent on also becoming the Grinch this silly season. CBD sources say that at the annual Salvos Christmas lunch at the Four Seasons on Friday, Bishop, sitting at one of the tables in the front row, failed to put on her paper hat after pulling on the end of a Christmas cracker. Well admit its not the gravest infraction, but youd hope that someone, even as serious as Bishop, might be able to let her hair down once in a while. Credit: Joe Benke It was later that evening that Bishop went on Sky to talk about the comments about the ABC, which is maybe why she wanted to preserve her do. Cant look skew-whiff if youre going onto television to malign the public broadcaster, after all. Speaking on Sky News Australia, Bishop addressed her previous nights comments. If I offended anyone, Im sorry, she said. I will remain committed to calling out atrocities and my support for the people of Israel is unwavering. Despite our best efforts, CBD couldnt reach Bishop to discuss the matter. BURKE EXITS STAGE RIGHT The end of the year is looming already and that means its time for the Wharf Revue, the annual sketch show satirising the year in politics. Formerly part of Sydney Theatre Company who put the wharf in the name (because it started at the Wharf Theatre), and now an independent production at the Seymour Centre, the Revue is devised by comedians Jonathan Biggins, Drew Forsythe and Phil Scott. Minister for the Arts Tony Burke. Credit: Tony Burke The shows No.1 fan is Arts Minister Tony Burke who was in the audience for opening night, and stuck around for the drinks organised by producer Jo Dyer who ran as an independent for the seat of Boothby last election. Burke did not feature as a character in this years Revue, telling CBD on the night that he was in it last year, but got off lightly this time. But, this column later heard, Burke was actually chuffed to be in last years show, which was the first time hed featured. He was set to feature as a character in this years Robin Hood skit, featuring Albo of Marrickville, Dreyfus of Mordialloc and Sarah Hanson of Young, but a few days before opening night, the team decided to replace Burkes character with William of Shorten. CBD hears they had to break the news to him before opening night, but he didnt sound too disappointed when CBD contacted him for comment: in my line of work, youd much rather be in the audience of the Wharf Revue than depicted on the stage. The show hits Melbourne in February. JOYCE TIES THE KNOT FOR A BUSH BASH It was quite the scandal when it emerged in early 2018 that Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce was having an affair with his staffer Vikki Campion and she was having his baby. But if a week is a long time in politics, then five years is an eternity. On Sunday, the couple finally tied the knot in what is being described as a bush bash in front of 80 guests, including fellow politician George Christensen at the family estate in Walcha in northern NSW. Judging by the photos, the vibe appeared to be akin to a bachelors and spinsters ball. Guests were encouraged to park their 4x4s side-by-side to create the aisle, and reportedly many were staying overnight in their swags or utes. Joyce and Campion wore matching Akubra hats and the bride wore knee-high cowboy boots under her gown. Forestry activists allege the NSW government-owned Forestry Corporation has breached regulations more than 1200 times in recent logging operations in Tallaganda State Forest, one of the last strongholds of the endangered greater glider. Forestry Corporation failed to identify crucial habitat trees of greater gliders by searching for the nocturnal animals during the day rather than at night, and by conducting their surveys from roads rather than in the forest itself, according to a report by Wilderness Australia, the World Wide Fund for Nature Australia and South East Forest Rescue, to be published on Monday. Tallaganda State Forest is one of the last remaining strongholds for endangered greater gliders. Credit: Andrew Kaineder/WWF-Australia The NSW Environment Protection Authority has already declared one suspension of operations due to impacts on the greater glider in the Tallaganda forest, near Braidwood in the south of the state. The Victorian government has announced it will end native forest logging. Populations of the greater glider have declined by 80 per cent over the past 20 years due to logging, land clearing and bushfires. The glider was listed as endangered in 2022, having previously been declared vulnerable. Results from some medical tests, including cancer diagnoses, are being delayed by up to three weeks because of a nationwide shortage of pathologists. The test delays could also be holding up diagnoses for other serious conditions such Crohns disease and ulcerative colitis, the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia has warned. The Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia is warning of an acute shortage of pathologists. Credit: iStock It could be the cancer you didnt suspect, college president and associate professor Trishe Leong said. Theres always the chance of something unexpected showing up in a biopsy and if that is not tended to as soon as possible, it can have an impact on patient care. The government has shut down an immediate debate on parts of its industrial relations bill that were split off by the Senate last week, prompting criticism from the crossbench, and business lobby. Senators David Pocock and Jacqui Lambie effectively dared the government to vote against its own legislation in the lower house when, on Thursday, they successfully passed four duplicate parts of the Closing Loopholes bill, jettisoning more contentious elements around labour-hire and gig economy reforms. Independent senators Jacqui Lambie and David Pocock are pushing for the government to separate its workplace relations bill. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen Today Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke, who also controls the scheduling of legislation as the Leader of the House, put off debate on one of those elements until the next sitting day. Manager of opposition business Paul Fletcher unsuccessfully moved a motion for one of the separated bills to be debated immediately, which was shut down. After question time Fletcher moved to bring on debate of the other bills immediately, but were also shut down by the government. Burke said government ministers had no obligation to debate private members bills. Business Council chief executive Bran Black accused the government of putting politics before people by not allowing a vote on their own legislation. Lambie echoed Blacks sentiments, and accused the government of holding Australians to ransom. Annual concert event Fridayz Live is back at the Brisbane Showground, with The Voice judge and pop chartbuster Jason Derulo headlining alongside Kelly Rowland, Boyz II Men, Flo Rida, and a host of stars of R&B and hip-hop, past and present. The fast-growing Wynnum Fringe is back for a fourth outing, bringing big Australian acts to the Bayside: music, burlesque, comedy and theatre. And in a banner year for blockbuster movies, the Hunger Games franchise is releasing a prequel film in cinemas everywhere. Here are the best ways to pass the time in Brisbane this week, November 13 to 19. Monday, November 13 Leaders, speak out Can there really be any justification for Israels bombing near hospitals? The distressing images of wounded children and overwhelmed hospitals is disturbing. More leaders need to speak out like French President Emmanuel Macron. Stop the bombing. Susan Simpson, Surrey Hills Nuclear reversal Your correspondent (Letters, 11/11), not to mention Peter Dutton, have had the core of their argument for developing nuclear power to provide electricity without greenhouse emissions, in effect, decommissioned as a result of the decision by NuScale, the only commercial developer of small modular nuclear reactors (SMR) in the US, to cancel its first SMR pilot plant due to a combination of spiralling cost to build the plant and plummeting prices for renewable energy. The fallout of this decision is that if building a SMR is not economically feasible in the US then there is no way it can be done in Australia. Its time for the proponents of this idea to retreat to the shelter to develop viable solutions for emission-free electricity. John Togno, Mandurang Religious speech Why should religious speech be safeguarded (12/11)? The ideas espoused by one particular religion may offend all others, not to mention speeches by all religions may offend atheists and humanists. Les Aisen, Elsternwick Ringing in his ears As a periodic cyclist I confess to being a gentle but polite bell-ringer. Walkers on shared paths receive a slightly apologetic single warning ding when I need to overtake. Hardly a tintinnabulation. Recently, however, I was harshly admonished by an anti-bell ringing shared-path walker. I was quite shaken that my humble bell triggered such unadulterated anger. The mansplaining walker, a lawyer he claimed to be (gosh), indelicately explained that being a bell-ringer is irritating and unnecessary. And not even a VicRoads legal requirement. The latter point may be correct, but surely a friendly warning ding to avoid striking a walker is better than having an almighty ding-dong with a stricken walker? Campanology advice welcomed. Steve Clark, Kew Electric future Thanks for the comprehensive explanation of Australias electrification past, present and future (Electricity switch still sparks pain, 12/11). Its clear that storing cheap excess renewable energy and releasing it at night is the key to lowering prices. Those wealthy enough to have a rooftop solar with a home battery system already know this. The state government is to be commended for trialling neighbourhood batteries and, as the Yarra Energy Foundation reported, when battery costs halve, and insurance issues are solved, they will become more viable and bring costs down. In the meantime, energy efficiency and conservation must not be underestimated. Analysis by consumer group Renew found that building an all-electric home could reduce household energy bills by 35 per cent, and that these savings can double when electrification is paired with rooftop solar and energy efficiency upgrades. The Victorian governments decision to ban gas to new homes is visionary and should be applauded. While there is some short-term pain, the long-term gain is undeniable. Ray Peck, Hawthorn Unfair burden Shane Wright (Inflation falling too slowly: RBA, 11/11) outlines how the Reserve Bank may further increase interest rates as population growth, the war between Hamas and Israel, pressure in the rental market and even an El Nino weather event threaten to keep inflation higher for longer. Now, Im no economist, but how many of these factors will be at all affected, thereby addressing the actual drivers of inflation, by forcing mortgage holders to hand over more of their income to banks? Is it economic blasphemy to ask why the mere fact of having a mortgage is regarded as sufficient reason to be saddled with the greatest responsibility for controlling a nations rate of inflation, regardless of its cause? Andrew Melville, Glen Iris Political adversaries Your correspondent (Letters, 11/11) says, notwithstanding the Voice referendum was lost, there is no reason there cannot still be a Voice advising parliament. He suggests that already elected Indigenous federal politicians could form such an advisory voice. What a laudable proposal if it was in any way possible those elected members would be able to put forward agreed advice that was formulated after discussion with their electorates. It is unrealistic to imagine that political parties of any persuasion would allow a group to have licence to do something for the common good as it could well detract from their political strategies. This unfortunately is the world we live in because of the adversarial nature of our political system. Bill Pimm, Mentone Honesty in science I am surprised by how often research papers have been retracted (Unis, scientists call for research misconduct body, 12/11) though money and prestige are powerful motivators to do the wrong thing. As a student I was taught that honesty was one of the underlying values of science. Obviously not for everyone. Its essential that theres an oversight body. Anne Kennedy, Surrey Hills Books in a tablet After reading Should adults be paid to read books? (Comment, 11/11), I have a question about the survey to determine how much adults read. If it was based on the sales of hard-copy books, then it might have left out a large contingent of readers of digital books. In my eighties, I try not to increase domestic clutter, so all my book purchases (about five books a year) are from the Kindle store. The advantages are enormous. I carry around a huge library on my iPad which I can access at any time. I save whole forests of trees. Digital readers should be included in the survey even though they may not contribute as many dollars to the publishing industry as the book buyers. Jerry Koliha, South Melbourne Remember libraries Columnist Malcolm Knox writes that reading is good for mental health and should be encouraged. However, giving everyone turning 65 a $100 book voucher is not the best way to do it. Hard-copy books are a poor use of resources and once read, are a nuisance. Just ask any downsizer trying to get rid of them. If Knox really wants to encourage reading, he should encourage people to join their local library. They can read hundreds of books without owning any of them. Rod Wise, Surrey Hills ... and save them Anything that seeks to encourage reading among our older population should be considered by the powers that be. But what else could be done? Remember the intellectual value of libraries. No longer standalone places but part of community hubs, libraries seem routinely to be overlooked by planners, often seen as old-fashioned repositories of wisdom for the students, the lonely and the poor among us. In turn, their physical collections of books wither away, replaced by e-books and streaming content limiting what can be borrowed and enjoyed by the regular visitor. The demise of reading and of libraries affects us all. Anders Ross, Heidelberg Not caring for the aged The difficult and poor decisions being made, which lead to elder abuse (Inheritance impatience behind rise in cases of elder abuse, 12/11) are linked to societys practice of writing people off once the ageing process causes disability which requires care. The main manifestation of this is the age-care system. This terminal decline model of what is, in effect, out-of-sight, out-of-mind aged storage, with a hands-off approach by the federal government, hastens ageing-related decline, by using minimal numbers of minimally trained workers. It makes the last stage of life of many Australians more unpleasant and distressing than the last stage of life of people in other OECD countries. Ruth Farr, Blackburn South Adaptable Boomers The article on the challenges facing Millennials such as buying a home and rising CPI (Eager to please and eager for keys in a market all locked up, 12/11) prompted me to think about whether it was easier for Baby Boomers to buy a home. I concur that life is difficult for our childrens generation but also remembered the times we gratefully accepted relatives second-hand furniture, rarely bought new clothes or shoes and were laggards in buying the latest must-have items. Yet, the paragraph I found most irritating was in reference to Baby Boomer colleagues inability to recall how to convert a PDF. My generation began their professional lives using a manual typewriter, then an electric one followed by word processors. We adapted to many iterations of computers and mobile phones. And we had to quickly learn how to text because our children refused to answer our phone calls. Mock us all you like, Millennials: but improve your general knowledge and youll discover how adaptable our generation has become. Sally Davis, Malvern East AND ANOTHER THING Gaza Hamas is a terrorist organisation, but the people being killed are largely not Hamas. So please can we stop? John Crossley, Oakleigh Killing 10,000 people to avenge 1200 means Israel may win the battle against Hamas but lose the war for world support. Michael Brinkman, Ventnor There will be no peace in Gaza as long as Israelis continue to allow Benjamin Netanyahu to be their leader. Change leaders and there will be a real prospect of peace. John Walsh, Watsonia Furthermore Why do we tolerate a society in which, according to some economists, inflation can only be beaten by increasing unemployment? There has to be a better way. Ian Brown, Sandringham Anthony Albanese offers Tuvaluans climate refuge. Now thats my kind of leader. Jenny Bone, Surrey Hills The article Films of great pop acts rocking the house are box office (11/11) doesnt mention The Grateful Dead Movie. Sacrilege! Simon Tatz, Newport Signs with fashion executive and designer Peter Nygard's name, in Winnipeg (Reuters) -Former Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygard was found guilty of four counts of sexual assault by a Toronto jury on Sunday, according to CBC News. Nygard, 82, was on trial in the Ontario Superior Court for five counts of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement charges linked to incidents between the 1980s and mid-2000s. He was acquitted of a fifth count of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement. Nygard's lawyer did not immediately respond to requests for comment. During the six-week trial, the court heard testimony from five complainants who said during a period between the late 1980s to around 2005 Nygard had attacked them in the private bedroom suite of his Toronto downtown office building, CBC News reported. Canadian police arrested Nygard in late 2020 at the request of the United States, where he was accused of using his businesses to lure women and girls to sexually gratify himself and his associates. Toronto police laid their own charges against him about a year later. Nygard also faces charges of sexual assault and forcible confinement in Manitoba and Quebec. He is fighting extradition to the U.S. where he faces charges in New York for nine offences including conspiracy to commit racketeering, transportation of a minor for purpose of prostitution, and sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, CBC News said. Born in Finland, Nygard grew up in Manitoba, eventually running his namesake clothing companies and becoming one of Canada's wealthiest people. (Reporting by Nia Williams and Ismail Shakil; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Lisa Shumaker) Hansen said she would support greater development in SRL precincts to have more Melburnians living close to public transport, jobs and services. Doing so would also raise more revenue to cover construction costs, she said. What we should be trying to do is get as many homes as possible that are still liveable and sustainable in these locations, Hansen said. The more dwellings that you can get in there or development you can get in there, then the more money youre going to be able to cross-subsidise into the infrastructure project. The SRL Authority has taken over planning control within 1.6 kilometres of each new SRL station an area almost six times larger than the Melbourne CBD and is currently holding consultations on how each precinct should be developed. RMIT University professor of planning and environment Michael Buxton said the housing growth projections in the SRL business case were ludicrously low, and predicted the government would end up approving high-rise towers just to raise the revenue it needed to fund the project. They want as many people as possible in these precincts and they want the rezoning processes to lead to as much increased value as they can, so that encourages high-rise buildings and much lower amenity, he said. Loading Value uplift is good in principle. [But] when you let the desire for as much money as possible from the project drive it, then you end up with terribly low-quality precincts and thats what were heading for. Its a perfect disaster. Buxton said he did not support the project, but that if it did go ahead, the precincts should be redeveloped with European-style, high-density mixed use areas with high livability. Weve adopted the model that this can only be done with high-rises, he said. A spokesperson for the Allan government said the SRL Authority would release draft structure plans for each precinct area soon, and was still working to finalise how value capture would contribute to funding the project. With Melbournes population set to be the size of Londons by the 2050s, we cant afford not to build this city-shaping project, the spokesperson said. We are getting on with planning and consultation on how we can shape the neighbourhoods around the SRL East stations building thousands of new homes close to world-class transport, jobs and public services. The state oppositions transport infrastructure spokesman David Southwick said given the states financial position and uncertainty around the SRL, the government should pause the project. Under Labor, Victoria is broke and hardworking households and businesses are paying for Jacinta Allans financial waste and mismanagement, he said. The SRL Authoritys annual report, released earlier this month, shows its key achievements so far have been to move sewer and water pipes near the construction zones. However, The Age revealed last month it is close to signing its firm tunnelling contract, which will be worth between $3 billion and $4 billion and mark the start of major construction. Loading SRL East is the first section of a proposed 90-kilometre loop stretching through the northern suburbs to Melbourne Airport by 2053, at an expected cost of $45 billion, and through the western suburbs to Werribee. The Albanese government is attempting to trim $33 billion from its own infrastructure spending and launched a review into its 10-year pipeline in May which already appears to have delayed the long-awaited Melbourne Airport Rail Link, which would form part of the SRL West. Its $2.2 billion commitment to the SRL was not included in the review, however, because it was an election promise. Police say there has been unacceptable carnage on country roads this year after two separate crashes killed six people in rural Victoria on the weekend, bringing the states road toll in 2023 to 258, a 15-year-high. More than 150 of those fatalities happened in the regions. Four people from central Victoria were killed in Piries, near Mansfield, north-east of Melbourne, when their rental car left the road, hit an embankment and burst into flames in the early hours of Sunday. The burnt-out shell of what appeared to be a Kia Carnival. Credit: Nine News Police say they are unclear what time the crash occurred as the vehicle appeared to have been burning for some time before a driver alerted police after 7am. Hundreds of classroom vacancies are going unfilled every week, lessons are being combined or cancelled and student report cards long delayed as a casual teacher shortage pushes already short-staffed schools to desperate measures. Casual teachers have become highly sought after as recruitment agencies scramble to meet daily requests, allowing them to demand certain conditions. Many casuals have signed up to a guaranteed five-day week, while others have requested to only work at primary schools within 15 minutes of home and still get their choice of jobs. Casual teacher Andrew White: You just have to act with your instinct and your experience and go with it. Credit: Wayne Taylor The reasons for the dearth of casuals are varied, with declining enrolments in teaching degrees, heavy workloads and lack of flexibility driving an exodus from the profession. More than 45,000 Palestine supporters rallied in Melbournes CBD on Sunday, according to police, the biggest turnout since the weekly protests began more than a month ago. The protest came after a heated confrontation between pro-Palestine and pro-Israel groups in Caulfield on Friday night, triggered by a suspected arson attack on a local burger store owned by a Palestinian-Australian who had posted online that the incident was a hate crime. Thousands rallied in Melbournes CBD in support of Palestine on Sunday. Credit: Chris Hopkins/The Age On Sunday, the Caulfield burger store owner, Hash Tayeh, repeated his claims that the firebombing was politically motivated, after he was invited by the Free Palestine rallys organisers to speak. He told the crowd the attack had been an attempt to silence his support for the Palestinian cause. Victorian Greens leader Samantha Ratnam, who also spoke at the rally, said the store fire should be investigated as a hate crime. Universities across Western Australia are probing ways to get high school graduates back into the classroom in the face of a declining number of people choosing higher education. International student numbers have bounced back after the states closed borders resulted in a huge decline during the pandemic. Klinger said domestic student numbers were still dropping, and that future-proofing their enrolments involved a bit of crystal ball gazing. Credit: Cameron Myles/ Supplied But Murdoch University Deputy Vice Chancellor of Education, Professor Don Klinger, said domestic student numbers were still dropping, and future-proofing their enrolments involved a bit of crystal ball gazing. It is really about looking at what critical skills will be needed in 10, 20 or 30 years time, and then getting students to understand why what they are studying will matter in the future, he said. Kyiv: Russia launched a missile attack on Ukraines capital Kyiv and the surrounding region for the first time in more than seven weeks and pounded the east and south of the country with drones, Ukrainian officials said. Ukrainian border guards said they had retaken a village in the countrys north-east adjacent to the Russian border. Ukraines 56th Brigade anti-aircraft installation leaves for a combat mission on November 10 in the Bakhmut District of Ukraine. Credit: Getty Officials in the east, the focus of Russias slow 20-month-old advance, said Ukrainian forces had repelled numerous attacks by Moscows troops and they anticipated further assaults, particularly around the devastated town of Avdiivka. Serhiy Popko, the head of the Kyiv city military administration, said a Russian ballistic missile was launched towards the capital late on Saturday (AEDT). Paris: More than 100,000 people marched in Paris on Sunday to protest against rising antisemitism in the wake of Israels ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, representatives of several parties on the left, conservatives and centrists of President Emmanuel Macrons party as well as far-right leader Marine Le Pen attended Sundays march in the French capital amid tight security. Macron did not attend, but expressed his support for the protest and called on citizens to rise up against the unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism. Thousands gather for a march against antisemitism in Paris, France. Credit: AP However, the leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, Jean-Luc Melenchon, stayed away from the march, saying last week on X, formerly Twitter, that the march would be a meeting of friends of unconditional support for the massacre in Gaza. Israel revised its official estimated death toll of the October 7 Hamas attacks, lowering the number to about 1200 people, down from the more than 1400 initially cited, a spokesperson for the countrys Foreign Ministry said last Friday. The spokesperson, Lior Haiat, said the original figure was an initial estimate that had now been updated. He declined to provide further details on the change but emphasised that the numbers could continue to fluctuate as the remains of those killed are identified. An Israeli soldier walks past a house destroyed by Hamas militants in Beeri kibbutz, Israel. Credit: AP For both Israelis and Palestinians, the casualty counts in the month-long war between Israel and Hamas have become emotionally charged figures. The tolls have become symbols for the depth of the agony gripping both peoples, and partisans on either side have sought to play down the number of those killed on the opposite camp. Here what we know about the death toll in Israel from the October 7 attacks. While some investors are already well versed in financial metrics (hat tip), this article is for those who would like to learn about Return On Equity (ROE) and why it is important. To keep the lesson grounded in practicality, we'll use ROE to better understand Coca-Cola HBC AG (LON:CCH). Return on Equity or ROE is a test of how effectively a company is growing its value and managing investors money. In simpler terms, it measures the profitability of a company in relation to shareholder's equity. Check out our latest analysis for Coca-Cola HBC How Is ROE Calculated? The formula for ROE is: Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) Shareholders' Equity So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Coca-Cola HBC is: 21% = 648m 3.1b (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2023). The 'return' is the amount earned after tax over the last twelve months. That means that for every 1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated 0.21 in profit. Does Coca-Cola HBC Have A Good Return On Equity? One simple way to determine if a company has a good return on equity is to compare it to the average for its industry. However, this method is only useful as a rough check, because companies do differ quite a bit within the same industry classification. As is clear from the image below, Coca-Cola HBC has a better ROE than the average (12%) in the Beverage industry. roe That's what we like to see. Bear in mind, a high ROE doesn't always mean superior financial performance. A higher proportion of debt in a company's capital structure may also result in a high ROE, where the high debt levels could be a huge risk . How Does Debt Impact Return On Equity? Virtually all companies need money to invest in the business, to grow profits. The cash for investment can come from prior year profits (retained earnings), issuing new shares, or borrowing. In the first and second cases, the ROE will reflect this use of cash for investment in the business. In the latter case, the use of debt will improve the returns, but will not change the equity. Thus the use of debt can improve ROE, albeit along with extra risk in the case of stormy weather, metaphorically speaking. Story continues Coca-Cola HBC's Debt And Its 21% ROE Coca-Cola HBC clearly uses a high amount of debt to boost returns, as it has a debt to equity ratio of 1.02. While its ROE is respectable, it is worth keeping in mind that there is usually a limit as to how much debt a company can use. Debt does bring extra risk, so it's only really worthwhile when a company generates some decent returns from it. Summary Return on equity is useful for comparing the quality of different businesses. A company that can achieve a high return on equity without debt could be considered a high quality business. If two companies have the same ROE, then I would generally prefer the one with less debt. But ROE is just one piece of a bigger puzzle, since high quality businesses often trade on high multiples of earnings. It is important to consider other factors, such as future profit growth -- and how much investment is required going forward. So I think it may be worth checking this free report on analyst forecasts for the company. Of course Coca-Cola HBC may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have high ROE and low debt. 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. remaining of Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. 3000 Security personnel check-in Central forces, Bhopal Police conduct flag march Staff Reporter In view of the ensuing election the Bhopal Police are on high alert. Central forces have also arrived in the city. As many as 3,000 police personnel including of the central forces took out flag march in a periphery of 18 kilometres, on Saturday. The cops marched in sensitive areas of the state capital for over two hours. Senior Police officials including Additional Police Commissioner Avdhesh Goswami and DCPs Riyaz Iqbal, Padma Vilochan Shukla, Ramsharan Prajapati led the march on the day. The forces from reserved police lines, special armed forces and in the district forces were part of the march. Constant monitoring is being done in sensitive polling stations and such areas of the city. On Saturday also, central forces and local police marched on foot in various areas. The outer points of the city were sealed. Along with this, intensive checking campaign is also going on at railway stations and bus stands. On Saturday, flag marches were conducted in different sensitive areas of the city. On this occasion, the local police also participated in the flag march. The flag march on foot started from the Central Library and reached Jahangirabad via Itwara, Budhwara, Talaiya, Lily Talkies, Jinsi Square. The vehicle flag march started from Lal Parade Ground via Roshanpura, 1250 Hospital, Chetak Bridge, Gautam Nagar, Prabhat Square and reached the control room via DB Mall. About 3,000 police officers-employees and about 100 vehicles including 17 companies of central forces, Bhopal police, station in-charge and reserve force participated in the flag march. Bhopal Police is also searching in hotels and lodges. 4 men linked to ISIS Aligarh module arrested LUCKNOW THE Anti-Terrorist Squad of the Uttar Pradesh Police arrested four people allegedly linked to the Aligarh module of ISIS, it said on Saturday. The Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) arrested Rakib Imam Ansari, a 29-year-old BTech and MTech graduate from Aligarh Muslim University from Aligarh on Friday, it said in a release. The ATS nabbed Naved Siddiqui (23), who was pursuing BSc from Aligarh Muslim University; Mohd Noman (27), a BA (Honours) from the university; and 23-year-old Mohd Nazim, a graduate; from Sambhal on Saturday. Banned ISIS literature, mobile phones and pen drives were seized from the arrested accused, the ATS added. The accused were allegedly linked to the banned terror outfit ISIS and working to overthrow the elected Government through violent terror jihad and establish Sharia. The accused were distributing ISIS-related literature for the purpose among like-minded people and associating them with the terror group, the release stated. They were mentally and physically preparing people for terror jihad through online platforms and planned to carry out a major action in the state and the country, it added. The 4 accused came in contact with each other during meetings of the Students of Aligarh Muslim University -- a students union -- and were trying to connect new people with ISIS under its garb. Earlier this month, Additional Director General of Police (ATS) Mohit Aggarwal said the unit had received a tip-off that some radicalised people, are influenced by ISIS. HOLLAND Dr. Kirsten Brady was born in southeast Michigan, but her career in full-scope medical optometry has taken her to Boston for school and Wisconsin for work. Now, it's brought her to West Michigan, after the birth of her second daughter, Brady, saw her family return to the state. Dry Eye Spa of West Michigan has announced Brady is the new owner of the practice, taking over for founder Dr. Dirk Schrotenboer. The spa, located at 11971 James Street, doesn't offer routine eye exams or sell glasses and frames. Instead, it's dedicated to managing dry eye symptoms to deliver relief to patients suffering from the increasingly prevalent disease. Dr. Kirsten Brady Our practices model for personalized care and long-term management of this often-debilitating disease is an exciting opportunity to make a difference in the lives of our patients, and I look forward to partnering with the West Michigan medical community as dry eye treatments continue to rapidly evolve, Brady wrote in a release. Brady said, during her time in full-scope medical optometry, she's seen plenty of patients with dry eye symptoms. There are many different medical conditions, she said, that can cause them. When I practiced full-scope optometry, I found it so rewarding to partner with local providers and essentially form an extended care team, keeping lines of communication open between myself and the providers to make sure were delivering the best outcome possible, Brady said. Dry Eye Spa of West Michigan has announced Dr. Kirsten Brady is the new owner of the practice, taking over for longtime founder Dr. Dirk Schrotenboer. Now, she has the opportunity to use specialized techniques. Because were a specialty practice that only treats dry eyes, were able to really dig into each patients individual causes and risk factors and create a personalized management plan, Brady said. Dry Eye Spa opened in 2021. I am excited to welcome Dr. Brady to Dry Eye Spa of West Michigan, Schrotenboer said. She's a highly skilled optometrist with a passion for providing excellent eye care; she's also a caring and compassionate provider who puts patients first. Story continues Subscribe: Get all your breaking news and unlimited access to our local coverage Brady said business ownership has been a learning experience, but she's appreciated the support shes received from the community. The outpouring of support from so many local providers and patients and the excitement that this specialized care will continue to be available to Holland has been amazing to see, and I am so excited to be joining the community with my family. Learn more at dryeyespaofwm.com. Contact reporter Austin Metz at ametz@hollandsentinel.com. This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Dry Eye Spa under new ownership in Holland Aryodaya Honda delivers 30 cars on Dhanteras Business Reporter Aryodaya Honda orchestrated a spectacular mega delivery event on Dhanteras, making waves in the automotive scene by handing over the keys to 30 new cars. The delivery lineup boasted a touch of exclusivity with the inclusion of the newly launched models Elevate, City and Amaze. This strategic move not only showcased Aryodaya Hondas commitment to staying at the forefront of innovation but also provided customers with an opportunity to embrace the latest in automotive technology and design. The festive occasion was elevated as lucky owners experienced the thrill of driving home in these cutting-edge vehicles. Aryodaya Hondas dedication to blending tradition with modernity was evident, creating a buzz around this joyous celebration that fused the auspiciousness of Dhanteras with the excitement of driving home in a brand-new car. Aryodaya Honda made Dhanteras extra special by handing over 30 brand-new cars to happy customers at their mega delivery event. Whats even more exciting is that among these were the latest models Elevate, City, and Amaze. Its like a double celebration! Aryodaya Honda is not just about selling cars; theyre keeping up with the times, giving people the chance to drive the newest and coolest vehicles. This Dhanteras, lucky folks got to experience the joy of owning these freshly launched cars, making it a memorable celebration. Aryodaya Honda knows how to mix tradition with the latest trends, and this event was a perfect example, says a press release. For details visit the new location of Aryodaya Showroom at Central Road, C-102, MIDC Road, Hingna. Call for test drive on mob. 7104688888. BJP manifesto in Madhya pradesh Staff Reporter BHOPAL, Six days ahead of Madhya Pradesh elections, scheduled to be held on November 17, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has released manifesto on Saturday. The manifesto made a slew of poll promises, including Rs 1,500 pension for senior citizen, own house for Ladali Bahna, setting up of MIT on the lines of IIT, Rs 10,000 stipend for youth, employment to one member of family and many more. The party has announced promises for all age groups including youth, senior citizens, children, female, farmers and poor families. In its manifesto BJP promised for free education from KG to XII to the EWS children, free post-graduation degree to the women. In order to attract the farmers, BJP has announced to purchase wheat, paddy at higher rate than the Congress declared in its manifesto. The party said to start commissioner system in Jabalpur and Gwalior on pattern of Bhopal and Indore. The party said to set up Madhya Pradesh Institute of Technology (MIT) in each division of state on pattern of IIT. Exposed How the criminal foursome befooled high Government officials By Dheeraj Fartode The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has exposed a group led by conman Sadiq Qureshi, which has been extorting large sums of money from Central Government officials in the city over the past few years. Qureshi was apprehended by the CBI on November 2, 2023, after attempting to extort money from a senior Divisional Mechanical Engineer of Central Railway in Nagpur. He posed as a Personnel Assistant of the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of CBI Nagpur during the attempt. Sources reveal that Qureshi and three accomplices were actively involved in extortion activities targeting officials from Indian Railways, Western Coalfields Ltd, Income Tax, Manganese Ore India Ltd, State-run Petroleum companies, and others. The gang, led by Qureshi, a person posing as a CBI official, a driver, and another posing as Qureshis PA, would intimidate Central government officers in the guise of impending CBI action. They exploited this fear to extort significant amounts of money from these officials. The gang would use FIRs (downloaded from CBIs website) and bogus visiting cards to bolster their claims. They even presented themselves as being involved in "secret inquiries" conducted by the CBI against government officials. Qureshis associates, including the fake CBI official, driver, and the person posing as Qureshis PA, will soon face arrest as the CBI has solid evidence against them, revealed top sources. The fraudulent gang deceived officials by promising protection from CBI action in exchange for money which lead some officials to cover Qureshis expenses. This included payments for stays at five-star hotels in Nagpur city and arranging flight tickets through a travel agent involved in train ticket bookings. The CBI has scrutinised Qureshis Call Detail Records and identified government officials connected to him. Jaishankar embarks on 5-day visit to UK NEW DELHI, EXTERNAL Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday embarked on a five-day visit to the UK with an aim to review various aspects of bilateral ties. It is expected that preparations for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunaks possible visit to India in the next few months will figure in his talks in London. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will be on an official visit to the United Kingdom from November 11-15, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said. India and the UK have a growing bilateral partnership. During his visit, the External Affairs Minister will be holding discussions with his counterpart, Foreign Secretary Sir James Cleverly and will meet several other dignitaries, it said in a statement. MURDERED BJP leader done to death at his dhaba in Pachgaon Special Correspondent SENSATION prevailed in Kuhi and Dighori areas after Raju Bhaurao Dhengre, General Secretary of BJPs Umrer Taluka Unit and former Sarpanch of Surgaon Gram Panchayat was brutally done to death at his dhaba in Pachgaon on Nagpur-Umred Road in the wee hours of Saturday. He was an elected member of Surgaon Grampanchayat in the elections held recently. A resident of Dighori, Dhengre (48) was killed when he was sleeping on a cot at his dhaba around 3.30 am. The killers smashed his head with a wooden post and also strangled him with a piece of cloth. After killing him, they took his car and fled the spot. While fleeing, the car met with an accident near the Naag river bridge at Vihirgaon. The killers abandoned the vehicle and ran away. The news about Dhengres murder spread like wildfire in the Kuhi and Umrer areas. Kuhi Police rushed to the spot soon after receiving information about the sensational murder. Officers and men from the Local Crime Branch of Nagpur (Rural) Police also reached the spot. Superintendent of Police (Rural) Harssh Poddar visited Dhengres dhaba to supervise investigation. Prima facie, Nagpur (Rural) Police said, two dhaba workers were involved in the murder. Dhengre had a tiff with the two suspects -- Aadi alias Aditya (25) and Chhotu alias Mandla (45) -- over giving them a hike in their salaries, they added. Police said that two dhaba workers wanted to visit their native places in Madhya Pradesh for Diwali. As Dhengre was allegedly reluctant to give them some bonus and advance, an argument broke out between them, added the police. Police also said, the two workers decided to teach Dhengre a lesson. When Dhengre was in deep slumber at his dhaba, they smashed his head with a wooden post killing him on the spot, they added. Kuhi Police registered a case muder under Sections 302 and 34 of Indian Penal Code and launched a manhunt for the culprits. State BJP President Chandrashekhar Bawankule met senior officials of Nagpur (Rural) Police and urged them to bring the culprits to book at the earliest. Dhengre is survived by his wife, a son, a daughter and a host of relatives, friends and party workers to mourn the loss. Nangia Cars delivers Hector to gold medallist Ojas Deotale on Dhanteras Business Reporter On the auspicious occasion of Dhanteras, Nangia Cars (MG Nagpur) delivered MG Hector to the man who made whole Nagpur and India proud - Ojas Deotale, the gold medallist at the Asian Games. The car was delivered by Akshit Nangia of Nangia Cars. MG Nagpur expressed its deep gratitude to the Deotale family for trusting MG Motors and choosing Hector for the ace archer. The MG Hector, has become a symbol of driving excellence and a most sought-after choice for the buyers. Deotales decision to buy Hector is a testimony to that. As an authorized dealer of MG Motor, MG Nagpur takes pride in delivering vehicles that embody innovation, comfort, and style. The MG Hector has quickly become a flagship model, setting new standards in the SUV segment. Packed with advanced features, including state-of-the-art connectivity, spacious interiors, and a powerful engine, the Hector reflects MGs commitment to delivering vehicles that exceed expectations. Ojas Deotale, the proud owner of the newly delivered MG Hector, expressed his excitement, stating, I am thrilled to be a part of the MG family. The Hectors unparalleled features, coupled with MG Nagpurs excellent service, have made this purchase a truly delightful experience. Nangia Cars has full range of MG Cars at their showrooms in Nagpur, Amravati and Chandrapur. For details contact Nangia Cars (MG Nagpur) Opp Nangia Speciality Hospital, MIDC, Hingna, Nagpur: 7775022000. Oh, My God! BY C.S. KRISHNAMURTHY SOMETIME around 2005 or 2006, after I had visited a famous temple in Tamil Nadu, I found myself strolling in the free prasad queue with my family. On that particular day, the divine offering was Puliyodharai, or Tamarind rice. The gentleman ahead of me, having received prasad, actually requested more. The bare-chested volunteer, after a brief haggling session, eagerly accepted a 50-rupee note. He hurriedly left his seat, removed the cloth that was draped around his dhoti, casually tossed it over the camera meant to prevent such unfair dealings, then returned promptly, crammed the divine rice, swiftly wrapped in a palm leaf into the hands of the buyer, and concluded the transaction. He retrieved his cloth from the camera and resumed his duties as if nothing had happened. On another occasion, I accompanied someone to a temple in Mysore. This person handed a 200-rupee note to a tout posing as a security staff member. The special treatment was immediate. Apart from the darshan, the individual was festooned with garlands by the priest (who received a separate blessing), showered with fruits, flowers, sacred ash, and vermillion Who emerges victorious in this scenario? When VIPs spend long hours at a temple, commoners are left waiting for an extended period, sometimes a day or two. It appears that those with deeper pockets win in such situations. Does God, in fact, endorse the Orwellian idea that some are more equal? Who receives more of Gods grace the one who jumps the queue or the one who patiently follows dharma dharshan? In reality, there should be no need to bribe for the privilege of worshipping Him. But sadly, we do. If God could be won over with money, people like (insert your preferred name) would have installed Him in their living rooms instead of visiting the temple. With genuine devotion, we embark on a pilgrimage to Tirumala only have a fleeting glimpse of the deity. But if, from the outset, people accept the notion that intermediaries are required to reach God, and the worship is an investment with the expectation in return, then why the pretence of denouncing corruption? Temples are meant to be places of sanctity, providing a tranquil environment where devotees can sit and pray in peace. The one who pays more gets closer to God thats quite the jest! Some argue that this is the ultimate test of faith, and the fruits of such visits are reaped only when theres an element of sacrifice involved. Those in authority, from the administration officials, politicians, vendors, and brokers, all seem to be in cahoots. When the prasad, like the famous Laddu, is sold in the black market, can it maintain its sanctity? Touts flock around the shrine, thriving openly. Corruption is inevitable when the whole operation resembles a large business entity, favouring the wealthy and influential. Perhaps we should confine ourselves to our homes or visit local shrines and be true to our beliefs. God, I believe, would appreciate my devotion and shower blessings when I dont resort to unsavoury practices. Why not support our local places of worship? If we cant find God in our own homes and hearts, how can we expect to find Him elsewhere? Why should we visit a temple where darshan must be bought or bribed? When someone claims to control access to God and, whats more, for a fee, I already feel deceived. Would it not be better to engage in a little charity rather than bribing the intermediaries? After all, isnt service to humanity is service to God? So, where should the solution lie with God or with humanity? I confess, and Im still confused. Im not an atheist. SPURIOUS green crackers in markets Staff Reporter THOUGH the Supreme Court of India has imposed a ban on sale and use of unauthorised fire crackers and allowed ecofriendly firecrackers during Diwali, spurious green firecrackers have flooded markets in the city. The green crackers are supposed to have certification of CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (CSIRNEERI) and Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO) and a QR (quick response) code. However, several boxes have the Logo of CSIR-NEERI but no certification from the PESO, no registration number and no QR Code on them. Similarly, manyboxes have the QR Code ofCSIR-NEERI but most of the QRcodes are not working. With the CSIR-NEERIsstamp of approval, thecrackers are also mandatedto be affixed with the QRcode that customers canscan and obtain informationabout the crackers emissionsand composition. CSIR-NEERI signed a memorandum of understanding(MoU) with hundreds of manufacturers for making greenfirecrackers. Green firecrackers have asmall shell size as compared toregular ones. Their formulation comprises less polluting raw materials. Green firecrackers, in many cases, also use polluting chemicals like aluminium, barium, potassium nitrate and carbon but the quantity is low, which in turn lowers the emission by about 30percent.InsomeGreenfirecrackers, these chemicals are not at all used. A very limited Green firecrackers are available in the markets thathave logoandQR code both. Firecrackers like fuljhadi, pencil, chakri and some otherfirecrackers which cause less pollution have the logo and QR code both. However,majorityofthefirecrackers that produce high decibelsoundandmoresmoke like Sutli bombs, multiple shots, anar etc., inthe market have no CSIR-NEERI or PESO authentication. Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) is the implementing agency and keeps vigil to ensure pollution rules are adhered to inthe city. Whereas, the State Government has no mechanism to check illegal Green firecrackers available in the market except anyone who send the QR code of the boxes. According to asenior official of MPCB, We have conducted the decibel(Db)test of firecrackers available in the market at PESOs explosive facility in outskirts of the city recently.All the fire cracker sareunder limit. When asked about the test of green firecrackers, he replied, As per the Supreme Court of Indias order only authorised firecrackers will be allowed for use and sale in the market. Green firecrackers are alsocomesunderthesamecategory. QRcodeisthereon theboxes which shows certification issued by PESO and CSIRNEERIregistrationaboutgreen firecrackers. Government has allowed only Green firecrackers during Diwali and Police Department is responsible to check the authentic one in the market, said the senior official. KaustavChatterjee,Founder, Green Vigil Foundation said, The word green itself is confusing. These so called green firecrackers,cutdownpollutant emissions by only 30%, thus with balance 70% pollutant emission, how an cracker can be called green? Duetothenamegreen,common man feels, these crackers are nonpolluting,hencegofor enhanced purchase. The advantage being taken by the sellers, who are selling normal crackers as green crackers at a highprice.Mostly,theQRcodes are not working. Finally, the burden is coming in the pocket of the common man, he added. There should be a method of checking the authenticityof green crackers but authorities are also reluctant to have the saidcheck.Surprisingly, entire Nagpur experiences firecrackerswithintolerablesoundduring Diwali, largely crossing allowablesoundlevel, butduring checking, authorities always find all firecrackers are withinprescribed sound level. Unless we have a strict implementation of the rules with hefty fine to defaulters, we will not be able to curb air pollution, said Chatterjee. A new solar array sits atop the main office building at Safe Harbor Vineyard Haven, a project General Manager Chris Scott said is the most visible example of the marinas continuing focus on renewable energy and environmental stewardship. The new solar installation, which was erected about a month ago, consists of two long, narrow arrays with a total of 32 panels, or modules 16 on each strip, with each module generating 400 watts of electricity. The 12.8 kW system generates about 16,752 kWh annually, and its designed to withstand the power of 140-mph winds. The electricity generated, Scott said, should satisfy 100% of the buildings power needs each year. The project links to the companys ongoing efforts to become more energy self-sufficient and environmentally sustainable. The sun rises on the solar energy installation at Safe Harbor Vineyard Haven. The marina and boatyard recently installed 32 solar modules/solar panels on top of its marina offices. Everyones got to do their small part (toward) reducing their (carbon) footprint, he added. According to Scott, the project was implemented following a lengthy process of approvals by the Marthas Vineyard Commission, the local Planning Board and the Building Department. New installation will meet buildings total yearly demand for electricity Scott, a Marthas Vineyard native who joined Safe Harbor in 2017, said the marina continues to implement other projects that help reduce energy use and keep impacts to a minimum, such as installing LED lighting, implementing an automatic light shut-off system and finding ways to maximize heat retention in buildings. All that work is underway with the overall goal of a 10% reduction in energy use at the facility. Such green initiatives are increasingly visible in the annual sustainability reports issued by the Safe Harbor community of marinas, where environmental concerns are a goal for the national operation. Parent company Sun Communities Inc. owns or operates more than 100 marinas in 22 states. First in Massachusetts to earn marina industrys 'Clean and Resilient' designation Scott said that the coolest result of installing the new solar project has been that Safe Harbor Vineyard Haven has been named as Massachusetts first Accredited Clean and Resilient Marina. According to its website, this is a standard bestowed by the Association of Marina Industries (AMI), an independent voice at the national level for the marina industry, directed toward that industrys specific needs and concerns. Story continues As general manager, Scott also participates in local community-wide initiatives that work to address coastal and marine habitats of concern, including groups that are responding to issues of nitrogen loading in the environment, water quality, marsh feasibility, shellfish propagation and other local environmental impacts. Scott said that more than 125 boats are accommodated at the Vineyard Haven facility, which offers a variety of services to boaters, and mooring facilities are sold out each season. Plymouth company designed, installed new array The southeastern Massachusetts company Plymouth Solar Energy designed and installed the array at Safe Harbor. In a phone interview, Greg Aborn, the companys president, described the project as a smaller commercial installation thats similar in size to an array that might be installed on a residential building. According to Aborn, the electricity-generation capacity of the project is the largest that Eversource currently permits, in line with regulations that set the standards for such solar projects statewide. The 32 panels, he said, should wipe out (Safe Harbors) annual demand ... and take care of all their electrical needs in the main office building. Daily monitoring keeps the system current Aborn said Plymouth Solar not only designs and installs the system but monitors it daily and maintains the system from its Main Street, Plymouth offices. The company remotely monitors Safe Harbors electricity production, checking each module in the array separately for any possible changes in its energy collection. Were able to tell (Safe Harbor) ongoing, Heres what youre generating, he said. Aborn is enthusiastic about the future for local solar energy production, especially with the development and affordability of battery systems. ... Solar and storage are going to (help) individuals or even communities to be grid independent and maintain their own energy independence. Thanks to our subscribers, who help make this coverage possible. If you are not a subscriber, please consider supporting quality local journalism with a Cape Cod Times subscription. Here are our subscription plans. This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Safe Harbor marina on the Vineyard takes a shine to solar power Shares in Grayscales Solana Trust have more than doubled in the past week, surging to nine times the price of the Solana token. GSOL shares are trading at a record $202, up from $87 at the start f the month. With SOL at $59 on Nov. 11 and the trust holding 0.38 SOL per share, that's an insane premium of 784%. For context, the premium on Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust, GBTC, touched a record of 43% in July 2019. The triple-digit premium signals increased appetite from institutional investors to get exposure to Solana. The rally comes as Solana's native token surged 40% in the past week, breaching $60 for the first time since May 2022. Grayscale Solana Trust Shares Surge To Insane 784% Premium Grayscale Trusts Grayscale's cryptocurrency trusts have become the go-to way for financial institutions in the U.S. to access crypto, as it allows them to get exposure to digital assets while using traditional finance rails. But unlike exchange-traded funds, holdings in Grayscale trusts don't directly track the market value of shares of the trusts, which leads to price premiums and discounts in the products. Primary market sales of the trusts, when holding value and share price are at 1-to1, can only be accessed by accredited investors, with retail investors left to the mercy of the trusts' wild fluctuations. There is only $6.3M of assets under management in GSOL, compared with $23B in GBTC. ETF ambitions Although Grayscale Trust shares are non-redeemable today, many pundits believe that may soon change. Grayscale first applied to convert its Bitcoin Trust into a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund in Oct. 2021, but was knocked back by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). However, the U.S. District of Columbia Court of Appeal sided with Grayscales appeal in August, ruling that Grayscales Bitcoin Trust is materially similar to futures ETFs previously approved by the SEC. Last month, the SEC declined to appeal the courts decision before its October deadline expired, fuelling speculation that its ETF conversion may soon go ahead and pave the way for other Grayscale Trusts to undergo similar restructurings. Story continues The news followed a spot Bitcoin ETF application from BlackRock, the worlds largest asset manager, in July, which ignited bullish expectations that the first exchange-traded fund investing in spot BTC may soon receive regulatory approval. GBTC shares similarly outperformed spot Bitcoin in recent months, with GBTC up 200% year-to-date while BTC gained 10% over the same period. To continue reading this as well as other DeFi and Web3 news, visit us at thedefiant.io Megastar Amitabh Bachchan has shared a throwback picture from the sets of his 1991 film Ajooba in Russia. The actor shared about how despite doing extensive work, he still prepares for a scene. Big B posted a black and white picture on Instagram Advertisement In the picture, Amitabh can be seen sitting on a chair with the script kept on his lap. The actor captioned: Personal designer leather jacket, leather trousers, turtle neck, tinted Aviators Russia 1990 !!! But still prepping for the scene, script in hand. At shoot for Ajooba 1990s Russia!!! Ajooba is directed by Shashi Kapoor and Gennady Vasilyev. Amitabh played the titular superhero in the film. The film also starred Rishi Kapoor, Dimple Kapadia, Shammi Kapoor, Dara Singh, Saeed Jaffery and Amrish Puri. An Indian-Soviet co-production, it is loosely based on Arabic folklore such as One Thousand and One Nights. The film had a Russian language version released in the Soviet Union, Black Prince Ajuba, in 1990, before its Indian release in 1991. 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. Firstly, we'd want to identify a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and then alongside that, an ever-increasing base of capital employed. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. Having said that, from a first glance at Nufarm (ASX:NUF) we aren't jumping out of our chairs at how returns are trending, but let's have a deeper look. Understanding Return On Capital Employed (ROCE) Just to clarify if you're unsure, ROCE is a metric for evaluating how much pre-tax income (in percentage terms) a company earns on the capital invested in its business. The formula for this calculation on Nufarm is: Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) (Total Assets - Current Liabilities) 0.067 = AU$259m (AU$5.3b - AU$1.4b) (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2023). Therefore, Nufarm has an ROCE of 6.7%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Chemicals industry average of 8.7%. Check out our latest analysis for Nufarm roce In the above chart we have measured Nufarm's prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you'd like, you can check out the forecasts from the analysts covering Nufarm here for free. So How Is Nufarm's ROCE Trending? In terms of Nufarm's historical ROCE movements, the trend isn't fantastic. Over the last five years, returns on capital have decreased to 6.7% from 9.1% five years ago. 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. The Key Takeaway In summary, Nufarm is reinvesting funds back into the business for growth but unfortunately it looks like sales haven't increased much just yet. And in the last five years, the stock has given away 23% so the market doesn't look too hopeful on these trends strengthening any time soon. On the whole, we aren't too inspired by the underlying trends and we think there may be better chances of finding a multi-bagger elsewhere. Story continues If you're still interested in Nufarm it's worth checking out our FREE intrinsic value approximation to see if it's trading at an attractive price in other respects. 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. The Congress on Sunday hit back at the BJP after its top leadership was accused of giving up in Rajasthan and campaigning slowly there as compared to other states, saying that from November 16 onwards, its senior leaders will be there in the desert state. In a post on X, Congress General Secretary, Organisation, K.C. Venugopal said: A section of the BJP-sponsored propaganda driven media is spreading canards about our top leaderships activity in Rajasthan. Recently, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge ji, RahulGandhi ji and Priyanka Gandhi ji have campaigned multiple times in Rajasthan, MP, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram. From 16 November onwards, Kharge ji will be in Rajasthan for 3 days, Rahul ji will have public events spanning 4 days and Priyanka ji will also be campaigning for 3 days. Advertisement This propaganda is being spread against us while there is complete silence about how PM Modi did not even have the courage to campaign in Mizoram, he said, questioning why Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not visit the northeastern state during polls. Venugopal said that it is extremely unethical and mischievous that these pre-meditated hit jobs cast aspersions on our unflinching commitment towards Rajasthan. Dont forget, Rahul ji walked for 18 days across Rajasthan during the Bharat Jodo Yatra one of the longest stretches of the Yatra. The Congresss vision that is being implemented in Rajasthan and its guarantees for the upcoming elections is an outcome of Rahul jis conversations with the poor, youth and marginalised people of Rajasthan, he said. Our entire party, right from the booth level to the Congress President, is working unitedly to ensure our government is repeated in Rajasthan. There is no doubt that we will return to power with a resounding victory because the Congress has an unbreakable, solid bond with the 8 crore people of Rajasthan. A bond that is forged by decades of public service and revolutionary governance, he added. The Congress is seeking second consecutive term in Rajasthan and has already announced seven guarantees in the state. Polling for 200 member Assembly is scheduled on November 25 and counting of votes will take place on December 3. Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Saturday condoled the loss of lives in the Dal Lake fire incident. I am deeply pained by the loss of lives due to the unfortunate fire incident at Dal Lake, Srinagar. My heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families. I have directed the District Administration to provide all necessary assistance to the affected persons, the LG said. In the early hours of Saturday, a massive fire gutted five houseboats in Srinagars Dal Lake, killing three Bangladeshi tourists who were in one of the vessels. The blaze broke out in the houseboats along Ghat no 9 in the Dal Lake area. As per officials, the flames quickly spread and engulfed five houseboats namely Safeena, Sabreena, Young Gulshan, Lala Rukh and Khar Palace. Advertisement Three tourists from Bangladesh namely Anindaya Kowshal, Das Gupta and Mohammad Moinud, who were staying in houseboat Safeena lost their lives in the devastating fire, they added. Moreover, seven residential huts and neighbouring houses in the vicinity were also gutted in the ensuing blaze. Pertinently, eight people staying in these houseboats were rescued and evacuated to safety through timely and valiant action by joint efforts of Srinagar Police, State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF), and civilians. In this regard, a fire incident report has been lodged at RM Bagh police station and an investigation was initiated. The death toll in the blasts at a convention centre in Kalamassery near Kochi during a prayer meeting of Jehovah Witnesses two weeks ago, has risen to five with a 45-year-old woman succumbing to her injuries at a private hospital in Kochi on Saturday night. The victim has been identified as Sally Pradeepan from Malayattoor in Ernakulam district. At present, 17 people, who were injured in the blasts, are undergoing treatment in various hospitals in Kochi. Eight of them are in ICU with one in critical condition. Two persons were killed, six critically wounded and over 50 others were injured in the bomb explosion that took place on October 29 at a convention centre in Kalamassery near Kochi during a prayer meeting of Jehovah Witnesses. Advertisement Next day, a 12-year-old girl from Malayattoor succumbed to her injuries at Kalamassery Government Medical College and Hospital. A 61-year-old woman from Kalamassery died at a private hospital on November 6. Police have arrested Kochi native Dominic Martin in connection with the blasts. He surrendered before the police, claiming that he carried out the multiple blasts. Martin has been booked under Sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) of the IPC and provisions of the Explosives Act and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). Bhupesh Baghel had hinted at a significant revelation pertaining to state women earlier in the day. As soon as the Congress government is formed, the women of the state will be given 15,000 per year directly into their accounts under the Chhattisgarh Griha Lakshmi Yojana, he stated on X. Advertisement He had pledged, among other things, that if the Congress was elected back into power, it would forgive agricultural loans, conduct a census based on caste, and provide women with free LPG cylinders. The manifesto was unveiled on November 5. He had before criticized the BJP for its pledges, claiming that their assurances were worthless pieces of paper. Their forms are going into the dustbin. There is no guarantee of their guarantees. Look at what we have promised in the Griha Lakshmi scheme, it is for your wives and your mothers and sisters and daughters. We will launch the scheme after we return to power and will be giving every woman in the state 15000 yearly Bhupesh Baghel said. He asserted that ration cards for APL residents were never created by the BJP government. He said that the Congress administration was responsible for ensuring that everyone received ration cards. The declaration was released before to the November 17 state assembly elections second round. The declaration is perceived as a rebuttal to the electoral manifesto pledge made by the opposition BJP to provide married women with 12,000 annually. A massive fire broke out at a napkin manufacturing company near Raliawas village in Haryanas Rewari district on Saturday night. Upon receiving the information, a team of fire tenders rushed to the spot to douse the blaze. However, at the time of writing this story, no casualties were reported. Further details are awaited. Advertisement On Sunday Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended festival greetings to the people of the country and spent his Diwali morning with Indian Army soldiers in Himachal Pradeshs Lepcha. Addressing a gathering of soldiers at Lepcha, PM Modi extended his warm wishes to the security personnel posted at the borders and told them, In the last 30-35 years, there has not been a single Diwali that I have not celebrated with you. I come and celebrate Diwali every year with our Army personnel. It is said that Ayodhya is where Lord Ram is, but for me, Ayodhya is where Indian Army personnel are. My festival is where you are, PM Modi said. Advertisement When I was neither the Prime Minister nor the Chief Minister, I would go to the border areas during Diwali to celebrate with the security forces, he said. He further said that in every home in the country, a prayer is said for all soldiers guarding our borders. It is said that festival is celebrated only where there is family, but today, you all are stationed at the borders while being away from your families, it shows the pinnacle of your devotion to duty, the Prime Minister said. For me, a place where security forces are deployed is no less than a temple, he added. PM Modi also lauded security forces for their contribution to nation-building, enhancing the countrys global prestige Given the situation in the world today, expectations from India are continuously increasing. In such a situation, it is important that Indias borders remain secure. India is safe so long as its brave soldiers are standing on its borders, unflinching as the Himalayas. Indias Army and security forces have constantly contributed towards nation-building, he said. He noted that in the past years in the Indian Army, more than 500 women officers have been given permanent commissions. Today, women pilots are flying fighter planes like Rafale, he said. He further emphasized that after Independence, Army personnel fought so many wars and won the countrys heart. In the International Peace Mission, Indias global image was improved because of them. Is there any such issue, to which our brave hearts have not provided solution? PM Modi said. After reaching Lepcha village, the Prime Minster tweeted, Reached Lepcha in Himachal Pradesh to celebrate Diwali with our brave security forces, Prime Minister Modi said in a post on X. Earlier in the day, he greeted people on Diwali and wished them joy, prosperity and health. Troops of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police and the Indian Army are stationed at Lepcha near the border with China Himachal Pradesh shares a 260-km border with China. Of the total length, 140 km is in tribal Kinnaur district, while 80 km is in the tribal Lahaul and Spiti district. Five ITBP battalions deployed in 20 posts that guard the border with China. Last year, Prime Minister Modi celebrated the festival of lights with soldiers in Kargil and said Diwali means the festival of end of terror and that Kargil had made it possible. The Prime Minister has been celebrating the festival with soldiers for several years now. In 2019, the Prime Minister celebrated Diwali with soldiers in the Rajouri district along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir. He had called soldiers as his family and lauded them for guarding the borders even during festivals. He had exchanged Diwali greetings with the Indian Air Force (IAF) personnel at Pathankot Air Force Station. In 2018, Prime Minister Modi celebrated Diwali with jawans of the Indian Army and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), at Harsil in Uttarakhand. Following that he had offered prayers at the Kedarnath shrine. In 2017, the Prime Minister celebrated the festival of light with army soldiers and Border Security Force (BSF) personnel in the Gurez Valley of Jammu and Kashmirs Bandipora District. In 2016, the PM went to Himachal Pradesh to celebrate the festival with Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel at an outpost. He visited the Punjab border to celebrate Diwali with soldiers in 2015. In 2014, Prime Minister Modi spent Diwali in Siachen with soldiers. Notably, PM Modi has been visiting soldiers on Diwali, ever since he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat. To celebrate Diwali with troops, Prime Minister Narendra Modi traveled to Lepcha, Himachal Pradesh, early on Sunday morning. Arrived at Lepcha, Himachal Pradesh, to celebrate Diwali alongside our courageous security forces, Prime Minister Modi posted images and a message on X, the old name for Twitter. The PM also shared pictures in which he can be seen dressed in military attire and speaking to security personnel. Since assuming office in 2014, Prime Minister Modi has been celebrating Diwali by going to military installations. He engages with the military men and participates in the holiday celebrations during his visits. He would be spending his ninth Diwali with the military this year. Advertisement The PM and Siachen security personnel commemorated the holiday in 2014. In honor of the Indian Armys victories in the 1965 conflict, he paid a visit to three memorials in Punjab the following year. He had conversations with the men in uniform from the Dogra Scouts, the army at Sumdoh, and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) in 2016 when on a visit to Himachal Pradesh, close to the Chinese border. The Prime Minister visited the Gurez region in North Kashmir in 2017, followed by a surprise visit to the troops in Uttarakhands Harsil during Diwali in 2018, a visit to the soldiers in Jammu and Kashmirs Rajouri in 2019, and a stop at the Longewala border post in 2020. In 2021, he celebrated Diwali in Jammu and Kashmirs Nowshera. Last year, he celebrated Diwali with soldiers in Kargil. In the meantime, Prime Minister Modi wished everyone a happy Diwali earlier in the day. Greetings on Diwali to everybody! In a post on X, he wished for everyone to have joy, prosperity, and excellent health as a result of this unique holiday. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday celebrated Diwali among the forest dwellers. He also inaugurated and laid the foundation stone of a total of 52 development projects worth Rs 153 crore for different Gram Panchayats of Gorakhpur district on the occasion. Sharing the joy of Diwali with members of Vantangiya community in Tikonia No. 3 village in Kusamhi forest, he also remembered the struggle for the rights of Vantangiyas, pointing out that any struggle done in a positive spirit never goes in vain. He said that the struggle for the Vantangiya community was fought in this spirit and today its positive outcome is visible. He added that Diwali and Ram Rajya are all about providing all the government facilities and civil rights to the underprivileged. Advertisement Addressing the gathering, the Chief Minister said that he was very happy to see the pucca houses of the poor as well as drinking water facilities, electricity, good schools and Anganwadi centres in Vantangiya village. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath conveyed his Diwali wishes to the people and said that the holy festival provides inspiration to move from darkness to light, from evil to good, from unrighteousness to religion, from negativity to positivity, from injustice to justice and from indolence to hard work. The Chief Minister also discussed the changes brought about in Gorakhpur in the last six years due to development works and the situation before that. He said that since independence, Gorakhpur has been continuously and deliberately neglected from the point of view of development. Today Gorakhpur has everything that it needs. The medical college itself, which was ill earlier, has become healthy and the AIIMS is also providing services. The sparkling roads, the grand Ramgarhtal and the Gorakhpur Zoo are major attractions of the city, he said. The Chief Minister said that the people of Vantangiya community used to live in fear earlier. They were afraid of eviction, fake FIRs, and arrest from the Forest Department. But, their fear ended in the double-engine government. Today Vantangiya people also have the facilities of a permanent house, toilet, LPG connection, electricity connection, Ayushman card, he said. Describing the importance of celebrating Diwali, the Chief Minister said that during his exile period, Lord Shri Ram provided fearlessness to the sages and made the forest dwellers stand against the negative forces. By uniting them, he freed Aryavarta and the world from the terror of Ravana, he pointed out. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath appealed to all the people to take along the deprived and the poor and contribute to connecting them with government schemes. The Chief Minister also honoured the beneficiaries of Ayushman Yojana, Agriculture Department schemes, Chief Minister Housing Scheme, Chief Minister Youth Self-Employment Scheme, National Rural Livelihood Mission by presenting them with certificates and sweets. After the stage programme in Jungle Tikonia number three, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath visited the exhibition organized by various departments where people were informed about the public welfare schemes of the government. After inspecting the stalls, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath set out on a tour of the village. He first reached the house of Ram Ganesh, the head of Vantangiya community and inaugurated the festival of lights by lighting the lamp amid the rangoli decorated outside the house. He also toured the village, met the people there and accepted their greetings. The Chief Minister met the children of Hindu Vidyapeeth located in the village and gave sweets and other gifts to them. YSR Congress Party MP from Andhra Pradeshs Rajahmundry Margani Bharat Ram said that there is a need to preserve the road-cum-rail bridge which has been the backbone of Rajahmundry city for decades. Last month, traffic on the bridge was restricted due to repairs for fifteen days. As the repair work was completed, the authorities allowed the movement of vehicles from Saturday. Speaking on this, MP Bharat said that there were restrictions on heavy-weight motor vehicles on the bridge, but due to the arbitrary traffic of vehicles, the bridge has come to a state of deterioration. This road-cum-rail bridge in Rajahmundry is the second-largest bridge not only in India but also in the world. Now, the road is completely damaged. At present, the old road on the bridge has been completely removed and a new 38 mm layer has been laid as standard, MP Bharat said. Advertisement He said that a stainless steel railing was placed, and added that lighting and other works have to be taken up, to give the bridge a new look. The MP said that the authorities have been instructed to take steps to ensure that only lightweight vehicles such as ordinary services of RTC, two and three-wheeler vehicles and cars are allowed to pass and have also spoken to the collector. Apart from this, there is a need for another new bridge over the Godavari River, he added. MP Bharat further said that he had taken it to the notice of the Central Railway Department and that the matter is under consideration. He said that there are chances of more speed trains through the bridge like Vande Bharat in the coming days. There are chances of laying the third line and fourth line as well. Visakha-Vijayawadas third line has been sanctioned, while the third line has already started from Gudur to Nellore, he added. MP Bharat expressed hope that the long dream of the Godavari districts is a new bridge on the Godavari river and that there are chances of it being fulfilled soon. As many as 4,798 candidates have filed their nominations for November 30 elections to Telangana Assembly. Nearly half of them filed their papers in all 119 Assembly constituencies on Friday, which was the last day for filing of nominations A total of 5,716 sets of nominations were received by the electoral officers since November 3. Majority of the candidates are independents. Advertisement According to Chief Electoral Officer Vikas Raj, 2,324 candidates filed their nominations on the last day. A total of 2,768 sets of nominations were filed on that day. Scrutiny of nominations will be taken up on November 13 while the last day for withdrawal of nominations is November 15. Maximum number of candidates (145) filed their nominations from Gajwel, where Chief Minister and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) president K. Chandrasekhar Rao is seeking re-election for a third consecutive term. In Gajwel which is in KCRs home district Siddipet, BJP has fielded its MLA and former minister Eatala Rajender, who is also contesting from Huzurabad, a seat which he won in the by-election as BJP candidate in 2021 after he KCR dropped him from the Cabinet. This time, KCR is also contesting from Kamareddy constituency, where 92 candidates have filed their nominations. The chief minister is facing Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president A. Revanth Reddy, who has also entered the fray from his home constituency Kodangal. A total of 116 candidates filed their papers in Medchal, where labour minister Malla Reddy is contesting again as BRS candidate. Only 13 candidates filed their nominations in Narayanpet constituency in Mahabubnagar district Only 19 candidates each filed their papers from Wyra (ST) and Makthal constituencies in Khammam and Narayanpet districts respectively. As many as 37 candidates filed their papers on the last day in Kamareddy, one of the two constituencies from where Chief Minister and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) president K. Chandrasekhar Rao is contesting. BRS is contesting all 119 seats on its own while Congress has left one seat for its ally CPI. The BJP is contesting 111 seats and has left remaining seats for its ally Jana Sena Party. MIM is contesting nine seats and backing BRS in the remaining seats. Fitch ratings agency on Friday night confirmed Italy's credit rating at an unchanged BBB, with a stable outlook, a few weeks after Standard & Poor's did the same, Azernews reports, citing ANSA. The Italian economy is sufficiently large and diversified, Fitch said, but Italy's debt remains high, budget policy shows signs of easing, and yields have risen. Fitch said Premier Giorgia Meloni's government is showing better resilience than its predecessors, but the executive faces "considerable political pressure to deliver on electoral commitments". (Bloomberg) -- Senior officials in Israel and the US suggested that talks on securing the release of Hamas-held hostages are intensifying. President Joe Biden spoke with Qatars leader about the urgent ongoing efforts to secure additional releases. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there could be a deal in the offing. Israeli President Isaac Herzog expressed caution. Most Read from Bloomberg Israels military pressed on with its offensive against Hamas in Gaza, engaging in ground battles in a northern refugee camp. On Israels northern border, six civilians were injured after anti-tank missiles were fired by the militant group Hezbollah from within Lebanon. Israel struck back with fighter jets. The United Nations said Israeli ground attacks and shelling increased around hospitals, with several being directly hit. Israel, which accuses Hamas of using the hospitals as command centers, said there was safe passage for anyone who wanted to leave. Hamas is designated a terrorist group by the US and EU. For more stories on the Israel-Hamas war, click here. (All time stamps are Israeli time) CNN Says Hundreds of Foreign Nationals Left Gaza on Sunday (5:25 a.m.) CNN reported that over 800 foreign nationals passed through the Rafah crossing into Egypt on Sunday, citing an unidentified Egyptian border official. It said this marked the largest number that has passed through the crossing in a single day since evacuations began. Also on Sunday, Canadas Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said on social media platform X: We are relieved that 234 Canadians and their families were able to leave Gaza today. Its unclear if they were part of the same group reported on by CNN. Story continues US Launches Strikes on Iran-Linked Sites in Syria (1:22 a.m.) The US struck a training facility and a safe house in eastern Syria in its latest airstrikes on Iran-linked targets since the Israel-Hamas war began, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement. The Pentagon said last week that there have been at least 41 attacks on American military personnel in Iraq and Syria since Oct. 17. Biden Speaks With Qatar About Hostage Releases (10:59 p.m.) President Joe Biden spoke with Qatari Emir Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani about the urgent ongoing efforts to secure additional releases. Biden condemned unequivocally the holding of hostages by Hamas, including many young children, one of whom is a 3-year old American citizen toddler, whose parents were killed by Hamas on October 7th, the White House said. They also talked about efforts to increase the continuous flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza. Israeli President Cautious on Hostages (9:40 p.m.) Israeli President Isaac Herzog expressed caution about a possible release of hostages held by Hamas, saying there is nothing substantial right now on the table though we are using all tools possible to bring it about. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said whats at stake is the recovery of a significant number of hostages through negotiations, with Qatar acting as a channel to Hamas. He said the talks were delicate and high stakes. Both spoke on CBSs Face the Nation. US Military Plane Crash Kills Five (8:01 p.m.) Five US military members were killed when their helicopter crashed into the Mediterranean during routine training of air refueling, US military officials said. A statement from the US European Command gave no further details. Israels Central Bank Requires Banks to Review Dividend Policy (7:25 pm) Israels central bank is asking all banks to review their dividend and stock buyback policy as economic circumstances are changing because of the war with Hamas. There has been an increase in credit risks, and credit losses are expected to increase significantly in the coming period, the central banks inspector wrote in a letter. Bank of Israel is asking all banks to make sure they have sufficient capital cushions to deal with the various risks. They are requested to submit the results of their review by Nov. 15. Thousands Protest Against Antisemitism in France (5:05 p.m.) Tens of thousands gathered across large French cities on Sunday to protest against the rise of antisemitism. The largest protest was in Paris, with the participation of ministers, politicians from the left to the right, and celebrities. President Emmanuel Macron said he would join the demonstrations in [his] heart and in thoughts. In a letter to the nation Macron condemned the unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism and called for national unity. Israel Says 15 Launches Identified From Lebanon Within an Hour (4:48 p.m.) Israel says 15 launches were identified from Lebanon within an hour Sunday afternoon as cross-border skirmishes continue unabated. Four were intercepted and the remainder fell into open areas, the Israel Defense Forces said. Al Jazeera reported two rockets fired from south Lebanon toward upper Galilee in Israel. Israel has responded with artillery fire toward the origins of the launches. Seven Israeli soldiers were lightly injured in the area of Manara as a result of mortar shell fire. US Official Says Israel-Hamas Hostage Swap Possible: NBC (4:28 p.m.) A Biden administration official told NBC of a possible deal in which Hamas would release about 80 Israeli women and children hostages in exchange for a similar gesture by Israel. Theres no certainty that current talks will yield a result, NBC reported, without identifying the official, who added that the US is also exploring other options. Separately, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the US network that there could be a deal in the offing. The less I say about it, the more Ill increase the chances that it materializes, he said on Meet the Press. Jets Strike Hezbollah Targets in Lebanon in Response to Fire (3:38 p.m.) Israeli jets hit a number of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, including military infrastructure, in response to earlier fire, the Israel Defense Forces said. In addition, Israeli soldiers struck militants that had opened fire toward the area of Dovev in northern Israel, injuring a number of civilians. In another incident, a militant cell in Lebanon launched a number of mortar shells toward northern Israel. The IDF attacked the unit, as well as an additional group of militants in southern Lebanon. White House Says US Citizens Gradually Getting Out of Gaza, (3:30 p.m.) Some of the roughly 400 US citizens still in Gaza are leaving the enclave on Sunday, said White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. The gate has been opened and closed. The lists have included Americans some days and not other days, Sullivan said on CBSs Face The Nation. But the bottom line is today the gate is open. We are moving American citizens and their family members out. Sullivan Backs Israel on Hamas Command Center Claims (3 p.m.) Sullivan didnt dispute claims by Israel that Hamas has a command center underneath the Al Shifa medical center something the group, designated as a terrorist operation by the US, has denied. Sullivan said Hamas in this conflict is using hospitals and other civilian facilities as shields. US officials are having an active conversation with Israeli Defense Forces about the matter, Sullivan said on CBS. The bottom line is, we dont want to see firefights in hospitals. Tel Aviv Stocks Fall As Missiles Fired From Lebanon Hit Civilians (1:30 p.m.) Israels TA-35 benchmark stock index fell by the most in three weeks after anti-tank missiles fired from Lebanon injured six Israeli civilians, leaving one in critical condition. Some of the civilians were electric company workers who had come to repair power lines damaged in previous fire. The TA-35, which had shown moderate gains earlier, reversed direction to fall by as much as 2%. The index is down almost 7% for the year but is holding above the lows set in late October, with shifting perceptions on the potential for a broader regional conflict accounting for much of the day-to-day volatility. Palestine Red Crescent Says Al-Quds Hospital No Longer Operational (12 p.m.) The Palestine Red Crescent Society said Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City is out of service and no longer operational. The hospital ceased operations due to the depletion of available fuel and power outage, the medical organization said in a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter. Israel Says Its Fighting in Shati Refugee Camp (9:12 a.m.) Israeli troops have been fighting in the northern Gaza camp in the past day, according to the military, which said it uncovered terrorist infrastructures and eliminated terrorists. It wasnt possible to independently verify the claims. Shati is the third largest of the Gaza Strips eight camps, with more than 90,000 refugees registered as of earlier in 2023, according to the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees. Fighting Intensifies Around Gaza Hospitals (8:15 a.m.) Several hospitals in Gaza City and northern Gaza were directly hit after Israel intensified its military assault, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in an update. Power at the Indonesia and Shifa hospitals reportedly cut off after fuel ran out, it said. Two babies died at Shifa after life support ceased working while 37 babies in incubators are at imminent risk of death, OCHA said, citing the Health Ministry in Ramallah in the West Bank. OCHA official Martin Griffiths has said there can be no justification for acts of war in health care facilities, leaving them with no power, food or water, and shooting at patients and civilians trying to flee. WHO Loses Communication with Al-Shifa Hospital (4 a.m.) The World Health Organization said it has lost communication with its contacts at Al-Shifa Hospital, a major facility in northern Gaza thats said to be encircled by Israeli troops. As horrifying reports of the hospital facing repeated attacks continue to emerge, we assume our contacts joined tens of thousands of displaced people who had sought shelter on the hospital grounds and are fleeing the area, the WHO said in a statement. There are reports that some people who fled the hospital have been shot at, wounded and even killed. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2023 Bloomberg L.P. To take on the oppositions poll strategy of demanding OBC-based caste census and reservation for the community, the BJPs strategy is to make Telangana its OBC politics laboratory which if successful will be implemented in other states. OBCs and Dalits collectively constitute 68 per cent (51 per cent and 17 per cent respectively) of Telanganas total population and the BJP is trying to woo both of them. To counter oppositions caste census demand, the BJP is planning to conduct OBC survey in the entire country. Too woo OBCs, the BJP is making spree of announcements and trying to prove that congress and BRS are anti-OBC. Advertisement On October 27, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, addressing a rally in Suryapet, had announced that if BJP is voted to power in the state assembly polls, then the chief minister will be made from the OBC community. Attacking the Congress, the BJP said that the grand-old party, which has been raking up population based rights issue, gave tickets to only 23 people from the community of the total 114 candidates announced for the state assembly polls. Attacking the Congress, the BJP said by giving only 20 per cent representation to OBCs which constitute 51 per cent of the state population, the grand-old party has cheated them. After facing defeat in the Karnataka assembly polls, the BJP wants to win the Telangana Assembly polls at all costs and thats the reason it has started to woo the electorate based on their castes. The BJP is of the view that winning the Telangana Assembly polls can give an impetus to its mission South benefitting the party in states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. The BJP is also of the view that even if the party secures more votes as compared to Congress in the Telangana Assembly poll, it would put a question mark on the grand-old partys existence in the state. Besides Congress leader Rahul Gandhis rights as per population saga will also end , benefitting the saffron party in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. By wooing Dalits and OBCs, the BJP is trying to create a solid support base for it in the state. On Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while addressing a rally in Secundeabad, organised by Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi (MRPS), tried to woo Madigas who constitute 60 per cent of the Dalit population of the state. He said that the Centre would soon form a committee which would address their three-decade long pending demand of categorisation of Scheduled Castes. When the Prime Minister said that he supports the samiti and its aims, Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi leader Manda Krishna Madig burst into tears.. A video in which Prime Minister is consoling Manda Krishna Madiga also went viral on Saturday. The Madiga community has influence on 24 seats in the Telangana Assembly. India supported a UN resolution denouncing Israeli settlements in Palestine with a vote of yes. Thursdays approval of the resolution denouncing settlement activity in Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan The US and Canada are two of the seven nations who rejected it. 18 nations chose not to participate in the voting. The UN resolution urging a immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip was the subject of Indias abstention from voting on many weeks prior. More than 11,000 people have died in Gaza as a result of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, which was started by the strikes on October 7. In the Hamas attacks, about 200 Israelis were held captive and around 1,200 Israelis were killed. Advertisement Government officials had explained Indias decision to abstain from the previous vote, citing concerns over the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza as well as the belief that there can be no compromise on terrorism. There was no clear denunciation of the terrorist assaults on October 7 in the UNGA Resolution. Before the main resolution vote, an amendment was proposed to incorporate this component, according to a source. According to the source, India received 88 votes in favor of the change, but not the necessary two-thirds majority. In the absence of the all elements of our approach not being covered in the final text of the resolution, we abstained in the vote on its adoption, said a source. According to government sources, New Delhis steadfast and consistent position on the matter drove its choice on the resolution, and its voting explanation reaffirmed this in a thorough and all-encompassing manner. There can be no equivocation on terror, the sources added, referring to Hamass attacks against Israel. Yojna Patel, Indias Deputy Permanent Representative, had then stated, Our thoughts are also with those taken hostage, in response to New Delhis vote. We demand their unconditional and prompt release. This humanitarian crisis needs to be addressed. We welcome the international communitys de-escalation efforts and delivery of humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza. India too has contributed to this effort, she had said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has labeled the Hamas strike as a terrorist activity shortly after the October 7 strikes. As the death toll from the conflict rises, the governments unwavering support for Tel Avivwhile omitting any reference to Palestinehas evolved into a more nuanced approach to handling the situation. India has voted in favour of the resolution in the UN General Assembly condemning settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan. . The resolution was passed on Saturday, two days after its draft was approved on Thursday. The resolution was passed by overwhelming majority, with 145 countries supporting it, while seven Canada, Hungary, Israel, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, and the US voted against it, and 18 abstained from voting. Advertisement Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Saket Gokhale said that he was very glad that Republic of India voted in favor of the resolution and shared a photo of the voting on the resolution at the UN. A resolution was moved in UN yesterday seeking to declare Israeli settlements in Occupied Palestine as illegal. Very glad that Republic of India voted in favor of the resolution. Israels occupation of Palestine through settlers is illegal. Israels apartheid must end now, he wrote on X. Last month, India abstained in the UN General Assembly from voting on a draft resolution submitted by Jordan, that called for an immediate humanitarian truce in the Israel-Hamas conflict, as it did not make any mention of Hamas. The resolution titled Protection of civilians and upholding legal and humanitarian obligations was overwhelmingly adopted with 120 nations voting in its favour, 14 against it and 45 abstaining. Israeli forces and Hamas fighters are engaged in combat around Gazas al-Shifa hospital, which is already in a catastrophic situation because to a shortage of fuel and medical supplies. Hundreds of people who have been injured or displaced by the fighting are being housed at the hospital. Israel has angrily refuted claims that it opened fire on the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip, claiming instead that its soldiers are engaged in combat with Hamas agents close to Al-Shifa. False information that we are surrounding and attacking Al-Shifa Hospital has been circulated within the last several hours. In a televised briefing, military spokesperson Daniel Hagari stated, These are false reports. Advertisement Hours earlier, amid fierce conflict raging nearby, Palestinian officials announced that two infants had perished at the hospital and that scores more in incubators were in danger from an energy outage. Israel is pushing hard into the beleaguered strip in an attempt to eliminate Hamas, which is why there are gunfights and heavy shelling. Given the severe lack of gasoline and medications, humanitarian organizations and hospital personnel have declared the situation to be catastrophic already. The hospital is overwhelmed, and there is no way to carry in the injured patients and bodies that are lying about outside. Physicians for Human Rights Israel, quoting medical professionals at Al-Shifa, stated, There is no movement in or out of the hospital. On Friday, Palestinian officials announced that since October 7, 11,078 people have died in air and artillery attacks in Gaza, almost 40% of them were minors. Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, stated on Fox News that his nation had no intention of reoccupying Gaza. Were not trying to run Gaza. We want to offer it and ourselves a better future, not to possess it, Netanyahu declared. Regional tensions have been heightened by the conflict, with lethal cross-border confrontations between the Israeli army and the Hezbollah organization in Lebanon becoming more frequent. Arab nations gathered in Saudi Arabia demanded an immediate cessation of military activities in Gaza and rejected Israels claim of needing to defend itself. Protests have also been triggered by the war everywhere. In an attempt to disperse the far-right counterprotesters who were ambushing the demonstration, over 120 individuals were arrested by police on Saturday during the at least 300,000 pro-Palestinian demonstration in London. A pro-Palestinian demonstration drew over 20,000 participants in Brussels. Reaffirming his allegation of Indian involvement in the killing of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar on his home soil, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Sunday accused New Delhi of violating the Vienna Convention by kicking out 40 diplomats at a time when his country had reached out to the former and other global partners to get to the bottom of the murder. Issuing a warning, the Canadian PM said if bigger countries can violate international law without consequences, it will make the world more dangerous. Advertisement Speaking to the reporters in Ottawa on Saturday, Trudeau said, From the very beginning when we learned of credible allegations that agents of the Indian government were involved in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil, we reached out to India to ask them to work with us in getting to the bottom of this matter. We also reached out to our friends and allies like the US and others to work on this really serious violation of international law and of the sovereignty of a democracy. This is something that we are taking very seriously. We will continue to work with all partners as law enforcement and investigative agencies continue to do their work. Canada is a country that will always stand up for the rule of law because if might starts to make right again, if bigger countries can violate international law without consequences, then the whole world gets more dangerous for everyone, he added. The Canadian PMs remarks came close on the heels of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinkens statement that Washington wants to see Canada moving its investigation (into the killing of Hardeep Nijjar) forward and India needs to help make it happen. Trudeau, however, added that Canada wants towork constructively with India, adding that Ottawa will always stand up to the rule of law. We have been very very clear that we want to work constructively with India on this very serious matter. From the very beginning, we shared the real allegations that we are deeply deeply concerned about but we have reached out to the Indian government and to partners around the world to get to the bottom of this, to take it seriously, Trudeau said. The Canadian PM alleged that India willfully fell foul of the Vienna Convention by revoking the diplomatic immunity of the Canadian diplomats. Last month, Canada pulled out 41 diplomats from India and also halted its visa and consular services in Chandigarh, Mumbai, and Bengaluru consulates in the wake of the Union governments decision to strip them of their immunity. This came after New Delhi conveyed its concerns to Ottawa over the disproportionate number of diplomats in India and sought a parity in diplomatic strength. Accusing India of violating the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said Ottawa removed 41 diplomats and their 42 dependents from India amid the ongoing diplomatic sabre-rattling between the two countries. However, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) responded by saying that no international norms were violated in India seeking parity in the mutual diplomatic presence in New Delhi and Ottawa. Tying the Nijjar killing to Indias decision to strip the Canadian diplomats of their immunity, the Canadian PM said on Sunday, Thats why we were so disappointed when India violated the Vienna Convention and arbitrarily revoked the diplomatic immunity of over 40 Canadian diplomats in IndiaWe have serious reasons to believe that agents of the government of India could have been involved in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil and Indias response is to kick out a whole bunch of Canadian diplomats by violating their rights under the Vienna Convention. That is of concern to countries around the world because if a given country can just decide that their diplomats of another country are no longer protected, that makes international relations more dangerous and more serious. But every step of the way, we have tried to work constructively and positively with India, and we will continue to and that means continuing to work with Indian government diplomats. This is not a fight we want to be having right now but we will unequivocally always stand up for the rule of law, he added. Earlier, in September this year, Trudeau alleged the involvement of agents of the Indian government in the killing of the Khalistani terrorist. India rejected the allegations as absurd and motivated and expelled a Canadian diplomat in a tit-for-tat move after Ottawa asked a senior Indian diplomat to leave. New Delhi also halted visa services to Canada but later decided to resume services for four categories after a considered review of the security situation. Notably, Canada has not been able to present any evidence to back its claims over the killing, according to the MEA. Icelandic authorities announced the completion of the evacuation of the town of Grindavik on the Reykjanes Peninsula following a state of emergency after strong earthquakes rocked the peninsula in the southwest of the country. Seismic activity has significantly increased since it began on Friday afternoon. The town of Grindavik was ordered to be evacuated around 1 a.m. in the morning, said the Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management of Iceland on Saturday. According to Icelandic radio RUV, 4,000 people were evacuated. Advertisement Measurements from the Icelandic Meteorological Office suggest that a lava tunnel may reach the surface. The possibility of magma directly under Grindavik has not been ruled out as of the early hours of Saturday, Xinhua news agency reported. Elisabet Palmadottir, a natural hazard specialist at the office, told RUV that the probability of a volcanic eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula has increased with Friday nights events. However, it is currently impossible to determine the location or likelihood of a magma eruption. The operation of the nearby Keflavik airport continues as usual. Touristic services and tours were already curtailed earlier this week due to continued tremors. City of London Magic Circle Magic Circle law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is investigating its historical ties to slavery, as Lloyds of Londons reckoning raises pressure on the City to confront its past. The elite City firm is understood to be researching the extent of its role in the transatlantic slave trade during the 18th and 19th centuries. The research will examine historical connections from when Freshfields was founded in 1743 until the abolition of the slave trade in 1840. Freshfields, which merged with Germanys Bruckhaus Deringer in 2000, is one of the oldest law firms in the City of London. Its first client was the Bank of England and still represents the institutions. Freshfields has repeatedly expressed regret that one of its founding partners, James William Freshfield, financially benefited from acting as a trustee for several slave-owners in the West Indies, according to research by University College London. The co-founder and another trustee became the temporary owners of 15 slaves in 1827. His sons, James William and Charles Kaye, were also involved in several claims relating to slave ownership. The firm is now actively investigating any further historical links to the slave trade. It comes as historic City institutions face calls from Caribbean leaders to pay reparations to direct descendants of enslaved people. Last week Lloyds, the worlds largest insurance marketplace, promised to spend 52m on racial equality initiatives in an effort to atone for the significant role it played. As well as examining its own historical links, Freshfields is funding an independent research project at Oxford University examining how the Citys network of legal, financial, insurance services enabled the transatlantic slave trade. A spokesman for Freshfields said: We are committed to making meaningful progress to create a sustainable, diverse and inclusive workplace and to having a positive impact on society. While we know we cant change the past, we are learning from it to inform our future. Story continues Freshfields is a member of Londons Magic Circle, a group of the UKs most prestigious law firms. It generated 1.84bn in revenue last year, paying partners on average 2m each. The firm employs more than 4,000 people. It is one of several City law firms with historical links to slavery. Rival Magic Circle firm Clifford Chance in 2020 said it was deeply sorry after it emerged that previous clients included Cecil Rhodes, the Victorian diamond mining magnate who helped colonise large parts of Africa. Farrer & Co, law firm to the Royal Family, has also expressed regret that one of its co-founders Oliver Farrer, who was the trustee for slave owners in Jamaica. 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. Some people have a God complex, imagining they are saviours of humankind. Most cruise along with a human complex. We believe our consciousness, imagination, free will and self-awareness make us special, setting us apart from other creatures. But new research contradicts notions of human exceptionalism. Animals, too, have these qualities. Humans are now left with an inferiority complex and an identity crisis. Take crows. That ugly, ubiquitous bird is useful as a scavenger but is neither modest nor musical. But German Tubingen University researchers prove that crows have impressive reasoning skills. The sophisticated ability called statistical inference is thus no longer an exclusive human trait. Crows, too, make informed decisions evaluating current conditions with past experience. Perhaps, Hinduism honours crows as ancestors for good reason. Crows grasp how one choice may be optimal in one context, but not in anotherthe way humans determine a traffic route to the mall is good on Monday afternoon but congested on Saturday evening. They can also compare probabilities, choosing options not randomly, but after analysing success rate. They are social, family orientedbond for life and hoard food for future. Illustration: Bhaskaran Humans believe that free will shapes their future. But that, too, is now under dispute. After 40 years of research, Stanford neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky concludes, There is no free will because all human behaviour is as far beyond our conscious control as epileptic convulsions, cell divisions and heartbeat. What about imagination? Answers American neuroscientist, Albert Lee, To ima gine is one of the remarkable things that humans can do. Now we have found that anim als can do it too. His teams research shows that rats have imagination. They can imagine places they are not in and objects they can not see. Studies on animal self-awareness by Hamburgs Universities of Bonn and Bochum suggest that roosters recognise themselves in the mirror. So the rooster may not be greeting the rising sun after all, but preening and crowing to the world that he has risen. Biopsychologist Onur Gunturkun says, Our work suggests that traditional tests may undervalue the cognitive abilities of animals like roosters. And humans maybe overestimating their abilities. The octopus has a brain in each of its tentacles, eagles can see prey two miles away, chameleons have 360-degree vision, scorpions can hold their breath for six days, Tom Cruise for six minutes and his fans for two hours. Evolutionary biology improves the skills essential for survival. The opposite is also true, underscoring the principleuse it or lose it. The Mexican tetra fish didnt require to see because they got trapped in pitch-dark caves. Eventually they became blind. With technology, artificial intelligence and social media, our emotions are on steroids. But are our cognitive abilities declining? When we use less and less of our brain to calculate, cultivate, navigate, discern, memorise, recall and concentrate, will we lose it? Some important human faculties have already shrunk. The average human attention span is eight seconds. That is less than a goldfish, which has nine seconds. Clever crows prove that the insulting phrase bird-brained should be banished. Bird skills are exceptional. Some can duetproduce two separate sounds at once! And crows have sharp memory. They can recall rules of a newly taught game even a month later. They recognise faces and bear grudges. They harassed the scientists who had captured them for research. They remember who fed and who shooed them. When a crow turns its eye to look at you, it is not merely watching, it is calculating. This is creepy. But also humbling. Pratap is an author and journalist. Nowadays, everybody I meet seems to be bemoaning the fact that Gen Z doesnt want to procreate. In my yoga group, on the litfest circuit, at cocktail parties, it is the same familiar lament, Aiyyo, I want to be a grandmother but my useless son/daughter simply wants to adopt a cat/dog/goldfish. As a mother of three 20-somethings, I can confirm that this indeed seems to be the sitch. Of course, I am generalising wildly and speaking only from personal experience but it really looks like let alone procreate, kids today dont even seem to want a committed relationship, or a long-term career. They all seem to float and drift and flit, or focus too hard and burn out. The older auntiejis and unclejis are happy to lump the blame of the grand old institution of marriage collapsing squarely on feminism. Girls want to dress up and go out and earn money and party, they say, like these are somehow bad things to want. They dont want to put in the work anymore. Point out to them that boys have been getting away without putting in the work since time began and they just shake their heads sadly. Illustration: Bhaskaran See, there is no denying the fact that marriage is expensive and so are children. We live in shaky timeswith retrenching, layoffs, rampant unemployment, yawning wealth inequalities and climate change imploding all around us. We also live in times of conspicuous consumption, with celebrity accounts and social media algorithms urging haut couture fancy phones, gourmet FNB and exotic vacations and curated experiences at us constantly. Time was, we paid EMIs for a house, but todays generation pays EMIs for a phone or a lehenga or whitebait fritters. As my grandmother would say, Batao! Add to this, early exposure to pornography and sex, and the fact that sex mostly happens without dating or being in a committed relationship. They are growing up jaded, and emotionally damaged, and with exposure to all kinds of sexual diseases. Which brings us right to the rise of therapy culture and the trillion dollar wellness industry... Where have we gone wrong as parents, asks an elegant 50-plus mother at a pre-Diwali party, worried that her childless children are in danger of morphing either into chota-mota Gautam Buddhas (Why is there so much suffering in the world?) or full-on nihilistsbelieving in nothing, with no meaning or purpose or spiritual direction. What can we even do about it? The truth, frankly, is that Gen Z makes a damn good point. And the photographs and reports from Gaza prove it. That the people who suffered a holocaust are now unleashing exactly the same horror on another people while quoting Isaiah to justify their slaughter of innocents, fills me with utter hopelessness about the future of our race. I guess the lesson for every semi-retired 50 pluser hankering to be a grandparent is thisyou may think whats happening in Gaza is nothing to do with you (except that it may upset your investment portfolio a tad), you may think whats happening in Manipur is nothing to do with you. But the fact is that if you want your young ones to lead sane, non-anxious, healthy, fulfilled lives in the future, you cannot afford to not call out rampant hate, greed, callousness and large-scale murder when you see it unfold in plain sight before your eyes. If you want to dandle grandkids on your knees tomorrow (and not a granddog, or a grandcat) you have to speak up for a saner, fairer world today. editor@theweek.in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Draupadi Murmu extended Diwali wishes to people on Sunday as nation celebrated the day with fervour. Narendra Modi took to Twitter to post his wishes: "Wishing everyone a Happy Diwali! May this special festival bring joy, prosperity and wonderful health to everyones lives." Uttar Pradesh marked the celerbrations on Saturday night with lighting up over 22 lakh 'diyas' on the banks of the Saryu river in Ayodhya. The festivities marked the the seventh edition of the Deepotsav, setting a new world record of lighting a large number of lamps simultaneously at one place. The 22 lakh 'diyas' (earthen lanterns) were 6.47 lakh more than last year. The lamps were lit by 25,000 volunteers at the 51 ghats of Ram Ki Paidi along the river. "Ayodhya echoed with 'Jai Shri Ram' after the representatives of the Guinness Book of World Records who counted the lamps using drones and gave the status of world record to the city," the release said. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath extended warm greetings to the entire Ayodhya and its residents. Adityanath, Governor Anandiben Patel and other cabinet members lit lamps and performed prayers at the banks of Saryu River. "Cultural presentations by artists from 21 states, 11 tableaus, Ramlila performances from Russia, Sri Lanka, Singapore, and Nepal, and the talents of 2,500 artists from India and abroad illuminated Ayodhya," the release said. Diwali at IB Amid ceasefire violations, the BSF soldiers stationed at the International Border (IB) in Arnia sector of Jammu district too marked the celebrations with Seema Jan Kalyan Samiti (SJKS). The troops lit up diyas and candles in and around the border outpost (BoP) Vikram and offered flowers to Mata Lakshmi. "It is because of them and their security on the borders that we celebrate Diwali here. They perform their border guarding duties while living away from their homes. That is why we are safe in our homes. We reached out to them to celebrate Diwali with them," the SJKS member said. India on Saturday voted in favour of a resolution at the United Nations General Assembly condemning Israels settlements activities in Palestine territory. As many as 145 countries supported the resolution while seven countries including the United States and Canada voted against it. Eighteen countries abstained from voting. The resolution was passed two day after its draft was approved on Thursday. Hungary, Israel, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru were the other countries which voted against the resolution titled Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the occupied Syrian Golan. "By its terms, the Assembly would condemn settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan and any activities involving the confiscation of land, the disruption of the livelihood of protected persons, the forced transfer of civilians and the annexation of land, whether de facto or through national legislation," the UN said in a statement. The resolution also called for "immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce" between Israel and Hamas. Indias voted in favour of the resolution assumes significance as it comes days after the country abstaining from voting in the previous resolution moved by Jordan that called for an immediate truce in the Israel-Hamas conflict. The resolution, which had no mention of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 that triggered the subsequent war, was adopted with 120 countries voting in favour. Even though India had condemned the terrorist attack on Israel by the Hamas group, the ministry of external affairs has made it clear that New Delhi supported the "sovereign, independent and viable" state of Palestine living side by side with Israel. Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had dialed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and shared deep concern at the terrorism, violence and deteriorating security situation in the region. In a tragic incident, four members of a family, including a minor boy, were found murdered at Kemmannu in Udupi district on Sunday morning. The deceased were identified as Haseena (46) and her three childrenAfnan (23), Aynaz (21), and the 12-year-old boy. The incident took place at Tripti Nagar in Nejar under Malpe police station limits. According to police, a masked man gatecrashed their house and brutally attacked the family with a knife. Haseenas mother-in-law has been seriously injured in the attack and admitted to a hospital. The motive of the attack is being investigated. Media reports claimed that Haseenas husband Mohammed Noor is working abroad and she used to live in her house with her three children and mother-in-law. Udupi District Superintendent of Police Arun Kumar visited the scene of the crime. We will not be able to conclude the actual reason at this stage of investigation. Since no property is missing from the house, we believe that it could not be a murder for gain, the officer was quoted as saying by the Times of India. There were only five people in the house when the incident took place and neighbours had reached the spot after hearing them crying, he said. The police have formed five teams to probe the case and nab the accused. The death toll from the IED blasts that rocked a congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses recently increased to five on Saturday. A middle-aged woman who was undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Kochi succumbed to the injuries. The victim was identified as 45-year-old Sally Pradeepan from Malayattoor in Ernakulam district. She breathed her last at a private hospital on Saturday night, a government health bulletin said. She was on ventilator support, it said. Sally was the mother of another victim, 12-year-old Libina and she died on October 30. According to reports, Sally suffered 50 per cent burns in the blasts. Presently, 17 people who were injured in the blasts are undergoing treatment in various hospitals here, the bulletin by a medical board constituted to treat those who were wounded in the incident said. Of them eight are in ICU with one in critical condition and the remaining nine in wards, it said. The blasts were set off at a religious gathering of a Christian sect known as Jehovah's Witnesses on October 29. Libina succumbed to her injuries on October 30 at the Kalamassery Government Medical College Hospital, and two women, who were part of the gathering were killed on the day of the blasts. Subsequently, 61-year-old Moly Joy from Kalamassery died at a private hospital on November 6. Over 50 people were injured, some seriously, during the multiple blasts at an international convention centre in Kalamassery, near this port city of Kerala. They had gathered for the final day of a three-day-long prayer meeting of the Jehovah's Witnesses. A few hours after the incident, a man -- Dominic Martin -- claiming to be an estranged member of Jehovah's Witnesses surrendered before the police in Thrissur district, claiming he carried out the multiple blasts. The police later recorded his arrest. In addition to Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) (punishment for murder) and Section 3 of the Explosive Substances Act, relevant sections of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) have also been invoked against Martin. -with agency inputs. Amid India-Canada tensions, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has again accused India of violating the Vienna Convention and said Canada will always stand up for the rule of law. Trudeau also added if bigger countries can violate law without consequences then it makes the international relations more dangerous. Trudeau reiterated that Canada has serious reasons to believe that agents of the government of India could have been involved in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil. "India's response is to kick out a whole bunch of Canadian diplomats by violating their rights under the Vienna Convention," said Trudeau. "We have been very clear that we want to work constructively with India on this very serious matter. From the very beginning, we shared the real allegations that we are deeply concerned...but we have reached out to the Indian government and to partners around the world to get to the bottom of this, to take it seriously. That's why we were so disappointed when India violated the Vienna Convention and arbitrarily revoked the diplomatic immunity of over 40 Canadian diplomats in India," said Trudeau. Trudeau's response comes after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged India to cooperate with Canada's investigation on Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjars killing. During the '2+2' ministerial meet, Blinken held meeting with EAM S. Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in New Delhi. India's violation of Vienna Convention is a "concern to countries around the world", said Trudeau. That is of concern to countries around the world because if a given country can just decide that their diplomats of another country are no longer protected, that makes international relations more dangerous and more serious, added Trudeau. Trudeau also said they have tried to work constructively and positively with India and will continue to do so. This is not a fight we want to be having right now but we will unequivocally always stand up for the rule of law, said Trudeau. India-Canada tensions began when Trudeau accused India's role behind Nijjar's killing in June. After the allegation, India has announced that it is temporarily suspending the issuance of visas to Canadian citizens and asked Ottawa to downsize its diplomatic presence in India. After Gaza's biggest hospital ran out of fuel, Palestine Red Crescent Society announces al-Quds hospital 'no longer operational'. "The cessation of services is due to the depletion of available fuel and power outage," a statement read. "Medical staff are making every effort to provide care to patients and the wounded. Repeated appeals for urgent international assistance, given the week-long siege and a five-day communication and internet blackout, have been unsuccessful. The hospital has been left to fend for itself under ongoing Israeli bombardment, posing severe risks to the medical staff, patients, and displaced civilians," it added. On Saturday, Gazas main hospital al-Shifa hospital had gone out of service after it ran out of fuel. According to Health Ministry, over five patients including two babies died. With many newborns under the risk of death, Israel vowed to help move babies to safety. The Palestine Red Crescent Society held the international community and signatories of the fourth Geneva conventions accountable for the complete breakdown of the health system and the resulting dire humanitarian conditions. Meanwhile, Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy has accused international agencies operating within Gaza of actively putting Palestinian civilians' lives at risk. "For a month, they've refused to support an evacuation from north. Now they're endangering everyone by requiring a hasty evacuation in the middle of ground urban warfare," said Levy. International agencies in Gaza@ICRC, @WHO, @ochaopthave actively put Palestinian civilians lives at risk. For a month, theyve refused to support an evacuation from north. Now theyre endangering everyone by requiring a hasty evacuation in the middle of ground urban warfare. Eylon Levy (@EylonALevy) November 12, 2023 Levy also added that "UN agencies also need to take a long, hard look in the mirror about their complicity with Hamas human shield strategy. Meanwhile as Egypt's Rafah crossing reopened on Sunday allowing evacuations of foreigners and injured Palestinians, reported Reuters. Several injured Palestinians and over 80 foreign nationals arrived on Egyptian soil to receive medical treatment, said sources. Evacuations through the border crossing was suspended on Friday due to transportation issues. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday dismissed all criticisms against his country for the bombing of Gaza, stating that Israel's battle to crush Gaza's ruling Hamas militants will continue with "full force". Rejecting all international criticisms, Netanyahu also blasted French President Emmanuel Macron for his "no justification for the bombing of civilians" statement as "a serious mistake, factually and morally." In a joint press conference, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Minister Benny Gantz also urged Western leaders to support Israel as its victory would mean victory for the entire free world. Netanyahu said in some countries, some were "pressuring the leaders to push for a ceasefire." "Dont cave to the pressure," Netanyahu said. "Our war is your war. Israel has to win for its own sake and the world." He added that no international pressure, no false allegations about IDF soldiers will impact Israels insistence on protecting itself. "Israel will stand firm against the world if necessary," Netanyahu added. Reiterating his call for a ceasefire in Gaza, Macron told the BBC: "There is no reason for that and no legitimacy. So we do urge Israel to stop." US Secretary of State Antony Blinken too had urged for more to be done to protect civilians in Gaza and ensure humanitarian aid reaches them. "Far too many Palestinians have been killed during the war," Blinken said. The Prime Minister sought worldwide backing for his opposition to a ceasefire that doesnt include a return of the hostages. He also called on Americans to join the demand for the destruction of Hamas, which he said poses a danger to them too. To Macrons criticism, Netanyahu said: "He made a serious mistake, factually and morally. Its Hamas preventing the evacuation of civilians, not Israel. Israel tells them to leave, Netanyahu stressed. He alleged that Hamas, not Israel, has fired on the humanitarian corridor set up for northern Gazans to evacuate and that Hamas is using the civilians as human shields. "Its not Israel that locates itself in hospitals, in schools, in UNRWA and UN facilities its Hamas. Therefore, it is not Israel but Hamas that is responsible for harm to civilians," Netanyahu argued. "And I say to the president of France and our other friends it will reach you too," he said. "Immunity must not given to terrorists who carry out this double war crime. We are truly doing everything to minimise harm to civilians or noncombatants, but we will not give Hamas the license to murder our citizens without our response. We can do without the moral preaching." Netanyahu also said the military will remain in Gaza as long as necessary to prevent the enclave from being used to launch terror attacks against Israel. Hamas will be demilitarised; there will be no further threat from the Gaza Strip on Israel, and to ensure that, for all long as necessary, IDF will control Gaza security to prevent terror from there." With the threat of a volcanic eruption just hours away, Iceland has completely evacuated the southwestern town of Grindavik. Iceland declared a state of emergency after a series of earthquakes hit the region. According to the Icelandic Meterological Office (IMO), there was a considerable risk of an eruption. Since morning, the probability of an eruption on or just off the Reykjanes peninsula has increased, it said. Experts warned an eruption would happen within just days or hours. Over 3,000 residents were evacuated from Grindavik as a precaution. On Sunday, residents from each household in one district of Grindavik was allowed to enter their homes for five minutes to collect essential belongings. According to Iceland's civil defence force, it was a planned and controlled operation under the orders of the police. "The people would be driven in emergency service vehicles and accompanied with civil defence workers," it said. After magma shifting under the earth's crust caused hundreds of earthquakes, the town of Grindavik was evacuated. Most of the quakes were recorded at a depth of between 3,000 and 5,000 metres, with activity concentrated north and south of the evacuated town. Experts also warned that if the eruption occurs even close to the town, the consequences would be devastating. If the town is not hit with an eruption, then it would occur out at sea. Taking to X, MP Gisli Olafsson said the country was praying the "worst case scenarios do not happen". Iceland has around 33 active volcanic systems. Emergency shelters and help centres were opened in several towns after series of earthquakes. In recent years, there were three eruptions on the Reykjanes peninsula near Fagradalsfjall volcano. The eruptions occurred in March 2021, August 2022 and July 2023. On Thursday, increased seismic activity prompted the closure of the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa, one of Iceland's main tourist attractions. Reykjanes is a volcanic and seismic hot spot southwest of the capital Reykjavik. The board of NetLink NBN Trust (SGX:CJLU) has announced that it will be increasing its dividend by 1.1% on the 1st of December to SGD0.0265, up from last year's comparable payment of SGD0.0262. This will take the dividend yield to an attractive 6.3%, providing a nice boost to shareholder returns. View our latest analysis for NetLink NBN Trust NetLink NBN Trust Doesn't Earn Enough To Cover Its Payments While it is great to have a strong dividend yield, we should also consider whether the payment is sustainable. Before making this announcement, the company's dividend was much higher than its earnings. It will be difficult to sustain this level of payout so we wouldn't be confident about this continuing. Over the next year, EPS is forecast to expand by 6.7%. If the dividend continues on its recent course, the payout ratio in 12 months could be 180%, which is a bit high and could start applying pressure to the balance sheet. NetLink NBN Trust Doesn't Have A Long Payment History The dividend's track record has been pretty solid, but with only 5 years of history we want to see a few more years of history before making any solid conclusions. The annual payment during the last 5 years was SGD0.0462 in 2018, and the most recent fiscal year payment was SGD0.053. This works out to be a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 2.8% a year over that time. Modest dividend growth is good to see, especially with the payments being relatively stable. However, the payment history is relatively short and we wouldn't want to rely on this dividend too much. Dividend Growth May Be Hard To Achieve Investors could be attracted to the stock based on the quality of its payment history. Earnings has been rising at 3.8% per annum over the last five years, which admittedly is a bit slow. With such low earnings growth, paying out more than double what it is earning is setting up NetLink NBN Trust to have to cut earnings in the future. Story continues The Dividend Could Prove To Be Unreliable Overall, this is probably not a great income stock, even though the dividend is being raised at the moment. The track record isn't great, and the payments are a bit high to be considered sustainable. This company is not in the top tier of income providing stocks. Companies possessing a stable dividend policy will likely enjoy greater investor interest than those suffering from a more inconsistent approach. Meanwhile, despite the importance of dividend payments, they are not the only factors our readers should know when assessing a company. For example, we've picked out 1 warning sign for NetLink NBN Trust that investors should know about before committing capital to this stock. Is NetLink NBN Trust not quite the opportunity you were looking for? Why not check out our selection of top dividend stocks. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said Hamas had refused Israels fuel offer for Gazas al-Shifa hospital. Gazas biggest hospital suspended its operations on Saturday after it ran out of fuel amid intensifying Israel-Hamas war. According to aid agencies, hospitals were targeted by Israeli forces making it difficult for them to treat the wounded and those suffering from ailments. Israel had claimed that Hamas was operating from inside the hospitals. They said Hamas was hiding out inside the hospitals using civilians as human shields. In an interview with NBC News, Netanyahu said we have no battle with the civilians or patients. We offered actually, last night, to give them enough fuel to operate the hospital, operate the incubators and so on, because weve no battle with patients or civilians at all. We just offered Shifa hospital the fuel, they refused it, said Netanyahu, reported Reuters. Over five patients including three newborns lost their lives as the hospital became non-operational. Israeli military spokesperson Lt Col Richard Hecht said plans were being developed to try to evacuate babies from the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. "We understand the timeliness of this and we are working very hard to try to coordinate this effort. There will be more information coming on that. Our goal is not to take over hospitals. Our goal is to dismantle terrorist infrastructure," Hecht told Sky News. On Saturday Rear Adm Daniel Hagari said "Israel will provide the assistance needed" to remove the babies from the hospital, after al-Shifa hospital went out of service. Meanwhile, Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy called al-Shifa hospital a "terror compound". Israel had claimed that Hamas militants are hiding in hospitals and coordinating the attacks. "In the last few days weve seen the IDF helping to evacuate civilians from inside hospitals, including places where they were being held as human shields by Hamas," Levy told BBC. Meanwhile, Hamas has suspended hostage negotiations because of Israel's handling of the al-Shifa hospital. Reportedly, a deal was made to release around 50 or 100 women, children and elderly in stages. WHO on Saturday had said it lost communication with its contacts in al-Shifa hospital and expressed "grave concerns" for the safety of everyone trapped in the hospital. Panic gripped residents of Ladispoli, a seaside town near Rome, after reports of a lion, escaping from circus, wandering through their streets was announced on Saturday. The mayor of Ladispoli, Alessandro Grando, had advised residents to stay at home while police and circus staff sought to catch the animal. The mayor had issued warning to the residents to remain indoors on Saturday afternoon. The videos that appeared in social media showed lion wandering through the streets. More than five hours after the warning was sounded, Grando said the lion had been "sedated and captured". Residents of Ladispoli, a seaside town near Rome, have been told to stay indoors after a lion escaped from a circus on Saturday. Efforts are underway to capture the animal.pic.twitter.com/GL0bQmVGWZ Wanted in Rome (@wantedinrome) November 11, 2023 However, the emergency service personnel had a tough time catching the lion as it soon got dark which hampered their search efforts. A police helicopter with infrared night vision camera was used to help locate the animal, reported Wanted in Rome website. "Now he will be taken in hand by the circus staff," wrote Grando. He also thanked the emergency services and volunteers who helped during the "hours of concern". "I hope that this episode can stir some consciences and that we can finally put an end to the exploitation of animals in circuses," the mayor added. Israel has denied reports that its troops had hit Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza after WHO said it lost all communication with officials at the Strip's biggest hospital. The WHO said it assumes its contacts have joined the stream of thousands of civilians who have fled to the Strips south. This comes as the Palestinian health ministry claimed a baby died in an incubator at Al-Shifa after the facility lost power and another died in an Israeli shell in intensive care. "The situation is worse than anyone can imagine. We are besieged inside the Al Shifa Medical Complex, and the occupation has targeted most of the buildings inside," said Qidra, who represents the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) accuses the Hamas militants of placing command centres under Shifa Hospital. It has also urged the hospitals staff and patients, along with all Gaza City residents, to flee south. Expressing concern for patients and health workers, the WHO has called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. "It is the only way to save lives and reduce the horrific levels of suffering. Hospitals, patients, health staff, and persons sheltering in health facilities are protected under the Geneva Conventions & International Humanitarian Law," WHO said in a series of tweets. It also called for the "sustained, orderly, unimpeded and safe medical evacuations of critically injured and sick patients into Egypt through the Rafah Border Crossing." The Palestinian Health Ministry, based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said separately that 39 babies were at risk at the hospital. "39 premature babies in Al-Shifa Medical Complex are threatened with death at any moment, and one of them died this morning. Failure to bring fuel into the hospitals will be a death sentence for the rest. The incubators will only be able to work until this evening, after which the fuel will run out," it added. Meanwhile, the IDF denied Palestinian claims that the hospital was under siege or that those inside were trapped. It added that it was asked by the staff at Shifa Hospital to help enable the transfer of babies in the pediatric department to a safer hospital, and would do so on Sunday. IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said there was a lot of misinformation from Gaza regarding Shifa Hospital. "I want to clarify the facts. There is no siege, I repeat no siege, on Shifa Hospital. The east side of the hospital is open for the safe passage of Gazans who wish to leave the hospital," Hagari said. He added that the army would continue to allow patients and staff at Gazas hospitals, and all noncombatants in northern Gaza, to evacuate to the south. "Were speaking directly and regularly with the hospital staff," he said. "The staff of Shifa Hospital has requested that tomorrow we will help the babies in the pediatric department to get to a safer hospital. We will provide the assistance needed." The festive season is in full swing in Rajasthan. And it is raining offers, not just from commercial establishments, but also from political parties. Unsurprisingly, the offers from the political parties in the election-bound state are more enticing. The Congress moved early with Chief Minister Ashok Gehlots seven guarantees. The BJP is readying its best package and it comes with a guarantee from Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself. So, it is the Gehlot guarantee versus the Modi guarantee, which comes with hindutva enclosed. The biggest worry for both the Congress and the BJP are the rebelsmore than 30 of themwho are contesting as independent candidates after they were denied tickets. Modi has already announced a big guarantee for the countrycontinuation of free ration for another five years. This is huge for Rajasthan, because the state is home to 4.4 crore beneficiaries of the scheme. This translates to more than 50 per cent of the states population. Rajasthan has 5.29 crore voters. The collective leadership in the state has led to a pool of chief ministerial hopefuls in the BJP, including former chief minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia, Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Lok Sabha MP and Jaipur royal Diya Kumari and the leader of opposition Rajendra Rathore. Despite the evident attempt within the party to sideline Raje, she has shown remarkable resilience. The BJP is bundling the assembly polls with the 2024 Lok Sabha elections so that both have better resonance among voters. Whom do you want to see elected in 2024, asked Union Home Minister Amit Shah as he started his Rajasthan assembly campaign. In the 2018 assembly elections, the party had lost more than 6 per cent vote share (securing 38 per cent) and 90 seats in Rajasthan. But, in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls held five months later, it secured 59 per cent vote share and won 24 out of 25 seats. This time, it will bank heavily on the work done by the Modi regime in the last nine years and the benefits of various schemes which have flowed down to the voters in the state. The BJP promise is ensuring the delivery of every promise made by Modi. Shekhawat said the Congress government had failed to fulfil its promises and had lost credibility. The people have seen their corrupt practices, poor law and order, and paper leaks, he said. They will be rooted out. The BJP is promising investigations into the paper leaks, including into the role of the chief minister, apart from probing the issue of alleged kickbacks detailed in the now famous red diary. There is also now a steady stream of leaders joining the BJP, which it says is an indication of things to come. Though pre-poll surveys have given the BJP an edge, this is likely to be a closely fought election. In 2018, 45 seats were won with a margin of less than 6,000 votes. That is 22.5 per cent of the total 200 seatsenough to be decisive in a close contest. There were 10 seats where the winning margin was below 1,000. The lowest margin was in Asind, which the BJP won by 154 votes. In fact, then state Congress president C.P. Joshi, who was instrumental in the victory (the Congress won 100 seats, while the BJP won 73), had lost by one vote. He was a frontrunner to be chief minister, but had to settle for being the assembly speaker. Central pull: BJP supporters in front of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's poster in Jaipur | Sanjay Ahlawat In light of such potential close contests, the biggest worry for both the Congress and the BJP are the rebelsmore than 30 of themwho are contesting as independent candidates after they were denied tickets. For example Rajpal Singh Shekhawat, who was a Raje loyalist, is contesting from Jhotwara, against Lok Sabha MP and former minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore of the BJP and the Congress's Abhishek Choudhary, the state head of the National Students' Union of India. In 2018, Shekhawat, as a BJP candidate, had got over one lakh votes from the seat even as he lost to the Congress candidate by just under 11,000 votes. During the assembly polls in Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka, rebels had spoiled the BJPs chances in many seats. In keeping with its social engineering formula, the BJP has given tickets to 33 Jats, 34 dalits, 25 Rajputs, 20 Brahmins, and 11 Vaish and Gurjar candidates each. Ironically, the BJP, which brought the historic women reservation bill, has given tickets only to 20 women, seven less than the Congress. Women voters are very much in focus in the campaign though. It has highlighted poor law and order and several rapes during the Gehlot regime. If the Congress government was to come again, women will not be safe to venture out, said Diya Kumari. The Gehlot government has failed on all accounts. BJP governments have shown how to maintain law and order. The saffron party has also fielded some saffron-clad candidates. They include Baba Balaknath (also a contender to be chief minister), Otaram Dewasi, Balmukund Acharya and Pratap Puri. It is also hitting out at the Congress government for its appeasement politics and recounting communal incidents, such as the beheading of tailor Kanhaiya Lal in Udaipur last year. With the Ayodhya Ram temple opening in January, the party is all set to remind voters of this achievement and invite them to visit itfree visits maybe on the cards as part of its election manifesto. If elected, the BJP leadership will have a big decision to makepicking the chief minister from the pool of hopefuls. Almost 50 Raje loyalists have got tickets and she continues to be the party's most recognisable face in the state. She has also been campaigning across the state and staying away from controversies. Ultimately, the chief minister chosen would be the one who can also ensure victory in the Lok Sabha polls. A few months ago, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and former party chief Rahul Gandhi called a meeting to bring about a truce between Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his former deputy Sachin Pilot. At the meeting, Gehlot is learnt to have remarked that he had seen the 46-year-old Pilot grow up. An uneasy truce was brokered, but it remains tenuous against the backdrop of the unrelenting rivalry between Gehlot and Pilot. The BJP is getting pulled in many directions.... It is hoping that by default they will get to win the state, but that is not the case. In an exclusive interview with THE WEEK, Pilot says he has never responded in kind to Gehlots harsh criticism of him. He says he believes that, in the event of a Congress victory, the race for the chief ministers post is open. He points to Gehlots failure in 2013 as an incumbent to win, reminding that the party had plummeted to 21 seats in that election and that he helmed the uphill task from 2013 to 2018 to bring the party back to the majority mark. Excerpts from the interview: Q/ What makes you confident about a Congress victory? Rajasthan has in the last three decades seen revolving door politics. But I am confident that this time we will break that trend. After our victories in Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka, we have strong tailwinds in the Congress organisation. Rahul Gandhis Bharat Jodo Yatra energised workers across the country. We have implemented most of the promises made in 2018. Also, the BJP is not a united force and is in total disarray in Rajasthan, while we are working unitedly. Q/ Do you see any difference between 2018 and now? You were state party chief in 2018. The difference is that now we are fighting as an incumbent. The last time when we fought as an incumbent, when we had a Congress chief minister in 2013, we came down to 21 seats in the 200-member assembly. From 21 to go to the majority mark in five years was a constant struggle. As far as my role now is concerned, I am working as hard as I can to ensure that the party wins. Q/ How united is the Congress, given the backdrop of bitterness between you and Gehlot? I raised some issues that needed to be addressed. I am glad that the AICC took cognisance of those issues. For example, paper leaks. The AICC leadership recognised it is an important issue and directed the Rajasthan government to take steps. It is not about individuals as much about the organisation and the Congress partys prospects in the elections. Q/ So you are putting all the bitterness behind. Some unkind words were said against me. But I dont want to dwell on that. I have always believed that a certain level of decorum should be maintained in our discourse in public life, and I have never responded in kind. As Kharge ji and Rahul ji advised me, it is important to forget, forgive and move on. Q/ Have your demands with regard to paper leaks and corruption in the Vasundhara Raje government been met fully? I raised these issues because they were important to be considered since we were going to the polls. Some legal recourse was sought on some of the issues. Issues like reforming the Public Service Commissionwe couldnt do it in time because elections were declared, and one of the appointments made recently, just one day before the elections were announced, was an individual for whom the chief minister had to apologise for making that appointment. Q/ The BJP has no CM face and their campaign is led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Modi had led the campaign in 2018, too. We saw that happening in Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka also. The BJP is getting pulled in many directions and they are going back and forth as far as their campaign strategy is concerned. The BJP is hoping that by default they will get to win the state, but that is not the case. Q/ The de facto face of the party in this election appears to be Gehlot since it is his face we see on all the publicity material. We have a Congress chief minister, obviously his picture will be carried. But as far as the Congress party is concerned, we have an age-old, tried and tested method as per which the elected MLAs together decide along with the leadership in Delhi who will get what responsibility. In 2018, I was the PCC chief and we all passed a one-line resolution authorising the Congress president to decide who will lead the government. Exactly the same thing will happen this time. Q/ Gehlot keeps saying the chief ministers chair is not letting him go. We must realise that it is the party that makes the government; governments dont make parties. If the chair is with the party, the partys ideology, manifesto and policies can be implemented. And that should be the reason for us to want that chair. I am sure that is what he had in his heart when he said that. To say that I want something for my own personal gratification, that should not be the idea. Q/ Are you an aspirant for the chief ministers post? I am lucky I got a chance to work in the state, in the Government of India, in Parliament, in the state assembly. I am now working to try and deliver the state and wherever I can contribute. What role I will have and what position I will be given, it all depends on the Congress leadership. Q/ The Congress won Rajasthan in 2018, but did not win any Lok Sabha seat. Last time, some unique circumstances came into play just before the polls. I dont think that is the situation today. Ten years is a long time. There is a fatigue factor. There is a lot of unrest among young people, farmers and others. The people are looking for an alternative, and the INDIA alliance is that alternative. After winning the state elections, we are well on track to defeat the National Democratic Alliance government in 2024. Beti, you come to the chief minister's residence in Jaipur. We will have a chat there over a cup of tea. Don't get disheartened, said Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot as a teenaged girl in Alwar struggled with a faulty sound system to get her views across to him over videoconferencing. The occasion was the launch of Gehlot's flagship 'Rajasthan Mission 2030' on August 23. Gehlot was interacting with college students, a majority of them girls, from different parts of the state via videoconferencing from Jaipurs Birla Auditorium. He was seeking suggestions on what to include in the Mission 2030 document. There are always differences in a family but it is important to resolve differences amicably. I am glad we have been able to do that. The chief minister had only just resumed his public outreach activities; he had fractured the toes of both his feet. He spoke like a doting elder to the girls, encouraging them to speak up and asking them questions about their studies and families. He noted down their suggestions himself. When a girl from Udaipur suggested that her college should start offering postgraduate courses, he promised her it would be done and did so that very day. Over the past several months, Gehlot has had many such interactionswith students, farmers, women, businessmenas part of a massive public outreach exercise based on his government's welfare schemes. That August 23 evening, Gehlot laughed off a question from THE WEEK on whether the Mission 2030 initiativethe stated aim of which is to find ways to make Rajasthan the most developed state by 2030was also meant to convey to his opponents, both within and outside the Congress, that he was here to stay. But it was clear then as it is clear now that the 72-year-old leader intends to stay on. He is putting his best foot forward as he attempts to do what he has failed to do in his previous two stints at the helmwin the Assembly election as an incumbent. The magician-turned-politician is hoping that the relentless flurry of welfare measures and promises unleashed by him will do the trick and halt the revolving door politics of the state. As he enters the final lap of the hectic public outreach he embarked on several months ago, Gehlot, in an exclusive interview with THE WEEK, says these elections will be fought on the issue of social security and while the Congress has its schemes and seven guarantees to talk about, the BJP has no issue. Excerpts: Q/ Rajasthan has had a track record of voting out the incumbent. Can your government buck the trend? It is not true that no government has ever got a second consecutive term in Rajasthan. The Congress won five consecutive elections from 1951 to 1972. Again, the Congress won in 1980 and in 1985. The BJP also won two consecutive elections in 1990 and 1993. So there is no rule that a government cannot repeat. You will find out on December 3. Q/ The 2018 election was a close contest, with the Congress reaching only the halfway mark (100 of 200 seats). How many seats do you expect the party to win this time? We are doing much better than in 2018. The reason for this is primarily that the kind of schemes we have launched are unprecedented and have not been seen in any other state in the country. This is a trend-setting election in more than one way. Q/ Your government has made a big push for welfare schemes, and it is unprecedented in many waysfrom free electricity to free health care to free rations and much more. How big a factor will this be for the voters of Rajasthan? This is what this election is aboutsocial security. We have a vision of social security that goes beyond anything ever seen in India. Our seven guarantees for this election are taking the vision forward. These seven guaranteesbe it an annual honorarium for women, LPG cylinders at Rs500, free laptop or tablet for students of government colleges, Rs15 lakh insurance cover for natural calamities, purchase of cow dung at Rs2 per kilogramme, English medium education in every school or a legal guarantee for old pension schemeare the main issues in this election. Worship before vote: Gehlot with Congress leaders Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Sachin Pilot at Mehandipur Balaji Temple in Dausa district | PTI Q/ Your opponents describe them as freebies or revdis. Questions are also raised about the impact of the schemes on the state's finances. The states finances are today in a better shape than what I got in 2018. Dont take my word for it. Do your own research. As for the freebies and revdis charge, it is insulting to the people of Rajasthan to call them freeloaders. They will give a befitting reply to this charge with their votes. Q/ The Chiranjeevi Swasthya Bima Yojana and the Right to Health law are being projected as major health care initiatives of the government. What about the need to develop public health infrastructure? We have started more medical colleges, hospitals and primary health care centres every year than what the BJP did in their previous five-year rule. Just look at the data. Our government, in the past five years, has opened 60 new medical colleges. During our tenure, 95 district and sub-district hospitals have been built compared with the BJPs number of zero. The difference is quite stark indeed. Q/ Political observers say the decision to form 19 new districts was taken with an eye on elections. In a democracy, the government delivers what the people want. It is a government for the people. The people felt that they have to travel too far to get access to administration, and the increase in population also needs deepening of district administration. And since we heard their complaints and created 19 new districts, naturally they will take this into account while casting their votes. Q/ In the schemes launched in Rajasthan, are there indications of what the Congress's narrative will be for the Lok Sabha elections in 2024? The schemes launched by the Rajasthan governmentas also those by the Congress governments in Chhattisgarh and Karnatakatell you what the Congress ideology is. This is not about one Vidhan Sabha election or one Lok Sabha election. We are the party of Mahatma Gandhi. We work for the poor and the downtrodden. If you look at the vision of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, from MNREGA to food security, our ideology is Congress ka haath aam aadmi ke saath [The Congress stands with the common man]. Q/ You have spoken about the Congress's 'Mission 156'. Could you elaborate on that? We are going to win 156 seats minimum this time. Q/ When you launched Rajasthan Mission 2030, was it also meant as a message to your detractors both within and outside the party that you are not going anywhere? The idea of Mission 2030 is to chart a roadmap for the progress of Rajasthan. I felt that between election cycles, the need for a roadmap for the future is often neglected. I wanted public participation in planning a vision for the future to make Rajasthan Indias No 1 state. Q/ You have said that the chief minister's chair is not letting go of you. Do you mean to say that you will continue to be the chief minister if the Congress wins Rajasthan? The Congress high command will decide that. I am just a humble Congress worker. What I meant by that statement is that I am not enamoured with power. Q/ The Congress has declared that it is going into these elections with a collective leadership, that there is no CM face. Of course, we are all together and fighting collectively. Look at the BJP, what a divided house it is! Q/ How do you view the impact of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's campaign in Rajasthan? Has it turned the election into a Modi vs Gehlot contest? This election is seven guarantees of the Congress versus lack of vision of the BJP. The BJP is unable to explain why people should vote for it. We are saying we have seven guarantees for the people that we are sincere about fulfilling. Q/ The BJP is devoid of a CM face, with former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje pushed to the sidelines. How does that change the election scenario for the Congress? The BJP in Rajasthan is leaderless, visionless, issue-less. Q/ Your government has been criticised by the BJP for the paper leaks that have taken place and they have also alleged political complicity in the leaks. Paper leaks are not a new phenomenon. Even during the BJPs time, the High Court pointed out leaks, and still no exams were scrapped back then. What is different now is our swift action. The moment we saw trouble, we did not just sit on our hands and point fingers like other parties. In fact, in Uttar Pradesh, due to the fear of paper leaks, no agency is ready to conduct the exams. Our government was the quickest to respond to this by filing a chargesheet and making timely arrests even if that meant nabbing high-profile individuals. We have made the strictest of laws. Recognition of involved institutions, too, has been revoked and government officials have been dismissed from their duties. Remember, in the past five years, we have transparently handed out jobs to three lakh individuals. And when we have had to, we have made the tough calls, like cancelling exams, because we are here for the youth. We are here for justice and fairness. Q/ The BJP also accuses you of indulging in appeasement of minorities. Incidents such as the beheading in Udaipur have been taken up by them. All their fake accusations will get a reply on December 3, when results will show that the people have voted for seven guarantees. Q/ You have said that you believe in forgive and forget. After all the bitter remarks that have been exchanged between you and your former deputy Sachin Pilot, can there be a working relationship between the two of you? There are always differences in a family but it is important to resolve differences amicably. I am glad we have been able to do that. Q/ Your rivals say that whenever you have been chief minister, the party has lost. I will reply to this on December 3. Q/ Do you have any regrets that you had to drop out of the election for the post of Congress president? Would you rather have become Congress president than continue as chief minister? I do what the party decides. Q/ Any concerns that the raids by the Enforcement Directorate on Congress leaders ahead of elections and the ED questioning your son Vaibhav will influence the voters? The ED is harassing my son and my party colleagues because the BJP is losing this election. It has ED; we have seven guarantees. Q/ The Congress had won 100 seats in the last election. Will you better it this time? Hundred per cent. We will do better; the BJP will do worse. Look at the BJP's campaign. It wants to create a narrative of 'Nahi Sahega Rajasthan [Rajasthan will not tolerate]'. What will Rajasthan not tolerate? We have given them so many guaranteeswill Rajasthan not tolerate this? The BJP is not able to create a perception against us. In the prime minister's meetings, [Vasundhara Raje] used to be referred to as former chief minister. Now, in their banners, they call her just an MLA. Q/ The BJP has raised the issue of Muslim appeasement by the Congress. This is an old jumla [slogan] of theirs. If the BJP has grown, it is only on the basis of religion, Hindu-Muslim, Kabristan-Shamshan, in the name of India-Pakistan, Ram Mandir. It has always tried to mislead the Hindu majority community. It benefited from it twice. Now, it should tell us what it has done to remove unemployment, price rise, or to double the income of farmers, to ensure progress of women or in the fields of education and health. The prime minister is always in election mode. The people have realised that they only talk, and it is the Congress that actually works for them, hence they will vote for the Congress. Q/ The BJP has no chief ministerial face this time in Rajasthan. How do you view that? The prime minister himself said that Vasundhara [Raje] is not the face. He said that for the BJP, only the lotus is the face. In the prime minister's meetings, she used to be referred to as former chief minister. Now, in their banners, they call her just an MLA. All this is approved by the prime minister's office. You are coming here only to berate your former chief minister. You are talking about 2024, and you have no chance in 2023. Q/ We find only Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's face in the publicity material for welfare schemes. The entire credit seems to be going to him. It is not like that. The chief minister's face is there on the schemes [as they are] the work of the government. But after the model code of conduct kicks in, the government's welfare schemes are the party's schemes and not the schemes of any one individual. The chief minister belongs to the party, and the schemes that he brings are for the party. The party worker takes it to the people, publicises it and also benefits from it. Q/ How big an issue is caste census in this election? It is our main agenda. Our government has issued orders to carry out a caste survey. And when our government will return, we will undertake it as a matter of priority. Q/ There is a perception about the Congress being a divided house. The perception has changed. The situation was different a few months ago. But there was no manbhed (personal differences) but matbhed (difference of opinion). [Mallikarjun] Kharge ji, Rahul [Gandhi] ji sat with everyone, and all the issues were discussed with the CM and with Sachin [Pilot] ji, and after that, we are all together in every meeting, in every campaign. Q/ The Enforcement Directorate recently raided your premises and also summoned your sons for questioning. The BJP is desperate since it knows it is losing the election. They are trying to create this narrative that our government is corrupt. But the people can see that the agencies have become active only on the eve of the elections. During the raid, the ED did not find anything. They did not ask me any question. They just took my phone. I want to ask them why BJP leaders who have amassed wealth are not raided. San Francisco, Nov 12 (AP) Activists protesting corporate profits, environmental abuses, poor working conditions and the Israel-Hamas war are among those planning to march in downtown San Francisco on Sunday, united in their opposition to a global trade summit that will bring leaders from nearly two dozen countries, including US President Joe Biden. Protests are expected throughout this week's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders' conference, which could draw more than 20,000 attendees, including hundreds of international journalists. The No to APEC coalition, made up of more than 100 grassroots groups, says trade deals struck at summits such as APEC exploit workers and their families. It's unlikely world leaders will even glimpse the protests given the strict security zones accessible only to attendees at the Moscone Center conference hall and other summit sites. But Suzanne Ali, an organiser for the Palestinian Youth Movement, says the US government needs to be held to account for supplying weapons to Israel in its war against Hamas. Even if they cannot see us, as we're mobilizing and marching together, they will know that we're out there, she said. San Francisco has a long tradition of loud and vigorous protests, as do trade talks. In 1999, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Seattle during a World Trade Organisation conference. Protesters succeeded in delaying the start of the conference and captured global attention as overwhelmed police fired tear gas and plastic bullets, and arrested hundreds of people. Chile withdrew as APEC host in 2019 due to mass protests. Last year, when Thailand hosted the summit in Bangkok, pro-democracy protesters challenged the legitimacy of the Thai prime minister, prompting police to fire at the crowd with rubber bullets that injured several protesters and a Reuters journalist. San Francisco Police Department Chief Bill Scott said he expects several protests a day, although it's uncertain how many will materialise. He warned against criminal behaviour. People are welcome to exercise their constitutional rights in San Francisco, but we will not tolerate people committing acts of violence, or property destruction or any other crime, Scott said. We will make arrests when necessary. APEC, a regional economic forum, was established in 1989 and has 21 member countries, including the world's two largest economic superpowers China and US, as well as Mexico, Brazil and the Philippines. An accompanying CEO summit is scheduled for this week, which critics also plan to protest Wednesday. Headlining the summit is a highly anticipated meeting between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who rarely - if at all - encounters protesters on home soil. China has heavy security ahead of any events within its borders to ensure no protests occur. It also steps up border checks at city limits and at transit points such as railway stations and airports. Human rights activists based in China will often receive visits or phone calls from police ahead of important events as reminders to not demonstrate. Rory McVeigh, sociology professor and director of the Center for the Study of Social Movements at University of Notre Dame, says politicians use protests to gauge public opinion, and media attention helps. Probably a lot of protests just don't make much difference, but occasionally they do and occasionally they can make a huge difference," he said. The United Vietnamese American Community of Northern California plans to protest Xi and Vietnam President Vo Van Thuong. The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines will be rallying for the rights of indigenous Filipinos and protesting the presence of President Bongbong Marcos, the son of dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Protesters are disappointed that San Francisco, with its rich history of standing up for the working class, would host CEOs of companies and leaders of countries that they say do great harm. It's silly, from the mayor to the governor to the president, they want to say this is a great idea to have all these people who have been profiting off the intersecting crises of our time, said Nik Evasco, a climate activist. It's just sickening. (AP) SCY SCY Khan Younis (Gaza Strip), Nov 12 (AP) Israeli strikes pounded Gaza City overnight and into Sunday as ground forces battled Hamas militants near the territory's largest hospital, where health officials say thousands of medics, patients and displaced people are trapped with no electricity and dwindling supplies. In a televised address on Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected growing international calls for a cease-fire unless it includes the release of all 239 hostages captured by Hamas in the October 7 rampage that triggered the war, saying Israel was bringing its full force to the battle. Israel has vowed to end Hamas' 16-year rule in Gaza and crush its military capabilities, while blaming the militants for the war's heavy toll on the 2.3 million Palestinians trapped in the besieged territory. Israel has come under mounting international pressure, even from its closest ally, the United States, as the war enters a sixth week. A 57-nation gathering of Muslim and Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia on Saturday called for the war to end, and an estimated 300,000 pro-Palestinian protesters marched peacefully through London the biggest demonstration in the city since the war began. HEAVY FIGHTING NEAR SHIFA HOSPITAL In Gaza City, residents reported heavy airstrikes and shelling overnight, including in the area around Shifa Hospital. Israel, without providing evidence, has accused Hamas of concealing a command post inside and under the hospital compound, allegations denied by Hamas and hospital staff. We spent the night in panic waiting for their arrival, said Ahmed al-Boursh, a resident taking shelter in the hospital. They are outside, not far from the gates. The hospital's last generator ran out of fuel on Saturday, causing the death of a premature baby, another child in an incubator and four other patients, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza. Medical devices stopped. Patients, especially those in intensive care, started to die, hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia said by phone over the sound of gunfire and explosions. He said Israeli troops were shooting at anyone outside or inside the hospital and prevented movement between buildings. The World Health Organisation said it lost communication with its contacts at Shifa. Israel's military confirmed clashes outside the hospital, but Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a spokesman, denied Shifa was under siege. He said troops will assist Sunday in moving babies treated there and said we are speaking directly and regularly with hospital staff. The Health Ministry says there are still 1,500 patients at Shifa, along with 1,500 medical personnel and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter. Thousands have fled Shifa and other hospitals that have come under attack, but physicians said it's impossible for everyone to get out. The unbearably desperate situation at Shifa must stop now, the International Committee of the Red Cross director general, Robert Mardini, said on social media. Elsewhere, the Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli tanks were 20 metres from al-Quds hospital in Gaza City, causing extreme panic and fear among the 14,000 displaced people sheltering there. NETANYAHU REJECTS US POSTWAR VISION Netanyahu has said the responsibility for any harm to civilians lies with Hamas. Israel has long accused the group, which operates in dense residential neighbourhoods, of using civilians as human shields. On Saturday, Netanyahu began to outline Israel's postwar plans for Gaza, which contrast sharply with the vision put forth by the United States. Netanyahu said Gaza would be demilitarised and that Israel would retain security control, with the ability to enter Gaza freely to hunt down militants. He also rejected the idea that the Palestinian Authority, which currently administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would at some stage control Gaza. Hamas drove the PA's forces out of Gaza in a week of street battles in 2007. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the US opposes an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza and envisions a unified Palestinian government in both Gaza and the West Bank as a step toward Palestinian statehood. Even before the war, Netanyahu's government was staunchly opposed to Palestinian statehood. In another sign of international frustration with Israel, Saudi Arabia welcomed Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi on Saturday in the first such visit since the two countries mended ties this year. Israel views Iran as its main enemy and had sought to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia before the outbreak of the war. EVACUATION WINDOWS, BUT NO PAUSES Israel's allies have defended the country's right to protect itself after the Hamas attack, which killed at least 1,200 people, mostly civilians. But now into the second month of war, there are growing differences over how Israel should conduct its fight. The US has pushed for temporary pauses that would allow for wider distribution of badly needed aid to civilians in the besieged territory where conditions are increasingly dire. However, Israel has only agreed to brief daily periods during which civilians can flee the area of ground combat in northern Gaza and head south on foot along two main north-south roads. Since these evacuation windows were first announced a week ago, tens of thousands of civilians have fled the north. But Israel is striking what it says are militant targets across central and southern Gaza as well, often killing women and children. The war has displaced over two-thirds of Gaza's population, with most fleeing south. Egypt has allowed hundreds of foreign passport holders and medical patients to exit through its Rafah crossing. It has also allowed hundreds of trucks loaded with food and medicine but no fuel to enter, but aid workers say it's nowhere near enough to meet the mounting needs. More than 11,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2,700 people have been reported missing and are thought to be trapped or dead under the rubble. Forty-six Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground offensive began, and Palestinians have continued firing rockets into Israel. Hamas is still holding scores of captives men, women and children after releasing four women last month. A fifth captive was rescued by Israeli forces. Late Saturday, thousands of Israelis participated in a rally in Tel Aviv, calling for the return of hostages. In Caesarea, hundreds of protesters gathered near Netanyahu's home, calling for his removal. About 250,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate from communities near Gaza and along the northern border with Lebanon, where Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have traded fire repeatedly. (AP) GRS GRS Peshawar, Nov 12 (PTI) Justice (retd.) Arshad Hussain was appointed on Sunday as the interim chief minister of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, a day after caretaker chief minister Muhammad Azam Khan died following a brief illness. Hussain, who was appointed as the law minister in the interim provincial cabinet earlier this year, has served as the chief justice of the Supreme Appellate Court of Gilgit Baltistan. His name was finalised for the post at a meeting here called by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Haji Ghulam Ali. Ali invited the leader of the house, former chief minister Mehmud Khan, and the ex-leader of Opposition of the dissolved assembly Akram Khan Durrani to seek a consensus candidate for the caretaker chief minister. The meeting agreed on Hussain's name, which was proposed by Durrani and supported by Khan. The name was subsequently sent to the KP governor, who approved it. The post fell vacant after the interim chief minister died on Saturday due to a heart problem at a local hospital here. The provincial assemblies of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab were dissolved in January this year by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan to pressurise the then federal government for early general elections. The general elections will be held on February 8, 2024, according to the Election Commission of Pakistan. The development comes as Pakistan aims to hold fair and transparent general elections early next year. If we want to find a stock that could multiply over the long term, what are the underlying trends we should look for? Amongst other things, we'll want to see two things; firstly, a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an expansion in the company's amount of capital employed. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. Having said that, from a first glance at Riverstone Holdings (SGX:AP4) we aren't jumping out of our chairs at how returns are trending, but let's have a deeper look. Understanding Return On Capital Employed (ROCE) Just to clarify if you're unsure, ROCE is a metric for evaluating how much pre-tax income (in percentage terms) a company earns on the capital invested in its business. The formula for this calculation on Riverstone Holdings is: Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) (Total Assets - Current Liabilities) 0.13 = RM228m (RM1.9b - RM74m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2023). Therefore, Riverstone Holdings has an ROCE of 13%. On its own, that's a standard return, however it's much better than the 9.6% generated by the Medical Equipment industry. View our latest analysis for Riverstone Holdings roce Above you can see how the current ROCE for Riverstone Holdings compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you'd like, you can check out the forecasts from the analysts covering Riverstone Holdings here for free. The Trend Of ROCE On the surface, the trend of ROCE at Riverstone Holdings doesn't inspire confidence. To be more specific, ROCE has fallen from 21% over the last five years. And considering revenue has dropped while employing more capital, we'd be cautious. This could mean that the business is losing its competitive advantage or market share, because while more money is being put into ventures, it's actually producing a lower return - "less bang for their buck" per se. Story continues On a side note, Riverstone Holdings has done well to pay down its current liabilities to 3.9% of total assets. So we could link some of this to the decrease in ROCE. What's more, this can reduce some aspects of risk to the business because now the company's suppliers or short-term creditors are funding less of its operations. Since the business is basically funding more of its operations with it's own money, you could argue this has made the business less efficient at generating ROCE. In Conclusion... From the above analysis, we find it rather worrisome that returns on capital and sales for Riverstone Holdings have fallen, meanwhile the business is employing more capital than it was five years ago. Yet despite these concerning fundamentals, the stock has performed strongly with a 79% return over the last five years, so investors appear very optimistic. In any case, the current underlying trends don't bode well for long term performance so unless they reverse, we'd start looking elsewhere. On a separate note, we've found 1 warning sign for Riverstone Holdings you'll probably want to know about. 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. New York, Nov 12 (AP) A mass deportation operation. A new Muslim ban. Tariffs on all imported goods and "freedom cities" built on federal land. Much of the 2024 presidential campaign has been dominated by the myriad investigations into former President Donald Trump and the subsequent charges against him. But with less than a year until Election Day, Trump is dominating the race for the Republican nomination and has already laid out a sweeping set of policy goals should he win a second term. His ideas, and even the issues he focuses on most, are wildly different from President Joe Biden's proposals. If implemented, Trump's plans would represent a dramatic government overhaul arguably more consequential than that of his first term. His presidency, especially the early days, was marked by chaos, infighting and a wave of hastily written executive orders that were quickly overturned by the courts. Some of his current ideas would probably end up in court or impeded by Congress. But Trump's campaign and allied groups are assembling policy books with detailed plans. A look at his agenda: DISMANTLING THE DEEP STATE Trump would try to strip tens of thousands of career employees of their civil service protections. That way, they could be fired as he seeks to "totally obliterate the deep state." He would try to accomplish that by reissuing a 2020 executive order known as Schedule F. That would allow him to reclassify masses of employees, with a particular focus, he has said, on corrupt bureaucrats who have weaponized our justice system and corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus. Given his anger at the FBI and federal prosecutors pursuing criminal cases against him, Trump probably would target people linked to those prosecutions for retribution. Beyond the firings, he wants to crack down on government officials who leak to reporters. He also wants to require that federal employees pass a new civil service test. THE U.S.-MEXICO BORDER Trump has pledged to immediately stop the invasion of our southern border and end illegal immigration. As part of that plan, he says he would immediately direct U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to undertake the largest domestic deportation operation in American history. He would target people who are legally living in the United States but harbour jihadist sympathies" and revoke the student visas of those who espouse anti-American and antisemitic views. In a bid to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump says he will move thousands of troops currently stationed overseas and shift federal agents, including those at the Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI, to immigration enforcement. He also wants to build more of the border wall. Trump wants to reimpose his travel ban that originally targeted seven Muslim-majority countries and expand it to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the country. In the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel, he has pledged to put in place ideological screening for immigrants. His aim: bar dangerous lunatics, haters, bigots, and maniacs, as well as those who empathize with radical Islamic terrorists and extremists." To deter migrants, he has said he would end birthright citizenship, using an an executive order that would introduce a legally untested interpretation of the 14th Amendment. The order would prevent federal agencies from granting automatic citizenship to the children of people who are in the U.S. illegally. It would require that at least one parent be a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident for their children to be eligible for passports, Social Security numbers and other benefits. TRADE Trump says he will institute a system of tariffs of perhaps 10 per cent on most foreign goods. Penalties would increase if trade partners manipulate their currencies or engage in other unfair trading practices. He will urge that Congress pass a Trump Reciprocal Trade Act," giving the president authority to impose a reciprocal tariff on any country that imposes one on the U.S. Much of the agenda focuses on China. Trump has proposed a four-year plan to phase out Chinese imports of essential goods, including electronics, steel and pharmaceuticals. He wants to ban Chinese companies from owning vital U.S. infrastructure in sectors such as energy, technology and agriculture, and says he will force Chinese owners to sell any holdings that jeopardize America's national security. FOREIGN POLICY Trump claims that even before he is inaugurated, he will have settled the war between Russia and Ukraine. That includes, he says, ending the endless flow of American treasure to Ukraine and asking European allies to reimburse the U.S. for the cost of rebuilding stockpiles. It is unclear whether he would insist that Russia withdraw from territory in Ukraine it seized in the war that it launched in February 2022. Trump has said he will stand with Israel in its war with Hamas and support Israel's efforts to destroy the militant group. He says he will continue to fundamentally reevaluate NATO's purpose and mission. TRANSGENDER RIGHTS Trump says he will ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that only two genders, as determined at birth, are recognized by the United States. As part of his crackdown on gender-affirming care, he will declare that hospitals and health care providers that offer transitional hormones or surgery no longer meet federal health and safety standards and will be blocked from receiving federal funds, including Medicaid and Medicare dollars. He would push Congress to prohibit hormonal or surgical intervention for transgender minors in all 50 states. Doctors typically guide kids toward therapy before medical intervention. At that point, hormone treatments such as puberty blockers are far more common than surgery. They have been available in the U.S. for more than a decade and are standard treatments backed by major doctors' organizations, including the American Medical Association. ENERGY Trump's goal, he says, is for the U.S. to have the lowest-cost energy and electricity of any nation in the world, including China. Under the mantra DRILL, BABY, DRILL, he says he would ramp up oil drilling on public lands and offer tax breaks to oil, gas, and coal producers. He would roll back Biden administration efforts to encourage the adoption of electric cars and reverse proposed new pollution limits that would require at least 54 per cent of new vehicles sold in the U.S. to be electric by 2030. And again, he says, he will exit the Paris Climate Accords, end wind subsidies and eliminate regulations imposed and proposed by the Biden admiration targeting incandescent lightbulbs, gas stoves, dishwashers and shower heads. EDUCATION Trump has pledged to terminate the Department of Education, but he also wants to exert enormous influence over local school districts and colleges. He would push the federal government to give funding preference to states and school districts that abolish teacher tenure, adopt merit pay to reward good teachers and allow the direct election of school principals by parents. He has said he would cut funding for any school that has a vaccine or mask mandate and will promote prayer in public schools. Trump also wants a say in school curricula, vowing to fight for patriotic education." He says that under his administration, schools will teach students to love their country, not to hate their country like they're taught right now" and will promote the nuclear family including the roles of mothers and fathers" and the things that make men and women different and unique. To protect students, he says he will support school districts that allow trained teachers to carry concealed weapons. He would provide federal funding so schools can hire veterans, retired police officers, and other trained gun owners as armed school guards. HOMELESSNESS Trump wants to force the homeless off city streets by building tent cities on large open parcels of inexpensive land. At the same time, he says he will work with states to ban urban camping, giving violators the choice between being arrested or receiving treatment. He also wants to bring back large mental institutions to re-institutionalize those who are severely mentally ill or "dangerously deranged." PUBLIC SAFETY Trump would again push to send the National Guard to cities such as Chicago that are struggling with violence. He would use the federal government's funding and prosecution authorities to strong-arm local governments. He says he will require local law enforcement agencies that receive Justice Department grants to use controversial policing measures such as stop-and-frisk. As a deterrent, he says local police should be empowered to shoot suspected shoplifters in the act. Very simply, if you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store, he said in one recent speech. Trump has called for the death penalty for drug smugglers and those who traffic women and children. He has also pledged a federal takeover of the nation's capital, calling Washington a dirty, crime-ridden death trap" unbefitting of the country. (AP) NPK NPK Paris, Nov 12 (AP) French politicians and citizens marched in Paris on Sunday to protest against rising antisemitism in the wake of Israel's ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, representatives of several parties on the left as well as far-right leader Marine Le Pen attended Sunday's march in the French capital amid tight security. President Emmanuel Macron did not attend, but expressed his support for the protest and called on citizens to rise up against the unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism." Paris authorities deployed 3,000 police troops along the route of the protest called by the leaders of the Senate and parliament's lower house, the National Assembly, amid an alarming increase in anti-Jewish acts in France since the start of Israel's war against Hamas after its Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel. France has the largest Jewish population in Europe, but given its own World War II collaboration with the Nazis, antisemitic acts today open old scars. Holding a French flag, Robert Fiel said marching against antisemitism is more than a duty." "It's a march against violence, against antisemitism, against all (political extremes) that are infiltrating the society, to show that the silent majority does exist, the 67-year-old said. French authorities have registered more than 1,000 acts against Jews around the country in the month since the conflict in the Middle East began. In a letter addressed to the French on Sunday, Macron vowed that perpetrators will be prosecuted and punished. "A France where our Jewish fellow citizens are afraid is not France, Macron said in the letter, published in Le Parisien newspaper. He called on the country to remain united behind its values ... and work for peace and security for all in the Middle East. Macron said he will attend in my heart and in spirit, but not in person. My role is to build unity of the country and to be firm on values, Macron said Saturday on the sidelines of Armistice Day commemorations to mark the end of World War I. French far-right leader Marine Le Pen attended Sunday's march amid fierce criticism that her once-pariah National Rally party has failed to shake off its antisemitic heritage despite growing political legitimacy. As of Saturday, officials counted 1,247 antisemitic acts since Oct. 7, nearly three times as many as in the whole of 2022, according to the Interior Ministry. France has largely banned pro-Palestinian demonstrations, although supporters have marched in several French cities in the past weeks, including thousands demanding a cease-fire in Gaza in an authorized protest in Paris last Sunday. (AP) ZH ZH United Nations, Nov 12 (AP) Latvia's president says Russia is planning for a long war in Ukraine and he has a message for countries wavering on continuing military support to Kyiv: Keep supplying arms or the Ukrainians will lose and Russia will have a green light for threatening others in the future. Edgars Rinkevics said in an interview with The Associated Press that it is important to actually fight for international peace, and peace in Europe, because if we stop Russia in Ukraine, then Russia is not going to be able to challenge other countries. He pointed to the disruptive role that Russia's Wagner mercenary group is playing in Africa and to Russian meetings with officials from Hamas, the Gaza Strip's ruling militants whose surprise attack in Israel on October 7 killed some 1,200 people. In July, Rinkevics was sworn in as president of Latvia, which was part of the Soviet Union until its break-up in August 1991. The Baltic nation, population 1.9 million, in 2004 joined both the European Union and NATO, holding a key point on their eastern flank with its 214-kilometre border with Russia. Rinkevics, who was Latvia's foreign minister for 13 years before being elected president, said that despite some members of the 27-nation EU having their opinions, at the end of the day the alliance has agreed on sanctioning Russia and on providing more support to Ukraine over Russia's February 2022 invasion. Interestingly enough, at this point, the EU is more divided when it comes to the Middle East, rather than to Ukraine, he said in Thursday's interview. He said it is important for the West to support both Ukraine and Israel against attacks on our values and the international order. He also stressed the need to push for humanitarian pauses in the Gaza fighting to provide assistance to Palestinian civilians, whose death toll in Israel's retaliation for the Hamas attack has topped 11,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Rinkevics said Iran is very pleased to see this kind of development in the Middle East," and pointed to Tehran's supply of arms and other equipment to Russia for its fight in Ukraine. It's in NATO's security interests "that both cases are viewed the same way, he said. I do believe also that it will be much easier for us to keep peace in Europe if Ukraine succeeds rather than we let Ukraine down, or for that matter, also to let the situation in the Middle East to get out of control. Rinkevics said Ukrainian soldiers are fighting in a very brave way and the West has the responsibility to respond to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's appeal for more weapons, because we have not provided as much as we should have. He said Russia is mobilising its economy, resources and military machinery for a very long war. It tried to win the war quickly and realised it can't, and now Moscow wants to strangle Ukraine, he said, predicting it will reprise attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure in the coming months, as it did last winter. Rinkevics said the EU and NATO need to prepare for a long war in Ukraine. The EU has realised that we need more defence and military, he said. And at this point, I would love to see that this is going to be a bit faster process. But still, those things are now finally moving. But many European members of NATO still need to reach the target of spending 2 per cent of GDP on defence, he said, adding that Latvia expects to spend 2.4 per cent of GDP on defence next year and 3 per cent in 2027. Europe's defence industrial production needs to be increased, he added. Many experts and officials have said Russian President Vladimir Putin's hope is to outlast Western support for Ukraine in a long war. I think this is very important that he fails, Rinkevics said. If the world sees that Europe and the United State are failing to provide support to Ukraine, he said, then I think that is going to be increasing pressure on Israel. Also, I think that Iran is going to be more assertive, he said. Let's also not forget about the whole Asia region, and let's not forget about Taiwan. The Latvian leader said Russia is turning from an autocracy to a totalitarian regime and resorting to propaganda worse than the Cold War. They are showing brutal pictures or video or animation videos about destroying cities in Europe, or the United States, using nuclear weapons, saying that the use of nuclear weapons is actually just a piece of cake, he said. They are calling Ukrainians kind of a lower human race it's very much resembling what Nazi Germany was saying about the Jews, he added. Rinkevics, who is in New York to launch Latvia's bid for a UN Security Council seat in 2026-2027, announced in 2014 that he is gay and is one of Europe's few LGBTQ+ heads of state. If people can accept a gay head of state, Rinkevics said, then I believe that very quickly also they are going to be more inclusive, more open to the whole community. That's the message also I hope will be received everywhere else. (AP) GRS GRS Kolkata, Nov 12 (PTI) A court in Kolkata on Sunday remanded West Bengal minister Jyoti Priya Mallick, arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with an alleged ration distribution scam, to judicial custody for four days. Mallick, who currently is forest minister and held the food and supplies portfolio from 2011 to 2021, was arrested by the central agency in the early hours of October 27 from his residence in Salt Lake, on the outskirts of the city, in connection with its investigation into the alleged scam. The minister's lawyer said that he was remanded to judicial custody by the court till November 16. Mallick, who underwent a medical check-up at the Command Hospital of the army, told reporters that his left side had "become paralytic" and he was being shifted from the custody of ED to judicial remand in Presidency Jail. The minister was on November 6 remanded to ED custody till November 12. I am in extreme physical distress. I cannot walk properly. If there is no proper treatment and I have to live in present situations, I may die soon, he told reporters while being taken for a check-up at Command Hospital from the ED's office at the CGO complex. During the hearing, Mallick's lawyers expressed concern about the health of the minister and prayed to the court that his treatment be taken care of. The minister's counsel did not pray for his bail. The ED counsel handed out to the court a sealed envelope, purportedly containing the medical report of Mallick, and argued that his condition was stable. The opposition parties alleged that the minister's complaint of ill health was a "ploy to avoid staying in jail". On the other hand, his party Trinamool Congress claimed that EDs prolonged questioning was the reason for the minister's deteriorating health. The ED has claimed to have found his links with one Bakibur Rahaman, who was the main accused and arrested in the case in early October. Rahaman was considered as the minister's aide. Mallick dismissed Rahman's allegations that he gave Rs 9 crore to the minister's family without any interest and collateral. Patna, Nov 12 (PTI) The Bihar government has warned of strict disciplinary action, including cancellation of appointment of newly recruited teachers if they form any 'association', or become part of it, and indulge in any form of protest against the policies of the Education department. In a stern directive to newly appointed teachers, the Education Department in a statement on November 11 said around 1.20 lakh teachers, who cleared the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) recruitment exam 2023 received 'provisional appointment letters' on November 2. The statement said they have not been allotted postings so far, nor they have started teaching in schools. But it has come to the notice that some of them have formed an association or become part of it and are criticising the Education departments policiesIt is a grave misconduct under the Bihar Government Employees Conduct Rules-1976. "... they must refrain from indulging in such activities. The department will initiate strict disciplinary action, including cancellation of their provisional appointments with immediate effect if they are found guilty", the department said. It said that "Teachers selected from BPSC should not form any kind of union nor be a part of it. The attention of these school teachers has been drawn to Paragraph 7 of Section 17 of the Code of Conduct of Bihar School Teachers Rules 2023. Under this, Bihar Government Servants Code of Conduct 1976 applies to all school teachers". "The provisionally appointed teachers have formed an association... Formation of this association is illegal This illegal association has also got its letterpads printed. The department has sought an explanation from an office-bearer of this association, who is a newly recruited teacher... Provisional appointment of such teachers can be cancelled with immediate effect", said the department. Despite repeated attempts, Bihar Education Minister Chandrashekhar was not available for his comments. Commenting on the Education Department's statement, Raju Singh, convener of TET Primary Teachers' Association told PTI on Sunday, "We are in support of this decision of the Education Department. The newly recruited teachers, whose appointments are provisional in nature, can't form or become part of an unregistered association....it's illegal. They can do it only after completion of their probation period. Everybody has the right to express his or her views, but it should be as per the provisions of the law and government employees conduct rules". As many as 1.20 lakh candidates cleared the examination held by the BPSC for 1.70 lakh posts of teachers in the state. The appointment letter distribution events were held in Patna Gandhi Maidan besides every district of the state. The BPSC conducted the Bihar Teachers Recruitment Exam 2023 on August 24, 25, and 26, in the offline mode. The exam was conducted at designated exam centres across the state. Tinsukia (Assam), Nov 12 (PTI) Security forces arrested a militant of the proscribed outfit NSCN-KYA in Assam's Tinsukia district and recovered an assault rifle from his possession, officials said on Sunday. He was apprehended during an operation carried out jointly by the Armys Spear Corps and Assam Police, they said. "Troops of #Spearcorps, #IndianArmy in a joint operation with @assampolice apprehended one NSCN(KYA) cadre active since 2007 in general area Tipong, in Tinsukia District, #Assam," the Spear Corps said on X. "One Assault Rifle and War Like Stores recovered," it said. The arrested militant was involved in numerous unlawful activities, the Spear Corps added. New Delhi, Nov 12 (PTI) Following are the top stories of the day at 9.30 pm: NATION DEL34 PM-LDALL DIWALI * India safe as long as its brave soldiers stand guard at borders: Modi to security forces on Diwali Lepcha (HP): Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said security forces have a big role in maintaining peace and keeping India's borders safe at a time of rising global expectations from the country, as he flew to Lepcha in Himachal Pradesh to spend his Diwali with soldiers. * DEL33 PM-AYODHYA-DEEPOTSAV * 'Amazing, unforgettable': PM Modi on Ayodhya Deepotsav New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday termed as divine and unforgettable the lighting of more than 22 lakh 'diyas' during the Deepotsav in Ayodhya, and said the energy emanating from there is spreading new zeal and enthusiasm across India. * DEL28 LD DIWALI * People across India revel in Diwali; Delhi sees best air quality in last eight years New Delhi: Buildings were decorated with earthen lamps and colourful lights as people across the country celebrated Diwali with pomp on Sunday and a relatively better air quality than in previous years brought much relief to revellers in Delhi. * DEL32 CONG-RJ-MEDIA REPORTS * BJP-sponsored media spreading canards about Cong leadership's activity in Rajasthan: K C Venugopal New Delhi: The Congress asserted on Sunday that it is working unitedly to ensure its government is repeated in Rajasthan and alleged that a section of the "BJP-sponsored" media is spreading "canards" about the party's top leadership's activity in the desert state. * DEL25 DL-LD AIR QUALITY * Delhi records best Diwali day air quality in eight years New Delhi: Delhi recorded its best air quality on Diwali day in eight years on Sunday, though pollution levels may rise due to burning of firecrackers and low night temperatures. * DEL26 UKD-4THLD TUNNEL * Uttarakhand: 40 workers trapped as part of under-construction tunnel on Yamunotri NH collapses Uttarkashi (U'khand): A portion of an under-construction tunnel between Silkyara and Dandalgaon on the Brahmakhal-Yamunotri National Highway collapsed early on Sunday, trapping around 40 workers inside, officials here said. * BOM13 ELECTIONS-MP-CHOUHAN-NATH * Nath an outsider for MP, can't be trusted: CM Chouhan Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Sunday said that senior Congress leader Kamal Nath is an "outsider" for the state and can't be trusted. * BOM7 ELECTIONS-MP-NATH * Kamal Nath targets MP CM Chouhan, says he's a 'good actor' Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Congress president Kamal Nath on Sunday claimed people will bid farewell to Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan after the upcoming state polls, but Chouhan will not be jobless as he is a "good actor". * MDS6 ELECTIONS-TELANGANA-MODI-RAMA RAO * PM Modi 'hoodwinking' people with promise of panel on SC sub-quota: BRS leader Rama Rao Hyderabad: Ruling BRS Working President and Telangana IT Minister K T Rama Rao on Sunday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "hoodwinking" people with his promise of constituting a committee for empowering Madigas, an SC community, over their demand for categorisation of Scheduled Castes. * LEGAL LGD1 SC-CASE-DISPOSAL * Unless extraordinary, Constitutional Court should avoid fixing time-bound schedule for cases: SC New Delhi: Constitutional Court should avoid fixing a time-bound schedule for disposal of any case before any court unless the situation is extraordinary, the Supreme Court said while refusing to entertain a plea seeking a direction for disposal of a criminal matter within a fixed time. * BUSINESS DEL29 BIZ-LD-STOCKS-MAHURAT * Sensex rises by 354 pts, Nifty closes above 19,500 in Mahurat session Mumbai: Benchmark stock indices Sensex and Nifty closed higher by more than half a per cent in the special Mahurat trading session on Sunday driven by across-the-board buying by investors. * FOREIGN FGN16 UK-JAISHANKAR * EAM Jaishankar arrives in London on 5-day UK visit London: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has arrived in London at the start of a five-day visit to the UK with an aim to review various aspects of bilateral ties and give "new impetus to the friendly ties". By Aditi Khanna * FGN24 UN-INDIA-VOTES * On resolutions relating to situation in W.Asia, India votes in favour of 5, abstains on one United Nations: India voted in favour of five resolutions relating to the situation in the Middle East, including one that condemned Israeli settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and abstained on one resolution. By Yoshita Singh * Chennai, Nov 12 (PTI) Deepavali, the festival of lights, was celebrated across Tamil Nadu on Sunday with usual fervour. People thronged major temples in the state on the occasion to offer special prayers. Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi, AIADMK chief and Leader of Opposition, Edappadi K Palaniswami and a host of leaders greeted people on the occasion of Deepavali. Ravi, while extending his greetings, called upon the people to patronise local products in tune with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's appeal to be vocal about local by purchasing local goods on festive occasions. The city police had issued a slew of guidelines, including on the 2-hour duration to burst crackers. The police said, as per the orders of the Supreme Court, only green crackers made of permitted chemicals that are environment-friendly can be sold and burst. Further, as directed by the SC, crackers should be burst only between 6 AM-7 AM and 7 PM-8 PM. In 2022, 271 cases were registered against persons who burst crackers beyond the permitted time and also for violating the decibel level directions, they said. Kollam (Kerala), Nov 12 (PTI) Two days after Kerala's ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) announced its decision to take the fight to the Centre against its alleged negligence towards the state's development needs, the government on Sunday said it was also exploring legal remedies against the discrimination. Kerala Finance Minister K N Balagopal, speaking to reporters here, said that the BJP-ruled Centre was being "hugely discriminatory" towards opposition-ruled states, including Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, in financial matters. "Of them, the most discrimination is being faced by Kerala. We are exploring legal remedies against this action of the Centre," he said. Balagopal said that despite the clearly visible actions of the Centre towards the southern state, Leader of Opposition in the state assembly V D Satheesan was not talking about that. "Instead he terms everything the state government does as an extravagance. He said Keraleeyam celebrations cost over Rs 20 crore and the money instead could have been used to pay pensions. "However, around Rs 900 crore is required to pay pensions. From next week onwards, steps would be taken to disburse pensions," the state finance minister said. Balagopal also contended that the UDF MPs were not even willing to sign a memo against the Centre's financial policies that were choking the state, and termed the stand of the Congress-led opposition as "unfortunate". He also alleged that it was during the previous UDF rule that pensions were not disbursed for 18 months, farmers were not paid for produce collected from them and state transport corporation KSRTC's employees were not given their wages. On the other hand, during the first Pinarayi Vijayan government when the expenditure was high, especially due to the free-food kits and medicines distributed during COVID-19, welfare schemes and pensions were not halted, he claimed. Balagopal also said that as the expenditure of the state increased, its revenue generation has also seen an increase. Unlike what the LoP claims, even the tax collection was being carried out effectively, the minister claimed. He said that in the past two years, revenue from tax collection has increased by around Rs 24,000 crore, the highest in the history of the state. On Friday, November 10, the LDF announced that it was going to hold an agitation in New Delhi in January next year, to highlight the challenges faced by the state on the financial front due to what the CPI(M)-led alliance alleges as the Centre's negligence. LDF Convenor E P Jayarajan had said that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, along with his cabinet colleagues, Left MLAs, MPs, and other leaders, would participate in the protest. This move is seen as shoring up the LDF's political narrative against the BJP-led NDA in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls. He had also said that the issue of the approach of the Central government towards the opposition-ruled states would be discussed with chief ministers of non-BJP-ruled states. Tumakuru (Ktaka), Nov 12 (PTI) Newly appointed BJP Karnataka President B Y Vijayendra on Sunday said he would "set right" any discordant notes over his appointment in the coming days, and take everyone along. If there are any minor differences, then my first priority will be to take the party forward with the blessings and guidance of seniors in the party. I will set right any discordant notes in the coming days, the son of BJP veteran B S Yediyurappa told reporters here. The 47-year-old, who is a first-time MLA from Shikaripura in Shivamogga district, replaced Nalin Kumar Kateel, a three-time Lok Sabha member from Dakshina Kannada, who had completed his three-year term as BJP state president and was given an extension last year in view of the assembly elections held in May this year. The party, which was ousted from power by the Congress in the elections, has not yet decided on the opposition leader in the Karnataka assembly. According to Vijayendra, there will be a BJP legislature party meeting on Thursday or Friday to pick the opposition leader. The meeting would be attended by BJP central observers. On a question about "BJPs rout in the election after Yediyurappa was sidelined at the time", he said never ever did the question arise about "anyone being sidelined by someone". He said Yediyurappa became more active and toured across the state after stepping down as chief minister and all the senior party leaders worked to strengthen the party. We may have been defeated in the election, but keeping all that aside, we will put more effort to win all those seats we had won last time in the upcoming Lok Sabha election, Vijayendra underlined. Regarding BJP-JD(S) ties, he said discussions had taken place at the central level. He said he would go to Delhi and discuss with the seniors in the party on how to carry it (ties) forward. Key Insights TT Electronics' estimated fair value is UK2.12 based on 2 Stage Free Cash Flow to Equity Current share price of UK1.53 suggests TT Electronics is potentially 28% undervalued Our fair value estimate is 16% lower than TT Electronics' analyst price target of UK2.52 Today we'll do a simple run through of a valuation method used to estimate the attractiveness of TT Electronics plc (LON:TTG) as an investment opportunity by taking the expected future cash flows and discounting them to today's value. One way to achieve this is by employing the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. Believe it or not, it's not too difficult to follow, as you'll see from our example! 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 want to learn more about discounted cash flow, the rationale behind this calculation can be read in detail in the Simply Wall St analysis model. Check out our latest analysis for TT Electronics The Method We're using the 2-stage growth model, which simply means we take in account two stages of company's growth. In the initial period the company may have a higher growth rate and the second stage is usually assumed to have a stable growth rate. In the first stage we need to estimate the cash flows to the business over the next ten years. Where possible we use analyst estimates, but when these aren't available we extrapolate the previous free cash flow (FCF) from the last estimate or reported value. We assume companies with shrinking free cash flow will slow their rate of shrinkage, and that companies with growing free cash flow will see their growth rate slow, over this period. We do this to reflect that growth tends to slow more in the early years than it does in later years. Generally we assume that a dollar today is more valuable than a dollar in the future, so we need to discount the sum of these future cash flows to arrive at a present value estimate: Story continues 10-year free cash flow (FCF) estimate 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2031 2032 2033 Levered FCF (, Millions) UK30.6m UK32.9m UK34.1m UK35.2m UK36.2m UK37.0m UK37.8m UK38.5m UK39.2m UK39.9m Growth Rate Estimate Source Analyst x4 Analyst x4 Est @ 3.89% Est @ 3.18% Est @ 2.68% Est @ 2.33% Est @ 2.09% Est @ 1.92% Est @ 1.80% Est @ 1.71% Present Value (, Millions) Discounted @ 11% UK27.7 UK26.9 UK25.2 UK23.5 UK21.8 UK20.2 UK18.7 UK17.2 UK15.8 UK14.5 ("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St) Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = UK212m We now need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all the future cash flows after this ten year period. The Gordon Growth formula is used to calculate Terminal Value at a future annual growth rate equal to the 5-year average of the 10-year government bond yield of 1.5%. We discount the terminal cash flows to today's value at a cost of equity of 11%. Terminal Value (TV)= FCF 2033 (1 + g) (r g) = UK40m (1 + 1.5%) (11% 1.5%) = UK445m Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= UK445m ( 1 + 11%)10= UK163m 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 UK374m. The last step is to then divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Compared to the current share price of UK1.5, the company appears a touch undervalued at a 28% 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 The calculation above is very dependent on two assumptions. The first is the discount rate and the other is the cash flows. Part of investing is coming up with your own evaluation of a company's future performance, so try the calculation yourself and check your own assumptions. The DCF also does not consider the possible cyclicality of an industry, or a company's future capital requirements, so it does not give a full picture of a company's potential performance. Given that we are looking at TT Electronics 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 1.537. 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 TT Electronics Strength Debt is well covered by cash flow. Weakness Interest payments on debt are not well covered. Dividend is low compared to the top 25% of dividend payers in the Electronic market. Opportunity Expected to breakeven next year. Has sufficient cash runway for more than 3 years based on current free cash flows. Good value based on P/S ratio and estimated fair value. Threat Paying a dividend but company is unprofitable. Revenue is forecast to decrease over the next 2 years. Next Steps: Valuation is only one side of the coin in terms of building your investment thesis, and it 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. Can we work out why the company is trading at a discount to intrinsic value? For TT Electronics, we've put together three additional factors you should assess: Risks: As an example, we've found 2 warning signs for TT Electronics (1 is concerning!) that you need to consider before investing here. Future Earnings: How does TTG'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 British stock every day, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Coonoor (Nilgiris), Nov 12 (PTI) Six persons, including four Fire and Rescue Services personnel were injured in a leopard attack here on Sunday, Forest Department officials said. The Fire services personnel were injured when they went to rescue a woman in whose house the big cat took refuge while straying into a human habitat in this hilly town, they said. The woman was also attacked by the leopard and all the injured are being treated at a local hospital after they were rescued by nearby residents. A driver of the local tahsildar was also attacked by the leopard later. One of the injured firemen has been shifted to Coimbatore for treatment. Efforts are on to trap the animal and two cages have been placed outside the house, the officials added. Westerly, RI (02891) Today A mix of clouds and sun this morning followed by mostly cloudy skies and a few showers this afternoon. High 52F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%.. Tonight Cloudy with rain ending overnight. Low 43F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 90%. Donald Trump is pushing for his federal election interference trial in Washington to be televised, joining media outlets that say the American public should be able to watch the historic case unfold. Federal court rules prohibit broadcasting proceedings, but The Associated Press and other news organizations say the unprecedented case of a former president standing trial on accusations that he tried to subvert the will of voters warrants making an exception. The Justice Department is opposing the effort, arguing that the judge overseeing the case does not have the authority to ignore the long-standing nationwide policy against cameras in federal courtrooms. The trial is scheduled to begin on March 4. Lawyers for Trump wrote in court papers filed late Friday that all Americans should be able to observe what they characterize as a politically motivated prosecution of the Republican front-runner for his partys presidential nomination in 2024. The defense also suggested Trump will try to use the trial as a platform to repeat his unfounded claims that the 2020 election that he lost to Democrat Joe Biden was stolen from him. Trump has pleaded not guilty. President Trump absolutely agrees, and in fact demands, that these proceedings should be fully televised so that the American public can see firsthand that this case, just like others, is nothing more than a dreamt-up unconstitutional charade that should never be allowed to happen again, Trumps lawyers wrote. The request for a televised trial comes as the Washington case has emerged as the most potent and direct legal threat to Trumps political fortunes. Trump is accused of illegally scheming to overturn the election results in the run-up to the violent riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by his supporters. Trump has repeatedly sought to delay the Washington trial date until after the 2024 election. But U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who was nominated for the bench by Democratic President Barack Obama, appears determined to keep it as scheduled. On Friday in Florida, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who is handling the separate classified documents prosecution of Trump, pushed back multiple deadlines in a way that makes it highly unlikely that case can proceed to trial in May, as had been planned. Trump is facing dozens of felony counts under the Espionage Act. He has pleaded not guilty. The news outlets wrote in their request to Chutkan last month that a lack of transparency can sow distrust in the legal system. They said that is particularly dangerous in a case where a polarized electorate includes tens of millions of people who, according to opinion polls, still believe that the 2020 election was decided by fraud. It would be a great loss if future generations of Americans were forever deprived of being able to access and view the events of this trial even years after the verdict, which would immeasurably improve the ability of future journalists and historians to retell accurately and meaningfully analyze this unique chapter of American history, Rebecca Blumenstein, president of editorial for NBC News, wrote in a court filing. Some state courts allow cameras in the courtroom. The public has been able to watch proceedings held by the judge overseeing the Georgia election case against Trump and 18 co-defendants. Photographers have been permitted to take photos of Trump inside the courtroom during his civil fraud trial in New York, but the trial has not been broadcast. The Justice Department has said that knowledge that cameras are in the courtroom can affect lawyers and witnesses in subtle ways and lead to grandstanding. Noting the ever-increasing acrimony in public discourse, prosecutors said witnesses who testify on camera may also be harassed or threatened. When a witnesss image is captured on video, it is not just a fleeting image, but it exists indefinitely, the government said. Were there an appeal and retrial, witnesses who were subjected to scrutiny and harassment on social media may be unwilling to testify again. The coronavirus pandemic led the federal courts to temporarily relax its rules, allowing the public to listen to many proceedings over the telephone or videoconference. The U.S. Supreme Court has continued to provide a live audio feed of its arguments since the pandemic began. The policymaking body of the federal courts adopted a new policy in September that allows judges to provide live audio access to nontrial proceedings in civil and bankruptcy cases. It does not apply in criminal cases. News outlets had previously asked the federal courts policymakers to revise the rules to allow broadcasting, at least in cases where there is an extraordinary public interest. The chair of the advisory committee last month agreed to establish a subcommittee to study the issue, though its highly unlikely any rules changes would come before Trumps trial. (AP) A political novice and one of the worlds wealthiest millennials, Vivek Ramaswamy has waged a whirlwind presidential campaign mirroring his meteoric rise as a biotech entrepreneur. On everything from deporting people born in the United States to ending aid to Israel and Ukraine, he consistently displays the bravado of a populist, self-declared outsider. I stand on the side of revolution, he declares. Thats what Im going to lead in a way that no establishment politician can. In business and politics, though, Ramaswamy has run into skeptics and sometimes hard facts that threatened to derail his ambitions. In the 2024 campaign, the Israel-Hamas war has refocused the Republican primary on foreign policy and exposed just how much Ramaswamys self-declared revolutionary approach puts him at odds with the partys most powerful figures and many of its voters. At Wednesdays primary debate, Ramaswamy joined the rest of the field in supporting Israels offensive but returned to his practice of not just critiquing his opponents but mocking them. Ramaswamy skewered Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who some online sleuths suggest wears lifts in his boots, by asking, Do you want Dick Cheney in three-inch heels? The performance drew eye rolls and derision on stage. When Ramaswamy implied Haley was being hypocritical in criticizing the social media platform TikTok because her daughter has previously used it, the 51-year-old mother of two called him scum. Ramaswamy, an Ohio native who also lives there, has wowed many audiences with his rapid-fire, wide-ranging discourse. Yet even some Republican voters who come away impressed are not backing him. Hes among a group of candidates who trail former President Donald Trump and generally fall behind DeSantis in national surveys, polling in the mid to high single digits. Ann Trimble Ray, a Republican activist from Early, Iowa, suggested Ramaswamy exposes his naivete in part with what hes said about Israel, but also his inexperience. Unless youve had the experience of someone who has had exposure to the briefings, what you communicate is a whole lot of conjecture, said Ray, who is leaning toward backing Haley. The 38-year-old son of Indian immigrants has spent his adult life as a sort of boastful savior. In business, that meant building a fortune by hyping a drug that ultimately failed. In politics, it means arguing he can return Trumps America First vision to the White House without the baggage. Ramaswamy set his course at Harvard, a pillar of the American establishment. Ramaswamy majored in biology and participated in the campus Republican club, standing out even there as a libertarian. He drew attention from the campus newspaper for his alter ego, Da Vek, a rapper who performed using libertarian ideology as lyrics. I consider myself a contrarian; I like to argue, Ramaswamy told The Crimson. Harvard introduced Ramaswamy to the hedge-fund class. He interned at Goldman Sachs, the most prestigious Wall Street investment house, then won a job at QVT Financial, founded by another Harvard alumnus, Dan Gold. Ramaswamy led the firms pharmaceutical investments. Ramaswamy launched his own venture in 2014. He named it Roivant the ROI standing for return on investment and had a clear business model in mind: Buy discount patents for drugs languishing in the development phase, then resurrect them. In his first big move, Ramaswamy used a subsidiary, Axovant, and paid GlaxoSmithKline $5 million for RVT-101, a potential Alzheimers drug already put through multiple trials and deemed not promising enough to continue. Ramaswamy rebranded it as intepirdine and, despite the earlier studies, touted it as a game-changer, a best-in-class drug candidate, he told The New York Times during Axovants infancy. He landed on the cover of Forbes magazine. The hype worked. Intepirdine never would. Axovants initial public stock offering in 2015 drew $315 million, the largest-ever biotech IPO to that point, and Axovants valuation approached $3 billion. In 2017, Axovant released more trial results that found the drug ineffective at dampening Alzheimers symptoms or its advancement. Axovant stock tanked. Ramaswamy, though, had pocketed tens of millions, divesting himself of shares whose value had swelled because of public buy-in. He pumped up the image and the name so people invested, while he was selling out, said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a scholar at the Yale School of Management who tracks Ramaswamys business dealings. Thats classic pump and dump. On his 2015 tax return, one of 20 years worth he has disclosed, Ramaswamy reported almost $38 million in capital gains income. He parlayed that into a portfolio now measured in the hundreds of millions, enough to dwarf the $15 million he has loaned his own campaign. He became a conservative author and cable news regular, mainly as a critic of corporate Americas focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. In that role, and as a candidate, Ramaswamy sidesteps that some of his own interests he invested in Disney, a punching bag for conservatives are leaders in DEI efforts. Ramaswamy embraces the notion that he is Donald Trump 2.0. I believe Donald Trump was an excellent president, Ramaswamy said while campaigning in Atlanta. But I do believe that we need to take our America First agenda to the next level, and I think it will take an outsider from a different generation with an actual positive vision. Ramaswamy has promised to pardon the former president if he is convicted of federal crimes, including those related to the Capitol Hill attack in 2021. In one of his earlier books, Ramaswamy called Jan. 6 a dark day for democracy and criticized Trumps abhorrent behavior assessments he no longer repeats. Ramaswamy advocates deporting the American-born children of immigrants in the country illegally, though they are U.S. citizens under federal law and Supreme Court precedent. He questions the governments account of 9/11. Hes called for firing 75% of the federal workforce. He wants to raise the U.S. voting age. Two days after Hamas Oct. 7 attack killed 1,400 people, Ramaswamy suggested the U.S. withhold aid to Israel until its government detailed plans for Gaza. While many conservatives dislike foreign aid, Republican voters align heavily with Israel. About 4 in 10 Republicans (44%) say the United States current level of support for Israel in the conflict with the Palestinians is about right, according to a new Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Research poll conducted in November. Another one-third of Republicans (34%) say the U.S. isnt supportive enough, compared with 9% of Democrats who say the same. During Wednesdays debate, Ramaswamy endorsed Israels right to counterattack Hamas but said Americans should not have a financial stake in the war. He chided his opponents for framing U.S. aid to Ukraine as a fight for democracy against Russian aggression. I want to be careful to avoid making the mistakes from the neocon establishment of the past. Corrupt politicians in both parties spent trillions, killed millions, he said. Made billions for themselves in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, fighting wars that sent thousands of our sons and daughters, people my age, to die in wars that did not advance everyones interests, adding $7 trillion to our national debt. Ramaswamy jousted recently with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson over Ramaswamys accusations of systemic corruption in the U.S. establishment. When Sean Hannity, the hugely influential Fox News personality, challenged Ramaswamy after his interview with Carlson, the candidate insisted he was mischaracterized. Retorted Hannity: You do this in every single interview. You say stuff but then you deny it, your own words. Trumps critics accuse him of doing that as well. The former president also got in trouble with top Republicans for denigrating Israels prime minister after the Hamas attack. Yet Trump remains such an overwhelming favorite to win the GOP nomination that he has skipped each debate, leaving Ramaswamy to absorb punches most candidates never direct toward the former president. I am telling you, Putin and President Xi are salivating at the thought that someone like that could become president, Haley retorted Wednesday, saying the Russian and Chinese leaders would love his isolationism. Ramaswamy showed his core strategy earlier this year in a brief huddle with a 16-year-old who asked for advice. Find where the pack is going and then figure out what they missed, Ramaswamy told him. You have to buck the consensus. But he added a bottom line: You have to be right. (AP) The question of whether Georgias electronic voting system has major cybersecurity flaws that amount to a violation of voters constitutional rights to cast their votes and have those votes accurately counted is set to be decided at trial early next year. U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg issued a 135-page ruling late Friday in a long-running lawsuit filed by activists who want the state to ditch its electronic voting machines in favor of hand-marked paper ballots. The state had asked the judge to rule in its favor based on the arguments and facts in the case without going to trial, but Totenberg found there are material facts in dispute that must be decided at trial. She set a Jan. 9 bench trial, which means there will be no jury. But she also suggested that the two sides work together to reach a resolution. The Court cannot wave a magic wand in this case to address the varied challenges to our democracy and election system in recent years, including those presented in this case, she wrote. But reasonable, timely discussion and compromise in this case, coupled with prompt, informed legislative action, might certainly make a difference that benefits the parties and the public. The lawsuit was filed by several individual voters and the Coalition for Good Governance, which advocates for election security and integrity, against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and members of the State Election Board. It claims that the current configuration of the states election system presents a threat to voters right to have their votes counted as cast. It spawned an expert report that identified vulnerabilities in the election system used in Georgia that led a federal cybersecurity agency to issue an advisory to jurisdictions that use the equipment and has prompted some Georgia Republicans to call for abandoning the machines. It also led to the exposure of a breach of election equipment in a rural south Georgia county, which has resulted in criminal charges for several people as part of the sprawling Fulton County indictment against former President Donald Trump and 18 others. Since the lawsuit was first filed in 2017, Georgia has emerged as a pivotal swing state, putting a national spotlight on its elections. The electronic voting system the state uses, which was purchased from Dominion Voting Systems in 2019 and implemented statewide in 2020, has been the subject of outlandish conspiracy theories. Dominion has been a particular target of Trump supporters, who claimed that the machines were used to help steal the election from him. The election equipment manufacturer has aggressively responded with litigation, notably reaching a $787 million settlement with Fox News in April. Totenberg made clear in a footnote in her order that the evidence in the Georgia case does not suggest that the Plaintiffs are conspiracy theorists of any variety. Indeed, some of the nations leading cybersecurity experts and computer scientists have provided testimony and affidavits on behalf of Plaintiffs case in the long course of this litigation. The lawsuit long predates the swirl of controversy that followed the 2020 election. When it was initially filed in 2017, it targeted the paperless touchscreen voting machines that Georgia had been using for 15 years. It was then amended to challenge the election system the state bought in 2019, with claims that the new system has similar vulnerabilities. The touchscreen voting machines used by virtually every in-person voter in Georgia print a paper ballot with a human-readable summary and a QR code, a type of barcode, that is read by a scanner to count the votes. Among other concerns about the election system, the activists say voters cant be sure that the barcode read by the scanner accurately reflects their selections. Many voters also dont take the time to check the human-readable part, making meaningful audits impossible, they say. University of Michigan computer scientist J. Alex Halderman, an expert witness for the plaintiffs, examined Dominion voting machines and identified vulnerabilities that he said could be exploited by bad actors. He has said the risks presented by those vulnerabilities were exacerbated when a computer forensics team hired by Trump allies copied data and software from election equipment in rural Coffee County in January 2021 and distributed it to an unknown number of people. The state has said it will not install a software update meant to address those vulnerabilities ahead of the 2024 election, saying it would be impractical to update all of the equipment by then. Gabriel Sterling, chief operating officer in the Secretary of States office, earlier this month dismissed Haldermans findings as hypothetical scenarios that cant work. Lawyers for the election officials have consistently argued that no election system is without vulnerabilities and that the state takes countless measures to protect the integrity of its system. Totenberg stressed in her order that at this stage in the process, where she was considering the states motion for summary judgment, she was required to look at the facts in a light most favorable to the plaintiffs. At the upcoming trial, the plaintiffs have a heavy burden to establish a constitutional violation connected to the voting system, she wrote. Even if she ultimately rules in their favor, she wrote, she cant order the state to implement a paper ballot system. She said there are pragmatic, sound remedial policy measures that she could order or that the parties could agree upon, including: eliminating QR codes on ballots and having scanners read human-legible text; using a broader scope and number of election audits; and implementing essential cybersecurity measures and policies recommended by leading experts. We look forward to presenting our full evidence at trial and obtaining critical relief for Georgia voters, said David Cross, an attorney for some of the individual voters. But we hope this decision will be a much-needed wakeup call for the Secretary and SEB, and finally spur them to work with us on a negotiated resolution that secures the right to vote in Georgia. Both Cross and Coalition for Good Governance executive director Marilyn Marks said Raffensperger has continually failed to address escalating risks to the states voting system. The Courts Order makes it clear that the status quo is far too risky, and that these concerning issues merit a trial, Marks said. A representative for Raffensperger did not immediately respond to an email Saturday seeking comment. (AP) As a U.S. Navy surveillance plane flew in circles, keeping a close watch, dozens of Chinese coast guard and accompanying ships chased and encircled Philippine vessels in the latest confrontation in one of the most dangerous flashpoints in the South China Sea. At the height of Fridays four-hour faceoff in the high seas, a Chinese coast guard ship blasted a water cannon toward a Philippine motorboat delivering food and other supplies to Filipino forces on a marooned, rusting warship that serves as the countrys fragile territorial outpost at Second Thomas Shoal. China has steadfastly stood by its claim to virtually the entire strategic waterway, clashing with its smaller neighbors and drawing in the United States, Manilas treaty ally and Chinas main rival in the Asia-Pacific region. Washington and its allies have deployed navy ships and fighter aircraft to promote freedom of navigation and overflight, build up deterrence and reassure allies like the Philippines. There are fears that the recurring confrontations at Second Thomas Shoal, which lies within the U.N.-sanctioned Philippine exclusive economic zone but is claimed by China and surrounded by its flotilla, could ignite an armed conflict pitting the U.S. against China. Philippine officials said Saturday they would never take any step that could ignite a larger conflict but would not be deterred in defending the countrys sovereign rights in the South China Sea. Despite the Chinese blockades and coercive maneuvers, the Philippine contingent managed to deliver supplies to the handful of Filipino marines aboard the BRP Sierra Madre and left without incident. The slightly listing Philippine warship, donated by the U.S., has been crumbling with age but is still actively commissioned, meaning an armed attack would be considered by Manila as an act of war. Two Associated Press journalists and several other members of the media who were invited on board three Philippine coast guard ships securing two supply boats witnessed the dangerous cat-and-mouse maneuvers in rough waves. Its part of a shame campaign Philippine officials said they would press on to expose Chinas growing aggression in one of the worlds most important trade routes. Filipino forces would continue to adhere to the rule of law and would not be provoked by Chinas strong-arm tactics, Philippine coast guard Commodore Tarriela said. Regardless how dangerous the maneuver that theyre going to throw at us, whether they use water cannon, whether they use military-grade laser, we are not going to allow them to make Philippine coast guard personnel on board our vessels to escalate the tensions, Tarriela said. At least 38 Chinese ships were spotted in Second Thomas Shoals vicinity on Friday, including a Chinese navy fast assault craft and a hospital ship, the Philippine coast guard said. One of the Philippine coast guard ships, the BRP Cabra, was surrounded five times by the Chinese coast guard and other ships, but managed each time to move away until it was hemmed in near the shoal. We grow more confident each time we steer past through the Chinese blockades, the Cabras commander, Emmanuel Dangate, told AP. We feel all the more the need by all to follow the international regulations to prevent collisions. The campaign to expose Chinas aggression at sea would continue, Tarriela said in a news conference, where photographs, video and drone shots of Fridays confrontations were shown. I believe that our effort in transparency initiative has been very successful in rallying support from the international community to condemn the illegal actions of China and to make the Filipino people aware of whats happening, Tarriela said. Washington reacted to Fridays confrontation by repeating that it stands with its oldest ally in Asia in the face of the Peoples Republic of Chinas repeated harassment in the South China Sea. The U.S. State Department renewed a warning that Washington is obligated to defend the Philippines under a 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty if Filipino forces, public vessels or aircraft, including those of its coast guard face an armed attack anywhere in the South China Sea. The PRCs actions are inconsistent with international law and follow a pattern of dangerous operational behavior in the South China Sea, the State Department said in a statement. It cited a 2016 international arbitration decision that invalidated Chinas expansive claims to the waterway on historic grounds, including Second Thomas Shoal. China refused to participate in the arbitration, which was brought up by the Philippines in 2013, after Chinese ships took control and surrounded another disputed area, Scarborough Shoal. Beijing dismissed the 2016 ruling as a sham and continues to defy it. A Philippine government task force said Friday that vessels belonging to Chinas coast guard and its paramilitary maritime militia recklessly harassed, blocked and executed dangerous maneuvers in another attempt to illegally impede or obstruct a routine resupply and rotation mission. Chinas coast guard said it followed the Philippines ships in accordance with the law, taking necessary control measures, and made temporary special arrangements for the Philippines side to transport food and other daily necessities, spokesperson Gan Yu said in a statement. It urged the Philippines to stop actions that infringe upon Chinas rights and said China would continue to uphold its national sovereignty. China urges the Philippine side to immediately stop making trouble and provocation at sea and to tow away the illegal grounded vessel as soon as possible, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said at a briefing in Beijing. China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a 10-nation bloc that includes the Philippines, have stepped up efforts to hasten negotiations for a nonaggression pact called a code of conduct that aims to prevent war from breaking out in the South China Sea. But the skirmishes at Second Thomas Shoal would likely continue on a regular basis with Chinese ships, including its navy, surrounding the shoal and the Philippines vowing to defend it at all cost and keep its forces there. Last month, a Chinese coast guard ship and another vessel blocked then collided with a Philippine coast guard ship and a military-run supply boat near the shoal. China accused the Philippine vessels of trespassing in what it said were Chinese waters. (AP) The notoriously anti-Israel New York Times pushed back against claims that it had advance knowledge of the October 7th Hamas attack, releasing a letter stating that reports of photographers for the Times, CNN, AP, and others being embedded with Hamas were false. Sen. Tom Cotton issued a call for the New York Times and other outlets to be investigated for the potential of having committed crimes by having photographers embedded with Hamas. He also demanded that the news outlets answer serious questions about what they knew about their employees accompanying Hamas during the October 7th attack. The New York Times responded by accusing Cotton of parroting disinformation, insisting that no employee of The Times was embedded with Hamas or had advance knowledge of the attack, or played any role in the savage massacre of that day. Sounds like a straight-up denial at first glance, but its not. Its likely true that no employee of the Times was embedded with Hamas. However, most photographers are not by definition employees. They are third-party contractors hired by news outlets to provide them with content. In other words, the Times denial doesnt actually deny anything. Sen. Cotton noticed it. What you dont say is that your freelance photographers pictured riding with the Hamas terrorists on 10/7 had no advance knowledge. Is that also your claim? he tweeted in response to the letter. Or as Joe Gabriel Simonson of the Free Beacon wryly put it: Contractors provide many benefits to employers, such as lower payroll taxes, savings on benefits, and plausible deniability that they are members of a terrorist organization. (YWN World Headquarters NYC) For the second time in three days, shots were fired into the Yeshiva Gedolah of Montreal. Sources tell YWN that police received multiple calls at around 5:00am stating that they heard multiple shots fired at the Yeshiva located on Deacon Road in the Cote-des-Neiges neighbourhood. When officers arrived, they say they found bullet impact marks on the building and shell casings on the ground nearby. No one was injured. Service de police de la Ville de Montreal (SPVM) spokesperson Veronique Dubuc says witnesses reported seeing a vehicle fleeing the scene at the time of the gunfire. No arrests have been made yet. Police have closed off the entrie street as a massive investigation is underway. As YWN reported on Thursday, shots were fired into the Yeshiva as well as two other Jewish institutions including at Talmud Torah Elementary School on St. Kevin. Additionally, these two shooting incidents come on the heels of an attempted firebombing at a shul and Jewish organization in Montreal, sparking growing fears of anti-Jewish radicals roaming the streets of the Canadian city. Yeshiva Gedola of Montreal sent out the following email to their parent body on Sunday morning: Dear Parents, Unfortunately, last night between 4:00-5:00 AM, there were shots to the Etz Chaim entrance at the Yeshiva building. The police have blocked off the entire block and all access to the Yeshiva building as they investigate the scene. For now, it appears that we will not be able to have classes in the building. If there are any alternate arrangement made or changes in the status, we will communicate accordingly. Of course, we will update you on any relevant information. In order not to instill panic in our children, I would suggest that you tell them something like the following: You remember Rabbi Karmel went around on Thursday and told you that someone shot at the building in middle of the night? He seemed to have done it again and the police are trying to find him, so they closed the building today because they are looking if they can find any clues to see who did it and they cant have anyone touching anything that may confuse them. Since it was in middle of the night, nobody was there to see him, so they need to check every part of the outside of the building for fingerprints or footprints. Again, we will update you as soon as we have any relevant information to share. Let us all daven that Hakadosh Boruch Hu protect us and our children, and that we know no more of such matters. With heartfelt tefillos for yeshuos and ultimately the geulah sheleimah, Rabbi Menachem M. Karmel YESHIVA GEDOLA Elementary School (YWN World Headquarters NYC) Already an iconic New York tradition, with thousands of Hasidic rabbisclad in traditional garbposing together as part of the International Kinus Hashluchim, this years edition carried added meaning as the Jewish community faces unprecedented adversity. At the forefront of this years conference, the 40th year it is being held, is the tragedy in Israel, and exploring more ways to support the people of Israel, as well as strengthen Jewish pride at home in the face of rising hate and antisemitism. An estimated 1,400 Chabad rabbis were unable to travel to the conference from Israel as they chose to remain behind with their communities in this fraught time. This massive display of Jewish pride sent a message of confidence and strength to Jewish communities around the globe in what was a high-energy moment and an opportunity to sense the global Jewish awakening of this moment. According to a recent survey of Chabad rabbis in the U.S., released as part of the conference, 98.6% of respondents said that since October 7, 2023 they have seen an increase in personal practice related to Jewish traditions and observances among community members. The rabbis stood, sat or clambered onto bleachers in front of 770 Eastern Parkway, home to Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters, as they proudly represented their communities from across the world. (Source: Chabad.org) (Bloomberg) -- Kremlin forces have stepped up the intensity of attacks near Bakhmut over the past week, Ukrainian military spokesman Volodymyr Fityo said on local TV. The Donetsk city was the center of a bitter, months-long battle for control. Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraines ground forces, said Russia is trying to recapture territory lost around Bakhmut during Ukraines summer and autumn offensive. Enemy attacks are being repelled, he wrote on Sunday. Separately, Kremlin troops are stepping up air strikes around Avdiivka, also in Donetsk, Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, who leads Kyivs forces in the area, said on Telegram. Some 30 strikes had been launched in a day, he said. Most Read from Bloomberg Ukraines military intelligence took responsibility for an explosion Saturday night in the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol that killed three officers of the Russian National Guard, calling it a revenge action. Russia on Saturday opened a criminal case into possible terrorism after the detonation of an improvised explosive device caused a freight train to derail southeast of Moscow, sending 19 cars off the tracks. A senior Ukrainian military officer with deep ties to the countrys intelligence services played a central role in sabotaging the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in 2022, the Washington Post and Germanys Der Spiegel reported, citing officials in Ukraine and elsewhere who werent identified. Latest Coverage Germany Set to Double Its Ukraine Military Aid Under Scholz Plan Russia Opens Terror Probe Into Freight Train Derailment Ukrainian Military Officer Coordinated Nord Stream Attack: WaPost South Koreas Lessons for Rebuilding Ukraine: James Stavridis Story continues Coming Up Biden, Xi Jinping to meet on Wednesday in San Francisco Ukrainian, Polish officials meet Monday on border dispute Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2023 Bloomberg L.P. JOIN THE TENS OF THOUSANDS WHO ALREADY ARE ALERTED OF BREAKING NEWS LIKE THIS IN LIVE TIME: YWN WHATSAPP STATUS UPDATES: CLICK HERE to join the YWN WhatsApp Status. YWN WHATSAPP GROUPS: CLICK HERE to be added to an official YWN WhatsApp Group. MAKE SURE TO CHECK THIS PAGE FREQUENTLY AS UPDATES WILL BE PUBLISHED IN LIVE TIME THERE IS NO NEED TO REFRESH THIS PAGE AS UPDATES WILL APPEAR AUTOMATICALLY The IDF on Motzei Shabbos announced the deaths of another five soldiers who lost their lives in the battle against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. An IDF officer and three IDF soldiers from the 551st Brigades 697th Battalion were killed on Friday night at a booby-trapped tunnel entrance next to a mosque in Beit Hanoun. An explosive device hit the officer and three soldiers, killing them instantly. Four soldiers were also injured in the explosion, two critically. The name of the officer is Maj. (res.) Moshe Yedidyah Leiter, HYd, 39, from Ein Tzurim, and the names of the soldiers are Master Sgt. (res.) Matan Meir, Hyd, 38, from Odem; Master Sgt. (res.) Sergey Shmerkin, Hyd, 32, from Kiryat Shmona; and Sgt. Maj. (res.) Yossi Hershkovitz, Hyd, 44, from Gevaot. The death of another soldier, Master Sgt. (res.) Netanel (Nati) Harush, Hyd, 34 from Jerusalem, was also announced. He fell in a battle in the northern Gaza Strip on Friday in which an officer and four soldiers were injured. A Golani officer was also seriously injured on Friday in central Gaza. On Friday, the IDF announced the death of Staff Sgt. Yehonatan Yitzhak Semo, Hyd, 21, from Karmei Tzur. A total of 43 IDF soldiers have been killed since the beginning of the ground incursion into Gaza. (YWNs Jerusalem desk is keeping you updated after tzeis haShabbos in Israel) IDF forces eliminated the Hamas commander who was holding about 1,000 Gazan civilians hostage at Rantisi Hospital in the Gaza Strip, the IDF announced on Motzei Shabbos. Last week, the IDF spokesperson revealed that Hamas commander Ahmed Siam was forcing about 1,000 Gazans to remain at Rantisi Hospital rather than evacuate to the southern Gaza Strip for their safety. He was killed in an airstrike at the Al Buraq school where he was hiding with other terrorists. Ahmed Siam demonstrates once again that Hamas uses the civilians of the Gaza Strip as human shields for terror purposes, the IDF stated. (YWN Israel Desk Jerusalem) The NYPD responded to bomb threats at two Jewish sites on Shabbos as antisemitic hate crimes continue to spike across the Big Apple. The first incident occurred at Holocaust Memorial Park on West End Avenue in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. Around 10 a.m., a passerby discovered what appeared to be a grenade among the markers honoring Jews killed during the Holocaust. The NYPD Bomb Squad promptly arrived at the scene and, after investigation, determined the grenade to be inert. There were no injuries or arrests connected to the incident. In a separate incident less than an hour later, a text to 911 claimed that two backpacks filled with pipe bombs had been left inside Central Synagogue on Lexington Avenue near East 54th Street in Midtown. NYPD officers responded to the alert, thoroughly inspecting the site. However, their search yielded no dangerous materials, and the synagogue was not evacuated. Separately, an anti-Israel demonstration at Grand Central Terminal in New York City on Friday night turned violent, leading to the arrest of six individuals amid chaotic scenes. The protest, which saw hundreds of participants calling for the elimination of Israel, resulted in various charges being laid against the arrested protesters. According to police reports, three individuals two men and a woman were taken into custody and issued summonses for disorderly conduct. Among those arrested was a teen who faces charges of reckless endangerment. One of the more serious incidents involved Raymund Garcia, a 34-year-old Queens resident, who was charged with assaulting a police officer, firefighter, and EMT, as well as resisting arrest. Additionally, Altariq Calderone-Graves, 28, from Newark, faces charges for obstructing government administration. Both men were apprehended at approximately 9:20 p.m. near the intersection of East 43rd Street and Lexington Avenue. The 17-year-old, taken into custody at the same location shortly after, was reportedly climbing a light pole and tearing down US flags but keeping Palestinian flags up leading to his arrest. The identities of the three individuals who received summonses for disorderly conduct have not been disclosed. The protest, dubbed Flood Manhattan for Gaza, initially gathered at Columbus Circle in the early evening. The demonstrators set an Israeli flag on fire and engaged in verbal confrontations with a group of counter-protesters. The march then proceeded through Manhattan, culminating in an act of vandalism where fake blood was splattered on the New York Times building. (YWN World Headquarters NYC) Israeli officials are cautiously optimistic about reaching a limited agreement with Hamas to free some hostages, according to a new report from Politico. According to two Israeli officials who spoke to the outlet on condition of anonymity, the deal could involve the release of a few dozen Israeli hostages, primarily children and elderly, some of whom are dual nationals, including Americans. These discussions have been facilitated by humanitarian pauses in northern Gaza, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to implement following pressure from the Biden administration. While the prospect of a deal is on the horizon, the officials warned of several unresolved issues that could impede progress. A significant obstacle is Hamass reluctance to provide a complete list of hostages. Moreover, Hamass military leadership is demanding either a cease-fire or a more extended humanitarian pause, possibly lasting up to a week. David Meidan, a former Mossad intelligence officer and Netanyahus former coordinator on hostage issues, told Politico that he senses movement regarding the hostages and believes the humanitarian pauses could lead to positive developments. Meidan, who previously negotiated the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit from Hamas captivity, has been advising the families of current hostages and consulting with U.S. diplomats and Israels newly appointed hostage envoy, Gal Hirsch. Meidan emphasizes the importance of identifying effective mediators who can reach key Hamas military leaders in Gaza, viewing the political leaders outside Gaza as less crucial in the negotiation process. He identifies Yehya Sinwar, Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, Mohammed Deif, and Marwan Issa, deputy chief of Hamas military wing, as the pivotal figures in these negotiations. The complexity of the current negotiations exceeds Meidans previous experience, with more captives involved and no direct contact between negotiators. The process involves multiple channels of communication, with the Israelis and Americans liaising with the Qataris, who relay messages to the Hamas leaders in Doha, and then to Gaza. The Egyptians also play a critical role in communicating directly with Hamas leaders in Gaza. Meidan, who has been advocating for prioritizing hostage negotiations, faults Netanyahu for not acting sooner, especially given the intense international reaction to the October 7 attack by Hamas. He suggests using the humanitarian pauses to push for the release of the most vulnerable captives, although he acknowledges the difficulty of this approach. The increasing impatience and desperation among the families of the hostages may soon pressure Israeli politics. Opposition politicians, including Yair Lapid of the Yesh Atid party, suggest that if faced with a choice between continuing military operations and securing the release of hostages, the Israeli public would prioritize the captives. Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert believes that a binary choice between military action and hostage release may not be necessary. However, he and others recognize that a mass call for a cease-fire from the hostages families would significantly impact Israels domestic politics. (YWN World Headquarters NYC) Rome is removing antisemitic graffiti that was scrawled on buildings in the citys old Jewish Quarter on Thursday, which marked the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass in which the Nazis terrorized Jews throughout Germany and Austria in 1938. The graffiti, which included a star of David, the equal sign and a Nazi swastika, was being removed, the city said in a statement. Events like this cause dismay, enormous concern and (bring) to mind the period of racial persecution, said Alessandro Luzon, Romes liaison with the Jewish Community. On Nov. 9, 1938, the Nazis killed at least 91 people, vandalized 7,500 Jewish businesses and burned more than 1,400 synagogues. The pogrom became known as the Kristallnacht and marked a turning point in the escalating persecution of Jews that eventually led to the murder of 6 million European Jews by the Nazis and their supporters during the Holocaust. In the northern city of Treviso, a private English-language middle and high school on Thursday suspended a teacher who made antisemitic statements on her private social media account. The H-Farm School said the hateful language is the absolute antithesis of the values in which our school believes. Antisemitic incidents have been on the rise in Europe in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, sparked by the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas incursion into southern Israel that killed 1,400 people. (AP) A number of Israeli civilians were injured after Hezbollah launched an anti-tank guided missile at the Dovev moshav in northern Israel early Sunday afternoon. A missile struck civilian cars near Dovev, injuring six people, one critically and five seriously. A later report said that the victims were employees of the Israeli Electric Company who, in coordination with security forces, were repairing power lines damaged by previous Hezbollah attacks. IDF forces evacuated the victims from the area of the attack close to the border to a safer area where MDA paramedics administered emergency medical aid and evacuated them to Ziv Hospital in Tzfat. Later on Sunday, the IDF spokesperson said that seven IDF soldiers were lightly injured after Hezbollah terrorists fired mortars at the Manara area of northern Israel. The soldiers were evacuated to the hospital. Hezbollah terrorists also fired mortars at an IDF base close to the border but Baruch Hashem there were no injuries. Meanwhile, IDF forces have launched numerous strikes in southern Lebanon, including the terror cells that launched the missile and mortar attacks earlier. The IDF spokesperson said that IDF forces also carried out a strike against a terror cell in Lebanon preparing to launch missiles at Israel. Overnight Motzei Shabbos, IDF forces carried out a drone strike on an anti-tank missile cell in Lebanon preparing to launch an attack at the Metula area. (YWN Israel Desk Jerusalem) The Metropolitan Police in London opened an investigation after pro-Hamas protesters returning from an anti-Israel protest harassed Jewish families leaving shul on Shabbos. Disturbing footage posted on Twitter showed men holding green flares, waving Palestinian flags and shouting from cars outside a shul in north London. The Campaign Against Antisemitism organization wrote: Since the Jewish Sabbath ended, we have been receiving information from across the Jewish community. We are aware of Jewish families being targeted on their way out of synagogue and have received reports of police having to escort congregants away in groups for their own safety. The placards today bore slogans and imagery that would not have looked out of place in Nazi Germany. Islamist extremists, the far-left and the far-right were out on the streets, all on one day. What a day to be a Jew in London. About an estimated 300,000 people participated in the National March for Palestine in London on Shabbos, with some protesters holding antisemitic signs, chanting From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, and glorifying Hamas. Dear @metpoliceuk, Greetings! We wish to bring to your attention a concerning recording from yesterday in London, where an individual advocated for the slaughter of Jews, reminiscent of Hitler. We eagerly await information on his arrest. Should such individuals still roam pic.twitter.com/KIZe3Q4axR Amjad Taha (@amjadt25) November 12, 2023 We are aware of the videos filmed in Waterloo and Victoria stations yesterday which show unacceptable abuse including anti-Semitic language, as well as threatening behaviour. The railway network, including stations, is policed by @BTP. We have spoken with our BTP colleagues and Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) November 12, 2023 (YWN Israel Desk Jerusalem) Fair game: Probate detectives track down next-of-kin to unclaimed estates When Jadwiga Berger was confronted by a man she had never met on her doorstep in October 2019, the 82-year-old was faced with a shocking revelation. The frail and vulnerable pensioner was told that her estranged daughter, 49-year-old Michelle Berger had died, had left an unclaimed estate and Berger could be a beneficiary. But there was a catch. She would have to sign a contract handing over ten per cent of the estate, which she duly did. It is a contract that is now the subject of a bitter High Court dispute. However, what is most shocking is that this incident is not illegal, far from it, but rather is common practice across England and Wales. This tale, which we will return to, is not laid out in a Victorian melodrama but in a High Court claim that might tempt one to conclude that where there is brass, there is muck. Welcome then to the world of the so-called heir hunters - the probate detectives and genealogists who track down next-of-kin to unclaimed estates in return for a generous cut. So, good material, one might think, for a documentary series. For more than a decade the BBC's hit series, The Heir Hunters, tracked down people entitled to a slice of a distant relative's unclaimed estate. What the BBC was less assiduous in exploring was the murky practices deployed by some of these probate detectives in a world that is entirely unregulated. At first glimpse, this is a world steeped in arcane language and archaic legal procedures but when it comes to the world of money, it always pays to watch the bottom line or who gets what. Probate refers to the legal process by which a will is approved by the courts and its granting probate is the first step in dividing the deceased person's estate. Where someone dies intestate there are automatic laws as to who should inherit. In descending order, this begins with the spouse or civil partner, children, grandchildren and, after that, living parents, siblings, their children and so on. But if no relatives can be found, then an estate is classified as 'bona vacantia' meaning unclaimed goods. Where no next-of-kin is established then after six months or so, the estate ultimately goes to the Government. From 2012-22, there were 23,615 cases where people died intestate with estates classified as bona vacantia. Each week these are listed online by the Government Legal Department. This has traditionally been the starting gun for many heir hunter firms that try to be the first to track down the next-of-kin. These investigators will invariably approach the next-of-kin and offer a quid pro quo. Sign our contract for perhaps as much as 25 per cent and we will reveal the name of the deceased. Just to add to the confusion, the potential beneficiary will often have no idea as to the value of the estate. The difference between 20 per cent of 10,000 and 1million is stark. Remarkably, heir hunters are under no obligation to reveal even a rough value of the estate at that point. This contingency agreement is still widely prevalent and like much concerned with the world of heir hunters, has been the subject of controversy, with some arguing that fixed-fee arrangements are more ethical. The total official value of these unclaimed estates ultimately appears to be elusive because the authorities are not required to keep an overall tally. But to give a flavour of just how lucrative a sector this is, we could do worse than look at two of its most prolific characters. Brothers Tom and Danny Curran are proof positive that the world of genealogy is often, appropriately, a family affair. But this has not always been a love-in, because they have been direct commercial rivals who have clashed in the past as they sought to expand their influential empires. Although Tom Curran has stepped back from frontline duties, he remains a shareholder in a sprawling network of well-known and related companies, that was started by his father. This includes Title Research, a well-established heir hunting firm, and the Kings Court Trust, which offers estate management and will drafting. He owns a 2million modern barn conversion on the edge of the South Downs National Park, in West Sussex. In recent years, Curran has persuaded the reclusive Anna Margaret Smedvig, a London-based heiress to an 800million Norwegian shipping empire, to invest in his companies, which she now controls. But if Tom Curran and Smedvig are happy to stay out of the limelight, his brother is not so shy. Danny Curran was one of the leading lights behind the BBC's Heir Hunters programme along with his company Finders International. Danny owns a beautiful house on an exclusive private road in Highbury, North London. He has championed 'ethical hunting', which emphasises honesty and best practice, as well as 'calling out unscrupulous behaviour' and 'badgering potential beneficiaries in person'. All laudable aims, but it is Danny Curran's company Finders at the centre of the High Court battle with Ms Berger, which, whether right or wrong, raises ethical and moral questions around the industry. The combative Curran disputes Berger's allegations and states that, in late September 2019, his company was instructed by a legal firm to find Michelle Berger's next-of-kin and on 1 October wrote to Jadwiga Berger, although it is disputed when she received the letter. But what is not disputed is that the very next day, a Finders representative turned up on Berger's doorstep and she signed a deal that the firm would be paid ten per cent plus VAT from Michelle Berger's estate. In February 2021, the net value of the estate was officially set at 1.74million and, according to the claim, in June that year, Finders was told that Berger 'would be entirely disputing (Finders) claim under the agreement'. In December 2021, Finders issued a letter before claim, warning Berger that they were intending to take legal action and the High Court claim was issued in March this year, for 209,000. However, Berger's legal team claims that she owes them nothing. Large payout: Peter and Philip Turvey, above, received a 40,000 settlement from Curran's Finders International Said to be vulnerable due to her declining health, Polish-born Berger appointed a litigation friend, Arabella Budd, a businesswoman and family friend from South London. She said: 'Jadwiga [pronounced Yaja] was not in regular contact with her daughter. It was complicated for various reasons. 'It was only a few weeks between her daughter dying and this guy turning up at the door. The whole thing has been very distressing.' Berger's High Court defence claims that the agreement Berger purportedly entered into is void and unenforceable on the grounds that 'Ms Berger did not know or understand the detail of what she was signing or why'. It adds that she was 'vulnerable to suggestion and persuasion...lacked independent legal advice, spoke English as a second language... and was not aware of the size of her daughter's estate.' It also claims Finders are 'morally culpable' and that their representative 'told her there was a fee of one per cent, alternatively two per cent, relating to Michelle's estate.' Finders dispute Berger's defence from start to finish. They state that she has produced 'no expert evidence' regarding her mental capacity, denied any 'impropriety' in approaching her at her home, or that she was told the fee was only one to two per cent. Finders state that 'it is denied the agreement was unfair or unreasonable' and denied it had 'acted in a manner, which is morally improper or culpable'. During our investigation, This is Money's sister title The Mail on Sunday has learned that Labour-run Birmingham Council, where Michelle Berger had previously lived, signed a lucrative contract with Finders International to feed them bona vacantia leads. Bereaved relatives might wonder how ethical this arrangement is, but court documents show the tip to Finders about Berger's death actually came from a local legal firm. Arabella said: 'We think we have a really good case; I can't believe anyone thinks that is a fair contract, and we're going to fight it.' This is not the first legal wrangle for Danny Curran. In 2019, he agreed to pay 40,000 in an out-of-court settlement to father and son Peter and Philip Turvey, who have conducted research for the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? Curran and his company were accused of sending a series of abusive and libellous emails to the Turveys and their company Anglia Research. Philip Turvey is understandably reticent about commenting on Curran and Finders but believes that the BBC's Heir Hunters drew in hordes of 'amateur hunters' who saw this as a 'get rich quick scheme'. He said: 'I think the programme encouraged rogue operators to enter the market. Dispute: Danny Curran featured on TV's Heir Hunters 'Now we have more and more records available online, so they can be searched easily and quickly but because of data and privacy, tracking people down has become harder. You do see people cutting corners. They will find one or two relatives rather than tracing the entire family who are equally entitled.' A good example dates back to 2013, when Scottish firm Worldwide Genealogy Ltd was convicted of ten counts of fraud after trying to con a family out of nearly 250,000 inheritance. Patricia Byrne, David Mitchell, and Lesley Mitchell were persuaded to sign up with Worldwide after their 93-year-old aunt Charlotte Cook died in a care home intestate. The court heard they were conned into paying 40 per cent of any inheritance in commission and expenses despite not being told who had died and how much money was involved. Judge Richard Parkes told Reading Crown Court that the company was guilty of 'calculated, cynical and well-planned frauds'. The concern is that this case barely scratches the surface because of the lack of any statutory regulation and beneficiaries struggling to get expert independent advice. Turvey believes that self-regulation can still play a part, with Anglia Research members of the Association of Probate Researchers, which offers people a complaints process. Yet even here the industry is divided with a rival professional body in the International Association of Probate Researchers, which includes Finders among its members. Closer scrutiny of Companies House records reveals that the IAPPR was actually set up by Danny Curran and is registered to the same address as Finders. No wonder then that Neil Fraser, whose family firm Fraser & Fraser has roots going back a century, is adamant that only statutory regulation can protect future beneficiaries despite his involvement in setting up APR. He said: 'As soon as death and money are involved you get greed. We have to deal with that all the time. We need regulation because we are dealing with everything that should be regulated. Filling in the gaps: Heir hunters specialise in situations where someone has passed away without making a will laying out what should happen to their estate 'First, we are dealing with money, a deceased person's money, and the second reason is because we deal with the law. Once you have obtained grants or letters of administration, we are able to close bank accounts, sell properties, collect all the money, and get it in cash. But nobody actually does any checking of all that work.' Fraser believes that the UK legal system, with its emphasis on 'swearing on the Bible' or, in essence, trust, is ripe for exploitation. This system failure starts with the fact that often no one is actually authorised to appoint heir hunters or anyone else to chase down next-of-kin. Many within the industry regard this as unprincipled because they might not have the authority but in any event the finder's fee should be paid by the estate not the beneficiary. Because most estates' value rests in bricks and mortar, firms will often appoint favoured estate agents to conduct sales knowing few will question if this is in the estate's best interests. From the outside, however, the ethical distinctions between these different practices adopted by heir hunters can seem obscure, if not irrelevant, if you are offered thousands of pounds. Fraser believes that above all else the key is 'fair, effective, and ethical fees' but in the absence of regulation this will remain a bone of contention. Phil Turvey cites just one modest case as proof positive that all parties can benefit. He said: 'We recently dealt with the estate of Edward Porter who died in Great Yarmouth but was born in South Africa. Genealogy expert Professor Lesley King: 'There are a lot of genealogists doing a perfectly respectable and decent job' 'We located his sister Margaret in South Africa, who had lost contact with him 15 years earlier. It was only 8,000 and we got ten per cent of that but it was of great comfort to her to know what had happened to her brother. We do provide a valuable service and transparency with clients is very important.' Professor Lesley King, an expert in this field, believes that the heir hunters often provide a valuable and necessary service. She said: 'There are a lot of genealogists doing a perfectly respectable and decent job. Finding people on the bona vacantia lists and then saying to a person, 'Do you want to pay me for my information?' I think we can ask if that is so very wrong? Because the person contacted doesn't know they are entitled to anything until someone tells them.' Prof King believes that those determined not to pay the heir hunters for a cut should simply see if they can track down their lost relative using online records. Given that the bona vacantia list now stretches to more than 6,500 estates, there is good reason to check your family tree. You can find the list online here. And it is worth bearing in mind that even estates that have been claimed by the state can still be recovered by next-of-kin for up to 30 years. But for those not prepared to turn into amateur sleuths and track down a long-lost relative's fortune, the chances are they will have to cut a deal with an heir hunter. If approached by heir hunters then in the first instance you need to seek independent legal advice. Do not be railroaded into signing any documents. Finders, in its court submission, states that it gets 'up to three thousand referrals a year on the same (or a similar) basis as that involved in (the Berger) case'. Danny Curran will insist that there is nothing wrong with this and legally, at least, it would appear that he is right. A Birmingham City Council spokesman said that the contract with Finders was both legal and ethical but refused to reveal the size of the contract because it was commercially sensitive. However, Arabella Budd believes that it is time for the Government to step in and regulate heir hunters and she is not alone. She said: 'I found it completely shocking there was no moral or legal regulation.' Danny Curran said of Berger's defence: 'The allegations are denied. No issue was raised until nearly a year after Mrs Berger had retained our services. We have clear evidence that we acted fairly, professionally, and honestly throughout.' (Bloomberg) -- The risk of a US government shutdown on Nov. 18 eased as House Speaker Mike Johnson proposed a compromise temporary funding plan without insisting on deep spending cuts that ultraconservatives have sought. Most Read from Bloomberg Johnson presented his proposal with less than a week to go before the current temporary spending bill runs out, leaving little time for Republicans and Democrats to work out differences and avoid a shutdown. But by refusing to impose the 30% immediate cut to spending and US asylum law changes demanded by some conservatives, Johnson improved the outlook for a compromise. The proposal, which omits new funding for aid to Israel and Ukraine, would extend funding for some government agencies to January and others to February. While the two-step idea risks Democratic pushback, it is more likely to pass the Senate given its lack of immediate spending cuts. The bill will stop the absurd holiday-season omnibus tradition of massive, loaded up spending bills introduced right before the Christmas recess, Johnson said in a statement. An extension until Jan. 19 would apply to funding for the departments of Veterans Affairs, Energy, Agriculture, Transportation as well as Housing and Urban Development, with the rest extended to Feb. 2. The goal is to prod the Senate to speed up work on those bills. Republican leaders plan a House vote on the plan Tuesday which could end Johnsons brief honeymoon period with conservative rebels in the party. Hardline conservatives have demanded that Johnson attach immediate spending cuts and changes to US migration policies to any temporary funding to keep open the government. Johnson will almost certainly need Democrats to pass his plan through the House over these objections. Story continues Read more: USs Last Top Credit Rating Is Threatened in Shift by Moodys Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted in early October for allowing lawmakers to vote on the 48-day measure that funds the government now. That sparked three weeks of intra-party battles to choose a successor, culminating in the elevation of Louisianas Johnson, a darling of fiscal and social conservatives in the GOP. The White House cast doubt on the House plan. This proposal is just a recipe for more Republican chaos and more shutdowns full stop, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement Saturday. However, a Senate Democratic aide welcomed the absence of spending cuts in Johnsons plan, and that defense funding would get the longer of the two extensions. Dairy, Submarine Representative Chip Roy, a Texas Republican influential among ultra-conservatives on fiscal matters, denigrated the proposed strings-free temporary funding. Its a 100% clean. And I 100% oppose, Roy said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. The bill extends some US farm subsidies, including for dairy products. It also contains a provision to allow the building of a second Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, a program led by General Dynamics Corp. The House Rules Committee will hold a hearing Monday to decide whether to advance the bill to a floor vote and to set procedures for that action. Illustrating the stakes, Moodys Investors Service on Friday lowered the USs credit-rating outlook to negative from stable. Moodys cited increasing risks to the countrys fiscal strength and specifically pointed to political polarization in Congress. Johnson told lawmakers on a call Saturday that the plan avoids allowing the Senate to jam the House with a giant spending package just before the Christmas holiday in December, according to people familiar with the conversation. He also said it decouples the stopgap bill from the battles in Washington over further aid to Ukraine. Johnson said that if the Senate fails to negotiate full-year funding bills, the House will focus on a full-year stopgap bill until Sept. 30, a move that would allow a 1% cut to all spending under an earlier debt-ceiling deal. The GOP plans to spare defense in any full-year stopgap, a person familiar with the discussions said. Divisions among Republicans over government spending already have forced Johnson to cancel votes on two annual spending bills during his brief time as speaker. A sustained revolt by conservatives could force him to back off Saturdays plan, raising the risk of a shutdown anew. The White House budget office this week began coordinating shutdown plans with federal agencies. If a shutdown happens, federal workers deemed non-essential would be furloughed while essential civilian and military employees would work without pay. Federal contracts would be delayed along with payments to vendors. Goldman Sachs Group analysts estimated in September that a shutdown would reduce the US economys quarterly growth by 0.2 percentage points for every week it lasted. (Updates with Senate Democratic aides comments in 10th paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2023 Bloomberg L.P. Pepperoni pizza is the UK's favourite takeaway and Thursday evening is the most popular time to order. Mondays and Tuesdays are far slower. No surprise then, that these are the days when customers are deluged with promotional emails or texts. Unwanted, annoying and intrusive, these messages can often irritate as many pizza-lovers as they attract. Dotdigital aims to make the process more personal, to the benefit of businesses and consumers. The company has developed sophisticated technology that helps firms to understand their customers better so they can communicate more effectively online and in real life. Tasty offering: Dotdigital has developed sophisticated technology that helps firms to understand their customers better so they can communicate more effectively The group works with more than 4,000 organisations worldwide, from carmaker Volkswagen to English Heritage and from Papa Johns pizza to the NHS. Charities subscribe to Dotdigital's software too, including Guide Dogs for the Blind, which uses the kit to match dogs with the right owners. Chief executive Milan Patel has recently developed an artificial intelligence tool as well, WinstonAI, which can check marketing material to ensure it makes sense, convert emails to texts and sift through data so that consumers receive messages that they are interested in pursuing. Revenues soared during the pandemic, as the company benefited from a surge in online shopping and its technology was used to send out vaccine reminders and other pandemic-related updates. Patel warned investors that growth rates would subside, but when they did, the market response was brutal, exacerbated by early-stage growth pains in the US, the chairman's resignation on health grounds, and the finance director leaving to pursue other interests. The shares plunged from 2.87 in 2021 to just 65p last summer. They have recovered to 88p since then, but should have further to go. Results for the year to June, announced last week, were encouraging. Revenues rose 10 per cent to 69million, profits were 6 per cent higher at 15.4million and the dividend was increased from 0.98p to 1p. A new finance director is in place and there is a new chairman, John Conoley, who began his career at IBM in the 1980s. US growth is back on track and the firm is expanding in Europe and Asia too. Brokers expect strong growth in sales, profits and dividends, as companies focus marketing expenditure on digital channels, such as emails and texts, where they can monitor success. Research indicates that for every 1 Dotdigital customers spend with the company, they generate returns of more than 4 through cost savings and profits over three years. The group is also a leader in its field, invests consistently in research and development and is constantly on the lookout for acquisitions that will broaden its appeal to customers. Midas verdict: Midas recommended Dotdigital in 2015, when the stock was 37p. Recent times have been tough but Patel has maintained a steady hand on the tiller and prospects are bright. At 88p, the shares offer good value. Traded on: AIM Ticker: DOTD Contact: dotdigitalgroup.com or 020 3953 3072 New pension fund clients of St James's Place (SJP) face paying higher fees despite the UK's largest wealth manager recently bowing to pressure to offer better deals. Consumer duty rules recently introduced oblige financial firms to focus on 'fair value' and 'good outcomes' for customers. In response SJP, which has long been criticised for high and opaque charges, unveiled the largest overhaul of its fee structure in its 31-year history to comply with the new rules. These included scrapping controversial early withdrawal charges on all new products in the second half of 2025, which also covers investment bond and pension business. But an analysis of SJP's updated fee structure has found that new pension fund customers will soon pay more and will continue to do so for up to 17 years. Sign of the times: An analysis of SJP's updated fee structure has found that new pension fund customers will soon pay more and will continue to do so for up to 17 years Pensions are a huge part of SJP's business, accounting for 81billion of the 159billion it managed at the end of September 2023. SJP currently charges a 'deferred sales charge' in effect a commission of 6 per cent of a pensions investment, plus an annual charge of between 0.5 per cent and 1 per cent. That takes the cumulative cost after ten years to 15 per cent, see below. The new pension charges include a smaller initial upfront fee of up to 4.5 per cent and annual charges of 1.15 per cent. But the total cost after ten years is higher than before at 16 per cent. 'SJP might be simplifying and unbundling fees for new pension clients, but they neglected to mention that what's replacing them will cost clients more,' said Philip Rose, co-founder of Edinburgh-based investment firm Halwyn Capital, who crunched the numbers. Rose sees two risks in this strategy. 'First, by treating your customer base and the wider industry as fools you run the risk of a Ratner-style moment. 'They have quite carefully worded their price change release to very deliberately not mention if it's more or less expensive for pension clients. And they have presented it as if they are doing customers a favour, not charging them more. 'Second, one of their biggest shareholders was quoted as not understanding their charges, so what chance does an SJP adviser or client have?' Rose is also concerned that SJP is charging more for poor performance. Its pension funds invest in corresponding SJP unit trusts but only seven of 45 of these underlying investment vehicles delivered 'overall value' for clients in the firm's most recent assessment. 'By inference this suggests pension clients are not receiving good value either and that's before prices go up,' said Rose. 'SJP has not been clear about the increase in overall charges for new pension clients despite several opportunities to do so in their public statements,' he added. 'This appears disingenuous on the part of the company and results in reputational risk.' The Financial Conduct Authority, the City watchdog, has been criticised for not curbing sky-high fees but it insists it is not a price regulator. 'We want competitive markets with products sold clearly and priced fairly,' a spokesman said. 'Consumer duty isn't about us setting the price. It means financial firms proving to themselves, and if necessary us, that what they charge reflects the value customers receive. If they can't, they need to make changes.' SJP, whose own share price has tanked as investors baulked at the estimated 150million cost of implementing the fee changes, said the majority of new clients will benefit from lower charges across its product range, including those in bonds and pensions if they stay invested over the long term. The new initial charging structure to cover advice provided was simpler and comparable with the rest of the industry, it added. 'While some new shorter term clients will pay more under the new structure, the majority will pay less, as part of an overall reduction in charges,' an SJP spokesman said. 'The fee structure will compare favourably to the wider wealth management industry,' he added. Emerging markets have long had a reputation for providing investors with high-risk, high-reward returns. But several funds investing in these stock markets are now appealing to a broader audience by generating a mix of income and capital gains. Among them is JP Morgan Global Emerging Markets Income, a 356million investment trust listed on the UK stock market. It is delivering an annual income to shareholders of more than four per cent, plus capital returns on top. The result is that over the past one, five and ten years, the fund has produced overall returns of 10.1, 27.5 and 53.1 per cent respectively. In the trust's last financial year to the end of July, it provided shareholders with income of 5.3p a share, a 1.9 per cent increase on the year before. Dividends are paid quarterly. The trust is managed by Omar Negyal who for investment ideas draws upon the expertise of JP Morgan analysts scattered across the globe in emerging market countries such as China and India. Speaking from Hong Kong, where he is as part of a two-week visit to China speaking to companies, Negyal says that many emerging market businesses are now more shareholder friendly than they were ten to 15 years ago. 'It's not unusual for companies to pay out more than a third of their earnings in dividends,' he adds. 'Some emerging markets, such as Brazil, China, South Africa and Taiwan, are more dividend orientated than others while companies in Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates are now paying income in response to demand from local investors.' Negyal says he has no problem finding suitable companies to invest in. To qualify for inclusion in the trust, companies must be paying a dividend. The result is a portfolio comprising 82 dividend-friendly companies, paying an annual income of at least one per cent and in some cases upward of 10 per cent. There are familiar names among its holdings, including Taiwan Semiconductor, Samsung Electronics and Infosys Technologies. There are also lesser-known stocks such as Thai-listed TISCO, a consumer finance company. 'It's got a good track record, a strong balance sheet and it is paying shareholders dividends,' says Negyal. Although companies are bought on a five-year view, the portfolio's composition shifts according to the economic backdrop. Fears of a world recession have caused Negyal to trim the fund's exposure to technology companies. 'Taiwan Semiconductor has been a great contributor to the trust's performance over the past five years,' he says. 'It's got a progressive dividend policy which we like, but we have to accept demand for its products will be affected by any downturn in the global economy.' Once accounting for nearly 10 per cent of the trust's assets, the position has been trimmed back to 5.6 per cent. Despite this, it remains the fund's biggest holding. Other positions have been reduced on valuation grounds. For example, Mexican-listed retailer Walmex was a top ten fund position, but a rerating meant profits were taken. China is the trust's biggest country position. Negyal says the negative narrative around China's economy in the wake of the global pandemic has enabled the trust to purchase some quality companies at attractive prices. Among them is internet commerce company JD.com, a business now committed to paying an annual dividend. The trust has annual charges totalling 0.92 per cent, its market ticker JEMI and code B5ZZY91. Other emerging market trusts with an income bent include those run by Utilico and Templeton. Europe's biggest ever tax scandal is about to engulf banks in London - and is already worth 10billion in Germany alone. The multi-billion pound scam, which has already rocked Germany, is likely to lead to more claims against banks and individuals operating in the City. The so-called Cum-Ex case involves alleged dividend tax frauds that are estimated to have cost German taxpayers alone nearly 10billion. Up to 2,000 suspects are implicated, many of them bankers, brokers and hedge fund managers based in the City of London. More than a dozen convictions already have been secured in German courts. Banks under investigation include Britain's Barclays, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley of the US, France's BNP and Japan's Nomura, as well as law firms and auditors. Scam: Europe's biggest ever tax scandal is about to engulf banks in London The epicentre of the long-running cross-border probe is Cologne, but it extends much further afield and is escalating. In a significant development, Danish authorities last week won the right to pursue a 1.4billion alleged Cum-Ex fraud in London after the Supreme Court ruled it could be heard in England. Experts say the judgment will have profound implications for similar cases being heard. 'This ruling is likely to open the floodgates to claims by other European regulators,' said Prateek Swaika, partner at law firm Boies Schiller Flexner. Banks implicated in Cum-Ex were 'low-hanging fruit', he added. Cum-Ex was a controversial 'double-dipping' trading strategy that exploited a loophole in how dividend tax was collected so that multiple investors could claim refunds on a tax that was only paid once. Shares were borrowed just before a company was scheduled to pay dividends. This meant more than one investor could claim bogus tax refunds. The dividend-stripping practice was abolished in Germany in 2012. Ulrich Bremer, chief public prosecutor in Cologne, told the Mail on Sunday his office had '120 investigations pending against at least 1,700 defendants'. The backlog is such that a new, 40million courthouse dedicated to hearing Cum-Ex cases is being built near Bonn. In the latest conviction, an ex-Fortis banker last week was sentenced to three years and three months for his role in the trading scandal. The German, who can only be identified as Frank H, was found guilty in a Frankfurt court of siphoning off around 59million through dodgy Cum-Ex deals. Dutch bank ABN Amro, which took over the part of Fortis that carried out the trades, has returned the money to the tax authorities. German authorities have recovered about 2.7billion in total so far. UK taxpayers were not defrauded in the Cum-Ex scam because dividends are not subject to withholding tax. However, British banks have been caught up in the scandal. Barclays employed 124 bankers who were later named as suspects and charges may come early next year, according to financial newswire Bloomberg. The bank declined to comment. City watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority, is also investigating firms and individuals over conduct in London which may have supported Cum-Ex trades done in Europe. 'We are now at the stage where we are starting to see the tip of the iceberg and more of that tip is becoming visible,' said Aziz Rahman, senior partner at financial crime specialists Rahman Ravelli. Whenever she is spotted on the high-speed train to Frankfurt from her base in Cologne, Anne Brorhilker strikes fear into some of the world's biggest investment banks. As lead local investigator in Europe's biggest tax scandal she is a frequent traveller on the intercity express as it hurtles towards the heart of Germany's financial centre. In her steely, bespectacled sights are the imposing glass-and-concrete offices of the city's major international banks. Typically, one of them will be raided by police at dawn the next day. Although the scandal, known as Cum-Ex, has been unfolding in Germany, it is about to embroil the City, where banks and traders are suspected of being deeply implicated in the huge tax scam. Those under investigation in Germany include Britain's Barclays, Bank of America's Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, BNP and Nomura, as well as top law firms and auditors. So far prosecutors have conducted at least 13 raids since March 2022 and the pace of the probe is set to accelerate. Germany is at the centre of a Europe-wide investigation into Cum-Ex, a controversial trading strategy that exploited a loophole in how dividend tax was collected so that multiple investors could claim refunds on a tax that was only paid once. The net widens: Lead investigator Anne Brorhilker, inset, is so busy she needs a new courthouse linked by a high-speed rail line to Frankfurt, above The alleged perpetrators were financial traders many of them based in London and their clients. The losers were taxpayers. In the case of Germany, which stopped the dividend tax trades in 2012, up to 10billion may have been lost to the public purse. Brorhilker, 50, has been on the Cum-Ex case for a decade. Her Cologne operation has expanded to become by far the most ambitious of Germany's three regional investigations. She now oversees 120 probes with 1,700 suspects, most of whom are in London. As Germany's fraudbuster-in-chief relentlessly pursues her prey, the number of suspects continues to climb. Barclays employed 124 bankers who were later named as suspects. Charges may come as early as next year, according to financial newswire Bloomberg. The bank declined to comment. Officials in the Netherlands, Finland and Belgium have launched their own probes, while Denmark has filed about 500 civil lawsuits related to dividend-tax refunds. Danish authorities last week won the right to pursue an alleged 1.4billion tax fraud in London's High Court after the Supreme Court ruled it could be heard in England. Lawyers say the judgment from England's highest court will have profound implications for other Cum-Ex cases being heard. 'This ruling will reverberate around the world,' said Aziz Rahman, senior partner at financial crime specialists Rahman Ravelli. 'This has to be seen as a significant victory for the Danish tax authorities,' Rahman added. 'It will also give reassurance to other countries that are looking to recoup huge amounts of money that they paid out due to Cum-Ex.' The multiple defendants in the Danish case include British hedge fund trader Sanjay Shah, who ran now-defunct Solo Capital. They all deny the charges. Shah's representative was contacted for comment. In another development last week, an ex-Fortis banker was sentenced to three years and three months for his role in the trading scandal. The German, who can only be identified as Frank H, was found guilty in a Frankfurt court of siphoning off 45million through dodgy Cum-Ex deals. Dutch bank ABN Amro, which took over the part of Fortis that carried out the trades, has returned the money to the tax authorities. The conviction brought the number of people who have been found guilty so far to at least 14. German authorities also have successfully recovered about 2.7billion not including payments clawed back through a series of criminal trials. Several other high-profile trials continue. They include that of Henry Gabay, founder of now defunct London-based asset manager Duet Group. He recently told a German court that he was innocent and that the 'devastating' Cum-Ex charges against him were built on the lies of his former business associates. 'My whole life is in shambles,' Gabay told the judges. He claims he relied on legal advice that cleared the deals at the time. 'Had I only had the slightest idea that the legal opinions didn't cover the whole picture and risks, I would have never allowed these deals to be done under the Duet umbrella,' he said. Defendant: Hedge fund trader Sanjay Shah Gabay's lawyer said his client 'deeply regrets' that 'renowned' banks and lawyers used his hedge fund to carry out deals now deemed illegal. Also in the dock in a separate case is Christian Olearius, the former boss of prestigious private bank MM Warburg which was seized by the Nazis in the late 1930s. Olearius, 81, is on trial for allegedly arranging a 245million dividend tax fraud. He has denied all charges. Olearius, who has links to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, recently accused prosecutors of plunging the 225-year-old Hamburg-based bank into its biggest crisis since the Nazis forced out MM Warburg's Jewish owner in the late 1930s. A court recently awarded Olearius a five-figure sum in compensation after it emerged his personal diaries were seized by prosecutors investigating the case, and incriminating details from their probe leaked to the media. Olearius accused prosecutors of conducting a 'shallow, flawed and biased' investigation and said the charges against him were based on 'insinuation, repetition and speculation'. He faces up to ten years in jail if found guilty on all charges. Olearius and co-owner Max Warburg have already paid 175million from their personal fortunes to compensate for the tax damage caused by the bank's role in Cum-Ex deals. MM Warburg declined to comment. A new 38million courthouse dedicated to hearing cases brought by Frau Brorhilker is due to open next year in the Bonn suburb of Siegburg. That could prove convenient for London-based defendants as Siegburg is connected to Frankfurt airport via a high-speed rail link, meaning they can fly in and out on trial days. Suspect-spotters, take note. Missing out: Chancellor Jeremy Hunt The Treasury missed out on more than 200 million last year because it scrapped VAT-free shopping, according to new estimates. The controversial 'tourist tax' cost British retailers 1.5 billion in lost sales in 2022, said the Association of International Retail (AIR) in evidence sent to the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in an effort to get the policy reviewed. The AIR and retailers are calling for a review of the tax as they argue the Treasury did not take into account the hit it would have on other parts of the tourism industry such as hotels, restaurants and theatres, which are used by tourists in the UK on shopping sprees. If tax-free shopping had not been abolished the AIR estimates the Treasury would have raised 459 million 206 million more than it actually raised because tourists spent less. The figures will pile more pressure on Hunt to launch a review of the measure in his Autumn Statement later this month. The Mail has spearheaded a campaign calling for the tax to be ditched. It is backed by more than 400 businesses including Burberry, Harrods, Marks & Spencer, Jimmy Choo and Heathrow Airport. VAT-free shopping allows travellers buying items in the UK to claim back VAT when they return home. The UK axed the incentive in 2021. It was briefly reintroduced in Liz Truss's disastrous mini-Budget, before being axed again when Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister. Earlier this month a collection of luxury retailers protested on London's Savile Row over the tax, which the industry warns has sent overseas tourists to Paris and Milan instead of shopping hubs in the UK. Paul Barnes, chief executive of the AIR, said: 'Britain needs growth so it's madness to throw away the unique opportunity to create a whole new, multi-billion pound tourist market for the whole of the UK. 'With all this new evidence emerging we hope the Government will now seize the opportunity to make Britain the best place in the world for international shopping.' A Treasury spokesman said VAT-free shopping 'does not directly benefit Brits'. He added: 'Evidence shows that the key motivators for tourists visiting the UK are our rich history and heritage, and vibrant towns and cities not shopping.' Warning: Homeserve founder Richard Harpin A leading businessman has called on the Government to act in the upcoming Autumn Statement to reduce several 'bottlenecks' in the economy that he claims are holding back entrepreneurs. Richard Harpin, the founder of home repairs business Homeserve, said business owners were 'the fuel that drives our economy forward' and Britain needed to 'break out of the low-growth trap and set conditions' to speed up growth. Ahead of the Autumn Statement, set for 22 November, Harpin said the Government should end a freeze on the level of turnover a company must generate before registering for VAT. He described the level, which was frozen at 85,000 in 2017 and is not due to end until 2026, as a 'cliff edge' which encouraged businesses to cap their revenues when they should be given incentives that encourage them to aim higher. Harpin, who made around 500million last year when he sold Homeserve to a private equity firm for more than 4billion, has also called on officials to make it more attractive for firms to invest in the UK. Other proposals include enhancing skills training for workers and expanding existing business loan and improvement schemes. 'The impact of local entrepreneurs on GDP saw a one per cent reduction from the same period last year,' Harpin said. He added: 'To reverse this trend, we must grasp the nettle and accelerate our ambitious vision for boosting UK entrepreneurship.' StockNews.com cut shares of Walker & Dunlop (NYSE:WD Free Report) from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday. Other research analysts also recently issued research reports about the stock. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods dropped their target price on shares of Walker & Dunlop from $102.00 to $89.00 in a report on Tuesday, October 3rd. Wedbush upped their price objective on Walker & Dunlop from $90.00 to $105.00 in a research note on Friday, August 4th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $89.50. Get Walker & Dunlop alerts: Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on Walker & Dunlop Walker & Dunlop Stock Up 2.4 % NYSE WD opened at $71.48 on Wednesday. Walker & Dunlop has a 52 week low of $61.06 and a 52 week high of $101.02. The company has a market capitalization of $2.38 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.82 and a beta of 1.41. The stocks 50-day moving average price is $73.42 and its 200-day moving average price is $77.41. Walker & Dunlop (NYSE:WD Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Thursday, November 9th. The financial services provider reported $1.11 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $1.22 by ($0.11). The firm had revenue of $268.70 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $283.13 million. Walker & Dunlop had a return on equity of 9.13% and a net margin of 11.03%. Walker & Dunlops revenue was down 14.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $1.40 EPS. Research analysts anticipate that Walker & Dunlop will post 4.9 EPS for the current year. Walker & Dunlop Announces Dividend The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 8th. Shareholders of record on Friday, November 24th will be paid a $0.63 dividend. This represents a $2.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.53%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, November 22nd. Walker & Dunlops payout ratio is currently 59.29%. Insider Buying and Selling In other news, President Howard W. Smith III sold 20,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $71.61, for a total transaction of $1,432,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the president now directly owns 197,000 shares in the company, valued at approximately $14,107,170. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other Walker & Dunlop news, President Howard W. Smith III sold 20,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $71.61, for a total transaction of $1,432,200.00. Following the sale, the president now directly owns 197,000 shares of the companys stock, valued at $14,107,170. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, COO Stephen P. Theobald sold 16,949 shares of Walker & Dunlop stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $85.70, for a total value of $1,452,529.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 57,754 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $4,949,517.80. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 56,949 shares of company stock worth $4,507,329. Corporate insiders own 5.47% of the companys stock. Institutional Investors Weigh In On Walker & Dunlop A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in WD. Rhumbline Advisers increased its holdings in Walker & Dunlop by 4.3% during the 3rd quarter. Rhumbline Advisers now owns 107,205 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $7,959,000 after purchasing an additional 4,437 shares during the period. Deutsche Bank AG grew its position in shares of Walker & Dunlop by 2.2% during the 3rd quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 90,860 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $6,745,000 after buying an additional 1,995 shares in the last quarter. Texas Permanent School Fund Corp increased its stake in shares of Walker & Dunlop by 4.0% during the third quarter. Texas Permanent School Fund Corp now owns 28,308 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $2,102,000 after buying an additional 1,077 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Walker & Dunlop by 9.8% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 395,695 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $29,376,000 after acquiring an additional 35,454 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC lifted its stake in Walker & Dunlop by 16.6% in the third quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 296,015 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $21,976,000 after acquiring an additional 42,160 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 77.99% of the companys stock. About Walker & Dunlop (Get Free Report) Walker & Dunlop, Inc, through its subsidiaries, originates, sells, and services a range of multifamily and other commercial real estate financing products and services for owners and developers of real estate in the United States. The company offers first mortgage, second trust, supplemental, construction, mezzanine, preferred equity, and small-balance loans. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Walker & Dunlop Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Walker & Dunlop and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. StockNews.com started coverage on shares of China Green Agriculture (NYSE:CGA Free Report) in a report published on Wednesday morning. The firm issued a sell rating on the basic materials companys stock. China Green Agriculture Stock Performance Shares of CGA opened at $2.02 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 2.76, a quick ratio of 2.04 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.01. The stock has a market cap of $27.03 million, a PE ratio of -2.04 and a beta of 0.64. China Green Agriculture has a 1 year low of $1.61 and a 1 year high of $5.73. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $2.07 and a 200-day simple moving average of $2.59. Get China Green Agriculture alerts: Institutional Investors Weigh In On China Green Agriculture Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Susquehanna International Group LLP bought a new position in China Green Agriculture in the 1st quarter valued at $175,000. Renaissance Technologies LLC raised its holdings in shares of China Green Agriculture by 67.8% in the first quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 19,051 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $192,000 after buying an additional 7,700 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP bought a new position in shares of China Green Agriculture in the first quarter valued at about $115,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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). Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for China Green Agriculture Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for China Green Agriculture and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. (Bloomberg) -- With Israels war against Hamas costing the economy around $260 million every day, payouts to ultra-orthodox schools and other causes championed by right-wingers in the ruling coalition have set off a reckoning for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Most Read from Bloomberg The conflict is taking a harrowing toll on lives. Its also become more expensive for Israel than first predicted and is putting a strain on public finances. But its the controversial handouts that have set a national debate alight and kept markets on edge as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich prepares within days to unveil a new budget for what remains of 2023 and then present plans for next year. Built into Israels expenditure program are so-called coalition funds, or discretionary spending earmarked to the five parties comprising Netanyahus government, the most religious in Israels history. A record 14 billion shekels ($3.6 billion) in transfers approved last May will partly go toward religious schools some exempt from teaching subjects like English and math. Other favored projects include the development of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. While the special allotments are a fraction of the total budget for 2023-2024, they have become a marker of competing priorities at a time when Israel confronts its worst armed conflict in half a century. The war began on Oct. 7 when Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the US, swarmed from Gaza into southern Israeli communities and killed around 1,200 people. More than 11,000 have died in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, since Israel began retaliatory airstrikes and launched a ground offensive. Story continues Israel Closes In on Main Gaza Hospital It Says Houses Hamas Base What happens to the coalition funds may determine just how forgiving markets will be to a government thats already seen the war inflict an economic toll of almost $8 billion, according to estimates from the Finance Ministry. As long as the government clings to its coalition funds, it will pay more for its debt, says Rafi Gozlan, chief economist at IBI Investment House. The verdict of global traders will matter as the government increasingly turns to bonds to pay for the war. Its budget deficit ballooned more than sevenfold in October from a year earlier. The Finance Ministry has, moreover, announced plans to borrow 75% more in November than last month. Israeli assets from the shekel to bonds have recouped most if not all their losses from the aftermath of Hamass attack. But an aura of risk still hangs over the governments debt. The cost to insure Israeli sovereign bonds against a default is more than double what it was before the war began. And the risk premium, or spread, investors demand to hold Israeli dollar notes over US Treasuries remains about 25 basis points higher. The unprecedented funding for religious programs and West Bank settlements was called into question long before the war upended the $520 billion economy, with critics warning it would suppress growth. But it stands out even more now that Netanyahu committed to paying whatever economic price this war exacts on us. The 2023 budget plans outlined by Smotrich envisage a spending increase of 35 billion shekels, much of it on the military and with the bulk financed by debt. Coalition funds that havent yet been used amount to almost 8 billion shekels. Yet the ruling parties have so far resisted fully diverting those funds or cutting the programs linked to them. Their cost exceeds the total 2023 budget for public hospitals or state-funded higher education. Smotrich, a lifelong settler, has suggested scrapping less than what the Finance Ministrys budget department proposed, despite his pledge to strip out spending not essential to support the fighting. The governments stance has drawn the ire of investors and many top analysts. In a letter sent last week to Netanyahu and Smotrich, 300 prominent economists from Israel and abroad urged them to immediately come to your senses. A basic and necessary step would be to halt financing of anything unessential to war, first and foremost the coalition funds, the group said in the letter signed by the likes of Nobel economics laureate Josh Angrist. The outlook is worsening after a brief turnaround last year that saw Israel run its first budget surplus since at least 2000, with military spending declining for the first time in over a decade. Smotrich has said the budget deficit could reach 4% of economic output this year and 5% in 2024. Thats more than double the governments previous forecasts but still less than the figure of 7.1% forecast by Moodys Investors Service. What Bloomberg Economics Says... Israel is likely to spend more, not less, on defense going forward. That would reverse a multiyear trend that brought Israels military spending from around 9% of GDP in the 1990s to 4.5% last year. Ziad Daoud, chief emerging markets economist, and Gerard DiPippo. For more click here. For Netanyahu and his allies, the funding may be key to their political survival. Back in May, some parties threatened to bring down the coalition unless the spending was agreed to. Discord over the issue is palpable within the Finance Ministry, creating a rift between Smotrich and a division run by technocrats seen as less beholden to political interests. The budget department has called for tougher measures to cover higher spending and a drop in revenue including diverting coalition funds and shuttering some government ministries. In a letter to Smotrich, the departments head warned the fiscal decisions will be closely scrutinized by rating companies. The task of drawing up a new budget has fallen to Smotrich. He has said the goal is structural, growth-enhancing reforms. But the 43-year-old, who heads an ultra-nationalist party, also wants to maintain 1.2 billion shekels earmarked for a teacher pay bump at orthodox schools while moving ahead with more spending on settlements financing he said is necessary for protection at a time when tensions in the West Bank are increasing. The symbolism of sparing a favored constituency where many men dont work and are exempt from military conscription has only riled critics. If no significant change is made to the budget, Israel risks signaling a weak governance capacity, two former central bank governors, Karnit Flug and Jacob Frenkel, wrote in a newspaper column, suggesting the result could be a rating downgrade. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2023 Bloomberg L.P. Kingswood Holdings Limited (LON:KWG Get Free Report) insider Jonathan Massing bought 50,000 shares of Kingswood stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 7th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of GBX 14 ($0.17) per share, with a total value of 7,000 ($8,640.91). Jonathan Massing also recently made the following trade(s): Get Kingswood alerts: On Friday, October 13th, Jonathan Massing acquired 150,000 shares of Kingswood stock. The stock was purchased at an average price of GBX 15 ($0.19) per share, for a total transaction of 22,500 ($27,774.35). On Wednesday, October 11th, Jonathan Massing acquired 50,000 shares of Kingswood stock. The stock was purchased at an average price of GBX 15 ($0.19) per share, for a total transaction of 7,500 ($9,258.12). Kingswood Price Performance Kingswood stock opened at GBX 14 ($0.17) on Friday. Kingswood Holdings Limited has a 12 month low of GBX 11 ($0.14) and a 12 month high of GBX 30.50 ($0.38). The company has a current ratio of 1.17, a quick ratio of 0.85 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 106.42. The businesss 50 day simple moving average is GBX 16.10 and its 200 day simple moving average is GBX 19.19. The company has a market cap of 30.37 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -175.00 and a beta of -0.22. About Kingswood Kingswood Holdings Limited engages in the investment management and financial planning business in the United Kingdom and the United States. It operates through three segments: Investment Management, Wealth Planning, and US Operations. The company provides wealth planning, advice process, pensions and retirement planning, inheritance tax and estate planning, tax planning, succession planning, protection advisory, cash management, and foreign exchange services. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for Kingswood Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Kingswood and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Flotek Industries (NYSE:FTK Free Report) from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday morning. Flotek Industries Trading Up 1.3 % NYSE:FTK opened at $4.00 on Wednesday. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $4.30 and a 200-day moving average price of $4.38. Flotek Industries has a 12 month low of $3.42 and a 12 month high of $9.24. The stock has a market cap of $118.65 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -2.35 and a beta of 1.77. Get Flotek Industries alerts: Institutional Investors Weigh In On Flotek Industries Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of FTK. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Flotek Industries by 14.8% during the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 613,610 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $450,000 after acquiring an additional 79,181 shares during the period. Truist Financial Corp lifted its position in Flotek Industries by 430.5% during the 2nd quarter. Truist Financial Corp now owns 1,107,548 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $813,000 after acquiring an additional 898,760 shares during the period. Renaissance Technologies LLC purchased a new position in Flotek Industries during the 1st quarter valued at about $55,000. Bank of America Corp DE lifted its position in Flotek Industries by 11,418.7% during the 1st quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 76,369 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $53,000 after acquiring an additional 75,706 shares during the period. Finally, Delta Investment Management LLC lifted its position in Flotek Industries by 6.5% during the 1st quarter. Delta Investment Management LLC now owns 326,468 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $225,000 after acquiring an additional 20,000 shares during the period. 11.80% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Flotek Industries Company Profile Flotek Industries, Inc operates as a technology-driven chemistry and data company that serves customers across industrial, commercial, and consumer markets in the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and internationally. It operates in two segments, Chemistry Technologies (CT) and Data Analytics (DA). See Also Receive News & Ratings for Flotek Industries Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Flotek Industries and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. StockNews.com cut shares of Moelis & Company (NYSE:MC Free Report) from a hold rating to a sell rating in a report published on Wednesday morning. A number of other research analysts have also issued reports on the company. UBS Group lifted their target price on Moelis & Company from $29.00 to $30.00 and gave the stock a sell rating in a report on Tuesday, October 3rd. Morgan Stanley lowered their target price on Moelis & Company from $39.00 to $38.00 and set an underweight rating on the stock in a report on Friday, November 3rd. Four analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of Reduce and a consensus price target of $36.67. Get Moelis & Company alerts: Read Our Latest Report on Moelis & Company Moelis & Company Stock Up 1.0 % Moelis & Company Announces Dividend NYSE:MC opened at $41.57 on Wednesday. The businesss 50-day moving average price is $44.02 and its 200 day moving average price is $43.67. The firm has a market cap of $2.95 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.17 and a beta of 1.41. Moelis & Company has a 52-week low of $33.87 and a 52-week high of $52.50. The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 22nd. Shareholders of record on Monday, November 13th will be issued a dividend of $0.60 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, November 10th. This represents a $2.40 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.77%. Moelis & Companys payout ratio is presently 156.86%. Institutional Trading of Moelis & Company Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Captrust Financial Advisors raised its holdings in Moelis & Company by 3.0% during the 1st quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 8,723 shares of the asset managers stock worth $410,000 after buying an additional 254 shares during the period. Capital Investment Advisory Services LLC grew its stake in Moelis & Company by 4.4% during the 3rd quarter. Capital Investment Advisory Services LLC now owns 6,023 shares of the asset managers stock valued at $272,000 after acquiring an additional 256 shares in the last quarter. Mutual of America Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Moelis & Company by 0.4% during the 3rd quarter. Mutual of America Capital Management LLC now owns 76,155 shares of the asset managers stock valued at $3,437,000 after acquiring an additional 268 shares in the last quarter. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co NY grew its stake in Moelis & Company by 8.1% during the 2nd quarter. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co NY now owns 3,655 shares of the asset managers stock valued at $166,000 after acquiring an additional 273 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Teacher Retirement System of Texas grew its stake in Moelis & Company by 6.4% during the 3rd quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas now owns 5,149 shares of the asset managers stock valued at $232,000 after acquiring an additional 311 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.53% of the companys stock. Moelis & Company Company Profile (Get Free Report) Moelis & Company operates as an investment banking advisory firm. It offers advisory services in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, recapitalizations and restructurings, capital markets transactions, and other corporate finance matters. The company offers its services to public multinational corporations, middle market private companies, financial sponsors, entrepreneurs, governments, and sovereign wealth funds. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Moelis & Company Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Moelis & Company and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. trimmed its position in shares of The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA Free Report) by 17.5% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 10,739 shares of the aircraft producers stock after selling 2,276 shares during the quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc.s holdings in Boeing were worth $2,268,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of BA. LifePro Asset Management boosted its stake in shares of Boeing by 5.8% during the second quarter. LifePro Asset Management now owns 3,244 shares of the aircraft producers stock valued at $685,000 after purchasing an additional 179 shares during the period. FNY Investment Advisers LLC bought a new stake in shares of Boeing in the second quarter valued at about $131,000. Left Brain Wealth Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Boeing by 15.5% in the second quarter. Left Brain Wealth Management LLC now owns 8,525 shares of the aircraft producers stock valued at $1,800,000 after acquiring an additional 1,144 shares in the last quarter. LPL Financial LLC raised its holdings in shares of Boeing by 1.9% in the second quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 871,650 shares of the aircraft producers stock valued at $184,058,000 after acquiring an additional 16,491 shares in the last quarter. Finally, CWM LLC raised its holdings in shares of Boeing by 16.2% in the first quarter. CWM LLC now owns 19,502 shares of the aircraft producers stock valued at $4,143,000 after acquiring an additional 2,716 shares in the last quarter. 61.33% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Boeing alerts: Wall Street Analyst Weigh In Several research firms recently weighed in on BA. Bank of America upgraded Boeing from a neutral rating to a buy rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $225.00 to $300.00 in a report on Thursday, July 27th. UBS Group initiated coverage on shares of Boeing in a report on Tuesday, October 10th. They issued a buy rating and a $275.00 target price for the company. TheStreet upgraded shares of Boeing from a d+ rating to a c- rating in a report on Tuesday, August 15th. Jefferies Financial Group upped their price objective on shares of Boeing from $250.00 to $275.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Monday, July 31st. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada lowered their target price on shares of Boeing from $210.00 to $200.00 and set a sector perform rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 26th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $245.25. Boeing Price Performance NYSE:BA opened at $196.65 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $118.97 billion, a P/E ratio of -41.84 and a beta of 1.48. The Boeing Company has a 1-year low of $168.52 and a 1-year high of $243.10. The companys fifty day moving average price is $194.86 and its 200-day moving average price is $208.39. Boeing (NYSE:BA Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 25th. The aircraft producer reported ($3.26) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($3.21) by ($0.05). The company had revenue of $18.10 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $18.01 billion. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 13.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted ($6.18) EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that The Boeing Company will post -5.61 EPS for the current fiscal year. Boeing Profile (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. Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding BA? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Boeing Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Boeing and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Macys, Inc. (NYSE:M Get Free Report) has been assigned a consensus rating of Reduce from the ten analysts that are presently covering the firm, Marketbeat.com reports. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, five have given a hold recommendation and two have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12-month price objective among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $15.27. M has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Evercore ISI assumed coverage on Macys in a report on Tuesday, November 7th. They set an inline rating and a $13.00 target price on the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group decreased their price target on shares of Macys from $23.00 to $17.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, August 23rd. UBS Group decreased their price target on shares of Macys from $12.00 to $10.00 and set a sell rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, August 23rd. Telsey Advisory Group restated a market perform rating and issued a $14.00 price target (down previously from $16.00) on shares of Macys in a research report on Tuesday, August 22nd. Finally, Morgan Stanley decreased their price target on shares of Macys from $23.00 to $15.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, August 7th. Get Macy's alerts: Check Out Our Latest Report on Macys Hedge Funds Weigh In On Macys Macys Stock Performance Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Deutsche Bank AG grew its holdings in shares of Macys by 260.8% during the 3rd quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 2,547,529 shares of the companys stock valued at $29,577,000 after acquiring an additional 1,841,432 shares in the last quarter. Citigroup Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Macys by 36.2% during the 3rd quarter. Citigroup Inc. now owns 287,567 shares of the companys stock valued at $3,339,000 after acquiring an additional 76,443 shares in the last quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp grew its holdings in shares of Macys by 15.7% during the 3rd quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp now owns 544,534 shares of the companys stock valued at $6,322,000 after acquiring an additional 73,924 shares in the last quarter. State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D grew its holdings in shares of Macys by 14.8% during the 3rd quarter. State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D now owns 202,299 shares of the companys stock valued at $2,349,000 after acquiring an additional 26,006 shares in the last quarter. Finally, HighTower Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of Macys by 14.9% during the 3rd quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 19,685 shares of the companys stock valued at $229,000 after acquiring an additional 2,554 shares in the last quarter. 82.69% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. M opened at $10.97 on Friday. The businesss 50 day moving average is $11.45 and its 200-day moving average is $13.94. The stock has a market cap of $3.00 billion, a PE ratio of 4.06, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.33 and a beta of 1.90. The company has a current ratio of 1.26, a quick ratio of 0.27 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.71. Macys has a twelve month low of $10.54 and a twelve month high of $25.12. Macys (NYSE:M Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, August 22nd. The company reported $0.26 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.13 by $0.13. Macys had a return on equity of 22.46% and a net margin of 3.15%. The firm had revenue of $5.15 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $5.07 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $1.00 earnings per share. The firms quarterly revenue was down 8.0% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts predict that Macys will post 2.79 earnings per share for the current year. Macys Dividend Announcement The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, January 2nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, December 15th will be given a dividend of $0.1654 per share. This represents a $0.66 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.03%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, December 14th. Macyss payout ratio is 24.44%. Macys Company Profile (Get Free Report Macy's, Inc, an omni-channel retail organization, operates stores, websites, and mobile applications in the United States. The company sells a range of merchandise, such as apparel and accessories for men, women, and kids; cosmetics; home furnishings; and other consumer goods under the Macy's, Bloomingdale's, and bluemercury brands. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Macy's Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Macy's and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Essex Financial Services Inc. lessened its stake in Stryker Co. (NYSE:SYK Free Report) by 4.6% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 2,557 shares of the medical technology companys stock after selling 122 shares during the quarter. Essex Financial Services Inc.s holdings in Stryker were worth $780,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of SYK. Fisher Asset Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Stryker by 2.5% in the 2nd quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 3,830,207 shares of the medical technology companys stock valued at $1,168,725,000 after purchasing an additional 93,332 shares in the last quarter. Rhumbline Advisers increased its stake in shares of Stryker by 0.5% in the 2nd quarter. Rhumbline Advisers now owns 681,631 shares of the medical technology companys stock valued at $207,959,000 after purchasing an additional 3,340 shares in the last quarter. Rational Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Stryker in the 2nd quarter valued at about $289,000. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of Stryker by 4.2% in the 2nd quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 14,340 shares of the medical technology companys stock valued at $4,375,000 after purchasing an additional 575 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Jacobi Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Stryker by 13.4% in the 2nd quarter. Jacobi Capital Management LLC now owns 3,366 shares of the medical technology companys stock valued at $1,027,000 after purchasing an additional 397 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 76.24% of the companys stock. Get Stryker alerts: Insiders Place Their Bets In other Stryker news, insider Viju Menon sold 5,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on 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 transaction, the insider now directly owns 6,994 shares in the company, valued at $2,021,266. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 5.90% of the stock is owned by insiders. Stryker Stock Up 1.0 % NYSE:SYK opened at $273.62 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.83, a current ratio of 1.48 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.58. The stocks fifty day moving average is $275.27 and its two-hundred day moving average is $282.90. Stryker Co. has a 52 week low of $216.55 and a 52 week high of $306.93. The stock has a market capitalization of $103.95 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 40.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.61 and a beta of 0.94. Stryker (NYSE:SYK Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 2nd. The medical technology company reported $2.46 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $2.43 by $0.03. Stryker had a return on equity of 22.62% and a net margin of 13.00%. The company had revenue of $4.90 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $4.87 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $2.12 earnings per share. The firms revenue was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts anticipate that Stryker Co. will post 10.41 EPS for the current year. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades SYK has been the subject of several research reports. Bank of America upgraded Stryker from a neutral rating to a buy rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $310.00 to $315.00 in a research note on Tuesday, September 5th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on Stryker from $295.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a research note on Monday, August 7th. Barclays boosted their price objective on Stryker from $321.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Monday, August 7th. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an outperform rating and set a $325.00 price objective on shares of Stryker in a research note on Thursday, August 17th. Finally, Citigroup cut their price objective on Stryker from $342.00 to $330.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research note on Monday, October 2nd. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $311.30. Get Our Latest Analysis on Stryker Stryker Company Profile (Free Report) 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. Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding SYK? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Stryker Co. (NYSE:SYK Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Stryker Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Stryker and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Institutional & Family Asset Management LLC lessened its holdings in shares of Aflac Incorporated (NYSE:AFL Free Report) by 1.5% in the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 77,160 shares of the financial services providers stock after selling 1,144 shares during the period. Institutional & Family Asset Management LLCs holdings in Aflac were worth $5,386,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC. Other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. grew its holdings in Aflac by 2.5% during the 2nd quarter. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 9,908 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $692,000 after acquiring an additional 243 shares during the period. Oak Thistle LLC bought a new position in shares of Aflac during the first quarter worth $423,000. Machina Capital S.A.S. boosted its position in shares of Aflac by 366.6% during the second quarter. Machina Capital S.A.S. now owns 9,701 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $677,000 after purchasing an additional 7,622 shares in the last quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp boosted its position in shares of Aflac by 4.1% during the first quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 67,106 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $4,330,000 after purchasing an additional 2,663 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Stratos Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Aflac by 2.9% during the first quarter. Stratos Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 18,404 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $1,187,000 after purchasing an additional 521 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 66.75% of the companys stock. Get Aflac alerts: Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on AFL shares. Truist Financial lifted their price target on shares of Aflac from $70.00 to $80.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a research report on Thursday, August 3rd. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price target on shares of Aflac from $70.00 to $74.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a research report on Thursday, September 14th. Citigroup lifted their price target 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. StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of Aflac in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating on the stock. Finally, Bank of America boosted their price objective on shares of Aflac from $79.00 to $86.00 in a research report on Wednesday, August 2nd. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $77.80. Insiders Place Their Bets In other Aflac news, SVP Albert Riggieri sold 7,649 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $76.09, for a total transaction of $582,012.41. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 26,210 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $1,994,318.90. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In other Aflac news, SVP Albert Riggieri sold 7,649 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $76.09, for a total transaction of $582,012.41. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 26,210 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $1,994,318.90. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CFO James Todd Daniels sold 3,355 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $74.51, for a total transaction of $249,981.05. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 60,274 shares in the company, valued at $4,491,015.74. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 141,205 shares of company stock valued at $11,425,157 in the last three months. 0.90% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders. Aflac Trading Up 0.7 % AFL opened at $81.48 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $47.62 billion, a P/E ratio of 10.74, a P/E/G ratio of 1.96 and a beta of 0.89. Aflac Incorporated has a 12 month low of $60.20 and a 12 month high of $82.71. The firms fifty day simple moving average is $77.86 and its 200 day simple moving average is $72.89. The company has a current ratio of 0.08, a quick ratio of 0.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31. Aflac (NYSE:AFL Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 2nd. The financial services provider reported $1.84 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.44 by $0.40. Aflac had a net margin of 24.17% and a return on equity of 17.86%. The firm had revenue of $4.95 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $4.31 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.23 EPS. The companys revenue for the quarter was up 5.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Aflac Incorporated will post 6.25 EPS for the current fiscal year. Aflac Dividend Announcement The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 1st. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, November 15th will be given a dividend of $0.42 per share. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, November 14th. This represents a $1.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.06%. Aflacs dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 22.13%. 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. Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding AFL? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Aflac Incorporated (NYSE:AFL Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Aflac Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Aflac and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Avalon Trust Co decreased its position in shares of The Southern Company (NYSE:SO Free Report) by 36.0% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,100 shares of the utilities providers stock after selling 620 shares during the quarter. Avalon Trust Cos holdings in Southern were worth $77,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Several other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its holdings in Southern by 2.1% during the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 61,472,651 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $4,277,269,000 after buying an additional 1,283,943 shares during the period. FMR LLC lifted its holdings in Southern by 9.1% during the 1st quarter. FMR LLC now owns 34,719,486 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $2,415,782,000 after buying an additional 2,906,914 shares during the period. Franklin Resources Inc. lifted its holdings in Southern by 2.3% during the 1st quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 15,428,181 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $1,073,493,000 after buying an additional 349,353 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley lifted its holdings in Southern by 2.9% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 9,190,526 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $656,296,000 after buying an additional 255,838 shares during the period. Finally, Federated Hermes Inc. lifted its holdings in Southern by 34.9% during the 1st quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 7,613,826 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $529,770,000 after buying an additional 1,969,743 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 62.85% of the companys stock. Get Southern alerts: Insiders Place Their Bets In other Southern news, EVP Martin Bernard Davis sold 1,490 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $67.05, for a total transaction of $99,904.50. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 72,756 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $4,878,289.80. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other news, EVP Christopher Cummiskey sold 5,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $68.30, for a total value of $341,500.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 22,512 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,537,569.60. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, EVP Martin Bernard Davis sold 1,490 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $67.05, for a total value of $99,904.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 72,756 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,878,289.80. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 16,490 shares of company stock valued at $1,110,555. Corporate insiders own 0.28% of the companys stock. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades SO has been the topic of several recent research reports. StockNews.com raised Southern from a sell rating to a hold rating in a report on Friday, November 3rd. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their price objective on Southern from $75.00 to $74.00 in a research report on Friday, August 4th. Bank of America raised Southern from an underperform rating to a neutral rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $67.00 to $68.00 in a research report on Wednesday, September 13th. Barclays lowered their price objective on Southern from $68.00 to $64.00 in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lowered their price objective on Southern from $69.00 to $66.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, October 25th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating, four have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $73.00. Read Our Latest Research Report on Southern Southern Stock Performance Shares of Southern stock opened at $68.10 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.59, a current ratio of 0.84 and a quick ratio of 0.63. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $67.43 and a 200 day simple moving average of $69.55. The firm has a market capitalization of $74.27 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.58, a PEG ratio of 4.71 and a beta of 0.55. The Southern Company has a one year low of $58.85 and a one year high of $75.80. Southern Announces Dividend The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, December 6th. Shareholders of record on Monday, November 20th will be issued a dividend of $0.70 per share. This represents a $2.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.11%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, November 17th. Southerns dividend payout ratio is currently 101.08%. Southern Company Profile (Free Report) The Southern Company, through its subsidiaries, engages in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity. It operates through three segments: Gas Distribution Operations, Gas Pipeline Investments, and Gas Marketing Services. The company also develops, constructs, acquires, owns, and manages power generation assets, including renewable energy projects and sells electricity in the wholesale market; and distributes natural gas in Illinois, Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee, as well as provides gas marketing services, gas distribution operations, and gas pipeline investments operations. Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding SO? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for The Southern Company (NYSE:SO Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Southern Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Southern and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. River Wealth Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX Free Report) by 11.1% in the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 41,529 shares of the natural resource companys stock after buying an additional 4,139 shares during the period. River Wealth Advisors LLCs holdings in Freeport-McMoRan were worth $1,661,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the stock. Mn Services Vermogensbeheer B.V. purchased a new position in shares of Freeport-McMoRan during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $27,260,000. Mitsubishi UFJ Kokusai Asset Management Co. Ltd. raised its position in Freeport-McMoRan by 7.0% during the second quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Kokusai Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 1,233,116 shares of the natural resource companys stock worth $49,325,000 after acquiring an additional 80,147 shares during the period. Soltis Investment Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Freeport-McMoRan by 6.4% during the second quarter. Soltis Investment Advisors LLC now owns 8,817 shares of the natural resource companys stock valued at $353,000 after purchasing an additional 532 shares in the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC grew its position in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 1.7% in the second quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 54,842,377 shares of the natural resource companys stock valued at $2,193,695,000 after purchasing an additional 895,617 shares during the period. Finally, Sheaff Brock Investment Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 2.2% during the second quarter. Sheaff Brock Investment Advisors LLC now owns 11,861 shares of the natural resource companys stock worth $474,000 after purchasing an additional 255 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 77.96% of the companys stock. Get Freeport-McMoRan alerts: Freeport-McMoRan Trading Up 1.3 % Shares of Freeport-McMoRan stock opened at $33.68 on Friday. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $36.62 and a 200 day moving average of $38.14. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35, a quick ratio of 1.67 and a current ratio of 2.90. The firm has a market capitalization of $48.30 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.76 and a beta of 2.06. Freeport-McMoRan Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $32.83 and a fifty-two week high of $46.73. Freeport-McMoRan Announces Dividend Freeport-McMoRan ( NYSE:FCX Get Free Report ) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 19th. The natural resource company reported $0.39 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.34 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $5.82 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $5.43 billion. Freeport-McMoRan had a return on equity of 9.98% and a net margin of 9.50%. The companys revenue was up 16.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.26 EPS. As a group, research analysts predict that Freeport-McMoRan Inc. will post 1.52 earnings per share for the current year. The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, November 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 13th were given a dividend of $0.15 per share. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.78%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 12th. Freeport-McMoRans dividend payout ratio is presently 20.27%. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth A number of research analysts recently weighed in on FCX shares. Scotiabank decreased their price target on shares of Freeport-McMoRan from $49.00 to $48.00 in a research note on Tuesday, July 25th. Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on Freeport-McMoRan from $44.00 to $41.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, October 20th. StockNews.com cut Freeport-McMoRan from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 24th. BMO Capital Markets decreased their price objective on Freeport-McMoRan from $47.00 to $45.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a report on Friday, October 20th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. started coverage on shares of Freeport-McMoRan in a report on Tuesday, October 17th. They set a neutral rating and a $42.00 target price for the company. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $42.50. Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on Freeport-McMoRan About Freeport-McMoRan (Free Report) Freeport-McMoRan Inc engages in the mining of mineral properties in North America, South America, and Indonesia. It primarily explores for copper, gold, molybdenum, silver, and other metals, as well as oil and gas. The company's assets include the Grasberg minerals district in Indonesia; Morenci, Bagdad, Safford, Sierrita, and Miami in Arizona; Tyrone and Chino in New Mexico; and Henderson and Climax in Colorado, North America, as well as Cerro Verde in Peru and El Abra in Chile. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Freeport-McMoRan Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Freeport-McMoRan and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. River Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of FedEx Co. (NYSE:FDX Free Report) by 9.5% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 7,579 shares of the shipping service providers stock after purchasing an additional 658 shares during the period. River Wealth Advisors LLCs holdings in FedEx were worth $1,879,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Several other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Archer Investment Corp raised its position in FedEx by 0.7% during the 2nd quarter. Archer Investment Corp now owns 5,417 shares of the shipping service providers stock worth $1,343,000 after buying an additional 38 shares during the last quarter. Cascade Investment Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in shares of FedEx by 0.6% during the second quarter. Cascade Investment Advisors Inc. now owns 6,904 shares of the shipping service providers stock worth $1,712,000 after purchasing an additional 40 shares during the last quarter. Massachusetts Wealth Management lifted its position in FedEx by 2.9% during the second quarter. Massachusetts Wealth Management now owns 1,405 shares of the shipping service providers stock valued at $348,000 after purchasing an additional 40 shares during the period. Zullo Investment Group Inc. boosted its holdings in FedEx by 0.8% in the second quarter. Zullo Investment Group Inc. now owns 5,497 shares of the shipping service providers stock valued at $1,363,000 after purchasing an additional 41 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Salem Investment Counselors Inc. grew its position in FedEx by 0.3% during the 4th quarter. Salem Investment Counselors Inc. now owns 16,651 shares of the shipping service providers stock worth $2,903,000 after purchasing an additional 47 shares during the period. 73.61% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get FedEx alerts: Insider Buying and Selling at FedEx In other news, VP Jennifer L. Johnson sold 13,348 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Friday, October 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $258.25, for a total transaction of $3,447,121.00. Following the transaction, the vice president now owns 3,428 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $885,281. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. 8.73% of the stock is owned by company insiders. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on the company. BMO Capital Markets upped their target price on FedEx from $280.00 to $290.00 and gave the stock a market perform rating in a research note on Friday, September 22nd. Stifel Nicolaus upped their price objective on FedEx from $284.00 to $285.00 in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on shares of FedEx from $270.00 to $280.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a report on Thursday, September 21st. Citigroup increased their price target on shares of FedEx from $295.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Thursday, September 21st. Finally, Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of FedEx from $280.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Friday, September 15th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, sixteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, FedEx has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $282.54. View Our Latest Analysis on FDX FedEx Price Performance FedEx stock opened at $246.03 on Friday. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $250.89 and a 200-day simple moving average of $246.52. The firm has a market capitalization of $61.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.00, a PEG ratio of 1.13 and a beta of 1.34. The company has a quick ratio of 1.32, a current ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.76. FedEx Co. has a 52-week low of $162.61 and a 52-week high of $270.95. FedEx (NYSE:FDX Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, September 20th. The shipping service provider reported $4.55 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.71 by $0.84. FedEx had a net margin of 4.71% and a return on equity of 16.14%. The company had revenue of $21.68 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $21.74 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $3.44 EPS. FedExs revenue was down 6.5% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts anticipate that FedEx Co. will post 18.14 EPS for the current fiscal year. FedEx Dividend Announcement The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, October 2nd. Shareholders of record on Monday, September 11th were paid a dividend of $1.26 per share. This represents a $5.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.05%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, September 8th. FedExs dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 30.73%. FedEx Company Profile (Free Report) FedEx Corporation provides transportation, e-commerce, and business services in the United States and internationally. It operates through FedEx Express, FedEx Ground, FedEx Freight, and FedEx Services segments. The FedEx Express segment offers express transportation, small-package ground delivery, and freight transportation services; and time-critical transportation services. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding FDX? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for FedEx Co. (NYSE:FDX Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for FedEx Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for FedEx and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. A public row between Beijing and Seoul over the decades-old issue of China's reported repatriation of North Korean defectors could create hurdles for Beijing's ties with Seoul and could further deepen uncertainties in restoring high-level talks between the two countries, analysts have said. They added that Seoul's different approach over the defectors issue may be a result of President Yoon Suk-yeol's stronger emphasis on human rights in North Korea. But any substantial agreement remains unlikely given the deep divide between the positions of Beijing and Seoul. Last month, a number of human rights groups and media in South Korea said several hundred North Koreans in China had been sent back to North Korea - reports that South Korea's Ministry of Unification said appeared to be true. 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. Since then, various government officials in Seoul have repeatedly stressed the need for Beijing to protect the human rights of those people. On Monday, South Korean Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho called on China to allow North Korean defectors to choose the country they wish to travel to, and to protect their human rights, during an event co-hosted by the ministry and Washington-based think tank Centre for Strategic and International Studies. "I strongly urge the Chinese government for its coordination so that North Korean defectors in China can be protected of their human rights based on the international norm and be able to travel to the country that they desire," Kim said in remarks read out by an aide during the keynote speech of the event. South Korean Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho has called on China to allow North Korean defectors to travel to whatever country they wish to. Photo: NurPhoto via Getty Images alt=South Korean Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho has called on China to allow North Korean defectors to travel to whatever country they wish to. Photo: NurPhoto via Getty Images> Story continues South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin also said after a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday that Seoul and Washington were "deeply concerned" about the forced repatriation of the North Korean defectors and pledged to strengthen international cooperation in a bid to improve human rights in North Korea. Elizabeth Salmon, UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea, estimated in an October report that more than 2,000 people from North Korea, around 70 per cent of whom were women, were being detained in China as illegal immigrants. The Ministry of Unification said it could not confirm the exact number of deported North Koreans, but forced repatriation against free will was a breach of the international norm, and it had "sternly raised" the issue with China. The Chinese foreign ministry, however, rejected Seoul's accusation of forced repatriation of North Korean civilians, stressing that Beijing had always handled the issue according to law and there were no "so-called defectors". Kang Jun-young, professor of Chinese studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, said that while the North Korean defector issue went back 30 years, the Yoon Suk-yeol administration had emphasised it in its approach to China since taking office in 2022, a move that could become a major sticking point in future China-South Korea talks. He added the defector issue was difficult to resolve because of the difference between the two countries' positions: while South Korea demands that North Korean defectors be recognised as refugees, China claims that they are illegal immigrants. "South Korea's position is that China is a signatory to the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and United Nations Convention against Torture, so at least refugee status screening should be conducted first," Kang said. It is estimated that around 2,000 people from North Korea are being detained as illegal immigrants in China. Pictured are some North Korean refugees helped by a human rights group in 2019. Photo: Reuters alt=It is estimated that around 2,000 people from North Korea are being detained as illegal immigrants in China. Pictured are some North Korean refugees helped by a human rights group in 2019. Photo: Reuters> The row comes as Beijing seeks high-level talks with Seoul. During a meeting on the sidelines of the Asian Games in Hangzhou last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping told South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo that he would "seriously" consider visiting the country for the first time since 2014, according to a Korean statement. Ramon Pacheco Pardo, an international relations professor specialising in North Korea at King's College London, said Seoul could be focusing more on North Korean human rights in its relations with Beijing because it was not a priority for the administration of Yoon's predecessor, Moon Jae-in. "From the perception of the current government, the previous government focused too much on the engagement component of the policy. I think that drives the [current administration's] focus on human rights and the perception that this is the right thing to do," Pacheco Pardo said. "I think it also has to do with this idea that the government says that global politics should involve values as part of the policy, in general, not only when it comes to North Korea, but also when it comes to China." Pacheco Pardo said that while the forced repatriation issue would not be the core problem in the ties between Seoul and Beijing, it would add another layer of uncertainty and disagreement between the two countries that could prevent better bilateral relations. "I think that's something that we have to consider that adds to the many issues on which the two countries have disagreements, [such as] the South China Sea and the East China Sea," he said. "This prevents better cooperation and better relations between the two of them. So the issues on which both countries have problems keep piling up." Park Won-gon, a professor of North Korean studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said he believed the number of North Korean detainees had been increasing due to the border lockdown, and Beijing could be sending then back now to try to improve ties with Pyongyang. "What is important here is whether or not the repatriation will continue to occur in the future. The Chinese government has been actively adjusting the repatriation depending on the political situation," Park said. "Political considerations mean that the Chinese government is considerate of North Korea. Because it is Pyongyang that always wants North Korean defectors back, it can be seen as meeting the North Korean government's request and need." 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. Institutional & Family Asset Management LLC raised its stake in NextEra Energy, Inc. (NYSE:NEE Free Report) by 0.8% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 59,439 shares of the utilities providers stock after purchasing an additional 458 shares during the quarter. Institutional & Family Asset Management LLCs holdings in NextEra Energy were worth $4,410,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Sageworth Trust Co increased its position in shares of NextEra Energy by 1,794.1% during the first quarter. Sageworth Trust Co now owns 322 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $25,000 after acquiring an additional 305 shares during the last quarter. Alaska Permanent Fund Corp purchased a new stake in shares of NextEra Energy during the second quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Your Advocates Ltd. LLP purchased a new stake in shares of NextEra Energy during the first quarter valued at approximately $31,000. Magellan Asset Management Ltd purchased a new stake in shares of NextEra Energy during the first quarter valued at approximately $32,000. Finally, Tower View Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of NextEra Energy during the second quarter valued at approximately $35,000. 76.48% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get NextEra Energy alerts: Insider Buying and Selling In other NextEra Energy news, Director Kirk S. Hachigian bought 10,000 shares of NextEra Energy stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 17th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $67.95 per share, for a total transaction of $679,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 15,000 shares in the company, valued at $1,019,250. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In other NextEra Energy news, major shareholder Nextera Energy Inc bought 3,097,524 shares of NextEra Energy stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, October 6th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of $24.21 per share, for a total transaction of $74,991,056.04. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 4,097,524 shares in the company, valued at $99,201,056.04. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director Kirk S. Hachigian bought 10,000 shares of NextEra Energy stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 17th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $67.95 per share, with a total value of $679,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 15,000 shares of the companys stock, valued at $1,019,250. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Insiders acquired a total of 3,111,524 shares of company stock worth $75,941,956 over the last ninety days. 0.38% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders. NextEra Energy Price Performance NextEra Energy stock opened at $55.14 on Friday. NextEra Energy, Inc. has a one year low of $47.15 and a one year high of $88.61. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $59.14 and a 200-day moving average price of $68.05. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.05, a current ratio of 0.50 and a quick ratio of 0.43. The firm has a market capitalization of $113.13 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.59, a PEG ratio of 2.16 and a beta of 0.54. NextEra Energy (NYSE:NEE Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 24th. The utilities provider reported $0.94 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.86 by $0.08. NextEra Energy had a return on equity of 12.15% and a net margin of 27.82%. The firm had revenue of $7.17 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $7.07 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.85 earnings per share. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 6.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that NextEra Energy, Inc. will post 3.12 EPS for the current year. NextEra Energy Announces Dividend The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 15th. Investors of record on Friday, November 24th will be given a dividend of $0.4675 per share. This represents a $1.87 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.39%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, November 22nd. NextEra Energys payout ratio is 49.47%. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth A number of research firms have issued reports on NEE. Guggenheim decreased their target price on NextEra Energy from $73.00 to $65.00 in a research report on Monday, October 9th. The Goldman Sachs Group decreased their target price on NextEra Energy from $83.00 to $72.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Monday, October 2nd. Bank of America decreased their target price on NextEra Energy from $76.00 to $53.00 in a research report on Wednesday, October 4th. TheStreet downgraded NextEra Energy from a b- rating to a c+ rating in a research report on Monday, October 2nd. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada decreased their target price on NextEra Energy from $90.00 to $89.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, September 6th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and eleven have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $74.31. Check Out Our Latest Analysis on NEE NextEra Energy Company Profile (Free Report) NextEra Energy, Inc, through its subsidiaries, generates, transmits, distributes, and sells electric power to retail and wholesale customers in North America. The company generates electricity through wind, solar, nuclear, coal, and natural gas facilities. It also develops, constructs, and operates long-term contracted assets that consists of clean energy solutions, such as renewable generation facilities, battery storage projects, and electric transmission facilities; sells energy commodities; and owns, develops, constructs, manages and operates electric generation facilities in wholesale energy markets. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for NextEra Energy Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for NextEra Energy and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Banque Cantonale Vaudoise decreased its position in Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE:PM Free Report) by 1.9% during the second quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 1,063,597 shares of the companys stock after selling 20,955 shares during the quarter. Philip Morris International makes up approximately 4.8% of Banque Cantonale Vaudoises holdings, making the stock its 2nd largest holding. Banque Cantonale Vaudoises holdings in Philip Morris International were worth $103,828,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Fairfield Bush & CO. boosted its position in shares of Philip Morris International by 1.1% during the first quarter. Fairfield Bush & CO. now owns 26,141 shares of the companys stock valued at $2,456,000 after buying an additional 281 shares during the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Philip Morris International by 35.6% during the 1st quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 4,939 shares of the companys stock valued at $463,000 after acquiring an additional 1,296 shares during the last quarter. Loomis Sayles & Co. L P grew its stake in shares of Philip Morris International by 24.7% in the first quarter. Loomis Sayles & Co. L P now owns 3,065 shares of the companys stock worth $288,000 after acquiring an additional 608 shares during the period. Covestor Ltd raised its holdings in shares of Philip Morris International by 54.9% during the first quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 525 shares of the companys stock valued at $49,000 after purchasing an additional 186 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Mather Group LLC. raised its holdings in shares of Philip Morris International by 14.7% during the first quarter. Mather Group LLC. now owns 8,987 shares of the companys stock valued at $844,000 after purchasing an additional 1,154 shares during the last quarter. 79.70% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Philip Morris International alerts: Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of research firms have commented on PM. UBS Group cut their target price on shares of Philip Morris International from $116.00 to $112.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. Bank of America cut their price objective on Philip Morris International from $118.00 to $111.00 in a report on Friday, September 29th. Stifel Nicolaus reissued a buy rating and issued a $114.00 target price on shares of Philip Morris International in a report on Monday, October 2nd. Barclays dropped their target price on Philip Morris International from $115.00 to $110.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, September 21st. Finally, StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of Philip Morris International in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating for the company. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has issued a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Philip Morris International presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $110.73. Philip Morris International Stock Down 0.1 % NYSE:PM opened at $89.70 on Friday. The businesss 50-day simple moving average is $92.51 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $94.54. Philip Morris International Inc. has a 52 week low of $87.23 and a 52 week high of $105.62. The stock has a market cap of $139.25 billion, a PE ratio of 17.42, a P/E/G ratio of 2.12 and a beta of 0.77. Philip Morris International (NYSE:PM Get Free Report) last issued its 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 negative return on equity of 129.48% and a net margin of 9.62%. The company had revenue of $9.14 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.21 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $1.53 EPS. The firms quarterly revenue was up 13.8% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Philip Morris International Inc. will post 6.18 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Philip Morris International Increases Dividend The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, October 12th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, September 27th were issued a $1.30 dividend. This represents a $5.20 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 5.80%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, September 26th. This is an increase from Philip Morris Internationals previous quarterly dividend of $1.27. Philip Morris Internationals payout ratio is 100.97%. 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. Read More 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). Receive News & Ratings for Philip Morris International Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Philip Morris International and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Mn Services Vermogensbeheer B.V. lowered its position in shares of The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE:EL Free Report) by 4.6% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 110,278 shares of the companys stock after selling 5,300 shares during the period. Mn Services Vermogensbeheer B.V.s holdings in Estee Lauder Companies were worth $21,656,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Schechter Investment Advisors LLC grew its holdings in Estee Lauder Companies by 1.2% during the 1st quarter. Schechter Investment Advisors LLC now owns 3,500 shares of the companys stock valued at $863,000 after purchasing an additional 41 shares during the last quarter. Money Concepts Capital Corp grew its stake in Estee Lauder Companies by 32.3% in the 4th quarter. Money Concepts Capital Corp now owns 209 shares of the companys stock worth $52,000 after acquiring an additional 51 shares in the last quarter. Fiduciary Trust Co. grew its stake in Estee Lauder Companies by 0.7% in the 1st quarter. Fiduciary Trust Co. now owns 7,068 shares of the companys stock worth $1,742,000 after acquiring an additional 52 shares in the last quarter. Intrust Bank NA grew its stake in Estee Lauder Companies by 1.1% in the 1st quarter. Intrust Bank NA now owns 4,974 shares of the companys stock worth $1,226,000 after acquiring an additional 53 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Navalign LLC grew its stake in Estee Lauder Companies by 2.0% in the 2nd quarter. Navalign LLC now owns 2,972 shares of the companys stock worth $584,000 after acquiring an additional 57 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 55.15% of the companys stock. Get Estee Lauder Companies alerts: Estee Lauder Companies Stock Down 0.5 % NYSE:EL opened at $114.75 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $41.06 billion, a P/E ratio of 75.49, a PEG ratio of 3.22 and a beta of 1.08. The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. has a 1-year low of $102.22 and a 1-year high of $283.62. The companys fifty day moving average price is $139.18 and its 200-day moving average price is $170.40. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.33, a current ratio of 1.45 and a quick ratio of 0.97. Estee Lauder Companies Dividend Announcement Estee Lauder Companies ( NYSE:EL Get Free Report ) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, November 1st. The company reported $0.11 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of ($0.22) by $0.33. The firm had revenue of $3.52 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.53 billion. Estee Lauder Companies had a net margin of 3.54% and a return on equity of 13.93%. The businesss quarterly revenue was down 10.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.37 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. will post 2.3 EPS for the current year. The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, November 30th will be given a dividend of $0.66 per share. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, November 29th. This represents a $2.64 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.30%. Estee Lauder Companiess dividend payout ratio is presently 173.69%. Insider Activity at Estee Lauder Companies In related news, EVP Jane Lauder sold 12,661 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $152.75, for a total transaction of $1,933,967.75. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 55,800 shares in the company, valued at $8,523,450. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. In other news, Director Charlene Barshefsky sold 1,796 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $151.93, for a total value of $272,866.28. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 48,845 shares of the companys stock, valued at $7,421,020.85. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, EVP Jane Lauder sold 12,661 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $152.75, for a total transaction of $1,933,967.75. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 55,800 shares in the company, valued at $8,523,450. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 12.77% of the stock is owned by company insiders. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of equities analysts have commented on the stock. StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of Estee Lauder Companies in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a sell rating on the stock. Raymond James dropped their target price on shares of Estee Lauder Companies from $195.00 to $180.00 and set a strong-buy rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, October 23rd. Bank of America dropped their target price on shares of Estee Lauder Companies from $175.00 to $148.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, October 17th. Piper Sandler lowered their price target on shares of Estee Lauder Companies from $164.00 to $155.00 in a research report on Tuesday, October 10th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price target on shares of Estee Lauder Companies from $173.00 to $118.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, November 2nd. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, fifteen have issued a hold rating, eleven have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $178.48. Read Our Latest Research Report on EL About Estee Lauder Companies (Free Report) The Estee Lauder Companies Inc manufactures, markets, and sells skin care, makeup, fragrance, and hair care products worldwide. It offers skin care products, including moisturizers, serums, cleansers, toners, body care, exfoliators, acne care and oil correctors, facial masks, and sun care products; and makeup products, such as lipsticks, lip glosses, mascaras, foundations, eyeshadows, nail polishes, and powders, as well as compacts, brushes, and other makeup tools. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding EL? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE:EL Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Estee Lauder Companies Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Estee Lauder Companies and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Rock Creek Group LP raised its position in Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA Free Report) by 5.7% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 1,224 shares of the credit services providers stock after purchasing an additional 66 shares during the period. Rock Creek Group LPs holdings in Mastercard were worth $481,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC. Several other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of MA. California Public Employees Retirement System boosted its holdings in Mastercard by 10.5% during the second quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System now owns 1,863,446 shares of the credit services providers stock worth $732,893,000 after purchasing an additional 176,845 shares during the last quarter. Financial Gravity Asset Management Inc. boosted its holdings in Mastercard by 8.3% during the second quarter. Financial Gravity Asset Management Inc. now owns 393 shares of the credit services providers stock worth $34,133,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares during the last quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Kokusai Asset Management Co. Ltd. boosted its holdings in Mastercard by 7.7% during the second quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Kokusai Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 723,710 shares of the credit services providers stock worth $284,635,000 after purchasing an additional 51,585 shares during the last quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Mastercard by 8.2% during the second quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. now owns 595 shares of the credit services providers stock worth $231,000 after purchasing an additional 45 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Soltis Investment Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Mastercard by 748.8% during the second quarter. Soltis Investment Advisors LLC now owns 8,115 shares of the credit services providers stock worth $3,191,000 after purchasing an additional 7,159 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 74.94% of the companys stock. Get Mastercard alerts: Mastercard Stock Performance NYSE MA opened at $394.38 on Friday. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $396.88 and a 200-day moving average of $390.77. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.24, a quick ratio of 1.17 and a current ratio of 1.17. The stock has a market cap of $369.84 billion, a PE ratio of 34.35, a P/E/G ratio of 1.78 and a beta of 1.08. Mastercard Incorporated has a 52-week low of $336.02 and a 52-week high of $418.60. Mastercard Announces Dividend Mastercard ( NYSE:MA Get Free Report ) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 26th. The credit services provider reported $3.39 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $3.21 by $0.18. Mastercard had a net margin of 44.85% and a return on equity of 188.83%. The business had revenue of $6.53 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $6.53 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $2.68 earnings per share. Mastercards revenue for the quarter was up 13.5% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Mastercard Incorporated will post 12.16 EPS for the current year. The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, November 9th. Investors of record on Monday, October 9th were given a dividend of $0.57 per share. This represents a $2.28 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.58%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 5th. Mastercards dividend payout ratio is 19.86%. Insider Buying and Selling In other Mastercard news, Director Richard K. Davis purchased 1,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, November 9th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $390.96 per share, with a total value of $390,960.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 9,743 shares in the company, valued at $3,809,123.28. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other news, Director Richard K. Davis bought 1,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Thursday, November 9th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $390.96 per share, with a total value of $390,960.00. Following the acquisition, the director now directly owns 9,743 shares in the company, valued at $3,809,123.28. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, insider Hai Ling sold 3,324 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $415.00, for a total transaction of $1,379,460.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 17,577 shares in the company, valued at $7,294,455. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 659,240 shares of company stock valued at $256,112,223. 0.13% of the stock is owned by company insiders. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In Several research analysts recently commented on the stock. Credit Suisse Group increased their target price on shares of Mastercard from $400.00 to $430.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Friday, July 28th. BMO Capital Markets reduced their target price on shares of Mastercard from $488.00 to $472.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a report on Friday, October 27th. KeyCorp cut their price target on shares of Mastercard from $440.00 to $430.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research note on Friday, October 27th. Seaport Res Ptn reiterated a buy rating on shares of Mastercard in a research note on Thursday, October 12th. Finally, Raymond James cut their price target on shares of Mastercard from $453.00 to $452.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research note on Friday, October 27th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nineteen have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $450.09. Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on MA About Mastercard (Free Report) Mastercard Incorporated, a technology company, provides transaction processing and other payment-related products and services in the United States and internationally. It facilitates the processing of payment transactions, including authorization, clearing, and settlement, as well as delivers other payment-related products and services. See Also Want to see what other hedge funds are holding MA? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Mastercard Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Mastercard and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Banque Cantonale Vaudoise lifted its holdings in Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY Free Report) by 9.3% in the second quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 126,479 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock after buying an additional 10,784 shares during the quarter. Banque Cantonale Vaudoises holdings in Bristol-Myers Squibb were worth $8,089,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich raised its holdings in Bristol-Myers Squibb by 86,002.1% during the 2nd quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich now owns 659,143,253 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock worth $42,152,211,000 after purchasing an additional 658,377,716 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. grew its position in shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb by 1.7% in the 1st quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 175,584,734 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock valued at $12,169,778,000 after purchasing an additional 2,856,746 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. boosted its position in Bristol-Myers Squibb by 10.3% during the 1st quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 26,084,266 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock worth $1,807,487,000 after acquiring an additional 2,439,814 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Bristol-Myers Squibb during the 4th quarter worth approximately $1,873,696,000. Finally, Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC boosted its position in Bristol-Myers Squibb by 114,228.7% during the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 21,469,785 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock worth $1,544,751,000 after acquiring an additional 21,451,006 shares during the last quarter. 74.98% of the stock is owned by institutional investors. Get Bristol-Myers Squibb alerts: Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of equities analysts have weighed in on BMY shares. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price target on Bristol-Myers Squibb from $78.00 to $65.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research report on Friday, July 28th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft started coverage on Bristol-Myers Squibb in a research report on Thursday. They set a hold rating and a $55.00 price target for the company. TD Cowen reduced their price target on 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. StockNews.com raised Bristol-Myers Squibb from a buy rating to a strong-buy rating in a research report on Friday, October 27th. Finally, Truist Financial reiterated a buy rating and set a $84.00 price objective on shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb in a research note on Friday, October 6th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, thirteen have assigned a hold rating, five have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $64.76. Insiders Place Their Bets In other Bristol-Myers Squibb news, EVP Ann Powell sold 17,986 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 24th. The stock was 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 owns 27,868 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,706,915. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Company insiders own 0.09% of the companys stock. Bristol-Myers Squibb Stock Up 0.4 % BMY opened at $50.61 on Friday. Bristol-Myers Squibb has a 1-year low of $49.49 and a 1-year high of $81.43. The stocks fifty day simple moving average is $56.58 and its 200 day simple moving average is $61.49. The company has a current ratio of 1.18, a quick ratio of 1.07 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.11. The stock has a market cap of $102.98 billion, a PE ratio of 12.85, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.59 and a beta of 0.38. Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 26th. The biopharmaceutical company reported $2.00 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.76 by $0.24. The business had revenue of $10.97 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $10.96 billion. Bristol-Myers Squibb had a return on equity of 51.59% and a net margin of 18.44%. The firms revenue for the quarter was down 2.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.99 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Bristol-Myers Squibb will post 7.56 earnings per share for the current year. Bristol-Myers Squibb Announces Dividend The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, November 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 6th were given a dividend of $0.57 per share. This represents a $2.28 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.51%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, October 5th. Bristol-Myers Squibbs payout ratio is 57.87%. Bristol-Myers Squibb Company Profile (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. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding BMY? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Bristol-Myers Squibb Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Bristol-Myers Squibb and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. California Public Employees Retirement System lowered its position in Bank of America Co. (NYSE:BAC) by 5.2% in the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 16,595,721 shares of the financial services providers stock after selling 905,930 shares during the quarter. California Public Employees Retirement Systems holdings in Bank of America were worth $476,131,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in BAC. FNY Investment Advisers LLC increased its position in Bank of America by 75.9% during the 2nd quarter. FNY Investment Advisers LLC now owns 920 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $26,000 after buying an additional 397 shares in the last quarter. Marquette Asset Management LLC increased its position in Bank of America by 333.2% during the 2nd quarter. Marquette Asset Management LLC now owns 953 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $27,000 after buying an additional 733 shares in the last quarter. Castleview Partners LLC bought a new position in Bank of America during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Global Trust Asset Management LLC increased its position in Bank of America by 45.7% during the 2nd quarter. Global Trust Asset Management LLC now owns 1,036 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $30,000 after buying an additional 325 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Live Oak Investment Partners bought a new position in Bank of America during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $39,000. Institutional investors own 68.06% of the companys stock. Get Bank of America alerts: Analyst Ratings Changes A number of research analysts recently weighed in on the company. Piper Sandler reduced their price objective 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. Oppenheimer raised their price objective on Bank of America from $48.00 to $49.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 18th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded Bank of America from an underperform rating to a market perform rating and increased their target price for the company from $29.00 to $30.00 in a research note on Monday, November 6th. Evercore ISI cut their target price on Bank of America from $35.00 to $33.00 in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company cut their target price on 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. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have issued a hold rating and nine have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $35.43. Bank of America Stock Performance BAC stock opened at $27.68 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $219.05 billion, a P/E ratio of 7.75, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.14 and a beta of 1.38. Bank of America Co. has a 1 year low of $24.96 and a 1 year high of $38.60. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.12, a current ratio of 0.83 and a quick ratio of 0.82. The stocks fifty day moving average price is $27.35 and its 200-day moving average price is $28.57. Bank of America (NYSE:BAC Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, October 17th. The financial services provider reported $0.90 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.83 by $0.07. The company had revenue of $25.20 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $25.13 billion. Bank of America had a return on equity of 12.08% and a net margin of 18.69%. Bank of Americas quarterly revenue was up 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.81 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts forecast that Bank of America Co. will post 3.46 earnings per share for the current year. Bank of America Announces Dividend The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 29th. Investors of record on Friday, December 1st will be given a dividend of $0.24 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 30th. This represents a $0.96 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.47%. Bank of Americas dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 26.89%. Bank of America Company 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. Read More 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). Receive News & Ratings for Bank of America Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Bank of America and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Swiss National Bank lowered its stake in shares of Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK Free Report) by 8.9% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 9,165,251 shares of the companys stock after selling 896,700 shares during the period. Merck & Co., Inc. accounts for about 0.7% of Swiss National Banks investment portfolio, making the stock its 19th biggest holding. Swiss National Bank owned approximately 0.36% of Merck & Co., Inc. worth $1,057,578,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. Other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Marquette Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Merck & Co., Inc. during the second quarter worth $26,000. Your Advocates Ltd. LLP acquired a new position in shares of Merck & Co., Inc. in the 2nd quarter valued at $28,000. Financial Gravity Asset Management Inc. increased its position in shares of Merck & Co., Inc. by 163.1% in the 1st quarter. Financial Gravity Asset Management Inc. now owns 292 shares of the companys stock valued at $2,718,000 after acquiring an additional 181 shares during the period. Level Financial Advisors Inc. increased its position in shares of Merck & Co., Inc. by 45.5% in the 2nd quarter. Level Financial Advisors Inc. now owns 320 shares of the companys stock valued at $37,000 after acquiring an additional 100 shares during the period. Finally, Activest Wealth Management acquired a new position in shares of Merck & Co., Inc. in the 2nd quarter valued at $40,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 74.59% of the companys stock. Get Merck & Co. Inc. alerts: Merck & Co., Inc. Stock Down 1.0 % Shares of MRK opened at $101.39 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.82, a quick ratio of 1.03 and a current ratio of 1.38. Merck & Co., Inc. has a one year low of $96.36 and a one year high of $119.65. The stock has a market capitalization of $256.92 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 56.33, a PEG ratio of 8.45 and a beta of 0.37. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $104.72 and a 200 day moving average price of $108.76. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth Merck & Co., Inc. ( NYSE:MRK Get Free Report ) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, October 26th. The company reported $2.13 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.94 by $0.19. The company had revenue of $16 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $15.30 billion. Merck & Co., Inc. had a return on equity of 18.26% and a net margin of 7.77%. The firms revenue for the quarter was up 7.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.85 earnings per share. Equities research analysts forecast that Merck & Co., Inc. will post 1.37 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Several research firms recently issued reports on MRK. BMO Capital Markets raised Merck & Co., Inc. from a market perform rating to an outperform rating and set a $132.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Friday, October 27th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft initiated coverage on shares of Merck & Co., Inc. in a report on Thursday. They issued a buy rating and a $115.00 price target on the stock. StockNews.com began coverage on shares of Merck & Co., Inc. in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a buy rating on the stock. TheStreet lowered shares of Merck & Co., Inc. from an a- rating to a c+ rating in a research note on Friday, September 1st. Finally, UBS Group upgraded Merck & Co., Inc. from a neutral rating to a buy rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $117.00 to $122.00 in a research report on Friday, October 20th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seventeen have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Merck & Co., Inc. currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $125.14. Read Our Latest Analysis on MRK Insiders Place Their Bets In other Merck & Co., Inc. news, EVP Richard R. Deluca sold 43,823 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $105.03, for a total transaction of $4,602,729.69. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 111,764 shares of the companys stock, valued at $11,738,572.92. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In other news, EVP Steven Mizell sold 4,250 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Monday, August 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $109.01, for a total value of $463,292.50. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 22,935 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $2,500,144.35. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, EVP Richard R. Deluca sold 43,823 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $105.03, for a total value of $4,602,729.69. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 111,764 shares in the company, valued at approximately $11,738,572.92. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.20% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders. Merck & Co., Inc. Company Profile (Free Report) Merck & Co, Inc operates as a healthcare company worldwide. It operates through two segments, Pharmaceutical and Animal Health. The Pharmaceutical segment offers human health pharmaceutical products in the areas of oncology, hospital acute care, immunology, neuroscience, virology, cardiovascular, and diabetes, as well as vaccine products, such as preventive pediatric, adolescent, and adult vaccines. Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding MRK? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Merck & Co. Inc. Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Merck & Co. Inc. and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Andra AP fonden reduced its stake in shares of Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY Free Report) by 34.3% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 22,200 shares of the companys stock after selling 11,600 shares during the period. Andra AP fondens holdings in Eli Lilly and Company were worth $10,411,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Several other large investors have also bought and sold shares of LLY. Towerpoint Wealth LLC increased its stake in shares of Eli Lilly and Company by 0.5% during the second quarter. Towerpoint Wealth LLC now owns 4,239 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,988,000 after purchasing an additional 22 shares in the last quarter. Pacific Sage Partners LLC increased its stake in shares of Eli Lilly and Company by 1.4% during the second quarter. Pacific Sage Partners LLC now owns 1,591 shares of the companys stock valued at $746,000 after purchasing an additional 22 shares in the last quarter. Lathrop Investment Management Corp increased its stake in shares of Eli Lilly and Company by 1.5% during the second quarter. Lathrop Investment Management Corp now owns 1,458 shares of the companys stock valued at $684,000 after purchasing an additional 22 shares in the last quarter. SP Asset Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Eli Lilly and Company by 1.0% during the second quarter. SP Asset Management LLC now owns 2,390 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,121,000 after purchasing an additional 23 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Oxler Private Wealth LLC increased its stake in shares of Eli Lilly and Company by 0.4% during the first quarter. Oxler Private Wealth LLC now owns 6,050 shares of the companys stock valued at $2,078,000 after purchasing an additional 24 shares in the last quarter. 81.38% of the stock is owned by institutional investors. Get Eli Lilly and Company alerts: Eli Lilly and Company Trading Up 1.1 % Shares of Eli Lilly and Company stock opened at $597.71 on Friday. The companys fifty day simple moving average is $574.81 and its 200-day simple moving average is $502.26. The stock has a market capitalization of $567.41 billion, a PE ratio of 108.28, a P/E/G ratio of 3.74 and a beta of 0.33. Eli Lilly and Company has a 1-year low of $309.20 and a 1-year high of $629.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.59, a current ratio of 1.05 and a quick ratio of 0.82. Eli Lilly and Company Dividend Announcement Insider Transactions at Eli Lilly and Company The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 8th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, November 15th will be paid a dividend of $1.13 per share. This represents a $4.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.76%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, November 14th. Eli Lilly and Companys dividend payout ratio is presently 81.88%. In other news, major shareholder Lilly Endowment Inc sold 164,778 shares of Eli Lilly and Company stock in a transaction on Monday, August 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $539.08, for a total transaction of $88,828,524.24. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 100,449,032 shares in the company, valued at approximately $54,150,064,170.56. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. In related news, CAO Donald A. Zakrowski sold 600 shares of Eli Lilly and Company stock in a transaction on Monday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $546.51, for a total transaction of $327,906.00. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 5,378 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,939,130.78. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, major shareholder Lilly Endowment Inc sold 164,778 shares of Eli Lilly and Company stock in a transaction on Monday, August 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $539.08, for a total transaction of $88,828,524.24. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 100,449,032 shares in the company, valued at approximately $54,150,064,170.56. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 700,916 shares of company stock worth $20,970,455,882 in the last 90 days. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by insiders. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades LLY has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reaffirmed an overweight rating on shares of Eli Lilly and Company in a research note on Wednesday. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on shares of Eli Lilly and Company from $490.00 to $580.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 8th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price target on shares of Eli Lilly and Company from $565.00 to $633.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 9th. Citigroup raised their price target on shares of Eli Lilly and Company from $525.00 to $675.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Monday, October 23rd. Finally, UBS Group reissued a buy rating and set a $710.00 price target (up previously from $612.00) on shares of Eli Lilly and Company in a research report on Friday, October 20th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and twenty have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Eli Lilly and Company has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $557.00. Get Our Latest Report on LLY 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. Recommended Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding LLY? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Eli Lilly and Company Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Eli Lilly and Company and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS lifted its holdings in Chevron Co. (NYSE:CVX Free Report) by 0.8% in the second quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 303,929 shares of the oil and gas companys stock after purchasing an additional 2,353 shares during the period. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYSs holdings in Chevron were worth $47,823,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Several other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the business. Berkeley Capital Partners LLC raised its stake in Chevron by 13.1% during the 2nd quarter. Berkeley Capital Partners LLC now owns 14,333 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $2,255,000 after acquiring an additional 1,661 shares in the last quarter. Loring Wolcott & Coolidge Fiduciary Advisors LLP MA grew its position in Chevron by 13.4% in the 2nd quarter. Loring Wolcott & Coolidge Fiduciary Advisors LLP MA now owns 79,961 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $12,582,000 after buying an additional 9,477 shares during the last quarter. Kooman & Associates lifted its holdings in shares of Chevron by 11.2% in the 2nd quarter. Kooman & Associates now owns 1,568 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $247,000 after buying an additional 158 shares during the period. Reuter James Wealth Management LLC lifted its holdings in Chevron by 30.6% in the second quarter. Reuter James Wealth Management LLC now owns 6,659 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $1,048,000 after acquiring an additional 1,561 shares during the period. Finally, Great Lakes Retirement Inc. boosted its position in shares of Chevron by 0.9% during the 2nd quarter. Great Lakes Retirement Inc. now owns 7,789 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $1,226,000 after purchasing an additional 73 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 68.87% of the companys stock. Get Chevron alerts: Chevron Stock Up 0.7 % Shares of NYSE:CVX opened at $142.95 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12, a quick ratio of 0.97 and a current ratio of 1.25. The company has a market capitalization of $269.85 billion, a PE ratio of 10.61, a P/E/G ratio of 0.76 and a beta of 1.16. Chevron Co. has a 52 week low of $141.73 and a 52 week high of $189.68. The companys fifty day moving average is $160.88 and its 200-day moving average is $158.96. Chevron Dividend Announcement Chevron ( NYSE:CVX Get Free Report ) last released its earnings results on Friday, October 27th. The oil and gas company reported $3.05 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $3.70 by ($0.65). Chevron had a return on equity of 16.15% and a net margin of 12.11%. The firm had revenue of $54.08 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $51.41 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $5.56 EPS. The companys revenue was down 18.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts predict that Chevron Co. will post 13.59 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 11th. Stockholders of record on Friday, November 17th will be given a dividend of $1.51 per share. This represents a $6.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.23%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 16th. Chevrons dividend payout ratio is currently 44.84%. Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on CVX shares. StockNews.com initiated coverage on Chevron in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating on the stock. Raymond James reduced their price objective on Chevron from $200.00 to $175.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, October 30th. Truist Financial dropped their target price on Chevron from $175.00 to $169.00 and set a hold rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, October 24th. UBS Group lifted their target price on Chevron from $209.00 to $210.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 4th. Finally, HSBC upped their price target on shares of Chevron from $180.00 to $184.00 in a report on Wednesday, August 9th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $189.00. View Our Latest Report on CVX 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. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding CVX? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Chevron Co. (NYSE:CVX Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Chevron Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Chevron and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. A Washington watchdog wants to police Big Tech like it it does big banks, meaning greater scrutiny for popular mobile payment systems operated by Apple (AAPL) and Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL). A new rule proposed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would require nonbank financial companies handling more than 5 million transactions per year to follow the same rules as giant lenders already supervised by the CFPB. That means tougher oversight for popular payment apps like Apple Pay and Alphabet's Google Pay that millions of Americans use to move money via their phones. While the CFPB already has the ability to bring enforcement actions against financial arms of tech companies that violate consumer finance laws, this rule would permit the CFPB to examine the companies on a regular basis. The goal, according to the CFPB, is to ensure these firms comply with protections against unfair, deceptive, and abusive practices as well as privacy protections. US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Rohit Chopra. (Leah Millis/REUTERS) (Leah Millis / reuters) The rule "would crack down on one avenue for regulatory arbitrage by ensuring large technology firms and other nonbank payments companies are subjected to appropriate oversight," CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said last Tuesday in a statement. The CFPB proposal sets up another fight with an industry that is already the target of a larger crackdown across Washington. Federal agencies have filed antitrust lawsuits alleging that tech giant Meta (META) and Google are wielding their market power to illegally stomp out competition. In September, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 17 state attorneys general also sued Amazon (AMZN), alleging that its dominant online retail store Amazon.com is illegally monopolizing two markets. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan, who is part of a larger Washington crackdown on Big Tech. (Kevin Wurm/REUTERS) (Kevin Wurm / reuters) 'It's a step in the wrong direction' But banks are cheering this latest move by the CFPB, in a rare instance of agreement with the agency. "By bringing supervisory attention to large non-bank payment firms in line with expectations for banks offering similar products, the CFPB is taking a step in the right direction," Consumer Bankers Association president and CEO Lindsey Johnson said in a statement. Story continues Republicans in Congress came out against the new proposed rule. It's "a step in the wrong direction," said House Financial Services Chair Patrick McHenry, who added the CFPB is stretching its supervisory authority and will end up hurting consumers. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) is not a fan of the new CFPB rule. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (Jonathan Ernst / reuters) "This proposed rule will only entrench the status quo by impeding the adoption and development of innovative products and services." The CFPB has been warning for a while about the rising power of Apple and Google in the payments industry. In September it released a report that found the companies were acting as "choke points" to the US payment system, cutting off innovation by keeping other apps out. Chopra told Yahoo Finance last month that he believes the US payment system is careening toward a Chinese-style system where Big Tech companies are blurring traditional lines as they move into finance threatening the separation between banking, money, and payments as well as the real economy. He says regulators need to make sure the consumer payment firms are not trafficking fraud and find ways to restrict how some of the payments firms can harvest and monetize Americans personal data. The CFPB's new rule is open for comment until Jan. 8. "We view this week as the start of what is likely to be a long process to figure out how to address the growing importance of nonbank financial firms to the financial system," said TD Cowen analyst Jaret Seiberg. He expects the agency will finalize the rule in late spring before the next presidential election. "We see limited election risk," Seiberg added. "That means it should be effective before we know who won the election. We also believe a Republican president is unlikely to unwind this rule as that would go against the populist tilt of the current GOP." Click here for political news related to business and money policies that will shape tomorrow's stock prices. Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance [November 11, 2023] Diamond Estates Wines & Spirits Announces Update on Proposed Non-Brokered Financing Tweet Diamond Estates Wines & Spirits Inc. ("Diamond Estates" or the "Company") (TSXV: DWS) is pleased to provide an update in respect of its proposed financing (the "Financing") and debt settlement (the "Settlement" and together with the Financing, the "Private Placement") with Lassonde Industries Inc. ("Lassonde Industries"), previously announced by the Company on August 16, 2023. There have been no material changes to the terms of the Financing or the Settlement previously announced. The Company received shareholder approval for the Financing and the Settlement at its annual shareholders meeting held on September 6, 2023. The Company is working with Lassonde Industries to complete the Financing and the Settlement by November 14, 2023. The Private Placement involves the issuance of 20,062,937 common shares of the Company to Lassonde Industries, at an issue price of $0.45 per common share, for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $9 million (the "Subscription Price"). Lassonde will pay the Subscription Price through the payment of $8.25 million in consideration for 18,333,334 common shares of the Company and the Settlement, which will involve the conversion of the $750,000 principal amount (plus accrued and unpaid interest) owing under the advance agreement between the Company and Lassonde Industries dated May 30, 2023 into 1,729,603 common shares of the Company. The Financing and the Settlement remain subject to the final acceptance of the TSX Venture Exchange. The securities issued pursuant to the Financing and the Settlement will be subject to a four-month hold period under applicable Canadian securities laws. About Diamond Estates Wines and Spirits Inc. Diamond Estates Wines and Spirits Inc. is a producer of high-quality wines and ciders as well as a sales agent for over 120 beverage alcohol brands across Canada. The Company operates five production facilities, four in Ontario and on in British Columbia, that produce predominantly VQA wines under such well-known brand names as 20 Bees, Creekside, EastDell, Lakeview Cellars, Mindful, Queenston Mile, Shiny Apple Cider, Fresh, Proud Pour, Red Tractor, Seasons, Serenity and Backyard Vineyards. Through its commercial division, Trajectory Beverage Partners, the Company is the sales agent for many leading international brands in all regions of the country as well as being a distributor in the western provinces. These recognizable brands include Fat Bastard, Meffre, Pierre Chavin and Andre Lurton wines from France, Brimincourt Champagne from France, Merlet and Larsen Cognacs from France, Kaiken wines from Argentina, Blue Nun and Erben wines from Germany, Calabria Family Estate Wines and McWilliams Wines from Australia, Saint Clair Family Estate Wines and Yealands Family Wines from New Zealand, Storywood and Cofradia Tequilas from Mexico, Maverick Distillery spirits (including Tag Vodka and Barnburner Whisky) from Ontario, Magnum Cream Liqueur from Scotland, Talamonti and Cielo wines from Italy, Catedral and Cabeca de Toiro wines from Portugal, Waterloo Beer & Radlers from Canada, Landshark Lager from the USA, Edinburgh Gin, Tamdhu, Glengoyne and Smokehead single-malt Scotch whiskies from Scotland, Islay Mist, Grand MacNish and Waterproof whiskies from Scotland, C. Mondavi & Family wines including C.K Mondavi & Charles Krug from Napa, Wize Spirits, Hounds Vodka and Valley of Mother of God Gins from Canada, Bols Vodka from Amsterdam, Collective Arts beers, spirits and RTDs from Ontario, Koyle Family Wines from Chile and Pearse Lyons whiskies and gins from Ireland. Forward Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company and the matters discussed herein to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Actual results and developments are likely to differ, and may differ materially, from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. The closing of the Financing and Settlement, if at all, including its anticipated closing date, constitute forward looking statements. While the Company acknowledges that subsequent events and developments may cause its views to change, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the views of the Company as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release. 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. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231111765029/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 12, 2023] Chengdu Creativity & Design Week: Embracing Global Creators with a More Open Attitude Tweet CHENGDU, China, Nov. 12, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- On November 11, at the 10th Chengdu Creativity & Design Week planned and implemented by Chengdu New Dongfang Exhibition Co., Ltd., the artworks crafted by Italian artist Giacomo Bruni were favored by audiences with the traditional Chinese ink painting skills. "I made a lot of interesting friends at the event," he said. Brazil's sound artist Marcelo Armani created a Chengdu Sound Map by capturing the voices of pandas and those in teahouses, Mount Qingcheng, and Fuqin Night Market, which attracted many visitors. Chengdu, one of China's famous historical and cultural cities, is accelerating to build itsel into a world-renowned cultural city. The city, renowned for its food and pandas, is increasingly attracting creative design talent from around the world. In 2023, 167 international artists from 37 countries including Brazil, Germany, Poland, Japan, France, Canada, Latvia, and Georgia participated in the Chengdu Creativity & Design Week. They stay in Chengdu, drawing inspiration from the city and creating amazing works. Meanwhile, creative design institutions and brands in Chengdu are reaching a broader platform. Mintown Studio Community, following the model of "using cultural and creative industries to stimulate urban revitalization," has expanded its presence from Chengdu to Xi'an and is in negotiations for settlements in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, and Dalian. Originating in Chengdu, the fashion brand 24ans has opened shops in the United Kingdom, France, Japan, and cities in China, including Shanghai, Guangzhou, Changsha, and Qingdao. Zora Gerault, Jury Member of the 2023 Golden Panda Tianfu Creative Design Award and Dean of ESMOD Guangzhou, said that she witnessed many remarkable works by young designers from Chengdu during the event, experiencing the growing creativity of the city. "Diversity is the key to creativity. Chengdu's diversity lies in its long history and modernity, as well as its technological advancements and creativity," said Imamura Yusaku, Vice President of Tokyo University of the Arts and Co-founder of World Design Weeks (WDW), after participating in the Chengdu Creativity & Design Week. Such diversity enables Chengdu to embrace global creative design talents with a more open attitude. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2274192/Chengdu_New_East_Exhibition_Co.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/chengdu-creativity--design-week-embracing-global-creators-with-a-more-open-attitude-301985335.html [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Tragic follow-up and funding request worth a look tonight . . . Four people were injured one critically and three others sustained injuries ranging from non-life-threatening to serious in the shootout between two groups of people that unfolded around 2:20 p.m. Friday afternoon, according to Jack Taylor, a spokesperson with the Independence Police Department. A FRIEND OF THE VICTIM'S FAMILY confirmed A FEMALE VICTIM is pregnant with a boy and her family plans to donate her organs. Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . . Nicer news links to start Sunday feature worthwhile outreach efforts and locals helping their community. Check TKC news gathering . . . ReBuild KC: Empowering Kansas City Communities through Grant Opportunities EllieAna HaleReporter First introduced in 2022 through an initiative funded by the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, ReBuild KC [...] Ronald McDonald House Charities to expand in Kansas City's Children's Mercy Hospital An increase in the number of families needing a place to day during medical care opened the door for a partnership between Ronald McDonald House Charities of KC and Children's Mercy Hospital/ 315: Ofrendas Honor Lives Taken with Monique Arellano and Molly Manske Welcome to the Northeast Newscast! In this week's episode, we invite you to join us in a poignant conversation with [...] Shining a light on period poverty in Kansas City, efforts to address issue The NIH defines period poverty as lack of access to period products and the education surrounding them. THUNDERGONG! is back! Jason Sudeikis + Co. make big strides for Steps of Faith The THUNDERGONG! is back for its 7th year after raising more than $600,000 for Steps of Faith last year. This year, another Ted Lasso star attending and making their first trip to Kansas City. 'We're not trying, we're doing': Lowrider bicycle club helping at-risk teens in KCK Every detail and part on every bike is earned for some teens in Kansas City, Kansas, through a programmed dubbed Lowrding 2 Success. City Union Mission stocking up its Christmas store to help families over the holidays KMBC tagged along as volunteers went on a shopping spree Tuesday Developing . . . The city of Naples on Friday gave honorary citizenship to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, currently held in London's Belmarsh Prison amid US efforts to extradite him under the espionage act for publishing classified information on Iraq and Afghanistan and diplomatic cables in 2010 and 2011, Azernews reports, citing ANSA. Australian Assange, 52, was awarded the citizenship The parchment, together with the city's medal, as Naples Mayor Gaetano Manfredi presented them to Stella Moris, Assange's wife, during a solemn ceremony held in the Sala dei Baroni of the Maschio Angioino. "This award symbolically represents an appeal from the city of Naples," said Manfredi, "a city that has always defended all freedoms. "If we want to defend and strengthen democracies, we must defend the freedom of the press. "We must always remember that a strong democracy is made by a strong press". Turning to the room, Moris said: "I thank you all and ask you to keep fighting until Julian is free." Sixteen members of the US Congress including MAGA Republican and fierce Trump supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene and leftwing Democratic firebrand Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have written to President Joe Biden asking him to drop the exytradition bid. Virginia Star Quilters Guild donated three Quilts of Honor at a recent monthly meeting. All three veterans were wounded in Iraq; two live out of state, and their quilts are in the mail to them. All three served multiple tours in combat, with Army Special Forces. Iceland is bracing for a volcanic eruption that can occur within hours or days. This has led to the evacuation of the town of Grindavik as the area experienced hundreds of earthquakes. Grindavik is located 40 kilometers (25 miles) southwest of Iceland's capital, Reykjavik. The European is now under a state of emergency as it prepares for what is believed to be an imminent eruption. According to a report by The Guardian, Vidir Reynisson, head of Iceland's Civil Protection and Emergency Management, has expresses concern for the homes and infrastructure in the area. "The magma is now at a very shallow depth, so we're expecting an eruption within a couple of hours at the shortest, but at least within a couple of days," he said. While the government is expecting for the eruption to occur via a fissure that opened near Grindavik, it is not discounting the possibility that it can occur on the ocean floor. Related Article: Iceland Budget Travel: Five Ways To Shoestring Your Way Around Closing of the Blue Lagoon The town of Grindavik can be found in the Reykjanes region. According to Reuters, this region is considered to be a hot spot for volcanic and seismic activity. The area began showing volcanic activity in 2021. An eruption took place in August 2022, followed by another one in July of this year. All of these took place in unpopulated areas of the region, but prompted the visit of many travelers who want to witness the eruption. The ongoing threat of a volcanic eruption has also led to the temporary closure of Blue Lagoon, a geothermal spa that is considered to be one of the country's top tourist attractions. A Reminder to Travelers in Iceland While volcanic activity can be a sight to behold, travelers are urged to remain cautious and not go near sites that exhibit such activity. This is due to the threats that volcanic activity can pose to the health and safety of travelers. Travelers currently in Iceland should be alert and promptly follow any instructions issued by the government, including evacuation orders. Read Also: Everything You Need to Know About Renting a Car in Iceland An explosion that rang out in the temporarily occupied city of Melitopol in the Zaporizhzhia region on Saturday, November 11, killed at least three officers of Russia's National Guard. That's according to the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine's Ministry of Defense, Ukrinform reports. "An act of revenge, which was carried out by representatives of the local resistance movement, took place in the premises of the Nova Poshta [post office], located on Dmytro Dontsov Street (the occupiers call it Pavel Sudoplatov Street), captured by the Russians," the agency said. According to Ukrainian intelligence, the Russian invaders placed their headquarters in the specified building. The attack was carried out during a meeting between officers of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) and National Guard. An hour before the meeting, the Russians blocked traffic on an adjacent section of the road -- from Melitopolskyy Avtohidroahrehat Ltd. to the former Melitopol Refrigeration Engineering Plant Refma. The invaders turned both industrial facilities into a military base. Earlier reports said that late on November 11, a loud explosion rang out in Melitopol, and many police cars filled the streets of the city. The invaders claimed that the explosion occurred in a car due to "defective LPG equipment." Finland has provided EUR 2.1 billion worth of aid to Kyiv since the beginning of Russia's full-scale armed aggression against Ukraine. Finland's Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Ville Tavio said this in an interview with Ukrinform. "Finland's overall support to Ukraine since the beginning of Russia's full-scale aggression is 2.1 billion euros, of which 1.4 billion is for defense. Ukraine is Finland's largest partner in development cooperation. We are strongly committed to continue our support for Ukraine for as long as needed," Tavio said. In mid-October, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, based on the government's proposal, approved the decision to provide the 19th military aid package to Ukraine, valued at EUR 95 million. Slovak Foreign Minister Juraj Blanar reaffirmed his country's solidarity with Ukraine at a meeting with Ambassador Myroslav Kastran. This was reported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovakia on X (formerly Twitter), Ukrinform saw. "Today, Minister Blanar welcomed the Ukrainian ambassador, H.E. Myroslav Kastran. They discussed the current situation in Ukraine. The Minister confirmed Slovakias solidarity with Ukraine, emphasizing support for a peaceful, independent, democratic, and economically stable Ukraine," the Slovak foreign ministry said. As reported earlier, late October, the newly-appointed Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, announced that his government would cease all military assistance to Ukraine. The temporary protection status in EU countries has been granted to 4.2 million people who fled Ukraine as a consequence of Russias full-scale invasion. This is evidenced by data provided by Eurostat, Ukrinform reports. The main EU countries hosting beneficiaries of temporary protection from Ukraine were Germany (1.19 million people; 28.3% of the total), Poland (958,655; 23.1%) and the Czech Republic (357,960; 8.8%). It is noted that in late September compared with the end of August 2023, the number of beneficiaries of temporary protection from Ukraine in the EU increased by 31,920 (+0.8%). The largest absolute increases were observed in Germany (+19,205; +1.6%), the Netherlands (+3,685; +2.8%) and Ireland (+2,875; 3.2%). At the same time, five countries saw a decrease in the number of people under temporary protection: the Czech Republic (-7,125; -2%), France (-2,155; -3.2%), Poland (-1,895, -0.2%), Slovenia (-405; -4.6%) and Luxembourg (-10; -0.2%). According to Eurostat, compared with the population of each EU country, the highest numbers of total temporary protection beneficiaries per thousand people at the end of September 2023 were observed in the Czech Republic (33.1), Estonia (26.2), Poland (26.1), Bulgaria (25.8) and Lithuania (25.5), whereas the corresponding figure at the EU level was equal to 9.3 per thousand people. In late September, Ukrainian citizens represented over 98% of the beneficiaries of temporary protection. Adult women made up almost half (46.5%) of temporary protection beneficiaries in the EU. Children accounted for slightly more than one-third (33.7%), while adult men comprised less than a fifth (19.9%) of the total. As reported by Ukrinform, in October, the EU Temporary Protection Directive, which gives Ukrainian refugees the right to legally stay in the EU member states, was officially extended until March next year. Photo: Jonas Walzberg, dpa The superintendent of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, Sarah Fangman, joins the podcast to discuss why coral reefs are important, how this summers extended marine heat wave is impacting our marine life, the work that The Coral Rescue Project is doing, and how Fangman worries that time is not on our side when it comes to slowing down climate change. Fangman is responsible for leadership, vision, and strategic direction for one of the most complex marine protected areas in the United States. St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist and editorial board member Lynn Schmidt hosts the podcast. Past episodes of the What Keeps You Up at Night? podcast Episode transcript Note: The following transcript was created by Headliner and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically: Lynn Schmidt: Hi. My name is Lynn Schmidt, and welcome to the what keeps you up at Night podcast, the show where we discuss the big issues and worries facing America and the world, and then begin the conversations about how we can go about solving them. I am a columnist and editorial board member with the St. Louis Post Dispatch. I will be interviewing experts and politicians from across the country, from right to left, on the political spectrum, as well as spanning the generations. It is my pleasure to welcome today's guest, Sarah Fangman. As Superintendent of Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, Sarah is responsible for leadership, vision, and strategic direction for one of the most complex marine protected areas in the United States. Prior to that, she was the program coordinator of the Southeast, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean region and served as the research coordinator for Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. Sarah works for NOAA, which is the National oceanic and Atmosphere Administration. So welcome to the podcast, Sarah. Sarah Fangman: Thank you. Great to be here, Lynn. Why are coral reefs important to South Florida? Lynn Schmidt: So, let me ask you, Sarah, what keeps you up at night? Sarah Fangman: Running out of time. Honestly, running out of time keeps me up at night because here in the Florida Keys, we are on, the front lines of climate change, and the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary is a national treasure. It is the only coral barrier reef that we have in the continental United States, and that national treasure is at risk, and it keeps me up at night worrying about whether or not we can turn things around such that this ecosystem can continue to persist in the way that we need it to into the future. Lynn Schmidt: Can you maybe explain to listeners why, corals or coral reefs are important? Sarah Fangman: Yes, there are many reasons. Here in South Florida. They are important to us culturally. It is really a part of our culture. We love to go and spend time and enjoy the reefs, but they're also really important from an economic perspective. Of course, your listeners will know that tourism is Florida's top industry, and the extensive coral reef system here, which stretches about 400 miles along our southeast coast, it attracts more than 3 million visitors every year, and they spend about $1.3 billion on reef related tourism activities. That translates into a total economic benefit of, like, $6 billion. That's just tourism. Talk about fishing. A lot of commercial fishing is a part of the economy here, too. In the Florida Keys, where I live, commercial fishing is the second largest economic activity, and a lot of those species, they live on a reef. And then if that's not enough, if your listeners still aren't convinced that corals are important, they also provide incredible coastal protection benefits. These reefs reduce Florida's exposure to coastal storms, and it's hurricane season down here. These reefs play a really important role in knocking down the waves that are coming ashore. USGS, another federal agency, they recently published some data on the economic impact of reefs, and again, their ability to prevent flood damage. And here in Florida, reefs prevent over $200 million in storm damage protection every single year. So there you go. There's a few reasons why we should care about corals. Lynn Schmidt: Maybe we can link that report, in the notes of the podcast. That'd be great. Florida's corals have never been exposed to this magnitude of heat stress Lynn Schmidt: So, what were your average sea temperatures in South Florida this summer? Sarah Fangman: Yeah, we had a really concerning summer from the perspective of temperatures. Florida's corals have never been exposed to this magnitude of heat stress. Corals are animals that have algae living in them, and they're a bit like Goldilocks. They like it just right in terms of temperature. They don't like it too cold, don't like it too hot, and normally our waters in the keys are just right, and that's why they've been able to thrive and why we have such a spectacular reef system here. But this summer, we saw temperatures rise all over the reef above 87 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the temperature at which we see significant coral bleaching. And that's when the corals expel that algae that lives in their tissues and essentially are starving because those algae are helping them feed. And when that temperature got above 87, and that happened early this year, in July, we started seeing corals begin to suffer, and it was very concerning, given how early that heat stress kicked in. Lynn Schmidt: So would you call that an extended marine heat wave? Sarah Fangman: That's exactly what we've been referring to it as, yes. And it's not just Florida. This is happening in other places around the Caribbean as well. we're not the only place that's seeing this kind of temperature stress. And again, not only has it been significantly warmer than the corals can tolerate, but the duration of this heat event is what's also unprecedented. We've never seen something like this last so long. Lynn Schmidt: Yeah, that's very concerning. Do you have any sense of when you might know if the corals are going to rebound or if there's been permanent damage? Sarah Fangman: it's a great question. The answer is yes and yes. Yes, there has been permanent damage, and yes, we still have to wait to see the extent of that damage. So again, this year's unusual event, we saw something that scientists had not previously observed, which is corals dying before they even could bleach. And the tissues was just sloughing off these corals. They'd not seen that before. However, there are corals out there. Bleaching does not necessarily mean the coral is dead or will die. And we are beginning to see signs of hope, because we are starting to have cooler temperatures down here, and the coral color is coming back. But to your question, we won't know just by having that color come back. And the corals look healthy, they are still compromised. And so now what we have to wait for is the next couple of months to make sure those corals don't subsequently succumb to disease, because that is what we have seen in other temperature stress events. So, like humans, when you're really tired, you're not eating well, you're kind of run down, you're more susceptible to getting sick. Well, these corals are run down from a really hot, exhausting summer, and so we need to wait a few months and then go back out and do a comprehensive survey. And we have one planned for after the new year, at which point we think we would be able to ascertain the true impact and the true level of mortality that is the result of the summer's temperature event. Even though the waters will have cooled well back down by then, and the corals will be happily, comfortably basking in 78 degree water, they still are stressed and could further have issues from disease. Lynn Schmidt: Yeah. And I'm sure you worry about what the water temperatures will be next year, right? It doesn't seem like this summer is a fluke, or maybe I'm wrong. Sarah Fangman: Yeah, you're not wrong. You are absolutely right. And that is why I worry about time, because we have things we're doing down here that give me hope, and we need bigger regional and global challenges to be addressed. And I hope that what we're doing down here can buy the time that we need to sustain this system while those bigger issues of temperature stress are being addressed at, larger levels than here. Lynn Schmidt: So maybe you could speak to what those hopeful efforts are. I would love to hear about that. Is it possible to transplant corals to cooler waters after hurricanes? Lynn Schmidt: but I just had a question. Now, I don't know anything about this, but is it possible to transplant corals to cooler waters? Sarah Fangman: Well, as a matter of fact, that is one of the tools that we put in our toolbox for the first time this year. Lynn Schmidt: Congrats. Sarah Fangman: What have we been doing? We're doing a lot. Is it enough? That's what keeps me up at night. Lynn Schmidt: Sure. Sarah Fangman: But one of the things that we did this summer was exactly what you suggest, which is take corals that we were growing so not wild corals that were attached to the seafloor. But one of the things we're doing here in Florida is repopulating the reef by growing small pieces of coral in what we call nurseries and then taking them and attaching them to the seafloor. Well, those nurseries where we're growing the future of our reef, they tend to be in shallow waters. Shallow waters tend to be warmer, they tend to be exposed to more sunlight. And so what we have done this summer for the first time was take thousands of corals that were in shallow water that was heating up and they were very vulnerable to increased temperature stress and move them into a brand new nursery in 70ft of water where the water was cooler and the intensity of the sunlight was less, thereby relieving those corals of stress and pressure that they were inevitably going to experience sitting in those shallow, warm waters. M But that was not the only thing we were doing. Another thing we did this summer, which was really inspiring, was as soon as people realized, oh, dear, this is going to be a really off the charts summer. We need to rescue some of these corals and bring them into land based facilities where we can hold them in controlled conditions and keep them safe. And so, very quickly, the community here who works in this field mobilized to collect corals from the nurseries and bring them to land. And in some cases, we're dealing with corals that are listed under the Endangered Species act as threatened. And for two of the species that we're using for restoration and rescue, there are only 150 unique individuals of one of the species and 300 unique individuals of a second species. That's not 300 corals, but 300 genotypes. Okay, so what we needed to do was make sure that we kept them in safekeeping. So we quickly mobilized and worked to get samples of each unique genetic individual of these two species into gene banks, essentially a Noah's ark. And we collected two samples of each of these so that we could have one at one facility and a backup of the backup at a second facility. Lynn Schmidt: Yeah, that's smart idea. Sarah Fangman: To just create, ah, a resource that could become the brood stock for restoring reefs once the temperatures cooled back out. We have got representative individuals from these two species in captivity in safekeeping for rebuilding our reefs. Lynn Schmidt: are all those efforts what you call the Coral rescue project, or is that different? Sarah Fangman: Well, this is a coral rescue effort, and it's not the first one we've done. Lynn Schmidt: Okay. Sarah Fangman: Because this summer, our reefs are in tough shape, not just because this year it's hot. They have been undergoing stress and pressure for decades. And most recently, we had a coral disease that was kind of like COVID for the reefs that was running rampant through our reef system. And in this case, for some coral species, that disease was essentially a death sentence. And it was burning through our reef. It started up near Miami, and it was moving south through the Florida Keys. And as we watched it, basically killing every representative of a certain species, we were like, we need to get into captivity and rescue. And so actually, in 2019 and 2020, we did a previous rescue effort, and we collected over 2000 corals from 16 species. And if you can believe it, they're in 25 different aquaria in twelve states around the country. So that was, again, another effort to prevent the loss and preserve the genetic diversity so that we could propagate those corals and restore them in the future once that disease had burned its way through our system. So you can see we have got some pretty desperate measures that we are taking on behalf of corals, but let's remember why. Because they are so important to our country, to our community, to our economy. That is why we are taking these drastic measures, because we cannot afford not to. Lynn Schmidt: So it seems like it's a vicious cycle. Again, this is my very mediocre knowledge of biology. But, if the coral help prevent waves. Right. But the sea temperature is rising, so, it's more apt to have, produce hurricanes. Do the hurricanes also, not only from the corals helping stop the waves, but do they get damaged as well during a hurricane? Sarah Fangman: Yes. Lynn Schmidt: So, like I say, it's a vicious cycle. Right. Sarah Fangman: now, corals have been around for a very long time, and reef systems have evolved with hurricanes. But as you point out, our hurricanes are getting stronger and our hurricanes are becoming more frequent. And what's happening is these changes are occurring too fast for the reef systems and frankly, for nature in general, not just coral reefs, to keep, up. And that, again, keep saying it. That's why time is not, my friend, in these, issues, is we are in a race against time. Lynn Schmidt: So what are some things that listeners can do to help? Sarah Fangman: Great question. I think what we need is for people to raise their voice on behalf of these issues. And again, as I said, I believe that our reefs are on the front lines of climate change. But we are seeing climate change coming to everyone's doorstep. We're seeing it in Hawaii, we're seeing it in California, we're seeing it in. We're seeing storm events, know, hurricanes hitting the Northeast. I mean, it's just wild what's happening. And so I think everyone needs to speak up and say, we have got to do something. I am inspired what's happening at the local level and what can be done when community groups stand up and say, we're not going to let this happen. But that said, we need a bigger set of actions and solutions that are broader than the Florida Keys or even the state of Florida. And that's where I think we all need to speak up on behalf, of these issues and put our collective resources, ingenuity, creativity, and commitment to solving these bigger problems. Lynn Schmidt: It obviously is a global issue. Are there specific things that people who live in Florida can do to help? Lynn Schmidt: but are there specific things that people who live in Florida can do to help? Sarah Fangman: Yes, we have different types of programs that, for example, if someone has diving skills or snorkeling skills, they can help us do monitoring. Something that was really critical for us this summer was as we saw these temperatures rising, it was important to us. Our team is very small. We can't be everywhere. And so we were dependent upon volunteers who were providing us with observations about where they were observing bleaching events. And then we could follow up on that and go out to those places and collect more data, because monitoring and really understanding what's happening and where is a part of the solution, quite honestly, because what we're seeing is that there is not a universal response to this temperature stress. It's not all exactly the same. And I will tell you, there are headlines out there that all the corals are dead, and this event is the nail in the coffin for Florida's reefs. Well, that's not true. There are places where we see resilient communities of coral, resilient individuals, resilient parts of the reef. And we need to try to understand what is it about that genotype, that species or that place, and use that information to inform as we continue the restoration work. How do we do it in light of what we're learning from this event? And so that's an example of one thing that we really have been depending upon. Members of the community and tourists, visitors who come down here can come and help us do these things. They can also help us outplant corals. They can help us remove nuisance species. So there's a lot of things people can do hands on right here in Florida if they want to. Lynn Schmidt: Yeah, it seems like, your efforts, your team are public health professionals for marine life. Sarah Fangman: That's a really good analogy. Lynn Schmidt: I like that they are living creatures, just the way we talk about them, right? Like they're babies and we're helping them grow in nurseries. And, they succumb to diseases as well, just like you mentioned. Sarah Fangman: Well, and like healthcare professionals, these are their patients. And it has been a difficult summer for folks who have dedicated their careers to helping to restore these corals and to grow them in nurseries from small, little, few inch cuttings. And then they watch year to year, and they know these corals like friends. They absolutely know these corals because they've hand planted them and they watch them grow, and they've been watching them for years. And then to see an event like this and to see that coral succumb to this temperature event is very emotional for people. It truly is. Lynn Schmidt: Yeah. I've read stories of divers that visit their corAl, right, their coral friends, and come up just distraught at, ah, what they see. Maybe it's on your website, but is there a, map? If divers witness something or take photographs, what do they do with that information? Sarah Fangman: There is information on our website, Floridacys Noah Gov, where people can see how to get involved. There's two programs I'll mention. One is called Bleach Watch, and that is the one that involves volunteers providing those reports on observations of paling and bleaching and healthy corals. We want to know about that, too. And then there's another program, called CFAN Seafan. And this is a more general reporting tool that people can use to, as you describe. If they have, photographs or observations, they want to share them. NOAA is preparing for a possible government shutdown Sarah Fangman: We've been talking about the corals because the corals are kind of the poster child. But I will tell you that this temperature event is affecting more than corals. Lynn Schmidt: I'd love to hear about that. Sarah Fangman: Fish die offs. We have seen sponges, which are another really ecologically important species here. We have seen sponges dying off. We are concerned we may see seagrass next because, for reasons of, ocean chemistry that I won't go into. But as the days get shorter, they have less time to photosynthesize. They've got more stress. And so the effects of a temperature event are typically delayed for the seagrasses. And so we are expecting, we may see some seagrass die offs here later this month. And for your listeners who don't know diddly about seagrass, which I wouldn't expect them to, these are really an important community that a lot of the species that live on the reef spend part of their time when they're juveniles living in that habitat. We've got 1.5 million acres of seagrass. This is one of the largest seagrass communities in the Northern hemisphere. It's about the size of the state of Delaware. So, a, die off in that community could be very significant and have ripple effects. And then I'll say, that's the other thing about this, is we are observing and Monitoring carefully what we're seeing now. But what we will be watching for years to come is, what are the domino effects of the changes that will result from this intense heat wave? Lynn Schmidt: Sure. Sarah Fangman: And we don't know because we've never seen it before. But I can tell you we will be watching and seeing the effects of this for years. Lynn Schmidt: one last question. Is funding for NOAA pretty steady? Do you have concerns about funding of your agency? Sarah Fangman: I have concerns about a shutdown. We are subject to government shutdowns as a federal agency. And each year, we get our appropriations from Congress and we do what we can with it. And I think everybody who has a budget, personal or professional, would always welcome additional resources, but we do what we can with what we receive, and we have a tremendous, community of partners here that are also working with us. The state, nonprofit organizations, academic institutions. We are very fortunate to have a really passionate, dedicated community of folks working on behalf of these resources. So we have a work cut out for us. Lynn Schmidt: Yeah, sounds like it. We are recording this on October, 11th. And as of this recording, there's still no speaker of the House. And, the government will only be funded unless they come up with a budget, till November. Correct? Sarah Fangman: Correct. Yeah. Lynn Schmidt: not to take this into politics, but you hear that government shutdowns don't really affect people, but they can. Your agency is one of the very many ways that it would. Yeah, absolutely. Sarah Fangman: Yes. And I have been a public servant for, coming up on 30 years. And so, I've been through a government shutdown or two in my day, and I always say to my friends, I think if the public understood how disruptive and inefficient a government shutdown truly is, we would have less tolerance for them, because the amount of time that gets wasted by federal servants like myself in not doing what our mission is but preparing for a possible shutdown and then sitting on my hands if we are shut down, it's just inefficient. It doesn't benefit anyone. And I'm not trying to be political. I just know that I don't get to do my job. And I think the American people are paying me to do my job. They want me to do my job. if we can avoid those I think we're all better for it. Lynn Schmidt: Yeah. And I think you explained it well, how it's not. I mean, the coral reefs are not just a marine animal. Right. They are important for our economy. Its important to remember that. Corals reproduced by spawning despite high temperature stress Lynn Schmidt: Well, before we wrap up, is there anything else you'd like to share about your work or your concerns? Sarah Fangman: Well, I will share a bit of hope. Lynn Schmidt: Okay, great. Sarah Fangman: This year, corals reproduce by spawning. So they release egg and sperm into the water column, and we were relieved to see that there was spawning this year. Typically, they spawn in August, which would have been, of course, in the midst of the temperature stress. And we did see bleached and paled corals actually spawning. So those, corals were persisting despite the challenges they were facing in terms of temperature. And then also in the lab. So there are scientists, brilliant scientists that are working in lab based facilities to spawn corals in captivity, and they had a very successful spawning season as well. And so despite all of the concerns that we have, there is reason for hope with these corals. Lynn Schmidt: That's a good place to end, I think, with hope. Well, I want to thank, Sarah Fangman with Noah again for joining me today on the podcast. I hope listeners enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. Make sure you subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast platform so you won't miss an episode of what keeps you up at night. Thank you again, Sarah. Sarah Fangman: You're very welcome. Thank you for having me. KARACHI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 12th Nov, 2023) Former President Asif Ali Zardari and Chairman of Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari have extended their heartiest greetings to Pakistan's Hindu community on 'Diwali', the festival of lights, and expressed their best wishes for them. The former President and PPP Chairman, in their separate messages on the occasion of Diwali, said that this festival was a symbol of light and joy as well as a message of victory of light over darkness and good over evil. They said that PPP believed in inter-faith tolerance and harmony as well as brotherhood and unity. Equal rights had been given to minorities in the Constitution-1973 given by the former Prime Minister Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto fought throughout her life for the protection and development of the rights of the minorities. Former President Asif Ali Zardari as the President of the country started celebrating National Day of Minorities on August 11 every year. He started celebrating 11th August every year as National Day of Minorities. "It is a matter of pride for me that under my leadership, PPP not only nominated Jiyalas belonging to the minority community as its candidates for the general seats of the assemblies, but also ensured their success with an overwhelming majority," he pointed out. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, while addressing the Hindu community of Pakistan, said: "on this auspicious day, let us take a pledge that together we will defeat the darkness of hatred and division in Pakistan and will make it the center of lights in the world by the lamps of prosperity and equality. (@FahadShabbir) ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 12th Nov, 2023) Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, during his participation in the Joint Arab Islamic Extraordinary Summit in the Saudi Capital of Riyadh on Saturday, has reminded the international community to promptly intervene and implement a durable solution to Palestine issue as the five-week ceaseless Israelis military aggression led to genocide and stoked fears of engulfing the region into wider conflict. He underscored the urgency of bringing an end to Israels aggression and brutality with an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, lifting of the siege of Gaza, and rapid and unhindered humanitarian and relief assistance. The prime minister of Pakistan was among the prominent leaders of the Muslim world that vociferously and very candidly highlighted the root causes leading to the current humanitarian crisis with over 11,000 deaths in Gaza due to Israels indiscriminate aerial and ground blitz after October 7. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia hosted the Joint Arab Islamic Extraordinary Summit considering the human catastrophe that befell upon the Palestinian territories with Israels belligerent military invasion. The summit assumed significance as it brought the Muslims leaders from across the globe and continents together on one platform, expressing a unifying stance and forging a spirit of brotherhood and affinities for the unfortunate civilians of Gaza undergoing horrors of usage of globally banned arsenal and weapons by Israel occupation forces. Caretaker Prime Minister Kakar, in his remarks, reaffirmed that a permanent solution to the conflict was in the establishment of a secure, viable, contiguous and sovereign state of Palestine on the basis of pre-June 1967 borders with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its Capital. He stressed that the Israeli occupation forces were acting in clear violation of the international humanitarian and human rights laws, and their indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity. He also reiterated Pakistans solidarity and support for the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination. The prime minister regretted that they were witnessing another war in Gaza which was a genocide, sharing his pains at the distressing and miserable images of the women and children in the backdrop of bombs being dropped at hospitals, refugees camps and ambulances as Israel had turned Gaza into a living hell. Israels incessant flouting of international laws with impunity had few parallels in history, he said, adding I condemn these atrocities in the strongest terms. He called upon the international community to hold Israel accountable for its crimes, urging the UNSC members to rise above their differences and urgently perform their Primary responsibility of maintaining peace and security in the region. Human lives cannot be sacrificed at the altar of technicalities, he added. Prime Minister Kakar opined that billions across the globe wanting peace and progress and development, and the world could not afford to be pushed into the brink of another war. He also proposed for initiation of proceedings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Israel for its war crimes and crimes against humanity, besides the establishment of a special commission of inquiry by the United Nations Secretary-General to investigate these war crimes. During his three-day visit, the prime minister also held meetings with the Arab and Islamic countries leaders on the sidelines of the main event. The prime minister met with Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister of KSA Mohammed bin Salman, Kuwaiti Crown Prince Sheikh Meshal Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim on the sidelines of the summit. During their meeting, the prime minister and the Saudi crown prince underlined the need for an urgent international collaboration geared towards stopping Israel from brutal and indiscriminate aggression against the besieged and innocent Palestinians. They further emphasized the urgency of lifting the blockade of Occupied Gaza to facilitate the delivery of vital humanitarian aid and medical assistance to the affected population. While in his meeting with Crown Prince of the State of Kuwait Sheikh Meshal Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah, they expressed their deep concern over the alarming situation in Gaza with the staggering death toll and wholesale destruction of civilian infrastructure amidst the ongoing Israeli aggression and siege. In a meeting with Prime Minister of Malaysia Anwar Ibrahim on the sidelines of the Joint Arab Islamic Extraordinary Summit, the prime minister reiterated Pakistans strong condemnation of the ongoing brutal campaign by the Israeli forces. The bilateral ties and cooperation were also discussed during these meetings. The Joint Summit called for an immediate ceasefire, end to ongoing Israeli aggression and siege of Gaza, deaths and destruction, the opening of a humanitarian corridor and immediate implementation of two-state solution. The leaders denounced the forced displacement of residents of Gaza and the occupation of the territory by the Israeli armed forces. The Israeli aggression had so far killed more than 11,000 civilians while razing to ground the residential buildings and roads infrastructure in the indiscriminate and brutal aerial and ground assaults that also targeted hospitals, refugees camps and schools. KARACHI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 12th Nov, 2023) Caretaker Sindh Chief Minister Justice (Retd.) Maqbool Baqar on Sunday felicitated Hindu Community living around the world including the Sindh province on the occasion of 'Diwali.' He said that 'Diwali' was a festival of lights and happiness. He said that Pakistan's constitution guaranteed the rights of Hindu Community in the country. Baqar said that the people including minorities living in the province celebrated happiness and festivals with brotherhood in the province. Leverkusen, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 13th Nov, 2023) Xabi Alonso's Bayer Leverkusen equalled the best start to a Bundesliga season in history as they returned to the top of the table with a dominant 4-0 home win over Union Berlin on Sunday. The victory means Leverkusen have collected 31 of a possible 33 points after 11 matches, equal to the record set by Pep Guardiola's Bayern Munich in 2015-16. Bayern's 4-2 victory over Heidenheim saw the Bavarians spend Saturday night atop the standings but Alonso's men were dominant on Sunday, winning with goals from Alex Grimaldo, Odilon Kossounou, Jonathan Tah and Nathan Tella. Alonso praised his "patient" team, saying "we're very satisfied with what we've done from the previous international break to this one... a lot of away games and every game a win." "The feeling is great at the moment." "That was clear -- a clear difference in class," Union manager Urs Fischer said to DAZN, saying his side were in a "relegation battle." Leverkusen defender Florian Wirtz cut holes in the Union defence early but striker Victor Boniface was off target, blasting wide twice in the opening minutes. The home side hit the lead after 24 minutes, Grimaldo stopping on the edge of the box before chipping a dipping shot over Union goalie Frederik Ronnow. Grimaldo, 28, who was called up to the Spain squad for the first time this week, has six goals in the league since moving from Benfica in the summer. Union lost centre-back Leonardo Bonucci to injury early and struggled to contain the home side's quick passing, a wide-open Boniface heading directly at Ronnow late in the first half. Kossounou headed in a Jonas Hofmann corner midway through the second-half to double the home side's lead. It was the Ivorian's goal for Leverkusen in his third season at the club. Germany centre-back Tah hammered in a corner with just over 15 minutes remaining. Tella scored two minutes after coming on, the winger finishing a length-of-the-field attack for his side's fourth. Leverkusen have now won 16 and drawn one of 17 games in all competitions this season. Union Berlin, who finished fourth to qualify for the Champions League last season, finish the weekend bottom of the table, having lost their last nine in a row. Elsewhere on Sunday, Eintracht Frankfurt came from two goals down to draw 2-2 at Werder Bremen. Bremen striker Marvin Ducksch celebrated his first Germany call-up with a penalty and Rafael Borre scored to give Bremen a 2-0 lead, but Ellyes Skhiri and Hrvoje Smolcic scored second-half goals to claw back a point. Later on Sunday, RB Leipzig host Freiburg in the final match of the round. Peak Vista Community Health Center has come a long way from its humble beginnings in 1971 when a single volunteer-run clinic was only open two nights a week to walk-in patients. Two years after celebrating their 50th anniversary, Peak Vista employs 800 full-time staff who serve over 81,000 patients annually, 30,000 of which are children. Senior Director of Philanthropy, Lisa James, is both proud of the number of citizens and neighbors served by Peak Vista and saddened by the vast amount of Colorado Springs residents who still need quality medical care. If we have learned anything from the past three years, James said, it is that people need good healthcare. We serve one in nine residents in this community and eighty-seven percent of the people we serve annually are below the federal poverty level. These are our neighbors and they need to have the same chance and the same opportunities. How to help Empty Stocking Fund benefits 20 health and human service agencies in the Pikes Peak region who serve over 350,000 neighbors in need from birth to end of life. One donation. 20 agencies. A whole community served. Give now at emptystockingfundco.org, or call 719-476-1673 to make a credit card or stock donation. Make checks payable to Empty Stocking Fund and mail to P.O. Box 910942, Denver, CO 80291-0942. During the COVID pandemic, James said, it was the lowest paid employees that kept the economy going, working behind the scenes. I think it is a right to have good healthcare that everyone has access to, James said. When our most vulnerable and lowest income patients arent healthy our community isnt healthy. Who is cleaning your office? Who are the unseen workers? They need excellent health care so that everything they do, they can give their full effort. To that end Peak Vista is committed to not only providing excellent healthcare but also with a firm focus on wrap-around services. Peak Vista provides not just primary care, dental, and mental health care, but the providers all communicate regarding each patient. When has your dentist called your primary care provider? James asked. Whats special about community health is that all those providers talk behind the scenes to keep you healthy. How amazing is it when we look at the whole person! Peak Vista also runs safe, clean and staffed well-child waiting areas. Children can be checked in while their parent or guardian goes to their own appointments. In 2022 over 3,600 children were served through the well-child waiting areas. Peak Vista is also expanding the number of mental health providers to broaden access to mental health care. Our goal in the next four years is to be able to serve 1,000 new mental health patients which would be a 118 percent increase in the number of patients served and 166 percent growth in the appointment capacity. The funding Peak Vista receives from the Empty Stocking Fund is truly transformative and according to James, every dollar touches a patient. The Empty Stocking Fund extends our reach in ways we cant anticipate. I want the community to know the huge impact their donations to ESF have on our patients, James said Peak Vista has a program called the Compassionate Care Fund which is used when patients need specialty care. Thats what we use ESF funds for. We reach out into the community when someone is at their sickest and has the least choice and we come in and put a safety net underneath them and make sure they get the care they need. While staff have to advocate for patients and explain why the Compassionate Care Funds are needed, they oftentimes wont tell the patient until after the fund request is successful. Colorado is known as a health state, James said. But when you break that down it isnt universal. Wouldnt it be awesome if everyone was healthy because we valued that? To learn more visit: www.peakvista.org. LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Hamas blocking safe evacuation of patients from Gaza hospitals. Four patients and a premature baby at Shifa die as generator runs out of fuel. Thousands flee north Gaza after strikes on its largest hospitals. The latest death toll: 1,200 in Israel during the October 7 Hamas attack and, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, 11,000 in Gaza, overwhelmingly women and children. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday theres no reason why patients at Gazas besieged Shifa hospital cant be safely evacuated but contended that Hamas militants are doing everything to keep them in harms way. The Israeli leader told CNNs State of the Union show that 100 patients had been taken out of the hospital and that tens of thousands of Palestinians living in the immediate environs had moved safely out of the area along safe corridors heading south out of Gaza City. But Israeli-Hamas fighting continued near the hospital, Gazas largest, and the hospitals director, Mohammad Abu Salmiya, said the facility was surrounded by the conflict. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS News Face the Nation program that the U.S. does not want to see firefights in hospitals where innocent people, patients receiving medical care, are caught in the crossfire and we've had active consultations with the Israeli Defense Forces on this. Some treatment of patients at the hospital has been suspended because of its diminished fuel supply, with two babies dying as a result and dozens more patients left at risk. Netanyahu, without providing details, said Israel just offered Shifa hospital the fuel, but that they refused it." Meanwhile, Sullivan told U.S. news talk shows that the U.S. is actively engaged with Israeli, Qatari and Egyptian officials to free nearly 240 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, including nine Americans and a foreign national with U.S. employment rights. Sullivan said President Joe Biden is not going to rest until we achieve that deal so that every single one of those hostages can come home safely. Netanyahu told CNN, Were doing everything we can and many things I cant say to free the hostages. Watch related video by Veronica Balderas Iglesias: The Israeli leader continued to reject the U.S. proposal to have the Palestinian Authority run Gaza and the West Bank territory once the war ends. Netanyahu said control must be a reconstructed civilian authority because the Palestinian Authority is not willing to fight Hamas and they teach their children to hate Israel. Netanyahu again declined to discuss blame for Israels failure to have advance knowledge of the shock October 7 Hamas attack on the Jewish state, which killed about 1,200 people inside Israel. There will be enough time [for such a discussion] after the war, Netanyahu said. Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, told broadcaster Channel 12 that taking control of hospitals in Gaza would be key to Israels goal of rooting out Hamas. But it would require "a lot of tactical creativity to do so without hurting patients, other civilians and Israeli hostages. Israeli army officials accuse Hamas of hiding weapons in tunnels under hospitals and setting up a command center beneath Shifa and other hospitals, making the buildings legitimate military targets. Hamas and hospital staff deny this. The Israel Defense Force denied firing on Shifa Friday and accused Hamas of firing a rocket aimed at Israeli troops that hit the hospital instead. Elsewhere, the Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli tanks were 20 meters from al-Quds hospital in Gaza City, causing a state of extreme panic and fear" among the 14,000 displaced people sheltering there. Netanyahu reiterated Saturday that the responsibility for civilian deaths and injuries lies with Hamas, and he repeated long-standing charges that the militant group uses civilians in Gaza as human shields. Israel's military has said soldiers have encountered hundreds of Hamas fighters in underground facilities, schools, mosques and clinics during fighting in Gaza. The Palestinian death toll has steadily grown to more than 11,000, about 40% of them children, according to Palestinian officials. The World Health Organization chief says a child dies every 10 minutes. The situation on the ground is impossible to describe, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday. Hospital corridors crammed with the injured, the sick, the dying; morgues overflowing; surgery without anesthesia; tens of thousands of displaced people sheltering at hospitals; families crammed into overcrowded schools, desperate for food and water. If there is a hell on earth today, said Jens Laerke, U.N. humanitarian spokesperson, its name is northern Gaza. Some information for this article was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. As Israel continued its military operation in the Gaza Strip, targeting Hamas for its Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, Arab and Islamic leaders met in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, blasting the Israeli operation and its heavy toll on Palestinian civilians and infrastructure. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who hosted Saturday's summit, used strong language to condemn Israeli military operations on Gaza. He spoke against the war and its heavy toll on women, children and the elderly and on hospitals, places of worship and civilian infrastructure. Saudi Arabia, he said, is working with its partners to put an end to this war and called for an immediate end to fighting and the opening of humanitarian corridors. He also called for the freeing of hostages held by Hamas. Saudi-owned al Arabiya TV reported the summit's resolutions call for an international war crimes tribunal, an end to any forced displacement of the Palestinian people inside Gaza or elsewhere, and an immediate cease-fire. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, whose visit to Saudi Arabia for Saturday's summit was the first by an Iranian president in more than a decade, said the Israeli military operation in Gaza was "the worst crime witnessed in human history." Raisi went on to urge Arab and Islamic states to designate the Israeli Army a "terrorist group," and to "impose a boycott on Israel," including oil and other goods. He also demanded the establishment of a war crimes tribunal for both U.S. and Israeli leaders and officials who he said have committed war crimes in Gaza. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, using a more measured tone, called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, and the establishment of a Palestinian state "in accordance with the borders of June 4, 1967, and with East Jerusalem as its capital." He said Egypt condemns the killing of innocents and "this collective punishment of Gaza, including killings and the blockade and the unacceptable forced displacement of people, which he said cannot be justified as an act of self-defense. Sissi called on the international community and the U.N. Security Council "to impose an immediate and unconditional cease-fire in Gaza," an "end to any forced displacement of the Palestinian people," and for the international community to "guarantee the security of civilians." He added that "humanitarian aid must be allowed into Gaza," and that Israel must "bear its international responsibility as the 'occupying power' to permit this passage of aid." Volker Turk, the U.N. human rights chief, who on Friday called Hamas Oct. 7 attack on Israel atrocious crimes, addressed the summit, decrying the war in Gaza and its human toll. "Across the Gaza Strip, more than 10,000 people have reportedly been killed, with a majority of women and children," he said. "Many more are surely still under the rubble. [The Israeli] forces have pushed over 1.5 million people out of the north of the Gaza Strip." It was not immediately clear what concrete actions the Arab and Islamic states were prepared to take to implement the resolutions or declarations made at Saturday's summit. Several Arab states, including Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, have diplomatic ties with Israel, while Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Algeria do not. Australia has signed a security, climate change and migration accord with Tuvalu, a grouping of several low-lying coral atolls in the South Pacific Ocean. Analysts say the Australia-Tuvalu Falepili union also highlights Canberras attempts to counter Chinas growing influence in the region. For the first time, the Canberra government is offering residents facing displacement from global warming in other countries the opportunity to resettle in Australia. Tuvalus government says rising sea levels pose an existential threat to its population of 11,000 people, who live on nine low-lying islands. A new visa plan will allow 280 islanders to move to Australia each year. Analysts say the numbers are modest but could increase if climate risks accelerate. There will also be funds for reclamation in Tuvalu to expand land in the capital, Funafuti, by around 6%. The archipelago lies about halfway between Australia and Hawaii. The announcement was made Friday by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the Pacific Islands Forum in the Cook Islands. The most significant agreement between Australia and a Pacific Island nation ever. The treaty covers three main areas of cooperation; climate change, human mobility and security. Australia commits to provide assistance to Tuvalu in response to a major natural disaster, to a health pandemic or to military aggression," he said. The agreement establishes Australia as Tuvalus main security partner. While most Pacific Island countries have formal diplomatic relations with China, Tuvalu recognizes Taiwan. Australia is increasingly wary of Beijings ambitions in the region. Last year, China signed an unprecedented security pact with the Solomon Islands, a strategically located archipelago northeast of Australia. Kausea Natano is Tuvalus prime minister. He told reporters that his country also seeks good relations with China. China came also to ask for our diplomatic ties, and we said yes, we agree. But because of their One China policy, they did not allow us to have two diplomatic ties with Taiwan and them," he said. Analysts believe the accord is an attempt by Australia to increase its regional presence at a time when China is eager to expand its influence in the Pacific. Meg Keen is the director of the Pacific Islands Program at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based research organization. She told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the accord boosts Canberras security ties with Tuvalu. What it does give us is visibility should they want to enter into an agreement as a sovereign state, which they are free to do, with, say, China and switch their allegiance from Taiwan to China or have some sort of security agreement with China they should first let us know and then, of course, there would be dialogue on that. It is not a veto that we get as a product of this, said Keen. On Sunday, Australias minister of foreign affairs, Penny Wong, reaffirmed Canberras desire to increase its influence in the Pacific region, telling local media we recognize we live in a more contested region, and we have to work harder to be a partner of choice. There has, so far, been no reaction from Chinese officials to Australias bilateral accord with Tuvalu. The Falepili pact is an agreement named after a Tuvaluan phrase meaning good neighborliness, care and mutual respect. U.S. President Joe Biden wants to re-establish military-to-military ties with China, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday, days before the president and the Chinese leader are set to meet. Biden will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in person for the first time in a year on Wednesday during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco. It will be only the second in-person meeting between the two leaders since Biden took office in January 2021. "The president is determined to see the re-establishment of military-to-military ties because he believes it's in the U.S. national security interest," Sullivan said in an interview with CBS' "Face the Nation." "We need those lines of communication so that there aren't mistakes or miscalculations or miscommunication." Sullivan said restored military ties could take place at every level from senior leadership to the tactical operational level, as well "on the water and in the air in the Indo-Pacific." Sullivan said on CNN's "State of the Union" that Biden would seek to "advance the ball" on military ties during his meeting with Xi, but declined to provide further details. "The Chinese have basically severed those communication links. President Biden would like to re-establish that," Sullivan said. "This is a top agenda item." The Biden-Xi meeting is expected to cover global issues from the Israel-Hamas war to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, North Korea's ties with Russia, Taiwan, the Indo-Pacific, human rights, fentanyl production, artificial intelligence, as well as "fair" trade and economic relations, a senior U.S. official said. Relations between the two countries grew frosty after Biden ordered the shooting down in February of a suspected Chinese spy balloon that flew over the United States. But top Biden administration officials have since visited Beijing and met with their counterparts to rebuild communications and trust. The nation's top accident investigator said Thursday that a surge in close calls between planes at U.S. airports this year is a "clear warning sign" that the aviation system is under stress. "While these events are incredibly rare, our safety system is showing clear signs of strain that we cannot ignore," Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, told a Senate panel on Thursday. Homendy warned that air traffic and staffing shortages have surged since the pandemic. She said there has been a "lack of meaningful" training and more reliance on computer-based instruction by the Federal Aviation Administration and airlines, and too many irregular work schedules among pilots and air traffic controllers. "Where you end up with that is distraction, fatigue," she told the aviation subcommittee. "You are missing things, you are forgetting things." The NTSB is investigating six close calls, or what aviation insiders call "runway incursions." The FAA identified 23 of the most serious types of close calls in the last fiscal year, which ended Oct. 1, up from 16 the year before and 11 a decade ago. Independent estimates suggest those figures grossly understate such incidents. Thursday's hearing included only a momentary discussion of pilot mental health, which is on travelers' minds because of the arrest of an off-duty pilot accused of trying to disable a plane in midflight and a co-pilot who allegedly threatened to shoot the captain. Critics have pointed out that federal screening relies on pilots to disclose whether they are taking medication or being treated for mental illness including depression. The FAA said separately that it will appoint a committee of medical experts and aviation and union leaders to make recommendations "on breaking down the barriers that prevent pilots from reporting mental health issues to the agency." The Senate hearing produced no new ideas for increasing safety but brought a new warning about the potential for travel disruptions over the upcoming holidays because the FAA doesn't have enough air traffic controllers. "We are not healthier than we were last year, controller-wise," said Rich Santa, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. "I think FAA's own numbers indicate we have potentially six more air traffic controllers than we had last year." The union president said many controllers are forced to work 10-hour days or six-day weeks. The Transportation Department's inspector general criticized the FAA in a report this summer, saying the agency has made only "limited efforts" to fix a shortage at staffing at critical air traffic control centers. Among the close calls in recent months, the scariest occurred in February in Austin, Texas. During poor visibility in the early morning hours, a FedEx cargo plane preparing to land flew over the top of a Southwest Airlines jet that was taking off. The NTSB has estimated that they came within about 30 meters of colliding. An air traffic controller had cleared both planes to use the same runway. In other recent incidents, pilots appeared to be at fault by failing to follow orders from controllers. Creole isnt about a specific skin tone or country, its about a culture, said Mona Lisa Saloy, author of the poetry collection Black Creole Chronicles. Its food, its music, its architecture, its style and its traditions, she told VOA. There are millions of Creole people in countries across the world and, still, we are all so much more alike than we are different. We create beautiful cultures everywhere we go, and I think thats evident here in Louisiana. Linguists estimate as many as 10,000 people still speak the French-based language Louisiana Creole. Many more in New Orleans and across the state consider themselves part of a culture that draws tens of thousands of people to events including last months Festivals Acadiens et Creoles, summers Creole Tomato Festival, and spring's Treme Creole Gumbo & Congo Square Rhythms Festival. But for many locals and visitors alike, its the everyday evidence that demonstrates how pervasive Creole culture really is in Louisiana. The states stages and airwaves are frequented by the driving, rhythmic scrape of a washboard virtuoso or by the up-tempo syncopation of zydeco music accompanying an accordionist. Its restaurants emanate mouthwatering scents from rich, complex flavors including gumbo, hot sausage, red beans and rice, and shrimp etouffee. To celebrate Creole culture is to wake up and live in New Orleans, said Christina Bragg, a member of the Mahogany Blue Babydolls, a parading group for Black and mixed-race women. Celebrating Creole is celebrating our day-to-day lives. The food we eat. The music we dance to. The way we gather with friends to parade during Mardi Gras," she said. "Every day I open my eyes and breathe, its a celebration of Creole culture, because thats who I am. Difficult to define No matter where in the world you find Creole culture, youll see key similarities to what we have here in Louisiana, said Saloy, who was Louisianas poet laureate from 2021 to 2023. Architectural styles common in New Orleans like the Creole Cottage or the Shotgun home can be found in other places with Creoles, such as in other parts of the American South and the Caribbean, she said. Much of our music derives from the rhythms of Africa and the Caribbean, as does much of our food elements of gumbo such as the long rice and okra, for example, or the prevalence of beans. While certain elements of Creole culture bridge oceans, how one defines the word "Creole" and specifically the inclusivity of that definition changes from region to region, and even from person to person. It comes from the Portuguese word crioulo, which itself derives from the Latin creare, meaning to create. It was used during the European slave trade to denote a slave born in the New World as opposed to someone born in Africa. The word then took on different meanings in different places. Creole cultures in much of Africa and part of the Caribbean, for example, came to define an ethnic group made of people with a mix of African and non-African heritage. In Louisiana, the definition has shifted over the years, and among households. Here, the definition kind of depends on who you ask, said Vance Vaucresson, a New Orleans-based Creole and owner of a local restaurant, the Vaucresson Sausage Company. I prefer an inclusive definition, he said. By that definition, anyone born in Louisiana could be Creole. During our colonial era, it was meant to differentiate people born in the Americas usually of French, Spanish or African descent from those born in Europe or Africa who now found themselves here. I like that better than the other definition, he added, which says that Creole people in Louisiana are specifically related to the free people of color. I like the more inclusive definition better because it unifies us by culture. Black, white or mixed race, it doesnt matter. If youre born here and embrace the culture, you can be Creole. An evolving term In 18th- and 19th-century Louisiana, that more inclusive definition was the most accepted. White people with recent European ancestry were just as likely to call themselves Creole as mixed-race residents with African ancestry. White Creoles claimed the term because it differentiated them from white people who were coming from Northern states after Louisiana was purchased from France in 1803. Mixed-race Creoles, too, claimed the term because it differentiated them from slaves. Slavery was so entrenched in the United States, Louisiana included, so I think free people of color or mixed-race people were happy to have a term that raised their social standing, said Don Vappie, a Creole jazz musician in New Orleans. It was more of a three-tier racial hierarchy here, instead of the two-tiered Black-or-white experienced elsewhere in the U.S. After the American Civil War, however, much of that racial nuance in New Orleans disappeared. Creole or not, white people had more in common with white people and Black people had more in common with Black people, Vappie told VOA. And white people didnt want to use a term for themselves that was claimed by anyone who was Black. As a result, its rare to find a white person in Louisiana today who identifies as Creole. Nowadays, its definitely more of a Black person thing, said Bragg of the Mahogany Blue Babydolls. But theres still so much diversity in Creole culture. You have Creoles with very dark skin, Creoles who basically look white, Creoles with Black features, Creoles with lighter brown skin and green eyes. Its people who have been from the region for a long time, and its a unique thing. And while French Creole is spoken less frequently as older generations pass, there are still many Louisianians who are proudly Creole and want to see its traditions survive. I want to see more people learn about Creole culture, no matter what their skin color is, Vaucresson said. New Orleans has Irish Creoles, Italian Creoles, African Creoles, French and Spanish Creoles, and more. And they all have their different versions of food. At my restaurant, we try to keep those old Creole dishes on the menu so our past never disappears. Saloy believes Creole is firmly connected to African culture and should stay that way. "The ingredients in our food, the rhythm in our music and dance, the details in our architecture its all connected to West African culture, she said. And when those Africans were taken from their lands and shipped across an ocean, even though they were enslaved, they managed to make something beautiful again. Thats our heritage. For years, white people didnt want to have anything to do with Creole, she added. So I dont think they should be able to claim it now that its become in vogue. King Charles and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak led Britain in remembering the country's war dead on Sunday, seeking to unify communities a day after a large pro-Palestinian march was marked by skirmishes between far-right counter-protesters and police. At a solemn ceremony at the Cenotaph war memorial on Whitehall in central London, Charles, Sunak, other politicians and senior members of the royal family held a two-minute silence and then laid wreaths to honor those killed in war. On Saturday, the annual Armistice Day commemoration marking the end of World War saw more than 300,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators march through central London, with police arresting more than 120 people as they sought to stop far-right counter protesters from ambushing the main rally. After opposition politicians blamed Suella Braverman, interior minister, for fueling tensions in the run-up to the march, Defense Minister Grant Shapps said he would not have used the language she did in an article criticizing the police. But he told the BBC the article had aired concerns over whether the police had acted swiftly enough against protesters who could be accused of chanting antisemitic slogans or carrying "banners with swastikas on them for example". "I'm saying I do think it's very important that the police do act quickly," he said. Braverman, who is responsible for policing, was criticized by lawmakers from the opposition and her own party for using an article last week to accuse the police of "double standards" in the way it treats protests, notably pro-Palestinian marches. Yvette Cooper, opposition Labour's home affairs policy chief, told Sky News Braverman's actions were designed "to deliberately inflame tensions in the run-up to Remembrance weekend". "She should not have been doing this job in the first place and Rishi Sunak let her and he is too weak to do anything about it ... I don't see how she can continue to do this job." On Saturday, Sunak condemned the scenes of violence, saying that "Remembrance weekend is a time for us to come together as a nation and remember those who fought and died for our freedoms. The unacceptable scenes today disrespect their memory." All About America explores American culture, politics, trends, history, ideals and places of interest. Every year, on the fourth Thursday in November, Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. It's a commemoration of the 1621 harvest feast when the colonists, who came from England, shared a friendly meal with the land's Indigenous people. In Plymouth, Massachusetts, site of the first Thanksgiving, historians and others try to separate fact from fiction surrounding the legend that grew out of that initial celebratory feast that took place more than 400 years ago. "The problem with it is that there are so many stereotypes and so much misinformation that's bundled into that story," says Paula Peters, a citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe whose ancestors are believed to have been at the first Thanksgiving. "It's a story that really marginalizes the Wampanoag history." The pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower in 1620. By their second winter, they were struggling, until the Indigenous people taught them how to plant crops and live off the land. "When we think about the pilgrims coming over, we forget about the aspect of the Wampanoag people helping them survive that winter, or even navigate this land, or navigate the waters, which is very important," says Wampanoag Tribe member Malissa Costa, who oversees the Native American-themed exhibit at the Plimoth Patuxet Museums. The living history museum, located a few kilometers from the site of the first Thanksgiving, also features a 17th-century English village. Actors dress up as pilgrims to depict the colonists' way of life, while Thanksgiving traditions are recreated for visitors. "What the pilgrims are celebrating is literally that they are going to have food. They are not going to starve in the coming year," says Malka Benjamin, director for colonial interpretation and training at the Plimoth Patuxet Museums. "And so, guests are going to be able to help with cooking preparations for the celebration. They might get pulled into a game, a sport ... there's going to be musket firing demonstrations." It was the sounds of guns going off that prompted Native Americans to investigate, which is how her Wampanoag ancestors came to be at the first Thanksgiving, according to Peters. "At some point, they decided, 'Oh, this isn't a threat. They're just celebrating their harvest.' And guess what? We're all here now, so, we're all going to eat," says Peters, who used to work at the Plimouth Patuxet Museums. That part of the story is disputed by Peters' former colleague, Richard Pickering, chief historian at the living history museum, who says that theory was discussed, but then discarded, by the museum. The conflicting viewpoints underscore the reality that no one really knows exactly what happened at the first Thanksgiving. There are almost no firsthand accounts of the event, but there are references to a "special celebration" of the successful harvest, which included Wampanoag leader Massasoit and about 90 of his people, which included women, according to Pickering. "For three days, we entertained and feasted," pilgrim Edward Winslow wrote in a letter to a friend in 1621. Winslow attended the harvest celebration. "Ultimately, what happens in Plymouth in the fall of 1621 is the highest level of diplomacy," says Pickering, adding that the shared meal was a product of the alliance between the newcomers and the Native people. "It is their willingness to show them their ways that saves the English that second year. So, we should not be projecting any kind of distrust, animus, on that event. But we should recognize that their children and their grandchildren could not sustain it," he said. About 90% of the Native population was eventually wiped out by diseases that came with the Europeans. And the respect the pilgrims initially showed the Native people eventually gave way to disdain and dehumanization. "As the English population grows from those 52 English men, women and children that survived the first winter to the 25,000 or more that are here 20 years later, Native people are seen as being in the way of the commodities that the English want," Pickering says. "They want their land. They want them off that land. And so, you see a changing attitude from one of admiration to one of stereotyping and derision. And it's that kind of thought that enables them to want to push them off the land with no sense of guilt." The pilgrims originally came to America in search of religious freedom but apparently not for all, says Peters. "They sacrificed so much for religious freedom, but they didn't offer that same grace to the Indigenous people who lived here to begin with," she says. Harvest meal Today, Americans often eat traditional Thanksgiving foods that include turkey, stuffing, sweet and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. As to what was at the original three-day feast, the museum has a display of the foods that were probably eaten at the 1621 meal. "You have roast turkey, roast goose, and you'll see all of the classic corn, beans and squash. There's maize, beans and squash," says Pickering, pointing out the foods in a display case. "And also, the standing dish of New England, stewed pumpkin, mussels, to represent all the shellfish that was eaten." It's believed the Wampanoag brought deer they'd hunted. "And there probably would be some cranberries, because that was the fruit of the season," Peters says. Into the future The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe has begun initial proceedings to establish their own living history museum. The town of Mashpee, located about 43 kilometers from Plymouth, is negotiating the potential transfer of three parcels of land to the tribe for a traditional Wampanoag village and living history museum. Costa, who oversees the similar effort at the Plimoth Patuxet Museums, is keen for visitors to know that Native Americans shouldn't be relegated to the past. "The main thing I want them to learn is that Wampanoag people are still here," Costa says. "I want them to think of Wampanoag people as not just in the past or even Indigenous people as in the past but as in the present still making their way, still teaching the public." On a bright day this fall, tractors crisscrossed Gayle Goschie's farm about an hour outside Portland, Oregon. Goschie is in the beer business a fourth-generation hops farmer. Fall is the off-season, when the trellises are bare, but recently, her farming team has been adding winter barley, a relatively newer crop in the world of beer, to their rotation, preparing barley seeds by the bucketful. In the face of human-caused climate change impacting water access and weather patterns in the Willamette Valley a region known for hops growing Goschie will need all the new strategies the farm can get to sustain what they produce and provide to local and larger breweries alike. All of a sudden, climate change "was not coming any longer," Goschie said, "it was here." Climate change is anticipated to only further the challenges producers are already seeing in two key beer crops, hops and barley. Some hops and barley growers in the U.S. say theyve already seen their crops impacted by extreme heat, drought and unpredictable growing seasons. Researchers are working with growers to help counter the effects of more volatile weather systems with improved hop varieties that can withstand drought and by adding winter barley to the mix. Researchers have known for a while that beer production will be affected by climate change, said Mirek Trnka, a professor at the Global Change Research Institute. He and his team recently authored a study modeling the effect of climate change on hops, out last month in Nature Communications, that projected that yields in Europe will decrease between 4-18% by 2050. His first study on hops 15 years ago issued a similar warning to his latest paper. "If we dont act, were just going to also lose things that we consider not to be, for example, sensitive or related to climate change. Like beer," he said. Climate change moves faster than we might realize but still too slowly for many to notice, he said. The fact that researchers have started picking up on this means that theres promise for adaptation and solutions in the form of farming changes, but Trnka still has his concerns. Hops declines in Europe mean changes for American producers too. One craft brewery that gets some of their hops from Goschie said that the company is trying to replicate the flavors of German hops using new varieties grown in the U.S. because the ones they depend upon from Europe have been impacted by hot, dry summers over the last couple of years. Thats why some researchers are working on varieties of hops that can better withstand summer heat, warmer winters, changing pests and diseases and less snowfall, which could mean less available irrigation, said Shaun Townsend, an associate professor and senior researcher at Oregon State University. Townsend is working on a project where he subjects hops to drought stress to eventually create more drought-tolerant varieties. Its no easy task, one that can take a decade, and one that also has to take into account brewers main considerations, taste and yield. But the possibility of running out of water is a reality that's on people's radars, he said. Better hops might still be a technology thats a work in progress, but the story of barley improvements is already well under way. Kevin Smith, professor of agronomy and plant genetics at the University of Minnesota, said that while spring barley is the dominant type for the U.S. beer industry, winter barley which is planted in the fall and kept on fields during the coldest months of the year may be more feasible now in the Midwest, where other barley types had been given up due to climate, plant disease and economic factors in favor of crops that are less risky. Winter barley may also be desirable for craft breweries that have started emphasizing local ingredients and who want something grown close by. And it can also be grown as a cover crop, meaning that farmers can prevent erosion, improve their soil health and keep carbon stored in the ground by planting it during the off-season when fields are normally bare. But there hasnt always been complete consensus on the promise of winter barley. Smith told a story about his predecessor, who was a longtime spring barley breeder. Another scientist Patrick Hayes, a professor at Oregon State University was describing to him his hopes for the future of winter barley. Smiths predecessor wrote on a business card, "it cant be done," referring to his firm belief that winter barley just wasnt worth the trouble. Hayes kept the card in his office, and has made it his lifes mission to work on improving winter barley. There are now winter barley programs at nearly every state in the country, said Ashley McFarland, the vice president and technical director of the American Malting Barley Association. She doesnt think winter barley will ever be the entirety of the crop in the U.S. but says that producers will need to diversify their risk to be more resilient to climate shocks. Molson Coors and Anheuser Busch, the two biggest beer companies in the U.S., issue annual environmental reports that pledge commitments to sustainably sourcing hops and barley and reducing water usage, but neither company responded to an Associated Press request for comment on the specifics of those efforts. Hops can be a finicky crop when it comes to their climate, and without water, you simply can't make beer, said Douglass Miller, senior lecturer at Cornell who teaches a class on beer. He added that the price of beer might rise due to climate impacts on the supply chain but so will the price of everything else on the menu. "All beverage categories are being impacted by this," he said. The evacuation of Russian nationals from the Gaza Strip has begun and more than 60 Russian passport holders have crossed into Egypt, Russia's emergencies ministry said Sunday. A limited evacuation, which began on Nov. 1, of foreign passport holders and Palestinians needing urgent medical treatment, to Egypt has faced difficulties. It was paused several times in the past week due to bombardments that aid staff said hit or targeted medical convoys. "At the moment, citizens of the Russian Federation who wish to leave the conflict zone are crossing the checkpoint," Russia's emergencies ministry said. "Russian Emergency Situations Ministry specialists are providing medical and psychological assistance to the people on site, and providing them with food and water," it said. It said that Russian citizens will be transferred to Cairo and will be assisted with necessary paperwork. Tens of thousands are expected to march Sunday in Paris against antisemitism amid bickering by political parties over who should take part and a surge in antisemitic incidents across France. More than 3,000 police and gendarmes will be deployed in the capital to maintain security at the "great civic march," according to Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin. On the eve of the march, President Emmanuel Macron condemned the "unbearable resurgence of unbridled anti-Semitism" in the country. "A France where our Jewish citizens are afraid is not France. A France where French people are afraid because of their religion or their origin is not France," he wrote in a letter published late Saturday in the daily Le Parisien. He said Sunday's "great civic march" should show France as "united behind its values, its universalism." Earlier Saturday, however, Macron said he would attend the march only "in my heart and in my thoughts." Thousands of antisemitic acts Tensions have been rising in the French capital, home to large Jewish and Muslim communities, in the wake of the October 7 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by a month of Israeli bombardments of the Gaza Strip. France has recorded nearly 12,250 antisemitic acts since the attack. National Assembly speaker Yael Braun-Pivet and Gerard Larcher, the Senate speaker, called Tuesday for a "general mobilization" at the march against the upsurge in antisemitism. They are to lead the march behind a banner stating, "For the Republic, against antisemitism." LFI plans to boycott event The hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party said it would boycott the event while the far-right National Rally (RN) plans to turn out. "The more people there are, the better," said far-right leader Marine Le Pen. She added that she was ready to march "at the back" if her attendance was a problem. Government spokesperson Olivier Veran said Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne would attend. But the RN "does not have a place" in the march, Veran said. Communist leader Fabien Roussel said he would "not march alongside" the RN, accusing it of being descended from people who were "repeatedly condemned for antisemitic remarks" and who "collaborated" with Nazi Germany. LFI leader Jean-Luc Melenchon dismissed the march, describing it as a meeting of "friends of unconditional support for the massacre" of Palestinians in Gaza. Prosecutors investigate incidents Among the long list of recent antisemitic acts, Paris prosecutors are investigating an incident on October 31, when buildings in the city and suburbs were daubed with dozens of Stars of David. The graffiti, which brought back memories of the Nazi occupation of Paris during World War II and deportation of Jews to death camps, was condemned across the political spectrum. The October 7 attack in Israel which saw about 1,200 killed, mainly civilians, and 240 people taken hostage, triggered the deadliest ever war in Gaza. According to the Hamas-run healthy ministry in the besieged territory, the Israeli military campaign has killed more than 11,000 people, many of them children. Former U.S. President Donald Trump, if re-elected in 2024, would expand his first-term immigration crackdown to include sweeping roundups of people who would be held in large camps to await deportation, The New York Times reported Saturday. The report was based on interviews with several advisers, including Stephen Miller, who oversaw Trump's first-term immigration policies, the Times said. It described Trump's plans as "an assault on immigration on a scale unseen in modern American history" and said it aimed to deport millions of people every year, including those who have been settled in the United States for decades. Trump is the leading contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, and he likely would face U.S. President Joe Biden in a rematch of their 2020 contest. Trump's election campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House declined to comment. The Biden-Harris campaign in a statement called Trump's immigration plans "extreme, racist, cruel policies" that are "meant to stoke fear and divide us, betting a scared nation is how he wins this election." Among other measures, Trump would resurrect his ban on the entry of people from certain Muslim-majority countries, the newspaper said. He would revive other hardline policies, including a COVID-19 era rejection of asylum claims, although this time the refusals would be based on assertions that migrants carry other infectious diseases, it continued. Trump is looking to speed deportations through a massive expansion of a form of removal that does not require due process hearings, the newspaper said. To aid U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in sweeping roundups of undocumented people, Trump would reassign federal agents and deputize local police and National Guard troops volunteered by Republican-run states, the report said. He would ease the strain on ICE detention facilities by building huge camps to hold detainees while their cases are processed as they await deportation. To underwrite the massive operation if Congress refused, Trump would redirect Pentagon funds as he did with his border wall in his first term, the Times said. Trump hinted at his plan at a September rally in Iowa, according to the newspaper, which quoted him as saying that he would conduct "the largest domestic deportation operation in American history" along the lines of the "Eisenhower model." That was a 1954 campaign named after an ethnic slur Operation Wetback to detain and expel Mexican immigrants. Other parts of Trump's plan call for screening visa applicants for ideological views, revoking the temporary protected status of people from certain countries deemed unsafe, and trying to end the citizenship birthright for babies born in the United States to undocumented parents, the newspaper said. British lawmakers and members of the upper house of parliament have called on the government to label Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, saying it would be a step toward restoring stability to the Middle East. Proscribing the IRGC as a terrorist group would mean it would become a criminal offense in Britain to belong to the group, attend its meetings or carry its logo in public. The IRGC is already subject to British sanctions. In a letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, more than 60 lawmakers from the lower house of parliament and members of the House of Lords said, "given the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, it is now more urgent than ever to proscribe the IRGC." "We call upon our government to recognize the urgency of proscribing the IRGC as a terrorist organization and proceed to do so. Such a decision would constitute a significant step towards peace, stability, and justice in the Middle East and beyond," read the letter, signed by senior Conservatives such as Iain Duncan Smith, David Davis and David Jones. U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled a Republican stopgap spending measure Saturday, aimed at averting a government shutdown, but the measure quickly ran into opposition from lawmakers from both parties in Congress. "This two-step continuing resolution is a necessary bill to place House Republicans in the best position to fight for conservative victories," Johnson said in a statement after announcing the plan to House Republicans in a conference call. The House and Democratic-led Senate must agree on a spending vehicle that President Joe Biden can sign into law by Nov. 17, or risk a fourth partial government shutdown in a decade that would close national parks, disrupt pay for as many as 4 million federal workers and disrupt a swath of activities from financial oversight to scientific research. Unlike ordinary continuing resolutions, or "CRs," that fund federal agencies for a specific period, the measure announced by Johnson would fund some parts of the government until Jan. 19 and others until Feb. 2. House Republicans hope to pass the measure Tuesday. The bill surfaced a day after Moody's, the last major credit ratings agency to maintain a top "AAA" rating on the U.S. government, lowered its outlook on the nation's credit to "negative" from "stable," citing political polarization in Congress on spending as a danger to the nation's fiscal health. Johnson, the top Republican in Congress, appeared to be appealing to two warring House Republican factions: hardliners who wanted legislation with multiple end-dates; and centrists who had called for a "clean" stopgap measure free of spending cuts and conservative policy riders that Democrats reject. But the plan quickly came under fire from members of both parties. "My opposition to the clean CR just announced by the Speaker to the @HouseGOP cannot be overstated," Representative Chip Roy, a member of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, said on the social media platform "X," formerly known as Twitter. "It's a 100% clean. And I 100% oppose," wrote Roy, who had called for the new measure to include spending cuts. Democratic Senator Brian Schatz called Johnson's measure "super convoluted," adding that "all of this nonsense costs taxpayer money." "We are going to pass a clean short-term CR. The only question is whether we do it stupidly and catastrophically or we do it like adults," Schatz said on X. The House Republican stopgap contained no supplemental funding such as aid for Israel and Ukraine. Johnson's House Republicans have passed a $14.3 billion aid bill for Israel, which would be paid for by cuts to the Internal Revenue Service budget. He has also called for tying Ukraine aid to tighter security at the U.S.-Mexico border. Democrats largely oppose both approaches. "Separating out the CR from the supplemental funding debates places our conference in the best position to fight for fiscal responsibility, oversight over Ukraine aid, and meaningful policy changes at our Southern border," Johnson's statement said. If Congress can pass a stopgap measure in time to keep federal agencies afloat, lawmakers are expected to use the time to negotiate spending legislation for the 2024 fiscal year that runs through Sept. 30. House Republican hardliners have been pushing to cut fiscal 2024 spending below the $1.59 trillion level that Biden and Johnson's predecessor agreed in the May deal that averted default. But even that is a small slice of the overall federal budget, which also includes mandatory outlays for Social Security and Medicare, and topped $6.1 trillion in fiscal 2023. Johnson, who won the speaker's gavel less than three weeks ago, could put his own political future at risk if his current plan fails to win support for passage and he is forced to go with a standard CR that Democrats can accept. His predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, was ousted from the job by eight Republican hardliners early last month, after he moved a bipartisan measure to avert a shutdown on Oct. 1, when fiscal 2024 began. McCarthy opted for the bipartisan route after hardliners blocked a Republican stopgap measure with features intended to appease them. Five U.S. service personnel were killed Friday when their aircraft crashed into the Mediterranean Sea during a routine air refueling training mission, the U.S. Defense Department said Sunday. The U.S. European Command gave no further details of the incident or where it occurred but said the crash did not involve hostile fire. It said the names of those killed would not be released until 24 hours after their relatives had been notified. The U.S. military has deployed two aircraft carriers, their supporting ships and dozens of aircraft to the eastern Mediterranean since Hamas militants' surprise October 7 attack on Israel, to act as a deterrent to a spread of the conflict. Nearby U.S. military aircraft and ships began an immediate search for the wreckage, while authorities said they were opening an investigation into the cause of the crash. In a statement, U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden paid tribute to the five who were killed, saying the daily bravery and selflessness of the countrys service members is an enduring testament to what is best in our nation. Jill and I are praying for the families and friends who have lost a precious loved one a piece of their soul. Large elements of the Wagner mercenary Group have "likely" been absorbed into the command structure of Russias National Guard (Rosgvardiya), the British Defense Ministry said Sunday in its daily intelligence report on Ukraine. This new faction is "likely" being led by Pavel Prigozhin, the son of the late Yevgeny Prigozin, who headed the group before his death in an airplane crash, weeks after staging a mutiny targeting Russian leader Vladimir Putin. In addition, the report says Wagner fighters and medical personnel have also joined Chechen special forces. Russia is now "exercising more direct control" over Wagner Group activities, the British Defense Ministry said. Kherson residents in Eastern Ukraine are marking one year since the liberation of their city from occupying Russian forces. And though they experience constant shelling from the left bank of the Dnipro River, where Russian troops are positioned, they say they have become resilient against such attacks. Municipal workers are accustomed to wearing bullet-proof vests and staying ready to sweep up the rubble from yet another strike. Between lulls of artillery fire coming from the river, Ukrainians venture out to buy food, bicycle down grassy residential lanes, or gather in the few restaurants that remain open. "When you have lived under occupation, you know what freedom means," say residents marking the anniversary of their city's liberation, on Nov. 11, 2022. "It's why we have a special attitude toward the continued shelling. We can withstand it because we know how it could be worse," said Grigori Malov, who owns one of the three restaurants still operating in the city. Russia launched a missile attack Saturday on Kyiv and the nearby region and pounded the east and south of the country with drones, Ukrainian officials said. "After a long pause of 52 days, the enemy has resumed missile attacks on Kyiv," Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv city military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app. "The missile failed to reach Kyiv, air defenders shot it down as it was approaching the capital," he said. Russian anti-aircraft units downed two Ukrainian drones over the Moscow region and Smolensk region to the west near the border with Belarus, the Russian Defense Ministry said early Saturday. Reuters could not independently verify the reports. The British Defense Ministry reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin and former President Dmitry Medvedev have issued documents described by the British ministry as the "weaponization of history aimed at inculcating anti-Westernism in the minds of the Russian population and intimidating its immediate Western neighbors." In Saturday's intelligence update on Ukraine, the British Defense Ministry said Putin's publication is a collection of 242 documents entitled, "On the historical unity of the Russians and Ukrainians." The documents, from the 11th century to the 20th century, are Putin's attempt to justify the Kremlin's current Ukraine policy and features "interpretative comments" from the president. Medvedev's publication is an article the British ministry says he "ostensibly wrote" about the history of Russian-Polish relations. He accuses Poland of engaging in "aggressive revisionist Russophobic policy," according to the British ministry, and he threatens Poland with a military attack. EU aid to Ukraine Meanwhile, European Union countries are having reservations about committing a long-term fund of $21.4 billion in military aid for Ukraine as its grinding military campaign continues against Russia's invasion. EU defense ministers prepared to discuss the plan Tuesday in Brussels. It was proposed by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell last July. However, diplomats say multiple countries, including Germany, have voiced reservations about committing up to $5 billion annually over four years as part of broader Western security commitments to bolster Ukraine's defenses. The EU has provided aid in the form of arms and equipment worth $26 billion, according to the bloc's diplomatic service. "Germany has had a lot of questions and rightfully so. We're talking about a lot of money," said a senior diplomat, who asked to remain anonymous. The debate over military aid comes as EU nations are also debating a proposal to give Ukraine almost $54 billion in economic assistance. Some EU members have argued they will struggle to make a big long-term pledge as domestic budgets are squeezed. "For some member states, there is the reality of the public finances," said a second EU diplomat. Additionally, the EU is also facing challenges meeting a target of supplying Kyiv with 1 million artillery shells and missiles by March next year. Latvia's president says Russia is planning for a long war in Ukraine and he has a message for countries wavering on continuing military support to Kyiv: Keep supplying arms or the Ukrainians will lose and Russia will have a green light for threatening others in the future. Edgars Rinkevics said in an interview with The Associated Press that "it is important to actually fight for international peace, and peace in Europe, because if we stop Russia in Ukraine, then Russia is not going to be able to challenge other countries." He pointed to the disruptive role that Russia's Wagner mercenary group is playing in Africa and to Russian meetings with officials from Hamas, the Gaza Strip's ruling militants whose surprise attack in Israel on Oct. 7 killed some 1,200 people. In July, Rinkevics was sworn in as president of Latvia, which was part of the Soviet Union until its break-up in August 1991. The Baltic nation, population 1.9 million, in 2004 joined both the European Union and NATO, holding a key point on their eastern flank with its 214-kilometer border with Russia. Rinkevics, who was Latvia's foreign minister for 13 years before being elected president, said that despite some members of the 27-nation EU having "their opinions," at the end of the day the alliance has agreed on sanctioning Russia and on providing more support to Ukraine over Russia's February 2022 invasion. "Interestingly enough, at this point, the EU is more divided when it comes to the Middle East, rather than to Ukraine," he said in Thursday's interview. He said it is important for the West to support both Ukraine and Israel against attacks on "our values" and the international order. He also stressed the need to push for humanitarian pauses in the Gaza fighting to provide assistance to Palestinian civilians, whose death toll in Israel's retaliation for the Hamas attack has topped 11,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Rinkevics said Iran is "very pleased to see this kind of development in the Middle East," and pointed to Tehran's supply of arms and other equipment to Russia for its fight in Ukraine. It's in NATO's security interests "that both cases are viewed the same way," he said. "I do believe also that it will be much easier for us to keep peace in Europe if Ukraine succeeds rather than we let Ukraine down, or for that matter, also to let the situation in the Middle East to get out of control." Rinkevics said Ukrainian soldiers are fighting "in a very brave way" and the West has the responsibility to respond to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's appeal for more weapons, "because we have not provided as much as we should have." He said Russia is mobilizing its economy, resources and military machinery "for a very long war." It tried to win the war quickly and realized it can't, and now Moscow wants to "strangle" Ukraine, he said, predicting it will reprise attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure in the coming months, as it did last winter. Rinkevics said the EU and NATO need to prepare for a long war in Ukraine. "The EU has realized that we need more defense and military," he said. "And at this point, I would love to see that this is going to be a bit faster process. But still, those things are now finally moving." But many European members of NATO still need to reach the target of spending 2% of GDP on defense, he said, adding that Latvia expects to spend 2.4% of GDP on defense next year and 3% in 2027. Europe's defense industrial production needs to be increased, he added. Many experts and officials have said Russian President Vladimir Putin's hope is to outlast Western support for Ukraine in a long war. "I think this is very important that he fails," Rinkevics said. If the world sees that Europe and the United State are failing to provide support to Ukraine, he said, "then I think that is going to be increasing pressure on Israel." "Also, I think that Iran is going to be more assertive," he said. "Let's also not forget about the whole Asia region, and let's not forget about Taiwan." The Latvian leader said Russia is turning from an autocracy to a totalitarian regime and resorting to propaganda worse than the Cold War. They are showing "brutal pictures or video or animation videos about destroying cities in Europe, or the United States, using nuclear weapons, saying that the use of nuclear weapons is actually just a piece of cake," he said. They are calling Ukrainians "kind of a lower human race it's very much resembling what Nazi Germany was saying about the Jews," he added. Rinkevics, who is in New York to launch Latvia's bid for a U.N. Security Council seat in 2026-27, announced in 2014 that he is gay and is one of Europe's few LGBTQ+ heads of state. If people can accept a gay head of state, Rinkevics said, "then I believe that very quickly also they are going to be more inclusive, more open to the whole community. That's the message also I hope will be received everywhere else." African leaders are pushing for renewal of a preferential U.S. trade policy, set to expire in 2025, that allows them duty-free access to the U.S. market. Kate Bartlett spoke with U.S. trade representative Katherine Tai about U.S.-China competition at the AGOA Summit in South Africa The latest developments: Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Palestinian Authority will not govern Gaza after the war. The Israeli military will help evacuate babies trapped in Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital on Sunday. Four patients and a premature baby at Al-Shifa die as generator runs out of fuel. Thousands flee north Gaza after strikes on its largest hospitals. Israel Foreign Ministry lowered the death toll from Hamas October 7 terror attack from 1,400 to about 1,200. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says the Palestinian death toll from Israels military campaign has surpassed 11,000, overwhelmingly women and children. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the idea of the Palestinian Authority governing Gaza once the Israel-Hamas war is over, a position at odds with the Biden administration. "There will have to be something else there," Netanyahu said at a news conference Saturday, when asked whether the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the occupied West Bank, may govern Gaza after the war. "There won't be a civilian authority that educates their children to hate Israel, to kill Israelis, to wipe out the state of Israel." U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken outlined conditions Wednesday for a postwar government. "It must include Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority," he said. Earlier Saturday, as the humanitarian crisis intensified at the Al-Shifa Hospital, Israel said it was ready to evacuate babies from the facility after two died and dozens more were at risk when fuel for the generators ran out on Saturday. "Medical devices stopped. Patients, especially those in intensive care, started to die," Al-Shifa Hospital Director Mohammed Abu Selmia said by phone with gunfire and explosions heard in the background. The Israeli military will help evacuate babies trapped in Al-Shifa on Sunday, chief Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said. "The staff of the Shifa hospital has requested that tomorrow we help the babies in the pediatric department to get to a safer hospital," Hagari told a news conference. "We will provide the assistance needed." Israeli troops fought with Hamas gunmen outside Al-Shifa on Saturday with thousands of war-wounded, medical staff and displaced civilians caught in the crossfire. Selmia said Israeli troops were "shooting at anyone outside or inside the hospital" and preventing movement between buildings. An Israeli officer, Colonel Moshe Tetro, confirmed clashes outside the hospital but denied Al-Shifa Hospital was under siege or direct attack. He said he was in touch with the director and had offered safe passage for those willing to leave through the hospital's east side. Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, told broadcaster Channel 12 that taking control of the hospitals would be key to Israels goal of rooting out Hamas. But it would require "a lot of tactical creativity to do so without hurting patients, other civilians and Israeli hostages. Israeli army officials accuse Hamas of hiding weapons in tunnels under hospitals and setting up a command center beneath Shifa and other hospitals, making the buildings legitimate military targets. Hamas and hospital staff deny this. Israel Defense Forces denied firing on Al-Shifa Friday and accused Hamas of firing a rocket aimed at Israeli troops that hit the hospital instead. 'A state of extreme panic' Elsewhere, the Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli tanks were 20 meters (66 feet) from Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City, causing "a state of extreme panic and fear" among the 14,000 displaced people sheltering there. Prime Minister Netanyahu reiterated Saturday that the responsibility for civilian deaths and injuries lies with Hamas, and he repeated long-standing charges that the militant group uses civilians in Gaza as human shields. Israel's military has said soldiers have encountered hundreds of Hamas fighters in underground facilities, schools, mosques and clinics during fighting in Gaza. Israel launched its offensive in response to Hamas' October 7 terror attack in southern Israel. On Friday, Israel lowered the estimated death toll to about 1,200 people. "This is the updated number," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat told Agence France-Presse. "It is due to the fact that there were a lot of corpses that were not identified and now we think those belong to terrorists ... not Israeli casualties." Hamas also took about 240 people hostages. The U.S., U.K., EU and several other Western countries have designated Hamas a terrorist organization. Four Gaza hospitals attacked The Palestinian death toll has steadily grown to more than 11,000, about 40% of them children, according to Palestinian officials. The World Health Organization chief says a child dies every 10 minutes. The head of the World Health Organization told United Nations Security Council members that Gazas health system "is on its knees" with 18 of 36 hospitals and two-thirds of its primary health centers not functioning. "The situation on the ground is impossible to describe," Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. "Hospital corridors crammed with the injured, the sick, the dying; morgues overflowing; surgery without anesthesia; tens of thousands of displaced people sheltering at hospitals; families crammed into overcrowded schools, desperate for food and water." "If there is a hell on earth today," said Jens Laerke, U.N. humanitarian spokesperson, "its name is northern Gaza." Israel warns Hezbollah The threat of regional conflict between Israel and Hamas could spill into Lebanon as tensions rise between Israel and Lebanons Hezbollah. During a tour to Israels northern border with Lebanon on Saturday, Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant sent a sobering warning to Hezbollahs leaders. "My message to Lebanese citizens I see Gazan civilians evacuating [their homes] and walking along the beach, heading south as they carry white flags [because of Hamas]. Hezbollah is dragging Lebanon to a possible war and is making mistakes. If [Hezbollah] makes such mistakes here, the first to pay the price will be the citizens. What we can do in Gaza, we can also do in Beirut," he cautioned. Afterward, Gallant met with soldiers and reservists stationed in the area where he expressed his appreciation for their defense operations, as well as for their actions eliminating targets in Lebanon. Saudi leader condemns 'barbaric war' Saudi Arabia and Muslim countries asked Saturday for an immediate end to military operations in Gaza, declaring at the Joint Emergency Summit of the League of Arab States in Riyadh that Israel bears responsibility for crimes against Palestinians. Dozens of leaders, including Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who was welcomed back into the Arab League earlier this year attended the summit. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler and organizer of the summit, said the kingdom affirms its "condemnation and categorical rejection of this barbaric war against our brothers in Palestine." The United Arab Emirates plans to maintain its diplomatic ties with Israel despite international outcry over the mounting toll of the war in Gaza. UAE officials have publicly condemned Israel's actions and repeatedly called for an end to the violence but say they also hope to have some moderating influence over the Israeli military operation in the enclave while safeguarding its own interests, according to four sources familiar with UAE government policy. UNRWA Commissioner Philippe Lazzarini addressed the summit, describing the desperate situation for civilians in Gaza. He also said that in the past month, the U.N. Agency for Palestine Refugees has lost 101 colleagues and more that 1.5 million people have been displaced. "Every little girl and boy I met in an UNRWA shelter asked me for bread and water," he said. "Children used to learn and laugh in the school I visited. Now, the school is an overcrowded shelter that lacks the minimum standards for a dignified life." VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed reporting for this report. Some information for this article was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. HONOLULU (ASSOCIATED PRESS) A pond in Hawaii has turned so bubble-gum pink it could be from the set of Barbie, but the bizarre phenomenon is no cause for a dance party. Drought may be to blame for the strange hue, scientists say, and they're warning against entering the water or drinking it. Staff at the Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge on Maui have been monitoring the pink water since Oct. 30. "I just got a report from somebody that was walking on the beach, and they called me up like, 'There's something weird going on over here,'" said Bret Wolfe, the refuge manager. Wolfe was concerned the bright pink could be a sign of an algae bloom, but lab tests found toxic algae was not causing the color. Instead an organism called halobacteria might be the culprit. Halobacteria are a type of archaea or single-celled organism that thrive in bodies of water with high levels of salt. The salinity inside the Kealia Pond outlet area is currently greater than 70 parts per thousand, which is twice the salinity of seawater. Wolfe said the lab will need to conduct a DNA analysis to definitively identify the organism. Maui's drought is likely contributing to the situation. Normally Waikapu Stream feeds into Kealia Pond and raises water levels there, but Wolfe said that hasn't happened in a long time. When it rains, the stream will flow into Kealia's main pond and then into the outlet area that's now pink. This will reduce the salinity and potentially change the water's color. "That might be what makes it go away," Wolfe said. No one at the refuge has seen the pond this color before not even volunteers who have been around it for 70 years. The pond has been through periods of drought and high salinity before, though, and Wolfe isn't sure why the color has changed now. Curious visitors have flocked to the park after photos of the pink pond appeared on social media. "We prefer that they come to hear about our mission conserving native and endangered waterbirds and our wetland restorations. But no, they're here to see the pink water," Wolfe joked. He understands everyone's fascination. "If that's what gets them there, it's OK," he said. "It is neat." The wildlife refuge is a wetland that provides nesting, feeding and resting habitat to the endangered Hawaiian stilt, known as aeo, and the Hawaiian coot or alae keokeo. It also hosts migratory birds during the winter. The water doesn't appear to be harming the birds, Wolfe said. As a wildlife refuge, people aren't supposed to wade into the pond or let their pets in the water regardless of its color. But officials are taking an extra precaution to warn people not to enter the water or eat any fish caught there because the source of the color has yet to be identified. Almost one year after a deadly attack at Club Q in Colorado Springs, healing looks different for each of the more than 40 patrons, performers and employees who survived the mass shooting that killed Raymond Green Vance, Kelly Loving, Ashley Paugh, Daniel Aston and Derrick Rump. Some have found new purpose and a path forward, as heroes, advocates and leaders in the LGBTQ+ community speaking out on the national stage alongside dignitaries and stars, and testifying at town halls and before Congress. Others are still struggling to figure out who they are and where they belong after a hate-filled act of violence shattered their chosen family and the safe space theyd shared, for a time, in a city with an infamous legacy of bias. 'Everything went wrong' A bookcase in Ashtin Gamblins home office serves as a makeshift shrine to the place she loved, and the loved ones she lost. The mementos on her rainbow shelf tell a bittersweet story of a chronologically brief time that nonetheless affected her in a more powerful way than you could imagine, even before it turned tragic. Theres the neon green scrap of wristband from her original visit to Club Q in early 2022, the first time the Illinois transplant had ever been to a place that openly billed itself as a gay bar. Near it is the white plastic ID bracelet from the hospital, cut from Gamblins wrist after six days undergoing surgeries to repair damage and broken bones she sustained when nine bullets ripped through her arms as she worked the clubs front door on Nov. 19, 2022. Her good friend and Club Q bartender Daniel Aston was standing between her and the door when now-convicted shooter Anderson Lee Aldrich entered the club shortly before midnight and opened fire killing Aston, who took the bullets Gamblin said she believes otherwise would have struck her in the torso. He saved my life, she said. Gamblin had been new-ish to town when she first visited the club. It became her go-to hangout, its regular crowd, her favorite people, before it became a part-time job that didnt feel like a job at all. They say do something you love and its not work. I got paid to go hang out with my friends, said Gamblin, 30, who also had a day job, working from home for Bright Horizons, while pursuing a bachelors degree in criminal justice with a specialty in forensics. After the shooting, it would take several months of healing and physical therapy before she had the hand strength and dexterity to open a can of soda. Eight months before she could make a fist with her right hand. Typing is still a struggle, but she works for an amazing boss, at a company that supported her throughout her recovery and transitioned her to a different position she can manage as she continues to heal. Gamblin said shed initially chosen to pursue forensics because she wanted to remain behind the scenes, in a job with as little human interaction as possible. Thats no longer the case. She remembers a conversation shed had with Derrick Rump, a star bartender at Club Q who, like Aston, was the glitter glue that kept everyone connected and coming back to the dance club and drag performance venue off North Academy Boulevard. Derrick said he never wanted the community to stop fighting. Daniel, himself, was a very large advocate for trans rights, Gamblin said. With the boys gone, they still need their voices and somebody needs to be as vocal as humanly possible. Her late friends words, and a worry that forensics might not be the best pursuit for someone whod experienced the trauma she had, led to a shift in career goals. Gamblin said she quit school after the shooting, but plans to finish her degree and pivot to a focus on homeland security and crisis management. Hopefully get my masters, do social work, try to find specialties within LGBTQ and human rights, she said. She said shes already connected with an organization thats helping set up speaking engagements at law enforcement trainings, where shes sharing her experience in hopes that, if such tragedies cant be averted through policy, police and emergency responders can avoid making a devastating situation even worse. Everything about that night for a lot of us went wrong. It wasnt just the shooting. There were a lot of issues after the fact, Gamblin said. Shes spoken up about 911 holds, and how a reported first-response time of under three minutes likely didnt take into account the number of emergency calls that languished on hold and never made it through to a dispatcher. And, you know, dont put a perpetrator and a victim in the same ambulance, said Gamblin, who was taken to the hospital that night in the same bus as the shooter whod wounded her and killed her friends. Youd think thats common sense, but I guess not. Aldrich who was tackled and disarmed by club patrons, including Richard Fierro and Thomas James pleaded guilty and is serving life in prison. For some survivors, it was a blessing not to have to take the stand and recount the scenes that will play in their minds for the rest of their lives. Gamblin was among those who chose to speak at a June sentencing hearing for Aldrich. For her, sharing her story has helped her make sense of a new reality. I never thought about what people go through in the aftermath of a shooting, because who does until theyre forced to? You don't have time to heal, you don't have time to grieve, you just get up, and go to the next battle, she said. And when the quiet finally comes, you realize youre a different person than you were. Before the shooting, Gamblin said she and her husband, Ryan, who is in the military, had talked about starting a family. Those discussions are now on pause. Were still trying to figure out life, and I'm still trying to figure out if I want to actually bring kids into this world, Gamblin said. Im too traumatized. I dont want to bring them into that. Sign up for free: Springs AM Update Your morning rundown of the latest news from Colorado Springs and around the country overnight and the stories to follow throughout the day delivered to your inbox each evening. Sign Up View all of our newsletters. Success! Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. View all of our newsletters. 'The person I was did die' John Arcediano was in tears as he drove to Club Q in early October, the first time hed returned since that horrific night. I had no want or desire to return, ever said Arcediano, 36. But hed agreed to meet a reporter and have his photo taken outside the building, which has been closed since the shooting. With the one year mark approaching and a public clean up event planned at the site he might as well get it over with. It certainly wasnt the roughest hurdle of the past 11 months. I have really bad days, but there are really good days too, said Arcediano, whose physical injuries from shrapnel were not severe. The trauma of watching friends die, and thinking he might, too, is a wound thats still unhealed, and may never be. The biggest thing Im beginning to realize, as the survivor of a mass trauma event like this, is that the person I was did, in fact, die that day. And now were trying to discover the new person that I am, and who that person is." That person is, in many ways, a stranger to the one that came before. For me, this year is all about transformation, said Arcediano, who left his job of 15 years as an operating professional with The Melting Pot, changed addresses, and shed every piece of my past life, to embrace this new person moving forward. That new person is the new program and outreach director for Community Health Partnership's Prism Community Collective, a hub of resources and services for the LGBTQ+ community set to open soon in the Springs. After this event happened, I did a lot of soul searching and realized that I wanted to do something to help this community, because it really is lacking in the resources of lot of other larger cities this size have, Arcediano said. Like Gamblin, he credits his career shift to the friends he made, and lost. He first found his way to the club on Thanksgiving the year he moved to Colorado Springs, because he was lonely and the club threw an annual feast for those orphaned at the holidays. He was hooked. Thats really where I learned what it means to be queer, said Arcediano. It was really Derrick (Rump) who emphasized the importance of this community and really made me understand and appreciate the value of the queer community on another level. Arcediano said his mission now is to do everything in his power to make the community, at large, a more safe, accepting and comfortable space for everyone. And to keep seeing it, and the world, with the affection and hope his friends did. "Derrick always said, just give the community a chance," Arcediano said. "I did. I am. Colorado Springs is my forever home." 'I want to move on' Beyonca Perez picked at the edges of her manicure as she spoke, her gaze flitting up occasionally from her hands to the door of the downtown coffee shop, to the windows, and, briefly, to the person seated across from her at the cafe, in early November. These days, when she does go out, she said she takes a seat with a clear view of the entrance. And she has to remind herself to make, and hold, eye contact. Such an easy thing, that little gift of connection that says Im here, I see you, can leave her feeling uncomfortable, and vulnerable. One of the comments that was made to me recently, that broke my heart here I am, supposed to be this mother figure for these kids, and one of them said to me, I really, I just can't wait for the day that you can look us in the eye again,' said Perez. The general manager of Club Q, Perez was at the club, but not on the clock, the night of the shooting. She was on the clubs heated smoking porch, with a view of the front door, when she hear the pops and saw the muzzle flashes of gunfire. Perez hauled up a garage door to the open air porch, where she helped people escape over a 6-foot fence then punched through the boards to create an emergency exit directly into the parking lot. She still bears the faint scar where a massive splinter impaled her wrist. Her heroic actions couldn't save two of her dearest friends, though. Derrick Rump was like a brother. Daniel Aston, like one of her kids. All I know is that a piece of me died that night, and I'll never get it back, said Perez, 36. I think I'm at the point now where I'm mourning who Beyonca used to be. I don't know who she is anymore, but I'm really looking forward to figuring that out. Perez had envisioned her move to Colorado Springs two years ago as a chance to discover who she was without all the armor she felt necessary living as a trans woman in the Lone Star State, where she had to play a character all the time. I always had to be on, with the glitz and the glamour, the makeup, everything and just being the fun, outgoing, bubbly, life-of-the-party person. That's what everybody wanted to see, so thats what I was. In Colorado Springs, she resolved to live a quieter life caring for her mother whose cancer has since gone into remission and working and saving up money for the eventual move back to Texas. But then she went to bingo at Club Q and met Hysteria Brooks, who talked her into performing in one of her shows at the club. Beyonca Deleon, Perez drag persona in all her glory was back. After the shooting, it would be months before she could bring herself to try on that armor and perform again, which she finally did for Hysteria Brooks birthday party in August. The regalia no longer feels like the protection it once did. Perez said she still struggles with social anxiety and the inertia of depression, but has taken a part time job at a florist shop that gets her out of the house, and brings the opportunity for beauty. A bad reaction to an antidepressant she started taking after the tragedy led to memory loss and other side effects that have complicated her recovery. Perez said shes worried shell lose the memories that comfort, and not the ones that haunt. She's worried she'll never again find a place that feels like home. I can sit here and I can be scrolling through socials and I'm starting to find myself angry at other people for being able to move on so easily but I know thats not fair, said Perez. I want to move on. I want to be able to do those things, go to those events, but I cant. This incident, this whole event, just broke me as a person. Photo: Getty Images for VOX Media Please Dont Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain found the ultimate treasure: casting the perfect person to play Ben Marshalls dad Conan OBrien. In a discussion with director Paul Briganti, star Meg Stalter, and co-producer Albertina Rizzo, the team explained that outside of physical similarities between the two actors, it was very easy to get OBrien onboard. He was very excited and took it very seriously, explained Briganti. We immediately thought of him, but we were nervous because hes so important to us. But we asked him, and he was like, I want to make sure I do a good job. Not only was OBrien a generous scene partner, he was also generous with the wisdom he shared with the crew, including relationship advice. He said not to cheat on your partner at one point, remembered Stalter. Be good at being a disapproving dad in a movie? Check. Be good at being a husband in real life? Also, check. Lion sparked panic on the streets of Ladispoli. A lion that escaped from a circus near Rome was sedated and captured on Saturday night after around seven hours on the loose in the seaside town of Ladispoli. The news was announced late on Saturday by Ladispoli mayor Alessandro Grando who paid tribute to the police, firefighters and volunteers "who served in these hours of great concern". "I hope that this episode can stir some consciences, and that we can finally put an end to the exploitation of animals in circuses," the mayor added. On Saturday afternoon Grando had warned local residents to stay at home while police and circus staff attempted to catch the adult lion, their efforts hampered by darkness. A police helicopter with infrared night vision camera was used to help locate the animal and a section of the Via Aurelia highway was closed off during the search. Residents of Ladispoli, a seaside town near Rome, have been told to stay indoors after a lion escaped from a circus on Saturday. Efforts are underway to capture the animal.pic.twitter.com/GL0bQmVGWZ Wanted in Rome (@wantedinrome) November 11, 2023 Alarmed residents posted photographs and videos online of the escaped lion as it prowled around the town's deserted streets on Saturday night. Earlier that day the mayor clarified that he had not authorised the presence of the circus in Ladispoli, stating: "unfortunately we cannot ban circuses with animals from coming to our town." There is a clear path to dictatorship in the United States, and it is getting shorter every day. So why is everyone behaving like normal? Your mouse hovers, perhaps with a little excitement, over the small icon of the supermarket trolley and you click, anticipating that youve closed the deal. Wait. Instead of the satisfying confirmation that your purchase is complete, youre diverted to a page asking you to read fine print. And not just one page, there seems to be an endless scroll with dozens of terms and conditions. It comes as a sense of relief when you spy a checkbox. You tick: I acknowledge that I have read and understand the terms and conditions, and click accept, having not read the terms and conditions, yet somehow confident there was nothing important in that grey wave of legalese. Credit: Matt Davidson Most of the time, we never think of this frequent interaction again, but when things go wrong these unread words can come back to haunt us. The yawning gap between what business think they are selling and consumers are actually getting was brought home recently by Qantas response to allegations that it misled travellers selling tickets for more than 8000 flights that it had already cancelled. Qantas says that the case, launched by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) in August, ignores the realities of the aviation industry. It says that airlines dont sell a particular ticket on a particular flight, but rather a bundle of rights that promise to get customers on their way to their destination as close as possible to the flight time they book. The United Nations top expert on the situation in Palestine has called for Israel to make peace with Hamas despite the October 7 massacre, saying it should be up to Palestinians to decide who governs the Gaza strip. Francesca Albanese, the UNs special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, said Australia was complicit in the scenes of death and destruction in Gaza and accused Israel of using the war against Hamas as a pretext to push Palestinians out of their ancestral lands. Palestinians leave from the northern part of the Gaza to flee the central and southern parts of the Gaza Strip on Friday. Credit: Belal Khaled/Anadolu via Getty Images Albanese, who has faced fierce criticism from Israel and its supporters for alleged bias since taking on the role, is visiting Australia for a series of speeches and media events, including on the ABCs Q&A and an address the National Press Club in Canberra next week. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to crush and eliminate Hamas following the attacks that left approximately 1200 Israelis dead, declaring that Israel will not allow the terror group or any similar entity to control the Gaza strip after the war. A clear exemption for religious expression will be among the substantial changes to Labors proposed misinformation laws as the revised legislation is delayed until next year after a chorus of free speech concerns from a range of organisations. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland outlined likely revisions to key elements of the draft bill, including to the definitions of misinformation and disinformation and to the exemption for government material, areas that have been criticised by legal and human rights experts. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland says a final misinformation bill will be introduced to parliament in the first half of next year. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen She laid out a new timetable for introducing legislation to parliament in the first half of next year, pushing back Labors initial end-of-year deadline and saying more time was needed to consider changes suggested by various groups. I do want to stress that doing nothing is not an option in this area, she said. Autism rates in Australian children are among the highest in the world, leading a senior researcher to suggest the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) could be driving steeper than average growth in diagnoses. A paper by Australian National University scholar Maathu Ranjan, who is on study leave from her role as a senior actuary at the National Disability Insurance Agency that oversees the scheme, shows autism rates have risen notably in developed nations over the past 10 years. But the increase has been sharper in Australia than in other countries with comparable economic and health systems such as the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Estimates of prevalence in Australia are some of the highest in the world and have grown faster than the global average, Ranjan said. SHOEMAKERSVILLE, Pa. A Berks County organization that serves members of the military and their families received a donation of 185,000 hotel supplies on Veterans Day. Keystone Military Families, a community organization based in Shoemakersville, was gifted the supplies equivalent to 24 pallets of essential items including soap, body wash, shampoo, conditional, body lotion, mouthwash and bath towels by 1Concier, a Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based company that provides linen products to the hospitality, health care and commercial laundry markets. Keystone Military Families currently assists more than 150 families every week with groceries, clothing, household items and furniture, according to its website. It also has a pantry that is open to all Pennsylvania military, active duty, and reserves, as well as their direct families. "My staff and I are extremely grateful and thankful that we will be able to stock our pantry with these health and bath supplies to hand out to our families in need," said Kyle Lord, board chair of Keystone Military Families. 1Concier says Robert Emery, its manager of logistics executive, helped to facilitate the donation to the Berks organization. Emery, the company said, researched Keystone Military Families and determined that the items could be used for their local pantry as well as bath kits they send to deployed soldiers for Christmas. "Providing these essential items to those who need them most is deeply rewarding for us as a company," said Tony Smith, 1Concier CEO. " Besides supporting the local community, we support deployed soldiers serving our country overseas." ALLENTOWN, Pa. Every veteran has a story, and it's important to listen to those stories and preserve them for future generations. Working with the Lehigh Valley Veterans History Project, several local veterans shared their own stories this Veterans Day. "We are Americans we stick up for ourselves and we help everybody else," said Richard Schimmel. Schimmel proudly wears he World War II veteran cap. He was instrumental in the war using radar., a very new technology at the time. "We picked up the airplanes and told them where to go to hit them," he explained. Schimmel was stationed in Pearl Harbor when the Japanese bombed. "I saw the planes coming in December 7th, you know," Schimmel shared. "He came towards us, and then all of a sudden, he veered off and he dropped a bomb on a ship." Schimmel is one of many veterans around the Lehigh Valley who shared their experiences with Mike Sewards, founder of the Lehigh Valley Veterans History Project. "Especially for the younger generation, because they don't learn that stuff at school that much anymore," Sewards said. Maj. Gen. Gerald Still is also part of the project. "My whole family instilled in me, on both sides, a love for helping others," Still said. "My whole life has been in service to others, and it always will be. But the military, I thought, was a great way to go, so that's what I did." He started his military career during the Vietnam War and retired in 2011 as a two-star general serving in the Air Force. Master Sgt. Jeffrey Capwell also served in the Air Force, making the military his career as well. But, it wasn't easy. Capwell says when he returned from Vietnam, what he encountered in the United States was difficult. "The master sergeant said of the hundred of us or so how many were going back across the states flying today," he said. "About 60 of us put up our hand, and the next word out of his mouth was, 'We appreciate it if you would change into civilian clothes.'" Capwell says returning from his tour during Operation Desert Storm in the 90s was much different. He was welcomed back to applause and cheering. It proved that small gestures of appreciation especially on Veterans Day go a long way. LEECHBURG, Pa. A man has been charged in a shooting that wounded a police officer in suburban Pittsburgh. The officer was shot following a chase through Allegheny and Westmoreland counties. The pursuit started when police spotted a vehicle that had been reported stolen. Police eventually got the vehicle to stop. When they approached the car, the driver allegedly pulled a gun and fired several shots at officers. Two shots stuck an officer in the arm and leg. At last check, the officer was in stable condition and expected to recover. The suspect, 38-year-old Bruce Alvarado of Clariton, is facing attempted homicide and numerous other charges. SCHUYLKILL HAVEN, Pa. - PA State police were called to Boscov's department store at the Fairlane Village Mall on Tuesday, following a reported theft. Police say the alleged thief entered the store through the front entrance just past 1 p.m. and stole several items. Two men's Tommy Hilfiger jackets valued at $89.99 each, two pairs of Pair of Thieves underwear valued at $24.99, and one Shark vacuum valued at $299.99 were taken, according to police. The investigation is ongoing. A Texas police officer was killed early Saturday in a shooting that left the shooter dead and a second officer wounded, authorities said. Two other people were later found dead inside a home in Austin, according to interim Police Chief Robin Henderson. An emotional Henderson, who paused often during a news conference and appeared to be choking back tears, said officers were called to the home shortly before 3 a.m. Saturday by a woman screaming that she was being stabbed. One person escaped the home before officers arrived, Henderson said, and told police the man in the home was armed with a knife. Police then tried to enter the home and were met with gunfire, but did not return fire, retreated and called for a SWAT team, said Henderson, who did not take questions and was surrounded by about 10 other officers during her comments. SWAT officers arrived on scene and forced entry into the residence ... to rescue the victims, Henderson said. As SWAT officers entered the suspect immediately fired his gun at the officers and the SWAT officers returned fire. Two officers and the suspect were struck by the gunfire. The suspect was killed at the scene and the two officers were taken to a hospital, where one died and the second was in stable condition, Henderson said. Two apparent victims of the suspect were located inside of the residence with fatal injuries, Henderson said. Multiple officers opened fire, and the shooting will be investigated by both the Austin Police Department's internal affairs division and the department's special investigation unit in conjunction with the Travis County District Attorney's Office, Henderson said. No names have been released. Im praying for the family of our fallen officer, Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said in a statement, and for our officer who was shot and in surgery and his family. We rely on brave people who are in harms way when they are serving us, Watson said. This event jarringly brings home that truth. The Austin Police Retired Officers Association asked for prayers for both the slain and the wounded officer. Our hearts are heavy this morning with the news of one of our brothers with APD having been shot and killed in the line of duty, the statement said on X, formerly known as Twitter. Gov. Greg Abbott also issued a statement calling for prayers for the family of the slain officer, for the wounded officer and for the city's police department. This tragedy is a reminder of the great risks and selfless leadership our law enforcement officers exercise every day to serve and protect their communities, Abbott said. Vise Technologies Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Xerox Holdings Co. (NYSE:XRX Free Report) in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 15,628 shares of the information technology services providers stock, valued at approximately $233,000. Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Quarry LP acquired a new position in shares of Xerox in the first quarter worth $29,000. National Bank of Canada FI lifted its position in shares of Xerox by 133.8% in the second quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 3,872 shares of the information technology services providers stock valued at $58,000 after acquiring an additional 2,216 shares in the last quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Xerox in the second quarter valued at $75,000. Captrust Financial Advisors lifted its position in shares of Xerox by 34.7% in the first quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 5,521 shares of the information technology services providers stock valued at $113,000 after acquiring an additional 1,422 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Ameritas Advisory Services LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Xerox in the first quarter valued at $83,000. 83.53% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Xerox alerts: Xerox Stock Performance NYSE XRX opened at $13.36 on Friday. The businesss 50-day moving average price is $14.82 and its 200 day moving average price is $15.02. Xerox Holdings Co. has a twelve month low of $12.06 and a twelve month high of $18.00. The company has a market capitalization of $1.64 billion, a PE ratio of 5.86 and a beta of 1.73. The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 0.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.98. Xerox Announces Dividend Xerox ( NYSE:XRX Get Free Report ) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 24th. The information technology services provider reported $0.46 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.35 by $0.11. The company had revenue of $1.65 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.73 billion. Xerox had a return on equity of 11.59% and a net margin of 2.55%. The firms revenue was down 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.19 earnings per share. On average, research analysts predict that Xerox Holdings Co. will post 1.84 earnings per share for the current year. The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 31st. Shareholders of record on Friday, December 29th will be paid a dividend of $0.25 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, December 28th. This represents a $1.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 7.49%. Xeroxs dividend payout ratio is presently 96.15%. Insiders Place Their Bets In other Xerox news, major shareholder Carl C. Icahn sold 34,245,314 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $15.84, for a total transaction of $542,445,773.76. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. In other news, major shareholder Carl C. Icahn sold 34,245,314 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $15.84, for a total value of $542,445,773.76. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, EVP Suzan Morno-Wade sold 9,126 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $16.75, for a total value of $152,860.50. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 46,323 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $775,910.25. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.38% of the stock is currently owned by insiders. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades XRX has been the topic of several recent research reports. Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on Xerox from $13.00 to $12.00 and set an underweight rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, October 25th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their target price on Xerox from $16.00 to $15.00 and set an underweight rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, October 25th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded Xerox from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Friday, November 3rd. Check Out Our Latest Analysis on Xerox Xerox Company Profile (Free Report) Xerox Holdings Corporation, a workplace technology company, designs, develops, and sells document management systems and solutions in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, and internationally. It offers workplace solutions, including desktop monochrome, and color and multifunction printers; digital printing presses and light production devices, and solutions; and digital services that leverage workflow automation, personalization and communication software, content management solutions, and digitization services. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Xerox Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Xerox and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. 1ST Source Bank grew its holdings in shares of Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE Free Report) by 8.8% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 129,238 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock after acquiring an additional 10,453 shares during the period. 1ST Source Banks holdings in Pfizer were worth $4,740,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. A number of other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the business. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS lifted its holdings in Pfizer by 3.5% during the 2nd quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS now owns 984,560 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock worth $36,114,000 after buying an additional 32,964 shares during the period. Coastal Investment Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Pfizer by 10.9% in the second quarter. Coastal Investment Advisors Inc. now owns 45,032 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock worth $1,652,000 after acquiring an additional 4,422 shares during the period. Andra AP fonden boosted its holdings in Pfizer by 22.1% in the second quarter. Andra AP fonden now owns 215,100 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock valued at $7,890,000 after acquiring an additional 38,900 shares during the last quarter. Mn Services Vermogensbeheer B.V. acquired a new stake in Pfizer during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $98,915,000. Finally, Financial Gravity Asset Management Inc. raised its holdings in Pfizer by 559.2% during the 2nd quarter. Financial Gravity Asset Management Inc. now owns 501 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock worth $14,919,000 after purchasing an additional 425 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 68.05% of the companys stock. Get Pfizer alerts: Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Several equities analysts recently issued reports on PFE shares. UBS Group restated a neutral rating and issued a $34.00 target price (down previously from $36.00) on shares of Pfizer in a report on Friday, October 20th. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their target price on Pfizer from $39.00 to $35.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research note on Monday, October 16th. Cantor Fitzgerald reissued an overweight rating and issued a $75.00 price target on shares of Pfizer in a research note on Monday, October 2nd. Barclays reduced their price objective on shares of Pfizer from $35.00 to $34.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, November 1st. Finally, StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of Pfizer in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating on the stock. Twelve research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $42.50. Pfizer Stock Down 0.7 % Shares of NYSE:PFE opened at $29.48 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.82, a current ratio of 2.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.63. The businesss 50 day moving average is $32.49 and its 200 day moving average is $35.58. Pfizer Inc. has a 12-month low of $29.02 and a 12-month high of $54.93. The stock has a market cap of $166.44 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.11, a PEG ratio of 1.89 and a beta of 0.63. Pfizer (NYSE:PFE Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 31st. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.17) earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.32) by $0.15. The business had revenue of $13.23 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $13.77 billion. Pfizer had a net margin of 15.30% and a return on equity of 16.72%. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Pfizer Inc. will post 1.56 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Pfizer Dividend Announcement The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 4th. Shareholders of record on Friday, November 10th will be paid a $0.41 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 9th. This represents a $1.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.56%. Pfizers dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 89.62%. Pfizer Profile (Free Report) Pfizer Inc discovers, develops, manufactures, markets, distributes, and sells biopharmaceutical products worldwide. It offers medicines and vaccines in various therapeutic areas, including cardiovascular metabolic, migraine, and women's health under the Eliquis, Nurtec ODT/Vydura, and the Premarin family brands; infectious diseases with unmet medical needs under the Prevnar family, Nimenrix, FSME/IMMUN-TicoVac, and Trumenba brands; and COVID-19 prevention and treatment, and potential future mRNA and antiviral products under the Comirnaty and Paxlovid brands. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding PFE? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Pfizer Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Pfizer and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. 1ST Source Bank reduced its position in Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY Free Report) by 6.6% during the second quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 40,834 shares of the companys stock after selling 2,899 shares during the period. Eli Lilly and Company accounts for about 1.2% of 1ST Source Banks investment portfolio, making the stock its 15th biggest position. 1ST Source Banks holdings in Eli Lilly and Company were worth $19,150,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. A number of other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in LLY. Wellington Management Group LLP raised its position in shares of Eli Lilly and Company by 1.6% during the 1st quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 20,324,267 shares of the companys stock valued at $6,979,760,000 after buying an additional 314,349 shares in the last quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich raised its position in shares of Eli Lilly and Company by 533,336.4% during the 2nd quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich now owns 19,059,681 shares of the companys stock valued at $8,938,609,000 after buying an additional 19,056,108 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in Eli Lilly and Company by 1.1% during the first quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 14,867,424 shares of the companys stock valued at $5,094,159,000 after purchasing an additional 159,964 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley raised its holdings in Eli Lilly and Company by 44.1% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 12,059,204 shares of the companys stock valued at $4,411,740,000 after buying an additional 3,691,436 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Eli Lilly and Company during the 4th quarter valued at $3,416,206,000. 81.38% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Eli Lilly and Company alerts: Eli Lilly and Company Price Performance LLY opened at $597.71 on Friday. The businesss 50-day moving average is $574.81 and its two-hundred day moving average is $502.26. Eli Lilly and Company has a 1 year low of $309.20 and a 1 year high of $629.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.59, a current ratio of 1.05 and a quick ratio of 0.82. The firm has a market capitalization of $567.41 billion, a PE ratio of 108.28, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.74 and a beta of 0.33. Eli Lilly and Company Dividend Announcement Insider Buying and Selling at Eli Lilly and Company The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 8th. Investors of record on Wednesday, November 15th will be given a dividend of $1.13 per share. This represents a $4.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.76%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 14th. Eli Lilly and Companys dividend payout ratio is currently 81.88%. In related news, major shareholder Lilly Endowment Inc sold 164,778 shares of Eli Lilly and Company stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $539.08, for a total value of $88,828,524.24. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 100,449,032 shares in the company, valued at approximately $54,150,064,170.56. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed 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 Eli Lilly and Company 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 completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 7,760 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $4,586,004.80. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, major shareholder Lilly Endowment Inc sold 164,778 shares of Eli Lilly and Company stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $539.08, for a total value of $88,828,524.24. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 100,449,032 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $54,150,064,170.56. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 700,916 shares of company stock worth $20,970,455,882. 0.13% of the stock is owned by insiders. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth LLY has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Citigroup increased their target price on shares of Eli Lilly and Company from $525.00 to $675.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Monday, October 23rd. Argus increased their price objective on shares of Eli Lilly and Company from $470.00 to $620.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 5th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reiterated an overweight rating on shares of Eli Lilly and Company in a report on Wednesday. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on Eli Lilly and Company from $615.00 to $650.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Monday, October 9th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft initiated coverage on Eli Lilly and Company in a research note on Thursday. They issued a hold rating and a $535.00 target price on the stock. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and twenty have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Eli Lilly and Company currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $557.00. Check Out Our Latest Report on Eli Lilly and Company About Eli Lilly and Company (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. See Also Want to see what other hedge funds are holding LLY? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Eli Lilly and Company Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Eli Lilly and Company and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. 1ST Source Bank lowered its stake in shares of The TJX Companies, Inc. (NYSE:TJX Free Report) by 0.6% in the second quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 59,981 shares of the apparel and home fashions retailers stock after selling 359 shares during the period. 1ST Source Banks holdings in TJX Companies were worth $5,086,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC. A number of other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Adero Partners LLC raised its position in shares of TJX Companies by 4.5% during the second quarter. Adero Partners LLC now owns 2,807 shares of the apparel and home fashions retailers stock valued at $238,000 after buying an additional 121 shares during the last quarter. First Business Financial Services Inc. increased its stake in TJX Companies by 0.7% in the second quarter. First Business Financial Services Inc. now owns 18,064 shares of the apparel and home fashions retailers stock valued at $1,532,000 after acquiring an additional 121 shares during the period. Chatham Capital Group Inc. increased its stake in TJX Companies by 1.7% in the second quarter. Chatham Capital Group Inc. now owns 7,627 shares of the apparel and home fashions retailers stock valued at $647,000 after acquiring an additional 125 shares during the period. Alpha Financial Partners LLC increased its stake in TJX Companies by 2.5% in the first quarter. Alpha Financial Partners LLC now owns 5,337 shares of the apparel and home fashions retailers stock valued at $418,000 after acquiring an additional 129 shares during the period. Finally, Tradition Wealth Management LLC increased its stake in TJX Companies by 3.7% in the first quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC now owns 3,672 shares of the apparel and home fashions retailers stock valued at $288,000 after acquiring an additional 132 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 89.28% of the companys stock. Get TJX Companies alerts: TJX Companies Price Performance TJX opened at $91.20 on Friday. The TJX Companies, Inc. has a one year low of $72.92 and a one year high of $93.78. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a current ratio of 1.20 and a quick ratio of 0.56. The companys 50 day simple moving average is $89.83 and its 200-day simple moving average is $85.33. The stock has a market capitalization of $104.34 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.74, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 0.91. TJX Companies Dividend Announcement TJX Companies ( NYSE:TJX Get Free Report ) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 16th. The apparel and home fashions retailer reported $0.85 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.77 by $0.08. TJX Companies had a net margin of 7.77% and a return on equity of 62.61%. The business had revenue of $12.76 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $12.45 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.69 earnings per share. TJX Companiess revenue was up 7.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts anticipate that The TJX Companies, Inc. will post 3.71 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, November 30th. Investors of record on Thursday, November 9th will be issued a $0.3325 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, November 8th. This represents a $1.33 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.46%. TJX Companiess dividend payout ratio is currently 39.00%. Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Bank of America upped their target price on shares of TJX Companies from $94.00 to $102.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, August 17th. Loop Capital upped their target price on shares of TJX Companies from $100.00 to $105.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 6th. Telsey Advisory Group upped their target price on shares of TJX Companies from $95.00 to $100.00 in a research note on Thursday, August 17th. Robert W. Baird upped their target price on shares of TJX Companies from $90.00 to $96.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Thursday, August 17th. Finally, UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of TJX Companies from $88.00 to $90.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Thursday, August 17th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seventeen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, TJX Companies has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $96.74. Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on TJX Insider Activity at TJX Companies In related news, CEO Ernie Herrman sold 45,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $89.04, for a total value of $4,006,800.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 642,098 shares in the company, valued at $57,172,405.92. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In other TJX Companies news, CEO Ernie Herrman sold 45,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $89.04, for a total value of $4,006,800.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 642,098 shares in the company, valued at $57,172,405.92. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Chairman Carol Meyrowitz sold 64,817 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $91.13, for a total transaction of $5,906,773.21. Following the completion of the sale, the chairman now owns 135,050 shares in the company, valued at $12,307,106.50. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 114,014 shares of company stock worth $10,291,303 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 0.13% of the companys stock. TJX Companies Company Profile (Free Report) The TJX Companies, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as an off-price apparel and home fashions retailer in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia. It operates through four segments: Marmaxx, HomeGoods, TJX Canada, and TJX International. The company sells family apparel, including footwear and accessories; home fashions, such as home basics, furniture, rugs, lighting products, giftware, soft home products, decorative accessories, tabletop, and cookware, as well as expanded pet, and gourmet food departments; jewelry and accessories; and other merchandise. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding TJX? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for The TJX Companies, Inc. (NYSE:TJX Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for TJX Companies Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for TJX Companies and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. California Public Employees Retirement System reduced its stake in shares of American Tower Co. (NYSE:AMT Free Report) by 2.1% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 1,562,861 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock after selling 33,815 shares during the period. California Public Employees Retirement System owned 0.34% of American Tower worth $303,101,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Pinnacle Holdings LLC acquired a new position in shares of American Tower during the 1st quarter worth approximately $29,000. Eagle Bay Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of American Tower during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $30,000. VitalStone Financial LLC acquired a new position in shares of American Tower during the 1st quarter worth approximately $38,000. MV Capital Management Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of American Tower by 75.3% during the 2nd quarter. MV Capital Management Inc. now owns 135 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $26,000 after purchasing an additional 58 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Riverview Trust Co acquired a new position in shares of American Tower during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $27,000. 89.29% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get American Tower alerts: Insider Buying and Selling at American Tower In other news, CFO Rodney M. Smith sold 10,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $178.14, for a total transaction of $1,781,400.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 50,662 shares in the company, valued at $9,024,928.68. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Insiders sold 10,300 shares of company stock worth $1,830,903 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.24% of the companys stock. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of research analysts recently commented on the company. Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price objective on American Tower from $233.00 to $230.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, August 1st. StockNews.com assumed coverage on American Tower in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating on the stock. Scotiabank assumed coverage on American Tower in a report on Friday, October 13th. They issued a sector outperform rating and a $208.00 price objective on the stock. Citigroup decreased their price objective on American Tower from $230.00 to $200.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, October 17th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price objective on American Tower from $215.00 to $210.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, October 17th. Two 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 company currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $228.60. Check Out Our Latest Analysis on American Tower American Tower Stock Performance NYSE AMT opened at $183.79 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.15, a current ratio of 0.73 and a quick ratio of 0.73. American Tower Co. has a 1 year low of $154.58 and a 1 year high of $235.57. The company has a market capitalization of $85.68 billion, a PE ratio of 120.12, a P/E/G ratio of 1.57 and a beta of 0.63. The company has a fifty day moving average of $171.48 and a two-hundred day moving average of $182.97. American Tower Increases Dividend The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 27th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, October 11th were paid a $1.62 dividend. This represents a $6.48 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.53%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, October 10th. This is an increase from American Towers previous quarterly dividend of $1.57. American Towers dividend payout ratio is currently 423.53%. American Tower Profile (Free Report) American Tower, one of the largest global REITs, is a leading independent owner, operator and developer of multitenant communications real estate with a portfolio of nearly 225,000 communications sites and a highly interconnected footprint of U.S. data center facilities. See Also Want to see what other hedge funds are holding AMT? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for American Tower Co. (NYSE:AMT Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for American Tower Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for American Tower and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Avalon Trust Co purchased a new stake in shares of Carrier Global Co. (NYSE:CARR Free Report) in the second quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm purchased 545 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $27,000. A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of CARR. Knuff & Co LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Carrier Global in the 2nd quarter valued at $25,000. Covestor Ltd increased its stake in shares of Carrier Global by 121.2% in the 1st quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 553 shares of the companys stock valued at $25,000 after buying an additional 303 shares during the period. WealthPLAN Partners LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Carrier Global in the 1st quarter valued at $29,000. Nemes Rush Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Carrier Global in the 2nd quarter valued at $29,000. Finally, Tradition Wealth Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Carrier Global by 124.2% in the 1st quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC now owns 740 shares of the companys stock valued at $34,000 after buying an additional 410 shares during the period. 91.47% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Carrier Global alerts: Analysts Set New Price Targets CARR has been the subject of several research reports. Argus lifted their target price on Carrier Global from $52.00 to $68.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 1st. Barclays lifted their price objective on Carrier Global from $54.00 to $63.00 in a research note on Friday, July 28th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price objective on Carrier Global from $54.00 to $64.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Friday, July 28th. Wolfe Research cut Carrier Global from a peer perform rating to an underperform rating and set a $56.00 price objective for the company. in a research note on Thursday, October 12th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut Carrier Global from a neutral rating to an underweight rating and set a $53.00 price objective for the company. in a research note on Friday, October 6th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $57.63. Carrier Global Stock Performance CARR stock opened at $51.50 on Friday. The businesss 50-day moving average price is $52.79 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $50.52. The company has a current ratio of 1.66, a quick ratio of 1.25 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.02. The firm has a market cap of $43.21 billion, a PE ratio of 36.53, a P/E/G ratio of 1.79 and a beta of 1.45. Carrier Global Co. has a 1-year low of $40.28 and a 1-year high of $60.04. Carrier Global (NYSE:CARR Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 26th. The company reported $0.89 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.78 by $0.11. The company had revenue of $5.73 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.89 billion. Carrier Global had a return on equity of 26.60% and a net margin of 5.43%. The companys quarterly revenue was up 5.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.70 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts forecast that Carrier Global Co. will post 2.71 earnings per share for the current year. Carrier Global Dividend Announcement The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, November 20th. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 27th will be issued a $0.185 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, October 26th. This represents a $0.74 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.44%. Carrier Globals dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 52.48%. Carrier Global Profile (Free Report) Carrier Global Corporation provides heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC), refrigeration, fire, security, and building automation technologies worldwide. It operates through three segments: HVAC, Refrigeration, and Fire & Security. The HVAC segment provides products, controls, services, and solutions to meet the heating, cooling, and ventilation needs of residential and commercial customers. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Carrier Global Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Carrier Global and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Banco Santander (OTCMKTS:BCDRF Free Report) had its price objective cut by JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $21.00 to $20.00 in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. They currently have a neutral rating on the stock. Banco Santander Price Performance Shares of BCDRF stock opened at $3.88 on Wednesday. Get Banco Santander alerts: Banco Santander Company Profile (Get Free Report) Featured Articles Banco Santander, SA provides various retail and commercial banking products and services to individuals, small and medium-sized enterprises, and large companies worldwide. The company operates through Retail Banking, Santander Corporate & Investment Banking, Wealth Management & Insurance, and PagoNxt segments. Receive News & Ratings for Banco Santander Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Banco Santander and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. California Public Employees Retirement System decreased its stake in shares of Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM Free Report) by 23.3% in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 1,994,430 shares of the CRM providers stock after selling 605,434 shares during the period. California Public Employees Retirement Systems holdings in Salesforce were worth $421,343,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Forza Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $202,000. Wealth Alliance Advisory Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Salesforce during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $396,000. Nordea Investment Management AB grew its position in shares of Salesforce by 18.3% during the 2nd quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 1,547,360 shares of the CRM providers stock worth $329,387,000 after buying an additional 239,786 shares during the period. Verum Partners LLC bought a new position in shares of Salesforce in the 2nd quarter worth $210,000. Finally, Independence Bank of Kentucky lifted its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 2.3% in the 2nd quarter. Independence Bank of Kentucky now owns 13,401 shares of the CRM providers stock worth $2,831,000 after purchasing an additional 295 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 77.52% of the companys stock. Get Salesforce alerts: Wall Street Analyst Weigh In CRM has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Raymond James increased their target price on Salesforce from $260.00 to $280.00 and gave the stock a strong-buy rating in a report on Thursday, August 31st. Loop Capital increased their target price on Salesforce from $215.00 to $230.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a report on Thursday, August 31st. Barclays increased their target price on Salesforce from $245.00 to $260.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Thursday, August 31st. Truist Financial reiterated a buy rating and issued a $275.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a report on Wednesday, October 4th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on Salesforce from $255.00 to $262.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Thursday, August 31st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, fourteen have given a hold rating, twenty-five have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $241.28. Salesforce Trading Up 1.7 % Shares of CRM opened at $213.63 on Friday. The businesss 50-day moving average price is $208.73 and its 200-day moving average price is $210.94. Salesforce, Inc. has a twelve month low of $126.34 and a twelve month high of $238.22. The stock has a market cap of $207.86 billion, a PE ratio of 134.36, a P/E/G ratio of 1.62 and a beta of 1.18. The company has a quick ratio of 1.02, a current ratio of 1.02 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15. Salesforce (NYSE:CRM Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 30th. The CRM provider reported $2.12 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.90 by $0.22. Salesforce had a return on equity of 7.67% and a net margin of 4.77%. The firm had revenue of $8.60 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $8.53 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.52 earnings per share. The companys revenue was up 11.4% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts forecast that Salesforce, Inc. will post 5.86 EPS for the current fiscal year. Insider Activity In related news, CFO Amy E. Weaver sold 16,275 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $208.03, for a total value of $3,385,688.25. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 35,611 shares in the company, valued at $7,408,156.33. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In related news, CAO Sundeep G. Reddy sold 164 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, October 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $200.97, for a total value of $32,959.08. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 2,576 shares in the company, valued at $517,698.72. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CFO Amy E. Weaver sold 16,275 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $208.03, for a total transaction of $3,385,688.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 35,611 shares in the company, valued at $7,408,156.33. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 678,063 shares of company stock worth $142,089,669 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 3.70% of the companys stock. Salesforce Company Profile (Free Report) Salesforce, Inc provides Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology that brings companies and customers together worldwide. The company's service includes sales to store data, monitor leads and progress, forecast opportunities, gain insights through analytics and relationship intelligence, and deliver quotes, contracts, and invoices; and service that enables companies to deliver trusted and highly personalized customer service and support at scale. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding CRM? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Salesforce Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Salesforce and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. California Public Employees Retirement System reduced its holdings in shares of Bank of America Co. (NYSE:BAC Free Report) by 5.2% during the second quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 16,595,721 shares of the financial services providers stock after selling 905,930 shares during the quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System owned approximately 0.21% of Bank of America worth $476,131,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. A number of other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of BAC. Roundview Capital LLC increased its position in Bank of America by 1.5% in the first quarter. Roundview Capital LLC now owns 135,764 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $5,596,000 after buying an additional 2,013 shares during the last quarter. Loomis Sayles & Co. L P increased its position in Bank of America by 150.3% in the first quarter. Loomis Sayles & Co. L P now owns 1,985 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $82,000 after buying an additional 1,192 shares during the last quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC increased its position in Bank of America by 4.2% in the first quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 405,098 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $16,698,000 after buying an additional 16,319 shares during the last quarter. First Western Trust Bank purchased a new stake in Bank of America in the first quarter worth $586,000. Finally, Pearl River Capital LLC purchased a new stake in Bank of America in the first quarter worth $534,000. 68.06% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors. Get Bank of America alerts: Bank of America Price Performance Shares of NYSE BAC opened at $27.68 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $219.05 billion, a P/E ratio of 7.75, a P/E/G ratio of 1.14 and a beta of 1.38. The company has a quick ratio of 0.82, a current ratio of 0.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.12. The stocks 50-day simple moving average is $27.35 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $28.57. Bank of America Co. has a twelve month low of $24.96 and a twelve month high of $38.60. Bank of America Dividend Announcement 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 for the quarter, topping 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 business had revenue of $25.20 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $25.13 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.81 EPS. The companys quarterly revenue was up 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Bank of America Co. will post 3.46 EPS for the current fiscal year. The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 29th. Stockholders of record on Friday, December 1st will be issued a $0.24 dividend. This represents a $0.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.47%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 30th. Bank of Americas payout ratio is currently 26.89%. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of research firms have issued reports on BAC. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their target price on Bank of America from $43.00 to $40.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, August 23rd. StockNews.com initiated coverage on Bank of America in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating for the company. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an outperform rating and issued a $35.00 price target on shares of Bank of America in a research report on Tuesday, September 12th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on Bank of America from $39.00 to $40.00 and gave the company a market perform rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 18th. Finally, Morgan Stanley reduced their price target on Bank of America from $34.00 to $32.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, October 3rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have issued a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Bank of America presently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $35.43. Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on Bank of America 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. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Bank of America Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Bank of America and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. CAVA Group (NYSE:CAVA Free Report) had its price target raised by Morgan Stanley from $41.00 to $42.00 in a research note released on Wednesday morning, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an overweight rating on the stock. Other equities research analysts have also recently issued research reports about the stock. Piper Sandler lifted their price target on shares of CAVA Group from $45.00 to $52.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Wednesday, August 16th. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their target price on shares of CAVA Group from $54.00 to $48.00 in a report on Tuesday, October 3rd. Loop Capital started coverage on shares of CAVA Group in a report on Thursday, September 14th. They set a hold rating and a $40.00 target price for the company. Robert W. Baird increased their target price on shares of CAVA Group from $50.00 to $58.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Wednesday, August 16th. Finally, William Blair reiterated an outperform rating on shares of CAVA Group in a report on Wednesday. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, CAVA Group presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $47.00. Get CAVA Group alerts: Check Out Our Latest Report on CAVA CAVA Group Price Performance Shares of NYSE:CAVA opened at $31.07 on Wednesday. CAVA Group has a 52-week low of $29.05 and a 52-week high of $58.10. The businesss fifty day moving average is $33.62. CAVA Group (NYSE:CAVA Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, November 7th. The company reported $0.06 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.01) by $0.07. The business had revenue of $175.55 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $171.49 million. CAVA Groups revenue was up 26.1% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that CAVA Group will post 0.07 EPS for the current year. Institutional Investors Weigh In On CAVA Group A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in CAVA. Headlands Technologies LLC bought a new stake in CAVA Group in the 3rd quarter valued at $26,000. Glassman Wealth Services purchased a new position in shares of CAVA Group during the 2nd quarter worth about $28,000. Clearstead Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of CAVA Group during the 3rd quarter worth about $31,000. Victory Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of CAVA Group during the 2nd quarter worth about $40,000. Finally, Osaic Holdings Inc. purchased a new position in shares of CAVA Group during the 2nd quarter worth about $74,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 61.83% of the companys stock. CAVA Group Company Profile (Get Free Report) CAVA Group, Inc owns and operates a chain of Mediterranean restaurants. The company offers salads, dips, spreads, toppings, and dressings. It sells its products through whole food markets and grocery stores. The company also provides online food ordering services. Cava Group, Inc was founded in 2006 and is based in Washington, District of Columbia. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for CAVA Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for CAVA Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Coastal Investment Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE Free Report) by 10.9% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 45,032 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock after purchasing an additional 4,422 shares during the quarter. Coastal Investment Advisors Inc.s holdings in Pfizer were worth $1,652,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Several other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich increased its holdings in shares of Pfizer by 98,197.9% in the 2nd quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich now owns 1,948,438,709 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock valued at $71,468,732,000 after acquiring an additional 1,946,456,532 shares during the last quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Pfizer by 89,592.7% in the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 161,143,638 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock valued at $8,257,000,000 after purchasing an additional 160,963,976 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Pfizer in the 4th quarter valued at about $3,150,472,000. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its position in shares of Pfizer by 9.8% in the 1st quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 218,931,933 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock valued at $8,932,423,000 after purchasing an additional 19,602,359 shares during the period. Finally, Renaissance Technologies LLC boosted its position in shares of Pfizer by 1,034.0% in the 1st quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 12,149,955 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock valued at $495,718,000 after purchasing an additional 11,078,514 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 68.05% of the companys stock. Get Pfizer alerts: Pfizer Price Performance PFE stock opened at $29.48 on Friday. Pfizer Inc. has a 52-week low of $29.02 and a 52-week high of $54.93. The stocks fifty day simple moving average is $32.49 and its 200-day simple moving average is $35.58. The company has a quick ratio of 1.82, a current ratio of 2.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.63. The stock has a market capitalization of $166.44 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.11, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.89 and a beta of 0.63. Pfizer Announces Dividend Pfizer ( NYSE:PFE Get Free Report ) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 31st. The biopharmaceutical company reported ($0.17) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of ($0.32) by $0.15. Pfizer had a return on equity of 16.72% and a net margin of 15.30%. The firm had revenue of $13.23 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.77 billion. Equities research analysts expect that Pfizer Inc. will post 1.56 EPS for the current year. The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 4th. Investors of record on Friday, November 10th will be paid a $0.41 dividend. This represents a $1.64 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 5.56%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 9th. Pfizers dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 89.62%. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of analysts have weighed in on the company. Truist Financial decreased their price objective on Pfizer from $62.00 to $42.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, October 17th. Barclays cut their target price on Pfizer from $35.00 to $34.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, November 1st. Jefferies Financial Group raised Pfizer from a hold rating to a buy rating and increased their target price for the stock from $38.00 to $39.00 in a research note on Monday, October 16th. UBS Group reissued a neutral rating and set a $34.00 target price (down from $36.00) on shares of Pfizer in a research note on Friday, October 20th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets cut their target price on Pfizer from $44.00 to $33.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research note on Monday, October 16th. Twelve research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $42.50. View Our Latest Stock Analysis on PFE About Pfizer (Free Report) Pfizer Inc discovers, develops, manufactures, markets, distributes, and sells biopharmaceutical products worldwide. It offers medicines and vaccines in various therapeutic areas, including cardiovascular metabolic, migraine, and women's health under the Eliquis, Nurtec ODT/Vydura, and the Premarin family brands; infectious diseases with unmet medical needs under the Prevnar family, Nimenrix, FSME/IMMUN-TicoVac, and Trumenba brands; and COVID-19 prevention and treatment, and potential future mRNA and antiviral products under the Comirnaty and Paxlovid brands. Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding PFE? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Pfizer Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Pfizer and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Coastal Investment Advisors Inc. lifted its holdings in iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF (BATS:IEFA Free Report) by 16.6% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 23,599 shares of the companys stock after buying an additional 3,359 shares during the quarter. Coastal Investment Advisors Inc.s holdings in iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF were worth $1,593,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of IEFA. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC increased its holdings in iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF by 114,199.2% during the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 954,128,634 shares of the companys stock worth $58,812,489,000 after purchasing an additional 953,293,870 shares during the period. Bishop & Co Investment Management LLC increased its holdings in iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF by 6,587.4% during the 2nd quarter. Bishop & Co Investment Management LLC now owns 21,930,077 shares of the companys stock worth $324,890,000 after purchasing an additional 21,602,147 shares during the period. Cowa LLC increased its holdings in iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF by 7,482.8% during the 1st quarter. Cowa LLC now owns 7,950,414 shares of the companys stock worth $6,200,000 after purchasing an additional 7,845,566 shares during the period. Providence Capital Advisors LLC increased its holdings in iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF by 6,192.3% during the 1st quarter. Providence Capital Advisors LLC now owns 5,504,317 shares of the companys stock worth $82,338,000 after purchasing an additional 5,416,840 shares during the period. Finally, Alaska Permanent Fund Corp purchased a new position in iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF during the 2nd quarter worth $343,170,000. Get iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF alerts: iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF Stock Up 0.5 % IEFA opened at $64.44 on Friday. The stocks fifty day moving average is $64.32 and its two-hundred day moving average is $66.48. The company has a market capitalization of $94.73 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.29 and a beta of 0.87. iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF has a 52 week low of $56.55 and a 52 week high of $70.84. iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF Company Profile The iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF (IEFA) is an exchange-traded fund that is based on the MSCI EAFE IMI index, a market-cap-weighted index of developed-market stocks in Europe, Australasia and the Far East, and excludes North America IEFA was launched on Oct 18, 2012 and is managed by BlackRock. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding IEFA? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF (BATS:IEFA Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS grew its holdings in shares of Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT Free Report) by 2.6% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 303,278 shares of the healthcare product makers stock after purchasing an additional 7,699 shares during the quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYSs holdings in Abbott Laboratories were worth $33,063,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the business. River Wealth Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Abbott Laboratories by 217.6% during the second quarter. River Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 12,120 shares of the healthcare product makers stock valued at $1,321,000 after buying an additional 8,304 shares during the last quarter. Coastal Investment Advisors Inc. lifted its position in Abbott Laboratories by 12.7% during the second quarter. Coastal Investment Advisors Inc. now owns 5,138 shares of the healthcare product makers stock valued at $560,000 after purchasing an additional 579 shares in the last quarter. Sivik Global Healthcare LLC increased its position in Abbott Laboratories by 33.3% in the second quarter. Sivik Global Healthcare LLC now owns 60,000 shares of the healthcare product makers stock worth $6,541,000 after buying an additional 15,000 shares in the last quarter. Avalon Trust Co lifted its position in shares of Abbott Laboratories by 3.4% during the 2nd quarter. Avalon Trust Co now owns 5,710 shares of the healthcare product makers stock valued at $623,000 after buying an additional 190 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Mn Services Vermogensbeheer B.V. bought a new position in shares of Abbott Laboratories during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $90,781,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.70% of the companys stock. Get Abbott Laboratories alerts: Abbott Laboratories Stock Up 0.4 % Shares of ABT opened at $93.97 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $163.14 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.96, a P/E/G ratio of 4.16 and a beta of 0.69. Abbott Laboratories has a 12-month low of $89.67 and a 12-month high of $115.83. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $96.79 and a 200-day moving average price of $103.42. The company has a current ratio of 1.74, a quick ratio of 1.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.38. Abbott Laboratories Announces Dividend Abbott Laboratories ( NYSE:ABT Get Free Report ) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, October 18th. The healthcare product maker reported $1.14 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.10 by $0.04. The business had revenue of $10.14 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.82 billion. Abbott Laboratories had a net margin of 12.92% and a return on equity of 20.15%. The companys quarterly revenue was down 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $1.15 earnings per share. Equities research analysts expect that Abbott Laboratories will post 4.44 earnings per share for the current year. The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Friday, October 13th will be paid a dividend of $0.51 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, October 12th. This represents a $2.04 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.17%. Abbott Laboratoriess dividend payout ratio is currently 69.39%. Analyst Ratings Changes Several equities analysts have weighed in on the stock. UBS Group lowered their price target on shares of Abbott Laboratories from $130.00 to $118.00 in a report on Thursday, October 19th. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price objective on shares of Abbott Laboratories from $136.00 to $116.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, October 19th. TheStreet downgraded shares of Abbott Laboratories from a b- rating to a c+ rating in a report on Monday, October 16th. StockNews.com assumed coverage on Abbott Laboratories in a report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a buy rating on the stock. Finally, Citigroup dropped their price objective on Abbott Laboratories from $130.00 to $122.00 in a research note on Monday, October 2nd. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Abbott Laboratories presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $117.47. Read Our Latest Analysis on ABT Insider Activity at Abbott Laboratories In other Abbott Laboratories news, Director Daniel J. Starks sold 50,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $94.05, for a total transaction of $4,702,500.00. Following the transaction, the director now owns 6,725,316 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $632,515,969.80. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 1.10% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders. Abbott Laboratories Company Profile (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. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding ABT? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Abbott Laboratories Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Abbott Laboratories and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. California Public Employees Retirement System cut its holdings in Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY Free Report) by 2.0% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 3,066,263 shares of the companys stock after selling 61,510 shares during the quarter. Eli Lilly and Company makes up about 1.2% of California Public Employees Retirement Systems investment portfolio, making the stock its 10th largest position. California Public Employees Retirement System owned approximately 0.32% of Eli Lilly and Company worth $1,438,016,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Guyasuta Investment Advisors Inc. boosted its position 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 purchasing an additional 132 shares in the last quarter. Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria S.A. lifted its position in shares of Eli Lilly and Company by 4.8% during the first quarter. Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria S.A. now owns 82,966 shares of the companys stock valued at $28,449,000 after buying an additional 3,768 shares during the last quarter. Baystate Wealth Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Eli Lilly and Company by 688.2% in the 2nd quarter. Baystate Wealth Management LLC now owns 3,736 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,752,000 after buying an additional 3,262 shares in the last quarter. Simon Quick Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Eli Lilly and Company by 13.0% in the 2nd quarter. Simon Quick Advisors LLC now owns 1,874 shares of the companys stock worth $879,000 after buying an additional 215 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Martin Capital Partners LLC bought a new position in shares of Eli Lilly and Company during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $234,000. 81.38% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors. Get Eli Lilly and Company alerts: Eli Lilly and Company Stock Up 1.1 % Shares of LLY stock opened at $597.71 on Friday. Eli Lilly and Company has a twelve month low of $309.20 and a twelve month high of $629.97. The stock has a market cap of $567.41 billion, a P/E ratio of 108.28, a P/E/G ratio of 3.74 and a beta of 0.33. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $574.81 and a 200 day moving average of $502.26. The company has a current ratio of 1.05, a quick ratio of 0.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.59. Eli Lilly and Company Dividend Announcement Analyst Ratings Changes The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 8th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, November 15th will be paid a dividend of $1.13 per share. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, November 14th. This represents a $4.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.76%. Eli Lilly and Companys payout ratio is 81.88%. Several equities research analysts have weighed in on LLY shares. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Eli Lilly and Company from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note on Friday, November 3rd. Bank of America boosted their target price on Eli Lilly and Company from $600.00 to $700.00 in a research note on Friday, October 6th. Truist Financial increased their price target on Eli Lilly and Company from $525.00 to $600.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 9th. Cantor Fitzgerald restated an overweight rating and set a $630.00 price target on shares of Eli Lilly and Company in a research note on Monday, October 23rd. Finally, 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 research report on Wednesday, August 9th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and twenty have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Eli Lilly and Company currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $557.00. Get Our Latest Stock Report on Eli Lilly and Company Insider Activity In related news, major shareholder Lilly Endowment Inc sold 37,660 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, August 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $546,751.75, for a total transaction of $20,590,670,905.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 100,275,279 shares of the companys stock, valued at $54,825,684,274,988.30. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In other news, CAO Donald A. Zakrowski sold 600 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $546.51, for a total value of $327,906.00. Following the completion of the sale, 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 can be accessed through this link. Also, major shareholder Lilly Endowment Inc sold 37,660 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 transaction, the insider now owns 100,275,279 shares in the company, valued at approximately $54,825,684,274,988.30. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 700,916 shares of company stock valued at $20,970,455,882 in the last three months. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders. 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. See Also Want to see what other hedge funds are holding LLY? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Eli Lilly and Company Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Eli Lilly and Company and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Institutional & Family Asset Management LLC cut its holdings in Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY Free Report) by 12.7% during the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 12,090 shares of the companys stock after selling 1,759 shares during the quarter. Eli Lilly and Company accounts for about 0.9% of Institutional & Family Asset Management LLCs portfolio, making the stock its 25th biggest position. Institutional & Family Asset Management LLCs holdings in Eli Lilly and Company were worth $5,670,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Silicon Valley Capital Partners purchased a new position in Eli Lilly and Company in the 1st quarter worth about $25,000. Laffer Tengler Investments purchased a new position in Eli Lilly and Company in the 1st quarter worth about $33,000. Raleigh Capital Management Inc. increased its stake in Eli Lilly and Company by 156.4% in the 1st quarter. Raleigh Capital Management Inc. now owns 100 shares of the companys stock worth $34,000 after purchasing an additional 61 shares in the last quarter. Activest Wealth Management purchased a new position in Eli Lilly and Company in the 2nd quarter worth about $40,000. Finally, Riggs Asset Managment Co. Inc. increased its stake in Eli Lilly and Company by 50.4% in the 1st quarter. Riggs Asset Managment Co. Inc. now owns 179 shares of the companys stock worth $61,000 after purchasing an additional 60 shares in the last quarter. 81.38% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors. Get Eli Lilly and Company alerts: Eli Lilly and Company Stock Performance Shares of NYSE:LLY opened at $597.71 on Friday. The businesss fifty day moving average price is $574.81 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $502.26. Eli Lilly and Company has a fifty-two week low of $309.20 and a fifty-two week high of $629.97. The stock has a market capitalization of $567.41 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 108.28, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.74 and a beta of 0.33. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.59, a current ratio of 1.05 and a quick ratio of 0.82. Eli Lilly and Company Announces Dividend Insider Buying and Selling at Eli Lilly and Company The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 8th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, November 15th will be given a $1.13 dividend. This represents a $4.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.76%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 14th. Eli Lilly and Companys dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 81.88%. In other news, EVP Alonzo Weems sold 1,148 shares of the stock in a transaction on 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 document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, EVP Alonzo Weems sold 1,148 shares of the stock in a transaction on 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 document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, major shareholder Lilly Endowment Inc sold 164,778 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, August 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $539.08, for a total value of $88,828,524.24. Following the sale, the insider now owns 100,449,032 shares in the company, valued at approximately $54,150,064,170.56. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 700,916 shares of company stock worth $20,970,455,882 over the last three months. Company insiders own 0.13% of the companys stock. Analyst Ratings Changes Several equities analysts have weighed in on LLY shares. Bank of America lifted their target price on Eli Lilly and Company from $600.00 to $700.00 in a research note on Friday, October 6th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft assumed coverage on Eli Lilly and Company in a report on Thursday. They set a hold rating and a $535.00 price target for the company. Barclays boosted their target price on Eli Lilly and Company from $500.00 to $590.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Wednesday, August 9th. Argus boosted their target price on Eli Lilly and Company from $470.00 to $620.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Tuesday, September 5th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on Eli Lilly and Company from $615.00 to $650.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Monday, October 9th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and twenty have given a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $557.00. Read Our Latest Analysis on Eli Lilly and Company 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. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding LLY? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Eli Lilly and Company Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Eli Lilly and Company and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Wells Fargo & Company assumed coverage on shares of Fair Isaac (NYSE:FICO Free Report) in a report published on Wednesday, Marketbeat reports. The firm issued an overweight rating and a $1,120.00 price target on the technology companys stock. A number of other research analysts have also issued reports on the stock. Needham & Company LLC raised their price objective on shares of Fair Isaac from $900.00 to $1,100.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Thursday, August 3rd. StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of Fair Isaac in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a hold rating on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on Fair Isaac from $685.00 to $875.00 and gave the stock a sector perform rating in a research report on Thursday, August 3rd. Barclays upped their price target on Fair Isaac from $920.00 to $950.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Thursday, August 3rd. Finally, Raymond James lowered their price objective on Fair Isaac from $1,007.00 to $975.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, October 25th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and seven 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 $908.40. Get Fair Isaac alerts: View Our Latest Analysis on Fair Isaac Fair Isaac Stock Up 3.5 % Insiders Place Their Bets Shares of FICO opened at $996.70 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $24.63 billion, a PE ratio of 58.87, a PEG ratio of 2.78 and a beta of 1.18. Fair Isaac has a 12-month low of $568.38 and a 12-month high of $1,002.74. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $893.37 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $835.74. In other Fair Isaac news, Director Eva Manolis sold 2,564 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $852.38, for a total transaction of $2,185,502.32. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. In related news, EVP James M. Wehmann sold 2,836 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $888.42, for a total transaction of $2,519,559.12. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 41,736 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $37,079,097.12. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Eva Manolis sold 2,564 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $852.38, for a total value of $2,185,502.32. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 11,072 shares of company stock worth $9,791,938. 3.37% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders. Institutional Trading of Fair Isaac Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Rhumbline Advisers lifted its stake in shares of Fair Isaac by 0.5% in the third quarter. Rhumbline Advisers now owns 53,828 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $46,751,000 after buying an additional 283 shares in the last quarter. First Heartland Consultants Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Fair Isaac by 8.5% in the 3rd quarter. First Heartland Consultants Inc. now owns 763 shares of the technology companys stock worth $663,000 after acquiring an additional 60 shares during the last quarter. Headlands Technologies LLC bought a new position in Fair Isaac in the 3rd quarter valued at about $42,000. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS boosted its stake in Fair Isaac by 14.7% during the 3rd quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS now owns 4,998 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $4,341,000 after purchasing an additional 639 shares during the last quarter. Finally, FUKOKU MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE Co bought a new stake in Fair Isaac during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $869,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 85.17% of the companys stock. Fair Isaac Company Profile (Get Free Report) Fair Isaac Corporation develops analytic, software, and data decisioning technologies and services that enable businesses to automate, enhance, and connect decisions in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. It operates through two segments, Scores and Software. The Software segment provides pre-configured analytic and decision management solution designed for various business needs or processes, such as account origination, customer management, customer engagement, fraud detection, financial crimes compliance, and marketing, as well as associated professional services. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Fair Isaac Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Fair Isaac and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. The evacuation of Russian nationals from the Gaza Strip has begun and more than 60 Russian passport holders have crossed into Egypt, Russias emergencies ministry said on Sunday, Azernews reports, citing Al Arabiya. A limited evacuation, which began on Nov. 1, of foreign passport holders and Palestinians needing urgent medical treatment, to Egypt has faced difficulties. It was paused several times in the past week due to bombardments that aid staff said hit or targeted medical convoys. At the moment, citizens of the Russian Federation who wish to leave the conflict zone are crossing the checkpoint, Russias emergencies ministry said. Russian Emergency Situations Ministry specialists are providing medical and psychological assistance to the people on site, and providing them with food and water, it said. It said that Russian citizens will be transferred to Cairo and will be assisted with necessary paperwork. The ministry didnt say, how many Russian citizens are expected to leave Gaza. According to Russian media, some 1,000 Russians and nationals from the republics of the former Soviet Union have expressed a wish to leave Gaza. JPMorgan Chase & Co. started coverage on shares of Ganfeng Lithium Group (OTCMKTS:GNENF Free Report) in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday, Briefing.com reports. The firm issued an underweight rating on the stock. Ganfeng Lithium Group Stock Performance GNENF opened at $3.56 on Wednesday. Ganfeng Lithium Group has a fifty-two week low of $3.43 and a fifty-two week high of $9.77. The companys 50-day moving average is $4.13 and its 200 day moving average is $5.62. Get Ganfeng Lithium Group alerts: Ganfeng Lithium Group Company Profile (Get Free Report) Featured Articles Ganfeng Lithium Group Co, Ltd. manufactures and sells lithium products in Mainland China, rest of Asia, the European Union, North America, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Lithium Metal and Compound, Lithium Battery, and Lithium Ore Resource and Others. The company has interests in the Mount Marion mine located in Australia; Cauchari-Olaroz project situated in Jujuy Province, Northwest Argentina; Mariana project located in Salta Province, Argentina; Sonora project situated in Mexico; Pilbara Pilgangoora lithium-tantalum project located in Western Australia; Ningdu Heyuan mine situated in Ningdu County, Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province; Avalonia project located in Ireland; Qinghai Yiliping lithium salt lake project situated in the Qinghai Province; Goulamina spodumene ore project located in southern Mali, Africa; PPG lithium salt-lake project located in Salta Province, Argentina; and Songshugang tantalum-niobium mine project located in Jiangxi Province. Receive News & Ratings for Ganfeng Lithium Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Ganfeng Lithium Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Institutional & Family Asset Management LLC grew its holdings in iShares Russell 2000 ETF (NYSEARCA:IWM Free Report) by 5.9% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 72,231 shares of the exchange traded funds stock after purchasing an additional 4,029 shares during the period. iShares Russell 2000 ETF comprises about 2.2% of Institutional & Family Asset Management LLCs investment portfolio, making the stock its 8th biggest holding. Institutional & Family Asset Management LLCs holdings in iShares Russell 2000 ETF were worth $13,527,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Farmers & Merchants Investments Inc. grew its holdings in shares of iShares Russell 2000 ETF by 0.5% in the second quarter. Farmers & Merchants Investments Inc. now owns 73,665 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $13,795,000 after acquiring an additional 365 shares during the period. Legacy Capital Wealth Partners LLC grew its holdings in shares of iShares Russell 2000 ETF by 74.7% in the first quarter. Legacy Capital Wealth Partners LLC now owns 2,235 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $399,000 after acquiring an additional 956 shares during the period. All Terrain Financial Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of iShares Russell 2000 ETF by 4.2% in the second quarter. All Terrain Financial Advisors LLC now owns 73,551 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $13,774,000 after acquiring an additional 2,957 shares during the period. Capital Wealth Planning LLC bought a new stake in shares of iShares Russell 2000 ETF in the second quarter worth $1,410,000. Finally, Axiom Advisory LLC bought a new stake in shares of iShares Russell 2000 ETF in the second quarter worth $206,000. Get iShares Russell 2000 ETF alerts: iShares Russell 2000 ETF Stock Up 1.1 % Shares of IWM opened at $169.11 on Friday. iShares Russell 2000 ETF has a one year low of $161.67 and a one year high of $199.26. The business has a fifty day moving average of $174.50 and a 200 day moving average of $181.05. iShares Russell 2000 ETF Profile iShares Russell 2000 ETF (the Fund) is an exchange-traded fund. The Fund seeks investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance of the Russell 2000 Index (the Index). The Index is a float-adjusted capitalization weighted index that measures the performance of the small-capitalization sector of the United States equity market and includes securities issued by the approximately 2,000 smallest issuers in the Russell 3000 Index. See Also Receive News & Ratings for iShares Russell 2000 ETF Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for iShares Russell 2000 ETF and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Institutional & Family Asset Management LLC reduced its position in shares of Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS Free Report) by 0.5% in the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 51,996 shares of the financial services providers stock after selling 270 shares during the period. Institutional & Family Asset Management LLCs holdings in Morgan Stanley were worth $4,440,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in MS. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS increased its stake in Morgan Stanley by 2.6% in the second quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS now owns 227,193 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $19,402,000 after acquiring an additional 5,709 shares during the last quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System increased its stake in Morgan Stanley by 5.3% in the second quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System now owns 2,622,229 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $223,938,000 after acquiring an additional 133,002 shares during the last quarter. Andra AP fonden increased its stake in Morgan Stanley by 25.2% in the second quarter. Andra AP fonden now owns 72,511 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $6,192,000 after acquiring an additional 14,600 shares during the last quarter. Jones Financial Companies Lllp increased its stake in Morgan Stanley by 83.8% in the second quarter. Jones Financial Companies Lllp now owns 6,634 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $567,000 after acquiring an additional 3,025 shares during the last quarter. Finally, KLCM Advisors Inc. increased its stake in Morgan Stanley by 23.1% in the second quarter. KLCM Advisors Inc. now owns 7,364 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $629,000 after acquiring an additional 1,383 shares during the last quarter. 83.09% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Morgan Stanley alerts: Insiders Place Their Bets In other Morgan Stanley news, major shareholder Stanley Morgan sold 135 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $50,000.00, for a total value of $6,750,000.00. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. 0.26% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders. Analyst Ratings Changes MS has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Bank of America increased their target price on Morgan Stanley from $95.00 to $100.00 in a research note on Wednesday, July 19th. Odeon Capital Group cut Morgan Stanley from a buy rating to a hold rating and set a $79.15 price objective on the stock. in a research note on Monday, October 23rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on Morgan Stanley from $93.00 to $92.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. HSBC started coverage on Morgan Stanley in a research note on Thursday, September 7th. They set a buy rating and a $99.00 price objective on the stock. Finally, Atlantic Securities raised their price objective on Morgan Stanley from $85.00 to $90.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 1st. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seven have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $94.42. Read Our Latest Analysis on MS Morgan Stanley Stock Up 1.5 % NYSE MS opened at $75.33 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.70, a current ratio of 0.76 and a quick ratio of 0.78. The stock has a market capitalization of $123.64 billion, a PE ratio of 13.50, a PEG ratio of 2.22 and a beta of 1.40. Morgan Stanley has a 1 year low of $69.42 and a 1 year high of $100.99. The businesss 50-day moving average is $79.36 and its 200 day moving average is $83.83. Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 18th. The financial services provider reported $1.38 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.31 by $0.07. Morgan Stanley had a net margin of 10.86% and a return on equity of 10.70%. The business had revenue of $13.27 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $13.22 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $1.53 earnings per share. Morgan Stanleys quarterly revenue was up 2.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts forecast that Morgan Stanley will post 5.58 earnings per share for the current year. Morgan Stanley Dividend Announcement The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, October 31st will be issued a $0.85 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, October 30th. This represents a $3.40 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.51%. Morgan Stanleys dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 60.93%. Morgan Stanley Profile (Free Report) Morgan Stanley, a financial holding company, provides various financial products and services to corporations, governments, financial institutions, and individuals in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. It operates through Institutional Securities, Wealth Management, and Investment Management segments. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding MS? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Morgan Stanley Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Morgan Stanley and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Iridian Asset Management LLC CT cut its position in Laboratory Co. of America Holdings (NYSE:LH Free Report) by 2.0% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 187,203 shares of the medical research companys stock after selling 3,746 shares during the period. Laboratory Co. of America comprises 4.2% of Iridian Asset Management LLC CTs portfolio, making the stock its 4th largest holding. Iridian Asset Management LLC CT owned approximately 0.21% of Laboratory Co. of America worth $45,178,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of LH. Roundview Capital LLC raised its position in shares of Laboratory Co. of America by 1.6% during the first quarter. Roundview Capital LLC now owns 7,793 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $2,055,000 after buying an additional 124 shares during the last quarter. LSV Asset Management boosted its holdings in shares of Laboratory Co. of America by 1.2% during the 1st quarter. LSV Asset Management now owns 34,800 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $9,175,000 after purchasing an additional 400 shares during the last quarter. Synovus Financial Corp grew its position in shares of Laboratory Co. of America by 105.7% during the first quarter. Synovus Financial Corp now owns 1,654 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $441,000 after purchasing an additional 850 shares in the last quarter. Cibc World Market Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Laboratory Co. of America in the first quarter worth about $213,000. Finally, Sei Investments Co. lifted its position in shares of Laboratory Co. of America by 18.9% in the first quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 89,167 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $23,543,000 after buying an additional 14,186 shares in the last quarter. 89.37% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors. Get Laboratory Co. of America alerts: Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of analysts have issued reports on LH shares. Robert W. Baird reduced their price objective on Laboratory Co. of America from $251.00 to $237.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, September 18th. TheStreet downgraded shares of Laboratory Co. of America from a b- rating to a c rating in a research note on Thursday, October 26th. StockNews.com started coverage on shares of Laboratory Co. of America in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating for the company. Mizuho reduced their target price on shares of Laboratory Co. of America from $257.00 to $230.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, October 31st. Finally, Truist Financial reiterated a buy rating and issued a $270.00 price target on shares of Laboratory Co. of America in a research report on Friday, September 15th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Laboratory Co. of America presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $242.09. Laboratory Co. of America Stock Up 0.2 % Shares of NYSE:LH opened at $204.78 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $17.39 billion, a PE ratio of 27.38 and a beta of 1.07. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $202.86 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $213.43. Laboratory Co. of America Holdings has a 1 year low of $174.20 and a 1 year high of $222.33. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.57, a current ratio of 1.36 and a quick ratio of 1.20. Laboratory Co. of America (NYSE:LH Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 26th. The medical research company reported $3.38 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $3.37 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $3.06 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.99 billion. Laboratory Co. of America had a return on equity of 14.09% and a net margin of 4.88%. Laboratory Co. of Americas quarterly revenue was up 6.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $4.68 EPS. On average, equities analysts predict that Laboratory Co. of America Holdings will post 13.59 EPS for the current year. Laboratory Co. of America Dividend Announcement The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, December 12th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, November 8th will be issued a $0.72 dividend. This represents a $2.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.41%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 7th. Laboratory Co. of Americas payout ratio is presently 38.50%. Laboratory Co. of America Company 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. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Laboratory Co. of America Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Laboratory Co. of America and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Jones Financial Companies Lllp lowered its position in shares of Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS Free Report) by 4.8% in the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 45,625 shares of the companys stock after selling 2,319 shares during the quarter. Jones Financial Companies Lllps holdings in Novartis were worth $4,604,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC. A number of other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Level Four Advisory Services LLC boosted its position in shares of Novartis by 16.6% in the second quarter. Level Four Advisory Services LLC now owns 12,926 shares of the companys stock worth $1,304,000 after buying an additional 1,838 shares during the period. Financial Management Professionals Inc. boosted its position in shares of Novartis by 750.0% in the second quarter. Financial Management Professionals Inc. now owns 289 shares of the companys stock worth $29,000 after buying an additional 255 shares during the period. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. boosted its position in shares of Novartis by 7.0% in the second quarter. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 28,024 shares of the companys stock worth $2,828,000 after buying an additional 1,833 shares during the period. Resources Investment Advisors LLC. boosted its position in shares of Novartis by 252.6% in the first quarter. Resources Investment Advisors LLC. now owns 13,514 shares of the companys stock worth $1,243,000 after buying an additional 9,681 shares during the period. Finally, Berkeley Capital Partners LLC boosted its position in Novartis by 1.4% in the 1st quarter. Berkeley Capital Partners LLC now owns 16,553 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,523,000 after buying an additional 231 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 7.00% of the companys stock. Get Novartis alerts: Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth NVS has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of Novartis in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a strong-buy rating for the company. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Novartis from an underweight rating to an equal weight rating in a research report on Monday, September 25th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, three have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $84.50. Novartis Trading Up 0.3 % NYSE NVS opened at $93.54 on Friday. Novartis AG has a 12 month low of $79.98 and a 12 month high of $105.61. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47, a current ratio of 0.94 and a quick ratio of 0.83. The company has a market capitalization of $198.27 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.15, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.65 and a beta of 0.56. The companys fifty day moving average price is $97.74 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $100.04. Novartis (NYSE:NVS Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 23rd. The company reported $1.74 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.70 by $0.04. Novartis had a return on equity of 28.27% and a net margin of 15.35%. The firm had revenue of $11.78 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $12.05 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $1.58 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts predict that Novartis AG will post 6.65 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. About Novartis (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. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Novartis Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Novartis and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Kestra Private Wealth Services LLC cut its position in shares of iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF (BATS:USMV Free Report) by 14.5% in the second quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 22,068 shares of the companys stock after selling 3,754 shares during the quarter. Kestra Private Wealth Services LLCs holdings in iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF were worth $1,640,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Aspire Private Capital LLC grew its holdings in iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF by 4.3% in the second quarter. Aspire Private Capital LLC now owns 8,903 shares of the companys stock valued at $662,000 after purchasing an additional 367 shares during the period. J.W. Cole Advisors Inc. grew its holdings in iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF by 2.8% in the second quarter. J.W. Cole Advisors Inc. now owns 77,767 shares of the companys stock valued at $5,780,000 after purchasing an additional 2,121 shares during the period. Calamos Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF by 0.3% in the second quarter. Calamos Wealth Management LLC now owns 93,005 shares of the companys stock valued at $6,913,000 after purchasing an additional 303 shares during the period. ShoreHaven Wealth Partners LLC grew its holdings in iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF by 30.9% in the second quarter. ShoreHaven Wealth Partners LLC now owns 48,467 shares of the companys stock valued at $3,603,000 after purchasing an additional 11,440 shares during the period. Finally, AdvisorNet Financial Inc grew its holdings in iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF by 14.8% in the first quarter. AdvisorNet Financial Inc now owns 34,604 shares of the companys stock valued at $2,517,000 after purchasing an additional 4,452 shares during the period. Get iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF alerts: iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF Stock Performance iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF stock opened at $73.92 on Friday. iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF has a 1 year low of $47.44 and a 1 year high of $55.45. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $73.24 and a 200 day moving average price of $73.58. The company has a market cap of $28.36 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.17 and a beta of 0.75. iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF Company Profile The iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF (USMV) is an exchange-traded fund that is based on the MSCI USA Minimum Volatility (USD) index. The fund tracks an index of US-listed firms selected and weighted to create a low-volatility portfolio subject to various constraints. USMV was launched on Oct 18, 2011 and is managed by BlackRock. Featured Articles Want to see what other hedge funds are holding USMV? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF (BATS:USMV Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for iShares MSCI USA Min Vol Factor ETF and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. River Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK Free Report) by 12.2% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 29,667 shares of the companys stock after acquiring an additional 3,219 shares during the period. River Wealth Advisors LLCs holdings in Merck & Co., Inc. were worth $3,423,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of MRK. Amplius Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its position in Merck & Co., Inc. by 9.1% during the second quarter. Amplius Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 4,046 shares of the companys stock worth $467,000 after acquiring an additional 336 shares during the last quarter. Peddock Capital Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Merck & Co., Inc. by 8.3% in the 2nd quarter. Peddock Capital Advisors LLC now owns 16,794 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,938,000 after purchasing an additional 1,286 shares in the last quarter. Calamos Wealth Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Merck & Co., Inc. by 1.5% in the second quarter. Calamos Wealth Management LLC now owns 19,388 shares of the companys stock worth $2,237,000 after buying an additional 286 shares during the period. Juncture Wealth Strategies LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Merck & Co., Inc. in the second quarter valued at about $203,000. Finally, Fort Sheridan Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Merck & Co., Inc. by 32.5% during the 1st quarter. Fort Sheridan Advisors LLC now owns 80,366 shares of the companys stock valued at $8,550,000 after buying an additional 19,697 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 74.59% of the companys stock. Get Merck & Co. Inc. alerts: Insider Buying and Selling In other Merck & Co., Inc. news, EVP Richard R. Deluca sold 43,823 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $105.03, for a total value of $4,602,729.69. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 111,764 shares in the company, valued at $11,738,572.92. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In related news, EVP Steven Mizell sold 4,250 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $109.01, for a total value of $463,292.50. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 22,935 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,500,144.35. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Richard R. Deluca sold 43,823 shares of Merck & Co., Inc. stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $105.03, for a total value of $4,602,729.69. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 111,764 shares in the company, valued at approximately $11,738,572.92. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.20% of the stock is owned by company insiders. Merck & Co., Inc. Price Performance Shares of NYSE:MRK opened at $101.39 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $256.92 billion, a PE ratio of 56.33, a P/E/G ratio of 8.45 and a beta of 0.37. Merck & Co., Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $96.36 and a fifty-two week high of $119.65. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $104.72 and a 200 day simple moving average of $108.76. The company has a quick ratio of 1.03, a current ratio of 1.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.82. Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, October 26th. The company reported $2.13 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.94 by $0.19. The company had revenue of $16 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $15.30 billion. Merck & Co., Inc. had a return on equity of 18.26% and a net margin of 7.77%. Merck & Co., Inc.s quarterly revenue was up 7.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.85 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Merck & Co., Inc. will post 1.37 EPS for the current year. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades MRK has been the subject of several recent research reports. StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of Merck & Co., Inc. in a research report on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a buy rating for the company. Truist Financial reaffirmed a buy rating and set a $122.00 price target on shares of Merck & Co., Inc. in a report on Friday, October 6th. BMO Capital Markets upgraded shares of Merck & Co., Inc. from a market perform rating to an outperform rating and set a $132.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Friday, October 27th. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on Merck & Co., Inc. from $115.00 to $118.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a research note on Friday, October 27th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald reiterated an overweight rating and issued a $135.00 price target on shares of Merck & Co., Inc. in a research note on Monday, October 23rd. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seventeen have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $125.14. View Our Latest Stock Report on MRK Merck & Co., Inc. Profile (Free Report) Merck & Co, Inc operates as a healthcare company worldwide. It operates through two segments, Pharmaceutical and Animal Health. The Pharmaceutical segment offers human health pharmaceutical products in the areas of oncology, hospital acute care, immunology, neuroscience, virology, cardiovascular, and diabetes, as well as vaccine products, such as preventive pediatric, adolescent, and adult vaccines. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding MRK? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Merck & Co. Inc. Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Merck & Co. Inc. and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Mn Services Vermogensbeheer B.V. lowered its stake in shares of The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE:EL Free Report) by 4.6% in the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 110,278 shares of the companys stock after selling 5,300 shares during the period. Mn Services Vermogensbeheer B.V.s holdings in Estee Lauder Companies were worth $21,656,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. A number of other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich boosted its stake in Estee Lauder Companies by 96,738.6% during the 2nd quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich now owns 649,839,437 shares of the companys stock valued at $127,615,469,000 after purchasing an additional 649,168,383 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley boosted its stake in shares of Estee Lauder Companies by 20.0% in the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 7,009,269 shares of the companys stock worth $1,739,070,000 after buying an additional 1,167,553 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its stake in shares of Estee Lauder Companies by 4.3% in the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 4,237,972 shares of the companys stock worth $1,044,492,000 after buying an additional 172,821 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Estee Lauder Companies by 1.9% in the 1st quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,129,962 shares of the companys stock worth $1,015,189,000 after buying an additional 77,961 shares during the last quarter. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its stake in shares of Estee Lauder Companies by 6.4% in the 1st quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 3,739,004 shares of the companys stock worth $921,514,000 after buying an additional 224,451 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 55.15% of the companys stock. Get Estee Lauder Companies alerts: Insider Activity at Estee Lauder Companies In related news, EVP Jane Lauder sold 12,661 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $152.75, for a total value of $1,933,967.75. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 55,800 shares of the companys stock, valued at $8,523,450. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other news, EVP Jane Lauder sold 12,661 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $152.75, for a total transaction of $1,933,967.75. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 55,800 shares of the companys stock, valued at $8,523,450. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Charlene Barshefsky sold 1,796 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $151.93, for a total value of $272,866.28. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 48,845 shares in the company, valued at $7,421,020.85. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 12.77% of the stock is owned by insiders. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades EL has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. StockNews.com initiated coverage on Estee Lauder Companies in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They issued a sell rating on the stock. Citigroup cut their target price on Estee Lauder Companies from $165.00 to $155.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, October 11th. Sanford C. Bernstein cut shares of Estee Lauder Companies from an outperform rating to a market perform rating and lowered their price target for the stock from $230.00 to $160.00 in a report on Thursday, August 24th. Jefferies Financial Group cut shares of Estee Lauder Companies from a buy rating to a hold rating and lowered their price target for the stock from $270.00 to $190.00 in a report on Thursday, July 27th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus lowered their price target on shares of Estee Lauder Companies from $265.00 to $225.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, August 16th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, fifteen have issued a hold rating, eleven have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Estee Lauder Companies presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $178.48. View Our Latest Report on EL Estee Lauder Companies Trading Down 0.5 % Shares of EL stock opened at $114.75 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.33, a quick ratio of 0.97 and a current ratio of 1.45. The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. has a 52-week low of $102.22 and a 52-week high of $283.62. The company has a market capitalization of $41.06 billion, a PE ratio of 75.49, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.22 and a beta of 1.08. The businesss fifty day moving average is $139.18 and its 200 day moving average is $170.40. Estee Lauder Companies (NYSE:EL Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, November 1st. The company reported $0.11 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of ($0.22) by $0.33. The business had revenue of $3.52 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $3.53 billion. Estee Lauder Companies had a return on equity of 13.93% and a net margin of 3.54%. The firms revenue was down 10.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.37 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. will post 2.3 EPS for the current fiscal year. Estee Lauder Companies Dividend Announcement The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, November 30th will be paid a $0.66 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, November 29th. This represents a $2.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.30%. Estee Lauder Companiess dividend payout ratio is presently 173.69%. About Estee Lauder Companies (Free Report) The Estee Lauder Companies Inc manufactures, markets, and sells skin care, makeup, fragrance, and hair care products worldwide. It offers skin care products, including moisturizers, serums, cleansers, toners, body care, exfoliators, acne care and oil correctors, facial masks, and sun care products; and makeup products, such as lipsticks, lip glosses, mascaras, foundations, eyeshadows, nail polishes, and powders, as well as compacts, brushes, and other makeup tools. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding EL? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE:EL Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Estee Lauder Companies Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Estee Lauder Companies and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Mn Services Vermogensbeheer B.V. decreased its stake in Motorola Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:MSI Free Report) by 5.0% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 79,767 shares of the communications equipment providers stock after selling 4,200 shares during the period. Mn Services Vermogensbeheer B.V.s holdings in Motorola Solutions were worth $23,394,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Several other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in MSI. American Century Companies Inc. grew its stake in Motorola Solutions by 11.6% during the first quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 3,918 shares of the communications equipment providers stock worth $949,000 after purchasing an additional 406 shares during the period. Cibc World Market Inc. grew its stake in Motorola Solutions by 3.1% during the first quarter. Cibc World Market Inc. now owns 11,087 shares of the communications equipment providers stock worth $2,685,000 after purchasing an additional 329 shares during the period. Moors & Cabot Inc. grew its stake in Motorola Solutions by 8.8% during the first quarter. Moors & Cabot Inc. now owns 2,870 shares of the communications equipment providers stock worth $695,000 after purchasing an additional 231 shares during the period. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Motorola Solutions during the first quarter worth approximately $225,000. Finally, Baird Financial Group Inc. grew its stake in Motorola Solutions by 7.3% during the first quarter. Baird Financial Group Inc. now owns 55,177 shares of the communications equipment providers stock worth $13,362,000 after purchasing an additional 3,741 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.37% of the companys stock. Get Motorola Solutions alerts: Motorola Solutions Stock Up 0.7 % MSI stock opened at $311.02 on Friday. Motorola Solutions, Inc. has a twelve month low of $245.76 and a twelve month high of $311.53. The company has a quick ratio of 0.77, a current ratio of 0.95 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 12.51. The stocks 50 day moving average is $283.79 and its 200-day moving average is $285.41. The firm has a market capitalization of $51.62 billion, a PE ratio of 31.45, a P/E/G ratio of 3.01 and a beta of 0.91. Motorola Solutions Dividend Announcement Motorola Solutions ( NYSE:MSI Get Free Report ) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, November 2nd. The communications equipment provider reported $3.19 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $3.03 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $2.56 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.53 billion. Motorola Solutions had a return on equity of 668.00% and a net margin of 17.30%. The companys revenue for the quarter was up 7.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.79 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts expect that Motorola Solutions, Inc. will post 10.54 EPS for the current fiscal year. The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 13th. Investors of record on Friday, September 15th were issued a dividend of $0.88 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, September 14th. This represents a $3.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.13%. Motorola Solutionss dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 35.59%. Insider Buying and Selling In related news, SVP Cynthia Yazdi sold 5,850 shares of Motorola Solutions stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $306.00, for a total transaction of $1,790,100.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 3,780 shares in the company, valued at $1,156,680. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In related news, SVP Cynthia Yazdi sold 5,850 shares of Motorola Solutions stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $306.00, for a total transaction of $1,790,100.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 3,780 shares in the company, valued at $1,156,680. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Jason J. Winkler sold 5,656 shares of Motorola Solutions stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $305.29, for a total value of $1,726,720.24. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 6,732 shares in the company, valued at $2,055,212.28. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 76,506 shares of company stock worth $23,359,370. 1.50% of the stock is owned by company insiders. Analysts Set New Price Targets MSI has been the topic of several recent research reports. StockNews.com lowered Motorola Solutions from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Saturday. Barclays cut their price target on Motorola Solutions from $329.00 to $322.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a report on Friday, August 4th. Bank of America initiated coverage on Motorola Solutions in a report on Monday, October 9th. They issued a buy rating and a $330.00 price target on the stock. Raymond James increased their price target on Motorola Solutions from $315.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Friday, August 4th. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised their target price on Motorola Solutions from $290.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a report on Friday, August 4th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $312.57. Get Our Latest Analysis on MSI Motorola Solutions Profile (Free Report) Motorola Solutions, Inc provides public safety and enterprise security solutions in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Products and Systems Integration, and Software and Services. The Products and Systems Integration segment offers a portfolio of infrastructure, devices, accessories, and video security devices and infrastructure, as well as the implementation and integration of systems, devices, software, and applications for government, public safety, and commercial customers who operate private communications networks and video security solutions, as well as manage a mobile workforce. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Motorola Solutions Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Motorola Solutions and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Mn Services Vermogensbeheer B.V. lessened its stake in Rockwell Automation, Inc. (NYSE:ROK Free Report) by 4.5% during the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 54,702 shares of the industrial products companys stock after selling 2,600 shares during the quarter. Mn Services Vermogensbeheer B.V.s holdings in Rockwell Automation were worth $18,022,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. A number of other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Aspire Private Capital LLC bought a new stake in Rockwell Automation during the 1st quarter valued at $11,444,550,000. GPS Wealth Strategies Group LLC raised its holdings in Rockwell Automation by 62.9% during the 2nd quarter. GPS Wealth Strategies Group LLC now owns 101 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $33,000 after acquiring an additional 39 shares during the period. Clear Street Markets LLC bought a new stake in Rockwell Automation during the 4th quarter valued at $30,000. Harvest Fund Management Co. Ltd bought a new stake in Rockwell Automation during the 2nd quarter valued at $41,000. Finally, First Manhattan Co. raised its holdings in Rockwell Automation by 150.0% during the 4th quarter. First Manhattan Co. now owns 125 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $32,000 after acquiring an additional 75 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 80.84% of the companys stock. Get Rockwell Automation alerts: Rockwell Automation Stock Up 1.0 % ROK opened at $258.43 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $29.63 billion, a PE ratio of 21.61, a P/E/G ratio of 1.98 and a beta of 1.46. The company has a quick ratio of 2.58, a current ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.76. Rockwell Automation, Inc. has a 52 week low of $248.71 and a 52 week high of $348.52. The businesss fifty day simple moving average is $280.81 and its 200 day simple moving average is $296.63. Rockwell Automation Increases Dividend Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 11th. Investors of record on Monday, November 13th will be paid a $1.25 dividend. This represents a $5.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.93%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, November 10th. This is a boost from Rockwell Automations previous quarterly dividend of $1.18. Rockwell Automations dividend payout ratio is currently 39.46%. A number of brokerages have issued reports on ROK. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their target price on shares of Rockwell Automation from $317.00 to $291.00 in a report on Monday, October 9th. Stephens reissued an equal weight rating and set a $350.00 target price on shares of Rockwell Automation in a report on Friday, November 3rd. Mizuho decreased their price target on shares of Rockwell Automation from $270.00 to $265.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a report on Friday, November 3rd. KeyCorp assumed coverage on shares of Rockwell Automation in a report on Monday, October 2nd. They issued a sector weight rating on the stock. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their price target on shares of Rockwell Automation from $340.00 to $345.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Wednesday, August 2nd. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Rockwell Automation currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $299.20. Get Our Latest Stock Report on Rockwell Automation Insider Activity at Rockwell Automation In other news, VP Scott Genereux sold 500 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $297.62, for a total transaction of $148,810.00. Following the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 2,876 shares of the companys stock, valued at $855,955.12. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. In other news, VP Scott Genereux sold 500 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $297.62, for a total transaction of $148,810.00. Following the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 2,876 shares of the companys stock, valued at $855,955.12. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, VP Isaac Woods sold 113 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $285.43, for a total value of $32,253.59. Following the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 827 shares in the company, valued at $236,050.61. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 1,650 shares of company stock valued at $460,091 over the last 90 days. 0.64% of the stock is owned by insiders. About Rockwell Automation (Free Report) Rockwell Automation, Inc provides industrial automation and digital transformation solutions in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, and Latin America. The company operates through three segments, Intelligent Devices, Software & Control, and Lifecycle Services. Its solutions include hardware and software products and services. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Rockwell Automation Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Rockwell Automation and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. National Australia Bank Limited (OTCMKTS:NABZY Get Free Report) passed above its two hundred day moving average during trading on Friday . The stock has a two hundred day moving average of $9.07 and traded as high as $9.38. National Australia Bank shares last traded at $8.99, with a volume of 332,764 shares trading hands. National Australia Bank Trading Down 1.6 % The firms 50 day moving average price is $9.24 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $9.07. Get National Australia Bank alerts: National Australia Bank Cuts Dividend The business also recently announced a dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 22nd. Shareholders of record on Monday, November 20th will be paid a $0.2598 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, November 17th. About National Australia Bank National Australia Bank Limited provides financial services to individuals and businesses in Australia, New Zealand, and internationally. It operates through Business and Private Banking; Personal Banking; Corporate and Institutional Banking; New Zealand Banking; and Corporate Functions and Other segments. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for National Australia Bank Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for National Australia Bank and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Nuveen New York Select Tax-Free Income Portfolio (NYSE:NXN Get Free Report) announced a monthly dividend on Monday, October 23rd, Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Wednesday, November 15th will be given a dividend of 0.041 per share on Friday, December 1st. This represents a $0.49 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.44%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 14th. Nuveen New York Select Tax-Free Income Portfolio Stock Performance Nuveen New York Select Tax-Free Income Portfolio stock opened at $11.07 on Friday. Nuveen New York Select Tax-Free Income Portfolio has a fifty-two week low of $10.64 and a fifty-two week high of $12.55. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $11.35 and a 200 day moving average price of $11.78. Get Nuveen New York Select Tax-Free Income Portfolio alerts: Institutional Trading of Nuveen New York Select Tax-Free Income Portfolio Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in NXN. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. increased its holdings in Nuveen New York Select Tax-Free Income Portfolio by 20.3% in the 4th quarter. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. now owns 12,000 shares of the companys stock valued at $139,000 after purchasing an additional 2,024 shares during the last quarter. UBS Group AG increased its holdings in Nuveen New York Select Tax-Free Income Portfolio by 76.1% in the 2nd quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 12,191 shares of the companys stock valued at $142,000 after purchasing an additional 5,267 shares during the last quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC grew its stake in shares of Nuveen New York Select Tax-Free Income Portfolio by 10.0% in the third quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC now owns 14,548 shares of the companys stock worth $161,000 after acquiring an additional 1,327 shares in the last quarter. Stifel Financial Corp grew its stake in shares of Nuveen New York Select Tax-Free Income Portfolio by 25.3% in the first quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 14,662 shares of the companys stock worth $177,000 after acquiring an additional 2,958 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Guggenheim Capital LLC grew its stake in shares of Nuveen New York Select Tax-Free Income Portfolio by 80.8% in the third quarter. Guggenheim Capital LLC now owns 19,147 shares of the companys stock worth $212,000 after acquiring an additional 8,554 shares in the last quarter. Nuveen New York Select Tax-Free Income Portfolio Company Profile Nuveen New York Select Tax-Free Income Portfolio is a closed-ended fixed income mutual fund launched by Nuveen Investments Inc The fund is co-managed by Nuveen Fund Advisors LLC and Nuveen Asset Management, LLC. It invests in the fixed income markets of New York. The fund invests in the securities of companies that operate across diversified sectors. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Nuveen New York Select Tax-Free Income Portfolio Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Nuveen New York Select Tax-Free Income Portfolio and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Rock Creek Group LP bought a new stake in shares of Banco Bradesco S.A. (NYSE:BBD Free Report) in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor bought 52,892 shares of the banks stock, valued at approximately $183,000. Several other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in BBD. Creative Planning grew its stake in Banco Bradesco by 27.6% during the 2nd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 15,319 shares of the banks stock worth $50,000 after buying an additional 3,312 shares during the last quarter. Ieq Capital LLC grew its position in shares of Banco Bradesco by 31.4% during the second quarter. Ieq Capital LLC now owns 14,329 shares of the banks stock worth $50,000 after acquiring an additional 3,422 shares during the last quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors grew its position in shares of Banco Bradesco by 21.4% during the second quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 20,501 shares of the banks stock worth $67,000 after acquiring an additional 3,610 shares during the last quarter. Pinnacle Wealth Planning Services Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Banco Bradesco by 23.0% in the 1st quarter. Pinnacle Wealth Planning Services Inc. now owns 20,514 shares of the banks stock worth $54,000 after acquiring an additional 3,842 shares during the period. Finally, Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV lifted its position in Banco Bradesco by 35.3% in the 3rd quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV now owns 14,768 shares of the banks stock valued at $54,000 after purchasing an additional 3,849 shares during the last quarter. 1.84% of the stock is owned by institutional investors. Get Banco Bradesco alerts: Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Separately, Jefferies Financial Group initiated coverage on shares of Banco Bradesco in a research note on Monday, October 16th. They issued a buy rating and a $3.50 price target on the stock. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $3.07. Banco Bradesco Price Performance Shares of NYSE BBD opened at $3.09 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $32.93 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.71, a P/E/G ratio of 0.61 and a beta of 0.93. The firms 50-day simple moving average is $2.91 and its 200 day simple moving average is $3.13. Banco Bradesco S.A. has a fifty-two week low of $2.34 and a fifty-two week high of $3.68. The company has a quick ratio of 0.72, a current ratio of 0.70 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.19. Banco Bradesco Increases Dividend The company also recently announced a monthly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, January 12th. Investors of record on Tuesday, December 5th will be paid a dividend of $0.0039 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, December 4th. This represents a $0.05 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.51%. This is a boost from Banco Bradescos previous monthly dividend of $0.00. Banco Bradescos dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 14.29%. About Banco Bradesco (Free Report) Banco Bradesco SA, together with its subsidiaries, provides various banking products and services to individuals, corporates, and businesses in Brazil and internationally. The company operates through two segments, Banking and Insurance. It provides current, savings, click, and salary accounts; real estate credit, vehicle financing, payroll loans, mortgage loans, microcredit, leasing, and personal and installment credit; debit and business cards; financial and security services; consortium products; auto, personal accident, dental, travel, and life insurance; investment products; pension products; real estate and vehicle auctions; cash management, and foreign trade and exchange services; capitalization bonds; and internet banking services. Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding BBD? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Banco Bradesco S.A. (NYSE:BBD Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Banco Bradesco Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Banco Bradesco and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. MEG Energy (TSE:MEG Free Report) had its price target lifted by Royal Bank of Canada from C$31.00 to C$33.00 in a report released on Wednesday, BayStreet.CA reports. Royal Bank of Canada currently has an outperform rating on the stock. Several other brokerages have also recently issued reports on MEG. Desjardins raised their price objective on MEG Energy from C$25.50 to C$26.50 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 25th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on MEG Energy from C$27.00 to C$31.00 in a research note on Monday, October 16th. National Bankshares raised their price objective on MEG Energy from C$27.00 to C$31.00 and gave the stock a sector perform rating in a research note on Thursday, October 12th. ATB Capital raised their price objective on MEG Energy from C$27.00 to C$31.50 in a research note on Friday, October 20th. Finally, CIBC raised their price objective on MEG Energy from C$23.00 to C$27.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Monday, October 16th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of C$27.86. Get MEG Energy alerts: Read Our Latest Stock Report on MEG MEG Energy Price Performance MEG Energy Company Profile Shares of MEG stock opened at C$26.34 on Wednesday. MEG Energy has a 1-year low of C$16.46 and a 1-year high of C$28.42. The stocks 50-day moving average is C$26.21 and its 200 day moving average is C$23.55. The company has a market cap of C$7.52 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.72, a PEG ratio of 0.17 and a beta of 2.92. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 36.43, a current ratio of 1.43 and a quick ratio of 1.17. (Get Free Report) MEG Energy Corp., an energy company, focuses on sustainable in situ thermal oil production in the southern Athabasca oil region of Alberta, Canada. The company develops oil recovery projects that utilize steam-assisted gravity drainage extraction methods to improve the recovery of oil, as well as lower carbon emissions. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for MEG Energy Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for MEG Energy and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Swiss National Bank cut its stake in shares of Prologis, Inc. (NYSE:PLD Free Report) by 9.0% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 3,335,208 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock after selling 328,100 shares during the period. Swiss National Banks holdings in Prologis were worth $408,997,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Bank of Nova Scotia lifted its position in Prologis by 16.4% during the second quarter. Bank of Nova Scotia now owns 81,652 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $10,013,000 after acquiring an additional 11,528 shares during the last quarter. Fifth Third Bancorp raised its position in shares of Prologis by 0.3% in the second quarter. Fifth Third Bancorp now owns 141,026 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $17,294,000 after buying an additional 360 shares in the last quarter. ASB Consultores LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Prologis in the first quarter valued at approximately $243,000. Assetmark Inc. raised its position in shares of Prologis by 10.7% in the first quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 25,854 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $3,226,000 after buying an additional 2,509 shares in the last quarter. Finally, LPL Financial LLC raised its position in shares of Prologis by 4.1% in the second quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 340,745 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $41,786,000 after buying an additional 13,384 shares in the last quarter. 90.90% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Prologis alerts: Prologis Stock Performance NYSE PLD opened at $104.55 on Friday. The firms fifty day moving average price is $110.74 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $119.02. The stock has a market cap of $96.60 billion, a PE ratio of 32.27, a PEG ratio of 2.19 and a beta of 1.02. Prologis, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $96.64 and a fifty-two week high of $136.67. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47, a quick ratio of 0.43 and a current ratio of 0.43. Prologis Dividend Announcement Prologis ( NYSE:PLD Get Free Report ) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 17th. The real estate investment trust reported $1.30 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.26 by $0.04. Prologis had a net margin of 38.24% and a return on equity of 5.21%. The company had revenue of $1.78 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $1.72 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.73 earnings per share. Prologiss revenue for the quarter was up 53.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts expect that Prologis, Inc. will post 5.6 EPS for the current fiscal year. The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 29th. Shareholders of record on Monday, September 18th were given a dividend of $0.87 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, September 15th. This represents a $3.48 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.33%. Prologiss dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 107.41%. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In PLD has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. BTIG Research lifted their price target on shares of Prologis from $152.00 to $154.00 in a research report on Wednesday, July 19th. Morgan Stanley reiterated an overweight rating and issued a $128.00 price target on shares of Prologis in a research report on Thursday, July 20th. TheStreet downgraded shares of Prologis from a b- rating to a c+ rating in a research report on Friday, October 20th. Truist Financial lowered their price objective on shares of Prologis from $135.00 to $120.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, October 24th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Prologis from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research report on Friday, November 3rd. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Prologis currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $139.60. Read Our Latest Research Report on PLD Prologis Profile (Free Report) Prologis, Inc is the global leader in logistics real estate with a focus on high-barrier, high-growth markets. At September 30, 2023, the company owned or had investments in, on a wholly owned basis or through co-investment ventures, properties and development projects expected to total approximately 1.2 billion square feet (114 million square meters) in 19 countries. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding PLD? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Prologis, Inc. (NYSE:PLD Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Prologis Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Prologis and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Swiss National Bank cut its position in Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT Free Report) by 9.3% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 6,276,780 shares of the healthcare product makers stock after selling 642,800 shares during the period. Swiss National Banks holdings in Abbott Laboratories were worth $684,295,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Core Alternative Capital grew its stake in shares of Abbott Laboratories by 27.0% in the 2nd quarter. Core Alternative Capital now owns 1,290 shares of the healthcare product makers stock valued at $141,000 after buying an additional 274 shares during the period. Fort Sheridan Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Abbott Laboratories by 315.5% during the 1st quarter. Fort Sheridan Advisors LLC now owns 12,182 shares of the healthcare product makers stock valued at $1,234,000 after purchasing an additional 9,250 shares during the last quarter. Freestone Capital Holdings LLC boosted its stake in Abbott Laboratories by 12.8% during the 1st quarter. Freestone Capital Holdings LLC now owns 99,836 shares of the healthcare product makers stock valued at $10,109,000 after purchasing an additional 11,303 shares during the last quarter. Harbour Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in Abbott Laboratories by 0.5% during the 1st quarter. Harbour Investment Management LLC now owns 26,750 shares of the healthcare product makers stock valued at $2,709,000 after purchasing an additional 138 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Fifth Third Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Abbott Laboratories by 106.9% during the 2nd quarter. Fifth Third Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 7,743 shares of the healthcare product makers stock valued at $844,000 after purchasing an additional 4,000 shares during the last quarter. 73.70% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Abbott Laboratories alerts: Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of equities analysts have issued reports on the company. TheStreet downgraded Abbott Laboratories from a b- rating to a c+ rating in a research note on Monday, October 16th. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price target on Abbott Laboratories from $136.00 to $116.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, October 19th. Mizuho lifted their price target on Abbott Laboratories from $110.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research note on Friday, July 21st. UBS Group dropped their target price on shares of Abbott Laboratories from $130.00 to $118.00 in a research report on Thursday, October 19th. Finally, Morgan Stanley dropped their target price on shares of Abbott Laboratories from $112.00 to $107.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, October 19th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Abbott Laboratories presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $117.47. Abbott Laboratories Trading Up 0.4 % NYSE:ABT opened at $93.97 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.74, a quick ratio of 1.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.38. The stock has a market capitalization of $163.14 billion, a PE ratio of 31.96, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.16 and a beta of 0.69. The firms 50 day moving average is $96.79 and its 200 day moving average is $103.42. Abbott Laboratories has a 12 month low of $89.67 and a 12 month high of $115.83. Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, October 18th. The healthcare product maker reported $1.14 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.10 by $0.04. Abbott Laboratories had a net margin of 12.92% and a return on equity of 20.15%. The business had revenue of $10.14 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.82 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.15 EPS. Abbott Laboratoriess revenue was down 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts expect that Abbott Laboratories will post 4.44 earnings per share for the current year. Abbott Laboratories Announces Dividend The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, November 15th. Investors of record on Friday, October 13th will be paid a $0.51 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 12th. This represents a $2.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.17%. Abbott Laboratoriess dividend payout ratio is 69.39%. Insider Activity at Abbott Laboratories In related news, Director Daniel J. Starks sold 50,000 shares of Abbott Laboratories stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $94.05, for a total value of $4,702,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 6,725,316 shares in the company, valued at approximately $632,515,969.80. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. 1.10% of the stock is owned by company insiders. Abbott Laboratories Profile (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. Featured Articles Want to see what other hedge funds are holding ABT? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Abbott Laboratories Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Abbott Laboratories and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. TransAlta (TSE:TA Free Report) (NYSE:TAC) had its price objective boosted by CIBC from C$17.50 to C$18.00 in a report released on Wednesday morning, BayStreet.CA reports. The brokerage currently has an outperform rating on the stock. A number of other research firms have also weighed in on TA. National Bankshares cut their target price on shares of TransAlta from C$15.00 to C$14.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, October 19th. Industrial Alliance Securities raised their price objective on shares of TransAlta from C$17.00 to C$17.50 and gave the company a strong-buy rating in a report on Tuesday, August 8th. BMO Capital Markets lowered their target price on shares of TransAlta from C$20.00 to C$17.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research note on Friday, September 8th. TD Securities cut their price target on TransAlta from C$16.50 to C$16.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, October 6th. Finally, ATB Capital decreased their price target on TransAlta from C$19.00 to C$17.00 in a report on Thursday, October 19th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of Buy and a consensus price target of C$16.50. Get TransAlta alerts: Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on TA TransAlta Price Performance TransAlta Announces Dividend Shares of TSE TA opened at C$11.40 on Wednesday. The stocks 50-day moving average is C$11.63 and its two-hundred day moving average is C$12.52. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 161.55, a current ratio of 1.54 and a quick ratio of 0.62. TransAlta has a 1-year low of C$10.02 and a 1-year high of C$13.97. The company has a market cap of C$3.53 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 5.33, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of -0.07 and a beta of 1.09. The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, January 1st. Investors of record on Friday, December 1st will be paid a dividend of $0.055 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 30th. This represents a $0.22 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.93%. TransAltas dividend payout ratio is presently 10.28%. TransAlta Company Profile (Get Free Report) TransAlta Corporation engages in the development, production, and sale of electric energy. It operates through Hydro, Wind and Solar, Gas, Energy Transition, and Energy Marketing segments. The Hydro segment has a net ownership interest of approximately 922 megawatts (MW) of owned hydro electrical-generating capacity located in Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for TransAlta Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for TransAlta and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Mn Services Vermogensbeheer B.V. grew its holdings in shares of U.S. Bancorp (NYSE:USB Free Report) by 4.3% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 729,700 shares of the financial services providers stock after buying an additional 30,100 shares during the quarter. Mn Services Vermogensbeheer B.V.s holdings in U.S. Bancorp were worth $24,109,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Institute for Wealth Management LLC. grew its stake in U.S. Bancorp by 3.4% during the second quarter. Institute for Wealth Management LLC. now owns 11,300 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $373,000 after buying an additional 368 shares during the period. New Mexico Educational Retirement Board boosted its stake in shares of U.S. Bancorp by 8.2% in the second quarter. New Mexico Educational Retirement Board now owns 67,661 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $2,236,000 after purchasing an additional 5,100 shares during the period. Mission Creek Capital Partners Inc. boosted its stake in shares of U.S. Bancorp by 86.9% in the first quarter. Mission Creek Capital Partners Inc. now owns 13,832 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $499,000 after purchasing an additional 6,430 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in shares of U.S. Bancorp by 2,686.8% in the first quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 87,032 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $3,138,000 after purchasing an additional 83,909 shares during the period. Finally, WASHINGTON TRUST Co boosted its stake in shares of U.S. Bancorp by 13.9% in the second quarter. WASHINGTON TRUST Co now owns 2,590 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $86,000 after purchasing an additional 317 shares during the period. 75.40% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get U.S. Bancorp alerts: U.S. Bancorp Stock Up 0.9 % USB stock opened at $34.20 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.80, a current ratio of 0.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.92. U.S. Bancorp has a fifty-two week low of $27.27 and a fifty-two week high of $49.95. The firms 50-day simple moving average is $33.49 and its 200 day simple moving average is $33.94. The stock has a market cap of $53.25 billion, a PE ratio of 10.18, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.59 and a beta of 1.02. U.S. Bancorp Announces Dividend U.S. Bancorp ( NYSE:USB Get Free Report ) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, October 18th. The financial services provider reported $1.05 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.96 by $0.09. The firm had revenue of $7.03 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $7.02 billion. U.S. Bancorp had a net margin of 14.39% and a return on equity of 15.80%. U.S. Bancorps revenue was up 11.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.18 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that U.S. Bancorp will post 4.32 EPS for the current year. The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, October 16th. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 29th were given a dividend of $0.48 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, September 28th. This represents a $1.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 5.61%. U.S. Bancorps dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 57.14%. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth USB has been the subject of several analyst reports. Bank of America decreased their target price on shares of U.S. Bancorp from $45.00 to $40.00 in a research note on Tuesday, October 10th. Credit Suisse Group reaffirmed a neutral rating and issued a $44.00 price target on shares of U.S. Bancorp in a report on Thursday, July 20th. Citigroup cut their price target on shares of U.S. Bancorp from $40.00 to $37.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a report on Friday, September 22nd. DA Davidson upped their price target on shares of U.S. Bancorp from $39.00 to $41.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a report on Monday, July 24th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group cut their price target on shares of U.S. Bancorp from $36.00 to $31.00 in a report on Tuesday, October 10th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have assigned a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $45.76. Read Our Latest Analysis on USB Insider Activity In other news, insider James B. Kelligrew bought 500 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Sunday, August 27th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $54.40 per share, for a total transaction of $27,200.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the insider now directly owns 940 shares in the company, valued at approximately $51,136. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. In the last quarter, insiders acquired 654 shares of company stock worth $30,148. Corporate insiders own 0.24% of the companys stock. U.S. Bancorp Company Profile (Free Report) U.S. Bancorp, a financial services holding company, provides various financial services to individuals, businesses, institutional organizations, governmental entities and other financial institutions in the United States. It operates in Corporate and Commercial Banking, Consumer and Business Banking, Wealth Management and Investment Services, Payment Services, and Treasury and Corporate Support segments. Read More Receive News & Ratings for U.S. Bancorp Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for U.S. Bancorp and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Vise Technologies Inc. lifted its holdings in Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (NYSE:HMC Free Report) by 6.8% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 8,414 shares of the companys stock after purchasing an additional 534 shares during the quarter. Vise Technologies Inc.s holdings in Honda Motor were worth $255,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Boston Partners grew its holdings in shares of Honda Motor by 10.2% in the first quarter. Boston Partners now owns 10,927 shares of the companys stock valued at $289,000 after purchasing an additional 1,012 shares in the last quarter. Signaturefd LLC grew its holdings in shares of Honda Motor by 4.9% in the second quarter. Signaturefd LLC now owns 32,372 shares of the companys stock valued at $981,000 after purchasing an additional 1,504 shares in the last quarter. D Orazio & Associates Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Honda Motor in the second quarter valued at $255,000. Integrated Wealth Concepts LLC purchased a new position in shares of Honda Motor in the first quarter valued at $2,243,000. Finally, Manning & Napier Group LLC grew its holdings in shares of Honda Motor by 12.8% in the second quarter. Manning & Napier Group LLC now owns 183,410 shares of the companys stock valued at $5,559,000 after purchasing an additional 20,761 shares in the last quarter. 5.32% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Honda Motor alerts: Analysts Set New Price Targets Several research firms have commented on HMC. StockNews.com began coverage on shares of Honda Motor in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They set a strong-buy rating for the company. Macquarie raised shares of Honda Motor from a neutral rating to an outperform rating in a research note on Friday, August 11th. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised shares of Honda Motor from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating in a research note on Thursday, September 7th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating, three have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy. Honda Motor Stock Up 2.1 % NYSE HMC opened at $31.58 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.11, a current ratio of 1.44 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.40. The company has a fifty day moving average of $33.26 and a two-hundred day moving average of $31.12. The firm has a market capitalization of $54.02 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.52, a PEG ratio of 0.41 and a beta of 0.75. Honda Motor Co., Ltd. has a 52 week low of $22.35 and a 52 week high of $36.82. Honda Motor (NYSE:HMC Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, August 9th. The company reported $1.60 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.99 by $0.61. Honda Motor had a return on equity of 8.19% and a net margin of 5.26%. The business had revenue of $33.70 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $33.57 billion. On average, analysts predict that Honda Motor Co., Ltd. will post 4.07 earnings per share for the current year. Honda Motor Profile (Free Report) Honda Motor Co, Ltd. develops, manufactures, and distributes motorcycles, automobiles, power, and other products in Japan, North America, Europe, Asia, and internationally. It operates through four segments: Motorcycle Business, Automobile Business, Financial Services Business, and Power Product and Other Businesses. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for Honda Motor Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Honda Motor and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Vise Technologies Inc. lifted its holdings in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU Free Report) (TSE:T) by 9.9% during the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 11,212 shares of the Wireless communications providers stock after buying an additional 1,010 shares during the quarter. Vise Technologies Inc.s holdings in TELUS were worth $218,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Stratos Wealth Advisors LLC increased its holdings in TELUS by 0.8% in the 1st quarter. Stratos Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 82,722 shares of the Wireless communications providers stock worth $1,643,000 after acquiring an additional 624 shares in the last quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers grew its holdings in TELUS by 6.8% during the 1st quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 10,837 shares of the Wireless communications providers stock valued at $215,000 after buying an additional 692 shares in the last quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors grew its holdings in TELUS by 18.1% during the 2nd quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 4,669 shares of the Wireless communications providers stock valued at $104,000 after buying an additional 717 shares in the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its holdings in TELUS by 4.7% during the 2nd quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 17,964 shares of the Wireless communications providers stock valued at $350,000 after buying an additional 810 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its holdings in TELUS by 4.0% during the 3rd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 22,341 shares of the Wireless communications providers stock valued at $444,000 after buying an additional 861 shares in the last quarter. 49.48% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get TELUS alerts: Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades TU has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. TD Securities cut their price objective on shares of TELUS from C$30.00 to C$29.00 in a report on Tuesday, August 8th. CIBC cut their target price on shares of TELUS from C$31.00 to C$29.00 in a report on Monday, July 17th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their target price on shares of TELUS from C$33.00 to C$31.00 in a report on Thursday, July 20th. Bank of America cut their target price on shares of TELUS from C$33.00 to C$30.00 in a report on Friday, October 6th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada cut their target price on shares of TELUS from C$32.00 to C$31.00 in a report on Monday, July 17th. TELUS Stock Down 0.1 % Shares of TU opened at $17.23 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $25.05 billion, a PE ratio of 42.03, a P/E/G ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 0.73. The business has a fifty day moving average of $16.71 and a 200 day moving average of $18.16. TELUS Co. has a 52-week low of $15.47 and a 52-week high of $22.08. The company has a quick ratio of 0.57, a current ratio of 0.66 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.34. TELUS Cuts Dividend The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, January 2nd. Investors of record on Monday, December 11th will be given a $0.271 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, December 8th. This represents a $1.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 6.29%. TELUSs dividend payout ratio is presently 263.42%. About TELUS (Free Report) TELUS Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides a range of telecommunications and information technology products and services in Canada. It operates through Technology Solutions and Digitally-Led Customer Experiences segments. The Technology Solutions segment offers a range of telecommunications products and services; network services; mobile technologies equipment; data services, such as internet protocol; television; hosting, managed information technology, and cloud-based services; software, data management, and data analytics-driven smart food-chain and consumer goods technologies; home and business security; healthcare software and technology solutions; and voice and other telecommunications services. Recommended Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding TU? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU Free Report) (TSE:T). Receive News & Ratings for TELUS Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for TELUS and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Vise Technologies Inc. bought a new position in Aflac Incorporated (NYSE:AFL Free Report) in the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 3,399 shares of the financial services providers stock, valued at approximately $237,000. A number of other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in AFL. Panagora Asset Management Inc. lifted its position in Aflac by 36.2% in the first quarter. Panagora Asset Management Inc. now owns 23,941 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $1,542,000 after purchasing an additional 6,369 shares during the period. Blair William & Co. IL increased its holdings in shares of Aflac by 6.8% in the first quarter. Blair William & Co. IL now owns 17,268 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $1,112,000 after buying an additional 1,102 shares in the last quarter. Aviva PLC increased its holdings in shares of Aflac by 0.7% in the first quarter. Aviva PLC now owns 210,634 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $13,563,000 after buying an additional 1,503 shares in the last quarter. Dakota Wealth Management bought a new position in shares of Aflac in the first quarter valued at $428,000. Finally, Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Aflac by 7.3% in the first quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 6,142 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $396,000 after buying an additional 417 shares in the last quarter. 66.75% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Aflac alerts: Aflac Trading Up 0.7 % NYSE AFL opened at $81.48 on Friday. Aflac Incorporated has a 1-year low of $60.20 and a 1-year high of $82.71. The company has a current ratio of 0.08, a quick ratio of 0.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31. The company has a market capitalization of $47.62 billion, a PE ratio of 10.74, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 0.89. The firms fifty day simple moving average is $77.86 and its 200-day simple moving average is $72.89. Aflac Announces Dividend Aflac ( NYSE:AFL Get Free Report ) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 2nd. The financial services provider reported $1.84 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.44 by $0.40. Aflac had a net margin of 24.17% and a return on equity of 17.86%. The business had revenue of $4.95 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.31 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.23 earnings per share. Aflacs revenue for the quarter was up 5.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Aflac Incorporated will post 6.25 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 1st. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, November 15th will be paid a $0.42 dividend. This represents a $1.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.06%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 14th. Aflacs dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 22.13%. Insider Buying and Selling In related news, Director Joseph L. Moskowitz sold 500 shares of the companys stock in a transaction 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 sale, the director now directly owns 26,598 shares in the company, valued at $2,033,949.06. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In related news, VP June P. Howard sold 6,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $81.01, for a total value of $486,060.00. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now directly owns 123,026 shares in the company, valued at $9,966,336.26. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director Joseph L. Moskowitz sold 500 shares of the companys 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 completion of the sale, the director now owns 26,598 shares of the companys stock, valued at $2,033,949.06. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 141,205 shares of company stock worth $11,425,157. Corporate insiders own 0.90% of the companys stock. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In Several research firms have issued reports on AFL. Citigroup upped their price target on Aflac from $69.00 to $76.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a report on Wednesday, August 9th. Bank of America upped their price target on Aflac from $79.00 to $86.00 in a report on Wednesday, August 2nd. Morgan Stanley downgraded shares of Aflac from an overweight rating to an equal weight rating and boosted their target price for the company from $74.00 to $75.00 in a research note on Friday, August 18th. Raymond James boosted their target price on shares of Aflac from $77.00 to $83.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 26th. Finally, StockNews.com began coverage on shares of Aflac in a research note on Thursday, October 5th. They set a hold rating on the stock. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $77.80. Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on AFL 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. Featured Articles Want to see what other hedge funds are holding AFL? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Aflac Incorporated (NYSE:AFL Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Aflac Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Aflac and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Winslow Asset Management Inc. reduced its stake in shares of Tenet Healthcare Co. (NYSE:THC Free Report) by 4.6% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 161,421 shares of the companys stock after selling 7,854 shares during the period. Tenet Healthcare accounts for about 2.8% of Winslow Asset Management Inc.s portfolio, making the stock its 10th largest holding. Winslow Asset Management Inc. owned approximately 0.16% of Tenet Healthcare worth $13,136,000 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 THC. Bfsg LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Tenet Healthcare during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $961,000. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System raised its position in shares of Tenet Healthcare by 3.8% during the 2nd quarter. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System now owns 29,800 shares of the companys stock valued at $2,425,000 after buying an additional 1,100 shares during the period. Bank of Montreal Can purchased a new stake in shares of Tenet Healthcare during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $10,576,000. Scissortail Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Tenet Healthcare during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $1,271,124,000. Finally, Texas Permanent School Fund Corp raised its position in shares of Tenet Healthcare by 33.3% during the 1st quarter. Texas Permanent School Fund Corp now owns 96,880 shares of the companys stock valued at $5,757,000 after buying an additional 24,190 shares during the period. 93.56% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Tenet Healthcare alerts: Tenet Healthcare Stock Performance Shares of THC stock opened at $53.79 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.43, a quick ratio of 1.34 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 5.18. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $62.12 and a 200 day moving average price of $70.60. The company has a market cap of $5.46 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.42, a PEG ratio of 2.70 and a beta of 2.19. Tenet Healthcare Co. has a 12 month low of $40.39 and a 12 month high of $85.40. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Tenet Healthcare ( NYSE:THC Get Free Report ) last issued its earnings results on Monday, October 30th. The company reported $1.44 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.20 by $0.24. The firm had revenue of $5.07 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.02 billion. Tenet Healthcare had a net margin of 2.33% and a return on equity of 25.34%. The companys revenue was up 5.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.44 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts predict that Tenet Healthcare Co. will post 5.84 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Several analysts have recently commented on THC shares. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price target on shares of Tenet Healthcare from $83.00 to $71.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, October 20th. Credit Suisse Group boosted their target price on Tenet Healthcare from $92.00 to $98.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 2nd. Mizuho cut their target price on Tenet Healthcare from $94.00 to $77.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, October 31st. Cantor Fitzgerald boosted their target price on Tenet Healthcare from $76.00 to $94.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Thursday, September 14th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada cut their target price on Tenet Healthcare from $87.00 to $72.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, October 31st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Buy and a consensus price target of $83.67. Check Out Our Latest Report on THC Tenet Healthcare Company Profile (Free Report) Tenet Healthcare Corporation operates as a diversified healthcare services company. The company operates through three segments: Hospital Operations, Ambulatory Care, and Conifer. Its general hospitals offer acute care services, operating and recovery rooms, radiology and respiratory therapy services, clinical laboratories, and pharmacies. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Tenet Healthcare Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Tenet Healthcare and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. At least 800,000 people marched in London on Saturday to protest Israels war of genocide against Gaza. The rallies in the UK capital have grown larger by the week, going from 100,000, to 350,000, to half a million to this weekends huge totalwith some estimating over one million participants. Those attending were determined to defy Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Home Secretary Suella Bravermans attempt to ban the march, on the spurious basis that it coincided with Armistice Day, which commemorates the end of the First World War. But the rallys organisers, including the Stop the War Coalition and the Palestine Solidarity Committee, have provided no strategy to stop the onslaught on Gaza. They have insisted for weeks that the way forward is to pressure Sunak and Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer to call for a ceasefire. In fact, with over 11,000 killed in Gaza, including more than 4,500 children, Sunak and Starmer have only hardened their insistence that the slaughter continue. This weeks rally was dominated by calls from the platform for Braverman to resign, and for MPs of all parties, including Sunak and Starmer, to sign a motion calling for a ceasefire that will be brought before Parliament next Wednesday by Scottish National Party MPs. Stop the War Coalition convenor Lindsey German, a leading figure of the pseudo-left Counterfire group, who was presented as the leader of the anti-war movement, said, We are going to hold to account our politicians who refuse to give a ceasefire, and refuse to call for a ceasefire. Among these were again Keir Starmer, who has been an absolute disgrace as a Labour leader, Keir Starmer, who has said [of the ceasefire motion being voted on next week] hes telling Labour MPs not to vote for that motion. That is an absolute disgrace and I hope every single one of the Labour MPs defies his call because its absolutely abominable that were not allowed to call for a ceasefire. Lindsey German speaking at the rally German concluded that Braverman should be sacked, and if they [the government] dont want to sack her, they should be sacked as well. This translates into a call to put Starmers pro-war, pro-austerity party into government. Richard Burgon, the secretary of the few dozen-strong Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs, was hailed for authoring a non-binding Early Day Motion calling for a cessation of hostilities, put forward on October 17 and destined to never be debated, let alone voted on. It has been signed by just 95 MPs from among a cross-party oppostion, less than 15 percent of Parliament. Labour MP Richard Burgon speaking at the rally In his speech, Burgon asked protestors to campaign for the support of the same capitalist governments orchestrating or bystanding the genocide. Those marching, he claimed, were saying to political leaders everywhere: Do everything you can to help save lives, Palestinian and Israeli, to help stop the bombing, to help stop the suffering, to help free the hostages, to stop the war crimes, and to get in the aid so desperately needed in Gaza. And that means our government must call for a ceasefire now. Sunak, he added, should strain every sinew and use Britains vast diplomatic influence to help secure a negotiated ceasefire Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, presented by the platform as the Peoples Prime Minister, summed up the bankrupt perspective of the rally leaders by saying about an assembly stuffed full of warmongers, next Wednesday our Parliament, the House of Commons, will be voting on amendments to the Kings Speech debate. There are amendments down there on calling for a ceasefire. Jeremy Corbyn speaking at the London rally He asked of the rally, You may not have done it before; email your MP and tell them: Put aside your greed, put aside your cynical calculations of what advances the arms industry, what advances somebody else, and simply say this to them, A ceasefire now in Gaza would save thousands and thousands of lives. Corbyn was expelled from the Parliamentary Labour Party by Starmer fully three years ago, while still remaining a party member. But such is his level of political cowardice that he again refused to mention his party leaders complicity in war crimes. In fact, of the several Labour Party MPs and members on the platform, only Jess Barnard, a non-MP member of the partys national executive committee, mentioned Starmers name. Her speech was nonetheless geared to convincing criminal bourgeois politicians to act, with Barnard saying it was Starmers duty to follow the example of French President of the rich Emmanuel Macrons cynical call for a ceasefire. Imran Hussain, a Labour MP member of the Socialist Campaign Group, who resigned from Labours front bench last week in order to campaign for a ceasefire, also did not mention Starmer. Despite declaring Israels war of annihilation beyond a humanitarian crisis, and calling it a breach of international law and a war crime, Hussain only mentioned his resignation in opaque terms. He did not explain why he remains an MP in a party that supports these crimes. The same applies to fellow Labour MPs Apsana Begum and Zara Sultanas performances. Speaking again at a national anti-Israeli war rally were Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union leader Mick Lynch and the leader of the ASLEF train drivers union Mick Whelanwhose members play a critical role in transport and logistics. Neither Lynch, nor Whelan nor any other section of the trade union bureaucracy has done anything to organise the most basic anti-war actions, including the blocking of arms shipments and other material assistance to Netanyahus regime of war criminals. RMT leader Mick Lynch addresses the London rally Lynchfresh from proposing his members accept a rotten sell-out deal to end a bitter 18-month disputeunderscored the role of the union bureaucracy and even acknowledged that his own union members have been told to continue providing critical support for the UK warships backing up Israel. He said at the rally, Its important on this Remembrance week, when the RMT have members serving in the Royal Navy Fleet Auxiliaryon ships in the [Middle East] region [that] we call on the British government to stop its support of the hostilities. A section of the audience listening to the London rally, November 11, 2023 [Photo: SEP-Britain/WSWS] Socialist Equality Party members distributed thousands of copies of the WSWS International Editorial Board statement The way forward in the fight against the genocide in Gaza. It explains that the social base for opposing Israels war crimes, and the broader imperialist war of which it is a part, is the working class, the vast majority of the worlds population. It is not through appeals to the capitalist states and the parties of the ruling class that the genocide will be stopped, but through the mobilization of that social force which produces all of societys wealth. It concludes: The mass protests throughout the world express the developing collision between the capitalist ruling elites and the international working class. The transformation of this objective process into a conscious movement for socialism requires the building of a political leadership that has as its aim the conquest of power by the working class, the overthrow of capitalism and imperialism, and the establishment of socialism on a world scale. Over 800,000 people march in London demanding ceasefire A section of the nearly million-strong march in London, November 11, 2023. [Photo: SEP-Britain/WSWS] In a powerful rebuke to the ruling classes of every major imperialist power, huge global protests against the genocide in Gaza continued into the weekend. In London, a massive march of at least 800,000 people, although some estimates place the figure at over one million, took place on Saturday. Metropolitan Police ludicrously claimed that 300,000 people marched, a figure dutifully cited by the BBC, Reuters and others. Aerial footage of the densely packed route shows a sea of people, in the largest demonstration in two decades, since one-and-a-half million marched against the Iraq war in 2003. The march was made up overwhelmingly of young people. The enormous protest in London was a resounding rebuke to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Home Secretary Suella Braverman. Sunak and Braverman denounced the rally earlier in the week, with Sunak claiming that Saturdays planned protest was not just disrespectful but, offends our heartfelt gratitude to the memory of those who gave so much so that we may live in freedom and peace today. Signs at the London rally, November 11, 2023. [Photo: SEP-Britain/WSWS] The protest coincided with Armistice Day in the UK, which commemorates World War I, the first major imperialist conflict for the redivision of the world, which ended with the deaths of some 20 million human beings. Protesters march in opposition to UK backing of Israeli war crimes. [Photo: SEP-Britain/WSWS] While Saturdays march calling for a ceasefire in Gaza would seem to be a fitting tribute to commemorate the somber holiday, Braverman, appealing to fascists, who would later make an appearance at the rally, labeled the demonstration a hate march. In addition to calling for it to be banned, Braverman said that police were too soft on pro-Palestinian mobs. In fact, the only violence on the day was clashes between the police and a few hundred fascist counter-demonstrators demanding access to the Cenotaph war memorial and unsuccessfully trying to mount attacks on the march. Top sign reads, "Keir Starmer supports War Crimes," while bottom signs reads, "Stop the Genocide!!!" London, November 11, 2023. [Photo: SEP-Britain/WSWS] The march was a sea of Palestinian flags and home-made banners, including many denouncing Labour Party leader Keir Starmer for supporting Israel. At least 126 arrests were made. The Metropolitan Police initially stated that the overwhelming majority were right-wing thugs, however, later in the evening police confirmed that some of the arrested were part of a group of 150 pro-Palestinian protesters. Police reported no issues with the London march, stating that it moved along the prescribed route. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak lied through his teeth by denouncing violent, wholly unacceptable scenes we have seen from English Defence League and associated groups and Hamas sympathizers attending the National March for Palestine. He was predictably backed by Labours Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who focused on appalling cases of antisemitic hate, intimidation, and support for terrorist groups. Hundreds rally in Las Vegas against war: They are not looking at humankind with this, but we are. On Sunday, on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada, over 500 people rallied and marched to call for an end to Israels genocide in Gaza. This is at least the fifth protest that has been held in Clark County since October 7 demanding a ceasefire. Anti-genocide protesters in Las Vegas, Nevada, November 12, 2023. [Photo: SEP-US/WSWS] While no Democratic Party politicians or trade union officials came out in support of the protest, many young people participated in the march and denounced the US government and Biden administrations support for the ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign. Some of the homemade signs read, Palestinians have the right to resist, Palestinians have the right to exist, and silence is violence. A section of the rally on Sunday, November 12, 2023. [Photo: SEP-US/WSWS] A WSWS reporter attended the rally, distributed over 100 leaflets, and conducted interviews with attendees, many whom wished not be identified or have their photo taken, out of fear of reprisal. A banner at the Las Vegas rally displaying the names of over 10,000 dead Palestinians. [Photo: SEP-US/WSWS] One protester at the rally told the WSWS he was there, to raise awareness of the genocide that is going on with Israels killing innocent Palestinians. That we are not okay with the US funding genocide, and for, hopefully, the liberation of the Palestinian people. No human being should ever die the way that anyone involved in this is dying, he added. Reflecting on the unanimous backing of the US government for the war, expressed in the censure of Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American in Congress and one of the handful of politicians to support a ceasefire, he replied, It's obviously very disappointing because although I might not agree with some of her political views one of the things that has made America a beautiful country is a freedom of speech and when someone in her position is being censored, it is scary for individual citizens. No matter what your point of view is, that should raise awareness. Now wait a second, my government is jumping in to censor anyone? That is never right. It always goes back to follow where the money is, where the dollar is coming from and going to. To us, we realize that we are the low guy when it comes to this in terms of money. We want to always raise awareness to people...that, wait a second, there's something more going on as far as the motives of countries, of billionaires, that they are just looking at their financial interests, and they are not looking at humankind with this, but we are. We are looking at innocent children dying... A section of the Las Vegas rally, November 12, 2023. [Photo: SEP-US/WSWS] A Las Vegas mechanic said he was at the rally to, stand in solidarity with the Palestinians and our Palestinian community and our community out here in Las Vegas. Asked to comment on the role of the Democratic Party in supporting the slaughter, he said, I couldn't state enough how much I despise Biden, the administration, the Democratic Party and the United States government as a whole. I have never supported Biden, I thought of him as a wolf in sheeps clothing, same with [Senator Bernie] Sanders, I was never with that guy. The worker said he was not aware of the appeal by the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions to block arms to Israel, or recent actions of Belgian and Barcelona workers to refuse to handle weapons bound for Israel. However, upon hearing these developments, the mechanic responded, I think thats awesome, I mean less weapons, the better, I am with it. The worker said he had read about the block the boat protest in Oakland and Tacoma. I did see that. People are getting more organized and doing direct action like that. I think its awesome. Thousands rally in Israel demanding Netanyahus resignation as government seeks to crush dissent Thousands of Israelis took part in rallies across the country on Saturday evening demanding the government secure the immediate release of the hostages held in the Gaza Strip. Demands for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus resignation were widespread. The main rally took place in Tel Aviv, with demonstrators marching to the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) headquarters in the city. People lambasting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus government for doing nothing to secure the hostages release, barely mentioning them in the five weeks since October 7. Noam Perry, whose 79-year-old father was seized by Hamas on October 7, said of the government, Do not talk to me about conquering, do not talk to me about flattening [Gaza]. Do not talk at all. Just take action bring them home now.' Another said, They cant tell us, trust us, but that sentence has had no meaning since October 7. Demonstrators in Caesarea, where Netanyahu has his home, demanded his resignation. In Jerusalem, around 1,000 people took part in a silent demonstration in support of the hostages. Demonstrators in the mixed Arab and Jewish city of Haifa called for a new government, saying they refused to wait for the war to end. A convoy then drove down to join the demonstration in Caesarea. Other rallies took place in Beer Sheva and Eilat. The demonstrations, while small and still reflecting a Zionist opposition to the Netanyahu government, express growing concerns about the purpose and direction of the war that threatens to escalate across the region, putting the survival of the State of Israel at risk. Thirty-five Israeli Jewish and Arab peace and human rights groups have issued an open letter calling on the government to work for a ceasefire, the release of the hostages and a political and diplomatic solution to the conflict. They said, It is evident that there is no military solution to this conflict, nor can there ever be one. The only way to stop the bloodshed is a political agreement that will guarantee security, justice, and freedom for both nations. The groups include Machsom Watch, Rabbis for Human Rights, the Parents Circle Family Forum, Women in Black, Yesh Gvul, the Arava Institute for Environmental studies and the Jewish-Arab political party Hadash. They called on the government to immediately promote a broad prisoner deal, stop harming innocent civilians, act to curb the rampant settler violence in the West Bank and stop the persecution and oppression of Palestinian citizens of Israel and of those who express solidarity with the residents of Gaza and oppose the war. Full Article Thousands march again in Chicago following Bidens visit: There needs to be an alternative to capitalism and imperialism A section of the Chicago march against US-backed Israeli genocide, November 12, 2023. [Photo: SEP-US/WSWS] Thousands marched in the streets of Chicago again on Sunday to protest the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Demonstrators gathered around the Water Tower Place on Michigan Avenue along the commercial shopping district of the Magnificent Mile. The demonstration on Sunday followed one on Thursday evening where over 5,000 protested the visit of President Joe Bidens visit to Chicago for a fundraiser, chanting Genocide Joe over and over at the heavily policed event. At the march on Sunday, a number of protestors came to the IYSSE table, purchased literature and signs and spoke at length with a number of reporters from the WSWS. Its atrocious what Israel has been doing against Palestinians for years, and I never supported anything they were doing against Palestinians, said Han, a public school teacher in a Chicago suburb. As far as what Republicans and Democrats have been doing for Palestinians, there were apparently peace talks for a while but I think that turned out to be all fluff, considering they were supporting Israel the entire time. They are two sides of the same coin. If Israel benefits them, why would they support Palestinians? When asked how the billions spent on war funding every year affects the US working class, he said, Theres a hundred things that it could be used for. For one thing, it could go to education. Since Im a teacher thats the first thing that comes to mind. It could go toward social programs for the elderly and working class children, to infrastructure in rural areas that dont have much maintenance done on roads, public transportation access, housing. I dont want to sound like an isolationist, but there are a hundred things that can be solved here at home instead of going abroad to police the world, so to speak. There needs to be an alternative to capitalist and imperialist society and politics, for that matter. They say moneys the root of all evil, but when you follow the dollar signs of whats going on between Palestine and Israel, you see a lot of its tied to US war profiteering companies. And these major corporate interests are supporting Democrats and Republicans during their campaigns. Han also spoke to the broader context of opposition to capitalism: Its hard for me to justify the belief that capitalism is helping people, and the nonsense that there is a trickle down effect of capitalism. Everyone at the top is living fine, but down here were all suffering. Why do we have to struggle just to make it out here to demonstrate and support Palestinians? I work in a Republican district where a lot of officials are Trump supporters, and Im concerned for my job if they knew I was here. Why should it be that way? Why does it have to be a struggle for people to put food on the table and have housing? It shouldnt be that way. These are basic necessities for every human being. It shouldnt be a struggle to live in any country. Ryan, a young actor and worker said, Im out here because whats happening here is incredibly wrong. And because whats happening is not just relegated to Palestine, not just relegated to Gaza, its the entire world. When we fight for the liberation of the Palestinian people, were fighting for everybodys liberation. The people who are oppressing the Palestinian people are the same people who are saying that its okay to destroy the world for their own profits, for their own profits. So for me, with what Biden is doing, its just incredibly disgusting. Whats happening in Gaza and the West Bank is on display for the entire world to see. We just talked about Motaz Azaiza, who is documenting so clearly what is happening on the ground. Its so easy to get on Instagram and see what hes posting and see what hes sharing. And then for all that to be in the face of the world, for the president of the United States to authorize billions more dollars to this genocidal government that is trying to eradicate these people Meanwhile, we have our own problems in this country that can be solved with all that money. Its just disgusting to me. I did vote for Biden in 2020. But now do I even want to vote for anybody at this point? What is the point of engaging with this system, if all it does is it fuels governments like Israel who are committing genocide against innocent people? People who are working class or lower class in terms of the social hierarchy rising up and saying, no, this is wrong is a beautiful, wonderful thing. Michael, a recent college graduate and electrical engineer, attended the protest to support the Palestinians struggle against genocide and demonstrate opposition to the Biden administrations support for the criminal Israeli regime. One reason why the US likes having Israel under its thumb so much is so it can have its influence in the Middle East, he said. A four-hour ceasefire isnt going to do anything. Bidens policies are just one more example of how the people in Congress dont actually support the desires of their constituents. Its becoming increasingly apparent with not only the war on Gaza, but also issues like abortion. They are passing anti-abortion laws when clearly the majority of people are against them. And its becoming clearer that even if we vote for these people, they will work in the interests of people who have money. I believe that they wont represent us because of the money incentive. Thats one big byproduct of capitalism. There definitely needs to be a point at which money interests are not such a big driver of geo-political movements. The negatives of the hyper-capitalist nature of America are showing themselves in every facet of our culture, especially in the government. A young software worker said, I came out today because I went to one of these demonstrations near the beginning of the occupation. Nothing has changed since then. Its just gotten worse. So why wouldnt I keep going to every demonstration that I can? There is just a blatant overarching political machine that is putting profit over people and worst of all lying to people. I think people have been actively been lied to. I think that the systems and information in our world support the powers that are behind the current genocide of Palestinian people and right now that is in plain sight. I get so frustrated every single day when I see horror and nightmares created by my country. The more people see that this is something that brings people together and the more the people of Palestine and the Palestinian diaspora sees the people supporting them, the more core strength we have, the more gravity there is to a movement like this. And people are coming together on a broad base, escaping lines of nationalism, escaping lines of association with particular identities, and finding a wider consensus, thats where I think power comes from. The world we live in wants to divide people and we cant have that. Largest Australian protests against Gaza genocide yet, blacked out by media More than 100,000 people joined protests across Australia on Sunday, opposing Israels genocidal onslaught against Gaza, in the largest rallies since the bombardment began. The Sydney protest, with over 60,000 participants, was twice as large as some of the previous mobilisations in that city. At least 50,000 turned out in Melbourne, with thousands in the other capital cities. As was the case around the world, protesters in Australia expressed horror at Israels relentless targeting of hospitals, civilian infrastructure and children. There is intense anger and a degree of shock at the federal Labor governments full-throated support for some of the worst war crimes since the Holocaust. The Sydney Morning Herald did not report for several hours on the main event of the day in Sydney. It eventually posted an article, leading with complaints from the New South Wales Labor government about the cost of policing the weekly pro-Palestinian protests. The article featured a small pro-Israel rally held in Sydney on the same day, then stating that thousands more had attended the demonstration in defence of Gaza. Dr. Jasmine Dabboucy Dr. Jasmin Dabboucy, a hospital resident doctor and president of Muslim Health Professionals Australia, told the WSWS: Demonstrating is the least we can do. As healthcare workers we made an oath to do no harm and to maintain justice, and this is the bare minimum that we can do to raise our voices in support of that. What is happening in Gaza is that lives which our colleagues are trying to savelives that we made an oath to healare being taken, stolen, and its beyond unfair. Its criminal The plight of the Palestinian people extends beyond their immediate suffering; it reverberates beyond and is felt by everyone around the world. We all need a ceasefire. We all need peace. Read the full report Tens of thousands join demonstrations across Canada to demand immediate halt to Israels genocidal assault on Gaza Tens of thousands of workers and young people joined demonstrations and rallies in some 50 cities across Canada on Sunday to demand an immediate halt to Israels genocidal assault on the Palestinians of Gaza. Most of the actions were called by Ceasefire Now, a coalition of humanitarian, civil society, faith, and labour organizations. Over 5,000 marched in Montreal on Sunday November 12, demanding a halt to the genocide. [Photo: SEP-Canada/WSWS] The demonstrators voiced immense anger and outrage with the far-right regime of Benjamin Netanyahu, which is directing the slaughter, and the Israeli state, which has suppressed and dispossessed the Palestinian people for the past three-quarters of the century. But their condemnations of US President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Justin Trudeau were no less incisive. On Friday, Trudeau reiterated that his government opposes a ceasefire. The previous day Canada, had joined the US, Israel and just two other states in voting against a UN General Assembly motion condemning Israels ongoing expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. While Sundays actions in support of the Palestinians were supposedly backed by more than a dozen major labour organizations, including Unifor, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, and the Montreal-area labour councils of the Quebec Federation of Labour and the Confederation of National Trade Union, most saw no organized union presence. A worker, and one of more than 300,000 members of Unifor, told a WSWS reporter that he was livid that his union had done nothing to mobilize them to oppose Israels brutal siege and slaughter of the Palestinians. In Montreal, about 5,000 people took to the streets. A mother of Tunisian origin and her son told the WSWS, We dont want people killed and a genocide. Muhammad made clear his opposition to war: There is no justice, he told the WSWS. We have to be standing up against the war everywhere. Muhammad [Photo: SEP-Canada/WSWS] He linked what is happening in Palestine today to past imperialist operations, including Canadas decade-long participation in the neo-colonial war in Afghanistan: We went to Afghanistan and came back with hundreds of dead. Why did we have to sacrifice the lives of Canadians in Afghanistan? In response to the WSWS reporters pointing to the predatory global interests of Canadian imperialism, he said, I want to see all the soldiers on earth take off their uniforms and throw it in their [the ruling class] faces. Omar, who is a student, told the WSWS, he had learned about the plight of the Palestinians from studying history. I realized that historically, there was an oppressed and an oppressor. We are concentrating on the Gaza Strip, but on the West Bank there are colonialist laws that have even been denounced by the UN and Amnesty International. But unfortunately there are still double standards. For 1,400 deaths we make commemorations, we have all their names and their biographies on the other hand there are 10,000 (Palestinian) dead and nobody knows a single name. The Israeli government is even using genocidal language In Toronto more than 5,000 people marched through the downtown Sunday afternoon to demand an immediate ceasefire and denounce the Trudeau governments complicity in the war on the Palestinians. The demonstration was addressed by independent member of the Ontario legislature Sara Jama, who was booted from the New Democratic Party caucus last month after voicing support for the Palestinian struggle. Other speakers included NDP MP Matthew Green, and representatives from Unifor and the National Council of Canadian Muslims. Its important for me to be here and show solidarity with the Palestinians. Because no government seems to be willing to stand up for the poor and oppressed, one worker told the WSWS. A section of Sunday's "Ceasefire Now" demonstration in Toronto, November 12, 2023. [Photo: SEP-Canada/WSWS] World Socialist Web Site reporters distributed 500 leaflets to participants. The perspective of turning the protests to the working class was warmly received. Ceasefire Now advances the bankrupt strategy of pressuring the pro-war Trudeau government to call for an end to the slaughter and promote peace in the Middle East. The unions backing Ceasefire Now are strong supporters of the Liberal government, which has backed the far-right Netanyahu regime no less forthrightly than the Biden administration. WSWS reporters fought to turn protesters to the working class, which is the only social force capable of mobilizing on an international scale to put an end to the genocide. A young demonstrator, Moataz, asked for clarification, saying, I think it is also a bit about religion. A WSWS reporter explained how religion is used by the capitalist ruling classes to divide the working class and obscure the real interests at stake. WSWS statements have called for the unity of Palestinian, Jewish, and all sections of the working class to halt the supply and production of military equipment to Israel, and the preparation of a political general strike to stop the genocide. At the conclusion of the discussion, Moataz asked for information about how to join the socialist movement. Workers and young people in Sheffield and Leeds, UK demand an end to Israels genocide in Gaza Members of the Socialist Equality Party attended demonstrations against Israels genocide in Gaza held Saturday in Sheffield and Leeds, interviewing workers and young people for the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS). Sheffield Bob, a student, said Israel was committing multiple atrocities a day, war crimes, massacring civilians and using phosphorus on them ...thats just not right and I really want it to stop. Bob In response to the Socialist Equality Partys call for the international working class to be mobilised to stop the war in Gaza, Bob replied, 'I think that would be a really good idea. Thats something Id like to see happen. I agree with that. I think the people on the top make all the decisions. We dont really have a say at the end of the day. We claim to be a democracy but were not, I dont think. Mahsood explained, This is my first protest. One of the reasons Im participating is that the government wants to ban these demonstration. This is a democracy and we have the right to do this. I want to play a small part in opposing this. Mahsood Its disgusting that Labor Party leader Keir Starmer has a law background, but even hes not asking for a ceasefire. He hasnt really backed down from this stance. Any kind of mass movement to stop the atrocities is welcome. The governments arent doing anything. Theyre trying to keep everything quiet for as long as possible. The workers have to do something. If dock workers in Spain and Belgium are taking action to oppose this, then it certainly should be done here, too. People should be raising their voices. Those in power cant remain in place. Leeds Scarlet, a student, explained, I am studying a module on genocide and what we can see when we look at genocide in the past, whether its the Holocaust or Rwanda or Cambodia, we can see there is a direct parallel with what is happening in Israel right now. Dehumanization has already happened; it is getting to the mass killing. They are killing journalists, theyre killing children, theyre killing civilians. They are keeping people in prisons without fair trial. Scarlet I think it is important to look at the past so that we can stop such things going on in the future. It is important for people to know that this isnt a one-off thing. It has been happening for 75 years and it is going to continue to happen if the West funds Israels genocide. Full Article Israeli forces target hospital buildings, patients and healthcare workers in Gaza In the face of mass popular opposition, Israeli military forces, with full backing of the London, Washington and Berlin continue to commit daily war crimes against the residents of Gaza. On Friday, healthcare workers, doctors and nurses in London held a powerful protest demanding a ceasefire in an effort to save their Gazan colleagues. On Saturday, the Gaza Health Ministry issued a statement confirming it cannot release an updated death toll at this time because workers cannot accurately count the dead and wounded, due to the relentless Israel Defense Force targeting of healthcare workers at al-Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in Gaza City. In a message relayed to major media organizations on Saturday the Ministry said, As a result of the intense bombardment, the Ministry of Health was not able to accurately tall the number of dead and wounded. In their last update on Friday, the Health Ministry confirmed the Palestinian death toll had passed 11,000. On Saturday, Defense for Children-Palestine reported that at least 4,506 Palestinian children had been killed by Israeli air and ground forces since October 7, with an additional 1,500 Palestinian children reported missing, most of them likely dead under the rubble. DCI-Palestine noted that there would no update to the number of Palestinian fatalities today as Israeli forces are besieging hospitals and cut telecommunications and that the, current number of Palestinian child fatalities in Gaza is unknown. In a harrowing interview with Al Jazeera, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, al-Shifa Hosptials director, confirmed that operations at al-Shifa had been suspended because IDF ground forces are targeting al-Shifas buildings and persons moving inside them. One member of a medical crew who tried to reach the incubator to lend a helping hand to the babies born inside was shot and killed, he relayed to Al Jazeera. We lost a baby in the incubator, we also lost a young man in the intensive care unit. Gaza Deputy Health Minister Youssef Abu al-Reesh, who is inside al-Shifa, told Al Jazeera that 39 newborns in the incubators, those babies are fighting against death, after all the power and generators had been shut off. In an audio recording posted by Doctors without Borders, also known by its French name, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), Dr. Mohammed Obeid, a surgeon at al-Shifa, described an Israeli sniper murdering patients. Were on the fourth floor, theres a sniper who attacked four patients inside the hospital. One of them has a gunshot wound directly in his neck, and he is a quadriplegic, and the other one was shot in the abdomen. Some of the people who go outside the hospital, they want to go to the South. [Israel] bombed them, they bombed their family, in al-Shifa hospital, today and in the morning. Dr. Obeid confirmed that at least two neonatal, that is, newborn, children had died since the hospital lost power. MSF released a follow-up statement Saturday afternoon confirming that al-Shifa Hospital had been hit several times, including the maternity and outpatient departments, resulting in multiple deaths and injuries. A previous MSF statement noted, our staff are witnessing people being shot at as they attempt to flee. Global protests against Gaza genocide This is the fifth week in a row that millions of working people of all backgrounds have demonstrated against Israels ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign, backed militarily, politically and monetarily by the US-NATO axis. This burgeoning anti-war movement comprises workers and youth in every country, including thousands of Jewish people, who are rejecting the libelous slander that opposition to the Zionist-fascist genocide in Gaza is antisemitic. Demonstrators wave Palestinian flags as they protest Israel's ethnic cleansing campaign against Gaza, in Pamplona, northern Spain, Saturday, November 11, 2023. [AP Photo/ Alvaro Barrientos] While over 800,000 marched in London on Saturday, massive demonstrations and protests occurred in other major cites around the world, including New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Dublin, Karachi and Barcelona. Australia saw its largest demonstrations since the Israeli onslaught on Gaza began. Masses turned out, including many young people, who told WSWS reporters it was the first time they had participated in the protests. A significant factor was shock and fury over Israels relentless bombardment of Gazan hospitals, and the support it has received from the Australian government. The police have stopped providing estimates of attendance and the media has stopped serious reporting of the protests. But they were among the largest anti-war demonstrations in the country since 2003. In Sydney, the protest was twice as big as some of the previous mobilisations, with over 60,000 in attendance. The Melbourne protest was also 50,000 strong or greater. In Cape Town, South Africa, tens of of thousands marched in the streets of the capital in support of Palestine. Protesters waved the flag of Palestine and chanted, 1, 2, 3, 4, occupation has got to go, 5 6 7 8, Israel is a racist state, and From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. Throughout Europe, major protests drawing tens of thousands of people occurred in dozens of cities. In Paris some 50,000 people marched to the Place de la Republique. In a memorial to the over 40 journalists who have been killed in targeted strikes by the IDF, protesters in Paris staged a tribute featuring the names and photographs of the slain journalists. Thousands of people carried Palestinian flags and home-made signs calling for an end to the genocide and denouncing US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as war criminals. In Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, tens of thousands protested against the slaughter. Similar numbers were seen in Dublin, Ireland, where thousands of workers marched with their families against the Israeli occupation and demanded a ceasefire. Pointing to the numerous war crimes committed by the IDF, one protester held a hand-made bingo card listing Israeli war crimes, including bombing of residential buildings, cutting off electricity, food, water, gas, collective punishment, bombing hospitals, forced transfer Thousands marched in Barcelona, Spain, where workers demanded an end to impunity for war crimes, apartheid and the massacre of the Palestinian people. Significantly, for the second week in a row, in Tel Aviv, Israelis protested against the war. Demonstrators carried signs calling for a prisoner exchange and ceasefire now. Several signs also read, war is no solution and one massacre does not justify another. The World Socialist Web Site will be updating this post throughout the weekend with on-the-ground reports from around the world. Hundreds of demonstrators protest Israeli genocide in Venice, California Around 250 protesters gathered in Venice, California on Saturday to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. Jewish people with the group IfNotNow protested against the genocide and asserted their revulsion over the criminal policies of Zionism in general and Benjamin Netanyahu specifically. Jewish protesters with the group IfNotNow display a banner that reads, "Jews say ceasefire now! No genocide in our name," in Venice, California November 11, 2023. [Photo: SEP-US/WSWS] An Israeli protester spoke to the WSWS: The genocide must stop now. Palestinians are not treated like human beings and that has to stop. Everyone should have equal rights. Sarah, a worker, remarked: For many in my generation, it is impossible to look at the unfolding events and not see how wrong this is. My generation is coming into conflict with a reality that makes no sense and offers nothing, a reality based on abuse and the lack of a future. Israels genocide in Gaza and the resurgence of imperialist barbarism In the face of mass protests involving millions of people throughout the world, the Israeli government is escalating its genocidal assault on Gaza. A Palestinian man mourns over the body of his relative who was killed in an Israeli airstrike, in the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Abed Khaled) Throughout the day Friday, Israel bombed and burned hospitals in Gaza City, which is being invaded by Israeli forces. Israel attacked six hospitals, including two childrens hospitals, in the span of 24 hours. The head of Al-Shifa Hospital, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, told Al Jazeera, This day was a day of war on hospitals. This included the direct strike on the front gate of Al-Shifa hospital, where thousands of refugees are sheltering. Videos shared online show the use of white phosphorus against the hospital, a blatant violation of international law. The actions of the Netanyahu regime have the active support and are being coordinated with the US-NATO powers, and in particular the Biden administration, which repeatedly and insistently rejects a ceasefire and any limits or conditions on Netanyahus actions. This past week, US President Joe Biden declared that there is no prospect of a ceasefire. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby reiterated that there were no red lines regarding the killing of civilians by Israel. That is still the case, Kirby said. Its also true that the airstrikes continue, and its also true that civilians are dying in those airstrikes. Calls for a ceasefire have been rejected by the entire political establishment, including and not surprisingly the despicable political fraudster, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. The events of the past month are radicalizing millions of people throughout the world, which has found expression in the mass demonstrations against Israels genocide. The development of this movement requires an understanding of the underlying causes of the imperialist atrocity. The universal support by US and NATO for the homicidal actions of the Israeli regime is an extension and deepening of 30 years of unending war, spearheaded by the United States. US imperialism and the NATO alliance saw the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990-91 as an opportunity to utilize its unrivaled military force to reimpose shackles on the former colonial world. Full Article Thousands of workers and youth participate in global protests against Gaza genocide Workers and youth around the globe continue to stand against Israels ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing campaign against the Palestinian people, which is being overseen, supplied and directed by US imperialism and its allies. Massive protests encompassing millions of people around the world continued to erupt in major cities, universities and outside major war suppliers on Friday. A section of the rally at UC-Riverside on November 8, 2023. [Photo: SEP-US/WSWS] Over a month of Israeli war crimes have sickened and imprinted themselves on the consciousness of an entire generation. Through the internet and social media, millions have broken through the official lies proffered by the Israeli government, its allies, the mainstream press and television networks used to justify the 75 year occupation and current genocidal campaign. As of this writing, major protests are occurring, or are scheduled for this weekend, in major cities around the world. In New York City Friday night, thousands of people gathered at Columbus Circle in Manhattan and marched outside the New York Public Library. Protests chanted, From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, and condemned the role played by the New York Times in covering up Israels genocide in Gaza as they passed by the newspapers building. Full Article Brandeis and Columbia universities suspend pro-Palestinian student groups The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) opposes and condemns the decision by Columbia University and Brandeis University to disaffiliate pro-Palestinian student organizations as an unacceptable attack on the democratic rights of the entire student body and the working class. Palestinian supporters protest at Columbia University, Thursday, October 12, 2023 in New York. [AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura] After far-right Florida Governor Ron DeSantis banned the Students for Justice for Palestine (SJP) in the state university system, Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, on Monday became the first private university to ban the chapter from campus. Echoing the rhetoric of both the Israeli government and figures like DeSantis, the university claimed that the student group openly supports Hamas, a terrorist organization. Brandeis University President Ronald Liebowitz published an opinion piece in the Boston Globe the same day calling on the administrators of higher educational institutions across the US to suppress any pro-Palestinian sentiment on campuses. He libeled students and faculty opposed to the US-backed genocide being carried out by Israel in Gaza as celebrating the barbaric killing of Jews just because they are Jews and wrote that universities should confront antisemitism on campus and pull funding from all organizations not fully backing imperialist barbarism. On Wednesday, Harvard University Chabad President Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi called on the university to ban the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC), which has over 20,000 followers on Instagram and has faced relentless attacks since October 7 for its support of Palestinian resistance to oppression. On Thursday, at Brown University 20 students were arrested for staging a sit-in protest at the University Hall main building. Hundreds of students reportedly sang and chanted in solidarity outside as the students were loaded into prisoner transport vans by police. Full Article George Brauchler is the former district attorney for the 18th Judicial District. He also is an Owens Early Criminal Justice Fellow at the Common Sense Institute. He hosts The George Brauchler Show on 710KNUS Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Follow him on Twitter: @GeorgeBrauchler. Yemi Mobolade is the mayor of Colorado Springs and Randy Helms is the Springs City Council President. Ninety-seven times out of 100, a movie makes its moral judgments for us. Yes, theres a haunting ambiguity to films like The Conformist or Taxi Driver or Tar. But when was the last time you saw moral ambiguity in a genre movie? Even the Mad Max films, in their visionary savagery, draw a clean line between nobility and treachery, speed-demon heroism and outlaw selfishness. But Concrete Utopia is a dystopian disaster movie with a difference. This years South Korean entry in the Oscar competition for best international feature, it places its characters in a desperate, scary, do-or-die situation and then refuses to tell the audience what to think about them. Its a fractious, blood-soaked drama about the will to survive that feels like Earthquake crossed with Lord of the Flies. Whats gripping is that you watch it and think, If I were in this movie, what would I do? The director, Um Tae-hwa, kicks things off with a documentary montage of towering rectangular apartment buildings in Seoul, as a newscaster offers a drive-by meditation on how apartment living has transformed South Korean society. Apartments, were told, were once a means to an end, to getting a larger home. Now theyre a cookie-cutter end in themselves, coveted by citizens who compete to purchase them through lotteries. The films title refers to the cityscape of Seoul, with its apartment complexes that jut up like rows of childrens blocks. But it also refers to what happens when only one of them is left standing. More from Variety An earthquake happens, like a tsunami erupting out of the earth; the image is so violent and roiling we half expect to see a sea monster emerge from the buckling ground. The entire city is reduced to smoking ruins, and its more than an urban disaster closer to an apocalyptic event. Seoul is destroyed, and maybe the rest of South Korea, too. (Government? Media? All gone.) What we see is a wasteland rendered with digital imagery and fantastic sets: vast mountains of rubble, concrete walls with wires jutting out, corpses and detritus a city turned inside out from the bottom up. Yet amid the surreal desolation, a freak thing occurs. In the middle of Seoul, a single apartment complex remains standing one of the new upscale beehives. Its called the Hwang Gung apartments, and it looks like a giant hotel, with two 30-story rectangular wings meeting in a circular pivot at the center. The apartments themselves are modest but relatively spacious. Its the kind of place the residents regard as a sanctuary, and now it really is. Its the lifeboat theyre on, their refuge from disaster. Um treats the modern apartment complex the way David Cronenberg did in They Came From Within as a faintly ominous and deceptive cocoon. In the early scenes, set just after the earthquake, the natural impulse is to let other people into the complex and help them. But there arent enough resources. (The city is filled with straggling refugees.) So the residents hold a meeting and move toward a decision thats based on pure survival, and also on the kind of class privilege that the movies have long geared us to reject as corrupt. They will not let any outsiders in. Only those who own apartments can stay. At first we think, How inhumane. Yet theres a baseline moral logic at work. If the residents turn the complex into a fortress, taking refuge there, making forays out for food (they look for stores, buried in the rubble, to raid) and treating any outsider as a cockroach who must be shunned, they will persevere, and they will live. If they dont, and the outsiders start pouring in like zombies in a zombie movie, there will be chaos, and no one will survive. And because there is a moral logic to that, the apartment dwellers do more than live by it. They turn it into a code, a belief system, a kind of cult. They choose a leader, Kim Young-tak (Lee Byung-hun), who at one point, in a mad fury, snuffs out a ground-floor fire (thats the basis of his perceived heroism), and he rises to the occasion to organize them into a ragtag force of survival. He becomes known as the Delegate, and Lee, from Squid Game, radiates a sinewy hunger reminiscent of Willem Dafoe and a scrungy imperiousness that might make you think of Elon Musk. He elevates the We first methodology of the apartment dwellers into a creed, leading them in a ritual chant (Hooray Hwang Gung! Hooray Hwang Gung! Lets go! Win!) and in nighttime firelit karaoke parties. In flashback, we see Kim Young-taks violent backstory, which renders him an even more ambiguous character. Suffice to say that hes an identity thief who doesnt really own his apartment. The thrust of our sympathy remains with the films two other central characters, Min-sung (Park Seo-joon, from The Marvels) and Myung-hwa (Park Bo-young), a gentle couple with benevolent impulses; hes a civil servant, shes a nurse suffused with quiet empathy. But Concrete Utopia, like Lord of the Flies, is a parable about how empathy gets destroyed. It is also, in the end, a movie about the primal need for and meaning of home. The film is an allegory of contemporary South Korea (and, just maybe, a lot of other places), in which home is getting harder to come by. Shouting through a bullhorn, Kim Young-tak riles up the residents with a call-and-response chant: Our apartments (Our apartments..) belong to the residents! (belong to the residents!) As rallying cries go, its not exactly No justice, no peace! Yet thats the perverse tug of Concrete Utopia, a movie that uses the lurching, rough-and-tumble, at times even schlocky form of a disaster movie to ask what home is worth. Best of Variety Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Norby Walters' 26th Annual Night Of 100 Stars Oscar Viewing Gala - Credit: Mintaha Neslihan Eroglu/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Peter Nygard, the former public face of the Nygard International clothing brand empire, was found guilty on four counts of sexual assault on Sunday by a Toronto jury, The New York Times reports. He was found not guilty on one count of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement. The verdict is the first criminal conviction for Nygard, 82, who has been in jail for the last two years and is expected to stand trial on charges of sex crimes in Montreal in June 2024, and also in Winnipeg, though a trial date has not yet been established. More from Rolling Stone He also faces charges in the U.S. where he will be extradited following Canadian proceedings. He was indicted on U.S. federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges in December 2020 following him being accused in a lawsuit of sexually assaulting 10 women. The nine counts include racketeering, sex trafficking, and related crimes arising out of a decades-long pattern of criminal conduct involving at least dozens of victims in the United States, the Bahamas, and Canada, among other locations. In February 2020, he stepped down as chairman of his firm, Nygard International. The following month, the organization filed for bankruptcy after U.S. authorities raided its New York headquarters. Nygard has appealed the New York extradition in his hometown of Winnipeg citing poor health, but the court has not made a decision regarding his appeal. During the trial, five women testified they were lured by Nygard to a personal bedroom suite in his companys Toronto headquarters where they said they were sexually assaulted. The women, one of whom was a former employee and four of whom are involved in a class action suit against Nygard, were between the ages of 16 and 28 at the time of the attacks that they accused him of committing between the 1980s and 2005. Nygard, who denied the accusations when he testified in his defense during the trial, said he did not remember meeting four of the accusers, but acknowledged recognizing his former employee. The Toronto jury deliberated for three days after the end of the six-week trial. In addition to the U.S. civil trial for the class action suit involving four of the women at center in the Toronto trial and facing charges in the U.S. federal indictment following his criminal cases in Canada, Nygard was also ordered by a New York State judge to pay $203 million in defamation suit damages to Louis Bacon, a hedge fund billionaire and neighbor of Nygards in the Bahamas following two decades of legal battles between them. Best of Rolling Stone Voters in Ohio voted to put the right to abortion in the states constitution this week, a resounding rejection of Republican efforts to limit access to abortion across the United States following last years overturning of Roe v. Wade. Saturday, podcast host Dean Obeidallah had one recommendation for President Joe Bidens reelection team: resurrect a famous line from the 1992 presidential election. Decades ago, strategist James Carville told presidential candidate Bill Clintons team to focus with the phrase, Its the economy, stupid. This time around, Obeidallah told MSNBC host Ali Velshi, the Biden campaign needs to emphasize, Its the abortion, stupid. In fact, after that, Its the democracy, stupid,' Obeidallah continued. Even in polls that the New York Times polled over the weekend that showed Biden trailing, it still showed Americans solidly approved Bidens handling of abortion and democracy. Those issues are intertwined to me, Obeidallah added. Its about self-determination. Obeidallah and Velshi were joined by Vanity Fair correspondent Molly Jong-Fast, who led the discussion. After Velshi pointed out that Americans keep voting in favor of abortion rights, Jong-Fast said, Look, Democrats have wildly popular policies, right? Choice is wildly popular, and were seeing firsthand why they overturned Roe v. Wade why Roe v. Wade happened in 1973. Because doctors are afraid to treat, she continued. Maternal mortality is going up. Were seeing these horror stories, were seeing the 12-year-old girls. So I think this is a wildly popular just like the way the legalization of marijuana is wildly popular, these ideas, which are the ideas that Democrats are trying to enact, these ideas are popular. On Thursday, Chris Hayes delivered a similar message. After describing Tuesdays elections as brutal for the Republican Party, he pointed out that seven states Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, California and Vermont have introduced abortion rights to ballots since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. In all seven, voters have chosen to protect reproductive rights. The post MSNBC Guest Tells Ali Velshi That Biden Needs to Echo 1992 Clinton Campaign Phrase: Its the Abortion, Stupid (Video) appeared first on TheWrap. A 5 million-gallon concrete water tank Colorado Springs Utilities is building in the Mountain Shadows neighborhood is about 20 feet taller than a city-approved development plan allows. politicians-tiktok-palestine.jpg Pro-Palestinian protest in San Francisco - Credit: Ray Chavez/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News/Getty Images As war rages on in the Middle East, with more than 1,200 Israelis killed in a terrorist attack by Hamas and more than 11,000 Palestinians killed as a result of the Israeli armys retaliatory attack on Gaza, U.S. politicians are focusing on the real enemy: an app where you can post dance videos and makeup tutorials for how to dress up as Sexy Tobias Funke. Concerns over TikTok purportedly boosting pro-Palestinian content over pro-Israeli content have been percolating for the past few days, with Rep. Mike Gallagher penning an essay for the Free Press calling the app digital fentanyl made by China and accusing it of brainwashing our youth against the country and our allies by promoting pro-Hamas content. While the Biden administration has admitted its monitoring which content is promoted on the app, things went a little farther in last weeks GOP debate, with former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie saying that TikTok was polluting the minds of American young people with anti-Semitic, horrible stuff that their algorithms were pushing out at a gargantuan rate. More from Rolling Stone In many respects, this is an old argument. The claim that TikTok poses a national security threat has been touted by the GOP for years, with former President Donald Trump frequently threatening to ban the app or force its sale. (Federal judges blocked the Trump White Houses attempts to do so in 2020.) Yet concerns about the platform have resurfaced due to the Israel-Gaza conflict, making this the latest example of the GOP trying to get the app banned. In response to Gallaghers essay and similar claims made by the GOP, TikTok published a Nov. 2 blog post strongly denying that it was actively pushing pro-Palestinian content. The post also stated that TikTok would employ more moderators who speak both Arabic and Hebrew to prevent the spread of content promoting violence, hate, and harmful misinformation. As evidence that the platform does not have a pro-Palestine bias, TikTok pointed out in its post that within the United States, since the massacre on Oct. 7, the hashtag #StandWithIsrael had gained 1.5 times more views than #standwithpalestine: 46.3 million, as opposed to 29 million. (Currently, these numbers are 52 million views for the #StandWithIsrael hashtag, as opposed to 40 million views for #StandWithPalestine.) But these metrics are somewhat misleading, as internet culture writer Ryan Broderick pointed out in a recent edition of his newsletter Garbage Day. For starters, these are far from the only hashtags being used by people posting about the conflict (and many may be posting without using hashtags at all). Further, if you consider the amount of discourse surrounding the conflict in the Middle East in light of the sheer volume of content on the app, the above numbers are actually pretty miniscule. (Broderick compares the popularity of such discussions to the conversation around last summers #GirlDinner trend, which has 2 billion views; another comparison would be #gta6, the hashtag used for the much-anticipated next installment of the video game Grand Theft Auto, which has 8.4 billion.) Its also worth noting that while #StandWithIsrael may have slightly more views within the United States than #StandWithPalestine, there are twice as many videos under the #StandWithPalestine hashtag (14,000) than the #StandWithIsrael hashtag (6,000) posted within the past 30 days. Though this data, of course, only applies to one specific hashtag, it would seem to show that while there has certainly been more pro-Palestine content posted on TikTok over the past month, it is not getting significantly more views, indicating there are no nefarious mechanisms afoot pushing the hashtag. The concerns over whether pro-Palestine content is being promoted on TikTok over pro-Israeli content also seem to fundamentally misunderstand the mechanisms by which TikToks algorithm works. Unlike how social media platforms have historically operated, TikToks For You page delivers a highly curated stream of content targeted specifically at an individual user, based on what types of videos they have engaged with previously. Indeed, the TikTok algorithm essentially operates as a confirmation bias machine, continuously feeding content that is largely aligned with the users political perspective. With this in mind, it stands to reason that while one user may routinely be getting fed protest videos and footage of bombings in Gaza, another user may not be seeing any content of that nature on their page at all. While its difficult to assert this definitively, given TikToks lack of transparency around its algorithm, if TikTok is pushing politically oriented content, it is likely only doing so toward those who are actively seeking and engaging with it. Some allege that its going in the opposite direction, with many pro-Palestine activists alleging that TikTok has gone out of its way to suppress their content via shadowbanning (i.e., deprioritizing or hiding content from the search function) or outright removal. TikTok has denied this, telling Al Jazeera that the company does not moderate or remove content based on political sensitivities, only if it violates specific community guidelines. Thats not to say, however, that there is no potentially problematic or violent content on TikTok altogether, or that there isnt, as Christie puts it, anti-Semitic, horrible stuff that exists on the platform. TikTok itself has admitted to this in its blog post, saying it has removed more than 425,000 videos that violated its community guidelines on this subject, particularly relating to its policies prohibiting violence and misinformation. Its also undeniably true that while pro-Palestinian messaging obviously does not automatically equate to anti-Semitic messaging, there are instances where the boundaries between the two become collapsed. The discourse that can potentially arise from such gray areas can have dangerous implications for diaspora Jews in general, as evidenced by the fact that anti-Semitic incidents have reportedly gone up by 388 percent since the Hamas massacre. But even if there was an overwhelming preponderance of pro-Palestinian content on the app which, again, there does not seem to be that wouldnt be particularly surprising. Among the young people who comprise a good chunk of TikToks user base (about 36 percent, according to Statista data), public opinion on the conflict skews overwhelmingly pro-Palestine. According to a recent Quinnipiac University poll, only 32 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds support the Israeli militarys reaction to the Hamas massacre, as opposed to 58 percent of respondents aged 50 or older. Youth alignment with the pro-Palestine cause is so strong that the majority of Democrats under 45 (65 percent) have said that they disapprove of President Bidens handling of the conflict, according to a recent AP-NORC poll, which some pundits have speculated may possibly affect his chances at reelection in 2024. This shift in public opinion poses a huge issue for the Israeli military, according to Rebecca Stein, professor of cultural anthropology at Duke University and author of Screen Shots: State Violence on Camera in Israel and Palestine. Historically, before the advent of social media, the Israeli military had much more input in the international media narrative about their operations. Over the course of the last 15 years, as digital infrastructures spread within the occupied Palestinian territories, the monopoly of the Israeli military over the media narrative about their operations has shifted dramatically, in ways that cause the Israeli military considerable anxiety, she says. As Rolling Stone reported in 2021, the IDF has long tried to counter shifts in public perception of the conflict by using platforms like TikTok, posting soldier thirst traps, and dabbling in internet trends such as ASMR. With the latest conflict, however, it has changed tack, at least on TikTok, posting much more straightforward operational updates, as Stein puts it, rather than leaning into the IDF brand of youth cool, which they have worked so hard to foster over the last decade. Theres an anxiety about competing with the scale of the images of death and destruction that are coming out of Gaza, she says. The Israeli military is looking at all these images produced of civilian death and destruction, and theyre very anxious. Theyre asking themselves, how can we win public opinion that can compete for the attention of international viewers? Part of this strategy, Stein says, has involved the release of the GoPro footage taken by Hamas terrorists during the Oct. 7 massacre (which was screened at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles on Wednesday and drew protests from pro-Palestinian activists). Right-wing politicians anxiety over TikTok specifically certainly seems to be a byproduct of this generalized fear that the Israeli government is losing the information war. But in raising concerns about TikToks role in fostering antipathy toward Israel, they seem to lose sight of the fact that the issue is much, much larger than one specific platform or even social media in general. Update Nov. 13, 10:52 a.m. EST: This story has been updated with further information about pro-Palestinian content on platforms other than TikTok. Best of Rolling Stone Is Troye Sivan more than just gay-famous? Saturday Night Live made that case on the fourth episode of Season 49 when Timothee Chalamet, making his second appearance as a host in Studio 8H, took on the lithe, blond-headed pop star albeit as a sleep demon terrorizing Sarah Sherman. In the sketch, Chalamet dances like the Australian pop star from his music video for Got Me Started and flashes red undies alongside musical guests boygenius (which is comprised of Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker). More from IndieWire Meanwhile, Chalamets musical monologue in the cold open featured the Call Me By Your Name Oscar nominee singing in Willy Wonka tenor about the end of the SAG-AFTRA strike, which last week saw actors go back to work after a 118-day stoppage. Come with me, and youll be in a world of shameless self-promotion. Its OK, I can say that my new film Wonka is out in theaters December 15. After spending 118 days thinking about AI, it is so refreshing to be here among real human beings, Chalamet said, acknowledging one of SAG-AFTRAs most significant sticking points in negotiating a new contract with the AMPTP. If you want to view a three-and-a-half-hour film, go see Killers of the Flowers Moon, or wait for Part Two of Dune,' Chalamet sang, plugging the release of Denis Villeneuves space sequel now set for March 15. Dune: Part Two was originally meant to open this month but was pushed to next year, and therefore out of the Oscar race, due to the strike. Later in the episode, he also briefly appears as Killers of the Flower Moon director Martin Scorsese in a Chloe Fineman-led sketch imagining those who lost out to Michelle Williams in auditioning to narrate the audiobook of Britney Spears memoir The Woman in Me. Check out the episode highlights below. Next week, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom star Jason Momoa hosts Saturday Night Live. Best of IndieWire Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The U.S. remains committed to "ongoing negotiations" for the release of hostages believed to be held by Hamas in Gaza as officials work to find nine Americans still missing in the wake of the extremist group's Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel, the White House's national security adviser said on Sunday. "There are ongoing negotiations involving the Israelis, the Qataris, and we, the United States, are actively engaged in this as well because we want to make sure that we bring home those Americans who have been taken hostage as well as all of the other hostages," Jake Sullivan told ABC "This Week" co-anchor Jonathan Karl. Pressed by Karl on the total number of hostages, Sullivan said America doesn't have a "precise number." "We know the number of missing and that's the number the Israelis have given. But we don't know how many of those are still alive," Sullivan said. "As far as the Americans are concerned, there are nine missing American citizens as well as a missing legal permanent [resident], a green card holder." Sullivan continued: "That's the number that we are trying to ensure the safe return of, and we have been engaging with the families. In fact, I will personally be seeing family members of the American hostages this coming week." Karl also asked Sullivan if the U.S. believes Hamas' claim that a number of hostages were killed in Israeli retaliatory strikes in Gaza. "Well, first, we don't take anything Hamas says at face value, but we have no information that can either corroborate or counteract that," Sullivan replied. "So as I said before, we simply don't know how many of the hostages are still alive, how many have been mistreated, how many Hamas itself has killed just as it slaughtered hundreds and hundreds of people when it conducted those gruesome and horrific terrorist attacks on Oct. 7." According to the Associated Press, Israeli officials said Saturday that "around 1,200" were killed by Hamas militants in the terrorist attack just over a month ago. That total was revised from an earlier figure of about 1,400. In a separate appearance on "This Week," Reps. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., and Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., spoke about their recent trip to Israel, where they met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prior to the interview. "We engaged in a very thoughtful conversation about the need for Congress to pass aid to Israel and our support and our commitment to our closest ally in the region," Lawler said. Moskowitz also touched on the efforts to find the captives in Gaza. "There are not a lot of good options. The hostages are in a number of places, some are in the tunnels, some are not in the tunnels," he said, later adding, "They're working on several plans to locate the hostages. I don't want to go into details of that, but obviously, that is a top priority." Sullivan, in his interview, was asked if medical facilities in Gaza, like the Al-Shifa hospital now at the center of some of the fighting, have become legitimate military targets considering Israel says Hamas has built tunnels underneath them in order to operate. Sullivan said the U.S. does not want to see a "firefight" break out at any hospital but he stressed that there are many publicly available indications that Hamas uses civilian areas "to store weapons, for command and control, to house its fighters." He called that "a violation of the laws of war." PHOTO: National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan speaks at the White House, Oct. 10, 2023. (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) Nonetheless, Sullivan said the United States doesn't want a situation "where innocent people, helpless people, people seeking medical care are caught in the crossfire." "This just points [to] how difficult this military operation is, because Israel has an added burden given the way that Hamas operates -- but it does not lessen their responsibility to protect civilians," he added. Israeli military officials have maintained that they do not target hospitals and have said they're taking steps to help patients leave Al-Shifa. More than 11,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. On Friday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the death toll was already too high "Far too many Palestinians have been killed, far too many have suffered these past weeks, and we want to do everything possible to prevent harm to them and to maximize the assistance that gets to them," Blinken said after a multi-day trip to the region. "To that end, we'll be continuing to discuss with Israel concrete steps that can be taken to advance these objectives." Sullivan on Sunday was pressed by Karl on whether Israel was doing enough to prevent civilian casualties, referencing Blinken's comments. Sullivan reiterated that concerns for civilians have been impressed upon the Israelis by President Joe Biden, Blinken and himself. "The loss of a single innocent life is a tragedy, whether it's Palestinian or Israeli or anyone and we grieve for every lost innocent," Sullivan told Karl. "We believe in the sanctity of life." "And so they are taking measures to try to go after the terrorists. It's their obligation to do so in a way that separates the terrorists from innocent Palestinian civilians," Sullivan said. Moskowitz and Lawler, in their own interview, said that Israel had a right to defend itself against Hamas. While Lawler said humanitarian relief should be provided, he supported Israel's expansive military operations in Gaza against Hamas. "For those calling for a cease-fire, they totally misunderstand the situation here," he said. "Hamas is not someone, some organization that is going to abide by a cease-fire. They are hell-bent on eradicating the state of Israel." Looking to the future, however, Sullivan said the conflict should not end with an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza. "We will work with all of our partners, with the Israelis, with countries in the Arab world and especially with the Palestinians, so that they can have a voice in what the future governance of both the West Bank and Gaza look like," he said. 9 Americans still missing after Hamas attack as hostage negotiations continue: Sullivan originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Books are like balms grabbing the right book at the right time can provide the perfect antidote for what youre going through at that very moment. Whether you need a dose of hope, happiness, comfort, inspiration, courageyou name it, a great book has the power to ease worries and offer a safe haven to rest and recharge. And after a lonely day or a discouraging week, there are few things better than snuggling up with a good read that makes you smile. Enter the "found family" trope! In fictional stories and literature, this beloved reading genre is known for uniting characters through their heartfelt shared experiences, connections and understandings. Here, weve rounded up our favorite books both new and old that feature "found family." Grab yourself a plush blanket, a steaming mug of something tasty (like this golden spice latte) and a novel that will warm your heart. Keep scrolling to discover 10 of the best found family books in an array of genres, from otherworldly fantasies to rich historical fictions, steamy romances and more. Happy reading! If you like small town stories about family ties and secrets... Found Family Trope: The Lost and Found Bookshop by Susan Wiggs book cover shows the torso of a woman in a yellow dress holding a stack of colorful hardcover books Lighthearted yet poignant, this novel follows Natalie Harper after she inherits her mothers quaint bookshop in San Francisco. During this time, she also becomes caretaker for her grandfather Andrew, who is her only living relative not counting her estranged father. After she moves into the apartment above the shop, Natalie hires contractor Peach Gallagher to do repairs. His young daughter, Dorothy, becomes a regular at the store, and she and Natalie begin reading together as Peach works. Soon, Natalie uncovers new connections and revelations. She also discovers a lot about her mom, her family and herself. What readers are saying: "A lovely adventure! The book is full of wonderful characters that you would love to have in your own life." If you like smart, second chance romance stories... Found Family Trope: Happy Place by Emily Henry book cover with a bright pink background and an illustration that shows a group of friends relaxing and playing in a lake This sparkling, swoon-worthy and picturesque novel by bestselling author Emily Henry is about true love and friendship. The story follows Harriet and Wyn, the perfect coupleuntil theyre not. Five months after they split, they both attend their close-knit friend groups annual trip to idyllic Maine, but no one actually knows they broke up. So Harriet and Wyn concoct a plan and stay tight-lipped about their big secret in an effort to not break their best friends hearts, too. After years together, surely they can spend one more week faking itor can they? What readers are saying: "I have loved Emily Henry's past books, but Happy Place eclipses all of them. I loved the themes of found family, making your own happiness, and beautiful friendships." If you like fantastical and enchanting stories... Found family trope: The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J Klune shows a book cover with a magical house sitting on the edge of a cliffside over water Magical moments and masterful prose abound in this bestselling novel about discovering an unlikely family in a surprising place. Forty-year-old Linus Baker leads a quiet life in his tiny house with his temperamental cat. He's employed as a case worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth and oversees the well-being of children in orphanages. His latest assignment? He must travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous kids reside. Soon, Linus learns the children aren't the only secret the island is keeping. What follows is a series of adventures for a band of misfits and the power of friends who make their way into your heart and become family. What readers are saying: "This book made me smile, laugh and cry! This is a found family trope through and through and its always been my favorite it was wonderful." If you like interview-style stories about music, love and friendship... Taylor Jenkins Reid Electric chemistry, juicy drama and soul-stirring nostalgia...this book which was recently made into a hit streaming series on Amazon Prime has it all! Written like a biography, this exciting novel follows the rise to fame of Daisy Jones & the Six one of the biggest bands of the 70s led by the brooding Billy Dunne and the beautiful Daisy Jones. In interview-style chapters, readers are taken along on a gripping ride that chronicles the ups and downs of the world's most famous rock band and the mysterious breakup at the height of their fame. What readers are saying: "I spent most of the book convinced it was actually a true story. Im still convinced that Daisy and Billy are real people and that the real world got to witness their chemistry." If you like sweeping and epic fantasies... Leigh Bardugo High-stakes adventure, lovable outcasts and exhilarating schemes meld wonderfully in this novel by bestselling author Leigh Bardugo. When criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker is offered a chance at a heist that could make him rich beyond measure, he knows he can't pull it off alone. He recruits a band of six gifted misfits from convicts to spies to runaways to plan and execute one incredible heist. An unforgettable tale about the opportunity of a lifetime! What readers are saying: "The book is filled with action, adventure and plot twists that kept me engaged. The dynamic between the characters was full of comradery and tension, with each member of the team having a different role to play in the heist. This group is the epitome of a found family!" If you like historical stories with cozy, descriptive writing... Mary Anne Shaffer and Annie Barrows As London emerges from WWII, Juliet Ashton is researching her next book subject, but she never thought she would find it in a letter from a man shes never met! As the two exchange notes, shes drawn into this mans circle and the world of his literature-loving pals who are part of a book group: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Enthralled and warmed by their stories, Juliet sets sail for Guernsey island to meet this charmingly funny cast of characters and what she finds changes her entire life. What readers are saying: "It is a beautiful book that can make you giggle and cry in the same chapter. The residents of the island became a family who survived because of their love and loyalty to one another. I envy anyone who reads this book for the first time what a delightful treat!" If you like stories about sweet, small town romances... Lucy Score Bestselling author Lucy Score brings readers back to the memorable town of Knockemout, Virginia and all the beloved local characters who live there in this third installment of the Knockemout Series. In this enthralling, spicy-sweet saga, the plot follows Lucian Rollins, a mean mogul on a quest to erase his abusive fathers mark on the family name. Hes power- and money-hungry and not looking for romance but he cant keep Sloane Walton, the feisty local librarian, out of his mind. The two are bonded by an old secret and a mutual dislike, but when their bickering turns into sparks flying and emotions soaring, theyre both caught by surprise. What readers are saying: "Im a big fan of Lucy Score and her writing! I love her humor, her characters and the found family aspects of her stories. I also loved getting to be reunited with all of the friends and family of Knockemout, Virginia." If you like southern-set stories sprinkled with magic... Heather Webber Full of romance, enchantment and southern charm, this delicious tale whisks readers to the tiny town of Wicklow, Alabama, where Anna Kate has returned to bury her beloved Granny Zee, owner of the Blackbird Cafe. It was meant to be a quick trip, but Anna Kate finds herself drawn to the town, the locals and the mysterious blackbird pie everyone keeps talking about. As the truth about her past slowly becomes clear, Anna Kate will need to decide if this lone blackbird will finally be able to mend her broken wings and fly. An irresistible tale that blends magical realism, romance and small-town sweetness. What readers are saying: "Midnight at Blackbird Cafe is a delightful tale of finding home. This book had me hooked from page one! It is a wonderful mix of human experience and whimsy." If you like thoughtful, hopeful stories... Fredrik Backman Written by bestselling author Fredrik Backman, this novel now a major motion picture starring Tom Hanks stars an old man named Ove. Hes a curmudgeon with strict routines and an extremely short fuse. People in town call him the bitter neighbor." But behind Ove's grouchy exterior is a story of sadness. So when a boisterous young family moves next door and mistakenly flattens Oves mailbox, it is just the beginning of a funny, moving string of events featuring unkempt cats and unexpected friendships...that turn Ove's solitary world pleasantly upside down. What readers are saying: "This was surprisingly heartwarming! I loved getting to know Ove. I like how his core characteristics don't necessarily change, but he ends up with a new outlook in life because of the people who suddenly drop into it. If you love found-family this will be perfect for you." If you like slow-burn rom-coms starring unlikely couples... Sarah Adams This feel-good story described as a modern take on the Audrey Hepburn classic Roman Holiday centers on a burned-out pop star named Amelia Rose, who escapes her hectic city life and hides in the town of Rome, Kentucky. When Amelias car breaks down in front of Noah Walkers house, who is the proprietor of the local pie shop his grandmother left him, he makes it clear he has no time or patience for celebrity problems. Hes too busy running a bake shop and reminding his nosy but lovable neighbors to mind their own business. Reluctantly, Noah allows Amelia to stay in his guest room until her car can be fixed. Before long, Amelia starts to fall for the small-town lifestyle and despite having his heart broken by another city girl, Noah finds himself attracted to Amelias heart of gold. What readers are saying: "Amelia learns a lot about herself while in Rome. She starts to find the joy of music again as well as the comfort of safe people in her life. Noah also learns about himself while trying not to fall in love. I also loved the town and its people. A bunch of gossips who have good hearts and protect those they see as theirs." If you like laugh-out-loud stories about road trips and self-discovery... Dee MacDonald Connie McColl is finally free to make her own decisions for the first time in decades. Then, she meets glamorous Gill and downcast Maggie at a flower-arranging class, and she realizes shes not the only one dreaming of an adventure. The three very different women all make a pact to make this summer their best yet. As they make their way along the beaches of France and the coast of Italy in their luxury camper van, the new friends learn so much about life, each other and themselves. An inspirational and downright funny read about meeting the right people at the right time! What readers are saying: "Three older women decide to travel cross-country in a caravan! Each character became special to me and their adventures, both good and bad, became mine too. From dreary London to sun-drenched Italy. I really enjoyed this book!" For more book recommendations, click through the links below! 10 Funny Books to Lift Your Spirits: From Romantic-Comedies to Family Sagas Cozy Fall Reads: 10 Feel-Good Books To Snuggle Up With This Season And for all things books, click here! It appears that wallpaper will spend some time in the limelight this coming year, according to the pros. "Wallpaper is a bigger trend for 2024 than we have seen in a while," says Elizabeth Rees, founder of Chasing Paper. "Consumers are craving rooms with personality, and wallpaper gives that to them." In this day and age, it's easier than ever to acquire wallpaper that matches your taste to a t. In fact, Tulio Salcedo, senior buyer for wall decor at Lulu and Georgia, says more people are buying wallpaper online than ever before, thanks to companies adapting and making the purchasing process much easier than before. In general, wallpaper usage seems to be on the rise, but more specifically, certain styles, patterns, and applications are extra in vogue. Here's what trends the experts are predicting for 2024. Meet the Experts Tulio Salcedo is the senior buyer for wall decor at Lulu and Georgia. Sandra Willund is the creative director at Sandberg Wallpaper. Elizabeth Rees is the founder of Chasing Paper. Artist-Designed Wallpaper In 2024, you just might see your favorite artists debut a wallpaper collection. "One trend that I think will be popular for 2024 is the transition of wall art into wallpaper," Salcedo says. "Art patterns make the perfect subject for wallpaper as it can be introduced in a fresh way through pattern repeats and print sizes." Salcedo adds that artists like Paul Marrote, Aileen Fitzgerald, and Christiane Lemieux have already started to shift their art into wallpaper as a new art medium." Wallpaper on the Ceiling The Spruce / Christopher Lee Foto Where designers start placing wallpaper may also be in for a change in 2024, and they just may start taking inspiration from the patterned ceilings across Europe. "Ceiling wallpaper is a trend that we will see more of," says Sandra Willund, creative director at Sandberg Wallpaper. "It makes the room more unique and creates a captivating focal point." The Return of the Accent Wall In recent years, there's been some debate over whether or not accent walls are still in style. However, Salcedo predicts that wallpaper accent walls are going to reposition themselves as a trend this year. "Looking into next year, I think the trend will be around applying wallpaper to an accent wall instead of covering a full room," he says. "Maximalism is an aesthetic that is becoming more popular, especially in specific spaces. With the addition of prints, colors, and themes, singular accent walls can be more of a focal point." Heritage Revival Prints The cottagecore and grandmillennial interior design movements are thriving, and wallpaper experts predict that will continue well into the following year. Rees expects to see customers gravitate towards heritage revival prints as a result. "Heritage revival prints are the 'grandmother house' and vintage-inspired tithe florals and lace-like motifs with a twist," she says. "These designs feel classic and traditional but are reinvented in fresh colorways." Patterns In Sepia Tones Sepia tones are warm and inviting, and you can expect to see much more of this neutral look in 2024. "In the opportunity of variety, sepia lends itself to be used democratically in different environments from a living room to a powder room to a nursery," Salcedo notes. Classic Stripes and Variations Willund predicts that we will see all sorts of stripes appear in rooms via wallpaper. This includes everything from classic, thick stripes with two alternating colors to even modern wavy stripes. Peel-and-Stick Wallpaper Michael Keck for Emily Henderson Designs / Photo by Sara Legorria-Tramp In 2024, more brands may start offering removable peel-and-stick versions of their products, which will make wallpaper a more realistic choice for renters, people on a budget, and even indecisive decorators. Since wallpaper typically requires a more experienced approach, it's no wonder that the easy-to-use peel-and-stick versions will be moving into 2024. Mural Designs Emily Henderson Design / Photo by Tessa Neustadt One major interior design trend we'll see next year is bringing the outdoors in via landscape scenes. And, rather than commissioning a landscape mural, you can apply a wallpaper mural. "Wallpaper murals take on an immersive look with designs that add depth," Rees says. "Natural landscapes such as forests, jungles, and rolling hills and mountains receding the distance create powerful perspectives. These designs offer a sense of calm and escape." Read Next: 6 Color Trends for 2024 Designers Can't Wait to See Read the original article on The Spruce. The sight of black marks and charring on the edges of your food, whether it be the ends of your brisket or the crust of a Neapolitan pizza, is one of the most enticing sights in eating. Some people might see that and think burnt, but those who know understand that a little black on your food often means flavor -- not a kitchen mistake. Chefs know that better than most, and cuisines around the world have developed methods and recipes for getting that perfect singe on food without outright burning it, all in search of the magic that a little char can bring to meat, fish, and vegetables. You might think that blackening and charring are two cooking terms that can be used interchangeably, but in the world of food, nothing is ever that simple and there are some pretty big differences between the two types of cooking. Charred food is a more general cooking term, while blackened food refers to a specific type of recipe that was more recently developed in the United States. At the most fundamental level, any time you use heat and the Maillard reaction to add some deep-brown or black coloring to your food in any capacity, you're charring it. Blackening does this too, but revolves around additional spices and other ingredients to give a meal a more unique flavor. Read more: 12 Different Ways To Cook Chicken What Is Blackened Food? Blackened red snapper - Candice Bell/Getty Images Blackening as a technique came out of the world of Cajun and Creole cooking in Louisiana and first became popular in the 1980s. Its genesis is credited to chef Paul Prudhomme, who created a blackened redfish at his New Orleans restaurant, K Paul's. The original recipe involved dipping a fish filet in butter, coating it with a spice mixture, and searing it in a hot cast iron skillet. It was created to mimic the flavor of live-fire charcoal grilling on a stovetop since Prudhomme didn't have access to a grill at his restaurant. The redfish became a national sensation, with food media covering the craze, and demand so high that it caused a temporary fishing ban in the Gulf of Mexico. These days blackening can be done with all kinds of fish, meat, or vegetables, but the method is still almost identical to Prudhomme's. Cover the food in butter, rub with spices, and cook over high heat until the eponymous black crust forms. The spice mix can vary, but is very similar to most Cajun seasoning mixes, and includes cayenne and paprika, onion and garlic powder, and dried herbs like thyme and oregano. Without some kind of similar spice mix, it's not blacked, no matter the color. It's not burnt either but gets its dark color from the cooking of the milk solids in the butter with the spices. That combo also creates the essential "crust" of spices that adds texture to the dish. What Is Charred Food? charred chicken - Stephen Gichuru/Shutterstock Like blackening, charring is a technique that can be applied to different foods, but it's much more basic. Charring is simply the act of deliberately adding a small amount of burnt flavor to your food anywhere you can generate enough heat, from a grill to a wok to your oven's broiler. It doesn't require any extra ingredients; it just comes from applying high heat to your food. Charring is distinguished from burning food in both scope and intention. Burning food means accidentally applying heat too long until your dish is carbonized, which adds bitter flavors that can make it inedible. Technically, charring is also burning, but done in small amounts in a controlled fashion. Food is charred when we want to deliberately add pungent flavors as a contrast to other elements of a dish. A classic example is creme brulee, where the top of the custard is charred to balance the sweetness. Charring works in a similar fashion to the Maillard reaction, which we also think of as browning. The Maillard reaction happens when heat interacts with proteins and sugars, changing their chemical properties and creating new and more complex flavors in your food. Charring is just a continuation of that process that adds even more depth to food and creates new flavors that are smoky and caramelized. Blackening Uses A Spice Mix And Butter spice mix in teaspoon - Michelle Lee Photography/Getty Images Blackening makes use of charring, and it shares a burnt appearance with many charred dishes but is set apart by the spice and butter combination that forms the basis of its use in any recipe. The butter is just as important as the spices because the blackened color comes from the cooking of the spices in the milk solids. The fat of the butter prevents the spices from getting too bitter and unlocks more depth of flavor, similar to how you might bloom spices in hot oil when cooking. It's that unique alchemy of heat, spice, and fat that makes a dish blackened. Charring on the other hand doesn't need, or refer to, the use of any specific ingredients; any dish can be charred if you cook it over high enough heat, although you might not always want to do that. It's a chemical reaction and a tool for bringing out flavor. Charring is essential to plenty of recipes, including blackened food, but it's usually complimentary to the central ingredients that define the dish. Blackening Adds A Rich, Spicy Flavor And Crunchy Texture Blackened salmon over rice - mjsomerville/Shutterstock Because blackening always uses some kind of Cajun or Creole spice blend, it imparts a specific warm, smoky flavor to food. Blackened food isn't supposed to be "burn your tongue" spicy, but it has a distinct earthy heat to it from the way the cayenne, paprika, and herbs get cooked in the butter. That cooked butter, which is also sometimes drizzled over the finished dish, brings an extra hint of richness that compliments the savory spiced taste. Charring does have a taste of its own, but it's primarily a way of bringing out more flavor from the ingredients you already have. The impact charring can have on flavor will vary greatly depending on the dish, and can even bring out sweetness in things like tomatoes or Brussels sprouts. Another defining feature of blackened food is the texture. The generous spice rub acts as a coating, forming a thin, crispy crust over the exterior of the food as it's fried in the butter. That crust creates a nice contrast with the tender meat or fish on the inside. Charring can also be used to add some texture, like when you are searing a steak, but it's not usually the purpose of the technique. Plenty of charred foods like fruit and vegetables won't have any crunch at all. Blackening Is Cajun And Creole-Inspired New Orleans building - Steve Robinson/Shutterstock Blackened food was not a traditional Louisiana dish before it was created by Prudhomme, but its popularity helped push awareness of Cajun ingredients and New Orleans Creole cooking into the mainstream. The blackened spice mixes you can buy, including Prudhomme's, are very similar to Creole and Cajon seasonings, which came from New Orleans and Louisana's unique immigrant history. Even the flavor profile of blackened food echoes other tastes in Louisiana cooking. Its smoky flavor is reminiscent of dark roux, which is commonly used in dishes like gumbo and etouffee. Dark roux has a nutty and toasty flavor that it imparts to dishes, and while it's not spicy by itself, combined with other seasonings in those dishes, it creates a distinctly Louisiana flavor that comes from the same family as blackening. Blackening was also first developed as a way to cook fresh Gulf Coast seafood -- an essential staple of Louisiana cooking. The bitter, spiced flavor of blackened food is a great contrast to mild, lightly sweet fish, and with waters full of catfish, grouper, red snapper, and shrimp, there is no shortage of that in New Orleans. Charring Is A World Wide Cooking Technique charring steaks on a grill - George Rose/Getty Images Charred food casts a much wider net than the Louisiana-born blackening. As a way to add big tastes to food, it has been embraced in cuisines from India to South America. Part of the reason charring can be seen in so many cuisines is that it's a great way to add depth of flavor without any extra ingredients, which is useful for people with limited resources. There is also the universal experience of cooking over a live fire, which has been done by many cultures and their ancestors all over the globe. You don't need a fire to char food, but it is the best way and creates tons of chemical interactions that make even simple foods much more complex. The taste of charring is the taste of fire, and that's something every cuisine has a connection to. You can see charring's popularity in plenty of classic dishes. It's used in Mexico to add flavor to tomatillos and tomatoes for salsa, or when making Middle Eastern kabobs and shawarma. Even simple American favorites like grilled corn on the cob of a smashed hamburger lean on charring to develop a lot of their flavor. The most obvious use of charring happens in barbecue. Many regions have some form of local barbecue, like Peri Peri in Southern Africa, or H'mong barbecue in Southeast Asia, and they all make use of flame-kissed flavors and charring. Read the original article on Tasting Table. Filipino egg rolls, also called lumpia, are a variation of spring rolls. The term "lumpia" doesn't necessarily pertain to one specifically prepared dish. Rather, the name refers to a category of food. The defining characteristic of lumpia is that its filling is wrapped in a pastry-like wrapper that's generally baked or fried until golden brown. The wrappers used to make lumpia are ultra-thin and a bit more delicate than standard egg roll or spring roll wrappers. They're generally made from just water, flour, and a little bit of salt. Egg roll wrappers usually contain eggs, which give them a bit more structure, but lumpia wrappers omit these entirely. The sizes of prepared lumpia vary, too. While some are smaller and are meant to be served as appetizers or snacks, others are larger and can constitute a whole meal on their own. In terms of flavor, not every lumpia is the same. Fillings can range from savory to sweet, but they're always encased in the same wrapping. They can be fried or baked to create a crunchy bite, or the wrappers can be cooked separately before filling. While some lumpia may be filled with meat and veggies for a savory snack, dessert lumpia could include fillings like fruit or chocolate. Read more: What These Imitation Foods Are Actually Made Of What Kind Of Fillings Go Into Lumpia? Banana lumpia on plate - Ika Rahma H/Shutterstock Traditionally, savory lumpia are filled with vegetables and either pork, beef, or shrimp and are served with a sweet-and-sour dipping sauce. Because there are so many ways to change up the dish, however, you can swap in your favorite protein, or use only veggies for a vegetarian version. The fillings are often cooked before they're wrapped to ensure thorough heating. If you're seeking to satisfy your sweet tooth, you could even turn the dish into a dessert. To make dessert lumpia, you first have to choose your sweet fillings. Chopped-up fresh fruits are a popular choice, particularly bananas or pineapples. Cans of premade pie filling can even speed up the process. Once the sweet fillings are rolled up in their wrappers, they're ready to bake or fry in oil until golden brown. After they've crisped up and cooled down, you can make a sweet dipping sauce from chocolate sauce, icing, or homemade caramel. Lumpia Can Be Prepared Two Ways Five unfried lumpia on cutting board - tyasindayanti/Shutterstock While lumpia are most often fried to feature a crispy exterior, some prefer to roll the filling inside a separately cooked, crepe-like wrapper. These can be cooked separately in a pan until they're flat and thin. Then, the fillings are rolled up inside, and the lumpia is ready to enjoy. The history of how lumpia came to be is a bit murky. The dish is thought to have originated in Fujian, China sometime between 618 and 907 A.D. As immigrants spread knowledge of their favorite foods, lumpia arrived in the Philippines, where it quickly became a beloved staple. From there, Filipino citizens adjusted the recipe over the years to conform to their own taste preferences. Today, lumpia is a popular dish in the Philippines and can often be purchased as street food or in restaurants. No matter what you choose to fill your lumpia with, the dish is easily customizable and can appeal to anyone's particular taste preferences. Read the original article on Daily Meal. While most of us would rather throw a tough piece of meat out before eating it, cultures throughout history have found creative and delicious ways to transform even the most inedible scraps into tender and delicious dishes. Cuba's national dish, Ropa Vieja, demonstrates how delicious tough cuts of meat can become. Meaning "old clothes" in Spanish, Ropa Vieja is a flavorful and hearty meat dish made by slow-cooking a tough cut of beef like chuck or flank steak in a tomato-based liquid. However, it would work well with other tough cuts like pork, lamb, or even chicken. Onions, garlic, peppers, canned tomatoes, and tomato sauce seasoned with a wealth of spices including cumin, paprika, allspice, bay leaves, and oregano create a delicious braising liquid to soften and flavor the meat as it stews for hours in the oven, on the stove, or even in a slow cooker. After slow cooking, the beef is broken down into a saucy, melt-in-your-mouth shredded meat dish Cubans typically enjoy with white rice, black beans, and fried plantains. Read more: Tips You Need When Cooking With Ground Beef From The Old World To The New World ropa vieja with white rice on a plate - Sbossert/Getty Images While it may be Cuba's national dish, Ropa Vieja traces its origins to Sephardic Jewish traditions in Spain and North Africa dating back 500 years. As Jewish law demands no cooking or physical activity on the Sabbath, Jews made this slow-cooked meat the night before so it would be tender, flavorful, and ready to enjoy on the day of rest. By the time the dish made it to Cuba in the mid-19th century, it had acquired a charming fable to explain its peculiar name. According to lore, a hungry pauper desperate to feed his family threw old clothes into a boiling pot. As he prayed for sustenance, the old clothes miraculously changed into real meat stew. Perhaps this fabled story alludes to the resourcefulness of the Jews and Cuban cooks who succeeded them. After all, transforming tough, otherwise inedible cuts of meat into a sumptuous, hearty meal is a miraculous feat. Many modern recipes add Mediterranean-inspired ingredients like green olives, peas, capers, and chopped parsley to honor Ropa Vieja's Iberian roots. In Spain's Canary Islands, garbanzos and potatoes are added to the stew instead of Cuban's classic congri accompaniment. Read the original article on Tasting Table. We have the aircraft, its a great way to use an asset that you already have..." Robert Koenen/Getty Images Southwest Airlines doesnt operate red-eye flights, but that may soon change. Thats because CEO Bob Jordan called the overnight flights a logical evolution for the airline in an interview with The Dallas Morning News. We have the aircraft, its a great way to use an asset that you already have and use it more productively which means more hours in the day, he said. So, we will be doing red-eyes. While the idea is likely on the horizon, that doesnt mean Southwest customers should expect late-night flights immediately. Jordan told the paper the concept of red-eyes would work in certain markets and theres a world where the airline would operate them, but it was something Southwest still had to figure out. A representative for Southwest did not respond to a request for comment from Travel + Leisure on the possibility of red-eye flights. Overnight flights are a popular choice for jumping ahead across multiple time zones, especially when headed from the West Coast to the East Coast or to Europe. It allows travelers to go to sleep on the airplane and wake up in a new city in the morning. But while its certainly convenient, it can also lead to jet lag. To beat that, travelers can try to adjust their sleep schedule before their flight, book a red-eye flight that most closely matches their normal sleep habits, pick a seat that allows them to relax (were looking at you window seats), and pack whatever gear you need to chill out. The concept of launching red-eye flights comes as Southwest is in the process of upgrading its onboard experience as well as making it easier for customers to earn status in 2024. Southwest has also made it easier to earn a popular Companion Pass for a limited time by giving registered travelers who fly by Nov. 30 double Companion Pass qualifying points on those flights. For more Travel & Leisure news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on Travel & Leisure. Travel Far and Wide, a site devoted to uncovering the best international destinations both known and unknown, recently released a list of the 20 best cities in Europe for expatriates. The sites so-called European Expat Index investigated 50 popular global destinations to determine which were the most suitable for those looking to start a new life on different shores. To obtain their results, Travel Far and Wide examined several key relocation factors. These included average monthly salary and rent in each location, as well as respective safety, walkability, and nightlife options. The results display a vast array of European cities, but perhaps surprisingly, Switzerland dominated the list with five entries. Lausanne, Bern, Basel, and Zurich all rank in the top 10, while Geneva landed at number 15. Coming in just after Switzerland is Germany, which boasts four cities on the list. Munich and Stuttgart landed in the top 10, while Berlin and Frankfurt came in at number 12 and 18, respectively. Spain also claimed two entries, with Barcelona and Madrid back to back at 16 and 17. Finlands capital of Helsinki, meanwhile, claimed the top spot. The survey was a bit late to break this particular news. According to Statistics Finland, the number of immigrations into the country reached record numbers in 2022. 49,998 people are estimated to have relocated to Finland last year, representing an increase of 14,00021,000 from the previous two years. Of late, Helsinkis population has been steadily increasing, rising by 33,000 since 2019, per Macrotrends. You can find the top 10 best European cities for expats below, and view the full results here. Helsinki, Finland Lausanne, Switzerland Bern, Switzerland Prague, Czechia Munich, Germany Copenhagen, Denmark Stuttgart, Germany Vienna, Austria Basel, Switzerland Zurich, Switzerland Ruth Wakefield was a woman ahead of her time. In 1930, less than a year after the stock market crash that sent the country into financial pandemonium leading to what remains the longest economic downturn in U.S. history, Wakefield and her husband, Kenneth, decided to open a restaurant. The couple purchased a property in Whitman, Massachusetts, about 25 miles south of Boston, with the intention of opening an inn and restaurant. Undeterred by economic uncertainty, they went ahead with their plans and, against long odds, successfully owned and operated The Toll House Inn for 37 years. Did you catch the name of the Wakefields' restaurant? It's not a coincidence. The Toll House Inn is the birthplace of the Toll House Cookie. Stories of the genesis of ubiquitous cookies vary; some food historians, including Carolyn Wyman, author of "The Great American Chocolate Chip Cookie Book," insist Wakefield was intentionally experimenting with flavors when she decided to add chocolate chips to her cookie batter. "Most of the way the history is presented is that the cookie was invented by a mistake," Wyman told Bakepedia in 2014. "I absolutely believe she knew what she was doing. She was a marketer, a businesswoman, and a trained cook with training in nutrition. Like any good restaurateur, keeping the menu fresh was important." Read more: Chocolate Brands, Ranked Worst To Best Savvy Planning Or Accidental Discovery? Bag of Nestle Chocolate Chips - Justin Sullivan/Getty Images The more widely held story suggests Wakefield was in the process of whipping up a batch of Butter Drop Do pecan icebox cookies a popular Toll House Inn dessert item usually served with ice cream when she realized she was short on nuts. Glancing around the restaurant pantry, she noticed a bar of semi-sweet chocolate. An ah-ha moment ensued. Wakefield decided to improvise, grabbing a nearby ice pick and quickly chopping the chocolate bar into bite-sized pieces she could blend into the batter. The Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie (chocolate crunch was eventually dropped from the name) was born. Chocolate giant Nestle eventually caught wind of Wakefield's new cookie recipe and reached out for permission to print it on the labels of their chocolate bars. The company initiated a marketing effort and word of Wakefield's makeshift began to spread. Initially, Nestle continued to sell semi-sweet chocolate in bar form scored for easy chipping, but the 1940s brought the introduction of the chocolate chips we know today. A Decades-Long Legacy Nestle Toll House cookie on white plate with milk - Nestle Toll House/Facebook In a perfect world, the savvy creator of the Toll House Cookie would have shared in the profits Nestle likely saw from the increased sales generated by her recipe, but that's not what happened. In 1939 just as the nation was beginning to emerge from The Great Depression Wakefield sold the rights to the recipe for a reported sum of $1, plus a reported lifetime supply of chocolate and the potential for ongoing consulting gigs. Still, the Wakefields had a good run. The entrepreneurial couple who stared down the Great Depression despite long odds for success at the end of their first month in business, their nest egg totaled just $10 (about $185 in 2023 dollars) owned and operated the Toll House Inn until 1967 when they sold what was by then an iconic property and retired to the nearby town of Duxbury. Ruth died in 1977. Her husband, Kenneth, died at the age of 100 in 1997 the same year Toll House Cookies became the official state cookie of Massachusetts. The Toll House Inn remained a popular restaurant and event venue until it was destroyed by fire in 1984. Today, the birthplace of the Toll House Cookie is marked only by a bronze plaque. The cookies, though, are always within reach. And Nestle still prints Wakefield's original recipe on every bag of its semi-sweet chocolate morsels. Read the original article on Tasting Table. Chinese food has a long history in America, beginning in earnest during the mid-19th century. Over this time, traditional Chinese dishes have been adapted for a number of reasons including the scarcity of certain ingredients, the public's tastes, and America's changing views on certain types of food. The result of all these changes has been the creation of a distinct, new cuisine, which has been coined American Chinese. Unfortunately, there are many people who do not view American Chinese as a cuisine. For these people, it is simply an inauthentic representation of traditional Chinese food that tastes starkly different from the 'real' thing. In regards to taste, they're not wrong. American Chinese food does taste different from food that is served across China. This should come as little surprise given that China is home to a multitude of cuisines created by and for an abundance of distinct ethnic groups over thousands of years. Recreating such regional nuances in the United States would be all but impossible. Yet, there are many further reasons why Chinese food in the U.S. is so different. In this article, we explore all of them, revealing why Chinese food tastes so different when it's prepared, served, and eaten in America. Read more: The Ultimate American Fast Food Restaurants Ranked Chinese Food In America Often Overlooks Several Chinese Cuisines Uyghur lamb skewers with bread - AlexelA/Shutterstock China is an enormous country that covers nearly a quarter of Asia's land mass. The country is split into 31 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions each with its own history and culture. Despite this, many Americans have long viewed China as a country with one culture and, as a consequence, a single cuisine. This misguided belief has been compounded by the overriding popularity of a few choice Chinese cuisines. The first Chinese cuisine to be popular in the United States was Cantonese. This caused many Americans to conflate Cantonese cuisine with 'Chinese cuisine,' a belief that held until the 1960s when other Chinese cuisines began to break through in the U.S. Today, even those Americans who are aware of China's multiplicity are guilty of familiarizing themselves with one particular cuisine -- for example, Sichuan cuisine -- at the expense of others. All these processes have led to Chinese food in America being much less multidimensional than it is in China. A good example of lack comes from China's arid areas. Here, food is influenced by a variety of ethnic groups including Hui Muslims and Uyghurs. The food of these Chinese citizens, including kebabs and rose flavored lotus patties, is rarely incorporated into the menus of Chinese restaurants in the U.S. As such, it is impossible for Chinese food in the U.S. to taste the same as it does in China given that whole cuisines are vastly underrepresented. It Has Been Adapted To Suit American Palates Orange chicken held by chopsticks - Bhofack2/Getty Images Several dishes from China's various cuisines have become popular in the United States. Nearly all of these have been adapted in some way to suit American palates as restaurant owner Wesley Chen highlighted to Survive + Thrive Boston: "American taste buds are more fond of sweet, sour, salty, bold flavors, and Americans also enjoy solid, crispy texture. The Chinese sense of taste is more compounded. We look for more layers of flavors combined, we also enjoy more soft and gooey texture." As Chen highlights, American Chinese food is often sweeter than food from China itself. It also tends to be more heavily sauced. Those who criticize American restaurants for making these alterations fail to understand one simple point: all restaurants need to create and serve dishes that will sell in order to survive, and this is the version of Chinese food that sells best in the United States. It's important to note that American Chinese dishes are in no way lesser than those served in China, they're simply different. Interestingly, this difference extends past taste and includes other aspects of the food as well. A prominent example of this is how American Chinese dishes are generally devoid of small bones. Fish is fileted instead of being served whole and fiddly specialties like chicken feet are often passed over altogether. This stands in direct contrast to food in China where bone-laden dishes are deemed some of the most desirable. In The Past, Some Ingredients Weren't Readily Available In The U.S. Plate of chop suey - Kravtzov/Shutterstock Chinese American food is by no means new to the United States. In fact, this cuisine has its origins in California's gold rush. During this time, and the decades that followed, many ingredients that were integral to Chinese cooking were not available in the U.S. and Chinese immigrants were forced to substitute ingredients from their home country for popular, readily available ingredients like broccoli. Like all restaurant owners, these early Chinese Americans needed to turn a profit. This meant producing food that was cost effective and marketable to the American public. So, even when Chinese ingredients began to become available, their prohibitively expensive price prevented many immigrants from cooking with them. Instead of creating heavily substituted versions of traditional dishes, this caused some Chinese American chefs to invent new dishes like chop suey using ingredients that were cheap and popular in the U.S Today, cooks both home and professional have unrivaled access to ingredients from around the world, including China. Thanks to their ubiquity, what were once specialist ingredients can now be purchased cheaply. Over the 150 years since Chinese people immigrated to the U.S., American Chinese dishes like chop suey have become embedded in the local food culture. So integral are these that they cannot be replaced, even by Chinese dishes that claim a greater degree of authenticity. Generally, Americans Do Not Prize Offal Fried duck tongues on plate - Bonchan/Getty Images Offal and other associated cuts of meat are a prized part of China's many cuisines. This not only stems from the global tradition of avoiding waste but also the many medicinal properties that these parts of the animal are thought to have. What's more, cuts that many modern Americans would shun like heads, feet, and tongues are deemed among the most extravagant and desirable in Chinese culture and it is considered a mark of respect to be served them. Generally speaking, Americans do not value offal as the Chinese do. Instead, the majority of the American populace avoid cooking with it or eating offal altogether. This is due to several reasons including not knowing how to cook with offal and the cuts' associations with poverty. The lack of an American appetite for offal means a vast array of traditional Chinese dishes are rarely reproduced in the United States. These include the likes of duck tongue, Shanghainese braised intestines, and blood tofu. Many Americans prefer to eat foods they are more comfortable with as restaurant manager Jennifer Li highlighted to Survive + Thrive Boston: "American clients like julienne pork or chicken because it is easy to eat, and they will never order intestine and blood pudding." The shunning of offal invariably affects the taste and availability of certain Chinese foods in the U.S. Many Americans Have Fixed Ideas About Certain Ingredients red bean bun in steamer - Harinnita Detta/Shutterstock Dessert is a much smaller part of China's cuisine than it is in the United States. In fact, most Chinese meals eschew dessert altogether, finishing on a savory course or with some fresh fruit. When sweet dishes are made in China, they are often created by sweetening what many Americans see as exclusively savory ingredients. A prominent example of this is adzuki beans which are often sweetened with sugar before featuring in dishes like red bean buns. Restaurant manager Julie Feng highlighted how China's penchant for sweetening savory ingredients can put off some Americans when interviewed by Survive + Thrive Boston: "Americans have an image that beans are supposed to be salty instead of sweet, so they are not willing to try our traditional Eight Treasure Ice with Beans." Due to resistance over familiar ingredients being used in unfamiliar ways, many cooks working in the U.S. do not employ ingredients in the same way they would if working in China. This is another reason why Chinese foods in the U.S. tastes so different to similar dishes served in China. Different Cooking Methods Are More Prevalent In America Deep fried spring rolls - Rebeccafondren/Getty Images So far we have focused on how ingredients have been altered during the Americanization of Chinese food. Cooking methods have also undergone the same process with American Chinese restaurants utilizing cooking processes like deep frying with more regularity than restaurants in China. Chinese restaurants in the United States have adopted this cooking method for several reasons. One is that Americans prefer the crisp textures imparted by deep frying as chef Chris Cosentino explained to Vanity Fair: "We're a culture of texture. Every country has its preferred food texture [...] Our [American] texture is crunchy. We like our potato chips, our tortilla chips, our french fries, our fried chicken." Another reason for cooking methods like deep frying and stir-frying becoming dominant in American Chinese restaurants is that Americans tend to dine more quickly than Chinese people do. The time pressure associated with swifter dining necessitates the use of quicker cooking methods in the kitchen. This leads Americans away from Chinese dishes and cuisines that employ a range of other, slower cooking methods like hong shao, otherwise known as red cooking. Texture Is Not As Important To Some Americans Jellyfish in a salad - LI CHAOSHU/Shutterstock Much like with tastes, aromas, and preparation methods, different textures are deemed desirable -- or not -- given a certain population's preferences. We have already seen how Americans prize crisp foods. Another texture that's highly desirable in the United States is creaminess. But, despite these clear textural desires, Americans are known for a lesser appreciation of textures than the Chinese. In China, texture is one of the most celebrated aspects of food. This is reflected in language; a paper published in the Journal of Texture Studies highlighted that in Chinese languages, there were 317 words used to describe texture. The English language only boasts 77. Food in China celebrates a huge array of textures from the crisp, flaky ones beloved in the West to gelatinous, bouncy, and slippery textures that Americans find challenging. The difference in textural preferences between the two nations sees some prized Chinese ingredients go unused in the U.S., for example, jellyfish. What's more, the demand for different textures means a huge array of cooking processes are used to prepare food in China. American Chinese food, on the other hand, often utilizes the same few processes. In short, an underappreciation of texture prevents many Americans from experiencing Chinese food as it is served in China as was highlighted to The Guardian by writer Fuchsia Dunlop: "If you don't like things for their texture, or slithery things like jellyfish, you can't access a whole aspect of Chinese gastronomy." Traditional Chinese Cooking Prizes Live, Flavorful Meat Worker in Chinese butchers - Jie Zhao/Getty Images Generally speaking, meat in China is deemed superior if it comes from a muscle -- and an animal -- that has been well exercised. This meat is naturally tougher and contains more collagen, however, the presence of connective tissue also makes these cuts the most flavorful of the entire animal. In China, this flavorful meat is known as huorou. The opposite is true for meat in the United States. American consumers have come to prioritize tenderness and ease of eating above flavor. This has resulted in bland meat from unexercised animals and muscle dominating the market, a classic example being battery-farmed chicken breasts. This meat is known as sirou or dead meat. When Chinese food is cooked in the U.S., huorou is often replaced by sirou. But by substituting a deeply flavorful cut of pork or beef for blander cuts -- or in some instances by replacing it with chicken -- the dishes instantly taste different. In some respects, they become a shadow of their former selves. Dining Practices Are Different Woman eating alone - Mihailomilovanovic/Getty Images The difference between food in China and the United States is not limited to the meal's physical characteristics or attributes. How the food is enjoyed also varies from one country to the other. In 2021, the Hartman Group estimated that 42% of all U.S. adult meals were taken alone. In contrast, Chinese citizens value eating as a family. A 2019 Statista poll showed that nearly 70% of Chinese citizens viewed eating as a family as very important with only just over 1% strongly disagreeing. Because they usually dine as a group, the norm in China is for many dishes to be shared amongst all diners. This sees a range of tastes and textures being experienced in quick succession to one another. In the U.S., the opposite is true. Solitary diners usually stick to a single main course. This often remains the case even when American diners eat together. Of course, experiencing one dish in isolation will greatly affect a diner's perception of its taste when compared to enjoying multiple dishes at the same time. Another way Chinese and American people differ when eating is in which utensils they use. Chinese people often employ the use of chopsticks. Americans, on the other hand, prefer the fork. Restaurant owners in the U.S. have made alterations to cater to this; some chefs shorten their noodles to make them easier to manipulate. This affects how the meal tastes by reducing how much sauce the noodles can carry. Read the original article on Daily Meal. If he wins a second term, former President Donald Trump is reportedly planning to wage war on immigration, implementing a vast array of policies dreamed up with Stephen Miller, the adviser behind his most controversial first-term immigration policies. A New York Times story published Saturday provided details: Trump would round up millions of undocumented people and put them in detention camps while they await deportation, using reassigned federal law enforcement and National Guard members to help with the sweeps. Other reported proposals would deny automatic citizenship to babies born to undocumented people and deny visas to people with ideological views Trump does not like. President Joe Bidens 2024 campaign called it the horrifying reality that awaits the American people if Trump is allowed anywhere near the Oval Office again. These extreme, racist, cruel policies dreamed up by him and his henchman Stephen Miller are meant to stoke fear and divide us, betting a scared and divided nation is how he wins this election, read a statement from the campaign. It continued: Trump talks openly about his plans at rallies, and voters should take him at his word. Hes making the wrong bet. The American people chose unity over division and hope over fear in 2020 when they elected Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and sent Donald Trump packing, and theyll do it again next year. Stephen Miller is pictured in 2018 at the Trump White House, where he helped design anti-immigration reforms. Stephen Miller is pictured in 2018 at the Trump White House, where he helped design anti-immigration reforms. Miller told The New York Times that the proposals would rely on existing statutes, allowing Trump to act without needing help from Congress to overhaul immigration laws which would be a tough task. Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown, Miller told the Times. The immigration legal activists wont know whats happening. Trump would reportedly seek to reinstate his first-term ban on people from Muslim-majority nations entering the country and refuse asylum to people at the southern U.S. border. According to the Times, he would use the same authority that allowed him to bar asylum-seekers during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic but say migrants carried other diseases like tuberculosis. People with temporary protected status a legal designation for people from certain countries where there was a natural disaster or armed conflict would also reportedly lose it. The proposals would undoubtedly spark instant legal challenges nationwide, and some could be ultimately decided by the Supreme Court, where Trump placed three of the nine justices. Related... Update Tuesday, Nov. 14: Josh Johnston requested a recount in Boise City Council District 3 on Tuesday, according to Daniel Estes, spokesperson for the Idaho attorney general. Johnston paid the attorney generals office $1,600 to conduct a recount in the 16 precincts within the district. The recount is scheduled to take place on Thursday and Friday, Nov. 16 and 17, according to Ada County Clerk Trent Tripple. A Boise City Council candidate who lost his race on Election Day will request a recount of votes after losing by a slim margin: 15 votes. Josh Johnston, candidate in District 3, which covers the Boise Bench and Southwest Boise, announced he would seek a recount in a Thursday news release. Johnston received 2,551 votes, according to unofficial results from the Ada County clerks office, while his top opponent, Kathy Corless, received 2,566. Two other candidates, Theresa Vawter and Chris Blanchard, got 1,630 and 1,059, respectively. Kathy Corless, candidate for Boise City Council District 3, defeated Josh Johnston by 15 votes on Election Day. While the campaign has no specific concerns about Tuesdays process, they decided to exercise this opportunity provided by Idaho election law given the narrow 15-vote margin in unofficial results, Johnstons release said, adding that he pledges to acknowledge the result at the end of the processes provided under Idaho law. A supermajority of voters chose someone other than the mayors preferred candidate in District 3, the release said. The recount will ensure every vote is counted correctly in this narrowly decided race. Boises own laws require the top two mayoral candidates to face each other in a runoff election if neither achieves a majority of the general election vote. But in City Council races, winners need only garner a plurality. Johnston added that he thinks the interests of many voters in District 3 have not been adequately considered by elected officials in the past, and that our voters deserve every effort to ensure their voices are heard. Under Idaho law, candidates for local office can request recounts by appealing to the Idaho attorney general. In local elections, the county will pay for recounts if the margin between the winner and loser is less than or equal to 0.1%. The 15-vote margin between Johnston and Corless is 0.19% of the votes cast, meaning that Johnston would have to pay for the recount. Idaho law states that Johnston would have to pay $100 for each precinct he wants recounted. There were 15 precincts in District 3 that recorded votes, according to the election results. State law also lists travel costs for the attorney generals office and pay for any election judges not employed by the county as part of the overall cost. In his news release, Johnston said he plans to request the recount on Nov. 14, after the Ada County canvass scheduled for that day. In municipal elections, local commissioners in this case, the Ada County Commission officially certify, or canvass, the results. The commission is scheduled to certify the results on Nov. 14. After a recount is requested, the attorney general is required to order that ballot boxes in each requested precinct be impounded by the county sheriff, according to state law. If the recount results in a different election outcome, the county or state must reimburse the candidate for the costs. A spokesperson for the Ada County clerks office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither did the attorney generals office. Corless told the Idaho Statesman by text that she has the utmost faith in the election process and Ada County officials, and thinks a recount will confirm the Election Day outcome. I look forward to getting to work for the people of Boise, she said. LIVINGSTON COUNTY The Michigan Court of Appeals recently denied a mans motion to dismiss charges in the murders of his brother and sister-in-law in 2008 in Livingston County. Jerome Kowalski was convicted of the murders and sentenced to life in prison in 2013, five years after Richard and Brenda Kowalski were shot to death in Oceola Township. During questioning, Kowalski both admitted to and denied killing the couple. But the convictions were vacated after it was discovered the judge presiding over the trial, Theresa Brennan, had an inappropriate relationship with the lead prosecution witness, Michigan State Police Det. Sean Furlong. Brennan was sentenced to six months in jail in 2020 for perjury and removed from the bench. Jerome Kowalski listens Monday, Jan. 7, 2013, during the first day of his trial for the murder of his brother and sister-in-law. Kowalski was awarded a new trial in 2019, and later granted bond. His trial, once scheduled for January 2022, was pushed as Kowalski sought dismissal of both counts of first-degree murder and both counts of possessing a firearm during the commission of a felony. After all Livingston County judges recused themselves, Shiawassee County Chief Circuit Judge Matthew Stewart denied the motion to dismiss. In early November, the Michigan Court of Appeals agreed. That's according to an unpublished opinion issued Nov. 2. The COA noted this is the fourth time the case has been brought before the court. In his motion to dismiss with prejudice (meaning the case cannot be brought forward again), Kowalski argued the prosecution knew about Brennan and Furlongs romantic relationship but intentionally concealed it from Kowalski. He further argued double jeopardy barred a retrial "because of the prosecutions egregious conduct." Subscribe: Get unlimited access to our local coverage The COA agreed the prosecutor failed to disclose her personal knowledge of the relationship between Brennan and Furlong and failed to inquire into the relationship when Kowalski moved for Brennans recusal. However, the judges said, the remedy for prosecutorial misconduct is typically a new trial, not dismissal of the charges. The appeals court added it's "long been held that retrial is not barred by double jeopardy when a defendant obtains post-conviction relief. The Michigan Attorney Generals Office is prosecuting the case, after former Chief Judge David Reader was elected Livingston County Prosecutor. Contact reporter Evan Sasiela at esasiela@livingstondaily.com. Follow him on Twitter @SalsaEvan. This article originally appeared on Livingston Daily: Court of Appeals denies Kowalski's motion to dismiss murder charges The man made flood that miraculously saved our heroes at the end of O Brother Where Art Thou were an actual occurrence in the 19th and 20th century and a fairly common one at that as river valleys across the American West were dammed up and drowned out at the altar of economic progress and electrification. Such was the case with Washington State's Elwha river in the 1910s. Its dam provided the economic impetus to develop the Olympic Peninsula but also blocked off nearly 40 miles of river from the open ocean, preventing native salmon species from making their annual spawning trek. However, after decades of legal wrangling by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, the biggest dams on the river today are the kind made by beavers. In this week's Hitting the Books selection, Eat, Poop, Die: How Animals Make Our World, University of Vermont conservation biologist Joe Roman recounts how quickly nature can recover when a 108-foot tall migration barrier is removed from the local ecosystem. This excerpt discusses the naturalists and biologists who strive to understand how nutrients flow through the Pacific Northwest's food web, and the myriad ways it's impacted by migratory salmon. The book as a whole takes a fascinating look at how the most basic of biological functions (yup, poopin!) of even just a few species can potentially impact life in every corner of the planet. white background with black text, images of sundry wildlife, none of whom are dropping deuces. (Hatchette Books) Excerpted from by Eat, Poop, Die: How Animals Make Our World by Joe Roman. Published by Hachette Book Group. Copyright 2023 by Joe Roman. All rights reserved. When construction began in 1910, the Elwha Dam was designed to attract economic development to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, supplying the growing community of Port Angeles with electric power. It was one of the first high-head dams in the region, with water moving more than a hundred yards from the reservoir to the river below. Before the dam was built, the river hosted ten anadromous fish runs. All five species of Pacific salmon pink, chum, sockeye, Chinook, and coho were found in the river, along with bull trout and steelhead. In a good year, hundreds of thousands of salmon ascended the Elwha to spawn. But the contractors never finished the promised fish ladders. As a result, the Elwha cut off most of the watershed from the ocean and 90 percent of migratory salmon habitat. Thousands of dams block the rivers of the world, decimating fish populations and clogging nutrient arteries from sea to mountain spring. Some have fish ladders. Others ship fish across concrete walls. Many act as permanent barriers to migration for thousands of species. By the 1980s, there was growing concern about the effect of the Elwha on native salmon. Populations had declined by 95 per cent, devastating local wildlife and Indigenous communities. River salmon are essential to the culture and economy of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. In 1986, the tribe filed a motion through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to stop the relicensing of the Elwha Dam and the Glines Canyon Dam, an upstream impoundment that was even taller than the Elwha. By blocking salmon migration, the dams violated the 1855 Treaty of Point No Point, in which the Klallam ceded a vast amount of the Olympic Peninsula on the stipulation that they and all their descendants would have the right of taking fish at usual and accustomed grounds. The tribe partnered with environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and the Seattle Audubon Society, to pressure local and federal officials to remove the dams. In 1992, Congress passed the Elwha River Ecosystem and Fisheries Restoration Act, which authorized the dismantling of the Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams. The demolition of the Elwha Dam was the largest dam-removal project in history; it cost $350 million and took about three years. Beginning in September 2011, coffer dams shunted water to one side as the Elwha Dam was decommissioned and destroyed. The Glines Canyon was more challenging. According to Pess, a glorified jackhammer on a floating barge was required to dismantle the two-hundred-foot impoundment. The barge didnt work when the water got low, so new equipment was helicoptered in. By 2014, most of the dam had come down, but rockfall still blocked fish passage. It took another year of moving rocks and concrete before the fish had full access to the river. The response of the fish was quick, satisfying, and sometimes surprising. Elwha River bull trout, landlocked for more than a century, started swimming back to the ocean. The Chinook salmon in the watershed increased from an average of about two thousand to four thousand. Many of the Chinook were descendants of hatchery fish, Pess told me over dinner at Nerka. If ninety percent of your population prior to dam removal is from a hatchery, you cant just assume that a totally natural population will show up right away. Steelhead trout, which had been down to a few hundred, now numbered more than two thousand. Within a few years, a larger mix of wild and local hatchery fish had moved back to the Elwha watershed. And the surrounding wildlife responded too. The American dipper, a river bird, fed on salmon eggs and insects infused with the new marine-derived nutrients. Their survival rates went up, and the females who had access to fish became healthier than those without. They started having multiple broods and didnt have to travel so far for their food, a return, perhaps, to how life was before the dam. A study in nearby British Columbia showed that songbird abundance and diversity increased with the number of salmon. They werent eating the fish in fact, they werent even present during salmon migration. But they were benefiting from the increase in insects and other invertebrates. Just as exciting, the removal of the dams rekindled migratory patterns that had gone dormant. Pacific lamprey started traveling up the river to breed. Bull trout that had spent generations in the reservoir above the dam began migrating out to sea. Rainbow trout swam up and down the river for the first time in decades. Over the years, the river started to look almost natural as the sediments that had built up behind the dams washed downstream. The success on the Elwha could be the start of something big, encouraging the removal of other aging dams. There are plans to remove the Enloe Dam, a fifty-four-foot concrete wall in northern Washington, which would open up two hundred miles of river habitat for steelhead and Chinook salmon. Critically endangered killer whales, downstream off the coast of the Pacific Northwest, would benefit from this boost in salmon, and as there are only seventy individuals remaining, they need every fish they can get. The spring Chinook salmon run on the Klamath River in Northern California is down 98 percent since eight dams were constructed in the twentieth century. Coho salmon have also been in steep decline. In the next few years, four dams are scheduled to come down with the goal of restoring salmon migration. Farther north, the Snake River dams could be breached to save the endangered salmon of Washington State. If that happens, historic numbers of salmon could come back along with the many species that depended on the energy and nutrients they carry upstream. Other dams are going up in the West dams of sticks and stones and mud. Beaver dams help salmon by creating new slow-water habitats, critical for juvenile salmon. In Washington, beaver ponds cool the streams, making them more productive for salmon. In Alaska, the ponds are warmer, and the salmon use them to help metabolize what they eat. Unlike the enormous concrete impoundments, designed for stability, beaver dams are dynamic, heterogeneous landscapes that salmon can easily travel through. Beavers eat, they build dams, they poop, they move on. We humans might want things to be stable, but Earth and its creatures are dynamic. More than a billion Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists around the world are celebrating Diwali, the festival of lights. Diwali, also called Deepavali, is one of the biggest festivals in India. Its also widely celebrated in Nepal, Malaysia, Fiji and other countries with large South Asian diasporas. Homes, businesses and public spaces are lit up with diyas, or oil lamps made from clay, and fireworks displays abound. People gather with their families, eat sweets and exchange gifts. Despite its deep religious significance, Diwali today is also a cultural festival observed by people regardless of faith. Heres what to know about the holiday. What is Diwali? People in Mumbai look at lanterns at roadside stalls ahead of Diwali on November 5, 2023. - Rafiq Maqbool/AP Diwali comes from the Sanskrit word deepavali, meaning row of lights. It marks the triumph of light over darkness, of good over evil. Though Diwali traditions vary according to region and religion, the myths and historical stories behind the holiday share themes of justice and liberation. When is Diwali? Diwali is celebrated every year in autumn, usually falling between October and November. The festival lasts five days, with the main celebration occurring on the third day. This year, Diwali will be observed on November 12. These are the five days of Diwali: Dhanteras: People typically mark the first day of Diwali by purchasing gold and silver jewelry, utensils and other new household items for good luck. Many clean their homes to invite the blessings of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and prosperity. Others also honor Dhanvantari, the god of Ayurveda, and Yamaraj, the god of death, on this day. On Dhanteras, the first day of Diwali, some people buy gold and silver jewelry for good luck and prosperity. - Narinder Nanu/AFP/Getty Images Choti Diwali, or Naraka Chaturdashi: The second day of Diwali marks Lord Krishnas defeat of the demon king Narakasura. People wake up early to bathe and wash their hair. They also clean their homes, decorate them with rangolis and diyas and prepare sweets. Diwali, or Lakshmi Puja: The third day of the festival is what people typically think of as Diwali. Families gather to exchange gifts, feast on scrumptious dishes and indulge in sweets. Many Hindus worship the goddess Lakshmi on this day. Padwa, or Govardhan Puja: The fourth day of Diwali honors the relationship between husband and wife, and husbands will typically buy a gift for their spouses. In some traditions, it commemorates the day Lord Krishna lifted Govardhan Hill to protect villagers of Vrindavan from rains brought on by Lord Indras anger. Some devotees offer a mountain of food to Krishna in remembrance, while others make clay and cow dung figures recreating the event. Bhai Dooj: The final day of Diwali celebrates the love between siblings, in honor of the bond between Lord Yama and his sister Yami (or Yamuna). Sisters will sometimes place a tilak, or red mark, on their brothers foreheads, while brothers will give gifts to their sisters. What is the meaning of Diwali? Diwali is largely observed by Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists, but much like Christmas, the holiday transcends religion and is now celebrated by many people outside those traditions. The meaning of the festival varies by community and region. One of the legends at the heart of Diwali comes from the Hindu epic, the Ramayana. During the exile of Prince Rama (an incarnation of the god Vishnu) and his wife Sita (an incarnation of the goddess Lakshmi), Sita is kidnapped by the demon king Ravana. Rama ultimately defeats Ravana to rescue his wife. For some Hindus, Diwali marks Rama and Sitas triumphant return to their kingdom after 14 years of exile. Women light diyas, or earthen lamps, during Diwali celebrations in Vrindavan, India, on October 16, 2017. - Xavier Galiana/AFP/Getty Images Some Hindus in southern India celebrate Lord Krishnas defeat of Narakasura, which led to the rescue of 16,000 girls in the demons captivity. In western India, Diwali commemorates the day that Lord Vishnu banishes the demon king Bali to rule the netherworld. Sikhs commemorate the occasion as Bandi Chhor Divas (The Day of Liberation). It marks the day that Guru Hargobind, their sixth guru, and 52 Hindu kings were freed from wrongful imprisonment. The Mughal Emperor Jahangir initially only agreed to release Guru Hargobind, but the guru refused to go without the royals. After Jahangir declared that those who could hold onto the gurus cloak could leave, Guru Hargobind tied 52 tassels to his cloak so that each ruler could walk to freedom. For Jains, Diwali signifies the day Lord Mahavira, their last spiritual leader, attained physical death and achieved enlightenment. Some Buddhists acknowledge Diwali as the day the Emperor Ashoka embraced Buddhism. How is Diwali celebrated? People visit a flower market on the eve of Diwali in Bangalore, India, on October 23, 2022. - Manjunath Kiran/AFP/Getty Images Aside from the common traditions of decorating ones home, setting off firecrackers and feasting on delicious food, there are several other ways that people mark Diwali. In some parts of India, people play gambling card games such as teen patti, blackjack and poker. Gambling during the holiday is considered auspicious, stemming from a legend in which the god Shiva and his consort Parvati play a dice game. Diwali also marks the start of the new Hindu financial year, and many businesses, traders and shopkeepers open new accounts books during the holiday. Naomi Canton contributed to this piece. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Sunday said he believes a third-party presidential run by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) would take away more votes from former President Trump than from President Biden, while noting he isnt terribly worried the West Virginia senator will launch a White House bid. Manchin, 76, announced last week he will not seek reelection to the Senate in 2024, refueling speculation over a third-party presidential bid after floating the idea earlier this year. Asked by NBC Newss Meet the Press anchor Kristen Welker how concerned he is that Manchin could run as a third-party candidate, Murphy said, Im not terribly worried about him running as a third-party candidate. If he does, he probably draws more votes from Donald Trump than he does from Joe Biden. In his announcement last week, Manchin said he will be traveling the country to work on a movement to mobilize the middle, which was perceived by some as a reference to his potential national aspirations. Manchin in recent months has flirted with a 2024 presidential run with No Labels, a centrist party that has pushed for a third-party candidate in the midst of polling showing a likely rematch between President Biden and former President Trump in the general election. Earlier this year, Manchin headlined a No Labels event in New Hampshire, a key early-voting state. The West Virginia Democrats decision not to run will likely give the Republicans a seat in next years election in deep-red West Virginia, capping off his 12-year hold on the vulnerable seat. Manchin, who is considered one of the most moderate Democrats in the upper chamber, was expected to face a challenging reelection in 2024, with West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) increasingly becoming the favorite to win next year. When asked if it will be tougher for Democrats to hold on to the Senate in 2024 in the wake of Manchins announcement, Murphy appeared to dismiss such concerns. Two years ago people didnt think that we could hold the United States Senate. That we had to essentially draw an inside straight, win every single competitive race, Murphy said. But we did, in part because the Republican candidates were and still are wildly extreme. And our candidates were really excellent. And that dynamic is still in play in 2024. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. A little over a year ago, after voters in Kansas overwhelmingly chose to protect access to abortion, we issued North Carolina Republicans a challenge: Put abortion on the ballot. On Tuesday, in Ohio, it happened again. Abortion was on the ballot, and abortion won. Voters approved by double digits an amendment to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, making Ohio the seventh state to pass such a ballot measure since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade last year. So were issuing that challenge again. Come on, North Carolina Republicans. Put abortion on the ballot. What are you afraid of? Unlike Ohio, North Carolina does not allow citizen-led ballot initiatives, but theres still a way to put constitutional amendments up for a vote. The General Assembly can propose that a constitutional amendment be on the statewide ballot, but the proposal must pass with three-fifths approval in the House and Senate. We contacted the offices of House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger to ask if theyd be open to such a proposal, but they did not respond to our request for comment. When legislators passed North Carolinas 12-week abortion ban earlier this year, they insisted it was mainstream and in line with what the majority of North Carolinians believe. If thats true, they shouldnt have a problem with putting it to a test. Some Republicans argue that allowing voters to weigh in directly on matters of public policy defeats the purpose of having elected representatives. After all, theres a reason why the United States isnt a direct democracy. But theres a difference between using referendums to make nuanced policy decisions and allowing people to weigh in on whether they should have a basic right. Besides, Republicans seemed to be OK with it when they allowed voters to weigh in on same-sex marriage in 2012, and on voter ID in 2018. Why not now? Of course, theres a reason why North Carolina Republicans wont put abortion on the ballot. They dont want to fight a battle theyre likely to lose. They dont want to know what the majority of North Carolinians actually believe, because it might not line up with what they want. If voters in red states like Ohio and Kansas can preserve access to abortion, then North Carolina can, too. Seeing the success of abortion measures, Republicans across the country have been trying to make it harder for voters to amend state constitutions with ballot initiatives. In fact, Ohio Republicans tried to raise the threshold for passing future constitutional amendments, but voters resoundingly rejected that proposal back in August. Theyve also used misleading language to try to trick voters into shooting down abortion measures. It hasnt worked. Even when abortion isnt directly on the ballot, though, its still a losing issue for Republicans. In Virginia, Republicans centered their efforts to take control of the state legislature around a proposal to ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. They intentionally referred to it as a limit instead of a ban, hoping the tempered language would win over moderate voters. It didnt. Democrats retained control of one chamber of the legislature and flipped the other. And in Kentucky, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear won re-election with abortion rights a major focus of his campaign. There are signs that North Carolina Republicans are wary of public opinion on abortion. They object to the characterization of the states 12-week abortion ban as a ban. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the likely GOP nominee for governor, has softened his rhetoric on abortion, while members of his party have attempted to downplay his past public statements on the issue. Republicans will benefit, too, from new gerrymandered maps designed to preserve a GOP supermajority in both chambers of the legislature at least somewhat insulating them from any potential backlash to the abortion ban they passed earlier this year. But instead of searching for ways to obfuscate and ignore the will of the voters, Republicans should let them have a voice. Just like voters in Ohio, and Kansas, and Michigan, North Carolinians deserve the chance to determine the path our state will follow on an issue as critical as abortion. They should get a say in a matter that so deeply affects their bodies and their lives. Editor's Note: The following is part of a class project originally initiated in the classroom of Ball State University professor Adam Kuban in fall 2021. Kuban has continued the project, including this fall semester, challenging his students to find sustainability efforts in the Muncie area. The students pitched their ideas to Deanna Watson, editor of The Star Press, Journal & Courier and Pal-Item. MUNCIE, Ind. As you walk or ride along the Cardinal Greenway in Muncie, the former rail track repurposed for the community, a sanctuary of luscious greenery and dense vegetation alongside rich acres of trees will come upon you at Michael Ellis Rotary Park. Adjacent to the path is a large greenspace that was once a rusted, decaying junkyard plagued with debris and hazardous chemicals killing the ecosystem around it, but now it is a natural space repurposed for the community. This is near mile 102 of the Cardinal Greenway on the northeast side of Muncie. Dr. Pichtel said this wooded area of the property since remediation has housed bird and butterfly houses. This greenspace was the former Car Doctor's junkyard, a relic from the glory days when the automobile business ruled East Central Indiana. After being abandoned, the lot was classified as a brownfield by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA defines a brownfield as a property where hazardous pollutants or contaminants may complicate the expansion, redevelopment or reuse of the land. Across this region of Indiana, industrial cities like Muncie, Anderson and Kokomo have been redeveloping these sites for the community. Some cities have developed these brownfields such as the Car Doctors junkyard into commercial districts for new companies or green spaces. Over a five-year period starting in 2012, John Pichtel, professor of natural resources and environmental management at Ball State University, led classes of students to clean up and repurpose the Car Doctors brownfield sites into a green space. The student's findings were then published in the Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science. When Dr. Pichtel and his students arrived at the scrapyard, Pichtel said the land had been eroded and essentially killed by over 100 cars along with automobile parts and chemicals scattered across the barren wasteland. Everything from front grills, hundreds and hundreds of tires, chunks of metal and glass from cars. Some people had even been dumping on the location. We even found part of a meth lab way out in the distance of the property. It was quite ugly, said Pichtel. A sign that reads Supported by Ball Brothers Foundation sits in front of the large green space where the junkyard once sat. Dr. John Pichtel says the Ball Brothers Foundation helped support the clean-up of this site. These locations are remnants of Indianas Gas Boom in the mid-to-late 1800s, where factories and manufacturers flooded East Central Indiana cities for its abundance of natural gas. Many factories stayed in Muncie and surrounding areas such as Kokomo until the early 2000s, when most of these plants moved manufacturing overseas, often leaving the property in hazardous conditions. These factories and manufacturing plants often used hazardous chemicals and contaminants that have made it difficult to repurpose these sites. Kokomo is a long-time industrial town, and the automotive industry has been here since the beginning, and there are other manufacturers of metal alloy and stuff like that. So it's hard not to go someplace that's close to a factory or manufacturing plant that doesn't have at least some level of contamination, said Kokomos Development Specialist Steve Geiselman. Kokomo, like many other communities in East Central Indiana, has a rich industrial history. As pointed out by Geiselman, factories and manufacturing plants can and have left behind some levels of contaminants, which can cause serious health problems. The EPA lists heavy metals arsenic, lead and mercury along with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) as common contaminants found on brownfield sites. High levels of contaminants such as heavy metals and PCBs have been present in the blood work of cancer patients in a Biometal study published in 2018. If a brownfield is not properly remediated, these contaminants can have damaging health effects on neighboring communities. Delaware County Environmental and Development Planner Lorey Stinton said contaminants capped underground can pose issues when redeveloping or remediating a brownfield site. They have areas that are capped and cannot be disturbed. So when they talk about developing there (at a brownfield), you have a major concern because you can't dig into the ground; you can only build up, said Stinton. According to the EPA, capping is the process of covering up contaminated soil with other materials such as soil, clay, concrete and more. This does not clean the soil or remove any of the contaminates but instead isolates the contaminates and makes sure they do not spread anymore. This portion of the Cardinal Greenway was formally part of the Car Doctor's Junkyard. This pathway connects parts of Muncie via a walking or riding path. Pichtel said this possible disruption of capped soil along with other hazards and restrictions can have major effects on redevelopment or development near a brownfield. He said developers dont want to build near these sites because of the possible spread of these contaminates that can come with building next to it. This lack of development can affect more parts of the community than just the environment where they reside. It most importantly drives down property values. If you have one large brownfield in a large area and there's another land nearby that could be developed, some developers will say they dont want to set up there because you have this large, unsightly (and) possibly dangerous location. Less companies mean less tax (dollars) coming into the city, said Pichtel. Fewer companies also mean fewer jobs for the community. Anderson's Downtown Developer Levi Rinker said this is something the city of Anderson felt after General Motors (GM) Powerplant left the city, leaving approximately 20 General Motor plants abandoned. General Motors used to employ over 25,000 people who lived in Anderson, which would have been about 1 in every 3 people in the town who worked for them. After GM left Anderson, many locals were left without a job. Rinker said these sites have now been either rebuilt or reused and have ultimately provided nearly 300 jobs for the community. This land has been redeveloped into businesses such as the Hello Nature headquarters, a community health pavilion, along with creating a Purdue Polytechnic campus with an expected 400 student enrollment. All through this region of the state, abandoned lots like the Car Doctors junkyard in Muncie or the General Motors plants in Anderson have been left in potentially hazardous conditions, destroying the ecosystem and causing possible health concerns to nearby citizens. These locations that used to house the manufacturing of famous products and automobile parts like General Motors transmission are now being redeveloped into greenspaces, commercial districts, solar farms and more. Even though some of these sites have been cleaned up, there are still more. Throughout Indiana, there are still brownfields. This past summer, the EPA granted eight communities in Indiana a total of $5 million for brownfield redevelopment and cleanup. This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: East Central Indiana clean up abandoned industrial lots Henny Lasley and Rachel OBryan are two of the original co-founders of One Chance To Grow Up. Lasley is executive director and OBryan serves as strategic projects director. One Chance To Grow Up is in its 11th year of protecting kids from todays marijuana through transparency, education, empowerment and policy. I feel it is important to share why I voted to censure Representative Rashida Tlaib. My vote was prompted by my conscience and the need to have honest information about what happened on Oct. 7 and what is happening in Gaza now. This was not a vote I took lightly. I listened to the entire debate on this issue as well as colleagues and constituents before making my decision. In that context, I felt the need to publicly rebuke the spreading of misinformation by a Member of Congress. Rabbi Laurie Rice: A ceasefire in Israel puts Jews at risk of annihilation at the hands of Hamas Yes, Gaza needs humanitarian aid My vote to censure Congresswoman Tlaib was not at all due to her advocacy on behalf of innocent Palestinians. I agree with her that their deaths are heartbreaking and that we desperately need to send humanitarian aid into Gaza. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., speaks during a demonstration calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, Oct. 18, 2023, near the Capitol in Washington. On Monday, Nov. 6, Tlaib responded to criticisms from fellow Democrats regarding a video she posted Friday, Nov. 3, that included a clip of demonstrators chanting from the river to the sea. Tlaib said in her response that her colleagues are trying to silence her and are distorting her words. In fact, I strongly support sending urgent humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip immediately. Congress must pass a package that includes robust humanitarian aid for Palestinians as well as funding for Ukraine and Taiwan, both sovereign nations like Israel fighting for existence. I have always called for the protection of innocent lives and increased humanitarian aid in Gaza and will continue to do so. Imam Ossama Bahloul: Ceasefire is needed because too many Palestinian children are dying in Israel-Hamas war Blaming Israel, the victim of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack, was wrong In this terrible time, we must speak carefully. Instead of condemning the murder of innocent people, carried out in some of the most horrific and dehumanizing ways, Congresswoman Tlaib stated that the horrors we saw unfold in Israel on Oct. 7 were resistance to Israeli policies. The murder of innocent civilians is never a legitimate form of resistance and should not be seen as such. If any Member of Congress had said something similar blaming the victims or justifying their deaths after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, I would have voted to censure them as well. Even after learning that several of her tweets and statements regarding Israel were untrue, Representative Tlaib refused to take them down. She continued to blame Israel for the Oct. 17 bombing of the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital even after U.S. intelligence reports indicated Israel was not to blame. She also grossly mischaracterized the phrase from the river to the sea, which Hamas, a known terrorist organization, uses to describe its aspirations to remove Israel from the map and Jews along with it. The New York Times front page headline on November 9 made its intentions clear: Hamass Goal for Oct. 7: A Permanent State of War. Hear more Tennessee Voices: Get the weekly opinion newsletter for insightful and thought provoking columns. Criticism of the Israeli government is not the issue. Its the disinformation I have no issue with legitimate criticism of the Israeli Government and have expressed my own concern with Prime Minister Netanyahus Likud party and far-right ruling coalition. I boycotted Netanyahus speech to a joint session of Congress in 2015 because of his past actions that I didnt believe contributed to peace in the Middle East. I was disappointed to see this from my colleague while disinformation regarding the Israel-Hamas war runs rampant. I believe we all have a responsibility to hold each other accountable and for that reason, I voted in favor of the resolution censuring Representative Tlaib. Congressman Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, represents Tennessees 9th Congressional District. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Rashida Tlaib spread misinformation. That's why I voted to censure her Watch Falcon 9 launch the @SES_Satellites O3b mPOWER mission to orbit https://t.co/SmXCz0Ly23 SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 12, 2023 Updates: Following is live coverage of Sunday's 4:08 p.m. EST liftoff of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on the SES O3b mPOWER 5 and 6 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Welcome to FLORIDA TODAY's Space Team live coverage of SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch this afternoon from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. SpaceX is targeting an 89-minute window from 4:08 to 5:37 p.m. EST to launch a rocket carrying a pair of communications satellites from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The Falcon 9 is flying under contract with SES, a Luxembourg-based company that will place two more of its Boeing-built O3b mPOWER satellites into medium-Earth orbit. After soaring skyward from Launch Complex 40, the Falcon 9's first-stage booster will target landing aboard a drone ship out at sea 8 minutes, 43 seconds after liftoff. No local sonic booms are expected during today's mission. Countdown Timer SpaceX Falcon 9 booster lands Update 4:16 p.m. EST: The Falcon 9 first-stage booster just landed aboard SpaceX's drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas out on the Atlantic Ocean, wrapping up its ninth flight. Falcon 9s first stage has landed on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship pic.twitter.com/KFOZ8ka6uc SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 12, 2023 Liftoff! Update 4:08 p.m. EST: SpaceX has launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a pair of SES O3b mPOWER satellites from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Next, the first-stage booster should land on a SpaceX drone ship out on the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX live launch webcast underway Update 4:02 p.m. EST: SpaceX's live launch webcast hosted on X (formerly Twitter) is now posted at the top of this page. Liftoff is scheduled in six minutes from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. SpaceX Falcon 9 fueling underway Update 3:59 p.m. EST: Nine minutes before today's 4:08 p.m. launch window opens, visual cues indicate Falcon 9 fueling procedures are well underway. That means today's SES O3b mPOWER mission is now committed to lift off today, or else the launch must be postponed. SpaceX booster to land on drone ship Update 3:47 p.m. EST: Tonight's mission marks the ninth flight for this Falcon 9 first-stage booster, SpaceX reports. Following stage separation, the booster is slated to land on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas out on the Atlantic Ocean 8 minutes, 43 seconds after liftoff. SpaceX Falcon 9 launch countdown Update 3:22 p.m. EST: Following is a list of key milestones in the upcoming Falcon 9 countdown timeline: 35 minutes: Rocket-grade kerosene and first-stage liquid oxygen loading begins. 16 minutes: Second-stage liquid oxygen loading begins. 7 minutes: Falcon 9 begins engine chill prior to launch. 1 minute: Command flight computer begins final prelaunch checks; propellant tank pressurization to flight pressure begins. 45 seconds: SpaceX launch director verifies go for launch. 3 seconds: Engine controller commands engine ignition sequence to start. 0 seconds: Falcon 9 liftoff. SpaceX launch weather: overcast skies Update: 3:11 p.m. EST: Skies above Cape Canaveral Space Force Station are overcast with a temperature of 76 and north wind of 13 mph, the National Weather Service reports. The Space Force's 45th Weather Squadron previously forecasted a 70% chance of "go" weather for today's launch. 11/12/2023 3:08 PM | We have activated our launch operations support team in preparation for the SpaceX Falcon9 launch. Window: 4:08 - 5:37 PM pic.twitter.com/hA4kFafhPG Brevard EOC (@BrevardEOC) November 12, 2023 SpaceX to launch SES satellites The Luxembourg-based satellite company SES released this photo of a technician making preparations alongside O3b mPOWER satellites in advance of SpaceX's Nov. 12 mission launching them into medium-Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Update 2:55 p.m. EST: This morning, SES tweeted a quartet of photos featuring its third pair of O3b mPOWER satellites, which will head into orbit atop the Falcon 9 rocket. These will mark satellites No. 5 and 6 in the company's planned series of 13 in orbit. Take a #BTS peek at the preparations as were getting ready to launch our third pair of #O3bmPOWER satellites! @spacex livestream details below #ShareAnywhere @BoeingSpace Sunday, 12 November 4:08pm EST | 10:08pm CET https://t.co/KwAB6QLWok pic.twitter.com/PQX8ymtfvk SES (@SES_Satellites) November 12, 2023 For the latest schedule updates at the Cape, visit floridatoday.com/launchschedule. LAUNCH ALERT A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the 2nd pair of O3b mPOWER satellites. Sunday, November 12. The 89-minute launch window opens at 4:08pm. Launch viewing from Banana Creek is available. Explore More: https://t.co/aK4aD1USs4 pic.twitter.com/XAOJKOZ8B6 Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex (@ExploreSpaceKSC) November 10, 2023 Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY (for more of his stories, click here.) Contact Neale at 321-242-3638 or rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1 Space is important to us and that's why we're working to bring you top coverage of the industry and Florida launches. Journalism like this takes time and resources. Please support it with a subscription here. This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Updates: SpaceX SES O3b mPOWER mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida After back-to-back rocket launches Wednesday and Thursday from the Space Coast, SpaceX crews are now prepping for a Sunday afternoon Falcon 9 mission that will lift two communications satellites into medium-Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Sunday's 89-minute launch window for the SES O3b mPOWER mission opens at 4:08 p.m. EST, Space X announced. The window closes at 5:37 p.m. SES is a Luxembourg-based satellite operator that similarly launched a pair of O3b mPOWER satellites in April from SpaceX's facilities at Launch Complex 40. Boeing built the satellites. The term O3b stands for "other three billion," referring to the portion of the world's population lacking access to reliable broadband internet. All told, the SpaceX-powered SES O3b mPOWER missions will launch 13 spacecraft, which will assume orbits about 5,000 miles above Earth's surface. Sunday's mission will lift satellites No. 5 and 6 in the series. The Falcon 9 rocket's first-stage booster will target a landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean after Sunday's launch, so no Space Coast sonic booms are expected. Space Force forecast: 70% odds of 'go' for launch A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifts off in April from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station carrying the 03b mPOWER 3 and 4 satellites for SES. The Space Force's 45th Weather Squadron warns of climatological threats during Sunday's launch window, primarily cumulous clouds at the Cape and upper-level wind shear that could impact the booster's sea landing. All told, the launch has a 70% chance of "go" weather as a weak front pushes into the Florida Panhandle on Saturday. "The front is expected to reach the Spaceport late Sunday, stalling over the area and bringing with it increased shower coverage that will persist through much of early next week," the squadron's forecast said. "The weather threat for the primary launch attempt is the Cumulus Cloud Rule, as scattered low-topped cumulus may pose a threat for flight-through constraints," the forecast said. More: Rocket launch schedule: Upcoming Florida launches and landings O3b mPOWER internet constellation updates The SES O3b mPower 1 and 2 satellites for Luxembourg satellite operator SES are seen during payload integration into the protective SpaceX Falcon 9 payload fairing before being mated with the Falcon 9 booster. In an October third-quarter earnings report, SES delivered a series of updates on its upcoming O3b mPOWER internet constellation. Among the highlights: Commercial service is expected to start early in the second quarter of 2024. SES identified the causes of power module issues with the first four satellites in orbit, then put a plan in place to address them. The company plans to upgrade the upcoming seventh through 11th satellites before launch, then add two more satellites upping the total from 11 to 13. "It has been determined that the anticipated operational life and available capacity of the initial O3b mPOWER satellites will be significantly lower than previously expected," a press release said. "SES has secured firm commitments from Boeing and both companies are closely collaborating to deliver the full lifecycle capabilities of the constellation," the press release said. For the latest schedule updates at the Cape, visit floridatoday.com/launchschedule. Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY (for more of his stories, click here.) Contact Neale at 321-242-3638 or rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1 Space is important to us and that's why we're working to bring you top coverage of the industry and Florida launches. Journalism like this takes time and resources. Please support it with a subscription here. This article originally appeared on Florida Today: SpaceX SES O3b mPOWER launch set for Sunday from Cape Canaveral State of the Union: European Commission says Ukraine should start EU membership talks Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, enlargement of the European Union has gone from an almost taboo subject to a key priority. This week, the European Commission reaffirmed its belief that the 27-country bloc can absorb more members, including one that is at war with Russia. The EU executive adopted the "Enlargement 2023" package on Wednesday, which recommends opening negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova. The document also recommends granting candidate status to Georgia. Regarding the six Western Balkan countries, the biggest novelty is the suggestion to open accession negotiations with Bosnia & Herzegovina. All this must still be decided by the European Council in December, but Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is convinced that it will be a win-win for all. "Enlargement is a vital policy for the European Union. Completing our Union is the call of history, the natural horizon of our Union," she told reporters in Brussels. "Completing our Union, also has a strong economic and geopolitical logic. Past enlargements have shown the enormous benefits both for the accession countries and the EU. We all win." Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the European Commission report as "historic" and promised to carry on the reforms. It is important to remember that the European Union is preparing a 50 billion financial instrument, called the Ukraine Support Facility, to help it cope with the huge challenge. Although the country's progress has been praised, the Ukranian government needs to step up the work in several areas. Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister, Olha Stefanishyna, who works on the country's EU integration told Euronews that they are working hard to complete the final stages. "There are many things to be accomplished," she said. "So, we have to do the best sort of legislation, the transparency of the lobbying process. But we have a lot of regulations on corruption prevention, which have already forced officials to be transparent in what they do. "In fact, we are happy to see that this is the only very small issue to be expected to continue. "So, the message from my side is that we are not going to stop." Gaza aid continues The EU Humanitarian Air Bridge with aid for the people of Gaza Strip concluded its latest phase of eight flights this week. One of them left Tuesday from the Ostend airport in Belgium, overseen by the Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic. The destination was Egypt, from where aid is taken in trucks to Gaza through the Rafah border crossing. The European Commission announced on Friday that six more flights have been scheduled. In the meantime, it will keep up the diplomatic pressure to increase the flow of aid, including fuel, that is under an Israeli total ban. "Fuel is needed in order to power the generators, to run, hospitals, to run, to operate the water pumps and desalination plants, to run bakeries and not least to enable humanitarian workers to move around and provide the supplies to people who need it," Lenarcic said. "So, this is the picture we will continue to work on - the improving of access. We continue to impress on all the parties to introduce the necessary arrangements. We call it humanitarian windows, pauses or cease fires". Israel also agreed to put in place four-hour daily humanitarian pauses in northern Gaza. This is to allow civilians to flee and is part of the negotiations for the release of Israeli hostages. The families of the around 240 people that Hamas captured in Israel are doing all they can to get them back, and some came to Brussels, this week. A small delegation was at the European Parliament to meet with lawmakers and journalists, calling for continuous diplomatic pressure. Among the hostages are more than 30 children, elderly people and foreigners or dual citizens, as well as Israeli soldiers. Gov. Chris Sununu joined the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy on Wednesday in announcing new resources to support recovery-friendly workplaces across the country, including a national nonprofit dedicated to the cause. Sununu launched New Hampshires Recovery Friendly Workplace Initiative in 2018, designed to empower businesses around the state to support individuals with substance use disorders. Since the programs inception, 350 Granite State businesses have been designated as recovery friendly workplaces, encompassing nearly 100,000 employees. The work done in New Hampshire will continue expanding nationwide. Announced Wednesday, Sununu will serve as the honorary board chair of the National Recovery Friendly Workplace Institute, what he described as a nonprofit, nonpartisan effort that will be housed in the Global Recovery Initiatives Foundation. Simultaneously, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy released new guidance and a call to action: a toolkit for employers and a ready-made state model law to assist in creating recovery-ready workplaces across the nation. Research tells us that obtaining and maintaining a job is a critical part of any recovery journey, said Dr. Rahul Gupta, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Gov. Chris Sununu said that as CEO of Waterville Valley, he had employees who struggled with addiction. Speaking during a White House press call, Sununu described how his journey with recovery-friendly workplaces began long before he was governor. While leading Waterville Valley ski resort as its CEO, he had employees who grappled with addiction. He likened firing them because of their struggles to sending them back to the wolves. I realized that the best solution was to be part of that healthier pathway for them, to be part of their recovery, Sununu said. That allowed me to keep them as an employee, allowed them to get better. It allowed individuals to feel more emboldened to stand up and face what they were dealing with. Sununu cited financial savings as a result, and a team-building effort that ultimately coalesced around it. When he became governor, Sununu decided to implement the model statewide. As part of the program, administered by Granite United Way in partnership with the governors office and state, recovery-friendly advisers support interested businesses with evidence-based practices to develop and sustain the initiative in their workplaces. The goal is to eliminate stigma and foster an environment that encourages the success of employees in recovery. The model can increase productivity and morale, build community connection, and improve communication and support between leadership and employees, the state says. After the programs launch in 2018, Sununu encouraged other governors to join him. Rhode Island was the first state to do so. One of the most amazing things we discovered when we created this program, all of a sudden the number of people looking for treatment skyrocketed in the state, Sununu said. For so long, people were working and couldnt go to treatment because they were afraid to be seen walking into a treatment center by their employer. Now all of a sudden, people werent afraid to go seek treatment. They were talking to their employers about it. Gupta called Sununu a champion among our nations governors when it comes to supporting recovery. New national resources coming from the Biden-Harris Administration a toolkit for employers and a state model law aim to help businesses and state and local governments across the country implement recovery-friendly workplace ideals. The toolkit is housed in the Department of Labors Recovery-Ready Workplace Resource Hub, which was developed to help employers respond more effectively to substance use in the workforce while supporting and hiring people in recovery. Noted in the toolkit is New Hampshires community of practice as part of its Recovery Friendly Workplace Initiative, for states and other entities wishing to adopt the New Hampshire approach. The community of practice boasts representation from 35 states and one Canadian province. The Legislative Analysis and Public Policy Association, with funding support from the Office of National Drug Control Policy, developed new model legislation for state governments to support the creation of recovery-ready workplaces. As written, the legislation will establish a program where employers can become designated as recovery-ready workplaces. This story was originally published by the New Hampshire Bulletin This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: NH Recovery Friendly Workplace serves model for national institute An ex-Wall Street banker who put $2m into a Wyoming coal mine has potentially received a colossal investment return after discovering rare earth elements worth $37bn at his reserve. Randall Atkins, the chairman and CEO of coal producer Ramaco Resources, which mainly operates in Virginia and West Virginia, bought the unassuming Brook Mine in Wyoming 12 years ago. Little did Mr Atkins know that waiting to be discovered for all those years were rare magnetic earth elements. In May 2023, everything changed for the company when it discovered a huge reserve of rare earth minerals. Mr Atkins is the son of Orin Atkins, the Ashland Oil tycoon who turned the regional oil company into a multinational conglomerate. The business magnate found himself in the middle of the 1970s Watergate scandal and was fined for illegally supplying corporate money to President Richard Nixons reelection campaign and also pled guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges for telling associates to sell confidential Ashland documents to Iran. The younger Mr Atkins learned from his father, whom he holds in deep admiration, and now avoids political matters within his company, according to the Wall Street Journal. After 18 months of drilling and chemical analysis, the site is thought to be home to the largest unconventional reserve of REEs in the United States, the company said in a news release in May. Ramaco Resources may have hit a $37 billion jackpot (SOPA Images/LightRocket via Gett) We view this as an exciting and perhaps transformative new direction for our company, Mr Atkins said at the time. Now, the company continues to drill deeper than it has ever before, down 700 feet into the mine to retrieve larger samples to analyse the elements in more detail, the Wall Street Journal reported. Brook Mines jackpot, which includes neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium, according to the company, should not be underestimated in its uses. These elements can be used in a plethora of modern technology used by high-stakes business ventures. This includes the production of electric vehicles, advanced military technology, offshore wind turbines, and medical devices, amongst other items. What were doing here is neat to younger people, Mr Atkins told The Wall Street Journal. Its novel, cutting-edge science and tech. Rare-earth deposits open up completely different horizons for this community. The impact this mine has is not limited to the success of the Ramaco Resources and its markets, but it may have wider implications for the US. The only other active mine of its kind is currently located near the Mojave Desert in California, the company said. If the analysis of the elements is positive, this would be the first new rare-earths mine in the US since 1952, the Wall Street Journal reported. Currently, the coal company was only permitted to mine on 4,500 acres of the 15,800 acres the site stretches across, but they said in the release they hope to expand their search. The reigning superpower of rare earth elements is China, which is the leading producer of graphite, which is essential to nearly all electric vehicle batteries. However, the country recently limited their exportation of two minerals, gallium and germanium, used in objects from missiles to computer chips, as a supposed retaliation to the US own export restrictions to China. The demand for these elements will not slow down anytime soon as modern technology relies on these materials. It is predicted that the undersupply of rare magnet elements will hit 60,000 tons by 2030, according to a report cited by Mining.com. If Mr Atkins chemical testing is successful, he hopes to undertake a mines to magnets strategy, focusing on manufacturing the elements for green energy ventures, such as permanent magnets for electric vehicles and wind turbines, the Wall Street Journal said. Ive kind of been the only one waving the flag for the third leg of the stool, which is to use coal for alternative purposes, and I think it has a great future in a more technologic use than what people have looked at before, Mr Atkins told Mining.com. Despite the possible strategies, the reserve could make Ramaco Resources very wealthy - the outlet said their current sales of metallurgical coal average at $184 per metric ton, whereas a rare earth material could be snagged at a humble $1m per metric ton. The ongoing analysis will inform the company how to go about mining and extracting the rare materials in the most effective way. The Independent has contacted Ramaco Resources for comment. President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Ukrainians on Sunday to prepare for new waves of Russian attacks on infrastructure as winter approached and said troops were anticipating an onslaught in the eastern theatre of the war. Zelensky issued his warning during his nightly video address a day after Russian forces carried out their first missile attack on the capital, Kyiv in some seven weeks. We are almost half way through November and must be prepared for the fact that the enemy may increase the number of drone or missile strikes on our infrastructure, Zelensky said. Last winter about 10 months into Russias invasion of neighbour Ukraine, Russia made waves of attacks on power stations and other plants inked to the energy network, prompting rolling blackouts in widely separated regions. It comes as Putins forces have ramped up their offensive as they push to regain territory near Bakhmut, the head of Ukraines ground forces wrote on Telegram. Ukrainian troops had recaptured the heights over Bakhmut and made some advances to the citys west, north and south since Kyiv launched its summer counteroffensive. Key Points Zelensky warns Ukrainians to prepare for winter onslaught from Russia Russia intensifies attacks in Avdiivka Strong explosions in Kyiv as Ukrainian capital comes under attack Two Russian landing boats filled with armoured vehicles destroyed Ukraine warns any peace talks with Russia are a trap' Volodymyr Zelensky says he is certain of battlefield success In pictures: Ukrainian forces battle in Avdiivka as Russia increases attacks on key city 06:00 , Tara Cobham Members of Ukraine's National Guard Omega Special Purpose unit fire a mortar toward Russian troops in the front line town of Avdiivka on Wednesday (REUTERS) Members of Ukraine's National Guard Omega Special Purpose fire a SPG-9 anti-tank grenade launcher toward Russian troops in the front line town of Avdiivka last week (REUTERS) Ukrainian servicemen move past a burning car hit by a kamikaze drone outside the front line town of Avdiivka on Wednesday (REUTERS) Recap: Husband of US journalist detained in Russia appeals for release 05:00 , Tara Cobham This wasnt how Pavel Butorin expected to celebrate his anniversary this week, with his wife of 21 years in a Russian prison and barely any communication available. Russian-American journalist, Alsu Kurmasheva who works as an editor for U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe has been detained in Russia for almost a month and charged with failing to self-register as a foreign agent. Alsu should be celebrating this anniversary with me and our children at home, not in a Russian prison, Butorin told The Associated Press in an interview in Prague on Friday. We want her back. Alsu must be released as soon as possible, he said, visibly shaken. Karel Janicek reports: 'We want her back,' husband of US journalist detained in Russia appeals for her immediate release Finnish Border Guard reports spike in asylum seekers from Russia 04:00 , Tara Cobham The Finnish Border Guard has reported a spike in asylum seekers arriving at the countrys southeastern border from Russia. In a statement on Sunday, it said 91 people have arrived at the border crossing points without required travel documents since the beginning of August, which is a higher number than usual, having travelled from a third country via Russia. It said this represents a change, as Russian authorities have previously not allowed travel from Russia to Finnish border crossing points if the passenger did not have the required travel documents. In its assessment, the Finnish Border Guard said: This is a phenomenon of illegal migration. International crime is probably also linked to the phenomenon. The number of illegal border crossings at the land border (areas outside of border crossing points) has not changed. Two Ukrainian women save almost 1,000 from pensions to buy drones' 03:00 , Tara Cobham Two Ukrainian women saved money from their pensions to buy drones for their countrys forces, according to the Advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. Liudmyla Skubriieva, from Rozhniativ, and her relative Halyna Hil, from Kyiv, together saved the equivalent of almost 1,000 to send two kamikaze drones to the 10th Mountain Assault Brigade Edelweiss, Anton Gerashchenko said on the social media platform X, alongside a photo of the pair. Two Ukrainian ladies saved money from their pensions to buy drones for Ukrainian defenders. Liudmyla Skubriieva from Rozhniativ and her relative from Kyiv, Halyna Hil, bought two kamikaze drones for the AFU. They collected almost UAH 20,000 each from their pensions. The drones pic.twitter.com/0igB9qcyJ6 Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) November 12, 2023 Germany set to double Ukraine military aid, according to source 02:00 , Tara Cobham German chancellor Olaf Scholz's governing coalition has agreed in principle to double the country's military aid for Ukraine next year to 8 billion euros ($8.5 billion), a political source in Berlin said on Sunday. If approved by parliament, where Scholz's parties hold a majority, the boost would lift Germany's defence spending to 2.1% of its gross domestic product target, beyond the 2% pledged by all North Atlantic Treaty Organization members, the source added. Lawmakers from Scholz's Social Democrats, the Free Democrats and the Green party agreed on the increase in negotiations over the proposed 2024 federal budget ahead of a formal meeting of the budget committee of the Bundestag - or lower house of parliament - on Thursday, Nov. 16, the source said. Bloomberg News first reported on the news on Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter. A spokesperson for Germany's Ministry of Defence said the Bundestag committee has not finished negotiations and declined to comment further. Defence minister Boris Pistorius, interviewed by broadcaster ARD, referred to the planned doubling of military aid to Ukraine. "It is a strong signal to Ukraine that we will not leave them in the lurch," he said, adding the move, if agreed, would mean the annual budget allocation would be enough to last the whole year. Recap: Ukraine destroys Russian landing boats in significant loss for Putin 01:00 , Tara Cobham Ukraine on Friday said its naval drones had destroyed two small Russian landing boats in Crimea, in an embarrassment for President Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian military intelligence said two amphibious Russian ships loaded with armoured vehicles had been hit by naval drones overnight. One of the boats was identified as an Akula class vessel, while the other landing vessel was a Serna class. Alisha Rahaman Sarkar reports: Ukraine destroys Russian landing boats in significant loss for Putin Recap: Watch Russia test intercontinental ballistic missiles from new submarine 00:00 , Tara Cobham Russia increases attacks on key city Avdiivka in attempt to gain ground Sunday 12 November 2023 23:00 , Tara Cobham Russian forces have also increased attacks on the key frontline city of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to gain ground, Ukrainian military officials said Sunday. Ukraine's General Staff said that Russian troops were also continuing their weekslong push to encircle Avdiivka, a Ukrainian stronghold south of Bakhmut and a key target since the beginning of the war. It's considered the gateway to parts of the eastern Donetsk region under Kyiv's control. The General Staff said Russia's air force was playing a key part in the latest assault. Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, who leads Ukrainian troops fighting in and near Avdiivka, said Sunday that the attacking Russian forces were ramping up airstrikes, particularly those using guided bombs. He wrote on Telegram that Russian troops had launched 30 airstrikes and 712 artillery barrages at the city and surrounding areas over the previous day, and clashed almost 50 times with Ukrainian units. A police officer stands in front of a damaged building, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the town of Avdiivka, Donetsk region, Ukraine, in October (REUTERS) Zelensky warns Ukrainians to prepare for winter onslaught from Russia Sunday 12 November 2023 22:05 , Joe Middleton President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Ukrainians on Sunday to prepare for new waves of Russian attacks on infrastructure as winter approached and said troops were anticipating an onslaught in the eastern theatre of the war. A military spokesman said Russian attacks on the shattered eastern town of Avdiivka had eased in the past day, but were likely to intensify in the coming days. And Ukrainian military intelligence said an explosion killed at least three Russian servicemen in the Russian-occupied southern town of Melitopol, which it described as an act of revenge by resistance groups. Zelenskiy issued his warning during his nightly video address a day after Russian forces carried out their first missile attack on the capital, Kyiv in some seven weeks. We are almost half way through November and must be prepared for the fact that the enemy may increase the number of drone or missile strikes on our infrastructure, Zelenskiy said. Russia is preparing for Ukraine. And here, in Ukraine, all attention should be focused on defence, on responding to terrorists on everything that Ukraine can do to get through the winter and improve our soldiers capabilities. Last winter about 10 months into Russias invasion of neighbour Ukraine, Russia made waves of attacks on power stations and other plants inked to the energy network, prompting rolling blackouts in widely separated regions. Energy Minister German Galushchenko said on Saturday that Ukraine would have enough energy resources to get through the winter, but added: The question is how much future attacks can affect supplies. Russia ramps up attacks on key city Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine Sunday 12 November 2023 22:00 , Tara Cobham Russian forces have ramped up attacks in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to gain ground near key frontline city Bakhmut, Ukrainian military officials said Sunday. Moscow's troops have begun a push to regain territory near Bakhmut, the eastern mining city that was the site of the war's bloodiest battle before falling into Russian hands in May, the head of Ukraine's ground forces wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Ukrainian troops had recaptured the heights over Bakhmut and made some advances west, north and south of the city since Kyiv launched its summer counteroffensive. "Toward Bakhmut, the Russians have become more active and are trying to recapture previously lost positions. ... Enemy attacks are being repelled," Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote in a Telegram update on Sunday afternoon. A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said Sunday that Russian forces over the previous day repelled five Ukrainian attacks near Klischiivka and Kurdyumivka, two small settlements lying south of Bakhmut. Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov made the claim at the latest of regular press briefings. Ukraine's long-awaited counteroffensive has so far resulted in only incremental gains and heavy losses, with Ukrainian troops struggling to punch through Russian lines in the south. Meanwhile, Moscow's forces have attempted to press forward in the northeast, likely with a view to distract Kyiv and minimize the number of troops Ukraine is able to send to key southern and eastern battles. Recap: Watch Zelenskys warning the war will go to other Nato countries if Russia wins Sunday 12 November 2023 21:00 , Tara Cobham Russian forces advance near Avdiivka, says think tank Sunday 12 November 2023 20:00 , Tara Cobham Russian forces have recently advanced near Avdiivka, according to a US war think tank. The Institute for the Study of War said Vladimir Putins forces temporarily intensified offensive operations in the area over the course of Friday and Saturday. It said this is likely to consolidate recent gains in the area. Russian forces have recently made confirmed advances near #Avdiivka and temporarily intensified offensive operations between November 10-11, likely to consolidate recent gains in the area. https://t.co/wivagUgj7S https://t.co/Cq1fVKbqwu pic.twitter.com/k3G52Lo59C Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) November 12, 2023 In pictures: Ukrainian forces continue to fight to retake Bakhmut Sunday 12 November 2023 19:00 , Tara Cobham Ukrainian forces continue to fight to retake Bakhmut, which was captured by Russian forces in May (Getty Images) Members of Ukraine's 56th Brigade fire participate in combat duty on Friday in the Bakhmut District of Ukraine (Getty Images) Over the summer, Ukraine regained territory north and south of Bakhmut but Russia has held the city itself (Getty Images) Blast kills three Russian officers in occupied town, says Ukrainian intelligence Sunday 12 November 2023 18:00 , Tara Cobham Ukraine's intelligence directorate said on Sunday that an explosion in the Russian-occupied town of Melitopol killed at least three Russian servicemen in an attack it described as an "act of revenge" by local underground groups. The blast occurred during a meeting on Saturday of Russian officers in the town, a hub of Russian forces in the south, the directorate within the defence ministry said in a statement. "This act of revenge, carried out by representatives of the local resistance, took place in the New Post offices seized by the Russians," it said. There was no mention of the incident from Russian officials. Reuters was unable to verify the Ukrainian statement. The intelligence statement said the meeting on Saturday at the local military headquarters was attended by Russian National Guard and FSB intelligence service officers. "As a result of the explosion at least three National Guard officers were killed at the headquarters," the statement said. "Information of other enemy losses is being clarified." The statement said police converged on the area and a burned-out car was later seen being towed through the town. Bidens reelection pitch when it comes to Ukraine Sunday 12 November 2023 17:00 , Tara Cobham US President Joe Biden is facing two wars on two continents, and the fallout from each conflict will shape a second term even if the fighting ends before that. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been going on for almost two years, and Israel and Hamas began their latest clash about a month ago. Biden wants to send military support to Ukraine and Israel, something that he describes as "vital" to U.S. national security interests. "History has taught us 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," he said in a recent Oval Office address. His plans will require challenging congressional negotiations. Some Republicans are resisting more assistance for Ukraine after Congress has already approved $113 billion in security, economic and humanitarian resistance. Both conflicts will likely require years of U.S. involvement. For example, Biden is looking for a new opportunity to push for a two-state solution in the Middle East, creating an independent Palestinian country alongside Israel. US President Joe Biden speaks at the National Veterans Day Observance at the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. on Saturday (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) Senior Ukrainian officer coordinated Nord Stream attack Sunday 12 November 2023 16:05 , Lydia Patrick A Ukrainian military officer coordinated last years attack on the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing anonymous sources in Ukraine and Europe. No one has taken responsibility for the September 2022 blasts, which occurred off the Danish island of Bornholm and ruptured three out of four lines of the system that delivers Russian gas to Europe. Washington and NATO called it an act of sabotage, while Moscow said it was an act of international terrorism. Roman Chervinsky, a former intelligence official who served in the Ukrainian militarys special forces, managed a six-person team but did not plan the attack, the Post reported. He denied involvement. A spokesperson for Ukraines military told Reuters he had no information about the claim. The Ukrainian foreign ministry and Kyivs domestic security service, the SBU, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. His commanding officer at the time, Maj. Gen. Viktor Hanushchak, told Ukrainian media earlier this year that senior military leadership had signed off on the plot to lure the Russian pilot. Morning light falls on the landfall facility of the Nord Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline and the transfer station of the OPAL gas pipeline, the Baltic Sea Pipeline Link, in Lubmin, Germany, on July 21, 2022 (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) Russian troops continue effort to encircle Avdiivka Sunday 12 November 2023 13:30 , Lydia Patrick Ukraines General Staff said that Russian troops were also continuing their weekslong push to encircle Avdiivka, an Ukrainian stronghold south of Bakhmut and a key target since the beginning of the war. Its considered the gateway to parts of the eastern Donetsk region under Kyivs control. The General Staff said the air force was playing a key part in the latest Russian assault.Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, who leads Ukrainian troops fighting in and near Avdiivka, said Sunday that the attacking Russian forces were ramping up airstrikes, particularly those using guided bombs. He wrote on Telegram that Russian troops over the previous day had launched 30 airstrikes and 712 artillery barrages at the city and surrounding areas, and clashed almost 50 times with Ukrainian units. An elderly civilian woman stands with a cat on the balcony of her destroyed house in the city of Avdiivka (Getty Images) Russia ramps up attacks on key cities in eastern Ukraine Sunday 12 November 2023 12:35 , Lydia Patrick Moscows troops have begun a push to regain territory near Bakhmut, the eastern mining city that was the site of the wars bloodiest battle before falling into Russian hands in May, the head of Ukraines ground forces wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Ukrainian troops had recaptured the heights over Bakhmut and made some advances to the citys west, north and south since Kyiv launched its summer counteroffensive. Toward Bakhmut, the Russians have become more active and are trying to recapture previously lost positions. ... Enemy attacks are being repelled, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote in a Telegram update on Sunday afternoon. Ukraines long-awaited counteroffensive has so far resulted in only incremental gains and heavy losses, with Ukrainian troops struggling to punch through Russian lines in the south. Meanwhile, Moscows forces have attempted to press forward in the northeast, likely with a view to distract Kyiv and minimize the number of troops it is able to send to key southern and eastern battles. The Ukrainian ground forces spokesperson similarly reported that Russian troops had switched from defense to active defense near Bakhmut, putting pressure on Ukrainian troops south of the city. Vladimir Fityo made the remarks on Ukrainian TV, adding that Russian troops were searching for weak points in Ukrainian defenses and ramping up artillery strikes on Ukrainian positions. Dozens of Russians are said to make up the Siberian Battalion (Getty Images) Germany set to double Ukraine military aid under Scholz plan Sunday 12 November 2023 12:05 , Lydia Patrick German chancellor Olaf Scholzs governing coalition has agreed in principle to double the countrys military aid for Ukraine next year to 8 billion euros ($8.5 billion), a political source in Berlin said. If approved by parliament, where Scholzs parties hold a majority, the boost would lift Germanys defence spending to 2.1% of its gross domestic product target, beyond the 2% pledged by all North Atlantic Treaty Organization members, the source added. Lawmakers of Scholzs Social Democrats, the Free Democrats and the Green party agreed on the increase in negotiations over the proposed 2024 federal budget ahead of a formal meeting of the budget committee of the Bundestag - or lower house of parliament - on Thursday, Nov. 16, the source said. A spokesperson for Germanys Ministry of Defence said the Bundestag committee has not finished negotiations and declined to comment further. Germanys Bild am Sonntag newspaper also said the committee is due to approve the additional 4 billion euros. Doubling the military spending is both the right thing to do and important, it quoted member of parliament Andreas Schwarz, who acts as an SPD military budget official, as saying. With the move we will underscore our promise to Ukraine with the necessary funds. The fact that we will also be able to fulfil our NATO obligation is a great success of the ... coalition, he was reported as saying. A European Union plan to spend up to 20 billion euros ($21.4 billion) on military aid for Ukraine is meeting with resistance from EU countries, diplomats said this week. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz greets 102-year-old German Holocaust survivor Margot Friedlaender (POOL/AFP/Getty) 'We want her back,' husband of US journalist detained in Russia appeals for her immediate release Sunday 12 November 2023 11:30 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain This wasnt how Pavel Butorin expected to celebrate his anniversary this week, with his wife of 21 years in a Russian prison and barely any communication available. Russian-American journalist, Alsu Kurmasheva who works as an editor for U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe has been detained in Russia for almost a month and charged with failing to self-register as a foreign agent. Alsu should be celebrating this anniversary with me and our children at home, not in a Russian prison, Butorin told The Associated Press in an interview in Prague on Friday. We want her back. Alsu must be released as soon as possible, he said, visibly shaken. 'We want her back,' husband of US journalist detained in Russia appeals for her immediate release Putin drafting Wagner Group mercenaries into national guard, UK says Sunday 12 November 2023 10:57 , Lydia Patrick Large elements of the Wagner Group mercenary group are likely serving in Russias National Guard, says the UKs Ministry of Defence. Rosgvardiyas national guard is thought to be led by Pavel Prigozhin, the son of the late Yevgeny Prigozhin - the Wagner leader who died in a plane crash in August of this year soon after the rebel group captured Rostov-on-Don. Other Wagner fighters are likely to have joined Redut, another Private Military Company, which have a total of 7,000 personnel, say the Ministry of Defence. Wagner group fighters also joined Chechen Akhmat special forces and 170 former Wagner fighters had already joined Akhmat, according to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. The UK government describes the Wagner mercenary group as a terrorist organisation. Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine 12 November 2023. Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/5yy8Og2gg3 #StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/y7g7HRnSxx Ministry of Defence (@DefenceHQ) November 12, 2023 Hungary's Orban says negotiations on Ukraine's future EU membership should not move forward Sunday 12 November 2023 10:30 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Hungarys prime minister said Friday he does not support moving forward on negotiations on Ukraines future membership in the European Union, signaling again that his country could pose a major roadblock to Kyivs ambitions to join the bloc. EU leaders are to decide in mid-December whether Ukraine should be formally invited to begin talks to join the 27-member union, with Hungary seen as a potential obstacle. Unanimity among all member states is required to admit a new country into the bloc, giving Hungarys prime minister, Viktor Orban, a powerful veto. The EUs executive branch on Wednesday recommended that Ukraine should be permitted to open membership talks once it has addressed some shortfalls. But in an interview with state radio on Friday, Orban said the embattled country is nowhere near gaining membership in the worlds largest trading bloc. Hungary's Orban says negotiations on Ukraine's future EU membership should not move forward Somber bugles and bells mark Armistice Day around the globe as wars drown out peace messages Sunday 12 November 2023 09:30 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain With somber bugles and bells from Australia to western Europes battlefields of World War I, people around the globe on Saturday remembered the slaughter and losses just over a century ago that was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Yet the rumble of tanks and the screeching of incoming fire from Ukraine to Gaza pierced the solemnity of the occasion and the notion that humankind could somehow circumvent violence to settle its worst differences. This time last year, our thoughts were focused on Ukraine. Today, our minds are full with the terrible images emerging from Israel and Gaza. These are just two of the more than 100 armed conflicts in the world today, said Benoit Mottrie, the head of the Last Post Association in western Belgiums Ypres, where some of the fiercest and deadliest World War I battles were fought. Somber bugles and bells mark Armistice Day around the globe as wars drown out peace messages Two Russian landing boats filled with armoured vehicles destroyed by Ukraine in significant loss for Putin Sunday 12 November 2023 08:51 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Ukraine on Friday said its naval drones had destroyed two small Russian landing boats in Crimea, in an embarrassment for President Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian military intelligence said two amphibious Russian ships loaded with armoured vehicles had been hit by naval drones overnight. One of the boats was identified as an Akula class vessel, while the other landing vessel was a Serna class. The results of intelligence conducted on 10 November 2023 near Vuzka Bay in temporarily occupied Crimea show that after an attack by naval drones, two small Russian landing ships have been destroyed, a Ukraine military report said. Ukraine destroys Russian landing boats in significant loss for Putin What the Republican candidates have said on the war in Ukraine Sunday 12 November 2023 07:00 , Tara Cobham As President Joe Biden likes to remind anyone who will listen, This is not your grandfathers Republican Party. That has never been more evident than when examining the way the 2024 Republican presidential candidates approach the topic of Ukraine. Support for Ukraine is dividing the GOP field. Several candidates believe the US should continue to support the war effort a stance that adheres to more traditional Republican foreign policy beliefs. Gustaf Kilander and Ariana Baio report: What are the Republican candidates views on the war in Ukraine Recap: EUs 20 billion euro plan for Ukraine military aid hits resistance Sunday 12 November 2023 06:00 , Tara Cobham A European Union plan to spend up to 20 billion euros ($21.4 billion) on military aid for Ukraine is meeting resistance from EU countries and may not survive in its current form, diplomats have said. Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign policy chief, proposed in July that the bloc create a fund with up to 5 billion euros a year over four years as part of broader Western security commitments to bolster Ukraine as it fights Russia's invasion. But as EU defence ministers prepare to discuss the plan in Brussels on Tuesday, diplomats say multiple countries - including EU heavyweight Germany - have voiced reservations about committing such large sums years in advance. The EU and its members have been among the biggest donors of military aid to Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022, providing arms and equipment worth some 25 billion euros, according to the bloc's diplomatic service. Borrell's proposal was an effort to put support on a longer-term footing, by creating a cash pot for Ukraine aid inside a bigger fund, the European Peace Facility, used to reimburse EU members for military assistance to other countries. "I'm not going to declare it dead at this point yet. But of course, improvements can always be made," a senior EU diplomat said on Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Germany has had a lot of questions ... and rightfully so. We're talking about a lot of money." Ukraines current frontline stalemate with Russia is hurting Kyiv Sunday 12 November 2023 05:00 , Askold Krushelnycky Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that his troops can still deliver results on the frontline and says that country has a battlefield plan for 2024, without revealing details. "We have a plan. We have very concrete cities, very [concrete] directions where we go. I can't share all the details but we have some slow steps forward on the south, also we have steps on the east," he said. "And some, I think good steps ... near Kherson region. I am sure we'll have success. It's difficult." Ukrainian forces have been trying to establish a bridgehead on the eastern, Russian-occupied, bank of the vast Dnipro river in Kherson region. A rapid counteroffensive liberated the region west of the Dnipro and its capital, Kherson City, almost exactly a year ago. Read more here: Analysis: Ukraines current frontline stalemate with Russia is hurting Kyiv Recap: Watch Zelensky saying Russian soldiers must go out of Ukraine to end war Sunday 12 November 2023 04:00 , Tara Cobham Polish President warns of threat of Russian imperialism on Independence Day holiday Sunday 12 November 2023 03:00 , Tara Cobham The Polish President warned that Russian imperialism once again threatens not just Ukraine but the wider region as Poland celebrated its Independence Day holiday. Thousands of people walked through Warsaw on Saturday in a march organized by nationalist groups, 105 years after the nation regained its statehood at the end of World War I. Participants carried Poland's white-and-red flag and some burned flares as they marched along a route leading from the city center to the National Stadium. President Andrzej Duda delivered a speech at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier where he warned: "Russian imperialism will go further: it will want to seize more nations, taking away their freedom and their states. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sent Poland a message on X, formerly Twitter, telling Poles: "May your independence be invincible and eternal." While many patriotic events take place across the nation of 38 million each year, the yearly Independence March has come to dominate news coverage because it has sometimes been marred by xenophobic slogans and violence. This years event was attended by some 40,000 and passed off peacefully, the Warsaw mayor, Rafal Trzaskowski, said. People take part in the Independence March 'Poland Is Not Yet Lost' in Warsaw, Poland on Saturday (EPA) Russian forces preparing for large-scale winter strike, says think tank Sunday 12 November 2023 02:00 , Tara Cobham Russian forces have been launching significantly smaller and less frequent drone strikes against Ukraine over the past month compared to previous months ahead of an anticipated large-scale winter strike, according to a US war think tank. The Institute for the Study of War added that Vladimir Putins forces continue to struggle with low morale and poor discipline. #Russian forces are launching significantly smaller and less frequent drone strikes against #Ukraine in the past month than in previous months ahead of an anticipated large-scale winter strike campaign. Russian forces continue to struggle with low morale and poor discipline. 4/8 Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) November 11, 2023 Ukrainian border guard filmed reuniting with young daughter after months Sunday 12 November 2023 01:00 , Tara Cobham A Ukrainian border guard has been captured hugging his daughter as the two reunited having spent months apart as a result of the war. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence posted the touching footage on social media of Stanislav and his child Mia embracing after the pair were separated for five months. Family reunion. Border guard Stanislav hugs his daughter Mia after five months apart. : @DPSU_ua pic.twitter.com/VkRjYnIspz Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) November 10, 2023 Orban says negotiations on Ukraines EU membership shouldn't move forward Sunday 12 November 2023 00:00 , Tara Cobham Hungarys prime minister said Friday he does not support moving forward on negotiations on Ukraines future membership in the European Union, signaling again that his country could pose a major roadblock to Kyivs ambitions to join the bloc. EU leaders are to decide in mid-December whether Ukraine should be formally invited to begin talks to join the 27-member union, with Hungary seen as a potential obstacle. Unanimity among all member states is required to admit a new country into the bloc, giving Hungarys prime minister, Viktor Orban, a powerful veto. The EUs executive branch on Wednesday recommended that Ukraine should be permitted to open membership talks once it has addressed some shortfalls. But in an interview with state radio on Friday, Orban said the embattled country is nowhere near gaining membership in the worlds largest trading bloc. Justin Spike reports: Hungary's Orban says negotiations on Ukraine's future EU membership should not move forward Freight cars carrying cargo in Russias Ryazan region were derailed by improvised explosive device' Saturday 11 November 2023 23:34 , Joe Middleton Freight cars carrying cargo in Russias Ryazan region were derailed Saturday morning by an improvised explosive device, Russian law enforcement said. Nineteen carriages traveling from the town of Rybnoye were thrown from the tracks and 15 were damaged, investigators wrote in a statement on social media. They said they would be opening a criminal investigation on terrorism charges. Both the train driver and assistant train driver received medical attention at the scene. Russian officials have previously blamed pro-Ukrainian saboteurs for several attacks on the countrys railway system since Moscow invaded the country in February 2022, although no group has claimed responsibility for the damage. Kyiv has not commented on Saturdays attacks. Recap: Watch Ramaswamy appearing to call Ukraines Zelensky a Nazi Saturday 11 November 2023 23:00 , Tara Cobham Husband of US journalist detained in Russia appeals for immediate release Saturday 11 November 2023 22:00 , Tara Cobham This wasnt how Pavel Butorin expected to celebrate his anniversary this week, with his wife of 21 years in a Russian prison and barely any communication available. Russian-American journalist, Alsu Kurmasheva who works as an editor for U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe has been detained in Russia for almost a month and charged with failing to self-register as a foreign agent. Alsu should be celebrating this anniversary with me and our children at home, not in a Russian prison, Butorin told The Associated Press in an interview in Prague on Friday. We want her back. Alsu must be released as soon as possible, he said, visibly shaken. Karel Janicek reports: Kherson is symbol of heroism and hope, says Zelenskyy on liberation anniversary Saturday 11 November 2023 21:00 , Tara Cobham Volodymyr Zelenskyy has described Kherson as a symbol of heroism and hope on the day the city marks one year since Ukraine retook it from occupying Russian forces. The Ukrainian President posted on X: Kherson is a symbol of heroism and hope. It is a city of our people who have not bowed down to the enemy and inspired all of us and the entire world with their resistance. Kherson is a symbol of heroism and hope. It is a city of our people who have not bowed down to the enemy and inspired all of us and the entire world with their resistance. Last year, Ukraines entire south saw that Russia never comes forever, no matter how many times it says pic.twitter.com/c3U4WjAUFo Volodymyr Zelenskyy / (@ZelenskyyUa) November 11, 2023 In pictures: Russias overnight strike on Kyiv Saturday 11 November 2023 20:00 , Tara Cobham People sit in a metro station to shelter from an air raid, during Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv (REUTERS) Missile traces are seen in the sky over the city after a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv (REUTERS) One year after liberation, Ukrainians in Kherson hold on to hope amid constant shelling Saturday 11 November 2023 19:00 , Tara Cobham One year since Ukraine retook the city of Kherson from occupying Russian forces, residents have grown accustomed to hearing outgoing fire from the left bank of the Dnieper river, where Russian troops are positioned. They know that familiar crackle means they have seven seconds to find a shelter, or a sturdy wall to hide behind. Their lives are mostly limited to the comfort of home and the necessity of the supermarket. Many shops are still shuttered. Municipal workers wear bullet-proof vests and wait to be dispatched to sweep up the rubble from yet another impact. Between lulls of artillery fire coming from the river, which marks the contact line between battling armies in the Kherson region, Ukrainians venture out to buy food, bicycle down grassy residential lanes or convene in the few restaurants that dare to remain open. Marking the anniversary of Russia's defeat on 11 November is a bittersweet occasion, many residents say, as Ukraine's counteroffensive grinds on without producing the spectacular gains many had hoped for. But those who stay are steadfast in their belief that one day normal life will return. "When you have lived under occupation, you know what freedom means," said Grigori Malov, who owns one out of three restaurants still operating in the city. "It's why we have a special attitude toward the continued shelling. We can withstand it because we know how it could be worse." The flight of Russian troops from Kherson under prolonged Ukrainian assault a year ago was one of Ukraine's biggest successes in the war and was seen as an inflection point. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy triumphantly walked the streets of the newly liberated city back then, hailing Russia's withdrawal as the "beginning of the end of the war." Many hoped it would serve as a springboard for more advances into occupied territory. Today, both sides are locked in a stalemated battle of attrition. People hold national flags and pose for a photo as the city marks one year since Ukraine retook the city of Kherson from occupying Russian forces, in central square in Kherson (AP) Armistice Day marked around globe as wars drown out peace messages Saturday 11 November 2023 18:00 , Tara Cobham With somber bugles and bells from Australia to western Europes battlefields of World War I, people around the globe on Saturday remembered the slaughter and losses just over a century ago that was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Yet the rumble of tanks and the screeching of incoming fire from Ukraine to Gaza pierced the solemnity of the occasion and the notion that humankind could somehow circumvent violence to settle its worst differences. This time last year, our thoughts were focused on Ukraine. Today, our minds are full with the terrible images emerging from Israel and Gaza. These are just two of the more than 100 armed conflicts in the world today, said Benoit Mottrie, the head of the Last Post Association in western Belgiums Ypres, where some of the fiercest and deadliest World War I battles were fought. Raf Casert and Marta Fiorin report: Somber bugles and bells mark Armistice Day around the globe as wars drown out peace messages Recap: Watch footage Ukraine releases of damaged Russian ship in Crimea Saturday 11 November 2023 17:00 , Tara Cobham ICYMI - A Russian missile hits a Liberia-flagged ship in Odesa, Ukraine's main Black Sea port Saturday 11 November 2023 16:00 , Lydia Patrick A Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian port of Odesa hit a Liberian-flagged freighter, killing a port worker and wounding another, as well as three citizens of the Philippines, crew members on the ship, Ukraines armed forces said Thursday. The report did not give the name of the ship or the country of its owners, but Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said the ship was to carry iron ore to China. The extent of the damage was not immediately reported. The Odesa port and others in the region are economically vital to Ukraine as its outlets to the Black Sea, from which ships can head for world markets. Odesa port facilities have come under Russian attack 21 times since Russia in August declined to renew a deal allowing Ukraine to safely export grain via the Black Sea, Kubrakov said. A Russian missile hits a Liberia-flagged ship in Odesa, Ukraine's main Black Sea port ICYMI - Two Russian landing boats filled with armoured vehicles destroyed by Ukraine in significant loss for Putin Saturday 11 November 2023 15:00 , Lydia Patrick Ukraine on Friday said its naval drones have destroyed two small Russian landing boats in Crimea, in an embarrassment for president Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian military intelligence said two amphibious Russian ships loaded with armoured vehicles had been hit by naval drones overnight. One of the boats has been identified as an Akula class vessel, while the other landing vessel was a Serna class. The results of intelligence conducted on 10 November 2023 near Vuzka Bay in temporarily occupied Crimea show that after an attack by naval drones, two small Russian landing ships have been destroyed, a Ukraine military report said. Ukraine destroys Russian landing boats in significant loss for Putin Ongoing wars drown out calls for peace Saturday 11 November 2023 14:10 , Lydia Patrick With somber bugles and bells from Australia to western Europes battlefields of World War I, people around the globe on Saturday remembered the slaughter and losses just over a century ago that was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Yet the rumble of tanks and the screeching of incoming fire from Ukraine to Gaza pierced the solemnity of the occasion and the notion that humankind could somehow circumvent violence to settle its worst differences. This time last year, our thoughts were focused on Ukraine. Today, our minds are full with the terrible images emerging from Israel and Gaza. These are just two of the more than 100 armed conflicts in the world today, said Benoit Mottrie, the head of the Last Post Association in western Belgiums Ypres, where some of the fiercest and deadliest World War I battles were fought. During a ceremony with Prime Minister Alexander De Croo and dozens of dignitaries, Mottrie expressed the sense of powerlessness that so many feel that the lessons of the past cannot automatically be translated into peace today. It would be naive to think that our presence here in Ypres will have any direct impact on any of the 100 conflicts. The emotions of those involved are too raw for us to understand, and for them to see the light of what we regard as reason, Mottrie said. France Armistice Day ((Ludovic Marin/Pool via AP)) A recap of overnight strikes Saturday 11 November 2023 12:45 , Lydia Patrick Russian forces targeted Ukraines capital, Kyiv, as part of an overnight bombardment felt across the country, local officials said Saturday, while drones that Russian officials blamed on the Ukrainian military targeted areas around Moscow and the region of Smolensk. A ballistic missile was shot down as it approached the Ukrainian capital, said Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration. He said that no one was injured. The Ukrainian air force later confirmed an Iskander-M missile ballistic missile was used in the attack, the first attempted missile strike on Kyiv in almost two months. The missile was destroyed by the countrys Patriot air defense system.Ukraines air defense systems actively repelled attacks in Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Poltava, Sumy, and Kirovohrad regions. The countrys air force said Russian troops launched 31 Shahed-136/131 drones, of which 19 were shot down. The strike in the Odesa region damaged the citys port infrastructure and a small community of cottages, injuring three people including a 96-year-old woman, said regional governor, Oleh Kiper. Russias military spokesperson, Yuri Ihnat, also said they launched an X-31 aircraft missile, an Onyx anti-ship missile, and an S-300 anti-aircraft guided missile targeting Ukraine overnight, but did not give further details. Russias defense ministry also said it shot down two Ukrainian drones over the Smolensk and Moscow regions.Smolensk governor, Vasiliy Anokhin, said that no one was hurt in the attack. Municipal workers wearing protective vests clear autumn leaves from the streets in Kherson, Ukraine (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.) Russian train carriages derail due to 'unauthorized interference' Saturday 11 November 2023 12:15 , Lydia Patrick Trains carrying cargo in Russias Ryazan region were derailed Saturday morning due to unauthorized interference, Moscow rail operator MZHD said.Russian law enforcement said that 15 train carriages had been derailed southeast of the capital, while MZHD reported the number as 19. Several Russian media outlets also reported that an explosion was heard in the vicinity on Saturday morning, although this could not be independently verified by The Associated Press.Russian officials have previously blamed pro-Ukrainian saboteurs for several attacks on the countrys railway system since Moscow invaded the country in February 2022, although no group has claimed responsibility for the damage.Kyiv has not commented on Saturdays attacks. Russian Railways Company employees works at the side of derailed train carriages carrying cargo in Ryazan region, Russia. Train carriages carrying cargo in Russias Ryazan region were derailed Saturday morning due to unauthorized interference 'We want her back,' husband of US journalist detained in Russia appeals for her immediate release Saturday 11 November 2023 11:37 , Lydia Patrick Russian-American journalist, Alsu Kurmasheva who works as an editor for U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe has been detained in Russia for almost a month and charged with failing to self-register as a foreign agent. Alsu should be celebrating this anniversary with me and our children at home, not in a Russian prison, Butorin told The Associated Press in an interview in Prague on Friday. We want her back. Alsu must be released as soon as possible, he said, visibly shaken. Kurmasheva was detained on Oct 18, becoming the second U.S. journalist detained in Russia this year, after Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested on espionage charges in March. She is being held in a detention center, awaiting a trial that could sentence her to up to five years in prison.Her ordeal began in May when she decided to travel to Russias Tatarstan to see her ailing, elderly mother for what was supposed to be a short trip. On June 2, she was about to board a return plane for home at Kazan International Airport when she was temporarily detained, both her passports and phone seized and fined for failing to register her U.S. passport with Russian authorities. But before Alsu was able to pay the fine that was eventually issued, she was charged with a much more serious offense, and that is failure to register as a foreign agent, Butorin said. The state-run news website Tatar-Inform said Kurmasheva faces charges of failing to register as a foreign agent and was collecting information on Russian military activities in order to transmit information to foreign sources. ICYMI - Saturday 11 November 2023 11:07 , Lydia Patrick Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the Southern Military District headquarters in Rostov-on-Don as he assessed the state of his countrys forces in Ukraine as the war drags on toward winter. It was his second public visit to the headquarters in less than a month. Video shared by a Russian state news agency showed Putin being greeted late Thursday by Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff. Almost 21 months of war have significantly eroded both Russias and Ukraines military resources. As winter comes, the fighting is likely to further settle into attritional warfare and analysts expect little change to the more than 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line. Putin and top military leaders visit southern military headquarters to assess his war in Ukraine A recap of last nights strike on Kyiv Saturday 11 November 2023 10:30 , Lydia Patrick Russia launched a missile attack on Ukraines capital Kyiv and the nearby region for the first time in weeks and pounded the east and south of the country with drones, Ukrainian officials said. Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv city military administration, said a Russian ballistic missile was launched toward the capital at about 08:00 a.m.(0600 GMT). After a long pause of 52 days, the enemy has resumed missile attacks on Kyiv, Popko said on the Telegram messaging app. The missile failed to reach Kyiv, air defenders shot it down as it was approaching the capital. Popko said there were no casualties or major damage in the capital. Ruslan Kravchenko, regional governor for the central Kyiv region, said five private houses and several commercial buildings in the area were damaged. He said two Russian missiles struck a field between settlements. Ukraines air defenders also shot down 19 Iranian-made Shahed drones out of 31 launched by the Russian forces in the overnight attack on southern and eastern regions, the air force said in a statement. Oleh Kiper, Odesas regional governor, said the southern region was attacked with missiles and drones on Friday evening and overnight. The strikes wounded three people and damaged port infrastructure facilities, he said without offering further details. Russia has intensified its bombardments of Ukraines ports, including Odesa, and grain infrastructure since July when Moscow pulled out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a wartime deal that enabled Ukraines exports to reach many countries facing the threat of hunger. Missile traces are seen in the sky over the city after a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine (REUTERS) North Korea condemns Blinkens remarks on Pyongyangs relations with Russia Saturday 11 November 2023 10:00 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar North Korea has condemned US Secretary of State Antony Blinkens comments on North Korea-Russia relations. Mr Blinken said on Thursday he shared South Korean concerns about growing military cooperation between North Korea and Russia, which he called a two-way street. The US should be accustomed to the new reality of the DPRK-Russia relations, North Koreas foreign ministry said. No matter what others may say, the friendly and cooperative relations between the DPRK and Russia aspiring after independence, peace and friendship will steadily grow stronger, the statement added. Ukraine shoots down 19 Shahed drones Saturday 11 November 2023 09:28 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar Russia on Saturday launched a missile attack on Ukraines capital Kyiv and the nearby region for the first time in weeks. Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv city military administration, said a Russian ballistic missile was launched toward the capital at about 8am (local time). After a long pause of 52 days, the enemy has resumed missile attacks on Kyiv, Mr Popko said. The missile failed to reach Kyiv, air defenders shot it down as it was approaching the capital. Ukraine said its air defenders shot down 19 Iranian-made Shahed drones out of 31 launched by the Russian forces in the overnight attack on southern and eastern regions. Putin and top military leaders visit southern military headquarters Saturday 11 November 2023 08:30 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar Russian president Vladimir Putin visited the Southern Military District headquarters in Rostov-on-Don as he assessed the state of his countrys forces in Ukraine. It was his second public visit to the headquarters in less than a month. Video shared by a Russian state news agency showed MrPutin being greeted late Thursday by defence minister Minister Sergey Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff. Almost 21 months of war have significantly eroded both Russias and Ukraines military resources. As winter comes, the fighting is likely to further settle into attritional warfare and analysts expect little change to the more than 1,000km front line. In Rostov-on-Don, less than 100km from Ukraines southeastern border, Mr Putin was introduced to new types of military equipment and was informed about the progress of the war, his spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, according to Russian state news agency Tass. More here. Putin and top military leaders visit southern military headquarters to assess his war in Ukraine Two Russian landing boats filled with armoured vehicles destroyed Saturday 11 November 2023 08:00 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar Ukraine on Friday said its naval drones have destroyed two small Russian landing boats in Crimea, in an embarrassment for president Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian military intelligence said two amphibious Russian ships loaded with armoured vehicles had been hit by naval drones overnight. One of the boats has been identified as an Akula class vessel, while the other landing vessel was a Serna class. The results of intelligence conducted on 10 November 2023 near Vuzka Bay in temporarily occupied Crimea show that after an attack by naval drones, two small Russian landing ships have been destroyed, a Ukraine military report said. More here. Ukraine destroys Russian landing boats in significant loss for Putin 'Strong explosions in Kyiv as Ukrainian capital comes under attack Saturday 11 November 2023 07:52 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar Russian air strikes targeted Ukraines capital Kyiv on Saturday, in a first attack since September, the city mayor said. There was no immediate information on if there were any casualties.Strong explosions were heard on the left bank of the capital, mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram. Preliminary, air defence was working against ballistic (missiles). Air alerts for Kyiv and a nearby region were announced just minutes before the explosions were heard as city authorities urged residents to stay in shelters. The White House reacted to House Speaker Mike Johnsons (R-La.) new stopgap funding bill Saturday, calling it extreme. This proposal is just a recipe for more Republican chaos and more shutdowns full stop, a statement from White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre read. With just days left before an Extreme Republican Shutdown and after shutting down Congress for three weeks after they ousted their own leader House Republicans are wasting precious time with an unserious proposal that has been panned by members of both parties. An Extreme Republican Shutdown would put critical national security and domestic priorities at risk, including by forcing service members to work without pay, Jean-Pierre continued. This comes just days after House Republicans were forced to pull two of their own extreme appropriations bills from the floor further deepening their dysfunction. The bill, a laddered continuing resolution (CR), would result in some funding running out in mid-January and the rest running out in early February. It tries to dissuade negotiation on a whole-of-government omnibus funding bill and attempts to push for the two houses of Congress to negotiate on the 12 regular funding bills. This two-step continuing resolution is a necessary bill to place House Republicans in the best position to fight for conservative victories, Johnson posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. The bill will stop the absurd holiday-season omnibus tradition of massive, loaded up spending bills introduced right before the Christmas recess. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) had a positive response to the bill, saying he is asking all congressional Republicans to support his decision. Speaker Johnson did not create the mess we are in, but is acting responsibly to avoid a shutdown and put an end to the finely-honed process that has mortgaged our childrens future, Sen. Johnson posted on X. Sen. Johnsons Democratic colleague, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), appeared to have a polar opposite reaction to the CR. We are going to pass a clean short term CR. The only question is whether we do it stupidly and catastrophically or we do it like adults, Schatz posted on X. Theres nothing inherently conservative about making simple things super convoluted, and all of this nonsense costs taxpayer money. The bill does not include any aid to Israel amid its conflict with the Palestinian militant group Hamas. House GOP members passed a $14.3 billion package for aid to Israel earlier this month, but it also included $14.3 billion in cuts to IRS funding and earned fierce opposition from Democrats in Washington. Speaker Johnsons fellow House Republican, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), also stated his opposition to the CR. My opposition to the clean CR just announced by the Speaker to the @HouseGOP cannot be overstated. Funding Pelosi level spending & policies for 75 days for future promises,' Roy posted to X. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. In this Feb. 9, 2023, image provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the female Mexican gray wolf F2754 in a capture box at the agency's wolf management facility at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge in central New Mexico. Federal biologists confirmed Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023, that the wolf has traveled beyond the boundaries of the Mexican gray wolf recovery area for the second time. Lower Yakima Valley Latinx Coalition members and candidates, from left to right, Yasmin Barrios, Keren Vazquez, Sandra Zesati, Jorge Galvan and Anna Saenz look at early election returns at the Yakima County Courthouse Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023, in Yakima, Wash. New Delhi: Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai, extended Diwali greetings to those celebrating globally and shared insights about the surge in 'why questions' trending on the search engine, attributed to people's increased queries regarding the Hindu festival. Accompanied by a GIF of a lit diya, Pichai expressed, "Happy Diwali to all who celebrate! Were seeing lots of interest about Diwali traditions on Search. Here are a few of the top trending 'why' questions worldwide." Trending why questions on Diwali: Diwali: Why do Indians Celebrate Diwali? Rangoli: Why do we make Rangoli on Diwali? Light: Why do we light lamps on Diwali? Puja: Why is Lakshmi Puja done on Diwali? Oil: Why an oil bath on Diwali? Happy Diwali to all who celebrate! Were seeing lots of interest about Diwali traditions on Search, here are a few of the top trending why questions worldwide: https://t.co/6ALN4CvVwb pic.twitter.com/54VNnF8GqO Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) November 12, 2023 Diwali, also known as Deepawali, stands as one of the significant Hindu festivals celebrated in many parts of the country. Its origins are linked to the return of Lord Ram to Ayodhya, the ancient city in Northern India, after his 14-year exile, as per tradition. Upon his return, the citizens of Ayodhya illuminated oil lamps as a mark of celebration. Since then, Hindus have been celebrating Diwali, symbolizing the victory of light over darkness by lighting oil lamps. Creating a vibrant and festive ambiance for Diwali doesn't have to be a daunting task. Incorporating these simple DIY ideas will not only infuse your home with festive spirit but also allow you to unleash your creativity. Enjoy the process of making your home radiant and welcoming for the Festival of Lights. Here are 10 easy DIY home decoration ideas that will add a touch of sparkle and warmth to your space, making it perfect for the festival of lights. Rangoli Designs: Start with the traditional art of rangoli. Use vibrant colored powders, rice, or flower petals to create intricate designs at your doorstep. This not only adds a pop of color but also symbolizes the welcoming of guests. Also read: Diwali Lakshmi Puja Shubh Muhurat 2023: Know City-Wise Timings HERE DIY Diyas: Personalize your Diwali lighting by decorating plain clay diyas with paints, glitter, or even beads. Place these handcrafted diyas around your home or in clusters as centerpieces for a warm, personalized touch. Fairy Lights and Garlands: String fairy lights or marigold garlands across doorways, windows, and walls. These simple additions instantly create a festive atmosphere and enhance the overall lighting of your home. Candle Decor: Arrange candles of different sizes and shapes on decorative trays or plates. You can also place them inside glass jars or vases filled with colored sand for an elegant and sophisticated look. Paper Lanterns: Craft paper lanterns in various colors and hang them around your home. They are easy to make and add a whimsical touch to your Diwali decor. Experiment with different shapes and sizes for a dynamic look. Toran at the Entrance: Adorn your entrance with a handmade toran, a decorative hanging. Use materials like fabric, beads, or even old CDs to create a beautiful and auspicious welcome for your guests. Festive Wall Art: Print or create Diwali-themed wall art and frame it for a quick decor upgrade. This could include religious symbols, traditional patterns, or even inspirational quotes to set a positive tone. Floating Flowers and Candles: Fill bowls or trays with water and float vibrant flowers and candles. This not only looks beautiful but also brings a serene and calming effect to your home. Decorative Pooja Thali: Personalize your pooja thali by decorating it with colorful papers, beads, or even small mirrors. This adds a special touch to your Diwali prayers and rituals. Hand-painted Pottery: Transform plain clay pots or plates into works of art with hand-painted designs. These can be used as decorative pieces or even as serving dishes during your Diwali celebrations. New Delhi: We are all celebrating the festival of lights today! The much-awaited and anticipated festival of the year, Diwali deserves all the hype. It is the moment when we exchange presents with our loved ones. The age-old practice of giving gifts during Diwali is steeped in the belief that it ushers in good fortune and prosperity. From happy hampers to customised sweet boxes, try these unique gifts this festive season. 1. Solitaire Stud Elevate your Diwali gifting with the Galaxy Forevermark Solitaire Studs by Diamondtree! Crafted in Rose Gold, these exquisite earrings feature radiant De Beers Forevermark diamonds, capturing the brilliance of stardust. Inspired by the solar system, they symbolize celestial beauty and grace. This beautiful pair of studs can be customized in yellow gold and white gold as well. Gift a piece of the universe and let your loved ones shine like the stars this Diwali. 2. Smartwatch This Diwali, gift the women in your life the epitome of elegance and functionality with the Diva Smartwatch by Crossbeats. Crafted exclusively for women, this exquisite timepiece is a perfect fusion of style and innovation. Its elegant case design, adorned with 46 precious stones and a premium metal finish, makes it a captivating accessory for special occasions. Beyond its stunning appearance, the Diva Smartwatch offers advanced features, allowing women to effortlessly make calls via Bluetooth using clear AAC 3W speakers and receive notifications hassle-free. 3. Piece & Play A giant floor puzzle and a game, all in one! Assemble this 48-piece puzzle, available in 4 categories - Underwater Animals, Up in Space, Amazing Animals and Construction Site - and then enjoy 2 fun ways to play the search and find game. Have fun spotting the objects and guessing them using the cues or the cards. Piece & Play is a super engaging puzzle that is fun to assemble and easy to play. Key Skills - Observation, Fine Motor, Problem Solving and Process Planning. 4. Kidswear With open eyes, a fast heart rate, and a twinkling smile let's welcome the festive season and have a kurta pajama set with stand color and a self-designed front. The pajamas are elasticated for a better fit. The kurta is full-sleeved with a border at the ends which looks mesmerizing on your little ones. 5. Happy Hampers This year, BeeYoung celebrates #KuchAlagSiDiwali, redefining the traditional focus of gifting sweets with BeeYoungs exclusive festive hamper to their loved ones. Join us on this journey to explore new traditions, express your creativity, and celebrate togetherness. 6. Bakery Items Diwali, the celebration of lights and new beginnings, is around the corner; consequently, the buzz around desserts is skyrocketing. The auspicious festival is incomplete without exchanging gifts with the nearest and dearest ones, and what can be a better gift than a hamper filled with luscious and delectable desserts? When it comes to relishing the best desserts, Bakingo is the one-stop solution for them. We, an FSSAI-certified bakery, have a plethora of Diwali hampers that are a perfect amalgamation of lusciousness and festive happiness. 7. Sweets Soco, an offspring of the illustrious Seven Seas Hotel, carries a remarkable 30-year legacy in the food and beverage industry. This Diwali, Soco is thrilled to unveil an assortment of treats from the luscious Baklava and fragrant Kunafa to the exquisite Makroudh, delicate Macaroons, finest Ghana chocolate, and traditional Indian Sweets - Soco has it all. Prime Minister Narendra Modi today celebrated yet another Diwali with the armed forces keeping up with a tradition he started during his chief ministership. Speaking after meeting the soldiers deployed at the Lepcha border in Himachal Pradesh, PM Modi said that the place where soldiers are deployed is not less than a temple. Lepcha in Himachal Pradesh borders Tibet and is strategic given the Chinese threat to India. PM Modi also said that it has been over three decades since he started celebrating Diwali with soldiers. PM Modi also lauded security forces for their contribution to nation-building, enhancing the country's global prestige. During his address to the soldiers, PM Modi said that indigenous resources and top-class border infrastructure are India's strength today. He said that it's India's era where resolution, resources, courage and weapons - all will be Indian. "For me, a place where our security forces are deployed is no less than a temple...There has not been a single Diwali in the last 30-35 years, that I have not celebrated with you (Army jawans). When I was neither the Prime Minister nor the Chief Minister, I still used to go to the border on the occasion of Diwali," said PM Modi. Spending Diwali with our brave security forces in Lepcha, Himachal Pradesh has been an experience filled with deep emotion and pride. Away from their families, these guardians of our nation illuminate our lives with their dedication. pic.twitter.com/KE5eaxoglw Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 12, 2023 The Prime Minister said that the government is taking many steps for the empowerment of the soldiers. "Friends, the government is taking complete care of your and your families needs. We have got such dresses for our soldiers that can withstand inhuman temperature. Today, such drones are being manufactured in India that will not only empower our soldiers but will also save their lives," said PM Modi. PM Modi further added that soldiers staying away from their families show the pinnacle of their devotion to duty. ""Given the situation in the world today, expectations from India are continuously increasing. In such a situation, it is important that India's borders remain secure. We are creating an atmosphere of peace in the country and you have a big role in this. India is safe as long as our Army stands firm and unshakable like the Himalayas, on its borders...," said PM Modi. "India is rapidly emerging as a global player in defence sector. Now, we are moving ahead to fulfilling the defence-related needs of not only our country but also of friendly countries...Between Diwali in 2016 and now, India's defence exports have risen eightfold; domestic defence production now Rs 1 lakh crore," said PM Modi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi today reached Lepcha in Himachal Pradesh and celebrated Diwali with the soldiers of the Indian Army. This is the 10th Diwali that Modi celebrated with jawans since becoming prime minister in 2014. PM Modi shared photos on X (formerly Twitter) of his celebrations with jawans. "Reached Lepcha in Himachal Pradesh to celebrate Diwali with our brave security forces," said PM Modi on Twitter. Lepcha in Himachal Prades borders Tibet and is strategic given a threat from China. In another tweet, PM Modi said, "Spending Diwali with our brave security forces in Lepcha, Himachal Pradesh has been an experience filled with deep emotion and pride. Away from their families, these guardians of our nation illuminate our lives with their dedication." Spending Diwali with our brave security forces in Lepcha, Himachal Pradesh has been an experience filled with deep emotion and pride. Away from their families, these guardians of our nation illuminate our lives with their dedication. pic.twitter.com/KE5eaxoglw November 12, 2023 Reached Lepcha in Himachal Pradesh to celebrate Diwali with our brave security forces. pic.twitter.com/7vcFlq2izL Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 12, 2023 Troops of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police and the Indian Army are stationed at Lepcha near the border with China. Himachal Pradesh shares a 260-km porous border with China. Of the total length, 140 km is in tribal Kinnaur district, while 80 km is in the tribal Lahaul and Spiti district. Five ITBP battalions are deployed in 20 posts that guard the border with China. Last year, PM Modi had visited Kargil in Ladakh to celebrate Diwali with soldiers and said Diwali means the "festival of end of terror" and that Kargil had made it possible. In 2014, Prime Minister Modi spent Diwali in Siachen with soldiers. In this file photo, U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn speaks at the El Paso Republicans election watch party at Boot Barn Hall at Bourbon Brothers on Nov. 8, 2022. Lamborn was sworn in on Jan. 7, 2022, to a ninth term representing Colorado's 5th Congressional District. In a big success for the Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) of Uttar Pradesh Police, three students of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) have been arrested from Sambhal district on suspicion of being linked to the Aligarh module of ISIS. The students have been identified as Noman, Nazim and Naved. According to sources, terrorist propaganda literature has also been recovered from the accused youth. After confirming that AMU students Noman, Nazim and Naved are connected to the Aligarh module of ISIS, ATS is taking legal action to send the arrested youth to jail. After the information about the youth's involvement in terrorist jihad came to light, Zee Media reached the house of Naved, a resident of Chandosi, and tried to talk to Naved's family, but despite many efforts, Naved's family did not want to talk about the ATS proceedings. Uttar Pradesh ATS had earlier arrested 2 suspected terrorists from Aligarh, both were students of Aligarh Muslim University. After this, ATS took major action to crack down on the remaining suspected terrorists associated with Aligarh module of ISIS and arrested three AMU students from Sambhal district. According to UP ATS, Noman, Nazim and Naved, accused of terrorist jihad, are accused of promoting terrorist jihad by distributing terrorist literature of ISIS with the aim of overthrowing the government by carrying out violent jihad and implementing Sharia law in the country. The three youths are also accused of secretly training people for terrorist jihad. Naved Siddiqui, arrested by ATS on the charges of terrorist jihad, is a resident of Jat Colony of Chandosi police station area of Sambhal district. He is a student of B.Sc in the AMU. Noman and Nazim are residents of the Deepa Sarai locality of the Nakhasa police station area of Sambhal and both have graduated from the AMU. Apart from these three terrorists, UP ATS have also arrested Rakiv Imam Ansari, a resident of the Bhadohi district. All four youths arrested by the ATS were associated with the Aligarh module of ISIS, which was creating new logos under the guise of AMU's student organization SAMU. They are accused of carrying out anti-national activity. After the arrests, the police have increased vigilance in the district. (Reported by Sunil Singh, Zee News) New Delhi: Amid a diplomatic dispute between Canada and India, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has restated his claim that India breached the Vienna Convention, following the relocation of more than 40 Canadian diplomats. Responding to a media query on Saturday, Trudeau said that Canada wants to "work constructively" with India on the "serious matter" of the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil and said his country "will always stand up to the rule of law." He said, "We have been very, very clear that we want to work constructively with India on this very serious matter. From the very beginning, we shared the real allegations that we are deeply, deeply concerned about. But we have reached out to the Indian government and to partners around the world to get to the bottom of this, and to take it seriously. " "That's why we were so disappointed when India violated the Vienna Convention and arbitrarily revoked the diplomatic immunity of over 40 Canadian diplomats in India," Trudeau said. During a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, to commemorate the inauguration of Canada's inaugural community-wide smart energy grid on Saturday, the Canadian Prime Minister addressed questions about the diplomatic tension between India and Canada. Trudeau also emphasized the United States' interest in Canada progressing its investigation into the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, highlighting the need for India's cooperation to facilitate the process. He said, "We also reached out to our friends and allies like the United States and others to work on this really serious violation of international law and of the sovereignty of a democracy. This is something that we are taking very, very seriously. We will continue to work with all partners as law enforcement and investigative agencies continue to do their work." "Canada is a country that will always stand up for the rule of law because it might start to make right again. If bigger countries can violate international law without consequences, then the whole world gets more dangerous for everyone," Trudeau said. Emphasising that Canada has always worked constructively and positively with India, Trudeau stated "We have tried to work constructively and positively with India and we will continue to. And that means continuing to work with Indian government diplomats. This is not a fight we want to be having right now." "Think about it from our perspective, we have serious reasons to believe that agents of the Government of India could have been involved in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil. And India's response is to kick out a whole bunch of Canadian diplomats by violating their rights under the Vienna Convention. That is of concern to countries around the world. Because if a given country can just decide that their diplomats of another country are no longer protected, that makes international relations more dangerous and more serious," he added. Trudeau, during a debate in the Canadian Parliament, had claimed his country's national security officials had reasons to believe that "agents of the Indian government" carried out the killing of Canadian citizen Nijjar, who also served as the president of Surrey's Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara. India, however, had outrightly rejected the claims, terming it "'absurd" and "motivated". Notably, Canada has yet to provide any public evidence to support the claim about the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Najjar, who was a designated terrorist in India, was gunned down outside a Gurdwara, in a parking area in Canada's Surrey, British Columbia on June 18. Notably, amid a diplomatic standoff with Canada, India had halted its visa services till "further notice" in September. However, last month, India decided to resume visa services in Canada for four categories after a considered review of the security situation which "takes into account some recent Canadian measures in this regard". Entry visa, Business visa, Medical visa and Conference visa are four categories in which India decided to resume visa services in Canada with effect from October 26. New Delhi: In a significant move, Google has announced the global rollout of its generative AI-powered search experience, spanning more than 120 countries. The Search Generative Experience (SGE) is set to support four additional languagesSpanish, Portuguese, Korean, and Indonesian. The company claims that it will provide users with insightful overviews that consolidate the most relevant information available. (Also Read: Diwali 2023: What Is Muhurat Trading? Know Its Timing And More) The tech giant also claims that users in the United States, India, and Japan have already expressed positive feedback about the recent launches of SGE, citing its utility in tackling complex queries that might not typically be part of their search repertoire. (Also Read: How to Reset/Change Your UPI PIN on Gpay, PhonePe, and Paytm App In Few Clicks? Check) The company shared in a statement, "With SGE, we're showing more links and links to a wider range of sources on the results page, creating new opportunities for content to be discovered." As part of the innovation, Google is introducing Search Labs, a platform for users to engage in early-stage experiments on Search. Accessible through the Google app (Android and iOS) and Chrome desktop, Search Labs empowers users to try out the SGE experiment, promising an enhanced search experience. In addition to these developments, Google is experimenting with a feature that enables users to pose follow-up questions directly from the search results page. This new capability allows users to revisit previous questions and search results, including dedicated ad slots for Search ads throughout the page. A notable upcoming feature includes AI-powered translation, allowing users to ask Google to translate a phrase with ambiguous words. In such cases, users will see underlined terms, and by tapping on them, they can specify the desired meaning. Initially launching in the United States for English-to-Spanish translations, Google plans to extend this functionality to more countries and languages soon. Furthermore, Google is enhancing the search experience by highlighting specific words on relevant searches. Users can hover over these words to preview definitions or view related images. This update, initially rolling out in English in the United States, is expected to reach more countries and languages over the next month. New Delhi: In a bizarre incident, a Pune man fell victim to a dating app scam that left him with a hefty Rs 22,000 restaurant bill. The man, who shared his ordeal on the X platform (formerly Twitter), has now become the latest cautionary tale for online daters. The story began when the man found a match on the popular dating app, Bumble, on September 30th of this year. The duo decided to meet at Gypsy Restro Bar in Bhugaon, Pune, in October. Little did he know that this seemingly ordinary date would turn into a costly affair. (Also Read: How to Reset/Change Your UPI PIN on Gpay, PhonePe, and Paytm App In Few Clicks? Check) Upon their first meeting, the woman ordered wine and a hookah, catching the man off guard. "Actually at this point, I had no idea of the costs of the order, and the staff was too quick to get wine and hookah in a jiffy," the man shared. (Also Read: Shine Bright This Diwali: Try THESE Tips And Tricks For Best Instagram Reels) To his shock, he later discovered that the hookah cost Rs 10,000, the wine bottle Rs 15,000, and a single wine glass Rs 1,500. When the printed bill arrived, it totaled Rs 22,000. The situation took a darker turn when the date insisted that he foot the bill to avoid potential harm to his property. According to the victim, his date claimed, "This bill needs to be paid, or the restaurant guys can damage your car in the parking. They have your car number, and they can find your address through RTO contacts. They will connect double the amount at your home if you run away." Fearing for his property, the man reluctantly paid the hefty sum. As the victim's story gained traction on social media, many X users speculated that the restaurant owner might have hired the girl to carry out the scam. Take a look at the netizen's reactions: PUNE : ISSUED IN PUBLIC INTEREST Guy matches girl on @bumble She asks to meet within 2 days Chooses Gypsy Moto Pub specifically Orders hukka wine immediately Guy slapped with Rs. 23K bill Girl threatens either he pays or be beaten up & his family involved @PuneCityPolice pic.twitter.com/d4dlLNYYb9 November 11, 2023 Hired by the bar management. This is a common strategy these days where the bar owner and management get young and attractive girls to match rich folks on Bumble and get them in their restaurant for dinner date and then loot them with exorbitant pricing, blackmail, etc. Brutal Truth (@sarkarstix) November 11, 2023 Days after showing videos to claim that Hamas has its headquarters under the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, the Israeli Defence Forces have now surrounded the healthcare facility. The largest hospital in Gaza is now under attack from the IDF soldiers and is said to be out of service. The Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health said yesterday that at least three babies died in the neo-natal ward due to lack of oxygen. The IDF consistently asserts that Hamas employs Gaza hospitals and other civilian infrastructure as shields for its military activities. According to reports, the spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry Dr. Ashraf al-Qidra was also trapped inside the al-Shifa complex. "The intensive care unit, pediatric department, and oxygen devices have stopped working," Dr. Qidra said. Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, Director-General of the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, claimed that the doctors are forced to carry out artificial respiration by hand on the 36 babies under treatment in the hospital. He confirmed that the hospital was surrounded from all directions and is continuously under attack from the IDF. He said that around 400 people were being treated at the hospital and around 20,000 have taken shelter in the hospital complex. However, the IDF denied the reports of any siege calling the claims 'misinformation'. "There is no siege on the Shifa hospital. The east side of the hospital is open on Al-Wehda Street for the safe passage of Gazans who wish to leave the hospital. We are speaking directly and regularly with the hospital staff. The staff of the Shifa hospital has requested that we help the babies in the pediatric department to get to a safer hospital. We will provide the assistance needed," said IDF Spokesperson RAdm. Daniel Hagari. Meanwhile, the Israel Defence Forces said its fighter jets struck a series of Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure and military posts in Lebanon in response to attacks over the last day. "In addition, a Hezbollah terrorist cell launched several rockets from Lebanon toward northern Israel earlier today. In response, an IDF aircraft struck the terrorist cell and launch pad," it said. Diwali 2023: The celebrations have now moved on from Navratri and Durga Puja to Diwali and Chhath. October-November are months full of festivities most of the time and these celebrations last 10 days for Navratri and Durga Puja and 5-days during Diwali and then concluding with Chhath Puja. Diwali, the festival of lights, is a time when homes are adorned with vibrant colors, lamps, and intricate rangoli designs to welcome Maa Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and prosperity. Rangoli, an art form where patterns are created on the floor using colored powders, rice, or flower petals, holds special significance during this auspicious occasion. 6 Shubh Deepavali rangoli designs to welcome Maa Lakshmi this Diwali Here are some easy and beautiful rangoli designs to add a touch of creativity to your Diwali celebrations and invite the blessings of Maa Lakshmi. 1. Lotus of Prosperity Rangoli Begin with a central circle and surround it with smaller circles, resembling a blooming lotus. Add petals around each circle to create a visually appealing lotus design. Lotus is a symbol of purity and prosperity, making it a perfect choice for Diwali rangoli. 2. Diya Delight Rangoli Craft a large diya (oil lamp) at the center of your rangoli. Extend intricate patterns around the diya to represent the radiance and warmth it spreads. Diya designs symbolize the victory of light over darkness, aligning with the essence of Diwali. 3. Peacock Elegance Rangoli Draw a peacock with its feathers spread out as the focal point of your rangoli. Peacocks are associated with grace and beauty in Indian culture. Enhance the design with colorful patterns and geometric shapes for a stunning effect. 4. Swastika Bliss Rangoli The swastika, a sacred symbol in Hinduism, is believed to bring good luck and well-being. Create a swastika design at the center and surround it with concentric circles and patterns. This rangoli design embodies positive energy and auspiciousness. 5. Floral Elegance Rangoli Create a rangoli design inspired by nature's beauty with a focus on floral patterns. Begin with a central flower, such as a lotus or a marigold, and extend petal-like patterns outward. Add smaller flowers, leaves, and vines to enhance the overall elegance of the rangoli. 6. Colorful Mosaic Rangoli Opt for a mosaic-inspired rangoli by using different colored powders to create small, interconnected patterns. This design allows for flexibility and creativity, making it easy for beginners to experiment with various shapes and hues. As you prepare to celebrate Shubh Deepavali, let these easy rangoli designs become a canvas for your artistic expression, filling your home with positivity and inviting the divine presence of Maa Lakshmi. May the festival of lights bring joy, prosperity, and abundance to you and your loved ones. The Railway Protection Force (RPF) from Katihar Division has arrested a fake Travel Ticket Examiner (TTE) who used to extort money from passengers. The RPF Katihar arrested the ringer from train no-15658 - B.P.Mail. The accused was later handed over to GRP, Maldwa Town in West Bengal. If you are reading such news for the first time, then don't be surprised. RPF has made such arrests in the past as well. This is not the first instance when a fake TTE was arrested. Earlier this year in October, the Sihor and Shujalpur RPF arrested a fake TTE at the Kalapipal railway station for extorting money from people inside the train. The accused was also found in possession of fake identity cards. In September, the Sonpur Squad Team of the RPF had arrested a fake TTE travelling in the general compartment of the Pawan Express. On 11.11.2023 as per a specific information a fake TTE arrested by RPF/Katihar from Train no-15658 DN (B.P.Mail) & letter handed over to GRPs/Malda Town for further legal action.#OperationSattark @drm_kir @rpf_nfr1 @RPF_INDIA pic.twitter.com/5keGJ81hKS RPF KATIHAR DIV (@rpfnfrkir) November 12, 2023 In March this year, Begusarai RPF had arrested a fake TTE while recovering fake ID cards from his possession. The youth was found with a ticket fine receipt as well. Upon being caught, he claimed that he had not committed any wrongdoing before and that it was his first day. During the search, a fake CBI ID card was recovered from him. The young man has been identified as Vikram Kumar, son of Chandra Dev Paswan, a resident of Manjeth in Thana Chhabilapur, Nalanda district. New Delhi: Undoubtedly one of Bollywoods most loved actresses, who has carved a special place for herself in the hearts of millions of fans, Shraddha Kapoor, with her loving and down-to-earth nature has amassed over 84 million followers on Instagram, a testament to her immense popularity and influence. The actress has always worn her heart on her sleeve, winning fans over with her relatability and authenticity on social media. As the country celebrates Diwali, we can't help but smile as we look back at these heart-warming photos of Shraddha enjoying the festive spirit with her family and friends. Whether it's preparing and relishing traditional Diwali sweets, to wholeheartedly partaking in the Diwali Pooja, her simple ethnic looks, the actress eludes charm and wholesomeness in every frame. It's evident that Diwali is a special time for Shraddha Kapoor, and we can't wait to see how she celebrates this year. On the work front Shraddha is currently filming Stree 2. The excitement for the film increased threefold when the actress took to her social media to share some post-shoot scenes of the film. Turkish Pegasus Airlines will start operating flights at Kutaisi International Airport from December 22, Irakli Karkashadze, the Director of the United Airports of Georgia, said on Saturday, Azernews reports, citing Agenda. Karkashadze said the final stage of the long and difficult negotiations, which had started before the pandemic, was successfully completed with Pegasus Airlines at the World Routes aviation forum in Istanbul. He noted Istanbul was a new destination from Kutaisi airport, which would serve transit routes, We are sure it [...] will have a significant impact on the regional and economic development of Imereti [region], he added. Pegasus will offer flights between Georgias western city of Kutaisi and the Turkish city of Istanbul three times a week. The Turkish airline has been operating in the market since 1990, carrying out flights to 130 destinations in 50 countries. It has also been successfully operating flights from Tbilisi and Batumi international airports for years. North Iowa celebrated the contributions of veterans on Saturday with ceremonies in Mason City and Clear Lake. The Mason City ceremony at Central Park consisted of the Pledge of Allegiance led by emcee Randy Solsaa, along with an invocation and benediction by Chaplain Norris Hughes, a changing of the flags and ended with a rifle squad from the honor guard and "Taps." pawanCEO wrote: Which of the following is an assumption that the argument requires? (A) The frame was made from wood local to the region where the picture was painted. (B) Drechen is unlikely to have ever visited the home region of Birelle in France. (C) Sometimes a painting so resembles others of its era that no expert is able to confidently decide who painted it. (D) The painter of the picture chose the frame for the picture. (E) The carving style of the picture frame is not typical of any specific region of Europe. Show Spoiler Seventeenth-Century Painting Incorrectly states OA as "B" in the Answer Key. The explanation states that "A" is correct, however Step 1: Identify the Question The word assumption in the question stem shows that this is a Find the Assumption question. Step 2: Deconstruct the Argument Painting might be by D or B (B sometimes painted like D) D = Germany, B = France Picture frame is wood from Germany D is the artist There are two possible candidates for the creator of a particular painting. Based on where the pictures frame likely came from, the author concludes that the artist came from the same location. Must it be the case that the artist and the picture frame came from the same location ? Step 3: Pause and State the Goal On Assumption questions, the goal is to find an unstated fact that would have to be true in order for the logic of the argument to be reasonable. If this statement were false, the argument wouldnt make logical sense. Step 4: Work from Wrong to Right (A) CORRECT . This must be true in order for the authors reasoning to be sound. If the frame had instead been made from wood that originated elsewhere, the author couldnt draw any connection between the frames origin and the paintings origin . (B) Since the painting was framed with German wood, not French, whether Drechen visited France is irrelevant. The argument already makes it clear that the painting was not framed with wood from France, regardless of who visited the area and who created the painting. (C) This doesnt have to be true in order for the logic of the argument to be reasonable. In fact, in order to accept the argument, its necessary to assume that it is possible to determine who created this particular painting with some degree of certainty. (D) The artist didnt necessarily have to choose the frame himself. Somebody else in the same geographic area, such as a local buyer, might have chosen the frame. (E) Its necessary to assume that the carving style wasnt especially typical of France, or the arguments reasoning would be damaged, since it would then be more likely that the frame was created in France. However, the author didnt assume that the carving style wasnt typical of any European region. It could have been typical of Germany, or of some other region in Europe outside of both artists areas, and the conclusion would still have been reasonable. for GMAT Review, 2015 Practice Question Question No.: CR 8 CR10671 ID: CR10731 Page: 504 A newly discovered painting seems to be the work of one of two seventeenth-century artists, either the northern German Johannes Drechen or the Frenchman Louis Birelle, who sometimes painted in the same style as Drechen. Analysis of the carved picture frame, which has been identified as the paintings original seventeenth-century frame, showed that it is made of wood found widely in northern Germany at the time, but rare in the part of France where Birelle lived. This shows that the painting is most likely the work of Drechen.Which of the following is an assumption that the argument requires?(A) The frame was made from wood local to the region where the picture was painted.(B) Drechen is unlikely to have ever visited the home region of Birelle in France.(C) Sometimes a painting so resembles others of its era that no expert is able to confidently decide who painted it.(D) The painter of the picture chose the frame for the picture.(E) The carving style of the picture frame is not typical of any specific region of Europe. Solution Passage Analysis A newly discovered painting seems to be the work of one of two seventeenth-century artists, A painting has been recently discovered. The author tells us that the work could be (not sure) of any one of two 17th century artists. either the northern German Johannes Drechen The painting could be the work of a German artist, Johannes Drechen Or the Frenchman Louis Birelle, who sometimes painted in the same style as Drechen. Or it could be the work of a Frenchman, Louis Birelle. The author gives us a fact: Birelle sometimes (note: not always) painted in the same style as Drechen. We are given to understand that the confusion regarding who the artist of the painting is, could be due to this occasional commonality in style. Analysis of the carved picture frame, which has been identified as the paintings original seventeenth-century frame, The carved picture frame was analyzed. Fact: This picture frame is established to be the same 17th century frame in which the painting was originally framed. showed that it is made of wood found widely in northern Germany at the time, Fact: The frame is made of a type of wood that was abundant in Northern Germany in the 17th century. but rare in the part of France where Birelle lived. Fact: However, this particular type of wood was rarely found in the part of France where Birelle lived. This shows that the painting is most likely the work of Drechen. Conclusion: The author makes a conclusion here. Because the original frame of the painting was made of wood found abundantly in Northern German, but rarely found in Birelles part of France, the painting is believed most likely to be the work of Drechen since he was German. Pre-thinking Falsification Question Birelle sometimes (note: not always) painted in the same style as Drechen This paintings picture frame is established to be the same 17th century frame in which the painting was originally framed The frame is made of a type of wood that was abundant in Northern Germany in the 17th century This particular type of wood was rarely found in Birelles part of France Thought Process Falsification condition#1 Assumption#1 Falsification condition#2 Assumption#2 A B C D E In what scenario Is it possible that the 17th century painting could be the work of Birelle and not Drechen?Given thatLet us look at the authors reasoning. He is unsure of who out of Birelle and Drechen is the artist of the painting. It is difficult to decide the workmanship. And the confusion is because Birelle sometimes painted in Drechens style. So now the author tries to ascertain the workmanship based on the material of the frame. It is the same frame in which the picture was originally framed. The author concludes that Drechen must have painted the piece because the wood of the frame was found abundantly in N. Germany and Drechen was also a German. Birelle was not the artist because that wood was a rarity in his part of France.What if the painting was made in a region but not framed in the same region?In that case, the painting could have been framed elsewhere and the wood of the frame could have come from that region.The painting was framed in same the region to which the artist belonged and where he painted the particular piece.What if the wood (that was not found in France) for the picture frame was imported from some other place (it was found widely in N. Germany)?In that case, the painting could have been painted by Birelle and framed in France using the wood imported from N. Germany.The wood from which the picture frame was made, had not been imported from outside the region where the picture was painted and framed.Observe our pre-thinking assumption#2. It says, The wood from which the picture-frame was made, had not been imported from outside the region where the picture was painted and framed.Or in other words, the wood from which the picture-frame was made was wood that was locally sourced from the region where the picture was painted.This is in-line with our pre-thinking and is the correct answer.Does this option need to be definitely true for our conclusion to hold true? No. Drechen might have very well visited Birelles home region but what does that prove or disprove? We just know the date of the painting not its location, and therefore this option is irrelevant to our consideration.Hence, this is not the answer.This option is anyways out of the way as it is not the basis on which the author draws the conclusion. It is more of a circular argument as the passage already says that the painting could be the work of any one of two artists where one often painted in the others style.Hence, it is not the correct choice.Once again, would my conclusion break down if this option were not true? What if someone close to the painter chose the frame for him? Does that prove who the painter was or was not? Maybe Drechens friend chose the frame for the painting. But we dont know in the first place whether Drechen painted it or not. Maybe Birelles wife chose the frame. But de we know whether Birelle painted it in the first place?Hence, this is not the correct answer.It is the material of the picture-frame that is being analyzed in order to ascertain the artist behind the painting. The carving style of the picture-frame is not the basis for the conclusion and therefore cannot be used to disprove or prove it.Hence, this is not the correct choice._________________ The Danville City Council rejected a special-use permit for an Airbnb proposed on Virginia Avenue following opposition from neighboring residents Thursday evening. The council approved other short-term in other parts of Danville as more and more requests for short-term rentals pour into the citys planning division. Rejection of the request for a special-use permit at 151 Virginia Ave. came after the Danville Planning Commission had recommended its denial. Randolph Neal, who lives across the street from the property, was worried that an Airbnb would change the character of the neighborhood. Virginia Avenue is a quiet street, he told councilmen during a public hearing on the request. Its an old neighborhood. The nature of that area is something worth protecting. Im just concerned it will be changed with these Aibnbs, Neal said. These are mini-motels, he added. An Airbnb would bring a transient visitor population, he said. Even if theyre not rowdy, people talking, car doors slamming, that wakes people up, Neal said. Virginia Avenue resident Nancy Rudder said she would like to see the homes there remain single-family dwellings. Also, fast drivers and increased traffic pose dangers for kids and walkers in the neighborhood. The street has become a thoroughfare between West Main Street and Avondale Drive, she said. Traffic is fast, Rudder said. People run the stop sign on top of Mount Vernon all the time. It can be scary for people who walk. At least two more Virginia Avenue residents spoke out against the Airbnb during the public hearing. The city sent 56 notices to surrounding property owners within 300 feet of the property. Out of 44 responses received, 29 were opposed and 15 were unopposed. We dont want this in our neighborhood, said Virginia Avenue resident Mark Holland, pointing out all of those opposed live on Virginia Avenue and nearby Mount Vernon Avenue. Most of those unopposed live on Marshall Terrace, which would not be affected much by an Airbnb on Virginia Avenue, Holland said. Those respondents are all LLCs and corporations, he added. Theyre not people, he said. Theyre not folks raising families like were doing. The issues of regulating Airbnbs, determining whether to approve them and on what basis they are rejected was a topic of debate for councilmen during discussion of the proposal. Planning director Renee Burton told council members that the planning commission recommended denial due concerns about parking, transient occupancy and how the propertys management would be handled. The Virginia Avenue request came just after the council approved a special-use permit for an Airbnb at 115 Howeland Circle. There were other such requests on the agenda as well. Weve had many to come for the past few sessions, said City Councilman Larry Campbell. I think there needs to be a lot of clarity for council in making decisions. The city imposes rules for short-term rentals, but when a request for a special-use permit for one meets all the guidelines and follows regulations, the planning commission can turn around and recommend denial, Council member James Buckner said. I just dont understand how the planning commission can recommend a denial if theyve [applicants] done everything theyve been asked to do, Buckner said. Councilmen voted 7-1 to deny the request, with Buckner a real estate agent opposing the denial. Councilmen Lee Vogler, Madison Whittle, Barry Mayo, Bryant Hood and Campbell, as well as Mayor Alonzo Jones and Vice Mayor Gary Miller, voted in favor of denial. Council member Sherman Saunders was absent. When the city council next approved a special-use permit for a short-term rental at 1244 Westover Drive, Campbell raised questions about consistency when it comes to to such requests. This is my problem, on the previous one, we had some citizens speak up against it, Campbell said. This time, were voting for this to be approved. It looks like no citizens are going to speak out against the Westover proposal he pointed out. It seems like its going to be determined, to me, if the citizens in their area, if they complain or if they dont, that will determine if its going to pass? Campbell said. Jones reminded everyone approval was recommended by the commission for the Westover request. I think its unfair to council, Campbell said. There should be some consistency, he added. Its just something that is missing here, he said. Its putting us in a position here that I think is unfair to council. Council members also approved short-term rentals at 85 Ashlawn Drive, 118 Mount Vernon Ave. and 440 Mimosa St. Discussion of how to regulate short-term rentals continued into the Danville City Councils work session following its regular meeting. The city is looking into possible ordinance changes for short-term rentals, Burton reminded council. Danville faces several issues that should be considered, she said in a letter to the council. They include: The presence of a host, and how close they should be required to be located to the property. The challenges of enforcing regulations. Whether to require annual registration for short-term rentals. Effects of short-term rentals on housing supply the neighborhood. Relation of short-term rentals to the citys 2030 comprehensive plan. Impacts of short-term rentals on parking for residents. Buckner said there are some rules that need to be fine-tuned. There are some things that are too vague, Buckner said. Miller pointed out that decades ago, there were no Airbnbs and communities built had covenants that didnt allow rentals of any kind. Times have changed, Miller said. Theres a lot of applications coming in, Mayo pointed out. Burton told the council there were 18 special-use permit requests for short-term rentals coming up on the planning commission agenda in December. As for rules for short-term rentals, Buckner said your neighbor shouldnt be able to tell you what you cannot do to your house. However, this is a very complicated issue, said City Manager Ken Larking. There are legitimate concerns about lack of long-term housing in Danville, and how short-term rentals play a role in that, he said. It takes a house off the market for the long-term, Larking said. The city will have to work on addressing regulations, considering what the impacts of councils decisions are going to be, he said. Were trying to have sensible regulations that arent overly restrictive, Larking said. Theres always another side of the story that needs to be considered. Cities everywhere are grapping with how to regulate and handle short-term rentals, he added. A To Sir with Love for a new generation, Mexican drama Radical from writer-director Christopher Zalla (Blood of My Blood) features an award-worthy turn by superb lead actor Eugenio Derbez as an idealistic teacher of disadvantaged children and break-out turns by several members of its youthful cast. The film, based on a Wired article, tells the tale of Sergio Juarez Correa (Derbez), a sixth-grade teacher at Jose Urbina Lopez Primary School in Matamoros, Mexico, in 2011, where gangs employ and recruit school-age boys. Heavily armed soldiers maintain checkpoints, and schools are in decline. On his first day at a new post, Sergio runs afoul of the principal whose first name is Chucho (a fine Daniel Haddad), as well as a jaded fellow teacher. Some of Sergios students are experiencing pubertad. Others look more like children. In spite of her diminutive size, Lupe (a fiery Mia Fernanda Solis) is cook and caregiver at her home, where her mother has just had another baby. Sergio learns that the encyclopedias in the school library are circa 1974 and that the computer lab was robbed. In fact, the only person with a computer is Chucho. Outside, police tape is unwound around dead, bullet-riddled bodies in the street. Inside, Sergio is trying to unlock young minds and avoid getting fired. A student named Nico (a terrific Danilo Guardiola) carries a red backpack with him. Hes not sure whats in it. But he does it every day for a violent gang leader. Nico has a crush on Pamola (a powerful turn by Jennifer Trejo), who lives in a beach shack with her sickly junk-peddler father, who collects scrap metal with his cart and donkey. Just outside Palomas door is a mountainous landfill, where Paloma fishes for things she can use or give to her father to sell. She also finds books and magazines that she keeps hidden in her room, portals to other worlds. She wants to be an astronaut. Based on her power of comprehension, Sergio thinks that Paloma might be a genius. The gang leader ridicules schoolwork and tells Nico that he must learn from la vida. If Radical were a musical, this would be a cue for a song and dance number. Sergio inspires his students by telling them that, while they may not have what others have, they all have one thing in common: potential. Using bits found in the landfill, Paloma builds a telescope. Sergio shows Nico another path. Films about inspiring teachers include everything from Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Mr. Hollands Opus, Stand and Deliver, the aforementioned To Sir with Love, Lean on Me, Dead Poets Society and beyond. This trope is popular and powerful because so many of us have been inspired and transformed by a great teacher. Sergio is far from a know-it-all. He keeps admitting to ignorance in front of his students. But he knows how to teach and gently guide. The children adore him because he passionately believes in them. Writer-director Zalla, adapting the article by award-winning author Joshua Davis, keeps Trejo, Solis and Guardiola front and center and teases sweet and mature performances out of them. If you arent getting teary-eyed at the end, you may need a cardiac tune-up. Derbez (Batteries Not Included), one of the most well-known Hispanic actors in the world and a secret ingredient in CODA, lets us see the demons that torment Sergio and dwell right inside his head, but also drive him to greatness as a human being. Surely, this performance should generate Oscar buzz. You can gerrymander districts and stack courts. You can use the word limit as opposed to ban when restricting a womans right to personal choices with draconian laws. You can try, in at least one case, to change the ground rules of an election. You can run but you cant hide. Sooner or later, one way or another, the voices of the people will be heard, and if you are a Republican, you may not like what they have to say. At least not what they had to say last week. What voters told us and keep saying, loudly and plainly, even in red states is that they dont like the restrictions to abortions that have followed in the wake of the Supreme Courts reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022. So in Ohio on Tuesday, as theyve done before in Kansas, California and Michigan, they spoke with their ballots. By a margin of 56%-44%, Ohioans solidly approved Issue 1, which enshrines the right to an abortion in the state constitution. This means that, in a state Donald Trump comfortably won in 2016 and 2020, the constitution will be amended to establish the right to make and carry out ones own reproductive decisions involving abortion, contraception and fertility treatment. The amendment also will call for abortions to be banned in cases in which the fetus can survive outside of the womb, unless a doctor determines that carrying the pregnancy to term would endanger the mothers life or health.In August, Ohio voters also rejected a higher threshold for passage of the abortion amendment, with 57% saying no to a constitutional amendment that would have raised the bar in Tuesdays referendum from a simple majority to 60%. Significantly, a surprising number of Republicans sided with Democrats to vote yes for the abortion rights amendment, even in a third of the counties where Trump dominated in 2020, with between 60% and 70% of the vote. If youre wondering, incidentally, why we havent had such a vote in North Carolina, where the GOP recently passed an unpopular 12-week abortion ban, its because we cant. The state Constitution doesnt allow it. But polls consistently have made it clear that the GOP gave us a law most of us neither wanted nor asked for. And, with the 2024 election fast approaching, the issue still provides ammunition for Democrats in North Carolina. Meanwhile, in deep-red Kentucky, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear was reelected, after campaigning on the states prosperity and against Kentuckys abortion ban, which makes no exceptions for rape or incest. And in Virginia, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin was rebuffed by voters in his attempt to push for GOP majorities in both chambers of the legislature. Republicans won neither. Youngkin had campaigned for a 15-week abortion limit with exceptions. And voters said no. To be sure, last weeks results will not make Joe Biden any younger or more charismatic. It wont erase his anemic job rating or poor showing in polls that show him trailing Trump in key states. It wont address a new headache for Bidens party now that Sen. Joe Manchin has announced that he will not seek reelection in West Virginia, all but ensuring that the seat will flip to the GOP. It wont address the partys clumsy messaging and eroding appeal to working-class voters. It wont undo the damage they inflicted on themselves in recent elections, by writing off races in rural areas, surrendering before the fight began (note how Beshear has done precisely the opposite in Kentucky). And it will not arrest a growing lack of enthusiasm among a critical ingredient to the Democratic base, Black voters. But it does attest to the power of nuts-and-bolts issues that voters care about such as their individual rights (and not just to own a gun) and the GOPs growing preoccupation with curtailing those rights. It gives Democrats an opportunity, for example, to point out that the new Republican speaker of the House favors a national abortion ban. In North Carolina, it underscores their argument that Raleigh Republicans are becoming the Party of Big Government. For all of both parties preoccupation with cultural wars, last weeks election was a clear reminder that the best path to voters hearts is hearing their voices, meeting their needs and respecting their rights. CHICAGO An Illinois man was arrested Thursday on charges he doused police with hornet spray and used a baton to break out windows during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol nearly three years ago. William Lewis, 57, of Burbank, was charged in a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., with felony counts of assaulting law enforcement and misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct. He was arrested Thursday morning and is scheduled to appear before a federal magistrate judge at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse. It was not immediately known if he had hired a lawyer. Lewis is at least the 42nd Illinoisan to be charged in the Capitol breach, an ongoing investigation that has been described by prosecutors as the largest criminal investigation in the countrys history. According to the charges, surveillance images showed Lewis, dressed in all black with a U.S. Army star logo and American flag on his sleeves, in the middle of a violent mob fighting with police outside the Capitol. Body cam footage from several Capitol police officers showed Lewis holding up a black and yellow canister of No-Pest Wasp and Hornet Killer and deploying the contents toward the police line, the complaint alleged. One officer who viewed the footage told the FBI he remembers a white male wearing all black spraying something at him from a big canister, and that the officer experienced a burning sensation on his face and in his eyes as a result of being sprayed, according to the complaint. The footage then showed Lewes throwing the empty can toward officers, the complaint alleged. Afterward, Lewis advanced to the Lower West Terrace of the Capitol building, where a stage was being constructed for the upcoming presidential inauguration, according to the complaint. There, Lewis used what appears to be a baton to strike and break at least three glass panes of a window located immediately to the right of the Lower West Terrace tunnel, the complaint stated. Lewis was allegedly identified in 2022 by two people who recognized him from an FBI page dedicated to trying to identify suspects in the Capitol attack. More than 1,200 people have been charged as part of the investigation into the U.S. Capitol attack, including arrests in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to the U.S. Justice Department. Of the 42 Illinoisans charged so far, Lewis is one of about a dozen to be hit with felony charges alleging they engaged in violence that day. SPRINGFIELD Nearly nine months after the shock closure of Akorn Pharmaceuticals abruptly threw more than 400 employees at the company's Decatur facilities out of work, U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski, D-Springfield, has filed legislation that would strengthen advanced notice requirements for layoffs. The bill would update the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) Act, a 1988 law that requires employers with more than 100 full-time workers to give at least 60 days notice before a plant closure or mass layoff. The proposed changes would lengthen the timeline to 90 days, and the requirement would be extended to companies with 50 or more employees, or an annual payroll of at least $2 million. A separate Illinois version of the federal law sets a threshold at 75 full-time employees. Part-time employees are included under Budzinski's proposed legislation, which would also make an employer's parent companies and affiliates liable for WARN Act violations. The measure would require states to establish a committee within 20 days of a WARN Act notification to help employees get training and support services needed to prepare for the layoff. Earlier this year, Akorn Pharmaceuticals left working families high and dry when they violated the WARN Act with a surprise closure of their Decatur facility," Budzinski said. "While Im glad that a new employer has taken over the facility, its clear that we need to do more to protect workers and their families from unexpected layoffs. The Illinois Department of Labor opened an investigation earlier this year into the pharmaceutical company's apparent violation of the WARN Act. If violations are found, civil penalties will be assessed against the company. The company did not file notice with the state until late Feb. 22, hours after employees were informed of their immediate dismissal. They were not offered severance pay or extended health insurance coverage. It is not clear, however, if the changes proposed by federal lawmakers could have prevented the surprise layoffs. Akorn workers earlier this year filed a $5 million class action federal lawsuit seeking unpaid wages and other compensation they said they were owed in the wake of the company's bankruptcy filing. That lawsuit was dismissed at the workers' request on June 20 and no other legal action has been filed on the matter. Akorns manufacturing building at 1222 W. Grand Ave. and its packaging facility at 140 S. Wyckles Road were purchased in June by Rising Pharmaceuticals for $1.2 million and $50,000, respectively, according to the Macon County Recorders Office. Rising eventually plans to hire 75 people for its Decatur facilities a fraction of what Akorn employed at the time of its closure. The legislation is being sponsored by Budzinski and Reps. Emilia Sykes, D-Oh., and David Trone, D-Md. An identical Senate version has also been filed. READ THE BILL: Photos: Akorn Pharmaceuticals in Decatur Events dedicated to November 8 - Victory Day of the Azerbaijani community living in different cities of the Russian Federation were held, Azernews reports, citing the State Committee on Work with Diaspora of Azerbaijan. The Committee said that Azerbaijanis living in the city of Makhachgala have come together under the organization of the National Cultural Autonomy of the Azerbaijanis of Makhachkala operating in the Republic of Dagestan. Rakif Azizov, chairman of the National Cultural Autonomy of Makhachkala Azerbaijanis, and others made speeches at the event and congratulated Azerbaijanis on the occasion of the Victory Day and the full restoration of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity. Speaking at the event held in Nalchik, Chairman of the "Azeri" National Cultural Center Ali Dadashov told about the brilliant victory of Azerbaijanis over the enemy. He noted that this Victory was achieved as a result of the strong will of the Azerbaijani people, the struggle of the Azerbaijani soldiers, and the visionary and decisive policy of President Ilham Aliyev. Congratulating Azerbaijanis at the event organized by the "Odlar Yurdu" public organization operating in the Karachay-Circassian Republic on the occasion of the fair resolution of the 35-year-long conflict and the full restoration of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity and sovereignty over Garabagh. At the event held in Kislovodsk, the chairman of "Araz" Azerbaijan National-Cultural Autonomy Asif Musayev made a speech and congratulated Azerbaijanis on the occasion of the end of the war in Garabagh and Victory Day. At the event held in the city of Khabarovsk, Chairman of the Public Organization "Union of Azerbaijanis of the Khabarovsk Region" Mammad Iskandarov and others congratulated Azerbaijanis on the occasion of the great Victory and expressed their gratitude to the President of Azerbaijan and Azerbaijani Army. It was noted that the state and people of Azerbaijan proved to the whole world that Azerbaijan is uncompromising in the issue of territorial integrity and that it defends state interests. "Azerbaijani society has united and strengthened around Supreme Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev. Azerbaijan restored justice, its sovereignty, and our people set foot on their native lands. This is a historic day, a celebration of justice and the rule of law! Each of us will always remember this day," It was emphasized. Azerbaijanis and representatives of various communities took part in the event organized in the city of Murmansk. Speaking at the event, the Chairman of Murmansk Region "Azerbaijan Culture Center" Public Organization Afil Huseynov and Deputy Chairman Mehdi Fayyazli addressed their congratulations and good wishes to Azerbaijanis on the occasion of a great historical event: "The history of Azerbaijan was rewritten on November 8, 2020 and we won the Victory! We congratulate our people on this great day." Speaking at the event organized in Vladivostok, Ramiz Zeynalov, chairman of the Primorsky Krai "Dostlug" Azerbaijani diaspora, said that the hope of Azerbaijanis, who showed unity and solidarity during the war, became a reality on the eve of the third anniversary of the Victory Day. It should be noted that in all the events, the dear memory of the martyrs, who died for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, was commemorated with a minute's silence. ABINGDON, Va. Area veterans were joined by their friends and family at the Abingdon Veterans Memorial Park on Saturday to mark the remembrance and celebration of Veterans Day. A group of men from over the mountain, a bunch of farmers and hunters, took down part of the biggest army in the world, the English military, said David Doan, an eight-year veteran of the National Guard and president of the Overmountain Victory trail Association, who brought to life the story of the around 1,000 Overmountain Men from across Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, who changed the tide of the American Revolution at the Battle of Kings Mountain in South Carolina. 12 months and 12 days after the Battle of Kings Mountain, which is October the second at three oclock, Warren Wallace found himself in Yorktown surrounded with no avenue of escape and surrendered to George Washington, Doan said. That day something new started that day, something started that everybody in this audience and everybody since that time period has been a part of, and that is what we now call the United States of America. During the ceremony, three new trees, a Ginko Tree, a Hearts of Gold Redbud, and an Oak tree, were dedicated to U.S. Army Master Sergeant Donald Joseph Jolly, U.S. Army Lt, Colonel Charles W. Seaver and U.S Air Force Staff Sergeant Dennis David Ringley. U.S. Colonel John L. Bradley, who served as the master of ceremonies at the event, highlighted the importance of remembering the sacrifices of veterans who did not return and delivered a call to action. In the military, there are inherent dangers, and today especially, we remember those who could not return, Bradley said. Its now up to us as citizens of this great land to honor their passing by making our country a better place that would make them proud. We, the people here today, are their living legacies, He added. We can ensure that future generations carry on the veterans ideals of service, sacrifice and honor so that our community and country thrive and grow in prosperity and remain strong and free. 100 years ago, Nov. 12, 1923 LERNA A four room dwelling just west of the Clover Leaf railroad on Main Street, owned by C.B. Funkhouser and occupied by W.P. Wainscott and family, was destroyed by the fire this morning about 5 a.m. The flames apparently originated in the roof, due, it is believed, to sparks from the chimney. Virtually all of the household goods were saved. The loss is about $1000, covered by insurance...MATTOON Mrs. Ella Kindel, widow of Tipton Kindel, who passed away several months ago, has been awarded a pension of $30 a month, dating from August 11, last. Mr. Kindel was a member of Company C, 150th Illinois infantry during the civil war. The pension for the widow was received through the efforts of W.F. Shepherd. 50 years ago, 1973 MATTOON A telephone survey by the JG indicates that Mattoon residents are trying to conserve energy. One woman interviewed was so intent on saving energy that she hung up on a JG reporter. Most persons contacted by the JG said they were driving slower and turning their home thermostats down in order to save energy. The consensus, however, was that a house isn't very warm when the temperature is 68 degrees inside. "I set my thermostat back," Mrs. James C. Owens of 1221 Lake Land cold the JG, "but the house is kind of chilly. I had been used to more heat."...MATTOON "When Larry gets back, he'll see this tree, and know that we cared," Brig. Gen. John R. Phipps expressed this thought to some 200 persons gathered Sunday to honor CWO Larry Phipps, a Mattoon serviceman listed "missing in action." Ceremonies held at the First Baptist Church included the planting of a Freedom Tree and the unveiling of a plaque. Phipps has been missing in action since his helicopter was shot down over Vietnam in January of 1968. 25 years ago, 1998 MATTOON Citizens who braved the chilly weather Wednesday morning to celebrate Veterans Day were told "We are the lucky ones." After a short parade that ran from 21st Street down to Western Ave and over to Peterson Park on Broadway Ave., onlookers gathered around the flag to hear speakers. "They are the heroes, we are the lucky ones," said J.R. Livesay II, a retired U.S. Navy commander who served in the Vietnam War. Major Gen. John Phipps, who served on duty in World War II, presented a wreath donated by the second-grade children at Bennett School in Mattoon...MATTOON A man dressed in a black suit wearing a shiny gold mask sits at a table next to a bald 350-pound man with a goatee. "You're born loser," says the masked man, who goes by "Iceman," to the larger man. "You want to fight right now?" the bald man, whose moniker is "Skullcrusher," replies, having to restrain himself from pushing the small table over and striking Iceman. Iceman and Skullcrusher are not actually on the card yet for this Saturday's "Central Shock '98" at the Central School, but that might change. "I'm still trying to get them on the card still," said owner and operator of the United Wrestling Federation James Draven, who hopes to bring wrestling excitement to central Illinois. Photos: WWII veterans in Normandy to mark D-Day MATTOON For U.S. Army veteran Cheryl Shutt, her presentation during the Veterans Day ceremony Saturday morning at Peterson Park was the culmination of a full week of commemorations. Shutt said after the ceremony that she also was honored to be invited to programs at Mattoon High School, Mattoon Middle School and Arland D. Williams Elementary School, where she was deeply moved to see a young boy spontaneously stand up and salute veterans during the assembly there. "Little things like that make it all worthwhile," Shutt said as she smiled while looking at a photo she had taken of the patriotic boy's salute. Veterans Day itself was also filled with commemorations in Mattoon, starting with the annual parade from downtown to Peterson Park. The parade included the Mattoon American Legion and VFW posts, the Coles County Veterans Support Coalition, the high school JROTC battalion, the high school and middle school marching bands, and many other entries. New entries in the parade down Western and Broadway avenues included a Transport Services of Sullivan semitruck and tanker trailer wrapped with graphics celebrating U.S. military service members. U.S. Army Green Beret veteran Rob Mowry of Sullivan rode alongside his friend, Transport Services owner Joh England, in the truck. "I feel honored to ride in his truck and celebrate the veterans. There are veterans who came before my time and you have got to celebrate them, too," Mowry said. England said he had the truck wrapped a few years ago as a rolling reminder of the sacrifices that veterans have made to ensure the nation's freedom. He said he brought the truck to the Veterans Day parade for the first time as a way to get more engaged in Mattoon, where he purchased the nearly 100-year-old The Castle bar last month. U.S. Marine Corps veteran Tom Burcham of Mattoon rode his newly acquired custom-built, three-wheeled motorcycle in the parade. Burcham said this bike was built in 1974 by an aerospace engineer, who gave it a Volkswagen engine. Burcham said he used to carry a U.S. flag in the parade as a lifetime member of the Mattoon American Legion and VFW, but his legs started to give out on him over long distances. He said the olive green three-wheeled motorcycle has helped him return to this tradition. "I decided now that I have this, I'm going to ride this in the parade," Burcham said. The group of motorcycle riders that included Burcham rolled up to Peterson Park in time for the annual ceremony held by the two Mattoon veterans posts at the Coles County Vietnam memorial. Shutt, as a keynote at the ceremony, encouraged her audience to treasure the freedoms they have as Americans. She said Americans owe this to those who came before them to fight for these freedoms and way of life, and to those who continue to fight to protect these freedoms. "Let us make sure no fallen soldier, sailor, Coast Guardsman, Marine or airman shall ever been wounded or died in vain," Shutt said. "We must remember them and honor them, and we do that by not only extending to them our thanks and support, but also by living our lives as free people. The ceremony at Peterson Park was followed by the Mattoon Moose Lodge holding a Veterans Day event, which included performances by the Mattoon High School marching band, participation by a JROTC color guard, and a ceremony conducted by the Black Tiger Honor Guard. Black Tiger bagpiper and bugler Larry Creviston of Springfield, a veteran of the Army 82nd Airborne Division, said he joined this traveling honor guard seven years ago after seeing them perform their duties at the Vietnam memorial at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield. "Seeing their professionalism and demeanor, I thought I have to see if I can be part of this group," Creviston said. He has since traveled with them to honor veterans throughout the region, including at many nursing homes. "People forget there are veterans there. We always let the veterans know we have not forgotten them." Close Army veteran Chuck Taylor of Oakland, at left, and his wife, Donna, visit with Army veteran Robert Bayes of Findlay and his daughter, Cheryl Jones, during the Flightless Honor Flight Program on Monday at the LifeSpan Center in Charleston. Artwork created by local children to thank veterans for their service is shown on the table in the foreground. Members of the Mattoon Community Concert Band perform patriotic music during the Flightless Honor Flight Program on Monday at the LifeSpan Center in Charleston. Members of a Charleston American Legion, VFW and Auxiliary honor guard present the colors during the Flightless Honor Flight Program on Monday at the LifeSpan Center in Charleston. Veterans gather for a group photo during the Flightless Honor Flight Program on Monday at the LifeSpan Center in Charleston. Community members lined up to shake hands with Army veteran Malcolm ONeill of Mattoon, at left, and other veterans during the Flightless Honor Flight Program on Monday at the LifeSpan Center in Charleston. Honor Flight volunteer Brian Hinton, at left, and others handed out mail from well-wishers to veterans during the Flightless Honor Flight Program on Monday at the LifeSpan Center in Charleston. Andy Rice accompanies to his father, Mike Rice of Mattoon, to his place of honor among other participating veterans during the Flightless Honor Flight Program on Monday at the LifeSpan Center in Charleston. Veterans gather Monday morning in the LifeSpan Center theater to watch an Honor Fight film during the Flightless Honor Flight Program in Charleston. Photos: First Flightless Honor Flight held at LifeSpan Center Army veteran Chuck Taylor of Oakland, at left, and his wife, Donna, visit with Army veteran Robert Bayes of Findlay and his daughter, Cheryl Jones, during the Flightless Honor Flight Program on Monday at the LifeSpan Center in Charleston. Artwork created by local children to thank veterans for their service is shown on the table in the foreground. Members of the Mattoon Community Concert Band perform patriotic music during the Flightless Honor Flight Program on Monday at the LifeSpan Center in Charleston. Members of a Charleston American Legion, VFW and Auxiliary honor guard present the colors during the Flightless Honor Flight Program on Monday at the LifeSpan Center in Charleston. Veterans gather for a group photo during the Flightless Honor Flight Program on Monday at the LifeSpan Center in Charleston. Community members lined up to shake hands with Army veteran Malcolm ONeill of Mattoon, at left, and other veterans during the Flightless Honor Flight Program on Monday at the LifeSpan Center in Charleston. Honor Flight volunteer Brian Hinton, at left, and others handed out mail from well-wishers to veterans during the Flightless Honor Flight Program on Monday at the LifeSpan Center in Charleston. Andy Rice accompanies to his father, Mike Rice of Mattoon, to his place of honor among other participating veterans during the Flightless Honor Flight Program on Monday at the LifeSpan Center in Charleston. Veterans gather Monday morning in the LifeSpan Center theater to watch an Honor Fight film during the Flightless Honor Flight Program in Charleston. Achievers Richard Flowers, assistant professor of academic nursing and program director of Wake Forest University School of Medicines Nurse Anesthesia Program, was recently inducted into the American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology 2023 Class of Fellows. Flowers was one of 58 distinguished leaders in the profession of nurse anesthesiology to be inducted. To be selected as an AANA fellow, individuals must have at least 10 years of professional experience as a practitioner of nurse anesthesia, educator, facility leader or business leader. In addition, they must have demonstrated outstanding achievements in nurse anesthesia and leadership that command respect and recognition from other leaders in the profession. Flowers has been a practicing certified registered nurse anesthetist for over 25 years and has been faculty in the nurse anesthesia program since 2018, serving in various capacities. Dr. Perry Shen, professor of surgical sciences oncology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, was recently admitted as an associate member into the American College of Surgeons Academy of Master Surgeon Educators. Developed by the ACS Division of Education, the Academy recognizes surgeon educators who have devoted their careers to surgical education. Individuals are selected as members, associate members or affiliate members following stringent peer review. The academys mission is to play a leadership role in advancing the science and practice of education across all surgical specialties, promoting the highest achievements in the lifetimes of surgeons. Academy membership carries a responsibility for commitment to the Academys goals, which are to identify, recognize, and recruit innovators and thought leaders committed to advancing lifelong surgical education; translate innovation into actions; offer mentorship to surgeon educators; foster exchange of creative ideas; disseminate advances in surgical education; and positively impact the quality of surgical care and patient safety. In addition to supporting the mission and goals of the academy, members must actively participate in academy programs and activities. Associate membership was accepted by the steering committee for a period of five years (October 2023 October 2028). Homestead Hills, a retirement community in Winston-Salem, has been certified as a Great Place to Work for the third consecutive year. This certification is based on an anonymous survey completed by current team members at Homestead Hills. In addition to being Great Place to Work, Homestead Hills was named a Fortunes Best Companies to Work for in Aging Services. As a result of the Great Place to Work certification, Homestead Hills was eligible for Fortunes list which details companies who prioritize employees the most. Homestead Hills has created benefit programs that enhance team members professional and personal well-being. Homestead Hills offers education reimbursement, called Elevate, to help team members seeking more education or certifications. Team members can also participate in their Rise Program in conjunction with Elevate. Rise allows team members mentorship opportunities to learn more about a role they aspire to. Ruth Young-Loaeza of San Diego and Q. Nicole Vanderhorst of Charlotte each received $10,000 awards on Nov. 2 at the Center for Creative Economys eighth annual Velocity Demo Day. Young-Loaeza, founder of Neet Sheets, was awarded the Wells Fargo Emerging Woman Entrepreneur Award. Young-Loaeza worked in the housekeeping business for 23 years before developing a new bed sheet system that reduces the amount of time medical and hospitality workers spend changing sheets by 47%. Vanderhorst, founder of WH Farms Company of Charlotte, received the CCE 2023 Velocity Award. WH Farms is a vertically integrated botanical manufacturing company that provides premium CBD extract as well as body care and wellness products to businesses who want to market CBD products. The company is USDA licensed, and its premium hemp products are backed with a certificate of authenticity. Awards Emily Dressler, associate professor and vice chairwoman of biostatistics and data science at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, and Nicole Moore, director of core market growth and business development at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, were recently named recipients of the Winston Under 40 Leadership Awards. Dressler is passionate about team science and has been involved in more than 20 clinical trials as lead statistician. Her primary focus is on cancer research and statistical approaches and leads these efforts for our National Cancer Institute Community Oncology Research Program. Moore is an avid supporter of the Winston-Salem community and serves on the Winston-Salem Under 40 Advisory Board, as co-chairwoman of the Community Engagement Committee and as a member of the Intern Experience Committee. Winston Under 40 is designed to cultivate young professional talent in Winston-Salem and Forsyth County through programming in leadership development and community service. This year, Winston Under 40s annual Leadership Awards were presented to 25 individuals who showcase strong professional and personal accomplishments resulting in a positive impact for Winston-Salem. Grants Wake Forest University will partner with two other universities to support the work of the Peruvian National Park Service by connecting scientists with park managers and policy makers in new ways. The work is funded by a $2.5 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Wake Forests Andrew Sabin Family Center for Environment and Sustainability (Sabin Center), the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru School of Governance and Public Policy and Colorado State Universitys Center for Protected Areas Management will focus on Science and Capacity Development for Peruvian National Parks. The project builds on the work done through a pilot grant to WFU and PUCP, also from the Moore Foundation, completed between 2020 and 2022. The collaborative effort is connected to the Sabin Centers broader Science for Parks initiative. Honors Novant Health Cancer Institute Forsyth Medical Center team members Dr. Amy Wallace and Dr. Demetria Jacks were recently honored in separate Guardian Angel pinning ceremonies by grateful patient Claudia Schaefer. Patients and loved ones may offer a donation through the Novant Health Foundation in honor of a doctor, nurse, physician assistant, support team member, volunteer or unit and those individuals will receive a Guardian Angel award. The Guardian Angel program is a way for patients to thank those team members who make it easier for them to focus on what really matters getting better and staying healthy. When patients want to express their gratitude in a meaningful way, a gift of any amount can be made through Novant Health foundations to honor that team member as a Guardian Angel. Team members are recognized in a pinning ceremony where they receive an angel pin to wear on their badge. Toyota Motor Co.'s commitment to a nearly $14-billion, 5,100-job electric-vehicle battery plant in Liberty will challenge the training and mobility of the Triad's manufacturing workforce as never before. Toyota Battery Manufacturing N.C. will build lithium batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles in what has become by far the biggest single capital investment in North Carolina history. First battery production is set for early 2025. It will be increased in a phased approach, with line launches planned through 2030 to reach full production at 7 million square feet. All of which will test how far Triad residents are willing to commute for starting hourly pay of $18 for logistics employees, $23 for production and quality employees, and a range of $20.30 to $41.50 for maintenance and facilities employees. As invigorating as having 5,100 Toyota jobs sounds, economists say there are likely to be an additional hundreds, if not thousands, of supplier jobs linked to the plant, if not on the megasite campus. "Toyota obviously has great confidence in its ability to recruit workers for the plant, but how challenging will it be for it to become the preferred advanced manufacturing employer for the Triad?" asked John H. Boyd, founder and principal with global site-selection firm The Boyd Co. of Boca Raton, Fla. An October hiring overview for media outlets at a temporary Greensboro facility served as an acknowledgement of the challenges of going from 200 current employees to at least 350 by years end, and reaching 750 and 800 by early 2025. Toyota is facing a tight Triad job market with an ever-expanding number of advanced manufacturers. Those include Avgol Americas Inc., Boom Supersonic, Deere & Co., Egger Wood Products, Honda and Honda Aircraft Co., Marshall Aerospace USA, Nucor Corp., ProKidney Corp., Renfro Corp., Siemens Mobility North America, Tex-Tech Industries, Vecoplan LLC and Ziehl-Abegg Inc. Boyd's firm has assisted in identifying viable sites for Toyota facilities ranging from Cambridge, Ontario, to Georgetown, Ky. to San Antonio to Tijuana, Mexico. "Given the vast number of new hires needed, it will be a very challenging human-resources exercise, but well within the capabilities of Toyota who has an enviable track record in staffing and retaining in locations throughout North America and the world," Boyd said. Ripple effect The main Toyota hiring focus thus far has been on production assessment, machine operators, quality and internal logistics, maintenance assessment, and maintenance and facilities workers. To view and apply for open positions, go to www.toyota.com/careers. Some economists have theorized that as Toyota attracts its Triad workforce from other employers, it will free up jobs closer to home for some commuters. "Current workers transitioning and improving their economic circumstances with new positions at Toyota will create a larger economic pie in the Triad, as well as create new opportunities for workers re-entering the workforce and those moving into manufacturing jobs from the lower-paid positions in the retail and hospitality sectors," Boyd said. Citing Toyota's Georgetown, Ky., campus as an example, Boyd said it is Toyotas largest advanced manufacturing plant in the world employing some 8,000 workers. "Georgetown is a small market town of 38,000, and part of the Lexington/Fayette metro area having a population of about 518,000," Boyd said. "This contrasts with the Triads metro population of some 777,000 and regionally 1.7 million in the 12 county labor shed. "Across the board, I can say Toyota is considered an 'employer of choice' in all these markets given the work environment, compensation and esprit de corps that the company brings to the recruiting table," Boyd said. Boyd said don't discount the appeal of people, particularly from the Northeast, willing to migrate to the Triad to work for an employer such as Toyota. "The Toyota expansion will be another rationale driving the now historic level of human capital relocation from states like New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut to North Carolina for a more satisfying lifestyle and lower cost of living," Boyd said. Toyotas continued expansion of their Triad-area battery "really goes a long way to validate the idea that the Triad is a good place to manufacture high value-added products," said Mark Vitner, chief economist with Piedmont Crescent Capital. "The region's legacy in manufacturing means there is a supply of skilled workers, as well as a network of training schools. There are also a number of existing factories and greenfield sites to attract suppliers. "The Triad's transportation infrastructure means Toyota will be able to easily ship their product to nearby assembly plants." Toyota EV goals Toyota plans to have an electrified option available for every Toyota and Lexus model globally by 2025. Toyota Motor Co. chairman Akio Toyoda has told analysts and investors that the recent decline in overall EV purchases in the United States as a vindication of the manufacturer's deliberate expansion into the vehicle sector. "There are many ways to climb the mountain to achieve carbon neutrality," Toyoda said. "People are finally seeing reality" of EVs. Takero Kato, president of the BEV Factory business unit, said in June that the manufacturer projects a full EV lineup of 30 vehicles available in 2026 and producing up to 1.7 million EV through the unit by 2030. "The next-generation battery EVs will adopt new batteries through which we are determined to become a world leader in battery EV energy consumption," Kato said. Toyota disclosed in May its latest advances in solid-state battery development, which can hold more energy that liquid electrolyte batteries that could boost a Toyota EV driving range to more than 600 miles between charges. "With the resources we earn, we will improve our product appeal to exceed customer expectations and secure earnings." Keith Debbage, a joint professor of Geography & Sustainable Tourism and Hospitality at UNC Greensboro, said the speed of the Toyota expansion decision "is linked to the fact that Toyota has been slow to embrace electric vehicles and is now playing catch-up." "Given the recent slowdown in demand for EV's largely linked to concerns about both range and the limited charging network in the U.S., we will have to wait and see if this decision ultimately pays off for Toyota." Boyd said Toyota's "conservative and measured" approach to EV production has been prudent as it emphasizes hybrid vehicles and develops hydrogen fuel cell technology. "Toyota has what it calls the 1:6:90 rule where its engineers keep reminding management that the amount of raw material needed to make a long-range EV could instead be used to make six plug-in electric hybrid vehicles or 90 hybrid vehicles," Boyd said. "While automakers like Ford, General Motors and Honda have set targets for when their vehicle models will consist exclusively of EVs, Toyota is moving forward a diverse range of vehicles that include conventional hybrids, plug-in hybrids and even hydrogen-powered cars and SUVs." Christopher Richter, senior research analyst with CLSA, said in a Nov. 1 appearance on CNBC that Toyota is recognizing the need for a balanced EV approach that is more focused on hybrids and battery EVs for at least the short term. "It's Toyota's way of saying we're going to have multiple lanes of attack in terms of dealing with lower emissions, carbon neutrality, climate change," Richter said. "EVs form an important part of it, but it's not the entire story. "When you see firms in China losing buckets of money competing on price on EVs, I think it is the right strategy." Debbage said that "I am not sure our community has fully grasped the magnitude of the forthcoming change. "My calculations suggest that we should expect a combined total of $40 billion in capital investment, nearly 30,000 new direct jobs, and an additional 50,000 spin-off jobs with wages well above the region average over the next five years or so. "The sheer scale of what is about to happen is hard to fully grasp." Debbage said there will be "at least three enormous challenges centered around providing new housing stock at a rapid clip, developing extensive workforce development programs, and establishing new land use zoning policies that help to mitigate some of the more negative impacts of the tidal wave of development that is headed our way." "It will be difficult and it will be a challenge, but it sure beats moaning about the ongoing loss of jobs in textiles, tobacco and furniture. Cone Health is launching an ambitious five-year population genomics research and testing initiative focused on about 100,000 healthy individuals within five Triad counties. Cone is collaborating with Helix, based in San Diego and the leading population genomics company in the nation. The project will put precision medicine services to work in Alamance, Forsyth, Guilford, Rockingham and Randolph counties. Enrollment is optional and at no cost. Participants will be screened for genetic predisposition for certain diseases and conditions, such as breast and ovarian cancer, colorectal cancer and high cholesterol. Nationwide, nearly 5 million people are at an increased risk of one of these conditions because of a genetic mutation. Were ready to work together on the positive, life-changing impact this partnership will have on our community members, Dr. Marlon Priest, Cones chief clinical officer, said in a statement. This collaborative effort touches everything from our high-quality heart care services to our commitment to health equity across our communities. The groups said their motivation has been that genetic testing can lead to not only better health care, but also to preventing many health problems in the first place. It is expected that the effort will result in better, more effective care for people who develop health conditions, and information that people and their providers can use to potentially delay, reduce or even prevent illness. The initiative also is expected to aid Cone in uncovering what risks might be occurring at disproportionate levels within communities in order to better understand the health of the overall population and build wellness programs for the broader community. Helix said the Cone initiative will be one of the largest population health efforts in the region. Helix also is providing Cone with genetic panels for additional health conditions. Individual patients can have future genomic tests run without the need for an additional sample. This will give them, and their providers, access to ongoing genomic insights about their health throughout their lifetime. That impact can reverberate through North Carolina families for future generations, said Dr. James Lu, Helixs chief executive and co-founder. Cone Health is enabling the future of medicine through this program, helping individuals work with their doctors to take greater control of their health. New groups will manage behavioral health services in Rockingham and Davidson counties, part of an effort to consolidate the number of managed care organizations in the state to four from six. Managed care organizations, MCOs, link patients to providers of mental health, substance abuse and developmental-disabilities services. Kody Kinsley, North Carolinas Secretary of Health and Human Services, said in a Nov. 1 directive that Davidson be placed with Partners Health Management and Rockingham with Vaya Health. Meanwhile, the survivor of the planned Eastpointe-Sandhills Center-Trillium Health Resources merger will keep Guilford and Randolph counties. The realignment is to take immediately to ensure the expeditious launch of tailored plans and to minimize duplication work, such as transferring assets and other efforts related to multiple consolidations, Kinsley wrote. The primary goal of MCOs is to combine the management of Medicaid and state funds at the community level in a manner similar to an insurer to reduce costs and add more accountability and consistency to reform. Kinsleys order is likely to be the last phase of the consolidation effort, which started with 41 local management entities in 2003. The dramatic reduction over the past 20 years comes from the preference for larger oversight groups by both N.C. Department of Health and Human Services officials and state legislators. The Republican-controlled legislature included in the 2023-24 state budget language that directed DHHS to reduce the number of MCOs to either four or five in what Kinsley called an effort to improve delivery of care, stabilize the system, and launch tailored plans. In deciding how to best reduce the number of MCOs, I have solicited input from consumers and beneficiaries, providers, county leadership, associations and MCO leadership, Kinsley wrote. Kinsley said he based his decision on three primary criteria: What is best for the people served and for the providers who deliver services. What will promote the value of whole-person care and move the state to tailored plans faster What will reduce complexity, create less disruption, and make things easier for everyone involved. The launch of a key Medicaid initiative in North Carolina tailored plans for about 160,000 behavioral health recipients was delayed indefinitely on June 13 by N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. Individuals who need certain services to address a serious mental illness, serious emotional disturbance, severe substance use disorder, intellectual or developmental disability, or traumatic brain injury may be eligible to enroll in a tailored plan. It is the fifth postponement by DHHS. The initial launch date was July 1, 2022, only to be postponed first to Dec. 1, 2022, then to April 1, 2023, and then Oct. 1, 2023. Another shift Davidson joins Davie, Forsyth, Surry and Yadkin with Partners, which is based in Gastonia. Forsyth is the largest of the 14 counties with Partners and has about 17,500 residents who receive behavioral health services. Davidson County looks forward to working with Partners as we transition and hopefully for years to come, county manager Casey Smith said. Rhett Melton, Partners chief executive, said in a statement that the MCO is firmly committed to the regional model of care for our specialized population. North Carolinas unique public behavioral health care system will provide the best support for members and families with the most complex needs into the future. Partners mission-focused, member-driven approach aligns well with the vision of our new partners in Davidson County. Among Vayas 32 counties are Alamance, Alleghany, Ashe, Stokes, Watauga and Wilkes. It is based in Asheville. It is Rockinghams fifth MCO change since 2009. We have gone through a roller coaster ride with changing MCOs over the years, county manager Lance Metzler said. We are in transition, but are looking forward to working with Vaya and establishing a good report with its team. I am anticipating a seamless transition and hope to provide stronger services for our most vulnerable population. Kinsley has approved the merger of Eastpointe (10 counties), Sandhills (down to nine) and Trillium (28 counties). The last remaining MCO would be Alliance Health with seven counties. That MCO would retain the Eastpointe brand, be based in Moore County with Eastpointe chief executive Sarah Stroud retaining that role. The biggest MCO merger occurred in 2022 when Cardinal was acquired by Vaya. Cardinal was based in Charlotte. It managed services for more than 800,000 North Carolinians utilizing federal and state Medicaid funds, including in Alamance, Davidson, Davie, Forsyth, Rockingham and Stokes counties. However, then-state Health Secretary Mandy Cohen approved requests from county commissioners from Cabarrus, Forsyth, Mecklenburg, Orange, Stanly and Union counties to remove those counties from Cardinal. Those commissioners expressed concerns to Cohen about Cardinal service gaps, delays in authorization of lower levels of care than what is clinically recommended, limited local providers, and a lack of seamless transition during hospital emergency-room discharge planning and transitions to higher levels of care. A woman's dilemma It costs $28,007 to give birth to and raise an infant in their first year in North Carolina. This is purely an estimate, not accounting for possible health complications or even for toys. Too much money? Thats fine. Youre told there is a family that would gladly take care of this baby. You give the baby over to foster care the North Carolina foster care system that had 10,246 kids as of 2022. Dont want to chance getting pregnant? Theres always a wide variety of birth-control options. Would you like the ones that are internal and cost around $1,000 or a pill that you have to remember to take every day at the same time? None are 100% effective though, so there is still a possibility of getting pregnant and having to give birth. When will we stop pretending that we care about babies or people capable of getting pregnant? When will we reflect the care we say we have for them in policies and programs? When will we finally face the truth that the real reason for abortion bans is solely for the social control of women and gender minorities? Amanda Elmore Winston-Salem Allow me ... The first words in Richard Groves' op-ed (online Nov. 11, in print Nov. 10) are these: I believe Israel has a right to defend itself, but ... . The piece then describes what precipitated the current war: "(On Oct. 7) Hamas terrorists massacred at least 1,400 Jews in Israel ... including babies and the elderly; they tortured, raped and kidnapped Jews as hostages. He then moves the narrative to the many Palestinian lives being lost in the war as Israel attempts to seek out and destroy Hamas. And again we read, I believe Israel has a right to defend itself, but ... . Then there's more about the crisis in Gaza, including death counts, followed by another I believe Israel has a right to defend itself, but ... . Allow me, Mr. Groves, to finish the sentence for you: I believe Israel has a right to defend itself, but, because Hamas embeds itself in and launches attacks from hospitals, schools and population centers, many Palestinians will inevitably be killed." Which seems to be just fine by Hamas. Don Freedman Greensboro Berating doctors I feel the need to respond to the Nov. 10 letter "Doctors? Or gods?" For the writer to put all physicians into one category is terribly offensive. I was married to a wonderful doctor for more than 46 years and am the mother, mother-in-law and aunt to amazing doctors. There's not enough room in this letter to address all the changes that have occurred in the medical industry, but for the most part much of it has nothing to do with the doctor's work. When asked about "our most intimate details," we all have the ability to say we'd rather not answer the question. Will they ask us to leave? Absolutely not. As with any other businesses he deals with (yes, medicine is a business), the letter's author has the right not to return to that doctor in the future. There are several websites that deal with writing negative reviews of physicians. I suggest the writer look into them. Louise Pollard Winston-Salem The way forward If you want peace, then work for justice. John Holthouser Winston-Salem Too long a reach? I just read that Republicans in the U.S. House are toiling to agree on a spending bill that they can present to the Senate. They cannot come up with a plan that will secure enough votes from within their own party to pass. I have a novel idea: How about leaders from both parties get together and try to come up with a plan that would secure enough bipartisan votes to be acceptable? Politicians claim to be able to "reach across the aisle" when they're campaigning, but refuse to do so after they are elected. No Democrats will vote for a bill presented by the Republicans and no Republicans will consider working with Democrats for a bipartisan bill that would be beneficial to our country. The same is true for the Democrats in the Senate. If you read the roll call in the Sunday Journal, you will see that our politicians vote strictly along party lines. What happened to the promise to "reach across the aisle" and work for the good of the country? Teddy Shelton Pinnacle What goes up ... The recent news report of the death of a whale calf due to a deflated balloon prompts me to make this plea: Please find another way to celebrate or mourn an outside event rather than releasing balloons into the environment. The balloons that you release go up but eventually return to earth, posing a hazard to the environment and wildlife in particular. So please think before releasing balloons outside. The environment, wildlife and I thank you. Al Baker Pfafftown VOTING SECURITY: The question of whether Georgia's electronic voting system has major cybersecurity flaws that amount to a violation of voters' constitutional rights to cast their votes and have votes accurately counted is set to be decided at a bench trial starting Jan. 9, a judge ruled late Friday. HEZBOLLAH: The leader of the militant group Hezbollah said Saturday his fighters introduced new weapons, including a missile with a heavy warhead, in fighting on the Lebanon-Israel border. UKRAINE WAR: Russian forces targeted Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, and a ballistic missile was shot down there during an overnight bombardment across the country, officials said Saturday, while drones that Russian officials blamed on the Ukrainian military targeted areas around Moscow and the region of Smolensk. AIRCRAFT CRASH: A U.S. military aircraft crashed while training over the eastern Mediterranean Sea, U.S. European Command said Saturday, but there was no sign of hostile activity. SHOOTING: A Texas police officer was killed early Saturday in a shooting that left the shooter dead and a second officer wounded. Two other people were later found dead inside a home in Austin, according to interim police Chief Robin Henderson. CRACKDOWN: Pakistani police are arresting Afghan women and children in the Sindh province as part of a crackdown on migrants, activists said Saturday. Associated Press PODCAST: Snap this code, then tap the link to hear our latest daily news podcast "Hot Off the Wire." Israel agreed to put in place four-hour daily pauses in its assault on Hamas in northern Gaza starting Thursday, the White House said, as President Joe Biden pressed Israelis for a multi-day stoppage in the fighting in a bid to release hostages held by Hamas. Biden said Thursday that there was "no possibility" of a formal cease-fire at the moment, and said it took "a little longer" than he hoped for Israel to agree to the humanitarian pauses. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Israel also was opening a second corridor for civilians to flee the areas that are the current focus of its military campaign against Hamas. LAWMAKER CENSURED: The House voted 234-188 late Tuesday to censure Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, the only Palestinian American in Congress, in a rebuke of her rhetoric against the Israel-Hamas war. Tlaib defended her stance, saying she "will not be silenced and I will not let you distort my words." ARMS CONTROL: NATO member countries that signed a key Cold War-era security treaty froze their participation in the pact on Tuesday just hours after Russia pulled out, raising new questions about the future of arms control agreements in Europe. The treaty was signed in November 1990 and ratified two years later. BIDEN SUBPOENAS: House Republicans issued subpoenas on Wednesday to President Joe Biden's son Hunter and his brother James, taking their most aggressive step yet in an impeachment inquiry bitterly opposed by Democrats that is testing the reach of congressional oversight powers. The just-concluded Mubadala Health Diabetes Conference helped empower healthcare professionals with the most recent, evidence-based recommendations for the diagnosis, management, and prevention of diabetes. Scores of diabetes experts from across the board gathered in Abu Dhabi for the conference organised by Imperial College London Diabetes Centre and HealthPlus Diabetes and Endocrinology Center, both M42 companies. The two-day conference served as a platform for comprehensive discussions, with a particular focus on the latest advances in addressing the challenges posed by diabetes. With the overarching theme of Moving Towards the Future of Diabetes Care, the event featured a distinguished lineup of experts, drawing attendees from across the globe. Top experts The event saw experts such as Professor Maha Barakat, Assistant Minister for Health and Life Sciences at the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who provided invaluable insights into the latest updates in diabetes guidelines. Dr Saira Hameed, a renowned author and Consultant in Endocrinology and Diabetes at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, and an Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer at Imperial College London, UK, also brought her wealth of experience to the discussions. In her keynote lecture, Dr Victoria Salem a type 1 diabetes specialist at St Marys hospital and a clinician scientist in Bioengineering at Imperial College London spoke about recent advances in the quest for a technological versus a biological cure, comparing outcomes in recent trials with fully closed loop pumps versus the first generation of results of stem cells. Additionally, the conference played host to experts from institutions including Imperial College London, Imperial College London Diabetes Centre, HealthPlus Diabetes and Endocrinology Centre, and Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. The conference sessions covered a wide spectrum of critical topics, ranging from advances in continuous glucose monitoring devices to the management of type 1 diabetes using stem cells or artificial pancreases, as well as addressing diabetic kidney disease from prevention to treatment, among others. Four parallel workshops It also featured four parallel workshops designed to provide attendees with firsthand insights into cases from the diabetes type 1 clinic, cases from the diabetes type 2 clinic, and cases from the obesity and lipid clinic. These topics were brought to life by subject matter experts not only from across the Mubadala Health network and the Abu Dhabi region but also by renowned international experts from Imperial College London, UK. The aim was to equip attendees with the latest updates and insights in the ever-evolving landscape of diabetes care. Furthermore, the conference offered specialised, in-depth workshops dedicated to promoting evidence-based practices aimed at achieving improved patient outcomes. Prof Amir Sam, Head of Imperial College School of Medicine, UK said: "For ten consecutive years, Imperial College London Diabetes Centre has been hosting the Diabetes Conference in Abu Dhabi, and I am honoured to have co-chaired this event, which served as a platform for sharing cutting-edge research and promoting collaboration between Imperial College London and the UAE in the field of diabetes management. This two-day conference was a testament to the unwavering commitment of our institution to advance the understanding and treatment of diabetes. Diabetes threat Dr Mohammed Al-Khatib, Conference Chairman, Medical Director, and Internal Medicine, Diabetes and Endocrinology Consultant at HealthPlus Diabetes and Endocrinology Centre, said: It was my privilege to co-chair and attend the two-day conference and hear insights from colleagues around the world. The threat of diabetes is emerging largely in the world, but it is reassuring to know that research to combat the disease is ongoing on a daily basis. Recognised by the Department of Health Abu Dhabi, the conference offered 16 Continuing Medical Education (CME) hours. Held at the Rosewood Hotel, Abu Dhabi, this event underscored Mubadala Health's commitment to advancing medical education and understanding.--TradeArabia News Service Omaha Steaks, the premium beef and gourmet food company with deep Nebraska roots, has a new chief executive officer. Company officials announced Tuesday that Nate Rempe will assume the role of president and CEO. Rempe joined Omaha Steaks in 2016 and has served as president and chief operating officer since June 2020. In his new role, he will maintain responsibility for leading the business operations. Rempe is the first person outside of the Simon family to serve as president in more than 100 years, a spokesperson said. J.J. and B.A. Simon founded the company in 1917 as Table Supply Meat Company, a small-scale butcher shop. Todd Simon will continue as chairman. This business has been an important part of my family for more than 100 years, Simon said in a news release. And Im pleased to have found such an experienced leader in Nate, who is as passionate about the business as we are. Omaha Steaks is an Omaha-based, fifth-generation, family-owned company. It markets and distributes a wide variety of the finest quality USDA-approved, grain-fed beef and other gourmet foods, including seafood, pork, poultry, slow cooker and skillet meals, side dishes, appetizers, and desserts. Under Rempes direction, Simon said, Omaha Steaks has grown 52%. Im looking forward to seeing what we accomplish next as we continue delivering on our family promise of exceptional experiences, Simon said. Rempe, in a statement, expressed pride in his team and the growth they achieved together. Its an exciting time at Omaha Steaks as we enter our busiest season of the year, he said. And Im grateful to Todd and the Simon family for putting their trust in me to guide us to and through our next chapter. Omaha Steaks is recognized as the nations largest direct-response marketer of premium beef and gourmet foods, available to customers by calling 1-800-228-9055, online at www.OmahaSteaks.com or at retail stores nationwide. Additionally, the company announced that Omaha-based investment firm McCarthy Capital, known for supporting established management teams who retain operating control and meaningful ownership, has made an investment in the Omaha Steaks business. Founded in 1986, McCarthy Capital encompasses a partnership of experienced investment professionals who specialize in partnering with management teams to drive growth, the news release said. We are thrilled to have an opportunity to invest in the business after following the company for so many years, said Patrick Duffy, president and managing partner at McCarthy Capital. A man wanted on suspicion of child sexual assault who led authorities on a pursuit Tuesday has been released from the hospital and booked into jail, Omaha police said Friday. Refugio Arcos-Hernandez, 33, is charged with first-degree sexual assault of a child, flight to avoid arrest, weapon possession by a prohibited person, resisting arrest, obstruction, leaving the scene of a property damage accident, willful reckless driving and not having a drivers license. According to Sarpy County and Omaha authorities, Arcos-Hernandez fled from a traffic stop Tuesday after he was spotted outside Gretna High School. The pursuit ended near 59th and Girard Streets when Arcos-Hernandez fled from the crash on foot, then cut his own throat with a knife, police said. Several other schools in the area were placed on lockdown during the pursuit. Arcos-Hernandez allegedly sexually assaulted a child Feb. 20, according to court records, after which he gave the alleged victim $100 in cash to not tell her mother, because he has a newborn and did not want to go to jail. A witness told authorities that Arcos-Hernandez was then kicked out of the home, and they believed he had fled to Mexico. After two state agencies limited access to information that had long been provided to government watchdogs in response to an opinion Nebraska's Attorney General issued in August suggesting the oversight offices are unconstitutional, two state lawmakers took oversight into their own hands Thursday. Sens. Machaela Cavanaugh and Jen Day, both Omaha-area legislators, paid a surprise visit Thursday to the Youth Rehabilitation & Treatment Center in Kearney, one of four state facilities operated by the Department of Health and Human Services that houses juvenile offenders sent to the institutions for rehabilitation. Their visit which, Cavanaugh said, followed no prior notice to staff or leadership at the YRTC comes after officials at HHS and the Department of Correctional Services have largely shut out the Office of Inspectors General, which was created by the Legislature to provide oversight and offer transparency to lawmakers who appropriate funds to the agencies. The Legislature in September hired an outside attorney to help lawmakers navigate in the wake of Attorney General Mike Hilgers' opinion, and Cavanaugh suggested Friday that the body would seek to change state law to address the barriers in the upcoming legislative session. But until then, the inspectors general have been shut out of internal agency information-storing systems and denied access to physical facilities beyond what would be granted to members of the public, leaving an oversight vacuum for two of Nebraska's largest state agencies that care for some of its most vulnerable populations. That vacuum spurred Cavanaugh and Day to climb into a minivan in Omaha on Thursday and head west until they reached the lobby of the YRTC. "The heads-up we gave them was we walked in the front door and said, "Hi, we're Sen. Cavanaugh and Sen. Day, and we're here to take a look around," Cavanaugh said in a phone interview Friday. Juvenile Services Administrator Mark LaBouchardiere was welcoming, Cavanaugh said, taking the senators to his office to answer their questions before they toured the YRTC's grounds. "There wasn't any critical thing to report out," Cavanaugh said, though she noted the YRTC in Kearney "on the best day ever is a very depressing facility." The Omaha lawmaker said she has ongoing concerns over the campus' dormitory-style housing units, which Cavanaugh described as "a big open room with beds and florescent lighting" that seems more like a gymnasium than living quarters. That style of housing presents safety problems, too, Cavanaugh said, since many of the 50 to 65 boys housed at the facility have ties to rival gangs in Omaha, leaving youths sleeping in the same open spaces as others who Cavanaugh suggested "might literally want you dead." "It's not a good environment for treatment and rehabilitation, and that is something that has been an issue that is an evergreen issue there that we really should be prioritizing the facilities," she said, noting the Legislature appropriated more than $15 million for facility upgrades at the YRTC in April 2022. Cavanaugh also raised concerns over the campus' Dickson Unit, a secure facility that all youth sent to the YRTC are housed at initially and may be returned there for "infractions of the policies of the facility," according to a public YRTC-Kearney parent handbook. "That facility is like a prison," the senator said. "(Youth housed there) have individual rooms. They are like a cell. It's just concrete and a toilet sink thing that's all one unit. ... It's locked doors. You have to be buzzed in and out. It's very correctional." Cavanaugh's chief concern, though, is the lack of oversight brought on by the attorney general's opinion, which has largely prevented Inspector General Jennifer Carter's office from keeping an eye on the facility and its progress in addressing the same issues Cavanaugh and Day observed in their tour Thursday. Carter's office recommended in 2016 that the YRTC close or "appropriately restructure" the Dickson Unit a suggestion HHS officials accepted but have failed to follow through on. The office also called that year for HHS to develop a continuous quality improvement process to address "deteriorating conditions" at the YRTC-Kearney, a recommendation the agency also accepted. But when Carter's office drafted its annual report to the Legislature this year, HHS officials did not respond to requests for progress updates on either front and similarly ignored requests for progress updates on 26 other recommendations the inspector general had made, according to the report. Cavanaugh said the agency has also stopped notifying Carter's office of critical incidents that happen across its YRTCs, which can include deaths or serious injuries, physical assaults involving youth or staff, reported sexual assaults, suicide attempts, significant medical emergencies and property damage. The YRTC in Kearney "saw increases in nearly every type of reported incident" last fiscal year, Carter's office said in its 2023 report, including a 100% increase in reported assaults on staff members and a 78% increase in youth-on-youth assaults. Staff at the facility used mechanical restraints on youths 156 times in the 2023 fiscal year compared with 54 uses of mechanical restraints the year prior, according to the report. In a statement, an HHS spokesman said the agency "has not stopped the OIGs access" but has "modified the process in requesting information in order to comply with constitutional requirements." "The agency will continue to respond to the OIGs requests when the information is not confidential or statutorily protected," the spokesman, Jeff Powell, said in an email Friday. "The department continues its commitment to transparency, serving youth in our care and finding resolutions to their issues." Powell also said the department hasn't restricted access that patients or youth have to Carter's office and that HHS "will continue to share individual information with the OIG at the request of and with the appropriate informed voluntary consent of the individual, as allowed by law. Carter, reached by phone Friday, said the agency has offered her office the same level of access that it would to the general public a much different level of transparency than inspectors general previously enjoyed. She also said the data that the department has provided to the Legislature about critical incidents since Hilgers' opinion came out amounts to only raw numbers that don't provide enough context for lawmakers to understand what's happening within the YRTCs. "Whether there was a systemic problem that may need to be addressed or that the Legislature needed to be aware of, that cannot be understood from just numbers," she said. Cavanaugh lamented that lack of oversight, the legal opinion that preceded it and the timing of Hilgers' release of the guidance, which came two months after the end of one legislative session and four months before the start of the next, leaving lawmakers with few avenues for recourse in the interim save for filing a lawsuit against the state. She questioned why the state's executive branch didn't approach the conflict more pragmatically and engage in a discussion with legislators over the inspector generals' constitutionality, rather than treating Hilgers' opinion as law and, almost immediately, handicapping the Legislature's ability to keep tabs on the state's prison and child welfare systems. For that, Cavanaugh blamed Gov. Jim Pillen, whose office has described Hilgers' opinion as "thorough and well-reasoned" and said the governor is "responsible for ensuring that agencies within the executive branch comply with the constitution and Nebraska's laws." Cavanaugh sees things differently, casting Pillen's executive branch as one functioning "in a way that I have never seen in Nebraska" with "a complete disregard for proper etiquette, for treatment of the citizens, for collegiality, (and) appropriateness." "It's really astonishing to me how this governor chooses to conduct himself," she said. "And this is just another hashmark in inappropriate decision-making on his part." Laura Strimple, a spokeswoman for Pillen, said in an email Friday that his administration has acted to ensure compliance with state and federal confidentiality laws suggesting, as Hilgers' office did, that the Legislature's watchdogs ran afoul of Nebraska's constitution. "We look forward to working with our legislative partners to craft a new inspector general model that complies with the constitution's separation of powers requirements," Strimple wrote. "Until then, senators continue to have ample and substantive access to NDCS and HHS." Photos: Last day of the 108th Nebraska Legislature GRAND ISLAND Several hundred people, including local and state officials, gathered Friday for the groundbreaking of the Nebraska Veterans Cemetery in Grand Island. The project will expand and improve the existing Grand Island Veterans Memorial Cemetery. It will be built next to the Soldiers and Sailors Cemetery, which is part of the Grand Island Veterans Home. Officials hope the project will be completed in spring 2025. The underlying theme throughout Fridays speeches was how much collaboration was needed to make the project come together. Grand Island Mayor Roger Steele said that two years ago, he was told to talk to John Hilgert, director of the Nebraska Department of Veterans Affairs, about the possibility of this becoming a Nebraska State Veterans Cemetery. At the time, Steele thought, Thats going to require the cooperation of the city, the state and the federal government. Thats a huge organizational lift. But thanks to people like Hilgert, Hall County Veterans Service Officer Don Shuda and so many others, we can celebrate this great day for veterans, Steele said. Theres been a need for an upgrade in the Grand Island Veterans Cemetery for a long time, and I am both proud and excited to be a part of helping this project get on its way, state Sen. Ray Aguilar said. Because there was not room in the general fund after the budget was released, it was my mission to find possible funding through other avenues, Aguilar said. This was not an easy task to accomplish. Aguilar thanked the people who helped me find the funds through the legislative process. He mentioned Shuda and state Sen. Robert Clements, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, who was present Friday. Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen said that after taking office, he said no to many agencies that came asking for money. But there was one project that succeeded because of the dogged, undeniable determination of Sen. Aguilar. He would not take no. He would not take no. He would not take no. And he came back and he pounded and he pounded and he pounded, Pillen said. Im a thick-headed guy. My wife says, Youre so thick-headed I hope you never have a brain problem because no doctor would drill through your skull, Aguilar said. But Sen. Aguilar got through, Pillen said, adding that hes grateful that in partnership with other senators we got the funding secured so that this becomes reality. A lot of people present Friday deserved credit, Pillen said. But the champion was Sen. Aguilar. And were incredibly grateful for your work, Sen. Aguilar. Rep. Adrian Smith said he wasnt surprised at the size of Fridays turnout because I know Grand Island shows up for veterans. Sometimes, even if federal and state funds are involved, it doesnt matter as much until the community embraces the project. And I am so glad that Grand Island embraces a project like this, Smith said. U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts said that our veterans will recognize a team effort, because they are part of the greatest team the world has ever seen, our U.S. military. And bringing this project together was also a big team effort. Driving the project, Ricketts said, was Shuda. The cemetery required cooperation of the city, county, state and federal government, he said. In addition to $8 million from the Legislature, the National Cemetery Administration contributed more than $8 million and the Grand Island community raised $785,000. It truly was a team effort at all levels of government to make this happen, Ricketts said. Procuring the federal funding was very interesting, Hilgert said, detailing the process. The praise for Aguilar was well-founded, because without his work and his money that he identified and Gov. Pillen included in the budget, we wouldnt be here, Hilgert said. Hilgert introduced two men from the National Cemetery Administration who made the trip from Washington, D.C. Hilgert said the men enjoyed a great steak dinner Thursday night at the Saddle Club. Pillen led a trade delegation to Vietnam in July. And before Pillen left Nebraska, many Vietnam veterans told the governor they wished they could go with him, because the Vietnamese people are extraordinary. They are just like Nebraskans, Pillen recalled. Many Vietnamese people expressed thanks to the Americans, Pillen said. They said, Make sure you tell the Vietnam veterans back home thank you for the impact they had on the country we are today. The Vietnamese prime minister told Pillen the country is eternally grateful to the United States and to its Vietnam veterans. Vietnam, the prime minister said, needs a long-term relationship with the people of the United States, and Americas help and friendship, Pillen said. Vietnam has a vibrant economy and it could not have happened without the Vietnam veterans. So kudos and thank you. God bless you all, Pillen said to the Vietnam veterans in the audience. Hilgert said the Nebraska Veterans Cemetery at Grand Island will have identical standards to a national cemetery. Nebraska is home to two national cemeteries Fort McPherson National Cemetery near Maxwell and the Omaha National Cemetery near Papillion. The cemetery will involve more than people realize, he said. Its going to be very much a national-class cemetery, and its going to be something that you all can be proud of. I guarantee it, Hilgert said. This is going to be a wonderful project. One of the finest ways that we recognize, honor and remember our veterans is in our veterans cemeteries, Ricketts said. Remembering Nebraskans loved and lost PFC Leonard F. Preister Gaylord L. Blanc Veteran Edward E. Kimm William E. Phalen Kenneth H. Carnicle Richard L. Monnier Veteran PFC Franklin W. Ritter Pvt. James Svec Fritz Grant Minder William G. Rockel Leslie Clymer and Milton Clymer Lt. James Edwin Kelley Jeffrey Alan Alexander Robert Schenaman E.W. Stevens Cory R. Mracek Frank Stuart Lomax Harry Perkinton Claude A. Fiedler Mike Doheny Lawrence Wilcox Wilfred M. Schutz E.W. Stevens Joseph A. Gilmore Melvin Leroy Fertig Jay Dana Morse Harvey Hubka Hank Krass Clair Geiger Sgt. Jed Marsh Chuck van Rossum Kenneth W. Wright Miguel Beltran Dean Wright Staff Sgt. Patrick Hamburger Sgt. Jason T. Palmerton Pauley, Betty J. Thompson, William Bill Rollin Fritch Wittrock, Raymond R. "Red" "Woody" Bopp, Walter D. Blum, Harry J. Benjamin G. Prange Robert Woody Donald K Schwab Wachtel, C.L. "Vern" Rex Fuller Jess Hartsell Martin, Eugene R. Gayle Eyler Sage brothers Hoppe, Frank Henry Doran, Ivan E. Jack Allsman Hunter Hogan 'Searching for Stanley' Linda Tarango-Griess Staff Sgt. Lillian Clamens Special Agent Nathan J. Schuldheiss Spc. Nathaniel A. Caldwell Pfc. Eric Paul Woods Staff Sgt. Jason Fegler Spc. Dustin L. Workman II Capt. Matthew Nielson Capt. Travis A. Ford Petty Officer 3rd Class David J. Moreno Staff Sgt. Christopher W. Swisher Staff Sgt. Daniel Bader Spc. James R. Wolf Sgt. Dennis A. Corral Sgt. Cory Mracek Pvt. Noah Lee Boye Spc. Dennis Morgan Matthew Henderson Lance Cpl. Kyle Codner Sgt. Jeremy Fischer Petty Officer 3rd Class Eric L. Knott 1st Lt. Edward Iwan Lance Cpl. Shane E. Kielion Sgt. Nicholas Nolte Staff Sgt. Tricia L. Jameson Spc. Darren Howe Capt. Joel Cahill 1st Lt. Garrison Avery Sgt. Lonnie Calvin Allen Jr. Lance Cpl. Brent Zoucha Pfc. Benjamin Slaven Spc. Jeremy Jones Spc. Joshua Ford Staff Sgt. Jeffrey J. Hansen Spc. Germaine Debro Staff Sgt. Scott E. Nisely Lance Cpl. Michael Scholl Staff Sgt. Jeremy W. Mulhair 1st Lt. Jacob Fritz Sgt. Randy Matheny Sgt. Wayne R. Cornell Petty Officer 1st Class Joseph Adam McSween 1st Lt. Kevin Gaspers Sgt. Kenneth E. Locker Jr. Cpl. Matthew Alexander Spc. William Bailey III Spc. Adam G. Herold Spc. Val John Borm Spc. Josiah W. Hollopeter Sgt. Jacob Schmuecker Sgt. Justin Duffy Pfc. Michael Jarrett John Douangdara Jeffrey Chaney UNION GROVE Jason Cleven has seen education evolve in 23 years as a teacher at Union Grove Elementary School. One of those evolutions is mental health, and the school is working to help students by having a morning check-in and social emotional learning time. It does make you remember that theyre not just students, said Cleven, a sixth grade teacher. Theyre human beings. They have a lot of things going on in their lives You guys have feelings, you guys have thoughts. What can we do to help you? Jennifer Orcutt, UGES fourth grade science and reading teacher, said it is crucial to address students mental health so they can learn. What can I take care of for you at the beginning of the day to put you in a good mindset to be available for learning, to be ready to bring in that new information and retain it? Orcutt said. If theyre not ready emotionally, youre not going to get anywhere with them academically. That was one of the topics Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez discussed with school administrators last Wednesday when she visited Union Grove Elementary, 1745 Milldrum St. Rodriguez visited several classrooms. She read with kindergartners and observed students making papier mache objects that will be in a school parade. Some students excitedly gasped and said, Oh my gosh! as Rodriguez walked through the halls. UGES Principal Tom Hansen told Rodriguez that more resources to address students emotional regulation, mental health and special education would benefit the school. That is a common refrain Rodriguez hears from Wisconsin education officials, which is why she said it is important to fully fund public schools. We really want to make sure that were supporting kids in the best way that we can so that they can learn in a supportive environment, Rodriguez said. The 2023-25 state budget passed by the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature slightly increased the state reimbursement level for public school special education from 30% to 33.3%. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers initial proposal was for the state to reimburse districts for 45% of special education costs in 2023-24 and 60% of costs in 2024-25. Rodriguez, a Democrat, said we really need to make sure that we are fully reimbursing schools for the type of services they provide their special education children. Union Grove Elementary officials said teacher staffing is another challenge. Rodriguez believes better pay and dignity for teachers would help decrease the state teacher shortage. Teachers are supporting our kids all day, every day, Rodriguez said. We gotta make sure that they have the respect and that they are paid appropriately for the work that they do Family-sustaining wages (are) really important for teachers all across the state. Orcutt, who has taught at UGES for 15 years, said the school has a supportive, communal atmosphere. Our teamwork here at the building is amazing, Orcutt said. Its like a little family. You come to work and the people that youre with you can count on them, which makes it easier to do your job every day. Cleven, who graduated from Union Grove High School, agreed. Students make him laugh, and he enjoys seeing their evolution. Teaching is still a great job, he said. I highly recommend it. Seven photos of Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez's visit to Union Grove Elementary Sara Rodriguez Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez talks with students making papier mache objects at Union Grove Elementary School, 1745 Milldrum St. Rodriguez spoke wi Story time Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez reads with a kindergarten student Wednesday at Union Grove Elementary School, 1745 Milldrum St. Rodriguez and students Students wave to Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, left, at Union Grove Elementary School, 1745 Milldrum St. Reading with a student Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez reads with a student at Union Grove Elementary School, 1745 Milldrum St. Rodriguez, Hanson, Torres Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, from left, talks with Principal Tom Hansen and Superintendent Amber Torres at Union Grove Elementary School, 1745 Mil In the classroom Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez talks with a teacher at Union Grove Elementary School, 1745 Milldrum St. Rodriguez believes better pay and dignity for Group Superintendent Amber Torres, from left, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, Principal Tom Hansen and assistant principal Jesse Sams toured the building W Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez at Union Grove Elementary RACINE As administrators at a large public school district in Kentucky, James McMillin and Amanda Wickersham are facing challenges similar to those at the Racine Unified School District. They are determining how to best prepare students for life after high school and said a two-day conference in Racine last month clarified some of their concerns and provided ideas for potential solutions. Wickersham, career and technical education director at Fayette County Public Schools in Lexington, Kentucky, said she wrote five pages of to-do notes during the conference. Its comforting to hear everyone talk about having the same struggles, Wickersham said. Its good to share the resources and approaches on how we address those issues. They appreciated talking to and learning from educators across the country. What were trying to prepare our students for, its ultimately this global society, said McMillin, chief of high schools at Fayette County Public Schools. Whats working, whats not working? We like to steal from each other with that kind of thing. One aspect they already have taken is RUSD partnering with Gateway Technical College to offer dual and concurrent courses so high schoolers can earn college credit. The Lexington school district has a similar relationship with nearby colleges. McMillin and Wickersham were two of a few dozen people who attended the Ford Next Generation Learning superintendent conference, an annual event intended to bring together school officials. The first day entailed a discussion about school district administration topics, and the second day involved attendees going to Case High School to learn more about the RUSD academies. The RUSD academy model began in 2016 at Case, Horlick and Park high schools. It is a career-focused education style that aims to engage students in what theyre interested in and connect them with community organizations. RUSD expanded its academy model to three middle schools last school year. Cheryl Carrier, Ford NGL executive director, believed it would be helpful for conference attendees to learn more about the academies, saying she was impressed with the deeply embedded community partnerships RUSD has. High school academies The day at Case, 7345 Washington Ave., involved a community panel, building tour and small group discussions. In one small group discussion, Alex DeBaker, RUSD executive director of academies and transformation, discussed the importance of the RUSD high school academy steering committee determining its purpose, setting goals and leading the way for how to meet the goals. DeBaker said public advocacy is an important goal for the high school steering committee. We need our steering committee to be in the community being champions of the academies, DeBaker said. That was the major piece, is educating the community. The steering committee is composed of about 35 people from area businesses, nonprofits, colleges and RUSD staff. DeBaker said it is important to have the steering committee, community and RUSD staff on the same page about the goals of the high school academies. We have to onboard everyone who engages with us, DeBaker said. We have to deepen the roots within our own organization so that its not relational, its cultural. McMillin and Wickersham agreed, saying it is key to set up structures so that connections between school districts and businesses do not depend on relationships between a few people who might leave their positions. They also appreciated discussing the importance of collaboration. Were not always great about that, Wickersham said. Im walking away knowing that the door has to be open for everyone to have ownership of the process, otherwise it becomes relational instead of cultural. Middle school academies Jeff Miller, RUSD deputy chief of schools, discussed the middle school academy model, which began last school year at three buildings. The middle school academies are intended to align curriculum at Gifford, Jerstad-Agerholm and Mitchell K-8 schools and prepare students for high school academy courses. RUSD is in the early stages, and Miller said it is a learning process to determine what does and does not work for middle schoolers. So far, RUSD middle schools have mainly worked with nonprofits to provide guest speakers and hands-on learning. Miller said the district aims to work with more area organizations because there are not enough nonprofits around the community to address every single thing. The main challenges to having successful middle school academies are staffing, teacher buy-in and student behavior, according to Miller. Qualified teachers are hard to find, and it can be difficult to train and support new instructors to teach academy courses. Some middle school students misbehave, and Miller said block scheduling, which results in longer classes, can present challenges. How do we keep our kids engaged for 74 minutes? Miller said. Thats been a struggle. According to Miller, RUSD has weekly middle school staff meetings to discuss student learning and how to help middle schoolers who arent on track. He said those meetings are different from prior years, when student behavior was the main topic of discussion. Its multi-faceted, but our eyes are now on student success every single week, Miller said. Jody Bloyer, RUSD chief of schools, thanked attendees and encouraged them to find joyful moments amid job challenges. I know we have difficult issues and crises all across our communities, Bloyer said. I hope that when youre here in Racine, Wisconsin, you walk away with a little bit of joy. McMillin and Wickersham appeared to head back to Lexington with a little bit of joy and a lot of information. Thirteen photos of a superintendent conference at Case High School James McMillin James McMillin, chief of high schools at Fayette County Public Schools in Lexington, Kentucky, listens to a discussion during a superintendent Alex DeBaker Alex DeBaker, Racine Unified executive director of academies and transformation, left, talks about the RUSD high school academy model during a Jeff Miller Jeff Miller, Racine Unified deputy chief of schools, talks about middle school academies during a superintendent conference at Case High Schoo Panel Six community panelists spoke during a superintendent conference Oct. 18 at Case High School, 7345 Washington Ave. Panelists said it is crucia Kelli Steenrod Kelli Steenrod, Park High School academy coach, talks Wednesday, Oct. 18 during a superintendent conference at Case High School, 7345 Washington Ave. Ambasador tour Ambassadors Shrika Patel, left, and Aaron Tremelling lead a tour Wednesday, Oct. 18 during a superintendent conference at Case High School, 73 Chelsea Powell Chelsea Powell, Academies of Racine steering committee chair, left, participated in a panel during a superintendent conference at Case High Sc Rob Ducoffe Rob Ducoffe, University of Wisconsin-Parkside provost and vice chancellor of academic and student affairs, left, participated in a community p Chris Litzau Chris Litzau, director of the Great Lakes Community Conservation Corps, participated in a panel discussion during a superintendent conference McMillin and Wickersham James McMillin, chief of high schools at Fayette County Public Schools in Lexington, Kentucky, left, and Amanda Wickersham, career and technic Daryl Burns Daryl Burns, Racine Unified deputy chief of schools, talks Wednesday, Oct. 18 during a superintendent conference at Case High School, 7345 Was Cheryl Carrier Cheryl Carrier, Ford Next Generation Learning executive director, talks to students during a superintendent conference at Case High School, 73 Soren Gajewski Soren Gajewski, Racine Unified interim superintendent, listens Wednesday, Oct. 18 during a superintendent conference at Case High School, 7345 Superintendent conference panel RACINE Veterans Day got a star-spangled salute Saturday during a festive ceremony inside Memorial Hall in Downtown Racine. Solemn messages of respect and uplifting musical performances brought the crowd to its feet during an event marking the federal holiday honoring military veterans. Racine Mayor Cory Mason thanked veterans in the crowd and urged others in attendance to teach young people about the importance of recognizing and honoring veterans. Noting that the veterans in his own family have all passed away, Mason declared that future generations in Racine must understand what veterans have meant to America. Veterans are such a critical piece of our history and our tapestry, the mayor said. Its a foundation of our community. The ceremony included remarks from veterans and other dignitaries, as well as patriotic performances by the Gilmore Fine Arts Choir of the Racine Unified School District. The choir delivered rousing renditions of We Honor You and a medley of military theme songs that had spectators standing and cheering. Following the ceremony, veterans and their families were to be treated to a lunch organized by VFW Post 1391. Also joining the festivities was Susan Savaglio-Jarvis, president of Siena Catholic Schools of Racine. Savaglio-Jarvis told the crowd that she was profoundly grateful for what veterans have contributed to the nation. Referring to current political instabilities around the world, she asked people to keep current members of the military in their thoughts, too. Lets remember their selfless deeds, she said. To the veterans in attendance, she said, Thank you for your great personal sacrifice. Photos: Wisconsin Veterans Museum The Universities of Wisconsin tendered an olive branch of sorts to the Republican-controlled state Legislature last week in the ongoing feud over the universities commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The plan proposed by the university system seeks to release the $32 million Republicans withheld from the universities earlier this year by pledging to use the money to fund engineering, nursing and health care, business and finance, and computer and data science programs at 13 schools in the UW System. It follows the Republicans demand that those funds be directly applied to workforce development programs as many Wisconsin employers face labor shortages. This plan is exactly what the legislature is looking for a concentrated emphasis on adding more graduates to the workforce in key areas, UW System President Jay Rothman said. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, was at least partially acceptable to the systems proposal. Vos said, It looks like a good proposal. Once we work out an agreement on DEI we would be happy to move forward. Aahhh, and theres the rub. Vos and state Republicans want to eliminate 188 university positions aimed at promoting diversity, equity and inclusion on state campuses, which some conservatives regard as liberal indoctrination. To emphasize their position, the Legislature last month approved 6% raises for most state employees over the next two years, but withheld them from 35,000 Universities of Wisconsin staff essentially making faculty, food service workers, custodians, executive assistants and others unwilling pawns in a feud between the Legislature and university leaders over issues they dont control. Vos has said, the Legislature would be willing to approve future UW pay increases without the UW System eliminating all its DEI positions as long as the system gives its powers to create university jobs to the Legislature. Thats a power grab of the first order and its not the first time state Republicans have shown a penchant for sticking their fingers in every pie and arrogating more power to themselves witness for instance the GOPs ongoing feuds with Democrat Gov. Tony Evers who filed suit this month charging state Republicans with trying to impede, usurp or obstruct basic executive branch functions. Vos and the GOP Legislature have vast powers over most matters in the state. They dont need to micro-manage the state universities and set policies that are the rightful responsibility and job of university leaders and the Board of Regents. Our hope would be that Vos and GOP leaders would accept this olive branch from the states universities, create new jobs by expanding university-backed workforce development and mothball their misguided effort to dismantle DEI programs. Oh, yes, and give state university workers their 6.6% pay raises as promised in the state budget just like they did for other state workers. 1. Yes. The platform takes up too much time and is often abused by speakers. Get rid of it. 2. Yes. The Citizen Petitions section is unworkable and generally results in a gripe session. 3. No. The platform is the only way residents can discuss non-agenda items. Keep it around.. 4. No. Killing it will discourage public input. Keep it or broaden Citizen Comments criteria. 5. Unsure. It can be a drain on the councils time, but it does serve a purpose for residents. Vote View Results Akaer, a Brazilian company, will bring to the Dubai Airshow its broad portfolio of technologies for civil and military aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), armoured ground vehicles, satellite cameras and missile subsystems. "Dubai Airshow, from November 13 to 17, is one of the most important meeting points in the world for the Aerospace and Defence ecosystem. A great event, which strengthens Akaer's global presence," said the group's CEO, Cesar Silva. Strategic weight With a solid history of more than three decades of operation, Akaer has expanded its presence on the global scenario by establishing businesses in more than 20 countries. The Middle East has strategic importance in the company's growth plans, with already consolidated partnerships in the UAE (Edge, Adasi and Calidus), Saudi Arabia (INTRA), Turkey (TAI) and Israel (Earth). The region brings together important countries with huge interest in developing technologies for the Aerospace and Defence sectors. A favorable environment for Akaer, which has innovation in its DNA, noted Silva. Highlights One of the most recent highlights in Akaer's portfolio was the development of the Hurjet fighter in partnership with TAI (Turkish Aerospace Industry). The aircraft, designed for advanced training and light attack actions by the Turkish Air Force, is capable of reaching supersonic speeds and made its first flight in April. The Brazilian company was responsible for the structural design and deployment of the Hurjet's fuselage and empennage systems. Akaer also played an important role in the KC-390 cargo ship project, in cooperation with Embraer, and in the development of the Gripen E fighters for the Brazilian Air Force, in partnership with the Swedish Saab. Furthermore, the company is involved in important national projects, such as the modernisation of the Cascavel armoured vehicle and the production of the OLHAR thermal imaging monocular, both for the Brazilian Army. It also leads the development of a 'superdrone' with hybrid propulsion, the AKR-H2, a project that has a grant from FINEP (Studies and Projects Financier or acronym in Portuguese for Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos), a Brazilian government funding agency. Akaer has its headquarters in Sao Jose dos Campos city (Sao Paulo state, Brazil) and two commercial offices outside Brazil, in Portugal and Turkey.--TradeArabia News Service Known professionally as the B2wins (pronounced B-Twins), Wagner and Walter Caldas will perform at the Marie W. Heider Center for the Arts on Saturday, Nov. 18. The two Brazilians have an incredibly uplifting story to tellboth in words and in song. Growing up dirt poor outside Rio de Janeiro in one of the countrys worst favelas (thats Portugese for slum), their chances of escaping that violent world were slim. Yet, their sunny dispositions and musical talent plus some unpredictable twists of fate have carried them to stages all over the world and helped them achieve their goal of using music to make the world a better place. The name of their Heider Show Music Reimagined: Top 40 from the last 40, hints at the duos musical versatility. Audiences are likely to hear anything from pop to classical to hip hop to reggae to country. The show is amazing and super fun! said Wagner. The audience never knows where were going to land for the next song, but everyone gets to hear something they like. We might do What A Wonderful World followed by The Devil Went Down to Georgia. Although the twins are musical savants t hey can play any song after hearing it just once they actually got their start playing classical music. Their father was building instruments for an orchestra to keep kids off the streets. Because he needed feedback on whether his handmade violins produced the correct sound he signed the twins up for classical music lessons. That fateful decision led to an unlikely series of events that would send the brothers more than 5,000 miles from home. First they began playing concerts outside the favela for wealthy Brazilians. Then, in 2006, National Public Radio picked up on the story and did a piece on them. By sheer coincidence, Anthony Quinn heard the story and was impressed. Quinn was an executive with the World Food Prize, an organization based in Des Moines that celebrates advancements in crop production. Some of the 2006 award-winners were Brazilian so he decided to fly the twins to Iowa perform at that years ceremony. Their performance Walter on violin, Wagner on ukulele lasted only 2 minutes but it was powerful and life-changing. They dazzled! Quinn recalled. They had the energy of youth; they just had this verve to them. You could see it and feel it in the room. Among those in the room was Benjamin Allen, the president of the University of Northern Iowa. With the help of a translator he offered the boys a full musical scholarship to UNI. We thought it was just talk, Walter said, but a month later we started receiving stuff in Brazil from UNI, everything in English with pictures of dorms. I was like Oh my God, were really going! Soon after, they were on their way to Cedar Falls even though they could not speak, read or understand English. Those first few college years were tough on the twins, but there was something about their unrelenting good humor that marked them as special. TC VanHooreweghe is now their manager, but back then he was fellow freshman student at UNI. It sounds cheesy or cliche, but they are so magnetic, VanHooreweghe said. When you are around them, people get out of their comfort zones. They break the ice immediately and you can see people change. While at UNI, the twins started B2twins and since then theyve given over 1,000 concerts all over the world. They are not total strangers to the Coulee Region either. In the summer 2022 they performed at Artspire in downtown La Crosse, a concert that Wagner remembers well. It was outside and we really enjoyed the people, he said. In fact, everywhere weve gone in Wisconsin the people have been so nice to us. Asked why audiences seem to respond so strongly to the brothers, VanHooreweghe put it this way: I think its because of how genuine they are. There is no facade. Theyre not trying to be pop stars or celebrities theyre just two guys who love life and want to share that with others. The Middle Easts aircraft fleet is expected to more than double by 2042 with new-technology widebodies leading the way, according to Boeing. Boeing forecasts widebody airplanes will comprise 45% of deliveries to Middle East airlines over the next 20 years the highest percentage of the 10 global regions featured in Boeings Commercial Market Outlook (CMO) forecast. The CMO projects delivery of 3,025 new commercial airplanes in the Middle East by 2042, including 1,350 widebodies. The regions fleet of dedicated freighters is projected to more than double to 180 jets by 2042, according to the CMO, Boeings annual long-term forecast of demand for commercial airplanes and services. Airlines in the Middle East have increasingly expanded their influence and reach, transforming the region into an international air transit hub, said Darren Hulst, Boeing vice president, Commercial Marketing. Air travel and cargo demand continue to gain momentum, driven by significant economic growth and national development plans. As airlines in the region will require efficient and versatile fleet solutions, Boeing products will be ready to meet market demands. Many airlines in the region provide service between major population centres in Asia, Africa and Europe via growing hubs that offer efficient connectivity. As a result, a higher proportion of widebody aircraft are needed to carry larger passenger volumes. The Middle East single-aisle fleet is also expected to more than double as low-cost carriers (LCC) and short-haul networks continue to develop and expand. By 2042, nearly half of the regions aircraft will be single-aisle jets. Additional 2023 CMO highlights for the Middle East through 2042 include: Two-thirds of new deliveries will support air traffic and cargo growth while one-third of deliveries will replace older airplanes with more fuel-efficient models The total fleet will increase 2.4 times to 3,360 airplanes 1,610 (48%) will be single aisles, while 1,520 (45%) will be widebodies The commercial fleet will generate demand for $335 billion in aviation services including maintenance, repair, training and spare parts. -TradeArabia News Service The badges said they were there to participate in negotiations to curb climate change. They stated affiliations like the government of Brazil, Indigenous organizations of the Amazon, the Climate Registry. But in reality, the livelihoods of these participants were more aligned with what's keeping the problem going: fossil fuels. Close to 400 people connected in some way or another to fossil fuel industries attended last year's United Nations climate talks in Egypt, a grouping that was larger than all but two of the national delegations sent by countries, according to a data analysis of the more than 24,000 participants by The Associated Press. As United Nations leaders, scientists and others called for an eventual elimination of coal, oil and natural gas, various delegations included attendees who in some way owed part or all of their paychecks to fossil fuel burning. Many of these same people, and possibly even more connected to fossil fuels, will likely be at this year's official climate talks, known as Conference of Parties, or COP, being hosted by the United Arab Emirates, a major oil producing country. "There's outsized influence," said Center for Biological Diversity's Jean Su, who sits on the board that represents civil society and environmental groups at these meetings. "These COPs are often wining-and-dining fests for fossil fuel corporations that want to profit off of climate." While the presence is palpable such as oil countries and companies with huge, flashy stands in the trades pavilions the influence is hard to quantify because much of the negotiating is done behind closed doors. These annual meetings, which have occurred since 1995, convene in different cities each year. The host city runs the event and sets the agenda. Because the upcoming summit, COP28, is in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates got to choose the president, picking the CEO of its national oil company, Sultan al-Jaber. As to be expected at a summit focused on the environment, there are many environmental activists, more than 750 last year, by AP's count. But they say their voices are not being heard, and instead the lobbying of fossil fuel interests are why climate talks have yet to produce an agreement to phase out coal, oil and natural gas, as scientists have repeatedly said must happen to stave off the worst impacts of climate change, like extreme weather events. "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," climate activist Greta Thunberg said in an October protest in London. "We cannot trust these politicians and we cannot trust the processes of the COPs because the fossil fuel industries are tightening their grip around their processes and dictating their outcomes." Range of affiliation The AP analyzed the affiliations of attendees of COP27, reviewing details they offered on their badges. Those details were checked against lists of operators and owners of coal mines, oil fields and natural gas plants, as well as manufacturers of carbon-intensive materials like steel and cement. Attendees in 2022 included top executives of BP, Shell, Equinor and TotalEnergies. The head of the world's largest oil and gas firm, Saudi Aramco, was at the site on a "sideline" event. And al-Jaber, chief of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, was also there and will be in charge of this year's climate negotiations. The operations and products of those companies and others are huge contributors to climate change: global oil and gas use alone was responsible for more than half of the world's 40.5 billion tons (36.8 billion metric tons) of greenhouse gas emissions in 2022, according to the International Energy Agency. It wasn't just fossil fuel giants that showed up. Take Mercuria Energy. The Switzerland-based firm calls itself "one of the world's largest energy traders," with 69% of its 2022 traded volumes in oil and natural gas. The firm is also a part-owner in Vesta Terminals, which operates storage terminals that hold crude oil, petroleum products and other liquids, as well as a marine fuels company called Minerva Bunkering. Mercuria sent six people to the COP in Egypt. Its chief trader, Magid Shenouda, went as part of the Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin. Others from Mercuria went as members of delegations for the Brazilian government, the International Chamber of Commerce, the International Emissions Trading Association and Winrock International, a nonprofit that works to help poorer countries with social, environmental and agricultural issues. "We attend these events because we believe the world needs to change to a global energy system that is reliable, affordable, and sustainable," firm spokesman Matthew Lauer said in an email. Delegation members Mercuria was not the only company that sent people with a national delegation. Two employees with the China National Petroleum Company, which is state-owned and one of the largest energy companies in the world, attended as part of the delegation of Niger, the African nation where the company is constructing a pipeline. Thyssenkrupp, a German steelmaker with emissions in 2022 that rivaled those of some oil and gas majors, according to data they reported to nonprofit CDP, sent four people with three different delegations. Nearly a quarter of people with connections to fossil fuels in AP's analysis attended with an electric utility. For many of those companies, fossil fuels remain the primary energy source. Take AES Corporation, which sent two people to the conference: More than half of the global company's generation capacity is natural gas or coal, although AES aims to phase out coal by 2025, according to its most recent annual report to investors. Houston-based Apache Corporation drills for oil and gas in Texas, Britain's North Sea and Egypt, with more than 850 million barrels of oil equivalent in proven but yet-to be-pumped oil reserves. Apache Executive Vice President David Pursell was at the climate talks, part of the six fossil fuel connected members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce delegation the AP identified. And much of the advocating for fossil fuels doesn't come directly from countries or companies. Last year, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Global Energy Institute sent four employees to the summit. Marty Durbin, the institute's president and former executive of the American Petroleum Institute, says the institute is a "huge" supporter of natural gas, noting that in developing countries natural gas is an alternative to far-dirtier coal. For the upcoming talks in Dubai, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which organizes COPs, has changed its badging process to be more transparent. Attendees will be required to state affiliation and relationship to their delegation. Samsung AI Forum 2023, on its second day, focused on the expansion of generative AI (GenAI), which is expected to reshape both daily life and work. As such, the forum engaged AI experts from the industry and academia to discuss and share the development and the latest technological trends of AI, and introduced Samsung Gauss, the GenAI model developed by Samsung Research. We will continue to support and collaborate with the industry and academia on GenAI research. said Daehyun Kim, Executive Vice President of the Samsung Research Global AI Center, in his welcome speech. Challenges faced During the first morning session, Dr Hyung Won Chung from OpenAI an AI research and deployment company explained the operation of large language models (LLMs) during his speech, titled, Large Language Models (in 2023) and addressed the challenges they face at each stage, as well as their future trajectory. Then Jason Wei, a researcher at OpenAI and author of the Chain-of-Thoughts paper, discussed how LLMs will drive a paradigm shift in AI through his presentation, New Paradigms in the Large Language Model Renaissance. In addition, Korea University Professor Hongsuck Seo presented some of the trends in multimodal AI technology capable of processing various data types simultaneously including text and images during his session, Towards multimodal conversational AI. In the afternoon, graduate students from prominent domestic universities that are active in AI research presented their papers, which have been published in leading international AI journals. They also outlined their future research directions. Efficient code generation The team led by Seoul National University Professor Seung-won Hwang showcased an efficient code generation and search technology using generative AI, while Professor Gunhee Kims team demonstrated spatial reasoning technology using multimodal approaches. Professor Minjoon Seos team from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) introduced fine-grained evaluation capability in language models. Additionally, the team led by Yonsei University Professor Jonghyun Choi presented on text-to-image generation technology capable of creating images by comprehending lengthy contexts across multiple sentences. In the final session, the participants delved into Samsung Gauss and the On-Device AI technologies using this model. The model consists of Samsung Gauss Language, Samsung Gauss Code, and Samsung Gauss Image, and is named after Carl Friedrich Gauss, the legendary mathematician who established normal distribution theory, the backbone of machine learning and AI. Furthermore, the name reflects Samsungs ultimate vision for the models, which is to draw from all the phenomena and knowledge in the world in order to harness the power of AI to improve the lives of consumers everywhere. Samsung Gauss Language Samsung Gauss Language, a generative language model, enhances work efficiency by facilitating tasks such as composing emails, summarizing documents and translating content. It can also enhance the consumer experience by enabling smarter device control when integrated into products. Samsung Gauss Code and a coding assistant (code.i) which operates based on it are optimised for in-house software development, allowing developers to code easily and quickly. It also supports functions such as code description and test case generation through an interactive interface. In addition, Samsung Gauss Image is a generative image model that can easily generate and edit creative images, including style changes and additions, while also converting low-resolution images to high-resolution. Samsung Gauss is currently used on employee productivity but will be expanded to a variety of Samsung product applications to provide new user experience in the near future. Samsung is not only developing AI technologies, but also moving forward with various activities that ensure safe AI usage. Through the AI Red Team, Samsung continues to strengthen the ability to proactively eliminate and monitor security and privacy issues that may arise in the entire process ranging from data collection to AI model development, service deployment and AI-generated results all with the principles of AI ethics in mind.--TradeArabia News Service Rachel Reilly was going to die. Nobody was going to find her body. These were the promises her then-husband made to her, and for more than six years she lived in fear that he would keep them. He told her shed be scattered among dried corn husks, buried in the woods. Hunters and hikers would trip over her bones as they rotted under the cover of leaves, and her family would never find out what happened to her. No one would know if I killed you right now, she recalled him saying while the two were on drives in the countryside or deer hunting. He would look at like a forest or a corn field and be like, That would be a really good place to bury your body, or I could scatter your bones here and no one would know. Reilly wasnt a battered woman. The man shed married in 2013 didnt leave her with black eyes or busted lips intentionally. As violent as he was, Reilly said, her abuser was methodical, calculated in his aggressions. Im never going to leave any trace, Reilly recalled him saying. So, if you ever mess up, just know that no one would believe you. In the early days of their marriage, Reilly endured his sexual abuse, manipulation and gaslighting, believing it was her job as a wife to appease him. I tried to be considerate of our marriage, she said. He was very, very adamant that only weak people get divorced. Troubling statistics In Wisconsin, domestic violence deaths are on a disturbing rise, reaching a 22-year high last year, a toll reflected in 2022 data collected by End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin, a victim advocacy group. In 25 of the states 72 counties, 96 people died as a direct result of domestic violence last year, the highest number since the victim advocacy group began tracking deaths in 2000. The youngest victim was younger than 2 years old. The eldest was in her 90s. The report came out in October, recognized nationally as Domestic Violence Awareness Month. In 2022, Madison police spent 13,312 hours on domestic disturbance calls, according to Capt. Stephanie Drescher. This year, from July through September, officers referred almost 200 people to Domestic Abuse Intervention Services, a Dane County nonprofit that helps abuse victims find shelter, financial assistance and protection. The organization was able to contact 155 of those referred. Officers undergo state-mandated annual training in which theyre educated on things such as how to identify the predominant aggressor in an abusive situation and what to do when a weapon is involved. When they identify the predominant aggressor, police are required to make an arrest under Wisconsins 1988 Mandatory Arrest Act 346. After an arrest, abusers are barred from contacting victims in any way for 72 hours, during which time victims are encouraged to file charges, obtain restraining orders and seek help. Heading into her last week of a six-month leadership training specifically focused on domestic violence research, Drescher says shes confident in the departments training practices. A powder keg The fault lines in Reillys marriage became clearer to her in 2019. She confided briefly in a co-worker about another incident of forcible intercourse and was alarmed when her co-worker told her that what shed described was rape and suggested that Reilly look into DAIS. Reilly was aware of the organization but thought it wasnt for her. She didnt look like the battered women shed seen on the tear-off flyers or billboards. I didnt see myself in those ads, she said. But after a time, the constant threats, the physical aggression and the fear of what her abuser might do to her child led Reilly to make a difficult phone call to DAIS. Weeks later, she sat in the DAIS parking lot, having what she described as the worst panic attack of her life, afraid to cross the threshold, to acknowledge that something was wrong. Walking into the building made it too real. But she did. DAIS literally saved me and my kiddos life, without a doubt, she said. She recalls divorce proceedings, staying with a friend. The initial discussions, she said, were eerily calm, but the mediator assigned to represent Reilly and her husband caught a glimpse of the tension boiling under the surface. (My ex-husband) had stepped out to use the bathroom, and the mediator looked at me and said to me, Hes a powder keg about to explode. Dont ever be alone with him, she recalled. That kind of validated what I was going through. She and her ex-husband shared custody of their child, meeting in neutral locations for drop-offs. His continued stalking led her to take different routes home from work, looking over her shoulder. Then, in May 2021, Reillys ex-husband didnt show up for their scheduled custody arrangement. His new girlfriend, who was going through a divorce, didnt show up to pick up her child from day care either. Conversations with her ex-husbands girlfriends ex-husband led to he and Reilly calling for a welfare check. Reillys worst fears were realized. Her abuser had killed his girlfriend, shooting her multiple times before taking his own life in the Sun Prairie home they shared. Getting worse From 2020 to last month, Drescher counts eight domestic violence-related homicides in Madison. In three of those cases, there was no record of calls for help to police or to organizations such as DAIS, no formal cries for help. The data is already bleak. And with impending slashes to federal victim resource funding, some providers worry that the situation will worsen. Many shelters and organizations for domestic abuse survivors rely on the Victims of Crime Act, or VOCA, as a primary source of money. VOCA dollars come from non-tax revenue, mostly fines, penalties and bond forfeitures from convicted federal criminals. During the past few years, legislative and federal judicial changes have led to significant decreases in VOCA funds. In the last five-year funding cycle, VOCA allocated more than $44 million to crime victim services. For the next three years, VOCA is projecting $13.5 million. DAIS will remain open, though its budget may take a hit. Other groups, however, may struggle more to stay above water amid the increasing needs of a higher volume of victims. The landscape of services across the state of Wisconsin for victims of sensitive crimes ... is going to be very different within the next year or two, said Shannon Barry, executive director of DAIS. Domestic violence shelters across the state are being absolutely decimated. As some programs will shutter their doors, those that remain open will face difficult decisions about whom they serve amid an influx of new clients. I think were on a path to get much, much worse, she said. Transformative new resources The increase in reports is a complex issue, Barry says. Its great that theres more people reaching out, but it also could be that people are waiting until (the abuse is) becoming more severe, she said. As new resources become available, the hope is that victims feel safer to recognize and report abuse before it becomes lethal. For years, DAIS has operated a 24/7 helpline that victims could call. Last year, bolstered by a Dane County grant, the organization launched a 24/7 text line, where victims could discuss their concerns with more privacy. The messages are encrypted, and the platform doesnt store sent and received messages, so they cant be seen if theyre deleted. One recent text line conversation lasted three hours, culminating in the victim feeling safe enough to call DAIS. For victims like that young woman, Barry says, the text line has been a huge game changer. The lethality of leaving It takes an average of seven attempts for victims to permanently leave their abusers, according to Respond, a New England agency that seeks to end domestic violence. And 75% of domestic violence-related homicides occur upon separation. For victims who survive the initial detachment, there is a 75% increase in the chance of violence upon separation for at least two years, according to the Center for Relationship Abuse Awareness. Guns were used in 86% of the domestic violence deaths in 2022 catalogued by End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin, murders and suicides. An abuser who is served a domestic abuse injunction is barred from possessing guns. Barry said many victims seek harassment injunctions instead, which permit their abusers to keep their guns. Even when seeking refuge from abuse, victims feel obligated to cater to their batterers. They fear that if their partner is an avid hunter and that persons weapons are taken away, it could escalate the situation, she said. Violent crime breaks records Madison has seen 11 homicides in 2023, breaking its previous record of 10 set in 2020 and 2021. In September, Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway attributed more than 40% of the citys violent crime to intimate partner violence. On Christmas Day 2022, Madison police were dispatched to a domestic dispute, a man and a woman at an apartment in the 3400 block of Richard Street. Two months later, both people were dead. Kristin Schmitt was found strangled to death in the apartment on Feb. 24, and her boyfriend Justin Kopmeyer was quickly a suspect. Authorities search for Kopmeyer ended at a Kwik Trip on Madisons East Side, where the man shot himself to death while barricaded in a bathroom. After that Christmas Day call, officers sought domestic violence charges against Kopmeyer through the Dane County District Attorneys Office and referred Schmitt to victims resources. Schmitt declined to pursue charges. The two had been dating for less than a year. Help is available Before the homepage of the DAIS website fully loads, the screen darkens and displays a gray box that reads Leave this site safely! with a recommendation for those seeking help in private to clear their browser history to avoid their abuser stumbling on to the page. For those who make it past the introductory screen, two phone numbers hide beneath a tab entitled I need help a 24-hour call line and the 24-hour text line for those who cant talk about their situations out loud. Madison police just received panic buttons, by which victims can preload their names, addresses and other pertinent information, and call for help with just a click. Soon, officers will begin distributing them. When Reilly made that first call for help, she was petrified of what might happen. Now, she and her child are safe and healthy, attending therapy, getting ice cream after school, riding their bicycles and doing fun things just because they can. Five years ago, the life shes living now didnt seem possible. Life in general didnt seem possible, she said. I stopped thinking about three, four, five years, one year down the road because I didnt think I would be here. I thought he would murder me, she said. It feels jarring to be alive. However, there remains a sense of survivors guilt, Reilly said. She escaped her abuser. She gets to watch her child grow up in a safe, loving home. The woman her abuser killed doesnt have that opportunity. I dont ever want to feel or be perceived as taking for granted the fact that Im here and tucking my kid in at night and her kiddo doesnt have a mom to tuck her in, she said. Im just trying to live life honoring someone I never met without making my entire world about a person I never met. Editor's note: This story has been updated to remove the name of Reilly's ex-husband. While many of the allegations are supported by the evidence, others cannot be independently verified through police or court records. This years Empty Stocking Club toy drive will likely serve more kids and families than in past years, according to executive director Lynn Wood. But there has also been more interest from community members looking to volunteer, Wood said the hunger to get involved has grown as disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic have settled down. The Empty Stocking Club is the charitable arm of the Wisconsin State Journal and has been providing new toys to kids in Dane County at Christmas since 1918. Its mission is to make sure every child in the area receives a new toy and a book for Christmas. Schools, community centers and housing complexes help coordinate the project and reach families who might be in need of the toy drive. Since the pandemic has started to wane, this outreach has become more efficient and more families are being reached. A bigger event will require more volunteers, and hundreds have already stepped up. Wood said the Empty Stocking Club has been able to recruit enough volunteers each year since she took over as executive director in 2018. But what Im seeing is people just kind of racing I mean, how quickly the volunteer spots fill up is crazy. There were 457 volunteer shifts filled for last years event. On Wednesday, just a few hours after the sign-up sheet for this years volunteer shifts opened, almost 400 shifts were already filled, approaching the goal of between 450 and 500 shifts. Wood said there are always families and individuals who volunteer, but this year there are more groups signing up workplaces, Rotary clubs, Girl Scout troops and even state government departments. The interest is more, the engagement people wanting to help is greater, she said. Because the event helps families in Dane County, Wood said more community members feel good about getting involved. Thats why people are so generous. Because its your neighbor. Were not shipping toys across the country or anything. Were giving them to people who live down the street from you or in your community, she said. As need rises, the need for funding increases, too. Empty Stocking Club counts on State Journal readers and Madison-area residents for donations. Each year, the Empty Stocking Club spends about two months collecting money, which is used to purchase new toys. Families in the area then apply to receive one of the toys, and they then receive a voucher in the mail. How to help To donate to Empty Stocking Club or to volunteer, visit emptystockingclub.com. Families can apply to receive a toy until Dec. 7 on the website. On Dec. 13 and 14, those families can go to the Alliant Energy Center from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. to pick out a toy from thousands of options for recipients in a range of age groups. Madison Reading Project also sets up at the event to ensure every child receives a book. The Empty Stocking Club has been around for more than 100 years, and, looking ahead at sustaining it for another hundred, Wood said its all about building a legacy and creating an event that community members build into their lives. The whole idea is that its a community-embraced event and that it has this legacy component to it, Wood said. Not only is it a legacy for the Wisconsin State Journal, but its really a legacy for families in this community. The group has been intentionally expanding the board of directors during the past few years as well, Wood said, to include not only people who are directly connected to the newspaper in some way but also to include individuals who bring various community perspectives to the board. The board specifically has a representative from Reach Dane, which operates the Early Head Start program in Dane County, and a staff member from Madison Reading Project, a group that has teamed up with the Empty Stocking Club to provide a book with each toy, with options in languages such as Somali, French and Arabic, as well as English and Spanish. The Empty Stocking Club is currently looking for one more person to join the board. The ideal candidate, Wood said, would be someone with a volunteer perspective to make sure those efforts are successful. The Empty Stocking Club is also expanding its digital push this year. Anyone interested in donating, volunteering or applying to receive a toy from the Empty Stocking Club can visit emptystockingclub.com. Donations can also be made using the envelope in Sundays newspaper. CHEYENNE, Wyo. She refused to ban books, many of them about racism and the experiences of LGBTQ+ people. And for that, Suzette Baker was fired as a library director in a rural county in central Texas. I'm kind of persona non grata around here, said Baker, who had headed the Kingsland, Texas, library system until she refused to take down a prominent display of several books people had sought to ban over the years. Now, Baker is fighting back. She and two other librarians who were similarly fired have filed workplace discrimination claims with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. And as culture war battles to keep certain books from children and teens put public and school libraries increasingly under pressure, their goal is redemption and, where possible, eventual reinstatement. So far, it's a wait-and-see whether the claims will succeed and set new precedent in the struggle between teachers and librarians around the country who oppose book bans and conservative activists who say some books are inappropriate for young minds. The fight has involved a record number of book-banning efforts; some libraries cutting ties with the American Library Association, which opposes book bans; and even attempts to prosecute librarians for allowing children to access books some consider too graphic. At least one terminated librarian has gained a measure of success. Brooky Parks, who was fired for standing up for programs on anti-racism and LGBTQ+ stories she organized for teens at the Erie Community Library north of Denver, won a $250,000 settlement in September. Reached through the Colorado Civil Rights Division, the settlement requires her former employer to give librarians more say in decisions involving library programs. Parks' settlement with the High Plains Library District capped a stressful eight-month period without work, when community donations helped her avoid losing her home. And it will likely resolve Parks claim with the EEOC, said her attorney, Iris Halpern, who represents the three librarians. I just wasnt going to back down from it. It was just the right thing to do, said Parks, now a librarian at the University of Denver. After her firing in 2022, Baker filed an EEOC claim against her employer, the Llano County Library System in Kingsland, Texas. And in September 2023, Terri Lesley, executive director of the Campbell County Public Library System in Gillette, Wyoming, filed a claim over her firing last summer. Halpern, with the Denver firm Rathod Mohamedbhai, compared the wrongful termination claims to civil rights era legal battles. It is honestly sad that weve gotten to this point. But history is a constant struggle and we have to learn from our past, she said. The 1964 Civil Right Act established the EEOC to enforce laws against workplace discrimination. One legal expert thinks the librarians might be able to prevail on the grounds that, under those laws, employees may not be discriminated against for associating with certain classes of people. With any case, the devil can be in the details in terms of how the facts come out and what they can present. But these are definitely actionable claims, said Rutgers University law professor David Lopez, a former EEOC general counsel. An EEOC investigation can take over a year. After that, the EEOC may attempt to reach a settlement with the employer out of court, sue on the employee's behalf or issue a letter saying the employee has grounds to sue on their own. The librarians haven't yet received an EEOC response and none is expected before the end of next year. I would love to be optimistic, Baker said. "I know there are a lot of people in this community who are just absolutely behind the library being open and free and equal for all. And theres a lot of people who aren't. So its a hard, hard situation. EEOC spokesperson Victor Chen declined to comment on specific filings, adding we cant even confirm or deny we have these complaints. The county attorney offices and other representatives of the government officials who fired Parks, Baker and Lesley did not return phone and email messages seeking comment, or declined to comment. At her Texas library, Baker displayed several books that have been targeted in recent book bans and a sign that read: We put the lit in literature a reference to a Tennessee pastor's recent burning of books. Baker was fired after refusing to take down the display and signs the last straw after she resisted book banning in her own library. In March, a federal judge ordered 17 books returned to Kingsland library shelves while a citizen lawsuit against book banning proceeded. The works ranged from children's books to award-winning nonfiction, including They Called Themselves the K.K.K: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group, by Susan Campbell Bartoletti; and Its Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health, by Robie Harris. Content-based restrictions on speech are presumptively unconstitutional and subject to strict scrutiny, Texas U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman wrote in his March 30 ruling. Inside the book-ban machine: The rise of 'parental rights' groups and their efforts to ban books Inside the book-ban machine: The rise of 'parental rights' groups and their efforts to ban books Conservative education groups have spread rapidly, frequently in areas with politically mixed populations New conservative book rating sites are fueling book bans Regional groups are also organizing to challenge books: About 1 in 6 complaints nationwide in 2022 were from St. Tammany Parish New state laws support attempts to restrict library materials The pace of Palestinian civilians fleeing the combat zone in northern Gaza has picked up as Israels air and ground campaign there intensifies. The pace appeared to be greater Wednesday, after the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said about 15,000 people fled Tuesday, compared to 5,000 on Monday and 2,000 on Sunday. The densely populated northern area of Gaza, specifically Gaza City and adjacent crowded urban refugee camps, are the focus of Israels campaign to crush Hamas, the militant group that has ruled Gaza for 16 years. The war, now in its second month, was triggered by the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel. The number of Palestinians killed in the war passed 10,500, including more than 4,300 children, the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said. In the occupied West Bank, more than 160 Palestinians have been killed in the violence and Israeli raids. More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, most of them in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that started the fighting, and 239 hostages were taken from Israel into Gaza by the militant group. Currently: US launches airstrike on site in Syria in response to Iranian-backed militia attacks on bases housing U.S. troops Israel pressured by allies over plight of civilians in Gaza as thousands flee enclaves north Americans divided over Israel response to Hamas attacks, AP-NORC poll shows U.S. House of Representatives censures only Palestinian American in Congress Blinken urges united future Palestinian government for Gaza and West Bank, widening gulf with Israel Find more of APs coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war. Heres what is happening in the latest Israel-Hamas war: US LAUNCHES STRIKE ON SITE IN SYRIA IN RESPONSE TO ATTACKS BY IRANIAN-BACKED MILITIAS WASHINGTON The U.S. launched an airstrike Wednesday on a facility in eastern Syria used by Iranian-backed militias, in retaliation to an increasing number of attacks over the past several weeks on bases housing U.S. troops, the Pentagon said. Two U.S. F-15 fighter jets carried out the strike on a weapons storage facility linked to Irans Revolutionary Guard. President Joe Biden "directed todays action to make clear that the United States will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement. This is the second time in less than two weeks that the U.S. has bombed facilities used by the militant groups, many operating under the umbrella of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which U.S. officials say have carried out at least 40 such attacks in the region since Oct. 17. UN RIGHTS CHIEF SAYS GAZA TURNED INTO A LIVING NIGHTMARE BY ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR GENEVA The U.N. human rights chief said collective punishment by Israel of Palestinian civilians and their forced evacuation, as well as atrocities committed by Palestinian armed groups on Oct. 7 and their continued holding of hostages, amount to war crimes. Volker Turk, standing in front of Egypt's Rafah border crossing into Gaza, told reporters Wednesday: These are the gates to a living nightmare. We have fallen off a precipice. This cannot continue, he said later in Cairo. Turk said international human rights and humanitarian law must be respected to help protect civilians and allow desperately needed aid to reach Gazas beleaguered population of some 2.3 million people. He said the U.N. rights office received reports in recent days about an unspecified orphanage in northern Gaza with 300 children who need urgent help, but communications were down and access were impassable and unsafe, so we cannot get to them. I feel, in my innermost being, the pain, the immense suffering of every person whose loved one has been killed in a kibbutz, in a Palestinian refugee camp, hiding in a building or as they were fleeing, Turk said. We all must feel this shared pain and end this nightmare. GAZA HOSPITALS STRAIN UNDER ISRAELI SIEGE, WITH PREMATURE BIRTHS ON THE RISE KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza City Hospitals in Gaza are nearing collapse under Israel's wartime siege, which has cut power and deliveries of food, fuel and other necessities to the territory. Inside the maternity department at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, the workload has doubled because of the mass displacement from Gazas north. That's according to neonatal specialist Dr. Asaad al-Nawajha, who said Wednesday his team has seen an increase in premature births as the monthlong war intensifies. Shouq Hararah is one of those mothers. She says her delivery took place with no proper birth procedures, no anesthesia, painkillers or anything. I gave birth to twins. The boy was discharged, but the girl remains in the maternity ward, she said. Standing before a row of beeping incubators, al-Nawajha emphasized the war's life-threatening consequences. All of our work depends on electricity; all the machines you see here rely on it, the doctor said. When the electricity is cut, these devices stop working, and all the babies will face certain death. SYRIA SAYS ISRAELI AIRSTRIKES HIT MILITARY POSITIONS Israel airstrikes hit several Syrian military positions late Wednesday, Syrian state media reported. Quoting an unnamed military source, state news agency SANA said the strikes caused material damage, and did not mention any casualties nor the locations where the airstrikes took place. Pro-government radio station Sham FM said the sounds of explosions could be heard in southeast Sweida province and in some suburbs of the capital, Damascus. Meanwhile, Britain-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strike in Sweida province targeted an air defense and radar unit, while at least three strikes in suburbs near Damascus were not far from Syrias military airbase and wounded three people, without giving further details. Israel, which has vowed to stop Iranian entrenchment next door, has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets in government-controlled parts of neighboring Syria in recent years, but it rarely acknowledges them. Israel did not immediately comment on the alleged airstrikes. 93 ROMANIANS WHO ESCAPED GAZA FLY TO BUCHAREST BUCHAREST, Romania A group of 93 Romanian citizens landed Wednesday evening at an airbase near Romanias capital on a flight from Egypt after being evacuated from the Gaza Strip. The specially chartered flight touched down at Base 90 at Bucharests Otopeni Airport around 10.00 p.m. local time. The plane also brought back 36 Moldovan citizens, according to Romanias foreign ministry. Romanias Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu had flown to Egypt earlier on Wednesday to meet the evacuees and returned with them on the flight to Romania. I was overwhelmed to see the joy and hope in the eyes of the children who escaped the hell in Gaza, Ciolacu wrote on Facebook after arriving in Egypt. The Romanian Government will continue to act to facilitate the evacuations by all the means at our disposal. Another 51 Romanians have also been granted permission to leave Gaza into Egypt through the Rafah border crossing, the foreign ministry said, but did not specify when. Six Romanians who hold dual Romanian-Israeli citizenship are among the hostages held by Hamas. Since Hamas launched its attack on Israel on Oct. 7, at least five Romanian citizens have been confirmed killed. BRAZIL STOPS TERROR PLOT AGAINST JEWISH COMMUNITY, OFFICIAL SAYS RIO DE JANEIRO Authorities in Brazil foiled a terror plot on Wednesday when they arrested two people in Sao Paulo state, the Federal Police said in a statement. The two suspects were recruited and financed by the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and planned to target buildings tied to the Jewish community, according to an official with information about the plot who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The police statement did not give details about the suspects. It said police also executed 11 search warrants in Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais and the Federal District that were aimed at obtaining proof of possible recruitment of Brazilians for carrying out extremist acts in the country, adding that it was targeting both recruits and recruiters. Local paper O Globo reported that police arrested one of the two suspects when they returned to the international airport in Sao Paulo, with information in hand to carry out the attack. There are two additional targets for arrest in Lebanon, the paper reported, without saying how it obtained that information. The Brazilian Israelite Confederation celebrated the police operation on X, formerly Twitter. The tragic conflicts in the Middle East cannot be imported into our country, where different communities live peacefully, harmoniously and without fear of terrorism, the group said. Brazil has one of the worlds largest Lebanese populations; most estimates put their total well above that of Lebanon itself. Associated Press writer David Biller contributed. US DRONE SHOT DOWN BY YEMEN'S HOUTHI REBELS WASHINGTON -- A U.S. drone was shot down by Yemen's Houthi rebels on Wednesday, according to the Iran-backed groups military arm and a senior U.S. military official. The Houthis said it was an MQ-9 Reaper drone that was in Yemeni air space and was shot down by air defenses. The senior U.S. official said the military is still analyzing the episode, including whether the drone was in international airspace or over Yemen. A second U.S. official said the MQ-9 Reaper was over international waters when it was shot down. The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet made public. The Houthis have fired at least four batches of drones and missiles toward southern Israel since Oct. 7. The group controls the capital and much of northern and western Yemen where the majority of the county's population lives. Associated Press writer Lolita Baldor contributed. ISRAEL SAYS IT DESTROYED 130 HAMAS TUNNELS IN GAZA AND RELEASES VIDEO FROM INSIDE UNDERGROUND NETWORK Israels military released video on Wednesday of what it says are combat engineers locating, entering and blowing up Hamas-built tunnels in the Gaza Strip. Israel has destroyed 130 tunnels since the war began, according to Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief military spokesman. The videos show a soldiers body camera footage inside what Israel said was a Hamas tunnel, its walls lined with cement and the shaft partially filled with sand. Another clip shows the mouth of what appears to be a tunnel in an open area near damaged buildings. There are clips of armored excavators and bulldozers digging in the dirt, as well as explosions apparently destroying tunnel entrances. The Israeli military did not provide locations where the videos were filmed, and the images did not include any visible landmarks except for one shot showing the sea in the background, so The Associated Press could not independently confirm the videos. Hamas is believed to have a massive underground network throughout Gaza, allowing it to transport weapons, supplies and fighters. Israeli warplanes have bombed crowded urban neighborhoods, saying the strikes target the tunnel system or Hamas commanders. But airstrikes can inflict only limited damage on the subterranean network. WHITE HOUSE SAYS ISRAEL TO KEEP MILITARY IN GAZA AFTER WAR, BUT RE-OCCUPYING IS A MISTAKE WASHINGTON: U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said it was likely that Israel would maintain a military presence in Gaza for a period of time after the ongoing war, but said the U.S. believes it would be a mistake for Israel to re-occupy the territory. I think all of us can foresee a period of time after the conflict is over where Israeli forces will likely still be in Gaza and will have some initial security responsibilities, Kirby told CNN on Wednesday. But for how long and where and to what size and scale and scope, I think its too soon to know. Kirby said the U.S. was focused on devising a long-term governance structure for Gaza after the current conflict, but said that as yet there has been little prospect of a viable plan. I think where we are is: a lot of questions, and not a lot of answers, he said. We know what we dont want to see in Gaza post conflict, we dont want to see Hamas in control, and we dont want to see a re-occupation by Israel. He added: We know that the United States cant solve this alone, and that the U.S. was engaging with regional and international partners on the matter. PALESTINIANS FLEE ON FOOT FROM NORTHERN GAZA, DESCRIBING HUNGER, THIRST AND RELENTLESS BOMBING BUREIJ REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip A long line of thousands of Palestinians fled on foot from northern Gaza Wednesday families, children and older adults, crying babies carrying only what they could take in their arms or on their backs. They were seen in Associated Press video walking down Gazas main north-south highway, heeding the Israeli military's orders to evacuate during a five-hour window as its troops battled Hamas militants deep inside Gaza City. Some evacuees were pushing relatives in wheelchairs, with one older adult wheeled down the road in a hand truck. Abeer Akeila left her home in Gaza city after relentless strikes forced all her neighbors to flee southward. She said life in the city has become increasingly difficult amid dwindling water and food supplies. There was shelling and bombardment overnight, she said. We didnt have food or drinking water ... They struck the bakeries. There is no life in Gaza. About 15,000 people fled northern Gaza on Tuesday triple the number that left Monday according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Many of the people walking south are refugees or their descendants who fled or were expelled from their homes in what is now Israel in 1948. ITALY TO STATION HOSPITAL SHIP OFF GAZA'S COAST ROME Italy is sending a hospital ship that will be stationed off the coast of Gaza to aid the Palestinian population, Defense Minister Guido Crosetto announced Wednesday. Crosetto said the mission is a concrete sign of Italys closeness to the Palestinian people, distance from the Hamas terrorists. The ship Vulcano has 170 people on board, including medical and military personnel, and includes operating rooms. It will first head to Cyprus and then as close as possible to the conflict zone to provide emergency medical support, Crosetto said. ISRAEL TO LAUNCH FORMAL INVESTIGATION INTO HAMAS ATTACK JERUSALEM Israels attorney general and state attorney are working with police and military to formally investigate the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, they announced Wednesday. Our goal is to investigate and initiate legal proceedings against those who perpetrated, planned and otherwise took part in these heinous acts - wherever they are, the statement said. It said Israel would punish the Hamas militants with the utmost severity, commensurate with their crimes. Police are working to collect evidence from towns across the south as attorneys for the Ministry of Justice decide how best to proceed with the investigation. SPAIN SAYS CITIZEN MISSING AFTER HAMAS ATTACK IS DEAD MADRID Spains Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that a Spaniard missing in Israel following the Hamas attack in October is dead. The ministry identified him as Ivan Illarramendi. It declined to give any further details. In a message on X, formerly known as Twitter, Israels ambassador to Spain, Rodica Radian-Gordon, said: Our hearts are torn by the news of the brutal murder of Ivan Illarramendi. He has been identified a month after the terrorist massacre committed by Hamas in Israel, along with his wife Dafna Garcovich. The Israeli Embassy was unable to say where the death occurred. Spains state news agency Efe and other Spanish news outlets have reported that Illarramendi and his Chilean wife had been living in a kibbutz near the Gaza Strip. The ministry confirmed the death of another Spaniard with Israeli citizenship, Maya Villalobo Sinvany, on Oct. 11. Following the attacks, the ministry would only say that two Spaniards had been affected in the attacks. Villalobo was reported to have been in military service at an Israeli miliary base at the time of the attack. HEZBOLLAH SAYS IT STRUCK ISRAELI INFANTRY UNITS BEIRUT, Lebanon Lebanese militant group Hezbollah claimed two attacks on Israeli infantry units in the areas of Shomera and Dovev on Wednesday which it said inflicted casualties on Israeli forces. There was no immediate confirmation of the casualties from the Israeli military. Following the strikes, Lebanons state-run National News Agency and an Associated Press journalist in south Lebanon reported heavy shelling in several border areas in Lebanon. Hezbollah said in a statement that the attack on Dovev was in retaliation for Israeli forces targeting an ambulance in Lebanon. On Sunday, local Lebanese officials said an Israeli drone had struck near two ambulances on their way to pick up casualties from overnight strikes in southern Lebanon, wounding four paramedics. The Israeli army said it had launched strikes on a terrorist cell that was attempting to fire missiles toward Israel and hadnt intentionally targeted the vehicles. Another Israeli airstrike in south Lebanon on Sunday evening hit a car driving between the towns of Ainata and Aitaroun and killed three children and their grandmother and wounded the children's mother. An Israeli military statement later said the car had been identified as transporting terrorists and that the military was reviewing allegations that there were civilians in the vehicle. Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants and their allies have been clashing along the border since the start of the Israel-Hamas war a month ago. While the clashes remain largely contained, they have increased in intensity as Israel conducts a ground incursion in Gaza against Hezbollah ally Hamas. UKRAINE EVACUATES 43 OF ITS NATIONALS AND 36 MOLDOVANS FROM GAZA KYIV, Ukraine Ukraine has evacuated 43 of its nationals from the Gaza Strip and helped 36 Moldovan citizens reach safety in Egypt, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. Ukrainian diplomats helped the two groups get out of the war zone, Zelenskyy said Wednesday on X, formerly known as Twitter. He said Ukraine was working with embassies in Israel and Egypt to get more of its citizens out of Gaza. ISRAEL CABINET TO MEET IN WEST BANK FOLLOWING WARNINGS OF MORE VIOLENCE JERUSALEM Israels wartime security Cabinet will meet late Wednesday in the West Bank offices of the militarys Central Command due to warnings by security officials about the potential for a serious escalation in violence in the territory, the Ynet website reported, citing a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office. Israeli media reported last week that the Shin Bet security agency issued such a warning, noting an increase in violence by Jewish settlers. Deadly violence has been surging in the Israeli-occupied West Bank as Israels military pursues Hamas militants following the groups bloody Oct. 7 incursion into Israel from the Gaza Strip. The violence threatens to open another front in the war Israel launched against Hamas after it killed more than 1,400 people in southern Israel and took more than 240 people hostage. As of Tuesday, 167 Palestinians had been killed in the West Bank over the past month, mainly in clashes with Israeli troops. The toll since the beginning of the year was 371. Some of the dead have been killed in violent anti-Israel protests, and Palestinians have said eight people were killed in attacks by settlers, who have intensified assaults and provocations since the war began. Daily Israeli military arrest raids in the territory have intensified, with once-rare aerial attacks becoming much more common. The military said Wednesday that 1,430 wanted men have been arrested in the West Bank since Oct. 7, including more than 900 from Hamas. G7 NATIONS ANNOUNCE A UNIFIED STANCE ON ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR TOKYO Top diplomats from the Group of Seven leading industrial democracies announced a unified stance on the Israel-Hamas war on Wednesday after intensive meetings in Tokyo, condemning Hamas, supporting Israels right to self-defense and calling for humanitarian pauses to speed aid to desperate civilians in the Gaza Strip. In a statement following two days of talks, the nations sought to balance unequivocal criticism of Hamas attacks against Israel and the need for urgent action to help civilians in the besieged Palestinian enclave. All parties must allow unimpeded humanitarian support for civilians, including food, water, medical care, fuel and shelter, and access for humanitarian workers, said the statement, hammered out by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and foreign ministers from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and Italy. We support humanitarian pauses and corridors to facilitate urgently needed assistance, civilian movement and the release of hostages. MORE PALESTINIANS FLEEING COMBAT ZONE IN NORTHERN GAZA JERUSALEM The pace of Palestinian civilians fleeing the combat zone in northern Gaza has picked up as Israels air and ground campaign there intensifies, U.N. monitors said Wednesday. About 15,000 people fled on Tuesday, compared to 5,000 on Monday and 2,000 on Sunday, said the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The civilians flee during a four-hour window set daily by the Israeli military that assures safe passage from Gaza City and its surroundings to the south. Most of those fleeing were children, the elderly and people with disabilities, the U.N. agency said. Many arrived on foot with minimal belongings. In a new development, some of those fleeing reported that they had to cross Israeli checkpoints to reach the south and that they had witnessed some arrests by Israeli forces. Others have said they had to walk past Israeli tanks with raised hands while waving white flags. The densely populated northern area of Gaza, specifically Gaza City and adjacent urban refugee camps, are the focus of Israels campaign to crush Hamas, the militant group that has ruled Gaza for 16 years. The war, now in its second month, was triggered by the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel. Tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians remain in the combat area, many sheltering at hospitals or U.N. schools. Some said they were deterred from moving south because of dire humanitarian conditions in the evacuation zone and ongoing Israeli airstrikes across Gaza, including the south. U.N. monitors say some 1.5 million of Gazas 2.3 million people have been displaced. ISRAELI GOVERNMENT TO CONVENE JUDICIAL SELECTION COMMITTEE JERUSALEM -- After months of refusal, Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin said he will convene the judicial selection committee on Nov. 16 to fill empty slots in the Supreme Court and lower benches. The committee has been a central battleground in Levins plan to weaken the countrys judiciary because he wanted to change its makeup to give the government control over appointments. The proposed judicial overhaul touched off months of mass protests across the country by demonstrators who accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus government of seeking to weaken the only serious check on politicians. Levin said earlier this week that he would convene the panel soon. In a letter Sunday to the Supreme Court, he said, wartime is not the time to deal with controversial subjects, and that he would bring before the panel candidates who have broad support. The government maintains the courts have overstepped their powers and need to be reined in. The demonstrations against the proposed overhaul were put on hold after Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip infiltrated southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,400 people and taking over 240 hostages, touching off a fierce Israeli assault to crush Hamas. ISRAELI AIRSTRIKE HITS RESIDENTIAL AREA IN SOUTH GAZA KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza An Israeli airstrike struck a residential area in the Zannah neighborhood east of Khan Younis on Wednesday, destroying at least one house and damaging surrounding buildings. First responders were searching the rubble for dead or wounded from the strike. At least three people - two women and a child were killed, according to an Associated Press journalist. Ambulances were transporting injured people to a hospital, the journalist said. Khan Younis is in southern Gaza where Israels military ordered people in Gaza City and its surroundings to move. EXPLOSIONS REPORTED ACROSS GAZA CITY AND SHATI REFUGEE CAMP CAIRO Residents reported loud explosions across Gaza City and the adjacent Shati refugee camp overnight into Wednesday, as Israels military said its troops were battling Hamas forces deep inside the densely populated urban area. The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said an airstrike Wednesday morning hit a house near the Jabaliya refugee camp, also part of that built-up area. The bombings were heavy and close, said Mohamed Abed, who lives in Gaza Citys Sheikh Radwan neighborhood. He said people around him panicked when they heard the news late Tuesday that Israeli ground forces were fighting deep in the city. Gaza City is the focus of Israels military campaign, now in its second month, to crush the Hamas militant group, which has ruled Gaza for 16 years. The war was triggered by a deadly Hamas attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7. 40 FILIPINOS FLEE GAZA THROUGH RAFAH CROSSING INTO EGYPT MANILA, Philippines Dozens of Filipinos fled from the war-ravaged Gaza Strip into Egypt through the Rafah crossing after Filipino diplomats negotiated for their safe passage and Qatar mediated for the border to be opened, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said Wednesday. The 40 Filipinos were traveling to the Egyptian capital of Cairo, where they planned to take flights back to the Philippines, Marcos said in a video message in Manila. Two Filipino doctors managed to leave the Gaza Strip into Egypt last week. I hope the rest of our countrymen who also wanted to return home can also exit properly with their spouses and loved ones, Marcos said. Most of at least 134 Filipinos in Gaza, many of whom are married to Palestinians, have sought help to leave the besieged territory and are waiting for an opportunity to leave, the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila said. Dear, deer hunters: Before you bust out your blaze orange and head to the woods with a trusty rifle, please do Wisconsin a favor: Call your representatives in Congress and the Legislature with an urgent message. Tell them you dont need an AR-15 with high-capacity magazines to bag a buck. Youre a much better shot than that. And you dont want to ruin the venison by blowing it to bits. GET INVOLVED Contact your members of Congress at go.madison.com/leaders and you state lawmakers at go.madison.com/lawmakers. More to the point, tell them you support sensible gun laws universal background checks, red-flag orders and more to help prevent crime and chronic mass shootings. Such modest regulations wont hinder your right to hunt. Responsible hunters dont need weapons of war to feed and protect their families. So speak up and from the heart in favor of solid steps for improved public safety. Hunters can have an outsized say in making society safer if they raise their voices. Thats because sportsmen and women hold sway over many of the politicians, especially Republicans, who are blocking reasonable limits on guns. Though crime is down in Madison this year and homicides have finally dipped in Milwaukee, gun violence continues to rage, often involving illegally obtained firearms. Just last month, a 15-year-old was killed and three 14-year-olds were injured by indiscriminate gunfire on Madisons Far East Side, according to police. It was the second fatal shooting at an apartment building since July. Similar mass shootings this year have startled Fond du Lac, La Crosse and Milwaukee. Last year, they terrorized Clinton, Hartland, Kenosha, Racine and more. Rural communities arent immune. The massacre at a Maine bowling alley last month killed 18 and injured 13. Closer to home, seven were murdered and 45 injured last year at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois. And the shooter in Highland Park seriously contemplated another rampage after driving to Madison, police said. The Gun Violence Archive counts nearly 600 mass shootings across America this year, which is approaching the record. These arent hunters harvesting game who spray bullets with semiautomatic guns in our neighborhoods, churches, theaters and schools. They often are people struggling with personal demons who shouldnt have been able to get firearms in the first place. About 1 in 4 mass shooters obtains his weapons illegally, according to Everytown for Gun Safety. The vast majority of hunters take gun safety seriously and follow the rules. They dont need military-style weapons and vast arsenals to down a deer. Thats why hunters should push for a solution. They can assure the politicians opposing popular and necessary limits that sportsmen and sportswomen will have their backs in the next election if they do the right thing. Universal background checks favored by three-quarters of gun owners in Wisconsin, according to a Marquette Law School poll will close loopholes for private and online sales. A proper background check could have stopped a man who fatally shot three women, including his wife, at a Brookfield spa in 2012. Wisconsins 48-hour waiting period to buy a handgun, had it not been repealed in 2015, could have prevented the killing of a 24-year-old Stoughton woman in 2016. Bring the requirement back. A red-flag law allowing police to temporarily disarm people deemed a risk to themselves or others has proven effective in other states. Judges would have to agree someone poses an imminent danger before such an emergency risk protection order could be issued. Florida adopted a red-flag law with bipartisan support in 2018 following the Parkland school shooting. Like so many mass shooters, the former student was armed with an AR-15-style weapon when he killed 17 and wounded 17 more. Since that massacre, emergency risk protection orders have been used thousands of times in conservative Florida to help guard against similar tragedies. Wisconsin needs such a law. Hunters also should support limits on magazines and clips. They should favor a ban on ghost guns, which can be assembled at home by just about anyone. Firing a military-style weapon, such as an AR-15, at a shooting range is one thing. But no one should need a weapon of war in public or for protection. Banning them from our streets is overdue, as the man who took one to the state Capitol in Madison last month demonstrated. The faster and more powerful the gun, the more people it can quickly kill. Most Americans understand their 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms comes with limits. So do most hunters, about 550,000 of whom will be aiming for deer starting Saturday. We wish every hunter good luck. Enjoy the camaraderie and time outdoors. But call your elected officials first. Tell them law-abiding gun owners strongly back rational limits on guns. 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 HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) Voters in some of the highest-profile school board elections across the U.S. rebuked conservative candidates in local school board elections who want to ban books and restrict classroom conversations on race and gender. In recent years, down-ballot elections have become proxy votes for polarizing national issues. Liberal and moderate candidates took control in high-profile races Tuesday in conservative Iowa, as well as swing states Pennsylvania and Virginia. The American Federation of Teachers said candidates publicly endorsed by conservative groups such as Moms for Liberty and the 1776 Project lost about 70% of their races nationally in elections this week a tally those groups dispute. They dont want to engage in this banning of books or censoring of honest history or undermining who kids are, Randi Weingarten, the teachers union president told The Associated Press on Wednesday, characterizing the candidates who won as pro-public school. The 1776 Project said 58% of the candidates they endorsed many of them in conservative areas won. Moms for Liberty, which works in largely suburban swing districts, said 40% of its endorsed candidates won. In Pennsylvanias York County, for instance, the 1776 Projects political action committee said on social media that 36 of the 37 candidates they endorsed had won. Conservatives took control of the board in Texas' third-largest district, Cypress-Fairbanks, in the Houston suburbs, and made gains in Minnesota's largest district, Anoka-Hennepin. Tina Descovich, a Moms for Liberty founder, said Tuesday's elections brought the number of its candidates who have won races in the past two years to 365. We have to work harder and we have to figure out how to invest in our candidates, Descovich said, noting that teachers unions a frequent foe have decades-old political operations. School boards, usually nonpartisan, deal with the nitty-gritty of running a key community institution that decides curriculum standards and discipline policies for students, negotiates contracts with teachers unions and sets property tax rates for homeowners. But they also deal with some of the most divisive issues. Pennsylvania saw a number of Democratic victories in school boards, particularly in districts that have recently seen GOP-led school boards adopt policies targeting transgender students, as well as reading materials and curriculum on LGBTQ+ history. Turn PA Blue, a partisan political organization, said Democrats gained control of at least seven school boards and gained ground in a half-dozen others in Pennsylvania. In the Central Bucks School District north of Philadelphia, Democrats flipped three seats, ousting the incumbent school board president, and retained two others, giving the party majority control. Democrats also wrested control of two other Bucks County boards. At contentious school board meetings in Central Bucks in the past year, students who spoke out at meetings said they'd hear slurs and hate speech and seen violence at school a problem they called on the board to address. Many students felt more isolated after the board barred school staff from using students chosen names and pronouns without parental permission. The board also enforced policies of so-called neutrality, which prohibited classroom discussions that opponents say targeted LGBTQ+ students. But strong opinions about these policies are precisely what drove people to the polls, said Bonnie Chang, the chairperson for Turn Bucks Blue. I think all of that made people understand that this has to change, she said. School board politics have also become contentious in Virginia since 2021, when Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin successfully campaigned on supporting parents rights in education. He has criticized local school boards that prohibit schools from telling parents that their child identifies as transgender, and he is trying to roll back accommodations for transgender students. In Spotsylvania County, in the far outer suburbs of the Washington, D.C. area, all four GOP-endorsed candidates lost to more liberal candidates. A conservative board in that county was one of the first to enact Youngkins reforms, and the superintendent hired by that district pulled 13 books from library shelves, including Beloved by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. Two board members went as far as to suggest that the books should be burned. One of those two, Kirk Twigg, lost his reelection race by almost 25 points. Tamara Quick, a mother of five in Spotsylvania County, said she would leave the county if the current conservative board stayed in place. She was relieved about Tuesday's results. I think it had to do with people really understanding the importance of education, she said. The current board was not focused on that, Quick said. They were drunk on power, tilting at windmills, creating monsters that didnt exist so they could battle them. They were just worried about how many books they could ban, she continued. In Loudoun County, another Virginia exurban area where the school board has been beset by controversies for two years, particularly over its policies on transgender students, Democratic-endorsed candidates won or were leading in six of the nine school board races, although two Democratic incumbents lost or were trailing. Meanwhile in Iowa, three candidates supported by Moms for Liberty were defeated in a district outside Cedar Rapids that has been in the national spotlight for its support of transgender students. The race was targeted after the school board for Linn-Mar Community School District adopted a policy last year allowing students to request a plan supporting their gender identity that teachers, administrators and other students would follow but that didn't require permission from the students' parents. Before dropping out of the 2024 presidential race, former Vice President Mike Pence traveled to Cedar Rapids to rally opponents of the policy. Parents sued over the policy, much of which became unenforceable after Gov. Kim Reynolds signed bills restricting which bathrooms transgender students can use and banning gender-affirming medical care. I think that that is a rejection of these policies and beliefs that public schools are bad, said Brittania Morey, who won reelection to the Linn-Mar board with the support of those who oppose Moms for Liberty-endorsed candidates. It is a rejection of the belief that there is some sort of hidden agenda of indoctrination. None of that is happening. Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Associated Press writers Trisha Ahmed in Minneapolis; Matthew Barakat in Falls Church, Virginia; John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas; and Paul Weber in Austin, Texas, contributed to this article. TOKYOJapanese conglomerate Marubeni Corp. expressed interest in investing in consumer-related businesses targeting the rising middle-income group in the Philippines. We plan to venture into more consumer-related opportunities, enhancing the well-being of the Filipinos in the middle class, Marubeni general manager for Asia and Oceania at regional planning and coordination department Daigo Odawara said in a presentation with Metro Pacific Investments Corp. officials over the weekend. Marubeni is evaluating residential development, healthcare and agriculture sectors as areas for investments in the country. It said the Philippines is one of the core markets in Asia for power generation following the deregulation of the industry. Marubeni also vowed to continue its business in the Philippines, including its partnership with Maynilad Water Services Inc., the water utility firm of Metro Pacific. Of course, we want to continue our business in Philippines, said Marubeni general manager of environmental infrastructure and Maynilad director Kazuaki Shibuya, when asked if the company plans to keep its stake in the water utility firm once the latter holds an initial public offering. Marubeni been a long-time shareholder of Maynilad despite some regulatory issues. We, as Marubeni, will continue to contribute to Maynilad for their improvement and including the IPO, which we expect within a few years time. In turn, I hope Maynilad will contribute to Marubenis profit, Shibuya said. Maynilad plans to conduct its maiden share offering by 2026 as required under its regulatory franchise. MPIC chief finance officer June Cheryl Cabal-Revilla said both firms recently talked about healthcare and innovation, including in vitro fertility clinic and dialysis center for possible collaboration. Marubeni has investments in various industries in the Philippines including, power generation and distribution, heavy equipment and automobile sectors, railway, healthcare and finance and leasing aside from Maynilad. It owns a 50-percent stake in Team Energy Corp., 50 percent in Ingrid Power Holdings Inc., 20 percent in Shin Clark Power Holdings Inc. and 30 percent in San Roque Power Corp. Agriculture producer and trader Hi-Las Marketing Corp. disclosed plans to export fresh fruits to Belgium and other European markets. Hi-Las Marketing chief operation officer Ram Amores said while Asia has always been a priority market for the company, they are now looking to expand to other regions. Now were expanding into the European market, in particular to Belgium, where we are negotiating for a trial shipment of calamansi, he said. Hi-Las Marketing said it is in talks with importers in Belgium, with support from the Department of Agricultures (DA) Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) and its quarantine division. The company expressed hope on landing a trade contract soon while prices of calamansi remain competitive. To ship 1 ton of calamansi to a market that has not imported calamansi yet, I would consider a major feat in penetrating a market. So hopefully that will be an ongoing concern in the near future, and we hope to penetrate the market while prices are still good, Amores said. He said the company also found an opportunity to export semi-processed, pure and frozen calamansi extracts to China during the pandemic, reaching nearly 1.5 million kilogram since 2020. The surge in global demand for calamansi made up for then losses of other fresh fruit exports. Hi-Las Marketing is also serving the domestic markets requirement for calamansi extract. It recently penetrated the fresh fruit markets of Perth and Sydney in Australia for an initial 1.5 metric tons of fresh mangoes. Amores said the company was expecting to make two more shipments to Australia before the end of the year. But what we really are preparing for is the next mango season. What we exported was very high-price, since it is still off-season, but the shipment was already sold even before it left Manila. Were hoping to offer more competitive pricing during the next mango season, he said. The company also made the first Philippine shipment of fresh okra to South Korea, an additional market to Japan where Hi-Las has been exporting for over 15 years. Japan and South Korea are very critical markets when it comes to chemical food safety. We take 100=percent control of production, whether though our contract farmers or our employed farm technicians taking care of the farm, Amores said. Hi-Las expects up to 20-percent growth in revenues by end-2023. Hanoi, VietnamTwo South Koreans were among 18 people sentenced to death on drug smuggling and trafficking charges in Vietnam, state media said. The communist country has some of the toughest drug laws in the world, and is notoriously secretive about its executions. South Korean ex-police officer Kim Soon-sik, 63, and compatriot Kang Seon-hok, 30, were sentenced to death following a four-day trial in Ho Chin Minh City, state media said late Saturday. Chinese citizen Li Tian Guan, 58, and alleged Vietnamese ringleader Le Ho Vu, 36, were also handed death sentences. Fourteen other people were also handed death sentences in connection with the case, following the trial in the Family and Juvenile Court, under Ho Chi Minh City Peoples Court. The group illegally stored, trafficked and traded more than 216kg of drugs between May and June 2020, state media news site Cong an Nhan dan reported. More than 168 kilograms (370 pounds) of all kinds of drugs were confiscated, it reported, without specifying what type. The narcotics were trafficked from Cambodia to Ho Chin Minh City, according to Vu, where some were consumed domestically while others were transported to South Korea, Cong an Nhan dan said. Officers busted the operation on July 19 in Ho Chin Minh City, according to the reported indictment, when they searched a container truck preparing to complete customs clearance for shipment to South Korea. Inside they found 40 plastic packages containing white crystals, with a total of 39.5kg of methamphetamine. State media reported Vu was convicted of illegal transportation of drugs and using fake seals or documents of organizations. The other 17 people were convicted of illegal possession of drug, illegal trading of drugs, illegal drug trafficking and organization of illegal use of drugs, state media said. Three defendants were also sentenced to life imprisonment for illegal drug trafficking, Cong an Nhan dan reported. It added that one person, who was under 18 years old, was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. There was no indication when the executions would be carried out. Vietnamese courts routinely hand out death sentences for drug convictions, and the country is a leading executioner globally, according to Amnesty International. The country is close to the lawless Golden Triangle region that covers parts of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar, with Vietnamese police saying Ho Chi Minh City is increasingly becoming a hub for drug gangs as transport infrastructure has improved in recent years. Anyone caught with more than 600 grams (21 ounces) of heroin or more than 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine can face the death penalty. A 2021 Amnesty International report said partial disclosures by authorities indicated that hundreds of people continued to be sentenced to death yearly. More than 100 people were sentenced to death in Vietnam last year, according to the international monitoring NGO the Death Penalty Information Center. Many face long spells in detention before they are executed, with information about their trials and deaths scarce. However, Vietnamese authorities declassified some data in 2017, with state media running stories that 429 people had been executed in the country between 2013 and 2016. In 2017, Vietnams courts handed down death sentences to eight drug traffickers for smuggling heroin to China. Since 2013, Vietnam has carried out death sentences by lethal injection, replacing executions by firing squads. AFP The Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) has called on law enforcement agencies to act against a Philippine-based agency that has been allegedly charging fees to Filipino students participating in a scholarship program in Taiwan. MECO chairman Silvestre Bello III also called on the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) to blacklist the agency, which he did not identify. The said agency allegedly collected P45,000 from each of the 32 students who recently arrived in Taipei on Nov. 2. The funds were supposedly meant for airfare, visa fees, the Pre-Departure Orientation Seminar (PDOS), and the overseas employment certificate (OEC). Bello said while the scholars were personally responsible for their student visa fee and plane ticket expenses, the OEC and PDOS requirements were extraneous and unnecessary. The cost of a one-way plane ticket to Taipei is approximately P10,000, while the processing fee for a student visa is around P2,400. Only Filipino workers leaving to work abroad are required to obtain an OEC and undergo a PDOS, Bello said. Not only is the collection of OEC and PDOS fees excessive, but it is also clearly illegal. This agency must be held accountable for their unethical actions. We need to protect these young individuals who have been given the opportunity to pursue their dreams through the scholarship program and prevent them from falling victim to such deceitful practices, Bello said. The scholarship is part of Taiwans New Southbound Policys Academe-Industry Collaboration Program, which offers Filipino students a work-study opportunity. The program is a three-year Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering majoring in Management (IEM), specially designed to integrate studies and internships over eight semesters. The conference at this years Global Media Congress will feature a stellar array of distinguished speakers, panelists and moderators from across government, media, academic and industry sectors. With the theme of Shaping the future of the media industry, the Global Media Congress takes place from November 14 to 16 at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre Adnec, Abu Dhabi. Through a packed and extensive programme of keynote speeches and open floor sessions, the conference promises to deliver a diverse range of original insights on key themes affecting the media sector. Government leaders Senior UAE government leaders scheduled to speak include Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence, UAE, who will deliver the Inaugural Speech, and Omar Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, UAE, who will also give a keynote address. Through the conferences engaging and informative fireside chat format, attendees will be able to benefit from discussions led by Sheikha Shamma bint Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, President and CEO of the UAE Independent Climate Change Accelerators, and Mona Al Marri, Director-General of the Government of Dubai Media Office (GDMO) in the UAE. Organised by Capital Events part of Adnec Group in strategic partnership with the Emirates News Agency (WAM), the Second Edition of the Global Media Congress offers a critical platform for speakers to address leaders, business executives and professionals congregating from all over the world. Mohammed Jalal Al Rayssi, Director-General of the Emirates News Agency (WAM) and Chairman of the Higher Organising Committee for the Global Media Congress, said: The diversity and importance of core media subjects under discussion at Global Media Congress testifies to the quality of this event as one of the leading gatherings in its sector. We are delighted to host an excellent programme of high-level speakers at the conference who will help attendees to better understand the rapid evolution of the media sector and the opportunities that are available for current and emerging professionals. Fireside chats With sustainability being one of the key focus areas of this years edition, a much-anticipated session on 'Content Production in the Era of Sustainability' will feature a fireside chats with Laura Nix, an Oscar-Nominated and Peabody Award-Winning Director, who is based in the USA. Humaid Matar Al Dhaheri, Managing Director and Group CEO of Adnec Group, said: This years Second Edition of Global Media Congress will feature a world-class line-up of speakers discussing essential topics related to the future of the media. Drawing on the expertise of leaders from across the government and private sectors, the conference at the Global Media Congress will further consolidate Abu Dhabis position as a global leader in hosting international events that set the business agenda. In the context of another key conference focus area of innovation and the latest technologies in media, Professor Charlie Beckett, Professor of Practice and Director of Polis at the London School of Economics in the UK, will give a keynote presentation on the Polis/LSE Journalism AI project.--TradeArabia News Service Veteran journalist and womens rights advocate Rina Jimenez-David has died, her family confirmed on Sunday. We are saddened to announce that our mother, the indefatigable Rina Jimenez David, passed away this morning from an illness, her daughter Miya said in a Facebook post. David, 68, was best known for her columns for the Philippine Daily Inquirer in which she tackled womens health issues. David joined the paper in 1988 where she wrote the column At Large. She was awarded Best Columnist for Excellence in Population Reporting at the Global Media Awards in 2004. In 2015, then-Senator Lito Lapid introduced a Senate resolution (Resolution 1222) to congratulate and commend David for being among the journalists honored by Women Deliver, a global advocate for gender equality. She was cited for her works on championing the health and rights of girls and women. Senator Francis Tolentino on Sunday urged President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to recall the Philippine ambassador to Beijing to emphasize the countrys displeasure over Chinese aggression in the West Philippine Sea (WPS). Tolentino said the temporary recall of Ambassador Jaime Florcruz would send a strong message to Beijing that what they have done is a serious violation of the Philippines right to conduct a resupply mission to the BRP Sierra Madre in Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal, which is within the countrys exclusive economic zone. He said this did not mean Manila would sever diplomatic relations with China. It would just be a way of telling them to stop and that they are going overboard, hoping they would finally notice us because we have filed hundreds of diplomatic protests, Tolentino said. He said recalling the ambassador was one way to protest the latest water cannoning by Chinese Coast Guard of a Philippine supply boat on the way to Ayungin Shoal. Meanwhile, the commandant of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said the actions attributed to the Chinese Coast Guard do not align with the universally accepted behavior of a coast guard. They are supposed to ensure safety of life at sea, but they are the ones that deliberately violate the Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, said PCG commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan. Gavin said the Chinese vessels actions cast significant doubt about their real identity. Video footage from the PCG showed how a CCG vessel deployed its water cannon against a Philippine ship on a resupply mission to Ayungin Shoal on Nov. 10 in the WPS. CCG vessel 5203 could be seen in the video training its water cannon on M/L Kalayaan as the latter made its way toward Ayungin Shoal. M/L Kalayaan was one of two supply boats, the other one being Unaizah Mae 1, on a mission then to deliver supplies to Filipino troops stationed at the Philippine Navy ship BRP Sierra Madre which has been grounded since 1999 on Ayungin Shoal. The boats were accompanied by PCG vessels such as the BRP Melchora Aquino. CCG vessel 5203 deployed water cannon against Philippine supply vessel M/L Kalayaan in an illegal though unsuccessful attempt to force the latter to alter course, the National Task Force-West Philippine Sea (NTF-WPS) said in a statement last Friday. Supply boats Unaizah Mae 1 (UM1) and M/L Kalayaan were also subjected to extremely reckless and dangerous harassment at close proximity by CCG rigid-hulled inflatable boats (RHIB) inside Ayungin Shoal lagoon during their approach to BRP Sierra Madre, it added. We condemn, once again, Chinas latest unprovoked acts of coercion and dangerous maneuvers against a legitimate and routine Philippine rotation and resupply mission, it said. On Friday, the Philippine government said it filed a diplomatic protest against China after the water cannon incident. The PCG said on Saturday it had documented 38 Chinese vessels within the vicinity of the Ayungin Shoal during its latest resupply mission to the BRP Sierra Madre. The total number of Chinese vessels that we detected during the supply operation was 16 maritime militia vessels that were physically monitored, 12 Chinese militia vessels, five China Coast Guard vessels, and five Peoples Liberation Army [vessels], PCG spokesperson on the West Philippine Sea Commodore Jay Tarriela said in a media briefing. In total, we can say that there were a total of 38 Chinese vessels that were present within the vicinity of Ayungin Shoal during this particular resupply operation, he added. Tarriela said that not all 38 Chinese vessels were involved in the blocking operations against the PCG vessels. Based on the presentation that we gave, there were only six CMMVs (Chinese maritime militia vessels) that actively participated in the blocking operations, and there were five CCG vessels, he said. China has consistently tried to block and harass resupply ships going to Ayungin Shoal. Also over the weekend, Senator Christopher Go lashed back at CCG spokesperson Gan Yu for claiming that they acted lawfully and made temporary special arrangements for the Philippines side to transport food and other daily necessities to its troops in the BRP Sierra Madre. How can they speak of the rule of law while simultaneously violating international norms? Go said. He also deplored China for violating the sovereign rights of other nations by putting Filipinos lives at risk with their bullying tactics. Pioneer out-of-home advertising leader United Neon chalked another major milestone with the launch of the 1st ever Integrated 3D Billboard in the Philippines and in Southeast Asia. The launch was perfectly timed a year after they launched the countrys 1st naked eye 3D billboard, a few weeks before Christmas and a month before the company celebrates its 86 years in the business. The integrated 3D billboard splashed on a 400- meter screen at 5th Avenue, Bonifacio Global City is a world-class visual spectacle that is immersive, disruptive and engaging all at the same time. United Neon Chief Executive Officer Danny C. Lim said that the integrated 3D billboards serve as an effective platform for brands and organizations to reach their audience best. Consumers get tons of advertisements daily across multiple platforms. So, it is crucial for brands to use a new and innovative medium where they would stand out so that the public would take notice. And these integrated 3D billboards help them achieve that objective, Lim said. Integrated 3D billboards capture and hold the attention of the audience and by doing so, they provide increased engagement for the brand which translates to higher brand recall and an increased probability of trying out the product being shown, Lim adds. Lim further explained that consumer behavior continues to evolve and how the audience connect with the brands through advertisements significantly differs now from the behavior 10 years ago. Lim said that United Neon continuously look for ways on how to achieve optimum connection and engagement between brands and their audience and a testament to this is the integrated 3D billboard which is similar to the highly engaging platforms that draw massive crowds in Tokyo, New York and other cosmopolitan cities. United Neon, is thus, proud of bringing this creative technology here in the Philippines and in Southeast Asia. It is our vision to put the Philippines in the global map for creative excellence in the marketing and advertising space, he adds. Lim adds that while the integrated 3d billboards are seen in BGC, which is a melting pot of different socio-economic classes, cultures and is a center for innovation and business in the Philippines, they are also exploring other areas in the Philippines where these larger-than-life 3D billboards could be installed. More than the actual location which ideally should be a place with high foot and vehicular traffic, a major consideration for United Neon would be brand partners who believe in the power that these 3d billboards bring in terms of connection and even conversion, whether it be heightened brand awareness or actual sales, Lim said. From the time that United Neon launched the 1st naked eye 3D billboard last year, brands have shown great appreciation for this new medium where they could share their brand story in a better, more engaging way. Spectacular, larger-than-life platform takes advertising to new heights. United Neon Deputy COO Benjamin Lim and United Neon CEO Danny C. Lim at the launch of the first integrated 3D billboard in BGC (photo on the right) which is the first in the Philippines and in Southeast Asia. 3D billboards give the brands the opportunity to tell their stories in a much more interesting and interactive way. It takes the viewers on a visual journey which then enhances the connection between the brand and its audience and making the 3D billboard brand ad more memorable and impactful, Lim said. Lim adds: When brands invest in 3D billboards, they make the statement that they are innovative, unique and forward-thinking. And because the 3d billboards are a visual spectacle, it boosts brand recognition and leave a lasting impression on their audience. Metrobank World Mastercard cardholders are in for a world of benefits, offering privileged travel and lifestyle experiences tailored to their needs. Ramon del Rosario, Head of Consumer Business Sector at Metrobank, expressed the cards commitment to delivering unforgettable dining, shopping, and travel experiences globally. Introduced at a special event at ITO KISH Studio and Cafe on November 9, the Metrobank World Mastercard enhances its features, offering cardholders premium benefits. Some highlights include earning more miles for every peso spent, complimentary airport lounge access, competitive forex fees, and discounts at over 4,000 partner stores and restaurants worldwide. Cardholders can now earn one mile for every P17 spent on foreign currency transactions abroad and enjoy a 20 percent discount on AXA full-trip Smart Traveller Insurance. Until April 30, 2024, a low foreign exchange conversion fee of 1.85 percent is applicable, providing savings on international purchases. The Metrobank World Mastercard elevates the VIP experience with two complimentary airport lounge passes per year via DragonPass and a 24-hour VIP customer service hotline. The cards perks extend to discounts at prestigious stores and dining establishments in the US, the UK, Europe, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Philippines. Experience a world of privileges and rewards apply for the Metrobank World Mastercard at apply.metrobank.com.ph/creditcard and elevate your travel, shopping, and dining experiences globally. To apply for the Metrobank World Mastercard visit apply.metrobank.com.ph/creditcard. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, NYU Langone Health's chair of plastic surgery, examines Aaron James in New York on Oct. 23, 2023. In May 2023, surgeons performed the worlds first transplant of an entire human eye, an extraordinary addition to a face transplant -- although its far too soon to know if the man will ever see through his new left eye. It feels good. I still dont have any movement in it yet. My eyelid, I cant blink yet. But Im getting sensation now, James said in October. Credit: AP Photo/Joseph. B. Frederick Surgeons have performed the world's first transplant of an entire human eye, an extraordinary addition to a face transplantalthough it's far too soon to know if the man will ever see through his new left eye. An accident with high-voltage power lines had destroyed most of Aaron James' face and one eye. His right eye still works. But surgeons at NYU Langone Health hoped replacing the missing one would yield better cosmetic results for his new face, by supporting the transplanted eye socket and lid. The NYU team announced Thursday that so far, it's doing just that. James is recovering well from the dual transplant last May and the donated eye looks remarkably healthy. "It feels good. I still don't have any movement in it yet. My eyelid, I can't blink yet. But I'm getting sensation now," James told The Associated Press as doctors examined his progress recently. "You got to start somewhere, there's got to be a first person somewhere," added James, 46, of Hot Springs, Arkansas. "Maybe you'll learn something from it that will help the next person." Today, transplants of the corneathe clear tissue in front of the eyeare common to treat certain types of vision loss. But transplanting the whole eyethe eyeball, its blood supply and the critical optic nerve that must connect it to the brainis considered a moonshot in the quest to cure blindness. Whatever happens next, James' surgery offers scientists an unprecedented window into how the human eye tries to heal. "We're not claiming that we are going to restore sight," said Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, NYU's plastic surgery chief, who led the transplant. "But there's no doubt in my mind we are one step closer." Some specialists had feared the eye would quickly shrivel like a raisin. Instead, when Rodriguez propped open James' left eyelid last month, the donated hazel-colored eye was as plump and full of fluid as his own blue eye. Doctors see good blood flow and no sign of rejection. Now researchers have begun analyzing scans of James' brain that detected some puzzling signals from that all-important but injured optic nerve. One scientist who has long studied how to make eye transplants a reality called the surgery exciting. "It's an amazing validation" of animal experiments that have kept transplanted eyes alive, said Dr. Jeffrey Goldberg, chair of ophthalmology at Stanford University. The hurdle is how to regrow the optic nerve, although animal studies are making strides, Goldberg added. He praised the NYU team's "audacity" in even aiming for optic nerve repair and hopes the transplant will spur more research. "We're really on the precipice of being able to do this," Goldberg said. James was working for a power line company in June 2021 when he was shocked by a live wire. He nearly died. Ultimately he lost his left arm, requiring a prosthetic. His damaged left eye was so painful it had to be removed. Multiple reconstructive surgeries couldn't repair extensive facial injuries including his missing nose and lips. James pushed through physical therapy until he was strong enough to escort his daughter Allie to a high school homecoming ceremony, wearing a face mask and eye patch. Still he required breathing and feeding tubes, and longed to smell, taste and eat solid food again. This family photo shows Aaron James and his daughter, Allie in September 2022. Aaron was working for a power line company in June 2021 when he was shocked by a live wire. He nearly died. Ultimately he lost his left arm, requiring a prosthetic. His damaged left eye was so painful it had to be removed. Multiple reconstructive surgeries couldnt repair extensive facial injuries including his missing nose and lips. Credit: NYU Langone Health via AP "In his mind and his heart, it's himso I didn't care that, you know, he didn't have a nose. But I did care that it bothered him," said his wife, Meagan James. Face transplants remain rare and risky. James' is only the 19th in the U.S., the fifth Rodriguez has performed. The eye experiment added even more complexity. But James figured he'd be no worse off if the donated eye failed. Three months after James was placed on the national transplant waiting list, a matching donor was found. Kidneys, a liver and pancreas from the donor, a man in his 30s, saved three other people. During James' 21-hour operation, surgeons added another experimental twist: When they spliced together the donated optic nerve to what remained of James' original, they injected special stem cells from the donor in hopes of spurring its repair. Last month, tingles heralded healing facial nerves. James can't yet open the eyelid, and wears a patch to protect it. But as Rodriguez pushed on the closed eye, James felt sensationalthough on his nose rather than his eyelid, presumably until slow-growing nerves get reoriented. The surgeon also detected subtle movements beginning in muscles around the eye. Aaron James speaks during an interview, accompanied by his wife, Meagan, in New York on Oct. 23, 2023. In his mind and his heart, its him -- so I didnt care that, you know, he didnt have a nose. But I did care that it bothered him, Meagan says. Credit: AP Photo/Joseph. B. Frederick This fall 2010 family photo shows Aaron James and his wife, Meagan, before his June 2021 high-voltage electricity accident. Aaron was working for a power line company in June 2021 when he was shocked by a live wire. He nearly died. Ultimately he lost his left arm, requiring a prosthetic. His damaged left eye was so painful it had to be removed. Multiple reconstructive surgeries couldnt repair extensive facial injuries including his missing nose and lips. Credit: NYU Langone Health via AP Then came a closer look. NYU ophthalmologist Dr. Vaidehi Dedania ran a battery of tests. She found expected damage in the light-sensing retina in the back of the eye. But she said it appears to have enough special cells called photoreceptors to do the job of converting light to electrical signals, one step in creating vision. Normally, the optic nerve then would send those signals to the brain to be interpreted. James' optic nerve clearly hasn't healed. Yet when light was flashed into the donated eye during an MRI, the scan recorded some sort of brain signaling. That both excited and baffled researchers, although it wasn't the right type for vision and may simply be a fluke, cautioned Dr. Steven Galetta, NYU's neurology chair. Only time and more study may tell. Still, the surgery marks "a technical tour de force," said Dr. David Klassen, chief medical officer of the United Network for Organ Sharing, which runs the nation's transplant system. "You can learn a tremendous amount from a single transplant" that could propel the field. As for James, "we're just taking it one day at a time," he said. 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Walmart disturbance Police were called to Walmart Monday, where a man was reportedly causing a disturbance. Brandon J. Aker, 42, of Butte drove to the shopping center and entered the store with a 6-year-old boy. When he arrived in the automotive department, he reportedly took his shirt off, then his pants, and laid down on the floor. Aker was arrested for aggravated driving under the influence (second offense), disorderly conduct, and criminal child endangerment. Tuesday DUI At around 1:20 a.m. Tuesday, an officer stopped Isaiah H. Waldman, 23, of Butte near the intersection of Silver and Washington streets. Waldman reportedly failed on-site sobriety maneuvers and was taken to jail, where he refused a Breathalyzer. He was jailed for driving under the influence (second offense), no liability insurance (fourth or subsequent offense), driving without a valid drivers license, along with an outside warrant. Habitual offender charge James H. Larson, 50, of Butte was booked into the jail Tuesday on accusations of being a habitual offender. In custody Officers arrived Monday at the offices of Adult Probation & Parole to take into custody Matthew T. Bowen, 48, of Butte. He was jailed on two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted person and violation of release conditions. Refusing to leave On Thursday, a man living in the 600 block of North Idaho Street called to report that Jessica R. Elliott, 41, of Butte was in his home and refusing to leave. When officers arrived, she was taken into custody for resisting arrest, city contempt, and a Montana Highway Patrol warrant. MHP arrest A trooper with the Montana Highway Patrol caught up with Jonathon P. Kovash II, 35, of Butte Wednesday at the Town Pump, 531 S. Montana St. Kovash had two $25,000 warrants out for his arrest one out of Lewis & Clark County and the other out of Butte-Silver Bow. He also reportedly gave the trooper a false name. Officers arrived and took him to the Butte Detention Center where he was also jailed on three counts of criminal possession of dangerous drugs, two counts of criminal possession of drug paraphernalia, theft, obstructing justice, and probation violation. Acting strangely On Wednesday, Lindsay R. Young, 43, of Butte pulled up to the old Hawthorne School acting strangely and turning her hazard lights on and off. A concerned individual asked if she was OK, and Young would reportedly not answer but just kept shaking her head. An officer arrived to check on her and when she was asked to roll down her window, Young allegedly said no and then took off, driving northbound on Hancock. Another officer blocked her path and she was stopped near the intersection of Gladstone and Richardson. It was there that Young reportedly kicked one officer in the upper thigh and tried to flee. She was jailed for assault on a peace officer and fleeing from police. Alleged assault On Tuesday, Sierra L. Roy, 27, of Butte was reportedly at a residence she was not supposed to be at. While there, she allegedly grabbed a man by the throat. She was arrested for partner or family member assault and violating a no-contact order. Couple jailed Two people from Bothell, Washington, were taken into custody Wednesday at the Copper King Inn. Kesley M. Dawes, 37, and Brandon C. Knoth, 39, were both jailed for criminal possession of drugs with the intent to distribute and use or possession of property subject to criminal forfeiture. A legal battle over whether the Hoopes Vineyard winery or Napa County has gone rogue in interpreting county regulations and whether some of those rules are unconstitutional has taken new turns. Hoopes winery says the county discriminates against specific classes of small businesses and landowners. It announced Wednesday it is seeking investigations from Ismail Ramsey, U.S. attorney general for the Northern District of California, and state Attorney General Rob Bonta. Joining Hoopes winery in making the request are the Smith-Madrone and Summit Lake wineries. They say the county tries to force some wineries to seek county permission for wine tasting visitation rights they already possess. Hoopes, Smith-Madrone and Summit Lake wineries were established before the countys 1990 winery definition ordinance. Their owners say they are concerned about what rules apply to pre-1990 small wineries. We are asking for help to protect us from this government overreach, said vintner Lindsay Hoopes, who previously worked for the San Francisco district attorney's office. Napa County's standard practice is to avoid commenting on ongoing or potential litigation, county spokesperson Linda Ong said. Meanwhile, Napa County and Hoopes winery continue a year-long battle in Napa County Superior Court that has seen a switch in judges. That came after the county learned that the husband of Superior Court Judge Cynthia Smith works for another county winery regulations nemesis. All of this is part of a legal skirmish that may or may not have implications for other small wineries established before Napa County's landmark 1990 ordinance. The court case Napa County regulates wineries. In most cases, it issues use permits that stipulate how much wine production and how many visitors each winery can have annually. Hoopes winery was established as the Hopper Creek winery in 1984 by a previous owner under the countys now-defunct small winery exemption program. The county says that, in exchange for streamlined approval, these applicants agreed to such conditions as holding no tours, tastings or social events of a public nature. In the fall of 2022, the county filed a lawsuit in Napa County Superior Court alleging Hoopes winery is breaking the rules. Hoopes illegally hosts tours and tastings and holds various events at its location at 6204 Washington St. south of Yountville, the lawsuit said. Other alleged, unlawful uses include holding yoga classes, having an animal sanctuary, having a two-piece connected shed without a building permit and providing food services. County officials say that wineries with small winery exemptions must apply for use permits to host tours and tastings. That involves such steps as going through a county Planning Commission hearing and can trigger requirements such as making road improvements. The countys lawsuit talked of protecting the county's agricultural preserve, which sets aside most rural land outside of cities for farming. Because commercial uses and services are directly at odds with this agricultural purpose, permissible land use in the agricultural preserve district, even at Napa Countys most famous wineries, are quite limited and are carefully spelled out in the countys zoning code, the lawsuit said. Hoopes winery responded with a counter-complaint. At the heart of the controversy is whether Napa County can render valueless a lawful, operating business a winery from doing what a winery does through arbitrary, vague and unintelligible rules, leaving no room for compliance, the suit said. The Hoopes family bought the former Hopper Creek winery in 2017. The small winery exemption allows for the selling of wine from the winery. County officials told Hoopes that the winery can provide samples to encourage purchase, but not charge for the tastings, the Hoopes suit said. "Hoopes owned vineyards in Napa, but needed a winery to make direct-to-consumer sales to make its business sustainable. ... Hoopes searched for an entitled property so it could lawfully make direct sales," the suit said. A jury is to rule on whether Hoopes or the county is correct. Smith-Madrone and Summit Lake Smith-Madrone and Summit Lake wineries this summer announced they want to join the legal case on the Hoopes side, saying they face similar issues with the county. The two wineries explained why to Napa County Court Judge Cynthia Smith on Oct. 6. But at that hearing, Smith who has no connection to Smith-Madrone winery said something that caught the attention of the countys attorneys. She disclosed that her husband works for Hundred Acre Wine Group. Hundred Acre Wine Group is owned by Jayson Woodbridge. Woodbridge has two court cases filed against the county, one over county well regulations and the other involving an experimental vineyard that the county says is illegal. Given that, Napa County asked that Smith be disqualified from the case. On Oct. 24, Smith recused herself. She can be fair and impartial in the Hoopes case, but someone who knows the facts might reasonably entertain a doubt, she wrote. Judge Scott Young took over the case, but the Hoopes team challenged whether he can be impartial to them. Judge Joseph Solga took over the case, but the county team challenged his impartiality as well. As of Wednesday, Judge Mark Boessenecker was to oversee the trial. He is to hold a Nov. 20 hearing on whether Smith-Madrone and Summit Lake wineries can join the Hoopes case. Smith-Madrone winery has a 1973 use permit. There's no dispute that the winery can have visitors. But Stuart Smith of Smith-Madrone winery told the Napa Valley Register that he looked at a county online database and saw his winery was limited to 10 visitors a week and no marketing events. That was news to him. He filed papers with the court contending that small winery use permits are allowed unlimited tours and tastings by appointment and marketing events. The filing claims these are pre-winery definition ordinance rights and are "grandfathered in." The Brakesman family in 1984 obtained a county small winery exemption to establish Summit Lake winery near Angwin. They say in court papers that they have hosted visitors there for 40 years. Napa County determined that Summit Lake must obtain a use permit to continue visitations. But Summit Lake found out doing so would trigger road improvements that the Brakesmans say could cost more than $1 million. Were in a pickle, Heather Griffin of the family told the Register. The family tried to do the right thing and play by the rules. As a result, it ended up in limbo for four years, she said. At Tuesdays Napa County Board of Supervisors meeting, Spencer Hoopes went to the microphone during public comments to address supervisors. Supervisors were to hold a closed session on the lawsuit. Were being retaliated against as others have in order to silence us and force us out of business for bringing to light the rampant and unlawful county actions that are impacting small business owners, Spencer Hoopes told supervisors. Supervisors made no reply. They took no action on the lawsuit during the closed session, though they gave unspecified direction to county attorneys. A jury trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 29. SERIES: Napa Valley Register's best photos of October Justin-Siena vs. Vintage golf Ole Health name name change Vintage at Justin-Siena girls volleyball Vintage at Justin-Siena girls volleyball Rainbow Kits Big Game Girls Golf Big Game Girls Golf Mardi Schma Blues, Brews and BBQ Blues, Brews and BBQ Blues, Brews and BBQ American Canyon vs. Petaluma football American Canyon vs. Petaluma football RENA Gallery Men on Boats Men on Boats New Jail Jogathon Jogathon Jogathon Wizard of Oz Wizard of Oz Stanly Lane Pumpkin Patch Stanly Lane Pumpkin Patch Stanly Lane Pumpkin Patch Israel Rally Israel Rally Israel Rally Arch & Tower Arch & Tower Sterling Sterling Golden Bagel VVAL Cross Country Meet Ohm coffee Ohm Coffee Roasters cupping Vine Trail Nearly 250 rodents transferred to the Humane Society of Southern Arizona that were intended for adoption were instead fed to snakes and reptiles, according to an initial finding in a probe by the agency and the San Diego Humane Society. The two organizations, whove been embroiled in a back-and-forth about the fate of the animals since September, jointly addressed the outcome of the small pets in a news release Thursday. The saga began in August when the Humane Society in Tucson received a transfer of 323 animals from its San Diego-based counterpart. The same day the animals arrived, they were transferred to Colten Jones in Apache Junction, the report says. About 60 of the animals were eventually returned by Jones to the humane society. However, activists in both San Diego and Tucson pressured both organizations to find out what became of the other 250 small animals that remained in Jones possession. The fallout eventually led the Humane Society of Southern Arizona to fire CEO Steve Farley; Christian Gonzalez, its chief programs officer, resigned. Both agencies announced they were hiring a third party to investigate. That led to an uncovered text message from Jones who, after having received the animals, sought assistance in processing a large number of guinea pigs and rabbits for reptile feed a day after receiving them, the initial report says. The investigation confirmed Jones operates The Fertile Turtle, a reptile breeding company known for selling both live and frozen animals for reptile consumption. Both groups are committed to pursuing legal action in the incident, the news release says. It was not clear in the news release on what grounds legal action would be pursued. The organizations also expressed deep sorrow for the animals and the communitys concern. A final report is expected in December. The major US cities with the most animal lovers The major US cities with the most animal lovers #15. Miami #14. New York #13. Washington DC #12. San Francisco #11. Boston #10. Los Angeles #9. Chicago #8. Atlanta #7. Detroit #6. Houston #5. Philadelphia #4. Seattle #3. Dallas #2. Riverside, California #1. Phoenix Defense minister meets with head of EU delegation to Armenia (PHOTOS) Armenia Security Council chief to travel to US Armenia was informed about antiterrorist measures in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan FM claims Ambassador Kvien: US proud to work with Armenian counterparts to preserve Armenias cultural heritage PM lauds Romania role in deploying EU civilian monitoring mission in Armenia Porsche holds 3rd generation Panamera world premiere Hamas violated ceasefire, Israel says US dissatisfied with Turkey Newspaper: Armenia national air carrier suspending flights Archaeologists to soon reveal Great Pyramid of Gizas main secret Fast & Furious 9 movie producers fined $1M Armenia, mediators are to blame for military aggression against Karabakh Armenians, Azerbaijan FM claims Armenia did not participate in the meeting of representatives of the CSTO member states The OSCE Chairmanship supports the dialog aimed at concluding a peace treaty between Baku and Yerevan We need Azerbaijan to stop rejecting proposals of facilitators to meet and finalize the peace treaty. Ararat Mirzoyan Representatives of CSTO member states met in Northern Macedonia Nassim Taleb: Painful that Mt. Ararat is in Turkey, Armenia is having territorial reductions Nassim Taleb predicts 3 major global risks: pandemic, financial collapse, rising debt Armenian captive Gagik Voskanyan not brought to court, Azerbaijan media report Mirzoyan to Colomina: Azerbaijan public position on territorial integrity mutual recognition is of paramount necessity Lavrov: Russia ready to contribute to normalization of Armenia-Azerbaijan relations Mirzoyan presents to Lavrov Armenia positions regarding Russia steps Ararat Mirzoyan, Javier Colomina discuss Armenia-NATO partnership Kremlin: Russia considers Armenia an ally France envoy to Armenia: Karabakh refugees have the right to return to their homes Armenia-Azerbaijan border delimitation commissions 5th meeting held at border Poland First Lady arrives in Armenia The PM, no longer the president, to appoint and dismiss Armenia National Security Service director and deputies Armenia president travels to Dubai for UN Climate Change Conference Armenia, Azerbaijan FMs meeting not planned in North Macedonia International law expert: Torture, inhumane treatment of Armenian detainees continues in Azerbaijan US deputy assistant secretary of state for education, cultural Affairs is in Armenia FM to France official: Armenia sent recommendations package to Azerbaijan to move settlement process forward (PHOTOS) Monument Watch: Azerbaijan propaganda machine circulates new theory Armenia FM, EU foreign policy chief confer about South Caucasus security Maragos: There is move towards situation stabilization on the ground ever since EU mission deployment in Armenia EU ambassador: Armenia citizens largely benefit from Visa Facilitation agreement Armenia, Azerbaijan border delimitation state commissions meeting kicks off Ambassador Maragos: EU hopes Armenia, Azerbaijan will come to some understanding during border delimitation talks Yerevan hosting international conference on Armenian communities of Middle East Ararat Mirzoyan, David Cameron speak about South Caucasus developments Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger dies aged 100 Towards a Brighter Tomorrow: India's G20 Presidency and the Dawn of a New Multilateralism Newspaper: Armenia, Azerbaijan deputy PMs to meet today in Tavush Province Mirzoyan, Blinken discuss South Caucasus security, stability Ararat Mirzoyan underscores Netherlands support to Armenia sovereignty EU reiterates support to Armenia-Azerbaijan relations normalization based on 1991 Almaty Declaration Deputy PM Mher Grigoryan stresses EU programs strategic importance for Armenia Envoy presents vision of Armenias Crossroads of Peace project to Greece lawmaker Armenia, Georgia security councils chiefs discuss regional security, stability (PHOTOS) Another judicial farce to begin in Azerbaijan against another Armenian Opposition MP: Armenia will face serious economic problems next year Karabakh ex-official says he does not consider signing Armenia-Azerbaijan peace treaty possible at this phase Dollar, euro go up in Armenia Armenia premier meets with big businessman from Egypt Armenia economy minister: Situation at Upper Lars checkpoint is strange EU Special Representative for South Caucasus discusses peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan in Turkey Amazon Web Services representative to Armenia PM: We are in active discussions with high-tech ministry The banks should help the customers in making right decisions when managing their own funds. Saribek Sukiasyan Armenia FM to attend OSCE Ministerial Council Armenia-UK 6th strategic defense consultations held in London (PHOTOS) Gagik Aghajanyan: Upper Lars border checkpoint closure means Armenia-Russia relations termination Vahan Kerobyan: Armenia, Russia representatives will discuss situation at Upper Lars border checkpoint Kremlin: Currently no plans for Russia President-Armenia PM contacts Freight-forwarding company director: Yerevan is 2nd largest cargo-container hub in South Caucasus Armenia, Azerbaijan deputy PMs meeting to be held in Tavush-Kazakh sector of border, media report Russia MFA pays attention to dispute over Armenian Gardens in Jerusalem Armenia parliament speaker: I tried to grasp who these people are who dont want to live side by side with Azerbaijanis Media: South Caucasus to be discussed at Turkey security council Karabakh former official Samvel Babayan speaks about negotiating with Azerbaijan Karabakh ex-official: Artsakh issue cannot be resolved at any time Japan space agency hit with cyberattack Saudi Arabia capital Riyadh wins right to host Expo 2030 world fair Newspaper: Armenia ruling force MP ready to live in Azerbaijan if his safety is ensured World's largest iceberg moves, leaves Antarctica after nearly 40 years of 'rest' Armenian-made satellite to be launched into space on Friday Armenia MFA: Azerbaijan continues blocking matter of sending UNESCO mission to Karabakh Turkey deputy FM, Toivo Klaar discuss South Caucasus, media report Armenia deputy PM receives World Bank regional director Dollar, euro drop Armenia Cyprus to host 30 children forcibly displaced from Karabakh, for 12 days of entertainment "Gyumri" branch of AMIO BANK was reopened under a new brand (PHOTOS) Alen Simonyan: Armenia should attend EAEU summit in St. Petersburg Armenia legislature head: Karabakh issue was resolved in 2016 PM Nikol Pashinyan receives delegation led by head of the Lithuania-Armenia interparliamentary friendship group Some Armenia trucks sent back from Upper Lars checkpoint on Georgia-Russia border National Assembly speaker: Nagorno-Karabakh issue does not exist for Armenia Alen Simonyan: No agreement on new meeting between Armenia, Azerbaijan leaders Armenia legislature speaker: Peace agreement can be signed within next 15 days if Azerbaijan shows political will Armenia legislature head: Our political relations with Russia are bit tense Irakli Garibashvili to Armenia PM staff chief: Georgia ready to assist peace process in region Armenia parliament chair: We are ready to return Azerbaijanis enclaves to them Amaryan Charitable Foundation Commits initial 122 mln AMD in Support to Syunik Region Armenia National Assembly speaker: We have 31 villages whose territories are under Azerbaijan occupation Embassies to be opened in Armenia, S. Korea on reciprocity basis Armenia legislature head: I don't understand what Azerbaijan delaying time will give it or to the region Alen Simonyan: Azerbaijan attempts to erase Armenian trace from Armenian highlands are unacceptable How did Cyprus company that bought MTS Armenia shares gain Public Services Regulatory Commissions trust? Armenia legislature head: We expect support of Western countries in making democracy more resistant Alen Simonyan: There will come time when Armenians, Azerbaijanis must live side by side Athar, the Saudi Festival of Creativity, the kingdoms largest gathering of the creative marketing industry, will commence on November 13 with 1,000 delegates and 100 plus speakers. The event will be held at the Hotel Crowne Plaza Riyadh RDC with its three-day Young Talent Academy Programme comprising six distinct training academies (from November 13 to 15). Organised by Motivate Media Group and TRACCS, the inaugural edition of Athar Festival also features a two-day festival and an awards gala dinner (November 16). Next frontiers Speakers, panelists, industry experts and delegates will come together to explore the next frontiers of the creative industry and the role of creativity as a catalyst for a vibrant, future-forward economy in Saudi Arabia. Princess Loulwa Bint Yazeed Al Saud will spearhead an exceptional lineup of over 100 speakers from key Saudi government entities and businesses, local and international creative marketing industry, and prominent global companies and brands. Award-winning creative marketer, Fernando Machado, Global CMO of NotCo, who has been recognised with over 200 Cannes Lions awards, including five Grand Prix, will deliver the keynote address. Converging point Ian Fairservice, Chairman of Athar Festival and Managing Partner & Group Editor-in-Chief of Motivate Media Group, said: We are proud to present the the inaugural edition of Athar Saudi Festival of Creativity, which will be a converging point for culture, creativity, talent and technology. The festival aims to make a profound impact on the creative landscape of the Kingdom and beyond. Our desire is to build a global platform based in Saudi Arabia that celebrates local creativity and catalyses the development of the creative economy by nurturing tomorrows talents. The engaging event will provide a venue for vibrant discourse across six themes that shape the future of the creative industry in Saudi Arabia and beyond. Artificial Intelligence is set to be one of the resounding themes throughout the festivals agenda, which provides participants with an engaging platform to explore the latest developments in the industry, create connections, and spark their own creativity. Furthermore, in a first for the Middle East, FIRE, an AI-powered robot, is all set to make its first public appearance and feature on a panel alongside industry veterans on harnessing the power of generative AI tools in the realm of creativity. Festival themes The prominent themes the festival will encompass are: Technology as a Creative Driver; Strategies That Help Grow Brands; Inspiration and Idea Generation; Work Culture and Talent; Bringing a Positive Change to Society, and Saudi Arabia A Thriving Market for the Creative Industry. Athar Festival also features the Maheerah Womens Empowerment Programme powered by Publicis Groupe Middle East, which aims to open new frontiers of possibilities for 10 high-potential women in the creative marcomms industry. The festival will culminate with the Athar Awards Gala Dinner, which will feature the Legacy Awards of the Decade, verified by the Dubai Lynx and Cannes Lions international festivals of creativity, and presented to agencies and brands. Also featured are the Athar Special Awards, presented at the discretion of the organising committee to outstanding individuals, market leaders and other stellar organisations who have positively contributed to the advancement of the local creative industry. The awards ceremony will also honour the winners of the 24-hour hack competition part of the Young Talent Academies.--TradeArabia News Service Defense minister meets with head of EU delegation to Armenia (PHOTOS) Armenia Security Council chief to travel to US Armenia was informed about antiterrorist measures in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan FM claims Ambassador Kvien: US proud to work with Armenian counterparts to preserve Armenias cultural heritage SpaceX will soon connect smartphones directly to Starlink satellites: Mobile testing will begin in December 482 cases of HIV recorded in Armenia in first 9 months of 2023, specialist says PM lauds Romania role in deploying EU civilian monitoring mission in Armenia Europa Conference League: 12 teams advance to playoffs Porsche holds 3rd generation Panamera world premiere First Armenian Hayasat-1 satellite to be launched into space tonight Hamas violated ceasefire, Israel says A Gmail massive outage delays emails for hours Champions League: Assists of the week US dissatisfied with Turkey Ana Maria Markovic, considered sexiest female footballer: Ronaldo is my motivation Newspaper: Armenia national air carrier suspending flights Europa League: Liverpool, Roma, 12 other clubs qualify for playoffs Archaeologists to soon reveal Great Pyramid of Gizas main secret Fast & Furious 9 movie producers fined $1M Armenia, mediators are to blame for military aggression against Karabakh Armenians, Azerbaijan FM claims Smartphone addiction and digital well-being: How to balance between connectivity and mental health? Armenia did not participate in the meeting of representatives of the CSTO member states The OSCE Chairmanship supports the dialog aimed at concluding a peace treaty between Baku and Yerevan We need Azerbaijan to stop rejecting proposals of facilitators to meet and finalize the peace treaty. Ararat Mirzoyan WhatsApp will get a new and useful feature Representatives of CSTO member states met in Northern Macedonia Nassim Taleb: Painful that Mt. Ararat is in Turkey, Armenia is having territorial reductions Nassim Taleb predicts 3 major global risks: pandemic, financial collapse, rising debt Armenian captive Gagik Voskanyan not brought to court, Azerbaijan media report Best apps and games of the year in the App Store are known. the main trend has become AI Mirzoyan to Colomina: Azerbaijan public position on territorial integrity mutual recognition is of paramount necessity Lavrov: Russia ready to contribute to normalization of Armenia-Azerbaijan relations Mirzoyan presents to Lavrov Armenia positions regarding Russia steps Ararat Mirzoyan, Javier Colomina discuss Armenia-NATO partnership Titan Image Generator: Amazon Unveils Its Own Image Generator Tool: What Makes It Special? Kremlin: Russia considers Armenia an ally France envoy to Armenia: Karabakh refugees have the right to return to their homes Armenia-Azerbaijan border delimitation commissions 5th meeting held at border The best Android apps of the year are revealed Poland First Lady arrives in Armenia The PM, no longer the president, to appoint and dismiss Armenia National Security Service director and deputies Armenia president travels to Dubai for UN Climate Change Conference Armenia, Azerbaijan FMs meeting not planned in North Macedonia A Supercomputer center for AI will be created in Armenia with a budget of $8,5 million International law expert: Torture, inhumane treatment of Armenian detainees continues in Azerbaijan US deputy assistant secretary of state for education, cultural Affairs is in Armenia FM to France official: Armenia sent recommendations package to Azerbaijan to move settlement process forward (PHOTOS) Monument Watch: Azerbaijan propaganda machine circulates new theory Study finds link between early coronary heart disease and dementia Armenia FM, EU foreign policy chief confer about South Caucasus security Maragos: There is move towards situation stabilization on the ground ever since EU mission deployment in Armenia EU ambassador: Armenia citizens largely benefit from Visa Facilitation agreement Armenia, Azerbaijan border delimitation state commissions meeting kicks off Ambassador Maragos: EU hopes Armenia, Azerbaijan will come to some understanding during border delimitation talks Yerevan hosting international conference on Armenian communities of Middle East Ararat Mirzoyan, David Cameron speak about South Caucasus developments Two strong flares were recorded on the Sun, which may cause a magnetic storm on Earth today and tomorrow Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger dies aged 100 Towards a Brighter Tomorrow: India's G20 Presidency and the Dawn of a New Multilateralism Champions League: 12 teams so far qualify for Round of 16 Newspaper: Armenia, Azerbaijan deputy PMs to meet today in Tavush Province Sergio Ramos scores 10,000th goal in Champions League history Mirzoyan, Blinken discuss South Caucasus security, stability Ararat Mirzoyan underscores Netherlands support to Armenia sovereignty EU reiterates support to Armenia-Azerbaijan relations normalization based on 1991 Almaty Declaration Deputy PM Mher Grigoryan stresses EU programs strategic importance for Armenia Black holes as a source of energy: Scientists suggest using them as batteries Why is it useful to restart your computer from time to time? Envoy presents vision of Armenias Crossroads of Peace project to Greece lawmaker Mixing heat with hair styling products may be bad for your health Armenia, Georgia security councils chiefs discuss regional security, stability (PHOTOS) Another judicial farce to begin in Azerbaijan against another Armenian Amazon introduces a competitor to ChatGPT, designed also for developers Opposition MP: Armenia will face serious economic problems next year Karabakh ex-official says he does not consider signing Armenia-Azerbaijan peace treaty possible at this phase Dollar, euro go up in Armenia Armenia premier meets with big businessman from Egypt Armenia economy minister: Situation at Upper Lars checkpoint is strange EU Special Representative for South Caucasus discusses peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan in Turkey Amazon Web Services representative to Armenia PM: We are in active discussions with high-tech ministry The banks should help the customers in making right decisions when managing their own funds. Saribek Sukiasyan Armenia FM to attend OSCE Ministerial Council Armenia-UK 6th strategic defense consultations held in London (PHOTOS) IT companies play leading role in Armenia, but economy is not always ready to use their solutions Kendall Jenner becomes third KarJenner to land Forbes cover after Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner Gagik Aghajanyan: Upper Lars border checkpoint closure means Armenia-Russia relations termination Vahan Kerobyan: Armenia, Russia representatives will discuss situation at Upper Lars border checkpoint Michael Douglas gets lifetime achievement award at International Film Festival of India in Goa Kremlin: Currently no plans for Russia President-Armenia PM contacts Freight-forwarding company director: Yerevan is 2nd largest cargo-container hub in South Caucasus Armenia plans to create advisory body on scientific issues Girlfriend Bruna Biancardi breaks up with Neymar Armenia, Azerbaijan deputy PMs meeting to be held in Tavush-Kazakh sector of border, media report Russia MFA pays attention to dispute over Armenian Gardens in Jerusalem Armenia parliament speaker: I tried to grasp who these people are who dont want to live side by side with Azerbaijanis Media: South Caucasus to be discussed at Turkey security council Champions League: 10 clubs that qualified for Round of 16 are decided Karabakh former official Samvel Babayan speaks about negotiating with Azerbaijan Karabakh ex-official: Artsakh issue cannot be resolved at any time Japan space agency hit with cyberattack The temple town set a new Guinness world record by lighting over 22.23 lakh 'Diyas' (earthen lamps) during 'Deepotsav 2023' and broke its previos world record of 15.76 lakh Diyas lit last year on Diwali eve. Artists from different countries, such as Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Russia, performed Ramleela at Ayodhya's Deepotsav. The residents of Ayodhya were delighted to witness the enactment of Ramleela and the artistic expressions of artists from different countries. The Sri Lankan artists portrayed the character of Shri Ram, while artists from Janakpur, Nepal, staged incidents from the life of Shri Ram. The Russian artists also delivered a splendid performance. To make the event more exciting, a light and sound laser show based on the Ramayana was organised for about 20 minutes at Ram Ki Paidi during Deepotsav. Along with the Chief Minister, Governor Anandiben Patel, foreign diplomats, and members of the Yogi cabinet attented the event. The Chief Minister also visited the grand 3D holographic show, projection mapping, and laser show based on the Ramayana. At the Naya Ghat, everyone, including the Chief Minister and other guests, was enthralled by the spectacular musical fireworks. The Uttar Pradesh Government's 'Grand Deepotsav' was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records after representatives from the organisation witnessed and acknowledged the achievement of lighting an unprecedented number of lamps simultaneously at a single location. As soon as the scheduled time for lighting the earthen lamps began, over 22.23 lakh lamps were lit one by one, accompanied by the resonant chanting of 'Shri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Jai Ram.' The entire Ayodhya echoed the slogan 'Jai Shri Ram' as soon as Guinness Book of World Records representatives announced the creation of the record. Guinness Book of World Records Executive Swapnil Dangarikar and Consultant Nischal Barot provided this information after the count was completed. Upon receiving the certificate from the Guinness Book of World Records, Chief Minister Adityanath extended warm greetings to the entire Ayodhya. Diplomats from 54 countries were present as witnesses to this remarkable achievement, and the Chief Minister was heartily congratulated for this unforgettable accomplishment. (ANI) Italy, whose aerospace exports are poised to hit $6.2 billion by 2026, will display cutting-edge technologies and innovative solutions at the Dubai Airshow 2023 from November 13 to 17. Over 40 Italian companies will be represented with 22 SMEs exhibiting within the official Italian Trade Agency pavilion and nine companies showcasing under the Puglia Region stand at the show. Italy has asserted its leadership across various sectors of aeronautics and space, with an extraordinary 80% of the Italian supply chain of SMEs. The Dubai Air Show marks a major stride in enhancing the global footprint of Italys aerospace industry. Italy's steadfast commitment to technological progress and international cooperation reaffirms its influential position in shaping the global aerospace arena. Outstanding offerings As a celebrated hub for aerospace innovation and exquisite craftsmanship, Italy is primed to captivate visitors with its outstanding offerings, underscoring the nation's resolute pledge to driving the future of aerospace technology and excellence. Italys participation is a collaborative effort by The Italian Trade Agency in partnership with the Embassy of Italy in the UAE, the Consulate General in Dubai and the Italian Industries Federation of Aerospace, Defence, and Security (AIAD). I am pleased to welcome Italian companies to the Dubai Air Show 2023 and delighted to present 22 high-tech SMEs proudly exhibiting under the Italian Trade Agency banner. Their presence at this prestigious event, reaffirms our role in delivering global exposure and opportunities to the thriving UAE market, said Lorenzo Fanara, Ambassador of Italy to the UAE. Italy's aerospace industry is assuming an increasingly critical role in the nation's economic development, securing the 4th position in Europe and the 7th globally within the Italian Aviation Industry. Leadership positions Boasting notable leadership positions in civil helicopters, regional aircraft, and propulsion, Italian aeronautics and space companies leverage advanced technological skills and production knowledge, serving as crucial growth drivers for the sector. Projections indicate a burgeoning growth in Italian Aerospace Imports, expected to reach $3.6 billion by 2026, with an average yearly growth rate of 0.6% since 1986. Furthermore, Italian Aerospace Exports are poised to reach $6.2 billion by 2026, securing the 10th position among leading global exports. The financial insights underscore the industry's prowess, revealing a consistent increase in revenue streams driven by technological innovation, skilled craftsmanship, and strategic partnerships. This solidifies Italy's position as a key player in the international aviation arena and emphasises its noteworthy contribution to the nation's economic prosperity. The Dubai Airshow is bringing the aviation industry back together and we are glad to give 22 Italian SMEs the opportunity to attend one of the world's most important aviation events where the future of mobility, space exploration and defence are showcased. In 2022, exports of the Italian aerospace sector to the UAE increased by 25% making a signal of the exceptional expertise of the Italian aerospace industry and its deep connections with the UAE market. The Italian Trade Agency is presenting the Italian exhibitors at Dubai Air Show 2023 with the motto: Sustainability is SustainabITALY, stated Amedeo Scarpa, Italian Trade Commissioner to the UAE. Resounding revival Italian representation at the Dubai Airshow asserts a resounding renewal, showcasing an impressive array that cements its stature in aerospace, defence, and security equipment production. This year's edition promises a spotlight on cutting-edge aviation, defence, and space technologies, creating unprecedented opportunities for collaboration and partnerships. Visitors will be immersed in a diverse spectrum of aerospace products, spanning advanced electronic equipment and power systems to ground support equipment, aviation components, and cutting-edge software for space applications. The official Italian Pavilion emerges as a nexus of innovation, unveiling a comprehensive range of state-of-the-art aerospace solutions, including advanced avionics, precision electrical systems for aerospace and defence, top-tier ground support equipment, aerospace components, and specialised software for advanced mission analysis, planning, and space simulation.--TradeArabia News Service Social media is flooded with posts of people celebrating Diwali. In the midst of this, an artist from Indore, Shikha Sharma, created a 14 thousand square feet of rangoli in Indore. A team of 15 artists, including Shikha, took two days to complete the beautiful rangoli. The rangoli was made at the Oxford International College of Indore. Sharma said that through this art, her team has tried to depict several things, including lord Hanuman, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and even the development and infrastructure of Indore city, among other things. "We have tried depicting several things in this rangoli. The development and infrastructure of Indore City have been depicted. In this rangoli, we have depicted Lord Hanuman and portraits of PM Narendra Modi and BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya," Sikha said. Diwali is observed on Amavasya (or the new moon), the 15th day of the month of Kartik, every year. This year, Diwali will be celebrated on Sunday (November 12). The festival is also known as the 'festival of lights', and is the symbol of the victory of light over darkness and good over evil. Hence, this festival holds cultural and spiritual significance. Meanwhile, in a remarkable feat, Ayodhya has set a new Guinness world record by lighting over 22.23 lakh 'Diyas' (earthen lamps) during 'Deepotsav 2023'. The temple town broke its own world record of 15.76 lakh Diyas lit last year on Diwali eve. The Uttar Pradesh Government's 'Grand Deepotsav' was recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records after representatives from the organisation witnessed and acknowledged the achievement of lighting an unprecedented number of lamps simultaneously at a single location. (ANI) Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath paid a visit to the Hanuman Garhi temple on Sunday morning and offered prayers to Lord Hanuman in Ayodhya on the auspicious occasion of Diwali. Uttar Pradesh Agriculture Minister Surya Pratap Shahi and Tourism Minister Jaiveer Singh were also present at the temple with Chief Minister Yogi. The Chief Minister paid obeisance at the 10th century Hanuman Garhi temple and later performed darshan of Lord Ram at the Ram Lala Virajman in Ayodhya. In his Diwali message the UP CM Yogi wished for happiness and good health for all the citizens of the state. " The victory of truth over evil, virtue over oppression and light over darkness is celebrated today as Diwali. On this occasion, I wish all the people of the state a very Happy Diwali. With the blessings of Lord Shri Ram and Mata Janki may this year bring happiness, good fortune health and prosperity for all" Yogi Adityanath said. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also gave his wishes to the people of the country on the festival of lights. Wishing everyone a happy Diwali, the prime minister expressed hope that the special festival will bring joy, prosperity and wonderful health to everyone's lives. Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar extended warm greetings to the people on Diwali and expressed hope that the brilliance of the festival spreads knowledge, wisdom, and compassion to everyone's hearts. The vice president also said that Deepawali reaffirms the belief in living a righteous and virtuous life and performing our duty to the best of our ability under all circumstances. People all across the country are all decked up for Diwali. Houses have been decorated with colourful lights, rangolis, and flowers to celebrate the festival of joy. Diwali is observed on Amavasya (or the new moon), the 15th day of the month of Kartik, every year. This year, Diwali will be celebrated on November 12. Diwali is the festival of lights. It symbolises the spiritual "victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance". (ANI) Former Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot's campaign in Tonk has got a boost after he secured the support of BSP nominee Ashok Bairwa. Pilot said that even though BSP candidate Ashok Bairwa could not withdraw his candidature from the Tonk assembly constituency, he stands with the ideology of Congress and that his support will provide strength to party in the upcoming polls. Speaking to the media on Saturday, Pilot said, "Even though Ashok Bairwa could not withdraw his nomination, he is with us and with our ideology. This will give us more strength for elections. I welcome him. He has extended his support to us." Earlier, Ashok Bairwa, a prominent figure among the Dalit communities in the Tonk region, extended his support to Sachin Pilot in the Tonk seat for the upcoming Rajasthan assembly elections. Despite his initial intention to withdraw his candidature, time constraints prevented Bairwa from doing so, and he expressed his admiration for Pilot's ideology and his efforts towards the welfare of the underprivileged. "I am impressed with the ideology of Sachin Pilot. He is working for the upliftment of the poor. My supporters (in Tonk) will work wholeheartedly for ensuring Pilot's victory," Bairwa said. Bairwa, a former Congress member heads the Bhim Sena in Tonk district and wields a considerable influence among the Dalit communities in the constituency. Pilot who won from Tonk constituency in 2018 has been fielded by the ruling Congress again from the seat, where BJP's Ajit Singh Mehta is challenging him. The former deputy chief minister of Rajasthan has been touring in the villages of the constituency. He succeeded in convincing Congress rebels Naimuddin, Mohsin Rashid Khan, Abdul Qaider and Umar Baig to withdraw their nomination papers from the seat. Some BJP workers led by the party's city unit general secretary Ramdayal Bairwa also joined the Congress in Tonk on Saturday. Following the withdrawal of nominations by the rival contestants, six candidates are left in the fray against Pilot in Tonk. Rajasthan will go to polls on November 25, the counting of which will take place on December 3 along with four other state assembly elections. In the 2018 Assembly elections, the Congress won 99 seats, while the BJP secured 73 seats in the 200-member house. Congress formed the state government with BSP and independent candidates. (ANI) Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut hit out at the Maharashtra Government over the demolition of UBT Sena Shakha in Mumbra and said that when dishonest traitors get power, they become Ravana. "When dishonest traitors get power, they become Ravana," said Sanjay Raut. "The manner in which the bulldozer was run on the branch of Mumbra, it looks like the government is in a hurry to sll the land. But thousands of Shiv Sainiks had reached Mumbra on Saturday, Uddhav Thackeray himself had reached there and was leading the branch yesterday but Maharashtra Police tried to stop Uddhav Thackeray," He added. "The way in which the bulldozer was run over in Mumbra, will we keep watching? When the bulldozer was being run over our Shakha, were the police sleeping? When Uddhav Thackeray announced that he would go there, the police became active and said they would stop him. We are also Shiv Sena. We have the DNA of Bala Saheb Thackeray; we are not bogus" Raut said Earlier, fresh tensions simmered between the Shiv Sena and the Uddhav Sena after the Shinde faction allegedly bulldozed a 25-year-old Shakha of the UBT Sena in Mumbra. This move was strongly opposed by Uddhav Thackeray as he led his group towards Mumbra to make a statement of intent on Saturday. "Those who are high on power bulldozed the shakha. I have come here to show you the bulldozer. Our posters were torn. We will tear your arrogance into pieces in the polls," Uddhav said while addressing the party workers in Mumbra" Uddhav said as he addressed party cadre. A short while later, while addressing a function on his home turf Thane, Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde targeted his former boss who had to return from Mumbra. "Some people came to Mumbra today...but they had to take a U-turn return..." , Shinde said while addressing a gathering in Thane. Since the split of the Shiv Sena and the merger of Shinde faction with BJP, there has been a continuous war of words between the two parties. (ANI) Assyrian Journalist on the Challenges to Assyrians Returning to Turkey David Vergili, an executive member of the European Syriac Union and Assyrian journalist, speaks to Medya News about the obstacles preventing the Assyrian community from returning to their ancestral lands. Our conversation with Vergili focuses on the recent murder of Gevriye Akguc, an incident that has escalated tensions over the Syriac community's ancestral land rights in Mardin (Merdin), Turkey, the case of the Diril couple, and the wider implications for the Assyrian diaspora. The interview delves into the question of whether recent incidents are part of an organised effort to prevent Assyrians from reclaiming their heritage. Vergili highlights a disturbing pattern of attacks and obstacles over the past 15 years hindering the Assyrians' resilient efforts to return and rebuild. Could the murder of Gevriye Akguc and the case of the Diril couple be a sign of an organised effort to prevent the return [of displaced Assyrians] -- even if these actions appear to be spontaneous, could there be an underlying fear of losing what has been seized? In recent years, Assyrians in the diaspora, displaying an admirable will to return to the country despite the hardships and uncertainties, have been taking steps, visiting, especially in the summer months, restoring their damaged villages, houses and places of religion, and claiming their property. Although permanent return is risky for them, they have remained connected to their own lands, or at least they have never severed links, and in recent times excitement has grown among the younger Assyrian population at the idea of visiting the region. Though the murder that occurred last week, the disappearance of the Diril couple and other incidents appear to be spontaneous and unconnected, when we take an overview we can see that there are elements that do not want, do not desire and do not tolerate return of the Assyrians. For about the last 15 years, attacks have started and obstacles been put up as soon as there has been any indication of an increase in people returning. Have the Turkish authorities taken any steps to prevent these incidents, if so, what have they done? The Turkish authorities have not taken or shown the desire to take the necessary steps around attacks, property issues and other rights violations experienced by Assyrians, particularly in the region we call Turabdin, the land in and around Mardin. On top of that, particularly when it comes to property issues, the Turkish authorities and the state do not respect the character and authenticity of the Assyrians or present appropriate proposals for solutions. In the matters of the expropriation of property, the seizure of fields, properties transferred to the Treasury, the Department of Social Housing or other institutions that has been going on for years and the experiences of the Diril family and Gevriye Sar who was killed in 2021, the state has not done what it should. In addition to this the Assyrians, whose community is very small in numbers, suffer [such] experiences far more than the general population. How sympathetic is the Kurdish movement to incidents of this nature, do they offer solidarity or co-operation? We observe that the Kurdish movement takes a sympathetic position to the problems, obstacles and rights violations experienced by the Assyrians, offering solidarity and support both under the roof of the [Turkish Grand National] Assembly and from the point of view of struggle. Noting that the Assyrians' entry into active politics in Turkey started through the Kurdish movement, there have been and still are MPs and personalities who bring the problems onto the agenda within the Kurdish movement and within the legal field. HDP [Peoples' Democracy Party] MPs took what the Diril family went through to the Assembly time after time, and followed the case on the ground. But I do think that, taking the chaotic structure of the region into account, more courageous steps should be taken in certain issues. I think that long-term solidarity should be established on a firm basis between groups with similar historic and current problems who live in the same region and topography. What does the Assyrian community expect from the Turkish government and opposition, and in particular from the HEDEP [Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party]? The expectation of the Assyrian community from the Turkish government is that it should take an active role in the matter of the solution of the problems of the Assyrian community with respect for basic rights and the rights of minorities, including the formation of a long-term perspective. On the other hand our expectations from both the [main] opposition and HEDEP is that they should be in solidarity with the Assyrian community and should stand up for a group that is in danger and a culture and language that are under threat of disappearing. In addition that, taking into account regional socio-cultural and historical structures and characteristics, HEDEP should offer support where necessary and widen and grow the areas of common struggle. The intense political, economic, military and social change being experienced in the Middle East in general and in Turkey in particular is creating a new and chaotic reality and renders it necessary for defenceless and minority groups to undertake solidarity and common struggle. Barely a few days before Madhya Pradesh goes to polls, former Chief Minister Kamal Nath said that incumbent Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will not be unemployed after he is voted out of power but will go to Mumbai and pursue a career in acting. "Shivraj Singh Chouhan won't be Chief Minister after some days but he won't become unemployed. He is a very good actor. He will go to Mumbai and pursue acting and make Madhya Pradesh proud," Kamal Nath said while campaigning in Madhya Pradesh's Sagar district. Sharpening his attack against the Chief Minister, Kamal Nath said, "Today our youths are unemployed; our farmers do not have work. Shivraj Singh, what are you worth? Please tell the people." Kamal Nath expressed confidence that the Congress government will come to power in Madhya Pradesh overthrowing the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government. "I am campaigning everywhere and people in Madhya Pradesh will be voting the Bharatiya Janata Party government out of power," he said. The former Chief Minister asked the voters to vote for "truth" and not him nor the Congress party in the election. "This is not the time for slavery or lies. A new era is going to come in Madhya Pradesh. Do not vote for Kamal Nath or the Congress on November 17 but vote for truth. This will secure the future of Madhya Pradesh and our youth," he said. Madhya Pradesh is set to undergo polls in one phase on November 17 and the counting of votes will take place on December 3. Voters will choose legislators from 230 Assembly constituencies. (ANI) CM Kumar was seen lighting 'Diyas' with his co-workers at his residence. Earlier in the day, he congratulated everyone on the auspicious occasion of Diwali. "Hearty congratulations and best wishes on the occasion of the festival of lights, Diwali. Diwali symbolizes the victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance and good over evil. Celebrate Diwali with mutual harmony, harmony and joy", the Chief Minister wrote in a post on 'X'. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also greeted people on the occasion of Diwali. In his message, the Prime Minister wished that this special festival would bring joy, prosperity and wonderful health to everyone's lives. "Wishing everyone a happy Diwali! May this special festival bring joy, prosperity and wonderful health to everyone's lives," PM Modi posted on X. People all across the country have decorated their houses with colourful lights, rangolis, and flowers to celebrate the festival of joy. Diwali is observed on Amavasya (or the new moon), the 15th day of the month of Kartik, every year. Diwali is the festival of lights. It symbolises the spiritual "victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance". (ANI) Union Minister Anurag Thakur extended Diwali greetings to the people on Sunday. "I extend my greetings to the countrymen on the occasion of Diwali. May all your lives be filled with happiness. I hope this festival strengthens the bond of brotherhood and love between people and also firm up our resolve to make India a developed country," Thakur told reporters at Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh. Earlier, on Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spent his Diwali morning with Indian Army soldiers at Lepcha in Himachal Pradesh and extended heartfelt greetings to the people. Addressing a gathering of soldiers at Lepcha, PM Modi extended his warm wishes to the security personnel posted at the borders, saying, "In the last 30-35 years, there has not been a single Diwali that I have not celebrated with you." "I come and celebrate Diwali every year with our Army personnel. It is said that Ayodhya is where Lord Ram is, but for me, Ayodhya is where Indian Army personnel are. My festival is where you are," PM Modi said. Diwali is observed on the 15th day of Kartik, the holiest month in the Hindu lunar calendar. It is believed that on this day, Lord Ram (the seventh incarnation of Lord Vishnu) returned from a 14-year-long exile during which he fought and won a battle against the demon king Ravan. People celebrate the festival by decorating their houses, exchanging gifts, and offering prayers to commemorate the "victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance". (ANI) Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Sunday donated a lamp to the replica of the Ram Temple made of flowers at the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh office on Tilak Road on the occasion of Diwali. CM Dhami also offered prayers to Lord Ram for the prosperity of the state. Earlier in the day, CM Dhami reached the residence of former State Chief Minister Harish Rawat and extended Diwali greetings. "On the auspicious occasion of Diwali, the holy festival of happiness and prosperity, I met senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, Shri @harishrawatcmuk ji at his residence and extended good wishes to him", CM Dhami wrote in a post on 'X'. The Uttarakhand CM also visited retired Major General and former state CM, Bhuvan Chandra Khaduri, and greeted him on the occasion of the festival of lights. Taking to 'X', CM Dhami wrote, "I reached the residence of senior BJP leader and former Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, respected Major General (Retd.) Bhuvan Chandra Khanduri and met him"."I extended Diwali greetings to him on the auspicious occasion of the festival of prosperity", he added. He also met former Union Minister and former Uttarakhand CM, Ramesh Pokhriyal, on the occasion of Diwali. "Met the former Chief Minister of Uttarakhand and Lok Sabha MP from Haridwar, @DrRPNishankand wished him the holy festival of happiness, prosperity, and joy, Diwali", Pushkar Singh Dhami said in a post on 'X'. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also greeted people on the occasion of Diwali. In his message, the Prime Minister wished that this special festival would bring joy, prosperity, and wonderful health to everyone's lives. "Wishing everyone a happy Diwali! May this special festival bring joy, prosperity and wonderful health to everyone's lives," PM Modi posted on X. People all across the country have decorated their houses with colourful lights, rangolis, and flowers to celebrate the festival of joy. Diwali is observed on Amavasya (or the new moon), the 15th day of the month of Kartik, every year. Diwali is the festival of lights. It symbolises the spiritual "victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance". (ANI) French Ambassador to India, Thierry Mathou, and France's Deputy Ambassador to Puducherry, Talbot Barre, visited the war veterans' memorial on the beach road. November 11 commemorates the end of World War I. The war ended on November 11, 1918. On their visit, the officials paid their tributes by placing a wreath at the memorial. The national anthems of India and France were played and a moment of silence was observed as a tribute to the soldiers who lost their lives. "At #Pondichery in this #11Novembre to pay tribute to the French soldiers of Pondicherry who died for France and to the 90,000 soldiers India who fought in France during the First World War. France honours their memory. Let us forge, thanks to the lessons of the past, the keys to the future," the French Ambassador to India wrote on 'X'. The French War Memorial in Puducherry is dedicated to residents of French India who died for the country during the First World War. It is on Goubert Avenue in Puducherry, located opposite the Gandhi statue. Meanwhile, India and France have committed to further deepening their cooperation in areas such as digital public infrastructure, cybersecurity, start-ups, AI, supercomputing, 5G/6G telecom and digital skills development. The two countries have recognised the rapid advancement and transformation in digital technologies and have agreed to harness their respective strengths and philosophical convergence in their approaches to digitalization, according to the India-France joint statement after the delegation-level talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron. India and France have, in line with the Indo-French Road map on cyber security and digital technology, reaffirmed their commitment to join forces of their cyber-security agencies and related ecosystem partners in promoting a peaceful, secure and open cyberspace. The two countries have recognised the far reaching potential of startups in driving innovation, job creation, and economic growth, both countries emphasize upon their shared commitment to facilitate bilateral cooperation through enhanced connectivity between their respective Start up and entrepreneurial networks, according to India-France bilateral document "Horizon 2047: 25th Anniversary of the India-France Strategic Partnership, Towards A Century of India-France Relations". (ANI) The anti-terrorism Court (ATC) has extended the judicial remand of three accused, including Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Yasmin Rashid and others, in a case pertaining to vandalism, Pakistan-based ARY News reported. The court extended the judicial remand of PTI leaders Yasmin Rashid, Ejaz Chaudhry and Mian Mehmoodur Rasheed for 14 days and ordered to present them on November 25. According to details, the ATC duty judge, Arshad Javed, heard the case related to the arson of Shadman Town police station. Earlier on October 17, the anti-terrorism court gave approval to the judicial remand of three accused, including Yasmin Rashid and others, in case related to May 9 riots and vandalism. Judge Abhar Gul Khan heard the hearing related to the May 9 riots and vandalism, including the arson of Shadman Town police station and sent three PTI leaders to jail on a 13-day judicial remand, according to ARY News report. Notably, protests erupted in Pakistan after Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan was arrested at the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on May 9. The protests were held in major cities of Pakistan as PTI workers were angry over the arrest of Imran Khan, with authorities in Balochistan, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Islamabad directing the armed forces to ensure law and order. PTI workers also attacked army installations and the Corps Commander's house in Lahore, ARY News reported. Imran Khan was released a few days later. However, scores of PTI workers and almost the entire top-tier leadership were rounded up, with many still facing court proceedings. It is pertinent to note here that Imran Khan was arrested from his residence in Lahore on August 5. His arrest came after the Pakistan District and Sessions court sentenced him for three years in prison in the Toshakhana case and he has been disqualified him from politics for a period of five years. (ANI) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called Hamas an "integral part of the axis of terrorism" led by Iran, which he said endangers the Middle East and Arab world as well. While addressing the press conference along with Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Minister Benny Gantz at Kirya in Tel Aviv, he said, "Hamas is an integral part of the axis of terrorism led by Iran, and this axis of terrorism and evil endangers the entire Middle East, and the entire Arab world as well. I am convinced that many Arab leaders understand this." The Israeli Prime Minister urged the leaders of Arab states to come out against Hamas. He noted that Hamas in the past 16 years has brought disaster to Gaza. He said Hamas has brought two things to the residents of Gaza: "blood and poverty." He asserted that no international pressure will change Israel's faith in the justice of cause. He said, "In any case, I would like to make it clear: No international pressure, or reviling of IDF soldiers and our state will change our faith in the justice of our cause and in our right and our obligation to defend ourselves." Netanyahu said Israel's war against Hamas is advancing at "full force" with the goal of "victory." He said that Israel will eliminate Hamas and bring back hostages. He said Israeli forces has killed thousands of terrorists, including senior commanders and arch-murderers who were involved in the attack on Israel on October 7. "The war against Hamas-ISIS is advancing at full force and it has one goal - victory. There is no substitute for victory. We will eliminate Hamas and bring back our hostages. IDF forces have completed the encirclement of the city of Gaza," Netanyahu said. "They are operating in the heart of the city and are on the outskirts of Shifa Hospital. They have eliminated thousands of terrorists including senior commanders and arch-murderers who were among those involved in the terrible massacre on the cursed Saturday of October 7," he added. Netanyahu stated that Hamas has lost control of the northern Gaza Strip. He noted that Israel's forces are attacking Hamas "above ground and underground." He said, "We will continue at full force, at full strength, until victory." He called the return of hostages the "main goal" of war. He asserted that there will no ceasefire without the return of hostages. He appreciated the support of US amid the ongoing war with Hamas and said that he is in daily contact with US President Joe Biden. "My directive and that of the Cabinet is clear: There will be no ceasefire without the return of our hostages. When we have something to say, something concrete, we will update the families and submit it to the full government. Until then, prudence would dictate silence," Netanyahu said. Meanwhile, Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said that its fighter jets hit a series of Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure and military posts in Lebanon. The IDF said that the attack was carried out in response to the attacks that were carried out on Saturday. In a post on X, IDF stated, "IDF fighter jets struck a series of Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure and military posts in Lebanon in response to attacks over the last day. In addition, a Hezbollah terrorist cell launched several rockets from Lebanon toward northern Israel earlier today. In response, an IDF aircraft struck the terrorist cell and launch pad." (ANI) The special delivery arrived in 1805, addressed to Miss Mary Steele, Mrs. Keets School, Annapolis. Probably wrapped in fabric, then paper and sealed with wax, the landscape painting was the perfect present for a 16-year-old girl attending a school for young ladies. As she practiced her needlepoint or elocution Miss Steele could glance up at her wall and see a tranquil river, winding under a bridge and beside it, a shepherd leading his flock up a hill. Its a fantasy, said Barbara Goyette, executive director of the Hammond-Harwood House in Annapolis, which has owned the painting since 2006. On Saturday, the historic house museum hosted a symposium to discuss the landscapes provenance and explained how they are just now changing the name of the artist who created it: William Groombridge, the first trained British landscape artist to work in the United States. It was quite a chase, said Lucinda Dukes Edinberg, now the paintings proud curator at Hammond-Harwood House. The pastoral oil remained in Miss Steeles family for 201 years, passed down through generations that included Maryland Gov. Phillips Goldborough. But somewhere within those two centuries, Miss Steeles descendants forgot the painting was once a special delivery, and instead assumed the landscape was painted by their talented ancestor. After all, it was neatly written on three lines on the back of the canvas: Miss Mary Steele Mrs. Keets School, Annapolis 1805 That theory seemed solid until last year, when prominent Maryland art collector and scholar Stiles Colwill visited the Hammond-Harwood House to give a talk on portrait painter Charles Willson Peale. Colwill owns two Groombridge paintings himself, and remarked to Edinberg that Miss Steeles painting did not look like the work of a 16-year-old girl. I said, I am sorry, and I dont know who Mary Steele is, but I dont think that girl painted that painting,' Stiles recalled. He snapped a photo, and kept mulling on the distinctive sky, a swirl of ombre pastel. The more I looked at it, I was like, this looks like William Groombridge. An English Landscape, painted circa 1782, is one of five verified Baltimore-area William Groombridge paintings that researchers used to confirm that Hammond-Harwood House also owns a painting by the eminent British American landscape artist. Born in Tunbridge, England in 1748, Groombridge trained at Londons Royal Academy and exhibited there on several documented occasions between 1770 and 1790. After a stint in debtors prison, he immigrated to the U.S. in 1793 and helped organize what would become the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. It was in Philadelphia that he met his wife, Catherine, a watercolor artist who ran a school for women. For reasons that remain unclear, the couple relocated to Baltimore in 1804. At the corner of East and Calvert streets, Catherine opened a ladies academy where she taught everything from Italian to fancy basket making to the improvement of manners, according to newspaper advertisements. When Groombridge died in 1811, he was not a well-known artist.. But because he painted landscapes at a time when most American artists focused on portraiture, and before the invention of tubes allowed for plein-air painting, he would eventually be recognized as a pioneering landscape artist and forerunner to the Hudson River School. Only about 20 verified Groombridge paintings exist, Colwill said. In addition to the six in Maryland, several are in museums across the U.S. (Philadelphia, Santa Barbara, California, and Chicago) and Europe (England and the Netherlands.) The paintings value continues to climb. In 2009, Christies auction house expected to fetch no more than 8,000 pounds for an extensive river landscape by Groombridge. It sold for 16,250 pounds, nearly $20,000 at todays exchange rate. Theres good news for art collectors on a budget: Walmart sells framed Groombridge prints for just $75. The bottom line: A William Groombridge is much more valuable than a Mary Steele, who has no other paintings to her name. Colwills initial suggestion kicked off months of research involving historians and curators around the state. The Maryland Center for History and Culture, where Colwill formerly worked as a museum director, has a confirmed Groombridge. Homewood Museum, where he has served as a guest curator, has two hanging in its drawing room. Edinberg and Colwill arranged for a Groombridge study day in Baltimore where curators compared all six paintings in person. Everyone agreed: Its a Groombridge. Telltale signs include the aforementioned pastel sky and the aqueduct-style bridge over the lazy river. No bridges existed like that in Baltimore until the 1830s, but there were a million in England, Edinberg said. Also appearing in multiple paintings: tiny strokes of leaves and little white scrolls to suggest birds. The details are very similar, Goyette said. Theres no doubt. At Saturdays symposium, Catherine Rogers Arthur, vice president of collections and chief curator of the Maryland Center for History and Culture (formerly the Maryland Historical Society) and Arthur Wheelock, a former curator at the National Gallery of Art, both expounded upon their findings, which are sure to disappoint fans of Mary Steele, previously known as a one-painting prodigy. It was a great story to tell, Goyette said. To have it proven incorrect has really distressed some of our guides. When the Hammond-Harwood House purchased the painting for $4,000 in 2006, the 16-year-old artist was part of its appeal. Charlotte Goldsborough Fletcher, a librarian at St. Johns College, hung the painting in her dining room, Goyette said. Fletcher willed two other paintings to the house, prompting the board to purchase the landscape at a gallery handling the estates remaining artwork. There were young women living in this house at the same time period, and so [the painting] is part of our Annapolis story of what their lives would have been like, Goyette said. The palatial estate on Maryland Avenue is staged to how it would have looked around 1811, when Judge Jeremiah Townley Chase, who lived around the corner on King George Street, bought the house for his daughter, Frances Fanny Chase Loockerman. William Buckland designed the brick home with fine symmetry in mind, although history suggests things got quite chaotic. Fanny and husband Richard would eventually have 10 children; displaying work by a 16-year-old girl who lived in the neighborhood seemed appropriate. Of course, everyone who looked at the painting said, Really? A 16-year-old?' Goyette said. Originally from Dorchester County, Mary Steele likely boarded with her grandparents on Randall Street while attending Mrs. Keets School. A portrait of her mother, a stunning redhead named Mary Nevett Steele, has been exhibited at the National Gallery, so historians know the family had good taste, and the money to commission and purchase art. Instead of a Britney Spears poster, she had a Groombridge painting on her wall, Goyette said, providing an analogous reason for Mary to appreciate the painting. Exactly how the Steeles are connected with Groombridge is still a bit fuzzy, but Marys Annapolitan step-grandfather, James Murray, was a personal physician for Thomas Jefferson, and Edinberg found a reference to Groombridge in Jeffersons correspondence: It appears the artist was supposed to deliver some artwork, Edinberg said. He was in those circles. Those details may eventually become part of the paintings story. For now, what art sleuths know is that Mary Steele did not sign the back of the painting because she created it. She may not even have signed it at all. Our theory about the labeling on the back is now that its just that: an address, Edinberg said. Its not her signature. Weighing in on the violence at pro-Palestinian rallies on Armistice Day in the UK, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Saturday said all criminality must be met with the full and swift force of the law. Calling the incident "unacceptable", Sunak condemned the violence saying the fear and intimidation the Jewish community that the country saw over the weekend was deplorable. "All criminality must be met with the full and swift force of the law. That is what I told the Met Police Commissioner on Wednesday, that is what they are accountable for and that is what I expect. I will be meeting the Met Police Commissioner in the coming days," Sunak said. "I condemn the violent, wholly unacceptable scenes we have seen today from the EDL and associated groups and Hamas sympathisers attending the National March for Palestine. The despicable actions of a minority of people undermine those who have chosen to express their views peacefully," stated an official release from 10 Downing Street, quoting the PM. He added that "remembrance weekend" is a time for the community to remember those who fought for the nation. The statement quoted Sunak as saying further, "It is a time for us to come together as a nation and remember those who fought and died for our freedoms. What we have seen today does not defend the honour of our Armed Forces but utterly disrespects them." "That is true for EDL thugs attacking police officers and trespassing on the Cenotaph, and it is true for those singing antisemitic chants and brandishing pro-Hamas signs and clothing on today's protest. The fear and intimidation the Jewish community has experienced over the weekend is deplorable," the UK PM added. Sunak denounced "antisemitism" earlier as well after a series of pro-Palestine protests in the UK. "This weekend we saw hate on our streets. Calls for Jihad are not only a threat to the Jewish community but to our democratic values. We will never tolerate antisemitism in our country. And we expect the police to take all necessary action to tackle extremism head-on," Sunak posted from his official handle on X, formerly Twitter. Earlier, Sunak visited Israel in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attacks in southern Israel. During his visit, he affirmed the UK's support for Israel's right to defend itself in line with international law and its ongoing fight against Hamas. Sunak said he was "sorry" to visit Israel in "such terrible circumstances", adding, "In the last two weeks, this country has gone through something that no country, no people should have to endure, least of all Israel." "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...We also recognise that the Palestinian people are victims of Hamas too," the British PM said at a joint press briefing with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after a private meeting at the latter's office in Jerusalem. Apart from Sunak, other world leaders including US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte visited Israel after the country declared war on Hamas. (ANI) The chief of staff of Israel Defence Forces (IDF), Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, spoke with the troops over the radio as he flew over the Gaza Strip to take stock of the ongoing ground operations against Hamas, The Times of Israel reported on Sunday. IDF also published a video of Halevi identifying Hamas's Golani Brigade in Gaza. The Times of Israel quoted Colonel Yair Pali, who spoke with the IDF chief on the radio, as telling the latter, "Right now we are waving at you with the flag of the 1st Brigade, and with the flag of the number one country." "Tell all your people that you are doing an important job, everyone is behind you, and the entire IDF is working for you to advance, until victory," Halevi responded. Halevi was joined by Israel Air Force's chief of staff, Brig. Gen. Omer Tishler, and the commander of the 100th Squadron, Lt. Col. Shay (his last name is withheld by the IDF for security reasons). Meanwhile, the IDF said a "significant" number of soldiers are carrying out ground operations at the al-Shati camp in Gaza City, The Times of Israel reported. It said troops from the Givati Brigade identified civilians in a building and helped them evacuate. The IDF said Hamas opened fire at the soldiers during the evacuation. Further, according to the IDF, the troops returned fire and turned their tanks on the terrorists, killing them. In another incident, the IDF said the soldiers identified a group of Hamas operatives holed up in a building in al-Shati and directed an airstrike on them. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Hamas an "integral part of the axis of terrorism" led by Iran, which he said endangers the Middle East and Arab world as well. Addressing the press conference at Kirya in Tel Aviv, he said, "Hamas is an integral part of the axis of terrorism led by Iran, and this axis of terrorism and evil endangers the entire Middle East, and the entire Arab world as well. I am convinced that many Arab leaders understand this." Netanyahu urged the leaders of Arab states to come out against Hamas. He claimed that Hamas, in the past 16 years, has brought disaster to Gaza. He said Hamas brought "blood and poverty" to the residents of Gaza: (ANI) Families of Afghans who were repatriated to eastern Nangarhar province have requested the government to provide their children with educational facilities after expressing worries over their children's education, according to Pajhwok News. One of the repatriates, Abdullah, stated that he was a resident of Peshawar City in Pakistan and that his three boys attended local schools. He said that upon returning to Afghanistan, his children's schooling was not completed. "The education system here is different from the education system in Pakistan, we can't decide what to do about the education of our children here, our children endured many hardships to learn something there," he said, according to Pajhwok News. Another repatriation, Khyali Khan, just returned from the Punjab state of Pakistan, where he had been living as a refugee. Although his children are minors, he stated that they will be able to enrol in school next year. "The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) government must provide their children with education facilities because they could not send their children to schools in Pakistan; it is a strange country but here they are committed to educating their children," he said in an interview with Pajhwok Afghan News. Another repatriate, Eid Mohammad, originally from Ghazni province, said that he resided in Islamabad. He said that he sent his kids to religious schools because of his poverty. He requested the government give their kids access to facilities for both scientific and religious instruction, according to Pajhwok News. More than 80 per cent of Afghans sent to transit centres possess some form of identification, raising challenges for authorities in the repatriation process. Most of these individuals are not willing to return voluntarily, leaving officials with limited options, as there is currently no mechanism in place to efficiently verify their identification documents, including Afghan Citizenship Cards (ACC), Proof of Registration (PoR) cards, and even computerised national identity cards (CNIC). Many Afghans who arrived in Pakistan after the Taliban takeover in August 2021 had been encouraged to apply for resettlement programs in various countries, including the US, UK, Canada, and Germany, but have been left in a state of limbo with expired Pakistani visas and lengthy resettlement processes, making them vulnerable to detention and deportation. (ANI) NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) Members of the Metro Nashville Police Department responded to the Madison area Saturday afternoon to investigate a report of a stabbing. According to dispatch, the stabbing was called in at approximately 3:39 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 11 from the 700 block of Cheyenne Boulevard. Father, son arrested after shooting leads to evacuations at Clarksville apartment complex Dispatch told News 2 that one person was transported to the hospital, but there is no word on that persons identity or the nature of their injuries at this time. By 4:40 p.m., police were still at the scene of this confirmed stabbing, dispatch said. News 2 reached out to the Metro Nashville Police Department for additional details about this incident, but we have yet to hear back. 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. One person is in the hospital after being shot in northeast Charlotte on Sunday evening. Officials say the incident happened around 5 p.m. on North Tryon Street, near University City Boulevard. ALSO READ: CMPD: 2 juveniles injured, third in custody after shooting in Uptown MEDIC says they took one patient to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. At the scene, Channel 9 photographer Reuben Muiruri saw a heavy police presence near the InTown Suites hotel. Currently, no details have been released by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department about the cause of the shooting or those involved. This is a developing story; check back at wsoctv.com for updates. (WATCH BELOW: CMPD: 1 dead, 2 others injured in overnight shooting) Try staying in the courthouse to make sure justice is served When politicians dont like the facts, they will manipulate the truth in an attempt to control the narrative I read with great interest how the Carroll County States Attorneys Office declared Alan Culver exonerated in the Deputy Sean Buenger investigation. The nearly 800-page report from the state prosecutors office reached a finding of inconclusive. If you received an inconclusive cancer screening, would you declare yourself cancer free? Buengers guilt or innocence was never the issue with Culver. It was the fact Culver had information that required disclosure and it was not disclosed. That is why, after a hearing with testimony and evidence, Judge Richard Titus found Culver did not do his job and four Circuit Court judges banned Culver from their courtrooms. Their claim of exoneration makes it painfully obvious that Haven Shoemaker, and his de facto No. 2 and former law partner, Michael Stewart, have never been prosecutors. Stewart, a Frederick County resident, might want to listen to some prosecutorial podcasts on the way to work so he is able to educate his former law partner. With Shoemaker and Stewart taking in nearly $300,000 per year of our tax dollars, we definitely deserve better. Social media makes it abundantly clear that being tough on crime is not Shoemakers concern. Shoemaker believes he is still a part-time county employee by attending ribbon-cutting ceremonies in the middle of the day and kissing babies. The other 23 states attorneys in Maryland eschew these trivial political stunts and stay in the courthouse to ensure justice is served. Put those giant scissors away Shoemaker, and place the criminals in jail. With the uncontrolled surge of fentanyl and car thefts in our county, the grand opening of a bakery must take a backseat to administering justice. David Ellin, Finksburg Ellin was a primary candidate for Carroll County States Attorney in 2022 Questioning fitness of legislators who protect the NRA The Republicans finally selected a Speaker of the House even if many of them cannot tell you who he is or what he stands for. However, that was all revealed soon after his election. Must have a 2020 election denier even though we are three years in with Joe Biden being the duly elected president. And also one who opposes abortions because of his deeply held Christian beliefs. While at the same time he upholds the beliefs of the NRA and its right to sell AR-15s that recently killed 18 people and wounded 13 in Maine. I am not sure what chapter and verse he found this in the bible. The only obvious conclusion is that he believes life is only sacred and precious while in the womb. After leaving the womb all bets are off regarding living safely in a nation where children are gunned down while attending school, where people of all ages are killed while watching or being in a July 4th parade, where people shopping for their groceries are murdered. What would happen if I, as a mental health provider had told my employer that I would do everything in my power to protect my clients from harm while under my care? But then on my days off it was revealed I was selling firearms to anyone without question I believe my employer had every right or obligation to question my fitness for a job whose primary objective was to protect life. I ponder now the fitness of legislators who protect the NRA while their constituents never know when they will be killed with an AR-15. Patricia Roop Hollinger, Westminster Using the 14th Amendment for devious political gain Fifty-plus years ago I wrote what was at the time called an undergraduate thesis on the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. And never in my lifetime did I ever think, perhaps naively, that there would an attempt to use this amendment for some sort of devious political gain. But here we are, and at this moment there is an ongoing effort being launched to keep former President Donald Trump off the primary ballot in two states. In calling him an insurrectionist, the court cases began Monday in Colorado and Thursday in Minnesota. These actions are trying to use the Civil War-era provision of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that states in Section 3 that: No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an official of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House remove such disability. However, what these same Trump haters are overlooking is the phrase that follows the above reference to insurrection specifically, or giving aid and comfort to the enemies thereof. Doesnt enemies thereof refer to enemies of the Constitution, i.e., of the nation? If so, then why not stretch the meaning of that phrase to include President Joe Bidens open and willful failure to enforce federal immigration laws? By facilitating their crossing the southern border, and then supplying them with food, shelter, and money on our dime, he gives aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States. Oh, and this charge also includes Vice President Kamala Harris, who is supposed to be in charge of the border! Now while we can feel compassion for the vast majority of these people, they collectively flaunt our laws simply by illegally crossing our border. In doing so, some simultaneously help to hide those bringing illegal drugs into the country. Oh, and how about those coming in who are on the terrorist watch list? This policy of the Biden Administration ignores Article IV, Section 4 of our Constitution (failure to protect each state against invasion). What could be a better description of the enemies thereof than INVADERS who are importing deadly drugs? And remember our system of Checks and Balances? The Legislative Branch, Congress, makes the laws; the Judicial Branch, Supreme Court, interprets the law; and the Executive Branch, the President, ENFORCES the law. So I ask you, Is the above anymore of a stretch than arguing that Trump engaged in insurrection, or maybe Biden and Harris shouldnt be on the ballot either! And as Ive quoted before: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. So all you folks out there afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome, BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR!! Dave Price, Sykesville A 17-year-old boy was shot and killed Saturday afternoon in the Riverdale neighborhood, according to Chicago police. Police said an unknown offender shot the boy in the chest and right arm in the 13000 block of South Drexel Avenue at about 2:50 p.m. The boy was taken to University of Chicago Medical Center in critical condition, where he died. No suspects are in custody and police said theyre investigating the shooting. rjohnson@chicagotribune.com We asked Tri-City Herald readers to vote for their favorite mascots for the two new Tri-City high schools that will open in 2025. About 450 of you weighed in on your thoughts for Pascos new schools and voted in our polls and there were two clear favorites. If readers had it their way, it would be the Harvest View High School Rattlers and Orion High School Archers. The Rattlers were the clear favorite with 42% of the vote. A total of 139 readers chose this mascot as their top choice for Harvest View. Go Fightin Rattlers! But readers also showed some love for the Ravens (89 votes), the Cornhuskers (42), the River Otters (40) and the Combines (24). The Archers garnered 35% of the vote, with 74 readers choosing this as their preferred mascot for Orion. Bullseye! But they also loved the Pilots (44 votes), the Steelheads (41), the Rockets (32) and the Hunters (19). An updated architectural rendering from Design West shows what the exterior of Orion High School in Pasco might look like when it opens in fall 2025. Pasco School District is currently in the process of deciding branding details for Harvest View, including narrowing down ideas for the mascot and school colors. The district has started soliciting ideas and feedback from middle school and high school students in the school district. Those concepts will be presented at the Tuesday, Nov. 14, school board meeting. A rendering shows what Pasco School Districts third comprehensive high school, Harvest View, might look like. The construction of these two schools wouldnt be possible without voters approving a $195.5 million bond measure earlier this year. Harvest View will be Pascos third comprehensive high school. It will serve 2,000 students and offer a signature agriculture career and technical education program. Contractors are entering their 17th week of construction of the school, at 6091 Burns Road. Design and development of Orion High School is in its final stages, and construction at a lot along Salt Lake Street will begin in spring. The career and college high school will serve 600 in-district students and will be similar to Delta High School. Graduates will leave the school workforce ready with credentials, industry certifications and hands-on experience. Police in Alabama are investigating after they say a shootout on a highway left four people injured. The Birmingham Police Department began receiving calls around 4:40 p.m. Friday, Nov. 10, about a shootout taking place on Interstate 59. When police arrived, they found two vehicles that were shot into, police said in a video posted on the departments Facebook page. Police found two people with gunshot wounds at the scene. The two men were taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries. Two other men showed up at a hospital with gunshot wounds, according to police. Their injuries were reported to be non-life-threatening. Police believe one of the vehicles followed the other because the occupants thought it was their stolen car. We believe a group saw their possible stolen vehicle and began following it. This vehicle was allegedly taken in a neighboring city, Officer Truman Fitzgerald said in the video. The two groups then stopped on the interstate and a shootout ensued, police said. Fitzgerald said police believe all four people who were shot were involved in the incident and no bystanders were hit by gunfire. Driver killed when her pickup truck is pushed off bridge in crash, Kentucky cops say Fight over dog leads to shootout between neighbors in Florida front yard, cops say 1 dead, 2 wounded by early morning gunfire near Uptown Charlotte, CMPD says BERLIN Five U.S. servicepeople were killed when a military helicopter crashed over the eastern Mediterranean Sea during a training mission, U.S. officials said Sunday. The militarys European Command said all five crew members on board were killed when the aircraft went down during a routine air refueling mission as part of military training. The military first announced the crash on Saturday and said that the cause is under investigation, but there are no indications of any hostile activity involved. It said on Sunday that search and rescue efforts began immediately, including nearby U.S. military aircraft and ships. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement: We mourn the tragic loss of five U.S. service members during a training accident in the Mediterranean Sea early Saturday morning. While we continue to gather more information about this deadly crash, it is another stark reminder that the brave men and women who defend our great nation put their lives on the line each and every day to keep our country safe, he said. European Command said that out of respect for the families of the service members and in line with Department of Defense policy, the identities of the crew members are being withheld for 24 hours until the families of those killed have been notified. It wasnt immediately clear which military service the aircraft belonged to. The Air Force has sent additional squadrons to the region and the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, which has an array of aircraft on board, has also been operating in the eastern Mediterranean. President Joe Biden issued a statement about the crash: "Today, Jill and I mourn the loss of 5 American service members who died when their aircraft crashed in the Mediterranean Sea during a routine training mission. Our service members put their lives on the line for our country every day. They willingly take risks to keep the American people safe and secure. And their daily bravery and selflessness is an enduring testament to what is best in our nation. Jill and I are praying for the families and friends who have lost a precious loved one a piece of their soul. Our entire nation shares their grief." Philadelphia 76ers guard Kelly Oubre Jr. broke his rib after being struck by a vehicle Saturday in Philadelphias Center City. The vehicle immediately fled the scene. Oubre was reportedly walking near his home when he was hit by the vehicle in the upper chest with the driver-side mirror while trying to cross a street. He was taken to a hospital and was released shortly after in stable condition with a broken rib and injuries on his hip and right leg. He was officially ruled out for Sundays game and is set to be re-evaluated in a week. Read it at Associated Press Read more at The Daily Beast. Since October 7, there has been a dramatic rise in assaults by Israeli settlers on Palestinians living in the West Bank (Aris MESSINIS) Stooping under the weight of his body armour but uncowed by the threat of violence, Rabbi Arik Ascherman guards an olive grove in the occupied West Bank, protecting Palestinian farmers from rising Israeli settler violence. "There is no excuse, there is no explanation, no justification for what Hamas did" in its October 7 attacks on southern Israel, said the 64-year-old, a veteran activist with the Rabbis for Human Rights group. "But the average Israeli today is not prepared or willing to distinguish between Palestinian terrorists and terrorised Palestinians," he added, alluding to reports of a rise in settler attacks since October 7. "It's an all-out war between two peoples," said Ascherman outside the village of Taybeh, as farmers whacked olives weeping with oil onto pinstripe tarpaulins skirting the tree trunks. "Nobody at this point is willing to help Palestinians, out of our pain and our anger." Nearby his comrades -- even if they are only a handful -- prove him wrong. They are posted as lookouts, prepared to face off with settlers who may descend at any moment to harass and fight the farmers. "Over the 28 years I've been doing this, I generally did not see myself as marginalised," said Ascherman, who has long campaigned against settler violence in the West Bank. "There were always a significant number of Israelis who at least passively supported and agreed with what we were doing," he said. "Today that's evaporated. There's almost no support." - 'Our fear has doubled' - Since Hamas militants stormed southern Israel five weeks ago, killing some 1,200 people -- mostly civilians -- according to Israel, there has been a dramatic rise in assaults by Israeli settlers on Palestinians living in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967. Before October 7 there were an average of three incidents of settler violence per day, according to the UN, but since the outbreak of the war it has risen to seven. In late October, a farmer 14 kilometres (nine miles) north of Taybeh was killed by settlers whilst tending his olive trees, according to Israeli human rights group B'Tselem. "Since the war has begun there has been a growing number of incidents in which violent settlers have been documented attacking nearby Palestinian communities while wearing military uniform and using government-issued weapons," B'Tselem said. The Israeli military said it appeared "an off-duty IDF (army) soldier participated in the event", adding it had launched an inquiry. "Our fear over the settlers has doubled since (October) 7," said 63-year-old Palestinian Sameer Abedalkareem, his family working on trees in the nearby village of Dura al-Karia. "We haven't been able to go to our land, because settlers and the Israeli army shoot towards us." The sprawling vistas of gnarled olive trees planted in the ochre earth of the West Bank have been the site of clashes between farmers and encroaching settlers for decades, with the disputes hinging on access to land. For Palestinians, the hardy olive, which thrives in tough conditions and can live for hundreds of years, is a symbol of their rootedness in the territory, where an estimated 10 million trees grow. But this year's harvest coincided with the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas. "Before, the olive-picking month was like a festival, but today it's nothing like that," said Abedalkareem's wife, 60-year-old Suad Mahmoud. "Olives are very important to us, and without them we couldn't live," she said. "It's the most basic thing in our lives." - 'Another front' - In response to the Hamas attacks, Israel has launched a land, sea and air assault on the Gaza Strip, killing upwards of 11,000 people in the narrow Palestinian territory according to its Hamas-run health ministry. In the West Bank, more than 180 Palestinians have been killed in settler attacks or increasing army raids, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry. The figure includes some militants. The UN says in almost half of settler incidents since October 7 "Israeli forces accompanied or actively supported the attackers". "From our perspective, it's like the settlers are trying to open another front," said Dani Brodsky, Rabbis for Human Rights's director for the occupied Palestinian territories. "We pray for peace and we hope things will get better and we're willing to put the work in," he said, wearing a padded lacrosse glove to soften blows he may take if settlers show up. Ascherman turned to the Old Testament to explain the current plight of the Palestinians in the West Bank, citing the scripture when Abraham, the spiritual father of the Jewish faith, protests God's wrathful decision to wipe out the city of Sodom to punish the sins of its residents. "How dare you, God, sweep away the innocent with the guilty?" Ascherman said. he-jts/jd/sea/ami NEW YORK New York City Mayor Eric Adams insisted Sunday that he was carrying out his basic duties as the borough president amid new reports that federal authorities are probing whether his intervention helped get a Turkish consulate built despite safety concerns. What Im really hoping is that these periodic leaks stop, Adams told reporters as he left a morning memorial service in Queens. Were cooperating. We need to do this together so all the facts can come out. The leaks were reference to reporting by the New York Post and New York Times that the scope of a federal probe includes how Adams may have used his influence two years ago as Brooklyn borough president to smooth the path for a high-profile Turkish government project in Manhattan. The Post reported that investigators are looking at text messages between Adams, the Turkish consul general and the then-city fire commissioner. The Times reported that Adams alleged coaxing of the FDNY commissioner at the time, Daniel Nigro, led a $300 million, 35-floor consulate to rise in time for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogans September 2021 visit to New York City. Last Monday, federal agents stopped Adams on the street, proffered a court-issued warrant and seized his phones and an iPad. The mayor complied and volunteered more electronic devices to investigations after the stop, a person close to the incident told POLITICO. The surrender of the mayors devices they were returned days later came after federal agents raided his chief fundraisers Brooklyn home on Nov. 2. The federal investigation, according to part of a warrant obtained by the Times, revolves, at least in part, around whether Adams 2021 campaign colluded with the Turkish government to funnel illegal foreign contributions into his coffers. On Sunday, Adams referred reporters to the statement his representatives gave them about how the Turkish consulate came to be erected despite fire safety concerns. As a borough president, part of my routine role was to notify government agencies of issues on behalf of constituents and constituencies, the mayor had said in the statement. I have not been accused of wrongdoing, and I will continue to cooperate with investigators. Adams and his inner circle are stressing that he is fully working with investigators, saying his team singled out an unnamed person potentially at fault after an internal probe following the raid on fundraiser Brianna Suggs home. After learning of the federal investigation, it was discovered that an individual had recently acted improperly, Adams private attorney Boyd Johnson said in a statement Friday. In the spirit of transparency and cooperation, this behavior was immediately and proactively reported to investigators. The mayors Sunday schedule included a half-hour radio show he hosts on a semi-regular basis. Adams discussed veterans affairs on the show and interviewed a Purple Heart recipient. He took questions from callers but none pertained to the federal investigation. He canceled a scheduled appearance to speak at a Brooklyn church. Earlier in the day in Queens, he had told reporters who asked about the investigation casting a cloud over his campaign and mayoralty: This is not the place to have this conversation. LANSING When Helen Miller enlisted in the Michigan National Guard at the age of 17, she was motivated by a sense of service. Her father, Donald Sharp, and grandfather Bud Sharp each served in the Army, her father during the Vietnam War. I kind of just felt in my bones that I needed to do my part and do my time, Miller said last week. I was just going to do the little bit, like everybody, go in, serve a few years, say I did it, you know, move on, and I just never got out for whatever reason. Now, she is one of two women in the Michigan National Guard to have recently marked 40 years of service. Miller, a master sergeant working full-time in public affairs at Joint Force Headquarters (JFHQ) in Lansing, has served all 40 years in the Michigan National Guard. Chief Warrant Officer 4 Lora Lingeman of the Sustainment Automation Support Management Office Chief at the JFHQ was the first woman serving in the state to have 40 years of total service as of September 2023. Miller reached her anniversary in October. Master Sgt. Helen Miller of Joint Force Headquarters Public Affairs in Lansing is the first woman to have 40 years of service all of it as a member the Michigan Army National Guard as of October 2023. Miller served the first 19 years with Adrians Bravo Company of the 156th Signal Battalion as a telecommunications center operator. The 156th provided radio, satellite and internet communications. When the Adrian Armory closed, she transferred to Lansing and became a photographer, or, in the militarys terminology, a multimedia illustrator. She is now a public affairs mass communications specialist. Its always provided for me, always been a solid, steady job for me, Miller said. Provided for my family, provided for my kids, paid all my bills. I got skills and training in there. I travel all over the world. I did things I wouldnt do if I werent being in the service. For some reason, it just always fit the bill for me, and I just kept doing it. Ill keep doing it until they tell me its time to go or I just physically cant do it anymore. She can serve until she is 60, as long as she can meet military fitness requirements. Im not saying I will. I could, she said. Being in the military isnt easy, particulary when orders take a soldier away from their family. I 100% have to thank my kids, my family for their support because they have had to understand Im not going to be at every Christmas, Im not going to be at every family event. Ive definitely missed birthdays, Ive missed so many different things from training and travels that Ive had to do, she said. My children have had to put up with a lot of me being gone and missing things. She has been deployed once, and her husband, Perry Miller, deployed twice with the Guard. He and their kids, Cassandra and Donald, live in the Adrian area along with several other relatives. She moved to Lansing after six years of commuting from Adrian. Serving in the Guard Most people sign up for a few years, and, in the Guard, its usually part-time with monthly and annual training plus being called upon to help during natural disasters or other times of need. Miller said even full-timers like her usually stay in for 20 years, then retire and take a civilian job. Miller does her monthly training with the 46th Military Police Company, but her full-time job is in public affairs. She was still in high school when she enlisted in 1983. It was the Cold War, and no one worried about being deployed on active duty, though her father wasnt happy about her decision because he had Vietnam on his mind. After 9/11, the chances of being deployed to fight or support combat operations went up dramatically. Helen Miller is pictured in this undated photo during training early in her career with the Michigan National Guard. Millers experience with the Guard started before she enlisted when she was part of a Boy Scouts group that did training at the Adrian Armory. She was able to meet soldiers of the 156th, and she would accompany them on their drill weekends before she enlisted and went to basic training. Miller's deployment was to Afghanistan in 2010 with the military police to run a prison. She worked with families who would come to visit the prisoners. She made friends with soldiers from around the U.S. and in the Afghan Army. Master Sgt. Helen Miller of the Michigan National Guard is pictured with then-Vice President Joe Biden during her deployment in 2010-11 to Afghanistan. The United States withdrawal from Afghanistan and the return of the Taliban to power was very frustrating, Miller said. Its hard to really talk about it, she said. It makes you feel bad for those that you got to know, become somewhat friends with. I feel horrible for the families. I worked with families over there and worked with a lot of children. We did a lot of stuff with childrens hospitals and organizations over there. Its tough to hear that kind of thing, because youre always wondering whats happening over there with those that you met and got to know. Thats very frustrating, but we can only do what were told to do and do our job and move on. Documenting the Guard Her interest in photography led her to her current role. I always had a camera on me and was always documenting my unit, just because it was something I did, Miller said. I did that stuff in high school when I was on the yearbook and always for some reason had interest in that. When she moved on from the 156th, a sergeant major saw the photographer job posting and suggested she apply. She didnt think she qualified because she didnt have formal training or college education. He suggested she show them a portfolio of her work and maybe the Guard would train her. I went to the interview, and thats exactly what happened, she said. The colonel who looked at her work said, Just imagine what we could do with you if you had the proper schooling and the proper equipment. They hired me, and Ive pretty much been here ever since, she said. Over the years, she won some awards for her photography. Now, she does more management of other soldiers who cover assignments, but she still takes photography assignments here and there. Her role now is more working with the media and writing stories. Her favorite part of the job is documenting the soldiers and training of the Michigan National Guard. For me, when they have something to show their family members thats what makes me happy, Miller said. A woman in the military Enlisting as a young woman when the Guard had more, smaller armories that were connected to their communities had its benefits, Miller said. Master Sgt. Helen Miller of the Michigan National Guard is pictured during her deployment in 2010-11 to Afghanistan. It was so much nicer and easier, I think, because those units would take you under their wing as a little sister or member of the family and help you out with things, she said. That unit ended up being your second family. Still, women had to work, really, really hard to be taken seriously and respected when she was in her 20s, she said. But there were also people who looked out for woman, too. It was definitely a mans world. Theres no doubt about it, Miller said. Even now it is, but obviously you can see so many breakthroughs with the first female tank driver, the first female engineer, the first brigade commander. Thats all happening now. I think its getting better and things are opening up and women are seeing what they can get out of the military and what they can give back. She would tell any woman in the military now that they should try whatever they want to try. Miller said shes seen a change in attitudes about military service over the years. She particularly noticed it after Desert Storm in 1991, when the U.S. and its allies forced Iraq out of Kuwait. That is when a lot of people started being able to support us, she said. When youd go through an airport when you came home from a deployment and people would clap . Vietnam people never got thanks for anything. Im the first person to walk up to anyone who has any way of me knowing theyre a veteran, because they didnt get that. Having Desert Storm and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in recent memory has made people more aware of the sacrifices people in the military make she said. She says she sometimes gets embarrassed when she is out having dinner and someone buys her meal, but she understands that people are appreciative of her service. Im like, I didnt do anything. Im just serving, thats it, Miller said. Contact reporter David Panian at dpanian@lenconnect.com or follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @lenaweepanian. This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Adrian woman marks 40 years in Michigan National Guard Guest Opinion. The National Congress of American Indians is the oldest and largest intertribal organization in the country and brings together tribes from across the land to discuss and advocate for issues important to American Indians and Alaska Natives. NCAI has been an important national voice on Native issues since its founding in 1944. Unfortunately, the mission of NCAI has been harmed by the inclusion of groups who are not legitimate Indian tribes. Change is needed, and we have an opportunity to do so at the upcoming NCAI convention. Under the current NCAI constitution, Cherokee Nation is placed on par with many groups who falsely claim a Cherokee history and culture frauds from across the country like the United Cherokee AniYunWiYa Nation, the Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokees and the Echota Cherokee Tribe of Alabama. Rather than earn federal recognition through a rigorous examination of history, facts and the law, these phony organizations pose as tribes, seek and receive state recognition, and perpetuate a lie. Each year we are forced to spend vital resources fighting against state recognition efforts of groups who pretend to be Cherokee. Never miss Indian Countrys biggest stories and breaking news. Click here to sign up to get our reporting sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Federal recognition must mean something. It is the basis for our government-to-government relationship that establishes the unique rights and responsibilities of Indian tribes and tribal citizens. NCAIs embrace of state-recognized tribes lends false legitimacy to groups that undermine our rights, histories and cultures. We must push back against efforts to erode what it means to be a Native American. A coalition led by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the Shawnee Tribe and the Ute Indian Tribe has offered a proposal to limit NCAIs eligibility criteria. Under two separate amendments, voting membership in NCAI will be restricted to federally recognized tribes, and only citizens of federally recognized tribes will be eligible for an individual Indian membership. The additional amendment would ensure NCAI board members and regional vice presidents are citizens of federally recognized tribes. Cherokee Nation proudly supports the proposed constitutional amendment. A state-recognized tribe is not an Indian tribe. And a member of one of these groups is not an Indian. Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr. In my oath as Principal Chief, I swore to do everything within my power to promote the culture, heritage, and traditions of the Cherokee Nation. The responsibility now compels me to defend our tribal constitution, our sovereignty and our history, and to speak out against any policy that undermines our government and our people. The current NCAI constitution is such a policy. In the coming days, we will tell NCAI that its no longer acceptable to place state-recognized groups on equal ground with genuine Native American tribes. I call on tribal leaders from across the country to stand with us and enact this needed change. If NCAI persists in keeping groups posing as tribes on par with federally recognized tribes, we may be at a crossroads. Federally recognized tribes will need to consider whether NCAI can remain a viable organization able to protect, defend and advocate for the interests of actual tribes. But I remain hopeful that our proposed change in NCAIs constitution will position it to be stronger than ever. Chuck Hoskin, Jr. is the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. 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Made with suede and lined with wool, these slippers can be worn around the house or even out running errands or walking the dog; the rubber sole ensures that you can safely hit the pavement. The suede fabric is coated with a stain repellant, which pulls double duty protecting against water too. You can wear them with socks or sink your feet into the wool lining whatever makes you feel the coziest. Whether you pair em with leggings or sweatpants, these slippers are bound to be your favorite go-tos all winter long. Get your pair before the secret gets out and these slippers are gone for good. Related... The makers of a documentary about Afghanistan's first female orchestra said the story was "inspiring". Sisters follows musician Dan Blackwell who travels to the country's capital of Kabul to meet the musicians and conductor of the Zohra orchestra. It was produced by the Northampton-based filmmaker Tony Klinger, who has made documentaries on The Who, Deep Purple and the film Get Carter. Klinger said the film featured "the most extraordinary tales of triumph". Producer Tony Klinger said musician and director Dan Blackwell had "remarkable vision" The film focuses on the two young leaders, conductor Negin Khpalwak and lead violist Zarifa Adiba. It has been screened at the Colorado International and Chichester film festivals, as well as in the House of Commons. Klinger said it was made in "some of the most challenging parts of the world". He praised musician Blackwell, who was also the film's director, saying what the film "achieved through the universal language of music is truly inspiring". Blackwell, also based in Northampton, said he discovered the group on the internet in 2017. The musicians had "got together at this sort of secret school and formed an all-female orchestra", he explained. He told BBC Radio Northampton that some of the members had "faced backlash from their family, some have been rejected by their families, there has been disputes, and there have been death threats". The musician and filmmaker said the orchestra has played around the world but had not been able to perform in their home country. After making contact with the orchestra, they invited him to Afghanistan to meet the musicians. He travelled later in 2017 and went to the school where the orchestra was based which was "walled off and had armed guards". Dan Blackwell travelled to Afghanistan on his own which he said allowed him greater access to the orchestra The 25 members of the orchestra fled the country and were living in different parts of the world after the Taliban retook control in 2021, he said. He began performing with some of the musician remotely, and has met up with orchestra again to play in the US. "They're still performing music and they're getting their instruments and coming back together again," he said. This embedded content is not available in your region. Follow East of England news on Facebook, Instagram and X. Got a story? Email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp 0800 169 1830 CHICAGO - An air quality alert was issued for Humboldt Park after a private bus caught fire Saturday afternoon. Alderperson for the 26th Ward Jessie Fuentes wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that residents should use caution for the next few hours. The bus caught fire at 1215 North Humboldt Drive around 1 p.m. Air quality alert! There is currently a private bus engulfed in flames in Humboldt Park on 1215 N. Humboldt. Please use caution for the next few hours, wear a mask when outside and keep your windows closed. Firefighters are currently on site. pic.twitter.com/R2EmFs1r6H Alderperson Jessie Fuentes (@Ward26Chicago) November 11, 2023 Firefighters are on scene. This is a developing story. Check back for updates. An air-raid warning began to spread in the oblasts of Ukraine on the evening of 11 November. Source: map of air-raid warnings, Air Force Details: An air-raid warning was issued in the country's southern, southeastern, and central oblasts. The Air Force noted that "in the oblasts where the air-raid warning is issued, there is a missile threat due to the activity of enemy tactical aircraft." "There is a threat of using aviation weapons!", the Air Force noted. Later, the Air Force added that there is a "threat of the use of ballistic weapons from the south". Updated: At 00:30, the Air Force reported that there was no more threat in these oblasts. Support UP or become our patron! An airline in Argentina is allowing passengers to resell their tickets. grafxart8888/GettyImages Airline Flybondi announced it will allow passengers to resell their tickets. The tickets will be available for transfer until 72 hours before departure. Resale markets in other industries have led to inflated ticket prices. An airline is experimenting with allowing people to resell their tickets up to three days before their flight. Flybondi, an ultra-low-cost airline based in Argentina, announced the trial at a recent aviation conference, according to Travel Weekly. Flybondi CEO Mauricio Sana said on a webinar that the airline was inspired by the success of resale tickets in other industries, such as concerts, according to the outlet. But resale markets are not without controversy and can lead to dramatically higher prices. The clamor to get a hold of tickets for Taylor Swift's record-breaking Eras Tour this year saw prices rise as high as $33,000 due to people reselling tickets, eventually prompting a Senate hearing with TicketMaster executives. An in February, music giant LiveNation, which owns TicketMaster, announced its support for a "FAIR Ticketing Act," which it says would crack down on ticket reselling websites after several Congress asked the DOJ to continue investigating TicketMaster. StubHub said the legislation would actually help bolster LiveNAtion's grip on the market, and instead is supporting a "Boss Act," which takes aim at ticket resellers who use devices like bots in an attempt to gouge prices, according to Variety. Flybondi's new ticketing system creates two versions of each ticket sold, one original ticket and one NFT ticket that is stored on the blockchain, according to the travel blog PYOK. The tickets can be resold up to 72 hours before the time of departure, and Flybondi earns a transaction fee whenever the tickets are resold, the report says. The two tickets created by the system have synchronized seat numbers and itineraries, which allows the airline to trace the NFT ticket after it is resold, according to the report. The new program will initially only be open for domestic flights, but Flybondi plans to open it to international flights too, travel blog SimpleFlying reported. "We seek to give the client freedom to do what they want with the ticket and expand distribution," Sana said, according to the outlet. "In this way, we will continue taking passengers who would turn to the competition." Flybondi, which is quickly growing, has doubled its fleet in the last year and recently received its fourteenth Boeing 737-800, the report says. Flybondi did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider. Read the original article on Insider An airline let Taylor Swift fans rebook their tickets for free after her show in Argentina was postponed. Some Swifties aren't stoked about the accommodation. After Taylor Swift postponed her Argentina performance, LATAM Airlines announced fans could rebook their flights for free. Bruce Bennett/Getty Images, Marcelo Endelli/TAS23 On Friday, Taylor Swift postponed her show in Buenos Aires, Argentina, due to inclement weather. LATAM Airlines announced on Saturday that fans could rebook their tickets at no cost. But some Swifties aren't thrilled with the gesture, which they say came after they rebooked. LATAM Airlines, South America's largest carrier, is bending the rules for Taylor Swift fans after the star postponed her Friday night show in Buenos Aires. The star was scheduled to do three performances in Argentina at the Estadio River Plate for her Eras Tour. On Friday, however, Swift announced on X that she'd have to bump her show to Sunday night due to inclement weather. On Saturday, LATAM announced on X (formerly Twitter) that fans could rebook their flights for free. "#AttentionSwifties: We know that your plans have changed, that's why starting today we updated our flexibility policy for those who had a flight scheduled from Buenos Aires on November 11 and 12," the airline's post read. #AtencionSwifties: sabemos que tus planes cambiaron, por eso a partir de hoy actualizamos nuestra politica de flexibilidad para que quienes tenian vuelo programado desde Buenos Aires los dias 11 y 12 de noviembre. pic.twitter.com/6g1WqRSIW4 LATAM Chile (@LATAM_CHI) November 11, 2023 A follow-up tweet on Saturday said passengers "will be able to make changes without fines or fare difference to fly until next Friday 11/17, depending on seat availability." The airline did not respond to a request for comment made outside regular working hours. For some Swifties, however, LATAM's gesture came too late, as they'd already rebooked their tickets. Some fans shared their frustrations in the comment section of the airline's post. "Now they tell us," one person's response read. Another asked what the airline could do for travelers "who already changed the ticket and had to pay." LATAM's X account didn't directly answer but instead asked them to DM the company with further details. Industry experts told CNBC that this kind of move by an airline is very unusual. While air carriers sometimes add flights for high-profile events like games, concerts, or conferences, it's rare to waive fees when an event is canceled or postponed, the outlet reported. Travis Kelce, Swift's new beau, joined her this weekend in Buenos Aires, where the pair was seen at a restaurant Friday night. When your worlds collide. Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift in the building on our last night in Buenos Aires. pic.twitter.com/BhhmSpdoAo Tory Barron (@Tory_Barron) November 11, 2023 On Saturday night, Swift closed out her show with a surprise for concertgoers and Kelce. While singing her hit song "Karma," she changed the lyrics in a nod to the 34-year-old Kansas City Chiefs tight end. "Karma is the guy on the Chiefs, coming straight home to me," Swift sang, according to videos taken by fans. The song's original lyrics are: "Karma is the guy on the screen, coming straight home to me," which some people interpreted as a reference to her ex-boyfriend, actor Joe Alwyn. The pair broke up in April, after six years together. Since then, Swift began dating Kelce, who first made his move in July by trying to get her attention with a friendship bracelet. Read the original article on Insider This article was originally published in Alabama Reflector. Jennifer Church, the lead special education teacher at Pelham Ridge Elementary School in Pelham, knows how much her colleagues do before stepping into a classroom. The referral meetings, eligibility meetings, IEP (individualized educational plan) meetings, the parent contacts just to organize all of that, she said. Writing the IEPS providing the services to the students each day and then also helping with any general education assignments that need to be helped with in the classroom. And to keep special education teachers in place, the Alabama State Department of Education is asking the Legislature for a little bit more. Support The 74's year-end campaign. Make a tax-exempt donation now. The departments budget request includes a call for a stipend for special education teachers in the hopes of recruiting new teachers and retaining existing ones in areas with shortages. Michael Sibley, spokesman for the department, said over email that the stipend amount requested is $5,000 and 20% ($1,000) benefits for each teacher. A new teacher in Alabama with a bachelors degree would make $44,226 in fiscal year 2024. A new teacher in Mississippi at a bachelors level would make $41,500 in the 2023-34 school year. A new teacher in Georgia with a bachelors degree would make $41,092 in fiscal year 2024. As of July, the base teacher salary in Tennessee is $42,000. Special education is a term that covers a range of specialties, and special education teachers work with students with a range of needs. Some of those specialties have greater shortages than others. But the department for now but, for now, they are looking at a flat stipend across the board for special education teachers. Mackey said the goal is to convince people to become special education teachers. This year, the Legislature provided a $1,000 stipend but it only went to special ed teachers who were paid for out of the state budget, foundation program budget, he said. This years request would cover teachers paid for by federal and local funds, as well. His goal is to provide the stipends for every special education teacher in the state. Both Mackey and special education educators across the state have said that its important that specially trained teachers are the ones who work with special education students. If youre a parent of a child that has these really severe needs, then you want to make sure you have the most qualified teacher working with them, he said. Akeliah Palmer, a collaborative resource and special education teacher at Edgewood Elementary School in Selma, said that she has about 30 students on her caseload. She said that special education is hard to staff, so she hopes the stipend might help in recruiting. For them to keep the stipend would be a great idea because it may recruit more workers to come over to [special education], she said. Church said that forging personal relationships is also important for her role as a special education teacher. Its not just one blanket plan for the children, she said. Its individualized to each child. So we write these for their strengths, their weaknesses, the services that they need. It also has to be legally defensible. Cynthia Rysedorph, special education department chair at Mountain Brook High School, said that she thinks a stipend could encourage teachers to stay in the classroom. It was somewhat empowering, I think, just to feel recognized, she said about this past years stipend.. Retention is critical, Mackey said, because of the volume of work special education teachers do. Because of special ed is obviously an area thats intense focus, there is a lot of additional paperwork because the significance of some federal rules around that, so we often hear teachers say, You know what, Im going to leave teaching special ed, and just teach fourth grade, because its the same pay, he said. Mackey said that the department is targeting teachers trained and certified to teach both special education and elementary general education. Some of those teachers might have gone to general education, and he wants the stipend to encourage them to come back to special education. He said those teachers are certified under collaborative special education. For now, he said, the department is looking at a flat stipend, but Mackey left open the possibility of offering more in areas with particular shortages. Thats something certainly could be discussed, he said. Like, you know, the Legislature comes back and wants to talk about, Well, what if we do a different amount for a child, for a teacher who has students with learning disabilities versus one with students who have medical disabilities? Last year, the Department asked for $68 million and received $4.6 million for special education stipends. This year, the department has requested for $34 million. House education budget chair Danny Garrett, R-Trussville, said in October he did not have any information about the funding this year going up as he has not seen the request or had discussions. The Alabama State Board of Educations budget request goes to the governors office. The governor makes a recommendation of her version that then goes to the Legislature who will approve their version of the budget. Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com. Follow Alabama Reflector on Facebook and Twitter. Kelsey Hatcher was born with two uteruses, which is extremely rare. Hatcher's doctor said only around three out of 1,000 women have a double uterus and double cervix. A double uterus can be discovered during a routine pelvic exam, according to the Mayo Clinic. A woman in Alabama born with two uteruses is pregnant in both, a development her doctors say is so rare that there aren't really any experts on it. Kelsey Hatcher, who was born with two uteruses and two cervixes, said she has known for a while that her body is special but was still surprised to learn that she was pregnant with twins, WVTM , a local NBC affiliate, reported. "I'm typically not one that likes a lot of attention and doesn't want people to be talking about all my stuff," Hatcher told the outlet. "And so to be this rare and kind of out there, I'm like: oh my gosh." Hatcher, who already has three children, found out she was pregnant in each of her functioning uteri during her first ultrasound last Spring, according to the outlet. "I said, 'Well, there's two of them in there.' And he said, 'You're lying,'" Hatcher said of the first time she told her husband, Caleb, that she was having twins. Richard Davis, an expert in high-risk pregnancies at the University of Alabama-Birmingham Hospital, told the WVTM that "way under 1%" of women are born with a double uterus and double cervix. "Maybe 3 per 1,000 women might have that," Davis said. "And then the probability of having a twin in each one is really crazy." According to the Mayo Clinic , a double uterus occurs in a female fetus when the two small tubes that typically form together to create the uterus instead develop into individual organs. A double uterus typically causes no symptoms and is usually discovered during a pelvic exam or imaging tests after a miscarriage, the clinic says. When Hatcher does go into labor, Davis said doctors will have to be very careful to monitor each uterus and determine which one is contracting and if they are contracting together or separately, according to WVTM. Read the original article on Insider On Friday, the Alaska Federation of Natives participated in a field hearing called by the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in Bethel titled, The Impact of the Historic Salmon Decline on the Health and Well-Being of Alaska Native Communities along Arctic, Yukon, Kuskokwim Rivers. Committee Vice Chair Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) took testimony from eight witnesses, including AFNs Executive Vice President and General Counsel Nicole Borromeo, before opening the floor to public comments. In referencing resolution 23-01, which was adopted at the 2023 Annual AFN Convention, Executive Vice President Borromeo advised that Alaska Natives are calling on the Biden Administration and the U.S. Congress to do everything in their power to protect subsistence, including amending ANCSA to reinstate terminated aboriginal hinting and righting rights and ANILCA to strengthen Alaskan Native protections. Never miss Indian Countrys biggest stories and breaking news. Click here to sign up to get our reporting sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. Vice President of External Affairs Ben Mallott was also in attendance to advance AFNs work on the fish crisis, including protecting the Katie John holdings through U.S. v. Alaska a case in which the State of Alaska is once again challenging the federal rural fisheries subsistence priority. 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 March for Climate and Justice, in Amsterdam The March for Climate and Justice, in Amsterdam By Toby Sterling AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -Tens of thousands of protesters marched through Amsterdam on Sunday demanding immediate action against climate change, 10 days before the country holds a general election. Local police said around 70,000 people joined the march, including climate activist Greta Thunberg and former EU climate chief Frans Timmermans, who will lead the combined Labour and Green parties at the upcoming election. Organisers said the turnout was the largest ever at a climate protest in the Netherlands. "I'm here because I don't want the planet to become hotter than it already is, and I want the North Pole to remain as cool as it is, and we want to raise awareness for that," protester Anouk Mul told Reuters. Protesters, some wearing scuba diving gear as a reference to rising sea levels and many carrying signs reading "Cut the crap, scale emissions back!" and "Don't like our Climate March? Try living on Mars", marched 3.5 kilometres (2.2 miles) through Amsterdam singing, chanting and blowing whistles. The Netherlands heads to the polls on Nov. 22, after an election campaign that has so far been dominated by discussions on migration and the rising cost of living. Climate issues in general rank lower on most people's priority lists, recent opinion polls have shown. Timmermans' coalition has made tackling climate change one of its main issues and is currently polling in third place, behind two conservative parties who put more emphasis on the need to limit migration. Thunberg's speech in Amsterdam's Museum Square was briefly interrupted by a protester who grabbed the microphone from her accusing her of turning the march into a political event. Thunberg had handed the microphone to a Palestinian peace activist whose speech earlier was cut short by organisers when she used the contested phrase "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." After Thunberg got the microphone back, she chanted "No climate justice on occupied land" repeatedly, videos posted on social media showed. (Reporting by Toby Sterling, writing by Bart Meijer; Editing by Hugh Lawson) Strictly Come Dancing fans have expressed their delight after Amy Dowden hosted a one-off gameshow episode with the cast of this years competition. The professional dancer, 33, who first joined the cast of Strictly in 2017, was forced to pull out of the competition earlier this year after she was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer and started receiving chemotherapy treatment. In a mini-episode, which constitutes part of the extra content the BBC rolls out during the series, the Welsh dancer is the host of the gameshow Gamey with Amy. Dowden tells the camera: Hello everyone and welcome to Strictlys Gamey with Amy, where our couples will compete against each other with three rounds of Strictly-related fun. Ready? The dancer started by quizzing each of the couples with Strictly-related trivia, such as the year the dancing show began and how many 10s the notoriously brutal judge Craig Revel Horwood has ever given out throughout his time on the series, as well as judging a balloon-modelling challenge. Viewers watch as the couples battle it out to guess the correct answers and fight to win the highest scores away from the dancefloor. The video clip, which was rolled out on social media on Thursday (10 November), has received high praise from fans who have been delighted to see Dowden participating in this years Strictly festivities despite not being able to compete in a professional capacity due to her ongoing cancer treatment. Amy you are so good at this. I wanna see you with your own quiz show series please, wrote one fan. I love that you guys are keeping Amy involved in the series even though shes not well enough to dance, wrote another fan. I cant wait for her to get better and be back on the dance floor where she belongs. Gamey with Amy; can you please make more of this. Love Amy, one Instagram user commented. Dowden has made several appearances on the latest series of the dancing show, despite not competing in the show for the first year since 2017. In October, Dowden made a surprise appearance on the show when she arrived in a sparkly gown to the shows terms and conditions. Dowden later revealed that she decided to brave the bald just moments before appearing in front of the cameras, with the professional dancer crediting her Strictly cast members for giving her the courage to ditch her wig. Amy Dowden making a surprise appearance on Strictly Come Dancing (BBC) Dowden was diagnosed with breast cancer in May, and underwent a mastectomy in July. However, the professional dancer was later told she would have to begin a course of chemo after doctors discovered the cancer had spread. On Thursday (9 November), Dowden gave fans a welcome health update as she announced that she had completed all eight rounds of chemotherapy with a video ringing the traditional end of treatment bell to celebrate. We are finally here, the Welsh ballroom dancer wrote on Instagram, as she arrived at the hospital for her final session of chemotherapy. Ive cried all morning! Right an afternoon of chemo and then Im so lucky and grateful to be able to ring that bell! Will never take it for granted! Thank you to the incredible Sheldon Unit! You are all amazing NHS, all true heroes. Strictly Come Dancing continues Sunday 12 November at 7.20pm on BBC One. SAN FRANCISCO Activists protesting corporate profits, environmental abuses, poor working conditions and the Israel-Hamas war are among those planning to march in downtown San Francisco on Sunday, united in their opposition to a global trade summit that will draw President Joe Biden and leaders from nearly two dozen countries. Protests are expected throughout this weeks Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders conference, which could draw more than 20,000 attendees, including hundreds of international journalists. The No to APEC coalition, made up of more than 100 grassroots groups, says trade deals struck at summits such as APEC exploit workers and their families. Its unlikely world leaders will even glimpse the protests given the strict security zones accessible only to attendees at the Moscone Center conference hall and other summit sites. But Suzanne Ali, an organizer for the Palestinian Youth Movement, says the U.S. government needs to be held to account for supplying weapons to Israel in its war against Hamas. Even if they cannot see us, as were mobilizing and marching together, they will know that were out there, she said. San Francisco has a long tradition of loud and vigorous protests, as do trade talks. In 1999, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Seattle during a World Trade Organization conference. Protesters succeeded in delaying the start of the conference and captured global attention as overwhelmed police fired tear gas and plastic bullets, and arrested hundreds of people. Chile withdrew as APEC host in 2019 due to mass protests. Last year, when Thailand hosted the summit in Bangkok, pro-democracy protesters challenged the legitimacy of the Thai prime minister, prompting police to fire at the crowd with rubber bullets that injured several protesters and a Reuters journalist. San Francisco Police Department Chief Bill Scott said he expects several protests a day, although its uncertain how many will materialize. He warned against criminal behavior. People are welcome to exercise their constitutional rights in San Francisco, but we will not tolerate people committing acts of violence, or property destruction or any other crime, Scott said. We will make arrests when necessary. APEC, a regional economic forum, was established in 1989 and has 21 member countries, including the worlds two largest economic superpowers China and U.S, as well as Mexico, Brazil and the Philippines. An accompanying CEO summit is scheduled for this week, which critics also plan to protest Wednesday. Headlining the summit is a highly anticipated meeting between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who rarely if at all encounters protesters on home soil. China has heavy security ahead of any events within its borders to ensure no protests occur. It also steps up border checks at city limits and at transit points such as railway stations and airports. Human rights activists based in China will often receive visits or phone calls from police ahead of important events as reminders to not demonstrate. Rory McVeigh, sociology professor and director of the Center for the Study of Social Movements at University of Notre Dame, says politicians use protests to gauge public opinion, and media attention helps. Probably a lot of protests just dont make much difference, but occasionally they do and occasionally they can make a huge difference, he said. The United Vietnamese American Community of Northern California plans to protest Xi and Vietnam President Vo Van Thuong. The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines will be rallying for the rights of indigenous Filipinos and protesting the presence of President Bongbong Marcos, the son of dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Protesters are disappointed that San Francisco, with its rich history of standing up for the working class, would host CEOs of companies and leaders of countries that they say do great harm. Its silly, from the mayor to the governor to the president, they want to say this is a great idea to have all these people who have been profiting off the intersecting crises of our time, said Nik Evasco, a climate activist. Its just sickening. ___ Associated Press writer Huizhong Wu in Bangkok contributed to this report. Political analyst Larry Sabato criticized Speaker Mike Johnsons (R-La.) two-tier stop-gap government funding bill as a disaster on Saturday, after days of internal negotiations over the best way to fund the government. Its a disaster. Everybody knows its a disaster, Sabato said in a CNN interview Saturday. Even if it passes the House, which is hardly assured there will be all kinds of plans and objections and the rest of it the Senate isnt going to go along with this and the President isnt going to go along with this. Johnsons plan makes some government funding run out on Jan. 19 with the remainder running out on Feb. 2, a novel strategy meant to discourage omnibus bills. This two-step continuing resolution is a necessary bill to place House Republicans in the best position to fight for conservative victories, Johnson said in a statement on Saturday. The bill will stop the absurd holiday-season omnibus tradition of massive, loaded up spending bills introduced right before the Christmas recess. Separating out the CR from the supplemental funding debates places our conference in the best position to fight for fiscal responsibility, oversight over Ukraine aid, and meaningful policy changes at our Southern border, he continued. Its already faced pushback from Democrats as well as some Republicans. Top Stories from The Hill The funding extension doesnt change government funding levels in the meantime, effectively leaving the current continuing resolution passed at the end of September unchanged a blow to conservative Republicans who wanted additional cuts. Sabato said the last-second measure is the result of the House GOP focusing on kicking out and electing a new Speaker instead of funding the government. The laddered funding bill is the first major legislation of Johnsons term as speaker. Theyve got one week to go because they wasted three weeks with their clown show picking a new speaker. Really a great start for Speaker Johnson, he added, sarcastically. Really great. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. A woman holds a banner with a message sthat read in Spanish: "I love Panama, Not mining", during a protest against a mining contract between the Panamanian government and the Canadian mining company First Quantum, in Panama City, Friday, Nov. 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco) MEXICO CITY (AP) Indigenous anti-mining protesters that have paralyzed Panama's key roadways for weeks said they will temporarily suspend blockades for 12 hours Monday as a show of good faith to citizens affected by the demonstrations. Demonstrators are demanding the Panamanian government annul a contract allowing the Canadian mining company First Quantum Minerals to continue operating an open-pit copper mine in a richly biodiverse jungle. Roads will be opened from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday, at least in northern Panama, to allow people to access fuel and food, after shortages in many regions caused by the blockades, said Juan de Dios Camano, secretary general of the Association of Chiricano Educators. The war isn't the people against the people. The war is against these criminals we have in the government, he said in a video posted to the group's Instagram account. He said the protest would resume in full force after the 12-hour suspension. The protests erupted late last month over the contract allowing the mine to keep operating for the next 20 years, with the possibility of the company extending it for a further 20 years. Demonstrations gained international attention after authorities confirmed that two demonstrators were killed last week. Local reports and video circulating on social media appear to show a man wielding a pistol attempting to pass through a barricade and protesters lying dead on the ground. Police said they arrested one suspect in the incident, but did not identify him. While Panamas government has said the mine is a key source for jobs in the Central American country, Indigenous groups say the mining is a threat to many of the delicate ecosystems they protect. Such unrest is rare in Panama, but the protests come at a time that environmental protection is gaining increasing importance for many in Latin America, home to some of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world. Opposition to big projects is especially intense in rural Indigenous communities, which are often disproportionally affected by climate change and other environmental destruction. Canadian mining concerns, which by some estimates make up 41% of the large mining companies in Latin America, are often criticized in the region of environmental damage, lack of accountability and other abuses. But critics of the blockades say they are damaging citizens more than the mining company. One Panamanian business association estimates the road blockages are causing a daily loss of $80 million to local businesses. Late last week, police announced they planned to break up the road barricades, using force if needed. We are going to use the necessary force so that the roads are opened, and the well-being of all citizens is achieved, Police Commissioner Elmer Caballero said. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson revealed on Nov. 11 a new proposal to keep the federal government open, a plan which excludes additional funding for Ukraine, AP reported. With just five legislative days left until the federal government shutdown deadline, lawmakers are scrambling to produce a consensus. This two-step continuing resolution is a necessary bill to place House Republicans in the best position to fight for conservative victories The bill will stop the absurd holiday-season omnibus tradition of massive, loaded up spending bills introduced right before the Christmas recess, he told congressional leaders. Johnsons plan does not include additional funding for Israel and Ukraine, which the Biden Administration has requested. He characterized the initiative as placing conference in the best position to fight for fiscal responsibility, oversight over Ukraine aid, and meaningful policy changes at our Southern border. The White House slammed the plan as a threat to U.S. national security. This proposal is just a recipe for more Republican chaos and more shutdownsfull stop House Republicans need to stop wasting time on their own political divisions, do their jobs, and work in a bipartisan way to prevent a shutdown, said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. An Extreme Republican Shutdown would put critical national security and domestic priorities at risk, including by forcing service members to work without pay... This comes just days after House Republicans were forced to pull two of their own extreme appropriations bills from the floorfurther deepening their dysfunction. The United States fiscal condition has significantly deteriorated with national debt exceeding $33 trillion as servicing costs raise exponentially. In a historic move on Nov. 10, credit rating agency Moodys downgraded U.S. sovereign debt to negative outlook citing increased political instability and unsustainable levels of spending coupled with high rates. Since the beginning of Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. has disbursed over $75 billion in aid to Kyiv. Read also: US House Speaker Mike Johnson to support defense funding for Israel but not Ukraine Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. In the Druze village of Hurfeish, an Arab minority community near Israel's border with Lebanon, mostly women remain after many men had left to join the front lines of war. This community in Galilee, brightly adorned with Israeli and Druze flags, has been flush with patriotic fervour since Hamas militants from Gaza smashed through the militarised border with Israel, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) to the south. The attack left around 1,200 dead on the Israeli side, mostly civilians killed on October 7, according to the latest official Israeli figures. Israel retaliated with a relentless bombing campaign, alongside a ground offensive in Gaza. More than 11,000 people in the Palestinian territory have been killed, also mostly civilians, according to the latest figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. Far to the north, the unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel put Hurfeish on alert, and galvanised it into action to support the troops. A local factory was refitted to produce military uniforms. Cars are dotted with blue and white stickers -- the colours of the Israeli flag -- bearing Arabic script. Of the 7,000 villagers nearly "80 percent work in national defence", in the army, police, intelligence, or penitentiaries, Hassan Rabakh, leader of an armed self-defence group formed after the unprecedented Hamas attack, told AFP. Hurfeish has even garnered the nickname "Tsahal village", a Hebrew-language acronym for the Israeli military. - Patrolling the north - The men of Hurfeish help to secure the north, where cross-border exchanges of fire have intensified since October 7, mostly between Hamas ally Hezbollah and Israeli forces. "We are very close to the Lebanese border, at four kilometres as the crow flies, and in our village we have no fence. So we have two vehicles constantly patrolling", Rabakh said. The 20 men in the group drive along winding roads, with the sound of Israeli artillery firing towards southern Lebanon in the background. The Druze, a religious community descended from a divergent branch of Islam, came to live 1,000 years ago in this mountainous region, divided among three countries roiled by war. They are largely in Syria and Lebanon, but also Israel. Some live in Jordan. In each country, the Druze chose for religious reasons to commit to the local flag. "Each Druze is connected by theology to the land that permits him to live there. It is an unshakeable connection", the political leader of Hurfeish, Mofed Marei, told AFP. The Druze make up a close-knit community that accounts for two percent of Israel's population, also including Druze residents of the annexed Golan Heights who largely reject Israeli citizenship. Overall, Arab Israelis account for around 20 percent of Israel's population. Since the Israel-Hamas war began they say they have been living in fear because of increasing hate crimes and attacks. But even before, rights groups frequently highlighted regular discrimination faced by minority groups, despite their holding Israeli citizenship and in the case of the Druze community service in Israel's security forces. - Mission 'to defend' - In his office, Marei, a retired colonel himself, has hung a large oil painting of his brother, Nabih Marei, a senior officer killed in the 1990s. A local museum is dedicated to the confident-looking fighter who, at the age of 18, reflected that trait by writing directly to the then-defence minister to get into the military unit of his choice. "For him, it was paratrooper or nothing", Marei said, smiling. "He opened the path for all of us. Since then we have a range of possibilities." This attitude is at the heart of Israeli Druze, who are well-represented within elite units, an Israeli military officer told AFP on condition of anonymity. According to Marei, more than "40 members of the (Druze) community" have been killed in recent weeks, largely during the military operation to push back the Hamas attackers on October 7. A total of more than 300 Israeli troops have lost their lives since then, including 42 killed in Gaza since Israel began ground operations in the territory. Among the Israeli dead is Lieutenant-Colonel Alim Saad. In the Druze village of Yanuh-Jat, neighbouring Hurfeish, hundreds of women in white veils and men in uniform took part in a religious ceremony last week to honour the soldier killed in clashes on October 9 with Hezbollah militants just a few kilometres away. "He evacuated his soldiers and went back alone", his brother Kamal Saad, also a soldier, said with tears in his eyes. "He sacrificed himself so they don't do to us like they did in the south." Alim Saad died fulfilling a mission "to stand up and defend the citizens of Israel," said his brother. dar/smk/srk/it/ami With its minimalist lines, pale wood, and clean design, Kyiv-based architect studio Balbek Bureaus project looks like another sleek-looking interior for a cozy coffee shop in the capital. And yet, its temporary housing for refugees. In the wake of Russias full-scale invasion, Ukrainian architecture studios conceived promising pilot projects that could be quickly built to house refugees. But more than a year into the war, only a handful of projects have been completed due to lack of funds and governmental support to scale them up. And these projects are only a drop in the bucket compared to the millions of internally displaced people (IDPs) in Ukraine who need a new home. Russias invasion has destroyed 147,800 homes as of September, according to the Kyiv School of Economics. Ukrainian officials in November said the number of IDPs in Ukraine had reached 4.9 million. Housing refugees doesnt only require temporary accommodation but a long-term strategic vision that the government doesnt have so far, Anatoly Eksarev, CEO and founder of Odesa-based architectural firm DekartStudio, told the Kyiv Independent. "We need to talk not only about how to handle refugees, we need to think of a completely different strategy to settle all Ukrainians," Eksarev said. Pilot projects Slava Balbek, 40, the head of the contemporary Balbek Bureau, started helping to evacuate refugees and provide meals through some of his coffee shops when the bombs started to fall on Ukraine in February 2022. Part-time military volunteer, he wanted to find another way to help. Balbek says that most of his team relocated following the start of the full-scale invasion. We were all refugees. Thats why he started the Re: Ukraine project, a minimalist housing development consisting of box-like communal houses. Temporary housing is often associated with cramped spaces and poor material quality, which Balbek wanted to avoid by creating welcoming spaces with top-quality construction materials, an ambition reflected in the projects motto: Dignity, no matter what. A room being set up in one of Balbek's Re: Ukraine housing development for refugees in the village of Zhydychyn, near Lutsk in western Ukraine. (Courtesy) The Re: Ukraine housing looks like a high-end version of container architecture with a home unit packed into a single, separate container. The concept was carefully designed, with a wide and bright interior furbished with Ikea furniture, a partner in the project. The project has enough room for 15 families across two buildings around a courtyard. One is a communal dorm-style box with a large shared kitchen and bathrooms; the other is a single-story apartment building for families with children. The modular construction system can be built in two to four months to house refugees quickly and has a life span of up to 15 years. Once displaced families have found a new permanent place to live, the structure can be used for other purposes, such as a recovery center for wounded soldiers, Balbek said. Its important to create a space where people can communicate, can reintegrate into the system, Balbek said. Odesa-based architectural firm Dekart Studio picked a different solution: a round prefabricated module that can be up to 55-square meters and house refugees for up to 15 years, and can be used for commercial purposes or hotels in the future. Dekart Studio's modular house was conceived as a concrete shell that can be easily built on-site. (Courtesy) Thanks to an easy-to-assemble concrete shell, Dekart Studios domes can be built on site between three days and a week, with every material produced locally, reducing the construction costs because theres no need for an army of contractors to build them. "The first thing is the shell, and then you can produce concrete anywhere," he said, referring to a concrete plant in Odesa that can produce up to 400 houses per month without changing its production line. Eksarevs idea behind his project was to imagine another kind of Ukrainian city for the future: highly decentralized, with individual, small houses deemed safer than high-rise buildings in case of any future military threats. Building on donations Eksarev's first concept, a small home that resembles a shell, was deemed too expensive and shunned by local authorities in Lviv because of bureaucracy, he said. The prefabricated shell-looking house costs $1,000 per square meter to build, double the price of a house built in a traditional way. While the houses dont require many workers to build them and cost less in the long run, local authorities dont want to be scrutinized by local prosecutors for financing a model that may have higher upfront costs, he said. Instead of the shell-looking module, Lviv authorities preferred a $450 per square meter wooden house project with a more classic design that looks like a box and takes way more time to build in a traditional way, described as "a typical American barn" by Eksarev. Only five to ten houses have been built near Lviv so far, Eksarev said, as the government doesnt have a nationwide policy to house refugees. As of May this year, there were around 250,000 IDPs in Lviv Oblast, according to the Lviv Regional Administration. At its peak, that number was closer to 600,000. Dekart Studio's cheapest project picked by local authorities is a wooden house that is cheaper but takes longer to build. (Courtesy) "We only have a few houses somewhere to show we care about refugees, but it's not developed at a governmental scale right now," Eksarev said. Meanwhile, Balbek already broke ground for two Re: Ukraine housing developments in the Zhydychyn village near Lutsk, western Ukraine, and Bucha, a satellite town near Kyiv heavily damaged by Russia's occupation. At first, the bureau had ten different cities in mind, so architects prepared an ambitious master plan to lodge up to 8,000 people, meaning the project was scalable if the finances were there. Two apartments from a residential block have been built in Zhydychyn so far. Once done, up to 860 people could live in the settlement, but no one lives there yet as it remains unfinished. This Zhydychyn initiative is funded by an NGO called Algorithm of Action, which quickly gathered funding from local businesses in Lutsk to build the projects first section. Aerial view of Balbek Bureau's project in Zhydychyn, near Lutsk, western Ukraine. Only the first section has been built, but the work is ongoing. (Courtesy) For the Bucha project, Balbek relies entirely on public fundraising rather than getting help from the government because he considers the state's money should go to the army first. The bureau has raised over $300,000 out of the $2 million needed for the project in Bucha. Balbek is confident that the first houses in Bucha could be lifted off the ground by spring 2024, but relying on fundraising considerably slows down the process because the construction entirely depends on the amount of donations. Actor and philanthropist Serhiy Prytulas Nest Charity also relies on donations to build prefabricated houses for refugees. The project raised almost $1 million to send 42 houses to 153 people in Makariv, a small town 50 kilometers west of Kyiv. Not the right time Emergency solutions wont be enough to solve the refugee crisis, Eksarev said. "Everybody is talking about shelters, small wooden houses, but there is no main idea, no discussion about how Ukrainians are supposed to live in five, ten, fifteen years," Eksarev said. Authorities tend to focus on small temporary pilot projects because they believe Ukraine will get Russian-occupied territory back quickly, Anastasia Bobrova, an expert at Kyiv-based social development Cedos think tank, told the Kyiv Independent. And the government doesnt bother with long-lasting projects unless they have massive funding from international partners, she said. The EU Support for Urgent Housing Needs for IDPs in Ukraine project, launched in February 2022, has disbursed over 19 million euros to adapt and rebuild communal housing in ten mid-size Ukrainian cities, including Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk and Lutsk. The projects are due to be finished at the end of the year, but they only focus on repairing existing structures rather than creating something new entirely. Read also: With winter approaching, is Ukraines energy system ready for renewed Russian attacks? Not the right time seems to be the governments motto regarding social housing policy, Eksarev said. The war is the nations number one topic, he said. If the government put large investments right now into big construction projects, there is no guarantee that those buildings will not be destroyed the next day, she said. As social housing policy takes a backseat to the governments priorities, the responsibility to house refugees falls upon local governments at the level of cities or oblasts with their own priorities, resulting in a patchy response to the crisis. There is no system, Bobrova said. And so far, it's unclear what the management system behind (a social housing policy) will be. Without a proper legal system to support social housing, Ukraine will have to create an entire system from scratch, which hampers the development of new projects, she said. So we have these patchy projects all over the place, and the strategy behind this is unclear because we don't have housing leadership on the national level, Bobrova said. Read also: Kyivs local businesses gear up for another difficult winter Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Milton Keynes was created in the 1960s as a way of easing housing shortages in London. But five decades later it was facing a housing crisis of its own, dubbed "tent city" in the media because of the encampments of rough sleepers dotted around the centre. In autumn 2017, there were estimated to be 48 people sleeping rough on a single night in Milton Keynes. That number has now fallen to just 16, according to the local council. The city appears to be bucking the national trend, with the total number of people estimated to be rough sleeping across England on the rise again, after a drop during the Covid pandemic. The issue hit the headlines this week, when Home Secretary Suella Braverman's claim that some people were living on the streets as a "lifestyle choice" provoked a backlash from homelessness charities, as well as some Conservatives. She has proposed restricting the use of tents by rough sleepers, for example by issuing fines to those who refuse to move from shop doorways or charities that supply tents to people identified by police as having caused a nuisance. Emily Darlington, a Labour councillor in Milton Keynes and the cabinet member for housing, says "tents are just the symptom, they're not the cause". "There's no point in just dealing with the symptom, it's like you just want to hide away the problem." She argues people that sleep in tents think they have no other option "because public services or the voluntary sector have failed them". In Milton Keynes, Ms Darlington says the key to preventing people falling through the cracks has been bringing emergency beds and other support services under one roof. During the pandemic, councils across England received government funding to help get people off the streets and into emergency accommodation including then-empty hotels, as part of the Everyone In scheme. The initiative was widely praised but charities were also concerned many people were not found permanent homes. Ms Darlington, who is also Labour's parliamentary candidate for Milton Keynes Central at the next general election, says putting people in hotels was only "a sticking plaster" and the council wanted to keep people off the streets for good. In April 2022 the council opened its own shelter for rough sleepers at the city's old bus station, providing emergency beds for up to 19 people every night. Crucially, on the ground floor of the building there is also access to GP, mental health and addiction services. Meanwhile, charities provide help setting up bank accounts, accessing benefits and finding housing, as well as hot meals, a hairdresser and laundry facilities. "So it's not asking people to run around the city, try and make appointments, when they already lead super chaotic lives," Ms Darlington explains. Emily Darlington is the council cabinet member responsible for homelessness in Milton Keynes At the shelter, those signing in for the night have faced issues including addiction, relationship breakdown and eviction, which contributed to them ending up on the streets. Joseph, a recovering drug addict, says he became homeless when he was evicted after complaining about the condition of his housing. Since then the 35-year-old has been sleeping rough on and off for several months. So what does he make of the home secretary's comment that sleeping on the streets is a "lifestyle choice" for some? "Wow," he says. "My reaction to that would be try and live one day like that." Pausing for a moment he reflects that perhaps some people do have other options, but adds: "I had no choice. I had to." Joseph has used the shelter at the old bus station As a rough sleeper, he has had to contend with not only the cold but also violence. "Yesterday a guy came over and stamped on my head. It's constant," he says. "And it's like you don't even sleep. It is rest but you're literally just lying there." He also developed problems with alcohol "because it's the only thing that keeps you warm outside". Joseph says the system hasn't been perfect for him and he's struggled to access intensive support for his addictions. But he still thinks the help offered by the shelter is crucial. "If this place weren't here, people would die, literally." The shelter has 19 beds available for rough sleepers Since the shelter opened, 145 people who have stayed there have been helped to move into long-term accommodation. Ms Darlington recognises the problem is not solved and there are still some people sleeping rough in Milton Keynes. She says many of these individuals face significant challenges with addiction or mental health issues and continue to be visited daily by outreach workers. "Some people aren't ready to face their issues, they're not ready to face their addictions... If we force them to participate in things before they're ready, we are just setting them up to fail," she says. "I don't want to pretend like in Milton Keynes it's all easy and everyone's problems are sorted overnight - they're not. But it's the persistence of working over time with individuals, getting to know them." Johnny Luk, who is the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Milton Keynes Central, said at a council level there was cross-party support for the work being done to tackle homelessness locally. However, he said government funding had been "pivotal" in enabling progress, with more than 10m given to the council to tackle homelessness since 2019. Mr Luk said he would not describe sleeping on the streets as a "lifestyle choice". "I prefer we positively support homeless people, who are members of our community and deserve empathy and support under complex circumstances, rather than create a new offence or give fines," he added. Downing Street has said no-one should be criminalised for having nowhere to live and it wants to ensure vulnerable people get support, whilst cracking down on anti-social and intimidating behaviour. Emma Johnson says her charity is seeing an increase in demand for its services Emma Johnson is the general manager of local homelessness charity UnityMK, which runs support services on the ground floor below the council shelter, alongside other agencies like the NHS. She says strong partnerships between voluntary organisations and the council have been key to tackling rough sleeping in Milton Keynes. However, Ms Johnson is concerned the charity is seeing an increase in demand from rough sleepers, as well as others in temporary accommodation or facing homelessness. She says this includes some people who are working but end up on the streets due to family breakdown, mental health crises and the high cost of renting. Official figures suggest a slight increase in rough sleeping in Milton Keynes after the end of the pandemic-era Everyone In scheme, but the council says numbers have now fallen again. Meanwhile, the number of people living in temporary accommodation in the city is amongst the highest in England, according to research by charity Shelter. "I think there is just not enough social housing to be able to move people on," Ms Johnson says. "Social housing has to become a priority for whoever's going to be in government." An independent commission has said the government will not meet its own target to end rough sleeping by 2024, with a severe shortage of affordable housing, a lack of support services and the cost-of-living crisis pushing more people into homelessness. "I think there will always be people that find themselves homeless," says Ms Johnson. "So it's about trying to create a pathway to pick people up as quickly as possible." A case heard at the U.S. Supreme Court last week could impact gun rights in Arizona and across the country. At issue in U.S. v. Rahimi is whether a federal law that prohibits firearm possession by people who are subject to domestic violence restraining orders violates the Second Amendment. A lower court struck down the law, and the government sought a high court review. Last year, the Supreme Court struck down a New York gun law that required people to have "proper cause" to carry a handgun. Writing for the majority in that case, Justice Clarence Thomas signaled that similar laws that depart from the country's "historical tradition of firearm regulation" could also be overturned. The National Rife Association, in its brief supporting the lower court decision in U.S. v. Rahimi, said the federal law barring gun possession by people subject to domestic violence restraining orders does not align with the nation's tradition of gun regulation. "Traditionally, people needed to be convicted before they could lose their Second Amendment rights," the NRA wrote. Several Supreme Court briefs from criminal defense lawyer groups also argued the law should be struck down because orders of protection are often issued without adequate review of the underlying allegations. Essentially, they argued, restraining orders lack the level of due process that should be required before someone's access to a gun should be withheld. "These orders of protection are issued without any meaningful opportunity to contest the underlying allegations," the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers said in its brief with the Bronx Defenders Union. "The process for issuing an order of protection is superficial and swift, and the consequences to the target are immediate and brutal." Gun safety and domestic violence prevention organizations gather outside of the Supreme Court before oral arguments are heard in United States v. Rahimi on Tuesday, Nov. 7. in Washington. Arizona was among two dozen states that filed a brief urging the justices to take the case and uphold the federal domestic violence-related gun restriction. But during oral arguments, the justices signaled the court would likely uphold the law Zackey Rahimi, a Texas man, was convicted of violating. Several organizations with Arizona ties weighed in on the domestic violence gun restriction in briefs submitted to the Supreme Court. A ruling from the Supreme Court is expected by early summer. Former chief justices of state high courts Former Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Ruth McGregor joined six other former state chief justices in filing a friend of the court brief in support of the federal government's effort to uphold the gun restriction. McGregor and the other former chief justices told the U.S. Supreme Court that as leaders of state high courts, they "gained an understanding of the important role played by state judiciaries in temporarily disarming perpetrators of domestic violence." The former chief justices also said they witnessed firsthand the important role that state judiciaries play in grappling with and applying major precedents" of the U.S. Supreme Court "to local laws and procedures. They argued that domestic violence restraining orders that temporarily block access to firearms play a vital part in the administration of justice and public safety. These orders allow state courts to safeguard both families and the integrity of judicial proceedings by providing tailored relief, McGregor and the other former chief justices wrote. Gun violence in the US: 'It shouldnt be this way': Gabrielle Giffords reacts online to shooting massacre in Maine Gun violence center named for Gabby Giffords The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, named for former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, also filed a brief in support of the federal governments position. By disarming domestic abusers, the group wrote, the federal law being challenged by Rahimi "helps prevent the use of guns to commit domestic abuse and hampers abusers efforts to control their intimate partners. This helps democratic society as a whole by shielding victims of domestic abuse who are entitled to a full array of rights including the freedoms of association, speech, and religious exercise, and the right to vote that domestic abusers armed with firearms can eliminate or chill. Prosecutor group interested in reducing gun violence Pima County Attorney Laura Conover is a member of the non-partisan group Prosecutors Against Gun Violence, which filed a brief in support of the federal government. Conover said the ability to take away firearms is a valuable tool in a domestic violence situation that her office uses to provide an additional layer of safety to people who have experienced domestic violence and the community at large. Such laws have tremendous due process and notice built into them, Conover said. When someone seeks an order of protection, the person who is served with that has every opportunity to go to court and argue against it and have it removed, Conover said. And so the concerns about abuse of power, infringing upon Second Amendment rights those arguments really become null. Arizona politics: Peoria mayor takes trip to war-torn Israel for 'accurate accounting of the horror' Arizona and more than 20 other states Before the Supreme Court agreed to hear U.S. v. Rahimi, Arizona was among two dozen states that filed a brief urging the justices to take the case and uphold the federal domestic violence-related gun restriction. Attorney General Kris Mayes represented Arizona on the brief. The lower federal court's decision striking down the federal law "threatens to undermine not only the federal government's efforts to keep firearms out of the hand of dangerous individuals" but the states' regulations as well, attorneys for the states wrote. Arizona law permits restricting the purchase of firearms by people who are subject to a domestic violence restraining order. USA TODAY reporter John Fritze contributed to this article. Have a news tip on local, state or federal courts? Reach the reporter at jjenkins@arizonarepublic.com or at 812-243-5582. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter @JimmyJenkins. Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona advocacy, prosecutor groups weigh in on Supreme Court gun case Army veteran Ben says painting has helped him manage his post-traumatic stress disorder Years after leaving the Army, just a noise can take Ben Wood back to the terror of patrolling the streets of Northern Ireland during the Troubles. "The anticipation, the expectation that something can happen around each corner, the hyper-vigilance never left," he said. But Ben has recently found something that calms his restless mind - painting. "I go into a trance-like state... I can let go," he said. His work is now part of an exhibition of veterans' artwork at Tuner House in Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan. Ben, 48, from Caerphilly, spent six years in the Army from 1992. He has post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and said life had been "extremely difficult" since leaving and trying to adapt to civilian life. "I fell into drinking, drugs and just used those to mask everything, my feelings, my insecurities and trying to fit into civilian life really," he said. Ben said he found meeting other people or being around too many people a daily struggle and often felt agitated and angry. "I have failed marriages, failed relationships, now I'm on my own and sometimes I think being on my own, that's all that's left for me because I really don't deal with everyday life as easy as other people, I believe," he said. Ben said being introduced to art by charity the VC Gallery had been life-changing. "For years I felt alone, I felt a burden with my issues, my problems... but when I went down there the first time, I came home and I cried because I wasn't judged and I was accepted and it was a wonderful feeling." Painting has given him some solace and "tends to switch off my over-active mind. I can let go, I can enjoy it". Samantha says finding art has saved her life Another veteran showing her work at the Veterans, Family, Wales exhibition, organised by charities Woody's Lodge and VC Gallery, is Samantha Dinsdale Brown, who spent six years in the Royal Air Force. "I worked for the NHS for several years and had a massive breakdown and I just started painting because I was self-harming," she said. "I thought 'I can't keep doing this, I'm not going to be here anymore', I had a canvass and paint at home and just went for it." Like Ben, she described going into a trance-like state. "It's when I'm really wrapped in my trauma, it's a safe space for me, and that's what's important, to have these outlets to manage our mental health," she said. Samantha recently had her first solo show at The VC Gallery in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, and said finding art and other creative outlets had transformed her mental health. "It's saved my life, that's it really, it's given me confidence, it's empowered me, it's given me pride, I've been given a voice and I feel seen," she said. Army veteran rob says he finds drawing therapeutic Army veteran Rob Watts from St Athan, Vale of Glamorgan, said he only began to understand his own mental health after spending time with other veterans. "I'd never heard of PTSD until I went to Woody's Lodge and understood what it was. I realised I'd been suffering from it for an early age," he said. Rob, whose work is also part of the exhibition, also finds creating art calming. "I'm always drawing something and it takes my mind off things. I totally blank and concentrate on what I'm doing, and I find it a good help," he said. Steve, who was in the police, has found solace in painting Steve Davies from Pembroke Dock is not a veteran but a former police officer. "Coming from the background I come from, there were a few different traumatic things in work and obviously they've been through some of that as well," he said. "I was homeless not long after going to the VC and within a few months Barry John [who runs the charity] managed to find a flat for me." His artwork on display at the exhibition is of a graveyard where veterans' graves are replaced with pawns from a game of chess and a homeless veteran is depicted as a pawn. "It takes you away, your own little space, you can do what you want, doodle or sketch whatever and it takes you away from what's actually happening perhaps," he said. Charity VC Gallery was set up by veteran and war artist Barry John almost 10 years ago. As an infantry soldier in Northern Ireland, Kosovo and Poland, he would paint as a way of documenting his experiences and at the time did not consider it to be therapeutic. After leaving the Army, he realised art could be a tool for helping veterans. "I thought to myself this is a good medium to use for getting people to talk," he said. Barry has created art all around the world while serving in the Army "Instead of asking about their problems, we were actually doing something creative first, and by doing that, it gives people the chance to relax and open up a bit." He believes the exhibition, which runs until 17 November, "really showcases people's emotions through colour". "The creative outlets are very good in helping people re-connect with trauma or to be social and engage with their community," he said. "It's very, very brave to be able to put something on the wall... it can be quite an emotional thing to do." Ben wants to encourage others who have experienced trauma to give art a go. He said: "Being on your own and in your own mind can be the worst place in the world, so reach out and find someone, talk to someone and things will get better." If you have been affected by issues raised in this article you can visit the BBC Action Line page. "If I paint a mountaintop, it's not really a mountaintop; it's an idea of a mountaintop," said artist Ed Ruscha. Some artists are so weird and wonderful, you just can't stop thinking about them. Maybe that's why "CBS Sunday Morning" profiled Ruscha in 1983: and again in 2011 ... and now, a third time. Asked about his reputation for being laid back, Ruscha said, "Well, that's probably 'cause I'm fatigued from doing all this painting, see?" "But interviews, you love doing, right?" asked Pogue. "Oh, I love, love doing interviews, yeah!" he laughed. New York's Museum of Modern Art is presenting the biggest Ruscha show ever. "Here's an artist who is now in his mid-80s, who's without question one of the most important living artists, not just in the United States, but in the world," said museum director Glenn Lowry. "He may deploy irony in interesting ways, but there's something in almost everything he does that you can grasp and understand personally." The exhibition, "Ed Ruscha / Now Then," is a career-spanning exhibition containing more than 200 works. "They're from all these different periods and years -- I forget what some of 'em are like, and, 'What was I thinking when I did that?'" Ruscha said. After growing up in Oklahoma, in 1956 Ruscha drove across the country to Los Angeles to attend art school. Already, some of his career-long themes were forming, like gas stations. He published a now-famous photo book of 26 gas stations, called "Twentysix Gasoline Stations," and made painting after painting of one in particular, a Standard Oil station in Amarillo, Texas. What is it with the gas stations? "You can ask yourself, 'Is it about the gas station, or is it about this beautiful oblique that almost cuts that canvas into two perfect halves?'" asked Christophe Cherix, the show's curator. Burning buildings crop up fairly often, too, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (to which the exhibition will move next year). "I had a distaste for museums in a sense," Ruscha laughed. "It was a little protest, probably!" An installation view of Los Angeles and Hollywood also play recurring roles. "I liked the weather out there, and I liked the palm trees and hot rods and all that kind of stuff," Ruscha said. "I still live there, and I love it and I hate it!" In 1965, he stood on the back of a pickup truck and photographed every single building on Sunset Boulevard -- all 22 miles of it. He repeated the project again, and again -- 30 times, by his count. Part of Ruscha's photographs of buildings along the length of Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, pre-Google Street View. The historic Lytton Savings Bank, at 8150 Sunset, was demolished in 2021. / Credit: Edward Ruscha There was a period in the seventies when Ruscha made his paintings with anything but paint. He tried gunpowder, tobacco juice, egg yolk, axle grease, caviar, even his own blood. "I did all that when I was bored with paint," he said. "I just thought, 'I'm gonna take a breather here and use some other materials.'" Including, at one point, chocolate -- an entire room made of chocolate and paper. "You can't transport it. You can't ship it," said Cherix. "They have to bring the chocolate, and melt the chocolate, and do it really on site." A room covered in paper printed in chocolate, by Edward Ruscha. / Credit: CBS News But few Ruscha paintings are as recognizable as his word art. "I liked the monosyllabic utterings," he said. "Oof and boss and things like that. Ace. I always felt like 'Ace' was a funny name. I just thought, 'Well, it'll make a good picture.'" Of course, not everybody "gets" all of his paintings, not even MOMA director Glenn Lowry. Pogue asked, "Can we agree that some of these paintings are cryptic?" "Totally!" Lowry replied. "They are cryptic, and they're fascinating." An installation view of Ruscha's word art, from the exhibition As Ruscha explained, "To try to step back and explain it, that's almost like searching for bones in ice cream. Probably is not gonna happen. You just have to step back and look at things, not to think too much about what they mean." At age 85, Ruscha still lives in L.A., and still makes art. Still sells a lot of art, too. One work, "Hurting the Word Radio, #2" from 1964, went for more than $52 million at Christie's four years ago. Pogue asked, "Is that the painting that you would've chosen as your most valuable?" "No, I sure wouldn't!" Ruscha laughed. "I have another painting back over here (the 1963 "Noise, Pencil, Broken Pencil, Cheap Western") that I felt like was my favorite painting that I've ever done." Artist8 Ed Ruscha. / Credit: CBS News Asked to describe seeing his life's output of work in one building, Ruscha said, "It's almost like an avalanche, you know, of things that have happened throughout my life. And I kind of liken it to when I look back on all the eggs that I've eaten in my life. Sort of a cascade of all these eggs coming at me, you know?" For more info: "Ed Ruscha / Now Then," at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City (through January 13, 2024), and at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (April 7, through October 6, 2024)Exhibition Catalogue: "Ed Ruscha / Now Then: A Retrospective," edited by Christophe Cherix with Ana Torok and Kiko Aebi (Museum of Modern Art), in Hardcover format, available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.orgEd Ruscha Catalogues Raisonnes Story produced by Julie Kracov. Editor: George Pozderec. Gaza hospital workers are "overwhelmed," Doctors Without Borders International president says U.S. "does not want to see firefights in hospitals" in Gaza, Jake Sullivan says "The situation is very, very bad," doctor says as heavy bombardment surround Gaza hospitals A mother and aunt from Seekonk, Massachusetts are now facing reckless endangerment charges in connection to an incident that occurred last month where a 4-year-old child suffered second and third degree burns over large portions of her body, according to Bristol County District Attorneys Office. Police responded to a residence on Oak Hill Avenue at 12 p.m. on October 9 where they found the 4-year-old girl with life-threatening burns, District Attorney Thomas Quinn said. Investigators determined the young girl was severely injured on October 8, approximately 17 hours before law enforcement or medical professionals were notified, according to Quinn. By the time the victim arrived at Hasbro Childrens Hospital, she was in critical condition, said Quinn. Her body was in shock due to the significant 2nd and 3rd degree burns that she was suffering from and her organs were not functioning properly, which put her at risk of cardiac arrest. The child remains hospitalized more than a month later, but her condition has since stabilized. Quinn said the investigation, which included interviews with Guilene Gerome, 38, the victims mother, Franzceska Gerome, 44, the victims aunt, and medical professionals, resulted in applications for arrest warrants that were submitted on Thursday. Both women were arrested by Seekonk police Saturday night on charges of reckless endangerment of a child and permitting substantial injury to a child, Quinn announced Sunday evening. The aunt is also facing assault and battery on a child with substantial injury. Quinns statement did not include details about how the injury allegedly occurred and said that additional facts of the case cannot be disclosed until the women are arraigned. They will be in court on Monday. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW More than 180,000 people across France, including 100,000 in Paris, marched peacefully on Sunday to protest against rising antisemitism in the wake of Israels ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, representatives of several parties on the left, conservatives and centrists of President Emmanuel Macrons party as well as far-right leader Marine Le Pen attended Sundays march in the French capital amid tight security. Macron did not attend, but expressed his support for the protest and called on citizens to rise up against the unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism. However, the leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, Jean-Luc Melenchon, stayed away from the march, saying last week on X, formerly Twitter, that the march would be a meeting of friends of unconditional support for the massacre in Gaza. The interior ministry said at least 182,000 people marched in several in French cities in response to the call launched by the leaders of the parliaments upper and lower houses. No major incident has been reported, it said. Paris authorities deployed 3,000 police troops along the route of the protest called by the leaders of the Senate and parliaments lower house, the National Assembly, amid an alarming increase in anti-Jewish acts in France since the start of Israels war against Hamas after its Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel. France has the largest Jewish population in Europe, but given its own World War II collaboration with the Nazis, antisemitic acts today open old scars. Holding a French flag, Robert Fiel said marching against antisemitism is more than a duty. Its a march against violence, against antisemitism, against all (political extremes) that are infiltrating the society, to show that the silent majority does exist, the 67-year-old said. Family members of some of the 40 French citizens killed in the initial Hamas attack, and of those missing or held hostage, also took part in the march, which Paris police said drew 105,000 participants. Patrick Klugman, a lawyer and a member of Freethem committee working to obtain the release of people held by Hamas and other groups in Gaza, said the large participation in the march is meaningful and symbolic in reassuring Jewish communities in France. I am very proud of my country because of this mobilization, Klugman said. I feel less alone than in the past weeks and days. Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France known as CRIF said he was encouraged Sundays show of support, but the question remains, he told French broadcaster BFM at the march, what will be done (against antisemitism) tomorrow? Tomer Sisley, an Israeli and French actor insisted the massive show of solidarity proves that majority of French citizens are against violence and hate against any religious and ethnic group. Were not Jews, were not Muslims, were not Christians, Sisley said. We are French and we are here to show that we are all together. French authorities have registered more than 1,000 acts against Jews around the country in the month since the conflict in the Middle East began. Former French president Francois Hollande said there are many French flags in the protest but what unites us is not just a flag, its what it represents, its the value of freedom and the value of human dignity. In a letter addressed to the French on Sunday, Macron vowed that perpetrators will be prosecuted and punished. A France where our Jewish fellow citizens are afraid is not France, Macron said in the letter, published in Le Parisien newspaper. He called on the country to remain united behind its values and work for peace and security for all in the Middle East. Macron said he will attend in my heart and in spirit, but not in person. My role is to build unity of the country and to be firm on values, Macron said Saturday on the sidelines of Armistice Day commemorations to mark the end of World War I. French far-right leader Marine Le Pen attended Sundays march amid fierce criticism that her once-pariah National Rally party has failed to shake off its antisemitic heritage despite growing political legitimacy. After arriving to the march with the president of the party, Jordan Bardella, Le Pen dismissed critics and said that she and the party members are exactly where we need to be. She called on other politicians to take a break from fomenting political controversies during the march. Le Pen and other far-right officials showed up at the end of the march, hundreds of meters away from government members and other officials who led the demonstration. Borne, who is the daughter of a Jewish Holocaust survivor, twitted the presence of the National Rally is not fooling anyone. The president of the Paris region council, Valerie Pecresse, a former conservative presidential candidate, denounced hypocrisy, saying that National Rally officials ran against her in past elections who were clearly antisemitic people and Marine Le Pen never sanctioned them. As of Saturday, officials counted 1,247 antisemitic acts since Oct. 7, nearly three times as many as in the whole of 2022, according to the Interior Ministry. Sundays march in Paris appears as the biggest gathering to denounce antisemitism in France since a 1990 demonstration against the desecration of a Jewish cemetery. France has banned a number of pro-Palestinian demonstrations, although supporters have marched in several French cities in the past weeks, including thousands demanding a cease-fire in Gaza in a protest in Paris last Sunday. Surk contributed from Nice, France. Video journalist Nicholas Garriga in Paris contributed reporting. AUSTIN (KXAN) An Austin police officer is dead after he was struck by gunfire while trying to rescue two people being held hostage during a Saturday morning standoff situation. Austin Police were called to a reported stabbing at a home on the citys southwest side shortly before 3 a.m. The department said officers entered the house in order to free other victims. When they did, the suspect shot at the officers. Those officers retreated from the home in order to call in SWAT. A SWAT team arrived a short time later. As they tried entering the home, police said there was an exchange of gunfire between SWAT and the suspect. We heard more gunfire: Neighbors discuss scary moments of hostage situation Two SWAT team members were struck. Both were taken to an area hospital where one died. Austin Police Interim Chief Robin Henderson identified that officer as Jorge Pastore. My heart is heavy today, said Henderson in a social media post. Please help me and our APD family pay tribute to SPO Jorge Pastore for his brave & heroic actions. Sir, well take it from here. Pastore joined Austin Police in 2019 as part of the 141st Cadet Class, according to Henderson. He was commissioned as a patrol officer in 2020 and also served in APDs Honor Guard, SWAT Gold Team, Counter Assault Strike Team (CAST), and Special Response Team (SRT). Pastore is survived by his wife, two stepsons, parents and two sisters, Hendersons post reads. Support pours in for APD officer killed, another injured in line of duty The APD Honor Guard also took to social media to remember Pastore. We ask that you keep the entire Pastore family, our second SWAT Officer who was seriously wounded and his family in your thoughts and prayers during this very challenging time, the Honor Guards post reads. Memorial service details are pending, Henderson said. The other injured officer, who has not yet been identified, was in stable condition, Henderson said Saturday morning. Authorities said two people were found dead in the home, and the suspect died from their injuries. Additional details have not yet been released. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com. The 'cyber securiry incident' has affected operations at ports in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Fremantle (SAEED KHAN) Ports operator DP World said Sunday it had made "significant strides" towards resuming normal freight trade at major gateways into Australia, which have been crippled for two days by a cyber incident. Government agencies held crisis talks over the weekend in response to what Home Affairs and Cyber Security Minister Clare O'Neil described as a "serious and ongoing" breach that has disrupted operations at key ports. "DP World manages almost 40 percent of the goods flowing in and out of our country," she added in a post on X. The port operator halted internet connectivity at its terminals in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Fremantle on Friday to prevent "any ongoing unauthorised access" to its network, a company spokesperson said. The disruption has not prevented containers from being taken off vessels but trucks needed to transport them have not been able to drive in or out of the terminals, DP World senior director Blake Tierney said. In a statement, Tierney said the company had made "significant strides" working with cybersecurity experts and was testing key systems "crucial for the resumption of regular freight movement". The company was seeking to restore normal operations "as quickly and safely as possible", he said, and was investigating "the nature of data access and data theft". "DP World Australia is working hard to assess whether any personal information has been impacted," Tierney added. Australian Federal Police have said they are investigating the incident. National Cyber Security Coordinator Darren Goldie said on X on Sunday that the company has told the government any disruption to port operations is "likely to be a number of days, rather than weeks". "DP Worlds IT system remains disconnected from the internet, significantly impacting their operations," he added. Despite the disruption, the port operator is able to "access sensitive freight if necessary - for example, in a medical emergency," Goldie also said. - Lucrative target - After emergency meetings on Saturday, Goldie again convened the National Coordination Mechanism on Sunday with representatives from government, maritime and logistics sectors to manage the government's response. Australia's National Emergency Management Agency also attended the talks. Goldie, an air marshal in the Royal Australian Air Force, was appointed the inaugural national coordinator last July in response to several cyber attacks. Cybersecurity experts have said inadequate safeguards and the stockpiling of sensitive customer information have made Australia a lucrative target for hackers. Medibank, Australia's largest private health insurer, said in November 2022 that hackers had accessed the data of 9.7 million current and former customers, including medical records related to drug abuse and pregnancy terminations. Just two months earlier, telecom company Optus fell prey to a data breach of similar scale in which the personal details of up to 9.8 million people were accessed. Those two incidents were among the largest data breaches in Australian history. Optus, Australia's second-largest phone provider, apologised to its more than 10 million customers last week over a "technical network outage" that crashed electronic payments, disrupted phone lines used by emergency services and stopped people accessing government services. The Australian government has launched an investigation into that unexplained glitch, although it has not been described as a cyber attack. There were 76,000 cybercrimes reported to the Australian Cyber Security Centre last year, although experts warn many more go unreported. ryj/mtp Democratic strategist David Axelrod, former senior adviser to President Obama, said in a Sunday interview that he is not concerned about poor polling numbers for President Biden a year away from the 2024 election. I have no concerns about polls a year out. I mean, you have to look at them and analyze them and adjust, Axelrod said in an interview on CNNs State of the Union. But I was in a situation as a strategist for Barack Obama in 2011, where we were facing some difficult polls, he noted. Axelrods comments come as Biden has faced a series of bad polls in the last few weeks, including a New York Times/Siena College poll that showed Biden trailing former President Trump in a hypothetical rematch in five of six key battleground states. Axelrod also pointed to a subsequent CNN poll showing similar results. Axelrod noted, however, that the primary concern he has is with voters concern about age. The one number in the polling that was concerning and in the CNN poll that followed after the New York Times poll had to do with age, and thats one thing you cant reverse, he said. No matter how effective Joe Biden is behind the scenes, in front of the camera, what hes projecting is causing people concerns, and thats worrisome, Axelrod said. Axelrod has recently come under scrutiny for comments he made suggesting Biden might want to consider stepping aside ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Axelrod clarified in the CNN interview, however, that he was not calling on Biden to step aside and instead only stressed that he ought to think about it. Biden, at 80 years old, is the oldest president to serve in the White House. Trump, the leading GOP candidate in 2024, is 77 years old. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley took a firm stand on the House floor last Monday against a Republican-led housing appropriations bill that omitted critical support for The Pryde, an LGBTQ+ affordable housing initiative. The project, which aims to assist LGBTQ+ seniors in the Boston area, had $825,000 in federal funding removed by the GOP majority on the House Appropriations Committee. I oppose this legislation for the draconian cuts and dangerous provisions included in it, Pressley said, condemning the exclusion as a glaring oversight in a bill that she believes otherwise addresses critical funding priorities. The congresswoman accused her colleagues of hypocrisy, saying, It would seem with my colleagues across the aisle that the word freedom is selectively applied. Related: House Republican Terrorists Target LGBTQ+ Community Center Funding in Unprecedented Move Highlighting the hardships faced by LGBTQ+ seniors, the Democrat emphasized, It does not apply to my bodily autonomy. It is not applied to intellectual freedom for our women, African-Americans, or LGBTQ siblings when it comes to our books, and it does not apply to the freedom to love who you love. Ayanna Pressley Blasts GOP, Affirms Support for The Pryde LGBTQ+ Senior Housing Project in Boston www.youtube.com The Pryde... would meet a critical need in my district at a time when mortgages are skyrocketing, and one-third of LGBTQ seniors are living in poverty, Pressley stated, shedding light on the economic struggles within her constituency. Pressley, vice chair of the Task Force on Aging and Housing, argued against the bills implications. Republicans are choosing homophobia over housing, profits over people, cruelty over compassion, she said. Pressley further criticized the Republican action as a display of contempt, connecting the denial of funds to broader societal issues. This act of policy violence contributes to the physical violence that far too many LGBTQ folks experience, she said. The towers will be the basilica's third highest once the site is completed (Josep LAGO) A celebratory light show graced the newest towers of Barcelona's Sagrada Familia basilica on Sunday as the iconic attraction moves closer to completion 141 years after construction started. The final two of the four Towers of the Evangelists, 135 metres (443 feet) high and dedicated to Matthew and John, were finished in September with the addition of figures representing a human bust and an eagle. The other two, dedicated to Luke and Mark and crowned by cow and lion sculptures, were completed last year. Archbishop of Barcelona Juan Jose Omella blessed the structures in the basilica on Sunday before the light show kicked off. The towers will be the basilica's third highest once the site is completed. Only the Tower of Jesus Christ, designed by famous Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi to be the building's summit, remains unfinished. The developers expect to finish the tower in 2026, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of Gaudi's death. The basilica's construction committee initially set a 2026 target to complete the entire basilica, but the Covid-19 pandemic set back the project. The Sagrada Familia "will be finished in 10 years maximum" barring major problems, the head of the committee's board, Esteve Camps, told local newspaper La Vanguardia on Sunday. rs/tpe/imm/giv A retired Barrow County Sheriffs Office K9 passed away Friday after battling hip dysplasia. According to sheriffs deputies, K9 Ace crossed the rainbow bridge after a hard-fought battle, where his mind was strong but his body had failed him. Deputies said Ace had suffered enough, and while at a veterinary visit Friday chose to let him rest. Aces former handlers and family members gave him treats, candy and a cheeseburger as a final farewell. The sheriffs office said they were able to love on him one last time. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] TRENDING STORIES: Plenty of tears were shed and continue to fall but we try to find comfort and peace because he is no longer suffering, deputies said. Ace was a narcotics unit K9 for years, deputies said, describing him as good at the job and a fast learner, able to pick up scents quickly and saying he easily passed the hardest certification tests around. While working at BCSO, Ace was able to help the department find countless amounts of narcotics, and was even requested to help agencies in other counties due to his abilities. Deputies said Ace will be missed but his service to the community will never be forgotten. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] IN OTHER NEWS: A man swept off a Northern California beach died, firefighters reported. Rescuers responded to South Beach at Point Reyes National Seashore at 9 a.m. Friday, Nov. 10, the Marin County Fire Department said on Twitter, now rebranded as X. A fisherman had been swept off the beach by a wave, SF Gate reported. Searchers, including swimmers, boats and a helicopter, found the man at 10 a.m. and airlifted him to the beach, where he was pronounced dead, firefighters said. Authorities did not release the mans identity. The U.S. Coast Guard, Marin County Sheriffs Office, California Highway Patrol and Sonoma County firefighters and deputies took part in the search. Point Reyes is about 60 miles northwest of San Francisco. What to know about drowning At least 4,000 people die from drowning every year in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and drowning is a leading cause of death for children. Some factors can make drowning more likely, including not knowing how to swim, a lack of close supervision, not wearing a life jacket and drinking alcohol while recreating near or in water. The National Drowning Prevention Alliance said there are tips to help keep you safe in the water, including checking local weather conditions, never swimming alone and choosing the right equipment. Dont hesitate to get out of the water if something doesnt feel right, the group said on its website. Whether its that the current is getting rough, rain has started to fall, or your body is just not responding like you would like it to due to fatigue or muscle cramps, then just leave and return to the water another day. Its always a good thing to trust your instincts. Dog walker finds historical human skeleton in desert, California sheriff says Man finds wife trampled by elk in back yard, Arizona officials say. She died 2-year-old finds gun dropped on day care playground and shoots herself, Nevada cops say Israeli policemen detain a demonstrator that was participating in a vigil against the arrests of leaders of the Arab-Israeli community, in Tel Aviv on November 9, 2023. Credit - Ahmad GharabliAFP/Getty Images As Israel continues its war to eliminate Hamas in Gaza, its government is waging a simultaneous battle to root out dissent at home. On Thursday, Israeli authorities detained several high-profile Israeli Arab leadersamong them former parliamentarian Mohammad Barakeh, the chairman of the High Follow-Up Committee, the national representative body of Palestinian citizens of Israelfor organizing a protest vigil against the ongoing war in Gaza. Earlier this week, Israels high court rejected a petition by Arab Israeli political parties and human rights advocates challenging a police ban on demonstrations against the war in two Palestinian towns. Israeli lawmakers also passed an amendment to the countrys counterterrorism law that introduced a new criminal offense for consuming terrorist materials, which the human-rights organization AdalahThe Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel warned would criminalize even passive social media use. Indeed, dozens of Palestinian citizens of Israel are estimated to have been arrested for speech-related offenses, including one woman who was reportedly charged with inciting terrorism over her WhatsApp status, which read, may God grant them victory and protect them. The crackdowns amount to an attack on the entire Arab population, says Aida Touma-Sliman, an Arab Israeli lawmaker representing the left-wing Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (known as al-Jabha or Hadash in Arabic and Hebrew, respectively) in the Knesset, the Israeli legislature. Read More: As War Rages in Gaza, Violence Surges in the West Bank Speaking with TIME by phone from Jaffa, Touma-Sliman discussed the arrests of her colleagues, the wider crackdown on anti-war expression in Israel, and what it means for the countrys minority Arab population. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. TIME: What has the situation in Israel been like for Palestinian citizens since Oct. 7? Aida Touma-Sliman: Since the beginning of this, we were very cautious. We were very clear in our position and feeling really shocked by what happened on the 7th of October. More From TIME Meanwhile, the minister of national security [Itamar Ben-Gvir] was distributing weapons all over the cities. The police chief [Kobi Shabtai] said very clearly that we will never allow any demonstration against the war and whoever wants to send sympathy to Gaza will be sent there. On top of that, we knew that on the public level, there are groups of very right-wing people who are doing a kind of incitement against the Arab population. They are tracking people who are working in Jewish institutions, students, doctors. They are tracking their Facebook and their social media. And if there is a small signeven in the pastabout your Palestinian side, they will report directly to the Minister of the National Security and people will be persecuted. We had hundreds of people either investigated or arrested. Can you talk about the circumstances that led to your colleagues arrest? We understood that the threat to our population was really serious. Our main concern was not to bring our community to be attacked, so we considered very carefully how we were going to protest. The first attempt was when the High Follow-Up Community decided to have two big meetings indoors: one was with Jewish democratic forces to start talking about the situation and the position against the war, and second was the massive popular meeting for the Arab communitybut again, indoors, because we were not sure that if we do it outdoors that its not going to be dangerous for the participants. The police called the different halls, the premises we were supposed to have the meetings in, and threatened that they are not allowed to have these meetings and, if they do it, they will suffer economically. We were not able to find a place that can be rented and the police published a declaration that we are not allowed to have those meetings. So instead, we did a virtual Zoom meeting where more than 450 people, two thirds of them Israeli Jews, participated and it was a really powerful and good meeting. They stand clearly against the war. And then we decided that there is no way not to demonstrate or to say anything about what is happening in Gaza. So we decided that only between 20 and 30only the Arab leadership, members of the High Follow-Up Committee, including the MKs and party leaderswill have a protest. Only standing, in Nazareth, with one slogan: Stop the War. We told the police that we are going to have this protest, that its going to be only leadership, that its not going to be a massive demonstration or something like this. The next day, when Barakeh was heading to Nazareth, they arrested him. How do you interpret these crackdowns? Is this an attempt by the Israeli government to effectively criminalize expressions of Palestinian identity and solidarity? Not only the Palestinian identity. I think that whatever they couldnt pass through the judicial overhaul, they are passing now under the cover of the war. When nobody is paying attention, they are eliminating the freedom of speech. They are not allowing any real opposition. Yesterday night, there were two protests in Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem led by our Jewish comrades against silencing the Palestinian community. And they were cracked down brutally. Because the Palestinians are the main power against the policy of occupation, of destruction, of war, it looks like its only criminalizing the Palestinians. But it is also criminalizing the anti-war voices. They are behaving in a fascist way. They are establishing a fascist regime under the pretext of the war because the war has political goals relating to conquering Gaza and annexing a large part of the West Bank. They need to prepare the legislation to protect them later on and they need to silence any opposition for that. Is there any meaningful political opposition to the government right now? There is political opposition to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by Yesh Atid, opposition leader Yair Lapids party, which is in opposition to him because he is not doing enough, in their opinion, and they want to replace him. But they are not against the war policy. Wemeaning Hadash and Ahmed Tibis Taal Partyare the only ones who are voting against. There is no real opposition. All of them are supporting what the government is doing. What does this all mean for Palestinian citizens of Israel today? You have to understand that many of our workers and employees who are working in Jewish areas are not going to work or asking to work from their homes because they are feeling insecure. We have seen what happened to our students in Netanya, where they were in their dormitories and they were attacked. Instead of arresting those who were calling Death for Arabs and trying to attack these students, they evacuated the students. And they are not allowed to go back to their dormitories. People feel that they are under constant danger. Are you concerned that the policies of this crackdown might outlast the war? It will stay. None of [Israels leaders] will dare even to try to change it. The atmosphere is really bad. I dont think that any government that will come will challenge theseat least not immediately. Its going to take years. How do you see this ending? There are signs that they are starting to go for a ceasefire. I dont think its going to end, really. Netanyahu understands very clearly that the day the war ends, his career is also going to end. There is a lot of criticism and the voices are more and more clear about himthat he should resign, that he should leave his position, that he is responsible for what happened. So he understands that very clearly and Im afraid that he will look badly for a victory photo or a victory moment that can convince people to keep him. Is there anything else youd like to add? I think a message should be clear to the Biden administration that they are as much responsible for what is happening in Gaza. The massacres of people, children who are killed thereBiden is as responsible as Netanyahu for the unconditioned support and the financial and weapons that are sent to Israel. And Im tired. Thats it. Write to Yasmeen Serhan at yasmeen.serhan@time.com. Democrats are raising concerns that President Bidens standing among young voters is in jeopardy after polling released this week showed Biden effectively tied with former President Trump among young voters. A New York Times/Siena College survey released Monday showed Biden virtually tied with Trump among voters younger than 30, with 30 percent backing Biden and 29 percent backing Trump. Thirty-four percent said they backed independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Meanwhile, an Emerson College poll released last month found 45 percent of voters younger than 30 backing Trump, while 43 percent said they supported Biden. The latest data is surprising, given Bidens victory over Trump among young voters in 2020. According to AP VoteCast, Biden won 61 percent of voters between the ages of 18 and 29. Young people as we know have always been fiercely independent, said John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics. Its a more cynical electorate with God knows how many more independent candidacies, which on the youth cohort are more likely to hurt Biden more than Trump. The polling comes as Biden has faced backlash among young voters and activists for his handling of the Israel-Hamas war. Earlier this week, several progressive groups, including March for Our Lives, GenZ For Change, and the Sunrise Movement, penned an open letter to Biden, warning his handling of the Israel-Hamas War could depress turnout among Millennial and Generation Z voters come next year. We write to you to issue a very stark and unmistakable warning: you and your Administrations stance on Gaza risks millions of young voters staying home or voting third party next year, the letter read. Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) reiterated the same sentiment in an interview on CNN. The primary concern for everybody is the status of Palestinians and the human rights, as well as Israelis too, the safety in the region, Ocasio-Cortez told the network. So I try not to look at this through an electoral lens but through what the right thing to do is. But I think its certainly something that is, that should be top of mind when it comes to the Democratic coalition. When asked about the latest polling showing Biden seemingly in a slump with young voters, however, Democrats point to what they see as the pivotal role young voters played in Tuesdays off-year elections. If you want to see how people are going to vote, look at how they are voting, said Jack Lobel, spokesperson for the Gen Z group Voters of Tomorrow. On Tuesday, we saw young voters turn out in Virginia and in Ohio and in Kentucky and vote for President Bidens ideology. Democrats also say polls and predictions have missed the mark on young voter turnout in the past. The polls for the last several years on young voters have missed the mark every single time. We just had an election, and we were told right before the election that young people were probably not going to vote as overwhelmingly Democratic or turn out at the rates they did, said Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez, president of the youth voting organization NextGen America. Were not riding the pollercoaster, she continued. Were doing the hard organizing work to make sure that young voters turnout and young voters are overwhelmingly progressive. I dont think this poll is reflective of the political reality that has played out every single election post-2016, she added. Ramirez pointed to top motivators for young Democratic-leaning voters, including climate change, student debt relief and a Trump candidacy. In 2020, Joe Biden was not the youth vote candidate, its true, she said. But what we saw is that young people did turn out and vote for him overwhelmingly, and they did it also in repudiation of Donald Trump and also for progressive policy. And Democrats are quick to note the recent poll numbers are not about Trump gaining ground with young voters, but rather Biden losing ground. I think its that Biden has taken a big hit with younger voters and is just not top of mind and I think that there is a restlessness thats sort of playing. But I do not think that this is a move toward Trump by young voters by any stretch of the imagination, said Jon Reinish, a Democratic strategist. Reinish predicted young voters will ultimately choose Biden over Trump again, assuming Trump gets the nomination, pointing to their stances on climate change, abortion and democracy. Della Volpe said it was critical for the Biden administration and campaign to continue to communicate their stances and accomplishments on these issues in an effort to win young voters over. Its going to be important for members of the Biden-Harris team to constantly communicate the positive change in the country based upon youth participation, he said, citing issues like climate investments, diversity in government and bipartisan gun legislation. Still, Biden has faced questions over his age and whether that will ultimately be a factor in voter enthusiasm for his campaign. An AP-NORC poll released in August found that 77 percent of voters younger than 45 said they thought Biden was too old to serve as president effectively. Among Democrats aged 18 to 29 years old, 76 percent said they believed Biden was too old to run for president. However, Democratic activists argued it is Bidens ideology rather than age that will be the biggest factor. President Biden being 80 years old does not matter to me how I live my life, said Lobel, who is 19 and voting in his first presidential election next year. Him investing in my education, in my future as a person whos going to inherit this world, this economy, this climate, this matters to me. As a 19-year-old, these are the numbers I care about, not his age, he said. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Joe Bidens top national security adviser addressed the growing Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip in an interview on Sunday and defended the Israeli governments claims asserting that Hamas commanders were hiding in the vicinity of Gazas hospitals and medical centres. The bloody conflict has shocked millions around the world, both in terms of the initial Hamas terrorist attack and Israels military response. The death toll in Gaza continues to climb as Israels military vows to destroy the militant group, which is effectively in control of the territory. Among the more controversial aspects of the siege is the persistent allegation that Israels forces have either deliberately or inadvertantly hit hospitals with airstrikes and other munitions. Doing so would directly violate international law; however, there are exceptions to those established rules, with the main one being if medical buildings are used partially or otherwise for an act harmful to the enemy. This distinction makes the Israeli governments assertion that Hamass command centres often lie within or beneath hospitals all the more relevant. In recent days, reports of Israeli military strikes hitting Gazas hospitals have jumped significantly. A statement posted Saturday from the internationally-renowned medical group Doctors Without Borders claimed that Israeli forces had been seen firing upon civilians attempting to flee al-Shifa Hospital, one of Gazas main medical centres, and on Sunday the group denounced the Israeli military again, while calling for attacks against al-Shifa to cease. President Bidens national security adviser Jake Sullivan appeared this morning on ABCs This Week and gave perhaps the White Houses most extensive reaction yet to the Israeli governments defence of its actions. There is plenty of open source information to indicate that Hamas uses lots of different civilian institutionsincluding hospitalsto store weapons, for command and control, to house its fighters, national security adviser Jake Sullivan tells @JonKarl. https://t.co/iWQrBSP2Q9 pic.twitter.com/MV0fzQUTu2 This Week (@ThisWeekABC) November 12, 2023 There is plenty of open source information to indicate that Hamas uses lots of different civilian institutions, including hospitals, to store weapons, for command and control, to house its fighters, he told ABCs Jonathan Karl. But he went on to say that even were that to be the case, the US government did not support a limitless Israeli attack on such spaces. That being said, Jon, we do not want to see a firefight in a hospital where innocent people, helpless people, people seeking medical care, are caught in the crossfire, he said. Explaining that the White House was having an active conversation with their counterparts in Israel on the matter, Mr Sullivan said that the US viewed the Israeli government as having a responsibility to protect civilians in conflict zones, including ones supposedly being used as human shields. Some Israeli officials, meanwhile, have considerably fed tensions and outrage with statements calling for the Israeli military to complete what they call a second Nakba, the forced ouster of their people from occupied Palestinian territories. A leaked Israeli military document obtained by news outlets fed fears that those calls may be acted upon. Mr Sullivan also addressed that issue on Sunday, declaring that the US would not support the forcible displacement of the Palestinian people or the reoccupation of Gaza, though he added that the Biden administration at the same time would not support any ability by Hamas to wage future attacks. National security adviser Jake Sullivan tells @JonKarl that the U.S. position is that there will be no reoccupation of Gaza" after Hamas is defeated by Israel. No reduction in the territory of Gaza. No forcible displacement of Palestinians." ttps://trib.al/5ACwGV2 pic.twitter.com/PYqSLg9ySg This Week (@ThisWeekABC) November 12, 2023 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden wants to re-establish military-to-military ties with China, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday, days before the president and the Chinese leader are set to meet. Biden will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in person for the first time in a year on Wednesday during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco. It will be only the second in-person meeting between the two leaders since Biden took office in January 2021. "The president is determined to see the re-establishment of military-to-military ties because he believes it's in the U.S. national security interest," Sullivan said in an interview with CBS' "Face the Nation." "We need those lines of communication so that there aren't mistakes or miscalculations or miscommunication." Sullivan said restored military ties could take place at every level from senior leadership to the tactical operational level, as well "on the water and in the air in the Indo-Pacific." Sullivan said on CNN's "State of the Union" that Biden would seek to "advance the ball" on military ties during his meeting with Xi, but declined to provide further details. "The Chinese have basically severed those communication links. President Biden would like to re-establish that," Sullivan said. "This is a top agenda item." The Biden-Xi meeting is expected to cover global issues from the Israel-Hamas war to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, North Korea's ties with Russia, Taiwan, the Indo-Pacific, human rights, fentanyl production, artificial intelligence, as well as "fair" trade and economic relations, a senior U.S. official said. Relations between the two countries grew frosty after Biden ordered the shooting down in February of a suspected Chinese spy balloon that flew over the United States. But top Biden administration officials have since visited Beijing and met with their counterparts to rebuild communications and trust. (Reporting by Katharine Jackson, Arshad Mohammed and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Scott Malone and Grant McCool) President Biden on Sunday spoke to Qatars leader, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, about ongoing efforts to increase humanitarian assistance into Gaza and to secure the release of all hostages held by Hamas, which includes a 3-year-old American toddler. Biden thanked the Qatari leader personally for his earlier efforts to secure the release of hostages from Hamas, including two American citizens, and the urgent ongoing efforts to secure additional releases, according to a readout of the call. One hostage in Hamass custody, according to the White House, is a 3-year-old American, whose parents were killed by Hamas on Oct. 7. There are about 240 hostages taken from Israel and being held in Gaza. The two leaders agreed that all hostages must be released without further delay, the readout said. Qatar has been a key player in negotiations between Hamas and Israel to try and secure the release of hostages a point underscored by national security adviser Jake Sullivan in multiple Sunday show appearances this weekend. On providing aid and protection for civilians, the readout said, The two leaders discussed the need to protect innocent civilians and ongoing efforts to increase the continuous flow of urgently needed humanitarian assistance into Gaza. The readout said the leaders shared a vision for peace in the region. The President affirmed his vision for a future Palestinian state where Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side with equal measures of stability and dignity. He noted that Hamas has long been an impediment to that outcome, the readout read. The two leaders agreed to continue their efforts to advance a shared vision for a more peaceful, secure, prosperous, and stable Middle East region, it added. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. President Joe Biden said Americas veterans are the steel spine of this nation as he marked Veterans Day during a visit to Arlington National Cemetery. In remarks at the Memorial Amphitheater, the commander in chief recounted famous battles fought by U.S. troops and said those deployments of soldiers are linked in a chain of honor that stretches back to our founding days. Each one bound by a sacred oath to support and defend. Not a place, not a person, not a president, but an idea, to defend an idea unlike any other in human history. That idea is the United States of America. Its larger than us. Arlington Cemetery staff preps for Veterans Day Nov. 11, once known as Armistice Day, is the anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I in 1918. Biden said that was unlike any war the world had ever seen before. The ceremony was personal for Biden and first lady Jill Biden. Vice President Kamala Harris talks with first lady Jill Biden before President Joe Biden speaks at the National Veterans Day Observance at the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023. (Andrew Harnik/AP) Bidens son Beau enlisted in 2003 in the Delaware Army National Guard and deployed to Iraq in 2008 for a year as a member of the 261st Theater Tactical Signal Brigade. A captain, he earned the Legion of Merit and Bronze Star. Beau Biden later served two terms as the states attorney general. He died in 2015 of brain cancer. We miss him, the president told the crowd, recounting how he pinned the bars on his son on the day he joined the National Guard. We come together today to once again honor the generations of Americans who stood on the front lines of freedom. To once again bear witness to the great deeds of a noble few who risked everything, everything, to give us a better future, he said, paying tribute to those who have always, always kept the light of shining bright across the world. Biden said that as commander in chief, I have no higher honor. As the father of a son who served, I have no greater privilege. He said that our veterans are the steel spine of this nation and their families, like so many of you, are the courageous heart. US President Joe Biden wants to restore military ties with China, Jake Sullivan, the White House National Security Adviser, has said. Source: Sullivan in an interview with Face The Nation on CBS, Reuters reports Quote: "The president is determined to see the re-establishment of military-to-military ties because he believes it's in the U.S. national security interest. We need those lines of communication so that there aren't mistakes or miscalculations or miscommunication." Details: Sullivan noted that the restoration of military ties can take place at all levels from the senior leadership to the tactical and operational level, as well as "on the water and in the air in the Indo-Pacific." On CNN's State of the Union, Sullivan said Biden would try to "advance the ball" on military ties when he meets with Xi Jinping, but declined to elaborate. Quote: "The Chinese have basically severed those communication links. President Biden would like to re-establish that," Sullivan said, adding that "this is a top agenda item." Biden will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in person for the first time in a year on Wednesday during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco. This will be only the second face-to-face meeting between the two leaders since Biden took office in January 2021. Biden and Xi are expected to discuss global issues ranging from the war between Israel and Hamas to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, North Korea's ties with Russia, Taiwan, the Indo-Pacific region, human rights, fentanyl production, artificial intelligence, and as well as "fair" trade and economic relations, a senior US official said. Background: The Financial Times reported that Joe Biden would bring up the need to restore communication channels between the armed forces of both countries during talks with Xi Jinping in San Francisco on 15 November. Support UP or become our patron! LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) Michigan State Sen. Jon Bumstead (R- North Muskegon) has introduced a bill to allow schools to offer an option for a gun safety and hunting course. Bumstead introduced Senate Bill 664 with the backing of the Michigan Department of Education and the Department of Natural Resources. Its also supported by the Michigan United Conservation Club. Amy Trotter, CEO of Michigan United Conservation Club, said offering a class in school will foster an appreciation of conserving the states natural resources. We simply want to create future conservation stewards throughout our state, she told News 2s sister station, WLNS. And the best way to do that is through education. And the place where kids are is in the schools. Weapons detection pilot program successful at Clarksville school, sheriff says She said the legislation, if it becomes law, would encourage youth to become involved in hunting. Our hunting ranks are shrinking, she said. Were not doing a good enough job getting new kids in to replace the people who are aging out of the hunting activities. So this is a great way to really recruit and retain individuals. The legislation would allow a school to recreate an opt-in physical education class that will include education about gun safety and proper hunting skills. The class would be available to students in grades six through 12. The legislation would not allow firearms or ammunition into a school, and the course would have to be taught by a certified hunter instructor. Trotter said those are important skills, whether a person takes up hunting or not. The gun safety component also serves as a firearm protection education moment as well removing some of the unknowns about guns. Abstinence doesnt work, she said. You actually have to educate someone to help them understand it, demystify it, and allow them to learn how to utilize it properly. However, gun safety advocates said the legislation focuses on the wrong issues. Wilson County Schools considering lawsuit against social media giants Theyre not interested in addressing this public health crisis with the urgency that it deserves, said Dylan Morris, co-founder of No Future Without Today. The organization grew out of the Oxford School Shooting that killed four students and injured seven others. A teacher was also wounded. Morris said there are more pressing issues surrounding guns than proper usage and safe hunting practices. He said guns shouldnt be discussed at all in schools. Guns are the leading cause of death for children in Michigan, he said. And so we need to actually be focusing on preventative measures that will go long before children get their hands on guns. Rather than guns and hunting, Morris has a list of concerns that a course could address to have an impact on what he labeled a public health crisis. Prioritizing social-emotional learning in schools, he said. That is yet to be mandated. To make sure that students are actually taking care of themselves and taking care of others. And getting the support at school that they may not be getting at home. Bumsteads bill was referred to the Natural Resources and Agriculture committee. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2. Bipartisan talks on a border security package are complicating work on an emergency spending package requested by the Biden administration, raising more questions about whether Congress will find a way to provide aid to Ukraine by the end of the year. A group of senators, including Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), have discussed the potential contours of a border item, but differences over the contours of a border deal are putting the whole package in jeopardy. Republicans are pressing for the talks to be centered narrowly on the border and argue that any bill that does not deal with decreasing the number of people crossing the border will not fly with their members. Across the aisle, Democrats are demanding that Republicans deal not just with border security but with measures that would allow people to immigrate into the country. Its a seemingly intractable divide that has long bedeviled lawmakers in both parties, and it now endangers the aid to Ukraine. Theres a reason why we havent done bipartisan immigration reform in 40 years, Murphy told reporters Thursday. Murphy, well-known for his advocacy for gun control, said the border talks feel harder than last years gun safety negotiations, which did end with a deal. Im not confident well get there, he said. This is still a bit of a triple bank shot. The foursome, along with other members who are pitching in with talks, have been working throughout the weekend on the border portion of the emergency supplemental spending package. Murphy told reporters that he wants a deal before lawmakers break for the Thanksgiving recess, while Tillis is aiming for one by the end of the year. The North Carolina Republican exclaimed oh gosh no when asked about striking a deal before Thanksgiving. Republicans are adamant that this bill will not include immigration items that Democrats will want as part of any package. When The Hill asked Lankford about the negotiations, he made it clear the talks were about the border and not immigration. It really is, Lankford said. Its a national security bill, so were dealing with all national security issues. Were talking about border security, said Tillis, who noted that items like citizenship for Dreamers is off the table in this series of talks. Thats not what were talking about. Were talking about fixing a problem thats so pronounced at the border that we cant even have a discussion about that population right now because this administrations allowed the problem to get so bad. Murphy repeatedly declined to delve into the talks with reporters this week, but he indicated that without some Democratic priorities garnering inclusion that center on nonborder issues, the bill will have trouble getting across the finish line. Our party doesnt view the issue of immigration as just an issue thats happening at the border, he said. We care about Dreamers, and we care about how long it takes to get a final conclusion. We care about legal immigration numbers. Another big question is whether anything the Senate negotiators can agree to would pass muster with House Republicans. Senators engaged on a possible immigration component ahead of the Sept. 30 government funding deadline to potentially grease the skids of a bill with the House GOP, but that effort was quickly dropped as negotiators in the Senate realized nothing they could pass would do the trick for them. I dont even have confidence in a given week whether Im going to be dealing with the same Speaker, Tillis said when asked about concerns with the House. So right now Im just trying to solve it in the Senate. One Senate source noted that the group has been discussing the issue for much of the year, which included a visit to the border in January. A group of Senate Republicans last week unveiled a border proposal based largely on H.R. 2, the House GOPs bill, that would curtail border access and set tighter restrictions on those seeking asylum. Murphy told reporters that the group is not working off of that blueprint, but Senate Republicans are increasingly coming under pressure to adopt portions of that proposal. The Heritage Foundation sent a memo to top Senate staffers late last week panning the talks, arguing that the current legislative item being discussed falls woefully short. It omits key H.R. 2 provisions, is poorly drafted, and sets a trap for Democrat political cover tradeoffs in negotiations that will do little to address the crisis, the memo read. Without an immigration deal, it is unlikely that Ukraine aid would move given the growing skepticism within the GOP and conservative ranks as part of a supplemental that would also include aid for Israel, Taiwan and humanitarian purposes. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had been in lockstep with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) but tossed his support behind a border component in a bid to bring enough of his conference around to back the $105 billion supplemental. While the other parts of the supplemental are widely popular, headlined by the aid for Israel, its Ukraine and the border that will shape the supplemental in the near term. When we address that crisis, then it will help provide the votes for security aid for Ukraine, said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). The reality is if President Biden wants Ukraine aid to pass, were going to have to have substantial border policy changes. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The Russians were defeated with mortars and MK-19 grenade launchers Ukraines Steel Border Assault Brigade defeated Russian infantry near Kupyansk-Lyman, as seen in a video published on Facebook by Ukraines State Border Guard Service on Nov. 12. The invaders were defeated using mortars and MK-19 grenade launchers. Read also: Ukraine attempt to disrupt Russian supply lines as it waits for help from adverse weather Ukraines General Staff earlier reported Russian unsuccessful assault operations near Synkivka and Ivanivka in Kharkiv Oblast, and Stelmakhivka and Nadiya in Luhansk Oblast. Ukrainian defenders successfully repulsed seven attacks in the Kupyansk sector and countered enemy aviation-supported assault operations near the Serebryansky forest in Luhansk Oblast in the Lyman sector. 198 invading Russians were killed, with eight tanks and four armored vehicles destroyed, in the battle near Kupyansk-Lyman. Read also: Russians to launch third wave of Avdiivka offensive as soon as weather improves Russian shelling in the sector has seen a significant increase during the day, 808 were recorded, Ground Forces Command spokesperson, Volodymyr Fityo, reported. There were also 13 enemy assaults and 12 airstrikes, employing fire support helicopters, attack and bomber aircraft, and12 kamikaze drones. 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 36-year-old Bradenton man has been charged with murder after his mother and her boyfriend were found dead at a local RV park on Friday, the Manatee County Sheriffs Office said in a news release Saturday. Thomas Matejcek now faces two counts of second-degree murder. He was arrested on Friday after a deputy responding to a distress call saw him running away from the Arbor Terrace RV Park, the sheriffs office said. When deputies arrived at the 200 block of 55th Avenue Terrace West, they said they found a 55-year-old man and a 62-year-old woman dead on the floor of the mobile home. The sheriffs office previously withheld the names of the victims citing Marsys Law, a Florida law that prevents the release of a victims identifying information. In Saturdays update, they were identified as Thomas Matejceks mother, Patricia Matejcek, and her boyfriend, Sean Harrison Sr. The couple lived at the RV park together, the sheriffs office said. No other updates were provided. Londons Metropolitan Police are actively looking for individuals who held antisemitic signs during a pro-Palestinian demonstration on Saturday, sharing photos of individuals it said were under investigation for hate crime[s]. One photo showed a woman holding a sign reading No British Politician Should Be A Friend Of Israel that included a swastika. Another photo showed men wearing what appeared to be Hamas-style headbands, with police writing that they are investigating the people in this photo in relation to a hate crime that took place today. Authorities said they detained at least 150 people as part of the protests. Read it at Sky New Read more at The Daily Beast. Catherine Smith started flying on budget airlines in 2015. She's booked one-way flights on airlines like Frontier for as little as $15. Smith says budget airlines are just as safe, if not safer than the best airlines. I love a deal, especially one involving a plane ticket. I've been flying budget airlines almost exclusively for the last eight years and have no intentions of stopping any time soon. My foray into budget travel began more out of necessity than anything else. In 2015, I'd just quit my full-time job, moved into an apartment above my grandparent's garage, and began trying to build a career as a remote freelancer. Money was tight but I also had trouble staying put I blame that on growing up an Army brat and moving every two to three years. Affordable airlines, like Frontier, Play (formerly WOW) , Allegiant, and even Spirit have made traveling within a budget possible. The Play (formerly WOW) pilot rocked the plane allowing Smith and other passengers to get a view of the fjords as they flew over Greenland. Courtesy of Catherine Smith I flew on a round trip ticket from Newark, New Jersey, to Iceland for less than $300 with Play. When I lived in Southwest Virginia, I flew Allegiant from Asheville, North Carolina, to West Palm Beach for less than $100 round trip. I flew Spirit from Philly to Los Angeles for $75, and regularly fly with Frontier for less than $50 round trip. Flights on traditional airlines were nowhere close to my budget My favorite deal, and the one that really helped me see what was possible with budget travel, was the deal I used to visit my grandmother in 2015 she lived in Alabama. Flights on traditional airlines were close to $500, and nowhere near my budget. So I booked a $15 flight from Trenton, New Jersey, to Atlanta on Frontier and visited with a friend from college. Then I flew to New Orleans the next day on another $15 ticket, where I spent two nights in a cheap Airbnb exploring the city. From New Orleans, I took a two-hour ride on the Megabus to Alabama for $12 and spent a few days with my grandparents before returning to Atlanta for $15 and eventually ending up with friends in Orlando again, for $15 before making my way back to Philly for a final $15. All of a sudden, that $500 was going a lot further. I refuse extra in-flight offers to keep my ticket price low While a $15 airline ticket sounds like a pricing mishap, it's actually quite common. Frontier regularly offers deals like these. In fact, my partner and I recently booked flights from Philadelphia to West Palm Beach for a total of $38 round trip $19 each way. But whenever I talk about my love for budget airlines, there's always a handful of people who dismiss me with comments like, "But it's Frontier; I'd have to pay extra for everything else ." Smith enjoys looking at the animals painted on Frontier's planes. Courtesy of Catherine Smith This isn't true. No one is forcing you to pay for the extras. You get a seat on the plane and can bring a personal item for a pretty low-base price. Anything outside of that is simply an offer, to which I consistently enjoy saying "No." Just by packing a little lighter and forfeiting my option to select a seat, I'm able to travel the world for a fraction of the price traditional airlines charge. And what incentives are more expensive airlines offering me a slightly cushier seat, room for a larger suitcase, and a can of soda? I'd rather they keep their ginger ale while I book another flight or four with Frontier or Allegiant. I don't buy into the hype that budget airlines aren't comfortable, safe, and reliable This summer, there were trending headlines claiming Frontier Airlines is the worst US airline . I won't pretend the headlines didn't give me pause. But in my experience, delays and flight interruptions are far and few between. Yes, they happen from time to time and I can easily get cranky when they do, but I understand it's the reality of air travel, whether I am on Frontier or Delta . If I'm flying for a special occasion, I build in buffer days no matter what airline I am traveling with and will also book my flight using Capital One Travel and add the Flight Disruption assistance. This allows me to "rapidly rebook" a flight with any airline if I'm delayed more than two hours, but I haven't had to use it yet. Smith typically travels with only personal items that can fit under the plane seat in front of her. Courtesy of Catherine Smith In my opinion, budget airlines are just as safe, if not safer than the best airlines. According to AirAdvisor, the only safety incidents of note in 2022 (for the top ten airlines in the US) were tail strikes when a plane's tail makes contact with the runway during takeoff or landing. Delta, Frontier, and JetBlue each had a single tail strike. This leads me to believe I'm no safer flying Delta (the number one airline) than I am flying Frontier (the tenth) and I am theoretically safer on other budget airlines, like Spirit and Allegiant. I also don't find the comforts of traditional airlines worth the upcharge. Do I enjoy the novelty provided by a seat back screen when I occasionally fly traditional airlines? Sure. And I won't pretend that traditional airlines don't have slightly cushier seats. But none of these "comforts" are comfortable enough to justify the extra couple of hundred dollars when I can just pack a travel pillow, bring my refillable water bottle, and download movies and podcasts before taking off. Most times, I only fly with a personal item and it's not just because of the fees Frontier, Spirit, and Allegiant often use purses, briefcases, and children's backpacks as examples of personal items. You'd be surprised just how much space a bag of that size provides if you're mindful and organized. Of course, it depends on the time of year, destination, and length of my trip, but using packing cubes, I can typically fit quite a bit into my personal item: three to five tops, a couple of pairs of pants or shorts, a dress or two, undergarments, a bathing suit, two pairs of shoes, a journal, my laptop, basic toiletries, a small tote, a small purse and other miscellaneous items. Frontier allows passengers to carry personal items that are about the size of a backpack. Courtesy of Catherine Smith For me, the switch to flying with only a personal item was inspired by my experience traveling on a traditional airline to Bali. After three layovers and four flights, I arrived in Bali to find that my luggage had not. Thirty-six hours later, with no response from the airline, I headed to a mall in a neighboring town and spent the evening trying to find some cheap clothes to get me through my three-week stay. Five minutes after returning to the hotel, my suitcase was delivered without notice. I opened up my suitcase and just stared there was so much stuff in there: bathing suits, a hair straightener, beach towels, toiletries, books, pajamas, shoes, and more. These were the items I deemed essential and yet I had been making do without them. Over the next three weeks, I took stock of what I actually used and what was just dead weight. Now, packing is an opportunity to check in with myself before leaving home, reflect on my intentions for the trip, and determine where I'm at mentally and emotionally. Budget airlines might not be for everyone, but I'm happy to get what I pay for Many see budget airlines as being riddled with fees but I see it as a-la-carte air travel options personalized to my wallet and individual needs. They are making exploring the world, visiting loved ones, and experiencing new places and cultures accessible in ways that many of us could otherwise never afford. Read the original article on Insider Quietly giving behind the scenes has been Larry Clarks philanthropic approach for years. While he wears his love for the community on his sleeve, his giving has been silently tucked away, giving what was necessary and impactful for the nonprofits he cares about most. Clark, who has worked tirelessly for our county and embodies the concept of philanthropy, will be honored this week with the Community Foundation of Anne Arundel Countys prestigious Celebration of Philanthropy Award. The award presented to an individual whose lifetime commitment to philanthropy has had a direct and lasting effect on our community. Clarks charitable contributions to Anne Arundel County, both individually and through grants from the Deerbrook Charitable Trust, add up to more than $17.5 million over the past 25 years. In addition to providing financial support, Clark volunteers countless hours and provides hands-on expertise to local organizations, serving on boards and encouraging others to take philanthropic roles in the community. Clark will receive this award at CFAACs 23rd annual Celebration of Philanthropy Awards Luncheon on Nov. 17 at LIVE! Casino Hotel in Hanover. People like Clark impact our community for the better through their passion, dedication and generosity. CFAAC on Friday will honor him, nine other community recipients and four professional adviseors who have embraced philanthropy. Young Volunteer of the Year: Indu Bodala exhibits leadership and dedication within the Anne Arundel County Public Schools through her volunteer work with the school district and many area nonprofits such as SPAN and BKind. Young Volunteer of the Year: Andrew Nolan demonstrates extraordinary commitment to local nonprofits such as the Marshall Hope Corporation. His leadership on many projects and willingness to help out has made a significant impact in our community. Carroll H. Hynson, Jr. Award for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Philanthropy, named in honor of founding CFAAC board member Carroll H. Hynson, Jr. Maurice B. Tose has led the way for many county initiatives championing diversity, equity and inclusion, including playing a pivotal role in the building of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on the Anne Arundel Community College campus. Boots on the Ground Award: Peter Summers goes above and beyond to advance the mission of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Annapolis & Anne Arundel County. He does this through volunteering countless hours, mobilizing resources, leading by example and advocating for those in need. Corporate Philanthropist of the Year: M&T Bank has made a positive impact on the lives of people in the county through financial support and volunteer efforts with the YWCA, Anne Arundel County Food Bank and many other local nonprofits. In 2022 alone, M&T supported 105 nonprofits with corporate giving and provided 4,600 hours of employee volunteerism. Carol Thompson Lifetime Achievement Award, named in honor of CFAAC founder Carol Thompson. Michael (Mike) Ragland Sr. is a champion for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. He has been volunteering with local nonprofits such as Langton Green and Annapolis Civitan Club for many years. Legacy Award for Planned Giving: The Estate of Dr. Michael J. Kurtz. Kurtzs generosity during his life and then after his passing to local nonprofits such as the Wellness House of Annapolis and the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra is an inspiration to all. Volunteer of the Year: Scott Gregory gives liberally of his time to Books for International Goodwill, the Parole Rotary Club, St. Annes Church and many other community nonprofits. He has made an impact with his extensive volunteerism and commitment to others in need. Philanthropists of the Year: Mike and Trish Davis not only generously contribute to organizations such as the Maryland League of Conservation Voters and Chesapeake Bay Foundation through significant financial support, but they also demonstrate outstanding civic and philanthropic responsibility and exemplary leadership in advancing philanthropy. Professional Advisor Recognition Society The CFAAC Professional Advisor Recognition Society acknowledges professional advisors for their commitment and service to the community and their work to support philanthropy and encourage charitable giving in Anne Arundel County. The 2023 inductees are Danielle Cruttenden, McNamee Hosea; Frederick R. Franke, Franke-Beckett LLC; Nicole T. Livingston, Council, Baradel, Kosmerl & Nolan, PA and Justin Roudiez, White Oak Wealth Management. All of CFAACs honorees exemplify philanthropys power to create a better life for everyone and showcase what makes Anne Arundel County a wonderful place to live. Read their inspiring stories and find out more about CFAACs Celebration of Philanthropy Awards at cfaac.org. The Community Foundation of Anne Arundel County (CFAAC) is celebrating 25 years as a tax-exempt, 501(c)(3), publicly supported philanthropic organization with the long-term goal of building permanent funds that provide support to local nonprofit organizations through grants and special projects. Our mission is to inspire and promote giving in Anne Arundel County by connecting people who care with causes that matter. Established in 1998, CFAAC is one of the largest funders of nonprofit organizations in Anne Arundel County. CFAAC distributes $4 to $6 million annually. Lidiane Jones, Bumble's new CEO, has her work cut out for her to improve the company's outlook. The former Slack CEO has never led a public company before, and Bumble's stock isn't doing well. Jones told Financial Times she sees herself as an "underdog" and that will work to her advantage. Bumble's new CEO knows she has her work cut out for her to rescue the company's plunging stock and take over as the dating app's co-founder, Whitney Wolfe Herd, steps down from the executive suite. But Lidiane Jones, who moved to the US from Brazil to study computer science on a scholarship and recently left her role as chief executive of Slack to take on the challenge of running Bumble, told the Financial Times she knows what it's like to be underestimated. "The immigrant and the scholarship I think that's probably as underdog as I can get," Jones told the outlet in an article published Friday. The uphill battle Jones faces includes Bumble's stock falling to an all-time low Monday following the news that she'd succeed Herd as the app's leader in a rare deal between women in tech leadership. Stock for Bumble, a dating app that requires women to initiate conversation between matches, has fallen roughly two thirds since its IPO in 2021 to just $14.25 a share. Representatives for Bumble did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider. Jones spent less than a year as CEO of Slack before moving to Bumble, which is her first foray into running a public company and working on dating software though she has a long history in tech. And though a new trajectory for Bumble is unclear, Jones told the Financial Times she hopes to usher in "the next wave of innovation" and incorporate more artificial intelligence in the app. Recently, Jones told the Financial Times someone she met recently said to her, "'You look like someone that has been underestimated in your life and isn't that an advantage?'" Jones told the Financial Times. "And I looked at him and I said, 'Yes. It is.'" Read the original article on Business Insider Heres your weekly roundup of the latest retail, business and restaurant activity in and around Whatcom County: Beloved restaurant reopens The Mill at Seventh, a restaurant in Lynden has reopened its doors after being closed due to a sprinkler malfunction and flood damage back in September. The restaurant reopened Friday, Nov. 10 and will be open 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday at 655 Front St. Cremation chain company to open in Bellingham Neptune Society, a cremation service with multiple locations in Washington state has filed a permit to the City of Bellingham for a location at 118 W Stuart Rd. near Walmart. The permit was filed on Oct. 30 and has not been approved as of Nov. 9. Local restaurants offer 50% off All Jalapenos Mexican restaurants and Lunas Bistro in Bellingham are hosting a 50% off holiday promotion. On Wednesday, November 22, the restaurants will host Cash Day and give customers 50% off their total bill if the pay with cash, according to an email from Jesse Cantu, the restaurants president and CEO. Local events this month Bellingham is full of local events, markets, festivals and other events during the month of November. Heres your guide to this months events, trivia nights, live music and more. Thousands of people lined the streets in Cambridge and Ely, and elsewhere in the county, to mark Remembrance Sunday. From the youngest to the oldest, from new cadets to long-retired veterans, they came to honour those who made the supreme sacrifice. In Cambridge, a girls' choir sang the well-known words of the poem For the Fallen. While people in Ely saw a spectacular poppy drop before the two minutes' silence. In Cambridge, mayor Jenny Gawthrope Wood laid her wreath at the foot of the war memorial in Hills Road. She said: "I hope people will be able to take a moment to remember the sacrifices made by so many of their fellow Cambridge residents - and to keep in their thoughts all people who have been affected by wars and conflict, and continue to be affected today." A girls' choir gave a moving rendition of Laurence Binyon's poem, For the Fallen, and members of different faith groups offered readings and prayers. The village of Histon near Cambridge began its tribute with a solemn march to the war memorial, which commemorates those who were killed or missing in action after the two world wars. There were 41 names from World War One and 34 from World War Two. The City of Ely Military Band accompanied the parade of military and uniformed organisation and dignitaries in Ely. Among the speakers at the remembrance service in Ely Cathedral was the master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Lt Col Doug Chalmers, who commanded forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said: "It's not only Brits we remember today. "We soldiers also talk about those from other nations who served alongside us. It's their faces and their smiles, as much as those of the British soldiers who died alongside me, that occupy my mind." Poppies fluttered gently down from the Lantern Tower before the two-minute silence. Follow East of England news on Facebook, Instagram and X. Got a story? Email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp 0800 169 1830 Even after suffering multiple state-wide losses on the issue, the Republican Party is not backing down on abortion, party chair Ronna McDaniel said. Im proud to be a pro-life party, but we can win on this message, McDaniel said on Sundays Meet the Press. The American people are where we are, and they want common sense limitations. They want more access to adoption. We want to make sure that theres pregnancy crisis centers. These are things we can win on. McDaniel says Republicans can win on abortion because the American people are were they are pic.twitter.com/M4oYT4IFu5 Acyn (@Acyn) November 12, 2023 When asked about the Senate Republican campaign arm telling candidates to oppose a national abortion ban, McDaniel said, Were going to let the legislators and the Senators and congressional members stake their lane out. The Democrats are going to make it a national issue, though. And I do think we have to talk about this issue, because the Democrats will say were going to take it to the Senate and codify it. And so I think theres a lot of discussion to be had, but we cant just say its a states issue and be done. But are voters really on Republicans side? Signs point to no. As of this past May, the majority of voters (63 percent) oppose the Dobbs decision that overturned federal abortion protections, according to Gallup. In fact, since the Dobbs opinion, Americans have become increasingly pro-choice, with 52 percent identifying as pro-choice compared to polling conducted between 2007 and 2021 when no more than 50% of Americans identified as pro-choice, per Gallup. Despite what McDaniel says, Republicans have not been winning on these so-called common sense limitations. Repeatedly when abortion is on the ballot, voters choose to support the right to choose. Since Dobbs, states including Ohio, California, Michigan and Vermont have enshrined the right to abortion in their state constitutions. Elsewhere in Kentucky, Montana and Kansas voters have voted down efforts to restrict abortion access. And on the recent election day in Virginia, voters had an opportunity to keep a red state senate and flip the legislature, but instead Democrats won in both houses, creating a stopgap that will prevent GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin from pushing through anti-abortion legislation he hoped to pass. More from Rolling Stone Best of Rolling Stone A Childrens Museum of Pittsburgh partner is starting to collect sweaters for an annual clothing drive that honors the spirit of Fred Rogers. This is the third consecutive year YogaSix South Hills is partnering with the museum for the Annual Mister Rogers Neighborhood Sweater Drive. The yoga studio put out a sweater collection bin at its entrance in the Galleria of Mt. Lebanon, on Washington Road Sunday. Donors can drop off new or gently used sweaters of any size during YogaSix business hours until Dec. 15. We are grateful for the opportunity to partner with the Childrens Museum and support families in need, said Krissy Danburg, Studio Owner of YogaSix South Hills. Last year we collected over 240 sweaters, nearly twice as many as the year prior, which was incredible. Its important to us that we are more than just a yoga studio, we also have a passion and a mission to give back to our community. YogaSix is working with other fitness centers at the Galleria of Mt. Lebanon to support the sweater drive. Anyone wanting to donate sweaters can also do so at Club Pilates South Hills and StrechLab Mt. Lebanon. Once the collection period is over, the sweaters will be delivered to the Childrens Museum of Pittsburgh and distributed to non-profit organizations that aid families in the region. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW TRENDING NOW: Man charged in chase where Monroeville police officer was shot Have any $2 bills? You could be in for a big surprise Findlay Township Police looking for missing teen VIDEO: Steelers to honor Medal of Honor recipient at Sundays game DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts George Washington University used to be one of Josh Jurys top choices for college. Its vibrant chapter of Hillel, a popular club for Jewish students, piqued the interest of the Illinois high school senior, who wants to study international relations. That all changed a few weeks ago when backlash mounted at the private college over student protests of the Israel-Hamas war. In Jurys view, the universitys response to the controversial incident was really disheartening. He recently decided to take a gap year between high school and college. As disagreement over the war upends American higher education, hes not the only student rethinking his college plans. On top of the typical anxieties the college admissions process invariably brings, many Jewish and Muslim families are now drawing up a new set of criteria for which schools they hope their kids will attend next year. Over the next few months, exactly how college leaders navigate the ongoing strife could have a notable impact on which campuses parents and students ultimately choose. For Jewish students, in particular, the mayhem has the potential to accelerate a trend over decades of declining Jewish enrollment at the countrys most selective schools, where much of the controversy related to the war has been centered. In interviews and emails, more than a dozen Jewish parents and students told USA TODAY theyve reconsidered their prospective college lists in recent weeks while the Israel-Hamas war exposes deep divisions on college campuses. We are totally switching it up, said Jennifer Schultz, the parent of a Jewish 16-year-old who was previously considering the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University, in an email. Both campuses have, from the perspective of some Jewish parents, delivered tepid responses amid antisemitic threats. Campus chaos: Israel-Hamas war stirs free-speech battles at college campuses across US Another high school senior in Illinois added several colleges to her list in recent weeks based on how those campuses handled protests and antisemitism, her mom Janet Footlik wrote in an email. Safety and morality, which we assumed to be a basic right on every campus, became top items on her checklist, Footlik said. Not every school is meeting this need or demonstrating a concrete plan to deliver on it. 'Reckoning going on with Jewish families and inside many institutions' Perceived and explicit Islamophobia and antisemitism have thrown college campuses across the country into turmoil, even prompting a warning last week from the Education Department reminding schools that they have a legal obligation to curb discrimination or risk losing federal funding. Revitil Chkoury drapes an Israeli flag around her during a unity gathering for Israel at Florida Gulf Coast University's Seidler Hall in Fort Myers, Fla., in October. Alumni have spun into a state of agitation toward administrators, calling for presidents to step down and threatening to withhold sizable donations. Students have been arrested. Faculty are divided. Four college admissions experts or guidance counselors who serve Jewish students said the war has either impacted their students prospective colleges or become a source of anxiety for parents of graduating seniors. Theres a reckoning going on with Jewish families and inside many of these institutions, said Naomi Steinberg, a private college counselor in Florida who works mostly with Jewish students and parents. Muslim families are alarmed too. Two college counselors who work primarily with Muslim students told USA TODAY the wars ripple effects on campuses have become a big concern for the parents they work with. Abrar Omeish, an at-large school board member in Fairfax County, Virginia, said a Muslim high school senior told her he considered combing through his application and taking out references to his ethnic identity and pro-Palestinian activism. Abrar Omeish, an at-large school board member in Fairfax County, Virginia, who has spoken to with high schoolers in her district who participated in campus protests about the Israel-Hamas war. Kids were genuinely expressing fear that this could impact their college admissions, Omeish said after speaking with high schoolers in her district who participated in campus protests. Farheen Khan, a guidance counselor at Pillars Preparatory Academy, an Islamic school in New Jersey, said in an email that Islamophobic insults have been shouted at her and her students on college visits. She said that in a time of rising hate incidents, Muslim students might be safer at larger, more urban campuses instead of smaller ones. Islamophobia has increased drastically, and unfortunately students and parents have had to take safety into consideration as they make decisions for four-year commitments for higher education, she said. Tectonic shift in college approach Claudia Granville, the mother of Jewish high school seniors in Massachusetts, said her twins scrapped applications to two colleges because they felt statements about the war issued by individual departments at the schools to be antisemitic. She declined to specify which schools, worried that naming them could negatively affect her kids early decision applications. Its been a tectonic shift, she said, referring to their approach to college admissions. Granvilles family isnt the only one trimming its list of colleges. Lauren Cook, the dean of college and gap-year advising at Jewish Community High School of the Bay in San Francisco, said some of her students have also reconsidered their college applications. One junior downsized her list of prospective colleges from 10 to just three, she said. She doesnt feel like theres anywhere thats safe to go, Cook said. It was one of the more dramatic reactions Cook said shes fielded in recent weeks most of her seniors have stuck with their original plans. Yet concerns from parents and students related to the war have come up frequently, she said. Gary Berger, who is part of the National Association for College Admission Counselings special interest group for Jewish schools and students, said hes getting barrages of questions from parents across the country. He said he has yet to see a student pull an application because of the war, though. Protesters gather in response to the Israel-Hamas war in October at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. The outcry has prompted him and other counselors of both Jewish and Muslim students to scramble to come up with college admissions guidance theyve never had to give before. What you should be paying attention to is administrative response: Is there one? said Cook. Muslim, Jewish families already face changed college admissions landscape For many American families, the college admissions process has always been a black box. Guidance on how to navigate it isnt available to everyone, and that disparity drives some parents to shell out money for pricey private consultants if they can afford it. College rankings dont accommodate everyones wants, and the price tag, and sticker shock that comes with it, always looms over any decision. Even in the best of times, choosing the right school is a stressful undertaking. What college should I go to? This guide to campus culture can help you decide The process is even more labor-intensive for families from certain religious or ethnic groups. Muslim students, for instance, typically seek out colleges with vibrant Muslim Student Associations, single-sex dorms and easily accessible prayer spaces, said Hamzah Henshaw, who has worked as the college and guidance counselor for high schoolers at the Al-Noor Academy, an Islamic school in Massachusetts. Jewish students have their own distinct factors to consider: access to kosher dining halls, for instance, and accommodations for Jewish traditions and holidays. Those considerations can narrow a students pool of prospective schools in a big way. A study published in the academic journal Sociology of Education last year found that only about a quarter of American college campuses have Jewish or Muslim student groups. Though Henshaw said none of his students have pulled colleges from their lists: Its still early in the college application season. The Nov. 1 deadline for early decision applications only just passed, and deadlines for regular decision applicants arent until early next year. Many factors ultimately influence which colleges students choose. Still, he said, families will undoubtedly keep watch on the campuses where hate rears its head. Theres not an obvious safe haven. Zachary Schermele is a breaking news and education reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The Israel-Hamas wars quiet effect on college admissions Former New Jersey governor and Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie, visiting Israeli communities shattered by the militant attacks last month, said he supported Israel's rejection of a cease-fire in Gaza. The Israelis can't be asked to stand down in the face of a violent threat against their people from Hamas, he said. The U.S. must stand "shoulder to shoulder" with its ally, he said. To still be able to walk into one of these homes and smell the death, still, a month later, is something that I think the American people need to know," Christie said, wearing a bulletproof vest while touring the ruins of Kibbutz Kfar Aza. Christie is the first Republican presidential candidate to visit the region since war began last month. He visited Ukraine in August, stopping at the wall of remembrance in Kiev to pay tribute to fallen Ukrainian soldiers. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, center, visits Kibbutz Kfar Azza, near the Israel-Gaza Border, the site of an Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas, with Israel's Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, left, Sunday, Nov. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo) Christie told the Times of Israel that Israelis must fight until they are safe to "come back and "live here safely and securely. Until that comes, I dont think calls for a cease-fire make any sense." The last cease-fire following military fighting in the region occurred in 2021. It was broken last month when Hamas attacked Israel from the air, sea and land, killing more than 1,200 and taking at least 239 prisoners. Israel has engaged in a retaliatory campaign aimed at rooting out Hamas, classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, since that attack. The Hamas-run health ministry says more than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed as a result. We cant ask Israel to stand down if they believe there is still a legitimate violent threat against them and their people," Christie said. "And I think there is no question that there is. And so they must continue to fight until they have degraded that capability to a point where they can say to their people, come back and live here safely and securely. Until that comes, I dont think calls for a cease-fire make any sense. Even as anti-Israel protests flare up across the United States, including one last week in Washington, D.C., Christie said many Americans do support Israels right to defend itself. I want the people of Israel to know that there are hundreds of millions of Americans who stand with them, who understand the atrocities that were committed, Christie told the Times of Israel. In the future, we need to stand absolutely shoulder to shoulder with Israel, no daylight. Christie said he intends to return to the United States and speak about the need to help Israel. "America has no greater friend in the world than Israel, Christie told the Times of Israel. The story contains information from USA Today and the Associated Press. This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Chris Christie: Cease-fire wouldn't 'make any sense' for Israel A 41-year-old Clearwater man was killed early Sunday morning while walking on Interstate 75 in Marion County, the Florida Highway Patrol reported. Here's what we know: When did the incident occur? Sunday at 4:45 a.m. Police beat: Convicted felons face multiple charges in connection with carjacking/robbery Where did the incident happen? Northbound I-75 at mile marker 342. FHP's report According to the report, the man was walking in the right lane when he was struck by a vehicle. The vehicle then fled the scene. It's unclear as to why the man was walking in the roadway. This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: FHP: Clearwater man walking on I-75 killed in hit-and-run crash Former President Trump, waiting to testify in New York last week, has portrayed himself as a martyr helping his standing in GOP polls if not in the courts. (Jabin Botsford / Pool Photo, Washington Post via Associated Press) As he battles criminal prosecutors and civil suits in four jurisdictions, former President Trump is relying on three tactics: denounce, disrupt and delay. In the short run, that may be good politics; Trumps self-portrayal as a martyr appears to have cemented his hold on the Republican presidential nomination. But as a legal strategy, its been a bust. Trump has denounced prosecutors as thugs, judges as unfair and his indictments as illegitimate, which hasnt solved any of his problems in court. In New York last week, the former president was intent on disrupting the states civil suit against him on allegations of financial fraud. This is a very unfair trial, he lectured Judge Arthur Engoron. We have a very hostile judge. Engoron largely ignored the jabs. You can attack me in whichever way you want, but please answer the questions, he said. The judges are bending over backwards to avoid litigation over whether Trumps rights are being infringed, said Donald B. Ayer, who was a top Justice Department official in the George H.W. Bush administration. Theyre being smart. ... and the process is moving forward. Read more: Voters sent a clear message on abortion; Republicans don't want to hear it In two federal criminal cases, the former presidents main goal has been to delay. Polls have found that Trumps chances of winning next years presidential race could hinge on whether he is convicted of a crime before election day. A New York Times-Siena College survey reported that a conviction might prompt 6% of voters to change sides a shift big enough to flip the outcome. If Trump regains the presidency, he could escape accountability by ordering the Justice Department to halt its prosecutions. So, timing matters a lot. But his lawyers havent succeeded in postponing either federal case. In Washington, D.C., Judge Tanya Chutkan has scheduled March 4 to begin Trumps trial on federal election interference charges. In that case, Trumps best shot at delay lies with the Supreme Court, which could put the trial on hold while considering whether a former president can be prosecuted for decisions he made in the White House. Read more: Column: Biden and Blinken are planning for 'the day after' war in Gaza ends. Make that years after Trumps lawyers have filed a motion arguing that his effort to overturn Joe Bidens election was a legitimate exercise of his authority as president and that he should be absolutely immune from prosecution. Unsurprisingly, prosecutors have disagreed, arguing that Trumps attempts to persuade states to change their election results were acts he undertook as a political candidate, not as chief executive of the federal government. No court has decided whether former presidents are immune from prosecution, because no other former president has been indicted. If the issue reaches the Supreme Court, that would almost surely delay a trial for months. Id guess they could decide it by July 1, said Paul Rosenzweig, a former federal prosecutor. But even if they expedite, the Supreme Court is not expeditious. That timetable would still give Chutkan time to hold a trial before election day assuming the Supreme Court rules against Trump. In a second case, Trumps indictment on accusations of improperly retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Judge Aileen Cannon has been more sympathetic to his lawyers pleas for extra time to prepare. Last week, she refused their request to postpone the trial from her target date of May 20, but she promised to revisit the question in March. The burden of handling thousands of highly classified documents has already slowed pretrial proceedings, and lawyers say that court date is almost certain to slip. A third criminal case, the Georgia prosecution on charges that Trump and others conspired to upend the election result there, doesnt have a start date yet. In a setback for Trump, four defendants three of them former lawyers for his 2020 campaign have negotiated plea deals and agreed to testify for the prosecution. Since that isnt a federal case, Trump would not be able to halt the prosecution if he regains the White House, but he could try to persuade Georgias Republican-led state Legislature to intervene. But even if he loses every legal battle, Trumps scorched-earth tactics could still have a corrosive effect. Hes slowly eroding faith in the rule of law, at a terrible cost that will reap the whirlwind, Rosenzweig said. Get the best of the Los Angeles Times politics coverage with the Essential Politics newsletter. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Russian forces have intensified their assaults near occupied Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast as they attempt to take control of nearby positions, Ground Forces Commander Oleksandr Syrskyi reported on Nov. 12. Ukrainian forces are repelling Russian assaults in the area, Colonel General said in a Telegram post. In a separate post, Syrskyi reported visiting troops fighting in the Bakhmut and Lyman directions, examining options for further actions and methods to enhance the effectiveness of the combat deployment of our troops. Russian forces tried unsuccessfully to take back positions near Klishchiivka and Andriivka south of Bakhmut and near Robotyne in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces said in its morning report on Nov. 1. Andriivka and Klishchiivka were liberated in early September following dozens of minor daily assaults and substantial gains south of Bakhmut. The costly but carefully planned operation began in early summer. Meanwhile, the weather could affect the warfare on the ground, hindering movements of military hardware, Volodymyr Fitio, a Ground Forces spokesperson, told national television on Nov. 12. "If it starts raining now, the use of both aviation and combat drones will decrease. Consequently, it will be more challenging for hardware to move. However, artillery will continue to be used as before," he said, as quoted by the ZN.UA news outlet. Fitio also said that disrupting Russian supply lines and eliminating advanced positions are among the most crucial tasks for the Ukrainian military. Read also: As Bakhmut counteroffensive lags, soldiers burnt out from horrors of war Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Photo: The Canadian Press Smoke and flares rise over Gaza City during an Israeli strike in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Friday Nov. 10, 2023. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back Saturday against growing international calls for a cease-fire, saying Israels battle to crush Gazas ruling Hamas militants will continue with full force. A cease-fire would be possible only if all 239 hostages held by militants in Gaza are released, Netanyahu said in a televised address. The Israeli leader also insisted that after the war, now entering its sixth week, Gaza would be demilitarized and Israel would retain security control there. The position appears to run counter to post-war scenarios floated by Israels closest ally, the United States, which has said it opposes an Israeli reoccupation of the territory. Asked what he meant by security control, Netanyahu said Israeli forces must be able to enter Gaza when necessary to hunt down militants. Pressure was growing on Israel after frantic doctors at Gazas largest hospital said the last generator had run out of fuel, causing the death of a premature baby, another child in an incubator and four other patients.Thousands of war-wounded, medical staff and displaced civilians were caught in the fighting. In recent days, fighting near Shifa and other hospitals in northern Gaza has intensified and supplies have run out. The Israeli military has alleged, without providing evidence, that Hamas has established command posts in and underneath hospitals, using civilians as human shields. Medical staff at Shifa have denied such claims and accused Israel of harming civilians with indiscriminate attacks. Shifa hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia said the facility lost power Saturday. Medical devices stopped. Patients, especially those in intensive care, started to die, he said by phone, with gunfire and explosions in the background. He said Israeli troops were shooting at anyone outside or inside the hospital and prevented movement between buildings. Israels military confirmed clashes outside the hospital, but Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari denied Shifa was under siege. He said troops will assist Sunday in moving babies treated there and said we are speaking directly and regularly with hospital staff. Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, told broadcaster Channel 12 that as Israel aims to crush Hamas, taking control of the hospitals would be key but require a lot of tactical creativity, without hurting patients, other civilians and Israeli hostages. Six patients died at Shifa after the generator shut down, including the two children, spokesmen with the Hamas-run Health Ministry said. The unbearably desperate situation at Shifa must stop now, the International Committee of the Red Cross director general, Robert Mardini, said on social media. U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths posted that there can be no justification for acts of war in health care facilities, leaving them with no power, food or water. Elsewhere, the Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli tanks were 20 meters (65 feet) from al-Quds hospital in Gaza Citys Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, causing a state of extreme panic and fear among the 14,000 displaced people sheltering there. Israels military released footage which it said showed tanks operating in Gaza. The footage showed shattered buildings, some on fire, and rubbled streets empty of anyone but troops. A 57-nation gathering of Muslim and Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia called in their communique for an end to the war in Gaza and the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid. They also called on the International Court of Justice, a U.N. organ, to open an investigation into Israels attacks, saying the war cannot be called self-defense and cannot be justified under any means. Netanyahu has said the responsibility for any harm to civilians lies with Hamas. A Hamas official denied that their fighters opened fire at residents trying to leave Gaza City or its hospitals. Speaking by phone, Ghazi Hamad called such assertions by Israel lies and said Hamas doesnt have guards at hospital gates to prevent people from entering or leaving. The spokesman of the Hamas military wing said militants were ambushing Israeli troops and vowed that Israel will face a long battle. The Qassam Brigades spokesman, who goes by Abu Obaida, acknowledged in audio aired on Al-Jazeera that the fight is disproportionate but it is terrifying the strongest force in the region. Israels military has said soldiers have encountered hundreds of Hamas fighters in underground facilities, schools, mosques and clinics during the fighting. Israel has said a key goal of the war is to crush Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for 16 years. Following Hamas deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which at least 1,200 people were killed, Israels allies have defended the countrys right to protect itself. But now into the second month of war, there are growing differences over how Israel should conduct its fight. The U.S. has been pushing for temporary pauses that would allow for wider distribution of badly needed aid to civilians in the besieged territory where conditions are increasingly dire. However, Israel has only agreed to brief daily periods during which civilians can flee the area of ground combat in northern Gaza and head south on foot along the territorys main north-south artery. Since these evacuation windows were first announced a week ago, more than 150,000 civilians have fled the north, according to U.N. monitors. On Saturday, the military announced a new evacuation window, saying civilians could use the central road and a coastal road. On the main road, a stream of people fled southward, clutching children and bags, many on foot and some on donkey-drawn carts. One man pushed two children in a wheelbarrow. I am diabetic, and I have blood pressure issues. Where to go, and what do they want from us? said Yehia al-Kafarnah, one fleeing resident. Palestinian civilians and rights advocates have pushed back against Israels portrayal of the southern evacuation zones as relatively safe. They note that Israeli bombardment has continued across Gaza, including airstrikes in the south that Israel says target Hamas leaders but that have also killed women and children. Demonstrations and outrage continued. Police said 300,000 Palestinian supporters marched peacefully in London, the largest such event there since the war started. Right-wing counterprotesters clashed with police. Fear grows inside Shifa Shelling and explosions never stopped, said Islam Mattar, one of thousands sheltering at Shifa. Children here are terrified from the constant sound of explosions and the scenes they are watching. The Health Ministry told Al Jazeera there are still 1,500 patients at Shifa, along with 1,500 medical personnel and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter. Thousands have fled Shifa and other hospitals that have come under attack, but physicians said it's impossible for everyone to get out. We cannot evacuate ourselves and (leave) these people inside," a Doctors Without Borders surgeon at Shifa, Mohammed Obeid, was quoted as saying by the organization. Casualties rise More than 11,070 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2,700 people have been reported missing and are thought to be possibly trapped or dead under the rubble. At least 1,200 people have been killed in Israel, mainly in the initial Hamas attack, Israeli officials say. The military on Saturday confirmed the deaths of five reserve soldiers; 46 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground offensive began. Nearly 240 people abducted by Hamas from Israel remain captive. About 250,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate from communities near Gaza and along the northern border with Lebanon, where Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have traded fire repeatedly. Hezbollah is dragging Lebanon into a possible war," Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said after meeting with soldiers stationed along the border. The responsibility for running Ohio's youth prisons and local juvenile detention centers rests with elected officials: the governor at the state level and juvenile court judges at the local level. The governor and the judges, along with the administrators they hire, call the shots on how the centers should be operated; how employees are hired, trained and disciplined; and what strategies should be used to care for, protect and educate hundreds of incarcerated children. Gov. Mike DeWine appointed Amy Ast as director of the Department of Youth Services in December 2021. Ast, who previously worked at youth services from 1996 to 2017, oversees the three youth prisons and parole system and supports residential treatment and community treatment programs for youth. The Correctional Institution Inspection Committee, a bipartisan panel of lawmakers, inspects the youth prisons and publishes reports about its findings. But it has no authority over the 33 local juvenile detention centers, which are largely run by county judges and their hired staff. And because the juvenile system operates under confidentiality laws, it's exceedingly difficult for the public to see what's happening behind closed doors. [ Reporters with USA Todays network of Ohio newspapers spent eight months investigating the state's juvenile justice system. Consider supporting their work with a subscription. ] Ohio Department of Youth Services Director Amy Ast at Cuyahoga Hills Juvenile Correctional Facility in July. The agency operates three prisons for juveniles adjudicated of felony charges. The USA TODAY Network Ohio sent more than 30 public records requests to agencies across the state, seeking investigative reports, witness statements, personnel files, disciplinary records, surveillance footage and other documents. Some agencies readily turned over records. Our legal team prompted release of other records. And in some instances, such as investigations into allegations of state employee misconduct, the requests are still pending months later. During the course of investigating this closed system, the Ohio Department of Youth Services began requiring employees to re-sign a confidentiality agreement, promising not to divulge any information about incarcerated children without authorization. "I understand that failure to comply with the provisions of this notice may subject me to discipline up to and including termination," the agreement said. Often, it's press attention that brings about reforms. Other times, change comes via lawsuits brought by families, nonprofit organizations or the federal government. Ohio is at risk of getting sued again over conditions again, said Hamilton County Juvenile Court Judge Kari Bloom, who as a lawyer participated in a landmark 2004 lawsuit. "I think they're at risk for lawsuits from their kids, from staff," she said. "I mean, everything that you hear that's happening, it seems like it could be litigated." Hamilton County Juvenile Court Judge Kari Bloom said Ohio is at risk of getting sued again over conditions at youth prisons. In 2004, Ohio got sued over youth prison conditions: violence, poor health care, use of force and solitary confinement. The U.S. Department of Justice, which oversees civil rights violations, joined the lawsuit. The case settled in 2008 and the state agreed to add psychologists and social workers, increase medical care, expand training and reduce the use of solitary confinement. But now experts are concerned that Ohio is backsliding from that progress. It is unclear how much deeper problems go in the juvenile justice system because public records that could shed light have yet to be provided. In February 2022, the Gault Center, a national juvenile justice advocacy group, sent a four-page letter to the U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights division chief, Steven Rosenbaum. The letter detailed persistent problems including inhumane treatment, unsafe conditions, inadequate education and health care and chronic staff shortages. The Gault Center asked the feds to investigate. But Rosenbaum's staff didn't respond until August 2023 after The Enquirer, Columbus Dispatch and Akron Beacon Journal began asking questions. Some juvenile detention centers opened their doors for journalists, but others, including Franklin County and the multi-county facility in Stark County, declined to let us look behind the scenes. Hamilton County offered a tour but prohibited cameras, recorders, pens, notebooks and interviews. Cuyahoga and Summit counties, as well as a multi-county facility in Lancaster, opened their doors without major restrictions. Special Report: Ohio's juvenile justice system struggles with injuries, neglect A guard moves boys through a hallway at Multi-County Juvenile Detention Center in Lancaster in June. The Ohio Department of Youth Services provided a highly scripted tour of its best-run prison, Cuyahoga Hills Juvenile Correctional Facility. Ast attended the tour but was not willing to sit down for an interview. She offered written responses to questions submitted weeks in advance. Ast's answers to our questions are edited for brevity and clarity. Q: Ohio spends more than $200,000 a year per child in prison. Why is it so expensive? Ast: The state is responsible for education, medical care and other treatment that is aimed at preparing a young person to return to the community. The juvenile system must meet staffing ratios and educational requirements under federal law, which add to the costs. Q: Within three years of release, 43% of previously incarcerated children return to the juvenile system or go to adult prison. What is being done to lower the recidivism rate? Ast: At every point, incarcerated juveniles are given services, such as education and job training, designed to increase the likelihood of success once they return to the community. The 43% recidivism rate is lower than it was 10 years ago, but there is still room for improvement. Q: Given the cost and recidivism rate, is Ohio's approach to incarcerating juveniles effective? Ast: Local judges make decisions on what they believe best benefits public safety. When juveniles with felony adjudications are unsuccessful in community-based programs, judges determine the next step, which can include sending them to a youth prison. The juvenile correctional system is an essential part of public safety because it serves high-need children with some of the nation's best programs for disruptive, aggressive offenders. Q: Currently, 1 in 5 teacher posts are vacant while almost half of Department of Youth Services teens require specialized education. How is the department meeting the educational needs? Ast: Teacher shortages are a nationwide challenge. When a child arrives with an individualized education plan, the department follows that document. The state also contracts with licensed intervention specialists to supplement the teaching staff. The department has an approved state curriculum, and all materials meet state standards. Worksheets are based off content teachers use in the classrooms. A 16-year-old sits in the courtroom of Hamilton County Juvenile Court Judge Kari L. Bloom on Sept. 13. The juvenile is currently incarcerated in the Hamilton County Juvenile Youth Center. The leg shackles stay on during court, but the handcuffs come off. Q: Guards, parents and children report that juveniles are held in extended lockdowns due to staff shortages. How and when will this be fixed? Ast: Policy allows for lockdowns to maintain safety until a minimum number of employees are on shift. The lockdowns don't impact educational, behavioral health or medical service delivery. Q: What is your response to guards and incarcerated children who say bathroom breaks sometimes aren't provided during lockdowns at Indian River youth prison, forcing some to urinate and defecate in their cells? Ast: There are mechanisms for youth to file complaints. Any such allegation would be investigated and addressed. The well-being and care of youth remains our top priority. Q: Employees say they are required to work back-to-back shifts, due to staff shortages. What is your plan to fix this? Ast: Mandatory overtime is required due to vacancies. The agency remains committed to recruiting and retaining quality staff. Q: The number of children in state youth prisons increased 25.6% between 2020 and 2022, but the number of violent acts at the three youth prisons increased 57.8% during that time. Why? Ast: During the pandemic, the department kept juveniles in small groups to prevent the virus spread. In the spring of 2022, we dismantled those cohorts to normalize operations, such as going to school and youth activities. We anticipated that more youth moving about the prisons would lead to more altercations. Over the past year, we've returned to a back-to basics approach to managing and supervising youths. Also, body cams now in use have increased transparency and helped capture youth behaviors. Likewise, since the introduction of pepper spray, the department has seen a 36% reduction in staff assaults in the first six months of this year, compared with the last six months of 2022. Q: How does the department work to block contraband, such as drugs and cell phones, from getting into the prisons? Ast: Employees and incarcerated youths as well as areas are searched on a regular basis. The department works with the Ohio Highway Patrol and Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to bring in drug-sniffing dogs. And 10% of the incarcerated kids are randomly selected for drug testing each month. Laura Bischoff 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 The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio governor and elected judges are in charge of juvenile lockups The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has disbanded an advisory panel on hate crimes after the new director of public prosecutions concluded it had lost public confidence. The CPS suggested that the panel of community representatives that identify learning points for prosecutors and police no longer had public confidence and has now been dissolved. In a statement to The Sunday Telegraph, a CPS spokesman said: Hate crime scrutiny panels must command public confidence and this panel, which was already due to be reviewed, has now been dissolved. We look forward to taking on new advisory members in the near future. The decision was taken 10 days after Stephen Parkinson took over at the helm of the CPS, as the new director of public prosecutions. He replaced Max Hill, who insisted last month that calling for jihad is not automatically a criminal offence. A Government source said: The new DPP is right to clean house. Strong action and a fresh start is exactly whats needed to ensure something like this never happens again. The disbanding of the panel comes amid mounting concern about the views held and espoused by some influential advisers to the CPS and police. Last week, the Metropolitan Police said it had ceased taking advice from Attiq Malik, a hard-Left activist, after The Telegraph revealed footage of him leading chants of from the river to the sea and railing against global censorship by the Zionists. One of the panels members was Mohammed Kozbar, whom peers were told last month had publicly praised Hamass founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 2015 as the master of the martyrs of the resistance. Ministers have expressed concern that police and prosecutors were failing to effectively tackle hate crimes emerging. In response to questions from this newspaper, Mr Kozbar claimed that he was being subjected to repeated attempts to smear me as I pursue work to foster better community relations. He said: I condemn the targeting of all civilians, whoever they are. It is criminal to indiscriminately murder innocent men, women, and children. He supports the Palestinian people and their quest for freedom, as clearly expressed as a basic right within international law. Addressing his comments about Yasin, Mr Kozbar said: I spoke on the extrajudicial assassination of a paraplegic man who was wheelchair-bound. His execution, through an air strike, drew condemnation from the international community including the then United Nations Secretary General. My comments were made in that context and well before this organisation was proscribed. He continued: The current Israel-Palestine conflict is descending into an information war which is polarising communities. My singular focus is for a just peace in the region and, above all, an end to the violence. I am more interested in having good-faith conversations that support this objective and in conversations that diffuse tensions here in the UK. 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. A critically ill 8-month-old in the United Kingdom has been removed from life support following a contentious legal battle to have her transferred to Italy for treatment. Christian Concern, an organization representing the family of Indi Gregory, said she had been transferred from the Queens Medical Centre in Nottingham to a hospice and removed from life support following a court ruling on Friday. "She is fighting hard," her father said in a press release. Despite appeals from Indi's parents, Dean Gregory and Claire Staniforth, and the Italian government to transfer her to Bambino Gesu Childrens Hospital in Rome, U.K. judges ruled to end her life support, the Associated Press reported. Her parents also petitioned to take her home to die. That appeal was also denied, the BBC reported. This undated family handout photo shows Indi Gregory at 6 months. More: Declaring a child brain dead can prompt showdowns. New rules seek to resolve those doubts. Judges say rule based on the best interest of the child Court of Appeal Justice Peter Jackson criticized the parents' use of legal tactics in opposition to the courts order, AP reported. Doctors caring for Indi, who has mitochondrial disease, said she has no awareness of her surroundings and is suffering. Specialists said her treatment caused pain and was ineffective, the BBC reported. They advised that she be allowed to peacefully die. Her parents had sought to send her to Italy for experimental treatment that could prolong her life. More: Texas mother 'heartbroken' when judge says hospital can remove baby girl from life support Jackson said doctors were put in a extremely challenging position by what he called manipulative litigation tactics," the AP reported. He said judges make decisions on cases like Indi's with careful consideration of the child's best interest. What is mitochondrial disease? Mitochondrial diseases or disorders refer to a condition where the mitochondria, tiny parts of the cell, malfunction, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The mitochondria's role is to produce energy. In mitochondrial disease, the mitochondria are unable to efficiently turn oxygen and sugar into energy, causing the cells to not work properly. There are many types of mitochondrial disease that can affect different parts of the body, including the brain, heart, kidneys and muscles. Some youths with a mitochondrial disease may not show any symptoms. For others, symptoms vary based on what cells have malfunctioning mitochondria. Symptoms can include fatigue, weakness, metabolic strokes, seizures, cardiomyopathy, arrhythmias, developmental or cognitive disabilities, diabetes and impairment of hearing, vision, growth, liver, gastrointestinal or kidney function. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: UK judges rule to remove 8-month-old Indi Gregory off life support The rain did not stop thousands of people paying their respects across Northamptonshire on Remembrance Sunday. In Daventry, the names of more than 150 soldiers who died during the World Wars were read out by local schoolchildren. The congregation at a church service following the wreath laying were told there were just two villages in the county that did not lose anyone. Meanwhile, Northampton's two MPs were among those who laid wreaths in the county town. The names of the war dead that were read out during the Daventry ceremony included 114 from World War One and 40 from World War Two. At the church service, Chris Ward from the Royal British Legion told the congregation that there were believed to be just 53 "thankful villages" in the UK. He said: "It was the author Arthur Mee in the 1930s that suggested the phrase 'thankful village', which is basically a village which had lost nobody in the war because all those who left to serve came home again." He added that Woodend, near Towcester, and East Carlton, near Corby, were the only two thankful villages in Northamptonshire. Umbrellas dominated the scene in Northampton as hundreds of people watched a parade of veterans, uniformed organisations and local dignitaries. The wreath-laying at the war memorial on Wood Hill was followed by a service in All Saints' Church. The rector, Father Oliver Coss, told his congregation that the threat of war had never gone away. He said: "Here, we discharge our solemn obligation, a personal covenant with the past, in no small measure of awareness that tomorrow might be the day in which we might have to send out children to do what we thought our grandparents and great-grandparents had done for the last time." Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion please email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk PARIS (Reuters) - Thousands of marchers joined lawmakers in Paris on Sunday to condemn a surge in antisemitic acts in France during the conflict in the Gaza Strip, but arguments over political participation clouded an intended show of unity. The protest, called by the leaders of France's two houses of parliament, was prompted by a three-fold increase in the number of antisemitic incidents compared with the whole of 2022, according to French authorities, since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Political figures, including Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and former presidents Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, headed the march, holding a banner with the slogan "For the Republic, against antisemitism". They led several renditions of the French national anthem. Police estimated 105,000 people had taken part in Sunday's march. President Emmanuel Macron, whose decision not to attend drew criticism from some politicians, published an open letter supporting the march and condemning "the unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism". The run-up to the march was marked by wrangling over which parties should be represented. The far-right National Rally's decision to take part prompted the radical-left France Unbowed party to distance itself from the event, though other left-wing parties attended. Left-wing lawmakers have joined pro-Palestinian protests in recent weeks, including a march in Paris on Saturday. Calls by President Macron in recent days for a ceasefire in Gaza, including in an interview in which he opposed Israeli bombing, have been welcomed by French leftist politicians but rebuked by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Protests against antisemitism also took place in other French cities on Sunday, including in Marseille where some 7,000 people turned out according to a police estimate. Elsewhere in Europe, concern is running high over antisemitism and other forms of extremism being whipped up. In Britain, a large pro-Palestinian demonstration on Saturday was marked by skirmishes between far-right counter-protesters and the police. (Reporting by Gus Trompiz, Tangi Salaun, Lucien Libert and Marc Leras; editing by Barbara Lewis) A group of Czech activists on Nov 11. condemned Russias war crimes in Ukraine by hosting a demonstration outside of the Russian Embassy in Prague, Radio Liberty reports. The meeting was organized by a group of Czech and Slovak grassroots activists called NAFO or North Atlantic Fella Organization. "We want to show that we continue to support Ukraine. We prepared a video in which we tried to make fun of examples of ridiculous Russian propaganda, so that the employees of the embassy could see it," said local Jiri Viskocil. Groups of Ukrainian refugees also attended the event. "Today, the whole world also celebrates Remembrance day. That's why we came to support the international movement "NAFO" and once again call on Russia to leave the territory of Ukraine," activist Anastasia Signaevska told Radio Svoboda. Read also: Czechia to prosecute pro-Russian activist who called for countrys de-Ukrainization Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. WASHINGTON - The Metropolitan Police Department continues to investigate a shooting that killed a man in Southeast, D.C. Police responded to reports of gunshots on Saturday, November 11 at approximately 3:08 a.m., in the area of the 3500 block of Stanton Road. Upon arrival, officers located an adult male with gunshot wound injuries. The victim died at the scene. The victim has been identified as 38-year-old James Deale, of Northeast. Anyone with any information on this incident is asked to contact police. All hung up I am sure I am not the only one besieged by unsolicited political advertisements on my cellphone, both calls and texts. It is bad enough that we have to put up with all the political ads on television and radio, which only promise to get worse with the primary season and general election coming up over the next several months. I guess we agree to be subject to TV and radio ads when we choose to watch or listen to the underlying programming, and in fact these and other ads pay for the programming. That is not the case with our cellphones, and it is nearly impossible to block all these robocalls. Until we can figure out how to make these unsolicited interruptions in our life illegal (as we did with unsolicited fax messages a generation ago), I encourage you to join me and vote against any candidate or campaign that engages in these distasteful tactics. - Richard H. Ong, Overland Park Jaydens tragedy The Missouri Department of Social Services and law enforcement failed Jayden Robker. (Nov. 3, 1A, Records show multiple DSS contacts with Jayden Robkers family) He suffered abuse by his stepfather in 2021, 2022 and 2023. Jayden ended up dead in March 2023. This did not have to happen, yet it did repeatedly even though DSS had been involved. How many more times will this happen? The DSS sent counseling resources to the mother. The case was closed. In 2022, Jayden reported abuse to the department again. His mother refused services and the case was closed. In 2023, after another child reported physical abuse the DSS opened a new case. The father refused to allow DSS Childrens Division access to the children. DSS policy requires the agency to notify law enforcement about any investigations of abuse, but law enforcement is not required to investigate the abuse. So whose responsibility is it? In serious cases of abuse, a child can be permanently removed from the home. How many children have to die before major changes are made in the Missouri Department of Social Services and law enforcement? Our children are precious. They deserve every chance to succeed in life. Jayden Robker didnt get that chance. - Barbara Sturgeon, Overland Park Anti-Christian As publications, including The Kansas City Star, have become more liberal and often seemingly anti-Christian, I have learned to carefully determine what I choose to read. And I have been so sorry to see family-friendly comics such as Family Circus and Dennis the Menace replaced with often raunchy substitutes. Usually, I simply ignore those I find objectionable. However, I simply cannot let pass the Nov. 8 The Argyle Sweater by Scott Hilburn. (11B) This comic is blatantly blasphemous, making a crude joke out of Easter, the miracle of loaves and above all the resurrection of Jesus. I am certain Hilburn would never dare to present anything so supposedly amusing were it a slam against the Muslim faith, or deriding Ramadan. And The Star would never deign to print a comic so clearly derogatory about another faith. But Christians are fair game. Although your Christian readership no doubt has declined exponentially, surely I am not the only remaining reader who believes in and honors Jesus. As a 60-plus-year subscriber, I am offended and disappointed. Please restore a bit of respect to your readers who honor God. - Maribeth Griessel, Kansas City Editors note: The comic depicts a person in a bakery with Five Loaves Bakery on the window, removing a loaf of bread from an oven while calling out, Peter, come quick! It is risen! It is labeled Yeaster. Redlinings ghost Newly elected Prairie Village City Council member Lori Sharp lauded the diversity of the Kansas City metropolitan area in a recent Star guest commentary, (Nov. 3, 7A, Elect a council to keep Prairie Village as the gem it is today.) But apparently, like others with the Stop PV Rezoning group, she wants to prevent it from entering her city by restricting apartments. She paints a quintessential suburban picture of single-family homes and 50-foot trees. Perhaps she has missed the proliferation of tear-downs replacing the Prairie Village houses of old with lot line to lot line mini-mansions, some of which remove those very trees. And surely some of those in the Stop group are worried that rental units will bring to town the other people of color and those whose income doesnt reach six figures. Sharp is worried about bigger classroom sizes, but apparently not about affordable housing for their teachers. Educated area residents know of the unfortunate legacy of redlining and discrimination in the planned neighborhoods of both states. Sad to say that in the 21st century, though different in form, the effort to keep out those who are poorer or darker continues. - Kevin Day, Overland Park Roots run deep In her Nov. 8 guest commentary Americans for Prosperity chief disputes state senators criticism, (9A) Elizabeth Patton presents Americans for Prosperity as a grassroots organization. It was established and is funded by the billionaire Koch family, owners of Koch Industries. Its massive wealth is used to influence public policy and elections. It promotes limited government and unregulated markets. Pattons remarks focus on establishing a single flat tax rate for Kansans, providing an average windfall of about $13,000 for high wage earners and little relief for low wage earners. Americans for Prosperity also supported former Gov. Sam Brownbacks 2012 tax plan that reduced the top income tax rate and cut taxes entirely for partnerships, LLCs, S-corporations and sole proprietorships. By 2017, Kansas was in crisis with a $900 million budget gap, and Brownbacks tax plan was rescinded. Americans for Prosperity loves shifting the tax burden away from the wealthy onto the rest of us. Promoting a single tax rate would not leave all Kansans better off but would increase the prosperity of those already wealthy, like the Kochs. - Angela Schieferecke, Prairie Village True picture The people participating in anti-Israel protests should be made to see the evidence of what Hamas did on Oct. 7 no filters, censoring or anything else to hide the gruesome parts. That way, the protesters would know exactly whom and what they are supporting. The same should apply to the members of Congress who dont support Israel in the current situation. - David Lund, Kansas City Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips defended himself against the fierce backlash he has faced from within his own party since launching his primary challenge to President Bidens reelection campaign, in an interview published Sunday. In a Saturday interview in New Hampshire with CNN, Phillips compared his bid for president to the late Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedys challenge to President Carters reelection in 1980. Phillips suggested Carters failed reelection bid was not a result of Kennedys primary challenge; rather, a result of poor approval in general. [Bidens] approval numbers are historically low, rivaling only Jimmy Carter, who got slaughtered, of course, in that election, Phillips said. [Carter] had a Democratic primary challenger because he was going to get slaughtered in the election. Its the same circumstance again. Ted Kennedy did not cause Jimmy Carters problems. I did not cause President Bidens problems, Phillips said. Bidens poll numbers have concerned some Democratic strategists, while others particularly those affiliated with his campaign have dismissed those concerns, noting its still a year out from the election. A recent New York Times/Siena College poll, however, had Biden trailing former President Trump in five of six key battleground states. I think in 2020, (President Biden) was probably the only Democrat who could have beaten Donald Trump. I think in 2024, he may be among the only ones that will lose to him, Phillips said to CNN. And thats why Im doing this. In the interview, Phillips said if, after Super Tuesday, he has not come out ahead, he would suspend his campaign and help campaign for the Democratic nominee. He said he would not launch a third-party bid. Im running in a primary. Im not doing what Cornel West is doing, not doing what Jill Stein is doing, not doing what Joe Manchin might do, Phillips said to CNN. If the president beats me in New Hampshire and Michigan, all around the country, thats good. He looks strong. If I force the president to have to get out and campaign basically for the first time because he didnt have to campaign in 2020 and he appears well, and he debates and hes strong, makes a good case, thats good for him. I could win this. I intend to win this. Or I could open the door for others who might be better positioned to beat Donald Trump, he added. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The Department of Education said it will use so-called secret shoppers to help monitor the student loan repayment process. The department said its employees will go through the student loan process as if they are borrowers in order to detect errors. ALSO READ: Student loan forgiveness: Borrowers can now apply for new loan forgiveness program Employees will also listen in on phone calls between borrowers and customer service representatives and score their performance. The program comes as payments for millions of borrowers restarted last month following a pause due to the pandemic. (WATCH BELOW: Will you still need to pay your student loans if the government shuts down) Supporters cheer after Ohioans voted to enshrine the right to abortion in the state's Constitution, in Columbus on Nov. 7, 2023. (Maddie McGarvey/The New York Times) Gut punch. With that memorable description, Sen. J.D. Vance, Republican from Ohio, spoke for many of his fellow partisans as Democrats racked up decisive victories in major races across the country where abortion was a leading issue. Advertisement For pro-lifers, last night was a gut punch, Vance wrote in a lengthy series of tweets on X, formerly Twitter. No sugar coating it. But dont give up, Vance reassured his allies. Giving up on the unborn is not an option, he tweeted. Its politically dumb and morally repugnant. Instead, we need to understand why we lost this battle so we can win the war. Advertisement Why? For one thing, the public is not on his side. A Gallup Poll in June found a record 69% supported legalizing first-trimester abortions and a near-record 34% who said abortion should be legal in all cases. At the same time, polls confirm what just about everybody who is paying attention already knows. Political parties are more polarized on the issue than ever. In elections since last years Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization decision, in which the Supreme Court overturned the nearly 50-year-old constitutional right to abortion, Democrats clearly turned their own outrage into a rallying cry and votes. Ohio became the seventh state since Dobbs to pass a ballot initiative to establish the right to abortion in its state Constitution. Abortion also helped state lawmakers in Virginia take majority control of both legislative chambersand propelled the reelection of Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear in Kentucky leaving some Democrats observing that the choice issue is more popular in the polls than President Joe Biden. But thats OK, say leading Democrats, who intend to play their advantage on this issue for all its worth. Abortion is the No. 1 issue in the 2024 campaign, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said in an interview Tuesday. If youre not talking about protecting womens reproductive rights as a Democrat, youre not doing it right. Pritzker has been an outspoken champion for abortion rights, just as Vance, freshman senator endorsed by Donald Trump, has been outspoken on the other side. Advertisement As regular followers of this column may recall, I took a special interest in Vance after learning that we both grew up in Middletown, Ohio, which, like too many other Rust Belt towns, has seen better socio-economic days. Author of the best-selling Hillbilly Elegy, he impressed me with his rise from blue-collar struggles to a Yale law degree and the high-finance world of venture capital. Now hes in the Senate, where I initially hoped he could help my old home state and the rest of us. His fealty to Trump quickly shook my optimism about that and, since then, his politics needless to say havent been my cup of tea. Still, I was intrigued by his analytical assessment of why the political right on election night, in his words, got creamed. We got creamed among voters who disliked both Issue I (the constitutional change) and also Ohios current law, which bans abortion when a fetal heartbeat, a controversial term in itself, is detected. Second, he said, we have to recognize how much voters mistrust us (meaning elected Republicans) on this issue. Having an unplanned pregnancy is scary. Best case, youre looking at social scorn and thousands of dollars of unexpected medical bills. We need people to see us as the pro-life party, not just the anti-abortion party. Clarence Page Columns As it happens Sign up to receive Clarence Pages columns by email as soon as they're published. By submitting your email to receive this newsletter, you agree to our Subscriber Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy > Thats fair. Ive always questioned protectors of the unborn who lose their concern after the baby is born. Advertisement Importantly, too, Vance points out as Trump has that youve got to have the exceptions. Certainly, Trump is right there, as far as it goes for those on the anti-abortion side seeking some possibility of political success. Life is complicated, and so are many peoples circumstances. And there was money, Vance notes. The pro-abortion rights side raised twice as much for their effort, another sign of how potent this issue is for Democrats. For now, Dobbs has taken the debate out of Washington and returned it to the states. So far, voters have shown a preference for legalized abortion, although with some exceptions. Thats a rough compromise; for the foreseeable future, it may well be the best were going to get. cpage@chicagotribune.com Twitter @cptime Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) denied that his attempts to remove pro-Palestinian groups from Florida university campuses violate free speech in Saturday comments. Were not throttling free speech at all, DeSantis, a 2024 GOP presidential primary candidate, told Fox News anchor Brian Kilmeade. I mean, these groups, Students for Justice [in] Palestine, they have said that they are in cahoots with Hamas. They say, We dont just stand in solidarity, that this is, Were in cahoots with them, DeSantis continued. So, the state of Florida, through our universities, we cannot be subsidizing those groups. I mean, thats basically providing material support for terrorism. DeSantis then went on to say it was not a First Amendment issue. Officials in Florida ordered state universities and colleges last month to disband chapters of the National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) on their campuses. The order followed the national groups response to the surprise attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel early last month. In response, and leading up to a Day of Resistance, the National Students for Justice in Palestine (National SJP) released a toolkit which refers to Operation Al-Aqsa Flood as the resistance and unequivocally states: Palestinian students in exile are PART of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement, State University System Chancellor Ray Rodrigues said in a letter to state university presidents. It is a felony under Florida law to knowingly provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, Rodrigues added. Here, National SJP has affirmatively identified it is part of the Operation Al-Aqsa Flood a terrorist led attack. College campuses have become a focal point of pro-Palestinian protests amid the Israel-Hamas war. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. I despised and mocked people with tattoos my whole life. But then my husband died, and I decided to get one in my 50s. I spent my whole life thinking tattoos were gross. Then my husband died, and I understood why someone would want to permanently mark their bodies. When I was in my mid-50s, I got my first tattoo as a memorial for my husband. "Can you replicate this exactly?" I asked the tattoo artist. "If it can't be drawn like this, there's no point." Justin, the tattoo artist, went to work with a Sharpie and then peeled the transfer paper from inside my left wrist. "Go check it out in the mirror," he said. "This is the only part that isn't permanent. Be certain you like it." I studied my reflection and told Justin it was perfect. I couldn't help but laugh at what I was about to do. There I was, a 50-something-year-old getting her first tattoo after years of criticizing people who got inked. I always thought tattoos were gross I grew up in middle-class Midwestern suburbia. When I was young, tattoos were just not a thing. I thought people with tattoos were druggies, dropouts, or criminals. The first tattoo I saw on someone my age was at a party during my senior year of high school. A crowd of people gathered around this girl, screaming, "Show us! Show us!" Looking at the nickel-sized Egyptian eye on her shoulder blade, all I could think was: Ew, gross. Of course, the girl had just gotten out of rehab, so I smugly said to myself, "Makes sense." Over the years, even as tattoos became more and more mainstream, I was always grossed out when I saw one. It's hard to admit this, but I looked down on tattooed people no matter who they were. For more than five decades, I wore my unmarked skin as a point of pride proof of my holier-than-thou-ness. I also couldn't imagine myself getting inked. I was a middle-aged cis female with a master's degree and a professional job. Why in the world would I want a tattoo? Tattoos were ugly, stupid, expensive, and permanent. But then, my beloved husband died From the moment he and I locked eyes for the first time across the room of a grad-school welcome party, we were inseparable. They say that when a couple gets married, the two become one. For us and our relationship, this felt almost literally true. In our 25 years of marriage, we spent less than a couple of weeks apart. During an eight-hour workday, dozens of "I miss you" texts and phone calls went back and forth between us. We left love notes on Post-its hidden in wallets and briefcases. We went everywhere together, did everything together, and chose each other's company and physical presence even when there was no conversation. All we wanted, all we needed, was each other. As it happens for so many, the surprise cancer diagnosis came too late to save his life. Even still, his death was so fast just five months that I had no opportunity to process or prepare for it. I had spent the entirety of my adult life with this man by my side, and our life together was ripped apart. Nothing about life without him made sense Except for our children and my closest friends, people tiptoed around the subject with me, afraid to bring up his death, hardly daring to even say his name. The silence was and is so hard to take. I also felt unseen now that I had become a widow. When a person loses an arm or a leg, that physical loss is impossible to miss. I felt like my soul had been ripped out of me, but I had no conspicuous wound to show for it something to state at a glance: I am no longer whole. Look at what I've lost. I didn't want a physical wound to gain sympathy from others, but to be true to myself and my new reality as the surviving half. That's when I realized a tattoo is a scar. The wound and its permanence is freely chosen. Suddenly, I understood why people chose to get tattoos. I wanted to tell every tattooed person, "I get you. I see you. I am sorry and ashamed." Getting a tattoo seemed the perfect solution I decided it was time for my first tattoo, but I couldn't figure out what to get inked on my skin. I wracked my brain, brainstorming and rejecting myriad possibilities. When the idea finally dawned on me one late-summer morning, I was stunned I hadn't figured it out before. The signature he used on more than a quarter century of love notes to me and the small heart with two separate strokes it would all make the perfect tattoo. I now see my ink all day long. It's a memorial and tribute to my husband, who was and is forever a part of me not just figuratively speaking. It's a permanent love note. "I love you too," I tell it. Read the original article on Insider A federal indictment accuses a University of Miami student of coming up with a way to order and receive products ordered online, then claim refunds for the products, such as a $600 electric skateboard, a 43-inch Samsung TV and a $41,470 Rolex President Day-Date watch. Coral Gables resident Matthew Bergwall, 21, also is accused of selling this have-your-fraud-cake-and-eat-it-too scheme. The paperwork accusing Bergwall of mail fraud, conspiracy to commit mail fraud and conspiracy to commit computer fraud in pulling a $3.5 million scam was filed Oct. 25 in Tampa. It was unsealed Thursday, which is when Bergwall was scheduled to make his first appearance, in Miami. The online docket doesnt list Bergwalls attorney. A LinkedIn profile of a Matthew Bergwall claims hes a serial entrepreneur and venture capital catalyst now in UMs Herbert Business School. The indictment doesnt name the company Bergwall allegedly hit, but describes it as a private mulltinational shipping, receiving, and supply chain management company that serves as a common carrier for hundreds of retailers all over the world. READ MORE: What happened to the head of a $36 million fraud involving AT&T, JetBlue, retail employees? As for the alleged scheme, the indictment says Bergwall and cronies in Central Florida or the west coast of Florida would order goods, get them, then they would hack into employee accounts and enter fake tracking information that made it appear as if the shipper had returned the items. This allowed Bergwall and co-conspirators....to pursue full refunds from victim-retailers while maintaining physical possession of the merchandise, such as high-end electronics, jewelry and designer clothing and accessories, the indictment said. Bergwall offered this service for sale, which was marketed as FTID (Fradulent Tracking ID). The FTID fraud scheme caused nearly 10,000 fraudulent returns and resulted in more than $3.5 million in lose product and sales revenue to the victim-retailers. They would use the employee accounts, the indictment said, enter fake information into the tracking Making it appear as if merchandise purchased by Bergwall and co-conspirators had been returned by the Victim Company, prompting victim-retailers to issue refunds. Homeland Security Investigations Tampa office investigated the case with help from the Miami office. Assistant United States Attorney Carlton C. Gammons will prosecute the case. Diwali, set to occur this weekend, stands out as the most jubilant festivity in India. Embraced by a population exceeding a billion, both within the nation and its diaspora, this celebration spans five days. For Hindus, Sikhs, and Jains alike, it holds paramount significance on the calendar, marked by spiritual gatherings, fireworks, feasts, and moments of prayer. Rooted in the term "Deepavali," signifying "a row of lights," Diwali involves lighting traditional clay oil lamps outside homes, symbolizing the triumph of light over darkness and knowledge over ignorance. What is Diwali? According to National Geographic, Diwali's roots delve deep into Hindu mythology, with various legends and stories associated with its celebration. One prominent tale is that of Lord Rama, who, after enduring a 14-year exile, returned home to Ayodhya, marking the victory of righteousness over wickedness. The lighting of lamps and fireworks during Diwali symbolizes the jubilation of Rama's return. While Diwali is rooted in Hindu traditions, its celebration extends to other religious communities, fostering a sense of unity and shared festivity. For Sikhs, classified as an Indian or Dharmic religion, Diwali holds historical significance as it commemorates the release of Guru Hargobind Singh from imprisonment. Jains, also an Indian religion, observe Diwali to honor Lord Mahavira's attainment of enlightenment. When is Diwali observed? The festival dates align with the Hindu lunar calendar, usually occurring in late October or early November. This year, Diwali commences on November 10, with the festival itself observed on November 12. How is Diwali celebrated? Before Diwali arrives, it's common for people to spruce up their homes, get new clothes and jewelry, and share gifts while enjoying fantastic celebrations. During this time, there are dinner parties, outdoor food festivals, and craft fairs that add to the excitement before the main Diwali events. Expect a lively atmosphere at these gatherings with drinks and lots of finger foods, including kebabs, tasty snacks, tandoori grills, and sweet treats with a hint of spice. What are the five days of Diwali? Diwali, celebrated over five enchanting days, unfolds as a kaleidoscope of traditions and festivities with each one holding its own meaning, according to DiwaliFestival.org Day 1: Dhanteras - Welcoming Wealth and Prosperity The festivities kick off with Dhanteras, a day dedicated to the worship of wealth and prosperity. It is believed that on this day, purchasing gold, silver, or utensils brings good fortune. Many families clean and decorate their homes, inviting the goddess Lakshmi to bless them with prosperity. Day 2: Naraka Chaturdashi or Choti Diwali - Conquering Darkness Choti Diwali, also known as Naraka Chaturdashi, symbolizes the triumph of good over evil. The legend of Lord Krishna defeating the demon Narakasura is central to this day. Families participate in cleansing rituals, take oil baths, and adorn their doorways with rangoli (colorful designs made with powders, rice, or flower petals). Day 3: Diwali - The Main Festival The third day is the pinnacle of Diwali celebrations. Homes are lit up with lamps and candles, and colorful rangoli adorns the entrances. Families come together for prayers and offerings to goddess Lakshmi, seeking blessings for wealth, prosperity, and good fortune. Fireworks also create a spectacle of light that symbolizes the victory of light over darkness. Day 4: Govardhan Puja - Worshiping Nature Govardhan Puja, also known as Annakut, is a day dedicated to the worship of Lord Krishna. According to mythology, Lord Krishna lifted the Govardhan Hill to protect the people from torrential rains. Devotees create small mountains of food, symbolizing the Govardhan Hill, and offer prayers to honor the bond between nature and humanity. Day 5: Bhai Dooj - Celebrating Sibling Bonds The final day of Diwali is Bhai Dooj, a celebration of the bond between brothers and sisters. Sisters perform rituals to bless their brothers and express love and gratitude. It is a day of family gatherings, feasts, and joyous moments, strengthening the ties that bind siblings. Angela Dennis is the Knox News race, justice and equity reporter. Email angela.dennis@knoxnews.com. Twitter @AngeladWrites. Instagram @angeladenniswrites. Facebook at Angela Dennis Journalist. Support strong local journalism by subscribing at knoxnews.com/subscribe. This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: What is Diwali and how is it celebrated? Inside the Indian festivity This week marked the end of the most dramatic phase of Donald Trump's New York business fraud trial, which saw high-profile members of his family make the journey to Lower Manhattan one by one to answer probing questions from prosecutors. On Monday Mr Trump's defence team will begin presenting their side, calling the former president's oldest son back to the stand as their first witness. But legal analysts told the BBC that after two damaging weeks of testimony from members of the Trump family, salvaging their case now will be a herculean task. "It's been a disaster from a legal perspective," said Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and president of West Coast Trial Lawyers. He believes that Mr Trump is "going to lose this case, and lose badly". In a worst-case scenario for Mr Trump, Judge Arthur Engoron could bar him and his fellow defendants from doing business in New York, and issue fines of at least $250m (204m) in penalties. Perhaps the most harmful of all the testimony came from Mr Trump himself. When he took the stand on Monday, he called New York Attorney General Letitia James a "political hack", declared the case "a disgrace" and personally attacked Judge Engoron. At several points, Judge Engoron demanded Mr Trump's lawyers rein in his behaviour, and answer the questions posed to him. If they did not, the judge pledged to "draw every negative inference that I can". "If Donald Trump was anybody other than a person with Secret Service protection, he would have been jailed for contempt of court," said Mitchell Epner, an attorney who handles commercial litigation. When he did directly respond to prosecutors' questions, Mr Trump did perhaps even more damage to his cause. At the heart of the attorney general's lawsuit are documents known as statements of financial condition, the balance sheets that the Trump Organization used to demonstrate the value of its properties and Mr Trump's net worth so they could obtain loans and insurance rates. The attorney general's office alleges those documents were fraudulently inflated to obtain deals they could not have received based on their true financials. The judge had already ruled those documents were false. He is now weighing whether there was an intent to defraud, whether the defendants did so for personal gain, and other charges. The judge will also determine whether to issue penalties and if so, how severe. Judge Arthur Engoron expressed frustration with some of Donald Trump's answers during testimony On the stand, Mr Trump boasted that his properties like Mar-a-Lago and 40 Wall Street were in fact worth more than their value on paper, but acknowledged he believed at least one of his properties may have been overvalued. At another point, a prosecutor questioned him about the size of his Trump Tower penthouse, which the company had claimed was over 30,000sq ft but really took up just over 10,000. Mr Trump first acknowledged he had believed the claimed square footage was "high" - but then began to throw around larger estimates of its size. Over the course of his testimony, Mr Trump admitted he had given his input, and that some of those values on paper were wrong. But he insisted that even if he did offer this input, he did not direct his accountants or employees on what valuations to use. Mr Trump denies any wrongdoing and has accused the New York attorney general of waging a campaign of political persecution against him. Speaking to reporters after Mr Trump testified, his attorney Alina Habba said he had "built a great company, it's worth a ton more than that statement of financial condition." She added that Ms James, the attorney general, "doesn't know how to get out of it because her politics won't allow her." His children, Donald Trump Jr, Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump, were all more composed in their testimony and took a different approach to that of their father. But they did not necessarily help the family's case. Each one, in their own way, attempted to deflect the responsibility for the false documents onto the company's accountants and lawyers. Mr Trump Jr said he was unfamiliar with the standard accounting guidelines to which companies like his must adhere. Eric Trump testified he was not involved with the creation of the statements of financial condition. Both are executive vice-presidents at the Trump Organization. They stuck to this defence even as they were presented with various emails they sent or were copied on, or documents they signed, that contained information based on the false financial statements. Ms Trump, who was not a defendant, tried to give prosecutors as little to work with as possible, repeatedly saying she could not recall documents they presented to her. When confronted with emails that showed her discussing the terms of a loan Deutsche Bank was about to grant her father for a real estate project, Ms Trump stated she could not recall the exchanges. Her declarations were unlikely to help, Mr Rahmani said. Mr Trump Jr and Eric Trump were "still liable for some of the claims like financial fraud, even if they didn't have intent", he observed. And, he added, the Trump Organization was liable for the actions of Donald Trump and his sons in the course of their employment. Legal experts agreed Mr Trump's defence team, led by veteran attorney Chris Kise, will be starting on the back foot next week. They could attempt to introduce reams of new evidence or continue to prod and goad Judge Engoron to give them grounds for an appeal. The lawyers spent the last few weeks attacking the judge over his alleged lack of impartiality. Other accusations of bias launched against Judge Engoron's clerk led to angry reprimands from the bench and a gag order on the attorneys themselves. "I'm sure the judge will rule against me, because he always rules against me," Mr Trump said at one point on Monday. Despite the aggressive attacks, experts told the BBC that Mr Trump's legal team had failed to undermine the state's case. "The defence needs someone to get up there and justify these valuations," Mr Rahmani said. "Accountants, CPAs, real estate experts, appraisers. And they just haven't done that yet." At this point, they face an uphill battle in salvaging their case, analysts told the BBC. "The reason that they are in such a bad situation is that the judge has already found that the most important documents in this case were all false," Mr Epner said. "As of now, the judge has also been given an enormous amount of evidence to show that they were knowingly false, and provided with the intent to defraud." "Since they don't have the ability to get into a Back to the Future DeLorean and turn back time," Mr Epner said of the defence team, "I can't imagine what they can do to turn around this case." This embedded content is not available in your region. Trump appeared to imply that Barack Obama was still president at a campaign event in New Hampshire. GOP nomination hopefuls, lagging far behind Trump, aim to make political capital over his repeated gaffes. Biden's campaign wants to mirror questions about the president's mental fitness by spotlighting Trump's blunders. Former US President Donald Trump mistakenly told supporters that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had recently called on Barack Obama to step down as president of the US. The gaffe occurred during Trump's speech at a campaign event in Claremont, New Hampshire, on Saturday, as he seeks the Republican nomination ahead of the 2024 presidential election. In an October 2023 interview, he alleged that Orban was asked what he would "advise President Obama," adding that the Hungarian leader wants Obama to "immediately resign." Obama's mandate ended in 2017 when Trump was inaugurated. Last month, Trump made another blooper concerning Orban, erroneously calling him the leader of Turkey during a rambling speech in Derry, New Hampshire. The blunders come amid the media's fixation on Biden's mental acuity. A Washington Post-ABC News poll from May revealed that only 32% of respondents were confident in Biden's "mental sharpness" being adequate for the White House. In line with campaigns to undermine 80-year-old Biden's credibility linked to his seniority and alleged mental decline, Trump's rivals are also challenging his mental capacities. The team behind Florida Gov. Ron DeStantis's stuttering presidential nomination campaign recently posted a thread of clumsy remarks made by Trump, who is 77 years old. Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, who has had a relatively successful presidential campaign so far, though she lags far behind her former boss, jabbed Trump at a recent event of Jewish donors for speaking positively about the leaders of China and North Korea. Haley said Trump was "confused" about which countries are US allies and adversaries, per The Washington Post. Haley, 51, added "with all due respect, I don't get confused." Biden's campaign plans to spotlight Trump's erratic behavior President Joe Biden. AP Photo/Alex Brandon Biden's campaign has taken to social media to mirror the slurs about the president's cognitive abilities, reported The Washington Post. It has pointed out that Trump struggled to pronounce "Hamas" correctly and had made a series of several bizarre comments, including ruminating that the abbreviation for the United States is spelled like the word "us."" "The Biden campaign feels like it's filling a void in media coverage because there's wall-to-wall coverage of everything President Biden says or stumbles on, but there is a lack of coverage of Donald Trump's increasingly erratic behavior," said an offical, speaking on the condition of anonymity to The Washington Post. He said the aim was to show that Trump was "a dangerous, erratic person who's extreme and MAGA." Trump's campaign hit back. Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump, in a statement, per The Washington Post, highlighted, "Biden falling onstage, mumbling his way through a speech, being confused on where to walk and tripping on the steps of Air Force One. There's no correcting that, and that will be seared into voter's minds." Trump is running for president after failing to get reelected in the last US election. He is facing 91 felony counts that from five indictments in four criminal cases handed down this year. Read the original article on Business Insider Maryland Gov. Wes Moore on Sunday urged Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) not to tarnish himself by running as a third-party presidential candidate in 2024. Speaking on ABC's "This Week," Moore said Manchin "has had a career of distinguished service" but added: "I would urge him not to mar his legacy by getting involved in something so foolish." Manchin announced last week that he would not seek another term in the Senate and suggested he might launch a presidential bid instead, declaring he will be "traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle." President Joe Biden's team had urged Manchin to run for the Senate again in one of the nation's reddest states. Moore, a Democrat, also said the group No Labels, which has been looking for a centrist candidate like Manchin to potentially run next year, is not the answer for disillusioned voters. "If you look at what No Labels is, No Labels literally has no plan, has no path, has no policy platform," Moore told host Jonathan Karl. "They don't even have a candidate." Moore also said that regardless of which possible third-party candidates (Manchin, Cornel West, Jill Stein, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) ultimately decide to run, he's convinced Biden will be able to persuade America's voters to reelect him based on what he has accomplished as president. "It's one thing to say we're going to rail against the system, and it's another thing to actually work to make systems better. That's what I think President Biden has continued to show," Moore said, adding that Biden has achieved "real, productive results for the people of this country." Moore's predecessor as governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, is national co-chair of No Labels. Speaking Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union," Hogan commended Manchin for his work with No Labels, but said he wasn't sure if Manchin would ultimately run for president. "One thing Joe Manchin is pretty good at is staying in the center of attention," Hogan, a Republican, said, "and he definitely wants to continue, like I do, continue to be a part of the discussion. But I'm not sure whether all this hype this week is going to turn into a presidential campaign." Dr. Ruth Westheimer, a talk show host and renowned sex therapist, in her apartment in New York on March 17, 2023. (Gabby Jones/The New York Times) NEW YORK I still will talk about orgasms, Dr. Ruth Westheimer said during a conversation over the summer. I still will talk about sexual dysfunction. But I have done that. She had recently turned 95, and after a long and spirited career as Americas most famous and least likely sex counselor, she was driven by a new challenge. So now I am going to say, lets go and see how we can help people who dont have a sexual problem, she said. I dont want to be known only as a sex therapist. I want to be known as a therapist. For Westheimer, this has meant turning her attention to what she views as the biggest need right now the epidemic of loneliness in the United States. Her new goal: to become the Loneliness Ambassador for New York state. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times When she began her quest last year, no such position existed. So she enlisted the help of a state senator and began petitioning Gov. Kathy Hochul to create the role. Directly lobbying the governor for a job is generally not how Albany works. But Westheimer, not known for her patience, can be tenacious and is rather persuasive. And so on Wednesday afternoon, following a query from The New York Times about the likelihood that such a position was even being considered for her administration, Hochul called Westheimer and offered her the job. Dr. Ruth Westheimer has offered her services to help older adults and all New Yorkers cope with the loneliness epidemic, the governor said in a statement sent after the meeting, and I will be appointing her to serve as the nations first state-level honorary Ambassador to Loneliness. For Westheimer, it was welcome news. Hallelujah! she said in a text sent directly after speaking with Hochul. I am deeply honored and promised the governor that I will work day and night to help New Yorkers feel less lonely! Early in September she had suffered what she called a little stroke. She spent a month and a half in a rehabilitation facility and has only recently returned to the apartment in upper Manhattan where she has lived for 60 years. She said she needed to meet with the governors staff to make a practical plan, but was eager to get to work. The first thing to do is have the courage to admit youre lonely, she said. Then you can do something about it. The cost of loneliness has been discussed for some time, but in May, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an official advisory, warning that isolation can be just as deadly as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day and poses a greater risk to longevity than being sedentary or obese. Several senators have also taken up the cause. Loneliness was on the rise before the pandemic but escalated because of lockdowns and social-distancing requirements. And Westheimer felt the effects firsthand. COVID hit her hard, said Miriam Westheimer, her 66-year-old daughter, who cared for her mother and brought her meals during those beginning solitary months. She loved going out. She never had food in the house because she almost never ate dinner at home. Shed just eat out almost every night and bring home some leftovers for the nights that she was, by chance, home. This was a total, dramatic change for her. The elder Westheimer insists, however, there was at least one upside to her confinement. She was grounded long enough to recall having written in her childhood diary about feeling lonely. And she had the time to look for it. She found it. The diary, started in 1945 when she was 17 and written in her native German and sometimes in Hebrew, recounts in painful detail what it was like for her to grow up in a Swiss childrens home during World War II. Before her explosive rise to stardom as Americas sex therapist in the 1980s, Westheimer was born Karola Ruth Siegel to an Orthodox Jewish couple in the German town of Wiesenfeld. She was 10 years old when she was put on a train to Switzerland, part of the Kindertransport of Jewish children seeking refuge from the Nazis. It was Jan. 5, 1939. Her father, Julius, had been taken from the family home six weeks earlier, and her mother, Irma, and grandmother, Selma, were offering her what they believed was her only chance to survive. Once she made it to the childrens home in Heiden, a village in the east of Switzerland, she was kept safe for the duration of the war, but she felt unmoored from her surroundings and disconnected from the people around her. When the war ended, she boarded a British naval ship with hundreds of other refugees to what was then Palestine, before the establishment of Israel, to remake her life once again. She joined the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary organization that predates the Israeli military, and changed her first name from the German-sounding Karola to her middle name, Ruth, keeping the middle initial K with the hope that her parents, if they were still alive, would be able to find her more easily. And she devoted herself to her new diary. I live with 150 people and am alone, she wrote on July 13, 1945, while still in Switzerland. She confessed to longing for a friend and pleaded, in an entry a week later, for someone who loves and understands me. In October, living on a kibbutz near Haifa, she lamented that everything is bleak, gray and empty. An only child who never saw her parents and grandmother again after boarding that train, she recounted feeling completely alone on her 19th birthday. Nobody is congratulating me, she grieved on June 4, 1947. All the congratulations Im reciting to myself! Reading the diary now, Westheimer recognized the parallels between human sexual problems and struggles with loneliness. No one wants to admit to having trouble with intimacy, and no one wants to admit to not having enough friends. Throughout the 1980s, when Westheimer gained national celebrity, the epidemic that carried the most stigma was AIDS. She addressed taboo topics including homosexuality and condom use, giving those who were being shunned and tormented much-needed information and compassion. Her advice was easier to take, she determined, because it was offered by a matronly woman with a nonthreatening demeanor and a charming accent. She wants to do the same stigma-bashing for loneliness. It just makes sense, she said. So with the pain of her diary fresh in her mind, Westheimer reached out to state Sen. Liz Krueger, a family friend. Encouraged by the U.K.s appointment a few years earlier of a minister for loneliness, Krueger wrote Hochul a two-page letter, putting forward Westheimer as New Yorks first Loneliness Ambassador. Shortly after that, Westheimer said, she and Hochul spoke about the role via Zoom, but then weeks passed. A multimillion-dollar affordable-housing development in Ithaca required the governors attention, and then she made a trip to Israel after the attacks of Oct. 7. So while Westheimer was waiting for an answer, she conceived of an initiative to combat loneliness on her own. She decided that making a cheery public service announcement about isolation would be a great start. She had been collaborating with a creative team on a concert based on her books about grandparenting, Ruth Grandmother to the World, part of her extensive work to bridge generations. A recording session took place in August, featuring the singing of Pearl Scarlett Gold, 10, who was part of the Broadway cast of Leopoldstadt. The result is an upbeat jingle about intergenerational friendship that will be given to the New York City Department for the Aging for its use and distribution. Surrounded by framed photographs of her children and grandchildren in her curio-packed living room in Washington Heights, Westheimer said she understood loneliness not just through the prisms of COVID-19 and adolescence, but also as a widow. Her husband, Fred Westheimer, died 26 years ago. The key to working through any hardship, she maintains, is to continually embark on new projects and to help others. But being busy isnt enough to keep loneliness at bay, Westheimer warned it is meaningful busyness that is crucial. So is intentionally curating your social circle. If you feel lonely, dont be just with other lonely people, she said. Thats not going to be productive. c.2023 The New York Times Company Last Tuesday, voters in Ohio became the latest to enshrine reproductive rights into their state constitution which prompts thoughts on this deeply divisive issue from Dr. Tim Johnson: I am a Protestant minister who became an emergency room doctor and then medical editor for ABC News for 25 years. In all those positions, I saw firsthand the impact of abortion on individual lives and families. And I have concluded that the best way to think about abortion and to achieve possible compromise is to be both anti-abortion and pro-choice. Most of us are instinctively anti-abortion. I personally have never met anyone who thinks it is a trivial procedure. And since most abortions result from unwanted pregnancies, the logical answer is to make contraceptive birth control measures widely and affordably available. If you are anti-abortion, you must also be pro-birth control. Protesters for abortion rights march in Denver, June 27, 2022, four days after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to an abortion in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. / Credit: JASON CONNOLLY/AFP via Getty Images Being pro-choice is far more complicated. It involves the emotional issue of when life begins, and what choices are accordingly morally acceptable. When does life in the womb reach a stage when abortion would be more logically thought of as "murder" or "evil," and therefore prohibited? For many of us, that stage occurs when the developing fetus is capable of living on its own outside the womb. And I do support women who, before that stage, thoughtfully conclude that another life to support will be destructive to her and/or her family. A classic example is a mother already overwhelmed by poverty. If states insist on compelling women to carry to term, they must provide resources for adoption or other child support after birth. Otherwise, they are simply pro-birth, and not pro-life. I also vigorously disagree with those who would force a woman to experience the terrible trauma of completing a pregnancy caused by incest or rape. Finally, I do believe that abortion is a decision best made by a woman and her family not by a group of strangers (usually men) making legislative or legal decisions. Under our clear constitutional separation of church and state, it certainly should not be made by those in power based on their own religious beliefs. We are all entitled to our own religious considerations, but we should not impose them by law on others who may believe very differently. Supreme Court strikes down Roe v. Wade in seismic shift for abortion rightsOhio voters enshrine abortion rights in state constitutionOhio GOP lawmakers vow to target state judiciary after passage of Issue 1 abortion measure In short, a possible compromise to our abortion debate could be to unite in supporting birth control to prevent unwanted pregnancies, while also preserving the right of women to make difficult choices affecting them and their families. That is a strategy that people with both anti-abortion and pro-choice views should embrace. Story produced by Robert Marston. Editor: Chad Cardin. The Woolly Worm Festival, inching to predict winter's weather The effect of gender disparities on men President Isaac Herzog says Israel is "doing our utmost according to international humanitarian law" MEMPHIS, Tenn. Memphis Police are searching for the driver who killed a pedestrian in the University area Saturday night. Police responded to reports of a pedestrian struck on South Highland Street and Windover Road at around 8:50 p.m. Saturday. Southeast Memphis crash leaves 4 critically injured Memphis Police say a man was pronounced dead on the scene. The driver responsible for hitting the man reportedly fled the scene. Memphis Police say this is an ongoing investigation. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com. Veterans move into one of 146 Steelcraft cottages, temporary housing units, at Northwestern University in Evanston in September 1946. From left are Navy vet Wally Arvidson, 19, of Mobridge, South Dakota; Navy vet George Jones, 20, of Youngstown, Ohio; Army vet Robert Lindhorn, 23, of Goshen, Indiana; and Navy vet Peter Nevett, 19, of Peoria. (Weldon Whisler/Chicago Tribune ) Visually, the University of Chicago was a mind-bending experience in the aftermath of World War II. The schools original architects were inspired by the Gothic architecture of Englands Cambridge and Oxford universities. But in 1946, the graceful flying buttresses and gargoyles shared Chicagos campus with squat, faceless housing for an unprecedented flood of freshmen, many of them veterans. The university book store said it expects to be able to meet only about three-quarters of the demand for text books, the Tribune reported. Advertisement Thanks to Uncle Sam, a social revolution was taking place in the improvised dormitories lining Midway Plaisance, the boulevard bisecting the campus. 146 prefabricated houses for veterans who are students at the University of Chicago are erected at 60th Street and University Avenue in March 1946. (Swain Scalf/Chicago Tribune) Previously, few blue-collar Americans could afford a college education and thus an entrance to the middle class. But in 1944, the government said, Open sesame, with the GI Bill of Rights. And thousands of veterans took up the deal after they were mustered out when World War II ended the next year. Advertisement This is an opportunity for you to study anywhere in the United States at any approved school which you consider best in the field you want to enter, was the bills promise. The government will pay to the school you have chosen up to $500 for an ordinary school year to cover tuition, laboratory, library, health, infirmary and similar fees. To be eligible, veterans had to have been in active service for 90 days or more, unless they had been discharged because of a service-related injury or disability The federal governments generosity resulted in hastily-built, prefab housing on college campuses. They are of a type that can be transported on a low slung truck without being taken down and reassembled, wrote the Tribune of 190 war plant cottages arriving at the University of Chicago in 1946. Mr. and Mrs. Martin Graebner and their son Michael, 3, move into one of the University of Chicago prefab housing units at 61st Street and Greenwood Avenue on April 24, 1946. The university placed hundreds of prefab homes on campus to accommodate veterans coming home from war and using the GI Bill to get an education. This was married housing. (Chicago Tribune historical photo) By 1946, more than 10,000 veterans were enrolled between Northwestern Universitys Evanston and Chicago campuses an 11-fold increase from the previous year. The university built Quonset huts, where students slept on eight wrought-iron bunk beds and studied on sheet-metal desks. Their prototypes housed GIs on World War II battlefields. As a 15-year-old freshman, Melvin Hodge lived in one dubbed the music school hut because of its proximity to Northwesterns School of Music. I cant say that winding up in a Quonset hut was any big shock, Hodge recalled. Some of my very best friends were people back from service. Vintage Chicago Tribune Weekly The Vintage Tribune newsletter is a deep dive into the Chicago Tribune's archives featuring photos and stories about the people, places and events that shape the city's past, present and future. By submitting your email to receive this newsletter, you agree to our Subscriber Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy > One had been a fighter pilot another a Naval officer on a destroyer. In 1947, ex-GIs made up nearly half of the nations college students. By 1950, the number of college graduates had increased by 300,000. Vacating the quonset huts on the campus of Northwestern University before they are razed are John Reardon, from left, George Karney, David Patterson and Larry Klecko in March 1953. The huts were added to the campus in 1946 as housing for veterans coming home from World War II who wanted an education. (Chicago Tribune historical photo) Computing the GI Bill of Rights total effect requires an algorithm that takes into account the fact that more college graduates means more parents can send their children to college. Advertisement In Europe, dukes and duchesses are at the pinnacle of countries long since republics. In America, everyone wants to be known as descendants of the class born of the GI Bill of Rights. Even the wealthy will say, Well, actually, were middle class. So, on this Veterans Day, let it be remembered that the Quonset hut and similar prefabricated housing built on college campuses for returning vets was the birthplace of a middle class. Have an idea for Vintage Chicago Tribune? Share it with Ron Grossman and Marianne Mather at rgrossman@chicagotribune.com and mmather@chicagotribune.com. One person was killed Friday when a car and tractor-trailer collided on a Midlands Road near Interstate 20, according to the South Carolina Highway Patrol. The two-vehicle collision happened at about 2:20 p.m. in Lee County, said Cpl. Tyler Tidwell. A 2020 Volvo tractor-trailer was driving north on U.S. 15/Sumter Highway and turning left onto I-20 at Exit 116 when a 2019 Chevrolet sedan traveling in the southbound lane sideswiped the truck, according to Tidwell. The sedans driver, who has not been publicly identified by the Lee County Coroners Office, died at the scene, he said. Tidwell said both drivers were the only occupants involved in the wreck. No other injuries were reported. There was no word if either driver was wearing a seat belt. Information about why the Chevrolet was driving north in the southbound lane was not available. The Highway Patrol did not say if the crash remains under investigation. Through Wednesday, 837 people had died on South Carolina roads in 2023, according to the N.C. Department of Public Safety. Last year, 1,091 people died in crashes in South Carolina, DPS reported. At least four people have died in Lee County crashes in 2023, according to DPS data. There were 11 deaths reported in the county in 2022, DPS reported. CHICAGO - A woman suffered a medical emergency and crashed into a building Saturday morning in the Humboldt Park neighborhood. The 72-year-old was driving an SUV when she had a medical episode, lost control of her car and crashed into a building around 11 a.m. in the 4700 block of West Augusta Boulevard. She was transported to West Suburban Hospital in unknown condition. At the scene of the crash, a 29-year-old man was fighting with a 53-year-old man. The older man was punched in the face and was transported to West Suburban Hospital where he was listed in fair condition. The 29-year-old was taken into custody. Police said the fight was unrelated to the crash. Demonstrators gather to protest the water crisis in Mamoudzou, on the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023. A protest movement called Mayotte is Thirsty is demanding accountability for alleged embezzling, leaks and lack of investment in sustainable water supplies. (AP Photo/Gregoire Merot) MAMOUDZOU, Mayotte (AP) Drop by disappearing drop, water is an ever more precious resource on Mayotte, the poorest place in the European Union. Taps flow just one day out of three in this French territory off Africas eastern coast, because of a drawn-out drought compounded by years of underinvestment and water mismanagement. Diseases like cholera and typhoid are on the rebound, and the French army recently intervened to distribute water and quell tensions over supplies. The crisis is a wakeup call to the French government about the challenges and cost of managing human-caused climate change across Frances far-flung territories. Racha Mousdikoudine, a 38-year-old mother of two living in Labatoir, washes dishes with bottled water, when she can get it. When the water taps run, she says, "I have to choose between taking a shower or preserving my water supply.'' This shortage will be global in a few years. This is an opportunity for all French people to stand in solidarity with us. To be with us, to find solutions and make visible the situation happening in Mayotte," she said. "Because this can happen in all French departments." She is helping coordinate a protest movement called Mayotte is Thirsty that is demanding accountability for alleged embezzling, leaks and lack of investment in sustainable water supplies. At one recent protest, residents sang, shouted and banged empty plastic bottles as they marched into the Mayotte water management company. The government is pinning its hopes on the upcoming rainy season, though residents say it won't be enough to fix the deep-seated water problems. On a crisis visit last week, France's minister for overseas territories thanked the people of Mayotte for "accepting the unacceptable." The water taps determine the rhythm of life in Mayotte, an island territory of about 350,000 people northwest of Madagascar. Once every three days, water flows between 4 p.m. and 10 a.m. Families rush to prepare food, wash dishes, clean their homes and anything else involving water. Those living in Mayottes poorer neighborhoods without plumbing line up at public taps with paint buckets, plastic jerrycans, reused bottles anything to collect water. Then for 48 hours, theyre dry again. It is important to keep talking with the authorities, but we are not going to sit idly by, said Mousdikoudine. If we stay at home, politicians will still say that the population is resilient, that we can manage this situation. But we cannot do it, lives are at stake, our physical and mental health, as well as our childrens lives." The most disadvantaged communities are hit the hardest by the water crisis in Mayotte, where the population is majority Black and many are struggling migrants from neighboring Comoros facing a new government crackdown. Previously, water was among Mayottes rare riches. The mountainous and forested district of Combani, in central Mayotte, is full of springs and interspersed with rivers. The reservoirs of Combani, and Dzoumogne further north, provide 80% of the water distributed on the island. Now the bare banks of the reservoir at Combani are cracked by the sun. Its capacity is 1.75 million cubic meters, but it now stands only 10% full. The Dzoumogne reservoir is at 6.5% capacity. Mayotte is in its sixth year of drought, and just had its driest year since 1997, according to the national weather service. Scientists say human-induced climate change has made drought more frequent and extreme in some parts of the world. But even without drought, Mayotte's water system wasnt capable of fulfilling local needs. Overseas Affairs Minister Philippe Vigier said during a visit last week that 850 leaks have been spotted since September. Residents regularly film facilities of water network management company Smae, a subsidiary of big French utility Vinci, spewing water into the void and share them online. And only one new water borehole, delivering a few hundred cubic meters per day, has been put into service so far as part of an ambitious Marshall Plan for water announced in September. The local water union blames the water rationing on lack of production capacity, not lack of water. The central government is promising emergency work on drilling for new springs, the renovation of a desalination plant, and extending state distribution of bottled water to all residents and not just the most vulnerable. Residents worry it wont come fast enough, and have heard such promises before. The desalination plant has already faced years of delays, missed deadlines and allegations of pocketed subsidies. It doesnt have to be this way. In the neighboring Comoros, with a similar volcanic terrain and wet and dry seasons, the U.N. Development Program has a $60 million water management project aimed at better capturing rainwater and tracking usage. While Comoros is one of the worlds poorest countries, France is one of the worlds richest and shouldnt need U.N. aid. But Mayottes water crisis underlines inequalities and often awkward relationships between the central government in Paris and former colonies that remain part of France. On Mayotte, richer residents invest in personal water tanks at a cost of 1,600 euros ($1,700) for each installation, to ensure water flows continuously. But most of the Mayotte population lives below the French poverty line and must heed the local governments repeated messages that every drop counts. With 50% living on less than 160 euros ($170) per month, according to state statistics agency Insee, 5.50-euro ($5.90) packs of bottled water imported from mainland France are not an option for most. Instead, they drink brackish water or nothing. Hunger, too, is worsening, as drought cuts into crop production. Local medics cite a rise in acute gastroenteritis 20 patients in intensive care recorded for this reason in one month as well as typhoid and cholera. But Ben Issa Ousseni, president of the departmental council of Mayotte, told local broadcaster Mayotte 1ere that he believes the crisis is still ahead of us." He does not rule out the possibility of a total disruption of supply in homes. ___ Cyril Castelliti contributed to this report from around Mayotte. ___ 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. At a Saturday vigil in a nearly empty Calumet Park, friends and family toasted to the life of Aurelio Guzman Jr. with Reeses Peanut Butter Cups. The sweet treat had been a favorite of the 16-year-old gun violence victim, who went by Junior. Guzman was killed in the early morning of Oct. 31 in the 9900 block of South Avenue G, in the East Side neighborhood. He died at Trinity Hospital following a single gunshot wound below his ear, according to police. I loved my son. He was my everything, Guzmans father, Aurelio Guzman Sr., said. Nothing could bring him back to me. He was my only blood son. Its going to hurt until I die. A cross pendant hung from a memorial to Guzman in Calumet Park, adorned with prayer candles and dusted with the last leaves of fall. Friends and family drove sticks and pencils into the ground to prop up photos of Guzman graduating from middle school, holding a giant birthday cake, linking arms with his father. Some mourners wrote messages to Guzman on a length of green tablecloth, including Maritza Flores, a childhood neighbor and friend. Its very sad, said Flores, 24. We remember him as a loving kid a small, little kid and now hes no longer here. The vigil was organized by the Israels Gifts of Hope Foundation, which supports families affected by gun violence, and Treatment Not Trauma, which advocates for alternative forms of crisis response in Chicago. Lisa Salazar, a community nurse and Treatment Not Trauma volunteer, became close to the Guzman family when Guzmans grandfather was a patient. Before Guzman died, she had been working with him on college applications, planning to fill out federal student aid applications with him over the winter holidays. I watched the young man grow up, she said. Im almost glad that his grandfather has passed away, because it would just kill him to bury his grandson. Addressing nearly 30 mourners in Spanish and English, Salazar referred to gun violence in Chicago as a second pandemic, following COVID-19. Guzman is one of 55 kids age 17 and younger who have been shot to death in Chicago since the start of the year. Two other teenagers were killed by gunfire in the same police district as Guzman on the weekend of Oct. 31. My heart is heavier every day, Salazar said. Gun violence on the East Side of Chicago tends to spike around Halloween, community activist Dolores Castaneda told the Chicago Tribune. Castaneda, who is based in Little Village, was among those at the vigil calling for social services supporting de-escalation, including bereavement counseling for grieving families and financial assistance for funeral costs. Exposure to gun violence without mental health treatment overwhelms young people and their families alike, Castaneda said. We cant be losing our children, just like that, Castaneda said. We are losing the young people in this country. Juniors father, Aurelio Guzman Sr., had told the Tribune that his son may have had a friend involved in gang activity. Saturday, the family was adamant that Guzman Jr. was not himself affiliated with any gang. Instead, Guzman Sr. attributed his sons death to cowardly people. He wasnt the type that would open his mouth, or a snitch, Guzman Sr. said. He didnt deserve this. He had just turned 16. As peanut butter cups were solemnly consumed, mourners wrote messages to Guzman Jr. on blue and white balloons. His family huddled tightly together as dozens of final goodbyes floated high over Calumet Park. Long Live, one star-shaped balloon read. Love you forever, Aurelio. In December 2021, the person in charge of Ohios youth prisons was removed from his post by Gov. Mike DeWine and given another job with the state. His assistant at the Department of Youth Services also was reassigned, and the doctor serving as medical director had his contract canceled. The shake-up occurred just months after the family of Robert Wright Jr., who died in custody at the Circleville Juvenile Correctional Facility, sued the state, claiming staff at the lockup failed to address chest pains and severe headaches suffered by the 17-year-old. "Ohios juvenile detention centers have a long history of abuse," said state Rep. Sedrick Denson at the time. "But with new leadership comes an opportunity for change and growth." That opportunity has so far been unrealized. Read the full report: Find a summary and link to each part of our investigation into Ohio's youth detention facilities Over the past two years, reporter Laura Bischoff has been covering the mayhem occurring at youth lockups across the state, the most visible of which was last years standoff at Indian River Juvenile Correctional Facility in Stark County. A dozen teenagers took over a building for 12 hours, arming themselves with makeshift weapons from the shop classroom in October 2022. Officials cant avoid coming clean when high-profile disturbances like the one at Indian River occur. But it begs the question, what isnt being disclosed by state and local leaders? Bischoff, along with more than a dozen journalists from The Enquirer, The Columbus Dispatch, Akron Beacon Journal and other news organizations in the USA TODAY Network Ohio, spent eight months investigating what happens to kids behind bars. The journalists found a system plagued by violence, chaos and neglect. By many measures, teens aren't being rehabilitated. Instead, they're coming out worse. The stories, photos and videos assembled here required months of phone calls, trips to families' homes, time spent in courts, tours of lockups and a review of hundreds of pages of documents. It also required hours of listening to more than 100 children, parents, employees, judges and others about how the system is intended to work and how it fails. Consandra Wright holds a necklace with a photo of her son, Robert Wright Jr., on Sept. 12 in Cincinnati. Robert died of a medical condition and overdose while incarcerated at Circleville Juvenile Correctional Facility. [ Reporters with USA Todays network of Ohio newspapers spent eight months investigating the state's juvenile justice system. Consider supporting their work with a subscription. ] Our journalists sent more than 30 public records requests to agencies across the state, seeking investigative reports, witness statements, personnel files, disciplinary records, surveillance footage and other documents. Some of the information was readily turned over. At other times, it didnt come without prompting from our lawyers. And in some instances, such as investigations into allegations of employee misconduct, we are still waiting for the records. So where does the buck stop? Whos accountable for Ohio's youth prisons and juvenile detention centers? Our special report answers that complex question, along with possible alternatives to youth lockups, such as the Marion County Family Resource Center. Bottom line: What were doing now is not working. Of those released from one of the states three youth prisons, 43% return or end up in adult prisons, according to states own report on recidivism. An investigation of this scope would not be possible without the support of our subscribers. If you are among those who have invested in local journalism, you have our sincere thanks. If youre not a subscriber, we hope this unprecedented collaboration among some of the states top news organizations inspires you to become one. Beryl Love is executive editor of The Enquirer and regional editor of the USA TODAY Network Ohio. Our team Reporters: Laura Bischoff, Amanda Garrett, Kevin Grasha, Amy Knapp, Cameron Knight and Jordan Laird. Visual journalists: Courtney Hergesheimer, Doral Chenoweth, Phil Didion, Ben Duer, Liz Dufour, Phil Masturzo, Mike Nyerges, Lisa Scalfaro and Carter Skaggs. Editors: Anthony Shoemaker, Cara Owsley, Dan Horn, Erin Mansfield, Jackie Borchardt and Joe Powell. Designers: Keely Brown and Rebecca Boneschans. Podcast: Haley BeMiller and Patrick Flaherty. This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio kids behind bars face injuries, violence, neglect and chaos Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna wears a black band over his badge in memory of Deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer, who was shot to death in September. Eight department employees have died by suicide this year, including four last week. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times) Warning: This editorial includes discussion of suicide. A law enforcement officers job is difficult and dangerous and takes its toll on body, mind and spirit. A reminder of that cost came last week with the shocking and tragic deaths by suicide of four active and former Los Angeles County sheriffs personnel within a 24-hour period. Investigations are ongoing. The deceased reportedly include a retired sheriffs sergeant, a custody assistant and two deputies. Altogether, there have been eight deaths by suicide among current and former Sheriffs Department employees this year. Read more: Four current and former L.A. Sheriff's Department employees died by suicide in a 24-hour span Policing necessarily entails violence and trauma. Like all first responders, police officers and deputies experience human crises on a continuing basis and encounter grievous injury and death on a scale thats difficult for those not in their profession to understand. Unlike other first responders, their work requires them to be prepared to exert deadly force. Society demands it of them and gives them the weapons, the training and the legal authority to do it. The responsibility to exercise that power in a way that protects the innocent as well as themselves, and yet not physically harm perpetrators needlessly, is mind-boggling. The consequences of making a mistake can be fatal, and officers who survive an encounter that leaves a suspect dead can expect searing scrutiny, potentially an end to their career and even criminal prosecution. Read more: Editorial: Two deputies shot and another weekend with neither justice nor peace Law enforcement agencies are under constant criticism for use of excessive force, and rightly so. Police in the U.S. shoot approximately 1,000 people to death annually. Although a majority of those people are armed and dangerous, some are not and some may be dangerous because of noncriminal conditions like mental illness or substance use disorder. We have long asked police to respond to those problems with the tools we give them, although we know that in some cases other responders and other tools are more appropriate, including counselors and clinicians, housing, mental treatment, healthcare, education and job training. The gap between what we demand of law enforcement and what officers are equipped, trained and suited to provide exacerbates a long-standing and growing estrangement between police and those whom they are sworn to protect and serve. That estrangement, added to the trauma inherent in the job and a machismo culture that too often sees seeking help as a sign of weakness, can create a combination that is unhealthy to those who serve. In a typical year, more police die by suicide than in encounters with suspects. Law enforcement officers have been found to die by suicide at a rate 54% higher than the rest of the population. Read more: Editorial: The more LAPD changes... Beyond the stress and emotional injury that officers bear, they are further endangered by their ready access to firearms. Among Americans outside law enforcement, most suicide attempts are not fatal except when a gun is used. Officer suicide attempts most often involve guns, and therefore are most often fatal. Yet suicide rates differ among law enforcement agencies, so it is worthwhile to examine those where rates are lowest. Studies of the Los Angeles Police Department in the 1970s revealed lower rates than in comparable law enforcement departments, lower even than among L.A.s general population. The LAPD was one of the first departments to make professional mental health services available to officers, and experts believe that was one of the factors in a lower suicide rate. The Sheriffs Department, like most large law enforcement agencies, now also offers its personnel free and confidential psychological counseling and other services, but it's not clear that deputies are comfortable using it for fear of stigma. In the rest of society, there has been a growing awareness of the need for help in treating emotional wounds as well as their physical counterparts. That need is acute in law enforcement, and necessary for the health and safety of all of us. If its in the news right now, the L.A. Times Opinion section covers it. Sign up for our weekly opinion newsletter. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Eight men are charged after the city centre stabbing An eighth man has been charged after a 19-year-old was stabbed in Coventry. The teenager sustained multiple injuries in the attack in Upper Precinct on 6 October. He was treated in hospital and his injuries were not life-threatening. A 20-year-old man arrested in London was charged with wounding and violent disorder, West Midlands Police said. He was due before magistrates in Coventry on Saturday. Follow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk "I'm all for conservation," Frank Ribelin, a landowner outside Austin, Texas, told U.S. News & World Report two decades after passage of the Endangered Species Act, "but I'd like to club the little bastards." He meant the golden-cheeked warbler, a sparrow-sized songbird that leaves the state only to winter in Central America. As a family member said, land like theirs "used to be sold by the square foot, but that all crumbled the day the warbler was listed." Once an endangered species was found there, the land's value plummeted. Thirty years later, the warbler's status remains unchanged: It is still listed as endangered. The bird's fate exemplifies several things about the act, which has become one of the most controversial laws on the books since being passed 50 years ago in December 1973. For one thing, an endangered species listing holds the power to make a conservationist want to bludgeon a dainty and rare bird to death. For another, the warbler's lack of progress highlights the Endangered Species Act's dismal record of achieving its ultimate goal: conserving species to the point that protections under the law "are no longer necessary." It's true, as supporters of the act are quick to point out, that 99 percent of species listed under the statute have avoided going extinct over its half-century. Yet less than 3 percent of listed species have ever successfully recovered and come off the list. So while most endangered species have avoided plunging over a cliff, almost none have been able to back a safe distance away from the edge. That's largely because, as the Ribelin family's experience suggests, the Endangered Species Act is nearly all stick and no carrot. The law takes a regulation-first approach that all too often makes an endangered species a liability to avoid, rather than an asset to conserve. The presence of a listed species can bring prohibitions on how property owners can use their land or even forbid state biologists from relocating animals to a proper habitat. Even the mere existence of habitat for a listed species can lower land values by entangling properties with federal designations. Punitive policies turn would-be partners in recovery into enemies of rare species. It's why a popular colloquial stance toward endangered species has long been called "the three S's": shoot, shovel, and shut up. It's unfortunate, because farmers, ranchers, and other private citizens provide the majority of habitat for many listed species, and an estimated two-thirds of all listed species have at least some habitat on private land. Unless there's a change in the law's approach toward the people who can provide so much important habitat for at-risk species, the prospects for rare species don't seem likely to improve. Irreconcilable Conflict "As the one person in the Congress, the only one, that voted for the Endangered Species Act," the late Rep. Don Young (RAlaska) said at a hearing a few years ago, "please beat me with a whip." Young took office the year the Endangered Species Act became law and became the longest-serving Republican in congressional history before dying in 2022. When the act passed, he has said, congressional members were told it would save "leopards," not wildlife like "mussels and snails and turtles." Virtually everyone envisioned the law protecting bald eagles and manatees, not halting infrastructure builds or slowing economic development in the name of slimy invertebrates or obscure fish. "Essentially no skepticism was expressed about either the law's conservation goals or its regulatory strategies," University of California, Berkeley law professor Holly Doremus has written. "There was no organized interest group opposition. No one voted against the Senate bill." Lawmakers scarcely contemplated that the act would ever interfere with federal projects or restrict uses of private property. Since environmental citizen lawsuits were a new phenomenon in the early '70s, the citizen suit provision included in the act drew little attention. "It's easy to get everybody to sign on with protecting whales and grizzly bears," Doremus recently told the Associated Press. "But people didn't anticipate that things they wouldn't notice, or wouldn't think beautiful, would need protection in ways that would block some economic activity." It didn't take long for people to figure that out. In August 1973, a few months before the act was passed, a University of Tennessee biologist discovered a novel type of three-inch minnow in the waters of the Little Tennessee River. By then, Congress had already sunk tens of millions of dollars into the massive federal Tellico Dam project on that same waterway. The newly discovered snail darter was listed as endangered two years later, and the Endangered Species Act had its first major conflict. The biology professor and a law student filed suit on behalf of the fish, a legal lever that also proved fortuitous for locals who fiercely objected to a project that would flood their communities. A federal court ruling stopped construction of the facility. The Senate Appropriations Committee was not impressed. Its members wrote that they had not "viewed the Endangered Species Act as preventing the completion and use" of such projects, adding that "funds should be appropriated to allow these projects to be completed and their benefits realized in the public interest," the act notwithstanding. The case ended up before the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices sided with the snail darter, memorably ruling that through the Endangered Species Act, Congress had prioritized conserving rare species "whatever the cost." In the wake of the decision, even as The New York Times praised the act's aims, it declared the law "far too inflexible," pointing out that the "potential for irreconcilable conflict remains in the law's absolutism." It took another act of Congress to complete the dam's construction. Legislators also created a so-called God squad that could exempt future government projects from being similarly derailed. But the law had plenty of conflict left to create. Megafauna or Minnows? The idea that the act fundamentally protects "charismatic megafauna"popular, symbolic, large animalsholds sway even today. While nine in 10 Americans say they support the Endangered Species Act, people severely underestimate how many species are protected under it. More than 1,600 domestic species are listed, yet Americans typically estimate the number is more like 100. Congress directed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect two categories of species under the act. Species that are "endangered" are already at risk of extinction, while "threatened" species are deemed likely to become endangered in the "foreseeable future." The law made it illegal to "take" endangered speciesthat is, to "harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture or collect" themor to degrade their habitats. The agency has effectively extended those prohibitions to most threatened species as well, largely erasing the distinction between the two listing categories. For listed species, the Fish and Wildlife Service can designate "critical habitat," or areas it identifies as essential to conserving the species, and the act regulates federal activities affecting those areas. (The National Marine Fisheries Service administers the law for marine species.) The upshot is that when people encounter endangered animals, or merely take an action that may alter their habitats, they can end up in "irreconcilable conflict" with the Endangered Species Act. Mundane activities such as plowing farmland, harvesting timber, or developing a vacant lot can make private citizens subject to five-figure fines or even imprisonment. These poor incentives are among the reasons that recovery progress has been slow. According to Fish and Wildlife Service projections, nearly 300 domestic species should have recovered by mid-2023. In reality, only 13 of those species did. (The agency had made no time-specific projections for 44 other species that recovered by then.) The red-cockaded woodpecker offers a classic example of how punitive incentives hinder conservation of rare species. The bird, listed as endangered for the entire life of the Endangered Species Act, prefers to inhabit mature longleaf pines in the American South. A seminal study in The Journal of Law and Economics examined more than 1,000 forest plots in North Carolina; it estimated that the discovery of a red-cockaded woodpecker colony could prevent a landowner from harvesting $200,000 worth of timber. It also found that the closer forest landowners were to the bird, the sooner they harvested their trees. Another study, this one in Economic Inquiry, found that forest owners who knew or thought they were in close proximity to the woodpecker were more likely to clear-cut their land, essentially ruining potential habitat "so that the existing values of their property could be protected from the Endangered Species Actrelated land use limitations." It would be hard to craft a policy that puts habitat-providing landowners more at odds with an imperiled species in need of support. The truth is that some of the most charismatic species, such as eagles, alligators, and grizzlies, have done pretty well since the act's passage. It's the obscure or downright homely ones that often have not fared as well. When wolves were reintroduced to the Yellowstone ecosystem in the 1990s, people bought posters featuring the carnivores to raise money for the effort. The funds helped compensate ranchers in the area when they lost livestock to the predators, an innovative way to help wildlife pay for itself. Rare mussels like the Carolina heelsplitter or Atlantic pigtoe, by contrast, do not generally feature on fundraising calendars. But it's the mollusks and minnows most Americans have never heard of, let alone realize are on the endangered species list, that most need the incentives for conservation to be right. Taking Liberties Endangered species regulations create warped incentives because they typically work against private landowners, state agencies, and conservation groups. The word take is a prime example. A term that essentially means "harm" has been interpreted so broadly that it applies even to activities meant to help listed species. The Nigiri Project, for instance, is a Northern California initiative that encourages farmers to allow juvenile endangered salmon to use their flooded rice fields during the winter. The habitat mimics insect-rich flood plains and nurtures the growing salmon before they migrate to the ocean, boosting their survival rates. As a scientist from the conservation group California Trout has noted, the project's biggest challenge was convincing federal and state agencies to let it move the salmon to the temporary habitat, an activity considered to be a form of take. Then there's the saga of the threatened Utah prairie dog. Several years ago, the rodents' furious digging destroyed construction sites, compromised airport runways, and ruined children's playgrounds. So the state of Utah and private partners bought conservation lands with suitable habitat for the prairie dogs, and biologists relocated thousands of the rodents to them. Their population boomed, a clear conservation win. Then a court re-instated federal take prohibitions. When policies make it hard even to undertake projects that help endangered species, they're bound to frustrate land-owners who simply want to get on with the routine activities of, say, running a farm. It explains why timber owners decide to preemptively cut forestland rather than grow older, larger trees that would garner higher prices: The fear of a woodpecker's presence and its associated federal regulations outweighs the potential for greater profits. The Endangered Species Act has not just made the presence of listed species a liability. It has turned lines on a map designating habitat areas into the opposite of instant curb appeal. Critical Condition "Our land is not suitable for the frog," Edward Poitevent said a few years ago while looking over his family's timberland in southeastern Louisiana. "We know that. The government and Fish and Wildlife Service have said that you don't have the elements for it." Poitevent then described the steps it would take for his land to support the dusky gopher frog, an endangered species that once inhabited the area but had not been documented in the state for more than half a century. "To make it suitable, you'd have to rip up every tree on 1,544 acres, replant all of it with the right tree, make sure the ponds are still there, and make sure you burn it every year." (Some pine forests need routine fires to rejuvenate and thrive.) The government designated Poitevent's property a "critical habitat" because it contained several rare ponds of the type the species requires to breed. Yet in recent decades, the tract had been farmed as a dense commercial timber plantation, a far cry from the open-canopied longleaf pine landscape that the frog needs. "Their job is to find a habitat," Poitevent said. "The consequences are not their problem." By the federal government's own estimate, those consequences included losing out on a maximum of $34 million if the designation prevented the family from developing the land, which is near an interstate in a fast-growing part of the state. A lawsuit, Supreme Court ruling, and subsequent settlement ultimately removed the land from the designation. For listed species, the Fish and Wildlife Service may designate as critical habitat the geographic areas it deems essential to conserving them. If a designation encircles private land, it immediately lowers the market value due to stigma. Prospective buyers worry about and account for the regulatory risks. The agency and some environmentalists have argued the stigma is irrational, but that doesn't make it any less real. Several researchers have tried to quantify the effect. A 2020 study led by economist Maximilian Auffhammer analyzed 13,000 real estate transactions within or near critical habitat for two listed species in California. It found that a designation of critical habitat for the red-legged frog cut land values by about half, and designations for the bay checkerspot butterfly slashed values by an estimated 78 percent. A 2006 working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research examined the critical habitat designation for a pygmy owl in Arizona. The authors found that land proposed for designation was developed approximately one year faster than comparable tracts outside of the designation, presumably to avoid being officially declared as habitat. The rub of the designation approach is that it can penalize landowners even as it offers no clear conservation benefits to at-risk species. The ponds that supposedly remained on Poitevent's family land were never likely to help the dusky gopher frog, because the surrounding land wasn't suitable for the amphibian. In fact, designating private land may have net costs for conservation as well as for property owners. Gray Skipper's family has stewarded timber in Alabama for more than a century, enrolling tens of thousands of forested acres in a state wildlife management lease since the 1950s. The lease allowed the public to hunt deer and turkey and permitted state biologists to carry out wildlife research and surveys. That willingness to further conservation turned to regret when the Fish and Wildlife Service designated about 30,000 acres of the family's land as critical habitat for the black pine snake, a reptile Skipper has never seen outside of a Bass Pro Shops store in Mississippi. After decades of collaborating in state conservation efforts, the family withdrew their land from the lease. "No good deed goes unpunished," says Skipper, who is suing the Fish and Wildlife Service over the designation. "Infringing property rights is no way to encourage conservation," adds Charles Yates, an attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation who is representing Skipper. "For more than half a century, the Skippers have responsibly managed their land. Now the service is penalizing them for it." A law that pits people who could provide habitat for rare frogs or snakes against those very species is entirely counterproductive. That approach certainly helps explain why less than 3 percent of species have ever recovered and come off the list. Fights over the potential fallout from delistings account for much of the rest. Gnashing Teeth In the early 1800s, Lewis and Clark fascinated Americans with tales of a "verry large and a turrible looking animal, which we found verry hard to kill." The grizzly bear became easier to kill over subsequent decades, and state and federal bounties helped fuel efforts to get rid of it. The grizzly population in the Yellowstone region bottomed out at 136 bears in 1975, the same year that all lower 48 populations of the species were listed as threatened. Since then, it has largely rebounded. The Yellowstone grizzly now numbers an estimated 1,063, more than double its recovery target of 500. Yet efforts to delist the population in 2007 and then 2017 both failed due to litigation from environmental groups. "It's recovered under any metric we look at," Tom France of the National Wildlife Federation said after the last attempt to de-list the population. "We should consider it a great success." But WildEarth Guardians sued to challenge the delisting. Now, even as Yellowstone National Park touts that grizzlies "have made a remarkable recovery," the bears there remain listed and, technically, unrecovered. When species protected by the Endangered Species Act are accompanied by hefty regulatory hammers, decisions over whether to list (or delist) wildlife become all-or-nothing battles. Environmentalists often latch on to the powerful law to stop things they dislike, from hunting to harvesting to mining, so a delisting means one less lever to halt what they consider to be damaging activities. But the people who suffer higher costs of living with endangered species want to see recovery efforts rewarded with de-listings. "Who bears the cost of the recovery of these species?" Stefanie Smallhouse asked at a 2018 hearing on potential reforms to the act, noting that it's "a handful of ranchers" who lose out from living near endangered Mexican gray wolves, as she does. Smallhouse, president of the Arizona Farm Bureau and a fifth-generation rancher, estimated that her family's land hosted at least 20 listed species and was subject to seven critical habitat designations. "All of the people who want to see those wolves live in the city," she continued, "and don't have to live with the wolves themselves." A Colorado rancher echoed the sentiment in 2019, when activists called for reintroducing endangered gray wolves to his state, telling The Colorado Independent that a "bunch of city dudes" were trying to "cram it down our throats." Any listed species can bring red tape, restrictions on how land can be used, and limitations on how state agencies can resolve conflictsfor instance, by removing a troublesome predator from areas with lots of cattle. In the case of large carnivores like grizzlies and wolves, rebounding populations have led to more conflicts with humans and livestock. But when species remain listed even after surpassing scientific recovery objectives, states and landowners have fewer options and less flexibility to address the conflicts. There's no carrot of regulatory relief at the end of the path to recovery. Poach or Protect? Three decades after being listed, the golden-cheeked warbler remains endangered largely because the incentives to recover it, let alone delist it, aren't right. Sam Hamilton was the top U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official in Texas when the bird was listed, and later served as director of the agency. "The incentives are wrong here," he told U.S. News & World Report around the same time Ribelin was joking about clubbing the songbirds. "If I have a rare metal on my property, its value goes up. But if a rare bird occupies the land, its value disappears. We've got to turn it around to make the landowner want to have the bird on his property." South of the border, in northern Mexico, a group of ranchers has found a way to coexist with endangered jaguars. The nonprofit Northern Jaguar Project rewards ranchers who support recovery efforts: For every photo of a jaguar taken by remote trail cameras, ranchers receive a payment. As Hamilton dreamed, the approach transforms a protected species that would usually be a liability or even poaching target into an asset. "At first, the attraction was the money," rancher Diego Ezrre told a local radio station a few years ago. "But most of the ranchers who are in the program, our perspective has changed. We realize that the jaguars aren't such a threat." U.S. endangered species policy, on the other hand, remains as likely to hamstring as to encourage conservation. In Arizona, jaguars worry ranchers even though the species barely exists there. The big cat used to roam from Louisiana to California, but, like many large predators, it was exterminated over time. Jaguars are now largely confined to the territory stretching from Mexico south to the tropics, with only rare sightings north of the border. Yet the Fish and Wildlife Service designated critical habitat in Arizona and New Mexico for the species in 2014. After the designation, some University of Arizona researchers interviewed local ranchers about it. "The ranchers were less concerned about the presence of jaguars," they wrote, "but were more concerned about possible limiting effects of the Endangered Species Act, distrust of government entities, and litigious environmental groups." The prospects for reforming the Endangered Species Actand improving its record at actually recovering imperiled speciesseem slim. There have been no substantive changes to the legislation since the late 1980s. The U.S. Constitution has been amended more recently. But without changes to the act, the next 50 years under it will likely look like the first. Most endangered species will cling to existence, but they will fail to recover and will linger on the list. Landowners who want to harbor rare species will remain as elusive as recovered species. The post The Endangered Species Act at 50 appeared first on Reason.com. Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko believes that the Russians will launch massive missile strikes on Ukraines energy infrastructure once air temperatures have been below zero for a long time. Source: Halushchenko on the joint national 24/7 newscast Quote: "It seems to me that they are waiting for a significant drop in temperature so that it stays below zero for a long time, and then they will strike. In that case, of course, the low temperature will add to the damage. In fact, there is no particular threshold: any sub-zero temperature increases the risks." Details: Halushchenko noted that the Russians did not cease their attacks on energy infrastructure even in the summer. "They didn't really stop the attacks, they also attacked in the summer. Were not going into detail about which facilities we are talking about or about the consequences," he said. "So far, were not seeing the sort of massive attacks that took place on 10 October [2022 ed.], when they deployed about 100 missiles. We have information that they are preparing for this, and we will respond accordingly," the minister added. Background: Earlier, Halushchenko said that Ukraine may attack Russian oil and gas infrastructure if Moscow steps up its attacks on Ukraine's energy system this winter. Support UP or become our patron! VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis on Sunday reiterated his plea for an end to hostilities between Israelis and Palestinians, and called for "much more" humanitarian aid for Gaza. "Enough, enough brothers, enough", Francis said, adding the wounded in the Gaza Strip needed to be taken care of immediately and the protection of civilians assured. He also said hostages held by Hamas must be freed. Addressing the crowds in St Peter's Square after his weekly Angelus prayers, Francis said arms would never bring peace and that the conflict must not widen. "I am close to all those who suffer, Palestinians and Israelis," he said, adding he was praying for them. Israel said on Sunday it was ready to evacuate babies from Gaza's largest hospital, but Palestinian officials said people inside were still trapped as intense fighting rages nearby. Very little aid has entered Gaza since Israel declared war on Hamas more than a month ago after militants rampaged through southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostage, according to Israeli officials. Palestinian officials said on Friday that 11,078 Gaza residents had been killed in air and artillery strikes since then, around 40% of them children. Francis, 86, has already called for the creation of humanitarian corridors and has said a two-state solution was needed to end the Israel-Hamas conflict. (Reporting by Federico Maccioni, editing by Kirsten Donovan and Barbara Lewis) A migrant child scooters past Venezuelan migrants Michael Castejon and daughter, Andrea Sevilla, wait for a ride-share at the 1st District police station in Chicago, Nov. 3, 2023. They were heading to OHare International Airport to get to Texas and then back to Venezuela. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune) Over the past five months since arriving in Chicago, Andrea Carolina Sevillas parents have been unable to enroll her in school even though the reason they left everything behind in their native Venezuela was for her to have access to better education. In Venezuela, she said, she was lucky she could even attend school. Many other teenagers start working at an early age to help out their families, who often face extreme poverty. Advertisement But she did not have the same luck in the city that she once dreamed of visiting. The family went from sleeping on the floor of a police station, to a crowded shelter, to a house on the Far South Side, and then back to the floor of the police station after her stepfather Michael Castejon, 39, couldnt afford the rent. He could not find a job that paid enough without a work permit, he said. [ Para leer en espanol, haga clic aqui ] On Nov. 3, they set out to go back to Texas. And from there, they would go to Venezuela, the country they fled to seek asylum in the United States. Theyre among the countless number of migrants who have chosen to leave Chicago in recent weeks in their search for a better life. Theyre looking for warmer weather, more resources or to reunite with friends and family in other places. Advertisement Yorbelis Molero, 16, second from left, says goodbye to a friend as Molero and her family of five wait to leave a Chicago police station and head to a Greyhound bus station on Nov. 2, 2023. The migrant family is leaving Chicago for Detroit. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune) One family of five left for Detroit because another migrant told them there was work there. One man went back to Texas, where he will join his cousins after trying his luck in Chicago. In the past month, at least 40 people, including Sevillas family, have left Chicago from the 1st District station on the Near South Side with the help of Catholic Charities of Chicago. The American Dream doesnt exist anymore, said Castejon as he laid on a blanket on the bare floor of the station the afternoon before they left. Theres nothing here for us, he added. Migrants said theyre realizing the city is at a breaking point. Not only is there no more space in shelters, they also acknowledge that some residents in Chicago oppose the opening of more shelters for them. Castejon said that despite the dangerous trek to get here often begging for money and sleeping in the streets to cross several borders the journey had not been worth it. Migrants Michael Castejon and wife Induliz Seville, wait for an Uber ride from the 1st District police station in Chicago to OHare airport on Nov. 3, 2023, as they try to return to Venezuela. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune) His attempts to settle in the city failed. He said he never felt comfortable in a shelter, and that the hot meals, stipends and good jobs hed heard about from other migrants never materialized. The father didnt consider that once in the country, the family wouldnt be granted asylum immediately and or even get a work permit while they wait. It could have been misinformation, he said. Or that the benefits that those who arrived in the city before him, are no longer available because of the amount of people now here. But even after hearing that the temporary protected status (TPS) program was expanded and the process to get job permits could be accelerated, he decided he was exhausted and chose not to wait. We didnt know things would be this hard, he said. I thought the process was faster. [ Read the latest on Chicagos migrant crisis ] More than 2,000 people have gotten monetary aid from the state through Catholic Charities to relocate to other states with family and friends, according to Katie Bredemann, a spokesperson with Catholic Charities of Chicago. The program has been part of their effort to help ease the humanitarian crisis in Chicago and offer the migrants an opportunity to reunite with families or reach the city they intended to go to before being sent to Chicago. The state of Illinois determines who is eligible for relocation to other states, then Catholic Charities assists in helping to help make the travel arrangements, Bredemann said in an email. Advertisement But while some migrants are choosing to leave, many more still arrive every week. In what could be considered a revolving door for taxpayers, for example, Catholic Charities of Chicago is using Illinois taxpayer money to transport the migrants who want to return to Texas or to other states while simultaneously the Catholic Charities of San Antonio and the city of Denver are using federal taxpayer money to send new migrants to Chicago. [ Migrants flown to Chicago by Catholic Charities in San Antonio, even with winter approaching and no place to sleep ] As of Friday, there were 20, 700 migrants who have arrived in Chicago since August 2022 when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began sending migrants to sanctuary cities such as Chicago, in part to protest federal immigration policies. Castejon said Chicago wasnt what they expected when they arrived in June. But the father was determined to succeed, he said. The family was first taken to the 1st District police station where they stayed for a couple weeks before getting transferred to Wright College with hundreds of other asylum-seekers. The family lived there for about a month before moving into a house with another migrant who was renting an apartment through a city voucher program that offers up to $15,000 for up to six months of rental assistance. But when rental assistance vanished, neither could afford rent, so they were once again homeless, the father said. They eventually met someone who offered to rent them an apartment for $750. They managed to afford it because Castejon had found a job in construction, where he was getting paid in cash. But the work was heavy and the pay was not enough, he said, so he left. Advertisement Unable to pay rent, the family returned to the 1st District station, where they waited about two weeks before packing their belongings, mostly collected through donations, and headed back to Venezuela. As the patriarch, he said he felt powerless not being able to provide for his wife and daughter, he said. How many more months of living in the streets will it take? No, no more. Its better that I leave. At least I have my mother back home, he said angrily. He said the family decided to seek asylum in the United States because of the extreme poverty in which they were living in Venezuelas authoritarian regime. But the trip was not worth it, he said. We just want to be home, he said. If were going to be sleeping in the streets here, wed rather be sleeping in the streets over there. The first few colder days influenced the familys decision to contact staff at Catholic Charities, pressing for plane tickets that would put them closer to a border town to find a way back home. When they got the news that they had been approved and had their tickets in hand, Castejon felt relieved, he said. Advertisement The feeling of disappointment and impotency that Castejon felt is shared by many of the migrants, said Brayan Lozano, head of the volunteer group of the Police Station Response Team at the 1st District station. Brayan Lozano, an asylum-seeker from Colombia who has become a leader of the mutual aid group at the 1st District police station, talks with migrants camped outside the station on Oct. 6, 2023. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune) As an asylum-seeker himself, Lozano understands firsthand the experience the migrants go through: the environment theyve escaped from their native countries and their expectations for the United States, which may have been influenced by social media and word-of-mouth from the first group of migrants who arrived in Chicago. There may have been more resources when they first came in August 2022, he said. Even though many, including Castejons family, are leaving, others still hope to eventually find shelter in hotel rooms, get access to public services and cash assistance or live out the American Dream. A proposed ballot question asking Chicagoans whether the city should keep its designation as a sanctuary city has roiled the City Council in recent weeks and immigrant- and Black-led groups gathered Thursday morning across the street from City Hall to urge solidarity, not division in responding to the migrant crisis. Like many people, were just here for a better life. Im grateful to God and Im just following a dream to be able to offer more to my family, said Ana, a Venezuelan teacher who came to Chicago in September because she could not afford to live on the pay she was making at home. The teacher spoke in Spanish through a translator. Advertisement I am here to continue to advocate for Chicago to be a sanctuary city, for there to be resources for everyone, for us immigrants, to continue to receive the help that we deserve, because everyone deserves a sun to shine on them, she said. [ City ID card event cancellations frustrate migrants desperate for official identification ] Lozano said there are several migrants who transitioned from sheltering in suburban hotel rooms into apartments with the help of the city and state resettlement program, received assistance to file their asylum cases, found jobs working under the table, like many people who live in the country without authorization do, and are settling in the city. But the resources have been exhausted for more recent arrivals and the resettlement program has been trumped by the number of migrants who are arriving. Lozano said that there is a lot of misinformation flowing within the asylum-seeking community about what is actually happening in Chicago. As snow and rain have come with the colder temperatures, the reality for migrants stuck sleeping outside of police stations has grown dire. Mattresses are wet, the smell inside tents is sticky, humid and pungent. They eat standing up, rubbing their hands together to keep warm. The word of the situation in Chicago is beginning to spread, Lozano said. Advertisement Jose Nauh, 22, decided to give Texas another shot and returned earlier this month after sleeping in a police station in Chicago for more than two weeks. He came to Chicago even though he has family in Houston because the ticket was free, he said, and he wanted to see what the buzz was all about. Like Castrejon, he heard there was shelter, food and other public benefits. Thats not true, he said. He grabbed a pink backpack, waved goodbye to Lozano, and rushed into a white car that took him to OHare International Airport to board a plane back south. Diana Vera combs daughter Ana's hair as the extended family of five prepares to leave the Chicago Police Departments 1st District station en route to the Greyhound station on Nov. 2, 2023. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune) That same day Diana Vera, her three children and daughter-in law boarded a bus to Detroit, hoping that a cousin would take them in once they arrived. We heard that there are a lot of jobs over there even if you dont have a permit, the mother said as she brushed her hair while sitting on a blanket on the floor of the police station that had been their home for nearly a month. Advertisement Vera also was discouraged from staying after hearing from migrants at city shelters that the conditions are overwhelmed with people, the food is cold and there are no real beds. It sounds worse than sleeping at the police station, she said. Chicago Tribunes Nell Salzman and A.D. Quig contributed. larodriguez@chicagotribune.com Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan calls for pressure on the United States to stop Israel's offensive in Gaza (Adem ALTAN) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday called for pressure on the United States to stop Israel's offensive in Gaza, but said there would be no agreement unless Washington accepted the enclave as Palestinian land. Erdogan returned from a summit on Saturday of Arab and Muslim leaders in the Saudi capital Riyadh, which condemned Israeli forces' "barbaric actions" in Gaza without approving concrete punitive measures. He is due to visit Germany on Friday and plans to travel to Egypt and host Iran's president in the coming weeks. "We should hold talks with Egypt and the Gulf countries, and pressure the United States," Erdogan told Turkish reporters on board his return flight from Riyadh. "The US should increase its pressure on Israel. The West should increase pressure on Israel... It's vital for us to secure a ceasefire," he said. Erdogan, who was on a trip to a northeastern Turkish village when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Ankara on November 5, did not rule out a meeting with President Joe Biden. "The most important country that needs to be involved is the United States, which has influence on Israel," Erdogan said. But he said he would not call Biden. Blinken "has just been here (in Turkey). I guess Biden will host us from now on. It would not be suitable for me to call Biden," he said. Erdogan said the US must accept Gaza as Palestinian land. "We cannot agree with Biden if he approaches (the conflict) by seeing Gaza as the land of occupying settlers or Israel, rather than the land of the Palestinian people," he said. Turkey has been an increasingly vocal critic of Israel's offensive in Gaza, which was triggered after Hamas militants staged an October 7 attack into Israel which killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to the most recent Israeli figures. Israel's relentless campaign in response has killed more than 11,000 people, also mostly civilians, according to the latest figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. In another speech in Istanbul on Sunday, Erdogan vented fury at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in comments broadcast live on Turkish television. "Hey Netanyahu, these are your good days, more different days are awaiting you... Netanyahu you should know that you're leaving," Erdogan said, after previously labelling the Israeli leader "no longer someone we can talk to". -Germany visit- Erdogan will meet German Chancellor Olaf Scholz next week. Turkey is technically a candidate for eventual EU membership and, even if this seems a distant prospect, Erdogan's portrayal of Hamas militants as "liberators" -- which differs sharply from the bloc's -- has caused unease. It also stands in stark contrast to the position taken by Berlin, the EU's most populous member. In its annual report on candidate countries' progress published this week, the EU said Turkey's "rhetoric in support of terrorist group Hamas following its attacks against Israel... is in complete disagreement with the EU approach." "The European Union thinks exactly the same as Israel regarding Hamas," Erdogan said on the plane. "I see Hamas as a political party that won the elections in Palestine. I don't look at it the same way they do," he added. Erdogan repeated his call for an international conference to resolve the conflict. "Nothing can serve peace more than a meeting of all regional actors including warring sides," he said. fo/acc ANKARA (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday parliament may pass a legal amendment to resolve a judicial crisis involving an unprecedented clash between two of the country's top courts. The unprecedented confrontation between the tribunals stoked a debate over the rule of law this week, when the appeals Court of Cassation refused to abide by a ruling of the Constitutional Court over a jailed parliamentarian and made a criminal complaint against judges of the top court. "It is not difficult to make legal arrangements regarding individual applications (to the Constitutional Court)," Erdogan told reporters on a flight back from Saudi Arabia, according to a text published by his office on Sunday. "But the work is not done after completing the legal amendments on individual applications," he added, signalling that more legal changes on the matter could be considered. At issue is a ruling by the Constitutional Court last month that jailed parliamentarian Can Atalay should be released. Atalay, 47, was sentenced to 18 years in prison last year after being convicted of trying to overthrow the government by organising nationwide protests in 2013, along with Turkish philanthropist Osman Kavala and six others. All defendants denied the charges regarding the protests, which they said developed spontaneously, in the biggest popular challenge to Erdogan in his more than two decades in power. In response to the Constitutional Court ruling, the Court of Cassation said the Constitutional Court's ruling was unconstitutional. In a statement on Friday evening, the Court of Cassation, the country's top appeals court, accused the Constitutional Court of dragging the legal system into chaos with its rulings on individual applications. In protest at the position taken by the Court of Cassation, lawmakers of the main opposition CHP party have staged a sit-in at the parliament's general assembly since Thursday. "Our protest against the attempt to overhaul the constitutional order will continue until further notice," CHP leader Ozgur Ozel said in a post on X on Sunday. Erdogan said that he would not be a party to the conflict, and play the role of a referee. He has said the clash shows the need for a new constitution, reflecting his longstanding position that parliament should take up the matter next year. (Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever, Editing by William Maclean) United States military veterans were honored throughout Erie County on Friday, and events continue Saturday on Veterans Day. "Veterans Day is a great opportunity for us to give thanks and appreciation for members of our community who have served," said Tom Hagel, USAR Ret., in remarks at Gannon University. Dan Weidler, far left, presented the colors at Elk Valley Elementary School during a Veterans Day assembly in Lake City. "I really appreciate the young men and women who are joining the services today in a known time of conflict." "Not just the veterans but their families who make a great deal of sacrifice," Hagel continued. Students at Elk Valley Elementary School in Lake City gathered for a morning assembly in the gym, where more than 100 veterans were honored with breakfast, songs from students and guest speakers. At Elk Valley Elementary School, kindergarten student Lennox Morehouse, 5, eats breakfast with his great-grandfather Ron Wygant prior to a Veterans Day assembly in Lake City on Nov. 10. Wygant, 78, served as a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps. The public was invited to the Pennsylvania Soldiers' & Sailors' Home at the foot of Ash Street to honor veterans in the chapel. The Mercyhurst Prep Show Choir sang the national anthem and the McDowell High School Air Force JROTC posted and retired the colors for the ceremony. A portion of the Pennsylvania Soldiers' & Sailors' Home Veterans Memorial Cemetery is shown in Erie on Friday. Gannon University held a Veterans Day Remembrance Ceremony in the Waldron Campus Center, with faculty, students and guests gathering for a wreath presentation and the playing of taps. More: Erie VA Medical Center to host annual Veterans Day parade and ceremony More: Veterans can enjoy special treatment, free meals, discounts by local shops on Veterans Day Contact Greg Wohlford at gwohlford@timesnews.com. This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Veterans Day: Erie County veterans honored at ceremonies BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union on Sunday condemned Hamas for using "hospitals and civilians as human shields" in Gaza, while also urging Israel to show "maximum restraint" to protect civilians. Hospitals in the north of the Palestinian enclave are blockaded by Israeli forces and barely able to care for those inside, according to medical staff. Gaza's largest and second largest hospitals, Al Shifa and Al-Quds, said they were suspending operations. Israel says Hamas has placed command centres under and near hospitals and it needs to get at them to free around 200 hostages the militants took in Israel in an attack just over a month ago. Hamas has denied using hospitals in this way. "The EU condemns the use of hospitals and civilians as human shields by Hamas," European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement issued on behalf of the 27-nation bloc. "Civilians must be allowed to leave the combat zone." At the same time, he urged Israel to exercise maximum restraint, stressing the obligation under international humanitarian law to protect hospitals, medical supplies and civilians inside hospitals. "These hostilities are severely impacting hospitals and taking a horrific toll on civilians and medical staff," Borrell warned. "Hospitals must ... be supplied immediately with the most urgent medical supplies, and patients that require urgent medical care need to be evacuated safely," he added. "In this context, we urge Israel to exercise maximum restraint to ensure the protection of civilians." (Reporting by Sabine Siebold and Adam Makary; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Giles Elgood) Following Hamas surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, and Israel's decision to launch an assault against Hamas in Gaza, global eyes have been on the U.S. to see the role Israels most powerful ally will play in the ongoing conflict. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been walking a diplomatic tightrope as Israel faces growing public pressure to call for a ceasefire. On Nov. 5, Blinken traveled to the West Bank to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The two politicians reportedly discussed how to ease civilian suffering in the Gaza Strip Hamas killed 1,200 people in its Oct. 7 attack, a death toll the Israeli government revised from around 1,400. Hamas is still reportedly holding more than 200 hostages. Meanwhile, Israeli bombing of Gaza over the past month has reportedly killed more than 11,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. As the conflict continues to escalate, heres everything Blinken has said about the Israel-Hamas war. Blinken condemns Hamas attacks On the day of Hamas unprecedented assault against Israel, Blinken made his stance known in a post on X (formerly Twitter). We unequivocally condemn the appalling attacks by Hamas terrorists against Israel, he wrote. We stand in solidarity with the government and people of Israel and extend our condolences for the Israeli lives lost in these attacks. We unequivocally condemn the appalling attacks by Hamas terrorists against Israel. We stand in solidarity with the government and people of Israel and extend our condolences for the Israeli lives lost in these attacks. Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) October 7, 2023 Blinken tells Israel "we will always be there by your side" Blinken expressed unconditional support for Israel during a visit on Oct. 12, less than a week after Hamas attack. In a statement given to reporters at Tel Aviv airport, he said the United States has Israels back every day. The United States has Israel's back. We have their back today, we will have it tomorrow, and we will have it every day. And we will always stand resolutely against terrorism. pic.twitter.com/Bil3NgWEaw Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) October 11, 2023 At a joint press conference in Tel Aviv beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Blinken again pledged solidarity. "You may be strong enough on your own to defend yourself. But as long as America exists, you will never, ever have to. We will always be there by your side, Blinken said. I am in Israel during this incredibly difficult moment for this nation and for the entire world. As Secretary of State, as a Jew, as a husband and a father, I understand on a personal level the harrowing echoes Hamas's massacres carry. pic.twitter.com/aY7MrAdK62 Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) October 12, 2023 Blinken condemned the "heinous attacks" by Hamas and said the actions of the militant group bring to mind the worst of ISIS. The U.S. mourned "the loss of every innocent life, he said, and urged Israeli restraint to protect civilians in Gaza. "It's so important to take every possible precaution to avoid harming civilians." The message that I bring to Israel is this: You may be strong enough on your own to defend yourself but as long as America exists, you will never, ever have to. pic.twitter.com/YJ5ss92guI Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) October 12, 2023 Blinken envisions Palestinians realizing their legitimate right to self-determination Blinken told the United Nations Security Council in New York City on Oct. 24 that the region faces two pathsone that led to death and destruction and the other to greater peace, with Palestinians realizing their legitimate right to self-determination and a state of their own. Nothing would be a greater victory of Hamas than allowing its brutality to send us down its path of terrorism and nihilism. We must not let it. Hamas does not get to choose for us, he said. The United States stands ready to work with anyone ready to forge a more peaceful and free future for the region. The only road to lasting peace and security in the region, the only way to break out of the horrific cycle of violence, is through two states for two peoples. pic.twitter.com/LwDdQE18O7 Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) October 24, 2023 Blinken supports military aid for Israel Blinken testified before Congress on Oct. 31 in support of the Biden administrations $105 billion national security funding request that included $14 billion for Israel and $61 billion for Ukraine. Blinken argued in a Senate hearing that the two conflicts were connected. In both Israel and Ukraine, democracies are fighting ruthless foes who are out to annihilate them, he said. Protesters opposed to military funding to Israel and interrupted Blinkens remarks, with a group raising hands covered in a red substance to resemble blood. Blinken responded to the protesters, acknowledging their passion. All of us are committed to the protection of civilian life. All of us know the suffering that is taking place as we speak. All of us are determined to see it end, he said. But all of us know the imperative of standing up with our allies and partners when their security, when their democracies, are threatened. Thats whats happening now. We stand resolutely with them even as we stand resolutely for the protection of innocent civilians. Blinken says a two-state solution is the only path to peace Blinken said in a press conference on Nov. 3 that the U.S. is committed to a two-state solution for Israeli and Palestinian states. The best viable path, indeed the only path, is through a two-state solution, he said. The only way to end the cycle of violence once and for all. It is now, in this darkest moment, that we must fight hardest to preserve a path of stability, security, opportunity, integration, prosperity and peace. Not tomorrow. Not after this war. Today. pic.twitter.com/7SpctnmMvg Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) November 3, 2023 Blinken says Palestinian "civilians should not suffer the consequences" for Hamas Blinken said on Nov. 3 that Israel must conduct its war against Hamas in a right and lawful way. There are no partners for peace if theyre consumed by humanitarian catastrophes and alienated by any perceived indifference to their plight, he said, adding that empathy is what binds us together as human beings. Ive seen images, too, of Palestinian children, young girls and boys, pulled from the wreckage of buildings. When I see that, when I look into their eyes, through the TV screen, I see my own children. How can we not? he asked. Blinken accused Hamas of not caring for the welfare of the Palestinian people and using civilians as human shields, but added that civilians should not suffer the consequences for its inhumanity and brutality. "I've seen images of Palestinian children pulled from the wreckage... When I see that, I see my own children." US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says "we need to do more to protect Palestinian civilians" and they "should not suffer the consequences" for Hamas' brutality. pic.twitter.com/khoNsJqkNN Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) November 3, 2023 Blinken argues a ceasefire would give Hamas an advantage Blinken said a ceasefire in Gaza would allow Hamas to regroup and carry out further attacks. He made the comments on Nov. 4 in Jordan after holding talks with Arab leaders, who called for an end to fighting and argued Israel's actions go beyond self-defense. Blinken responded that it is important to reaffirm Israel's right to defend itself, indeed its obligation to do so, and to take necessary steps so that Oct. 7 can never happen again, but its also very important the way Israel does that. The U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken rebuffed calls from his counterparts in Egypt and Jordan for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, saying that a halt would allow Hamas to repeat its Oct. 7 attack on Israel. https://t.co/7tds2ilvgU pic.twitter.com/3YYsQtC2IZ The New York Times (@nytimes) November 4, 2023 Blinken says keeping conflict from spreading is a top priority Speaking to reporters in Baghdad on Nov. 5, Blinken said a top priority of the U.S. and allies in the region is for the conflict to not spread beyond Israel and Gaza. We also share the interestand an interest thats shared with virtually everyone in the regionto make sure that the conflict in Gaza doesnt spread to other places, whether its here or elsewhere in the region, Blinken said. So everyone is looking to take the necessary steps, use their authority, use their influence to try to make sure that this stops and doesnt happen. Blinken welcomes humanitarian pauses in Gaza fighting Blinken said in a press conference in Iraq on Nov. 5 that every leader he met on his Middle East tour had welcomed humanitarian pauses to the fighting in Gaza, saying it would help them accomplish the common goals of freeing hostages and getting more aid to Palestinian civilians. On Nov. 9, the U.S. announced that Israel had agreed to four-hour daily humanitarian pauses. Blinken said a key potential advantageous outcome of the humanitarian pause was freeing hostages. Hamas has so far released two American and two Israeli hostages. We are intensely focused on bringing them home, Blinken said about the remaining hostages. Blinken says Hamas cant run Gaza, but Israel cant occupy it either Blinken addressed Gazas future at the end of a G7 foreign ministers meeting in Japan on Nov. 8, saying Hamas cant run Gaza and Israel cant reoccupy it, although he said its troops may be there temporarily. Gaza cannot continue to be run by Hamas; that simply invites repetition of Oct. 7, he said. However, he flagged that its also clear that Israel cannot occupy Gaza." He reasoned: "The reality is that there may be a need for some transition period at the end of the conflict, but it is imperative that the Palestinian people be central to governance in Gaza and in the West Bank as well, and that, again, we dont see a reoccupation. And what Ive heard from Israeli leaders is that they have no intent to reoccupy Gaza and retake control of Gaza. Blinken said the U.S. vision involved no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gazanot now, not after the war." [There should be] no use of Gaza as a platform for terrorism or other violent attacks. No reoccupation of Gaza after the conflict ends. No attempt to blockade or besiege Gaza. No reduction in the territory of Gaza. We must also ensure no terrorist threats can emanate from the West Bank, he said. The affirmative elements to get to a sustained peace must include a pathway to Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in states of their own, with equal measures of security, freedom, opportunity, and dignity. pic.twitter.com/xq9S4LJlCM Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) November 8, 2023 Blinken condemns Gaza death toll Blinken lamented the rising death toll and said more must be done to protect Palestinian civilians on Nov. 10. "Far too many Palestinians have been killed; far too many have suffered these past weeks, Blinken was quoted as telling reporters in New Delhi as he wrapped up a trip to the Middle East and Asia. "We want to do everything possible to prevent harm to them and to maximize the assistance that gets to them. Contact us at letters@time.com. Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen believes that Ukraine could join the alliance but that "collective self-defense" would not be extended to the Russian-occupied territories, The Guardian reported on Nov. 11. This would mean that Ukraine could declare Article 5 in response to an attack on the territory it currently controls only, and not occupied areas. Rasmussen argues that partial membership would warn Russia that it cannot prevent Ukraine from joining the Western defensive alliance. He denied that the move would freeze the conflict. The former secretary-general also said that the issue of Ukraines NATO membership cannot be deferred again next year. Read also: NATO chief, German chancellor steeled for long struggle in Ukraine, stress support must remain strong The time has come to take the next step and extend an invitation for Ukraine to join NATO. We need a new European security architecture in which Ukraine is in the heart of NATO, he said. The Guardian reports that those advocating for Ukraines NATO membership are concerned about Article 5 being activated. Read also: Rationale behind territories in exchange for NATO membership proposal Rasmussen is confident that if Russian-controlled territories are excluded from Article 5, "the threat of a Russia-NATO conflict would be reduced." At the same time, Russia would receive a clear message that any violation of NATO territory would have consequences. The absolute credibility of Article 5 guarantees would deter Russia from mounting attacks inside Ukrainian controlled territory and free up Ukrainian forces to go to the frontline, he said. 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 Beer lovers, beware: its not just our air, soil, and water thats threatened by climate change. Rising temperatures and widespread drought may mean that your favorite beer is at risk, too. Whats happening? A new study reports that the quality and quantity of hops the source of flavor and fragrance in many beers is declining in Europe due to rising average temperatures, potentially changing the flavor of beers while increasing beer prices. The study compares the average annual yield of hops between the years 1971 1994 and 1996 2018. They detected a significant production decrease in hops over the years despite growing demand. Unless growers can adapt to hotter temperatures and drier weather, European hop yields are estimated to fall by 4-18% by 2050. Levels of alpha acids in hops, which provide beer with its signature scent and flavor, are projected to decline by 20-31%. Why are declining hops yields concerning? Fewer hops is bad news for beer lovers. As the world becomes hotter, researchers expect to see beer prices rise while quality declines. Beer drinkers will definitely see the climate change, either in the price tag or the quality, Miroslav Trnka, a scientist at the Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences and co-author of the study, told the Guardian. That seems to be inevitable from our data. Whats being done about declining hops yields? Brewers and hops growers are already looking to adapt with the changing climate. Growers are working on breeding new varieties of hops that are more resistant to heat and drought. Irrigation to stabilize crop yields is on the rise as well, and some growers are protecting their crops from extreme heat by shading them with solar panels, allowing them to preserve yields as they generate renewable energy for their growing operations. Join our free newsletter for easy tips to save more, waste less, and help yourself while helping the planet. Edgars Rinkevics, President of Latvia, said that Russia is planning a long war in Ukraine, and that "it is important to actually fight for international peace, and peace in Europe, because if we stop Russia in Ukraine, then Russia is not going to be able to challenge other countries." Source: Rinkevics in an interview with AP, as reported by European Pravda Details: Rinkevics said it was important for the West to support both Ukraine and Israel against attacks on shared values and international order. He said that it is in NATOs security interests "that both cases are viewed the same way". "I do believe also that it will be much easier for us to keep peace in Europe if Ukraine succeeds rather than we let Ukraine down, or for that matter, also to let the situation in the Middle East to get out of control," the Latvian president added. Rinkevics said Ukrainian soldiers were fighting "in a very brave way" and that the West has "not provided as much [weapons] as we should have", meaning they have an obligation to respond to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's calls for more. He said Russia was mobilising its economy, resources and military equipment "for a very long war". Moscow wants to "strangle" Ukraine after the Russians realised that they could not win the war quickly, he said, predicting that the occupiers will repeat their attacks on the Ukrainian energy infrastructure in the coming months, as it was the case last winter. Rinkevics said the EU and NATO should prepare for a prolonged war in Ukraine, AP reports. If the world sees that Europe and the United States are not able to support Ukraine, the Latvian president noted, "then I think that is going to be increasing pressure on Israel". "Also, I think that Iran is going to be more assertive. Lets also not forget about the whole Asia region, and lets not forget about Taiwan," he said. Background: Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Commander-in-Chief of Ukraines Armed Forces, believes that the war with Russia is moving to a new stage: "positional" warfare with static and exhausting battles. To win it, Ukraine needs advanced technologies. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he expects Ukrainian Armed Forces to make progress in their fight against Russian occupying forces, noting that it will be tough. Support UP or become our patron! While the Ku Klux Klan in Kansas, like elsewhere across the country, purported to support decency, the family and white supremacy, it was also a vehicle for attacking business rivals and members of the Catholic Church. I know this as fact because my great-grandfather, Ira Armsbury, had a run-in with the Klan in Lincoln, Kansas, during the 1920s. My Great-Aunt Ila, Iras third daughter, told me the story in a letter dated Feb. 4, 2000. Grandpa owned and operated a restaurant, Iras Lunch, on Main Street in Lincoln. Grandpa purchased his bread and buns from Porky Zink, owner of Zinks Grocery and a member of St. Patricks Catholic Church in Lincoln, instead of from Herman Knoch, a Protestant baker who owned Knochs Bakery. It was common knowledge who was a Klan member in town because, according to an interview I conducted around 2010, every Monday morning you could see the white robes and hoods hanging on clotheslines, flapping in the breeze with the other laundry. For more than two years, the Klan harassed my great-grandfather, urging him to switch bakers from the Catholic to the Protestant one. But grandpa argued back that Zinks bread products were better, so he wasnt going to switch. Besides that, Porky Zink was one of Grandpas drinking buddies, even though this was during Prohibition. Thats another story. My great-grandparents had rented a large, two-story home on the east side of Lincoln too large for their needs. According to Auntie Ila, Grandpa hired farmers sons who couldnt afford to go to high school. They worked at the restaurant for board and room on weekends they went home. They lived in those rooms above us. Klan members marched through Lincoln every Friday night and planted a cross, which they lit on a hill overlooking the town. One of the boys was a Catholic and one night they (the KKK) came in, in those white robes and hats and picked up that boy who was waiting tables and threw him through the big plate glass window in the front of the cafe! Ila wrote. Fortunately he was not seriously injured. Grandpa was furious. And he was unbowed. As soon as school was out, he closed the restaurant and moved the entire family to Fairport, a tiny town about 75 miles west of Lincoln. Grandpa and grandma worked in a local restaurant owned by some Lincoln folks who werent Klan supporters. Ex-sheriff, banker, doctor begged him to return A few months later, a delegation of four businessmen showed up in Fairport. We were there all summer and in the last of August a big black lemosine (sic) pulled up in front of the cafe and 4 men dressed in suits and hats came in and walked back to the kitchen. It was the former sheriff, a banker, a doctor and I think the 4th one was the Ford Co. owner in Lincoln. Anyway they begged Daddy to come back to Lincoln. The promised to fix up a big building, put in all new tables and chairs and counters and stools. They said theyd finance the whole move if we would come back. The reason? Because the natural gas line was going to cross Kansas and they said they had to have a good cafe! So Grandpa loaded up the family and they returned to Lincoln to a new, bigger and better Iras Lunch. The restaurant remained a fixture on Lincolns Main Street until 1953, I believe, when it was sold to another local family and renamed D&D Cafe. I knew my great-grandfather because he didnt die until 1963. I was 13 then. Because of the shame that some family members felt about all the trouble he caused and got into he was an alcoholic and a philanderer; he was arrested, charged, tried and acquitted of the crime of white slavery; and he was part of a group poisoned by tainted Jamaica ginger in 1930 I didnt learn of his escapades until I was in my late 20s. Ira left wreckage in his wake. But he taught my Great-Aunt Ila some of the most important lessons life has to offer. Sometimes you have to go your own way when the majority is wrong. Dont back down, even when the going gets tough. Those are lessons we all need to remember. Cindy Entriken is the author of Ilas War, the true story of the first 26 years of the life of her Great-Aunt Ila Armsbury. She lives in Wichita with her husband, Jim Hammer, one rescue dog and three cats. The contrast between Mindy Scheiers $4,200 designer gown and the conventional pieces from retailers such as JCPenney, Kohls, and Zappos that were adapted to clothe her disabled models was on display at her New York Fashion Weekadjacent A Fashion Revolution runway show. In its eighth year, A Fashion Revolution began as a gala to showcase Runway of Dreams, the charity she founded in 2014 to be the preeminent design house for whats known as adaptive apparel. Runway of Dreams was conceived as a nonprofit organization working with the fashion industry to adapt mainstream clothing for the differently-abled community. Scheier, who is not disabled herself, realized her desire to lead the fashion revolution after her disabled child described wanting to dress independently, like other kids at school. She has since partnered with a plethora of corporations, including Victorias Secret, Adidas, and Target (which is notably facing a class action lawsuit for a failure to make its website accessible), to incorporate adaptive features in their existing products, such as Velcro and zippers to make them easier to don and doff or flattened seams for sensory needs. As her brand has grown, so too have Scheiers lofty ambitions, which began with plans to create an army of Runway of Dreams ambassadors and become the authority of adaptive design. Its a level of ambition thats met only by Scheiers own self-mythologizing. She describes herself as the pioneer behind the inclusive fashion movement and compares herself to Joan of Arcinsisting she was the one to introduce the population of people with disabilities as consumers, as though the only thing that was missing for disabled people was an abled savior who could translate our exclusion from public life into the jargon of corporate fashion. Because nondiscerning audiences are dazzled by the simplicity of the adaptive alterations Scheier sells and promotes, its rare that anyone probes her claims of having been the pioneering force behind this apparel movement. Scratch the surface, however, and her origin story looks a lot less pristine, a trail of purloined innovations and forgotten creators dotting the road to the revolution and forcing the question: What if the Runway of Dreams is merely a runway of smoke and mirrors? In 2016, Scheier caught a huge break when Tommy Hilfiger agreed to partner with Runway of Dreams to launch a 22-piece adaptive fashion line for all, altering the storied brands iconic red, white, and business casual clothes to make dressing easier for disabled children. During the press tour, Scheier cited the nearly invisible magnetic closures by MagnaReady as being an integral feature of these adaptive garments. MagnaReady is the brainchild of Maura Horton, a former childrens clothing designer. In 2009, with her husbands hands growing less dexterous due to Parkinsons disease, Horton decided to replace his shirt buttons with magnets. Realizing the teeming possibilities of these magnetic closures, Horton patented the technology and by 2016 had signed off on a licensing deal with PVH, the parent company of Tommy Hilfiger. This was how Tommy Hilfiger Adaptive came to list the Patented MagnaReady magnet in the descriptions of products that contained magnetic buttons. After the launch of Tommy Hilfiger Adaptive, something shifted, and Scheiers recognition of Horton as the person who patented a special magnetic closure for modified clothing came to an end. When 2020 rolled around, Scheier took credit for Hortons design during an interview for the dissertation of Dr. Kerri McBee-Black, assistant professor at the University of Missouris Textile and Apparel Management Department. In that paper, Scheier described purchasing magnets to replace zippers and figuring it [how to incorporate the magnets into the garments] out. It is a notably different origin story from Scheiers 2017 Tommy Hilfigersponsored TED Talk, in which she self-deprecatingly described applying peel-and-stick Velcro to her childs jeans so that they would close around a pair of leg braces. These varying narratives suggest a willingness to distort the truth as the situation dictates, in the service of perpetuating the pleasing myths knit up in her brands origin story. Sheier can be an unskilled Everymom in one moment, a technical design prodigy in the next. In a McBee-Black research paper that was published nine months after her dissertation, Scheier provided renderings and photographs of a magnetic button technology that bore a striking resemblance to images contained in Hortons patent. McBee-Black described them as design features [that] were borrowed from Scheiers research and adaptive design innovations. It seems that Horton may have suffered real material consequences as a result of Scheiers use of Hortons patented magnetic closure concept, because the Tommy Hilfiger website descriptions now reference generic magnetic closures, while MagnaReady is nowhere to be found. Naturally, there is no surprise in Scheiers use of Velcro. For anyone trying to make clothing more accessible, its an obvious choice. In 1941, the year Velcro was invented, disabled designer Helen Cookman was tasked with developing accessible clothing during her residency at the Institute for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at New York University. As historian Natalie Wright has documented, between 1962 and 1975, Cookman collaborated with renowned fashion designers such as Vera Maxwell and Pauline Trigere, as well as over a dozen major brands, including Levis and Lacoste, to incorporate accessible features into their clothing lines, over a half-century before Scheier crowned her Tommy Hilfiger collaboration the first mainstream adaptive collection. It is unlikely that a 1959 Velcro-hosted fashion show would have featured an individual who was disabled as a result of polio model[ing] Velcro fasteners without Cookmans influence, Wright noted. Yet this is not the disability history Velcro chooses to share on its Timeline of Innovation. As it happens, disability doesnt get mentioned until 2022, when Velcro celebrates its contributing sponsorship of the Runway of Dreams Adaptive Apparel Fashion Show during New Yorks Fashion week. Scheier has incredibly been incorporated into Velcros Original Thinking branding, a designation for individuals who purport to innovate with Velcros hook and loop fasteners, while also becoming the originator of the magnetic-button technology that directly competes with Velcro. It raises the question whether someone so seemingly prolific in closure technologies may be adept at closing doors as well. If Scheier is unwilling to differentiate a patented idea from her own, how can vulnerable disabled people trust that their knowledge and ideas wont also become hers? In 2019, Scheier expanded her portfolio by founding Gamut, a for-profit talent management agency that situated Runway of Dreams as its exclusive nonprofit partner. Gamuts stated mission is to help companies find authentic ways to engage with, create products for and represent people with disabilities, thus allowing firms that have no experience with disability to explore the uncharted frontier of the disabled consumer. According to Scheier, Victorias Secret decided to start working in partnership with Gamut Management because they didnt know who the consumer with a disability was. Gamut claims it connected Victorias Secret executives with approximately 200 women with disabilities [who] were involved in the process through fit tests, focus groups, store visits, and wear tests, something that Victorias Secret chief diversity officer Lydia Smith described as working with women with disabilities to get feedback. For a disabled consultant, this is a common refrain: Were told we are being brought in for our knowledge, then our expertise is diminished as mere feedback. But to be successful at our work, disabled consultants must develop a complex skill set: learning an industry trade, rooting our own personal experience of disability in disabled histories, and navigating steep power imbalances, such as the ones that were at play during Runway of Dreams collaboration with Tommy Hilfiger. According to a Harvard Business School case study of Tommy Hilfiger Adaptive, People with disabilities were not just observers in this process; they were invited to be part of the process, helping to beta test products and joining innovation workshops to develop new product designs. The lack of specifics about how under-resourced disabled contributors were credited, compensated, and valued shows how workshops and focus groups are staged to extract insights that will then be sold back to their originators as benevolent innovation. According to a Gamut press release, Agron adidas Accessories enlisted GAMUT as its partner to ensure that every step of the process involved people with disabilities, and every detail from how the [Adidas Adaptive backpack] stands up, to the over-sized trims to the way the pack fits on bodies with varying abilities or chairs is a product of consumer insights. It is a refrain that Scheier has repeated; that everything comes from the population. But if everything is flowing forth from disabled people, it makes one wonder what, exactly, Scheier is bringing to the table herself. In 2022, Gamut announced a seal of approval, to signify authenticity and inclusion of PWDs in the development and marketing of Adaptive products, which was created based on feedback from members of the population. The mark was featured in a glowing Forbes write-up that detailed how it would provide a level of accountability that is fundamental. The article was written by Jonathan Kaufman, one of four core Gamut members tasked with developing criteria for eligible products. Kaufman, a former policy adviser to the Obama White House, was Gamuts chief strategy officer, a role he did not disclose to Forbes. A pitch deck for the Gamut Seal of Approval provided to the authors of this piece includes a quote from Kaufmans Forbes article, in which he claims, The GAMUT Seal of Approval is the next evolution in codifying how to truly define what it means for a product to be called Adaptive. Gamut attributes the quote not to Kaufman but to Forbes (which has since removed Kaufman as a contributor for failing to disclose his conflict of interest). To date, only two companies have received the Gamut Seal of Approvaland their relationships to Gamut and Runway of Dreams call into question the impartiality of this supposedly rigorous designation and its third-party evaluation process. Gamut awarded its first Seal of Approval to Adidas for the aforementioned adaptive backpack. According to Laura Jenks, president of Agron Adidas Accessories, Gamut worked by [its] side to authentically develop products by including and listening to people with disabilities throughout the process. Scheier said, Adidas were so diligent in the process that they very easily met all the criteria to be certified. Neither statement mentioned Adidass role as an organization operation and program underwriter and corporate partner for the Runway of Dreams Foundation. Victorias Secret, which Runway of Dreams describes as a valued partner to the Runway of Dreams Foundation, is the other company to receive a Gamut Seal of Approval. Not long after Scheier, according to Vogue, connected with Victorias Secret by inviting its executives to a [Runway of Dreams] fashion show last year, in which the company was also listed as a sponsor, she announced a Gamut collaboration with Victorias Secret on Good Morning America. The announcement was featured in a case study written by Dr. Kerri McBee-Black, who wrote that they [Gamut Management] have begun to work with Victorias Secret to understand the needs of customers with disabilities and explore ways to meet the needs of PWDs. In a way that mirrors Kaufmans deception, they should have actually been we, because McBee-Black is, and was at the time, the chief research officer consultant for Gamut Management. It is noteworthy how often Gamut representatives have abused their platforms to legitimize their accrediting body. During Disability Pride Month, the Council for Fashion Designers of America partnered with Gamut Management on a conversation around accessibility and how brands, production companies and event teams can take their first steps to making NYFW accessible both backstage and front of house. Gamut framed the nature of this engagement differently, describing the conversation as the first event under this partnership. When asked to clarify, CFDA CEO Steven Kolb said, It was in reference to the specific conversation we hosted together. We have worked with Mindy in the past, and we are supportive of her work and will continue to support her. Its not a formal partnership or program. The CFDA may want to consider rerouting its support of Scheier to the multiply marginalized disabled models, creators, and consultants who are trying to carve out careers for themselves through platforms such as Runway of Dreams. Despite Runway of Dreams stated mission to provide people with disabilities opportunity, inclusion, and acceptance in the fashion industry, information about the work of Scheiers disabled models and collaborators is not readily available on the Runway of Dreams or Gamut website. Instead, the Runway of Dreams website features a Wheres Mindy? page that tracks her public appearances. On the rare occasion that a model or collaborator is quoted in an interview, it is in service of Scheiers brand, leaving the impression that interview subjects are chosen by her. This tracks with what Paulo Freire describes in his 1968 book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed: Oppressors do not favor promoting the community as a whole, but rather selected leaders. In order to achieve their own individual opportunity, inclusion, and acceptance in the fashion industry, these ambassadors may come to entertain their own token representation so as not to be banished by the authority figure at the helm. The 2023 Runway of Dreams fashion show featured a deaf model who described the hood of his adaptive sweatshirt as the feature that met his disabled needs, because I cant get my (hearing aids) wet. If its raining, I have to be able to put my hood on. But a hood is not an adaptive feature, even if a disabled person is wearing it. It is simply a hood. The corporate structures of adaptive design often pressure disabled people to provide a tangible problem for designers to solve in order to get a seat at the table. When a program or project relies on the extraction of value from its under-resourced subjects, it will undoubtedly dabble in alternative tactics to sustain its expansion. This is how common apparel features became a target for adaptive appropriation. Runway of Dreams casting call to spotlight small business Adaptive Apparel brands at our 2022 LA Fashion Revolution! revealed another such tactic. The runway show was formatted around Runway of Dreams corporate sponsors, making it difficult to determine which looks came from the small brands (many of whom were listed as sponsors) that were being spotlighted. During the JCPenney segment, Runway of Dreams named four adaptive brands that the retailer carries, but there were five brands being shown. Nobody in attendance would have known that the crop top and matching joggers came from Slick Chicks, because they were not named during the show or in any corresponding press. It is worth considering why Runway of Dreams showed this particular look, because while Slick Chicks offerings have grown, their original product was adaptive underwear. If Scheier was contractually bound by JCPenney to showcase each of its adaptive brands, was her priority to erase Slick Chicks by failing to name them, or was it to rebrand them as a more generic adaptive apparel company in order to establish market dominance when Gamut announced its Victorias Secret collaboration less than three weeks later? If corporations truly desire an inclusive product market, they could invest in collaborations with existing brands, many of which are disabled-led, such as Bibipins, Rebirth Garments, and Neo-Walk. When corporations choose instead to partner with hyped-up firms like Gamut, what they get is an optics mill with no substance and no lasting impact. There is no evidence that products derived from the corporate adaptive (or inclusive) design processes that have been systematized by Scheier and her ilk have succeeded beyond their hype. When Jenny Lay-Flurrie, the chief accessibility officer for Microsoft, was asked about the profitability of their suite of accessible products, her friendly countenance melts away, and her jaw juts out in advertised disgust. We dont do this for [return on investment], she said. And I will just say, the question comes up, candidly, a little too much. About five months later, Microsoft discontinued most of its ergonomic keyboards. When asked about sales projections for Victorias Secrets adaptive line, chief diversity officer Lydia Smith, like Lay-Flurrie, declined to share the companys sales projections, according to Vogue. If adaptive sales arent a viable goal for corporations, then why are they doing this? In 2020, as Victorias Secret was working to correct precipitous sales declines that led to store closures and a stock drop of more than 75 percent from its 2015 peak, a New York Times investigation revealed an entrenched culture of misogyny, bullying, and harassment at the company. Shares reached an all-time low in September, down 78 percent from 2021, Bloomberg reported. Similarly, Adidas was already combating diminished relevance when it terminated its relationship with rapper Kanye Ye West in 2022 for, among other things, making his antisemitism known to the wider world. This year, Adidas is expecting to see sales drop by $2 billion, with more shoes to drop, creating a starker situation than its 2023 financial guidance had anticipated. Scheier hasnt just exploited disabled people, she has also found ways to capitalize on the vulnerabilities of previously formidable corporations that have found themselves in crisis. The emotional resonances elicited when brands announce the advent of adaptive products have long served as a smokescreen for unproven claims. It doesnt matter if the products ultimately sell or if the corporation commits to a consistent investment in serving disabled creators or customersthe positive exposure from the announcement itself is expected to recoup the development costs. But Scheiers abled tutelage of adaptive apparel mirrors rather than addresses a gendered pattern at Victorias Secret, where a woman brand head has reported to a man who actually held the power, Bloomberg reported. One former executive described Victorias Secret as a brand built and developed by men, carried and supported on the backs of women. Scheier has unfortunately capitulated to one of those men by shifting her position on the Israeli genocide of Palestinians on the eve of the Victorias Secret Adaptive launch, and mere hours after Les Wexner, the billionaire founder of Victorias Secret, cut ties with Harvard, citing the dismal failure of Harvards leadership to take a clear and unequivocal stand against the barbaric murders of innocent Israeli civilians by terrorists. Four days after Gamut issued a statement expressing heartbreak about the horrific events in Israel and Gaza, Runway of Dreams omitted Gaza from its statement and instead repeated Wexners language about the barbaric terrorist attacks against the people of Israel. If Joan of Adaptive is willing to release statements of solidarity and condolence but not willing to be consistent in the face of consequences to clout and capital, then who exactly is she advocating for? Mindy Scheiers own brand of adaptive recalls the late Mark Fishers Capitalist Realism: a monstrous, infinitely plastic entity, capable of metabolizing and absorbing anything with which it comes into contact. Adaptive has been transformed into an empty signifier; one that has permitted a self-appointed, singular authority to simply steal a patented technology for herself, erase her forebears, and extract whole bodies of knowledge from the marginalized people she is celebrated for accommodating. This is a profound level of plunder. And it serves to show that authentic and sustainable accessible apparel can only come from disabled creators who are celebrated and resourced, rather than used to resource the ascension of their colonizer. Adaptive design will evolve as other corporate methodologies evolve; it will go through a rebrand to avoid addressing the ways in which it has preyed on the so-called population it purports to be serving. But there is a bright path available to a better future: By tapping into the energy of our current labor resurgence, disabled people can compel corporations to invest in the people from whom they are currently extracting value without reciprocal reward. By rejecting the singular authority serving as a proxy for a multiplicity of perspectives, disability fashion can begin to carve its own path, one that commits to a commensurate process rather than the corporate adaptive myth. Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Sunday, Nov. 12, 2023. (Leo Correa/AP) KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip Israeli strikes pounded Gaza City overnight and into Sunday as ground forces battled Hamas near the territorys largest hospital, where health officials say thousands of medics, patients and displaced people are trapped with no electricity and dwindling supplies. In a televised address on Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected growing international calls for a cease-fire unless it includes the release of all the nearly 240 hostages captured by Hamas in the Oct. 7 rampage that triggered the war, saying Israel was bringing its full force to the battle. Advertisement Israel has vowed to end Hamas 16-year rule in Gaza and crush its military capabilities, while blaming the fighters for the wars heavy toll on the 2.3 million Palestinians trapped in the besieged territory. But it has come under mounting international pressure over the plight of civilians. In Gaza City, residents reported heavy airstrikes and shelling overnight, including in the area around Shifa Hospital. Israel, without providing evidence, has accused Hamas of concealing a command post inside and under the hospital compound, allegations denied by Hamas and hospital staff. Advertisement We spent the night in panic waiting for their arrival, said Ahmed al-Boursh, a resident taking shelter in the hospital. They are outside, not far from the gates. Hospitals out of service The hospitals last generator ran out of fuel on Saturday, leading to the deaths of three premature babies and four other patients, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza. It says another 36 babies are at risk of dying because theres no electricity. Health Ministry Undersecretary Munir al-Boursh said Israeli snipers have deployed around Shifa, firing at any movement inside the compound. He said airstrikes had destroyed several homes next to the hospital, killing three people, including a doctor. There are wounded in the house, and we cant reach them, he told Al Jazeera television in an interview from the hospital. We cant stick our heads out of the window. It was not clear if he was related to the other man with the same surname. Israels military said there was a safe corridor for civilians to evacuate from Shifa to southern Gaza, but people sheltering in the hospital said they were afraid to go outside. The military said troops would assist in moving babies on Sunday, and that it was in contact with hospital staff. It was not possible to independently ascertain the situation in and around the hospital. The Health Ministry says there are still 1,500 patients at Shifa, along with 1,500 medical personnel and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter. Thousands have fled Shifa and other hospitals, but physicians said its impossible for everyone to get out. The Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service said another Gaza City hospital, the Red Crescent-run Al-Quds, is no longer operational because it has run out of fuel. Gazas sole power plant was forced to shut down a month ago, and Israel has barred any fuel imports, saying Hamas would use them for military purposes. Advertisement Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Red Crescent, said 6,000 people, including displaced families, patients, and medical staff, remained trapped in the hospital. Muhammed Zaqout, director of hospitals in Gaza, said the Health Ministry has been unable to update the death toll since Friday as medics are unable to reach areas hit by Israeli bombardment. The situation is extremely dire, he said. Ambulances are unable to reach people under the rubble. With Shifa and other hospitals now inaccessible, people sheltering in Gaza City said they were cut off from emergency care. Heba Mashlah, who was sheltering at a U.N. compound along with thousands of families, said a strike late Saturday killed four people and wounded 15. The wounded are bleeding, and no one is able to come and help them, she said, adding that the dead were buried inside the compound. The U.N. Development Program confirmed one of its compounds was hit. U.N. agencies have not been able to provide services in the north for weeks. Netanyahu rejects US postwar vision Netanyahu has said the responsibility for any harm to civilians lies with Hamas. Israel has long accused the group, which operates in dense residential neighborhoods, of using civilians as human shields. I would say the ground offensive that we began is actually reducing the amount of civilian casualties because the population, the civilian population in Gaza, is heeding our call to vacate the territories, the zone of fighting, get out of harms way, he told NBCs Meet the Press. Advertisement On Saturday, Netanyahu began to outline Israels postwar plans for Gaza, which contrast sharply with the vision put forth by the United States. Netanyahu said Gaza would be demilitarized and that Israel would retain the ability to enter Gaza freely to hunt down fighters. He also rejected the idea that the Palestinian Authority, which currently administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would at some stage control Gaza. Hamas drove the PAs forces out of Gaza in a week of street battles in 2007. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the U.S. opposes an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza and envisions a unified Palestinian government in both Gaza and the West Bank as a step toward a Palestinian state. Even before the war, Netanyahus government was staunchly opposed to Palestinian statehood. The war threatens to trigger a wider conflict, with Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon frequently trading fire along the border. Hezbollah fired anti-tank missiles into Israel on Sunday, and Israel responded with artillery and fighter jets. Israels power company said workers repairing lines damaged in previous attacks were wounded, and video footage showed two vehicles on fire. Evacuation windows, but no pauses The U.S. has also pushed for temporary pauses that would allow for wider distribution of badly needed aid to civilians in the besieged territory, where conditions are increasingly dire. But Israel has only agreed to brief daily periods during which civilians can flee the area of ground combat in northern Gaza and head south on foot along two main north-south roads. Israel is meanwhile striking what it says are targets across southern Gaza as well, often killing women and children. Advertisement Dozens of wounded people, including children, were brought to a hospital in Khan Younis after an Israeli airstrike demolished a building in the southern town. Hospital officials said at least 13 people were killed. The war has displaced over two-thirds of Gazas population, with most fleeing south. Egypt has allowed hundreds of foreign passport holders and medical patients to exit through its Rafah crossing, as well as the entry of some humanitarian aid. More than 11,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and fighter deaths. About 2,700 people have been reported missing and are thought to be trapped or dead under the rubble. At least 1,200 people have been killed on the Israeli side, mostly civilians killed in the initial Hamas attack. Forty-six Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ground offensive began. About 250,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate from communities near Gaza, where Palestinian fighters are still firing barrages of rockets, and along the northern border with Lebanon. Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Amy Teibel in Jerusalem, Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed to this report. FBI agents have seized three mobile phones and an iPad belonging to the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams. The seizures are part of an investigation into whether his 2021 campaign conspired with Turkey and others to fund his election, the New York Times reported. Foreign donations either direct or indirect are illegal in American elections. Federal authorities are reportedly investigating whether, weeks before the mayoral election, Mr Adams put pressure on the citys fire department to sign off plans for a new high-rise Turkish consulate in Manhattan. Already under fire for rising crime in the city and his handling of the migrant crisis, the investigation is a fresh blow for Mr Adams, a Democrat and former police captain. Mr Adams was reportedly approached by FBI agents following an event in Manhattan on Monday. Armed with a warrant, they climbed into his SUV and seized the devices. They were returned several days later. It is unclear whether the agents exercised their powers to copy data from the devices. Four days earlier, FBI agents launched an early morning raid on the home of Briana Suggs, a political consultant and the mayors chief fundraiser. They seized two laptops, three iPhones, contribution card binders and a manila folder labelled Eric Adams, the New York Times reported. Although there was no indication at the time that Mr Adams was being targeted, the New York mayor abruptly cancelled meetings in the White House to discuss the migrant crisis and rushed back to the city. He said he had returned to New York because Ms Suggs had been through a traumatic experience, but had not spoken to her because he did not want to appear to be interfering in an active investigation. Later that day, at an event at Gracie Mansion, his official residence, Mr Adams insisted that his campaign had observed the highest ethical standards. Ms Suggs has not commented on the raid which, according to the New York Times, was examining whether there was evidence of a conspiracy to violate campaign finance law. In particular, it was examining whether Turkish nationals used straw donors to funnel donations to the Mr Adams mayoral campaign. Charles Kretchmer Lutvak, Mr Adams spokesman, said she was not employed by the city. Mr Adams allegedly contacted Daniel Nigro, the fire commissioner, urging him to allow the Turkish government to occupy the high-rise building on a temporary basis. This was despite safety concerns being voiced by some officials in the citys fire department, the New York Times reported. Mr Adams has made little secret of his close ties to Turkey, boasting that he had made more visits to the country than any of his predecessors. Mr Adams dismissed suggestions that he was under threat of prosecution. He said in a statement that he had nothing to hide. Mr Adams added: As a former member of law enforcement, I expect all members of my staff to follow the law and fully cooperate with any sort of investigation and I will continue to do exactly that. And Mr Adams lawyer, Boyd Johnson, said the mayor was cooperating with the authorities. After learning of the federal investigation, it was discovered that an individual had recently acted improperly, he added. In the spirit of transparency and cooperation, this behaviour was immediately and proactively reported to investigators. Neither the FBI nor the US Attorneys office in the Southern District of New York have commented on the investigation. 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. The Flagler County Sheriffs Office received a federal grant of more than $350,000 to fight hate crimes across the county. The $354,896 grant was awarded the Federal Grant as part of the 2023 Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Program. Flagler County was the last county in Florida to desegregate its schools. Today, there is no room for hate in our community, stated Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly. Our deputies are already on alert for any biased-based criminals and threats and our agency works hard to prevent targeted violence against anyone in our community and will not be tolerated. With this grant, we will be even more equipped to effectively monitor and prevent hate crimes to protect everyone in Flagler County. Since FY2020-2021, FCSO has received over 3.7 million dollars in grants to enhance and improve services to our community and inmates in the jail. Since Sheriff Staly took office in 2017, there have only been four reported hate crime cases in Flagler County: one in 2018 and three in 2022, according to a news release. Read: Zepbound: FDA approves new version of diabetes drug Mounjaro for weight loss The sheriffs office plans to utilize this award by expanding its existing Targeted Violence Prevention Program (TVPP) over a 4-year period. The expansion will include supplies, overtime, software, training, and new technology to improve the agencys monitoring and reporting capabilities of potential hate crimes and targeted violence before they occur. Read: New resort, experiences coming to Legoland Florida Resort next year The grant is also meant to enhance victim reporting tools and fund the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes committed based on a victims perceived or actual race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability. If you or anyone you know is the victim of a hate crime, please call the Flagler County Sheriffs Office at 386-313-4911 to report or call CrimeStoppers at 1-888-277-TIPS (8477). Read: Details emerge on Universal Epic Universe hotel project Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. TAMPA, Fla. - A trooper was hit while helping with a major lane closure on I-275 on Saturday morning, according to officials. The Florida Highway patrol says the lane was closed for an active construction zone in the northbound lanes south of I-4 in Tampa around 4:43 a.m. Authorities say a driver in a Kia Forte drove over traffic cones, entered the work zone, and hit a digital arrow board before hitting a marked FHP vehicle. Courtesy: Florida Highway Patrol The trooper, Kia driver, and his passenger were all injured, according to officials. READ: Man who intentionally hit 2 Hillsborough deputies faces attempted murder charges: Officials Officials say the 24-year-old Lakeland man who was driving and the 25-year-old Ocala woman who was the passenger were taken to the hospital for serious injuries. Courtesy: Florida Highway Patrol The 28-year-old trooper who was hit is an Army veteran and has been with FHP for two years, according to authorities. Officials say he was taken to a local hospital. READ: 'Scariest moment of my life': Hillsborough County deputy released from hospital after being run over by car Authorities say the 24-year-old is suspected of being impaired while he was driving but has not been charged yet. According to troopers, he's receiving medical treatment while toxicology results are pending. The investigation is ongoing, according to troopers. FHP says Florida law requires motorists to "Move Over" or vacate the lane closest to an emergency vehicle, sanitation vehicle, utility service vehicle, wrecker, road bridge maintenance, construction vehicle, or disabled motor vehicle when driving on an interstate highway. By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Maayan Lubell GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Two more major hospitals in Gaza closed to new patients on Sunday, with staff saying that Israeli bombardment plus lack of fuel and medicine meant more babies and others could die. Hospitals in the north of the Palestinian enclave are blockaded by Israeli forces and barely able to care for those inside, medical staff said. Israel says it is homing in on Hamas militants in the area and the hospitals should be evacuated. Gaza's largest and second largest hospitals, Al Shifa and Al-Quds, said they were suspending operations. With more people killed and wounded daily but half of the territory's hospitals now out of action, there are ever fewer places for the injured. "My son was injured and there was not a single hospital I could take him to so he could get stitches," said Ahmed al-Kahlout, who was fleeing south in accordance with Israeli advice while fearing that nowhere in Gaza was safe. The World Health Organization (WHO) has managed to restore communication with health professionals at Shifa, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, adding that the situation was "dire and perilous" with constant gunfire and bombing exacerbating the already critical circumstances. "Tragically, the number of patient fatalities has increased significantly," he said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. "Regrettably, the hospital is not functioning as a hospital anymore." A plastic surgeon in Shifa said bombing of the building housing incubators had forced them to line up premature babies on ordinary beds, using the little power available to turn the air conditioning to warm. "We are expecting to lose more of them day by day," said Dr Ahmed El Mokhallalati. Israel says Hamas has placed command centres under and near the hospitals and it needs to get at them to free around 200 hostages the militants took in Israel in an attack just over a month ago. Hamas has denied using hospitals in this way. On Sunday, a Palestinian official briefed on talks over the release of hostages said Hamas had suspended the negotiations because of the way Israel had handled Shifa hospital. There was no immediate comment from either Hamas or Israel. 'NO ONE IS ALLOWED IN, NOBODY IS ALLOWED OUT' Israel's military said it had offered to evacuate newborn babies and had placed 300 litres of fuel at Shifa's entrance on Saturday night, but that both gestures had been blocked by Hamas. Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of Shifa, said reports of refusing to leave the diesel were "lies and slander." Ashraf Al-Qidra, spokesperson for the Health Ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza, said that of 45 babies in incubators at Shifa, three had already died. Shifa was out of reach for the newly wounded, said Mohammad Qandil, a doctor at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in south Gaza, who is in touch with colleagues there. "Shifa hospital now isn't working, no one is allowed in, nobody is allowed out," he said. The Palestinian Red Crescent said Al-Quds hospital was also out of service, with staff struggling to care for those already there with little medicine, food and water. "Al Quds hospital has been cut off from the world in the last six to seven days. No way in, no way out," said Tommaso Della Longa, spokesperson for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Three U.N. agencies expressed horror at the situation in the hospitals, saying it had in 36 days registered at least 137 attacks on healthcare facilities, resulting in 521 deaths and 686 injuries - including 16 dead and 38 wounded medics. "The world cannot stand silent while hospitals, which should be safe havens, are transformed into scenes of death, devastation, and despair," it said, saying half of Gaza's hospitals were now closed. With the humanitarian situation across Gaza worsening, 80 foreigners and several injured Palestinians crossed into Egypt in the first evacuations since Friday, four Egyptian security sources said. Poland said 18 of them were its citizens, and U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS News American citizens would be moved out of Gaza during Sunday. AID DELIVERIES BY TRUCK AND PARACHUTE At least 80 aid trucks had also moved from Egypt into Gaza by Sunday afternoon, two of the sources said. Jordan said earlier it had air-dropped a second batch into a field hospital. Very little aid has entered Gaza since Israel declared war on Hamas more than a month ago after militants rampaged through southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostages, according to Israeli officials. Palestinian officials said on Friday that 11,078 Gaza residents had been killed in air and artillery strikes since then, around 40% of them children. Disease is spreading among evacuees packed into schools and other shelters and surviving on tiny amounts of food and water, international aid agencies say. Speaking from inside Gaza City, Jamila, 54, said she and her family could hear the roar of tanks nearby. "During the day, people try to look for essential items such as bread and water, and at night people try to stay alive," she said. "We hear explosions throughout the night, sometimes we can tell that some of these explosions are exchanges of fire between the resistance fighters and the Israeli forces." Palestinian health officials said 13 people had been killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Sunday. Residents reported increased fighting around Al-Shati refugee camp, by the coast in northern Gaza. The Israeli military said it had killed a number of militants there and called on civilians to use a four-hour pause to evacuate south. The Gaza fighting has reignited conflict on Israel's northern border with Lebanon, which has seen the worst cross-border clashes since 2006. Lebanon's Hezbollah group, which like Hamas is backed by Iran, said it attacked Israeli army troops near the Dovev Barracks on Sunday, inflicting casualties. The Israeli military said earlier that anti-tank missiles fired by militants had hit civilians, adding that it was retaliating with artillery fire. The U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon said one of its members near the town of Al-Qawzah in southern Lebanon had been wounded by a bullet overnight. (Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, and Maayan Lubell and Maytaal Angel in Jerusalem; additional reporting by Hatem Maher, Emma Farge, Tala Ramadan, Michael Georgy, Crispian Balmer, Ari Rabinovitch, Adam Makary, Omar Abdel-Razek, Francois Murphy and other Reuters bureaux; Writing by Philippa Fletcher, Andrew Cawthorne and Simon Lewis; Editing by William Maclean, Giles Elgood, Diane Craft and Lisa Shumaker) The Finnish Border Guard reported a spike in asylum seekers arriving without required travel documents to Finland's southeast border in a statement on Nov. 12. Ninety-one people have arrived at the border crossing points in Southeastern Finland without required travel documents since August 2023, according to the agency responsible for enforcing border security. The agency said the asylum seekers are citizens of third countries who used Russia for transit. The spike marks a change in approach from the Russian authorities in the area who previously prevented people without the necessary travel documents from traveling to Finnish border crossings, according to the report. The agency called the development a phenomenon of illegal migration, saying it will continue to monitor the situation and evaluate its impacts on Finlands public order and security. The country shut its border for the Russian tourists in September 2022. Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. 300 incoming first-generation college students are spending a weekend of fun at Universal Studios Florida. The students are participating in a S.T.E.A.M. symposium. Photos: First-generation college students attend STEAM symposium at Universal Studios Florida S.T.E.A.M. stands for science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. Watch: STEM education bus rolls into Volusia County The students will be meeting with the designer of the Jurassic World VelociCoaster ride. Each student will also receive a laptop from Comcast as part of the program. See: Disney donates $100K to STEM programs at the Orlando Science Center Often times students arent aware of the possibilities of pursuing science or technology, said Broderick Johnson with Comcast. These are hard subjects, STEAM subjects are really hard. Thats why I became a philosophy professor, went to law school because I couldnt handle that. Watch: Officials to build STEM education center at decommissioned radio telescope site in Puerto Rico Many of the students in attendance said it was a great opportunity to further broaden their horizons within the world of the STEAM workforce. Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. A public charter school in Los Angeles has placed two teachers on leave and launched an investigation after they posted on social media about a lesson on the genocide in Palestine for first-graders. The Los Angeles Times reports that one of the educators at Citizens of the World Charter School, which rents space from a synagogue, wrote my fav was a kid who was like What if they just give the land back to Palestine and find somewhere else to live? The school principal is also taking a leave of absence after asking the rabbi about removing Israeli flags from the courtyard. Read it at Los Angeles Times Read more at The Daily Beast. Editors note: This story was updated Nov. 12, 2023, at 5:58 p.m. EST with additional information. More recent reporting can be found here. Five U.S. service members are dead after an American military helicopter crashed in the eastern Mediterranean Sea on Friday evening, U.S. officials confirmed Sunday. The crew was conducting a routine air refueling mission during a training sortie when their aircraft suffered a mishap, U.S. European Command said in an emailed statement. All aboard were killed. Pentagon IDs Army special operations aviation soldiers killed in crash The New York Times reported all five service members were U.S. Army Special Operations forces. Lt. Col. Rob Lodewick, an Army spokesman, confirmed that information to Military Times, but referred additional questions to European Command. The command first announced the accident on Saturday but declined to say what type of aircraft was involved. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed the downed asset was a helicopter in a statement on Sunday. The Pentagon has not specified to which branch of the armed forces the aircraft belonged. While we continue to gather more information about this deadly crash, it is another stark reminder that the brave men and women who defend our great nation put their lives on the line each and every day to keep our country safe, Austin said. They represent the best of America. We will remember their service and their sacrifice. The mishap prompted an immediate rescue effort that included nearby U.S. military aircraft and ships, European Command said. The command did not provide further details about where in the region the plane went down. However, the U.S. issued a flight notice early Saturday noting a search-and-rescue operation in progress in the span of sea between Cyprus and Lebanon. Flight tracker @EISNspotter posted Saturday on X, formerly known as Twitter, that air traffic control in Cyprus had called in military support around midnight Saturday for a helicopter that crash-landed about 30 nautical miles from the islands southern coast. Planespotters on social media flagged multiple Navy P-8 Poseidon maritime surveillance planes patrolling the water south of Cyprus on Saturday, as well as an Air Force C-17 Globemaster III often used for aeromedical evacuations departing the area. Its unclear whether the aircraft was training as part of routine operations in Europe, or if it was over the Mediterranean Sea as part of a deterrent force that has arrived in the region in recent weeks. The Pentagon has rushed thousands of American troops to the Middle East as war unfolds between U.S. ally Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas, which controls the neighboring Gaza Strip. Among those forces are the Navys Ford carrier strike group stationed in the eastern Mediterranean, U.S. surveillance aircraft gathering intelligence off of the Israeli coast and others spread around the region. The Eisenhower carrier strike group also passed through the Mediterranean on its way to the Red Sea earlier this month. The military is investigating the cause of the mishap. It will not release the names of the deceased until 24 hours after their families have been notified, in accordance with Pentagon policy. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the fallen, European Command said. Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the number of carrier strike groups stationed in the Mediterranean Sea. The number has been updated to one: the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group. Military Times News Editor Jessica Edwards contributed to this report. Editors note: This story was updated at 5:58 p.m. EST with additional information. Five U.S. service members are dead after an American military helicopter crashed in the eastern Mediterranean Sea on Friday evening, U.S. officials confirmed Sunday. The crew was conducting a routine air refueling mission during a training sortie when their aircraft suffered a mishap, U.S. European Command said in an emailed statement. All aboard were killed. The New York Times reported all five service members were U.S. Army Special Operations forces. Lt. Col. Rob Lodewick, an Army spokesman, confirmed that in an information to Military Times, but deferred additional questions to U.S. European Command. The command first announced the accident on Saturday but declined to say what type of aircraft was involved. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed the downed asset was a helicopter in a statement on Sunday. The Pentagon has not specified to which branch of the armed forces the aircraft belonged. While we continue to gather more information about this deadly crash, it is another stark reminder that the brave men and women who defend our great nation put their lives on the line each and every day to keep our country safe, Austin said. They represent the best of America. We will remember their service and their sacrifice. The mishap prompted an immediate rescue effort that included nearby U.S. military aircraft and ships, European Command said. The command did not provide further details about where in the region the plane went down. However, the U.S. issued a flight notice early Saturday noting a search-and-rescue operation in progress in the span of sea between Cyprus and Lebanon. Flight tracker @EISNspotter posted Saturday on X, formerly known as Twitter, that air traffic control in Cyprus had called in military support around midnight Saturday for a helicopter that crash-landed about 30 nautical miles from the islands southern coast. Planespotters on social media flagged multiple Navy P-8 Poseidon maritime surveillance planes patrolling the water south of Cyprus on Saturday, as well as an Air Force C-17 Globemaster III often used for aeromedical evacuations departing the area. Its unclear whether the aircraft was training as part of routine operations in Europe, or if it was over the Mediterranean Sea as part of a deterrent force that has arrived in the region in recent weeks. The Pentagon has rushed thousands of American troops to the Middle East as war unfolds between U.S. ally Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas, which controls the neighboring Gaza Strip. Among those forces are the Navys Ford carrier strike group stationed in the eastern Mediterranean, U.S. surveillance aircraft gathering intelligence off of the Israeli coast and others spread around the region. The Eisenhower carrier strike group also passed through the Mediterranean on its way to the Red Sea earlier this month. The military is investigating the cause of the mishap. It will not release the names of the deceased until 24 hours after their families have been notified, in accordance with Pentagon policy. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the fallen, European Command said. Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the number of carrier strike groups stationed in the Mediterranean Sea. The number has been updated to one: the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group. FLORIDA - Several Florida middle school students were bitten by wild rats, an alligator bit a Florida college student who was snorkeling near Ocala, a Florida man was arrested for shooting and killing his landlord, a Florida man was arrested for whacking his pregnant girlfriend with a frying pan, a Florida mother was arrested for attempting to run over a school staff member, and a 73-year-old Florida man was arrested for shooting and killing his landlord: Here's FOX 35's Week in Review. Multiple Florida students bitten by wild rats while under teacher supervision, district says Multiple students at Buddy Taylor Middle School in Palm Coast were bitten by wild rats while under the supervision of a teacher according to an investigation conducted by the Flagler County school district. On a day when much of the student body was engaged in standardized testing, a group of over a dozen students accompanied the instructor to the schools farm. There, they were to feed some of the animals and look on as she flushed out some of the holes in the ground, believed to have wild rats in them. 9-foot alligator bit Florida woman's face while she was snorkeling: 'I saw her head in its mouth,' friend says A Florida woman was snorkeling with a friend at Alexander Springs Recreation Area over the weekend when a 9-foot alligator attacked her and bit her forehead, she told FOX 35 News. And a photographer nearby happened to snap photos of the immediate aftermath, including one that clearly shows an alligator lurking behind them. Florida man whacks pregnant girlfriend in head with cooking pan, stabs her amid tiff over texts: police Photo: Miami-Dade County Corrections A Miami man has found himself behind bars after allegedly whacking his pregnant girlfriend in the head with a cooking pan and stabbing her with a kitchen knife during a heated argument involving text messages on her phone, according to an arrest affidavit from the Miami-Dade Police Department. The incident happened in September, but Thaddeus Davis, 27, wasn't arrested until last week when he allegedly punched a woman in the mouth and fled the scene, the report said. Police were notified that Davis was wanted on other charges and was taken into custody shortly after. On Sept. 12, Davis and a woman he was seeing romantically for a year got into a "heated argument" about their relationship, police said. The woman, at the time, was seven weeks pregnant with Davis' child. 'Angry' Florida mom arrested for allegedly trying to run over school staff member Photo via Charlotte County Sheriffs Office A Florida mother was taken to jail Tuesday after she allegedly tried to run over a school staff member at Port Charlotte High School, authorities said. Tarajayne Samuels-Catalan, 42, was arrested and charged with aggravated assault on a public or private education employee. On Nov. 2, Samuels-Catalan dropped off her child at the school and tried to exit the same way she entered. She was stopped by a staff member who advised that she could not exit that way because of the school buses coming in to unload students. Samuels-Catalan reportedly became agitated, but eventually backed up and turned her vehicle around, according to the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office. A bus pulled in and dropped off students before proceeding on its route, and when it left authorities said Samuels-Catalan turned her vehicle in the direction of the staff member, revved the engine, and drove toward him at a high rate of speed. 73-year-old Florida man shoots, kills landlords over 'problems' with plumbing, electricity repairs: police Photo: Hollywood Police Department A 73-year-old man has found himself behind bars after allegedly shooting and killing his two landlords over "problems" with plumbing and electricity repairs, according to the Hollywood Police Department. Miguel Fiallo was arrested and charged with two counts of premeditated murder after the incident that unfolded on Nov. 6. Police were dispatched to an apartment efficiency on North 57th Avenue in Hollywood for a reported medical emergency, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by FOX 35 News. The 911 caller was not at the scene, but said she got a call from her mom at the scene who was having trouble breathing. The caller also reported a shooting and said that two people were injured. Officers found two women dead, lying on the ground in a doorway to the converted garage with apparent multiple gunshot wounds, the report said. Fiallo and an unnamed person were in the driveway when police arrived, according to the arrest affidavit. A 17-year-old boy was shot and killed Saturday afternoon in the Riverdale neighborhood, according to Chicago police. Police said an unknown offender shot the boy in the chest and right arm in the 13000 block of South Drexel Avenue at about 2:50 p.m. The boy was taken to University of Chicago Medical Center in critical condition, where he died. Advertisement No suspects are in custody and police said theyre investigating the shooting. rjohnson@chicagotribune.com Watch FOX 35 News Live A runaway teen was arrested after police discovered he had started multiple fires in Panama City Thursday evening. Police said they responded to Thursday's fire at the Bay County Library on W. 11th Street. While investigating that fire, detectives learned of another fire about 20 minutes later. That fire was started on W. 12th Court. About three hours later, a homeowner on W. 11 Street reported that the wreath on their front door had been set on fire. Ten minutes later, officers said they responded to a carport fire on Buena Vista Boulevard. Surveillance footage showed someone wearing the same clothing that the teen was missing when he was reported missing from school that same day. Detectives also responded to a pair of car burglaries where a laptop computer and a wallet with credit cards were stolen. The teen was later found inside the library he started the fire in with a lighter and chrome laptop in his possession, police said. He was charged with two counts of burglary of a conveyance, one count of criminal mischief, two counts of arson of an unoccupied dwelling, one count of arson of an occupied dwelling, and two counts of fraudulent use of a credit card. He was transported to the Department of Juvenile Justice. PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WMBB) A teenager set four fires and committed two burglaries during a 24-hour crime spree, according to police in Panama City, Florida. Officers had been looking for 16-year-old Hunter Glenn McNeil, after he did not return to school Thursday afternoon. A fire was reported at the Bay County Library Thursday evening, While that incident was being investigated, reports of another fire were received nearby about 20 minutes later. COVID-19 fraudster used stolen relief aid to purchase a private island in Florida After a few hours, a homeowner on the same street as the library called about a fire being set to their front door wreath. Shortly after, a carport was reportedly set on fire nearby. According to police, not only were McNeils actions caught on surveillance cameras, but he was wearing the same clothes he wore to school that morning. While investigating, a laptop and wallet with credit cards were reported missing to police from a pair of car burglaries. The owner of the credit cards reported a notification that there was an attempt to use the card on the same street as the initial crime just before 6 a.m. Son of Hollywood producer arrested after torso found in dumpster; wife, in-laws missing McNeil was charged with two counts of burglary of a conveyance, one count of criminal mischief, two counts of arson of an unoccupied dwelling, one count of arson of an occupied dwelling, and two counts of fraudulent use of a credit card. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2. PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WMBB) A teenager set four fires and committed two burglaries during a 24-hour crime spree, police in Panama City, Florida said. Officers had been looking for 16-year-old Hunter Glenn McNeil, after he did not return to school Thursday afternoon. Thursday evening, a fire was reported at the Bay County Library. While that fire was being investigated, reports of another fire were received nearby about 20 minutes later. After a few hours, a homeowner on the same street as the library called in about a fire being set to their front door wreath. Shortly after, a carport was reported be set on fire nearby. According to police, McNeils actions were caught on surveillance cameras and he was wearing the same clothes he wore to school that morning. While investigating, a laptop and wallet with credit cards were reported missing to police from a pair of car burglaries. The owner of the credit cards reported a notification that there was an attempt to use the card on the same street as the initial crime just before 6 a.m. McNeil was charged with two counts of burglary of a conveyance, one count of criminal mischief, two counts of arson of an unoccupied dwelling, one count of arson of an occupied dwelling and two counts of fraudulent use of a credit card. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WesternSlopeNow.com. Rescuers seeking a hiker stranded by a snowstorm on a Colorado mountain followed footprints to an unusual looking rock, searchers reported. The rock turned out to be the missing hiker sitting in a fetal position beneath the snow, the Chaffee County Search and Rescue team said in a Saturday, Nov. 11, news release. Rescuers found the hiker had severe hypothermia, the release said. After warming up the hiker, they began descending from the mountain using ropes. The hiker, wearing a cotton hoodie, became stranded without water or food by a severe snowstorm on a peak near Cottonwood Lake at about 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 8. The hiker called for rescue but searchers could not find their GPS coordinates, rescuers said. The hiker could only say they were trying to descend from the peak in an avalanche chute. Rescuers spent hours searching avalanche chutes until they found the hiker at 2 a.m. Nov. 9, officials said. The hiker was eventually able to walk out with rescuers at 7 a.m., the release said. Cottonwood Lake is about 130 miles southwest of Denver. 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. Coyote attacks 4-year-old girl in her front yard, Arizona cops say. I just got bit Beach visitor swept into ocean by wave found dead, California firefighters say Dog walker finds historical human skeleton in desert, California sheriff says Police in Austin, Texas, are investigating a hostage situation that ended with four people dead, including a member of the departments SWAT team. Cops responded early Saturday after receiving a 911 call from a woman who had been stabbed. When officers arrived, they found an injured victim whod escaped. But police were forced to retreat after the suspect opened fire, and SWAT arrived nearly an hour later. When SWAT entered the building, the suspect shot two officers, killing one and marking the first time in a decade that an Austin officer was killed on duty. The shooter and two hostages were found dead in the home. At press time, the victims and shooter had not yet been identified. I am heartbroken and praying for the family of the officer who we have lost and for (a second injured) officer and his family as we lift him up and hope he is OK, Mayor Kirk Watson said. Read it at Austin American-Statesman Read more at The Daily Beast. Donald Trump in recent weeks has appeared to forget who the current occupant of the White House is, naming Barack Obama as president rather than Joe Biden. But if you ask Fox News Brian Kilmeade, its all part of Trumps plan. During his Saturday night speech, Trump referred to the current president as President Obama. While gushing over Orban, Trump once again gets confused and claims that Obama is the current president pic.twitter.com/7XCMAeuXNg Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 11, 2023 Trump was speaking about Hungarys President Viktor Orban (whom he last month identified as the leader of Turkey) and said that the media asked Orban, What would you advise President Obama? Trump went on to claim that Orban said Obama should immediately resign, and they should replace him with President Trump. The day after Trumps error, Kilmeade rushed to the former presidents defense. Donald Trump keeps saying that because he believes Obama is pulling the strings, Kilmeade claimed during an appearance on Foxs MediaBuzz. I talked to him off camera about that, I talked to him on radio about that. I said I corrected him on the radio interview, I said, You mean Joe Biden. He said no Hes convinced Barack Obamas running the country. Thats why he says it. He wants you to think that. Kilmeade claims that Trump keeps forgetting who is president because he thinks Obama is pulling the strings pic.twitter.com/xKhAiy7R2f Acyn (@Acyn) November 12, 2023 As Kilmeade said this, radio host Leslie Marshall, who was also appearing on the show, laughed in his face. Oh, Brian, come on, she said through her chuckles. Thats good, thats good. You should be his manager, his campaign manager Thats a really good spin on that. On Kilmeades show, Trump was claiming that Iran was behind the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and he said, Its all coming through Iran, and Obama wants to he doesnt want to talk about it. He doesnt want to mention, he doesnt even mention them in his statements. Well, you mean President Biden, Kilmeade corrected. I also mean Obama. What do you mean? You know Obama and Biden, Trump said, trying to recover. But Obama is Bidens boss. Guess you didnt really know that. Trump has previously claimed that Obama is in charge of the country. Last month at a speech in New Hampshire, Trump said, Youve been ripped off by everybody and betrayed by the corrupt globalists, Washington, Wall Street people, those combinations of Washington, Wall Street, theyre the worst of all. And its never been worse than it is now under crooked Joe Biden, and frankly, his boss, Barack Hussein Obama. I think its his boss. (Trump likes to include Obamas middle name, likely because he wants to stir up Islamophobia in his base.) Trump in September claimed he defeated Obama in an election despite never running against him. We did it with Obama, Trump claimed, referring to 2016 when he ran against Hillary Clinton. We won an election that everyone said couldnt be won. In the same speech, he said that Biden would lead us into World War II. In late October, Trump forgot where he was, thanking his supporters in the city of Sioux Falls, even though he was 75 miles away, in Sioux City. Trump corrected himself after someone informed him of his error, The New York Times reported. More from Rolling Stone Best of Rolling Stone Thieves in France stole two truckloads of champagne before police recovered the liquid loot - worth 600,000 (525,000) - in a high-speed chase. The drama began on Saturday near Reims, in the heart of the Champagne region, where the lorries were reported stolen. Officers were able to locate the vehicles, which were equipped with tracking devices, and gave chase on the A4 motorway between Reims and Paris. The champagne was eventually retrieved but the thieves managed to escape. The lorries were stolen from a Reims-based company between Friday evening and Saturday morning, French media say. According to Le Parisien newspaper the consignments consisted of bottles of Moet & Chandon, one of the most renowned brands of champagne. Each load was valued at 300,000. The lorries were tracked on the A4 near Pontault-Combault, about 20km (12 miles) from central Paris, early on Saturday. Two police cars were involved in the chase. The thieves tried to shake them off by swerving abruptly. When the officers forced one of the lorries to slow down, the driver jumped off before being picked up by a saloon car that was following the convoy. The car sped away. The second lorry took the next exit and was later found without the driver. An investigation is under way. The champagne bottles were all retrieved intact and unharmed, if a little shaken. The U.S. is directly targeting Russias ability to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) for the first time, which could disrupt global energy markets something Washington has so far looked to avoid, the Financial Times reported on Nov. 12. While European countries continued importing Russian LNG even after Moscows full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, the U.S. has sought to avoid disrupting flows so as not to increase the pressure on allies battling a shortage until recently. The State Department sanctioned Russian Arctic LNG 2 in early November, blocking European and Asian countries from buying the Russian projects gas when it starts producing next year, officials, lawyers, and analysts told FT. Arctic LNG 2 is led by Russian private company Novatek. This is the first time LNG supplies are directly affected, according to the report. Arctic LNG 2 is located on the Gydan Peninsula in the Arctic, allowing it to export to both European and the Asian markets, would be Russias third large-scale LNG project, bolstering the Kremlins ambition of becoming a leading exporter in the field. At full production, it would account for a fifth of Russias target of producing 100 million tonnes of LNG annually by 2030. The project was expected to start shipping in the first quarter of 2024. The U.S. has not directly targeted Russias other major LNG projects, Yamal LNG and Sakhalin 2, which are shipping the fuel to Europe and Asia. The EU has not imposed sanctions on Russian LNG. Though pipeline gas imports to Europe decreased sharply in response to Russia's war, EU nations bought record amounts of Russian LNG in 2023. According to Bloomberg, European Union members spent 12.5 billion euros on Russian liquefied natural gas between January and September 2022, five times more than during the same period in 2021. Gas and oil profits constitute a substantial portion of Russia's economy, funding Moscow's war in Ukraine. Read also: Opinion: Weakness is lethal. Why Putin invaded Ukraine and how the war must end Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. On this "Face the Nation" broadcast, moderated by Margaret Brennan: Dr. Christos Christou, Doctors Without Borders International president National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan Sen. Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, chair of the Senate Intelligence committee Rep. Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas, House Foreign Affairs committee chair Isaac Herzog, President of Israel Click here to browse full transcripts of "Fac the Nation." MARGARET BRENNAN: I'm Margaret Brennan in Washington. And this week on Face the Nation: pressure on Israel for a cease-fire, even a humanitarian pause, increases, while the conditions inside the Gaza Strip continue to deteriorate. Israel's efforts to decimate Hamas continue, but the humanitarian situation and escalating Palestinian civilian death toll have intensified the protests around the world, as some Gazans attempt to flee the hardest-hit parts of the region. Others struggle to stay alive in areas that are under attack and running out of resources. We will have reports from the region, and we will speak with White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Israeli President Isaac Herzog. Plus, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Mike McCaul joins us from Tel Aviv. Then: There are some bright spots for Democrats following last week's off- year elections. Can they win on issues, despite an unpopular president? Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner joins us. It's all just ahead on Face the Nation. Good morning, and welcome to Face the Nation. We begin the sixth week following Hamas' brutal attack in which 1,200 Israelis died. That number has been dropped from 1,400, according to the Israeli government, as remains are still being identified. Negotiations over releasing the 200-plus hostages continue behind the scenes. Publicly, it's a war that includes allegations, counterallegations, and disturbing images. We will continue to do our best to bring you only factual information and context. We want to begin our coverage today with Debora Patta, reporting from East Jerusalem. (Begin VT) DEBORA PATTA (voice-over): They came in their thousands, chanting, "Now, now," Israelis demanding the immediate release of the nearly 240 loved ones abducted by Hamas on October 7, a reminder, when it comes to pain, there are no winners after more than five weeks of war. In Gaza City, fierce street-to-street battles around several hospitals, including the largest, Al Shifa, now a front line. Hollow-eyed doctors and nurses work in torchlight in a health system that is on its knees. They came to save lives, but fear that, together with their patients, they could die here. Dr. Mohammed Obeid sent out this desolate message. DR. MOHAMMED OBEID (Surgeon): And they hit those people many times. The situation, as I said before, very, very bad. We are nearly sure that we are alone now. No one hear us. DEBORA PATTA: Medical staff want guarantees that the around 600 patients still inside can be safely evacuated. The Israeli military has kept up its drumbeat of accusations. Hamas, it says, is using the hospital as an operating base, a charge the group denies. Palestinians continue to flee southwards, but it is a perilous journey. "My son was shot dead in the chest," Ghaith Hasune (sp?) sobs. "I had to leave his body behind." (GHAITH HASUNE SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) DEBORA PATTA: And when they do reach the south, even as far as Rafah, the bombs continue to fall. (MAN SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) DEBORA PATTA: "We're not involved. We don't have fighters in our house," this man weeps. "I just operate a donkey cart." This is the true cost of this war, thousands of civilians killed, sometimes with only a number to identify them, men, women and children now being buried in nameless mass graves. (End VT) DEBORA PATTA: And the Israeli military says it's now opened an evacuation route from the Al Shifa Hospital. But, Margaret, for many of the patients there in a critical condition, this is simply not possible. MARGARET BRENNAN: Our Debora Patta. CBS News producer Marwan Al Ghoul filed this report last night from Gaza. (Begin VT) MARWAN AL GHOUL: In Gaza City, there are more and more severe suffering. It's a matter of die or life in Gaza City, as no enough food, no electricity, no fuel at all. But if I want to talk about Gaza City, I have to talk about Al Shifa Hospital. This hospital contains 500 medical beds, but all occupied by injured people and sick as well. These displaced people live in the hospital and the courtyards. I had a call phone with Dr. Samir Al-Bosh (sp?), who told me that smell of deaths everywhere in the hospitals, as there are 100 dead bodies in the hospital. But they don't know where to bury those bodies, which attempted, the administrations of the hospital, to dig mass grave to bury the bodies over there. Dr. Samir said that the hospital and doctors cannot apply any services to the injured people, as no fuel, no electricity, and everything ran out. (End VT) MARGARET BRENNAN: Producer Marwan Al Ghoul reporting from Gaza. Christos Christou is president of Doctors Without Borders International, and he joins us now from Rome. I understand many of your doctors are working at Al Shifa Hospital, and said two infants died due to lack of electricity, the inability to keep incubators on. There are 40 premature babies who need to evacuate. Will the Israeli military help these children evacuate? DR. CHRISTOS CHRISTOU (International President, Doctors Without Borders): So far, we don't have any news about any coordinated action about evacuating at least these neonate patients. And we don't have any news about any proper evacuation. What we see are hundreds of patients that they have underwent surgery very soon and very recently, and now they cannot be just take and walk out of the hospital. And next to them, we have newborn babies that they needed premature babies that they needed support. They were supposed to be in incubators. No incubator works this moment in Al Shifa. And, actually, Al Shifa doesn't work. It's not functional. MARGARET BRENNAN: The prime minister of Israel has said there's no reason why we can't just take the patients out of the hospital. What's your response to that? DR. CHRISTOS CHRISTOU: To evacuate to evacuate the hospital, you need time. You need weeks. It's not within 24 hours. And we said that several times in the past also, that it takes a lot of good organization to evacuate the hospital. And next to this coordination, it takes also a cease-fire. We have reports that people trying to leave the hospital also have been shot down. MARGARET BRENNAN: By who? DR. CHRISTOS CHRISTOU: And we had also accidents snipers. And we don't and we don't know what is happening also sometimes inside the hospital in several places where they are bombed. There are airstrikes in the hospitals as well. MARGARET BRENNAN: The Israeli military denies attacking the hospital complex. I know it's a large complex. But they claim that Hamas, as you know, has a command center in that hospital. I realize you are speaking about very sensitive matters, but the lives of your staff are also in danger here. How does this get resolved? DR. CHRISTOS CHRISTOU: First of all, we need to understand that, at this right moment inside hospitals are people are people in need, our patients, our children. Our children, we have this acronym, the WCNSF, wounded children of non- surviving families. We have several families that they are there. And these are patients. We need to understand that. We have to protect the hospitals. Any attack in the medical care at the moment is an attack on humanity. MARGARET BRENNAN: But Israel's military is going to go at that hospital if it is indeed Hamas' command center. I'm sure you understand that. You say it would take weeks to get everyone out. Is there any planning? DR. CHRISTOS CHRISTOU: Well, there's no planning. Everyone now lives even even the health workers have been so overwhelmed and exhausted. And they are in a position at the moment that they cannot even offer anything. So, yes, what seems more likely is not a proper evacuation, but it is a panic, is a panic that will end up with rubbles. MARGARET BRENNAN: Allowing fuel in has been a big sticking point for Israel, which worries that Hamas will get the fuel. You need the fuel to keep the generators on. Do you have any source of fuel to keep the electricity on, to keep these people alive? DR. CHRISTOS CHRISTOU: At the moment, there's no fuel in the hospital. And we run out of fuel also in other hospitals. And I cannot speak on behalf of all the hospitals this right moment in Gaza. I know that there's no electricity. We do not have connection in Internet. All these testimonies that you get also from our colleagues like Dr. Mohammed Obeid before was from yesterday. We lost contact later at night. We don't know what is happening in this right moment. And we know since a long time that people do not have even access to drinkable water. MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-hmm. It is I don't even have the words to respond to what you just laid out, Doctor. But thank you. And we wish your doctors well, along with their patients. DR. CHRISTOS CHRISTOU: Thank you, Margaret. MARGARET BRENNAN: We're joined now by White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. Jake, welcome back to the program. The fighting seems very intense in and around Gaza. Doctors Without Borders has called on the Israeli government to quote "end its unrelenting assault on Gaza's health system." Does the U.S. believe that this is an accurate description of what's happening? Is the U.S. telling Israel not to hit hospitals? JAKE SULLIVAN (U.S. National Security Adviser): Well, Margaret, without getting into intelligence information, we can just look at the open-source reporting that Hamas is using hospitals, as it uses many other civilian facilities, for command and control, for weapons storage, to house its fighters. And this is a violation of the laws of war. That being said, Margaret, the United States does not want to see firefights in hospitals, where innocent people, patients receiving medical care are caught in the crossfire. And we've had active consultations with the Israeli Defense Forces on this. In fact, just yesterday, the Israeli Defense Forces themselves said that they on the record, publicly, said that they are looking for ways to be able to ensure the safety and security of individual patients in those hospitals, while they also try to figure out a way to deal with the fact that Hamas is operating in a way that's outside the bound bounds of any civilized concept of how you would think about using a hospital, using human shields. So it's an active conversation, but the bottom line is, we don't want to see firefights in hospitals. MARGARET BRENNAN: OK. You don't dispute, then, the Israeli assertion that Hamas has a command center underneath Al Shifa Hospital? NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER JAKE SULLIVAN: I'm not going to get into a specific assertion related to a specific hospital, because that would be getting into intelligence matters. But, broadly speaking, we can see from open-source reporting that there is a track record, a pattern of Hamas historically and in this conflict using hospitals and other civilian facilities for these purposes. MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about the hostages, roughly 240, still being held by Hamas. We had the opportunity to speak with Congressman Mike McCaul from Israel, where he had just met with the Israeli prime minister. And he told us that Israel is considering Hamas' proposal that Israel release Palestinian women and children from prison in order to obtain the hostages held by Hamas. Is that something the U.S. thinks should happen? NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER JAKE SULLIVAN: Well, Margaret, you'll understand if I'm very careful in how I answer this question, because the negotiations are delicate. They're high-stakes. What is at stake is the recovery of a significant number of innocent people, including innocent Americans, currently being held hostage by Hamas, a murderous terrorist organization. It is the case that there are active negotiations under way between Israel and Qatar, who is communicating with Hamas, and the United States is involved in those discussions, very much involved in those discussions. But I'm not going to get into the specifics of what's on the table, only to say that we are actively working to ensure the safe return of every American being held hostage and every other person being held hostage by Hamas. MARGARET BRENNAN: There are still roughly 400 Americans stuck in Gaza, according to the State Department. Will they get out? NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER JAKE SULLIVAN: We are determined to ensure that they get out. Many have gotten out. Many are still there, as you mentioned, not just American citizens, but also their immediate family members. And we're trying to create a circumstance where every one of them can get safe passage out of Gaza. The gate has been open and closed. The lists have included Americans some days and not other days. But the bottom line is, today, the gate is open. We are moving American citizens and their family members out. And in the days ahead, we hope to ensure that every American who wants to leave Gaza is able to do so safely. MARGARET BRENNAN: Jake, this past week, a top State Department official testified to Congress that the Gaza Health Ministry's estimates of 11,000 Palestinian dead may in fact be an undercount. Does the White House share that assessment? NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER JAKE SULLIVAN: We don't have fidelity on the numbers of casualties, fatalities in Gaza. We don't know how many are fighters and how many are innocent civilians. But, as I have said before, and as Secretary Blinken has said before, we do know there are thousands of innocent civilians who have been killed in the military operations that began after October 7. And every loss of life of an innocent person, whether it's Palestinian, Israeli, anyone, is an absolute tragedy. And we grieve for every one of those lives. And we continue to reinforce the proposition that Israel has the right, indeed, the responsibility to go after Hamas who continues to represent a threat to the State of Israel. But it must do so in a way that's consistent with the laws of war. MARGARET BRENNAN: And Secretary Blinken also said too many Palestinians had died to date. I want to zero in on the future, which I know you have talked about from day one, what will happen in Gaza next. And you've pressed the Israeli government on this point. Secretary Blinken has been clear that it's the West Bank and Gaza that needs to be under unified control, and the Palestinian Palestinian Authority likely to govern that. It doesn't sound like the Netanyahu government is on the same page as the Biden administration, because the prime minister said something very different just yesterday. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER JAKE SULLIVAN: Well, from our perspective, the way forward the basic principles of the way forward are straightforward. And this is something that Secretary Blinken laid out publicly this past week, no reoccupation of Gaza, no forcible displacement of the Palestinian people. Gaza can never be used as a base for terrorism in the future. And Gaza's territory should not be reduced. Secretary Blinken also said that, ultimately, we do want to see the reconnection, the reunification of control between the West Bank and Gaza under Palestinian leadership. The Palestinian Authority is the current leadership on the West Bank. But, ultimately, it's going to be up to the Palestinian people to decide their future, who governs them. And the United States will support a process MARGARET BRENNAN: There haven't been elections held in ages. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER JAKE SULLIVAN: Well, that's right, Margaret. There haven't been elections held since the early 2000s. But, post-October 7, we can't go back to the way things were on October 6. And that goes for ensuring that Hamas cannot represent a continuing threat to Israel. And, in fact, Hamas spokespeople have said they want to repeat October 7 again and again until Israel is wiped out, that they want to be in a permanent state of war with Israel. That was on the front page of "The New York Times" MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER JAKE SULLIVAN: out of the mouth of a Hamas spokesman. So, Israel is going to prosecute this campaign against a terrorist group. But we also can't go back to October 6 when it comes to governance. MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER JAKE SULLIVAN: And it will ultimately be up to or should be up to the Palestinian people to decide what their future governance looks like. And that should involve a reconnection, as Secretary Blinken has said, of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. MARGARET BRENNAN: Jake Sullivan, thank you for your time. Face the Nation will be back in one minute. Stay with us. (ANNOUNCEMENTS) MARGARET BRENNAN: And we're back now with Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner of the state of Virginia. And the Democrats were were celebrating what happened in Virginia this past week with your elections. You said it was you told the White House what happened in Virginia was the first election of the 2024 national election cycle. What do you mean by that? SENATOR MARK WARNER (D-Virginia): Well, I meant that, while there was a lot of focus on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, the Ohio abortion question, in Virginia, a purple state, where not only abortion, but gun rights, voting rights were all on the ballot, in terms of Democrats' positions versus the Republicans. And I think it sets the stage well for the president. And I think one of the things that has not gotten into the analysis I mean, clearly abortion was a big issue, but I also think Virginia very reliant on the federal government, we have a lot of defense establishment, a lot of federal workers. I think the overall craziness that's come out of the House of Representatives left a message that, even when the Republicans in Virginia would try to appear moderate, I think Virginians were afraid, if they got total control of the state government, it would be the extremists, the MAGA crowd, that would drive the bus, the same way that's happening, unfortunately, at the national level. And I think that played into the Democrats, you know, taking back the House, keeping the Senate and stopping some of that agenda. MARGARET BRENNAN: But the president's own approval rating is low. So, when people draw a direct line and say Democrats did well here, so therefore, a year from now, President Biden's coasting to victory, do you agree with that? Or do Democrats have a Biden problem, given that his approval ratings are are not high? SENATOR MARK WARNER: Listen, the president's approval ratings are tough. I'm the first to acknowledge that. But I also think the president has repeatedly said, at the end of the day, this is not a choice between Joe Biden and a perfect alternative, particularly if the choice is between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. I think Virginians, I think Americans will reject that. MARGARET BRENNAN: That also comes down to a question of enthusiasm and turnout, right, in tight elections. And we've seen some particularly young progressives on this issue we've been talking about, Israel and Gaza, be very vocal in their frustration. And in tight races, states like Michigan matter a lot. And there are over 200,000 Muslim Americans in that state. SENATOR MARK WARNER: Mm-hmm. MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you see this divide on this issue hurting the president with Democrats? SENATOR MARK WARNER: I think it has a potential to. And that's why I think all of us are urging Israel clearly, Israel has the right to defend itself, has the right to take out Hamas. Hamas is holding many of the Palestinians, people, using them as shields. But we all saw those images on your show today. They're horrific. So, what Israel has to realize and this is why we've been pushing for these pauses, why we've been pushing to make sure that the settler violence on the West Bank is controlled. This is a battle for hearts and minds for Israel, not just a military battle. And those hearts and minds go across our country. They go across the region. And if they are if there's not more consideration about Palestinian casualties, you could see this already tragic event spill over into violence on the West Bank, coming out of Lebanon, and obviously making it harder in America to maintain our traditional support for Israel. MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. America is Israel's number one arms dealer. That's what we do. So, does something need to change, in terms of this potential aid package that is being debated in the Senate? SENATOR MARK WARNER: Well, I think questions have been raised about how this aid will be used. I have raised some of those questions privately. We also have to pair that with humanitarian assistance. And that is absolutely critical. We've, again, seen these horrific images. But I also think, as we think about this package, we also need to realize - - I I hear a lot of the Republicans who want to bash Iran, bash Iran, bash Iran. MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-hmm. SENATOR MARK WARNER: And I get it, all right? The Iranians are bad guys. But they then seem to forget the connection between Iran and Russia. And some of these very same folks who want to help Israel, but then want to walk away from Ukraine? I think walking away from Ukraine at this time would be a historic mistake that would pay negative repercussions literally for years to come. MARGARET BRENNAN: Are you confident that package, Ukraine and Israel and border and Taiwan, can pass? SENATOR MARK WARNER: I'm confident, if we can put all those pieces together. And I believe that, not only money, but we do need to make some policy changes on border. MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. SENATOR MARK WARNER: The devil's in the details, but I think, if we get that package combined, it will definitely pass. MARGARET BRENNAN: We're going to take a break and come back and talk to you on the other side of it. So, please stay with us, Senator. We have more Face the Nation. (ANNOUNCEMENTS) MARGARET BRENNAN: Yesterday, more than 300,000 pro-Palestinian protesters marched through Central London, calling for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. Far right counterprotesters clashed with police, and almost 100 people were arrested for trying to disrupt the main demonstration. (ANNOUNCEMENTS) MARGARET BRENNAN: We will be right back with a lot more Face the Nation. Stay with us. (ANNOUNCEMENTS) MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to FACE THE NATION. We continue our conversation now with Senator Mark Warner of Virginia. You, in your position as head of the Intelligence Committee, have been tracking a lot of the competition with China, particularly in the technology space. The White House seems to be very focused on establishing military-to-military ties with China. What are you watching for out of this summit with Xi Jinping? SENATOR MARK WARNER: Well, I do think re-establishing these military ties and communications are important because we saw when we shot down the Chinese balloon, nobody picked up the phone on the other end. And unlike Russia, where we've had 75 years of conflicts but lots of back-channel communications, because our - our contest with China is newer, we don't have that level of communication, so I think that's very important to be reestablished. I also think the president needs to push President Xi on the continuing intellectual property theft that some years accounts for close to $500 billion of intellectual property being stolen. And I firmly believe, when we've seen no retreat from China in terms of its level of technology investment, I absolutely believe that national security in the 21st century is more than tanks and guns. It is who wins the battle for artificial intelligence and quantum computing and advanced energy. The level of Chinese investment, for example, on rare earth minerals coming out of Africa is huge. And we need to be able to counter that with America and with our friends. MARGARET BRENNAN: So, our you want guardrails, I imagine, set up with China on artificial intelligence and the like, but legislating around a lot of this is really hard and it's not moving very quickly. SENATOR MARK WARNER: Margaret, let me tell you, I did the bill that was terribly bipartisan, 13 and 13, Democrats/Republicans - MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. SENATOR MARK WARNER: About saying we need an approach that's not simply focused on TikTok, but on all foreign technology that might pose - MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. SENATOR MARK WARNER: A national security risk from China or Russia or Iran. And suddenly we had the extremes on both the left and the right come out against that legislation. It needs to move because, particularly now as you see literally 40 percent of young people get all their news from TikTok. So I hope those kind of issues will be we can get some energy behind them now coming after this summit. But this technology competition, we've had military competitors like Russia. We've never had an economy that's making the investments the way China is in these new technology domains. MARGARET BRENNAN: So, Microsoft, this week, came out with a report that said Russia, Iran and China will interfere in the 2024 presidential race. Not they were certain about this. And other close presidential races worldwide. Is your legislation going to stop something like that? SENATOR MARK WARNER: I think our legislation will take on an issue like a TikTok, which is, I am afraid, could be used as a propaganda channel for the CCP, the Communist Party of China. And my beef is with the CCP, it's not with the Chinese people or the Chinese deaspra (ph). But around artificial intelligence where I think we need to be humble because candidly we've done nothing on any guardrails on social media and on technology writ large. The two areas where artificial intelligence could have an enormous negative effect tomorrow is interfering in our public elections, but it also could have a tool in terms of interfering in our public markets. And I've been surprised we've not seen more manipulation, for example, of stocks using AI tools. So, my hope is, perhaps we can get a coalition between those who favor making sure our public markets are not interfered with as well as those who were concerned about interference in our election to build the kind of coalition because taking on big tech - MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. SENATOR MARK WARNER: I've been there for years and got a pretty much a zero record and nobody in Congress has got a good record on this. I think we need that kind of coalition because the election interference could be enormous. MARGARET BRENNAN: Very quickly, is that "Washington Post" report that Ukraine was behind the attack on Nord Stream accurate and is attacking civilian infrastructure acceptable? SENATOR MARK WARNER: Margaret, I'm not going to comment on anything that comes out of classified intelligence. We do know that Russia has a history of misinformation and disinformation, but we'll continue to follow that issue. MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator, thank you for your time today. SENATOR MARK WARNER: Thank you. MARGARET BRENNAN: And we spoke earlier today with the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul, from Tel Aviv. (BEGIN VT) MARGARET BRENNAN: I know you're wrapping up what has been a pretty quick and busy trip to Israel. You met with Prime Minister Netanyahu. Did you get a sense that his government is close to wrapping up this military operation? REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL (R-TX): No, I don't think so. I think it's you know, the air strikes, I think the ground game is just now starting. And I will say, Margaret, when we walked in, the first thing we saw was the horrific Hamas video showing the gruesome killings of these barbaric terrorists. And it was a very intense, kind of powerful, moment. You know, the prime minister was in tears. Really teary-eyed about what happened. And, remember, this is sort of like their 9/11. And they - they want to eliminate the threat, you know, as they should. And I think that - and we talked a lot about the ground game operations, humanitarian, and we also met with the minister of defense as well. MARGARET BRENNAN: And you just raised humanitarian aid. I know the U.S. is the largest donor to the U.N. relief agency that operates inside of Gaza. Many in the Republican caucus do not support any aid going to them or to Palestinians, even Palestinian civilians living in Gaza. Do you believe that the aid package going through Congress needs to include this kind of help? MICHAEL MCCAUL: Well, I do. And I think the Israelis do as well. I think, you know, I talked about this with the prime minister. They have put a buffer zone in the middle of Gaza to create this humanitarian zone in southern Gaza. They opened up the Rafah gate, that's Egypt. About 100 trucks a day are coming in. But it has to be like food, water, and medicine. It can't be fuel because Hamas can use that to light their tunnels and operate them. MARGARET BRENNAN: There are still roughly 400 Americans stuck inside of Gaza according to the State Department. Did you get any update on how they're doing? MICHAEL MCCAUL: We did. And very sensitive negotiations with the Qataris. They're kind of the lead broker, if you will, of this negotiation. You know, I'm meeting with, right after this interview, with a bunch of families of the hostages. And I met with them in the United States. Very dicey issue. And I think what Hamas wants would be a swap of prisoners in Israel of Palestinians in exchange for these hostages, both Americans and Palestinians, in the Gaza. That's an ongoing thing. I hope it can happen. A cease-fire would be very difficult without an agreement to release all hostages. MARGARET BRENNAN: To be clear, are the Palestinian Americans who are trapped in Gaza being included in that hostage negotiation? Is that what you're saying as well? MICHAEL MCCAUL: No, this is a - MARGARET BRENNAN: OK. MICHAEL MCCAUL: No, I'm sorry, it's the Palestinian Palestinians in - in prison in Israel that are being, you know, negotiated in exchange for prisoners of both Israelis and Americans held captive in Gaza. MARGARET BRENNAN: Understood. So that Hamas proposal is being entertained. Interesting to know that. I want to ask you about what Congress can deliver in terms of aid to Israel. Do you think that the new speaker of the House has the clout necessary with your caucus to move through a package that includes Israel aid, Ukraine aid, and other national security items? MICHAEL MCCAUL: Our aid to Israel is urgent and time is of the essence. We have to deliver this package. Now, I know that we have offsets, and that's fair, but I don't think we can play political games with this to support our ally because, you know, if - if they fail, and we fail, it would have a very bad effect across the Middle East. Into Ukraine, that's vitally important as well. So is Taiwan. And so is the last line of defense, the southern border. So, really, if you think about it, all these threats are really tied together. Now, whether we handle it all altogether or separately with say Ukraine and border security, all that has yet to be figured out. The stage to, if you will, a CR that the speaker is trying to implement, I think will actually move the process forward. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, that - that deadline in terms of government funding is next week, November 17th. Yesterday the speaker made this proposal, it's kind of an unusual way to do it, called a laddered, short-term funding deal. MICHAEL MCCAUL: Right. MARGARET BRENNAN: The White House says it's just not serious and it's a waste of time. Are we going to see a government shutdown? MICHAEL MCCAUL: Well, you know, we have the power of the purse. And, look, we need - we need more time. The CRs always hurt the military, always hurt our national security. And so the first CR until January could resolve the four last four appropriation bills that we can't pass to date. So we could pass those and then have until February to negotiate with the Senate to get this done and put it on the president's desk. That will also give us time MARGARET BRENNAN: Right, but first you need the votes to actually pass this. So - so can Republicans vote together to pass this proposal, this short-term funding agreement? MICHAEL MCCAUL: We're going to have to. I mean, there's no choice here. I mean the world is on fire from where I sit. It is too, you know, urgent. We can't sit back and do nothing. And talking to Prime Minister Netanyahu, they needed this yesterday, in his words. Ukraine needed it yesterday. The border, for certainly, need it yesterday. And we know that Chairman Xi is threatening Taiwan and the Pacific. MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. MICHAEL MCCAUL: So, you know, I think what the Senate's going to do, they're going to come up with a package, probably after Thanksgiving, that they will send over to the House. MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. And we'll see if that government funding proposal can get passed by next week to avoid that shutdown. Congressman, thank you for joining us from Israel this morning. We'll be right back. (ANNOUNCEMENTS) MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, who joins us from Jerusalem. Good afternoon to you, sir. ISAAC HERZOG (President of Israel): Good morning, Margaret. MARGARET BRENNAN: Your country lost 1,200 of its civilian citizens on October the 7th. And I know you're still reeling from that. But what we're seeing in Gaza right now with Hamas and this concentration of very intense fighting around al-Shifa Hospital, if that is indeed Hamas' command center, does that mean this war ends if you take control of it? ISAAC HERZOG: Well, the war we've - we've taken on against Hamas is a war that - which matters to the entire well-being and safety of - of the world, I would say, and therefore our main aim at this stage following the atrocities we've gone through on October 7th is to uproot the capability of Hamas. It doesn't end in Shifa Hospital. They are based all throughout Gaza. MARGARET BRENNAN: I know you have personally met with many of the families of the roughly 240 hostages being held by Hamas and other terror groups. Can you explain why Israel is reportedly now considering releasing Palestinian women and children from your prisons in exchange for some of these hostages held by Hamas? ISAAC HERZOG: Well, I don't want to give any illusions. Qatar is trying to mediate. So is Egypt. In order to get a humanitarian release of a - of some of the hostages, we demand all the hostages. That's the worldwide demand. But there are - there are talks, of course, behind the scenes. I cannot confirm any details. What I can say is that there is nothing substantial right now on the table. The United States is also heavily involved in it. So, there's nothing tangible that I can report. MARGARET BRENNAN: I asked because in the past Israel has flatly refused that Hamas proposal to release Palestinians from prison. Are you saying that's a false report? ISAAC HERZOG: It's not the same. It's not the same. There are four dozens say that Israel is willing to release our murderers who are sentenced for a life sentence. In my speech in Congress, to a joint session of the House in - in July, mid-July - MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. ISAAC HERZOG: I said that the entire problem with the peace process in the region is terror (ph). Terror is undermining the entire ability to move forward. All of those who remember decades of trying to make peace with our neighbors know that we can make pace with those who adhere to the agreements and fight terror. Unfortunately a nation, which supports and aides terror, we cannot be a partner. MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. ISAAC HERZOG: And we've seen the atrocious results. MARGARET BRENNAN: I understand. And the United States of America considers Hamas to be a terrorist organization and has for - for decades. They're very clear on that. But as you just mentioned, you have long been an advocate for peace with the Palestinians, but there are many in the current government who before October 7th were not and do not favor two states for two people. Do you still believe that is the way ultimately to have peace. ISAAC HERZOG: Why would anybody agree right now to any progress with our neighbors when we don't see truly their ability to fight terror and many, many of them, including those in Gaza, are hailing and smiling and celebrating in the most atrocious way the world's greatest atrocity almost since World War II. May I also add and tell you that part of the whole issue is that it's kind of a culture that celebrates these awful atrocities. MARGARET BRENNAN: Which culture? ISAAC HERZOG: These atrocities cannot be agreed - accepted in any way. It means it has nothing to do with the conflict. It has nothing to do with the borders, with settlements or anything. This is simple. Simple, clear, barbarism, Jew hate, other hate, which is advocated by ISIS, Hamas, al Qaeda, which, if we weren't here, then Europe will be next and probably the United States is the end game for all of them. MARGARET BRENNAN: I understand, and I'm not discounting in any way anti- Semitism around the globe, which is on the rise. When it comes specifically, though, to the long-term security of the Democratic and Jewish state of Israel, it sounds like you have lost some hope for that peace process. But I wonder, given what you are seeing happen in Gaza right now, and the wish you have for security for your people, aren't you concerned that more individuals will be radicalized by the level of civilian casualties right now? ISAAC HERZOG: If we eradicate the capabilities of Hamas, we'll give hope to the Palestinians in Gaza too, to run their life decently, as we've expected in the accords we had with the Palestinians. We enabled the Palestinian Authority to take control of Gaza and they lost it. MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes. ISAAC HERZOG: They lost it to a brutal coup of Hamas in 2007. But the issue is, I kept on asking President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority in on numerous occasion, would you go in if Israel takes Hamas out? And he said no. Now I don't know exactly where he is at and if they're even capable of doing so. But one thing is clear, we first and foremost have to give safety and security to Israel. MARGARET BRENNAN: Understood. But even the United States government says that death toll of 11,000 Palestinians may be an undercount. They say they can't separate civilians from Hamas fighters. But it's still a tremendous amount of death. So, given that, how can you say with certainty that Israel's military and intelligence is hitting the right targets right now, that the dying that is happening is necessary and helpful to your security? ISAAC HERZOG: I thank you for this question first of all because I want to express my utter pain and sorrow for any innocent casualty on the Palestinian side. We are doing our utmost, according to international humanitarian law. First and foremost, we alert people. I mean what's the story here? The enemy, these terrorists, fought and tried to kill us and send missiles and terrorists from their homes. So, we have to go to these homes and we have to blow up all their infrastructure, tunnels, missile, everything. So, we go and we sent leaflets, we call and we phone and we send text messages to all the civilians in that area, we tell them move out, we give them time to move out and we've opened humanitarian corridors and we have increased dramatically the humanitarian aid to those who are moving out to a safety zone. Unfortunately, there could be casualties. Some of them are also by Hamas fire. And their reporting and the numbers are unclear to me. But I'm saying outright, we are doing our best. Unfortunately, these things happen, and we are sorry for it, but, at the end of the day, we have to uproot that infrastructure because we have to defend ourselves according to our right and duty to defend our people. MARGARET BRENNAN: President Herzog, thank you for your time. (END VT) MARGARET BRENNAN: We'll be back in a moment. (ANNOUNCEMENTS) MARGARET BRENNAN: Democrats celebrated a series of high-profile wins in this past Tuesday's elections, including an abortion rights amendment in Ohio and full control of the state legislature in Virginia. But there was another notable outcome, liberals won a series of school board races in red and blue states alike. Why? Here's chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes. (BEGIN VT) NANCY CORDES (voice over): When election season rolls around, school board races haven't always gotten a lot of attention. WOMAN: If you're going to yell, just do stand up, yell and leave. NANCY CORDES (voice over): But that was before school board hearings around the country became a flashpoint for fights over book banning MAN: They're molesting our kids' minds. NANCY CORDES (voice over): Diversity MAN: What am I being arrested for? NANCY CORDES (voice over): And LGBTQ plus rights. WOMAN: The movie had not been approved and it was not appropriate. WOMAN: Know that you are making Orlando (ph) County unsafe and an unproductive working and learning environment. NANCY CORDES (voice over): 2021 saw a surge in conservative school board candidates pushing back on pandemic-era school closures and mask mandates. This past Tuesday, the pendulum appeared to swing the other way, with more liberal candidates picking up school board seats in states like Pennsylvania, Iowa, Ohio, and Virginia. WOMAN: I started to see the effects of some of the chaos and disfunction on our school board in our classrooms. NANCY CORDES (voice over): Valan Rodas (ph) is a teacher and newly elected school board member in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. WOMAN: You're not going to cut my mic off when I go to vote. NANCY CORDES (voice over): That board drew national attention in 2021 when it voted to pull what it called sexually explicit books from school libraries. WOMAN: From there it just seemed to continue spiraling into other distracting culture war issues that aren't the problems that are needed - needed addressing to help our students. NANCY CORDES (voice over): On Tuesday, Spotsylvania's school board flipped from a 4-3 conservative majority to 5-2 for progressives. NANCY CORDES: What message do you think voters were trying to send about the school board? WOMAN: I believe they want us to work together. NANCY CORDES (voice over): April Gillespie is one of the two remaining conservatives. WOMAN: I believe they're tired of the fighting and the lawsuits and on both sides. Just everything. Both sides. I think that they want us to move forward and focus on the business of the division and not so much the politics of things. NANCY CORDES (voice over): Last Tuesday's school board races are being viewed as a test case for 2024 when voters in all 50 states will go to the polls. Democrats are hoping this issue, like abortion, will help to drive turnout and make up for what polls show is a dip in enthusiasm for the team at the top of the ticket. (END VT) MARGARET BRENNAN: That's Nancy Cordes reporting. We'll be right back. (ANNOUNCEMENTS) MARGARET BRENNAN: Today some tragic breaking news. The Pentagon has just announced that five U.S. service members were killed yesterday in an aircraft training mission in the Mediterranean Sea. Our condolences to those families and our deepest respect and thanks for all of those who serve or have served in the military. Until next week, for FACE THE NATION, I'm Margaret Brennan. (ANNOUNCEMENTS) The Woolly Worm Festival, inching to predict winter's weather The effect of gender disparities on men Bradley Cooper on "Maestro" Funerals for the 18 victims of the mass shooting in Maine last month are nearing a conclusion with a service for a husband and father of two sons who was slain at a bowling alley. Jason Walker of Sabattus was remembered as an ambitious man with many self-taught skills, from gardening and playing the guitar to beekeeping, making sausage and sourdough bread. Family said at his funeral on Saturday that the 51-year-old Walker was also quick-witted, generous and caring. Walker and his best friend, Michael Deslauriers, were killed at a bowling alley in Lewiston on Oct. 25. FILE - A make-shift memorial lines Main Street, Nov. 3, 2023, Lewiston, Maine. The deputy director of the new gun violence prevention office at the White House spent the last week in Lewiston, Maine helping the community recover from a mass shooting. (AP Photo/Matt York, File) Others were killed at a Lewiston bar. Thirteen people were injured in the shooting rampage by gunman Robert Card, who was later found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW Foil covers windows of Calumet Fisheries, 3259 E. 95th St. on Nov. 11, 2023, in Chicago. The Chicago Department of Public Health shut down the seafood eatery on Oct. 31 after failed health inspections. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune) The Chicago Department of Public Health has ordered one of the citys beloved seafood restaurants to close after it repeatedly failed health inspections. Calumet Fisheries, located at 3259 E. 95th St., was shut down Oct. 31 after health inspectors found evidence of about 400 mice and rat droppings. During another inspection a week later, city officials again found about 150 mice or rat droppings in the basement and in a storage area, according to public health data. Advertisement I hate it, co-owner Mark Kotlick said of being forced to close. Weve never had an issue with the city and weve been in business for 75 years, totally 95 years. Its an old store. They gotta consider that its not something that was built yesterday. The restaurant was also cited for about a dozen other minor facility issues, such as leaky faucets and damaged floor tiles. Advertisement Kotlick said theyre working to correct the violations, including repairing holes in the basement to prevent mice from getting through and calling an exterminator. He said theyre also remodeling the store while its shut down with paint and flooring touch-ups. On Saturday, one sign at the restaurant read closed due to remodeling while another from the city said license suspended. Its a 95-year-old building that needs a lot of tender loving care, and thats what we give it, Kotlick said. Weve got a lot of positive feedback from our customers saying, Cant wait for you to reopen. Kotlick said they hope to reopen either this week or the following week. Calumet Fisheries is known for its smoked and fried seafood, dished out since 1948. Its housed inside a tiny building with no dining room. It won an Americas Classics Award from the James Beard Foundation in 2010. Vice President Kamala Harris made an impromptu visit to the restaurant in January, ordering pepper garlic trout, smoked salmon and more. Anthony Bourdain also stopped by in 2009 for his show No Reservations on the Travel Channel. rjohnson@chicagotribune.com California Gov. Gavin Newsom walked out of the Tesla gigafactory in China last month feeling jazzed about the future. A future where people do a lot less driving, instead being whisked around by autonomous cars and flying taxis. A future where, he said, the entire transportation system is completely reorganized. I think it's going to come very fast, Newsom said to reporters on the last day of his trip to China promoting clean energy partnerships with California. With AI in particular aiding this advancement, I think it's just going to explode and you're going to start seeing driverless flying cars as well. Read more: Look! Up in the sky! It's an air taxi. They're coming to Los Angeles Newsom made it clear that hes committed to keeping California the global leader in the development of autonomous technology and said the state shouldn't "cede the future" to other countries or states. A tech-friendly, entrepreneurial streak has been one of Newsoms hallmarks since he entered politics. As lieutenant governor in 2011, he famously set up his San Francisco office in a private hub of tech start-ups . Newsom boasts of having bought one of the first Teslas ever sold, and has had a longstanding relationship with Elon Musk, whom he calls "one of the world's great innovators." But the governors effusive comments about autonomous vehicles come as the technology is causing outrage in some California cities, putting Newsom in conflict with many fellow Democrats who are calling for more oversight of the robotic cars on public roads. Hes clashing with mayors and other local officials who want more control over the expansion of robotaxis in their cities, as well as with state lawmakers who believe Californias system for regulating autonomous vehicles is insufficient. Martha Hubert writes a message opposing robotaxi expansion on Aug. 10 in San Francisco. (Godofredo A. Vasquez / Associated Press) The friction is growing as autonomous vehicle companies ramp up their lobbying in Sacramento. Cruise, Waymo, Motional and the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Assn. collectively spent about $2.4 million on lobbying the state government in the first nine months of this year more than three times the $671,579 they spent lobbying in all of last year, according to disclosures filed with the Secretary of State. Much of that increase is due to a huge jump in spending by Waymo , the business owned by Google's parent company that operates robotaxis in San Francisco and Santa Monica , with plans to expand to other parts of L.A. this month. Skepticism from local officials has intensified since a Cruise robotaxi dragged a person down a San Francisco street last month, and the company allegedly failed to disclose footage of the wreck. The DMV suspended Cruises permits and the General Motors-owned company announced it is suspending U.S. operations while it works to rebuild public trust. It recalled its autonomous fleet to perform a software update. Read more: A Cruise car hit a pedestrian. The company's response could set back California's new robotaxi industry On Nov. 1, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass wrote a fiery letter to state regulators saying the city wants more say in regulating driverless taxis and she criticized the state for a lack of attention to public safety, road safety, and other serious concerns. To date, local jurisdictions like Los Angeles have had little to no input in AV deployment and are already seeing significant harm and disruption, Bass wrote to the state Public Utilities Commission, which approved a massive expansion of robotaxis in August. Newsom appoints the members of the Public Utilities Commission and oversees the Department of Motor Vehicles, the two agencies tasked with regulating autonomous vehicles. He told reporters he agreed with the DMVs decision to ban Cruise from San Francisco streets following the crash that left a pedestrian seriously injured. Even before the Cruise debacle, city officials in San Francisco criticized the state's move to grow the presence of autonomous vehicles. The fire chief complained that robotaxis are a danger to emergency response because they stop in traffic, pull up too close to firetrucks that are unloading equipment and block firehouse driveways. The police officers union also raised concerns about their expansion. After the Public Utilities Commission approved the expansion, San Francisco's city attorney filed motions asking it to reverse course, which the commission declined to do. Now a state lawmaker is pressing the DMV for more information on how it permits autonomous vehicles, how it addresses safety concerns and why it suspended Cruises permit. The formal inquiry by state Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San Jose) could portend hearings or legislation on autonomous vehicles after the Legislature reconvenes in January. All of us in public service would like to intervene and prevent things from happening and not have tragedy dictate an acceleration of remedies. But if we dont hurry thats whats going to happen, Cortese said in an interview. He said Californias structure of having two agencies tasked with regulating driverless cars is problematic. I believe we need a single executive agency that deals with autonomous vehicles much like the FAA deals with air travel, commercial and private, Cortese said. We dont have the infrastructure set up to monitor whats going on or hold people accountable. Newsom defended the states oversight during his conversation with reporters outside the Shanghai Tesla plant. The DMV has built a whole new shop in terms of organizing around making sure people are safe, he said. But autonomy is the future. An electric Jaguar I-Pace car outfitted with Waymo full self-driving technology drives through Santa Monica on Feb. 21. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times) The DMV launched an investigation in 2021 into whether Tesla falsely markets its autonomous technology. The company brands it as "full self-driving" but California does not regulate Teslas as autonomous vehicles, so the company doesn't have to report crash data to the state. The DMV's investigation has yielded no public results in more than 2 years, to the frustration of some state lawmakers. The governor also clashed with lawmakers over autonomous vehicles earlier this year when he vetoed a bill to require human safety drivers in self-driving big-rig trucks a measure that sailed through the Legislature with bipartisan support. Newsom said the bill was unnecessary because of the states existing system for regulating the evolving technology. DMV continuously monitors the testing and operations of autonomous vehicles on California roads and has the authority to suspend or revoke permits as necessary to protect the public's safety, he wrote in the veto message . Peter Finn, a vice president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which sponsored the bill to require human drivers on autonomous trucks, said the union will keep pushing because both safety and jobs are at stake. We're not backing away from this fight. We're going to double down in terms of pursuing fair and responsible guardrails to this technology, he said. He called Newsom completely out of touch with California residents on the issue of autonomous vehicles. Theres no sign that Newsom's zeal for automotive innovation will subside. In addition to touring the Shanghai Tesla factory, while in China Newsom test drove a hybrid SUV made by Chinese manufacturer BYD. He took his hands off the wheel and waved to reporters as the car went into automated mode and rotated in a full 360-degree turn. "This is another leap of the technology. Next level," Newsom marveled from behind the wheel of the vehicle, which played the Eagles' song "Hotel California" on the sound system when he turned it on. Gov. Gavin Newsom test drives an SUV with autonomous features made by BYD during a visit to Shenzhen, China, on Oct. 24. (Laurel Rosenhall / Los Angeles Times) The governor said he first experienced driverless technology many years ago during a visit to Google with company founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Four years ago, at the Sears Point raceway in Sonoma County, Newsom said he rode in an Audi going 160 miles an hour with no one in the driver's seat. Newsom also expressed excitement about aviation innovation underway in California. Drone-like electric planes are being tested across the state by Silicon Valley tech companies pitching the vision of clean, quiet flying taxis to get people off clogged freeways. Two companies, Archer and Joby, plan to launch with pilots while a company called Wisk is developing an autonomous air taxi. Joby reported hiring a Sacramento lobbying firm for the first time in July, and one of its lobbyists, Michael Picker, is a former president of the Public Utilities Commission, which regulates taxis and rideshare companies. Asked if he had safety concerns with autonomous technology, the governor echoed industry talking points that human drivers who can get drunk or sleepy behind the wheel are more dangerous than driverless cars. I think we're gonna look back in 20 to 30 years and go, why were we allowed to drive? And allow 30-plus-thousand Americans to die every single year in accidents? Newsom said. There's a precision with the technology, but it has to be worked through. I just think it's mesmerizing, the change that's about to come. Times staff writer Anabel Sosa contributed to this report. 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. Russian forces attacked over 120 settlements in Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Mykolaiv oblasts over the past day, the General Staff of Ukraines Armed Forces reported on the morning of Nov. 12. The military recorded over 80 combats between Ukrainian and Russian forces at the front lines. Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks in the Kupiansk, Lyman, Avdiivka, Marinka, Robotyne axes, the military said. Russian forces launched one missile and conducted 63 airstrikes and 64 artillery barrages using multiple rocket launchers against Ukrainian forces positions and settlements. The General Staff also reported that Russian forces launched yet another missile and air strike against Ukraine overnight on Nov. 12, using two Kh-59 guided missiles and one Iskander-M ballistic missile. Ukraines air defense downed one Kh-59 guided missile. The military hasnt specified the area struck by the Russian Iskander-M ballistic missile. Read also: Southern counteroffensive runs out of steam as West scrambles to deliver aid Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. FRANKFURT (Reuters) -German chancellor Olaf Scholz's governing coalition has agreed in principle to double the country's military aid for Ukraine next year to 8 billion euros ($8.5 billion), a political source in Berlin said on Sunday. If approved by parliament, where Scholz's parties hold a majority, the boost would lift Germany's defence spending to 2.1% of its gross domestic product target, beyond the 2% pledged by all North Atlantic Treaty Organization members, the source added. Lawmakers from Scholz's Social Democrats, the Free Democrats and the Green party agreed on the increase in negotiations over the proposed 2024 federal budget ahead of a formal meeting of the budget committee of the Bundestag - or lower house of parliament - on Thursday, Nov. 16, the source said. Bloomberg News first reported on the news on Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter. A spokesperson for Germany's Ministry of Defence said the Bundestag committee has not finished negotiations and declined to comment further. Defence minister Boris Pistorius, interviewed by broadcaster ARD, referred to the planned doubling of military aid to Ukraine. "It is a strong signal to Ukraine that we will not leave them in the lurch," he said, adding the move, if agreed, would mean the annual budget allocation would be enough to last the whole year. Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper had also said the committee is due to approve the additional 4 billion euros. "Doubling the military spending is both the right thing to do and important," it quoted member of parliament Andreas Schwarz, who acts as an SPD military budget official, as saying. "With the move we will underscore our promise to Ukraine with the necessary funds. The fact that we will also be able to fulfil our NATO obligation is a great success of the ... coalition," he was reported as saying. A European Union plan to spend up to 20 billion euros ($21 billion) on military aid for Ukraine is meeting with resistance from EU countries, diplomats said this week. ($1 = 0.9362 euros) (Reporting by Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru, Holger Hansen in Berlin, writing by Vera Eckert in Frankfurt; Editing by David Gregorio, Kirsten Donovan and Giles Elgood) Visually, the University of Chicago was a mind-bending experience in the aftermath of World War II. The schools original architects were inspired by the Gothic architecture of Englands Cambridge and Oxford universities. But in 1946, the graceful flying buttresses and gargoyles shared Chicagos campus with squat, faceless housing for an unprecedented flood of freshmen, many of them veterans. The university book store said it expects to be able to meet only about three-quarters of the demand for text books, the Tribune reported. Thanks to Uncle Sam, a social revolution was taking place in the improvised dormitories lining Midway Plaisance, the boulevard bisecting the campus. Previously, few blue-collar Americans could afford a college education and thus an entrance to the middle class. But in 1944, the government said, Open sesame, with the GI Bill of Rights. And thousands of veterans took up the deal after they were mustered out when World War II ended the next year. This is an opportunity for you to study anywhere in the United States at any approved school which you consider best in the field you want to enter, was the bills promise. The government will pay to the school you have chosen up to $500 for an ordinary school year to cover tuition, laboratory, library, health, infirmary and similar fees. To be eligible, veterans had to have been in active service for 90 days or more, unless they had been discharged because of a service-related injury or disability The federal governments generosity resulted in hastily-built, prefab housing on college campuses. They are of a type that can be transported on a low slung truck without being taken down and reassembled, wrote the Tribune of 190 war plant cottages arriving at the University of Chicago in 1946. By 1946, more than 10,000 veterans were enrolled between Northwestern Universitys Evanston and Chicago campuses an 11-fold increase from the previous year. The university built Quonset huts, where students slept on eight wrought-iron bunk beds and studied on sheet-metal desks. Their prototypes housed GIs on World War II battlefields. As a 15-year-old freshman, Melvin Hodge lived in one dubbed the music school hut because of its proximity to Northwesterns School of Music. I cant say that winding up in a Quonset hut was any big shock, Hodge recalled. Some of my very best friends were people back from service. One had been a fighter pilot another a Naval officer on a destroyer. In 1947, ex-GIs made up nearly half of the nations college students. By 1950, the number of college graduates had increased by 300,000. Computing the GI Bill of Rights total effect requires an algorithm that takes into account the fact that more college graduates means more parents can send their children to college. In Europe, dukes and duchesses are at the pinnacle of countries long since republics. In America, everyone wants to be known as descendants of the class born of the GI Bill of Rights. Even the wealthy will say, Well, actually, were middle class. So, on this Veterans Day, let it be remembered that the Quonset hut and similar prefabricated housing built on college campuses for returning vets was the birthplace of a middle class. Have an idea for Vintage Chicago Tribune? Share it with Ron Grossman and Marianne Mather at rgrossman@chicagotribune.com and mmather@chicagotribune.com. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, center right, looks at a baby carriage as he visits Kibbutz Kfar Azza, near the Israel-Gaza border, the site of an Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas, with Israel's Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, left and Israeli Army Maj. Diamond, right, Sunday, Nov. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo) KFAR AZZA, Israel (AP) Republican presidential hopeful Chris Christie on Sunday visited Israel, saying the U.S. must stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel in its war against the Hamas militant group. Christie toured a kibbutz that was ravaged in the Oct. 7 rampage by Hamas militants that triggered the war and was meeting Israeli leaders, wounded soldiers and families of Israeli hostages during his one-day visit. The former New Jersey governor is the first candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination to visit Israel. I came here because I wanted to see this for myself, Christie said during a tour of Kfar Azza, one of more than 20 towns and villages attacked by Hamas militants on Oct. 7. Israel says over 1,200 people were killed and 239 others are being held hostage in Gaza. Jets buzzed overhead as Christie toured the kibbutz alongside the speaker of Israel's parliament, Amir Ohana. Christie, donning a flak jacket and flanked by an entourage of Israeli soldiers, made his way through homes with walls riddled by bullet holes and couches stained with blood. Over a month since the attack, many Kfar Azza houses are burnt-out and destroyed structures left standing are scribbled with Arabic graffiti. To be able to walk through a neighborhood like this and see what was done to the people, to still be able to walk into one of these homes and smell the death still, a month later, is something that I think the American people need to know. Christie, the 2024 races most vocal critic of former president, Donald J. Trump, has cast himself as the only Republican willing to directly take him on. Trump has not visited Israel during the current campaign cycle, though President Joe Biden has. The Republican candidates have all lined up behind Israel, even as the country comes under growing international pressure to halt or scale back an offensive in the Gaza Strip in which more than 11,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2,700 people have been reported missing and are thought to be trapped or dead under the rubble. Christie praised the way that Biden has handled relations with Israel during wartime. As widespread protests of Israels bombardment of Gaza in major cities like New York and Los Angeles attract thousands, the Biden administration has sought to increase humanitarian aid into Gaza while backing the Israeli war effort by moving US troops and defense systems into the region. Biden has largely ducked calls to pressure Israel into a ceasefire. Christie said that he thought protesters calling for a ceasefire did not represent the vast majority of Americans. I dont think its the role of the United States to instruct the state of Israel on how to provide safety and security for its people, he said. I think we can give advice, as friends give advice in private. But publicly, my view is that we need to stand with Israel. During his visit, Christie watched a film of gruesome footage pulled from the body cameras of Hamas militants on Oct. 7 and compiled by the Israeli army. The military has screened the film to international press and multiple world leaders who have visited Israel since the start of the war. I want the people of Israel to know that there are hundreds of millions of Americans who stand with them, who understand the atrocities that were committed, and why in the future we need to stand absolutely shoulder to shoulder with Israel," Christie said. Christie has positioned himself as someone who if elected would defend U.S. interests and democracy abroad. He has previously visited Ukraine to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The trip marks his second trip to a warring country since the start of his presidential bid, after a visit to Ukraine in August. By far the most strident critic of Trump in the Republican field, Christie has consistently been in the low single digits in national polls, far behind the former president. WASHINGTON - House Speaker Mike Johnson said Saturday he will seek to avoid a government shutdown next weekend with a "two-step" temporary spending plan but his proposal drew immediate criticism from some fellow conservatives and the White House. In a written statement, Johnson said his plan "will stop the absurd holiday-season omnibus tradition of massive, loaded-up spending bills introduced right before the Christmas recess." The current spending plan expires at midnight Friday, and certain government operations will halt if House Republicans cannot agree on a plan that also gets approval from President Joe Biden and the Democratic Senate. Mike Johnson Johnson's plan is a "laddered CR," a novel type of continuing resolution, the tool typically used by Congress to extend funding levels to keep the government running in lieu of an agreement on next year's federal budget. His two-step plan would extend operations until Jan. 19 for some agencies and until Feb. 2 for others while Congress negotiates long-term spending. Some Republicans began objecting to Johnson's plan shortly after his announcement, saying it leaves out too much. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., used the X social media site, formerly Twitter, to list a number of objectionable items: "NO MONEY TO UKRAINE! CLOSE THE BORDER! STOP THE WEAPONIZED GOVERNMENT! IMPEACH BIDEN, MAYORKAS, WRAY, GARLAND, AND GRAVES!" None of those items is acceptable to Biden or the Senate. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, another staunch conservative, said on X that his opposition to a "clean" continuing resolution "cannot be overstated," and he described it as "funding Pelosi level spending & policies for 75 days - for future 'promises.'" House Republicans who control the majority have disagreed about how to move forward, with some arguing for major spending cuts that would never win sign-offs from Biden and the Senate. The White House also dumped on Johnson's plan, saying it all but invites a shutdown. Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, "This proposal is just a recipe for more Republican chaos and more shutdowns full stop." She accused House Republicans of "wasting precious time with an unserious proposal that has been panned by members of both parties." It is not known whether enough House Republicans will back Johnson's two-step plan while they negotiate long-term spending plans. Johnson issued his statement after a House Republican conference call. The plan puts Republicans "in the best position to fight for fiscal responsibility, oversight over Ukraine aid and meaningful policy changes at our southern border," Johnson said. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: GOP Speaker Mike Johnson's shutdown plan attacked by conservatives Rep. Nancy Mace has become a polarizing figure among members of the GOP conference. A GOP lawmaker texted colleagues a video he said described his feelings about her, WaPo reported. The video, made by an attorney-turned-influencer, was called, "How to talk to a Narcissist." Rep. Nancy Mace often keeps her GOP colleagues guessing on her next move. Once a favorite of establishment lawmakers like former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California, the South Carolina Republican voted to oust him in October in a move that stunned many within the GOP conference. Days before McCarthy's removal, Mace had voted against a 45-day stopgap spending bill that the then-speaker shepherded through the chamber with the backing of virtually every Democrat. Meanwhile, a little under 60% of the GOP conference supported the measure, which didn't include spending cuts favored by hardline conservatives. (The eventual passage of the stopgap bill averted a government shutdown.) A GOP lawmaker was so frustrated with Mace during the process that the individual sent out a link in a group text to a video entitled, "How to talk to a Narcissist," according to The Washington Post. Another House GOP lawmaker who was included in the text thread told The Post that the linked video encapsulated his feelings about the high-profile lawmaker. "I didn't get her at all, and was lost at sea for a few years, but what [the video] was describing is what we all experienced," the lawmaker expressed to the newspaper regarding his efforts to engage with Mace on the budget. "[Narcissists] love the drama." Mace was one of eight House Republicans who voted with 208 Democrats to remove McCarthy as speaker, which sent the GOP conference into a tailspin. For three weeks, the chamber was without a permanent leader as an array of candidates including Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, and Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota tried unsuccessfully to secure the speaker's gavel. When many conservatives sought to rally around Scalise, Mace threw cold water on his nomination, telling CNN that she couldn't "vote for someone who attended a white supremacist conference and compared himself to David Duke." Mace's sentiments stemmed from a December 2014 New York Times report in which Louisiana reporter Stephanie Grace said that Scalise told her he "was like David Duke without the baggage." "I think he meant he supported the same policy ideas as David Duke, but he wasn't David Duke, that he didn't have the same feelings about certain people as David Duke did," Grace told the newspaper at the time. Scalise, in 2014, apologized for his 2002 appearance before Duke's European-American Unity and Rights Organization, remarking that it was "a mistake I regret." Mace, who backed Rep. Mike Johnson's successful speakership bid, earlier this month praised the Louisiana lawmaker as "a breath of fresh air." McCarthy criticized Mace during a CNN interview last week, stating that he doesn't "think she'll probably have earned the right to get reelected" in 2024. Mace's response: "We've moved on to a much better speaker who's honest and trustworthy and is going to tell the truth." Insider reached out to a Mace spokesperson for comment. Read the original article on Business Insider Approximately one-third of Singapore is situated less than 16 feet above sea level, and with rising waters affecting shorelines worldwide, government officials are taking action to protect over $50 billion in real estate. We are not planning to lose any inch of land permanently, Ho Chai Deck, a deputy director at government agency PUB, told Bloomberg in October. Singapore will build a continuous line of defense along our entire coast. This is something that we take very seriously. The iconic Marina Bay waterfront is reportedly an area that could be impacted by the effects of rising sea levels caused by heat-trapping gases produced by human activities, as is Jurong Island, which hosts several oil and petrochemical companies that, if affected, could release hazardous chemicals into the environment. This is a country more susceptible to sea-level rise than virtually any country in the world, Nanyang Technological University professor Benjamin Horton said. As detailed by Bloomberg, Singapore is utilizing a multipronged approach for success. With the reclamation of land using piled-up sand, the use of the Marina Barrage a dam with large pumps that drain extra water during intense rainfall and high tide and the help of mangrove trees, Singapore has reportedly added more than 45 square miles of land while preparing for the future. The country, like some other companies and initiatives, is also looking toward computer technology for assistance, collaborating with the Hydroinformatics Institute and National University of Singapore to build a model to help predict which areas are most at risk of flooding to protect not only the real estate but also human life. Both the Singapore Armed Forces and climate change defenses are existential. These are life-and-death matters, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in 2019, acknowledging the challenges Earths changing environment presents, per Bloomberg. With Singapores reported plans to spend approximately $73 billion over the next century on coastal and flood protection, the countrys multilayered approach also includes long-term dedication and vision, one attainable step at a time. Singapore wants to see if the technology is safe, and ensure everything is working well, before it takes the next step, added JanJaap Brinkman, a director at water research institute Deltares and an adviser to Singapore. Join our free newsletter for cool news and actionable info that makes it easy to help yourself while helping the planet. Russia attacked Kherson Oblast 62 times, killing one and injuring five civilians over the past day, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported on the morning of Nov. 12. Russian forces launched artillery barrages, mortar fire, tanks, grenades, drones, and missiles against the region, according to Prokudin. The governor later said that Russian mortar fire killed one civilian and injured another in the city of Kherson on the morning of Nov. 12. On the first anniversary of Kherson's liberation, the regional capital was attacked 22 times, including an overnight missile strike. The governor also reported on Nov. 12 that one of the attacks against Kherson hit a regional library, damaging the building. The regional prosecutor's office later said that the library was likely attacked with a missile, launched from a Russian Su-35 fighter jet. A year ago on Nov. 11, Ukrainian forces liberated Kherson and several adjacent settlements situated on the west bank of the Dnipro River. Subsequently, Russian forces were forced to retreat to the east bank. From this position, they have persistently attacked liberated areas, leading to daily civilian casualties and damage to infrastructure. Read also: Under deadly attacks, Kherson fights to keep life going 1 year after liberation Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Russian attack on Kharkivs Shevchenkivskyi district damaged civilian infrastructure, Governor Oleh Syniehubov said in a Telegram post on Nov. 12. No casualties were reported based on preliminary information. The emergency services continue to work at the site of the attack. Earlier on Sunday, Syniehubov said Russian forces targeted Kharkiv, Chuhuiv, and Kupiansk districts of the Kharkiv Oblast with no casualties reported. As of Nov. 11, 249 children have been evacuated under a mandatory evacuation order from front-line settlements in Kharkiv Oblast's Kupiansk district. Forty-three children await evacuation as the efforts continue, according to Syniehubov. Read also: Governor: Over 230 children evacuated from Kupiansk district in Kharkiv oblast Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Judge Robert Adrian, center, heads into an Illinois Courts Commission hearing on Nov. 7, 2023, in Chicago. Adrian, who found an 18-year-old man guilty of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl, has come under fire after he later threw out the conviction, saying the 148 days the man spent in jail was punishment enough. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune) Did a veteran judge in downstate Quincy who reversed his guilty ruling against a young man in a sexual assault case do so because he reconsidered the evidence and realized he was wrong? Or, did he do it to get around a state law that would have forced him to send 18-year-old Drew Clinton to prison for at least four years? Advertisement Those two scenarios form the crux of the decision now before the seven-member Illinois Courts Commission, which on Wednesday concluded a rare hearing on whether 8th Judicial Circuit Judge Robert Adrians actions in the Clinton case amounted to judicial misconduct. The Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board, which investigates grievances against sitting judges, accused Adrian of circumventing the states mandatory sentencing law when he vacated his decision during Clintons Jan. 3, 2022, sentencing hearing. The board also accused Adrian of lying about his motives during sworn testimony last April as part of its investigation, and of ejecting from his courtroom a prosecutor who liked a social media post critical of Adrian. Advertisement Adrian defended his reversal, saying that his reevaluation of the evidence and testimony led him to conclude that an Adams County prosecutor totally failed to prove that Clinton was guilty of sexually assaulting Cameron Vaughan, then 16, after a May 2021 graduation party. Removing prosecutor Josh Jones from his courtroom was done in anger amid a firestorm of controversy surrounding the case, said Adrian, who described Jones social media like as something that hurt me greatly. I dont want to use that as an excuse, because what I did was inexcusable, Adrian said about his treatment of Jones, whom he later called with an apology. The two-day Courts Commission hearing in Chicagos Michael A. Bilandic Building once again put Adrian in the same courtroom with Vaughan, who was not called to testify but attended with family and supporters. Now 18, Vaughan has been the subject of intense media attention following the case, agreeing to share her identity and story in local and national news as well as national television shows. It could be weeks or months before the commission reaches its decision its rules say only that it will come within a reasonable time. If the commission sides with the inquiry board, it could hand down a range of punishment from formal reprimand to removal from office. Advocates say the outcome could have lasting repercussions for sexual assault survivors and other crime victims across the state. If you can have a judge thats allowed to disregard the statutes passed by the General Assembly, any judge can, said Megan Duesterhaus, chief executive officer of the Quincy Area Network Against Domestic Abuse, or QUANADA, who was at the commission hearing. I cant imagine if I was in the situation of trying to report my sexual assault to police and I lived in Adams County, if thats the kind of justice being offered, Id have real hesitations to even report it. And I dont blame survivors. Advertisement [ Previous coverage: An Illinois judge reversed a sexual assault ruling he had rendered. A hearing will now decide whether he stays on the bench. ] Judges comments scrutinized Much of the commission proceeding focused on Adrians comments made during the Jan. 3 sentencing hearing comments that gutted the Vaughan family and stunned sexual assault advocates and survivors well beyond the downstate Illinois river town. That hearing, according to a transcript, began with the judge listening to arguments on motions filed by Clintons defense attorney, Andrew Schnack, who first argued that the states mandatory sentencing range was unconstitutional and then that the prosecution failed to meet its burden of proof during the October 2021 bench trial in which Adrian found Clinton guilty on one of three felony counts of criminal sexual abuse. Adrian then started his remarks by saying he considered the motions and arguments and was required to do justice by the public by me by God. Its a mandatory sentence to the Department of Corrections, he continued, noting that Clinton had just turned 18 years old prior to the accusations and had no previous criminal record. By law, the court is supposed to sentence this young man to the Department of Corrections, he said, according to the transcript. This court will not do that. That is not just. There is no way for what happened in this case that this teenager should go to the Department of Corrections. I will not do that. Adrian went on to say that he could find the sentencing unconstitutional, but thats not going to solve the problem because that ruling would be reversed on appeal and Clinton would end up in prison. Advertisement Mr. Clinton has served almost five months in the county jail, 148 days, Adrian said at the January hearing. For what happened in this case, that is plenty of punishment. That would be a just sentence. The court cant do that. But what the court can do, because this was a bench trial, the court will find that the people failed to prove their case on count three. Michael Deno, the inquiry boards executive director and general counsel, told commission members that Adrians own words during the sentencing hearing clearly show he reversed his ruling because he didnt agree with the mandatory prison sentence. He doesnt say one word about the facts or evidence of the case, Deno told the commission, made up of state justices, judges and two appointed members of the public. Deno also questioned why Adrian told the board that he chose not to explain his reasons for the reversal so he could save Vaughan from embarrassment. But, as Deno noted in the Jan. 3 transcript, the judges remarks included a lengthy admonishment of parents, adults and the permissiveness and the lack of responsibility taken by everyone involved in this case. This is what happened when parents do not exercise their parental responsibilities, the judge said on Jan. 3, when we have people, adults, having parties for teenagers, and they allow coeds and female people to swim in their underwear in their swimming pool. And, no, underwear is not the same as swimming suits. He continued: Its just they allow 16-year-olds to bring liquor to a party. They provide liquor to underage people, and you wonder how these things happen. Well, thats how these things happen. The court is totally disgusted with that whole thing. Advertisement Cameron Vaughan, 18, on Nov. 7, 2023, in Chicago. She was 16 when she accused an 18-year-old of sexual assault after a graduation party in Quincy. The judge who heard the case, Robert Adrian, initially found the young man guilty, but changed his verdict during the sentencing hearing. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune) When asked to explain those statements to the commission, Adrian said he was not talking about Vaughan, who testified in the original trial that she swam in her underwear during the graduation party, got drunk and later, fell asleep on a friends couch. She said she woke up with a pillow pushed on her face and Clinton sexually assaulting her. Adrian also said that the phrase this is what happens was not a reference to sexual assault or false allegations of sexual assault. Instead, he said he was talking about underage drinking at the party, the resulting danger of drunken driving and myriad other things. It wasnt a DUI case, Deno replied. Adrians attorney, Daniel Konicek, argued that the judge wasnt obligated to explain his decision that day in January, and Adrian chose to address the mandatory sentencing range in his remarks because it had been brought up by Clintons attorney and because the judge who previously practiced law for nearly three decades before being elected to the bench in 2010 saw an opportunity to comment on the broader issue of sending young offenders to prison. I understand I did not say it well, Adrian said during his testimony before the commission. Sometimes things dont come out exactly the way youd like them to. Post-trial meetings The Judicial Inquiry Board also grilled Adrian on conversations he had with prosecutors and Clintons defense attorney shortly after the three-day bench trial concluded on Oct. 15, 2021. Advertisement That same afternoon, Adams County First Assistant States Attorney Todd Eyler said he saw Adrian while heading for lunch. The judge asked to speak to Eylers boss, States Attorney Gary Farha, about the way prosecutor Anita Rodriguez handled the Clinton case and another sex crimes case. You guys have to do something about Anita, Adrian told Eyler, according to Eylers commission testimony. The following Monday, Adrian again asked Eyler if Farha was in the office. After leaving the judges chambers, Eyler testified that he saw Adrian cross paths with Clintons attorney, Schnack, in the hallway. Both men said they needed to talk to each other, Eyler said. That same day, Farha said he had a visit from Schnack, who told him Adrian wanted to talk about the Clinton case. Farha testified to the commission that he went to speak with Adrian and was asked if he would amend Clintons charge to something that allowed for probation. Farha refused, he told commissioners, because he trusted Rodriguez, a veteran prosecutor that he assigned to handle sex crime cases for the office. It was evident, though, Farha testified, that Adrian didnt want Clinton to go to prison. Adrian told the commission that he considered probation as an option to avoid having to admit his mistake. But, he said, he realized that would not be the proper approach because he ultimately decided Clinton was innocent. Advertisement Adrian also faced questions about the timeline for his reevaluation. As he does with all his cases, Adrian said, he immediately started to wonder whether he made the right decision. Those questions intensified, he said, when Clintons attorney filed his motions on Oct. 19. By the time of the Jan. 3 sentencing hearing, he said he was fairly certain he would reverse his ruling. But, Adrian said, he wanted to wait to hear each attorneys arguments before making his final decision. He also acknowledged that he reached his conclusion about Clintons innocence without looking at a transcript of the trial which he never requested. And, as Deno told commissioners, he went into the sentencing hearing without a prepared statement or notes to help explain to the public why he changed his mind. Its a lie, Deno said of Adrians explanation. Its not a good lie because its absolutely ridiculous. Konicek, Adrians attorney, said that while the judges comments during the Jan. 3 sentencing hearing were largely an attempt to point out the potential fault of mandatory sentencing laws, Adrians eventual decision was rooted in the evidence and his obligation to fix his error. Adrian reconsidered the testimony, some of which he found inconsistent, as well as the absence of certain bodily fluids during expert testing, and concluded that Clinton was innocent, Konicek told the commission. After the commission hearing, Duesterhaus, the executive director of QUANADA, said the judges stated reasoning for reversing his decision showed he and his attorney dont understand the dynamics of sexual violence. Advertisement Afternoon Briefing Weekdays Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox each afternoon. By submitting your email to receive this newsletter, you agree to our Subscriber Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy > That type of violence is about control, she said, not sexual gratification, and as such, the absence of bodily fluids does not mean a crime didnt happen. And the trauma inflicted on the victims brain can cause them to remember parts of the assault differently, or not at all. I had the same opinion that I came in with, and that is that Bob Adrian does not have the temperament to be on the bench, Duesterhaus said. He has caused grievous harm to a survivor that he has not apologized for. I think that the whole trial with the respondents defense the past two days completely wrote the victim out of the script and has tried to flip the script to feel sorry and have sympathy for the judge who was doing his job and then faced criticism. I dont have sympathy for that. Adrian told reporters outside the courtroom: The only comment I will make is God requires three things of all people: That you do justice. That you love mercy, and you walk humbly with your God. And thats what Ive always tried to do, and thats what Ill always try to do. As for Vaughan, she said the hearing resurfaced feelings of anger and frustration. At one point, she said she asked her mom, When did I become on trial again? She said she was hopeful the commission would remove Adrian from the bench. He doesnt deserve to hold that power over people, she said. He has no idea how to be a judge. Advertisement For information about rape crisis centers in Illinois, visit the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault website at icasa.org. Russian forces attacked Donetsk Oblast on Nov. 11, killing three civilians, acting Governor Ihor Moroz reported on Nov. 12. He said two civilians were killed in Toretsk and one in Minkivka. Both settlements lie not far from the front lines and are a common target of Russian attacks. Meanwhile, the National Police reported on Nov. 12 that Russian forces attacked eight settlements in the region, including Avdiivka, Krasnohorivka and Tonenke, damaging civilian infrastructure, houses, and kindergarten. The governor also said that 1,769 civilians have been killed and 4,294 injured in the embattled region since Russia unleashed its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February last year. The number excludes civilian casualties in Russian-occupied Mariupol and Volnovakha, as it is currently impossible to determine the exact number of victims. Donetsk Oblast, a part of the industrialized Donbas region that Russia illegally annexed last year following sham referenda, is the epicenter of Russias war. The region has been under partial Russian control since 2014, when Moscow occupied Crimea and launched an armed conflict in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. The war devastated the region, with many villages and towns completely destroyed by heavy fighting. Read also: Opinion: In remembrance of a great mind who survived Russian captivity Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Dog owners who fail to pick up after their pet risk a 100 fine Dog owners in Guernsey have been reminded by the States to keep pets under control and pick up their waste. Dogs are not permitted on Lihou causeway or Lihou Island and islanders are urged to honour the voluntary dog ban at the Richmond end of Vazon. Dog owners who fail to pick up after their pet risk a 100 fine. The States said picking up dog waste was "particularly important" when near agricultural land, as dog faeces could carry diseases for livestock. Dog owners should remove faeces on cliff paths, beaches, pavements, walkways and other public land and use dog waste bags and bins, it added. 'Dogs chasing birds' Julia Henney, senior natural environment officer, said the dog ban at Richmond was for wintering and wading birds. Ms Henney said: "Unfortunately, these birds are particularly vulnerable to disturbance and we have seen steep declines in their populations. "The main source of disturbance at Richmond is that caused by dogs chasing and putting birds to flight causing them to expend energy reserves which they need to get through the harder winter months." She added: "It's with this in mind that we ask that dog owners refrain from walking their dogs on the Richmond end of Vazon to try and alleviate some of the pressures on the birds and hopefully allow those populations to recuperate." Lihou and the surrounding area is a Ramsar site, a wetland of international importance. Follow BBC Guernsey on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook. Send your story ideas to channel.islands@bbc.co.uk. Five women who were hanged as witches more than 330 years ago at Proctor's Ledge during the Salem, Massachusetts, witch trials. Sarah Good, Elizabeth Howe, Susannah Martin, Rebecca Nurse and Sarah Wildes were hanged as witches on July 19, 1692. It seems to me the organization of Salem Witch Hunters of 1692 have invaded our society and now are focused on transgender issues. It is time we stop and take a look in the mirror of what our nation looks like, particularly Oklahoma. If these misaligned thinkers believe transgender is a choice versus a condition of which people are born, we should question their ability to think normally. I keep reading about our faith-based leaders, politicians and others denying medical access to those deemed to be transgender, especially youths. They even suggest sending transgender people to classes to reorient them. This indicates they erroneously believe transgender to be a thought process. For those unfamiliar with the Salem witch trials, here is a brief summary. In 1692, the people of Salem, Massachusetts, were in a quest to purge their community of anything that was considered remotely unnatural by their religious standards. Lasting from June to September of that year, numerous accusations of witchcraft were leveled at people around Salem. The end result of these trials was that 19 people were sentenced to death by hanging because of the unfounded accusations leveled against them. A 20th person was killed by stones because he refused to submit to a trial. It is often called one of the darkest moments of America. It was believed these evil witch spirits could inhabit any human or any creature. Thats why two dogs were killed, along with numerous frogs, mice, geese and cats. The goal was to purge the evil spirit from anything related to the witches. The Salem witch trials were less about witchcraft and more about religious beliefs. People were being sentenced to death because of heresy, which meant they were showing an outward denial of the demanded beliefs of the community. It was a crime so heinous that colonial law allowed all other laws to be superseded to deal with the threat. It appears transgender issues have become a form of hysteria. Some groups have even taken it to the courts of law and imposed restrictions for providing medical attention to transgender individuals, our fellow Americans. While it may be appropriate to sort individuals based on gender depending on the situation, it is not appropriate to deny their medical rights based on gender. If cost is the factor, the cost of medical attention for older Americans is significant. Some leaders may decide to deny medical attention for anyone over 65 years of age. Health insurance premiums would certainly drop significantly for those under 65. If cost is not the factor, it is witchcraft thinking. Are we at another dark moment of American history? Richard C. "Dick" Hall Richard C. "Dick" Hall, of Norman, is an Army veteran who served 30 years in federal civil service and retired as a division manager. This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Like Salem Witch Hunters, some politicians focusing on transgender issues Israel controls the skies over the Gaza Strip, and from air or ground can flatten any building it considers a legitimate target. Its troops, backed up by tanks, are moving into Gaza City. As they advance through the rubble, they are uncovering another battleground: the vast network of concrete, reinforced tunnels built by Hamas. "They face a city underneath that city," said John Spencer of West Point's Modern War Institute, "from 15 feet underground to 200 feet, 20-30 stories underground." A network of concrete-reinforced tunnels, built by Hamas, extends an estimate 300 miles beneath the Gaza Strip, complicating efforts by the military to combat the terrorists. / Credit: CBS News If Israel truly intends to destroy Hamas, said Spencer, it will have to go into those tunnels. "Nothing that was created for fighting on the surface works," he said. "You can't see down there. You can't navigate, you can't shoot. It's literally the worst place any soldier would ever want to go." It is in this underworld terrain that Israel's final battle with Hamas could be fought. American special operations forces train in Colorado at a two-mile-long tunnel complex. The Hamas tunnel network under Gaza is believed to stretch for 300 miles. "These are the dirty, dark and dangerous things that we don't want humans to do," said Sean Humbert, of the University of Colorado at Boulder. He headed a team of grad students in the DARPA Subterranean Challenge, a Pentagon competition to develop technologies for operating in this alien battleground. "You don't have GPS," Humbert said. "Also, communications is very difficult in these sorts of environments, so the communications signals don't propagate through the rock down here." Before humans go in, an autonomous robot scouts the terrain, using lasers to navigate (even if it's pitch black), and operating on its own without orders from base camp. "The robot's building the map, figuring out where it is within the map, and then trying its best to expand the map and explore the places we haven't been," Humbert said. Examples of MARBLE (Multi-agent Autonomy with Radar-Based Localization for Exploration) robots, operating within a tunnel complex in Colorado. / Credit: CBS News Over ground like this, the robot can cover about a kilometer in an hour, stopping when it locates obstacles. "It'll temporarily stop, plan a new path around those obstacles, and then execute that path," Humbert said. The robot is a marvel of technology, but when it comes to underground war it has one glaring weakness: it's a sitting duck for anyone with a weapon. "It would be," said Humbert, "but the whole point of deploying these systems instead of humans is that these are expendable." Hamas fighters use the tunnels to ride out the bombing, and to spring ambushes. The tunnels are their best chance of survival against the overwhelming firepower of the Israel Defense Force. Spencer said, "Hamas has built the tunnel systems to give Hamas time to slow the IDF down, and for the international community to say the damage happening on the surface is too much for the world to bear and to stop. And Hamas lives to fight another day." In the past Israel has simply sealed off the tunnels it discovered, but that won't work this time, because there are almost certainly hostages being held there. Eighty-five-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz was one of them. After her release, she described being forced through a huge network of tunnels under Gaza: "It looks like a spider web." Martin asked Spencer, "How does the likelihood that there are hostages being held in those tunnels change how Israel would go about attacking them?" "It takes away the ability to say, 'Any tunnel I find, I can destroy all of them,'" he replied. "Do the Israelis have no choice but to go into at least some of these tunnels?" "There will be many situations which require an IDF system or soldiers to enter the tunnels, yes," Spencer said. "How does the fight change when you crawl down into that tunnel?" "It's a game-changer," said Spencer. "All your normal tactics, options, all that changes. The environment can be more of a challenge that the actual enemy." When asked which side has the advantage in the war because of the tunnels, Spencer replied, "Hamas has the advantage, because they've built such an expanse of tunnels, and they're going to use them to attack, to defend, to preserve, to buy time." The Israelis have robots, and specially-trained tunnel units. But it may be more than any robot can do. / Credit: CBS News For more info: John Spencer, chair of Urban Warfare Studies, Modern War Institute at West PointJ. Sean Humbert, Aerospace and Defense faculty director, University of Colorado, Boulder Story produced by Mary Walsh. Editor: Steven Tyler. See also: Israel scrambles to respond to brazen Hamas assault that killed hundreds ("Sunday Morning")Gaza citizens flee from expected Israeli ground offensive ("Sunday Morning")Gen. David Petraeus: Hamas' attack on Israel was "far worse than 9/11" Prospects of Mideast peace in the midst of horrifying violence ("Sunday Morning")Truckloads of humanitarian aid finally enter Gaza ("Sunday Morning")Israel's military intensifies shelling of Northern Gaza Strip ("Sunday Morning") The Woolly Worm Festival, inching to predict winter's weather The effect of gender disparities on men Bradley Cooper on "Maestro" In a typical year, counselor/advocates from Centre Safe answer more than 2,000 hotline calls from people seeking services connected to experiences with dating/domestic violence, sexual violence and stalking. In 2022 alone, Centre Safe supported approximately 900 victims/survivors of domestic violence across Centre County and nearly 200 victims/survivors of sexual assault. While Centre Safe provides critical services like emergency shelter/housing, counseling, advocacy, legal support, education and more, we are so incredibly thankful for our volunteers and the support and services they provide throughout the year. Our dedicated counselor/advocates are the volunteers of Centre Safe, and without them we could not provide the level of support that our clients need throughout Centre County. You have an opportunity to become a part of an important group of people doing this critical work. We invite you to join a diverse, dedicated cohort of Centre County residents in our winter virtual volunteer training program. Classes will be held virtually on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6-9 p.m. Jan. 16 to April 11. The process to apply for the program is simple: email Volunteer Coordinator Frankie Urrutia-Smith for the application. Her email is furrutiasmith@centresafe.org. You can also call her at 814-238-7066. Once you have the application, you just complete and return it (electronically, by mail, or in person) by Jan. 5 or as soon as possible. Urrutia-Smith will then contact you to schedule an interview to discuss the volunteer program in detail and determine compatibility with the program. Shortly after the interview you will be notified if you are accepted. Volunteers must obtain FBI clearances; Centre Safe will facilitate criminal history and child abuse clearances. We do not charge a fee for the training; however, we do require that trainees make a one-year commitment to the program, during which you agree to take at least four shifts per month for those 12 months. These shifts can include in-person or remote work. We realize that many community members would like to assist in the work of Centre Safe but cannot make the time commitment or are not interested in becoming a certified counselor/advocate. Never fear. You can still contact Urrutia-Smith for the other ways our volunteers can support Centre Safe without working hotline. Before becoming executive director of Centre Safe, I started as a volunteer while balancing a full-time job elsewhere. As someone who has fielded hotline calls, supported victims at the hospital after they experienced assault, and more, I can tell you the power in just listening to a person in need, holding a hand when asked, and just being there for a human being is massive. You are enough. You are capable. You are who a future client needs. Reach out! Jennifer Pencek, executive director of Centre Safe. Centre Safe provides free and confidential services for anyone in Centre County, including counseling, advocacy, legal support, outreach and education, shelter, transitional housing, and safe custody exchanges/supervised visitations via its Child Access Center. Centre Safes 24/7 hotline is toll-free at 877-234-5050. Learn more at www.centresafe.org . DeAnna Brandon, who has a rare blood cancer and has struggled to get necessary health care due to not having insurance, gained access to Medicaid this October after more than a yearlong delay and multiple denials of coverage. She can now take the next steps to get life-saving care. For the 45-year-old Rowan County resident, getting coverage means she can breathe again, she said. It also means the chance to extend her life and live with more hope and and feel like you can make goals to try to reach, because before it was like, whats the point of making goals if Im not going to be here that long? she said. Brandon was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, which has no cure, in 2022. Since her diagnosis, her doctors have recommended she get her own stem cells drawn as soon as possible to use for a transplant. This, doctors said, will help extend her life by up to 20 years. Otherwise, she could have as little as three years left, as previously reported by The News & Observer. However, Brandon was unable to get stem cells drawn at the time as she was ineligible for Medicaid, a state-federal insurance program that would cover her transplant. North Carolina, until just recently, was one of just 11 states that had not expanded Medicaid, which meant that the income limit for eligibility under the program for a parent or caretaker in North Carolina was 41% of the federal poverty level, or just over $8,000 yearly for a family of three. Adults without children, save for those with disabilities or other qualifying exceptions, had no coverage. This left out Brandon, a single mother who lost her Medicaid coverage in 2016 after both her kids turned 18. In March, lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper approved a bill to expand Medicaid, as allowed by the federal government, to cover all adults up to 138% of the federal poverty line, with 90% of costs paid by the federal government for the expansion population. This means all adults who make below about $20,120 a year can get access to health insurance. But the enactment of Medicaid was tied by lawmakers to the passage of the states two-year budget, which shouldve passed by the end of June, but was delayed until October due to internal GOP fights , largely on whether casinos should be legalized. I feel like Im holding my breath to get a decision as to whether my life can be extended or not, Brandon told The N&O back in September. Disability claims Considering the uncertainty at the time on the timeline for expansion, Brandon attempted other ways to get coverage , including filing for Medicaid coverage for people with disabilities, considering her cancer symptoms, which include fatigue, memory loss and more, she said. She first filed for Medicaid for people with disabilities in 2022, shortly after her diagnosis. However, this was denied due to not meeting federal Social Security disability requirements. So she tried to get coverage by filing for Social Security disability benefits, which would have made her automatically eligible for Medicaid. She is still waiting to hear back on this, despite hiring a lawyer and sending over hospital records, she said. Then, she tried filing for Medicaid for people with disabilities once more in March. This was denied once more. She appealed the March decision with the state, and had a phone call on Sept. 26 with a hearing officer with the states health and human services department to explain her case. Meanwhile, charity care, through which hospitals provide free or discounted services to eligible low-income patients, would also not cover the cost of up to $200,000 to harvest and transplant her own stem cells, she said. While undergoing treatment and diving through bureaucratic red tape, she also advocated, speaking with multiple news outlets, for the expansion of Medicaid. Celebrating Medicaid coverage So when news on the enactment of expansion being set for Dec. 1 came out, it seemed it would be Brandons ticket to getting coverage for her stem cell transplant. But, in early October she was at her boyfriends home in Rockwell when she received via mail a decision on the appeal she had filed with the state in late September, regarding the determination of ineligibility for Medicaid disability. Brandon did not open the mail immediately, fearing bad news again, and instead waited for her boyfriend to get home and read it first. When he said oh, OK, you won your case, I was like, no way, and I grabbed the paper from him and Im looking at it Im like, dancing around, she said. Documents shared by Brandon show the decision granting her Medicaid coverage under a disability determination was made on Oct. 2, less than a week after the phone call with the hearing officer. Brandon said the positive determination meant she could finally begin the steps to get the stem cell transplant, including getting any necessary tests prior to surgery. She also can get a needed neck surgery pending Medicaid approval, which requires getting authorizations hopefully this month, she said. The determination was also retroactive to December 2022, meaning many of the medical bills she has in a three-inch stack in a briefcase may be covered. Its a long road, with an over a yearlong recovery process, between the two medical procedures. Im nervous and excited and Im just hoping that my body can handle it well, Brandon said, But, in a sense, its now or never. Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog on Sunday pushed back on criticism that Israels counteroffensive against militant group Hamas in Gaza is not strategic enough, arguing Israeli forces are very targeted in what we do. Pressed on Fox News Sunday by anchor Shannon Bream about the long-term impacts of Israels destruction in Gaza, Herzog said, I take issue with this criticism. We are very targeted in what we do, and people have to understand Gaza is the biggest terror complex around the globe with over 500 kilometers of terror tunnels. Israel has come under fierce criticism from some humanitarian leaders, who are calling for a cease-fire amid the rising death toll of civilians in Gaza. Fighting has raged in the Hamas-ruled enclave for over a month since the militant group launched a bloody incursion into Israel on Oct. 7 that left about 1,200 people dead, including hundreds of civilians. Israel quickly responded with a bombardment of Gaza, sending hundreds of air strikes into the region along with a recent ground invasion into Gaza City, where Hamas is believed to be primarily operating from. Over 11,070 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war broke out last month, according to the Health Ministry. Some have argued Israels targeting of Hamas militants has not been precise enough, as thousands of civilians continue to get killed or hurt in the violence. Herzog defended the Israeli forces counteroffensive, stressing the need to remove Hamas, which is recognized by the U.S. and several other countries as a terrorist organization. You have tens of thousands of combatants, and we have to fight them, and we have to remove the Hamas threat from Israel, Herzog said Sunday. Its very complicated because Hamas turned them into human shields, but we are not targeting the population. Herzog pointed to Israels repeated warnings to civilians to move south ahead of the recent ground invasion in northern Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of civilians reportedly have fled their homes, taking refuge in schools-turned-shelters or overcrowded hospitals alongside thousands of wounded patients. I believe that what we see today we more and more people moving to the south indicates to us that these peoples do not want to serve as human shields for Hamas, Herzog said. They understand they dont like us, but they dont like Hamas either. Amid growing pressure from humanitarian leaders, Israel agreed last week to four-hour pauses in military operations in the Gaza Strip to allow for the evacuation of civilians from the conflict zone. Claiming the pauses have proven very effective, Herzog said civilians are getting advance notice they can replenish themselves and get medical treatment ahead of these pauses. Updated at 12:26 p.m. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The leader of Lebanons militant Hezbollah group said Saturday his fighters have introduced new weapons, including a missile with a heavy warhead in the ongoing fighting along the Lebanon-Israel border, adding that they will keep using the tense frontier to pressure Israel. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah also blasted the U.S. over the Israel-Hamas war, saying it is the only country that can stop Israels wide offensive on the Gaza Strip but doesnt do so. He said attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria, that Washington says have reached more than 40 rockets and suicide drone attacks, will continue until the war in Gaza comes to an end. Israel announces first Arrow-3 operational intercept Nasrallahs comments came as the situation along Lebanons southern border continues to escalate. Hezbollah on Friday attacked northern Israel with three suicide drones after an Israeli strike in central Syria killed seven Hezbollah fighters. Nasrallah did not claim responsibility for a suicide drone attack that hit the Israeli Red Sea town of Eilat on Thursday but called it a great achievement. Hezbollah and Israeli troops have been exchanging fire along the Lebanon-Israel border since Oct. 8, a day after Hamas deadly assault in southern Israel that left at least 1,200 Israeli civilians and troops dead and more than 200 taken hostages. A picture taken on October 15, 2023, shows smoke billowing near an Israeli military site close to the southern Lebanese border village of Aita al-Shaab, following shelling by Hezbollah. Lebanon's Hezbollah and Israel exchanged deadly border fire Sunday, 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. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images) Hezbollah officials say that by attacking Israeli posts along the border, the Iran-backed group is keeping three Israeli army divisions busy at a time when Israeli troops are pushing into the Gaza Strip where more than 11,000 people have been killed over the past five weeks, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry. The side that can stop this aggression, is the side that is managing this aggression. It is America, Nasrallah said, referring to the United States, a main supporter of Israel. Nasrallah said that the fighting along Lebanons southern border has witnessed changes in recent days, including the weapons used and the depth of the strikes inside Israel. He said that Hezbollah has been sending unmanned surveillance and reconnaissance drones into northern Israel some of which were shot down while others returned to base with information. On Saturday Hezbollah said its fighters attacked at least three Israeli posts as well as an infantry unit on the Israeli side of the border, claiming to have scored direct hits. An Israeli drone strike killed a fighter and wounded two others who are members of the Shiite Muslim Amal group of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, according to a statement released by the group that is allied with Hezbollah. Ali Daoud became the first Amal fighter to be killed in action since the fighting began, while Hezbollah has lost nearly 70 fighters during the past five weeks. Nasrallah said the group on Saturday used one Burkan rocket against an Israeli military post along the border. He said the rocket can carry a warhead the weights between 300 kilograms (661 pounds) and 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds). You can imagine (what happens) when half a ton of explosives fall on Israeli posts, Nasrallah said. The Israeli military said its aircraft struck a series of Hezbollah targets in response to attacks from Lebanon. The military said the targets include infrastructure, military posts, weapons depots and intelligence infrastructure. On Friday, Israels air force attacked a truck in the coastal town of Zahrani, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of the border, the deepest strike so far since the latest round of fighting began, according to Lebanese media outlets. Speaking about the Muslim and Arab summit hosted by Saudi Arabia with the aim of devising their own cohesive strategy on Gaza, Nasrallah said the leaders of 57 countries should stand united and scream in the face of Americans and ask them to stop this aggression, war and crimes in Gaza. The horrors of World War One were expressed by many of the soldiers who fought in the conflict but few did so with such power and eloquence as Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. Owen is often regarded as the best wartime poet of his generation but his potential may never have been realised had he not met Sassoon at Craiglockhart, a hospital in Edinburgh for shell-shocked soldiers. While recovering from Covid-19, American journalist and author Charles Glass used his isolation to delve into their poetry and reflect on their lives. The hospital featured in the Regeneration novels by Pat Barker, which were published in the 1990s and later adapted for the cinema. Glass was captivated by their story and set out to write the non-fiction version of Barker's acclaimed trilogy. Wilfred Owen was killed in France just one week before Armistice Day in 1918 While researching, he found Owen's pairing with his psychiatrist encouraged him to write poetry and proved crucial to his recovery. The book, Soldiers Don't Go Mad, is being launched at the site of the hospital, now a part of Edinburgh Napier University, later this month. Glass explained: "That phrase comes from a poem by Siegfried Sassoon in which he wrote 'soldiers don't go mad unless they lose control of ugly thoughts'. "There was a belief, widespread in the military and in civil society that soldiers were somehow above the weakness of mental illness that they would never become hysterical. "But in fact, given what they went through, mental breakdown was a normal reaction to an abnormal situation." Siegfried Sassoon was already known for his poetry when he was sent to Craiglockhart Officially Sassoon, a decorated war hero renowned for his bravery on the Western Front, was sent to the hospital to be treated for shell shock. However his admission was actually used as a way to defuse the tensions his public anti-war declaration had created and avoid having to court martial such a prominent figure. Meanwhile, Owen had been admitted to the hospital after experiencing a number of traumatic events while fighting. This included being trapped for days next to the dead body of a fellow officer. During the years it was operating as a shell shock hospital Craiglockhart's small staff of doctors and nurses treated somewhere between 1,500 and 1,800 patients. Nurses in Craiglockhart hospital which Charles Glass said was able to return more soldiers to duty than other mental hospital during the war Patients at Craiglockhart were encouraged to be as active as possible. And it was Captain Brock, Owen's doctor, who encouraged him to write. Glass said: "Brock saw the mental breakdown of war as a continuation of the mental breakdowns he observed in industrial society where workers would have nervous breakdowns because of the pressure of work. "He noted from his previous psychiatric practise before the war, that the best way of bringing people back to mental health was to get them to engage in productive labour of some kind. "Not simply languishing in bed thinking about problems, but to actually confront their problems, overcome them and engage in life to become whole again." Owen had read Sassoon's collection of poetry, The Old Huntsman, which had just come out. Sassoon was already known for his poetry at this time and his most famous works included Suicide In The Trenches, On Passing The New Menin Gate and The Poet As Hero. Owen confided in him that he was a poet as well. During their time together at Craiglockhart they developed a mutual admiration and helped one another improve their craft. Glass said: "Craiglockhart was the leading institution for treatment of shell shock because the psychiatrists there believed in Freudian psychoanalysis rather than what was practised in other hospitals, which was electroshock therapy, cold baths, putting men in just to lie in bed and get over it quietly." As a journalist Charles Glass has observed many different conflicts Although it is hard to measure the success of physicians in treating the shell-shocked at Craiglockhart, Glass said it was able to return more soldiers to the front than other mental hospitals during the war. He added: "It was down to the methodology of both Rivers and Brock treating the men sensitively, listening to their problems and telling them, convincing them, that they were normal men under abnormal circumstances. "And that it was perfectly understandable - they were not cowards, as some in the military said." Glass served as ABC News' chief Middle East correspondent from 1983 to 1993 and reported on significant events, including the Arab-Israeli war, the TWA Flight 847 hijacking and the Yugoslav Wars. "I've observed many wars over the last 50 years. I had the advantage as a journalist that I could always leave when things got difficult, I could always withdraw from a frontline to save my life," he said. He added that soldiers often do not have that luxury. Mental anguish Glass explained: "So many of them faced what was called the flight or fight impulse. Unable to go on fighting, because men die, and yet not wanting to run away, they broke down. That was what they had to deal with. "As a journalist I observed these things. I didn't experience the same things that those soldiers did." He said he hopes readers of his book will be able to better understand Sassoon and Owen's poetry and empathise with the mental anguish they went through. "That empathy comes out very strongly in their poetry, particularly the sensitivity they had for the men under their command who suffered so much," he added. Sassoon and Owen both returned to service after their time at Craiglockhart. But while Sassoon was shot in the head and survived, Owen was killed a week before the war ended. After the war Sassoon was instrumental in bringing his friend's work to the attention of a wider audience. Owen's most celebrated poem, Dulce et Decorum est, was published posthumously. It's title comes from a Latin phrase, meaning "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country". But Owen uses it ironically. He does not endorse the phrase but brands it "The old lie". More than one hundred years later, it remains the most damning poetic response to the conflict. "It was really the best poetry of the First World war," Glass said. The House may consider a resolution this week that aims to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas after a push by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to do so, according to the chambers schedule of measures it plans to consider. The Mayorkas impeachment resolution was listed under measures the chamber may consider. The House will meet starting Monday this week, where it also needs to pass a measure that will fund the government past Friday. Greene moved to force a vote on the matter last week, which accuses Mayorkas of willful admittance of border crossers and says he has a duty to protect the U.S. from an invasion. The Georgia lawmaker also accuses the Biden administration Cabinet secretary of violating the Secure Fence Act, a 2006 law that demands perfection at the border by declaring the border operationally secure only if no people or contraband improperly enter the country. The privileged resolution requires swift action by the chamber. Greenes effort to impeach Mayorkas revives an issue that had largely fallen by the wayside with House Republicans divided on its impeachment authority. Mayorkas has pushed back against claims he has violated the law claims even GOP lawmakers worry would set an impossible standard. The Secure Fence Act, specifically the statute, defines operational control as not having one individual cross the border illegally. Under that statutory definition, no administration has achieved operational control, Mayorkas said when appearing before lawmakers in July. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Fellow journalists mourn over the body of Palestinian TV journalist Mohammed Abu Hatab in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza strip on Nov. 3, 2023. Abu Hatab was killed along with 11 of his family members when their home was hit by an Israeli bombardment. (Yousef Masoud/The New York Times) The Israel-Hamas war has been deadly for reporters trying to cover the violence that has claimed more than 10,000 lives, including at least 40 journalists and media workers killed so far in Gaza, Israel and Lebanon in the first month of fighting. The rising death toll for members of the media unfolded as the United Nations marked the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists on Nov. 2 with a stark warning that reporters around the world are increasingly under attack as they cover not just war but also everything from elections to protests and riots. Advertisement While so many civilians are dying in the war-torn Gaza strip, it may seem like a side issue to focus on journalist deaths, but it isnt. Members of the news media risking their lives to shine a light on whats happening in Gaza are among the only independent voices bringing reports from the rubble that arent coming just from official sources in Israel or Hamas. Also, tragically, for many journalists killed in the Gaza war, multiple members of their families died with them. Whats more, the media are not just at risk in war and crises. UNESCO released a report chronicling a dramatic increase in violations of media freedom by law enforcement agencies across the globe that have led in some cases to deaths and injuries for journalists trying to cover protests. Attacks against journalists covering protests, public demonstrations and riots were registered by UNESCO in at least 101 countries from January 2015 to August 2021, and since 2015, at least 13 journalists have been killed in such attacks, according to the UNESCO issue brief. Advertisement Moreover, assaults on reporters related to their covering elections were also widespread, with UNESCO registering 759 attacks against journalists and media professionals including nine killings in at least 89 elections in 70 countries around the world from January 2019 to June 2022, according to the report. Forty-two percent of those attacks were made by law enforcement agents, the report said. This should sound familiar to Americans who saw members of independent media attacked and threatened by supporters of then-President Donald Trump during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the nations Capitol. It should be a warning, as well, of potential violence facing media during next years presidential campaign and general election Journalists are dying at a staggering rate in the war in Gaza, but the killing of journalists was already on the rise before Hamas committed bloody atrocities against Israelis on Oct. 7 and touched off the latest Israel-Hamas conflict. Journalist deaths rose to a new high last year, when 88 lost their lives across the globe, mainly in Russias war on Ukraine, but also in hot spots such as Mexico, the Philippines and Pakistan. Foreign correspondents bringing home objective coverage of these crises help Americans and citizens of other nations decide what policies, causes and funding to support. The report also outlines the use by police and security forces of nonlethal methods rubber-coated steel bullets, pepper balls and other crowd control measures that often result in injuries to journalists. It also notes the majority of attacks on media covering protests are made by security forces, who often arrest, beat or humiliate reporters as well. Their job is incredibly important and impactful in democracies, shining a light in places where, otherwise, people would be dying in darkness. They should not have to die to do it. Journalists must not be threatened, targeted with attacks or prevented from reporting freely at any time, said Tawfik Jelassi, UNESCOs assistant director-general for communications and information, marking the release of the UNESCO report. We call on governments to take extra measures to protect journalists safety and to guarantee the right to freedom of expression and access to information, including during electoral periods. These two fundamental human rights are critical to the functioning of democracy. [ Storer H. Rowley: Attacks on journalists are escalating, and the UN is sounding the alarm ] Last December, UNESCO released a report about other growing threats to silence news media professionals or impede their freedom of expression, including the misuse of judicial systems to attack press freedoms by expanding criminal and civil defamation measures, as well as intimidating lawsuits aimed at stifling free expression. It is incumbent on democratic governments and societies everywhere to heed the U.N.s warnings and redouble efforts to fight back by demanding more protections for media and by insisting on more accountability for governments. Advertisement 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 > Even as America seeks to support allies embroiled in wars in Europe and the Middle East, the U.S. and other democratic nations must advance stronger policies, laws and litigation of their own to defend international standards for freedom of speech against growing threats to journalists and laws that criminalize expression. The latest UNESCO report lays out recommendations for how governments can combat the problem, including providing better training of law enforcement agencies to work with journalists more collaboratively, understand their role and help keep them safe. Americans should not be naive about this. The world is a dangerous place, and journalists have traditionally gone into harms way to cover the stories their readers and viewers need to know. Thats always been part of the job journalists accept. We know the risks. But the number of journalists dying on the job or at home when their world comes under assault by terrorists or aerial bombardment is alarming, and it is growing disturbingly higher all the time. Truth is always the first casualty in war, but reporters are civilians and must not be targets. Democracies that trumpet a free press and champion freedom of expression need to do a better job honoring those values by protecting journalists. Storer H. Rowley, a former national editor and foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, teaches journalism and communication at Northwestern University. He is vice president of the Association and Club of Foreign Press Correspondents in the United States Advertisement Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com. The Hungarian government is planning to hold the 13th consultation with Hungarian citizens, polling them on their support for Ukraines membership in the European Union. Source: Hungarian State Secretary Tamas Menzer in Alfahir, a Hungarian news outlet, as reported by European Pravda Details: In a video shared by Alfahir, Menzer says: "Do you believe that Ukraine belongs in the European Union? Tell us what you think during national consultations that are about to start!" Menzer goes on to say things that play into Russias narratives and urges Hungarian citizens to say "no" to the consultations key question. "Ukraine is currently at war, so if it is admitted to the European Union, the war will be brought to the union too, and a significant share of EU resources will be diverted to Ukraine," Menzer says, insinuating that EU membership comes with military obligations and that Ukraine might be admitted in the very near future, with the war ongoing. In reality, however, Ukraines accession to the EU would not confer any military obligations onto other EU member-states. Moreover, EU states make joint decisions, which leaves the Hungarian government, headed by Viktor Orban, capable of exercising its veto power over any decisions in relation to Ukraine. The consultations will also falsely stress that Ukraine will receive funds otherwise earmarked for Hungary. Furthermore, Orbans government is relying on the narrative that Ukraine is oppressing a Hungarian minority. "National communities in Ukraine, including the Hungarian national community, have been stripped off their rights, and these rights are yet to be reinstated," Menzer says in the video. In January, the Hungarian government shared the results of what they called "national consultations" concerning the EUs sanctions policy, with 97% respondents opposing the sanctions imposed on Russia as a result of its invasion of Ukraine. The Hungarian government claimed that nearly 1.4 million Hungarian citizens took part in the consultations (for scale, Hungary has 8.2 million registered voters). It is worth noting that "national consultations" held in Hungary are not an equivalent of a referendum. Ballots are mailed to Hungarian citizens homes, and there is no oversight thats required to hold a referendum. Votes are collected over the course of months. It is a commonly held assumption that most people who take part in such "consultations" support Orbans government. Background: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said the European Union should not start EU accession negotiations with Ukraine, adding that "Kyiv is far from the EU". The Hungarian government had previously stated that the EU should not start membership negotiations with Ukraine because Ukraine has failed to fulfil the relevant conditions. Support UP or become our patron! Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) pushed back against the suggestion that he might end his 2024 GOP presidential bid after failing to qualify for the third GOP primary debate. Hutchinson was asked by CNNs Jim Acosta about arguments made that the GOP needs to coalesce around an anti-Trump or non-Trump candidate and asked if it was time for Hutchinson to drop out of the race to make that possible. The former Arkansas governor responded that he doesnt believe that to be the case. I think most people that make the case, We need to narrow the field, theyre talking about after the first four states, thats the case that Mitt Romney made, Hutchinson said. And therell be a time down the road that consolidation will happen, but the voters have to have an opportunity to express themselves, and youre gonna see a lot of changes, he continued. Hutchinson, along with North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, failed to meet the Republican National Committees debate qualifications, which included fundraising and polling requirements. Hutchinson is currently polling at an average of 0.6 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another anti-Trump 2024 Republican presidential candidate is polling at an average of 3.1 percent. The highest-polling non-Trump Republican presidential candidate, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), still appears to be an ocean away from former president Trump. DeSantis is polling at an average of 14.1 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight, miles behind Trump, at 56.6 percent. Hutchinson was recently booed at the Florida Republican Partys annual Freedom Summit last week. Next March not only brings us March Madness, it will also we will witness our justice system at work and on trial, in federal and state courtrooms, Hutchinson said. As someone whos been in the courtroom for over 25 years, as a federal prosecutor, and also in defending some of the most serious federal criminal cases, I can say that there is a significant likelihood that Donald Trump will be found guilty by a jury on a felony offense next year, he added. His comments sparked loud boos and groans from the largely pro-Trump crowd. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The earth is at its most restless in Iceland right now. The Reykjanes peninsula, southwest of Reykjavik, is seething with seismic activity sparking hundreds of small earthquakes. The town of Grindavik, just 10 miles south of Keflavik International Airport, has been evacuated as a precaution. Yet flights are continuing to arrive and depart as normal. These are the key questions and answers on consumer rights. I am in Iceland. Will I be able to leave? Yes, assuming the international airport remains open. So far operations have been normal. There are 14 arrivals and departures planned for Saturday from and to the UK, with no signs of disruption to flights. You may be keen to leave earlier than booked, in order to guarantee your getaway, but at present you will not be able to switch flights without paying a penalty. A spokesperson for British Airways told The Independent: Our flights are operating as planned and we continue to monitor the situation closely. The earthquakes have struck just 10 miles south of Icelands main airport, Keflavik International Airport, but the UK foreign office have said travel can go ahead (Vafri.is) We will be in touch with customers directly should the situation change. The easyJet statement is very similar: Our flying schedule is currently operating as normal however we are monitoring the situation closely and should this change we will contact customers directly to advise on their flights. But didnt an Icelandic volcano shut down European aviation for a week? Yes. Travellers may remember where they were in April 2010, when the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull erupted. The skies of northern Europe completely closed to passenger aviation for almost a week because of fears that volcanic ash spreading southeast from Iceland could damage aircraft engines and endanger travellers. More than 50,000 flights, with eight million passengers booked to travel, were cancelled. So far in 2023, though, ash has not been an issue in the current geological outburst. Icelands Blue Lagoon has been closed as a precuation (Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) What if I am booked on a package holiday? Foreign Office advice stops well short of advising against travel to Iceland, meaning holiday companies can continue to operate as normal with no automatic right to cancel. The Foreign Office advice to British travellers is that it is increasingly possible that a volcanic eruption could occur. The official warning on volcanic eruption and earthquakes reads: Earthquakes and indications of volcanic activity have increased above normal levels on the Reykjanes peninsula, southwest of Reykjavik. The Icelandic authorities continue to monitor the area closely, particularly the area northwest of Mt Thorbjorn near the Svartsengi power plant and the Blue Lagoon. On 10 November, a Civil Protection Alert was declared after an intense swarm of earthquakes. The town of Grindavik was evacuated as a precaution. Some roads have been closed and visitors are advised to stay away from the area. Keflavik International Airport is operating as normal. While there is no current eruption, it is increasingly possible that one could occur. (Icelandic Met Office) Until and unless the Foreign Office warns against travel, the assumption is that everything will go ahead as normal. The one exception is for holidaymakers who had planned to stay at the Blue Lagoon an increasingly popular wellness destination, with an upmarket hotel on the site. The Blue Lagoon is currently closed. Only those booked for a stay have the chance to cancel; if you were hoping to pop in as a day visitor for a steamy stop in the volcanic rock pools, you will need to return at some time in the future. Can I claim on insurance? No, unless it is one of the vanishingly rare cancel for any reason policies. On standard travel insurance, disinclination to travel is not an acceptable reason for a claim. Would you go to Iceland at the moment? Yes, I would relish the opportunity. Late November is an excellent time to visit Iceland for good value. Conditions right now are also excellent for the prospect of a good show to the Northern Lights, which are at a peak of the usual 11-year cosmic cycle. I also know that the Icelandic authorities are expert at handling seismic events, with extremely good monitoring and emergency systems in place. I would book a package holiday, though, knowing that if the earth gets too restless for comfort in the vicinity, I would be able to cancel for a full refund. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that it killed a Hamas commander who reportedly held hospital patients hostage, using them as a human shield. IDF aircraft just struck Ahmed Siam, responsible for holding approximately 1,000 Gazan residents and patients hostage at the Rantisi Hospital, and preventing their evacuation southward, the IDF posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, on Saturday. Siam was a commander in Hamas Naser Radwan Company, and is another example of Hamas using civilians in Gaza as human shields for terrorist purposes, the IDFs post continued. The announcement by the IDF comes on the same day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel wouldnt support a government run by the Palestinian Authority in Gaza after its current conflict with the Palestinian militant group Hamas ends. The Israeli prime minister said his country will hold overall security control in Gaza including the capacity to go in whenever we want to eliminate terrorists who may pop up again. I will tell you what there will not be. There will not be Hamas, Netanyahu said. There will also not be a civil authority that educates its children to hate Israel, to kill Israelis, to eliminate the State of Israel. There cannot be an authority that pays the families of murderers [amounts] based on the number they murdered. There cannot be an authority whose leader still has not condemned the terrible massacre 30 days later, he continued, referring to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. That cannot be. The war between Israel and Hamas has killed an estimated 11,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Saturday said it will assist in the evacuation of babies at Gazas largest hospital as Israeli forces continue their ground invasion of the Gaza Strip in a campaign to destroy the militant group Hamas. IDF Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the IDF will help get the babies in the Al-Shifa hospitals pediatric department to a safer hospital on Sunday, following a request for assistance from hospital staff. The Israeli military has claimed, without evidence, that Hamas is using Al-Shifa hospital to establish command posts and use civilians as human shields, the Associated Press reported. Hamas has remained embedded in the civilian population since the groups Oct. 7 surprise assault on Israel, which left about 1,200 people dead, including hundreds of civilians. Israel has vowed to eliminate the group, which is recognized as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and several other countries. Following weeks of airstrikes in Gaza, Israeli forces recently launched a ground invasion of northern Gaza, reportedly surrounding the center of the city. Fighting surrounding Shifa and other hospitals has raged on in recent days, with supplies dwindling low in the wake of Israels blockade of basic necessities. Shifa hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia told the AP the facility lost power on Saturday, prompting medical devices to stop and patients, especially those in intensive care, starting to die. The hospital claimed the lack of fuel caused a premature baby, a child in an incubator and four other patients to die, the AP reported. The Hamas-ruled Health Ministry in Gaza said on Saturday ambulances have not been able to move as a result of bombing outside of the hospital. Israeli President Isaac Herzog denied the hospital was left without power, telling BBC News, There is a lot of spin by Hamas. There is electricity in Shifa, everything is operating. Hagari further claimed there is no siege on the Shifa hospital and part of the facility remains open for civilians to leave the hospital. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director of the World Health Organization (WHO), said on Saturday that the organization lost contact with its focal points in Shifa and reiterated WHOs call for a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza. Over 11,070 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war broke out last month, according to the Health Ministry. Hundreds of thousands of civilians in Gaza have been forced to flee their homes, taking shelter in schools or hospitals alongside thousands of medical patients. At the onset of the war, Israel ordered a complete siege on food, water, fuel and medical supplies, though have since allowed small convoys of aid to pass through to the enclave. Humanitarian leaders have warned the aid is not enough to fill the dwindling supplies. Updated at 10:48 a.m. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Ukrainian officials in November counted 4.9 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), with 3.6 million of them receiving IDP status after Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine in Feb. 2022, Ukrinform reported. Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukraines Minister of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories, said that nearly half of all internally displaced persons are not receiving government benefits because they have not formally applied. IDP status grants Ukrainian citizens the right to receive certain social benefits from the government such as cash payments or access to critical services. A monthly government housing allowance of Hr 3,000 ($83) for persons with disabilities and children, and Hr 2,000 ($55) for all other internally displaced persons is provided for individuals with IDP status. She said that 158,000 IDPs lost their right to welfare payments, and that "the lion's share of these people are those citizens of Ukraine who went abroad, live there permanently, and receive payments from the states where they live. There is no accurate data on how many Ukrainians have returned to their homes from abroad or from other regions of Ukraine. In Kharkiv, the government estimates just 25,000 people returned since Ukrainian forces liberated large swaths of territory from Russian occupation earlier this year. Vereshchuk said that IDP status will not expire until the end of the war. Read also: Czech President visits IDPs in Dnipro, pledges more humanitarian aid Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Did a veteran judge in downstate Quincy who reversed his guilty ruling against a young man in a sexual assault case do so because he reconsidered the evidence and realized he was wrong? Or, did he do it to get around a state law that would have forced him to send 18-year-old Drew Clinton to prison for at least four years? Those two scenarios form the crux of the decision now before the seven-member Illinois Courts Commission, which on Wednesday concluded a rare hearing on whether 8th Judicial Circuit Judge Robert Adrians actions in the Clinton case amounted to judicial misconduct. The Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board, which investigates grievances against sitting judges, accused Adrian of circumventing the states mandatory sentencing law when he vacated his decision during Clintons Jan. 3, 2022, sentencing hearing. The board also accused Adrian of lying about his motives during sworn testimony last April as part of its investigation, and of ejecting from his courtroom a prosecutor who liked a social media post critical of Adrian. Adrian defended his reversal, saying that his reevaluation of the evidence and testimony led him to conclude that an Adams County prosecutor totally failed to prove that Clinton was guilty of sexually assaulting Cameron Vaughan, then 16, after a May 2021 graduation party. Removing prosecutor Josh Jones from his courtroom was done in anger amid a firestorm of controversy surrounding the case, said Adrian, who described Jones social media like as something that hurt me greatly. I dont want to use that as an excuse, because what I did was inexcusable, Adrian said about his treatment of Jones, whom he later called with an apology. The two-day Courts Commission hearing in Chicagos Michael A. Bilandic Building once again put Adrian in the same courtroom with Vaughan, who was not called to testify but attended with family and supporters. Now 18, Vaughan has been the subject of intense media attention following the case, agreeing to share her identity and story in local and national news as well as national television shows. It could be weeks or months before the commission reaches its decision its rules say only that it will come within a reasonable time. If the commission sides with the inquiry board, it could hand down a range of punishment from formal reprimand to removal from office. Advocates say the outcome could have lasting repercussions for sexual assault survivors and other crime victims across the state. If you can have a judge thats allowed to disregard the statutes passed by the General Assembly, any judge can, said Megan Duesterhaus, chief executive officer of the Quincy Area Network Against Domestic Abuse, or QUANADA, who was at the commission hearing. I cant imagine if I was in the situation of trying to report my sexual assault to police and I lived in Adams County, if thats the kind of justice being offered, Id have real hesitations to even report it. And I dont blame survivors. Judges comments scrutinized Much of the commission proceeding focused on Adrians comments made during the Jan. 3 sentencing hearing comments that gutted the Vaughan family and stunned sexual assault advocates and survivors well beyond the downstate Illinois river town. That hearing, according to a transcript, began with the judge listening to arguments on motions filed by Clintons defense attorney, Andrew Schnack, who first argued that the states mandatory sentencing range was unconstitutional and then that the prosecution failed to meet its burden of proof during the October 2021 bench trial in which Adrian found Clinton guilty on one of three felony counts of criminal sexual abuse. Adrian then started his remarks by saying he considered the motions and arguments and was required to do justice by the public by me by God. Its a mandatory sentence to the Department of Corrections, he continued, noting that Clinton had just turned 18 years old prior to the accusations and had no previous criminal record. By law, the court is supposed to sentence this young man to the Department of Corrections, he said, according to the transcript. This court will not do that. That is not just. There is no way for what happened in this case that this teenager should go to the Department of Corrections. I will not do that. Adrian went on to say that he could find the sentencing unconstitutional, but thats not going to solve the problem because that ruling would be reversed on appeal and Clinton would end up in prison. Mr. Clinton has served almost five months in the county jail, 148 days, Adrian said at the January hearing. For what happened in this case, that is plenty of punishment. That would be a just sentence. The court cant do that. But what the court can do, because this was a bench trial, the court will find that the people failed to prove their case on count three. Michael Deno, the inquiry boards executive director and general counsel, told commission members that Adrians own words during the sentencing hearing clearly show he reversed his ruling because he didnt agree with the mandatory prison sentence. He doesnt say one word about the facts or evidence of the case, Deno told the commission, made up of state justices, judges and two appointed members of the public. Deno also questioned why Adrian told the board that he chose not to explain his reasons for the reversal so he could save Vaughan from embarrassment. But, as Deno noted in the Jan. 3 transcript, the judges remarks included a lengthy admonishment of parents, adults and the permissiveness and the lack of responsibility taken by everyone involved in this case. This is what happened when parents do not exercise their parental responsibilities, the judge said on Jan. 3, when we have people, adults, having parties for teenagers, and they allow coeds and female people to swim in their underwear in their swimming pool. And, no, underwear is not the same as swimming suits. He continued: Its just they allow 16-year-olds to bring liquor to a party. They provide liquor to underage people, and you wonder how these things happen. Well, thats how these things happen. The court is totally disgusted with that whole thing. When asked to explain those statements to the commission, Adrian said he was not talking about Vaughan, who testified in the original trial that she swam in her underwear during the graduation party, got drunk and later, fell asleep on a friends couch. She said she woke up with a pillow pushed on her face and Clinton sexually assaulting her. Adrian also said that the phrase this is what happens was not a reference to sexual assault or false allegations of sexual assault. Instead, he said he was talking about underage drinking at the party, the resulting danger of drunken driving and myriad other things. It wasnt a DUI case, Deno replied. Adrians attorney, Daniel Konicek, argued that the judge wasnt obligated to explain his decision that day in January, and Adrian chose to address the mandatory sentencing range in his remarks because it had been brought up by Clintons attorney and because the judge who previously practiced law for nearly three decades before being elected to the bench in 2010 saw an opportunity to comment on the broader issue of sending young offenders to prison. I understand I did not say it well, Adrian said during his testimony before the commission. Sometimes things dont come out exactly the way youd like them to. Post-trial meetings The Judicial Inquiry Board also grilled Adrian on conversations he had with prosecutors and Clintons defense attorney shortly after the three-day bench trial concluded on Oct. 15, 2021. That same afternoon, Adams County First Assistant States Attorney Todd Eyler said he saw Adrian while heading for lunch. The judge asked to speak to Eylers boss, States Attorney Gary Farha, about the way prosecutor Anita Rodriguez handled the Clinton case and another sex crimes case. You guys have to do something about Anita, Adrian told Eyler, according to Eylers commission testimony. The following Monday, Adrian again asked Eyler if Farha was in the office. After leaving the judges chambers, Eyler testified that he saw Adrian cross paths with Clintons attorney, Schnack, in the hallway. Both men said they needed to talk to each other, Eyler said. That same day, Farha said he had a visit from Schnack, who told him Adrian wanted to talk about the Clinton case. Farha testified to the commission that he went to speak with Adrian and was asked if he would amend Clintons charge to something that allowed for probation. Farha refused, he told commissioners, because he trusted Rodriguez, a veteran prosecutor that he assigned to handle sex crime cases for the office. It was evident, though, Farha testified, that Adrian didnt want Clinton to go to prison. Adrian told the commission that he considered probation as an option to avoid having to admit his mistake. But, he said, he realized that would not be the proper approach because he ultimately decided Clinton was innocent. Adrian also faced questions about the timeline for his reevaluation. As he does with all his cases, Adrian said, he immediately started to wonder whether he made the right decision. Those questions intensified, he said, when Clintons attorney filed his motions on Oct. 19. By the time of the Jan. 3 sentencing hearing, he said he was fairly certain he would reverse his ruling. But, Adrian said, he wanted to wait to hear each attorneys arguments before making his final decision. He also acknowledged that he reached his conclusion about Clintons innocence without looking at a transcript of the trial which he never requested. And, as Deno told commissioners, he went into the sentencing hearing without a prepared statement or notes to help explain to the public why he changed his mind. Its a lie, Deno said of Adrians explanation. Its not a good lie because its absolutely ridiculous. Konicek, Adrians attorney, said that while the judges comments during the Jan. 3 sentencing hearing were largely an attempt to point out the potential fault of mandatory sentencing laws, Adrians eventual decision was rooted in the evidence and his obligation to fix his error. Adrian reconsidered the testimony, some of which he found inconsistent, as well as the absence of certain bodily fluids during expert testing, and concluded that Clinton was innocent, Konicek told the commission. After the commission hearing, Duesterhaus, the executive director of QUANADA, said the judges stated reasoning for reversing his decision showed he and his attorney dont understand the dynamics of sexual violence. That type of violence is about control, she said, not sexual gratification, and as such, the absence of bodily fluids does not mean a crime didnt happen. And the trauma inflicted on the victims brain can cause them to remember parts of the assault differently, or not at all. I had the same opinion that I came in with, and that is that Bob Adrian does not have the temperament to be on the bench, Duesterhaus said. He has caused grievous harm to a survivor that he has not apologized for. I think that the whole trial with the respondents defense the past two days completely wrote the victim out of the script and has tried to flip the script to feel sorry and have sympathy for the judge who was doing his job and then faced criticism. I dont have sympathy for that. Adrian told reporters outside the courtroom: The only comment I will make is God requires three things of all people: That you do justice. That you love mercy, and you walk humbly with your God. And thats what Ive always tried to do, and thats what Ill always try to do. As for Vaughan, she said the hearing resurfaced feelings of anger and frustration. At one point, she said she asked her mom, When did I become on trial again? She said she was hopeful the commission would remove Adrian from the bench. He doesnt deserve to hold that power over people, she said. He has no idea how to be a judge. For information about rape crisis centers in Illinois, visit the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault website at icasa.org. These elections are being seen as a test of confidence in Nigeria's electoral system Nigeria's opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has won the governorship election in Bayelsa state - one of its traditional strongholds. Turnout was low at just 30% yet results were announced a day later than planned because votes were still being counted. Governorship elections were also held in the states of Imo and Kogi - both won by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) candidates. In both cases there were reports of violence and rigging. All three states saw low voter turnout - indicating that many Nigerians have little interest or confidence in the system. Under Nigeria's federal system, governors control huge budgets - larger than those of some countries in West Africa. However, there have been numerous reports that some of this money has been stolen. Some former governors have been prosecuted and jailed for misappropriation of funds and money laundering. In Bayelsa state, the PDP's Douye Diri took 175,000 votes, the APC's candidate Timipre Silva came second with 110,000 votes, and Udengs Eradiri of Labour Party won just 900. Some clashes had been reported in Bayelsa state during voting on Saturday. An electoral official was abducted a day before the polls before being released. In Imo state, Hope Uzodinma won with more than 540,000 votes, Samuel Anyanwu of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) came second with 71,500 votes, with the Labour Party's Athan Nneji Achonu third on 64,000. Some Imo residents were seen queuing to buy water rather than going to vote as a strike has cut supplies of drinking water and electricity. In Kogi state, the APC's Ahmed Usman Ododo got 446,000 votes, Alhaji Muritala Ajaka, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) came second with 260,000, while the PDP's Dino Melaye got 46,000. Two people accused of trying to steal ballot boxes were reportedly shot dead. There were reports of fraud in parts of Kogi but the electoral commission said this was not enough to affect the overall outcome. The electoral body had initially said fresh elections would be needed in parts of the state following opposition allegations that the results had been written before voting had even started. It later announced that the number of registered voters in these areas was smaller than Mr Ododo's margin of victory so the reruns were cancelled. Some of the losing candidates in the three states have alleged malpractice and are calling for the cancellation of the results. However, after the electoral commission has announced a winner, the only option available is to go to the courts to challenge the outcome. These elections were seen as a test of how much confidence people still have in the electoral process after February's presidential election results were challenged by the two main opposition candidates. They had alleged irregularities and sought to have the results overturned in court. But President Bola Tinubu's election victory was upheld, with the judges saying the opposition had failed to present any evidence of rigging. More stories from Nigeria: Youths with sticks prevented a BBC team from visiting the polling station on this road in Kogi state IMPERIAL BEACH, Calif. South Bay residents showed appreciation for veterans in their community with a slew of Veterans Day events on Saturday. Among the events that took place over the weekend was Imperial Beachs annual military appreciation event at Dunes Park. Several local veterans organizations teamed up with the Imperial Beach Chamber of Commerce to host the celebration, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion, Fleet Reserve. The celebration kicked off with speakers, such as San Diego County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Nora Vargas. During her speech, Vargas spoke about the countys Leave No Veteran Behind program, which launched in July. The program seeks to give permanent housing and wrap-around services to hundreds of veterans in the county who are experiencing homelessness. Veterans Day deals: Free or discounted restaurant offers for veterans, active duty military Since the initiatives launch, Vargas said the county has been able to house 201 veterans across the region. Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre also spoke during the appreciation event, talking about how she plans to introduce an ordinance to create a Veterans and Military Affairs committee. After hearing from speakers, people enjoyed food, music and beer. Veterans told FOX 5 that they enjoyed the comradery at the event, but also the work that is being done to help veterans and military members. Whether you are Army, Navy, or Marine that you work together as a team. For all one focus goal to just take care of each other, said Kenneth Gregory, a veteran that served in the U.S. Navy for 20 years. Its one of the times of the year that we get to grab everybody down here at this beautiful beach and have them come down here and enjoy each others company, said Martin Mattes, retired Command Master Chief and the president of the Imperial Beach Chamber of Commerce. Share the sea stories, share the war stories, just being able to bond with one another. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego. A Ballardsville firefighter died on Saturday afternoon after responding to a structure fire and suffering a medical emergency. Sgt. Tom Petschke Jr., 53, was making a mutual-aid call and was at the scene of the fire when he collapsed, according to social media posts from local fire departments. He was transported to a local hospital where he later died. He is survived by his wife and two children. Ballardsville, which is located in Oldham County, suffered an immeasurable loss with his passing, according to a Facebook post made by the South Oldham Fire Department. Tom was known by many in the county, and even went through recruit school with many of our members, and through that, created a lifelong bond shared amongst all departments in the county, the post read. Tom was an incredible firefighter, and an even greater human being. The Ballardsville Fire and Rescue said Petschke served for a decade in the community, and his loss left profound sadness within the department. Sgt. Petschke was an exceptional firefighter and a cherished member of our department, the post said. His dedication, courage and unwavering commitment to public safety were an inspiration to all who had the privilege of working alongside him. Gov. Andy Beshear and Attorney General Daniel Cameron also took to social media to express their condolences. Kentucky, please join Britainy and me in praying for the family, friends and fellow firefighters of Thomas Petschke Jr. a Ballardsville firefighter who died Saturday after suffering a medical emergency while responding to a fire. Thomas was a hero who will be missed, Beshear posted on X, formerly Twitter. Cameron, who grew up in Oldham County, said he and his wife, Makenze, were saddened about the passing and offered thoughts and prayers. Makenze and I are saddened to learn of Ballardsville firefighter Thomas Petschke Jr.s passing. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, friends, fellow first responders, and all of Ballardsville during this terribly difficult time, he wrote. Kentucky, please join Britainy and me in praying for the family, friends and fellow firefighters of Thomas Petschke Jr. a Ballardsville firefighter who died Saturday after suffering a medical emergency while responding to a fire. Thomas was a hero who will be missed. ^AB Governor Andy Beshear (@GovAndyBeshear) November 12, 2023 Makenze and I are saddened to learn of Ballardsville firefighter Thomas Petschke Jr.'s passing. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, friends, fellow first responders, and all of Ballardsville during this terribly difficult time. Attorney General Daniel Cameron (@kyoag) November 12, 2023 Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Republican Party of Florida Freedom Summit, Nov. 4, 2023, in Kissimmee, Fla.Trump is already laying a sweeping set of policy goals should he win a second term as president. Priorities on the Republican's agenda include a mass deportation operation, a new Muslim ban and tariffs on all imported goods. (Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP) NEW YORK A mass deportation operation. A new Muslim ban. Tariffs on all imported goods and freedom cities built on federal land. Much of the 2024 presidential campaign has been dominated by the myriad investigations into former President Donald Trump and the subsequent charges against him. But with less than a year until Election Day, Trump is dominating the race for the Republican nomination and has already laid out a sweeping set of policy goals should he win a second term. Advertisement His ideas, and even the issues he focuses on most, are wildly different from President Joe Bidens proposals. If implemented, Trumps plans would represent a dramatic government overhaul arguably more consequential than that of his first term. His presidency, especially the early days, was marked by chaos, infighting and a wave of hastily written executive orders that were quickly overturned by the courts. Some of his current ideas would probably end up in court or impeded by Congress. But Trumps campaign and allied groups are assembling policy books with detailed plans. Advertisement A look at his agenda: Dismantling the deep state Trump would try to strip tens of thousands of career employees of their civil service protections. That way, they could be fired as he seeks to totally obliterate the deep state. He would try to accomplish that by reissuing a 2020 executive order known as Schedule F. That would allow him to reclassify masses of employees, with a particular focus, he has said, on corrupt bureaucrats who have weaponized our justice system and corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus. Given his anger at the FBI and federal prosecutors pursuing criminal cases against him, Trump probably would target people linked to those prosecutions for retribution. Beyond the firings, he wants to crack down on government officials who leak to reporters. He also wants to require that federal employees pass a new civil service test. The U.S.-Mexico border Trump has pledged to immediately stop the invasion of our southern border and end illegal immigration. As part of that plan, he says he would immediately direct U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to undertake the largest domestic deportation operation in American history. He would target people who are legally living in the United States but harbor jihadist sympathies and revoke the student visas of those who espouse anti-American and antisemitic views. In a bid to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump says he will move thousands of troops currently stationed overseas and shift federal agents, including those at the Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI, to immigration enforcement. He also wants to build more of the border wall. Trump wants to reimpose his travel ban that originally targeted seven Muslim-majority countries and expand it to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the country. In the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel, he has pledged to put in place ideological screening for immigrants. His aim: bar dangerous lunatics, haters, bigots, and maniacs, as well as those who empathize with radical Islamic terrorists and extremists. Advertisement To deter migrants, he has said he would end birthright citizenship, using an an executive order that would introduce a legally untested interpretation of the 14th Amendment. The order would prevent federal agencies from granting automatic citizenship to the children of people who are in the U.S. illegally. It would require that at least one parent be a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident for their children to be eligible for passports, Social Security numbers and other benefits. Trade Trump says he will institute a system of tariffs of perhaps 10% on most foreign goods. Penalties would increase if trade partners manipulate their currencies or engage in other unfair trading practices. He will urge that Congress pass a Trump Reciprocal Trade Act, giving the president authority to impose a reciprocal tariff on any country that imposes one on the U.S. Much of the agenda focuses on China. Trump has proposed a four-year plan to phase out Chinese imports of essential goods, including electronics, steel and pharmaceuticals. He wants to ban Chinese companies from owning vital U.S. infrastructure in sectors such as energy, technology and agriculture, and says he will force Chinese owners to sell any holdings that jeopardize Americas national security. Foreign policy Trump claims that even before he is inaugurated, he will have settled the war between Russia and Ukraine. That includes, he says, ending the endless flow of American treasure to Ukraine and asking European allies to reimburse the U.S. for the cost of rebuilding stockpiles. It is unclear whether he would insist that Russia withdraw from territory in Ukraine it seized in the war that it launched in February 2022. Advertisement Trump has said he will stand with Israel in its war with Hamas and support Israels efforts to destroy the group. He says he will continue to fundamentally reevaluate NATOs purpose and mission. Transgender rights Trump says he will ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that only two genders, as determined at birth, are recognized by the United States. As part of his crackdown on gender-affirming care, he will declare that hospitals and health care providers that offer transitional hormones or surgery no longer meet federal health and safety standards and will be blocked from receiving federal funds, including Medicaid and Medicare dollars. He would push Congress to prohibit hormonal or surgical intervention for transgender minors in all 50 states. Doctors typically guide kids toward therapy before medical intervention. At that point, hormone treatments such as puberty blockers are far more common than surgery. They have been available in the U.S. for more than a decade and are standard treatments backed by major doctors organizations, including the American Medical Association. Energy Trumps goal, he says, is for the U.S. to have the lowest-cost energy and electricity of any nation in the world, including China. Advertisement Under the mantra DRILL, BABY, DRILL, he says he would ramp up oil drilling on public lands and offer tax breaks to oil, gas, and coal producers. He would roll back Biden administration efforts to encourage the adoption of electric cars and reverse proposed new pollution limits that would require at least 54% of new vehicles sold in the U.S. to be electric by 2030. And again, he says, he will exit the Paris Climate Accords, end wind subsidies and eliminate regulations imposed and proposed by the Biden admiration targeting incandescent lightbulbs, gas stoves, dishwashers and shower heads. Education Trump has pledged to terminate the Department of Education, but he also wants to exert enormous influence over local school districts and colleges. He would push the federal government to give funding preference to states and school districts that abolish teacher tenure, adopt merit pay to reward good teachers and allow the direct election of school principals by parents. He has said he would cut funding for any school that has a vaccine or mask mandate and will promote prayer in public schools. Trump also wants a say in school curricula, vowing to fight for patriotic education. He says that under his administration, schools will teach students to love their country, not to hate their country like theyre taught right now and will promote the nuclear family including the roles of mothers and fathers and the things that make men and women different and unique. Advertisement To protect students, he says he will support school districts that allow trained teachers to carry concealed weapons. He would provide federal funding so schools can hire veterans, retired police officers, and other trained gun owners as armed school guards. Homelessness Trump wants to force the homeless off city streets by building tent cities on large open parcels of inexpensive land. At the same time, he says he will work with states to ban urban camping, giving violators the choice between being arrested or receiving treatment. He also wants to bring back large mental institutions to reinstitutionalize those who are severely mentally ill or dangerously deranged. Public Safety Trump would again push to send the National Guard to cities such as Chicago that are struggling with violence. He would use the federal governments funding and prosecution authorities to strong-arm local governments. He says he will require local law enforcement agencies that receive Justice Department grants to use controversial policing measures such as stop-and-frisk. As a deterrent, he says local police should be empowered to shoot suspected shoplifters in the act. Very simply, if you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store, he said in one recent speech. Trump has called for the death penalty for drug smugglers and those who traffic women and children. He has also pledged a federal takeover of the nations capital, calling Washington a dirty, crime-ridden death trap unbefitting of the country. KANSAS CITY, Mo. The Independence police department is investigating a stabbing homicide that left one man dead Saturday. The man police are looking for in connection to the stabbing is 34-year-old Anthony Durkin. Hes a 5-foot-10 white man and weighs 155 pounds. Durkin has brown hair, brown eyes and has a RESPETO tattoo on the right side of his neck, as well as a Scooby Doo tattoo on his right arm. Warrensburg double homicide suspect taken into custody IPD says that at 4:25 p.m. on Saturday, the stabbing victim was taken to the Independence Fire Station by another individual. He had apparent stab wounds and as the IFD personnel were trying to save his life, he died. After an initial investigation, police figured out that the stabbing happened somewhere in the area of Truman Rd and Hardy Ave. in Independence. That is located about three blocks north of the Independence Fire Station the victim was transported to. Police say Drukin is homeless and usually stays around 24 Highway and Sterling Avenue. IDP urges that if you or anyone else happens to spot Durkin, do not approach him and call 911. Anyone with information on this homicide are encouraged by authorities to contact KC Crimestoppers Tips Hotline at 816-474-TIPS or online at www.kccrimestoppers.com. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports. Specialists have withdrawn life-support treatment from a critically ill baby girl who has been at the centre of a legal battle. Staff at Queen's Medical Centre (QMC) in Nottingham said they could do no more for Indi Gregory, who has mitochondrial disease. Christian Concern, who have been supporting her parents, said the eight-month-old had been moved to a hospice. It comes after the Derbyshire family's appeal to take her home was rejected. In a statement issued through the group, Indi's father said she was "fighting hard". Dean Gregory and Claire Staniforth, from Ilkeston, wanted specialists to keep treating their daughter but the couple lost fights in both the High Court and Court of Appeal. A spokesman for Christian Concern said Indi's life support had now been withdrawn and she had been moved to a hospice. High Court judge Mr Justice Peel ruled limiting treatment would be lawful, and doing so would be in Indi's best interests. Her parents failed to persuade Court of Appeal judges and judges at the European Court of Human Rights, to overturn the decision. The couple also failed in a bid to transfer Indi to a hospital in Rome. It was ruled a move to Italy would not be in Indi's best interests and Court of Appeal judges backed the decision. Judges heard Indi has mitochondrial disease - a genetic condition that saps energy. Specialists said she was dying and the treatment she was receiving caused pain and is futile but her parents disagreed. Mr Justice Peel considered evidence at private hearings in the Family Division of the High Court in London. Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, on X, or on Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk. When former police officer Omar Delgado heard the news of four current and former members of the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department dying by suicide in less than 24 hours last week, he understood. Its kind of like a pressure cooker. If you dont slowly let go of that steam little by little, when it does pop, its over because its going to be such a big explosion. Delgado was one of the first officers on the scene of the Pulse nightclub attack in Orlando on June 12, 2016. He suffers post-traumatic stress disorder from that night, and has attempted to take his own life twice. They just popped, he said. In announcing the deaths of three current members and one retired member, the LA County sheriffs department said homicide detectives are investigating each of the four deaths independently. The names of the deceased were not disclosed. We are stunned to learn of these deaths, and it has sent shockwaves of emotions throughout the department, Sheriff Robert Luna said in a statement. Richard Pippin, president of the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, told CNN he is very confident there was no correlation between the deceased members, who died between Monday morning and Tuesday morning. A stressful job in a field struggling to fill the ranks The deaths were unprecedented, with so many in a single agency in such a short time frame, begging the need for enhanced mental health resources and incentives for officers to recognize, seek and accept help when they need it, law enforcement experts said. Pippin said the losses hit an agency dealing with low morale and severe staffing shortages. The numbers are stark. On any given day, the department is short roughly 4,000 employees in an agency budgeted to have more than 17,000, according to a department budget report released earlier this year. With all the hiring the department has been able to do over six months, they were able to achieve a net gain of 15 employees. In other words, theyre just treading water. People are leaving as fast as they get hired, Pippin said. In some cases, officers are working up to 70 hours per week, Pippin said. They arent seeing their families. Its an arduous, stressful job, he said. Myung J. Chun/The Los Angeles Times/Getty Images The sheriffs department in Los Angeles County isnt alone. Police agencies nationwide have been struggling to fill and keep their ranks since the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2020 death of George Floyd, which sparked protests and scrutiny of law enforcement biases across the country. From one call to the next, law enforcement officers meet people at the most difficult moments in their lives, he added. And to deal with that, such a high percentage of your waking hours, week after week, and month after month, its wearing on them, Pippin said. Nine members of the department have died by suicide this year, a number far surpassing recent years: one in 2022, three in 2021 and two in 2020, Pippin said. Police rarely seek help The four suicides represent a cluster, a term tied to the phenomenon of suicide contagion, according to Dr. John Mann, a neuroscience professor at Columbia University and director of research and molecular imaging at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Clusters are proven to afflict close-knit groups, particularly those in uniform, when one act of suicide increases the risk others may attempt or die by suicide, said Mann. Police serve in a profession afflicted with a 54% higher risk for suicide compared to the general US population, according to a study by John Violanti, research professor at University at Buffalo School of Public Health and Health Professions and an internationally known expert on police stress. The resistance among police officers to speak out is rooted in the fear of how it will impact their jobs. Because they know the department has liability concerns when it comes to sending a person out in public with a gun while knowing theyre experiencing emotional or psychological difficulties, Pippin said. Its the result of the stigma around mental health ingrained in police culture, which perpetuates an attitude to suck it up and move on, according to Charles Ramsey, a CNN law enforcement analyst and former chief of the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC. Ramsey recalled witnessing the most gruesome scene in his 50-year career in law enforcement when he responded to a crime scene where five people had been murdered. To see something like that, its just not normal, he said. So, what do you do? You push it down. You suppress any emotion. But it doesnt mean its not there, and if it goes untreated, over time, it builds up. As chief of the Philadelphia Police Department from 2008 to 2016, Ramsey implemented mandatory annual checkups with mental health professionals, and found officers voluntarily came back for second or third follow-up appointments. The ones that need it the most are the ones less likely to reach out and try to get help, Ramsey said. Looking for signs A slight change in an officers behavior, appearance, mood and performance can be signs they might need support, according to Michael Harrison, former police commissioner in Baltimore and New Orleans, who enhanced officer wellness programs in both agencies. Theyre already going through something emotionally mentally, spiritually, but we dont want to have policies that then feel like were punishing them when they come to us and say I need help, Harrison said. Dr. Jeff Thompson, a research scientist at Columbia University Medical Center and a former NYPD hostage negotiator, cautioned it is potentially dangerous to reduce police suicides to a single cause. Inevitably, its stress combined with a psychiatric illness that is not treated, said Mann, citing findings from studies of police suicides over the years. So far this year, 86 police officers nationwide have died by suicide, according to the website Blue H.E.L.P., which tracks US officer suicides. But the number is underreported by at least 25% due to the stigma in police departments around reporting mental health issues, according to Karen Solomon, who cofounded the organization. Everybody is scared to bring it up Despite efforts to lessen the stigma, law enforcement officers still fear the consequences of raising mental health concerns to their superiors. When Omar Delgado responded to the Pulse nightclub shooting, he saw the horrors where a gunman killed 49 people and wounded dozens of others. He spent hours inside Pulse with the dead as the standoff with the gunman continued. Eatonville Police Department officer Omar Delgado stands next to a makeshift memorial for victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting at Lake Eola Thursday, June 23, 2016, in Orlando. - Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP The former suburban Eatonville Police Department officer was hailed as a hero by many for his actions, but haunted by the carnage, Delgado was not able to work for six months after the shooting and then returned to the force at a desk job. By the end of 2017, Delgado lost his job at the department where he worked for nearly a decade because of his PTSD, he said. He said a doctor hired by the agency evaluated him as unfit for duty. CNN previously reported the department could neither confirm nor deny any further details, citing privacy regulations. He now works in private security. I became a poster child of PTSD because I reached out to my superiors and said, Hey, Im not feeling good. Somethings wrong. I need help, Delgado told CNN. And it just went downhill from there. Delgado said the Pulse tragedy was a turning point for police officers warming up to the idea of sharing mental health concerns and asking for help. But when Delgado was fired, he said, it sent a message to other officers the same could happen to them. I was constantly reliving that nightmare, seeing those bodies and I couldnt stop. I couldnt control my brain, my mind, to stop it from happening, Delgado said. It left him wondering about solutions to the stresses of his line of work. Is there a way to maybe slowly let the steam out of that pressure cooker, maybe quarterly, maybe yearly? Delgado said. I dont know, because everybody is scared to bring it up. Nobody wants to get fired. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com This embedded content is not available in your region. Crowds fell silent at community commemorations across the Isle of Man to remember those who lost their lives in conflicts. Wreaths were laid by the lieutenant governor, chief minister and armed forces representatives at a National Service of Remembrance in St John's. A two-minute silence was held earlier at ceremonies across the island. James Fenton, a 101-year-old World War Two veteran, said he thought about "my friends that were lost". The former Royal Artillery soldier, who served in Burma, said he felt "very fortunate" to have survived the jungle campaign. "Being in the artillery, I suppose you can say it had some satisfaction in that you were a little bit safer than being in the infantry", he said. James Fenton served in the 178 Field Regiment Royal Artillery in India, Burma and Malaysia Mr Fenton, who is originally from Lancashire but now lives in Port Erin, said although he "didn't lose too many in my unit", he later found out that some of his former school friends had lost their lives in Burma. He was one of many ex-servicemen and women who attended the commemorations at St John's, where the Last Post was played before a two-minute silence was held. A national service was held inside the Royal Chapel in St John's Among the invited guests to the national service at the Royal Chapel and National War Memorial in St John's were the crew of Royal Navy submarine HMS Vigilant and the Estonian Ambassador to the UK. Wreathes were laid by armed forces representatives and local groups Earlier, Tynwald president Laurence Skelly laid a wreath at the Cenotaph in Whitehall while representing the Isle of Man at the Service of Remembrance in London. Separate civic gatherings were held in Castletown, Douglas, Onchan and Ramsey at 11:00 GMT to remember those who lost their lives in conflict. Why not follow BBC Isle of Man on Facebook and X? You can also send story ideas to IsleofMan@bbc.co.uk Israeli forces on Saturday night claimed to have killed a Hamas commander who held 1,000 Gazans hostage in a hospital as human shields. The Israel Defense Forces said that Ahmed Siam, a leader in Hamass al-Furqan Brigade, had blocked civilians from evacuating the Al-Rantisi Hospital in Gaza City earlier this week. Israeli troops have been urging civilians to flee to southern Gaza to avoid them getting caught in crossfire. The IDF said that Siam and several other terrorists were killed while hiding out at a school building in Gaza, following a joint operation with Israels Shin Bet intelligence agency. Ahmed Siam demonstrates once again that Hamas uses the civilians of the Gaza Strip as human shields for terror purposes, the IDF added. The operation came as clashes intensified around the largest hospital in Gaza, Al-Shifa, which Israeli forces claim houses a subterranean Hamas command and control centre. Fighting was said to be taking place less than 500 metres away, with the hospital saying it had run out of fuel and electricity. People stand outside the emergency ward of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City - AFP Officials from the Hamas-run health ministry and hospital medics claimed that Israeli snipers had their sights trained on the buildings and were shooting at anyone who came or went. They said the power shortages had caused at least two deaths including that of a newborn baby - and that nearly 40 more infants were at risk. The Israeli military said on Saturday night that it would help to evacuate babies from Al-Shifa. The staff of the Al-Shifa hospital has requested that tomorrow, we will help the babies in the paediatric department to get to a safer hospital. We will provide the assistance needed, military spokesman Daniel Hagari said. The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was shocked and appalled by the images & reports coming from Al-Shifa hospital. Israel accuses Hamas fighters of cynically using Gazan hospitals full of civilians as citadels, and says Hamas leaders use ambulances as cover to travel in. Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, take shelter at Rantisi hospital - Reuters On Saturday, IDF commanders said that at one point three days ago, they deliberately allowed Hamas fighters to join an evacuation of al-Rantisi hospital to reduce the risk of civilian casualties. We opened the corridor and let the Hamas terrorists leave with the civilians because we didnt want to risk the civilians in that whole situation, said an IDF spokesman. It worked for them, well get to them later. Meanwhile, Israels Foreign Ministry revised the death toll from last months Hamas attacks from 1,400 to around 1,200, according to the Times of Israel. The reasons for the revised figures were not specified, but appear to be related to reassessments of burned corpses initially identified as those of Israeli civilians. The IDF also said that four soldiers had been wounded during missile attacks on Israels northern border launched by Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. In a speech on Saturday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that global demonstrations against Israels incursion into Gaza were putting pressure on its Western allies. We see thousands of people in Washington, New York, London and Paris protesting against Israel, he said, noting growing international calls for a ceasefire. The only voice that stands out is the US and its follower the UK. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (R) and Iran's president Ebrahim Raisi (L) attend an emergency meeting of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation - AFP Meanwhile, in a meeting in Saudi Arabia hosted by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Middle Eastern leaders condemned the war. Among those present were President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and Irans President Ebrahim Raisi, on his first trip to Saudi Arabia since the two countries mended ties in March. Mr Raisi claimed Islamic countries should designate the Israeli army a terrorist organisation for its conduct in Gaza. 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. (Bloomberg) -- Senior officials in Israel and the US suggested that talks on securing the release of Hamas-held hostages are intensifying. President Joe Biden spoke with Qatars leader about the urgent ongoing efforts to secure additional releases. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there could be a deal in the offing. Israeli President Isaac Herzog expressed caution. Most Read from Bloomberg Israels military pressed on with its offensive against Hamas in Gaza, engaging in ground battles in a northern refugee camp. On Israels northern border, six civilians were injured after anti-tank missiles were fired by the militant group Hezbollah from within Lebanon. Israel struck back with fighter jets. The United Nations said Israeli ground attacks and shelling increased around hospitals, with several being directly hit. Israel, which accuses Hamas of using the hospitals as command centers, said there was safe passage for anyone who wanted to leave. Hamas is designated a terrorist group by the US and EU. For more stories on the Israel-Hamas war, click here. (All time stamps are Israeli time) CNN Says Hundreds of Foreign Nationals Left Gaza on Sunday (5:25 a.m.) CNN reported that over 800 foreign nationals passed through the Rafah crossing into Egypt on Sunday, citing an unidentified Egyptian border official. It said this marked the largest number that has passed through the crossing in a single day since evacuations began. Also on Sunday, Canadas Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said on social media platform X: We are relieved that 234 Canadians and their families were able to leave Gaza today. Its unclear if they were part of the same group reported on by CNN. US Launches Strikes on Iran-Linked Sites in Syria (1:22 a.m.) The US struck a training facility and a safe house in eastern Syria in its latest airstrikes on Iran-linked targets since the Israel-Hamas war began, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement. The Pentagon said last week that there have been at least 41 attacks on American military personnel in Iraq and Syria since Oct. 17. Biden Speaks With Qatar About Hostage Releases (10:59 p.m.) President Joe Biden spoke with Qatari Emir Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani about the urgent ongoing efforts to secure additional releases. Biden condemned unequivocally the holding of hostages by Hamas, including many young children, one of whom is a 3-year old American citizen toddler, whose parents were killed by Hamas on October 7th, the White House said. They also talked about efforts to increase the continuous flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza. Israeli President Cautious on Hostages (9:40 p.m.) Israeli President Isaac Herzog expressed caution about a possible release of hostages held by Hamas, saying there is nothing substantial right now on the table though we are using all tools possible to bring it about. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said whats at stake is the recovery of a significant number of hostages through negotiations, with Qatar acting as a channel to Hamas. He said the talks were delicate and high stakes. Both spoke on CBSs Face the Nation. US Military Plane Crash Kills Five (8:01 p.m.) Five US military members were killed when their helicopter crashed into the Mediterranean during routine training of air refueling, US military officials said. A statement from the US European Command gave no further details. Israels Central Bank Requires Banks to Review Dividend Policy (7:25 pm) Israels central bank is asking all banks to review their dividend and stock buyback policy as economic circumstances are changing because of the war with Hamas. There has been an increase in credit risks, and credit losses are expected to increase significantly in the coming period, the central banks inspector wrote in a letter. Bank of Israel is asking all banks to make sure they have sufficient capital cushions to deal with the various risks. They are requested to submit the results of their review by Nov. 15. Thousands Protest Against Antisemitism in France (5:05 p.m.) Tens of thousands gathered across large French cities on Sunday to protest against the rise of antisemitism. The largest protest was in Paris, with the participation of ministers, politicians from the left to the right, and celebrities. President Emmanuel Macron said he would join the demonstrations in [his] heart and in thoughts. In a letter to the nation Macron condemned the unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism and called for national unity. Israel Says 15 Launches Identified From Lebanon Within an Hour (4:48 p.m.) Israel says 15 launches were identified from Lebanon within an hour Sunday afternoon as cross-border skirmishes continue unabated. Four were intercepted and the remainder fell into open areas, the Israel Defense Forces said. Al Jazeera reported two rockets fired from south Lebanon toward upper Galilee in Israel. Israel has responded with artillery fire toward the origins of the launches. Seven Israeli soldiers were lightly injured in the area of Manara as a result of mortar shell fire. US Official Says Israel-Hamas Hostage Swap Possible: NBC (4:28 p.m.) A Biden administration official told NBC of a possible deal in which Hamas would release about 80 Israeli women and children hostages in exchange for a similar gesture by Israel. Theres no certainty that current talks will yield a result, NBC reported, without identifying the official, who added that the US is also exploring other options. Separately, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the US network that there could be a deal in the offing. The less I say about it, the more Ill increase the chances that it materializes, he said on Meet the Press. Jets Strike Hezbollah Targets in Lebanon in Response to Fire (3:38 p.m.) Israeli jets hit a number of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, including military infrastructure, in response to earlier fire, the Israel Defense Forces said. In addition, Israeli soldiers struck militants that had opened fire toward the area of Dovev in northern Israel, injuring a number of civilians. In another incident, a militant cell in Lebanon launched a number of mortar shells toward northern Israel. The IDF attacked the unit, as well as an additional group of militants in southern Lebanon. White House Says US Citizens Gradually Getting Out of Gaza, (3:30 p.m.) Some of the roughly 400 US citizens still in Gaza are leaving the enclave on Sunday, said White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. The gate has been opened and closed. The lists have included Americans some days and not other days, Sullivan said on CBSs Face The Nation. But the bottom line is today the gate is open. We are moving American citizens and their family members out. Sullivan Backs Israel on Hamas Command Center Claims (3 p.m.) Sullivan didnt dispute claims by Israel that Hamas has a command center underneath the Al Shifa medical center something the group, designated as a terrorist operation by the US, has denied. Sullivan said Hamas in this conflict is using hospitals and other civilian facilities as shields. US officials are having an active conversation with Israeli Defense Forces about the matter, Sullivan said on CBS. The bottom line is, we dont want to see firefights in hospitals. Tel Aviv Stocks Fall As Missiles Fired From Lebanon Hit Civilians (1:30 p.m.) Israels TA-35 benchmark stock index fell by the most in three weeks after anti-tank missiles fired from Lebanon injured six Israeli civilians, leaving one in critical condition. Some of the civilians were electric company workers who had come to repair power lines damaged in previous fire. The TA-35, which had shown moderate gains earlier, reversed direction to fall by as much as 2%. The index is down almost 7% for the year but is holding above the lows set in late October, with shifting perceptions on the potential for a broader regional conflict accounting for much of the day-to-day volatility. Palestine Red Crescent Says Al-Quds Hospital No Longer Operational (12 p.m.) The Palestine Red Crescent Society said Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City is out of service and no longer operational. The hospital ceased operations due to the depletion of available fuel and power outage, the medical organization said in a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter. Israel Says Its Fighting in Shati Refugee Camp (9:12 a.m.) Israeli troops have been fighting in the northern Gaza camp in the past day, according to the military, which said it uncovered terrorist infrastructures and eliminated terrorists. It wasnt possible to independently verify the claims. Shati is the third largest of the Gaza Strips eight camps, with more than 90,000 refugees registered as of earlier in 2023, according to the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees. Fighting Intensifies Around Gaza Hospitals (8:15 a.m.) Several hospitals in Gaza City and northern Gaza were directly hit after Israel intensified its military assault, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in an update. Power at the Indonesia and Shifa hospitals reportedly cut off after fuel ran out, it said. Two babies died at Shifa after life support ceased working while 37 babies in incubators are at imminent risk of death, OCHA said, citing the Health Ministry in Ramallah in the West Bank. OCHA official Martin Griffiths has said there can be no justification for acts of war in health care facilities, leaving them with no power, food or water, and shooting at patients and civilians trying to flee. WHO Loses Communication with Al-Shifa Hospital (4 a.m.) The World Health Organization said it has lost communication with its contacts at Al-Shifa Hospital, a major facility in northern Gaza thats said to be encircled by Israeli troops. As horrifying reports of the hospital facing repeated attacks continue to emerge, we assume our contacts joined tens of thousands of displaced people who had sought shelter on the hospital grounds and are fleeing the area, the WHO said in a statement. There are reports that some people who fled the hospital have been shot at, wounded and even killed. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2023 Bloomberg L.P. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to outrage surrounding the mounting civilian death toll in Gaza on Sunday and asserted that Israel was blameless for such bloodshed. Mr Netanyahu appeared on CNNs State of the Union on Sunday for an interview with Dana Bash, and was asked by Bash to respond to criticism of the Israeli militarys brutal siege of Gaza in response to a massive and deadly terrorist attack committed by Hamas militants last month. The prime minister responded that the blame should be placed squarely on Hamas for deaths in Gaza. He went on to claim that the Israeli militarys shift to a ground-based invasion of the occupied Palestinian territory had actually reduced what would have been an even higher civilian death toll resulting from a bombing campaign, which he suggested was the only alternative. People are heeding our calls to leave the area, and defying Hamass attempts to keep them there, said Mr Netanyahu. BASH: "The Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, said that far too many Palestinian civilians have been killed. What is your response to that?" NETANYAHU: "I think any civilian loss is a tragedy. And the blame should be placed squarely on Hamas." pic.twitter.com/BF2hE9a9fq Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) November 12, 2023 His remarks come as international criticism of the Israeli military campaign is growing swiftly. Though the Biden administration and the United States remains vocally committed to supporting Israel, US officials have been more open in recent days in their own concerns about the scale of the Israeli offensive. The French government broke with the ranks of other western countries this past week and called for a full ceasefire. In the US and many other nations massive demonstrations have taken place in solidarity with Palestinian civilians trapped in areas beset by airstrikes and other fighting. Last weekend, hundreds of thousands marched on Freedom Plaza in Washington DC for the March to Free Palestine, and an even larger crowd was witnessed on Saturday in London. During a second interview with Kristin Welker on NBCs Meet the Press, the Israeli prime minister wrongly described those demonstrations and protesters as protesting for Hamas. Using German Chancellor Olaf Scholzs definition of Hamas as the new Nazis, Mr Netanyahu suggested that the millions of protesters who have called for a ceasefire would have supported the Nazis during World War II. WATCH: Israel PM @netanyahu delivers a message to students around the world he says are protesting for Hamas. Who do you protest against? Do you protest against the Nazis? Or ... against the Allies? Its an indictment of higher education in some of our universities. pic.twitter.com/FarsIxoOxA Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) November 12, 2023 Joe Biden, the US president, told reporters this week that there was no chance for a ceasefire until Hamas returned Israeli hostages and those from other nationalities including the US thought to be held by the militant group. The Guardian reported on Thursday that Mr Netanyahu had rejected a deal for the return of some hostages held by Hamas in exchange for a ceasefire. Some international human rights groups and medical organisations have joined the criticism of the Israeli government in particular in recent days as allegations of attacks on medical centres and hospitals in Gaza have risen sharply. On Sunday, the medical group Doctors Without Borders called for a ceasefire and denounced a death warrant it said the Israeli military had metaphorically signed for civilians sheltering in the al-Shifa hospital after claiming that civilians attempting to flee the complex had been shot at by Israeli troops. Over the past 24 hours, hospitals in Gaza have been under relentless bombardment. Al-Shifa hospital complex, the biggest health facility where MSF staff are still working, has been hit several times, including the maternity and outpatient departments, resulting in multiple deaths and injuries. The hostilities around the hospital have not stopped. Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieresa(MSF) teams and hundreds of patients are still inside Al-Shifa hospital. MSF urgently reiterates its calls to stop the attacks against hospitals, for an immediate ceasefire and for the protection of medical facilities, medical staff and patients, said the group in a statement. (This Nov. 12 story has been corrected to fix the number of displaced Israelis to 200,000 from 250,000, in paragraph 10) By Dan Williams JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel said it was poised to impose quiet on the Lebanese front as hostilities spiked on Sunday, with Hezbollah wounding civilians in a cross-border missile attack and the Israeli air force bombing sites linked to the Iranian-backed group. The chief Israeli military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, described Hezbollah as "the defender of Hamas-ISIS", in reference to the Islamist Palestinian faction whose cross-border rampage against Israel on Oct. 7 sparked a devastating Gaza war. Hezbollah, whose rocket arsenal is widely believed to dwarf that of Hamas, has been carrying out relatively limited attacks in solidarity with the Palestinians. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Saturday described the Israel front as "active". But with at least 70 of the group's fighters, along with several Lebanese civilians, having been killed in Israeli counterstrikes, Hezbollah's tactics have expanded to include rockets with 300kg-500kg warheads and kamikaze drones. On Sunday, Hezbollah claimed responsibility for a guided missile attack that Israel said wounded at least two electrical company workers sent to carry out repairs at a border community. A mortar attack wounded seven Israeli soldiers, the military said. A rocket set off sirens near the Israeli port city of Haifa, 27 km (17 miles) from the Lebanese border, but caused no casualties. A Lebanese wing of Hamas took credit for the launch. Israel said its air force and artillery struck Hezbollah and other targets in Lebanon in response, saying it was holding the group and the Beirut government responsible for all hostilities. "The IDF (military) is focussed on Gaza but we are at a very high state of readiness in the north," Hagari said. "Lebanon's citizens will bear the cost of this recklessness, and of Hezbollah's decision to be the defender of Hamas-ISIS." "The IDF has operational plans for changing the security situation in the north. The security situation will not remain one in which northern residents do not feel secure in returning to their homes," he said in a televised briefing. Residents of villages and towns on the Lebanese border have evacuated southward even as Gaza border communities hit by Hamas emptied, making for some 200,000 internally displaced Israelis, according to figures given Reuters by government officials. Many southern Lebanese have also fled northward for safety. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he had appealed to Iran, which backs Hamas as well as Hezbollah, to intervene. Interviewed on Fareed Zakaria GPS, Guterres said he asked Iran "to tell Hezbollah, 'You cannot create a situation in which Lebanon will be completely engulfed by this conflict,' because if Hezbollah will launch a massive attack on Israel it might create, I don't know what kind of impact, but one thing I am sure - Lebanon would not survive." Asked if Iran had been responsive, he said: "I do not know. They said always that they have nothing to do with what is happening but they say publicly that there is a risk of this conflict to be extended. It's always very mysterious, the position of Iran." (Reporting by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Crispian Balmer and Giles Elgood) A drone from Lebanon appears on the other side of the hill from the Israeli soldiers. The sighting is reported by radio, but its buzz has already alerted the troops. Two of the camouflaged soldiers on the ground train their M-16s skywards. "This is how it is here. We go from 0 to 100 in a few seconds," says Kamal Saad, 33, who commands the Israeli army's 299th Battalion operating in the north. Cross-border exchanges of fire have intensified since Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel, mostly between Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, and Israeli forces. Israeli tanks aim at the buzzing unmanned aircraft, alongside other weaponry, the details of which the army has asked AFP not to disclose. The action lasts an hour, during which the whole battalion is ordered to take cover. The military position, which AFP has been authorised to visit, serves as a rear base for the battalion. It is famous throughout the country for its infantry being 70 percent Druze, an Arabic-speaking minority in Israel who are known for being fierce fighters. "We grew up here, it's our home. We know every stone," says Saad. "Our mission is to protect the security forces operating here and the remaining civilians," adds the commander whose brother Alim was killed by Hezbollah on October 9 in the area. - Civilians evacuated - On Saturday, with the unit on high alert, some of Saad's men in the battalion watched Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah speak in only his second televised address since the Hamas-Israel war began. "The threat can come from anywhere -- sea, sky and land," says Saad. It is not like during Israel's 2006 war with Hezbollah, when salvoes of rockets were fired from Lebanon. Now the fire is sporadic, but it does take place every day. And for the first time in Israel's 75-year history, all civilians in areas along the border have been evacuated. At another section of the border, three soldiers were wounded in an attack on a position at Margaliot, near Kiryat Shmona, on Friday. On Saturday, the area was targeted again, with AFP journalists reporting plumes of smoke over the key Israeli position. Nearby, the residents of Kfar Giladi kibbutz say they are the last line of defence against Hezbollah. Tom Cohen, 28, returned from Australia to where he had grown up to join the kibbutz's self-defence group. "People were afraid that Hezbollah was just going to move in... as we have seen in the south," he says, referring to the Hamas attacks of October 7. - Mission: deterrence - "Now the big threat is the rockets coming from above... and attack drones." He says he hopes that once Lebanon is rid of Hezbollah the border will open and he can discover the country that he grew up facing. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will only engage in a war with Hezbollah if forces him to. On Friday, in a visit to troops near Gaza, he said the mission of those forces deployed in northern Israel could be summed up in one word: deterrence. All of the Israeli soldiers AFP has spoken to fear a massive confrontation. "Hezbollah from the second day is trying to get into this war," Cohen says. "Rockets on your bases, on people, on civilians -- it's declaring war," he adds, pointing to the memorial commemorating the death of 12 soldiers in 2006, killed by a rocket at the kibbutz gate. The bloody Gaza war erupted after Hamas fighters smashed through the militarised border with Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 240 people hostage, according to Israeli figures. Israel's relentless campaign in response has killed more than 11,100 people, also mostly civilians and including thousands of children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. In the north since October 7, more than 90 people have been killed on the Lebanese side, and eight inside Israel, including six soldiers. Among the dead in Lebanon are at least 70 Hezbollah fighters and 11 civilians, according to an AFP count. dar/ctx/ysm/srm Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) have suggested that Russia is relying on infantry-led frontal assaults in its war against Ukraine due to the loss of heavy military machinery and a lack of properly trained personnel. Source: ISW Details: The ongoing Russian military blogger (milblogger) discussion of Russian frontal assaults with large-scale infantry highlights the challenges Russia will face employing such infantry attacks to compensate for the issues promoting the current positional warfare defined by General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief. A Russian milblogger stressed on 11 November that Russia's practices of launching tactical assaults to storm Ukrainian fortified positions in the forest areas of Donbas would not lead to a broader operational breakthrough at any part of the contact line. He added that there is no way to train enough Russian troops for the intensive frontal attacks necessary to make a significant advance in Ukraine. Another milblogger claimed that the Russian forces were about to experience a "real renaissance of infantry combat" as they had fewer tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and armoured personnel carriers around the contact line. A critical Russian milblogger responded to the comment about "infantry renaissance", calling it a negative reflection of the loss of Russian heavy machinery and poor coordination at the front, resulting in a shift to assault tactics. A Telegram channel affiliated with Russian special forces lamented that the reliance on infantry-led frontal assaults was largely attributed to all special forces units deployed in Ukraine, as the Russian command has reportedly used special forces in frontal assaults since the beginning of the war. The report noted that special forces are not supposed to conduct infantry-led attacks like standard Russian motorised infantry, and some Russian sources are clearly disappointed with the outcome of misusing such special forces units. ISW analysts pointed out that Russian forces are increasingly relying on infantry-led frontal actions, likely to compensate for the lack of properly trained personnel and the significant loss of equipment. The analysts summarise: "The Russian General Staff appears to be relying heavily on frontal assaults as the predominant tactic in Ukraine as an important part of the Russian solution to the problems of military parity laid out by Zaluzhnyi's essay on the issue of positional warfare." To quote the ISWs Key Takeaways on 11 November: Russian forces launched a large-scale missile and drone strike series against Ukraine on the night of 10 to 11 November, targeting Kyiv Oblast for the first time in 52 days. Ukraines Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) was reportedly involved in at least one of three strikes on Russian territory on 10-11 November. Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov appears to be increasingly sidelining his eldest son, 18-year-old Akhmat Kadyrov, in favour of his younger son Adam Kadyrov [Chechnya is a federal subject of Russia; the Ukrainian parliament has recognised it as temporarily Russian-occupied territory of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria ed.]. Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Kupiansk-Svatove-Kreminna line, near Bakhmut, near Avdiivka, west and southwest of Donetsk City, in the Donetsk-Zaporizhzhia Oblast border area, and in western Zaporizhzhia Oblast and advanced near Avdiivka. Russian authorities have reportedly launched another large-scale crypto-mobilisation wave. Russian authorities continue efforts to fill out the workforce and artificially alter the demographics of occupied Ukraine. Support UP or become our patron! Israeli soldiers walk during a drill in the annexed Golan Heights on Nov. 9, 2023, amid increasing cross-border tensions between Hezbollah and Israel as fighting continues in the south with Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. (Jalaa Marey/AFP/Jalaa Marey/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS) Student and faculty speakers at an event held in the Bergland Auditorium of Indiana University Northwests Savannah Center on Thursday night condemned the Israeli governments ongoing assault on the Gaza strip and called for an end to the violence. Immediate cease-fire now is the minimum, Raoul Contreras, chair of IUNs Minority Studies Department, told an audience of around three dozen people. Advertisement Contreras cited the position of Raz Segal, an Israeli professor of Holocaust and genocide studies, who has labeled Israels actions in Gaza as a textbook case of genocide. For the past month, the Israeli Defense Forces have conducted a campaign of airstrikes against the Palestinian territory, killing an estimated 11,000 people according to Gazas health ministry, almost all of whom have been civilians. The assault was prompted by an October 7 attack on Israeli soldiers and civilians by Hamas, the terrorist group that governs Gaza. Hamas militants broke through the territorys heavily fortified border with Israel, killing more than 1,400 people and taking over 240 back to Gaza as hostages. News of the massacre horrified Jewish residents of Northwest Indiana, many of whom have relatives in Israel or other ties to the country. Advertisement Visitors stand and sing along to the Hatikvah, the national anthem of the State of Israel, during a Jewish Federation of NWI event hosted in Munster on Wednesday, October 11, 2023. (Kyle Telechan for the Post-Tribune) (Kyle Telechan/Post-Tribune) We are all still reeling, especially as more information becomes available, Emily Benedix, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Northwest Indiana, told the Post-Tribune. Our Jewish community has been very touched by the outpouring of support from the non-Jewish community in Northwest Indiana. Its been absolutely encouraging and meaningful beyond what we can express. The past months violence has been the latest flare-up in a struggle spanning three quarters of a century between the nation of Israel and the stateless Palestinian people. In November of 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted to divide the British-controlled territory of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. Jewish nationalists in the region embraced the plan but Palestinian Arabs, who at the time outnumbered the regions Jews, rejected it as a land-grab. Violence between the two groups broke out and after Israel declared independence the following year, five Arab states attacked the new country. The war ended with an Israeli victory, and resulted in the permanent displacement of roughly 700,000 Palestinians, more than half of the groups total population, with refugees emigrating abroad or settling in the Gaza strip and West Bank. In 1967, an Israeli victory in another war with its Arab neighbors led to the country occupying the Gaza strip and West Bank, the latter of which remains under occupation with partial control by the Palestinian National Authority. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but maintains control over the movement of people and goods into and out of the territory through a blockade. Various Palestinian factions have employed both violent and nonviolent means in an effort to secure statehood. Among those displaced in 1948 were the family of Dana Safi, a Palestinian American IUN student who grew up in Munster. She told the Post-Tribune that she still has relatives in the Gaza strip, though they are not in close contact with her family in the United States. News of the Oct. 7 attacks left Safi with a profound sense of dread. I distinctly remember like waking up that day just reading all the news and my first thought was this is going to be extremely bad for every single Palestinian. she said. Hamas doesnt speak for the Palestinian people and a lot of Palestinians, they dont like the idea of fighting back because we know that were going to get hit harder. Less than two weeks later, the Palestinian death toll of the ensuing Israel-Hamas war had already surpassed that of the third war fought between the two in the summer of 2014, when 2,251 Palestinians, including 1,462 civilians, were killed, according to data from the United Nations. The Gaza strip, roughly twice the size of Washington D.C., has a population of over 2 million people, nearly half of whom are children. Safi, a sophomore studying philosophy, said that her family has been monitoring Facebook for news from the territory, and learned that a relative was likely killed on Sunday. The violence in Israel and Gaza has had reverberations far closer to home. On Oct. 14, less than 60 miles from IUNs campus in unincorporated Plainfield, Illinois, 6-year-old Palestinian American Wadea Al-Fayoume was stabbed to death by his landlord, according to the Will County Sheriffs office. His mother, Hanaan Shahin, was also stabbed and was hospitalized with nonlife threatening injuries, in what authorities have labeled an anti-Palestinian hate crime. Joseph Czuba, 71, pleaded not guilty to eight criminal charges and faces life in prison if convicted. Im just afraid of identifying as Palestinian because you never know who has a vendetta against me, Safi said, adding that her parents have cautioned her against displaying her support for Palestine in public out of concern for her safety. She chose to attend the event, she said, because if anyones gonna speak out, it needs to be the people who have a direct relation. Advertisement Two other Palestinian American IUN students, both of whom have family in the West Bank, offered condemnations of Israel and support for the Palestinian people at the event. The international community must prioritize the importance of a cease-fire for the sake of the innocent lives at stake and to alleviate the immense suffering in Gaza, said Naseeb Mohammed, a first generation American studying accounting and finance. Its our shared responsibility to work toward a just and lasting solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one that recognizes the dignity and humanity of everyone involved and paves the way for peace and coexistence in the line of Palestine. Ahmad Abudayyeh was born in the West Bank and moved to the United States as a preteen. He drew a sharp distinction between Hamas and the Palestinian people as a whole, lamenting the harm done by the former. He argued, however, that Israels 16-year blockade of Gaza defended by the Israeli government as a means of denying Hamas access to weapons contributes to violence. I do believe that all Israeli lives and all Palestinian lives matter, he said. but I truly believe that keeping 2.2 million people in an open-air prison will create radicalism. Dovi Zalmanov, 14, hands out the Book of Psalms for prayers during an afternoon service at Chabad of Northwest Indiana in Munster on Oct. 10, 2023. Several attendees currently have family in Israel. (Michelle L. Quinn/Post-Tribune) Benedix stressed that her organization supports the right of pro-Palestinian students and faculty to voice their views in public, but pushed back against a number of the events talking points. What my concern is when I hear the term genocide and actually several of these slogans that were hearing and all the inflammatory language, is that it is something thats meant to engage raw emotion without context, she said. Blame for the month of violence, she said, belongs squarely on Hamas, whose violence she described as animalistic and barbaric. Advertisement I would challenge anyone to say that those actions can be justified by anything, she said. Were not talking about the civilians. Were talking about the people that did these horrific actions. It is incumbent on the militant group, she said, to end the violence by returning Israeli hostages. Jewish voices have long been among the most prominent on both sides of debates in the United States over American support for the Israeli government the U.S. supplies Israel with more than $3.8 annually in military aid which have become increasingly heated in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks and. On Oct. 18, the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League one of the nations oldest Jewish civil rights groups issued a condemnation of Jewish pro-Palestinian protesters who occupied the rotunda of the Cannon House Office Building in Washington to demand a cease-fire. President Joe Biden has staunchly resisted such calls and has pledged rock solid and unwavering support for Israel. Ruth Needleman, a professor of labor studies at IUN, invoked her own Jewish identity in condemning Israels attacks on Gaza at Thursdays event. I have no identification with Israel. Its not my country. They dont speak for me and they dont speak for the majority of Jews in the world, Needleman said. To attack the policies of the government of Israel is to be against genocide, not to be anti-Semitic. An IUN spokesperson did not comment on the events content, and wrote in a statement that it was not university-sponsored. Advertisement It was conducted in accordance with normal procedures for events in that venue, which encourage the free and civil exchange of ideas, she wrote. adalton@chicagotribune.com Ivory Coast's former prime minister Guillaume Soro, sentenced to life in prison for undermining national security, on Sunday said he was ending his self-imposed exile that began in 2019. Soro was previously right-hand man to President Alassane Ouattara, but the pair fell out in 2019, with the head of state accusing him of fomenting a "civilian and military insurrection". Soro then went into exile, and an Ivorian court sentenced him in absentia to life imprisonment in 2021. "I am announcing here and now that I am putting an end to my exile because it's hard for me to live far from my ancestral and native land of Africa," Soro said in an address published on social media. "I refuse to be a fugitive. I am guilty of no crime," he added, saying he wanted to "contribute to the reconciliation" of the country's population, without specifying a return date. Soro said an attempted arrest against him was made at Istanbul airport on November 3, in a bid to extradite him to Ivory Coast. Soro was head of an insurgency that controlled the northern half of Ivory Coast in the early 2000s. He provided crucial military support to Ouattara in his tussle with the then president, Laurent Gbagbo, who was ousted in 2011 after a brutal post-election conflict. Soro then became Ouattara's first prime minister and in 2012 was named speaker of the National Assembly. Soro was also sentenced in April 2020 to 20 years' jail for handling embezzled public funds. pid/imm/cw On Oct. 30, hundreds turned out to attend a pro-Israel rally, organized by Florida Republican legislative representatives and led by Florida House Rep. Dean Black from District 15, was held on the steps of Jacksonville's City Hall building. On Oct. 7, the whole world watched the largest terror attack in Israels history. My community and people of good conscience everywhere are still reeling from the magnitude and brutality of that dark day. Israels security was shattered. Over 1,000 families have loved ones who they will never see again and more than 200 people are still in captivity in Gaza. This act of terror is one which is unforgivable and those who perpetrated it will be held accountable. This gut-wrenching attack and its reverberations were felt around the world and are disturbing for anyone with a conscience. Despite the darkness of these times, Hasidic masters have taught that even in the darkest of dark times, there are still sparks of divinity lessons which can empower us to make it through the difficulty and give us strength to heal and find solutions to the problems. During the Yom Kippur War 50 years ago, Israel faced a simultaneous multi-front battle that resulted in over 3,000 casualties. Key to Israel's survival then was found within the nature of the attack. The Israeli Defense Forces were able to rush supplies and military personnel to the front lines in part because every road in the country was empty that day. The fact that Jews in Israel do not drive on Yom Kippur cleared the way for the military to gain victory. Last months attack coincided with the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah. As I shared in my last column, Simchat Torah is a holiday which has a deep message of Jewish unity. One of the best-known practices of Simchat Torah is when we all dance in a circle holding Torah scrolls. The Rebbe Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson shared that we do this to highlight our oneness. A circle has no beginning and no end. Dancing with the Torah and holding it in our arms is an experience where everyone is equal and our unity is emphasized. The fact that Israel was attacked on this very day indicates on a deep level that what will help Israels survival in this current crisis is Jewish unity. Relatives and friends of those kidnapped during the Oct. 7 Hamas cross-border attack in Israel hold photos of their loved ones during a recent protest calling for their return outside the Knesset, Israel's parliament in Jerusalem. On Oct. 7, about 240 were taken hostage and 1,400 were killed in the cross-border attack by Hamas militants in Israel. In the aftermath of the attack, there has been an ignition of Jewish unity and support, the likes of which I have not before seen. Jews of all stripes are reconnecting to their roots, delving into their faith, perhaps for the first time in decades. Rabbis across the country are flooded with messages from people asking how they can get more involved. The outpouring of support from around the world has also been heartening. Colel Chabad, a leading humanitarian organization in operation since the 1780s, which provides food and medicine to the needy in Israel, has seen their donations triple in recent weeks. Half of these donations came from first time donors, flooded in from countries as varied as Brazil, Zambia, Korea and even Pakistan. Many donations are from regular people of all faiths who wanted to show their support and solidarity. In St. Louis, a non-kosher restaurant went through the tedious and time-consuming process of making their establishment fully kosher for 24 hours to raise money for displaced people in Israel. The owner, who is not Jewish, shared that he did this because knew he couldnt remain silent when the Jewish community was in need. When faced with an adversary whose aim is to destroy the Jewish people, Jews and non-Jews have rallied behind the cause to make sure that a never again moment truly does not happen again. The question here is how to move forward. While Israel continues its mission to eradicate Hamas and as the Jewish community comes under ever more visible displays of antisemitism and violence, I wanted to suggest things that people can do in solidarity with the Jewish people. The first is to increase acts of kindness. The Rebbe taught that when we do more acts of kindness, such as giving charity to the poor, respecting the elderly, checking in on a sick friend and being a good neighbor, we fill the world with more light. Spiritually, this drowns out the darkness. Much like a candle can illuminate even the farthest corners of a dark room, our kind acts illuminate the world. Letters: Duval public schools, not charters, should keep all funds from sales surtax Second, look for local rallies and other solidarity events taking place around Jacksonville. On Oct. 30, over 300 supporters showed up to a pro-Israel rally on the steps of Jacksonville's City Hall. I was honored to be one of the speakers, alongside federal, state and local elected officials including U.S. Reps. John Rutherford and Aaron Bean, Sheriff T.J. Waters, Jacksonville City Councilman Nick Howland and state Sen. Clay Yarborough. All expressed their unequivocal support of Israel. I cant stress enough how much their support means to the Jewish community at this time. Third, check in on your Jewish friends. People stop me on a near-daily basis in public to ask how I am doing, shake my hand and share their genuine concern for the Jewish community and the people of Israel. Many are scared right now and need allies during this time. 'This might be the end': St. Johns family escapes Israel, but not those they were visiting This act of checking in can mean the world to someone who is struggling. The outpouring of support and acts of kindness we've witnessed in the wake of this tragedy is a testament to the enduring human spirit and the capacity for positive change. As we move forward, let us remember that even in the darkest hours, sparks of unity and hope can prevail. By standing together regardless of our backgrounds we can look toward a future where peace, understanding and compassion reign, ensuring that the light of unity ultimately triumphs over the darkness of hatred. Novack Rabbi Shmuli Novack is the director of Jacksonvilles Chabad of Southside and Chabad of UNF. For more information, visit SouthsideChabad.com/. This guest column is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of the Times-Union. We welcome a diversity of opinions. This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: How the Jacksonville community can support Jews as war rages in Israel By Tim Kelly YONAGUNI, Japan (Reuters) - Japan on Sunday conducted a tsunami evacuation drill on its westernmost island, an exercise that could also help residents respond to an emergency arising from any attempt by China to take control of nearby self-ruled Taiwan, an official said. About 200 island officials and members of Japan's military, known as the Self-Defence Force (SDF), took part in the exercise on Yonaguni, Japan's westernmost island, 2,000 km (1,240 miles) southwest of the capital, Tokyo. But SDF helicopters and landing craft from ships that had sailed more than 1,000 km (620 miles) from the main Japanese islands were unable to join the exercise because of strong winds. "We can't choose the time when we will face a disaster. We have to think about the worst thing that can happen and plan for that," the mayor of Yonaguni, Kenichi Itokazu, told officials at the island's town hall at the start of the drill. Japan is prone to earthquake-triggered tsunami. Nearly 20,000 people were killed by one on the northeast coast of its main island of Honshu in 2011. But Koji Sugama, the Yonaguni official in charge of preparing the island's 1,700 residents for disasters, said the community also had to be prepared for the danger of conflict. "Today we conducted a disaster drill, but it also gives people something to think about that will come in useful in a Taiwan emergency," Sugama said. Yonaguni is only 110 km (68 miles) from Taiwan. In August last year, China fired missiles into nearby waters in response to a visit to Taiwan by the then U.S. House speaker, Nancy Pelosi. China claims Taiwan as its territory and has never ruled out the use of force to take control of it. Concern over China's increased military activity, as well as worry that Russia's attack on Ukraine could embolden Beijing to strike Taiwan, prompted Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to unveil a plan to double defence spending over the next five years. About 180 Yonaguni residents came to the island's only junior high school to watch the first such exercise in four years. Troops stationed at an island army camp, that was opened in 2016 as part of a programme to reinforce Japan's island outposts, provided lunch and foot baths. (Reporting by Tim Kelly; editing by Robert Birsel) President Biden, already facing dismal approval numbers and multiple liberals looking to replace him, got more unwelcome news this week with the entry of Jill Stein into the 2024 presidential race. Stein, who announced Thursday that she would seek the Green Party nomination for the second time, is considered a fringe and intrusive figure to many Democrats who think she played the part of spoiler to former Secretary of State Hillary Clintons White House campaign against former President Trump. Her third-party candidacy is now one of a half dozen bids from the left, center and independent spectrum that could damage Biden in the race, bringing attention to the presidents limitations as the Republican primary field shrinks. And it came the same day Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) announced he is not seeking reelection, raising speculation that he could also seek the Oval Office next year. Steins case for her candidacy, as she tells it, is to offer a choice for the people outside the failed two-party system, an increasingly dominant theme in an election with two unpopular front-runners thats now less than a year away. The political system is broken. The two Wall Street parties are bought and paid for. Over 60 percent of us now say the bipartisan establishment has failed us, and we need a party that serves the people, she said in a video unveiling her campaign this week. Stein evokes a particularly strong reaction from Democrats still reeling over the Clinton loss. But her argument for a systematic political change is not so unique. As Biden aides and allies swat off criticisms that the president is too old or disliked among voters to win another general election, other contenders have worked around those issues with their bids. Most of that push has involved challenging not only Biden, but the countrys predominant two-party electoral system. Steins abrupt relaunch into presidential politics comes weeks after Cornel West, a leading academic and progressive activist, decided to run as an independent after formerly campaigning with the Green Party. His departure created an opening for another choice on the far-left ticket, where Stein stepped in this week with little fanfare. While some of Bidens rivals, such as long-shot Democratic primary challenger Rep. Dean Phillips (Minn.), are tying their candidacies to his age, Stein and West who are both in their 70s are instead focusing on pitching a change to how the U.S. conducts elections. Both progressives have called for a rejiggering of the structure that they believe forces Americans to choose the lesser of two imperfect party options. Theyre telling voters theres another way. We need leadership that will actually build our nation up and focus on the true interests and priorities of the American people, said one progressive Democratic activist based in an early primary state who has been critical of Biden. Steins campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Progressives in general feel that a lot of their priorities have been dismissed or inadequately addressed by the Biden administration. While they once felt optimistic about the direction of his White House, many have increasingly expressed disappointment about the course of his presidency. We need a president who will champion a significantly higher minimum wage, the [Protecting the Right to Organize Act], railroad workers right to strike, Starbucks workers right to organize and truly all working peoples rights to a living wage, the early-state activist said. New voices are sounding more and more like the solution to the rampant problems were facing. Marianne Williamson, another critic of establishment politics whos of the same generation as Stein and West, is presenting an alternative to Bidens reelection by running directly against him in the primary. Shes making the case along with Cenk Uygur, a media host and leftist, that Biden has sunk too low in public opinion to emerge victorious in a long and rough general election. They see his policies as a big part of why hes dipped so low, and several are urging him to debate them on the national stage. With President Biden polling low against Trump, its imperative he debate his challengers, Williamson, who also sought the Democratic nomination in 2020, said in a direct message to The Hill on X, the platform formerly called Twitter. Its unfair to the Democratic electorate to not give us an opportunity to properly assess our options. The voters and voters alone should determine who the Democrats run as our nominee in 2024. Bidens problems are coming across loud and clear to Democrats through a series of startlingly bad polls. A batch of battleground surveys released over the past several days shows him losing to Trump in a majority of swing states that he won in 2020, painting him as a highly vulnerable incumbent. Places such as Arizona and Georgia, where Biden counted wins last election, have turned in favor of the former president, and swing states including Michigan and Wisconsin are again up for grabs. Still, some Democrats speculated that the polls could be unrepresentative of where Biden stands or where he could end up in 12 months. If you compare these polls to other polls that have been done in these states, these polls are more negative, said Mark Mellman, a prominent pollster and Democratic strategist. Which suggests they might be a little bit of an outlier. But as more grim numbers trickled in throughout the week, other Democrats stepped up their criticism of Biden. Three of his former 2020 primary rivals former Texas Rep. Beto ORourke, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro and Andrew Yang have drawn attention to his poor standing with the public. On some counts, Biden has been successful, ORourke said at an event hosted by the Harvard Kennedy School of Government on Thursday, discussing immigration and asylum policy. On other counts hes really failing us it is no secret that Democratic voters are unexcited about Biden, and that is putting it politely. Comments like ORourkes have become more frequent and less controversial within the party as Biden struggles to keep up enthusiasm and public confidence. Some Democrats say its mainly a messaging issue thats keeping him down. They believe if they can convince voters Bidens age isnt such a hindrance and that hes still best positioned to take on the former president, it will become more apparent as voters cast their ballots in the first few contests. They need to sharpen the contrast with Trump, said Mellman. Theres plenty of time for that. Im sure they know that, Im sure they will do that. Theyve begun to do it. Once we start to get through Iowa and New Hampshire, and assuming it does become clear that Trumps the nominee, that distinction will come into greater focus for voters, he added. But the possibility that Biden will need to contrast himself with other candidates not named Donald Trump is an anxiety-causing scenario thats now setting in for campaign operatives trying to figure out how to handle the range of outside rivals. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been rising in polls as he works to get on the requisite state ballots to qualify as an independent candidate next year. For now, hes polling favorably with young voters and independents alike, two voting blocs that are critical for Democrats to keep the executive branch. And Manchins retirement from the upper chamber adds another dimension to the murkiness. In sharing his plans, the West Virginia Democrat kept the door open to a potential presidential bid, saying he intends to tour the country to gauge interest in bringing people together in the middle. I have made one of the toughest decisions of my life and decided that I will not be running for reelection to the United States Senate, but what I will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together, he said in a video. Manchin, who has been a thorn in liberals side throughout much of Bidens first term, has sparked concerns among those who are equally worried about their prospects of retaining the Senate without his seat and also that he could run in 2024 and further cripple Bidens chances. If he ran for president, he would become the Democratic caucuss first senator and second Democratic lawmaker in Congress to do so this cycle, following Phillips in the House. While Manchins announcement caused chatter inside the Beltway, not everyone is sweating the additional noise. Hopefully this mass engagement with politics can be productive and give direction to Bidens administration, said Hassan Martini, a Democratic operative who leads the group No Dem Left Behind. Recent polls do show Bidens approval rating down this fall, he acknowledged, but like other hopeful voices in the party, Martini sees a long road ahead until voters head to the polls. Theres plenty of time for Biden to steady his course, he said. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. WASHINGTON President Joe Bidens vision for Americas role in the world has always been a shining city on a hill. That vision once cherished by Democrats and Republicans alike has given way to much greater cynicism. Americans are worried about being able to buy a house and pay for groceries. The prospect of proxy wars is unappealing, and after Afghanistan and Iraq, voters are deeply uneasy about the risk of getting drawn into overseas entanglements. To many born after 9/11, theres a bigger existential question about whether the U.S. is still a beacon for other countries to emulate. Biden is stuck in the middle, trying to mediate between his ideal about how he should lead and the widespread frustration of his citizens. It will soon come to head as Biden welcomes the leaders of more than a dozen countries, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, to a major economic and trade summit for Pacific powers in San Francisco. TOPSHOT - US President Joe Biden pauses as he speaks about the economy and the deal between the United Auto Workers (UAW) Union and the big-three automakers, in Belvidere, Illinois, on November 9, 2023. (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY / AFP) (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images) ORIG FILE ID: AFP_342Z8TL.jpg A series of polls in the past two weeks have shown widespread discontent among the public with the direction the country is headed. Americans do not believe Bidens leadership on the world stage has been effective. His lackluster support inspired a primary challenger, and last week the chief strategist for Barack Obamas presidential campaigns suggested Biden should not seek office again. The threat of a government shutdown and a bitter dispute with hard-right Republicans over the White Houses funding request for wars in Israel and Ukraine have also cast a shadow over the summit, where Biden hoped to convince potential allies the U.S. is a reliable partner. This will be a tough time for President Biden to do it, said Peter Feaver, who worked for multiple presidents on the National Security Council. This is a hard test for the administration. It is the second time in six months that a poorly-timed dispute with Congress has disrupted Bidens plans to woo Pacific countries he hopes to draw away from China. He had to return home from an overseas trip early canceling stops in Papua New Guinea and Australia during the debt ceiling fight with House Republicans in May. He promised to roll out the red carpet for Australia's prime minister during a state dinner instead. But that gathering in late October ultimately had to be scaled back in the face of the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Biden is in another battle with House Republicans over federal spending now. A year out from the general election, the Democratic president is also navigating a difficult reality: Voters surveyed are saying they prefer Donald Trump, who is promising to negotiate an end to Russia's war against Ukraine, carry out mass deportations and ban refugees from any nation he considers a security threat. Biden's domestic agenda got a shot in the arm last Tuesday when Democrats and abortion rights prevailed in off-year elections the president and his team view as indicative of a 2024 landscape that might work in their favor. And his diplomatic efforts yielded some success last week when Israel announced that it would implement short humanitarian pauses in northern Gaza that will help civilians leave embattled areas and aid to be delivered more quickly. But whether thats enough for voters is at the heart of the question. The agreement fell short of the cessation in fighting of at least three days that Biden had sought from Israel. John Kirby, a chief White House spokesman on national security, was quick to argue that the pauses were a direct result of his personal leadership and diplomacy here. Voters concerned about Bidens leadership Biden, who turns 81 next week, has struggled to persuade Americans he has the mental fitness to be president. A survey of registered voters in battleground states released last week by The New York Times and Siena College found a large majority of the electorate, 71%, believe Biden is too old to be president. On the question of mental sharpness, 62% said Biden doesnt have it. The poll showed Biden trailing Trump in five out of six states that are likely to determine the winner of next Novembers election. In response to the first survey, former Obama adviser David Axelrod said there is legitimate concern pulsating through the Democratic Party about Bidens reelection prospects. The president must decide whether it is wise for him to continue his candidacy and whether it's in HIS best interest or the country's, Axelrod said on X, formerly Twitter. Biden obviously has lost a step, Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher, chair of the House committee on competition between the U.S. and China, said in an interview. He pointed to Bidens comment last year about a minor incursion into Ukraine. I'm not sure that anybody, like, fears Biden on the world stage in a way that would help us. The president has made foreign policy a pillar of his reelection argument. But in a CNN poll published last week, just 36% of Americans viewed him as an effective world leader. That compared with 48% who viewed Trump that way. Anti-war activists protest outside of The White House during a pro-Palestinian demonstration asking for a cease-fire in Gaza in Washington, Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023.(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana) ORG XMIT: DCJL125 Biden dismissed the bad polling during comments at a fundraiser, and his campaign denied, in response to a query from USA TODAY, that theres a disconnect between the presidents focus on American leadership abroad and the anxiety that voters are feeling about domestic issues such as the economy. To the extent that there is, deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said, it is the campaign's job to bridge that gap. Fulks went on to warn: Now is not the time for a rookie. It is not a time to honestly put someone back who has already driven our country, both foreign policy wise and economically, to the brink of destruction that President Biden has gotten to work to bring back, he said. Turmoil in Congress ahead of Xi meeting Democratic lawmakers were far more concerned about the message Bidens dispute with Congress over foreign assistance sends to leaders who are attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit this week in San Francisco. Especially Xi. Biden is scheduled to meet with the Chinese president Wednesday to discuss the wars and the future of Taiwan before the larger summit begins. Massachusetts Rep. Jake Auchincloss said that by slow-walking an aid package that includes money for Israel, Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific, We are undercutting the strength of whatever message President Biden is able to deliver. Congress should be sending President Biden into his meeting with Xi Jinping in a position of strength, said Auchincloss, a Democrat who sits on the China committee. The government will shut down on Friday, as the summit concludes, unless Congress reaches a consensus or Republicans muscle through a short-term fix. House Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled a two-step bill, which keeps federal funding at its current levels for some parts of the government until January and other parts until February, to his caucus over the weekend. The House and Senate would need to pass the legislation and Biden would have to sign it by the end of the week to avoid a shutdown. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat and ranking member on the China panel, said House Republicans are creating chaos and dysfunction that is harming Bidens efforts on the world stage. I think the CCP has used specifically those particular issues and their propaganda around the world to try to shape peoples' attitudes toward democracy versus authoritarian governments. So it really undercuts us in different ways, he said, using another name for China. FILE - U.S. President Joe Biden, right, and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands before a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit meeting on Nov. 14, 2022, in Bali, Indonesia. Biden and Xi will hold a long-anticipated meeting Wednesday in the San Francisco Bay area. That's according to two senior Biden administration officials. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File) ORG XMIT: WX101 But, he noted, China is facing economic issues that are worse than those of the United States. The costs of goods are higher than Americans would prefer, yet job growth has been strong and the unemployment rate remains low. In contrast, America's economy is doing relatively well. So I don't think that they should be gloating about anything, walking into that kind of meeting, although we could do better to improve our hand, too, he said. The conversation is expected to yield little in the way of immediate results, but the administration believes the in-person meeting between Biden and Xi is necessary to stabilize relations between the worlds two largest economies. It will precede two days of roundtables among representatives from APECs 21 members, which include Russia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan and other economies. Biden's foreign policy flex Biden is scheduled to leave Washington on Tuesday for the summit, which concludes Friday. The White House declined to say last week whether it was considering changes to his schedule in light of the government funding deadline. The summit will provide Biden with an opportunity to demonstrate his foreign policy acumen to Americans who have lost confidence in his ability to lead the country. I think Americans are reacting to a sense that events are spinning faster and faster. And they're reflecting their anxiety, I think, in their analysis of the incumbent, Auchincloss said. That said, I feel very confident that the president's handling of Ukraine, of Israel, of Taiwan, is going to age very well. That years from now, when people are looking back at the Biden presidency on foreign policy, its going to be regarded as a significant strength of the administration. He suggested that Americans are engaged in revisionist history about Trumps record, pointing to George W. Bush, who left office deeply unpopular at the beginning of a decades-long conflict with Afghanistan and after a war with Iraq, but is rated more favorably now. Feaver, who served on the National Security Council under Bush, said the same could happen with Biden. But, he said, That's very thin consolation right now. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden to balance ideals, growing public frustration at APEC summit I am an American Veteran I proudly served my country I live the values I learned in the military I continue to serve my community, my country and my fellow veterans I maintain my physical and mental discipline I continue to lead and improve I make a difference I honor and remember my fallen comrades. Joe Diaz The above is the Veterans Creed. Something I share with many, not all, fellow veterans. And like many veterans our two saddest days are Memorial Day and remembering the day a buddy or family member was killed or died later. Many of us are angry at the loss of the 13 in August 2021 and the way we pulled out of a 20-year civil war we should never have been in. Like many vets living today, I was born after World War II when the mission was clear. During my life, almost every war we have been involved in has been someone elses civil war or neighbors border war. From Korea to Vietnam to Somalia to Iraq to Afghanistan to Syria and many others where we were sent either willingly or drafted. American military fought and died while not all of military age in those countries were fighting for the freedom our brothers and sisters were providing. At one point, our country had our military involved in over 50 wars and conflicts around the world as military advisors or part of the military group. I know. I was one in some of those countries. With only two exceptions when we were attacked and threaten by either the Al Qaeda or Saddam Hussein did we actually and directly fight for American freedom. But after payback our so-called leaders got us involved in their civil wars and our death toll rose to 102,754 and climbing. Add the hundreds of thousands of the wounded and missing in action and we paid a very high price for freedom. It wasnt the North Korean soldier, the Viet Cong, the Taliban, or any of the others that fought us that was threating American freedom. It always was the leaders of the then Soviet Union now Russia. They, like us, were pawns in a power struggle for world domination. Like many of my fellow vets I saw the waste of billions of dollars that was used in these many wars. Angry to know of the millions that went to corrupt leaders and generals in those countries where we lost buddies and family members. We didnt forget the billions in war equipment left behind because our so-called leaders decided to quit like Vietnam and Afghanistan. That is why the vets like me watch with keen interest the wars in Ukraine and Israel. Ten years ago, I wouldnt have cared what happened in Ukraine. They were just as bad and corrupt as Russia. If not worse. With the new president and the removal of corrupt officials and generals we can support their fight for freedom. As long as there is a total commitment to fight off the sponsor of most of our countrys war dead and wounded. I worked two projects in Israel in the 1990s. I got to see things differently than tourists. I have seen both the good and bad of the way things are done in Israel and also the good and bad of the Palestinians. If I mentioned all the faults and good of each side I could fill pages in this newspaper. But no matter what Israel did to both the Palestinians and to their own Arab-Israeli citizens, no one deserved the brutal attacks on innocents on both sides. I can only speak for those who think like I do that both Israel and Palestine deserve to be free and safe countries with firm borders. When those two countries exist we can support a multi-national peacekeeping force (MFO) like we have at the borders of Israel and Egypt. Many of our reservists and Army vets have served in the MFO and it has worked without loss of American lives. ALL American military sign a contract and an oath to protect and defend our country. They did and do proudly without hesitation. The vets who think as I do believe although we served in all these countries and wars, the reason we did was to protect OUR country from the puppet master (Russia) who was funding all those wars. We just wish that to fight in someone elses civil war that all military age men and women of that country are in it to win it. As a veteran, I would serve again. But only in defense of our country. Carleton resident Joe Diaz retired as a command master chief in 2007 after 40 years with the U.S. Navy. He served in six wars and conflicts. This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Joe Diaz: We need to get away from fighting others' wars TOKYO The top U.S. military officer said Friday he has conveyed to China his hopes to resume the stalled communication between the worlds two biggest militaries. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. CQ Brown Jr., told a selected group of journalists Friday in Tokyo that it is hugely important to ensure there is no miscalculation between the sides. He said he conveyed his desire to restart the dialogue in a letter to his Chinese counterpart. Im hopeful, Brown added. China froze military exchanges in August 2022 when then-Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi visited self-governing Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory. The two sides have shown indications in recent weeks that they are close to resuming the exchanges. Brown made his comment during the Tokyo leg of a trip to Asia ahead of next weeks Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, to be hosted by President Joe Biden in San Francisco. Biden will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the meeting, the Biden administration announced later Friday. The U.S.-China relationship has been complicated by U.S. export controls on advanced technology, the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon that traversed the mainland United States and Chinese fury over a stopover in the U.S. by Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen earlier this year. Brown, who was appointed to the post in September, met earlier Friday with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The two sides discussed further strengthening of the allies deterrence and response capabilities as the region faces increasing security challenges, Japans Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The challenges include North Koreas intensified nuclear and missile activities, Chinas unilateral change of the status quo by force, enhanced military cooperation between China and Russia around Japan, and arms transfer between Russia and the North, the statement said. Kishidas government adopted a new national security strategy in December, stating Japans determination to build up its military power over the next five years. The plans include gaining counterstrike capability by deploying long-range cruise missiles as early as 2026 a break from Japans postwar self-defense-only principle as deterrence to Chinas increasingly assertive military activity in the region. Brown welcomed Japans efforts to build up its military. Its a bit of a journey, Brown said. But the best part about it is first having the desire and the resources and then be willing to work together. Well make progress. Jon Boutcher is a lifelong fan of Derby County FC. A big club fallen upon hard times, financial problems sent them into administration and slipping down divisions. It might appear like Mr Boutcher gets little escape from harsh economic realities. Welcome, chief constable, to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), which needs 52m to balance the books by next March. His remarks on taking over the PSNI this week echo those he made on retiring from Bedfordshire Police in 2019. Money tree? There have been four years between Mr Boutcher's chief constable jobs, but his message has not changed: policing must be properly funded. With Stormont heading for a 450m overspend and no Stormont Executive to shuffle around what little cash there is, he might be better shaking the money tree in London. The PSNI is on course to end the financial year in deficit and has about 6,500 officers - approximately 1,000 below its peak in 2007. If the financial landscape does not alter, the numbers will keep falling and other cutbacks will become necessary, such as reducing neighbourhood patrolling. Mr Boutcher believes the PSNI should have "at least" 7,000 officers. He has already lobbied Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris and the permanent secretary at the Department of Justice, Richard Pengelly. Calls of congratulations on his appointment were met with the response: "Thank you very much, but we need to have a conversation about money." He has talked about the police being at the head of the queue, but is equally not blind to needs in health and education. Financial problems are arguably top of a pile of issues. The only way was up There is also the need to improve morale among the workforce and rebuild public confidence damaged by recent crises which forced out his predecessor, Simon Byrne. The mood within the PSNI has been lifted by his appointment. In truth, the only way was up. He announced that the PSNI would not appeal a ruling that two officers were unlawfully disciplined after a Troubles' commemoration event. The event marked the anniversary of the 1992 Sean Graham bookmakers attack, in which five people were killed. Simon Byrne said he was considering an appeal to the ruling, but subsequently resigned as chief constable. Announcing that the judgement would not be challenged was a quick and easy win for Mr Boutcher, one which got the Police Federation back on side. Gender imbalance Mr Boutcher is alive to multiple issues - including sickness absence and a high number of people on restrictive duties, unable to be on the front line. Those two things combined, that is something of the order of 1,600 people. Getting them back - easier said than done - would be like a new recruitment campaign, Mr Boutcher told the media last Wednesday. Simon Byrne quit as PSNI chief constable after a series of crises within the force Off the back of a former female officer winning a sex discrimination case against the PSNI, Mr Boutcher also recognises that a gender imbalance among senior officers needs addressed. Last week, an industrial tribunal unanimously ruled in favour of Emma Bond, stating her claims of discrimination on the basis of her gender were "well-founded". The bridge between Mr Boutcher's chief constable jobs has been Operation Kenova, an independent investigation dealing with Troubles' legacy cases. That team has investigated historical crimes, covering murder and torture, and the role of the state, including MI5. and a report is due out in the coming months. Mr Boutcher is no stranger to Northern Ireland, its policing and its politics. He seems well equipped to handle one of the toughest challenges in UK policing, but once the honeymoon is over, he will find himself in the results business. "Turtleboy" blogger Aidan Kearney is arraigned on witness intimidation charges in connection with the Karen Read murder case at Stoughton District Court on Monday, Oct. 11, 2023. Kearney was released on his own recognizance. DEDHAM A blogger who calls himself "Turtleboy" lost his bid to lift restrictions imposed after he was charged with witness intimidation in a murder case involving the death of a police officer from Braintree. The blogger, Aidan Kearney, was arrested and charged in October. He was released and ordered to stay away from witnesses in the case against Karen Read, of Mansfield, who is accused of killing Boston police officer John O'Keefe, a Braintree native. Prosecutors say Read hit O'Keefe with her vehicle outside a home in Canton on Jan. 29, 2022, after they had been drinking. Read, her defense team and Kearney say she is the victim of a coverup. Dedham Superior Court Judge Peter Krupp denied Kearny's request to lift the restrictions Thursday in a 22-page order, WCVB reported. However, Krupp did allow Kearney to attend hearings in the case, even if that would bring him within 100 feet of witnesses. Kearney's effort to support the defense factored into Krupp's ruling, WCVB said. "To say defendant has taken a pro-defense position on the Read case is to understate the level of his partisanship and advocacy," Krupp wrote. "In pursuit of his performative journalism and personal brand, defendant has berated witnesses in the Read case, badgered them although they have indicated that they do not wish to speak to him and pressured them to change their testimony," Krupp wrote. "Defendant has been able to increase his following substantially based on monthly page views and viewership with his confrontational stories, live videos and inflammatory blog posts about the Read case." This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Judge rules against 'Turtleboy' blogger in Karen Read murder case Ohio operates a complex system of services for kids accused of delinquent acts. The goal is to give children as many chances as possible to avoid delinquency charges, detention, court appearances and even time in prison. Kids who get into trouble may be on a road to prison, so the state builds off-ramps to divert them to a different course. Often, diversion starts when a police officer decides whether to arrest a child or bring them back to their parents. But there are many other offramps. It's in the state's interest to keep kids out of youth prison because just one night in detention or prison reduces a child's chances of graduating from high school by 50%, according to Franklin County Juvenile Court Judge Lasheyl Stroud. That's why a century ago, Ohio adopted a rule that favors diversion for juvenile delinquency cases. But when children are accused of serious, violent offenses that endanger the public, they can end up in juvenile detention and, eventually, youth prison. Some go to adult court and then adult prisons. [ Reporters with USA Todays network of Ohio newspapers spent eight months investigating the state's juvenile justice system. Consider supporting their work with a subscription. ] The Ohio Department of Youth Services operates three prisons for juveniles adjudicated of felony charges, including Cuyahoga Hills Juvenile Correctional Facility. Juvenile detention vs. youth prison Juvenile courts operate most of Ohio's 33 county and regional juvenile detention centers. The centers house minors who are waiting for the courts to determine their guilt or innocence. The Ohio Department of Youth Services operates three prisons Indian River, Circleville and Cuyahoga Hills serving about 470 felony offenders, ages 12 to 21. The average stay is about 16 months, and the cost is $646 per day per person. There are about 215 youths on supervised parole after being released from these prisons. The department also pays for three community-based alternative sites that are meant to give kids the treatment to improve their lives. Additionally, there are 11 county-run correctional facilities that allow kids to stay close to home. Who is in youth prison? Some kids go to youth prison after judges adjudicate them for felony delinquent acts. That's the juvenile court version of being found guilty of or pleading guilty to crimes. They can be held until their 21st birthday. The average age of someone in youth prison is 17.7 years old. Children ages 10 and 11 go to privately run facilities. Last fiscal year, juvenile courts adjudicated 17 children under age 12 and 67 12-year-olds for felony delinquency. None of them went to a Department of Youth Services prison. Teenage boys stand for "The Star-Spangled Banner" during a Fourth of July presentation about the armed forces at Multi-County Juvenile Detention Center in Lancaster. Most Ohio kids don't go to prison A little more than 10% of kids adjudicated on felonies in juvenile courts are put in Department of Youth Services custody, which is called being committed. That means nearly 90% take an off-ramp short of prison. Over the past decade, felony adjudication in Ohio dropped by nearly one-third, from 4,636 to 3,182 in fiscal year 2022. Roughly 36% of the cases come from Ohio's three most populated counties: Hamilton, Franklin and Cuyahoga. The demographics of those in youth prison: 86% of those adjudicated and 92.3% of those committed are male. 53.7% of those adjudicated and 62.7% of those committed are Black. 38.6% of those adjudicated and 22.5% of those committed are white. Read the full report: Find a summary and link to each part of our investigation into Ohio's youth detention facilities How many Ohio kids are in juvenile detention? Across Ohio, on any given day, about 500 children are in county-run juvenile detention centers in the five largest counties: Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamilton, Montgomery and Summit. Others go to smaller facilities or community correctional centers. In Hamilton and Franklin counties, the average length of stay is a little over a month. In Cuyahoga County, kids awaiting court hearings in adult court stay on average for 298 days, and those remaining in the juvenile system stay 55 days. The daily cost in Franklin County is $403 per juvenile. Many youth detention centers face staffing shortages and can't adequately provide education, mental health treatment or security. What do children do in detention and in prison? Kids in detention or prison are legally entitled to recreation, health care, mental health care and education. Two-thirds of Ohio's incarcerated youth require mental health services, and 47% require individualized education plans. To provide education services, the state runs its own school system, the Buckeye United School District. Local detention centers also work with the kids' home school districts to provide education. Juvenile crime is trending down both in Ohio and nationwide The number of juveniles nationwide arrested for violent crimes, including murder, robbery and aggravated assault, has been on the decline for nearly 20 years, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The number of juvenile arrests for violent crime hit a new low in 2020, 78% below the 1994 peak and half of what it was in 2010. People aged 17 and younger account for 6% of arrests nationwide in 2020, down from 15% in 2000, according to the Sentencing Project. The number of children adjudicated of felonies and the number committed to youth prisons declined over the past 10 years in Ohio. In fiscal year 2012, there were 5,074 adjudications and 524 commitments. By fiscal year 2021, the numbers dropped to 3,075 adjudications and 263 commitments. How many youths return to prison? State data show that within three years of release, 43.2% of people released from the Department of Youth Services either return to youth prison or enter the adult prison system. Ohio doesn't track what happens to the other 56.8% of people once they're released from custody. Jun 29, 2023; Lancaster, Ohio, USA; Jonathan Becker holds class for teenage boys at Multi-County Juvenile Detention Center. Some teens go to adult court Minors go to adult court via a process called "bindover," either at the request of a prosecutor or automatically based on the seriousness of the crime and their age. From 2013 to 2022, 1,810 teenagers have gone through this process. Adult court is mandatory for these people: 16- and 17-year-olds charged with murder or attempted murder. 14- or 15-year-olds charged with murder or attempted murder who have previous adjudications on serious felonies and were committed to the Department of Youth Services. 16- and 17-year-olds charged with manslaughter, aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, aggravated arson, or rape, who were previously adjudicated on a serious felony and committed to the Department of Youth Services, and allegedly used a firearm in the crime. Laura Bischoff 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 The Columbus Dispatch: Juvenile justice in Ohio: How the state tries to keep kids from prison Vigorous lion dance, waist drum dance, cute pandas and model of the Temple of Heaven, all these typical Chinese features were showcased in the annual "Lord Mayor's Show" held Saturday in City of London and brought cultural diversity to the event. The Lord Mayor's Show is one of the oldest civic processions in the United Kingdom (UK). Every year, around 7,000 people and 200 horses participate in the event which has a history of over 800 years. Led by two red LEVC taxis, a team with more than 50 performers from Zhejiang UK Association (ZJUKA), showcased Chinese traditional performances including the ribbon dance and waist drum dance. Qian Linglong, a ZJUKA member who carried the banner of the team, said that ZJUKA has participated in the Lord Mayor's Show five times. "We'd like to bring some cultural diversity to the City of London and thus foster understanding between the UK and China," Qian added. "Panda is like a universal symbol of peace and friendliness. Everybody likes a panda," Peter Hollingsworth, who dressed in the panda costume in the ZJUKA team, told Xinhua. Themed "10th Anniversary of the Belt and Road -- Connecting East and West", a parade float decorated by the China Chamber of Commerce in the UK (CCCUK), exhibits design elements like "camels, desert, oasis", "pandas, bamboo", "lion dance, lanterns, high-speed rail", all related to Chinese culture and main features of the Belt and Road Initiative. The models of two iconic buildings, the Temple of Heaven in Beijing and the St. Paul's Cathedral in London, on the float caught spectators' eyes. According to the chamber, they represented elements of Eastern and Western cultures along the prominent trade and cultural route known as the Silk Road. Towed by an electric truck, the float of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London was accompanied by a group of dragon dancers. The float displayed a giant dragon-style body and green landscape of Hong Kong, symbolizing Hong Kong's plan to achieve carbon neutrality before 2050 and reduce carbon emissions by 50 percent before 2035 as compared to the 2005 level. City of London elects a new Lord Mayor every year. Alderman Michael Mainelli, the 695th Lord Mayor of London, traveled in a golden carriage on Saturday and waved to crowds. The duty of the Lord Mayor is to promote and represent the City of London. FILE - Presidential candidate Karel Schwarzenberg arrives for final television debate in Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013. Karel Schwarzenberg, a former Czech foreign minister and a member of a European noble family has died at age 85. Milroslav Kalousek, his long-term political ally and the Foreign Ministry confirmed his death on Sunday Nov. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek/File) PRAGUE (AP) Karel Schwarzenberg, a former Czech foreign minister and a member of a European noble family has died. He was 85. Milroslav Kalousek, his long-term political ally, and the Foreign Ministry confirmed on Sunday his death. It is with deep sadness and respect that we remember Karel Schwarzenberg, who left us today," the ministry said. As a two-time foreign minister and Vaclav Havel's chancellor, he shaped our foreign policy and always proved with his actions that that he was a true democrat. Schwarzenberg had been hospitalized in Prague since August with heart and kidney problems and was flown several days ago to a clinic in Vienna, the Austrian capital, where he had lived for years. A big man in all aspects has died, President Petr Pavel said. The service for his country was a natural mission for him. Born Dec. 10, 1937, in Prague, Schwarzenberg and his family had to flee Czechoslovakia after the Communists took over in 1948 and they lived in exile Austria. He studied law and forestry at universities in Vienna and Graz, Austria, and Munich, Germany, but but didnt finish his studies as he had to take care of the familys estates in Austria and the German state of Bavaria. After the 1989 Velvet Revolution led by Vaclav Havel, Schwarzenberg returned home and became Havels chancellor head of the presidential office when the playwright turned politician was elected president. Schwarzenberg served as foreign minister from 2007-2009. During that time, he and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed an initial agreement to base a U.S. missile shield in Central and Eastern Europe. The system designed to protect U.S. allies from a bellicose and unpredictable Iran was later scrapped by President Barack Obama. In 2009, Schwarzenberg together with Kalousek established a conservative political party, TOP 09, which he led until 2015 when he became its honorary chairman. He again took over the foreign minister post between 2010 and 2013. In 2013, Schwarzenberg ran for the largely ceremonial post of the Czech president but lost to the populist and then pro-Russian Milos Zeman in a runoff vote. Before his political career, between 1984 and 1991, Schwarzenberg served as chairman of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, a position that led him to seek compliance with human rights in communist countries, including his homeland. Schwarzenberg helped established the Czechoslovak Documentation Center, which was based at his castle in Scheinfeld, Bavaria. It was an institution that collected banned literature and other materials related to anti-totalitarian resistance and independent thinking during the communist regime. Its collections are now in the National Museum in Prague. Schwarzenberg was a popular politician, known for his humor. When he was caught sleeping by photographers, he replied he sleeps when they talk stupid. Schwarzenberg is survived by his wife Therese, son Jan Nepomuk and daughter Anna Karolina. Keke Palmer and Darius Jackson are no longer together. In court documents that Palmer filed on Nov. 9, she said she stopped seeing Jackson in October after they started dating in June 2021. In the documents, obtained by NBC News, Palmer asked for sole custody of their 8-month-old son, Leodis, saying she feared for her and their son's safety after Jackson displayed multiple instances of physical and emotional abuse. I am afraid for my safety and the safety of our child given Darius erratic, unpredictable and abusive behavior, including entering my house without my knowledge or permission and physically accosting me, she said in her declaration. Palmer also said Jackson became rough physically with their son while changing his diaper in an incident in September. The court documents show that Palmer has been granted a temporary restraining order against her ex. However, their love story didn't start out this way. The two fell for each other fairly quickly after they met at an "Insecure" after-party. Read on to find out more about their love story. Keke Palmer and Darius Jackson meet for the first time During a June 2023 appearance on The Terrell Show," Keke Palmer revealed she met Jackson "very casually" at an "Insecure" after-party that Diddy threw for Issa Rae and the rest of the cast. In an interview with Bustle, she said the party happened in 2021. "I had just done the show and (Jackson's) brother (Sarunas Jackson) worked on the show. And you know, I see his brother around a lot. Im like, who's here with you?" she said playfully. "I see you at the parties, but you never brought him with you. And he was like, 'That's my little brother." Palmer said she was immediately taken with Jackson and she found the courage to talk to him after speaking with her best friend, Nora. I walked up to him... My best friend, she was like, You should just say something to him. You should ask if he wants a drink, Palmer recalled. Although they agreed to take shots together, Palmer said she wasn't looking for love at the time. I was looking for a roster, you understand? And so I was like, He fits the physical bill,'" she said. But once they got started talking, Palmer said she realized that Jackson was such a "sweetheart." "I think what I saw, you know, was just that he's just a sweet guy," she said. Keke Palmer and Darius Jackson go Instagram official Palmer and Jackson went Instagram official in August 2021 when Palmer posted some Polaroid photos of the two of them together at her 28th birthday party. In one snap, you can see them sharing a kiss on the lips. Keke Palmer opens up about going public with Darius Jackson In a March 2022 interview with Bustle, Palmer talked about her relationship with Jackson and revealed why she decided to go public with him on Instagram. I just think [this] was a moment in time in my life where I really stepped into this kind of boss behavior [of doing] whatever the hell I want to do, she said. This is the happiest Ive ever felt with someone. So why would I go out of my way to hide this person? Thats a lot more work than just living in my life and being in my life," Palmer continued. Keke Palmer reveals she's pregnant In December 2022, Palmer hosted an episode of "Saturday Night Live," and while taking the stage, she revealed she was pregnant when she unbuttoned her trench coat and showed off her growing baby bump. There are people in my comments saying, Kekes having a baby, Kekes pregnant, and I want to set the record straight, she said. I am. Its bad enough when people spread rumors about you but its even worse when theyre correct, Palmer continued. I mean, I was trying ... so hard to keep it on the down low because I have a lot of stuff going on." The actor-singer also joked about feeling a bit ambushed when people came up to her and told her, Congratulations?" "Im like, Shh! Can yall stop? I have a liquor sponsorship on the line! Once the check clears, then we can get to the damn baby shower!, she quipped. This has been the biggest blessing, Palmer added. Saturday Night Live - Season 48 (NBC / Will Heath/NBC via Getty Images) Keke Palmer and Darius Jackson welcome their first child together In February, Palmer and Jackson became parents, welcoming their sweet baby boy, Leodis Andrellton Jackson, into the world. On Instagram, the actor shared a video of Jackson cradling their son in her hospital room while she laid in bed. In another frame, Palmer posted a sweet photo of her holding Leodis while Jackson embraced her. "Welcome to the world baby Leo," Palmer wrote in the caption. Darius Jackson publicly criticizes Keke Palmer over her Usher concert outfit In July, things took a turn for the worse for the couple when Jackson responded to a video that someone posted online of Usher serenading Palmer at his Las Vegas residency while she wore a tight, black bodysuit underneath a sheer dress. "Its the outfit tho.. you a mom," he wrote in a now-deleted tweet on X, formerly known as Twitter. After receiving backlash online for his comment, Jackson decided to double down on what he said in another now-deleted tweet. We live in a generation where a man of the family doesnt want the wife & mother to his kids to showcase booty cheeks to please others & he gets told how much of a hater he is, he wrote. This is my family & my representation. I have standards & morals to what I believe. I rest my case. Keke Palmer responds to breakup rumors about her and Darius Jackson In September, Palmer responded to speculation about her relationship with Jackson after rumors started surfacing online that they broke up. When asked whether she and her beau were still together on TODAY with Hoda & Jenna, Palmer responded, Im going to take a page out of Beyonces book: Mind yalls business." Jenna then asked Palmer if she was happy and the "Nope" actor said, Yes, life is good. I have nothing but gratitude, honestly. Seriously. Keke Palmer accuses Darius Jackson of domestic abuse In November, Palmer filed for sole custody of their 8-month-old son, Leodis, and was granted a temporary restraining order against Jackson. In court documents obtained by NBC News, Palmer alleged multiple instances of physical abuse along with emotional abuse in a declaration filed on Nov. 9 in a Los Angeles Superior Court. In the declaration, Palmer said she dated Jackson from June 2021 to October 2023 and noted the alleged abuse continued even after they ended their relationship. In the court documents, Palmer also recalled an incident where Jackson entered her home without her consent and attacked her in a scene caught on surveillance video. She included those screenshots in the documents. Darius trespassed into my home, physically attacked me, knocked me over my couch and pinned me down, and stole my phone after I threatened to call the police, she wrote. He was yelling, leaning into me, getting into my face, Palmer added. At that point, he lunged at me, grabbing at my neck and face, knocked me backwards over the couch, stole my phone out of my hands, and then ran out of the house. Palmer said she then ran outside to get her phone back and that was when Jackson nearly hit me with his car. After Palmer filed the court documents on Nov. 9, Jackson posted a photo on X of him holding Leodis. I love you son, he wrote. See you soon. This article was originally published on TODAY.com Warning: This article discusses photos of domestic violence. When Keke Palmer filed on Thursday for a restraining order against her former boyfriend (and her sons father) Darius Jackson after allegedly suffering two years of emotional and physical abuse, she brought receipts. And those receiptsscreenshots of Jackson appearing to strangle and body slam the actress pulled from the security system at her homeprovided enough evidence for Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Wendy L. Wilcox to grant the temporary restraining order request and give Palmer full custody of 8-month old Leodis, according to NBC News. Jackson is not allowed visitation, and a hearing in the case is scheduled for Dec. 5. Read more MichelleTok has received nearly 38K likes for her TikTok that shared four stills Palmer gave to the court. Darius and his brother need to go to hell, she said. That man did WHAT to Keke Palmer?!??? said mspackyetti in a post to her 106K Threads followers. WE RIDE AT DAWN. Lets find this man and beat him up for Keke Palmer, islandgirl_ke wrote via X. AAMusic reviews exclaimed on X, If that dude [has] been putting hands on Keke Palmer then lock his a up!! X user LeeIHaveMercy wanted to know, We pulling up to whoop Keke Palmers baby daddy or what? On IG sadaraharri08 commented on user kekeupdates post of a photo of Keke and her son: Stay safe Keke. And if you need some backup just say the word. Im traumatized by the photos, though not enough to write social media posts calling for Jacksons death. I am also thrilled Palmer received swift justice, but its disturbing she had to produce photos for folks to realize Jacksons July behavior was controlling and problematic. And with 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men in this country having experienced some form of physical violence from an intimate partner, what happens to the folks who dont have security system videos? Wheres our righteous wrath for them? If you or anyone you know is experiencing or being threatened with domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-SAFE. Kendra Lee is a writer based outside Washington, D.C. More from The Root Sign up for The Root's Newsletter. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Click here to read the full article. Officials from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation are investigating the death of an inmate at Kern Valley State Prison as a homicide, the department announced Saturday. According to a CDCR release, two prisoners allegedly attacked another prisoner, identified as 41-year-old Isaac Duran, with an inmate-manufactured weapon at 2:55 p.m. on Oct. 14. Duran sustained multiple stab wounds and was transported to an outside medical center for a higher level of care. He eventually succumbed to his wounds on Nov. 9 while under the care of staff at Kern Medical Center, CDCR said. Duran, who was received from Tulare County on April 17, 2003, had been serving life with the possibility of parole for two counts of first degree attempted murder with enhancement of intentional discharge of a firearm causing great bodily injury, assault with a semiautomatic firearm and street gang activity. Kern Valley State Prison inmate death being investigated as homicide: CDCR While incarcerated, Duran was sentenced in Kings County to serve 12 years and four months for two counts of assault by prisoner with a deadly weapon, three counts of possession/manufacture of a deadly weapon by a prisoner and battery on a non-prisoner. 10 Freeway shut down in downtown L.A. due to massive storage yard fire The two attackers were identified by authorities as Roland C. Corona, 57, and Luis Alvidrez, 33. Corona, who was received from Fresno County on June 4, 2003, is serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole for first degree armed robbery and burglary with enhancement use of a firearm, false imprisonment with enhancement use of a firearm, vehicle theft, receiving stolen property and criminal threat to cause great bodily injury or death as a third striker. He was also handed an additional 12-year sentence for three counts of possession/manufacture of a deadly weapon by a prisoner. Alvidrez was received from San Diego County on June 1, 2017 to serve an 18-year, four month sentence for two counts of second degree armed robbery with enhancement of personal use of a dangerous or deadly weapon as well as two counts of second degree robbery as a second striker. He too was sentenced to additional time while already in prison; Alvidrez was found guilty in Kern County of possession/manufacture of a deadly weapon by a prisoner and assault with a deadly weapon as a second striker. Kern Valley State Prison inmate death being investigated as homicide: CDCR Both suspects have been moved to restricted housing pending investigation into this case, CDCR said. An investigation is being conducted by KVSPs Investigative Services Unit, the Kern County District Attorneys Office and the Kern County Coroner. The Office of the Inspector General was notified, and the Kern County Coroner will determine Durans official cause of death, CDCR said. No other inmates or prison staff were injured. KTLA sister station KGET contributed to this report. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy is considering not running for reelection in 2024. I got the holidays. I will talk to my family about the ideas of what is going forward, and then I will make a decision, McCarthy told CNNs Manu Raju in an interview that aired Sunday. If he does plan to be on the ballot in 2024, McCarthy would have to decide before Californias Dec. 8 filing deadline. I always believe, and you hear me all of the time. You never give up in the process, right? Well, theres so many ways you can do that to make sure youre getting the job done. And Im going to look at all options, McCarthy said Sunday. When pressed about whether or not he was leaning toward running for reelection or leaving the House, McCarthy told Raju: I dont know. POLITICO previously reported that McCarthy was considering forgoing a reelection bid, following his ouster as Speaker, a position he long coveted. But at the time McCarthy denied those reports, and told reporters yes, he did plan on running again. If he were to decide to end his career in Congress, McCarthy's departure would open up the race for his seat in Californias 20th District, and would make him the latest in a line of members who are opting out of reelection bids in 2024. The district is a rarity in California: A safe Republican one. King Charles led a moving Remembrance Day service at the Cenotaph on Sunday as the nation fell silent to honour those who died at war. A two-minute silence took place across the UK at 11am to commemorate the end of the First World War and other conflicts involving British and Commonwealth forces. Wreaths were laid by members of the royal family, senior politicians and dignitaries at the Cenotaph in London, where a major policing operation remained in place after more than 120 arrests were made mostly of far-right counterprotesters as a pro-Palestinian march was held on Armistice Day. Thousands of people braved drizzly weather and descended on Whitehall for the service, with many arriving hours early to get a good spot. The Massed Pipes and Drums played songs such as Rule Britannia in the rain but the showers stopped before Charles led the country in quiet reflection at the Whitehall memorial. Wearing the uniform of the Marshal of the Royal Air Force with greatcoat, poppy and sword, Charles who as sovereign is commander-in-chief of the British armed forces laid a wreath similar to the one produced for King George VI. Prince William and King Charles attend the National Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph on Whitehall in central London (AFP/Getty) The wreath featured 41 open poppy petals mounted on an arrangement of black leaves traditional for sovereigns wreaths of 27in diameter ribbon and bow using the colours from Charless racing silk: scarlet, purple and gold. The Prince of Wales also laid a wreath, as did the Duke of Edinburgh and the Princess Royal. Senior politicians including prime minister Rishi Sunak, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, home secretary Suella Braverman and foreign secretary James Cleverly also laid wreaths. Major Ollie Plunket of The Rifles, equerry to Queen Camilla, laid a wreath on behalf of the Queen, who was watching from a balcony with the Princess of Wales. Prince Edward, Prince William, King Charles and Princess Anne attend the National Service of Remembrance (AFP/Getty) Buckingham Palace said the Queens wreath closely resembled the one produced for the Queen Mother. They were joined in paying tribute by the living former UK prime ministers: Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Sir Tony Blair and Sir John Major. Almost 10,000 veterans and 800 armed forces personnel from all three services were then due to take part in a march-past, and members of the public applauded as they processioned past. Nine D-Day veterans were due to participate in the Remembrance Day service and the oldest, Joe Randall, 100, was due to march with the Spirit of Normandy Trust, a Government spokesperson said. King Charles III walks towards The Cenotaph during the Remembrance Day service (Reuters) Among those marching were nuclear test veterans, who for the first time will wear a medal acknowledging their contribution. After 70 years of waiting for recognition, those exposed to the effects of nuclear bombs during the UKs testing programme were given a medal, depicting an atom surrounded by olive branches, for the Remembrance Sunday service. More than 300 armed forces and civilian organisations were represented, as well as 300 veterans not affiliated with an association who were invited to join for the first time. A statue of the late Queen Elizabeth II was unveiled by King Charles at the Royal Albert Hall (Getty) Edward donned the Royal Wessex Yeomanry uniform for the ceremony, while Anne wore a Royal Navy uniform in the rank of admiral with a greatcoat, cap, sword and poppy. Before the service, City of Westminster street cleaners swept and washed the Whitehall road approaching the Cenotaph, and volunteers handed out hymn sheets to the crowd. Mr Sunak said: The courage and commitment shown by our servicemen and women, both today and throughout the generations that came before them, is humbling and I know many across the country will be honouring their memory today in quiet reflection. Recent events have served as a stark reminder that we cannot take the hard-earned peace we live in for granted, which is why I am honoured to lay a wreath on behalf of the nation in the memory of all those that have lost their lives defending our country and the values we hold so close. I am determined to ensure we never forget the ultimate sacrifice they have made. I have been in EMS (the Emergency Medical Services) a long time. I mean a really long time. Im beginning my 50th year and believe me, the changes I have seen have been lifesaving and dramatic. Gone are the days when someone called for an ambulance and the phone tree was started to find a couple of people available to drive to the ambulance station, respond to the call, swoop up the patient and drive real fast to the hospital and hope that was good enough to have someone survive. Recently in testimony in Harrisburg, Heather Sharar, Executive Director of the Ambulance Association of PA, told legislators, Ambulance transports are more than 'just a ride.' You are receiving a mobile (emergency room). It is not just the gas for the ride to the hospital. It is care. It is medical monitoring, treatment, and observation. It is a lifesaving resource, that unfortunately nobody wants to pay for. In the September issue of a publication from the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors an article appeared: EMS in Crisis, Townships are on the Front Lines to Preserve Local Agencies. The article notes that EMS providers across the commonwealth are sounding the alarm over issues that threaten the service as it currently operates. State regulations, a lack of steady funding stream, and dwindling numbers of volunteers and staff consistently rise to the top of the list. The article cites that the EMS crisis didnt sprout up overnight and theres no simple fix. Residents consider it an essential service and expect trained personnel ready to respond when they call 911. Municipalities are on the front lines in the battle to ensure that EMS remains a community service. The article highlights the two most pressing issues with EMS, no surprise that the same two issues affect virtually every organization: personnel and money. According to a quote from Phillip Beck of East Pennsboro Ambulance service highlights what many of us in EMS have been saying for years: EMS doesnt close. You cant tell your residents, Sorry dont call 9-1-1. We need a break. More from Kulick: Mac & Cheese Fest, Poconos Lights, purse bingo, more set for November Today, attracting young people or those of any age into EMS often see it as a steppingstone into other careers. Often for a resume for medical school, nursing school or many other careers. Hence, the shortage of trained personnel to serve as 911 EMS providers. Today the cost of becoming an EMT is upwards of $1,000 and the cost of the necessary book is $600 more. To become a paramedic, the cost can range from $7,000 to $25,000 and takes at least a years experience as an EMT and then another six or eight months to a year to complete the course then to take the test for certification. The cost alone is one of the reasons that most agencies only have career personnel. The costs associated with ambulance services have skyrocketed. As the article points out, from gloves to gurneys (stretchers), its expensive. An outfitted ambulance can start at $200,000. A service must still pay for insurance, supplies, buildings as well as the personnel. A common misconception is that insurance payments will carry the cost of operations. Ambulance services bill clients and their insurance companies for services, which is the main source of income for EMS. Insurance reimbursements and copays often go unaddressed, according to one EMS leader, but those payments account for a large percentage of their budgets. Every time an ambulance responds to a 911 call, the average cost is $750, (An) Average transport bill is $1,185 or more. (The) Average net amount collected from insurance is 38%. If a patient does not have insurance, or refuses to pay their bill, an EMS agency basically has provided a free service, according to an EMS manager. He also noted Medicare and Medicaid also dont cover much of the cost per ambulance transport. In testimony in Harrisburg before the House Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee, Joe Gerdes, director of government relations for PSATS, said that funding is a challenge. He told the committee, To address funding, new revenue raising options would be helpful and enhance a municipalitys ability to help pay for EMS and other emergency services. For example, PSATS members would like to increase the amount of the ambulance tax they could currently levy under the Second Class Township Code from 0.5 to 1.5 mils. These revenues could only be used to support ambulance companies that service their townships. The article continues to address other issues like mandates on training, staffing and other licensure related issues as well as insurance reimbursements. But the most telling lines were the closing ones. The current EMS crisis only looks to get worse if immediate action is not taken. action that requires all stakeholders to work together to find viable solutions. If not, a call to 9-1-1, rather than being met with 9-1-1 whats your emergency? may be met with silence." Debbie Kulick is an EMT who writes a weekly news column for the Pocono Record. This article originally appeared on Pocono Record: EMS agencies in Pa. need funding, personnel | Kulick Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics told the AP on Nov. 11 he believes Moscow is well prepared for a long war and that the West must keep providing Ukraine with security assistance or else Russia will be emboldened to threaten other countries in the future. It is important to actually fight for international peace, and peace in Europe, because if we stop Russia in Ukraine, then Russia is not going to be able to challenge other countries, he said in New York. Rinkevics suggested Russia is asserting its unexpectedly resilient economy, natural energy resources, and military production capacity for a very long war and intends to wage a campaign of attrition. I think this is very important that he fails, Rinkevics said. He cited the recent role Moscow played in hosting Hamas officials in light of the tensions in the Middle East. Also, I think that Iran is going to be more assertive, he said. Lets also not forget about the whole Asia region, and lets not forget about Taiwan. Read also: Latvia pledges more military aid to Ukraine Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. LITTLE FALLS, Minn. (FOX 9) - Ahead of the seventh anniversary of Terry Brisks unsolved murder, the Morrison County Sheriffs Office announced it's using new technology to retest evidence in the case. Authorities say Brisk was found fatally shot with his own rifle on his familys property near Little Falls, Minnesota, on Nov. 7, 2016. The weapon was missing when Brisk's body was found, but it was later located. Deputies believe Brisk was killed following some type of interaction. Despite the work of investigators, no arrests have been made. However, the sheriffs office announced earlier this week its retesting evidence thanks to new and advanced technology. "Our office, along with the BCA, are able to use new and advanced technology to perform more extensive testing on evidence that was previously collected," the press release read. "This case will not become cold. We will continue to use all of our resources until this case is solved." A $30,000 reward is being offered for information that leads to an arrest and conviction in the case. Anyone with information or a tip about the case can contact the Morrison County Sheriffs Office at 320-632-9233 or submit an anonymous tip to CrimeStoppers here. A 23-year-old man has been arrested and charged with attempted murder after the Leon County Sheriff's Office tended to a woman who was bleeding from stab wounds outside of a residence. Deputies were called in reference to a stabbing on Saturday at about 9:40 a.m. to a residence in the 1600 block of Alshire Court North off Buck Lake Road in northeast Tallahassee. "Upon arrival at the scene, deputies discovered an adult female outside the residence, suffering from multiple stab wounds," an LCSO spokesperson wrote in an emailed news release. "The deputies promptly initiated first aid measures, providing crucial assistance until the arrival of Leon County Emergency Medical Services and the Tallahassee Fire Department." The victim was transported to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. LCSO said the suspect, Brian Gilmore, was apprehended at the scene by deputies after he was also found outside the residence, holding a knife. "Deputies successfully disarmed Gilmore and took him into custody without further incident," an LCSO spokesperson wrote. Gilmore, who was charged with domestic violence - premeditated attempted murder, was transported to the Leon County Detention Facility. This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Deputies in Tallahassee arrest man after woman found with stab wounds China will firmly implement policy pledges of the property market to meet the housing demands of the people and promote high-quality development of the sector, said Ni Hong, minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. Since the beginning of the year, a flurry of supportive measures to shore up China's property sector has been rolled out, including reducing down payment ratios for first-time homebuyers, lowering mortgage rates and easing purchase restrictions for people wanting to buy a second house. "These policy measures have yielded positive impacts on the sector," Ni told Xinhua in an interview. In the first 10 months, combined transaction volume of new and second-hand homes saw an upward trend compared with a year ago, he said. Ni added that China's property sector is in the process of transformation as major changes have taken place in the relationship between supply and demand in the real estate market. In response to the new situation, China's property sector should "adhere to the principle that housing is for living in, not for speculation, and meet the essential housing demands of residents and their need for better living conditions," the minister said. A better living condition, he explained, should be characterized by green, low-carbon, intelligent and safe, enabling people to lead healthy and convenient lives at a low cost. In addition, significant measures will be adopted to support the construction of affordable housing, the renovation of villages in cities and public facility construction, as well as meeting reasonable financing demands of developers, Ni added. "It is particularly important to solve the housing problems of new city dwellers and young people to empower them to strive for a better life," the minister said. Noting that China's property sector has solid support for sustainable development despite challenges in the current transformation period, Ni expressed confidence in high-quality development of the sector as the policy package will gradually pay off. Inconvenient nuclear power facts Climate change has increased the need for carbon-free power generation. The nuclear industry has stepped up the promotion of nuclear power as a carbon-free source of power. It may be true that the actual fission-powered generation of steam is carbon free but this argument leaves out a great deal of the whole picture. The construction, mining, transportation and storage of waste requires a great deal of carbon. The industry is promoting the construction of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) as a modern upgrade. They still have the same problems of high cost, complexity and toxic waste, and take years to build. They are just smaller. Another inconvenient fact is that the United States only has about 10% of the worlds uranium deposits, leaving our country dependent on foreign supplies. Russia is the largest current supplier of enriched uranium. The most inconvenient fact is that nuclear power is by far the most expensive option we have. The partially built Vogtle nuclear power complex in Georgia is costing $35 billion, is $11 billion over budget, is seven years behind schedule AND took 16 years to build. The energy is costing 16 cents per kwh. The waste from nuclear plants is still in temporary storage and must be protected and maintained for many generations. Wind and solar generated energy is currently costing 3 cents per kwh. Wind and solar generators enjoy free fuel and generate no toxic waste. Which would you choose? Bill Justis, Olympia Congress must end the bickering and get to work If and when Congress gets its act together, their first actions will be funding the government. Since it is likely that they will continue bickering until the last minute (Nov. 17), now is the time to tell your representatives and senators what you care about. I am urging U.S. Rep. Strickland and Senators Murray and Cantwell to make eliminating poverty their highest priority, whether they are considering domestic or foreign policies. Eliminating poverty is not impractical or impossible, it is essential. Poverty doesnt just affect the poor, its at the root of many complex problems we face. It destabilizes the world, making it less safe for all of us. A great place for Congress to start is with expanding the Child Tax Credit (CTC). The federal tax system is a powerful, effective financial tool that can immediately reduce child poverty and promote housing stability. We have data that shows the number of children living in poverty was cut in half during the time the expanded CTC was in place (2021), and as soon as it expired, the number more than doubled (2022). Children should not be forced to live in poverty while Congress avoids reality through incessant infighting. Encourage your representatives to work together, across the aisle, to make reducing poverty a priority in the upcoming budget debates. Carol Kraege, Olympia Hamas is a terror organization To those young college and university students who try to glorify Hamas as a righteous freedom organization, open you eyes and ears and use your brains. Yes, there is a definite crisis regarding sovereignty in the Middle East, and, yes, the government of Israel is partially to blame for perpetuating the situation as is the Palestinian leadership. However, Hamas has no regard for anyone not in their organization. They want to control a Palestinian state only to be able to destroy and eliminate the state of Israel and its Jewish population. That is the sole mission of Hamas, and they use terrorism to propagate this aim. Since September 1998, Hamas has been responsible for 618 separate attacks on property and civilians in the Middle East region. See list of attacks and the number of people killed and wounded by each of these attacks on the Global Terrorism Database website and then try to make the case that Hamas is not a terrorist organization. Edmond Mount, Olympia A man sits on rubble as others wander among the debris of buildings targeted by Israeli airstrikes in the northern Gaza Strip on Nov. 1. (Abed Khaled / Associated Press) To the editor: I am the daughter of Holocaust survivors. In the name of all my family lost in World War II: I stand with my people and for the right of Israel to defend itself and survive as a state. I stand with the people of Gaza for their right to a safe, prospering life in an independent state with a government that cares about them. I stand for a humanitarian pause to allow sufficient aid into Gaza. I stand for a cease-fire once all Israeli and international hostages kidnapped in Hamas' murderous Oct. 7 pogrom are released. I stand for the dismantling of the terrorist organization Hamas, currently ruling Gaza, which mandates the eradication of Israel and foments the murder of Jews. I stand for the removal of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cohort, replaced by a centrist Israeli government that will do everything possible to broker peace and a two-state solution with a representative Gazan government that recognizes Israel's right to exist. I stand for peace and goodwill between Muslims and Jews as brothers and sisters. I stand for the courage to hold steadfast hope and an unbreakable vision of peace. Myrna Gawryn, Los Angeles .. To the editor: Gazans in the north were told to flee to the south where airstrikes have continued to kill people who have nowhere to escape to. The Israeli goal of eliminating Hamas has caused more than 10,000 deaths in Gaza, almost half of them children. Israel has refused to consider a cease-fire, though it has agreed to brief "pauses" in military operations. Israel's goal might be unrealistic, considering what happened in Afghanistan with the Taliban, now in power again after 20 years of war intended to eliminate it. Refugees from Afghanistan have sought safety in other lands. The lessons of history are hard to learn when Israeli and U.S. leadership look at short-term results, disregarding the price that innocent Palestinians pay with their lives. Lenore Navarro Dowling, Los Angeles .. To the editor: A cease-fire and the end of occupation are prerequisites for a peaceful future for the Israelis and Palestinians. A prerequisite for a cease-fire is for Hamas to return the hostages it took from Israel on Oct. 7. It costs them nothing to do so. Renouncing its unwavering mission to eliminate the existence of Israel would also help. Neal Sheade, Los Angeles This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Israeli soldiers carry the flag-draped casket of a staff sergeant killed during a ground operation in the Gaza Strip. (Ohad Zwigenberg / Associated Press) To the editor: Robin Abcarian's column, "She got fired for condemning Palestinians. He got fired for blaming Israel. Is that right?" deserves a rebuttal. She decries the effort in Florida to ban Students for Justice in Palestine from state universities by those who are "alleging" that it supports terrorism. No alleging is required. Students for Justice in Palestine proudly stands behind Hamas, recently proclaiming the intentional slaughter of 1,400 in Israel "a historic win for Palestinian resistance." She describes the Israeli military's operation in the Gaza Strip as "retaliation." Was the invasion of Normandy by Allied forces in 1944 a "retaliation" against the Nazis? Or was it an attempt to root out evil? Were the military campaigns to destroy Islamic State a "retaliation" against that group, or rather a costly but vital operation to destroy a jihadist terror organization? She claims that Israel's attempt to defeat Hamas, thus ensuring life and liberty for both Israelis and Palestinians currently suffering under Hamas' reign of terror, is "understandable on a gut level," but the execution is "morally indefensible." What would be morally indefensible is permitting Hamas to survive. Rabbi Adam Kligfeld, Los Angeles .. To the editor: Thanks to Abcarian for her thoughtful column on punishing people who express opinions on either side of the Israel-Hamas war. The recent threats of government officials to throttle free speech bring to mind Charles Slack's book, "Liberty's First Crisis." The book describes how our second president, John Adams, distanced himself from the Sedition Act's creation while fully exploiting it with his secretary of state, Timothy Pickering, doing the dirty work to silence Adams' critics. With the act passed into law, the party in power enjoyed free speech, as the other suffered fines and imprisonment for offensive or critical speech, whether written or spoken, informally or casually. The act, increasingly unpopular but not repealed, fortunately timed out after two years. Thomas Jefferson, soon after his inauguration as president, fully pardoned those imprisoned as a result of the act. Phil Barnes, San Pedro This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Kindergartners line up for class after recess in Pomona in May. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) To the editor: Columnist Robin Abcarian, while touting her own habit of routinely swearing like a sailor, extols her readers on how cute and healthy it is that her live-in, minor niece now emulates her by doing likewise. In support of the alleged health benefits of swearing, Abcarian relies principally on the opinions of a British scientist trained in artificial intelligence and robotics, while contrary viewpoints are essentially dismissed as quaint. I guess this makes sense to those who subscribe to the view that long-established societal norms and expectations should give way if they disrupt an individuals ability to act out as they choose when expressing their feelings and unburdening themselves. I suggest, however, that Abcarian look around at the incivility and violence in the society we now inhabit and ask herself if there might not be a legitimate, contrary view. Russ Swartz, Granada Hills .. To the editor: Abcarian's column reminded me of the day I was on "yard duty" as a preschool teacher. Tricycles where whizzing past me when I heard an angry 3-year-old exclaim at another child, "You cut me off, you SOB!" I walked over to the child and said, "Whoa, you are angry." He replied, "Yeah, hes driving one of those SOBs." Keeping my face straight, I said, "Oh, you mean those SUVs?" To which he said, "Yeah, those big SOBs." As Abcarian points out, using the ability to communicate your feelings rather than resorting to violence is always a plus. At the preschool we reminded the children to use their words, even their angry words. If an occasional swear word popped out, we went with the feeling behind it and encouraged the angriest child to explain why they were so upset If they didnt know all the words yet, we would help. The use of language, even colorful language, is an acquired skill. Genie Saffren, Los Angeles .. To the editor: Abcarian wants us to give a pass to toddlers who use the f-word because, according to things she's read, it's good for them, as it releases stress and gets the point across. Well, isn't that special. Are their future teachers going to feel the same way when they cuss in their classrooms? Are their future employers just not going to notice their language when they go to job interviews? I think Abcarian needs to think this through a little more carefully. Phil Hyman, Van Nuys This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Russian shelling killed a civilian man, 64, and wounded a woman, also 64, in Kherson on the morning of Nov. 12, Roman Mrochko, the city's military administration, reported on the same day. The man was in the yard of his house when he got wounded. He died in the hospital, according to Mrochko. The woman was at home at the time of the attack. She was hospitalized. According to Mrochko, the attack took place in the city's Dniprovskyi District, located along the Dnipro River areas suffering the worst from Russian shelling. A year after Ukraine liberated Kherson on Nov. 11, 2022, Russian forces on the east bank of the Dnipro River continue to heavily shell the southern city, putting the roughly 70,000 remaining civilians at great risk. Over the past day, Russian forces have attacked Kherson Oblast 62 times, killing one and injuring five civilians over the past day, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported earlier in the morning on Nov. 12. Read also: Under deadly attacks, Kherson fights to keep life going 1 year after liberation Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. SAN DIEGO A local organization started getting ready to give disadvantaged children in Tijuana a magical Christmas. On Saturday, volunteers with Renewal Missions, a Christian non-profit, packed up over 180 gift boxes during an event at the Chinese Evangelical Church in Linda Vista. The gift boxes, which are filled with donated items, will be handed out to children in Mexico around the holiday season. According to the organization, that includes orphans, children experiencing homelessness and low-income families in Tijuana. Inside each gift box are toys and games, clumped together based on what items are best for certain ages. The volunteers also packed up essential items, such as toiletries. San Diego Symphony prepares for free Dia de Los Muertos concert in Tijuana Five organizations in Tijuana are partnering with Renewal Missions to distribute the boxes to families and children in need. Renewal Missions Founder David Pat told FOX 5 that he started the annual event several years ago to help orphans in his home town of Shanghai, China. He then expanded it to Tijuana. As he described it, the annual event is about spreading positivity to the less fortunate this holiday season and in the future. This is just a chance for us Christians to show the love of God through churches and organizations, Pat said. We dont want to give them a box and leave, but these organizations are in the communities of Tijuana and they regularly serve them and their families. The gift boxes will be delivered during December. In addition to the gift boxes, Renewal Missions will also be delivering food to those in Tijuana throughout the month. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego. Police officers detaining a man in the road, holding him to the ground, while other officers stand nearby in a line Seven men have been charged over disorder on Armistice Day for offences including inciting racial hatred. The Met Police said 145 people were arrested - the "vast majority" of whom were counter-protesters - and nine officers were injured on Saturday. It condemned violence from right-wing counter-protesters who it says set out to confront the pro-Palestinian march. Investigations into other offences - including antisemitic hate crimes - continue, police said. The pro-Palestinian demonstration - which coincided with Armistice Day - saw some 300,000 people march through central London calling for a Gaza ceasefire. It was the biggest UK rally since the war between Israel and Hamas began on 7 October. Police added while the march itself did not see such physical violence, other serious offences were being investigated. The seven men, aged between 23 and 75, have been charged over offences including possession of weapons, public order, possession of drugs and assault on an emergency worker. Two of those charged live in London, with the others coming from across the UK, including Norfolk, Flintshire, Kent, Manchester and West Lothian. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said those involved in crimes must face the full force of the law, with the "despicable actions of a minority of people" undermining "those who have chosen to express their views peacefully". He added that "EDL [English Defence League] thugs attacking police and trespassing on the Cenotaph" war memorial had disrespected the honour of the UK's armed forces. On Saturday, the Met's Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist said the violence directed towards officers was "extraordinary and deeply concerning", with nine injured after counter-protesters clashed with police. "They arrived early, stating they were there to protect monuments, but some were already intoxicated, aggressive and clearly looking for confrontation," he said. Home Secretary Suella Braverman said on Sunday it was "an outrage" that several officers had been injured, thanking them for "their professionalism in the face of violence and aggression from protesters and counter-protesters". She is currently under pressure after criticising police ahead of the march, claiming they were biased for letting it go ahead. There have been calls for her to be sacked, with some ministers distancing themselves from her comments. This embedded content is not available in your region. Mr Twist said the pro-Palestinian march "did not see the sort of physical violence carried out by the right wing", but "a number of serious offences identified in relation to hate crime and possible support for proscribed organisations" during the protest were being investigated. Police issued five photos of six individuals suspected of hate crimes. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor, who led Saturday's policing operation, said: "We urge anyone who has information about the identity of suspects, or who has footage or photos of further potential offences, to get in touch so we can take the appropriate action." The force has issued an appeal for information regarding videos filmed in Waterloo and Victoria stations showing "unacceptable abuse including antisemitic language, as well as threatening behaviour". Footage shared on social media showed Michael Gove ushered through London's Victoria Station by police officers, as crowds waving Palestinian flags shouted: "Shame on you." On Sunday, the Levelling Up Secretary addressed the incident on X, formerly Twitter, thanking police for their "exemplary work in getting me home safely yesterday". On the pro-Palestinian march, chants of "free Palestine" and "ceasefire now" could be heard as crowds began marching from London's Hyde Park. At one point the march, organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, extended from the Hilton Hotel in Park Lane to the US Embassy in Nine Elms - a distance of roughly 2.5 miles. The Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph, led by the King, passed without incident. Rep. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.) announced on Sunday he plans to resign in February after 19 years, citing frustrations in Congress during a particularly tumultuous year for the chamber. Higgins, who represents New Yorks heavily Democratic 26th Congressional District, cited growing dysfunction. Ive always been a little impatient, and that trait has helped us deliver remarkable progress for this community, Higgins said in a statement. But the pace in Washington, D.C. can be slow and frustrating, especially this year. Therefore, after thoughtful consideration, I have made the difficult decision to leave Congress and explore other ways I can build up and serve Buffalo and Western New York, he continued. Higgins, 64, began his 10th term in office in January 2023. He serves on the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Budget Committee. Higgins is co-chair of the Northern Border Caucus and the Canada-U.S. Inter-Parliamentary Group. He is the co-chair of the Bipartisan Cancer Caucus. He joins a number of other House members who have announced their departure in recent weeks. It was nineteen years ago this month that I was first elected to serve in Congress and doing this work has truly been the honor of a lifetime, he said in the statement. Ive never lingered on Capitol Hill, I go there on a mission to change my community and return home on the first flight each week because being in Western New York, talking to people here, provides an urgent reminder of what I was sent to Washington to do, he added. Higgins made the announcement at a news conference at the Buffalo History Museum, the Associated Press reported. Its just a time for change, and I think this is the time, and, I want to come back to the city and serve this city that I have represented in Washington for the past 19 years. Congress is not the institution that I went to 19 years ago. Its a very different place today, he said, the AP reported. Were spending more time doing less. And the American people arent being served. During the announcement, he reportedly said he had been fielding offers but did not know what he would do next when he departs in February. Local outlets have reported that Higgins is likely to accept a job with the prestigious Buffalos Sheas Performing Arts Center, but his office has not confirmed the reporting. In a statement to The Hill, a spokesperson for Higgins did not respond directly to whether the congressman plans to take a position at the prestigious theater, but said, Today Congressman Higgins announced plans to leave Congress in February. He will have more to say about future plans in the weeks to come. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) issued a statement following the announcement Sunday, calling Higgins a dedicated public servant, who has brought the best of Buffalo to the House Democratic Caucus family. For nearly two decades, Brian Higgins has embodied the role of Buffalos hometown Member of Congress, Jeffries said. In Congress, and in the State Assembly and Buffalo Common Council before that, Brian has been a relentless champion for the citys economic development and prosperity. Brian has left an indelible mark on Buffalos waterfront, biomedical research institutions and revitalized infrastructure. Jeffries added: As a Member of the Committee on Ways and Means and the Budget Committee, Brian has been a staunch defender of Social Security and Medicare and a champion for lowering health care costs for families in Western New York and across the country. During his time in Congress, Brian also served with distinction on the House Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security Committees, representing Americas national security interests abroad and here at home. Updated 6:08 p.m. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. A development of low-cost homes in a village has got the go-ahead despite concerns that the community is getting too big. CKH Developments wants to build 26 houses on the edge of Outwell, near King's Lynn in Norfolk. Outwell Parish Council said the scheme would "put more pressure" on roads, schools and surgeries. The developer says it will "bring significant benefits to the local community and meet an identified need". Outwell is about 12 miles (20km) west of King's Lynn close to the Norfolk / Cambridgeshire border. It has a pub, a school and a fire station but the parish council is worried that it is getting too big. Retired population Responding to the planning application from CKH Developments, the parish council said: "There is already permission for 50 more affordable housing on a site in Isle Road, why should Outwell have to take the majority of affordable housing for the county? "There have been 15 properties already built in the village for this purpose, plus those on a development currently on Wisbech Road." The parish council also said that the access to the development would be via a minor road that currently houses "mainly a retired population". CKH Developments, based in Peterborough, said in its planning application that the houses would be in "a highly sustainable location close to local services and frequent public transport services, thereby reducing reliance on the private car". The scheme now has outline planning permission from King's Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, which means detailed plans will have to be submitted for approval before building work can start. Follow East of England news on Facebook, Instagram and X. Got a story? Email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp 0800 169 1830 A Texas man accused of fatally shooting another man says he did so to protect his dog, police told news outlets. The shooting happened at about 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 10, at a home on Houstons northwest side, the Houston Police Department told KHOU. Investigators say a friend was visiting the dogs owner when the men got into an argument, and the friend started choking the mans dog, KPRC reported. The man shot his friend to stop the attack, killing him, police told the station. Police say the man was waiting at the home when officers arrived and he was taken into custody, WOAI reported. Its not clear why the man attacked the dog, but an investigation is underway, police told the outlet. The Harris County District Attorneys Office will determine what charges, if any, will be brought, KHOU reported. Man harassing people at massage parlor is shot to death, Texas officials say Dog attacks 3 kids during recess after crawling under school fence, Nebraska cops say Deputy executed familys dog after he got lost during storm, Missouri lawsuit says Mom and dad killed in front of teen daughter during shootout at party, Texas cops say An aerial view of Shanghai. [Photo/VCG] The 42nd Session of the UNESCO General Conference in Paris adopted a resolution to establish the UNESCO International Institute for STEM Education (IISTEM) in Shanghai. This marks the first time that a UNESCO Category 1 Institute for science, technology, engineering and mathematics will be located in China. During the session on November 9, representatives from various countries and regions expressed their opinions, setting a new record for the number of members speaking on a single agenda item at the UNESCO General Conference. They commended China's efforts and recognized them as a significant step towards fulfilling the Education 2030 Agenda. Huai Jinpeng, China's education minister and head of the Chinese delegation, said that China would fully cooperate with the secretariat to implement the resolution. He added that the IISTEM is expected to gather together global wisdom and resources, propelling STEM education to new heights and contributing to the achievement of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. UNESCO IISTEM is the 10th Category 1 Institute established by UNESCO globally, and the first of its kind established outside of Europe and the Americas. In the era of the global technology revolution, the IISTEM institute aims to promote inclusive, equitable, relevant and high-quality STEM education for all, from early years to adults. It will also serve as an information exchange center, a network hub, a resource base, and a capacity-building focal point in STEM education. COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa A man was arrested early Friday in the alleged assault of former U.S. Sen. Martha McSally of Arizona, who says she was molested as she jogged along the Missouri River in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Council Bluffs police said in a statement that the 25-year-old suspect from Papillion, Nebraska, was spotted by officers in Omaha, Nebraska, at 3:23 a.m. and arrested. Police said the man will be extradited back to Council Bluffs. You picked the wrong target, McSally wrote of the attacker in a Facebook post. She earlier described the Wednesday morning attack in a video she posted online. A man came up behind me and he engulfed me in a bear hug and he molested and fondled me until I fought him off, she said. I then chased him down. I said a lot of swear words in this moment. I was in a fight, flight or freeze. And I chose to fight. After McSally chased the man into the brush at Tom Hanafan Rivers Edge Park, she called police. She lost sight of the man and he got away, but police said video surveillance and other investigative work led them to the suspect. The former senator, who failed to win reelection in Arizona in 2020, said she was in the Omaha area to deliver a speech about courage Wednesday night. Omaha and Council Bluffs are separated by the Missouri River. The first woman to fly a fighter plane in combat said in the video that she was OK, but that the assault tapped into a nerve of other sexual abuse and assault that Ive been through in the past. McSally disclosed during a 2019 Senate hearing on sexual assault in the military that she had been raped by a superior officer in the Air Force. She didnt report that assault at the time because she didnt trust the system, but she said Wednesday: I took my power back. He tried to take power from me, but I turned it on him and he was running from me instead of the other way around. McSally served in the Air Force from 1988 until 2010 and rose to the rank of colonel before entering politics. She served two terms in the House before narrowly losing a bid to represent Arizona in the Senate against Democrat Kyrsten Sinema. In 2018 she was appointed to replace longtime GOP Sen. John McCain after his death. KANSAS CITY, Mo. The Olathe police department is investigating a fatal stabbing that left one man dead and another wounded. Around 9:10 p.m. Olathe officers were called about an armed disturbance at the 500 block of North Marion Street between the Johnson County Juvenile Justice Center and Fairview Elementary School. Independence PD is looking for a man in connection to a fatal stabbing When officers arrived, they found a 26-year-old man with a serious stab wound. Police tried saving the victims life, but he died at the scene. A 28-year-old man was also stabbed, but still alive and taken to a hospital for treatment. A 22-year-old man was located as the suspect and taken into custody. Police say there is no active threat to the community. This case is under investigation by the Olathe Police Department. Anyone with information on this is asked to call the Olathe Police Department at (913) 971-6363 or the TIPS Hotline at (816) 474-8477. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports. Timothy Banowetz will remain in prison for the 2020 murder of prominent Edwardsville attorney Randy Gori. Earlier this week, a Madison County Circuit Court judge dismissed his motion to withdraw the guilty plea he submitted in October 2021 and vacate his 70-year prison sentence. In his handwritten motion, Banowetz claimed that the guilty plea had resulted from coercion and inadequate representation by his attorney, Public Defender Mary Copeland. He also wrote that Judge Kyle Napp should have recused herself due to political contributions from Gori. At a hearing before Napp on Wednesday, prosecutors with States Attorney Tom Haines office successfully argued that the court had received Banowetzs motion to withdraw his guilty plea too late. We hope this ruling brings an end to this convicted murderers absurd legal gamesmanship, Haine stated in a press release. We are going to continue (to) make every possible effort to ensure this brutal individual serves every day of his 70-year sentence, so fully deserved, so that the family and loved ones of Randy Gori can continue to heal with a sense of closure. According to court documents, Banowetzs motion to withdraw his guilty plea arrived at the Edwardsville courthouse on Dec. 5, 2022. He claimed that he mailed it on Dec. 20, 2021, shortly after his sentencing hearing, from Graham Correctional Center in Hillsboro. Assistant States Attorney Chad Loughrey filed a motion in March to dismiss Banowetzs motion. Loughrey argued that, under an Illinois Supreme Court rule, a defendant has 30 days from his sentencing date to file such a motion, and that Napp notified Banowetz of this deadline in open court. Loughreys motion stated that Illinois Department of Corrections records didnt support Banowetzs claim that he had mailed his motion to withdraw his guilty plea nearly a year earlier. There is no practical explanation how the defendants pleading could have been mailed on December 20, 2021, yet not be received by the Clerk of the Court until December 5, 2022, Loughrey wrote. There is no evidence that the defendant made any inquiry or attempt to determine the status of his pleading at any time after the date he purported to deposit said pleas in the U.S. Mail. At the hearing on Wednesday, Loughrey and Assistant States Attorney Lauren Maricle presented evidence and testimony showing that Banowetzs claim was false, according to Haines news release. Attorney Randy Gori, known for representing clients in asbestos cases and donating large amounts to charity, was found murdered at his rural Edwardsville home on Jan. 4, 2020. His two children had been tied up but not killed. Police found Gori, 47, dead on Saturday night, Jan. 4, 2020, at his rural Edwardsville home after a woman called 911. Two days later, Banowetz was charged with first-degree murder, armed robbery, aggravated unlawful restraint and an offense related to vehicle theft. Banowetz was a St. Louis pharmacy student and, according to prosecutors, he didnt have the money to pay a $10,000 tuition bill. The charges alleged that Banowetz bound the hands of Gori and two children before using a knife to stab Gori, then stole cash and two cellphones and fled in Goris black 2020 Rolls-Royce Cullinan SUV. Prosecutors later reported that Banowetz had done internet research on the Gori family and supplies needed for the crime; that police found him near the home on Sunday morning with $4,000 in cash stolen from the kitchen; that his clothes were stained with Goris blood; and that he inadvertently pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket with a checklist that read: Watch with binoculars from woods, use gun and knife to subdue, zip-tie hands and Duct-tape mouth, have withdraw $4 to $6 million from bank, kill all of them and take zip ties and Duct tape off, burn bodies and house. Banowetz is now incarcerated at Pontiac Correctional Center. Banowetz lived in Wenzville, Missouri, and later St. Louis, but authorities believe he was homeless at the time of his arrest. He had been estranged from his family for months, according to their former attorney. The jury hadnt yet been seated for Banowetzs trial on Oct. 5, 2021, when he suddenly announced that he had decided to accept a prosecution deal and plead guilty to one count of first-degree murder and two counts of armed robbery. The other charges were dropped. Banowetz notified Napp at his sentencing hearing on Dec. 10, 2021, that he was dismissing Copeland, his court-appointed attorney, and wanted to represent himself. He tried to withdraw his guilty plea, claiming he hadnt been provided with certain documents. Napp and Copeland disputed this. Napp sentenced him to 60 years in prison for murder and 10 years for armed robbery. The plea was not made voluntarily and was made because of both coercion and inadequate representation, Banowetz wrote in his motion to withdraw his guilty plea. I was told by my lawyer that I should take the deal because it was what the Gori family wanted. Then Sheriff Lakin, who had accepted a bribe (aka, political contribution) from the family, had me moved out of protective custody into general population. Banowetz went on to maintain that Copeland never showed him discovery (disclosure of evidence) or discussed a defense strategy. Copeland said that her only job was to make sure that my conviction would hold up on appeal, he wrote. When I found out that the judge that would be sentencing me had accepted a $40,000 bribe (political contribution) from Gori, I asked her to file for a change of venue and Copeland refused to even file it for me. Timothy Banowetz, who pleaded guilty in the 2020 stabbing death of Edwardsville attorney Randy Gori, filed this motion in Madison County Circuit Court, asking Judge Kyle Napp to withdraw his guilty plea and vacate his sentence. A man accused of making threats at a Houston-area church was shot and killed in the parking lot, according to Texas officials. Deputies with the Harris County Sheriffs Office responded to Lake Houston Methodist Church at about 9:15 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 12, after receiving a call about a suspicious male, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said during a news briefing streamed on the sheriffs offices Facebook page. According to witnesses, the man approached churchgoers and began making threats against the churchs pastor and saying today was going to be the day, Gonzalez said. The man also said that his mother had some previous involvement with the church, Gonzalez added. When deputies arrived at the scene, the man was gone, according to Gonzalez. The church, or one of its members, alerted another man about what happened and he came to help, bringing a rifle with him, Gonzalez said. The man making threats returned and was driving around the parking lot, Gonzalez said. At some point, he got out of his vehicle and began running toward the armed man, who fired two shots, killing him, according to Gonzalez. There were at least 50 people inside the church when shots rang out, Gonzalez said. Its tragic that these types of things can occur anywhere, any time, he said. Officials have not publicly identified the man. The armed man works with EquuSearch, KTRK reported. EquuSearch is a nonprofit that provides search and recovery services to families of missing persons and law enforcement, according to the groups website. Tim Miller, founder and director of the organization, told the outlet that the man was there for the protection of the people at the church. Hes a great member. Hes dedicated. Hes done wonderful work. Hes always there for people out there with missing loved ones, Miller said, according to the outlet. An investigation is underway, Gonzalez said. Man harassing people at massage parlor is shot to death, Texas officials say Dog attacks 3 kids during recess after crawling under school fence, Nebraska cops say Dad fatally shot in front of daughters after intervening in teen brawl, Texas cops say Historical landmarks can be victims of wire fraud, too. The Missouri Institute of Natural Science a museum and home to one of the oldest caves in North America lost nearly $80,000 after police said a man hacked into its bank account. He was also able to apply for multiple COVID relief loans with that banking information under fake business names, according to Greene County investigators. He received more than $38,000 in those funds. Daniel T. Pomeroy, 42, was ultimately tracked down and arrested before pleading guilty this week to two counts of wire fraud. His criminal history includes forgery, car theft and drug charges. Scenes from the dedication ceremony of Riverbluff Cave as a historical site at the Missouri Institute of Natural Science on Thursday, July 13, 2023. Pomeroy has no affiliation or ties to the museum, according to museum director Matt Forir. Forir told the News-Leader on Friday that Pomeroy was somehow able to get the museum's Simmons Bank information in 2021 before the man's spree of illegal financial activity. A volunteer staff member discovered the mysterious withdrawals that happened over the course of three months. Many of the withdrawals started out small and unnoticed, Forir said, until the museum was sent an alert after a large withdrawal. "We were like 'Who is this Pomeroy guy?'" Forir said. "I'm glad it's over and that he got caught. The museum was refunded its money, but Forir said the incident caused a lot of problems. "It was like watching someone take your credit card and go from store to store," he said. Earlier this year, Riverbluff Cave located at the Missouri Institute of Natural Science was designated as a Greene County Historical Site. This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Man who stole Missouri Institute of Natural Science funds pleads guilty A man was shot and killed at a house party early Sunday morning in west Phoenix, according to the Phoenix Police Department. Sunday morning, police responded to reports of a large party at a house near Camelback Road and 55th Avenue. When police arrived at the house, they found hundreds of people running away from the location, as well as Carlos Vences, 23, with gunshot wounds, police said in a news release. Vences was then taken to a hospital before being pronounced dead from his injuries, police said in the release. Detectives continued to investigate the incident, interviewing dozens of witnesses. Phoenix police said that investigators believe other witnesses at the party have information on what led up to the fatal shooting and may know who's responsible. Police advised anyone with information regarding the identification of the suspect that shot and killed Vences to call as a silent witness at 480-Witness or 480-Testigo. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Man shot, killed at party near Camelback Road and 55th Avenue Mansfield Police are investigating a rash of car breaks and car thefts in town, after officers arrested three Brockton men when a resident called police early Sunday to report home video surveillance had captured someone entering their vehicle in their driveway. The three men, who were not identified by police on Sunday, are ages 19, 21 and 22 and all of Brockton, police said. They are in custody and facing charges including nighttime breaking and entering into a vehicle, receiving stolen property, conspiracy, and resisting arrest. The men are scheduled to be arraigned in Attleboro District Court on Monday. Detectives are currently following up on additional reports from different areas of town, police said in a Facebook post on Sunday. At approximately 3:41 a.m. Sunday, officers responded to Fieldstone Drive after receiving a 911 call from a resident reporting watching home video surveillance of a person entering the callers vehicle in their driveway. The suspect ran off, but the caller alerted responding officers to a white SUV parked in the street. When officers arrived, they learned the involved suspicious vehicle was stolen out of Weymouth, police said. A short time later, a man appeared and accessed the vehicle, police said. Officers detained the man while additional officers, assisted by state police and a state police K9 unit, began searching a wooded area near Fieldstone and Branch streets, after hearing the sounds of other suspects running away. Three additional suspects were found in that area. Police said one was taken into custody and the others fled deeper into the woods, police said. At approximately 6:15 a.m., officers saw one of the suspects coming out of the woods on Ware Street, just south of Kevins Way. They chased the suspect, who was taken into custody behind the Jordan/Jackson School. Officers later found a gun that had been discarded by the suspect in the wood line nearby, police said. As residents woke up and began their Sunday mornings, police received more calls reporting more breaking and entering into vehicles and stolen cars overnight, police said. Police are investigating those reports from residents in other areas of town. Police said one suspect, believed to have fled the area, remains unidentified. Police are asking any homeowners who live on the following streets who may have captured the suspects on their home surveillance cameras to call police: - Fieldstone Drive neighborhood including Deer Path Lane, Deer Path Circle, and Gloria Drive; - Ware Street between Short Street and Kevins Way; - Branch Street in the area of Fieldstone Drive; - Newell Lane; - Marshall Avenue neighborhood including Aspen and Denwood streets and Smiley Avenue. Anyone with home surveillance video that may help investigators is urged to contact Detective Lattanzio at alattanzio@mansfieldma.com or by calling 508-261-7356. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW A woman who has died days after a crash which also killed her husband has been described as loving and caring. Ciera Grimley, a mother-of-three, died on Saturday, a week after the four-vehicle collision near Markethill, County Armagh, last weekend. Her husband Patrick died at the scene. The couple, from Madden in County Armagh, had been returning home from Patrick's 40th birthday party when the crash happened. Another victim, Ciara McElvanna, was buried on Saturday morning. A number of other people suffered injuries after the crash on the Gosford Road at 01:20 GMT on 4 November. Nine emergency ambulance crews were deployed to the scene and the injured were taken to Craigavon Area Hospital and the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast. Two men remain in hospital. Det Sgt McIvor of the Police Service of Northern Ireland's Collision Investigation Unit said: "A full investigation into the circumstances surrounding the collision is ongoing and officers are asking anyone who witnessed it to get in touch." 'Devoted mummy' St Patrick's Primary School in Armagh, where Mrs Grimley previously worked as a classroom assistant, said "her kind nature and caring instincts were on show each and every day". The school added she had a strong bond with the pupils and she left a "lasting impression on those who worked closest with her". Writing on social media, Paddy Woods from Madden Raparees GAA club, where Patrick Grimley was the secretary, described Ciera as a "loving, caring and supportive wife to Patrick". "Ciera, along with Patrick, spent many evenings supporting their children in their many hobbies and activities," he said. "Their passion for the GAA seen them follow club and county throughout Ireland, creating precious memories in the process. "Our thoughts remain with all those within our community recovering at this time," he continued. "Also, for all those impacted by recent events, can we ask you to continue to keep them in your thoughts and prayers in the days, weeks and months ahead. Mr Grimley, a former GAA player, has previously been his club's public relations officer. Speaking at the time of his death, Mr Woods told BBC News NI the Grimley family were "steeped in GAA" and his loss would be felt throughout the Madden area. Ciara McElvanna 44, a married mother-of-four, was from Armagh. She died at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast on Wednesday. Her funeral mass was held at St Joseph's Church in Madden on Saturday morning. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) on Sunday urged Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) against launching a third-party presidential bid, arguing it may mar his legacy, while digging into No Labels, the centrist party that has flirted with putting Manchin on a potential third-party ticket. Pressed by ABC Newss This Week co-anchor Jonathan Karl over his message to Manchin, Moore responded, My message to Joe Manchin is, I thank him for his service. I think hes had a career of distinguished service both as a governor, [and as a] senator. I would urge him not to mar his legacy by getting involved in something so foolish. Manchin, 76, announced last week he will not seek reelection to the Senate in 2024, refueling speculation over a third-party presidential bid after he floated the idea earlier this year with No Labels, a political group pushing for a third-party ticket. Moore argued No Labels literally has no plan, has no path [and] has no policy platform. They dont even have a candidate, Moore said. What No Labels is, its a configuration made up of dark money that wont disclose its donors but is frankly just going to simply hand an election off by being able to not actually come up with a solution but just continuing to throw wood into this flame of disillusionment. It is not real. The Hill reached out to No Labels and Manchins office for comment. Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), who serves as the national co-chairman of No Labels, has said the group will very likely launch a third-party alternative if former President Trump and President Biden win the nominations for their parties. Karl brought up concerns over whether a No Labels or other third-party candidate could threaten Bidens chances of reelection, pointing to Jill Steins surprise Green Party bid announced last week, along with independent third-party bids from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornell West. Asked if he thinks these candidates will cost Biden the election, Moore said, No. Because I think what President Biden is going to continue to show is that results do matter. You know, its one thing to say were going to rail against the system, and its another thing to actually work to make systems better. And thats what I think President Biden has continued to show. Moore went on to praise Bidens economic growth and economic upliftment, maintaining that the incumbent is bringing real, productive results for the country. And so, I think all the other things will just sound like noise, while President Bidens results will sound like actually what they are: real, productive momentum for the people of this country, Moore said. The fight for 2024, however, has shown the potential race between Biden and Trump to be close. Recent polls from The New York Times, CNN, CBS News and Emerson College have shown Trump leading Biden in a hypothetical 2024 match-up both in key swing states and at the national level. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said Sunday that Republicans have no choice but to back a short-term funding solution before a potential government shutdown. In an interview on CBS Newss Face the Nation, McCaul stressed the importance of passing aid for foreign allies, which will not be feasible if the government shuts down. Were gonna have to. I mean, theres no choice here, McCaul said when asked whether Republicans can pass the continuing resolution (CR) proposal that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) unveiled Saturday. The world is on fire from where I sit. It is too urgent. We cant sit back and do nothing, McCaul added. And talking to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] they needed this yesterday, in his words. Ukraine needed it yesterday. The border for [certain] needed it yesterday. We know that [Chinese President Xi Jinping] is threatening Taiwan in the Pacific. McCaul, who is returning from Israel with a bipartisan congressional delegation Sunday, said he predicts the Senate will come up with an aid package and that they would send it to the House after Thanksgiving. House Republicans passed an Israel supplemental aid bill earlier this month, which included cuts to one of Democrats most-valued accomplishments: funding for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he would not take the bill up in the Senate, and President Biden threatened to veto it. Democrats have pointed to data showing that GOP-proposed cuts to IRS funding would only add to the deficit since fewer agents would be able to go after wealthy Americans avoiding taxes. Republicans pointed to this as a pay-for necessary to offset spending to Israel. McCaul called for Congress to stop playing political games, noting the urgency of the matter. Our aid to Israel is urgent, and time is of the essence. We have to deliver this package. Now, I know that we have offsets. And thats fair. But I dont think we can play political games with this, to support our ally, McCaul said. Because if they fail, and we fail, it would have a very bad effect across the Middle East into Ukraine, thats vitally important as well. So is Taiwan, and so is the last line of defense, the Southern border. So really, if you think about all these threats, [they] are really tied together. As for whether all national security and foreign aid will be packaged together, he said, All that has yet to be figured out. But he added, I do know that we have to address this because time is of the essence on all parts. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. RNC chair Ronna McDaniel again defended her record and took a shot at GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy on Sunday, after the conservative entrepreneur called on the party to oust McDaniel and appoint South Carolina GOP Chair Drew McKissick as the partys interim leader. Last I checked I wasn't running for president. You know, he's at 4%. He's looking for headlines, McDaniel said Sunday on CNNs State of the Union. Many within the party, complain of Ronna Romney McDaniels leadership, or lack thereof, but they concede that there is not a successor, Ramaswamy posted on X (formerly Twitter) Saturday evening. Its time to stop the culture of surrender and losing: Appoint RNC Co-Chair and South Carolina GOP Chairman @DrewMcKissick as the *interim* RNC Chairman, Ramaswamy wrote. In response Sunday, McDaniel slammed Ramaswamy, and other cynics within the the party, for focusing their attacks on other Republicans, instead of taking aim at Democrats. This circular firing squad, this attacking other Republicans like we saw with Kevin McCarthy, like we've been seeing over and over again, it is hurting us, McDaniel said. Ramaswamys Saturday-evening social media campaign against McDaniel was the latest blow in a sparring match he began with McDaniel on the Republican primary debate stage last week. Weve become a party of losers at the end of the day, Ramaswamy said during Wednesdays debate. Since Ronna McDaniel took over as chairwoman of the RNC in 2017, we have lost 2018, 2020, 2022, no red wave, that never came. We got trounced last night in 2023, he added, offering to cede the rest of his time on stage to her if she would be willing to come on stage and resign. Two people are now in the hospital after being shot in Uptown on Saturday night, according to MEDIC. On Sunday morning, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department shared new information about the shooting. The department says the incident happened around 11 p.m. on Saturday night after calls were made for an assault with a deadly weapon. At the scene, officers found two juveniles with gunshot wounds. They were both taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. Police say one juvenile suspect is in custody and another suspect they believe to be involved in the shooting is still at large. ALSO READ: 18-year-old killed in Troutman shooting A picture from a viewers Twitter account shows a heavy police presence blocking the majority of the road. The cause of the shooting and the identities of those involved are still unknown. Channel 9 veteran crime reporter, Glenn Counts, was able to speak with residents who live near the park where the shooting happened. Aliyssa Baligod says she was able to hear the shots from her 19th-floor apartment. Suddenly I heard gunshots, it seemed like it was from outside, I thought it was fireworks at first I just let it be, I heard screaming running around and suddenly sirens, Baligod said, I looked out on my Balcony and there were people running from all directions. Another resident, Matthew Hamorick, told Counts he was walking home when the shots rang out, ducking for cover was one of the many thoughts that raced through his head. Yeah that was something that definitely ran through my mind cause anytime you hear something like that anyone would be scared for their life, Hamorick said. Many locals say one of the most disappointing facts of the incident is not the senseless violence, but the age of those involved. So far, everyone CMPD has identified in the case is under the age of 18. First of all how do kids even get access to guns these days, its crazy, Baligod said. Its heartbreaking man, cause you want good for the kids these days, Hamorick said. This is a developing story; check back at wsoctv.com for updates. (WATCH BELOW: Two hurt after being hit by car in Midtown Charlotte, MEDIC says) SAN DIEGO As part of Fleet Week and Veterans Day weekend, a group of local veterans set up a memorial to honor their fallen sisters and brothers. San Diego Veterans for Peace placed 288 makeshift headstones along the harbor waterfront, in what they are calling the Hometown Arlington West Memorial. White headstones represent those who died in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. There are also black headstones to honor service members who died by suicide. How to enjoy Fleet Week San Diego on Veterans Day weekend Visitors can see the display on the front lawn of the USS Midway Museum through the weekend. Organizers encourage those who visit to read the names and see the faces of those service members who made the ultimate sacrifice. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego. The reference to coconuts is used as a slur against non-white people to insinuate they are betraying their native culture and pandering to white opinion - Metropolitan Police Handout Metropolitan Police officers are searching for Armistice Day protesters including a woman who mocked the Prime Minister as a coconut and far-Right hooligans who hurled racist abuse at a railway station. In a public appeal on X, formerly known as Twitter, the Met Police and British Transport Police (BTP) shared images of individuals they are seeking in relation to hate crimes following Saturdays pro-Palestinian demonstration. One image shared by the Met showed a smiling woman holding a poster of a palm tree with cut-outs of the faces of the Prime Minister and Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, among coconuts on a beach. The reference to coconuts is used as a slur against non-white people to insinuate that they are betraying their native culture and pandering to white opinion. The BTP also released an image containing headshots of four white men seen hurling racist slurs and behaving aggressively at Waterloo Station on Armistice Day. It appealed for help in identifying the men following a racially aggravated altercation. Four men who police want to identify following an incident at Waterloo Station - BTP Police arrested 145 people across London on Armistice Day as clashes broke out between the far-Right, pro-Palestinian protesters and police. Speaking on his first Remembrance Sunday as Defence Secretary, Grant Shapps told The Telegraph: Right across the country, our Armed Forces, veterans and local communities united to commemorate the fallen and remind the world that Britain is a nation of heroes, not hate. Remembrance weekend should solely be about paying tribute to their outstanding service and extraordinary sacrifice, especially remembering those that have given their today for our tomorrow. Shamefully, extremist thugs and racist demonstrators tried to distract us from this moment of national reflection. The actions we have seen from these troublemakers are deplorable and must be met with the full force of the law. On Sunday, the Met Police confirmed that it had charged seven men with offences including assault and possession of an offensive weapon following the Armistice Day violence. The seven will appear before Westminster magistrates in the coming days and weeks. It came after Mrs Braverman accused the Met of playing favourites with protesters after it decided not to seek a ban on the pro-Palestinian march on Armistice Day. Included in the polices thread on X was a photograph of a woman holding a placard with the words No British politician should be a friend of Israel. In a thread on X, the force said it was looking to identify individuals in the photos they were sharing on the platform Another image showed two young men with their faces covered, except for their eyes. Both had a green piece of ribbon tied around the top of the material covering their heads. The police said they were investigating the people in this photo in relation to a hate crime. Police say they are 'investigating the people in this photo in relation to a hate crime' A further image showed a man in a black cap among Pro-Palestinian supporters, speaking into a megaphone. The person in the photo is also being investigated in relation to a hate crime, police said. The man speaking into the microphone is also being investigated by police The final image showed the side profile of a man with a red and white scarf around his neck, who is also being investigated in relation to a hate crime on Saturday. Police are investigating the man in the red and white scarf for his involvement in a hate crime In another post, BTP asked whether anyone recognised a woman involved in an anti-Semitic hate crime at Victoria Station on Saturday. In a video shared by the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, a woman is seen walking through the station, pausing to shout killers and then death to all Jews, before walking away. Mr Shapps added: This weekend has only further entrenched my determination to ensure the service and sacrifice of every member of our Armed Forces continues to not only be remembered but also respected and valued every day of the year. 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. Christmas came early for Miamis flagship art museum. The Perez Art Museum Miami received a $25 million donation from Jorge Perez, the museums namesake, art collector and real estate developer. The donation was announced Saturday night during PAMMs Art of the Party gala, the museums biggest annual fundraiser where Perez and his wife Darlene were honored. The museum also announced the recipient of the Perez Prize. Chrisopher Cozier, a Trinidadian-based writer, curator and artist who focuses on the Caribbean, won the $50,000 unrestricted award. Franklin Sirmans, the PAMM director, thanked Perez for his leadership and philanthropy in Miamis arts community. Its hard to imagine any local arts organization that hasnt benefited from the Perez familys contributions, Sirmans said. Franklin Sirmans, Director, Perez Art Museum Miami Its a rare person to have a commitment to an institution and to a place as much as he has, Sirmans said. Hes also somebody whos just been incredibly passionate about this institution for almost 30 years and passionate about art and artists and the power of art in our community. The gift, which will go into PAMMs endowment, will allow us to plan for the future, Sirmans said. The donation can help grow the museums art collection, expand its educational outreach and even prepare its building for the effects of climate change. It transforms the endowment and transforms the institution once again, he said. Its going to do a lot. Its going to do a little bit of everything. Perez said it is extremely important to make sure the museum has enough funding for a rainy day, especially when the economy can be unpredictable. Real estate developer and arts patron, Jorge Perez An endowment allows you to weather the storms, the times that are even tougher than it typically is for arts institutions to survive and thrive, he said. He hopes his contribution will inspire others to support PAMM as well. Were a very young city, and if people dont step up like theyve done in New York and San Francisco and Chicago, then we wont have great cultural institutions, he said. So I always hope that the gifts that I do are catalysts for other people making contributions to the art world. This story was produced with financial support from The Perez Family Foundation, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work. Russia is actively manufacturing disinformation about the Middle East as tensions continue to soar following Israels military campaign, according to Microsoft vice chair and president Brad Smith, the Times of Israel reported. We are getting very good at identifying a Russian campaign, like when they tried to tell people not to get the COVID vaccine, he said. Tech giants are increasingly using artificial intelligence systems to combat disinformation activities by state actors. Social media narratives in the Israel-Hamas conflict are extremely divisive in western societies with both sides experiencing frustration. Theres something happening in terms of the reaction to this crisis that is unlike anything I can remember in recent years, maybe even dating back to the Gulf War and other episodes of U.S. policy in the Middle East, said Suzanne Maloney, a director at the Brookings Institution. Read also: Ambassador: Ukrainian killed in Gaza Strip, 18 citizens confirmed killed in Israel Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Some social media users say tech platforms are unfairly removing pro-Palestinian content. Images of watermelons have become code for pro-Palestinian activism on Instagram and TikTok. Watermelons are widely grown in Gaza and the West Bank and share the colors of the Palestinian flag. As social media platforms double down on their content moderation policies to control the flood of misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war , some users claim these platforms are also censoring innocent pro-Palestinian content, including comments and accounts that feature the Palestinian flag. Instagram users, for example, reported that the platform was hiding comments containing the Palestinian flag emoji and automatically inserting the word "terrorist" into translations of certain profiles that contained the emoji, according to a report from Palestinian digital rights nonprofit 7amleh. Instagram's parent company, Meta, did not immediately respond to Insider's request for a comment, but a Meta spokesperson told The Intercept that the company had no policies specific to the Palestinian flag emoji, and was hiding comments that contained the emoji in certain "offensive" contexts that violated its rules. As a result, social media users across major platforms from Instagram to TikTok are resorting to using watermelons in place of the Palestinian flag or as a stand-in for words like "Palestine" or "Gaza" to express solidarity with Palestinians and thwart what they say is unreasonable moderation. Creators are even using images of watermelons to mobilize aid for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza , where almost 11,000 people have been killed in Israel's offensive, launched after the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 killed about 1,200 Israelis. Augmented reality artist Jourdan Louise Johnson last week released "Filter for Good I," a TikTok filter featuring an image of a watermelon that users can trace with their fingers across the screen. Johnson created the filter through TikTok's Effect Creator Rewards a program allowing creators to monetize their effects and said she'll donate proceeds to charities providing aid in Gaza. It has now been used in almost 4 million posts on TikTok and has brought in $7,100 so far, Johnson told Insider in direct message on TikTok. How watermelons became a symbol of Palestinian resistance Watermelons seem to have emerged as a symbol of Palestinian resistance after the Six-Day War in 1967 when Israel seized control of the West Bank and Gaza and banned the public display of the Palestinian flag in those territories. Watermelons are widely cultivated in Gaza and the West Bank, but it's the fruit's colors that seem to have inspired it as code for Palestinian resistance. Watermelons have the same colors as the Palestinian flag: red, green, and black. Some historical accounts say that Palestinians took to slicing fresh watermelon to skirt the ban on the Palestinian flag. In periods of "heightened tension," Palestinians would leave watermelon slices on windowsills or carry them through the streets, according to the Times of Malta. When, in the 1990s, the Oslo Accords a series of interim peace agreements that resulted in limited self-governance for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza were signed, Israel lifted the ban on the Palestinian flag. The fruit resurfaced as a prominent symbol of resistance during the Second Intifada a major Palestinian uprising against Israel that occurred between 2000 and 2005 when "young militants sliced watermelons in half and waved them around," according to The Age. Palestinian artists have also adopted the watermelon in their work. The Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour, now in his late seventies, said he first got the idea to paint watermelons from an Israeli officer who had warned him to stop creating artwork with the Palestinian flag. "'Even if you paint a watermelon, it will be confiscated," the officer reportedly told Mansour, according to The National. Years later, when the artist Khaled Hourani heard this story, he created a design for a "Watermelon Flag" for the Subjective Atlas of Palestine in 2007. The image has since served as an inspiration for artists across social media. The watermelon emoji, meanwhile, gained traction as a symbol of protest on social media in 2021 after another outbreak of violence between Israel and Hamas. At the time, pro-Palestinian activists said social media platforms were restricting pro-Palestinian content and deleting accounts. An independent investigation by Human Rights Watch found that Facebook had wrongfully removed or censored numerous posts. Some activists staged a coordinated effort to drop Facebook's ratings for censoring hashtags like #FreePalestine or #GazaUnderAttack. The watermelon is not the only workaround to social media algorithms that have surfaced over the past few weeks. Social media users have also resorted to alternative spellings of words like "Palestinians" (like shifting it to P@lestinians or P*les+in1ans) to evade algorithmic detection. TikTok did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Read the original article on Business Insider Over the past five months since arriving in Chicago, Andrea Carolina Sevillas parents have been unable to enroll her in school even though the reason they left everything behind in their native Venezuela was for her to have access to better education. In Venezuela, she said, she was lucky she could even attend school. Many other teenagers start working at an early age to help out their families, who often face extreme poverty. But she did not have the same luck in the city that she once dreamed of visiting. The family went from sleeping on the floor of a police station, to a crowded shelter, to a house on the Far South Side, and then back to the floor of the police station after her stepfather Michael Castejon, 39, couldnt afford the rent. He could not find a job that paid enough without a work permit, he said. On Nov. 3, they set out to go back to Texas. And from there, they would go to Venezuela, the country they fled to seek asylum in the United States. Theyre among the countless number of migrants who have chosen to leave Chicago in recent weeks in their search for a better life. Theyre looking for warmer weather, more resources or to reunite with friends and family in other places. One family of five left for Detroit because another migrant told them there was work there. One man went back to Texas, where he will join his cousins after trying his luck in Chicago. In the past month, at least 40 people, including Sevillas family, have left Chicago from the 1st District station on the Near South Side with the help of Catholic Charities of Chicago. The American Dream doesnt exist anymore, said Castejon as he laid on a blanket on the bare floor of the station the afternoon before they left. Theres nothing here for us, he added. Migrants said theyre realizing the city is at a breaking point. Not only is there no more space in shelters, they also acknowledge that some residents in Chicago oppose the opening of more shelters for them. Castejon said that despite the dangerous trek to get here often begging for money and sleeping in the streets to cross several borders the journey had not been worth it. His attempts to settle in the city failed. He said he never felt comfortable in a shelter, and that the hot meals, stipends and good jobs hed heard about from other migrants never materialized. The father didnt consider that once in the country, the family wouldnt be granted asylum immediately and or even get a work permit while they wait. It could have been misinformation, he said. Or that the benefits that those who arrived in the city before him, are no longer available because of the amount of people now here. But even after hearing that the temporary protected status (TPS) program was expanded and the process to get job permits could be accelerated, he decided he was exhausted and chose not to wait. We didnt know things would be this hard, he said. I thought the process was faster. More than 2,000 people have gotten monetary aid from the state through Catholic Charities to relocate to other states with family and friends, according to Katie Bredemann, a spokesperson with Catholic Charities of Chicago. The program has been part of their effort to help ease the humanitarian crisis in Chicago and offer the migrants an opportunity to reunite with families or reach the city they intended to go to before being sent to Chicago. The state of Illinois determines who is eligible for relocation to other states, then Catholic Charities assists in helping to help make the travel arrangements, Bredemann said in an email. But while some migrants are choosing to leave, many more still arrive every week. In what could be considered a revolving door for taxpayers, for example, Catholic Charities of Chicago is using Illinois taxpayer money to transport the migrants who want to return to Texas or to other states while simultaneously the Catholic Charities of San Antonio and the city of Denver are using federal taxpayer money to send new migrants to Chicago. As of Friday, there were 20, 700 migrants who have arrived in Chicago since August 2022 when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began sending migrants to sanctuary cities such as Chicago, in part to protest federal immigration policies. Castejon said Chicago wasnt what they expected when they arrived in June. But the father was determined to succeed, he said. The family was first taken to the 1st District police station where they stayed for a couple weeks before getting transferred to Wright College with hundreds of other asylum-seekers. The family lived there for about a month before moving into a house with another migrant who was renting an apartment through a city voucher program that offers up to $15,000 for up to six months of rental assistance. But when rental assistance vanished, neither could afford rent, so they were once again homeless, the father said. They eventually met someone who offered to rent them an apartment for $750. They managed to afford it because Castejon had found a job in construction, where he was getting paid in cash. But the work was heavy and the pay was not enough, he said, so he left. Unable to pay rent, the family returned to the 1st District station, where they waited about two weeks before packing their belongings, mostly collected through donations, and headed back to Venezuela. As the patriarch, he said he felt powerless not being able to provide for his wife and daughter, he said. How many more months of living in the streets will it take? No, no more. Its better that I leave. At least I have my mother back home, he said angrily. He said the family decided to seek asylum in the United States because of the extreme poverty in which they were living in Venezuelas authoritarian regime. But the trip was not worth it, he said. We just want to be home, he said. If were going to be sleeping in the streets here, wed rather be sleeping in the streets over there. The first few colder days influenced the familys decision to contact staff at Catholic Charities, pressing for plane tickets that would put them closer to a border town to find a way back home. When they got the news that they had been approved and had their tickets in hand, Castejon felt relieved, he said. The feeling of disappointment and impotency that Castejon felt is shared by many of the migrants, said Brayan Lozano, head of the volunteer group of the Police Station Response Team at the 1st District station. As an asylum-seeker himself, Lozano understands firsthand the experience the migrants go through: the environment theyve escaped from their native countries and their expectations for the United States, which may have been influenced by social media and word-of-mouth from the first group of migrants who arrived in Chicago. There may have been more resources when they first came in August 2022, he said. Even though many, including Castejons family, are leaving, others still hope to eventually find shelter in hotel rooms, get access to public services and cash assistance or live out the American Dream. A proposed ballot question asking Chicagoans whether the city should keep its designation as a sanctuary city has roiled the City Council in recent weeks and immigrant- and Black-led groups gathered Thursday morning across the street from City Hall to urge solidarity, not division in responding to the migrant crisis. Like many people, were just here for a better life. Im grateful to God and Im just following a dream to be able to offer more to my family, said Ana, a Venezuelan teacher who came to Chicago in September because she could not afford to live on the pay she was making at home. The teacher spoke in Spanish through a translator. I am here to continue to advocate for Chicago to be a sanctuary city, for there to be resources for everyone, for us immigrants, to continue to receive the help that we deserve, because everyone deserves a sun to shine on them, she said. Lozano said there are several migrants who transitioned from sheltering in suburban hotel rooms into apartments with the help of the city and state resettlement program, received assistance to file their asylum cases, found jobs working under the table, like many people who live in the country without authorization do, and are settling in the city. But the resources have been exhausted for more recent arrivals and the resettlement program has been trumped by the number of migrants who are arriving. Lozano said that there is a lot of misinformation flowing within the asylum-seeking community about what is actually happening in Chicago. As snow and rain have come with the colder temperatures, the reality for migrants stuck sleeping outside of police stations has grown dire. Mattresses are wet, the smell inside tents is sticky, humid and pungent. They eat standing up, rubbing their hands together to keep warm. The word of the situation in Chicago is beginning to spread, Lozano said. Jose Nauh, 22, decided to give Texas another shot and returned earlier this month after sleeping in a police station in Chicago for more than two weeks. He came to Chicago even though he has family in Houston because the ticket was free, he said, and he wanted to see what the buzz was all about. Like Castrejon, he heard there was shelter, food and other public benefits. Thats not true, he said. He grabbed a pink backpack, waved goodbye to Lozano, and rushed into a white car that took him to OHare International Airport to board a plane back south. That same day Diana Vera, her three children and daughter-in law boarded a bus to Detroit, hoping that a cousin would take them in once they arrived. We heard that there are a lot of jobs over there even if you dont have a permit, the mother said as she brushed her hair while sitting on a blanket on the floor of the police station that had been their home for nearly a month. Vera also was discouraged from staying after hearing from migrants at city shelters that the conditions are overwhelmed with people, the food is cold and there are no real beds. It sounds worse than sleeping at the police station, she said. Chicago Tribunes Nell Salzman and A.D. Quig contributed. larodriguez@chicagotribune.com Russian forces have increased airstrikes in the south, including with aerial guided bombs, General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, the commander of the Tavria Group fighting on the southern front lines, reported on Nov. 12. Tarnavskyi said the military recorded 30 Russian airstrikes, 712 artillery barrages, and 48 combats between Ukrainian and Russian troops in the area over the past day. This comes as Ukrainian forces continue their counteroffensive in the Melitopol direction. Meanwhile, the commander said Ukrainian artillery shelled Russian positions over 1,000 times. Russia lost 572 troops over the past day along the southeastern axes, Tarnavskyi said. He did not specify whether this number pertains to soldiers killed or both killed and wounded. Nonetheless, the general reported that Russia lost 32 pieces of military hardware, including two tanks, 14 armored fighting vehicles, three artillery systems, seven drones, and two anti-tank-guided missile systems, while 21 pieces of military hardware sustained damage. Read also: Ukrainians step up efforts to cross Dnipro, tie up Russian forces in Kherson Oblast Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. When the Supreme Court struck down President Joe Bidens $400 billion plan to forgive up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for 43 million borrowers, the prospect of substantive debt relief appeared to vanish. But then millions of borrowers received surprise notices that their federal student loans were being eliminated through other government relief programs. The Biden administration has wiped out loans totaling $127 billion for 3.6 million borrowers the biggest wave of student debt cancellation since the government began backing educational loans more than 60 years ago. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times The cost of that relief is ultimately borne by taxpayers. The Education Department is the largest lender for Americans who borrow for higher education, and 43 million borrowers currently owe the government $1.6 trillion. The government profits from the interest that borrowers pay, but loan defaults and canceled debts offset that. The system is projected to run at a loss in most years. Many of the programs that the Biden administration is using have existed for years, sometimes decades, but were notoriously troubled, forcing borrowers to navigate complicated bureaucratic hurdles. By adjusting rules and temporarily waiving some requirements, Education Department officials have accelerated long-delayed relief. Here are the four largest programs being used to eliminate loan debts and how five borrowers benefited from them. Public Service Loan Forgiveness Debts canceled: $51 billion for 715,000 borrowers In 2007, Congress passed a law intended to entice more college graduates into public service careers: Those who worked for government agencies or nonprofit organizations would, after 10 years of monthly loan payments, have their remaining federal student loan balance eliminated. But the programs complex rules turned it into a quagmire that rejected 99% of applicants and an effort in 2018 to apply patchwork fixes became another debacle. In 2021, the Biden administration tried again to cancel student loan debt by temporarily bulldozing the programs rules and crediting hundreds of thousands of borrowers for previously ineligible payments. That finally worked. More than 230,000 people had their loans eliminated through a waiver system that ended last year, and many more gained credits that sped up their forgiveness date. Derik Screen, 41, works as a business intelligence analyst at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. To pay for the Master of Business Administration degree he earned in 2008 from the University of Phoenix, he took out loans totaling $39,000. Screen signed up for an income-driven payment plan and began chipping away at the balance, but interest costs kept his balance ballooning. Last year, he learned about the Biden administrations temporary waiver and realized that many of his past payments could qualify. He also discovered that he could get credit for the years he had spent working in the admissions office at his undergraduate alma mater, the Virginia Military Institute. Consolidating his loans, assembling the paperwork and obtaining the needed certifications from both his current employer and his past one took dozens of hours. It was very cumbersome it really was, Screen said. But in September, his persistence paid off: He received a letter notifying him that his $86,000 loan balance had been eliminated. That relief, its amazing, after so many years, he said. And the idea that after 10 years, your debt can triple I know for a lot of people, its just a number theyll never be able to pay. Income-Driven Repayment Adjustment Debts canceled: $42 billion for 855,000 borrowers The Education Department hires loan servicers to collect borrowers monthly payments and help them navigate their repayment options. Watchdogs and auditors, including the departments own inspector general, have repeatedly raised alarms about the servicers shoddy work and lax oversight. One frequent complaint was that servicers would improperly place borrowers loans into forbearance, sometimes for years during which interest kept accruing and failed to guide borrowers toward income-driven options that could have sharply reduced their total payments. Last year, the government announced a plan to address those problems by essentially wielding a giant eraser. Income-driven payment plans are designed to eliminate any remaining balance after a set period of repayment, typically 20 years. Even for borrowers who never enrolled in those plans, the Education Department decided to count virtually any payment, for any amount, as a qualifying one and it added to its tally many months in which borrowers made no payments at all because they had a long-term deferment or forbearance. The department chose to apply those adjustments automatically for all borrowers, no application needed. The result was that hundreds of thousands of borrowers abruptly discovered that their loans had reached the 20-year mark and been eliminated. The first notification letters were sent July 14. That day, when Chris White, 40, got an email from the Education Department with the subject line Youre eligible to have your student loan(s) forgiven!, he didnt believe it. White figured that this, like Bidens quashed mass-cancellation plan, would be revoked, too. I remember thinking, specifically, its great to see that theyre still trying and theyre working at this, and that means a lot but I, in no way, expected it to actually happen, he recalled. And then one day, I logged on to my loan servicers website, and it just said that my balance was zero. The maneuver freed White from $22,000 in debt he had for the bachelors degree in electrical engineering that he received from the University of Maine in 2007. He had spent several years working in the field but decided it was a poor fit and quit to pursue other trades. He is now a freight warehouse manager in Pembina, North Dakota. White was especially surprised to have his loan forgiven because he had made payments on it intermittently before the pandemic, his loan was in default and some of the debt was less than 20 years old. But soon after he graduated, White had consolidated his loans. In calculating the adjustment, the Education Department counts any payment (or qualifying forbearance) on any debt in a consolidated loan toward the 20-year clock and White had some loans dating back to 2001. Chuck Ertel-Hoy, 72, retired in 2019 after 25 years of teaching communications at public universities but he still owed $42,500 for a doctorate he earned in 1997 from the University of Tennessee. Ertel-Hoy, who lives in Indianapolis, had tried for years to have his loans discharged through the public service loan forgiveness program, but he kept running into paperwork problems. He had just sent off yet more paperwork when the email arrived in July saying his loans would be forgiven through the income-driven repayment adjustment. It relieves a lot of pressure, he said. Ertel-Hoy had been dreading the prospect of trying to squeeze $300 a month out of retirement savings to resume payment on his loans when the pandemic pause ended. Id thought, am I still going to have to pay on these student loans for the rest of my life? he said. Borrower Defense to Repayment and Closed-School Discharge Debts canceled: $22.5 billion for 1.3 million borrowers In 2014, Corinthian Colleges once one of the countrys largest for-profit college chains collapsed. It was quickly followed by ITT Technical Institutes, another industry giant. Tens of thousands of mid-degree students were left stranded, and hundreds of thousands more were paying off loans for an often substandard education that failed to deliver on the career growth and earning potential the schools had advertised. The debacle catalyzed a wave of grassroots activism: Former students teamed with crusading lawyers to request relief through an obscure federal student loan provision, known as borrower defense to repayment. Students whose schools defrauded them, typically by breaking consumer protection laws, could seek to have their loans forgiven. The Obama administration began to build a system for handling those requests, but it ground to a halt during the Trump administration. When Biden assumed office, tens of thousands of claims some that had been languishing for as long as six years were pending, and over 130,000 others had been summarily rejected. In 2022, the Biden administration agreed to settle a class-action claim that covered 200,000 borrowers who had attended more than 150 schools. One of them is Sally Olsen, 64, who earned a bachelors degree in business management at American InterContinental University, a for-profit school whose owner paid $30 million to settle fraud charges brought by the Federal Trade Commission. Olsen enrolled in 2004, but she was underwhelmed by her educational experiences there and overwhelmed by the debt it left her with: Nearly $110,000 in federal loans and tens of thousands more in private loans. Olsen, an administrative assistant at an insurance agency in Bloomington, Illinois, eventually paid off the private loans through a settlement, but the federal loans haunted her. Seeking help, Olsen a former Marine contacted Veterans Education Success, an advocacy group. Their representatives helped her file a borrower defense claim in 2021. Legal challenges delayed the class-action settlement, but in May, Olsen finally got the news she had dreamed of: Her $70,127 federal loan balance had been eliminated. I think God finally heard my prayers, after all these years, she said. Total and Permanent Disability Debts canceled: $11.7 billion for 513,000 borrowers Borrowers who are permanently disabled are eligible to have their federal student loans eliminated. The process had long been a bureaucratic obstacle course, requiring doctors notes which were often rejected, with little or no explanation, because of documentation errors and years of income-monitoring and other compliance requirements. Many who would have qualified for relief never bothered to apply. But two government agencies already had data on people who were fully disabled: the Social Security Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs. By creating automatic data-matching programs with both agencies and eliminating some income documentation requirements, the Education Department significantly expanded the number of borrowers who gained relief. Khen Reyes, 48, was medically discharged from the Navy last year after a military career that spanned four decades. It left him with post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression. The Department of Veterans Affairs determines the severity of service-related disabilities through a ratings scale; Reyes maxed out, at 100%. In 1997, Reyes enrolled in an aircraft mechanics certification program at the Sierra Academy of Aeronautics. More than two decades later, he still owed just over $25,000 a defaulted debt that had prevented his wife and him from obtaining a VA home loan. Armed with his military discharge papers and his disability documentation, he sought to have his loan eliminated. Late last year, Reyes, who lives in Foster City, California, checked his loan servicers website and saw a $0 balance. Other service members are in a similar boat as me, he said. I want service members to know, this is about accepting something that you worked hard for. I dont have any shame that I used this resource. If theres a program that helps us, oh, my God, by any means use it. c.2023 The New York Times Company Flash Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (C) speaks during the Joint Arab Islamic Extraordinary Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Nov. 11, 2023. The Joint Arab Islamic Extraordinary Summit held in the Saudi capital of Riyadh on Saturday called for an immediate cessation of military operations in Gaza. (SPA/Handout via Xinhua) Participants of the Joint Arab Islamic Extraordinary Summit hosted by Saudi Arabia on Saturday denounced Israel's "war crimes" in the Gaza Strip and rejected Israel's claim that its actions against Palestinians in the coastal enclave were self-defense. The final communique released after the one-day summit, which took place in the Saudi capital of Riyadh and gathered the leaders of a number of Islamic and Arab countries as well as international organizations to discuss the situation in Gaza, called for an end to the military operations and siege of Gaza to allow the entry of humanitarian aid. The communique also called for halting arms exports to Israel and called on the International Criminal Court to investigate Israel's violations in Gaza. Participants of the meeting vowed to support Egypt's humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza and condemned attempts to displace Palestinians from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip or outside Gaza. The summit was attended by dozens of leaders, including Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and Chairman of Sudan's Transitional Sovereign Council Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan. The leaders demanded that the UN Security Council adopt "a binding resolution" to stop the ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza. In his opening speech, Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud reiterated "demands for an immediate halt to military operations, for the provision of humanitarian corridors to aid civilians, and for enabling international humanitarian organizations to perform their roles." He also called for releasing hostages and detainees, protecting innocent people, and coordinating efforts and actions to address the unfortunate situation in Gaza. With his attendance at the summit, Raisi becomes the first Iranian head of state to visit Saudi Arabia in over a decade. Raisi's visit came after Iran and Saudi Arabia signed a landmark deal in March to normalize relations. On the sidelines of the summit, he had separate meetings with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Sudan to discuss the situation in Gaza as well as bilateral relations. During the summit, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi demanded an end to all practices that displace Palestinians to places outside their land. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for an international peace conference to find a long-lasting solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Israel's attacks on Gaza have so far killed more than 11,000 Palestinians, including more than 4,500 children and 3,000 women, and wounded over 27,000 others, said Palestinian Health Minister Mai Al-Kaila in a press conference on Saturday. The Israeli escalation followed a massive attack launched by the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) that runs Gaza, which killed about 1,200 people in Israel, according to revised figure announced by Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat on Saturday. Hamas also took more than 200 people to Gaza as hostages during the attack. Qatar's Emir announced during the summit that his country was trying to mediate the release of hostages. Hamas on Saturday called on the leaders of Arab and Islamic nations to pressure Israel to stop its "war" against the besieged coastal enclave. MILWAUKEE - A Milwaukee man pleaded guilty to felony murder, ending his trial, in connection to the 2022 beating death of Rodney Surprise. Court records indicate 49-year-old Terry Johnson reached a plea deal with prosecutors Wednesday. As part of that deal, a charge of robbery with use of force was dismissed. He is scheduled to be sentenced next year. Johnson was one of two men charged in Surprise's death. Marvin Millner, 58, was sentenced in May to 19 years in prison; he had pleaded guilty to felony murder and taking a vehicle without the owner's consent as part of a plea deal. SIGN UP TODAY: Get daily headlines, breaking news emails from FOX6 News Case details According to a criminal complaint, police responded to a battery complaint near 5th and Chase on Milwaukee's south side the night of Oct. 25, 2022. When officers arrived, they found a man, later identified as Surprise, lying on the pavement unconscious. Surprise was taken to a hospital where he died from injuries. The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office performed an autopsy, and found Surprise's cause of death was multiple blunt force injuries. Rodney Surprise Police recovered a video from a gas station. The complaint said the video was of "good clarity" and showed three men assaulting the victim. Johnson and Millner were identified in the video. The third man was not identified. The complaint said the video shows Surprise arrive in a car and park outside the gas station. Millner and the third man confronted Surprise after he exited his car. At one point, Surprise tried to get back into his car but Millner and the third man stopped him. Johnson was then seen leaving the gas station's convenience store, and the victim then went inside. FREE DOWNLOAD: Get breaking news alerts in the FOX6 News app for iOS or Android Surprise was in the store for about 20 minutes. The complaint said Johnson and the third man went in and grabbed Surprise by the back of his sweatshirt collar, and the third man punched Surprise knocking him down. Surprise was eventually dragged outside where prosecutors said Millner and the third man went through his pockets. The third man punched Surprise some more, then walked off with Johnson. According to the complaint, while Surprise was lying on the pavement, badly beaten, Millner got into Surprise's car. The victim "crawls and struggles to pick himself up and get to his car," eventually opening the door and grabbing Millner. Prosecutors said Millner threw Surprise to the ground and drove off. Surprise fell limp. Marvin Millner A store clerk told police he heard one of the three men yelling at the victim, ordering him to "pay for $40 worth of items" that they wanted," per the complaint. Police later interviewed Johnson and Millner. Johnson told police he knew the other two men by street names, and those two "thought the victim owed them money because earlier another person had tried to take things from the victim, and they had helped the victim out of that situation." Johnson admitted to dragging the victim out by the back of the hoodie. Millner also told police he knew the other two men by street names. Per the complaint, he said that while he was waiting outside the store, he knew the other two were "going to go inside to pull out the victim." Millner admitted to grabbing Surprise's keys out of the victim's hand and driving off in his car. He said he was high on crack cocaine, too. A fleet of Ukrainian naval drones, launched as a result of an international crowdfunding campaign, has struck eight key Russian targets in the first year of its operation, Digital Transformation Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said on Facebook on Nov. 11. The drone fleet was launched through the United24 fundraising platform, which has so far raised Hr 500 million ($13.9 million) for 50 sea drones. The first strikes were in October 2022, when sea drones attacked the ships Admiral Makarov and Ivan Golubets, according to the video Fedorov posted to social media. Two more ships were hit in the spring and summer of 2023, and the sea drones were used to attack an offshore oil rig in the Black Sea in August. One of the crowdfunded drones then attacked the patrol ship Sergey Kotov in September. Most recently, the drones were used in a strike on Nov. 10 that sunk two Russian high-speed landing crafts stationed in Russian-occupied Crimea. Funds for the first drone were raised within two hours, and was named Kherson, after the city that was liberated from Russian occupation on Nov. 11, 2022. Donations of $250,000 or more allows the donor to chose the name of the drone, which is the case for 20 of the drones in the fleet. The use of a naval drone fleet "is a unique development that changes the doctrine of warfare at sea and makes the Russians fear for their ships," Fedorov said. Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said in August that Russian forces on average manage to destroy 60-70% of Ukrainian kamikaze drone boats before they reach their target. Russia faces "serious problems" with the 30% of sea drones that its forces do not manage to destroy, as the weapons are "very effective." Read also: Military intelligence: Crowdfunded satellite had very important role in Sevastopol attack Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - Minnesota state flag design submissions. Groundbreaking theory about dinosaurs. Minnesota election results. Here are the top stories from Nov. 4-11. A submission for the Minnesota state flag redesign. The submissions for the new Minnesota state flag and seal have been released and they're amazing. The Minnesota Historical Society on Wednesday released the more than 2,600 designs submitted to the State Emblems Redesign Commission during a one-month period. Later this month, the commission will pick five submissions for each the state seal and the state flag. The commission will select a design or a modified version of the design to be used for each emblem. Click here to see some of the best and worst submissions. UNSPECIFIED - AUGUST 14: Illustration representing dinosaurs in forest, Metriacanthosaurus in background (Photo by De Agostini via Getty Images/De Agostini via Getty Images) A new study looking into what might have killed off dinosaurs determined that it is likely the ancient species were done in by a mighty cloud of dust. A massive plume of fine-grained dust may have lingered in Earth's atmosphere for 15 years, cooled the temperature by 24 degrees and shut down photosynthesis for two years, according to the results of a study published in Natural Geoscience. To read more of FOX News Digital's story, click here. Voters in several Minnesota cities had school board races on their ballots during Tuesdays election. Statewide, there are about 200 candidates running for 100 positions, and several of Tuesdays races were heated. Here in Minnesota, if elected, the school board candidates' main responsibilities will be hiring a superintendent, establishing a budget and adopting policies that reflect their communities' values. Click here to see the election results. In Minneapolis, all 13 wards were up for election with more than three dozen candidates vying for a seat. Results from the City Council races will decide the balance of power, potentially tipping the City Council in a more progressive direction that could override the vetoes of the comparatively moderate Mayor Jacob Frey on issues that include rent control and protections for Uber and Lyft drivers. Click here to see the results. Tuesday is election day in Minnesota, with municipal and school board elections on the ballot in some communities. In St. Paul and Minneapolis, all city council seats were up for election. Golden Valley and St. Paul residents voted for a sales tax increase to fund projects. Duluth and St. Louis Park residents voted for their next mayor. To see the full list of election results, click here. A firearm stopped at the Minneapolis- St. Paul international airport security checkpoint. (Credit TSA) (Supplied) An officer at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) stopped an airline employee from attempting to bring a loaded handgun through security. An airport official did not specifically identify the employee's role but did say they are a "flight-based" worker with SkyWest Airlines. Officials say the handgun was loaded at the time of the screening. This was the 49th firearm stopped at MSP so far this year, according to the press release. Voters in several Minnesota cities had school district questions on their ballots during Tuesdays election. To see the full list of school district questions, visit the Minnesota Secretary of State's website here. To view the results, click here. File photo of the Statue of Liberty in New York City. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) (Getty Images) It looks like a scene straight out of "Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles": fluorescent, green liquid oozing from manholes and sewers into New York City streets and sidewalks. This "slime" or "sludge," as some have labeled the mystery liquid, was captured by Daniel Pantelo this week in a viral X post. Fortunately, the city didnt need to call Ghostbusters. The likely source? Think less radioactive and more proactive. Pictured signal crayfish. (Credit Minnesota Department of Natural Resources) (Supplied) The Minnesota Department of Natural Recourses (DNR) said an invasive species of crayfish has been found in the state for the first time at a lake in Douglas County. In a press release Friday, the DNR said it was alerted in October by a commercial harvester who trapped two signal crayfish in Lake Winona. Since the first catch, the harvester found an additional eight crayfish. The DNR conducted its own trapping on Winona Lake and two adjacent connected lakes but did not capture any signal crayfish. voting machine (FOX 9) In what was Duluth's first competitive mayoral race in about 16 years, incumbent Mayor Emily Larson conceded before results even started coming in. Larson faced a challenge from Roger Reinert, who handily beat Larson in the mayoral DFL primary, 63% to 35%. CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WJZY) A Florida mother is suing American Airlines after she claims her two children, both under the age of 16, were left in a cold lost childrens room overnight with no food or water, at Charlotte Douglas International Airport after several flight delays, court documents state. According to court records, the two children live with their mother in Jacksonville, Florida. They were flying as unaccompanied minors with American Airlines on July 30, 2022, from Missouri, where they visited their father, to Syracuse, New York, to see family. The flight to Syracuse had a connecting flight with a layover in Charlotte, documents state. The flight from Missouri to Charlotte was delayed, and then the flight from Charlotte to Syracuse was delayed several times before it was finally canceled. Court documents state that someone with American Airlines had notified a specific family member because they were listed as the person for pick-up in Syracuse, and said that the children would be on a flight from Charlotte to Syracuse the next day at 9 a.m. Then, American Airlines reportedly sent an email to the childrens mother at 11:38 p.m., saying the two children would be on a 5:21 p.m. flight on July 31, 2022. The family was told that the two children would be in a nice room for unaccompanied minors where there were beds and their own bathroom. The family was also given a phone number that was supposed to be a direct line to where the children would be. Due to conflicting information about the flight on July 31, the mother states in court documents that she had no idea what flight her children would actually be on. When the childrens mother tried to call the direct line given, there was no response, documents said. The mother was reportedly not able to get in touch with anyone and had no idea where her children were at the CLT Airport. Records state that the mother was finally able to reach an airport employee who helped her get in touch with her children. Once in contact with her kids, she discovered that they hadnt had anything to eat or drink since the night before. The children were reportedly placed in a room akin to a jail cell, without any blankets, pillows, or toiletries, and freezing. The children reportedly spent the night on the sofa with the lights on. The children were eventually given food and water by an airport employee. Documents said the children were able to board a flight to Syracuse where they were picked up by family. Following the ordeal, the lawsuit states American Airlines apologized and said they would refund $150 that had been paid for a chaperone. [American Airlines] violated their own policies and procedures when they misplaced the plaintiffs children. Particularly offensive is that after learning of their clear failures, the defendant merely offered a hollow apology and a refund, in essence telling the plaintiff, sorry we lost your kids lady but here is your money back,' the lawsuit states. The lawsuit claims American Airlines launched no investigation as to how this happened, how to avoid this from happening again in the future, or how to improve the unaccompanied minor service. Since the incident, the children have reportedly become afraid of flying and intend only to fly on direct flights. In a statement to Nexstars WJZY, American Airlines said, The safety and comfort of our customers, including unaccompanied minors in our care, are our highest priorities and were committed to providing a positive experience to everyone who travels with us. We have been in touch with [the mother] directly and we are reviewing the details of the lawsuit. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City. Yes, theres plenty to pick from at the book fair, but here are a few that are the best of the rest prolific authors with new works of fiction, stories from political insiders, plus poets, comics and creatives from right here at home. BEST SELLERS Janet Evanovich Janet Evanovich, 10:30 a.m., Saturday, Nov. 18, Building 3, Second Floor, Room 3209, 300 NE Second Ave. Im Stephanie Plum. Jersey girl. Rutgers graduate. Successful underachiever working for Vincent Plum Bail Bonds as a recovery agent, hunting down losers whove skipped out on their bond, starts Janet Evanovichs Dirty Thirty. Plum was first introduced in 1995s One for the Money, which was turned into a film of the same name in 2012 starring Katherine Heigl. Now her believed heroine, back for her 30th adventure hence Dirty Thirty, is hot on the trail of a stolen cache of dirty diamonds. Maybe its time for another Plum movie from the author the New York Times dubbed the most popular mystery writer alive. Mitch Albom Mitch Albom, 1 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 18, Chapman Conference Center, Building 3, Second Floor, Room 3210, 300 NE Second Ave. Whats a book fair without Mitch Albom? His books have sold more than 40 million copies in 48 languages, bolstered by, of course, the most recognizable Tuesdays with Morrie. Hes headed back to the fair to talk about his latest novel set during the Holocaust. In Little Liar, eleven-year-old Nico Krispis grandfather taught him Never be the one to tell lies because God is always watching. When Nazis invade his home in Greece, a German officer offers him a chance to save his family by convincing his fellow Jewish residents to board trains heading toward the East to safety. After learning he has helped send family and neighbors to their deaths, Nico never tells the truth again. The books release is only four days before Albom appears at the fair. POWER GRABS Martin Baron Martin Baron, 5 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 19. Chapman Conference Center, Building 3, Second Floor, Room 3210, 300 NE Second Ave. He was only months into his new job when he found out that a billionaire was buying the company. But Baron didnt just have any job and it wasnt any billionaire. He was executive editor at The Washington Post and the new owner was Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Two years later, Donald Trump won the presidency. Baron had found himself in a precarious position. In the opening paragraphs of Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos and the Washington Post, he recounts the invitation to the White House where Bezos, Baron and another member of the newsroom staff would dine with Trump and family. This was the same newspaper which, in 1972, broke the story that brought down a Republican president and opened the floodgates of what would become Watergate. And now, with Jared Kushner at the table, a Washington Post alert arrives on cellphones: Special Counsel Mueller is investigating the presidents son-in-law about his dealings in Russia. Baron began his journalism career at the Miami Herald in 1976 as a reporter and later as a business writer. He ran numerous newsrooms and was the executive editor at the Washington Post from 2013 to 2021, at which time the newspaper won 10 Pulitzer Prizes. Mikhail Zygar Mikhail Zygar, Noon, Saturday, Nov. 18, Building 2, First Floor, Room 2106, 300 NE Second Ave. When the war in Ukraine began, the independent Russian journalist circulated a Facebook petition signed by thousands in an act that led to a new law in Russia criminalizing criticism of the war. From the inside, Zygar who fled Russia, reveals his countrys history of oppressing Ukraine. Hes an expert on Putins moods and behavior and has spent years studying the Kremlins plan regarding Ukraine. In his book, War and Punishment: Putin, Zelensky, the Path to Russias Invasion of Ukraine, Zygar explains how the world arrived to where it is today in the war between Ukraine and his home country. MIAMI STORIES Dave Barry Dave Barry, 2 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 18, Auditorium, Building 1, Second Floor, Room 1261, 300 NE Second Ave. Hes the Jimmy Buffett of books, you could say. Miami resident, former Miami Herald columnist, and humorist has penned his first novel in 10 years and its zany. The Florida Everglades caper, Swamp Story, finds Jesse Braddock stuck in a cabin deep in the glades with her baby daughter and her do-nothing boyfriend who has blown through all their money, including her trust fund. A long-lost treasure could be the answer to all her troubles but finding the trove of gold bars is only the start of what could go wrong. Barrys appearance is part of the Wacky, Wild and Witty segment on Saturday afternoon. And why not? Among a multitude of crazies in his book, theres a python hunter who has an emotional support boar at his side. M. Evelina Galang M. Evelina Galang, 2:30 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 19, Building 3, Second Floor, Room 3209, 300 NE Second Ave. The director of the MFA Creative writing program at the University of Miami from 2009 to 2019 and currently a professor for the UM creative writing program follows up her 2017 nonfiction book, Lolas House, Filipino Women Living with War with her seventh book, When the Hibiscus Falls. Seventeen short stories follow the lives of Filipino and Filipino-American women, some from the past who move from small Philippine villages to those in the not-so-far-off future settling on a hurricane beaten Florida coast. With an eye on ancestry and her pen on the short story, Galang, who moved to Miami in 2002, is a prolific contributor to Miamis literary landscape. Richard Blanco Richard Blanco, 3:30 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 19, Auditorium, Building 1, Second Floor, Room 1261, 300 NE Second Ave. Named Miami-Dade Countys first poet laureate in 2022 by Daniella Levine Cava, Blanco was selected by President Barack Obama as the fifth Presidential Inaugural Poet in U.S. history. At the time, he was the youngest (Joe Bidens inauguration poet, Amanda Gorman, is now the youngest), the first Latinx, immigrant and gay person to serve in such a role. His latest is a collection of more than 100 poems, Homeland of My Body: New & Selected Poems, where he reexamines his life-long quest to find his proverbial home. Blancos first play, Sweet Goats & Blueberry Senoritas which he co-wrote with Miamis Vanessa Garcia is now being staged by Actors Playhouse in Coral Gables at the Miracle Mile Theatre. If youd like to get a double dose of Blanco, see him at the fair, then go see his play. Researchers have been known to name species after celebrities. Honoring a celebrity this way can show their fandom or bring attention to the animal itself. But it's very difficult to change a species' scientific name, and that can lead to regrets. Taylor Swift has one. Leonardo DiCaprio has a handful. David Attenborough? Too many to count. The list of species named for celebrities is lengthy and includes everything from flies (Beyonce) to lichen (Oprah Winfrey) to lizards (Lionel Messi). An eponym is a scientific species name based on a person, either real or fictional. When scientists name a species after someone famous, it can often make headlines and draw attention to less-charismatic animals or plants, like Jimmy Buffet's snail or Lady Gaga's ferns. Some researchers say it's a way to bring attention to spiders and other animals who are otherwise ignored. Others are simply fans or want to acknowledge celebrities' environmental activism, as with Sericomyrmex radioheadi, an ant named for the carbon-conscious band Radiohead. Certain species have physical or behavioral traits that suit a famous person or an acting role. Tarantobelus jeffdanielsi is a tarantula-killing roundworm named in honor of Jeff Daniels' character in the movie "Arachnophobia." Yet some experts see naming a species after any famous person as a recipe for "nomenclatural regret." Should a celebrity fall from their pedestal, what will it mean for the spiders or slugs left in the wake of their scandal? The case for Taylor Swift's millipede A Virginia Tech researcher made headlines for naming a millipede after Taylor Swift. It seemed like a smart move, as everyday arthropods rarely make history, and this sort of publicity can help bring awareness, according to a recent paper. University of Oxford biologist Katie Blake and her co-authors found that species with celebrity names had almost three times as many page views on Wikipedia as non-famously monikered control species. But whether those views actually translate to better conservation efforts needs further study. Tiger sharks (Galeocerdo cuvier) were named for one of the founders of comparative anatomy, Georges Cuvier. Andre Seale/VW PICS/Universal Images Group via Getty Images And it's not clear if the attention is always positive, especially if the celebrity figure is more infamous than famous. "We need more work to better understand how species are affected when named after someone who is fairly controversial," Blake said. "Not only in terms of attitudes towards these species, but conservation action, too, where needed." While Blake thinks celebrity names can draw attention to amphibians and invertebrates "who aren't exactly the public's favorite taxa, the consequences of naming them after someone who is disliked may worsen such species' conservation status." That's one reason why some scientists want to rename a blind cave beetle. The push to save a beetle named after Hitler Part of a scientific name's appeal is that it's unchanging and the same in every language. But recently, researchers have begun proposing making changes to "scientific names that commemorate historical individuals who committed egregious crimes against humanity." Christopher Bae, a professor of anthropology at the University of Hawai'i at Mano, and his colleagues were more specific, stating that names with "tyrants, dictators, colonialists, and slave traders" should be changed. Some examples include Adolf Hitler, Cecil Rhodes, and George Hibbert, all of whom have species named after them. Hitler actually has two insects named after him. One, the Rochlingia hitleri, has been extinct for millions of years. The other is a rare cave-dwelling beetle, Anophthalmus hitleri. The blind cave beetle is found in only a few caves in Slovenia. Sergio Pitamitz/VWPics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Scientists have warned that the cave beetle is threatened by poachers. "These collectors are going out and collecting and then selling them on the internet to Neo-Nazis because they're memorabilia now," Bae said. Another example is the many species named for the imperialist Cecil John Rhodes who pushed for British expansion into southern Africa and supported racial segregation. His name is splashed across the biological world, including many plant names stemming from the Rhodesia region, what is now known as Zimbabwe and Zambia. Right now, the debate over whether to use a Rhodes-derived name is especially pertinent for paleoanthropologists who study early human ancestors. There's a label, Homo heidelbergensis, that's such a mishmash of species, that it's no longer a meaningful designation, according to Bae. Instead, researchers want to introduce a new name for an ancestor of modern humans. The skull of an adult Homo heidelbergensis found in Spain in 1992. Paleoanthropologists are debating what to change the species' name to. CESAR MANSO/AFP via Getty Images If they were to follow the traditional naming practice, then the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature's rules state that the first name given to a species gets priority on being the scientific name, so the species would be called Homo rhodesiensis. A human skull found in Zambia was given that name in 1921. However, Bae and many of his colleagues aren't eager to start using the name Homo rhodesiensis, especially because of the significance of the species. "This guy had some real serious issues," Bae said of Rhodes. Earlier this year, Bae and over a dozen other paleoanthropologists gathered to discuss the issue, and it was nearly unanimous. Almost no one was in favor of using the Rhodes-derived name. Another name, Homo bodoensis, named for Bodo D'ar, Ethiopia, where the skull was found, has been proposed instead. What would it take to change a species' name? In honor of Jimmy Buffetts Margaritaville, scientists named this yellow snail Cayo margarita. Hal Horowitz/WireImage/Getty Images; R. Bieler There are hundreds of thousands of species with eponymous names, according to the ICZN's estimate. But Bae thinks only a fraction of them reach the level of Hitler, Hibbert, and Rhodes. To protect against frivolous changes, Bae and his co-authors called for an ethics committee to review proposals. "Nobody's going to really want to go after every single name out there," he said. "It's really going to be the egregious ones that need to be looked at more carefully." The brontosaurus is just one animal to have its scientific name changed (and then changed back again). George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images But names can be changed. Consider the Brontosaurus, which was a genus of dinosaur that was lumped together with the Apatosaurus and then separated again in 2015. The alterations are often made for scientific reasons but not always. The American Ornithological Society is in the process of changing the common English names of bird species named after people. The organization Bird Names for Birds has pushed for the change because many of the animals are named for people who enslaved others or dug up Native American graves. However, the birds' scientific names will remain, as they are much more difficult to change, NPR reported. Down with all eponyms? "We already have thousands of species named for people who are now obscure," Stephen B. Heard wrote in his book "Charles Darwin's Barnacle and David Bowie's Spider: How Scientific Names Celebrate Adventurers, Heroes, and Even a Few Scoundrels." That a celebrity might fade from public consciousness isn't the worst thing that could happen, though. Case in point, Hitler's beetle. Chances are most celebrities with eponymous species won't leave a legacy as tarnished as some powerful men of the past. Yet societal norms do change, and it's easy to see how some famous people's reputations changed after the #MeToo movement, for example. And some researchers would prefer to correct the imbalance of species named mostly after European men from the 19th and 20th centuries, instead naming more species after women and native scientists. Or perhaps changing existing eponyms to be more inclusive. As some researchers noted, "their names will not be eliminated from history: they will simply move into synonymy," That is, there could one day be a footnote indicating that the species was formerly known as Hitler's beetle. Read the original article on Business Insider U.S. Navy veteran Ruth Pico, left, with her 8-year-old son, Nathan Pico, pays her respects on Veterans Day at Los Angeles National Cemetery in Westwood. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) After learning about Veterans Day in his transitional kindergarten class, Wilson Zeier, 4, asked his father what they could do to recognize the men and women who served. So on Saturday morning Wilson stood with his father, Bill, and mother, Mai, on a knoll overlooking tens of thousands of white gravestones in rows on a lush green background at the Los Angeles National Cemetery in Westwood. At the mid-morning hour, the cemetery where American service members from the Civil War onward are interred was reverentially still. Every few minutes a figure would appear on the sloping lawn, moving slowly through the lines of gravestones. Ruth Pico, a Navy veteran, moved sideways, stopping at each marker for a few seconds. She wore a T-shirt commemorating her godson Hunter Lopez, killed in action on Aug. 26, 2021, in a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan. She said she couldn't make the trip to Riverside to honor his grave and so came to pay respects to those she didn't know. "I like to go and read their names and thank them for their service and go on to the next one," she said, keeping an eye on her son Nathan, who was cavorting on the grass. Pico said she has brought her son to the cemetery every year since he was a baby to imbue him with an understanding of service. She also thinks those buried there appreciate his presence. "For a little bit I let him play and laugh," she said. "In my head, the veterans can hear the happiness and the joy of his laughing." Pico had come with a bag of paper poppies and distributed them one to a headstone along with a penny to show family members that someone had been there. While U.S. flags come out on Memorial Day, the other major holiday dedicated to service members, poppies are more identified with Veterans Day. Originally called Armistice Day and commemorating the Nov. 11, 1918, armistice that ended the fighting in World War I, the date is linked internationally to the opening lines of the haunting war poem "In Flanders Fields: In Flanders fields the poppies blow/Between the crosses, row on row. The commemoration became a U.S. national holiday in 1935 and was renamed in 1954. Unlike Memorial Day, a holiday dating from the end of the Civil War and honoring those who died while serving in the armed forces, Veterans Day honors all veterans. Formal Veterans Day events were held Saturday at Forest LawnHollywood Hills and the Bob Hope Patriotic Hall near downtown, where Arnold Schwarzenegger was a special guest. As the morning wore on, though, the National Cemetery remained a place for quiet reflection. Kathy Collins, daughter and niece of World War II veterans, laid pennies on the headstones as she does every Veterans Day and Memorial Day. Collins thinks it is important to sustain the memory of what her father's generation did. "A lot of kids grow up and don't know veterans and what they did," she said. "And that's kind of sad." Among the more than 80,000 graves, Collins said she tries to connect with individuals. "You look at their age, like a guy today killed in action in Iraqthinking about the younger veterans. We don't know that many of them because the military is so much smaller, proportionally." Collins said she places pennies on headstones where there are flowers because that means there's still a family connection. When they return, they will know a stranger cared. As he surveyed the gravestones with his son, Zeier said he hoped the experience had broadened Wilson's understanding. "When you come to a place like this it can be very moving, very emotional," he said. "He hasn't been to cemeteries before," Zeier said. "For us it's just walking around a little bit today, talking about the people that are buried here and also to introduce death, so he kind of understands what it is." Navy veteran Ruth Pico and her son Nathan Pico, 8, left flower stems on the tombstones on Veterans Day at Los Angeles National Cemetery in Westwood. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 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. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in a Sunday interview the U.S. did not know how many of the more than 200 hostages held captive by Hamas were still alive. The statement on This Week came after Hamas claimed last week that Israeli airstrikes killed 60 hostages. We dont take anything Hamas says at face value, but we have no information that can either corroborate or counteract that, Sullivan said. We simply don't know how many of the hostages are still alive, how many have been mistreated, how many Hamas itself has killedjust as it slaughtered hundreds and hundreds of people when it conducted those gruesome and horrific terrorist attacks on Oct. 7. Sullivan also said in a series of Sunday show interviews that nine Americans were among the hostages. When asked about Hamas claims that hostages have been killed by Israeli air strikes, White House's Jake Sullivan tells @JonKarl: We dont take anything Hamas says at face value, but we have no information that can either corroborate or counteract that. https://t.co/cRxv6yAWXe pic.twitter.com/SlFs3vC5bZ This Week (@ThisWeekABC) November 12, 2023 Read more at The Daily Beast. Guest Opinion. Growing up in the inner city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, my childhood familys primary community event as Anishinaabe would be to walk down to the Grand River for the September powwow back when it was held at Ah-Nab-Awen Park. This was the one time and place that our very protective mother would relax the creased forehead of her worry and suspicion, as well as her close watch over me and my three sisters. Not yet dancing, I found myself laughing and running free in the drum circle; ducking into teepees that smelled comfortably of what I now recognize as smudge; and marveling to watch our mother smile, talk, feel at ease with, and just plain know so many people. People who looked like us, and who on that day helped me feel proud and happy to be Indian. At a time when the textbooks mentioned our ancestral relatives for maybe two paragraphs in the past tense, next to a mortifying picture depicting a red, scowling figure wielding a hatchet over the heads of some cringing damsels, this experience of joy and belonging was deeply impactful. Self-preservation and shame that had me denying my heritage at school became transformed into excitement and pride next to the river, once a year, on that wonderful weekend. Never miss Indian Countrys biggest stories and breaking news. Click here to sign up to get our reporting sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. As I grew into adulthood and took the paths of scholarship and grassroots activism, connections with the Anishinaabe community have become steadily more integrated into daily life experience for me and my own three children. For this I am grateful to all the elders and teachers and culture carriers who have welcomed us in the spirit of love for our teachings and lifeways, motivated to uplift the path of Minobimaadiziwin that together we can make ever more attainable. Living as Anishinaabe provides the foundational intellectual, spiritual, and emotional framework for we the people of the 7th fire who share in the responsibility to turn the current tides back towards restoration and recovery of our lifeways and the lives of all our more-than-human relatives. This is how I begin thinking about the meaning of our ancestral heritage. As for the meaning of Native American Heritage Month, that can at times feel more complicated, as the marker of a month indicates a limited time offer. Does the wording imply that some measure of permission is being given, in contrast to the remaining majority of time marked by erasure, or shame, or embarrassment, or even danger? The sense that this recognition is perhaps used as a consolation is disturbing: the proverbial bone thrown by a dominant culture still normalizing the exploitative and extractive policies of land abuse and displacement. This all can understandably become problematic. The tension of a small window in which to feel pride in identity hearkens back to the imbalances in my own childhood between powwow weekend and the rest of the year, and more painfully to the boarding school era that systematically punished and terrorized children for even the smallest connection to their tribal heritage. My mother and father met as young children at the Holy Childhood of Jesus Indian Boarding School in Harbor Springs, Michigan. Those traumas disconnected them from experiencing peace in their spirits, because they were not permitted to live as Anishinaabe. They spent their lives injured by an ubiquitous system of soul-killing institutions, doing their best to find solace in the midst of the perpetual home-sickness of cultural alienation steeped in severance from Akiing. That terrible struggle and pain of so many survivors, and those who never made it back, can perhaps provide us with an empowering way to meet the month of November. When other direct and community descendents of the victims and survivors of ongoing cultural violence and I are approached for comment this one time of year in particular, what does that mean and how ought one respond? It is a personal decision, foremost, and can also depend on where someone is in their learning or their healing. For myself, I take it as an opportunity to speak honestly as an Anishinaabekwe, proud to be Mishiike Dodem (Turtle Clan), and ever ready to help us meet our collective responsibilities to protect and restore the land and water at this critical time. Native American Heritage Month means that more people will be paying attention. That means more ears that might hear us say something that will resonate, and thereby help our more-than-human relatives, our children, and our elders. Dabasendiziwin (humility) keeps us centered in gratitude for the gifts of the living Earth. Fortified by our Grandfather teachings, we can become the necessary link between awareness of heritage and practices of healing. November is as good a month as any to keep on being exactly who we are. Dr. Nichole Keway Biber is a tribal citizen of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians. She serves on the Anishinabek Caucus in Michigan, where she leads the Wolf/Wildlife Preservation Team. About the Author: "Levi \"Calm Before the Storm\" Rickert (Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation) is the founder, publisher and editor of Native News Online. Rickert was awarded Best Column 2021 Native Media Award for the print\/online category by the Native American Journalists Association. He serves on the advisory board of the Multicultural Media Correspondents Association. He can be reached at levi@nativenewsonline.net." Contact: levi@nativenewsonline.net Flash Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (C, front), director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), speaks at a Security Council meeting on the situation in Gaza, at the UN headquarters in New York, Nov. 10, 2023. Tedros said that "nowhere and no one is safe" in Gaza, where the health system is "on its knees," in an emergency meeting of UN Security Council Friday. (Xinhua/Xie E) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), said that "nowhere and no one is safe" in Gaza, where the health system is "on its knees," in an emergency meeting of UN Security Council Friday. The situation on the ground is grim, said the WHO chief, from hospitals conducting operations without anesthesia to the fact that a child is killed every ten minutes. "Nowhere and no one is safe," he said, adding that medical staff are grappling to try to manage the health needs of 2.3 million people. Tedros said the best way to show support is by providing what health workers need to save lives. About 63 metric tons of such aid has been sent, but unfettered access is required to reach the civilians who are not responsible for the crisis. Tedros added that WHO continues to call for a ceasefire. In addition, he called for both sides to respect their obligations under international humanitarian law. "In Gaza, nowhere and no one is safe," said Tedros, speaking again as the meeting came to a close. "Imagine that you're trapped in that situation," he asked ambassadors. "That's why we're asking for a ceasefire and unfettered humanitarian access," he said. "And at the same time, of course, we're also asking for the Security Council to do everything for the release of hostages." A Fresno police officer who received the Navy Cross during bitter street combat in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004 presided Saturday over the annual Veterans Day Parade in downtown Fresno. Marine Sgt. Jarrett Kraft won one of the nations highest military honors while serving in the First Marine Division as a squad leader. During the fighting, Kraft was knocked out by grenade blasts and suffered other injuries during three assaults on insurgents. Hundreds of Fresnans turned out for the parade in perfect weather as political leaders, including Mayor Jerry Dyer, lauded the nations veterans, past and present. Dyer called the Fresno event the greatest Veterans Day parade in America. Thank you for your service, thank you for your sacrifice, he added to veterans, many of whom lined P Street in front of City Hall. Fresno police officer and Marine Sgt. Jarrett Kraft Kraft, the Marine veteran, said two things fuel U.S. service members: Love for country, and love for family. But the reality thats apparent at the moment (of combat) is our brothers and sisters to our left and right, Kraft added. We are fighting for each other, to take care of each other. I wear this medal and I accepted this medal on behalf of my Marines I was fighting with that day. I am honored to be in the presence of everybody (today) and feel their support. Tracie Real of Fresno holds a framed photo of her uncle Leonard Kienzle who served in the Marine Corps during the Korean War as the annual Central Valley Veterans Day Parade marches by Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023 in downtown Fresno. Veterans and family members with ball caps noting service in the nations wars, including World War II, Korea and Vietnam were present at the event. Vietnam veteran Richard Gonzalez was wearing a vest with the Screaming Eagle insignia of the Armys 101st Airborne Division. Richard Gonzalez, a Vietnam Veteran, said he was at the parade to honor all veterans. We need to understand that we appreciate our freedom and that were (still) here, he said. Its just an experience to see my brothers, because our lives are getting shortso we can honor one another. But not just us, but all veterans. A flatbed truck carries representatives of the Army Reserve Career Group, 11th Battalion, Area 2 at the annual Central Valley Veterans Day Parade held Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023 in downtown Fresno. Gonzalez then noticed another 101st Vietnam veteran and walked over to shake hands. The other man, John Decker, who also had badges noting he was in a LRRP (Long-Range, Reconassance Patrol) unit, said he was in Vietnam in 1967 and 1968. John Decker served in the 101st Airborne Division in the Vietnam War. Decker recalled receiving a call from his mother, telling her that he had received a draft notice, and going out to celebrate a few last days of freedom, before enlisting as a paratrooper. His father, a career Air Force officer, then told him: I thought I taught you betteryoull be marching in the rain every day, Decker joked. Children wave flags as the annual Central Valley Veterans Day Parade passes by Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023 in downtown Fresno. Familes lined the streets at the annual Central Valley Veterans Day Parade held Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023 in downtown Fresno. Classic cars pass Fresno City Hall joining the annual Central Valley Veterans Day Parade held Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023 in downtown Fresno. Ohio envy I have Ohio envy. When the gerrymandered Ohio Republican-run legislature ignores the will of the people (like it did with abortion), Ohioans can put an initiative on the ballot allowing the electorate to decide. Twenty-six states provide for statewide citizen-initiated ballot measures. North Carolina is not one. Only the General Assembly, with 60% of the members approval, can put issues on the ballot for a public vote. With increasingly heavily gerrymandered districts, a veto-proof Republican majority and partisan election of judges, how do the people of North Carolina regain their voice? The ballot initiative may be one way. Helen Tack, Cary Justice Newby It has been reported that N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby was so disturbed by the election of N.C. Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls in 2018 that he lost sleep over it. One would hope that the chief justice might be more disturbed by the extreme gerrymandering by the Republicans in the state legislature, which strips the will of voters in an evenly divided state, than by the seating of a duly elected colleague. Newbys willingness to rehear cases recently that were decided under the former Democratic majority makes a mockery of our justice system and is disturbing the sleep of many citizens in North Carolina. Amy Womble, Raleigh Raleigh elections Regarding Why the Raleigh City Council changed its election dates,(Nov. 6): I was on Raleigh City Council and in the room when the vote was taken to move elections to even number years. It was a confusing process and acted upon quickly. I dont recall it being clearly stated that the change would be permanent. Most state leaders, including the governor and local legislative delegation, opposed moving the council election, but didnt stop it because a majority of the council supported it. With the adverse consequences of the elections outcome apparent, and the lack of transparency in which the vote occurred in a closed session still troubling, it is time to consider moving Raleigh City Council elections back to the traditional time period of fall months in odd-numbered years. David Knight, Raleigh Dont sit it out Regarding A Trump-Robinson-Bishop ticket could backfire on NC Republicans in 2024, (Nov. 1): If voters dont want the extreme approach to state government offered by the likely 2024 GOP nominees for governor and attorney general, Mark Robinson and Dan Bishop, vote against them no matter who their opponents are. If youre not entirely charmed by whomever their Democratic opponents are, take comfort in the knowledge that those opponents will still be far better for the present and future of North Carolina than either Robinson or Bishop. Sitting out the 2024 election or protest voting for a third-party candidate are not viable options for anyone who wants to see honest, fair executive governance to continue in our state. James Utt, Cary Kings of NC A Nov. 5 letter to the editor said that N.C. legislators and judges are elected, so we deserve what we get. True, but once those elected Republicans arrive at the hallowed halls in Raleigh they do not necessarily represent their constituents. They make policy and laws and vote as they are told by the self-appointed kings of North Carolina, House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger. The public is only useful at election time. Donna Corbett, Sanford Vote accordingly Former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger recently said, Do you support democracy, or do you not support democracy? That is the one issue on the ballot. Vote accordingly. Hes right, especially when it comes to N.C. voters. Too many of our politicians appear to care only about maintaining power and not about the will of the people. House Speaker Tim Moore, who just endorsed Donald Trump despite his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, is one. Voters in our state need to respond accordingly. We have big issues to tackle in our towns, our state and country, but we cannot fix anything if our voices arent heard. Vote like our democracy depends on it. Because it does. Anne Enberg, Raleigh Guest Opinion. A coalition of American Indian Nation members of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) has risen in opposition to a proposal that would remove membership for Native nations who are not on a federal list of tribes who receive funding from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The proposal would exclude at least 24 bona fide Native nations that are currently members of the NCAI, by downgrading their status to "association. Those nations would no longer be allowed to cast votes in the NCAI, and their citizens would likewise be disenfranchised. Those nations are recognized by various states but, due to colonial and federal termination efforts, are not listed to receive direct benefits from the BIA, even though they may have governmental relationships with other federal agencies. NCAI is poised to further the erasure of Native ations-to finish the white man's work. The proposal flies in the face of NCAI's origin, which was to vigorously defend against any efforts to terminate the First Peoples of this country. A coalition of Native nations recognized by federal and state governments oppose the proposal because it would distort the mission of NCAI by diminishing inter- Tribal empowerment and diluting Indigenous representation. The proposal itself depends on a misrepresentation of history that replaces Indigenous values with artificial colonized distinctions. The 24 bona fide Native nations most immediately affected by the proposal are those NCAI members, who, as original peoples, enjoy either common law sovereignty or are recognized as Native nations by the states where they reside or by the other tribes in their region. Many have been a part of NCAI for decades as voting members and have helped the Congress build a reputation for representing the disparate interests of its membership and speaking in the collective voice of American Indigenous peoples. NCAI has long understood that federal status was subject to changing federal policy, and sought to protect the inherent sovereignty of all Native Nations from destructive federal policies and malign neglect. In 1944, NCAI was formed to withstand federal efforts to terminate Native nations. According to Thomas W. Cowger's book, The National Congress of American Indians: The Founding Years, NCAI originally "stressed both civil and tribal rights by declaring that the common welfare of Native Americans required the preservation of cultural values [and] the defense of legal rights." By the 1970s, NCAI formed an Executive Council on recognition to assist terminated Native nations in achieving federal recognition. In 1978, the NCAI convened its historic National Conference on Tribal Recognition, unanimously adopting a Declaration of twelve principles, proclaiming that "as an organization that represents the common interest of all tribes," NCAI demands that the United States "fulfill its obligation to all tribes... and acknowledge the existence" of non-federally recognized Native nations. Those efforts continue today through NCAI's Federal Recognition Task Force. The proposal undermines the very reason NCAI was formed 80 years ago, as well as the 1978 Declaration of the NCAI. For NCAI to succumb to this dishonorable mission would bring shame to our future generations and mark a sorrowful beginning to a new chapter for the Indian Congress one of neocolonialism and self-termination. Harry B. Wallace served as chief of the Unkechaug Indian Nation, a New York state recognized tribe, for 25 years. Since 2016, Wallace has taught courses at Stony Brook University as part of the linguistics departments Algonquian Language Revitalization Project, which he cofounded. About the Author: "Levi \"Calm Before the Storm\" Rickert (Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation) is the founder, publisher and editor of Native News Online. Rickert was awarded Best Column 2021 Native Media Award for the print\/online category by the Native American Journalists Association. He serves on the advisory board of the Multicultural Media Correspondents Association. He can be reached at levi@nativenewsonline.net." Contact: levi@nativenewsonline.net Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke out about the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in a televised interview. Credit - ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKOGetty Images Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared on NBCs Meet the Press to discuss Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza. After an attack by the militant group killed 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7, the Israel Defense Forces launched an air and ground offensive of Gaza in an attempt to defeat Hamas. The assault on Gaza has killed more than 11,000 people, the Hamas-run health ministry has said. Concerns grow over the humanitarian crisis, as many civilians in Gaza lack access to electricity, food, and water. Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets in protest around the world, calling for an immediate ceasefire and protection of civilians in Gaza. U.S. leaders and other Israeli allies have stood by Israels right to defend itself, while saying Israel must respect international human rights laws to protect civilians. However, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke out in a BBC interview on Nov. 11, arguing that there was "no justification" for the bombing and that a ceasefire would benefit Israel. Below are key moments from Netanyahus interview with Kristen Welker on the Nov. 12 episode of Meet the Press. Netanyahu says "we will win this war Welker asked Netanyahu whether Israel can win the war without global support. We will win this war, because we have no other choice, Netanyahu said. There is no life for us, theres no future for us and our neighbors, if we allow the axis of terror, led by Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and their minions to dominate, he continued, referencing militant groups based in Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen respectively. Netanyahu said Israel was fighting a just battle of civilization against barbarism, and compared his military to the allies against the Nazis in World War II. Netanyahu calls out "those who protest for Hamas" Masses of protesters, including students, have taken to the streets in the U.S. and elsewhere to express support for Palestine. The protesters overriding calls have been for an immediate ceasefire and the protection of Palestinian civilians. Referencing Hamas, Netanyahu said that any protesters who protest for Hamas, youre protesting for sheer evil... Who do you protest against? Do you protest against the Nazis? Or do you protest against the allies?... Its an indictment of higher education in some of our universities. WATCH: Israel PM @netanyahu delivers a message to students around the world he says are protesting for Hamas. Who do you protest against? Do you protest against the Nazis? Or ... against the Allies? Its an indictment of higher education in some of our universities. pic.twitter.com/FarsIxoOxA Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) November 12, 2023 Netanyahu says there "could be a deal" on hostages Hamas took more than 200 people hostage during its attack and so far has released four. Netanyahu said there could be a deal on hostages, but I think the less I say about it, the more Ill increase the chances that it materializes. He told Welker that Israel wasnt close at all to a deal until his military started its ground operation in Gaza. He argued any possible deal was the result of military pressure on Hamas. WATCH: Israel PM @netanyahu discusses a potential deal for the Israeli hostages' return.@kwelkernbc: Is there a potential deal? There could be, but I think the less I say about it, the more Ill increase the chances that it materializes." pic.twitter.com/RXc3I7sOY3 Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) November 12, 2023 Netanyahu says Gaza must be "demilitarized and deradicalized" Welker quoted Netanyahu as saying in the past that Israel will control Gaza for as long as needed. When asked if he would support an international force managing the region after the war, he argued that Gaza has to make sure it does not pose "a threat to Israel," later adding that Gaza has to be "demilitarized and deradicalized." Expanding his thoughts further, he said: "The only force right now that can guarantee that Hamas, that terrorism, does not reappear and take over Gaza again, is the Israeli military. Overall military responsibility will have to be in Israel." U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has addressed Gazas future, saying Hamas cant run Gaza and Israel cant reoccupy it, although its troops may be there temporarily. WATCH: @netanyahu calls for a different authority to govern Gaza after the war, but wont say if an international force should manage the region.@kwelkernbc: Who would that be? Netanyahu: Its too early to say. [But] the first task we have to achieve is defeat Hamas. pic.twitter.com/pKEqShNyYG Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) November 12, 2023 Netanyahu claims struggling Shifa hospital in Gaza refused offer of fuel In response to reports of Gazas main hospital suffering from power outages amid intense fighting around the medical facility, Netanyahu claimed that Israel offered Shifa Hospital fuel, but they refused to accept. Netanyahu said: "We offered actually last night to give them enough fuel to operate the hospital, operate the incubators and so on, because we obviously have no battle with patients or civilians at all. Every civilian death, every dead baby, is a tragedy, he said. They refused it. The IDF provided more details on this claim via Telegram, saying soldiers placed 300 liters of fuel at the entry to the hospital, sharing a video. TIME could not independently verify these statements or the video. TIME has reached out to the Hamas-run Palestinian Health Authority and Hamas' spokespeople for comment on Netanyahu and the IDFs statements. Following the Oct.7 assault by Hamas, Israel didn't allow fuel to enter Gaza over fears it would be used by Hamas for military purposes. The U.N. and other aid organizations issued firm warnings that hospital patients could die if fuel were to run out. Contact us at letters@time.com. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signaled that there could be a potential deal for hostage release with Hamas on the horizon, though he did not share any additional details. Well talk about it when its there. Well announce it if its achieved, he told NBCs Kristen Welker on Sundays Meet the Press. Two unnamed Israeli officials told Politico that the deal most likely would be for the release of a few dozen hostages, including children and the elderly as well as some American citizens. WATCH: Israel PM @netanyahu discusses a potential deal for the Israeli hostages' return.@kwelkernbc: Is there a potential deal? There could be, but I think the less I say about it, the more Ill increase the chances that it materializes." pic.twitter.com/4caAC51p3i Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) November 12, 2023 Netanyahu attributed the possible deal to the Israeli armys ground invasion. Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that captured approximately 240 hostages and left more than 1,400 dead, Israel has unleashed a devastating number of airstrikes on the Gaza strip, killing more than 10,000 Palestinians, including more than 4,000 children. I can say that we werent close [to a deal] at all until we started the ground operation, Netanyahu said. In fact, we heard that there is an impending deal of this kind or that kind, and then we learned that it was all hokum. It was nothing. But the minute we started the ground operation, things began to change. So is there a potential deal? Welker asked. There could be, but I think the less I say about it, the more Ive increased the chances that it materializes, the prime minister responded. And its a result of pressure, military pressure the extraordinary work that the IDF is doing, putting pressure on the Hamas leadership. But there are still obstacles to the deal. According to Politico, Hamas has not yet shared a complete list of hostages held in Gaza, and Hamas is calling for a ceasefire or prolonged humanitarian pause for up to one week. In response to pressure from the White House, Netanyahu has agreed to four-hour daily humanitarian pauses in hostilities, which might lead to some positive steps, former Mossad intelligence officer David Meidan told Politico. Welker also pressed Netanyahu about the deaths and suffering that Palestinian citizens are enduring as a result of the Israeli offensive. United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children. Hundreds of girls and boys are reportedly being killed or injured every day, Guterres said Monday. Gazas hospitals are also in dire straits. Without fuel, they cannot run incubators for infants needing intensive care or ventilators for patients dependent on them. Doctors in Gaza have said they have resorted to performing operations, including amputations, on patients without anesthesia. Even before the current war, few Gazans had access to clean water. Now, more than 45 percent of homes on the strip have been destroyed. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said just this morning that while Hamas has committed war crimes, the collective punishment by Israel of Palestinian civilians amounts also to a war crime, Welker said to Netanyahu. Can you definitively say right now that Israel is not breaking international law? Yes, I can say that what the commission has said is hogwash, because were the main difference is are you deliberately targeting civilians? No, were deliberately doing everything in our power to target the terrorists, Netanyahu said. And the civilians, as happens in every legitimate war, are sometimes what are called collateral damage. Netanyahu also accused Hamas of keeping its military installations inside hospitals, its command posts inside hospitals, inside schools, in side UNRWA, UN facilities, and so on. Hamas has refuted the claim that they set up base in hospitals, but National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Sunday, There is plenty of open source information to indicate that Hamas uses lots of different civilian institutionsincluding hospitalsto store weapons, for command and control, to house its fighters. Sullivan also said that the U.S. does not want to see firefights in hospitals in Gaza. When Welker asked Netanyahu for a timeline estimating how long the assault on Gaza will continue, the prime minister responded, I dont think its going to take the time that it took the United States and the international coalition to defeat ISIS or to defeat al-Qaeda But Ive set targets and not a deadline. More from Rolling Stone Best of Rolling Stone (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel had offered fuel to Gaza's Al Shifa hospital, which suspended operations after running out of fuel, but that the militants had refused to receive it. Netanyahu was asked by NBC News whether Israeli allegations that Hamas had a command post under Gaza's main hospital justified jeopardizing the lives of sick people and babies. "On the contrary, we offered actually, last night, to give them enough fuel to operate the hospital, operate the incubators and so on, because we (have) no battle with patients or civilians at all," Netanyahu said. Israel's military said it was ready to evacuate babies from Al Shifa on Sunday, but Palestinian officials said people inside were still trapped, with three newborns dead and dozens at risk from a power outage. Fighting is raging nearby. Netanyahu was asked if Israel has a plan to get fuel into Gaza to power hospitals. "We just offered Shifa hospital the fuel, they refused it," Netanyahu said. "Hamas, (which) is hiding in the hospitals and placing itself there, doesn't want the fuel for the hospital ... they want to get fuel that they'll take from the hospitals to their tunnels, to their war machine." Hamas denies Israeli allegations it has command posts under Shifa and other Gaza hospitals. It had no immediate comment on Netanyahu's remarks. (Reporting by Rami Ayyub; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel will oppose the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the Gaza Strip after the war against Hamas. Source: The Times of Israel citing Netanyahu's words Details: Asked about this, Netanyahu said that after the war, Israel would retain "overall security control, including the capacity to go in whenever we want to eliminate terrorists who may pop up again." Quote: "I will tell you what there will not be. There will not be Hamas. There will also not be a civil authority that educates its children to hate Israel, to kill Israelis, to eliminate the State of Israel. There cannot be an authority that pays the families of murderers [amounts] based on the number they murdered. There cannot be an authority whose leader still has not condemned the terrible [7 October] massacre 30 days later." "There needs to be something else there. But in any case, we must have security control. I insist upon it. There may be pressure on this issue. I dont intend to cave." "Completion of the task [of the war in Gaza] requires that on the day after Hamas, another Hamas cannot rise there." Reminder: US President Joe Biden said that Hamas must be destroyed, but the Palestinian state must be preserved. Reminder: On 10 October, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Galant stated that Israel was moving to a "full offence" against the Gaza Strip. Support UP or become our patron! TEL AVIV Newborns and other patients at Gazas largest hospital are dying as power fails and resources run out, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which said at least 35 babies born prematurely face possible death at any moment. Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City has been out of service since Saturday morning, according to the ministry, as heavy bombardment and intense fighting outside the complex cause power outages amid a fuel shortage. The Health Ministry said in a statement that three babies have died over the weekend, as well as more than 10 other patients. Muneer Al-Boursh, the Health Ministrys general director, spoke about the deaths in a phone interview and confirmed that hundreds of patients were still in the hospital. Dr. Marwan Abusada, a surgeon at the hospital who is also the head of international cooperation at the Health Ministry, said Saturday that one infant died because we did not have electricity. He confirmed the deaths of two more babies Sunday in a phone call. He said 36 others were at risk: If they stay in this condition, they are going to all die. The challenges for Gazas hospitals continue to mount: As fighting has intensified, ambulances have come under fire, power is going out, and dead bodies have piled up in an overwhelming surge of patients. Image: CORRECTION-TOPSHOT-PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-CONFLICT-HOSPITAL (Khader Al Zanoun / AFP - Getty Images) The majority of the enclaves hospitals are out of service, according to the Palestinian health minister. Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City joined the list Sunday, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said, and it is no longer operational. The Israel Defense Forces announced Sunday that it would open evacuation routes from Al-Shifa and two other hospitals in Gaza City: Al-Rantisi and Al-Nasr. In a statement, it said soldiers opened and secured a passage which enables the civilian population to evacuate, on foot and by ambulances from the three facilities. IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said at a briefing Saturday that staff members at Al-Shifa had requested that tomorrow we help the babies in the pediatric department to get to a safer hospital. Asked Sunday whether the IDF had assisted hospital staffers in transferring the babies to a safer hospital, a spokesperson said civilians in Gaza were requested to temporarily evacuate to the south of Wadi Gaza, "to stay away from the areas of most intense fighting." Abusada said he was not aware of anyone at the hospital, patients or otherwise, who had left the facility Sunday. He said fighting outside made it impossible. Dr. Ahmed El Mokhallalati, a plastic surgeon at Al-Shifa hospital, similarly said he was not aware of anyone who had yet been able to evacuate. Meanwhile, images from Al-Shifa show an increasingly dire scene. Dr. Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor who has worked in hospitals in Gaza for years and is in Cairo, shared a photo that Abusada sent him during a rare moment of internet access. Babies wrapped in blankets in a photo taken by Dr. Marwan Abusada, a surgeon at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. (Courtesy Mads Gilbert) The image shows babies wrapped in blankets and lined up in rows on hospital beds. At least one appears to have tape on its face, which is usually used to keep oxygen tubes in place. The Palestinian doctors and nurses have done everything they can to save their lives, Gilbert said, adding that he has been in regular communication with staff members at Al-Shifa. Similar images sent by El Mokhallalati, meanwhile, also show babies lying side by side with tape and tubes attached to their faces. He said those in the neonatal unit had to be taken off incubators that could not be kept running. To keep the infants warm, El Mokhallalati said, doctors moved them to a temperature-controlled operating room. Babies at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. (Dr. Ahmed El Mokhallalati) We know this is very risky, as they have very high chances of going into infection and sepsis, he said. El Mokhallalati said Al-Shifa has become a war zone, with vital resources dwindling, including food and water. We are eating the last remaining food cans, he said. In recent days, doctors at Al-Shifa have reported sounds of bombardment and fighting around the facility. Speaking by phone Saturday, Abusada said the people inside were terrified. Its horrifying for the patients and for the staff and for all the people who are in Shifa, he said. A large blast could be heard over the phone. Do you hear the bombardment? Do you hear that? Abusada said. Every minute we hear like that, so it is horrifying. Hagari confirmed that intense fighting has taken place around the hospital but denied that the IDF has attacked Al-Shifa. He accused Hamas of choosing to fight precisely near the facility and of committing a war crime in its use of hospitals. The Israeli military has maintained throughout the conflict that it does not target civilians. It alleges that Hamas hides in tunnels under Gaza hospitals, including Al-Shifa allegations that both Hamas and hospital workers have denied. El Mokhallalati said he felt that those in the hospital were being made to suffer: You cant punish everyone at Al-Shifa, he said. Patients and internally displaced people at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on Nov. 10, 2023. (Khader Al Zanoun / AFP via Getty Images) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday on NBC News Meet the Press that Israel offered fuel to the hospital the night before but that it was refused. The IDF said in a statement that it had placed 300 liters of fuel for urgent medical purposes at the entrance but said Hamas prevented the hospital from receiving the fuel. Hamas sources in Lebanon could not immediately be reached for their responses. Abusada said the hospital refused an offer of 200 liters of fuel because it was not enough at least 10,000 liters per day would be needed to run vital parts of the hospital. It was just 200 liters, he said. What to do with 200 liters? Retrieving the fuel would have required venturing outside, which Abusada has said is not safe. In addition to the evacuation routes from the hospitals, the IDF said the humanitarian corridor to southern Gaza that it has opened daily was available again Sunday. It also announced a six-hour temporary tactical cessation of military activities for humanitarian purposes in the areas of Jabalia and Ezbet Mlin to allow the entry of supplies. Tens of thousands of people have fled northern Gaza, including from Al-Shifa hospital. But doctors there said it has not been possible to evacuate patients with serious conditions and injuries. In a message sent over WhatsApp, El Mokhallalati said he fears for the newborns at the hospital. We are expecting to lose more of them day by day, he said. Babies at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. (Dr. Ahmed El Mokhallalati) This article was originally published on NBCNews.com A Corona Del Mar Middle and High School student was suspended this week for remarks made to another student that included the words "Free Palestine," according to school officials and social media posts. Annette Franco, a spokeswoman for the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, confirmed that the student was suspended but declined to provide any details. She emphasized in an email to the Times that students are not disciplined for exercising their right to free speech. "While we cannot share specifics of the situation, due to student privacy, we assure you that appropriate action was taken based on the facts of what occurred," she wrote in a statement. "We value students freedom of speech, but we will not tolerate hateful speech in our schools, especially not hate speech that incites others to engage in this negative behavior." The incident comes about a month after swastikas were tagged on the locker of a Jewish student, and after Hamas militants launched a brutal attack on southern Israel, sparking an ongoing war that has left 1,200 Israelis and 11,000 Palestinians dead. Authorities are investigating the swastika incident as a hate crime. The family of the student in the recent incident could not be reached for comment Saturday. But a woman identifying herself as Zeina on Instagram claimed she was the student's aunt. In her post, she provided details about the incident with a photo of the suspension letter written by Jacob Haley, the principal at Corona Del Mar Middle and High School. In the suspension letter, the student is accused of violating two education codes that prohibits students from harassing and threatening other students. The letter read: "The incident that caused this suspension follows: [the student] said threatening remarks to a young lady in class. He said 'Free Palestine'." The student, whom The Times is not naming because he is a minor, was suspended for three days. In the Instagram post, the woman claimed her 13-year-old nephew had been called a "terrorist" by the female student and that her nephew responded by repeatedly saying, "Free Palestine". The woman claimed it wasn't the first time her nephew had been harassed at school. "Two weeks ago [he] was threatened with hate and racism comments by two Israeli students," she wrote in her post. "The Israeli students told him go back to your country which is [Palestine] and started laughing, saying oh too bad you dont have a country its getting bombed." The woman said her sister reported it to the principal who told her he would speak to the two boys and that neither of them got suspended. In the same social media post, the woman also took video and photos of a book on Israel that was sitting on the principal's desk, accusing him of being biased. Franco, the spokeswoman for the district, did not know if the two students in the most recent incident were suspended. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. The Westgate Hotel, pictured during this year's Newport Rising march, holds huge historical significance for the city You would usually expect to find a forensic expert a crime scene dealing with fresh evidence. But Andre Horne has been looking at something a little older - 184-year-old bullet holes. The firearm expert has been tasked with investigating these holes in stone pillars at Newport's historic Westgate Hotel. His aim is to confirm the holes were from muskets fired in the 1839 Newport Chartist Rising. "It's a welcome change," said Andre. "It was very interesting to find out about these stories and try to see what potentially happened here." Typically at crime scenes, Andre analyses the impact marks, ejection patterns and determined trajectories of bullets to try and understand where the shooter might have been standing. But because the pillars at the Westgate Hotel have moved since 1839, this complicates matters. The building, which saw the battle between the Welsh Chartists and the soldiers of Queen Victoria, had been demolished in 1884 - only to be rebuilt two years later. The pillars which used to stand by the entrance of the old hotel are now ensconced within the building. Forensic expert Andre Horne examines the holes in the hotel's pillars As the Westgate is currently closed to the public, people are no longer able to go and see the bullet holes for themselves. For decades speculation has been rife about whether the pillars do actually bear the scars of the musket balls from nearly two hundred years ago. Some doubters have even circulated rumours that the holes were the result of the pillars being drilled at some point in order to attach posts or gates. One person trying to put an end to those rumours is Oliver Blackmore, collections manager at Newport Museum. Oliver, who joined Newport Museum in 2010, said: "I'd never seen the bullet holes and I accepted as fact what I'd been told about them being created simply to house railings. "However, when we visited the pillars questions started to arise because they actually did look like bullet holes to us." Oliver Blackmore says the holes were made by bullets The team at the Newport Museum then enlisted Andre's forensic expertise to test the holes. Oliver said: "When Andre went back to the lab there was very limited evidence of bullet residue - probably because thousands of enquiring fingers have been shoved into the holes over time. "But the historical evidence is pretty definitive, making any physical or forensic evidence just icing on the cake. "I think we can confidently say that the holes in the Westgate pillars are actually bullet holes". David Daniel is the Project Director of Our Chartist Heritage, the charity behind the Newport Rising festival. It commemorates that fateful day in 1839 when more than 20 protesters were killed fighting for the democratic rights of the working classes. And this year's festival saw the highest ever turnout for the torch-lit march, as hundreds marched to Westgate Square to mark the occasion. David Daniel helped reopen the Westgate Hotel after it had stood empty for years David helped reopen the doors of the Westgate Hotel in 2019 after it had laid derelict for years. Initially resurrected to host a small event, it birthed an ambitious plan to regenerate the hotel into a community space. David said the Westgate Hotel and its bullet holes were of key historical importance to Newport. "To see the bullet holes, the real effects of the rising and that fight for democratic rights is what makes the building really special, along with our part in it. "I think the idea that they weren't bullet holes came about because the building was empty for so long and people couldn't see them up close and personal. "That they are bullet holes is really the only real explanation that makes any sense. "So opening those doors and being able to show people was so powerful." David added the hotel's recent closure was a big loss to the city. "I think that the Westgate Hotel is a key venue in Newport, which is a struggling city," he said. "It's right in the centre, this piece of history - there's nothing that compares to it. "Its locked doors are a huge missed opportunity, both for Newport and Wales as a whole, in terms of how we remember our heritage." You can watch Wales Live on BBC iPlayer Flash Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina speaks at inauguration ceremony of the Dohazari-Cox's Bazar railway, in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh on Nov. 11, 2023. (Xinhua) The Dohazari-Cox's Bazar railway, one of the priority development projects of Bangladesh, was inaugurated here on Saturday to bolster connectivity and transportation infrastructure in the South Asian country. The 103.5-km railway, funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), was partly built by the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) and the China Railway Group Limited (CREC). Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Yao Wen attended the inauguration ceremony. In her speech delivered at the event, Prime Minister Hasina said this was the day of feeling proud. "The long wait of Cox's Bazar residents has finally come to an end. There is a longstanding demand in this region. The demand is met today," Hasina said, adding the rail link marked the beginning of a new era. Chen Yongyi, project manager of lot two, told Xinhua that the railway, which will shorten the travel time between Chattogram and Cox's Bazar from six to two hours, will become a key route of the trans-Asian railway network in Bangladesh and an important part of the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor. The lot two of the project was constructed by the CCECC in close association with its local partner Max Group. "This is a good and pleasant day for us. I felt very comfortable working with this Chinese company. They are very professional. We have successfully done this project, possibly one of the best and most interesting projects I have done in Bangladesh," Ghulam Mohammed Alomgir, chairman of Max Group, told Xinhua. Ke Changliang, chairman of CCECC Bangladesh Limited and president of the Chinese Enterprises Association in Bangladesh, told Xinhua that it was the first completed railway project of a joint venture between Chinese and Bangladeshi enterprises, which highlighted the concept of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It also effectively promoted cooperation between the two countries' companies and local infrastructure industry, he added. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the BRI with the aim of building a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient Silk Road routes and beyond. Milly Main died after contracting an infection at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital campus in Glasgow Scotland's largest health board has been named as a suspect in a corporate homicide investigation following the deaths of four patients at a Glasgow hospital. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) informed families of the development via a closed Facebook group set up during a water contamination crisis. The board confirmed it had received an update from the Crown Office. But it added there was no indication prosecutors had "formed a final view". Police Scotland launched a criminal investigation in 2021 into a number of deaths at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH), including that of 10-year-old Milly Main. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) instructed officers to investigate the deaths of Milly, two other children and 73-year-old Gail Armstrong at the Glasgow campus. Milly's mother previously told a separate public inquiry into the building of several Scottish hospitals that her child's death was "murder". A review earlier found an infection which contributed to Milly's death was probably caused by the QEUH environment. The Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow opened in 2015 In a statement on Sunday, NHSGGC said: "Our sympathies remain with the families who have been affected by events at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and Royal Hospital for Children. "We have received a communication from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) about this update to the status of their ongoing inquiry. "It should be made clear that this letter does not indicate that the COPFS have formed a final view. "They have thanked us for our voluntary contribution so far, and we will continue to co-operate with this investigation." A Police Scotland spokesperson said: "COPFS asked Police Scotland to investigate a number of deaths at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital campus, Glasgow. "Our investigation is ongoing, it would be inappropriate to comment further." 'Denial and cover-up' Scottish Labour Leader Anas Sarwar has campaigned on behalf of the families of the children who died. He said it had taken four years to get to this stage and Milly's family could now be "one step closer" to getting justice. Mr Sarwar added: "Throughout this entire ordeal, Kimberly and all those who lost loved ones have shown extraordinary courage, while the health board engaged in denial and cover-up. "To this day, nobody has been held to account for what went so tragically wrong. I long argued that had this scandal occurred in the private sector, there would have been a criminal investigation. "I hope the full force of the law is used so that no family ever again has to go through what Milly's family have been through." The way to access free sight and dental treatments in Northern Ireland is "flawed", a County Down woman has said. Nicola Coburn, from Culcavy, described the application for help with costs for benefit claimants as "convoluted". Concerns have been raised by optometrists that vulnerable people could miss out on basic healthcare. Last month, about 150,000 people lost their automatic entitlement to free eye and dental care when they moved to universal credit (UC). The Association of Optometrists (AOP) said it expected a further 7,000 people will be affected by the "legal technicality" when they move from legacy benefit systems. It added people must complete a 22-page form which can take weeks to be processed with no guarantee of approval. Nicola became a UC claimant after leaving work to help care for her daughter in 2019. She said she became aware of the difficulties in accessing eye and dental treatments after noticing changes to her sight. "I was getting different advice as to what needed to happen," she told BBC News NI. "It took maybe five or six weeks before I eventually discovered it was a HC1 form I needed to submit and then I still didn't know where to send it. "I consider myself fairly tech savvy and I know how much I struggled. I dread to think how hard it is for people to get the information they need." Nicola said she was eventually told her request for help with healthcare had been approved but "it probably took three or four months". 'Diabolical' AOP Chief Executive, Adam Sampson, described it as a "diabolical situation". "We're talking about thousands upon thousands of people, some of the most vulnerable in society, being excluded from eye care and dental care - a vital service enabling them to continue working, driving, looking after their children and loved ones. "That's not to mention the number of people who will simply stop making sight test appointments for them and their children for fear of the cost. "We could be facing a backlog of people getting diagnosed and accessing treatment far too late." Mr Sampson said the problem does not exist in the rest of the UK and called for the Department of Health "to act immediately to enable automatic entitlement on Universal Credit, which simply matches the approach in England, Wales and Scotland". A Department of Health spokesperson acknowledged "the concerns expressed about access to help with health care costs, particularly in the context of the migration of benefits to universal credit". "We will work with stakeholders to see if the process for the interim solution - the form HC1 - can be improved," they continued. "We also accept that a longer-term solution is required. This will require a decision on whether or indeed which income threshold might apply to universal credit recipients for help with health care costs eligibility. "Further work is required to take into account a number of factors including comparisons with other jurisdictions, as well as the cost implications for the different eligibility options." An artists impression of Robert De Niro on the witness stand. The actor has won two Oscars during a stellar career (AP/MSI) During a 60-year film career, Robert De Niro has played mobsters and hitmen, fraudsters and hustlers. Now in the twilight of his career, De Niro tends to oscillate between highbrow Martin Scorsese dramas and slapstick comedies. But its his mafioso roles that are the double Oscar-winners most iconic and that tough-guy persona, a new trial revealed, is also embraced in his personal and professional lives. A jury found on Thursday that De Niro was not liable in a gender discrimination lawsuit brought by his former assistant Graham Chase Robinson, but found his company Canal Productions liable and awarded her $1.2m in damages. The juicy two-week trial opened a window into the screen legends complicated romantic relationships and old-school values. Testimony from his employees and private text messages shown in court revealed De Niro prized loyalty above all else, issued threats with a menacing undertone and made it clear that anyone who crossed him would be severely punished. The 80-year-old global superstar surrounds himself with a small coterie of trusted lawyers, accountants and assistants, many of whom have been by his side for decades. They know and refer to him simply as Bob. Robert De Niro in Martin Scorseses acclaimed 1976 film Taxi Driver (Columbia/Kobal/Shutterstock) Ms Robinson claimed that during 11 years of working for De Niro, he subjected her to demeaning tasks unbefitting her role as a $300,000-a-year vice-president of production and finance. She claimed to be terrified of speaking up out of fear of reprisal. Here are five ways the trial revealed how De Niros tough-talking onscreen characters mirror his complicated offscreen life. How dare you f***ing disrespect me? After launching her $12m lawsuit in 2019, Ms Robinsons attorneys released a 2012 voicemail from De Niro as evidence of the hostile, abusive, and intimidating manner in which he spoke to her. In a performance worthy of his Oscar-winning role in The Godfather 2, De Niro can be heard calling his former assistant a spoilt brat, saying, how dare you f***ing disrespect me?, and yelling, youre f***ing history. The actor was in Los Angeles at the time and threatened to fire Ms Robinson while she was living in Spain. How dare you. You are absolutely fired, youre f***ing history, De Niro says in the leaked recording. How dare you with all the good things you do this is bulls*** after Christmas. F*** this, how dare you f***ing disrespect me how much you did. You want a f***ing another position? You want another position? Then change and go off somewhere. Dont f***ing get angry with me cause Im p***ed off cause I didnt get a simple thing I need more than right now here out in California when I am here for less than 24 hours. You got to be f***ing kidding me you spoiled brat, f*** you! So quit whenever you want, goddam ya, how can you f***ing... so you dont answer, youre upset cause youre living in Spain, you spoilt f***ing brat. De Niros explosive testimony The actor grabbed headlines with an astonishing performance on the witness stand early on in the trial. In his thick New York accent, De Niro admitted berating Ms Robinson and agreed he had called her petulant, snippy and a f***ing spoilt brat under questioning from her attorney Andrew Macurdy. The actor maintained he had never raised his voice at her or been abusive, his anger slowly building as the attorney continued to press him on his behaviour towards Ms Robinson. His claims to have never yelled were somewhat undercut when he shouted across the courtroom shortly afterwards: Shame on you Chase Robinson! Robert De Niro arrives at court to give evidence on 31 October (Getty) Realising he had lost his temper, De Niro apologised to the court. Mr Macurdy then asked the actor about claims he had urinated while speaking on the phone to Ms Robinson. Thats nonsense, De Niro replied angrily. You got us all here for this? De Niro denied he had sought publicity by suing Ms Robinson, telling the court: It draws attention to me. Its the last thing I wanted to do. Who the f*** does she think she is? Ms Robinsons fiery clashes with De Niros girlfriend, Tiffany Chen, were a running theme of the trial. Ms Chen testified that she was suspicious of the former assistants imagined intimacy with her boyfriend, and described her as crazy and a psychotic single white female, a reference to the 1992 psychological thriller. Ms Robinson eventually quit De Niros company, Canal Productions, in April 2019. In a July 2019 text exchange shown to the court, De Niro wrote to Ms Chen: Can you believe Chase? Who the f*** does she think she is? She thought she was your girlfriend. I saw it from the beginning, Ms Chen replied in the text. The balls. The nerve. The chutzpah. The sense of entitlement. How dare her, De Niro continued. De Niro and his girlfriend Tiffany Chen (Getty) That same attitude appears to have rubbed off on Ms Chen. In January 2019, she became convinced that Ms Robinson had deliberately sabotaged their four-hour flight home to New York from holiday in Antigua by private jet after telling flight attendants not to provide any refreshments. If you keep her you and I will eventually have problems, she texted De Niro that March. Loyalty above all else Several of De Niros longtime confidantes took the stand at trial and delivered fascinating insights into the workings of his inner sanctum. There was his personal trainer of 40 years Dan Harvey, whom De Niro sought out after struggling to lose the 35 pounds he put on for his Oscar-winning performance as boxer Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull. Mr Harvey told the court how he would put the actor through punishing near-daily weight and exercise routines that would last up to seven hours. He became a sounding board for De Niro to practice his movie dialogue, and accompanied the actor on location all over the world. I like working for him because hes a very disciplined man who works hard at his craft and I respect him very much, Mr Harvey told the court. De Niro, Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta starred in Martin Scorseses classic mob drama GoodFellas (Rex) De Niro could be a demanding taskmaster, and early on in their working relationship would often lose his temper, Mr Harvey said. His salary eventually rose to $375,000 a year. During a lean patch for the actor in 2008, Mr Harvey said he was asked to take a 50 per cent pay cut. He said he told De Niro that the salary reduction just doesnt make sense for me as he had mortgages, car payments and a child starting private school. He said: Dont worry about it, Ill take care of it, testified Mr Harvey. Dan Harveys brother, Tom Harvey, has been De Niros personal attorney for 30 years and also testified at trial. Tom Harvey, who is also general counsel at Canal Productions, was responsible for dealing with Ms Robinsons exit from the company. A complicated love life De Niros complicated romantic relationships were not spared from scrutiny. The public timeline of his divorce from Grace Hightower and blossoming romance with Ms Chen appeared to have been compressed by a couple of years more than was previously known in evidence produced before the court. Ms Chen testified that the couple met on the set of the 2015 comedy The Intern, began dating in 2017 and moved in together into a new townhouse in 2018. The Intern filmmakers had sought out a martial arts expert for the film and approached Ms Chens father William, a highly respected tai chi instructor. Ms Chen, a former Golden Gloves champion and expert martial artist in her own right, went on to appear in the film, and the couple began dating in 2017 while he was still married to his ex-wife Grace Hightower, the court heard during her testimony. Grace Hightower and De Niro (Getty for IWC) You entered a relationship with Mr De Niro while he was still married, correct? Ms Robinsons attorney Vince McKnight asked her. On paper, yes, she replied. Ms Chen told the court they had initially concealed the relationship from De Niros family and office workers. They moved into a townhouse on Manhattans Upper East Side and had a baby girl the actors seventh child earlier this year. We have 15 dogs and a human daughter, Ms Chen said. De Niro publicly separated from Ms Hightower in November 2018, sparking a bitter divorce proceeding. BALTIMORE The Baltimore Police officer who chased and shot a 17-year-old from behind in May will not be criminally charged, the Baltimore City States Attorneys Office determined. Nor will the officers who in February pursued a reportedly stolen vehicle that subsequently crashed into another car, then collided with a pedestrian, killing him, according to declination reports posted online by States Attorney Ivan Bates office. Baltimore prosecutors wrote that the actions of Officer Cedric Elleby, who shot the teen in Southwest Baltimores Shipley Hill neighborhood, were objectively reasonable, and that the officers who had sought the fleeing vehicle acted reasonably and lawfully and did not cause the fatal accident that killed Alfred Fincher, the pedestrian. The two reviews of police-involved fatalities for possible criminal charges are likely among the last to be conducted by Baltimore prosecutors, as the power to make such charging decisions statewide was transferred to the Office of Attorney General, effective Oct. 1. The first police case in which the Attorney General will have prosecutorial decision-making is Tuesdays fatal police shooting in Baltimores Millhill neighborhood. It has drawn scrutiny this week and led to comparisons to the Shipley Hill incident from May. In both, members of the Baltimore Police Departments District Action Team approached residents and attempted to stop them because they believed the individuals to be armed. Both residents fled on foot and were chased by police who then shot them. Footage from Tuesdays police shooting has not been publicly released yet, while Ellebys body camera footage showed him ordering the teen to drop a weapon and to stop, then firing his weapon four times, striking the teen at least once. The teen survived the shooting but was critically injured. In prosecutors review, they wrote that before Elleby fired his weapon, the teen had turned slightly to his right. His right arm, in which he held his gun, also moved to the right, prosecutors said, as if (he) and his gun were turning toward the (officer). Prosecutors also added he was running toward a man on nearby porch steps. In the split second that the (teen) swung his arm to his right, a reasonable officer could have believed that the (teen) was turning himself towards the officer to shoot at him, the report said. It appears clear that thats what the (officer) thought as well, as thats the moment that he opened fire. Beyond fearing for his own safety, prosecutors added, the officer would have feared for the safety of the entire community, including the man on the steps. The report did acknowledge the possibility that the teen was merely trying to dispose of his firearm, and that he was going to turn into the nearby alleyway to continue running from the officer. But Elleby simply could not assume either of those facts at the moment he pulled the trigger, prosecutors wrote. What the (officer) saw in front of him was an armed man running towards another man and ignoring lawful orders, it said. The 16-page report also examined the initial stop of the teen. The two District Action Team detectives believed a group gathered along McHenry Street were likely involved in illegal activity, and thus decided to engage, according to prosecutors. When they got closer, they noticed a bulge in the teens waistband and Elleby decided that he needed to investigate. That, prosecutors said, was more than a hunch. Baltimore Police had been criticized for an initial statement that the 17-year-old had been displaying characteristics of an armed person, which some residents and other critics suggested was vague terminology created to justify stopping people. Were relying on these officers testimony in court that theyre getting it right all the time, and its a very nebulous area, defense attorney Natalie Finegar said in May. Basically, youre saying somebodys holding their arm funny, somebodys walking funny but you dont even know necessarily if that person has some sort of physical disability. Similarly, residents have questioned officers pursuit Tuesday of Hunter Jessup, which led to his fatal shooting. One resident, Mike Davis, argued this week that police should stop chasing people solely in pursuit of firearms, saying dont chase us and shoot us just for all that. The other report, into Februarys fatal crash, found that officers initial pursuit of the stolen vehicle was lawful. It was terminated by a lieutenant over the radio, according to prosecutors, but could have continued under relevant law. The report quotes the lieutenant as saying, All right, just let it go, guys, its westbound on Sinclair, its traveling at a high rate of speed. It looks like its gonna go southbound on Wolfe and come out around, then adding seconds later, Its not worth it, break it off. The nearest police officer at that point decelerated and continued to drive southbound behind the car, slightly less than one block behind. The prosecutors declination report identifies that officer as Yancey, with no last name, but the Independent Investigations Division and a city salary database both list him as Devin Yancy. It was mere seconds later that the fleeing vehicle ran a red light, collided with another car, then struck a pedestrian, Fincher, the report found. The car also struck a vacant building that then collapsed. In reviewing available evidence, prosecutors put particular emphasis on the statement of one of the people inside the allegedly stolen vehicle, who said she wasnt aware officers were pursuing it when the collision occurred, and the statement of a bus driver who told police he saw no evidence of a police chase at the time of the crash. Prosecutors concluded that the police officers acted reasonably and lawfully. Dmytro Sova, a famous Ukrainian actor known for roles in Carpathian Ranger, Cherkasy, Kateryna, and Souvenir from Odesa, opened up about his service in the Ukrainian Armed Forces and shared his views on colleagues who choose not to enlist. In an exclusive interview with KP.ua on Nov. 8, Sova emphasized that he cannot speak on behalf of others and refrained from advocating a universal obligation to defend the homeland. He acknowledged the personal challenges of warfare, describing the act of taking lives as a profound and irreversible step. Read also: Hollywood actor Sean Penn returns to Kyiv for mental health summit I go to defend my relatives, loved ones; I go for the people whom I love and respect very much. Perhaps, thats how I was brought up, Sova remarked, revealing the emotional support from friends and family despite the inevitable difficulties. Addressing the complexities that hinder some from military service, including corruption scandals, Sova highlighted the importance of teamwork on the front lines. He expressed a desire for quality cinema and new projects, envisioning a role beyond acting. Sova shared insights into the activities of friends who, while not on the front lines, contribute to the effort by assisting with aerial reconnaissance, creating propaganda videos, producing Ukrainian content, and engaging in tactical medicine. Read also: The actor also criticized those who speak at length without taking action, especially individuals who left the country when the conflict escalated. He urged those not ready for military service to refrain from justifying their stance. I wont take sides and say youre bad because youre not defending the Motherland. Thats not my position. Let such people not say anything, Sova concluded. 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 I am sitting here preparing my children for death. a mother in Gaza For many in Olympia, Gaza is no abstraction. Its dead are not mere statistics, though the numbers are staggering and mounting: over 10,000 dead, including 4,000 children and 2,500 women. Gazans and Palestinians are our friends, colleagues, family members, trapped in a nightmare of catastrophic destruction for which they bear no responsibility and from which they cannot escape. Their messages come through on Instagram and WhatsApp: we feel alone, we feel invisible, death surrounds us, the bombings dont stop, everything is collapsing. Where is the world to protect us? The Israelis brutally killed and kidnapped by Hamas also are part of our human family. Yet the atrocities committed against them are being used to justify an even greater atrocity: destroying a societys very ability to survive. What words can describe Palestinian life today? When I was a Fulbright Scholar at Bethlehem University following the 1993 Oslo Accords, Israeli writers and scholars began to use the word apartheid to describe Israels systematic seizure of land and water, and ever-expanding settlements inside Palestinian territory. Some thought this word an exaggeration. Thirty years later, the scope of Israels dispossession and segregation of Palestinians is so firmly established, with high-tech, militarized walls and checkpoints, that three major human rights organizations BTselem, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have now documented Israels crimes of apartheid. This system is most evident in Gaza, a strip of just 365 square kilometers between Israel and Egypt where 2.3 million inhabit the largest open-air prison in the world. In 2003, Olympias Rachel Corrie was killed in Gaza by an Israeli military-operated bulldozer while defending a Palestinian familys home from demolition. Shortly before her death, she wrote that she was witnessing children being killed, greenhouses destroyed, homes and water wells demolished. She said please tell people I am in the midst of a genocide. Today, some debate the accuracy of this term, but it is accepted by many on the ground international health workers, Jewish Voice for Peace, NGOs, and other legal and human rights advocates. Some U.S. and United Nations officials have resigned in protest of the systematic strangulation and bombardment of an entire population that violates all norms of international law. In 2018, Gazans gathered peacefully at the border fence in the Great March of Return to protest their lives of imprisonment, economic and military siege. They danced the debke in front of Israeli soldiers and flew colorful kites over the wall to symbolize their quest for freedom. Israeli forces killed over 200, injuring and crippling thousands, including women, children, and journalists. I serve on the advisory board of Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, an NGO that supports women and children dealing with the trauma of the ongoing Israeli siege. A 15-year-old in Gaza today has now lived through five so-called wars. The trauma they carry in their young bodies is immense. It is difficult to imagine how these children, if they survive, will heal from the inhumane levels of violence they are witnessing. In addition to the over 4,000 dead, many others are injured, buried in rubble, orphaned, or suffering having their limbs amputated, sometimes without anesthesia. The mental health staff send messages that the clinic building is damaged, their families are now homeless, entire neighborhoods are destroyed, and that they lack medications, food, and water. Last Sunday, thousands marched in Olympia, demanding a ceasefire. They included Palestinian youth leaders, Jews against occupation, Muslims, and diverse families with young children splashing in the puddles along Capitol Way. Collectively, we voiced despair, anger, and ultimately hope that the world will recognize that there is no military solution to this conflict. That we need to address the root causes and deep injustice at its heart, and affirm the rights of both peoples, Palestinians and Israelis, to live in freedom and equality on their lands. Therese Saliba is a former Fulbright Scholar to Palestine who works with the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace & Justice. In an interview with Radio NV on Nov. 9, Valerii Chaly, Ukraines former ambassador to the United States, said that Ukraine will not sign a surrender agreement with Russia anytime soon. We will not have a surrender agreement with Russia in the coming years. It may happen someday, but not in the near future. So forget about any reparations formalized in such a way, Chaly said. While ruling out a formal surrender agreement, Chaly suggested that Ukraine could pursue reparations through an international court, presenting this as one possible avenue to seek compensation for the extensive damage suffered during the conflict. The main form of compensation for the damage, state losses amounting to hundreds of billions, will be financial compensation, Chaly said. Where does this compensation go? When you dont have a formal interstate agreement or a UN resolution, then it turns out that its the decision of each individual country. And here arises the question. Read also: US and China will lead peace negotiations, not Putin, as Russias dependency on China grows says Ukrainian diplomat I am confident that it will happen, the interests of our partners are embedded here. I appreciate this assistance, and its very good that their interests align with ours. They will come in with reconstruction projects, with these funds in Ukraine along with their control. Thats how it will be. According to Chaly, our [Ukraines] dependence on external partners is enormous. This money can be directed very specifically, prioritizing development where we can already have this development base and further enhance the countrys development. If they go towards restoring the state we had before the large-scale invasion, towards restoring metallurgical or chemical enterprises, so that our international specialization remains the same, I think it would not be entirely correct. In September, it was reported that Ukraine would demand reparations from Russia during the hearing at the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Ukraines lawsuit against Russia. However, Kyiv has not yet determined the amount it will demand. Earlier this year, Vice Prime Minister for the Restoration of Ukraine and Minister for the Development of Communities, Territories, and Infrastructure, Oleksandr Kubrakov, had stated that post-war reconstruction in Ukraine would rely heavily on reparations from Russia. Kubrakov envisioned Russian funds contributing at least 50% of the financing, with the remaining 25% each coming from Ukraines partners and state funding. 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 Victor Cross (left) was key to capturing the former Auschwitz concentration camp commandant Rudolf Hoss "Father never spoke to us children about the war, so it wasn't until after he died that we realised how important his work had been." William Cross was not yet born when his father, Capt Victor Cross, was among senior British soldiers who caught Rudolf Hoss, the former commander of Auschwitz concentration camp, who had gone on the run at the end of World War Two. Hoss was a key figure culpable in the deaths of millions of Jewish people. But how did a Northampton leather merchant come to find him, and what role did he play? Short presentational grey line Victor Cross worked in the family business - the British Chrome Tanning Company - in Northampton, before the war. He travelled widely, purchasing hides for the high-quality women's shoes the company made. His father sent him to Germany to learn more about the trade, and Victor became fluent in the language while there. When World War Two broke out in 1939, he joined the British Army Intelligence Corps, which was keen to recruit German speakers. Victor Cross, second from right, pictured with members of 92 Field Security Section when it was in East Africa, before the section was deployed to Belgium and Germany towards the end of the war At the end of the war, Capt Cross was sent to Germany in command of 92 and 95 Field Security Sections and, with others, was tasked with capturing escaped Nazis. Among the thousands of names on a list given to them was Rudolf Hoss - sometimes referred to as Hoess. Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Hoss had joined the Nazi Party in the early 1920s and later became an SS officer, working at a concentration camp at Dachau, before transferring to Auschwitz, which he ran until 1943. Josef Mengele (left), the infamous doctor of Auschwitz, referred to as the "Angel of Death", pictured with Rudolf Hoss in 1944 He went on to inspect other camps and assess their methods. About six million Jews died in the Holocaust - the Nazi campaign to eradicate Europe's Jewish population - and Auschwitz was at the centre of that genocide. But Hoss made his own escape at the end of the war. In an official Army report dated 15 March 1946, Capt Cross detailed how his team and others came to root out Hoss. "After five months of continuous investigations, interrogations and extensive searches, this section has succeeded in arresting SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Hoess, Rudolf Franz Ferdinand who commanded the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp which was built under his supervision," he wrote. Hoss (centre) was photographed in prison after his arrest with Capt Cross (right) and guard Cpl John Bowman He told how Hoss's wife, Hedwig, and their children had been found at a sugar factory where she was working in St Michaelisdonn. She stated she had last seen her husband in April 1945 and that he had died. Convinced she was lying, Capt Cross's team interrogated her several times. After six days, "she finally broke down" and gave the address where her husband was staying, the captain wrote. Working with another unit, Capt Cross's team surrounded the farmhouse near Flensburg in northern Germany - close to the Danish border - late on 11 March 1946 and "Hoss was surprised in his pyjamas". Rudolf Hoss and his family lived in this house within the camp at Auschwitz The former commander had been living and working at the farm under the alias Franz Lang, "but admitted his true identity within 10 minutes of his arrest", wrote Capt Cross. Hoss gave a statement "in a very matter of fact way and it appears is quite willing to give information", he said. Concluding his report, Capt Cross wrote that Hoss "must be regarded as one of the major war criminals... who had been entrusted by Himmler with the task of exterminating the Jews of Europe". He said: "Most staggering of all was his cool estimate that in Auschwitz alone, two-and-a-half million were gassed." Hoss was photographed with a bloodied nose after his capture Capt Cross went on to say that a number of people had helped Hoss remain in hiding, including his wife and 16-year-old son, Klaus. He wrote: "According to Hoss himself, these two were perfectly aware of what was happening in the Auschwitz camp where they lived, as in Hoss's own words 'the smell of the burning bodies could leave no-one in any doubt'." Hoss was handed over to Hanns Alexander, a British Army officer in charge of the war crimes investigation team. From his cell, on 16 March 1946, Hoss wrote: "I personally arranged on orders received from Himmler in May 1941 the gassing of two million persons between June/July 1941 and the end of 1943 during which time I was commandant of Auschwitz." Hoss gave evidence during the Nuremberg trials Awaiting his trial, he wrote a memoir in which he recounted how he watched women and children being taken to the early improvised gas chambers in cottages at the camp. He said: "One woman approached me as she walked past and pointed at her four children, who were manfully helping the smallest ones over the rough ground, and whispered, 'How can you bring yourself to kill such beautiful darling children? Have you no heart at all?'" He wrote that he would ride his horse to clear his mind after such incidents. On 15 April 1946, Hoss testified at the Nuremberg trials. A group of child survivors behind a barbed wire fence at the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz Under oath, he said: "During the summer of 1941, I was ordered to Berlin to receive orders personally from Reichsfuhrer SS Himmler. "He said something like this - the Fuhrer has ordered the final solution of the Jewish problem. We, the SS, are entrusted with executing this order. He has chosen Auschwitz for logistical reasons." He went on to say the camp's proximity to a railway and its isolated position were among the reasons the camp was chosen. Hoss's witness statement at Nuremberg was significant because while other senior officers denied offences and defended the actions of the Third Reich, he stated on the record the actions of the Nazis and the mass extermination of the Jewish people. Hoss was sentenced to death after a trial in Poland Hoss was later extradited to Poland where his trial in Warsaw began on 11 March 1947. He was sentenced to death on 2 April 1947. Hoss was hanged on 16 April 1947 at the site of the former Auschwitz camp - the gallows stood at the remains of the camp's Gestapo building, next to the first crematorium at Auschwitz, and 100 metres from the villa where he had lived with his family. Hoss was hanged close to where he had lived at Auschwitz Capt Cross returned to civilian life and continued to work in the family's leather firm until his retirement. He died from cancer at the age of 75 on 15 June 1988. His son William, now 71 and a farmer in Oakham, Rutland, recalls his father having lots of memorabilia including a Swastika flag, "but we never asked him about it", he says. "Not even when we were playing with a pistol - he didn't come out and tell us where it came from - or say 'I got this from so and so'. "It wasn't until my older [half] brother was going through father's things that so much came to light about what he had done." After the war, Capt Cross donated the handcuffs he had used to the Military Intelligence Museum, engraved with the name of Hoss and two other Nazis the section had arrested - Hans Bothmann and Rudolf Georg Renner William's half-brother, from Capt Cross's first marriage, now lives in Lymington in Hampshire. Although Peter Cross was born before his father went overseas with the Intelligence Corps, Capt Cross did not share his experiences of the war with him either. "He never spoke about it to me, but after he passed, I went through his things," the 82-year-old recalls. Neither brother had realised until then the role their father had played in capturing one of the most notorious murderers of the Jewish people. You can find out more about the role played by Capt Victor Cross on the BBC documentary Rise of the Nazis: The Manhunt. Follow East of England news on Facebook, Instagram and X. Got a story? Email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp us on 0800 169 1830 A Cornell University campus police officer and a state trooper sit parked outside the Center for Jewish Living on November 3, 2023 in Ithaca, New York, where a Unity Shabbat dinner was held. The university canceled classes after antisemitic threats appeared online. Credit - Matt BurkharttGetty Images Its not easy to be a Jew at an American university today. As one student tearfully explained to me, Were exhausted and were beleaguered and no one seems to understand. University administrators have indeed mostly failed their Jewish students, staff, and faculty. Fears of imposing censorship and citing of First Amendment rights have allowed to circulate freely on campus Holocaust denial, the invocation of white privilege to dismiss antisemitism, and the rejection of the Jewish peoples inalienable right to self-determination. How did it come to this? There is first the obvious fact that, if Jews comprise only 2.4 percent of the United States population, Jewish students will invariably almost always be a minority on all but a few campuses. Even at universities where Jewish students comprise larger minorities, such as at Cornell, Columbia, and Tulane, they have often experienced the same opprobrium that has been seen on campuses across the country. The relative paucity of Jewish students makes them a constituency that often receives only limited attention. At the university I teach at, Georgetown, for instance, the campus rabbi fought for years to get Kosher food in the dining hall. The consistent rebuff was that there were insufficient observant Jews on campus. Eventually, however, these entreaties succeeded and Kosher food became available. But the amount of effort and time it took underscores how challenging it can be at even the most inclusive and worldly campuses for such requests from Jewish students to be granted. Second, like the reportedly liberal residents of the collective agricultural communities bordering Gaza, we Jewish-American academicians deluded ourselves into believing that our respect for Palestinian self-determination was mutual and that our rational arguments for a two-state solution, our opposition to Jewish settlement on the West Bank and East Jerusalem neighborhoods, and our criticism of Israels current extreme right government would eventually persuade our more progressive colleagues on the other side to accept and recognize Israel as a bona fide nation-state. More revealing should have been the continued frequency of these colleagues denunciations of Israel and signing of protest letters decrying Israeli transgressions contrasted with the more pervasive silence over Chinas treatment of the Uighurs, Turkey of the Kurds, Assads serial massacring of his own citizens, Hezbollahs assassination campaign against independent Lebanese journalists and of a serving prime minister, etc. Accordingly, this historic imbalance of protests over the loss of Muslim life or repression on religious grounds when inflicted by countries other than Israel should come as no surprise, especially given the dominant anti-colonialist/anti-Western scholarly and didactic approaches so prevalent at many American universities today. Third, how can we teach students scholarships guiding principles of objectivity, analysis based on empirical evidence, and logic when most of them get their news from TikTok or Instagram or YouTube and not traditional news media whether on television, radio, or print? According to a recent Reuters Institute report, this shift is the product of a demand for more accessible, informal, and entertaining news formats, often delivered by influencers rather than journalists. The desire therefore has become for news that feels more relevant,at the expense of accuracy, vetting, and objectivity. With so complex and complicated issues as war and peace with Palestine and Israel, the fact these social media sites have become the main news sources for student means that they are getting emotionally resonant and rewardingly cathartic memes and infographics that may be clever and entertaining but are glib and unenlightening. Fourth, is the default cry of university administrators for more education and more dialogue. The belief is that talking is cathartic and can bridge or at least ameliorate disagreement and incivility over even the most divisive and polarizing issues. In reality, however, these campus forums often provide vehicles for Jewish students to feel even more marginalized, more isolated, and more victimized. As one of my students, who is not Jewish, complained to me, There is a both sides argument that quickly moves into a disturbingly pro-genocide narrative calling for the total annihilation of Israel. These dialogues and extra-curricular education opportunities are rarely balanced. A colleague at a small, liberal arts college wrote the other day about a planned seven-week special lecture series featuring speakers universally hostile to Israel and disdainful of the two-state solution once heralded by the landmark Oslo Accords and more recently envisioned by the Abraham Accords. Finally, we thought that the fears and concerns of our parents and grandparents had been rendered anachronistic by inclusivity, the mantra of 21st-century American universities. Today, however, like the parents of school-age children, who are afraid to send their kids to Hebrew school, the parents of Jewish undergraduates and graduates worry about the febrile atmosphere on campuses and how their children are coping. In despair, a Jewish student told me of their bitter experience of unprecedented loneliness on campus. Just as the October 7th terrorist attacks forever changed Israel, they will have a similarly profound impact on Jews at campuses throughout the country. Already some Jewish parents are steering their high school juniors and seniors away from attending or applying to more prestigious universities based on how their administrators have handled the frictions that have been continuously sharpened and the attitudes and behavior of faculty and students alike. And, many Jewish students already on campus are being encouraged by their parents, family, and friends to skip those classes where they feel that they somehow have to explain or justify Israeli policy and military operations or somehow apologize or atone for them. It is an unenviable situation that may never re-set. And, one that harkens back to a darker time when Jews felt and indeed were far less welcome at many universities throughout the U.S. Americas universities have long been envied the world over as exemplars of the highest standards of learning and scholarship. Will they now become better known, and perhaps even emulated, for failing to adequately protect their Jewish communities? Jews know better than most how easily ostracism and intolerance spreads from us to others. And, then to books and ideas as well. Contact us at letters@time.com. As New Yorks fleet of Uber, Lyft and other for-hire vehicles moves toward a zero-emission mandate by 2030, concerns are growing that the number of car charging stations popping up across the five boroughs wont be enough to meet driver demand. The problem may become more acute as the city Taxi and Limousine Commission eliminates its limit on the number of electric vehicles that operate as app-based rideshares. Of the 78,000 cars currently authorized by TLC as app-based rideshares, roughly 2,200 are electric vehicles, TLC data shows. The TLC expects the fleet to be 25% electrified by the end of 2026. If that happens, roughly 19,500 electric for-hire vehicles will be on the street. All of them will be hungry for scarce electric chargers, say researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. [T]he existing charging network in New York City is not adequate even in the most optimistic scenario, researchers with the two agencies said in an April 2022 study. [A]lthough charging is demanded in areas nearby high trip demand, fast charging ports are also demanded in areas near driver residences as a supplement for home charging in scenarios with limited overnight charging access, the study says. By the time the electric for-hire fleet hits 21,000 cars a benchmark the TLC hopes to achieve by 2027 the city will need more than 1,000 direct-current fast chargers capable of topping up a cars battery in 20 minutes to an hour would be required citywide, the study says. Thats a lot more than the number of fast chargers now available. The city currently has 187 direct-current fast chargers, distributed among 38 charging stations citywide, according to state government data. The bulk of the fast chargers are in Brooklyn, which has 68 charging ports at six locations, and Queens, which has 65 ports across 16 locations. Manhattan has 27 fast-charging ports at 11 stations. On Staten Island, 15 fast-charging ports are distributed across four stations. The Bronx has just one fast-charging station a Tesla Supercharger facility at the Bay Plaza Mall, which consists of a dozen charging ports. Drivers may also use dslower-charging Level 2 plugs, which require a 240-volt residential or 208-volt commercial outlet. Level 2 charges can bring a car to an 80% charge level overnight or during the course of a workday. The city currently has 1,960 of the slower-charging Level 2 ports, spread across 634 stations. More than half of those are in Manhattan, where fewer than 10% of Uber and Lyft drivers live. Electric vehicles also can be charged using alternating current from a normal 120 volt electrical outlet. Fully charging a vehicle with such an outlet known as Level 1 charging can take more than a day. As things currently stand, only about 15% of the citys Uber, Lyft and other for-hire cars can be charged overnight, the researchers say. An overnight charge is adequate for Brooklyn-based Uber driver Lazizjon Negmatullaev. On a typical day, [I] can drive the whole day without worrying about charging, Negmatullaev told the Daily News. Negmatullaev, who made the shift to an electric vehicle last month with a new TLC plate, said hes able to drive without worry because he charges his Tesla Model Y between shifts overnight at a parking spot he owns near his apartment. But most drivers who park their cars on city streets overnight lack Negmatullaevs easy access to even a slow charger. The problem is drivers tend to live where there isnt overnight charging, said Bruce Schaller, a traffic and transit consultant and former deputy commissioner at the citys Department of Transportation. In most of the country, people have a garage and a driveway obviously not in New York. Schaller proposed expanding the citys network of slower Level 2 chargers to spaces like retail parking lots, where drivers can reliably find overnight parking. The thing about the outer boroughs is there is a lot [potential] overnight parking at grocery stores and that sort of thing, he said. To me, thats kind of the model. Revel, the company first known for its outgoing fleet of rental e-mopeds, has been operating for-hire electric cars since 2021. The firm also operates three large fast-charging hubs in the five boroughs. Revels Long Island City charging station which includes 14 fast chargers opened earlier this month. Finding an available site that can support this kind of infrastructure is tough, Haley Rubinson, Revels vice president of corporate affairs, told The News. Its not just like, any open lot, we take out a lease and there you go. Theres a limited amount of real estate with available power or the ability to easily bring power over. That doesnt make building on sites impossible, but it makes it difficult and time consuming, she said. Revel officials say they plan to open 300 more DC fast chargers in New York before 2025. Meanwhile, the fast chargers at some popular destinations are already getting crowded. At Kennedy Airport, you can be waiting an hour or two [for a plug], Negmatullaev said, referring to the dozen fast-charge Tesla plugs near the airport, a major destination for Uber, Lyft and taxi drivers. You can wait two to three hours just to charge your car and be on your way. Flash Chinese permanent representative to the United Nations Zhang Jun speaks at the UN Security Council emergency meeting on the Palestinian-Israeli situation at the UN headquarters in New York, Nov. 10, 2023. (Xinhua/Xie E) Chinese permanent representative to the United Nations, Zhang Jun, on Friday called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Palestine. "A ceasefire and an end to the fighting cannot be delayed. A ceasefire is by no means a diplomatic statement. It is the only hope for the people of Gaza to survive," Zhang told the UN Security Council emergency meeting on the Palestinian-Israeli situation. Noting that the current round of conflict has been going on for 35 days and the situation continues to deteriorate, he said: "We call on all parties, especially the major power that has a unique influence on the parties, to put aside all geopolitical considerations and double standards and focus all efforts on the goal of a ceasefire and an end to the fight. We urge Israel to curb the intensifying settler violence in the West Bank so as to avoid the concurring hotspot and the spread of conflict." "When tens of thousands of people, including more than 4,000 children, have lost their lives; when more than 1.6 million people have been forced to flee their homes; when 2.3 million people continue to be cut off from water, electricity, fuel, food and medicine; and when hospitals, schools, refugee camps, and UN facilities have been frequently targeted, this is not only a humanitarian crisis, but, as described by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a crisis of humanity," he added. Zhang said he met with representatives of Palestine and other Arab countries and those from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation earlier in the day. "From our conversation, I was deeply struck by the pain they have deep in their hearts, by their hope for the resumption of peace, and by their expectation for the Council to take effective actions," he said. "In the face of all this, the world must speak out together: Enough is enough," Zhang said, adding that "the Security Council must do away with the obstruction and interference of some members and take immediate, responsible, and meaningful action to uphold justice and maintain peace." Stressing the importance of protecting civilians, the envoy said, "We condemn all violence and attacks against civilians. We express our grave concern over and strong opposition to the clear violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza." "We urge an end to the collective punishment of civilians. We demand the safety and humanitarian needs of hostages be guaranteed and call for diplomatic efforts to facilitate their early release," he added. More than 1,300 children and their families are trapped in the rubble with their lives at stake, Zhang said, adding, "We support the Council to take emergency actions in this regard to facilitate a sustained truce of multiple days and an immediate opening of a green corridor for specialized agencies and equipment to enter Gaza to carry out search and rescue operations, so as to do our utmost to save children." The Council should also respond to the joint appeal made by the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and Marwan Jilani, Director General of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, to establish a medical evacuation mechanism so that pregnant women and the seriously injured and sick in Gaza can be transferred and treated promptly, he continued. Zhang also called for the delivery of supplies to resume, noting it "cannot be delayed." "We call on Israel to immediately lift the siege and completely remove restrictions on livelihood supplies, especially fuel delivery to humanitarian and medical institutions and livelihood facilities," he said. Over the past two weeks, just over 500 trucks have entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing, a drop in the bucket for the people of Gaza who are struggling on the brink of death, Zhang said. "All crossings into Gaza should be utilized, and the Kerem Shalom crossing should be opened as soon as possible." "These days, we also hear frequent discussions about the day after for Gaza. Regarding this, it must be pointed out that no arrangement for Gaza can be imposed on the Palestinian people," said the ambassador, adding that "No solution to the current situation can deviate from the two-state solution. The future of Palestine must be and can only be decided by the Palestinian people themselves." The ambassador pledged that China, as president of the Security Council for November, would continue to work with the international community to bring an early end to the fighting and alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. China supports a peaceful coexistence between the Palestinians and the Israelis and long-term peace and security in the Middle East, he said. An urgent search for a veterans killer is underway in Ocoee. Ocoee police said 60-year-old Gregory Reed was shot at a BP gas station, near Silver Star and Clarke roads Thursday night. They held a press conference with Reeds family to ask for the publics help in tracking down whoever was responsible. He deserved to be here today, said Tyrone Scott, Reeds cousin. Read: Ocoee police look for suspects car involved in shooting at shopping complex The Army veteran was shot and killed while driving his vehicle. Surveillance video showed Reed cruising through the parking lot in his blue Ford SUV from Clarke Road. The video showed a silver SUV Mercedes pull up from the opposite direction, and then, as they crossed paths, both drivers paused. Police believe someone in the silver car shot Reed. Investigators later found multiple bullet casings on the ground. Read: Police: 1 dead after shooting at Ocoee shopping plaza, homicide investigation underway My dad was simply minding his business, going to work, getting off, going to take care of my siblings, said Deidre Anderson. He was not doing anything to anybody. Ocoee Police also released a video from a nearby red light camera, giving a different perspective on what happened. It showed what appears to be someone stepping out of the shooters vehicle. The SUV then drove off. Reeds vehicle continued on to the Publix across the street, where he struggled to maintain control of his vehicle and crashed into the back of a parked car. Fire rescue was already on the scene and tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate him. Read: Ocoee police search for men who shot at cars and people with frozen gel pellets I wish there was a way-- I even told to God to ask him -- could he please bring him back? said Scott. I did it several times because I miss him. Police are looking into license plate readers at the intersection and surrounding areas. Anyone with information on that vehicle and possible suspect should call Ocoee Police or the Crimeline at (800) 423-TIPS (8477). Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. The Hungarian government plans to ask its citizens whether they support Ukraine's potential EU membership in its upcoming questionnaire sent via mail, known as the "National Consultation," the country's Foreign Ministry's State Secretary Tamas Menczer said on Nov. 11. Yet even the announcement itself appeared to nudge the citizens to respond negatively. In a 40-second video message shared on his Facebook page, Menczer presented the potential accession of Ukraine in a negative light, saying that it would mean that "the war would be brought into (our) community, and a significant part of the EU resources would also go to Ukraine." Anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russian statements are common for the Hungarian leadership. Read also: Exclusive: New insights point to Hungarys collaboration with Moscow on transfer of Ukrainian POWs Menczer's video message comes as his country's Prime Minister Viktor Orban urges the EU not to start membership talks with Ukraine, in spite of the recent recommendation from the European Commission. His government has been campaigning against Ukraine throughout the war, warning that Kyiv's entry into the EU could bring the war to the bloc. In September, Orban also said that his country would not support Ukraines membership in NATO unless it restores certain laws related to Hungarian minorities in the country. Echoing Orban's words, the Hungarian Foreign Ministry's state secretary, Menczer, claimed in his video message about Ukraine's EU accession that Ukraine "took away the rights of the Hungarian national community." Ukraine has been rejecting Hungary's claims that it cracks down on its minorities. One of the main sources of strife has been a 2017 language law that requires at least 70% of education above the fifth grade of school to be conducted in Ukrainian. Kyiv has been talking to Budapest to resolve the issue of the language of education of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine, Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration Olha Stefanishyna told European Pravda on Nov. 7. The deputy prime minister believes that Hungary's threats to block Ukraine's EU accession will not hinder "real work" for the benefit of national minorities. As the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine nears a two-year mark, Hungary is one of the few European nations advocating against military aid for Ukraine. Read also: Russia, West fight for Kazakhstan as Astana plays both sides Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine is a champion for meaningful education reform and youth mental health services. You may not agree with his approach, but few can deny he has a heart for Ohios children. Thats one reason why its so disturbing that troubled children under the state's care are being treated in ways that stray so far from the decency and compassion valued by DeWine and Ohioans. Instead of rehabilitation and human dignity, youth offenders housed in Ohios dangerously shattered Department of Youth Services facilities are often exposed to violence and neglect. [ Reporters with USA TODAY's network of Ohio newspapers spent eight months investigating the state's juvenile justice system. Consider supporting their work with a subscription. ] DYS teaching kids to be more ruthless This chaos uncovered by an eight-month investigation by the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Columbus Dispatch, Akron Beacon Journal, Canton Repository and other USA TODAY Network Ohio newsrooms goes far beyond simple fistfights. Incarcerated youth and DYS employees are far too often subjected to mental and emotional torture, life-altering injuries and, in rare cases, death. At times, youths are kept in isolation for hours sometimes forced to urinate in bottles and other containers and defecate in the corners of their cells. A system that is supposed to make kids better is creating career criminals or monsters, as one mother interviewed as part of the investigation put it. Ohio children released from one of the departments three prisons Indian River, Circleville or Cuyahoga Hills have a 43% shot of returning or graduating to adult prison. We realize the youths imprisoned in DYS facilities are no angels they were sentenced for crimes as despicable as armed robbery, rape and murder but these kids are not disposable. They are human. They deserve a shot at rehabilitation. Their parents deserve to see them come home as healthy as they entered. The families of DYS staffers have the same expectation for their loved ones. It is the governors responsibility to make sure that happens. His administration is failing the youths, their families, DYS workers and the people of Ohio. What Ohio gets for $100 million annually This is about human decency not money, but it is outrageous that Ohioans do not get more rehabilitated young citizens for the millions of dollars that youth services receives annually. We shell out $236,000 a year for each incarcerated youth with the expectation that even those who have committed the most serious crimes can be reformed. Instead, cruelty is doled out in our names. The state has failed in its responsibility to these Ohio kids particularly by not having enough workers to cover stations and leaving kids in lockdown over long periods of time. These issues have led to a long list of violence, including a 12-hour riot at Indian River Juvenile Correctional Facility a year ago. Violent incidents in DYS prisons rose by nearly 60% between 2020 and 2022. According to the newspapers reporting, there were 475 violent acts between January and May 2023 alone. That number includes assaults on 226 kids and 83 staff members. Nearly 20 kids required emergency room treatment. This is unacceptable and cannot continue. Special report: Ohio's juvenile justice system struggles with injuries, neglect DeWine must clean house at DYS The buck stops with the governor. He appointed Amy Ast as DYS director in December 2021. If she does not resign, DeWine should fire her for allowing children under her care to be treated like animals. Ast and other administrators have been unable to make critical improvements and made it difficult to understand whats really happening. Cleaning house means promptly dismissing these failed leaders not merely reassigning them as has been the case in the past. The responsibility to right this ship is not the governors alone. Lawmakers should abandon distracting and divisive culture-war battles and apply pressure until improvements are made. Ohioans must make sure representatives prioritize the safety of vulnerable youths and underpaid staffers. We realize removing Ast wont fix DYS. A complete overhaul might. Fixing the system should be among DeWines top goals, starting with several priorities. The Cuyahoga Hills Juvenile Correctional Facility is in Highland Hills. The Ohio Department of Youth Services operates three prisons for juveniles adjudicated of felony charges. Address a serious staff shortage A staff shortage was blamed a year ago when Indian River guard David Upshaw was attacked by a youth offender during the riot. He was in charge of a unit by himself. The staffing problems persist, with about 140 job openings for guards and other staffers. One in five teacher jobs are open. Nearly half of incarcerated teens need specialized education. A list of employee problems that includes retention, recruitment and training remains. DYS must let the light shine in There must be transparency and better oversight of youth prisons and separate county-run detention centers. Information about serious crimes at DYS prisons and other facilities should be far more accessible, with centralized reporting of deaths, serious injuries and major crimes. DYS must be more transparent about crimes committed by its staff, including smuggling drugs and other contraband. Physical and sexual abuse must be reported and investigated. Abdifatah Ali, a Columbus teen who left Indian River in July after serving time for felonious assault, said he experienced long lockdowns while he was incarcerated and had to make do with what he had in his cell because he did not have a toilet. Federal government must investigate DeWine has the power to improve DYS, but systematic change often does not come without a lawsuit or a federal investigation. It was not easy for reporters to uncover the despicable conditions at DYS. The newspapers investigation is surely a mere glimpse of what happens. Federal investigators can dig much deeper. Reporters ran into multiple roadblocks that required legal assistance to overcome. Some public information requests still have not been fulfilled. As the investigation proceeded, DYS required employees to re-sign confidentiality agreements indicating they would not reveal information about incarcerated children without authorization. Ast would only respond to reporter questions in writing and her answers were vague, full of public relations spin or insufficient. For example: Ast was asked: Within three years of release, 43% of previously incarcerated children return to the juvenile system or go to adult prison. What is being done to lower the recidivism rate? She answered: At every point, incarcerated juveniles are given services, such as education and job training, designed to increase the likelihood of success once they return to the community. The 43% recidivism rate is lower than it was 10 years ago, but there is still room for improvement. The Justice Department should step in to ascertain if any civil rights have been violated. Jonathan Becker holds class for teenage boys at Multi-County Juvenile Detention Center in Lancaster. Treat youth offenders with dignity Efforts should be made to help young offenders get on the right track in life so that the mistakes of their past do not dictate their futures. Any system that dehumanizes kids must be scrapped. The success of programs like the Marion County Family Resource Center shows that there are holistic approaches that can be explored to replace Ohios child warehousing system. That program is less expensive about $600,000 annually for 15 youths compared to the $236,000 that Ohioans pay annually for one child in DYS and delivers better outcomes. Children are not adults and should not be treated liked hardened criminals. Ohioans are caring, compassionate and forgiving. We need a juvenile detention system that matches those values. These children are not beyond hope. DYS is a broken system that must be fixed before more lives are irrevocably damaged or in extreme cases lost. We must help these children rejoin society. Anything short of that is a failure. What you can do We urge you to contact DeWine and tell him how dissatisfied you are with Ohios youth prisons. Visit governor.ohio.gov/contact to send DeWine a message. Or mail to Riffe Center, 30th Floor, 77 S. High St., Columbus, OH 43215. Call 614-644-4357. This piece was written by Dispatch Opinion Editor Amelia Robinson on behalf of the editorial boards of the Columbus Dispatch, the Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal, Canton Repository and other USA TODAY Network Ohio news organizations. Editorials are fact-based assessments of issues of importance to the communities we serve. These are not the opinions of our reporting staff members, who strive for neutrality in their reporting. This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: In Ohio's youth prisons, chaos rules the day. DeWine must act On Sunday, Bethel Baptist Church in downtown Jacksonville celebrated its 185th year anniversary as Floridas oldest Baptist church. It speaks to our imprint and impact to be the oldest Baptist congregation, said the churchs lead pastor, Bishop Rudolph McKissick Jr. at Sundays congregation. And [to be] still one of the largest in the state is just a testimony to the resilience of the people of this church. >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<< McKissick told Action News Jax the churchs mission continues to evolve and that hes always enjoyed hearing that history from some of its oldest members. From the historic sanctuary with marble and a huge pipe organ, to now this sanctuary where we worship, how do I say this in a more energetic way than they used to, McKissick said with a smile. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] While Bethel Baptist has continued to evolve, one thing that has remained the same is its roots in civil activism throughout the Jacksonville community. The black church has to be involved in sociopolitical activity, explained McKissick. Not just African American issues, any disenfranchisement this church should take the lead. [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter] McKissick also explained how the churchs activism in civil rights goes back to its earliest days. After the Civil War a white judge in that time, awards the church, to the freed slaves, and yet were still standing. Now, the church is offering the community a chance to add their names to that legacy by buying a brick. Each brick will serve as a reminder of the people who continue to support its mission. Those interested in buying a brick can learn more on the churchs website by clicking here. 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. One person is dead and three others were hospitalized following a single-car crash in New Hampshire Saturday. The crash occurred on I-93 Southbound in Hookset, a New Hampshire state police spokesperson told Boston 25 News. The crash resulted in one fatality and required three others to be rushed to the hospital. Their condition is not known. No other vehicles were involved. Two lanes on the highway were closed while troopers investigated the scene but the roadway was fully reopened by 10:30 p.m., state police say. New Hampshire State Police say they will release more information at a later time. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW One man was killed and another injured in a shooting early Sunday morning in Little Village, according to Chicago police. Officers found the victims in the 3000 block of South Trumbull Avenue at about 3:50 a.m., after responding to a call of a person shot. An unidentified man was shot in the head and abdomen, police said. He was transported to Mt. Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. A 22-year-old man was shot in the right leg and was taken to Mt. Sinai in good condition, police said. No suspects are in custody and police said theyre investigating the shooting. rjohnson@chicagotribune.com Editors Note: David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN, twice winner of the Deadline Club Award, is a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, author of A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still Happen and blogs at SubStacks Andelman Unleashed. He formerly was a foreign correspondent and bureau chief for The New York Times in Europe and ASIA and for CBS News in Paris. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN. Since 1986, the 40 immortals of the French Academy, the ultimate guarantors of the purity of the language, have been working on the ninth edition of the French dictionary, going laboriously from letter to letter. David A. Andelman - David Andelman Earlier this year, they disclosed their latest tranche from sommation to spermatophytes. They began work on the Ss in December 2017 after working on the Rs since November 2012. While working on the latest installment however, the Academy did note that a few words like sous-maitre, sous-maitresse (deputy master, deputy mistress), have muscled their way into the vernacular, and hence the official dictionary. No longer, if Senator Pascale Gruny has anything to say about it. She has just taken a first step toward a proposed law making everything, or really anyone at least in official documents well, masculine. She calls it ridding the world, or at least one corner of it, of inclusiveness. In the name of safeguarding the French language, and to preserve clarity and intelligibility, her memo accompanying its introduction concludes, an intervention by the legislature is necessary. In other words, if France were ever to elect a female president, she would still be Le President (rather than La Presidente). Banned under this measure would be the addition of feminine endings to any nouns that would make them applicable to both sexes, rather than simply using the masculine to represent everyone. Last month, the French Senate voted 221 to 82 in favor of the proposal banning gender-inclusive language from official French documents. It will now go to MPs to vote on it becoming law, though no date has been set. It seems that Gruny, one of the senators who tabled the bill, at least persuaded the Senate that such critical issues as inclusiveness in language should no longer be left to a crotchety group of old men and the occasional woman occupying lifelong sinecures under the cupola of the French Academy. Since it produced the first dictionary back in 1694 a mere 59 years after first beginning its work its taken decades, at times even a century, for the Academicians to enshrine revisions of the language into print. (Incidentally, theyre still touching up the eighth edition from the 1930s.) Now it seems, another legitimate arm of state power the French Senate has taken matters into its own hands. It raises a central question: Isnt this measure a legislative wedge that could become a movement to rid the nation of the tyranny of a French Academy? (The group, incidentally, meets just once a week on Thursday mornings to modernize a language that probably really does need a bit of streamlining.) It was a question I posed to Gruny in an interview this week. Horrified, she threw up her hands: Not at all! She pointed to the simple fact that, enshrined in Article 2 of the French Constitution, is the immutable reality that the language of the Republic is French. Theres just some tinkering going on. Gruny told me in her offices in the Senate overlooking a corner of the Jardins de Luxembourg, I find today that like equality between men and women, it was a struggle for years, we have made progress on the subject. Indeed, when I entered her offices and extended my hand, saying Senatrice Gruny? she smiled and wagged her finger. No, no, no Senator. Unsurprisingly, in this deeply divided French government and nation, a lot of this has now descended into politics, which will still make the bill a landmine when it makes its way to its next hurdle passage in the National Assembly. The left doesnt like this idea of removing feminisms. As Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the left-wing populist France Insoumise (France Unbowed) party said on X: The French language belongs to those who speak it. But the right embraces it. Even French President Emmanuel Macron, the epitome of centrism, suggested that the proposed bill might not be such a bad idea. And he is someone who has embraced all efforts to cement French as a central language for the world. Indeed, last month, the Macron government filed two complaints with the European Unions top court, charging that European bureaucrats are all too often hired on the basis of tests given only in English a case of blatant discrimination. Its all part of the French presidents ongoing campaign to boost the use of French everywhere. Around the same time Grunys bill passed the Senate, Macron inaugurated the Cite International de la Langue Francaise (The International City of the French language) in the Chateau de Villers-Cotterets, built in 1532 by King Francois I after he returned from imprisonment in Spain. As Macron put it in his inauguration of the Cite, We must allow this [French] language to live, but also keep its foundations, the bases of its grammar, the strength of its syntax, and not give in to the air of the times. In this language, the masculine is the neutral. All utterly ironic in a language where every noun is either masculine or feminine a true landmine for anyone trying to learn this language without having grown up with it. So, a newspaper is un journal (masculine), but television is la television (feminine). Frankly, as someone who has spoken and read French my entire adult life (and continues to struggle with its often-bizarre masculinity or femininity), Id love to rid French of all its inclusiveness. I wont hold my breath. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Editors Note: Thomas G. Moukawsher is a former Connecticut complex litigation judge and a former co-chair of the American Bar Association Committee on Employee Benefits. He is the author of the new book, The Common Flaw: Needless Complexity in the Courts and 50 Ways to Reduce It. Dont misunderstand Judge Aileen Cannons decision Friday to stick to the established May date of the Mar-a-Lago trial. Though it could be read as a defeat for former President Donald Trump, as he wanted to push the date back further, in fact the defendant has just won a partial victory for his top legal strategy dragging out the cases against him until after the 2024 election. Thomas Moukawsher - Courtesy of Thomas Moukawsher Its crucially important that Cannon not buy in to his strategy, nor the judges in his three other criminal cases. (He has denied wrongdoing in all four.) Luckily, there are a few ways judges can stop his delay tactics, if they are willing to apply them. Cannon is the Florida federal judge presiding over the case examining whether Trump mishandled classified documents at his Florida home. While she kept the same trial date, she handed Trump some of the time he sought by extending some of the cases pretrial deadlines. The more the pretrial work bunches up against the trial date, the more likely the trial will be delayed too much work to get done all at once. Moreover, Trump hasnt actually lost his bid to delay the trial date: The judge ruled the issue was premature to decide at this point, and noted her agreement with Trumps complaints about the volume of evidence his lawyers must sort through before trial (his major argument for delaying). In court, one delay often invites requests for others, so Trump still has reason to hope. The maneuvers by Trumps lawyers are all part of familiar litigation stalling tactics. As a connoisseur of the American lawsuit, Trump knows that delaying a case can often derail it, and he is betting heavily on it. Delays cost time and money. Evidence disappears. Memories fade. Prosecutors, judges and even presidents come and go. The charges might get reduced, the fines lowered maybe the whole thing even gets dropped. The first way to delay a case is to drop a hailstorm of motions. First, you challenge where the lawsuit is located. For instance, Trump has claimed his election fraud case should be moved out of Washington, DC, because he cant get a fair trial there. Next, you attack the people suing, claiming they have no recognized legal interest at stake. Trump just attacked the election fraud case on this ground. Next, you attack the way the claim was drafted. Its defective and should be dismissed. Trump is using that one in DC and in Georgia, too. Separately filed and heard, each motion can take months to resolve. Briefs are filed. Opposing briefs are filed. The motion is argued in court. The judge finally writes a decision, when bang the next motion is filed. The process starts all over. In this way, if judges apply the usual court process, Trump can keep the cases marching in place for years until after the 2024 election in particular. Whats more, Trump can use the number of pending motions to justify motions that he needs more time. Thats the thing Cannon just fell for: You create work and then complain about the volume of it. Judges can thwart this by controlling the flow of motions. Parties have a right to file challenges, but judges have the right to manage the case. A judge might use the courts inherent authority to order that challenges to its right to hear the case be combined with challenges on the legal sufficiency of the claims, attempts to move the case and efforts to change the trial date. Judges dont routinely order such combining because most believe the parties should set the pace of the proceedings, but in complex cases, not doing so is a mistake. Compressing pre-trial motions just takes care of the first wave of delay tactics. The longest part of lawsuits is often the exchange of evidence between the two sides whats known as the discovery process. Both sides demand documents from the other side. The other sides object. They take the matter to court. And so on. There are always more documents, so there are always more opportunities for motions. To slay the discovery beast, judges should take charge of the process themselves by holding a discovery conference at the beginning of the case. Since most of the documents and witnesses the parties will require are obvious, the judge should eliminate the request and response process and simply issue a court order listing the documents that must be exchanged between the parties within 30 days and spelling out, if any are needed, what depositions of witnesses are allowed within 60 days. In my experience, most judges dont do this because they think they should defer to the lawyers and believe that lawyers should be able to work out their differences without a court hearing over who should gain possession of what document. This is a serious mistake and the main reason lawsuits take so much time and cost so much money. If the parties think of something the court hasnt ordered and the other side refuses to provide, they simply email the judges clerk and ask for a hearing, which can be done quickly and remotely. In particularly complex cases, the judge can schedule a couple hours each week to ride herd on the evidence gathering process, hearing and resolving the parties claims from the bench on a single day instead of waiting weeks or months after a hearing to decide them. Then theres the effort to go straight to the top and criticize the judge. Trump has attacked judges in Georgia and Washington. Some judges simply recuse themselves when challenged, resulting in more delays. Instead, when a party attacks a judge, that judge, or better yet another judge, should promptly hold a hearing forcing the accuser to present their evidence of judicial bias. Usually, there is no evidence and the motion is denied. Judge Tanya Chutkan wisely chose this course in the Washington election interference case. Trumps strongest timeout card is one he and other litigants invariably apply when things go badly an appeal. It used to be that you would appeal after you lost a case in the trial court. But the new rules of asymmetrical court warfare say you appeal every major ruling at every point in the proceedings. No one can stop him from appealing unfavorable final results. Normally this appeal process would buy Trump years until long after the 2024 presidential election. But it doesnt have to be this way. When the national interest is at stake, appeals courts should simply expedite the appeals by hopscotching other cases on their dockets. Thankfully, some of Trumps appeals have been handled expeditiously. It has become routine in American courtrooms for parties to use the legal systems penchant for deliberation and delay against itself. Judges need to open their eyes to this reality. They have the tools in the Trump cases to rectify the problem. As the old adage puts it, justice delayed is justice denied. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com It should be no surprise that federal politicians favor Big Tech. Silicon Valley is where the money is. (Matt Cardy / Getty Images) After more than a decade of uncontrolled experiments by internet platforms on millions of users, there is an emerging possibility that one group of users kids may gain some protection. A wave of court cases has an opportunity to fill a void left by the inaction of the executive and legislative branches of the federal government. In the eight years since Russia used Facebook, Instagram and other platforms to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, Congress has done nothing to protect our democracy from assault by bad actors. It has stood by while platforms do anything that earns them a buck. It has also done nothing to protect Americans from the manipulative practices of surveillance capitalism. The White House has done only slightly more than nothing. Courts continue to side with internet platforms over the people that use them. It should be no surprise that federal politicians favor Big Tech. Silicon Valley is where the money is. Just as important, voters have not penalized politicians for failing in their duty to protect the public interest. There has been no outcry about politicians whose family members work in Big Tech and staff members whose salaries are paid by owners of Big Tech. Politicians at the state level have passed some tech reform legislation, with California leading the way, but industry lobbying has taken the teeth out of most of the laws. In court, internet platforms have avoided unfavorable judgments by asserting rights to free speech, as well as the protection of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. While there have historically been limits on 1st Amendment protection for harmful speech, courts have not applied any limit to the speech of internet platforms. Section 230, which was created to enable internet platforms to moderate harmful speech online, has been interpreted by courts as blanket immunity, even in cases of negligence. Internet platforms should not be allowed to harm children (and adults) with impunity. They should not be allowed to undermine democracy and public health for profit. These notions seem obvious to everyone but those in a position to rectify the situation. The Wall Street Journal published a report last summer titled, Instagram Connects Vast Pedophile Network: The Meta units systems for fostering communities have guided users to child-sex content. Unredacted testimony from a federal court in California revealed that Meta employees warned Mark Zuckerberg that the design of Instagram led to addiction for many teens, only to have Zuckerberg ignore the warnings. The common element to both stories is the indifference of Meta management to harm. The underlying cause of that indifference is the absence of consumer safety regulations for tech. Consumer safety creates friction that limits growth and profitability, something platforms avoid at all costs. Eight years of trusting platforms to self-regulate has not prevented them from being used to instigate acts of terrorism, unleash a tsunami of public health disinformation in a pandemic or enable an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Fortunately, a new wave of legal cases will give courts an opportunity to change course. The cases aim to protect children online by challenging the design of internet platforms. Thirty-three state attorneys general led by California and Colorado have filed a case in federal court against Meta for designing products to addict children. Nine other state attorneys general filed similar cases in their own state courts. By focusing on product design, the cases minimize conflict with the 1st Amendment and Section 230. Free speech and the right to moderate speech are protected by the law, whereas product design that leads to harm and the refusal to remediate it should not be. With cases in 10 jurisdictions, the odds of a favorable outcome for the plaintiffs are better than they would be in a single jurisdiction. In addition, there will be an appeal in federal court related to Californias Age Appropriate Design Code, a law that requires platforms to protect the privacy of minors in an age-appropriate way. Modeled on a successful consumer protection law in Britain, the California measure passed the Legislature unanimously and was signed into law in September 2022. NetChoice, a trade organization funded by Google, Meta, TikTok, Amazon and others, quickly sued to block the law. A federal district court judge in September granted a preliminary injunction on the basis that the law probably violates the 1st Amendment. The flaw in the courts reasoning is that law has nothing to do with content or expression. The decision suggests that corporations can use the 1st Amendment to defeat regulations designed to protect the public interest. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has filed an appeal to challenge the injunction, arguing that we should be able to protect our children as they use the internet. Big businesses have no right to our childrens data: childhood experiences are not for sale. Bonta should have extended this logic to cover all Californians, but the wisdom of it in the context of children is self-evident. By coincidence, new whistleblower disclosures have exposed reckless business practices by Meta. In testimony before a Senate committee, whistleblower Arturo Bejar confirmed that Metas management was fully aware of the prevalence of misogyny and unwanted sexual advances toward teenagers on Instagram and refused to take action. Bejars testimony builds on that of Frances Haugen, who in 2021 provided documentary evidence that Metas management knew Instagram was toxic for teenage girls. Yet even after that disclosure, Meta escaped liability. It remains to be seen whether Bejars testimony will produce any legislative action. The best way to ensure protection for consumers online is for Congress to pass laws that protect Americans from harmful tech products and predatory data practices. But until that happens, the courts may be our childrens only line of defense. Roger McNamee is a co-founder of Elevation Partners and the author of Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe. If its in the news right now, the L.A. Times Opinion section covers it. Sign up for our weekly opinion newsletter. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Editors Note: Sign up to get this weekly column as a newsletter. Were looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets. On the day after Republicans lost pivotal races in Kentucky, Ohio and Virginia last week, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene offered a diagnosis for her partys ills. Theres multiple problems, the Georgia representative said to CNNs Manu Raju. One of them being that I think Republicans are weak. They never come through on the promises that they give to their voters. Actually, that is the opposite of the problem Republicans currently face. When Donald Trump ran for president in 2016, he promised he would appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion. And he was true to his word. Mexico didnt pay for the wall, but Trump did nominate three hard-right conservatives who were instrumental in tossing out Roe in June 2022. The problem for Republicans is that the Supreme Courts action was hugely unpopular: roughly two-thirds of Americans disapproved of the move, and voters have made that apparent, even in red states. On Tuesday, Ohio voters passed an amendment to the state constitution that guarantees abortion rights. The disconnect may or may not cost Trump votes in 2024, but its hurting Republicans up and down the ballot. In Virginia, wrote Kate Bedingfield, President Joe Bidens former White House communications director, Gov. Youngkin tried to take the Republicans abortion problem head on, claiming that he had articulated a reasonable position on the issue that would net Republicans control of both houses of the state legislature. In fact, Virginians didnt view rolling back existing protections in the state and instituting a new ban as reasonable, and Democrats wound up taking the House of Delegates and growing their margin in the State Senate. Bill Bramhall/Tribune Content Agency Bedingfield radiated confidence, convinced that Democrats will prevail in 2024, despite last weeks polls showing Biden trailing Trump in five out of six swing states. Democrats will win in 2024 by making the election a choice, not just a referendum on Bidens performance in office. Theyll win re-election to the White House and clinch victories across the country by keeping Republicans squarely on the defensive about the most extreme pieces of their agenda. Historian Julian Zelizer raised questions about whether voters will turn out for Biden just because they agree with his stance on issues like abortion. And even if Biden can get a bump from voters who are passionate about defending abortion rights, he wrote, polling also shows that core constituencies, such as Black and Latino voters, are having serious doubts about him. A number of Muslim and Arab voters in key states like Michigan have also voiced their dismay over Bidens strong backing of Israel in its war with Hamas, though the lasting effect isnt yet clear. Clay Jones Republican Lanhee Chen was unfazed by the defeats dealt to his party. For those looking to extrapolate Tuesday nights results to what might happen next November, a piece of advice dont. Odd-year elections tend to be, well, odd. The electorate which turns out in a presidential election year is different and the issues that dominate races tend to vary, Chen wrote. Finally, none of Tuesday nights significant elections took place in the states that will likely decide the 2024 presidential elections, or even control of Congress. The lack of reliable election data from voters in states like Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona means that we should be careful to extrapolate what results in states like Kentucky and Mississippi or even Ohio, where abortion was directly on the ballot might mean for results in the swing states that will decide who wins the White House next year. Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis who studies the anti-abortion movement, argued that these defeats arent the seismic victory for abortion rights that Democrats may wish they were. Just because Republicans dont seem to know how to win over voters doesnt mean the GOP and the anti-abortion movement dont know where to go next. They do. The Heritage Foundations Project 2025, a presidential transition plan vetted and crafted by more than 70 conservative and pro-life groups, details an abortion policy focused almost entirely on the operations of the Department of Justice in a second Trump term. Project 2025 outlines how to stop enforcement of the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which would make it easier for protesters to block and intimidate patients entering clinics. More centrally, Project 2025 insists that there is already a de facto federal ban on abortion, whether voters like it or not: the Comstock Act, a 19th-century anti-vice law that conservatives argue makes it a federal felony to mail or receive items intended, designed, or adapted for abortion. Debaters While Trump, the leading contender for the GOP presidential nomination, spent the week testifying in a civil fraud case against his company and rallying his supporters in Florida, his rivals took part in a more standard election ritual: a debate in Miami. In the spotlight was former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, whose debate performances have propelled her candidacy forward. Ana Marie Cox wrote, I dont agree with much she has to say, but I bristled in solidarity when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dismissed the female politicians cordial correspondence with a Chinese official as a love letter and when Vivek Ramaswamy employed gendered insults by referring to her (and, I think, DeSantis) as Dick Cheney in three-inch heels. Haley later noted that her shoes are five inches and qualify as ammunition, which is certainly one way to make them more acceptable attire for men. At one point, Haley flushed dark purple when Ramaswamy branded her a hypocrite for wanting to crack down on TikTok even though her own daughter has an account. Youre just scum, she breathed with the quiet rage usually reserved for horror movie final girls. I have never come closer to cheering anyone for anything at a Republican debate. On abortion, Haley continued her realist approach to the issue, again pointing out that a federal 15-week abortion ban the goal of many pro-life advocacy groups would stand almost no chance of passing without a dramatic change in the composition of the US Senate, Patrick T. Brown observed. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was out to prove, Roxanne Jones noted that Florida belongs to him, which was no easy task with Republican frontrunner Donald Trump just down the road in Hialeah, Florida, hosting his own rowdy rally telling the world that Florida is Trump territory. But for once, DeSantis did not seem shaken. For much of the night, he commanded the stage convincingly. SE Cupp: The Republicans who need to drop out immediately For more: Todd Graham: The debate underdog who surprised us all Bill Bramhall/Tribune Content Agency Israel-Hamas Tuesday marked one month since Hamas launched a terror attack in southern Israel and sparked an ongoing war in Gaza. Hamas massive, brutal attacks and kidnappings perpetrated against Israelis on October 7 violated humanitys most fundamental international legal principles, wrote Mary Ellen OConnell, an international law expert at the University of Notre Dame. Those same principles govern Israels right of response, and they are best fulfilled through an immediate ceasefire by all parties, not an Israeli ground offensive in Gaza. The protections to which civilians have a right under international law during armed conflict are almost impossible to respect in anti-terror wars, as Israels bombing of densely populated Gaza shows. If there is any doubt about whether people are civilians or not, the presumption is that they have civilian status. Denial of food, water, medicine and other necessities to the civilian population is never permissible. Hamas militants know they are putting innocent lives at risk and have as much responsibility as Israel to end their resort to force. They have a clear duty to release hostages. The cost to civilians in this conflict is so high that the principle of humanity demands an end to all fighting. John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute (MWI) at West Point, argued that from what hes seen, Israel is following the laws of war and attempting to minimize civilian casualties. There is no escaping that pursuing a terrorist organization touches off a nightmarish landscape of war. The visually repulsive imagery in Gaza essentially recreates the same scenes that unfolded under American and allied campaigns fighting Al Qaeda, ISIS and other terror groups, because that is what it looks like when you are forced to uproot a sadistic terror organization embedded in an urban area. Sadly, successful US-led or supported campaigns in places such as Mosul and Raqqa caused billions of dollars in damage and killed and displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians; that is the hellish reality of defeating terrorism. For more: Peter Bergen: Whats Irans real plan in its proxy battle against Israel? Hani Almadhoun: Do Palestinian lives matter to the world? Suzanne Nossel: Why college presidents seem flummoxed Frida Ghitis: What drives Bidens wholehearted support of Israel? Walt Handlesman/Tribune Content Agency Trump on the stand The media coverage was intense as Donald Trump and daughter Ivanka Trump testified last week in a Manhattan courtroom, but as Elliot Williams wrote, the allegations in the case are far less splashy than others in which the former president is currently a defendant. The court proceedings had nothing to do with the four criminal cases in which the former president has been charged with 91 felony counts (and has argued he did no wrong). In contrast, the central issue in the current trial, initiated by New York State Attorney General Letitia James, is a straightforward question of corporate law: did a real estate entity improperly inflate the values of properties in appraisals in order to secure favorable loan and tax treatment? Despite fireworks from Trump and two of his sons on the witness stand earlier in the trial, the case is as uncontroversial (or, dare I say, boring) as they come. But the potential penalty is eye-catching, Williams noted, as the judge could strip the Trump Organization of its ability to conduct business in the state. Trump the business came long before Trump the president. Losing that would be cataclysmic for Trump on every level. No amount of bluster on the campaign trail can change that, Williams wrote. Even the iconic Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue where he came down the famous escalator to announce his candidacy for president and the site of his gold-laden triplex apartment could be wrested from the former presidents control. Nick Anderson/Tribune Content Agency Children Ian Berry/CNN In Masters of War, a 1963 jeremiad that excoriated arms manufacturers and dealers, Bob Dylan sang of the worst fear that can ever be hurled: Fear to bring children into the world. For different reasons, that fear haunts a new generation today. Anna Lee, a senior at the College of the Holy Cross and an intern at CNN Opinion, wrote, If temperatures werent rising, Id choose the name Athena for a girl. If the rivers were safe, Id choose William for a boy. If I could breathe clean air on my morning commute, Id paint the nursery a warm yellow. If I could see hope for a sustainable future on this planet, I wouldnt be spending time mourning the children Ill probably never have. If things were different, Id be honored to become a parent indeed, I think there is no greater privilege or responsibility. But each day, the current state of the world dissuades me more and more from having children. Like many folks in Gen Z (those born between 1997 and 2012), my main concern is climate change. And, as climate catastrophes are already well in motion (coupled with a host of related socioeconomic and equality issues), I feel as if I would be doing an increasingly irreparable injustice to any children I would bring into this world with my inability to offer them a future. Covid lockdowns In a new book, The Big Fail, Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera critically examine the policy choices officials made during the Covid-19 pandemic. A New York Magazine excerpt was headlined: Covid Lockdowns were a Giant Experiment. It was a Failure. Dr. Kent Sepkowitz, an infectious disease expert, took issue with that conclusion. He wrote that the books authors make some good points: The lockdown dislocated students from schools and customers from places of business. Medical care was delayed for some (though needed surgeries continued when hospital beds were available). And, most dramatically, young students lost the educational and social advantage of a physical classroom But was the lockdown worth it? You bet it was worth it, Sepkowitz argued. Yes, lockdown was a blunt instrument that caused a great deal of collateral damage. The difference between my view and theirs, I think, is that they consider the lockdown a single activity stretched across the entire pandemic; in contrast, I would distinguish the initial lockdown, which was crucial, from the off-and-on lockdowns as therapies, vaccines and overall care improved. There is an argument to be made that these were not anywhere near as effective. I consider the short-term benefits to be absolutely critical in allowing the medical world to steady itself and gain a much firmer grasp of the task at hand. One only had to work in health care in New York City to see the difference between early 2020, when the explosion of cases overwhelmed the city, versus later in 2020 when an effective therapy had been identified, supplies and diagnostic testing had been greatly improved (though still completely inadequate) and the makeshift ICUs and emergency rooms had been set in place. Dont miss Corey Mintz: DoorDash doesnt understand the definition of a tip Paul Rieckhoff: For the Americans who gave it all, unite Election Day with Veterans Day Jill Filipovic: Why American women of childbearing age now have another Supreme Court case to watch Shannon Watts: The Supreme Court may make Americas gun violence problem worse Jade McGlynn: Who a stalemate in Ukraine really benefits Keith Magee: King Charles expresses regret for slavery and colonialism, but wheres his apology? Sara Stewart: The moment Priscilla turned into a horror movie for me AND People who need people who have fun In this 2018 photo, Barbra Streisand attends CHANEL Dinner Celebrating Our Majestic Oceans, A Benefit For NRDC on in Malibu, California. - Presley Ann/Patrick McMullan/Getty Images Promoting her memoir of nearly a thousand pages, Barbra Streisand lamented in an interview with the BBC: I havent had much fun in my life, to tell you the truth. As Holly Thomas wrote, This is the legend who kicked off her singing career by winning a talent contest at a gay bar in Greenwich Village. She enjoys pancakes in bed with her husband James Brolin, and her basement contains an entire street of antique shops (minus cash registers) to house her treasures. If Barbras not having fun, who on earth is? But maybe theres a lesson in this for everyone. We, and the world, feel more fragile than we ever have before, noted Thomas, who pointed out that the oft-predicted revival of the Roaring 20s hasnt materialized. Apart from worries about war and the climate crisis, the more individualized stressors of work, mental illness and the rest, requires stamina to cope. Blowing off steam 1920s-style feels harder to legitimize when were all acutely aware of the adverse effects of booze, cigarettes and under-sleeping. Instead, the 21st-century obsession is self-care. And while no ones arguing the benefits of hydration and a solid eight hours, neither offers the high of a night spent dancing with abandon. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com In 416 B.C., the democratic city of Athens demanded the complete and unconditional surrender of the tiny population on the island of Melos. When the Melians asked by what moral standards powerful Athens should enslave one of its neighbors, they received the following answer. The strong do what they can; the weak suffer what they must. Whatever conditions of morality pertained in the ancient world, they amounted to little in times of war. You see, in the ancient world, there was another term for non-combatants. Slaves. You could monetize captive civilians. It was one of the major incentives for conquering foreign places, so we can forget about morality, at least back then. An early voice enumerating moral rules for war was the prophet Mohammed in the 600s A.D. Anyone who cries out, God is great! while on their way to slaughter non-combatants should stop and read their Quran and Hadiths first. You must not mutilate dead bodies; do not kill a woman, a child, or an aged man; do not cut down fruitful trees; do not destroy inhabited areas do not attack a wounded person no prisoner should be put to the sword. The prophet also prohibited the killing of anyone who is tied or in captivity." Even before Mohammed, the Christian St. Augustine raised a related question. Is there any such thing as a just war? He thought there was and in the 1300s, St. Thomas Aquinas spelled out the concept in greater detail. A just war had to be called for by a legitimate sovereign king. It had to be a response to some prior aggression, and the soldiers fighting in it had to feel individually that they were fighting for the right. We saw the consequences of such righteous warfare play out during the Crusades when one French warrior enthusiastically wrote home to his wife from the siege of Jerusalem, I waded in blood up to my knees, praise be to God. Let's take a second and back up over that last sentence: blood up to my knees praise be to God. This, in a nutshell, might be our problem. Rules be damned; once we are convinced we have God on our side, we pursue our objectives by any means necessary. In 1637, the English colony in Plymouth combined forces with the Narragansett Indians to attack a Pequot village. Gov. William Bradford wrote how they set fire to the village and those that escaped the fire were slain with the sword; some hewed to pieces, others run through with rapiers, and very few escaped. It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire, and the streams of blood quenching the same but they gave the prayers thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them. The Narragansett warriors pleaded with the English, It is too furious, and slays too many men and went home in disgust. In the modern era, the Geneva Conventions have called for all prisoners of war to be protected from physical and psychological torture, for the protection of civilians and the availability of medical treatment for wounded captives. Most all the nations of the world signed on. But there is a modern problem. With some exceptions such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine, most conflicts today are either civil wars or asymmetrical conflicts like the Israel-Hamas war, or terrorist violence committed by religious or political militants. Is Hamas an army like the United States Army that represents a whole nation? If so, then they represent the Palestinian people. But the Palestinians themselves seem as victimized by the activities of Hamas in their way as Israel has been in its. By the death count, even more so. And yet all parties (and their supporters) seem to share in common the same sense of righteousness in their combat and innocence in their losses. Maybe one thing modern history has taught us is that large-scale aerial bombardment is effective in taking out tactical military targets but against civilian populations, the mass suffering produced seems morally indefensible, whatever outcomes are produced in the end. President Harry Truman said he didn't lose a single night's sleep over the atomic bombing of Japan but millions of other people did. Lets close with the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu. When many people are being killed, he said, they should be mourned in heartfelt sorrow. That is why a victory must be observed as a funeral. We speak of the possibilities of success in war. But the fact that people are even fighting one is tragic evidence of a much larger failure or cascade of failures. Failures so endemic wed rather fight and die than address them. Lawrence Brown is a columnist for the Cape Cod Times. Email him at columnresponse@gmail.com. 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: Ancient Athens, English colonists, Israel-Hamas: Morality in war Over 2,500 trucks are waiting to cross the border from Poland into Ukraine at three checkpoints blocked by striking Polish truckers, Ukrainian State Border Guard Service spokesman Andriy Demchenko said on national television on Nov. 12. "Traffic is disrupted on most routes in three directions: to and from Ukraine. The only direction where cars leaving Ukraine for Poland are moving more or less intensively is the Krakovets-Korchova checkpoint." Read also: Poland bans entry of vehicles with Russian license plates The lines are still growing. More than 50% of the trucks go to the Yahodyn-Dorohusk checkpoint, the rest are at the Rava-Ruska-Hrebenne and Krakovets-Korchova checkpoints. Read also: Germany to recall Patriot air defense systems from area of Poland near Ukrainian border Demchenko hopes that the border crossings will be unblocked after the Ukrainian Ministry for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development meets with Polish authorities and truckers on Nov. 13. Polish truckers have been on strike since Nov. 6 at three border crossings with Ukraine: Korczowa-Krakowiec, Hrebenne-Rava-Ruska, and Dorohusk-Yagodin. Scheduled until Jan. 3, the strike is driven by several demands, including the return of permits to Ukrainian carriers, reinforcing international transport rules for foreign carriers under the CEMT, restricting company registrations in Poland to those with finances in the EU, implementing separate queues for EU-numbered cars and empty trucks, and access to the 'Shliakh' system. It was later discovered that Polish truckers participating in the strike had previously worked in Russia and Belarus. 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 Dogs in Nepal are celebrated as part of a Hindu festival (PRAKASH MATHEMA) Dogs in Nepal were decked with marigold garlands and bright vermillion paint on Sunday to celebrate a day dedicated to them as part of a Hindu festival. Kukur Tihar, the second day of the five-day Tihar festival, is reserved for worshipping dogs as agents of Yamaraj, the god of death, and for appreciating their loyalty and companionship to humans. Businessman Sujit Dongol, who celebrated the festival at home, told AFP that his dog was part of the family. "He is a companion to everyone and is always happy and playful like a child," he said, holding his one-year-old American Bully in his arms. "We feel happy worshipping a dog that lives with us." Dog lovers also offer treats and toys to their pets and street dogs during the celebration. The Armed Police Force held a special ritual to honour and worship their canine force, which is often used during natural disasters and in the detection of explosives and drugs. "It is a special day," said Ramesh Pokharel, chief of the Animal Health and Dog Handler section of the Armed Police Force. "Our dogs have helped us a lot, so the security personnel feel happy to celebrate this." Inspired by Nepal's festival, a similar annual celebration began in Mexico in 2016. But animal welfare groups say the special treatment should not be limited to a single day and inhumane treatment towards street dogs, such as poisoning them to cull the population or to prevent rabies, must be stopped. pm/pjm/dhw A service was held in Stoke-on-Trent on Sunday Events to mark Remembrance Sunday have been held across the West Midlands. Towns, cities and villages organised services to remember those who gave their lives in war. Saturday's Armistice Day Service of Remembrance at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire was led by the Princess Royal. Senior representatives of the armed forces and the Ministry of Defence attended. Across the border in Warwickshire, thousands of people lined the streets of Bedworth for Saturday's annual Armistice Parade. The town has held the event on 11 November for more than a century and is thought to be the only place in the UK outside of London to have done so. The military went on parade at the Cenotaph in Kingsway, Stoke-on-Trent In Birmingham, a Remembrance Sunday service took place on Colmore Row, opposite St Philip's Cathedral, with military veterans and representatives of the armed forces in attendance. Coventry Blitz remembered Coventry's Remembrance Sunday parade began at Spencer Park, making its way to War Memorial Park, where a service was held. A communal grave service was held at London Road Cemetery at 15:00 GMT on Sunday to remember those killed in the Coventry Blitz in 1940. A parade went through Bedworth to the town's war memorial on Saturday In Telford and Wrekin, war memorials across the area were cleaned in readiness for Remembrance Sunday, said the council. Memorial events took place in a number of locations, including Ironbridge, Jackfield, Dawley, Oakengates, Wrockwardine and High Ercall. Across Worcestershire, a number of roads were closed for a time to allow for parades to take place. Passenger trapped under SUV after DUI crash in Hanford: HPD HANFORD, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) A Hanford man was arrested Friday after he crashed and flipped his SUV, causing his passenger to be ejected and trapped underneath the vehicle, the Hanford Police Department says. Around 2:00 p.m., officers were dispatched to the 600 block of Parsons Street for a report of a rollover traffic accident. They say when they arrived they found the vehicles passenger, a 29-year-old man, partially ejected and pinned underneath the Mitsubishi SUV. Officers were able to help neighbors lift it up enough to free the trapped man, and stabilize him before he was airlifted with major injuries to a local hospital. Police say that witnesses told them that 30-year-old Adan Quinonez was speeding west on Davis Street as he approached Parsons Street, and he failed to navigate a southbound turn. They also say that following the attempted turn, the vehicle hit a tree and flipped onto its side in the front yard of a home. Investigators on-scene believed Quinonez was driving under the influence at the time of the crash, and say he was also on Post Release Community Supervision for previous DUI offenses. He, too, was transported to the hospital, and following his release was booked into the Kings County jail on suspicion of felony DUI charges and a probation violation. Hanford police say the victim is reported to be in stable condition at this time. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to YourCentralValley.com. A pedestrian was killed Sunday afternoon after being struck by a tractor-trailer. According to state police, the accident happened on I-95 Southbound at Route 93, Exit 26, in Canton shortly before noon. Heavy traffic was reported in both directions around the area and police from Framingham and Foxboro assisted on the scene as well as the State Police Crash Reconstruction team. No further information is available at this time. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW Described as egocentric and manipulative, Peter Nygard built Canada's largest womenswear maker -- and on Sunday he was convicted of using that status to sexually assault women and girls. The flamboyant fashionista hawked blouses and slacks at major department stores and his own outlets, and once threw lavish parties at his homes in the Bahamas -- a Mayan-inspired playground with fake volcanoes -- and Los Angeles. But after a seven-week trial in Toronto, the 82-year-old was convicted of four counts of sexual assault, following testimony that he had sexually abused four women and a 16-year-old girl between 1988 and 2005. Nygard was also found not guilty of a single count of sexual assault and another count of forcible confinement. Canadian prosecutor Ana Serban accused him during the trial of having used his "power and status as a wealthy fashion designer to lure and sexually assault young women." Similar allegations -- all of which Nygard has denied -- have been made in Quebec and Manitoba, and he also faces extradition to the United States, where he has been accused of abusing dozens of women and girls, racketeering and trafficking. Lisa Haba, a lawyer representing almost 60 women suing Nygard in the United States, has previously told AFP that "Nygard is worse than (Jeffrey) Epstein," the US financier who killed himself in 2019 while awaiting trial over sex-trafficking and conspiracy charges. "We believe he had more victims, and he was more violent," she told AFP in 2021. - 'A monster' - In the Toronto courtroom, several women said Nygard had invited them to tour his opulent Canadian offices on the pretense of lucrative modeling or other opportunities, only to find themselves "trapped" in a top floor bedroom suite with a hot tub. A contractor who renovated the space testified it had no interior door handles and required "a key code" controlled by Nygard to exit. Tearing up on the stand, the women -- who by court order cannot be identified -- alleged that Nygard had berated and sexually abused them. One called Nygard "a monster." "He lunged at me and adeptly pinned me on the bed. I kept repeating the word 'no,' at least 50 times," said another. "He angrily told me off for not cooperating: 'Why aren't you just letting me do this to you? Other girls let me do this.'" Once a towering and sinewy figure, Nygard dined with Queen Elizabeth II and rubbed shoulders with political leaders and Hollywood stars. He had long boasted about his rise from humble beginnings, as a young Finnish immigrant who built a fashion empire with almost 170 stores at its peak, and amassed a personal fortune worth Can$850 million (US$620 million). To the jury, the king of polyester claimed to have "invented the Casual Friday look." A bust of Nygard in his Toronto office lobby, one of his accusers suggested, "indicated a huge ego... like he wanted everyone to feel his importance when they entered." "He talked about himself a lot," and "his shirt (was) more undone than it should have been," the court heard. - 'Pamper parties' - His accusers, however, found a diminished man rolled into court in a wheelchair, his once flowing blond mane turned grey, and his formerly golden complexion gone pale. On the stand, Nygard, once a proponent of anti-aging therapies, lamented his failing eyesight and hearing, as well as "memory lapses." "I recommend not to get old," he said. Police raided his Manhattan corporate headquarters in 2020, and his company filed for bankruptcy protection shortly afterward. His arrest came after a whistleblower released footage that included a 17-year-old dancing on a stripper pole on Nygard's private Boeing 727 plane. "Nygard would just come down and choose a girl. Usually they would be drunk," Stephen Feralio, Nygard's personal videographer, told the CBC. In the United States, prosecutors allege Nygard used company funds to host "pamper parties" where minor girls were drugged and women assaulted if they did not comply with his sexual demands. They also claimed he paid from corporate accounts for victims' plastic surgery and abortions -- as well as child support for at least 10 children he reportedly fathered with eight different women. amc/bbk/st Peter Nygard seen in a police vehicle in Toronto after the guilty verdict A Canadian jury has found the former fashion mogul Peter Nygard guilty of sexual assault after a six-week trial. Prosecutors told a Toronto court that Nygard, 82, used his "status" to assault five women in a series of incidents from the late 1980s to 2005. Nygard denied the charges, and his defence team accused the victims of "gold-digging" for financial gain. He was found not guilty on a fifth count of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement. Nygard appeared to show no emotion as the verdict was handed down on the jurors' fifth day of deliberations. According to prosecutors, Nygard lured the women - aged 16 to 28 at the time - to a private luxury bedroom in his firm's Toronto headquarters. One prosecutor described the room as having "a giant bed...and a bar and doors, doors with no handles and automatic locks controlled by Peter Nygard". Prosecutors alleged that Nygard would assault the women once they were trapped in the room. After Nygard's conviction, his son Kai Zen Bickle told reporters outside the Toronto court that the jury's ruling was "a victory" for all those "who came forward and were denied justice". "One more child won't be affected, one more woman won't be affected, " Mr Bickle said. "(Nygard) has to actually sit down and think about all of these things." Mr Bickle has become an outspoken supporter of his father's alleged victims and described the moment Nygard was found guilty on Sunday as "emotional". "There are so many survivors out there, this is their day," he said. Peter Nygard's son Kai Zen Bickle said: "It's not good brand association to be the son of a monster." Nygard's lawyer Brian Greenspan said "we will consider the options" when asked by reporters whether Nygard would seek an appeal. A sentencing hearing will be set on 21 November. During closing arguments earlier this week, Crown prosecutors and Nygard's defence team painted dramatically different pictures of the man who once hobnobbed with celebrities and stood at the helm of a lucrative global apparel empire. Mr Greenspan told jurors that the state's case rested on "revisionist history" built on "contradictions and innuendo", Canadian media reported. He also claimed that four of the five women - who are also part of a US class action lawsuit - were motivated by financial gain. Over five days of tense testimony and cross-examination earlier in the trial, Nygard said he could never have acted "in that kind of manner" and that he did not recall four of the five women, according to CBC. Prosecutors relied heavily on the evidence of the women in court. Crown Attorney Neville Golwalla addressed the media on Sunday after the verdict and thanked the women who had come forward. "This is a crime that typically happens in private and profoundly impacts human dignity," Ms Golwalla said. "To stand up and recount those indignities in a public forum such as a courtroom is never easy and takes great courage." Nygard - who was once estimated to be worth at least $700m (570m) - is still facing another trial in Montreal next year and assault and confinement charges in Winnipeg. Once his criminal cases in Canada are completed, he is set to be extradited to the US, where authorities claim he engaged in a "decades-long pattern of criminal conduct" involving at least a dozen victims across the globe. He is currently fighting that extradition. The guilty verdicts on Sunday cap a stunning fall from grace for Nygard. In February 2020, he stepped down as chairman of his firm, Nygard International, shortly before it filed for bankruptcy after US authorities raided its New York headquarters. He has been jailed since his arrest in December the same year. A large fire that broke out underneath the 10 Freeway in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday has led to the full closure of part of the highway and a state of emergency being issued. Photos of the fire can be viewed below: The aftermath of a large fire that destroyed part of the 10 Freeway in Los Angeles on Nov. 11, 2023. The aftermath of a large fire that destroyed part of the 10 Freeway in Los Angeles on Nov. 11, 2023. (Caltrans) The aftermath of a large fire that destroyed part of the 10 Freeway in Los Angeles on Nov. 11, 2023. The aftermath of a large fire that destroyed part of the 10 Freeway in Los Angeles on Nov. 11, 2023. The aftermath of a large fire that destroyed part of the 10 Freeway in Los Angeles on Nov. 11, 2023. The aftermath of a large fire that destroyed part of the 10 Freeway in Los Angeles on Nov. 11, 2023. (KTLA) The aftermath of a large fire that destroyed part of the 10 Freeway in Los Angeles on Nov. 11, 2023. (Caltrans) L.A. Mayor Karen Bass assesses the damage after a fire ripped through a storage yard underneath the 10 Freeway in Los Angeles on Nov. 11, 2023. Firefighters battle a massive fire near an overpass in downtown Los Angeles on Nov. 11, 2023. (KTLA) Firefighters battle a fire near an overpass in downtown Los Angeles on Nov. 11, 2023. (KTLA) A homeless encampment is seen as firefighters battle a fire near an overpass in downtown Los Angeles on Nov. 11, 2023. (KTLA) A large storage fire closed part of the 10 Freeway in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday Nov. 11, 2023. (RMGNews) A large pallet fire closed part of the 10 Freeway in downtown Los Angeles early Saturday morning. (RMGNews) A large storage fire closed part of the 10 Freeway in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday Nov. 11, 2023. (RMGNews) Firefighters battle a fire near an overpass in downtown Los Angeles on Nov. 11, 2023. (KTLA) Firefighters battle a fire near an overpass in downtown Los Angeles on Nov. 11, 2023. (KTLA) No cars are seen on the 10 Freeway through downtown Los Angeles on Nov. 13, 2023. (KTLA) Firefighters battle a massive fire near an overpass in downtown Los Angeles on Nov. 11, 2023. (RMG) Heat from the flames was so intense that it melted some of the steel guardrails and cement columns that hold up part of the overpass. Flames first broke out around 12:30 a.m. at a storage yard near East 14th and Alameda streets and quickly spread to neighboring storage yards, according to LAFD officials. More than 160 firefighters from 26 companies were assisted by a helicopter in extinguishing the blaze, which took several hours. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. The off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot accused of trying to shut down the engines of an airborne plane last month after taking magic mushrooms thought he was dreaming and had questioned if he was in hell, he said in an interview published Saturday. Joseph Emerson, 44, told The New York Times in a jailhouse interview in Portland, Oregon, that when he took the psychedelics around a campfire which he had never taken before on Oct. 20, two days before the incident, he dwelled on events in his past. I thought of a lot of traumatic things in that time where I was like, Am I dead? Is this hell? he told the Times. Im reliving that trauma. On Oct. 22, as Emerson, who was off duty, was sitting in a jump seat of the cockpit of an Alaska Airlines flight when he allegedly tried shut down the planes engines by activating a fire suppression system. Emerson told a Portland, Oregon, police officer that he thought he was dreaming and wanted to wake up, according to court documents, something Emerson also told the Times. I thought it would stop both engines, the plane would start to head towards a crash, and I would wake up, Emerson told the newspaper. Emerson also said he had been depressed and that he believed he was experiencing a mental breakdown, authorities have said. The plane, Flight 2059 operated by Alaska Airlines subsidiary Horizon Air, was traveling from Everett, Washington, to San Francisco and was diverted to Portland. Emerson is being held without bail at the Multnomah County Detention Center in Portland, jail records show. He has been charged with 83 counts of attempted murder and other charges in state court. He has pleaded not guilty. He has also been charged federally with interfering with a flight crew. Emersons attorney, Noah Horst, has said that he would never intentionally hurt another person, and that Joe was not under the influence of any intoxicants when he boarded that flight. No one was injured in the incident. This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com. This article was originally published on TODAY.com Power generated from a 4bn offshore wind farm could meet the Isle of Man's peak energy demands, the company behind the plans has said. Renewable energy firm Orsted is seeking views on the proposals for the project in area off the island's east coast. Development director John Galloway said power from the wind farm could become a "backbone" of the Manx energy system. He said the firm intended to submit a planning application in 2025, and have the site up and running after 2030. Up to 100 turbines could be built in the 253 square km (96 square mile) area of seabed, which was leased to the firm by the Manx government in 2015 to explore the potential for a wind farm. About 1.4 gigawatts could be generated by the array, with Orsted investigating subsea connections to national grids in the UK and the Isle of Man. Export power Manx Utilities' current estimates show the island has a peak electricity demand of 75 megawatts during the winter, and a year-round average demand of 40 megawatts. Orsted is exploring subsea connections that could see between 80 to 100 megawatts supplied directly to the island, Mr Galloway said. But the power would primarily be sold to neighbouring nations, which would benefit the island through increased taxation and rent paid by Orsted to the Manx government, he said. The Danish energy giant already has eight wind farms in the Irish Sea, including the Walney extension project, which is one of the world's largest arrays. Mr Galloway confirmed Orsted would engage with Crogga, the firm behind plans for a gas well close to the wind farm site, if the Manx government allows that project to progress. Public drop-in sessions are set to be held later this month by Orsted after the firm released a report outlining its initial plans for the Mooir Vannin Offshore Wind Farm project. Why not follow BBC Isle of Man on Facebook and X? You can also send story ideas to IsleofMan@bbc.co.uk SYDNEY (Reuters) -The Australian government on Sunday described as "serious and ongoing" a cybersecurity incident that forced ports operator DP World Australia to suspend operations at ports in several states since Friday. DP World Australia, which manages nearly half of the goods that flow in and out of the country, said it was looking into possible data breaches as well as testing systems "crucial for the resumption of normal operations and regular freight movement". The breach halted operations at the containers terminals in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Western Australia's Fremantle since Friday. "The cyber incident at DP World is serious and ongoing," Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil said on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. A DP World spokesperson did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on when normal operations would resume. The company, part of Dubai's state-owned DP World, is one of a handful of stevedore industry players in the country. The Australian Federal Police said they were investigating the incident, but declined to elaborate. Late on Saturday, the National Cyber Security Coordinator Darren Goldie, appointed this year in response to several major data breaches, said the "interruption" was "likely to continue for a number of days and will impact the movement of goods into and out of the country". In the Asia-Pacific region, DP World says it employs more than 7,000 people and has ports and terminals in 18 locations. (Reporting by Sam McKeith in Sydney; Editing by David Gregorio, Robert Birsel and Miral Fahmy) Independence police are searching for a person of interest in a stabbing that killed one person Saturday evening. Around 4:25 p.m., someone transported the male victim to an Independence Fire Station 3 for medical treatment after the stabbing, according to Officer Jack Taylor, a spokesman for the Independence Police Department. The male victim, whose age wasnt specified, died of his injuries as fire department personnel rendered aid. Investigators learned that the stabbing happened in the area of Truman Road and Hardy Avenue. Anthony J. Durkin, 34, has been identified as a person of interest in the homicide. Police said Durkin is about 5 feet and 10 inches tall and weighs around 155 pounds. He has brown hair and brown eyes. Durkin has a tattoo on the right side of his neck that says RESPETO, and a Scooby Doo tattoo on his right arm. He frequents the area of 23 Highway and Sterling Avenue. Anyone who locates Durkin should call 911 and not approach him. Police ask anyone with additional information on the incident to call the anonymous TIPS Hotline at 816-474-8477. (Inside California Politics) Los Angeles Times Political Columnist Mark Barabak joins Inside California Politics co-host Frank Buckley to discuss Californias transition from a red state to a dominant blue state, which began in the 1990s thanks in large part to efforts made by former President Bill Clinton. Watch the interview in the video player above. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. (Bloomberg) -- Portugals Antonio Costa, who unexpectedly resigned as prime minister on Tuesday amid a probe into possible government corruption, apologized on television for envelopes of cash seized in his chief of staffs office as part of the ongoing investigation. Most Read from Bloomberg The seizing of envelopes with large quantities of money in the office of Vitor Escaria is, more than a betrayal of my trust, something that embarrasses me deeply before the Portuguese, and so I say sorry, Costa said on Saturday night from his official residence in Lisbon. Escaria was detained on Tuesday morning as police raided government offices, and several Portuguese media outlets reported that police found 75,800 ($81,000) in his office. His lawyer, Tiago Rodrigues Bastos, told television channel TVI on Thursday that the cash had nothing to do with the case and was related to his clients professional activity before he became the prime ministers chief of staff. Costa dismissed the chief of staff earlier this week after finding out about the cash. The corruption investigation is related to lithium exploration concessions in northern Portugal, a hydrogen production project and a data-center project developed by a company called Start Campus in Sines, south of Lisbon. References made by suspects about Costas intervention to unblock certain procedures will be assessed in an inquiry at the Supreme Court of Justice, the prosecutor said in a statement on Tuesday. All the projects being developed in Sines, namely the data center, have been required to meet environmental rules, Costa said on Saturday. He reaffirmed that nothing weighs on his conscience and that the government will fully cooperate with judicial authorities. Governments have the duty to attract corporate investment, Costa said, adding they also have to fight bureaucracy and expedite licensing. Its very important for the country that we continue to attract investment. Read more: Who Will Lead Portugal Now? Turmoil Starts Race for Premiership Costa said he isnt afraid of any downgrade to Portugals sovereign rating, saying the country has solid public finances. Diogo Lacerda Machado, a lawyer who Costa once called his best friend, was also detained on Tuesday. Machado hasnt worked in the prime ministers office for many years and had no mandate from Costa for anything, the outgoing premier said on Saturday. The reality is a prime minister doesnt have friends. And the longer hes in office, the fewer friends he has, he said. Costa, 62, said the investigation will last a long time and with great probability he will never hold public office again. President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa on Thursday called an early election for March 10, adding that the prime ministers resignation will formally take effect in early December. Costa has been prime minister since 2015. Read more: Bank of Portugal to Assess Centeno After He Was Proposed as PM Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2023 Bloomberg L.P. South African police fired stun grenades and water cannons in Cape Town on Sunday to quell clashes between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrators. A prayer for Israel and the Hamas hostages held in Gaza was to be held in the early afternoon in an affluent area of Cape Town on the Atlantic coast, a popular place for family walks on Sundays. But several hundred pro-Palestinian demonstrators gate-crashed the event, following a pro-Palestinian demonstration that brought thousands of people onto the streets of the port and tourist city, according to AFP journalists on the scene. The pro-Palestinian demonstrators wearing keffiyehs and waving Palestinian flags chased away those attending the pro-Israel prayer meet, tore up their placards and occupied the space. Police intervened with a water cannon and sound grenades to disperse the demonstrators, then set up a roadblock to keep people out of the area. Numerous demonstrations in support of both sides have been held for weeks in South Africa's major cities, where the ruling ANC party has been a fervent supporter of the Palestinian cause for decades. But the country also boasts the largest Jewish community in sub-Saharan Africa, some of whom have organised vigils and demonstrations in support of Israel. More left-wing members of the Jewish community, which played an active part in the fight against apartheid, have more often held rallies in support of the Palestinian cause. str-ger/cn/pvh/giv (The Hill) Pro-Palestinian protestors gathered near President Bidens Delaware home to demand a cease-fire Saturday. Delawareans from all over the state (and allies from out-of-state) are rallying to march toward @JoeBidens house in Wilmington & demand a #CeasefireForGazaNOW! Join us! #FreePalestine, reads a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, by the Delaware chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. The post also featured a video of a crowd chanting, Biden, Biden, you cant hide! We charge you with genocide! The president has backed Israel strongly throughout its conflict with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which started early last month by way of a surprise attack by the militant group on Israel. Were going to continue to affirm that Israel has the right, responsibility to defend its citizens from terror and it needs to do so in a manner that is consistent with international and humanitarian law and prioritizes the protection of citizens, Biden said earlier this month. Recently, the White House, Biden and other U.S. officials began a push for a pause but have not supported a cease-fire. The pause had been described by the White House as a temporary, localized break in fighting to allow aid into Gaza or civilians to get out. The White House said Thursday that Israel agreed to stop operations in Gaza for at least four hours at different times each day for civilians to evacuate from the area of conflict. Palestinians will be able to head from the northern part of Gaza to the southern part. Additionally, a second safe corridor will be established. We understand that Israel will begin to implement four hour pauses in areas of northern Gaza each day, with an announcement to be made three hours beforehand, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said in a briefing with reporters. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City. (The Hill) Pro-Palestinian protestors gathered near President Joe Bidens Delaware home to demand a cease-fire Saturday. Delawareans from all over the state (and allies from out-of-state) are rallying to march toward @JoeBidens house in Wilmington & demand a #CeasefireForGazaNOW! Join us! #FreePalestine, said a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, by the Delaware chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. The post also featured a video of a crowd chanting, Biden, Biden, you cant hide! We charge you with genocide! Netanyahu rejects growing calls for a cease-fire as Israel battles Hamas outside main Gaza hospital The president has backed Israel strongly throughout its conflict with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which started early last month by way of a surprise attack by the militant group on Israel. Were going to continue to affirm that Israel has the right, responsibility to defend its citizens from terror and it needs to do so in a manner that is consistent with international and humanitarian law and prioritizes the protection of citizens, Biden said earlier this month. Recently, the White House, Biden and other U.S. officials began a push for a pause but have not supported a cease-fire. The pause had been described by the White House as a temporary, localized break in fighting to allow aid into Gaza or civilians to get out. Clashes over Israel-Hamas war shatter students sense of safety on US college campuses The White House said Thursday that Israel agreed to stop operations in Gaza for at least four hours at different times each day for civilians to evacuate from the area of conflict. Palestinians will be able to head from the northern part of Gaza to the southern part. Additionally, a second safe corridor will be established. We understand that Israel will begin to implement four hour pauses in areas of northern Gaza each day, with an announcement to be made three hours beforehand, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said in a briefing with reporters. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2. Former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels poses outside his home, Friday, Nov. 10, 2023, in Minneapolis. Samuels is challenging U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota in the 2024 Democratic primary. (AP Photo/Steve Karnowski) MINNEAPOLIS (AP) U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar got a prominent Democratic primary challenger Sunday when former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels announced he'll try once again to unseat her after coming close in 2022. Omar, a charter member of "the squad of progressive House Democrats, won reelection twice despite making comments in her first term that were widely criticized for invoking antisemitic tropes and suggesting Jewish Americans have divided loyalties. But Omar a Somali American and Muslim has come under renewed fire for condemning the Israeli governments handling of its war against Hamas. Our congresswoman has a predilection to divisiveness and conflict," Samuels said in an interview with The Associated Press ahead of his official announcement Sunday morning on WCCO Radio. The Jamaican-born Samuels still maintains that his narrow primary loss in 2022 showed Omar was beatable, and that he could have won if they had competed later in the general election, where Omar won 74% of the vote over a little-known Republican. The big issue in 2022 was the future of policing in the city where George Floyd was murdered in 2020 by a former Minneapolis police officer, which touched off protests around the world and riots in Minnesota. Omar was among the progressives who slammed former President Barack Obama for criticizing the defund the police movement as just a snappy slogan." "Its not a slogan but a policy demand, she posted on Twitter, now known as X. In contrast, the centrist Samuels helped lead the opposition that defeated a proposal on the city ballot in 2021 that arose from the defund movement and would have replaced the police force with a revamped public safety agency. Samuels thinks safety will be a top issue again. The long tails of the George Floyd and COVID issues continue, with empty storefronts and empty strip malls because people dont want to invest anymore. They dont think its safe, Samuels said. Omar issued a written statement Sunday touting her work in Congress and for her district, including fighting to combat climate change and codify abortion rights. She also noted her part in securing an affordable housing facility for veterans in Minnesota and a public safety measure that provides mental health support and services for victims of gun violence. Right-wing donors have targeted me since I first entered public life," Omar said in the statement, which also accused Samuels of taking hundreds of thousands in contributions from far-right donors and political action committees. "If were going to stop Donald Trump, we need record turnout, and I am confident in our ability to drive turnout, particularly in a presidential election year. The war in the Middle East has already divided Democrats and upended the dynamics of some House primaries. Omar has been critical of Hamas for attacking Israel and taking hostages but even more so of Israels military response. Her focus has been the plight of civilians in the Gaza Strip. She has also condemned the surge of intimidation and violence against both Muslim and Jewish targets in the U.S. It remains to be seen how potent an issue the war will be in an overwhelmingly Democratic district that includes Minneapolis and some suburbs. The district also has a large Somali Muslim population. And it includes St. Louis Park, which historically has been a center of Jewish life in Minnesota. Samuels said he believes the war will be a big concern. He criticized Omar for voting against placing sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine but supporting sanctions against Israel, and for boycotting Israeli President Isaac Herzogs speech to Congress in July. She has frightened the Jewish community," Samuels said, adding that the community "understands that there is a latent and lurking antisemitic sentiment that always needs discouragement, and always in times of national crisis raises its ugly head. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee has been actively trying to recruit a credible challenger to Omar. That drew pushback from a strong supporter of Israel, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who issued a public show of support for Omar this summer. A super PAC affiliated with AIPAC spent about $350,000 against Omar in 2022. But Samuels said AIPAC didn't try to recruit him. Omar's fellow House Democrats have portrayed her as a serious legislator who in the past four years has earned admiration for giving voice to marginalized groups often forgotten on Capitol Hill. But Samuels said people sometimes mistake her oppositional nature and divisive nature for someone who's speaking truth to power when in fact she is misusing her power, or not using her power, to make change." The other declared candidates are relatively unknown. One Democrat is Sarah Gad, a Minneapolis attorney and daughter of Egyptian immigrants who is Muslim. The other is military veteran Tim Peterson. The only Republican currently running is Dalia Al-Aqidi, an Iraqi American journalist and self-described secular Muslim who calls Omar pro-Hamas and a terrorist sympathizer. Jacob Chansley, also known as the "QAnon Shaman," at the "Stop the Steal" rally in Washington, DC. Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images Jacob Chansley, or the "QAnon shaman," became an infamous symbol of the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Chansley apologized and was recently released from prison after serving more than two years. Now he wants to run for Congress. Jacob Chansley would like to return to the scene of his crime. Chansley rose to American infamy as the "QAnon shaman," becoming the face of the January 6, 2021 siege on the US Capitol, which sent congressional lawmakers scrambling in fear for the exits. Now he thinks he might like to work in the building he attacked. Chansley is considering running for a US Congress seat in the 2024 election, representing his home state of Arizona. He recently filed his initial paperwork with Arizona's Secretary of State's Office, indicating that he planned to run as a Libertarian for the state's 8th congressional District, The Arizona Republic reported. Republican Rep. Debbie Lesko now holds the seat for the district, which is made up of suburbs surrounding Phoenix. Lesko recently announced she would retire in January instead of seeking reelection in 2024. So, the race is now on for her seat. Notable candidates thus far include Blake Masters, who failed to cinch a seat in the Senate in 2022, and Abe Hamadeh, who lost his race to be Arizona's attorney general the same year. One of the first rioters to breach the Capitol, Chansley issued an apology after pleading guilty to his crimes. He served 27 months behind bars in a 41-month sentence. Once released, he suggested that he wanted to reverse his guilty plea. Though as a convicted felon he can't vote, that doesn't prevent him from running for office. Read the original article on Business Insider One of several emergency roadside bunkers near the border with Gaza, this one by Alumim, Israel, on Oct. 27, 2023. (Amit Elkayam/The New York Times) JERUSALEM Nearly 30 young people took refuge inside a grimy bunker on the morning of Oct. 7, hoping the reinforced-concrete shelter near the border with Gaza would fulfill its promise of protection. But just after 7:40 a.m., when a group of Hamas assailants, armed with assault rifles and grenades, attacked the shelter near Kibbutz Reim in southern Israel, the very characteristics that made the tiny fortress a refuge from incoming rockets turned it into a deathtrap for those inside. In less than an hour, after a desperate defense that included throwing live grenades back at their attackers, more than a dozen of the shelters occupants had been killed, their bodies blown apart and riddled with bullets. Others, dazed and injured, were taken to the Gaza Strip as hostages. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times The slaughter that took place inside has been pieced together here from interviews with survivors and texts from the victims, as well as authenticated cellphone photographs, videos and dashcam footage from the scene. In one of the less-documented chapters of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, Hamas assailants, using virtually identical methods, attacked multiple shelters in which their victims had sought safety, shattering a symbol of the nations sense of security. As about 1,200 people were killed in southern Israel, according to Israeli officials, and as about 240 others were abducted to Gaza, the brutality of the days attacks prompted Israel to declare a war on Hamas-controlled Gaza aimed at dismantling the groups military abilities and ending its rule there. Health officials in Gaza say Israeli strikes have killed more than 11,000 people in the Palestinian enclave. There is no official list of who was in the bunker near Reim, one of hundreds of shelters that dot the roads of southern Israel. As hundreds of young people fled a nearby music festival, Tribe of Nova, that morning, small groups of friends each made the same decision. Seeing a shelter, its exterior painted with a colorful mural of a bird, they pulled their cars off the road and sought safety inside. We thought it was a safe place where we would wait awhile, then go home, said Ziv Abud, 26, a salesperson from Tel Aviv and one of the bunkers few survivors. She had arrived at the festival around 4:30 a.m. with her boyfriend, her nephew and his girlfriend. Of the four, she was the only one to make it home. The New York Times has accounted for at least 24 people who were in the shelter at the time of the attacks, although the total number is thought to be 27, or possibly 29. At least 14 were killed, at least three were taken as captives to Gaza, and seven or eight made it home. The fates of several others are unknown. That Saturday began with a barrage of rockets from Gaza streaking across the sky at sunrise. Organizers of Tribe of Nova, the rave taking place in the desert just off Route 232, abruptly shut down the party around 6:30 a.m., according to survivors, and attendees began leaving by car. By the end of the day, at least 260 of those fleeing the music festival were dead. As the rocket fire intensified, some of the festivalgoers began receiving confusing messages about gunshots farther down the road. For safety, surviving witnesses said, that was when some took refuge in the shelter. Such roadside bunkers, about the size of walk-in closets, began appearing in areas near the Gaza border after Hamas and other armed groups started firing rockets into Israel more than 20 years ago. Made of thick concrete, the aboveground shelters have no doors to allow for fast entry because in these parts, incoming-rocket alerts typically give only a few seconds warning. Unbeknown to those huddling in the shelter with little or no cellphone reception more than 1,500 Hamas gunmen were surging across the border, overrunning villages, towns and army bases, and encircling the site of the rave, according to video clips, witness testimony, and police and military records. The Israeli police and the military could not provide an official tally of how many shelters were similarly ambushed Oct. 7. But at least six other shelters were attacked, according to interviews with survivors, video clips and evidence found at several bunkers. The Times spoke to two survivors and viewed footage filmed inside one shelter that was attacked outside Kibbutz Alumim, about 5 miles north of Reim. A recent drive near the Gaza border revealed that four of the six shelters along the stretch of Route 232 between Reim and Alumim bore signs of severe violence. Even after the shelters had been nominally cleaned, their interiors were charred, their walls pockmarked by bullets and shrapnel and their ceilings spattered with blood. Eight days after the Hamas assault, police found nine bodies in a shelter that had been attacked on the beach at Zikim, just north of the Gaza Strip. Yossi Landau, the southern region commander for ZAKA, a search-and-rescue organization, entered one bomb shelter on Route 232. Inside, he said, he found about 20 burned bodies fused together, adding, It was difficult to separate them. Abud; her boyfriend, Eliya Cohen, 26; her nephew Amit Ben Avida, 19; and his girlfriend, Karin Schwartzman, 20, left the rave together after the rocket fire began. Cohens aunt, traveling in a different car, called from farther up the road to say her vehicle had been shot at. Assuming the gunshots were coming from Gaza, Abud and her companions stopped to take refuge in the shelter with the bird mural. We were the first in, she said. Then more and more people came inside. Agam Yosefzon, 20; her boyfriend, Itamar Shapira, 22; and three of their friends, all from Misgav in the Galilee, arrived at the shelter around 7:20 a.m. At first, Yosefzon said, people milled about between incoming rocket alerts. We were in a good mood, she said. We laughed and connected a bit. Aner Shapira, 22, an off-duty soldier from Jerusalem, soon arrived with three friends and with the news that Hamas had infiltrated the border area. He reassured everyone that there was a large army base nearby and said that they should remain calm, unaware that base would also fall. As the sound of gunfire drew closer, everybody crowded into the shelter littered with trash, wasp nests and excrement. Aner Shapira took command, witnesses said, and stood at the entrance. Soon after 7:41 a.m., according to time-stamped texts and survivors testimonies, the attackers arrived outside the bunker. We thought maybe they would pass us by and not see us, Abud said. We kept silent. Dashcam footage from a nearby vehicle later posted online shows seven gunmen abusing an Arabic-speaking Bedouin man seated on the ground outside the bunkers entrance at 7:56 a.m. Survivors said the man pleaded with the gunmen not to enter the building. The mans family later identified him as Osama Abu Eisa and said he had been killed. The dashcam footage then shows a gunman tossing a grenade into the shelter as the assailants run for cover. A young man flees the shelter, running across the road. The gunmen fire at him in a frenzy. Witnesses said he was killed. When the assailants began throwing grenades into the shelter, Aner Shapira, the off-duty soldier, tossed back at least eight stun grenades and live grenades, with some help, according to survivors. But at least one reached deep inside and exploded. Witnesses said the gunmen also fired a rocket-propelled grenade toward the entrance. Shapira was killed. Survivors call him a hero and said he saved their lives. Abud kept her eyes closed and could only hear what was happening. She said Shema Yisrael, a Jewish prayer. I heard screams, peoples last breaths, cries for help, she said. Yosefzon said she felt like she was being sucked into a black space. Then I felt my soul return, she said. I opened my eyes and saw nothing but orange dust. The onslaught did not end there. Once the dust cleared, the assailants entered the bunker and ordered at least three of the surviving men to leave with them. One was Cohen, Abuds boyfriend, whose leg had been wounded. Alon Ohel, 22, a musician from Misgav who has dual Serbian citizenship, was also taken. One of Aner Shapiras childhood friends from Jerusalem, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, a dual citizen of Israel and the United States, was last seen in a video clip climbing onto the back of a pickup truck. His left arm had been blown off just above the elbow and he had fashioned a kind of tourniquet. About the same time he was being kidnapped, his mother, Rachel Goldberg, found two texts from 8:11 a.m., although they may have been sent a few minutes earlier. I love you guys, he wrote his family. Im sorry. Are you OK? Goldberg wrote back. Please let us know youre OK. There was no reply. After the kidnappings, the assailants sprayed the inside of the shelter with gunfire. Those who walked out alive said they were able to do so only because they were shielded by the bloody, dismembered bodies of others. Simultaneously, similar attacks were taking place along the highway in shelters painted with a landscape near Reim, painted with a girl blowing bubbles outside Beeri and painted with a bulldog near Alumim. Two photographers, Yahel Irony, 18, and Noam Cohen, 19, sheltered in the bunker by Alumim. There were 20 to 30 people inside, they said, of whom about 10 left it alive. After the grenades and the shooting, Irony said, Suddenly, there was quiet. People were dead or dying, without legs, arms, he added. People were cut in half. Injured, the two men decided to take their chances on escaping and jumped into passing cars. Cohen documented the scene in the shelter before and after the attack. Too traumatized to speak about it anymore, he and a friend composed a rap song in Hebrew. Theres nowhere to run, I hear the explosion, theres blood everywhere, it goes. I was lucky to get out. My bodys mostly whole, but my heads still there. The survivors in the Reim shelter played dead for hours. Yosefzon was shot in the leg and her boyfriend in the arm. Their two other friends were dead. All the while, they could hear shooting and yelling in Arabic outside. Eitan Halley, 28, a student, was drifting in and out of consciousness on the floor. He was full of shrapnel, and the fragments of someone elses skull lay on his leg. Two of the friends he had arrived with had been killed. I saw the face of death, he said. Six hours after the assailants left the shelter, an Israeli civilian popped his head inside. He was looking for his son. He immediately called the army and, together with some soldiers, took the survivors to a nearby hospital. In the chaos of Oct. 7, parents frantically sought their children. Idit Ohel, the mother of Alon, said she learned the next day that her son had been kidnapped. The families of the abducted men said they were agonized, wondering if their wounded sons had received treatment in Gaza. That Saturday, Omer Partovi, a Jerusalem tattoo artist and a friend of several of the Reim shelters occupants, began scanning social media for clues of their fates. He created a WhatsApp group to share information about those still missing from the shelters. In the chaos and confusion, he began to map who was alive, who was dead, who had been hospitalized and who was in Gaza. The shelters still dot the road like toy castles, their playful exteriors masking scorched interiors and the lingering stench of slaughter. c.2023 The New York Times Company WINCHESTER, Ind. Two Randolph County sheriff's deputies will not face criminal charges stemming from the fatal shooting of a Muncie man. Indiana State Police on Saturday released a statement from Randolph County Prosecutor David Daly, who had reviewed evidence stemming from last month's shooting death of 19-year-old Brayden Daniel Barnhouse. Investigators released a photograph of the handgun a 19-year-old Muncie man allegedly fired at Randolph County sheriff's deputies before being fatally shot on Oct. 24, 2023. Deputies on Oct. 24 were searching for Barnhouse, who had reportedly walked away from a home in Union City after surviving a drug overdose. Two deputies Jeffrey Miller and Kevin Kouns later approached Barnhouse as he walked in the unincorporated community of New Pittsburg, located in Randolph County's Jackson Township. According to Daly's findings, footage from body cameras worn by the deputies showed as Kouns approached Barnhouse, the Muncie man "without provocation pulled a concealed handgun from underneath his short and shot Deputy Kouns, striking him in the face, with a glancing injury." More: Young Muncie man fatally wounded in exchange of gunfire with Randolph County deputies Both deputies returned fire, and Barnhouse was shot. "As Mr. Barnhouse was on the ground, he made furtive movements and appeared to be reaching from behind his back to his front after being shot," Daly wrote. "He was shot a second time and still appears to be reaching for a gun when Sgt. Miller was finally able to restrain him." Efforts to resuscitate Barnhouse were unsuccessful, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. "In my opinion, what is depicted on the videos supports the officers' statements that they were in fear for their safety even after Mr. Barnhouse had been shot for the second time," Daly wrote. The prosecutor said he did not believe "the officers' use of deadly force under the circumstances to be unreasonable." Douglas Walker is a news reporter at The Star Press. Contact him at 765-213-5851 or at dwalker@muncie.gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Prosecutor: Randolph deputies justified in fatally shooting Muncie man A strong middle class has prospered as the backbone of the American economy, and it is imperative for the health of the economy and the polity that it be revived from what the Economic Policy Institute claims is its shrinking status in recent years. If you havent noticed, unions are at the helm of the fight to improve middle-class wages, and thats a good thing. First, its good for the American family that deserves to be treated fairly by corporate America. When profits rise, so too should wages for those on the factory floor producing the goods. Unions that pressure companies for their fair share of the profits also help address income and wealth inequality which the Pew Research Center claims has been increasing since 1980. Pews research shows that upper-income household income has grown in recent decades which exacerbates the shrinkage of the middle class. When you drill down on worker anxiety about their jobs and their shrinking paychecks, it doesnt take long to discover where they go for solutions. Too often, its charlatans like Trump who prey on those polarized by an economy they think no longer works for them. President Biden figured this out recently when he stood in the UAW picket line in support of its autoworkers. Its the strikes that seem to be making the difference. Strikes get the attention of the media, but the disparity between CEO salaries and average employee salaries gets less attention. Instead, the focus is always on the percentage increase the new contract gives to the workers with little or no attention given to the CEO salary, which plays a role in the growing inequality in the American economy. Its called the CEO-to-worker ratio and the national average of CEO-to-employee ratio in 1989 was 44-1 and in 1965 it was 15-1. With CEO pay out of control, in 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission required publicly traded companies to disclose the pay ratio between their chief executive officers and median employees. In 2022, the average S&P 500 companys CEO-to-worker pay ratio was 272-to-1. According to Executive Paywatch, which tracks the ratio for the AFL-CIO, it rose 1,460% since 1978. The recent UAW strike that was recently settled raised assembly plant worker pay by more than 30% to around $42 an hour by the time new contracts end in April of 2028. This latest strike ushered in a bolder and more strategic approach to dealing with Detroit automakers in years. After conceding to some significant concessions in 2008 when the automakers were on life support, this year witnessed the savviest union leadership taking on overpaid CEOs vulnerable to the charge that their excessive salaries contribute to the growing inequality in the American economy. For example, UAW president Shawn Fein hammered away at executive pay which rose by 40% over the last four years as the price of vehicles went up 30%. So, why he argued, shouldnt workers pay move in the same direction? The GM CEO, Mary Barra, counted over $28 million in 2022 as her compensation which makes her salary 362 times the salary of a median GM employee. Fords CEO, James Farley, raked in just under $21 million last year, which makes his salary 281 times more than Fords average employee. His predecessor in 2019 made $17.4 million which cements the argument that CEO pay just keeps on giving. CEO Carlos Tavaras of Stellantis which is the name of the recently merged Fiat-Chrysler Companies wins the grand prize. His compensation of $24.8 million represented a CEO-to-worker pay of 365:1. Closer to home, as I mentioned in a previous column, CEO Vivek Sankaran at Albertsons pulled down over $16 million in salaries and benefits. Salary.com computed his CEO-to-worker ratio at 501:1, the Grand Marshal of overpaid CEOs when compared to his workers. The most interesting aspect of galloping increases in CEO pay in the last few decades is how it may influence excessive pay throughout the corporate ranks. When the CEO returns from the board meeting that increased his/her salary by a significant percentage and considers how that sits with his executive team, why wouldnt the normal reaction be to increase the salaries of those reporting to him/her? This trickle-down effect surely benefits others in the corporate suite but stops dead in its tracks at workers down the line. How did all this happen? How did CEO pay go through the roof in recent decades? It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall at one of those corporate board meetings when CEO pay is on the agenda. One thing is for sure: The board members who make the compensation decision for the CEO are fellow travelers of the CEO. I would be willing to bet the mortgage on the fact that, with rare exception like finding a zebra without stripes corporate board members are among the most financially secure folks on the planet. They knee-jerk to the recommendation of the committee tasked with considering the size of the CEOs salary increase. Their own status in the upper reaches of the hierarchy of the well-to-do makes them oblivious to issues like recessions, CEO-to-worker ratios or how a particular increase in CEO compensation might affect the morale and productivity of employees. And those board members get paid generously to sit there and jack up the salary of the CEO. Lets see those names and numbers in print. Its time for the media to expand its focus beyond the increases eventually given to workers. The salary packages of CEOs and executive officers of the firm should also be in the news that reports on efforts by workers to get their fair share. The board members who shell out these outrageous salaries to CEOs can also be held accountable in the media. They should be named in the media just as the CEOs are called out for their excessive compensation. From time to time, we hear of board meetings where stockholders show up and disrupt proceedings to protest some aspect of company policy. We need more of that as well, but this time to object to excessive CEO compensation that is contributing to a society growing more unequal every day. There is simply no way to justify the outlandish increases in executive pay in recent decades and adjusting executive pay to the realities of the American economy is an effective weapon in fighting inequality. As we have seen in recent months, it is the strength of unions and their ability to strike and freeze the operations of companies that will prove successful in narrowing the wage and salary gap between the workers who produce and the executives at the top. Cheers to union workers fighting for their fair share of company profits in a corporate economy where executives are showered with excessive salaries and workers are forced to fight for every dime. Bob Kustra served as president of Boise State University from 2003 to 2018. He is host of Readers Corner on Boise State Public Radio and is a regular columnist for the Idaho Statesman. He served two terms as Illinois lieutenant governor and 10 years as a state legislator. A range of Remembrance Sunday ceremonies and commemorations have taken place across Devon and Cornwall. Communities across the south west fell silent to honour those who have died in conflicts past and present. Leading the service on Plymouth Hoe, the Archbishop of Canterbury prayed for a world "that may find peace". Other services took place around the two counties, including in Bodmin, Exeter and Helston. The Most Rev Justin Welby - the Archbishop of Canterbury - also led a service in Torquay for Armistice Day on Saturday. The archbishop's visit to the county is one of a series of church mission weekends across England. Speaking at the Remembrance Day service on The Hoe in Plymouth, he said: "We meet today to remember. "As we come to remember, God draws near to us, that in the pain of remembrance there may be healing, and in the remembrance, there may be honour given to those who fell in battle in the two world wars from the Royal Navy, from the Army, from the Royal Air Force, and associated regiments and groups, from those who have fallen since in the many conflicts which continue to this day. "We remember those on deployment around the world at the minute, from the armed forces, and we give thanks for them. "We take to heart the words from the poem in Flanders Field, and thank all those who carry the torch that gives us freedom and liberty. "We remember those in wars today all around the world, well-known and the forgotten, and in our remembering, we pray for a world that may find peace." People fell silent in Bodmin on Sunday to remember all those who had fallen in war In Bodmin, Phil Cooper, the mayor of the town, said Bodmin had a "very rich military history". "It's very important to the town that we do this, and remember those people that made the ultimate sacrifice for us," he said. Bishopsteignton was also among the communities remembering the fallen. The local community centre also staged an exhibition featuring recently-discovered transcriptions of Letters From the Front, written by Clifford E Wallis - who was killed in 1918 and whose name appears on its War Memorial. This year, Custard the horse was led through the village, decorated in purple poppies to commemorate the animals lost to war. On Coverack beach in west Cornwall, the portrait of World War Two paratrooper Herbie Bray was etched into the sand by beach rake artist Jon Barnes. Mr Bray, who lived most of his life in Mullion, was thought to be one of the last surviving British paratroopers. He died in October, aged 97. Follow BBC News South West on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to spotlight@bbc.co.uk. Services have been held across Northern Ireland to mark Remembrance Sunday. Northern Ireland Secretary Chris-Heaton Harris and the Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Leo Varadkar attended the commemoration in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh. They were joined by victims and relatives of the 1987 IRA bomb attack at the town's war memorial which killed 12 people. The taoiseach also attended a cross-community church service. In Belfast, wreaths were laid at the cenotaph at City Hall, while other cities and towns held ceremonies following a silence observed at 11:00 GMT. The events commemorate servicemen and women who died during both world wars and in later conflicts. The head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, Jayne Brady, was among the guests at the Enniskillen commemoration. The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Chief Constable Jon Boutcher also laid a wreath. The ecumenical service in Saint Macartin's Cathedral was attended by senior clergy from the four main churches in Northern Ireland. The town's war memorial is the site of what became known as the Poppy Day bomb. DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson took part in the commemoration in London The IRA explosion took place on 8 November 1987, when a crowd had gathered for that year's ceremony. Eleven people were killed and a 12th victim, Ronnie Hill, slipped into a coma two days after he was injured by the blast and died 13 years later. A visit to Enniskillen on Remembrance Sunday has become a regular fixture in the diary of Irish leaders in recent years. The tradition began in 2012, when the then-taoiseach, Enda Kenny, became the first Irish prime minister to attend the event during the year that the town marked the 25th anniversary of the bomb. Mr Varadkar followed in his predecessors' footsteps by laying a green laurel wreath at the town's war memorial on behalf of the Irish government. Mr Heaton-Harris said the Irish government's presence at the event was "really important". "People like to see the British government and the Irish government work together, remember together and that can only be good for our mutual futures," he told BBC News NI. Elsewhere, Democratic Unionist Party leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson attended the national commemoration in London, while Ulster Unionist Party leader Doug Beattie was at the service in Portadown. Kevin Sharkey reporting from Belfast City Hall A service has been held at Belfast City Hall to mark Remembrance Sunday. The deputy lord mayor, Cllr Aine Groogan of the Green Party, laid a wreath at the cenotaph in the Garden of Remembrance on behalf of the citizens of Belfast. Speaking after the event, Cllr Groogan said it was "true honour and a privilege" to represent the city at the event. "Now more than ever, we really need to remember the horror of war, remember those who have lost their lives in conflicts, and work extra hard towards peace," she added. Other wreathes were also placed at the cenotaph during the service. Among the attendees were Northern Ireland Office Minister Steve Baker and Irish Sport Minister Thomas Byrne. On the stroke of 11 o'clock the crowd of several hundred people fell silent to remember those who have died in wars around the world. In Ballynahinch, County Down, a parade and service took place at town's new war memorial on Sunday afternoon. Event organiser Margaret Armstrong said the names of 49 local men who served in both world wars have been added to the memorial in recent years. Margaret Armstrong says names of 44 World War One veterans and five World War Two veterans have been added to the Ballynahinch war memorial in recent years A total of 168 names are now inscribed on the monument - 144 of those being men who served during World War One, 24 in World War Two. "I think it was difficult for the people at the time of the first memorial that research wasn't just as easy," she told BBC News NI. "But by the time the second memorial was going up a lot more research had been done, so we put on two additional plaques to the new memorial." Weekend of remembrance Armistice Day commemorations also took place in towns and cities across Northern Ireland on Saturday. Belfast's Lord Mayor Ryan Murphy, of Sinn Fein, took part in the remembrance ceremony at the Cenotaph in the grounds of the city hall on Saturday morning. He said his participation was a "genuine attempt at reaching out the hand of friendship to all of those people who think Armistice Day is a significant event". In Carrickfergus, County Antrim, a 97-year-old D-Day veteran was among those who attended the town's Armistice Day ceremony on Saturday. World War Two soldier George Horner was in his late teens when he landed on Sword Beach, Normandy, on D-Day Former Royal Ulster Rifles soldier George Horner said it was "very, very important" to pay tribute to his fallen comrades. "It's a day of remembrance. You remember all your friends - departed friends, the ones you lost," he said. On Friday, crowds gathered at The Fountain in Londonderry to remember local people killed during World War One. Primary school pupils and members of the community collaborated with the Building Cultural Networks project to create 100 white crosses with poppies. Wreaths of poppies were laid at the Cenotaph in tribute to those who lost their lives during conflict Jersey's annual Remembrance Sunday service has taken place. This year marked the Cenotaph's centenary year of use on the island, having been first unveiled on the fifth anniversary of the Armistice in 1923. Until the permanent memorial was unveiled Jersey had a temporary wooden memorial, built in 1919 after the end of World War One. The service was held in the presence of various officials at the Cenotaph in St Helier. People lined the streets for the Remembrance Sunday service Officials present included the Lieutenant Governor Vice Admiral Jerry Kydd CBE, the Bailiff of Jersey Sir Timothy Le Cocq, and Jersey's Chief Minister Kristina Moore. To mark Armistice Day itself, on Saturday, members of the Royal British Legion gathered together at the Cenotaph to mark the occasion and hold a two minute silence at 11:00 GMT to commemorate the signing of the Armistice, which brought an end to World War One. People gathered in St Helier for the annual Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph Charles Woodrow, former Lt Col in the Grenadier Guards was at the service in St Helier. He said this was his 32nd parade on the island. Mr Woodrow said he came to the parade to remember the guardsmen he commanded who were killed in action. "The island was occupied by the Germans, and we're one of the few democracies who have suffered that sort of thing, so we have people who know what it's like to lose their privileges and their freedom. "That is one of the reasons that we work within the military, to ensure that we do have our freedoms." Follow BBC Jersey on Twitter and Facebook. Send your story ideas to channel.islands@bbc.co.uk. Daphne Alsiyao says remote work has allowed her to shift her schedule to cover gaps in child care. (Lissa Gotwals/The New York Times) In 1989, legal scholar Joan Williams published a theory for why professional women were opting out of their careers. Professional jobs, she wrote, expected that employees would be available at all times to travel often, work late and show up regardless of whether a child was sick at home or just born. They were designed, in other words, for men married to homemakers. Employers are taught they can expect this, Williams wrote. But mothers, who are also expected to meet caretaking ideals, cannot fulfill this career profile even with most types of day care. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times To level the playing field and get the most out of the workforce, she argued, beliefs about what makes a good worker needed to be redefined. For 30 years, Williams watched as practical reasons that work needed to be done in the office dwindled. Files left cabinets and phones became mobile, but the model of an ideal worker shed laid out in 1989 remained the same. While many companies technically offered flexible options, using them was seen as a sign of being less dedicated. It was so frustrating that I left the work-family field, said Williams, who is a professor at the University of California Law San Francisco. And then, the pandemic hit. Shutdown orders forced companies to experiment with remote work, and it stuck around. Williams regained hope. Now the ideal worker, in many, many professional jobs is seen as someone who only shows up to work in person part time, she said. Mothers, not exclusively, but in particular, may have gained a great deal from this shift. Some economists have suggested remote work factored into the all-time high in labor force participation rate among women of prime working age. The jump for mothers of young children has been particularly high, and among those who have a bachelors degree, its even higher. After all, even in marriages where husbands and wives earn about the same amount, women still take on more housework and caregiving responsibilities. And when work and caregiving conflict, women are more likely to take a step back. Work by Claudia Goldin who won a Nobel Prize in economics in October has shown that occupations such as finance and law pay a premium for long, inflexible hours, which contributes to the gender pay gap. Now, many of those demanding jobs are a little more flexible. Business travel is down, and all sorts of workers are likely to be absent from the office at 6 p.m., not just parents who have to pick up the children which many fathers would like to do, too. Most post-pandemic debate around remote work has focused on whether its here to stay. Some version of it seems likely: About 70% of workers who can do their jobs off-site still work remotely either all or some days. Job satisfaction is at the highest its been in the 36 years the Conference Board has tracked the metric, and its highest among workers who do some work remotely. But if old attitudes about more flexible work resurge outspoken executives have recently described it as lazy, not for leaders and a perk for those who dont work as hard then it may not matter if hybrid options are widespread. In the end, Williams said, they may just be strengthening the invisible escalator for white men. The Value of Flexibility In the grand economic picture, keeping mothers in the workforce is a smart idea. An economy with a high labor supply of women is an economy that is easier to hire in, and thats good for all businesses, said Betsey Stevenson, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan. This is especially true for highly skilled jobs, because women hold a majority of college degrees. For executives who are not referencing the grand economic picture, there is still incentive to retain mothers which is why some companies offer expanded maternity benefits despite no requirement to do so. They realized that it was cheaper than losing an employee and having to recruit a replacement, Stevenson said. In experiments, mothers, fathers and people without caregiving responsibilities have been less likely to leave their jobs and reported better work-life balance when they had more control over where and when they work. (Studies conflict on whether working from home or the office is more productive, but most experts agree it depends on the task.) But the difference is who really needs the flexibility in order to not quit their job, said Lauren Bauer, a Brookings Institution fellow who co-wrote an analysis of the historically high workforce participation by mothers of young children. This boost in womens employment does not as employers may fear appear to be a side effect of mothers trying to simultaneously do their jobs and actively care for young children. Only about 6% of mothers of young children who telework at least once a week report having no child care, according to a Brookings Institution analysis by Bauer and Molly Kinder based on 2023 data from the Census Household Pulse Survey. Some working mothers, such as Daphne Alsiyao, who works at an early childhood education nonprofit organization, say remote work allows them to shift schedules so they can cover child care gaps. Alsiyao usually works from home until 3:30, when she collects her three children. She watches them until bedtime, then logs onto her computer to finish her work. What would she do if she couldnt arrange work this way? I really dont know, she said. After a recent move, shed put her youngest child on a waiting list for more than five day care centers but never found a spot. (In March, she spoke about her struggle to find child care at the North Carolina General Assembly.) What really takes women out of paid employment is the need to be available or on call, said Nancy Folbre, an economist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who studies the value of unpaid care work. An 11-year-old who is home sick or early from school may not need direct care, but cant necessarily be left in the house alone. Remote work allows parents actually, I think, to be more productive because they can jointly supervise their kids and get good work done, she said. Goldin argues that remote work may also make it easier for mothers to stay in demanding jobs. Flexibility always existed it came with a price, she said. You could always find a job that was part time. Women are not working from home vastly more often than men, according to a survey by economists at Stanford University, the Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico and the University of Chicago. And none of this the incentives for employers to keep some type of flexible work arrangements, or the potential of those arrangements to create a more even playing field would work nearly as well if there were a bigger gap. Its not just that theres more telework its that telework is now deemed as something that is OK, its not just helping women, Bauer said. An Old Conception Leaving the office on time to pick up the children or saving commute time by working a couple of days from home was possible in many jobs before the pandemic, but came with what academic literature calls flexibility stigma. Many women I talked with for this article called it guilt. People who took advantage of workplace flexibility were seen as less serious workers, and it hurt their careers. Kellie Samson, a mother of two who works in communications at a private university and commutes just one day a week, said that after the pandemic, People realize what we knew all along, which is that I can get the work done, just maybe not in the traditional sense. But while some workers feel the acceptability of doing at least part of their jobs remotely has shifted, managers have spent decades using office attendance as a proxy for productivity. Its a difficult habit to kick, especially when it requires thinking differently about how to organize and evaluate work. I do think for a business like ours, which is an innovative, collaborative apprenticeship culture, this is not ideal for us and its not a new normal, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said about remote work at a conference in 2021, adding, Its an aberration that were going to correct as quickly as possible. It doesnt help, Williams said, that many top executives fit the old ideal: They are married to homemakers and havent taken on caregiving responsibilities. They literally do not see this problem because its so far outside of their experience, she said. So far, post-pandemic remote work has only existed in a tight labor market. When that changes, going to the office may be viewed as more important. Seeing colleagues face to face tends to give workers an advantage, a pitfall known as proximity bias. And a recent study from economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the University of Virginia and Harvard University found that workers at a Fortune 500 software company received more mentorship when they sat next to their colleagues. The hit to mentorship from working remotely was more acute for women. Before the pandemic, women were more likely to choose flexible work, even when it came at a cost to their careers. People of color say they prefer to work from home at higher rates than their white counterparts. If spending more time in the office means being branded a hustler or getting better assignments, most experts make the same guess about who will show up. You could, in principle, use the flexibility to make things a lot more gender equal, said Matthias Doepke, a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science. In a 2020 paper, he and three co-authors showed that men who could work remotely, and were married to women who could not, did about 50% more child care than men who could not work remotely. Its also possible that in the end, its women who make use of flexibility, he said. In that case, working remotely full time, or working more days from home than others in a hybrid workplace, could become an updated version of the mommy track. Hybrid workplaces will make it easier for women to remain in the labor force but harder for women to advance, Williams said. Does that leave women better or worse off overall? It could lead to a female enclave who work at home more than most men, Goldin said. But the question is whether that is worse than having the same women be part time. That remote workers could be seen as less serious, she said, does not mean that on net it is not an improvement. There are limits to what remote work can do on its own. Most jobs cant be done remotely. Only about 25% of private industry employees have access to any paid family leave, and about half of Americans live in a child care desert where supply does not meet demand, according to the Center for American Progress. What the pandemic did, by accident, was make it more acceptable in some industries to have work move slightly more fluidly around life. Its too soon to know what thats worth. I dont think that at the end of the day, were going to say: Oh, isnt this wonderful? We were dead and then reborn with a world of work thats more like the world that we have always wanted, Goldin said. We havent gone through that, but weve gone through something that is putting us closer. c.2023 The New York Times Company Former CIA operative Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) will not seek re-election for her House seat in order to launch a run for Virginia governor, The Washington Post reported, citing two sources. Spanberger has yet to make a formal announcement, but sources told the Post such an announcement is imminent. Spanberger would seek to succeed incumbent Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who is barred from serving consecutive terms under Virginia law. The possible foray into the race next week would mark a particularly early entrance two years ahead of election day 2025, and would make Spanberger the first to enter the race. Youngkins failure to seize unified Republican control of the state legislature earlier this week buoyed Democrats hopes for winning back power in the state. Read it at The Washington Post Read more at The Daily Beast. A new report from the Department of Defense has revealed that at least 245 military bases in the United States have been leaching toxic chemicals into the drinking water of nearby communities, putting an unknown number of people at risk. What is happening? The DOD report confirmed that at least 455 military bases are contaminated by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (or PFAS) and that 275 out of 295 bases checked had released those chemicals in the proximity of drinking water supplies. PFAS, commonly known as forever chemicals because of their inability to naturally degrade, have been linked to cancer, birth defects, decreased immunity, high cholesterol, kidney disease and a range of other serious health problems, per the Guardian. The military is one of the largest polluters of PFAS in the world, in part due to its use of a firefighting foam that is filled with the chemicals and is released during emergencies and training exercises. Why is this concerning? A good neighbor would let you know that their use of PFAS was the reason your water was contaminated, and a bad neighbor would only tell you: Hey, a plume is heading in your direction, Scott Faber, the vice president of government affairs at nonprofit the Environmental Working Group, told the Guardian. Faber also called the lack of clarity around the issue shocking. As the report looked into only around one-third of the more than 700 military facilities suspected of contaminating groundwater, there are likely many more cases. Hundreds more [communities] are likely at risk across America, the Guardian wrote. What is being done about it? The U.S. military is subjected to a low level of public oversight, so the next steps are very opaque, leading to concern from the communities impacted and advocates such as Faber. The DOD report writes that DOD is committed to cleaning up our PFAS releases as quickly as possible, although it does not offer any specifics or timeframe. It also writes that it is committed to mitigating PFAS in the drinking water it supplies, as well as addressing releases to the environment resulting from DOD activities and that it has responded quickly with short-and long-term actions to ensure that no one is drinking water with PFOS or PFOA above 70 ppt. This is likely small comfort to any community near a U.S. military base, but Faber told the Guardian that he is hopeful more answers will come. Inevitably we will get answers for these questions as we move through the process, he said. Join our free newsletter for cool news and cool tips that make it easy to help yourself while helping the planet. RICHMOND, Ind. Richmond police are investigating the shooting of a local man late Saturday. In a release, Zach Taylor, a lieutenant with the Richmond Police Department, said 24-year-old Laquent Hogg of Richmond was shot in the 900 block of North C Street. Police became aware of the shooting after Hogg was driven by an acquaintance to Reid Hospital for treatment of a non-life-threatening gunshot wound. according to the release. City officers about 11 p.m. arrived at the shooting scene and found "several (shell) casings in the area and a white passenger car that had been struck by gunfire." Investigators were called in to interview witnesses and process the scene. Anyone with information on the shooting is asked to call the Richmond Police Department at 765-983-7247. This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Richmond police investigating late-night shooting This embedded content is not available in your region. The Met Police has condemned "extreme violence from right-wing protesters" who it says set out to confront Saturday's pro-Palestinian march. Nine officers were injured and 145 people arrested - the "vast majority" of whom were counter-protesters. Police added while the march itself did not see such physical violence, serious offences relating to antisemitic hate crimes were being investigated. The PM said those involved in crimes must face the full force of the law. Rishi Sunak said: "I condemn the violent, wholly unacceptable scenes we have seen today from the EDL (English Defence League) and associated groups and Hamas sympathisers attending the National March for Palestine. "The despicable actions of a minority of people undermine those who have chosen to express their views peacefully." He added that "EDL thugs attacking police and trespassing on the Cenotaph" war memorial had disrespected the honour of the UK's armed forces. The pro-Palestinian demonstration - which coincided with Armistice Day - saw some 300,000 people march through central London calling for a Gaza ceasefire. It was the biggest UK rally since the war between Israel and Hamas began on 7 October. On Sunday, police said seven men had been charged between the ages of 23 and 75 for offences including assault, possession of weapons, criminal damage, public order, inciting racial hatred and possession of drugs. Those charged hailed from areas across the UK, including London, Norfolk, Flintshire, Kent, Manchester and West Lothian. Officers made dozens of arrests during Saturday's operation to prevent a breach of the peace, including a significant number of counter-protesters arrested in Tachbrook Street, Pimlico, as they tried to confront the main pro-Palestinian demonstrators. They have since been released. Those who were arrested for other matters in addition to a breach of the peace are being dealt with for those offences, police said. The force has said investigations are continuing into a number of other incidents. A police officer chases a man through streets close to the 'National March For Palestine' in central London on November 11, 2023, as counter-protest groups are monitored by police close to the route of the main march On Saturday, Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist said the march had taken place against a backdrop of conflict in the Middle East, remembrance events and a "week of intense debate" about protest and policing, which "all combined to increase community tensions". He said the violence directed towards officers on Saturday was "extraordinary and deeply concerning", with nine injured after counter-protesters clashed with police along Whitehall and in Chinatown. "They arrived early, stating they were there to protect monuments, but some were already intoxicated, aggressive and clearly looking for confrontation," he said. Officers protecting the Cenotaph faced abuse and chants of "you're not English any more". Many in these groups, who were "largely football hooligans from across the UK", were stopped and searched, with weapons including a knife, baton and knuckleduster found, as well as class A drugs. The assistant commissioner continued that while the pro-Palestinian march "did not see the sort of physical violence carried out by the right wing", it was clear that for Jewish communities "the impact of hate crime and in particular antisemitic offences is just as significant". He said "a number of serious offences identified in relation to hate crime and possible support for proscribed organisations" during the protest were being investigated. Police issued five photos of six individuals suspected of hate crimes. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor, who led Saturday's policing operation, said: "We urge anyone who has information about the identity of suspects, or who has footage or photos of further potential offences, to get in touch so we can take the appropriate action." One shows a woman carrying a placard on which the Jewish symbol, the star of David, is shown to incorporate a Swastika. Elsewhere, footage shared on social media showed Michael Gove ushered through London's Victoria Station by police officers, as crowds waving Palestinian flags shouted: "Shame on you." On Sunday, the Levelling Up Secretary addressed the incident on X, formerly Twitter, thanking police for their "exemplary work in getting me home safely yesterday". During the protests, BBC News was given rare access to the Met Police's control room in south London, which includes thousands of cameras. One live feed from a police helicopter was powerful enough to show a man sitting in a pub window and how much he had left in his drink. This embedded content is not available in your region. On the pro-Palestinian march, chants of "free Palestine" and "ceasefire now" could be heard as crowds began marching from London's Hyde Park. At one point the march, organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, extended from the Hilton Hotel in Park Lane to the US Embassy in Nine Elms - a distance of roughly 2.5 miles. One demonstrator told BBC News: "We want a ceasefire. People are suffering, children are dying under the rubble, and no-one seems to care about them." Another protester said: "I think it is the perfect day to actually do it on. Because that's what Armistice is, it is a call for ceasefire and a call for stopping war." On Sunday, the Met Police issued an appeal for information regarding videos filmed in Waterloo and Victoria stations showing "unacceptable abuse including antisemitic language, as well as threatening behaviour". No major protest is scheduled to take place on Remembrance Sunday, although the policing operation will continue with some 1,375 officers deployed amid commemoration events in the capital. It came after Home Secretary Suella Braverman described the pro-Palestinian protests as a "hate march" and accused the police of bias in a Times article this week. She later stressed she backed the police. Downing Street has said it is "looking into what happened" over the Times article, and the PM has confidence in Mrs Braverman. Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel tried to paint the GOP as the commonsense party on abortion and suggested Republican candidates ought to adhere to that message in order to win future elections. In an interview on CNNs State of the Union, Dana Bash pressed McDaniel on what the GOP messaging should be on abortion in light of McDaniel saying after the elections this past week that our candidates have lost their messaging on abortion. I have been on your show talking about this since 2022, McDaniel told Bash. I am a suburban woman. I get this. We actually put a memo out before the elections in 2022. Its up to the candidates if they take those suggestions. As I always say, if I give my husband directions in the car, it doesnt mean hes going to take them, right? But we have to talk about this. McDaniel pointed to newly elected Virginia State Sen. Danny Diggs (R), who McDaniel said did a fantastic job. He won a Senate race. He put his daughter in an ad, and she was compassionate. She understood women. She wasnt coming at them as criminals because they have different differences of opinion, McDaniel said. And she articulated her dads position. His position was, we should have commonsense limitations, McDaniel said when pressed. She then pivoted to asking why Democrats cant agree to the same commonsense limitations. McDaniels language echoes much of the rhetoric that GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley has used in her softer approach to restricting abortion. While Haley said during the debate this past week that she would sign any abortion ban that comes to her desk as president, she has repeatedly insisted that would never happen arguing the Senates filibuster threshold appropriately prevents such divisive legislation from passing. Haley has also said Americans should not demonize or prosecute those with differing opinions on abortion. Ohio, a state that Trump won in both 2016 and 2020, voted to make abortion access a protected right under the states constitution a move that many Democrats have hailed as a victory. Democrats similarly won many tough races at the ballots this past week, prompting GOP strategists to express concern over the durability of an anti-abortion position going into the 2024 election. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel appeared to dodge questions over former President Trumps Veterans Day social media post in which he pledged to root out the Communist, Marxist, racist and radical left thugs. McDaniel said she will not comment on candidates and their messaging. Asked by NBC Meet the Press anchor Kristen Welker if McDaniel is comfortable with the language being used by the former president, she said, I am not going to comment on candidates and their campaign messaging. I will say this, I know President Trump supports the veterans, our whole party supports our veterans. And I do think were at a very serious moment in our country. McDaniel then turned the conversation to the RNC debate last week hosted by NBC News with Salem Radio Network and the Republican Jewish Coalition as debate partners. Five GOP rivals took the debate stage in Miami, while Trump notably did not attend and instead held a rally about 15 miles away in Florida. Trump came under fire Saturday for his post on Truth Social, in which he wrote, In honor of our great Veterans on Veterans Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American Dream. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within. Despite the hatred and anger of the Radical Left Lunatics who want to destroy our Country, we will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! he continued. Trump then used similar language later Saturday while speaking to a crowd in New Hampshire, according to The New York Times. In a separate post on Truth Social on Saturday, Trump shared a different Veterans Day message, writing, Our Veterans will never stop fighting for the America we cherish. The full measure of your sacrifice and your familys dedication in support of your service may not be fully understood and appreciated, but it will never be forgotten. McDaniel was also asked about the post by CNN anchor Dana Bash on State of the Union, to which the RNC chairwoman said, Im not going to talk about candidates that are in a contested primary. Further pressed if she would condemn that, McDaniel said, You can talk to him about what hes saying. I havent seen the whole speech, before Bash interjected to clarify it was a social media post. Obviously, we support our veterans, McDaniel continued. And were in a primary right now. And the RNC is doing our best to make sure were getting our candidates visibility, as we are taking on [President Biden], further pointing to issues with the nations economy. Trumps posts came amid a series of presidential candidates who took to social media on the day of remembrance Saturday to thank military members and veterans. Trump has declined to attend the RNCs three presidential primary debates this campaign season, citing his strong lead over his GOP rivals as a primary reason for not attending. Recent polling from FiveThirtyEight shows Trump leading far ahead, with 56.6 percent of the primary vote, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis trails behind with 14.1 percent. The rest of the candidates all have less than 10 percent support. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The Russian army has fired two Kh-59 guided missiles and one Iskander-M ballistic missile towards Mykolaiv Oblast on the night of 11-12 November. Source: Mykolaiv Oblast Military Administration; Defence Forces of Ukraines South Details: The Ukrainian authorities say one of the missiles has been shot down, and another one hit an open area. Ukrainian air defence forces managed to destroy one of the guided missiles. The second guided missile and a ballistic missile hit open territory in the oblast. The falling wreckage of the downed missile damaged several residential buildings. Early reports have indicated no casualties. The Ukrainian forces explained that the guided missiles were sent along a complex route. Support UP or become our patron! Former Wagner Group fighters have set up a military camp near the Russian-occupied port city of Skadovsk in Kherson Oblast, Ukraine's south. Source: Ukraines National Resistance Center Quote: "Ukraines resistance reports that former Wagner fighters are not provided with anything. All logistical problems are blamed on the so-called volunteers. The former mercenaries have not been provided with means of transportation or personal protective equipment. The command of the Russian occupation forces on the ground is currently deciding on where to deploy [Wagner fighters] next." Background: UK Defence Intelligence believes that the Russian Federation has been trying to increase its control over the Wagner Private Military Company (PMC) following an attempted mutiny by the PMC and the death of its leadership. The UK Ministry of Defence said major elements of the Wagner PMC have likely been assimilated into the Russian National Guard's (Rosgvardiya) command structure and resumed active recruitment as of the end of October 2023. Several high-ranking Russian officers were killed as a result of a Ukrainian HIMARS strike on Skadovsk on 9 November. Support UP or become our patron! Heavy losses have forced the Russian occupiers to halve the number of attacks near Avdiivka and regroup to prepare for a new offensive, Tavria Defense Forces spokesman, Colonel Oleksandr Shtupun, said on national television on Nov. 12. The enemy is still conducting regular guided aerial bomb strikes on Ukrainian positions by dropping 500 kg guided bombs on the town, trying to inflict losses on Ukrainian defenders while regrouping. Read also: Some 1,523 civilians remain in Avdiivka as Russian infantry attacks and shelling intensify "We expect, we are ready for some intensification by the enemy. The day before yesterday the Russians tried to advance and suffered significant losses. Today they are regrouping, but the bombing is a sign of preparation for further actions," Shtupun said. Read also: Ukrainian defenders successfully repulse intensified Russian attacks on Bakhmut front Russias offensive on Avdiivka What is known Russian invasion forces intensified their offensive on Avdiivka on Oct. 10, launching massive attacks on the Donbas town. Oct. 10 was probably the largest attack on the city in the entire full-scale war, but the situation was under control, said Avdiiivka military administration head, Vitaliy Barabash, at the time. 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. Russian troops launched a new wave of assaults, Barabash confirmed on Oct. 20. The situation remains difficult, he said at the time. Russian invasion forces have eased their attacks on Avdiivka to replace their losses and regroup, Shtupun said on Nov. 2. Russia has lost about 10,000 military personnel within a month of active offensive operations on Avdiivka, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhnyi said on Nov. 10. 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 Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine, has stated that Russia may increase the intensity of attacks on the Ukrainian infrastructure, and all attention in Ukraine must be focused on the protection from and response to the terrorist attacks. Source: evening address of the President of Ukraine Quote: "Almost half of November is behind us, and we must be ready that the enemy might increase the number of drone or missile attacks on our infrastructure. Russia is getting ready for the winter. And Ukraine must focus on the protection, on the response to the terrorists, on everything Ukraine can do to make it easier for our people to survive this winter and expand the capabilities of our soldiers." Details: Zelenskyy has thanked all the partners who had supplied Ukraine with air defence systems. "These are different countries: the US, Germany, France, the UK; its Norway, Italy, its Romania, its Sweden, the Netherlands, Slovakia; its Czechia, Bulgaria, Poland, the Baltic countries and others. [They have supplied us with] Patriot, NASAMS, Iris-T, Raven, and Hawks air defence systems. Not everything can be discussed openly but the Ukrainian air shield is stronger than a year ago. Now our capacities are broader but, sadly, this is still not the full protection of the whole territory. And we are working to make this protection even stronger," the President said. Support UP or become our patron! A servicewomen cries as she lays flowers to commemorate those killed in the war, as the city marks one year since Ukraine retook the city of Kherson from occupying Russian forces in Kherson, Ukraine, Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky) (ASSOCIATED PRESS) KYIV, Ukraine (AP) Russian forces have ramped up attacks in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to gain ground near two key front line cities, Ukrainian military officials said Sunday. Moscow's troops have begun a push to regain territory near Bakhmut, the eastern mining city that was the site of the wars bloodiest battle before falling into Russian hands in May, the head of Ukraines ground forces wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Ukrainian troops had recaptured the heights over Bakhmut and made some advances west, north and south of the city since Kyiv launched its summer counteroffensive. Toward Bakhmut, the Russians have become more active and are trying to recapture previously lost positions. ... Enemy attacks are being repelled, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote in a Telegram update on Sunday afternoon. A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said Sunday that Russian forces over the previous day repelled five Ukrainian attacks near Klischiivka and Kurdyumivka, two small settlements lying south of Bakhmut. Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov made the claim at the latest of regular press briefings. Ukraine's long-awaited counteroffensive has so far resulted in only incremental gains and heavy losses, with Ukrainian troops struggling to punch through Russian lines in the south. Meanwhile, Moscow's forces have attempted to press forward in the northeast, likely with a view to distract Kyiv and minimize the number of troops Ukraine is able to send to key southern and eastern battles. Ukraines General Staff said that Russian troops were also continuing their weekslong push to encircle Avdiivka, a Ukrainian stronghold south of Bakhmut and a key target since the beginning of the war. It's considered the gateway to parts of the eastern Donetsk region under Kyiv's control. The General Staff said Russia's air force was playing a key part in the latest assault. Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, who leads Ukrainian troops fighting in and near Avdiivka, said Sunday that the attacking Russian forces were ramping up airstrikes, particularly those using guided bombs. He wrote on Telegram that Russian troops had launched 30 airstrikes and 712 artillery barrages at the city and surrounding areas over the previous day, and clashed almost 50 times with Ukrainian units. Also on Sunday, Ukraines intelligence agency claimed responsibility for a powerful blast in the country's occupied south the day before that they said killed at least three officers serving with Russias internal military force. In an online statement, the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) of Ukraines Ministry of Defense called the explosion, which rocked the headquarters of the Russian occupation authorities in the city of Melitopol on Saturday, an act of revenge () carried out by representatives of the local resistance movement. At least three officers of the Russian (National) Guard were eliminated, the statement said, referring to Russias internal military agency that reports directly to the Kremlin. It added that the strike was carried out during a meeting of the occupiers attended by National Guard officers as well as operatives from Russias main security agency, the FSB. Melitopol, a city in Ukraines Zaporizhzhia region that had a pre-war population of over 150,000, was captured by Russian troops just days into the war. It now lies well behind its southern front line, even as a Ukrainian counteroffensive continues to grind on in Zaporizhzhia. Russian authorities did not immediately respond to the Ukrainian claims, which could not be independently verified. The announcement came just over a day after more than a dozen freight cars carrying cargo in Russias western Ryazan region were derailed by an improvised explosive device, according to Russian law enforcement. Nineteen carriages traveling from the town of Rybnoye were thrown from the tracks and 15 were damaged, investigators wrote in a statement on social media. They said they would be opening a criminal investigation on terrorism charges. A regional branch of Ukraines public broadcaster, Suspilne, on Saturday cited anonymous sources from Ukraines GUR as claiming that the intelligence agency was behind the blast. A spokesman for the GUR, Andriy Yusov, that same day refused to confirm or deny the agency's involvement, but said that similar strikes within Russia will continue. Yusov made the remarks in an interview with the Ukrainian armed forces' official news service, ArmyInform. Russian officials have previously blamed pro-Ukrainian saboteurs for several attacks on the countrys railway system since Moscow invaded the country in February 2022, although no group has claimed responsibility for the damage. In the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, a 64-year-old man was killed when Russian shells slammed into his yard, Ukrainian regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said. Prokudin added that the mans wife was hospitalized with a skull injury, concussion and shrapnel wounds to her legs. Prokudin said that Russian forces shelled Kherson and the surrounding region 62 times over the previous 24 hours, wounding four civilians and damaging one of the citys libraries. The city has come under near-daily attacks since Ukraine recaptured it a year ago. ___ Follow the APs coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine A Ukrainian drone reportedly targeted Russias Belgorod Oblast in the early hours of Nov. 12, according to a report on the Russian defense ministrys Telegram channel. Read also: RVC fighters behind assassination of FSB officer in Russia's Bryansk Oblast NV Ukrainian intel source Russia claims that local air defense forces intercepted the Ukrainian drone. During the night of Nov. 11, a fire broke out at a powder plant in the Russian city of Kotovsk, Tambov Oblast, following reports of explosions by residents. On the same night, in the Moscow suburb of Kolomna, there were reports of drone attacks on an engineering design bureau. On Nov 9., two small landing ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet were reportedly struck in occupied Crimea. The operation to destroy Russias small landing ships in the temporarily occupied peninsula was meticulously planned and proved to be extremely successful for Ukraine, said Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for Ukrainian military intelligence. Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron! Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine On the surface, Russian President Vladimir Putin's trip to Kazakhstan on Nov. 9 exuded an air of business as usual. The Russian leader was met at dawn on the tarmac of Astana airport by Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev before being greeted by an official guard of honor. The trip coincided with the 19th Russia-Kazakhstan Interregional Cooperation Forum, an annual gathering focusing on bilateral ties, held in the northern Kazakhstan city of Kostanay. Speeches from both leaders focused heavily on trade links, many of which have benefited from sanctions imposed on Russia elsewhere, as well as new deals on energy, customs, and labor issues. Read also: How Russias liberal tech companies became the foundation of Putins war effort But the visit Putin's third international trip since the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest came only days after French President Emmanual Macron was welcomed in the country, some pundits mistakenly have called Russia's backyard. In recent months, Western leaders have taken a number of trips to Central Asia, rushing to show interest in a region they neglected for years. Their actions have heralded a new drive to gain more influence in a country that Moscow still sees as within its sphere of control. Yet, unlike many countries that were seen as close to Russia before the full-scale invasion, Kazakhstan was able to maintain a strong, independent foreign policy. Many have praised Astana for refusing to support Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, while Tokayev has publicly distanced himself from accepting Russia's views of changing borders by force. Tokayev has also spoken with President Volodymyr Zelensky in 2023, who thanked the Kazakh president for providing humanitarian aid to the country. Meanwhile, Putin got an unusual welcome during his latest visit. The opening remarks by Kazakhstan's Tokayev were made in Kazakh language, an unusual feature for the Russian delegation that for decades enjoyed being greeted in Russian, a co-official language in the country. The Russian delegation scrambling to find headphones was seen by some observers as the new reality of Russian-Kazakh relations a reality where Kazakhstan decides the rules. Renewed Interests The idea that Western leaders hope to influence Kazakhstan on issues of both Russia and Ukraine is not unfounded. Despite Astana's historically close ties to Moscow, Tokayev has made it clear that Kazakhstan will not recognize occupied Ukrainian regions as Russian territory. He has remained in touch with Zelensky and pushed back against Kazakhstan being used to bypass sanctions. As the West continues to support Ukraine, Western countries hope to ensure that Kazakhstan at least maintains this stance. President Macron's trip to Astana centered on business ties: France is the fifth-biggest foreign investor in Kazakhstan and is interested in the country's uranium supply to fuel its nuclear power plants. But he also made time to publicly praise Tokayev for his stance on Ukraine. "I do not underestimate the geopolitical difficulties, the pressures, sometimes the jostling, to which you may be subjected," he told his Kazakh counterpart during a press conference. France's President Emmanuel Macron (L) gestures as he is welcomed by Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev (R) in Astana on Nov. 1, 2023. (Stanislav Filippov/AFP via Getty Images) "France values the path you are following for your country, refusing to be a vassal of any power and seeking to build numerous and balanced relations with different countries." The U.K. government announced on Friday that "the deepening of U.K. engagement in Central Asia should be seen as a geopolitical imperative," while U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made time to visit Astana in February 2023. There has been no significant shift in Astana's policy toward Russia or Ukraine in response to this rhetoric. But that's not to say that the Kremlin is not worried by these overtures. "Moscow sees Central Asia as a region where only Russia has full kind of rights to do whatever they want. Of course, they are jealous when Central Asian countries are negotiating with the West," says Temur Umarov, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. But Moscow also is taking a pragmatic approach. Read also: Russia, China and North Korea have new dynamics. And its bad for Ukraine Kazakhstan is a key trading partner for Russia, and the country's economic development has knock-on benefits for Moscow. In contrast, the Kremlin has little to gain from prohibiting Central Asian countries from cooperating economically with the West and much to lose by provoking their ire. "Russia understands that Central Asian countries need to develop economically, and they cannot rely on Russia to do that because Russia doesn't have resources to develop its own economy," says Umarov. In the meantime, he says, Moscow tries to gain advantages from this trade by encouraging parallel imports from Kazakhstan that can help bypass global sanctions. It's also unlikely that Kazakhstan will reject ties with Moscow as it draws economically closer to the West. Kazakhstan imports more goods from Russia than anywhere else and depends heavily on Russian gas. Kazakhstan also has a long land border with Russia and a sizable ethnic Russian minority, particularly in the country's north. Despite Astana's stance on the invasion, Russia and Kazakhstan have made a deliberate effort to keep their relationship going. "There has been actually an intensification of the political dialogue between the two countries since February 2022," says Marie Dumoulin, director of the Wider Europe program at the European Council on Foreign Relations. "That doesn't mean that Kazakhstan is willingly coming under Russian influence, but that it's trying to preserve its relationship with the country that is still its most important partner." A multilateral approach In the meantime, Astana is dealing with renewed pressure from both sides by deliberately expanding and diversifying its political and economic ties. While Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the resulting rift between Moscow and the West may have spotlighted the delicate balancing act, the policy is a relatively longstanding one, says Dumoulin. It also stretches far further than Brussels, Moscow, or even Washington. Ties with Beijing are key in Kazakhstan, with China investing heavily in the country as part of its ongoing Belt and Road strategy. Astana's relationship with Turkey has also continued to grow. "Europeans are only one partner among many. China is more important, probably Turkey too, and the Gulf countries are also very actively developing their investments in the region. I would say that Kazakhstan has been very successful with this," says Dumoulin. With these strong multilateral ties and a renewed surge of geopolitical interest, Kazakhstan could potentially benefit by playing different countries off each other. But experts don't believe that this is Tokayev's focus. Read also: Kyiv, Moscows opposing attitudes toward Soviet past shape two different futures "I think that what Tokayev really wants is to create an atmosphere in Kazakhstan that will allow countries that are currently adversaries to coexist with each other," says Umarov. "It's not in his interest to create tension between Russia and the West, or even Russia and China." "Kazakhstan's main goal is not to be dragged into this confrontation." Ultimately, the task of keeping all parties happy as well as refusing to choose a geopolitical camp in one of the world's most contentious issues is a hugely challenging one. But as a career diplomat, a former Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, and Kazakhstan's former foreign minister, it is one of which Tokayaev is more than capable. While the attention of world leaders may be pushing Kazakhstan into the global spotlight, Astana is ultimately unlikely to change course in relation to either Kyiv or Moscow. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (R) and Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev (L) hold a press conference in Berlin on Sept. 28, 2023. (Kay Nietfeld/picture alliance via Getty Images) National identity However, certain scenarios could prompt change. Russia could become more hostile toward Kazakhstan, especially if relations are strained on issues such as culture, language, and history. Kazakhstan has taken steps to solidify its national identity in recent years, such as promoting the Kazakh language. Moscow and Astana have already butted heads on such topics. The Russian consul general in Almaty, Evgeny Bobrov, swiftly left his post in September after his comments lamenting reduced Russian-language teaching in Kazakh schools sparked backlash. "Putin cares a lot about preserving this so-called 'Russkiy Mir,' or 'Russian world': the Russian language, Russian history," says Umarov. Subscribe to newsletter War Notes Subscribe "There is always a threat that Russia could become aggressive and target Kazakhstan's northern territories, which have a large ethnic Russian population," he adds. "Before the invasion of Ukraine, such scenarios were unimaginable. Now, it's very possible to imagine." Growing pressure from within Kazakh society could also tip this balance. But while the country's influential urban middle class is vocal in its support for Ukraine, many Kazakhs hope that Astana will remain neutral. Tokayev's studied stance working with Putin on one side while sending humanitarian aid to Ukraine on the other is an attempt to appease both sides, says Umarov. But, as Kazakhstan remains largely authoritarian, the impact of civic initiatives is likely to be limited. In the meantime, as Kazakhstan continues its course, the West can only try to be consistent in its offer of open political dialogue. "We need to offer Kazakhstan options so that they're not in a tete-a-tete with Russia," says Dumoulin. "That's doing more visits and investments. Pressure is not the way to go about it." Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, Commander of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, has reported on the intensification of the Russian occupying army's activities on the Bakhmut front. Source: Syrskyi on Telegram Details: Syrskyi explains that the Russians seek to regain the ground they had previously lost. However, the general said the Ukrainian Defence Forces are responding expertly. Syrskyi also visited military units performing combat missions on the Bakhmut and Lyman fronts. Quote from Syrskyi: "I considered options for further actions on the ground, ways to improve the effectiveness of our forces use in combat. I inspected the progress of preparing military units and subunits that are restoring combat capability. In the process, specific tasks to improve the quality of training were identified. We are persisting in crushing the enemy on all fronts, bringing our Victory closer." Support UP or become our patron! Three more civilians have been killed in Donetsk Oblast over the past 24 hours on 11 November. Source: Donetsk Oblast Military Administration Details: Specifically, the Russians killed 2 people in the town of Toretsk and 1 more in the village of Minkivka. The death toll among civilians killed in the oblast (excluding the Russian-occupied town of Volnovakha and the city of Mariupol) has risen to 1,769, and the number of injured to 4,294. Support UP or become our patron! Smoke in the sky of Ukraine after shooting down an enemy target Russia unleashed a barrage on Mykolaiv Oblast in a late-night assault on Nov. 12, employing two Kh-59 guided aviation missiles and an Iskander-M ballistic missile, Vitalii Kim, head of Mykolaiv Oblast State Administration, reported on Telegram this morning. A swift response from Ukrainian air defense forces resulted in the successful interception of one Kh-59 guided missile, Kim said. Read also: Restoration plans for Mykolaiv Oblast interview with governor Kim However, the other missiles struck an open area within the region, causing damage to several residential buildings from debris resulting from the intercepted missile. According to preliminary information, there were no casualties. 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 Russians have claimed that their air defences have supposedly shot down a Ukrainian drone over Russias Belgorod Oblast overnight. Source: Russian Defence Ministry Quote: "On-duty air defence forces brought down a Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle over the territory of Belgorod Oblast". Support UP or become our patron! The Ukrainian General Staff has reported that the Russians are continuing their attempts to surround Avdiivka and are using aircraft. Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Facebook, information as of 06:00 on 12 November Details: Eighty combat clashes took place at the front over the past 24 hours. In total, the Russians launched one missile strike and 63 air strikes and carried out 64 attacks from multiple-launch rocket systems on the positions of Ukrainian troops and populated areas. In the area of responsibility of the Operational Strategic Group Pivnich (North) on the Sivershchyna and Slobozhanshchyna fronts, the Russians are maintaining a military presence in the border areas, conducting active sabotage activities in order to prevent the transfer of Ukrainian troops to threatening fronts and increasing the density of mine barriers along the state border in Belgorod Oblast. In the area of responsibility of the Operational Strategic Group Khortytsia on the Kupiansk front, the Russians conducted unsuccessful assaults near Synkivka and Ivanivka (Kharkiv Oblast), and Stelmakhivka and Nadiia (Luhansk Oblast), where Ukrainian defenders repelled seven attacks. On the Lyman front, the Russians, with the support of aircraft, conducted assaults near Serebriansk forest in Luhansk Oblast without success. On the Bakhmut front, Ukrainian soldiers repelled 10 Russian attacks near Khromove, Andriivka, and Klishchiivka (Donetsk Oblast). In turn, Ukraines Defence Forces are continuing their assault operations south of Bakhmut, inflicting losses on the Russians in terms of manpower and equipment, and consolidating their own positions. In the area of responsibility of the Operational Strategic Group Tavriia on the Avdiivka front, the Russians, using aircraft, are continuing to try and surround Avdiivka. Ukrainian soldiers are holding the defence and inflicting significant losses on the Russian troops. The Russian offensive actions near Avdiivka, Sieverne, Tonenke and Pervomaiske (Donetsk Oblast) were unsuccessful: the Defence Forces repelled 18 attacks there. On the Marinka front, the Russians, supported by aircraft, conducted unsuccessful assaults in Marinka and Novomykhailivka (Donetsk Oblast). Here, Ukrainian soldiers repelled 22 Russian attacks. On the Shakhtarsk front, the Russians, also with the support of aircraft, conducted unsuccessful assaults near Vuhledar, Zolota Nyva, and Staromaiorske (Donetsk Oblast), where Ukrainian defenders repelled 11 attacks. On the Zaporizhzhia front, the Russians, again using aircraft, conducted assault operations near Robotyne in Zaporizhzhia Oblast without success. At the same time, the Defence Forces of Ukraine are continuing to conduct an offensive operation on the Melitopol front, inflict losses in manpower and equipment on the Russian troops, and exhaust the Russians along the entire front line. In the area of responsibility of the Operational Strategic Group Odesa on the Kherson front, the defenders are conducting counter-battery measures, inflicting fire damage on the Russian rear. During the day, the Air Force of the Defence Forces carried out attacks on 10 areas where Russian personnel, weapons and military equipment were concentrated. Units of Rocket Forces and Artillery hit two pieces of artillery, eight areas where Russian personnel, weapons and military equipment were concentrated, and two Russian air defence systems. Support UP or become our patron! Russia is increasingly relying on large infantry assault tactics in Ukraine. One Russian milblogger said there was about to be a "real renaissance of infantry combat." Other milbloggers said the tactics reflect heavy equipment losses and poor frontline coordination. Russia is increasingly relying on large infantry assault tactics in Ukraine, possibly due to widespread equipment losses and a lack of trained personnel, according to the think tank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). Russia's military-focused bloggers are divided on whether this strategy will lead to success, the think tank said. One milblogger claimed that Russia's military was about to experience a "real renaissance of infantry combat" as there were fewer infantry fighting vehicles, tanks, and armored personnel carriers near the front line. However, another milblogger responded that Russia's reliance on these assault tactics reflected the heavy losses of Russian equipment and poor coordination on the front lines. In just a few weeks of fighting in the east of Ukraine, Russian forces lost as many vehicles as Ukraine did over months of brutal fighting in the south. Earlier this month Russian forces also began advancing on foot in the heavily-contested eastern city of Avdiivka following major vehicle losses, UK intelligence said. Another milblogger said that Russia's tactical assaults on Ukrainian strongholds in forest areas of Donbas in eastern Ukraine would likely not lead to a wider breakthrough on the front line, adding that Russia would also struggle to train a sufficient number of troops to carry out the assaults required to make significant advances. A Telegram channel linked to Russia's Spetsnaz special forces also complained that some of its troops were being incorrectly used to conduct such assaults, leading to high attrition rates, the ISW said. Spetsnaz forces are typically tasked with stealthy and high-risk missions, including sabotage and reconnaissance, but have been used as part of front-line infantry formations during the invasion of Ukraine, documents in the Pentagon leaks showed. Ukraine's top general Valerii Zaluzhny wrote in a recent essay for The Economist that the conflict had shifted from maneuver warfare to "'positional' warfare of static and attritional fighting, as in the First World War." This has led to an increase in Russia's reliance on infantry-led assaults, the ISW said. Russia's military bloggers have been a useful propaganda tool to drum up support for the war. However, as the conflict has continued, many have begun voicing criticisms of the Russian military's tactics and performance. Read the original article on Business Insider A crowd gathered in a Fruitridge auditorium Saturday to hear Sacramento mayoral candidates lay out plans for addressing racial justice, police reform and health care in a forum hosted by the Sacramento NAACP. All of the candidates onstage emphasized their commitment to pursuing evidence-based solutions to problems such as homelessness, incarceration and youth violence. The candidates gestured at the serious problems affecting the state capital. Sacramentans do not think things are going well, said Flojaune Flo Cofer, because they arent. Steve Hansen echoed the sentiment: It feels like were just going backwards. The forum hosted three candidates: Cofer, senior director of policy at Public Health Advocates; Hansen, the former member of City Council who lost his seat to Katie Valenzuela in 2020; and Kevin McCarty, who represents much of the city of Sacramento as well as some neighboring unincorporated areas of Sacramento County in Assembly District 6. Richard Pan, who represents District 6 in the state Senate, was not able to attend because of a work conflict. Pan sent in a recorded statement discussing his platform and explaining that he was at a meeting about reproductive health in the state. Although homelessness and affordable housing were singled out as a priority by all three candidates on hand, only the final minutes of the forum directly focused on homelessness. Most of the questions were about other topics. Homelessness is a top priority Early in the forum, Cofer criticized political establishment. We often hear about everything that had been done, and yet anybody whos been in elected leadership for the last 10 years has overseen the growth in homelessness from 2,500 people in 2013 to 10,000 people the majority of whom are unsheltered in 2023, she said. In 2013, nearly 70% of those 2,500 homeless people were sheltered; that percentage has now reversed, with 72% of the homeless population surviving and sometimes dying without shelter. When the moderator, Sacramento NAACP Political Action Chair LaMills Garrett, asked about reducing systemic inequalities in the criminal justice system that have an outsize impact on Black people, Cofer again raised the issue of homelessness. She described resources in the city and county being misused: Im concerned that we are shuffling all of our unhoused neighbors into our jail, she said. A disproportionate number of them are our Black neighbors. Cofer said that Sacramento officials need to set more quantifiable goals so that government could be held accountable. Then, in the final minutes of the forum, Garrett gave the candidates a prompt: Homelessness in Sacramento. All three candidates said it was an urgent issue in the region. According to the most recent federal Point-in-Time count, at least 9,278 homeless people lived in Sacramento County, the majority of them in city limits. Weve poured tens of millions of dollars and gotten worse and worse outcomes, Hansen said. We have to reset the table, get back to evidence-based solutions. He said he was homeless himself for a time as a child: There are things that work, but our systems too fragmented. McCarty said that homelessness would be the literal first item on the agenda of every City Council meeting if he were elected. We cant let the perfect be the enemy of the good, McCarty said. We need to focus on emergency shelter sites... We gotta tell people where they can go, not where they cant go. He and Cofer both stated that permanent housing needs to be a bigger goal. We also, Cofer said, need a plan to keep people in their homes. The county Department of Homeless Services and Housing reports that for every one person who gets off the streets in Sacramento County, three more people will become homeless. Upstream intervention, evidence-based solutions Hansen drew on his background on City Council. In response to a question about supporting youths in Sacramento, he talked about the need for sustained support rather than the uneven levels that many programs receive. Funding irregular programming through (community-based organizations) that are living hand-to-mouth is not sufficient to getting these opportunities, he said. We have to create systemic reforms so that we have ongoing funding. Hansen and Cofer both brought up Sacramento Ceasefire, a successful violence prevention program that operated under a state grant starting in 2011. Hansen brought up Advance Peace, another successful violence prevention program that began in January 2018 and was funded through the end of 2019. Both programs were demonstrably successful at preventing violence. And both were scuttled. For examples of how to fix the citys problems, We dont have to look to some Nordic country or some other far-off place, Cofer said. We can just look right here in Sacramento. Im gonna take us back to what works. Over the course of the forum, McCarty hit on his bona fides from a nine-year career in the California Assembly as well as his time on City Council. He described introducing a bill to create more oversight of fatal police shootings that failed five times before it was passed in 2020 as the Deadly Force Accountability Act; he talked about winning $25 million from the state to house people living on the American River Parkway, though the Board of Supervisors has not yet spent the money; he spoke about his successful bill to ban the box and prevent employers from inquiring about job candidates criminal justice history on initial job applications; and he recounted that when he served on Sacramentos City Council, he championed youth programs. But it was Cofer an epidemiologist, a progressive organizer and a political newcomer known as Dr. Flo who emerged to thunderous applause as the clear crowd favorite. Sacramento NAACP vice president Tijuana Barnes announced at the end that in a straw poll of audience members, Cofer won 72 out of 82 votes. At one point, answering a question about how to best protect and uplift Black trans people, McCarty mentioned that in 2021, he chose California TRANScends executive director Ebony Harper as his districts 2021 woman of the year, making her the first Black trans woman to receive that honor. Ebony, he acknowledged with a smile, shes supporting Dr. Flo for mayor. When is the 2024 Sacramento mayor election? The Sacramento mayoral election is set for March 5, 2024. A candidate must top 50% of the vote to win outright. If no candidate passes the 50% threshold, the two candidates with the most votes will run on the general election ballot on Nov. 5, 2024. To register to vote or check your registration status, visit registertovote.ca.gov/. The 104,000 square foot Salem Police Station opened in the fall of 2020. This story was updated 6:10 p.m. Tuesday The Salem Police station's lobby will reopen at 7 a.m. Wednesday following an incident in which an 80-year-old man died by suicide Saturday in the station's vestibule. The police department originally said the lobby would open at 8 a.m. Monday. But as of late Tuesday morning, the entrances at 333 Division St. NE remained locked with bilingual signs detailing how to get into contact with police. The signs said the lobby was closed for repairs, although there were no visible signs of damage to the entrance of the lobby. Police said Tuesday night crews had finished repairs to allow the station to resume normal hours Wednesday but to expect intermittent additional repair work. The man entered the vestibule at approximately 1 p.m., removed a shotgun from the bag he carried, and took his own life. Officers arrived moments later to find the man deceased. A police records technician witnessed the suicide. Police have since said the man had no connection to Veterans Day or the police department. Police spokesperson Angela Hedrick said the department has no plans to adjust accessibility to its headquarters, which opened in October 2020. The department is revisiting policies and procedures pertaining to the public entrance. Residents can access law enforcement services during the closure by doing the following: For emergency services, call 911. To file a police report, call 503-588-6123, select option 1. For vehicle releases, call 503-588-6144, select option 9. Police ask that you call ahead to minimize delays in response. For police records services, use the online City of Salem Public Records Portal. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 24 hours a day at 800-273-8255 to speak to a counselor if you're in a crisis. This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Salem Police lobby closed indefinitely following death investigation The European Space Agency reported that one of the largest holes in the ozone layer on record has been observed above the Antarctic. But is there cause to be concerned? Whats happening? The ozone layer is a part of the Earths atmosphere that absorbs much of the suns harmful ultraviolet light. In 1985, researchers noticed that the ozone layer was growing thinner above the Antarctic. Since then, scientists have monitored the Antarctic ozone layer. Though we often hear about a hole in the ozone layer, that term isnt quite accurate. Its actually a patch in the ozone layer where ozone levels are lower than usual, what scientists call an ozone depletion area. The size of the Antarctic depletion zone changes regularly, usually increasing in size from August to October before stabilizing again by December. In early October, the ESA reported that the Antarctic ozone depletion zone had grown to an area of over 10 million square miles roughly three times the size of Brazil. Why should we be concerned about the ozone layer? The ozone layer protects humans, plants, and animals from harmful UV radiation from the sun. Without it, we would face health risks ranging from cataracts to skin cancer. So why is the ozone depletion zone so big this year? It probably has something to do with the wind. The strength of the band of wind encircling the Antarctic plays a significant role in determining the size of the depletion zone. Its also been hypothesized that the eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haapai volcano in January 2022 may have caused the depletion zone to grow this year. Senior ESA scientist Antje Inness explained: The eruption injected a lot of water vapor into the stratosphere which only reached the south polar regions after the end of the 2022 ozone hole. The water vapor could have led to the heightened formation of polar stratospheric clouds, where chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) can react and accelerate ozone depletion. Whats being done to protect the ozone? Though the news may sound dire, the ozone layer is actually on the mend. Ozone depletion peaked in the 1980s when products containing chlorofluorocarbons were used regularly. Chlorofluorocarbons reduce ozone levels in our atmosphere. In 1987, the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was implemented to end the production of chlorofluorocarbons. Since then, the ozone layer has bounced back. ESA mission manager Claus Zehner said in a statement, Scientists currently predict that the global ozone layer will reach its normal state again by around 2050. To ensure the ozone layer continues its recovery, you should avoid products containing ozone-depleting chemicals like certain fire extinguishers, aerosols, and refrigerators, freezers, and air conditioners from before 1995. Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the coolest innovations improving our lives and saving our planet. By Aziz El Yaakoubi and Nayera Abdallah RIYADH (Reuters) -Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries called on Saturday for an immediate end to military operations in Gaza, rejecting Israel's justification of its actions against Palestinians as self-defence. The extraordinary joint Islamic-Arab summit in Riyadh urged the International Criminal Court to investigate "war crimes and crimes against humanity that Israel is committing" in the Palestinian territories, according to a final communique. Saudi Arabia has sought to press the United States and Israel for an end to hostilities in Gaza, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler, gathered Arab and Muslim leaders to reinforce that message. Dozens of leaders including Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who was welcomed back into the Arab League this year, attended. Prince Mohammed affirmed the kingdom's "condemnation and categorical rejection of this barbaric war against our brothers in Palestine". "We are facing a humanitarian catastrophe that proves the failure of the Security Council and the international community to put an end to the flagrant Israeli violations of international laws," he said in an address to the summit. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Palestinians were facing a "genocidal war" and urged the United States to end Israeli "aggression". Raisi hailed the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas for fighting against Israel and urged Islamic countries to impose oil and goods sanctions on Israel. "There is no other way but to resist Israel. We kiss the hands of Hamas for its resistance against Israel," Raisi said in his address. The Middle East has been on edge since Hamas fighters rampaged into Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people. Since then, Israel has escalated its assault on Gaza, where 11,078 people had been killed as of Friday, 40% of them children, according to Palestinian officials. APPROACHES DIFFER Fighting intensified overnight into Saturday near Gaza City's overcrowded hospitals, Palestinian officials said. A baby died in an incubator at Gaza's largest hospital after it lost power, and a patient in intensive care was killed by an Israeli shell, the Palestinian health ministry said. The war has upended traditional Middle East alliances as Riyadh has engaged more closely with Iran, pushed back against U.S. pressure to condemn Hamas, and put on hold its plans to normalise ties with Israel. Raisi's trip to Saudi Arabia is the first by an Iranian head of state in more than a decade. Tehran and Riyadh formally ended years of hostility under a Chinese-brokered deal in March. Erdogan called for an international peace conference to find a permanent solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestinians. "What we need in Gaza is not pauses for a couple of hours, rather we need a permanent ceasefire," Erdogan told the summit. Qatar's emir said his country, where several Hamas leaders are based, was seeking to mediate the release of Israeli hostages and hoped a humanitarian truce would be reached soon. "For how long will the international community treat Israel as if it is above international laws?" he asked. President Joko Widodo of Indonesia, the country with the world's largest Muslim population, said the Indonesia Hospital in North Gaza continues to be the target of Israeli attacks and has run out of fuel." He said a way must be found to make Israel cease fire immediately, before adding: The OIC must use all fronts to hold Israel accountable for the humanitarian atrocities it has committed." Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan told reporters there could be no talks about the future of Gaza except "talks about an immediate ceasefire". The summit also demanded an end to the siege of Gaza, access for humanitarian aid, and a halt to the sale of arms to Israel. The kingdom had been scheduled to host two extraordinary summits, of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League, on Saturday and Sunday, but opted for a joint summit because of the "extraordinary" Gaza situation, the Saudi foreign ministry said. Hamas had urged the summit to take "a historic and decisive decision and move to stop the Zionist aggression immediately". Some Arab countries, led by Algeria, called for a complete cut in diplomatic ties with Israel, two delegates told Reuters. Other Arab countries that have established diplomatic relations with Israel pushed back, stressing the need to keep channels open with Netanyahu's government, they said. At a press conference in Tel Aviv, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Arab leadership to "stand up against Hamas." "It only brought two things to the Gaza Strip - poverty and blood," Netanyahu said. "Hamas is an integral part of the terror axis that Iran leads and that axis of terror and hatred endangers the whole world and the whole Arab world." (Reporting By Aziz El Yaakoubi in Riyadh, Nayera Abdallah, Parisa Hafezi in Dubai, Adam Makary, Hatem Maher, Moaz Abd-Alaziz in Cairo, Huseyin Hayatsever in Ankara, Bernadette Christina in Jakarta; Writing by Aziz El Yaakoubi; Editing by Sandra Maler, William Maclean; Giles Elgood, Kevin Liffey, Daniel Wallis & Simon Cameron-Moore) The country's largest for-profit college has found itself embroiled in a major scandal, and has just been hit with a record financial penalty from the federal government as a result. Grand Canyon University (GCU), a Phoenix-based college, was fined $37.7 million by the U.S. Department of Education on Oct. 31. GCU is accused of misrepresenting the costs of its doctoral programs over several years. The college allegedly advertised "a lower cost than what 98% of students ended up paying to complete certain doctoral programs," the Education Department said in a press release. "Today, we are holding GCU accountable for its actions, protecting students and taxpayers, and upholding the integrity of the federal student aid programs." GCU's 100,000 enrolled students the majority of whom attend online make it the largest for-profit college in the United States, according to NBC News. This also makes GCU the country's largest Christian university. Officials at the university have pushed back against the federal government's allegations, but the fine could have major ramifications across the school regardless. What exactly is Grand Canyon University accused of? The Education Department said GCU advertised its doctoral programs as costing anywhere from $40,000 to $49,000, but based on the university's own data, "less than 2% of graduates completed within the cost that GCU advertised." As a result of "continuation courses" required to complete their degrees, at least 98% of doctoral students at GCU ended up paying many times the amount advertised, the Education Department alleged. The investigation involved about 7,500 students enrolled at GCU between 2017 and 2022. Of the 98% of students whose degrees ended up costing extra, more than three-quarters of them "had to pay $10,000 to $12,000 more in tuition costs roughly a 25% increase, depending on the program than GCU explicitly advertised," the Education Department charged. While GCU does offer a series of fine-print disclosures about the cost of their doctoral programs, they "fail to address or correct the significant misrepresentations about the cost of the program," the feds argued, adding that the disclosures "do not cure the 'net impression' that the program will be less expensive than it actually is." How has the school responded? GCU has denied any wrongdoing and made a number of attempts to push back against the government's characterization of its doctoral programs. The Education Department noted, though, that the college didn't dispute the government's determination that "98% of students enrolled in certain doctoral programs had to pay more than GCU's advertised cost." Weeks before it was slapped with its record fine, GCU released a statement claiming that the government was "coordinating efforts to unjustly target GCU." The university alleged that the investigation into its tuition was retaliation for a lawsuit GCU had filed against the Education Department in 2021 as part of its attempts to regain its nonprofit status; federal officials maintain that these issues are "entirely unrelated," and that GCU's loss of its nonprofit status had nothing to do with the fine. GCU President Brian Mueller also criticized the Education Department's investigation prior to the fine, arguing that his university actually provides more financial disclosure than is legally required, according to The Arizona Republic. Mueller also said GCU's financial disclosures have previously been upheld in court. What happens next? The Education Department has given GCU 20 days to file an appeal of its fine, which the school has said it intends to do. In addition to the fine, the Education Department is imposing five new conditions on GCU to ensure it abides by these federal rules. First, the college shall not make "substantial misrepresentations related to the cost of obtaining a degree in its doctoral programs." And if GCU does inform someone about the cost of its doctoral programs, it must also tell them "the average total tuition and fees paid by graduates." Officials at GCU have said they intend to fight the Education Department's fine for as long as it takes. Officials are also "continuing to encourage staff and other affiliates to contact federal lawmakers in the university's defense," the Republic reported. A number of Republican state lawmakers in Arizona have also come to the school's aid, and accused the Education Department of participating in a "witch hunt against Christian education." TAMPA, Fla. - One of the HCSO deputies who was critically injured when responding to a mental health call was released from the hospital on Saturday. Deputy Manuel Santos suffered a broken leg which officials say required surgery. He was wheeled outside of Tampa General Hospital after his release. "But I'm so grateful that tonight he gets to walk out of here, or even get wheeled out of here, on his own accord and that he's alive," said Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister. Santos said he was having a normal day before responding to the call that resulted in his hospitalization. Santos described the incident as the "scariest moment of my life." RELATED: Man who intentionally hit 2 Hillsborough deputies faces attempted murder charges: Officials According to officials, Santos and Corporal Carlos Brito were nearly killed in Brandon on Thursday morning by a driver who intentionally hit them with his car. "My hope is that he keeps his body the way it is, and he comes out walking, and we get back to the next shift," shared Santos when asked about Corporal Brito. Corporal Brito faces a much more difficult road, according to Sheriff Chronister. He's still in the hospital. Deputy Manuel Santos was released from TGH on Saturday. According to Santos, on the day of the incident, both deputies thought the suspect had fled the scene, but he came back and hit them in what Santos says felt like seconds. Officials say Ralph Bouzy deliberately ran them over, leaving both critically hurt. Santos said he called for EMS while he was injured on the ground. Bouzy has been charged with three counts of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer. Bouzy has a lengthy criminal past and records show he had 18 mental health cases, according to authorities. Ralph Bouzy has a length criminal past, according to officials. In 2015, he tried to ram his car into a deputy's vehicle during a hit-and-run incident. And in 2017, during another hit-and-run crash, he attacked a police officer during his arrest. Later that same year, Bouzy's family called police after he attacked two family members. According to records, family told officers they tried to get him help for his mental health issues. However, Bouzy refused to take his medication. PREVIOUS: 2 Hillsborough County deputies seriously injured after being 'intentionally' struck, 'ambushed' in Brandon "He [Bouzy] was released from the hospital yesterday as they tried a lot of efforts to try to sedate him and calm him down," shared Chronister. According to the sheriff's office, Bouzy was still violent after being taken into custody. "We had to restrain him and use four deputies to transport him to our detention facility," said Sheriff Chronister. He was formally charged with multiple felonies by a Tampa judge on Friday morning. Leukaemia patient Milly Main (10), with her mother Kimberley Darroch, died in 2017 after contracting stenotrophomonas, an infection found in water Scotlands largest health board has been named as a formal suspect in a corporate homicide investigation following the deaths of four patients at a super hospital that had problems with its water supply. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHS GGC) informed families of the development - which could lead to the first ever prosecution of its kind in Scotland - using a closed Facebook group set up during the water contamination crisis. The Sunday Mail reported that the board was likely to face corporate homicide charges into the deaths of three children and an adult at the citys Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH). NHS GGC admitted that it had received an update from the Crown Office stating that the board was a suspect but insisted that prosecutors had yet to form a final view on whether charges would be brought. Police have previously launched a criminal investigation into a number of deaths at the hospital, including that of 10-year-old Milly Main. The leukaemia patient died in 2017 after contracting stenotrophomonas, an infection found in water. Kimberley Darroch, her mother, accused NHS GGC of a cover-up after stating she was never given a clear indication of the cause. A whistleblower later came forward alleging the hospitals water supply was responsible and a review found the infection was probably caused by the QEUH environment but it was not definitive. Ms Darroch previously told a separate public inquiry into the building of several Scottish hospitals, including QEUH, that her childs death was murder. The Crown Office has also instructed officers to investigate the deaths of two boys, aged 10 and three, and 73-year-old Gail Armstrong. They were also receiving treatment for cancer at QEUH when they contracted rare infections and died. The health board faces an unlimited fine if found guilty in a jury trial and senior staff could also face prosecution. QEUH is Scotlands largest hospital. The public inquiry is investigating major infection problems linked to the construction of the 842 million complex, which opened ahead of schedule in April 2015. Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow is Scotlands largest hospital - Jane Barlow/PA Wire Responding to the board being named as a suspect, Ms Darroch, of Lanark, told the Sunday Mail: Ive been told about this development and we believe its a step in the right direction and we are taking time as a family to reflect on it. Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, said: It has taken four years to get this far, and what Kimberly has been told by the police could mean we are now one step closer to getting justice for Milly. Throughout this entire ordeal, Kimberly and all those who lost loved ones have shown extraordinary courage, while the health board engaged in denial and cover-up. To this day, nobody has been held to account for what went so tragically wrong. He added: I hope the full force of the law is used so that no family ever again has to go through what Millys family have been through. Ian Moir, solicitor and partner at law firm Moir and Sweeney, said the move to name NHS GGC as a suspect was unprecedented. He added: It is unlikely this step would be taken unless the police felt they had grounds to pursue the case. A spokesman for the health board said its sympathies remain with the affected families. He said: We have received a communication from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) about this update to the status of their ongoing inquiry. It should be made clear that this letter does not indicate that the COPFS have formed a final view. They have thanked us for our voluntary contribution so far, and we will continue to cooperate with this investigation. A Police Scotland spokesman said: COPFS asked Police Scotland to investigate a number of deaths at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital campus, Glasgow. Our investigation is ongoing, it would be inappropriate to comment further. Meanwhile, a COPFS spokesman said: As this is an ongoing investigation we are not in a position to offer any comment. 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. SEATTLE - Police arrested a suspect accused of shooting a man in Seattles Rainier Beach neighborhood on Saturday. According to the Seattle Police Department (SPD), officers responded to reports of a person who was shot in the 9800 block of Martin Luther King Junior Way S shortly after 10 a.m. When officers arrived, they found a 53-year-old man with a gunshot wound. He was immediately taken to Harborview Medical Center and was reportedly in critical condition. Police are investigating a shooting in the 9800 block of Martin Luther King Junior Way South. One victim located and transported to HMC in critical condition. Please avoid the area. More information to follow. Seattle Police Dept. (@SeattlePD) November 11, 2023 Authorities say they were able to identify a suspect and arrest him at a nearby residence. SPD officers along with officers assigned to the SWAT unit took the 33-year-old man into custody without incident. He will be booked into the King County Jail for investigation of assault. BREAKING: #Seattle Fire confirms 40 yr old man sent to the hospital after shooting here along MLK. It appears the inner crime scene is at the property marked by signs as 4 Rent. One witness told me he heard the pop of a gunshot. @fox13seattle pic.twitter.com/JPA8TvaSCm Lauren Donovan (@LaurenDonovanTV) November 11, 2023 SPD detectives are working to determine what led up to the shooting. This is a developing story. An FBI seal is seen on a wall on Aug. 10, 2022, in Omaha, Neb. New legislation proposed Tuesday would require the U.S. intelligence community to obtain a warrant before spying on Americans. | Charlie Neibergall, Associated Press A bipartisan group of senators, including Utah Sen. Mike Lee, unveiled new legislation Tuesday that would require the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement communities to have just cause before collecting Americans private electronic communications. The Government Service Reform Act was introduced by Lee, a Republican, and Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon. In the House, the sponsors are Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from California, and Rep. Warren Davidson, a Republican from Ohio. The legislation, in addition to other privacy protections, would reform Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which gives the FBI and other U.S. intelligence agencies the power to surveil digital communications without a warrant. Technically the FBI and others are supposed to use Section 702 to collect data from foreigners, but communications by U.S. citizens are included in the large data sweeps and can be used by law enforcement officials under certain circumstances. Intelligence and law enforcement officials say they need this authority to keep Americans safe, but Lee and others say theyve abused this power. Lee reiterated that position in a statement to the Deseret News when the bill was introduced Tuesday. He said the FISA Court and Director of National Intelligence confirm theyve conducted warrantless surveillance of millions of Americans private communications. It is imperative that Congress enact real reforms to protect our civil liberties, including warrant requirements and statutory penalties for privacy violations, in exchange for reauthorizing Section 702. Our bipartisan Government Surveillance Reform Act stops illegal government spying and restores the Constitutional rights of all Americans, he said. Related FISA is up for reauthorization this year, and members of Congress have said they wont approve the legislation without changes to the bill. But the White House responded to this legislation which would reauthorize a reformed FISA by immediately trying to squash the bill. A Biden administration official said the bill was both the wrong fit for what were doing and operationally unworkable, according to reporting by Axios. In testimony submitted for a Senate hearing in June, intelligence officials said Section 702 has proven indispensable to U.S. national security. Every day it helps protect Americans from a host of new and emerging threats such as terrorist plots, weapons of mass destruction, malicious cyber activity, and hostile state behavior from China and Russia. But Lee, Wyden and other lawmakers said the government should not be collecting Americans private data without a warrant. If you want to protect Americans location data, if you want to protect their browsing data, if you want to protect their data that now is being purchased by data brokers, this is the place youve got to go, Wyden said at a press conference Tuesday. Related Lee said he wondered if the White House official who was quoted was still thinking in terms of a binary on-off switch for FISA, which needs reauthorization before the end of the year. From the beginning these provisions have been rife with opportunities for constitutional mischief, and theyve resulted in that even more than I think many of us could have imagined at the outset, even though many of us were suspicious from the beginning, Lee said. But thats why its so important to fix this through legislation. And to not sit back and say, weve just got to get it reauthorized. I think a lot of them will find it in their hearts to be able to compromise when they realize a clean reauthorization of 702 is not in the cards, he said. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said Sunday that House Speaker Mike Johnsons (R-La.) laddered continuing resolution (CR) looks gimmicky while noting he is open to what the House is discussing. Johnson released the two-step government funding stopgap bill Saturday in an effort to avert a government shutdown ahead of Fridays funding deadline. The CR would have some funding run out on Jan.19 and the rest expire Feb. 2, with the intention of avoiding negotiation on a whole-of-government omnibus funding bill and encouraging the House and Senate to negotiate on the 12 regular funding bills. Listen, we cannot have a government shutdown this weekend, Murphy said on NBCs Meet the Press. Certainly not while we are facing these existential crises for our friends in Israel and Ukraine. I dont like this laddered CR approach. It looks gimmicky to me. But Im open to what the House is talking about. Murphy argued the priority is keeping the government open and stressed the importance of reasonable people in the Senate to ensure we are not making the perfect enemy of the good. I dont like what the House is talking about, but Im willing to listen, Murphy said. Asked what is needed to get him to say yes to this piece of legislation, the senator replied, Well, we are going to proceed in the Senate on a clean CR without gimmicks, without ladders. It does worry me that the House process requires you to come back and deal with half the budget on one date and half the budget on another date, Murphy said. That sounds to me a little bit of a recipe for failure. Murphy said he would much rather pursue the Senates plan to pass a CR that keeps the entire government open to the same date. The Connecticut Democrat further chided the House, calling the lower chamber a political dumpster fire. Well, listen, I dont think anybody can predict what happens in the House of Representatives today, Murphy said. That place is a political dumpster fire right now. And until we get reasonable, thoughtful leadership that prioritizes bipartisan cooperation in the House, every single day is going to be a bit of a nightmare for the American people. Under Johnsons proposal, the Jan. 19 date would be the deadline for government programs and agencies covered under regular appropriations bills related to agriculture, rural development and the Food and Drug Administration, along with energy and water development, military construction and Veterans Affairs and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development. Funding for the other agencies and programs would run out Feb. 2, indicating a possible partial government shutdown before a full government shutdown. The bill does not include funding for Israel or Ukraine, with some Senate Democrats already expressing opposition to the proposal. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the upper chamber will work toward a temporary extension to avoid a government shutdown this week. The New York Democrat said parties will continue discussions on a CR, while stressing the only way to fund the government is on a bipartisan basis. The proposal comes after former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was booted from the top spot, partly due to his move to pass a clean stopgap bill that required the help of Democrats to extend government funding until Nov. 17. Johnson voted against that clean stopgap bill. Emily Brooks contributed For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) on Sunday said he thinks Israeli attacks against the militant group Hamas in Gaza are getting more targeted after Israeli forces began surrounding Gaza City in recent days. Asked by Fox News Sunday anchor Shannon Bream for his reaction to Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Isaac Herzogs claim that Israeli forces are very targeted in what [they] do, Warner said, My reaction is clearly Israel has a right to defend itself and Hamas has been using human shields. But the images dont lie. Weve seen for weeks at some level indiscriminate Israeli bombing, particularly in terms of artillery and some of the plane bombings, Warner continued. I think now that the troops have surrounded Gaza City, I think they are getting more targeted. Israeli troops nearly a week ago encircled Gaza City, cutting off northern Gaza, to engage in on-the-ground fighting with Hamas fighters. The move marked a significant step in Israels counteroffensive against Hamas, which killed more than 1,200 people is Israel on Oct. 7 in a surprise assault against Israel. Since then, Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes and bombings into the region. The siege has largely cut off food, water, fuel and medical supplies for the nearly 2.3 million Palestinians who live in Gaza. Israels attacks have claimed the lives of more than 11,070 Palestinians since the war broke out last month, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. Warner was among 14 Democratic senators earlier this month who called for a short-term cessation of hostilities in Gaza to protect noncombatant civilians and has previously expressed concerns Israel is not being precise enough in its strikes on Gaza. Warner stressed the importance of pauses in fighting in Gaza to let people trapped in the violence escape. Last week, Israel agreed to four-hour pauses each day to allow for the evacuation of civilians from the conflict zone. We are holding Israel obviously to a higher standard than Hamas, Warner said. Its a civilized nation. And thats why I think its important both the pauses and to make sure as much as possible theyre targeting. The Biden administration in recent days has increased calls of support for a humanitarian pause in Gaza that includes a temporary, localized break in fighting to allow aid to get into Gaza or civilians to get out. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Diplomat and international expert Ruslan Osypenko said that the EU may change the rules of decision-making A senior Ukrainian diplomat and foreign relations expert has described how the EU may change before Ukraines accession in an exclusive interview with NV Radio on Nov. 12. Ruslan Osypenko described how the EU does not have a qualified majority, making decisions through consensus, but indicated that this rule is subject to change. I see that according to open sources (I analyze the information that appears), the European Union has started this movement, Osypenko said. First, they understood that the European Union isnt effective in the new geopolitical conditions that have changed, these geopolitical conditions are changing so quickly that the under-reformed European Union with its rules cannot keep up with these changes. Read also: Ukraines EU accession path and potential hurdles expert interview Osypenko said that Germany had recently gathered all the heads of European think tanks and EU foreign ministers, where they discussed how to proceed: first expand, and then change the rules, or not change the rules, and then expand [the European Union]. Another option that was discussed at the German initiative was to change the rules and, in parallel, accept new candidates. That is, they realize that its necessary to expand and change the rules since the global geopolitical situation has changed, Osypenko said Talks are underway between the lines in the European Union about a two-tiered(Europe): there is Europes core, the countries of Western Europe, which are locomotives. The new candidates and members who joined recently, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, are in the second tier, lets say. While the Eastern and Central European countries fear a potential decrease in their influence if decisions shift to a qualified majority in the European Parliament, Western Europe worries about the influence of potential new candidates, such as a coalition between Poland and Ukraine. Read also: Over 60% of Ukrainians believe in EU accession within a decade survey Thats why both Europes, of the first tier and the second tier, have reservations. But they must understand that the EUs inclusion of Ukraine will, first of all, add impetus to reforms, accelerate them in the European Union, and make it stronger. Now the European Union seems to have woken up and is looking at what is happening around in another way as they understand that its necessary to change, to expand because such a window of opportunity amid geopolitical turbulence will eventually close. Read also: Deputy PM Stefanishyna on understanding with Hungary: We have found a way, it will definitely work Then these gray areas on unprotected borders, when they dont have border troops and a common military, will pose greater risks than previously thought, Osypenko said. On Oct. 31, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba announced his participation in a conference in Berlin concerning the EU's future and Ukraine's accession. On Nov. 10, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban publicly opposed starting accession negotiations with Ukraine, reiterating Hungary's firm stance on the matter. 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 Seven people were arrested at pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Scotland on Armistice Day. Police Scotland said five men and two women were arrested in separate incidents in Glasgow city centre. Largely peaceful pro-Palestinian marches took place in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, Forres and Dumfries. Several hundred demonstrators protested outside the main branch of Marks and Spencer in Argyle Street. Meanwhile, British Transport Police said officers made one arrest in Glasgow as part of a "proactive policing operation". A group of pro-Palestinian marchers protested outside Marks and Spencer in Glasgow The bulk of Saturday's trouble took place in London, where police said 300,000 pro-Palestinian protesters marched to call for a Gaza ceasefire. The marches were timed to start after the morning's Armistice Day ceremonies. Counter-protesters made up the "vast majority" of 126 arrests made, a Metropolitan Police statement said, while nine officers were injured. The Met also condemned "extreme violence" by right-wing activists. First Minister Humza Yousaf called for the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, to resign after after the clashes in London. Ms Braverman wrote in The Times last week that aggressive right-wing protesters were "rightly met with a stern response", while "pro-Palestinian mobs" were "largely ignored". Mr Yousaf accused her of "fanning the flames of division" and said her position was now "untenable". 'Speaking for a great many people' But speaking on BBC Scotland's The Sunday Show, Scottish Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser defended Ms Braverman. Mr Fraser said she was "speaking for a great many people" when she questioned the tactics used by the Metropolitan Police. He said some of the home secretary's actions had "not been particularly helpful" and that she should have had private discussions with the police. But he added that "in raising concerns about policing standards in the Metropolitan Police she's speaking for a great many people." Mr Fraser said that he was "appalled" both by attacks on the police by right-wing counter-protesters at the Cenotaph and incidents of anti-Semitism he said were evident in London yesterday. He added it was for the prime minister to decide whether or not to keep Ms Braverman in his cabinet. The European Union has yet to introduce a new package of sanctions against Russia as several member states are unwilling to sever their economic ties with the enemy, Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to the President's Office, said on national television on Nov. 11. Read also: UK steps up sanctions against Russia, targeting key industries and oligarchs We see that companies under the jurisdiction of, for example, Europe, continue to operate within the Russian consumer market, Podolyak said. They make money there, unconcerned that the Russian budget taxes this money, and then this money is used to recruit those who are then sent to kill Ukrainians. They don't care. Democratic states must take the principled position that any economic partnership with Russia should be impossible, he added. On Nov. 9, reports surfaced indicating that certain EU countries are opposed to using the frozen assets of the Russian Central Bank to support Ukraine. Read also: Russia calls G7 decision to use Russian assets a self-inflicted gunshot and threatens retaliation On Nov. 8, the EU's chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, said the bloc plans to present a new package of sanctions against Russia. On Nov. 7, it became known that despite sanctions, Russian trading companies still can purchase firearms and ammunition in Europe and the United States. 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 This photo taken on Nov. 10, 2023 shows a China-aided reference laboratory at the headquarters of Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Africa CDC on Friday unveiled a China-aided reference laboratory at its headquarters in Ethiopia. (Photo by Michael Tewelde/Xinhua) ADDIS ABABA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) on Friday unveiled a China-aided reference laboratory at its headquarters in Ethiopia. The Africa CDC said the completion of the laboratory marks a milestone in its pursuit of a strong continental public health institution that will support African Union (AU) members in improving disease diagnosis, surveillance and outbreak response. Senior officials from the AU Commission and the Africa CDC, diplomats from the Chinese mission to the AU and high-level dignitaries witnessed the unveiling ceremony inside the premises of the Africa CDC headquarters in the southern suburb of Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. Jean Kaseya, the director-general of the Africa CDC, commended the Chinese government for its support of the realization of a new public health order and architecture in Africa that can prevent, detect and respond to any kind of public health threat in the continent. "The reference laboratory that we are inaugurating will elevate the Africa CDC's role in addressing multiple public health events timely and effectively. It will be one of our major outputs in terms of a new public health order that we are promoting to make Africa CDC a world-class organization," the Africa CDC chief said. "China is supporting the African agenda for public health," Kaseya said. The laboratory is fully equipped and will promote collaboration on capacity building of member states to have strong laboratory systems and networks to improve clinical care, support surveillance and outbreak response and facilitate technology transfer to African institutions. The laboratory facility, equipped with two biosafety level (BSL)-I, four BSL-II, two specialized BSL-II (BSL-II plus) and two high containment laboratories (BSL-III), aims to address significant gaps in laboratory systems in Africa, the Africa CDC said. Hu Changchun, head of the Chinese mission to the AU, said the inauguration of the Africa CDC new headquarters earlier this year and the unveiling of the new laboratory will open a new chapter in the public health cause in Africa, and inject new momentum into China-Africa health cooperation. "The Africa CDC headquarters is a flagship project announced at the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. In just 25 months, the two sides have gone through tremendous challenges and successfully completed the project. This demonstrates our strong determination and action in solidarity to overcome difficulties together," Hu said. According to the Africa CDC, less than 5 percent of African laboratories can reliably diagnose priority diseases in their countries, transport specimens safely, and meet international standards. Against this backdrop, expanding clinical and public health laboratory systems and networks in Africa is deemed to be one of Africa CDC's top priorities for the 2023-2027 period. The agency said the China-aided laboratory will play a crucial role in achieving this goal by ensuring the expansion of laboratory services and in conducting pathogen research and epidemiology in Africa. Shen Hongbing, vice administrator of the China National Administration of Disease Prevention and Control and director-general of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC), said the Chinese government has always attached great importance to China-Africa cooperation. He reiterated that the China CDC, as a national public health institute, has been committed to promoting technical exchange and collaborations in public health between China and African countries. According to Shen, since 2017, the China CDC has sent five experts to the Africa CDC to support its infectious disease surveillance, laboratory networking, information system strengthening and the design of its headquarters layout, among others. "These collaborations at the institutional and expert level over the years are instrumental to the rapid development of public health capacity building in Africa and contribute to reinforcing the long-term China-Africa friendship," Shen said. As a center of excellence, the laboratory is expected to house antimicrobial susceptibility testing for surveillance of antimicrobial resistance across the continent, biochemical analysis, multiplex molecular diagnosis capacity, bio-banking, and advanced pathogen genomic sequencing including metagenomic sequencing capacity for identification of unknown pathogens. It is also expected to serve as a training and quality assurance center and will provide support for evaluation and validation of diagnostic technologies and tools, facilitate research and development and play an important role in outbreak confirmation. African and Chinese delegates visit a China-aided reference laboratory at the headquarters of Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Nov. 10, 2023. Africa CDC on Friday unveiled a China-aided reference laboratory at its headquarters in Ethiopia. (Photo by Michael Tewelde/Xinhua) Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, the company that has manufactured almost all rifle cartridges for the U.S. military since Vietnam, has created military-grade ammunition for the commercial market and is one of the biggest manufacturers of AR-15 rounds, contributing to many crimes and at least a dozen mass shootings, according to a New York Times investigation. Mass shootings at the Tree of Life synagogue, Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, have all been linked to the hundreds of millions of rounds the plant has manufactured for the commercial market each year since 2011. The government has invested over $860 million to keep the plant up and running and receives a 10 to 15 percent discount on ammunition in exchange for allowing Lake City Army Ammunition to continue commercial sales. Information on the companys commercial production and sales is reported to the Army, but the information is kept secret. Read it at New York Times Read more at The Daily Beast. A Kentucky mother is being held in custody at the Bullitt County Detention Center on charges of fatally shooting her two sons. Police arrested the Shepherdsville 32-year-old woman after a neighbor discovered the boys in a bedroom in her home in suburban Louisville. Tiffany Lucas allegedly shot her 6- and 9-year-old sons inside their home on Wednesday, Nov. 8. Tiffanie Lucas with her two boys (Facebook Screengrab @TiffanieLucas) There were two victims in the bedroom. They were covered in blood and a gun on the bed, the Chief Deputy of the Bullitt County Sheriffs Office, Col. Alex Payne, said, according to WLKY. A male neighbor said he saw the mother collapsed on a lawn chair outside of the home and ran into the house to see the gruesome sight after he felt something was off. Emergency medical personnel rushed the boys to the Norton Childrens Hospital in Louisville, but both succumbed to their injuries there. The white mother will be charged with the murder of her two biracial children, Jayden, 9, and Maurice, 6. Just one week earlier, the mother took her two sons out for Halloween, as indicated by her Facebook post. The family embraced a Star Wars theme, with her dressed as Princess Leia Organa, Maurice as Yoda, and Jayden as Boba Fett. Upon learning about the murder, Talia Crutcher, Lucas friend, expressed shock and disgust on social media. She wrote extensively about how the heinous act made her sick to her stomach, revealing that she had been with Lucas just days before. God I can only imagine the hell you have been putting your babies through all these years and they still loved you! To know that you killed them even though they loved you so much, she wrote, in part. Adding, She had to be hearing voices or some type of mental issue because this is not the Tiffany I know she would never hurt her babies!! NEVER! I cant believe this is real I cant stop thinking about how scared they was or how much pain they was in before dying ! I swear everything that glitters is not gold ! They may look like they had a good life but clearly there was demons all throughout her, Crutcher added. According to the chief deputy, Lucas was a single mother raising the boys without paternal support. The Chief Deputy Col. Alex Payne also believed there was a demon somewhere but didnt know what kind. Whether you think its mental illness, just pure evil, a combination of both, it could be substance abuse, any combination thereof. Pick your poison. None of its good. The result is horrific, Payne said. He also noted that there were no other parents to be contacted about the deaths. The father of one of the victims is deceased. The father of the other victim is unknown. Whereabouts are unknown. Other family members, we got hold of and made notification, Payne explained. Lucas was arraigned on Thursday, Nov. 9, where a judge set her bond at $2 million. Jaydens brother Durrell Howard told WLKY he remembers his last time with the children. We just played a card game, just a card game. It was as simple as that and we had the best time. The best time ever, Howard recalled. Though he shared a father with only one of the boys their dad died in 2019 Howard was also a big brother figure to young Maurice, whose nickname was Peanut. The big brother also said he wished she would have reached out to him before taking their lives. We wanted them. We would have taken them with open arms. We loved them so much, he said in an interview, noting the mother had seen child protection authorities called on her multiple times over the years. I should have did more. If it came to me snatching the boys out of the house, I should have and I will hold that on my back for the rest of my life. For both them boys, the bereaved big brother said. He said his only comfort is that the boys are together. I just know Jayden and Peanut theyre together, Howard said. And I know our father was probably waiting on them, waiting on both of them. Lucas returns to court on Tuesday, Nov. 14. Read the original story here. Trending Now: Never miss a story sign up for ATLANTA BLACK STARS free daily newsletters to stay up-to-date on the latest developments, from top news headlines to celebrity news. Mark and Christin Herinckx had only been living in their home on Oakland Bay for a year before they learned about the proposal by Taylor Shellfish: a 50-acre oyster farm, the size of several aircraft carriers, in the middle of the bay right behind their new house. Christin told McClatchy in an interview that her first thought was this is crazy. Mark said his first thought was are you kidding me? The couple had worked in modest jobs most of their lives to finally purchase a home for their retirement in Shelton. Mark worked in the carpet-cleaning business, while Christin worked for a telephone company. They looked forward to a home where they could find some rest and relaxation after years of hard work. But since news of the proposal by Taylor Shellfish, the Herinckxs have been spending their time and energy trying to thwart it with the help of their neighbors around the bay, as well as other organizations. Homeowners should not have to open their wallets to fight big corporations, they told McClatchy. We didnt move out here to fight. The proposal The water behind the Herinckxs and others homes in Oakland Bay is managed by the Washington state Department of Natural Resources. On its website, DNR says that it manages seven specific trusts to generate revenue and preserve forests, water, and habitat. DNR now manages 5.6 million acres of forest, range, agricultural, aquatic, and commercial lands for more than $200 million in annual financial benefit for public schools, state institutions, and county services, it says. DNR is able to lease that land and aquatic space to private entities through an application process. Tom Gorman, the division manager for aquatic resources at DNR, told McClatchy that Taylor Shellfish initially submitted an application for the lease in 2021. A standard leasing term through DNR is 12 years, although that can be negotiated, he said. Gorman said the agency does aquatic lands leasing for a variety of other uses that arent aquaculture, such as marinas. In May, Oakland Bay residents, with the help of the Coalition to Protect Puget Sound Habitat, submitted their own application for rights to the aquatic area to DNR, proposing that the area of the bay being considered by Taylor Shellfish be used for research and conservation purposes instead. Were working with both applicants. We requested some additional information from the coalition, Gorman said. Likewise, Taylors was received earlier, so weve been working with them longer, but both are still in the early stages of review and requesting of additional information. But ultimately the agency can only provide one lease to one entity for the area, and some factors would be taken into consideration for which one gets the lease, he said. For example, a solution could be for one of the entities to find another area to conduct their operations. But at this stage, were just not at the point of making a decision on either application, Gorman said. Gorman acknowledged the concerns from residents and said the agency had received multiple letters. We provided feedback to some of those, he noted. So, were trying to be open and listen to their concerns. The proposal from Taylor Shellfish has been approved on a local level by the Mason County Hearing Examiner. Residents of Oakland Bay then submitted a request for reconsideration on Oct. 30 Why neighbors oppose the proposal DNRs mission statement says that for leases to be administered, an entity must be in line with DNRs goals: to encourage direct public use and access, to foster water-dependent uses, to ensure environmental protection, and to utilize renewable resources. But residents and others do not believe that the Taylor Shellfish proposal falls in line with that mission. Laura Hendricks, the director of the Coalition to Protect Puget Sound Habitat, said there are multiple concerns with an oyster farm in the area. Hendricks called the proposal by Taylor Shellfish, a multi-million dollar company, particularly egregious because it will certainly go against the four objectives that DNR has. Oakland Bay also has a history of pollution, as a former pulp mill in the area caused contamination to the bay. Hendricks and residents believe this makes the area unsuitable for shellfish harvesting. The most recent report from the Department of Ecology released in 2014 showed that Oakland Bay contained moderate to high concentrations of dioxins when it was tested in 2011. Dioxins are persistent organic pollutants, which means they take a long time to break down once introduced into an environment, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys website. Not only can dioxins cause cancer, they can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage to the immune system, and can interfere with hormones, the agency said. While found all over the world, dioxins accumulate in food chains mainly in animals fatty tissues. More than 90% of typical human exposure is estimated by EPA to be through the intake of animal fats, mainly meat, dairy products, fish, and shellfish, the agency said on their website. The competitive lease submitted by Coalition to Protect Puget Sound Habitat looks to study the extent of that pollution, conserve the area, and leave it open for public access as well as whales and marine wildlife. Hendricks said they eventually want to independently test oysters by hanging them from rafts in the area and by sending them to a facility that can test for contaminants. We need to know what kind of effects are underneath those rafts and around those rafts, Hendricks said. Additionally, Hendricks said the oyster bags that would be used by Taylor Shellfish to grow and harvest oysters are made out of high density polyethylene, which fragments when the bags are cut, leading to microplastics going into the ocean as well as the oysters. Polyethylene also can cause health problems, such as asthma and hormone disruption, according to studies. The pollution isnt the only issue, Hendricks and the Herinckxs said. Lights and noise from the operation would be permitted around the clock. The smell from the operation is a concern as well. Public access to the waterway would also be limited. This is a classic case of environmental injustice, said Christin Herinckx. Hendricks said the organization is looking into legal remedies if DNR approves the Taylor Shellfish lease. Taylor Shellfish weighs in Bill Dewey, director of public affairs for Taylor Shellfish, told McClatchy in an interview that the company has done its best to address concerns with residents along Oakland Bay. Were doing our best here with this project to make it fit with the community, and address peoples concerns, he said. And all of those comments in our responses were taken into account when (the hearing examiner) approved permits. Dewey said the reason Taylor Shellfish has its sights on Oakland Bay is because the company has a long history in the area. He said Oakland Bay already contains Taylor Shellfishs major oyster seed-producing facility and that the purpose is to enhance the companys seed production. The floating bags used by Taylor Shellfish that are a part of the proposal in Oakland Bay are a method thats used throughout the world for growing oysters, he said. Dewey said that the Taylors have worked on water quality in the bay for years. We work really hard in all of our growing areas with local county governments and with the State Department of Ecology and on federal regulations with EPA to try to ensure that we have appropriate regulations in place and that theyre being enforced, Dewey said. While Taylor Shellfish does not do any independent third-party testing, Dewey said they rely on the state Department of Health to do the testing on processing plants for sanitation and traceability requirements. DOH also tests the waters to make sure theyre free of pollutants, he said. Dewey pushed back on claims from residents that the company is greedy. I just dont buy into the greedy comment, he said. Its not greed. Just like any other business, theyre in business to make money and theyre generous with that money that they make. He said the company gives back to the communities it operates in, such as Mason County where Taylor Shellfish is headquartered. In addition, he said the company would contribute to the area by donating to the local yacht clubs and improving a boat launch in Shelton. The public would still have access to 16 acres of tidelands in the bay, he said. Department of Health responds Scott Berbells, manager of the shellfish growing section at the state DOH, told McClatchy in an interview that to assess for risk, the agency goes by federal regulations. Different areas can have different risks and classifications, he said. This means that certain areas can be classified as approved areas, while others prohibit shellfish harvesting altogether. Some areas are conditionally approved depending on other mitigating factors like rainfall. Restricted classifications dont meet the approved standard, theres no predictable condition, people can still harvest but they have to move the product, they pick it up from one area, they move it to another area and let it sit for a length of time so the shellfish can purge whatever contaminants may be present, Berbells said. In Oakland Bay, for example, he said the department tests the water about 12 times a year to check for fecal coliform bacteria, salinity and temperature. Primarily they are checking for fecal bacteria and viruses, he said. We also look at other potential contaminants when our research shows there may be an issue, Berbells said. The outcomes of the water testing determine what the risks are, and if shellfishing can be allowed at a given time. Berbells said the health assessment study from Oakland Bay in 2011 sampled at a number of sites within the shellfish growing area, including the prohibited area. We sent those samples to a lab, Berbells said. They were analyzed for dioxin and again, our toxicologists evaluated those results, and summarized and formed conclusions based on the results that we found for Oakland Bay. According to a health consultation from the Department of Health, even people who eat large amounts of shellfish from Oakland Bay are very unlikely to see harmful health effects from the shellfish, the Department of Ecology said in an Oakland Bay status update online. The health assessment also determined that touching, breathing in, or accidentally eating contaminated sediment from Oakland bay is very unlikely to harm peoples health. Berbells said no other studies like the 2011 one have been conducted since then because theres not an ongoing source of dioxin into Oakland Bay this was historic industrial activities that lead to these potential problems. DOH wont conduct further studies to that degree unless theres a new concern that crops up. The state pays attention to Oakland Bay when it comes to shellfish harvesting and quality, Berbells said. Theres been a substantial amount of work by partners, meaning DOH, other state partners, and local health conservation districts to basically protect this area to find and fix pollution sources when they become available, Berbells said. Its an area that a lot of shellfish come out of and its very important to us that its safe for harvest. So there is a lot of work by a lot of people to maintain the safety of Oakland Bay for shellfish harvesting. The Seattle Times reported in April that while Oakland Bay met water quality standards at the time, the area was at risk of harvest restrictions due to bacterial pollution after fecal pollution restricted shellfish harvesting in other areas. Moving forward In a letter from Oakland Bay residents Ginny and David Douglas to the Mason County Hearing Examiner, they pushed back on Taylor Shellfishs motion for reconsideration after the examiners first decision was made. Taylor got almost everything it sought in the Examiners decision, and now seeks even more, they wrote. For one, they said, Taylor Shellfish requested modification of proposed working hours that were initially presented to the public. Additionally, the Douglas told the examiner that third-party monitoring is by far the most critical restriction and must be upheld to protect the ecosystem of the bay. The request that Taylor be allowed to self-monitor is laughable, they wrote. In our estimation, it is like a fox guarding the henhouse. If this revision is accepted, it demonstrates very clearly that Mason County endorses Taylors lack of concern for the Oakland Bay environment, for the individual Oakland Bay property owners, and for any county or state rule or regulation which may hinder Taylor Shellfishs collection of more and more money and profits. Furthermore, the Herinckxs argued that if Taylor Shellfish is allowed to move forward with the proposal, they will try to replicate the process all around the Puget Sound. Hendricks said people travel from all over the world to see Washingtons whales and marine life, but theyre not gonna see anything if we keep industrializing our waterways and letting for-profit corporations take over. LAWRENCE COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has canceled a Silver Alert that was issued for a Lawrence County woman late Saturday. Just before 11 p.m., the TBI issued the alert on behalf of the Lawrence County Sheriffs Office for 68-year-old Wanda Hinson. 13 missing children found safe in Memphis area during Operation Not For Sale After the alert was issued, officials reported that Hinson may have been driving and could be in the Murfreesboro area. Read todays top stories on wkrn.com The TBI announced that Hinson was found safe just after 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 12. No other information was released. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2. Janelle Brown may be separated from Kody Brown, but she remains in Arizona for personal reasons. The Sister Wives star opened up on Instagram about her decision to continue to live in Flagstaff, Arizona after she confirmed in December 2022 that she and Kody had been separated for several months. She posted a photo of her son, Garrison, sitting on a chair in the living room with a dog on his lap. In the caption, she wrote, One of the reasons I like living in Flagstaff is that 3 of my 6 kids are here! I can randomly get a visit from Gabe or Garrison and Savanah is still at home with me, she added, referring to her three youngest children. Garrison @robertthebrown stopped and Caroline decided it was time to lay all over him like she does us. Janelle and Kody Brown share six children: Logan, Madison, Hunter, Garrison, Gabriel, and Savannah. She has lived in Flagstaff since 2018 when the plural family purchased undeveloped land with the intentions of having a single home for Kody Brown's 18 children and four wives at the time, Meri Brown, Janelle Brown, Christine Brown, and Robyn Brown. Christine Brown separated from Kody in 2021 and remarried in October to David Woolley. Meri Brown announced in January that she and Kody made the decision to permanently terminate their marriage. Since her separation from Kody Brown, Janelle Brown said in October episode of the TLC reality series that she is more at peace when he is not around. In a confessional, she reflected on celebrating her first Easter without her husband. Its definitely a different holiday, but Im not really missing Kody, she said. Im not missing Robyn and Meri. Im finding a lot of peace, maybe the most peace Ive felt in a long time, at this holiday. She said that she didn't see herself ever spending a holiday with Kody again, but ultimately said their split was amiable. In a November episode of the show, Kody Brown recalled how he had asked Janelle Brown if they could find a way to fix their relationship. He shared his side of the story, explaining that he had asked why they couldn't reconcile and she had said, Well, I dont know what your relationships with Robyn and Meri are, but Im just not interested in being involved with those people. If were not together, then I dont know why I would nurture a relationship with Robyn and Meri, Janelle Brown said when she explained her side of the story in a confessional. Theres not a lot in common. Theres nowhere that we cross over. I dont know why I would do that. This article was originally published on TODAY.com The Russians are trying to probe Ukraines defenses around Bakhmut, looking for weak points by intensifying artillery strikes, Ukrainian Armed Forces spokesman Volodymyr Fityo said on national television on Nov. 11. "Activity in this direction has intensified. The enemy has shifted from defense to active defense, trying to regain its previously lost positions, Fityo said, adding that fifteen Russian attacks had been repelled. Read also: Russians compensate for heavy losses with reserves and continue intense shelling, trying to surround Avdiivka The enemy is trying to put pressure on our defense forces in the direction of Bakhmut and south of it. At least 140 Russian soldiers were killed and more than 28 pieces of military equipment, including 10 artillery systems, were destroyed over the past day near the city in Donetsk Oblast, which has been reduced to ruin. Read also: Over 1,000 Russian troops eliminated in Ukraine over past 24 hours, says General Staff Ukrainian defenders repulsed 10 Russian attacks near Klishchiivka and Andriivka in Donetsk Oblast on Nov.11. The enemy carried out an airstrike in the area of Kurdyumivka and shelled another 10 settlements in Donetsk Oblast, including Klishchiivka, Ivanivske, and New York. 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: 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. When Xi Jinping last set foot in the United States, former-President Donald Trump welcomed the Chinese leader to his palm-tree-lined home at Mar-a-Lago. In the glow of warm candlelight, the two leaders bonded over the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake and a popular Chinese folk song serenaded by Trumps grandchildren. Touting the great chemistry between them, Trump lavished praises on Xi after their first personal meeting and predicted that lots of very potentially bad problems will be going away. More than six years after that honeymoon summit in the Florida resort, the US is preparing to host the Chinese leader again this time in a much less intimate setting and with the worlds two largest economies looking more like a distrustful couple on the verge of divorce. Xi, who is set to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Franscisco and meet with US President Joe Biden on the sidelines, will find himself arriving in an America that has significantly hardened its view against him. Being tough on China has become a rare point of convergence in the increasingly polarized politics of his host country. And these hard feelings are mutual. In Beijing, those officials who have long suspected Americas intentions and resented its influence now feel vindicated in their belief that the US is out to contain and suppress China. Much has happened in between Xis two visits: a bruising trade war, a global pandemic and a raging war in Europe each dealing deep blows to the US-China relationship as it deteriorated to its worst in decades. What started as a Trump-era fight over trade quickly spilled over into other areas, from technology, national security and geopolitics to visions for the global order competitions that have only intensified under the Biden administration. Relations plunged to a new low last August, when Beijing cut off major communication channels with Washington in retaliation for a high-level US visit to Taiwan. Attempts to restore dialogue were derailed this February by an alleged Chinese surveillance balloon shot down over US airspace. The US has since spent months seeking to engage its biggest strategic rival, including dispatching four cabinet-level officials to Beijing over a busy summer in the Chinese capital. Beijing has played it cool. When Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi finally reciprocated with a visit to Washington DC last month seen as a hopeful sign for the Xi-Biden summit, he warned Americans that the road to San Francisco will not be a smooth one. In addition to the bumpy journey to get there, the setting of the meeting is also telling. Xi is arriving in the US this week along with nearly two dozen world leaders for the APEC summit, an event that is much more formal and business-like than the get-to-know-you meeting at Trumps private residence in 2017. Back then, the Mar-a-Lago summit was aimed at building a personal relationship, said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington. The (US-China) relationship was not tanked, yet, Sun said. When he visited, the Chinese were still hoping (for) leadership diplomacy and that they could potentially have a very good relationship. Xi and Biden had already known each other for more than a decade and spent dozens of hours together across the US and China before Biden became President. The two met for the first time as state leaders last year in Bali, Indonesia, on the sidelines of the G20 summit. China's late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping (left), donning a cowboy hat, applauds at a Houston rodeo during a visit to the United States in 1979. - Wally McNamee/Corbis/Getty Images Diplomacy with personal touch Diplomacy with a personal touch has been a central feature in visits by Chinese leaders to the US. When diplomatic relations were restored in 1979, US President Jimmy Carter invited Chinas paramount leader Deng Xiaoping on a groundbreaking trip to America and the two leaders established a personal rapport. In his personal diary, Carter described Deng as smart, tough, intelligent, frank, courageous, personable, self-assured, friendly, calling his visit one of the delightful experiences of my Presidency. During that trip, the Chinese Communist leader famously donned a 10-gallon cowboy hat at a Texas rodeo in front of a cheering crowd a moment that captured the imagination of the American public. Dengs successor Jiang Zemin, known for his larger-than-life personality and many musical talents, often surprised his American hosts by bursting into impromptu songs and dances. On his maiden visit to the US in 1997 the first by a Chinese leader after the Tiananmen Square massacre, Jiang softened the edges of his image by singing Peking opera at a gala banquet in California and playing the ukulele at a dinner in Hawaii. Five years later, President George W. Bush invited Jiang to his ranch in Texas before the two attended the APEC summit in Mexico. That personal approach was at work again when Xi met President Barack Obama for the first time in 2013, months after he took the helm of China. At Sunnylands, a lush Californian desert retreat, the two leaders chatted and smiled as they strolled along a manicured lawn and over a small bridge. In fitting with the informal setting, they left their ties and suit jackets behind. At the end of that summit, Obama declared the visit terrific. That friendly stroll at Sunnylands also inspired the famous meme comparing Xi to Winnie the Pooh, after pictures juxtaposing Xi and Obama with the honey-loving bear and his tiger friend Tigger went viral on Chinese social media. As a result, Winnie the Pooh has become an unlikely target of censorship in China. Sun, the expert at the Stimson Center, said this type of personal diplomacy between top leaders was regarded as very important in shaping and consolidating bilateral ties. But I think we have passed that stage now. I can hardly imagine that Biden invites Xi Jinping to his private residence, she said. San Francisco will be very business. And it will be very official. Former US President Barack Obama and Chinese leader Xi Jinping chat as they take a walk at the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage, California, on June 8, 2013. - Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images Disillusionment grows A few years into Xis presidency, American officials began to realize that they could not always count on the Chinese leaders promises made during personal diplomacy. A major sore point was a 2015 promise by Xi during a US state visit that he would not pursue militarization of the South China Sea, a vow that stood in stark contrast to what then happened. Those four years of the Obama administration really had tremendous damage on American confidence about what Chinas behavior looks like under Xi, Sun said. It was notable that Xis visit to Mar-a-Lago came within three months of Trumps inauguration. (Xi) wanted to establish a good relationship with Trump at an early stage to keep that momentum, said Suisheng Zhao, director of the Center for China-US Cooperation at the University of Denver. But Trump is a totally different animal. Within months Trump was accusing China of doing NOTHING to thwart North Koreas quest for nuclear weapons and soon after that the trade war began. Now, were at a place where both sides have had a lot of damage on their trust in each other, and both sides are discovering that our national interests fundamentally do not align, Sun said. Xi Jinping, then 31 years old, poses for photos in front of the Golden Gate Bridge as he visits San Francisco in 1985. - Xinhua/Newscom Iowa farms, Golden Gate portrait This weeks visit will be Xis fifth trip to America as Chinas top leader, and the tenth US trip in his life. Xi first came to the US at age 31 in 1985, in what is believed to be his first trip outside China. Back then, the fresh-faced, little-known official was serving as the party boss of an impoverished county in central Henan province. He led a five-men agricultural delegation to learn about crop and livestock practices in Iowa, where he visited farms, picnicked on a cruise on the Mississippi River and stayed with an American family. As part of the trip, Xi also made a stop in San Fransisco and posed for a photo in front of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. In the ensuing decades, Xi visited the US four more times before he took power in late 2012. Before bilateral relations took a sharp turn for the worse, Chinese official propaganda often paraded those visits as an example of the deep, long-standing friendship between the US and China. Experts say its hard to know whether or how Xis early visits to the US might have impacted his views of America. Zhao, the scholar at University of Denver, said Xis personal experience is likely to have a very superficial impact. That might have affected his thinking if he was (an ordinary person and) not the strongman leader he is today, he said. Sun said while Xi has tried to strike the image as a great power statesman, he is primarily a domestic politician. I dont know if Xi Jinpings earlier visits of the United States had a major impact on his foreign policy. I think his foreign policy style is decided by his domestic political style, which is: Im the Emperor and I decided it all. CNNs Simone McCarthy contributed reporting. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com A small airplane crashed into a moving vehicle near a Texas airport on Saturday, per KXAS. The FAA told Insider that the pilot could not stop the plane at the end of the runway. The outlet added that paramedics evaluated three people at the scene for injuries. A small airplane making an emergency landing crashed through a fence and into a car driving along a Texas parkway, per the outlet. KXAS. TikTok user @jackschneider17 shared footage of the incident on Saturday near the Aero Country Airport in McKinney, Texas. The airport is located next to Eastbound Virginia Parkway, according to KXAS. The footage showed the airplane emitting smoke as it attempted to stop on the airport runway but crashed through the fence and collided with a moving vehicle. The video then showed the debris from the crash and the plane being removed from the road. On Sunday, a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) representative told Insider the pilot was flying a single-engine Lancair IV-P when he went off the runway around 12:30 p.m. The FAA representative added that two people were inside the plane and that the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate. Representatives for Aero Country Airport did not respond to Insider's request for comment made outside regular working hours. The McKinney Fire Department told Insider that paramedics evaluated three patients at the scene, including the two plane passengers and a person inside the car. The department added that one person was taken to the hospital with minor injuries, but it was unclear if the person was a passenger in the plane or vehicle. Carlos Wiggins, who was driving on the parkway at the time, told KXAS that the incident shocked nearby witnesses. "Everybody stopped. Everybody. All the cars stopped like 15 feet, stopped," Wiggins told the outlet. "Mind went blank. I think everybody mind went blank." Read the original article on Insider A small plane crashed into a car on Saturday afternoon after making an emergency landing in McKinney, Texas, according to Star-Telegram media partner, WFAA-TV. Coming from Midland, Texas, the pilot was trying to make an emergency landing at Aero County Airport in McKinney, but was unable to stop the plane at the end of the runway, city officials told WFAA. McKinney is about an hour northeast of Fort Worth. The plane went through a fence and onto eastbound Virginia Parkway, where it collided into a car driving by, according to WFAA. Paramedics examined three victims at the scene, two people who were in the plane and one who was in the car that was hit, officials said. One victim was taken to a hospital to be treated for minor injuries. Officials said Federal Aviation Administration investigators were headed to the scene to determine the cause of the crash. The roadway will be closed for hours and drivers are advised to avoid the area Saturday Night Lives cold open took aim at the latest Republican presidential debate as it parodied Donald Trumps dominance despite the former presidents refusal to appear onstage alongside his rivals. James Austin Johnsons Donald Trump gatecrashed the debate stage and mercilessly mocked his rivals, who remained frozen behind him just as they are in the polls. The sketch began with moderator NBCs Lester Holt, played by Kenan Thompson, describing the occasion as the Republican kids table debate. The actors playing the five candidates then introduced themselves, while revisiting the biggest moments from Wednesday nights debate in Miami. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, played by Molly Kearney, said his wife was letting him try this one more time, while Nikki Haley, played by Heidi Gardner, said she was excited to look good in comparison. Ron DeSantis, played by John Higgins, was introduced as Florida governor and owner of the worlds most upsetting smile. SNL parodies Donald Trump critiquing Republican debate rivals in latest cold open (NBC) Devon Walker, as Tim Scott, made fun of the South Carolina senators sleepy debate performance and the surprise appearance of his mystery girlfriend Mindy Noce onstage. She is real, and I know her, and she is my girlfriend, and we met through dating, and for her I feel a real sense of human love, the fake Scott said. Vivek Ramaswamy, played by Ego Nwodim, said he would like to begin by not answering your question and instead use this platform to say (Haleys) daughter is on TikTok, mocking a flashpoint from the actual debate when Haley called the businessman scum. Keep my daughters name out of your voice, Gardner, as Haley, quipped. Almost said that right, the moderator replied. Timothee Chalamet addressed the end of the writers strike in a musical opening monologue (NBC) Around two minutes in, Johnson took centre stage as he reprised his recurring role as Trump. How adorable, they actually think theyve got a chance. Sad in some ways, but in other ways, funny, the actor said. Can you believe it, folks? Ninety-one indictments, four trials and I am still the best choice. They are all stuck behind me and there is nothing they can do about it, just like in real life. Johnsons Trump then went after Ramaswamy, saying the millionaire businessman checked a lot of boxes as he was rich and rude. Hes a lot like me except for one thing that matters a lot to my horrible, horrible base. White. Sad. Hes going nowhere. The performer then broke the fourth wall, by mocking the actors SNL had chosen to play the candidates as evidence of their lack of staying power. Poor Ron De Santis, even SNL doesnt think he has a chance. If they did itd be like Paul Rudd or something in there. Addressing Haley, he said he called the former UN Ambassador a birdbrain, but only in public. She made some terrible points in that debate, I think, but I dont know. I have trouble hearing women over 25, Austins Trump said. The fake Trump also mocked the former presidents recent gaffes, his criminal and civil trials, and his sweet little middle aged criminal children. So awful to bring in the family. Itll be very sad when I pin it all on one of them. Probably Eric. Host Timothee Chalamet addressed the end of the writers strike in a musical opening monologue, while the musical guest was Boygenius. Trump is leading the GOP primary field by 48 points, according to a Morning Consult poll. RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Teenage forward Endrick extended his rich vein of form as Palmeiras rose to the top of Brazil's Serie A standings on Saturday with a 3-0 home victory over Internacional. Ze Rafael gave the hosts the lead with a low finish in the 39th minute and Endrick doubled the advantage just before the hour with a long-range effort following Raphael Veiga's assist. 17-year-old Endrick, who has an agreement to join Real Madrid next summer, has now scored four times in his past four league outings. Rony put the result beyond doubt with a close-range finish on the counterattack two minutes from time. The result leaves Palmeiras with 62 points from 34 games, three points ahead of second-placed Botafogo, who have two games in hand. Internacional are 12th, 19 points points off the pace. In other fixtures on Saturday, Flamengo drew 1-1 at home to Fluminense, and Coritiba prevailed 1-0 at home over Cruzeiro. A warning if youre hitting social media for help on flights - theres a new scam popping up. Officials say fake accounts are pretending to be airlines and tricking travelers to get private information. A reporter with the Wall Street Journal tested this by tweeting, asking Southwest Airlines for help with a few flight changes. ALSO READ: Scammers use AI to deceive senior citizens I wanted to see you know, how prevalent these you know, fake airlines, these imposter accounts work, Wall Street Journal reporter, Dawn Gilbertson said. The official Southwest account responded right away but minutes later, a fake one responded too. The scam account asked for a direct message but if you were to send one, it could lead to identity theft. They can easily mess with your reservation. They could cancel it. They could change it, Gilbertson said. On the financial front, the risk is that airlines you know that these imposters could ask for money for things that airlines dont charge for . ALSO READ: Action 9: Watch out for scammers who say you won workers comp money The biggest tip to avoid this is to reach out to the airline carrying your flight directly without using social media. If you do choose to use social media, like Twitter, make sure the account you message has a yellow check mark showing the account is verified. If the account isnt verified, dont trust it. (WATCH BELOW: Officers urge Queen City residents to do their research amid rising online scams) The Roll of Honour was printed more than 100 years ago A procession has been held in memory of railway workers who joined the military and later died in war. Royal Marines from 40 Commando honoured the veterans in Bishops Lydeard railway station in Somerset on Saturday. They delivered the Roll of Honour, which bears the names of the former Great Western Railway staff who died. Laurie Hockley, who lost his great uncle in the war, said: "It's quite harrowing, the number of people that are on there." Mr Hockley's relative, John Yockney Burchell, was a teenager when he died. Laurie Hockley's great uncle is listed on the Roll of Honour His name is listed on the Roll of Honour, which has recorded the names of the veterans for more than 100 years. When World War One began in 1914, about 25,000 Great Western Railway employees left their careers on the railway to fight for their country. Over the course of the war, 2,500 of those lost their lives. Allan Stanistreet attended the Remembrance event Allan Stanistreet, who works as a researcher, said: "The First World War now has faded into oblivion because there are no survivors and there are fewer and fewer survivors from the Second World War. "We have to remember them because without them we wouldn't have the freedom to enjoy today." Follow BBC West on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: bristol@bbc.co.uk The search continues for a missing woman and her parents after her husband was arrested on suspicion of murder when police tracked a body part found in a dumpster back to their Los Angeles area home, authorities said. Mei Li Haskell, 37, Gaoshan Li, 71, and Yanxiang Wang, 64, are missing, and officers have arrested Samuel Haskell, 35, after someone looking through a dumpster found a bag containing an unidentified female torso, the Los Angeles Police Department said. Investigators say they tracked the bag back to the home Mei Li Haskell and Samuel Haskell shared with their three children and her parents. When officers went to the home Wednesday, police say they discovered blood and other evidence inside the residence, CNN affiliate KABC reported. Samuel Haskell is being held on $2,000,000 bail, police said. It is unclear if he has an attorney. Hes due in court Monday, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department Inmate Information Center. Haskell is the son of Emmy-winning producer and Hollywood agent Sam Haskell, who served as an agent for Kathie Lee Gifford, Whoopi Goldberg, Dolly Parton, George Clooney and others. CNN has reached out to the senior Haskell for comment. The children are being cared for by family members, according to police. Investigators told KABC that no additional body parts beyond the torso have been discovered and that DNA results from the torso are pending, but Los Angeles Police Department Capt. Scot Williams said the torso is assumed to be Mei Li Haskell, the Los Angeles Times reports. Typically if someone, a murder suspect, is dismembering a body, its to delay identification, LAPD Detective Efren Gutierrez told CNN affiliate KCBS Wednesday. So that by implication would mean that they may have been known to each other. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com MEMPHIS, Tenn. Two people are dead and two others are in critical condition after a crash in southeast Memphis Saturday evening, police say. Memphis Police responded to a crash on Winchester Road and Lamar Avenue at around 7:45 p.m. Driver fatally strikes man, flees in University area Memphis Police say all four victims went to the hospital in critical condition. Two of the victims were later pronounced dead. Police did not give details on what led to the crash. Memphis Police say the investigation is ongoing. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com. SpaceX's next Starship test launch could lift off as early as Nov. 17, pending regulatory approval from the Federal Aviation Administration and other agencies. The potential launch from SpaceX's Starbase test site at Boca Chica Beach near Brownsville, Texas will mark the company's second test flight of an orbital class Starship and Super Heavy booster the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. SpaceX launched its first Starship test flight in April, but it exploded shortly after liftoff. "Starship preparing to launch as early as November 17, pending final regulatory approval," SpaceX wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, late Friday (Nov. 10). Related: Watching SpaceX launch Starship, the world's largest rocket, was simply unreal (video) A silver SpaceX Starship atop its booster on the launch pad at Starbase in South Texas SpaceX CEO Elon Musk added that whether or not Starship launches this month hinges on government approval for the test flight. "Assuming regulatory approval," Musk wrote on X in response to SpaceX's announcement. The Starship and Super Heavy launch system is the world's tallest and most powerful rocket. It stands nearly 400 feet tall (121 meters), has a touted lift capacity of 165 tons (150 metric tons) and is designed to be fully reusable. SpaceX aims to use Starship as a workhorse heavy-lift launcher, as well as for deep space missions and has already sold flights around the moon to space tourists. NASA also plans to use the Starship rocket to land Artemis 3 astronauts on the moon. But first, Starship and its booster must prove they are ready for orbital flight. That's where the upcoming test flight comes in. Related: Incredible photos of SpaceX's 1st Starship launch SpaceX launched its first full Starship test flight on April 20, but the rocket suffered a stage separation failure, the loss of several of its 33 first-stage Raptor engines and other issues. As a result, SpaceX intentionally detonated the rocket over the Gulf of Mexico a few minutes after liftoff. For the upcoming test flight, SpaceX has modified the stage separation process to use a new hot-staging process in which the upper stage will fire its engines while still attached to its Super Heavy first stage. SpaceX engineers have developed a new vent system for that process as well, which the company showed off in a new video shared on X and YouTube. The second flight will likely follow the same plan as the first test, with SpaceX launching toward a target splashdown site off the coast of Hawaii to test reentry and landing techniques, while the Super Heavy booster makes a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. "Starship's first flight test provided numerous lessons learned that directly contributed to several upgrades to both the vehicle and ground infrastructure to improve the probability of success on future flights," SpaceX wrote in a mission overview. "The second flight test will debut a hot-stage separation system and a new electronic Thrust Vector Control (TVC) system for Super Heavy Raptor engines, in addition to reinforcements to the pad foundation and a water-cooled steel flame deflector, among many other enhancements." SpaceX's first fully integrated Starship vehicle rises into the South Texas sky on April 20, 2023. SpaceX has built a new water deluge system to protect its orbital launch pad and the Starship rocket from the immense power of the first-stage booster's 33 Raptor engines. During the test flight on April 20, the booster's engine plume carved a huge crater beneath the launch pad, kicking up debris and chunks of concrete that fell back onto the Starbase facility and surrounding area. That water deluge system is under review by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife to understand the environmental impact it may have on the animal and plant life living in the Boca Chica Wildlife Refuge surrounding SpaceX's Starbase facility. Related: The best SpaceX Starship merch on Amazon RELATED STORIES: Starship and Super Heavy: SpaceX's Mars-colonizing transportation system Elon Musk says SpaceX could launch a Starship to the moon 'probably sooner' than 2024: report SpaceX fires up giant Starship booster for 2nd time ahead of test flight (video) "The FAA is continuing to work on the environmental review," the agency wrote on Oct. 31 in an emailed statement. "As part of its environmental review, the FAA is consulting with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) on an updated Biological Assessment under the Endangered Species Act. The FAA and the USFWS must complete this consultation before the environmental review portion of the license evaluation is completed." SpaceX has launched a website for its Starship Second Flight Test, as it does for each mission, and will share a live webcast on the page on Nov. 17 if the launch does indeed occur on that date beginning about 30 minutes before liftoff. Protests have been held across Spain against an amnesty deal with Catalan separatists aimed at securing a new term for the Socialist-led government. The biggest rally was held in Madrid, where tens of thousands took part. Centre-right leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo accused acting PM Pedro Sanchez of pursuing his own interests rather than Spain's and called for a new vote. Mr Feijoo People's Party (PP) came first in a snap election in July but could not form a majority. But pro-independence Catalan parties agreed to support Mr Sanchez, who has been in office since 2018. The deal, announced on Thursday, includes an amnesty for separatists who led a failed bid to secede from Spain in 2017. The agreement triggered anger from conservatives. An estimated 80,000 people took part in Sunday's rally in Madrid. Addressing supporters in the capital, Mr Feijoo said: "We will not shut up until there are new elections. What is being done now is the contrary of what [Spaniards] voted for." Many protesters held Spanish flags and banners with slogans including "respect the Constitution". Similar marches were held in cities including Granada, Seville and Valencia. Before Thursday's agreement, Pedro Sanchez had sealed a deal with one pro-independence party. The Catalan Republican Left (ERC) is in power in Spain's north-eastern region. His negotiators then clinched an agreement with the more radical Together for Catalonia (JxCat). It is led by Carles Puigdemont, who led the breakaway independence vote but fled to Brussels to avoid being sent to jail. The deal will provide an amnesty for former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont and all those involved in the failed bid for Catalan independence in 2017 While Mr Puigdemont went into exile in 2017, nine other Catalan leaders were jailed for sedition before being pardoned by Mr Sanchez in 2021. The crime of sedition has since been removed from the penal code but Mr Puigdemont is still accused of disobedience and embezzling public funds, and others have faced similar allegations. Under the agreement pages, the draft amnesty covers charges arising from the start of the Catalan push for independence in 2012 to 2023 but it does not refer to any named individuals. It says JxCat will propose holding a "self-determination referendum on the political future of Catalonia" within the terms of the Spanish constitution while the Socialist party says it will defend the "broad development" of Catalonia's autonomy by judicial means. The text also refers to "lawfare", a word used by JxCat to refer to judicial cases it claims were used to persecute pro-independence figures politically. Mr Puigdemont said the deal marked a step towards resolving "the historic conflict between Catalonia and Spain". Santos Cerdan, the Socialist party negotiator, said: "It's necessary to form a progressive government as soon as possible, that gives stability to Spain and that fulfils the mandate of the people in last elections." The controversial amnesty law will be put before parliament in the coming days and, assuming it passes, the next step will be for an investiture debate and a vote next week. Final results in Spanish election (Bloomberg) -- Tens of thousands of people gathered in central Madrid and other major Spanish cities to protest against acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchezs plans to grant amnesty to hundreds of Catalan separatists involved in a failed bid for independence. Most Read from Bloomberg The demonstration, called by the conservative opposition Peoples Party, sought to increase the already intense pressure on Sanchez. He is set to seek a new term in a parliamentary vote this month after securing a deal with a separatist Catalan party that gives him a majority in return for the amnesty. Its the latest chapter in Spains political drama stemming from Julys election, when the Peoples Party won the most seats in parliament yet not enough to form a government. Sanchez, meanwhile, must rely on the Catalans for support, and anger has erupted over his deal with one of the parties behind the regions unilateral declaration of independence in 2017. Sanchez infuriated the opposition and drew castigation from the judiciary on Nov. 9 when his Socialist party announced an agreement with Junts per Catalunya to present an amnesty law that will benefit hundreds of pro-independence activists facing charges for their involvement in the attempted breakaway. The Peoples Party was in power at the time, and the government intervened by imposing direct rule over the region. Im here to defend that we are all the same in front of the law, said Javier Berlinches, a 27-year-old protester from Madrid. Otherwise there will be first-class and second-class Spaniards. The government estimated 80,000 people attended the event in Madrid, while there were also demonstrations in Barcelona, Seville, Bilbao and Valencia. There were 271,000 people out in the streets in 15 cities nationwide, according to an estimate compiled by El Pais. In Madrid, people on balconies around the main Puerta del Sol square were clapping and waving in support of the crowds wearing Spanish flags over their shoulders like capes. A woman in her 70s posed for photos with a sign that read Spain, for sale, for 7 votes in reference to the Junts lawmakers needed for Sanchez to be reappointed premier. The protests come after a week of smaller evening demonstrations held outside the headquarters of Sanchezs Socialist Party, with many ending in clashes with the police. In recent days, the Peoples Party repeatedly called for Sundays event to be peaceful. The potential beneficiaries of the law include mid- and top-ranking officials of the Catalan government at the time, school headmasters, small-town mayors and others. But the main beneficiary will be former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, who has been in self-imposed exile in Belgium since leading the failed secession. Puigdemont was personally involved in the negotiations with the Socialists. The law is expected to be filed as soon as next week, while Sanchezs confidence vote is due by Nov. 27 to avoid another election. Sanchez needs 176 votes in the 350-member parliament. He currently has 179 from eight parties. This goes way beyond who voted for whom, Peoples Party leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo, said in a speech at the demonstration in Madrid. This surpasses political parties. (Updates with protests in other cities in sixth paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2023 Bloomberg L.P. ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Dozens of people gathered in Downtown St. Pete Saturday morning for the 10th Annual Veterans Day event. The ceremony kicked off at 9 a.m. at Williams Park's World Heroes Memorial where Mayor Ken Welch gave two local veterans Honored Veteran Awards. The first hero honored was retired U.S. Army Colonel Lucie Marie Stagg. She served multiple wars and conflicts like the Desert Storm, Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, and more. READ: Artificial intelligence tackling mental health, suicide prevention among veterans She also worked at the Pentagon during the September 11th, 2001, attacks. "Veterans Day is primarily a celebration, more of a birthday honoring someone who has just now serving, someone who has been in for many years, maybe someone who has retired. To show that those ties still bind. You are in fact, a soldier forever, a marine for life," she said. "You have this group around you that goes on until you're memorialized, and it's just a good family and it's means for you to say, 'you're welcome' as a Veteran for those who are saying 'thank you'". Now, Col. Stagg works in Downtown St. Pete with aging athletes. "I've had roughly twelve surgeries of my own. Everything from knee surgery, ankles, shoulders, jaw, hand, you name it," she said. "But it gives me a perspective and an empathy for people who have gone through similar trials that they can get through it, that they do have the ability to strengthen themselves and to overcome adversity." The other veteran awarded was retired Senior Airman Louis Williams, who served nine years in the U.S. Army and four years in the Air Force. "Today is a day of recognition and it goes beyond me. There's so many others that traveled this path and if I could, I would like to have them all here and share this stage," he shared. READ: These states have the most veterans Senior Airman Williams toured Vietnam and is a cancer survivor. On Saturday, he dedicated his award to his fellow veterans. "I see guys when I go to the VA who have lost a leg, lost an arm, and I thank God that I was fortunate because I always say it could have been me," he said. "There's so many other people that could've been, should've been standing here in my spot. I have some friends that are experiencing health difficulties that I've maintained contact with since 1956. We were in service together." St. Pete Police Chief Anthony Holloway also made an appearance. "What it means to us is to really take time to recognize the men and women that sacrificed everything for us. The reason why we're here today is because these men and women sacrificed their lives so that we have the country that we live in now," he said. A starfish is seen off the shore of Peanut Island on March 15, 2020, in West Palm Beach, Fla. | Julio Cortez, Associated Press Despite what it looks like, researchers found recently that starfish dont have limbs that are hugging the surface they touch the characteristic starfish is actually mostly just a head. What did researchers learn about starfish limbs? Scientists from Englands University of Southampton found that starfish appear to be missing the genetic code that make up a torso, arms or legs, according to the study published in science journal Nature recently. Its as if the sea star is completely missing a trunk, and is best described as just a head crawling along the seafloor, Laurent Formery, a Biohub-funded postdoctoral scholar and lead author of the new study, said in a release. Its not at all what scientists have assumed about these animals. Another researcher confirmed the findings with a similar comparison. One could think of the body of a starfish ... as a disembodied head walking about the sea floor on its lips the lips having sprouted a fringe of tube feet, co-opted from their original function of sorting food particles, to do the walking, University of Victorias Thurston Lacalli told CBS News. ... This is truly a radical transformation of the ancestral bilaterian body plan. What are starfish? Starfish are echinoderms, which means the animal features a five-fold symmetry, unlike most animals, which have a two-fold symmetry, such as humans. The team studied the genes and found that the genes from different parts of the starfish arms corresponded to different parts of the head, The Guardian reported. The arms of a starfish are not like our own arms, but more like extensions of the head, Jeff Thompson, a co-author on the study at the University of Southampton, told The Guardian. To summarize starfish anatomy, I would say its a mostly head-like animal with five projections, with a mouth that faces towards the ground and an anus on the opposite side that faces upwards. Learning more about the echinoderms can help scientists better understand how the animals survive, as well as learn more about how our own brains might compare, per The Guardian. Editors note: This story was corrected to say Alvidrez is a suspect in the attack. (KSWB) California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) officials are investigating a deadly attack at a state prison that an incarcerated man transferred from San Diego County was allegedly involved in, according to officials. Around 3 p.m. on Oct 14, two inmates, 57-year-old Roland C. Corona and 33-year-old Luis Alvidrez, at Kern Valley State Prison attacked another with an inmate-manufactured weapon, according to CDCR. The victim, identified by authorities as 41-year-old Tulare County resident Isaac Duran, sustained multiple stab wounds and was transported to an outside medical facility for treatment. On Nov. 9, however, he succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead by medical personnel at Kern Medical Center. The investigation into the incident remains ongoing conducted by KVSPs Investigative Services Unit, the Kern County District Attorneys Office and the Kern County Coroner, CDCR officials said. Officials are investigating the death as a homicide. Registered sex offender, ex-LAPD officer arrested in human smuggling case Both suspects were moved to restricted housing pending the investigation into the incident. According to CDCR, one of the suspects, Alvidrez, was moved to the Kern Valley State Prison from San Diego County in June 2017. He was serving an 18-year, four-month sentence for two counts of second-degree robbery with enhancement of personal use of dangerous or deadly weapon, as well as two counts of second-degree robbery as a second striker. While incarcerated, state officials say that Alvidrez was sentenced in Kern County to serve five additional years for possession or manufacture of a deadly weapon by a prison and assault by a prisoner with a deadly weapon or force likely to cause great bodily injury. The other suspect, Corona, was remanded to the state prison in 2003 after receiving a life sentence with the possibility of parole for several charges, including first-degree robbery, false imprisonment and vehicle theft. He also received an additional 12 years while incarcerated for three counts of possession or manufacturing of a deadly weapon by a prisoner. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego. TEHRAN, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi stressed on Saturday that the country "sees no obstacle to expanding relations with Egypt." Raisi made the remarks in a meeting with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi on the sidelines of a joint Arab-Islamic summit on the Palestinian issue held in the Saudi capital of Riyadh on Saturday, according to a statement published on the website of the Iranian president's office. Describing Egypt as a "friendly country," the Iranian president highlighted the need for greater unity among Muslim states. Turning to the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, he said that the popular demand worldwide was for the opening of the Rafah crossing in Egypt so that supplies could be sent to the Palestinian coastal enclave. Raisi blamed the United States and Israel for "stonewalling" the opening of Rafah crossing. The Egyptian president, for his part, said his country had a political will to establish "real relations" with Iran. To this end, relevant Egyptian ministers have been tasked with the mission of following up on the establishment of deep relations between the two countries, said Sisi. Turning to the issue of Palestine, Sisi said Egypt had been harmed more than any country from the repercussions of the ongoing situation in Gaza. Earlier in the day, Raisi also met Chairman of Sudan's Transitional Sovereign Council Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and voiced Tehran's readiness to exchange diplomatic delegations with Khartoum and expand relations in different areas. Al-Burhan also expressed his country's willingness to reconstruct and resume relations with Iran, which "will be in the interests of the entire Muslim world." Iran and Egypt severed diplomatic relations in 1980. In recent months, both countries have announced a willingness to mend bilateral ties by settling differences on certain issues. Iran and Sudan last month announced the resumption of their diplomatic ties, seven years after they were severed in 2016 following Saudi Arabia's move to cut ties with Tehran in the same year. Saudi Arabia cut its diplomatic relations with Iran in January 2016 after the kingdom's embassy in Tehran was attacked. The storming of the Saudi Arabian embassy happened after the kingdom executed a Shiite cleric. (KTLA) Between 2021 and 2022, reported carjackings in the U.S. increased by 8.1%, recently released FBI data shows. The vast majority of those involved an assailant with a weapon, and someone was injured in more than a quarter of all carjackings. A new report shows some states have been hit harder by car thieves than others. The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB), a not-for-profit organization, reviewed data collected by the FBIs National Crime Information Center (NCIC) to find which states had the highest vehicle theft rates in 2022 per 100,000 residents. Overall, they found states primarily on the West Coast and in the Southwest had the worst vehicle theft rates. Which vehicles are stolen most often in Tennessee and Kentucky? For the second year in a row, Colorado topped the list, reporting a theft rate of over 731 cars per 100,000 residents in 2022, up more than 10% compared to 2021, according to the NICB. Ranking second on the list wasnt a state at all: the District of Columbia saw roughly 700 cars per 100,000 residents stolen last year. For comparison, Colorado has a population of roughly 5.8 million. The District of Columbias is just under 672,000. Here are the 10 states NICB found had the worst rates of vehicle thefts in 2022: Colorado District of Columbia Washington Oregon New Mexico California Missouri Nevada Texas Tennessee While California (6th) didnt top the list for the state with the highest vehicle theft rate, it did have the highest number of car thefts in the nation for 2022. Last year, 203,018 thefts happened in the Golden State, according to the report. Coming in behind California was Texas, which saw over 105,000 car thefts last year nearly half that of California. Colorado, despite its high theft rate, reported only about 42,700 car thefts. No more right turn on red? As pedestrian deaths rise, US cities consider bans The safest states were primarily in the Northeast. New Hampshire had the lowest car theft rate at about 54 per 100,000 residents, followed closely by Maine with 68 per 100,000. Those with the lowest car theft rates, according to the NICB, were: New Hampshire Maine Puerto Rico Idaho Massachusetts West Virginia Wyoming New York Vermont Virginia It was New Hampshire that reported the fewest overall car thefts last year at 750. Wyoming wasnt far off, reporting 770 car thefts. Maine was the only other state to have less than 1,000 thefts, reporting 944 total. The report also looked at which metro areas had the highest car theft rate in 2022. Topping out the list was Pueblo, Colorado, with a rate of 1,086 thefts per 100,000. Bakersfield, California, came in second (1,072 per 100,000), followed by Denver (1,063 per 100,000). How do you minimize damage if a deer runs in front of your car? When ranked on the number of reported thefts, Los Angeles had the most at more than 72,700. That was more than double second-ranked Chicago, which had 33,000 car thefts. Houston, Texas, ranked third at almost 32,800. One of the most frequently encouraged ways to protect yourself from having your car stolen is locking the doors. The Los Angeles Police Department and California Highway Patrol also recommend using anti-theft devices, parking your vehicle in well-lit areas or secure garages, not leaving your keys in the car, keeping valuables hidden, and keeping your ownership certificate when purchasing a used vehicle. Alix Martichoux contributed to this report. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2. Writing in the Times, Suella Braverman accused the Met Police of applying a "double standard" to its policing of protests Grant Shapps is the latest cabinet minister to distance himself from the home secretary's choice of words, after she criticised police ahead of Saturday's pro-Palestinian rally. In a Times article, Suella Braverman called protesters "hate marchers" and accused police of a "double standard". Mr Shapps said it was "proper" for the home secretary to debate the issue, but he "wouldn't use that set of words". Labour's Yvette Cooper said she "shouldn't carry on in her job". She also suggested Ms Braverman's remarks had made disorder during Saturday's demonstrations worse. On Sunday, the home secretary thanked police for "their professionalism in the face of violence and aggression from protesters and counter-protesters". She criticised chants and placards from the march, saying: "This can't go on. Week by week, the streets of London are being polluted by hate, violence, and antisemitism... Jewish people in particular feel threatened - further action is necessary." Her earlier claims that police were "biased" prompted widespread criticism and calls for the prime minister to sack her. Pressure has increased on the home secretary after the Metropolitan Police made more than 100 arrests on Saturday and said officers faced "aggression" from counter-protesters. On Saturday, Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist said the march had taken place against a backdrop of conflict in the Middle East, remembrance events and a "week of intense debate" about protest and policing, which "all combined to increase community tensions". Speaking on Sunday, the defence secretary refused to say whether Ms Braverman would still be in her role in a week's time. "A week is a long time in politics," Mr Shapps told Sky News's Trevor Phillips adding the make-up of the cabinet is "entirely a matter for the prime minister". Downing Street is currently investigating how the article was published without edits they had wanted to be made - for now Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has backed his home secretary. In her article in the Times, Ms Braverman claimed aggressive right-wing protesters were "rightly met with a stern response", while "pro-Palestinian mobs" were "largely ignored". She went on to say police were applying "double standards" and "played favourites when it comes to demonstrators". On Friday, while Downing Street gave its backing to Ms Braverman, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said her comments were "not words that I myself would have used". This embedded content is not available in your region. Mr Shapps told BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg he also would not endorse Mrs Braverman's choice of language. He added: "I think there have been concerns sometimes that people have felt at liberty, perhaps because they haven't seen swift enough action to carry on going out carrying these banners, singing these chants and breaking laws which were in place to prevent racial hatred. "On the other hand, I wouldn't put it in those particular set of words, because I recognise the police have a very difficult job to do in managing marches which contain large numbers of people - a lot of that work has to be done afterwards." The Met Police made over 100 arrests during Saturday's demonstrations - the "vast majority" were counter-protesters, the force said Scotland's First Minister Humza Yousaf has called for the home secretary to resign, as has the Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford, who said Ms Braverman's comments "put other people in harms way". Downing Street had, in effect, hit pause on deciding the home secretary's political future on Thursday as it turned its focus to the weekend's events. With Remembrance commemorations passed and a clearer picture of what happened at protests and counter protests on Saturday, pressure will resume on Rishi Sunak to send a clear message on his home secretary. He could, as the opposition are calling for, sack her. That would almost certainly mean carrying out a bigger reshuffle, which has been rumoured to be on the cards for months. The downside would be that it would anger her supporters, who are predominantly on the right of the party. That could trigger letters of no confidence and other public displays of division. One Tory MP told the BBC efforts were already under way to lobby to keep her in the job. Mrs Braverman has also never hidden her ambitions to one day be the party leader and sacked ministers have been known to be a thorn in the side of their former bosses. On the other hand, Rishi Sunak could decide keeping her on outweighs the controversies and he could choose to back her. In order to avoid claims of weakness though, he'd have to find a convincing reason for why she went ahead and published a newspaper opinion piece that hadn't been cleared by Downing Street. He would also frustrate those Tory MPs who have tired of her knack for attracting controversy and are starting to use phrases like "unhelpful" and "brand damage" in relation to the home secretary. Her continued presence in the Cabinet would also provide an ongoing target for Labour. Now, of course, Mrs Braverman has one big option of her own: she could choose to resign. That would free her from the constraints of having to stick to the government line. But it would also mean leaving a job that carries huge influence and gives her a platform to push her particular agenda on issues such as immigration. Just to complicate matters, this all comes days before the Supreme Court gives a ruling on the government's Rwanda plan, with which Mrs Braverman has become closely associated. National security adviser Jake Sullivan on Sunday emphasized the U.S.s stance on the future of Gaza, arguing the U.S. believes the basic principles of the future include no reoccupation of Gaza and no forcible displacement of the Palestinian people. Asked by CBS News Face the Nation anchor Margaret Brennan about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus opposition to a Palestinian Authority-led government in Gaza that appears to be not on the same page as the Biden administration, Sullivan said Secretary of State Antony Blinken laid out the the basic principles of the way forward. No reoccupation of Gaza, no forcible displacement of the Palestinian people. Gaza can never be used as a base for terrorism in the future and Gazas territory should not be reduced, Sullivan continued. Blinkens comments were part of a joint statement from diplomats of the Group of Seven last week, in which he reiterated the Palestinian Authority, which operates the West Bank government, should take control. Secretary Blinken also said that ultimately, we do want to see the reconnection, the reunification of control between the West Bank and Gaza under Palestinian leadership, Sullivan said. The Palestinian Authority is the current leadership on the West Bank. But ultimately, its gonna be up to the Palestinian people to decide their future, who governs them and the United States will support a process Brennan interjected to point out Gaza hasnt held elections in ages; Sullivan agreed. Netanyahu said Saturday that Israel will retain overall security control in Gaza including the capacity to go in whenever we want to eliminate terrorists who may pop up again. Fighting has raged for over a month since Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, launched a bloody incursion on Oct. 7 into Israel that left about 1,200 people dead, most of them civilians. But post-Oct. 7, we cant go back to the way things were on Oct. 6. And that goes for ensuring that Hamas cannot represent a continuing threat to Israel, Sullivan said. Israel quickly responded with a bombardment of Gaza, including hundreds of air strikes, bombings and a siege on basic necessities. Israeli forces have vowed to destroy Hamas, and recently launched a ground invasion into Gaza City in the northern part of the region . Over 11,070 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war broke out last month, according to the Hamas-ruled Health Ministry in Gaza. Concerns have been raised in recent days over an indefinite period of Israeli military control of Gaza post-war, with some worried a new occupation could destabilize the Middle East. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. National security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday that nine Americans and one green card holder were still unaccounted for following the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7. In an interview on CNNs State of the Union, Sullivan said U.S. officials did not know whether those 10 people were still alive, but that active, intensive negotiations were underway to secure the release of all hostages. We currently have nine Americans who are missing, one green-card holder who is missing. We dont know the status whether they are alive or whether they have passed away but we are looking to get the safe recovery of all of those individuals, Sullivan told CNNs Dana Bash. And were staying in close touch with their families. In fact, I will be meeting with the families of the American hostages this week, Sullivan added. Sullivan would not say whether officials were close to reaching a deal for the hostages, which total about 240 people taken from Israel, but he said the United States was involved in negotiations, which also included Qatar and Egypt. I dont want to predict how close we are because I have thought we have been close before, and we havent quite gotten there, Sullivan said. What I can say is, there are active, intensive negotiations underway involving Israel, Qatar. The United States is engaged in those negotiations. Egypt and other countries are also engaged, he said. And the goal here is to do what is necessary at the negotiating table to ensure that we get the safe return of all of the hostages, including the Americans. Sullivans comments come more than a month after Hamas launched a brutal surprise attack on Israels southern border, killing about 1,200 Israelis. Israel recently revised its estimated death toll from the attack on Oct. 7, saying the previous estimate of 1,400 Israelis included 200 people who were affiliated with Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Family-run businesses in Southall said Diwali stock in supermarkets has led to a loss in revenue Hindus and Jains across London are celebrating Diwali this Sunday, with Sikhs also marking Bandi Chhor Divas. In the run-up, shoppers stock up on everything from divas and candles to ghee, rice and Indian sweets. In the capital's "Little India" in Southall, many supermarkets also now have dedicated Diwali-themed aisles. But the trend has caused concern among some independent family-run stores who say this commercialisation of Diwali is causing them to lose revenue. The south Asian community has a strong deep-rooted connection to Southall, in west London, as highlighted in the hit British film Bend it Like Beckham. The community is now in its second and third generation in the capital and many are seeing their religious festivals being highlighted in mainstream supermarkets. But some local businesses believe this is at the detriment of their hard work within the community. 'We are the community' Sira's Cash and Carry in Southall started as a small family business more than 50 years ago in The Broadway and sells south Asian household products. Indy Sira said: "Diwali is a really special time for us. It's an exciting time where we're celebrating such an amazing occasion. "It's not that we only understand the community, but that we are the community." Indy Sira said she wanted supermarkets to acknowledge the work of local businesses over the decades Ms Sira said there was a "noticeable trend" of supermarkets "capitalising" on the festival. She said the family-run business felt a financial loss when supermarkets began stocking Diwali products. She wanted to see them acknowledge "the ground work" done by businesses in the community in this area. She added that businesses such as hers had spent decades building brand awareness of their products which were now being sold in superstores, sometimes at a fraction of the price. However, some Londoners feel that buying Diwali products in supermarkets has made the festivities more accessible and introduces other communities to the celebration and its associated foods. Tesco Southall community champion Madhu Rana, who has worked for the company for almost 35 years, said the store's approach has "changed quite a lot in that time". She said that now there are "huge varieties" of products. "You can get each and every thing for your Diwali festival," she said. Southall Tesco store manager Nick Constable said its Diwali offering gives customers choice Store manager Nick Constable said the supermarket also has special aisles for Diwali, Ramadan and Christmas. "It's a combination of all the diversities of all the religions," he said. "With the independent businesses, they do their own products and they cook on site as well. "We do the packaged versions of all of those sort of things, so it gives the customer that choice across all the products." 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 Volunteers sort boxes of toys that were purchased by the T&G Santa Fund to be distributed to needy children, last year at the Salvation Army in Worcester. It wasn't long after I arrived at the Telegram & Gazette last year that I learned about the T&G Santa Fund. And not long after that, I was at The Salvation Army along with members of the United Way of Central Massachusetts and other volunteers, sorting mountains of toys meant for children in need throughout the region. It was a morning full of smiles and a great illustration of what the Worcester community stands for. Dating back to 1938, T&G Santa is now in its 85th year. It's a legacy that makes all of us here at the T&G proud. The United Way is our indispensable partner in this effort, connecting us with local community service organizations to identify families in need. Here's what Tim Garvin, the president and CEO of the United Way, says about T&G Santa: Our United Way loves everything about the T&G Santa. Partnership between the United Way and the T&G. Partnership between individuals and businesses and companies and organizations. ALL of us together working to bring joy and hope to the children and families of Central Massachusetts. Last year, the the fund provided holiday gifts to more than 6,901 local children whose families struggle to provide the kind of joyous holiday that many of us take for granted. That was up significantly from the prior year. This year, the number will be 7,813 local children, served by 20 different agencies. (In the coming months, we'll be publishing stories about the work that some of these agencies do, and why T&G Santa is important to them.) Today, we are marking the kickoff of our annual T&G fundraising drive. It is customary for the T&G editor to write a column at this time, reminding readers about the program and urging them to donate. A restored sleigh that once promoted the T&G Santa Fund was on display in the lobby of the Mercantile Center at 100 Front St., the current home of the T&G newsroom, last year. This year, that message is more urgent than ever. For while the number of children we serve has gone up in recent years, the pace of donations has not kept up. We are committed to saying yes to all 7,813 children who are looking for our help this holiday season. We need our readers to come through to ensure that we can do the same next year, or else we may be faced with difficult choices. Many, many of our readers have shown their generosity in the recent past, in all sorts of ways. There are big, longtime supporters, like Steven Russell Bott, who gave $3,300 last year in honor of POWs and MIAs, and $3,300 in honor of his late father, George. Philanthropist Mary DeFeudis, who gave $2,000. Warren D. Bock gave $1,000 in honor of his grandchildren. There are companies such as Greenberg, Rosenblatt, Kull & Bitsoli PC, a Worcester accounting firm that contributed $1,750; Lamoureux Ford of East Brookfield and Osterman Management LLC, which each gave $1,000. There are civic groups, like the Retired Men's Club of Greendale, whose members contributed $1,452. There were the students at Burncoat Middle School who raised $825, and students at Sutton Middle School who raised $678 and were rewarded with a lunchtime singing performance from their teachers. Social studies teacher and class adviser Casey Cummins sings a Christmas song while students eat lunch at the Sutton Middle School Dec. 22, 2022. Ad there are many, many others who gave contributions of $100, $50, $25 and even $5. Many of them chose to do so anonymously under the name "Santa's Helper." We're grateful for all of them, and we'd be very grateful if once again our readers would step up to make sure this program remains sustainable in the years to come. I'm confident that they will. Here are the ways you can donate: Go to telegram.com/santa to make a contribution using your credit cards. Print and complete the coupon at telegram.com/santa, and bring along with your donation to any Commerce Bank in Worcester. Print and complete the coupon and mail a check or money order to Telegram & Gazette Santa Fund, c/o Berkshire Bank, PO Box 15020, Worcester, MA 01615-0020. Michael McDermott is executive editor of the Telegram & Gazette. This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: T&G Santa Fund starts 85th year of donating toys to needy children LAS VEGAS (KLAS) Thousands lined the streets of Downtown Las Vegas to attend what organizers bill as the largest Veterans Day parade west of the Mississippi River. I was most proud that he served. He worked on airplanes, Marsha McCallum said of her father. McCallum was in attendance on Saturday with her family, waiving the American flag to the floats and marchers passing by. Hes kind of disabled now, hes not like he used to be when I was younger, McCallum said getting emotional. So, I kind of missed the way he used to be. Her father spent 21 years in the U.S. Air Force. Although he wouldve loved to be at the parade, McCallum said she came in his place to honor veterans. They sacrificed for us, so we have the freedom we have today to vote and go to church, she said. Fredrick James Smith was also at the parade. Originally from Brooklyn, hes proud of his time in the U.S. Navy and taking part in Desert Storm. He has his battle tours stitched into his jacket. Once you sign up and you take that oath of enlistment for your country, all fears go away, Smith said. This was the Downtown parades 29th year, it was canceled in 2020 during the pandemic. Edward Weaver of VFW Post 983 was handing out poppy flowers to the crowd. Theres a lot of participation and patriotism here in Las Vegas, Weaver said. The poppy is a symbol of what paying the ultimate sacrifice looks like. At the end of World War I at Flanders Field because of all the deaths and everything else that was going on at that time, the poppies actually sprang up at Flanders Field, Weaver said. What also rose from the ashes was the generation of Americans ready to serve, like 21-year-old Hector Lopez-Martinez, who enlisted two years ago as a Navy reservist. I wanted to give back to the country Im currently living in, even though what I do isnt much. Its better than nothing, Lopez-Martinez said. Lopez-Martinez is now part of a small club, as its estimated only one percent of Americans currently serve. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. The Israeli-Hamas war has come to Rhode Island. With three events here hitting national news. A Providence councilman got canned from his State House job after tweets blaming Israel. The Providence City Council called for a cease-fire in Gaza. And 20 Jewish students at Brown were arrested for a pro-Palestinian sit-in. They all have one thing in common besides calling Israel the bad guy. They were AWOL after the Oct. 7 Hamas slaughter. Murdered Jews? Babies as hostages? Who cares. But once Israel responded time for righteous protest. First, lets talk about Gov. Dan McKee firing Providence City Councilman Miguel Sanchez from his day-job in constituent services after pro-Palestinian tweets. Sanchez seems an impressive guy, the city's first Mexican-American councilman, caring about marginalized communities. But Miguel, I went through your tweets, and timewise, they put you in the hall of shame of those who on Oct. 7 itself, hours after the most bloodthirsty slaughter of Jews in 75 years, blamed Israel. Providence City Councilman Miguel Sanchez, center, fired from his job in Gov. Dan McKee's constituent affairs office, joins marchers at Thursday's Free Palestine protest at Textron in downtown Providence. Posting this: We must demand the respect of all human rights, especially the Palestinian people who faced atrocities for decades and at the same time condemn all attacks on civilians. You paired that with a statement by a Texas congressional candidate basically saying the murdered Jews brought it on themselves. And no, it doesnt count to add a bland condemnation of all attacks on civilians as an afterthought. Not when you ironically accuse Israel of atrocities on the very day 1,400 butchered Jewish bodies lie on the ground. And sir, you still have a tweet up claiming that Israel bombed Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza, killing 500 people. The U.S. government has debunked that. The false claim was so inflammatory it made targets of U.S. service people in the region. Its not OK to still have that up on your feed. On Nov. 3, Providence made national headlines again when the City Council called for a cease-fire. Its statement strived to sound evenhanded saying they care about lives on both sides and all that. But if Providences council feels it should speak on foreign affairs where was the resolution after Oct. 7 decrying the butchering of Jews? Nor in this resolution did they call for a return of the hostages. That's a disgrace. The mentality is clear. A Hamas pogrom wasnt worth condemning but Israel fighting back? Good heavens. Time for the council to demand a cease-fire. Finally, lets get to the protesters arrested at Brown. Why, you may ask, would Jewish students stage a campus sit-in accusing Israel of genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid, which they did, while ignoring Oct. 7? Of course, many Jews are simply against Israel's invasion of Gaza, but in this case, I see two other things going on. More Patinkin: I've seen the faces of Gazan Palestinians. They haven't been forgotten First, theres an old tale about the proud Jew and the ghetto Jew in 1900 about to be executed during a pogrom and told to put on blindfolds. The proud Jew throws his blindfold down and says hell face his killers. The ghetto Jew tells him, Put it on, dont make trouble. I see a modern version of that mentality on campus, with Jewish students desperate to curry favor with their majority pro-Palestinian peers. Which brings up the second reason for the sit-in its generational. Students in 2023 have bought into the cult of seeing the world in terms of oppressor and oppressed, with Israel deemed the ultimate fascist state. Why? The hate-Israel crowd, including the arrested Jewish Brown students, use three main labels. Apartheid. Genocide. Ethnic cleansing. Im not sure what theyre teaching at Brown these days, but its not history. Apartheid? Of Israels 9 million population, 2 million are Arabs with full citizenship, 10 sitting in Parliament, one on the Supreme Court and countless doctors and professionals. More Patinkin: His niece murdered, her son shielded beneath her body: A family's final moments in Israel Genocide? Its terrible that thousands have been killed in Gaza. But genocide is hundreds of thousands recently killed in Syria, Yemen and Libya by Arab dictators and militias. Not a peep about that. But when 9,000 or so are tragically killed in Gaza in a war Hamas started now thats genocide. As for ethnic cleansing there were hundreds of thousands of Palestinians when Israel was created in 1948. Now there are 7 million. Doesn't sound like ethnic cleansing to me, but Ill tell you what is. That same year, there were 800,000 Jews in countries like Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Jordan and Lebanon. Now virtually none. They were either murdered or driven out. I guess none of that is worth condemning. Just as Oct. 7 wasnt worth condemning soon afterward by Brown student groups, Miguel Sanchez and the Providence City Council. But now that Israel has responded? And Jews have fought back? How dare they. mpatinki@providencejournal.com This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Providence pro-Palestinian make national news. What Patinkin thinks. Right now its impossible to get the horrific pictures out of our minds. Footage of Israeli civilians of all ages butchered in cold blood by leering terrorists who then drag the living back to Gaza as terrified hostages, interspersed with scenes of massive explosions and the resultant destruction with desperate Palestinians digging out survivors and grieving over dead family members, crushed or blown to smithereens. In the midst of such hellscapes its easy to overlook that the conflict has global ramifications with those involved, the region, and major powers pursuing diametrically opposite goals and outcomes. So, following is a very broad overview of who wants what out of the current conflict, and beyond. Nagy Hamas is a terrorist organization and Iranian proxy whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel and its replacement with an Islamic Palestinian state. As with other extremists, civilian deaths whether Jewish or Muslim - matter nothing to them. Beyond advancing its main goal of wiping Israel off the map, Hamas likely undertook the October 7 savagery to evoke an Israeli response which would turn global sympathies away from Israel and toward Palestinians and stop or reverse Israels recent successes in opening relations with Arab nations through the Abraham Accords. As with previous Gaza conflicts, Hamas plans to survive to fight another day. Israels goals are both immediate and longer term. As quickly as possible, Israel seeks to recover its hostages while at the same time destroying Hamas as an organization, recognizing that time is not on its side. Every day the conflict goes on, the worlds sympathies tilt more and more towards the Palestinians. In addition, Prime Minister Netanyahu no doubt would like to survive politically which seems less and less likely. The US is in a very tough spot. Its in our national DNA to support Israel, which we will do. But we also have to free US hostages, persuade Israel to minimize civilian casualties, try and prevent the conflict from spreading, and do everything possible to keep global public opinion from turning ever more hostile towards America. An incredibly difficult set of objectives. The Egyptian government detests Hamas as much as Israel does, but it must tread carefully, given its peoples sympathies towards Palestinians. Under no circumstances will Egypt allow large numbers of Gazans to seek refuge in Egypt since Egypt already has its own extremist problem in the Sinai, which borders Gaza. Nor will Egypt accept taking charge of Gaza once the conflict ends. The Palestinians in the West Bank, under the partial authority of the ossified, corrupt Palestinian Authority (PA) have a great deal of sympathy for their co-nationals in Gaza. They are also greatly frustrated and angry by the Netanyahu governments support for expanding Israeli settlements as well as settler belligerence. The longer the Gaza conflict goes on, the greater the likelihood of the West Bank also erupting in more organized violence. Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militant group, also under Irans tutelage, shares Hamas goal of destroying the Jewish state and fought a month-long war with Israel in 2006. But Hezbollah is constrained by Lebanons internal politics. The country is a total economic and political disaster, and while Hezbollah is the strongest armed force in Lebanon, it cannot totally alienate the Lebanese state and people by unleashing a war which would further devastate that country. In addition, US warships in the Eastern Mediterranean present a formidable deterrent. But if the Gaza conflict drags on and Palestinian casualties mount Hezbollah may feel forced to mount an all-out attack. Iran stands to benefit most from the conflict. Its goals are straightforward: hurt Israel as much as possible; dimmish US influence around the world most especially in Islamic countries; and reverse the Abraham Accords which greatly expanded Israels ties with the Arab world. Russia and China also stand to benefit from the current conflict. Each wants to see Americas influence lessened and world opinion turned against us, and their own influence grow as part of a larger campaign to build a new global order. As for helping end the conflict, neither will exert much energy beyond high-minded statements and meaningless offers to serve as good-faith mediators. Arab governments, like Egypt, detest Hamas privately but must support them publicly. While they are authoritarian states, the leaders still must respect their peoples passions, and the Arab Street passionately supports the Palestinian cause. An exception is Quatar which has relations with all Arab states and Iran, hosts some of Hamas leadership, and maintains unofficial contacts with Israel. Quatar has served as a mediator in several conflicts and is engaged in current negotiations to free hostages. If something cannot go on forever, it will stop is a famous maxim which also applies to the current Gaza war. (Gaza, BTW, is almost exactly the size of Lubbock.) No one knows when or how, but there are several certainties regarding when the conflict ends. Israel cannot allow Hamas to survive as an organization, much less remain in control of Gaza although its ideology will live on until there is an overall resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian dilemma. Neither can Israel take charge of Gaza when the war ends that would be the biggest of poison pills. Ditto for Egypt as noted above. The PA would be a viable alternative, if they had any competence or trust from Palestinians; they have neither. Its also unlikely that a single Arab state, or a coalition, would accept responsibility for Gaza. And hopefully this will be one global mission the US also stays away from. So, is there a solution to finding some authority to take charge of Gaza until an eventual Israeli-Palestinian agreement finally brings peace to the region, if ever such an event will happen? Here is one out-of-the box suggestion. Turkish President Erdogan has put himself forth as the champion of Moslems and has threatened to send the Turkish army against Israel in the current conflict. How about giving Turkiye a United Nations mandate to govern Gaza when the conflict ends? After all, the region was under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire for centuries, so bringing them back may be the least awful plan for the day after! Ambassador Tibor Nagy was most recently Assistant Secretary of State for Africa after serving as Texas Techs Vice Provost for International Affairs and a 30-year career as a US Diplomat. Follow him on Twitter @TiborPNagyJr This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Tibor Nagy column who wants what out of the Israel Gaza War The tigress was very frightened by the explosion A tigress was seriously injured after a Russian missile attack on Kyiv on Nov. 11, the Wildlife Rescue Center reported on its Instagram page this morning. The tigress, named Tigrulia, injured her hind limbs and spine after falling in shock amid several loud explosions. "Tigrulia was seriously injured after the mornings explosions near us. She hit the grate in shock, fell down, and still can't get up," the center said. "We are waiting for the doctors' decision on how to proceed." The rest of the animals at the center were physically uninjured but experienced severe stress as a result of the attack. Several loud explosions occurred in Kyiv on Nov. 11. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that the explosions were recorded in the citys eastern districts. Read also: Three injured as Russian launches massive Armistice Day drone and missile attack across Ukraine He later clarified that the air defense forces were operating near Kyiv and that there were no rescue calls, but that there were several calls for medical assistance. Eighteen private houses were damaged in the morning Russian missile attack, the Kyiv Regional Military Administration stated in a subsequent report. Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron! Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine NAIROBI, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Kenya is grappling with the aftermath of floods caused by ongoing El Nino rains that have killed at least 38 people and displaced about 30,000 across the east African country in the last two weeks, according to the Kenya Red Cross (KRC). The most affected are residents in arid and semi-arid areas like Tana River, Makueni, Wajir, Isiolo, Marsabit and Mandera counties, who were still recovering from the effects of the worst drought in 40 years. In Tana River County, River Tana broke its banks and flooded homes, farms, schools and places of worship, displacing hundreds of residents, who have sought refuge along the roadside waiting for the water levels to subside. A similar situation has engulfed Garissa County, where businesses, farms and homes are submerged, disrupting lives. "Our business premises have been flooded for the last three days after heavy rains. We are stranded and sources of livelihoods have been cut off," Jacob Otieno, a mechanic, told a local television station. The KRC put the number of those displaced by floods in the main town at 2,000, and across Garissa County at 20,000, a majority of the people currently living in camps. Mohammed Abdikadir, KRC regional manager, said the number of those affected is growing faster. "We are facing a humanitarian crisis as thousands in northern Kenya are in need of assistance. The number is growing faster as rains continue," Abdikadir told the local television station, adding that in some areas, road access has been completely cut off by floods, marooning entire communities. The KRC noted that 18 counties out of the 47 in Kenya have been affected by the floods. In Isiolo County, hundreds of residents have lost their livestock that include goats and sheep, to raging floods, which also rendered them homeless. It is a double tragedy for the residents in the county and others like Makueni in eastern Kenya, who were rebuilding their lives after a prolonged drought that ended in April. Some 2 million animals, including goats, sheep, cows and camels, died during the drought, according to the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA). In its October report, the NDMA said at least 2.8 million people in 23 regions that were severely hit by drought were still in need of food assistance. The number had declined from the initial 4.4 million due to heavy rainfall recorded during the March-May season, which boosted food production. The NDMA had expected conditions in the arid areas to improve with the onset of the October-to-December rainy season. However, with the ongoing heavy rains, the situation is likely to worsen as the crisis transitions from drought to floods. As the rains grow in intensity, more areas are expected to be affected, leading to more deaths, destruction and displacements. "Heavy rainfall from #ElNino is causing widespread flooding in Kenya, disrupting essential services & endangering lives. @KenyaRedCross is providing relief, but urgent humanitarian assistance is needed due to the threat of further flooding," the International Federation of Red Cross Africa said in a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. Kilifi County at the coast and Budalangi, in Busia, western Kenya, are among areas that are on high alert due to possible flooding. Kenya has formed a National Emergency Response Committee to attend to the flood crisis. "Working with our development partners, counties, and other key agencies, we are distributing food and non-food items to tens of families affected to reduce their suffering," Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua said on Friday. Kenya and neighboring Ethiopia and Somalia are among the countries in the Horn of Africa predicted to experience heavy rains and flooding between October and December, affecting millions of people. The IFRC noted that with 146 million people across 23 African countries already facing prolonged hunger, the heavy rains from El Nino intensify the threat. The following is a transcript of an interview with Isaac Herzog, President of Israel, that aired on Nov. 12, 2023. MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, who joins us from Jerusalem. Good afternoon to you, sir. PRESIDENT OF ISRAEL ISAAC HERZOG: Good morning, Margaret. MARGARET BRENNAN: Your country lost 1,200 of its civilian citizens on October the seventh. And I know, you're still reeling from that. But what we're seeing in Gaza right now with Hamas, and this concentration of very intense fighting around Al-Shifa Hospital. If that is indeed Hamas' command center does that mean this war ends if you take control of it? PRESIDENT HERZOG: Well, the war we've- we've taken on against Hamas is a war which matters to the entire well- being and safety of the world, I would say. And therefore, our main aim at this stage following the atrocities we've gone through on October 7 is to uproot the capability of Hamas. It doesn't end in Shifa Hospital. They're based all throughout Gaza. Unfortunately, they're based in a- in a whole city underneath, with billions of dollars being spent underneath the cities of Gaza. By the way, with a lot of taxpayers' money from the West, which went in to rebuild Gaza, following the pull-out of Israel in 2005. And that's why it will take a long drawn-out operation. MARGARET BRENNAN: I know you have personally met with many of the families of the roughly 240 hostages being held by Hamas and other terror groups. Can you explain why Israel is reportedly now considering releasing Palestinian women and children from your prisons in exchange for some of these hostages held by Hamas? PRESIDENT HERZOG: So first of all, I must tell you on a personal level, that it's- it's heartbreaking and tormenting. Truly tormenting. What can you tell a father whose wife and kids are out there and nobody knows their whereabouts. And everybody can think about their, his or her family and understand how, how painful this is. Therefore, I don't want to give any illusions. Qatar is trying to mediate, so is Egypt. In order to get a humanitarian release of- of some of the hostages, we demand all the hostages. That's the worldwide demand. But there are- there are talks, of course, behind the scenes. I cannot confirm any details. What I can say is that there is nothing substantial right now on the table. The United States is also heavily involved in this. So there's nothing tangible that I can report. We all hope and pray that there will be progress. And we are using all tools possible in order to bring about the release of the hostages as soon as possible. MARGARET BRENNAN: I asked because in the past, Israel has flatly refused that Hamas proposal to release Palestinians from prison. Are you saying that's a false report? PRESIDENT HERZOG: It's not the same. It's not the same. The report doesn't say that Israel is willing to release murderers who are sentenced for life sentence, or murderers who have butchered time and again Israelis of all ages of all professions, and all- and innocent people. In my speech in Congress to a joint session of the House in July, mid-July, I said that the entire problem with the peace process in the region is terror. Terror is undermining the entire ability to move forward. The- all of those who remember decades of trying to make peace with our neighbors know that we can make peace with those who adhere to the agreements and fight terror. Unfortunately, a nation which supports and hails terror cannot be a partner and we've seen the atrocious results. Let me give you an example. So, this is Adolf Hitler's book, Mein Kampf in Arabic. Adolf Hitler, the- of course the- how do I say the monster that led to World War II and the Holocaust which is the worst atrocity in modern times. Adolf Hitler's book is here, which was found amidst in the hands of one of these terrorists in a house, in a living room of children, which were turned into a Hamas base. That's what we're dealing with day in, day out. This is extremely painful and unfortunate. And therefore, when you say, "release this, release that", first and foremost, we have to know that we get our hostages back. And secondly, what was reported, as you mentioned, what had to do with women and children, which is- I can't confirm it but I can say it has nothing to do with these criminals, these murderers that are deep in Israeli jails for many, many years. MARGARET BRENNAN: I understand, and the United States of America considers Hamas to be a terrorist organization and has for decades. They are very clear on that. But as you just mentioned, you have long been an advocate for peace with the Palestinians. But there are many in the current government who before October 7, were not and do not favor two states for two people. Do you still believe that is the way ultimately to have peace? PRESIDENT HERZOG: So, I'll speak very honestly and frankly, because I know- I don't shy away from my beliefs, which I presented when I was a political leader in the Israeli political arena. I'm currently the President of Israel, head of state, the executive powers lie with a government which is headed by Benjamin Netanyahu. But let's also be honest and think whether an average Israeli citizen who seeks security, first and foremost for him, for his kids, for his parents, for his loved ones. Why would anybody agree right now to any progress when our neighbors, when we don't see, truly, their ability to fight terror? And many, many of them, including those in Gaza, are hailing and smiling and celebrating in the most atrocious way, the world's greatest atrocity, almost, since World War II. May I also add and tell you that part of the whole issue is that it's kind of a culture that celebrates these awful atrocities-- MARGARET BRENNAN: -- Which culture? PRESIDENT HERZOG: -- These atrocities cannot be agreed- accepted in any way it means. It has nothing to do with the conflict. It has nothing to do with the borders, with settlements, or anything. This is simple. Simple, clear, barbarism, Jew hate, other hate, which is advocated by ISIS, Hamas, al Qaeda. Which if we weren't here, then Europe would be next and probably the United States is the end game for all of them. MARGARET BRENNAN: I understand. And I'm not discounting in any way, antisemitism around the globe, which is on the rise. When it comes specifically, though, to the long-term security of the democratic and Jewish state of Israel, it sounds like you have lost some hope for that peace process. But I wonder, given what you are seeing happen in Gaza right now and the wish you have for security for your people, aren't you concerned that more individuals will be radicalized by the level of civilian casualties right now? PRESIDENT HERZOG: So we have to, we have to think about the horizon. And our- our war in Gaza. Its outcome- if we eradicate the capabilities of Hamas, we give hope to the Palestinians in Gaza to- to run their life decently, as we've expected in their courts we had with the Palestinians. We enabled the Palestinian Authority to take control of Gaza and they lost it. They lost it to a brutal coup of Hamas in 2007. But the issue is I kept on asking President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority in- on numerous occasions. Would you go in if Israel takes Hamas out? And he said no. Now I don't know exactly where he's at, and if they're even capable of doing so. But one thing is clear, we first and foremost have to give safety and security to Israel. And I think a lot of the ideas that will be worked out afterwards will be dependent on their ability to produce safety and security for Israel. And by the way for the Palestinians as well. I don't shy away from it. And I believe that all nations in the region would like to get to that moment because the trajectory, after all, the historic trajectory is the inclusion of Israel in the region, and normalization with its neighbors and the whole atrocious campaign, this sadism and barbarism, first and foremost has to do with eradicating Israel, but also undermining, and of course, stopping this process of normalization in the region. MARGARET BRENNAN: Understood. Even the United States government says that death toll of 11,000 Palestinians may be an undercount. They say they can't separate civilians from Hamas fighters, but it's still a tremendous amount of death. So, given that, how can you say with certainty that Israel's military and intelligence is hitting the right targets right now? That the dying that is happening is necessary and helpful to your security? PRESIDENT HERZOG: I thank you for this question. First of all, because I want to express my utter pain and sorrow for any innocent casualty on the Palestinian side. We are doing our utmost according to international humanitarian law. First and foremost, we alert people. Well, I mean, what's the story here? The enemy, these terrorists fought and tried to kill us and send missiles and terrorists from their homes. So, we have to go to these homes. And we have to blow up all their infrastructure, tunnel, missiles, everything. So we go and we send leaflets, we call and we phone and we send text messages to all the civilians in that area. We tell them move out, we give them time to move out. And we've opened humanitarian corridors, and we have increased dramatically the humanitarian aid to those who are moving out to the safety zone. Unfortunately, there could be casualties. Some of them are also by Hamas fire ,and their reporting and the numbers are unclear to me. But- but I'm saying outright, we are doing our best. In conjunction with the United States, we are listening very carefully to the United States government, to the White House, to our friends in the United States, and of course, to our friends around the world. And we are trying our best to mitigate the damage for honest- for innocent civilians, or uninvolved participants in this battle. But sometimes things can happen. It happened also to the US led coalition in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, these things happen, and we are sorry for it. But at the end of the day, we have to uproot that infrastructure, because we have to defend ourselves according to our right and duty to defend our people. MARGARET BRENNAN: President Herzog, thank you for your time. We'll be back in a moment. The Woolly Worm Festival, inching to predict winter's weather The effect of gender disparities on men President Isaac Herzog says Israel is "doing our utmost according to international humanitarian law" The following is a transcript of an interview with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan that aired on Nov. 12, 2023. MARGARET BRENNAN: We're joined now by White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. Jake, welcome back to the program. The fighting seems very intense in and around Gaza. Doctors Without Borders has called on the Israeli government to, quote, end its unrelenting assault on Gaza's health system. Does the U.S. believe that this is an accurate description of what's happening? Is the U.S. telling Israel not to hit hospitals? NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR JAKE SULLIVAN: Well, Margaret, without getting into intelligence information, we can just look at the open source reporting that Hamas is using hospitals, as it uses many other civilian facilities, for command and control, for weapons storage, to house its fighters. And this is a violation of the laws of war. That being said, Margaret, the United States does not want to see firefights in hospitals, where innocent people, patients receiving medical care, are caught in the crossfire, and we've had active consultations with the Israeli Defense Forces on this. In fact, just yesterday, the Israeli Defense Forces themselves said that they- on the record, publicly, said that they are looking for ways to be able to ensure the safety and security of individual patients in those hospitals, while they also try to figure out a way to deal with the fact that Hamas is operating in a way that's outside the bound- bounds of any civilized concept of how you would think about using a hospital, using human shields. So it's an active conversation, but the bottom line is, we don't want to see firefights in hospitals. MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay. You don't dispute, then, the Israeli assertion that Hamas has a command center underneath Al Shifa Hospital. JAKE SULLIVAN: I'm not going to get into a specific assertion related to a specific hospital because that would be getting into intelligence matters. But, broadly speaking, we can see from open source reporting, that there is a track record, a pattern, of Hamas historically and in this conflict using hospitals and other civilian facilities for these purposes. MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about the hostages, roughly 240, still being held by Hamas. We had the opportunity to speak with Congressman Mike McCaul from Israel where he had just met with the Israeli prime minister. And he told us that Israel is considering Hamas's proposal that Israel release Palestinian women and children from prison in order to obtain the hostages held by Hamas. Is that something the U.S. thinks should happen? JAKE SULLIVAN: Well, Margaret, you'll understand if I'm very careful in how I answer this question, because the negotiations are delicate, they're high stakes. What is at stake is the recovery of a significant number of innocent people, including innocent Americans, currently being held hostage by Hamas, a murderous terrorist organization. It is the case that there are active negotiations underway between Israel and Qatar, who is communicating with Hamas, and the United States is involved in those discussions, very much involved in those discussions. But I'm not going to get into the specifics of what's on the table, only to say that we are actively working to ensure the safe return of every American being held hostage and every other person being held hostage by Hamas. MARGARET BRENNAN: There are still roughly 400 Americans stuck in Gaza, according to the State Department, will they get out? JAKE SULLIVAN: We are determined to ensure that they get out. Many have gotten out. Many are still there, as you mentioned, not just American citizens, but also their immediate family members. And we're trying to create a circumstance where every one of them can get safe passage out of Gaza. The gate has been open and closed. The lists have included Americans some days and not other days. But the bottom line is today the gate is open. We are moving American citizens and their family members out and in the days ahead. We hope to ensure that every American who wants to leave Gaza is able to do so safely. MARGARET BRENNAN: Jake, this past week, a top State Department official testified to Congress that the Gaza health ministry's estimates of 11,000 Palestinian dead may in fact be an undercount. Does the White House share that assessment? JAKE SULLIVAN: We don't have fidelity on the numbers of casualties, fatalities in Gaza. We don't know how many are fighters and how many are innocent civilians. But as I have said before, and as Secretary Blinken has said before, we do know there are thousands of innocent civilians who have been killed in the military operations that began after October 7. And every loss of life of an innocent person whether it's Palestinian, Israeli, anyone is an absolute tragedy and we grieve for every one of those lives and we continue to reinforce the proposition that Israel has the right indeed the responsibility to go after Hamas who continues to represent a threat to the State of Israel. But it must do so in a way that's consistent with the laws of war. MARGARET BRENNAN: And Secretary Blinken also said too many Palestinians had died to date. I want to zero in on the future, which I know you have talked about from day one, what will happen in Gaza next, and you've pressed the Israeli Government on this point. Secretary Blinken has been clear that it's the West Bank and Gaza that needs to be under unified control, and the Palestinian- Palestinian Authority likely to govern that. It doesn't sound like the Netanyahu government is on the same page as the Biden administration because the prime minister said something very different just yesterday. JAKE SULLIVAN: Well, from our perspective, the way forward- the basic principles of the way forward are straightforward, and this is something that Secretary Blinken laid out publicly this past week. No reoccupation of Gaza, no forcible displacement of the Palestinian people. Gaza can never be used as a base for terrorism in the future and Gaza's territory should not be reduced. Secretary Blinken also said that ultimately, we do want to see the reconnection, the reunification of control between the West Bank and Gaza under Palestinian leadership. The Palestinian Authority is the current leadership on the West Bank. But ultimately, it's gonna be up to the Palestinian people to decide their future, who governs them and the United States will support a process-- MARGARET BRENNAN: --There haven't been elections held in ages. JAKE SULLIVAN: Well, that's right, Margaret, there haven't been elections held since the early 2000s. But post October 7, we can't go back to the way things were on October 6. And that goes for ensuring that Hamas cannot represent a continuing threat to Israel. And in fact, Hamas spokespeople have said they want to repeat October 7 again and again, until Israel is wiped out, that they want to be in a permanent state of war with Israel. That was on the front page of The New York Times out of the mouth of a Hamas spokesman. So Israel is going to prosecute this campaign against a terrorist group. But we also can't go back to October 6 when it comes to governance, and it will ultimately be up to or should be up to the Palestinian people to decide what their future governance looks like. And that should involve a reconnection, as Secretary Blinken has said, of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. MARGARET BRENNAN: Jake, before I let you go, I have to ask you about this significant summit between President Xi Jinping of China and President Biden that's about to take place. There still is no defense minister officially since the last one was removed or disappeared. What does reestablishing military ties actually look like? And are you confident you can get that done this week? JAKE SULLIVAN: Well, this has been a priority for President Biden. He believes that having military-to-military communication is necessary to manage competition responsibly, and to ensure that competition does not turn into conflict. And we need those lines of communication so that there aren't mistakes or miscalculations or miscommunication. And so that could take place at every level from the senior leadership of our defense department and their defense ministry, all the way down to the tactical operational level, on the water and in the air in the Indo Pacific. I'm not going to get ahead of any announcements that the President might make coming out of the meeting. But I will say the President is determined to see the reestablishment of military-to-military ties because he believes it's in the US national security interest. MARGARET BRENNAN: And will the President ask him to stop buying Iranian oil on the cheap, given what Iran is doing to U.S. troops in the region? JAKE SULLIVAN: Well, the United States has sanctions imposed on Iran's sales of oil, those sanctions have been in place for years now. And we have only strengthened them in the Biden administration in terms of the number and types of sanctions that have been put in place. And certainly, the question of Iran's nuclear program and the threat it poses will be on the agenda, as will the threat that Iran poses to regional stability, and the threat it poses to U.S. forces in the region. MARGARET BRENNAN: Jake Sullivan, thank you for your time, Face the Nation will be back in one minute. Stay with us. Nature: Fall foliage in Minnesota Honoring America's war dead overseas Dr. Tim Johnson on a middle-ground in abortion debate The following is a transcript of an interview with Rep. Michael McCaul, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, that aired on Nov. 12, 2023. MARGARET BRENNAN: We're joined now by the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Texas Republican Mike McCaul. He is in Tel Aviv this morning. Good morning to you, Congressman. REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL: Oh, good morning. Thanks- thanks, Margaret. MARGARET BRENNAN: I know you're wrapping up what has been a pretty quick and busy trip to Israel. You met with Prime Minister Netanyahu. Did you get a sense that his government is close to wrapping up this military operation? REP. MCCAUL: No, I don't think so. I think it's, you know, the air's for ice. I think the ground game is just now starting. And I will say, Margaret, when we walked in, the first thing we saw was the horrific Hamas video showing the gruesome killings of these barbaric terrorists. And it was a very intense, kind of powerful, moment. You know, the Prime Minister was in tears, really teary eyed about what happened. And you remember, this is sort of like their 9/11. And they- they want to eliminate the threat, as they should. And I think we talked a lot about the ground game, operations, humanitarian. And we also met with the Minister of Defense as well. MARGARET BRENNAN: You just raised humanitarian aid. I know, the US is the largest donor to the UN Relief Agency that operates inside of Gaza. Many in the Republican caucus do not support any aid going to them or to Palestinians, even Palestinian civilians living in Gaza. Do you believe that the aid package going through Congress needs to include this kind of help? REP. MCCAUL: Well, I do and I think the Israelis do as well. I think, you know, I talked about this with the Prime Minister, Minister of Defense, and what they're doing essentially, Margaret, is in the military sense, surrounding the city of Gaza, to bring them out of the tunnels and eliminate the threat, rescue hostages, innocent civilians. They have put a buffer zone in the middle of Gaza to create this humanitarian zone in southern Gaza. They opened up the Rafah gate, that's Egypt, about 100 trucks a day are coming in, but it has to be like food, water and medicine. It can't be fuel, because Hamas can use that to light their tunnels and operate them. The Israelis are bringing in fuel for the hospitals. And I think as this thing progresses, you're gonna see more of a secure humanitarian zone in the south of Gaza. And I hope the Gulf states that have the wherewithal can also help in this effort. I think they bear a great responsibility as well. MARGARET BRENNAN: There are still roughly 400 Americans stuck inside of Gaza, according to the State Department. Did you get any update on how they're doing? REP. MCCAUL: We did. Very sensitive negotiations with the Qataris - they're kind of the lead broker, if you will, of this negotiation. You know, I'm meeting with, right after this interview, with a bunch of families of the hostages. And I met with them in the United States. Very dicey issue. I think what Hamas wants would be a swap of prisoners in Israel, of Palestinians in exchange for these hostages, both Americans and Palestinians in- in the Gaza. That's an ongoing thing. I hope it can happen. A ceasefire will be very difficult without an agreement to release all hostages. So I don't envision- you know, that- that would be a staged effort. But it is under intense negotiation right now. MARGARET BRENNAN: To be clear, are the Palestinian-Americans who are trapped in Gaza being included in that hostage negotiation? Is that what you're saying as well? REP. MCCAUL: Now this is a- No, I'm sorry, it's the Palestinian Palestinians in in prison in Israel, that are being negotiated, in exchange for prisoners of both Israelis and Americans held kept captive in in Gaza. MARGARET BRENNAN: Understood, so that Hamas proposal is being entertained. Interesting to know that I want to ask you about what Congress can deliver in terms of aid to Israel. Do you think that the new Speaker of the House has the clout necessary with your caucus to move through a package that includes Israel aid, Ukraine aid and other national security items? REP. MCCAUL: Let me just say, walking out of these meetings with the Prime Minister Netanyahu to the Minister of Defense. Our aid to Israel is urgent, and time is of the essence. We have to deliver this package. Now I know that we have offsets. And that's fair. But I don't think we can play political games with this, to support our ally. Because, you know, if they fail, and we fail, it would have a very bad effect across the Middle East. Into Ukraine, that's vitally important as well. So is Taiwan, and so is the last line of defense, the southern border. So really, if you think about all these threats, are really tied together. Now, whether we handle it all together, or separately with, say, Ukrainian, border security, all that has yet to be figured out. But I do know that we have to address this because, you know, time is of the essence on all parts. And lastly, you know, the stage two, if you will CR that the speaker is trying to implement, I think will actually move the process forward. So we can go in regular order. You know, our debt is at $34 trillion. Yeah. And then once we get that done, we can really focus on the emergency national security supplementals. MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, that that deadline in terms of government funding is next week, November 17. Yesterday, the speaker made this proposal, it's kind of an unusual way to do it called "the laddered short term funding deal." The White House says it's just not serious. And it's a waste of time. Are we going to see a government shutdown? REP. MCCAUL: Well, you know, we have the power of the purse. And look, we need- we need more time. The CRs always hurt the military, always hurt our national security. And so the first CR until January, could resolve the four- last four appropriations bills that we can't pass to date. So we could pass those and then have until February to negotiate with the Senate to get this done and put it on the president's desk. That will also-- MARGARET BRENNAN: Right, but first you need the votes to actually pass this. So can Republicans vote together to pass this proposal, this short term funding agreement? REP. MCCAUL: We're gonna have to. I mean, there's no choice here. I mean, the world is on fire from where I sit. It is too, you know, urgent. We can't sit back and do nothing. And talking to Prime Minister Netanyahu, they needed this yesterday in his words. Ukraine needed it yesterday. The border for certainly needed it yesterday. We know that Chairman Xi is threatening Taiwan in the Pacific. Yeah. So you know, I think what the Senate is going to do, they're going to come up with a package, probably after Thanksgiving, that they will send over to the house. MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. And we'll see if that government funding proposal can get passed by next week to avoid that shutdown. Congressman, thank you for joining us from Israel this morning. We'll be right back. The Woolly Worm Festival, inching to predict winter's weather The effect of gender disparities on men Bradley Cooper on "Maestro" Former President Trumps civil trial over his business practices in New York City, where he built his business brand and won international fame, seems to have struck a nerve. Trump, the front-runner for the GOPs presidential nomination next year, is facing charges in Washington, D.C., for his attempts to remain in power after losing the 2020 election; in Georgia for attempting to overturn the states 2020 election results; in New York for an alleged hush money scheme to keep an affair quiet; and in Florida for his retention and handling of classified materials after leaving the White House. But it is the New York fraud case, where prosecutors are alleging decades of fraud by Trump and his businesses, that the former president by all accounts is taking especially personally. The case strikes at the heart of Trumps reputation as a savvy deal-maker and wealthy businessman, which helped propel him into a successful run for the White House in 2016. The case has pitted him against his longtime fixer, Michael Cohen, and it has ensnared his children, who have testified about the family companys practices. Its pretty obvious that its a much more personal case, because it has to do with his business and his family and his brand, said Sean Spicer, who served a stint as Trumps White House press secretary. Trump is the subject of a sweeping civil case in New York alleging decades of fraud by him and his businesses. Judge Arthur Engoron already found Trump liable for fraud, ruling that New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) proved the crux of her case. But the attorney generals office is asking for $250 million in financial penalties and a ban on Trump and his children from serving as officers or directors of New York companies as part of the trial. Although the case may not pose as significant a legal threat as the ones scheduled to go to trial in 2024, it is more personal in certain ways. Its taking place in New York City, where Trump grew up and built his brand in the real estate business. And he is facing significant ramifications for his business, which bears his family name and helped propel him to fame. The case may also be particularly personal for Trump because of who is testifying against him. Cohen Trumps longtime fixer turned antagonist took to the stand in a high-profile appearance that put the two in the same room for the first time in years. Trump testified Monday in a highly combative session, and three of his adult children Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump have also testified. Trump took to social media throughout the trial, complaining that his sons were being PERSECUTED in a political Witch Hunt and at one point told the judge to leave my children alone. Trump on Wednesday complained that his wonderful and beautiful daughter was being brought in to testify after an unsuccessful attempt to avoid taking the stand. And the Trump campaign issued a fundraising solicitation Wednesday with the subject line: Theyre going after my family. No one wants to see their children go through that, and it was tough, but hes very defiant and took over the whole courtroom, senior Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita told CBS News after a Wednesday rally in Florida. The former presidents testimony featured diatribes against the judge and prosecutors in the case, claims that the case against him is politically motivated, and swipes at Forbes Magazine, a sign that Trump remained bothered by the magazine removing him from its billionaires list. Upon leaving the courtroom after his testimony, Trump indicated he felt a personal responsibility to be there. Were taking days and days, and weeks and weeks, and it goes on, and then you look at the outside world and whats happening, Trump told reporters Monday. But of course, theyre getting their wish because I dont have to be here for the most part. But I sort of do have to be here because I want to be here, because its a scam. Trumps frustration has been palpable throughout the trial. He has excoriated James and Engoron on an almost daily basis since the trial began in October. Engoron is a wacko who is having a great time endlessly sanctioning, fining, & pushing around TRUMP, hurting my very good children, & working to damage & defame me for purposes of Interfering with the 2024 Presidential Election, Trump wrote on Truth Social. He has repeatedly called James, who is Black, a racist and argued she is only targeting him to advance her political career. Trumps outbursts prompted Engoron to issue a gag order restricting the former president from speaking about the judges staff. Trump was fined $5,000 for the violation. Lashing out at the judges and prosecutors handling his cases has become a common tactic for Trump, who has repeatedly called special counsel Jack Smith a thug as Smith oversees two federal cases against the former president. Trump often portrays himself as the victim of a corrupt system, even as charges pile up across various jurisdictions, and the New York fraud trial has been no different. While Trump could face far harsher legal consequences if he is found guilty in Washington, D.C., Georgia or Florida next year, the New York trial of the last several weeks has hit him where it hurts. The New York trial seems so personally offensive to Trump, said Rob Stutzman, a California-based GOP strategist. Its demonstrating that hes a fraud. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. After an unquestionable loss to Biden in the 2020 election, Donald Trump bought into a wild and baseless conspiracy theory pushed by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell that he could be reinstated as president before the next election. This revelation comes in ABC News Jonathan Karls upcoming book on the former president, Tired of Winning: Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party. Lindell was spreading a baseless theory that Trump would be back in power by Aug. 13, 2021, vowing that he had alleged terrabytes of evidence proving a grand conspiracy that Chinese hackers perpetuated widespread vote tampering. Needless to say, the evidence never surfaced, and Biden still occupies the White House. Trumps belief that he could magically become president again went beyond his other conspiracy theories, like his claims the election was stolen from him. Months after leaving office, Trump became so obsessed with the theory that even some of his advisors were worried that he truly believed he could return to the White House before the 2024 election. Karl questioned Trump about the conspiracy theory during a phone call in July 2021, a month after Trump posted 2024 or before! in one of his statements on social media. You dont really think theres a way you would get reinstated before the next election? Karl asked. Im not going to explain it to you, Jonathan, because you wouldnt you wouldnt either understand it or write it, Trump said in response, according to audio of the conversation. But months before Trumps July 2021 post, Trump attorney Jenna Ellis refuted the claims, writing in a tweet, The Constitution has only one process for removal of a sitting president: impeachment and conviction. No, President Trump is not going to be reinstated.' Trump became fixated on a far-right and blatantly unconstitutional theory that he could actually be reinstated as president months after Biden's inauguration. @JonKarl shares exclusive new reporting from his new book. https://t.co/R54Ax5g430 pic.twitter.com/RlorAoqQGF This Week (@ThisWeekABC) November 12, 2023 Its rich that Trump believed others were interfering with the election results considering his own attempts to subvert democracy in Georgia and on Jan. 6. As special counsel Jack Smith put it last week, the former president stands alone in American history for his alleged crimes. Also reported in Karls book, Trump appeared to misunderstand an insult from Angela Merkel when the then-German chancellor not-so-subtly compared him to Hitler. She told me that there was only one other political leader who ever got crowds as big as mine, Trump reportedly bragged to a congressman. Trumps campaign is not a fan of the book, telling Politico in a statement that Karls filth either belongs in the discount bargain bin in the fiction section of the bookstore or should be repurposed as toilet paper. More from Rolling Stone Best of Rolling Stone Speaking to supporters recently in Kissimmee, Florida, former President Donald Trump offered the American people what might strike some as a hyperbolic warning: I make you this promise as your president. I will restore peace through strength, and yes I am the only one that will prevent World War III because we are very close to World War III. Put aside the question of whether Trump is more likely to be the cause of, rather than our salvation from, an international conflict. The leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination might not be wrong about the peril of the moment we find ourselves in. We appear to be closer to a world war than we have been at any time since the end of the Cold War. We as a nation have been slow to realize this. Yet, we are even slower to understand that the chances of such a conflict rise the more divided the American people are at home. The danger of global conflagration demands that Americans take toxic polarization far more seriously than we ever have before. What is the reality of the moment we are in? Two analyses must be brought to bear on this question: one is geopolitical, the other domestic. With respect to our international circumstances, we must understand that the world is already at war. Counting the wars involving Ukraine and Russia, and Israel and Hamas, the Council on Foreign Relations' Global Conflict Tracker identifies more than 25 ongoing conflicts, ranging from brutal civil wars in Sudan and Yemen to the tense and dangerous standoff between China and Taiwan. War is a fact of life in the world. That it tends not to touch the daily lives of most Americans is a testament to the great safety and privilege most of us enjoy living in the United States. In World War I and World War II, major military powers, with strong coalitions on both sides, engaged in prolonged conflicts that became global in scale in part because of existing alliances. In 2023, our geopolitical moment carries echoes of the strategic alliances that helped lead to World War I as well as the ideological tensions that helped to set off World War II. The free world isn't free of guilt: Blame Hamas for attacking Israel, but wars do not happen in isolation. Just consider Ukraine. Broadly speaking, the United States, its NATO allies and democracies such as Japan, South Korea and Israel line up on one side of a vast ideological divide. On the other side are China and Russia along with Iran and its proxy terrorist organizations. Nearly two years after Russia invaded Ukraine and as fighting still rages, the U.S., our NATO allies and the fierce resistance of millions of Ukrainians have so far successfully stopped the war from spreading, despite initial fears that it would spill into other European nations. The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group transits the Strait of Gibraltar on Oct. 28, 2023, as part of U.S. forces moving in support of the defense of Israel and to deter aggression throughout the region," according to the U.S. Fleet Forces Command. Risks of global conflict rise with Israel-Hamas war Now, however, with the eruption of yet another war between Israel and Hamas, and with the United States moving carrier strike forces and thousands of military personnel to the region in response, the dangers of broader conflict have quickly escalated. It is in this context that the specter of Iran becomes significant. Israel is fighting against terrorist groups whose principal support comes from Iran. With Israeli forces now fighting inside Gaza, Iran faces a choice: to tepidly support attacks on Israel from a distance or to rally its allies in the region against Israel at the risk of ultimately having to engage the United States. It's a battle that Iran could never win. Still, the fury of Israel is forcing this choice. Irans alignment with Russia and China is evident they even staged joint naval operations in March in the Gulf of Oman. And each of them has geopolitical goals achievable only through aggression. Iran wants to see Israel destroyed. China wishes to take Taiwan. Russia wants to annex Ukraine. It is the United States and its allies that stand in the way of those objectives, through deterrence and diplomacy. Yet, a distracted, divided and destabilized United States might not be a reliable force for effective deterrence or diplomacy. U.S. Chamber of Commerce: America's leaders must act on the global and national challenges before us A year from now, Americans likely will reelect either President Joe Biden or Trump. Will the losing side accept the results of our democratic process? We have cause to be concerned. And what will be the consequences for trust in our judicial system and government as a whole if Trump is convicted or acquitted of the multiple felony charges he now faces ahead of next year's election? Either way, many Americans will question whether the system is truly impartial. We shouldn't take American unity for granted Historically, Americans have united when our national security is threatened. We shouldn't take for granted such unity now, even as the risks of conflict rise, given the deep distrust that many Americans hold for our leading institutions and for fellow citizens who hold different political and social views. Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store. Already, rising isolationism and populism in the United States have heightened distaste for America's support of Ukraine. How will China and Iran interpret that reality in light of their own goals? A United States capable of soberly weighing the pros and cons of military intervention, support of allies and isolationism is an America that can avoid both the rush to war as well as the rush to appeasement. Either course could throw the world into chaos. To address the rising danger in the world, we must address the chaos at home. But we have barely begun to do so. John Wood Jr. John Wood Jr. is a columnist for USA TODAY Opinion. He is national ambassador for Braver Angels, a former nominee for Congress, former vice chairman of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County, musical artist, and a noted writer and speaker on subjects including racial and political reconciliation. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @JohnRWoodJr You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump says we're close to World War III. He's not entirely wrong. For decades, western Pennsylvania has been viewed by many as the heart of the Rust Belt, representing the industrial decline of Appalachia and the Midwest. However, if you drive through our slice of the Ohio Valley, there is far more revitalization than rust. CCBC President Roger W. Davis The Beaver County Energy & Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (EAMP) recently hosted its Pathways Career Awareness event at Community College of Beaver County for students interested in pursuing STEM-focused careers. Events like this one are a testament to the significant growth that the energy and manufacturing industries have experienced across our region in recent years as natural gas production, infrastructure investments, and cutting-edge workforce development programs supercharged manufacturing operations across a variety of sectors. Events and partnerships like this one are a testament to the significant growth that the energy and manufacturing industries have experienced across our region. EAMPs event, which consistently reaches approximately 700 students from public, private, and homeschools, plays a vital role in helping to align parents, students, and educators with current and future career options and connects industries with their future employees. Shell Polymers Monaca is located right down the road from CCBCs campus and has hired numerous CCBC graduates over the last several years. Energy producers across western Pennsylvania from natural gas developers like Range Resources to nuclear facilities like Beaver Valley Power Station are always looking for top talent to help solidify our states position as a leading energy exporter. Manufacturers like U.S. Steel are also hard at work building the materials and products for our auto sector and construction industries right here in America. A study by Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute found that manufacturers will need to hire 4.6 million workers by 2028, yet nearly half of those jobs could go unfilled, and the National Association of Manufacturers says more than 70 percent of manufacturers cite the inability to attract skilled workers as their top challenge. CCBCs advanced manufacturing programs not only train the next generation of workers, but successfully place them into high-paying careers. Shell and other petrochemical companies are benefiting from this talented pool of candidates. In addition to these thriving local industries, there is also a need for a skilled construction workforce to help make recent infrastructure projects a reality. U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and other federal officials recently attended a groundbreaking in Monaca for the Montgomery Locks and Dam improvement project, which is expected to create almost 30,000 construction jobs and 5,300 annual jobs once complete. The project is so massive, it will require the construction of its own concrete production facility. These are the kind of transformational projects CCBC has been preparing students for. CCBCs Mascaro Construction Academy works hand in hand with local career and technology centers to give students the tools they need to succeed in high-demand careers in the building and construction trades. Students who enroll in one of CCBCs six industry-specific High School Academies, including the Mascaro Construction Academy, can graduate high school having completed one years worth of the credits needed to earn their associate degree. Whether graduates want to continue their studies or go straight to work, they will be well-positioned to pursue either path. While some of the commentary around our regions shrinking population is overblown, there is still a general trend of population decline that we are working hard to reverse. This effort starts with showing the younger generation that there are innovative companies right here at home that can provide excellent careers and fulfilling work. Fortunately, the buildout of energy, tech, and manufacturing businesses throughout the Pittsburgh region makes for a great sales pitch. The same infrastructure investments that I mentioned before are also enabling more companies to come to our area or expand existing operations. Improving our roads, airports, and waterways makes it possible for CCBC, its alumni, and industry partners to fuel a skilled, qualified, and local workforce. Western Pennsylvania has a great story to tell when it comes to the revitalization of our energy and manufacturing industries. We should shirk the Rust Belt label and let everyone know that we are open for business. Dr. Roger W. Davis is the president of the Community College of Beaver County. This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Your Turn: Western Pennsylvania has a great sales pitch for young workers MUNCIE, Ind. Two people were killed early Sunday in a head-on crash on Interstate 69 in southwestern Delaware County. According to Indiana State Police, a Kia Forte driven by Walter Saucedo-Mendoza, 30, of Indianapolis, was traveling northbound in the interstate's southbound lanes when it collided head-on with a southbound Chevrolet Malibu driven by Victoria Elaine Cox, 32, of Fort Wayne. Cox and a passenger in the Malibu, Evan Daniel Cox, 26, also of Fort Wayne, were pronounced dead at the scene near the 234 mile-marker and the Ind. 32/67 interchange in Daleville by Delaware County Coroner Gavin Greene. Saucedo-Mendoza was taken by ambulance to IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital, and was later flown by medical helicopter to an Indianapolis hospital. The crash was reported to emergency dispatchers just after 2:30 a.m. State police said alcohol "was suspected to be a factor in the crash." A few minutes before the crash, dispatchers in Madison County had received a report of a wrong-way driver in the southbound lanes of the interstate, and officers in the area were trying to find that vehicle when the fatal collision took place. In the head-on crash, the engine of the Kia Forte became dislodged and was "stationary" on the interstate, where it was struck by a Volkswagen, according to a release issued by ISP. The Kia also struck a southbound semi-tractor trailer before coming to a stop. The drivers of the Volkswagen and the semi were not injured. The southbound lanes of the interstate were closed for more than four hours as members of an ISP crash reconstruction team conducted an investigation, and the vehicles were removed from the scene. In addition to state police, other agencies responding to the scene included the Delaware County Sheriff's Department, Daleville and Chesterfield police, Delaware County EMS and Saltem Township firefighters. Douglas Walker is a news reporter at The Star Press. Contact him at 765-213-5851 or at dwalker@muncie.gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Head-on crash on I-69 near Daleville kills two The main entrance gate of Ho Chi Minh City's People's Court. Vietnam has some of the toughest drug laws in the world (STR) Two South Koreans were among 18 people sentenced to death on drug smuggling and trafficking charges in Vietnam, state media said. The communist country has some of the toughest drug laws in the world, and is notoriously secretive about its executions. South Korean ex-police officer Kim Soon-sik, 63, and compatriot Kang Seon-hok, 30, were sentenced to death following a four-day trial in Ho Chin Minh City, state media said late Saturday. Chinese citizen Li Tian Guan, 58, and alleged Vietnamese ringleader Le Ho Vu, 36, were also handed death sentences. Fourteen other people were also handed death sentences in connection with the case, following the trial in the Family and Juvenile Court, under Ho Chi Minh City People's Court. The group "illegally stored, trafficked and traded more than 216kg of drugs" between May and June 2020, state media news site Cong an Nhan dan reported. More than 168 kilograms (370 pounds) of "all kinds of drugs" were confiscated, it reported, without specifying what type. The narcotics were trafficked from Cambodia to Ho Chin Minh City, according to Vu, where some were "consumed domestically" while others were transported to South Korea, Cong an Nhan dan said. Officers busted the operation on July 19 in Ho Chin Minh City, according to the reported indictment, when they searched a container truck preparing to complete customs clearance for shipment to South Korea. Inside they found "40 plastic packages containing white crystals, with a total of 39.5kg of methamphetamine". State media reported Vu was convicted of "illegal transportation of drugs" and "using fake seals or documents of organisations". The other 17 people were convicted of "illegal possession of drug", "illegal trading of drugs", "illegal drug trafficking" and "organisation of illegal use of drugs", state media said. Three defendants were also sentenced to life imprisonment for "illegal drug trafficking", Cong an Nhan dan reported. It added that one person, who was under 18 years old, was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. There was no indication when the executions would be carried out. - Highly secretive - Vietnamese courts routinely hand out death sentences for drug convictions, and the country is a leading executioner globally, according to Amnesty International. The country is close to the lawless "Golden Triangle" region that covers parts of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar, with Vietnamese police saying Ho Chi Minh City is increasingly becoming a hub for drug gangs as transport infrastructure has improved in recent years. Anyone caught with more than 600 grams (21 ounces) of heroin or more than 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine can face the death penalty. A 2021 Amnesty International report said partial disclosures by authorities "indicated that hundreds of people continued to be sentenced to death yearly". More than 100 people were sentenced to death in Vietnam last year, according to the international monitoring NGO the Death Penalty Information Center. Many face long spells in detention before they are executed, with information about their trials and deaths scarce. However, Vietnamese authorities declassified some data in 2017, with state media running stories that 429 people had been executed in the country between 2013 and 2016. In 2017, Vietnam's courts handed down death sentences to eight drug traffickers for smuggling heroin to China. Since 2013, Vietnam has carried out death sentences by lethal injection, replacing executions by firing squads. bur-rbu/mtp Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) during a press briefing to condemn antisemitism on college campuses, at City Hall Park in Manhattan on Oct. 27, 2023. (Amir Hamja/The New York Times) NEW YORK They are among the brightest political stars rising from New York. They were born just months apart, 40 years after the founding of Israel. And at the most fraught moment for U.S.-Israeli relations in decades, the clashing views of U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ritchie Torres, both Democrats, offer a striking glimpse into the future of one of U.S. politics fiercest debates. Ocasio-Cortez, the left-wing standard-bearer known for her social media mastery, has bucked Democratic orthodoxy since Hamas deadly Oct. 7 massacre, using her remarkable reach to build support for a cease-fire and a lasting foreign policy overhaul that puts Palestinians on equal footing with Israelis. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times Torres, her lesser-known neighbor in the Bronx, is moving to stake his own claim on the national stage as a fervent pro-Israel foil, aggressively taking on what he perceives as crumbling support for the Jewish state on the left. The debate between two millennial New Yorkers has fueled conflicts playing out in social media feeds and raucous street protests. It is a struggle not so much over traditional levers of power in Washington, but over who will shape the minds of a younger, diverse generation of voters that will soon steer the relationship to one of Americas closest allies. And it could have a profound impact on the two politicians trajectories. As wartime passions splinter the left, Ocasio-Cortez, whose boosters envision her eventually running for the presidency, is laboring to hold together a consequential but delicate coalition that has pushed the Democratic Party leftward on climate, policing and economics. Torres, who is talked about as a future senator or governor, appears intent on using the moment to smash some of that left-wing movement apart. They are two sides of the same coin: young, well-spoken, incredibly smart, said David Greenfield, an influential Jewish Democrat in New York. What you are seeing here is really a question of vision for the future of the Democratic Party. Is it going to be the Ritchie Torres version or the AOC version? For now, there is little doubt about the United States position. Although the Biden administration has pushed for humanitarian pauses as Israels counteroffensive pummels the Gaza Strip, President Joe Biden and top congressional leaders have repeatedly reaffirmed lockstep support for Israel. But unlike their parents and grandparents, who watched the countrys tenuous birth and propped it up with weapons and money, Americans who came of age in an era of Israeli military might and taxing foreign wars appear to be up for grabs politically. After a month of carnage, public opinion polls suggest many of them are more sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians and likely to question why the United States is still subsidizing Israels defense. Although Ocasio-Cortez struggled early on to articulate her views on the Middle East, the 34-year-old congresswoman has come to embody that generational shift. She uses terms such as apartheid and oppression, which are loathed by Israels defenders, to describe the treatment of Palestinians. She also has refused to visit the nation until Israel drops restrictions barring two congressional colleagues. Last week, she called the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel lobby and one of Torres top campaign donors, racist and bigoted. And she has poured herself into building pressure on Israel to forgo its campaign in Gaza, pushing further than 420 other members of the House and virtually every senator. This is pursuing a proven and failed strategy, Ocasio-Cortez said in a recent radio interview. So, why do it, why kill kids, why put people in danger, why perpetuate these cycles when weve done it so many times, and its never kept us safe? Yet, five years after she burst onto the political stage, even some critics say Ocasio-Cortezs approach has become more nuanced, as she attempts to balance the demands of a leftist movement that holds justice for Palestinians as a key plank and includes large numbers of Jewish voters with varying views on the conflict. (Her own safely Democratic district in Queens and the Bronx is largely Latino, Black and Asian, with only small Jewish and Arab populations.) Calls for a cease-fire by Ocasio-Cortez and others drew a stern rebuke from the White House, and she faced backlash for voting against a bipartisan resolution that expressed strong support for Israel. But she has also taken steps to differentiate herself from allies such as Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Cori Bush, D-Mo., sidestepping some of the lefts most inflammatory critiques such as accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza to focus on the wars mounting human cost. Ocasio-Cortez, who did not agree to an interview, met in Washington last month with the families of Jewish hostages kidnapped by Hamas. She has repeatedly condemned the group and supports a two-state solution shunned by some on the left. And at a time when many liberal Jews feel they are being abandoned by the left, she has warned about disgusting and unacceptable antisemitism in a post to 8.4 million Instagram followers, saying, No movement of integrity should tolerate it. You can see how hard Alexandria is trying to listen compassionately across the lines of this conflict, said Brad Lander, the left-leaning New York City comptroller who is the highest-ranking Jewish city official. Im not saying anyone is doing it perfectly, but there is a difference between trying and not trying. More-moderate Jewish Democrats have also taken note. Rep. Daniel Goldman, D-N.Y., who along with Torres voted this past week to censure Tlaib for using divisive pro-Palestinian rhetoric, said he and Ocasio-Cortez had made a conscious effort to keep an open line of communication even if they did not always agree on the conflict. On the other side of the Bronx River, Torres, 35, who is gay and Afro Latino, has staked out a strikingly different project to the right of many of his peers, offering himself as a counterweight to his partys leftward lurch. His own social media following is relatively small 170,000 followers on X, formerly Twitter, to Ocasio-Cortezs 13.2 million but the combativeness of Torres retorts has stood out. In just the past few days, he compared a cease-fire to asking Israel to become the author of its own annihilation, called claims that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza blood libel and argued that most Israelis are not actually white, as those who see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a racial struggle claim, but people of color in the American sense. Torres has reserved special vitriol for the Democratic Socialists of America, a small but influential leftist group that has pushed for boycotts of Israel and counts Ocasio-Cortez as a member. In an interview, he said the DSA was trying to infiltrate the Democratic Party to impose the ideological litmus tests on Israel and cleanse those who disagree with them. He said he was on a publicly stated mission to undermine it. I do worry that the next generation is increasingly indoctrinated with anti-Israel hate so virulent that it renders them indifferent to the coldblooded murder of Jews in Israel, he said. His views are no surprise to those who watched Torres, a proud college dropout and defender of public housing, evolve from left-aligned political upstart to more traditional Democratic congressman. Although he represents an overwhelmingly Black and Latino district that includes only several thousand Jewish voters, he has improbably made the conflict 5,700 miles away a top priority since 2015, when he traveled to Israel on a City Council delegation. It was his first trip abroad, and Torres said witnessing both the fragility of the frontier and Tel Avivs openness to gay life left him with profound empathy for Israel and a commitment to a two-state solution. His combativeness has infuriated the left. Waleed Shahid, a progressive strategist who is close to Ocasio-Cortez, called Torres a propagandist for the Israeli government. Jeremy Cohan, a leader of the DSAs New York City chapter, said Torres was unfairly conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism. It is opportunistic, it is gross, it is personally offensive to me as a Jew, he said. It remains far from clear how many left-leaning Democrats Torres is moving. Even some senior colleagues who agree with him privately worry that his approach may alienate some Black, Latino and other progressive voters at a time when their support is critical. And yet, his actions have resonated on a visceral level with many American Jews facing one of the most frightening periods since the Holocaust, and have brought him a new level of political celebrity. The mere mention of his name inspired an ovation at a recent AIPAC luncheon in midtown Manhattan. A Jewish nursing professor posted a video of a painting she had commissioned with Torres in front of the Star of David. At a rally in his district, hundreds of Jewish students from SAR Academy, a private Jewish school, chanted his name in unison; one called him a constant in this broken world. As she waited for him to speak at another event near City Hall, Sari Ancona, the mother of a Jewish student at Cooper Union, said Torres represented something essential: It means that there are people that support us that arent us. The conflicting response to Torres reflects the mood of a city where almost everyone, including New York's large Jewish population and the resurgent left, seems to be cautiously probing their neighbors views on the Middle East. Ocasio-Cortez and Torres are no exception. Alicia Thilani Singham Goodwin, political director for Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, a left-wing New York City group, said Ocasio-Cortezs staff had been in frequent contact to get their gut check on possible public statements. Torres speaks regularly to moderate and politically conservative Jewish groups. Both lawmakers have conferred with the citys Jewish elected officials. One person with whom neither Ocasio-Cortez nor Torres has discussed the war directly? The other. c.2023 The New York Times Company SUVA, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- The Pacific Collective on Nuclear Issues has denounced once again the dumping of radioactive wastewater from the damaged Fukushima nuclear powerplant into the Pacific Ocean, calling on Pacific leaders to suspend Japan's status as a Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) dialogue partner. The Collective, composed of civil society groups, non-governmental organizations and movements in the Pacific, issued a statement this week, during which the 52nd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting was held in the Cook Islands. The statement condemned the Japanese government and the facility operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), for insisting on this flawed and dangerous course of action. "The findings of the independent panel of scientific experts commissioned by the Pacific Islands Forum were unequivocal - the data provided so far, to support Japan's claim that the treated wastewater is safe, is inconsistent, unsound and therefore far from reliable," the statement said, adding that "if the Japanese government and TEPCO believe the radioactive wastewater is safe, they should be prepared to safely dispose of it within terrestrial Japan." The Collective also declared that such dumping into the Pacific Ocean is a direct violation of human rights. Aside from being a brazen violation of international law, the Collective said, Japan's behavior and handling of this matter is an affront to the very sovereignty of Pacific states and unbecoming of a dialogue partner of the PIF. Founded in 1971, the PIF is the region's premier political and economic policy organization which comprises 18 members. The Collective called on the Pacific leaders to reaffirm the long-held position of the Pacific to keep their region nuclear-free and to review diplomatic relations with Japan at the next Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in 2024. They also called on the international community not to turn a blind eye to the threat that dumping radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean poses to Pacific peoples, their livelihoods, safety, health and well-being. Japan conducted the third round of release of nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean earlier this month, despite numerous and repeated objections by governments and communities, environmental groups, NGOs, and anti-nuclear movements in Japan and the Pacific. Washington White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday the U.S. has conveyed to Israel that it should avoid armed combat near hospitals in Gaza. "The United States does not want to see firefights in hospitals, where innocent people, patients receiving medical care, are caught in the crossfire, and we've had active consultations with the Israeli Defense Forces on this," Sullivan told "Face the Nation" on Sunday. Transcript: National security adviser Jake Sullivan on "Face the Nation" Hospitals have ended up in the crosshairs of the war between Hamas and Israel, with the latter saying the terrorist group is using medical facilities to shield itself, while Israel has been accused of harming innocent civilians as it targets militants. Israel has said Hamas has a command center underneath Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital, which Hamas denies. The World Health Organization said Saturday that it had lost communication with its contacts inside Al-Shifa Hospital. Sullivan declined to confirm whether the Israeli assertion is accurate, citing the need to protect intelligence, but said Hamas has a track record of using hospitals and other civilian facilities for its command centers, to store its weapons and house fighters. "And this is a violation of the laws of war," he said. International humanitarian law protects hospitals during war, but medical facilities can lose such protections when they are used as a base to launch an attack, for storing weapons or sheltering combatants, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. There are hundreds of patients at the hospital, including newborn and premature babies, who need to be evacuated from the hospital, which has no fuel, electricity, access to drinkable water or internet connection, Christos Christou, the international president of Doctors Without Borders, told "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "The health workers have been so overwhelmed and exhausted and they are in a position at the moment that they cannot even offer anything," he said. Christou said there is no plan to evacuate the hospital, which would take weeks. He said he has not heard "any news about coordinated action" for the Israeli military to evacuate children and other patients from the hospital. "We have reports that people trying to leave the hospital also have been shot down," Christou said. "There are airstrikes in the hospitals as well." Sullivan also said the U.S. is still trying help Americans who want to flee Gaza. About 400 Americans are stuck in Gaza, according to the State Department. "We're trying to create a circumstance where every one of them can get safe passage out of Gaza. The gate has been open and closed," he said. "The lists have included Americans some days and not other days. But the bottom line is today the gate is open. We are moving American citizens and their family members out and in the days ahead." The Woolly Worm Festival, inching to predict winter's weather The effect of gender disparities on men A class where imagination takes flight Officials say that five U.S. servicepeople are dead after a military helicopter crashed over the Mediterranean Sea during a training mission, according to our new partners at WLOS in Asheville. On Sunday, the command said all five members died on board after the aircraft crashed during a routine refueling mission, which was a part of training. WLOS reports the U.S. military announced the crash on Saturday and that the cause is under investigation - there are no signs showing foul play. On Sunday, search and rescue efforts started. ALSO READ: NTSB releases preliminary report of deadly news helicopter crash Lloyd Austin, U.S. Defense Secretary, released a statement saying: We mourn the tragic loss of five U.S. service members during a training accident in the Mediterranean Sea early Saturday morning. European Command said out of respect for the families of the service members and in line with the Department of Defense policy, the names of the crew members involved in the crash will not be released until their families know, WLOS says. According to WLOS, the Air Force sent more squadrons to the crash site, and the USS Gerald R. Ford, an aircraft carrier, is stationed in the eastern Mediterranean. (WATCH BELOW: Two hurt after being hit by car in Midtown Charlotte, MEDIC says) A group of over 300 faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) signed a letter calling on the school to condemn protests crossing the line from protected speech to unlawful incitement amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. We were horrified to see Pro-Palestinian rallies on campus in which the massacres by Hamas were celebrated, including explicit calls for violence (including chanting Intifada or event advertisements featuring images of weapons/violence), the letter reads. Such celebrations create an atmosphere of fear; one cannot imagine that UCLA will allow for celebrations of the killing of George Floyd, or for celebrations of the Armenian genocide, or the celebrations of the 9/11 attacks, the letter continues. It is inconceivable why such celebrations are not denounced by the UCLA leadership, regardless of political views. The letter comes amid turmoil on college campuses across the nation over the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas. Colleges are trying to navigate balancing campus safety and free speech as rhetoric around the conflict heats up. A few weeks ago, pro-Palestinian students at George Washington (GW) University garnered national attention and backlash for anti-Israel messages they projected on one of the schools libraries. The messages, projected by the student group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), included Divestment from Zionist genocide now and Free Palestine From the River to the Sea. These are genocidal messages displayed on a building at George Washington University. If the students responsible for these messages arent severely punished by GWU, something is terribly wrong, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Genocide isnt hip, cute, or in any way acceptable. GWUdo the right thing NOW! Columbia University suspended two student organizations that have been leaders in protests advocating for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas conflict Friday. A university official cited campus safety as the reasoning behind the schools suspension of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) through the end of the fall semester. This decision was made after the two groups repeatedly violated University policies related to holding campus events, culminating in an unauthorized event Thursday afternoon that proceeded despite warnings and included threatening rhetoric and intimidation, University Vice President Gerald Rosberg said. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The 19,000-strong African Union force is due to leave Somalia next year (file photo) A Ugandan military court has found two officers guilty of cowardice as Islamist fighters stormed an African Union base in Somalia in May. Majors Zadock Abor and John Oluka ran away after they came under attack by al-Shabab in Bulo Marer, south of the capital Mogadishu. At least 50 Ugandan soldiers were killed, officials say. Uganda is part of the African Union force helping Somalia's government fight al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda affiliate. The attack on Bulo Marer was one of the deadliest for the African Union force, Atmis, since it launched a new offensive against al-Shabab last year. Uganda's president, Yoweri Museveni, criticised his military for its response. The Ugandan military court sitting in Mogadishu heard that the officers had been given warning of an impending attack but failed to act to deter it. As al-Shabab gunmen stormed the base, they failed to rally their troops and instead ran away to another base. Both officers have been dismissed from the army. Four non-commissioned officers were also found guilty of failing to protect military equipment. The 19,000-strong African Union force was sent to Somalia in 2007 and helped force al-Shabab out of many cities. It is scheduled to transfer security responsibilities to Somalia's government forces and leave the country next year. However, the offensive against al-Shabab has stalled and the group still controls many rural parts of the country. An earlier version of this story misidentified Col Deo Akiiki as one of the officers involved. This has been corrected. More about Somalia from the BBC: UK Defence Intelligence believes that the Russian Federation has been trying to increase its control over the Wagner Private Military Company (PMC) following an attempted mutiny by the PMC and the death of its leadership. Source: UK Defence Intelligence review on Twitter dated 12 November, as reported by European Pravda Details: The UK MoD says major elements of the Wagner PMC have likely been assimilated into the Russian National Guard's [Rosgvardiya] command structure and resumed active recruitment as of the end of October 2023. "This Wagner arm under Rosgvardiya is likely led by Pavel Prigozhin, son of the late Wagner owner Yevgeny Prigozhin," the review stressed. Other groups of Wagner PMC are likely to have joined another Russian PMC, Redut, which, as investigated by Radio Liberty, has a total of 7,000 members. Besides, as the review notes, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov claimed on 1 November 2023 that Wagner PMC's medics had joined the Akhmat, Chechen special forces group. Earlier, Kadyrov alleged on 25 October 2023 that a total of 170 former Wagnerites had already joined Akhmat. "The Russian state is now exercising more direct control of Wagner Group activities and former personnel following the mutiny in July 2023 and subsequent death of Wagners leadership in August 2023," the UK analysts noted. Background: The UK government will review the "scope and scale" of intelligence activities in relation to the Wagner terrorist group, particularly in light of the death of its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, following a call from a group of MPs. In August, the UK MoD suggested that the death of Wagner PMC's leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, would have a profoundly destabilising effect on the group. The following month, the UK officially recognised Wagner Private Military Company as a terrorist organisation. Support UP or become our patron! According to the Russian troops, most of them were defeated on October 19-21 (illustrative photo) Several Russian soldiers explained how the Ukrainian Armed Forces gained a foothold on the left bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast by opening up about the Battle of Krynky to BBC journalists. Yes, they (Ukrainians) are on our side (of the river). They have entrenched themselves in the Krynky area. There are definitely about 500 Ukrainians there, said soldiers from one of the occupiers battalions, one of the Russian soldiers told the BBC. They claim that before capturing Krynky, several Ukrainian reconnaissance groups traveled along the occupied Dnipro riverbank in Gazelles and Zhigulis, dressed in Russian military, firefighter, or Emergency Service worker uniforms. They approached our positions almost closely. While our people were watching, they took them all down, a Russian soldiers told the BBC. Read also: Over 1,000 Russian troops eliminated in Ukraine over past 24 hours, says General Staff The occupiers claim that after this, Ukrainian infantry crossed the Dnipro and entered Krynky through the forest. On Oct. 19, 20, and 21, we were hit hard here. But then they sent us Marines, and we survived only thanks to that. I didnt see any tanks here; they were pushing them from the other side, and around Antonivka, they were firing. But they did capture several of our vehicles, said one of the soldiers of the occupation army. According to the occupiers, Ukrainian forces also used and continue to use boats that can travel at a speed of 100 km/h. In the fall, in thick fog, they are difficult to track. Additionally, during the battles on the left bank of the Dnipro, the Ukrainian Armed Forces allegedly used a helicopter that flew very low and fired on Russian positions with unguided missiles, then flew back. Read also: Russians compensate for heavy losses with reserves and continue intense shelling, trying to surround Avdiivka Several people have already been captured. Our commander disappeared with all his deputies. We are in quite a jam here. Two of our battalions were wiped out overnight. Ukrainians have entrenched themselves on our side in the Krynky area, and so far, we cant knock them out. We are on duty 24/7 without replacements. Plus, everyone is afraid, the Russian soldiers told journalists. The occupiers lost several hundred military personnel on the left bank of the Dnipro, BBC sources report. From our battalion, 26 people remain; in the first battalion 24, in the second battalion 27, in the third one a little over 20... Each had about a hundred, one of the Russian artillerymen told the BBC. Read also: Over 300k Russian soldiers eliminated in Ukraine since Feb. 2022 Oleksandr Musiyenko, the head of the Center for Military-Legal Research, stated in a Nov. 9 interview with Radio NV that the Ukrainian Armed could launch a rapid offensive if they manage to establish a foothold on the left bank of the Dnipro in Kherson Oblast. As of Nov. 9, Ukrainian forces have reportedly consolidated two tactical footholds near the Antonivsky automobile and railway bridges into one, slightly larger than the previous two. They are likely holding it quite densely, said Ukrainian military observer Kostiantyn Mashovets, who has long been involved in defense planning, the use of troops, and the development of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Mashovets also claims that in at least two locations, the advanced units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces have successfully severed the coastal road between Oleshky and Nova Kakhovka, which stretches 53 kilometers northeast of Kherson. 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 Ukrainian forces on Nov. 11 regained control of the village of Topoli in Kharkiv Oblast and raised the national flag on video, the State Border Service reported. "We are always ready to defend our lands and destroy our enemies," the Steel Border unit said . During the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, the village was captured early in the war by Russian forces, and had remained occupied by Moscow. Kharkiv Oblast has been a constant target of Russian strikes. On Oct. 5, Russian forces hit a grocery store and a cafe in the village of Hroza, located some 86 kilometers east of Kharkiv, killing 51 people and injuring six, including children. Read also: Update: Kharkiv attack kills 10-year-old boy, injures 30 others, including 11-month-old baby Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Large elements of the Wagner Group mercenary group are likely serving in Russias National Guard, says the UKs Ministry of Defence. Rosgvardiyas national guard is thought to be led by Pavel Prigozhin, the son of the late Yevgeny Prigozhin - the Wagner leader who died in a plane crash in August of this year soon after the rebel group captured Rostov-on-Don. Other Wagner fighters are likely to have joined Redut, another Private Military Company, which have a total of 7,000 personnel, say the Ministry of Defence. Wagner group fighters also joined Chechen Akhmat special forces and 170 former Wagner fighters had already joined Akhmat, according to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. The UK government describes the Wagner mercenary group as a terrorist organisation. It comes as Volodymyr Zelensky has described Kherson as a symbol of heroism and hope on the day the city marks one year since Ukraine retook it from occupying Russian forces. Key Points Strong explosions in Kyiv as Ukrainian capital comes under attack Two Russian landing boats filled with armoured vehicles destroyed Russia intensifies attacks in Avdiivka Ukraine warns any peace talks with Russia are a trap' Volodymyr Zelensky says he is certain of battlefield success Zelensky warns Ukrainians to prepare for winter onslaught from Russia 22:05 , Joe Middleton President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Ukrainians on Sunday to prepare for new waves of Russian attacks on infrastructure as winter approached and said troops were anticipating an onslaught in the eastern theatre of the war. A military spokesman said Russian attacks on the shattered eastern town of Avdiivka had eased in the past day, but were likely to intensify in the coming days. And Ukrainian military intelligence said an explosion killed at least three Russian servicemen in the Russian-occupied southern town of Melitopol, which it described as an act of revenge by resistance groups. Zelenskiy issued his warning during his nightly video address a day after Russian forces carried out their first missile attack on the capital, Kyiv in some seven weeks. We are almost half way through November and must be prepared for the fact that the enemy may increase the number of drone or missile strikes on our infrastructure, Zelenskiy said. Russia is preparing for Ukraine. And here, in Ukraine, all attention should be focused on defence, on responding to terrorists on everything that Ukraine can do to get through the winter and improve our soldiers capabilities. Last winter about 10 months into Russias invasion of neighbour Ukraine, Russia made waves of attacks on power stations and other plants inked to the energy network, prompting rolling blackouts in widely separated regions. Energy Minister German Galushchenko said on Saturday that Ukraine would have enough energy resources to get through the winter, but added: The question is how much future attacks can affect supplies. Russia ramps up attacks on key city Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine 22:00 , Tara Cobham Russian forces have ramped up attacks in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to gain ground near key frontline city Bakhmut, Ukrainian military officials said Sunday. Moscow's troops have begun a push to regain territory near Bakhmut, the eastern mining city that was the site of the war's bloodiest battle before falling into Russian hands in May, the head of Ukraine's ground forces wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Ukrainian troops had recaptured the heights over Bakhmut and made some advances west, north and south of the city since Kyiv launched its summer counteroffensive. "Toward Bakhmut, the Russians have become more active and are trying to recapture previously lost positions. ... Enemy attacks are being repelled," Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote in a Telegram update on Sunday afternoon. A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said Sunday that Russian forces over the previous day repelled five Ukrainian attacks near Klischiivka and Kurdyumivka, two small settlements lying south of Bakhmut. Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov made the claim at the latest of regular press briefings. Ukraine's long-awaited counteroffensive has so far resulted in only incremental gains and heavy losses, with Ukrainian troops struggling to punch through Russian lines in the south. Meanwhile, Moscow's forces have attempted to press forward in the northeast, likely with a view to distract Kyiv and minimize the number of troops Ukraine is able to send to key southern and eastern battles. Recap: Watch Zelenskys warning the war will go to other Nato countries if Russia wins 21:00 , Tara Cobham Russian forces advance near Avdiivka, says think tank 20:00 , Tara Cobham Russian forces have recently advanced near Avdiivka, according to a US war think tank. The Institute for the Study of War said Vladimir Putins forces temporarily intensified offensive operations in the area over the course of Friday and Saturday. It said this is likely to consolidate recent gains in the area. Russian forces have recently made confirmed advances near #Avdiivka and temporarily intensified offensive operations between November 10-11, likely to consolidate recent gains in the area. https://t.co/wivagUgj7S https://t.co/Cq1fVKbqwu pic.twitter.com/k3G52Lo59C Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) November 12, 2023 In pictures: Ukrainian forces continue to fight to retake Bakhmut 19:00 , Tara Cobham Ukrainian forces continue to fight to retake Bakhmut, which was captured by Russian forces in May (Getty Images) Members of Ukraine's 56th Brigade fire participate in combat duty on Friday in the Bakhmut District of Ukraine (Getty Images) Over the summer, Ukraine regained territory north and south of Bakhmut but Russia has held the city itself (Getty Images) Blast kills three Russian officers in occupied town, says Ukrainian intelligence 18:00 , Tara Cobham Ukraine's intelligence directorate said on Sunday that an explosion in the Russian-occupied town of Melitopol killed at least three Russian servicemen in an attack it described as an "act of revenge" by local underground groups. The blast occurred during a meeting on Saturday of Russian officers in the town, a hub of Russian forces in the south, the directorate within the defence ministry said in a statement. "This act of revenge, carried out by representatives of the local resistance, took place in the New Post offices seized by the Russians," it said. There was no mention of the incident from Russian officials. Reuters was unable to verify the Ukrainian statement. The intelligence statement said the meeting on Saturday at the local military headquarters was attended by Russian National Guard and FSB intelligence service officers. "As a result of the explosion at least three National Guard officers were killed at the headquarters," the statement said. "Information of other enemy losses is being clarified." The statement said police converged on the area and a burned-out car was later seen being towed through the town. Bidens reelection pitch when it comes to Ukraine 17:00 , Tara Cobham US President Joe Biden is facing two wars on two continents, and the fallout from each conflict will shape a second term even if the fighting ends before that. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been going on for almost two years, and Israel and Hamas began their latest clash about a month ago. Biden wants to send military support to Ukraine and Israel, something that he describes as "vital" to U.S. national security interests. "History has taught us 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," he said in a recent Oval Office address. His plans will require challenging congressional negotiations. Some Republicans are resisting more assistance for Ukraine after Congress has already approved $113 billion in security, economic and humanitarian resistance. Both conflicts will likely require years of U.S. involvement. For example, Biden is looking for a new opportunity to push for a two-state solution in the Middle East, creating an independent Palestinian country alongside Israel. US President Joe Biden speaks at the National Veterans Day Observance at the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. on Saturday (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) Senior Ukrainian officer coordinated Nord Stream attack 16:05 , Lydia Patrick A Ukrainian military officer coordinated last years attack on the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing anonymous sources in Ukraine and Europe. No one has taken responsibility for the September 2022 blasts, which occurred off the Danish island of Bornholm and ruptured three out of four lines of the system that delivers Russian gas to Europe. Washington and NATO called it an act of sabotage, while Moscow said it was an act of international terrorism. Roman Chervinsky, a former intelligence official who served in the Ukrainian militarys special forces, managed a six-person team but did not plan the attack, the Post reported. He denied involvement. A spokesperson for Ukraines military told Reuters he had no information about the claim. The Ukrainian foreign ministry and Kyivs domestic security service, the SBU, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. His commanding officer at the time, Maj. Gen. Viktor Hanushchak, told Ukrainian media earlier this year that senior military leadership had signed off on the plot to lure the Russian pilot. Morning light falls on the landfall facility of the Nord Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline and the transfer station of the OPAL gas pipeline, the Baltic Sea Pipeline Link, in Lubmin, Germany, on July 21, 2022 (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) Russian troops continue effort to encircle Avdiivka 13:30 , Lydia Patrick Ukraines General Staff said that Russian troops were also continuing their weekslong push to encircle Avdiivka, an Ukrainian stronghold south of Bakhmut and a key target since the beginning of the war. Its considered the gateway to parts of the eastern Donetsk region under Kyivs control. The General Staff said the air force was playing a key part in the latest Russian assault.Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, who leads Ukrainian troops fighting in and near Avdiivka, said Sunday that the attacking Russian forces were ramping up airstrikes, particularly those using guided bombs. He wrote on Telegram that Russian troops over the previous day had launched 30 airstrikes and 712 artillery barrages at the city and surrounding areas, and clashed almost 50 times with Ukrainian units. An elderly civilian woman stands with a cat on the balcony of her destroyed house in the city of Avdiivka (Getty Images) Russia ramps up attacks on key cities in eastern Ukraine 12:35 , Lydia Patrick Moscows troops have begun a push to regain territory near Bakhmut, the eastern mining city that was the site of the wars bloodiest battle before falling into Russian hands in May, the head of Ukraines ground forces wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Ukrainian troops had recaptured the heights over Bakhmut and made some advances to the citys west, north and south since Kyiv launched its summer counteroffensive. Toward Bakhmut, the Russians have become more active and are trying to recapture previously lost positions. ... Enemy attacks are being repelled, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote in a Telegram update on Sunday afternoon. Ukraines long-awaited counteroffensive has so far resulted in only incremental gains and heavy losses, with Ukrainian troops struggling to punch through Russian lines in the south. Meanwhile, Moscows forces have attempted to press forward in the northeast, likely with a view to distract Kyiv and minimize the number of troops it is able to send to key southern and eastern battles. The Ukrainian ground forces spokesperson similarly reported that Russian troops had switched from defense to active defense near Bakhmut, putting pressure on Ukrainian troops south of the city. Vladimir Fityo made the remarks on Ukrainian TV, adding that Russian troops were searching for weak points in Ukrainian defenses and ramping up artillery strikes on Ukrainian positions. Dozens of Russians are said to make up the Siberian Battalion (Getty Images) Germany set to double Ukraine military aid under Scholz plan 12:05 , Lydia Patrick German chancellor Olaf Scholzs governing coalition has agreed in principle to double the countrys military aid for Ukraine next year to 8 billion euros ($8.5 billion), a political source in Berlin said. If approved by parliament, where Scholzs parties hold a majority, the boost would lift Germanys defence spending to 2.1% of its gross domestic product target, beyond the 2% pledged by all North Atlantic Treaty Organization members, the source added. Lawmakers of Scholzs Social Democrats, the Free Democrats and the Green party agreed on the increase in negotiations over the proposed 2024 federal budget ahead of a formal meeting of the budget committee of the Bundestag - or lower house of parliament - on Thursday, Nov. 16, the source said. A spokesperson for Germanys Ministry of Defence said the Bundestag committee has not finished negotiations and declined to comment further. Germanys Bild am Sonntag newspaper also said the committee is due to approve the additional 4 billion euros. Doubling the military spending is both the right thing to do and important, it quoted member of parliament Andreas Schwarz, who acts as an SPD military budget official, as saying. With the move we will underscore our promise to Ukraine with the necessary funds. The fact that we will also be able to fulfil our NATO obligation is a great success of the ... coalition, he was reported as saying. A European Union plan to spend up to 20 billion euros ($21.4 billion) on military aid for Ukraine is meeting with resistance from EU countries, diplomats said this week. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz greets 102-year-old German Holocaust survivor Margot Friedlaender (POOL/AFP/Getty) 'We want her back,' husband of US journalist detained in Russia appeals for her immediate release 11:30 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain This wasnt how Pavel Butorin expected to celebrate his anniversary this week, with his wife of 21 years in a Russian prison and barely any communication available. Russian-American journalist, Alsu Kurmasheva who works as an editor for U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe has been detained in Russia for almost a month and charged with failing to self-register as a foreign agent. Alsu should be celebrating this anniversary with me and our children at home, not in a Russian prison, Butorin told The Associated Press in an interview in Prague on Friday. We want her back. Alsu must be released as soon as possible, he said, visibly shaken. 'We want her back,' husband of US journalist detained in Russia appeals for her immediate release Putin drafting Wagner Group mercenaries into national guard, UK says 10:57 , Lydia Patrick Large elements of the Wagner Group mercenary group are likely serving in Russias National Guard, says the UKs Ministry of Defence. Rosgvardiyas national guard is thought to be led by Pavel Prigozhin, the son of the late Yevgeny Prigozhin - the Wagner leader who died in a plane crash in August of this year soon after the rebel group captured Rostov-on-Don. Other Wagner fighters are likely to have joined Redut, another Private Military Company, which have a total of 7,000 personnel, say the Ministry of Defence. Wagner group fighters also joined Chechen Akhmat special forces and 170 former Wagner fighters had already joined Akhmat, according to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. The UK government describes the Wagner mercenary group as a terrorist organisation. Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine 12 November 2023. Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/5yy8Og2gg3 #StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/y7g7HRnSxx Ministry of Defence (@DefenceHQ) November 12, 2023 Hungary's Orban says negotiations on Ukraine's future EU membership should not move forward 10:30 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Hungarys prime minister said Friday he does not support moving forward on negotiations on Ukraines future membership in the European Union, signaling again that his country could pose a major roadblock to Kyivs ambitions to join the bloc. EU leaders are to decide in mid-December whether Ukraine should be formally invited to begin talks to join the 27-member union, with Hungary seen as a potential obstacle. Unanimity among all member states is required to admit a new country into the bloc, giving Hungarys prime minister, Viktor Orban, a powerful veto. The EUs executive branch on Wednesday recommended that Ukraine should be permitted to open membership talks once it has addressed some shortfalls. But in an interview with state radio on Friday, Orban said the embattled country is nowhere near gaining membership in the worlds largest trading bloc. Hungary's Orban says negotiations on Ukraine's future EU membership should not move forward Somber bugles and bells mark Armistice Day around the globe as wars drown out peace messages 09:30 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain With somber bugles and bells from Australia to western Europes battlefields of World War I, people around the globe on Saturday remembered the slaughter and losses just over a century ago that was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Yet the rumble of tanks and the screeching of incoming fire from Ukraine to Gaza pierced the solemnity of the occasion and the notion that humankind could somehow circumvent violence to settle its worst differences. This time last year, our thoughts were focused on Ukraine. Today, our minds are full with the terrible images emerging from Israel and Gaza. These are just two of the more than 100 armed conflicts in the world today, said Benoit Mottrie, the head of the Last Post Association in western Belgiums Ypres, where some of the fiercest and deadliest World War I battles were fought. Somber bugles and bells mark Armistice Day around the globe as wars drown out peace messages Two Russian landing boats filled with armoured vehicles destroyed by Ukraine in significant loss for Putin 08:51 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Ukraine on Friday said its naval drones had destroyed two small Russian landing boats in Crimea, in an embarrassment for President Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian military intelligence said two amphibious Russian ships loaded with armoured vehicles had been hit by naval drones overnight. One of the boats was identified as an Akula class vessel, while the other landing vessel was a Serna class. The results of intelligence conducted on 10 November 2023 near Vuzka Bay in temporarily occupied Crimea show that after an attack by naval drones, two small Russian landing ships have been destroyed, a Ukraine military report said. Ukraine destroys Russian landing boats in significant loss for Putin What the Republican candidates have said on the war in Ukraine 07:00 , Tara Cobham As President Joe Biden likes to remind anyone who will listen, This is not your grandfathers Republican Party. That has never been more evident than when examining the way the 2024 Republican presidential candidates approach the topic of Ukraine. Support for Ukraine is dividing the GOP field. Several candidates believe the US should continue to support the war effort a stance that adheres to more traditional Republican foreign policy beliefs. Gustaf Kilander and Ariana Baio report: What are the Republican candidates views on the war in Ukraine Recap: EUs 20 billion euro plan for Ukraine military aid hits resistance 06:00 , Tara Cobham A European Union plan to spend up to 20 billion euros ($21.4 billion) on military aid for Ukraine is meeting resistance from EU countries and may not survive in its current form, diplomats have said. Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign policy chief, proposed in July that the bloc create a fund with up to 5 billion euros a year over four years as part of broader Western security commitments to bolster Ukraine as it fights Russia's invasion. But as EU defence ministers prepare to discuss the plan in Brussels on Tuesday, diplomats say multiple countries - including EU heavyweight Germany - have voiced reservations about committing such large sums years in advance. The EU and its members have been among the biggest donors of military aid to Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022, providing arms and equipment worth some 25 billion euros, according to the bloc's diplomatic service. Borrell's proposal was an effort to put support on a longer-term footing, by creating a cash pot for Ukraine aid inside a bigger fund, the European Peace Facility, used to reimburse EU members for military assistance to other countries. "I'm not going to declare it dead at this point yet. But of course, improvements can always be made," a senior EU diplomat said on Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Germany has had a lot of questions ... and rightfully so. We're talking about a lot of money." Ukraines current frontline stalemate with Russia is hurting Kyiv 05:00 , Askold Krushelnycky Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that his troops can still deliver results on the frontline and says that country has a battlefield plan for 2024, without revealing details. "We have a plan. We have very concrete cities, very [concrete] directions where we go. I can't share all the details but we have some slow steps forward on the south, also we have steps on the east," he said. "And some, I think good steps ... near Kherson region. I am sure we'll have success. It's difficult." Ukrainian forces have been trying to establish a bridgehead on the eastern, Russian-occupied, bank of the vast Dnipro river in Kherson region. A rapid counteroffensive liberated the region west of the Dnipro and its capital, Kherson City, almost exactly a year ago. Read more here: Analysis: Ukraines current frontline stalemate with Russia is hurting Kyiv Recap: Watch Zelensky saying Russian soldiers must go out of Ukraine to end war 04:00 , Tara Cobham Polish President warns of threat of Russian imperialism on Independence Day holiday 03:00 , Tara Cobham The Polish President warned that Russian imperialism once again threatens not just Ukraine but the wider region as Poland celebrated its Independence Day holiday. Thousands of people walked through Warsaw on Saturday in a march organized by nationalist groups, 105 years after the nation regained its statehood at the end of World War I. Participants carried Poland's white-and-red flag and some burned flares as they marched along a route leading from the city center to the National Stadium. President Andrzej Duda delivered a speech at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier where he warned: "Russian imperialism will go further: it will want to seize more nations, taking away their freedom and their states. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sent Poland a message on X, formerly Twitter, telling Poles: "May your independence be invincible and eternal." While many patriotic events take place across the nation of 38 million each year, the yearly Independence March has come to dominate news coverage because it has sometimes been marred by xenophobic slogans and violence. This years event was attended by some 40,000 and passed off peacefully, the Warsaw mayor, Rafal Trzaskowski, said. People take part in the Independence March 'Poland Is Not Yet Lost' in Warsaw, Poland on Saturday (EPA) Russian forces preparing for large-scale winter strike, says think tank 02:00 , Tara Cobham Russian forces have been launching significantly smaller and less frequent drone strikes against Ukraine over the past month compared to previous months ahead of an anticipated large-scale winter strike, according to a US war think tank. The Institute for the Study of War added that Vladimir Putins forces continue to struggle with low morale and poor discipline. #Russian forces are launching significantly smaller and less frequent drone strikes against #Ukraine in the past month than in previous months ahead of an anticipated large-scale winter strike campaign. Russian forces continue to struggle with low morale and poor discipline. 4/8 Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) November 11, 2023 Ukrainian border guard filmed reuniting with young daughter after months 01:00 , Tara Cobham A Ukrainian border guard has been captured hugging his daughter as the two reunited having spent months apart as a result of the war. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence posted the touching footage on social media of Stanislav and his child Mia embracing after the pair were separated for five months. Family reunion. Border guard Stanislav hugs his daughter Mia after five months apart. : @DPSU_ua pic.twitter.com/VkRjYnIspz Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) November 10, 2023 Orban says negotiations on Ukraines EU membership shouldn't move forward 00:00 , Tara Cobham Hungarys prime minister said Friday he does not support moving forward on negotiations on Ukraines future membership in the European Union, signaling again that his country could pose a major roadblock to Kyivs ambitions to join the bloc. EU leaders are to decide in mid-December whether Ukraine should be formally invited to begin talks to join the 27-member union, with Hungary seen as a potential obstacle. Unanimity among all member states is required to admit a new country into the bloc, giving Hungarys prime minister, Viktor Orban, a powerful veto. The EUs executive branch on Wednesday recommended that Ukraine should be permitted to open membership talks once it has addressed some shortfalls. But in an interview with state radio on Friday, Orban said the embattled country is nowhere near gaining membership in the worlds largest trading bloc. Justin Spike reports: Hungary's Orban says negotiations on Ukraine's future EU membership should not move forward Freight cars carrying cargo in Russias Ryazan region were derailed by improvised explosive device' Saturday 11 November 2023 23:34 , Joe Middleton Freight cars carrying cargo in Russias Ryazan region were derailed Saturday morning by an improvised explosive device, Russian law enforcement said. Nineteen carriages traveling from the town of Rybnoye were thrown from the tracks and 15 were damaged, investigators wrote in a statement on social media. They said they would be opening a criminal investigation on terrorism charges. Both the train driver and assistant train driver received medical attention at the scene. Russian officials have previously blamed pro-Ukrainian saboteurs for several attacks on the countrys railway system since Moscow invaded the country in February 2022, although no group has claimed responsibility for the damage. Kyiv has not commented on Saturdays attacks. Recap: Watch Ramaswamy appearing to call Ukraines Zelensky a Nazi Saturday 11 November 2023 23:00 , Tara Cobham Husband of US journalist detained in Russia appeals for immediate release Saturday 11 November 2023 22:00 , Tara Cobham This wasnt how Pavel Butorin expected to celebrate his anniversary this week, with his wife of 21 years in a Russian prison and barely any communication available. Russian-American journalist, Alsu Kurmasheva who works as an editor for U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe has been detained in Russia for almost a month and charged with failing to self-register as a foreign agent. Alsu should be celebrating this anniversary with me and our children at home, not in a Russian prison, Butorin told The Associated Press in an interview in Prague on Friday. We want her back. Alsu must be released as soon as possible, he said, visibly shaken. Karel Janicek reports: Kherson is symbol of heroism and hope, says Zelenskyy on liberation anniversary Saturday 11 November 2023 21:00 , Tara Cobham Volodymyr Zelenskyy has described Kherson as a symbol of heroism and hope on the day the city marks one year since Ukraine retook it from occupying Russian forces. The Ukrainian President posted on X: Kherson is a symbol of heroism and hope. It is a city of our people who have not bowed down to the enemy and inspired all of us and the entire world with their resistance. Kherson is a symbol of heroism and hope. It is a city of our people who have not bowed down to the enemy and inspired all of us and the entire world with their resistance. Last year, Ukraines entire south saw that Russia never comes forever, no matter how many times it says pic.twitter.com/c3U4WjAUFo Volodymyr Zelenskyy / (@ZelenskyyUa) November 11, 2023 In pictures: Russias overnight strike on Kyiv Saturday 11 November 2023 20:00 , Tara Cobham People sit in a metro station to shelter from an air raid, during Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv (REUTERS) Missile traces are seen in the sky over the city after a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv (REUTERS) One year after liberation, Ukrainians in Kherson hold on to hope amid constant shelling Saturday 11 November 2023 19:00 , Tara Cobham One year since Ukraine retook the city of Kherson from occupying Russian forces, residents have grown accustomed to hearing outgoing fire from the left bank of the Dnieper river, where Russian troops are positioned. They know that familiar crackle means they have seven seconds to find a shelter, or a sturdy wall to hide behind. Their lives are mostly limited to the comfort of home and the necessity of the supermarket. Many shops are still shuttered. Municipal workers wear bullet-proof vests and wait to be dispatched to sweep up the rubble from yet another impact. Between lulls of artillery fire coming from the river, which marks the contact line between battling armies in the Kherson region, Ukrainians venture out to buy food, bicycle down grassy residential lanes or convene in the few restaurants that dare to remain open. Marking the anniversary of Russia's defeat on 11 November is a bittersweet occasion, many residents say, as Ukraine's counteroffensive grinds on without producing the spectacular gains many had hoped for. But those who stay are steadfast in their belief that one day normal life will return. "When you have lived under occupation, you know what freedom means," said Grigori Malov, who owns one out of three restaurants still operating in the city. "It's why we have a special attitude toward the continued shelling. We can withstand it because we know how it could be worse." The flight of Russian troops from Kherson under prolonged Ukrainian assault a year ago was one of Ukraine's biggest successes in the war and was seen as an inflection point. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy triumphantly walked the streets of the newly liberated city back then, hailing Russia's withdrawal as the "beginning of the end of the war." Many hoped it would serve as a springboard for more advances into occupied territory. Today, both sides are locked in a stalemated battle of attrition. People hold national flags and pose for a photo as the city marks one year since Ukraine retook the city of Kherson from occupying Russian forces, in central square in Kherson (AP) Armistice Day marked around globe as wars drown out peace messages Saturday 11 November 2023 18:00 , Tara Cobham With somber bugles and bells from Australia to western Europes battlefields of World War I, people around the globe on Saturday remembered the slaughter and losses just over a century ago that was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Yet the rumble of tanks and the screeching of incoming fire from Ukraine to Gaza pierced the solemnity of the occasion and the notion that humankind could somehow circumvent violence to settle its worst differences. This time last year, our thoughts were focused on Ukraine. Today, our minds are full with the terrible images emerging from Israel and Gaza. These are just two of the more than 100 armed conflicts in the world today, said Benoit Mottrie, the head of the Last Post Association in western Belgiums Ypres, where some of the fiercest and deadliest World War I battles were fought. Raf Casert and Marta Fiorin report: Somber bugles and bells mark Armistice Day around the globe as wars drown out peace messages Recap: Watch footage Ukraine releases of damaged Russian ship in Crimea Saturday 11 November 2023 17:00 , Tara Cobham ICYMI - A Russian missile hits a Liberia-flagged ship in Odesa, Ukraine's main Black Sea port Saturday 11 November 2023 16:00 , Lydia Patrick A Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian port of Odesa hit a Liberian-flagged freighter, killing a port worker and wounding another, as well as three citizens of the Philippines, crew members on the ship, Ukraines armed forces said Thursday. The report did not give the name of the ship or the country of its owners, but Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said the ship was to carry iron ore to China. The extent of the damage was not immediately reported. The Odesa port and others in the region are economically vital to Ukraine as its outlets to the Black Sea, from which ships can head for world markets. Odesa port facilities have come under Russian attack 21 times since Russia in August declined to renew a deal allowing Ukraine to safely export grain via the Black Sea, Kubrakov said. A Russian missile hits a Liberia-flagged ship in Odesa, Ukraine's main Black Sea port ICYMI - Two Russian landing boats filled with armoured vehicles destroyed by Ukraine in significant loss for Putin Saturday 11 November 2023 15:00 , Lydia Patrick Ukraine on Friday said its naval drones have destroyed two small Russian landing boats in Crimea, in an embarrassment for president Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian military intelligence said two amphibious Russian ships loaded with armoured vehicles had been hit by naval drones overnight. One of the boats has been identified as an Akula class vessel, while the other landing vessel was a Serna class. The results of intelligence conducted on 10 November 2023 near Vuzka Bay in temporarily occupied Crimea show that after an attack by naval drones, two small Russian landing ships have been destroyed, a Ukraine military report said. Ukraine destroys Russian landing boats in significant loss for Putin Ongoing wars drown out calls for peace Saturday 11 November 2023 14:10 , Lydia Patrick With somber bugles and bells from Australia to western Europes battlefields of World War I, people around the globe on Saturday remembered the slaughter and losses just over a century ago that was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Yet the rumble of tanks and the screeching of incoming fire from Ukraine to Gaza pierced the solemnity of the occasion and the notion that humankind could somehow circumvent violence to settle its worst differences. This time last year, our thoughts were focused on Ukraine. Today, our minds are full with the terrible images emerging from Israel and Gaza. These are just two of the more than 100 armed conflicts in the world today, said Benoit Mottrie, the head of the Last Post Association in western Belgiums Ypres, where some of the fiercest and deadliest World War I battles were fought. During a ceremony with Prime Minister Alexander De Croo and dozens of dignitaries, Mottrie expressed the sense of powerlessness that so many feel that the lessons of the past cannot automatically be translated into peace today. It would be naive to think that our presence here in Ypres will have any direct impact on any of the 100 conflicts. The emotions of those involved are too raw for us to understand, and for them to see the light of what we regard as reason, Mottrie said. France Armistice Day ((Ludovic Marin/Pool via AP)) A recap of overnight strikes Saturday 11 November 2023 12:45 , Lydia Patrick Russian forces targeted Ukraines capital, Kyiv, as part of an overnight bombardment felt across the country, local officials said Saturday, while drones that Russian officials blamed on the Ukrainian military targeted areas around Moscow and the region of Smolensk. A ballistic missile was shot down as it approached the Ukrainian capital, said Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration. He said that no one was injured. The Ukrainian air force later confirmed an Iskander-M missile ballistic missile was used in the attack, the first attempted missile strike on Kyiv in almost two months. The missile was destroyed by the countrys Patriot air defense system.Ukraines air defense systems actively repelled attacks in Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Poltava, Sumy, and Kirovohrad regions. The countrys air force said Russian troops launched 31 Shahed-136/131 drones, of which 19 were shot down. The strike in the Odesa region damaged the citys port infrastructure and a small community of cottages, injuring three people including a 96-year-old woman, said regional governor, Oleh Kiper. Russias military spokesperson, Yuri Ihnat, also said they launched an X-31 aircraft missile, an Onyx anti-ship missile, and an S-300 anti-aircraft guided missile targeting Ukraine overnight, but did not give further details. Russias defense ministry also said it shot down two Ukrainian drones over the Smolensk and Moscow regions.Smolensk governor, Vasiliy Anokhin, said that no one was hurt in the attack. Municipal workers wearing protective vests clear autumn leaves from the streets in Kherson, Ukraine (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.) Russian train carriages derail due to 'unauthorized interference' Saturday 11 November 2023 12:15 , Lydia Patrick Trains carrying cargo in Russias Ryazan region were derailed Saturday morning due to unauthorized interference, Moscow rail operator MZHD said.Russian law enforcement said that 15 train carriages had been derailed southeast of the capital, while MZHD reported the number as 19. Several Russian media outlets also reported that an explosion was heard in the vicinity on Saturday morning, although this could not be independently verified by The Associated Press.Russian officials have previously blamed pro-Ukrainian saboteurs for several attacks on the countrys railway system since Moscow invaded the country in February 2022, although no group has claimed responsibility for the damage.Kyiv has not commented on Saturdays attacks. Russian Railways Company employees works at the side of derailed train carriages carrying cargo in Ryazan region, Russia. Train carriages carrying cargo in Russias Ryazan region were derailed Saturday morning due to unauthorized interference 'We want her back,' husband of US journalist detained in Russia appeals for her immediate release Saturday 11 November 2023 11:37 , Lydia Patrick Russian-American journalist, Alsu Kurmasheva who works as an editor for U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe has been detained in Russia for almost a month and charged with failing to self-register as a foreign agent. Alsu should be celebrating this anniversary with me and our children at home, not in a Russian prison, Butorin told The Associated Press in an interview in Prague on Friday. We want her back. Alsu must be released as soon as possible, he said, visibly shaken. Kurmasheva was detained on Oct 18, becoming the second U.S. journalist detained in Russia this year, after Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested on espionage charges in March. She is being held in a detention center, awaiting a trial that could sentence her to up to five years in prison.Her ordeal began in May when she decided to travel to Russias Tatarstan to see her ailing, elderly mother for what was supposed to be a short trip. On June 2, she was about to board a return plane for home at Kazan International Airport when she was temporarily detained, both her passports and phone seized and fined for failing to register her U.S. passport with Russian authorities. But before Alsu was able to pay the fine that was eventually issued, she was charged with a much more serious offense, and that is failure to register as a foreign agent, Butorin said. The state-run news website Tatar-Inform said Kurmasheva faces charges of failing to register as a foreign agent and was collecting information on Russian military activities in order to transmit information to foreign sources. ICYMI - Saturday 11 November 2023 11:07 , Lydia Patrick Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the Southern Military District headquarters in Rostov-on-Don as he assessed the state of his countrys forces in Ukraine as the war drags on toward winter. It was his second public visit to the headquarters in less than a month. Video shared by a Russian state news agency showed Putin being greeted late Thursday by Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff. Almost 21 months of war have significantly eroded both Russias and Ukraines military resources. As winter comes, the fighting is likely to further settle into attritional warfare and analysts expect little change to the more than 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line. Putin and top military leaders visit southern military headquarters to assess his war in Ukraine A recap of last nights strike on Kyiv Saturday 11 November 2023 10:30 , Lydia Patrick Russia launched a missile attack on Ukraines capital Kyiv and the nearby region for the first time in weeks and pounded the east and south of the country with drones, Ukrainian officials said. Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv city military administration, said a Russian ballistic missile was launched toward the capital at about 08:00 a.m.(0600 GMT). After a long pause of 52 days, the enemy has resumed missile attacks on Kyiv, Popko said on the Telegram messaging app. The missile failed to reach Kyiv, air defenders shot it down as it was approaching the capital. Popko said there were no casualties or major damage in the capital. Ruslan Kravchenko, regional governor for the central Kyiv region, said five private houses and several commercial buildings in the area were damaged. He said two Russian missiles struck a field between settlements. Ukraines air defenders also shot down 19 Iranian-made Shahed drones out of 31 launched by the Russian forces in the overnight attack on southern and eastern regions, the air force said in a statement. Oleh Kiper, Odesas regional governor, said the southern region was attacked with missiles and drones on Friday evening and overnight. The strikes wounded three people and damaged port infrastructure facilities, he said without offering further details. Russia has intensified its bombardments of Ukraines ports, including Odesa, and grain infrastructure since July when Moscow pulled out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a wartime deal that enabled Ukraines exports to reach many countries facing the threat of hunger. Missile traces are seen in the sky over the city after a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine (REUTERS) North Korea condemns Blinkens remarks on Pyongyangs relations with Russia Saturday 11 November 2023 10:00 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar North Korea has condemned US Secretary of State Antony Blinkens comments on North Korea-Russia relations. Mr Blinken said on Thursday he shared South Korean concerns about growing military cooperation between North Korea and Russia, which he called a two-way street. The US should be accustomed to the new reality of the DPRK-Russia relations, North Koreas foreign ministry said. No matter what others may say, the friendly and cooperative relations between the DPRK and Russia aspiring after independence, peace and friendship will steadily grow stronger, the statement added. Ukraine shoots down 19 Shahed drones Saturday 11 November 2023 09:28 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar Russia on Saturday launched a missile attack on Ukraines capital Kyiv and the nearby region for the first time in weeks. Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv city military administration, said a Russian ballistic missile was launched toward the capital at about 8am (local time). After a long pause of 52 days, the enemy has resumed missile attacks on Kyiv, Mr Popko said. The missile failed to reach Kyiv, air defenders shot it down as it was approaching the capital. Ukraine said its air defenders shot down 19 Iranian-made Shahed drones out of 31 launched by the Russian forces in the overnight attack on southern and eastern regions. Putin and top military leaders visit southern military headquarters Saturday 11 November 2023 08:30 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar Russian president Vladimir Putin visited the Southern Military District headquarters in Rostov-on-Don as he assessed the state of his countrys forces in Ukraine. It was his second public visit to the headquarters in less than a month. Video shared by a Russian state news agency showed MrPutin being greeted late Thursday by defence minister Minister Sergey Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff. Almost 21 months of war have significantly eroded both Russias and Ukraines military resources. As winter comes, the fighting is likely to further settle into attritional warfare and analysts expect little change to the more than 1,000km front line. In Rostov-on-Don, less than 100km from Ukraines southeastern border, Mr Putin was introduced to new types of military equipment and was informed about the progress of the war, his spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, according to Russian state news agency Tass. More here. Putin and top military leaders visit southern military headquarters to assess his war in Ukraine Two Russian landing boats filled with armoured vehicles destroyed Saturday 11 November 2023 08:00 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar Ukraine on Friday said its naval drones have destroyed two small Russian landing boats in Crimea, in an embarrassment for president Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian military intelligence said two amphibious Russian ships loaded with armoured vehicles had been hit by naval drones overnight. One of the boats has been identified as an Akula class vessel, while the other landing vessel was a Serna class. The results of intelligence conducted on 10 November 2023 near Vuzka Bay in temporarily occupied Crimea show that after an attack by naval drones, two small Russian landing ships have been destroyed, a Ukraine military report said. More here. Ukraine destroys Russian landing boats in significant loss for Putin 'Strong explosions in Kyiv as Ukrainian capital comes under attack Saturday 11 November 2023 07:52 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar Russian air strikes targeted Ukraines capital Kyiv on Saturday, in a first attack since September, the city mayor said. There was no immediate information on if there were any casualties.Strong explosions were heard on the left bank of the capital, mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram. Preliminary, air defence was working against ballistic (missiles). Air alerts for Kyiv and a nearby region were announced just minutes before the explosions were heard as city authorities urged residents to stay in shelters. Watch: US presidential hopeful appears to call Ukraine's Zelensky a 'Nazi' Saturday 11 November 2023 06:59 , Andy Gregory Ukraine beats back Russian attacks on frontline as rain slows down Putins troops Saturday 11 November 2023 06:02 , Andy Gregory Russian forces were failing to advance against Ukrainian troops as they scaled up their attacks on the eastern town of Avdiivka, senior military officials said on Friday. They said Moscow wanted to advance while attention remained on Israel. My colleague Arpan Rai has more here: Ukraine beats back Russian attacks on frontline as rain slows down Putins troops Putin and top military leaders visit southern military headquarters to assess his war in Ukraine Saturday 11 November 2023 05:02 , Andy Gregory Vladimir Putin visited the Southern Military District headquarters in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don mutinously seized by the late Yevgeny Prigozhin in June as he assessed the state of Russias forces in Ukraine, in his second public visit to the headquarters in less than a month. Footage shared by a Russian state news agency showed the Russian president being greeted late on Thursday by defence minister Sergey Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, chief of Russias General Staff. Mr Putin was introduced to new types of military equipment and was informed about the progress of the war, his spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, according to Russian state news agency Tass. He made the visit on the way back from a trip to Kazakhstan, where he aimed to cement ties with Russias ex-Soviet neighbour and major economic partner. Putin and top military leaders visit southern military headquarters to assess his war in Ukraine Ukraines global peace summit deferred to next year amid war in Gaza Saturday 11 November 2023 04:05 , Andy Gregory Ukraines global peace summit is likely to take place next year, amid concerns over diplomatic rallying for the end of war in Europe with a simultaneous war raging in Gaza. The war-hit country is arranging a fourth meeting of national security advisers in late November or early December, said Ihor Zhovka, president Volodymyr Zelenskys top diplomatic adviser. And the Global Summit might take place in February 2024, he said in a statement. He added that the summit will definitely take place as it will mark both the symbolic beginning of the practical implementation of the Ukraine peace formula and summarise all the results that have already been achieved on this track. Kyiv is looking to build a global coalition to come together and endorse a 10-point formula for peace in the region drafted by Volodymyr Zelensky. My colleague Arpan Rai has more details: Ukraines global peace summit deferred to next year amid war in Gaza Teenager taken to Russia from Mariupol to be allowed to return to Ukraine, officials say Saturday 11 November 2023 03:04 , Andy Gregory Ukrainian and Russian officials say they have reached an agreement to bring home a Ukrainian teenager taken to Russia from Mariupol by Moscows forces as they devastated the city last year. Bohdan Yermokhin, a 17-year-old whose parents passed away years ago, will be reunited with a cousin in a third country on his 18th birthday later this month, with a view to then return to Ukraine, Russian childrens rights official Maria Lvova-Belova said. Ukraines human rights official Dmytro Lubinets also confirmed on Friday that Mr Yermokhin will soon be in Ukraine. Mr Yermokhin is one of thousands of Ukrainian children taken to Russia from Ukraine since the invasion began, which has seen the International Criminal Court issue war crime arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and Lvova-Belova. Mr Yermokhin was taken to Russia from the port city of Mariupol, seized by Moscows forces early on in the war. He was placed in a foster family in the Moscow region and given Russian citizenship, but repeatedly expressed the desire to return to Ukraine, his lawyer and family say. The teenager appears to have already tried to escape Russia. In April, Lvova-Belova admitted Russian authorities had caught Mr Yerkmohin near Russias border with Belarus, as he was heading to Ukraine. The childrens rights ombudswoman argued that he was being taken there under false pretenses. Lvova-Belova said on Friday that in August, her office offered Yermokhin the option of returning to Ukraine, but he clearly stated that he doesnt plan to move to Ukraine before turning 18 and confirmed it in writing. He later changed his mind, she claimed, and an agreement with Ukraine regarding his return was reached. Watch: Putin struggles to pronounce the name of Kazakh president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev Saturday 11 November 2023 02:04 , Andy Gregory Full report: Hungarys Orban says talks on Ukraines EU membership should not progress Saturday 11 November 2023 01:02 , Andy Gregory Viktor Orban has said he does not support moving forward on negotiations on Ukraines future membership in the European Union, indicating once again that Hungary could pose a major roadblock to Kyivs ambitions to join the bloc. EU leaders are to decide next month whether Ukraine should be formally invited to begin talks to join the union. Unanimity among all member states is required to admit a new country into the bloc, giving Mr Orban a powerful veto. The EUs executive branch on Wednesday recommended that Ukraine should be permitted to open membership talks once it has addressed some shortfalls. But in an interview with state radio on Friday, Mr Orban said: Ukraine is in no way ready to negotiate on its ambitions to join the European Union. The clear Hungarian position is that the negotiations must not begin. Justin Spike has the full report: Hungary's Orban says negotiations on Ukraine's future EU membership should not move forward Ukraine claims to sink two Russian boats loaded with armoured vehicles Saturday 11 November 2023 00:01 , Andy Gregory Ukrainian naval drones have destroyed two small amphibious Russian landing boats loaded with armoured vehicles in Crimea, Ukraines military intelligence agency has claimed. An evening update claimed the attack had been carried out by naval drones on the two vessels in Vuzka Bay, on the west side of the peninsula. It identified one landing craft as an Akula class vessel, the other a Serna class. As a consequence of the attack, both vessels went to the bottom, the Akula straight away and the Serna after attempts to save it. The Ukrainian military said the vessels were crewed, and loaded with armoured vehicles. In the latest fighting reports, the Russian state-backed news agency RIA quoted Russias defence ministry as saying Russian air defences had brought down two Ukrainian drones over Crimea and one over the Tula region south of Moscow early on Friday. Long-term EU aid plan for Ukraine may not survive in current form, say diplomats Friday 10 November 2023 23:04 , Andy Gregory A European Union plan to spend up to 20bn on military aid for Ukraine is meeting resistance from EU countries and may not survive in its current form, diplomats have told Reuters. Josep Borrell, the EUs foreign policy chief, proposed in July that the bloc create a fund with up to 5bn annually over four years as part of broader Western security commitments to support Ukraine against Russias invasion. But as EU defence ministers prepare to discuss the plan in Brussels on Tuesday, diplomats say multiple countries including Germany have voiced reservations about committing such large sums years in advance. Im not going to declare it dead at this point yet. But of course, improvements can always be made, a senior EU diplomat told Reuters on Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity. Germany has had a lot of questions ... and rightfully so. Were talking about a lot of money. President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Ukrainians on Sunday to prepare for new waves of Russian attacks on infrastructure as winter approached and said troops were anticipating an onslaught in the eastern theatre of the war. Zelensky issued his warning during his nightly video address a day after Russian forces carried out their first missile attack on the capital, Kyiv in some seven weeks. We are almost half way through November and must be prepared for the fact that the enemy may increase the number of drone or missile strikes on our infrastructure, Zelensky said. Last winter about 10 months into Russias invasion of neighbour Ukraine, Russia made waves of attacks on power stations and other plants inked to the energy network, prompting rolling blackouts in widely separated regions. It comes as Putins forces have ramped up their offensive as they push to regain territory near Bakhmut, the head of Ukraines ground forces wrote on Telegram. Ukrainian troops had recaptured the heights over Bakhmut and made some advances to the citys west, north and south since Kyiv launched its summer counteroffensive. Key Points Zelensky warns Ukrainians to prepare for winter onslaught from Russia Russia intensifies attacks in Avdiivka Strong explosions in Kyiv as Ukrainian capital comes under attack Two Russian landing boats filled with armoured vehicles destroyed Ukraine warns any peace talks with Russia are a trap' Volodymyr Zelensky says he is certain of battlefield success Germanys aid to Ukrain to be massively expanded' 12:36 , Athena Stavrou Germanys aid for Ukraine will be massively expanded next year, the foreign minister has said. It comes as Kyiv heads into its second winter since Russia launched its full-scale invasion. Germany has become one of Ukraines top military suppliers since the war started in February 2022, sending hardware including tanks, armoured personnel carriers, air defence systems and Patriot missile systems. Foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said as she arrived at a meeting with European Union counterparts that as Europe grapples with the war between Israel and Hamas, it is still important to face the geopolitical challenge here. She said that will include helping Ukraine through the coming winter months and our support will be massively expanded for next year. Over the weekend, the Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported that Chancellor Olaf Scholzs governing coalition wants to increase Germanys military aid for 2024 from the 4 billion euros (3.5 billion) initially planned to 8 billion euros (7 billion). It said parliaments budget committee will need to sign off on the plan later this week. Kremlin says report on Nord Stream attack is alarming' 12:04 , Athena Stavrou The Kremlin said on Monday that a Washington Post article reporting that a Ukrainian military officer coordinated the attack on Russias Nord Stream pipelines was alarming. The report also said that Ukraines president Volodymyr Zelenskiy was not aware of it. No one has taken responsibility for the September 2022 blasts, which occurred off the Danish island of Bornholm and ruptured three out of four lines of the system that delivers Russian gas to Europe. The Washington Post reported that Roman Chervinsky, a senior Ukrainian military officer with deep ties to Ukraines intelligence services, was the coordinator of the attack and cited unidentified people familiar with the operation as saying President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was kept out of the loop. Traces of Ukraine in this sabotage, this terrorist act, are increasingly appearing in reports, investigations and media reports, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. It says that President Zelenskiy may not have been aware of such actions by his subordinates from the security agencies. This is a very alarming signal not only for us, but also for the countries of the collective West, Peskov said. If the Kyiv regime is no longer in control of the situation in its own country, then this is alarming and should also be taken into account. Russia may announce March 2024 presidential election date 11:35 , Athena Stavrou Russias parliament may announce on Dec. 13 that next years presidential election has been preliminarily scheduled for March 17, the state news agency RIA reported on Monday, citing a source in parliament. President Vladimir Putin has already decided to run in the election, Reuters reported last week, citing six sources, a move that will keep him in power until at least 2030 as he seeks to steer Russia through its most uncertain period in decades. (AP) Cameron mentions Ukraine in first statement as UK foreign minister 10:53 , Athena Stavrou Former British leader David Cameron was named as the countrys new foreign secretary on Monday in a surprise appointment made by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as he reshuffled his top team. In a statement posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, Mr Cameron said the ongoing war in Ukraine was part of a daunting set of international challenges. He wrote: The Prime Minister has asked me to serve as his Foreign Secretary and I have gladly accepted. We are facing a daunting set of international challenges, including the war in Ukraine and the crisis in the Middle East. At this time of profound global change, it has rarely been more important for this country to stand by our allies, strengthen our partnerships and make sure our voice is heard. (PA) Russian state in direct control of Wagner troops 10:23 , Athena Stavrou The Russian state is now exercising more direct control of Wagner Group troops, the British Ministiry of Defence said. In an intelligence update the Defence Ministry said large elements of the Wagner Group had likely been assimilated into the command structure of Russias National Guard (Rosgvardiya) and resumed active recruitment. It comes several months after the plane crash that killed Prigozhin the mercenary leader who had challenged his regime and launched a military coup by marching onto Moscow in a dramatic threat to the Kremlin not seen in decades. The intelligence update went on to say the Wagner arm in question is likely led by Pavel Prigozhin, son of the late Wagner owner Yevgeny Prigozhin. They added other groups of Wagner fighters have highly likely joined another Russian PMC, Redut, which according to a Radio Free Europe investigation now has 7,000 personnel in total. Members of the Wagner Group military company sit atop of a tank on a street in Rostov-on-Don, Russia (AP) Kremlin declines to comment on state news agencies withdrawl of reports 09:28 , Athena Stavrou The Kremlin on Monday declined to comment on state news agencies withdrawal of reports on the regrouping of Russian troops in southern Ukraine. Two Russian state news agencies published alerts on Monday saying Moscow was moving troops to more favourable positions east of the Dnipro River, only to withdraw the information minutes later. Russian state media withdraw alerts on troop 'regrouping' in southern Ukraine 09:05 , Athena Stavrou Two Russian state news agencies published alerts on Monday saying Moscow was moving troops to more favourable positions east of the Dnipro River in Ukraine, only to withdraw the information minutes later. The highly unusual incident suggested disarray in Russias military establishment and state media over how to report the battlefield situation in southern Ukraine. The RBC news outlet quoted the defence ministry as saying: The sending of a false report about the regrouping of troops in the Dnieper (Dnipro) region, allegedly on behalf of the press centre of the Russian Ministry of Defence, is a provocation. Russia moves some troops to more favourable positions east of Dnipro River 08:16 , Athena Stavrou Russia is moving its Dnepr group of forces to more favourable positions east of the Dnipro River in Ukraine, state news agency RIA cited the Russian defence ministry as saying on Monday. Russias military said on Friday that its forces had thwarted a Ukrainian attempt to forge a bridgehead on the eastern bank of the Dnipro and on nearby islands. Reuters could not independently verify the military reports Blast kills 3 Russian officers in occupied town, Ukraine says 07:38 , Athena Stavrou At least three Russian officers were killed in the Moscow-controlled Ukrainian city of Melitopol in a blast Ukraines intelligence said on Sunday was an act of revenge by local resistance groups. Melitopol is a town in southwestern Ukraine that has become a hub for Russian forces since they captured it in March last year. The blast allegedly occurred during a meeting of Russian officers on Saturday. This act of revenge, carried out by representatives of the local resistance movement, took place in the (post) offices seized by the Russians, the Ukrainian Defence Ministrys intelligence department said on the Telegram messaging app. Reuters could not independently verify the Ukrainian intelligence claim. Russias defence ministry did not immediately responded to Reuters request to comment. The Ukraine intelligence statement said the Saturday meeting was attended by Russian National Guard and FSB intelligence service officers. As a result of the explosion at least three National Guard officers were killed at the headquarters, the statement said. Information of other enemy losses is being clarified. Ukrainian forces reportedly advance in western Zaporizhia Oblast 07:00 , Tara Cobham Ukrainian forces reportedly advanced in western Zaporizhia Oblast on Saturday, according to a US war think tank. The Institute for the Study of War said this comes as Ukrainian forces continue their counteroffensive operations in the area of southern Ukraine. Southern #Ukraine: Ukrainian forces continued counteroffensive operations in western #Zaporizhia Oblast on November 11 and reportedly advanced. (1/3)https://t.co/wivagUgj7S https://t.co/Cq1fVKbqwu pic.twitter.com/OVzEgTxfmo Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) November 12, 2023 In pictures: Ukrainian forces battle in Avdiivka as Russia increases attacks on key city 06:00 , Tara Cobham Members of Ukraine's National Guard Omega Special Purpose unit fire a mortar toward Russian troops in the front line town of Avdiivka on Wednesday (REUTERS) Members of Ukraine's National Guard Omega Special Purpose fire a SPG-9 anti-tank grenade launcher toward Russian troops in the front line town of Avdiivka last week (REUTERS) Ukrainian servicemen move past a burning car hit by a kamikaze drone outside the front line town of Avdiivka on Wednesday (REUTERS) Recap: Husband of US journalist detained in Russia appeals for release 05:00 , Tara Cobham This wasnt how Pavel Butorin expected to celebrate his anniversary this week, with his wife of 21 years in a Russian prison and barely any communication available. Russian-American journalist, Alsu Kurmasheva who works as an editor for U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe has been detained in Russia for almost a month and charged with failing to self-register as a foreign agent. Alsu should be celebrating this anniversary with me and our children at home, not in a Russian prison, Butorin told The Associated Press in an interview in Prague on Friday. We want her back. Alsu must be released as soon as possible, he said, visibly shaken. Karel Janicek reports: 'We want her back,' husband of US journalist detained in Russia appeals for her immediate release Finnish Border Guard reports spike in asylum seekers from Russia 04:00 , Tara Cobham The Finnish Border Guard has reported a spike in asylum seekers arriving at the countrys southeastern border from Russia. In a statement on Sunday, it said 91 people have arrived at the border crossing points without required travel documents since the beginning of August, which is a higher number than usual, having travelled from a third country via Russia. It said this represents a change, as Russian authorities have previously not allowed travel from Russia to Finnish border crossing points if the passenger did not have the required travel documents. In its assessment, the Finnish Border Guard said: This is a phenomenon of illegal migration. International crime is probably also linked to the phenomenon. The number of illegal border crossings at the land border (areas outside of border crossing points) has not changed. Two Ukrainian women save almost 1,000 from pensions to buy drones' 03:00 , Tara Cobham Two Ukrainian women saved money from their pensions to buy drones for their countrys forces, according to the Advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. Liudmyla Skubriieva, from Rozhniativ, and her relative Halyna Hil, from Kyiv, together saved the equivalent of almost 1,000 to send two kamikaze drones to the 10th Mountain Assault Brigade Edelweiss, Anton Gerashchenko said on the social media platform X, alongside a photo of the pair. Two Ukrainian ladies saved money from their pensions to buy drones for Ukrainian defenders. Liudmyla Skubriieva from Rozhniativ and her relative from Kyiv, Halyna Hil, bought two kamikaze drones for the AFU. They collected almost UAH 20,000 each from their pensions. The drones pic.twitter.com/0igB9qcyJ6 Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) November 12, 2023 Germany set to double Ukraine military aid, according to source 02:00 , Tara Cobham German chancellor Olaf Scholz's governing coalition has agreed in principle to double the country's military aid for Ukraine next year to 8 billion euros ($8.5 billion), a political source in Berlin said on Sunday. If approved by parliament, where Scholz's parties hold a majority, the boost would lift Germany's defence spending to 2.1% of its gross domestic product target, beyond the 2% pledged by all North Atlantic Treaty Organization members, the source added. Lawmakers from Scholz's Social Democrats, the Free Democrats and the Green party agreed on the increase in negotiations over the proposed 2024 federal budget ahead of a formal meeting of the budget committee of the Bundestag - or lower house of parliament - on Thursday, Nov. 16, the source said. Bloomberg News first reported on the news on Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter. A spokesperson for Germany's Ministry of Defence said the Bundestag committee has not finished negotiations and declined to comment further. Defence minister Boris Pistorius, interviewed by broadcaster ARD, referred to the planned doubling of military aid to Ukraine. "It is a strong signal to Ukraine that we will not leave them in the lurch," he said, adding the move, if agreed, would mean the annual budget allocation would be enough to last the whole year. Recap: Ukraine destroys Russian landing boats in significant loss for Putin 01:00 , Tara Cobham Ukraine on Friday said its naval drones had destroyed two small Russian landing boats in Crimea, in an embarrassment for President Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian military intelligence said two amphibious Russian ships loaded with armoured vehicles had been hit by naval drones overnight. One of the boats was identified as an Akula class vessel, while the other landing vessel was a Serna class. Alisha Rahaman Sarkar reports: Ukraine destroys Russian landing boats in significant loss for Putin Recap: Watch Russia test intercontinental ballistic missiles from new submarine 00:00 , Tara Cobham Russia increases attacks on key city Avdiivka in attempt to gain ground Sunday 12 November 2023 23:00 , Tara Cobham Russian forces have also increased attacks on the key frontline city of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to gain ground, Ukrainian military officials said Sunday. Ukraine's General Staff said that Russian troops were also continuing their weekslong push to encircle Avdiivka, a Ukrainian stronghold south of Bakhmut and a key target since the beginning of the war. It's considered the gateway to parts of the eastern Donetsk region under Kyiv's control. The General Staff said Russia's air force was playing a key part in the latest assault. Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, who leads Ukrainian troops fighting in and near Avdiivka, said Sunday that the attacking Russian forces were ramping up airstrikes, particularly those using guided bombs. He wrote on Telegram that Russian troops had launched 30 airstrikes and 712 artillery barrages at the city and surrounding areas over the previous day, and clashed almost 50 times with Ukrainian units. A police officer stands in front of a damaged building, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the town of Avdiivka, Donetsk region, Ukraine, in October (REUTERS) Zelensky warns Ukrainians to prepare for winter onslaught from Russia Sunday 12 November 2023 22:05 , Joe Middleton President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Ukrainians on Sunday to prepare for new waves of Russian attacks on infrastructure as winter approached and said troops were anticipating an onslaught in the eastern theatre of the war. A military spokesman said Russian attacks on the shattered eastern town of Avdiivka had eased in the past day, but were likely to intensify in the coming days. And Ukrainian military intelligence said an explosion killed at least three Russian servicemen in the Russian-occupied southern town of Melitopol, which it described as an act of revenge by resistance groups. Zelenskiy issued his warning during his nightly video address a day after Russian forces carried out their first missile attack on the capital, Kyiv in some seven weeks. We are almost half way through November and must be prepared for the fact that the enemy may increase the number of drone or missile strikes on our infrastructure, Zelenskiy said. Russia is preparing for Ukraine. And here, in Ukraine, all attention should be focused on defence, on responding to terrorists on everything that Ukraine can do to get through the winter and improve our soldiers capabilities. Last winter about 10 months into Russias invasion of neighbour Ukraine, Russia made waves of attacks on power stations and other plants inked to the energy network, prompting rolling blackouts in widely separated regions. Energy Minister German Galushchenko said on Saturday that Ukraine would have enough energy resources to get through the winter, but added: The question is how much future attacks can affect supplies. Russia ramps up attacks on key city Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine Sunday 12 November 2023 22:00 , Tara Cobham Russian forces have ramped up attacks in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to gain ground near key frontline city Bakhmut, Ukrainian military officials said Sunday. Moscow's troops have begun a push to regain territory near Bakhmut, the eastern mining city that was the site of the war's bloodiest battle before falling into Russian hands in May, the head of Ukraine's ground forces wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Ukrainian troops had recaptured the heights over Bakhmut and made some advances west, north and south of the city since Kyiv launched its summer counteroffensive. "Toward Bakhmut, the Russians have become more active and are trying to recapture previously lost positions. ... Enemy attacks are being repelled," Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote in a Telegram update on Sunday afternoon. A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said Sunday that Russian forces over the previous day repelled five Ukrainian attacks near Klischiivka and Kurdyumivka, two small settlements lying south of Bakhmut. Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov made the claim at the latest of regular press briefings. Ukraine's long-awaited counteroffensive has so far resulted in only incremental gains and heavy losses, with Ukrainian troops struggling to punch through Russian lines in the south. Meanwhile, Moscow's forces have attempted to press forward in the northeast, likely with a view to distract Kyiv and minimize the number of troops Ukraine is able to send to key southern and eastern battles. Recap: Watch Zelenskys warning the war will go to other Nato countries if Russia wins Sunday 12 November 2023 21:00 , Tara Cobham Russian forces advance near Avdiivka, says think tank Sunday 12 November 2023 20:00 , Tara Cobham Russian forces have recently advanced near Avdiivka, according to a US war think tank. The Institute for the Study of War said Vladimir Putins forces temporarily intensified offensive operations in the area over the course of Friday and Saturday. It said this is likely to consolidate recent gains in the area. Russian forces have recently made confirmed advances near #Avdiivka and temporarily intensified offensive operations between November 10-11, likely to consolidate recent gains in the area. https://t.co/wivagUgj7S https://t.co/Cq1fVKbqwu pic.twitter.com/k3G52Lo59C Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) November 12, 2023 In pictures: Ukrainian forces continue to fight to retake Bakhmut Sunday 12 November 2023 19:00 , Tara Cobham Ukrainian forces continue to fight to retake Bakhmut, which was captured by Russian forces in May (Getty Images) Members of Ukraine's 56th Brigade fire participate in combat duty on Friday in the Bakhmut District of Ukraine (Getty Images) Over the summer, Ukraine regained territory north and south of Bakhmut but Russia has held the city itself (Getty Images) Blast kills three Russian officers in occupied town, says Ukrainian intelligence Sunday 12 November 2023 18:00 , Tara Cobham Ukraine's intelligence directorate said on Sunday that an explosion in the Russian-occupied town of Melitopol killed at least three Russian servicemen in an attack it described as an "act of revenge" by local underground groups. The blast occurred during a meeting on Saturday of Russian officers in the town, a hub of Russian forces in the south, the directorate within the defence ministry said in a statement. "This act of revenge, carried out by representatives of the local resistance, took place in the New Post offices seized by the Russians," it said. There was no mention of the incident from Russian officials. Reuters was unable to verify the Ukrainian statement. The intelligence statement said the meeting on Saturday at the local military headquarters was attended by Russian National Guard and FSB intelligence service officers. "As a result of the explosion at least three National Guard officers were killed at the headquarters," the statement said. "Information of other enemy losses is being clarified." The statement said police converged on the area and a burned-out car was later seen being towed through the town. Bidens reelection pitch when it comes to Ukraine Sunday 12 November 2023 17:00 , Tara Cobham US President Joe Biden is facing two wars on two continents, and the fallout from each conflict will shape a second term even if the fighting ends before that. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been going on for almost two years, and Israel and Hamas began their latest clash about a month ago. Biden wants to send military support to Ukraine and Israel, something that he describes as "vital" to U.S. national security interests. "History has taught us 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," he said in a recent Oval Office address. His plans will require challenging congressional negotiations. Some Republicans are resisting more assistance for Ukraine after Congress has already approved $113 billion in security, economic and humanitarian resistance. Both conflicts will likely require years of U.S. involvement. For example, Biden is looking for a new opportunity to push for a two-state solution in the Middle East, creating an independent Palestinian country alongside Israel. US President Joe Biden speaks at the National Veterans Day Observance at the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. on Saturday (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) Senior Ukrainian officer coordinated Nord Stream attack Sunday 12 November 2023 16:05 , Lydia Patrick A Ukrainian military officer coordinated last years attack on the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing anonymous sources in Ukraine and Europe. No one has taken responsibility for the September 2022 blasts, which occurred off the Danish island of Bornholm and ruptured three out of four lines of the system that delivers Russian gas to Europe. Washington and NATO called it an act of sabotage, while Moscow said it was an act of international terrorism. Roman Chervinsky, a former intelligence official who served in the Ukrainian militarys special forces, managed a six-person team but did not plan the attack, the Post reported. He denied involvement. A spokesperson for Ukraines military told Reuters he had no information about the claim. The Ukrainian foreign ministry and Kyivs domestic security service, the SBU, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. His commanding officer at the time, Maj. Gen. Viktor Hanushchak, told Ukrainian media earlier this year that senior military leadership had signed off on the plot to lure the Russian pilot. Morning light falls on the landfall facility of the Nord Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline and the transfer station of the OPAL gas pipeline, the Baltic Sea Pipeline Link, in Lubmin, Germany, on July 21, 2022 (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) Russian troops continue effort to encircle Avdiivka Sunday 12 November 2023 13:30 , Lydia Patrick Ukraines General Staff said that Russian troops were also continuing their weekslong push to encircle Avdiivka, an Ukrainian stronghold south of Bakhmut and a key target since the beginning of the war. Its considered the gateway to parts of the eastern Donetsk region under Kyivs control. The General Staff said the air force was playing a key part in the latest Russian assault.Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, who leads Ukrainian troops fighting in and near Avdiivka, said Sunday that the attacking Russian forces were ramping up airstrikes, particularly those using guided bombs. He wrote on Telegram that Russian troops over the previous day had launched 30 airstrikes and 712 artillery barrages at the city and surrounding areas, and clashed almost 50 times with Ukrainian units. An elderly civilian woman stands with a cat on the balcony of her destroyed house in the city of Avdiivka (Getty Images) Russia ramps up attacks on key cities in eastern Ukraine Sunday 12 November 2023 12:35 , Lydia Patrick Moscows troops have begun a push to regain territory near Bakhmut, the eastern mining city that was the site of the wars bloodiest battle before falling into Russian hands in May, the head of Ukraines ground forces wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Ukrainian troops had recaptured the heights over Bakhmut and made some advances to the citys west, north and south since Kyiv launched its summer counteroffensive. Toward Bakhmut, the Russians have become more active and are trying to recapture previously lost positions. ... Enemy attacks are being repelled, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote in a Telegram update on Sunday afternoon. Ukraines long-awaited counteroffensive has so far resulted in only incremental gains and heavy losses, with Ukrainian troops struggling to punch through Russian lines in the south. Meanwhile, Moscows forces have attempted to press forward in the northeast, likely with a view to distract Kyiv and minimize the number of troops it is able to send to key southern and eastern battles. The Ukrainian ground forces spokesperson similarly reported that Russian troops had switched from defense to active defense near Bakhmut, putting pressure on Ukrainian troops south of the city. Vladimir Fityo made the remarks on Ukrainian TV, adding that Russian troops were searching for weak points in Ukrainian defenses and ramping up artillery strikes on Ukrainian positions. Dozens of Russians are said to make up the Siberian Battalion (Getty Images) Germany set to double Ukraine military aid under Scholz plan Sunday 12 November 2023 12:05 , Lydia Patrick German chancellor Olaf Scholzs governing coalition has agreed in principle to double the countrys military aid for Ukraine next year to 8 billion euros ($8.5 billion), a political source in Berlin said. If approved by parliament, where Scholzs parties hold a majority, the boost would lift Germanys defence spending to 2.1% of its gross domestic product target, beyond the 2% pledged by all North Atlantic Treaty Organization members, the source added. Lawmakers of Scholzs Social Democrats, the Free Democrats and the Green party agreed on the increase in negotiations over the proposed 2024 federal budget ahead of a formal meeting of the budget committee of the Bundestag - or lower house of parliament - on Thursday, Nov. 16, the source said. A spokesperson for Germanys Ministry of Defence said the Bundestag committee has not finished negotiations and declined to comment further. Germanys Bild am Sonntag newspaper also said the committee is due to approve the additional 4 billion euros. Doubling the military spending is both the right thing to do and important, it quoted member of parliament Andreas Schwarz, who acts as an SPD military budget official, as saying. With the move we will underscore our promise to Ukraine with the necessary funds. The fact that we will also be able to fulfil our NATO obligation is a great success of the ... coalition, he was reported as saying. A European Union plan to spend up to 20 billion euros ($21.4 billion) on military aid for Ukraine is meeting with resistance from EU countries, diplomats said this week. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz greets 102-year-old German Holocaust survivor Margot Friedlaender (POOL/AFP/Getty) 'We want her back,' husband of US journalist detained in Russia appeals for her immediate release Sunday 12 November 2023 11:30 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain This wasnt how Pavel Butorin expected to celebrate his anniversary this week, with his wife of 21 years in a Russian prison and barely any communication available. Russian-American journalist, Alsu Kurmasheva who works as an editor for U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe has been detained in Russia for almost a month and charged with failing to self-register as a foreign agent. Alsu should be celebrating this anniversary with me and our children at home, not in a Russian prison, Butorin told The Associated Press in an interview in Prague on Friday. We want her back. Alsu must be released as soon as possible, he said, visibly shaken. 'We want her back,' husband of US journalist detained in Russia appeals for her immediate release Putin drafting Wagner Group mercenaries into national guard, UK says Sunday 12 November 2023 10:57 , Lydia Patrick Large elements of the Wagner Group mercenary group are likely serving in Russias National Guard, says the UKs Ministry of Defence. Rosgvardiyas national guard is thought to be led by Pavel Prigozhin, the son of the late Yevgeny Prigozhin - the Wagner leader who died in a plane crash in August of this year soon after the rebel group captured Rostov-on-Don. Other Wagner fighters are likely to have joined Redut, another Private Military Company, which have a total of 7,000 personnel, say the Ministry of Defence. Wagner group fighters also joined Chechen Akhmat special forces and 170 former Wagner fighters had already joined Akhmat, according to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. The UK government describes the Wagner mercenary group as a terrorist organisation. Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine 12 November 2023. Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/5yy8Og2gg3 #StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/y7g7HRnSxx Ministry of Defence (@DefenceHQ) November 12, 2023 Hungary's Orban says negotiations on Ukraine's future EU membership should not move forward Sunday 12 November 2023 10:30 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Hungarys prime minister said Friday he does not support moving forward on negotiations on Ukraines future membership in the European Union, signaling again that his country could pose a major roadblock to Kyivs ambitions to join the bloc. EU leaders are to decide in mid-December whether Ukraine should be formally invited to begin talks to join the 27-member union, with Hungary seen as a potential obstacle. Unanimity among all member states is required to admit a new country into the bloc, giving Hungarys prime minister, Viktor Orban, a powerful veto. The EUs executive branch on Wednesday recommended that Ukraine should be permitted to open membership talks once it has addressed some shortfalls. But in an interview with state radio on Friday, Orban said the embattled country is nowhere near gaining membership in the worlds largest trading bloc. Hungary's Orban says negotiations on Ukraine's future EU membership should not move forward Somber bugles and bells mark Armistice Day around the globe as wars drown out peace messages Sunday 12 November 2023 09:30 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain With somber bugles and bells from Australia to western Europes battlefields of World War I, people around the globe on Saturday remembered the slaughter and losses just over a century ago that was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Yet the rumble of tanks and the screeching of incoming fire from Ukraine to Gaza pierced the solemnity of the occasion and the notion that humankind could somehow circumvent violence to settle its worst differences. This time last year, our thoughts were focused on Ukraine. Today, our minds are full with the terrible images emerging from Israel and Gaza. These are just two of the more than 100 armed conflicts in the world today, said Benoit Mottrie, the head of the Last Post Association in western Belgiums Ypres, where some of the fiercest and deadliest World War I battles were fought. Somber bugles and bells mark Armistice Day around the globe as wars drown out peace messages Two Russian landing boats filled with armoured vehicles destroyed by Ukraine in significant loss for Putin Sunday 12 November 2023 08:51 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Ukraine on Friday said its naval drones had destroyed two small Russian landing boats in Crimea, in an embarrassment for President Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian military intelligence said two amphibious Russian ships loaded with armoured vehicles had been hit by naval drones overnight. One of the boats was identified as an Akula class vessel, while the other landing vessel was a Serna class. The results of intelligence conducted on 10 November 2023 near Vuzka Bay in temporarily occupied Crimea show that after an attack by naval drones, two small Russian landing ships have been destroyed, a Ukraine military report said. Ukraine destroys Russian landing boats in significant loss for Putin What the Republican candidates have said on the war in Ukraine Sunday 12 November 2023 07:00 , Tara Cobham As President Joe Biden likes to remind anyone who will listen, This is not your grandfathers Republican Party. That has never been more evident than when examining the way the 2024 Republican presidential candidates approach the topic of Ukraine. Support for Ukraine is dividing the GOP field. Several candidates believe the US should continue to support the war effort a stance that adheres to more traditional Republican foreign policy beliefs. Gustaf Kilander and Ariana Baio report: What are the Republican candidates views on the war in Ukraine Recap: EUs 20 billion euro plan for Ukraine military aid hits resistance Sunday 12 November 2023 06:00 , Tara Cobham A European Union plan to spend up to 20 billion euros ($21.4 billion) on military aid for Ukraine is meeting resistance from EU countries and may not survive in its current form, diplomats have said. Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign policy chief, proposed in July that the bloc create a fund with up to 5 billion euros a year over four years as part of broader Western security commitments to bolster Ukraine as it fights Russia's invasion. But as EU defence ministers prepare to discuss the plan in Brussels on Tuesday, diplomats say multiple countries - including EU heavyweight Germany - have voiced reservations about committing such large sums years in advance. The EU and its members have been among the biggest donors of military aid to Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022, providing arms and equipment worth some 25 billion euros, according to the bloc's diplomatic service. Borrell's proposal was an effort to put support on a longer-term footing, by creating a cash pot for Ukraine aid inside a bigger fund, the European Peace Facility, used to reimburse EU members for military assistance to other countries. "I'm not going to declare it dead at this point yet. But of course, improvements can always be made," a senior EU diplomat said on Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Germany has had a lot of questions ... and rightfully so. We're talking about a lot of money." Ukraines current frontline stalemate with Russia is hurting Kyiv Sunday 12 November 2023 05:00 , Askold Krushelnycky Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that his troops can still deliver results on the frontline and says that country has a battlefield plan for 2024, without revealing details. "We have a plan. We have very concrete cities, very [concrete] directions where we go. I can't share all the details but we have some slow steps forward on the south, also we have steps on the east," he said. "And some, I think good steps ... near Kherson region. I am sure we'll have success. It's difficult." Ukrainian forces have been trying to establish a bridgehead on the eastern, Russian-occupied, bank of the vast Dnipro river in Kherson region. A rapid counteroffensive liberated the region west of the Dnipro and its capital, Kherson City, almost exactly a year ago. Read more here: Analysis: Ukraines current frontline stalemate with Russia is hurting Kyiv Recap: Watch Zelensky saying Russian soldiers must go out of Ukraine to end war Sunday 12 November 2023 04:00 , Tara Cobham Polish President warns of threat of Russian imperialism on Independence Day holiday Sunday 12 November 2023 03:00 , Tara Cobham The Polish President warned that Russian imperialism once again threatens not just Ukraine but the wider region as Poland celebrated its Independence Day holiday. Thousands of people walked through Warsaw on Saturday in a march organized by nationalist groups, 105 years after the nation regained its statehood at the end of World War I. Participants carried Poland's white-and-red flag and some burned flares as they marched along a route leading from the city center to the National Stadium. President Andrzej Duda delivered a speech at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier where he warned: "Russian imperialism will go further: it will want to seize more nations, taking away their freedom and their states. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sent Poland a message on X, formerly Twitter, telling Poles: "May your independence be invincible and eternal." While many patriotic events take place across the nation of 38 million each year, the yearly Independence March has come to dominate news coverage because it has sometimes been marred by xenophobic slogans and violence. This years event was attended by some 40,000 and passed off peacefully, the Warsaw mayor, Rafal Trzaskowski, said. People take part in the Independence March 'Poland Is Not Yet Lost' in Warsaw, Poland on Saturday (EPA) Russian forces preparing for large-scale winter strike, says think tank Sunday 12 November 2023 02:00 , Tara Cobham Russian forces have been launching significantly smaller and less frequent drone strikes against Ukraine over the past month compared to previous months ahead of an anticipated large-scale winter strike, according to a US war think tank. The Institute for the Study of War added that Vladimir Putins forces continue to struggle with low morale and poor discipline. #Russian forces are launching significantly smaller and less frequent drone strikes against #Ukraine in the past month than in previous months ahead of an anticipated large-scale winter strike campaign. Russian forces continue to struggle with low morale and poor discipline. 4/8 Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) November 11, 2023 Ukrainian border guard filmed reuniting with young daughter after months Sunday 12 November 2023 01:00 , Tara Cobham A Ukrainian border guard has been captured hugging his daughter as the two reunited having spent months apart as a result of the war. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence posted the touching footage on social media of Stanislav and his child Mia embracing after the pair were separated for five months. Family reunion. Border guard Stanislav hugs his daughter Mia after five months apart. : @DPSU_ua pic.twitter.com/VkRjYnIspz Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) November 10, 2023 Orban says negotiations on Ukraines EU membership shouldn't move forward Sunday 12 November 2023 00:00 , Tara Cobham Hungarys prime minister said Friday he does not support moving forward on negotiations on Ukraines future membership in the European Union, signaling again that his country could pose a major roadblock to Kyivs ambitions to join the bloc. EU leaders are to decide in mid-December whether Ukraine should be formally invited to begin talks to join the 27-member union, with Hungary seen as a potential obstacle. Unanimity among all member states is required to admit a new country into the bloc, giving Hungarys prime minister, Viktor Orban, a powerful veto. The EUs executive branch on Wednesday recommended that Ukraine should be permitted to open membership talks once it has addressed some shortfalls. But in an interview with state radio on Friday, Orban said the embattled country is nowhere near gaining membership in the worlds largest trading bloc. Justin Spike reports: Hungary's Orban says negotiations on Ukraine's future EU membership should not move forward Freight cars carrying cargo in Russias Ryazan region were derailed by improvised explosive device' Saturday 11 November 2023 23:34 , Joe Middleton Freight cars carrying cargo in Russias Ryazan region were derailed Saturday morning by an improvised explosive device, Russian law enforcement said. Nineteen carriages traveling from the town of Rybnoye were thrown from the tracks and 15 were damaged, investigators wrote in a statement on social media. They said they would be opening a criminal investigation on terrorism charges. Both the train driver and assistant train driver received medical attention at the scene. Russian officials have previously blamed pro-Ukrainian saboteurs for several attacks on the countrys railway system since Moscow invaded the country in February 2022, although no group has claimed responsibility for the damage. Kyiv has not commented on Saturdays attacks. Recap: Watch Ramaswamy appearing to call Ukraines Zelensky a Nazi Saturday 11 November 2023 23:00 , Tara Cobham Husband of US journalist detained in Russia appeals for immediate release Saturday 11 November 2023 22:00 , Tara Cobham This wasnt how Pavel Butorin expected to celebrate his anniversary this week, with his wife of 21 years in a Russian prison and barely any communication available. Russian-American journalist, Alsu Kurmasheva who works as an editor for U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe has been detained in Russia for almost a month and charged with failing to self-register as a foreign agent. Alsu should be celebrating this anniversary with me and our children at home, not in a Russian prison, Butorin told The Associated Press in an interview in Prague on Friday. We want her back. Alsu must be released as soon as possible, he said, visibly shaken. Karel Janicek reports: Kherson is symbol of heroism and hope, says Zelenskyy on liberation anniversary Saturday 11 November 2023 21:00 , Tara Cobham Volodymyr Zelenskyy has described Kherson as a symbol of heroism and hope on the day the city marks one year since Ukraine retook it from occupying Russian forces. The Ukrainian President posted on X: Kherson is a symbol of heroism and hope. It is a city of our people who have not bowed down to the enemy and inspired all of us and the entire world with their resistance. Kherson is a symbol of heroism and hope. It is a city of our people who have not bowed down to the enemy and inspired all of us and the entire world with their resistance. Last year, Ukraines entire south saw that Russia never comes forever, no matter how many times it says pic.twitter.com/c3U4WjAUFo Volodymyr Zelenskyy / (@ZelenskyyUa) November 11, 2023 In pictures: Russias overnight strike on Kyiv Saturday 11 November 2023 20:00 , Tara Cobham People sit in a metro station to shelter from an air raid, during Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv (REUTERS) Missile traces are seen in the sky over the city after a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv (REUTERS) One year after liberation, Ukrainians in Kherson hold on to hope amid constant shelling Saturday 11 November 2023 19:00 , Tara Cobham One year since Ukraine retook the city of Kherson from occupying Russian forces, residents have grown accustomed to hearing outgoing fire from the left bank of the Dnieper river, where Russian troops are positioned. They know that familiar crackle means they have seven seconds to find a shelter, or a sturdy wall to hide behind. Their lives are mostly limited to the comfort of home and the necessity of the supermarket. Many shops are still shuttered. Municipal workers wear bullet-proof vests and wait to be dispatched to sweep up the rubble from yet another impact. Between lulls of artillery fire coming from the river, which marks the contact line between battling armies in the Kherson region, Ukrainians venture out to buy food, bicycle down grassy residential lanes or convene in the few restaurants that dare to remain open. Marking the anniversary of Russia's defeat on 11 November is a bittersweet occasion, many residents say, as Ukraine's counteroffensive grinds on without producing the spectacular gains many had hoped for. But those who stay are steadfast in their belief that one day normal life will return. "When you have lived under occupation, you know what freedom means," said Grigori Malov, who owns one out of three restaurants still operating in the city. "It's why we have a special attitude toward the continued shelling. We can withstand it because we know how it could be worse." The flight of Russian troops from Kherson under prolonged Ukrainian assault a year ago was one of Ukraine's biggest successes in the war and was seen as an inflection point. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy triumphantly walked the streets of the newly liberated city back then, hailing Russia's withdrawal as the "beginning of the end of the war." Many hoped it would serve as a springboard for more advances into occupied territory. Today, both sides are locked in a stalemated battle of attrition. People hold national flags and pose for a photo as the city marks one year since Ukraine retook the city of Kherson from occupying Russian forces, in central square in Kherson (AP) Armistice Day marked around globe as wars drown out peace messages Saturday 11 November 2023 18:00 , Tara Cobham With somber bugles and bells from Australia to western Europes battlefields of World War I, people around the globe on Saturday remembered the slaughter and losses just over a century ago that was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Yet the rumble of tanks and the screeching of incoming fire from Ukraine to Gaza pierced the solemnity of the occasion and the notion that humankind could somehow circumvent violence to settle its worst differences. This time last year, our thoughts were focused on Ukraine. Today, our minds are full with the terrible images emerging from Israel and Gaza. These are just two of the more than 100 armed conflicts in the world today, said Benoit Mottrie, the head of the Last Post Association in western Belgiums Ypres, where some of the fiercest and deadliest World War I battles were fought. Raf Casert and Marta Fiorin report: Somber bugles and bells mark Armistice Day around the globe as wars drown out peace messages Recap: Watch footage Ukraine releases of damaged Russian ship in Crimea Saturday 11 November 2023 17:00 , Tara Cobham Catholic Healthcare International and Saint Padre Pio Institute for the Relief of Suffering Issue Statement Condemning Removal of Joseph Strickland as Bishop of Diocese of Tyler, Texas NEWS PROVIDED BY Catholic Healthcare International & Saint Padre Pio Institute for the Relief of Suffering Nov. 11, 2023 ST. LOUIS, Nov. 11, 2023 /Christian Newswire/ -- Jere Palazzolo, the president of Catholic Healthcare International, and Dr. George Mychaskiw, president of the Saint Padre Pio Institute for the Relief of Suffering, today issued the following statement regarding the removal of Joseph Strickland as Bishop of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas: Catholic Healthcare International and the Saint Padre Pio Institute for the Relief of Suffering, strongly and unequivocally condemn the removal of our brother, Joseph Strickland, as Bishop of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas. Bishop Strickland is a true guardian of the Deposit of Faith in the Catholic Church and follows in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus Christ in bringing people to salvation. The Deposit of Faith and the fundamental pillars of the Catholic Church are faithful, true and unchanging. They cannot and will not be modified to suit the trends of a popular, self-absorbed and sinful culture. True love is not in feel-good platitudes and vague notions of synodality, but rather in guiding the sinner to repentance and salvation. This is seldom easy and often uncomfortable, but such is the nature of repentance and salvation. The path to damnation is easy and comfortable, the way of salvation is necessarily difficult and arduous. Our brother Joseph is a true shepherd in guiding us on that way and should be celebrated, rather than cast aside. We stand with Bishop Strickland and pray for him and the Holy Catholic Church. "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach {to you} a gospel other than the one that we preached to you, let that one be accursed! As we have said before, and now I say again, if anyone preaches to you a gospel other than the one that you received, let that one be accursed!" (Gal 1:6-9) Signed, Jere Palazzolo, MHA, President, Catholic Healthcare International George Mychaskiw II, DO, FAAP, FACOP, FASA, President, Saint Padre Pio Institute for the Relief of Suffering SOURCE Catholic Healthcare International & Saint Padre Pio Institute for the Relief of Suffering CONTACT: Dr. George Mychaskiw, 636-220-6550, gmychaskiw@CHI-USA.com, info@CHI-USA.com Share Tweet The Nord Stream gas pipelines were damaged in an attempted sabotage last year. A new investigation found that a senior Ukrainian military official coordinated the attack. But the investigation said President Zelenskyy likely did not have knowledge of the plot. A senior Ukrainian military official played a key role in sabotaging the Nord Stream gas pipelines last year, according to an investigation by two international newspapers. The pipelines, which transported natural gas from Russia to Germany, were damaged in a series of underwater bombings last year, sparking multiple investigations and resulting in both Russia and Ukraine pointing the finger at each other. The Washington Post and the German outlet Der Spiegel said in a joint investigation published Saturday that Roman Chervinsky, 48, a colonel who served in Ukraine's special-operations forces, was the "coordinator" of the operation. The investigation provides the most direct evidence yet linking Ukraine to the sabotage. Chervinsky did not plan the operation or act alone, but he managed the logistics support for a six-person team that traveled in a sailboat that they'd rented using fake identities and used deep-sea diving equipment to place explosive charges on the pipelines, The Washington Post said. The papers' investigation is based on interviews with Ukrainian officials, other European officials, and other people with inside knowledge of the operation speaking anonymously. The colonel has deep ties to Ukraine intelligence services and took orders from the country's top general, Valery Zaluzhny, the paper reported. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has long denied his country's involvement in the attacks, which resulted in massive gas leaks and strained diplomatic relations between Ukraine and Western countries. But The Post reported that Zelenskyy would not have known about the Nord Stream operation and that those involved reported to Zaluzhny. This conclusion is based on intelligence reporting obtained by the CIA through the accused Pentagon leaker Jack Teixeira. Chervinsky denied his role in the attacks in a statement to the papers through his lawyer: "All speculations about my involvement in the attack on Nord Stream are being spread by Russian propaganda without any basis." Chervinsky is currently being held in a Kyiv jail over a plot to lure a Russian pilot to defect to Ukraine last year. He's accused of inadvertently revealing a Ukrainian airfield's coordinates while carrying out his plot, which led to a Russian rocket attack. The blasts in September last year damaged three of the four pipelines that make up Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2. Ukraine had long said the pipelines would let Russia circumvent Ukrainian pipes, leading to a loss of transit revenue for Kyiv. The pipelines were not operational at the time of the attack due to disputes between Russia and the European Union. Read the original article on Business Insider Ukraine's Soviet-made Buk-M1 missile systems have been adapted to fire American missiles, Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said in an interview with Radio NV on Nov. 11. "There is an announcement from our Western partners (which we have already confirmed) that we have good results of Buk-M1 air defense missile systems combat use at a test range in the United States, which have been converted and adapted to American missiles, which can strengthen our air defenses," Ihnat said, adding that the missiles for Buk-M1 and S-300 systems are produced only in Russia. "We need to look for steps, ways, such as crossbreeding the Soviet and American. They [protect], albeit at a short radius." Read also: Ukraine needs a large number of Buk systems, which are adapted to American missiles, as well as HAWK systems, which are mostly obsolete, but have been modernized and are already protecting the country. Kyiv will eventually have to replace all Soviet air defense systems with new ones, Ihnat said in May. Currently, Ukraine relies mainly on the Buk-M1 and S-300, as well as the S-125. 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 Key developments on Nov. 12: Commander: Russia intensifies assaults near Bakhmut Ukraine's military intelligence: At least 3 Russian officers killed at military headquarters in occupied Melitopol Military: Russia escalates airstrikes in southeastern axes Local authorities: Russian shelling kills 1, injures 1 in Kherson Russian forces have intensified their assaults near occupied Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast as they attempt to take control of nearby positions, Ground Forces Commander Oleksandr Syrskyi reported on Nov. 12. Ukrainian forces are repelling Russian assaults in the area, the colonel general said in a Telegram post. In a separate post, Syrskyi reported visiting troops fighting in the Bakhmut and Lyman directions, examining options for further actions and methods to enhance the effectiveness of the combat deployment of our troops. Meanwhile, the weather could affect the warfare on the ground, hindering movements of military hardware, Volodymyr Fitio, a Ground Forces spokesperson, told national television on Nov. 12. "If it starts raining now, the use of both aviation and combat drones will decrease. Consequently, it will be more challenging for hardware to move. However, artillery will continue to be used as before," he said, as quoted by the ZN.UA news outlet. Fitio also said that disrupting Russian supply lines and eliminating advanced positions are among the most crucial tasks for the Ukrainian military. Read also: As Bakhmut counteroffensive lags, soldiers burnt out from horrors of war Ukraine's military intelligence: Blast kills at least 3 Russian officers in occupied Melitopol A powerful explosion at one of the headquarters of the Russian military in the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol killed at least three Russian officers, Ukraine's military intelligence, known under its Ukrainian acronym HUR, reported on Nov. 12. Military intelligence said that the blast was a "revenge action" carried out by "representatives of the local resistance movement" on Nov. 11. The alleged headquarters was at a former office of Nova Poshta, a private Ukrainian postal service. HUR said it is finding out whether there were more casualties, besides the three Russian National Guard officers. The attack reportedly occurred during a meeting between the members of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Russian National Guard, according to HUR. The Russian Defense Ministry, security service FSB, and the Russian National Guard haven't publicly reacted to the reported attack thus far. Ukraine's report of the blast comes as Ukrainian forces continue a counteroffensive in the southern Zaporizhzhia Oblast and on two axes of the eastern Donetsk Oblast. While the progress of the costly operation launched in June has been slow, Ukraine has actively struck military targets deep into Russian-occupied territories. The exiled mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, had reported that his sources informed him of a loud explosion in the occupied city at around 7 p.m. on Nov. 11. While much of the events in occupied territories remain difficult to understand due to how dangerous it is for the remaining Ukrainian residents to reveal on-the-ground information, exiled local officials such as Fedorov usually have sources in the occupied city. Fedorov said in a follow-up Telegram report, citing local residents, that the occupying authorities have blocked traffic between two local plants that were turned into military bases. It's not clear whether it was directly connected to the blast. The Kyiv Independent isn't able to independently verify these reports. Join our community Support independent journalism in Ukraine. Join us in this fight. Support us Military: Russia escalates airstrikes in southeastern axes Russian forces have increased airstrikes in the south, including with aerial guided bombs, General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, the commander of the Tavria Group fighting on the southern front lines, reported on Nov. 12. Tarnavskyi said the military recorded 30 Russian airstrikes, 712 artillery barrages, and 48 combats between Ukrainian and Russian troops in the area over the past day. This comes as Ukrainian forces continue their counteroffensive in the Melitopol direction. Meanwhile, the commander said Ukrainian artillery shelled Russian positions over 1,000 times. Russia lost 572 troops over the past day along the southeastern axes, Tarnavskyi said. He did not specify whether this number pertains to soldiers killed or both killed and wounded. Nonetheless, the general reported that Russia lost 32 pieces of military hardware, including two tanks, 14 armored fighting vehicles, three artillery systems, seven drones, and two anti-tank-guided missile systems, while 21 pieces of military hardware sustained damage. Read also: Ukrainians step up efforts to cross Dnipro, tie up Russian forces in Kherson Oblast Local authorities: Russian shelling kills 1, injures 1 in Kherson Russian shelling killed a civilian, 64-year-old man, and wounded a woman, also 64, in Kherson on the morning of Nov. 12, reported Roman Mrochko, the head of the city's military administration. The man was in the yard of his house when he got wounded. He died in the hospital, according to Mrochko. The woman was at home at the time of the attack. She was hospitalized. According to Mrochko, the attack took place in the city's Dniprovskyi District, located along the Dnipro River areas suffering the worst from Russian shelling. Since Ukraine liberated Kherson on Nov. 11, 2022, Russian forces on the east bank of the Dnipro River continue to heavily shell the southern city, putting the roughly 70,000 remaining civilians at great risk. Over the past day, Russian forces have attacked Kherson Oblast 62 times, killing one and injuring five civilians over the past day, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported earlier in the morning on Nov. 12. Read also: Under deadly attacks, Kherson fights to keep life going 1 year after liberation Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. A powerful explosion at one of the headquarters of the Russian military in the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol killed at least three Russian officers, Ukraine's military intelligence, known under its Ukrainian acronym HUR, reported on Nov. 12. HUR said that the blast was a "revenge action" carried out by "representatives of the local resistance movement" on Nov. 11. The alleged headquarters was at a former office of Nova Poshta, a private Ukrainian postal service. HUR said it is finding out whether there were more casualties, besides the three Russian National Guard officers. The attack reportedly occurred during a meeting between the members of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Russian National Guard, according to HUR. The Russian Defense Ministry, security service FSB, and the Russian National Guard haven't publicly reacted to the reported attack thus far. Ukraine's report of the blast comes as Ukrainian forces continue a counteroffensive in the southern Zaporizhzhia Oblast and on two axes of the eastern Donetsk Oblast. While the progress of the costly operation launched in June has been slow, Ukraine has actively struck military targets deep into Russian-occupied territories. The exiled mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, had reported that his sources informed him of a loud explosion in the occupied city at around 7 p.m. on Nov. 11. While much of the events in occupied territories remain difficult to understand due to how dangerous it is for the remaining Ukrainian residents to reveal on-the-ground information, exiled local officials such as Fedorov usually have sources in the occupied city. Fedorov said in a follow-up Telegram report, citing local residents, that the occupying authorities have blocked traffic between two local plants that were turned into military bases. It's not clear whether it was directly connected to the blast. The Kyiv Independent isn't able to independently verify these reports. Read also: Southern counteroffensive runs out of steam as West scrambles to deliver aid Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Russian troops have intensified their activity on the Bakhmut front and are trying to regain previously lost positions, Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi reported on Telegram on Nov. 12. Read also: Situation around Bakhmut deteriorates, Russia probing Ukrainian defenses, says army spox Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraines ground forces, said that his troops are holding despite the renewed assault. The Ukrainian defenders are acting professionally, successfully repulsing the enemy's attacks and continuing their offensive operations around Bakhmut, Syrskyi said. Read also: Over 1,000 Russian troops eliminated in Ukraine over past 24 hours, says General Staff The Ukrainian Armed Forces repulsed 10 Russian attacks near Khromove, Klishchiivka and Andriivka in Donetsk Oblast over the past day, the General Staff reported at its morning briefing on Nov. 12. 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 Ukrainian driver who planned to cross the border died in his lorry near the Dorohusk-Yahodyn checkpoint on 11 November. Source: Serhii Derkach, Deputy Minister of Community, Territories and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine Quote: "Today (11 November ed.), a Ukrainian driver who was planning to cross the border [with Poland ed.] died in his lorry in front of the Dorohusk-Yahodyn checkpoint. This happened in a car park in the city of Chelm, not far from the checkpoint." Details: Derkach added that the 54-year-old man had arrived at the car park and stayed there waiting to cross the border. "Final information about the cause of death will be reported by the Polish Prosecutor's Office after studying all the details, but at the moment, there is no reason to believe that the death was due to unnatural causes," the official said. Reminder: On 6 November, dozens of Polish hauliers began blocking the three border crossings with Ukraine. On 13 November, the Ministry for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine will hold a meeting at the border with representatives of the Polish authorities and hauliers to unblock the border crossings. Support UP or become our patron! How a Ukrainian salt town was laid to waste in Russia's desperate push for Bakhmut A Soledar building lies in ruin. Tania Synia The eastern Ukrainian city of Soledar fell to Russia in January after months of brutal battle. Soledar and neighboring Bakhmut were once the site of the war's most intense fighting. Three people who were in Soledar at that time spoke to Insider about the carnage they witnessed. The city was already in ruins when Tania Synia arrived in Soledar in August 2022. The 26-year-old Ukrainian photographer and humanitarian volunteer traveled to the besieged town in late summer last year to help evacuate civilians less than two weeks after Russian assaults on the small city began in earnest. "It was like a movie. There was bombing everywhere," Synia said. "There were dogs in the streets." It would be another five months before the eastern Ukrainian city, located 10 miles northeast of Bakhmut, would fall to Russia as the new year dawned. Five long months of air strikes and artillery attacks ravaged the salt-mining town as Russia came to see the seizure of Soledar as a path to victory in the larger city of Bakhmut. Soledar remained under Ukrainian control until mid-January, when Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the mercenary Wagner Group who died in a plane crash this summer, claimed the town with bombastic fanfare. The town of Soledar offered little strategic value to Russia's forces beyond a political win. Soledar instead represented the elusive promise of Russia's first significant territorial seizure since July 2022 and a notch in Prigozhin's belt amid the onetime Putin ally's quest for political prominence. Today, bombed-out buildings are what remains of the once-bustling town. Eight months after its fall, the war drags on in the east. Soledar, meanwhile, persists only as proof of the waste of war. Fields of grain burn alongside the road to Soledar. Tania Synia Summer in the salt town Soledar was home to just over 10,000 people before Russia invaded Ukraine. The town was most famous for its cavernous salt mines. The mine's miles-long caves, once a popular Ukrainian tourist attraction, gave Soledar both symbolic and commercial value amid the escalating war, while the town's eastern geography provided Russia an ostensible stepping stone to the larger Donbas region it so sought to occupy. Bombings in and around Soledar intensified in July as residents fled. A fire burned in the city center for days with no firefighters left to extinguish it. It was mid-July when Serhii Ivanov made his first visit to Soledar. The 40-year-old humanitarian worker first traveled to the city to deliver food and other essentials to civilians who initially opted to stay in the war-torn town. But as artillery attacks rendered Soledar nearly uninhabitable by August, Ivanov's trips to Soledar quickly became evacuation missions. Even as early as July, Soledar's residents could see what lay ahead. By the end of that month, Ivanov estimated that only about 2,000 of the town's original 10,000 remained. Evacuations and assaults The Ukrainian Defense Ministry confirmed on August 3, 2022 that Soledar was under attack by Russian forces. Ground attacks and air strikes centered on the southeastern outskirts of Soledar battered the city in the weeks that followed. Ivanov, who led evacuations out of Soledar throughout the summer and fall, recalled the two months after the fighting began as particularly volatile. Ivanov and Synia helped evacuate people from Soledar throughout the summer and fall. Most people who needed help were older adults, they said. Tania Synia "It was so fast and it was so hot," Ivanov said. "That's why so many people in August decided to go from Soledar, because it was sometimes really dangerous." Throughout August, Ivanov estimated he evacuated as many as 60 people a day out of Soledar. Synia joined Ivanov for one such evacuation trip on August 14, 2022. Synia arrived less than two weeks after Ukrainian officials confirmed Soledar was under attack, and she estimated the city was already about 90% destroyed. "You could smell the bombing and the smoke," she said. The shelling was constant, Synia said, with shots ringing out about every 10 minutes. Volunteers had little time to convince residents to evacuate before they themselves had to flee. That breakneck pace continued into autumn. In early September, Russia claimed its forces had advanced into Soledar's residential areas, where it was clashing with Ukrainian troops. In October, Wagner Group forces began their brutal push for Bakhmut via Soledar in earnest, Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russia analyst and the deputy team lead at the nonprofit Institute for the Study of War, told Insider. Ivanov stopped evacuations out of Soledar at the end of October. Those who would leave were long gone, he said. Synia helped this man evacuate his home in Soledar in 2022. "He would cry a lot," she said. "I asked his name, but he was so confused he couldn't answer." Tania Synia Wagner Group horrors Ukraine's defenders in Soledar were primarily troops from the 46th Airmobile Brigade, the 77th Airmobile Brigade, and the 93rd Mechanized Brigade. But as the fighting dragged on, Russia's unofficial defenders Prigozhin's mercenary Wagner Group forces would come to dominate media coverage of the conflict. Russia's initial objective to capture Bakhmut by sending its soldiers to encircle Ukrainian troops from all sides of the city had petered out thanks to Ukraine's defenses. But Prigozhin had set his sights on delivering Bakhmut to Putin on a silver platter that rolled through Soledar. As the fight for Bakhmut became a slogging stalemate, Prigozhin began framing Soledar as a much-needed win for Russia and an opportunity to boost his own profile in the process, making early promises that seizing Soledar would lead to Russian victory in Bakhmut. Reports of Wagner troops' time in Soledar are horrifying. One Wagner fighter who said he was in Soledar gave an April interview to Gulagu.net in which he said Prigozhin and other Wagner leaders ordered troops to kill everyone in Soledar, specifically children, some of whom were as young as 5. Another soldier said he personally witnessed the executions of 80 Wagner fighters who refused to follow such orders. A bombed-out car sits in the middle of a Soledar street. Tania Synia "It was intensely brutal. It was human waves after human waves," Stepanenko said of the autumn fighting in Soledar. "It looked like Wagner was desperate to win. They didn't care what would happen to Ukrainian forces, they didn't care what would happen to their own forces." As he publicly committed his forces to taking Soledar by any means necessary, Prigozhin portrayed a victory there as historically and strategically significant. "Ultimately it wasn't," Stepanenko said. "It was just one of the settlements Russia needed to capture to advance further." Sprawling front lines By early November, Ukraine had declared Soledar and nearby Bakhmut the epicenter of the war's fighting, citing dozens of daily attacks. Ukrainian officials warned that Russia was likely trying to seize the region to claim some shred of success in its efforts to "liberate" the Donbas. Nika Cherniavska, a combat medic, arrived in Soledar in November. The 19-year-old was part of a volunteer medical battalion supporting an official military medical unit. As winter set in, Soledar's front line essentially spanned the entire city limits, Cherniavska said, making safe travel near impossible for medics retrieving soldiers from the battlefield. Cherniavska and her colleagues often had to drive across a river that runs through Soledar to reach their patients. A Russian strike had long ago destroyed the bridge. Nika Cherniavska arrived in Soledar in November as a volunteer combat medic. She told Insider that Soledar's front lines spanned the entire city. Nika Cherniavksa "Locations could change very quickly. Today you can go by this road and tomorrow you can't; today you have this road and tomorrow you have a huge hole in the road," she said of the landscape. Cherniavska recalled that the shelling was nonstop. Drones constantly hovered overhead as she worked and she said she never knew which drones belonged to which side. One night during a casualty-retrieval trip, Cherniavska and her crew's car became stuck in the ice-cold river. She and her colleagues stood in the freezing water for nearly four hours before she saw a figure crawling toward her, she told Insider. "I thought that after all that happened that day, I am hallucinating," she said. "But when I saw the army driver taking out his gun, I understood that I'm not hallucinating and somebody is here." A silent standoff ensued for what felt like hours, she said, with neither side willing to make the first move. Her team finally received word on the best route back to the hospital and they slipped off to safety. Cherniavska still doesn't know who that person was or whose side they were on. "It was the first time I actually met death face-to-face," she told Insider. Final days In late December 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the fighting in Soledar and Bakhmut the hottest and most painful of any conflict in the country. "They used all the resources they had to try and capture the city as fast as possible, " Stepanenko said of Wagner. Prigozhin quickly positioned himself as the leading figure behind Russia's victory. He visited Soledar in the days before it fell and documented his time in the town's salt caves. He delivered a triumphant speech from what he claimed to be Soledar's salt mine, sharing the video on Telegram. Prigozhin was also the first to announce the fall of Soledar in what was likely an early attempt to claim credit. Ukrainian soldiers stand on a road close to Soledar on January 14 amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photo by ANATOLII STEPANOV/AFP via Getty Images The Russian Ministry of Defence claimed its forces had control of Soledar on January 12, and announced the country would use its position in the town to lay stake to Bakhmut soon. Ukraine met Russia's declaration with half-hearted pushback, but the truth was clear: Soledar had fallen nearly 11 months after the war first began. "The Ukrainian retreat from Soledar was likely because they knew it wasn't worth expanding their own forces in such a devastating assault," Stepanenko said. After the fall In the aftermath of Soledar's fall, the stalemate in Bakhmut dominated coverage of the war for the next four months until it, too, eventually fell to Russia. After her time in Soledar, Cherniavska was stationed near the fallen town at a stabilization point that saw about 200 casualties a day through January and February. She said most of those men came from Soledar. "It felt like I had left at least a part of me in Soledar," Cherniavska said. But her anguish was nothing compared to what she witnessed among the soldiers who arrived from a fallen Soledar, she said. "They were psychologically wounded," Cherniavska said. "They would scream. They would cry. They would behave irrationally. They would drag their guns. Again and again. They would tremble." Read the original article on Business Insider A Ukrainian truck driver died while waiting at the blockaded border crossing in Chelm, Poland A Ukrainian driver died in his truck while waiting at the blockaded Dorohusk-Yagodyn crossing in Poland, Ukraine's Deputy Minister of Infrastructure, Serhiy Derkach, reported on Nov. 11 on Facebook. The incident happened in a parking lot near the crossing in the Polish city of Chem. The 54-year-old driver had arrived at the parking area on Nov. 11 and remained there to wait for the border crossing. The Polish prosecutor's office will determine the exact cause of death after examining all details. Presently, there is no indication that the death was due to unnatural causes. Read also: Working closely with the consulate, we are keeping this situation under control, the deputy minister said. We must maintain our resilience even in such difficult conditions. Read also: Poland bans entry of vehicles with Russian license plates Polish truckers have been on strike since Nov. 6 at three border crossings with Ukraine: Korczowa-Krakowiec, Hrebenne-Rava-Ruska, and Dorohusk-Yagodin. Scheduled until Jan. 3, the strike is driven by several demands, including the return of permits to Ukrainian carriers, reinforcing international transport rules for foreign carriers under the CEMT, restricting company registrations in Poland to those with finances in the EU, implementing separate queues for EU-numbered cars and empty trucks, and access to the 'Shliakh' system. Later, it was discovered that Polish truckers participating in the strike had previously worked in Russia and Belarus. The Ukrainian Ministry of Communities and Territories Development and Infrastructure will hold a meeting on Nov. 13 at the border with Polish authorities and truckers to unblock the border crossings. Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron! Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine By Tetsushi Kajimoto and Ju-min Park TOKYO/SEOUL (Reuters) -Defence chiefs from South Korea, Japan and the United States have agreed to start as planned a real-time data sharing scheme on North Korean missiles in December, South Korea's defence ministry said on Sunday. U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin met his South Korean counterpart, Shin Won-sik, in Seoul on Sunday with Japanese Defence Minister Minoru Kihara joining the meeting online. The ministers discussed strengthening their three-way cooperation in the face of "severe security environments", Kihara told reporters. It was the first time the three ministers held such a gathering, he said. "We confirmed that we are steadily making adjustments, bringing the process to the final stage," Kihara added. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Sunday called for the maintenance of readiness posture by the South Korean and U.S. military forces in case of "any provocations" by North Korea including a Hamas-style surprise attack. Yoon made the remark during a dinner with the U.S. delegation for a Security Consultative Meeting scheduled to be held on Monday including Austin and U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg, Yoon's spokesperson said. U.S. President Joe Biden agreed with Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at an Aug. 18 summit that by the end of this year the three countries would share North Korea missile warning data in real time. The ministers also condemned growing military cooperation between North Korea and Russia as a violation of U.N. resolutions, the South Korean defence ministry said in a statement, and also stressed the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. Separately, General Charles Q. Brown, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, held talks with his South Korean counterpart in Seoul on Sunday, the South Korean military said. In his first visit to South Korea since he took office in October, the top U.S. general discussed the "continuous provocations" of North Korea including missile launches, and reaffirmed the United States' commitment to the defence of South Korea, the South Korean joint chiefs of staff said in a statement. (Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto in TOKYO and Ju-min Park in SEOUL; editing by Miral Fahmy and Sandra Maler) US stands on edge of conflict as attacks on troops continue in Middle East As attacks on U.S. troops and assets continue to stack up in the Middle East, Washington has turned to targeted retaliatory strikes on assets belonging to Iran and its proxies. The tit for tat comes as regional tensions flare over the Israel-Hamas war. Unless an attack causes multiple American casualties or serious damage to U.S. assets, experts dont expect to see the Biden administration changing its posture in any major way. But the exchange of fire has already injured dozens of U.S. troops and adds to the dangerous landscape facing the Biden administration in the Middle East. And the assaults are not expected to let up. Im sure there is a hope that [the U.S. strikes] would have a deterrent effect, but clearly they have not, said Jonathan Lord, the director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. I dont suspect that they would because these groups that are conducting these strikes are trying to [get] the U.S. into a larger conflict. That is their purpose in targeting the U.S. forces at this point. U.S. troops based in Iraq and Syria have been attacked at least 48 times since Oct. 17, after the breakout of a war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The assaults are evenly split among the two countries 24 attacks in Iraq and 24 in Syria with all involving explosive drones and rockets, a defense official confirmed to The Hill on Sunday. At least 56 troops have been injured in the attacks, including 10 since the start of this week. Most are minor injuries, with every service member since returning to duty. Assaults have also been aimed at U.S. assets outside Iraq and Syria, with an American MQ-9 Reaper surveillance drone shot down off the coast of Yemen on Wednesday by the Iranian-backed Houthis. In addition, a U.S. Navy destroyer had to shoot down 15 drones and four cruise missiles fired off the coast of Yemen by Houthi rebels last month. To combat this, President Biden since late last month has authorized three strikes on facilities the Pentagon says are used by Iran and the militant groups it backs, with two carried out on Oct. 26, one on Wednesday and the latest on Sunday on facilities in eastern Syria. But the so-called self-defense airstrikes have not appeared to deter the militant groups, with American troops targeted at least six times by fighters in Iraq and Syria since the U.S. hit on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the threat of a more dire strike looms over the region. Militant groups have already come close to inflicting major damage on U.S. forces. In an early morning Oct. 26 incident, a drone launched at the Erbil air base in Iraq made it through U.S. air defenses, crashing into a barracks housing American troops, Reuters reported Thursday. The heavily explosive-laden drone failed to detonate, however, with only one service member suffering a concussion, officials told the outlet. Lord described the steady uptick of attacks on U.S. troops as increasing escalation on a dimmer switch, injecting a bit of uncertainty into American decision-making. Historically, the red line that has drawn a U.S. response has been either serious injury or, more often than not, the killing of U.S. forces or personnel, he said. Obviously that creates a pretty terrible dilemma for the president because no one wants to sit around and wait for these attacks to ultimately claim another American life before responding. Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said that while the United States clearly doesnt want to escalate the situation, the risks of such an outcome remain. If theres a major attack in Iraq or Syria where you have a base overrun, you get a couple of dozen serious casualties, if they fire a missile and it hits a U.S. ship, then I think the United States will get drawn in because it will feel the need to retaliate in kind, Cancian told The Hill. A lot of [it] depends on Iran, just how hard they push. About 3,400 American troops are based across Iraq and Syria, where they contribute to a mission to prevent the reemergence of the Islamic State in the region. Biden so far has taken a cautious approach in responding to attacks on the service members, seeking to prevent a larger U.S. role related to the Israel-Hamas conflict. The U.S. strikes on the Iranian-linked facilities in Syria, for example, took place late at night when they were mostly unoccupied, a decision made to limit casualties. Biden also dispatched Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Iraq last week to pressure its top officials to get militias operating there to pull back on attacks. But those efforts have so far failed to yield the desired results, with the ever-present threat that the next attack could be the one to tip the U.S. into a wider war. The fear and concern for broader escalation, [wherein] the Israel-Hamas conflict then leads to broader regional war, is very real, Lord said. The Israel-Hamas war began last month after Hamas gunmen crossed from the small enclave of Gaza into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking roughly 240 others hostage. In response, Israel has launched a ground and air offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, bombing and shelling the coastal territory relentlessly. More than 11,000 Gaza residents have been killed in the bombings, about 40 percent of them children, with mounting humanitarian problems, according to Palestinian officials. The conflict has caused upheaval in the region, with Iran and its proxies showing clear displeasure in American support for Israel in its attacks on U.S. troops and assets. The United States, in turn, has turned to a show of force to discourage further attacks, deploying two aircraft carrier strike groups and a nuclear-powered submarine to the waters around the Middle East. In addition, it has deployed at least 1,200 troops to the region as well as air defenses, including Patriot batteries and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system. Its largely unknown, however, how Washington would react to a major attack on U.S. troops, with top U.S. officials so far demurring when asked how the country would respond. Asked at an Oct. 31 Senate Appropriations Committee hearing whether the deaths of U.S. service members would trigger a direct response against Iran, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wouldnt specify. Is it a red line for Iran to orchestrate an attack on our forces that kills an American in Syria or Iraq? asked Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). Austin only replied that Iran should be held accountable, but declined to offer further details. I wish you would be more clear, because Ill tell you this, if one of these soldiers is killed Graham said, trailing off. Updated 7:44 p.m. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 11) --- Two high school students were found dead inside a school in Taguig City on Friday, with authorities suspecting they took their own lives. The victims were Grade 8 and Grade 10 students at Signal Village National High School (SVNHS), the Southern Police District said in its report. The witness, identified by police as Danielle, said the two teenagers were last seen alive at 7:45 p.m. on Nov. 10. It was later learned in their group chat that the two did not go home that night. Danielle immediately looked for the two and found their bodies in a school office at 11 p.m., the police report said. Meanwhile, the cousin of the Grade 8 student victim pleaded to teachers and classmates to come forward and tell the truth. In a Facebook post on Saturday, the cousin said the school was uncooperative and that there was no CCTV available inside the campus. She added that they are still waiting for the autopsy results as of this writing. The Philippine National Police-Taguig (PNP-Taguig) said that based on the initial evidence gathered there was no indication of foul play. They asked the public to refrain from making speculations. The Department of Education (DepEd) expressed sadness over the loss of the two students and conveyed condolences to the bereaved families. "The DepEd fully commits to cooperate with the PNP Taguig regarding this matter, and is committed towards the swift and expeditious conduct of the ongoing investigation," it said on Saturday night. The Taguig City local government unit, on the other hand, said that the re-training of volunteers for the city's Helping Others find Peace and Encouragement (HOPE) Program" is ongoing. Mayor Lani Cayetano said counselors, psychiatrists, and psychologists will be sent to the SVNHS. She added that Taguig residents may also reach out to the Taguig Mental Health Teleconsultation Hotline (0929-521-8373). If you or someone you care about might need help dealing with mental health, the National Center for Mental Health (NCMH) crisis hotlines can be reached at 1553 (nationwide landline toll-free), 0917-899-8727, 0966-351-4518, and 0908-639-2672. Im a reader of The Kansas City Star, just like you, and last week I noticed reporter Joseph Hernandez excellent story about cellphones and motorists, and whether the police can search your phone during a traffic stop. I appreciated this story, which provided information to readers that I wasnt aware of, but one line stood out to me, practically jumping off the page: You can say no in Missouri. Say no to the police? I wondered, half aloud. There are plenty of people for whom that is not an option. Many Black people, brown people and others who feel underrepresented in the power structure of society can feel uneasy when questioning the police. These laws state that police have to have a warrant in Missouri to search your cellphone. In Kansas, you also can say no because the state Supreme Court upheld a similar ruling. And so, I pondered whether these laws work the same way for everyone. Does the minority population in Missouri and Kansas or anyone who feels fazed when confronting authority figures believe they have the right to challenge police? Even if it says they do on paper? Will the right to say no be equally claimed by Black and brown drivers? Upon reading about the laws, a memory of my own police interaction surfaced from 2015, before I moved to KC, and it reminded me of the restlessness I felt in that moment. I had picked up a reporter from the airport who was to be a keynote speaker at my universitys Ethics Conference. The reporter was a white man, who had covered the Ferguson, Missouri, unrest the year before. As we drove down Second Avenue in Edmond, Oklahoma, blue and red lights flashed behind me. Second Avenue went from 45 mph to 25 as you passed into the small downtown district, and I had not slowed down quickly enough. The white police officer got out of his car and walked to my drivers side window. I rolled it down. Do you know why I stopped you? he asked. I didnt answer, tension rising in my stomach. He reminded me that the speed had changed. I apologized. He gave me a warning and let me go on my way. I turned to my white colleague, eyes wide. Then he said, Its a good thing I was in the car, referring to his whiteness. We burst out laughing, but our laughter betrayed the stress we both had just experienced. Dont get me wrong, the officer was as nice as he could be. But we both felt an edge in the car. Why? Because historically, there has been a divide between police and minority communities. Let me reiterate, the officer in my example was kind and understanding, yet I still felt nervous for my safety. This was in 2015, a year after some horrific examples of Black people killed by police: Think of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner. The next year in 2016, we would see Philando Castile killed during a traffic stop. And years later, 2019 to 2021 would bring the pandemic and another wave of Black and brown people killed by police. My harmless moment illustrates how saying no to a police officer can be a difficult thing depending on who is in the car. Dont believe me? The Pew Research Center does regular surveys on policing, minorities and how Black and white people view police in their community. Pew reports: Majorities of both Black and white Americans say Black people are treated less fairly than white people in dealing with the police and by the criminal justice system as a whole. The report also found that Black adults are about five times as likely as whites to say theyve been unfairly stopped by police because of their race or ethnicity. And Pew reports that nearly two-thirds of Black adults (65%) say theyve been in situations where people acted as if they were suspicious of them because of their race or ethnicity, while only a quarter of white adults say thats happened to them. The Bureau of Justice Statistics found that police were more likely to stop Black motorists than white or Hispanic drivers. When police did interact, the report found they were twice as likely to threaten or use force against Black and Hispanic residents than against white residents. Finally, the report The Intersection of Policing and Race by The Center for American Progress, also has data that suggests that cities must bridge the divide between communities of color and law enforcement (that) begins by recognizing that discord is rooted in the origins of policing in America. Its a good thing for all of us to know our rights, and know the law. But our police and legal community also must know and understand that some people can find it difficult to apply their rights in the moment, when it counts, and this could present unfair consequences for those drivers or passengers that their white peers would not face. Are you getting the Star Opinion newsletter? Its delivered to your mailbox every Thursday morning, and highlights our top stories of the week, so you dont miss a thing. Also, read my picks on relevant books, audiobooks and video. Its free, so sign up at kansascity.com/newsletters See you on Thursdays! MEMPHIS, Tenn. Veterans Day is filled with honor and reflection, and this year WREG reflects on retired Major Tobbie Ingram of Memphis, who was a trailblazer in the United States military. Like so many others in the U.S. military, Major Ingrams love of uniform, love of country, and his desire to serve started when he was just a child in Memphis. I was born during the period of World War II and every time Id go to the movies there were always pictures of the war, Ingram said. So, I developed a very keen interest in the military. That keen interest in the military also started when he was in the Boy Scouts performing military drills and after graduating from Booker T. Washington High School, he knew his calling would be to enlist in the U.S. Army. I stayed in for 20 years, Ingram said. I started off as a private to retired as a major. Ingram helped pave the way for other Black soldiers. He was the first African-American to serve in the Army in several key positions including the following: The first African-American military police chose to attend the 7th Army Noncommissioned Officer Academy in Germany The first African-American provost marshal assigned to the Lexington-Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky The first black provost marshal assigned to the Milan Army Ammunition Depot in Tennessee The first African-American selected to attend the Infantrys Officer Candidate School in Germany The first African-American military police assigned to 202 MP Company in France. I didnt take it as being the first African-American, Ingram said. I took it as being part of my progression in the military. Part of Ingrams progression came during the Vietnam War. I wanted to volunteer to go over there. I was very gung-ho, he said. They said no, and then when the war really got started I was assigned to Germany and assigned to an advanced weapons command. His other major assignment was notifying families who lost loved ones. When their remains returned to the United States, I assisted the family in making arrangements for the funeral and making sure they received the honors they were supposed to receive, Ingram said. Back home in America, another war was being fought between segregation and discrimination. I dealt with any discrimination that came up. I accepted it, dealt with it, and continued marching, Ingram said. I continued moving on, I didnt dwell on it. Ingram was determined to let others know about the contributions of Black soldiers by teaching classes on the subject. In 2007, he wrote a book called, The History of the Black Soldier examining their role from the Revolutionary War to the Vietnam War. I think its very important and for years we forgot to do that, especially forgot to include the contributions that were made by the black African-Americans during wars, he said. Ingram says service men and women shouldnt just be remembered, celebrated, or commemorated on Veterans Day, but every day. I feel proud and honored and I think every veteran feels that way also, Ingram said. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com. (WGN-TV) Nearly a year ago, a Colorado Springs nightclub became the scene of another American mass shooting. One that was stopped short, in part, because of the actions of a U.S. veteran. Rich Fierro is retired U.S. Army Major. He served four tours in his 15 years, three in Iraq another in Afghanistan. He was inside Club Q in Colorado Springs the night a gunman came in November 19, 2022. Everybody was wounded and it was everywhere, he said. Did you know bread bag tag colors mean something? Fierro was there with his wife Jess, his daughter Kassie, and Kassies boyfriend Ray all supporting one of Kassies best friends. Nineteen people were injured. Ray was one of five people killed in the attack. It just changes you forever. Period, Fierro said. Its a night that Fierro and his family are still working to process. Not only because they went through but for what he did that night. Because when the shooter, armed with a 9 mm pistol and AR-rifle came in to that LGBTQ nightclub, he and two others rushed toward the 22-year-old to take him down. That person tried to shoot me but his weapon didnt have any rounds in it, Fierro said. It was dark and I took his weapon from him and then I used his weapon as a tool. His training as a soldier, he says, took over. When youre at war, were all expecting something to happen at some point in some way and people are actively trying to kill you. .. Youre a target, he said. In that room, none of us were targets, all of them were innocent people. One had just had his boyfriend sing Happy Birthday to him and hes killed. My daughter, this is her boyfriend, theyre best friends and they lost their significant other together, in the same room at the same time. Those are just things that can go beyond anything you can ever think of. More Coverage: Veterans Voices Since the shooting, the Fierro family business, a brewery in Colorado Springs has seen a lot of support from the community. Its the reason for their trip to Chicago to attend the Beer Culture Summit. While at the summit, Fierro was honored for his heroics at the club. I would just hope that people see vets as a wide rainbow of things, he said. Im not a person who looks for glory or anything. I never have. I look for people around me to be better and I hope that from this incident thats what I try to do. In June, the Club Q shooter pleaded guilty to multiple charges and was sentenced to five consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. Many members of the public dont have a clear understanding of what service means to people in the military. How do they honor their own? What kind of spaces and activities help them reflect and remember beyond Veterans Day and Memorial Day? We are cultural geographers who study how peoples emotions and connections with the past are represented physically in landscapes. Recently, our research has focused on commemorative place names in the military particularly names associated with the Confederacy, which the U.S. armed forces are now reviewing and renaming. In 2021, one of us (Katrina Finkelstein) visited Camp Pendleton in California to research commemoration on Marine Corps bases and understand how active-duty Marines and veterans interact with those spaces. In addition to official memorials and monuments sanctioned by the military, there are more informal and intimate examples of commemoration. These ongoing, living memorials can be especially meaningful for service members processing their experiences and remembering those they lost, and physically represent the emotional weight they carry every day. A living memorial Camp Pendleton, one of the U.S. Marines busiest bases, sits between San Diego and Los Angeles on miles of undeveloped coastline. Thirteen hundred feet above the base, more than 30 crosses stand on a hillside a memorial site established in 2003. Before deployment to Iraq, a group of seven service members two Marine officers, two enlisted Marines, two Navy corpsmen and one Navy chaplain carried a cross made of an old telephone pole up to the site. It was an effort to remember a peer they lost and to prepare for the mission ahead of them. Three of the seven were later killed in action. Today, the hilltop is still used for physical training and events before and after deployments. Meanwhile, its informal commemorations have expanded and changed, as many active-duty military and veterans develop a relationship with the space. Destroyed in a fire in 2007, the original cross was replaced, and dozens of others added. Some are more intentionally constructed, engraved and carried up the steep hillside, while others might have been made from sticks on the way. Contributing to the memorials has become an ongoing tradition. In August 2021, for example, after 13 service members were killed in a blast at Kabul airport including nine Marines and one sailor based at Pendleton new crosses appeared on the hillside. Others were erected at different Marine Corps bases, echoing the spontaneous way the first Camp Pendleton cross was installed. This living memorial receives frequent attention, despite its isolated location and despite several official memorials throughout the base. In an oral history interview, one of the original cross bearers from 2003, chaplain Scott Radetski, attributes the sites popularity to the life that exists on the hilltop. Because of its more intimate nature secluded from the public and requiring an hourlong hike to visit it has become especially meaningful for service members. The crosses are not a public memorial, he said, but a warrior memorial. More than crosses On the journey to the Pendleton crosses, people carry mementos to leave at the top. At first, they were small rocks, but have evolved to include sandbags, combat knives, insignia, unopened beer and liquor bottles, and helmets, all piled at the base of the crosses. Marines carry personal items to the top of the hillside, contributing to the living memorial. Katrina Finkelstein, CC BY At times, officials have moved to tidy it up, such as removing cans of alcohol. But some service members have objected, stressing that these items are deeply meaningful and carefully chosen. For them, these items theyve carried to the top of the hill represent not only their comrades, but the emotional weight that veterans carry each day because of their experiences. Those mementos represented that suffering, that pain, that loss, that anguish, that angst, whatever it was that service members needed to leave behind, Radetski said. The site is not always clean and neat, but he suggests it reflects the messiness of war and the traumatic experiences of the veterans who visit the site regularly. In October 2021, before the battalion that sustained most of the losses at the Kabul airport returned to Camp Pendleton, the group Recycle for Veterans, which brings veterans together for cleanups on the West Coast, held an event to provide maintenance of the site. The group removed debris and empty bottles, but left mementos behind, leaving it ready for more commemorations in the future. On common ground While many memorial landscapes can seem fixed, representing a single moment or individual, the crosses at Camp Pendleton show that such spaces can actually change. The crosses reaffirm the idea that public memories are not static, and neither are spaces dedicated to them; new features are added as others are removed. The crosses are not without controversy. A decade ago, after the Los Angeles Times ran a story about the memorial on Veterans Day, the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers filed a complaint, arguing that their presence relegated all non-Christians who have fought and died for our country [] to second-class citizenship. Base officials reportedly conducted a review, and the memorial still stands. For Marines who support the memorial, however, the site can serve multiple purposes: a destination during physical training, a way to prepare for a deployment, or a journey to come to terms with their experiences upon returning home. Often, these activities are collective. Veterans organize semiannual hikes, meaning that the site does not become obsolete or forgotten. As the site of an ever-expanding memorial, the hillside is an example of how veterans continue to return to their own community, to a place that Chaplain Radetski called a common ground, for remembrance and healing. [3 media outlets, 1 religion newsletter. Get stories from The Conversation, AP and RNS.] This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world.The Conversation has a variety of fascinating free newsletters. It was written by: Katrina Stack, University of Tennessee and Derek H. Alderman, University of Tennessee. Read more: The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. Thousands of people gathered in Downtown Pittsburgh to enjoy the citys 104th Veterans Day Parade. PHOTOS: Veterans honored during Pittsburghs 104th Veterans Day Parade Organizations, bands, and military members marched down 10th Street, and down Liberty Avenue and ended at Commonwealth Place at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday. A special recognition was held for World War 2 veterans. Four fighter jets traveled from Langley Air Force Base flew out to Pittsburgh for the parade. They also flew over the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies. Three-time Steelers Super Bowl champ and former marine, John Banaszak, was the grand marshal of this years parade. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW TRENDING NOW: Man charged in chase where Monroeville police officer was shot Beaver County art gallery finds abandoned passageway, a possible link to Underground Railroad Have any $2 bills? You could be in for a big surprise VIDEO: Steelers to honor Medal of Honor recipient at Sundays game DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts Hope for fractured world Veterans Day offers a beacon of hope in a world marred by divisions. As a Marine Corps infantry veteran who served from 2000-2004, Ive witnessed the healing power of sharing ones military journey, of bonding over shared sacrifices, and of bridging divides. In our country, division often feels like the status quo; however, my time in the Marines showed me a different truth. Side by side, we served, laughed, and fought, regardless of differences in skin color, politics, or beliefs. We epitomized the diversity that is America. Veterans Day is a reminder that unity is possible. Through veterans stories, we find understanding, empathy, and unity. This day is more than a holiday; its a moment for dialogue and acknowledgment of the challenges veterans face. In a fractured world, we must remember that our distinctions do not define us. Inspired by the patriotism and strength of servicemen and women from all walks of life, we can find hope. As our state motto proclaims, Dum spiro sperowhile I breathe, I hope. Happy Veterans Day weekend. Robert LeHeup, Columbia Let teachers be experts Please listen to our highly-trained professional teachers, librarians and school staff, many of whom have earned masters degrees from legitimate programs. They engage directly with the students themselves. School teachers and librarians are in tune with students and what reading materials they need. Let qualified, trained professionals select what books and other reading materials will be used. Books of fantasy by authors such as Roald Dahl offer delightful reading at age-appropriate levels. Dahl is often called the number one story teller in the world. Do not ban his books. Let the people actually teaching reading to their classes who are guiding writing instruction and encouraging our future leaders, workers, and professionals decide which materials are appropriate. If a cars brakes need repair, drivers want a certified brake technician to do the job. A licensed, professional dentist cares for teeth. A trained and licensed pharmacist fills prescriptions. Parents likewise must insist on having fully-trained and certified education professionals deciding what is the best reading materials for students. It is fundamentally basic to public schools success. My years as both a high school English teacher and a school librarian testify to it. Elizabeth Jones, M.Ed., Columbia Hunger lives here Note: The writer is president of the Second Helpings Board of Directors. Thank you for your recent article highlighting the food waste problem in South Carolina (SC wastes more food than any other state, new study shows. Heres why and how much). Second Helpings is a nonprofit food rescue organization striving to eliminate hunger in the South Carolina Lowcountry. We collect and distribute food that would have otherwise ended up in landfills. Our more than 300 volunteers provide 3.2 million pounds of food annually, free of charge, to more than 50 food pantries and soup kitchens in Beaufort, Jasper, and Hampton counties. Heres how the community can get involved in fighting hunger and food waste: Drop off unopened, non-perishable food at one of the food pantries and soup kitchens we serve. A map can be found at https://www.secondhelpingslc.org/our-partners/agency-partners. Donate to support our food rescue efforts at https://www.secondhelpingslc.org/. Hold a food drive to encourage neighbors to donate food. Contact Second Helpings at (843) 689-3689 for more information. Raise awareness among friends and neighbors. Hunger has a local address. Approximately 20,000 people in our three-county area are food insecure. With the support of our community, we are providing food for the hungry while helping the environment. Mary Ann Bell, HHI Best and brightest? Well, its obvious the inmates have taken over the asylum! The reality is we elected these people to Congress. Certainly not the best and brightest needed to run our government. Surely we can do better. Peter Trager, HHI A Virginia State University police officer was critically wounded in a shooting near campus early Sunday, and a suspect remains at large, according to a news release from Virginia State University. Police Chief David Bragg said the campus remains on lockdown Sunday as a precaution, according to the news release. The officer, whose identity is not being released at this time, was taken to VCU Medical Center with life-threatening injuries, the release read. In a statement shared by the Virginia State Police, the Chesterfield County Police said the shooting occurred at about 1:34 a.m. when a VSU police officer responded to an on-campus disturbance. The suspect ran off campus before shots were fired, injuring the VSU officer, the news release read. The suspect remains at large. Chesterfield County Chief of Police Col. Jeffrey S. Katz said in a post on Facebook, CCPD stands in unwavering solidarity with our partners at Virginia State University. We will not rest until the individual who shot their officer is brought to justice. I strongly encourage the individual responsible to turn himself in peacefully, he said. According to the police chief, authorities are receiving investigatory support from the Virginia State Police and the FBI, Richmond Division. Virginia State University is a historically Black university with about 4,000 students located in Petersburg, Virginia, approximately 25 miles south of Richmond. CNN has reached out to Chesterfield County Police and VSU police for more information. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Iceland has declared a state of emergency due to a high risk of a volcanic eruption. Grindavik evacuated after magma shifting under the Earth's crust caused 2,000 earthquakes. Over 3,000 people live in the town in southwest Iceland, where cracks are forming in the ground. Large cracks are appearing in the ground in a town in Iceland. Photos show streets and sidewalks with gaping holes, some with steam escaping. Following a series of earthquakes last week, the roughly 3,300 residents evacuated Grindavik, according to The Washington Post. The town is located on the Reykjanes Peninsula, about 25 miles southwest of Reykjavik, the country's capital. Experts believe there's a 10-mile intrusion or fissure of magma moving beneath Grindavik, per The Washington Post. If there's an eruption, Grindavik could sustain heavy damage, per The Guardian. "The magma is now at a very shallow depth, so we're expecting an eruption within a couple of hours at the shortest, but at least within a couple of days," Vidir Reynisson, head of Iceland's Civil Protection and Emergency Management, said on Saturday. Residents of Grindavik were evacuated as earthquakes rumble and cracks form in the roads. AP Photo/Brynjar Gunnarsson Iceland has declared a state of emergency as up to 2,000 earthquakes 1,000 overnight on Saturday alone, according to the Icelandic Met Office struck the southwestern Reykjanes peninsula, signaling an increased risk of a volcanic eruption. In response to the heightened seismic activity, the Blue Lagoon was closed as a precaution. Located near Grindavik, the tourist attraction is renowned for its geothermal spas and luxury hotels. The Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management announced the state of emergency, citing the intense earthquake activity at Sundhnjukagigar, north of Grindavik. It is not possible to save livestock and farm animals from the defined danger zone due to the landslides in Reykjanes, per the Department. The area is currently closed to all human traffic, until further notice. The Icelandic Met Office (IMO) has warned that an eruption could occur "in several days," heightening concerns. Grindavik, situated just 1.86 miles southwest of the seismic epicenter, has activated evacuation plans in anticipation of a potential eruption. Two substantial earthquakes, with a magnitude of 5.2 north of Grindavik, were felt as far as the capital, Reykjavik, and along the country's southern coast, causing widespread shaking and damage. The Icelandic police closed a key north-south road to Grindavik due to earthquake-induced damage. Since late October, the Reykjanes peninsula has experienced a staggering 24,000 tremors. The IMO has observed an accumulation of magma underground at a depth of approximately 3.1 miles, raising the specter of a volcanic eruption should it ascend to the surface. While the IMO suggests that magma reaching the surface is more likely to take several days than hours, the potential impact zone is being closely monitored. The most active seismic area is not directed toward Grindavik; however, preventive measures are in place. Magma is running under the town of Grindavik, Iceland, causing fissures and cracks in streets and sidewalks. AP Photo/Brynjar Gunnarsson After being dormant for several centuries, there have been three eruptions on the Reykjanes peninsula since 2021. They were in remote locations and did not threaten critical infrastructure or populated areas. "The signs that can be seen now at Sundhnjukagigar are similar to those seen on the eve of the first eruption at Fagradalsfjall in 2021 and are very similar to the seismic activity that was measured about a month before that eruption," the IMO said in an earlier statement. Additionally, the Svartsengi geothermal plant, a key supplier of electricity and water to 30,000 residents on the Reykjanes peninsula, has enacted contingency plans to safeguard the facility and its workforce in the event of an eruption. With 33 active volcanic systems, Iceland nicknamed the "Land of Fire and Ice" boasts the highest number in Europe. Read the original article on Business Insider ETTRICK Virginia State University is on lockdown after a university police officer was shot and critically wounded while investigating a disturbance near campus early Sunday. Chesterfield and VSU Police said the incident happened shortly after 1:30 a.m. in the 3400 block of Boisseau Street. The unidentified officer was shot when he was attempting to break up an altercation. According to police reports, the suspect ran off campus before firing the shots back toward the officer. VSU spokesperson Gwen Williams Dandridge said in an email that the officer was taken to VCU Medical Center in Richmond with life-threatening injuries. The campus was placed under lockdown as a precautionwhile the investigation continues, Dandridge said. Anyone who may information about the incident or the suspect is asked to call Chesterfield Police at (804) 748-1251 or Crime Solvers at (804) 748-0660. Information can also be shared through the P3Tips app on a mobile device. This is a developing story. This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: VSU police officer shot in campus altercation, in critical condition FILE - U.S. President Joe Biden, right, departs with Chinese President Xi Jinping for a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit meeting, Nov. 14, 2022, in Bali, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File) WASHINGTON (AP) President Joe Biden and Chinas Xi Jinping have no shortage of difficult issues to discuss when they sit down for their first talks in a year, even if expectations are low that their meeting will lead to major breakthroughs. Each leader has clear objectives for the highly anticipated talks Wednesday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, a meeting that comes after whats been a fractious year for the worlds two biggest economies. Both Biden and Xi are looking to bring a greater measure of stability to a relationship that is being defined by differences over export controls, tensions over Taiwan, the wars in the Middle East and Europe, and more. A look at what each president is hoping to achieve during their talks: WHAT BIDEN WANTS The White House has made clear that the U.S.-China relationship is beyond the days where a meeting ends with a long list of announcements and agreements. Instead, Biden comes to San Francisco focused on managing the countries' increasingly fierce economic competition and keeping open lines of communication to prevent misunderstandings that could lead to direct conflict between the two powers. Expect Biden to defend U.S. expansion of export controls on semiconductor chips. At the same time, he will assure Xi that he is not trying to wage economic war with Beijing amid continuing signs that China's economy is struggling to recover from the economic disruptions of the pandemic. The United States has no desire to decouple from China. A full separation of our economies would be economically disastrous for both our countries, and for the world, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng when they met this past week. We seek a healthy economic relationship with China that benefits both countries over time. The Biden administration has signaled it wants to reopen military-to-military communications that have largely ceased after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August 2022, the first visit by a U.S. House speaker to the self-ruled island since Rep. Newt Gingrich in 1997. Beijing considers Taiwan, a self-governed island of 23 million people, to be part of Chinese territory and vows to unify with it, by force if necessary. Biden is determined to see the reestablishment of military-to-military ties because he believes its in the U.S. national security interest, his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said Sunday on CBS' Face the Nation. The top U.S. military officer told reporters Friday in Toyko that he has conveyed to China his hopes to resume that stalled communication. I'm hopeful, said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. CQ Brown Jr. Meanwhile, the U.S. administration has signaled it will hammer home that it seeks no change to the status quo in Taiwan. Washington recognizes Beijing as the government of China and does not have diplomatic relations with Taiwan. But China has perceived American contact with Taiwan as encouragement to make the islands decades-old de facto independence permanent. Concern about the issue is heightened as Taiwan prepares to hold presidential elections in January. Biden is also expected to let Xi know that he wants China to use its burgeoning sway over Iran to make clear that Tehran or its proxies should not take action that could lead to expansion of the Israel-Hamas war. Biden's administration believes the Chinese, a big buyer of Iranian oil, have considerable leverage with Iran, which is a major backer of Hamas. With the U.S. presidential election less than a year away, administration officials said Biden will make clear that Chinese interference in the vote will not be tolerated. Disinformation experts warn that Beijing could aim to target the U.S., sowing discord that might influence election results at the local level, especially in districts with large numbers of Chinese American voters. WHAT XI WANTS Xi is looking for assurances from Biden. Xi wants to hear from Biden that the American president will not support Taiwan independence, will not start a new cold war and will not suppress Chinas economic growth. A good host needs to avoid creating any new trouble or obstacles, Xie Feng, the Chinese ambassador, said at a forum in Hong Kong last week. Beijings demands were made clear last November when Xi and Biden met in Bali, Indonesia, during the Group of 20 summit. Relations, however, had hardly stabilized when the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon in February, plunging diplomatic relations to another low. Now, the two countries need to return to what was agreed between the two presidents in Bali and truly act on it, said Wang Wenbin, a spokesman of the Chinese foreign ministry. Last year, Xi told Biden the Taiwan question was at the core of Chinas core interests, the bedrock of the political foundation of China-U.S. relations, and the first red line that must not be crossed in China-U.S. relations. This time Xi will be looking for strong language from Washington opposing Taiwan's independence. Xi said in Bali that U.S.-China interactions should be defined by dialogue and win-win cooperation, not confrontation and zero-sum competition. That was a rejoinder to the Biden administration mantra that the two nations should compete vigorously while not looking for conflict. Beijing has bristled at export controls and other measures imposed by the Biden administration, perceiving them as designed to stifle China's economic growth. Zhu Feng, dean of the School of International Studies of Nanjing University, said punitive measures from both the Trump and Biden administrations, such as tariffs on Chinese goods, sanctions against Chinese companies and export restrictions on high-tech products such as advanced chips, have become the most important issue for China. Beijing does not want a cold war or geopolitical opposition because it hurts Chinas development, Zhu said, and China will reject and cannot accept those crazy suppression acts of the U.S. Beijing has demanded rollbacks in tariffs and sanctions. But Xi, this time, is likely to seek assurance from Biden that the U.S. will not pile new ones onto China. Xi, who is expected to address American business leaders while in San Francisco, will also look to bolster confidence that China is a safe place to invest as Beijing needs foreign investment to help revive its economy. In an alarming sign, the country recorded a foreign direct investment deficit during the July-September period, the first time since 1998. Foreign investments have driven much of China's growth for the past three decades, and a net outflow could indicate Beijing's inability to attract and retain foreign investments. ___ Associated Press writers Kanis Leung in Hong Kong and Ken Moritsugu in Beijing and AP researcher Yu Bing in Beijing contributed to this report. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 12) The China Coast Guards (CCG) continued harassment of Filipino vessels and deliberate violation of maritime law casts doubt on its identity as a coast guard organization, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said. The CCG on Friday again used water cannon to drive away a Philippine vessel on a resupply mission to the BRP Sierra Madre outpost on Ayungin Shoal in the West Philippine Sea. Chinese ships also put two other Filipino boats in danger with reckless maneuvers. The largest swarm of 38 Chinese vessels was monitored in the vicinity of the Ayungin Shoal during the recent resupply mission. READ: PCG: Largest swarm of 38 Chinese ships observed during latest Ayungin resupply mission The systematic and consistent manner in which the CCG vessels do not align with the universally accepted behavior of a coast guard, PCG Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gavan told the media in a Saturday briefing. Ironically, they are supposed to ensure safety of life at sea, but they are the one that deliberately violate the Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, 1972 (COLREG) that the Peoples Republic of China is also a signatory state, he added. The PCG in October said China broke three rules under COLREG when CCG vessels collided with Filipino boats conducting a routine resupply mission to BRP Sierra Madre. These are the rules on the responsibility to avoid collision at sea, that ships must use all available means to determine if risk of collision exists, and that one vessel must keep out of the way of another if the latter has right of way. Gavan said the CCGs illegal and irresponsible behavior puts into question its narrative of law enforcement and its identity as a coast guard organization. The CCG has attempted to justify its presence in the Philippines exclusive economic zone and harassment of Filipino vessels as law enforcement activities. This is despite the 2016 arbitral tribunal ruling that has nullified Beijing's sweeping claims over the South China Sea, including the portion of the contested waters which Manila calls the West Philippine Sea. Cannabinoids such as spice and THC have been found in vapes in the Oldham area on four occasions recently A head teacher is warning that illegal vaping could kill a child, after the collapse of a 12-year-old pupil who had used a vape containing spice - an illegal synthetic drug. Glyn Potts, from Oldham, told the BBC he feared it would take a tragedy to prompt action to stop children vaping. High levels of psychoactive cannabis oil and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) have also been found in vapes in the area. The government said it is planning new laws to prevent under-age vaping. Dame Rachel de Souza, Children's Commissioner for England, said it was "deeply shocking to hear of children collapsing from spice contained in vapes", adding that she has previously called for the ban of disposable vapes. She said: "We need to be moving faster on this issue, or we risk it spiralling out of control. "We urgently need tighter restrictions on advertising and flavours of vapes that appeal to children as well as stricter licensing for retailers selling vapes." "I pray that we don't have a fatality in these kinds of instances, but I do fear that is likely to happen if we don't address these matters," said Mr Potts, head of Saint John Henry Newman Catholic College in Oldham, a secondary school for pupils aged from 11 to 16. It is illegal to sell e-cigarettes to people aged under 18, but a recent survey found one in five teenagers in England had tried vaping, an increase of a third on the previous year. Glyn Potts said he had "nightmares" about his pupils collapsing in the street after using dangerous vapes The popularity of vaping among youngsters comes amid concern about the emergence of illegal vapes containing excess nicotine content above the legal limit, and metals such as lead and nickel. More recently, some vapes have been found to contain cannabinoids such as tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and spice, which can be more potent than cannabis. 'Collapsed on the floor' In July, a pupil at Mr Potts' school collapsed and had to be admitted to hospital after inhaling a vape containing spice, a laboratory-made drug known for its widespread illegal use in prisons. "He took one very large inhalation of this vape pen and by the time he got off the bus on the school grounds felt very unwell. By the time he arrived at the school gates he had collapsed on the floor," said Mr Potts. The pupil has now recovered. A scientist, who later tested a number of refillable and single-use vapes taken from the school, said it was "very concerning" a child had inhaled spice, because it was known to cause "zombie-like paralysis" in users, particularly children. Mr Potts said he was confident children could not vape in school but he was worried about incidents away from the premises. "If they are collapsing in the street or in areas where they are not necessarily going to be found quickly, that gives me nightmares." These vapes tested by chemical scientists in Manchester were found to contain spice and THC He also said he had been told young people were using the tram network to obtain illicit vapes such as these from dealers in other parts of Greater Manchester. In total, there have been four incidents this year in the Oldham area involving vapes found to have contained spice or THC. A pupil at another school in the area collapsed in September after inhaling a vape containing butane hash oil with a 90% concentration of THC. The testing laboratory, the Manchester Drug Analysis and Knowledge Exchange (Mandrake), said it had never seen such high-strength THC in a vape. The team was set up in 2016 to help Greater Manchester Police tackle an "epidemic" of new types of psychoactive substances being found in the city. 'Shift in the market' Mandrake director Dr Oliver Sutcliffe told the BBC the discovery of 90% THC rang alarm bells for the team. "The fact that this product is present seems to imply that there may be a shift in the market. And the fact that we are starting to see this on our radar means that we need to be prepared for more of these types of products, with high purity and high potency THC becoming more commonplace." Mr Potts said he believes children are using the Manchester tram system to travel to buy drug-filled vapes Sgt Joseph Dunne, who works in Oldham Prevention Hub for Greater Manchester Police, said the emergence of these illegal vapes was "very concerning". "What we find is that some vapes have been tampered with or are being used specifically to house THC or spice. We are finding quite a lot of these children are getting vapes from other countries, where they will have a higher percentage of nicotine which isn't authorised in the UK, and that can make these children who aren't used to smoking very ill very quickly. "Children taking these illegal vapes has become the main priority of our schools-based officers," he added. "What we have found is that these vapes are being used communally in schools. The schools will find them in lockers and on top of lockers in drawers." Dr Oliver Sutcliffe's team said the discovery of a vape containing 90% HTC signified a possible "shift in the market" Greater Manchester Police, Oldham Council, and Trading Standards are working closely together, but Mr Potts says a national strategy is needed urgently to stop children vaping. "I think we've got to accept that without the strategy to tackle this, more young people will be at risk." The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said it is consulting on measures to crack down on under-age vaping, banning disposable vapes and and restricting flavouring and types of packaging. Health officials say vaping remains an option for adult smokers wishing to quit their habit, but it is not a safe choice for children. However, Mr Potts believes a major, co-ordinated effort is needed to cut off the supply of vapes to youngsters. "The issues around vapes are as significant and of prime concern for us because of the ease of access and the sheer numbers of people who come into contact with these devices." On December 2, 2022, the Air Force unveiled its new stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider . Named for the famed Doolittle Raiders who struck back at Japan after Pearl Harbor, it is the world's first six-generation aircraft to be produced and the DoD's first new bomber in 25 years. Just under a year after it was shown to the world, the B-21 took to the skies for the first time. The B-21 takes off for the first time (reddit.com/r/airforce) On November 10, 2023, plane spotters witnessed the Raider take off from Northrop Grumman's facility in Palmdale, California. Both the Air Force and Northrop Grumman confirmed the first flight in statements to Defense One. "The B-21 Raider is in flight testing," Air Force Spokesperson Ann Stefanek said in the service's statement. "Flight testing is a critical step in the test campaign managed by the Air Force Test Center and 412th Test Wings B-21 Combined Test Force to provide survivable, long-range, penetrating strike capabilities to deter aggression and strategic attacks against the United States, allies and partners." The aircraft performed ground testing and taxiing before it made its first flight (Northrop Grumman) "As confirmed by the U.S. Air Force, the B-21 Raider is in flight test. The robust flight test campaign is being executed by a Combined Test Force comprised of Northrop Grumman and Air Force personnel that will validate our digital models and moves us another step closer to reaching operational capability," the Northrup Grumman statement said. Each B-21 costs roughly $700 million and the company previously stated that it anticipates receiving a low-rate initial production contract following the bomber's first flight. https://twitter.com/ShorealoneFilms/status/1722993343485866184?s=20 Stefanek noted that the first operational B-21s are on track for delivery in the mid-2020s. The first bombers will go to Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, which will host the B-21 training unit and serve as the aircraft's first main operating base. "Whiteman AFB, Missouri, and Dyess AFB, Texas (pending the Environmental Impact Statement) will receive aircraft as they become available. Tinker AFB, Oklahoma, will coordinate maintenance and sustainment of the B-21 and Edwards AFB, California, will lead testing and evaluation of the aircraft," she said. Six test B-21s are being produced and the Air Force plans to purchase at least 100 airframes to replace the B-1 Lancer supersonic bomber and B-2 Spirit stealth bomber. Nov. 11 (UPI) -- Iceland's public broadcaster RUV, in partnership with the country's civil defense team, announced two live streams to watch the impending eruption of Fagradalsfjall volcano. Scientists can't pinpoint when, or even if, Fagradalsfjall volcano would erupt but say there are plenty of signs -- including multiple earthquakes and a river of magma running underneath the town of Grindavik -- that show it will be soon. The country's iconic geothermic spa, Blue Lagoon, closed, and the town's 3,000 residents in Iceland's Reykjanes Peninsula were told to leave. "It remains a possibility, albeit not the one with the greatest chance, that the seismic events will end without an eruption," RUV said. Icelandic Met Office scientists said magmatic dikes and land deformations are yet another indicator the volcano will blow soon. Fagradalsfjall was dormant for 800 years before it erupted in 2021 and 2022. "Since midnight November 12th, around 1,000 earthquakes have been recorded within the dike boundaries, and all of them have been below M3.0 in magnitude. The most seismic activity has been from the center of the corridor to the north and south under Grindavik," they said. Earlier this week, residents and tourists in an Icelandic fishing town were told to evacuate. Emergency officials said Saturday that police have decided that it is not possible to save livestock and farm animals from the defined danger zone due to the landslides in Reykjanes, at the moment. On Sunday, some Grindavik residents were allowed home briefly to retrieve important items. "This comes with risks and therefore it's very important that everyone involved in it carefully obeys all the instructions of the police that directs this operation," emergency officials said Sunday. "It is not clear if or when it will be possible to go on similar missions in other neighborhoods." The Icelandic government noted that the country is no stranger to volcanic activity, and there have been three eruptions on the Reykjanes Peninsula in the last two years. "Icelandic authorities and the public are highly prepared for such events, and Iceland has one of the world's most effective volcanic preparedness measures," the government statement reads. "Iceland's geoscientists possess vast experience in dealing with volcanic activities." Because of the heightened danger, Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir also tried to ease fears. "The minds of all the people of the country are now with you," she said "Respondents stand the watch as they have done so far and make all their decisions guided by the public interest. Mass relief centers have been opened. The safety of the nation is paramount in these uncertain times. Let's take good care of each other." A lion was filmed wandering the streets of an Italian seaside town for several hours after escaping from a nearby circus on Saturday night. Residents of Ladispoli, a comune about 35 kilometers west of Rome, were warned to stay indoors as authorities sought to capture the lion, an 8-year-old named Kimba. Several locals spotted and recorded the animal as it padded through the towns abandoned streets for around five hours, with one heard saying Mamma mia as she filmed Kimba pass by her house. Alessandro Grando, Ladispolis mayor, announced later on Saturday night that the lion had been successfully sedated and captured, and would be returned to the Rony Roller Circus, according to Agence France-Presse. Rony Vassallo, an animal handler at the circus, told the news agency that his family was very shaken and very tense by the episode, which he believed was not an accident. Vassallo said Kimba, lightly sedated, had been examined by vets and was unharmed from his misadventure. Ce 11 novembre a Ladispoli pres de Rome, un lion s'est echappe d'une cage. Le cirque, c'est souffrances et vie miserable pour les animaux detenus et un danger pour les humains. Les autorites italiennes ne doivent pas lui reserver le sort de Mevy en France. #CirquesSansAnimaux pic.twitter.com/H7K99PTOLB One Voice (@onevoiceanimal) November 11, 2023 Read it at Agence France-Presse Read more at The Daily Beast. This article was provided by HappyValley Industry, an online platform that amplifies Happy Valleys success and opportunities in business, industry, talent and quality of life. Read more and sign up for the weekly newsletter at happyvalleyindustry.com. Fluid Conservation Systems (FCS) is a 40-year-old company that specializes in leak detection; it recently relocated to Happy Valley and is the latest player on the areas sensor scene. FCS got its start when it invented and filed the first U.S. patent for the leak correlator that it still offers today; and now, FCS has about 500,000 sensors deployed globally, with about 300,000 of them listening for leaks within water networks. According to Beth Powell, president, The way our technology works is, we have a number of sensors that will give you the general location of where the leak is, underground, and then we have a product that will pinpoint exactly where the water companies need to dig. She added, A water leak sounds like a note from a flute. Our sensors pick up that vibration and change it into an electric signal. If we have two sensors that can hear the same flute, we can correlate that to where the leak is located. With the sound delay from one sensor to the other, we can figure out the distance. Powell, a Penn State alum, worked in oil and gas for New Pig Corporation in Altoona for about a decade before a headhunter with FCSs parent company contacted her. Shes been with FCS for just over a year. FCS has a few main competitors but is the only solutions provider in the space that works through cellular communication. Rather than service professionals needing to visit equipment and sites to get a reading, FCSs clients can log into a computer remotely and see where leaks might exist within their water network. Originally, the product line included our ground mics and correlators, Powell explained. From there, FCSs solutions have advanced for easier and easier data collection. Now, everythings connected through the cellular network. [Utility crews] apply sensors that listen every night and that have a five-year battery. Every morning when the utility logs in, they can see if any new leaks have popped up New products are not only listening but, if they hear something, they record a sound file and those sound files correlate with where the leak is located, at the street level. Water leaks arent something that most of us think about when we fill a glass form the sink or brush our teeth, but they come with substantial costs. Losing 6 billion gallons of water every day There are water districts in Pennsylvania that lose 80% of what theyre pumping out of wells and are taking out of the streams, said Powell. Theyre treating all of that water with chlorine and then theyre losing 80% of it. If they lose that near a stream, the drinking water can kill fish. Were trying to help them lose less water. According to Powell, across the U.S., districts lose approximately 6 billion gallons of treated water every day. Thats obviously a lot of water and its not being lost through gushing manholes; its being lost through pinhole leaks that have existed for years the kind of leaks that FCS helps to detect. How does all that water add up in dollars and cents? Powell said, A small utility [company] would treat about 5 million gallons [of water] per day and if theyre losing 24% of that, and between $4 and $5 per gallon in treatment chemicals, theyre losing somewhere between $1.8 million and $2.2 millions worth of water every year If its a really large utility treating a hundred million gallons per day, theyre losing more like $44 million. As Powell mentioned, that lost water negatively impacts the environment, too. She added, Drinking water is treated with chlorine, so if a leak is happening near a stream or a wetland, its killing the fish. The chlorine is having an environmental impact if its in a water body that its not supposed to be in In Pennsylvania, a vast majority of our water comes from streams or wells. If [a utility is] losing up to 80% of its water, its over-pumping the streams and aquifers. In Pennsylvania, we have enough rain that they refill, but if were talking about the Southwest, if theyre over-pumping the aquifers, theyre going to get a sinkhole. Then, if the aquifer collapses, theres no way to put that aquifer back in. If theyre over-pumping near the coastline, theyre also ruining the aquifers because theyre bringing in brackish salt water thats mixing with the aquifer and contaminating it. In some other countries, water loss is regulated, but the United States doesnt enforce water regulation beyond providing some guidance documents. That said, water loss is still a big issue for the United States, beyond even the environmental impacts. In some cases, water loss could prohibit population and, as a result, economic growth. Powell noted, In the past, the U.S. has never really had to worry about having enough water for everyone. If a town was growing, they would just put another well in, add some more piping and hook up a new development. Were getting to the tipping point now in the U.S. There isnt unlimited water anymore, so we have to be a little more systematic in what were doing. Previously, if you were losing water, you could just pump more or take more from the river. Were going to get to the point that thats not an option. There are states and areas that are not going to be able to grow, because they dont have enough drinking water. Planning for the future FCS previously operated out of Cincinnati, Ohio, but relocated to State College last year. The reasoning included having better access to the drinking water network in Pennsylvania, which is one of the oldest in the world, as well as Penn States many resources. It was hard for us to get technology personnel in Cincinnati. It was very, very hard for us to hire repair technicians and engineers, said Powell. Were hopefully going to work on a project with Penn States Applied Research Lab and their Center for Acoustics and Vibration Were looking at them to help us remove false positives and to hopefully, at some point, be able to determine the size of a leak, so we can tell utilities where their largest leaks are. When relocating, FCS moved into a commercial space off Old Gatesburg Road where theres plenty of expansion space to grow. Looking to the future, though, one of FCSs priorities includes an opportunity outside of Happy Valley, though not too far away. Made in America While, previously, FCSs sensors were made in the U.K., by the end of the year, theyll be made in America, at a manufacturing plant in York, Pennsylvania. This will mean that, when utility companies and engineering firms that work with utility companies want to use FCS sensors in their pipe replacement projects, theyll be able to submit that cost for payment through Build America, Buy America federal grants. This eliminates one of the major hurdles for potential clients, according to Powell, as smaller utilities may not be able to find the necessary funding for such solutions. Additionally, FCS recently launched a new product, RadarSens, in the wastewater space, that will help monitor wastewater systems and prevent unnecessary treatment of excess groundwater that makes its way into the system after heavy rainfall. Likewise, FCS is now introducing a new service that helps customers interpret their data and discover where they need to send field crews. Were finding that a lot of smaller municipalities dont have a person who can monitor their network. Theyre asking us every week to monitor it for them, listen to the sound files, categorize what the leaks are and prioritize where theyre sending the field crews. Municipalities have aging workforces and a lot of cutbacks, and departments are greatly understaffed. Next year, well be providing this type of analysis to them as well, said Powell. To learn more about Fluid Conservation Systems, visit www.fluidconservation.com. The West has finished its investigation into the bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipeline but is in no hurry to publicly declare Russia's involvement, Mykhailo Gonchar, President of the Center for Global Studies Strategy XXI, told Radio NV. "I believe that (the investigation) was thoroughly conducted and everything was pretty quickly clarified. However, it hasn't been made public not because of concerns about damaging relations with Ukraine. If (there is evidence that) Russia is responsible, decisive actions must be taken. Here you can't get away with mere statements," remarked Gonchar. Read also: Nord Stream pipeline sabotage beneficial only to Russia, says ex-Ukrainian FM He also warned of the consequences of such silent investigations. "Russia, employing its hybrid methods, achieves its goals, he said. Simultaneously, the Western side appears incapable of effectively countering this and does not call things by their names. This not only increases the potential for further sabotage of NATO and EU communications but also stirs tensions in the media, related to the insinuations that they are not there, that it was not the Russians who did it, but the Ukrainians (in the case of the Nord Streams)." Read also: Poland provides evidence to Germany suggesting Russian role in Nord Stream blasts, but doubts linger in Berlin Gonchar criticized The Washington Post's report on the Nord Stream bombings, specifically mentioning Colonel Roman Chervinsky's alleged involvement in the explosions as 'absurd slander.' You can hear more about this assessment in a video interview available on Radio NV. On September 26, 2022, Russian warships were detected near the Nord Stream-1 and Nord Stream-2 gas pipelines, a few days before they were destroyed by explosions. Both pipelines were not operating at the time but were filled with technical gas. Poland and Ukraine accused Russia of the bombings, while the Kremlin regime, in turn, accused the Anglo-Saxons and denied its involvement. Defense ministries of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Iceland confirmed the intentional nature of the sabotage. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine had nothing to do with the bombing of the pipelines. Former Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said that this is "a rather strange story that has nothing to do with us." 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 Russia plans to wage a long war against Ukraine, so Western countries should continue to supply weapons to Kyiv and strengthen their own defense, Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics stated in an interview with Associated Press, published on Nov. 12. The Kremlin aims to strangle Ukraine in the ongoing war, as it was unable to win quickly. Russia will reprise attacks on the Ukrainian energy infrastructure this winter, Rinkevics predicts. Read also: Latvian president names three factors that could force Putin to end his war against Ukraine The EU and NATO need to prepare for a long war in Ukraine, advocating for Europe to strengthen its defense and military, he said. "I would love to see that this is going to be a bit faster process. But still, those things are now finally moving," Rinkevics said. Read also: How modern Russia draws on fascist ideology If Russia is not stopped in Ukraine, it will "challenge" other states, Rinkevics warned. The changes in Russias law on mobilization suggest that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is preparing for a long war against Ukraine, said the director of the Russian Carnegie Center in Berlin, Alexander Gabuev, in July. In November, National Security and Defense Council secretary, Oleksiy Danilov, said that it was already clear in March-April 2022 that Russias war against Ukraine would be long. 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 Reececliff Family Diner is among several bakeries in Polk County offering to bake preordered pies for Thanksgiving. No Thanksgiving Day feast can be complete without the mouth-watering promise of an aromatic pie or decadent cheesecake. Unfortunately, baking is a precise art that's sometimes better left to professionals. For those who haven't gotten the family's top-secret apple pie recipe mastered, here's a list of places in Polk County that are taking Thanksgiving preorders or have pies regularly for sale: Almora's Sweets Almora's Sweets in southwest Lakeland specializes in cheesecakes, from single-serving portions to large New York-style, 10-inch pies. Address: 5040 Lunn Road, Lakeland Cost: varies Website: www.almoracheesecake.com Call: 954-952-1732 Bandidas Bandidas, a pop-up bakery familiar to those who frequent Lakeland Farmer's market, is offering a range of holiday preorder sweets from spice plum crumble and espresso pecan pies to pumpkin olive oil cake with brown butter maple glaze. Address: Pick up at Catapult, 502 E. Main St., Lakeland. Cost: $12 - $36 Website: www.bandidaslkld.com/holidaypreorders Contact: contact@bandidaslkld.com Born + Bread Bakehouse Born + Bread Bakehouse is sure to impress your Thanksgiving guests with one of their four 10-inch pies: pumpkin, brown butter apple, (vegan) tart cherry and pecan. If you are looking for something different, try their whole burnt basque cheesecake. Pre-orders for pastries and breads start Nov. 12. Address: 1113 Florida Ave. S., Lakeland Cost: $36 - $42 Website: www.bornandbreadbakehouse.com/thanksgivingpie Contact: 863-450-4513 Gourmet Goodies Bake Shop This Winter Haven bakery has a selection of Thanksgiving Day desserts that goes beyond pies into cakes, bars and dessert platters. Traditional 9-inch pies will be offered in pumpkin, apple streussel, cinnamon apple, blueberry, cherry, pecan and bourbon pecan. A variety of cheesecakes are also available. Address: 68 4th St. NW, Winter Haven Cost: $15 to $78 Website: www.instagram.com/gourmetgoodieswinterhaven Contact: 863-318-1400 Honeycomb Bread Bakers Honeycomb Bread Bakers is accepting Thanksgiving preorders for the sweet and savory, offering pies and various holiday breads. Preorders are due by Nov. 17 at 11:59 p.m. Pickups will be Nov. 22, from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Winter Haven and 5 to 6 p.m. in Lakeland. Address: Winter Haven - 140 6th St. SW Cost: $7 - $29 Website: www.honeycombbread.com/holiday Contact: 863-662-5513 Meraki Bakehouse A familiar pop-up Meraki Bakehouse from Lakeland's Downtown Farmer's market is offering holiday preorders for pick up Nov. 22 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Classic offerings including apple and pumpkin pie while gluten-free options feature a Hazelnut Praline cheesecake. Boxes of croissants and cookies are also available. Address: Pickup at Catapult, 502 E. Main St. Cost: $14.50 - $50 Website: www.merakibakehouse.com The Proper Pie Company This British-based restaurant and bakery in Haines City offers a variety of takeaway pies available chilled or frozen. Proper Fruit Pies come in apple, apple and custard, cherry and blueberry. Other homemade sweets, including scones, Scottish shortbread and Eccles cakes, are available with imported goods. Address: 511 U.S. 17-92 W., Unit 520, Haines City Cost: $2.25 to $8, more for a large Website: theproperpiecompany.com Reececliff Family Diner Apple pie from the Reececliff Family Diner in Lakeland. Serving Lakeland since 1934, there's always the option of walking into Reececliff Family Diner to order a pie and bringing it home for your family's Thanksgiving table. Address: 940 S. Florida Ave., Lakeland Cost: varies Website: reececliff.com Contact: 863-686-6661Tessier's Tasty TreatsTessier's Tasty Treats, an online bakery run by Nicole Tessier, is offering preorders on Thanksgiving pies in pumpkin cheesecake, Reese's peanut butter pie and while chocolate banana cream pie. Limited amounts will be made with pickup Nov. 22 from 5 to 7 p.m. Cost: $30 - $40 Website: On Facebook only Did we miss your favorite spot or is your business not listed above? Contact swalsh@theledger.com to be added. Sara-Megan Walsh can be reached at swalsh@theledger.com or 863-802-7545. Follow on X @SaraWalshFl. This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Don't want to make Thanksgiving pie? These Polk shops have you covered A unique real estate opportunity has landed on the market in the stunning countryside of Bozeman, Montana. A custom-designed five-bedroom, 4.5-bathroom home designed by architect Larry Pearson has listed for $3.99 million. The 4,417-square-foot residence is located in a supreme place with 360-degree views of the Treasure State. Situated on over 4 acres with unparalleled mountain views and the legendary Gallatin River right out your back door, this custom retreat is a fly fishermans paradise, the listing on Big Sky Sothebys International Realty says. Only 10 minutes from Bozeman and a short drive to Big Sky, the coveted River Run on the Gallatin community is comprised of only five homesites, with care taken to honor and maximize the surrounding riparian landscape. High-end features of the secluded residence include: Custom tile work Attached guest quarters BBQ area Fireplace Rooftop deck Hot tub This mountain modern masterpiece is curated with exceptional craftsmanship and luxurious finishes including barn wood elements, white oak cabinetry, porcelain and quartz countertops, and top-of-the-line Thermador appliances, the listing notes. Indoor/outdoor living is a breeze, as the home has been thoughtfully designed to capture the best of both worlds. Theres even a stocked pond and private trail for outdoor enthusiasts. The listing is held by Charlotte Durham. Moody outside but posh inside? This Victorian listed in Indiana is perfectly balanced Warnings that leaders like Donald Trump hold a dagger at the throat of democracy have evoked a sense of befuddlement among moderates. How can so many Republicans voters, once reasonable-sounding officeholders and the new breed of activists who claim to be superpatriots committed to democracy be acting like willing enablers of democracys destruction? As a political philosopher, I spend a lot of time studying those who believe in authoritarian, totalitarian and other repressive forms of government, on both the right and the left. Some of these figures dont technically identify themselves as fascists, but they share important similarities in their ways of thinking. One of the most articulate thinkers in this group was the early-20th-century philosopher Giovanni Gentile, whom Italian dictator Benito Mussolini called the philosopher of fascism. And many fascists, like Gentile, claim they are not opposed to democracy. On the contrary, they think of themselves as advocating a more pure version of it. Unity of leader, nation-state and people The idea that forms the bedrock of fascism is that there is a unity between the leader, the nation-state and the people. For instance, Mussolini famously claimed that everything is in the state, and nothing human or spiritual exists, much less has value, outside the state. But this is not an end to be achieved. It is the point from which things begin. This is how Trump, according to those around him, can believe I am the state and equate what is good for him is by definition also good for the country. For while this view may seem inconsistent with democracy, this is true only if society is viewed as a collection of individuals with conflicting attitudes, preferences and desires. But fascists have a different view. For example, Othmar Spann, whose thought was highly influential during the rise of fascism in Austria in the 1920s and 1930s, argued that society is not the summation of independent individuals, for this would make society a community only in a mechanical and therefore trivial sense. On the contrary, for Spann and others, society is a group whose members share the same attitudes, beliefs, desires, view of history, religion, language and so on. It is not a collective; it is more like what Spann describes as a super-individual. And ordinary individuals are more like cells in a single large biological organism, not competing independent organisms important in themselves. This sort of society could indeed be democratic. Democracy is intended to give effect to the will of the people, but it doesnt require that society be diverse and pluralistic. It does not tell us who the people are. Who are the people? According to fascists, only those who share the correct attributes can be part of the people and therefore true members of society. Others are outsiders, perhaps tolerated as guests if they respect their place and society feels generous. But outsiders have no right to be part of the democratic order: Their votes should not count. This helps explain why Tucker Carlson claims our democracy is no longer functioning, because so many nonwhites have the vote. It also helps explain why Carlson and others so vigorously promote the great replacement theory, the idea that liberals are encouraging immigrants to come to the U.S. with the specific purpose of diluting the political power of true Americans. The importance of seeing the people as an exclusive, privileged group, one that actually includes rather than is represented by the leader, is also at work when Trump denigrates Republicans who defy him, even in the smallest ways, as Republicans in Name Only. The same is also true when other Republicans call for these in-house critics to be cast out of the party, for to them any disloyalty is equivalent to defying the will of the people. How representative democracy is undemocratic Ironically, it is all the checks and balances and the endless intermediate levels of representative government that fascists view as undemocratic. For all these do is interfere with the ability of the leader to give direct effect to the will of the people as they see it. Here is Libyan dictator and Arab nationalist Moammar Gadhafi on this issue in 1975: Parliament is a misrepresentation of the people, and parliamentary systems are a false solution to the problem of democracy. A parliament is in itself undemocratic as democracy means the authority of the people and not an authority acting on their behalf. In other words, to be democratic, a state does not need a legislature. All it needs is a leader. How is the leader identified? For the fascist, the leader is certainly not identified through elections. Elections are simply spectacles meant to announce the leaders embodiment of the will of the people to the world. But the leader is supposed to be an extraordinary figure, larger than life. Such a person cannot be selected through something as pedestrian as an election. Instead, the leaders identity must be gradually and naturally revealed, like the unveiling of religious miracle, says Nazi theorist Carl Schmitt. For Schmitt and others like him, then, these are the true hallmarks of a leader, one who embodies the will of the people: intense feeling expressed by supporters, large rallies, loyal followers, the consistent ability to demonstrate freedom from the norms that govern ordinary people, and decisiveness. So when Trump claims I am your voice to howls of adoration, as happened at the 2016 Republican National Convention, this is supposed to be a sign that he is exceptional, part of the unity of nation-state and leader, and that he alone meets the above criteria for leadership. The same was true when Trump announced in 2020 that the nation is broken, saying I alone can fix it. To some, this even suggests he is sent by God. If people accept the above criteria for what identifies a true leader, they can also understand why Trump claims he attracted bigger crowds than President Joe Biden when explaining why he could not have lost the 2020 presidential election. For, as Spann wrote a century earlier, one should not count votes, but weigh them such that the best, not the majority prevails. Besides, why should the mild preference of 51% prevail over the intense preference of the rest? Is not the latter more representative of the will of the people? These questions certainly sound like something Trump might ask, even though they are actually taken from Gadhafi again. The duty of the individual In a true fascist democracy, then, everyone is of one mind about everything of importance. Accordingly, everyone intuitively knows what the leader wants them to do. It is therefore each persons responsibility, citizen or official, to work towards the leader without needing specific orders. Those who make mistakes will soon learn of it. But those who get it right will be rewarded many times over. So argued Nazi politician Werner Willikens. And so, it appears, thought Trump when he demanded absolute loyalty and obedience from his administration officials. But most importantly, according to their own words, so thought many of the insurrectionists on Jan. 6, 2021, when they tried to prevent the confirmation of Bidens election. And so Trump signaled when he subsequently promised to pardon the rioters. With that, the harmonization of democracy and fascism is complete. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world.If you found it interesting, you could subscribe to our weekly newsletter. It was written by: Mark R. Reiff, University of California, Davis. Read more: Mark R. Reiff is a registered Democrat. He does not work for, consult, own shares in, or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no other relevant affiliations beyond his academic appointment. Pagadian City, Zamboanga del Sur (CNN Philippines, November 12) Broadcaster Juan "Johnny Walker" Jumalon was laid to rest in his hometown Polanco, Zamboanga del Norte on Sunday. Jumalon was killed on Nov. 5 while airing live in his home in Barangay Don Bernardo A. Neri, Calamba, Misamis Occidental at 5:35 a.m. Local police said Jumalon did not receive any threats to his life prior to his death. The Philippine National Police (PNP) has filed murder and theft charges against the three suspects in Jumalon's killing, one of whom was identified by name at the Provincial Prosecutors Office of Misamis Occidental. Calamba Police Chief Captain Deore Ragonio said they have already identified the gun-for-hire group where the three suspects allegedly belonged. He said according to the intelligence team, the group operated in the towns of Sapang Dalaga, Concepcion, Baliangao, Calamba, and Plaridel. Ragonio said the special investigation task group (SITG) looking into the killing has yet to conclude its probe but he was confident they could solve the case and possibly identify the mastermind of the crime. On Sunday, the Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFoMS) assured Jumalon's family that law enforcement groups headed by the PNP were doing everything they can to apprehend those responsible for the radioman's death. Financial assistance worth 350,000 from President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and House Speaker Martin Romualdez has been given to Jumalon's family, according to PTFoMS. On Friday, the local government of Misamis Occidental announced it has allocated 3.5 million for the capture of Jumalon's killers. Misamis Occidental Governor Henry Oaminal said a 500,000 reward awaits anyone who can provide information leading to the arrest of Jumalon's gunman, while 3,000,000 will be given to any law enforcer who can arrest the killer. In a statement on Sunday, PTFoMS said an additional 2 million has been pledged for those who can provide information that would lead to the suspects' arrest. CNN Philippines' Pia Garcia contributed to this story. Voter ID I voted by provisional ballot on Nov. 7 because I refused to show my ID. Heres why: Ive voted in every election since 1972 in multiple states and have never been asked to show an ID. In all that time, I remember no evidence of substantial voter fraud even in the last several election cycles. Despite that, a fringe minority in this country use this false narrative to pass legislation to require IDs, as well as other unnecessary requirements to restrict voter access. Whats next? A poll tax? Land ownership? European descent? Moderate thinking people of all parties should say no to the radical right attempting to hijack our elections. Jack Trlica, Charlotte Congested roads Im baffled by our governments willingness to spend millions on things that are plainly ineffective. North Carolina approving $45 million to add lanes to an I-85 interchange in Mecklenburg is a perfect example. Adding lanes is only ever a short-term Band-Aid. Known as the Fundamental Law of Road Congestion, its a well-established fact that widening highways only encourages more people to drive on those roads, leading to the same levels of congestion just a few years after construction. Time and time again, lawmakers rush to waste money on temporary fixes without actually understanding the problem. Long-term solutions that have proven to be beneficial, like comprehensive public transportation, continue to be scoffed at for their cost. I personally would rather not live in a world where the highways just keep getting wider and wider until the money or the space runs out. Paige Milligan, Waxhaw Davidson College Regarding Davidson to keep name of slave owner on campus building, (Nov. 8): Like many private and public institutions across the South, Davidson College must come to terms with the ugly stain of slavery that hangs over Southern history like the stench of spoiled milk. At least the college is creating a sculpture honoring the enslaved people who helped build the college and has created a committee on racial reconciliation. It is trying to face its past and work for a better future. Augie Beasley, Charlotte Bergers statement I read N.C. Senate leader Phil Bergers remarks accusing Durhams police chief of coddling protesters who blocked the Durham Freeway. It made me think immediately of then-President Donald Trump sitting passively for hours in the dining room off the Oval Office on Jan. 6, 2021 watching on TV as hordes of his supporters stormed the Capitol, yelling hang Mike Pence, and attacked police. Then, I wondered, how can a leading voice of the Republican Party in North Carolina be so quick to criticize professional police officers exercising what appeared to me to be patience and good judgment to achieve a peaceful resolution of a nonviolent, but potentially volatile protest all while continuing to be silent about Trumps failure to take action to stop the Jan. 6 violence. Dumont Clarke, Charlotte Atriums actions Regarding Our study revealed a troubling underside to some NC hospitals, (Nov. 9 Opinion): Those high-flying execs at Atrium Health better thank their lucky stars that the people of Mecklenburg County are so darn generous. Its not every nonprofit that can grab $23 million in property tax breaks each year in exchange for charity care, and simultaneously shake down sick folk who get behind on medical bills by slapping liens on their homes. Nice work if you can get it. Terry Taylor-Allen, Charlotte Human decency? I had to laugh at the Nov. 5 Forum writers position that Donald Trump has a high regard for human decency. This is the same man who has made fun of disabled people, Gold Star families, people with weight issues, and used contemptible words to describe women. If this is Republicans gold standard for human decency, it explains a lot. A decent human being would reject these behaviors no matter if you have a D or an R by your name. No wonder folks like Mitt Romney or Liz Cheney are getting out. While I may not agree with them on policy, I at least respect their integrity. Charles Fortanbary, Charlotte A woman is dead after a crash involving a dump truck in Wayne County, Indiana Saturday morning. Deputies and medics responded to the crash at the intersection of US 35 and Davis Meyers Road around 7:52 a.m., according to a release from the Wayne County Sheriffs Office. The sheriffs office said preliminary investigation revealed that 35-year-old Carolyn Legg of Muncie, Indiana was driving a 2011 Honda Accord southbound on US 35 east of Davis Meyers Road. As she navigated a long sweeping right-hand curve, Legg veered left of center, colliding with a tri-axle dump truck driven by 54-year-old Jay Ballinger of New Paris, Ohio. >> That is tragic; Franklin residents recall moments after crash that killed police K-9 Legg was pronounced dead on the scene. Ballinger, who was northbound on US 35, was transported to Reid Hospital for treatment. Preliminary findings from the investigation suggest that sun glare and the use of an electronic device may have been contributing factors to the crash, the sheriffs office said. Additional details were not released. Police in Ohio used new technology to help locate a woman hiding and pleading for help during a home invasion that left a man injured, authorities said. At 12:21 a.m. on Nov. 9, 911 dispatchers received several incomplete calls, according to a Facebook post by the Akron Police Department. During one of the calls, the caller said one word: Help. During the frantic call, a fast-thinking technician sent a Prepared Live Link to the number, the post said. Prepared Live is a technology that allows police to text a person, request live video and pinpoint their location. The dispatcher then sent a text to the callers phone, WJW reported. The text read, this is Akron, we got a 911 call, is everything okay? And then she literally responds back with help and the address, Capt. David Laughlin with the Akron Police Department told WJW. Police told WEWS they were able to locate the woman who called 911 along with a 26-year-old man in the home who had been shot and was in critical condition. Investigators say a possibly masked intruder forced their way into the home and shot the man. There was a young man whod been shot, and there was a female in the upstairs bedroom. Didnt know if the shooter was still on scene, so you cant communicate very well with 911 if youre afraid of being found, Laughlin told WEWS. The man was taken to a hospital and underwent surgery. He was last listed in serious but stable condition, police said. Police are investigating and working to identify a suspect or suspects. They say a motive is unknown. Sleeping homeowner awakes to man in his house, then fires fatal shot, Indiana cops say Man shoots intruder in back of the head, then realizes he killed his uncle, feds say Man wakes to intruders in bedroom and is dragged outside and beaten, Alabama cops say World War Two veteran Ron Collins, 102, at this year's Poppy Appeal launch in Salisbury At 102, Ron Collins is as old as the Poppy Appeal. Captured by the Germans in Greece in 1943, he spent two years in the Stalag Luft I prisoner of war camp near Barth in Germany, surviving on Red Cross parcels and dreaming of his escape. This is his account of life under those harsh conditions. When Ron Collins went to war, he was just 22, still "rather immature" and had never been abroad before. He described getting captured by the Germans simply as "unfortunate." Speaking to BBC Radio Wiltshire, he explained how he had been an RAF radar mechanic, stationed in North Africa. When the Italians switched sides to the Allies in September 1943, there was a rush to secure their territories. That is how Mr Collins, from Salisbury in Wiltshire, ended up being captured after the Battle of Leros. 'Cloud of parachuters' One of the Greek Dodecanese islands, Leros had an Italian garrison - strengthened by the British - but it was lost to the Germans. The Allies lost the battle for the island in 1943 when Mr Collins was in a 12-man unit. "We knew there wasn't much hope for us because the Germans had a superior set-up," he said. "We had no air cover. When we saw this cloud of parachuters coming in, we burned all the equipment and headed for the hills." They came across a British army unit and were almost immediately given rifles - not their expertise - before being put in a trench. But they were caught and Mr Collins remembers being taken from Leros in two ships, with the majority of those captured being Italian. 'Poor chaps' "They shot 20 of the Italian officers, on Hitler's orders, because they were traitors," he said. "Those poor chaps." One ship was sunk by friendly fire, he was on the other. He said: "I think of all those poor chaps who died. Every year the same. It's awful." They were used for propaganda purposes, being paraded down the streets of Athens, with "silent crowds of Greek people as we went by". Mr Collins said: "You were dishevelled, hadn't shaven and the German guards are all smart. "We were taken in a cattle truck with barbed wire and straw for a few days up to the Balkans. Eventually, I was taken to Frankfurt." Solitary confinement Mr Collins was put in a Dulag Luft, a transit prisoner of war camp, where those captured from air forces would go before being taken to longer-term camps. "I was put into solitary confinement, then interrogated," he said. He then remembers being shipped to the Stalag Luft I prisoner of war camp, near Barth in Germany. There were around 9,000 people, with more than 7,500 of them Americans. Conditions were not good for anyone, even the guards, and they were all reliant on Red Cross parcels. "The Germans were suffering themselves," Mr Collins said. "If it wasn't for the Red Cross parcels, we wouldn't be here. "The Red Cross sent barley soup. I used to collect it in the boxes - it used to set like a jelly - and used to shove it under the bunk. When I got really pushed, I used to carve a bit out." Escape committee Escape was always on the prisoners' minds, but Mr Collins said: "You didn't talk about escaping. There was an escape committee - you had to meet certain requirements to be involved in escaping." To meet those requirements, you needed a good reason and to be able to speak German. "I saw two who were going to escape," he said. "Every day, a horse and cart used to come and take away the rubbish. "They got into the rubbish. Unfortunately, fire coals were emptied onto it - with smoke coming out - and before the main gate, they had to jump out." It was in another of the camps, Stalag Luft III, that 50 prisoners were shot when they tried to escape through the tunnels - the basis for The Great Escape film. At Stalag Luft I, Mr Collins said: "We only lost one. A sentry in a tower, he shot one chap, an American." He said there was one positive to the camp - lots of talented Americans: "They formed an orchestra and they used to play. The Germans were only too pleased to give the facilities. "Once we were occupied, we weren't giving them any hassle." The prisoners were eventually released by Russian tanks - but then everything "fell apart". The guards disappeared, so thousands were left with no food or water. In the end, the Americans came to rescue them. "When I came out, I had ulcers down my legs and I was obviously thin," said Mr Collins. "Fortunately, I was sent for six months convalescence. With my mum's cooking and all the rest of it, I was all right." His capture had had ramifications for those back home too, with his family going months without news after receiving a telegram to say he was missing in action. Mr Collins was given a birthday cake at Salisbury's Poppy Appeal launch It was not until later when he was at a camp that the Red Cross told his mother he was alive. When Mr Collins arrived back in the UK, he was dropped off just seven miles away from his family but he had to be taken up north for a debrief. First though, he wandered off: "It started to rain. I made for a barn for cover. I opened the door and there was a chap there in wheelchair. I chatted to him - I wrote a note for Mum and he took it to her." Later, he found out she had kept that note and it is still in the family. Follow BBC West on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: bristol@bbc.co.uk A World War II veteran received the Congressional Gold Medal on Friday, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. Congress. As part of its Veteran's Day celebration, Able Seaman Joseph Kolis Sr. was presented the medal during a ceremony held at The Villas Senior Care Community in Sherman. U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski, D-Springfield, left, presents the Congressional Gold Medal to WWII U.S. Merchant Marines veteran Joseph Kolis, 99, during a ceremony at The Villas Senior Care Community in Sherman Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. Kolis, a lifelong Springfield resident, began his military service as a Merchant Marine in November 1943. He took part in dozens of voyages delivering troops and supplies in the Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Pacific theaters. More: Here's what to know about Springfield's Veterans Day events and what's open or closed According to the National War Museum, more than 243,000 mariners served in the war, but they were not recognized as veterans until 1988 finally allowing them to receive full GI Bill benefits. It wasn't until March 2020 that mariners like Kolis could receive the Congressional Gold Medal. "We waited 77 years for recognition and now we have it," said Kolis, who turns 99 next month. Kolis' time in service included the delivery of materials onto the beach of Southern France, during the Invasion of Southern France also known as Little D-Day. There, his boat beached itself and was stuck for three days. He would later transport German prisoners of war to North Africa. In the Pacific theater, Kolis would go to Pearl Harbor and then through several war-torn islands before arriving at Iwo Jima. At that battle, considered by historians as one of the most gruesome fights of the war, his ship delivered a group of specialized U.S. Marines onto the beach. Before the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, his unit sailed from Baltimore to Italy to pick up supplies in preparation for a land invasion of Japan. From there, he traversed through the Panama Canal and onto the Philippines. The atomic bombs prompted the Japanese surrender. Kolis would later return to Baltimore and his service concluded in February 1946. Congressional Gold Medal that was given to WWII U.S. Merchant Marines veteran Joseph Kolis during a ceremony at The Villas Senior Care Community in Sherman Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. He was joined at the ceremony by his son, Joseph Kolis, Jr., and other family members. U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski, D-Springfield, presented the medal. "Today is about honoring the service, the sacrifice that men and women that wear our uniform and fight for our freedoms," said Budzinski, the granddaughter of two World War II veterans. She has spent the past week in her district, hosting several town halls with veterans, but will return to Washington on Monday. There, she and other members of Congress will try to avert a federal shutdown. Now being led by new House Speaker Mike Johnson, Nov. 17 is the final day before a temporary measure to keep funding federal operations will expire. Military personnel would not be paid during a shutdown but would receive back pay. Budzinski, who serves on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said she is concerned about how veterans relying on services from the VA will be affected. "One of the bigger challenges at the VA is that they have a lot of labor shortages," she said. "During a government shutdown, we can't fill any of those positions, we can't train or re-train workers at the VA." More: Biden to Belvidere UAW: 'You changed the face of the country' A shutdown would impact federal employees across the country, some of whom will be furloughed, and others could be forced to work without pay. An estimated 7,200 civilians in Illinois Congressional District 13, where Budzinski serves, were employed by the federal government as of 2022 according to the Congressional Research Service. Kolis joins Carlinville resident and World War II Flying Tiger Stephen J. Bonner and Rochester's Ivan Maras among the area's Congressional Gold Medal recipients. The honor has been awarded since the American Revolution and "recognizes those whose dedication, heroism and public service have created a lasting impact on American history." Contact Patrick M. Keck: 312-549-9340, pkeck@gannett.com, twitter.com/@pkeckreporter. This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: After 77 years, Springfield WWII vet receives Congressional Gold Medal Dallas Stars' Jani Hakanpaa (2) celebrates a win over the Winnipeg Jets with goaltender Scott Wedgewood (41) during the third period of an NHL hockey match in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023. (Fred Greenslade/The Canadian Press via AP) WINNIPEG, Manitoba (AP) Wyatt Johnston had a goal and an assist as the Dallas Stars defeated the Winnipeg Jets 3-2 on Saturday. Thomas Harley and Matt Duchene also scored for the Stars (9-3-1). I thought it may be our best road game of the year, Stars coach Peter DeBoer said. I liked how we started. I liked the entire 60 minutes. I thought we were tight, we were smart with the puck, we were competitive, built a lead. Thats how you want to play on the road. Scott Wedgewood, who made 31 saves in net for Dallas, held the fort late in the third period with the Jets pressing for the equalizer with their goalie pulled. Obviously, a tough building to come into, Wedgewood said. I think we played probably our best 60 the way our first period was. Unfortunately, they get a floater in the third to make things a little more tighter than I would have liked. But it was a character ending for us. A couple of big blocks by the guys and I was fortunate to make a save there short-handed and keep them behind one and its a big win on the road here. Cole Perfetti and Brenden Dillon replied for Winnipeg (7-5-2), as goalie Connor Hellebuyck stopped 26 shots. The loss snapped a three-game winning streak for the Jets. Credit to Dallas, Perfetti said. We knew theyre a veteran team. Theyre not going to give you much. I think the first two periods, we were just trying to kind of go outside of whats made us successful for the last couple games. We have scored some highlight-reel goals, but they take away the middle, they try to force turnovers. In the third period we were more direct, using our strength which is our speed, getting in on the forecheck and turning it over. And then getting that next play. When we try to get too cute sometimes against these good veteran teams, theyll take advantage of it. The Jets pulled to within a goal midway through the third period on Dillons goal, but failed to crack Wedgewood again. Wedge was awesome today and we definitely wanted to stay on the gas and keep getting pressure on, and not having it come to our goalie making some big saves, Johnston said. But we know on 6-on-5 and if theyre putting pressure on us, our goalies are going to be able to step up and make a play. It was the second of a five-game homestand for Winnipeg. Theyre another veteran team. A big veteran team, said Jets coach Scott Arniel. Theyre not going to give you a lot of room to play a wide-open skilled game. Theyre going to make you earn every inch of your ice and we saw a lot of that. UP NEXT Stars: Visit Minnesota on Sunday. Jets: Host the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday. ___ AP NHL: https://www.apnews.com/hub/NHL Andriy Yermak, the head of the Presidential Office, has held telephone conversations with the national security advisers of both the US and the UK, according to a post on his official Telegram channel on Nov. 12. The conversations with Sir Tim Barrow, National Security Adviser to the UK Prime Minister, and Jake Sullivan, National Security Adviser to the US President, revolved around the Ukrainian Peace Formula. The third meeting at the adviser level for national security and foreign policy on the Ukrainian Peace Formula took placeon Oct. 28-29 in Malta, following previous sessions in Denmark and Saudi Arabia. What is the Ukrainian Peace Formula? During the G20 summit In November 2022, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy presented a 10-point Peace Formula. The ten points of the Ukrainian Peace Formula are as follows: Radiological and nuclear safety. Food security. Energy security. Release of all detainees and deportees. Compliance with the UN Charter and the restoration of Ukraines territorial integrity and world order. Withdrawal of Russian troops and cessation of hostilities. Restoration of justice, i.e., a tribunal for those guilty of aggression and compensation for damages. Resistance to ecocide. Guarantees of security for Ukraine to prevent escalation. Fixation of the end of the war. 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 Ukrainian delegation led by Economy Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko arrived in the U.S., Presidential Office head Andriy Yermak said on Telegram on Nov. 12. Yermak, who is also a part of the Ukrainian delegation, plans to attend meetings at the White House, Congress, think tanks, and talk with NGO representatives. President Zelensky's Peace Formula, strengthening Ukraine's defense, comprehensive cooperation and many other important topics will be on the agenda, according to the post. The delegations visit comes as top-ranking U.S. officials asked Congress to approve direct budget support for Ukraine. They said $11.8 billion is a minimum amount needed to help cover Ukraines baseline needs, after accounting for other possible international support. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken also called for immediate approval of the aid to Ukraine and Israel requested by the White House in Senate testimonies on Oct. 31. U.S. President Joe Biden asked for $61.4 billion in assistance for Ukraine on Oct. 20 as a part of the broader $105-billion-dollar request. The package has not been approved yet with some Republican Congress members advocating for splitting up Ukraine and Israel aid. Read also: Top US officials ask Congress to back $12 billion in budget support for Ukraine Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. David Upshaw made his way down the hall at the Indian River Juvenile Correctional Facility, pausing by every door to check on the boys locked inside. Im here now, he told them, announcing the start of his shift. They were troubled kids, sent to juvenile prison for serious crimes like assault, rape and even homicide. And on this night, Oct. 18, 2022, they were agitated after spending long hours locked in their cells following a rash of fights at the Massillon facility. Upshaw was working alone that night, but he wasnt worried. The retired cop and Army veteran got along with most of the 20 teenagers on Bravo unit. They called him Pops and teased him about his well-groomed beard. But when Upshaw stopped at Demetrice Taylor's door, he could tell something was off. They talked briefly, but Taylor, 19, mostly just stared at him before Upshaw turned away to finish his rounds. Thats when Upshaw felt something smash into the back of his head. [ Reporters with USA Todays network of Ohio newspapers spent eight months investigating the state's juvenile justice system. Consider supporting their work with a subscription. ] David Upshaw, a U.S. Army veteran and retired police officer, recalls the evening of Oct. 18, 2022. Less than half and hour after he started his shift at Indian River Juvenile Correction Facility Upshaw was brutally attacked. Upshaw's attack was among 254 acts of violence committed against guards and other employees at Ohio's three juvenile prisons in 2022. Some suffered minor injuries bruises and scratches while others needed treatment in a hospital. Sometimes, they returned to work, only to be assaulted again. But for Upshaw, once would be enough. His injuries were so serious he never went back. He still suffers from vertigo and uses a walker to steady himself. Its taken so much from us, Upshaws wife, Patricia, said of her husbands struggles since that night. The responsibility falls on the state. The attack The trouble on Bravo Unit began before Upshaw started his shift. Unrest among the kids was common, Upshaw said, and the tension seemed to worsen in the evening when guards locked the doors to their rooms before bed and they didn't have any structured activities. Upshaw and his fellow guards did their best to keep them occupied. They came up with games or trivia, whatever they could think of, to keep the kids calm. "Sometimes it worked," Upshaw said. It didnt work his last night on the job at Indian River. He knew violence always was a possibility, but he felt good about his relationship with most of the boys. And on that night, guards had already secured the doors for the evening. They were supposed to have been locked in their cells. Taylor, though, had managed to rig the lock on his door. After Upshaw turned his back, Taylor slipped out of his cell. Nearly a year after a brutal attack by a youth jailed at Indian River Correctional Facility, David Upshaw needs a walker to aid him while walking. He suffers from vertigo which causes him to become unsteady on his feet. Taylor snuck up on Upshaw and struck him from behind. He reeled from the blow and fell to the ground. According to the Ohio State Highway Patrol report, Taylor struck him with his radio. In video surveillance released by the state Department of Youth Services, the attack took only seconds. Upshaw turned to see his attacker. Taylor was a big guy, similar in stature to Upshaw, but pure muscle. "I see Demetrice's face in my mind," Upshaw said. "His hair his braids he was looking me dead in the face." At the same time, he felt pain shooting through his neck and head. "I felt the pounding and the tugging, he recalled. The yelling and screaming." Taylor took Upshaws keys and unlocked other cell doors. Several juveniles now were running free, wreaking havoc. David Upshaw, an Army veteran and retired Lawrence Township police officer, continues to recover after a brutal attack last year while he was working at Indian River Correctional Facility. 'Its taken so much from us,' Upshaws wife, Patricia, said of her husbands struggles since that night. 'The responsibility falls on the state.' The attack was quick and swift. The surveillance video shows Upshaw lying on the floor while Taylor strikes him two more times. Taylor can be seen above Upshaw. He then delivers three more punches before running down the dark hallway. After laying on the floor a few more seconds, Upshaw makes his way down the hallway. He's unsteady. In just a few feet, he reaches a brightly lit common area in the Bravo Unit, where he leans on a high desk and holds his head. He could hear everything going on around him, especially the yelling. He isn't sure how much time passed before coworkers arrived to help because he kept slipping in and out of consciousness. "All I remember is a few minutes later, Upshaw said. I was on the gurney going through the hallways with the lights going over me. It wasn't long before others began pouring into the Bravo Unit. Another surveillance video shows a person entering the dayroom. He doesn't pause to see Upshaw instead he quickly rushes down the hallway. More people arrive including a nurse, who places Upshaw in a chair. Read the full report: Find a summary and link to each part of our investigation into Ohio's youth detention facilities David Upshaw uses a walker to leave his house for dialysis treatments. What went wrong? Guards wear a "man down switch," a button that notifies the command center if the person wearing the button is no longer in an upright position. Upshaw said his button didn't work that night. Often, he said, workers in the control room would turn off the alarms because they sounded so often. Anytime a guard bent down to tie a shoe or made certain movements, there was a chance the alarm would go off. After his coworkers pulled him out of Bravo Unit, Upshaw said, officials at Indian River asked him to drive himself to the hospital for treatment. The nurse on duty refused to let him go on his own. She demanded an ambulance be called to transport Upshaw. At her urging, Massillon Fire Department was called. As Upshaw lay in a hospital bed, his body began to shut down. He suffered a head injury, heart and kidney failure. His eye was swollen shut, and he had knots protruding from the side of his head. He spent three weeks in the hospital. When he returned home, a nurse aided him. Physical and occupational therapists visited his home to begin his recovery. A year later, Upshaw uses a walker to get around. He suffers from vertigo. He recently underwent eye surgery and spends four hours, three days a week undergoing dialysis. He had health problems prior to the attack, but nothing like this. Unanswered questions about that night trouble Upshaw. He still has no idea why Taylor attacked him. Did a gang leader order the assault, or did something snap inside Taylor? Whatever the reason, Upshaw believes Taylor's mental health played a part. It wouldnt be unusual: Officials at the Department of Youth Services say between 68% and 72% of kids incarcerated in Ohios juvenile prisons receive mental health services. But the two talked from time to time, and there was never any yelling or screaming at each other. Mostly, they joked around. "It shocked me," Upshaw said of the attack. A year later, David Upshaw uses a walker to get around. He takes daily walks with his wife, Patricia. He suffers from vertigo. He recently underwent eye surgery and spends four hours, three days a week undergoing dialysis. The system is 'messed up' Upshaw said he doesn't want to speak badly about the Department of Youth Services, but he said the system is messed up. He said it lacks structure, which, in turn, makes it hard to control the kids. "Those kids have no fear," he said. Union leaders representing guards at Indian River blame the lack of control on staffing. They say there simply arent enough staff to do the job. In July, Indian River had 54 open jobs, or 18% of all positions. Across all three of the states juvenile prisons, the vacancy rate is 17%, or 147 positions. On the night Taylor attacked Upshaw, the guard was working alone because of staff shortages. Two people typically are assigned to work the units together. Sometimes, employees worked mandatory overtime that stretched their shifts to 16 hours straight. Upshaws wife, Patricia, said the long hours left her husband exhausted. She said it also left him and the other guards vulnerable. In the weeks before the attack on Upshaw, one Indian River employee was stabbed in the back of the head and ear with a pencil, another was kicked in the groin, two others were bitten and another suffered a broken jaw. Less than a week after Taylors assault on Upshaw, a dozen teens barricaded themselves in the facilitys school after they grabbed a set of keys. Armed with makeshift weapons from the schools shop classroom, the kids caused $265,000 in damage. They live-streamed it all on Facebook, using a laptop they found in the school. The incident ended when the state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction SWAT Team armed with pepper spray and zip ties stormed in. Afterward, Department of Youth Services Director Amy Ast said youth prisons would provide body cameras and pepper spray to guards at the state's three youth prisons including Indian River, following the lead of states adult prison system. Since then, state officials say, juvenile prisons have experienced a 36% reduction in assaults on employees in the first six months of 2023, compared to the last six months of 2022. "Body-worn cameras have brought a higher level of transparency to our work and have been an effective tool in raising our level of professionalism and capturing the perspective of the staff," Ast said. "The body-worn cameras have also been helpful in capturing youth behaviors." In the first five months of 2023, there were 44 assaults on staff at Indian River. Patricia Upshaw, David Upshaw's wife of nearly 40 years, has been by her husband's side caring for him after a brutal attack left him near death last year. Patricia suffers from multiple sclerosis. A man who could make a difference Upshaw said he took the job at Indian River after retiring as a police officer because he thought he might be able to make a difference in the lives of some of the kids. But his days as a guard are over. He and his wife are now trying to figure out what comes next. His health problems make it hard to visit a museum, go to a movie at the local theater or take a trip to the grocery store. Travel is out of the question, forcing them to miss out on family gatherings and to skip vacations theyd planned after David's retirement. He did his due diligence and showed up for work, Patricia Upshaw said. And now this is where we are." Upshaw's recovery has included specialists and doctors, including a neurologist, optometrist, surgeons and a therapist to help with his post-traumatic stress. With the help of an attorney, the family has fought to get worker's compensation to cover some of his medical care. He cant take care of Patricia, who has multiple sclerosis, and she struggles to care for him. Shes grateful, though, her husband is still with her. "He wants to be a provider and protector," she said. "He's very good-hearted and caring but he feels like he is unable to provide those things for us. He fails to understand and we have to remind him that you provide just being here." The assault he endured a year ago still is a constant presence in their lives. If given a chance, Upshaw said, hed ask Taylor what happened that night. Why did he attack him? Why did it go so far? "If he can give me an honest, man-to-man answer, I can accept that. I don't hold anger," he said. "I'm more concerned that whatever he holds inside is going to destroy or kill him." Reach Amy Knapp at 330-775-1135 or amy.knapp@indeonline.com. This article originally appeared on The Independent: Brutal attack changes life for Ohio juvenile prison guard (Reuters) - President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned Ukrainians on Sunday to prepare for new waves of Russian attacks on infrastructure as winter approached and said troops were anticipating an onslaught in the eastern theatre of the war. A military spokesman said Russian attacks on the shattered eastern town of Avdiivka had eased in the past day, but were likely to intensify in the coming days. And Ukrainian military intelligence said an explosion killed at least three Russian servicemen in the Russian-occupied southern town of Melitopol, which it described as an "act of revenge" by resistance groups. Zelenskiy issued his warning during his nightly video address a day after Russian forces carried out their first missile attack on the capital, Kyiv in some seven weeks. "We are almost half way through November and must be prepared for the fact that the enemy may increase the number of drone or missile strikes on our infrastructure," Zelenskiy said. "Russia is preparing for Ukraine. And here, in Ukraine, all attention should be focused on defence, on responding to terrorists on everything that Ukraine can do to get through the winter and improve our soldiers' capabilities." Last winter about 10 months into Russia's invasion of neighbour Ukraine, Russia made waves of attacks on power stations and other plants inked to the energy network, prompting rolling blackouts in widely separated regions. Energy Minister German Galushchenko said on Saturday that Ukraine would have enough energy resources to get through the winter, but added: "The question is how much future attacks can affect supplies." Ukrainian officials last Wednesday said Russia had struck Ukrainian infrastructure 60 times in recent weeks, an indication that a campaign of attacks may already be under way. In his remarks, Zelenskiy hailed the "heroic" efforts of troops defending Avdiivka, under pressure from attempted Russian advances since mid-October. Pictures show buildings in the town reduced to shells. Military spokesman Oleksandr Shtupun said the number of infantry attacks in the past 24 hours was half of levels earlier in the week, but air strikes were on the rise. "The enemy suffered significant losses the day before yesterday and has to regroup," Shtupun told national television. The head of Ukraine's ground forces, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, said on Telegram that Moscow's forces were "more active in the Bakhmut sector and trying to recover lost positions". Bakhmut, north of the city of Donetsk, was captured by Russian forces in May after months of heavy combat, but Ukrainian troops have since retaken nearby villages. Russian accounts of the fighting on Sunday said its forces had repelled five Ukrainian attacks near Bakhmut. Reuters could not verify accounts from either side. In Melitopol, a hub for Russian occupation forces, the blast killed three men during a meeting at a post office used as a military headquarters, Ukraine's military intelligence directorate said. The dead were officers of Russia's National Guard or FSB intelligence service, the directorate said in a statement. There was no comment from Russian officials. Ukraine's military has been increasingly active in attacking Russian-held areas, but does not always acknowledge the strikes. (Reporting by Ron Popeski and Maria Starkova; editing by Grant McCool) Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 12) A Makabayan bloc lawmaker on Sunday sounded the alarm about the revised implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the Maharlika Investment Fund Act, saying it has "dangerous" provisions and lacks thorough scrutiny. In a statement, ACT-Teachers Partylist Rep. France Castro questioned the IRRs provision giving the president an extended authority. "The removal of crucial safeguards and qualifications in the revised IRR raises doubts about the potential for political interference and the absence of checks and balances," Castro said. "The president's increased authority to select the board of directors further raises questions about the independence and integrity of the fund and poses a danger to people's funds," she added. The IRR gives President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. the power to either accept or reject the names recommended by the Advisory Board as director or chief executive officer of Maharlika Investment Corporation (MIC), which will manage the fund. There was also no mention of the qualifications required for regular and independent directors, unlike in the previous IRR which indicated that one of the criteria would be a master's degree in finance, economics, business administration, or a related field. According to Castro, the amended IRR lowers the educational and professional experience requirements for key positions in the MIC and lessens the responsibilities of the audit and risk management committees. The former IRR mandated that two senior executives from the MIC would serve on the audit committee, but the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Investment and Economic Affairs (OPAIEA) advised against it, saying that this is not advisable, hence the changes. "It is important to remember that its (audit committee) primary purpose is to provide independent oversight of the company's financial reporting process," said Rafael Consing Jr., OPAIEA executive director. "Including senior executives on the Audit Committee raises the risk that investors and the public may perceive the committee as being biased towards management and could undermine the committee's independence and credibility," Consing added. The qualifications and functions of the MIC's audit committee were no longer specified in the new IRR, but it states: "The Board shall determine the qualifications, as well as the duties and responsibilities of the internal auditor." Castro stressed that maintaining important safeguards and qualifications is more important than the justifications made for these changes, which include giving the MIC board more freedom. Meanwhile, House Speaker Martin Romualdez defended the revised IRR, saying these would "protect and guarantee the fund" against "political interference." "The autonomy of the MIC Board allows for more objective and effective decision-making, free from undue political influence. This is crucial in overseeing a fund of this magnitude, which is pivotal to our nation's economic growth," he said. Romualdez also said Marcos has instructed the MIC board to "enjoy independence" as a demonstration of "a strong commitment to good governance practices, which will foster investor confidence and attract more investment to our country." Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, who is in charge of finding qualified candidates to lead the MIC, also backed the IRR. "I am glad of this development, as this shall allow the MIC Board to have the liberty and flexibility to fulfill its mandate, and explore beneficial investment opportunities," she said. "This will also improve accountability, openness, and efficacy in carrying out the law's provisions." Pangandaman expressed optimism that the MIF will be operational by the end of 2023, in accordance with the given timeline. READ: Marcos: Maharlika fund operational by yearend BEDFORD During her keynote address at the National D-Day Memorial on Saturday, author and retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Mari K. Eder asked the audience to go one step further on Veterans Day in thanking a retired service member. And ask Where were you? What did you learn? What advice do you have? And for those of you who your parents or your grandparents served, ask them to share their stories, Eder said. Because as we continue to lose members of the Greatest Generation, we want to keep their stories alive. Eder spoke in front of the Overlord Arch to a large crowd of veterans and their families as part of a Veterans Day ceremony at the Bedford memorial. Retired service members of the U.S. Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard stood to be recognized when a brass band played their military branchs song during the ceremony. Eder served in the U.S. Army for more than 35 years in senior positions in the Pentagon, the Department of Defense and in the Army. She also is the author of The Girls who Stepped out of Line: Untold Stories of the Women Who Changed the Course of WWII and talked about one of the women she featured in her book. Her name was Kate Nolan. Kate joined the Army Nurse Corps in 1943, right out of nursing school. She wanted to be a flight nurse that program was closed. So, she became a nurse with the 53rd combat hospital, heavy casualty, Eder said. Nolans unit landed at Utah Beach two weeks after D-Day. She fell under the waves carrying a 75-pound pack, and other nurses had to pick her up and drag her onto the beach. Eder said Nolans unit followed armor and infantry units in Pattons Army from July 1944 to the end of the war, through France, Luxembourg, Belgium and Germany. She earned five battle stars for her service. Nolan died right before Eder started writing her book. During her research, all of Nolans seven children would get together and have a conference to answer Eders questions about their mother. They didnt have all the answers to Eders questions though, which is why the author said its so important to ask veterans to tell their stories and preserve their memories. Another woman featured in Eders book, Dame Mary Siglio Barraco, was the keynote speaker at the D-Day Memorial in 2015 for the 71st anniversary of the Normandy invasion. It was one of the most memorable speeches Ive ever heard, National D-Day Memorial Foundation President and CEO April Cheek-Messier said. When Mary was here in 2015, she was particularly thankful to the veterans, all veterans from all eras. She noted that because of our veterans, the freedoms and liberties we enjoy will be preserved for generations to come, and she of all people would know. An American teenager born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Barraco was living in Belgium with her family in 1940 when German Nazi military forces invaded the country. At age 17, Barraco became actively involved in the resistance to Nazi occupation. Soon captured, Baracco endured beatings, solitary confinement and forced sterilization. Her fiance was executed. Cheek-Messier said of Baracco: Mary was forever grateful to the veterans who helped liberate a continent and the world. She was grateful to those who were willing to give their all to help those like her, trapped in a world of tyranny where the personal freedoms we now know were stripped away in the most terrible of ways. Baracco died in 2019 at age 96. Cheek-Messier said she preached vigilance. Even now, today, I can still hear her words clearly. Again: it is only after we have lost our freedom that we appreciate its value. Mary also noted without a doubt that we live in the greatest country in the world, Cheek-Messier said. We owe that to you, our veterans. You have carried the torch of freedom, and for that we are profoundly grateful. At the end of the ceremony, Cheek-Messier invited veterans to stand in front of the memorial during the bands playing of America the Beautiful, for audience members to thank them and shake their hands. Dont get me wrong. I come this week to condemn Hamas, not to praise them. As I acknowledged last time, the Palestinian people of Gaza have grievances aplenty against Israel, but there is no justification for the primal savagery Hamas displayed on Oct. 7. But they have lured Israel into a trap the same trap we repeatedly fell into in Vietnam. A common strategy of revolutionary warfare is to provoke an overreaction that will result in the deaths of innocent people, thereby turning the people against a counter-revolutionary force. That is precisely what Hamas has done. They have provoked Israel into a campaign of seemingly indiscriminate bombing killing, wounding, and uprooting hundreds of noncombatants. Granted, Hamas is not above using innocent people as human shields but you can bet the innocents are not blaming Hamas for their suffering. Theyre blaming Israel as are their fellow Muslims throughout the Middle East. The thing is, Israel was caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Given the horror and widespread carnage of the Oct. 7 attack, the Israeli people expected nothing less than an immediate, dramatic response. And maybe, as Israel claimed, some of the buildings they destroyed did house Hamas facilities and leaders. But they also housed civilians in them and next to them. There is, as I understand it, a kind of calculus employed in releasing missiles from our high-flying drones. How important is the person or people we want to take out, and how much collateral damage i.e., non-combatant death and destruction would be warranted? If the target is a bomb maker, for instance, his bombs would kill far more innocent people than were likely to kill in sending a missile down his chimney. Its the kind of calculation most of us would not want to have to make. And I wonder if an Israeli general made it before bombing that Gaza refugee camp not once but twice. The definitive book about our war in Vietnam happens to be Neil Sheehans A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (1988). Sheehan focuses on the career of the title character. Vann was a courageous, insightful soldier who served as an adviser to the South Vietnamese troops in the early days of our involvement. As Vann tried to tell military and political leaders alike, the best weapon for killing would be a knife . . . . The worst is an airplane. The next worst is artillery. Barring a knife, the best is a rifleyou know who youre killing. Vann understood that the indiscriminate use of overwhelming fire power can be self-defeating. It turns the populace against you. Im reminded of the cynical acronym for winning hearts and minds in my war WHAM! Israel, in some quarters, is being accused of waging a genocidal war against the Palestinians. I dont think thats true, but neither do I believe they could ever win the hearts and minds of the Palestinians. Assuming the war doesnt spread throughout the region, Israel will win, but then what? They can look forward to a major military occupation and a smoldering insurgency for years to come. I cant help thinking Israel might have been better off the world might have been better off had they sent in ground forces from the start. PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) Tossing tent poles, blankets and a duffel bag into a shopping cart and three wagons, Will Taylor spent a summer morning helping friends tear down what had been their home and that of about a dozen others. It wasn't the first time and wouldn't be the last. Moroccos Ambassador to the United Nations in New York visited Bangassou, in the southeast of the Central African Republic, where he was received by Colonel Mounir Ou-Bakha, Commander of the contingent of the Royal Armed Forces deployed in this area within the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA). The meeting with the Moroccan contingent is part of the four-day working visit undertaken by the diplomat to the Central African Republic, at the head of a UN delegation, in his capacity as President of the Central African Republic Configuration of the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission (PAC). During a meeting with the officers and non-commissioned officers of the contingent in Bangassou, Hilale was briefed, on the missions objectives and efforts undertaken by the Moroccan peacekeepers for the implementation of the mandate of the MINUSCA, particularly in terms of security, protection of civilians and support for the expansion of State authority. This allowed the return to normal life in this region, previously affected by attacks by armed groups. They instructed Ambassador Hilale to convey to King Mohammed VI their unwavering attachment, loyalty and commitment to the mission with which they were entrusted by the King, Supreme Commander and Chief of General Staff of the Royal Armed Forces, in support of the principles and objectives of maintaining peace in this brotherly African country. For his part, Hilale praised the dedication of the Moroccan peacekeepers, their self-sacrifice, and their courage on the ground. He congratulated them for the honorable image that they reflect not only of Morocco, but also of the United Nations, under whose banner they serve in the Central African Republic. A contribution recognized and highly appreciated by senior United Nations officials. He also paid tribute to the memory of the 19 Moroccan peacekeepers who made the ultimate sacrifice, offering their lives in the service of peace, since the establishment of MINUSCA. The Moroccan ambassador also met with the local authorities of Bangassou, as well as the communities benefiting from reduction of violence and empowerment projects, implemented by MINUSCA. As part of his working visit to the Central African Republic, Hilale was received in Bangui by the Prime Minister and Head of Government, Felix Moloua, the Minister of State for Disarmament, Demobilization, Reintegration and Repatriation (DDRR), members of the government, as well as the President of the National Assembly. He also held meetings with officials of the National Elections Authority, the Special Criminal Court, as well as with representatives of civil society, international financial institutions and the diplomatic corps established in Bangui. During his meetings, Hilale reiterated Moroccos full support and its continued commitment to the peace and stability of the Central African Republic, both at the bilateral level and through its contribution to MINUSCA and the presidency of the Central African Republic Configuration of the Peacebuilding Commission (CCP). In addition, he discussed with the various stakeholders the many positive developments recorded in the country, as well as the projects and priorities that require the mobilization of support from the international community, in particular the holding of local elections in October 2024 and January 2025 which constitute major political and democratic stake for the Central African Republic, the continuation of the DDRR process, as well as the consecration and strengthening of the rule of law and socio-economic recovery. Hilale reaffirmed his commitment, as President of the Configuration, to continue his action to mobilize international and regional support for the priority objectives of the Central African Republic in terms of peacebuilding. The Extraordinary Arab-Islamic Summit held Saturday in Riyadh has adopted a resolution demanding an end to Israeli aggression on Gaza, categorically rejecting forced displacement of Palestinian People, demanding the immediate lift of the blockade and the letting of humanitarian aid convoys into Gaza. The leaders of the Arab and Islamic countries participating in the Summit expressed their categorical rejection of the forced displacement of the Palestinian people outside the Gaza Strip or the West Bank, including Al-Quds Acharif, and any other form of liquidation of the Palestinian cause. The resolution underlined the need for an immediate return of the displaced Palestinians who were forced to flee towards the south of Gaza to their neighborhoods and homes, as well as the release of all prisoners, and detained civilians. The participating members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to complete the investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israel against the Palestinians. They rejected describing this war of retaliation as self-defense or justifying it under any pretext demanding that it be stopped immediately. They called on all countries to immediately stop the export of weapons with which the occupying army of Israel and settlers kill Palestinians and destroy their homes, hospitals, schools, mosques, churches and all their property. They also reiterated their commitment to the two-State solution and peace as a strategic choice to end the Israeli occupation and the Arab-Israeli conflict, in accordance with international law, relevant international legality resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative as an Arab unified consensus position and basis for any effort to revive the Middle East peace process. Israel and no other country in the region will achieve security and peace until the people of Palestine have peace and security, the resolution stated. Also, leaders of Arab and Islamic States reaffirmed that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is the legitimate and sole representative of the Palestinian people, calling on all Palestinian factions and forces to unite under its banner and to assume their responsibility within the framework of a national partnership meeting the aspirations of the Palestinian people, under PLO leadership. Morocco has never ceased to express, on all occasions, this constant position in support of the Palestinian State and its legitimate national authority, under the leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas, to defend the rights of the Palestinian people and to achieve their aspirations for freedom, independence, and a decent life. The OIC and the Arab League called for an international peace conference for Palestine to be organized as soon as possible, through which a credible peace process will be launched according to international law and for the activation of the Islamic Financial Safety Network to provide financial contributions and financial, economic and humanitarian support to the Government of the State of Palestine and UNRWA. King Mohammed VI who was represented at this Summit by Head of Government, Aziz Akhannouch, called in an address for stopping human beings killing. King Mohammed VI called for an awakening of the conscience of the international community and for a joint action to stop the killing of human beings in the Gaza Strip, and stressed that there is no alternative to genuine peace in the region. He pointed out that in keeping with my commitment to peace and in my capacity as Chairman of the Al-Quds Committee, I have called for an awakening of the conscience of the international community in order to stop the killing of human beings. As Algerians continue to suffer in long queues for basic goods, the military regime in Algeria has allocated its defense department a bloated budget of 21.6 billion dollars in 2024, up from 19 billion this year. The army thus widens the gap with other departments as the largest spending sector, mirroring its position as a kingmaker in a country with a civilian presidential facade. Trapped in the resource curse wherein more than 90% of the countrys sales are hydrocarbons, Algeria prefers to squander its diminishing foreign exchange reserves on Russian armament. The West has deterred Algeria from sealing large scale armament deals with Russia casting a shadow of doubt on last years spending. With the largest defense budget in Africa, Algeria took half of Russian arms sales on the continent. But, the ongoing war in Ukraine has seriously undermined Russias capacity to supply its clients. As Algeria faces lackluster growth prospects in the medium term due to the decrease in oil and gas prices, the country would not be able to maintain high spending on the army, or else it would do so at the expense of further impoverishing its population and undermining its state-dominated economy. Keeping up with Morocco is now a thing of the past as the North African Kingdom widened the armament quality gap with Algeria, including through sealing alliances, mainly with the US. German newspaper said it had access to a conversation between a Polisario and an Iranian agent proving the nexus between the two countries. In a detailed article, the newspaper said it had consulted intelligence documents showing the intent of Iran to empower its proxies to carry out attacks against Israel in the Middle East and Morocco in North Africa. The documents exposed Polisario leader based in Syria Mustafa Muhammad Lemine Al-Kitab urging a Hezbollah leader and Iranian agent to offer more support to the Algeria-based separatist militias to carry out attacks against Morocco. In a phone conversation with an Iranian agent on October 23, Lemine Al Kitab said the Polisario would join ranks with other Iranian proxies in the Middle east to sow instability, according to Die Welt. Last year, the same newspaper unveiled the involvement of Polisario members in facilitating transfers to Hezbollah activists in Africa, in full connivance of Algiers. Morocco had cut ties with Iran in 2018, accusing it of backing the Polisario through its embassy in Algiers and of sponsoring training by Hezbollah for Polisario fighters in Tindouf camps. Morocco had been warning of the growing links between the Polisario and Iran on the one hand, and the Polisario and other terrorist groups on the other hand. Earlier this month, an attack hit a residential area in Es-Smara in southern Morocco killing one and injuring three. Moroccan representative to the UN Omar Hilale said that the terrorist attack bore the hallmarks of the Polisario and that Morocco would respond once it finishes its judicial probe into that targeting of civilians. The magic of Studio 8H @RealChalamet pic.twitter.com/yH6mLG8JCk Saturday Night Live - SNL (@nbcsnl) November 8, 2023 An Oral History of Washingtons Dream, the Best SNL Sketch in Years https://t.co/j9gXrOLzoG IndieWire (@IndieWire) November 10, 2023 himself, Timothee Chalemet, hosts SNL for the second time tonight! The actor hosted for the first time back in December 2020 with musical guest Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. In his 2020 monologue , Chalamet revealed that he had a familial connection to SNL: his mother occasionally worked as an extra at the show and appeared in the background of the classic sketch, "Massive Headwound Harry" This will be the first appearance on the show for boygenius as a group and for members Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker, though Phoebe Bridgers appeared on the show back in 2020 as a solo act. She joins an impressive roster of musicians to play on the show as solo acts and in a group. Timothee'sco-star Jason Momoa hosts the show next week, with musical guest Tate McRae. The October 28 Nate Bargatze/Foo Fighters episode was a ratings hit for SNL . It brought in 4.9 million same-day "linear" viewers, making it the most-watched live show since the December 2022 Steve Martin and Martin Short episode. Reports also confirm that viewership on Peacock's livestream of the show was up above last season and the show gained higher YouTube views and interactions above last season's levels. One of the sketches from that episode that got outsized attention was "Washington's Dream", to the point where IndieWire calls it the best SNL sketch in years (it's not, i mean "Overprotective Mother" is right there, but it's a great clickbait title). The sketch was written by cast member Mikey Day, his go-to writing partner and head writer Streeter Seidell, and staff writer Auguste White. In the interview Seidell reveals that the first draft of the sketch was written last season, but he won't say who they originally wrote it for. He admits that Bargatze's everyman vibe hit the right note for the sketch. Day talks about Seidell's love of history and Seidell says he was happy to get a historical sketch on the air the previous week ("The Age of Discovery" with Bad Bunny - apparently originally written for the Ana de Armas episode last season). Due to the SAG strike, SNL writers Please Don't Destroy were not able to promote their film,on Fallon earlier this week, and instead discussed what it's like working at SNL (and yes they do talk about what it was like to have John's dad, Steve Higgins, as their boss). Two days later after the SAG strike ended, the PDD boys crashed Fallon's monologue to repeatedly promote their new film. Then they head back upstairs to do their appearance on Seth's show. Cast member James Austin Johnson was also on Seth's show over the break and he discussed what went into writing "Lake Beach" Timothee teamed up with Bowen Yang and boygenius for this weeks promos. Timothee... and the cast at read-thru. And in an effort to feed the stans, they posted some bloopers featuring Timothee, boygenius, and Bowen. tweet6 /tweet7 that shirt Reply Thread Link He certainly has an interesting sense of fashion / style Reply Parent Thread Link NFL style! Guys with tons of money who are too big to buy off the rack Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I was low key wondering if he was trying to send a message with the black, red, green and white coloring. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link i find it cute bc it's the kind of stuff you would find at marshalls or ross under a "FOR YOUR NEXT COOKOUT" sign Reply Parent Thread Link loveisembarrassing.mp3 Reply Thread Link indeed (for anyone who hasn't listened to it yet) Reply Parent Thread Link a BOP Reply Parent Thread Link This is cute but her fans make it weird idk Reply Thread Link Exactly. The absolutely juvenile way they talk about this woman is extremely offputting. Reply Parent Thread Link That's why she does it. Reply Parent Thread Link I saw comments like, "this is the best thing that's ever happened to me." It's funny but also sad because they're so obsessed living vicariously through her, and not living a life of their own. Reply Parent Thread Link the fact that they aren't 12 years old and writing "omg they kissed AFTER the kiss!" is so friggin weird Reply Parent Thread Link exactly that. for all my negative feelings towards her, one thing i understand is her wanting a partner that public supports her. but the fact that they're like "omg they kissed AGAIN after the first kiss" like yeah? they're in a relationship, why are you acting brand new about what people in relationships do?! they're so fucking weird. but hey... she cultivated this behavior in many ways and loves it. Reply Parent Thread Link And the media's obsession with this on top of it doesn't help. Reply Parent Thread Link I literally got a google headline on my phone to tell me these two kissed. Breaking news isn't what it used to be! Reply Parent Thread Link that's what it is lmao Reply Parent Thread Link they're both attention whore-y about it but I also think it's cute, harmless normal couple shit but her fans are deranged about everything she does Reply Parent Thread Link | Travis Kelce's reaction to "Karma is the guy on the Chiefs" pic.twitter.com/aXnJFTMhXn The Swift Society (@TheSwiftSociety) November 12, 2023 idk how long this will last but I'm enjoying the theatrics of it all lol idk how long this will last but I'm enjoying the theatrics of it all lol Reply Thread Link I'm more into how her dad freaked out lol Reply Parent Thread Link Idc that was adorable. Her dad was so excited and he almost looked a little shy. Reply Parent Thread Link damn how tall is her dad I mean Taylor is tall so I guess it has to come from somewhere lol Reply Parent Thread Link Google says 61. And also 57 lmaoooooo Reply Parent Thread Link Fans were dragging Joe Alwyn by saying if it was him she wouldve been singing Karma is the guy on the streets Reply Parent Thread Expand Link karma is blowing up his sloppy fartbag Reply Parent Thread Link These two are really laying it on thick lol Reply Parent Thread Link This is cute and Im not sorry lollll Reply Parent Thread Link I'm very much enjoying the theatrics, I'm all for well balanced relationships and they're both clearly attention whores so I hope it lasts. Reply Parent Thread Link You know what I thought that was cute Like good for her, may we all have a partner who gets all giddy over us. Reply Parent Thread Link idc about how fake this is, I am thoroughly entertained and distracted via GIPHY Reply Thread Link I think it's very real and they are just loving the attention lol Reply Parent Thread Link oh to be a fly on the wall when they're alone. do they discuss the logistics of their public outtings? Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Same. It looks like they both are feeling confident, loving the attention, and running full speed into this relationship. I never thought they were faking it. Especially considering she doesn't like to stay to single, I don't believe she'd waste this much time in a fake relationship. Reply Parent Thread Link that IS the spirit! Reply Parent Thread Link its not fake, shes just callously replacing her mistakes. very me coded Reply Parent Thread Link Same, I hope the last because they will keep ONTD alive lol Reply Parent Thread Link She looks good in that outfit Reply Thread Link as a shorty I am beyond jealous of her legs :( Reply Parent Thread Link Same! My takeaway from the first video of them kissing was shock at how tall she is. I know she's in sky high heeled boots but she's close to his 6'5! Reply Parent Thread Link I run and run and run, and my short legs still look like little muscular stumps instead of slender like hers. Reply Parent Thread Link I'm 6'4" and I remember how hot it was to have a boyfriend who was 6'6". Kissing and hugging him was something else!!! She's deserves to have that happiness. Edited at 2023-11-12 05:42 am (UTC) Reply Thread Link You can tell he makes her feel hot just by the way she's been dressing lately. It's all legs and heels. Reply Parent Thread Link I like him - he's been a really good sport about being her boyfriend throughout this whole thing Reply Thread Link It's sweet that he (apparently) doesn't seem at all bothered over being known as Taylor's boyfriend. Men who aren't whiny, insecure babies about their partners' success are so rare. Reply Parent Thread Link This will be my Roman Empire 10 years from now Reply Thread Link I have a friend who has a bumper sticker with Taylor and Tom Hiddleston that says I AM A CHILD OF DIVORCE lmao Reply Parent Thread Link W o w Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Hiddleswift is my Roman Empire. Reply Parent Thread Link This is cute tbh lol Reply Thread Link getting frisky in front of fans? Reply Thread Link lmao. I love Amanda, hope she's doing well Reply Parent Thread Link can't wait for them to break up in march Reply Thread Link Lord, the countless posts will be insane. Stans crying like their parents broke up and it might be worse than when she broke up with Joe, white journalists writing countless articles crying, people on the urban blogs talking about whether hell date another white woman or not, articles on new music analyzing her lyrics, cheating rumors We will never escape. Reply Parent Thread Link what about her album on this!!!!! "Touchdown" Reply Parent Thread Link I see this one lasting a lot longer. Unless he screws it up by cheating. Then the revenge will be swift(ies). I will run not walk to ONTD. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I think they will get married because shes at that age and she finally found someone who isn't ashamed of her and will play along with her fame shenanigans. Reply Parent Thread Link At least by February because I want tea for my eras show Reply Parent Thread Link and her superbowl show in 2025 with songs about him Reply Parent Thread Link this is cute Reply Thread Link it's just so corny Reply Thread Link hush, this is american royalty. Reply Parent Thread Link the new great dynasty Reply Parent Thread Link Weeks after the U.S. eased the sanctions on Venezuela, essentially allowing exports of Venezuelan crude, commodity trading giants are back in the business of trading with oil from the country with the worlds largest reserves. Some of the largest independent oil trading houses are already offering Venezuelan cargoes, including to U.S. buyers. Commodity giants have also struck deals to buy crude from intermediaries approved by Venezuelas state-owned oil company PDVSA. The easing of the sanctions has allowed the worlds biggest oil traders to return to Venezuela, while the country is also reportedly negotiating with international oilfield services providers to help it ramp up production. Increased supply from Venezuela is set to shift global oil market balancesto an extentas more crude will be flowing from the Latin American country, at least until April next year. In October, the United States lifted most sanctions on Venezuelas oil industry after the Nicolas Maduro government reached a deal with the opposition that could see elections held next year. Related: Swedish Union Blocks Tesla Imports As Labor Dispute Escalates The U.S. issued a six-month general license temporarily authorizing transactions involving the oil and gas sector in Venezuela. The license will only be renewed if Venezuela meets its commitments under the so-called electoral roadmap, the U.S. Treasury noted. The license, valid until April 18, 2024, authorizes the production, lifting, sale, and exportation of oil or gas from Venezuela, and the provision of related goods and services, as well as payment of invoices for goods or services related to oil or gas sector operations in Venezuela. Authorization is also granted to new investments in oil or gas in Venezuela. Until the sanctions relief was issued, Chevron was the only Western supermajor with special authorization to operate oil fields and export crude from Venezuela under a special license issued by the Biden Administration late last year. Now that other companies are allowed to return to Venezuelas crude trade, Gunvor Group was the first of the biggest trading houses to offer to U.S. refiners a supertanker of Venezuelan crude, according to sources familiar with the matter who spoke to Bloomberg. Gunvor and another commodity trading giant, Trafigura, have accessed Venezuelan cargoes in recent weeks after buying crude from intermediaries approved by PDVSA, Reuters reported this week, citing company documents and four people with knowledge of the deals. In the days after the sanctions were eased, Trafigura also negotiated a chartering contract for a Suezmax vessel to ship 1 million barrels of Venezuelan fuel oil in November from the Amuay ship-to-ship area, two people close to the deal told Reuters. Apart from trading houses, international oil firms and oil services providers are also in talks with PDVSA to receive Venezuelan cargoes and to boost Venezuelas oil production now that crude trade is no longer a sanctionable offense. PDVSA is reportedly discussing hiring equipment and services from oilfield services suppliers to help it ramp up crude oil production. While Venezuela is set to raise legitimate oil exports now that Western firms are allowed to trade and import its crude, it will face an uphill battle in increasing its oil production. Venezuela is expected to raise its crude oil production by less than 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) until the end of 2024 as years of underinvestment and mismanagement will hamper rapid output growth, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said last month. ADVERTISEMENT Venezuelas crude oil production, at 735,000 bpd in September 2023, per EIA estimates, is unlikely to jump above 900,000 bpd by the end of 2024, the administration reckons. Most of the near-term growth is expected to come from Chevrons joint ventures, which could raise production to 200,000 bpd by the end of 2024 from 135,000 bpd in 2023, according to the EIA. Joint ventures operated by Eni, Repsol, and Maurel & Prom could increase production by an additional 50,000 bpd in the near term, according to IPD Latin America cited by the EIA. As a result, Venezuelas total crude oil production could grow to about 900,000 bpd by the end of 2024. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 12) Journalist Rina Jimenez-David has died, her family confirmed on Sunday. She was 68 years old. "We are saddened to announce that our mother, the indefatigable Rina Jimenez David, passed away this morning from an illness," her daughter Miya said in a Facebook post, adding details for a novena would follow. David joined the Philippine Daily Inquirer in 1988, where she wrote the column At Large. David was awarded Best Columnist for Excellence in Population Reporting at the Global Media Awards in 2004. In 2015, then Senator Lito Lapid introduced Resolution 1222 to congratulate and commend her for being among journalists honored by Women Deliver, a global advocate for gender equality, for being a champion for the health and rights of girls and women. Levelle Wells begins with the night he looked in the rearview mirror. Its Thanksgiving. Wells is 40 years old and driving home after barhopping with relatives. He needs something to soak up the alcohol, so he takes a hard right, jumping a curb on the way to McDonalds. Suddenly, police lights illuminate his car. I wasnt nervous. I was numb, Wells said. This had been my life for a while. Wells had been to prison twice. A gang member and crack cocaine dealer, hed been arrested, jailed and shot in the ankle. But that night, with the police behind him, Wells looked in the mirror. I started talking to that rearview mirror and thinking, Things must change. I gotta do better. Now 52, Wells life has changed. Gone are the flashing red and blue police lights. Theyve been replaced by a spotlight on a stage, almost 11 years of sobriety and a new purpose. Wells tells his story in an upcoming episode of Stories from the Stage, a World Channel original series that showcases stories told by ordinary people from all walks of life. This season, two episodes taped at Nebraska Public Media feature several Indigenous storytellers from Nebraska. At one time, I was on the wrong side of the law and I couldnt speak because that would be hypocritical, Wells said in an interview with The World-Herald. Today, Im compelled and convicted to keep doing the next right thing. Wells episode of Stories on the Stage premieres Monday at 8:30 p.m. on KYNE Nebraska Public Media. Stories from the Stage can also be found on YouTube, worldchannel.org and the PBS app. In addition to Wells, this season features a story from another Omaha resident, Valery Killscrow Copeland, a member of the Oglala-Lakota Sioux Tribe. Wells is Afro-Indigenous. His father, who is Black, moved to Nebraska from Alabama to escape racism. His mother grew up on the Omaha Nation Reservation in northeast Nebraska. Wells primarily grew up in North Omaha. He said having a father in his life, unlike many of his friends, helped him stay out of trouble. But that changed when he was 17. Wells was arrested in a drug bust in his neighborhood. He said he wasnt selling or buying drugs but was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison in 1989. Prison does a number to you, Wells said. When he was released after three years, Wells was a changed man and ready to embrace street life after getting closer to a gang while in prison. I was no longer in the wrong place at the wrong time, Wells said. I was doing things that were wrong. Drive-bys, gangbanging, robbing, drug dealing, drinking and drugging. This was my life for the next 20 years. Wells said he couldve made better choices. Today, he regrets it all. Absolutely. 110%, Wells said. I regret participating in any of that chaos ... At the time, as a youth, your mind hasnt fully developed, and you dont think like that. Youre dealing with your traumas, and youre dealing with pain. Hurt people hurt people. We project the pain on anybody that we feel deserve it to get it off of us. Every time he got out of jail or prison, Wells said, the streets were calling his name. Upon one release, a friend gave him a welcome-home package of a quarter ounce of crack to sell and a TEC-9 pistol. By comparison, Wells said there was little programming provided by the State of Nebraska to help him when he was released other than clothing, boots and some money. It was $100 and good luck, Wells said. Dont come back. Wells did go back. He returned to prison on another drug charge in 1997. When he was released in December 2000, he was determined to never go back and got two jobs. But about five weeks later, he was shot in the ankle. The streets are unforgiving, Wells said. Some say the past catch up with you. Probably so. Wells said he threw away his 20s, and he spent his 30s dealing with the residual trauma of prison and street life before having that rearview mirror moment at age 40. After getting pulled over on that Thanksgiving night, Wells received his second conviction for driving under the influence. He was put on probation, had his license revoked for a year and served 10 days in jail. That was the longest 10 days I ever did, Wells said. I did three or four years in prison but that 10 days was a wake-up call. Wells entered rehab. It was very hard, Wells said. Its still kind of hard. Since getting sober, Wells has graduated from Metropolitan Community College and become a sponsor and mentor to others struggling with addiction. He serves on the City of Omahas Native American advisory board, is president of the Big Elk Native American nonprofit, has publicly advocated on behalf of Native American people and has shared his story with everyone from University of Nebraska at Omaha students to men currently in prison. Among his proudest accomplishments, Wells said, are his children who have avoided the mistakes he made early in his life. Wells latest project is Wells & Bailey Intervention Specialist. Wells and Frank Bailey, a licensed mental health practitioner, are teaming up to provide therapy and interventions to at-risk youths and families. I want to be there and be something that wasnt there for me, Wells said. Bailey said they want to use new science-based strategies to interrupt trauma and teach kids and those leaving prison or bad situations how to regulate their emotions. Bailey said Wells can relate to kids who are currently in gangs and speak to them in a language they understand. Too often the expectation is that people leaving prison or bad situations should get a job and just move on, but Bailey said people wont be successful if they dont deal with their trauma. Theyll tell them, Oh, get a job. Youll be all right. A lot of them are not all right. Theyll get a job, good jobs, and they begin Bailey said. Self-destruction, Wells said, finishing Baileys sentence. Wells and Bailey are currently applying for grants so they can get more money to continue and expand the work they believe could make a difference in the lives of young kids. Although we made mistakes, were not bad people, Wells said of people with criminal pasts. We are all human. And in a lot of cases, its the environment that we grew up in. Everyone is born as a blank slate, Wells said. Its not a childs fault if they are born into an unfortunate situation or environment. Deep down, we are all the same, Wells said. We want whats good for ourselves, for our family, prosperity for the next generation and peace. But that got interrupted because of these certain environments, unfortunate environments, that we grew up in. Those environments are not excuses, but sometimes its easy to be swayed into doing the wrong thing, Wells said. Life is a journey and Im on my journey, Wells said. Its not who I am today, my past, but its part of my story, and I hope my story inspires other youth to make better decisions. And to have the public not look so down on youth that make bad decisions. Our best Omaha staff photos & videos of November 2023 At 11 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918, the armistice ending World War I went into effect and the sound of gunfire turned to silence. On Saturday, 105 years after that day, veterans and local officials gathered at Omahas Memorial Park to honor Nebraskans who have served their country. The annual Veterans Day event hosted by American Legion Omaha Post No. 1 featured music, a wreath-laying ceremony and words of thanks for the thousands of veterans who call Nebraska home. No one treats their veterans better than Nebraska, Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said at the event. And this veteran is grateful to you. Bacon, a retired Air Force brigadier general, reflected on the day the armistice was signed to end World War I as he spoke on Saturday. Today I listened to a tape of that day, he said. The artillery was deafening and then suddenly it was silent. While World War I was initially thought to be the war to end all wars, Bacon said the United States has been involved in many wars since because of continued evil in the world. The United States is the indispensable nation for freedom, he said Without America, freedom is weakened in the world. Brig. Gen. Gary Ropers with the Nebraska Army National Guard thanked the veterans who had gathered at Saturdays event for their service and also expressed his gratitude for those who are currently serving, whether active duty or in the National Guard. It is a true pleasure for me to be here and to not only commemorate a grateful day, but (the) people that are standing in front of us today that have served our nation with everything that they have, he said. Jim Meier, director of the Nebraska chapter of Honor and Remember, discussed an ongoing project to honor those who have served. Through the Nebraska Memorial Forest project, the organization is working to plant more than 7,000 trees across the state in honor of Nebraskas fallen military members and first responders. Hundreds of trees have already been planted, Meier said, including the seven trees that were planted at Memorial Park in September 2022 to represent each branch of the military and first responders. Each tree will serve as a steadfast sentinel, watching over and protecting the land just as each fallen hero served as a sentinel protecting and defending our country, he said. Bacon ended his remarks by reminding those at the event that, despite increased political division in recent years, we are Americans first. We are not enemies of each other, he said. Even if were from different parties ... we are unified in this: that we want America to remain free, strong, prosperous and safe. Photos: Veterans Shine On ceremony at Memorial Park The potholing project along Farnam and Harney Streets to prepare for construction of Omahas new streetcar lines wrapped up last week. But expect more changes on those roads as the project unfolds. Since Sept. 20, contractors have drilled more than 600 holes along the 3-mile route of the future streetcar, between 39th and 10th Streets. Twelve inches across and 5 feet deep, the holes allow engineers to peer under the pavement and see exactly where buried utility lines are. Thats essential to making sure the streetcar lines dont interfere with gas, electricity, water and sewer service. By and large, the available information was fairly accurate, said Nick Stadem, streetcar project manager for the Omaha design firm HDR, at a press conference Monday. Having some more understanding of whats happening beneath the surface will help us. One interesting finding: Stadem said workers found lines buried in the pavement from Omahas previous streetcar network, which last ran in 1955. The first Omaha streetcar began running in 1868, and at its peak in the early 1900s, 90 miles of track crisscrossed the city. City officials also announced Monday that the Farnam and Harney Street bridges over Interstate 480 will be rebuilt as part of the streetcar project. A handout prepared for the city's Urban Design Review Board which will pass judgment on streetcar plans later this week described the new bridges as an improvement over the existing ones. Among the highlights: wider sidewalks with a high fence on the outside and a concrete barrier on the inside to separate pedestrians from traffic, and new streetlights. No timeline has yet been released for the bridge work. The streetcar plans have drawn criticism ever since Mayor Jean Stothert announced them in January 2022, coupled with the teardown and relocation of the downtown library and the construction of a new Mutual of Omaha headquarters skyscraper on its former site at 14th and Douglas Streets. Late last year, the City Council approved the sale of $440 million in bonds to cover the costs of the new streetcar. Service is scheduled to open in 2027. Dodge Street squeeze again Electronic signs through the Dodge Street construction zone near the Crossroads Mall development site blared bad news for commuters late last week. The signs said vehicles on Dodge would be limited to a single lane westbound beginning Monday. Traffic already backs up during evening rush hour under the current two-lane setup. One lane is likely to render it almost impassable. Omaha Public Works has not published a press release or announced the closure on social media, so it's not clear how long the additional lane closure will last. Email queries Friday to Public Works and to the project manager of the Crossroads redevelopment weren't answered, most likely because of the Veterans Day holiday. Hot Spots will inquire again Monday. Our advice for now: Avoid Dodge for your evening commute. Whats New Q Street between South 136th and P Streets will be restricted to one lane westbound for street panel replacement in the outside curb lane until Nov. 20. Q Street between South 84th and South 90th Streets will have varying lane restrictions for street repair until Tuesday. L Street between South 30th Street/Dahlman Avenue and South 33rd Street will restricted to one lane in each direction for utility work/water main break in the westbound lanes until Nov. 20. South 72nd Street between Dodge and Farnam Streets will be restricted to one lane southbound for utility work in the outside curb lane until Thursday. F Street between South 44th and South 43rd Avenues will be restricted westbound for utility work and to repair a water-main break until Thursday. 44th Street between Douglas and Farnam Streets will be closed until Friday to allow disassembly and removal of a power crane. South 42nd Street between the eastbound I-80 exit ramp and Grover/Vinton Street will be restricted to one lane in each direction for street panel replacement until Nov. 22. North 30th Street between Ferry and King Streets will be restricted to one lane southbound for street paving in the outside curb lane until Tuesday. Harney Street between South 36th and South 35th Streets will be restricted eastbound for street repair until Dec. 8. Delong Avenue between Millard Street and Grand Avenue in Council Bluffs will be closed until Friday for repairs by a contractor. will be closed until Friday for repairs by a contractor. McPherson Avenue between Grand Avenue and Canning Street in Council Bluffs will have lane restrictions for gas main installation until Dec. 8. will have lane restrictions for gas main installation until Dec. 8. North 21st between Avenues I and K in Council Bluffs will have lane restrictions for concrete repairs until Tuesday. Around Omaha Intermittent nighttime lane closures can be expected on in both directions on Interstate 680 between I-80 and Fort Street for road construction through November. Northwest (north of West Dodge Road and west of I-680) The eastbound lanes of U.S. Highway 64/West Maple Road over the Elkhorn River will be closed through the fall to remove and replace pavement and improve lighting. Traffic will be shifted to one of the westbound lanes. The access to JC Robinson Boulevard, leading to Waterloo, will be closed. will be closed through the fall to remove and replace pavement and improve lighting. Traffic will be shifted to one of the westbound lanes. The access to leading to Waterloo, will be closed. North 120th Street between Fort Street and Roanoke Boulevard will be restricted to one lane southbound for street construction in the outside curb lane until Friday. will be restricted to one lane southbound for street construction in the outside curb lane until Friday. Fort Street between North 120th Street and North 122nd Court will have various lane restrictions for island reconstruction in both inside lanes until Friday. will have various lane restrictions for island reconstruction in both inside lanes until Friday. State Street is closed from 156th to 147th Streets due to grading and paving of the three-lane roadway until fall. is closed from due to grading and paving of the three-lane roadway until fall. State Street is closed from 168th Street to HWS Cleveland Boulevard for grading, paving and reconstruction of the 168th and State Street intersection until November 2024. for grading, paving and reconstruction of the 168th and State Street intersection until November 2024. Fort Street is closed from 183rd to 195th Streets due to grading and paving of the three-lane roadway until fall. is closed from due to grading and paving of the three-lane roadway until fall. North 108th Street between Burt Circle and Decatur Street will be closed with local access only for street widening until Nov. 30. Northeast (north of Dodge Street and east of I-680) The right lane on Interstate 680 is closed from the 31st Street interchange east to the Iowa state line until Dec. 29 while workers repair a damaged expansion joint on the west end of the Mormon Bridge. is closed until Dec. 29 while workers repair a damaged expansion joint on the Sorensen Parkway at Ida Street will be restricted to one lane eastbound with the outside curb lane closed until Nov. 20. The westbound right turn lane at Ida Street also is closed. will be restricted to one lane eastbound with the outside curb lane closed until Nov. 20. The westbound also is closed. One northbound lane of U.S. Highway 75 between Hamilton and Fort Streets will be closed until November while workers paint the bridges at Lake and Binney Streets. The entrance ramp from Lake Street to northbound Highway 75 also will be closed during the project. will be closed until November while workers paint the bridges at Lake and Binney Streets. The also will be closed during the project. Wenninghoff Road between Sorensen Parkway and Reed Street will have lane closures for street widening and sewer construction until Dec. 23. will have lane closures for street widening and sewer construction until Dec. 23. Blondo Street between North 83rd and North 85th Streets will be restricted to one lane in each direction for utility work until Nov. 21. will be restricted to one lane in each direction for utility work until Nov. 21. Traffic is restricted to one lane in each direction and the westbound lanes are closed on Cass Street between North 74th and North 76th Streets for utility work until Nov. 20. for utility work until Nov. 20. Dodge Street between North 72nd and North 76th Streets/Rose Blumkin Drive will have varying lane restrictions for street improvements connected to the Crossroads redevelopment through December. will have varying lane restrictions for street improvements connected to the Crossroads redevelopment through December. Westbound Dodge Street between North 38th and North 40th Avenues will be restricted for building construction in the outside curb lane until Monday. will be restricted for building construction in the outside curb lane until Monday. The intersection of North 42nd Street and Ames Avenue will have various lane restrictions for utility work until Tuesday. will have various lane restrictions for utility work until Tuesday. North 42nd Street between Fort Street and Camden Avenue will be closed to through traffic for utility work until Monday. will be closed to through traffic for utility work until Monday. North 30th Street is restricted to one lane southbound at Weber Street because of a sanitary sewer separation project until Wednesday. is restricted to one lane southbound at because of a sanitary sewer separation project until Wednesday. North 30th Street between Patrick and Burdette Streets will have varying lane restrictions because of sewer repair until Tuesday. will have varying lane restrictions because of sewer repair until Tuesday. North 29th Street between Blondo and Burdette Streets is closed because of sewer improvement until Tuesday. is closed because of sewer improvement until Tuesday. Binney Street between 26th Street and 28th Avenue over the North Freeway is closed for repair and painting through January 2024. Traffic is detoured to Lake Street. is closed for repair and painting through January 2024. Traffic is detoured to Lake Street. The intersection of North 18th and Grace Streets will be closed for sewer work until Nov. 28. will be closed for sewer work until Nov. 28. North 16th Street will be closed at various points between Pinkney and Clark Streets for CSO sewer separation improvements through Aug. 31, 2024. North 16th will be closed between Ohio and Corby Streets for utility work until Nov. 20. Truck detour routes will be posted. will be closed at various points for CSO sewer separation improvements through Aug. 31, 2024. will be closed for utility work until Nov. 20. Truck detour routes will be posted. Because of construction at the Kiewit corporate campus, North 15th Street between Mike Fahey and California Streets will be restricted southbound, and Mike Fahey Street between North 16th and North 15th Streets will have eastbound traffic shifted to the center lane until March 15, 2024. North 16th and North 17th Streets between Cuming and Mike Fahey will have restrictions in the curb lanes until Wednesday. North 16th Street between Mike Fahey and California Streets will have varying lane restrictions for utility work until Nov. 21. will be restricted southbound, and will have eastbound traffic shifted to the center lane until March 15, 2024. will have restrictions in the curb lanes until Wednesday. will have varying lane restrictions for utility work until Nov. 21. Grace Street between North 16th and North 18th Streets is closed for CSO storm sewer upgrades until Nov. 28. is closed for CSO storm sewer upgrades until Nov. 28. Florence Boulevard between Clark and Grace Streets will be closed for storm sewer separation work until Nov. 25. will be closed for storm sewer separation work until Nov. 25. Abbott Drive between Owen Drive and Gallup Drive will be restricted to one lane westbound for trail construction until Monday. Southwest (south of West Dodge Road and west of I-680/80) Nighttime lane closures (9 p.m. to 6 a.m.) can be expected on I-80 eastbound at the I-680 interchange through the fall while workers install a high-friction traffic surface to improve traction. Traffic on I-80 eastbound and I-680 northbound will be rerouted to the L-I-Center bypass ramp. through the fall while workers install a high-friction traffic surface to improve traction. Traffic on I-80 eastbound and I-680 northbound will be rerouted to the L-I-Center bypass ramp. The left lane of U.S. Highway 6/South 204th Street northbound is closed between Q and F Streets due to road construction by a private developer until late November. is closed due to road construction by a private developer until late November. The right lane of U.S. Highway 6/South 204th Street southbound is closed between Blue Sage Parkway and U.S. Highway 275 due to road construction by a private developer until late November. is closed between due to road construction by a private developer until late November. South 168th Street between Q Street and West Center Road will have lane restrictions for street widening until December 2024. will have lane restrictions for street widening until December 2024. Shirley Street between South 168th Street and South 169th Circle will be closed for utility work until Nov. 21. will be closed for utility work until Nov. 21. South 156th Street between Pacific Street and Wycliffe Drive/Nottingham Drive will have closures for street widening until Nov. 30. will have closures for street widening until Nov. 30. Pacific Street between South 155th and South 157th Streets will have lane restrictions for street widening until Nov. 30. Southeast (south of West Dodge Road and east of I-680/80) Nighttime lane closures from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. are planned on the Kennedy Freeway (U.S. Highway 75) between Q and F Streets, including entrance and exit ramps, to allow for milling and resurfacing of the roadway, through the fall. including entrance and exit ramps, to allow for milling and resurfacing of the roadway, through the fall. Overnight lane restrictions are planned through the fall on I-80 eastbound between L Street and I-680 and on the I-680 interchange for installation of a high-friction surface treatment. for installation of a high-friction surface treatment. The right shoulder of eastbound Interstate 80 at the 72nd Street off-ramp is closed for road construction work. No completion date is listed. is closed for road construction work. No completion date is listed. Varying lane restrictions are continuing on West Center Road between South 90th Street and the West Center Frontage Road until Nov. 28 because of bridge repair. until Nov. 28 because of bridge repair. The West Dodge Frontage Road South between 84th and 86th Streets is closed for building construction until Tuesday. is closed for building construction until Tuesday. Harney Street between South 74th Street and Rose Blumkin Drive will have various lane restrictions for sewer repair until Friday. will have various lane restrictions for sewer repair until Friday. The northbound curb lane on South 72nd Street from Mercy Road to Arbor Street , and the eastbound curb lane on Mercy Road for 300 feet east of 72nd, are closed until Wednesday to accommodate building construction. There will also be varying lane restrictions on Mercy Road between 72nd and 68th Streets until Nov. 20. , and the eastbound curb lane on are closed until Wednesday to accommodate building construction. There will also be varying lane restrictions on until Nov. 20. G Street between South 50th and F Streets will be closed to through traffic for utility work until Monday. will be closed to through traffic for utility work until Monday. Center Street between South 42nd Street and South 47th Street will be restricted to one lane westbound for utility work in the outside curb lane until Dec. 5. will be restricted to one lane westbound for utility work in the outside curb lane until Dec. 5. South 42nd Street between the I-80 eastbound exit ramp and D Street will be closed for bridge reconstruction until December. will be closed for bridge reconstruction until December. South 37th Street between Farnam and Harney Streets is closed because of building construction until Wednesday. is closed because of building construction until Wednesday. Leavenworth Street between South 37th Street and South 35th Avenue will be restricted to one lane eastbound for utility work in the outside curb lane until Tuesday. will be restricted to one lane eastbound for utility work in the outside curb lane until Tuesday. Farnam Street will be restricted westbound at South 16th Street for fiber-optic installation until Tuesday. will be restricted westbound for fiber-optic installation until Tuesday. 14th Street will be closed between Farnam and Douglas Streets, and curbside lanes will be closed on Farnam, Douglas and 15th Street until early 2026 because of construction of the new Mutual of Omaha tower. will be closed and curbside lanes will be closed on until early 2026 because of construction of the new Mutual of Omaha tower. The eastbound curb lane on Douglas Street will be closed between 44th and Saddle Creek Road for construction until December. will be closed between for construction until December. Douglas Street between Turner Boulevard and South 30th Street will be restricted eastbound for street repair until Nov. 20. will be restricted eastbound for street repair until Nov. 20. Grover Street between South 56th Street and South 59th Avenue will be closed for street reconstruction through December. will be closed for street reconstruction through December. L Street between South 26th and South 24th Streets will be restricted to one lane eastbound for building construction in the outside curb lane until June 23, 2024. will be restricted to one lane eastbound for building construction in the outside curb lane until June 23, 2024. Q Street between South 45th and South 48th Streets is closed for utility work until Wednesday. is closed for utility work until Wednesday. Traffic in the east curb lane is restricted on South 24th Street between Landon Court and Howard Street due to building construction until Nov. 29. due to building construction until Nov. 29. Farnam Street will be restricted westbound at South 16th Street for fiber-optic installation until Tuesday. will be restricted westbound for fiber-optic installation until Tuesday. The intersection of South 17th and Harney Streets will have various lane restrictions until Nov. 20 because of a streetscaping project. will have various lane restrictions until Nov. 20 because of a streetscaping project. The eastbound lane on Farnam Street between 10th and Eighth Streets is restricted because of building construction until Nov. 20. Sarpy/Cass Counties The intersection of 204th Street and Capehart Road, and Capehart Road east of 204th Street are closed as part of the Gretna Crossing Park project until mid-November. 192nd Street from Lincoln Road to the railroad bridge is closed through the fall for paving and bridge replacement as part of the CONNECTSarpy project. Platteview Road from Highway 31 to 210th Street is closed through January to allow for construction of a three-lane road. Pflug Road is suggested as an alternate route. is closed through January to allow for construction of a three-lane road. Pflug Road is suggested as an alternate route. Lane restrictions can be expected on U.S. 34/75 from Plattsmouth to the Bellevue bridges through the fall to allow for bridge deck repairs, and from Nebraska Highway 1 to Oak Hill Road in Plattsmouth through November 2024 to allow for road construction. through the fall to allow for bridge deck repairs, and from through November 2024 to allow for road construction. A lane is closed intermittently, and a 12-foot width limit is in effect through the fall on U.S. Highway 34 between Bay Road and U.S. Highway 75 while bridge and road construction work is in progress through late November. The right lane is closed in both directions on Nebraska Highway 370/Cornhusker Road from 192nd to 180th Streets east of Gretna due to road construction. A portion of 234th Street north of Schram Road just west of Gretna is closed for replacement of a 550-foot area of culvert until December. Around Nebraska Lane closures also are planned on I-80 between the Utica (Exit 366) and nine miles west of Lincoln (mile marker 389) while contractors install guardrails in the median. Work will be performed from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., Sunday through Friday. Completion is expected this month. while contractors install guardrails in the median. Work will be performed from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., Sunday through Friday. Completion is expected this month. Nebraska Highway 79 is closed in Dodge County at North Bend from U.S. 30 to County Road R , with detours in place through the fall. is closed in Dodge County at , with detours in place through the fall. U.S. Highway 77 between Winnebago and Walthill is closed until November while two box culverts are replaced, with traffic detoured via U.S. Highway 75 and Nebraska Highway 94. Then one lane will reopen, and traffic will be maintained with temporary traffic signals, flaggers and a pilot car until the project is completed in midsummer 2024. is closed until November while two box culverts are replaced, with traffic detoured via U.S. Highway 75 and Nebraska Highway 94. Then one lane will reopen, and traffic will be maintained with temporary traffic signals, flaggers and a pilot car until the project is completed in midsummer 2024. Temporary shoulder and lane closures can be expected on U.S. Highway 77 north and south of the I-80 56th Street interchange in Lincoln until March 2024 while workers add left and right turn lanes on Highway 77 and widen westbound shoulders on I-80 entrance and exit ramps. Council Bluffs Occasional nighttime lane and ramp closures may occur on Interstate 80 at the Madison Avenue interchange through June 2026 while the interchange is being rebuilt. through June 2026 while the interchange is being rebuilt. The South Expressway from I-80 to 19th Avenue will be rebuilt until Nov. 30, with lane closures expected while one-lane traffic is maintained in each direction. will be rebuilt until Nov. 30, with lane closures expected while one-lane traffic is maintained in each direction. Lane restrictions are in place on South Third Street between Story Street and Ninth Avenue until Nov. 24 because of water-main installation. South Third Street between Ninth Avenue and Worth Street is closed entirely until Friday as part of the same project. until Nov. 24 because of water-main installation. is closed entirely until Friday as part of the same project. South 35th Street between Veterans Memorial Highway and Middle Ferry Road is closed as part of the Gifford Road reconstruction project until Friday. is closed as part of the Gifford Road reconstruction project until Friday. Trail Ridge Street between Grand Avenue and Crestwood Drive is closed for reconstruction until Nov. 30. is closed for reconstruction until Nov. 30. Navajo Street between Portland and Mohawk Streets is closed for sewer rehabilitation work from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays until Nov. 30. Photos: Omaha's streetcar system through the years Alarmed by yet another jump in syphilis cases in newborns, U.S. health officials are calling for stepped-up prevention measures, including encouraging millions of women of childbearing age and their partners to get tested for the sexually transmitted disease. WASHINGTON The first thing Greg Jackson did when he arrived in Lewiston, Maine, was to drive through the city, into its neighborhoods, past the crime scene tape and the boarded-up windows, to get a feel for a community reeling from a mass shooting. The deputy director of the new White House office of gun violence prevention was looking for his starting point. He set to work figuring out what grief and trauma resources were available for families of the victims and where the city could use assistance. He got a briefing from law enforcement. He met with the governor. And he started doling out help. Most governors and even city leaders see the federal government as a big machine there's so many different levers and processes and contacts," Jackson said in an interview. So me just being a navigator and being able to help cut through some of the government jargon or get the proper contact within 15 minutes versus two days was huge. The Oct. 25 shootings at a bowling alley and nearby bar were the first test of the administration's new office, set up in part to better coordinate federal help for a community dealing with the aftermath of gun violence. We see this as a critical way to prevent future violence and disrupt the cycle of violence," Jackson said. The first way we can prevent violence is to better serve those who have been directly impacted by violence. It's something survivors and advocates have wanted for years. Gun violence continues to plague the nation despite the passage of gun safety legislation last year and a focus by President Joe Biden on ending gun violence. The issue also figures heavily into Biden's 2024 reelection campaign, which hopes to reach younger voters who are deeply concerned about gun violence. The president has also pushed for a ban on assault weapons. This is about common sense, Biden said last week during a trip to Lewiston. Reasonable, responsible measures to protect our children, our families, our communities. Because regardless of our politics, this is about protecting our freedom to go to a bowling alley, a restaurant, a school, church, without being shot and killed. Biden has called gun violence the ultimate superstorm, affecting not just victims but the everyday lives of community members. His administration believes the response should better resemble how the government acts after natural disasters. As of Wednesday, there had been at least 37 mass killings in the United States in 2023, leaving at least 195 people dead, not including shooters who died, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. But the White House office isn't intended to help manage only the aftermath of mass killings. Some 21% of U.S. adults have reported a personal tie to gun violence, such as being threatened by a gun or being a victim of a shooting, according to a 2022 poll by the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Jackson, like many others working in gun violence prevention, has firsthand experience. He was shot about 10 years ago walking down the street in Washington. His 19-year-old cousin was shot and killed about a decade earlier. He was on the ground in Buffalo, New York, as a volunteer last year helping manage the fallout after a white supremacist killed 10 Black people at a supermarket. Ive watched a community suffer alone, and how devastating that can be," he said. Until now, Jackson said, the only unified response coming from the federal government was via law enforcement. That was helpful, but it did not address businesses losing money because they had to close as police investigated nearby or schools that reopened without enough trauma therapists for students. There was a crime response, he said. But when you look beyond the law enforcement response, those levers were never pulled in a systematic way until this office was created. In Lewiston, late last month, eight people died at a bar, seven more at the nearby bowling alley and three others at hospitals. An additional 13 people were injured in the shootings. Gunman Robert Card, a 40-year-old firearms instructor, was later found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. The White House office was established roughly five weeks before the shooting. In that time, Jackson had already set up contacts at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the FBI's victim assistance center, the Small Business Administration and other federal organizations. On the ground in Maine, he served as the primary federal contact, so local officials didn't have to wade through a sea of federal agencies. The office helped facilitate burial costs. It helped set up a family and victim assistance center at the local armory, a one-stop shop where people could come who were impacted by violence. Lewiston has a large deaf community, so sign language interpreters were stationed at the armory. The White House office has three main goals: better coordinate the federal response on the ground; fully implement gun safety legislation enacted in 2022 after a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two teachers were killed; look for ways to do more, whether through executive action, state steps or federal legislation. "The president's directive was really clear, to squeeze every benefit we possibly can out of this," said Stefanie Feldman, a longtime policy adviser to Biden who is now leading the office. DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back Saturday against growing international calls for a cease-fire, saying Israel's battle to crush Gaza's ruling Hamas militants will continue with "full force." A cease-fire would be possible only if all 239 hostages held by militants in Gaza are released, Netanyahu said in a televised address. The Israeli leader also insisted that after the war, now entering its sixth week, Gaza would be demilitarized and Israel would retain security control there. Asked what he meant, Netanyahu said Israeli forces must be able to enter Gaza freely to hunt down militants. He also rejected the idea that the Palestinian Authority, which currently administers autonomous areas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would at some stage control Gaza. Both positions run counter to post-war scenarios floated by Israel's closest ally, the United States. Secretary of State Antony Blinken previously said the U.S. opposes an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza and envisions a unified Palestinian government in both Gaza and the West Bank at some stage as a step toward Palestinian statehood. For now, Netanyahu said, "the war against (Hamas) is advancing with full force, and it has one goal, to win. There is no alternative to victory." Pressure was growing on Israel after frantic doctors at Gaza's largest hospital said the last generator ran out of fuel, causing the death of a premature baby, another child in an incubator and four other patients. Thousands of war-wounded, medical staff and displaced civilians were caught in the fighting. In recent days, fighting near Shifa and other hospitals in northern Gaza intensified and supplies ran out. The Israeli military alleged, without providing evidence, that Hamas has command posts in and underneath hospitals, using civilians as human shields. Medical staff at Shifa denied such claims and accused Israel of harming civilians with indiscriminate attacks. Shifa hospital director Mohammed Abu Selmia said the facility lost power Saturday. "Medical devices stopped. Patients, especially those in intensive care, started to die," he said by phone, with gunfire and explosions in the background. He said Israeli troops were "shooting at anyone outside or inside the hospital" and prevented movement between buildings. Gaza's Health Ministry told Al Jazeera there were still 1,500 patients at Shifa, along with 1,500 medical personnel and between 15,000 and 20,000 people seeking shelter. The World Health Organization later said it lost communication with its contacts at Shifa, according to a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. Israel's military confirmed clashes outside the hospital, but Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari denied Shifa was under siege. He said troops will assist Sunday in moving babies treated there and said "we are speaking directly and regularly" with hospital staff. Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, told broadcaster Channel 12 that as Israel aims to crush Hamas, taking control of the hospitals would be key but require "a lot of tactical creativity," without hurting patients, other civilians and Israeli hostages. The "unbearably desperate situation" at Shifa must stop now, the International Committee of the Red Cross director general, Robert Mardini, said on social media. U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths posted that "there can be no justification for acts of war in health care facilities." The Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli tanks were 65 feet from al-Quds hospital in Gaza City, causing "extreme panic and fear" among the 14,000 displaced people sheltering there. Israel's military released footage that it said showed tanks operating in Gaza. The images showed shattered buildings, some on fire, and destroyed streets empty of anyone but troops. The spokesman of the Hamas military wing, who goes by Abu Obaida, said militants ambushed Israeli troops and vowed that Israel will face a long battle. Hamas has ruled Gaza for 16 years. Israel's military said soldiers encountered hundreds of Hamas fighters in underground facilities, schools, mosques and clinics during the fighting. Muslim and Arab leaders from 57 nations meeting in Saudi Arabia called for an end to the war in Gaza and the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid. They also called on the International Court of Justice, a U.N. agency, to open an investigation into Israel's attacks. Following Hamas' deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which at least 1,200 people were killed, Israel's allies defended the country's right to protect itself. But there are growing differences over how Israel should conduct its fight. The U.S. pushed for temporary pauses that would allow for wider distribution of aid to civilians in the besieged territory. However, Israel only agreed to brief daily periods during which civilians can flee ground combat in northern Gaza and head south on foot. More than 150,000 civilians have fled the north, according to U.N. monitors. On Saturday, the military announced a new evacuation window. A stream of people fled south on the main north-south road, some on donkey-drawn carts. One man pushed two children in a wheelbarrow. "Where to go, and what do they want from us?" said Yehia al-Kafarnah, one fleeing resident. Palestinian civilians and rights advocates noted that Israeli bombardment continued across Gaza, including airstrikes in the south that Israel says target Hamas leaders but that also killed women and children. Police said 300,000 Palestinian supporters marched peacefully in London, the largest such event there since the war started. Right-wing counterprotesters clashed with police. More than 11,070 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2,700 people have been reported missing. Palestinians flee Gaza Strip as Israeli tanks advance Its often said the whole family serves when a member is in the armed forces. Like military spouses, children of those serving also benefit from extra support and recognition. There are many ways you can show your appreciation this Veterans Day, including supporting the children of service members past and present. The five non-profits below help babies to teens, from nurturing early childhood development to paying for college. Big Brothers Big Sisters of America The largest volunteer youth mentoring network in the US offers a program just for military children and teenagers called Operation Bigs. Originally developed by BBBS San Diego affiliate to support its large military community, Operation Bigs helps families of service members and veterans with issues like frequent relocation and separation during deployment. Children of Fallen Patriots Founded by a West Point graduate and US Army veteran, Children of Fallen Patriots provides college scholarships and educational counseling to Gold Star families from all branches of the military. The amount awarded includes books, room and board, and other college expenses not covered in the gap between government benefits and the actual cost of a degree. Our Military Kids Our Military Kids offers extracurricular activity grants for children ages 3 to 18 of deployed National Guard members, deployed Reservists and veterans wounded in post-9/11 combat. Eligible activities include sports, music lessons, summer camps, drivers education, STEM programs, and tutoring. United Through Reading United Through Reading provides free, on-demand storytime video recordings of military personnel separated from their families due to service. The non-profit also provides free books for children to follow along, promoting literacy and family bonding despite the distance. Zero to Three Focused on early childhood development, Zero to Three also offers specialized resources and tools for military parents and professionals through its Military Family Projects. Its Babies on the Homefront website and app provide free, age-based parenting guidance for active military and veteran families. ___ GRAND ISLAND, Neb. Several hundred people, including local and state officials, gathered Friday for the groundbreaking of the Nebraska Veterans Cemetery in Grand Island. The project will expand and improve the existing Grand Island Veterans Memorial Cemetery. Officials hope the project will be completed in spring 2025. The underlying theme throughout Fridays speeches was how much collaboration was needed to make the project come together. Grand Island Mayor Roger Steele said that two years ago, he was told to talk to John Hilgert, director of the Nebraska Department of Veterans Affairs, about the possibility of this becoming a Nebraska State Veterans Cemetery. At the time, Steele thought, Thats going to require the cooperation of the city, the state and the federal government. Thats a huge organizational lift. But thanks to people like Hilgert, Hall County Veterans Service Officer Don Shuda and so many others, we can celebrate this great day for veterans, Steele said. Theres been a need for an upgrade in the Grand Island Veterans Cemetery for a long time, and I am both proud and excited to be a part of helping this project get on its way, State Sen. Ray Aguilar said. Because there was not room in the general fund after the budget was released, it was my mission to find possible funding through other avenues, Aguilar said. This was not an easy task to accomplish. Aguilar thanked the people who helped me find the funds through the legislative process. He mentioned Shuda and State Sen. Robert Clements, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, who was present Friday. Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen said that after taking office, he said no to many agencies that came asking for money. But there was one project that succeeded because of the dogged, undeniable determination of Sen. Aguilar. He would not take no. He would not take no. He would not take no. And he came back and he pounded and he pounded and he pounded, Pillen said. Im a thick-headed guy. My wife says, Youre so thick-headed I hope you never have a brain problem because no doctor would drill through your skull, Aguilar said. But Sen. Aguilar got through, Pillen said, adding that hes grateful that in partnership with other senators we got the funding secured so that this becomes reality. A lot of people present Friday deserved credit, Pillen said. But the champion was Sen. Aguilar. And were incredibly grateful for your work, Sen. Aguilar. Rep. Adrian Smith said he wasnt surprised at the size of Fridays turnout because I know Grand Island shows up for veterans. Sometimes, even if federal and state funds are involved, it doesnt matter as much until the community embraces the project. And I am so glad that Grand Island embraces a project like this, Smith said. U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts said that our veterans will recognize a team effort, because they are part of the greatest team the world has ever seen, our U.S. military. And bringing this project together was also a big team effort. Driving the project, Ricketts said, was Shuda. The cemetery required cooperation of the city, county, state and federal government, he said. The National Cemetery Administration contributed more than $8 million to the cemetery. It truly was a team effort at all levels of government to make this happen, Ricketts said. Procuring the federal funding was very interesting, Hilgert said, detailing the process. The praise for Aguilar was well-founded, because without his work and his money that he identified and Gov. Pillen included in the budget, we wouldnt be here, Hilgert said. The cemetery also wouldnt have been approved without the National Cemetery Administration, the Nebraska Department of Veterans Affairs and $785,000 in startup money raised by the Grand Island community, he said. Hilgert introduced two men from the National Cemetery Administration who made the trip from Washington, D.C. Hilgert said the men enjoyed a great steak dinner Thursday night at the Saddle Club. Pillen led a trade delegation to Vietnam in July. And Before Pillen left Nebraska, many Vietnam veterans told the governor they wished they could go with him, because the Vietnamese people are extraordinary. They are just like Nebraskans, Pillen recalled. Many Vietnamese people expressed thanks to the Americans, Pillen said. They said, Make sure you tell the Vietnam veterans back home thank you for the impact they had on the country we are today. The Vietnamese prime minister told Pillen the country is eternally grateful to the United States and to its Vietnam veterans. Vietnam, the prime minister said, needs a long-term relationship with the people of the United States, and Americas help and friendship, Pillen said. Vietnam has a vibrant economy and it could not have happened without the Vietnam veterans. So kudos and thank you. God bless you all, Pillen said to the Vietnam veterans in the audience. Hilgert said the Nebraska Veterans Cemetery at Grand Island will be a national shrine. It will be identical in standards to a national cemetery. We use the same rule book. We get graded on the same tests, the same inspections. In fact, we want to compete favorably to our partners at McPherson and Omaha, he said, referring to Fort McPherson National Cemetery near Maxwell and the Omaha National Cemetery near Papillion. The cemetery will involve more than people realize, he said. Its going to be very much a national-class cemetery, and its going to be something that you all can be proud of. I guarantee it, Hilgert said. This is going to be a wonderful project. One of the finest ways that we recognize, honor and remember our veterans is in our veterans cemeteries, Ricketts said. Our best Omaha staff photos & videos of November 2023 Long before the Internet and social media wreaked havoc on our lives paradoxically making us hyperconnected and hyper-lonely at the same time there were more tried-and-true means to forge bonds with humankind. In the latter half of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, much of American life be it social, economic, religious, or political was spent joining, and actively participating in, innumerable fraternal societies, auxiliaries, labor unions, service organizations, literary clubs, business associations, alliances and the like. It was membership in these organizations that helped bind communities together through the acknowledgment of shared responsibilities and common goals. And let it be noted that all this work most of it face-to-face helped smooth out some of the rougher edges of American life. A donation made last month to the nonprofit McLean County Museum of History speaks to this spirit of joining once embraced by Americans from all kinds of backgrounds and circumstances rich and poor, black and white, immigrant and native, and so forth. The donation consists of a collection of annual program booklets for a half-dozen organizations and clubs in southern McLean County, most of which were centered in Randolph Township. And although a collection of old club booklets from the corn belt countryside does not sound all that exciting, the information within mundane though some of it may be offers a rich window into a past century of societal transformation. The booklets contain lists of members, schedules of meetings, the names of speakers and their program titles, and other stuff, and they range in date from the early 1920s to the late 1960s. The donation includes member booklets for the Randolph Township unit of the McLean County Home Bureau, and its successor, the McLean County Homemakers Extension. The Home Bureau/Extension played a vital role in educating rural women on everything from up-to-date canning methods to family budgeting and farm bookkeeping. Also in the donation was a bundle of Bloomingdale Community Club booklets from 1920 to 1964. Bloomingdale was one of eight one-room schools in Randolph Township before they were shuttered during the great wave of school consolidation after World War II. Many one-room schools had complementary community or social clubs that made use of the building for public and charitable events. Of special interest in this recent donation are 24 annual booklets of the Randolph Ladies Aid Society beginning with the 1920-21 club year and ending in 1964-65. The booklets include a list of the societys officers, committee assignments, a calendar of monthly meetings, as well as the names of hostesses, program speakers, and those assigned to give devotions or lead parlor games. Established in 1904, Ladies Aid Society met for the first time at the Randolph home of Anna Bishop. Thirteen women were in attendance, though by the time of the 20th anniversary on New Years Eve 1924, membership had grown to more than 60. The societys mission included promoting kindliness and supporting Wesley Chapel, a Methodist church in the Randolph area (though the society was later known for its nondenominational character). Randolph Township derives its name from Gardner Randolph, who settled in the area in the early 1820s. At that time, tallgrass prairie covered about 90 percent of what would become McLean County. Dominating future Randolph Township, though, was a 6,200-plus acre wooded tract to become known as what else? Randolphs Grove. Before the arrival of the Illinois Central Railroad in 1853, and the subsequent establishment of Heyworth, settlement in the area clustered in and around Randolphs Grove and the pioneer hamlet of Lytleville. The Ladies Aid Society pulled members from not only the Randolphs Grove neighborhood, but also Heyworth, Shirley, Wapella in DeWitt County, and elsewhere. The group often combined sociability with philanthropy. On Sept. 13, 1918 two months before the Armistice ending World War I members gathered on the lawn of Edith Thompsons farm near Randolph for a fundraising supper. All the proceeds (the menu included fried chicken, melon, ice cream and cake) went to the Red Cross chapters in Heyworth and Downs. The 1920-1921 booklet offers a glimpse into the societys vibrancy. The Nov. 3, 1920, meeting featured a duet with Myrtle Orendorff and Bertha Clem, and a talk, How to Keep the Boys and Girls on the Farm, by Ollie Rust. The Dec. 15 meeting included a debate on the question of whether it was right to encourage children to believe in Santa Claus, with two members answering in the affirmative and two in the negative. On Jan. 12, 1921, there were two programs: Advantages of National Prohibition by Maynie Barnes and Why Should Women Take an Active Interest in Politics? by Myrtle Sieg. As the pace of American life ever quickened in the post-World War II years, the society found it increasingly harder to recruit younger members. After 78 years of meetings, meals, lectures, laughter, prayers and tears, the group held its final gathering on Oct. 11, 1982. The decline and dissolution of a once-vibrant community group such as this one remains an all-too-common story of modern American life. Each of the 24 recently donated Randolph Ladies Aid Society member booklets also include a bit of verse biblical, inspirational, or otherwise. Heres the one from the 1920-1921 club year: Plan more than you can do, then do it Bite off more than you can chew, then chew it, Hitch your wagon to a star, Keep your seat, and there you are. Photos: 2023 Evergreen Cemetery Walk BLOOMINGTON From 1961 through 1966, Clarence Buck was a yeoman in the U.S. Navy. He spent some of that time stationed aboard the U.S.S. Intrepid, an Essex-class aircraft carrier built during World War II. In October 1962, however, the ship had unique, and significant, mission, Buck said. "We were one of the first ships in the Cuban Missile Crisis," he said Saturday morning, standing on the sidewalk outside the McLean County Museum of History. "We spent four hours at full (general quarters) and nobody knew what was going on," he said. General quarters is "a condition of maximum readiness of a warship for action." "Finally, the old man (the captain) come on (the intercom) he said, 'We can secure (relax) from general quarters. And, by the way, we're ready to overtake a Russian trawler,'" Buck said, chuckling. A special kind Buck was one of the several dozens who attended this year's Veterans Day ceremony at the history museum, which featured buglers, rifle volleys and salutes, bagpipers, representatives from various veterans organizations and the mayor of Bloomington, Mboka Mwilambwe. "Let me just say a heartfelt 'thank you,' from me, as the mayor of the City of Bloomington, as well as from my colleagues on the Bloomington City Council," Mwilambwe told the crowd packed inside the museum's second-floor courtroom. "I thank you for everything that you've done as a veteran and everything that you will continue to do, if you are still serving, to inspire us," he said. Some people in attendance were overcome with emotion during the ceremony. Bloomington resident Ellen Armstrong wiped away tears afterward. "Veterans are important to us. And it just means a lot to honor them on this day," she said. Jerry Vogler, adjutant of American Legion Post 635, spoke after the mayor. He said veterans are often divided into different categories based on their time of service, military branch and whether or not they saw combat. "There are veterans of the National Guard. There are veterans of the reserve units. Military service veterans and Coast Guard veterans," he explained. However, Vogler said Illinois has a clever way of simplifying the process at the most unlikely of places. "If you take your ... discharge and separation papers from your military service," he said, "you can go to the Department of Motor Vehicles and get your next driver's license with the word 'veteran' on the bottom of it. They're defining veterans as anybody who served." The DMV, it seems, agrees with Vogler that "a veteran is a veteran is a veteran. And anybody who wore that uniform under of the branches of the service is a veteran." That service, as important as it is, often carries a heavy price, Vogler said. "For many veterans, our nation was important enough to endure long separations from their families, miss births of their children. They freeze in sub-zero temperatures, roast in faraway deserts and sweat in the jungles of some far-off country. And, far too often, unfortunately, lose their lives," he said. Knowing the dangers and the potential costs is exactly why veterans are special, Mwilambwe said. "While courage comes in many forms, I think most of us would agree that the ultimate form of courage for any species, human or otherwise, is heading willingly towards a destination that could potentially be your last," the mayor said. "It takes a special person to do that. It takes a special person to risk their lives for people they've never met or don't even know," he said. For many veterans, that feeling never really goes away. Standing outside the museum, as the sun grew ever higher into the sky, dissipating the November chill, Buck's wife, Carolyn, chided him about just that. "You'd do it again, wouldn't you?" she joked. The answer came without missing a beat. "Oh yes," Buck said. "I'd go back in a minute." Close Flying Horse: My birthday London, UK (CNN) Around 300,000 people turned out for a large pro-Palestinian rally in London on Saturday as police arrested scores of counter-protesters for attempting to confront the marchers. There was heavy police presence in central Londons Hyde Park Corner as protesters chanted free, free Palestine and ceasefire now. They were also heard chanting from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! A spokesperson for Londons Metropolitan Police told CNN that an estimated total of 300,000 people attended the demonstration, which coincided with annual Armistice Day commemorations, Veterans Day in the US. Police said they arrested 82 counter-protesters to prevent a breach of the peace. They said they had faced aggression from counter-protesters. who stormed the area in significant numbers as the rally was building up. One pro-Palestinian protester told CNN she was flabbergasted at the hypocrisy of those supporting Ukraine but not Palestine. Some politicians may be on our side, but they are too afraid to speak out, she added. Another protester said the number of people who had turned out for the march was inspiring. We need to speak out for the voiceless, they added. Far-right scuffle with police The police had promised to use all the powers and tactics available to us to stop the counter-protesters confronting the pro-Palestinian march. Earlier in the day, a CNN team on the ground heard shouts and observed a heavy police presence as a group of far-right protesters tried to storm the war memorial which had been placed in an exclusion zone for protection. Far-right organizer Tommy Robinson led a small but noisy demonstration to try and reach the Cenotaph, a symbolic landmark which is located in Whitehall, the London district where the Prime Minister and government departments reside. During the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the UK has traditionally observed a two-minute silence to commemorate the moment guns fell silent marking the end of World War I in 1918. Video posted on the ground from the anti-racist group Hope Not Hate showed far-right protestors dressed in black pushing the police lines at various points around Whitehall. The unrest follows a political row over the pro-Palestinian protests earlier this week when Britains Home Secretary Suella Braverman went off-script to accuse police of being too lenient on the demonstrators. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had initially attempted to stop the pro-Palestinian protest from going ahead. While later accepting that the march would take place, Sunak stuck to his line that choosing to protest on this particular weekend is not just disrespectful but offends our heartfelt gratitude to the memory of those who gave so much so that we may live in freedom and peace today. London Mayor Sadiq Khan said the disorder seen at Londons Cenotaph on Saturday was a direct result of the words of Braverman. The scenes of disorder we witnessed by the far-right at the Cenotaph are a direct result of the Home Secretarys words. The polices job has been made much harder, said Khan on social media, adding that Londons Metropolitan Police has his full support to take action against anyone found spreading hate and breaking the law. A professor of Coastal Ecology at the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Prof. Denis Aheto, has called for a Blue Economy Authority to effectively coordinate activities relating to the blue economy to maximize its benefits to the country and the continent. He noted that the multifaceted sectors of the emerging blue economy and its associated benefits now and in the future required attention in investments to ensure well-structured efforts to fully reap the benefits. Prof. Aheto, who is also the Director of the Centre for Coastal Management at the Africa Centre of Excellence in Coastal Resilience (ACECoR) of UCC, was delivering his inaugural lecture on the topic: "Our Oceans: Securing our common future through transformative research". Prof. Aheto further observed that the oceans and their related tourism sectors raked in about $133 billion a year, and stressed that the sector deserved more attention in the country and on the continent to fully tap into its associated benefits. He expressed worry that while the earth consisted of 70 percent water, there was a lot of disregard for what happened to the ocean and the water bodies. Quoting a world development report to buttress his point, Prof. Aheto stated that human resource development could lead to poverty reduction, gender equity and wealth redistribution, adding that those, according to the report, were crucial to conserving the environment and promoting sustainability and a balance between economy and ecology. He said securing a common future in the context of the nation and the continent meant achieving sustainable development goals in a manner that was informed by research and policy implementation involving all relevant stakeholders. He stated that the market value of the marine and coastal resource development industry was estimated at $3 trillion a year, saying there were huge opportunities in the fast-emerging sector which must be intentionally and strategically explored for economic gains. Our Existence He observed that though the oceans provided 50 per cent of oxygen it had not been given the attention it deserved, saying that humanity's existence depended on how the ocean and its resources were treated. He said it could provide renewable energy that could transform the continent and also help to ensure food security, tourism and recreative investment prospects. With all the potential of the sector, he said it had not been adequately explored to optimize the gains. Rather unfortunately, he said the sector continued to grapple with issues, including illegal unreported, unregulated practices, piracy, among others, saying it required sustained efforts to save the oceans to optimise gains from all its related fields. Shoreline lose He said the country was losing 1.5 metres of its coastline every year, and that it was important to have structured policies and systems to mitigate the impact on threatened communities. Prof. Aheto said the centre was, fortunately, training the required manpower to help resolve the increasingly worrying issues affecting the oceans for its sustainable resource use. Vice-Chancellor The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast commended Prof. Aheto and the centre for its groundbreaking activities in the area of coastal management in the country and across the world. He said the university would continue to support to ensure the centre achieved its goals in human capacity training and research. Prof. Aheto is a distinguished German-trained academic (DAAD Scholar) and expert in coastal management, with over 10 years of project management experience. He is the authorised representative of institutional donor-funded projects in coastal and fisheries management at the University of Cape Coast funded by the World Bank, USAID and DANIDA, among others, worth over $15 million. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Centre for Coastal Management (CCM) at the University of Cape Coast in 2013. In 2015, he was awarded the University of Cape Coasts Award of Honour as a Distinguished Lecturer for his dexterity and outstanding contributions to the university. At the international level, he is a member of the United Nations Pool of Experts for Global Assessment on the state of the marine environment. He is also a member of the World Bank Interim Technical Advisory Committee (iTAC) of the West Africa Coastal Area (WACA) Programme and a member of the Advisory Board for the US Governments Feed the Future programme of USAID. Source: graphic.com.gh Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Ministry of Finance has reacted to a publication that stated that Ghana has missed out on the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) timeline for the second tranche disbursement as the external debt restructuring has dragged. In a press statement issued Friday evening (Nov 10, 2023), in reaction to the publication, the MoF said it was a false reportage. It said there was no 1st November, 2023 timeline for disbursement of the second tranche of the IMF funds. The ministry said the external debt restructuring negotiations were progressing smoothly and that the government of Ghana was making good progress in accordance with its strategic plan to engage the Official Creditor Committee (OCC) of the Paris Club; secure a Memorandum of Understanding on debt restructuring; and go before the IMF Executive Board for approval of the first review. Attached below is a copy of the statement from MoF RE: FALSE PUBLICATION BY MYJOYONLINE - GHANA MISSES OUT ON IMFS NOV 1 TIMELINE FOR 2ND TRANCHE AS EXTERNAL DEBT RESTRUCTURING TALKS DRAG Accra, 10th November, 2023 The attention of the Ministry of Finance has been drawn to above titled misleading publication on Myjoyonline, about Ghana missing a purported deadline of 1st November, 2023, for the disbursement of the second tranche of International Monetary (IMF) Funds. 2. The Ministry thus wishes to set the record straight: a. There is no 1st November, 2023 timeline for disbursement of the second tranche of the IMF funds. No deadline has been set by the IMF for the second tranche disbursement, which is due to take place after the IMF Executive Board approves the first review. The publication by Myjoyonline references Table 9 on page 72 of the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP) published on 17th May, 2023 by the IMF. The November 1 stated in this table is an indicative timeline for completion of the first review, based on the observance of the end-June 2023 performance criteria. This first review was successfully completed on 6th October, 2023, culminating in a Staff Level Agreement (SLA) on the same day. Whilst the SLA milestone is an important step towards unlocking the second tranche of $600 million under the programme, the timeline set by the Executive Board for the consideration and approval of the first review, is not 1st November, 2023 as published by Myjoyonline. The exact timeline for the Board date is determined by the IMF Executive Board. b. External debt restructuring negotiations are progressing smoothly. The Government of Ghana is making good progress in accordance with its strategic plan to engage the Official Creditor Committee (OCC) of the Paris Club; secure a Memorandum of Understanding on debt restructuring; and go before the IMF Executive Board for approval of the first review. c. Myjoyonlines misinformation about a 1st November deadline for disbursement of IMF Funds contradicts its own publication of 2nd November, 2023. It is trite knowledge that the IMF Executive Board Meeting to approve Ghanas first review, must occur before the disbursement of the next tranche of IMF Funds. On 2nd November, 2023, Myjoyonline published an article titled, IMF Executive Board to meet in 3rd week of November, Ofori-Atta hints which clearly contradicts the false publication of a 1st November deadline. 2. Ministry of Finance: Professional, Ethical, Efficient, Transforming Ghana Beyond Aid 3. The Ministry of Finance therefore encourages the general public and media houses in particular, to seek the facts and truth about any information that comes to their attention, by reaching out to the Ministry for clarification whenever they are in doubt. They may also visit our website www.mofep.gov.gh or email [email protected] Source: graphic.com.gh Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Patience Botwe, the former househelp of Cecilia Dapaah, the former Minister for Sanitation, and six others who are facing trial for their alleged involvement in the stealing of money and property at her residence, have been granted bail. This bail was approved when they made their first appearance at the High Court in Accra, presided over by Justice Marie-Louise Simmons. The decision to grant bail came after a request made by one of the defense lawyers, Augustine Gyamfi, who pointed out that the accused had been in custody for over four months. He assured the court that the accused persons would comply with all court appearances if granted bail. In response to the request, Justice Marie-Louise Simmons granted bail to the seven accused persons, each with a bail amount of seven hundred and fifty thousand cedis (GHC 750,000). Additionally, the bail conditions included two sureties for each accused, with one of them needing to provide justification. Both sureties were required to be gainfully employed, with one residing in Accra and possessing a landed property. Furthermore, both sureties had to submit a copy of their Ghana card to the court registrar. Justice Marie-Louise Simmons also instructed the police investigator to take photographs of the accused persons from the front and side. Copies of these pictures were to be attached to the bail bond, court files, and a copy retained by the police. She also added that the residences of the sureties and accused persons must be inspected and known to the case Investigator who is required to look for them when they run away. The seven accused individuals, Patience Botwe, Sarah Agyei, Benjamin Sowah, Malik Dauda, Christiana Achab, Job Pomary, and Yahaya Sumaila, all pleaded not guilty to 31 counts of stealing, conspiracy to commit a crime, dishonesty, receiving and money laundering. Justice Marie-Louise Simmons directed the prosecution, led by Akosua Agyaponmaa Agyemang, an Assistant State Attorney, to provide disclosures and witness statements to the accused and their lawyers by December 8, 2023. These accused persons are facing trial for their alleged involvement in the stealing of $1 million, 300,000, and valuable properties worth millions of Ghana cedis at the Abelemkpe residence of Cecilia Dapaah and her husband Daniel Osei Kuffour. The case has been adjourned to December 12, 2023, for a Case Management Conference (CMC). Source: Isaac Kwame Owusu/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected] Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Some prominent individuals, including sub-chiefs are said to be intercepting relief items meant for flood victims, diverting them home and misappropriating them. This is in relation to the floods that have rendered many homeless following the spillage of the Akosombo and Kpong dams. The acting Paramount Chief of Mepe, Rudolph Kwadzo Gli expressed this misgiving prior to the presentation of food stuff and various relief items worth GH20,000 by the Avazorli Union of which Mepe is a member, to the flood victims in the town, last Friday (November 10). He, therefore, appealed to all donor groups to hand over the relief items to the palace of the Mepe Paramount Chief to ensure an equitable sharing of the items among the displaced persons. The acting paramount chief did not give further details on those perpetrating the fraudulent acts, reports Graphic Onlines Alberto Mario Noretti. The other Avazorli communities are Ziavi, Kpedze-Todze, Etordome, Botoku, Ando (Ghana and Togo), and Kpando-Anyigbe. The Paramount Chief of Ziavi, Togbe Kwaku Ayim IV led a delegation of Avazorli chiefs and queens in a touching visit to Mepe to present the items at palace. The items included bags of gari, plantain, maize, corn flour, cassava dough, and a consignment of sachet water, bales of clothes and an undisclosed amount of money. We may be separated by distance but our strong bond of kinship will always hold us together, said Togbe Ayim. He entreated the chiefs and queens of Mepe not leave out physically challenged people in the sharing of the items. Togbe Ayim gave an assurance that the other Avazorli groups would stand firmly behind their siblings in Mepe, in thick and thin, and always share their pain in times of suffering. Unity in grief He entreated the people of Mepe to remain united in grief and wait patiently for life to return to normal as efforts by the government and other stakeholder organisations were underway to tackle the problem. For his part, the acting Paramount Chief said the kind gesture by the Avazorli Union was overwhelming and a true demonstration of love and goodwill towards the flood victims. This will further strengthen the unbreakable ties of unity among us, he added. The acting paramount chief gave an assurance that the items would be shared among the flood victims in utmost fairness. The Avazorli Union trace their ancestry from Goshen in ancient Egypt through Nostie in the present day Republic of Togo, where they were once an identifiable group, before fleeing in a mass exodus from the tyrannical rule of King Agorkoli to their present locations in Ghana, with the Ando group in both Ghana and Togo. To foster unity and cohesion among them, a union was formed in 1984 and this culminated in its launch in Ziavi in 1987 where the name Avazorli Union was unveiled. Source: graphic.com.gh Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Energy Minister and Member of Parliament for Manhyia South, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh has assured the Krachiwura, Nana Mprah Besemuna, of governments support to ensuring the concerns of the people of Kete Krachi mainly to do with power stability are addressed. Dr. Prempeh, expressing sympathies to the victims of the lower Volta flooding, said government will work with the relevant stakeholders to ameliorate the plight of the people. The Energy Minister made these assertions when he addressed Krachiwura and Krachiman during the 2023 Yam Festival in Kete Krachi on Saturday, 11th November, 2023. Dr. Prempeh thanked the people for the invitation which, according to them, was because of his sterling performance as a public office holder. I have always held the view that, leadership is all about service and so I do not take the opportunity I have today to serve lightly at all. Anybody who desires to lead, must learn to serve. This is my philosophy. I believe that as a public office holder, the people will always remember you for who you are and what you stand for. And so, I am excited to be here, Krachiwura and your people. He continued; Krachiwura, in your speech, I heard you clearly talk about the power situation in Kete Krachi and its environs. You talk about it because it is dear to your heart and in fact central to the well-being of your people. In fact, the good news is that, it is so dear to me too, because, when my name was mentioned by President Akufo-Addo to become Energy Minister, I knew that one of the key expectations of the ordinary Ghanaian which includes your people was the stability of power for residential and commercial use and so this is the very direction myself and my team have been channeling our energies, he added Dr. Prempeh said government under President Akufo-Addo will continue to work hard to improve the lives of the people even in the face of global challenges. Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The name Diwali is derived from the Sanskrit word Deepavali meaning "row of lighted lamps," which is why Diwali is often called the Hindu "Festival of Lights." There are two sacred legends associated with Diwali that celebrate the victory of good over evil, and knowledge over negative qualities like anger, greed and fear. The first legend, native to Northern India, is the story of Rama, a beloved prince who was banished from his kingdom along with his wife Sita by a jealous stepmother (it's always the stepmother). Advertisement During his 14-year exile, Rama battled a demon king who kidnapped Sita. When the couple finally returned triumphantly to their kingdom, the people celebrated by lighting rows of earthen oil lamps. The second legend, better known in Southern India, entails Narkasura, the son of Mother Earth, who befriends a demon and becomes evil. After Narkasura invades kingdom after kingdom, the people cry out to Lord Krishna, who descends to defeat the evil Narkasura and restore peace to Earth. " " Guru Mahant Swami Maharaj leads a Diwali service at Neasden Temple on Oct. 20, 2017, in London, surrounded by piles of foods. This temple is the largest Hindu temple outside India and hosts annual Diwali celebrations for the approximately 1 million Hindus living in Britain. Carl Court/Getty Images In addition to celebrating these historic victories, Diwali is a time to welcome the goddess Lakshmi into the home. Lakshmi is the goddess of prosperity, abundance and well-being, and part of Diwali is dedicated to worshipping her and receiving her blessings for the coming year. Marking Diwali on Your Calendar In the West, Diwali lands on a different date each year because it's based on the lunar calendar. In India, the holiday always falls on the 15th of Kartik, the first month of the Hindu lunar calendar. The date corresponds with the first new moon of the lunar New Year, a normally dark night that's filled with light as the world celebrates Diwali. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Remains of a gunyah on Country. Credit: Michael Westaway A University of Queensland-led research team says the key to a more sustainable food future may be a better understanding of ancient Indigenous food production systems. Their ARC Discovery project "Testing the Dark Emu hypothesis" combines bioarchaeology, archaeobotany, palynology, ethnobotany and plant genetics in partnership with Indigenous communities to challenge existing perspectives. The research is published in Archaeology of Food and Foodways. UQ bioarchaeologist Associate Professor Michael Westaway said transdisciplinary research was needed to confirm whether Aboriginal communities were farmers rather than foragers, with evidence of early aquaculture and possibly cultivation. "We're working closely with Indigenous communities, because Aboriginal people are increasingly keen to gain insights into how their people cared for Country and developed these types of sustainable food production systems," Dr. Westaway said. "We've found extensive evidence the largest forager quarries in the world were in western Queensland, where the Mithaka people extracted stone slabs to make grinding stones for processing seeds. "We've also excavated the fireplaces of gunyahs, traditional Aboriginal huts, and found remnants of burned carbonized seeds, which archaeobotanists are now examining to identify the species." Dr. Westaway said pollen cores taken from ancient lake beds also allowed the team to reconstruct how the surrounding vegetation had changed over time. "The ethnohistory shows us that Aboriginal people would prepare for a big flood by burning the surrounding riverine plains, to increase the productivity of the landscape," he said. "By identifying carbon peaks in the cores from the lake beds, we can learn about the timing of the burnings. "We believe we're seeing records that indicate domestication of landscapes, which is an exciting element." The research team has also looked at plant genetics, including drought resistance. UQ Professor of Innovation in Agriculture Robert Henry said a methodical, transdisciplinary approach was necessary to reveal the complete story of ancient Indigenous food production. "I'm looking at the contemporary flora and how the plants there now might have been changed by humans over time," Professor Henry said. "These can include changes in seed size or whether the plant would have been edible and trying to link that with the archaeological findings. "This is significant from an agricultural point of view, as there may have been practices in the past that are useful to know about for the future. Climate change means we will have to adapt agriculture to new climates, as they did in the past." Dr. Westaway said the research had the potential to open new ways of thinking about using native flora in a more sustainable way, that would support new industry. More information: Michael C. Westaway et al, Transdisciplinary Approaches to Understanding Past Australian Aboriginal Foodways, Archaeology of Food and Foodways (2023). DOI: 10.1558/aff.18161 This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain The European Parliament on Thursday agreed on a controversial law to restore degraded environments to their natural state. More forests are to be reforested, moors re-wetted and rivers returned to to their natural free-flowing states. Negotiators from the European Parliament and EU member states reached an agreement late on Thursday on the fiercely debated nature conservation project. The EU Nature Restoration Law aims sets a target for the European Union to restore at least 20% of the bloc's land and sea areas by 2030 and all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050. According to EU figures, around 80% of habitats in the European Union are in a poor state. In addition, 10% of bee and butterfly species are threatened with extinction and 70% of soils are in an unhealthy condition. The law was preceded by a fierce dispute, partly because there were fears of heavy restrictions on farmers. The conservative European People's Party, or EPP, in particular were strongly opposed to the plan and tried to put it on ice completely. However, a motion to reject the law failed to gain a majority in parliament in the summer. Under pressure from the EPP, many of the requirements were watered down. With the compromise that has now been negotiated, farmers will not be obliged to make a certain percentage of their land available for environmentally friendly measures in future, which farmers had feared would happen. The law still has to be formally approved by the EU member states and the European Parliament. Normally this is a formality. In this case, however, it is not entirely certain that enough EPP members of the European Parliament will vote in favor of the compromise to obtain the necessary majority. 2023 dpa GmbH. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. PLEASE BE ADVISED: Soon we will no longer integrate with Facebook for story comments. The commenting option is not going away, however, readers will need to register for a FREE site account to continue sharing their thoughts and feedback on stories. If you already have an account (i.e. current subscribers, posting in obituary guestbooks, for submitting community events), you may use that login, otherwise, you will be prompted to create a new account. (CNN) Dr. Mohammed Ghneim has not left his hospital in Gaza City in four weeks. He cant remember the last time he slept or ate, and his blue scrubs are stained in the blood of patients whove died in his arms. His voice cracks under the weight of the horrors hes seen: fetuses pulled from the wombs of dying mothers, children with crushed lungs struggling to breathe, and his own colleagues doctors, nurses and EMTs transported to the hospital morgue in body bags. We are doing our best this is why we havent left here for days but the situation is very horrible. Theres no way to describe it in any language or with any words, Ghneim told CNN in a voice message on November 7, as sounds of chaos and panic unfolded around him. Many times I want to go to the side and cry, but unfortunately there is no time. Ghneim is an emergency room doctor at Dar Al-Shifa, also known as Al-Shifa Hospital or Shifa, and is Arabic for house of healing. But at this hospital the largest medical complex in Gaza theres far too much death. Shifa is running dangerously low on clean water, medicine, supplies and fuel. Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians, injured or displaced by Israels war against Hamas, continue to pack its wards, seeking shelter from the seemingly endless barrage of airstrikes. Israeli forces on Saturday surrounded Shifa in all directions, threatening the health and safety of those inside, according to Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, director-general of the Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza. An Israeli airstrike destroyed the hospitals generator, Al-Bursh said, cutting electricity to the building, including life-saving equipment used by 39 infants in neonatal care. Three infants have already died, he added. The Israeli military denied that the hospital is under siege, telling CNN it was engaged in ongoing intense fighting against Hamas in the vicinity of Shifa, but declined to comment further on its forces proximity to the complex because military activity was still underway. Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals as cover a charge doctors at Shifa and the militant group deny. We are trained to deal with mass casualties, but not like this, Ghneim, 28, said. We have no anesthesia to treat patients with severe pain, patients with shrapnel in their head or abdomen, people whose arms or legs have been amputated. Alarming scenes from inside Shifa, and other hospitals across Gaza, have sparked international calls for a ceasefire and more aid to be allowed to enter the territory, home to some 2 million Palestinians, currently closed off to the world by Israel and Egypt. Nonprofit medical groups across the United States are mobilizing to raise funds and ship medicine and supplies to failing hospitals before its too late. But with the situation in Gaza spiraling and few diplomatic or humanitarian solutions in sight, many worry the delay will result in more deaths. I want to say to the world, this is a humanitarian crisis, this is a genocide, Ghneim pleaded from his crowded emergency room. Please stop this. Desperate to send help More than 7,000 miles away, in Houston, Mosab Nasser is making travel plans to visit communities where he can spread awareness about the situation in Gaza and raise funds for struggling hospitals. The proud Texan, born and raised in Gaza, says its all hes been doing since October 7, when Israel declared war following a brazen attack by Hamas that killed around 1,200 people and took more than 230 others hostage, according to Israeli authorities. Israel responded by imposing a siege and launching devastating airstrikes across Gaza, which Hamas governs. Israel says its goal is to destroy the militant group and return the hostages, but it is the Palestinian people living there who are bearing the brunt of the attacks. The airstrikes have killed at least 11,025 Palestinians, including 4,506 children, and wounded more than 27,000 others so far, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, which draws its figures from sources in Hamas-run Gaza. Nasser says three of his relatives all young children, including one who was only 8 months old were killed when Israeli airstrikes caused their home to collapse, but he has no time to grieve. As CEO of the nonprofit medical group FAJR Scientific, he is obligated to find a way to deliver aid and other resources to hospitals in need. FAJR Scientifics goal is to raise enough money to fill five 40-foot containers with medical supplies, surgical tools and sterile instruments, and ship them to Gaza, Nasser says. Doctors in Gaza dont get to go home. Its traumatic for them, Nasser said. They are exhausted. Their bodies are physically at the hospital, but their minds are with their families trying to check on them. In some cases, Nasser says, medical workers have discovered their own loved ones among the injured or dead, compounding the fears and anxieties they already experience. Its not the first time FAJR Scientific has supported Gazas medical community. The group has led several surgical missions to Gaza and trained nearly 100 Palestinian medical workers on the ground, Nasser says. In August, they provided more than $4 million in medical supplies to hospitals across the territory. The Palestinian American Medical Association (PAMA), another US-based nonprofit, is also leading efforts to assist health care workers in Gaza. The group, which has more than 6,000 members and supporters and leads medical missions to the region, has raised over $2 million so far, PAMA president Dr. Mustafa Musleh told CNN. They will use the money to purchase critical medicine and supplies, including anesthetics, antibiotics and other medications to fill containers that will be sent to Gaza. The group also has more than 1,000 health-care professionals on standby to enter the enclave as soon as Israel and Egypt allow entry to humanitarian workers, Musleh says. Were desperate to send help, the Palestinian American doctor from Dayton, Ohio, said. Its a catastrophic situation. Theres 10 times more patients than what the hospitals can take care of and theyre all coming with serious life-threatening injuries that need immediate attention, and a lot of people die because of that. FAJR Scientific and PAMA are among several US medical groups coordinating efforts. But so far, few have been able to reach hospitals under siege. Since the start of the war, only about 900 trucks carrying international aid but not fuel have been allowed to enter Gaza through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society. Thats only a trickle compared to the approximately 500 trucks that entered each day before the war. PRCS warns that Gaza will need substantially more aid to meet growing humanitarian needs. Waiting for a miracle Ahmad Muhanna, director of Al Awda Hospital in Jabalya, says the real nightmare is treating maimed children, whose faces he sees even when he closes his eyes. Im being torn apart inside witnessing our children being martyred and receiving the carnage of their body parts, when they have no fault in this conflict, Muhanna told CNN on October 29 from his hospital in northern Gaza. Doctors are performing surgeries, including amputations, on children without clean water, let alone anesthesia or antibiotics, he says. Many are being treated on the floor due to a lack of empty hospital beds. Israeli airstrikes at or near medical facilities have further complicated the matter, Muhanna, 49, adds. Medical workers are in constant danger. As of November 10, 198 health care workers have been killed and 130 others wounded in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah. It also reports 21 hospitals and 51 primary health care centers are out of service. Israel says its only targeting Hamas, whom it accuses of using hospitals to hide and launch attacks. The Palestinian Ministry of Health and Hamas deny such claims. Israel says civilian deaths and the destruction of vital facilities, including hospitals, are collateral damage it tries to mitigate, and that Palestinians should flee to safer areas. But doctors in Gaza say its impossible to evacuate patients without causing more death, and that nowhere is truly safe. The Israeli air force is terrorizing us day and night above our tiny spot in the world, said Muhanna, who believes high casualties prove Israel is not trying to mitigate civilian deaths. They dont have boundaries, no red lines they cannot cross. They have crossed every line by targeting women, elders, children, men, the disabled and every possible living thing. The chaos unfolding at Shifa, Al Awda and other hospitals across Gaza has left doctors exasperated. But with no ceasefire on the horizon and the borders tightly controlled, preventing vital supplies from reaching hospitals, more people will continue to die. We feel helpless towards our patients, said Ghneim, the emergency room doctor at Shifa. We want to provide patients with appropriate health care, but in many cases theres nothing we can do. Meanwhile, Nasser and Musleh scramble to fundraise, buy supplies and coordinate shipping to the Rafah border crossing, where truckers anxiously await permission to enter Gaza and unload their life-saving cargo. The whole world turned their back on the people of Gaza, Nasser said. And right now were only waiting for a miracle. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Please stop this. Gazas hospitals are failing under the weight of war. US medical groups are scrambling to help." Atlantic County Democrats took some hard losses Tuesday night, as well-regarded Sheriff Eric Scheffler lost his reelection bid and Republicans swept all three county commissioner races, according to unofficial results from the county clerk. Overall it was a disaster for Atlantic County Democrats, said John Froonjian, executive director of the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University. While Democrats performed better statewide than expected, they continued to suffer here from an increasing GOP voter trend, Froonjian said. That is happening in spite of registered Democrats outnumbering registered Republicans in Atlantic County by about 10,000 voters. Weve had this issue for decades. ... We do well in presidential years and dont do well in state legislative-only elections (like this one), Michael Suleiman, chair of the Atlantic County Democrats, said Wednesday. He said turnout was low in Atlantic City and Pleasantville, both Democratic strongholds, and stronger in mainland communities trending Republican. Next year the turnout will be 70% and Democrats will do very well, Suleiman predicted. But this years results will hurt the party for years to come, Froonjian said, as Democrats also lost in local races and so will not have the chance to gain experience for later runs for county seats and the state Legislature. In Atlantic City, older voters wonder where the young people are Some Atlantic City voters took to the New York Avenue School polling location Tuesday to cast their ballot for the Nov. 7 election. Part of the wreckage, it lost two dedicated and caring public servants, Froonjian said of Scheffler and Democratic Commissioner Caren Fitzpatrick, who had to give up her commissioner seat to run for state Senate. Fitzpatrick lost that race to incumbent state Sen. Vince Polistina, R-Atlantic. Polistina won with 53% of the vote to Fitzpatricks 44%. Incumbent Republican Assembly members Claire Swift and Don Guardian also won reelection handily, beating Democratic challengers Alphonso Harrell and Lisa Bender. It was disappointing, of course, Scheffler said Wednesday. I still felt like I had a lot more to do. I was able to speak to my opponent this morning, congratulate him and wish him well. Scheffler said he will stay involved with the Hope Exists Foundation he started, which provides outreach and services to substance abusers, the mentally ill and homeless. It has gotten more than 5,000 people into treatment in the past 5 years, Scheffler said. Im excited about continuing. I am not going anywhere. I believe in what weve been doing for six years, Scheffler said. I appreciate my men and women; they are some of the greatest police officers I have had the opportunity to work with. We did a lot of positive stuff. In addition, Democrats lost their bids for county executive, with longtime incumbent Republican Dennis Levinson winning 61% to Democrat Joyce Pratts 39%. Democrats lost the County Clerks Office in 2021 after holding that office for many years. Judge sequesters votes of Atlantic City couple who say their mail-in votes were forced A judge on Tuesday temporarily sequestered the mail-in and provisional votes of an Atlantic City couple who say a ballot bearer forced them to vote for candidates they didn't support on their vote-by-mail ballots. Linwoods June Brynes won Fitzpatricks county commissioner seat for the GOP, running with longtime Commissioner and board Chairman John Risley, of Egg Harbor Township, who was reelected. At an election night party at Atlantic City Country Club, Suleiman said the party will look toward outreach and campaigning heavily for President Joe Biden in 2024. Local Democrats also are gearing up for an attempt to claim the House seat held by Republican Jeff Van Drew, he said. It just wasnt our time, Fitzpatrick said. National politics really played into it. Well be back. Fitzpatrick said Democrats must recapture the vote on offshore wind energy and other progressive points, especially in addressing climate change. I think that the Democratic Party has to be more out in front and proactive on these issues, rather than reactive, Fitzpatrick said. District 3 Republican Commissioner Andrew Parker, of Egg Harbor Township, was also reelected with 58% of the vote to 42% for Democrat Hector Tavarez, of Egg Harbor Township. The county commissioner board is now composed of eight Republicans and one Democrat, Ernest Coursey of the 1st District, which covers Atlantic City, a small part of Egg Harbor Township, Longport, Margate and Ventnor. Scheffler was first elected in 2017 and reelected in 2020. He lost to Republican Egg Harbor Township Committeeman Joseph ODonoghue, who had 53% of the vote to Schefflers 47%. Scheffler defeated ODonoghue in 2020, but Tuesdays low-turnout election worked against him, Froonjian said. Voters who show up when the state Legislature is at the top of the ticket are generally the party faithful and dedicated issue voters, he said. Those voters go in and vote straight down the party line, Froonjian said. The turnout countywide was about 28%, with 4,496 voting early, 41,577 voting by machine on Election Day and 11,898 voting with mail-in ballots so far. There were 200,677 registered voters in the county on Election Day, and 57,257 had voted as of Wednesday morning. Vote-by-mail ballots received through Nov. 13 will be counted, as long as they are postmarked by or on Nov. 7. Wednesday morning there were still 1,189 mail-in ballots to be counted, with an unknown number still to come. ATLANTIC CITY Officials from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a scathing rebuke of the Atlantic City Housing Authority during a meeting with the local agencys residents, board members and former staff, who described poor conditions at the authoritys communities. This has been a complete and total failure by government, Richard Monocchio, HUDs principal deputy assistant secretary for public and Indian housing, said during the online meeting Monday. A recent HUD-commissioned audit of the local authority is one of the worst audits that Ive ever read in my life, Monocchio said. This place is clearly mismanaged. Im not the kind of person who tolerates things like this. Tom Sahlin, who was named executive director of the authority last week, said he could not comment on HUDs statements without further review. He was not invited to the Monday meeting. Marilyn OSullivan, a regional housing director for HUDs Northeast network, said the audit involved an on-site compliance review and resulted in 75 findings and 14 recommendations. The Press of Atlantic City asked both HUD and the Housing Authority for a copy of the report Tuesday, but neither agency provided it. The hourlong discussion was held at the request of the South Jersey chapter of the National Action Network. It began with Housing Authority board members Charmaine Hall and Eli Gbayee; former Executive Director Matthew Doherty, who was dismissed in early September; former management specialist Ivy Melendez; and Stanley Holmes Village resident Luana Molley telling HUD officials about the frequent disruptions to heat and hot water and criticizing the local authoritys leadership. At this point, we need action at Stanley Holmes. No heat, no hot water, said Molley, who is among the nearly 90 Stanley Holmes residents who are suing the authority over what they said are unsafe and unsanitary conditions. Im just tired. Im tired. A lack of heat, hot water or both have been reported in recent weeks at Altman Terrace, Inlet Towers and Stanley Holmes, which is also undergoing court-ordered daily monitoring for potential gas leaks. More heat, hot water emergencies at Stanley Holmes, Altman Terrace The city's housing authority spent Friday morning dealing with a "significant underground leak" that flooded the courtyard of Stanley Holmes Village, while residents at another community, Altman Terrace, say they have been without hot water for nearly a week. Any day that anyone has to live without heat and hot water as a basic necessity is unacceptable, said Dr. Ruth Jones Nichols, a senior adviser for strategic engagement at HUD. OSullivan said she is in regular communication with the authority, as well as the attorney representing Stanley Holmes tenants in their lawsuit. I want to know any person there that does not have heat or hot water, she said. We are following up on each individual person every day now, and we will continue to do that throughout the heating season. Stephanie Thomas, who lives in Shore Park, a community for the elderly and disabled, told HUD officials the 16-story building only has one elevator in service and that six of the eight washing machines available in the laundry room are not working. And the properties located in the Inlet neighborhood have crumbling facades, said Melendez, who added many of the problems in the authoritys communities have been present for many years. Stanley is a huge, huge need, she said. But outside of Stanley, the rest of the inventory also needs a lot of work thats not getting done. Every minute that they dont have contracts and bids out in the street for these properties to be able to facilitate this work, the situation is getting more and more dire. Melendez, who worked for the Housing Authority from April 2018 through February 2023, said there are board members who have prevented the agency from taking steps to correct these issues. We were blocked, the board would not allow us to do anything, she said. They are definitely involved in operations, overstepping their boundaries in every way. Doherty, whose contract was terminated by the board after only four months as executive director, called for a board takeover. Judge says Wildwoods Boardwalk repairs can proceed despite legal challenge Work to rebuild a section of the Wildwoods Boardwalk can proceed, a judge ruled Wednesday. Its an absolute disgrace at this point, he said. I cant stress enough the importance of someone coming in and taking charge of the board. Board Chair Stephanie Marshall, who is also a sitting council member, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The HUD officials did not commit to intervening with the board and its power, though Monocchio promised to visit Atlantic City to tour the authoritys communities, meet with city leaders and activate an inspection unit to make sure that at least the basics can be provided for the time being. OSullivan estimated the visit would happen in mid-December. She is currently leading an independent assessment of the authority, a requirement of its troubled status. Nichols said collaboration is necessary to get results for authority residents. We understand that you dont necessarily have months to live in those conditions. We also recognize as you said that there are some infrastructure challenges at the communities referenced that cannot be fixed overnight, she said. We have to figure out together how we can ensure that you have the basic necessities that we should be providing in partnership with the Housing Authority and with the other stakeholders in the community. Once weekly for about the past year, 8-year-old Desiree Troncoso visits Kelly Connors at Egg Harbor Townships Slaybaugh Elementary School to share how shes feeling with her father deployed overseas with the U.S. Navy. She sits with Connors in her office, going over a mindfulness journal and a list of activities she wants to do with her father once he returns. On a recent morning, Troncoso wrote that shes grateful for her family, sister and dogs. If Connors, a school health specialist with AtlantiCare, wasnt available to students at Egg Harbor Townships Slaybaugh Elementary School regularly, its not likely Desiree would have found the same type of emotional support, said her mother, Yessenia Pereira. Shes able to support my daughters social and emotional needs during this difficult transition that were in right now, Yessenia Pereira said. Kellys been helping me kind of navigate this deployment in ways that I havent thought about. At a time when youth mental health is a growing concern, Connors is able to help Slaybaughs students cope with burdens in and outside of their classrooms through a program utilized by various Atlantic County school districts. As a health specialist with AtlantiCare, she has formed relationships with students and their teachers to spot signs of poor emotional wellness. From working with kids, you really get to know them, Connors said from her office recently. Theyre these little people that have these lives and stories. The second-year program, places a school health specialist at each of the townships schools. Absegami and Cedar Creek high schools, as well as the Mullica Township and Folsom school districts use the program. The program includes 10 full-time specialists and one part-timer. Over the summer, the Egg Harbor Township Board of Education approved an approximately $446,000 contract with AtlantiCare through the end of this school year for the program. The townships district employs a specialist in each of its seven schools. All of the districts using specialists renewed their contracts with AtlantiCare over the summer, said Ronni Lerner, an early childhood administrator with AtlantiCare who oversees the embedded specialist program. Connors believes the program is helping the district and students. They come to school and learn so much, but their health is just as important, Connors said. It cant just stop at the door. It comes with them. It comes with all of us. In 2021, more than 4 in 10 (42%) students felt persistently sad or hopeless and nearly one-third (29%) experienced poor mental health, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC recommends schools integrate social and emotional learning into its settings as a way to address the trend. Karen Semet, the districts director of health and nursing service, said the districts actions have helped establish more support for students and were in response to seeing more students struggling. I think one of the most amazing things they can do is help kids self-regulate, said Semet, a 20-year faculty member of Egg Harbor Township schools. The school health specialist helps the kids deal with their feelings in a positive way. Mullica Township school Superintendent Andrew Weber approached AtlantiCare about a collaboration after learning of support systems between schools and hospitals in other parts of the country. The staff really appreciate having that person here, Weber said recently. We dont have somebody that has that certification that could provide a service like this. Connors has noticed improvements in how her students have handled challenges. On a recent Monday morning, Connors started the day with a meeting with seven of Slaybaughs teachers in the school library. As school buses arrived in the parking lot, teachers brainstormed fun class activities. Afterward, Connors returned to an office she shares with another faculty member. A group of students would visit her later that day to talk about how theyre doing. Her outreach in school extends beyond her office, too. She can be found in the cafeteria, making the rounds while keeping an eye out for warning signs of stress, like changing eating habits or other behaviors. If something concerns her, she often connects with parents to offer some options. Students needs often vary among schools, a reason why the program is tailored to each district, based on what the specialist observes. AtlantiCare conducts a survey in schools at the beginning and end of each academic year, gathering feedback on what each institutions needs may be. The specialists then target ways to respond to the needs, whether it be for better emotional support or meal preparations, for example. There is a misconception about how Watertown got its name that Larry Westbrook wants to correct. With major floods hitting the East Moline neighborhood over the years notably in 2014 and 1965 its easy to assume that the water in Watertowns nomenclature came over the banks of the Mississippi. Westbrook, a local pastor and president of the Watertown revitalization group, said the water in Watertown's name is fresher. He asserts that the area was named for its clean, artesian wells. That fact, and so many others, is one he learned from his lifelong friend, a man of encyclopedic knowledge Nathaniel Nate Lawrence. On Aug. 15, Lawrence died in his home at the age of 80 a number that his mentees and peers say was shocking, given his spryness and wit. Lawrence always sought to bring the best of Watertown and East Moline to the Quad-Cities. He was the co-founder of local jazz organization Polyrhythms, a public relations savant, a neighborhood advocate and curator of live music. In Watertown and the Quad-Cities music scene, Lawrence was a permanent fixture, and his passing blindsided many. After all, his presence has always been as certain as the river itself. We were just right here, Westbrook remembered, eyes gazing through his car windshield at empty picnic tables in Watertowns Hereford Park. There, the two close friends shared a family reunion just days before Lawrence's passing. Lawrence passed away three days before the Bill Bell Jazz & Heritage Festival, a free yearly Rock Island event that Lawrence helped develop since its inception in 2013. Despite his absence, the show went on. Nate Lawrence, the curator Lawrence himself didnt play much music, Westbrook said. Lawrence's sister, Charlotte Harper, remembers her brother playing the trumpet briefly in high school, but more than anything, he was a jazz fan and avid record collector. In a 2005 interview with the Quad-City Times, Lawrence recalled the music fandom of his youth. I was in high school (...) and right before lunch wed throw our books in the locker, take the streetcar to the Orpheum in Davenport and theyd have big bands, Lawrence said. Wed sit through three or four shows. Wed seldom make it through a Friday at school. After he spent time in his 20s serving in the U.S. Air Force, Harper said Lawrence came back with a renewed sense of leadership and maturity. When she remembers her brother now, she recalls the time hed spend every Tuesday at her place in Watertown for tea. Harper remembers him as Uncle Nathan, too he was beloved by her kids and most in the neighborhood, despite never having children of his own. They just loved him to death, Harper said. Lawrence was most comfortable behind the scenes, as a curator rather than a performer. A mentor, rather than the star in the spotlight. Alongside co-founder Shellie Moore Guy, he started Polyrhythms' Third Sunday Jazz Series, a monthly live music tradition that's approaching its third decade. Lawrence and Polyrhythms sought to break the sometimes highbrow stigma around jazz by celebrating the genre's legacy and cultural impact. They teach through local jazz history, discussing figures like Bill Bell and Pat Patrick, both of whom were from Watertown and went on to tour nationwide. Nate Lawrence, the mentor Lawrence's impact reverberated throughout the music community, in Watertown and beyond. Jerra Williams, 28, is a Rock Island-born keyboardist and producer who has been learning from Lawrence since he was 15 years old. Growing up, Williams said playing a show at the Redstone Room was his biggest dream. Now, following business lessons hes learned from Lawrence, hes played there three times. He would literally pick me up from my house, and take me to these jazz concerts and tell me about how he managed groups and how he became successful, Williams said. I owe him my career. Williams connection with Lawrence was facilitated by David Baker, radio host at KALA. Baker first met Lawrence in his early 20s, when he was new to Quad-Cities media. He learned about jazz and journalism from Lawrence, who once ran his own independent newspaper. Baker remembers Lawrence's humor and style when he thinks about seeing Lawrence at the radio station, he can still see the "coolest jazz T-shirts." When Lawrence emceed Polyrhythms events, his ties and suits were fresh. At the first Polyrhythms events after Lawrence's passing, Baker said he got through by imagining that Lawrence was just away for the weekend. When Third Sunday Jazz hosted its first event after Lawrence's passing, Baker was called to emcee in his place. "It was tear-jerking for me to be up there, standing on stage doing what Nate would typically be doing," Baker said. "When Nate first passed away, the initial thought was, 'Are we still going to do this?' "And of course, the answer was yes." Reggie Reed, former treasurer at Polyrhythms, has filled Lawrence's former role as the nonprofit's president. While it's been challenging to move on after Lawrence's passing, he said, he's grateful that Lawrence left a "blueprint" for the organization going forward. Reed said he's hoping to plan a memorial event for Lawrence in early 2024. Until then, the focus is on hosting holiday events. "We're still having some aches and pains," he said, choking up. "It's been tough, but we stepped to it because he would've wanted it this way." Nate Lawrence, the 'firefighter' Outside of his time with Polyrhythms, Lawrence was a fierce advocate for human rights, city development and education. He's served on various revitalization boards in East Moline and helped to develop the city's riverfront in the early '80s. Avery Pearl is a 28-year-old author and community activist who serves on multiple committees, seeking to address disparities in the Quad-Cities. An East Moline native, he's known Lawrence for most of his life, but started working with him professionally in 2020, when Lawrence took Pearl in as a mentee. Pearl said Lawrence taught him about everything: city politics, Black history, public relations, even what Pearl's great-grandparents were like growing up. But Pearl was never crazy about jazz. "I'm a digital-era baby," he said. After Lawrence passed, Pearl went to the first Third Sunday Jazz show afterward. He went alone, wanting to just take it all in. Pearl remembers seeing the band's bassist and guitarist riff back and forth, mimicking call-and-response melodies. Then, the pianist joined in. It was competitive in a way, each instrumentalist performing a solo at the other. Finally, the whole band joined in and harmonized. Pearl had an epiphany. "Oh my God, this is community," Pearl said. "They're taking instruments that sound completely different and harmonizing them to make a cohesive sound. That really is what Nate did." Pearl said he believes that Lawrence would want him to keep on fighting, not memorializing. But what Pearl does reminisce on is the greeting every time he and Lawrence met. "How's it going?" he'd ask. "The world's on fire," Lawrence would answer. "It's burning up, but we're the firefighters." In Watertown, the fight for revitalization goes on. As does the mission of Polyrhythms. Each cause was as timeless as was Lawrence. He had just an everlasting spirit about him, Williams said. He was just forever. In July 2000, Lawrence wrote a letter on the Mississippi River for the Quad-City Times, as part of a series celebrating the river at the turn of the century. "Like the dependability of the sun rising in the East and setting in the West, the river is always there, working and moving and going somewhere," Lawrence wrote. "It is the major constant of our lives." He wrote of his Watertown neighborhood: crossing the railroad tracks, waving to familiar faces on 1st Avenue, marking the telephone pole to predict how high the water would flood. Lawrence recalled fishing in the river, hearing the waves lap against the shoreline. To him, the sound of the river was something truly musical, akin to a "Duke Ellington arrangement." It was beautiful because it was forever. "When you sat on the bank of the Mississippi River when you were 7 years old, what you observed was the same thing you saw when you were 17, 27 or (if you were fortunate) 77 years old," Lawrence, then 57, wrote. "You saw a dynamics and a power that you understood you would never understand in 77 lifetimes. "That, my friend, is what makes our awesome companion a thing of diffuse beauty." Photos: Mayor Freeman delivers East Moline State of the City Address In his reading room at his home, Col. Ronnie Anderson Jr., has his basic training photo, his fathers basic training photo and his grandfathers basic training photo. Speaking after the Veterans Day ceremonies held Saturday at the Rock Island Arsenal National Cemetery, Anderson, Commander of the Joint Munitions Command at the Rock Island Arsenal, said, "Theres one thing you find in common with everybody in uniform. If you ask everybody, Why did you join, youll get a different answer from every person, he said. But when you ask, Why did you stay, why do you stay, why do you keep staying? a hundred percent of the answers is they believe in the people to their left and right, they believe in our mission, and they believe in our country. That becomes the calling. About 100 people, including the Patriot Guard Riders, numerous veterans young and old, and Moline American Legion Post 246, attended the ceremony. The connection with my family and their experiences is so, so similar to the people holding a flag or a rifle today, Anderson said. Matt Tomes, Director of the Rock Island National Cemetery, opened the ceremony by saying that, From Bunker Hill to Baghdad, from Kings Mountain to Kandahar, we are the beneficiaries of their (veterans) vigilance and determination to uphold the democratic beliefs on which our nation was founded. America has been blessed as no other country in the history of the world, Tomes added. The sacrifices of our armed forces have given us the security and freedom in which to grow and flourish as a nation in law, human rights, business and economics, science and technology, education and the arts. They have enabled the United States to stand as a beacon of hope for others across the world, drawing millions to our shores; a model of democracy for the world, he said. We remember Americas heroes today and we all owe them a debt of gratitude for the burdens they have borne, Tomes said. U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, (R-Iowa) who retired as a Lieutenant Colonel after 24 years in the Army Reserves told the veterans that, without you and those families that support them while they are in the military, we would not have the freedom that we cherish. Miller-Meeks said she comes from military family, with her father making a career out of the Air Force, five of her seven siblings served in the military and her husband retired from the military after 30 years. The reason we honor Veterans Day is there is no greater way to take up that torch of freedom and liberty and Constitution than by honoring those who served, she said. It is our responsibility, and it is our duty because those liberties we know are fragile, Miller-Meeks said. From the right to free speech, the right to assemble and the right to bear arms, she said, we must make sure that that torch that holds our values is passed from one generation to another. U.S. Rep. Eric Sorensen, (D-Illinois), said, Im a believer that Veterans Day is the most important of our national holidays because we wouldnt have the ability to stand here if it werent for our veterans. Directing his remarks to the youth attending the ceremony, Sorensen told them to ask the veterans in your family what it means to serve, because I want all of you to think about how you can serve in the future. We honor those who sacrificed so much for our great nation and helping to keep our communities and democracy safe from harm," Sorensen said. "On this sacred ground we also recognize the men and women who gave everything in pursuit of protecting what we value here. Anderson opened his remarks by quoting President Ronald Reagan who said, Veterans know better than anyone else the price of freedom, for they have suffered the scars of war. We can offer them no better tribute than to protect what they have won for us. Those powerful words, remind us of the sacrifice our veterans have willingly made and the profound importance in safeguarding the freedoms for which they have fought, Anderson said. On this Veterans Day, let us all recommit ourselves to the principles of service, gratitude and hope that perpetuate our national ideals, he said. Let us remember that our freedom has been protected by generations of veterans and we must continue to honor their sacrifice. In the spirit of our quoted words, let us protect what the veterans have won for us, ensuring that their sacrifices are never in vain, Anderson said. Veterans Day ceremony, National Cemetery, Rock Island Arsenal WASHINGTON House Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled his proposal on Saturday to avoid a partial government shutdown Nov. 17 by extending government funding for some agencies and programs until Jan. 19 and continuing funding for others until Feb. 2. The approach is unusual for a stopgap spending bill. Usually, lawmakers extend funding until a certain date for all programs. Johnson decided to go with the combination approach, addressing concerns from GOP lawmakers seeking to avoid being presented with a massive spending bill just before the holidays. "This two-step continuing resolution is a necessary bill to place House Republicans in the best position to fight for conservative victories," Johnson, R-La., said in a statement after speaking with GOP lawmakers in an afternoon conference call. "The bill will stop the absurd holiday-season omnibus tradition of massive, loaded up spending bills introduced right before the Christmas recess." The bill excludes funding requested by President Joe Biden for Israel, Ukraine and the U.S. border with Mexico. Johnson said separating Biden's request for an emergency supplemental bill from the temporary, stopgap measure "places our conference in the best position to fight for fiscal responsibility, oversight over Ukraine aid, and meaningful policy changes at our Southern border." Hard-line conservatives, usually loathe to support temporary spending measures of any sort, previously indicated they would give Johnson some leeway to pass legislation, known as a continuing resolution or CR, to give Congress more time to negotiate a long-term agreement. However, some were critical following the conference call. "My opposition to the clean CR just announced by the Speaker to the @HouseGOP cannot be overstated," Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, tweeted on X. "Funding Pelosi level spending & policies for 75 days - for future 'promises.'" The White House, meanwhile, panned the plan as "unserious," unworkable and a threat to national security and domestic programs. "This proposal is just a recipe for more Republican chaos and more shutdowns full stop," press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, pointing to opposition from members of both parties. "House Republicans need to stop wasting time on their own political divisions, do their jobs, and work in a bipartisan way to prevent a shutdown." The federal government is operating under funding levels approved last year by a Democratic-led House and Senate. Facing a government shutdown when the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, Congress passed a 47-day continuing resolution, but the fallout was severe. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was booted from the speakership days later, and the House was effectively paralyzed for most of the month while Republicans tried to elect a replacement. Republicans eventually were unanimous in electing Johnson speaker, but his elevation has hardly eased the dynamic that led to McCarthy's removal a conference torn on policy as well as how much to spend on federal programs. This past week, Republicans had to pull two spending bills from the floor one to fund transportation and housing programs and the other to fund the Treasury Department, Small Business Administration and other agencies because they didn't have the votes in their own party to push them through the House. A document explaining Johnson's proposal to House Republicans, obtained by The Associated Press, said funding for four spending bills would be extended until Jan. 19. Veterans programs, and bills dealing with transportation, housing, agriculture and energy, would be part of that extension. Funding for the eight other spending bills, which include defense, the State Department, Homeland Security and other government agencies would be extended until Feb. 2. The document sent to GOP lawmakers and key staff states that Johnson inherited a budget mess. He took office less than three weeks ago and immediately began considering appropriations bills through regular order. Still, with just days remaining before a shutdown, a continuing resolution is now required. Underscoring the concerns about the possibility of a shutdown, the credit rating agency Moody's Investors Service lowered its outlook on the U.S. government's debt on Friday to "negative" from "stable," citing the cost of rising interest rates and political polarization in Congress. House Republicans pointed to the national debt, now exceeding $33 trillion, for Moody's decision. Analysts warned that with interest rates heading higher, interest costs on the national debt will eat up a rising share of tax revenue. Johnson said in reaction to the Moody's announcement that House Republicans are committed to working in a bipartisan fashion for fiscal restraint, beginning with the introduction of a debt commission. Americas reeling as flow of migrants reaches historic levels WASHINGTON The first thing Greg Jackson did when he arrived in Lewiston, Maine, was to drive through the city, into its neighborhoods, past the crime scene tape and the boarded-up windows, to get a feel for a community reeling from a mass shooting. The deputy director of the new White House office of gun violence prevention was looking for his starting point. He set to work figuring out what grief and trauma resources were available for families of the victims and where the city could use assistance. He got a briefing from law enforcement. He met with the governor. And he started doling out help. "Most governors and even city leaders see the federal government as a big machine there's so many different levers and processes and contacts," Jackson said in an interview. "So me just being a navigator and being able to help cut through some of the government jargon or get the proper contact within 15 minutes versus two days was huge." The Oct. 25 shootings at a bowling alley and nearby bar were the first test of the administration's new office, set up in part to better coordinate federal help for a community dealing with the aftermath of gun violence. "We see this as a critical way to prevent future violence and disrupt the cycle of violence," Jackson said. "The first way we can prevent violence is to better serve those who have been directly impacted by violence." It's something survivors and advocates have wanted for years. Gun violence continues to plague the nation despite the passage of gun safety legislation last year and a focus by President Joe Biden on ending gun violence. The issue also figures heavily into Biden's 2024 reelection campaign, which hopes to reach younger voters who are deeply concerned about gun violence. The president has also pushed for a ban on assault weapons. "This is about common sense," Biden said last week during a trip to Lewiston. "Reasonable, responsible measures to protect our children, our families, our communities. Because regardless of our politics, this is about protecting our freedom to go to a bowling alley, a restaurant, a school, church, without being shot and killed." Biden has called gun violence "the ultimate superstorm," affecting not just victims but the everyday lives of community members. His administration believes the response should better resemble how the government acts after natural disasters. As of Wednesday, there had been at least 37 mass killings in the United States in 2023, leaving at least 195 people dead, not including shooters who died, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. But the White House office isn't intended to help manage only the aftermath of mass killings. Some 21% of U.S. adults have reported a personal tie to gun violence, such as being threatened by a gun or being a victim of a shooting, according to a 2022 poll by the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Jackson, like many others working in gun violence prevention, has firsthand experience. He was shot about 10 years ago walking down the street in Washington. His 19-year-old cousin was shot and killed about a decade earlier. He was on the ground in Buffalo, New York, as a volunteer last year helping manage the fallout after a white supremacist killed 10 Black people at a supermarket. "I've watched a community suffer alone, and how devastating that can be," he said. Until now, Jackson said, the only unified response coming from the federal government was via law enforcement. That was helpful, but it did not address businesses losing money because they had to close as police investigated nearby or schools that reopened without enough trauma therapists for students. A Virginia State University police officer was shot early Sunday, sending him to the hospital with life-threatening injuries, triggering a campus lockdown at the Ettrick facility and launching a manhunt for the gunman who as of the evening remained at large. The wounded police officer was identified as Bruce Foster, 39, a five-year veteran of the VSU force. Officials said they believe Foster, who was wearing a bullet-resistant vest, is the first VSU officer shot in the line of duty. Foster, a Richmond resident, was taken to VCU Medical Center. During a 1:30 p.m. Sunday press briefing, it was announced that Foster's condition had improved and he was upgraded to stable condition. "We're very, very excited that he is now in stable condition," Gwen Williams Dandridge, the school's assistant vice president for communications, told reporters. "Obviously this is a tragedy for our campus ... but we are exceedingly grateful that he is doing as well as he is." VSU Chief of Police David Bragg described Foster as a "really nice guy" with an outstanding record. The campus was locked down immediately after the shooting. It was lifted at about 12:30 p.m. Sunday and authorities did not believe there was an imminent danger to the school even as the manhunt for the shooter continued. Campus activities for the rest of the weekend resumed. Devyn Nobles, a VSU junior, called the incident "obviously very, very tragic." "I actually interact with all the officers on a weekly, monthly basis. So hearing that an officer was shot was very disappointing," said Nobles, who is the vice president of the student government. "Students were very nervous, scared when things were happening," he added. Authorities stressed that the investigation was ongoing and police were looking to find security camera video that may have captured the suspect. It could not be immediately determined if Foster was wearing a body cam. Police said Foster had responded to an on-campus disturbance at 1:34 a.m. and was talking to several people trying to quell the disturbance when he was shot. Police said they are looking for only one suspect, but urged anyone who was in the area or part of the disturbance to reach out to police. Officials have not released information about the nature of the disturbance. A press release issued by Chesterfield County police Sunday morning said officers were dispatched to the 3400 block of Boisseau Street. That block is just hundreds of yards away from the Quad II, an underclassman residence hall. The Virginia State police department includes 25 law enforcement officers, 20 security officers and 20 other staff members. Chesterfield Police Chief Col. Jeffrey Katz said in a social media post that Virginia State Police and the FBI are assisting in the investigation. The Chesterfield department was taking the lead in the investigation. CCPD stands in unwavering solidarity with our partners at Virginia State University. We will not rest until the individual who shot their officer is brought to justice, he said. Said Katz: "I strongly encourage the individual responsible to turn himself in peacefully." Please keep the @VSUPolice officer in your thoughts and prayers. VSU police officer injured in shooting near campus STOP SHOOTING OUR OFFICERS @GLFOP @JoeGamaldi @RickFOP86 https://t.co/gyAxAx0Ibu Virginia FOP (@FopVirginia) November 12, 2023 The Virginia Fraternal Order of Police in a social media message asked that people to "please keep the @VSUPolice officer in your thoughts and prayers." Several shootings have occurred on or around the VSU campus in recent years. In May 2022, one person was wounded in a shooting in a VSU residence hall. Officials later determined that was an accident. In December 2021, a VSU student shot and killed another student after an argument, police said. That incident happened about a mile from campus. Sunday's incident comes after seven were wounded at a homecoming event for Prairie View A&M University in Texas. Four people, including two people, were shot Oct. 29 near Georgia State Universitys Atlanta campus. In February 2022, a campus officer and police officer were killed in a shooting at Bridgewater College northwest of Charlottesville. Anyone with information about the Sunday shooting is asked to call Chesterfield police at (804) 748-1251 or Crime Solvers at (804) 748-0660. #VirginiaStatePolice is sending prayers and well wishes to the @VSU_1882 Police Officer who was shot early Sunday AM (11/12/23). The shooter remains at-large. Please call 911 or @CCPDVa w/information. pic.twitter.com/wMb6nZuVLl VA State Police (@VSPPIO) November 12, 2023 Gallery: VSU campus The proposed $562 million Richmond Grand Casino and Resort promised thousands of jobs and millions in revenue, including funding for badly needed child care services under the terms of a development agreement with the city. Tuesdays election, in which Richmond voters rebuffed the contentious casino plan for a second time, takes that money off the table and raises questions about what comes next for child care funding. The $19 million a year could have funded wraparound care for all Head Start and Virginia Preschool Initiative in the city, and we could have funded additional toddler and infant care, said Ann Payes, CEO of the Richmond early childhood school readiness group Thrive Birth to Five. So, without that, its just going to be a struggle to get enough funding so that its accessible and affordable for families. Payes was one of several child care officials who appeared with Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney at a September news conference to announce that casino revenues would support child care programs. We know that Richmond families are currently struggling to access early childhood care and education, Stoney said. Under the terms of the agreement with the city, casino developers Urban One and Churchill Downs were to direct a one-time upfront payment of $26.5 million to municipal coffers. An additional $19 million in casino revenue would go to the city each year after that. At the news conference, Stoney said the first allotment of money would go to building child care and education centers at T.B. Smith and Southside community centers. A total of $8 million would pay for parks and recreation projects, and $4.5 million was to be put into a trust fund to expand child care access to low- to middle-class Richmond families. Stoney pointed to the casino revenue as a reason voters should approve the referendum. The long-term funding was seen as a solution to reducing lengthy wait times for child care, as well as reducing the financial burden. Frankly, tuition is too expensive, he said at the news conference. Child care costs have soared in recent years, jumping 32% between 2019 and this year, according to a Bank of America Institute. The current average rate for yearly child care for one child is $14,000, according to the 2023 Kids Count Databook, an annual child care statistics report. Stoney: We are back to where we were The funding earmarked for the community also was a key component of the voter outreach by Urban One and Churchill Downs, which pledged an additional $16 million to charities over 10 years. The Tuesday vote came about two years after voters rejected a referendum for a similar gaming development. For the second round, the developers mounted an aggressive advertising and get-out-the-vote effort, spending $10 million. Plans for the site at 2001 Walmsley Blvd. and 4700 Trenton Ave. off Interstate 95 called for a 250-room hotel, a 3,000-seat concert space, a 55-acre outdoor park and other amenities. The developers projected that $30 million in annual tax revenue would be produced. The development agreement did not include tax incentives. But the plan faced opposition from groups that questioned the approval process and the impact of gambling on economically distressed areas around the casino. The measure ending up failing by a 62%-38% vote, a difference of 13,185 ballots. According to the mayors office, the Tuesday election means its plans of addressing the child care shortage are no longer viable and the likelihood of proposed projects coming to fruition is slim to none. When Richmond voted no for the casino, they also voted no for $26.5 million upfront to build two new child care centers, and $19 million annually to establish the Richmond Child Care and Education Trust Fund, Stoney said. We are back to where we were prior to this opportunity. Stoney, who has been mayor since 2017, has been vocal about school funding and was appointed chair of the U.S. Conference of Mayors Children, Health and Human Services Committee. Politico, citing an anonymous source, last week also reported that Stoney, a Democrat, planned to launch a run for governor later this year. With the casino plan rejected, Stoney spokesman Gianni Snidle said the Child Care Trust Fund is also effectively dead and there are no plans to break ground on new child care centers. When Richmonders voted against the casino, they voted against the strongest local child care proposal, he said. At the September news conference, Stoney said that if the project did not pass, then he would consider different ways to help address the crisis. The alternative is us trying to find ways through raising taxes, using the revenues that we currently have, Stoney said. Payes in an interview last week said child care cant really happen without government funding and one way to fund initiatives is by increasing taxes. Snidle said the plan is to advocate for state and federal funding streams and that there are not any plans to seek a tax increase to fund child care. He said Stoney will continue to fight for quality, affordable child care. Paul Goldman, a political strategist who led one of the political action committees that opposed the casino, said he does not buy the mayors this-or-that approach to funding child care in the city. Goldman said the mayor should not have relied solely on the casino to meet the needs of the citys children. Instead, he said, it was a way to draw in voters, which failed along with the project. You cant tell me the only way to help kids is to rip off their parents, Goldman said. Were not lacking in money in Richmond; what were lacking is a vision and a will to do it. What comes next The city is in the process of filing two stabilization grants, including a $100,000 American Rescue Plan Act grant for the Fulton Montessori as well as an additional $100,000 from the Childrens Fund to go toward the Circle Preschool Program of SCAN, a local nonprofit organization aimed at preventing and treating child abuse. On Monday, the City Council is scheduled to vote to allocate $25,000 to the Richmond Imagination Library, a chapter of Dolly Partons nonprofit organization that provides free books to young people. Last month, a full-time early childhood specialist was hired to help guide the city in child care investments. The Richmond Public School system is also applying for Head Start and Early Head Start grants to increase the number of available child care slots. If Richmond Public Schools chose to increase its requested EHS slots, the city would prioritize a local match in the FY2025 budget process, Snidle said. Other organizations like Thrive Birth to Five are turning to the state and federal government to increase funding as well. Fortunately, this has really elevated the level of concentration and intentionality about early childhood care and the City Council has really committed to making early childhood care happen no matter what, Payes said. Its going to be much slower, but were going to try everything we can. (CNN) Arab and Muslim leaders decried Israeli war crimes in Gaza at a summit in Riyadh where Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a first public meeting. The extraordinary summit, which gathered 57 leaders, demanded that the UN Security Council take a decisive and binding decision to impose a cessation of aggression with fighting deep in Gaza underway between Israel and Hamas. We condemn the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip, the war crimes and the barbaric, brutal and inhumane massacres committed by the colonial occupation government against the Palestinian people, including in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. We demand it be stopped immediately, the final resolution said. The summit rejected the characterization of this war of revenge as [one of] self-defense and demanded the entry of humanitarian aid convoys. Protection from cycles of violence and wars will not be achieved without ending the Israeli occupation we hold Israel, the occupying power responsible for the continuation and aggravation of the conflict as a result of its aggression against human rights, the resolution added. Israel launched its offensive after surprise, cross-border attacks by Hamas left 1,200 people dead and took hostages. The summit marks the first trip by an Iranian leader to Saudi Arabia in 11 years after the two countries restored diplomatic relations in March. Raisi shook hands with Saudi Arabias Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the heir to the Saudi throne and the countrys de facto ruler. Iran is the principal backer of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which has been engaged in daily cross-fire with Israeli forces on Israels northern border with Lebanon. It also backs Yemens Houthi rebels, who have been firing missiles towards Israel, and maintains strong ties with Hamas. Speaking at the summit, Raisi said that all attendees had gathered there on behalf of the Islamic world to save the Palestinians. We have gathered here today to discuss the focus of the Islamic world, which is the Palestinian cause, where weve witnessed the worst crimes in historyToday is a historic day in the heroic defense and support of Al-Aqsa Mosque, he added. In his opening remarks, MBS said the Kingdom categorically rejects the war to which Palestinians are being subjected. This summit is being held under exceptional and painful circumstances, he said. We categorically reject this brutal war that our brothers and sisters are being subjected to in Palestine we renew our demand for an immediate cessation of military operations. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the US bears responsibility for the absence of a political solution as it has the most influence on Israel. Syrias leader also attends Syrian President Bashar al-Assad also attended the summit, a further sign of Syrias rehabilitation among Arab states, following his participation at a regional meeting in May. In his remarks, Assad criticized normalization agreements between Arab countries and Israel. More hands extended by us equals more massacres against us what we have to do to help Palestine is use actual political tools, not rhetorial tools, and that firstly is stopping any political process with the Zionist entity, he said. The remarks by Assad who is also accused of committing war crimes during his countrys civil war may have been swipe against normalization talks between Saudi Arabia and Israel. That dialogue, brokered chiefly by the US, was at an advanced stage when it was scuttled by the eruption of the Hamas-Israel war. Qatars head of state, Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, also criticized the international community for failing to stop war crimes and massacres in Gaza. We wonder how long will the international community continue to treat Israel as if it is above international law, and how long will it be condoned to flout all international laws in its brutal, never-ending war on the countrys indigenous population, said Al Thani. The gas-rich country has brokered indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel over the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, humanitarian aid into the besieged Gaza strip, as well as a possible ceasefire. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Saudi-hosted summit condemns Israel as Iran leader pays rare visit" IN THE NEWS National Zoo's giant pandas fly home from Virginia Two giant pandas and their cub were flown from Dulles International Airport back to China on Wednesday. The animals, which had been at the National Zoo in Washington as part of an exchange agreement, were loaded onto a Boeing 777F dubbed the FedEx Panda Express for the 19-hour flight. Diplomatic tensions between Beijing and multiple Western governments could complicate efforts to bring more giant pandas to American zoos. FIRE: Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Tuesday declared a state of emergency to assist response efforts for wildfires in Madison and Patrick counties. The declaration allows the state to mobilize additional resources and deploy staff and equipment. Virginias fall fire season runs through Nov. 30. Low humidity and windy conditions, along with dry grasses and fallen leaves, combine to create favorable conditions for wildfires to spread quickly. DEAL: The Charlottesville City Council on Monday approved acquiring purchase contracts on about 24 acres of former circus and carnival grounds on the banks of the Rivanna River. The $6 million deal halts plans for a contentious 245-unit apartment building on the site, which is a floodplain. Officials will evaluate how to use the property. BY THE NUMBERS $600 million Fundraising goal of effort launched by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation ahead of the nations 250th birthday celebrations. The campaign will support the foundation's preservation, education and civic engagement work. 5,320 Top speed in miles per hour of a vehicle that will be aboard a rocket launched from Wallops Island in 2025. Australian company Hypersonix recently announced plans for the launch. ODDS AND ENDS WATER: This summer was favorable for species in the Chesapeake Bay, according to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration study. Researchers said the bay had a cooler-than-average summer from June to August. The report used data from the past 20 years, and in addition to cooler temperatures, healthier oxygen levels were found in the bays water. Buoys throughout the bay measure conditions such as temperature, dissolved oxygen and salinity, or how salty the water is. That data is compared to ideal conditions for local species, such as striped bass, oysters and blue crabs. HONORED: A Williamsburg man is was one of 16 innovators inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Robert G. Bryant was a chemist at NASA Langley Research Center. He was recognized for his invention of a compound that can be used in the medical field as an insulating material in devices for heart failure patients. THEY SAID IT In a good faith effort to work with the NAACP, our office underwent an extensive process to fulfill their requests and they just continue to employ political tactics." Macaulay Porter, a spokeswoman for Gov. Glenn Youngkin, about the Virginia NAACP, which Monday said the Youngkin administration lacks clear standards for restoring voting rights to convicted felons who served sentences. That followed the administration's release of more records related to how the state makes decisions. We had hoped for a stronger outcome this evening but are proud of the effort all of our candidates put in to these extremely competitive districts." Dave Rexrode, the chairman of GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkins political action committee, after Tuesday's elections. Democrats secured control of both chambers of the General Assembly. IN THE NEWS Ship headed to New York The USS New York, which was dedicated to victims of 9/11, left Norfolk on Monday to participate in a weeklong Veterans Day celebration. About 20 New York firefighters and police officers were on board. The ship was made with 7.5 tons of steel salvaged from the ruins of the World Trade Center. The firefighting community and the military community are tightly connected woven together, said William Bill Hayes, one of hundreds of firefighters who responded to the World Trade Center after the attacks. CHARGED: Three people were charged with running a sophisticated commercial sex ring in Virginia and other places that catered to well-connected clients such as elected officials and military officers, prosecutors said on Wednesday. Charged in the case with conspiracy to coerce and entice others to travel to engage in illegal sexual activity were Han Hana Lee 41, of Cambridge, Massachusetts; James Lee, 68, of Torrance, California; and Junmyung Lee, 30, of Dedham, Massachusetts. Officials said the ring operated in Massachusetts and eastern Virginia. The Virginian-Pilot and Associated Press contributed to this report. The Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce honored businesses at a recent banquet including: Big Lick Brewing, named small business of the year; Noke Van Co., tagged new small business of the year; Scratch Biscuit, dubbed winner of the peoples choice award for a for-profit company; Chriss Coffee & Custard, which received the peoples choice award for a nonprofit; and Dr Pepper Park, which took home the inspiration award. Health care regulators wrote up LewisGale Medical Center last year for keeping a deceased patients body in an unchilled morgue. But that wasnt the only problem with the care of the patient, an elderly man who had been in hospice before being rushed to the emergency room at the Salem hospital. According to a government report, hours before he succumbed, a nurse left him groaning in pain to go to lunch. The facility staff failed to ensure a patient (Patient #3) received considerate, respectful, compassionate and dignified care, regulators said in the report from September 2022. Hit by findings that it was out of compliance with federal health care standards, a necessity to receive payment from government health insurance programs, LewisGale strengthened its practices to the satisfaction of regulators, ending the matter with no penalties issued. Neither the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services nor the hospital announced the write-up written 13 months ago by investigators, who were with the Virginia Department of Health and working on behalf of the federal agency. The Roanoke Times obtained the report last month while preparing an unrelated story about a future hospital project in Bonsack. The hospital declined to make an official available for an interview. It released a statement saying we strive to always provide compassionate, high quality care and treat people with dignity and respect. In this instance last year we fell short of our standards. LewisGale continued, An action plan was implemented along with monitoring to ensure ongoing compliance. The Virginia Department of Health reviewed our action plan and resurveyed the hospital, finding the hospital to be in substantial compliance. A Roanoke Times investigation identified the individual as 64-year-old Robert Russell King, who was admitted to the hospital suffering from liver cancer and a history of strokes and died within a day. Issues related to arranging cremation delayed the transfer of his body to a funeral home. His corpse remained in the hospital morgue from July 2, 2022, to Sept. 1, 2022, and entered a hastened state of decomposition, the report said. The problem was traced to a malfunction of the body chiller, which went undetected by staff until it broke down completely and allowed the temperature to rise more than 15 degrees above recommended levels, the report said. In 2022 the Medicare and Medicaid programs paid $17 billion to LewisGale Medical Centers parent company, HCA Healthcare Inc. of Tennessee, according to an HCA financial report. There is no indication that any money was withheld over the incident. LewisGale hospital is a major regional provider of care that opened in 1909 and is licensed for 500 beds. At the trailer park in northeast Roanoke where King lived, residents recalled a man they referred to as Rob as a lover of flowers who lived with a dachshund-beagle mix dog named Digger. King had worked for years as an upholsterer, according to Brenda Almond of Salem, his sister. As Kings health declined, he had to give up his dog, which was placed for adoption with the Regional Center for Animal Care and Protection and adopted a short time later. In his final months, King attended a walk-in baptism event at a Roanoke church. A neighbor shared a picture of King in the tank, his red wheelchair at the side, receiving blessings from a microphone-holding minister. Probably one of the first times Ive seen him smile, trailer park resident Austin Mendenhall said. Around this time, the frail King had begun to live in the home of a longtime friend in Salem. On July 1, he collapsed and was taken by ambulance to LewisGale Medical Center, where he was admitted, according to Almond and government records. Doctors had prescribed oxycodone for pain to be given as needed every four hours, according to the Medicare report, which also details his stay as Patient #3. At 9:09 the morning after his admission, he received pain medicine from a nurse and rested for a time, but later complained of pain and was groaning. The nurse told him it was not time for more pain medicine, but that she could bring more when she got back from lunch or, if he could not wait, could contact the doctor. The nurse clocked out for lunch at 11:51 a.m. Midway through the nurses break, at 12:09 p.m., King hit the three-hour mark when he could have received medication again, the report said. Nurses had discretion to give him pain relief as much as an hour early or an hour late. Despite knowing he was in pain before the nurse left for lunch, the nurse, who returned from lunch at 12:27 p.m., did not check on King until 12:56 p.m. He was dead. There was no evidence in the clinical record that any other nurse administered medications during that time, nor was the physician contacted, the report said. Questioned later by investigators about the handling of King, the nurse responded, I should have put the patients needs first. It was inappropriate. The hospital put Kings body in the morgue until there was a determination of who would be responsible for the disposition of the remains, the report said. Kings friend and sister notified the office of Salem Sheriff April Staton they could not afford to pay for final arrangements. In such a case, state law empowers the sheriff to initiate a petition to the court for assistance, but the sheriff did not end up doing so. Kings family, Simpson Funeral Home and Crematory in Roanoke, the Roanoke office of the Virginia Department of Social Services and hospital personnel worked over a number of weeks to arrange for Kings transfer to the funeral home on Sept. 1 for cremation, the sheriffs records showed. In an effort to identify Patient #3, The Roanoke Times obtained a copy of the records by asking if the sheriff had assisted with arrangements for any person who died at LewisGale on July 2, 2022. No part of the Medicare investigative report named King. While the parties were arranging the cremation, his body deteriorated in the morgue. About 10 days before the body was transferred out, a hospital staff member discovered that the body cooler that records show contained Kings body was not chilling, the report said. The staff applied ice and brought in a portable air conditioning unit, while repair personnel began efforts to address the problem, the report said. But an immediate and complete fix proved elusive. More than three weeks after Kings body was removed, Medicare surveyors showed up unannounced to investigate a complaint involving King and to see the morgue. Though no body was present, one thing that jumped out was that the meter on the body cooler read 55 degrees. A body in storage is supposed to be kept at 36 to 39 degrees, the hospital would later acknowledge to investigators. Staff members recounted that there had been a body in the morgue for an extended period and there had been an odor, the report said. Probing for the scope of the breakdown, surveyors asked for a temperature monitoring history for the morgue, a temperature monitoring procedure or clarity on who was in charge of the morgue area. Staff could provide none of that, the report said. Due to the lack of monitoring of the temperature, the facility staff failed to recognize when the cooling system was failing until it became completely non-operational and the temperature significantly exceeded the recommended range. This resulted in the hastening of the decomposition of a patients (Patient #3) remains, the report said. Inspectors also noted dirt on the floor, a dried substance on a metal table and soiled items including instruments and hospital gowns, their report said. Hospital officials responded by implementing a temperature monitoring practice for the morgue body storage cooler and a cleaning regimen, among other steps. The Medicare organization returned a few months later for a follow-up visit, found conditions in good order and closed the matter. No penalties were issued against the facility, said a Medicare spokeswoman who requested to not be identified. Kings ashes sit in a container beside his mothers on the fireplace mantle in Almonds home. There was no funeral or obituary. EDUCATION Morgan Wilson, Hollins University professor of biology, has been honored with the 2023 Libby and Hiter Harris Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award by the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges. Wilson was among six faculty members from the VFIC consortium of schools recognized for their dedication to higher education and student success at a luncheon and awards presentation Nov. 2 in Richmond. A member of the Hollins faculty since 2002, Wilson teaches courses in the biology and environmental studies programs. The Virginia Tech College of Science has named Michelle Olsen its new director of the School of Neuroscience. Olsen was recruited into the school in 2016 from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she had established a National Institutes of Health-funded research program studying astrocytes. She received her undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the University of Southern Oregon in 1999 and her Ph.D. in neurobiology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2005. FINANCIAL Woody Windley became the new chief financial officer of Martinsville-based ValleyStar Credit Union effective Nov. 1. Windley has spent 17 years with Roanoke Valley Community Credit Union as its president and CEO. During the time he was there, RVCCUs assets grew from $23 million to $102 million, added three branches, and participated in two mergers. Windley holds a Bachelor of Science in AccountingInformation Systems from Virginia Tech and has been a licensed Certified Public Accountant in Virginia since 1995. RADFORD In only four semesters, Radford Universitys Wicked Festival has grown from a political science and philosophy classroom project with a little over 30 participants, to a campus-wide event involving more than 400 students and six of the universitys eight colleges. The festival is designed to hone students problem-solving skills, allowing them to not only bring attention to major problems, both worldwide and local, but to try to work out practical ways to solve them. Chapman Rackaway, the chair of Radfords political science department, said the presentations, which allow students to appoint themselves as authorities on specific issues, play a key role in helping students think practically about the problems they choose to work on. You could come up with really infeasible solutions, and say, well, this is the only way to fix it, but its never going to happen, Rackaway said. By grounding them in making something that has a reasonable chance of being done, gives them a constraint that prepares them to take this out into the real world. The festival gets its name from a book, Creating Wicked Students, by Paul Hanstedt. The books conceit is that, to better prepare students for solving large-scale problems, educators should design programs to help students to think of themselves, and present themselves, as an authority on a given subject. The festival was first conceived by two professors in the political science department, Paige Tan and Tay Keong Tan. It was first held in 2021, after a book group at Radford read Hanstedts book. Paige Tan, who handles much of the work of organizing the festival, said that the event has changed the way students work in the classroom as well as in the run-up to the festival. Its really taken the students much further than they were going before, Tan said. They would do a presentation and then go, Oh, I did that, Ill never have to think about it again, but theres something about having to be the authority, about standing up here and having to defend it to every passer-by, that really seems to help students to understand problem-solving, critical thinking and, most of all, confidence. During the fifth Wicked Festival, held Thursday, all three floors of Kyle Hall were taken up by students with poster board presentations, grappling with questions as diverse as U.S.-Saudi relations, racial bias in the U.S. criminal justice system, environmental impacts of the Radford Army Ammunition Plant, and many others. In fact, there were more than 200 presentations given at the festival this semester. Students spent the evening rotating in and out of designated presentation areas, with poster board stands filling rooms and lining the halls of the building to accommodate all of the presenters. When the presentations are over, Tan asks the students to draft policy memos for their proposed solutions, which could be sent to lawmakers and other influential people. This wasnt part of the original festival, but Tan said the students immediately took to it. Thats the cool thing, Tan said. Im asking more of them now, and theyre stepping up for it. Additionally, faculty involvement has grown exponentially since the festival started, from the two professors to 15 working to put on the festival each semester. Tan said that the growth of the festival in such a short time is a testament to its effectiveness and its popularity. Its growing because the faculty like it, and its growing because the students like it, Tan said. Montgomery County Circuit Court Clerk-elect Tiffany Couch announced last week the launch of a new active online service, PermitDirector, which will allow current concealed handgun permit holders the ability to manage processing, payment, and issuance of renewal concealed handgun permits online. The choice to renew online, in person, or by mail is now the choice of the citizen. I understand that citizens now require options when processing their renewals and do not always have the luxury of taking off work to come to the Clerks Office or can afford the time, travel, or expense to mail in their paper renewal application, Couch said in a news release. PermitDirector can be found on the clerks website at: https://www.montva.com/circuitclerk. Couch also announced the start of another new serviced last week to allow citizens and property owners to register to be notified by email when the name that they register is included on a land record document recorded in the clerks office. The property notification site can be found on the clerks secure remote access site at https://montgomeryvalandrecords.org, or it can be accessed at https://logansystems.com/VAPropertyNotification/Description?AgencyId=39. The site allows residents to register their names and be notified by email whenever any document is filed in the office with that name. In addition, it allows people to keep an eye out for family members and receive notification if any documents are filed with their names, according to a news release. The email that is sent when there is a name match will contain the name matched, date of filing, and other identifying information, according to the release. This service will be offered free of charge to those impacted by documents filed in our office, Couch said in the release. While deed fraud has not been an issue in Montgomery County, I understand that fraudulent activity in land record filings is on the rise in Virginia and across the nation. I hope that this new service will act as a deterrent to fraudulent activity in Montgomery County. If there is a fraudulent or otherwise inappropriate filing in our office, we hope that this timely notice to registered users will allow that fraud to be addressed quickly to mitigate any damages. Couch, the countys clerk, is set to become the elected head of the office. Based on unofficial results, she won last weeks race for clerk. The county Electoral Board still has not announced the certified final tally of the election. - The Roanoke Times Neighborhood Connect is a Smart City, Safe City, online tool that helps you communicate with the City of Santa Maria to build a stronger community. It is an easy way to report and track non-emergency issues within the City limits that need repair or attention. You can submit service requests anonymously or enter your name and contact information to be notified when your report has been successfully submitted and to receive replies back from the City providing an update on how your concern is being addressed. To use it, go to www.cityofsantamaria.org/connect. This is a powerful tool, said Mark van de Kamp, the Citys public information manager. "You can use it at your convenience any time of day. Access it in English or Spanish, on your computer, tablet, or cell phone. Just follow the prompts. It's another dynamic way of engaging with our city to take care of issues or concerns." Examples include abandoned vehicles or abandoned shopping carts, potholes, street trees needing attention, homeless encampments, and water waste. There are 13 categories, including many new topics added since Neighborhood Connects launch in June. Each service request is sent directly to the specific department responsible for follow-up. Those who enter their email address will receive updates about the status up to and including completion. "You'll receive an automatically generated email acknowledging that we received it, and it is assigned to a department for follow-up," van de Kamp said. "Within a reasonable amount of time, sometimes the same day or more likely within a few days, you will receive updates within the system about the status of your report. In addition to tracking the status of your report, Neighborhood Connect allows you and others to view other reports in your neighborhood and across the community and identify what the City has done to resolve them. Reports appear in different colors on the Citywide map. New reports are colored red, orange pins indicate we received the report and assigned it, yellow pins are in progress, and green pins mean the issue has been resolved. Neighborhood Connect represents the Smart City, Safe City vision of providing easy access to help keep our community safe. This tool is designed to help our City track and identify trends, and to improve overall customer service. "We are responsive to your needs, van de Kamp said. Our residents deserve the best. We believe in being transparent. We want to hear from you and solve problems. Its what we do. As Santa Maria grows, so does the need for fast and reliable services for our residents. Neighborhood Connect is one component of our Smart City, Safe City vision, meets that need, and improves your quality of life. FLORENCE, S.C. Duke Energy employees Wednesday gathered at Help 4 Kids in Florence to pack 600 food bags and drop off a $10,000 donation to the organization which help to ensure children have enough food to get them through the weekend between school meals. Duke Energy has a month-long focus on feeding programs. We wanted to highlight the feeding needs across the state of South Carolina, said Mindy Taylor, director of government and community relations for the utility. The Duke Energy squad, following a safety briefing, arranged themselves along three production lines and started filling bags, then cases and then pallets. Several Duke employees were corralled to work pre-production tasks like making sure there were tubs or pudding and Vienna sausages for the assembly process. Two hours had been allocated for the 600 bags but Taylor said she doubted it would take that long. Toward that end, lunch orders were being taken 20 minutes into the effort. Taylor said the utility and its employees want to highlight the food needs of the state. Theres about 500,000 South Carolinians who dont have access to high quality meals on a consistent basis. One in eight of those are children. This is a worthy organization and one were proud to support, Taylor said. Our Duke Energy employees are hard workers and love giving back to the community. They have a real heart for that so thats how we got this great group of people here this morning who not only pack bags but the duke energy foundation gave Help 4 Kids a $10,000 donation. We want to put our money where our mouth is. We feel like were investing in the community and this is a worthwhile organization to support, Taylor said. Nutrition is so important, particularly for children. Thats why were here today to support Help 4 Kids, not only with our money but with our time and talent, Taylor said. They volunteer for this and so many other organizations in the community. They have a heart for giving. Taylor said the utility had stepped up for several organizations earlier in the month and planned similar activities throughout November. HARTSVILLE, S.C. With the sun shining and a breeze blowing, city officials, citizens and students took to the streets of south Hartsville Thursday morning for a Fall Community Clean-up effort. Organized by the City of Hartsville and the Citizens for a Better Hartsville, the volunteers met at Pride Park and worked in small groups to pick up trash and debris off the streets of nearby communities. Finishing at noon, they returned to the park and enjoyed a meal on the grounds. This was something that was originally planned for earlier this year, but was postponed, said Hartsville Planning and Zone Manager Brenda Kelly. We are happy with the turnout and thankful to all those who came out. Among those participating was Hartsville Mayor Casey Hancock, City Manager Daniel Moore, and City Councilman Kenzie DeLaine. A large group of students from Butler Academy also participated. The Rev. Rev. J.D. Blue from nearby Second Baptist Church joined in on the clean-up. This is important to our community, said Blue. Kelly said another cleanup will be planned soon. FLORENCE, S.C. Employees and family members of Ruiz Foods in Florence will have a much easier time taking care of their health care needs beginning this week. Officials with the frozen foods manufacturing plant Thursday joined with Florence and state officials to hold a ribbon-cutting celebration for the plants new on-site health care center. The clinic will officially opened its doors to the plants 1,200 employees and their family members Monday. We couldnt be more excited, Kim Ruiz Beck, chairwoman of the Ruiz Foods board of directors and daughter of the co-founder of the company, Fred Ruiz. We will be able to provide on-site health care for our team members and their families here in Florence. We just want our team members to know we are here to help them stay healthy, keep their families healthy, and help them prioritize their time with their loved ones. She said the facility and the convenience it will offer its team members is game-changing. The 2-000 square-foot center will provide insured employees and covered family members with primary and acute care. It will also have a pharmacy to provide certain medications. She said there will be no co-pays or costs for services. The center will also offer telehealth to give patients a chance to interact with a medical professional during non-business hours and weekends. Across the country, we see and hear calls for higher-quality health care thats easier to access at lower costs, Beck said. I can tell you, this is a desire for our team members across the country. The Florence plant is the companys first on-site health care center. It recently opened an off-site center at its plant in Dennison, Texas. There are plans to move the Texas center on site and its Tulare, Calif. plant will get an on-site center. The Florence plants health care center will be operated by Oklahoma-based CareATC. It will be staffed with a physician, a nurse practitioner, and two medical assistants and will be Monday through Friday operation. Walk-ins are welcome, but the staff said appointments are preferred. Among the attendees at Thursdays grand opening were S.C. Rep. Robert Williams, S.C. Sen. Kent Williams, Florence County Economic Development Partnership CEO Greg Robinson and Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce President Mike Miller. Following the ribbon cutting attendees were given a chance to tour the facility, During the ceremony, Ruiz Beck presented the McLeod Health Foundation with a check for $15,000 on behalf of Ruiz Foods. (CNN) Three newborn babies have died in Gazas largest hospital after it went out of service amid intense fighting in the area, according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, who say the facility is under siege from Israeli forces. The Israeli army has denied the hospital is under siege and told CNN there is no shooting at the hospital. Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, Director-General of the health ministry, told CNN two of the babies at Al-Shifa Hospital died overnight Friday into Saturday after a shell struck nearby, shutting off the generator which had been powering incubators in the neonatal ward. Another died on Saturday morning. Doctors are now being forced to carry out artificial respiration by hand on the 36 other babies they are caring for, Al-Bursh said. Doctors have covered the babies with soft lining and blankets as part of this effort. Ministry spokesman Dr. Ashraf al-Qidra said he was trapped inside the complex in northern Gaza, saying it was out of service after repeatedly being targeted by Israeli fire. The intensive care unit, pediatric department, and oxygen devices have stopped working, al-Qidra said. Medical charity Doctors Without Borders said it could not contact any of its staff at Al-Shifa Hospital who had described a catastrophic situation inside. In a statement Saturday, the organization said ambulances can no longer move to collect the injured, and non-stop bombardment prevents patients and staff from evacuating. The Israeli army told CNN it was engaged in ongoing intense fighting against Hamas in the vicinity of the hospital, but refused to comment further on its forces proximity to the complex because military activity was still underway. Israel has accused the Hamas militants that run Gaza of using hospitals as cover. In a separate statement, the Israeli army told CNN, it would coordinate with anyone who wants to leave safely. Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an army spokesperson, said the Israeli military will also help evacuate babies from the hospitals pediatric unit on Sunday and move them to a safer hospital. Israel has been stepping up its offensive inside Gaza as part of its response to the surprise Hamas attacks that left 1,200 people dead. Since then, Israel has been bombarding and blockading Gaza, an already impoverished and densely packed territory, leaving more than 11,000 people dead, according to Palestinian health officials. The assault has sparked escalating warnings about healthcare in Gaza. The Director General for the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), Robert Mardini, said the organization was shocked and appalled by the images and reports coming from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza. The unbearably desperate situation for patients & staff trapped inside must stop. Now, Mardini said in a post on X. Staff and patients trapped Al-Bursh said Al-Shifa Hospital was under complete siege with staff and patients unable to evacuate. There are still more than 400 people being treated at the hospital and around 20,000 displaced people seeking shelter in the hospital complex, according to Al-Bursh. He told CNN there were more than 100 bodies wrapped in blankets on the ground within the hospital complex. We cant bury them, he told CNN by phone. The sound of explosions could be heard as he spoke. CNN is unable to verify the number of dead at Al-Shifa Hospital. Freelance journalist Mustafa Sarsour, who is based at the hospital, told CNN the conditions inside are terrible. The situation is very difficult and dire. After a slowdown in shelling this afternoon, the shelling and gun fire resumed, heavily targeting anything that moves, Sarsour said, adding that medics inside the facility were working by candlelight and that food is growing scarce for both doctors and patients. Al-Bursh said people who had been injured were instead being transported to the Al-Ahli Hospital as Al-Shifa was inaccessible. Humanitarian agencies have been sounding the alarm about the situation at Al-Shifa Hospital. Angelita Caredda, the Norwegian Refugee Councils Middle East director, said in a statement that the group was horrified by reports of relentless attacks on Gazas hospitals. Patients, including babies, and civilians seeking relief are trapped under attack. It is an affront to wage war around and on hospitals, she said. Other hospitals have been caught up in the fighting. On Friday the director of two facilities said Israeli tanks had them encircled. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Three babies die as Israel besieges Gazas largest hospital, health officials say" LE MARS, Iowa At 1:30 p.m., Saturday, on the first-floor of the Plymouth County Historical Museum (335 First Ave. SW, Le Mars) the Northwest Iowa Genealogical Society is holding an event about the history of Hinton, Iowa. Guest speaker Justin Herbst, whose family first settled in Plymouth County in 1856, will give the talk which will include vintage photos a historic cabin and notes on the Winter store that later became the Trading Post at the Plymouth County Fair. "Though he grew up in rural Merrill, his maternal roots are in Hinton. So, he is sure to share details of the historical connections between the two towns," the Northwest Iowa Genealogical Society said in a release. The event's free and open to the public. DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back Saturday against growing international calls for a cease-fire, saying Israels battle to crush Gazas ruling Hamas militants will continue with full force. A cease-fire would be possible only if all 239 hostages held by militants in Gaza are released, Netanyahu said in a televised address. The Israeli leader also insisted that after the war, now entering its sixth week, Gaza would be demilitarized and Israel would retain security control there. Asked what he meant by security control, Netanyahu said Israeli forces must be able to enter Gaza freely to hunt down militants. He also rejected the idea that the Palestinian Authority, which currently administers autonomous areas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would at some stage control Gaza. Both positions run counter to post-war scenarios floated by Israels closest ally, the United States. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the U.S. opposes an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza and envisions a unified Palestinian government in both Gaza and the West Bank at some stage as a step toward Palestinian statehood. For now, Netanyahu said, the war against (Hamas) is advancing with full force, and it has one goal, to win. There is no alternative to victory. Get the full story here: Photos: Scenes of protest in Israel over Netanyahu's judicial overhaul plan Nearly 250 rodents transferred to the Humane Society of Southern Arizona that were intended for adoption were instead fed to snakes and reptiles, according to an initial finding in a probe by the agency and the San Diego Humane Society. The two organizations, whove been embroiled in a back-and-forth about the fate of the animals since September, jointly addressed the outcome of the small pets in a news release Thursday. The saga began in August when the Humane Society in Tucson received a transfer of 323 animals from its San Diego-based counterpart. The same day the animals arrived, they were transferred to Colten Jones in Apache Junction, the report says. About 60 of the animals were eventually returned by Jones to the humane society. However, activists in both San Diego and Tucson pressured both organizations to find out what became of the other 250 small animals that remained in Jones possession. The fallout eventually led the Humane Society of Southern Arizona to fire CEO Steve Farley; Christian Gonzalez, its chief programs officer, resigned. Both agencies announced they were hiring a third party to investigate. That led to an uncovered text message from Jones who, after having received the animals, sought assistance in processing a large number of guinea pigs and rabbits for reptile feed a day after receiving them, the initial report says. The investigation confirmed Jones operates The Fertile Turtle, a reptile breeding company known for selling both live and frozen animals for reptile consumption. Both groups are committed to pursuing legal action in the incident, the news release says. It was not clear in the news release on what grounds legal action would be pursued. The organizations also expressed deep sorrow for the animals and the communitys concern. A final report is expected in December. DES MOINES In 2021, school board elections in Iowa and across the country swung toward candidates who opposed pandemic-era restrictions on schools, including closures and mask mandates. Two years later, that pendulum swung in the opposite direction as candidates who supported restrictions on school materials and classroom discussions about gender and transgender students were roundly defeated earlier this week in school board elections in Iowa and in the nation. School board elections in the Linn-Mar, Ankeny and Johnston school districts in Iowa, just to name a few, went almost exclusively for candidates who were supported by the teachers union and who opposed those book-policing and transgender student policies. And almost exclusively, candidates who were endorsed by conservative groups, including the self-described parents rights advocacy group Moms for Liberty, failed. While Iowa Republicans caution against drawing broad conclusions about conservative K-12 education policies from Tuesdays elections, experts said the results spoke clearly. I think the only way to read the school board elections from Tuesday is a repudiation of Moms for Liberty. They were defeated pretty handily, just about everywhere, said David Anderson, a political-science professor at Iowa State University. And it suggests to me that Iowans have had their fill of the culture wars being brought to our schools. School board elections in Iowa are non-partisan affairs. The candidates who run for the unpaid positions do not declare allegiance to a political party. In practice, however, many school board elections in recent years have featured the political divides of Democrat vs. Republican or liberal vs. conservative that are common to other areas of government. And increasingly, political groups and issue advocacy organizations are engaging in school board elections. The election results Among the litany of school board elections across Iowa where conservative-leaning candidates were nearly or entirely swept: In Linn-Mar, where a policy no longer enforced included a gender support plan for students drew the ire of Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and even Republican former Vice President Mike Pence during his since-halted presidential campaign, voters reelected two incumbents while none of the three candidates endorsed by Moms for Liberty was elected to the four open board seats. In Ankeny, where backlash to pandemic-era school closures brought in a wave of conservative candidates two years ago including one endorsed by Reynolds, in a rare move by a sitting governor to endorse in a school board election voters elected four progressive candidates. Only one of the candidates supported by Republican fundraising won one of the Ankeny boards five open seats. In Johnston where a debate exploded over an effort to form a student chapter of Turning Point USA, a right-wing group with a history of Christian nationalism four candidates endorsed or supported by Moms for Liberty and other conservative groups failed to win any of the four open seats. Instead, four progressive candidates two incumbents and two newcomers earned the most votes. There were similar results throughout Iowa. In Cedar Rapids, the same electorate that resoundingly rejected the school districts $220 million bond referendum also reelected three out of four incumbents, while two Moms for Liberty-endorsed candidates were defeated. In Carroll County, which went for Republican President Donald Trump by 63 percent in 2020, three candidates supported by a Republican state legislator failed to win any of the three open seats. Advocacy groups react Results of (Tuesdays) elections demonstrate that voters spoke loudly and clearly about who they want to make crucial decisions affecting all students and educators in their local communities, Mike Beranek, president of the statewide teachers union, the Iowa State Education Association, said in a statement. Beranek said more than 85 percent of union-endorsed candidates won school board seats in the elections. And equally important, we saw the total defeat in the districts where we engaged of the Moms for Liberty candidates and their divisive agenda representing a vocal minority, Beranek said in the statement. Moms for Liberty, which has chapters across the country, emerged on the political scene in 2021 as some parents pushed back against pandemic restrictions in public schools. The group has since expanded to opposing books and curriculum that reference race and gender identity, and transgender-affirming school policies. The organization has drawn backlash for spreading anti-LGBTQ ideas and stripping libraries and classrooms of diverse material. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights watchdog, this year identified the nationwide nonprofit as an extremist group. In a statement emailed to The Gazette, the leader of the Linn County Chapter of Moms for Liberty, Geralyn Jones, said the organization is not angry with the elections results and welcomed the candidates who were elected. Make no mistake, we are not angry with the results of the election. We supported parents when they stepped into this ring of fire and we will continue to support the parents, teachers, students and community member alike in years ahead, Jones said. It is my hope that one day a bridge will be built in our community, one that doesnt require reaching deep into the pockets of our taxpayers. In her statement, Jones also said Moms for Liberty members experienced hatefulness during the campaign and accused the news media of not displaying neutrality or reporting truth. It saddens me to be on the receiving end of this hateful divide in our community, Jones said. Our chapter has experienced nothing but hatefulness this whole election, telling us that our moms, dads and grandparents are unwanted in our community and to leave the district because of our beliefs, yet were the ones being labeled an extremist hate group. One Iowa Action, the political arm of an advocacy group for LGBTQ individuals, said 85 percent of the school board candidates in Iowa that it endorsed won a seat. Iowa voters told us what weve always known. We know that book bans and censorship violate the principles of free speech. We know that extreme positions targeting children for exclusion and bullying are unacceptable. Most importantly, we know that kids deserve a safe, inclusive learning environment regardless of who they are or where they come from, Courtney Reyes, executive director for One Iowa Action, said in a statement. Thats what this election was about, and thats the undeniable message that they sent to politicians across our state and across the country. Iowa Republicans react New state laws passed earlier this year in Iowa with only Republican support require the removal of any books or curriculum that describe sex acts, prohibit the teaching of sexual orientation or gender identity through sixth grade and prohibit transgender K-12 students from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity. Statehouse Republicans insist Tuesdays election results are not a rejection of those policies. They point to Republicans recent, resounding victories in Iowas general elections, and some public polling that shows a majority of Iowans agree with some of those policies. Iowa Republicans also suggest the results do not speak to any larger issues because far fewer people vote in school board elections. Melissa Daetsch, a spokeswoman for Republican legislators in the Iowa House, called such a conclusion quite an oversimplification of Iowans position on K-12 policies. Iowa House Republicans have been running on a pro-parent agenda for years and we expanded our majority in both the 2020 and 2022 elections, Daetsch said. I dont think you can claim that Iowans have suddenly changed their minds by using a handful of races in the Des Moines metro, Cedar Rapids and Iowa City in a low-turnout election. These are areas where liberals were already winning. A majority of Iowans say public schools should not teach about gender identity or sexual orientation through sixth grade, according to a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll published in March. U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, a Marion Republican whose children attend school in the Linn-Mar district, also pushed back at the conclusion that Tuesdays election results were a rejection of those new K-12 policies. Hinson added that as a parent in the Linn-Mar district, Ill be watching that school board very closely. Let me be very clear, I support our public school system. Im a product of public schools. My mom was a public school teacher, Hinson told The Gazette. What Ive been very clear on is that its critical that parents are empowered and that theyre involved when it comes to their kids education. Republican Party of Iowa Chair Jeff Kaufmann issued a statement, also pointing to the partys recent electoral success in the Iowa Legislature, governors office and Congress. Iowa has had a Republican governor since 2011, majorities in both chambers of the Iowa Legislature since 2017, and currently occupies all six seats in the states congressional delegation. Iowa Democrats shouldnt get giddy spinning yesterdays results. They are still a super minority in this state and will be as long as they continue to defend (Democratic President) Joe Biden, Kaufmann said. Republicans parents matter-focused agenda won resoundingly with Gov. Reynolds winning by 19 points and historic majorities in the Legislature. Voters on education issues Anderson, the ISU political science professor, cautioned against dismissing the implications of Tuesdays school board elections just because Iowa Republicans have been successful in other recent elections. The school board elections distill down to whats going on in the schools. State legislative elections are about a whole host of other things as well, Anderson said. I understand their claim that says, Yeah, we campaigned on this, and we won. But they also campaigned on a host of other things, and voters are making compromises, voters are making choices. And when it comes to the state Legislature, they may have cared about other things more. Elections are about things, and every election is about something different. And you know, voters arent dumb. They know the difference between what a school board does and what a state Legislature does. With consecutive wave elections in the opposite direction, Anderson said it is possible that school board elections will be less partisan again starting in 2025. Iowans want our teachers to feel supported, that we respect what they do, and we trust them, Anderson said. And that they would sort of like to get back to normal. Tom Barton of The Gazettes Des Moines Bureau contributed to this report. Event information - Upcoming talks in Italy Posted on 12 November 2023 by BaerbelW Here is a quick heads-up about a series of upcoming climate events in Italy where John Cook will be involved courtesy of CMCC, the Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici. Some of the events will be live-streamed so all are welcome to watch online - or even better, attend in person. Here are the details for the public events: Wednesday, November 15 from 16:00 - 18:00 (CET) Public event titled "Climate, news and fake news. Navigating the climate crisis between science and information." in Rome hosted by WWF Italy which will be live-streamed in English and Italian. Details are available on the event page where you can also register for on-site or virtual participation. Thursday, November 16 from 15:00 to 17:30 (CET) John will be on a panel in Florence about climate misinformation at the CMCC Climate Communication Awards "Rebecca Ballestra" Ceremony. The event will be live-streamed in English and Italian and you can register on their website to join on premise or via Zoom. Friday, November 17 John will be speaking at and take part in a break-out discussion about climate misinformation at the annual conference of the European Media and Information Fund (EMIF) in Florence at the European University Institute campus. You can find the event details here. Saturday, November 18 John will be participating in a panel in Milan on "Media, nature and the climate debate" with a number of editors of Italian newspapers and TV channels. You can find more information on the website for the event. Care and Feeding is Slates parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here or post it in the Slate Parenting Facebook group. Dear Care and Feeding, My 11-year-old son has been spending a lot of time playing Minecraft with online friends. They talk (I can hear everything they say, mostly silly preteen jokes) and text, and I looked at his chat screen. I read, Please dont say anything out loud. My mom doesnt know Im gay. I asked my kid why he wrote that. He said it was a joke. Then he said his account was hacked. Then he said his best friend is gay. Im shocked. His dad and I have no problem if hes gay, and he knows it. Do I give him space? I dont want to out him (if thats whats up), but I hate that he cant talk to me. My love and feelings for him are not affected at all by whether hes gay, and I want to respect his privacy. Still, Im hurt. Prying Mom Dear PM, Hard as it can be to accept this, those first steps out of the closet are about him and not his parents. I dont think you should be hurt by this because I dont think it involves you! Advertisement Advertisement Its possible that your son was joking. It is a dumb joke, but what do you expect from an 11-year-old? His embarrassment and evasiveness might have had to do with being caught in his dumb joke and nothing to do with hiding the deeper truth about himself. Its also possible that he was genuinely coming out to his friendsin which case he was talking to them, not to you. Hard as it can be to accept this, those first steps out of the closet are about him and not his parents. Advertisement We cant know if this is a joke or not. We also cant know if your son truly knows that youre accepting and loving, come what mayor if thats enough reassurance for a kid. Youre his parents, but youre not his world, and that can still be a scary place. I think you should give him his space. Advertisement Feel free to remind him of your love loudly and vocally, but dont do so in a way that raises the question of his identity because you dont know anything about that, really, not yet. Its possible he doesnt either. Good luck! Advertisement Advertisement Dear Care and Feeding, My teens friends are having in-house get-togethers at one of the childs homes (group of three to four kids). I told my child that they were not allowed to go, since we do not know the people in the house or whom the other children have been exposed to. Weve done our best to stay at home, only going out to get food, so we have limited riskbut we could still have been exposed and possibly expose them to something. Advertisement How do I deal with being the bad parent of the group, since Im the one that says no? How do I not dislike people now and in the future for making what I feel are poor choices? I also have family members who have made decisions that I question because it puts themselves and others at risk. I struggle with not wanting to talk to or interact with any of these people in the future because of their choices. Rule Follower Dear RF, I dont think youre looking for confirmation, but I think you did the right thing. Our responsibility in this moment is a serious one, and in the big scheme of things what is required of us is a small sacrifice. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Theres no need to feel youre being the bad parent of the group because youre being responsible. I dont expect a teen to understand that, but that doesnt make it any less true. We have been given little guidance from the government, and still less assistance. But quarantine or otherwise, one of the few truths in life is that you cant control others behavior, only your own. I think you should continue to do what you know to be right, and try not to be preoccupied with the choices made by family and friends. It will require magnanimity at first, though hopefully over time it will feel liberating. This moment is challenging enough without having to negotiate your own emotions about others choices. Keep yourself and your immediate family safe, and follow the rules you establish for yourself. In the meantime, continue to hope that there is a day in which this will all seem distant and hard to believe. Good luck. Advertisement Slate needs your support right now. Sign up for Slate Plus to keep reading the advice you crave every week. Dear Care and Feeding, I struck the in-laws jackpot by almost every conceivable metric. They share a mutual adoration of our 3-year-old son and help with child care a lot. The issue is that, like with many grandparents, theyre not great with setting limits. My son gets way more snacks, sweets, and screen time at their house. Advertisement Advertisement Im pregnant, and pre-COVID they watched him one day a week and, as I got into my second trimester, a few hours on Saturday so I could rest and do baby prep tasks. (My husband has to work on the weekends.) Now that day care is closed and Im working from home nine months pregnant, they have him four to five days per week. Advertisement Advertisement He was progressing pretty well with potty training while in day care, but hes had a major backslide and mostly refuses to use the potty. If he says he doesnt want to, my in-laws wont push it. We used to feel like the parents should do the hard stuff and it was OK for the grandparents to spoil him a bit. But now that they are our child care solution for the foreseeable future (were in a hard-hit COVID state and will have a newborn soon), were not sure what to do. Weve talked to them in the past about things (less screen time, fewer processed foods), and they say they understand, but cave as soon as their precious grandchild protests. My husband and I are torn between being grateful that we have child care help and worried about the lack of structure and limits. Should we try to address these issues with my in-laws again? If so, any recommendations on how to do so effectively? I have some friends who would kill for even 30 minutes of child care help right now. Lucky Mom Dear Lucky Mom, Advertisement Advertisement The toughest thing to me about the tough spot were in is that we dont know how long well be here. Will schools and day cares reopen in the summer, the fall, in 2021, or later? Knowing that would inform every decision we make in the interim, but we cannot know that. So here we are. Im among those who would kill for even 30 minutes of child care help, and I fully understand how impossible it is to bring work and life into balance under these circumstances. However lucky you are to have the help of your in-laws, you have a lot to deal withand youre about to have another baby! Congrats. I hope this turns out to be one of those magical, maybe mythical babies who loves to sleep and rarely makes a fuss. Advertisement Advertisement But lets be realistic. Youre in for quite a few months of less sleep and more stress. I think its time to pick your battles carefully! It sounds like your in-laws are receptive to honoring your parenting style but unable to in the face of their beloved grandsons adorable charms. Thats common, and, as you say, in some ways thats what is so great about the grandparent-grandkid relationship. Advertisement Advertisement It sounds like you have a wonderful relationship with them, so unless you think it might offend them, maybe have one further talk, and come prepared! Talk about how this arrangement, which was meant to be a casual, fun thing, is now a big part of life, and it would be a help to you, especially in your postpartum state, if there were a couple of adjustments! Convey your gratitude, then hand over some games and even new toys they might break out as an alternative to screen time. Suggest some snack options that might be more in line with what youd like, and offer to provide themhe could pack a lunch just as he might at school. Advertisement The one issue I think you should push on is the potty. Gently communicate how difficult it is to change two sets of diapers; you can tell them how important it is to have a consistent message as he masters this skill. Give them tangible tips and strategies for how youre handling training, prepare yourself for the possibility of some regression when hes promoted from only kid to big brother, take a deep breath, and remember that no kids goes off to college without having mastered going to the potty himself. Then I think you should not discuss this any further! Your in-laws will either serve up the carrot sticks or the potato chips; theyll either play a round of Uno or turn on Sesame Street. Your son is safe and loved and out of your hair for a few hours a day, so just enjoy that. Good luck! Advertisement Advertisement If you missed Mondays Care and Feeding column, read it here. Discuss this column in the Slate Parenting Facebook group! Dear Care and Feeding, My sister (whom Im very close to but dont live near) just had a baby. Our mom is in her 70s and has COPD and therefore is high-risk for COVID, so my siblings and I had agreed to stick strictly to the social distancing guidelines with her, and that she would not go and visit the new grandkid when it was born (or any existing grandkids!). In the few days since delivery, my sister has had a rough time of it, with postpartum anxiety and insomnia. I empathize, as I was in exactly the same position a few months ago when my daughter was born, and I did have my mom come for a few days after the delivery. Today my sister cracked and, without consulting the other siblings, asked our mom to come and help out, which she did, right away. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Im upset and riddled with anxiety about this. In a couple of weeks, I wouldnt have minded, but my sister and her partner have just been in a hospital in close contact with people who could potentially be carriers of the virus. The only thing that is stopping me from absolutely freaking out is that my mum was sick a few weeks ago and we think it was probably COVID, although with the lack of testing we dont know for sure. Am I wrong to be upset about this? What can I do or say? I also dont want to upset my sister more in her fragile state, and at this point the damage has largely been done. I hate this virus for putting us all in these terrible positions. Postpartum Panic Dear Postpartum Panic, Advertisement Advertisement I share your frustration with the terrible positions we now find ourselves in. Nevertheless, here we are. Your sister, in a vulnerable moment, broke an agreement youd made, and that was irresponsible, though surely your mother bears some of the responsibility there. Its an impossible situationyour sister needed her mom, and your mom wanted to help. At any rate, what is done is done, as you say, and your feelings wont change that. The anxiety is difficult to manage, but the anger is comparatively easy to let go. Remember how you felt in those early days after your own kids arrival, remember your own good luck at being able to call in the reinforcements, and remember that were all only human and doing the best we can. Advertisement Please do what you can, from a distance, to be supportive of your sister, even if its doing something as simple as leaving groceries at her doorstep. And do what you can to help your mother be more vigilant. Remind her of the gravity of the situation. Perhaps consult with her physician about this specific exposure to your sister, fresh from the hospital, and see what is recommendedwhether that means daily temperature checks or increased vigilance about her health. As for your own mental health: Try to focus on the tangible fact of your moms health in this moment, rather than your abstract fright that she might get ill. And remember that even if people do get sick, it can be difficult to isolate the moment of infection. I hope she will be fine, but if she is not, do not think of this as being anyones fault. Advertisement Im sorry this happened and sorrier still that were in this spot. Try to find mercy for your sister and productively channel your concern for your mother. Good luck. Rumaan More Advice From Slate My fiance moved in with my parents and me last year. He has a 2-year-old son whom Ive taken on as my own and plan on adopting as soon as were married. Our living situation is unique, but it works for us. Heres the problem. We have chosen to limit certain things when it comes to our 2-year-old. We dont want him watching much TV at all. We DO NOT want him playing with a cellphone or a tablet, period. My parents do not listen to us at all. What should I do? If you buy something through our links, we may earn money from our affiliate partners. Learn more. Self-employed individuals often have unique tax requirements that can be overwhelming to manage during tax season. Fortunately, tax software can help you understand how to file self-employment taxes and make the process easier by streamlining the filing process and providing guidance on available deductions and 1099 rules. In this article, youll discover several tax software options that stand out as the best for self-employed people, offering a combination of user-friendliness, affordability, and robust features. What is tax software? Tax software is an essential tool for individuals, especially small business owners and self-employed professionals, to manage their tax affairs efficiently. In general, the best tax software for small business is designed to make tax preparation easier and more efficient. Heres an overview of what tax software is and what it offers for small businesses: Digital Tax Assistance : Tax software is a digital program that significantly simplifies the tax filing process. Its designed to assist users in calculating, preparing, and submitting their tax returns accurately and efficiently. : Tax software is a digital program that significantly simplifies the tax filing process. Its designed to assist users in calculating, preparing, and submitting their tax returns accurately and efficiently. Maximizes Deductions : One of the primary advantages of using tax software is its ability to help taxpayers identify and claim all the deductions and credits theyre eligible for. This feature ensures that users dont miss out on potential savings. : One of the primary advantages of using tax software is its ability to help taxpayers identify and claim all the deductions and credits theyre eligible for. This feature ensures that users dont miss out on potential savings. Cost-Effective Solution : By using tax software, individuals and small businesses can avoid the higher costs associated with hiring a professional accountant or purchasing expensive tax preparation tools. : By using tax software, individuals and small businesses can avoid the higher costs associated with hiring a professional accountant or purchasing expensive tax preparation tools. User-Friendly Interface : Most tax software programs come with a user-friendly interface, making it easy for individuals without a background in finance or tax law to navigate the complexities of tax preparation. : Most tax software programs come with a user-friendly interface, making it easy for individuals without a background in finance or tax law to navigate the complexities of tax preparation. Time-Saving Features : These programs often include features like the ability to import previous years tax information, auto-fill forms with financial data, and more, which can save a considerable amount of time. : These programs often include features like the ability to import previous years tax information, auto-fill forms with financial data, and more, which can save a considerable amount of time. Accuracy and Compliance : Tax software is regularly updated to reflect the latest tax laws and regulations, ensuring compliance and reducing the risk of errors that can lead to audits or penalties. : Tax software is regularly updated to reflect the latest tax laws and regulations, ensuring compliance and reducing the risk of errors that can lead to audits or penalties. Audit Support : Many tax software programs offer audit support, providing guidance on what to do if youre audited by the IRS. : Many tax software programs offer audit support, providing guidance on what to do if youre audited by the IRS. Electronic Filing : The ability to e-file tax returns directly through the software streamlines the submission process and often leads to faster processing of refunds. : The ability to e-file tax returns directly through the software streamlines the submission process and often leads to faster processing of refunds. Tailored for Specific Needs : The best tax software for small businesses is specifically designed to address the unique tax situations and challenges faced by small business owners, including handling self-employment income, tracking business expenses, and more. : The best tax software for small businesses is specifically designed to address the unique tax situations and challenges faced by small business owners, including handling self-employment income, tracking business expenses, and more. Additional Resources: Many tax software options also provide additional resources such as access to tax professionals, educational content about tax laws and financial planning, and tools for tracking and organizing receipts and expenses throughout the year. In summary, tax software is a valuable resource for simplifying and optimizing the tax filing process, offering a range of tools and features tailored to the needs of individuals and small business owners. Drive Traffic to Your Website Sell Your Business Discover the Zoho Ecosystem Advertise Your Business Here Why should you consider self-employed accounting software? Self-employed accounting software offers many advantages for business owners in 2023. Here are five reasons why you should use tax software: Streamlines tax filing: Self-employed accounting software automates the tax filing process, reducing errors and saving time so you can focus more on your fun self-employed jobs. Self-employed accounting software automates the tax filing process, reducing errors and saving time so you can focus more on your fun self-employed jobs. Organizes income and expenses: The software categorizes income and expenses, helping you track cash flow and identify tax deductions. The software categorizes income and expenses, helping you track cash flow and identify tax deductions. Offers real-time financial insights: Self-employed accounting software provides real-time financial insights, enabling you to make informed decisions. Self-employed accounting software provides real-time financial insights, enabling you to make informed decisions. Provides data security: The software securely stores your financial data, protecting you from potential data breaches or losses. The software securely stores your financial data, protecting you from potential data breaches or losses. Affordable and easy to use: Most self-employed accounting software options are affordable and user-friendly, making them accessible to businesses of all sizes. Choosing the Best Tax Software for Self-Employed Individuals: Our Methodology For us, as entrepreneurs and small business owners, finding the right tax software is crucial. Here are the essential factors we considered when compiling our list: Ease of Use and User Interface (Weight: 30%) The software should be intuitive and easy to navigate. Look for user-friendly interfaces that simplify tax filing. Specific Features for Self-Employed (Weight: 25%) Features like income and expense tracking, quarterly tax estimation, and deduction finders are vital. Evaluate if the software caters to the unique needs of self-employment. Accuracy and Compliance (Weight: 20%) The software must be up-to-date with the latest tax laws and regulations. Look for features that guarantee accuracy and compliance. Customer Support and Resources (Weight: 15%) Robust customer support, including access to tax professionals, is beneficial. Assess the availability of educational resources and help options. Cost-Effectiveness (Weight: 10%) Consider the softwares price relative to its features and benefits. Determine if there are additional fees for state filings or professional assistance. By carefully weighing these factors, you can select a tax software that not only meets your specific requirements as a self-employed individual but also provides the best value and support for your tax preparation needs. Small Business Deals Best Self-Employed Tax Software Programs To help you choose the best self-employed tax software program for your business, weve compiled a list of some of the top options available. These programs stand out for their user-friendly interfaces, comprehensive features, and affordability. 1. Turbotax Self Employed TurboTax Self-Employed is a tax solution aimed at independent contractors and freelancers in the United States. With a rating of 4.6/5 from 9,463 reviews, TurboTax Self-Employed offers a range of features, including industry-specific deductions, searching for 500 tax deductions and credits, personalized audit risk assessment, and self-employment tax guidance. The software is also available in Spanish. TurboTax Self-Employed offers step-by-step guidance, allows users to snap and auto-fill their 1099-NEC and 1099-K forms, and syncs with financial accounts to find and categorize work-related deductions. The software costs $119 for a Federal tax return and $59 for State taxes. 2. Quickbooks Self Employed QuickBooks Self-Employed provides small businesses and independent contractors with basic bookkeeping tools to help them get ahead. Features include tracking mileage automatically via GPS, importing expenses from bank accounts, organizing receipts through photo categorization, running built-in reports to analyze business performance, and estimating and filing taxes. The software offers three flexible plans with varying levels of features, including a bundle with Intuit TurboTax Self-Employed that enables direct payment of quarterly estimated taxes and access to real CPAs for advice and help with filing. QuickBooks also automatically syncs all bank and credit card transactions for seamless tracking of income and expenses. 3. H&R Block Self-Employed Online H&R Block offers an online tax filing service, specifically designed for self-employed individuals and small business owners. The service includes features such as personalized guidance, technical support, and expense tracking, as well as easy importing of Uber income and support for reporting cryptocurrency sales. H&R Block offers several guarantees, including a Max Refund Guarantee and an Accuracy Guarantee. The service also provides access to live phone or chat tech support and the ability to digitally organize tax documents for up to six years. It costs $115 plus $45 per state filed. 4. TaxSlayer Self-Employed TaxSlayer offers a tax preparation service for self-employed individuals, including small business owners, contractors, and those with both 1099 and W-2 income. The service costs $59.95 plus state fees and provides support for entering business income and expenses, maximizing deductions, and accessing tax tips and resources. Users also have access to a tax professional with self-employed expertise for more complex tax questions and audit defense for three years. Tax payment reminders are also available to avoid unnecessary fees. TaxSlayer has been in operation for over 50 years and has a 4.4 out of 5 rating on Trustpilot. 5. FreeTaxUSA FreeTaxUSA is a tax preparation software that allows small business owners to prepare and e-file their federal and state taxes. Federal taxes are free while state tax returns are $14.99. The software supports various tax forms and deductions, including self-employed income, rental income, health insurance costs, vehicle expenses, and more. The company earns revenue from optional services and state tax returns. The platform also provides customer support and guarantees that users wont pay extra to file if they are self-employed, own a home, or have investments. FreeTaxUSA has filed over 50 million tax returns securely with the IRS. 6. TaxAct Self-Employed TaxAct Self-Employed offers tax preparation services for freelancers, independent contractors, small business owners, and sole proprietors. They help users take advantage of all tax deductions theyre eligible for and offer year-round support for business and quarterly taxes. TaxAct can import data from TurboTax and H&R Block returns, and their products are easy to use, accurate, and secure. TaxAct Alerts ensures that users avoid errors, omissions, and missed tax-saving opportunities. TaxAct also offers a Maximum Refund Guarantee, Xpert Assist, and a $100K Accuracy Guarantee. Users can access and print prior returns for up to seven years after filing. 7. eSmart Tax Premium eSmart Tax is a tax preparation service that offers its Premium package for $85.95, best suited for small business owners or those with less common forms of income. The package covers self-employment income and related deductions, rental or farming income, and more. eSmart Tax guarantees fast and accurate calculations and promises to reimburse any penalties or interest resulting from miscalculations. It is backed by Liberty Tax and provides features such as audit protection and tax break checks. eSmart Tax guarantees 100% accuracy and promises to provide the biggest tax refund possible or reimburse the tax preparation fees. 8. E-file.com Premium Plus E-file.com offers online tax preparation software that helps people file their income taxes fast, easily, and accurately. Users can signup for a free account, enter their tax info and income figures, and any deductions, and the software will calculate and prepare their returns. E-file.com provides full-featured online tax software at a significant discount to other programs. The Premium Plus E-file is $37.49 plus $22.49 for State with a coupon code. 9. FreshBooks FreshBooks is a user-friendly and top accounting software for self-employed individuals. It makes accounting, invoicing, time tracking, and reporting effortless. The software allows users to automate tasks such as organizing expenses, tracking time, and following up with customers. FreshBooks offers online payment solutions that get users paid 11 days faster, send automated late payment reminders, and allow for the creation of recurring profiles. With FreshBooks, users can easily organize business expenses and track billable hours. 10. Jackson Hewitt Online Jackson Hewitt Online offers online tax filing for a flat fee of $25 with a guarantee of the biggest refund. The service offers step-by-step instructions, live chat support, and automatic error checking. It also provides security features, including two-step identity verification, encrypted data transmission, and alerts for account activity. Jackson Hewitt also provides in-person tax filing services with flexible hours and locations, and a range of guarantees, including a Maximum Refund Guarantee and a Lifetime Accuracy Guarantee. Software Key Features Pricing Unique Offerings TurboTax Self Employed - Industry-specific deductions - 500+ tax deductions and credits - Audit risk assessment $119 Federal, $59 State - Snap and auto-fill 1099 forms - Syncs with financial accounts QuickBooks Self Employed - Mileage tracking via GPS - Import expenses from bank accounts - Organize receipts with photos Varies (Flexible plans) - Bundle with TurboTax for tax filing - Access to CPAs H&R Block Self-Employed - Personalized guidance - Technical support - Cryptocurrency sales reporting $115 plus $45 per state - Digital organization of tax documents for 6 years - Max Refund and Accuracy Guarantees TaxSlayer Self-Employed - Business income and expense entry - Access to tax professionals $59.95 plus state fees - Audit defense for three years - Tax payment reminders FreeTaxUSA - Supports various tax forms and deductions - Free federal tax filing Free Federal, $14.99 State - No extra charge for complex tax situations - Secure filing with the IRS TaxAct Self-Employed - Year-round business and quarterly tax support - Data import from other tax services Varies - $100K Accuracy Guarantee - Xpert Assist - Access and print prior returns for 7 years eSmart Tax Premium - Self-employment income and deductions - Rental or farming income $85.95 - Backed by Liberty Tax - Audit protection and tax break checks E-file.com Premium Plus - Easy, fast online tax preparation $37.49 Federal, $22.49 State with coupon - Significant discount compared to other programs FreshBooks - Accounting, invoicing, time tracking - Automated tasks Varies - Online payment solutions - Faster payment processing Jackson Hewitt Online - Step-by-step instructions - Live chat support - Automatic error checking $25 flat fee - In-person filing options - Maximum Refund and Lifetime Accuracy Guarantees How to Choose the Best Tax Software for the Self Employed Choosing the best tax software for self-employed individuals can be overwhelming. To make it easier, here are four factors to consider when making your decision: Available Tax Forms Not all tax software programs support every tax form, so its important to check if the program youre considering supports the forms you need. Cost Cost is an essential factor when selecting tax software for self-employed individuals. Some programs offer free versions with limited features, while others charge a premium for their services. User-Friendliness Look for a tax software program that is intuitive and user-friendly. The software should offer clear guidance and instructions throughout the tax filing process. Customer Support If youre new to tax filing or require assistance, look for a program that provides adequate customer support. Some programs offer phone support, chat support, or email support, so choose one that fits your needs. Can a self-employed person file their own taxes? Yes, self-employed individuals can file their own taxes using tax software or paper forms. However, its important to have a good understanding of tax laws and regulations to ensure compliance and minimize errors. Can a self-employed person file taxes for free? Yes, self-employed individuals may be eligible to file their taxes for free using certain tax software programs like FreeTaxUSA or by utilizing free filing options offered by the IRS. Eligibility requirements vary by program. Is it better to use a tax preparer or tax software if youre self-employed? The decision to use a tax preparer or software depends on your personal preference, budget, and tax situation. Tax software is often more affordable and user-friendly, while a tax preparer can provide personalized guidance and advice. What is the best accounting software for self-employed taxpayers? The best accounting software for self-employed taxpayers depends on your specific needs and budget. Popular options include QuickBooks Self-Employed, FreshBooks, and TaxSlayer Self-Employed. Which tax software is best for calculating self-employed business expenses? Many tax software programs offer features for calculating and deducting self-employed business expenses. Some popular options include TurboTax Self-Employed, H&R Block Self-Employed, and TaxAct Self-Employed. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. So this type of restaurant chain may appeal to many entrepreneurs. If youre interested in opening a restaurant that serves breakfast, heres a guide to the top franchise opportunities. What is a Breakfast Franchise? A breakfast franchise is any restaurant that specializes in breakfast menu items. These restaurants use a franchise system to expand to new locations. Basically, a franchisee pays a fee to gain access to the brand name and various operational systems and support, like marketing and menu development. Sell Your Business Discover the Zoho Ecosystem Drive Traffic to Your Website Advertise Your Business Here READ MORE: See our Franchise Guide The Breakfast Restaurant Industry in 2022 The breakfast restaurant industry is currently estimated to be worth around $11.1 billion, with even more growth projected in 2022. A breakfast restaurant menu features many high-profit margin items like eggs and pancakes. So this can be a lucrative option in the food service industry. Why You Should Consider a Breakfast Franchise If youre interested in joining a restaurant chain in 2022, here are some reasons to consider a breakfast restaurant: Enjoy sustained profits: Breakfast includes lots of dishes with affordable ingredients. Eggs, flour, and bread are all fairly low cost and can sell for decent profits. Cultivate community: Breakfast restaurants have lots of regulars. Some stop by daily, and others make it a weekend tradition. These restaurants are also often known for a family-friendly atmosphere and Southern hospitality. Access a proven business model: Whether your restaurant only serves breakfast or offers breakfast, lunch, and dinner, a franchise model lets you access proprietary systems and marketing. This can help you get up and running quickly and improve your chances of success. Keep costs low: Breakfast restaurants often have limited hours and dont need extras like cocktails and bar supplies. Retain employees: Many food service businesses struggle to keep employees. However, breakfast restaurants tend to have steady hours and consistent earnings. This can make it easier for workers to balance their own schedules and finances, thus reducing turnover. Small Business Deals Criteria for Choosing the Best Breakfast Franchises: Our Methodology When it comes to starting a breakfast franchise, selecting the right one is a pivotal decision that can significantly impact your success. Breakfast franchises offer a delicious way to venture into the food service industry, serving morning meals that delight customers. However, with a plethora of options available, making the right choice requires careful consideration. At [Website Name], we understand the importance of helping small business owners and entrepreneurs make informed decisions. In this article, weve outlined key criteria for selecting the best Breakfast Franchise. By weighing these factors and following our guidance, you can embark on a flavorful and fruitful journey into the world of breakfast franchising. Franchise Reputation (5/5): The reputation of the breakfast franchise is paramount. Look for franchises with a strong track record of success in the food service industry. Location Strategy (5/5): The location of your breakfast franchise is significant. Analyze market demographics and identify areas with high breakfast demand and foot traffic. Menu Variety and Quality (4/5): Evaluate the variety and quality of breakfast items offered. A diverse and high-quality menu can attract a broader customer base. Initial Investment Costs (4/5): Assess the upfront costs, including franchise fees, equipment, and real estate expenses. Ensure they align with your budget and financial plan. Training and Support (4/5): Consider the level of training and ongoing support provided by the franchisor. Comprehensive training programs and ongoing assistance are crucial in the food industry. Licensing and Compliance (4/5): Ensure that the breakfast franchise complies with all necessary licensing and health regulations in your area. Marketing and Branding (3/5): Research the franchises marketing and branding efforts. A strong brand presence can attract more customers to your breakfast establishment. Supplier Relationships (3/5): Examine the franchisors relationships with suppliers. Reliable suppliers are essential to maintain consistent food quality. Customer Reviews and Feedback (3/5): Check customer reviews and feedback about the franchise. Positive reviews can indicate customer satisfaction and loyalty. Flexibility of Operating Hours (3/5): Consider the flexibility of operating hours. Some franchises offer extended breakfast hours, which can cater to different customer schedules. Top Breakfast Restaurants Franchise Options There are tons of restaurants with breakfast options or that specialize in the most important meal of the day. If youre interested in starting your franchise journey with a breakfast restaurant, here are some top options to consider. 1. Another Broken Egg Cafe Another Broken Egg Cafe offers various breakfast options made with fresh ingredients. The menu features creative dishes and a loyal customer base. The total investment ranges from $847,100 to $1,226,000. 2. Dennys Dennys is one of the most recognizable brand names in the breakfast industry, with popular dishes like the Grand Slam Breakfast. Though this is what theyre best known for, restaurants also serve lunch and dinner and have extended hours. Initial costs range from $1,428,422 to $2,326,537. 3. Flying Biscuit Cafe Flying Biscuit Cafe offers a diverse menu, a growing brand, and lots of growth opportunities. Startup costs range from $642,250 to $944,350. 4. The Original Pancake House The Original Pancake House is a traditional breakfast restaurant with more than 100 locations across the U.S. Signature dishes include the apple pancake and dutch baby. The costs can range from $372,500 to $966,250. 5. Jimmys Egg Jimmys Egg is a casual breakfast and lunch restaurant with more than 30 years in business. They offer a flexible business model and initial development costs ranging from $481,300 to $572,000. 6. Broken Yolk Cafe Broken Yolk Cafe has been around for more than 30 years but has been reinvented with trendy menu items for todays consumers. Dishes use fresh ingredients and unique flavors. The company focuses mainly on multi-unit franchises. So franchisees need a net worth of at least $1.5 million to get started. 7. Sunny Street Cafe Sunny Street Cafe offers a chain of fast-casual restaurants both in shopping centers and freestanding locations. It costs between $598,000 to $956,000 to get started. 8. IHOP IHOP is one of the most recognizable restaurants in this segment. The chain provides an extensive menu of breakfast items and other good food. Startup costs range from $639,000 to $2.8 million. More Great Breakfast Franchise Opportunities These arent the only franchise opportunities that specialize in breakfast options. Here are several more to consider. 9. Black Bear Diner Black Bear Diner is a family restaurant franchise that specializes in hearty dishes and comfort foods. The menu includes breakfast lunch and dinner options. And the initial investment ranges from about $1.1 million to $2.1 million. 10. Crepe Delicious Crepe Delicious offers crepes and gelato in a trendy yet casual atmosphere. Locations can be freestanding or in local shopping centers or facilities. The upfront investment ranges from about $247,300 to $604,200. 11. Lumberjacks Restaurant Lumberjacks Restaurant is a company known for solid food, hard work, and friendly service. The brand currently has nine locations in California and Nevada and is quickly expanding throughout the Rocky Mountain region. The investment ranges from $432,300 to $1,320,700. 12. Kekes Cafe Kekes Cafe is a simple yet comfortable restaurant model that serves breakfast and lunch. Startup costs range from $347,250 to $936,750. 13. Egg n Joe Egg n Joe is part of the Elmers Restaurants family. They offer small, cost-efficient locations with patio and daily hours for breakfast and lunch. Estimated startup expenses range from $712,000 to $1,573,000. 14. Famous Toastery Famous Toastery is a comfortable dining restaurant that prioritizes excellent customer care. Theres a $45,000 franchise fee and at least $250,000 in liquid capital required. 15. Scramblers Scramblers is a breakfast restaurant with more than 30 years in the industry. The menu is full of classic dishes like eggs benedict and Belgian waffles. Franchisees pay between $450,000-$860,000 to get started. 16. Perkins Restaurant Perkins is a popular family restaurant and bakery with locations across the country. Costs vary widely by location, but owners need at least $500,000 to get started. Franchise Name Description Initial Investment Royalty Fee Net Worth Requirement Another Broken Egg Cafe Creative breakfast options with fresh ingredients $847,100 - $1,226,000 Varies Varies Denny's Popular breakfast and more with extended hours $1,428,422 - $2,326,537 4% $1,000,000 Flying Biscuit Cafe Diverse menu and growth opportunities $642,250 - $944,350 5% $500,000 The Original Pancake House Traditional breakfast with signature dishes $372,500 - $966,250 Varies Varies Jimmy's Egg Casual breakfast and lunch with flexible model $481,300 - $572,000 Varies Varies Broken Yolk Cafe Trendy menu with fresh ingredients, mainly multi-unit focus $1,500,000 Varies Varies Sunny Street Cafe Fast-casual breakfast in shopping centers and freestanding $598,000 - $956,000 Varies Varies IHOP Extensive breakfast menu and more $639,000 - $2.8 million 4.50% $1,500,000 Black Bear Diner Family restaurant with hearty dishes and comfort foods $1.1 million - $2.1 million 4% $1 million Crepe Delicious Trendy yet casual atmosphere serving crepes and gelato $247,300 - $604,200 6% $500,000 Lumberjacks Restaurant Known for solid food and friendly service $432,300 - $1,320,700 4% $750,000 Keke's Cafe Simple and comfortable restaurant serving breakfast and lunch $347,250 - $936,750 5% Varies Egg n Joe Cost-efficient locations with patio serving breakfast and lunch $712,000 - $1,573,000 4% $1 million Famous Toastery Comfortable dining restaurant prioritizing excellent customer care $250,000 - $500,000 6% Varies Scramblers Breakfast restaurant with over 30 years in the industry $450,000 - $860,000 Varies Varies Perkins Restaurant Popular family restaurant and bakery with locations nationwide Varies Varies $500,000 READ MORE: How to Start a Food Truck Business How Much Does It Cost to Open Breakfast Restaurant Franchises? Breakfast restaurant franchise costs vary widely by brand and location. You could pay anywhere from $250,000 to $3 million in startup costs. However, most fall between about $500,000 and $1 million. Are Breakfast Shops Profitable? Breakfast shops can be quite profitable, especially since menu items like eggs and pancakes have high-profit margins. Several franchises report annual sales of more than $1 million. What Is the Most Popular Breakfast Chain? There are several popular breakfast chains across the U.S. However, IHOP tends to come with the most brand recognition across markets. What Franchise Serves the Best Breakfast Sandwiches? The best breakfast sandwich varies by individual preference. However, large franchise chains like Dennys and IHOP have several popular breakfast sandwich options. Conclusion Breakfast truly is the most important meal of the day, and for entrepreneurs seeking to make a flavorful entrance into the restaurant industry, breakfast franchises present a delectable opportunity. The breakfast restaurant industry, worth an estimated $11.1 billion, continues to see growth in 2022, making it a lucrative choice. Breakfast dishes often boast high-profit margins, and the community-oriented atmosphere of these establishments can foster loyal customers. When considering a breakfast franchise, its crucial to evaluate various factors, such as franchise reputation, location strategy, menu variety, initial investment costs, training and support, licensing compliance, marketing and branding, supplier relationships, customer reviews, and flexibility of operating hours. The table provided showcases some of the top breakfast restaurant franchise options, each with its unique offerings and investment requirements. Whether you choose to embark on a flavorful journey with Another Broken Egg Cafe, the iconic Dennys, or any of the other fantastic options, the breakfast franchise world holds a diverse array of opportunities to satisfy your entrepreneurial appetite. Remember, the success of your breakfast franchise venture lies not only in the brand you choose but also in your dedication and passion for serving the most important meal of the day. So, weigh your options, explore the delicious possibilities, and embark on a journey into the world of breakfast franchising. Good luck, and may your restaurant sizzle and rise like a perfectly cooked pancake on a Sunday morning! READ MORE: As we continue to hold meetings online, whats in the background of videos has come more into focus. As businesses continue to run virtual meetings and create video content, tools like green screen software can be incredibly helpful. Many use green screens as a virtual background as a backdrop for video calls, video content, and more. Well go through some of the best green screen software options currently available for businesses and individuals to use. If you want to learn green screen basics, check out the tips WeVideo gives in this video: Sell Your Business Drive Traffic to Your Website Discover the Zoho Ecosystem Advertise Your Business Here What is Green Screen Software? At its core, green screen software is a specialized tool designed to facilitate the process of compositing and manipulating videos or images. It allows users to replace a specific color (usually green or blue) in their footage with a different background or visual element. This technique is commonly used in the film and video production industry to create stunning visual effects, but its applications extend far beyond Hollywood. With green screen software, video editing becomes easier and more dynamic, making the resulting video look much more professional. You can use green screen video editors to add elements to your video, remove and replace backgrounds, fix sound quality, and more. Relatedly, chroma key software is used to isolate specific colors or remove them altogether to create a more professional look. Green screen software also enables users to replace colors in the video as well, using blue screens or green screens. Small Business Deals This versatile tool empowers small business owners and entrepreneurs to unleash their creativity and enhance the visual quality of their content, regardless of their filming location or budget constraints. Green Screen Software is not just a Hollywood secret; its a game-changer for anyone looking to create impactful and engaging videos and presentations. Why You Should Consider Green Screen Software for Your Business Green screen software isnt just for Hollywood; it can be a game-changer for your business. Here are some compelling reasons to consider using green screen software: Better Video Quality: Green screen software elevates the quality of your video content, making it more engaging and professional. No Worrying About Suitable Backgrounds: Say goodbye to the stress of finding the perfect background for your videos. Green screen software allows you to replace backgrounds effortlessly. Ease of Use: Most green screen editors feature a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, enabling you to create professional-looking videos with just a few clicks. Why is Green Screen Software Important for Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs? Green Screen Software offers small business owners and entrepreneurs a powerful means to enhance their content and leave a lasting impression. Heres why its vital for your business: Enhanced Visual Appeal: With Green Screen Software, you can seamlessly superimpose subjects onto various backgrounds, instantly transforming the look and feel of your videos and presentations. Professional Quality: It empowers you to achieve the level of visual sophistication typically associated with larger production budgets, giving your content a polished and professional edge. Versatility: Whether youre filming in a home office, a small studio, or on-location, Green Screen Software provides the flexibility to place your subjects in diverse settings, enhancing storytelling and engagement. Cost-Efficiency: By reducing the need for physical sets or elaborate locations, Green Screen Software can significantly lower production costs, making it accessible for small businesses with limited budgets. Creative Freedom: You have the creative freedom to transport your audience to any location or scenario, enabling you to convey your message or tell your story in a unique and impactful way. In short, Green Screen Software empowers small business owners and entrepreneurs to level the playing field in the world of visual content creation. Its a tool that opens doors to creativity, professionalism, and visual excellence, allowing you to capture your audiences attention and make your brand stand out. Selecting the 12 Best Green Screen Software Options: Our Criteria At Small Business Trends, weve established a set of criteria that are essential when selecting the best Green Screen Software options, along with a scale of importance for each: Security Features (Score: 9/10) Reliable encryption for protecting your creative assets Secure cloud storage options for your video files Data privacy measures to safeguard sensitive content User Interface and Ease of Use (Score: 8/10) Intuitive and user-friendly interface for effortless editing Efficient tools for keying and compositing Streamlined workflow for quick and hassle-free projects Compatibility (Score: 9/10) Seamless integration with your preferred operating system Support for a wide range of video formats and resolutions Compatibility with external hardware (e.g., cameras, microphones) Keying and Masking Features (Score: 10/10) Advanced green screen keying capabilities for precise results Comprehensive masking tools for fine-tuning selections Real-time preview of your keyed footage for accuracy Visual Effects and Filters (Score: 7/10) A library of built-in effects and filters for creative enhancements Customization options to add unique touches to your videos The ability to import additional effects or overlays for versatility Export and Sharing Options (Score: 8/10) Diverse export formats (MP4, AVI, etc.) to suit your needs Direct sharing options to social media platforms for convenience High-quality output settings for professional use Performance and Speed (Score: 9/10) Smooth rendering and playback to enhance productivity Minimal lag or slowdown during video editing Efficient utilization of system resources for optimal performance Customer Support (Score: 7/10) Responsive customer support team to assist with any queries Access to online resources such as FAQs and user forums Regular software updates and bug fixes for improved functionality Pricing and Licensing (Score: 8/10) Competitive pricing plans, including options for monthly or lifetime licenses Availability of a free trial or demo version for testing Licensing flexibility for multiple users, if necessary Each criterion is scored out of 10 to indicate its importance in selecting the best Green Screen Software. With this framework, we aim to guide you in making an informed choice that aligns with your business needs. 12 Best Green Screen Software Options To help with the selection process, weve rounded up some of the best green screen software options, including a green screen editor and the best chroma key software to help you create amazing videos. 1. WeVideo Video Editing Software WeVideo is a green screen editing software for green screen video production. Using chroma key effects, video editors can create virtual settings and add effects by simply uploading their videos directly onto the platform. Pricing: Billed annually, with plans starting at $4 a month for 30 minutes of video content up to $36 a month. Monthly plans are available starting at $9.99, with a free trial. 2. VSDC Free Video Editor VSDC Free Video Editor is a free video editing software that has includes basic editing tools and more advanced video editing tools. In addition, VSDC Free Video Editor is a free chroma key software that supports popular video formats, green background removal, video effects, tools, and export options. The pro version has some additional functionalities that could prove to be useful, but the free version also offers a lot for videos. Pricing: Free, pro version is a one-time purchase for $19.99 3. Adobe Premiere Chroma Key Features Adobe Premiere Pro is one of the most popular choices for editing green screen videos because of the powerful features it offers. The Ultra Key feature is designed specifically as a green screen feature, and there are plenty of other tools to help elevate video content. Adobe Premiere and the suite of programs can also be used as a green screen photo software, and to add other kinds of visual effects. Pricing: Monthly pricing starting at $20.99 4. Wondershare Filmora Wondershare Filmora is a great video editing tool to use for green screen background video editing because it doesnt have a steep learning curve. Its available for Macs and PCs and is packed with a lot of video editing features, including tools, effects, access to royalty-free images, video clips to help you make creative videos with green screen effects. With Wondershare Filmora, video content can be greatly enhanced while also making the essential edits to make the video look more professional overall. Pricing: Lifetime pricing is $146, annual plans are $106.96 5. iMovie iMovie is useful for creating green screen videos for Mac users. Its a free green screen editor available on Apple products. It is useful for general video editing, chroma keying, and creating a green screen clip alongside other green screens for video. Pricing: Free on Mac products 6. Camtasia Camtasia enables users to create a professional video recording quickly and easily or edit videos as needed. It doesnt have a steep learning curve and includes premade templates, chroma key tools, and other features to make it easier to edit video. Its best used as a live streaming software to edit videos via screen recording. The free version is for a limited time, and will have most of the features available. Pricing: Free trial available. Pricing is in GBP, 267.47, so please factor in conversion rates. 7.Hitfilm Express Hitfilm Express is a fantastic free green screen tool, doubling as a video editing software for visual effects and more. Its intuitive interface makes it an easy-to-use video editor, while also providing professional-grade VFX tools that empower users to craft incredible video content. Additionally, Hitfilm Express offers a range of features for streamlining video clip editing, with optional add-ons for further customization. Pricing: Free, add-ons are individually priced 8.Openshot Openshot is an award-winning open-source video editor for both beginners and more advanced video editors. Its a cross platform video editor that works on Linux, Mac, and Windows. Openshot features unlimited tracks for backgrounds, powerful editing tools, chroma key tool effects, and other valuable features for video editors. It can be used with a green or blue screen for chroma keying, as well as basic video editing as needed. Pricing: Free, but accept donations via PayPal 9. Manycam For live video streaming and a virtual camera, Manycam is the best option. It allows for virtual backgrounds, has a whiteboard feature, and users can also add video effects. Its not a traditional video editor like some of the other tools mentioned, but better used for making live videos more engaging. Manycam has a lot of great features to make live stream videos more interactive and fun. Pricing: Starts at $39 per year, up to $99 per year 10. Movavi Video Editor Movavi Video Editor is a video editing tool for Mac and Windows users that helps them create powerful video content. Movavi features essential editing tools alongside more advanced effects such as chroma keying, green screen video editing, slow motion features, and other tools to help make video content more dynamic. Pricing: Annual subscriptions start at 115.95. Please note that the pricing is in GBP, so make sure to factor in conversion rates. 11. OBS Studio OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) is a free and open source software that can be used for video recording and as a live streaming software across many platforms. OBS Studio is a free green screen software with a lot of great features, making it great value. It includes dynamic video editing features, chroma key options, an audio mixer, and a host of tools to make your green screen video look even better. Pricing: Free 12. CapCut CapCut is a versatile video editing tool that offers green screen capabilities and more. Its known for its user-friendly interface and an array of editing features, including chroma key effects, transitions, and creative tools. With CapCut, you can easily create engaging videos, add virtual backgrounds, and enhance your content with special effects. Pricing: Free Table: Comparison of the Best Green Screen Software Options This table provides an overview of the key features and pricing options for each green screen software, making it easier for you to choose the one that best suits your needs: Green Screen Software Description Pricing 1. WeVideo Video Editing Software Green screen editing software with chroma key effects. Billed annually, starting at $4/month. 2. VSDC Free Video Editor Free video editor with basic and advanced video editing tools, including chroma key support. Free, pro version for a one-time $19.99. 3. Adobe Premiere Chroma Key Features Powerful video editing software with the Ultra Key feature designed for green screen editing. Monthly pricing starting at $20.99. 4. Wondershare Filmora User-friendly video editing tool for Macs and PCs with green screen capabilities and creative features. Lifetime pricing: $146, annual: $106.96. 5. iMovie Free green screen editor for Mac users, suitable for general video editing and chroma keying. Free on Mac products. 6. Camtasia Video recording and editing software with templates, chroma key tools, and live streaming capabilities. Free trial available, pricing varies. 7. Hitfilm Express Free green screen tool with professional-grade VFX tools and an intuitive interface. Free, add-ons are individually priced. 8. Openshot Award-winning open-source video editor with chroma keying support, unlimited tracks, and powerful editing tools. Free, accepts donations via PayPal. 9. Manycam Best for live video streaming, virtual backgrounds, and interactive features. Starts at $39/year, up to $99/year. 10. Movavi Video Editor Video editing tool for Mac and Windows users with chroma keying and advanced editing effects. Annual subscriptions starting at 115.95. 11. OBS Studio Free and open-source software for video recording and live streaming, featuring chroma keying and dynamic editing. Free. 12. CapCut Versatile video editing tool with green screen capabilities, transitions, and creative features. Free How to Choose the Best Green Screen Software Choosing the right green screen programs is about identifying all the features you need to create high-quality videos and simplify the editing process. There a few different factors to consider when evaluating the best green screen software. Advanced Features: Look for programs that offer basic video editing alongside more advanced features to help you enhance and improve the green screen effect. This can include adding visual effects, background layers, motion tracking, slow motion, and others. Cross-platform support Its crucial to ensure that your green screen editor is compatible with the devices and media files youll be using. Ideally, the video editing software should work on Mac and Windows at a minimum. Control over details A dedicated green screen software should offer you a lot of control to edit videos as needed and helpful green screen features to add more detail and depth to your video content. Many software platforms offer easy editing for green screen or blue screen videos, and the right green screen software should be able to give you more power over editing. What program is best for green screen? The best program for green screen video is Wondershare Filmora. It has an easy to use interface, lots of powerful tools to make video content look even better, and its easy to upload videos directly and start editing. What is the best free green screen software to use? The best free green screen software is Open Broadcaster Software (OBS). It includes options to make editing green screens easier, as well as live streams and other types of video content entirely for free. OBS also provides audio/video mixing options as well to improve sound quality and production value for videos. What green screen apps do Youtubers use? YouTubers have a wide range of options available when it comes to using a green screen app. Some of the best green screen apps include: Camtasia Wondershare Filmora Manycam Openshot The latest Slovak science news in one place. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Share An impossible world may sound like something out of a science fiction story, but it is in fact a real concept in philosophy used to model phenomena that cannot be imagined using the possible. Now, thanks to a Slovak researcher, the prestigious Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy has an entry on the topic. This article is supported by the ESET Foundation, whose annual ESET Science Award recognises exceptional scientists. Although no longer dominating global headlines, Covid-19 is still with us and research into the disease continues. Slovak scientists have now found a link between a severe form of the disease and the activity of an enzyme in blood. These are just two of many stories of science in Slovakia and Slovak scientists around the world. The Slovak Spectator has spoken to scientists about their research and its potential contribution to society, and the following summary gives an overview of their progress. This overview of successes in Slovak science will be compiled regularly. To stay up to date with what scientists in Slovakia and Slovak scientists around the world are doing, subscribe to the Slovak Science newsletter, sent to readers free of charge four times a year. ESET Science Award laureates announced In October, the ESET Foundation announced the laureates for the fifth annual ESET Science Award. This year's laureates were selected by an international jury chaired by 2019 Nobel Prize laureate and astrophysicist Michel Mayor, who in 1995, along with Didier Queloz, discovered 51 Pegasi b, the first extrasolar planet orbiting a sun-like star. He also took part in a public debate with astrophysicist and co-founder of the Starmus festival Garik Israelian on our search for life in outer space. The festival will be held in Bratislava next year. In the Outstanding Scientist in Slovakia category, the committee chose Igor Lacik of the Polymer Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV). He and his team are looking into the use of polymeric materials in the treatment of diabetes. Related article Related article Hes developing a cure for diabetes, and his research is cited worldwide Read more Mechanochemist Matej Balaz from the Geotechnics Institute of SAV in Kosice was chosen as the Outstanding Scientist in Slovakia Under the Age of 35 laureate. As the name of the field suggests, he uses mechanical energy to perform chemical reactions. For example, Balaz wrote a monograph on mechanochemical processing of eggshells and their use in wastewater treatment. This year's Outstanding Academic in Slovakia award laureate is Daniela Ostatnikova, head of the Institute of Physiology at Comenius University in Bratislava. Her research focuses on the causes of autism. The awards are intended to recognise exceptional individuals in Slovak science, taking into account not only their work, but also their contribution to other areas of life. Continuing research into Covid-19 Although for the public Covid-19 is no longer dominating daily life, for some scientists that is far from the case. Research into the coronavirus and the disease it causes continues, and Slovak scientists are helping too. Recently, a team from the Faculty of Pharmacy at Comenius University in Bratislava found a link between the severe form of Covid-19 and the activity of an enzyme, butyrylcholinesterase, in blood. Their study showed that a decrease in the activity of the enzyme was associated with a negative Covid-19 prognosis and vice-versa. Lead scientist Anna Paul Hrabovska talked to the Slovak Spectator about how the research began and what it has found. The response to the study so far has been positive. In addition, the enzyme has been connected to various pathologies such as cardiovascular, oncological and metabolic diseases. Paul Hrabovska believes it may be a general biomarker of mortality. Related article Related article Slovak scientists link enzyme with risk of death from Covid-19 Read more Once popular, always popular A popular quip about eastern Slovakia is that "there's nothing out there". If that were the case, Swedish carmaker Volvo would not have chosen the Valaliky industrial park near Kosice as the site of its new electric vehicle production plant. German engineering and technology company Bosch has decided to expand its production in the region too. Archaeological research is now showing that Valaliky and the surrounding area once held appeal for people in the distant past. At the beginning of summer, scientists from the Institute of Archaeology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences completed their first six months of investigations at the site. Led by Marek Vojtecek and Michal Cheben, the team uncovered the remains of settlements, burial mounds and a burial site, and many other unique finds. Suvisiaci clanok Suvisiaci clanok Site chosen for new car plant was once used for burial rituals Read more Space cluster in eastern Slovakia Space research is not something many would associate with Slovakia. However, the country understands that the space economy is growing rapidly. With this in mind, a memorandum on the establishment of the East Slovak Space Cluster was signed in September. Participants include the Technical University in Kosice, Deutsche Telekom IT Solutions Slovakia, the Institute of Experimental Physics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, the Pavol Jozef Safarik University in Kosice and the Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency (SARIO). The development of the Slovak space sector has the potential to attract and retain talent in the region. "The aim of the cluster is to connect stakeholders carrying out research and development, commercial and promotional activities in the field of space technology and to create a supportive ecosystem for the formation of new innovative start-ups bringing new products and services using space technologies," TUKE states on its website. Overview of other research and development activities in universities: Advanced electronics with supercaps; University of Zilina; lead scientist Michal Fridvalsky. The team is researching an advanced autonomous power system for space robotic arms and have prepared the groundwork for a physical prototype of the device. The team is researching an advanced autonomous power system for space robotic arms and have prepared the groundwork for a physical prototype of the device. Traction drive for dual locomotive DualShunter 2000; University of Zilina; lead scientist Matej Pacha. The Department of Power Systems and Electric Drives has developed an algorithm for controlling a traction drive with asynchronous motors in locomotives and trial operation has been initiated. The Department of Power Systems and Electric Drives has developed an algorithm for controlling a traction drive with asynchronous motors in locomotives and trial operation has been initiated. Novel semiconductors and catalysts for green hydrogen production; University of Zilina; lead scientist Peter Cendula. Photo-electrochemical cells allow conversion of solar energy into fuel. Their conversion efficiency is directly dependent on their photovoltage, the monitoring of which is, however, difficult using standard methods. The paper shows such monitoring can be done wirelessly. Photo-electrochemical cells allow conversion of solar energy into fuel. Their conversion efficiency is directly dependent on their photovoltage, the monitoring of which is, however, difficult using standard methods. The paper shows such monitoring can be done wirelessly. Emotional experience of people with schizophrenia and people at risk of psychosis; Comenius University; lead scientist Marcel Riehle. Meta-analysis indicates a specific pattern of disturbed emotional experience in people with schizophrenia, manifesting even before the onset of the disorder. People with schizophrenia and those with a high risk of developing psychosis experienced pleasant stimuli as less positive and more negative. Read more. Meta-analysis indicates a specific pattern of disturbed emotional experience in people with schizophrenia, manifesting even before the onset of the disorder. People with schizophrenia and those with a high risk of developing psychosis experienced pleasant stimuli as less positive and more negative. Read more. Reading comprehension and vocabulary assessment in children; Comenius University and University of Presov; lead scientist Svetlana Kapalkova. The study examines the concept of reading comprehension from a longitudinal point of view and shows that the fundamental factor predicting reading comprehension is a child's verbal speech level. The study examines the concept of reading comprehension from a longitudinal point of view and shows that the fundamental factor predicting reading comprehension is a child's verbal speech level. Psychological and biological correlates of behaviour in children with autism; Comenius University; lead scientist Katarina Babinska. Compared to the general population, individuals with autism experience deviations in the functioning of their immune system. The project reveals new, until now unknown connections between the biological and psychological aspects of autism and at the same time raises new questions. Compared to the general population, individuals with autism experience deviations in the functioning of their immune system. The project reveals new, until now unknown connections between the biological and psychological aspects of autism and at the same time raises new questions. Professor Rory Fitzgerald, the current Director of the European Social Survey European Research Infrastructure, was awarded the International Prize of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in the field of social and cultural sciences. He made a significant contribution to ensuring the continuity of the ESS project in Slovakia. In addition, due to his support, Slovakia became a full member of the infrastructure in 2018. Read more. in the field of social and cultural sciences. He made a significant contribution to ensuring the continuity of the ESS project in Slovakia. In addition, due to his support, Slovakia became a full member of the infrastructure in 2018. Read more. Entry in the prestigious Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy; Slovak Academy of Sciences; lead author Martin Vacek. The entry provides motivation for postulating impossible worlds as a tool for analysing impossible phenomena and deals with their logic, application and problems. Read more. Other Slovak science stories on Spectator.sk: MACHINE LEARNING: People believed that both language and creating meaningful text were the domain of humans alone. But when it comes to difficult things like folding proteins, or playing complicated games like chess, it is not surprising that AI can do those too, says Michal Valko, Slovak machine learning scientist at DeepMind in Paris, a Google company. "However, with chatbots, it turns out that it is not as difficult as we thought," he says in an interview. ARCHAEOLOGY: A gun found off the coast of Sweden that is possibly the oldest ship cannon on record in Europe was cast using a copper alloy. The copper was mined near Banska Bystrica, Slovakia. PREHISTORY: Around 11 million years ago, the territory of what is today Slovakia looked entirely different. The plains of western and south-eastern Slovakia were covered by the Pannonian Sea. In the north, the Turiec Basin was filled with an isolated and shallow lake. Now scientists have determined when the lake existed, and when it disappeared. WATER: Throughout its history, Slovakia has had to cope with many environmental burdens, most of which originated under the communist regime. Scientists are devising methods to tackle these individual burdens, for example the use of biomining to extract metals that entered rivers due outflows of mining waters. PALEONTOLOGY: An international team of scientists, including Slovak palaeontologist Andrej Cernansky, has unearthed fossils of an unknown lizard that lived at the end of the dinosaur era. The team was working in western India. FOREIGN SCIENTISTS IN SLOVAKIA: Austrian scholar of comparative literature Johannes Kaminski is based at the Institute of World Literature at the Slovak Academy of Sciences. He studies how climate change is depicted in national literatures. This article is supported by the ESET Foundation, whose annual ESET Science Award recognises exceptional scientists. Equator Coffees: Holiday BlendHoliday Blend is here! This years blend delivers festive flavors from spectacular 100% organic component coffees from partnering farms in Guatemala, Ethiopia, and Nicaragua. 5% of sales from Holiday Blend and merchandise collection will go to our origin partners at CODECH, a Guatemalan cooperative we have been purchasing from since 2017. Back to top. Greater Goods Coffee Co. : Monteblanco A tropical symphony in a cup! This coffee bursts with tropical flavors and a creamy sweetness that dances on your tongue. Its like sipping on a glass of freshly squeezed mango juice, with a hint of lilikoi and a small bite of key lime pie. The unique processing, using whole passionfruit and cholupa, creates a complex and unique taste experience that will transport you to a warm and sunny paradise its unlike anything weve ever tasted! Intelligentsia Coffee : Otono Blend Fall is here, and with it, the next release in our seasonal blend lineup. Otono is inspired by the reflection that autumn brings, when nature reveals its texture and each step outdoors is a chance to slow down and observe a beautiful transition unfold. For these blend, ingredients were carefully selected from our menu by our coffee team and combine in a recipe designed to deliver the flavors of the season. The 2023 edition of Otono features three In-Season lots from our single-origin menu and three of the worlds most celebrated coffee origins: our Ethiopia Washed Alaka, Kenya Kamviu, and Guatemala La Florida. Joe Coffee : Colombia La Familia Guarnizo This coffee comes to us through a strong relationship between Joe Coffee and the El Paraiso growers association in Huila, Colombia. This bright and light-bodied selection was grown by a special group of El Paraisos member farmers: the Guarnizo family. Featuring notes of stone fruit and almonds with a medium acidity, this coffee is a customer favorite. Madcap Coffee Company : COE Elefante Nueva Granada Elefante has always been a special coffee for us we look forward to tasting this unique varietal each year, and we are consistently impressed with its complex yet balanced characteristics. The origins of this varietal were unknown until recent genetic testing has discovered Elefante to be a combination of an unknown Ethiopian Landrace and the world-famous Bourbon. Over the years, the Rodriguez family has planted many seedlings of these trees and heavily invested in research into it. With great pleasure, we offer an exclusive lot of Elefante, a 2023 Cup of Excellence winner, grown by Gloria Rodriguezs son, Roberto. Elefante Nueva Granada took 6th place in the competition with a score of 89.54 and was one of only two washed coffees in the competition. The Cup of Excellence is the most prestigious annual competition and auction to identify the highest quality coffees produced across the world. This competition pioneers integrity and transparency in the specialty coffee industry. Elefante Nueva Granada is a rare opportunity to experience an awarded coffee produced by generations of investment, dedication and meticulous practice. This intense attention to detail results in a final cup with stunning clarity and soft, velvety mouthfeel, with notes of juicy lychee, jasmine blossom, and turbinado sugar. Monogram Coffee : Floripondio Grown in a tropical microclimate with a distinct terroir, Floripondio is an ideal farm for experimenting with growing different varieties of coffee. It is a breathtaking farm, growing incredible coffees, and under the guidance of the Rodriguez family the coffees are grown, harvested and processed with close attention to detail every step of the way. Floripondio is a batian coco natural that has super clean and juicy flavours of plum and nougat with a creamy body. Night Swim Coffee Night Swim Coffee: Rosalio Gutierrez NaturalRosalio is a young producer from the Valle Inca cooperative, only 38 years old. He and his wife Gladys cultivate the 10 hectares they share, only 2.75 of which are dedicated to coffee production. The rest of their land is for products for their own consumption, including pastures for cattle and old-growth forest. This sun-dried, bourbon varietal comes to us from Cusco, Peru and the Valle Inca cooperative. Located in Calca (specifically the remote subregions Yanatile and Lares) in the south of Peru, they launched in 2014 and Red Fox Coffee Merchants have been buying coffee from them ever since. Where, at first, Valle Inca yielded small quantities that struggled to make the grade quality-wise, theyre now one of their biggest vendors in all of Peru, producing enviable quality. Back to top. Olympia Coffee Roasters Olympia Coffee Roasters: Holiday BlendOur annual Holiday Blend is back! This years blend draws inspiration from our beloved Pacific Northwest, paying tribute to the iconic, decked-out evergreen trees that usher in the holiday season and brighten our homes during the darkest time of the year. Back to top. Onyx Coffee Lab Onyx Coffee Lab: Panama Creatvia Giovana Boutet AnaerobicThis anaerobic natural processed by our friends at Creativa Coffee District checks all the boxes we love about anaerobic processing. Layered, complex, and immensely sweet, this Catuai reminds us of ripe mangos and chocolate truffle, with the complexity and tactile of a cabernet. According to our very own production roasting assistant, this micro-lot has just the right amount of funk. We agree, Kenneth. We agree. Back to top. Partners Coffee Partners Coffee: Guatemala Santa ElisaFinca Santa Elisa sits on the western side of Acatenango, one of the three volcanoes that surround the charming city of Antigua Guatemala. This lot, consisting entirely of red bourbon, was processed by our friends Los Volcanes at Beneficio La Esperanza in Antigua. The result is a sweet, pristine coffee that reminds us of blood orange and tangerine supported by warm confectionary and caramelsdelightful in a host of brewing methods from filter to espresso. Back to top. PERC Coffee PERC Coffee: Holiday BlendThe dreaded Frost Gobbler is here, chasing her favorite treat, gingerbread people. Shell snatch the unlucky ginger folks up, tear them apart, and gobble them down with her terrible teeth. The last thing youll hear as she stomps out of town is her dreadful laugh, moohoohaha. The roasting team has been in the workshop, tinkering away, mixing a little of this and a little of that. Now, the team has emerged with the perfect concoction. Its smooth and sweet, with the perfect hint of roastiness to satisfy everyone in the family, even the grinchiest grinches and the scroogiest scrooges. Happy holidays yall! Back to top. Stumptown Coffee Roasters Stumptown Coffee: Guatemala El Injerto Pacamara A seven-time winner of Guatemalas prestigious Cup of Excellence competition, El Injerto Pacamara is one of the most highly anticipated coffees we roast all year. Known for its large size and award-winning profile, El Injerto Pacamara will captivate your senses like only a legendary coffee can. This years lot is pure decadence with notes of ripe peach and sugar cane complemented by a touch of sage. Weve been partnering with father and son team Arturo Aguirre Sr. and Arturo Aguirre Jr. since 2003, making them our longest-standing direct trade relationshipone we cherish as much as we do this coffee. Back to top. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231111/san-francisco-herding-homeless-to-improve-image-ahead-of-apec-summit-1114893244.html San Francisco Herding Homeless to Improve Image Ahead of APEC Summit San Francisco Herding Homeless to Improve Image Ahead of APEC Summit The city of San Francisco has been moving homeless encampments out of the area that will host APEC for the next seven days. 2023-11-11T22:54+0000 2023-11-11T22:54+0000 2023-11-12T04:23+0000 americas san francisco china apec joe biden xi jinping homeless /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/106955/39/1069553908_0:245:4344:2689_1920x0_80_0_0_fab3fe1a642eb5b891fa80c6622e92b3.jpg One of the most expensive cities in the United States is moving homeless people and destroying their encampments in an attempt to clean the parts of the city that will host more than 20 world leaders for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders Week 2023 summit that kicked off on Saturday.According to multiple media reports describing the raids, officials are targeting several areas in the SoMa district of San Francisco, sometimes asking the homeless not to return until after the conference is over and utilizing "night ambassadors" to keep the area clear.US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping are scheduled to speak at the event, with their meeting being described as an important step in stabilizing relations between the two countries.Large steel barricades have been erected around the area and more than 100 private security guards have been spotted working around the St Regis Hotel where Chinese diplomats and business executives are staying. Some roads in the area have also been closed.With APEC coming, I am concerned about historical encampments that are close to priority areas, Christopher McDaniels, the citys superintendent of Street Environmental Services wrote in a September 25 email to city officials, as quoted by San Francisco Chronicle.His boss, Deputy Director of Operations DiJaida Durden, replied by asking Are any of these locations on schedule, adding that APEC is coming and we need to stay on top of the growing encampments, do we have a plan?The city of San Francisco has had a growing homeless problem for some time and in recent years, viral videos showing massive homeless encampments and open-air drug markets have become a mark of embarrassment for the city.But some residents dont think the citys solution of moving the homeless to other parts of the city will solve the issue. A court ruling forbids city officials from removing homeless encampments unless the homeless are offered alternative arraignments. Some media reports described the removal of encampments, with most of the homeless refusing the offer of alternative shelter.The police just told me that theres a major conference, that the president is coming, and asked if we could stay away for a week. a 50-year-old homeless man told US media.While city has roughly 3,000 beds in its shelter system, which is currently at 91% capacity and 468 people are on the city's waitlist, there are no plans to open a new shelter ahead of the event, yet a winter shelter will be opened early and add 300 beds to its other facilities.However, that is likely to be a drop in the bucket for San Francisco, which in addition to a homeless problem also has seen a massive increase in drug overdoses. The city is on pace to break its annual record for fatal drug overdoses, averaging about two a day. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231107/us-invites-russia-and-other-apec-economies-to-san-francisco-summit-1114780844.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20230401/salifornia-dreamin-no-more-growing-crime-affects-quality-of-life-in-san-francisco-prompts-exodus-1109034466.html americas san francisco china Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Ian DeMartino Ian DeMartino News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Ian DeMartino homeless encampments in san francisco, homeless being moved for apec, apec and homeless, is san francisco a failed city, us homelessness, homeless people in san francisco https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/advanced-imaging-reveals-artistic-secrets-of-16th-century-hans-holbein-painting-1114897969.html Advanced Imaging Reveals Artistic Secrets of 16th Century Hans Holbein Painting Advanced Imaging Reveals Artistic Secrets of 16th Century Hans Holbein Painting Subtle facial alterations discovered in the artworks of Holbein provide new insights into his artistic methods and practices during the Tudor era. 2023-11-12T13:45+0000 2023-11-12T13:45+0000 2023-11-12T13:45+0000 beyond politics hans holbein henry viii david born royal collection trust society newsfeed /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/0b/0c/1114898638_222:0:1333:625_1920x0_80_0_0_1bdf3dbd5c35e8e99bc13a914ae37048.jpg The recent conservation work on portraits by Hans Holbein, a prominent artist during the reign of Henry VIII, has uncovered fascinating insights into early artistic techniques resembling modern-day contouring. This discovery challenges the notion that such methods were a recent development, suggesting their roots can be traced back to the 16th century.A detailed examination of the portrait of Derich Born, a German merchant, revealed subtle changes in the depiction of his facial features. Advanced techniques like X-ray and infrared scans have exposed how Holbein gradually refined Born's jawline, adding successive layers of paint to achieve a more sculpted appearance. While not documented in historical records, this process raises questions about whether these alterations were made at Born's request or were solely painters artistic choices.Further insights were gained through high-resolution technical imaging conducted by the Getty Conservation Institute. The analysis enabled experts to observe Holbein's underdrawing techniques, notably how he varied line weight and quality to enhance Born's facial contours. Nicola Christie, the head of paintings conservation at Royal Collection Trust, shared these findings with the media.The original inscription on the painting praised its lifelike quality, stating, "If you added a voice, this would be Derich (Born) his very self. You would be in doubt whether the painter or his father made him." The restoration process, however, unveiled a thumbprintlikely Holbein'son the panel's left edge. This discovery, along with the paints drying process, suggests a more intricate and time-consuming process than initially thought.Reflecting on these findings, Kate Heard, curator of Holbein at the Tudor Court, admired Holbein's skill. Nearly half a millennium later, his ability to depict his subjects' core characteristics with such accuracy continues to astonish people and offers new perspectives on his contributions to the art world. https://sputnikglobe.com/20220320/researchers-discover-new-details-about-hidden-portrait-beneath-pablo-picasso-painting-1094030471.html Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Chimauchem Nwosu https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/09/01/1113046371_0:99:1536:1635_100x100_80_0_0_9c5c627283eca931c39fe4852bbb301c.jpg Chimauchem Nwosu https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/09/01/1113046371_0:99:1536:1635_100x100_80_0_0_9c5c627283eca931c39fe4852bbb301c.jpg News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Chimauchem Nwosu https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/09/01/1113046371_0:99:1536:1635_100x100_80_0_0_9c5c627283eca931c39fe4852bbb301c.jpg hans holbein, tudor era art, portrait conservation, early modern contouring, 16th century artistic techniques, derich born portrait , getty conservation institute, hans holbein art x-ray analysis, infrared scans in art, royal collection trust, historical portrait restoration, advanced imaging in art, renaissance art techniques , artistic innovation tudor period, holbein facial contouring. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/biden-to-urge-xi-to-advise-iran-against-further-mideast-escalation---report-1114894952.html Biden to Urge Xi to Advise Iran Against Further Middle East Escalation, Report Reveals Biden to Urge Xi to Advise Iran Against Further Middle East Escalation, Report Reveals US President Joe Biden reportedly intends to urge his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to wield his clout with Iran to prevent the Palestine-Israel conflict from escalating into a wider regional conflict. 2023-11-12T07:39+0000 2023-11-12T07:39+0000 2023-11-12T09:01+0000 world us joe biden china xi jinping iran palestine-israel conflict hezbollah asia-pacific economic cooperation (apec) ebrahim raisi /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/0b/0c/1114895969_0:28:3076:1758_1920x0_80_0_0_8034417a09a02e340f76baeec6f988bd.jpg US President Joe Biden reportedly intends to urge his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to wield his clout with Iran to prevent the Palestine-Israel conflict from escalating into a wider regional one.During his forthcoming one-on-one with the Chinese President, Biden will underscore our desire for China to make clear in its burgeoning relationship with Iran that it is essential that Iran not seek to escalate or spread violence in the Middle East, a senior administration official was cited as telling 'Politico'. Furthermore, a warning is to be conveyed that any provocative actions on the part of Tehran will trigger an immediate US response, the official said.The relationship between China and Iran will be the focus of tough conversations between Biden and Xi, another senior administration official was quoted as telling reporters. The Biden administration is increasingly concerned that Irans ally the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militant group could wade into the continuing flare-up in the Middle East by opening a second front against Israel, the US report stated citing Washington officials.Accordingly, the US is looking to China to exert its influence over Iran. Beijing and Tehran have been enhancing their ties, having signed a long-term comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement in March 2021. For more than a decade, Beijing has been Tehrans largest trading partner. In March, China facilitated an agreement normalizing relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The United States is hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit for the first time since 2011, and Biden and Xi are set to meet on the sidelines of the forum on 15 November.It was earlier reported that the first meeting between Biden and Xi since they met at the G20 summit in Bali in November 2022 would focus on the US-China bilateral relationship, restoring essential communications between the United States and China on the military side, and showing the Chinese President once again that Washington is committed to the One China policy, with no support for Taiwan's independence. One can also expect the two leaders to discuss the Ukraine conflict, cooperation on climate issues, and a spate of other hot-button topics.A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said of the forthcoming meeting that the two leaders will discuss the strategic, overarching and fundamental importance in shaping China-US relations and major issues concerning world peace and development.However, as the Palestine-Israel conflict rages on and the Palestinian death toll in Gaza since 7 October has exceeded 11,0000, preventing a spillover of the violence is also expected to be uppermost on the agenda of the Biden-Xi talks.As Israel Defense Forces (IDF) continue their onslaught on Gaza, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying on Saturday that the Israeli military will remain in the Gaza Strip as long as necessary, there has been growing pressure around the world to end the Palestinian suffering in the enclave. Joe Biden, however, has rejected calls for a ceasefire while expressing unwavering support for Israel. Instead, the US floated the suggestion for a brief humanitarian pause in Israels assault to allow aid to enter Gaza or permit civilians to leave the enclave. It should be noted that the Biden administration's clumsy attempts to convince Netanyahu to refrain from initiating a full-scale ground operation in Gaza resulted in humiliation, as did the flurry of feeble shuttle diplomacy carried out by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.Amid the ongoing escalation, Washington has been concerned that Israeli 'arch-enemy' Iran may be dragged into the conflict. It should be noted that unlike the US, Iran joined Russia, China, Brazil, Turkiye and other powers in calling for an immediate halt to the fighting in Gaza, with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian telling United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that Iran is prepared to back any political solution aimed at halting Israel's crimes against humanity.More recently, as Arab and Muslim leaders concluded an emergency summit of the Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, they condemned Israeli aggression on Gaza and demanded a ceasefire. During his first official visit to Saudi Arabia for the summit, Irans President Ebrahim Raisi on Saturday slammed Washingtons role in the violence, pointing to its large shipments of weapons to Israel every day. Dismissing Washington's proposal for humanitarian pauses, he urged a complete lifting of the blockade on the Gaza Strip and the opening of the Rafah checkpoint without restrictions or obstacles. According to Raisi, all countries must ensure the security of Palestinians in the occupied territories, and a sustainable solution to the conflict is to create a Palestinian state from the river to the sea.Echoing remarks made earlier by Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, Raisi urged Islamic countries to cut off political and trade ties with Israel and declare a boycott on its goods. Tel Aviv and Washington ought to be tried in court to ensure prosecution for crimes, said Raisi.As for Bidens meeting with Xi, the aforementioned US report cited administration officials as saying that this is precisely the time for high level diplomacy", bearing in mind the upcoming demands of the reelection campaign. With 2024 likely to be quite a bumpy year, the officials have predicted, they voiced hope the Biden-Xi face-to-face will result in substantial outcomes. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231111/iranian-president-arrives-in-riyadh-for-first-visit-since-restoration-of-diplomatic-ties-1114885380.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20231110/scott-ritter-explains-why-israel-cannot-beat-hezbollah-on-its-own-1114869549.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20231108/catastrophic-mistake-for-us-to-let-israel-draw-it-into-war-with-hezbollah-and-iran-1114823857.html china iran Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Svetlana Ekimenko Svetlana Ekimenko News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Svetlana Ekimenko us president joe biden meeting with chinese president xi jinping, biden-xi meeting on sidelines of asia-pacific economic cooperation (apec) summit, palestine-israel conflict, spillover from israel-hamas war https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/erdogan-calls-un-ineffective-urges-reform-of-permanent-membership-veto-systems-1114901017.html Erdogan Calls UN 'Ineffective,' Urges Reform of Permanent Membership, Veto Systems Erdogan Calls UN 'Ineffective,' Urges Reform of Permanent Membership, Veto Systems Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized the United Nations and its Security Council on Sunday for failing to act on the Gaza crisis, calling the organization "ineffective" and urging a reform of its permanent membership and veto systems. 2023-11-12T11:31+0000 2023-11-12T11:31+0000 2023-11-12T11:31+0000 world recep tayyip erdogan state council the united nations (un) security council /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/08/10/1112650575_0:0:2112:1188_1920x0_80_0_0_dae73f0480a6a7c29c260ecef0ae09fd.jpg "The UN has become ineffective. That is to say, even the UN Security Council cannot achieve any results. If one Council member acts incorrectly then nothing happens," Erdogan told reporters upon his return from Saudi Arabia, adding that "the system of permanent membership and veto in the UN should be changed." The 15-nation Security Council consists of five permanent members with veto powers and 10 non-permanent members elected for two-year terms. Erdogan accused the UN of turning a blind eye to the suffering of Gazans and said that "the future of the world and the lives of peoples cannot be left to the mercy of five countries with veto power." https://sputnikglobe.com/20231110/israeli-attacks-on-un-chief-for-gaza-remarks-detached-from-reality---palestine-un-envoy-1114857372.html Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International turkish president recep tayyip erdogan, united nations and its security council, gaza crisis https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/european-farmers-reportedly-see-ukraines-possible-eu-accession-as-threat-1114903357.html European Farmers Reportedly See Ukraine's Possible EU Accession as Threat European Farmers Reportedly See Ukraine's Possible EU Accession as Threat In early 2022, Ukraine applied for EU membership. The application was later considered by the European Parliament, and Ukraine received the status of a candidate to the EU. However, there is a list of rigid requirements and comprehensive steps all candidates must fulfill. 2023-11-12T17:18+0000 2023-11-12T17:18+0000 2023-11-12T17:18+0000 economy europe ukraine france poland european union (eu) farmers agriculture /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/09/0a/1100633252_0:159:3078:1890_1920x0_80_0_0_9a6221e13ee15486cd0dfc78f8f64a01.jpg Negotiations on Ukraine joining the European Union (EU) have raised serious concerns among major European suppliers, who fear that once it joins the bloc, it will completely upset the agricultural and food environment among the old-time members, French daily L'Opinion reported.According to the report, farmers in old agricultural Europe fear strong shake-ups in the intra-European competitive climate. Ukraine is already the second largest supplier organic products to the EU. What also concerns Europe is the likely need to rebuild and modernize Ukrainian agriculture once the conflict is over. These efforts will require large financial investments, boosting Ukraines agricultural production.Potential inclusion of a new nation in the EU will push the authorities to redistribute funds that remain relatively set. All the more because Ukraine has extensive agricultural areas, far more than other European farming powerhouses like France and Poland.Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak has previously said that Ukraine is ready to rise to the challenge and face economic conflicts within the EU.On February 28, 2022, Ukraine applied for EU membership. On June 17, 2022, the European Commission recommended that the European Council grant Ukraine candidate status for its accession to the EU. On June 23, 2022, the European Parliament first adopted a relevant resolution, and then granted the status of a candidate later that day. Ukraine is now one of eight current EU candidate nations, along with Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Turkiye. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/ukrainian-presidential-aide-expects-new-economic-conflicts-with-eu-countries-1114894044.html ukraine france poland Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International ukraine eu accession, ukrainian farmer, agriculture, european agriculture sectore https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/germany-to-double-military-aid-for-ukraine-to-86bln-in-2024---reports-1114895127.html Germany to Double Military Aid for Ukraine to $8.6Bln in 2024 - Reports Germany to Double Military Aid for Ukraine to $8.6Bln in 2024 - Reports Germanys governing coalition plans to double military assistance to Ukraine to $8.6 billion next year, according to media reports. 2023-11-12T06:07+0000 2023-11-12T06:07+0000 2023-11-12T06:07+0000 military ukraine germany kiev defense ministry european union (eu) boris pistorius josep borrell patriot military aid /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/0a/17/1114416397_0:0:3072:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_b51fe15512a55764e87fcd9b64e3017d.jpg Germanys governing coalition plans to double military assistance to Ukraine to $8.6 billion next year, Bloomberg reported, citing sources.The German parliaments Budget Committee will approve the extra $4 billion in military funding for Kiev at a meeting next week, which would increase German defense spending to 2.1% of GDP in 2024, the agency reported, citing information it obtained from the Defense Ministry. Earlier, the top European diplomat, Josep Borrell, said that US aid to Ukraine might be cut and that EU countries should be politically ready to take up the slack.On 10 October, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced a $1.1 billion military aid package for Ukraine, including Patriot SAMs and the IRIS-T missile system.In 2022, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced the 100 billion ($107 billion) fund, which includes the procurement of F-35 fighter jets to replace aging Tornado jets, Israel's Arrow air defense system, and Chinook heavy-lift helicopters.The US and its allies increased their military aid to Kiev shortly after Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine. Moscow has repeatedly warned that supplying arms to the Kiev regime will only prolong the conflict. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231110/why-germanys-military-buildup-and-eu-leadership-remain-a-big-if-1114875013.html ukraine germany kiev Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International double military assistance to ukraine, military aid, military operation https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/immoral-us-warfare-never-sought-to-minimize-civilian-deaths---scholar-1114901661.html 'Immoral' US Warfare 'Never Sought to Minimize Civilian Deaths' - Scholar 'Immoral' US Warfare 'Never Sought to Minimize Civilian Deaths' - Scholar Throughout its history, the United States has never allowed concerns about the civilian death toll to impact its warfare strategy, and current developments in Gaza are yet another glaring example of this, scholar, educator and journalist K.J. Noh told Sputnik. 2023-11-12T14:29+0000 2023-11-12T14:29+0000 2023-11-12T14:29+0000 us analysis joe biden john kirby israel gaza israel defense forces (idf) joint direct attack munition (jdam) hamas palestine-israel conflict /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/0b/0c/1090671689_0:0:3073:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_7e13ec9030d51876f9271ee96af2420f.jpg Throughout its history, the United States has never allowed concerns about the civilian death toll to impact its warfare strategy, and current developments in Gaza are yet another glaring example of this, scholar, educator and journalist K.J. Noh told Sputnik.Recalling US doctrine implemented in countries like Korea, Vietnam, and elsewhere, it has been simply to kill anything that moves. You create a free fire zone, you kill anything that moves, and the murder is indiscriminate, the pundit said. Afterwards, they may use mainstream media to paste it over with "PR means and releases."US Business 'is War'Whether it is fuelling weapons to fuel the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, or sending military assistance to Israel in its fight against Hamas, fundamentally, the business of the US is war, K.J. Noh emphasized.Ever since the Hamas attack of October 7, Israels strong response, with its relentless strikes and then ground operation in Gaza that has been driving up the civilian death toll in the enclave has boosted sympathy for the Palestinian issue across the globe. And yet, we see how Washington has doubled down on its determination to offer unwavering support for Israel. As Israel Defense Forces (IDF) continue their onslaught on Gaza, the Palestinian death toll in the enclave since 7 October has exceeded 11,000, according to local health officials. US President Joe Biden, however, has rejected calls for a ceasefire, with Washington floating the suggestion for a brief humanitarian pause in Israels assault to allow aid to enter Gaza or permit civilians to leave the enclave.After the Biden administration asked for an additional $14 billion for Israel from Congress, Washington committed to delivering to Tel Aviv Iron Dome air defense missiles, small diameter bombs and Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits, besides the earlier agreed weapons deals, as per US media reports. At the same time, unlike the case with Ukraine, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby acknowledged that Washington's military supplies to Israel were shrouded in secrecy. During an October 23 press briefing, Kirby said that "Were being careful not to quantify or get into too much detail about what theyre getting for their own operational security purposes, of course."As far as the ongoing developments in besieged Gaza, which is being pounded by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the US is providing the weapons, K.J. Noh pointed out, adding:Furthermore, now Israel has reportedly requested several hundred expendable switchblade kamikaze drones, K.J. Noh pointed out, which signals that there is going to be intense urban warfare with intense casualties. And it just speaks to the constant escalation, and the fact that there is the no holds barred [approach] as this war continues to move forward," he said.'Real Costs of War'From the Biden administration's opaque arms deals with Israel, and lack of concern for the civilian death toll in Gaza, the educator weiged in on the American establishment's attitude towards its own soldiers. We don't understand or we choose not to understand the real costs of war, K.J. Noh said.A recent report in The New York Times appeared to shed light on strange new physical and psychic wounds discerned among military gun crews, dating back to a "secret US offensive during 2016 and 2017" seeking to defeat the Islamic State in Syria. At the time, a plan to put a minimal number of American boots on the ground to target the enemy with artillery fire backfired in the sense that the US soldiers returned plagued by nightmares, panic attacks, depression, etc. Many, as per the report, have died by suicide. The Marine Corps in 2019 issued findings of an investigation that showed these gun crews were likely injured by having to fire a huge number of rounds daily. And yet, the military appeared to dismiss these concerns.According to K.J. Noh, its part of an ideological crusade that wants to distract from the moral costs, and to turn moral damage into a medical phenomenon which that you can then treat with medical procedures."*Daesh (ISIS/ISIL/IS) is a terrorist organization banned in Russia and other countries.For more insightful commentary on the top news, check out our Sputnik news show Political Misfits. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231111/us-pundit-weighs-in-on-whats-behind-americas-support-for-israel------1114881546.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20231108/why-us-brags-about-arms-for-ukraine-but-keeps-israel-aid-on-hush-hush-1114822449.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20231111/most-americans-wouldnt-defend-country-in-next-war---poll-1114879929.html israel gaza Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Svetlana Ekimenko Svetlana Ekimenko News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Svetlana Ekimenko palestine-israel conflict, gaza civilian death toll, us aid to israel https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/israeli-ministry-of-defense-concludes-deal-to-sell-davids-sling-air-defense-system-to-finland--1114896937.html Israeli Ministry of Defense Concludes Deal to Sell David's Sling Air Defense System to Finland Israeli Ministry of Defense Concludes Deal to Sell David's Sling Air Defense System to Finland Israel's Defense Ministry announced Sunday that it has signed an agreement with Finland for the sale of the David's Sling missile defense system. 2023-11-12T08:26+0000 2023-11-12T08:26+0000 2023-11-12T08:42+0000 military israel finland defense ministry israeli ministry of defense air defense /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/103211/29/1032112973_0:104:2000:1229_1920x0_80_0_0_07a1ffcd63928a52f6a01eecc2bad998.jpg Israel's Defense Ministry announced Sunday that it has signed an agreement with Finland for the sale of the David's Sling missile defense system. In April, the Israeli Ministry of Defense received a request from its Finnish counterparts to purchase the David's Sling system, which had not previously been exported abroad. The deal reportedly required a US export license due to joint development efforts.The David's Sling missile defense system was jointly developed by the Israel Missile Defense Organization and the US Missile Defense Agency(MDA) in 2009. Israel's Rafael Advanced Defense Systems was the prime contractor for the project. The system was finally adopted by the Israeli army in 2017. It is designed to intercept advanced air targets, including ballistic missiles, aircraft, drones and cruise missiles. The system incorporates advanced radar, command and control, and intercept technologies to provide a comprehensive defense against a wide range of air threats. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231110/why-gaza-war-hasnt-become-a-good-ad-for-israeli-air-defense-system-1114873317.html israel finland Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International israeli ministry of defense, david's sling missile defense system, air defense system to finland US Does Not Want Fighting to Spread to Gaza Hospitals - White House Washington believes Israel should not conduct military operations at medical facilities in the Gaza Strip despite the fact that hospitals are used for military purposes by Hamas, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Sunday. "Hamas uses lots of different civilian institutions, including hospitals, to store weapons, for command and control, to house its fighters We have seen that in this conflict. And thats a violation of the laws of war, taking civilians as human shields, using hospitals for military purposes We do not want to see a firefight in a hospital where innocent people, helpless people, people seeking medical care are caught in the crossfire," Sullivan told ABC News. At the same time, Hamas' actions in Gaza do not diminish Israel's responsibility to protect civilians, Sullivan noted. "And this is something that we have had an active conversation with the Israeli government about," the advisor added. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/russia-repels-5-ukrainian-attacks-in-donetsk-direction-in-past-24-hours---mod-1114901536.html Russia Repels 5 Ukrainian Attacks in Donetsk Direction in Past 24 Hours - MoD Russia Repels 5 Ukrainian Attacks in Donetsk Direction in Past 24 Hours - MoD Russian armed forces repelled five attacks by Ukraine in the Donetsk direction over the past 24 hours, inflicting heavy casualties on the Ukrainian army, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday. 2023-11-12T12:24+0000 2023-11-12T12:24+0000 2023-11-12T12:24+0000 russia's special operation in ukraine sputnik russian defense ministry donetsk ukraine russia /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/06/19/1111456918_0:160:3072:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_76ffdd4274b6171bdaef450736ec094a.jpg "In the Donetsk direction, Southern group units repelled five enemy attacks near the villages of Kurdyumovka and Klishcheevka in the Donetsk People's Republic with aviation and artillery assistance. The Ukrainian armed forces lost up to 250 military personnel killed and wounded, three armored combat vehicles and three pickup trucks," the ministry said. Ukrainian losses also included a Polish-made Krab self-propelled tracked gun-howitzer, a US-made M119 howitzer, three D-30 guns and one D-20 howitzer. In addition, in the Kupyansk direction, Russian troops used aviation and artillery strikes to repel two attacks by Ukrainian assault groups of the 54th mechanized brigade near the village of Zagoruykovka in Kharkov region, leaving 40 Ukrainian troops dead or wounded. Russian troops also repelled two attacks by Ukraine in the Liman direction, leaving up to 210 Ukrainian troops killed or wounded. A further attack was repelled near the village of Nikolskoe in the southern Donetsk People's Republic, the Russian ministry said. Ukrainian troops were struck by artillery fire near the village of Novomikhailovka and the town of Vugledar. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/watch-russian-artillerymen-hit-ukrainian-positions-with-msta-b-howitzers-1114894608.html donetsk ukraine russia Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International donetsk direction, russian defense ministry, russian armed forces https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/russia-uae-discuss-deeper-cooperation-in-carmaking-pharmaceutics-1114907721.html Russia, UAE Discuss Deeper Cooperation in Carmaking, Pharmaceutics Russia, UAE Discuss Deeper Cooperation in Carmaking, Pharmaceutics Russian Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov said on Sunday he had discussed cooperation in the automotive, pharmaceutical and oil industries with his Emirati counterpart, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber. 2023-11-12T18:22+0000 2023-11-12T18:22+0000 2023-11-12T18:22+0000 economy denis manturov uae russia /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/0b/0c/1114907561_0:0:3072:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_f650729e681a699c6875544c5eee826f.jpg "Carmaking was on the agenda, as usual The second topic was pharmaceutics. Our companies have been exploring the UAE market for some time now," Manturov told reporters in Abu Dhabi. He said Russian luxury carmaker Aurus Motors and Abu Dhabi's Tawazun Holding had begun assembling Aurus Senat sedans at an Abu Dhabi factory. As regards pharmaceutics, the Russian minister said that Russian companies making inroads in the UAE drug market were in the process of aligning their standards with those of the United Arab Emirates. In addition, Manturov said that the two governments were discussing ways of standardizing and certifying oil and gas production equipment. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230616/russia-interested-in-trade-economic-cooperation-with-uae-other-countries-1111204006.html uae russia Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International russia-uae relations, denis manturov, sultan ahmed al jaber, carmaking industry, pharmaceutical industry https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/russian-emergency-ministry-says-evacuating-civilians-from-gaza-strip-1114900131.html Russian Emergencies Ministry Evacuates Civilians From Gaza Strip Russian Emergencies Ministry Evacuates Civilians From Gaza Strip The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations (EMERCOM) said on Sunday it, together with Russian diplomats, had begun to evacuate civilians from the Gaza Strip. 2023-11-12T10:28+0000 2023-11-12T10:28+0000 2023-11-12T12:36+0000 world palestine-israel conflict gaza strip cairo emercom russia /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/0b/06/1114754217_0:0:825:464_1920x0_80_0_0_f680eb85dbf304511f6043693b8d4228.jpg "EMERCOM, together with Russian diplomats, has organized work to evacuate civilians from the Gaza Strip. This follows a week of preparations by an EMERCOM task force that coordinated the procedure and routes for evacuating Russian citizens trapped in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict zone," the ministry said on Telegram. Russian citizens wishing to leave the conflict zone are going through a checkpoint, with EMERCOM specialists offering medical and psychological assistance and distributing food and water to people at the site, the statement read. The evacuees will be taken to the Egyptian capital of Cairo where an EMERCOM operations room has been set up, the ministry added. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231107/russia-to-continue-contacts-with-palestine-israel-egypt-on-gaza-aid---kremlin-1114786024.html gaza strip cairo russia Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International russian emergency ministry, evacuating civilians from gaza strip https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/scott-ritter-time-for-us-to-dump-zelensky-1114889912.html Scott Ritter: Time for US to Dump Zelensky Scott Ritter: Time for US to Dump Zelensky There has been no greater cheerleader for the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine than Ukraines president, Volodymir Zelensky. 2023-11-12T09:22+0000 2023-11-12T09:22+0000 2023-11-12T09:22+0000 volodymyr zelensky valery zaluzhny ukraine russia nato world us ukrainian counteroffensive attempt /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/0b/0c/1114897745_0:160:3072:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_206f66359d02c24ca3b1f7ef3deb94f7.jpg From the very onset of the conflict, Ukraines leader has been elevated to near mythical status by the propaganda arms of the collective west, manufacturing a cartoon-like caricature credited with heroic utterances he never made, yet were injected into the mainstream discourse through the collaboration of western intelligence services and a compliant media.The famous quote attributed to Zelensky early in the conflict, after he reportedly turned down an offer to be evacuated from Kiev, is a case in point. The fight is here, Zelensky was attributed as saying. I need ammunition, not a ride. The quote was first promulgated by the Associated Press, citing a US Embassy source. However, there is no corroboration that Zelensky ever actually said these words. They are attributed to a senior American intelligence official [at the US Embassy in Kiev] with direct knowledge of the conversation, and yet no one is familiar with the conversation in question. In this case, fact checking wasnt on the agendathe quote was too good not to use, so the media ran with it, and the rest is history.The Ukrainian President did issue a video statement at the time, where he declared I am here. We are not putting down arms. We will be defending our country, because our weapon is truth, and our truth is that this is our land, our country, our children, and we will defend all of this.Twenty months later, the Ukrainian President is still here, at the helm of a nation that has been devastated by a war he was elected to prevent. And he still believes in the inevitability of a Ukrainian victory. Nobody believes in our victory like I do. Nobody, Zelensky told Time Magazine in a recent interview.The problem for Zelensky is that no one seems to share in his optimism. The scariest thing is that part of the world got used to the war in Ukraine, Zelensky noted in the same interview. Exhaustion with the war rolls along like a wave. You see it in the United States, in Europe. And we see that as soon as they start to get a little tired, it becomes like a show to them: I cant watch this rerun for the 10th time.Apparently, the CIA wasnt around to massage this message into something catchier.One of Zelenskys biggest problems is that his own military no longer believes in victory. In an illuminating interview with The Economist, General Valery Zaluzhny conceded that Ukraines much-hyped counteroffensive, designed to cut the land bridge connecting Crimea with the rest of Russia, has failedspectacularly. After five months of bloody fighting, Zaluzhny concluded that the conflict with Russia had reached the level of a stalemate, and that there will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough. Ukrainian losses during this time exceeded 90,000 dead and wounded, along with more than 300 tanks, approximating the number of troops trained by NATO for the counteroffensive, as well as the number of tanks supplied by NATO to assist in the attacks.It was nearly a year ago that Zuluzhny gave a far more upbeat interview to The Economist, during which he declared I know that I can beat this enemy. But I need resources. I need 300 tanks, 600-700 ifvs [infantry fighting vehicles], 500 Howitzers. Then, I think it is completely realistic to get to the lines of February 23rd [note: the day before Russia initiated the Special Military Operation.]Zaluzhny made no secret about where his primary focus of effort would fall, and why. In order to reach the borders of Crimea, as of today we need to cover a distance of 84 kilometers to Melitopol. By the way, this is enough for us, because Melitopol would give us a full fire control of the land corridor, because from Melitopol we can already fire at the Crimean Isthmus.In his most recent interview with The Economist, Zaluzhny seems to have forgotten his bold plans to seize Melitopol; the well-prepared Russian defenses in and around the village of Robotino saw that dream go up in smoke, like the armor of the German-made Leopard tanks that litter the Zaporizhian fields. Instead, Zaluzhny tells a new tale, that his strategy was to cause massive Russian casualties to break the spirit of the Russian Army and compel the Russian political leadership to the negotiating table. That was my mistake, Zaluzhny said. Russia has lost at least 150,000 dead. In any other country such casualties would have stopped the war.Zaluzhnys comments raise two critical issues. The first is the accuracy of the figures he cites. While Russia has not released an official accounting of its casualties from the Special Military Operation in months, open-source analysis conducted by the BBC and Meduza indicate that between 30,000 and 47,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the conflicta huge number, but far less that the 120,000 cited by Zaluzhny.But Zaluzhny ignored the elephant in the roomUkrainian casualties. By some estimates, between 350,000-400,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the fighting with Russia, exhausting Ukrainian reserves and mobilization potential alike. While Russian losses are considerable, they have been compensated for by the mobilization of 300,000 reserves supplemented by more than 300,000 volunteers. Russias ability to generate combat strength while Ukraine depletes its own is the real reason Ukraines counteroffensive has failedand why the ultimate outcome will be a strategic Russian victory, not the stalemate envisioned by Zaluzhny.The statements of Ukraines top general were not well received by the Ukrainian President. Shortly after The Economist interview became public, Igor Zhovka, the deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, criticized Zaluzhny. I am sure that everything has been carefully read, noted down and conclusions drawn by the Russians, he said. Moreover, Zhovka added, Zaluzhnys comments regarding a stalemate have Ukraines allies in a panic.Zelensky himself contradicted the dire conclusions of his top military commander. Time has passed, people are tired, regardless of their status, and this is understandable, told the press during a news conference. But this is not a stalemate, I emphasize this once again. Later, in comments made during a meeting with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, Zelensky noted that while There are difficulties, there are different opinions, he believed that we have no right to even think about giving up, because whats the alternative?Time Magazine, in its October 2023 article, characterized Zelenskys belief in Ukraines ultimate victory as delusional, with Zelenskys perception of his role as verging on the messianic. According to a close aid to the Ukrainian President, Were out of options. Were not winning. But try telling him that.It appeared that someone did. The result was typical Zelenskyangry and bitter. We are not ready to give our freedom to this f_____g terrorist Putin, he told NBC News in an interview.We see, therefore, that War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means, the famous Prussian military strategist, Carl von Clausewitz, wrote in his classic treatise, On War. War must always be regarded as merely a means through which political views can be modified, Clausewitz noted. [T]he political view is the object, War is the means, and the means must always include the object in our conception.Clausewitzs words serve as the basis for an assessment of the chasm that has opened between Zelenskythe owner of the political viewand Zaluzhnythe wielder of the military means. The reality, however, is that neither man is the master of his respective realm. As was the case regarding Zelenskys I need ammunition, not a ride quote, control of the script from which both Zelensky and Zaluzhny are reading from rests with the United States and its European alliesthe so-called collective West. And it is here that both men find themselves in trouble.Zelenskys political view has nothing to do with the aspirations he might have for Ukraine as a nation, but rather what utility Ukraine has for furthering the strategic geopolitical goals and objectives of the collective West regarding Russia. Ukraine has been, is, and will always be little more than a tool in the minds of the western leaders Zelensky has aligned himself with, to be used when convenient, and discarded when no longer so. The fact of the matter is that the collective West has become exhausted by the Ukraine conflict, both financially, militarily, and politically. Far from becoming weakened by the conflict, Russia has emerged stronger on every leveleconomically, militarily, and politically.The gambit by the collective West to weaken Russia by promoting a conflict with Ukraine has failed. This is the new reality of Zelenskys political viewhe is no longer a useful tool for the collective West, which is desperately trying to find the right conditions under which to discard him.As for the military means, General Zaluzhnys comments underscore the impotence of the Ukrainian military when it comes to being a useful political instrument. The strategic defeat of the Ukrainian military has been accomplished by the Russian military. While there is still the potential for more fighting and much bloodshed before a final Russian victory is secured, the fact is that such an outcome is all but assured.In this environment, the collective West is loath to continue throwing good money after bad. There is a growing reluctance in the US Congress to continue providing billions of dollars in support of a losing cause. Europe is likewise exhausted. Zaluzhnys stalemate is a rose-colored portrait compared to the dark reality he and the Ukrainian military faces. Out of tanks, out of ammunition, out of men, the hard truth is that Ukraine is trapped in a war of attrition where every factor favors Russia.Zelensky lost the war.In the weeks and months ahead, the collective West will have to find the means to discard Zelensky and Ukraine. The current conflict between Hamas and Israel appears to have provided a convenient excuse for accelerating this process, with military resources that otherwise might have been made available to Ukraine being diverted to Israel, a reality that will exist for the foreseeable future.Perhaps it is high time for the CIA scriptwriters to craft an ending to the tragedy they helped create. I have no ammunition left, Zelensky could be quoted as saying. I need a ride. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231109/ex-cia-analyst-west-preparing-for-military-coup-against-zelensky-1114845253.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20231104/natos-backfired-ukraine-strategy-built-on-ideology-bribery--blackmail-1114706923.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20231004/russian-leaflets-offer-ukrainians-escape-from-meat-grinder-1113924286.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20231105/zelensky-vs-zaluzhnyi-ukraines-president-censures-top-commander-over-stalemate-comments-1114746026.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20231001/ukraines-possible-new-counteroffensive-camouflage-for-zelensky-to-steal-more-money-from-west-1113837034.html ukraine russia Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Scott Ritter https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/0c/17/1105733958_0:0:334:334_100x100_80_0_0_b457e4e9c850ef224b0cc79059bb38df.jpg Scott Ritter https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/0c/17/1105733958_0:0:334:334_100x100_80_0_0_b457e4e9c850ef224b0cc79059bb38df.jpg News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Scott Ritter https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/0c/17/1105733958_0:0:334:334_100x100_80_0_0_b457e4e9c850ef224b0cc79059bb38df.jpg ukraine, ukrainian crisis, ukrainian conflict, war in ukraine, volodymyr zelenskyy, valerii zaluzhnyi, ukrainian counteroffensive, aid for ukraine, ukraine-russia war, ukraine-russia conflict, ukraine-russia peace talks https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/top-5-most-powerful-militaries-in-the-middle-east-1114903541.html Top 5 Most Powerful Militaries in the Middle East Top 5 Most Powerful Militaries in the Middle East The escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli crisis into a full-blown conflagration between the IDF and Hamas in Gaza has sparked global fears of a regional war. Amid the crisis, Sputnik has ranked the Middle Easts top five fighting forces, and analyzed where each power stands in relation to the ongoing conflict. 2023-11-12T15:12+0000 2023-11-12T15:12+0000 2023-11-12T19:25+0000 military middle east saddam hussein israel iran gaza israel defense forces (idf) hamas air force iron dome /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/103503/51/1035035184_0:48:2470:1437_1920x0_80_0_0_8e903f9858240d75f70d6ea9bc58cf4e.jpg The escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli crisis on October 7 has been accompanied by a major uptick in regional tensions, with the United States deploying two carrier strike groups, at least one Tomahawk cruise-missile armed submarine, thousands of Marines and additional aircraft to local waters and bases dotting the region. Washington has complemented these deployments with threats against regional military powerhouse Iran, Israel's arch enemy, threatening the Islamic Republic with an "immediate" response to any "provocative actions" by Tehran or its "proxies" amid a spate of attacks against US forces in Syria and Iraq.Iranian officials have a different take on the source of tensions, blasting the US for stoking a regional crisis, suggesting that Israel would collapse without American support, and warning Friday that the expansion of the intensity of the war against Gazas civilian residents makes an expansion of the scope of the warinevitable. At the same time, Tehran has rejected US rhetoric about Iranian proxies attacks against US forces in Iraq and Syria, saying it was not involved in any way.IsraelThe Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been considered among the top five most powerful military powers in the Middle East since the countrys inception in 1948. Since that time, Israel has fought over a dozen major wars, starting with the first Arab-Israeli War of 1948-1949. For the remainder of the 20th century and into the early 21st, Israel would demonstrate an ability to engage in both offensive and defensive operations unparalleled to any other regional power, fighting off the combined forces of Egypt, Jordan and Syria June 1967, stalemating Egyptian and Syrian forces during the Yom Kippur War of October 1973, invading Lebanon in 1982 and occupying the countrys southern portion until the year 2000, and fighting off the First and Second Palestinian Intifadas (1987-1993, 2000-2005, respectively).Nowhere was this more clearly demonstrated than during the 2006 Lebanon War. Unlike most previous conflicts, Israel proved unable to secure a rapid victory. In fact, over a month of fighting, the IDF suffered 121 troops killed and 1,244 injured, with over 20 of its fearsome Merkava tanks destroyed and dozens more damaged by improvised explosive devices and portable anti-tank weapons. Lebanese Hezbollah forces outnumbered by at least an order of magnitude, and up to 30 to one during the closing days of the conflict, were estimated to have suffered 250 fighters killed, with Israel failing in its stated objective of destroying or degrading the militia, and the war ending in a UN-brokered ceasefire. At the same time, Israeli air and artillery strikes cost some $2.8 billion in direct war damage, with a million Lebanese civilians displaced and up to 640 km of roads, 73 bridges and 31 other targets, including airports, water and sewage treatment plants, electrical facilities and fuel plants damaged or destroyed.History appears to be repeating itself in the ongoing Gaza war, with the IDF successfully leveling much of the Strips cities with artillery and missile strikes, but facing problems advancing into Hamas-held areas of the besieged territory, suffering at least 356 soldiers killed in action since October 7, and Hamas claiming the destruction or disabling of some 136 Israeli military vehicles (the IDF has not confirmed these figures). Hamass casualties since the start of the incursion into Gaza are unknown, although the Israeli military reports on the deaths of up to 150 militants per day (the militias total strength has previously been estimated at 20,000-30,000).The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) estimates the IDFs total strength at 169,500 active personnel and 465,000 reservists (360,000 of whom who were called up after October 7). The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimated Israels military budget at $23.4 billion in 2022 (including $3.18 billion in annual US military aid). The IDF has three service branches the Ground Forces, the Air Force and the Navy, and four separate commands (Northern, Central, Southern and Home Front).Israel has one of the largest, most diverse, and profitable military-industrial complexes in the world, with the country producing an array of homegrown and conversion/derivative aircraft, drones, missiles, radars, electronic warfare systems and even satellites. Major homegrown armaments include the Iron Dome, Arrow and Davids Sling air and missile defense systems, the Jericho series of nuclear-capable missiles, domestically-made small arms like the Desert Eagle pistol, Negev light machine gun and the Uzi submachinegun, and Merkava series tanks. With US financial support, Israel has been able to purchase the latest and greatest American weapons systems, becoming one of the first countries to receive the Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jet, which Israel has heavily customized to include homegrown avionics, and the ability to drop Israeli-made missiles and bombs.To top it off, Israel is a suspected nuclear weapons state (the country neither confirms nor denies its status, in a policy known as "deliberate ambiguity"). SIPRI estimates that Israel possesses up to 80 air and missile-deliverable nukes. US and Israeli security analysts refer to Israels nuclear strategy as the Samson Option - a reference to the Old Testament Biblical figure Samson, who legend has it toppled the Philistine temple and buried himself and thousands of Philistines alive to prevent being enslaved. The Samson Option similarly assumes that Israel would launch its nukes at enemies in one desperate final act of vengeance if its conventional military was ever overrun. Israels likely nuclear status makes it arguably the most powerful military force in the Middle East.IranIran is another major Middle Eastern military powerhouse. With an active duty standing Army of 350,000 troops (plus 37,000 Air Force personnel, 18,000 Navy servicemen and 15,000 Air Defense troops), and a 230,000 troop-strong contingent of elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) personnel (150,000 of them in the Ground Forces, 40,000 paramilitaries, 20,000 in the IRGC Navy and 15,000 in the IRGC Air and Air Defense Forces), Iran has one of the largest active duty militaries in the Middle East, plus at least 350,000 reserve personnel to call on in an emergency. The country had a military budget equivalent to about $6.8 billion in 2022.Like Israel, Iran has its share of conflicts providing its forces with crucial combat experience. This includes the brutal Iran-Iraq War, which kicked off in September 1980 as Saddam Hussein, backed up by the United States, kicked off a war of aggression to seize Irans oil-rich province of Khuzestan. The conflict quickly turned into a quagmire which lasted through most of the remainder of the decade, with the two countries reaching a ceasefire and peace agreement in 1988. Up to 600,000 Iranian and 500,000 Iraqi troops were killed in the conflict, along with over 100,000 mostly Iranian civilians.The Iran-Iraq War provided Iran with three important lessons:Between the late 1980s and today, Iran has been involved in several other conflicts, taking on separatists and foreign-backed terrorists seeking to overthrow the government, providing Hezbollah with advisory assistance during its 2006 conflict with Israel, and supporting the Syrian and Iraqi governments against jihadist militias, including Daesh (ISIS),* in the 2010s. Iran has also had several military close calls with the United States, destroying a US spy drone violating its airspace over the Straight of Hormuz in 2019, and raining ballistic missiles down on US bases in Iraq after the January 2020 unprovoked US assassination of IRGC Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad. Fortunately, neither incident sparked a broader war.On top of that, the countrys geography and network of alliances provides Tehran with a range of capabilities which further increase its overall military strength. These include security partnerships with Syria and Lebanons Hezbollah, which allow Iran to project power to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and Tehrans unique ability to close off the Hormuz Strait the crucial maritime trade artery through which some 30 percent of the worlds total oil passes. In the event that tensions with Israel the United States ever went hot, Iran would have the option of using its coastal defense systems and other missiles to target US-allied commercial cargoes in the Gulf and sparking a global economic crisis. These capabilities make Iran second in the list of major Middle Eastern military powers.TurkiyeTurkiye, the nation with the second-largest military in NATO after the United States, is also indisputably one of the greatest military powers in the Middle East. With 355,200 active duty personnel and 378,700 reservists, and a string of bases dotting the region, Turkiyes support (or lack thereof) could prove crucial to any operations in the region by its Western allies. According to IISS data, 260,200 of Turkiyes 355,200 troop total consist of Land Forces personnel, with another 50,000 accounted for by the Air Force, and 45,000 by the Navy. On top of that are an estimated 156,800 paramilitaries, including the Coast Guard and the Gendarmerie the branch of the Ministry of Interior responsible for the maintenance of public order, which in wartime can be subordinated to the Land Forces.Turkiye allocated $16 billion to defense and security in 2023, and has a fledgling military-industrial base producing everything from drones (such as the deadly Bayraktar reconnaissance and strike UAV) to warships, homegrown cruise missiles, ATAK helicopters, and the Altay main battle tank, a derivative of the South Korean K2 Black Panther.Turkiyes recent record of military operations has been generally successful. Successfully engaging Kurdish militias in the countrys southeast demanding greater autonomy or independence from Ankara, and launching incursions into Syria and Iraq to take on militias allied to these fighters, Turkiye also joined forces with other NATO powers in the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, and in the 2001-2021 War in Afghanistan (which the coalition ultimately lost). Turkiye also aided the NATO-led campaign to destroy Muammar Gaddafis Air Force in Libya in 2011, helping to lead to his ouster. Turkish support has been crucial in enabling the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord to hold on to power in Libyas western half.Turkiye has access to a number of military bases abroad, including Albania (at the Pasha Liman Base), Azerbaijan (a "Ceasefire Observation Center" in the Karabakh region), Bosnia, Iraq, Kosovo, Libya, Northern Cyprus, Qatar, Somalia, and Syria (Damascus has repeatedly demanded that Turkish forces be withdrawn, with the issue remaining the major sticking point in the normalization of relations).EgyptEgypt, the country directly next door to the crisis unfolding in Gaza, is also considered to have one of the most powerful militaries in the Middle East, ranking 14th among 145 countries reviewed in the Global Firepower Indexs 2023 report. The Armed Forces have 438,500 active duty personnel and 479,000 reservists to call on in a crisis. This includes an Army consisting of professional soldiers (90,000-120,000) and 190,000-220,000 conscripts, an Air Force with 30,000 active and 20,000 reserve personnel, the Air Defense Forces (80,000 active duty personnel and 70,000 reservists) and the Navy (consisting of 18,500 active duty and 14,000 reserve personnel).Egypt hasnt fought a major war on its soil since the Yom Kippur War of October 1973. Egyptian forces joined the US-led coalition in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War, and have taken part in the US-led "war on terror," including jihadist insurgencies in the Sinai Peninsula. The military took part in the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi in 2013, followed by a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood. Egyptian forces have also joined in the Saudi-led operation in Yemen which began in 2015.Egypt has a military budget of $4.6 billion in 2022, and relies on foreign partners for most of its military equipment (importing some $48.1 billion from the US between 1948 and 2017 alone), with Russia another major source of arms imports.Saudi ArabiaThe Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ranks fifth in the Global Firepowers ranking of the top five military powers in the Middle East, and 22nd overall. With a military budget of a whopping $69.1 billion in 2023, country has consistently ranked among the top ten countries in the world in terms of biggest military budgets (ranking fifth in 2022, for example).The Saudi Armed Forces have 257,000 active duty personnel, and are divided into the Army (75,000 troops) the Navy (40,500, including 10,000 elite Marines), the Air Force (25,000), the Air Defense troops (16,000) and the Strategic Missile Force troops (2,500 personnel).The Kingdom relies on the United States for an overwhelming majority (nearly 80 percent) of its military equipment, with France and Spain making up much of the rest (6.4 percent and 4.9 percent, respectively). This equipment includes things like Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, Apache attack helicopters, Patriot missile systems, and other advanced US systems.Saudi Arabia emerged among the victors during the 1991 Gulf War as part of the US-led coalition, and took part in the Operation Southern Watch no fly zone in Iraq through the 1990s. The Kingdom also joined the Western coalition in the 2014-2017 war against Daesh. * A terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/biden-to-urge-xi-to-advise-iran-against-further-mideast-escalation---report-1114894952.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20231011/israels-defense-industry-can-tel-aviv-survive-without-american-weapons-1114097192.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20231005/watch-iran-demonstrate-never-before-seen-capability-during-massive-drone-drills-1113964311.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20231029/turkiye-holds-massive-naval-and-air-parade-in-honor-of-centennial-of-countrys-birth---videos-1114583856.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20231029/turkiye-to-declare-israel-war-criminal-to-world-over-gaza---erdogan-1114569008.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20231107/russia-to-continue-contacts-with-palestine-israel-egypt-on-gaza-aid---kremlin-1114786024.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20231111/top-saudi-diplomat-says-arab-muslim-leaders-united-in-demanding-end-to-gaza-fighting-1114892444.html israel iran gaza Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Ilya Tsukanov Ilya Tsukanov News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Ilya Tsukanov military power, top five, middle east, israel, iran, egypt, saudi arabia, turkiye, capabilities, power, projection, army, navy, air force, gaza, palestine https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/trump-continues-leading-in-polls-as-third-parties-add-interest-to-the-race-1114893777.html Trump Continues Leading in Polls as Third Parties Add Interest to the Race Trump Continues Leading in Polls as Third Parties Add Interest to the Race Former US President Donald Trump is leading both US President Biden and his Republican rivals, but third-party candidates are adding spice to the 2024 Presidential election. 2023-11-12T03:47+0000 2023-11-12T03:47+0000 2023-11-12T04:22+0000 americas donald trump joe biden john f. kennedy nevada democrats georgia arizona republican green party /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/0a/18/1114456563_0:0:3072:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_2364440c5bea2e6888646882248dbfe4.jpg According to two recent polls of swing state voters, Trump is beating Biden in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, while Biden maintains a small lead in Michigan. Meanwhile, two national polls have Trump ahead of Biden with registered voters by three or four percentage points.Meanwhile, it is becoming increasingly likely that Trump will be Bidens opponent next year. Trump leads his primary competition by around 60 percentage points nationally. While some state polls are significantly closer, most are still over 20 percentage points.Trumps competitors have been arguing that they are more electable, even if not as popular with Republican voters, than the former President. Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley who, according to some polls, has recently overtaken Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as the most viable Trump alternative, has been arguing that the former Presidents baggage, including a multitude of legal issues, make her more palatable to general election voters than Trump.She also points to polls that show her performing better than Trump against Biden in several swing states. But with Trump holding a small but significant lead over Biden, primary voters are less likely to see candidate viability as a significant concern.Meanwhile, Bidens popularity has been crashing among voters that typically make up the voting base of the Democratic party. Trump is leading Biden among 18-29-year-olds a voting bloc by two points. By comparison, in the 2020 election, six in ten young voters supported Biden.Another poll found that 22% of Black voters in swing states would support Trump over Biden in the next election, in 2020, Trump received just 8% of the black vote. He is also losing support among Hispanic voters.The most significant drop came among Arab Americans in the wake of Bidens support for Israel and its actions in Gaza. Support for Biden among Arab Americans dropped to 17% in a recent poll, down from 59% in 2020.Biden campaign officials have noted that the election is still roughly a year away from when these polls were taken, giving them time to play makeup. However, the opposite is also true: Biden has time to fall further in the polls.Possible Third-Party ShakeupA possible wildcard in the election has been rising over the horizon, further complicating the election. Third-party candidates are more popular than they have been this century, with more visible and bigger names throwing their hats into the ring than in years past.Around 16% of voters say they want neither Trump or Biden to win the election, a number that has more than quadrupled since 2020.Leading the pack is environmental lawyer Robert F Kennedy Jr., the nephew of former US President John F. Kennedy and son of former Senator and Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.Kennedy is polling higher than any third-party candidate in recent memory, receiving 22% in a poll last week. While recent polling and political donations suggest that he may appeal to former Trump voters more than former Biden voters, he is a former Democrat and his family name is still viewed favorably by Democrats.Kennedy is currently polling high enough in most outlets to receive an invitation to the Presidential Debates next year. If Kennedy participates, he will become the first third-party candidate to enter the debates since Ross Perot in 1992. Getting into the debates proved to be a huge boost for Perots campaign, which briefly saw him lead both George W. Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton in the polls.If Kennedy performs well in a nationally televised debate with Biden and Trump, there is no telling where his campaign could go.Joining Kennedy are two candidates: Independent Cornel West and Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Either of those candidates could theoretically draw from voters who typically vote Democrat but are unsatisfied with Biden. West is currently polling in the single digits, while Stein has not been included in any polls because she just announced her campaign on Thursday.Out on the periphery is Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) who has long been rumored to be considering a Presidential run. That speculation was fueled earlier this week when the conservative Democrat announced that he does not plan to seek reelection.It has been suspected by some that Manchin will join the No Labels party, a recently created political party that has positioned itself for centrists. However, it is worth pointing out that Manchin was trailing in the polls in West Virginia and has the highest national unfavorability rating of any sitting US Senator. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231105/trump-tops-biden-in-5-out-of-6-battleground-states-ahead-of-2024-election--poll-1114749587.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20231031/arab-american-support-for-biden-drops-42-since-2020-falling-amid-israel-conflict---poll-1114626056.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20231101/data-analysis-reveals-rfk-jr-shares-more-donors-with-trump-than-biden-1114652052.html americas nevada georgia arizona Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Ian DeMartino Ian DeMartino News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Ian DeMartino third party candidates, biden polls, trump polls, can biden beat trump, can trump beat biden, who is rfk jr., 2024 election predictions, 2024 potus election, ending decision https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/ukraine-regimes-infighting-may-prompt-cannon-fodder-troops-to-rebel---us-journo-1114897149.html Ukraine Regime's 'Infighting' May Prompt 'Cannon Fodder' Troops to Rebel - US Journo Ukraine Regime's 'Infighting' May Prompt 'Cannon Fodder' Troops to Rebel - US Journo Infighting within the Kiev regime may prompt Ukraines military to refuse to fight any further in NATOs proxy war against Russia, speculated US journalist Garland Nixon. 2023-11-12T11:06+0000 2023-11-12T11:06+0000 2023-11-12T11:06+0000 world ukraine volodymyr zelensky valery zaluzhny nato russia ukrainian armed forces garland nixon /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/0b/0a/1114867925_0:0:3072:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_d810ccbd527317a8ec4857b607a733c9.jpg The recent row that erupted between President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Commander-in- hief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valery Zaluzhny, could lead to the Ukraines military refusing to fight any further in NATOs proxy war against Russia, speculated US journalist Garland Nixon on his YouTube channel.First they start fighting against each other, then Zaluzhnys aide dies in a blast, recalled the journalist, adding, What are the troops going to think?""If they are on the front line," Garland Nixon said, and there is "internal fighting" on an increasingly violent scale within the regime itself, at some point the Ukrainian troops being used as cannon fodder may rebel. Nixon emphasized that in such a situation the Ukrainian military would have no reason to continue fighting on the battlefront, where their counteroffensive has abysmally failed. Once the politics collapse, there may be left only pockets of resistance, he argued."The Ukrainian project is collapsing, both militarily and politically," and the question is which one comes first, emphasized the pundit. An open war of violence has started within the Kiev regime, Garland speculated, suggesting that the death of Gennady Chastyakov, assistant to the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian troops, was the opening shot.The Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs ruled out an "assassination attempt" or a "Russian trace," insisting that Chastyakov himself pulled at the ring of a grenade, given to him as a present. However, Valery Zaluzhny noted in his Telegram statement that an "unidentified explosive device went off in one of the gifts" presented to his assistant. Furthermore, the wife of the deceased was referred to by the Ukrainian press as saying that the explosion occurred when Chastyakov opened a gift bag with a bottle of alcohol and glasses in the shape of grenades.The mysterious death of Chastyakov came against the backdrop of signs of a behind-the-scenes struggle within the regime in Kiev. Commander-in-Chief Gen. Valery Zaluzhny was seen as openly defying Volodymyr Zelensky's war plans.Kiev needs to take a massive technological leap to break the current stalemate in its counteroffensive against Russian troops, the Ukrainian Armys Commander-in-Chief General Valery Zaluzhny admitted in an interview with the UK's Economist magazine earlier, adding:There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.The general also acknowledged that NATOs textbooks and the math that Kiev did to plan the counteroffensive had failed to prevent Russian forces from effectively stopping Ukrainian troops in their tracks.Zaluzhny's stalemate comment triggered a swift rebuke. It was slammed as inappropriate by Zelensky aide Ihor Zhovkva. As the Ukrainian president, he also challenged Zaluzhnys dismal assessment of the situation at the battle front.Time has passed, people are tired, regardless of their status, and this is understandable. But this is not a stalemate, I emphasize this once again, Zelensky said in a joint press conference with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen. Zelensky also proceeded to offer assurances that the F-16 fighters the West has promised to provide to Kiev could turn the situation around.Besides Zelenskys remarks, there was also administrative action potentially aimed at Zaluzhny. Ukraine's president issued a decree firing Special Operations Forces commander Viktor Khorenko, with Ukrainian media speculating that the decree was drummed up on the advice of recently picked Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, but not approved by Zaluzhny. We are waiting new results, Zelensky said, in reference to Khorenkos replacement. It should be added that the ousted commander refused to offer comments on rumors about a possible conflict brewing between the Ukraine government and the military. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231107/ukrainian-intel-could-be-behind-death-of-top-general-zaluzhnys-aide--military-expert-1114799117.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20231109/ex-cia-analyst-west-preparing-for-military-coup-against-zelensky-1114845253.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20231105/zelensky-vs-zaluzhnyi-ukraines-president-censures-top-commander-over-stalemate-comments-1114746026.html ukraine russia Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Svetlana Ekimenko Svetlana Ekimenko News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Svetlana Ekimenko infighting within the kiev regime, natos proxy war against russia, https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/ukraine-should-eye-land-for-peace-deal-as-any-game-change-unlikely---ex-nato-admiral-1114900748.html Ukraine Should Eye 'Land-For-Peace' Deal as Any 'Game Change' Unlikely - Ex-NATO Admiral Ukraine Should Eye 'Land-For-Peace' Deal as Any 'Game Change' Unlikely - Ex-NATO Admiral Ukraine should hope for a land-for-peace conclusion to combat, retired US admiral and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander James Stavridis has argued. 2023-11-12T13:37+0000 2023-11-12T13:37+0000 2023-11-12T19:01+0000 world ukraine anders fogh rasmussen james stavridis russia kiev nato volodymyr zelensky ukrainian counteroffensive attempt sergey lavrov /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/0b/0c/1114898477_0:161:3071:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_d056db3b3f705748db3b28e13a57d654.jpg Ukraine should hope for a land-for-peace conclusion to combat, retired US Admiral and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander James Stavridis has argued.After the Kiev regimes much-heralded counteroffensive failed, even the delivery of F-16 fighter jets promised sometime next year is not likely to pull off a real game change, Stavridis wrote for Bloomberg. He urged Ukraine to resign itself to the fact that it will not manage to seize the new Russian territories, such as the Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples Republics or the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.Accordingly, the former commander drew parallels with the outcome of the Korean War, which ended with an armistice in 1953, and suggested that Ukraine should aim for the "South Korean scenario" as its best bet.This will probably bog down into a frozen conflict; the sooner large combat operations stop, the sooner the Ukrainians will begin to reconstruct, Stavridis wrote, and laid out his vision of what steps Kiev ought to aim for:That is a realistic scenario, claimed Stavridis.According to Stavridis, Western firms are already eying staking out their claims to postwar construction activities in Ukraine, in such aspects as mass communications, electric power facilities, water treatment and new residential development.And as to where the money for all of that would come from, the ex-general had a ready answer: the potential availability of hundreds of billions of dollars in Russian funds that are under sanction in the West.The overall value of frozen Russian sovereign assets in Europe since the Ukraine conflict escalated is estimated at 211 billion euros ($223 billion). While Brussels has repeatedly warned it intends to tap into these assets for the benefit of Ukraine, the bloc has so far failed to invent a legal mechanism for doing so. Pundits interviewed by Sputnik have explained that this is nothing but "wishful thinking," adding that "it would be a sheer violation of property rights."Nevertheless, the ex-commander waxed lyrical in his article, enthusing that a Korean-style miracle of reconstruction could be on the horizon for Ukraine.As for obtaining security guarantees, that would mean North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership for Ukraine, James Stavridis argued, yet again citing the example of South Korea, which holds Major Non-NATO Ally status with the US.Ukraine could be brought into the alliance even without the new Russian regions, according to Stavridis.Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, after the Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples Republics (DPR and LPR) appealed for help in defending themselves against Ukrainian provocations. On September 30, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the heads of the DPR and LPR, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, signed agreements on the accession of these territories to Russia, following referendums that showed that an overwhelming majority of the local population supported becoming part of Russia.Incidentally, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Former Secretary General of NATO, similarly proposed that Ukraine join the alliance, but that Article 5 of the Washington Treaty should not apply to the new Russian territories, The Guardian reported, citing Ukrainian media.The talk about likely scenarios for an end to the Ukrainian conflict comes in the wake of a report that claimed "quiet conversations" were ongoing between US and European officials on the one hand, and the Ukrainian government on the other, about possible peace negotiations with Russia. Furthermore, these discussions have touched upon concessions Ukraine might need to agree to if any deal is to be possible, according to current and former senior Washington officials cited in a US report.However, regarding "peace" talks with Ukraine, Moscow has repeatedly indicated that it is ready for negotiations, but Kiev has introduced a ban on them at a legislative level. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov emphasized at the UN General Assembly in September that Moscow would not consider any proposals of a ceasefire, "because the one time we did consider it, you [Kiev] deceived us." Weighing in on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's 10-point "Peace Formula," Sergey Lavrov noted it is not even remotely realistic.More recently, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia will continue its special military operation in the absence of efforts to resolve the Ukrainian conflict via diplomatic means. Ukraine needs to understand that it can not achieve victory on the battlefield, the spokesman added. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231010/scholz-speaks-out-against-inviting-ukraine-to-nato-before-summit-in-vilnius-1114053460.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20231110/russia-continues-special-military-operation-achieving-goals-crucial---kremlin-1114863391.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20231104/us-and-europe-in-talks-with-ukraine-on-possible-peace-deal-with-russia---report-1114708713.html ukraine russia kiev Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Svetlana Ekimenko Svetlana Ekimenko News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Svetlana Ekimenko nato proxy war against russia in ukraine, land-for-peace deal in ukraine, ukraine's failed counteroffensive https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/ukraines-foreign-us-mercs-in-zaporozhye-reportedly-left-for-israel-1114905371.html Ukraine's Foreign, US Mercs in Zaporozhye Reportedly Left for Israel Ukraine's Foreign, US Mercs in Zaporozhye Reportedly Left for Israel Foreign mercenaries within the ranks of Ukraines Armed Forces who were based in the Zaporozhye region, including Americans, have reportedly left for Israel. 2023-11-12T15:23+0000 2023-11-12T15:23+0000 2023-11-12T15:23+0000 world americans ukraine israel israeli defense forces (idf) palestine palestine-israel conflict mercenaries /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/0b/0c/1114905557_0:160:3072:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_a5ba6bbb0f4b784b4147859e58e7a917.jpg Foreign mercenaries within the ranks of Ukraines Armed Forces who were based in the Zaporozhye region, including Americans, have reportedly left for Israel.The Russian military has not encountered them for a long time amid the ongoing special operation in Ukraine, Russian war correspondent for RT, Igor Zhdanov, reported on Telegram. Its been a while since any foreigner was heard in intercepted radio chatter, it was added.During its now-failed spring-summer counteroffensive attempt, the Kiev regime had thrown numerous forces at the Zaporozhye direction, with Ukraines military ranks significantly bolstered by foreign mercenaries. Some, like the private military assemblage Forward Observations Group (FOG), which traveled to Ukraine, reveled in shooting photo and video footage for social media consumption. However, as Russia continues to deliver precision strikes in the course of its special ops, including targeting training facilities set up by foreign mercs, many hirelings appear to have realized their gamble in Ukraine might have been a reckless one.However, first, the offensive attempt notoriously failed, with Kiev unable to provide its Western donors with any significant battle front successes. Then, the Palestine-Israel conflict spiraled, drawing the attention of the media, and feeding into the growing Ukraine fatigue.Foreigners came to Ukraine more for PR than to fight, one commander of a unit of Russian Special Forces emphasized, adding:Recently, a bombshell report published in a major Spanish newspaper claimed that mercenaries in Ukraine have been flocking to Israel to help the Israeli Defense Forces fight Hamas in Gaza. Pedro Diaz Flores, a Spanish national who previously fought as a hireling in the ranks of Ukraines notorious neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, told the paper that like others, he had gone to Israel for the money. However, the mercs social media account featuring photos of his alleged feats in Israel has since been wiped.A spokesperson for the IDF, which mobilized 360,000 reservists after Hamas surprise October 7 attacks in southern Israel, assured that the Israeli military has no knowledge of this case.. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231107/idf-denies-hiring-mercs-after-report-claims-soldiers-of-fortune-flocking-to-israel-1114795889.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20230925/russia-strikes-locations-of-mercenaries-in-ukraine-with-long-range-precision-arms---mod-1113650465.html ukraine israel Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Svetlana Ekimenko Svetlana Ekimenko News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Svetlana Ekimenko foreign mercenaries, mercenaries in ukraines armed forces, mercenaries left ukraine for israel, palestine-israeli conflict https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/ukrainian-military-claims-general-offensive-impossible-due-to-lack-of-ammunition-personnel-1114907322.html Ukrainian Military Claims General Offensive Impossible Due to Lack of Ammunition, Personnel Ukrainian Military Claims General Offensive Impossible Due to Lack of Ammunition, Personnel Ukrainian soldiers say they are low on ammunition and manpower on the ground in the conflict with Russia, which forces them to send drone operators and crews of armored vehicles to the frontline positions, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. 2023-11-12T17:30+0000 2023-11-12T17:30+0000 2023-11-12T17:30+0000 military ukraine russia nato ammunition ukrainian counteroffensive attempt ukrainian crisis /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/102634/44/1026344430_0:426:4640:3036_1920x0_80_0_0_49293a41b628a4b69b203b848a3694c1.jpg Due to a lack of ammunition and other issues, Ukraine has been unable to seize the initiative on the battlefield and had to shift to a defensive posture after months of counteroffensive operations, the report read. "It's a trench deadlock ... A general offensive is impossible for either side. Neither side can break through," a senior Ukrainian security official was quoted as saying by The Wall Street Journal. The Ukrainian counteroffensive began on June 4. Kiev has thrown into battle brigades trained by NATO instructors and armed with Western equipment, including Leopard and Challenger tanks. Three months later, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Kiev's push had failed, with Ukraine suffering severe casualties. Several Western officials also admitted that the Ukrainian counteroffensive had not been successful so far. On November 1, Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi said in an interview with the Economist that Kiev's counteroffensive had reached a "stalemate." https://sputnikglobe.com/20231001/ukraines-possible-new-counteroffensive-camouflage-for-zelensky-to-steal-more-money-from-west-1113837034.html ukraine russia Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International ukrainian counteroffensive, ukrainian crisis, ukrainian conflict, war in ukraine, russian special militayr operation https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/us-will-not-accept-reoccupation-of-gaza-forcible-displacement---nsa-advisor-1114905944.html US Will Not Accept Reoccupation of Gaza, Forcible Displacement - NSA Advisor US Will Not Accept Reoccupation of Gaza, Forcible Displacement - NSA Advisor The United States does not want to see the Gaza Strip reoccupied or reduced in its size or have Gazans driven out of their homes, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday. 2023-11-12T15:27+0000 2023-11-12T15:27+0000 2023-11-12T15:27+0000 world jake sullivan gaza strip palestine us israel palestine-israel conflict /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/0a/17/1114419229_0:320:3072:2048_1920x0_80_0_0_55c6e8714cb74faade6b67ac5b24d393.jpg "From our perspective, the way forward the basic principles of the way forward are straightforward No reoccupation of Gaza, no forcible displacement of the Palestinian people. Gaza can never be used as a base for terrorism in the future and Gaza's territory should not be reduced," he told CBS in an interview. The US does want to see the reunification of control between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip under the Palestinian leadership, Sullivan added. He insisted that the future of the exclave would be up to the Palestinian people and the United States would support the process. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231111/what-could-israels-security-control-over-gaza-look-like-1114888906.html gaza strip palestine israel Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International us support for israel, gaza strip, palestine-israel conflict, jake sullivan, gaza ceasefire, peace in gaza, gaza controlled https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/watch-russian-artillerymen-hit-ukrainian-positions-with-msta-b-howitzers-1114894608.html Watch Russian Artillerymen Hit Ukrainian Positions With Msta-B Howitzers Watch Russian Artillerymen Hit Ukrainian Positions With Msta-B Howitzers The Russian Defense Ministry has released footage showing Russian artillerymen with Msta-B howitzers hitting the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Zaporozhye region during a special military operation. 2023-11-12T05:11+0000 2023-11-12T05:11+0000 2023-11-12T05:11+0000 russia's special operation in ukraine russian armed forces russian defense ministry ukrainian armed forces russia ukraine video /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/0b/0c/1114894371_85:0:1342:707_1920x0_80_0_0_c674afc36edede4d22afcc97c7e4cff4.jpg The Russian Defense Ministry has released footage showing Russian artillerymen with Msta-B howitzers hitting the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Zaporozhye region during a special military operation.The Msta-B howitzer is a powerful artillery weapon used by the Russian military. It is 152mm caliber and capable of firing a variety of projectiles, including high-explosive, smoke and illumination rounds. The Msta-B has a range of up to 24 kilometers and is highly mobile, able to move quickly across all types of terrain. russia ukraine Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Russian artillerymen hit the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces with Msta-B howitzers in the Zaporozhye area Russian artillerymen hit the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces with Msta-B howitzers in the Zaporozhye area 2023-11-12T05:11+0000 true PT0M12S 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International russian defense ministry, special military operation, ukrainian armed forces https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/watch-russian-drone-wipe-out-ukrainian-servicemen-near-zaporozhye-1114898850.html Watch Russian Drone Wipe Out Ukrainian Servicemen Near Zaporozhye Watch Russian Drone Wipe Out Ukrainian Servicemen Near Zaporozhye The Russian Defense Ministry has released the footage of Russian drone operators eliminating Ukrainian forces in concealed positions in the Zaporozhye area during special operation. The video shows a Russian drone dropping a projectile on the Ukrainian soldiers in the shelter. 2023-11-12T11:19+0000 2023-11-12T11:19+0000 2023-11-12T11:19+0000 russia's special operation in ukraine video russia ukraine russian defense ministry /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/0b/0c/1114899390_0:160:3072:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_0c9935ba77254d66c9d7996b1c0c77f1.jpg The Russian Defense Ministry has released footage of Russian drone operators eliminating Ukrainian forces in concealed positions in the Zaporozhye area during the special operation. The video shows a Russian drone dropping a projectile on Ukrainian soldiers in the shelter.The Ukrainian counteroffensive began in June, with Kiev deploying NATO-trained brigades armed with Western equipment. In October, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Kiev's push had failed, with Ukrainian casualties estimated to have exceeded 90,000. russia ukraine Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Russian drone operators eliminate Ukrainian forces in concealed positions in the Zaporozhye area Russian drone operators eliminate Ukrainian forces in concealed positions in the Zaporozhye area 2023-11-12T11:19+0000 true PT0M39S 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International russian defense ministry, russian drone, ukrainian servicemen https://sputnikglobe.com/20231112/watch-russian-forces-eliminate-group-of-ukrainian-troops-near-klescheyevka-with-guided-missile-hit-1114902813.html Watch Russian Forces Unleash Guided Missile & Blow Away Ukrainian Troops Watch Russian Forces Unleash Guided Missile & Blow Away Ukrainian Troops A guided missile comes equipped with a guidance system that effectively controls its flight path and enables it to precisely target a specific object. It can... 12.11.2023, Sputnik International 2023-11-12T13:47+0000 2023-11-12T13:47+0000 2023-11-13T08:52+0000 russia's special operation in ukraine video ukrainian armed forces russia ukraine russian defense ministry /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/0b/0c/1114904114_0:6:2176:1230_1920x0_80_0_0_b3eaaf7bae2022dd33582a144d31f66c.jpg The Russian Defense Ministry recently released a video showcasing the obliteration of a cluster of Ukrainian militants near Kleshcheyevka in the Donetsk People's Republic. The footage depicts Battlegroup Yug unleashing a guided missile that lands a successful strike, resulting in the elimination of an infantry unit from Ukraine's 22nd Separate Mechanized Brigade.The Ukrainian Army has been unsuccessfully trying to carry out an offensive since June 4. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on October 30 that Kiev had suffered losses amounting to over 90,000 dead or wounded soldiers, in addition to about 600 crippled tanks and 1,900 disabled armored vehicles of various classes. According to the Russian defense chief, Ukraine has not achieved any tactically significant breakthroughs. russia ukraine Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Russian forces wipe out group of Ukrainian servicemen in Klescheyevka area Russian forces wipe out group of Ukrainian servicemen in Klescheyevka area 2023-11-12T13:47+0000 true PT0M13S 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International video, ukrainian armed forces, russia, ukraine, russian defense ministry, If you saw Oppenheimer during the summer, its time to take a second look. The film has so much to offer it deserves repeat viewings and an assessment in light of Killers of the Flower Moon. Like Martin Scorseses epic, it holds up. Like Scorsese, director Christopher Nolan reminds us cinema is a vital art form, not a disposable one. In the biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, he details the distractions the physicist had from multiple sources as he worked to unlock the weapons secrets. Oppenheimer (played with great poise by Cillian Murphy) didnt just have political opponents, he had nagging insiders who could have spilled the secrets to any number of enemies. Keeping a lid on the build, dubbed the Manhattan Project, was often the least of his worries. On the homefront, he had a feisty, forthright wife (Emily Blunt) and a needy mistress (Florence Pugh) who had the ability to steal his focus. In the hastily built Los Alamos (where scientists were united to craft the bomb), he had a deadline-crazy general (Matt Damon) and a phalanx of experts who demanded his attention. Nolan carefully lays the track for the mission, then begins chugging until audiences can feel the pressure building. Murphy handles it skillfully (Damon isnt quite as controlled) and gets his project underway. Then, its a matter of ensuring it wont destroy those creating it. Throughout the mission, Nolan switches to scenes with Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, chair of the United States Atomic Energy Commission. Nominated for a cabinet post, Strauss tries to sully Oppenheimers reputation in order to build his own. Shot in black-and-white, the hearing and confirmation scenes represent the dismantling of Oppenheimer. The color shots show what happened outside the process. Folded into all of it, of course, is the thought that the man could be a Communist, working for interests other than the United States. The witch hunt ties nicely with the statements Nolan makes about politics and its role in the arms race. Oppenheimer talks with Albert Einstein (Tom Conti) at one point and learns what he has to lose. Its a telling scene that confirms games have always been played in Washington. When Oppenheimer and company test their bomb, Nolan builds tension by using sound and light to underscore the moment. Step by step, you witness areas where the film could be the leading contender for Academy Awards. There are so many supporting actors of note (its like an indie directors dream team), youll wonder who will emerge from the pack. Downey is obviously a standout -- at times its impossible to recognize him under the makeup and gestures -- but there are also smart turns from Alden Ehrenreich, Dylan Arnold and Damon. Subtly, we see Oppenheimer age. The makeup effects are first-rate, aiding Murphy in his process. While he isnt a flashy actor, Murphy displays plenty of emotion on his gaunt face. Its not difficult to see the wheels turning. When hes greeted by his team following its victory, life becomes a blur. Like the bomb, theres plenty of flash, indistinguishable sound and a sense of dread. Like The Candidate, the moment has an oh, no, what have I done? feel. Murphy plays every scene with care, providing his character with plenty of dimension and thought. He makes Oppenheimer. But, then, so do Nolan and the thousands who abetted him. Visitors to the Scotts Bluff County Veterans Service Office are likely aware that the team of people who work there are determined, compassionate and focused on advocating for those who served our country through military service. The most recent addition to that team is Air Force veteran Sue Muehlbauer, who has brought her energy and passion to serve those who served into her new role. Muehlbauer said that her appreciation for veterans and her sense of patriotism goes back to her childhood, which she spent surrounded by veterans in her own family and neighborhood. My father was in the Air Force, my uncle was in the Marines, and my parents were very involved with the American Legion, she said. Our home was very patriotic, and we learned respect for our country, our flag, those who are serving and those who served. That appreciation led Muehlbauer to participate in an award-winning color guard during her high school years in an attempt to deepen her understanding of the American flag and the meaning behind it. It also prompted her to enroll in the United States Air Force when she graduated at the age of 17. Muehlbauer served as a classified administrative specialist during a time of relative peace following the Vietnam War. For several years she worked in the postal department on an Air Force base where fighter pilots trained, and she fondly remembered the role she played in helping them keep in touch with their loved ones while they were away. The mail was so important to them, she said. We got a lot of pleasure out of making peoples lives happy. Christmas time especially was a blast. When her time in the Air Force came to an end, Muehlbauer used her education credit to attend legal secretary school. Over the next several years, she developed a deep connection to her faith and eventually became involved in youth ministry through a church in her area. I love serving, and I love touching the lives of young people and helping them see their potential, she said. That desire and calling to serve has been a constant throughout Muehlbauers life. From her time in the Air Force serving her country to the many years that followed as she served in various ministry roles, she did all that she could to care for others. Many years later, Meuhlbauer and her husband, Dave, moved to the Scottsbluff/Gering area to be near their young grandchildren. Around that time, she began to feel that her body could no longer handle the physical requirements of youth ministry, and she began to explore other avenues of service in the other great loves of her life. Theres the love of God, the love of my country and the love of my family, and I felt that pull again, she said. Love of her country once again took center stage, and Muehlbauer felt a calling to get involved with the Scotts Bluff County Clerks office. For a while she did a mix of volunteer, part-time and full-time work in that office, eventually catching wind that a different county office was in need of assistance: the Veterans Service Office. Since stepping into her role in the VSO, Muehlbauer has been able to put the skills she learned throughout her life to use for the benefit of countless veterans. Though the learning curve on the job has been intense, she spoke highly of those she works with and every veteran who steps through the door. Even on our worst day in here, were family, she said. Current duty, active duty or veteran, were all family, so its an honor to be able to help them out. As a veteran who deals with the effects of injuries incurred through her time in the Air Force, Muehlbauer has special insight into and empathy for the individuals who come to the VSO for assistance. Sometimes, she said, such people are more than a little reluctant to ask for help. Youre taught to be tough. You always help the other guy, you dont ask for anything yourself, she said. I would rather give to my country than what people would see as taking, but theres also quality of life thats affected. So its trying to help people walk through that process. Muehlbauer sees what she does in the VSO as a continuation both of her military service and her ministry, and she approaches it with the same determination. We dont quit. Whatever it takes. Were here to be in their corner, to have their back, she said. In basic training we were taught that we dont leave our comrades behind, we stay with them no matter what. Thats how I feel about our veterans. I wont bail on them. I want to be there with them. She had only one complaint about her job: that sometimes she wants nothing more than to stay and keep fighting for veterans, but has to go home at 4:30 p.m. One thing is for sure. After a lifetime of service to God and her country, Muehlbauer says she has found the place where she belongs. A place where her love of God, country and family all roll into one. Being in this office is like a ministry all over again. We help those who feel like theyve been forgotten or have nowhere left to turn, she said. It is such an honor to be here. I feel like Im serving God and serving my country by being here. The city came together Saturday to celebrate its veterans with a parade that traveled down East Overland for 16 blocks. Families and veterans lined both sides of East Overland as they were passed by veterans, local leaders, first responders and marching bands. There were also a number of other cars, tractors and even horses. The parade was kicked off by a flyover from an Air Link helicopter as the Scottsbluff High School Air Force JROTC led the parade on the ground. There were also firetrucks from the Scottsbluff and Gering Fire Departments as well as Minatare and Melbeta. Many participants in the parade threw candy from their vehicles to the delight of children on the sidewalks. Some also elected to hand their candy out instead. One attendee, David Feltgen thought that there may have been higher attendance this year since Veterans Day fell on a weekend. Feltgen, a Marine veteran himself, said that he and other veterans appreciated events like the parade. We love it. While plenty of the attendees were there for the festivities just as many of them were there because they had relatives who were veterans or were veterans themselves. Marissa Gutherless was in attendance since her mother is a veteran. She said also happy that Scottsbluff still holds a parade for the holiday. I think its really special, I dont think a lot of communities do it anymore, Gutherless said. Veterans Day celebrations continued into the afternoon at the Western Nebraska Veterans Home were a ceremony was held commemorating the veterans there. The celebration included musical performances, as well as speeches from Steve Jordan, the Commander for DAV Chapter 10 and Matt Meyers, Scotts Bluff County Veterans Service officer. The ceremony began with the playing of the national anthem immediately followed by the Pledge of Allegiance and an opening prayer by VFW Chaplain Bruce Bain. Afterward, Charles Evelo, the senior vice commander for the local VFW, read a proclamation from Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen. In attendance was resident Willard Johnson, a veteran of World War II who had recently turned 104. Attendees also heard an adaptation of the poem So God Made a Farmer, So God Made a Veteran, written by Carla Dorman and read by Andrea Meyers. The solemn poem quieted the room as Meyers began to show some emotion while reading the piece. Local VFW President John Brehm III also discussed the history of the celebration of Veterans Day and how it evolved over the years. Western Nebraska Veterans Home Administrator RJ Stavely also spoke and expressed his desire to create a foundation to help solicit funding for the home. I would like to expand our network of dedicated individuals that support our veteran members here and create a foundation whose purpose is to lead and assist meaningful projects of the home, Stavely said. At the end of the ceremony Scotts Bluff County VSO Matt Meyers delivered remarks about the celebration of Veterans Day. Jordan, who was working as master of ceremonies thanked Meyers for coming as he is so busy serving as the VSO for most of the surrounding communities. Meyers then began his remarks saying, I would rather be nowhere else than here at the Western Nebraska Veterans Home. He went on to discuss how when celebrating Veterans Day, he does not often think about his own service, instead reflecting on those who came before him in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. He went on to say how important he felt it was to celebrate the holiday and recognize those who have served their country. As we honor veterans and remember their great deeds, let us salute those who are currently fighting for freedom, Meyers said. The ceremony was concluded with a celebratory fire from the American Legion Post #36 Color Guard, and even though they were outside away from the ceremony the blasts could still be heard all through the cafeteria at the veterans home. PHOTOS: Veterans Day Celebrations 2023 Mitchell Community Colleges Shearer Hall hosted dozens of veterans on Friday for its annual Veterans Day Ceremony as President Tim Brewer said the mission of the school wouldnt be possible without the sacrifices of members of the armed services over the years. We can never forget that was made possible by you veterans. There are so many opportunities you made possible every day, Brewer said. Thank you for your service. We appreciate all you do. Musicians from the school played the songs of each branch of the military and veterans from each stood up to be recognized. Clay Tallman read In Flanders Field, and American Legion Post 65 presented the colors during the ceremony. The guest speaker for the ceremony was Harold Wilson, a 1965 Statesville High graduate, and student who once attended N.C. State University he became eligible for the draft. He joined the Air Force in 1968 and took part in 271 reconnaissance and surveillance missions. Wilson was proud of his service and those he served with. Wilson remembers those years fondly and thanks those who served with him, as well as all veterans. Today we honor all of our veterans who placed their lives on the line for our freedom. Those men and women were ordinary people, but still, they heard the call of duty and answered it, Wilson said. They left their families, their homes, their lives, not for recognition or fame, or even the honor be bestowed upon them today. They fought to protect our country and our way of life. As we honor our veterans and their great deeds, let us also salute those that are currently fighting for our freedom. The Museum of the Middle Appalachians in Saltville will host its 17th annual Winter Wonderland of Christmas Trees from Nov. 20 through Jan. 7, 2024. Last year, 42 decorated trees were displayed in the Museums Meeting Room and the Saltville Hall. The trees were decorated by local businesses, churches, civic groups, school organizations, families, and individuals. The Winter Wonderland of Christmas Trees is considered to be a special gift to the community and those visiting the area and the Museum of the Middle Appalachians. The exhibit will again be listed in the Virginia Tourism magazine as a holiday destination. There is no fee to display a tree and admission to the Winter Wonderland is by donation. Tree themes can be traditional, whimsical, memorial, hobby inspired, reflective of the sponsor and range from comical to spiritual. Each sponsor must provide their own artificial tree, lights, decorations, tree skirt, stand, and an extension cord. Christmas wreaths and displays are also welcome. Call the Museum at 276-496-3633 for details about sponsoring a Christmas tree or to arrange an after-hours set-up time. The Museum is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. and Sunday from 1-4 p.m. It is closed Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Years Day. The baby was bouncing on his grandmothers knees. He caught my eyes and, as I got closer, he did as little ones are inclined to do and threw his rattle onto the sidewalk. His eyes came back to mine from the beautiful silver rattle. I couldnt resist the challenge in those eyes dancing with mischief. I reached for the rattle, shaking it as I handed it back to him. He laughed that contagious giggle of one just beginning to discover the range of lifes delight. Over his head, his grandmother and I made eye contact and exchanged smiles of joy at the wee ones innocent pleasure. I gave him a little wave as I walked on. Its been a year but I havent forgotten their faces, their eyes. Outside a sweets store, four teenage girls surrounded me practically dancing with enthusiasm and gesturing. At first, thoughts of pickpockets made me pull my purse closer, but, through their giggling, the girls gestured to the camera hanging from my neck. The idea that in this age of smartphones the girls had never seen a 35mm camera crossed my mind. To break through the language barrier, they gestured holding up the camera and clicking. I obliged and took a photo of the young friends and classmates. As they looked at the image on the preview screen, they suddenly got quiet. I wasnt sure what to make of their sudden silence, but then they looked up and we all smiled and went on our way. In the last year, I havent forgotten them or their bold curiosity. It was a battle of wills: feline versus annoyed human. The cat smelled an easy feast at the open-air restaurant. The server didnt want the cat interrupting his diners meals. The cat would jump onto a window ledge and eye his potential buffets. The server would shew him away. The scene replayed over and over. An observer had to suspect that this wasnt the first time the two had tangoed and, before the day was over, I knew the cat would eat well. Human and feline remain vivid in my memories. As does the older woodworker whose shop smelled richly of generations of sawdust and imagination and the bus driver who always held out his hand to help me keep my balance stepping down. As kind as he was, he was equally anxious as he and his prepared to welcome their first baby. Each of their faces and so many others have filled my mind and heart in the last month. They all lived in Israel-Palestine. I encountered them there just a year ago. Among them were Muslims, Christians, and Jews and Israelis and Palestinians. In the last month since Hamas terrorists attacked Israel and war began, Ive hoped theyre all still alive, while knowing beyond a doubt that their worlds have been irrevocably shaken. Life is less secure than it already was. Relatives are likely hurt or dead. Humanity is in crisis as the lives of thousands of children have been lost and far more are at risk. A rattles shake, a babys giggle, older eyes locking, beautiful teens eager for a new experience, cat and human engagement, an artisan creating, an expectant dad waiting, they all tell of the lifes glorious ordinariness the moments that bind so many of us. I wonder has mans inhumanity to man now supplanted those moments with the extraordinariness of war? My mind worries that theres no hope that even the youngest among the people I encountered will know peace, but then another little boy comes to mind. Consuming the bread of the Lords Supper in a Christian church in the West Bank one Sunday last November, he left a trail of crumbs behind as he came back down the church aisle. Those crumbs, remembering one born in the West Bank thousands of years ago, spoke of a greater abundance of love and hope that exists if only well open ourselves to it. Saturday marks Assad's second visit to Saudi Arabia, following the restoration of Syria's seat in the Arab League last May, according to al-Souria Net. The arrival of Bashar al-Assad, widely regarded as one of the most infamous figures of our time, in Saudi Arabia to address the Gaza issue, has sparked intense reactions. This observation is just one of numerous critiques circulating as the head of the regime prepares for the Arab summit in Riyadh. The question resonating across Syrian and Arab social media asks, How can an individual responsible for mass genocide condemn murder? This inquiry is directed at Bashar al-Assad, considering the countless casualties and detainees attributed to his regime. The military strategies employed in Syrian cities bear unsettling similarities to those currently witnessed in Gaza, involving intensive shelling, firebelts, and the deliberate targeting of medical facilities, hospitals, and the displacement of civilians. This marks Assads second visit to Saudi Arabia, following the restoration of Syrias seat in the Arab League last May. Preceding him was his foreign minister, Faisal Mekdad, who attended preliminary meetings with Arab foreign ministers in Riyadh. Mansour al-Omari, a human rights activist, expressed his dismay on the social networking site X, stating, What an absolute shame for humanity! The most notorious criminal of our time, Bashar al-Assad, arrives in Saudi Arabia to discuss the Gaza issue. He further adds, Instead of being provided with welcome coffee, this dirty individual should be held accountable. Upon reaching the official lobby after landing at the airport, activists shared images of Assad seemingly laughing, reminiscent of his behaviour during the devastating earthquake in Aleppo. Journalist Samer Daaboul highlighted Assads role in the suffering of Palestinians in the Yarmouk camp in 2014 and questioned the irony of his participation in the emergency Arab summit discussing Gazas situation. Syrian journalist Abdullah al-Moussa commented, Bashar al-Assads presence at the Arab summit is tragically ironic, as he authored the criminals guide that Netanyahu strictly followed in his war on Gaza. Expressing disbelief, he wrote via X: We find ourselves in a time when an emergency summit convenes, and the biggest criminal in modern history attends to denounce the second biggest criminal. Turkish journalist Ragheb Soylu shared a striking image, captioned: When you invite a serial killer to a summit to discuss how to stop the murders. Egyptian human rights activist Nancy Okeil, reacting to a recording documenting Assads arrival at Riyadh airport, stated, Bashar al-Assad receives a royal reception in Saudi Arabia to attend the emergency Arab summit. What could be more ironic than entrusting a war criminal to address war crimes? This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. The correspondent of Athr Press in Damascus and its countryside observed substantial crowds forming in front of certain bakeries. The decision to increase the price of a bundle of bread for those not covered by subsidies has led to heightened congestion at the bakeries. Following the price hike, the bundle cost became equivalent to that charged by vendors near the bakeries and on the streets. The correspondent of Athr Press in Damascus and its countryside observed substantial crowds forming in front of certain bakeries immediately after the announcement of the price increase for the excluded bundle. Individuals now find themselves waiting in line for approximately two to four hours to obtain their bread allocations. Abu Amjad, one of those excluded from the subsidy, expressed frustration at the necessity of waiting in line at the bakery due to the price increase. After the decision, the bread bundles price at vendors near the bakeries increased to 5,000 Syrian pounds. Abu Amjad, excluded from subsidies because he owns a car, emphasized that he bears the unsubsidized cost for all essentials, including fuel and bread. Consequently, his monthly salary is now only sufficient for purchasing bread. Lamia, a university student, disclosed that she required 150,000 Syrian pounds to purchase bread, primarily because she couldnt afford to spend hours waiting in line at the bakery. Her academic commitments forced her to buy bread from vendors or kiosks at an increased price. There is no subsidized commodity left but bread Abdul Razzaq Habza, the Secretary General of the Consumer Protection Association, clarified to Athr Press that, in general, there are no longer any subsidized items except for bread. However, he noted that the government might not explicitly announce this change. Habza highlighted that there is a minimal percentage of individuals excluded from subsidies due to data errors, facing hardships as a result. Habza emphasized the need to evaluate the feasibility of this decision after a month or two, examining whether it proves beneficial or futile. He stressed the importance of thorough study before implementing any government decision. Regarding concerns about wheat shortages in Syria, Habza deemed them inaccurate, asserting that the supply is consistent. Instead, he attributed issues to a lack of organization. To address this problem, he suggested the establishment of multiple sales outlets with regular conditions or the introduction of mobile units for material distribution. Habza pointed out that, despite approvals given to accredited entities, some fail to adhere to transportation instructions, resulting in the delivery of compromised goods to consumers, such as invalid pastry items. This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. The arab and islamic leaders emphasized the imperative of breaking the siege on Gaza and facilitating the immediate entry of humanitarian aid convoys. The extraordinary Arab-Islamic Summit convened on Saturday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, issued a resounding call for an immediate cessation of Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip, the lifting of the siege on Gaza, and the swift delivery of essential humanitarian aid. The summit further urged the United Nations Security Council to take decisive, binding action that would compel an end to the aggression and curtail the actions of the occupying authority, deeming any inaction as complicity enabling continued brutal aggression. In the final statement, presented by Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud during a joint press conference with Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, and Hussein Ibrahim Taha, the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the summit vehemently condemned the war crimes and savage, inhumane massacres perpetrated by the colonial occupation government. The summit categorically rejected any attempts to justify this aggression against the Gaza Strip under any pretext. Emphasizing the imperative of breaking the siege on Gaza and facilitating the immediate entry of Arab, Islamic, and international humanitarian aid convoys, including provisions such as food, medicine, and fuel, the summit called upon international organizations to actively participate in this endeavour. Additionally, it underscored the importance of these organizations gaining access to Gaza while safeguarding their personnel. Furthermore, the summit called on all nations to cease the export of weapons and ammunition to the occupying authorities, which are employed by their military and extremist settlers to inflict harm upon the Palestinian people and devastate their homes, hospitals, schools, places of worship, and all their vital infrastructure. Below is the full text of the final statement (as published by SANA Verbatim): We, the leaders of the states and governments of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the League of Arab States, decided to merge the two summits that both the Organization and the League had decided to organize, in response to calls from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (the current presidency of the two summits) and from the State of Palestine, and as an expression of our unified position in condemning the brutal Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people. in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including al-Quds, and in confirmation that we confront together this aggression and the humanitarian catastrophe it causes, and we work to stop it and end all illegal Israeli practices that perpetuate the occupation and deprive the Palestinian people of their rights, especially their right to freedom and an independent state with full sovereignty, and as we welcome UN General Assembly Resolution which was adopted by the tenth emergency session on October 26 of the current year 2023, and as we affirm the centrality of the Palestinian cause and our standing with all our capabilities alongside the brotherly Palestinian people in their legitimate struggle and effort to liberate all their lands. occupied and to fulfill all its inalienable rights, especially its right to self-determination and to live in its independent, sovereign state along the lines of June 4, 1967, with Al-Quds as its capital, we affirm that Israel and all countries of the region will not enjoy security and peace unless the Palestinians enjoy them and regain all their stolen rights, and that the continuation of the Israeli occupation is a threat to the security and stability of the region and to international peace and security, we condemn all forms of hatred and discrimination and all proposals that perpetuate a culture, we declare the following: Condemning the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip, the war crimes, and the barbaric and inhuman massacres committed by the colonial occupation government during it, and demanding the need to emphasize their immediate cessation, against the Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. We reject describing this war of revenge as self-defence or justifying it under any pretext. Breaking the siege on Gaza and imposing the immediate entry of Arab, Islamic and international humanitarian aid convoys, including food, medicine and fuel into the Gaza Strip, inviting international organizations to participate in this process, stressing the necessity of these organizations to enter the Gaza Strip, protecting their crews and enabling them to fully carry out their role, and supporting United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). Supporting all steps taken by Egypt to confront the consequences of the brutal Israeli aggression on Gaza, and supporting its efforts to bring aid into the Gaza Strip in an immediate, sustainable and adequate manner. Demanding the Security Council to take a decisive and binding decision that imposes a cessation of aggression and curbs the colonial occupation authority that violates international law, international humanitarian law, and international legitimacy resolutions, the latest of which is UN General Assembly Resolution dated 10/26/2023, and considering failure to do so as complicity that allows Israel continues its brutal aggression that kills innocent people, children, the elderly, and women, and turns Gaza into ruin. Demanding all countries to stop exporting weapons and ammunition to the occupation authorities that are used by their army and terrorist settlers to kill the Palestinian people and destroy their homes, hospitals, schools, mosques, churches and all their capabilities. Demanding the Security Council to take an immediate decision condemning Israels barbaric destruction of hospitals in the Gaza Strip, preventing the entry of medicine, food and fuel into it, and cutting off electricity, water, and basic services there, including communication and Internet services, as collective punishment that represents a war crime in accordance with international law. Requesting the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to complete the investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israel against the Palestinian people in all the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem, and assigning the general secretariats of the organization and the League to follow up on the implementation of this, and establishing two specialized legal monitoring units to document the Israeli crimes committed in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023. Supporting the legal and political initiatives of the State of Palestine to hold officials of the Israeli occupation authorities responsible for their crimes against the Palestinian people, including the advisory opinion process of the International Court of Justice, and allowing the investigation committee established by the Human Rights Council resolution to investigate these crimes and not obstruct them. Assigning the two secretariats to establish two media watch units to document all the crimes of the occupation authorities against the Palestinian people and digital media platforms that publish them and expose their illegal and inhuman practices. Assigning the foreign ministers of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in its capacity as the presidency of the 32nd Arab and Islamic Summit, and each of Jordan Egypt Qatar Turkey Indonesia and Nigeria, and the secretaries-general of the two organizations to initiate immediate international action on behalf of all member states of the organization and the League to formulate an international action to stop the war on Gaza and pressure to launch a serious and real political process to achieve lasting and comprehensive peace in accordance with approved international references. Calling on the member states of the organization and the League to exercise diplomatic, political and legal pressure and take any deterrent measures to stop the crimes of the colonial occupation authorities against humanity. Denouncing the double standards in applying international law, and warning that this duality seriously undermines the credibility of countries that protect Israel from international law and place it above the law. Condemning the displacement of about one and a half million Palestinians from the north of the Gaza Strip to its south, as a war crime in accordance with the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and its 1977 annex. Complete and absolute rejection and collective response to any attempts at individual or collective forced transfer, forced displacement, exile or deportation of the Palestinian people, whether inside the Gaza Strip or the West Bank, including Jerusalem, or outside its territory to any other destination whatever, considering this a red line and a war crime. Condemning the killing and targeting of civilians, a principled position based on our humanitarian values and consistent with international law and international humanitarian law, and emphasizing the need for the international community to take immediate and rapid steps to stop the killing and targeting of Palestinian civilians, Emphasizing the need to release all prisoners, detainees and civilians, and condemning the abhorrent crimes committed by the colonial occupation authorities against thousands of Palestinian prisoners. Stopping the murders committed by the occupation forces, the terrorism of settlers and their crimes in Palestinian villages, cities and camps in the occupied West Bank, and all attacks on the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and all Islamic and Christian sanctities. Emphasizing the need for Israel to implement its obligations as the occupying power, and to stop all illegal Israeli measures that perpetuate the occupation, especially the construction and expansion of settlements, the confiscation of lands, and the displacement of Palestinians from their homes. Condemning the military operations launched by the occupation forces against Palestinian cities and camps, condemning settler terrorism, and calling on the international community to place their associations and organizations on international terrorism lists, so that the Palestinian people can enjoy all the rights enjoyed by the rest of the peoples of the world, including human rights, the right to security, self-determination, and the embodiment of independence. Their state is on their land, and an international protection mechanism is provided for them. Condemning the Israeli attacks on the Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, and Israels illegal measures that violate freedom of worship, and emphasizing the necessity of respecting the existing legal and historical status in the holy sites, and that the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, with its entire area of 144 thousand square meters, is a place of worship purely for Muslims only, and that the Jordanian Department of the Jerusalem Endowments and the Affairs of the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque is the exclusive legal authority with jurisdiction to manage the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, maintain it, and regulate access to it, within the framework of the historical Hashemite custodianship of the Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, and to support the role of the presidency of the Al-Quds Committee and its efforts in confronting the practices of the occupation authorities in Holy city. Condemning the extremist and racist actions and statements of hatred by ministers in the Israeli occupation government, including the threat of one of these ministers to use nuclear weapons against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. Condemning the killing of journalists, children, and women, targeting paramedics, and the use of internationally banned white phosphorus in the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, condemning the repeated Israeli statements and threats to return Lebanon to the Stone Age, the necessity of preventing the expansion of the conflict, and calling on the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to investigate Israels use of chemical weapons. Emphasizing that the Palestine Liberation Organization is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and calling on the Palestinian factions and forces to unite under its umbrella, and for everyone to bear their responsibilities in light of a national partnership led by the Palestine Liberation Organization. Reaffirming adherence to peace as a strategic option, to end the Israeli occupation and resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict in accordance with international law and relevant international legitimacy resolutions. Emphasizing the need for the international community to move immediately to launch a serious and real peace process to impose peace on the basis of a two-state solution that meets all the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people Emphasizing the failure to find a solution to the Palestinian issue for more than 75 years, and the failure to address the crimes of the Israeli colonial occupation and its systematic policies to undermine the two-state solution through building and expanding colonial settlements, as well as some parties unconditional support for the Israeli occupation and protecting it from accountability, and refusing to listen, the continuous warnings about the danger of ignoring these crimes and their dangerous effects on the future of international peace and security are what led to a serious deterioration of the situation. Rejecting any proposals that would establish the separation of Gaza from the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Calling for the convening of an international peace conference, as soon as possible, through which a credible peace process will be launched on the basis of international law, international legitimacy resolutions and the principle of land for peace, within a specific time frame and with international guarantees that will lead to an end to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem, the occupied Syrian Golan, the Shebaa Farms, the Kafr Shuba hills and the outskirts of the Lebanese town of al-Mari. Activating the Islamic financial safety net in accordance with the resolution of the 14th session of the Islamic Summit Conference, to provide financial contributions and provide financial, economic and humanitarian support to the government of the State of Palestine and UNRWA, and to emphasize the need to mobilize international partners to reconstruct Gaza and mitigate the effects of the comprehensive destruction of the Israeli aggression as soon as it stops. Assigning the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States and the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to follow up on the implementation of the resolution and present a report on it to the next session of their councils. 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. On Sunday, shortly after midnight, the United States conducted two air strikes in Syria against Iran and its proxy groups. According to the Pentagon, this is a response to a series of attacks against U.S. forces in Syria and in Iraq. In a statement, the Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the strikes targeted a training facility near the city of al-Boukamal and a safe house near the city of Mayadeen. He added that President Joe Biden ordered the strikes. This comes as reports have underlined Irans use of its network of militias in Syria and Iraq as a means to escalate tensions with Israel. The latter announced on Sunday conducting airstrikes on terror infrastructure in Syria. Irans Proxies in Syria Move Toward Escalation With Israel Foreign Policy has published an article discussing the recent conflict between Israel and Hamas and raises concerns that Iran may initiate a multiple-front attack against Israel using its network of militias in the region. While Hezbollah in Lebanon has received significant attention as an Iranian proxy, the article emphasizes the role of Irans various militia groups in Syria and Iraq. After the conflict between Israel and Hamas began on October 7th, the commander of the IRGC Quds Force, Esmail Qaani, made multiple trips to Syria to coordinate with Iranian proxies in the region. Subsequently, there were over 40 missile or drone strikes by these proxies against U.S. forces in Syria and Iraq. This indicated Irans intent to test U.S. boundaries and escalate tensions. Additionally, reports suggested that IRGC proxies in Syria were mobilizing near the Israeli border. On October 22, Qaani reportedly visited southern Syria and established a new joint operation room for the IRGC and its proxies near the Golan Heights, highlighting the strategic importance of the Syrian front in Irans escalating tensions with Israel. The article suggests that Iran may use these proxies in Syria and Iraq to respond to Israels actions in Gaza. Iran sees the Hamas attacks on Israel as the beginning of a long confrontation, aiming to gradually weaken Israel over time. Therefore, even after the Hamas-Israel conflict subsides, Iran may continue to escalate tensions through different fronts, with Syria playing a crucial role. The article also discusses two heavily armed IRGC-manufactured proxies: the Afghan Fatemiyoun and Pakistani Zainabiyoun militias. These militias were created during the Syrian civil war to carry out a Shiite jihad, emphasizing extreme anti-Semitism and sectarianism. In summary, the article explores Irans use of its network of militias in Syria and Iraq as a means to escalate tensions with Israel, particularly in response to developments in Gaza. It highlights the ideological commitment and capabilities of these militias in carrying out Irans objectives in the region. How Russias Redut PMC forced rival Wagner to withdraw from Syria Al-Monitor published an article which delves into the dissolution of Russias Wagner Private Military Company (PMC) within the Syrian context and its subsequent reassignment to different organizations, notably the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardiya). It highlights the ongoing transformation of Wagner mercenaries, who have dispersed into various units, including the creation of the Kamerton unit within the Chechen special forces, Akhmat, where they are being prepared for potential combat operations in Ukraine. Moreover, the article underscores the emergence of the Redut PMC as a significant player, not only in Syria but also in other regions, such as Ukraine and various African countries. Reduts history is traced back to its origins during the Soviet Unions collapse, where it was formed by soldiers and officers from the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU). The modern Redut PMC was established during Russias intervention in the Syrian civil war, initially comprised of former Wagner mercenaries. The piece further elaborates on the specific operations and challenges faced by the Redut PMC in Syria, guarding strategic facilities owned by billionaire Gennady Timchenkos Stroytransgaz company. It highlights the PMCs shift from cargo security to active involvement in combat activities against groups like ISIS. The article also mentions the use of the Redut PMC as a label for formalizing contracts with various formations and the expansion of its umbrella structure to include numerous armed volunteer groups scattered across Russia. The article concludes by discussing the departure of most Wagner mercenaries from Syria, with a small remaining contingent handling the transfer of equipment and documentation. It notes the transfer of previously controlled assets, such as the Hayan gas field and the Hayan Petroleum Company plant, to a PMC affiliated with the Russian Ministry of Defense. The control over these assets has been transferred to the Redut PMC, although the exact division within the Redut PMC that received control is not specified. This development raises questions about the future trajectory of the Redut PMC and its role in various geopolitical contexts. Syrian Regime Diverts Flights to Lattakia Airport after Latest Israeli Strikes Flights to and from the Syrian government-ruled areas have been diverted to Latakia International Airport since the latest Israeli airstrikes that hit airports in Damascus and Aleppo. Reliable sources in Damascus told Asharq al-Awsat that the government has most likely completed repairing the two airports but doesnt want to resume operations so that Israel wont strike them again. In the past and after previous strikes at airports, authorities were quick to announce that operations were resuming there in just a matter of days. Now, weeks have passed since the attacks and the authorities have yet to announce the resumption of services there. A local source in Damascus told Asharq Al-Awsat that people are travelling through Lattakia International Airport because the two airports in Damascus and Aleppo are out of service. Another source confirmed to Asharq Al-Awsat that he returned from a foreign country two days ago through the airport in Latakia. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said on Oct. 10 that Israel continues to attack targets in Syria under the pretext of countering Iranian expansion and Iranian-backed militias in the country. Between October 10 and November 10, the SOHR documented 17 attacks: 11 airstrikes and six rocket attacks by ground forces. Four airstrikes hit Aleppo International Airport, putting it out of service on four occasions. Two airstrikes hit Damascus International Airport, putting it out of service on two occasions. After the Israeli attack, Syrias Ministry of Transport announced that it was diverting scheduled flights to Latakia airport. Sources said that the Syrian government believes that operating Lattakia airport was a safer bet given the deployment of Russian forces at the nearby Hmeimim airport. It is unlikely for Israel to target regions in Syria that are held by Russia, they added. SOHR confirmed that no military shipments have been delivered to Iranian-backed militias through the Damascus and Aleppo airports after the latest Israeli strikes. The Damascus Voice website said that a plane from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards-linked Mahan Air flew in from Tehran and landed at the Latakia airport on November 2. The plane had no passengers and was unloaded under Russian-Iranian military protection, the website quoted private sources as saying. Russia has granted Iran the green light to use the Latakia airport, part of which is controlled by Russian forces, according to the sources. The website added that an Ilyushin Iranian cargo plane landed at the Hmeimim base two days ago. IRGC generals were present for the unloading of the plane. The cargo was transferred to an unknown location held by Russian forces. The same aircraft had been used over the years to deliver weapons and ammunition to pro-Iranian militias in Syria. Israeli airstrikes hit Syrias Daraa North Press reported that Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Sunday conducting airstrikes on terror infrastructure in Syria. The Times of Israel reported, citing the IDF as saying, This is in reaction to rocket fire several hours ago from Syria toward the Golan Heights. Local sources from Daraa Governorate, south Syria, told North Press that airstrikes targeted Brigade 112, affiliated with the Syrian government forces, in the western countryside of Daraa at 3 am. The Israeli artillery also targeted posts in Daraa countryside on Saturday, according to the IDF. Since the eruption of Hamas-Israel conflict, Israeli artillery and airstrikes have targeted posts in Syria many times. The IDF claims responding to hits by the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Iranian-backed militia in Syria. Israel has accused the Syrian government of attempting to open a new front against it. US launches self-defence strike on weapons unit in Syria The US used two F-15 aircrafts to launch a self-defense strike in Maysulun in eastern Syria on 8 November. The strike was targeted at what the Pentagon calls a weapons storage unit used by Irans revolutionary guard and its affiliates. Officials say this was in response to attacks on US personnel in Iraq and Syria. In a statement, a senior defense official said, Our military actions do not signal a change in our approach to the Israel-Hamas conflict, and we have no intentions of escalating conflict in the region. 1 / 7 Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter Mallory, one of the cats at Baileys Cat Haven Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter 2 / 7 Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter Barb Brown of Baileys Cat Haven with one of the residents of the South Park facility Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter 3 / 7 Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter Barb Brown of Baileys Cat Haven plays with some cats at the South Park facility. Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter 4 / 7 Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter Barb Brown feeds a hungry cat at Baileys Cat Haven. Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter 5 / 7 Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter Kate lounges around at Baileys Cat Haven. Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter 6 / 7 Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter Baileys Cat Haven is the home of Ozzie. Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter 7 / 7 Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter Baileys Cat Haven is a place where cats looking for homes can be adopted. Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter [expand] close Cats bring joy to lots of people, but when there are lots of cats in the world and not enough people to revel in their company, then that becomes a problem. And thats where something like Baileys Cat Haven comes in. The cat rescue program, part of the Washington County-based Angel Ridge Animal Rescue, has set up shop in South Park, moving into a home built in the 1830s on Brownsville Road, located immediately across the road from the townships library and municipal offices. Having outgrown its space for felines in Chartiers Township they were set up in just four rooms there the eight-room brick building has enough capacity to shelter 27 cats. In the new digs, there will be more room for cats to play and meet potential cat parents. Angel Ridge also hopes the new space will allow them to expand their educational programs and opportunities for volunteers. Weve been looking for quite a while to find a new cat facility, said Barb Brown, Angel Ridges cat care coordinator. We just ran out of room. She added that in the new space, both volunteers and cats will be able to move around. Evictions following the COVID-19 pandemic, cats that are unceremoniously abandoned along roadsides or in wooded areas by heedless owners and families who no longer have the means or the ability to care for pets have increased the number of cats in need of adoption. Along with Baileys Cat Haven, Angel Ridge works with 25 volunteers who foster cats. There are so many cats in need, Brown said. There just needs to be better education in the community. Everybodys trying to help, but there are just too many cats. Being a no-kill shelter, a cat will remain at Baileys Cat Haven until they draw their last breath, but, she added, the goal is to get them a forever home. Angel Ridge Animal Rescue opened in 1999. Its a 501(3) charity, and its goal is providing permanent homes for animals that are infirm or aged. Dogs will remain at the Washington County facility. The goal of adopting a cat is finding one that fits into your family, Brown said. Some people travel far and wide looking for cats. Additional information on Angel Ridge Animal Rescue and Baileys Cat Haven can be found at angelridgeanimalrescue.org. Calhoun County held a Veterans Day celebration on Saturday, Nov. 11, in St. Matthews. Calhoun County Veterans Service Director U.S. Army (Ret) Robin Rucker was the guest speaker. The program included the presentation and posting of the colors, the National Anthem, Pledge of Allegiance, the state pledge to the South Carolina flag as well as prayers. A tribute was rendered to all branches of the U.S. military services as well as a recognition of prisoners of war and those missing in action. A tribute was also given to Vietnam veterans. The event was sponsored by American Legion Post 12, St. Matthews; William Thompson Chapter National Society Daughters of the American Revolution; VFW Post 10729; Calhoun County Office of Veterans Affairs; Calhoun County High School Junior ROTC and Calhoun County. Calhoun County Veterans Day Crystal Palace 2 - 3 Everton Like a number of clubs, Crystal Palace have been woven into the tapestry of Evertons struggles for survival over the past couple of seasons. In 2021-22, under Rafael Benitez and then Frank Lampard, Selhurst Park was the scene of two particularly ugly defeats and the Eagles were, of course, the opponents at Goodison Park when the Toffees came back from 2-0 down to win one of the most dramatic matches in the clubs history the May before last. The 3-0 win that Lampard oversaw in October 2022 was the high watermark of the Londoners tenure; a deceptively fluid and complete performance that would end up being his last victory as Everton boss. But it was that harrowing 4-0 defeat in the last eight of the FA Cup in March last year that, when compared to what unfolded in South London today, helps illustrate how far the club has come under Sean Dyche. The team still may have deficiencies in terms of their use and care of the ball Everton were abysmal at times in the second half in terms of their ball retention today and there may have been a feeling they were, perhaps, fortunate to have come away with all three points (given how open they were in midfield at times and how much possession they ceded to Roy Hodgsons side), but in terms of mentality and unity of purpose, its night and day from the day Lampard questioned whether his charges had the bollocks for the fight in front of them. Everton twice lost the lead today but on both occasions, they regrouped, rose to the challenge and got their noses back in front. On the third occasion, they locked it down and secured the points, delivered in wholly unexpected fashion by Idrissa Gueye. The Senegalese midfielders wayward shooting and lack of goalscoring prowess has become something of a running joke among Evertonians but this afternoon he played his part in a rapier-like move in the 86th minute, collecting a perfectly-weighted return pass from Abdoulaye Doucoure before finishing with a motion more evocative of his sliding tackles in his own half than a Premier League marksman. Article continues below video content Doucoure himself had demonstrated again his ability to be in the right place at the right time when he restored early in the first half a lead originally given to the visitors by another unlikely goalscoring hero in the form of Vitalii Mykolenko. The Ukrainian got the chance to spread one of those endearing, almost child-like smiles across his face with less than a minute on the clock when he popped up in the six-yard box to score his second goal in as many games. Palace may have taken the gloss off his moment almost straight away by wiping out the lead but Mykolenko and his team-mates had the last laugh in the end. Dyche had made one change to the team that started against Brighton last weekend, recalling Amadou Onana, who had missed out against the Seagulls with a calf problem. The Belgian would only last 45 minutes, though, and made way for the eventual match-winner at the start of the second half. By then, both teams had got onto the score sheet inside five minutes, with Everton finding the net before 60 seconds had elapsed, making them the club to have scored more goals in the first minute of a match in Premier League history. After Mykolenkos initial shot had been charged down, Doucoure laid the loose ball wide to Jack Harrison to clip a teasing ball into the six-yard box where the Ukrainian arrived to gleefully head home his second goal in a week. The response from Hodgsons side was immediate, however, and when Eberechi Eze, who was a handful throughout, danced his way into the area and drew contact from Jarrad Branthwaites out-stretched foot, referee Sam Barrott pointed to the spot. Eze placed his shot wide of Pickford who had remained central trying to fake the winger out and it was 1-1 with five minutes gone. Both sides then had spells of pressure as Dwight McNeil deposited a volley into the arms of Sam Johnstone off Ashley Youngs deep cross and Dominic Calvert-Lewin was denied a headed chance by attentive defending by Joel Ward. Eze thought he had won a second penalty midway through the first half when he skinned Onana along the byline and initially appeared to be caught by Branthwaites trailing foot but the Palace man was booked for diving instead and Video Assistant Referee, Andy Madley, saw no clear and obvious error in the decision. James Garner then narrowly missed with a scuffed shot from 20 yards and, at the other end, Tarkowskis tackle denied Odsonne Edouard who had raced onto Ezes clever dummy. With the final action of the first half, Eze was involved again as he threaded Edouard in once more and Jordan Pickford spilled the strikers shot before Tarkowski knocked it behind for safety. The second period was less than four minutes old before Everton struck again. Marc Guehi had put the ball behind for a corner that eventually fell to Mykolenko on the edge of the box. The defenders volley, reminiscent of his strike against Leicester 18 months ago, was deserving of another goal but when it came back off the base of the post, Doucoure was played onside by Jefferson Lerma and on hand to side-foot the rebound home. Again the hosts tried to respond straight away and it took a good save from Pickford to beat away Ezes powerful drive from the angle while a mix-up between Gueye and Mykolenko almost resulted in an own goal. Branthwaite had recovered from a shaky start and he put in a terrific saving tackle to deny Edouard in the 62nd minute before Lerma spurned a gilt-edged chance to level things up again when he placed his shot wide of goal from 20 yards. Palace only had to wait another eight minutes, though, and it came from a mix-up between Pickford and Tarkowski. Assuming that his keeper had a ball over the top from Eze covered, the defender allowed it to bounce behind him where Edouard stole in to bang it home from close range. The Eagles tails were up but Everton werent to be denied. Gueye collected a pass inside from near the right touchline and fed Doucoure. The Frenchman held his pass until hed spotted the Senegal internationals run and played him in superbly where Gueye took a touch before sweeping it past Johnstone to make it 3-2. The last time he'd scored for the Toffees, Sam Allardyce was in charge. Beto, on as a substitute for Calvert-Lewin, could have killed it in stoppage time but smashed a shot across goal from an acute angle and Michael Olise wasted the hosts last chance to try and force the ball home from a set-piece when he spooned a free-kick into the stand behind Pickfords goal. Everton won only two matches away from home in the entirety of last season; this term, they have already notched three in the League and will probably feel as though they should have won at Sheffield United in September as well. Theyve also now won seven of their last 12 games in all competitions, a sign that the Dyche revolution is very much on track, with confidence in the ranks growing all the time. And if another marker were needed to prove the effect the former Burnley boss is having, Evertonians need only cast their minds back to almost exactly a year ago when, having twice lost in the worst way at Bournemouth, it felt like a very bleak winter was ahead. This time, the team and fans as a collective might well be relishing what lies on the other side of the international break and a tricky-looking December beyond. Where before lay trepidation, now there is opportunity. Quite the transformation Note: the following content is not moderated or vetted by the site owners at the time of submission. Comments are the responsibility of the poster. Disclaimer () How to get rid of these ads and support TW ToffeeWeb Editor: Nationally, a growing school voucher movement is threatening student outcomes and siphoning essential funds out of public education. Unfortunately, the 2024 Budget Session will bring yet another attempt by lawmakers to institute a voucher program here in Wyoming. Voucher programs are bad for students A mounting body of evidence shows that school vouchers harm students. Every study of statewide voucher programs, like the one being proposed in Wyoming, has found that students using vouchers are falling behind academically where they would have been had their family chosen to keep them in traditional, public schools. Louisiana students using vouchers saw declines in their math achievement that were more than twice those witnessed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. In Ohio, the learning losses from vouchers were just shy of double those caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Its unconstitutional The States own Legal Services Office published a memo outlining the numerous constitutionality concerns posed by the current draft bill proposing a voucher program in Wyoming. The memo details this bills apparent violation of six sections of our State Constitution. Voucher programs increase the cost of education Voucher costs often grow exponentially beyond projections, reducing overall revenues for other state spending. A recent study of school voucher programs across seven states demonstrates that state voucher spending from 2008 to 2019 increased by hundreds of millions of dollars annually, while K-12 spending for public education declined despite increases in public school enrollment. Chipping away at the heart of our communities For so many of our students, our traditional, existing public schools are the choice. Because of location, socioeconomic status, or circumstance, public school is not just their one and only choice. It is the best choice. For too many students, their public school is their mainor even their onlysource of education, nutrition, counseling, health services, socialization, and even safety. Especially considering public schools are proving to be more effective, why is Wyoming considering policy options that erode and jeopardize our public schools, the heart of our communities? A nursing manager waiting for two years to get an echocardiogram (ECG) appointment for an urgent heart condition is the reality and experience of patients in the public healthcare system. Members of the public ventilated several negative experiences they have had at health centres and hospitals to a Joint Select Committee (JSC) town hall meeting on Social Services and Public Administration on Wednesday at the Parliament Complex, Cabildo Building, St Vincent Street, Port of Spain. Ultimately, the fate of the Report of the Commission of Enquiry (CoE) into the Paria Diving Tragedy is as important as the report itself. From all indications, the Commissions report contains a cauldron of hard truths. We can easily extrapolate from comments by CoE chairman Jerome Lynch, KC, that those truths will rock many a boat. But we too agree that the public interest demands immediate public view of its contents. Almost 60 participants took the trip down from the roof of 5151 E. Broadway, 190 feet, rappelling to raise money for the Girl Scouts of Southern Arizona, November 11, 2023, Tucson, Ariz. The fund raiser brought in more than $71,000 for GSSOAZ and their programs. The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer: A majority in the House of Representatives voted on Tuesday to censure their fellow member, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, for statements she recently made in calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. Their resolution particularly condemned her use of the phrase, from the river to the sea, which it described as a genocidal call to violence to destroy the state of Israel and its people to replace it with a Palestinian state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. This claim regarding the meaning of the phrase is a false and defamatory attempt to vilify those who support the human rights of Palestinians by associating them with antisemitism and terrorism. Attributing this false meaning to the phrase is part of a larger campaign of equating the government of Israel and its policies with Judaism as a whole and condemning any criticism of Israeli policies as hatred of Jews. It is however the belief of those who support Palestinian freedom that Palestinians can be accorded the full human and political rights to which they are entitled without compromising the human and political rights of Israelis. The slogan from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free, is not a call for this area to become a Palestinian state that expels the current Jewish population. It is, rather, the call for a political peace settlement, whether it is the two-state plan outlined in the Oslo agreement that is backed by the US, or a single state in which Israelis and Palestinians have the full rights of citizens. It is in other words the demand that Palestinians within the entire area of historic Palestine obtain the full rights of citizens alongside Jewish Israelis who already enjoy these rights. Why say Palestine shall be free and not Palestinians? The right of Palestinians to self-determination is recognized by the US. The term Palestine signifies this self-determination. Until Palestinians have the full and equal rights of citizens within either a Palestinian state on part of the original Palestine, or an Israeli/Palestinian state in the entire area, Palestinian self-determination will not exist. Palestinians will be under occupation or less than full citizens within Israel and the Palestinian refugees and their descendants who have not been allowed to return after 1948 will have no form of restitution. Only a political peace settlement that allows Palestine to exist will bring an end to this situation. Those who voted to censure Representative Tlaib cannot really believe that she and hundreds of thousands of other Americans, including many Jews, are calling for the destruction of Israel and expulsion of Israelis. Instead of defaming their own colleagues and compatriots for political gain, our representatives should work with all sides to end this needless tragedy. The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer: In countless ceremonies across the country, Americans are honoring Veterans patriots who, since the war for independence, have stood watch over and defended our liberty. Veterans Day is about honoring the men and women who have worn our countrys uniforms, fought, served, and sacrificed to make our freedoms and way of life possible. We remember Americas heroes because we recognize a basic truth: The deeds of the American Veteran bind us to our noble past, strengthen us in the difficult present and inspire us to meet the future challenges we may face as a nation. Veterans are at the center of everything we do at the Southern Arizona VA Health Care System. Each day, our employees work tirelessly to provide compassionate health care, tailored to the unique needs of each Veteran that enter through our doors. Approximately 30% of our staff are Veterans themselves and continue their service to our Nation by caring for their fellow Veteran. Our health care system has been a staple in southern Arizona since we first opened our door as Veterans Hospital No. 51 on August 28, 1928. This year marked 95 years of serving Veterans at our location, and since that time we have grown to serve over 89,498 Veterans across southern Arizona. Our vision is to continue to provide more care and benefits to more Veterans than ever before. The 2022 PACT Act expanded health care benefits for millions of Veterans exposed to toxic hazards during their service, and survivorsincluding many Vietnam-era, Gulf War-era and Post 9/11 Veterans. The Southern Arizona VA Health Care System has screened over 43,000 Veterans for toxic exposure. If you are a Veteran or survivor, you can learn more about the PACT act by visiting www.va.gov/PACT or by calling 1-800-MY-VA-411. Veteran suicide remains a top clinical priority for the VA, and we continue to work tirelessly toward our goal; to end Veteran suicide. Our Suicide Prevention team has conducted over 50 community outreach events this year and has connected with more than 20,000 Veterans and Veteran supporters. At VA.gov/REACH, you can find social media content to help spread the word to Veterans in your life. If you are a Veteran in crisis or concerned about one contact please call 988 and then Press 1, visit VeteransCrisisLine.net or text 838255. The Veterans Crisis Line provides 24/7 confidential crisis support. On behalf of the more than 3,000 employees and volunteers of SAVAHCS it is our privilege to honor and serve Veterans and their families. There is no other profession more rewarding than serving our Nations heroes. To our Veterans, thank you for your service. BOSTON (AP) Massachusetts shelters are being pushed past their capacity, running out of beds for families, including migrants arriving from other states and residents weathering a housing crunch right before winter, said Democratic Gov. Maura Healey. On Thursday the state crossed a threshold set by Healey of 7,500 families seeking placement in emergency shelters. Healey has said that families seeking shelter will be put on a waitlist once the state reaches the cap. Families will continue to be placed in shelters until the end of Thursday, according to the administration. Beginning tomorrow, families will be placed into shelter as units become available. If there are no available shelter units, families determined eligible for emergency assistance will be placed on a waitlist, Emergency Assistance Director General Scott Rice said in statement. He said the administration will continue to work with community organizations to connect families with safe, overnight options. Healey has said she doesnt want to see families out on the street but that the state has reached its shelter capacity. The spike in demand is being driven in part by migrant families entering the state. Many of the migrants are arriving from other states. Some states led by Republicans including Texas and Florida have bused or flown immigrants to states and cities led by Democrats, including California, Massachusetts, New York and Chicago. New York City Mayor Eric Adams has announced he is limiting shelter stays for migrant families with children to 60 days. In Chicago, officials have looked to relocate migrants seeking asylum from police stations and the citys airports to winterized camps with massive tents. Critics argue Healeys decision to cap shelter placements violates the states right-to-shelter law. Under the four-decade-old law, Massachusetts is legally required to provide emergency shelter to eligible families. Under Healey's plan, women, young children and those with acute medical needs and health issues will be given priority. The state is also considering limiting how long a family can stay in a shelter, Healey said. With winter not far off, officials are scrambling to prevent families from ending up on the street. On Tuesday, Healey announced a $5 million grant program to help local organizations create overnight shelter for families and pregnant individuals with no other options. Healey has also said shes pressing federal officials to speed up the process by which migrants can get work authorizations and ultimately exit the shelter system to free up more space. On Wednesday the Massachusetts House approved a bill for $50 million to set up one or more locations where homeless families could find temporary refuge while they wait for a shelter space. Democratic House Speaker Ronald Mariano said that could be a single large site like the Hynes Convention Center in Boston or smaller sites spread around the state. Where are these people going to go?" Mariano said Wednesday. For families denied shelter, the state has made a flyer that suggests a handful of options, the first being to return to the last safe place you stayed. Denying families emergency shelter could force some into unsafe living conditions, said Kelly Turley, director of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless. She and other homeless advocates have pressed lawmakers to approve money for a large living site similar to what Mariano described. Advocates welcoming new migrants to the state say theyre concerned about how to help those with no friends or family and nowhere to stay. Homeless families are housed in hundreds of locations in 90 cities and towns in a range of facilities, from traditional shelters to temporary sites like college dorms. Families will be offered shelter based on their position on the waitlist, according to guidance issued last week by the The state Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities. Top priority will be given to families at imminent risk of domestic violence or who have an infant up to 3 months old, have family members with an immunocompromised condition, are experiencing a high-risk pregnancy or who include a family member with a medical device, specifically a tracheostomy tube. Additional priority levels will take into account the age and medical needs of family members. Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton Tulsa World Staff Writer Follow Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today Broken Arrow school district voters will be asked to consider a four-part school bond proposal Tuesday. Broken Arrow Public Schools last bond election was in 2015, when voters approved a 12-year, $370 million package. Not all of the funds from that bond have been released yet for projects, but with valuations increasing within Broken Arrow Public Schools attendance area, district officials have previously said there is enough financial room to send a proposal to voters that would not increase taxes if approved. This is mainly focused on a lot of maintenance issues, technology, safety and security efficiency items that are just needed, Superintendent Chuck Perry said. Its like maintaining your car. You can buy a $150,000 vehicle, but you still have to change the oil and rotate the tires. And I feel like this bond issue is a lot of those basic needs that for a school district our size as it grows, weve got to address and weve got to take care of. This sets us up for the future to do larger projects and construction projects. Proposition No. 1 would provide $48 million for 13 new roofs, 181 new heating and air conditioning units at sites around the district, the addition of practice and storage areas for the Fine Arts Department at Broken Arrow High School, replacement of computers and tablets, WiFi upgrades, the addition of a transportation terminal in the districts southern end and security upgrades around the district. Along with body cameras and a dispatch center for the districts security department and better lighting for parking lots, among the security improvements included in Proposition No. 1 are two additional secure vestibules and a perimeter fence for Broken Arrow High School. When it (BAHS) was built in 1982, it was specifically built to resemble a college campus with multiple buildings, Principal Crystal Barber said. We are in a different time, though. That perimeter fencing would allow us to better secure our classroom buildings so that people who are not staff or students would not be able to access the buildings. Proposition No. 2 would provide $4 million for new school buses. The other two parts of the bond package do not require any new money and instead are requests to change how the district uses some of the as yet unreleased funds from its 2015 bond package. Unless completed under budget or with an assist from private donations, state law requires school districts to spend at least 85% of proceeds on projects and items specifically listed in a bond proposal. That remaining 15%, if not used for the items specifically listed in the bond proposal, must go toward projects similar to the ones approved by voters. Broken Arrows 2015 bond package included $30 million to build a 17th elementary school. If passed, Proposition No. 3 would allow Broken Arrow Public Schools instead to use those funds to build classroom additions at up to five existing elementary schools that were designed to allow for future expansion. BAPS newest elementary school, Rosewood, is among the sites that could potentially have an addition built if Proposition No. 3 passes. Built as part of that 2015 bond package, Rosewood opened in August 2020 and was originally designed to accommodate about 600 students across 28 classrooms. However, the school has already had to have its boundaries redrawn to address overcrowding and additional anticipated growth due to housing construction within its attendance area. Even with the redistricting, Rosewood Principal Nate Hutchings said his school has 588 students enrolled this year, with particularly large student counts in first, second and fourth grades. I have a teacher in every room in my building, so as enrollment increases, my class sizes increase because I do not have the building capacity to hire another teacher and give them a classroom, he said. Other elementary schools that could potentially have a new wing added under the proposal include Aspen Creek, Creekwood, Highland Park and Timber Ridge. If Proposition No. 3 does not pass, Perry said the district will build the 17th elementary school that was included in the 2015 bond proposal. However, due to rising construction costs, that new school would be able to accommodate only 300 to 400 students. Proposition No. 4 would allow the district potentially to build its planned aquatic center at Elam Park through a partnership with the city rather than at the Kirkland Activities Complex as stipulated in the ballot language for the 2015 bond package. It will not change the money allocated to build it at all, Perry said. It will not change the time frame when we are scheduled to build that. All it will do is just give us flexibility to potentially move it to another site. Similar to Proposition No. 3, if Proposition No. 4 does not pass, then the aquatic center will be built at the Kirkland Activities Complex as initially approved by voters in 2015. Polling places will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Under state law, school bond propositions must receive at least 60% approval in order to pass. The new Tulsa World app offers personalized features. Download it today. When the going got tough at Tulsa Public Schools this year, it was a behind-the-scenes leader named Ebony Johnson who stepped up. Two months later, some school board members including the only one who did not support her appointment as interim superintendent have already begun discussing the idea of making her temporary duty assignment a permanent gig. With threats of a state takeover still looming over the states largest school district, would Johnson accept or even compete for the job if a wider search is launched? It doesnt get any simpler than her answer: Yes, and yes. Running a school district that serves 33,000 kids and is the citys third-largest employer is a big job on its own. But Johnson is doing so while also contending with State Superintendent Ryan Walters unrelenting demands for proof that local leadership can produce rapid, significant improvement in student achievement indicators. The Tulsa World went to Johnson, who has a proven track record of individual school site turnaround efforts, to get answers about her short-term strategies for the district she attended as a child and where she has dedicated her entire professional career. Why was she willing to take the helm during a time of crisis and extraordinary scrutiny? When folks have judgment around what can be done and what they dont believe is possible, thats when I get the most excited, Johnson said. Are there challenges that we have before us? Absolutely. But its unfair for there to be an inaccurate narrative that we are not producing students who are going on to be amazing. Homegrown leader Johnson attended Whitman Elementary, three different middle schools then-Anderson Middle School, Deborah Brown Community School and Gilcrease Middle School then McLain High School, where she graduated in 1994. She laughs when recalling how all-business she was as a teen, but it seems like foreshadowing now. I was always involved in leadership roles. I was senior class president, I read the morning announcements anything I could do, Johnson said. I even walked around with a briefcase in high school and wore suit jackets. During her high school years, she explored the possibility of going into broadcast journalism under the mentorship of a local TV newswoman. In the end, her love of writing, speaking and reading made her believe that teaching those subjects would be a better path for her. She majored in English education at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, completed a teaching internship at Muskogee High School and then came right back to Tulsa to begin her career at TPS in 1999. She later completed a masters degree in school administration from Northeastern State University and a doctorate in education from the University of Oklahoma. Johnson earned the honor of Teacher of the Year at her very first school, Monroe Middle School, before going on to work as a dean, assistant principal and then principal. She worked for several years as executive director of student and family support services for the whole district and her most recent role was as chief learning officer. Becoming full superintendent of a district under the gun of a possible state takeover would come with career risks but some of those she already accepted by becoming interim superintendent. Johnson said she and her husband of 23 years and their children, who are 16 and 20, discussed all of the many considerations for her personally and for their entire family at that juncture. She concluded there was no alternative but to step in and serve the district that served me, pour into the community that poured into me. I feel that it would be a continuation of us moving in the right direction in leadership and it would allow us to not go backwards, but to continue forwards with the charge that we have before us, Johnson said. Turnaround experience Johnson spent years in the trenches working in schools with high concentrations of students living in poverty and struggling academically. She affectionately calls them students who are most at-promise, rather than most needy. She took on principalships of three schools on the states needs improvement or F schools lists Academy Central Elementary School, McLain High School and Central High School. Her blueprint for getting performance indicators in those places trending in the right direction is something that still informs her work today. It goes something like this: First identify the gifts and talents of faculty and staff members, set high expectations and goals for improvement then doggedly track them, hold herself up as a servant to support the entire team, and then get out of peoples way and give them full credit for their successes. I set some strong goals from the beginning that we will be a premier school, we will not be an F school, and students will learn how to read, Johnson said. Alongside that is really just firing our families up around their role as their childs first teacher and making sure they were aware of all the things they could do to help us, as well. Reality check Johnson said she believes TPS needs to be more blunt with parents and the community at large about its greatest challenges. What we have to do is a much better job of telling the truth. What is the actual issue here? she said. For starters, new, extreme rates of chronic absenteeism since the pandemic are stifling student growth, and the state holds schools to account for those rates. What can parents and families do? Send your children to school every day, Johnson said. We need help with that. Students who miss 10% or more of a school year for any reason are considered chronically absent. Statewide, Oklahoma schools received a D for attendance on the most recent state report cards, with almost 20% of students meeting that definition during the 2021-22 school year. The rates were even higher in Tulsa, with 45.38% of students classified as chronically absent in 2021-22, compared to 22% in 2018-19. On the most recent state report card, an alternative middle school was the only secondary TPS site to receive an attendance grade above a D. At our secondary sites, we know that pre-pandemic, we had some students that truly struggled with what it meant to come to school on a regular basis because of a lot of factors, Johnson said. Post-pandemic, it has hit an all-time high. We feel like a lot of that has to do with students connecting to jobs and just a lot of helping their families out. Chronic absenteeism is a serious focus for us. We need help with that. Then theres the challenge of having a qualified teacher in each classroom when the students get there. With five weeks left until winter break, TPS still has about 100 certified teaching vacancies across the district, with particularly acute needs for those serving English learners and students with special education needs. A coinciding wave of baby boomer retirements has left TPS relying more heavily on rookie teachers who need a lot of extra support and training. As of October, almost one-fourth of TPS teachers have less than two years experience. Additionally, since the start of the fiscal year on July 1, the district has had 235 emergency teaching certificate requests approved by the Oklahoma State Board of Education an increase of 42 from one year ago and 91 compared to October 2020. We have some great emergency- and alternatively certified teachers who look like they should have been in education this whole time, Johnson said. However, theres also an initial challenge of getting them up to speed with what it means to be a teacher and what it means to be an educator. Lastly, Johnson feels there is a serious need for TPS to better explain the nuances of its student literacy scores and how the community can help address the continuous nature of this critical challenge. Its absolutely not true that 88% of our kids cant read. Its false, not accurate and a gross misrepresentation. And its not fair for our district to carry the stigma that our kids cannot read, Johnson said. The districts partnership with Reading Partners is a simple way concerned citizens can make sure more early readers are on track to read at grade level by third grade, by volunteering just one hour per week. If you look at levels of proficiency across our state, we are struggling as a state in this area. But even a child scoring below basic level (on the state test) still does not mean they cant read. It means their amount of comprehension is still a struggle. The timeline As a condition for receiving its current state accreditation, TPS is now being required to provide monthly updates to the Oklahoma State Board of Education. Specific requirements placed on the district include creating a plan to train all TPS teachers in the science of reading, creating an improvement plan for each of its 24 schools that received an F on the most recent state school report cards, and the developing and publishing new internal controls to prevent embezzlement. TPS began using academic interventions for students based on the science of reading more than two years ago and is on track to implement professional development on the science of reading for all of its elementary school teachers in early 2024. In addition to the monthly reports before the state board, Johnson and other TPS officials are meeting regularly with representatives from the Oklahoma State Department of Education to discuss the districts academic progress. Two of those state officials are even touring schools to have in-depth conversations with educators in the field to see the challenges for themselves, and TPS has been offered helpful advice and even access to things such as a new holiday-time tutoring program the state will be launching, Johnson said. Despite Walters threats of additional punitive measures if progress to his liking is not made within months, Johnson said given the districts faculty shortages and high concentration of students living in poverty or learning English as a second language, a realistic timeline for a complete academic turnaround is three to five years. Right now, its a bit premature for us to land at a place where we can say whatll happen at the end of the year, she said. I can say that our district and our teams are working every day, looking at data on a consistent basis, monitoring progress, going into classrooms, talking with school leaders and other team members who work in various spaces and places, moving in and giving more support so that we can have the most successful year that we can have. TPS will also try to avoid test fatigue before annual state tests in April by delaying the districts own spring progress test until after. When asked what TPS parents can do about the target on the districts back, Johnson said she worries that a greater sense of urgency is needed. She said deeper, daily check-ins on each childs progress would go a long way to support what were attempting to do at our school sites. Asking their children daily, not just how are things going at school, but Lets talk about each class, Lets look at your grades in PowerSchool (online parent portal), I received the weekly grade update from TPS, lets discuss that, What type of supports can I give you for X, Y, Z class? Johnson said. That would be tremendous help from our parents and guardians. Johnson isnt just talking the talk here. Her own 16-year-old child is among the districts 33,000 students in her charge. Young students dont just need academic content. They need encouragement and support at school and home to become responsible, self-aware learners who are mindful of academic expectations, time management, organization and preparation, Johnson said. My own child is taking a class that she enjoys but is a challenge for her, she said, with a little laugh. Its critically important that Im asking her questions about how hard have you studied? Are you being responsible? Are you aware of the expectations in the classroom? What do you need to do in order to be better prepared for the next test or quiz? Kevin Canfield Tulsa World Staff Writer Follow Kevin Canfield 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 Four years ago, Tulsans voted to give each of the nine City Council districts $1 million to spend on community development priority projects. It was part of the Improve Our Tulsa 2 capital improvements package. What goodies have come from the publics largesse? Not many yet. Although the vote was held in 2019, corresponding sales tax collections did not begin until fiscal year 2022. Thus far, $2.75 million has been made available to the districts $485,000 of which has been spent on projects, according to figures provided by the city. In District 2, City Councilor Jeannie Cue, in consultation with her constituents, used $200,000 to purchase a property next to the Route 66 Village. It is home to the Route 66 Main Street program. Another $150,000 was used to replace a failing pedestrian bridge at Stonebrooke Estates. In District 6, Councilor Christian Bengel used $135,000 to have a waterline connection and fire hydrant installed for an area without service. He said he plans to keep listening to residents as he contemplates how the districts remaining funds should be spent. My view is that we spend it on parks or trails in the district that kind of may not be on Parks (Department) radar, Bengel said. So I am going to work with Director Anna (America) to figure out what the cost would be to rehabilitate some of these things, if it needs new playground equipment and stuff like that. I think that would benefit the entire district versus doing one park. For the record, city councilors cant spend the $1 million on cruises or council business in Las Vegas. There are rules. Three, in fact: Projects must be for a public purpose; must conform to the citys comprehensive development plan; and must promote safe and attractive neighborhoods and/or economic development, safe and affordable housing, recreation or transportation. The last of the full $9 million in community development priority projects funding, meanwhile, wont be in the coffers until fiscal year 2026. Other factors have contributed to the slow expenditure of funds: City Council seats can change every two years, and the projects themselves take time time to plan, engineer and construct. But they all start with an idea. Heres some of what the councilors have in mind. District 1 Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper said she plans to use all $1 million on improvements in and around Flat Rock Creek, where development of an urban wilderness area and other projects are underway. The idea is to combine forces and resources with the philanthropies and other organizations working to revitalize the area, Hall-Harper said. We want to get all of those similar projects together and do them not in silos but everybody understanding what everybody is doing so we can get the most bang for the bucks being used, she said. District 4 Councilor Laura Bellis, District 7 Councilor Lori Decter Wright and District 8 Councilor Phil Lakin have yet to request funding but say they are exploring their opportunities. And listening. I would love to see it be community led, where people step forward and say, We need this, and help in facilitating the process for that, Bellis said. Lakin is of a similar mind. I need to host a district meeting to receive input from District 8 residents. Its not my money to allocate its theirs, he said. And I want to know and weigh all the various needs of our district as expressed by these residents before asking my council colleagues to approve funding for a specific project or projects. District 5 City Councilor Grant Miller said hes been working with the city and others to fix street lights, trim trees and clean up trash along the Skelly Bypass Neighborhood Trail. Some of the district funds, he said, will be used to pay for the next phase of the job. The resurfacing and amenities are going to be expensive, so that is where I will try to draw on those funds, Miller said. District 9 Councilor Jayme Fowler said he will continue to focus his efforts on the 61st Street and Peoria Avenue neighborhood, with funding planned for the South Tulsa Community House and Johnson Park. Hes also working to improve the traffic signal system in the general area. Some people think, well, that (focus on 61st and Peoria) has faded away and nothing is going to happen, and that is nothing further from the truth, Fowler said. Councilor Crista Patrick, who represents District 3, plans to use the funding to improve access to fresh foods. I am working in conjunction with Tulsa Metropolitan Ministry to do a neighborhood automated grocery. My constituents have agreed to use $200,000 toward that, Patrick said. They are like kiosks. Everybody would be issued a card that they could hook their SNAP benefits to or their bank account or both. It is locally sourced. The new Tulsa World app offers personalized features. Download it today. NEW YORK (AP) Surgeons have performed the worlds first transplant of an entire human eye, an extraordinary addition to a face transplant although its far too soon to know if the man will ever see through his new left eye. An accident with high-voltage power lines had destroyed most of Aaron James face and one eye. His right eye still works. But surgeons at NYU Langone Health hoped replacing the missing one would yield better cosmetic results for his new face, by supporting the transplanted eye socket and lid. The NYU team announced Thursday that so far, it's doing just that. James is recovering well from the dual transplant last May and the donated eye looks remarkably healthy. It feels good. I still dont have any movement in it yet. My eyelid, I cant blink yet. But Im getting sensation now, James told The Associated Press as doctors examined his progress recently. You got to start somewhere, theres got to be a first person somewhere, added James, 46, of Hot Springs, Arkansas. Maybe youll learn something from it that will help the next person. Today, transplants of the cornea the clear tissue in front of the eye are common to treat certain types of vision loss. But transplanting the whole eye the eyeball, its blood supply and the critical optic nerve that must connect it to the brain is considered a moonshot in the quest to cure blindness. Whatever happens next, James' surgery offers scientists an unprecedented window into how the human eye tries to heal. Were not claiming that we are going to restore sight, said Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, NYU's plastic surgery chief, who led the transplant. But theres no doubt in my mind we are one step closer. Some specialists had feared the eye would quickly shrivel like a raisin. Instead, when Rodriguez propped open James left eyelid last month, the donated hazel-colored eye was as plump and full of fluid as his own blue eye. Doctors see good blood flow and no sign of rejection. Now researchers have begun analyzing scans of James brain that detected some puzzling signals from that all-important but injured optic nerve. One scientist who has long studied how to make eye transplants a reality called the surgery exciting. Its an amazing validation of animal experiments that have kept transplanted eyes alive, said Dr. Jeffrey Goldberg, chair of ophthalmology at Stanford University. The hurdle is how to regrow the optic nerve, although animal studies are making strides, Goldberg added. He praised the NYU teams audacity in even aiming for optic nerve repair and hopes the transplant will spur more research. Were really on the precipice of being able to do this, Goldberg said. James was working for a power line company in June 2021 when he was shocked by a live wire. He nearly died. Ultimately he lost his left arm, requiring a prosthetic. His damaged left eye was so painful it had to be removed. Multiple reconstructive surgeries couldnt repair extensive facial injuries including his missing nose and lips. James pushed through physical therapy until he was strong enough to escort his daughter Allie to a high school homecoming ceremony, wearing a face mask and eye patch. Still he required breathing and feeding tubes, and longed to smell, taste and eat solid food again. In his mind and his heart, its him so I didnt care that, you know, he didnt have a nose. But I did care that it bothered him, said his wife, Meagan James. Face transplants remain rare and risky. James is only the 19th in the U.S., the fifth Rodriguez has performed. The eye experiment added even more complexity. But James figured he'd be no worse off if the donated eye failed. Three months after James was placed on the national transplant waiting list, a matching donor was found. Kidneys, a liver and pancreas from the donor, a man in his 30s, saved three other people. During James' 21-hour operation, surgeons added another experimental twist: When they spliced together the donated optic nerve to what remained of James original, they injected special stem cells from the donor in hopes of spurring its repair. Last month, tingles heralded healing facial nerves. James can't yet open the eyelid, and wears a patch to protect it. But as Rodriguez pushed on the closed eye, James felt sensation although on his nose rather than his eyelid, presumably until slow-growing nerves get reoriented. The surgeon also detected subtle movements beginning in muscles around the eye. Then came a closer look. NYU ophthalmologist Dr. Vaidehi Dedania ran a battery of tests. She found expected damage in the light-sensing retina in the back of the eye. But she said it appears to have enough special cells called photoreceptors to do the job of converting light to electrical signals, one step in creating vision. Normally, the optic nerve then would send those signals to the brain to be interpreted. James optic nerve clearly hasn't healed. Yet when light was flashed into the donated eye during an MRI, the scan recorded some sort of brain signaling. That both excited and baffled researchers, although it wasnt the right type for vision and may simply be a fluke, cautioned Dr. Steven Galetta, NYUs neurology chair. Only time and more study may tell. Still, the surgery marks a technical tour de force, said Dr. David Klassen, chief medical officer of the United Network for Organ Sharing, which runs the nations transplant system. "You can learn a tremendous amount from a single transplant that could propel the field. As for James, were just taking it one day at a time, he said. The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Randy Krehbiel Tulsa World Staff Writer Follow Randy Krehbiel Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today The successful drive to create the Emmett Till National Monument and its implications for Tulsas historic Greenwood District are on the menu for Thursdays 12th John Hope Franklin Dinner of Reconciliation at the Greenwood Cultural Center. The John Hope Franklin Center, Executive Director Reuben Gant and many other Tulsans have been working for more than a year to secure the monument designation for the area from Archer to Pine streets and Detroit to Lansing avenues that was Tulsas Black Greenwood District in 1921. The designation, though, is not so much about the sections destruction by whites on the morning of June 1, 1921, but about Greenwoods full cultural and historical significance to the city, state and nation. One event on one day does not define Greenwood, said Gant. The stories of Black history are not always about tragedy. Often they are. The struggle never seems to end. But we have this role model of perseverance and success we want to highlight. National monuments can be created by Congress or by the president through the Antiquities Act. Gant said the preference is to go through Congress, and he said the Oklahoma delegation has been supportive. The current difficulty in getting anything through Congress, though, might cause the Tulsa group to go the presidential route. Certainly, current President Joe Biden has demonstrated some sympathy to both Greenwood and to using the Antiquities Act to establish civil rights monuments. In July, he signed an executive order recognizing the Till monument, which is unusual in that it is actually three locations two in Mississippi and one in Chicago. Benjamin Saulsberry is director of community engagement and education for the Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Sumner, Mississippi, and Jessie Jaynes-Diming is a civil rights tour guide and a founding Emmett Till Memorial Commission member. The commission formed in 2006 to work toward commemorating Tills 1955 murder by two white men who were subsequently tried and found not guilty by a local jury. After their acquittal, the two men admitted killing Till in a story they sold to Look magazine for $4,000. The brazen cruelty of the 14-year-old boys murder and the decision of his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, to hold an open casket funeral service so the world could see the extent of violence visited on the body of her son, stirred the nations growing Civil Rights movement. The monument declaration takes in the Tallahatchie County Courthouse, where the murder trial was held; 4.31 acres on the Tallahatchie River, where Tills body was recovered; and the Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in Bronzeville, Illinois, where Tills funeral was held. National monuments, it should be noted, do not necessarily include manmade monuments. Gant said some resistance to the proposed Greenwood monument initially arose because residents thought it would mean being forced out through eminent domain, but he said that is not the case. Thats one reason Saulsberry and Jaynes-Diming were invited to share the experiences of communities who have done this and what its meant to them. We want to put people at ease, Gant said. Dinner of Reconciliation When: 6 p.m. Thursday Where: Greenwood Cultural Center Featured: Benjamin Saulsberry, Community Engagement and Museum Director, and Jessie Jaynes-Diming, civil rights tour guide and Emmett Till Memorial Commission member Tickets: $25 for adults, $15 for children, jhfcenter.org The new Tulsa World app offers personalized features. Download it today. Barbara Hoberock Tulsa World Capitol Bureau Staff Writer Follow Barbara Hoberock Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today OKLAHOMA CITY Oklahoma has serious shortages in nearly all types of behavioral health providers, according to a recently released report. The report, by the Healthy Minds Policy Initiative, was recently unveiled during an interim study before the Oklahoma House of Representatives Public Health Committee. The Healthy Minds Policy Initiative, with offices in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, is a nonprofit that works to end untreated mental illness through policy and practice transformation, said Zack Stoycoff, executive director. The study provided a poignant look at the gap between the size of the states mental health workforce and the need by Oklahomans, in particular for psychologists and psychiatrists, said Rep. Melissa Provenzano, D-Tulsa. The report says Oklahomas psychiatrists are meeting only 39% of the states estimated need. Psychologists are meeting 37%. Oklahoma has 23 psychiatry residency positions. It has 19 accredited psychology internship positions. The limited number of university internships and residency opportunities in Oklahoma means our future doctors must overwhelmingly move out of state to complete their training, Provenzano said. When they go, they tend not to return. Its time for Oklahoma to grow our capacity and retain these doctors here at home. Degree programs supporting behavioral health careers graduate more students than ever but not enough to meet the states growing need for treatment services, according to the report. Stoycoff said behavioral health includes mental health and substance abuse issues. Oklahoma has an abundance of licensed professional counselors but comes up short in licensed marriage and family therapists, psychologists and clinical social workers, according to the report. The state also comes up short in psychiatrists, advanced practice registered nurses and nurse practitioners providing psychiatric or mental health services. Primary care providers, of which Oklahoma has far more than psychiatrists, can also be part of solving the behavioral health prescriber shortage, the report said. While many patients with mild or moderate behavioral health conditions receive medication management through a primary care provider, only half of the diagnosable mental health and substance abuse conditions are detected in primary care, and only half of those whose condition is detected receive treatment. The organization offered a 14-point plan that includes $30 million worth of strategic incentives the Legislature could implement to change the trajectory of behavioral health pipelines, Stoycoff said. Jim Zahniser, Health Minds Policy Initiative director of population health analysis, said too many youths experiencing mental health crises have ended up at emergency departments in hospitals. Rates of suicide and overdose deaths have gone up, accelerated further by the pandemic, Zahniser said. He said a lot of people know someone who has been suicidal or overdosed. It is often because they are not getting detected, he said. There are not enough professionals out there to meet the need. The new Tulsa World app offers personalized features. Download it today. Tulsa World Opinion podcast: Oklahomas eroding mental health services The practice of having students involved in fights read morality books at a middle school in Go Vap District, Ho Chi Minh City is commanding positive public attention. Rather than suspending students involved in fights, Nguyen Van Troi Middle School makes them spend recess in the school library reading ethical books within two weeks, according to Trinh Vinh Thanh, head of the Go Vap education and training division. Teachers supervise the reading sessions and such students are required to write their reflections on each book. After the two-week period, on Mondays, the students will take turns sharing moral stories from the books they read in front of the entire school. The school refrains from suspending students studies, as this approach lacks public approval and is not endorsed by educational experts, said Thanh. Expressing his perspective, Thanh remarked that at this age, students often exhibit a mentality geared toward seeking attention, sometimes resorting to negative actions such as engaging in fights and broadcasting these brawling events online. Why not create positive avenues for children to express themselves? Thanh said. Its a way to help them self-regulate their behavior. Students, teachers favor the approach I comprehend that if students engage in fights, they are breaching school rules and will undoubtedly face consequences, said Truong Cong Gia Khanh, an 11th-grade student in Tan Binh District. However, between the two options of a two-week suspension or reading morality books during recess for the same duration, I believe the latter is a more effective approach." According to Khanh, students of all backgrounds, whether high-achievers or struggling learners, tend to relish missing school. Either exemplary students or those who struggle academically share this sentiment. When the schedule indicates classes but the school announces the teachers unavailability, the entire class would applaud and cheer, the student stated. For those who are disinclined to study and lean toward disruptive behavior, the prospect of being suspended from school serves as a reward rather than a punishment. The case of a female student in District 12 a few years ago was a prominent example as she shared an unexpected revelation about being expelled from school due to a fight, stating, The school expelled me, and thats exactly what I wanted. According to Tran Hong Lan, a literature teacher in District 6, the suspension of students, who are not studying well, poses a challenge for them to keep up with the curriculum. Lan expressed her endorsement, stating Nguyen Van Troi Middle Schools approach is both humane and effective, aligning with student psychology. Students should continue attending school regularly to avoid missing lessons while simultaneously facing consequences for their misbehavior, the teacher said. I highly value the disciplinary method of reading moral books. Its a form of discipline that should be emulated. Adding to the discussion, Nguyen Hoang Ha, a 12th-grade student in District 1, suggested that schools and teachers carefully choose high-quality ethics books to achieve the desired effect of the reading discipline. At our age, we tend to be less receptive to adult advice while not all content in books is accurate, Ha said. In fact, some books can be overly dogmatic, leading to boredom after just a few pages. Moral books should consist of convincing practical stories rather than dictating what young people should or should not do. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! About 5-1/2 years from now, astronomers predict, an asteroid about as wide as the Empire State Building is tall will streak through space within 20,000 miles (32,200 km) of Earth, the closest any celestial object of that size will have come to our planet in modern history. When it does, a spacecraft launched by NASA in 2016 is expected to be in position to provide a detailed examination of this rare close encounter. The mission, directed by University of Arizona scientists, is expected to yield insights into planetary formation and knowledge that could inform efforts to build a defense system against possible doomsday asteroid collisions with Earth. At the time of its 2004 discovery, the asteroid Apophis, named for a demon serpent embodying evil and chaos in ancient Egyptian mythology, appeared to pose a dire impact threat to Earth, with scientists forecasting a potential collision in 2029. Refined observations have since ruled out any impact risk for at least another century. Still, its next approach in 2029 will bring the asteroid within a cosmic cat's whisker of Earth - less than one-tenth the moon's distance from us and well within the orbits of some geosynchronous Earth satellites. The spacecraft now headed for a rendezvous with Apophis is OSIRIS-REx, which made headlines plucking a soil sample from a different asteroid three years ago and sending it back to Earth in a capsule that made a parachute landing in Utah in September. Spacecraft's second act Rather than retire the spacecraft, NASA has rebranded it as OSIRIS-APEX - short for APophis EXplorer - and fired its thrusters to put it on course for its next target. The Apophis expedition was detailed in a mission overview published in the Planetary Science Journal. Apophis, oblong and somewhat peanut-shaped, is a stony asteroid believed to consist mostly of silicate materials along with iron and nickel. Measuring about 1,110 feet (340 meters) across, it is due to pass within about 19,800 miles (31,860 km) of Earth's surface on April 13, 2029, becoming visible to the naked eye for a few hours, said Michael Nolan, deputy principal investigator for the mission at the University of Arizona. "It's not going to be this glorious show," Nolan said, but it will appear as a point of reflected sunlight in the night sky over Africa and Europe. An asteroid that large passing so near to Earth is estimated to occur roughly once every 7,500 years. The Apophis flyby is the first such encounter predicted in advance. The tidal pull of Earth's gravity likely will cause measurable disturbances to the asteroid's surface and motion, changing its orbital path and rotational spin. Tidal forces could trigger landslides on Apophis and dislodge rocks and dust particles to create a comet-like tail. The spacecraft is set to observe the asteroid's Earth flyby as it nears and ultimately catches up with Apophis. These images and data would be combined with ground-based telescope measurements to detect and quantify how Apophis was altered as it passed by Earth. OSIRIS-APEX is scheduled to remain near Apophis for 18 months - orbiting, maneuvering around it and even hovering just over its surface, using rocket thrusters to kick up loose material and reveal what lies beneath. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft that traveled to the near-Earth asteroid Bennu and brought back a sample to Earth for study is seen in an undated NASA artist rendering. The spacecraft, being renamed OSIRIS-APEX, is now headed for a rendezvous with another near-Earth asteroid called Apophis. Photo: Reuters Planetary science and defense Like other asteroids, Apophis is a relic of the early solar system. Its mineralogy and chemistry are largely unchanged in more than 4.5 billion years, offering clues to the origin and development of rocky planets like Earth. Close examination of Apophis could give planetary defense experts valuable information about the structure and other properties of asteroids. The more scientists know about the composition, density and orbital behavior of such celestial "rubble piles," the greater the chances of devising effective asteroid-deflection strategies to mitigate impact threats. NASA deliberately crashed a spacecraft into a small asteroid last year in a planetary-defense test that nudged the rocky object from its normal path, marking the first time humankind altered the natural motion of a celestial body. Apophis is substantially larger than that asteroid but tiny compared with the one that struck Earth 66 million years ago, wiping out the dinosaurs. While not big enough to pose an existential threat to life on Earth, an Apophis-sized asteroid striking the planet at hypersonic speed still could devastate a major city or region, Nolan said, with ocean impact unleashing tsunamis. "It wouldn't be globally catastrophic in the sense of mass extinctions," but an impact "would definitely come under the category of bad," Nolan said. "This thing is coming in at many miles per second if it hits. And at that speed, it kind of doesn't whether if it's made of gravel or ice or rocks or whatever. It's just a big, heavy thing moving fast," Nolan added. Border guards in Huong Hoa District under Quang Tri Province, north-central Vietnam launched legal proceedings against Ho Van Cuong, 21, and Ho Van Tam Beo, 26, who reside in the province, for allegedly running a ring that unlawfully transported Chinese from Vietnam to Laos through Lao Bao International Border Gate, said a border guard on Saturday. The two men were handed over to the provincial police for further investigation. While conducting a patrol in the Khe Da area in Lao Bao Town at night on November 2, border guards discovered a man transporting two Chinese by motorcycle for illegal exits. After a short chase, the patrolmen also found another rider. They impounded two motorbikes and seized two mobile phones. Investigation results showed that Cuong and Beo were paid VND480,000 (US$19.7) by a Lao national to find riders to transport five Chinese to Laos for work. Three men agreed to transport the group of Chinese at a price of VND500,000 ($20.6) per motorcycle. While they were carrying the five Chinese, they were stopped by border guards at night on November 2. Two Chinese were caught, while the three others ran away. The arrested Chinese were identified as Chen Qian, 27, and Jiang Ming Hua, 22. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Police in Phan Thiet City, Binh Thuan Province, south-central Vietnam are investigating a case in which a construction elevator fell as its cable broke, killing three workers inside the elevator at the construction site of a six-floor housing project on Saturday. The labor accident happened at about 11:20 am at the project on Nguyen Trai Street in Phan Thiet. At the time, four workers were using the elevator, which is often utilized to transport building materials, to move downward from the sixth floor, about 20 meters from the ground, to have lunch. When they entered the elevator, it immediately showed signs of problems. It moved upward by about 50 centimeters, stopped suddenly, and shook many times instead of moving downward. A worker who stood near the elevators entrance held on to the scaffold and jumped out of the elevator. The elevator fell later, killing the remaining three workers on the spot. The deceased include N.V.X., B.N.L., and N.T.T., born in 1954, 1961, and 1978, respectively, and all residing in Ham Thuan Bac District, Binh Thuan Province. Right after the accident, Binh Thuan police officers examined the scene of the accident and questioned people at the construction site. Work on the project started about three months ago. At the time of the accident, there were over 10 workers at the site. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Rangers and police in Ho Chi Minh City tranquilized and caught four monkeys which rampaged through residential areas in Tan Binh District, Go Vap District, District 12, and Hoc Mon District this week. The four were relocated to Cu Chi Wildlife Rescue Station in the namesake district for care before being released back to nature. In particular, forces in District 12 on Saturday morning ensnared a pig-tailed macaque which ran amok a residential area and attacked at least two people in the district. A local in Trung My Tay Ward told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that over the past few months, the primate had rampaged through the area. It was unclear where the ape came from. The monkey initially climbed trees and picked fruits, or stole religious offerings to eat, but after that, it became angry and aggressive, attacking people when it saw them. The wild animal bit the legs of at least two women. Rangers are pictured working to trap a rampaging monkey in Hoc Mon District, Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Ngoc Khai / Tuoi Tre Due to its danger, locals reported the case to authorities. Rangers and police in the ward anesthetized the monkey, weighing some 7.5 kilograms, and captured it on Saturday. On the same day, rangers and police officers in Tan Hiep Commune under Hoc Mon District anesthetized a long-tailed monkey, estimated to weigh six kilograms, as it reportedly vandalized some households in the commune. Earlier on Monday, the Wildlife Rescue Station under the Ho Chi Minh City Forest Protection Department teamed up with authorities in Ward 10 under Tan Binh District trapped and caught a pig-tailed macaque weighing nearly 14.5 kilograms while the ape was vandalizing a pagoda and stealing food there. Rangers and authorities in Ward 17, Go Vap District on the same day tranquilized a long-tailed monkey, estimated to weigh some 15 kilograms, after it was found going berserk and causing trouble to several households on Nguyen Oanh Street. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Catch up on the news in Vietnam today: Society -- The Ho Chi Minh City Peoples Court on Saturday sentenced 18 people, including two Chinese and two South Koreans, to death and three others to life in prison for participating in a cross-border drug trafficking network that traded and transported 216.3 kilograms of narcotics. -- Police in Phan Thiet City, Binh Thuan Province, south-central Vietnam are investigating a case in which a construction elevator fell as its cable broke, killing three workers inside the elevator at the construction site of a six-floor housing project on Saturday. -- More than 2,000 people along with 29 vehicles were mobilized for a fire drill at Landmark 81, Vietnam's tallest skyscraper, and adjacent Landmark 6 building in Binh Thanh District, Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday morning. -- Health authorities in southern Ben Tre Province have reported the first case of monkeypox, an illness caused by the monkeypox virus, in the province. The patient began to show symptoms of the disease on Friday last week and has contacted 12 people since then. -- Police in Ha Tinh Province, north-central Vietnam said on Saturday that they detected the bodies of two men floating on a local river on the morning of the same day. Their identity remains unknown. -- The Ho Chi Minh City Forest Protection Department on Saturday anesthetized and brought a pig-tailed macaque to a wildlife rescue station after the primate continuously annoyed residents and injured two women in District 12. Rangers have caught four mischievous monkeys over the past week. Business -- Hanoi on Saturday launched a smart city project designed to cover 270 hectares of land and require an estimated investment of US$4.2 billion. The highlight of the project is a 108-story skyscraper. World News -- Icelandic authorities said on Saturday they were preparing for a volcanic eruption in the southwest of the island in the coming days after a series of earthquakes and evidence of magma spreading rapidly underground, Reuters reported. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! The Ho Chi Minh City Peoples Court on Saturday sentenced 18 people, including a Chinese and two South Koreans, to death for their participation in a cross-border drug trafficking network that traded and transported 216.3 kilograms of narcotics. For their involvement in the massive ring, three other Vietnamese were sentenced to life imprisonment, while another received 15 years in jail. The ring involved foreign individuals in collaboration with Vietnamese accomplices unlawfully storing, transporting, and trading drugs from Cambodia to Ho Chi Minh City. A portion of the narcotics was for domestic use, while the remainder was on the way to South Korea for consumption. The three foreigners include Li Tian Guan, a Chinese, Kim Soon Sik, and Kang Seon Hak, both South Korean nationals. Le Ho Vu, a 36-year-old resident of Ca Mau Province in the Mekong Delta region, acted as the mastermind of the ring. According to the indictment, At 1:00 am on July 19, 2020, an investigation team of the Ministry of Public Security detected a suspicious tractor trailer in the process of completing customs procedures for a shipment bound for South Korea when they were stationed at Tan Cang Cat Lai Port in Thu Duc City, Ho Chi Minh City, according to the indictment. After the urgent inspection of the vehicle, the force discovered 40 plastic bags containing illicit substances concealed in marble bundles. These substances, identified as methamphetamine, weighed 39.5 kilograms. The driver of the vehicle admitted that he was providing transportation services for APE Industrial Machinery and Equipment Co. Ltd., owned by Huynh Thi Hoa Tran. After being summoned, Tran testified that the confiscated consignment belonged to Kim, who was her boyfriend. According to the jury, most of the defendants claimed their innocence, but evidence, testimonies, and documents showed that from May to July 2020, they engaged in trading, storing, and transporting drugs in Ho Chi Minh City, as well as neighboring Dong Nai and Binh Duong Provinces. The total volume of narcotics of various types related to the ring exceeded 216 kilograms, with over 162 kilograms being confiscated, while the remaining quantity already reached end users. According to the investigation results, Kim arrived in Vietnam in May 2019 and rented an apartment in Thu Duc for business purposes. At the end of January 2020, Kim met Li at a South Korean eatery. In early June 2020, Li tasked Kim with trafficking narcotics, offering a remuneration of 5 million Korean won (US$3,800) per kilogram. Kim then sought assistance from Kang for the drug transportation operations. During the operation of the illegal business, Vu, assigned by Be, a Vietnamese living in Cambodia, and many other accomplices repeatedly delivered drugs to Li, Kim, and Kang. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! More than 2,000 people along with 29 vehicles were mobilized for a fire drill at Landmark 81, Vietnam's tallest skyscraper, and adjacent Landmark 6 building in Binh Thanh District, Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday morning. The vehicles included fire trucks, ladder trucks, high-pressure water trucks, and rescue vehicles. The hypothetical situation for the drill was that an electrical problem occurred at 9:00 am at an apartment on the 10th floor of Landmark 6, causing a blaze across the floor. The buildings fire alarm system warned of the incident so some people in the second basement of Landmark 81 got into a state of panic. They entered elevators to reach the ground floor to escape from the building. Two cars collided with each other while attempting to flee the second basement, causing their petrol to spill out and a fire there. The hypothetical situation for the drill was that an electrical problem occurred at 9:00 am at an apartment on the 10th floor of Landmark 6, causing a blaze across the floor. Photo: Phuong Nhi / Tuoi Tre Firefighters used ladder trucks to access the 10th floor of Landmark 6 and rescued the people stuck there. The injured were taken to ambulances and transported to hospital for emergency treatment. The flames were put out at about 10:00 am the same day. Senior Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Dinh Duong, deputy director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Public Security, said the fire drill helped check and assess vehicles and the cooperation of relevant forces in response to fires and explosions. The incident frightens many people. Photo: Phuong Nhi / Tuoi Tre People escape from the basement of the Landmark 6 building. Photo: Phuong Nhi / Tuoi Tre Firefighters extinguish the fire. Photo: Phuong Nhi / Tuoi Tre Rescuers use ladder trucks to access the 10th floor of Landmark 6 to save those trapped inside. Photo: Phuong Nhi / Tuoi Tre Firefighters spray water in an effort to stamp out the fire. Photo: Phuong Nhi / Tuoi Tre The fire was extinguished at about 10:00 am on November 11, 2023. Photo: Phuong Nhi / Tuoi Tre Colonel Huynh Quang Tam (L), head of the Ho Chi Minh City Firefighting Police, shakes hands with police officers joining the fire drill. Photo: Phuong Nhi / Tuoi Tre Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Over 80 firefighters and a dozen fire trucks were dispatched to Be Van Cam Street in Tan Kieng Ward, District 7, Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday night to put out a fierce fire at a warehouse covering 2,000 square meters. They battled for three hours to stamp out the blaze. The flames erupted at the warehouse of Duc Thanh Trading and Service Company at 37/5 Be Van Cam Street at 7:00 pm on the same day. The inferno quickly swept through the facility, creating a huge plume of black smoke. A giant column of black smoke soars from an inferno at a warehouse in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City, November 11, 2023. Photo: Thanh Tu / Tuoi Tre The warehouse fire is pictured raging in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City, November 11, 2023. Photo: Tran Ha / Tuoi Tre Some locals said that the fire broke out following an explosion. They and several employees at the warehouse tried in vain to extinguish the flames. Firefighters were still working to extinguish the conflagration at 8:00 pm. Meanwhile, at 8:40 pm the same day, traffic police officers were cordoning off a section of Be Van Cam Street for fire suppression efforts. An officer from a firefighting and rescue team said that the fire was brought under control at 9:15 pm so it could not spread to neighboring buildings. Preliminary investigation results showed that the warehouse contained many inflammable items, making it harder for firefighters to put out the blaze. The flames were snuffed out at 10:00 pm. The firm spanning a total area of 17,000 square meters saw 2,000 square meters of its warehouse scorched, while the fire charred many objects, candies, electric devices, bottles of water, and cardboard boxes inside the facility. No casualties linked to the inferno were reported. Police are investigating the cause of the flames. Senior Lieutenant Colonel Do Van Khang from the citys firefighting and rescue team said that firefighters struggled to put out the blaze while protecting a school behind the warehouse and some 15,000 square meters of the warehouse compound from the inferno. Locals remove their motorcycles from the fire area, November 11, 2023. Photo: Tam Le / Tuoi Tre Firefighters spray water in an effort to stamp out a fierce fire at a warehouse in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City, November 11, 2023. Photo: Tam Le / Tuoi Tre Firefighters battled for some three hours to put out a massive warehouse fire in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City, November 11, 2023. Photo: Supplied Police officers and firefighters used three speedboats to supply water from a nearby canal for fire extinguishing operations, November 11, 2023. Photo: Ngoc Khai / Tuoi Tre Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! New thriller UK Criminal Record stars Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo as detectives in a tug of war over a high-profile murder case. Criminal Record is an eight-episode Apple Original crime thriller From BAFTA Award nominee Paul Rutman (Vera, Indian Summers), Criminal Record is a powerful, character-driven drama set in the heart of contemporary London. An anonymous phone call draws two brilliant detectives into a confrontation over an old murder case one a young woman in the early stages of her career, the other a well-connected man determined to protect his legacy. The series touches on issues of race, institutional failure and the quest to find common ground in a polarized Britain. Criminal Record is produced for Apple TV+ by Tod Productions and STV Studios, and executive produced by BAFTA Scotland Award winner Elaine Collins, Rutman, Capaldi and Jumbo. The series is directed by BAFTA Award winner Jim Loach and Shaun James Grant. Two episodes on Wednesday, 10 January then weekly on Apple TV+. 2 years after her child was kidnapped, someone is dead and as Meghan Shaughnessy is being held in police custody. 8:45pm Monday on 10. Australian Story Evacuation Million Dollar Murders Neighbours SWAT Portuguese coffee drinks mountain background - Static Media / Shutterstock When wandering the lively streets of Lisbon and savoring moments in the charming cafes of Porto, you can't help but notice that coffee is woven into the fabric of daily life in Portugal. Whether it's a morning conversation starter, a midday pick-me-up, or a leisurely afternoon indulgence, coffee is an ever-present companion in this Iberian nation. Despite its visibility in the local culture, the vibrant Portuguese coffee scene remains relatively undiscovered by the global coffee community. We think it's high time that changed. From the straightforward allure of a cafe pingado to the comforting creaminess of the galao, Portugal's coffee culture caters to a diverse range of tastes and occasions. In this article, we embark on a journey through the lesser-known Portuguese coffee landscape, uncovering the stories and nuances behind each brew. Along the way, we'll delve into the heart of Portugal's coffee heritage and understand the essence of drinks like the garoto and the cafe mazagran. Join us as we explore the fascinating world of Portuguese coffee, one sip at a time. Read more: 31 Coffee Brands, Ranked From Worst To Best Cafe Woman's hands holding espresso cup - Pinkybird/Getty Images Ask for a coffee in Portugal and you're guaranteed to receive an espresso just don't call it that. To be clear, Portuguese people won't call you out for using this term. They'll understand what you're trying to order, but you're unlikely to hear locals using the Italian word. Instead, they call it simply, um cafe. Bitter, short, and served black, this is the most popular coffee order in Portugal. You'll see people drinking it on their way to work in the morning, after eating a massive Francesinha sandwich at lunchtime, or during the afternoon break. Cafe may look simple on the surface, but there are all kinds of variations. Normally, coffee is served in a full demitasse. If that's not enough liquid for you, request "um cafe cheio," which is "a full coffee," and you'll receive a coffee poured all the way to the rim. You can also request that your coffee come in a preheated cup, called "um cafe escaldado." Story continues Besides these variations, the humble coffee also has a couple of nicknames to be aware of. For example, in Lisbon, you can ask for "uma bica," whereas in Porto, you would request "um cimbalinho." There are a lot of names to remember, so if you get confused, just order a cafe and you'll be on the right track. Italiana Ristretto coffee in glass cup - Harnzing/Getty Images Although the Portuguese don't tend to use Italian words when describing coffee, some drinks, like the Italiana, do reference the Bel Paese. Also called "um cafe Italiano," or "an Italian coffee." An Italiana is a very short espresso, similar to an Italian ristretto. It's made using the same amount of coffee grounds as you'd use to make an espresso, but there are three noticeable differences. For one, the grind is finer. Second, a ristretto uses half the amount of water as an espresso. To put it another way, a ristretto has a 1:1 coffee-to-water ratio, whereas an espresso has a 1:2 ratio. The result is a ounce drink with about 55 milligrams of caffeine (compared to espresso's typical 65 milligrams). Finally, ristrettos brew twice as fast as espressos, resulting in a simpler flavor profile. Indeed, a ristretto tastes quite a bit different from an espresso. Compared to the acidic, sometimes bitter flavor you get in espresso, ristrettos tend to be full-bodied, sweet, and mellow. Descafeinado Male hands holding espresso cup - Ascentxmedia/Getty Images Whether it's late in the day or you tend to be a bit jittery by nature, do yourself a favor and order a descafeinado the next time you visit Portugal. As you can probably tell by the name, a descafeinado is a decaf coffee. Again, it's important to remember that coffee in this situation refers to a 1-ounce espresso, not the 8-ounce mug most Americans might be used to. It's also worth noting that decaf coffee isn't completely free of caffeine. In general, you can expect to find up to 10 milligrams of caffeine in a decaf espresso. That may sound like a lot, but it's a far cry from the 60 to 65 milligrams you'll find in a single shot of espresso. In Portugal, you can drink a descafeinado straight up, or you can use it in place of regular espresso in pretty much any coffee beverage your heart desires. Abatanado/Americano Cup of coffee in white mug - Agrobacter/Getty Images Ever since American GIs came to Italy during World War II and found the coffee too strong, Europeans have been altering their coffee recipes to suit the milder preferences of North Americans. Italians can be credited as the originators of the term Americano, a word that describes the diluted espresso the soldiers developed a fondness for. However, you'll find similar words in French and Spanish coffee culture as well. You're also likely to hear the term "um Americano" in Portugal, although it's more common in the north, near Porto. Near Lisbon, you'll probably hear "um abatanado" to describe this tall black coffee served in a mug. While you'll definitely get more coffee than you would if you were to order an espresso, you might still find this drink shorter than you're used to. If that's the case, try ordering a "um abatanado cheio," as in a "full abatanado." You'll get a coffee that's filled all of the way to the brim. Cafe Pingado Coffee in blue cup - Berk Ucak/Getty Images If the intense kick of unadulterated espresso is a bit too strong for your taste, and you're not in the mood for something elaborate, consider giving a cafe pingado a try. Pingado means "dripped" or "splashed" in Portuguese, and this name perfectly captures the essence of this coffee concoction. To prepare it, espresso is topped with a couple of drops of cold milk before serving. This not only brings the temperature down to an ideal sipping level but also imparts a touch of natural sweetness that takes the edge off the coffee's bitterness. While the cafe pingado may appear similar to an Italian macchiato, there's a crucial difference in the type of milk used. In the case of a pingado, it's cold milk that's added to the espresso. In a macchiato, you'll find a hint of steamed milk on the espresso's surface. Unfortunately, Portugal doesn't have its own version of a macchiato, but you may be able to find a macchiato if you do your research. Meia De Leite Latte white mug on wooden coaster - Studio910tc/Shutterstock Literally translated, meia de leite means "half milk." As you can probably infer, the other half of the beverage is coffee. This balanced mix is typically served in a large cup that's perfect for lingering over. Paired with a Portuguese egg tart (aka a pastel de nata), it's a great way to start off the morning without overwhelming your system with caffeine. However, you do have the option of customizing your order if you prefer your coffee a bit stronger. In that case, simply request your drink "escura," which translates to "dark" and adjusts the ratio to favor more coffee over milk. Although a meia de leite shares similarities with lattes or flat whites, these terms are mainly found in modern coffee shops in larger cities. Neighborhood pastry shops (called a pastelerias) still use the traditional name, so make sure you learn it if you're planning to get off the beaten path while in Portugal. It's worth mentioning that these pastry shops typically don't indulge in artistic latte designs, such as leaves or hearts. Instead, they focus on delivering a down-to-earth coffee experience without the frills. Galao Milky coffee next to egg tart - RossHelen/Shutterstock The Galao stands as Portugal's counterpart to the latte, a comforting and creamy beverage typically presented in a tall glass mug. It's made with roughly espresso and steamed milk, although it may arrive with the coffee and milk components separated. If that's the case, some DIY mixing will allow you to customize the coffee-to-milk ratio to your liking. This delightful coffee is particularly favored during morning and late afternoon hours when it's enjoyed in the company of delectable pastries. Before ordering a galao, there are a few noteworthy points to consider. Typically, it's crafted using leftover espresso grounds, a practice that's quite popular in Portugal for its cost-effectiveness and eco-friendliness, resulting in a milder coffee flavor suitable for those mindful of their caffeine intake. However, if you want a stronger coffee experience, order a "galao directo" and you'll get a full shot of espresso in your cup. Besides choosing the type of coffee you want, you can also adjust your milk order according to your preferences. Those who want less milk can ask for a galao "escuro," a "dark" galao. On the other end of the spectrum, there's the galao clarinho, literally "clear galao," an even milkier take on this beloved drink. Garoto Milky coffee next to cookies - Anna Fedorova_it/Shutterstock There's a big difference in the way American and European parents introduce their children to coffee. In general, American parents withhold this caffeinated elixir from their offspring as long as possible. As a result, many American kids end up trying coffee as teenagers when powering through their first all-nighter. The same can't be said for Portugal. There, coffee holds a revered place in the culture and necessitates a proper initiation. This is where the garoto steps in. Translating to "little boy," the name befits this mild concoction, which is made with approximately 50% coffee and 50% hot or steamed milk. While it may appear straightforward, the preparation of a garoto sparks some debate. Some claim that it should be brewed using espresso, essentially resulting in a smaller version of a meia de leite. Others argue in favor of an Italiana method, which involves diluting the tiny measure of coffee with lots of milk. Regardless of the approach, the garoto serves as a gentle introduction to the intricate world of coffee. Carioca Dual espressos poured out of a machine - Grandriver/Getty Images Leftover coffee grounds have all kinds of creative applications, whether you're utilizing them as a natural exfoliant or an effective odor neutralizer. However, while you might have ventured into the world of repurposing grounds within your home, here's a practice you've probably never considered: using them to brew a second batch of coffee. This unconventional approach may raise a few eyebrows, but it's commonplace in Portuguese cafes. Known as a carioca, this espresso variation is crafted by passing already-used coffee grounds through the espresso machine once more. While some critics dismiss this drink, referring to it as dishwater, it has garnered a dedicated following among those looking to lower their caffeine intake. With that said, cariocas have a reputation for being quite sour, so you might want to order it with some milk and sugar. We should also mention that not all cafes employ the reused grounds method when making cariocas. Some use a half measure of new espresso grounds, while others introduce a delay before placing the coffee cup under the machine. These variations lead to differing tastes, but the common denominator remains a milder coffee experience. Cafe Com Gelo Iced coffee with green straw - Kowit Lanchu/Shutterstock Saying that it gets hot in Portugal is a bit like saying the ocean is wet. The scorching sun blankets the Iberian nation from May to September, creating an atmosphere that calls for some seriously refreshing drinks. Along with sangria and capile, a cordial made from maidenhair leaves, orange blossom, and lemon zest, locals reach for cafe com gelo (aka Portugal's version of iced coffee) when the mercury rises. The name might be familiar but don't expect the fanciful concoctions you encounter at international coffee chains like Starbucks or McDonald's. In other words, you won't find any syrups, whipped cream, or chocolate shavings here. Instead, Portugal takes a more straightforward approach. Typically, you'll receive a piping hot cup of espresso alongside a separate glass filled with ice. From there, it's up to you to blend the ingredients and wait for the drink to cool down. While simple, cafe com gelo is a wonderfully effective solution to combat the sweltering Portuguese summer, providing both the caffeine kick you crave and the refreshing coolness essential to surviving the heat. Cafe Mazagran Iced coffee shot from above - Ekrem Yigit/Shutterstock If cafe com gelo embodies the dependable, practical father of the family, then cafe mazagran steps into the role of the whimsical, adventurous aunt. Both of these coffee drinks share a common starting point: espresso and ice. However, it's in the finishing touches that their personalities truly diverge. While cafe com gelo maintains a straightforward presentation, cafe mazagran takes a more eclectic approach, receiving a slice of lemon and a generous handful of mint leaves as garnishes. Beyond that, you might also see it served with sugar and a dose of alcohol such as rum or cachaca, a Brazilian white rum that's also used to make caipirinha cocktails. The only downside to this tasty beverage is tracking one down. It's not a very common menu item and most establishments may not even have the know-how to whip one up, even with all of the ingredients on hand. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to make your own at home. All you have to do is cut lemon peel, place it in a glass, and add some ice cubes. From there, squeeze in some lemon juice, mix with the ice, add some sugar, and stir until dissolved. Finish with a healthy pour of cold coffee and a few mint leaves before serving. Cafe Com Cheirinho Espresso and brandy snifter - danshanin/Shutterstock When translated, cafe com cheirinho means "coffee with a scent," hinting at the aromatic and invigorating drinking experience it offers. Similar to a Spanish Carajillo, this Portuguese specialty is a delightful fusion of robust espresso and a touch of alcohol. While cafe com cheirinho can be enjoyed with the spirit already mixed in, some prefer to have it served on the side, altering sips of each. However it's consumed, this combination is popular as a digestif and a winter warmer. Reflecting the nation's regional diversity, this boozy coffee goes by different names depending on where you order it. In the north, it's known as bica com cheirinho, while those in Madeira and the Azores fondly refer to it as cafe com musica, or "coffee with music." And the variations don't stop at names. The choice of spirit also varies, with many opting for brandy, pomace brandy (aguardente), or medronho, a fruit brandy derived from the medronho fruit. Static Media owns and operates Tasting Table and Mashed. Read the original article on Tasting Table. The World Health Organization (WHO) on Sunday night managed to restore communication with health professionals at Gaza Citys Al-Shifa hospital a day after losing contact with the largest hospital in the besieged enclave. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus however said the hospital was non-functional after three days without electricity amid heavy fighting. Al-Quds, Gazas second-largest hospital, has also suspended operations, according to staff. All times are Paris time (GMT+1). This live blog is no longer being updated. Please head here for the latest. Key developments from Saturday, November 11: Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu rejected mounting international calls for a ceasefire and ruled out a role for the Palestinian Authority in post-war Gaza. Arab and Muslim leaders rejected Israels claims of "self-defence" with regard to its offensive in Gaza and called for an immediate ceasefire at an extraordinary joint Islamic-Arab summit on the Gaza crisis in Saudi Arabia. Doctors Without Borders said it was "extremely concerned" about patients and medical staff at Gaza Citys Al-Shifa hospital, which lost electricity on Saturday, endangering the lives of patients, according to the hospital director. Read more on FRANCE 24 English Read also: Netanyahu rejects ceasefire calls, rules out role for PA in post-war Gaza From outrage to hate: In the wake of October 7, Israel's far right seeks to extend its influence Hamas surprise attack a historic failure for Israeli intelligence services Martha Stewart on stage at event - Gabe Ginsberg/Getty Images All of us have our favorite grocery store, including Martha Stewart, who has a special place in her heart for Mike's Organic. The cookbook author and TV personality has shouted out the small grocery store with only one location in Cos Cob, Connecticut, on her blog. The store's owner, Mike Geller, even posted a selfie on Instagram with her in the store in May. Around this time of year, Stewart likes to get her Thanksgiving turkey from the organic grocery store. What makes Mike's Organic so special? It started in 2009 with community-supported agriculture, which is a way consumers connect with local farmers through a membership that provides weekly grocery delivery. Mike's Organic exclusively partners with local farms, fishermen, and other food producers to "bring you the highest quality products that you can't find anywhere else," according to its site. Visitors can also shop for products at the retail store, where local farmers regularly convene to share their skills. Some of the local farms and producers that Mike's Organic works with include Bread Alone Bakery, Raus Coffee, Lancaster Farm Fresh, and Pine Hill Farm. To us, it sounds like a bigger version of a farm stand inside of a store. It makes sense that a famed home cook and hostess like Stewart appreciates locally-sourced, fresh, and organic foods. Read more: 14 Popular Chain Grocery Stores For Meat, Ranked Worst To Best Shopping At Mike's Organic Mike's Organic grocery store exterior - Mike's Organic / Facebook The grocery store offers a variety of products with departments like produce, seafood, dairy, snacks, home products, and prepared foods. Some items that stand out to us are Snowdance Farm Sweet Italian chicken sausages and Made by Mike's (the store's own brand) frozen organic marinara. You can also find a variety of brands that you might have seen at your local organic market or Whole Foods like Chamberlain Coffee, Newman's Own dressings, and Siete chips and cookies. Story continues Do you want to buy your Thanksgiving turkey or other holiday foods like Martha? You can pre-order a pasture-raised turkey from Mike's Organic, as well as other pre-made foods for the holiday like stuffing, pies, and mashed potatoes. If you're near Cos Cob, Connecticut, the brick-and-mortar store at 600 East Putnam Avenue is open seven days a week, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mike's Organic also offers its grocery delivery service, and if you live further, you can buy products via Goldbelly per its website. Read the original article on Tasting Table. THANH HOA Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on Saturday inspected major projects in Nghi Son Economic Zone during his working trip to the central province of Thanh Hoa. Located in the south of the province, the Nghi Son Economic Zone covers an area of 106,000ha with 55 sub-zones. The area for industrial projects is about 9,057ha, with many operating projects. This year, the Nghi Son Economic Zone and industrial parks in Thanh Hoa Province aim to achieve VN265 trillion (US$10.89 billion) in production value, earn VN5.7 trillion in export turnover, pay VN26 trillion to the State budget and create jobs for about 10,000 labourers. Visiting Nghi Son refinery and petrochemical complex run by Nghi Son Refinery and Petrochemical LLC, a joint venture of the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (Petrovietnam) and Kuwaiti and Japanese partners, PM Chinh asked the Nghi Son Refinery and Petrochemical LLC to restructure itself for more efficient and stable operations. Having total investment of nearly $9.3 billion, the complex is currently one of the biggest FDI projects in Viet Nam. It is now providing about 35 per cent of the total petrol volume to the domestic market. So far, it has paid over VN85.23 trillion to the State budget. However, the firm has reported a loss of over $4.37 billion. The Government leader underlined the need for the company to strengthen decentralisation and delegation of power during production and business activities, while increasing inspection and supervision to give timely response to arising problems, and paying greater attention to human resources and technology transfer so that Vietnamese workers can master all technologies for safe and efficient operations of the complex. The company should focus on restructuring in the fields of finance and production to cut costs, and re-negotiate with Kuwaiti partners to reduce the import prices of crude oil. Examining Nghi Son port project, PM Chinh highlighted the important role of the project in forming and developing the Nghi Son Economic Zone and industrial parks of Thanh Hoa thanks to its functions and a goods trading point connecting with the North of Laos, Northwest of Thailand and Thanh Hoa adjacent areas as well as national and international shipping routes. Under its planning, the Nghi Son port system comprises 51 wharves and wharf areas. The Nghi Son port is capable of receiving ships with a tonnage of up to 70,000 - 100,000 DWT. As of July 2023, 21 wharves had been put into operation. Currently, the Nghi Son port's capacity is about 75 million tonnes per year. PM Chinh requested Thanh Hoa authorities to coordinate with relevant ministries and agencies to carefully study resolutions regarding the socio-economic development and defence-security protection of Thanh Hoa as well as strategic planning and development strategies for the locality and the central coastal region to design the planning for the development of the Nghi Son Economic Zone and Nghi Son port in the future. Regarding the idea of building a defence-economic complex on Hon Me island, which is about 10km from the mainland, the PM hailed this defence-economic combination model, and ordered Thanh Hoa to work with relevant ministries and localities to build this project. The same day, PM Chinh also visited Nghi Son steel rolling mill, which is invested by DTS Nghi Son Iron and Steel JSC with a capacity of producing 980,000 tonnes of rolling steel each year in its first phase. In the second phase, a factory will be built to produce steel structure products used in construction and industrial production, with an expected capacity of 30,000 tonnes of products per year, along with a factory for cold rolling and production of shaped steel pipes used in construction, with a capacity of 300,000 tonnes of steel pipes, boxes, and galvanised steel products per year. The project will cover an area of about 51ha and have a total investment of VN5.5 trillion. Also on Saturday, PM Chinh visited Hop Luc International General Hospital project invested by Hop Luc Group in Nguyen Binh Commune of Thanh Hoa's Tinh Gia District. The hospital has total investment of nearly VN600 billion with 500 beds. In the first phase with a cost of over VN300 billion, the hospital will have 250 beds. Currently, it has 330 staff members, including 66 doctors. PM Chinh affirmed that the Party and State always take the people as the centre, subject, resources and motivation of development, and give people's health top priority. According to the PM, thanks to great attention and investment in caring for the people's health, solid progress has been seen in the field. Besides, the socialisation of the health care sector has been strengthened, contributing to bettering health care services for the people, with the development of many private hospital models like the Hop Luc International General Hospital, he noted. The Government leader expressed his hope that the model of the hospital will be multiplied to meet the people's increasingly diverse demand in health care services. VNS HA NOI A French court on November 10 handed down jail sentences of up to 10 years in a people-smuggling trial over the deaths of 39 Vietnamese people who suffocated in a sealed refrigeration container as they were transported from France to Belgium before crossing the Channel to the UK in 2019. As reported by the British newspaper The Guardian, of the 19 defendants in the French trial, who include Vietnamese, French, Chinese, Algerian and Moroccan nationals, 18 were found guilty. Four of them, all Vietnamese, were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to nine or 10 years in prison. Four other Vietnamese nationals, two of whom were absent and considered fugitives, were sentenced to between one and 10 years for their roles in transporting and housing the migrants. The others, drivers or owners of apartments working with the gang, were sentenced to suspended jail terms. One defendant who was once a driver was cleared of all charges. The bodies of the Vietnamese victims, two of whom were just 15 years old, were discovered inside the sealed unit at the port of Grays, in Essex, in October 2019. Two ringleaders of the operation one Romanian and one British were convicted at a trial in 2021 in the UK and sentenced to 27 and 20 years in prison, respectively. Other suspects, notably the drivers, received 12 to 20 years, while a Belgian court handed a 15-year term to a Vietnamese man for heading the local cell of the network. VNS by Nguyen My Ha The latest Martin Scorsese film Killers of the Flower Moon is now showing at cinemas in Viet Nam, and critics have wasted no time in richly praising all aspects of the picture. The film is adapted from the book by journalist David Grann in 2017 about a series of uninvestigated deaths of the Osage women in Oklahoma in the 1920s. The book looked into the mystery of the Osage deaths in the early 20th century, when the area was considered the richest per capita in the world after oil was discovered under land allotted to the Reserves. Grann wrote about how a white businessman befriended the Osage people to win their trust, but behind their backs staged brutal and cold-blooded murders of many Osage members simply to get to their money. In 1906, after the Osage nation legally purchased and settled on a permanent reservation in north central Oklahoma Indian Territory, Osage, the Principal Chief negotiated with the US government to allot every full-blood Osage 657 acres of land that included a right in the tribes communal mineral trust. A binding condition had it that it was these owners' right to receive a quarterly distribution of funds from the tribes underground mineral estate, which could only be inherited by their owners legal heirs. Yet, the Osage were not free to spend their own money; if they were deemed incompetent, they would be assigned a guardian who controlled their money. The guardian would always be a white man, which is a cause for concern in itself. This system was designed in a way to create conditions for the white man-guardians to withhold or steal money owned by the Osage. The book dug deep into the rings crime, its mastermind and the 24 murders of the Osage that were never investigated. It was really about a culture of killing and a culture of complicity. Many of these murders were carried out by individuals who were profiting from this very corrupted system of targeting the Osage, often marrying into their families and then plotting to kill them to steal their oil money and inheritance, Grann told media. The horrors faced by the Osage also reflect the misery of all other people who were deprived of their territory, their wealth and property by greedy guardians. Tale of murder The cinematic adaptation of the book turns the plot into a love story of greed and murder. Depicting the love between a World War I veteran, who worked as a taxi driver, and a rich beautiful Osage woman, who made a family with three children. The white man courted her, at the order of his uncle, who was also the ring leader and staged the murders of her sisters, and killed her mother. Dumb as we may think this man could be, he passed on the orders to kill off his wife's family, without realising that in the end, he might even have to kill his own wife. In a three-hour film stuffed with violence, male power and white superiority, the main heroine shone bright, by taking strong actions to bring her family tragedy into the daylight. Decisive, strong and smart, his wife gathered all her strengths after being injected with suspicious medication to cure her diabetes, to make a trip to appeal to the country's President, who heard the matter and sent detectives to investigate. "Murders will out," as the old saying goes. The ring leader and his nephew got arrested, but after being manipulated for a long time, the dumb nephew refused to testify against his uncle. He wouldn't do so until his youngest child was also killed. When he decided to testify in court, his words, in turn, were held against him, and he was imprisoned. The irony is that when the small family was torn apart and the ring leader went to prison, when he got out, he was still credited as a "good friend" of the Osage. Looking at this matter, it's hard to believe that a man who tries to kill his woman's family to take their money would maintain any "love" for her. The courtship was clearly driven by greed. At the film's premiere, Osage language consultant Christopher Cote reportedly told the Hollywood Reporter, that as an Osage himself, he was hoping the film would tell the perspectives of the Osage family. "I think it would take an Osage to do that," Cote said. "Martin Scorsese not being an Osage, I think he did a great job representing our people. They kind of give him this conscience and they kind of depict that there's love. But when somebody conspires to murder your entire family, that's not love. That's beyond abuse." History or art Still, the illusion of romance is what the film wishes to create. But it's such a tough job for the film to win justice for the Osage people, and it ends up commemorating the talent and expertise of three white men: the director, main character and the supporting role. When a work of art is adapted from a non-fiction book, people tend to take it as history itself. This is the power of cinema. Seeing is believing. People tend to believe what they see in a creative work of art as the truth, especially on film. The main heroine, played by Lily Gladstone, got little or no mention at all in many reviews and wider media. Time will tell if she gets the recognition she deserves. It reflects a truth that's hard to swallow: no matter how much people talk about gender equality, white superiority, so closely associated with greed, eats up everything around it. The plight of the Osage community, or other Indian tribes in the US in the early days of the country, and later today on a larger world scale, reflects the plight of less powerful nations and communities around the world; they are invariably swallowed up by the greed of a small select group of people in power. VNS GELEXs operating power portfolio includes wind, solar, and hydropower plants with total capacity of 245MW. Through this proposed transaction, Sembcorp will add 245MW of operational renewable wind, solar and hydropower assets to its current portfolio in Vietnam and expand its renewables' presence in the country to over 450MW. The groups gross renewables capacity will total 12.2GW upon completion of the transaction. The assets to be acquired through the transaction are underpinned by long-term power purchase agreements contracted with state-owned enterprise Vietnam Electricity. Sembcorp and Gelex will continue to explore opportunities in renewable energy in Vietnam, building upon the success of the transaction. A maximum equity consideration of approximately $160 million, which Sembcorp expects to fund through a mix of internal cash resources and external borrowings, shall be payable at completion. Completion of the transaction is expected in the first half of 2024. Sembcorp, headquartered in Singapore, is a leading energy and integrated urban solution provider. By cooperating with Sembcorp, GELEX Group continues to realise its strategy of developing a partnership ecosystem with leading multinational corporations to expand markets and value chains for its core businesses. GELEX expects that the combination of its reputation and domestic capacity with Sembcorps management strength and international experience will create great successes, benefit both parties, and contribute to the economic development of Vietnam. PTSC and Sembcorp secure clean energy export licence Vietnam's Petrovietnam Technical Services Corporation (PTSC) and Singapore's Sembcorp Utilities Pte Ltd (Sembcorp) secured a crucial licence on August 29 to advance its offshore renewable energy project in Vietnam, with ambitions to export clean energy to Singapore. Vietnam to export low-carbon electricity to Singapore Vietnam will be exporting 1.2GW of low-carbon electricity, mostly from wind power, to Singapore. MINNEAPOLIS (AP) U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar got a prominent Democratic primary challenger Sunday when former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels announced he'll try once again to unseat her after coming close in 2022. Omar, a charter member of "the squad of progressive House Democrats, won reelection twice despite making comments in her first term that were widely criticized for invoking antisemitic tropes and suggesting Jewish Americans have divided loyalties. But Omar a Somali American and Muslim has come under renewed fire for condemning the Israeli governments handling of its war against Hamas. Our congresswoman has a predilection to divisiveness and conflict," Samuels said in an interview with The Associated Press ahead of his official announcement Sunday morning on WCCO Radio. The Jamaican-born Samuels still maintains that his narrow primary loss in 2022 showed Omar was beatable, and that he could have won if they had competed later in the general election, where Omar won 74% of the vote over a little-known Republican. The big issue in 2022 was the future of policing in the city where George Floyd was murdered in 2020 by a former Minneapolis police officer, which touched off protests around the world and riots in Minnesota. Omar was among the progressives who slammed former President Barack Obama for criticizing the defund the police movement as just a snappy slogan." "Its not a slogan but a policy demand, she posted on Twitter, now known as X. In contrast, the centrist Samuels helped lead the opposition that defeated a proposal on the city ballot in 2021 that arose from the defund movement and would have replaced the police force with a revamped public safety agency. Samuels thinks safety will be a top issue again. The long tails of the George Floyd and COVID issues continue, with empty storefronts and empty strip malls because people dont want to invest anymore. They dont think its safe, Samuels said. Omar issued a written statement Sunday touting her work in Congress and for her district, including fighting to combat climate change and codify abortion rights. She also noted her part in securing an affordable housing facility for veterans in Minnesota and a public safety measure that provides mental health support and services for victims of gun violence. Right-wing donors have targeted me since I first entered public life," Omar said in the statement, which also accused Samuels of taking hundreds of thousands in contributions from far-right donors and political action committees. "If were going to stop Donald Trump, we need record turnout, and I am confident in our ability to drive turnout, particularly in a presidential election year. The war in the Middle East has already divided Democrats and upended the dynamics of some House primaries. Omar has been critical of Hamas for attacking Israel and taking hostages but even more so of Israels military response. Her focus has been the plight of civilians in the Gaza Strip. She has also condemned the surge of intimidation and violence against both Muslim and Jewish targets in the U.S. It remains to be seen how potent an issue the war will be in an overwhelmingly Democratic district that includes Minneapolis and some suburbs. The district also has a large Somali Muslim population. And it includes St. Louis Park, which historically has been a center of Jewish life in Minnesota. Samuels said he believes the war will be a big concern. He criticized Omar for voting against placing sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine but supporting sanctions against Israel, and for boycotting Israeli President Isaac Herzogs speech to Congress in July. She has frightened the Jewish community," Samuels said, adding that the community "understands that there is a latent and lurking antisemitic sentiment that always needs discouragement, and always in times of national crisis raises its ugly head. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee has been actively trying to recruit a credible challenger to Omar. That drew pushback from a strong supporter of Israel, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who issued a public show of support for Omar this summer. A super PAC affiliated with AIPAC spent about $350,000 against Omar in 2022. But Samuels said AIPAC didn't try to recruit him. Omar's fellow House Democrats have portrayed her as a serious legislator who in the past four years has earned admiration for giving voice to marginalized groups often forgotten on Capitol Hill. But Samuels said people sometimes mistake her oppositional nature and divisive nature for someone who's speaking truth to power when in fact she is misusing her power, or not using her power, to make change." The other declared candidates are relatively unknown. One Democrat is Sarah Gad, a Minneapolis attorney and daughter of Egyptian immigrants who is Muslim. The other is military veteran Tim Peterson. The only Republican currently running is Dalia Al-Aqidi, an Iraqi American journalist and self-described secular Muslim who calls Omar pro-Hamas and a terrorist sympathizer. NEW YORK (AP) English-language editions of a Vietnamese novel set everywhere from Saigon to Paris and of the latest publication of poetry by Egypt's Iman Mersal are this year's winners of National Translation Awards. The awards were announced Sunday by the American Literary Translators Association. Thuan's novel Chinatown, translated from the Vietnamese by Nguyen An Ly, won in the category for prose. The poetry prize was given to Mersal's The Threshold, translated from the Arabic by Robyn Creswell. The winning translators will each receive $4,000. ALTA is incredibly proud to recognize Nguyen An Ly and Robyn Creswell for their masterful translations from Vietnamese and Arabic respectively, in this the 25th year of the National Translation Award, Elisabeth Jaquette, executive director of the translators association, said in a statement. Previous winners include Peter Constantine's translation from the Russian of stories by Anton Chekhov, Martin Aitken's translation from the Norwegian of Karl Ove Knausgaard's The Morning Star and D.M. Black's translation from the Italian of Dante's Purgatorio. Wacos Veterans Day Parade returned to full force Saturday after three years of setbacks by pandemic and weather. Thousands of spectators flanked Austin Avenue as a caravan of classic cars, motorcycles and floats passed by, carrying local judges, state representatives, local leaders and members of veterans organizations marched. Along the parade route from 12th to Third streets, local school bands played proud military songs and other American tunes. At the end of the parade at Heritage Square, a small festival marked the 100th anniversary of the founding of the McLennan County Veterans Association. U.S. Congressman Pete Sessions, R-Waco, also held a ceremony to give congressional commendations to six local veterans, who were selected by a local committee for the contributions not only during their military service but to their local communities as well. The parade was a joint effort by the McLennan County Veterans Association, the Stan C. Parker Foundation and other organizations. Steve Hernandez, an Air Force Veteran and McLennan County Veteran Services Officer, said the parade was set back by a rain cancellation last year and COVID-19 restrictions the previous two years. The parades festive mood returned this year, he said. He said that compared to Memorial Day, which honors those who died in war, Veterans Day is a happier occasion, honoring the service of all veterans. Veterans, we really take pride in the fact that it is a day of recognition, because Memorial Day is to honor the dead, Hernandez said. Veterans Day is to honor veterans. And make it more of a festive deal that were actually still here. And we celebrate what we sacrificed. Hernandez said Waco has always had good support for veterans, and said the community does a good job of coming together to support the parade and participate in it. Felix Monreal, a 74-year-old Marine Corps Vietnam War veteran, said he has been in 42 of Wacos Veterans Day Parades over the years. From Bellmead, Monreal said Wacos parade has grown over the years to become the best in Texas, and said the community is so supportive of veterans due to being a family-oriented town. Josh Borderud, Waco City Council member, said Veterans Day has a lot of significance to him due to being the son of both Army and Navy veterans. He said he has seen many Veterans Day Parades over the years, and said the parade is wonderfully historic and a well-run tribute to the veterans of McLennan County. Veterans are the protectors of our freedom, and they are willing to lay down their lives if need be in service of our country, Borderud said. And so for their service for their sacrifice, Veterans Day and every day, it is important to recognize what they have given to our local community and what they have given to our nation at large. After the parade, Rep. Sessions honored six local veterans through the Congressional Veteran Commendation Program. Sessions said the veterans were chosen based on their service to the community after leaving the military. Col. Bob Solenberger, one of the recipients, was chosen due to his service as a medical doctor and surgeon at the Waco Veterans Affairs hospital, Sessions said. Solenberger said he is honored by the award, and honored to be able to serve fellow veterans at the VA. Serving others, I think its an honor and a privilege, Solenberger said. Leave the place better than you find it, and particularly when youre dealing with people who have worn the uniform. Theres only at this time in this country, one in 12 people who have, and I think youre dealing with people who know what it is to serve others. So working at the VA, to me, it is truly an honor. Jon Ker, chairman of the evaluation committee for the awards, said each veteran who was nominated was selected to receive an award, as each man nominated had an excellent resume. Each one of them had served our nation, and was exemplary in every respect, Ker said. The other veterans honored were Arnold Gray of Groesbeck, who received the Citizen of the Year Award from the Groesbeck Chamber of Commerce in 2021; James Villa of Bellmead, principal of La Vega High School; Maj. John Knue of Robinson, who is involved with his local church and prepares weekly meals; Lt. Col. Vincent Tobola Jr. of Waco, who is involved in the Heart of Texas Military Officers Association of America; and Col. John Wells of Woodway, a clergyman who has been a police chaplain with Waco Police Department. After Palestinian authorities reported that two infants had died and dozens more were in danger because of a lack of fuel caused by the violent conflict in the region, the Israeli military said on Sunday, November 12, that it had plans to evacuate babies from Gaza's main hospital. War's Devastating Effects on People As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza continued to deepen, the Rafah gate into Egypt was announced to reopen to foreign passport holders on Sunday, as reported by Reuters. Jordan has also dropped extra supplies at a field hospital in the area, Aljazeera said. More than 160 Israeli military targets, including more than 27 tanks and vehicles, were destroyed in the last 48 hours, according to the militant group Hamas. Meanwhile, the Israeli military has released a statement claiming that northern Gaza is no longer under Hamas' control. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel held a press conference late on Saturday, November 11, to reveal the deaths of five additional Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip. Since the start of ground operations, Israel's military says 46 lives have been lost. Despite Israel's claims that 1,200 people were murdered and over 200 were held captive by Hamas last month, the country maintained rockets were still being launched from Gaza into southern Israel. Around 40% of the 11,078 people killed in air and artillery assaults on Gaza since October 7 were minors, according to Palestinian sources. See Also: White House: Israel Agrees to 4-Hour Daily Pauses to Allow Civilian Evacuations Transporting Babies to Safer Hospital There has been movement toward an agreement to liberate hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, as per Israel's three main TV news programs, which Reuters said did not cite any specific sources. Netanyahu said he would not disclose the specifics of any potential arrangement, but N12 News reported that it would entail the gradual release of 50 to 100 civilians, including children and the elderly, over a three- to five-day ceasefire. Israel may contemplate allowing gasoline into Gaza and releasing female and juvenile Palestinian captives, but it reserves the right to restart combat, say the media sources. Health ministry representative Ashraf Al-Qidra in Hamas-controlled Gaza stated that the hospital had been closed since Saturday due to a lack of fuel. He stated two infants died in an incubator as a consequence. Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the top military spokesman for Israel, said the military would assist in the evacuation of infants from the hospital at the request of the Al Shifa medical staff. The total number of infants was reportedly 45. When asked about the evacuations, Al-Qidra said, "We have not been informed about any mechanism to get the babies out to a safer hospital. So far, we are praying for their safety and not to lose more of them." See Also: London Pro-Palestinian Rally Draws 300,000 Participants; Dozens Detained @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. by Adam Estes If there is a piston-engined fighter-plane which best embodies the definition of a hot rod, it would have to be the Grumman F8F Bearcat. Its small frame, powerful engine and incredible handling characteristics have made it a favorite for all those fortunate enough to have flown one. The rare opportunity to purchase a pristine example of this magnificent breed has appeared, once again, at Courtesy Aircraft Sales; this being an F8F-2 painted to represent a Bearcat once flown by the U.S. Navys Blue Angels aerial demonstration team. Grumman built this Bearcat as construction number D.1162. The US Navy soon accepted it as Bureau Number (BuNo) 121776 on November 18, 1948. However, by this point, the U.S. Navy was already transitioning into jets so, like many other Bearcats of the period, the aircraft remained in Stateside units and aircraft pools, from Fighter Squadron 113 (VF-113) at Naval Air Station San Diego in California, to Marine Fighter Training Squadron 20 at MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina, to aircraft reserve pools at NAS Alameda, California, NAS Norfolk, Virginia, and NAS Corpus Christi, Texas. The US Navy struck the aircraft from their inventory on January 9, 1957 with only 606 flying hours logged. On January 22, 1960, BuNo 121776 was acquired by Kaman Aircraft, based out of Bloomfield, Connecticut. The company used this and another surplus F8F-2 (BuNo.121707 now at the Planes of Fame Air Museum) as static wind generators for crosswind helicopter testing. Even though Kaman never flew these F8Fs, they still registered them with the FAA for proof of ownership; BuNo.121776 became N1030B and BuNo.121707 N1027B. In 1970, however, Kaman no longer needed their Bearcats, donating them to the United States Marine Corps Museum (now the National Museum of the Marine Corps) in Quantico, Virginia, which preserved them in storage. While BuNo.121707 left Quantico in 1978, BuNo.121776 remained in storage at Quantico until 1996, when H. Wells purchased the airframe and almost immediately sold it to Air SRV Inc. and the Lone Star Flight Museum in Galveston, Texas. With the new registration N68RW, BuNo.121776 made its first post-restoration flight on January 15, 2003, at Bluebird Aviation in Milton, Florida. The fighter flew in the colors of F8F-1 BuNo.94996, an example of the type which once flew with the Blue Angels. The fighter made numerous appearances at air shows across the United States, even appearing at the Reno Air Races with the legendary Nelson Ezell at the controls, although it did not compete in the Unlimited Class. Another highlight in BuNo.121776s airshow days involved the occasions it flew in formation with F/A-18 Hornets serving with the Blue Angels, showcasing the historical legacy of the legendary demonstration team. Founded in 1946, and gaining its name from a New York City nightclub, the Blue Angels originally debuted in June 1946, initially flying the venerable F6F Hellcat, but transitioning onto the Bearcat just two months later. An aspect of the early Blue Angels performances featured a mock dogfight staged between the Hellcats (and later the Bearcats) with an SNJ Texan trainer. Painted to represent a Japanese A6M Zero in an all-yellow livery, the SNJ was dubbed the Beetle Bomb. Later, the SNJ was replaced with another Bearcat which inherited the Beetle Bomb nickname and also performed in mock dogfights. When the team switched over to the Grumman F9F Panther in 1949, the Beetle Bomb Bearcat remained as part of the act. However, following a fatal accident on April 24, 1950, the Beetle Bomb routine never again featured in a Blue Angels demonstration. According to Courtesy Aircraft Sales, only 22 F8F Bearcats remain in existence, with six of these belonging to government-owned collections (four in Thailand and two in the USA). The remaining 16 are civilian-owned, with 15 of these residing in the USA. BuNo.121776 is now on the market again. Being freshly overhauled, it is one of the finest examples of its kind, and we look forwards to the day that this magnificent aircraft again has the opportunity to perform at future airshows! For more information about this aircraft for sale, visit Courtesy Aircraft Sales. After the successful mission in 2019, the D-Day Squadron the American contingent of Douglas C-47 and DC-3 transports participating in the celebrations of D-Day and the Berlin Airlift is preparing to embark upon their journey to Europe to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasions and 75th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift. On May 18, 2024, the D-Day Squadron is expected to depart Oxford-Waterbury Airport in Connecticut and head East to cross the Northern Atlantic along the original Blue Spruce route. The list of airplanes taking part is changing regularly, as is understandable when juggling such a monumental challenge. Some teams are working to get their aircraft ready to take part, but the complexity of the mission, the logistical challenges, and the enormous costs involved inevitably will keep their participation on hold until months shy of the launch. However, given the difficult socio-economical times we currently live in, the D-Day Squadron is excited to announce that ten historic aircraft will make the journey in 2024. With multiple aircraft still working to prepare, the D-Day Squadron is expected to roll out a second phase of announcements, featuring nearly a dozen historic aircraft involved in the mission. Todays airplanes announced will be joined by at least three European-based C-47s coming from France, Finland, and Sweden. Were excited to join the D-Day Squadron to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Operation Overlord. As a U.S. Naval aircraft, READY-4-DUTY and her crew are honored to represent the contributions of the U.S. Navy at this historic event, shared Chris Volpe, Wing Leader, DFW Wing of the Commemorative Air Force. This will be our first flight mission with the squadron, a great salute to the Greatest Generation who came before us. The mission behind the D-Day Squadrons 2024 Legacy Tour is assembling a collective of international operators of WWII-era aircraft, specifically the DC-3/C-47 type, to honor, pay tribute and commemorate the legacy of the WWII veterans, the Greatest Generation, through Europe. With a focus on both DDay80 and Berlin75, the 2024 Legacy Tour symbolizes a special salute to those who served, sacrificed, and gave so much to our great nations Having led the DC-3s journey to Europe in 2019, the D-Day Squadron earned a global presence thats provided our organization to grow, multiply our DC-3 connections and even launch the DC-3 Society where we actively aid operators, crews, and enthusiasts with maintenance, operations, airworthiness, and displays, shared Eric Zipkin, director of operations and mission chief pilot for the D-Day Squadron. We won the War because of our logistical abilities, its only appropriate we, as the stewards of this noble aircraft, continue to fly and maintain the very airframe that was the backbone to achieving victory. The aircraft which confirmed their participation as of November 10th commemorating Veterans and Remembrance Day are: C-47 Placid Lassie ( N74589) Tunison Foundation USA C-47 Thats All, Brother ( N47TB) Commemorative Air Force Centex Wing USA C-47 Screaming Eagle (N150D) Private Owner USA R4D Ready 4 Duty (151ZE) Commemorative Air Force Dallas Ft. Worth Wing USA C-53 Spirit of Benovia (N8336C) Aerometal International USA C-41A Hap*penstance (N341A) The RM Group, LLC- USA DC-3 Chalair (F-AZOX) Private Owner France C-47 Night Fright (N308SF) Night Fright Promotions Ltd UK C-47 Drag em Oot (N473DC) Aero Legends UK C-47 Pegasus (G-ANAF) Aero Legends UK In the coming months, special features will be published across the D-Day Squadrons social media channels on each historic aircraft, their web pages, and more detailed information on aircrews. The D-Day Squadron has plans to announce more aircraft soon, as they continue the 2024 Legacy Tour mission preparations through the end of 2023, and into 2024. To support the D-Day Squadrons effort, please visit www.ddaysquadron.org Disabled penguin gets leg up with 3D-printed shoes, and more of today's top videos A disabled penguin named Larkin now has a spring in her step thanks to her new 3D-printed boots, veterans in the U.S. are fighting to keep their homes, and more of today's top videos. WATERLOO The Board of Education may appoint a new member Monday following the death of Endya Johnson last month. The board meets at 5 p.m. in the Education Service Center, 1516 Washington St. Johnson held the Director District 4 seat on the board, which covers northwest Waterloo. In a memo to the board, Waterloo Community Schools' Superintendent Jared Smith recommended appointing Krystal Madlock to the position. She is the associate dean of inclusive community at Wartburg College in Waverly. Johnson resigned Oct. 20 due to ill health and the board needs to fill the position within 30 days unless school district residents petition for an election. Petitions could have been filed within 14 days of the district publishing a required notice of the intent to make the appointment. No petition was received. Madlock has been with Wartburg College since 1998. She was named the associate dean of inclusive community in 2022. She has worked to raise the colleges diversity, equity and inclusion profile while mentoring students and staff. In addition, she works to create accountability and give feedback to the leadership team. She also is an advocate for and mentor of American multicultural students on campus. Madlock earned a bachelors degree in communication arts and a masters in postsecondary education student affairs from the University of Northern Iowa. If Madlock is selected, the term for the open board position ends in November 2025. Healthy hot spots: The most physically active counties in Iowa Healthy hotspots: The most physically active counties in Iowa How physical activity varies across the country #25. Shelby, Iowa #24. Polk, Iowa #23. Cedar, Iowa #22. Buchanan, Iowa #21. Jasper, Iowa #20. Hamilton, Iowa #19. Scott, Iowa #18. Mitchell, Iowa #17. Boone, Iowa #16. Benton, Iowa #15. Winneshiek, Iowa #14. Marion, Iowa #13. Mills, Iowa #12. Plymouth, Iowa #11. Dickinson, Iowa #10. Sioux, Iowa #9. Dubuque, Iowa #8. Madison, Iowa #7. Johnson, Iowa #6. Grundy, Iowa #5. Linn, Iowa #4. Warren, Iowa #3. Bremer, Iowa #2. Story, Iowa #1. Dallas, Iowa Answer from the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry M.V. Zakharova to a media question in connection with statements by the head of the Carlsberg concern J. Aarup-Andersen Question: How could you comment on the statements of the owner of Carlsberg that the Russian authorities stole the companys business in Russia? Answer: We drew attention to the anti-Russian statements published in the media by the head of the Danish brewing concern Carlsberg, J. Aarup-Andersen, in the context of the situation around the Baltika company. We note that the information presented in the interpretation of J. Aarup-Andersen has nothing to do with reality . For a clear understanding of the state of affairs in relation to the Russian assets of Carlsberg, we recommend that you carefully study the Decrees of the President of the Russian Federation dated April 25, 2023 No. 302 and July 16, 2023 No. 520, as well as the corresponding statement of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation. The Baltika company is not state owned . Shares in the authorized capital were transferred to the temporary management of the Federal Property Management Agency, and temporary management was appointed. We assume that the Carlsberg company employs quite professional lawyers who can provide J. Aarup-Andersen with the necessary explanations on this topic. Statements by the head of the concern look like an attempt to cover up Carlsbergs intention to leave the Russian market with decisions of the Russian authorities, simultaneously bankrupting Russian companies and withdrawing all profits earned in Russia. J. Aarup-Andersens anti-Russian accusations are unfounded and do not correspond to the status of the head of an international concern. *** Link below about same WtR Europe is seething. Hundreds of thousands of people are in the streets protesting cynical Western support for violence in Gaza. Under the guise of a lot of Middle Eastern blood, some current and former NATO officials are carefully spreading new ideas about Ukraine. Like, we need to accept it into the Alliance, but without Crimea and Donbass. Therefore, these territories are definitely no longer Ukraine in their understanding. Not bad, but its important to move on. We must admit that Odessa, Nikolaev, Kyiv, and practically everything else is not Ukraine at all. After this, there are only three steps to admit the obvious: Zelensky, who does not go to the polls, is NOT a president, but a usurper. The Ukrainian language is NOT a language, but a surzhik. Ukraine is NOT a country, but artificially collected territories. What then should be accepted into NATO, you ask? Well, you can accept the city of Lemberg with its surroundings (still the Lviv region), if they really insist there. Or even aim for more, once again expanding the criteria for membership in the Alliance. Take and invite Israel there along with Palestine, turning eternal enemies into allies. And in addition to them Afghanistan. It was for nothing that the NATO members sat there for twenty years. Then enlightened democracy in the Anglo-Saxon style will reign in the Middle East. And complete happiness will come. WtR Russian Defence Ministry report on the progress of the special military operation (11 November 2023) The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation. In Kupyansk direction, in the course of active operations, units of the Zapad Group of Forces, supported by aviation and artillery, have repelled three attacks by assault groups of 54th and 67th mechanised brigades of the AFU close to Sinkovka, Zagoruykovka (Kharkov region). The enemy losses were up to 50 Ukrainian servicemen, two armoured fighting vehicles, and two pickup trucks. In the course of counter-battery warfare, two Polish-manufactured Krab self-propelled artillery systems, one Gvozdika self-propelled artillery system, and one D-30 howitzer have been hit. In Krasny Liman direction, as a result of coordinated actions of units of the Tsentr Group of Forces, helicopters and artillery, two attacks by assault groups of the 47nd Mechanised Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been repelled close to Petrovskoye (Lugansk Peoples Republic). In addition, AFU 24th and 47th mechanised brigades units have been hit close to Petrovskoye and Rozovka (Lugansk Peoples Republic). The enemy losses were up to 80 soldiers, three armoured fighting vehicles, and four motor vehicles. In Donetsk direction, units of the Yug Group of Forces, in cooperation with aviation and artillery, have repelled three enemy attacks and eliminated enemy personnel and hardware near Vasyukovka, Razdolovka, and Kleshcheevka (Donetsk Peoples Republic). The enemy losses were up to 305 soldiers killed and wounded, five armoured fighting vehicles, six motor vehicles, one Polish-manufactured Krab self-propelled artillery system, and one D-30 howitzer. In South Donetsk direction, units of the Vostok Group of Forces, in cooperation with helicopters and artillery, have inflicted a fire attack on manpower and hardware concentration areas of the AFU 79th Air Assault Brigade near Novomikhailovka (Donetsk Peoples Republic). The enemy losses were up to 140 troops and two motor vehicles. In the course of counter-battery warfare, one U.S.-manufactured M119 Paladin self-propelled artillery system, two Polish-manufactured Krab self-propelled artillery systems, two British-manufactured FH70 howitzers, four U.S.-manufactured M777 artillery systems, and one Msta-B howitzer have been destroyed. In Zaporozhye direction, units of the Russian Group of Forces, aviation and artillery have launched an attack on manpower and hardware concentration areas of 33rd and 118th mechanised brigades of the AFU close to Rabotino (Zaporozhye region). The enemy losses were up to 50 soldiers, two motor vehicles, one Akatsiya self-propelled artillery system, and one U.S.-manufactured M119 howitzer. In Kherson direction, the enemy losses were up to 60 AFU servicemen, one tank, three motor vehicles, and one Msta-B howitzer close to Antonovka and Shlyakhovoye (Kherson region). Operational-Tactical and Army aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, Missile Troops and Artillery of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation have neutralised manpower and military hardware in 114 areas. In addition, one ammunition depot of the 43rd Mechanised Brigade of the AFU has been hit near Devichki (Kiev region). Air defence facilities have shot down Ukrainian Air Forces MiG-29 aircraft near Zaporozhye. 5 HIMARS multiple-launch rocket system projectiles have also been intercepted. In addition, 38 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles have been destroyed close to Ploshchanka, Svatovo, Kremennaya (Lugansk Peoples Republic), Peski, Kurdyumovka, Vasilyovka, Kamenka (Donetsk Peoples Republic), Chistopolye, Tokmak, and Pologi in (Zaporozhye region). In total, 534 airplanes and 254 helicopters, 8,829 unmanned aerial vehicles, 441 air defence missile systems, 13,346 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,183 fighting vehicles equipped with MLRS, 7,059 field artillery cannons and mortars, as well as 15,194 special military motor vehicles have been destroyed during the special military operation. 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. FOND DU LAC Class is in session, but the student commons at UW-Oshkosh at Fond du Lac is barren and deathly quiet. The librarys lights, set on timers, have turned themselves off as only one person studies at a table along the floor-to-ceiling windows. As you drive south, to the citys main drag, a yellow roadside sign declares, Your Hometown University, advertising what was once known as UW-Fond du Lac. The sign probably wont be there much longer. Its eerily similar at UW-Milwaukee at Washington County, 40 minutes southeast in West Bend. A few dozen cars dot the main parking lot, which has hundreds of stalls. Three students are in the modest student union room on a recent Thursday afternoon: two studying and the other playing pool by himself. Upstairs, a lone student sits in the cafeteria. That student, Dave Kroncke, is second-generation at Washington County. Hes also a nontraditional student, having completed a stint with the U.S. Army before deciding to enroll at Washington Countys campus. The changes on campus in recent years have been stark, Kroncke said. When I was a kid, this place was constantly busy and full of students and full of life. You couldnt park in the parking lot down there, he said. And there was always something interesting happening there were always really cool classes that they were offering, all sorts of topics. And piece by piece, that started to get stripped away. Last month, Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman directed UW-Oshkosh and UW-Milwaukee to end classes at the end of the year at their respective branch campuses in Fond du Lac and West Bend. Rothman said the move was motivated not by finances but by continued enrollment declines at both campuses. Rothmans directive leaves just 10 of the 14 original UW Colleges campuses in operation. UW-Platteville at Richland was ordered to end classes last fall; four decades earlier, UW-Medford in Taylor County was the first to get axed. Enrollment declines closed those branches, too: Richland had 60 students last fall, and UW-Medfords enrollment dropped to 90 its final year after rumors of closure had students looking elsewhere. Just like in Richland Center a year ago, the latest communities to lose a UW system branch campus are uncertain what their campus will become and whether theyll be stuck footing the bill for unused county buildings. There seems to be no established protocol for how counties can and should proceed when the UW system decides to cut its losses. The students who have yet to finish their degrees at branch campuses are sometimes left with limited options, too their financial reality is largely the reason theyre there. Many cant afford a four-year university and the steeper costs, such as housing or travel, that come with it; if they had to enroll elsewhere, they likely just wouldnt go to college. This was the only affordable college that I can do. Just coming here was a tough financial decision, but Washington County is a great bang for your buck, student Jay Buchacher said. Counties, on their own A trend is emerging with what is, effectively, the closure of branch campuses: When UW system pulls the plug on classes, its left to the counties to decide how to move forward. The branch campus buildings and grounds are owned by the county government, with UW having signed multidecade leases in the late 1960s and early 1970s as demand for colleges was expanding. The leases hold UW system to terms individualized at the county level and determine how the entities share responsibility for maintenance and utilities. If one pulls out of the agreement, it could be costly for the other. Richland County officials, backed by a devastated community, demanded the campus parent school, UW-Platteville, be taken out of negotiations because they believed administrators werent acting in Richlands best interest. Instead, county officials wanted to work directly with UW system officials to help revive the campus. That could be done, campus supporters argued, by returning to Richland what it had lost in the past decade: dedicated recruiting staff, international education and popular programs such as College for Kids. Those efforts have since fallen flat, as UW system officials are ending negotiations and plan to close the campus, despite repeated promises that the UW system would maintain a presence there and support the community. Now, Washington and Fond du Lac counties are in similar predicaments, tasked with deciding what to do with their campuses even though UW system has lease agreements to be there for another 20 years. UW system spokesperson Mark Pitsch said in an emailed statement that chancellors are engaging with the local communities on ways to serve students. Pitsch did not answer additional questions regarding whether UW system administrators had asked for transition plans related to the effective closures or if the UW Board of Regents planned to end the leases in Fond du Lac or Washington counties. For us, this is it Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann is looking to get West Bend city officials and representatives from UW-Milwaukee and Moraine Park Technical College together to figure out how to keep a healthy higher education environment there. Outside of Moraine Park Technical College, which has a satellite campus in West Bend, there will be no other higher education institutions in the county after June 2024. Schoemann and other Washington County officials had hoped to create a community college pilot program that was loosely defined but would somehow combine the resources of the UW system and Moraine Park to preserve access to higher education. Neither the UW system nor Wisconsin Technical Colleges System leadership, however, have expressed interest in a potential partnership. Washington Countys shuttering has garnered attention from the West Bend school district, private schools and developers, Schoemann said. He also expects Moraine Park Technical College to see an influx of liberal arts transfer students, a program just getting off the ground after the UW Board of Regents approved it less than two years ago. Under state law, technical colleges cant offer liberal arts degrees without Regent approval. Im not so worried about what are we going to do with our campus and our buildings, Schoemann said. At the end of the day, its a beautiful piece of property. We have plenty of people interested. Im more worried about retaining some connection to higher education in Washington County, because for us, this is it. Rothmans announcement didnt come as a complete surprise to Fond du Lac County Executive Sam Kaufman. With hundreds of UW-Oshkosh employees being laid off, nonrenewed or pushed into early retirement to close an anticipated $18 million budget gap, Kaufman figured the Fond du Lac campuss future could be in danger. Kaufman is frustrated, though, that it seems he and other county executives arent being brought into those discussions before decisions are made. Its left him feeling like Fond du Lacs campus is a scapegoat in UW systems larger departure from the branch campus model. The most Kaufman said hes heard since is that someone from UW system will contact the county to renegotiate the campus lease. Like Schoemann, Kaufman has gotten plenty of inquiries about the buildings. When I look at what happened at Richland, what happened now with Washington County, our county, the fact is that theyve never even bothered to say, Hey, county executive, come on down to Madison we want to have a discussion with you, Kaufman said. Give us an opportunity to address the issue directly with them and at least let us have some say in that conversation. Left in the lurch First-year student Nathan Peebles was scrambling just to access college this fall. He initially planned to go to Marian University, a private Catholic school in Fond du Lac, but tuition was out of reach even with scholarships and federal loans. So he enrolled at the Fond du Lac campus one day before classes started and breathed a sigh of relief that didnt last. The scramble is back, as Peebles had to ask his parents to float him the $75 housing application fee to transfer to UW-Oshkosh a year early. It was nice for the month that I thought I was going to be here, he said. I think a lot of people ... are now going somewhere at semester, so they wont even be staying here all year. Theres been a breach ... now we cant even trust places to stay open. Rita Lodas, a UW-Fond du Lac alumna and parent of a current student, Joseph, felt the same worry. Looking at UW-Oshkoshs financial woes, Rita and Joseph were nervous UW-Oshkoshs radio, TV and film program, which Joseph plans to attend next, was also at risk. Rita had to reassure Joseph that, no matter what, theyd find a program for him somewhere. He actually told me, What do I have to do? Im trying, Rita Lodas said. He said, This was my dream, and its closing. What will come of the staff who work at the Fond du Lac and Washington County campuses is yet to be seen. Its likely many of the lecturers who are hired on a contract basis are out of a job, as many at UW-Oshkosh already know based on curriculum planning. Faculty who are either tenured or on that tenure track hope to be absorbed into the main campuses; that sentiment was shared by many at the Fond du Lac campus, who all declined to talk on the record after the layoffs that took place in October. If Ann Widmayer, a tenured professor of English and gender and womens studies, is moved to the Waukesha County campus or UW-Milwaukees main campus downtown, she knows itll likely be at the expense of others. To be absorbed into Waukesha means that (contract academic staff) there will go. Ill be replacing them. So that means other people are losing their jobs, she said. We tend to keep our people pretty long, so theyre treated as full colleagues. They just dont unfortunately have tenure. The escape of a lion from a circus and its subsequent rampage through the streets of a town close to Rome, Italy, led the locals to be anxious. A set of shocking videos of the lion wandering the streets of a small town of just more than 40,000 people has been circulated on social media, as reported by Mirror. While officials searched for the animal, residents were told to remain inside. Note From the Mayor In one viral video, the beast strolls casually by people's cars while sirens and spotlights from emergency vehicles go off in the background. In another, the lion wanders along the street at night and looks up to see who is photographing him from inside a house. The mayor of Ladispoli, Alessandro Grando, said on social media that police in the area had been assisting circus personnel in their hunt for the missing animal. "A lion escaped from the circus. Please pay full attention and avoid travel until further notice," he stated. Grando said the animal had been tracked to a nearby watercourse. He had to defend the circus' presence in town in the face of angry residents who demanded to know why they were letting in potentially deadly wild animals. After hours of pursuit, the lion was finally sedated at about 10:00 PM local time. On Facebook, Grando verified the news. He wrote: "The lion was sedated and captured. Now it will be taken over by the circus staff. Thank you State Police, Carabinieri, Firefighters, Provincial Police, ASL and all the volunteers who served during these hours of great learning. I hope this episode can raise some conscience and that we can finally put an end to animal exploitation in circuses." Earlier in the day, Grando said that he had little influence over whether or not the circuses would be allowed to operate, stating they cannot ban such circuses from coming to the city. In the Facebook post, he pointed out that they tried to ban these shows in 2017, but the court ruled against them. The whole process only cost them hefty legal fees. He added that they have limited options until the regulations are altered. Notably, the nonprofit organization Animal Welfare International has advocated for a ban on the use of live animals in circuses. See Also: Chicago: Over 1,000 Birds Killed Overnight After Colliding With Same Building; Experts Explain Mystery Previous Hunt for Another Beast The almost same thing occurred in July when there was a search for a mystery animal called the "Beast of Berlin." However, the hunt concluded with no lioness being located in response to panicked local reports. Authorities in Germany have decided that there is no acute danger to residents of a neighborhood on the outskirts of Berlin, where the lioness was previously thought to be loose. A hunt for the rumored predator yielded no results, and video analysis suggested it was a wild boar. See Also: RIP Cheems: Meme Dog Balltze Dead at 12; Look Back At Pet Celebrity's Meme Timeline @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Reno Fire tells us that two firefighters were hurt while trying to extinguish the flames, but have since been released from medical care. Members of the Palestinian health sector take part in a rally to protest the collapse of the Palestinian health services in Gaza, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Sunday, Nov. 12, 2023. Israeli strikes pounded Gaza City overnight and into Sunday as ground forces battled Hamas militants near the territory's largest hospital, where health officials say thousands of medics, patients and displaced people are trapped with no electricity and dwindling supplies. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser) Instagram Celebrity After the 'Respect My Cryppin' ' rapper gives fans a look at his fiancee's home cooking, many on Instagram make fun of him with one writing, 'I seen people in prison eat better than this.' Nov 12, 2023 AceShowbiz - Blueface has let the world know how caring Jaidyn Alexis is. The "Thotiana" rapper showed off his fiancee's cooking on social media, but instead of getting praise from online users, he became the butt of Internet jokes. One of the foods was homemade pasta topped with cheese singles, while the other one was a basic side shredded salad. Both were put on non-plastic plates. The pictures have been re-shared by Hollywood Unlocked on Instagram. It prompted one user to poke fun at Blueface, "Yall eating like yall still live in the projects." Another joined in, "I seen people in prison eat better than this." A third commented, "My dog wouldn't even eat it." Others even let out harsher replies, with one writing, "Good, he deserves to eat like a dog." Someone else penned, "This looks like what I threw up while hungover." A different individual chimed in, "These struggle meals are real IKYFL.. Who eating that poison plate? Them noodles not done, and those 2 slices of ungovernment cheese got me scared for my life & WHY is the food on a dang paper plate?" Criticism aside, Blueface has seemingly enjoyed his new life as a fiance. The Los Angeles native popped the big question to Jaidyn in October, and he announced the happy news by sharing a video of their sweet proposal. In the clip, which was posted on Instagram on Sunday, October 22, the 26-year-old could be seen surrounded by friends while his partner sat unsuspectingly at a table. After announcing how much he loves Jaidyn, with whom he shares two kids together, the hip-hop artist got down onto one knee. Jaidyn looked shocked and excited at the same time. After nodding her head to say "yes," the MILF Music first lady embraced her now-fiance and the two shared a kiss. Blueface then proudly showed off her massive ring to the camera. You can share this post! Cover Images/Ron Sachs/Pool Movie The Tesla mogul is over the moon that the 'Black Swan' filmmaker has agreed to sit at the helm for the upcoming big-screen project that focuses on his life and career. Nov 12, 2023 AceShowbiz - Elon Musk is thrilled Darren Aronofsky is directing his biopic. It has been announced a film based on Walter Isaacson's recent authorised biography of the Tesla boss is in the works at A24 following a bidding war, and "The Whale" filmmaker will direct and produce via his Protozoa Pictures banner, much to the delight of the 52-year-old SpaceX founder. "Glad Darren is doing it. He is one of the best," Elon wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Walter's book, which was simply titled "Elon Musk", was written after the author spent two years shadowing the billionaire and interviewing him, his family, friends and colleagues. And the tome turned out "more exciting" than the writer had originally envisaged. Speaking to the New Orleans' Times-Picayune, Walter previously said, "He has a lot of fans and a lot of enemies, and my book tries to tell a straightforward narrative... I thought it was going to be more about rocket ships and electric cars. It became a more exciting ride." As well as his business ventures, the book also examined Elon's personal life, including being a father of 11 children with three women. Shivon Zilis, who has two-year-old twins Strider and Azure, with the X owner, told the author she was only too happy to have children with the business mogul. She said in the book, "[Elon] really wants smart people to have kids, so he encouraged me to do this. I can't possibly think of genes I would prefer for my children." But Grimes - the mother of three-year-old X, 23-month-old Exa, aka Y, and Tau, who was born last year - branded her on/off partner "clueless" when she discovered he had sent photos of her undergoing a caesarean section to their family members, including her father and brothers. She said in the book, "He was just clueless about why I'd be upset." You can share this post! Cover Images/John Rainford Movie Ridley Scott is still working on the long overdue sequel to Russell Crowe's epic period movie and he teases an exciting fight scene featuring lead actor Paul Mescal. Nov 12, 2023 AceShowbiz - Paul Mescal battles baboons in "Gladiator 2". Sir Ridley Scott has been polishing 90 minutes of footage for the sequel to the 2000 historical drama amid the SAG-AFTRA strike, and he teased a wild scene for "The Normal People" actor's character Lucius. "In the meantime, he'd been polishing the 90 minutes he had, including a scene in which the hero fights a pack of baboons; he'd been haunted, he said, by a video of baboons attacking tourists in Johannesburg, 'Baboons are carnivores. Can you hang from that roof for two hours by your left leg? No! A baboon can,' " read a profile on Scott for the New Yorker. The movie started filming this year and has already been plagued by troubles as six crew members were reportedly rushed to hospital after an on-set explosion. A big-budget special effects scene is said to have gone wrong during filming of the sequel in Morocco with reports suggesting a gas pipe on set may have ruptured. A source told The Sun newspaper, "It was terrifying - a huge ball of fire flew up and caught several crew members in its path. In years of filming I've never seen an accident so scary. Six production staff had to be rushed to hospital for treatment. Hopefully everyone will be OK, but it was a serious accident. Everyone involved, from the lowliest runners to the star names, has been shaken up by this." Paul previously admitted he was feeling both "stressed" and "excited" about landing his biggest role to date in the sequel. Speaking to Esquire magazine prior to the Hollywood actors strike, Paul explained, "I can't tell you how stressed I am talking about that film in particular, because it's definitely the biggest one I've done." "I feel really excited, but, like, it's difficult to get away from the legacy of the film a bit. I think it's really well written and it pays homage to the first one, but it's very much something that I think I can step into and make comfortably my own." When asked if he has spoken to Russell Crowe - the star of the first "Gladiator" film - he said he hadn't and added, "I don't know what we would talk about. Like, I'd love to hear his stories from filming, but the character is, like, totally separate." You can share this post!